The New “White Box” Electronic Edition from Brave Halfling Publishing, Is Now Available!

Free, of course. Click the Picture, for the Lulu download page.  Is that a great cover, or what?

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In the past 24 hours, I’ve been accepted into both the RPG Bloggers Network and The Labyrinth Lord Society! The LL Society gave me a cool membership certificate, which, shall be printed out on quality paper and inserted into a sheet protector, before finally finding a home in my DMing binder. Sometimes, the little things can really help make up for a horrid day.

Hallelujah! Play Report From Our First Swords & Wizardry Session. Part 1. Introductory Matters, Including a Review of Brave Halfling Publishing’s Larm.

First, a very special welcome to my 35th follower, Jillena. She’s my wife, so, she gets special treatment.

I wasn’t sure where I wanted to set my family campaign. I almost pulled out my Greyhawk Boxed Set, but decided it wasn’t quite time, yet. Eventually, I’m going to spend half a year or so, delving into Greyhawk lore, preparing to run a campaign in G. Gygax’s playground. Thanks to the fine work of Greyhawk Scholars, I think I would have a real blast, doing so.

Instead, I opened up Gimp, dug out the brushes provided by Inkwell Ideas, and decided to make a hexmap, letting spontaneity be my guide.

 

The region of Eldrid – The Demesne of the Iron Lich.

1 Hex = 5 Miles.

Click the Picture for a larger image.

Map Icons Copyright 2007 Inkwell Ideas Inc.

“Few people still call the region Eldrid and most have forgotten the hero, who lent his name to the area. Today, in a time when its inhabitants are struggling to rebuild their civilization, the region is more commonly known as The Demesne of the Iron Lich.”

Aukrizir, also know as The Iron Lich, rules the human civilization of these lands with a brutal efficiency and the aid of his three Governors, as well as his military. He seized control of much of the area, during the years following the Second Apocalypse. His magical power, combined with the sizable army he marshaled, insured that he had little difficulty in securing his dominion over a human civilization, which, was struggling to hold itself together. The situation is not nearly as horrid as one might, at first, surmise. The Lich cares nothing for political power, in and of itself, or the people under his rule and his sole reason for seizing power, lay in the details of an involved, magical ritual, which, he has been working on for decades.

One of the rituals’ requirements for success, is that the Wizard who is performing it, must be a King. Alas, Aukrizir keeps uncovering more and more, fiddly little bits, wrapped up in the details of the working. Not too long ago, he discovered that in order to be a “King,” he must be consecrated as such, by either a 9th level Patriarch, a 13 level Archdruid, or a 16th level Mage. He has yet to find the person he needs, as, not only are such individuals quite rare, but, the ritual requires that they be not only cooperative, but, must have faith, trust and belief, in their act of consecration and the being they are conferring power upon.

If he does find someone who can make him a True King, he will have to deal with something he has yet to realize. The ritual takes a rather noble view of Kingship and his very apathy will serve as a bar to his success. For now, the Lich’s policies run toward the Lawful-Neutral area of the alignment spectrum, as his strategy here, is merely to maintain the status quo and hold his realm together, striving to protect it, from the many threats which assail the civilization he now controls. Under no circumstances, will he push the people to the point of fomenting rebellion and truthfully, would have no reason to, anyway. Ruling his Demesne is a chore. He’ll do what he must to maintain things, leave as much as he can to his Governors and military, but, will deal with any threat to his establishment in as ruthless and decisive a manner, possible.

So, my wife, Jillena, my son, Brisco, and my father, Pop, rolled up some characters this morning and we all played our first session of Swords & Wizardry. It took a little while, as neither my father or my son, had ever played a pen & paper FRPG, before. I had them roll three sets of stats, 3d6, pick the best set and arrange as desired. My wife made an Elven Magic-User named Wanda. My son named her; I suspect after the character from the Fairly Odd-Parents. My little boy made a Dwarven Warrior, whom he named Soda. My father decided to play a Human Cleric named Rasputin and he absolutely kicked ass on his dice rolls: 17, 17, 16, 15, 12, 9.

I let my father work out the particulars of his faith. He’s a rather zealous proponent of “The One True God,” and we’ll see what kind of trouble he gets into.

