Unofficial Games

The Deep Mountains (Lightly Forested)

2012-01-26T16:16:00.000-08:00

Here is a sample seed chart I use in games, I am compiling a list of those I use (slowly).

To use, roll a d8, d6 and d4. Know the total result, and the result of each die. Unless specifically told to roll a die, you should only have 1 die roll.

Terrain: Deep Mountains (Lightly Forested)
Travel Speed: 1 per week

Where? (d8)
1. Pine Forest with a steep slope.
2. Rocky detritus from the collapse a cliff further up the steep slope. Some shrubs sprout as well.
3. Cliff face: 20+total feet in height. PC's at base on odd and top on even.
4. Route to summit, if the PC's go up the summit they see surrounding area (hexes) else avoid encounter
5. Long abandoned and collapsing log cabins (d4)
6. Pine Forest with a gentle slope.
7. Mountain streams bubble down a rocky slope with a few large trees. Flowers everywhere.
8. d4 = (1: Path Found! +1 speed (use d6 for terrain), 2: impassable drop/chasm, backtrack required (use d6 for terrain). 3: cliff face as 3, 4: pine forest and overgrown town)

What? (d6)
1. Total x d4 fast zombies
2. Nothing
3. Wild Game (1: Bear, 2: d8 wolves, 3: d8x2 goats, 4: d8/2 deer)
4. Total # of sentient beings (1: hillfolk, 2: Froglins, 3: hillfolk, 4: Adventurers)
5. d4: (1-3 = nothing, 4 = d8 ghosts)
6. Single settlement (1: hillfolk, 2: hillfolk, 3: prospectors, 4: all dead)

Weird? (d4)
1. Dangerous levels of magical energy in immediate area on 12+
2. Poor Weather on odd, Pleasant weather on even.
3. Wooden Totem
4. Nothing

Triples (in addition to other results)
1. Not fast moving zombies but cultist zombies. Dark shrine and a cultist priest.
2. Oh no! Its a rock fall!
3. A Faerie noble and retinue is in the area.
4. There is a fortress (either repaired ruins or wooden palisade, hall and watchtowers.)

Dubs (in addition to other results)
5. A black coach is present on a full moon, until then anyone murdered will rise on their own for revenge.
6. Settlement is a level d4x2 hermit guarding a magic relic on a 3 or 4, or a level 3 witch/druid on a 1 or 2.

Max (in addition to other results)
18: Habitable valley is found, lush and uninhabited. If this result has come up before, re-roll the d4. If Path is found, it is the only way in or out.

GM Questionnaire

2012-01-18T05:33:00.000-08:00

From Zak originally,

GM Questionnaire
Repost and answer. Or, if you don't have a blog, answer in the comments. Or be a big rebel and do neither.

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
Awesomeness Score
2. When was the last time you GMed?
Monday
3. When was the last time you played?
Friday
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
Imagine a persistent megadungeon that became more of a Monty Haul the more who died adventuring in it.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Try to figure out what they are going to do, or go get coffee

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Nothing usually while playing (Pizza often before or at a break), occasionally some Doritos (thank god for chopsticks)
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
No, I am a lazy GM and offload everything to the players.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Making exquisite maps.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
A little of both, it varies from mood moment to moment.

10. What do you do with goblins?
As in what do I make them? Fast breeding, egg-laying, short lived, highly intelligent, soul-less vermin. Every single one is a complete sociopath with no concept of empathy or right and wrong, but certainly not stupid or inherently hostile. Unless it is immediately beneficial.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
The layout of St.Patrick's Cathedral.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
Oh, its the sound effects of one player once he gets a few beers into him. It won't translate well, but its always hilarious.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Al-Qadim sourcebook, I was looking at the interior border illustrations.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Gustave Dore

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Yes. I don't often run horror, but if I do I try to do it right or not at all.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I ran James Raggi IV's Death Frost Doom (only module I've ever run, and only recently). It went about 20 minutes in before the 'end of the module' as they went directly (beeline almost) to cause it. Still dealing with the consequences.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
I am pretty happy with my current set up. A bunch of comfy leather chairs, a round poker table with drink holders. No clocks, non-abrasive lighting.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
I have an old Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition book, and a copy of the 2nd Edition D&D Al-Qadim Sourcebook. The two implied methods of play and character types and behaviour is night and day.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
The games of Lori Anne Cole, flat out mythology and the ever cliche choice of Weird Tales.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Ideally someone who is able to let things slide, good at bullshit, and proactive.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
The mind numbing drudgery of some kinds of work.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Yes but I am working on making it.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Usually its first a primer on what exactly is it they want to know (the same thing I do when talking about anything the other person doesn't really follow: work, poker, my family) and then keep it pretty succinct and general "We ordered pizza, had a few beers, goofed off for three hours, made inane jokes and called it a night". If someone is asking because they are interested in playing that is a different matter. "We ordered pizza, had a few beers, goofed off for three hours pretending to be dwarves and wizards, made inane jokes and called it a night. Shame you weren't totally rad like us"

What I am currently working on:

2012-01-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

So, I figured I would give an update on what I am working on at the moment. To help kill Projectitis I work on one main project (4 hours a week minimum), one side project (when I am stuck on the main project), a "here and there project" (a few minutes a week) and "daydream" project that every so often I scribble down notes on out of the blue.

Main Effort: my horror module:
"Scenic Dunnsmouth"

Side Effort: A wilderness travel table, a whole book of 'em for easy encounter generation.
"The Great Wide Yonder"

Minor Effort: Updating any bugs or suggested improvements in "Neoclassical Geek Revival"

Daydream Effort: My gonzo fantasy campaign setting
"Mythic America"

Following up with the GM Character Sheet:

2012-01-15T18:48:00.001-08:00

Zak has also put out how he would like to see the module's organized.

Well worth a read:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2012/01/excerpt-from-imaginary-type-v-players.html

Casino Dice VS Gaming Dice

2012-01-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

From AwesomeDice:

http://www.awesomedice.com/blog/64/how-dice-are-made/

The gyst being the completely different method used to make the two types of dice, and I began to wonder if there is a market for precision made gaming dice. I do like the crisp corners of Vegas dice sometimes.

The GM's Character Sheet: Dungeons and Dragons Next centric

2012-01-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

Every player's character has a sheet defining who the character is, what they can do, what they have and what they cannot do.

This big "news" of D&D 5th edition (D&D Next) focusses on trying to make it modular and fit every edition of D&D.

I remember the second edition "Optional rule" listings. The concept of "option rule" (or modular add-on) was nice, but there was quite a bit. Still workable for a DM to say what he was using and what he wasn't. The problems come in when you want 4 previous editions, some of which feature dozens of splat books, not to mention retro-clones and different style "Campaign source books" with dozens of extra races and classes, some of which plain don't fit in some settings, but are key to others.

If the goal is to unite everyone to using one system, well, penny arcade says it quite succinctly:

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/11

So having a GM character sheet also allows the players to know what to expect. This shouldn't be a long document listed every rule, but rather every rule, race, class, magic item, etc, should be tagged with descriptors.

Does your game have firearms? Firearms might be tagged with "Renaissance Era" while the GM has set "Hellenistic Era" on his sheet. "Tieflings" might be out as the GM has set "Human Centric" as a tag. Wondering if you can buy magic items or not? Check the GM character sheet to see if it is set to "High Magic" or "Low Magic", then you can know if your wizard will be in Harry Potters world or Middle Earth in terms of getting magical items.

Having a GM Character sheet would solve a lot of problems for having thousands of optional rules, and still being able to know as a player, which ones are in.

This needs to go into a game somehow:

2012-01-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

D&D 5th edition

2012-01-09T05:58:00.000-08:00

"'Dungeons & Dragons' designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise."

Maybe they can put the cat back in the bag, I doubt it though. Part of the problem is, most of the good DIY work, doesn't lend itself well to their current business model, by the nature of "DIY".
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/arts/video-games/dungeons-dragons-remake-uses-players-input.html

New Year, New Contest for GM's!

2012-01-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

So as we start the final year of human existence according to bad disaster movies and long dead Mayans, it seems like a perfect time for a contest!

I am currently out of the second printing of Neoclassical Geek Revival in all of its glory. But I did keep one of these tanotex bound beauties with its linen pages and silk ribbon. This last copy is not for sale however.

Instead I am hosting a contest where you can win it. I want you to run at least a mini-campaign of Neoclassical Geek Revival and provide write-ups of how each session went, what you liked and what you didn't, what worked and what didn't. The campaign would need to be at least 5 sessions long and have at least 3 players. One lucky GM will be mailed a free hard cover (assuming shipping isn't more than $20 CDN, which covers North America and Europe for sure). Shoot me an email to LiberInterdico (from Google's mail provider) with your name and mailing address, I will email you back a PDF copy and confirmation of your entry into the contest. You may either email me session reports, or post them on a blog and provide me a link.

I'd like to see contestants enroll by the end of January and a book be mailed to the winner by the end of March. Games can be a local home game, or a G+ ConstantCon game, or anything else you are looking to run. Theme, Setting, all up to you, but I would ask that you run the game straight so I can get the most useful feedback on what needs fixing.

Secret Santicore

2011-12-26T10:41:00.001-08:00

Oh Wow! Look at that!

http://gibletblizzard.blogspot.com/2011/12/secret-santicore-2011.html

Read it an gush praises upon all those who contributed, in reverse alphabetical order!

Neoclassical Geek Revival

2011-12-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

Neoclassical Geek Revival is the greatest RPG ever..written by me and produced in hardcover.

From the Foreword:
Foreword
Hello reader, and welcome to Neoclassical Geek Revival (NGR). NGR is a fantasy heartbreaker RPG; it does what you would expect out of a traditional fantasy role-playing game. While NGR will work as a complete game I have no doubt it will rarely be played as such; This game is designed expecting that you will most likely see things in this game you would like to remove and plug into your own game rather than playing it whole cloth.
This game is designed to simulate low magic fantasy, but most mechanics are equally at home in a science fiction, action or post-apocalyptic game. The rules are designed to be as setting neutral as possible while solving commonly held gripes and bad tropes. In the writing of this game I used the following as guiding principles:
1.) Funny dice are fun on their own merits
2.) Choices to make are better than problems to solve
3.) You are already familiar with role playing games
4.) You are not looking for gritty realism, but do enjoy the presence of the ‘fourth wall’
5.) Gaming is meant to be entertainment

Fantastic Reviews!

This is possibly the best FRP I've read in decades, as much for what it simplifies as for what it enhances.

When playing the game quite a few things stand out to me as brilliant

I love the look of the book and the feel of the paper.

My opinion? Neoclassic Geek Revival is WIN! Buy a copy!

Does that sound awesome? If you want a copy, here is how!

A physical hard cover: If you are interested in a physical copy of Neoclassical Geek Revival email my gmail account (Liberinterdico). The book is printed on linen paper, and hard bound with a silk ribbon and gold stamping. When there is sufficient interest expressed, I will then make an additional printing. I am currently down to my last few books on my second printing and expect them to be gone before you read this. The materials cost usually rounds off to about $30 CDN plus shipping.

A PDF version: Neoclassical Geek Revival is on sale with RPGNOW for $4 CDN.
BUY IT NOW!

Or,

Just shoot me an email and ask for a copy. If you are willing to agree to
1.) Not redistribute it,
2.) Not make a physical copy of it and most importantly
3.) Provide feedback on the game, I can email you a PDF copy.

Merry X-mas!

2011-12-25T06:38:00.001-08:00

May the damage Robot Santa inflicted upon your home's perimeter defenses be minimal and easily repaired for next year.

List of things to tweak for the next version

2011-12-14T05:11:00.000-08:00

So as I plod away on other projects,

I was wondering if anyone who has gotten a copy of Neoclassical Geek Revival, or played a few games has any suggestions for things to change, typos to fix or rules to clarify?

1.) Better morale rules
2.) ?
3.) Profit!

anything else?

Secret Santicore: The Lair of the Fungaloids

2011-12-13T10:21:00.000-08:00

The Request:
Dear Secret Santicore...

I would like to request a lair or set of encounters for Mutant Future that feature only mutant plant monsters.

Thanks!

The Result:

Intro:
A cult of ecoterrorists worshiping a mutant tree! the giant oak
tree up top however is covered in tree fungus and lichens. The grove
it dominates is covered in rotten logs covered in fungus. The
eco-terrorists seem to have been undone by mother nature. The Oak
Tree itself has a wheezing face peering out and occasionally
whispering "help..me..."

If that isn't a draw, the eco-terrorists also had a tonne of old tech
weapons they scavenged. I wonder if that hole in the ground would
lead to their secret cache of stolen valuables and ray guns.

A: This is the entry. The area is an earthen tunnel, long rotted
roots sprawling across the ground. Small mushrooms of all shapes and
sizes, the occasional patching being phosphorescent, litter the area.
Radiation levels are high near the glowing fungus. The tunnel forms a
ring around the oak tree up top, blocked off by two cobblestone and
scrap metal walls, with a healthy dose of clay globbed on to boot.
The walls are covered with scorch marks.

B: The walls of this spherical room (meaning walls an d ceiling as
well) are made of spongy fungus. Anyone dying or recently dead that
gets some in or on their body will become a fungal "zombie" and burrow
into the spongy fungus. There are 3d4 zombies burrowed into the
floor, walls and ceiling already. If anyone brings light into the
room, digs into the fungus or starts a fire anywhere underground, the
zombies will awaken and attempt to spread their contagion.

C: A pile of valuable and shiny looking material is at the back of
this long, narrow and cramped tunnel (about two feet wide). The walls
are covered in a think layer of fungal slime that acts as Novocaine
with a slight acidity (dissolving flesh over the course of weeks)
requiring a saving throw to avoid being paralysed for three hours
after removal from the slime. At the end are 3 random metal weapons,
a random pile of shiny junk and piles of gold and silver jewellery,
covered in the transparent slime. Two rubbery and dissolving
skeletons are also present, laying on top of a giant puffball. If the
puffball is touched too suddenly it will explode in a cloud of
corrosive enzymes for 3d6 damage.

D: Getting into this sealed area requires knocking down the walls
(intelligence check or in doing so you cause a cave in for 2d12
damage). This sealed room is full of salt lines and burnt out
torches. In between the salt lines are several random weapons,
several skeletons and large puffballs. Accidentally stepping on one
releases a cloud of deadly spores (1d4 damage to all present). Make a
dex check for each thing a person wants to check out, failure
triggering a cloud of spores. A gate blocks access to E, the gate is
controlled by a terminal/puzzle box (PC's must win a game of
"MASTERMIND" to open it, else it seals permanently).

E: Heart of the tree, a beating heart (the size of an ox heart) that
is grey and nearly dead. It is covered in toadstools and mould.
Cleaning it and splashing fresh blood on the heart gets it pumping
again. The tree will begin springing to life and releasing antibodies
to quickly kill off the fungus (2d20 rounds). Of course entering this
room summons the slime-mould from the well in F.

F: This region has a cobblestone well in an otherwise bare area. The
well looks a good 20 feet deep with liquid in it. That liquid is a
massive slime mould with 100hp, and it can only be harmed by
flamethrowers, acid vats and similar sorts of things. At the bottom
of the well are literally buckets full of shiny metal trinkets and 3d4
metal weapons. The slime mould will head to E if the players open the
gate. It moves fast and will arrive in 3 rounds, pouring into any
opening. It will reinfect the tree heart if the can eat the PC's
first and will not leave the lair.

If you for some reason are looking to pay for this

2011-12-07T07:47:00.001-08:00

Neoclassical Geek Revival is now available on RPG now!
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=97457

Or you could, you know, email me and just ask.

Neoclassical Geek Revival will soon be available upon RPG Now

2011-12-06T18:17:00.001-08:00

Sometime in the next few days PDF copies of Neoclassical Geek Revival will be available for $4 from RPGNOW. Note however I still will be giving them out for free to anyone who actually emails me, but putting it on RPGNOW does give me access to a larger audience.

Why don't I put it up there for free then? More people will download it if I charge money. I noticed Neoclassical Geek Revival (despite being free if you just email me and agreed not to pass it around) was available on torrent sites. So I made a tweak and put a copy available on torrents, it looks like it has gone around about 600 times that I can track. Much more than when it was free to download from Pen and Paper games.

So, if people are too lazy to just email me and say "Hi, I would like a complimentary copy!" or just want to throw $4 minus royalties my way, you can soon get a copy from RPGNOW. Note I am not allowing print on demand copies to be made, I am still very particular about quality.

ConstantCon update

2011-11-29T06:31:00.001-08:00

ConstantCon games are still going along strong, the party has currently decided to leave the werewolf infested forests and dragon haunted mountains of Norway and booked passage on a raiding party heading to Ireland. Where they were dropped off on a desolate beach, causing them to walk inland to the small backwater village of Corroc, ruled by a local "king".

Meeting up with a wizard from Wessex they decided to look into some local issues in exchange for gold and favours from the local lord. They managed to ambush a massive, green, sabre tooth tiger that was plaguing the lord's hunting preserve and causing much distress. This mystical creature seemed to be some sort of nature spirit set loose on the king, so they captured it and gave it to a secret druidic cult. Assuming this couldn't end badly, they asked the druidic cult for help in dealing with the black knight and his band of demon worshippers and witches. They shared their magical knowledge of summoning swarms of angry bee's, but demanded that the Juju tree not be destroyed, but rather be preserved.

The party seems to be caught in a three way fight between the old faith of Titania, the church of Spartacus and demonic worshippers of Baphomet. And the party seemed split on who they should back..

