Malazan

I am working my way through Steve Erikson's "Tales of the Malazan Empire" series. I find he manages to maintain the gritty fantasy of "The Black Company" and "A Song of Ice and Fire" but add a wildly imaginative spin on magic that I find quite appealing and a little more DnDish than the other two series. Although the series is very high magic with earth shattering spells that can change the world, that fact that it is usually told from the view point of a common soldier dodging nimbly aside as the god duel makes it accessable. I also like the way combines a renaissance empire with tribal stone age warriors and makes it work. I am only through the first four books but I highly recommend it.

**Warning Mild Spoilers **


Roleplaying ideas collected so far :

Lurking ancient evils
Imperial Assassins
Floating Elven Cities
Elves that turn into dragons
Magic that is accessed by tapping into different worlds
A deck of cards which maps the worlds of magic
A dead God who returns to life when blood is spilled on his altar
An immortal storm raging the dessert
A Book promising the return of a prophet to rule the world
A rising of the Desert tribes once the book has been returned
A ruined ancient city destroyed by  a half-Jaghut (Jhag) who no longer remembers who destroyed the city and seeks revenge for its destruction
The Jhag's body guard who's job it is to kill the Jhag if his memories come back
A mine of anti-magic stone
A boat rowed by undead rowers
An Imperial Army cut off by the desert tribes fighting its way back to the last Imperial held City
A magical delivery service which warps its way through the planes of magic to travel
A Jaghut entombed in magical ice to hide it from the T'lan Imass
A Cannibal Army
A city floating on an iceberg

Monsters include:

Soultaken Mages capable of transforming into beasts
Giant Dragonflies capable of carrying troops
T'lan Imass Undead servitors of the empress capable of merging with the earth then popping up later
T'lan Ayss the T'lan Imasses Undead Dogs
Jaghut Inhuman sorcerer kings of tremendous power hunted by the T'lan Imass
Giant Ravens with magic powers
flying piranha fish
a sea monster sized aquatic centipede capable of sinking ships
K'chan Mal Chan Giant undead hook horrors

The Rulenomicon

So I finally broke down and bought an e-book reader (a nook). This has finally given me chance to download my internet .pdf collection an start reading through. Once I realized I have over 90 different files in my "other roleplaying games"  directory and that the they overwhelmed the 1 GB of storage for things not purchased at Barnes&Nobles ($30 and a 32 GB expansion card fixed the storage problem) I thought I needed to try and organize and and least list them. I'll  try add links and capsule review of the more interesting ones later,

A Song of Ice and Fire 
Adventurer, Conqueror, King
Adventures Dark and Deep
Adventures Fantastiques
Adventures in the New Kingdoms
Age of Shadows
Adventuring Party
The Adventurers Tale
Adventures Under the Laughing Moon
Altus Adventum
Arduin (revised)
Ars Magika
Artesia
Azamar
Bandits and Basilisks
Burning Wheel
Barbarians of Leumria 
Barbarians of the Aftermath
Basic Fantasy
Brickmasters
Challenger
Chaos and Barberie
Circe
The Cog Wars
Crimson Blades of Ara
Crypts and Things 
Dark Dungeons
Dark Fantasy of Sundrah

Dragon Warriors
Dungeon Slayer
Engines and Empire
Elegia
Errant
Fate
Fabled Lands
52 page Rulebook

Fire and Sword
FUBAR
Geasa
Gods and Monsters
The Grey Book
Grom Harnmaster
Heros and Other Worlds
HeroQuest (the G Stafford one)
Humanspace Empires
Impresa Express
Ingenium
Jorune
Judges Guild Universal
Labyrinth Lord
Lady Blackbird
Lamentations of  the Flame Princess
Legends
Lost Roads of Lociam
Maelstrom
Mazes and Minotaurs
Maze of Torment
Microlite
Mini six
Myth and Magic
Novus
Northern Crown
Old School Hack
Orignal Edition Delta
OSRIC
Pars Fortuna
Peril
Pirates and Privateers
Pitch
Platemail
Raven Crowking' Fantasy Game
Redbox Fantasy
Redbox Hack
Renegade The Riddle of Steel
Runequest
Saga
Savage Swords of Antor
Shakhan
Siege Perilous
Spellcraft and Swordplay
Sword and Shield
Swords and Wizardry
The  System
Tibet
Torch and Sword
Tranchons et Traquons
Under the Moons of Zoon
Untold
Vikings and Valkyries
Wizards and Warriors
World of Urtusk
Zenobia

