The Solidification of 13th Age as a Go-To Game

Roleplaying games in my gaming circles generally fall into one of three types:

--Interesting games we might talk about but never can spare the time to actually try (Numenera, FATE, Edge of the Empire). They either have some flaw (weird dice, exotic mechanics), some level of buy-in (too many tomes, no PDF available) or are just a bit out of the overlap on the venn diagram of the local group's interests to permit it a chance.

--Games that are a fun occasional "break game" or alternatively the "beer & pretzels" rpg; something you play when you're looking from a temporary break from the regular game (Tunnels & Trolls, Savage Worlds, about 90% of all indie games out there)

--And last but most importantly is the bread-and-butter "go-to" game. This is the one (or two) that your group will play religiously....the one which brings everyone to the table. You can usually identify this one by how many of your regulars actually buy copies of the game; buy-in is serious business among gamers.

Until recently for me that "bring them to the table" game was Pathfinder (with BRP as my backup), but lately it's slowly but surely starting to turn into 13th Age. With two regular 13th Age games going now, one weekly Wednesday and one every other Saturday....and Magic World on the off-Saturday, it's basically the first time in ages that I am essentially "D&D free" depending on how loosely you want to define the D&D term. 13th Age feels like an offspring, not quite the same as the real deal....but it's damned interesting that it's apparently got the muscle to tow two game nights and more than half my players seemed to have bought copies...and at least one of my cohorts plans to run it soon. Good stuff!

Makes me wonder how August (assuming D&D 5E is still on track for an August release.....) is going to play out....

Gear Maidens in Magic World/BRP

The gear maidens as a B/X D&D monster appeared a week or two back, but I have been steadily converting all that material plus the Pergerron setting to my Magic World campaign that is ongoing. Here then are the Gear Maidens D100 style...

Gear Maidens (The Maidens of Sar)

STR        3D6+6   16-17

CON       3D6+6   16-17

SIZ         2D6+6      13

INT        3D6+3    13-14

POW      12+1D6  15-16

DEX       2D6+6      13

APP       3D6        10-11    

Move 10

Hit Points  15

Damage Bonus +1D4

Skills: Climb Dodge 40%, Listen 50%, Hide 40%, Move Quietly 40%, Jump 80%

Armor: natural metal plating 1D8

Attacks: Unarmed (slam) 50%, 1D8+1D4 or arm blades (two) 75%, 1D6+1+1D4 each

Traits: healed by electrical damage; immune to cold damage but are slowed to Move 2; immune 

to mind-affecting magic

Terrain: any ancient ruins

Gear maidens are an unusual construct sometimes found in the ancient ruins of Pergerron. Each gear maiden has the appearance of a suit of armor or a mannequin made to look like a woman comprised of complex clockwork moving parts. Most of the gear maidens appear to be one of three types: jackal-headed, elvish-looking, and on rare occasion smooth, featureless faces with a mirror of silver where eyes, nose and mouth would be located.

Gear maidens may have served some other purpose in the ancient past, constructs designed for amusement, or to serve as guards perhaps. Today they are relics which haunt the ancient ruins, acting erratically and without purpose. When a gear maiden (or group of such) is encountered roll to see what their pattern of behavior is (D10):

1-4 - the gear maidens function as if the ruin around them is still alive; they prop skeletal remains up on chairs, serving them empty platters of food while serving long-dried bottles of wine. They will grow antagonistic to anyone who tries to point out the absurdity of their actions or the deathly nature of those they "serve."

5-7 - the gear maidens are mad, and appear to have suffered some sort of mania, which they may call "malfunctioning" to those who can prompt them to speak coherently. These are deadly, usually attacking randomly before fleeing, only to circle back later and strike again.

8-9 - some may be found which are coherent, usually hunting for parts. These gear maidens salvage relics of lore and preserve them, as if enshrining the lost civilizations of old Sar and other empires of the past. They are not above cutting down maddened versions of their own to salvage parts to repair themselves.