I placed Larm in the region and began the campaign there, in hex 1813.  The characters already knew each other, having fought together against various humanoid foes, while serving in the militia of the city of Irimar. Unless there’s a compelling reason not to, I always start campaigns with the characters being at least acquainted. Usually, I’ll give a beginning party several options for how to begin their new careers. Either that, or start them off in the middle of a battle, letting them decide things from there. This time, I decided to begin things with a little more direction, seeing as two of the players had never experienced D&D and one of them was only six. I decided that the chief faith in Larm, was the same as that of Rasputin’s. Abbot Salor, a Cleric in Larm, had sent a message to Irimar, asking the mother temple for aid. If you have Larm, you know that the little community is beset with various troubles. The temple hierarchy in Irimar, bade Rasputin investigate and the young priest brought his two companions along. They arrived at 9:00 in the morning, on January 2, in the 32nd year of the reign of the Iron Lich. 

Time for a Review.

Larm is an accessory for Labyrinth Lord, easily convertible, of course, published by Brave Halfling Publishing. It is written by Moritz Mehlem, with art by Andy “Atom” Taylor. The PDF, which I bought a couple of weeks ago at RPGNow, runs 27 pages in all, and details a village of 112 inhabitants, providing several small adventures which, are designed to introduce beginning players to the basic concepts of adventuring in a D&D world and the mechanics of game-play. Two mini-dungeons, a wilderness encounter, and a couple of investigatory “city” pieces are provided. The village is well detailed, with 33 keyed locations, associated NPC’s, a rumour table, historical information and a map of the village. We get a quick overview of daily life in Larm, providing us with information on the sort of commonplace events that the villagers engage in throughout the week. There are lists of goods, with prices, for the various stores. All 112 NPC’s living in Larm are listed in their associated key entries. Many are provided with an economical, yet effective presentation of their personality, background and motivations. Some are just mentioned, as in the case of children, acolytes, etc. Larm also features three maps of the adventure sites and a Mayor’s Proclamation player’s handout. Aside from the cover piece, which is reproduced on the title page, there are 12 other illustrations, two of those being very small equipment type pieces.

There are nice little touches throughout Larm. The rumor table entries, also list, when applicable, the location key number associated with the person, place or thing being gossiped about. A table near the beginning of the book, lists all the places which appear in the key entries, along with the number of NPC’s which are associated with the location. There’s some great role-playing opportunities in Larm and player’s may find themselves involved with some more light-hearted interactions, as well as with more serious dealings.

While more experienced groups will find the two dungeons to be rather rudimentary in and of themselves, the role-playing aspects can make these worthwhile, even for seasoned players. They also serve to provide further details of life in Larm, as well as the history of the village. They’re great for introducing new players to the basics. The wilderness adventure, while simple, will require some thought and tactical planning, serving as a nice adventuring 101 lesson, which, should also be involved enough to engage more experienced players. I may be biased on that last observation, as I really enjoy this particular type of set-up and the necessities involved for success. The investigatory adventures, while pretty basic, as well, provide excellent role-playing opportunities. Of course, any of this can easily be adapted to the needs of the DM and his/her group.

If you’re introducing new players to the game, then Larm’s adventures are perfect for showing them the ropes. Some are of the over and done with type, others are wedded to deeper events and concerns, or, the history of Larm. Once the newbs get an idea of what their doing, they’ll then be ready for the DM to create more involved adventures. Larm will serve as a useful, friendly spot of civilization for the characters to call home, serve as a base for forays into more dangerous lands, nearby, allow the characters to make some friends and perhaps, some enemies, as well.

If you need a well designed village environment, Larm is a solid choice and should serve you, very well. A lot of information is provided, in an economical, well thought-out fashion. Overall, I found Larm to be Charming, very Useful and Pleasing to my DMing sensibilities. I like Larm a lot and encourage everyone to check it out.

Now, I also decided, that I wanted to go ahead and have a larger, but not really big, dungeon ready and throw it into the mix. Ah, I had the perfect add-on, one that would tie-in to Larm, rather well and serve to help things progress, rather nicely. So, in addition to the material already detailed in the Larm supplement, hex 2213 now holds the dungeon from Chgowiz’s Swords & Sorcery Quick Start.  The dungeon inhabitants, tie-in to Larm and my take on the village, as well as to goings on in the Campaign in general, very well.