Then again in a month they hop on board with a passing Roma caravan and head to a port city, before going on to Rome.

Slay the monster or Keep the magic sword?

2011-11-24T10:06:00.001-08:00

Usually a player character goes out to slay a monster and take the magical item it guards. But in my current game I had set that up rather differently for one location and sets of magical items.

The various potent magical items were made by a wizard who had a special little version of the permanency spell. For OSR or D20 equivalence, this version of permanency did not cause a loss of con, xp or what have you from the wizard. Magic item factory right? Kinda.

Magic has a price, and rather than the caster being harmed this had a secondary side effect. Somewhere in the surrounding area (a large area the more powerful the spell being made permanent) a monster would spawn. The power of the monster is likewise related to the power of the enchantment to be made permanent. This monster is always malevolent, seeking to cause destruction and ruin (especially to the caster). But the enchantment will only be held permanent while the creature lives.

So the first question the party comes to is whether or not to slay the giant jellyfish comprised entirely of flame as it destroys a village or keep their +3 sword. The next question is what to do with the spell when the party's wizard gets a hold of it. Giving the player a +4 sword is so easy..how hard can it be to track down and capture a monster anyway? and what are the odds that all the monsters you keep in locked cages will kill their zoo keeper and escape?

Linking back to Zak's Vornheim, you could potentially add a great twist to the Immortal Zoo adventure.

Vornheim: A review

2011-11-15T15:45:00.001-08:00

Perhaps I am just more aware of the negative press and complaining about Vorhnheim, but it has begun grating at me because it has not seemed to be actual complaints about the product but about it's author.

I figured I would do a few posts to give my view on the product, keep in mind this is just my 2 cents worth and it may be very very wrong.

Strange?

Vornheim does not appear to be written for use with the type of game that I tend to run. It is set to appear quite a bit stranger and more surreal than I would normally run a city. This however is not a hidden feature of the product, it is also not really that large of a hindrance. The sample locations it gives (the immortal zoo, the Medusa's house, the library) are all strange in their own right, but plopping one of those locations in a faux historical medieval world would not be out of place. It would make that area strange and adventure worthy, but it wouldn't alter the character of your entire game world in all its historical knock-off glory. Likewise many of the charts and tables are perfectly fine to roll on every now and then to add some detail to such a game. Worthwhile for when you want to get a random tavern name, or backwater custom, or name of a random book a PC steals.

Summed together however and Vornheim paints a world that is much stranger than I would normally set for a game. Reading through it and it struck me as a mix of Necromunda and Gormanghast. This however is required for Vornheim to function as it's stated purpose as a city adventure kit. Cities are boring, dull, predictable and safe. That is why so many people live and work there, dreaming of their picket fence and comfortable retirement. Adventurers leave the safety of cities to go die in some god-forsaken jungle or trap laden underground complex filled with monsters. If you want there to be city adventures, then the city has to be at least as dangerous and mysterious as any dungeon. By nature a city has to be somewhat safe for the average person, that would seem to mean the mystery would need to be cranked up to 11 to compete with a dungeon. So if I were to think about plopping Vornheim down in a campaign world somewhere, I would use the same logic for location as I would an ancient tomb complex, or a skull island. It would have to be somewhere PC's go to, explore and either leave with riches or die trying.

Now mechanics!

This has some really great things to sink your teeth into mechanically. Many of the die mechanics are superb, using the die rolls for far more effective 'seeding' than traditional numerical charts. The inclusion of the physical location of the dice as a seed element is utterly brilliant. The 'Chase' system is quick and effective, but I doubt I would use it personally just due to mechanical differences in how I run chases and escapes. The item cost mechanic is a good one I happen to enjoy, it very neatly meshes in with the simple cost mechanics I use and its fairly easy to remember.

My personal favourite though is "God's Chess", as that was a common movie motif for me growing up. So many films I enjoyed had similar events.

Example monsters and areas!

These were definitely interesting enough, but I won't spoil anything for those still waiting on their copy. What was important was that monsters did not contain stat blocks in neat formatted little charts next to the creature. This did not bother me, but then again I also attribute stat's to monsters in response to the description of the monster. For my use, Vornheim is overkill as simply saying "Its a giant M*&^%F$(*&!@ ape with laser eyes!" is enough for me to stat up a giant laser ape in a few seconds. Other systems may not handle that as well. This brings me to..

Layout

I didn't really have a problem with the layout of the text, or the fonts or the borders or any such thing. It did not prevent me from reading it and gaining the knowledge contained within (the only real purpose of formatting, grammar, spelling and the like is to facilitate that end). So I really didn't see an issue there, it wasn't hard on my eyes or anything, and its not like misspelling "Challenge" as "Challange" once in the entire book is going to render me unable to grasp useful details. One thing that did irk me in reading through Vornheim the first time was the charts all being in the back, as reading the description for the how the chart is to be used then flipping to the back to look at the chart became annoying. That said, for actually USING the book at the game table it is a superior method of organization.

The Dictionary of Mythology by J.A. Coleman

2011-11-11T19:07:00.001-08:00

The Dictionary of Mythology is a massive and lengthy tome containing a giant listing of entries on pretty much every mythological creature you can think of (and tonnes more you can't) over the span of 1200 pages, with dictionary sized entries.

This is a great GM tool for a sandbox game. If you are trying to fill some hexes and don't want the same old same old, you can get a good randomized (a few d10's works well enough) and bam:

Fang Chang: one of the three islands of the blessed
Hereshguina: an evil spirit of the Winnebago. In some accounts this spirit is equated with Wakdjunkaga
Nuye: a mythical bird. This bird is said to have monkey's head on the body of a dog, the feet of a tiger and a tail like a snake. Eating its flesh is said to cure hiccups.

Well, that should be enough to craft something cool in the region.

New Printing: First Thoughts

2011-11-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

So the book binding is still top notch, if anything slightly better as the printer I went to this time was able to properly align the grain of the paper. The paper is the same type as I had previously used before, however I have noticed a watermark on a few pages, that irks me and I'll have to talk to the printer to see if that can be avoided in the future or I may look for yet another printer. It is only noticeable if you hold the specific and random page up to a light source, but I still don't just accept flaws in something I make.

I will be sending out an email today confirming interest, if you are still interested reply with your address. Cost will still be materials and shipping ($40), but if you live outside of Canada and you have any weird customs fees I haven't a clue how that will impact you, though I haven't heard any complaints yet.

This is the "Lion Printing", and all copies will also have the Unofficial Games Lion Heraldry stamped in gold on the front. I don't want to get into edition numbering so how about edition stampings?

New Printing has arrived!

2011-11-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

So a new set of Neoclassical Geek Revival has arrived back from the binders. I tried a different printer this time so hopefully there are no surprises as I survey the books, the binding is still excellent. In the coming days I shall now have to figure out how to actually handle the logistics of sending them out.

Roll for Awesomeness!

2011-11-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

One of the most beloved and player ruining mechanics of Neoclassical Geek Revival is 'Awesomeness'. Players who play Neoclassical Geek Revival often have a hard time readjusting to more careful and tactical games ( I have been told this directly by said players).

So what is awesomeness?

Awesomeness is what makes every situation has more than one 'correct answer'. You hear a strange noise coming from the cellar in the ruined building your party is camping in. Do you A: wake the party, arm yourselves and go check it out? (the tactically correct answer) B: Grab a flickering easy to extinguish torch and go check it out alone without telling anyone where you are going, especially if you are in an abandoned summer camp where all those teens died 13 years ago to the day under a full moon just like this one (the awesome answer).

Normally in an RPG, while B might be good for a laugh every now and again, if you want a party to survive then option A is the right call. Which is why you always see it get made. But think of all the hilarious opportunities you miss!

I didn't want to flip the table 180 either, I didn't want the correct answer to be that you should ALWAYS be zany and off the wall, and that being careful and serious is always wrong. I like choices to make, not problems to solve. Choices always keep players involved (and away from phones), problems keep thinking once, until its been solved. Then it is ignored.

So the smart and safe choice is the best answer, but if they make an awesome decision (Extra risk purely for style) then there is at least some small chance at reward. It will still probably end up with your death in the above example, but if you live? Think of all the awesomeness points you'll earn! This lessens the amount of analysis paralysis as well, even if they make a bad decision they can pretend it was for the awesomeness later and they meant to do that (no really guys, I MEANT to do that dumb thing)

So what does awesomeness do? At the end of the night, the players decide on an MVP (more awesomeness) and then sit around and recall their awesome exploits during the night. This also reinforces what was done (at least the cool parts people want to remember), and keeps people paying attention to the game (the end goal).

Once they have their awesomeness scores they begin rolling against it, whittling it down to receive more and more fate points (which are die re-rolls) for future use.

The end result is less time over planning encounters, more time paying attention to the game (instead of cell phones) and more time recounting the fun parts of the game (reinforcing the memories of the game)

From Neoclassical Geek Revival, Pages 99-100
*

Fate and Destiny!
As player characters progress
through their adventuring career they
will almost certainly accumulate ‘fate
points’ and ‘destiny points’. What
exactly are these points, what do they do
and how do you get them.
In brief, fate points are the fates
and trickster deities subtly altering
things to keep their favoured entertainers
(i.e. the adventurers) amusing them.
Only entertaining heroes and villains
will achieve fate points. Fate points are
used primarily to re-roll dice, though
they do have other functions. At the end
of every game session, players will roll
to see if they gain more fate points.
Destiny points on the other hand
represent a character’s purpose. They
are very rare and should not be given out
randomly. They occur when characters
undertake specific and life-altering
quests. If a character ever has more
than one at a time they become nigh
unstoppable in their task. Destiny points
give a wide range of possible functions,
not limited to choosing the results of a
die roll without needing to roll.

Destiny Points
Destiny Points are incredibly
valuable and may be spent in the
following ways:
* Pick the results of a die rolled by the
character without needing to roll it. A
character could thus determine their
attack will be an epic success without
needing to roll it.
* Disallow an opponent from using luck
points to soak the damage from an
attack. This particularly brutal use of a
destiny point would mean that even a
mighty hero could be felled by one
dagger to the back from a betrayer.
* Restore all Luck Points. This option
would allow a broken and beaten hero to
rise up and fight on, it is highly
suggested you have one or all of the
players mutter 'get up Rocky'
*Add a possible but potentially
extremely unlikely element to the
encounter or scene, provided it hasn’t
been specifically described as not being
present. This is one of the harder to
referee options, this option would allow
a hero or villain the option to
figuratively 'pull something out of their
#$%'. A hero could be running injured
through the wilderness nigh naked,
chased by wolves and spend a destiny
point to stumble into an ancient tomb
with a full set of quality weapons and
armour by spending a destiny point.

Fate Points
Fate points are substantially more
common than Destiny Points. At the end
of every game session players will roll
against their ‘Awesomeness Score’ to
gain more fate points. They will also
elect and MVP who will gain an
additional fate points. Fate points can be
used in the following ways:
* Re-roll a die or set of dice. This is the
most common use; a player who just
rolled an epic failure for their leap across
the chasm of doom could spend a fate
point to re-roll the die.
* Restore a luck die worth of luck
points. Used in this manner a player
could spend a fate point for additional
luck points, this can only be used after
resolving any pending attacks against the
player this round.
* Add a likely and plausible element to
the environment, scene or encounter
providing it hasn't been specifically
described as not being present. Used in
this manner, the words likely and
plausible are key. For example, a hero
who dives out of a city window could
not declare there is a saddled horse
directly below (unless he was in a stable
or other location with valuable horses
left lying around) but he could declare
there was an awning or pile of garbage
to cushion his fall.

Electing an MVP
Role-playing games are at their
core a co-operative game, and everyone
likes to receive recognition of their
efforts at being a team player. At the
end of each session, all players other
than the Game Master should elect
whom they consider the ‘Most Valuable
Player’. This should be the person who
added the most fun, made the biggest
sacrifices or otherwise added to the
game. Players may not vote for
themselves. In the event of a tie, the
Game Master casts the deciding vote.
The MVP receives +5 to awesomeness
this session, and receives one additional
fate point.

Rolling for Awesomeness
At the end of each session, roll a
d20 for each player. If they have an
awesomeness score less than the die
move on to the next player. If they have
an equal to, or higher awesomeness
score than the die roll, subtract the die
roll from their awesomeness score, give
them 1 fate point, and roll again. On a
roll of a natural 20, to celebrate that
rolling a 20 is in itself awesome, give the
player a fate point and have them roll
again.
i.e. A player has 6 Awesomeness
this session, he rolls a d20 and gets a 4.
The player receives 1 fate point and is
reduced to 2 Awesomeness and may roll
again. On the next d20 the player lucks
out and rolls a 2, receiving a second fate
point and another roll. With 0
Awesomeness remaining the players
only hope for another fate is to roll a 20,
he does not and pass the die to the next
player.
To determine a player’s
awesomeness score for a game session,
add or subtract the following (you may
wish to add to this list):
*Their Luck Modifier
*+1 for wearing a cape
*+1 for wearing an awesome hat
*+1 for a manly beard, +2 if the
character is female
*+1 if a character has “80’s hair”
*+1 for wearing an eye patch
*+5 if they actually need it
*+5 if MVP
*Bonus for adhering to trope/genre
(penalty for breaching)
*Arbitrary bonus for choosing to do
intentionally awesome things (defined as
taking extra risk for style)

A character’s awesomeness score
resets to 0 at the end of each session
regardless of fates gained (or not). Note
that this is a die roll for the player, and is
thus not affected by ‘Joe Average’.
*

Halloween Creature Feature: The spider friend

2011-10-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

It all starts innocently enough, you are clearing out cobwebs when a spider falls onto your neck and bites you. Assuming you don't manage to squish the spider immediately you get a good look at the small thumbnail sized thing. While normally vile and gross, this particular spider seems cute to you. Naming it appropriately you decide to keep it as a pet in a jar, cute little guy.

Squish it or not you will soon find most spiders not repulsive, but anger inducing. All spiders except spiders that look like that awesome little guy that bit you. You keep him well fed and protected as your cool new pet. In time he grows bigger and bigger. Eventually the spider becomes worthy of your respect and praise.

In time you bring others over to see you pet, and in careful conditions he may bite them too. "He only bites you if he likes you!" you may say if he's small. Or "It will make sense, don't fight it" if it has reached rodent sized proportions. You and others like you will want to settle down and have kids, probably somewhere quiet and secluded, away from the hustle and bustle. Some of these kids may be born with unusual mutations, not many, but some. Adorable spider features, from the good kind of spider like your spider friend, not those evil other spiders.

Perhaps they are some sort of centauroid spider, or have the head of a spider, or multiple limbs. Perhaps just the head of a baby on a spider's body, either way they are cute members of your little family. Of course if your spouse wasn't made a friend of your spider friend, leader of your new wilderness community, they may "freak out" and try to do harm. They sadly may need to be dealt with lest they rouse any neighbours who just don't understand.

And your spider friend has truly grown large, bigger than a cow and growing! Truly a sign from the gods worthy of praise and adulation! let others worship your friend and the good fortune it brings! Many generations may go by, or just one as the mutations don't always happen and can go generations down the blood line without manifesting, a special bundle of joy will arrive. One pregnant host will give birth to the next generation! to the joy of the midwife (assuming they are part of your true community), thousands of new baby spider friends will be born in a great swarm from one lucky mother! They will be able to be spread out and go to the far corners of distant lands, until somewhere...

someone is clearing out cobwebs..when a spider falls onto their hand and bites them..

****

This type of cult or monster is a great way to freak the hell out of players on so many levels. It is also a good way to throw entities like Llolth in a new light, and just why it is that Dark Elves ran underground and are full of half drow/half spider mutants.

Happy Halloween

Next Monday's ConstantCon game

2011-10-27T11:47:00.001-07:00

I just realized next Monday is Halloween, as such the ConstantCon game is cancelled due to existing obligations. Sorry everyone.

Miracles: How priests use magic differently than wizards

2011-10-25T05:23:00.000-07:00

One thing I set out to do fairly immediately is to differentiate priests and wizards in Neoclassical Geek Revival. Priests as hammer wielding armoured mini-mages always bugged me. Their ability to act as heal bots in so many games likewise was troublesome in a game world scenario. Someone who can fully heal someone disembowelled by a sword or raise the dead EVERY DAY (sometimes multiple times per day) would completely unbalance the world.

There was also the problem with priests being "agents of their deity" but not really doing much beyond the occasional bit of tithing or whatnot. Of course their deity would also routinely let them perish because while the deity was willing to intervene with magic, not if the priest didn't file out the correct prayer paperwork for each spell a day in advance. So I set out wanting to make a few changes to Priest "spell" use:
1.) I wanted to limit the amount of world altering healing and miracles
2.) I still wanted priests to be able use a full suite of miracles in a pinch
3.) I wanted to make priests act like priests

From Neoclassical Geek Revival, Page 88-89
*

Game Mechanics of Miracles

Miracles function in a fairly
simplistic manner. A character may
choose to summon forth a miracle
provided they have enough piety to
cover the costs. Miracles are not the
actions of the character but the actions of
a patron on behalf of the character. For
some miracles the rank of the character
may grant additional benefits.
Character’s can only summon
miracles related to their patron’s nature.
Thus a character must be able to
reasonably justify a miracle as relating to
the patron’s domain they may summon
the miracle. For example, a priest of the
sun god could call forth ‘increase yield’
if they justified it as giving the right
amount of sun, while the follower of a
war god would have a hard time unless it
was dressed up in some sort of elaborate
ritual.
The use of time lengthy rituals
will be required to use most miracles. A
fire priest would probably need an
elaborate ritual where a person is
surrounded by flame to justify using a
healing spell.
Any starting character able to
summon miracles at normal cost begins
the game with 20 piety points.

