Call off the search - James Bond game found

On Friday I mentioned not being able to locate a box of my game books.

It turns out I did bring them to a relative's house and store them in a closet. Probably I was just clearing space to help the move, as a few other large items ended up all in that one spot.

Now it's back - MSH, Top Secret, T2K, Star Frontiers, Star Ace, Gangbusters, James Bond 007, and a few other things - like my Car Wars sets and Ogre - were there with it.

Hurrah!

The Fates Say Olympus

The PCs have decided - the current core four players have all decided to go for the Olympus Gate.

I will be prepping that for the VTT and getting ready to go. It should be dangerous, but fun . . .

I didn't even know I hit 'em - Situational Awarness rule spinoff

Doug posted a very interesting idea over on Gaming Ballistic.

Randomly Aware – Fast Situational Awareness

It occasioned a thought or two.

What if you needed a Per roll - or perhaps a Per-based weapon roll, even better - to know what you did to the target? It would fit. Only experienced or observant fighters would know how well their blow landed.

You could apply the same to allies and enemies, too. You'd need a roll to spot what happened to a foe. "Thor swung at that guy and then the guy fell" might be "Guy critically failed Dodge and was hit but undamaged" or "was knocked flat" or "did Dodge and Drop" or something in between. You don't really know.

This is especially true in ranged combat, where "I totally hit that guy!" and "He did Dodge and Drop and then tried to Play Dead" should often look very much alike.

You could restrict this to allies and enemies. You know what you did. Your enemy does, too. But everyone else? PER roll. Modify it for distraction (like being enagaged yourself, probably a -5) and distance (S&SRT).

It could be clunky in numbers, but I think the general idea - you don't automatically know what you, the player, can see, given the incredible situational awareness you get from a battle map.

Links & Thoughts for 5/3/2024

Just a little today - my workload increased a lot, so not so much gaming writing/reading/prepping this week.

- Gone?

I moved last year. As far as I know, I unpacked everything. But this week I was reminded about James Bond: 007 by Victory Games, and I wanted to put it on my "re-read" pile. I can't find it. Nor do I see any sign of the things I kept on the same shelf with it - Gangbusters, Top Secret, Marvel Super Heroes, Star Frontiers, Space Opera . . . I'm a little concerned. I am absolutely sure the last place was broom clean empty, and I thought I did a truck walkthrough to make sure nothing was left on the mover's truck . . . but there is no sign of this. Maybe I stuck it in storage at someone's house, so I'll check that. I'll be really bummed if I lost that grab bag of stuff. It was in a different spot than my other gaming gear when I had less room for bookshelves, but the things above and below seem to have made the trip to the new place. It was many months ago I only hope I find it, because if it was forgotten on the truck it's gone now.


- Eight page S&W Light.

- Looks like the Olympus Gate might be the destination next Felltower game.

Minis I Don't Need But Want - Evil Geniuses

I stumbled on these on Mark Copplestone's webpage.

I have no need for these guys, but I want to play a game where I need them.

That guy on the left looks like a non-green Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz or a Sontaran's skinny cousin. I can't place him, except as a vaguely Kruschevian type.

Then we have robot Hitler.

And a metal-handed Mao.

Again, I have no need . . . but man, they'd be the best James Bond RPG villians you could hope for if you went for non-canonical bad guys.

Next in Felltower - a Gate, but which one?

The PCs decided on a gate next session, because they are high risk but disproportionally high reward areas. The Felltower experience isn't meant to be had without going into some gates.

There are links to a number of gate sessions in this post from last January for those who want to see how things have gone before. And here are the Known Gates of Felltower, updated as we play.

I broke this up into three categories based on brief discussions with my players today.

Gates with stuff to do

Ape Gate: Previously visited. There is a lot to do here, but the players will need to take a look at that summary and figure out what they want to do. They could just show up and assault the place, which can be messy, but if they want to have ape-led adventure they'll need a plan. And "go there and see if they're give us a quest" isn't a plan, it's a wish.