10 - Occasionally a cunning and vengeful gear maiden will be found. These are the deadliest, for they remember the fall of the old empires, and the destruction of those they served. They will seek to hunt down and exterminate all humans and demi-humans they come across, and will do so with great cunning and relish.

Aside from the retractable blades (about as long as a short sword, but much sharper) gear maidens have the traits of other constructs, and are immune to any gaseous or poison attacks, as well as any attacks that affect life force (POW draining, for example); they also can never increase their initial POW score. They are immune to mind-affecting spells, for their magical artificial brains cannot comprehend or react to the magical influence of the mind. Lighting damage heals them. Cold damage deals 1/2 damage to them but they are slowed to Move 2 for 1 round after being subject to the cold-damaging attack.

An entrepreneurial fighter with some weapon smithing skills could extract the arm blades of a destroyed gear maiden to find that they will make enchanted short swords of amazing quality (+10% attack and +2 damage).

Source

Unfettered! On Comics, and Other Stuff

Free to write whatever I feel like for the first time in three months --following February's Savage Worlds in Space Daily, March's 13 Days of 13th Age and April's 30 days of B/X D&D....gah!-- I now have may resume writing whatever springs to mind at any given moment, including boring blog posts where I talk about not much at all.

Hidden behind the focused run for three months has been my secret "actual focus" going on in real life: comics. Lots and lots of comics. My years-long drought of staying away from the medium of comics is at an end, and thoroughly staked through the heart now. I have hoarded so many graphic novels, so many series both current and past that I accidentally booked my comic reading for the next couple of years, I think.

Hoarding is a problem that runs in my family. I like to think my manifestion of it is more benign, albeit expensive at times.

Given that I'm now subbing (via the local Comics Warehouse) to around 20 or so titles (maybe more) on top of the heaping mounds of graphic novels I have acquired, I think I have more than enough to sustain me through to the point at which I snap and get tired of it all again. Assuming I reach that point...I actually love comics as a medium, but the price point over the years reached a critically dangerous "dollars to fun" ratio that regular novels, RPGs and video games seriously outstripped. Now, thanks to the generous price point of many graphic novels (DC's pricing is very nice for its New 52 books) as well as judicious use of Ebay and Amazon it is once again possible to buy TPBs without feeling guilty, or like I should be shoveling all this money into my retirement. Even though I probably should.

So it is with all this discussion that I am implying, but not announcing, that I may be talking a lot about what's going on in comics these days. It may not all be current.....I am really enjoying catching up on the complete Brian Michael Bendis run of New Avengers, for example (acquired the New Avengers Omnibus I for about $35 on Ebay....over 1,000 pages in the damned thing!) but it's quickly becoming apparent to me that Marvel really owes Bendis for making them so great. Hope he's well paid, he deserves it!

Likewise I am neck-deep in the New 52 now, and am reaching a saturation point with DC, enough so that the visceral thrill of getting back into the swing of reading comics is now being replaced by a scrutinizing, critical eye on certain books, especially ones that someone thoughtlessly turned over to Rob Liefield, a guy who seems to be very good at damaging the IPs entrusted to his care; the travesty he made out of Grifter and Deathstroke....seriously, there's some bad writing going on in these books. Just painful stuff. I could only hope the Wildstorm characters were popular enough to get a Flashpoint/Crisis style retcon, or maybe a reboot in their own universe again....the way they were subsumed into the DC continuum with the New 52 is endlessly painful; only Voodoo's two book run really did something to make the character better than it had been. And there's no good excuse for Deathstroke, DC's quasi-Punisher type, who was getting better, more coherent stories and presentation thirty years ago in the Teen Titans as a proper villain.

Anyway....more to come, just enjoying a chance to write a blog without a chosen theme for once!

B/X D&D Month XXX: Finale

This was a long month.....no more! I am going to take a break from daily posts on a defined subject for a while. To wrap up my month of Basic/Expert/Rules Cyclopedia D&D I am going to discuss what this game has meant to me over the last 34 years, and how it's versatility and value has shifted to me over time. 

