Making deities matter

I just browsed the Players Guide for the 3rd ed setting Kingdoms of Kalamar. In the chapter on clerics it had some options I found interesting. Those who have followed me through the years know I have a soft spot for KoK, and this was something I felt could be imported to other games.

You know how clerics can turn undead? In newer editions of D&D, that it because the channel some kind of positive energy from their god. That sounds kind of iffy to me, but you can take the concept and run with it.

If your cleric is channeling power from the gods when casting spells (from a spell list that is mostly identical to all), why not take one effect that conceptualize the area of influence of that god, and make that a power of the cleric?

So, a cleric of the god of merchants should be able to channel the power of smooth talking, charming or something similar. A cleric of the god of death should be able to somehow be more deadly once in a while. A cleric of the god of love could... Well, you get the idea.

How about that?

You could make it happen on a d20 lower than the character level, on a 1 in 6 or just once every session. Scalable to every power setting. Also, if the death channeler just gets +1 dmg or kills outright is also one of those "setting dials". Even a +1 could be fun. Everyone likes to be somewhat special.

You say it sounds like those fiddly "daily" powers from my post on old school "feats"? Yeah, it will take some bookkeeping unless you make it happen just once every session. Everyone should be able to remember if they have used their power this night, unless very drunk while gaming, right?

Then you could just tweak the spell list to be unique for every god/temple/whatever. I think the power channeling idea is more fun, though.

I hate captchas!

Blogger must have upgraded their captchas or something. Now every time I want to comment on a blog I have to try two times to get the damn words through. I hate it.

It's very ironic that these days when captchas don't stop computers any more (the spam software is "good" enough these days), it does stop humans from communicating.

Arrgh!

What game for puzzle gamers?

I guess everyone have heard that what you do in D&D is "kill monsters and take their stuff"? I wont get into the truthfulness of that statement, but I will focus on the idea that some games suit a certain kind of game, and maybe certain scenarios.

If you are a gamer who likes to fight things, I think you would be happy if your DM brought of any of the Giant, or G, series of modules for AD&D. Lots of fights, and lots of different environments and locales that give the fights some different character. An example for T&T would be the excellent solo Arena of Khazan. It is all about fighting in an arena, and it's much more fun than it sounds like. Well, if you like me is not that interested in combat.

Now, I guess anyone who knows about Trail of Cthulhu knows that it's a game for those gamers who likes investigations. Even stronger than Call of Cthulhu it focuses on how clues fit together, hinting at arcane mysteries. While I have played very few ToC scenarios, maybe the oldie Shadows of Yog-sothoth can work as an example of such a scenario.

Are there more kinds of gamers and games? I won't get into the narrative or thespian discussion, but instead shortcut to a kind of game that I was reminded by yesterday.

A few years back I ran a D&D3 campaign, running some old AD&D modules with the 3rd ed. rules. I wanted to try what Necromancer Games called "Third edition rules, first edition feel". When we played one of the A series, A2 more precisely, a very peculiar scene unfolded. There were a pile of broken wagons, and carts, in the module. There were also piles of coins, not easily transportable. Guess what happened when one of my players figured out what could be done with the spell Mend? Curiously enough, one of my players brandishing the table of expected wealth by level declared that they had gotten "too much money"! One player was smart, and outwitted me and another player started a heated argument about it.

Yeah, I know. What a mess, eh?

Apart from the fact that the player protesting was way to occupied with the spectres of balance and level appropriate, there's something else going on here.

What was it that the guy did who got the idea of using Mend? Well, it was smart playing, of course. I would not call it good roleplaying, since it did not really related to acting all that much like a character in a secondary world, but it was playing the game. As a game. I'd call that kind of play a puzzle play. Please note that it's not forensics or investigation, like on ToC or CoC. It's building stuff, re-using scraps and pieces. It's all about being MacGyver, and saving the day with a piece of string and some Duck tape.

How do you facilitate that kind of play? What kind of examples are there out there of games where you can do that a lot, or scenarios where it's bound to happen?

I'm not sure you can plan for it, but I'm thinking that there might be something that makes these things happen, and I'm not seeing it. A few more times before that campaign folded, the same player constructed mechanical ways to defuse traps and other odd things. Multiple times he was kind fo stumped by the fact that neither I as DM, not the other players, understood even what he was trying to do. I think, but am not sure, that this is a very specialized kind of sandbox play. Put some oddities out there and see what they build. But, I have no idea how to do stuff like that...

