Walking the Ring to Mount Doom

...and other twice-told tales.

Appendix N of the Game Masters Guide contains designer Gary Gygax' list of books that influenced the world's first role-playing game (and by extension all subsequent RPGs) and is itself an excellent reading list for inspiration for plying the game. Among the many sources listed in Appendix N is of course the excellent works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Anyone familiar with the original game will note the presence of elves, dwarves and hobbits (renamed halflings after the 4th printing) and various less savory creatures appearing as monsters, all seemingly drawing inspiration from the good professor's stories - or not. (The connection is always left vague or denied outright by the designers once a cease and desist letter from the Tolkien estate made its appearance.)

Making decisions is at the heart of the game. The player chooses from among the character races, those already mentioned and humans, who presumably dominate the implied milieu, can be any class and have no level limits unlike the demi-human races. Once race and class is chosen by the player, an alignment is decided upon reflecting both moral temperament and allegiance to a group of like-minded beings and creatures. Equipment for the character is purchased marking yet more decisions and all this "deciding" occurs even before the adventure proper can begin...oh yes, and a distinct name for each player's character is also chosen. 

Once each player is armed with at least one character - a potential hero-in-the-making if during play the player's choices are sound and the dice are kind - then the real decision making begins. What choices will our hero make? Will we seek gold, glory and honor? Or take a less chivalrous path and rob, steal and kill our way to fame and fortune? Will we seek shelter in yon cave, or press on into the storm? Will we turn left or right at the fork in the tunnel? The game is about making decisions.

Inspiration, not imitation is the intent and where the real reward lies. Playing out a pre-written story is another game altogether - and not the one envisioned by its original creators who assumed each player will want to do their own imagining. Why recreate someone else's story when your own awaits? Why settle for what has already been done, when each new character can forge their own legend by following their unique journey where ever it leads - making your own choices along the way. This is your hero's journey.

Happy Halloween!

Adventure Gaming Doesn't Get Better Than This!

Labyrinth Lord is one of the first products released in the Old School Renaissance (OSR) and helped establish the OSR as a thing. It has also been a catalyst for the many fine products produced since under the Labyrinth Lord label. A major impetus for the creation of the original generation of OSR systems was a desire to allow designers to legally print new adventures and various pay-aids for the older, out-of-print editions of the world's most popular role-playing game without violating copyright laws. 

As a simulacrum, Labyrinth Lord adheres closely to the 1981 edition commonly known as B/X (Basic/Expert) and as such recreates one of the most popular formats of the game. The LL Advanced Companion allows players to introduce many of the features found in the original Advanced edition of that same world's most popular role-playing game while staying consistent with the Labyrinth Lord specific mechanics - something which varies somewhat among the original product lines which inspire these products. Labyrinth Lord achieves a system blending which many of us will be familiar with, having done our own "blending" of Basic and Advanced back in the day.

A couple of years ago the folks at Goblinoid Games combined the content of their separate Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Companion volumes to give us Advanced Labyrinth Lord - dare I say "the one game to rule them all". Advanced Labyrinth Lord covers most of the bases and is currently available in POD with a limited edition Halloween cover (and at a slightly lower price!) - see picture above.

As a fan of the original edition of the world's most popular role-plying game I of course want more - and Goblinoid Games provides. What I think may be missing from Advanced Labyrinth Lord - namely my beloved White Box - is provided in Original Edition Characters. With the addition of this POD softcover digest sized book, one can come as close as possible to playing the game in a 1974 style. 

If it sounds like I am a fan of Labyrinth Lord, I am. Careful readers may notice I tend to bounce around the OSR much like a honey bee in a flower garden. My current brand of OSR "nectar" is Labyrinth Lord. Much like the original Tom Moldvay Basic that inspires it, Labyrinth Lord is written in a style that is easy to read and easy to understand. It contains a system that is both familiar and has the options to tailor your game exactly to your personal tastes. What more could one want in our bag of holiday treats? How about a spooky cover illustration!

It's a Game

It isn't Real!

It is nothing more than imaginary fiction! 

None of it exists anywhere except in our mind's eye. 

It is all just "make-believe".

So why do people get so wrapped up in a game based on imaginary beings in a make-believe world? The hobby has been in existence since 1974 when the first brown or wood-grain boxes containing the original print run of the three little brown books was published. There are many reasons I continue to reference the slightly later print run that came in a white box and was the beginning of my involvement in our hobby. Chief among those reasons is the clarity - yes, clarity - with which those original three books outlined the intent of the game. 

It all starts with a setting, perhaps a so-called "dungeon"- Volume I of the Original Edition of the World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game describes the beginning:

PREPARATION FOR THE CAMPAIGN:

The referee bears the entire burden here, but if care and thought are used, the

reward will more than repay him. First, the referee must draw out a minimum of

half a dozen maps of the levels of his “underworld,” people them with monsters of

various horrid aspect, distribute treasures accordingly, and note the location of the

latter two on keys, each corresponding to the appropriate level. This operation will

be more fully described in the third book of these rules.

