GAMING IN THE DIGITAL AGE, PART II

Continuing my previous post...


We sat down to actually game, this time using a laptop instead of my beleaguered smartphone, which apparently was just not fast enough to keep up with the demands of roleplayers.  Again, part of the idea was to test out my retro-clone, Sorcery & Steel, so it was important to factor in just how much time was spent in confusion, as well as how much time was spent actually roleplaying.  


Truly, it wasn't the smoothest experience.  Probably because of the following:
1) My ill-preparation as Dungeon Master.  I need to be on the ball and ready to go at a moment's notice.  I have not run a game in several years.
2) I kept having to flip through the PDF to refer to the maps.  And the maps have too much black on them to print without blowing an ink cartridge -- I'm looking at you Goodman Games!  Fail.
3) My 7-year-old son did not feel like he was involved enough, and so kept running off and doing his own thing.  While tangentially related, that was off-putting, and distracted everyone else.
4) The pauses in the scenario while I figured out where they were in the module vs. where they were on the map.


I thought it went pretty fast, but we have someone in the group who is quick to whine, therefore I try to eliminate bitching for my own piece of mind.  So, I resolved to fix these things for next time.  Especially involve my son more, as an absolute newbie it is essential he enjoy himself fully, so that he becomes a gamer and enjoys gaming on its own merits.  Actively give him choices, so that he has a louder voice within the group. 


I would like to unveil more complexities to combat, such as the combat maneuvers.  Having more things to do than just endlessly trading blows with monsters in a war of H.P. attrition should help.  Being able to disarm a nasty foe, or knock him down, ad infinitum is part of what makes Sorcery & Steel great, IMHO, and should be extensively used.  


What did go right is that the players seemed to understand what was required of them, and didn't raise a fuss about this or that rule.  Which is a good thing.  If a rule doesn't make sense, new players can jump on that immediately and it makes the game less fun.  


And another thing that went right is that, barring my son toward the end, everyone had fun.  


So, with that in mind, and the adventure not yet finished, we must say: To Be Continued!

Gaming in the Digital Age - Part 1

This is the first of a series of posts about running roleplaying games with current technology.  I'm not talking about computer programs that organize every aspect of your game, from initiative to combat to how many spells have been cast, etc.  That's was old when my Apple IIe was around.  I'm referring to referencing PDF rulebooks, using pencils, paper, and real dice.


The game I am running is Basic D&D, heavily house-ruled (my retro-clone).  I wanted to test the efficacy of the system and how easy it was to make characters.  The speed of character creation was diluted somewhat by having to explain things orally to relative newbies, including a complete newbie: my 7 year old son.  


I was using my Motorola Cliq, an Android phone (cuz I haven't been able to stand Apple proprietary devices since they introduced the iPod).  

In retrospect, a laptop would have been better.  The PDF reader I was using was the best there was for free, but I had to wait for pages to refresh which only increased the amount of time character creation took.  


Still, we got 3 characters up and running, and we need to set a time for the game.  Something that meshes with everyone's schedules.  That will be harder than actually sitting down and bench-testing both the digital era plus my homebrew D&D.


Part II coming soon!

Story-based Experience Points

The main Experience Point (X.P.) awards discussions seem to be based around two things: Either you get X.P.for finding treasure or you do not.  I tend not to give X.P. for treasure, but I also tend to award experience a little differently that what it tells you in the rules.

The TSR days (and various editions) of Dungeons & Dragons all awarded X.P. for two things: finding treasure (especially magical treasure), and slaying monsters.  Now, while not bad in and of itself, this led to some players doing very bad things (like slaying townsfolk or other PCs) to get experience.  The sad thing is, there were some Dungeon Masters who let them get away with it.  It says normal men are worth a certain amount of X.P. in the Monster Manual, so those who went by the book just awarded the experience, threw up their hands, and wondered what went wrong. 

Well, aside from the fact that those Dungeon Masters needed to put their collective feet down, and the "angry mob rule" from Original D&D never made it into the later rulebooks, it seems as if some campaigns degenerated into "kill the monster, take its stuff."  As if one single part of the rules had become the whole point of the game. 

Certainly many computer RPGs pretty well took that route.  There were several articles and letters in Dragon Magazine (in its early days, at least) that dealt with the hack and slash aspect, and whether it had a place in D&D.