Olympus Gate: Previously visited for a 2-part delve: Part I and Part II.

One of my players expressed doubt about this as a possible destination because of how much the previous groups accomplished there. I told them, in a pure meta comment, that this one wasn't an empty delve. While there was a lot done, there was more to do. Because of the success of the last group, the ease of getting there, and generally positive interest in a Mythic Greece setting, this one is getting a lot of consideration.

Jester Gate: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahah. There is a lot to do here. It will be silly and deadly and rewarding if they survive the deadly silliness.

Gates without much to do (right now)

Lost City. There might be stuff to loot in Felltower, or stuff to fight, but the PCs don't know of any. Previous groups sacked the living hell out of this place. It's not a useless trip but it would be a just-made-loot-threshold kind of delve at best unless there is something big they stumble upon. Well, there is one thing . . . but I don't think they have the information to make a delve out of it worthwhile.

Icy Gate. Lots to do here, actually, but the PCs lack to means to do any of it at this point.

Air Gate. Untouched, but the PCs lack the means to do anything here at this point.

Fire Gate. Possibly a lot to do, but nothing known about it yet. No one wants to find out more just yet.

Gates with nothing to do

Forest Gate. This one is definitely finished. That may change in the future, but it's just a waste of time at the moment. Also, the way back isn't directly back to Felltower, instead it's way off near Molotov.




All I ask is a decision by 5/5/2024 so I have time to update my notes, upload foes to the VTT, upload maps to the VTT, and so on. Face to face I could improvise if we played near my minis collection, but online, I need time to do the work to make it flow well.

DF Session 192, Felltower 130 - Down, down, down the GFS

Date: April 14th, 2024

Weather: Sunny, warm.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (301 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (266 points)
     Darkspire the Inscrutable, human apprentice (125 points)
     Harold, human guard (~80 points)
     Samuel, human guard (~80 points)

We started off in town, gathering rumors and then heading off to the dungeon. Vlad took a note to spend his time between this delve and next investigating the cone-hatted cultists near the Brotherhood Complex.

They made their way to Felltower and in through the front entrance. They wound their way to the altar, and their newest hireling got Puissance +2 on all his weapons for the day.

From there, they went down the GFS to the "apartment level" and began to explore. They systematically shattered a number of those black hemispheres on the ceiling that the bronze spiders keep fixing, and checked a lot of different areas - the colored doors, the werewolf lair, and places nearby - for the ratmen and gnolls. Nothing. A big trip around led them to near Durak's lair, and they heard what they consider to be the sound of him sleeping.

There was debate about rouding up the magic bottles as loot, but that was rejected at the last minute as they approach the "prison" area. There was debate (real world and in-game) about the point of spending Sundays doing un-fun wandering around without actually encountering anything.

So, with a firm push from Hannari, they headed to the second GFS. Thor took some damage trying to open the door with a kick, then more when he did it properly with a hand touch. Getting through the illusionary wall was trickey, but it seemed like saying the Brotherhood's passphrase helped get a second chance to get through, which helped Thor and Samuel - the rest made it through.

On the stairs down, they were attacked by a pair of speeding blades. They broke them down and sent them rattling down to the abyss below, but not before Harold got cut and Vlad was briefly dropped with a crippling leg cut - both speedily healed by Chop, who also put a Curse on one that proved very helpful.

They headed to the third landing, where their notes (from delvers who never made it back, but hey, Summon Spirit) said there was poison gas and a Dispel Magic trap. They got ready and rushed in, planning to run to the left and right out of the danger zone. They didn't make it. They triggered a wave of dangerous effects - a Dispel Magic that took out half of their lightstones, a Deathtouch-like effect on their front three that hammered Samuel, Harold, and Thor, and a greenish mist that inflicted 1d toxic per second despite them holding their breath. They fled, dragging the reeling hirelings behind.

Chop healed everyone on the stairs as fast as possible, draining his power item to do it, and using a Lend Energy charged scroll to replenish himself. They quickly fell to arguing about returning upward to find loot or going down. Over Vlad's strenuous objections, they headed down. There was nothing but abject darkness above and below.