Accumulating Piety
Here are some example ways in
which a character could earn piety
points:
Preaching to a congregation for a week: 1
Personally converting someone: 5 or 5 (cumulative) per level
Converting a region: 50-1000+
Building a roadside shrine: 2
Building a small shrine: 10
Building a small temple: 30
Building a temple or church: 100
Building a great cathedral: 500
Building an epic wonder (such as the Hagia Sophia): 1000
Completing a small task of faith: 5
Completing a moderate task of faith: 20
Completing a large task of faith: 100
Completing an epic task of faith: 500+
Killing faith enemy: 2 or 2 (cumulative) per level
Defiling/Destroying enemy temple: 3/4 as building plus a task
Converting a faith enemy: three times normal conversion
Sacrifices (Patron specific): Variable
Burial of faithful: 1 + cumulative level*(must be level appropriate)

Creating a Patron
A priest requires a patron to grant
their miracles, if the GM already has one
or more options in your game world, you
may wish to use them. Alternatively it
isn’t that hard to build one. First choose
if the patron is aligned with civilization,
the natural world or hell.
Civilization patrons reside in the
realm of the dead, and usually are
intermediaries between a mortal and
heaven. Hero cults, saints, prophets,
messiahs and ancestor worship all fall
into this category. So while the god may
be Zeus, the patron may be Hercules as
an intermediary. For the domain of the
patron, assume that the miracles must be
justified as coincidence (even if nigh
impossible in terms of probability). The
patron will reward attempts to civilize
and control the natural world, removing
the demonic and the wild.
Patrons of the natural world are
extremely powerful nature spirits,
elementals, djinn or titans. These should
have power over 1 broad natural force
(an element, plants, animals, fertility,
weather, etc). Alternatively a region can
be selected, granting the ability to use
any miracle within the region but
nothing outside of the region. The latter
is not recommended for any PC. Piety is
awarded for keeping magic and mystery
present in the world, keeping civilization
localized and removing demonic
influence.
Patrons of hell are powerful
demons bargaining with would be
sorcerers. Some demons claim to be
working for a dark god or THE devil,
but most claim there are no such things
as gods or devils. Patrons of hell may
use the method of either civilization or
the natural world. Demonic patrons give
piety for banal evil deeds and causing
corruption. As truly hideous deeds tend
to cause people to resolve themselves to
a life of resistance (ref: Batman), piety is
not awarded for such acts.
*

Lovecraftian Horror: Its not tentacles, its not malice from beyond space and time

2011-10-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

This comic is the best example of what Lovecraftian Horror is to me when I read it.

I am quite serious about this. Reading the Mountains of Madness, reading the Shadows out of Time it becomes evident. The great horror is simply that things will go on. Mankind isn't that important. Like the Elder Things before man, sooner or later they will fall and eventually be but a faded memory before no trace they ever existed will remain. Likewise man's fate is also certain, be it in a million years or tomorrow, mankind will fall and be forgotten and erased. Then the Beetlemen will one day rise up after we are gone, only to likewise be replaced by the Yith. At least the Beetlemen were important to the Yith, a race that will last. We as humanity, just don't matter. Life will go on.That is lovecraftian horror, not adding "MOAR TENTACLES", not having people go insane from dark truths, not ancient cults or dark books or malignant spirits. The ancient and terrible truth is humanity doesn't matter, if the entities were malignant that would imply we mattered enough to make someone hate us. We are the jellyfish from the anecdotes of a certain psychic gorilla, too certain in our self worth to see the writing on the wall.

Directing the mob: Large scale social conflict

2011-10-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

So recently in both my home game (for the purpose of religious conversion) and in my Monday ConstantCon game (for the purpose of having an angry mob solve the zombie/cultist problem for the PC's), there has come the issue of getting a mob of people to agree with the PC's viewpoint through social conflict mechanics.

I tested two different approaches. In the PC game, I had designated a set number of ringleaders based on the size of the mob (in this case 10 individuals), and the character had to defeat ten 0-level characters in social conflict at once. In the second instance (the ConstantCon game) I mirrored the "size modifier" used in combat by monsters and made "the mob" a single entity with a size modifier of 10 (ie, it "suffered" 1/10th influence and dealt 10x "influence") this made the mob hard to influence and easy to anger.

Looking at how both panned out, I gotta say I like the single "entity" better for a large mob, with any charismatic ringleaders handled separately. More tests are needed but this may end up being a permanent change.

Also note: Leading an angry mob to deal with the villains on your behalf is hilarious, especially if the mob breaks and scatters due to a rampaging grizzly bear after wiping out the cultists. Just be sure to sneak out of town before they blame you for the tragedy.

Be sure to join in on the next ConstantCon game, Monday nights at 6pm eastern time, Midnight in Berlin.

Platforms and Modules

2011-10-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

So, I was reading Zak this morning, and through his site was linked to a rant from a
Google employee about the nature of platforms versus products. Being a developer by trade the rant itself was interesting insight into Google internal politics, and in my personal opinion spot on the money. But Zak applying this to RPG's is also a great read.

In my own interpretation of "Platform" vs "Product" in regards to RPG's I see this as the difference between "System" and "Setting", though others may disagree. A setting free system is a good platform, but if it is ever going to take off it does need a "killer app", of a good setting.

At this point you may be asking: "How can Zzarchov turn this post into something about him?" Well here we go: Neoclassical Geek Revival is designed as a platform, one that is meant to be hacked and used piecemeal. It is meant to integrate easily into whatever house rules , OSR clone, or d20 product you already use. It is extremely explicit about this in its foreword.

What it needs is a second book, a setting, to function as a "killer app". I am just not as interested in building a setting as I am a system however, the nature of my own creativity. I like my own home setting, but writing it out doesn't seem particularly fun nor would it really be a huge interest. That said I do have a setting I have been thinking on for some time, maybe I should make it.

New Printing of Neoclassical Geek Revival Scheduled

2011-10-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

So sufficient interest has been generated to reach the minimum levels needed for a second printing of Neoclassical Geek Revival. If you have interest in a copy but have not yet indicated so, please let me know as soon as possible. Throwing a few extra copies in is easier than waiting to get minimum interest for yet another printing.

If you have interest in a physical copy but aren't sure if you can budget it at this moment, let me know as well. I can get a few extra copies printed and sit on them for while.

Bards or "Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk. Everyone has a talent."

2011-10-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

What is a bard? In my mind, a bard is Nick Naylor from "Thank you for smoking". The magic, the jack of all trades, no...that to me is not a bard. That is a bunch of stuff thrown in there to give a bard something to do in D&D because talking to people doesn't really do much (at best in future editions it appears to be a one roll for succeed/fail).

That's crap to me. The other problem is that many GM's don't think you should be able to trick a king into trading a cart full of diamonds for a cart full of onions and have the king think it was a brilliant move. In reality no. In reality no warrior with a pointy stick is going to take down a fire-breathing, flying, armoured intelligent dinosaur either. In Neoclassical Geek Revival, Social Conflict is handled in a set of round by round partial success (unless you get lucky) almost identically to combat. This gives something for bards to do immediately, but lets get beyond how social conflict works and go back to what bards do specifically. They may be generally better at talking than other classes, much as warriors are better at fighting. But they also have a few additional tricks.

1.) Acting as a guide: One of the powers a bard might have is language interpretation, this allows bard to act like Dr. Daniel Jackson or C3P0 and learn an unknown foreign language in a short period of time. If you are exploring into the wilds, have a bard.
2.) Helping everyone be a little more awesome: Another one of the bard powers gives an increasing bonus to everyone in the party at the end of the night, to their awesomeness score. Further proving that you should never go into battle without an actor.
3.) Leading mass combat: Bards leading forces have a much higher morale and are less likely to break.
4.) Being a smart ass: Bards can use their rapier wit to harm the luck points of character. While this will never kill someone, it can be a good way to weaken an opponent.
5.) Being REALLY good at talking: Just specialize in what they already do well.

Lastly the bard also acquires "Henchmen" as their personal "item". These are hopelessly devoted zero level tag-alongs who are literally red-shirts. Any time something terrible or fatal is about to happen to the bard, the bard can have (through some fluke of luck) the terrible thing happen to one of his henchmen instead.

From Neoclassical Geek Revival: Pages 16-18
*

The Forum of the Bards: 'The pen is
mightier than the sword'
The term ‘bard’ here is used
loosely, it is used as a fantasy catch all
for the character who is adept at dealing
with people. Unlike many games, the
bard has no innate rogue or magical
powers. The bard’s power of speech
also rival what a warrior can do with a
pointy stick in terms of shaking
believability. A powerful bard is the one
who can truly convince the emperor of
his new clothes, or that a wagon full of
onions is worth a wagon full of gold.
In terms of game play, the bard is
only useful if you are going to interact
with sentient beings, it may also require
a mind shift for many game masters to
allow the players to cause massive world
changes based on words alone.
Powerful bards can be the equivalent of
those great orators who occasionally
appear in the history and alter
civilization. A bard’s powers are
intimately based on other sentient
beings.
A bard adventures to boost his
image, spread his word and, more
importantly, find followers to do his
work for him.
Characters gain the following benefits
per level:

Pie Pieces Presence
0 1/3 per level
1 2/3 per level
2 1 per level
3 1 per level, +1 per milestone
4 1 per level, +2 per milestone

The Manifesto
Bard Powers
1.) Reputation: This power represents
the fame a bard attracts. This grants the
bard and every other player in the group
+1 ‘awesomeness’ (cumulative) per
milestone.
2.) Leadership: This power represents a
bard’s role as a leader. Forces under the
bard’s command add the bard’s presence
to their morale checks.
3.) Silver Tongue: This power gives a
bard the ability to re-roll the influence
die and choose the better result in any
type of social conflict.
4.) Interpret: This power represents the
bard’s skill as a cunning linguist to
understand foreign and alien languages
at a basic level. Using hand gestures,
miming and by speaking both slowly and
loudly in an annoying tourist kind of
way, the bard can understand and
communicate basic terms like ‘Follow’
or ‘Danger’ or ‘The cheese is moldy,
where is the bathroom’. The bard must
make a social check, modified by
awareness. On an epic success the bard
can gain this level of communication
within an hour, a normal success
requires 3d6 hours of communication
and a normal failure requires 3d6 days of
communication. An epic failure
prevents the bard from establishing this
level of communication.
5.) Wit: This power represents a bard’s
ability to lash out with his razor sharp
wit and cause deep psychological scars
to his victim. While a clever insult or
witty pun won’t ever do any physical
damage, it can hold sway with the
trickster deities who dole out luck to the
various heroes and villains. A Scathing
remark in combat allows the bard to
remove luck points from the target
(ignoring damage multipliers due to
size). The bard may elect to make a
social conflict appeal instead of a regular
attack during a combat, causing 1 point
of luck damage per point of influence
normally scored. The bard may only use
this ability when interrupting someone
that is attacking him or her, or as an
opportunity attack.

4th Pie Piece Power
Beloved: This power represents the
almost superhuman loyalty a bard of this
level of skill has with his followers. A
bard with this power can use the luck
points of his followers, allowing them to
flow ‘up’ instead of the normal limit of
only flowing ‘down’.

Personal Item: Henchmen
Rather than an actual item, bards
gain special followers. Any time a bard
completes a particularly impressive
debate, trial, military campaign or
similar event, the bard gains an
opportunity to acquire a henchman. If
the event was particularly epic the bard
automatically acquires a henchman.
The henchman will loyally serve
the bard and may take the form of a
bodyguard, squire, personal assistant,
student or some other role. The main
benefit of the henchmen is that the bard
can choose to make any unexpected or
sudden danger befall one of his present
henchmen instead of another member of
the party. This could include a volley of
fire from an ambush, setting off a
dangerous trap or being crushed by
falling rocks in a landslide. You can feel
free to give each henchman a nice red
shirt if you would like. The henchman
should be someone relevant or related to
the bard’s recent task. Henchmen have
attributes averaging 10 and are normally
18
0 level. When the bard reaches 10th
level they advance to 1st level.
For a bard to gain a henchman,
the bard must score a 10+ on the 2d6.
*

Armour: Easier to get hit, harder to harm

2011-10-03T05:56:00.000-07:00

In Neoclassical Geek Revival, armour does not increase your ability to dodge a blow. Quite the opposite, it often slows you down and increases your likelihood of getting struck. What it does do is make you take less damage from shots.

So the attacking player has made an attack roll, added their combat bonus, any bonus (or penalties) for weapon and compared that to a defence score (including the defenders combat bonus, penalties for armour bonuses for shields: which can get quite large, and other defensive articles, such as a sword). And so far the armour has done jack except get in the way.

But armour grants a damage reduction per die. This means that against multi-dice hellscapes (take 6d6 fireball!) a good suit of plate armour (-5 damage per die) makes one walk through practically unscathed. With power like that, everyone should be an armoured tank right! (note that anyone can wear armour, though wizard's have some problems casting in metal armour).

Not so much, for many situations and opponents the armour does nothing but slow you down. Against armour piercing weapons for instance, or just against really large amounts of damage by a single source. A giant might not have any attack bonus (hard to hit) but will do tremendous damage (d8 x 8) on a successful hit. When you take 28 points of damage on a single hit, is it really better to take 23 and be hit more often? Armour thus becomes a choice to make not a problem to solve. What do you want to be better prepared for? If you know you are fighting a Giant, sure, ditch the armour. Likewise if you know you fighting goblin archers with bone arrows? throw on the steel plate. Otherwise it is a case of deciding how you want your character to fight.

Like weapons, armour CAN be modified to be more specific by adding descriptive tags to it if you want to be really finicky about the difference between Roman Segmented Armour and Norman Chain, or an Ancient Greek Breastplate and Renaissance Plate.

From Neoclassical Geek Revival, PG 52
*

Basic Armour
The main benefit in armour is not
to avoid being hit, but to reduce or
eliminate the impact. Armour will in
many cases actually increase your
chances at being hit. Armour will grant
you a 'damage reduction' score per die of
damage. This means if armour gives
you a DR of 2, and you take 2d6
damage, you would receive up to 4
fewer points of damage. It is important
to note the rolls of each die. Armour
will also tend to give agility check
penalties. These modifiers usually apply
to agility checks, evade rolls and defense
rolls. Wearing no armour and loose
clothing will actually give you a slight
bonus. Armour can be described by the
basic type, and then modified by
descriptive tags should you wish that
level of detail

Type Modifier DR
Loose clothing 0/+1 0
Light Armour 0 1
Mail Armour -2 3
Plate Armour -3 5

Descriptive tags for armour
Describing armour as light, mail
or plate is fine for quick or combat light
games. If the game is of a more militant
nature, descriptive tags are a good way
to add mechanical differences to the
many types of armour available in a
fantasy world. Tags are more efficient
than describing specific historical
armours, as historical armours were
developed to protect against historical
weapons. Would smiths have still have
used the same designs to counter griffon
claws as they used for heavy crossbows
or emerging firearms? Historical
armours can be approximated using the
descriptive tag system as well. Note that
the orders of the tags impact the
application of the benefits and penalties.
Reinforced, Spiked armour is different
than Spiked, Reinforced armour.

Tag: Beefcake/Cheesecake
There is practical armour
and then there is fantasy armour. Many
examples of fantasy armour feature
exposed midriff, thigh-high boots,
or glistening well oiled pectoral
muscles and biceps. This makes it hard
for the wearer to take himself or herself
seriously, giving a –1 penalty to
resistance rolls. On the other hand it
really does keep to trope and as such
gives +2 to awesomeness. Clothing can
use this tag.

Tag: Bulky
Bulky armour sacrifices mobility
for an increase in protection against
blunt attacks. The armour gains +2 DR
against blunt attacks but suffers an
additional –1 to both defense rolls and
agility checks. The armour also
increases in dot size by 1. Quilted
armour is a good example of this
armour. Clothing can use this tag.

Tag: Ceremonial
Ceremonial armour is not
designed for field use, but rather for
display. Ceremonial armour gives a –1
53
penalty to defense rolls but a +1 bonus
to presence. Clothing can use this tag.

Tag: Crude
Crude armour represents shoddy
workmanship, experimental designs or
partially damaged armour. It provides
no extra benefit but does increase the
defense penalty and agility check
penalty by 1. Clothing can use this tag.

Tag: Lightweight
Lightweight armour has been
specifically stripped to ease the burden
and increase mobility. This lowers the
dot size by 1 and reduces the penalty to
defense and agility checks by 1. The
downside is the armour loses 2 DR
versus blunt damage.

Tag: Ornamental
Ornamental armour has been adorned
with decorations designed to catch the
eye. Ornamental armour gives +1 to
appeal roles due to the opulence it
projects, but gives –1 to evade rolls due
to its distinctive appearance. Feathered,
gem encrusted or gold plated armour
would use this tag. Clothing can use this
tag.

Tag: Partial
Partial armour is any incomplete
set of armour. This halves the dot size
of the armour and halves the defense roll
and agility check penalties of the
armour. The armour is also bypassed
completely by attacks that roll a 15 or
better. It is possible to wear a set of
partial armour over a set of full armour,
such as partial plate over full leather. In
this case, the full armour is only used if
the partial armour is bypassed. Stack the
penalties for both sets of armour. A
breastplate or mail shirt is an example of
partial armour.

