Imagine meeting a... duck in Rappan Athuk!

One thing I really appreciated was how Glorantha had a very cool mix of high and low. I put that in past tense, since in the new HeroWars/HeroQuest era (and that bone dry anthropology 101 book, Thunder Rebels) way to much energy have been spent on making it a superhero game with a social context.

The place names was one thing which always made me smile. Those are still around, luckily. Sadly the great issue 16 of Tales of the Reaching Moon have been superseded. I thought it was a great idea to include things like the Red Square and other cold war era spoofs in the lunar empire. Gaming should be about making fun, right?

Anyway.

There is a creature which for some really nails the silly aspect of Glorantha. Naturally I speak of the anthropomorphic ducks. While they are silly (they are!), they therefor have quite a potential to pack a lot of emotional punch when you play them straight. I have always loved the idea of Death Drakes. A small, beaked, fellow who worship the god of Death and Honour. A small, beaked, fellow who kicks serious ass. A small, beaked, fellow you don't want to walk past your farm because this affinity with Death makes your chickens keel over. A small, beaked, fellow who's affinity with Death, and stay dead, makes him invaluable as a hunter of undead. Where would such a fellow show up if not in a dungeon riddled with undead and temples to Orcus?

Imagine meeting a duck, in Rappan Athuk!

Using D&D modules with T&T

I found this nice table on my hard disk. No author or indication of where I got it from, sadly.

(edited to include the table as a picture so it fits the page. I really need to take some time to investigate another layout of this blog. Thanks for the heads up, Timeshadows!)

Now I am thinking that maybe this can be used to be able to convert monsters in Rappan Athuk to T&T on the fly. If, say, a 5 HD monster is called for, I look at the line for level and finding 5 I read out the MR in the column for Normal, or maybe Hard if the monster have class levels. How about that?

Every time I get back to a game I haven't run in a while I get this sense of dislocation before the old reflexes kick back in. Right now the feeling of how to gauge a fitting MR is really rusty.

T&T houserules - taking on Rappan Athuk

Since I posted my musings about a new campaign I've become more and more enthusiastic about the idea of running Necromancer Games' megadungeon Rappan Athuk with T&T. Some of the first things I'm thinking of is house rules and tweaks.

I'm thinking of using these

• Shields shall be splintered
• Hirelings will be splintered
• EP for gold - like it used to be in older editions of T&T
• Experience points for exploration - and activities to that effect
• Ablative armour - like it used to be in older editions of T&T

Especially the last one is important. I want all classes, not only the spellcasters, to have to pay continuously for their equipment. More reasons to seek out treasure could only be a good thing.

But things like cool options for combat, like the first one, is always a good thing. Ablative armour would be cool for that reason as well. You will have to think of when you can afford a combat. Hirelings? Well, I just liked the idea of tempting the players to make use of it, knowing how it will be seen back in town. Hard choices are good choices.

Then we enter the realm of Weird Stuff.

I think the Beliefs and Instincts from Burning Wheel look kind of cool. But, in that game I see them become fuel for the game in a way that might not gel that well with continuously crawling a megadungeon. Still, Instincts have a very cool way to make a character come alive. "I have an arrow on my bow at the least sign of danger" could lead to more than a little hilariousness, which I think should be emphasized.

The other idea I have is to have a Long term Goal and a Short term Goal. Maybe that's better developed through play, but I'd like my players to think about it. We'll see.

Once again into the breach - starting a new campaign

So now my Wednesday group have ended due to scheduling difficulties and I'm looking to recruit some new people for a game. First question is of course, what are we going to play?

Since I have no players I'm going to decide what I want and then find players who want to play that. My problem then is to decide.

Have you looked at your game collection lately? There's a lot of choices there. At least there are in my collection of almost 100 different game systems! Naturally I felt this kind of talked to me. How many editions of the same game do I own?

A few.

Right now I'm looking at a few alternatives. I will have to decide on either AD&D 1st ed, S&W, T&T of some edition, B/X D&D or LotFP Weird Fantasy? It would be kind of cool to try my hand at ToEE, or doing Keep on the Borderland with B/X. But, wouldn't it be even cooler do to Rappan Athuk with T&T? Some times I wish I was one of those people which feel the small OD&D box and their imagination is all they need.

Damn. I have too much choice.

That wasn't such a meaty post, was it? Well, I might have some more interesting stuff to say in the days to come, when I ponder the possibilities and maybe feel like creating something.