The Old Dog Yawns

I may have an answer for Noisms question, paraphrased of course, "Why don't we discuss how to be a good GM or what can we learn from other GMs on our gaming blogs?"

If I had to go by the number of views and comments I've gotten since doing so I'd say it's because not very many people are interested.

As such, I will probably stop doing this soon and discuss other things. In truth, I've always felt that since the majority of bloggers are GMs (as opposed to being Players only game bloggers), all the content on all the blogs help you be a better Gamemaster. No?

Take Jeff Rients most recent post, which is now a month old. Are you telling me you can't find something in that to improve your game in some way? This post wasn't helpful? Zak routinely spouts words of wisdom for the aspiring Gamemaster. As do many, many others.

None of my posts on Star Trek have been useful to the Star Trek GM? No Superhero RPG elements I dicussed were of any concern to the referee running into snags in his or her comic book campaigns?

Pity.

I think of it the same way I think of the other type of RPG content. I don't really look to the blogs for new spells, new monsters, NPCs or the like unless someone does something a little unusual. I look to old books of folklore, video game and movie concept design, public domain pulp stories and comic books. I go where there are cool ideas and no stats and I add the game elements myself.

So what helps me run games better? When you guys and gals out there argue over some silly rule or another I look at how I handle it and improve it if needed. I take ideas on how to organize your campaign or draw maps and say, "Well this is how I do maps now. Does their way over any advantage? Can I incorporate that advantage into what I like about what I already do? Hmmm...sure, if I alter that and tweak this (various cartoon crash and spring popping noises)...Presto!"

Anyway, got to work on some stuff for the way too many game things I can doing in the next month or so. If you're a GM and you're wondering how to do something better and I can help I will. Just let me know.

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Barking Alien

Visions Of The Near Future - An Arcane Past and A Distant Tomorrow

First, Welcome Back Jeff Rients to the land of the living bloggers. I was getting a little worried about his status after the notably prolific Mr. Rients went quiet for about two whole months but it seems he is alive, well and already has something to say. Most excellent!

Now on to today's post...

***

Actually, today's post isn't so much geared toward talking about something but rather letting you know about two topics I will be addressing in some detail in the near future.

I have decided to dedicate the month of December (always a strange month for me as previous December posts will reveal) to my D&D-But-Not World/Universe AERTH.

No, you did not read that wrong. No, you have not ingested some bizarre alien substance or terrestrial hallucinogen (to my knowledge anyway). No, I have not gone insane. OK, this statement is unrelated to any possible insanity on my part.

I have long put off talking about my personal Dungeons & Dragons-esque milieu with the exception of a few brief posts here and there. I would be surprised if there were more than 10-15 posts on the specifics of this campaign universe over the last 3 years and roughly 570 blog entries.

Why? And why now do I feel like talking about it?

The short answer to the first question of 'Why?' is simple. I am not really much of a D&D/Popular Fantasy genre fan. I like folklore, fairy tales and mythology but 'Lord of The Rings' and Sword & Sorcery stories just don't do much for me. I have dedicated a good portion of my time and effort on this blog talking about games few people talk about. There are dozens and dozens of D&D blogs, all written by guys and gals who actually like the subject. More power to them. It means I can talk about other things.

So why do it now/in December? That is harder to answer. I am not sure. I just want to. I need to get it out of my system so I can focus on other ideas. It's a little like spring cleaning except in my head. And it's not spring.

The entries will talk about the world, it's people, monsters, magic and other elements you would expect to find in a D&D campaign. The differences between this milieu and other D&D settings will be addressed along with the simularities. Very few rules will go with it unless the nature of the material is directly tied to my homebrew mechanics (Magic, the Draconic Language and some Peoples/Races and Monsters come to mind). If anyone asks me to elaborate I will be happy to.

***

The second thing I want to announce is that I will be working on a Traveller campaign to be run...eventually. I am hoping sometime early next year. Depending on how well things go with Ars Magica I suppose. Nonetheless, I will be doing a number of posts on the subject starting in Janurary. My plan is to have everything prepped and ready well in advance of the launch.

***

That's that for now.

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Barking Alien

Constant Con, FLAILSNAILS, and Tasting Pennies

I have no idea why but over the last twenty four hours, I can't stop thinking about joining in on a Constant Con game.

It makes no logical sense. I am currently nigh-obsessed with Supers gaming, I dislike D&D in all its forms quite a bit, and I find gaming over the Internet very hit and miss. So why the interest? Surely running Supers beats playing with Flailsnails in my book. Why bother?

Though I have spent most of my young and adult life being rather cautious and preferring to play it safe, my gaming tastes have always leaned toward trying out any new experience I came across, no matter how foreboding or dangerous they may seem.

