Wellmet...

Here is the first completed party of 8 adventures that will enter Finsterschmerzen. I've equipped the four main PCs, but the hirelings still have 40gp each to buy weapons and armor. The main PCs have also pooled 58gp to purchase adventuring supplies (rope, torches, etc....no weapons or armor) or to give to the hirelings to upgrade their weapons and armor.

Anybody have an idea on what to name this party?

All names and info in the Character background sections (except level, race, and type) was generated randomly using the Treasury of Archaic Names (Judges Guild 1979).

Character background format:
[First name] ["Nickname among friend and family"] [Surname]
The [title or claim to fame] of [home town or region]
Wellmet from the [name of favorite tavern]
[Level] [Race] [Type]

PCs

Aidan "Tiller" Gurtler
The Constable of Kingsbay
Wellmet from the Globe & Plough
Level 2 Hobb Warrior

6 Strength
34 Constitution
20 Dexterity
14 Speed
13 Intelligence
8 Wizardry
14 Luck
11 Charisma

Weapons (combat dice):
2x Poniard (2)
War Shovel (3+1)

Armor (hits absorption):
Vambraces (2)
Full Helm (3)
Greaves (2)


Birath "Hale" Quarrels
The Pride of Bronzecut
Wellmet from the Beggar & Moat Meadhall
Level 3 Dwarf Warrior

30 Strength
10 Constitution
11 Dexterity
15 Speed
10 Intelligence
10 Wizardry
8 Luck
12 Charisma

Weapons (combat dice):
Thrusting Axe (4+1)

Armor (hits absorption):
Coif (2)
Buckler (3)
Vambraces (2)


Thylda "Blacklegs" Blackermann
The Siegebreaker of Rye
Wellmet from the Moon & Dinosaur Inn
Level 1 Human Greenlander

15 Strength
14 Constitution
14 Dexterity
6 Speed
12 Intelligence
17 Wizardry
13 Luck
8 Charisma

Weapons (combat dice):
2x Shillelagh (3+5)

Armor (hits absorption):
Vambraces (2)
Open Faced Helm (2)


Bhimrao "Lousy" Beloe
The Wonder of Jadelin
Wellmet from the Huntsman & Canteen
Level 2 Elf Wizard

11 Strength
10 Constitution
13 Dexterity
17 Speed
20 Intelligence
26 Wizardry
24 Luck
24 Charisma

Weapons (combat dice):
2x Fangwing Dagger (2+4)

Armor (hits absorption):
Soft Leather (5)
Bracers (2)
Solleret (2)


Hirelings

Philpot "Decrepit" Millar
The Walker-of-the-Marches of Old-Obelisk
Wellmet from the Buxom Ghost & Dolphin Resthouse
Level 1 Human Realist
[Specialty school of magic to be decided]

6 Strength
13 Constitution
5 Dexterity
4 Speed
12 Intelligence
17 Wizardry
8 Luck
11 Charisma
40gp


Cotton "Fop" Gestour
The Changeling of Abingdrite
Wellmet from the Lynx Head Tavern
Level 2 Fairy Rogue

Known Spell: Take That You Fiend!

3 Strength
3 Constitution
14 Dexterity
7 Speed
10 Intelligence
14 Wizardry
20 Luck
32 Charisma
40gp


Marsden "Brute" Berner
The Amir of Forestwood
Wellmet from the Jolly Nymph & Traveler
Level 1 Human Warrior

10 Strength
8 Constitution
11 Dexterity
14 Speed
11 Intelligence
9 Wizardry
11 Luck
11 Charisma
40gp


Dexter "Muse" Oxer
The Bachelor of Hooksprings
Wellmet from the Vine & Jerkin Alehouse
Level 1 Leprechaun Wizard

4 Strength
8 Constitution
17 Dexterity
11 Speed
14 Intelligence
14 Wizardry
12 Luck
10 Charisma
40gp

Party Time

This past weekend I rolled up a party of Tunnels & Trolls delvers: four PCs and four hirelings. Creating a single PC is a piece of cake, but putting together a large party by one's self involves a little more consideration. I'll post the completed characters in a future post after I finish equipping them. My intention was to understand the party creation process and then to tweak and streamline it. The end results are five T&T house rules specific to the character creation and advancement rules for the Finsterschmerzen campaign.

1) The TARO (triples add and roll over) rule for rolling beginning stats only applies to humans. I decided on this in order to give more incentive to play human PCs. The other races have stat multipliers that makes it hard NOT to choose a demihuman when creating a new PC. Nothing wrong with a ton of demihuman PCs, but I prefer a good mix of humans too. So if you TARO a 3d6 stat roll, that character must be a Human.

2) The race choices are limited to humans plus the five races listed on the Common Kindred chart: dwarf, elf, fairy, hobb, and leprechaun. The 32 races on the Rare Kindred chart are not available, since they are primarily evil races that will be contained in the castle. Those races will be available to play in a future campaign, entitled Everything's Gray: The Most Morally Ambiguous Campaign Ever.