Part 2 will be up, hopefully tomorrow. Until then…

Knockspell # 3 is Out - And a Few Odds & Ends

I am really digging Peter Mullen's art!

Just in case any of these ramblings might be construed as a review, no one has asked, bribed, paid, coerced, or otherwise enticed me to write any of the following. I purchased pdf’s of all three Knockspells over the past week from Black Blade Publishing. Go thou, and do likewise! The PDF’s are $4.00 each. A saddle stiched print version of # 3 is available for $10. I had trouble using Google Chrome to download from Black Blade, so, I pulled up Explorer (ugh!) and it worked just fine. I didn’t check Firefox, as I haven’t yet reloaded it after having to reformat my laptop a couple of weeks ago.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably very familiar with the Old School blogoverse and the more famous denizens thereof. So, you’re already well aquainted with the writings of many of the contributors and already know if Knockspell is up your alley or not. It’s up mine and I’ll be purchasing future issues.

That reminds me, Philotomy's OD&D Musings site has disappeared. Fortunately,  a version of his oft quoted essay, “The Dungeon as Mythic Underworld” appears in Knockspell # 2.

My links section is shaping up nicely. I’m trying to provide the best, content rich collection of links I can, serving as a truly useful resource for my readers, as well as myself. If you know of anything that should be listed, please leave a comment. Recent additions include The Motherload of Greyhawk maps, The Motherload of Mystara maps, and The Isomage's House, which doesn’t have a whole lot of content, but, does feature a very nice color hexmap that will please fans of Joel Rosenberg’s The Guardians of the Flame series. Also, Jason Vey has produced a Hyborian Age OD&D Supplement, which can be downloaded in pdf form at his Classic Edition Fantasy Resources site. I haven’t read it yet, but, it looks quite nice and is formatted in the style of the old TSR publications. Thank you, Mr. Vey.

And a very special thanks to the folks who have added me to their blogroll.

The Family That Slays Together…

So, my son turns six this month and I’ve been thinking that the time might be  right  to introduce him to D&D. He’s already got a good foundation for such things. A couple of years ago, I saw a commercial for Disney’s Toontown and thought it might be something my little boy would enjoy. If you’re not familiar with Toontown, it’s  an MMORPG designed for the young and young at heart (oh my god, did I really just write that last phrase? I’m losing enough cool points bringing up Toontown on an Old School Blog!) It’s actually a pretty fun little game, well designed, but, it gets rather repetitive at high levels. My wife and I even purchased a second account, so one of us could sign in at the same time as our son and we could fight cogs together. I made a character and played for quite a while, a mouse named Duke Leroy McPhooey. I eventually tired of the game and haven’t played for months. My wife still plays. Interestingly, my father decided to order an account so he could adventure with his grandson. He quickly got hooked and being retired, played constantly, leveling up past the rest of the family in just a few weeks.

Then there’s our LARP sessions. I’ll grab a toy lightsaber, put on a plastic Iron Man mask and become Darth Bellicose, Sith Lord and nemesis of Luke Skywalker. My son plays Luke as well as being the GM.

“Allright daddy, I have a thousand hit points and you have ten!”

“You’re not dead yet, daddy.”

“Allright, when I hit you, you fall into the lava. That’s the lava (pointing to the kitchen tiles.)

He’s a bit railroady and needs to learn to allow room for my imagination as well, but  he’s getting there. His main thing right now is the Star Wars, Batman, and  Indiana Jones, Lego games. While he’s playing, he’ll do what he calls “The talking part.” He’ll role-play with the little characters on the screen. I’m not sure if he picked up doing this from from watching the movies upon which the games are based, or, from early memories of watching his mother and I play D&D with a room full of gamers. Regardless, between Toontown, Star Wars and playing with dad, he’s already familiar and comfortable with some of the basic concepts (with his mother and I both being geeks, he never really had a chance, though, right?)