And down.

And down.

And down.

What turned out later to be 6 turns around the stairs they emerged from the darkness.

Queue up the John Williams music.

The walls around the stairs were gone. The stairs, corkscrewing down into the depths, just continued on without any obvious support. Below them, far below them, was a faintly glowing dome. A big one - hundreds of yard across, maybe? - faintly glowing from within with pastel colors. The colors changed as they descended - always soft colors. Sky blue, not dark blue. Indigo or mauve, not deep violet. Soft yellow or orange, not a harsh deep red. They could feel the size of the space around them - it was big. They couldn't see part what was lit by the dome below or their lightstones.

Down, down, down they went.

As they closed in, they saw the GFS didn't end up in the dome, but rather next to it. The dome was clearly over a "city" - they could vaguely make out shapes that had to be building-sized, but no details emerged. Around the city was the inky blackness of water. The stairs ended, 14 more turns down (roughly 1/2 a mile, if the calculations of Hannari's player are correct as they usually are), in a square stone building on an adjoining island, connected to the city's landmass by a causeway or bridge marked on each end by gate-like buildings, and the city itself had a bastion-like setup in from of the dome.

Exhausted from the climb down, the PCs rested at the bottom and took extra time to search. Besides the badly broken bits of two shattered speeding bladeds, they found some sparse but valuable loot. That was a ring (a Potion Ring, from DFT3), a ruby covered with fire-related runes (non-magical - just the overlooked remnants of a broken magic item), and a chunk of metal that Vlad identified as a 1.25 pound lump of Poison Metal (DF8.)

With that, they decided (due to time and my prompting, honestly) to return to the surface rather than risk what defenses the city has. They wanted to identify more about it to get some research done, but they couldn't be sure what awaited them . . . only that no one had been there and returned. So they decided to just do that.

Notes:

- Annoyingly, the loot for the speeding blades says $10/pound for bits, and sends you to DF8, p. 13 for more. That book explains how to value bits, but not how many pounds worth you get from a speeding blade. Sigh. I want an answer more than a method, and this kind of lacks both.

- So that domed city has been sitting under Felltower since my first side-view draw up of Felltower. It's not necessarily the bottom of Felltower, but it is perhaps the bottom of the top of Felltower.

- I had to wing the treasure at the bottom of the GFS a bit. I had notes in a folder that said:

"Potion Ring (empty)
big chunk of mystery metal (poison metal)
Ruby with magic item markings but non magic 5 carats?
No body bits"

So I had to quickly determine a value for poison metal by looking in multiple books - and its size, which I don't know if I ever wrote down, double check the description of a potion ring (to be consistent with my wording in DFT3), and check the ruby value since I no longer use carat prices just ballpark ranges. I honestly didn't expect anyone to go all the way down there this session for sure. But the rough notes are maybe 11 years old, and the first notes on that level date to 2011.

- Before they went down there, the group was having a grumpy discussion about spending Sundays not doing much of anything. The delve to the third landing didn't pan out - the defenses there are pretty brutal - but Hanari's player successfully bullied the one player who was refusing to go deeper. The other two were fine with going . . . and going paid off greatly.

- XP was 4 xp for loot, 1 xp for touching a new level post-return to Felltower (3rd landing), +1 for new exploration (the domed city), +1 for first touch on a new level (the dome city), and +1 for discovering a special location (the domed city) = 8 xp per person. Hanari's player got MVP for pushing the delve that deep and insisting on searching for loot at the bottom; it was a tough call because Chop's healing was critical, and Thor's Sacrificial Block and Sacrificial Parry stopped a lot of potential casualties.

- The city is a special location, but it's not easier than the levels above it. It could be totally lethal for a group of this point total. But it's there for eventually . . . and I promise it's a good one. I'm glad they found it. It, and the level it is on, is full of discoveries waiting for PCs. But I think not yet.

