Tarqis

Underground

2011-01-05T23:36:00.002+07:00

Much of our hobby is spent creating or exploring and defiling dank,dark, dangerous places that have never and will never see the light of day. The player characters go there because that's where the treasure is. The creatures they take the treasure from live there because that's where the DM said they do, generally because a book told him/her so.

But why do these places exist in the first place, especially in such huge freaking numbers? Creating underground spaces is hard, dirty dangerous work. Excavation is no joke, requiring skills and experience, a massive expenditure of time and effort (and probably lives). Building above ground is quicker, cheaper, and easier.

It's easy enough to explain why one microdungeon exists in the world (tomb, modified natural cavern, etc.) but most adventurers will delve into dozens of downbelows if their careers are even middling long. so without further ado, here are a few global and regional reasons why your campaign has so many holes in the ground stuffed with monsters and treasure:

1. Sunspots Every few centuries/millenia, the sun has a massive case of heartburn, bad enough to lightly toast the surface of the world.

2. Plague of Locusts But these locusts are the size of elephants and number in the millions. Nobody knows where they come from, or when they'll be back.

3. Geomantic Empire In ages past, an empire arose with stunningly powerful earth magic. Excavation was child's play to them. Also the pinnacle of beauty for them was fishbelly white skin (hey, if bound feet was a real thing...).

4. Because the Night.... Belonged to the Hunters. Extra-dimensional beasts of godlike powers, they harvested sentient species in the millions- but only above ground, and only at night. Nobody knows why, they're all just glad they've been gone for generations and hope like hell they never come back.

5. And the Gods Said "For each House ye place Above, so must ye build Below; for ye were raised from the Dust, and to Dust ye must go."

6. The All-Seeing Eye should really be renamed, because people figured out pretty quickly that it couldn't see through more than about six feet of dirt.

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

2011-01-05T11:24:00.000+07:00

This Sunday I get to put my DM spurs aside and just be a player, as Anthony will be running a D&D session.

I've rolled up a character I rather like in preparation, a Fighter named Hau the Unstable. His alignment is Chaotic, but that's just because they don't list psychotic as a choice. Hau hears voices -- well, just one voice, emanating from a burlap rag doll named Pookie. He carries Pookie around in a sack. Pookie is wise. If Pookie says you are good, then you are good. If Pookie says you are bad, then BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU. Pookie doesn't like bad people.

Wherein I Blow your Mind

2011-01-03T16:43:00.000+07:00

Or not, you know, because this is actually something that grabbed the part of my brain that likes Warhammer 40k.

from this article

My son is more metal than your son

2011-01-02T20:18:00.000+07:00

So he's had a 'wiggly tooth' for a couple of weeks now (his first baby tooth going bye-bye), and finaly just got fed up with it and Pulled it. Out. Himself.

How metal is *that* at five years old?

2010-12-31T08:00:00.000+07:00

You know how when the dark lord is just laying there, all ass-kicked and broken-boned and the heroes turn away and walk off, confident in their victory, and then the dark lord's corpse kinda twitches and the evil hellfire flickers back up in his open, sightless eyes?

Yeah, I like that, too.

Things that keep me awake at night*

2010-09-04T23:57:00.000+07:00

One thing that has always bothered me about D&D (in all its incarnations, but it seems to get worse with every edition) is the basic rationalization of combat damage. i know, i know, it's not supposed to reflect reality, it's supposed to approximate it in such a way that combat doesn't bog the game down unnecessarily. but the thing is when players only look at the amount of damage a weapon does and not how it does that damage, two thing stend to happen: they don't pick a weapon that suits their character, or they pick some outlandish weapon that 'looks cool' but in reality wouldn't actually be very useful in a fight.

Case in point: The short sword vs the katana vs the greatsword.

The short sword is an infantry tool, designed to to be used in close formation and with shields. It is a thrusting weapon.
The katana is primarily a two handed weapon, and it is for slashing and chopping. the physical movement necessary to weild a katana effectively requires some room, some space to swing it.
The greatsword requires even more space to use than the katana and is actually a crushing weapon designed to beat the hell out of an opponent in plate armor, to break his bones and pulp his flesh.

Now tell me, in a crowded underground setting, which of these three swords is more likely to be effective? Either the short sword should (generally) do more damage in this situation, or the katana and greatsword should have penalties to hit and/or damage. If we wanted to be even more nit-picky, we should take into account the type of armor the opponent is wearing (greatswords should get bonuses to damage vs plate armor wearing foes, etc.)

So my question is, is this too much versimilitude? Would it bog down your game if you factored in the weapons function, the melee location and matched armor vs weapon type?

*yes, really. Sad, I know.

This is not Tarqis

2010-09-04T23:11:00.001+07:00

There is a City.

Before the City, you remember stumbling through fog-shrouded moorland, wet and cold, the occasional skeletal tree appearing out of the mist as you made your way... to where? from where? You can't quite recall. Just as you can't seem to recall your name, or much of anything else. As far as you can remember, you might as well have come into existence that very day. Perhaps you were sprung forth, fully formed from the mists themselves, some necessary counterpoint to the endless mist, the heather and the bogs and the black-barked, denuded trees. Perhaps this should bother you, but you can't seem to make yourself care all that much at the moment. Before you lies the City.

At the edge of the moorland you've come to a wide valley. The swirling, enveloping mists do not stray here, though the sky is overcast; a slick, uniform gray. It is as if there is some boundary that the mists cannot, dare not cross. And below the flat and featureless sky, below your vantage on the terminus of the moorland, like a nest of jeweled spikes and broken blocks, is the City.

