Just like some other bloggers, I've had close encounters with viruses lately. My wife and daughter are both feeling unwell, and it might mean a little less time for me to blog. I really hope I can avoid getting ill!
Hang in there dear reader, and I hope to be a bit more speedy at posting soon (unless our unborn child, due any day now, decides otherwise)!
One thing that used to bug the hell out of me was the fact that D&D used to measure how much you could carry in coins. Not only that, the equipment list didn't even list things in kilos, only coins! I thought it was unrealistic and focused the game only on grabbing money, which I thought was a baser form of enticement for adventuring. Pretentiousness in its base form, really.
Now I've realized that this is a design feature. The fact that you get experience for gold, actually emphasize the fact that you're better of fooling monsters out of their treasure than slaughtering them.
In the Swedish RPG Drakar & Demoner [Dragons & Demons, original, eh?] which I grew up playing, the curious invention of Encumbrance points saw the light of day. They were supposed to include not only the weight, but also the volume of things. Naturally, some of these numbers felt seriously wonky.
So, when I started my present campaign I decided to toss all kinds of encumbrance. In T&T there are something called weight units which one tenth of a pound. Why on earth invent a new unit if it's just a bunch of kilos/pounds with a new name?
What kind of campaign will benefit from encumbrance rules? I've been thinking about that a bit, and realized that the only kind of game that I intuitively feel would benefit from it is a post-apocalyptic one. In such a game where resources are scarce and where barter for high tech might be reasons for adventuring, I can fully see the need for a system that keeps track of stuff. Traditionally games about plunder, i.e. classic dungeon crawls, seem to be candidates for that, but now I'm not so sure.
In my last 3rd edition campaign (which I'll probably write more about at a later date) I once put in a pile of loot, with the idea that encumbrance would stop them from hauling it all home. Since there was a table in the DMG that told me what amount of treasure a party of a specific level "should have", the game suddenly ground to a halt when one of my players was inventive enough to figure out a way to haul it all home! Now what I do? Let them have it, or curb the invention? The mother of this dilemma of course the idea that I did the stupid thing of showing them all the stuff they couldn't have, and teasing them. That is not only cruel, it's bad manners and bad game mastering. Let's just silently sidestep the crazy idea that there are a level of treasure a PC "should have", and focus on good game mastering.
Good game mastering is about facilitating fun, and letting the players do what they want to test their wits and stretch the resources of their virtual personas. Counting on rules for encumbrance to limit the players is just laziness. Give the players meaningful challenges and they will surprise you with their inventiveness. It will be fun! In my game now, we all ignore weight and how much the characters can haul about. Will it break the design feature that it was intended to support? No, I don't think so. I have begun to like the idea of giving experience for gold, but since I'm not using that rule I think the best thing you can do about those "weight" entries in the equipment lists is to toss them out. If someone finds a dragon hoard and defeats a dragon, then they probably deserve to bring it back to town. No matter how unrealistic it is.
Tonight we had a new recruit (my game is a walk-in game, so if you're in downtown Kingston (ON) on a Wednesday night, visit us at The Minotaur and join in!) and he made a splash at once.
I had very vague plans when I inspired by the megadungeon thread on Dragonsfoot decided to draw some sketches for a dungeon and let it grow in play. Now we have a city of Khazan which I'm evolving based on what's been written about it before, a wilderness around the dungeon, and relations between the characters and NPCs. Thanks to Jeff Rients magnificent Carousing Mishaps table in Fight On! #4, more and more hilarious events keep happening. Tonight our dwarf, who was turned into a eunuch by a trap a few weeks back, suddenly got himself a very insisting girlfriend. A draconian girlfriend. He has a CHA of 1, and is now almost engaged! I never could have planned that.
Before I have always introduced the game fairly quickly, and tossed the new players in the deep end for them to "play the game" from stage one. Today I went for a more involved introduction and since one of the other players was curious about what had happened to him after his carousing, we had two threads that could be fun to entwine. It worked out marvellously well. The chutzpah shown by that new lady rogue when she faced a dark elf wizard of far superior stats and skill, charmed more than just the characters. Add to that the fact that I got to introduce (fleetingly) some pirates, makes it even better. My daughter is crazy about pirates, so no ninjas in my game. Only pirates. Arr.
Those of you who read my musings about how to make undead scary, might be satisfied to know that they were indeed scary. A bunch of skeletons never last long when you've left the first tier of delving, but they at least made an impression. I really liked how the players reacted to the special attacks of the skeletons and made smart adjustments to their tactics. Abstract combat or not, there's still tactics. They took one claw attack to the eyes, and then realized if these guys go for close combat brutality, we'd better hit them hard and from afar. For those who have been reading my posts about combat smarts might want to head over and take a peek at the Combat Trick discussion on the Bridge.
All in all it was a fun session where both the world and the characters evolved a bit in new and organic ways. What I really like about this campaign is that it's never solidifying to much, since we seem to get a nice shakeup once in a while. Fight On!