Classes, Skills,Feats and Powers an analysis

Classes, Skills, Feats and Powers, Fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons has included all of these, and its beginning to look like fifth edition will also. Therefore, I thought it might be a good time for for discussion of their origins and purposes.

Class is of course the oldest showing up in 0e D&D. It for the most part a simple and straight forward way of distinguishing roles within the party. Chose a class and you have chosen your role. I feel many people turn to OSR rules to retrieve this simplicity. However, to me it has always felt arbitrary (of course I was always notorious for my 2nd edition Fighter/Magic-user/Thief characters). 3rd edition byzantine labyrinth of classes, prestige classes and subclasses I did not enjoy.

Skills are the next to show up, first as an augment to class in Empire of the Petal Throne, then as the only distinguisher in Runequest. I have always admired Runequest's skills only approach to character building, although starting skills and skill advancement proved challenging for me in actual play. The min-max'ers I played with made a total farce of Runequest, by trying to spot and dodge everything, and switching through a Swiss army array of weapons during combat to maximize their chances of advancement. Many online roleplaying games seem skill based as well (although tracking actual skill usage in computer games is much easier than than a table top game). I do like the Elder Scrolls Morrowwinds combing of class and skill by giving each particular grouping of skills a cool class name. Skills begin to creep into D&D with the late edition Advanced Dungeon and Dragons supplements Dungeoneers Survival Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide non-weapon proficiencies (people always have a bad reaction to these supplements, I always thought they plugged some holes which needed filling and were much better than the gamebreaking classes {*cough* cavalier} introduced in the prior Unearthed Arcana). 3rd edition of course has baroque plethora of skills with weird and arbitrary restrictions on which classes can take which skills (Pathfinder does not seem to fix this). 4th edition does a brilliant job of skill simplification reducing down to 17 skills, although they retain the arbitrary class restrictions. However in 4th edition I miss both the craft and profession skills for making stuff, and think the four social skills (bluff, diplomacy. intimidate, and streetwise) a bit redundant (especially since they are all charisma based).

Feats, although foreshadowed in point buy systems such as the Fantasy Trip and Fantasy Hero, come into full bloom in 3rd edition. At first glance they just seem like a extra something that is reasonably harmless. However with hundreds of them, some are so poorly written that they are just the loophole required to turn a cleverly min-maxed character into to a total game wrecker, things like a sixth level bard with +30 diplomacy, or a druid capable of turning into a Stoper and ripping the arms off of Bluespawn Godslayers (O.K. it was an 18 level druid). 4th edition the feats are a little more controlled, but still remain the pry bar for total game wreckage. I also see everyone taking the exact same feats, so as something to act as a distinguisher between characters (I believe that was their original purpose) they are a total failure. If I was writing 5th edition they would go away.

Power are new with 4th edition, although they were certainly foreshadowed in computer games, and bear a strong kinship with spells which have been around since the beginning. It is perfect solution to the inequality power between the exponentially increasing power of 0e spellcasters, and the linear power increase of the 0e fighters. Now rather than waiting around while the spellcasters mow down the ravening hordes, the melee specialists have some explosive fireworks of their own. I do have some problems with 4th edition turning down the room clearing powers of prior edition spellcasters (this is usually downplayed by making the monsters come at the players in evenly paired groups, but does make the hundred orc rushes of 0e to 3e {usually manned by my warhammer fantasy army} a thing of the past). All in all powers (I like to think of them as fighter spells) were a decent addition to the game (I mean why should magic users have all the fun?).

In summary: Classes good for their time but obsolete, Skills good in small quantities with strict controls, Feats no thank you!, Powers good but need to be balanced. So my ideal game is a game of skills and powers (with perhaps cool class names for different mixes). Since 5th edition seems unlikely to head in this direction I guess I'll have to write my own.