It draws you to it, it calls, and though you feel a note of disquiet, even perhaps dread, it is all but drowned out by the compulsion to descend and walk the streets you see down there, narrow and twisting, appearing and disappearing in between buildings that seem to stand askew, their geometry subtly out of true.

***

I'd like to start a campaign this way, the player characters essentially amnesiacs, encouraging the players to discover the 'character' of their and the other characters through roleplay. I'd like to do it as a way to waive preconceptions of what an adventure should be (expect the unexpected!), to encourage the players and their characters to interact with every element of their environment (who knows who and what is important here? not the players, and certainly not the characters), and I'd like to start a campaign this way to set the mood right up front: You are not in control here, you don't know what is going on. You aren't powerless, but you are definitely in danger of blundering into danger without even knowing it... until it's too late (I scare because I care).

Yeah, I'd like to do that.

Ass-deep in (metaphorical) alligators

2010-09-02T21:36:00.000+07:00

...but still alive. Still kicking. Have decided that the only person who can really screw me over is, well, me, so I'm trying very hard not to do that.

On the gaming front, not very much, actually, at least not on the surface. Been a couple of months since our last session, and things are in stasis. But I've had lots of time to ruminate, and I believe that when we do dust off the dice, Tarqis will be better and more fully realized. It may well be a more grim place (and really, with all that's happened in the last six months...) but it will be more interesting.

I got an email the other day invitng me to the local hobby shop's Red Box Day. I was, to say the least, excited. Until I found out they meant the other Red Box. the new one from TS... er, WOTC. There must be a better way to differentiate, something like 'Old School Motherhumping Red Box Day'.

And now for something completely different:

Female warriors in chainmail bikinis? Pffft. Milla Jovovich in 'The Messenger' Check.

The Necromancers have arrived

2010-09-01T23:16:00.000+07:00

Pill Hill Press's anthology Flesh and Bone: Rise of the Necromancers is now available. I have a story in it, but that shouldn't stop you from picking up a copy.

a halting return

2010-06-06T08:01:00.000+07:00

Sometimes everything goes wrong at once. A friend dies, a marriage dies. here on this blog about benign pastimes, I don't feel it's particularly approriate to go into detail. For those interested, you can visit joo chiat diaries. But I am back, sort of, quietly, unobtrusively.

Hiatus

2010-03-26T21:06:00.000+07:00

An old friend passed away. Not very intereted in blogging right now. If I owe you anything, I'll be sending it along directly.

-mm

Small but beautiful?

2010-03-21T08:05:00.001+07:00

James Maliszewski has posted his thoughts on the "marketing of the old school renaissance". I don't want to put words in his mouth, but his reasoned reply is 'meh'.

While questions such as 'how is it that so few gamers understand what a retro-clone is or why they exist' may not concern the Grand Grognard, I find myself concerned, because over the past year I've gone through the process of reintegrating myself into the hobby- and it's been an expensive, confusing process. If I'd known about retro-clones and the Open Gaming License, I could have saved myself a lot of time and money.

For every person interested in and part of the Old School Renaissance (of which there are no doubt thousands) there are likely hundreds of prodigal players who drifted away from the hobby over the years for whatever reason. Life, money, rules platform no longer being supported, whatever. Many of them, I suspect, are just like I was a year ago- not knowing what they didn't know.

Maybe, if we're lucky, they wander down to the local megabookstore and pick up the 4e Players Handbook or DM's Guide, thinking, 'Man, I wouldn't mind playing D&D again'. And they open the book and think 'what the fuck is this game? Tieflings and Dragonborn? Paragon Paths? Fuck this noise, I want to play D&D!'

So they wander down to the local hobbly shop and see more of the same. They go online. They don't know about the OGL (and really, who would?), and so when they see a retro-clone like OSRIC or S&W or LL, they think 'rip-off'. (It's worth noting here the power of branding and marketing from 20+ years ago, still attached to the once and future gamer's DNA. They want D&D/AD&D as they played it. Ironically because of the obscurity of the Open Gaming License, they dismiss the very games that will give them what they're looking for.)

So, if the hobby is lucky, maybe they go to eBay or some place like Troll and Toad. And they find out what it's going to cost them to re-equip themselves with the base materials necessary to play the game. It's not cheap.

For a game that's supposed to be about having fun, this whole process is starting to sound like a lot of work.Not so many will have the intestinal fortitude to continue beyond this point.

It's all on the internet, you say? Maybe so, but the toy my son lost is in his room, too. Have you seen his room? It's a fucking mess. He's lucky to find anything in there. And consider this from Al from Beyond the Black Gate:

... there's still a thread every other day about "what are retroclones?" on the various gaming message boards. And I'm not just talking about ENWorld and such, but even frickin' Dragonsfoot!!! If the home of 1E on the internet still doesn't understand what OSRIC is all about, then there are some problems we need to address.

Not everybody enjoys searching for hours through posts and websites and forums, only to get conflicting and often contradictory information. Your mileage may vary.

To return to Mr Maliszewski's post, I found myself shaking my head at this:

I'm quite happy living in a nice, quiet, out of the way neighborhood surrounded by folks similarly happy, even those crazy guys down the street who are into woodworking with power tools at odd hours of the night.