3) PCs start with 3d6x10 gold, but hirelings (blanket term for things such as squire, apprentice, best pal, bodyguard, slave, etc. that accompany PCs) only start with 40 gold (i.e. the minimum amount that can be rolled on a TARO 3d6x10). The King of Ruheundfrieden is gifting 40 gold to any man or woman brave enough to enter Finsterschmerzen. This is enough to buy basic gear such as a mail coif, buckler shield, and a spear. Or, downgrade the spear to a cheaper weapon (such as a war shovel) and then add another piece of armor, such as vambraces. In general, the PCs are those who have a little extra coin saved up, whereas the hirelings are the young or poor and seek to join up with PCs to get started. Ideally, the PCs will have enough money left over to upgrade their hireling's equipment slightly.

4) Players have full control of hirelings, except they cannot use hirelings to declare special Saving Rolls. Hirelings can only perform SRs for purposes of casting spells, ranged combat, and other passive effects. They cannot declare stunt SRs each turn like PCs can. Because of this restriction, hirelings will gain xp at a slower rate than PCs. See my Tunnels & Trolls & Saving Rolls post about the relationship between SRs and xp.

5) The Specialty character types (humans only) add a fun easter egg factor to creating characters. A Specialty type can only be chosen if a stat roll is TAROed and 15 or greater. They aren't really any better than the regular types, they just have a single, powerful special ability. The rulebook only describes three specialty types (for Wisdom, Dexterity, and Charisma) but implies that others can be created. So this house rule adds Specialty types related to the other five stats. I'll describe them in more detail in a future post.

Realist - (Wisdom) - Just a fancy name for what the rulebook generically called "Specialty Mage"

Idealist - (Intelligence) - Another kind of specialty mage, but with a different advantage

Mouth - (Charisma) - The rulebook called this "Leader", but its special ability went beyond just leadership

Marksman - (Dexterity) - The rulebook called this "Ranger", but they are just good with ranged weapons...a misleading pun.

Greenlander - (Strength) - A warrior from the Northern Lands. Generic Norse/Irish inspiration.

Redskin - (Constitution) - A warrior from the Southern Lands. Generic Native/Barbarian inspiration.

Escrimador - (Speed) - Martial arts weapons master from the Eastern Lands. Filipino inspiration.

A Chosen One - (Luck) - This guy has all the luck.

Also, a few new weapons I created to go with some of the Specialty types:
Shillelagh - Walking stick club
Loaded Shillelagh - Lead poured into the club head
Pinuti - Filipino peasant short sword
Tamahak - Hatchet with mystical stone blade.

What do you think?

Tunnels & Trolls & Saving Rolls

I just realized over lunch break that the Saving Roll (SR) mechanic from Tunnels & Trolls would work fantastic in the Finsterschmerzen play-by-email campaign. The SR is kind of like a saving throw+skill attempt+combat maneuver+attribute check all together in one. The reason it would work great in the campaign is because a PC earns experience points for every SR attempted, no matter if it was successful or not. This means that the "xp bonus for each post" house rule is no longer necessary. The player should be attempting a SR each and every turn to gain xp. If the player does not explicitly declare a SR on their turn, then the DM will roll one for them such as a spot check or wandering monster check. Either way, the player gets xp every turn. This is why SRs are the most abundant source of xp in T&T.

A PC can attempt nearly anything with a SR. It could be a SR as simple as "I'll listen for noises behind this door" or as complex as "I'll run up this taught rope and then jump to catch the falling baby in a thunderstorm." The DM assigns a difficulty level. Here's where things get awesome: the amount of xp gained from a SR is based on the difficulty level chosen by the DM, no matter if it succeeds or not. You can declare a relatively simple action that is likely to succeed but won't grant you as much xp. Or you can declare a super difficult action, knowing that the DM will assign a high difficulty level to it, but also knowing that you'll get a nice chunk of xp no matter what. It should also be noted that even the most difficult SRs have a possibility of succeeding because they are decided via "exploding dice"...doubles add and roll again.

Saving Rolls are also useful in combat to attempt special maneuvers. For example, instead of just attacking, you could try to "roll between the ogres' legs, slicing its wanker in half, and causing them to fall over each other as they try to grab me." If the SR succeeds, you've just done something amazing and get an attack bonus AND an xp bonus along with it. It the SR fails, you'll get a minor attack penalty, but still get xp bonus too.

Normal T&T combat is very abstract with little in the way of tactics, but adding SRs to the mix really spices it up. In the Finsterschmerzen campaign this means the players can choose how involved each combat will be. If it's just a little wimpy wandering monster then they can choose the quick, abstract combat procedure to advance quickly in the time-sensitive dungeon delve. Or, if it's a tough monster in a crucial encounter, the player can choose to describe their special SR actions. The SRs will slow down resolution of the combat, but it will make the PCs more powerful for that combat and grant bonus xp.