The real me looks both ways before crossing, always double checks the lock on my front door, and practically never gambles (rarely even playing the lottery). The gaming me is the kid putting his tongue on an ice cold lamppost, riding my bike without a helmet, and putting pennies in my mouth just to find out if they really taste as bad as everyone says.

I have recently been following Jeff Rients posts on his Wessex game and I just read this post by Lord Gwydion wherein he describes his first Constant Con experience. The next thing I know I'm thinking, "Hey, how can I get in on this action?". I am considering the idea that I'll get to see what all the hubbub is about, maybe get a better insight into why people enjoy D&D (and its brethren) so much, and get to meet some new people while I'm at it.

That said, I still don't 100% know if I want to do this. It's time I could be spending working on one of own campaigns. Every time I sit down to play D&D I am promised (by myself or others) that this time D&D won't suck for me and inevitably, the game sucks. Maybe it's a phase I am going through. A fever perhaps or an undigested bit of beef. For now, I shall continue considering...

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Barking Alien

My apologies to both John Byrne and the original Flail Snail artist whose name I can't recall or find.

A Magical Time of Year

Jeff Rients and Zak S. have been discussing magic.





I thought I would put in my two cents but really what I'd rather do is break a 20. Do you have singles?

Here are some assorted and somewhat random thoughts on Magic from a discussion I had on the private board of one of my gaming groups. The dialog has been edited to make it make sense as a blog post and not a board discussion, since I am only posting my parts of the conversation anyway.

***

"Lets say you create a universe in which the laws of said universe say, "Magic can be understood, harnessed and utilized in formulas, called 'Spells', to generate a variety of different uses and effects. Those formulas can then be taught to others and duplicated by those individuals in predictable and reliable ways." This is fine, even cool, if kept internally consistant.

What I prefer is folklore and fairy tale magic, where those who understand magic are rare and otherworldly in their own right and those who don't or only think they do quickly find themselves in way over their heads."

By way of example, here is story of folklore and fairy tale magic in use in one of my Ars Magica campaigns...

"In one campaign (of Ars Magica) I ran some years ago, the Devil himself stole a man's Whistle from him. Unable to Whistle and with nothing else going for him, he was prepared to end his own life.

The PCs, who had been helped by the man and his spirit lifting Whistle, went to get it back from the Devil. They traveled south until they felt ill, til the ground turned cold and the air too hot to breath. There they found a hole that lead to the Gates of Hell. They tricked the demons at the gate into letting them in. When they found the Devil he was happily whistling with the man's Whistle.

The Devil said it was pride that made the PCs think they could retrieve the Whistle, so if they could best him at the things they prided themselves in, he would return the whistle to the man. If they failed, the Devil kept not only the whistle but the Archer's Skill, the Warrior's Strength and the Magi's Gift. In the end it was the Devil who was fooled, for the Magi did not pride himself on his Gift. There were many Magi with far greater magics then he. He prided himself on his wit and wisdom. He refused to partake in the Devil's contest, knowing full well the Devil had better spells and was very likely to cheat. With that he won and all went home, whistling the smoothest and sweetest of tunes.

That is magic to me."

***

"The nature of magic needs to be inspiring, frightening, amazing, confusing and unusual to seem magical to me. It shound be performed only by the fool hardy, the brave, the desperate, the willful, the quietly introspective and definitely the slightly mad."

***

On a more D&D approach...

"I don't really use 'Schools' of magic in the traditional D&D sense.

Magic is a force of nature, a cosmic, universal power like gravity, magnetism and thermal dynamics. Magic is what the universe is made of. It's unified field theory, intrinsic energy and much more. Unlike those sciences however, a great many people in my world understand (or think they understand) magic to some degree. This means they focus on the how and where but rarely on the what or the why. Magic is magic. In true medieval fashion, my campaign's peoples don't question what magic is or why its there. They are interested in how to use it and where they can get more or where it can be found in order to possess it or avoid it. The study of rotes (spells), arts, techniques, magical creatures, etc., lends itself to styles of magic such as elemental, primal, infernal, divine, faerie, etc. but not so much to technical breakdowns like evocation, illusion, conjuring, etc.

Now certainly there are those in my universe that do follow that concept. We do have Wizards who could be called Summoners, Illusionists and/or Evokers. These individuals are the exception however, not the rule.

Pretty much all my wizards conjure, summon and cast illusions. Though some specialize to some degree. Everyone has favorite approaches...

A High Elf of the North conjures a gust of wind because its the wind not because he's a conjurer.

A Gretho-Novan Priestess summons the aid of Cerebus because it guards her people's land of the dead, not because she's a summoner.

The Druids of the Western Coast are hard to find because faeries fool trepassers and lead them astray, not because the Druids are 'Illusionists'."