While I agree with his live and let live attitude towards various gaming philosophies and enthusiasms, what he is describing here is OSR as a ghetto. Ghettos can be wonderfully creative places where things happen that simply can't or won't in a larger society, but ghettos don't last. They either get razed or they get gentrified.

Dungeon Ecologies, or, Everything That Eats Must Excrete

2010-03-19T18:20:00.001+07:00

(Sent to me by Professor P. Tidlunk, oldest of old-schoolers. He's 97. I claim no responsibility for this, uh, 'excremental' epistle -MM)

"Meat's meat. Orcs gotta eat. I'll see him again." -Mag-Thrak, while dining on his cousin Yag-Thruk

Most dungeon masters take no, or only a superficial, account of ecosystems, ecologies and biospheres their adventurers wander through, especially those of a subterranean variety. This is a shame, as incorporating such considerations into dungeon designs lends versimilitude to an adventure.

One might start with excrement. When was the last time you witnessed a ranger, bent over the spoor of a beast, rolling little (or perhaps not so little) brown nuggets between his fingers, sniffing and perhaps tasting it to determine how long ago the creature had feasted, and what upon?

Oh, certainly some would say that this sort of detail is unnecessary, to which I say 'pshaw!' The same people who shy away from a meaningful turd-taste in service to immersive role-playing are the same that never, not once, stop to wonder just where it is all those dungeon denizens relieve themsleves.

Take your common orc, for example. While no-one would argue that an orc is the cleanest creature, I sincerely doubt they let loose wherever they happen to be standing. They may well be filthy, yet I find it hard to believe they would be rolling around in their own excrement. But where is the conveniently located cavelet on your typical map, where they might go and relieve themselves? Perhaps with a trickling stream bisecting it and disappearing down into the depths of the earth? I'll tell you where it is. It's missing, as is the descriptive stench of dungeons without basic, much less proper ordure planning.

So please remember these two catch phrases the next time you find yourself detailing an underground cave complex: Everything that eats must excrete! And failing to plan for stench stinks!

(Professor Tidlunk has promised/threatened to write to me again on dungeon ecologies. I wait with baited breath. -MM)

Busy days ahead (monstly non-gaming post)

2010-03-19T07:03:00.000+07:00

We've been forced to shift our business premises as the mall we been at for the last three years is being 'redeveloped' (in other words, they're gonna totally gut the place and then two years later charge 5-7x the rental amount). Lots of work. Lots of paperwork. Lots of money I'd prefer not to spend. But the new place is nice enough. Which is all a long-winded way of saying 'light posting ahead.'

But eBay hs once again delivered some old school goodness, this time in the form of five Ral Partha thief models (3 beggar thief duplicates and 2 master thief dupes). I'll try and get a good pic when I have time. Until then, there's this from a very cool here

OMG! Sandbox = Bullshit!

2010-03-17T21:46:00.001+07:00

Well, now that I have your attention, I'd like to talk about sandbox gaming vs story-driven gaming, as there seems to be a low, smoldering brushwar about these supposedly diametrically opposed approaches to roleplaying.

Of course, it helps if you define the terms before you argue about them, and honestly, I haven't read too many blog posts or comments that really bothered to do this (exception). Many in the OSR seem to assume that 1) everyone knows what the terms mean, and 2) their definitions are the actual factual. It just ain't the case.

I have to admit, when I first heard the term 'sandbox' in relation to roleplaying, I assumed it was some obscure reference to the sand table Gary Gygax used when playing Chainmail back in the 70's. A metaphor, an h'ommage. Imagine my surprise when I realized the term sandbox simply boiled down to non-linear play, and that it was a phrase lifted from the computer gaming industry to boot. No wonder the term is so loose. It doesn't really fit tabletop rpg play because the base assumptions are really very different from a computer rpg.

But let's get back to sandboxes in a bit. Now I want to talk about storytelling in the Old School. My base assumption was that the preponderance of Old School Revivalists disliked the concept of storytelling because either a) various White Wolf games had left a bad taste in their mouths, or b) they'd had a bad experience with a railroading DM. (And no, I'm not going to bother to define 'railroading'. It's one of those descriptive phrases that leaves no doubt as to its meaning.) I don't think that's the case anymore. I believe the phrase 'storytelling' in roleplaying has taken on the connotation of rule-less or at least dice-less gaming not far removed from some sort of Jungian cathartic excercise (such as S/Lay w/Me, which I freely admit I've never played and likely never will but am at least intrigued by).

So I have been watching tempests in teapots stirred by imprecise terms lo these many days, and have decided to gird my loins, don my plate, ride on past the devil of conformity and come down very firmly -- in the camp dedicated to wiping the grime off the besmirched name of Old School storytelling. I think it's a camp of one, but hey, I get lots of elbow room this way.

All roleplaying is cooperative storytelling. For the majority of old schoolers, there are two parties involved: the DM/GM and the players. The rules define the limits of what is possible and the dice introduce the principle of enforced uncertainty. To deride storytelling is to not understand what this hobby is all about, what it is founded on, and most importantly, what storytelling actually means.

As for the sandbox phrase, I've given it a lot of thought, and will no longer be using it. I find it, at best, redundant. I have never played a tabletop RPG that wasn't non-linear, that wasn't player-driven, that didn't divide responsibility for enjoyment of the game equitably between the DM and the players. Perhaps I've been a lucky sod, but even so, I prefer to create storylines and plot hooks (that my players are perfectly free to follow or ignore), and do so without feeling some vague guilt for using the words 'story and 'plot'. And I can do so, because I subscribe to a writing philosophy that states 'plot is derived from character'.