I'd like to make more thing like that happen. Any stories of such shenanigans or suggestions for how to facilitate it? Feel free to comment.

How to do a a good rpg podcast

I have now listened to a few podcasts, and I think I have some ideas of things to do, and not to do, just from a lot of exposure. I don't claim the list is exhaustive, or that you can't make a good 'cast without, but it will be better if you think of a few of these points. That's my belief.

• If you have a guest on - make sure you ask that person questions relevant to their expertise. Try asking about what makes their game special, if they are a game designer. Make sure they talk more than you do. Bring on Luke Crane, that will teach you. :)
• If you have an "open table" discussion on a topic, figure out how someone could argue from certain points of view and then try to address those. Don't just think out loud and then go "I don't know". If you don't know, or feel like taking a stance in order to further the discussion, keep shut.
• If you have a hard time pronouncing stuff, take a moment before the show to talk it over with your co-hosts. If you have nobody, ask a colleague or your wife! Figure something out, and stick with it.
• Don't think you know what it means that something is free on the web. Copyright is a word you should not even mention unless you have read up on how things work! If you don't know how the OGL works, ask someone who have published a retro clone. They are often knowledgeable and willing to share their knowledge.
• Have sections or "columns" with some kind of audio separator. Fix up a quick bumper, and have someone be "editor" for that section. Just a couple a friends rambling back and forth for two hours gets tiring. 
• Don't state anything about a game being in print, using a specific system or any other fact about games unless you have checked it. If you are unsure, look it up on wikipedia/google/whatever while your co-hosts keeps talking. Otherwise mention that you don't know and check it afterwards and put it in the show notes.

Those are some hints. Most are not hard, but there are reasons why I mention it!

Many podcasts out there are great. I recommend you look around and sample some. My two biggest favourites, right now, are Roll For Initiative and Happy Jacks RPG Podcast. They are very different from each other!

Old Traveller adventures - the emptiness of space

I recently bought the Mongoose edition of Traveller, as you might remember me mentioning before. It is a good game, and a fun read. Now I have brought som eof my other Traveller stuff out of storage as well, browsing it since the mind is full of Traveller anyway. You know what? I think I'm seeing a trend in these adventures.

A classic Traveller adventure is describing a locale, either a space ship or a planet. There is usually a task to be done, and some hindrances in the way.

Does that sound familiar? I noted another thing. Quite often the party is stuck in this research outpost, APC, starship, desert, jungle, whatever and need to use their tools to get out alive. More often than not there are rules for how to handle the environment and/or the technology at hand.

I'm missing something.

This setup there's the party, and this locale. That's it. Who the hell are you supposed to interact with?

If you look at classic D&D adventures, there are always NPCs. Remember Lareth? Remember the nutty lich in D2? Remember the zoo of factions in the Caves of Chaos? Space is empty in comparison.

I think I've found out why I so often fail at making science fiction games fun. Space just is too big, cold and empty.

Gender, gaming, are you serious?

How the hell can you make such a fuzz over such a thing?

You think the old AD&D contained boatloads of stupid stuff? I sure think so. Ignore it! Nobody used all that stuff anyway. If they did, we had more fun than them. Wrongbadfun, right?

You think WotC must|must not include whatever such moronic stuff in their new game? Well, who cares about that Type V thing, when we have the old stuff, right? Right?

And if you are a moronic misogynistic twit, I will just ignore you.

The 'net is full of idiots. Ignore them.

More T&T resources!

I don't know if any reader of this blog have missed them, but if you have I think you should check out to nice resources for Tunnels & Trolls.

First, wander over to Tavernmaster Games and have an ale. Behind the fancy name and beautiful website you'll find well known writers and artists. Personally I find Andy Holmes adventures to be excessively brutal, but even accounting for differing taste, it's quality stuff!

Second, I hope you know about the T&T fanzine, TrollsZine? The latest issue, number four, is out. Many pages of interesting stuff. It's a bit like Fight On! in that's it's a mix of everything. Check it out!

Call of Cthulhu on rails

So, we played another session on CoC last weekend. It was the second of two sessions covering the scenario Blood on the Tracks by J. Todd Kingrea from the Pagan Publishing scenario collection Out of the Vault.