- There is a MST3K reference in that title. Just watch The Mole Men.

- Next time, a gate. They just haven't decided which one, yet. More tomorrow.

Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Companion 3 - Arrived!

My copy of DFRPG Companion 3 arrived today.

It's a meaty book, printed out, at least by DFRPG standards. 174 pages, softcover.

Three of my articles are in there - one each on equipment kits (which I need implemented in GCS somewhere), one on spell components (which my players don't seem to like very much), and one of monsters (which I like very much.)

I'm much more likely to use monsters I have in front of me in print; not necessarily with art, but in print. So expect more of Sean's prefixes and monsters to show up in my game now I can look at them while flipping through a book.

Fun stuff - I like having this in print to peruse.

Random Thoughts & Links for 4/26/2024

A few links for a Friday.

- A look at Kara-Tur. I agree it feels a little uneven. But the maps are gorgeous and looking at them makes me really want to play a game there. I own the "trail map" of it, too, which is pretty awesome unfolded.

- Joseph Bloch has a Kickstarter for the 2nd edition of his Adventurers Dark & Deep system.

- I love the idea of a rule that makes killing down foes requires a roll to overcome natural reluctance. You can see it featured here in a game of Twilight: 2000 run by Wayne.

- Maybe game on Sunday . . . so far only one definite yes and a lot more definite nos. I'll run game for 2 players but solo . . . just not as fun anymore.

- Reflections on Psi-Wars. The experience there with ST matches mine - even in very high tech situations, ST is just useful to have, and at 10/level people still want it and buy it.

More thoughts on Only Heroes Get to Resist

I've never implemented this rule, but I keep thinking about running a game that would use it:

Only Heroes Get to Resist

I have a few more thoughts on it, nine years on.

- I think it should totally affect allied NPCs, too, with an exception made for any characters 125+ points, who'd get treated as worthy and get a roll.

- In a DF-style split, Fodder don't resist, Worthies may, Bosses do. Worthies with a base resistance below the effective skill of the caster don't get to resist; those with equal or better do get a chance. Don't apply the Rule of 16 until this comparison is made.

- If an effect has a chance for recovery, the same rules apply - Fodder stays down until the effect naturally ends, Worthy and up get to try and evade the effects.

- You still have to make the roll to put the resistable effect on the target.

I don't intend to use this in Felltower, but I do think it would make a good Heroic DF rule.

DFRPG Companion 3 on the way!

I got a shipping notice for a copy of DFRPG Companion 3!

I'd kind of let this one slide out of my awareness. I'm excited to see it in person . . . it's always nice to get a physical copy of something you contributed to.

It's available here.

DF Felltower: What if all critical hits did max damage?

In Felltower, we use a little rule buried in the back of Basic Set: Characters (p. B326) that makes critical hits just bypass defenses, no table roll, and a "3" is max damage.

One way I thought of speeding combat - thanks to additional lethality - is to make all critical hits maximum damage. Roll a 3-4, or a 5 or a 6 with sufficient skill (or a 7 for some templates) and bang, max damage and bypass defenses.

This would add a lot of lethality to combat when the big boys roll a 3-6. Less so when others do . . . but make wizards really happy when they nail a crit on an Explosive spell thrown at an actual person.*

It wouldn't help fodder much, but at least sometimes they'd manage to hurt someone.

It would make boss monsters really, really scary. You can't get critically hit and luck out with a low damage roll against you. A giant doing 6d+12 or something would just flat out do 48 damage and that's that.


I don't think my players would go for this but part of me wants to try it. I think it would increase the bloodbath of combats and certainly erase a few foes here and there much more quickly.



* I joke. They all take the +4 for targeting the floor that I find totally bogus, but accept as a rule.

Felltower Updates

Updates to Felltower in anticipation of next week's game.

Volunteers?

For quite a while, no one had delved into Felltower. Those that did, returned battered and usually no better off. But the last group came back talking about beating up some beetles and taking home a nice payoff. That's the kind of thing that makes volunteers show up.