There, I feel better already.

A loving, well intentioned, and yet fear inducing note to one of the player's characters

2010-03-16T09:09:00.000+07:00

Dear Octavia the half-elven thief,

Please be aware that letting your long lost half sister be dragged off to jail for a crime you commited after she travelled half way across the world to find you, while (arguably) understandable (jail being an unpleasant place with bad food, worse accomodations and assorted vile smells), may well be an act that violates your alignment.

We are reviewing your case. An officer has been assigned to investigate the details surrounding the event, and when His/Her/Its investigation has been completed, we will inform you of the outcome, and any penalties that may be applicable.

Regards,

The All-Seeing Arbiters of Alignment

(This is a magical missive. No signature is required)

Just thinking

2010-03-13T23:09:00.001+07:00

If I ever really want to punish myself with a huge, torturous project that absolutely no-one would appreciate, I'll create a retro-clone of Spelljammer.

Now: What to call it? Let's see if Mr Roget can help:

Incantation Tamper?
Hex Wedger?
Enchantment Smoosher?

(Okay, I made that last word up. My thesaurus is pitiful.)

D&D & Boobs: A conversation with my 13 year old self

2010-03-12T16:42:00.001+07:00

Old me: So, you like boobs, huh?

Young me: Dude, don't be lame.

OM: No seriously, I know you do. I'm not trying to be pervy. I just want to know, of all the D&D stuff you've bought, what are the best and worst boob pics?

YM: Well, I guess for the number of boobs-

OM: The quantity?

YM: Yeah, the massive quantity of boobage, you'd have to go with Deities and Demigods. But man, there's some in there, I'm like, why would you even draw that, dude?

OM: Could you give an example?

YM: Sure. Babypoop.

OM: You mean Bildooldpoolp, "Sea Mother", goddess of the Kuo-Toa?

YM: Yeah, that one. Lobsterhead. What's the point? You give her a lobster head, lobster claws, not very nice legs, and boobs? It's a waste.

OM: Okay, I can see your point there. What other boobage is there in Deities and Demigods that bothers you?

YM: The Nehwon ghoul. That's kinda messed up, when you can see the bones, but you can also kinda see the outline of the boob. You can tell if she wasn't see-through, she'd be hot. I mean, can you imagine, maybe if you were blind or something, but otherwise [shudders].

OM: Okay, anythig else in that book that catches your attention?

YM: well, there's lots of nipples and stuff, but the only other one that I can think of is Loviatar.

OM: The Finnish goddess of hurt?

YM: Yeah, man, that one's kinda classy, you know, 'cause she's wearing a dress, but the boobs are just out there, like, on purpose. I mean, It's not like they just kinda fell out, you know? It's supposed to be like that. [Nods head in awed approval]

OM: Does it bother you that she's known as the "Maiden of Pain"?

YM: Dude, it's just a drawing. Don't be lame.

OM: Fair enough. well then, what would be your favorite boob picture in the D&D canon?

YM: The what? There's no cannons in D&D, dude. It's fantasy.

OM: Right. Anyway, just tell us what your favorite boob picture is, would you?

YM: Sure. The back of 'The Isle of Dread'. The redhead in the chainmail tanktop.

OM: You mean the viking with the man boobs?

YM: You're funny. Like dead puppies.

OM: But you can't really see anything in that picture. Just a side view of one breast in outline.

YM: But I can imagine, dude. I can imagine.

The Book of Ulik

2010-03-12T12:47:00.005+07:00

"...distilled, bound essence of chaos and evil." -Abraxas the Sage, on the Book of Ulik

Bound in demon hide (which constantly smokes and will blister and burn an unprotected hand) the Book of Ulik is likely the most profane, insane and powerful book of arcane knowledge ever composed. Merely opening the book will elicit one of the following consequences for the opener:

1-2: No effect
3-4: Instant alignment change: Chaotic Evil for those not already so; otherwise no effect
5: 6d6 points of damage as a fireball erupts from the book into the reader's face (save vs spells 1/2 damage)
6: Permanent gain of 1 point in intelligence; permanent loss of 3 points of constitution
7: If the reader is a Magic-User or Illusionist, or a multi-classed or dual-classed character with one of these classes, they lose all magical ability as the Book devours it to feed its own arcane cravings. The reader is now a 0 level character with respect to this class, though they retain their former hit points. They may choose to retrain in any other class they are permitted by race and ability, but can never again practice the magical arts.
8. Character goes insane. Roll on table 6-10 to determine the outward effects of the character's condition.
9. Character's facial muscles are frozen in a rictus of disgust and horror. Subtract six points from the character's charisma (note: Charisma cannot fall below 3).
10. Character must save vs spells. If the saving throw is failed, the character becomes a Servant of the Book. The DM may at any time give the character secret instructions, which they must a) keep secret from the other party members, and b) complete to the best of their ability.
11. The character instantly gains sufficient XP to rise to the next level of ability; however, when they roll the appropriate hit die, they subtract that number from their total rather than adding it.
12. The character is unknowingly granted an unlimited wish. As far as the character knows, 'nothing happens' when they open the Book. However, the next time the player, while in character, expresses a desire of any sort, good or ill, seriously or in jest, it instantly, automatically and irrevocably comes true.

The Book itself is the work of an unhinged, evil genius. Any character attempting to read the spells containted in it who is not a magic user of 20th level or greater with an intelligence and wisdom of 18 can make absolutely nothing of it. If a player character actually meets the criteria to read and understand the Book, that player's DM is suitably punished by having to make up appropriate spells.