T&T 7.5 rulebook, with size reference

Campaign: Finsterschmerzen

"The Kingdom of Ruheundfrieden has enjoyed a century of tranquility and peace. For this they can thank Herr Scheisser, the evil and obsessed wizard who built a giant castle to house his collection. He named his Finsterschmerzen. Herr Scheisser incessently gathered all things evil in the kingdom and brought them to his ever-expanding castle and dungeon. Finsterschmerzen radiated such intense darkness that any evil left in the kingdom, be it monsters, artifacts, sin, or whatnot, was drawn to his infernal abode like a magnet.

Eventually, all the evil in the kingdom was contained in Finsterschmerzen and he resided there in nefarious bliss amongst his collection. Their kingdom now devoid of evil (for it was all securely trapped in Herr Scheisser's castle), the good people of Ruheundfrieden enjoyed infinite happiness in their clean towns and idyllic farms. Humans, elves, dwarves, and the other peaceful races lived in fellowship and harmony.

Now, a generation later, the people of Ruheundfrieden have come to the conclusion that Herr Scheisser is probably no longer alive and his grotesque castle is an eyesore that needs to be removed. A construct of such imensity and darkness may take such a long time to eliminate, but evil will forever be banished once it is done. Many brave men and women are volunteering to aid in the task. Will you fulfill your duty too?"

The Finsterschmerzen campaign is focused on providing a distinct style of pbem roleplaying with at least a hint of the immediacy and challenge of tabletop roleplaying, as introduced in my previous post on this blog. The preceding three paragraphs are pretty much all that the DM and players will ever need to know about the campaign setting. There is no adventure to be found outside of Finsterschmerzen castle. The Kingdom of Ruheundfrieden is so pleasant and joyful that it is more or less boring for gaming purposes. Once the characters leave the castle, all buying of supplies, healing, etc. will be abstracted and summarized. The party can then immediately re-enter the castle to continue their adventure.

Since all adventure occurs in the castle, what is it like? It is huge! Its spires rise high into the sky and its dungeons sink deep into the underground. Since the outdoor portion of the campaign setting is nonexistent and static, I wanted the evil castle to be a sprawling setting to explore unto itself.

To manage the exploration of the huge castle in a gamey way, I'm developing a system for dividing the castle into what I'll call halls. A hall is simply a section of the castle that can be mapped on a single 8.5x11 sheet of graph paper. A hall isn't just a corridor, maybe with some rooms attached. A hall could be anything: a giant chamber, a spiraling tower, a labyrinthine mess of passages, etc. Some halls may be an arbitrary section of dungeon, others may be a themed wing of the castle. There will be more than a hundred of these halls in the castle and dungeon and I will assign a difficulty level to each hall. Halls deep in the castle tend to be of higher level, with low level halls near the entrances. But...there may be surprises, so watch out and be ready to run.

[Another purpose of dividing the castle into discrete halls is that it will make use of the Very Probably Doom chart (see previous post) less daunting. Each hall will be small enough that fully exploring it in a month of play is manageable. Also, the players will be able to track their progress in the campaign as I update an abstract map of the castle to show which halls have been fully explored.]

Before a delve begins, the players involved will announce which hall they intend explore. Usually, only halls that are adjacent to already explored halls can be the target of a delve, but this rule isn't set in stone. Similarly, a delve is usually confined to a single hall, but this too is not set in stone. The party can quickly travel through previously explored halls, but often they will encounter wandering monsters there. It is important to defeat these wondering monsters, lest they eventually repopulate an already cleared hall.

Each player can have up to four active PCs at a time, plus a number of hirelings based upon PC charisma and wealth. Hirelings earn less experience points, perhaps a half share. When a PC dies, the player can choose to take on a hireling as a PC, or create a new PC from scratch. With multiple characters under a single player's control, that player can delve with only their own PCs and hirelings in the party, or he can join up with another player's party for deeper delving.

When multiple players join forces, one of the players is named the delve leader and can, essentially, control the entire party. The other players in the party are encouraged to a) participate fully as normal and b) communicate to the DM and delve leader what his PCs will generally do during times in which the delve leader is pushing the party forward under his control. The delve leader is encouraged to not do crazy stuff when leading another player's PCs. This delve leader concept is intended to a) keep the adventure progressing, especially during situations that may cause indecisiveness and b) allow a player's PCs to be involved and gain xp even if the player doesn't want to engage in a month-long "pbem session" on their own. A player is never forced to join a party with another delve leader, as it is entirely an option of personal preference.

The goal of the campaign? As indicated in the campaign intro above, the characters' goal is to completely clean out Finsterschmerzen and tear it down so they can plant a vineyard or something. The players can share the same goal, but due to the immensity of the castle it will require dedication. I suppose there is a good chance that the campaign will fizzle out before reaching that goal. For that reason, perhaps a more realistic goal (besides fun, of course) for the DM and players would be to strive for glory and bragging rights by delving the deepest and getting out of the castle alive to tell the story. Maybe you'll find old Scheisser himself...or his tomb.