As usual, volunteers tend to be the kind of guys you wouldn't pay for. Wizards who may or may not actually cast spells, like Ken Shabby. One-armed swordsmen. One-eyed archers. No-morals semi-human thugs. Folks as dangerous to you as they are to the enemy, and/or themselve.

But my players love them, so we'll see a few more of them if this keeps up.

Rumors

All rumors are true, even the false ones. Like a Nostradamus prediction, they get contorted around until they match what happened, or what happened gets contorted around until it matches the rumor.

Either way, I wrote a bunch of rumors.

Restocking

Very little. I think I'd benefit from a more systematic, roll-based approach. For now I eyeball it and do some randomizing, but I wonder if I could generate a system based on my stocking system that would tell me what moves into Felltower, and what moves out, and just modify the dungeon based on that each time? Hmm . . .

Limits on Targeting Hit Locations?

This post is thanks to Faodladh, who made a comment on my last post on this subject.

In GURPS, it's very common to target specific hit locations. For skilled fighters run by skilled players, they often target a very small handful of optimal locations. You get eye shot guy, neck slicer guy, I only shoot the vitals guy. It's not always that realistic - the vitals or eyes or neck are always targetable? You can go for them over and over again. So let's say you want to limit the options.

Option 1: Minimum Effective Skill 10.

Like Deceptive Attack, attacks aimed at a specific location must have a minimum effective skill of 10. Therefore, to target the vitals (-3), you need a minimum effective skill of 13. Skull? 17. Eyes? 19.

Pros: Easy to implement. Limits tricky shots to the skilled.
Cons: You can't try a Hail Mary eye shot to win a fight unless your skill is higher.

Option 2: Only What's Open

I think Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch suggested this or something somewhat like this, back in the day. Roll on the Hit Location Table. Whatever comes up is your best target, at a -0. Or you can choose anything else, but with an extra -2 on it.

Pros: Has a realistic feel to it.
Cons: Probably just imposes an extra roll and/or people buying 2 extra points of skill to eat the penalties.

Option 3: Saw it Coming

Use the rules as written, but give a +1 to defend against any targeted attack after the first one on the same target.

Pros: Can be used with the RAW or the rules above.
Cons: Still allows anyone who wants to hunt for specific areas to do so.

I have some more ideas, but it's late so they'll need to wait for another post.

Multiple Defense penalty not automatically resetting?

I had a stray idea for a rough, gritty rule for cascading defenses.

Instead of resetting the penalty for multiple defenses on your turn, do not reset it unless:

- you spend a full second without using any defenses

or, optionally

- you spend a turn doing Evaluate


This is a simple, but very nasty rule. Being outnumbered and unable to take a breather - to step back and just reset - means your defenses will eventually be whittled down. Good ways to trigger the first is to use Move and clear the battle area, a classic swashbuckler move. Allowing Evaluate means you can stay in the fray, but not launch any offense, and it helps make Evaluate do something.

Why not reset when you do All-Out Defense? I think it just rewards taking a second being even more defense, which someone pressed is going to just do fairly often.

This would be a pain to deal with in a large fray, but it's probably a good way to make multiple foes - even weak ones - nasty in a realistic game with more detailed combat and/or smaller numbers of combatants. It also should have the emergent behavior of making outnumbered fighters either moving very defensively to try to limit their exposure, or very aggressively to take out a foe to cut down the odds. Right now, that's not always worth doing - the first might be useful, but with high defenses you can just ride out the attacks. The second is just standard behavior, but usually folks get a lot more tactical about which foe they choose to try to take out. Suddenly this would make "take out someone, anyone, even briefly so I can reset or even up" very attractive.

I haven't playtested this but it might be fun to try it out sometime.

More notes from Session 191

We played yesterday, Session 191, and I had a few more notes I'd forgotten yesterday.

- the PCs fought a bunch of slicer beetles. I found it easier to just do TOTM, as they call it, winged ranges, and tracking the monsters by hand. I didn't bother to put all 20 of them into the turn tracker, make sure each token was rotated properly, etc. I just did it on note paper. I may do that for true fodder encounters.