Tag: Sophisticated
Sophisticated armour represents
master workmanship coupled with a
perfected design. Renaissance period
plate armour would be an example of
this tag. Sophisticated armour reduces
the defense penalty and agility check
penalty by 1.

Tag: Reinforced
Reinforced armour has been
improved with additional plating, chain
links, metal studs or other modifications
to deflect blades. This doubles the
armour’s DR against slashing weapons,
at the cost of also doubling its defense
and agility check penalty. Studded
leather or advanced plate armours are
examples of reinforced armour.

Tag: Spiked
Spiked armour has been studded
with small blades or long spikes. This is
useful to repel a grapple (or deal 1d4
damage in a grapple) but gives a –1
penalty to attack roles as the spikes
impact the ability to move cleanly. The
spikes also deflect blades granting a +1
DR against slashing weapons, but
actually reduce the effectiveness of the
armour against blunt attacks (-1 DR vs
blunt).

*

Skills in Neoclassical Geek Revival or "I make the roll to scale the wall due to my years experience as a piano player"

2011-09-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

One thing that always gets people about Neoclassical Geek Revival is the way skills are handled. I hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth over how skills/non-weapon proficiencies "killed the game". Bull. The concept was a great one in terms of character customization, the execution was just terrible.

Neoclassical Geek Revival has no list of skills. Honestly the number of potential skills is daunting and the overlap between one skill and another makes it a jumbled mess. Who would have thunk that representing the entirety of human education and knowledge would be difficult?

So players in Neoclassical Geek Revival make up their own skills. This includes things you would expect like "Forestry" , "Blacksmithing", or "Bear lore" but also ends up with more unconventional things like "Procrastination", "Wilful ignorance", and "Social leech". And they all work fine.

Bullshit is an important player skill in Neoclassical Geek Revival. The most common use of skills is on d20 rolls: attribute checks, saving throws, social conflict rolls, stealth action rolls, etc. Each skill you can justify (pronounced bullshit) into being relevant to your action will give you a +2 roll. This will require giving some situational explanation and will lead to some "out there" justifications.

So in the title example, A character was rolling to scale a wall and justified a +2 bonus from "Piano playing". How? Well they described how they were crawling over the wall and their fingers were just barely holding onto the lip of the roof. A lesser man may have fallen to their death as their fingers couldn't hold on, but thanks to years of piano playing the character had strengthened their fingers to the point where they could hold on long enough for their feet to gain traction on the wall and push themselves up onto the roof.

The second use of skills is investigations, but that is much more mundane. Rather than "I search for information!", the players just state what kind of information they are after the GM gives them information relating to that.

Note that skills are in no way linked to levels, gaining in levels does not give you more skills. That is a function of time, effort, and intelligence.

A final note is that I did not include combat rolls on this list of places to use skills. The reason attack and defence rolls do not use skills , while a jarring break, is a practical matter. Because the stakes are so high (continue playing VS make a new character), the amount of bullshit can make the game a right piss-off. Now skills can still be used in rolls resulting FROM combat (like a saving throw), but the actual "axe to forehead" has an arbitrary break. Not thrilled with the arbitrary break, but it does seem to make people enjoy the game more (which is the ultimate goal).

From Neoclassical Geek Revival, Page 19
*

Skills and Knowledge

Every character in NGR starts
with a number of skills equal to their
intelligence score. Skills represent the
large amount of training an individual
will pick up that is not directly related to
their primary training. Skills fall into
three categories: Languages, Knowledge
and Weapons.

Languages represent the written
or spoken tongues of the world. There is
no default language that everyone
speaks, so languages are quite important.
Being able to speak a language does not
give you the ability to read a language
and vice versa. If you can speak a
language and read another language with
the same alphabet you can probably
manage to grasp basic concepts through
reading.

Knowledge skills are the most
useful and versatile skills. Beyond being
used in investigations, skills have several
uses. A skill may be used to grant a +2
knowledge bonus to related tasks.
Someone with wood lore might gain a
+2 bonus to a hiding check in the forest,
or with religion they may gain +2 in a
social conflict’s appeal involving a
church. Skills may also be used (in
conjunction with attribute checks) to
perform tasks. An individual with
blacksmithing may be required to
complete a set of strength and awareness
checks to forge a high quality sword.
Players are encouraged to think up of
their own general skills. Skills that are
deemed too broad by group consensus
must be broken into specialities.

Weapon skills are also
considered general skills, but with an
important second function. Characters
are assumed to be skilled in any
weapons required or commonly used
with that skill. A character with fencing
would know how to use swords, a
lumberjack an axe and a butcher a knife.
If a character is using a weapon they
have no training with, they suffer a –2
penalty to their attack roll.

Characters may attempt to gain a
new skill each season they spend
training full time. Character’s make an
intelligence check at the end of the
season. If they succeed, they have gained
the new skill. The time will be increased
if the character has less time to study, if
studying part time for instance, the
check will be after half of a year. As an
optional rule, a player may sing an
appropriate montage song while making
the intelligence check. If he fails the
first check, he may make a re-roll 30
seconds later, providing he is still
singing the song and has not yet
forgotten the words. Other players are
allowed to join in.

*

Xena: Warrior Princess - No I am serious here

2011-09-28T05:51:00.000-07:00

So flicking through Netflix and I saw in their recently added pile "Xena: Warrior Princess". Well, me and the spouse decided it was time to dust off the 90's and become connoisseurs of exquisite cheese.

The first thing that hit me was the narration in the opening credits. Having recently watched the 5 movie announcers in a limo it made me crack up to no end, because I could picture the announcer sitting there in a fold up chair reading it from a sheet of paper (I'll link to that at the end).

I tell you, this show was a delicious ham and cheese sandwich garnished with nostalgia. From an RPG perspective, this is what I imagine most peoples campaigns are like. "Medieval Europe" in the same was Xena is "Ancient Greece". A horrible mishmash of time frames, pop culture and hammed up to the max with cheesy dialogue and bad writing.

And it was damn amusing, even if for all the "wrong" reasons.

Who wants pie? The class building system of Neoclassical Geek Revival

2011-09-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

One of the questions I have received a few times in the last few games deal with character class. Neoclassical Geek Revival has a "build a class" mechanism known as the "Pie Piece System".

There are 5 different class groups (warrior, wizard, rogue, priest and bard), each group has 5 powers related to that class to choose from. So a warrior has for instance : Shield Use, Dual Wield, Weapon Specialization, Combat Tricks and Combat Awareness. A character who puts one of their starting three pie pieces in warrior could select one power from that listing, perhaps shield use. The character then puts the remaining two pie pieces in priest and chooses three powers from the following list: Miracles, True Belief, Fervour, Dogma and Exorcism. The character chooses Miracles (think cleric spells), Fervour (bonus damage) and Exorcism (think turn undead, thematically anyway).

The pie pieces in each class determine how fast you gain a benefit in the score associated with that class. So the more warrior pie pieces you have, the faster your combat bonus increases. For a rogue, your stealth modifier increases faster, etc etc.

Lastly, each class has their own brand of a personal item that has a small chance of increasing in power (in effect becoming a magic item) based on the daring deeds of the character. For the hypothetical character above that would be a trademark item (from a warrior) and a holy relic (from the priest). So as the character wins battles they have the chance of one of their mundane items to become synonymous with the character and better represent their glory. Perhaps the characters shield has their personal heraldry on it. As the character furthers the aims of their faith they have a chance at one of their mundane items becoming a holy relic, perhaps a holy symbol or perhaps something more mundane like their boots. In 400 years after the characters death other adventurers may hunt for the boots of St.Cuthbert or the shield of Lord Cuthbert the bloody.

From Neoclassical Geek Revival, Page 9

***

Mmmmm...Pie
Many RPG’s feature a class or
archetype based system where a set of
abilities is selected to match a class.
NGR differs from this system; it uses the
‘pie system’. Everyone loves pie right?
Each character in NGR normally
has 3 pie pieces to define his class.
While this number could be altered from
as low as 2 to as high as 4 through traits,
3 pieces are the normal amount and the
maximum number that may be selected
from any one class at character creation.
At 10th level a character may choose
another pie piece, this can bring a
character up to 4 pie pieces in a single
class.
Each pie piece within a class
gives a character a larger mechanical
benefit, partially by giving modifiers that
increase per level, and partially by
gaining new powers. A character may
choose 1 class power if they have one
pie piece in that class, 3 if they have two
and all 5 if they have three pie pieces. If
they have 4 pie pieces they receive a
special power for the class. Note that a
power may only be taken once.
The final benefit is that each
character class has its own type of
'personal items' that characters can
develop. These are methods that allow
characters to naturally develop magic or
magic-like items through adventuring. A
character may be able to have personal
items of multiple types if they have
training in more than one class

***

Group Templates

2011-09-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Listening to FtB talk about "Group Templates" today I thought I would post the test from Neoclassical Geek Revival dealing with group templates. This is designed to fit in with Schrodinger's Character to allow for fast PC generation in the middle of a game without slowing things down. In high fatality (or potentially high fatality) games this can be very important to keep the game moving and still giving a reason for all of the current characters to associate with each other. Character's get perks for tagging as a way to encourage adoption as a benefit rather than a chore. Two different characters are tagged by each person to avoid a central character who the entire group revolves around. Thus if that character died in the first 10 minutes the group would no longer have a solid reason to adventure together.

From Neoclassical Geek Revival on Page 20:

Creating a Group Template
When a new group of characters
is built, it is important to have a group
template. This gives the characters a
reason to band together beyond meeting
in a tavern. Each character must have at
least two relationships to other party
members; the character whose player is
seated to the left and the character whose
player is seated to the right. You cannot
alter another character’s history without
the other player’s consent. Thus if you
chose 'Romance', you could not declare
the two character’s had dated. You
could declare that your character had a
crush on the other character. Likewise if
you chose 'Family' it does not mean their
character consider your character family
or that there is a blood relation, it may
simply be that for some reason your
character considers them ‘like family’
(perhaps your character knew their
parents). Each relationship has a slight
mechanical benefit. A set of example
relationships is listed below:

Relationship: Family
Gain: +1 fate
Example: This relationship represents a
blood relation, adoption or a strong
friendship or sense of obligation
resembling family. For example, you
could be the child of a close family
friend to the other character. Either way,
your character feels a familial bond.

Relationship: Protector
Gain: Target gains +1 fate
Example: This relationship represents a
sense of strong protectiveness. A parent,
a bodyguard or a trusted lady-in-waiting
is examples of a protector. A character
could feel protective of a character they
have only recently met and it does not
need to imply a long history. Never the
less the relationship is strong not merely
a passing sensation.

Relationship: Romance
Gain: Target gains +1 luck point
Example: This relationship covers
everything from long-term marriages to
unrequited love. This is a romance
beyond minor attraction or infatuation
and is unlikely to ever fully leave the
mind of the character.

Relationship: Employee
Gain: $500
Example: This represents any financial
relationship; the character has been paid
and has a job to do. This could be that
your character was paid by the target, or
paid by a third party to watch over the
target or perform some other action.
This relationship also requires a
dedication to reputation and work ethic
that this is a major impact on behaviour.

Relationship: Higher Calling
Gain: 50 Piety
Example: This represents a sense of
divine duty. Perhaps your character
believes the other is a chosen one, or
simply part of a wayward flock. Either
way your character sees their destiny as
dependant on the safety of the target.

Relationship: Life Debt
Gain: +250xp
Example: This represents a deep sense
that the character owes their life to the
target. Perhaps the target saved their
village, spared their life or saved them
personally. This could also represent a
debt that the character feels he owes to
the target’s bloodline, nation or species.
Either way, the character feels an
unshakable debt to the target.

These are only some examples,
feel free to create other relationships
with GM approval, they should always
be generic however to leave room for
both parties to determine exactly what
they mean to each character.

EDIT:The Alternative:

Never had a monster manual

2011-09-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

So I was reading Monsters and Manuals , about making customizing your Orcs. Now, while I like the options there for making weird orcs, at that point I figure they aren't Orcs. They are goatmen or monkey demons or what have you.

Then I started wondering if this might be because I never owned (or used) a monster manual. Eventually I did get a tattered Monster Manual 2 (from 1e) for use with 2e. But I never really did much more than look at the pictures 99% of the time because really: Those monsters are not that useful or common.

No orcs, no goblins, no wolves or centaurs. So I had to make every monster a custom monster. If I am making up all the stats for orcs anyways, turning them into a goatman is really not any easier than just making a goatman (who I use far more often than orcs come to think of it). However if I had been used to having a set of stats and templates for orcs it probably would have been easier. Looking at how monsters are handled in Neoclassical Geek Revival, I wonder how much it is influenced by having to make my own damn monsters.

Nothing I can add to this:

2011-09-21T09:49:00.001-07:00

The Foreword

2011-09-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

So, I have had some fun gaming with various people out in the interblogs and running some Neoclassical Geek Revival games, so I thought I would take a moment to handle some questions about how the game works. I can then post the sections and spend time discussing them. So please feel free to post questions here, through email or on G+.

From Neoclassical Geek Revival:
*

Foreword
Hello reader, and welcome to Neoclassical Geek Revival (NGR). NGR is a
fantasy heartbreaker RPG; it does what you would expect out of a traditional fantasy roleplaying
game. While NGR will work as a complete game I have no doubt it will rarely
be played as such; This game is designed expecting that you will most likely see things in
this game you would like to remove and plug into your own game rather than playing it
whole cloth.
This game is designed to simulate low magic fantasy, but most mechanics are
equally at home in a science fiction, action or post-apocalyptic game. The rules are
designed to be as setting neutral as possible while solving commonly held gripes and bad
tropes. In the writing of this game I used the following as guiding principles:
1.) Funny dice are fun on their own merits
2.) Choices to make are better than problems to solve
3.) You are already familiar with role playing games
4.) You are not looking for gritty realism, but do enjoy the presence of the ‘fourth wall’
5.) Gaming is meant to be entertainment

Where to Look
This book is (rightly or wrongly) laid out in the order you would require it during
a game. Basic mechanics up front, followed by rules for character creations,
adventuring, rewards and finally the end of the game night awards and rules for character
death and retirement.

Minecraft: Where quantum ogres breed

2011-09-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

All of this talk of quantum ogres has gotten me thinking about minecraft. Either that or the 1.8 adventure update that consumes my free time like fire to tinder. My game design extends beyond RPG's to pretty much any game if I play it long enough, once I start finding what I consider flaws I feel an incessant need to fix them. Why not play a game that does what you want? Pssh, that's a lazy way out.

So minecraft 1.8 has new features, one of which is the "stronghold", a massive underground dungeon complex hidden "somewhere" but only once per world. The stronghold is in effect a quantum ogre. But this doesn't bother people. They have no choice, the world generates as they explore it. Left, Right, North, or South; it doesn't matter. The stronghold is equally likely to appear no matter where you go and you have no idea or way to discern clues (really) about what type of terrain it will be in. It will be where it is.

But no one cares, people still hunt for the stronghold even if it is just picking a direction and walking in a line. Why? because exploring the stronghold will be fun to explore, because you know it is out there somewhere. It may be destiny that you will run into it somewhere, but you don't care. Part of this is because you know the rules ahead of time. You know there will be a stronghold, stumbling across it is just part of the game.

Such is part and parcel of the quantum ogre. Illusionary player agency is only a problem if players don't know that is the way the game is played. If people all know and are cool with it, then go for it. In my case, planning story lines seems like work. I like to force the players to be the story tellers, I am just the referee.

I don't like coffee

2011-09-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

I came to this unfortunate conclusion a while ago. I just don't like coffee. Now this may seem odd, I used to think I loved coffee. I drink 8 to 10 cups a day, I am drinking a large coffee right now..THIS VERY SECOND. But I dislike coffee.

I realised this because I now have access to a far wider range of coffee's and I notice I do not like "bold" coffee's, I tend to gravitate to mild flavoured coffees. I don't like my coffee to taste like coffee...I want it to taste like something else. I should have realised earlier since I like to add cream and sugar to my regular donut shop coffee. I like everything about drinking coffee: the routine, the warmth, the caffeine, the cream and sugar, everything except the actual coffee.

You may have noticed this is tagged as game design at this point and start to wonder why. The fact is that this very much describes my relationship with AD&D. I love playing AD&D, I just don't like AD&D. I feel the constant need to improve upon the "flavour", be it less bold blends, cream and sugar or even flavour shots. I love everything about the game other than the game itself.

So, with your own house rules: How much of it is the fact that despite being an avid coffee drinker (and hell or high water you aren't going to stop drinking coffee), you just don't care for the taste of coffee?

Calculate your own damn XP

2011-09-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

One thing that struck me at my home game over the weekend was that I was holding onto a little bit of tradition that no longer really was needed. I was still "handing out the XP".

Back in the day, when I ran a D&D game this was rather necessary as each monster had their own really unique XP value. Not to mention how to handle XP for unknown magic items and the like.

Neoclassical Geek Revival doesn't work that. XP is pretty easy to chug through.

- XP for travelling through harsh terrain? A simple block per week and the players know exactly how dangerous the terrain is (they had to make the roll to suffer injuries while travelling!)

- XP for reaching locations? This is lump sum based on how unknown and mysterious the area is. This is a fairly easy lump to hand out and if there is any real debate they can ask or work out consensus.

- Monster's give XP based on their notoriety normally, if there is real question over if this is a local menace or a regional terror they can ask, but they probably knew before they hunted it down. (THE monster is worth more XP than A monster).

