Old Love, Rekindled

DragonQuest

I have recently become re-enamored with an out-of-print FRP game authored by Eric Goldberg and published by Simulations Publications, Incorporated (SPI games). SPI, for those much younger than me, was a significant producer of hex map wargames during the 1970s and '80s. DragonQuest is on the crunchy side of the rules spectrum and especially in its first edition, has the feel of a wargame. (There is a second SPI edition edited by Gerald C. Klug which alters the combat system.) 

DragonQuest uses a hex-based tactical display and the first edition comes with a selection of cardboard counters very similar to SPI's many wargames of the period. Combat (and to an extent, magic) in DragonQuest feels somewhat "real" in terms of the in-game time actions may take and the effect of certain variables (such as positioning, fatigue and wounds) on those actions. Its mechanics are arguably "less abstract" than those of the then leading FRP game, Basic/Advanced D&D.

How to explain the recent leg of my journey? The recent acquisition and publication by Steve Jackson Games of The Fantasy Trip renewed interest among several friends in hex and counter tactical display combat, of which The Fantasy Trip is an excellent, if somewhat simplistic example. This style of play is arguably more roll-play than role-play and is consistent with how many of us wargamers originally approached FRP games in the 1970s. After a few months of playing TFT, the old bugaboo of wanting more "crunch" crept into my mind and DragonQuest has become my answer. 

Why would a game originally  published in 1980 still appeal to me? Long out-of-print, the production qualities are primitive by today's standard. Monochrome illustrations pass for "color". The layout of the three paper bound volumes which together with a hex-map and counters comprise the first edition boxed product all have the look of 40-year old game components. But despite all the potential "drawbacks", the substance of the rules is what intrigues me. I have heard it said, and I would agree, that DragonQuest was a game way ahead of its time!

The Action Point economy is perhaps the most significant difference between the first edition and later versions of DragonQuest. Using Action Points, each creature has a pool of points based on Agility which are expended during combat to move, attack, parry, cast, or "pass"/delay - which is the only action one may take once all points have been expended for the turn. Some actions expend more than one point. Damage is assessed in terms of Fatigue, Endurance, or a specific wound result depending on the outcome of a d100 attack "strike".

Magic consists of three types, "Talents" which are innate abilities of certain species and function more-or-less automatically (like casting spells in D&D). The other two types of magic, "Spells" and "Rituals" require longer to cast (moments for Spells, hours for Rituals), and depending on the d100 roll, may risk "backfire" complications. Spells, which must be "prepared" and "held" immediately prior to casting draw energy from the caster in the form of Fatigue points and in effect are the most analogous to D&D magic spell use.

Magic is further divided into "Colleges" or schools. A magic using character typically will concentrate their knowledge in only one college of magic. The DragonQuest first (and second) edition Colleges of Magic include: Ensorcelments and Enchantments, Sorceries of the Mind, Illusions, Naming Incantations, Air Magics, Water Magics, Fire Magics, Earth Magics, Celestial Magics, Necromantic Conjurations, Black Magics and Greater Summonings. Each College includes Talent, Spell and Ritual magics tailored to its particular specialties. 

DragonQuest uses a skill based system to define and advance characters. Many of the "third generation" RPGs (those which followed the "second generation" - the D&D house-ruled systems) use "skills" to give players more flexibility in character design than were allowed using the early class based systems. Skills in DragonQuest advance in Ranks and players are encouraged by the system's mechanics to specialize rather than generalize their character's skill advancements. Ranks are an indication not only of d100 ability, but also a level of proficiency with the skill which allows certain tasks to be performed without resorting to dice rolls. (Did I mention that in many ways this game was ahead of its time? Some concepts first seen here would appear many years later in so-called "modern games".)

So why not just play one of those "modern games"? Why do I revisit this long out-of-print "oldie"? Well, it does so many things well, many better than have been done since. The magic system includes detail and flavor while being mechanically smooth to run. It strikes a near-perfect balance between low-magic and high. Character generation is flexible, but seems to avoid most of the min-max pitfalls later games that emphasize PC choice frequently succumb to. Combat seems realistic and doesn't bog down in its detail and bookkeeping. Lastly, to rule tome(s) are approachable at a combined page count under 160. (PF 2e, which also uses a multi-action combat and magic economy, weighs in at pages which doesn't include the separate page bestiary volume.)