Volume III elaborates on the process of designing the underground or "dungeon:

THE UNDERWORLD

Before it is possible to conduct a campaign of adventures in the mazey dungeons, it

is necessary for the referee to sit down with pencil in hand and draw these labyrinths

on graph paper. Unquestionably this will require a great deal of time and effort and

imagination.

If adventure outside the dungeon is desired, the referee is required to once again put pencil to paper as Volume III describes designing the wilderness:

THE WILDERNESS:

The so-called Wilderness really consists of unexplored land, cities and castles, not

to mention the area immediately surrounding the castle (ruined or otherwise) which

housed the dungeons. The referee must do several things in order to conduct wilderness

adventure games. First, he must have a ground level map of his dungeons,

a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town

or village closest to the dungeons (where adventurers will be most likely to base

themselves).

The referee - that person who conceives of the campaign and brings the other players together, assists the players with character creation and with navigating the rules under which playing the game will proceed -  it is this person who bears much of the initial creative burden. The reward of course is to witness as the players bring this imaginary world "to life" through play. It is a cooperative effort aimed at creating a fun experience for everyone. (It is important to keep this in mind!)

The maps, once created, give form to the setting, but what is a world without inhabitants. The referee must "populate" the setting with various creatures, both benign and malevolent, who will both assist and seek to hinder the players through interacting with their characters during play. The non-player characters bring life to the fictional world, giving it personality and making it seem "real" in a sense. Other creatures are likely to play the role of "monsters" serving only to threaten the player's characters with harm and in their defeat bolster the heroic reputation of the player characters.

Forty-six years later the hobby is amidst a rebirth of sorts. Many of the concepts of role-playing have entered media and formats other than tabletop gaming. The popularity of this "make-believe" activity suggests that it serves to satisfy some desire in our being. The activities of role-playing at the table, online and with various video platforms appeals to a large and growing audience. Arguments about how best to play the game also exist - they have from the beginning. Let us not forget that it is all just a game of make-believe.

Horror Isn't for Heroes

Victims Not Superheroes

It is no secret that I have a preference for a certain play-style that I fondly refer to as "dungeon horror". I describe it as "dungeon horror", which is a term I borrowed from some forgotten source, because it succinctly describes the mood I desire to create at my table and my preference for running sessions in the underground adventure environment. Drawing inspiration from a life-long time of reading tales of adventure and mystery involving lost civilizations, forgotten tombs and haunted caverns, everything from Creepy and Weird Tales to the work of Professor Tolkien - yes, I see The Shadow as a scary thing, despite many efforts of the cinema to make it otherwise!

Superheroes are indeed fun to play - in the right setting. The ability to meet every challenge head-on with reasonable expectation of success, empowers and thrills our illusion of control and sense of mastery, even when it occurs in a fictional game setting. Such is the power of "story" to seem real. Superheroes can have vulnerabilities, but they are seldom "fatal" and they can be expected to prevail in the end. Superheroes nearly always "save the day".

System matters! It is a phrase one sometimes hears while hanging around this hobby. If you have experience with any so-called generic system for tabletop role-playing, you may have noticed that they give the person setting up the game (referee/GM) some to a lot of ability to control or set the variable power level for newly created characters. For example, in the popular game GURPS a starting character of 100 points is much more normal human like and therefore more vulnerable than a character built using 500 points, or even 250 points. The more points one has in GURPS to spend on character creation, the greater the power of starting character abilities, skills and powers.

Horror role-playing games are not about smashing things. They are about survival. They are about smart play, solving mysteries and thwarting the evil machinations of sinister, shadowy forces - often by merely exposing them. From such modest level of accomplishment is "satisfaction" derived while playing and succeeding at a horror themed game. 

Immersion is a by-product of role-play - or for some, I suppose the principal goal in playing. Immersion in a "scary" environment requires a degree of vulnerability - some tension and anxiety on the part of the player helps. This is achieved in the role-play setting through the character's vulnerability, not that of the players, who ideally sit comfortably in a very safe place throughout the game. Risking their character is what provides the "fear" in role-playing. Imagining the consequences of failure in terms of the fictional story can add also to the tension. The presence of superheroic character abilities seems to be very much at odds with this experience.

So how should we define "competence" in terms of character ability in a horror setting? I frequently compare the character's skills and abilities to those of an "average" human. Many, if not most, fantasy characters have skills and abilities that are "above average" in one area or another. Masterful fighting skills, the ability to cast divine or arcane magics, pick pockets, jimmy locks, navigate novel computer systems or turn undead creatures sets the player character well above the abilities of most "normal" humans, yet do not necessarily imply an ability to brush aside all evil threats. Being competent without being super competent is of course a judgement call. I would like to see the players challenged, but not feeling helpless. I would like them to believe that careful and smart play can get them through, even if relying on their character sheet can't.