- XP for defeating a character? 10% of opponent's XP if killed, 25% if captured. If they don't know the level they can ask and they would find out pretty quickly either way once they get the XP for them.

Etc Etc,

Granting XP from on-high is an old tradition but I am thinking it may be time to let the players just calculate it themselves based on their actions. If they forget something they did that was worth XP (and they aren't new to the game) then it obviously didn't matter to them.

Anyone else out there let players calculate their own XP or am I just becoming a lazy GM?

ConstantCon Game: Monday September 12th

2011-09-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

September 12th at 6pm Eastern or Midnight Berlin Time.

Levels 1-3 for Neoclassical Geek Revival Characters.

Finishing up excavation of the ancient elven aerodrome and West Africa.

The Star Diamond: A Lovecraftian entity

2011-09-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

My local game group had been trying to figure out what to make of something. In this post-apocalyptic setting the world ended in the age of enlightenment about a century ago. The PC's have left their isolated Amish mountain community and ventured into an abandoned town, in there (after some other things) they plan to use it to settle the area as for other reasons it had been semi-maintained.

There was also a barricaded and partially collapsed museum. Initially routing through it, they found it intact with its exhibits still intact. Moving into the back however they found a barricade of furniture and rubble. Starting to root through the rubble they found something terrifying: A baby.

Now they knew this was in fact not a human baby, but sensing an opportunity to adhere to trope and take extra risk for style (and thus gain a tonne of awesomeness points for a shot at some re-rolls) one of the players instantly adopted the baby and took it from the museum, setting up a nursery in the quote "creepiest looking house I can find, ideally one with a rusted swing set in its yard".

Further investigation found the back rooms (past the rubble) to be haunted with ghosts of the dead. Various professors who dabbled in the black arts and had been attending to their interns rather than their study, passing off translation work on strange artifacts to new students. The hallways looked like a high powered thrasher went down the central hall, busting out of the restoration area. After assembling the fragments of a set of tablets, and deducing how they fit together (hint: its a 3d map and is a straight rip-off from "Contact", the only good thing from that awful movie..the alien looks like her dad? screw you, I want my money back".) They saw it was a ritual to summon something called a star diamond.

Time goes by and they decide after communing with some powerful magical beings to attempt to use a version of Detect Magic to see the babies true form. It was as expected, not a baby at all.

A Star Diamond is a very large (often at least bowling ball sized) crystal being composed of diamond. It has no limbs, being perfectly symmetrical. It is however orbited by a number of other smaller diamonds. This creatures has the ability to float and levitate, containing a wide stretch of seemingly telekinetic magical powers, as well as a great control of illusions and charms.

Physically it is tremendously resistant to physical damage, being a solid diamond. Its ability to lash out with its orbiting diamonds to lacerate can kill a large number of creatures very quickly.

The star diamond doesn't seem particularly violent as long as it is undetected, but it reacts with lethal efficiency when it thinks it has been exposed.

While its charm fell against most of the party with some saves, its new "parent" went full tilt to protect (though attempting to subdue other PC's as they were not under mind control) it in a bid for even more awesome points, forcing the party to subdue the character (and making their life harder), while the Star Diamond escaped.

Its utterly alien, as are its motives.

An honest question about getting reviews

2011-09-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

One thing I have often wondered is how many people actually read anything they find on-line that is longer than a few pages long. Given the reluctance most players would have to reading even a two page hand-out on a games setting I have my doubts that it is a great number. This became more central to my focus today after reading the Hill Canton's from yesterday.

So I wanted to ask a question and I am hoping to get honest answers that will hopefully be useful to all content generators looking for feedback.

What would it take to get you to read and review a setting, module or game?

Please be as descriptive as possible in the blurb about page counts etc. Cash? Swag? Artwork? Quid Pro Quo (you review my stuff I review yours) etc. If so how much? $0.10/page? etc etc. Saying something like "I will review anything that interests me!" isn't too helpful, what would it take then to get you to review something RPG related you didn't really have an opinion of?

Knowing what it would take to get the average RPG blog reader to not only read, but to review an item would be very useful if people are looking to get feedback (for improvements, or ego, why doesn't matter to me for this exercise).

ConstantCon Game - Tonight

2011-08-31T07:14:00.001-07:00

6pm EST , Midnight Berlin Time.. Last reminder!

How to be a better GM

2011-08-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago Noism's started a little project to help people be a better GM. EDIT: I am apparently quite ignorant, apparently it is CKutalik. This immediately lead to Alexis decrying such an endevour as garbage. To a degree he was right, a few tidbits won't help you be a better GM.

But then Alexis came out with something brutally honest, he has no idea to be a better GM. This is a good start. Often Alexis has railed about people not "getting it", and often this is when people are trying to help him (or at least in my case) be a better GM by looking at the problem with a proper critical mindset.

In this case, deciding what is a "better" GM. That is the most important step and the hardest for people to do. This sounds easy, but let me explain.

The first thing you have to do is decide what your goal is. Often people jump in "To ensure people have fun!", Stuart has famously pointed out the illogical nature of that question. The point of games is usually fun. That isn't quite it though (at least from my point of view). The problem I have with that viewpoint is that people don't truly accept that as their goal. They draw an artificial line and say "The point is to have fun, while playing an RPG in the following manner". That doesn't work, if the goal is "to have fun" take the basic consideration of playing an RPG out of this. Would you and your group have more fun playing Super Smash Brothers? If so play that. Fun is pretty vague and encompasses a large area.

I started with a different objective when working on Neoclassical Geek Revival. My goal was "Keep 4-6 people actively thinking for an entire evening with as little downtime as possible". I now had a goal and could objectively become better at being a GM. I have not found a better method to do this than an RPG, so then I started customizing the RPG to meet those needs. Each change is weighed against "does this keep people actively thinking for a longer period of the game". I will often go through several sub-questions that lead me back to this statement: "Does this reduce downtimes between players", "does this let everyone participate in the encounter", "does this encourage creative thinking", or "does this encourage decisions over problems".

Am I a great GM? Probably not. But now with each tip I read, and each thought I have, I can now see if I am becoming a better or worse GM and why. A consistent problem I see in rules development or GM techniques is failure to ask "Why?", and then when getting an answer to ask "Why?" again until you get back to your goal. If you can't get back to your goal by asking "Why?" like a precocious toddler then you are not becoming a better GM.

Do you have a goal with GMing? If so, post it below and then periodically look back at the game you just ran and start weighing your actions against that goal.

Rise of the MakerBot and the death of the miniatures industry

2011-08-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

Looking at my own ability to publish a book, made me think of the death of large scale publishing. The number of big publishers is dying and I think a good portion of it is the ability of people to publish to PDF in unlimited numbers for basically $0. Anyone can take that PDF and go to their local Staples/Kinko's and have the book of their choice, no matter how obscure. The finer details of this democratization of print in the RPG industry (a different thing than the RPG hobby) aren't what I am looking to get into.

What I am thinking about is the upcoming unfortunate death of the miniatures industry. 3D home printing is at its infancy, its actual use at this point is pretty slim. But, for our own little commercial perspective it may have a big impact.

1.) The MakerBot is at a price point that a tech early adopter could afford one in their own home

2.) The RPG market has a large overlap with the tech early adopter market

3.) The MakerBot is really only useful for making small static plastic statues

4.) That is a miniature.

I can very quickly see someone starting to make their own custom plastic miniatures for games like Warhammer or Warhammer 40k where the miniatures are EXPENSIVE (I have a large Genestealer Cult, Orc/Goblin and Ork armies in hibernation) making their own miniatures that are iconic. "Look at my custom Chaos Daemon Prince"! and then someone will put the electronic file on-line and others will make their own copies. Then someone will make a 3-d scan of some trademark miniatures, illegal or not, and a whole counterfeit market will open up. How will you tell a real plastic ork from a MakerBot plastic ork after 3 layers of acrylic paint?

So how long do you think before the miniature market collapses from $10 for a plastic dwarf to $5 for a template file made by a hobbyist on RPG now?

URUTSK - Get it and you'll get it

2011-08-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

So one of the blogs I have always had fun reading is Timeshadow's blog "The Grand Tapestry". It has featured fairly heavily a game and setting "URUTSK: World of Mystery". Many of you who read me no doubt also read her blog.

Perhaps also like me you had always been a little confused about the nature of her game. I would read her posts and get bits of understanding about specific mechanics, and little "factoids" about her setting.. but the term "World of Mystery" was pretty apt. I couldn't quite get my head around the entire setting. It had a very Tekumel vibe to me, not in the specific's (I've never played Tekumel) but in the familiar story about how daunting it appears to jump into said setting.

She has recently been running G+ games and was kind enough to send me a little info packet and listen in to a game in progress. After reading the sampler in full and then actually listening to the game play it finally clicked. Many of the finer setting points still elude me, but not to a point I wouldn't be able to play.

If there is anyone else who was like me that just couldn't quite plug the pieces and mechanics together I would suggest the following analogy of the feeling I got. Still some Tekumel for the level of detail and depth of the setting, but throw in the vibe you get from some Planet of the Apes, Plymouth Rock and Cadillac and Dinosaurs, mixed with a hefty dose of hard sci-fi. I would not describe it in any way as a "Gonzo" setting, though I have no doubt you could run it as such. If you did run it as a "Gonzo" setting like Thundarr I think you would lose a lot from it. Listening to it played straight was pretty inspiring, all of the little touches (like naming) really bring it together as a very immersive setting.

If you get the opportunity to play in a game I would highly recommend it.

Ordering Neoclassical Geek Revival

2011-08-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

So you want to get one of the shiny hard cover copies of Neoclassical Geek Revival but you missed out on the original printing (now sold out)? Well I can still make additional printings, or at the very least you may have a complimentary PDF of the rules.

If I receive serious interest of at least 10 interested parties I will make another run. This will be the same high quality hard cover binding with gold stamp, silk ribbons and linen pages. It will also have an additional stamping on the front cover. High quality is a must on my part.

I am Canadian so I cannot run a kickstarter, instead I shall rely on an honour system. If you wish a copy, please post a comment here and email me at liberinterdico (from google's mail provider). When I receive your email I will immediately send you a PDF, whether or not enough interest for a second printing occurs.

Books will continue to be available at cost (about $28 CDN) and shipping on top of that (usually about $12 CDN in North America).

The quick start rules and Character Sheet can be downloaded at Pen and Paper Games

Conan the Barbarian, A movie review about a great movie

2011-08-23T05:36:00.001-07:00

So the title may be a little biased here, but after expecting all this gloom and doom about the movie I thought this was going to be garbage.

The movie was great! I mean seriously, its a great little action flick with some descent fantasy elements, maybe a bit TOO much nudity ..but that too has a certain gritty high school charm. I think I can gauge if you will like this movie based on if you liked another movie.

Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman. Did you like this action fest movie? It strayed completely away from the source material to a point where the only similarity was that the character was named Van Helsing and he fought Dracula. He also hunted down Dr.Jekyll and was a Vatican Assassin (we can only assume now, he was also a warlock due to his super age). He teamed up with Frankenstein's monster and became a wolfman to kill Dracula.

AND IT WAS AWESOME!

Maybe its just me, but I don't expect Hollywood to EVER make a faithful recreation of a book. Movies like "The Watchmen" or "Lord of the Rings" are rare, and even then they change major plot points, ones that are in many ways critical to the plot.

So if you are on the fence about Conan due to bad reviews, ask yourself if you liked Van Helsing. If the answer is yes, go see Conan. If the answer was no, then don't.

Down to Last Copy of Neoclassical Geek Revival, if you are interested speak up now.

2011-08-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

If you are interested please click here and follow the instructions (ie, send me an email).

There are a few people who have asked about getting a copy before I put up the post with how to get one. If you are one of those people and would still like a copy at cost + shipping let me know as I am down to my last copy.

How to get programmers to build your game aid

2011-08-19T12:59:00.001-07:00

I was spurred to write this post dealing with a common issue when I read that Alexis over the Tao of D&D has a problem. He wants programmers to build him things but they just don't do it the way he wants. This he see's as a flaw among all graphic designers and programmers.

Shall I tell you first what I hate equally about visual artists and computer programmers? It is quite simple. They are virtually useless to me.

Now, this strikes me as an odd thing to try to pull off to an RPG crowd as both programmers and visual artists are quite heavily represented among RPG players. But the crux comes down to a problem I see all the time as a contract programmer. Best summed up by two contradicting statements:

... and everywhere computer techies are the same. You have to beat them and beat them to make them produce what you want them to produce ... and even then it doesn't work.

SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT HOW YOU THINK IT SHOULD WORK. In this particular case, given that you don't know a fucking thing about what I'd like to do with this environment, just make it work like I want it to work.

In this particular case, I am going to write the music. You're just going to play it.

Hey, it won't be that hard. Musicians play music written by other people all the time.

Did you catch the problem?

When you get a musician to play a song you wrote. You have to write it as sheet music.

You can't hand a musician something like the following:

Yet.. this is what programmers tend to get. Sheet music contains a ton of technical detail about how EXACTLY you want the musician to perform the music. You don't write "A really high note" or a "really low note" or "really fast". You put specific notes, specific timing. You specify exactly what you want within the allowable framework (ie, no making up new notes).

If a musician tries to play along and perform a scribbled napkin of noise and poorly communicated gibberish, it will end up as Alexis is forced to deal with:

... and everywhere computer techies are the same. You have to beat them and beat them to make them produce what you want them to produce ... and even then it doesn't work.

It won't work; it won't be like you envisioned (if its even possible at all), and it will be garbage.

Like sheet music for a musician there are specifications for code and applications you can provide to a developer. Learn them or learn to trust their interpretation of what you want. If they don't do what you want it may not be that they don't understand, it may be that you don't understand what you are asking for cannot be done in that manner.

But you may ask, why should I learn to write their technical specs? If you want to design a system and have others build it for you, you must. This is no different then learning to write sheet music if you want to write a song for others to perform.

I mention this because, given my history in the gaming industry, I am often asked for advice (or help) in building gaming applications. If you are serious about building a piece of gaming software you must learn one of three things:

i) How to write software (most difficult and most control over work)

ii) How to write technical specs (middle of both)

iii) How to deal with a developer's interpretation of your idea (easiest but most frustrating).

When you are looking to hire a developer you have two choices:

A) Gaming developers as a hobby (Grab bag of competence/passion and limited to no control)

B) Professional developer who probably doesn't care about gaming (able to select competence VS price ratio, and contractually obligated control). Note that option 2 is expensive. If someone provides better service than what you can get for free (which could be quite high in quality), they charge out the nose. They will almost certainly charge more per hour than you earn (statistically) and are unlikely to cut you any slack.

This information I imagine is useful to any trades person you are seeking (including Illustrators I would imagine, but any readers who do graphic work can correct me or write their own post for how to choose an illustrator, I will link it here).

I highly recommend you think about this before starting the next Obsidian Portal. This something that comes up a lot, not just in RPG circles but in anything creative (not just artistic, but new business ventures as well). This is something you need to understand before you invest money in development work.

And yes, I will build your game aide for you. I will do so as option B. If I am willing to work as option A, I will find you and offer to work on your awesome idea (and that does happen). Please don't assume an entire trade is incompetent, that is almost never the case and definitely not for one that needs results for pay.

Plugging someone else's stuff

2011-08-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

The video makes me laugh horribly, I love the voice.

Next ConstantCon game

2011-08-17T14:11:00.001-07:00

I will be GMing a Neoclassical Geek Revival game at 11:30pm Berlin time/5:30 pm Eastern Standard this Thursday. Bring a 1st-3rd level PC and I can be reached under the name Liber Interdico at Gee Mayl dawt calm.

Here is the quickstart:

http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/showthread.php/20285-Neoclassical-Geek-Revival

Here is the FLAILSNAILS quick conversion:

http://zzarchov.blogspot.com/2011/08/converting-characters-tofrom.html

Excavating Colonial Elven ruins in Faux Africa

Acquiring a copy of Neoclassical Geek Revival

2011-08-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

There are currently 3 extra copies of Neoclassical Geek Revival from the 0ed printing. That is all there will ever be in that printing. Future printings will be slightly different with an extra stamping.

If you would like a copy of Neoclassical Geek Revival (and are serious about it) post a comment here listing your interest and then send me an email (liber interdico at google's email service, I trust you can figure that out).

I am selling them at cost as I am not interested in making a buck off this.

If there is interest greater than the three remaining 0edition books, I will make another printing once at least 15 people sign on. Should some massive economy of scale allow me to get lower prices than was charged to people, I will take any profits and dump them in the nearest Tim Horton's Camp Foundation box. This may seem very lax and unprofessional, but I am not interested in having a profession in the RPG industry, this is purely a hobby to me.

If you would like a copy of the PDF to either go with the rules or to preview, email me as well.

Converting Characters to/from Neoclassical Geek Revival in FLAILSNAILS games

2011-08-16T09:52:00.001-07:00

Neoclassical Geek Revival is highly compatible with most other standard FRPG's. But if you are just jumping in on a pickup game with a FLAILSNAILS character here are some things to note:

D&D = NCGR

--------------------

Strength = Strength

Dexterity = Agility

Constitution = Health

Intelligence = Intelligence

Wisdom = Awareness (closest fit)

Charisma = Social

?(put a 10) = Luck

?(put a 10) = Spirit

HP = Luck Points (This just makes it explicit that you are avoiding the hit rather than soaking it)

Negative HP (ie till you die) = Body Points, Physical damage. Close enough.