Session reports are apparently as dry as mummy farts when I write them

2010-03-10T21:36:00.002+07:00

...but it might just be job stress giving me gastro-creative distress. So instead of the five pages of yawn I wrote, I thought I'd give you this instead:

A vomitous dwarf appeared. Who is he? Who cares? He has a pulse, draft him.
The elf and the mage either need a good knock-down drag-out, or a room. Please make it the former.
Deaders were finally met. Some of them are nice, in an undead Rain Man kinda way.

Turns out the ranger can track anything, anywhere, anytime- including the kidnapped kid. Rescue ensues. Undead sacrificers of innocent tots despatched. The half-elf thief gets maternal.

A vomitous dwarf was poisoned, and brought back from the brink of death... but at what price? The Yeshevine monks are masters of poison, and extracting 'favors'.

And why are most of you painted blue?

(image apropos of nothing)

I have the power!

2010-03-10T16:10:00.000+07:00

So eBay has deposited another bit of Old School history in my mailbox today.

I think the mere fact that I now own this module will cause my players lingering disomfort (insert malign laughter).

This quote from Gygax on page 2 says it all:

THIS IS A THINKING PERSON'S MODULE, AND IF YOUR GROUP IS A HACK AND SLAY GATHERING, THEY WILL BE UNHAPPY!

(All caps was Gary, not me.)

Random Veritas

2010-03-09T19:52:00.000+07:00

hat tip Indie/Shadmar

Somebody stop me. No, really.

2010-03-08T21:09:00.004+07:00

So I worked up a two page description for 'deaders' in preparation for yesterday's session. Two pages. With three random tables. For a 3 HD monster of which there are only three or four dozen in the entire world. I just. Couldn't. Stop myself. And because I couldn't, I now have to inflict it on you. But I did cut out the truly useless crap.

DEADER (Zombie, Tarqan)

Frequency: Very Rare

No. Appearing: 1-12

Armour Class: 7

Move: 6"-12"

Hit Dice: 3

% in Lair: 60%

Treasure Type: B, C

# Attacks: 2

Damage per Attack: by weapon*

Magic Resisitance: See description

Intelligence: Non- to Genius **

Alignment: Any (see Table 1)

Size: M

Psionic Ability: nil

Deaders are only technically zombies. Magic animates them, and they are corpses, but they are self-motivated creatures. Deaders have little in common with any of their undead bretheren, owing to the method of their creation and the mystery that surrounds it. Abraxus the Sage speculates that some element of their psyche, intellect, or soul was irrevocably lost during their journey back from the land of the dead.

Deaders present a confusing assortment of characteristics. While all Deaders have greyish, dead-looking flesh and a generally desiccated appearance, their intellect, abilities and general intent varies from individual to individual. Some may be nearly mindless feral creatures, others may compose and recite poetry. Some may attack instinctively with ragged, iron-hard nails, others may lie in ambush, utilizing crossbows with poisoned quarrels. Some may actively seek to aid adventurers, even at the expense of thier own kind, while others may deceive and dissemble in order to lead the party to a grisly end.

Deaders do not need to eat or breathe (although they may choose to do so). Most seem to lack the ability to feel pain, though some few have been observed bahaving as though they were experiencing the most awful of agonies, for no obvious reason. All seem to be impervious to the effects of Sleep, Hold and Charm spells. Many are quite indisputably mad.

Some 5% of Deaders may have a remarkable ability at the DM's discretion. See Table 2 for further information.

____________________________________________________________

*Deaders with intelligence below 6 cannot utilize weapons and will attempt to bite for 1-2 points of damage. 10% of Deaders will have iron-hard nails that inflict 1-8 points of damage. 5% of deaders will have the ability to cast magic user spells of up to 2nd level (if their intelligence is above 12).

**Deader Intelligence: roll 3d6 and total the result.

Table 1: Alignment/Sanity

Roll 2d6 to determine alignment. If the result of the first roll is a 4, 5, or 6, ignore the 2nd roll. Mad Deaders are literally capable of any action, from atrocious to beatific, and do not fall under the alignment rubric.

1st Roll: 2nd Roll:

1 = Lawful 1-2 = Good

2 = Neutral 3-4 = Neutral

3 = Chaotic 5-6 = Evil

(4-6 = Mad) 4 = slightly mad

5 = truly crazed

6 = incomprehensibly insane

Table 2: Special abilities.

Death and near-rebirth have changed this particular creature in the following way (roll 6):

1. On darkened wings: The creature has black wings, either feathered or batlike, functional or otherwise, as the DM decides.

2. Fateful companion: The creature has a crow, owl or black cat that functions as its familiar. Or maybe it's just a pet. You decide.

3. Sees beyond the veil: Has the ability to foretell the future. Or to fake it really well.

4. The Horror! The Horror!: Able to instill fear as per spell, 3x/day

5. They are departed, but not gone: Able to act as a medium between the living and the dead.

6. Choose any two, or make up your own.

Some good news

2010-03-08T08:55:00.000+07:00

I've been informed that one of my short stories has made the short list for Pill Hill Press's "Flesh & Bone: Rise of the Necromancers" anthology.

Not a sure thing by any means, but it's the best writing news I've had in a long time :)

Hear, hear!