Late in 1980 as a young man I acquired the Dungeon game, and sometime early in 1981 (I assume 1981, as it looks like the Mentzer Basic set came out that year) my parents were gracious enough to purchase the game for my sister and myself. It wasn't until I found Gamma World that the game "clicked" for me (I was only ten years old at the time) and I figured out what it was all about. Thereafter things were never the same and one could argue for better or worse that I was destined for a certain kind of path in life thereafter.

Basic and Expert D&D served me well initially as introductions to the concept of RPGs and later as rules addenda to AD&D, which was a convoluted but fascinating mess. When I couldn't figure out what the hell Gary Gygax was going on about with initiative and sequence of actions in the DMG I would instead turn to Basic and Expert D&D as the clear rules which explained how it worked. Back then it wasn't entirely clear to me that B/X were mechanically that different from AD&D....just more cleanly written. So for most of my AD&D days I spent my formative years using the PHB/DMG/MM as supplements powered by the core mechanics of B/X D&D.

Later on I lost my obsession with AD&D as I discovered more games and branched out, but at some point in 1987 I must have rediscovered B/X in a sort of purist fashion as I tried writing some scenarios for that edition, including a solitaire, which I published in my fanzine of the day, "The Sorcerer's Scrolls." I was revisiting AD&D and B/X at that time, with the intent of "relearning" them from my later-day high school perspective, and the mindset of one who now regularly ran Dragonquest, Runequest, T&T and DC Heroes RPGs. There must have been something I liked in B/X back then from the "revisitation" because I wrote several articles specifically and only for that version of the game around that time.....but this wasn't really going to go over all that well, of course, in a fanzine primarily dedicated to non-D&D games and T&T in particular. C'est la vie.

B/X D&D remained "out of my life" for a long time. In 1991 the Rules Cyclopedia appeared and I got a copy, but I was deeply into AD&D 2nd Edition at that time and couldn't appreciate the system for what it was, although I admired the fact that the entire BECM set could fit into a single rulebook.

Basic/Expert wouldn't resurface for me until some thirty-odd years later, with the OSR movement. Labyrinth Lord and others got me started back on the track, and WotC releasing the dndclassics.com website made it possible to resume collecting these books once more in a clean, easy to read and print format. Daniel Proctor deserves a great deal of credit for keeping B/X and its concepts alive; Labyrinth Lord is far and away the best of the OSR retroclones in my opinion (with the caveat that in a world of porterhouse steaks cooked to perfection I am simply declaring one porterhouse to be more succulent than the others...)

Today, as a middle aged gamer who's been through a lot, gamed consistently for three decades and moved with the currents of game design from the era of the classics to a modern age where game design can somehow take a rule as simple as "roll a D20 and aim for a high number" and turn it into a 600 page rulebook. What's happened is that eventually you crack: you reach the apex of complexity, the pinnacle of system mastery and design, and you realize that you are so far removed from your very roots, that you can't even remember what it was like to be there on the ground anymore.

People like to say the OSR movement is driven by nostalgia, but I ask....how can one be nostalgic about something that seems so far away, so distant? I rather think there's something else going on....

OSR retroclones, the "D&D-likes" as I call them, helped rekindle an effort not to remember the good old days so much as realize that there was never anything wrong with the good old days, the way we played. Finding B/X D&D again for me was a realization that the quest for verisimilitude and depth in gaming doesn't come from the rules, it comes from the people playing. The rules are a fantastic vessel for adventuring, for creating a good story....but they are only hampered by one's perception of the rules as a necessary conformity to that process. Seeing B/X D&D now, at an age where I am a career businessman with a son and wife, and so very little time, makes me realize that sometimes the best rulebooks are the ones that give you the smallest starting point, but within that point they pack a whole lotta punch to get you started. Basic and Expert D&D did that extremely well, and with absolutely no need for more than those two books (though they had many great adventures and gazetteers,all of it was optional). No edition of D&D since the days of B/X has managed to do this, and the Rules Cyclopedia was the grand last hurrah....until now.