That's the campaign in a nutshell...a brief background description and a few campaign specific house rules dealing with "process".

Game-y Game

Something I've noticed about play-by-email (pbem) roleplaying games is that they tend to not be...games. The nature of the medium encourages contemplation and a relatively slow pace of play compared to the urgency of tabletop games. This has worked well for the Zanzer D&D campaign that I DM. A posting rate of approximately once-per-day allows the players to contemplate actions that are safe or fun, etc. or whatever play goal they have for their PC. As DM, the slow pace allows me to describe the environment and develop the plot in greater detail and in a way that doesn't necessitate a significant investment in preparation that may or may not payoff. For this reason, I don't foresee myself DMing a tabletop rpg campaign anytime in the near future.

Recently I've been contemplating ways to make my next pbem campaign more game-y with a sense of immediacy and urgency similar to what is felt at the table. I've come up with a few simple ideas and house rules for that purpose:

a) Focus on dungeon adventuring. This isn't a necessity, but I feel that fantasy roleplaying is most game-y when in the dungeon, in general. The next house rule and my campaign idea will further exemplify and require this.

b) Next is a house rule inspired by "The Triple Secret Random Dungeon Fate Chart of Very Probable Doom" at Jeff's Gameblog. I may just use Jeff's chart as written, but the concept of 'session' doesn't really apply to pbem roleplaying. My idea is to define a 'pbem session' as a month of real time play. At the end of each month, we roll to see if and what doom has met the adventurers who are still in the dungeon. I choose a month-long session simply because it is easy to track, but a month may be too long or too short. It can be adjusted. I like how the house rule serves as an extra reminder of the unpredictably dangerous nature of being in the dungeon for too long a time. Best to get out of the dungeon before time runs out and hope you don't run into any wandering monsters that might delay your retreat. It also functions as an abstract system for supply management. You can only stay in the dungeon for so long before you run out of mundane survival supplies. Similarly, it introduces a time constraint on dungeon delves, which encourages planning, focus, and decisiveness.

c) Last is a house rule for rewarding spontaneous and brisk play: Grant bonus experience points per post written. Something along the lines of: 10xp per post per PC level. Just a little bonus to encourage the kind of regular participation that a game-y game thrives on. Theoretically, PCs could level up with just a strategy of parley or evasion. Nothing wrong with that if it's what you enjoy.

My hope is that these few ideas will produce a unique pbem roleplaying experience. Perhaps a drawback of these house rules is that they limit the types of campaigns that can be played with them. Not only does it require relatively compact dungeon adventures, but also a focus that allows the PCs to get right into the thick of things without much wandering around or ambiguity of purpose. My next post will introduce such a campaign that I am developing.

Caveman

I started writing this almost two months ago! After two rewrites, finally, I've finished it.

Are there any "caveman" rpgs out there? I watched a movie called Quest for Fire awhile back that got me thinking about it. I suppose most fantasy or generic rpgs could be house ruled to run a caveman setting, or a rules-light indie-type rpg could be designed. In any case, the game rules should emphasize the aspects of the caveman genre that define it.

I'm using the caveman term loosely here. Living in caves. Primarily Stone Age technology. Little to no civilization or farming. In more precise terms, for much of mankind it was before the last major ice age ended 10,000 years ago. For a caveman rpg I wouldn't necessarily aim for scientific accuracy, but instead use it for inspiration if it would be fun and ditch it if it's getting in the way of fun. I liked how Quest for Fire did just that, drawing upon scientific evidence (archaeological, linguistic, etc.) to supply and constrain its themes, but, within those constraints, the movie was creative and fun.

I took away two major caveman themes from Quest for Fire: fire and language.

What's the big deal about fire? In the movie, fire represents the caveman's relationship to his environment. It lights the night, cooks food, fends off predators, etc. Without the ability to make it, fire is rare and must be found near lightning strikes or lava flows...or stolen from other clans. Being a clan's "Keeper of the Flame" is serious business. Finally, the discovery of fire-making technology is a major event.

What's the big deal about language? In the movie, language represents the caveman's relationship to his fellow caveman. Language enables transfer and preservation of knowledge. Communication and mutual understanding. Representations and explanations. Agreement and disagreement. Treaties and declarations. Praise and curses. Politics and judgment.

If I have a complaint about Quest for Fire, it is that it imposed modern conclusions onto the caveman. There was nearly nothing that portrayed or suggested the magic or spirituality that cavemen experienced as reality. Such things would be welcome additions to a caveman rpg, in my opinion. It would bring the game closer to the fantasy genre. For me, that's just fine and, frankly, the whole point. For example, instead of:

- Fire represents the caveman's relationship to his environment
- Language represents the caveman's relationship to his fellow caveman

...switch it around so that:

- Language represents the caveman's relationship to his environment
- Fire represents the caveman's relationship to his fellow caveman

My mind boggles at the possibilities. A. C. Clarke's Third Law never interested me much. To me, emotion and poetics are more fertile sources of magic than is technology.