SPI was bought by TSR during the latter company's hey-day and although they published a re-edited single volume third edition of DragonQuest (edited by Jon Pickens) in 1989, the game was ultimately dropped as management shifted away from offering SPI products and wargames in general. 

Around 1980, with a few years of Original Edition play behind me - including the incorporation of some Advanced material once those volumes had been acquired - my gaming group and I were looking for something a bit more "realistic" in terms of game mechanics. DragonQuest and other "realistic" systems including RuneQuest and Rolemaster seem to be addressing the perceived market for more believable FRP games. My group ultimately settled on RuneQuest as our game-of-choice, but I remain a fan of both DragonQuest and Rolemaster. Whenever I am thinking of a skill based FRP game - one with a strong tactical feel - that delivers right out of the box, I can think of nothing better than DragonQuest!

Rations

What's in your Backpack?

Rations have been a part of the game since the original edition. Rations, whether iron rations for dungeon use or standard rations represent a daily expenditure of resources. Managing limited resources in the form of rations and water, sources of light and daily magic spells is a significant part of how one succeeds at playing the game. Indeed, perhaps nothing defines a preference for old school style of play more than how we approach rations and the other limited resources in our role-playing game system. 

Encumbrance is also a part of the original game, again this is a resource mechanic. Encumbrance limits the character's capacity to carry stuff. It also adds to the overall verisimilitude of your milieu - it makes sense that there would be a limit to what a character can carry about and still run, fight, and do all the things a typical adventure involves. Much like rations, encumbrance tracking is a feature of old school style FRP gaming. 

Managing the books, encumbrance, inventory, even hit points and experience is part of campaign play, if not a necessary part of every session. Devices and digital character sheets can do a lot of the work for us, but to ignore all record keeping requires a change in our approach to the game - certainly possible and perhaps preferred by some. Before we abandon rations, ammo and encumbrance, we should probably be aware of what we are giving up.

Many of the things in our inventory have multiple uses and can foster creative play. In the original three little brown books sacks and backpacks, water and wine skins, torches and other sources of light are all part of an adventurers' gear that are specifically listed on the equipment price list, thereby giving players an enormous hint that such equipment might be useful to have. Dropped edible items will have a small chance of distracting intelligent monsters from pursuit. Semi-intelligent creatures will be distracted 50% of the time, and the non-intelligent beasties will generally stop pursuit in order to eat anything edible. Treasure can have an effect on creatures who are intelligent enough to appreciate its worth. Why fight those orcs if they can be bribed?

When players consider the environment as "in play" a world of possibilities presents itself. Creative use of objects found in the environment or carried on the person of the adventurer can provide solutions to many challenges and be an entertaining aspect of the game. Referees that encourage such imaginative thinking on the part of their players, while enforcing a reasonable amount of realism, are among my favorites. "Do you have it, where is it stored and how long does it take to get to it?" may be questions you do, or don't, care about. Is this a style of play which appeals to everyone, perhaps not, but I certainly appreciate it.

Character Generation

How the Adventure Begins

For most people, everyone except the referee/judge/GM, role-playing games start with character generation. The players need a "player character", an in-game person to role-play during the game. The player character is an experiment in make-believe and a game piece. In order to think of the player's character as a person separate from the actual player, we must "make believe" the characters are real individuals - ones with hopes and dreams and skills separate from the player. The player's character is also their "game piece" - that which represents the player in the game, is subject to the rules of success and failure within the game context, and the place-holder of each player's stake in the game. A lot rides on the player character.

Rules for generating the player character may vary greatly from one game system to another. In the original three little brown books the referee generated a set of six ability scores for each character and the player then chose a class, a race, an alignment, and perhaps most importantly, a name for the new character they would control. Common table practice quickly shifted to allow the players to each randomly generate the six ability scores by rolling the dice themselves. 