So....that's my story about B/X D&D and why I find it such a great "new" discovery, a game that got better with age, and is now perhaps my favorite iteration of the game. Now....time for a break! Honestly, one of the reasons it was grueling to write an entry a day for B/X D&D was that the game is so generally complete that it's really hard to do much more than generate new monster and magic items ideas for the game. Next time I do this I think I'll pick a system that's not so damned self contained!

B/X D&D Month: XXIX: adding some exotics to treasure

A few more ideas to toss around: every edition of D&D (and other games too) seems to revel in the myriad weird currencies you can encounter while adventuring. Something worth considering, though: not all these currencies were common coinage for much of the middle ages (the ostensible not-Europe era in which D&D's fantasy world takes a suspicious resemblance). Platinum, for example, manifested as a viable metal in Pre-Columbian America and wasn't even known until its discovery by Europeans (first reference to such in 1557 according to Wikipedia). Made all the more amazing its the high melting point necessary to work with platinum (3214.9 F)...Europeans didn't accomplish this extraction process until 1700s and even then it was with many trials and errors due to the lack of understanding of the metal. I'm no metallurgist so my advice is read the Wiki for details, but seriously....this is a metal that's just as exotic as orichalcum or adamantite when you consider it in the context of the more medieval fantasy realms D&D typically depicts.

Imagine for a moment a world in which a defining trait of all magic-forged weapons and jewelry was that it was made of exotic metals. Platinum would be a fine example of a true exotic, one perhaps which might be found in ancient ruins, used by the lost cultures of old or the so-called "savages" of the jungle kingdoms, much to the bafflement of alchemists in the known world.

A few other exotic materials to consider lacing your magic items with, or as alternative weird things to find:

Orichalcum - known to the Greeks, this metal may or may not have an Atlantean connection and is depicted as having a pink or gold hue with bronze qualities. The exotic nature of orichalcum makes it great as a metal which bestows magical abilities such as...say....levitation; plate a hull with the metal and you could get a flying ship!

Adamantite - this term was less one for a specific metal and more a substance so hard it defied the efforts of other creatures and substances to damage it. Admantine gets an early start in Greek myth but appears often in later archaic literature, eventually being conflated with lodestones. For the purposes of fantasy metals admantine is a potent metal, worked through magical forges to create invincible weaponry and armor, ideally suitable to lace magical devices with, and explaining their unnatural resistance to destruction, too. Heck, get ahold of some adamantite and a means to work it and you could make pefectly normal but indstructible weapons!

Cobalt - although cobalt itself is real, it's been mined for thousands of years and used to tint glass and jewelry with its lustrous, deep blue hue. Cobalt has an interesting connection to kobolds, and it's worth thinking about this connection (the name Cobalt derives from kobold, for ex). When smelted for metals, miners found instead that they made cobalt oxide, which in turn produces arsenic trioxide, a toxic substance that is a byrpoduct of smelting efforts and notable poison. If you're tired of adventurers beating up your kobolds for gold teeth and candles, maybe they should be mining for the lustrous cobalt instead....imagine kobolds who have a corner on the market for cobalt as an additive to glass jewelry and pottery.....and poison!

Amber - the substance created from fossilized tree sap was often considered to have a curative element. Imagine instead of finding a healing potion you instead find an amber stone which you can rub once a day for a healing burst, or which, when dropped in a suitable liquid, turns it into a healing potion.

B/X D&D Month XXVIII: Black Shamblers

Black Shamblers
Armor Class: 0
Hit Dice: 8+3**
Move: 90' (30')
Attacks: slam attack or engulfing attack
Damage: 1D8+3 slam plus engulf (see below)
No. Appearing: 1D4 (3D6)
Save As: F8
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: E
Intelligence: 9
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 2025
Creature Type: extraterrestrial (enchanted)
Terrain: the depths of the void

 These beings are huge, averaging seven to nine feet in height, and are like great ebony warriors, covered in ichorous black tar that never stops running. They have barely visible humanoid features, and are silent, emotionless, and highly obedient. An organization known as the Guild of the Spheres are known to employ them as thugs, which is how most normal people first encounter the black shamblers. It is only when nosy adventurers poke and prod that they discover the black shamblers are in fact an inuman, alien race from beyond the stars, utilized by the agents of the Guild of the Spheres as protectors and enforcers in their operations, which involve the acquisition and theft of priceless artifacts and magic items on the worlds they seek to plunder.