But anyways, if I ever get around to making a caveman rpg*, it will have a focus on fire and language. I'm sure there are other aspects that are worthy of including in a caveman game, but these two interest me most at the moment. I have no idea how fire and language would be represented and applied in the game, but it would definitely be more than just the ability scores and skill checks that other rpg systems use. Any ideas?

(* Other rpgs I want to make:
* Minstrel of the Dawn: the Gordon Lightfoot rpg of masculine nostalgia.
* "Some say he's dead...some say he never will be." The mountain man fur trapper rpg inspired by Robert Redford's Jeremiah Johnson
* Katz and Maus: the rpg of Jewish "Nazi hunters" and their prey in South America.)

Truck Mix Disc: Jerry Jeff

The Jerry Jeff Walker concert came and went several weeks ago. We enjoyed it. A beautiful night at the Minnesota Zoo. The outdoor auditorium was full with many "standing room only" spectators. Fortunately we had reserved seats, but we didnt really need them. Jerry Jeff's music has a tendency to get people dancing and singing along. A spontaneous honky tonk mosh pit formed during about the fifth song of the show and stayed throughout. My wife and I didn't dance but we did stand through much of the concert just so we could see the stage.

As mentioned in my previous Jerry Jeff post, I have many of his albums on vinyl LP. That means I'd never heard much of his recent songs until the concert. Though his work during the 70s is clearly his best, the concert convinced me that Jerry Jeff has put out some good stuff in the past 25 years too. So I've picked up a few of his CDs the past few weeks. Yee haw! Now I have some digital Jerry Jeff and can make a mix CD for my truck. The first Jerry Jeff CD I bought was Great Gonzos, which is a greatest hits collection but felt rather incomplete to me, so purchased some of his later full albums to fill the gaps. So now my "truck mix" consists of two discs: Great Gonzos and this mix disc that I made of the other albums.

1. it's a good night for singing (3:41)
2. pot can't call the kettle black (3:07)
3. jaded lover (2:43)
4. lone wolf (3:35)
5. pissin' in the wind (3:58)
6. hairy ass hillbillies (3:25)
7. leavin' texas (4:45)
8. mississippi on my mind (4:24)
9. like a coat from the cold (3:31)
10. navajo rug (3:02)
11. lovin' makes livin' worthwhile (3:40)
12. pickup truck (4:19)
13. man with the big hat (6:01)
14. trashy women (4:37)
15. alright guy (4:27)
16. every drop of water (4:05)
17. cowboy boots & bathin' suitsuits (4:18)

Note that this mix represents my favorite of the Jerry Jeff songs that I have on CD. There are many more favorites that I only have on vinyl and didn't want to go to the trouble of converting to digital or purchasing the CD. It's a nice mix of Jerry Jeff's strengths: honky tonk sing-alongs and pastoral nostalgia. Makes me want to spit sunflower seed shells every time I listen.

Zanzer's Dungeon

My first exposure to Dungeons & Dragons was in the late 80s when my older brother got the red box Basic set. We were down in the Twin Cities for a family reunion at the time and we read the rules in a camper at a lake and made some characters. Also bought a wooden toy sword and caught some nice sunfish that day. Unfortunately, I don't think we ever actually played a game of D&D and those mysterious red books sat locked in my brother's always locked trunk for about 20 years. The books' cover painting of the horn-helmed warrior battling the red dragon on its endless hoard of gold stayed in my imagination and will always be the iconic D&D image for me.

Not long afterward, we started playing the HeroQuest board game from Milton Bradley. Had lots of fun playing it with brothers and friends, but always figured we'd move on up to the one true fantasy game, D&D, eventually. In 1991, TSR came out with the "New and improved" Basic D&D game, packaged in a long black box like a board game. I bought it at the mall with my little brother and a friend. Finally, the real thing.

The three of us sat down to play the introductory adventure on the floor of our basement. (Only recently did I discover that the best place to play games is on a tabletop). The set came with a poster map of "Zanzer's Dungeon" to be used as the "board". Even at that time, I understood that D&D was essentially a board-less game. Some kind of map is useful for tracking miniatures during combat, but revealing the entire area of exploration before it is even explored seemed against the spirit of the game. Nonetheless, the utter coolness of the map enticed us to unfold it onto the floor and we put our little cardboard foldup miniatures in the prison room to initiate the adventure. "Just like HeroQuest" I'm sure we thought to ourselves.