For ease of writing these are switched order

NCGR = D&D

------------------------

Attack Modifier = Whatever bonus you get "to hit", ThAC0 is 18? thats 2 above starting so +2

Defense Modifier = Any bonus to AC for shields, high agility, and whatever your attack bonus is.

Damage Reduction = Do you separate out Armour bonus from shield or agility bonus? Its that.

Presence = Are you a bard? Its what your attack bonus would be as a fighter. Not a bard? Its 1/3rd your level. Add your Charisma bonus (if that exists in your system).

Stealth Modifier = Couple of options. If you are not a thief, its 1/3rd your level. Are you "Thief Like", ie a bard or ranger or something? 2/3rd your level. Are you a thief? Either its your level, or take the average bonus for thief skills (if its a %, then +1 per 5%) and that is your stealth mod. Add your wisdom bonus if your system has one.

Spells!

NCGR has alternate spell systems so just use yours.

If you don't have anything to cram in "?" consider them 10.

Specific things to Neoclassical Geek Revival:

Fate Points: These can be cashed in to re-roll a die, or regain some Luck Points (ie HP). Think of them like Benny's. You get them by being awesome.

Saving Throws: You have to declare you are doing something to get a saving throw. Could be as simple as "I Look away", or "I jump out of the way". If your system has more formalized saves just pick one that is most appropriate.

Lucky Number: Pick one between 1 and 20. If you roll it on a d20 announce it.

Its arriving at peoples homes now!

2011-08-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

So first off I want to warn anyone who still hasn't gotten their copy, that this post is full of spoilers that may ruin the excitement of you receiving your book. Stop reading now if you want the surprise.

So, Time for Spoilers!

So at long last Piecemeal has been released. Its fully functional and edited, formatted and all the rest as best as a one man show can work it. As such it was time to drop its working title of "Piecemeal".

Please welcome "Neoclassical Geek Revival"! Shown below in a glorious action shot!

Because I am going to be honest here. It is probably going to just sit on your gaming shelf, and I am cool with that. I just want it to look as damn nice on your gaming shelf as possible, here are a few more shots.

I want to note why I decided to go with the physical construction I did. This is an heirloom quality book. This is gold stamped tanotex hardcover. Each copy has a silk ribbon and banding to act as bookmark. There is no colour in the book, it is purely gray scale. The artwork inside only acts as title pages and contains classic works. I did not choose Public Domain work because it was free, I picked them because they evoked a timeless image (at least to me) that went with the gaming I like. There are works from Dorre, Waterhouse, Rackham, DaVinci, and others among the artwork. The pages themselves are printed on a sturdy linen, both the durability and because of the tactile feel. Quite frankly I wanted something nice for a book, not just nice for an RPG.

This is a book that will hold up through the years, and will look great doing so. If you are going to buy another game to just sit on your shelf: buy a game that will look GOOD on your shelf.

I also went with this aesthetic because I have the style of my grandparents. I like styles that have proven themselves through more than one generation and look just as impressive now as then. RPG books (as the OSR community can attest) will be kept and used for decades, I didn't want something that would look tacky 10 years from now when art styles change. When I partake in "Read an RPG book in public week" I want to hold a book that oozes class. I want to hold a book that looks like I am a self-absorbed philosopher out to impress gullible university students. Not because I am actually smarter or better than anyone, but because I want to show absolutely without a doubt, that this is not just a child's game. This to me is a book that says "I don't care how dorky you thought this was in High School, this is an adult hobby played by successful professionals, war heroes, mothers, fathers, grandparents and a whole pile of other pillars of the community and they are allowed to have nice things".

Is this secret gamer shame or wrath? Probably, but bite me. There is a very large portion of the population that see's RPG players as these guys and it impacts peoples careers and livelihoods when they get pigeonholed into these false stereotypes. If you think I am really out to lunch, wander over to the escapist and tell him to pack it up since his work is done.

In the mean time I feel I have at least done my part, I have made a book that if nothing else looks nice. Other people have made games available in nice professional bindings like this before, this isn't groundbreaking. What I am doing however is ONLY releasing Neoclassical Geek Revival in this style. There will be PDF's, released with the incredibly impossible to police requirement that you not make a hard copy. For physical releases of this book, I intend only to have high quality books made.

I guess I am just elitist.

Here is one last shot for scale!

Pets and working animals in RPG's

2011-08-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

Now this is a topic I have touched on briefly before but two of my favourite bloggers are discussing the issue lately (Zak and Noisms) and I thought I would chime back in on what I consider an important gaming topic.

The main issue in a game like D&D is that dogs become utterly useless pretty quickly and die too easily. Is this any different than people? Well that depends...

I believe in using Mythic Animals

So why can't a dog gain levels and have a class? Don't just go right to "Warrior" either. In my most recently completed campaign one of the bard's had a dog for one of his henchmen. The dog was part priest. It would howl and bay to drive off the undead, a turn undead (equivalent) in a party with no cleric was quite useful.

It shouldn't be hard to picture a dog Paladin, I mean..all dogs do go to heaven. What about a dog ranger or druid? A heroic level 7 dog shouldn't be beyond the realm of imagination either. What real logic could you apply to a human (hairless ape) gaining increased power and levels that you could not apply to a dog.

And don't leave this to just dogs, perhaps look to Lovecraft and have a kingdom of cats. Mr.Whiskers is an NPC just itching for use after all. And who wouldn't like a high level horse?

ConstantCon Game - Tonight

2011-08-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

Short Notice: Is anyone interested in playing as part of ConstantCon this evening at 6:30pm Eastern Standard Time? 12:30:00 p.m Berlin Time. Being sent the quick start rules to first dice rolls of the adventure should be 15 minutes or less.

A shift in the flow of a river starts to lower a bogs water level (just go with it). Local looters have set up shop in the local frontier village on rumours of sunken treasure and long buried tombs. Which is great because you have some debts that need paying..now..

Books are in the mail!

2011-08-10T08:09:00.001-07:00

By route of the cheapest method possible: Canada Post.

They will arrive, eventually. So let me know when these things get dumped on your doorstep.

ConstantCon Game - Tonight

2011-08-10T07:55:00.001-07:00

Short Notice: Is anyone interested in playing as part of ConstantCon this evening at 5:30pm Eastern Standard Time? 11:30:00 p.m Berlin Time. Being sent the quick start rules to first dice rolls of the adventure should be 15 minutes or less.

A shift in the flow of a river starts to lower a bogs water level (just go with it). Local looters have set up shop in the local frontier village on rumours of sunken treasure and long buried tombs. Which is great because you have some debts that need paying..now..

Additional Copies Available

2011-08-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

Just a note, to hit the next bulk order bracket I ordered 4 additional copies. So if anyone wants a copy who has not already ordered one please let me know. Failing that I will probably give a few promo copies to the ones going out to the stores.

Books are in from the Binders Early!

2011-08-09T10:34:00.001-07:00

I'll be putting out some photos and mailing things off soon. Still haven't cracked the box so hopefully all is well.

Edit 1)

Got a chance to open the box and look in, fantastic. Oh sure I noticed a few technical things I would improve in future printings dealing with things I was completely ignorant off (paper grain, ink heat tolerances etc) but its overall great. So far I am still getting feedback on if people want pictures or to be surprised until they receive them (or at least a few days after I mail them out).

Edit 2)

Signed copies ready for mailing tomorrow.

Tempest in a Teapot 2: Tao Edition

2011-08-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

Now Alexis over the Tao of D&D has an interesting take on something I said in regards to a post over at The Grand Tapestry. Specifically in regards to an interview with Harlan Ellison in which he rants about people who offer work (in this case writing) for nothing and in doing so devalue his own work in the field.

This is something I am personally familiar with as I work in computer code. The number of volunteers doing open source work or free (garbage) coding for some start up doomed to fail causes the same problems, best exemplified by this hilarious post. Similar situations are encountered by anyone who does for a career what others dabble in as a hobby. Artists know this, sex workers know this, writers know this, game developers know this, sport players know this, and everyone applying for a job someone else is willing to intern for knows this. And those working in the industry always have this inane need to rant about how people need to stop donating work and charge for it so that everyone can get fair value. “Stop posting art for free on DeviantArt!”, “Stop submitting to periodicals for free!”, “Don’t put your amateur porn on the internet!”, “Don’t release your OSR rules for free!”, “Don’t play on the company baseball team for free!” and “demand pay as an intern!”. All of it is garbage by people who don’t understand the nature of the trade they are in. If you are in one of these jobs you need to understand that people donate work because they want something other than money. Developers love to tinker, writers want to write one immortal work (money be damn), amateur porn stars get a thrill of exhibitionism and interns want to pad their resume.

Deal with it or find a career no one wants to do for free. Its part and parcel of the trade and no one is going to pay you for what others will do (and often better) for free. I get paid quite handsomely for my developer work and contractor work because I am damn good at what I do. I also lucked out and met the right contacts. If you aren’t lucky or skilled and usually both then you need to find a new trade if you want to make money. Just because some people get paid for baseball doesn’t mean I should get paid for being in the junior rec league. If I am not good enough to make it to the big leagues I am getting jack shite. If you write some Kirk/Dr. Who fan-fiction don’t expect a pay check. Also know that even if you write really good Kirk/Dr. Who fiction that the number of people writing crappy Kirk/Dr. Who fan-fiction will depreciate the demand (and thus price) for your work. If you can’t hack it find a different career path.

The second most irritating part? Alexis himself points this same issue out over at his other blog the Pegasus Rider “ I have long said about agents that the reality is that you have to be the married spouse of some brother or sister of the Agent's girlfriend or bookie. That's how it seems to work. I've had some very nasty dealings with agents over the last fifteen years and except for really needing one, I really hate that I really need one.”

The most irritating part?

“But nothing tops the truly stupid comment left by Zzarchov, which I want to be sure I copy here so he can't delete it there. Here it is in its entirety:”

The assumption that I would try to skulk off and hide my words like a coward. Alexis may consider himself a coward, but I find it distasteful the implication I am one.

He also points out often “miss the point”, which I will use this post to make clear my position on that since it is unlikely he would allow me to comment further on his post. I do get the points he is often trying to make, I also realise its often wrong. Case in point his long rambling post about how guns wouldn’t exist, completely ignoring an important fact. It is bullshit. Alexis does not want guns because he declared with GM fiat “No Guns” even though in even a pseudo historical world they would exist. Without guns and artillery the time period he purports to play in and be an expert in (demanding our respect on the matter) would be so radically different (from everything involving military organizations to the architecture of new towns) as to be unrecognizable unless you just flat out say “Guys I don’t want guns in my campaign, can we roll with it?”. Which is a fine answer, but just say the real answer instead reacting with such indignation if we call shenanigans on his flawed reasoning on why guns shouldn’t exist.

I don’t care for his implication that I said people shouldn't be paid for good work, as I charge for good work and pay (or offer to) others for their good work. Those who have worked with me can attest to this. What I don’t charge for is garbage. Notice how my RPG is free? Physical copies are sold at cost because my work in the rules and layout and public domain art has no real value. Now future versions have better layout, but that work isn’t mine but someone I received help from (and offered a sizeable sum of cash for said help).

Should Alexis be paid for his work? His economic system seems to be built with a great deal of skill, millions of lines of calculations by his estimate. Let’s compare that to my economic system shall we?

“So just how much is a gold coin worth? If 2 gold coins buy a nice dagger that’s fine, but is a gold coin a lot of money or not?

To answer this question, all prices are displayed in ‘$’ giving an approximate modern day comparison how much that is to an average person. If you are trying to think of the price of an item on the fly, compare it to a modern equivalent device. A horse is much like a car, a draft horse like a transport truck. A dagger might be closer to a handgun, a sword an assault rifle.”

Should I expect money for this? God no. Should Alexis expect payment for his system? He thinks so and I agree. His economic system took skill and effort; mine took 10 minutes and hand waving. But I think any implication that I should not release my work because it will negatively impact the value of my work is garbage. I don’t want to see people stop the DIY attitude because those up high and mighty declare you shouldn’t release things for free. It is your time and effort, so you can charge what you want for it including nothing. This grates on me as it is not an attack over just RPG's and other (in the grande scheme of things) unimportant matters, but over my professional conduct.

Off to the Binders

2011-08-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Zero Edition of Piecemeal has been shipped off to the binders. In about a week I should be mailing off hard cover copies to those lucky recipients. I also printed off an extra handful to fit into the next order size category and get a discount. It only ended up costing me a few extra bucks when the discount on existing orders was compared against the additional books.

This means I do have a small handful of additional books available if anyone is looking to order one.

Quick Start rules

2011-08-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

To coincide with the print release of Piecemeal I have created a set of quick start rules (still going through edits now) to give a 10 minute start time to the game for a new player. The idea is an informal document under 15 pages where a player can read them, sit down and start to play. Finer details may be lost, but the player can follow whats going on and contribute as long as 1 person has the full rules, ideally the GM.

When the print release does come out, I will be hosting a few games on Google+ if anyone is interested.

A twist on Ghosts

2011-07-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

From Full Frontal Nerdity

But I have a twist on Ghosts,

What if a Ghost doesn't want you to solve it's great unfinished task? Be that its murder or some other crime. What if it LIKES eternal undeath? What if it doesn't want to account for its crimes in life and is pretty happy marauding the town in death.

Perhaps its unstoppable unless you can find and kill the ghost's murderer? The ghost will hinder you because it wants to continue existing and the murderer wants to hinder you because they don't want to die.

But the townsfolk? They sure are in a panic what with the ghost causing a trail of carnage. You'll first have to investigate who the ghost was, then find out who killed them, find said person and take them down. All the while both the ghost is trying to possess your body and a living person is out to kill you.

Just a thought..

Oh what the hell

2011-07-27T14:02:00.001-07:00

Zzarchov Kowolski took the Hardest Gary Gygax Quiz in the World and got 60%!

You are a Gary Gygax Myrmidon. You are mighty in the ways of Gary Gygax. You're probably a First Edition or OD&D player, and I wouldn't be surprised if you had an original copy of the Chainmail rules.

Paladin Code: You completed this quiz without using Google.

Small print run coming early

2011-07-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

So my time table for my initial small print run has been bumped up. I will thus probably print a smaller print run (most likely with a few kitschy errors). This will be a very limited 0ed printing. Future printings will each be more edited than the last. This is because of a limited time offer with the binder.

If you would like to get a copy of this at cost let me know. I can pretty much guarantee that even if this sits on your shelf gathering dust, it will look good doing it.

Unrelated Note: The growing madness

2011-07-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

So as of Sunday the stars have aligned and a great plague will soon be unleashed.

I have now acquired Arkham Horror and every single expansion (including the new Miskatonic Horror). This takes up more than 2 dining room tables to set up. The number of tokens and bits is staggering; the sheer number of special rules and scenarios is mind bending. This will be the greatest horror ever wrought when I sit down to go through the entire thing.

Results will be posted.

One of the upcoming changes in the PDF and Hardcover versions of Piecemeal

2011-07-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of a teaser as I work on the next release of Piecemeal, which will be in both hardcover and pdf format.

One thing I have always wanted to differentiate between in terms of Thief/Rogue/Specialist skills and basic adventuring skills is climbing. Specifically the difference between scaling a brick wall with your finger nails and climbing up a rocky crag or heck even a tree. We have all seen (or heard of) games where the GM either stops anyone without the "Climb" skill from climbing a small tree, or where anyone can climb anything, except the thief/rogue/specialist often has to make a roll where no one else does.

Thankfully the modern lexicon has brought awareness of Parkour and Free Running. So I decided to hell with it, I would make it bluntly obvious. The Rogue power "Climbing" is being upgraded/generalist to "Parkour". While I realize Parkour is a newer invention it does serve as a good explanation of the general theme. When the character races across rooftops, scampers up brick walls and otherwise moves quickly in a way that the bumbling guards have trouble following.

The rules for this will include the current rules for climbing walls, but improved to also allow rooftop races. As always this will not be an activity all classes cannot be involved with, merely an activity that the rogue with this power is much better at.

Stirring the Pot: Heartbreak and Heroines (A rant)

2011-07-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

First off, I base my knowledge off the Kickstarter page, specifically this passage:

Heartbreak & Heroines is a fantasy roleplaying game about adventurous women who go and have awesome adventures -- saving the world, falling in love, building community, defeating evil. It's a game about relationships and romance, about fairy tales and feminism.

You play a fantasy heroine (or hero, if you prefer) whose heart has been broken. She's experienced some loss so great that she's taken up her sword, her tome, her staff, or her wand and walked away from her place in society -- by becoming one of its defenders, fighting back the darkness that endangers everyone.

That is all I know for certain beyond seeing some people gripe about it, or praise it. It is being dubbed as "feminism" and "empowering to women". To me it seems like a cheap gimmick and causing controversy by dubbing about "feminism". Nothing in the post makes it seem at all feminist. The rules description I saw implied a nifty dice mechanic that really doesn't make Gender important. The heartbreak and heroines bit seems an obvious throw back to D&D (much like Mazes and Monsters etc). That is fine if a bit tacky, I don't see calling it "Heartbreak and Heroines" as inherently feminist, I guess the assumption is that specifically referencing a "Heroine" rather than "Hero" is feminist. I don't myself see why "Hero" should be the assumed default. As the blurb itself states you can also play a hero, it was just picking one gender version of the term for simplicity.

So what is it about this that is "feminist"? Are women less enthralled by the motivations present in D&D and more enthralled than men by heartbreak as a motivator? I personally don't see it, it kind of seems to be enforcing gender stereotypes (Men hate emotional motivations, women don't like aggressive sport style dominance power struggles, Romantic Comedies are correct! Men like bacon and women like fruit salad!).