I was hopeful one of them would roll a 3 or something and lop off someone's hand or foot, but none of them did so. The PCs rattled off about a dozen criticals during the fight. You know, against fodder-level defenses, where it hardly mattered. You can't control the dice.

- The PCs gave Harold $120, a full 100% bonus on his asking rate, and asked him to be available in 2 weeks. We'll see - they get a nice bonus on their roll to find him again, and it does slightly increase his Loyalty, too.

Darkspire took a share, and we'll see if he's available again. He might be, if only because I have him in the system. Otherwise I've aked for at least one week before the play date for NPC requests because it's time consuming to make and upload the NPCs, ensure they have a token, name, quirks, etc. and all of that. I don't want to do a bunch "just in case" because I don't enjoy the process of making characters in GCS. My players love it, I find it really annoying.

- I find exploration without the "unlimited LOS view" of Dark Vision more fun to GM. It's a much shorter "you see this and that" and not a lot of "so-and-so sees" and "I tell them that" or what have you.

- the PCs found a broken set of orc ladders, and the thinking was Hjalmarr broke them. Could be. I describe PCs as being like wolverines, except that goal one is destroy anything you can to prevent the NPCs from using it, and goal two is get whatever they can use. So, so many doors, portcullises, ladders, entrances, exits, tools, puzzles, and re-useable items in the dungeon have been pillaged for loot (rarely) and destroyed so the (fill in name of group NPCs) can't use it/lock it/block it/come around behind us/come out of the dungeon/sell it/whatever. I once ran an arch villain in a campaign whose attitude was "don't break anything you might need later" so he didn't stomp the PCs just in case he needed them, tried to keep allies (and even useful enemies) alive, etc. That was a fun exercise, highly recommended.

- Oh, and it's tax day in the US, but not in Felltower, because everything looted under Felltower is tax-free. Because paying taxes in game is very, very old school AD&D, and also very, very annoying to deal with. So I made up a way to not do it.

Fun session.

DF Session 191, Felltower 129 - Troll Treasure & Orc Holes

Date: April 14th, 2024

Weather: Sunny, warm.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (308 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (297 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (310 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (255 points)
     Darkspire the Inscrutable, human apprentice (125 points)
     Harold, human guard (~80 points)


The PCs gathered in town, gathered rumors, and headed out to Felltower itself. The goal was simple - gain the loot from the trolls slain last time, and then . . . explore around. They managed to hire Harold, a low-rent fighter (asking $60 for the trip), and Darkspire, an Air College wizard, who came for a share. They noted he signed his agreement Marvin Darkspire, Esq. Hannari thinks he might work at Ragnarsson and Sons.

Once in the dungeon, they crossed the pit, but not before Thor fell into the pit and took 22 damage (13 after armor). The perils of low (no) Climbing skill and 20+ HP. They made it across, picked up the trail of the trolls, and then decided it led into too many NMZs and pits. So they went around, checking the room they'd fought spiders in a while back (they'd forgotten that) along the way.

They tried to cut into the mosaic hallway by a disused route, and found it wasn't just a NMZ, but a No Sanctity Zone, either. That wiped out the scout's lightstone. Vlad opened a glow vial and checked the big double doors nearby and found signs of trolls.

They backed off and took the long way around, and into the gigantic room. Darkspire opined the burned wreckage in the room was once books. In any case, they found the troll's trash pile . . . and their loot. They found a 2000 or so silver, 10 gold, a broach, an ornate shield, a helmet, and a tome on constructs.

They took the loot and headed down to level 2 via a trapdoor in that room. In the room below, a curious Thor pressed a button in an alcove, and the floor opened. He snatched the lip of the pit and avoided a fatal fall onto spikes.

Then it was over to the altar. They told the new guys the altar could turn up to 30 sp into gold, so they handed each NPC a bag and had them touch it in turn. Harold got +1 to all of his stats for a day. Darkspire got the transmuting effect (it comes up a lot, actually) and I rolled . . . 3d30 and got 47. So all 30 sp he had turned to gold. Oops. (I'm not sure why they thought it was only 30, but whatever.)