I've been thinking about undead lately. Since I started my campaign before I really had planned much, I just wanted to get going, I never had much of a theme to my dungeon levels. Now I have started to think more of that. I know that we have had much fun, and I have actually imposed some sort of overreaching feel to what I've designed so far, even if the theme is not so strong. Now I have decided upon a theme for level three. Undead.
For those of you who have played D&D and know what to expect from undead monsters, let me tell you that there are no clerics in T&T. No turning. None. Scary enough?
So, how do you make undead scary anyway? Think about it. They are the very essence of a world of wrong. You know what is cold and what is warm, what is day and what is night. The undead challenge all that and cross the most definite border of all, i.e. death. I remember how I once read a scenario for Chill, about a small Caribbean island overrun with zombies when it hit home. Suddenly the very idea of a dead person walking again overpowered me and I felt a deep sense of dread. The reality of "undeadness" had kind of sunk in. I really which I could get that feeling again, and even better if I could convey it in gaming.
Since T&T isn't primarily a horror game, and I don't play it deadpan serious, I'm not going to aim for that kind of effect. But, it would be nice to break out of the 1 HD skeleton trap.
What do you say? Nasty enough? If I can't accomplish anything like real dread in the player I can at least aim to make them respect the undead as dangerous opponents.
Now I've joined the network of RPG blogs, as you can see from the stylish banner left of this post. I really like the idea of collating all kinds of gaming goodness created by people just like me out there. There's a lot of information out there, and a meta-feed like the RPG Bloggers Network is a splendid idea.
So, what's up in the near future? I plan a few longer pieces about game design, and things which have annoyed me over the years. I'm also considering offering a small download of rules and tweaks. With some luck I might get some official blessing to even offer something playable. You can bet I will continue with my regular T&T play reports, and I will talk more about what makes me tick and often from a T&T perspective.
Thanks for coming along, dear reader!
A big discussion has erupted over at Grognardia. James opened a can of worms when he stated that "old school" is not just a feeling but something more tangible, and some very differing attitudes were revealed amongst the readers. I posted some of my own thoughts, and after doing so I wonder if I made myself clear. Sometimes when someone posts something which makes the cogs and wheels turn it takes awhile for it to run it course even though I often have to put it to print before that can happen. I decided to take another stab at it.
I think my way of arguing was really fuzzy! Old school is something tangible, but it is not a usable term in a discussion amongst two parts who don't know the intricacies of their opponents taste. Fairly useless, in most cases.
Matt Finch probably focuses on the key issue, that term old school is a loose term to ground any extended argument on. It falls apart. It's a phenomena.
So, I still content the thesis that system does matter for a specific feel or effect. If there are things you claim are essential for that elusive feeling you think is essential for old school you'd better use a system to support that.
Maybe the best way to think and talk about it all is to state clearly what one is talking about instead of slapping on a un-precise and so loaded a term as "old school". I probably will do it sometimes anyway, when I think people know what I mean by that.
To dismiss another gamer as an old nostalgic coot or a brash whippersnapper without respect for the forefathers, are both unjust and unfair. We game to have fun, all of us. Some of us are way to fond of delineations and demarcations, and plays the "definition game" too often. Let's discuss what we like and why. Sometimes we toss around labels so much they lose their meaning.
I just read a most intriguing blog post about actions and stunts in combat, over here at Ragnorakk's blog Tran Eskoor an Doon.
It's nothing new that many players only do what they are explicitly told they can do. Using that and actually putting some cool stuff in front of them takes adding 1 and 1 and not getting 4. I'm bad at maths, Ragnorakk isn't. Cool stuff!
Even if this just about T&T solo gaming, I think this can be used for more than that.
Today I've decided to take a look at a classic, Buffalo Castle from Flying Buffalo, copyright 1976.
Buffalo Castle is the first of the solo adventures which T&T is so known for. I don't know if this is the first solo ever, according to Rick it might very well be. The designer of this dungeon is Rick Loomis, and it is one of the few adventures by Rick. There's one in a FreeRPG Day booklet as well. Being the first solo it is very charming to see so many of the tropes that later became staples of dungeon designs everywhere. We have odd games of chance that can lower or raise your stats willy nilly, we have teleporters, monsters to fight and treasure strewn for grabbing which look ominously unguarded. Last but not least is my favourite, a grassy plain with a big herd of buffalo! What! That's some castle.
I love this little adventure! I got mine as a pdf in the 7th ed box, and printed it out and played it a lot. Sadly I noticed first afterwards that the original was significantly smaller that letter size, so I only have tiny print in the middle of the page. The illustrations are all drawn for the adventure and they depict some of the denizens of the castle, some treasure and signs you might find, and similar things. They are all done by Liz Danforth and all have that "Danforth feel" and atmosphere her pieces are well known for.
This solo takes us back to a time when the hobby was very young, and in the introduction Rick Loomis describes the idea behind it as a way to try out T&T and see what it's all about. Incredible enough he also says "or for Dennis Hall, who lives in Alaska and doesn't have enough people nearby to play group games like T&T". Very informal, indeed.