2010-03-06T20:53:00.000+07:00

I suppose it's my naturally contrarian nature rearing its ugly head, but I have an irresistable urge to make those parts of the game that are usually glossed over ("I go sell the gems to the jeweller. How much do I get?") actually important, and at least entertaining, so this bit by Trollsmyth struck a chord with me:

"The players are going to need treasures and magic items identified, so they’ll naturally build a relationship with the local sage. They’ll want their loot fenced, so that means a relationship with local jewelers, collectors, and patrons of the arts. They’ll need wounds healed, curses removed, diseases cured, and a steady supply of holy water, so that means a relationship with at least one local temple. And, as they acquire skills, magic, and powerful weapons, they’ll become a force to be reckoned with, which means the local temporal powers will want some sort of relationship with them (even if it’s mostly the understanding that if they step out of line they’ll be squashed like bugs)."

In an urban campaign, this sort of thinking should become far more important than otherwise.

The Tarqis setting and backstory

2010-03-05T18:57:00.000+07:00

Something I promised in the first post, but got distracted from, is a quick and dirty overview of Tarqis, which is what follows.

The world as we know it is dominated by the Hardreshi Empire-- an empire dominating a landmass roughly the size of Africa and most of Europe. And the Empire is not a nice place to be. ‘Hardreshi’ translates roughly into common as ‘Those who rule’. There are somewhere between a hundred thousand to a million Hardreshi.

In contrast, there are at least fifty million Urdreshi in the Empire. Urdreshi means ‘Those who serve’. Or more succinctly, slaves.

There are some few lands, at a great remove from the Empire, where people know little or nothing about the Hardreshi Empire and are generally not concerned by it. The term for these peoples is ‘Noch’, which means ‘Those who do not yet serve’.

The reason they do not yet serve is Tarqis.

Just off the northern coast of the Empire is an island perhaps half the size of Ireland. The Island and the sole major city on it are called Tarqis, which means ‘Those who rule themselves’. And the reason they rule themselves is the Magus.

Very little is known about the Magus, but he or she has indisputably been resisting Hardreshi incursions, both magical and martial, for at least five centuries. Yes, the Magus is a serious badass. And the Hardreshi more or less want to see Tarqis wiped off the map before moving in to the rest of the world.

***

I won’t go into systems of government and religion and so forth in this post. Most of it’s pretty dry at this point. But here are a couple of interesting things the players learned last Sunday after they’d rolled up their characters and stepped into the City:

• Last year, everybody in the City died. ‘Just for a while,’ said Emo, the hook-handed bartender at the Rusty Bucket tavern down on the docks. ‘Week or two at most. The Magus brought us back. Well, most of us.” Some didn’t make it back to life, and some didn’t make it back all the way.

• Weird shit has always happened in Tarqis,(water running uphill, buildings appearing and disappearing, etc.) but since the big dying, it happens more often, and it’s a hell of a lot more deadly.

• The elite peacekeeping force tasked to deal with all the weird shit, called the Hounds due to the gorgets that are their symbol of office, have taken terrible losses. So many, in fact, that they have been empowered to hire off the street, press-gang, and even roust from Havelock Prison anyone they deem fit for service.

There, I think that covers things nicely : )

Dramatis Pesonae

2010-03-05T12:53:00.000+07:00

The next play session is on Sunday, so it behooves me (and where did that saying come from? Do I really want hooves? How does that ever help?) to list the motley crew that is the adventuring party, at least in abbreviated form:

Shadmar the Magic User (human, Tarqis): A loquatious fellow who has an opinion on most everything, and, sadly, is nearly always right. A native to the Free City, it behooved him to leave for a decade or so and take up a profession that would not shame his family.

Bonzo who Walks (human, Urdreshi): Newly arrived in Tarqis, after having escaped the dreaded gladiatorial slave pits of the Hardreshi Empire. Within an hour of his arrival in the city, he was press-ganged into joining the Hounds. But hey, the drinking water here isn't brown!

Valeraine the Ranger (human, Tarqis): Tarqis is situated on a largish, heavily forested island. Our quiet ranger wandered in from the hinterlands to take in the sights of the big city, and picked the wrong tavern to slake her thirst.

Octavia the Thief (half-elf, Noch): Offspring of an elven lord and one of his human slaves, Octavia turned to theft 'for the other slave kids'. She was eventually caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and in a momentary bout of mercy, banished instead of beheaded. Dumped on the first ship out of the harbor, she ended up in Tarqis.

Niss the Fighter/Magic User (elf, Noch): Disturbingly androgynous and obsessively clean, Niss finds himself in Taqis hunting the slayer of one of his noble kinsmen. His only clue? An arrow fletched in a way particular to the Hounds of Tarqis.

And last but not least, Ramm the Dwarf. All that needs be said about him at this time: "I hit it wi' ma axe!"

Gleeful rubbing of hands

2010-03-05T06:54:00.001+07:00

The great thing about adventuring in a heavily urban setting is the fact that the player's conceptions of the 'right' way to adventure (coming from the dungeon crawl school of adventuring, for the most part) will be severely challenged, at times:

"We're going up against things called 'deaders'? Better break out the flaming oil!" Um, you're not in a long deserted underground maze made entirely of stone (I want to say, but do not). They put people in jail here for starting fires.

"I'm gonna pick that guy's pocket." Ok, fair enough. But you failed. He was drunk, and swung at you, and rolled a 2, so he fell on his ass, but he's not blind, and you're wearing a big silver collar that identifies you as a member of the Hounds, the City's elite guard unit...