The Black Shamblers are native to a distant world called Canopis, that composes part of the stellar constellation of Set. Canopis exists in a murky, eternal twilight, and certain mages have learned to cull a special plant to produce a substance called the Black Bane which makes the shamblers submissive to the wills of the poisoner. As such, they are captured for use as thugs and shock troops. 

Black shamblers are vicious opponents, with a startling resistance to most weaponry (they take half damage from all weapon attacks). Black shamblers exibit amazing regeneration and wiull heal 5 hit points per round; only cold damage will stop this regenerative ability.

A black shambler which slams into an opponent may immediately attempt to engulf that target; they can attempt to do this on up to four human sized opponents before running out of room. A target struck by the black shambler must make a save vs. paralysis or be trapped in the tar-like mass of the shambler; each round the target takes an automatic 1D8 points of crushing, choking suffocating damage and must make a new save vs. paralysis to try and escape.

Black shamblers tend to regenrate over time even after seemingly destroyed. A shambler which has been dispersed over a wide area or dismembered may take 1D6 months to begin regenerating. A shambler which suffers enough fire damage to deal the negative of its hit points has a 25% chance of being permanently destroyed. Disintegration will destroy a black shambler as well.

B/X D&D Month XXVII: Looking at more alternate rules

There are some rules that could be introduced into B/X D&D that I don't really think would impact the game.....at least, not in ways that would be problematic, provided the DM is ready for the consequences. A few ideas:

Tougher Characters

Although I think the notion of low starting hit points at 1st level is part of D&D's charm --it emphasizes that these are really green adventurers for whom one sword his could be deadly-- the idea of a higher starting hit point total could benefit very small or solo groups. The easiest way to handle this is to allow the players to roll hit dice and then add their total CON score (instead of modifier). That'll add at least 10 hit points on average and make the character as resilient as a 3rd level character out of the gate.

Fighters and Hitting Things

Nobody in B/X D&D hits better from 1st to 3rd level, but the fighter could. Instead of a matrix where the fighter's proficiency in hitting improved by 2 every other level,  let the fighter's attack rate go down by 1 at each level they advance. So: start at level 1 with the attack matrix as presented. Then, at level 2 and each level thereafter let the values on the attack matrix drop by 1 per level for the fighter (in other words, the way 2nd edition AD&D did it). This will give the fighter something to look forward to every level.

Multiclassing

The rules for multiclassing in AD&D could easily be transplanted to B/X without much trouble. You'd have to track two sets of XP for each class, and apply the XP rules for calculating hit points and determining what weapons and armor the multiclassed character defers to, but it's perfectly doable in B/X. Racial classes would benefit in that you could have that halfling/thief, dwarf/cleric and elf/thief. The only exceptions would be whether a DM wants to allow an elf the ability to multiclass into magic-user or not. Also, if you have Labyrinth Lord and it's Advanced Edition Companion you could treat it like a big B/X rules expansion (and I am sure many do).

The Power of Used Book Stores

I snagged a mint condition copy of the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia for $10 at my friendly local used book store today (one of only about 3 in the area, actually). I also snagged a near mint set of 2nd edition AD&D rule books for about $35 in total. Thanks goodness for book sellers who aren't also collectors!!!

B/X D&D Month XXVI: Three New Swords

The Sword of Truth
   This +1 blade is usually a longword, shortsword or other straight blade (never a cutlass or scimitar). When held the blade compels the owner to speak only the truth about matters (though this is truth as he/she sees it). Moreover, anyone struck by the blade who takes damage must make a save vs. spells or also find themselves compelled to answer truthfully any three questions asked of them for the next 30 minutes.