But interestingly enough, around the time of Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (2e), 1989, there was a computer game called Baldur's Gate, loosely based on the 2e ruleset.  In this game you had various tasks to perform, and the rewards included XP.  I had never seen that before, but it made sense to me.  Torment did the same, as well as Icewind Dale, which is why those games appealed to me despite my dislike of AD&D.  At that time, I was playing Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, Warhammer, RoleMaster, etc. 

Time passed, and 3E was released.  Even its experience system, with its Challenge Ratings, was skewed in much the same direction as its TSR predecessors.  According to designer George Strayton, WotC stuck to the "kill 'em all, take their stuff" philosophy when designing 3rd Edition D&D.  They did add one thing, you received experience for disarming traps, but still their X.P. system felt woefully incomplete. 

Looking at Rolemaster and Palladium, the way you gain X.P. is far different than in other similar games.  in RoleMaster you can gain experience for adventures, and some of the equations to calculate experience are overblown.  Likewise, Palladium gives out experience for planning, and you get more if your plan worked, and less if it failed, etc.  Both of these are germs of a good idea.  What if, like Baldur's Gate (and the much more recent Gothic series), you got experience for doing things?  Bring a nobleman back his amulet from the brothel he left it at: 50 xp in Baldur's Gate, for example.  In the PC game Gothic 2, the reward could be 3 times that.  Reward players for actually doing things in the adventure, instead of just mindlessly killing. 

This is not as radical as it may seem at first. Tournament adventures are scored in a similar manner. Why not transplant that into an actual game?

So, I propose this system, scaled to D&D: 

EXPERIENCE
You get experience from two broad categories.  The first is a larger experience award, the major objective.  The major objective is the whole point of the adventure.  You might get 1,000 points for it. 
- Exploring the Unknown
- Investigating an Evil Outpost
- Removing the effects of an evil curse
- Recovering Ruins
- Eradicating a force of raiding goblins
- Destroying an Ancient Evil
- Fulfilling a Quest
- Escaping From Enemies
- Rescuing Prisoners
- Finding a Lost Race

The minor objectives are things that you did during the adventure.  They're worth anywhere from 100-500 points, though not more than 300 points should be given unless the objectives took more than one session to complete.
- Following a trail of clues to the next part of the adventure
- Searching around a town's taverns to find a guide
- Bribing a guard (or quietly rendering him unconscious) to gain entry
- Killing or overcoming a monster that is preventing the Heroes from progressing further.
- Using a Magic Portal to go someplace (or come back, or both)
- Travel to a shrine that has been lost for ages, in order to remove the curse.

These are base Experience Awards, and they increase as the Heroes rise in level.  A good rule of thumb is to multiply the awards by the Heroes' level.  So if the Heroes are 3rd level, they might net 600 X.P. for the last group of monsters they killed.  Or, after exploring the ruins to find the foozle they might get 3,000 X.P. 

Obviously, you can increase or decrease the base experience award as you see fit.  A slower progression might see 500 for a major objective, or even 250!  You might even flatten the rate, so even at 5th level the PCs are getting the same amount of X.P. as they did at 1st level.  Part of the advantage of this system is the sheer control.  You can tailor it to the exact number of adventures you want your players to go through before they level. Also, set up this way, hack and slash actions are not rewarded unless you want them to be.

Hot Elf Chick, Slightly NSFW

I thought I'd post the pic first  :)  

As part of James Smith's fiendish plan to attract more followers to the Old School Renaissance, he suggested we do this.  Many bloggers have taken up his suggestion already, and I'm following suit. 

I realize some people don't particularly care for Larry Elmore's art, but I'm not in that camp.  I think, barring some of his later paperback covers, he is an incredibly talented artist, easily up there with Joe Jusko, Frank Frazetta, Luis Royo, and others. 

Welcome to my blog!  :)

To the point, however, you are now on a site of a rabid pre-Y2K gamer, one who prefers the older flavors of D&D to the new stuff.  However, the current owner, Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, has seen fit to pull all their reasonably priced PDFs of their old games down, so it would be hard to find anything other than at Ebay collectible prices.  Fortunately, the work of a few talented individuals has made this much easier, and many are free.  If you have ever had a hankering to be a wizard and cast earthshaking spells, a mighty warrior cleaving your way through evil hordes, or even a freebooter exploring dark labyrinths where danger and treasure lurk, then check these out:

Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game 
Made to emulate Basic and Expert D&D books by Moldvay and Cook published in the very early 80's, with more modern innovations

B/X Companion 
This is an imagining of what could have been, if the Companion volume for Basic D&D had been released for the Moldvay/Cook version. 