Some of the more amoral characters in the group have a 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' attitude, stemming from adventuring in far, lonely places. It'll be good to shake that up, and it will provide lots of story seeds.

Definition of 'Old School' found! World rejoices!

2010-03-04T17:59:00.000+07:00

Just go and look at this (including comments) and this (including comments) if you have time, so's I don't have to regurgitate, huh?

Essentially, I believe it really boils down to what the definition of Old School D&D is. It seems that the person who is considered the Biggest and Baddest of all the Old School Bloggers would be James Maliszewski over at Grognardia, and his position on the various editions of D&D can be summed up in I Hate Change. For him, dice rolls are sacrosanct, and story = railroading.Okay, I simplify, but to make a point: This is one definition or understanding of Old School gaming; it's not THE definition.

Here is THE definition:

Definition of Old School D&D: Roleplaying using any of the rules published by TSR before it went belly up, or the modern clone equivalents.

There. Simple, no? Now stop bickering about story vs dice rolling, fudging dice vs manning up to the roll, sandbox vs railroading and just PLAY THE FUCKING GAME AND HAVE FUN.

Knuckleheads.

The Kennel (1st floor)

2010-03-04T11:56:00.002+07:00

Here our brave adventurers lay their sleepy little noggins, after a long day or night of keeping the City safe from the unadulterated weirdness that plagues it. (click image to super-size)

Tarqis: The Regional Map

2010-03-04T11:47:00.001+07:00

The long promised, if not long awaited, map of the region around Tarqis.

Kind of a sandbox map. If/when it becomes important, other areas will be filled in.

Digging your own grave: Sometimes its justified

2010-03-03T21:48:00.000+07:00

The main thing is that I feel like I'd rather try to come up with something amazing for each adventure and fail spectacularly, than to play it safe, and offer up something dull but serviceable.

What do you think?

The Magus

2010-03-02T19:23:00.003+07:00

Supposed portrait of the Magus of Tarqis; can be viewed in the Gallery of the Third Remove, House of the Parliament of Owls, opposite the Southern Gate of the Administratum known as the Gate of Horn and Bone. (If you have trouble locating the painting, check behind the large potted fangrose.)

Beneath the portrait, inscribed into the stone wall, are the following words:

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

(bonus points if you can tell me where I lifted this from)

The Hyrian Canal

2010-03-02T15:27:00.000+07:00

Tarqis has quite a few canals. Above is a scene from the Hyrian Canal, where our intrepid adventurers will start their next adventure.

(Desiccated) Eye Candy

2010-03-02T14:52:00.001+07:00

I tend to ignore the visual far too often in my campaign, and so I'm trying to make a conscious effort to seek out images that get my creative juices flowing. Here's one that struck me as just about perfect for a creature in the campaign that the characters know of, but haven't yet encountered- a 'deader':

It seems everybody in the Free City died about a year back; most suspect a Hardreshi plot. The Magus (de facto ruler/god of Tarqis) fixed it, more or less. Almost everybody was brought back to life. There were some few who didn't make it back all the way, however, and the locals, in their laconic way, simply refer to them as 'deaders'.

Player Deaths and Fudged Dice

2010-03-01T21:11:00.000+07:00

Lately there have been a few posts in blogland relating to fudging dice rolls and, separately, delving into character deaths.

Superhero Necromancer, in his post 'A Foolish and Wicked Thing' is of the opinion that "Bringing someone or something back from the dead will not -- can not -- turn out right. " But he also points out that "Only the desperate and reckless would dare seek [someone who can raise the dead] out, the driven and dangerous dare to take upon themselves such power. But what are adventurers if not desperate, reckless, driven, and dangerous..."

I completely agree with this interpretation of resurrecting characters. It is only natural that the players will want to bring their characters back to life. Even the most two dimensional of characters is invested with some minute spark of the person who played him or her (or in some cases it) and death may be many things, but pleasant it is not, even by proxy. And players play characters who are larger than life, by and large, and so tend not to see death as much more than an inconvenience. I understand this. But while a character's death may be heart-rending or hilarious, depending on the circumstances and the milleau, a character's resurrection, if it happens at all, should be no laughing matter. These are primal powers being messed with. A fundamental balance is being wilfully ignored. There should be repurcussions for even attempting it, much less succeeding.

Over at Monsters & Manuals, Noisms also explores character deaths and (player reactions to them) in the post 'Chaos Patrons Revisited'. While he doesn't understand why players would get worked up about a character death (because, he argues, character deaths always add something to the campaign (motivation)), he does give us a nifty 'deal with the devil' chart for characters who just don't want to take the big dirt nap.

But what about the die roll that led to the character's death to begin with? Mr. Maliszewski over at Grognardia delves briefly into attitudes towards dice (He's a 'let the dice fall where they may' man, himself) while discussing Noism's dice fudging exposition. Basically, Noisms says there are three ways to view dice rolls: they're absolute, irrevocable, the Inalterable Hand of Fate--or you don't use dice at all, just view the game as cooperative storytelling. The supposed third alternative is to fudge, which he thinks is "like, totally stupid."

Ahem.

I for one am not going to completely retool OS rules, or any other rules, to totally remove dice from the system. If I wanted a pure cooperative storytelling experience, I'd be playing or refereeing a pure cooperative storytelling experience.

Nor am I going to be a slave to the dice as a referree. My job is to offer an exciting, enjoyable experience to my players, and if a random die roll states that that experience will be lessened, then I will happily fudge that roll. That's what DM screens are for.