Not quite. Right of the bat, we were reminded how D&D is different from HeroQuest. The game's "Dragon Cards" method of teaching gameplay described the opening scene in the prison...the quintessential roleplaying scenario. I.e. there are many ways to overcome this obstacle and the scene should be played out somewhat freeform to accommodate the various actions that the players might take to escape from the prison cell. I understand the desire to immediately present the aspect of D&D that separates it from boardgames, but the "no rules" nature of that first scene, at the time, left me wondering "Did we do it right?" Furthermore, the description of that scene indicated that nearly anything the players would try in their attempt to escape the prison cell would be successful. That too seemed to go against the spirit of the game and I was somewhat disillusioned about how the rest of the adventure would proceed.

Fortunately, I think we finished that adventure, but I don't recall it was due to the player characters successfully escaping Zanzer's Dungeon or if they died in the attempt. Unfortunately, I was still asking myself "Did we do it right?" throughout. This caused me to delay our next D&D games until I felt I understood the rules well enough, to the disappointment of the other players. I convinced them that we should go play "guns" in the woods instead.

For the next several years I made attempts to understand D&D satisfactory, and actually ran several feeble D&D games for the players. Still, I never felt like I understood the game well enough to run a quality campaign. Then, Magic: the Gathering arrived and captured my fascination and I generally lost interest in D&D for the next ten years.

...

In recent years I've come to see D&D in a different light and this year I got the hair-brained idea to run the Zanzer's Dungeon adventure via email with some of those same friends. No poster map this time, just the imagination, and the rules will just be guidelines. I didn't put much thought into organizing the game ahead of time, but just presented the opening scene exactly how instructed by those wonderful Dragon Cards:

The two of you awaken in a musty room. The floor and three walls are solid stone, but the fourth wall is of thick iron bars. You're in jail!

The last thing you remember is being hit on the head by a couple of ruffians.

A hairy, whip-carrying monster enters the hallway in front of the jail. Behind it follows a brawny man with bound hands. The monster stops in front of your cell, then says in its hobgoblin-accented voice:

"Jerj wise to your tricks, prisoners. Lie face down on floor. Don't try anything, or Jerj bash you good!"

Do you follow Jerj's orders or do you try something?

My friends played along and now they've escaped the dungeon and it's become a full-blown campaign. I did make several modifications to the Escape From Zanzer's Dungeon to give it a little more internal logic, but tried to maintain the adventure's flavor, whimsy, and introductory intent.

The major change was to the map. As originally designed, the map was crammed into the poster space and offered little choice of movement (primarily due to its introductory nature). My revised design stretched it out significantly and added a four-way intersection to serve as hub of the dungeon and offer at least a taste of choice of movement.

The second change to the adventure was to combine and reorder the encounters. Some new encounters were added. Some encounters were dropped completely. Some of these dropped encounters were too much of the introductory nature, such as the convenient series of equipment rooms right next door to the prison cell. My preference was for the escaping characters to be relatively lightly equipped for much of the adventure.

There were other minor changes that I made, such as the distribution of treasure and also the prevalence of healing potions in the original adventure. Originally, the players were to miraculously find healing potions after every encounter to restore them to full power. I stopped doing this after a few encounters, since I felt it goes against the spirit of game and also because the players were good enough that all the healing potions were unnecessary.

In their escape, only one player character died. Pike, the feeble village militia squire, got his head twisted off by a giant snake which guarded an enticing room of treasure. Fura and Barab fought their way to freedom. Unfortunately, their self-serving and talkative cellmate Axel (non-player character) was castrated and met his doom to Zanzer's horny mandrill warrior. Zanzer himself narrowly escaped death, activating his flying spell scroll and escaping just before Barab's magic mace finished him off.

To wrap up, I'm pleased that I was finally able to run the Zanzer's Dungeon adventure for my friends with no regrets. If only I could now go play "guns" in the woods back at the farm.

Truck Mix Disc: Ron

For the most part, my wife "puts up with" the music that I listen to. So when I was listening to a Ron Sexsmith album the other week, I was pleasantly surprised when she asked "Who is this?" and started to sing along. Lately she's been requesting "Ron" whenever I ask "What should we listen to?"

Ron is the consummate singer/songwriter, in that his strengths are his songwriting and the style of his singing. From my limited knowledge of music, he's like a mix between the Beatles and Elvis Costello. I've read where people have described his style as "hard-earned optimism" and I think that fits well.

Ron and I go way back. He performed on that House of Blues TV show in 1995 and I bought his first CD soon after. Over the next five years or so I bought his next two CDs, but didn't like them as much as his debut, so I hadn't bought any more of his albums since.

Then, out of the blue, I see a story about Ron on the front page of cnn.com about a month ago. It was about how he's still making albums and how, though he is well-respected among his peers, Ron hasn't broken through as a mainstream artist. So I picked up where I left off and bought a couple of his albums from the early 00's. (Whenever I get interested in a musician, it seems like I generally acquire the albums in chronological order.) So now I have 5 of his 10 albums.