Microgaming Concept's Melee and Wizard, and later In the Labyrinth which turned those individual microgames into a full fledged role-playing system called The Fantasy Trip, allowed each player to generate their character by assigning values to three attributes (Strength, Dexterity and IQ). The Fantasy Trip makes more extensive mechanical use of each character's three attribute scores, so I suppose it makes sense to allow the player some choice in the matter.

Point-buy systems of character generation followed the trend in designing a character by choice rather than by rolling randomly. GURPS is perhaps the most successful of the point-buy generic role-play systems, but there are others - The Hero System and Savage Worlds are examples. Many other genre specific role-playing games also offer a choice of either randomly generating character abilities by using a series of dice rolls or alternatively using a point-buy method for more control. I suppose which you prefer depends on how much fun you think it is to play what the dice rolls may give you, verses crafting a character to get what you envision playing.

Player characters don't exist in a vacuum, however. They are part of the shared imaginary world most often created by the other type of player at the table - the referee/judge/GM, or whatever title the game bestows on the person responsible for setting the stage, designing/adjudicating the setting, and bringing all the pieces together so that play can ensue. The players' characters generally form an adventuring group or team and therefore must co-exist with each other and generally cooperate to achieve some common goal. Working against each other, the player characters will likely have very short game lives and the adventure won't likely last very long - ultimately reducing everyone's fun.

Whether each player's character is randomly generated or carefully designed from a series of player choices, some thought should be given before play begins as to how each new character fits into the setting and gets on with the other player characters. Cooperation is the basis of all role-playing games and trumps character concept, backstory, or personal agenda.

The Derelict

A Black Box Adventure Seed
Old Captain Flood had an illustrious career. Pirate, trader and explorer, the Captain's exploits have become legendary across the galaxy. Notorious by some accounts, Captain Flood was yet not without her charms and many a story has been woven about her adventures. To this day, Captain Flood stories are often talked about wherever space travellers gather to share a drink, and a tale or two, and her fate is well known - or is it?
Captain Flood enjoyed many adventures and reputedly amassed many fortunes during her long and checkered career. As all good stories must, hers eventually came to an end. In a far corner of the galaxy, the Captain's legendary luck finally ran out and her enemies caught up with her - some say she was betrayed, perhaps by a jilted lover. Set adrift and left for dead, her frozen corpse was found by the pursuing authorities, but a few mysteries remain - such as the location of her secret hide-out.
Your searches have led you to this place...at the ends of the galaxy...to a huge debris field. How it all got here is anyone's guess. Some ancient civilization that destroyed itself? Some natural phenomenon, perhaps the leftovers from "a big bang" - stuff that never formed into a solar system or planet? However it formed, it is enormous and The Derelict is supposed to be hidden here. The Derelict is rumored to have been Captain Flood's secret "hide-out" - an old space-ship or station out here on the rim of known space - a refuge that may hold secrets to who knows what!
Unfortunately you were not alone in uncovering this knowledge. A pesky rival has learned the supposed location of The Derelict even as you did and now the two of you are here, each looking to cheat the other out of this "big score". Will you sneak about, hoping to avoid each other - there are plenty of rocks and debris clouds to mask your maneuvers. Will you confront the rival and fight-it-out for the right to claim the prize? Will you try "negotiations" and split the winnings?
Whether played as a two-player or team "wargame" pitting one ship and crew against the other, or as an RPG with the judge controlling the rival ship and crew, The Derelict poses an interesting scenario. Locating and exploring The Derelict may prove a challenging task - who knows what "traps" and securities may have been left to guard the legendary captain's secret hide-out? Then there is the question of the rival ship and her crew? Is a straight-up space fight in order? And what secrets and treasures await the victor? I guess we will have to play in order to find out!

I offer this adventure seed in hopes that it may be the beginning of something fun to be shared at gaming tables. As I see it, the hobby is about shared fun. Over the decades I have borrowed many ideas from countless sources who have never received credit. Where the idea for this seed came from - besides a dream last night and some applied imagination today - I have no way of knowing. You will need to make it your own in order to use it by drawing - or borrowing from another source - some maps and ship plans and adding your own characters, NPCs and rules. In other words, this is just a "seed" - something to jump-start the imagination - and hopefully it allows me an opportunity to contribute a little something to someone else's fun.
Hoping you enjoy!

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.