Now don't get me wrong, this type of game itself (the motivations etc) will appeal to a lot of people, but of both genders. It will also seem dull to a lot of people, of both genders. This could end up being a very feminist game, but thus far I am not seeing it. I see a concept for a potentially good game mind you, just nothing that actually involves gender politics. This reminds me of LotFP in some ways. Controversy as free publicity when I don't think anything really controversial really takes place.

I hope that like LotFP, it ends up as a high quality and successful product.

Who else wants a hard cover copy?

2011-07-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

So the cost per book will be somewhere around $25-30 bucks a pop with my first printing. This will cover everyone who has contacted me already with a few extra copies for me. However if anyone else would like a copy I will ensure you have one at cost + shipping. I am not looking to turn a buck here. If a bunch more orders come in it may drop the price per book down, though I honestly have no idea what kind of demand there really is beyond what I have already budgeted for.

If there is demand for copies of the book after the fact it will be delayed until I can get at least 11 orders in one go (minimum order size to get the best realistic price). If you have serious interest in paying $25-$30 for a book with probably another $8-$10 for shipping: let me know ASAP. All I can promise you with the book is that I love using it, and I am designing it to be a piece of art.

You may notice I am not making a very hard sell, that is largely because when I count in time to get get it printed, mailed off etc., I am taking a loss per book. But I do think you will truly enjoy owning a copy if you do use many of the rules you have found with this site over the years.

Start a business or not?

2011-07-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

So very soon I will be putting out a hard cover copy of Piecemeal. I am not interested in doing this for profit, honestly I could just pick up an extra contract to make more in a weekend than I could ever hope to make with a fantasy heartbreaker.

However I also do wish to make it possible for those who wish a copy to purchase one (including subsequent small printings) to do so. This would require the ability for one to be able to send me money to cover the cost of printing and shipping. I really don't want any extra paperwork than needed (I am not looking to make a profit here) so keeping really detailed accounting records is a headache. I also don't want to use a PoD service like Lulu because I am making this as a piece of art, thus I want to really strongly control how it is printed.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a low key way to handle this? I am Canadian if that matters.

Looking for Character Sheet Designers

2011-07-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

I am moving forward with Piecemeal and getting close to its release and printing. But one thing I do want to get done up is a better looking character sheet. I do have functional character sheets but I would be interested in procuring a nicer looking design. If anyone knows someone I could reach out to, please let me know.

Moving along to the polished release

2011-07-16T05:29:00.000-07:00

So I have put together a rough draft of Piecemeal for editing and final checks. I have gathered all of the artwork I am looking for and gotten quotes for the printing and binding.

My Goal is to have printed a small run of books by early August. There will also be a PDF version of course, as I think that it is both useful and cheap to have Kindles, Kobos or Tablets around the game table. But for a nice luxury I will be printing a small run of hardcovers. If you have interest in acquiring a hardcover copy please let me know.

Achievement Unlocked!

2011-07-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

One of the things I have been working on lately is "Cheevos" , a blatant rip off of video game mechanics. Of course I've also done video game work so I don't see that as a bad thing, as long as you know the impact.

So I have been working on Achievements! These are rewards (currently I am looking at putting out cards) earned by completing various acts. Each Achievement will have a benefit (either one time, expendable or passive), an act required to gain it, a scope, and a set of descriptive tags.

Before I get too deep into the layout of achievements, I should stress the point and it falls onto the last mention, the descriptive tags. Achievements utilize the best in passive aggressive technology to help a GM steer a sandbox campaign into having a theme or tone. Achievements are thus a form of meta gaming without forcing a move into railroad or story gaming (though they can be used in that as well). The Achievements are something laid out to all the players at all times, these don't work if players do not know all of the Achievements and all of the ways to gain them.

Example Achievements:

The Frasier

Benefit: Cash in to re-roll a die

Requirement: Roll a 1 on a d20 where 2+ is success

Scope: Game Session

Tag: Light-hearted OR Epic

The Frasier Crane

Benefit: Once per game, re-roll a d20 result of 1.

Requirement: Roll a 1 on a d20 where a 2+ is success, then re-roll it and get a second 1.

Scope: Character

Tag: Light-hearted

Saviour

Benefit: +1 to all saving throws

Requirement: Have your character sacrifice himself to save the party

Scope: Campaign

Tag: Dark OR Epic

Munchies

Benefit: Cash in to dictate the result of any die roll or set of die rolls.

Requirement: Buy Pizza and/or Beer for the entire table

Scope: Player

Tag: Light-hearted OR Damn Leech Players

So what does this mean? The name is just a title, the benefit is what you gain from the Achievement. The requirement is likewise self explanatory. So we'll dive into Scope.

Scope involves how long a player can keep the benefit. The following are currently planned scopes:

Game Session - Until you leave the table tonight

Character - Until your current character dies

Campaign - Until you switch campaigns

Player - Any time you play under the same GM

Tags are not purely descriptive; they do have an impact. When the GM is trying to run a campaign with a specific theme or tone, he should specify those tones and themes. Only Achievements that match those tones and themes are available (including already awarded Player achievements).

A final note is that Achievements are a first come first serve. If Bob gets "the Frasier" and 20 minutes later Tom achieves the same conditions he gets squat (unless Bob already cashed in the Achievement and put it back in circulation).

What is the goal? Rather than trying to force characters to act in a certain way, you set out a nice spread of carrots for acting in the way you wish. They can ignore them all, but they are there as 'encouragement'. Note these can things that also act as teaching methods for new players. If you want a wilderness exploring adventure for people used to story games, throw down some Achievements for wandering into a new hex, or building an outpost or whatever you wish to expose players used to the "plot-wagon" to.

Thoughts?

Looking for paid playtesters

2011-07-13T07:11:00.000-07:00

Hey there! Are you looking to make a pittance? Sure you are! who doesn't want to use up large amounts of their leisure time on my behalf to acquire an amount of money named after the root word of "pitiful".

I am looking to get a few groups of gamers to give Piecemeal a try as written and report back on what was broken, what was missing and what plain doesn't make sense. If you are interested, and can wrangle a group of players together, please let me know.

Remember..an entire pittance could be yours..all yours!

The Raven: Wizard's Duel

2011-07-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Moving away from an electronic format

2011-07-06T06:53:00.001-07:00

For quite some time, years, I have been publishing piecemeal in an electronic application. This has been due to convenience for use with online games, and the presence of laptops and netbooks at the game table. For my own personal use its been a great success.

However, as technology advancing told me "don't go with a print edition" and "a pdf is not a printed book" so too must I now reverse that decision. I knew this point was coming with Kindles, iPads and other tablets, but what really got me was the Kobo. In the Piecemeal executable I have used black background and a lighter text, since a computer monitor is not a piece of paper. White is blinding as a background. The Kobo's greatest feature however is its ability to change that, they have found a way to make black text on a dull background look like paper. The lighting on the darn thing is perfect, I didn't believe it was one when I first saw it.

And as these things get cheaper and cheaper(the cost of a gaming book itself), I must look at making an e-reader compatible version. When I have that, I will probably make a few print copies as well for the hell of it.

One thing I am learning from this is the amount of "dust bunnies" that have been accumulating throughout the rules. References to things now removed in far flung corners, things I immediately see are clunky and need fixing. I also am remembering how much layout sucks on a pdf or other "page based" system with limits of what fits on a page, of fitting in artwork and the limitations of word 2000 (I don't upgrade some things very often). This is not something I am experienced with at all and I will have to learn a lot of new skills as I go.

So the next release of Piecemeal may be awhile, but I am determined to make it e-reader suitable. I would like to thank Tim over at Gothridge Manor for his help and advice thus far.

Magic Mirrors - Who are you really?

2011-07-04T05:35:00.000-07:00

And now for something completely different:

The newest game I am running has begun with an idyllic valley secluded in the mountains, home to a community of the Amish. These Amish folks retreated here 120 years ago and collapsed the mountain path behind them to avoid an apocalypse. This meant everyone had to play a human (this is a fantasy game).

However I didn't want to straight jacket everyone, combined with I am a jackass. As the valiant heroes explored an elven ruin they came across a room full of mirrors. Now every player knew this was a shitty idea, however: every player also gets rewarded for taking extra risk for style and adhering to trope. This is the benefit of the fate system. But, on to that later.

As they looked into the mirror I asked them a set of questions:

Is your character a red head?

Does your character have green eyes?

Is your character a twin?

What is your character's Magic score modifier?

Does your character have any weird physical quirks?

Does your character have any unique traits (worth 2 points)?

I added up the totals for each person and had them draw from a deck of playing cards, one at a time until they reached a face card (J,Q,K, Joker) or the total number of cards.

If they drew a face card, I checked the list. They were secretly a changeling and upon looking into the mirror they saw their true elven form.

KD: Astral Being

QD: Trickster

JD: Pixie

KS: Troll

QS: Hag

JS: Goblin

KH: Forest Lord

QH: Dryad

JH: Nymph

KC: Ifrit

QC: Marid

JC: Djini

Joker: You are just an illusion, you were never real. If anyone ever stops paying attention to you,or if you are ever alone, you disappear forever.

Two of the players ended up being a elf, one an Ifrit (two cards drawn) and one a Nymph(a single card drawn). But one character, who had to draw 6 cards? nothing.

It was a neat gimmick.

The Morale System: Leadership and Fervor

2011-07-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

One of the other changes made in the latest version is to the two morale related bard and priest powers. More or less their original attempt to make morale more important was ditched and they were rewrote to give a new benefit.

Why? Because I could not get a non-clunky morale system and because players therefore never really got involved in big combats where morale was important. So rather than have two big "Coming Soon!" useless powers I went with more traditional abilities.

The bard's leadership is passing the muster as a kind of "synergy" ability, letting the bard use skills of his followers to give a bonus to his rolls. Not amazing, but strongly useful.

Fervor may be changed again, right now it is adding a fairly high defensive bonus to presence while the priest is nearby. This one of those powers that benefit the whole party so I can see it growing on people as "Reputation" has for bards. Tweaking and better wording to deal with weird cases will be the majority of the changes made.

I do need to find an integrated morale system though, one that uses the same mechanics already in use. To elaborate: I don't want a mechanical quirk where if looking at how they otherwise perform a character should be a great leader, but instead sucks because morale is its own mini-game so to speak.

Expert - also known as a Weapon Specialization and Silver Tongue

2011-06-30T05:38:00.000-07:00

One of the changes made to the Rogue listing of powers was to replace vigilance with Expert. The idea for both is the same, so that when you are spotted in a stealth action you accrue less suspicion (ie, damage).

Vigilance was kind of lame though, impacting the difficulty of critically failing a stealth roll. But the more I thought on it this seemed like a waste of a power (and something I will be, much like with combat, in fact EXACTLY like with combat, basing upon gear). So I took a cue from two successful powers from other classes: Weapon Specialization and Silver Tongue. These allowed the re-roll of damage dice (or influence dice as the case may be), selecting the better result.

So 'Expert' was set to use the same mechanic, however I didn't like the idea of all stealth rolls being equal; I wanted a character to be able to be better at hiding than pick pocketing, or wearing a disguise. The player with the power (much like weapon specialization) could select 1 type of stealth action (including keeping watch, or tracking, etc) per pie piece they have selected in rogue. This allowed them to force the re-roll of a die and choose the better result (lower if they are hiding, higher if they are keeping watch). In the case of conflicting roles (Expert Hider VS Expert Seeker) simply roll one die as normal.

Initial tests went well, though we shall see in extended play.

Cake: Cheese or Beef?

2011-06-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

One of the new "armour tags" added in the last addition is the cake tag. This marks a set of armour as being either cheesecake or beefcake.

This gives a bonus to awesomeness..though...some ..other penalties may apply.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6550847/female-armor-sucks

Oh so witty

2011-06-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

One of the changes made in the last release was to the "Wit" power for Bards. This has always been intended as an ability for a Bard (or someone who is part Bard) to be the wisecracking specialist, or to have the dry cool wit (tm) required to be an action hero.

Mechanically on the roll of a lucky number, the bard got a chance to steal someone else's luck points for their own (think HP drain). It wasn't automatic, but it was useful. The problem became that it was too infrequent for it to ever be to the forefront. It required both the luck of the roll and that the opponent had luck points.

The second problem was the roll of a lucky number also often coincided with gaining an "opportunity attack". This required the use of creative brainpower already, and after the combination of the attack and the opportunity attack would drain the target of luck points before wit could work.

The solution came with the immense satisfaction that came through the priest power "exorcism". This allowed a priest to physically harm supernatural creatures through social conflict as if it was physical damage. It was reliable but not overpowering. And people seemed to love it.

Thus I modelled Wit after exorcism. A bard with this power could now launch social conflict attacks as if they were physical attacks against an opponent. As with exorcism there were criteria: The attacks could only damage luck points and the bard must be in physical combat with the opponent, as the opponent's target. The bard could thus not sit on the sidelines and heckle, nor could the bard taunt an ogre to death, or in any way physically harm someone through speech alone. This seems to be going well in testing as it allows the bard to participate in battles, much as a warriors "trademark item" may give him the credibility to participate in social conflicts in a limited scope.

Making sure everyone at the table has something to do is a prime concern.

Update: Release Piecemeal 1e Beta 2.75

2011-06-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

Updated on June 25th 2011

* Beefcake/Cheesecake tag for armour
* Simplification of weapon tags
* Major Changes to Rogue, Priest and Bard Powers
* Tweak to travel rules
* Changes to "wee folk" species
* Re-organized spells to be in alphabetical order (Waaay overdue)
* Changes to Patron rules
* Additional small tweaks

I will go over some of these changes in more detail shortly.

Give a man a fish VS teaching a man to fish

2011-06-13T16:38:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I do not have as much to post lately as some game design blogs, part of that no doubt is the way I approach game design, and what I choose to write about. While I love reading about this subject, I don't want to give people fish. I want to give people new ways of fishing.

This means that I won't give people a bunch of tables for interesting events, frankly other people can do that far better than I tend to. Gothridge manner recently had a very evocative post on the crossroads (which I will probably use in an upcoming game, I love crossroad lore). I prefer to write a new way to make tables in the first place, or I would if Zak S. hadn't 100% outshone me with his brilliant Vornheim book. Whatever your take on the content might be the mechanical concept is brilliant to me.

But I do wish to assure you I am not dead. I am merely tinkering with a few different mechanical concepts, trying to build a better mousetrap rather than showcase examples of dead mice. Because there are better showmen around with better dead mice to show.

Though I shall re-post some of the greater hits I think this month, hopefully I may yet have some useful surprises ahead.

Grueling Expeditions

2011-05-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

Currently in Piecemeal, when a party travels across the wilderness it takes its toll on them. When the party reaches their destination they are ramshackle and at sub-par effectiveness, often requiring several weeks to recuperate from a similar amount of time in the wilds. But no matter how grueling the terrain they will not (barring exceedingly poor luck) wind up dead just from travel. Damage from travel is primarily thematic. They are grizzled, unwashed, with sprained ankles and the flu. They don't lose a foot to frostbite then fall down a crevasse to their death.

I am unsure if this is good or not, as foreboding terrain can be an adventure element in and off itself. The best sources of XP for Piecemeal are travelling and exploring new locations after all.

To fit with the overall mechanic structure I am considering a two roll system, the first to see if they fail their health check and lose a body point (As normal), the second a die roll to see how many body points they lose.

The problem I see with this is it doesn't really create a 2-axis system that I can think of. You won't have an environment that is "pleasant and idyllic" (say +5 to health check) but also on a major failure deals 1d20 body points in damage, nor an inhospitable hellhole with a -20 penalty to health checks that only deal 1 body point in damage.

The idea I am mulling around to that would be that the penalty only applies if one moves about in the area. If one sets up camp and is more or less stationary then perhaps that would be a solid chance to heal, without the check having a hideous penalty. Still, it seems off.

The next thought was some sort of "knock on effect" based on terrain. You will have some sort of "unfortunate episode" each week of travel.

Once per week roll a d6:

1.) Make a strength check or suffer the environment die of damage
2.) Make an agility check or suffer the environment die of damage
3.) Make a health check or suffer the environment die of damage
4.) Make an awareness check or suffer the environment die of damage
5.) Make a luck check or suffer the environment die of damage
6.) Discard a random item or suffer the environment die of damage

This would also cause regular damage, not a straight body point loss. Thus a player might fail their health check by 10 and lose a body point, then roll a d6. A 2; the environment is a swamp that deals a d4 damage. The situation is quickly rationalized by player and/or GM (whoever thinks quicker with a plausible and rational event) as the character is walking along a raised sandbar and steps on a slick patch of mystery goo, if the character fails their agility check they bash their head for a d4 damage.

I like this because it would give more of a "flavour" and "story" to wilderness travel, but dislike it for the same reason. If the players lead expeditions frequently the same old crap comes up again and again. It just slows things down.

So back I loop, perhaps the first option is the best option? ie, not only does taking the pass through the badlands give -5 to your health check, it also deals a full d4 body points in damage. Taking the river path gives -0 and only 1 point of damage, even if it takes three times as long.

If travel becomes so dangerous, such an arduous part of the adventure, then there should be one class who is better at it. Right now the rogue strikes me as the best fit for two reasons.

1.) Being a shady character means you'll have to move around a lot, even in a city it may mean sleeping on the odd park bench/dirty alley. If your rogue doesn't have this kind of background, don't make this one of your power selections.