All in all it's a marvellously fun romp. Unlike Keep on the Borderlands it's not very usable as a start of your own campaign, but in the minds of all T&T delvers it compares as the first place where they encountered fame and fortune. Some later solos took the art form in multiple advanced directions, and some of them had both intriguing stories and locales usable for campaign play (like City of Terrors, for example). This on the other hand is at the core just what good old exploring for fame and gold is all about, it oozes fun out of every pore.
I've saved the best for last. Rick Loomis have generously put The castle online, for free! Try it out and have some fun!
I felt I still had some thoughts about fighting and cool manoeuvres, that didn't sort themselves out in my head when I posted the original post. This will be a bit rambling, and I haven't finished this train of thought yet. Hop on for a ride while the train is gaining speed...
Having just quit a D&D 4th ed campaign (and started to play Call of Cthulhu instead, wohoo!), I realized that the idea of making cool stuff is there. The problem is they have just taken out everything that matters. The effect.
See, when I was playing a dwarf fighter in D&D4, I had a cartload of small cards with "powers" that had funky names like whirlwind strike or dizzying blow and stuff like that. Nothing wrong with some whirling and dizzying, eh? Well, if only I had been able to do that!
I know a lot of people grumbled about how in 3rd ed you couldn't do anything cool in combat unless you had a chain of feats. Sure, I bitched a bit about that too, but at least you could do those awesome things when you got the feat.
The problem which made me quit D&D4 was that even if I had, say, dizzying blow nobody became dizzy!! I just rolled more dice of damage! That became boring after a while. I never understood that while I was playing. Oddly enough. This makes me think of a couple of conclusions about combat rules.
I still haven't thought about what it all means, and what game systems work and not. I'm thinking maybe Jared Sorensen's three questions are involved in this. You can count on me getting back to this. It boils down to this: Combat should be interesting, otherwise why spend so much time on it?
Having had little time to prepare, I came to today's session with the intention of delaying my players. Sometimes it comes like a natural thing when the delving expands out of the dark, and the outer world gets involved in the adventure. It happened somewhat last week, when one of the PCs capable of flying decided to fly high over the mountain of the dungeon and scout the area. He found some standing stones, tracks of cattle rustling orcs and enough to entice him to explore some more. This week I actually didn't have to delay much, since the taster of wilderness adventure and wider and wilder lands made further exploration and research about the surrounding lands something they took on voluntarily! Add to that the fact that another player had decided to use some of the NPCs he had recruited and start some serious carpentry down the dungeon to build bridges and stuff. I love when my players get creative like that!
I couldn't really resist using the awesome Carousing Mishaps table by the inventive Jeff Rients, from issue four of Fight On! magazine. So, they did not only get the opportunity to chase down facts about the countryside, they also was tempted to spend some hard earned gold and get some fun to happen. Maybe getting 1 Adventure Point per spent gold was a bit generous, but whattaheck! Our brave dark elf partied like there was no tomorrow and ended up without any clothes or memory in the temple of the Earth Mother, where the angry priestesses chased out the defiler! Fun was had by all.
When they finally entered the dungeon they decided to go down a hallway where I had basically drawn a long empty corridor and then just filled it with odd traps. I made it fairly clear to them that they were traps, and it's impossible to surprise someone that's so lucky like their rogue. But, it turned out that even if it would have filled me with glee to see some tense moments when the traps went off, we did get some good moments out of them anyway. You see, they didn't just roll a couple of dice and them moved along, and they didn't have to think their way through a mental headache while they were trying to have fun with their friends. I managed to do something different.
Leave a trap out in the open, and players will spend time on it. They will take it apart, prod it with ten foot poles, try to circumvent it and then understand what it could have done when they are finally safe. Remember the fun you had when you put it there for them to solve? Just watch your players as they carefully reassemble the machinery so that they can feel that satisfaction when they come back and see that some other delvers have triggered it! I noted that even if the players hadn't understood how the mechanism worked (and I didn't actually give then all the information needed), they still spend a lot of time safeguarding themselves if the trapped would do this or that when they out of curiosity wanted to test it out after they passed it by. Having the whole party kibitzing and taking different precautions was a very interactive way of handling a trap. Playing a game where traps are a thing unto themselves is a mindset, and my players are good at it.
Talking about minds. I was actually fooling around with their minds a bit today. I had hinted that there was a tavern down on level two, and today they found it! It's not just any tavern, though, and I messed with their heads a bit and placed the Tavern out of Time (AKA The Come Back Inn) from Dave Arnesons Blackmoor in there! They seemed scared by time travelling and plane hopping taverns and left quickly. I hope I learned something from Dave of how to keep the players on their toes.
There was some fighting, and they used some of the stuff I posted about combat, and effectively halved the combat adds of a golem by knocking the not so dexterous creature over! It takes a lot of power to challenge these guys in a fight now. We'll see how long they'll stay on level two. Well, they now got one of the colour coded keys I've left in the dungeon, and some rumours about other areas and the pool of the black one down on level five. We'll see where they go next time.
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