City of the Pyramid

At the junction of the great causeway and the great underway lies a nexus of great power. After the fall of the elves during the Golden age it was here the golden ones came to build pyramid temples to their dark gods. Seven tiers for the Burning One, Five for the Breaker of Hope, a mere two for the Mistress of the still pool, an unimportant goddess worshiped only by females and pondlings. Still her pyramid is required to balance the fearsome dread of the uncounted tiers of the underpyramid of the Drowner in Darkness. The Treader of the Secret Ways required no pyramid, stealing his worship by masquerading as the other gods. Once the pyramids were complete the Sorcerer Kingpriests focused their energy to forge the Great Artifact. During the catastrophe the Great Artifact was split into to the sphere, the cube, and the tetrahedron. As the artifact was split into three so were majority of the golden ones, into the kobolds, lizardmen, and weygn. Their ensuing battles to reunite the Artifact soon destroyed the city, and the inhabitants dispersed into the black swamp which broke the canal walls and swallowed the city whole. Their descendants still squabble, fight, and dream of reuniting the artifact to restore the glory of the Golden age. A mere half days journey from the newcomers Clerics Post on the Great river, the ruined city still lures adventurers to doom and glory. The lizardman "people of the turtle" will lead you there for a few trinkets, but warn that the "people of the shark" who inhabit the ruins proper are not as friendly, and are only fond of strangers as barbecue. Below is the mosaic in the chamber of the map showing the city as it was in the Golden age.

Note: The City of the Pyramids served as my anchor dungeon for my great river campaign of the early '90s. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed still remembers this campaign with fondness.It was a bit of a breakthrough in style for me as well as I replaced my megadungeons of the past with little 3-5 room mini dungeons which could be completed in a night or two. However most of the mini-dungeons remained connected by the Great Underway a 30' wide straight barrel vaulted corridor leading on for miles leading god knows where (although one was bound to stumble on to a secret door leading to the next mini-dungeon just in time for the next session). Due to its connection to the Great Underway my wandering adventurers found themselves in the City of the Pyramids more often then  they would have liked.

Bad Neighbor Mountain

Here is a map from my graduate school days in 1982. Since the new Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master Guide suggested using 25-50 mile hexes that's what I mapped the world in. However I found the hexes at this size lacking in gamable detail. As a solution to this I hit on the solution of drawing a detail map of a single hex on one piece of paper. Here is my detail map of one of the Mountain Hex near the city of Anva

Of course I couldn't draw such a beautiful map and not show it to the players. However I wanted key for where the monsters lair that players couldn't. The solution an overlay of tracing paper with the DM's key on it. Here's the map with the overlay in place on top of it. Note trying to get a piece of tracing paper to line up in the scanner is not an easy task, the key is slightly off, you can spot if you look closely at the crosses that mark the mountain peaks next to the numbers giving the mountain heights.

:Here's the key for the numbers

1) The village of Telgrin; Major attraction "Ye Olde Magic Shop" Fireworks and novelties; 10th level Illusionist

2) The Earls Hunting lodge; 3rd level fighter acts as grounds keeper

3) Hermits hut, burned and ruined

4) Goblin camp: 14 goblins 4 wargs, Hermit 16th level cleric held prisoner will not harm anyone not even goblins

5) Ruined castle

6) Ruined castle

7) Trail to the lost city

8) Wachtower, lost city can be seen from here

9) The dragons roost

and here's a little adventure I wrote (the point of drawing the map to begin with). A brief aside this adventure follows the infamous plague dungeon She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed wrote and DMed in my world after reading A Distant Mirror, If I can cajole my way into the secret notebooks I may post more on that dungeon.

Going after Carsolar

Trin is in plague trouble again. Anva has volunteered Carsolar the mighty cleric to help. But where is Carsolar? Rumor has it he is up in the hills looking for the Snic-ker-snee the famous blade of legend.