***

On the subject of summoning spells, a D&D appropriate setting and the instances in literature where some shmoe summons a demon prince that proceeds to eat him (my response being somewhat in jest)...

"Why would you go through all the time, energy, expense and potential backfires to design a spell that has a good chance of bringing you something you can't control? Such a spell seems poorly thought out or badly designed on the part of the creator. A spell that summons Demogorgon should have us questioning the wisdom of its originator."

"My world's fire fighting wizards are going to Summon water elementals to put out fires so homes don't burn down. The elementals are not much more powerful then the summoner but they can do something the summoners can't or they have a power the summoners need like generating and controlling water. When battling an army of undead the party mage might summon a celestial being but that same being could be beaten in a one on one fight with the party's Paladin. So why summon it? Because it has numerous anti-undead powers and can fly out of the enemies reach."

***

And finally, Magic Missile was mentioned by Zak as a spell he doesn't like because all it does is fly out and cause damage. I totally get where he's coming from but I'm not sure what would be done about that in the D&D games most people run. To clarify, if you are running a game of D&D style D&D, don't you need a spell that does that? Like, reeeally often?

Now Jeff has given a variety of alternate fluff names and possible descriptions for the spell but unless I am misunderstanding Zak, it's not about calling a water balloon a brick. It's about a water ballon doing more then just getting you wet.

That made me think of some of the fireballs we use in my campaigns...

"High Elven Fireball
(AKA HighFire Ball, Elven Army Fireball, Sharpshooter Fireball)

Smaller in size with a smaller blast area, this Fireball causes less damage but travels twice as far. Accomplished High Elven Warrior-Wizards have been known to fire these with pin-point accuracy (for Fireballs anyway). Created by the militant High Elves soon after coming to my campaign world.

Dwarven Forge Fireball
(AKA Dwarven Army Fireball, Backdraft Fireball)

A shorter range though standard blast area Fireball with a slightly higher damage yield. The Dwarves' natural resistance to heat means they can handle the shorter range. Originated by the Dwarven Armies of the North Western Mountains near the Edge of The World. The spell has spread to some nearby Human settlements and the homelands of other Dwarves.

StarFireBall
(AKA Shining Fireball, BrightSphere)

A very bright, golden Fireball that causes only 2/3 the damage of a standard Fireball with about 2/3 the blast radius. However, in addition to the damage, the Fireball explodes with a powerful blinding flash. Created by the Elven Warrior-Wizard known as Starshine, a member of The Order.

Chaos Fireball
(AKA WildFireBall, Emerald Fireball, Melf's Mad Fireball)

An incredibly rare Fireball, with only two spellcasters ever having been known to master it. The spell generates a coursing, roiling globe of twisting emerald flames with flares licking out in all directions. It takes a few moments to cast and then it must be hurled away before it goes off prematurely. Upon impact, the Fireball explodes with about twice the area and damage of a standard one. In addition, random jets of fire lash out from the explosion in all directions. The Chaos Fireball is very difficult to cast, prone to misfiring and is considerably inaccurate. It also scares the crap out of any opponent intelligent enough to realize what is coming at them. Only the mysterious Elven Adventurer and Scoundrel 'Melf the Elf' and the similarly roguish Warrior-Wizard Half-Elf EverburnGreen (an Order member) have used this spell reliably.

WindSphere
(No known aliases)

Not really a Fireball at all, this spell utilizes similar principles and techniques yet a very different power source and dynamic. The spell creates a tightly condensed sphere of whirling air, similar to a compacted tornado. Upon hitting its target, the tornado unravels, hurling people and objects in all directions. Although it causes less direct damage, WindSphere throws things as far as 50-100 ft into the air. Its an excellent spell for dispersing enemy forces and crowd control. Created by the Elven Warrior-Wizard WindDrake of The Order (originally of the High Elven Army).

Grand Fireball
(AKA The Beautiful Fireball, The Ultimate Fireball)

The exact details of this special variant are unknown to all but its creator who claims she is "simply casting a Fireball". The spells forms very carefully and precisely and grows to about a foot and a half in diameter before being 'launched'. As it travels, the fireball grows in size. At maximum range it is nearly 3 and a half to 4 feet in diameter. The blast is immense, but the flames will mystically avoid anyone the caster deems an ally. Enemies who recognize the spell during its considerably increased casting time must save vs. fear/will to avoid panicking at the thought of this monster heading toward them. The only Wizard known to possess this spell is the Human woman Omalphia of The Order.