One of those albums that I bought recently is Cobblestone Runway. It was while listening to this album that my wife decided she liked Ron. She even asked me to make a mix CD of his songs to listen to in the car. I'm happy to oblige, since making mix CDs for the road has been a little hobby of mine ever since I bought my truck. So here's the tracklist I came up with:

1. Former Glory
2. Cheap Hotel
3. Clown in Broad Daylight
4. Disappearing Act
5. Dragonfly on Bay Street
6. First Chance I Get
7. Foolproof
8. From a Few Streets Over
9. Galbraith Street
10. Gold in Them Hills
11. Heart With No Companion
12. Honest Mistake
13. Idiot Boy
14. Lebanon, Tennessee
15. Nothing Good
16. One Grey Morning
17. Seem To Recall
18. Still Time
19. Tell Me Again
20. These Days
21. Thinking Out Loud
22. Strawberry Blonde
23. Summer Blowin' Town
24. Words We Never Use
25. Best Friends

There be adventure...

I like the idea of the DM creating his own D&D campaign world. Putting his stamp on it. Knowing it inside out. Expanding it as needed.

On the other hand, there are plenty of quality published settings from which a DM can draw inspiration from or use as a baseline for creating his own setting. Perhaps just the maps are adopted from these published settings and the DM fills out the details. Maybe someday I'll feed the need to create a campaign world from scratch, but for now I am quite content with capitalizing on the wealth of existing campaign world material and customizing it where I feel the need and inspiration.

AD&D2E saw the publishing of many interesting worlds (Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Planescape, etc.) and maybe someday I'll use them for more than just inspiration. For now and for a Classic D&D campaign, the most obvious choices for serving as campaign baseline are Blackmoor, Greyhawk, The Known World (a.k.a Mystara), and the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. To summarize:

Blackmoor
I don't own much Blackmoor material, so am unable to say much about it. What I do have (First Fantasy Campaign from Judges Guild, and a pdf of the Blackmoor OD&D supplement) is more house-rule compilation than campaign world material, so will mostly serve as a source of inspiration rather than as a campaign world baseline.

Greyhawk
The Greyhawk world, as originally presented, is a container for the classic AD&D1e modules by Gygax and others (G1-3, D1-3, etc.). Though Greyhawk would later mature into a full-fledged campaign setting, it's my understanding that the early Greyhawk flavor is best experienced by playing those classic modules. If those modules are played (and surely some of them will be played if the campaign continues long enough), the campaign can't help but get a dash of the Greyhawk flavor. The World of Greyhawk setting material (1983) may also be mined to reinforce the Gygaxian stylings of the classic modules. Its colorful poster maps are inspiring just by themselves.

The Known World
The default setting for Classic D&D was first introduced in the module X1 The Isle of Dread, released in conjunction with the "Expert" rules set (1981). This early presentation is rather minimalist: A two-page b&w hex map of "The Continent" and a paragraph description of each region or nation. Not very impressive by later standards, but it served its purpose well, giving the DM of a Basic+Expert D&D campaign a springboard from which to build his own world. Perhaps the only distinguishing feature of the Known World was that each nation had a unique flavor analogic to some real world culture or era. Something for everyone.

In the late 1980s, TSR published the Gazetteer series of supplements detailing each nation of the Known World. Taken individually, these are fine supplements for adding depth to a campaign, plus they came with nice color poster maps. Taken altogether, though, they are somewhat overwhelming and at odds with the spirit of Classic D&D. My preference is to pick and choose which Gazetteers to include in the campaign. A favorite of mine is the Karameikos Gazetteer, a generic fantasy setting and home to many of the B-series modules.

Wilderlands of High Fantasy
I tend to think of Judges Guild's original (1970s) Wilderlands as less of a campaign world and more of a campaign tool. Maps and tables mostly. There are many great modules and city supplements set in the Wilderlands, but they seem to serve as examples of the diversity of a Wilderlands campaign, rather than as official components of the setting. I find the Wilderlands maps to be highly inspirational, in a sepia-toned kind of way.

Where does this all lead as I contemplate the world of my current D&D campaign? Really, it doesn't make much difference which setting serves as baseline, since I will be mixing and matching anyways. The large Wilderlands poster maps (all 18 of them) lend themselves well to being the "big picture" world maps. The Greyhawk and Karameikos maps and modules can fit into the generic structure of the Wilderlands with ease. Most importantly, the actions of the players will be the deciding factor in determining the growth and detail of the campaign.

Ridin' High

If this site's design wasn't based on Hot Tuna's Burgers, maybe it would have been based on Jerry Jeff Walker's Ridin' High. A rugged fella (JJW himself) on a horse riding into the dusk. Fantastic.

I don't buy much music these days, but it seems each year there is an artist or band that really impresses me and I go out and buy a handful of their albums. This year it's Jerry Jeff Walker.

A co-worker intruduced Jerry Jeff's music to me sometime last year. I liked it but didn't give it much notice. Then I saw Gordon Lightfoot in concert last fall. Gordon was chatting with the crowd and eventually he started talking about which musician of his ilk played, partied, and jammed the longest into the night. Gordon said it was Jerry Jeff Walker.