The Elemental Blade
   A +2 scimitar, this blade is a wicked curved weapon that reflects a sheen of rainbow colors in slick patterns which run in scintillating colors up and down the blade. When held the weapon can invoke the properties of any one element, with different effects as follows. Each effect can be invoked once per day:
Earth - any creature struck by the weapon must save vs. petrification or suffer as if struck by flesh to stone.
Air - the wielder of the weapon may fly for one hour.
Fire - the weapon spits out a 5D6 damage fireball in a chosen direction as the spell.
Water - the wielder of the weapon gains water breathing for one hour.

The Gunblade
   This sophisticated looking broadsword +1 appears to have an unusual set of notching, grooving and a tunnel-bored hollow running along the length of the blade and leading to the hilt which serves as both ordinary hilt and guard as well as the hand grip of a matchlock pistol. The "blade" strikes as a broadsword but also fires a single shot powered by elemental fire (so no need to reload, assuming gunpowder has even been invented!) down the barrel along the blade. The weapon can fire 6 times before it needs to be recharged, which takes an hour; the weapon can be fired at distance as a normal ranged weapon, or as part of an attack that strikes and deals normal damage (provided it was a stabbing attack).

B/X D&D Month XXV: Ogre Racial Class!

Who wouldn't want to play the bulky, temperamental ogre? Not my players! Ogres are more common than elves as playable characters in the world of Chirak....and now they can infiltrate adventuring groups in Mystara and beyond, too....

Ogre Racial Class

Not all ogres are vile, cursed fiends lurking in dark caves waiting to eat warriors and ravage maidens. Nope....sometimes ogres are cultured sophists, daring adventurers, and an entire race of chaos warriors who are not in fact born of any curse. In worlds where ogres are another race like dwarves and elves, they too can mingle in human societies and seek out their own claim to fame and fortune...

Prerequisites: Ogres are known for their strength, and must have a minimum strength of 16. Likewise, ogres are not overly intelligent, at least not with respect to other races; ogres can have a maximum intelligence of 9, but ogres with the a 9 intelligence can opt to be spellcasters.

Class Benefits: Ogres are proficient in all weapons but they favor clubs over other weapons, and they are not familiar with more sophisticated weapons such as crossbows (though they can figure them out with a little training). Truth is, they aren't much for making weapons, and its hard to come by large sized weapons that work for them....so clubs it is.  A large club for an ogre deals 1D8 damage.

Ogres have tougher than normal skin; they have a natural unarmored AC of 5. This does not stack with armor worn, so leathers and other armor that offer a worse AC do not improve it; an ogre needs armor with AC 4 or better to make a difference. Ogres also pay double the cost for armor that actually is sized to fit.

Ogres advance in their class at the following rates:

Hit Dice: D8 per level. Ogres gain +3 hit points at level 10 and later.

Level Limits: Normal ogres can reach level 15, spellcasting ogres can reach level 5.

Advancement: Ogres advance by experience as fighters; spell casting ogres are either shamanic (clerics) or wokani (magic users) and advance on the appropriate experience chart.

Attack Tables: all ogres use the monster hit dice attack tables and determine their hit charts by hit dice.

Saving Throws: ogres use the fighter saves, but wokani use magic user saves and shamans use the clerical saves.

Spell Advancement: Wokani can reach level 5 and gain spells as a wizard up to that level. Likewise, shamans can advance to 5th level and gain spells as clerics of same level. Alternatively, you can refer to the RC rules on shamans and wokani (RC page 216).

Skills: if using the RC skill system ogres gain 4 skill points at level 1, and another skill at level 5, 9, and 13.

Sample Ogre:

Bursis the Bounty Hunter
Male Ogre, Age 20, Level 1
STR 18, DEX 10, CON 14, INT 7, WIS 10, CHA 9; HD 1D8+1; HP 9
Armor: plate mail AC 3
Attack: two handed sword 1D10+3
Skills: bravery, endurance, food tasting, gambling
GP: 25
Bursis dwells in the city of Samaskar working as a bouncer when he isn't hunting posted bounties. He's managed to purchase an ogre-sized suit of plate and a decent two-handed sword.