  So, as I was mulling this over, it hit me that Swords & Wizardry would be the perfect introductory game. Rules light, straightforward, a character sheet you can  put on an index card; besides, I’ve been wanting to take it for a spin and I’ve been itching to get back in the DM’s seat. For various reasons, a formal campaign won’t be feasible until after the first of the year. March or April, it looks like now. But some casual, catch as catch can Swords & Wizardry with my wife and son would be not only fun, but just what the doctor ordered. If I could get another player or two…

Now, my father is every bit as much a geek as I am. His apartment is filled, I mean filled with books and dvd’s. Wall to wall bookcases, in the living room, dining room, bedroom. A rather large percentage of his media collection is devoted to Science  Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. He’s not the most discriminating collector, though. You’ll certainly find Peter Jackson’s LOTR and Joss  Whedon’s Buffy series amongst his DVD collection, but, you’re just as likely to find Krull and Sci-FI Channel premiers. Anyway, the walls of his apartment are adorned with MOC Action Figures and he still collects comic books. You would think D&D would be right up his alley.

I’ve invited him to play a few times, over the years,  but, he’s always declined. I suspect the old Satanic Panic thing probably spooked him on the whole subject.  I decided to try one more time, playing the uber-powerful Grandson Card.

“So, pop, I’m cooking up a Swords & Wizardry game to introduce Brisco to D&D, wanna play? It’s rules light, simpler than Toontown. It’ll be a blast and you can spend some time with you’re grandson.”

Lo and behold, he agreed to play. So, I need to come up with something simple and straightforward, that will appeal to a six year old and a sixty-five year old, as well as my wife. I think I’ll keep it simple and just plop them at the entrance to a dungeon. I run sandboxes, but, I think a little direction is appropriate in this instance. 

Counter Revolution – Part II

So, I decided last week to run AD&D for my next campaign. I was tempted to go really Old School and run Swords & Wizardry, but, if I took that route, it wouldn’t be  so simple. There’s a lot of great material being produced by fans, not to mention the stuff they want $$$ for. Like this, for instance: Thief. This is from Beyond the Black Gate, one of my favorite blogs. Anyway, between what I’ve found on the net and the changes and additions I would make myself, I’m afraid it would end up looking a lot like, well, AD&D.

I could be ruthless and run the White Box version. But that one saving throw thing bothers me. Also, I understand the idea behind the max +1/-1 adjustment, it just doesn’t sit well with my sensibilities. I could get behind a +1 for 13 – 15 / +2 for 16 – 18 mechanic. But, if I go that far, well, I like the Thief, the Druid, and away we go, right back to AD&D. Or, at least, B/X. So, AD&D it is!

Now I just have to decide what campaign world to use. My original Kastmaria campaign ran for about five years. This was back when I was in my late teens to early twenties and had a lot more free time, as did my friends. So, for about the first three of those years, we would play two to three times a week, often for six to eight hours at a time; there was  closer to eight years or more worth of actual  playing time. Not only did I get to experience the fun of running a high level AD&D campaign, I also got to see my sandbox flesh out, transforming into a rich world, with history and depth. After that campaign, I ran another Kastmaria game that lasted about a year or so. Then, I shelved the world and went on to other places. Until 3e, and Sorcerers.

At the end of the first campaign, a long term plan set in motion by Ithquaris, the divinity of Magic, came to fruition. The purpose was to increase the capacity for magic-use in the inhabitants of the world, creating beings with inborn magical ability. Sorcerers. When 3e came out, with the Sorcerer Class, I decided it was time to dust of my old notebooks and update the campaign to the new edition. The timeline was set several hundred years after the last campaign ended and The Gift of Ithquaris had a profound effect on the subsequent history of the world. There were still fewer Sorcerers than Wizards, but, their numbers were increasing. As were the number of other creatures who were manifesting spontaneous magical abilities. Then there were the Bards. Here’s the entry from the Kastmaria Encyclopedia – 3e edition:

Bards – Centuries ago, the isle of Aldhuine hosted several Bardic Colleges, which were tightly allied with the Druids of Aldhuine. After The Dragon was transformed, the druids withdrew their support and banished the bards, along with almost all humans and demi-humans who weren’t true druids. Only the Wood Elves were allowed to continue living in their ancestral forests. The bards wandered Kastmaria, occasionally taking apprentices, but without a central college and staff of instructors, the quality of the new bards began to deteriorate. As the bardic lineages were at the point of disappearing, a few of the inheritors of The Gift of Ithquaris began to take an interest in Bardic Lore. They discovered that their talent for sorcery was a perfect medium to express the musical power of the bards and several young sorcerers began seeking out the few remaining bards of old, to learn their music and lore. Today, bards are still relatively rare, but there is a thriving modern tradition, composed of semi-secret brotherhoods of sorcerous musicians who pass their occult lore onto others with the talent and inclination to learn the ways of this ancient tradition reborn.