Carsolar is of course the 16th level cleric being held at 4

Throw in a few wolves on the road into to town to start things off

a brief inquiry in town leads to directions to the hermit hut 3

battles with wandering warg riders leave trail back to the goblin camp

a battle in the goblin camp frees Carsolar

leading to a triumphant return to Anva to collect the ample reward

Remember this is Old School, none of that purple prose to clutter up the adventure, just some notes to myself  to remind me of the theme them improvise the rest, springle liberally with random encouters to liven up the slow spots and throw some curves to delinerize the plot  and I'm good to go.

On combat systems

My surfing of the blogosphere led me to discuss critical hits. This got me to discussions of combat systems in general and brought back some thoughts about contrasts in style that I had during the early days of role-playing. When Runequest first came out I though it was cool due to it's hit locations, damage reducing armor and blocked shots. It seemed way more realistic than the d20 to hit d8 damage of AD&D. However, as I actually played the Runequest combat system, I realized most fights consisted of large quantities of misses, followed by a combat ending critical where some vital component of the unluckiest combatant went flying. I also noticed that even the smallest trollkin has the potential of slicing off your Runelords head. I quickly realised it is a combat system completely incompatible with the Conanequese hero versus the 30 pirate scum style combats I like to run. Even if you discount the critical problem, no one enjoys waiting for me to roll the five rolls per attack needed to find out that all 30 pirate scum have missed. Don't even get me started on the hours required by Runequest to roll individual stats for each of the pirate scum. I reverted back to good ol' AD&D and have stuck with it's various incarnations ever since (although 4e is pretty close to failing the Conanequese test as well). Every time I feel the itch to tamper with the combat system (being mathematically inclined I am capable of devising five new combat systems before breakfast) I remind myself of my Runequest experience and conclude the AD&D system is pretty solid and not really in need of replacement. Besides, it gives me time to daydream up new magic systems instead.

Interlude

Still searching for the notes to Candololian, but I promised myself to try and write something as often as possible. Unfortunately the way I ref is not conducive to good note taking. Years ago my wife the artist in the family drew up some miniature scale nice flagstone motif 8x11 sheets with crosses every 5/6" to mark the 5' squares. Frequently while the group is gathering, eating pizza, and discussing world affairs, I am drawing up the dungeon on these sheets with colored pencil. It makes for a nice vicarious experience but sometimes means the dungeon is not well documented for posterity. I am of course able to find the random monster pit I drew when I was 17 and the 3+ worlds whose wilderness maps I drew but never ran. I also ran across the much reviled wizards library (one step on the evolutionary scale from the random monster pit). It was the first dungeon I DMed my wife through and one of my few total party kills. The players were too cheap to stay in the Inn (wife claims they were broke due to rotten rolls on my inheritance starting gold chart, but hey that pig was worth big money she just never tried to sell it), so they camped out in the ruined tower atop the dungeon. Unfortunately they were unable to handle the mountain lion I rolled up as the random encounter for the night. I'll post some scans of these marvels later.

Dragon Army Part 2

Well now it was decision time. Rather than write a dungeon and railroad the party down it. I generated a list of rumors and presented it to the players. We could have role played collecting them from Bards gate, but for my players is usually speedier to hand them a list. I make the rumors sufficiently obscure so no direct information is given away. Here is the list:

Rumors of lost cities:

The Elves speak of the “City of Ferns” believed to be somewhere in the Northern forests. This City is said to be the home of several giant creatures including badgers, frogs, turtles wasps and beetles. The local is said to be a deep valley set within towering crags. In some versions of the story the streams of the valley ran into a lake with a whirlpool, which was its only outlet. In other versions a river ran into the valley and disappeared into a mountain. The last travelers known to have come from the valley died about nine centuries ago. A copy of the diary of these travelers is known to have existed in two of the Elven strongholds that were overrun by the northern army, the fleeing Elves did not bring either copy with them so they now are passing the tale on in oral story.

Another book now lost to the Elves because they had to flee spoke of a city of Mind Flayers in
the Underdark. Many centuries past a horde of Dark Elves succeeded in so damaging parts of the city that the Mind Flayers withdrew to another plane. At that time the Drow came into possession
of several artifacts which even they did not fully comprehend. One of those called a “Plane Cube” is said to be capable of moving a large number of creatures from one plane to another all at the same time.