Now this is true in every aspect of the game. If the wandering monster table meets the d6 and falls in love and they have yet another f*cking litter of giant rats (say the third in that dungeon) then I am gonna pick something else out for the characters to encounter. It's probably going to be scarier and harder to kill. This is not in the characters' favor, as it puts them in greater danger than they would have faced if I'd let the die fall and followed its dictate slavishly. But it is in the player's favor, as they will have a more exciting, enjoyable time because I fudged a die roll.

I'm learning as a DM that you can't just worry about the game; you have to worry about the metagame as well.

So for me to enjoy the game as a referee, I need to have the characters act in a world that has its own internal logical consistency. Random dice rolls don't guarantee that, so I have to. For the players to enjoy the game, they need to be challenged, but not broken by overwhelming or patently unfair odds. Random dice rolls don't guarantee that, so I have to.

< / ahem. Anyway, as far as character deaths go, I believe that stupidity should be painful. But I also believe that deaths should not be random or meaningless. It's a fine line. If the party has taken some damage, had the chance to go heal up, but didn't take that chance, then I'll likely let the dice fall where they may. But I'm not going to let a freak roll kill off a character who essentially had no chance to defend him/herself, either.

Once they are dead, though, they can't expect to pop into Joe's Resurrection Shop. Raising the dead is not a simple out-patient proceedure. There will definitely be consequences...

I love maps

2010-03-01T19:50:00.000+07:00

Especially old maps. Recently visited Japan, and got a map of Edo (Tokyo) printed on a handkerchief from Muji. Tarqis is loosely based on it. Looks a lot like this.

(This image was gotten from here, if you were wondering)

Tabula Rasa

2010-03-01T18:03:00.000+07:00

A Long Story Short:

After ensnaring a shifting (not to say shifty) group of players for a Basic D&D campaign, having three play sessions, then not playing for nearly three months, I saw the group and the campaign moving toward oblivion. Tarqis is my attempt, to the best of my ability, to re-energize the group and push myself to my creative limits as a DM.

A Long Story Less Short:

I started playing roleplaying games when I was twelve, with the Moldavy Basic D&D boxed set. I had the most fun as a player with AD&D 1st edition, and finished my playing career about the time Forgotten Realms got really hot. The truth is, I've never had much interest in DMing; I'd rather play.

I didn't play, for years. But like so many 30-somethings recently, it seems, I started to look back on all those hours spent in basements and dens eating junk food, practicing poor hygiene and exploring fantastic worlds--and I missed it.

Like many things in life, if you want it done at all, you've got to do it yourself. So I've coerced a group of people here in Singapore to sacrifice a few Sunday afternoon hours once or twice a month to become elven fighter-magic users, escaped slave gladiators, gutter thieves, and such, in the name of fun. Most of them have never role-played in their lives. One's total experience of the fantasy genre is three episodes of Xena and the first Conan movie.

There's a little bit of pressure there, not unlike getting intimate with a virgin. You really, really want them to enjoy themselves, and if they don't, there's no arguing that it's all your fault. The stress level is only heightened by the fact that I'm a 'bona fide' fantasy author. Not a successful one, mind you, whatever successful means, but there's no arguing that I wrote an entire fantasy novel, and that it got published. If I can't create a fantastic (in all senses of the word) campaign, then basically either fantasy as a genre sucks, or I do. Gosh, which one is more likely? So yeah, there's a bit of perfomance anxiety there.

And the truth is, while DMing carries with it a terrifying level of responsibility (what if they're bored out of their minds?), it's also great fun, when I forget to be so self-conscious.

So. After three sessions using the basic rules (running the Village of Hommlet, modified) I realized that the typical dungeon crawl bored me a bit, and didn't excite most of the players as a steady diet. And the truth is, your typical published module just doesn't hang together very logically, to my sensibilities. I mean, I loved Keep on the Borderlands, but what the hell were all those humanoids doing living so close together and not ripping each other apart? So I dusted off my world creator hat, and crafted Tarqis.

There were practical considerations which informed my world-building decisions off the bat. I needed to have a campaign that could accomodate people coming and going from the group from play session to play session, as many of my players travel often or have nonstandard work schedules. I wanted to avoid any "Mark the Red" issues (from The Gamers) where characters wander around with the group without their players being present just because there was no convenient way to explain the character's disappearance.

I also needed to build adventures in such a way that most sessions could be thematically 'completed' in about four or five hours (I can't help but think in story arcs; I don't mind if a play session ends with a cliffhanger, but I hate it when it ends in medias res). I also wanted a campaign that featured more of what got me into the game in the first place-- the sense of weird wonder, that delicious frisson when facing the awful and dangerous and just plain freaky (something that Zac S seems to do effortlessly). I wanted to impart that to the players, and "Three bugbears attack you" just wasn't hacking it.

So yes, I'm also trying to up my personal DMing skills. I can build a world and describe it on the page; doing so in person requires a much greater effort.

So, Tarqis, The Free City, was born. To go along, we shifted to AD&D/OSRIC rules, to allow greater depth of choice for the players. It was the right choice, but it does mean more work for me as a DM. I'm fine with that, but the chance for mistakes on my part has also grown, I can't help but feel. Still, I believe it was the right choice. It's made the players more involved with their characters. Most created backstories without me even torturing them!

I'll go over the background and the first play session in my next post. I invite you, Dear Reader, to comment and help me make the experience more exciting for the players.