All tying very neatly into the 3e mechanics.

The whole Gift of Ithquaris thing actually runs so far back into the history of the campaign, that unless I want to create an AD&D Sorcerer class, which I don’t, it’ll be quite a headache. Back in the day, I experimented with creating a spell point system. I’m over that; I like Vancian casting. So, if I don’t want to create an AD&D sorcerer, my options are limited.

I can reboot the whole thing, jettisoning a lot of play and pre-play campaign history. As an aside, I wish that Wotc, if they just had to “fix” the Forgotten Realms, would have done a reboot. A better option than yet another edition changing apocalypse, not to mention offing Mystra and neutering Elminster.

Another option would be psionics. There’s a variant Psionicist class for AD&D that   was published in Dragon Magazine; also, I think the same issue had some ideas on making psionics a variant of magic. There’s a variant  Bard in the Dragon as well. The original campaign didn’t feature psionics, so, using the material from Dragon, and letting any other characters role for psionics, as usual, might allow me to continue with the original history.

If I go the reboot route, it would have to be so far reaching, that I think I would rather just create a new world. Or, run Greyhawk. Never ran Greyhawk.

Counter Revolution - Part 1

The art of Erol Otus, blue and white dungeon maps, thin adventure modules with unattached covers, the writings of Gary Gygax, The Dragon; these images and writings and the feelings I wrapped around them, move within my psyche and form the basis for my perception of Dungeons & Dragons. 1st Edition AD&D was the first Role-Playing Game I ever played and for 16 years it was the only RPG I played with any regularity. Sure, I tried a few others, back in the day. The 6 month long Call of Cthulhu game I played in was a nice diversion and I had a blast playing, but I never strayed too far from my first love, and saw no reason to do so. 


When Wotc bought TSR and announced they were releasing 3e, I was excited. I never cared for 2nd edition. I hated the whole Blood War thing and the caving in to the paranoid sensibilities of the Satanic Panic nutjobs, didn't like the Monstrous Compendium Binder, disliked the style, artwork, and the whole 2e presentation; I was also really, really, pissed that they got rid of all the cool Conjuration/Summoning spells.  

There were some bright spots. Planescape, Darksun, a few other gems in the endless sea of mediocre accessories, but, by and large, aside from picking up the occasional Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk supplement, I didn't bother with 2e. But when Wotc took over, I felt confident that things would be different, that these people knew what they where doing and would make a worthy successor to the earlier editions of the game. 

All in all, I think they did a good job. 3e was a player's dream, a dm's headache, but an overall fun RPG. Way too rules heavy. A bit problematic in places, said problems being exacerbated on a monthly basis as more and more rules were vomited forth from deep within the lair of Wotc, et al. I loved making monsters like a Half-Dragon Fiendish Vampire Barbarian Minotaur, but dming 3e was such a time consuming task that it didn't always feel worth the hassle. 


When 3.5 came out I ponied up the bucks and upgraded. Then, after I ended my last campaign, I decided to take a hiatus from gaming for health reasons. During my vacation, Wotc announced 4e. "What the Hell?! 4e? Really?" With every press release, things just kept sounding worse, worser, and worst of all. "Oh, and by the way, while they're at it they plan on screwing up the Forgotten Realms too!"  


I've looked over some of the 4e material. I'd like to support the current version of the game, but aside from the awesome artwork, there's not much there I really care for. Meanwhile, there's this little voice in the back of my mind that keeps saying "Screw 4e and the Dragon he road in on. To hell with 3e to. You know what you really want to play."


Meanwhile, while I was mulling all this over, surfing the web and checking out the lay of the land, I discovered the Retro-Clones. While I slept, the Old School Gaming Renaissance was in full swing; it was like a sign from the gaming gods! If I wasn't such a cynical bastard I would take it as such, pick up a retro-clone and plan my game from there. 


Part II coming soon, but speaking of Old School, I've found the Link to AKS Hexmapper; it's in my link section, located on the right, near the bottom of the page.