“The Golden Plateau” was once home of the ancient religious shrine to Corellon Larethian. Only a century ago it was over run by red dragons. The dragons are still using the area for
nesting. It is located far away, beyond the route the Gypsies take. It is
rumored in the Human taverns of Bard’s Gate that a few of the Elves now living
in the city visited the plateau before it was overrun.

“Brigadoon” a city located somewhere in the hills South of Bard’s Gate. Rumored to appear only when celestial objects are in the correct alignment. It is said to be the home of powerful sorcerers who posses lost artifacts. There is a book belonging to a wizard in Bard’s Gate which is reputed to have come from there.

Rumors about known Cities and the routes to reach them:
The trade route over the pass: The gypsies are quoted as saying: ” We are willing to take you the one way but you must make your own way back. There are things up in the pass, which have power over us, we do as they say or we will not be allowed to travel there. We can travel the pass only as long as we can keep the passengers blindfolded through certain parts. If the secrets of the pass are ever revealed to those outside our blood we will not be allowed to go that way again. “ Humans in Bard’s gate agree that those who have gone without the Gypsies have never returned to Bard’s Gate. A few who have gone with the gypsies have come back by way of Port Saskatoon. The merchant Rupert is the best known of these few.

Port Saskatoon lies to the south of Bard’s Gate. It is commonly reached by caravan through hills that harbor bandits. Caravans go both ways and they are usually looking for guards but do not pay very well. It is rumored that if you must take a ship out of the port you should make arrangements to pay off the organization of pirates known as the “ Skull Society “ also known in more polite company as the “Secret Society” or simply as “SS.” The rumor continues that this group can be reached by consulting with the thieves’ guild.

Speculation from the Guards about the Northern Army:
The king’s griffins have made over flights of the northern army that is besieging the Dwarves. They say they have sited a few large probably ancient red dragons in proximity to the army, They speculate that one of them maybe in control of that army.

One of the items carried by the King’s man detected the aura of an artifact in the midst of the northern army. The guards think it was in the possession of one of the Gnoll leaders. The guards
speculate this maybe the artifact known as the Crown of Command or the Scepter of Ruling either artifact could allow its owner to command a very large following. The artifact that made this determination is rumored to be the “Sword of the Rites of St. Cuthbert.”

A massive avalanche was witnessed by the over flight. The avalanche buried many of the army.
The Army was spotted digging in the avalanche, a greater number of undead are now believed to
be in that army. There is speculation that avalanche was the work of the Dwarven high priest Thorwin the Grumbler. Dwarves who have witnessed guards raising a toast to the Grumbler have welcomed the action. One dwarf went so far as to buy a round for the table of guards who drank to the high priest.

News or rumors from the alchemist who works at the Abby:

The Gnome enclave in Reme is working on a clockwork dog to substitute for a riding dog. They are hoping to make one capable of caring a load as large as a Dwarf.

Reakle one of the gnomes who live in Bard’s Gate was given a large pendulum operated clock by his father, Samess before that gnome left with the Gypsies. The use of the clock is that as long as the father is healthy the clock will keep perfect time, if it falters it means he is unwell, if it stops abruptly it indicates he has died. The clock is still keeping perfect time and it has been six months now since the father left. The son is making preparations to follow.

Many Gnomes are worried that the King will not be able to protect the human towns once the northern army turns it’s attention to them. A number of the Gnomes in Bard’s Gate are considering
traveling across the pass to found a new community. Some want to wait for word back trough Port Saskatoon that the trip was a success before going. The gnome Reakle Samesson has promised to
send them a message.

The party caucused and decided to head for the port town of Reme book a boat for the Northern Wilderness and gather more information on the City of Ferns. Not the obvious pick to my way of thinking, but that's why I let the players decide. I think the fact that the party had three elves and only one gnome may help explain.