So this is why I prefer a more believably human level of power in my play. To achieve a heroic result while playing a person who could fail, who is vulnerable and might not survive the adventure. To succeed without having the game "stacked in favor of the characters" - that is what I seek.

Troll Lords

Castles & Crusades RPG

I have been revisiting one of the first systems to come into being and thereby helping to usher in what has become the old school renaissance - Troll Lord Games' Castles & Crusades excellent FRP game. Castles & Crusades appeared at a Gencon I attended around 2005 or so. At that time, as I recall, Troll Lord Games was a new company and Castles & Crusades was a basic game in a small white box containing three journal size booklets and some dice. 

Within a year, I believe Troll Lord Games published the C&C players handbook and with it gave us a game that in many ways resembles the Advanced game of the late 1970s, but one which also introduces modern game mechanics of its own. A monster and treasures book followed soon after the players handbook and together these two slim hardcover volumes (each are still around 200 pages in the recent printings) comprise a complete game system. The title Castles & Crusades is an homage to the Castles & Crusades Society which Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and many others once belonged to.

At a later Gencon, I picked up a slipcover edition of the C&C books along with Castle Zagyg - Gary Gygax was working with Troll Lord Games and the Castle was his. The Troll Lords had formed a relationship with Gary Gygax nearly from the start of their company and they continued to work with Mr. Gygax up until the time of his death in 2008. The Castle Zagyg project, which was promised to run into several as then unpublished volumes, was unfortunately cut short by Gary's death. 

As most everyone in the hobby today knows, the Old School Renaissance, or OSR as it is frequently referred to, has taken off and has become very popular (arguably influencing 5e decisions at WizBros). With the number of excellent OSR system offerings available, many which cleave much closer to the original game's mechanics than C&C, my interests have shifted to those games (one after another) and I have collected quite a few of them over the past decade - and have often written about them on this blog and I have even played a few of them. (grin!)

Thanks to a friend who regularly referees this system, Castles & Crusades is a game I have played regularly for some years. The recent hiatus on face-to-face gaming has kept our group away from the table for a while now, but we recently resumed play on a remote basis using Discord. Some things in my gaming hobby experience change, some stay pretty consistent.

A Knightly Adventure Seed

The Tale of Sir Knight and the Enchanted Forest

I am forever fond of knights and stories about their adventures. The legendary King Arthur and the knights of his round table, the fantastic fictional knight's tale Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, the paladins of Charlemagne's court - all these stories excite my imagination and inspire me to want to game. In hopes of providing my own inspiration for your knightly gaming adventures I offer the following brief synopsis.

The Hanged Man- 

While traveling, perhaps on a "quest" for their king, our knight(s) encounter a group of distraught local peasants who excitedly describe a "hanged man" at the edge of the nearby woods. "Tis the witch's warning, 'tis!", they say. Upon investigation, the knight(s) find a scarecrow of sorts hanged from a sour apple tree. When approached it speaks the following words, "BEWARE, mortal Son(s) of Adam, turn back for these woods are not meant for thee. Do thee not hunt creatures here, nor gather wood for thy fire. And do not steal my mushrooms!" (Any noble knight worth their salt will of course see this as a challenge and immediately proceed into the woods.)

The Dryad-

A love-sick and confused old tree spirit has lost her scarf - a gift it was from a favored paramour (perhaps one of the witch sisters). The pixies have stolen the scarf for their "Forest King" - a giant puppet of sticks and rags who holds court in a nearby enchanted glade.

The Two Sisters-

Sister witches compete for power within the woods. Each has an enchanted castle, or keep, manor, etc., and a following of minions. One is served by dwarfs, the other by goblins. Each sister will "befriend" Sir Knight(s) and if they are willing, will share her bed bestowing gifts and favors on her new gallant! Each in turn will ask a boon - a token of her champion's devotion. The "night witch" will claim her sister has "stolen a favored silver hand mirror" long ago and she would have it returned. She will bestow "low light vision" on her "champion". The other sister desires the iron crown of the "goblin king" who dwells beneath her sister's castle. She will bestow a magic elixir of strength upon her champion. 

The Enchanted Forest may hold many other wonders, such as a grumpy tree who tosses walnuts about, a frog prince(ss), rodents of extraordinary size, the "king under the mound", or whatever "perils" you wish to include. Upon exiting the forest, I fancy the knights have been in a "time warp" and the outside world has changed a bit, just to re-enforce the magical nature of the fairy wood. Getting back to their own time may form the basis of their next "quest".