2.) The rogue has a spare power. No one is really using "vigilance", it really seems less useful than the other options available.

The power should probably be something along the lines of "roughing it" or "guide" or "frontiersman". The ideal mechanic being a reduction in body points lost due to wilderness travel. Currently I am thinking 1 less lost per milestone, thus an epic hero of legend would take 4 less per failed check. I am also considering upping this to 1 cumulative per milestone, that an epic hero would take 10 less. The caveat being that this only functions while the character is at peak health.

The idea is still just forming in my brain. Right now my weekly game has wrapped up for a weeks of downtime and boardgames. The party reached an appropriate stopping point after a major event, and this allows them time to plan what they want to do next and fill me in on their grand schemes.

NPC for Free:

2011-05-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

In my weekly game I spit out many memorable, and many less than memorable, characters. Some of these are generic enough that you can plunk them into many campaigns. Below is such a character.

On the outskirts of a small fishing village, lies a small sod-roofed cottage. A clay chimney lazily puffs out small amounts of smoke through the roof as a withered old lady draws open the curtains in the lone window, a luxurious pane of glass in this small hovel.

Should any character be able to detect magic, this building will radiate it. If the players approach its rickety wooden door they will have to move through a wild and impromptu herb garden and step over a dead mouse on the doorway. The old woman who answers the door will answer in long rambling, senile manner that seems to go nowhere.

Should the players convince the old lady to allow them in they will see the inside of the hovel. The floor is all sand and the walls are littered with shelves, covered with jars and boxes full of unusual spices, dead animals and knick knacks. The ceiling is covered with hanging boughs of dried herbs. The old lady sleeps on a pile of hay on the floor near the hearth, next to a pair of silk pillows. Several wooden bowls are littered about the floor with fish bones, dried milk and the like.

Should the players be angry, forceful or mean to the old woman she will turn dark and vulgar with these "harlots, *@$%#! eating $^#@!ing #^&@!ers!". Her mind sharp as a tack...before quickly reverting.

She also has a black cat that she lovingly cares for known as "Mr Whiskers". She will be thrilled if players are nice to Mr Whiskers, offer him milk, fresh fish, clean his litter box or fluff his pillows. Mr Whiskers does not like to be pet (usually). Should any player attempt to use violence on the old woman or Mr. Whiskers, Mr. Whiskers will cast a variety of offensive spells to assault them, and berate them with the loud booming voice of James Earl Jones.

Mr. Whiskers is a feline necromancer, and quite a powerful one, with a human familiar. Note Mr. Whiskers is a necromancer in that he can command and control the spirits of the dead, rather than the "raise the dead legions" style that has become the norm. If properly bribed then Mr. Whiskers will aid the players in any investigations they may have by raising spirits at the local graveyard and interrogating them, or even exorcising spirits from those possessed by them. In rare great services Mr. Whiskers may share one of his many hidden relics from the region.

Evil versus Cartoon Evil

2011-05-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

Occasionally in a game, there will be a jarring break from the standard cartoon evil villains, or misguided tragic villains to someone who is evil, unredeemable and just wrong.

This has to be something that is carefully managed to have a stark contrast to cartoon evil. Cartoonish evil is full of skulls, and blood and gore. It is a realm of cackling megalomania mixed with pointless shock. I recently added some true darkness to the game in the following manner.

The party broke into an enemy camp and discovered a secret grimoire of the armies leader. Asking what was in it, I responded "Terrible Dark Magic you may not be able to stomach, I haven't written what they actually are beyond the Spell Templates". I went on to inform them that if they did want to use them they would as a group decide the specifics of the templates. As a quick recap on templates, there may be a spell template like "Bolt" and then specific versions of the spell that can be found like "Lightning Bolt" or "Acid Blast" or "Malakath's spectral serpent strike". So I explained the templates are "Spell Storage", "Channeling" and "Know Alignment".

Spell Storage is a template for putting spells into an item for later use. Brewing potions is a version of the template, so is dwarven runes, so would putting a spell into a candle or an ointment etc. Channeling is to replenish your mana from the environment, such as regaining mana from the mountaintop or recharging on the sunrise. Know Alignment is a template for various mind reading spells like mind meld, or a spell where you enter a sleepers dreams.

So they start going with "Evil Spells", describing events "Melting Faces" etc etc. So I set them straight, these are EVIL SPELLS.

So I quickly threw together an evil version of "Spell Storage". In this case the spell allowed the caster to put a spell into a child they conceive. It must be their child, and the child must love them for full effect. And while a potion must be drank, or a candle lit this spell required killing the child. There is no way in which this spell can be used by someone who is not unrepentant evil. A spell like "melt face" can be used by a good person against an evil person. No one could ever use a spell like this and not be evil.

Now due to its limitations and evilness it was a very powerful version of the template, incredibly potent. But in no uncertain terms the good thing to do is burn the grimoire and even learning the spells is really an evil act.

But I told them if they want to have the spells I won't stop them, but I am making them develop the spells. So I am asking the players to make up the details to go into the templates.

I would like to see if any of my readers have any ideas to start off for these evil spells, not mechanics, just themes. A mind reading spell and energy restoring spell that cannot be used by a good person.

Feel free to email if you feel sheepish of even having particularly evil ideas. I'll let you know what the players come up with.

Guilty Pleasure

2011-05-05T17:20:00.000-07:00

The Seven Deadly Sins

2011-04-21T15:46:00.001-07:00

I will go on a bit of a side rant here for how I shape a fantasy setting in which the players are (nominally at least) the heroes. I look about the setting and decide the Seven Deadly Sins.

Now, you may be wondering how one "decides" what Kevin Spacey has set out from on high? Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony are what comes to mind when the seven deadly sins, but it was not always so. At one point despair replaced gluttony, other slightly different versions have also existed. In addition to the seven deadly sins are there corresponding virtues (humility v pride, chastity v lust, etc).

So when I set up a region I lay out the seven deadly sins and there virtues for the region there. I always fashion the sins as what are considered unwholesome temptations. For example in a viking setting I might replace pride, wrath and gluttony as sins (because gaining glory by smashing heads and getting tanked is the holy life if you want to reach Valhalla!) and replace them with fear, deceit and despair. To these vikings it is not good to be humble, patient or show temperance! No it is instead good to be brave, loyal with a steely resolve in the face of doom!

Where I in a dark ages Europe with a highly corrupt all powerful church (that old trope) I would replace Greed (God needs another solid gold altar!) with Curiosity. Yes good ole curiosity is now the sin, with faith being its corresponding virtue. Trying to know things man is not meant to know is evil, just accept things as part of "the plan".

For this to work well, make sure local evil things prey off these vices. Make sure there are demons in this dark age Europe who tempt with knowledge and seek only to entice curiosity in others. If this is the viking setting then make sure fear and despair demons abound!

Feel free to add other appropriate sins and virtues to meet the setting. In a Judge Dredd style game, perhaps some sort of Inquisitor or Witch hunter game, "Mercy" is a sin with "Certainty" or "Resolve" as its corresponding virtue.

New Release - Beta 0.69

2011-04-20T13:26:00.000-07:00

A few more tweaks and changes with the newest version. Healing has been streamlined and improved (including the addition of the "party/shindig/box social" rules), a few tweaks to weapon tags to streamline them, a pair of new armour tags that deal with armour crafted for looks above effectiveness (giving a bonus to presence and penalties to effectiveness).

The main change was a change to the powers a wizard could select. While casting spells is the most useful of any of the 5 starting powers available to a wizard, all of them had some use (even if minor) should you not choose spell casting. The exception being "Psychic Potential", which granted an extra kick of mana. If one took "Familiar" they could also gain more mana as well as a helpful servant, likewise if they didn't take the ability to cast spells the additional mana would be of no value. It dawned on me that such was the kicker, so I did some preliminary play testing on a new solution.

"Psychic Potential" is no longer an extra kicker of mana, rather it is a new use for mana. Relax though, it isn't any horribly complicated psionic system. Psychic powers are for all intents and purposes part of the "magic" umbrella. This power now instead grants the wizard the option to expend mana instead of luck points to avoid influence (damage) in a social conflict. This means that when a demon is attempting to possess a wizard with this power, the wizard now has an extra reserve of defense. This moves the power from the most useless to actually the second most useful ability

Healing in a hurry: Spontaneous Part-ay

2011-04-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

This last campaign I've been running for about a year is interesting in that it has had really, no priests and thus no major healing. This has added a nice slow touch to the campaign where health management is important and where time is spent in the winters to learn new skills, build an estate and so forth.

While leading the good life makes luck points restore much faster, for higher level characters there can be time where they really want to be able gain a pile of luck faster.

I have been rolling around the idea of a party or celebration to gain a big chunk of luck points back in one sitting.

Thus far I am setting the following criteria:

1 - It will restore luck points equal to a social die x level (in line with healing rules)

2 - It will cost an random and escalating amount of money, supplies and/or time. Potentially bankrupting a player if he is unlucky or poor.

3 - It can only occur after notable events. I am thus far defining this as whenever a milestone is breached for the party. Potentially whenever the party completes a goal worthy of their last milestone (ie, if they are national heroes then whenever they complete a deed where a local hero could become a national hero they could host a party to regain luck points). Special events like births of children or weddings may also be appropriate.

Its still rough formed at this point, any suggestions?

Your Highness: Your high school D&D game

2011-04-12T16:05:00.000-07:00

"Your Highness" is out. It is puerile juvenile garbage that makes uncomfortable mockery of dwarfism, victims of pedophilia and homosexuals.

In short, it is your high school D&D game..you know the one..that one.., if all of the table banter was part of the actual story line. If all of the references to other pop culture, all of the immature dick and pot jokes were actually part of the game. No doubt some aspects of the humour are more or less relevant depending on when you went to high school and who you hung out with. More or less homophobic, more or less pot references, more or way, waay fewer breasts.

But if you have any nostalgia for such times, or can laugh at yourself (or at least who you were) its well worth seeing.

A great post elsewhere:

2011-04-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

If you want to read a nice vignette of weird horror, try this.

Creating Another Bandwagon: Orcs and Goblins

2011-03-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

From the post on Grognardia:

Goblins and their larger cousins the Orcs are a blight of unknown origin. They pay no heed to the worshippers of the gods, the spirits of nature or the demonic legions of hell. They just are.

Goblins are highly intelligent sentient beings, about half the size of a man. They are a nimble folk, covered with tough leathery green skin and a hearty constitution. Their meat is foul and inedible to all but other goblinoids, though they themselves can eat most anything the race of man can consume. Goblins have both male and female genders, though they have no distinguishing secondary sexual characteristics. A goblin female will lay a clutch of 1 to 3 eggs every season. The eggs will hatch by the next season, and the goblins will often grow up feral, maturing fully in a year and a half. Goblins bands will often round up small goblins and rope them into slave labour. A goblin will rarely live past 10 years of age, to cope their brains learn far faster than other races, often able to learn in a week what other races may take a full semester of study to learn.

Goblins however have no soul and thus sense of empathy, each one is a sociopath. Every action is taken solely with the best interests of the individual in mind. While would could train a goblin to be a nanny to ones children, it would not be wise. For the goblin may continue to properly raise and nanny the children should it be in its best long term interests, the first second a better opportunity came around the goblin would feel no ill will towards eating the children alive. The goblin would be puzzled that it should feel bad. This lack of soul likewise makes goblins immune to possession from spirits or demons, and worthless as worshippers. The fact that death spells oblivion makes goblins very cowardly.

Orcs are very similar to goblins, save they are bigger, averaging 6'6 in heigh and a solid 230lbs in a very muscular build. Orcs are fairly dim however, this actually leads into their great strength over goblins. While they also lack empathy and souls, orcs are not smart enough to truly grasp the concept of death. They do not grasp that they can die and in doing so cease to exist. Orcs are thus far more warlike, their short and impatient tempers frequently lead to their simple desire to take what they want and do what they want whenever they want. Orc females will go into heat and lay a single egg twice a year. The egg will hatch within 3 months and be mature within a year.

Orcs and goblins are thus dangerous pests, occasionally bribed to act as unreliable mercenaries or thugs but valued by none. Only their inability to form long term groups prevents them from being a sizable menace. Very rarely a warlord will manage to gather a large army of goblinoids and go on a warpath of violence and looting.

Realms of Adventure: The Mountain Dwarves of the North

2011-03-13T14:31:00.001-07:00

To continue with Pseudo-Scandinavia as a setting for a sandbox game. Human settlements on the coast and in valleys of this mountainous realm already make a great setting with a reason for characters to be adventurous and for society to tolerate and encourage such behaviour.

This time I will craft a simple culture for mountain dwarves, out of common cliches with a few tweaks to show how to make dwarves ready adventurers.

So lets go with some basic cliches:

Dwarves live in cities carved into and under the mountain, this gives a reason to have underground dungeons, or it will with the next point.

Dwarves are a race in decline, they have not had to dig new cities in some time as they have more than enough existing space and a drive to recover lost and abandoned underground cities.

Dwarves are obsessed with family honour and prestige. This means they avoid shaming their kind and want to recover their lost wealth.

Dwarves are greedy and wealth obsessed.

So from this I envision a dwarven culture in which dwarves are separated into families, electing a lord or king from the most noble and high held of current families. This means families will be deeply ashamed of any of their kin who engage in (and are caught) in dishonourable practices. But just because your culture decries such practices doesn't mean they don't happen. There are thieves, adulterers and liars amongst dwarves, so how should they deal with it? If they are family and honour bound lets say kin-slaying is out, no matter how vile.

Lets bring in another cliche: The living dead dwarf. Be they GW Slayers, or Dragon Age Legion of the Dead or some other pastiche there can be a caste of Dwarves who seek immediate death in battle. This really can't be everyone, wouldn't be many left as most would die on the first goblin spear they find. So lets assume this is a worst case scenario for the truly irredeemable crimes.

So being a rigid society, lets assume that those who chafe under their family obligations or who are accused (but not proven) of crimes are either forced from their family or "suggested" they leave. These dwarves would be removed of any ties to their family in the eyes of society. Without family ties they need to go out to seek wealth to survive, and for some a more important goal, to gain glory and fame. If they gain enough they may gather acolytes from other Clanless dwarves and form a Hero Cult. If they become truly noble they are granted their own Clan name, and may form a new clan and start their own families.

But if battle gains glory and the society is somehow shrinking, perhaps we can bridge these two together and have a REASON there are so few dwarves. Perhaps a dwarven male must earn his right to marry his betrothed? Every young dwarf must prove his worth in battle, go out and slay to earn honour, the more honour he accrues through battle can be seen as a dowry. The menfolk gain honour that is gifted to the brides family while the bride pays gold for the upkeep of their daughter in her new house. Gain more honour, get more gold. Of course if you die gloriously your fiance goes right to widow..your family wants their money for your death after all. That cannot help their declining population.

Finally, a house may be poor and in the slums currently..but somewhere out there is their old estate, with coffers full of their gold. Why hasn't another dwarf taken it? Being greedy and suspicious, each dwarven family mints their own coins. To have the coins of another dwarven clan without a writ transferring ownership..why that would be a grave dishonour to your family...(perhaps you should avoid getting caught and melt it down).

So now the regions dwarves provide plenty of abandoned dungeons, a gradual loss of manpower they refuse to admit is killing their empire made worse by the young dwarves they sent into the dark on suicide rushes, leaving behind childless widows. We have clanless dwarves out seeking glory to found new clans, shamed fanatics out to die gloriously, and young dwarves out to earn their right to have children.

You now have reasons to adventure and places to adventure built into the culture, all utilizing familiar cliches.

Realms of Adventure: Pseudo-Scandinavia

2011-03-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

Pseudo-Scandinavia can be a great place to set a sandbox game. Vast oceans containing hidden islands and far off undiscovered continents, lofty mountains holding dwarven keeps and dragon hoards, swamps crawling with trolls and deep pine forests full of abandoned elven palaces.

To make the area suitable for adventure there should be a handful of small kingdoms about. Each run by their own glory obsessed warrior king and his cadre of viking stereotypes. These places should not be all powerful bureaucracies or empires. If a kingdom has more than a few hundred warriors it can muster it is probably too large. Ideally the kingdoms should be small enough that a few potent warriors would be a noticeable factor in any war between two kingdoms.

There should also be enough fertile lands about that one could forge their own town, city, castle or even kingdom. Of course these lands should be plagued by monsters, thus forging your own country could be a great drive for adventure. This may require funds to build a castle and lure citizens...I hear English monasteries have a lot of gold. This allows for viking warriors, skalds and scouts (thieves).

Of course, these lands also have many warrior pagan faiths..and the new missionaries from the south aim to change all that. This type of strife allows for many clerics to have their own goals.

And of course in this barbarous land there are old and ancient magics..but no libraries of note. A handful of private collections, much of the magic must be learned from truly ancient cave paintings, chants of isolated tribes and ancient dragon secrets. A sorcerer or witch in these lands cannot rest in quite study...they need to be constantly on the move..seeking to uncover the secrets of others before others uncover their secrets.

This type of setting allows for easily understandable player driven goals, that players can figure out without needing to read through 40 pages of setting notes. Are you a southern missionary? Convert heathens. A viking? Get to Valhalla through mashing bigger and badder monsters. A noble? clear out that dragon and use its hoard to build a castle. Wizard? find the old man of the mountains and the swamp hag..steal their secrets.

Of course, this is just human culture. I'll detail a suitable dwarven culture for Pseudo-Scandinavia next.