Dragon Army Campaign

***WARNING MILD SPOILERS FOR NECROMANCER GAMES MODULES AND PAZIO SCHACKLED CITY***
Way back in 2005 I dragged my players kicking and screaming into the modern area by starting this 3rd edition campaign. In honor of DM lack-0f-time and unfamilarity with the rules I started with some modules. Necromancer games 3e rules 1e feel sounded good and the Wizards amulet is free so I ran that one first. I followed it up with the Crucible of Freya and then the Tomb of Abysthor. Orginal party constisted of 3 players each two playing pregenerated characters from the wizards amulet. I placed it all on a homebrew wilderness map which included most of the key features of the Grand Duchy of bards gate but with some tweeks. It also contains the infamous Rappan Attuk, but the players have not stumbled on it yet (I am not pushing it either cause the traps and the entrance are just brutal). The Tomb of Abysthor is a sprawling multi level dungeon just shy of megadugeon status. So several trips were neccesary just to penetrate to second level. In between they paid several vists to the wilderness encounters included as a download supplement for Crucible of Freya. They also battled priests of orcus and gnolls rumored to be scouts for the massive evil army which had driven the Dwarves out of their moutain strongholds years ago (DM riff on a player backstory for the dwarven fighter). They assisted a band dwarves bring supplies into the last remaining Dwarven stronghold. The Surface route is blocked and swarming with gnolls and worse. The dwarves used a secret passage through the underdark which they refuse to show to the players. However they asked the players to lay a false trail through the underdark to through the hobgoblin trackers off the scent. The players did explore the underdark for a little while but decided after seening the trail lead to a rickey rope bridge with lots of stalagmites for cover on the other side to turn back. They did however solve the gnoll tracking problem by slaughtering hobgoblin rangers and their hynea tracking hounds on the way back out. They also found an abandoned gnomish workshop at the base of the mountain with the underdark which was actually a secret entrance to the lost gnomish city of Jzadirune (from the Pazio Shackled City book). Here they freed three elves from the underdark slave pits beneath Jzadirune (two more players joining in, one with sense enough to run only one character). The illustrious city of Bards gate had finally been published so a trip there was in order. There they hooked up with the temple of Thyr whose ruined temple they had run across previously in the valley in front of the Tomb of Abysthor. The high priest of Thyr hooked them up with a palidin of Muir to return to the tomb and recover some sacred relics which had been lost there. At the end of the mission I decided I had run enough "canned stuff" that I could start writing my own stuff again. More next time.

Lessons learned:

• My players play very slow. Mostly because we all work for a living and have many other social obligations. On game nights we usually don't get started until 8 and have to quit at 11


• Tailoring modules to your homebrew world is a lot of fun


• Necromancer Games is "Old school" the modules actually feel like C. Petersons and B. Webbs campaign. If you look for the downloads you can actually find some of their campaign notes


• Most canned modules are not geared for short term play


• Players like it better when the game is tailored to their hopes and wants canned modules have a rough time with this


• If you listen to your players the world writes itself

Welcome to the Jungle

Well here goes! After reading reading numerous blogs and forums I have decided to start my own blog. This blog is dedicated to role playing games, their mechanics, ideas for DMs, and whatever else I decide to post. Current role playing games I am playing include Dungeons and Dragons (both 3.5 and 4e) as well torchlight, Ultima Underworld and Ultima Online on the computer. I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons since my Senior year in high school. I have been DMing Dungeons and Dragons since the little white box in the plain brown wrapper came in the mail from Lake Geneva. Strangely enough I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons by a computer game (not the one you think, it was called pedit5 [google that for a blast from the past]). Over the coming weeks I'll try and post some of my wisdom from my years of DMing; Notes and Strategies from the games I am running currently (An ongoing intermittent campaign with folk I have been DMing since 1985, and a monthly rotation running Living Forgotten Realms at the local game store) and games I am playing (Living Forgotten Realms and two different post apocalyptic 4e edition games of grim futures [what is it with kids these days? I don't remember being that gloomy]), I'll also be reviewing games and modules from my extensive collection (Including both Palace of the Vampire Queen and a first edition pre TSR Pharaoh). I'd continue to ramble further but she-who-must-be-obeyed reminds me it is time to do the imbuing (Ultima Online skill leveling work is never done). I'll be back soon