Big Brown Book
A supplement to D&D-as-wargame. Every roll is made on a d6.

Dark Dungeons
Based on a later iteration of Basic D&D, the one authored by Mentzer and organized and edited into the "Rules Cyclopedia" by Aaron Allston.

For Gold & Glory
A pretty incredible version of 2nd Edition D&D.  If you played D&D before 2000 and after 1987, this was likely the version you played.

Labyrinth Lord
Another Basic D&D clone, this one hews more closely to the original rules.

Labyrinth Lord: Advanced Edition Companion
This "updates" Labyrinth Lord to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (first edition), which many prefer. 

Lamentations of the Flame Princess
Aimed at more Lovecraftian and Clark Ashton Smith influences, but still D&D.

Microlite system
Randall has designed many free iterations of D&D, all trimmed down and made very easy to play.

Myth & Magic
This is a clone of 2nd Edition D&D, updated with more modern rules to replace what the author wanted to fix.

OSRIC
This is a clone of first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  It is nearly identical to the original. 

Swords & Wizardry
Mythmere games has designed a few brilliant clones of OD&D

I'm sure there are some that I missed, but this will get you started!  Now, if I've reignited the fires of your youth (or if the pic did it), go forth and grab a rulebook, grab some dice, and reclaim the golden age of roleplaying!

Celebrating Gygax

Today is the anniversary of Gary Gygax's death.  If anyone doesn't know what a Gary Gygax is, you need to look it up.  Jeff Rients on his blog mentioned some homework:

"Start with a core set of rules, the older and crappier the better.  You can use an RPG but some half-baked wargame works even better.  Produce a two or three page document with suggestions for improving the rules/adapting them for RPG play and an outline for a campaign.  Expand this to a 50-100 page book.  Use the latter document as the basis for all your campaigns for the next decade or three.  Run one to six games a week, refining your work as necessary.  Publishing any of it is entirely optional."

Done and done.  Except for publishing any of it.  I'm still in the process of writing a clone, but it's not finished as of this writing.  A short blurb:

I wrote this because I want a different "feel" for D&D, one that I don't believe the mechanics support well in their current form.  I want to bring the violent action and feel of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and David Gemmell to the mix.  I want the otherworldly horror of Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft.  I want to renew a sense of wonder to the player, when you sat down and played your first game of D&D.

Choose from 10 unique races, not just another variation of elf.  Some are the same as you're used to (shaken and stirred a bit), others are very different.  Humans are now distinct by nationality and race. 

You are not your stuff anymore.  Your damage increases by class and level, not by acquiring a higher-damage weapon.  This is logical and consistent with the pulps we are emulating.   

No skills!  Your character is unique and does have abilities all his own, and the rules allow anything to be attempted without fiddly rules.  The Thief class is now more useful and fun than in earlier iterations of That Fantasy Game. 

Experience points and Treasure are more logical, consistent, and reward actually doing things.  Magical treasure is now something to be truly in awe of -- not because of raw power, but because of the effects.

New combat mechanics allow for any action to be taken, with instant effects -- not just “+2 to Armor Class!”  Unhorse your foe!  Throw your opponent into a group of enemies and bowl them over.  Hurl your sword at someone and have it pierce him like a spear!  Shatter weapons and shields!  Simple, quick grappling rules allow you to wrestle with your enemy in style!  46 Combat Maneuvers make the Fighter class fun again! 
 
Almost infinite variety.  We have 43 character classes with different types of Spellcasters and Priest-types.  Unique mechanics allow selection to be a breeze!  Get a character up and running in 10 minutes!  Variety like you've not seen in either kit or prestige class!  Yet easier than any edition!

New spells, contained in the same Vancian spell slot system, but now with full power over your spells and how they're cast!  Options for variants allow for a richer magic system!  Eight different schools of magic are detailed, and clerics now have access to “Prayers,” instead of spells.  It works the same, just renamed!

New monsters!  Old monsters with a unique twist! 

All this together with a unique fantasy setting.  Make a name for yourself in the magical land of Andurantha!

Not Old School, not New School, but rather Alternative School.  Backwards compatible with most editions of D&D. 

Optional rules allow you to play it your way! 

Getting anyone to playtest this might be interesting.  Most people have fallen under the sway of WotC or Paizo, and have little patience for anything else.  A weekly game?  I wish!