The scenario is basically a train ride on a train hijacked by a monster. The intent is to have a feeling of being locked in, of having someone around hunting you for mysterious reasons. I think it is an interesting set up. I'll do a short summary of events and then talk about what went well and what didn't.

So, our investigators left Boston for New Orleans, following the letter our intrepid reported had gotten from her old friend there. Everyone settled in and talked to the other travellers and had dinner on the train. After dinner and cigars most people retired to their rooms, some for "medical tonics for better sleep". Suddenly the peace was shattered when the priest yelled at the top of his lungs that he had seen the conductor run out from Ms Browns compartment, all bloody. The brave investigators broke down the door to the washroom and found the dead conductor.

They spent the night doing autopsies (good with a MD in the group, eh?), examining the blood trail and searching staterooms. Sooner or later the professor of anthropology they had talked to was missing and they started a search, finding him stuffed in a box in the baggage car. By now they all suspected some vampiric activity, considering the blood was missing. They did find, and open, the big crate in the baggage car. Interestingly enough, this lead to the conclusion that Sir Alexander's wife must be a vampire!

Now they had noticed that the radio was smashed and that communications with the engine was down. Our war hero decided it was time for more pulp hero antics and climbed over to the engine via the coal box! He had his big gun with him and managed to blow the two living corpses away. Then there was a fight in the railroad car with the vampire and his acolyte. They ran down the whole train and the fight ended in the baggage car with a stake through the heart of the vampire. Then they had managed to slow down the train and had a lot of explaining to do when the authorities arrived.

So, how was it? Well. I more than once used the guidelines from Unknown Armies about 30-50% being professional level and had everyone with that level automatically succeed at crucial checks like in Trail of Cthulhu. I never had anyone need to be pushed by their Drive into action. Also, I actually forgot to check if anyone's Pillar of Sanity was threatened when they rolled for SAN. The latter was a failing on my part.

Mood wise I think it worked ok. Having one after another being killed off did heighten the sense of being hunted somewhat. I think the fact that things were moving along a pace determined by the villain was a good thing. It meant that even though the investigation could inform the decisions of the players, nothing had to stop because they didn't figure it all out. In fact, I don't think they ever did. The fact that guns are so deadly in close quarters made any gunfight slightly lopsided. I rolled really bad on my part and every second (no, really!) shot fired was an impale! Maybe you need to have a mix of "gun fodder" and some nasty mythos critters to drive home how useless guns are against those.

One of my house rules that will come to matter is how I handle SAN recovery. The doctor who did the autopsies and with reckless abandon ran after the vampire with his hunting rifle did suffer. He gained a temporary insanity and how have this thing for cleanliness. It will affect his work, I gather. But, more importantly he lost 8 SAN which he will never get back. They ended up with a train filled with bloody murder, corpses and guns had been fired. No chance of plausible denial there, so no SAN recovery even though they defeated the monster. That rule will colour this campaign!

Now they will arrive in New Orleans and there are cults, murders and monsters up ahead. I can't wait.

A really good piece of advice on game mastering

Al over at Beyond The Black Gate posted something really good that I just had to share, in the hope somebody reads it that hadn't otherwise. I'll quote the juicy bits.

Lets say, for instance, the party is battling trolls. One of the players, in the midst of combat, wishes to light a torch and start burning troll bits to stop a defeated troll from regenerating back up into the fray. In a "DM vs. Players" scenario, the DM would most likely be inclined to favor getting "his" troll back into action to whup up on the PCs some more, and tell the player its going to take a couple of rounds to light the torch, a couple more rounds to effectively burn troll bits, and all the while suffering the undefended attacks by the remaining trolls.

Unfortunately, what this DM is actually doing is punishing creative play. "Get back to unimaginatively rolling 'to hit' and damage", he might as well say, "or you're going to get pounded on."

Read that again. While it might be tempting to squash that irritating player, god knows I have done it myself!, it is really crucial not to. 

That's some really good advice there for how to be a better DM/GM/whatever.

Say yes!

Are feats that uninteresting?

Amazing. I had a big peak in readership when I posted about my take on FrDaves old school feats, but only one guy left a comment. Odd.

I wonder if there's a flame war going on somewhere that I'm missing...

*shrug*

I think they look cool anyway.