Well, there ya go. Endorsed by Gordon, I had to take a closer listen to Jerry Jeff so I ordered Viva Terlingua on vinyl. A few month later I ordered three more of his LPs. Then a few months after that I ordered yet another three Jerry Jeff LPs. I expect to get a few more in the coming months (I aim for the 99 cents plus shipping deals on ebay). Viva Terlingua is my favorite, but Ridin' High is a close runner-up.

What do I like about Jerry Jeff? First off, he fills a void in my music collection that I've been trying to fill for several years. It's entirely subjective, but Jerry Jeff to me is the missing link...the magnum creatum...the great unifying artist of the country, rock, and folk genres. Jerry Jeff is better known for his rowdy honky tonk anthems, but it's his tender ballads that keep me interested.

Today I bought two tickets to see Jerry Jeff live in concert on August 23 at the Minnesota Zoo. How 'bout that.

Fame and Fortune

The online D&D campaign that I DM is nearing the point where experience points (xp) will be awarded to the surviving characters for the first time. In the many editions of classic D&D there is variance and flexibility in the guidelines for awarding xp, so I thought it best to decide exactly how it will be done in this campaign.

Perhaps the most prominent feature of the classic D&D character advancement guidelines is that treasure is literally worth it's weight in xp. One gold piece worth of treasure is worth one xp. This is commonly cited as one of the worst flaws of classic D&D. At one time I was in agreement, but eventually I came to see it as a defining and wonderful feature of the game. There is no single correct way to play classic D&D, but my preferred theme is that of "poor adventurer seeking fame and fortune" and the 1 gp = 1 xp guideline encourages and reinforces that theme.

Depending upon how much treasure the DM makes accessible to the PCs, this guideline can have the effect of making treasure the primary source of xp for the PCs. The xp gained from slaying monsters is comparatively small. This in turn can have the effect of encouraging the PCs to avoid combat if possible and instead try to be more sneaky and clever in their quest for fame and fortune.

Anyways, back to the task at hand...deciding how to award xp in this campaign. It adopts the xp for gp guideline because it reinforces the theme (especially the fortune part) of this campaign, but how else can xp be earned? Classic D&D also contains guidelines for awarding xp for other things such as good roleplaying and accomplishing quests, etc. These guidelines are rather nonspecific, so to tailor them to this campaign I've decided to define it as:

Any accomplishment or action that contributes to the growing fame of the PCs is rewarded with xp.

An example would be defeating (killing or cleverly bypassing) monsters. Conveniently, the rules already define how much xp is earned for defeating monsters, but xp awards for other accomplishments are not so precisely defined. So, I'll make judgment calls in these situations, awarding xp based upon the risk and results of the actions and accomplishments. By this measure, I suppose xp could even be awarded for spectacular failure.

To summarize, the advancement system in this campaign is an abstraction for tracking the growing fame and fortune of the PCs. As an abstraction, it doesn't necessarily aim to simulate and accurately track every factor that contributes to a PC's growing power, but rather is a user friendly aggregate of many factors such as perceived wealth, influence, skill, fame/infamy, confidence, etc.

Another issue is that of training. In this campaign, formal training is not necessary to advance from level to level as it is in some RPGs. The abstract advancement system already factors such honing of skills into account. In fact, a PC could plausibly gain xp from formal training, but only relatively small amounts since training alone usually doesn't contribute much to fame and fortune. One must prove oneself.

..............

This next thing isn't connected to the D&D campaign, but is instead a related concept for designing a new RPG:

If the classic D&D level advancement system is an abstract representation of the character's growing power, what about taking it one step further and making the gameplay itself a representation of the character's exploits? In other words, the players don't play the ADVENTURES of their characters, they play the LEGENDS of their characters. Or something like that. It may be a subtle distinction, but game mechanics could be devised to create and reinforce an immersive play experience of being a "participant in a legend" rather than a "player of a character".

Sure, nearly any RPG session could be interpreted in hindsight as the creation of a legend, but I'm talking about something more explicit and integrated into the mechanics of play so as to facilitate a different play experience. One quality that the game would emphasize is the episodic and ephemeral feel that myths and legends often have.

I don't claim this idea is entirely unique. I first thought of it more than a year ago and will someday try to hammer out some mechanics to make a little RPG out of it. In the meantime, I've come across related ideas in various RPGs, but nothing exactly like what I have in mind.

Welcome to Burgers

This is a blog mostly about me. I imagine many posts will fall into the "things I'm enthusiastic about" category. My hope is to have each post contain some "meat", be it a semi-original thought, creative work, etc. From that perspective, the blog is somewhat of a repository and I invite your comments. I'm not expecting a high posting frequency...maybe 2-4 posts a month.

The title and style of this blog is an homage to one of my favorite album covers: Burgers by Hot Tuna. I'm not a big car connoisseur, but the '35 Buick is sweet.