Phantasmal Fireball
(AKA Make Believe Fireball, Dream Fireball)

A Gnomish invention, this Fireball appears normal, if slightly larger in size during formation. If carefully observed by a learned magic practioner they will notice tiny, random sparks and licks of oddly colored flame (mostly green, blue and purple). Once released this Fireball acts like the Grand Fireball and grows larger and larger. A will save or morale check is made against the target and any of their allies in the vicinity. If the save fails, everyone in the blast radius takes additional damage equal to the combined number of points they all failed by. The truth of course is that this is not a Fireball at all but a sophisticated illusion. Anyone who realizes this during its formation will be completely unharmed by the spells detonation. It is especially effective against large groups of dimwitted opponents.

Sidewinder Fireball
(AKA Seeker Fireball)

This is a low yield, long range Fireball that was invented by an ancient tribe of highland Humans with Elven assistance. It is the only specialized Fireball regularly found in use by both Human and Elven BattleMages and Warrior-Wizards alike. This Fireball uses principles found in the classic Magic Missile (or Arcane Arrow as the Elves once called it) to generate a Fireball that chases its target. While it can be interrupted and prematurely set off, a Seeker Fireball can not miss.

The Halflings have a variant of this called the Heatseeker Fireball that chases a target based on its heat signature or source. Originally developed to battle Kobold Fire Shamans it is now often used to target and destroy enemy Fireballs. It must be used carefully as the spell does not discern between heat sources except to go toward the hottest thing in its immediate vicinity. Improper positioning in combat can easily make a bad situation much worse."

Well that's it. Now back to...whatever comes to mind.

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Barking Alien

OSR - Outer Space Redux

First off, I've got to level with you. The last few days have been rough.

The Holiday largely stank, I'm just getting over a cold and I'm feeling those end of the year blues.

Of course, this is the time my mind decides is just picture perfect for a huge spurt of creativity. When I read over my last few posts I find them far to chaotic and unfocused. There are some cool ideas in there, but I'm not really selling them, or getting the point across.

The same thing can be said of some recent comments I made on other game blogs. I stand by what I said, but I wish I had explained myself more eloquently. One specific point I'd like to rectify was my mention of the RPG Stars Without Number.

Some may have gleaned from my post that I didn't think it was a good game. That couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, I think it's an extremely good Science Fiction RPG, and quite well done. It reminds me a bit of my favorite RPG (well, one of my top three), the ICON System version of Star Trek by Last Unicorn Games. And therein lies the problem.

The game is too modern to convince me it is an OSR compatible Science Fiction game inspired by D&D. Its (and I don't mean to be facetious) too well put together. It makes almost too much sense the way they went about it. It needs to feel more clunky, arbitrary and odd. It doesn't need to really be those things, but it needs to generate that kind of vibe.

What I think an OSR Sci-Fi/Space Opera RPG should be like may well be impossible to make. Maybe it shouldn't be done. Honestly, I'm almost looking forward to a game I wouldn't play. Not really of course...but sort of.

To that end I issue myself a challenge! I, Adam Dickstein, will create an Old School, D&D inspired, Science Fiction/Space Opera RPG and save it to PDF by the First of the Year! Yes, racing rocket fans you heard (-pst-read-) er, read correctly. I give my lazy, candy ass 1 week to put my money where my mouth is and make Aliens and Astrobases available to the online viewing public. It'll be a nice practice run before I complete my real RPG project sometime in March. Who knows? Might have a hit and have to do a sellable version. Damn, but that would be funny, no?

Anyway, a few disclaimers...First and foremost, it might be very, very bad. Second, it will be an unplaytested game so it may have numerous flaws I don't even know about. Play it and send my feed back. It will have art but not a lot and not the best. I'll likely be using assorted old sketches from my previous Sci-Fi campaigns. Lastly, it will beg, borrow and steal heavily from Swords & Wizardry, Jeff Rients, SRS Basic* and numerous other places. I said I was going to do it in a week. I didn't say it was going to be super original or mind-blowing. This is more of an excercise in "Can Adam make the Old School feel, Sci-Fi RPG he always imagined TSR should've created but didn't."

It will be free to download but if you decide to use it as a substitute life support system device for intelligent, plant based aliens, I will have to charge you.

Comment, questions, words of encouragement and even the shaking of your heads is welcome.

I better get cracking!

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Barking Alien

*SRS Basic is the Basic version of the 'Standard Roleplaying System', the house engine used by Japanese tabletop RPG company FarEast Amusement Research (F.E.A.R.) for all of their games.

P.S. - Zak S of the forever awesome 'Playing D&D with Pornstars' and I are having a difference of opinion. Nothing hostile. I appreciate where Zak is coming from as I too came from there some 20 something years ago. It is a cool place to be. It rocks. Now I am largely here and here.

P.S.S. And speaking of there, I mean here, I mean...screw it. Look at this. Apocalypse World will change the way so wake up in the morning, go to sleep at night and enjoy spending time with your significant other. And I am understating how *&#^ing cool it is.