Next, they headed to the orc hole, and in. Some falls (Chop, this time) later, they made it down. Long story short, they explored the caves at the bottom thoroughly, and found nothing except some pits. They made their way the 3+ miles down the tunnel to the exit in the valley north of Felltower. There they found a stockade fence, towers, and patrolling orcs, with a cleared kill zone in front with a bunch of wolf-like dogs laying about.

They saw the place was pretty busy - they called it Orcburg - and backed off.

After they eventually made it back to the dungeon proper, they headed down to the caves where Sterick had been imprisoned. They basically wandered around there for a time, killed 20 slicer beetles, and then headed back home after not finding anything else worth noting.

They did check the spherical room and find a nest of a probably goblin-sized individual, who'd used the broken sarcophagus and twigs and wattle and mud to build a nest. No loot, though.

With that, they headed home, profitable for a change.

Notes:

- Hey, wow, we played Felltower again.

- XP was 1 exploration (they actually went into part of the orc hole no one had bothered to before), 4 xp loot (~600 sp or so each), 1 xp MVP for Thor to learn Climbing. Also because he was very useful when he wasn't Sir Fallsalot.

- It was a fun session despite what on paper wasn't a lot done. The loot was good, the players were focused, and everything went smoothly besides me getting booted from the VTT 2x for no apparant reason. Whatever. At least we gamed and enjoyed it!

Links for Friday 4/12/24

Links for Friday!

- This is the kind of playset I want to play on.

Gaming - D Day Gold Beach

- Love Holloway illustrations like this one from B5 Horror on the Hill.

- Game on Sunday, finally.

Black Company RPG in development

Thanks to Rob L for sending this one to me:

Black Company RPG in Development

The folks who did Delta Green are doing a Black Company RPG. Interesting. There was a D&D3.5 one done about 20 years back. I'd still play a BC game with GURPS myself. but I'm interested in seeing how it's done in another system. You need to have extremely powerful folks (Dominator, Lady, the Taken, various monsters), heroic above-the-norm types (Bomanz, say, probably Raven, definitely lots of the Rebel generals), and lots and lots of normal folks, many without the baggage of a conscience (most of the characters.) Yet those normal folks occasionally manage to stack things to go toe-to-toe with the extremely powerful folks and come out smiling. In other words, powerful doesn't mean invulnerable yet can still mean capable of leveling a company of enemies.

I'll take a look and I put in for the playtest, although it sounds like you'll need to be a Patreon subscriber to do so. If so, I'm likely out - I pay with my contribution, I don't like to pay to help you - but I'll keep people posted. After all, it's one of my favorite books by my favorite author.



And for those keeping track, I first heard of the book in a sidebar in 1st edition GURPS Special Ops. Thanks Mike Rose!

Fantasy General: Grinding Out a Win

I have resumed playing Fantasy General as General Marcus.

I think I have two battles left. My current one should put me just outside the Shadowlord's fortress. There is a little side penninsula I ignored, which I'm hoping I can keep on ignoring. In video games, though, one never knows. In WWII the Allies just encircled those "fortress" cities the Nazis set up in France and left them until the war ended. In video games, you might have to clear them before you're allowed to attack the main fortress.

The battle before the last, then, is going on. It's nasty. Rough terrain, spread out objectives, and the enemy has lots of high-experience sky hunters (fighters) and seemingly endless numbers of mechanical infantry units (Mechanus) and cavalry (Rolling Thunder.) They're brutal to take out, and they're backed by Shadow Warriors and Monks of Meo in large numbers. It's been a slog and cost me a lot of pain and I'm not even a quarter done.

I'm enjoying it despite the title - it's a slog, it's a grind. But it's good. It shouldn't be easy. My tactics, though, still work - rush in mobs of Sky Hunters to take out all the units I can easily demolish, hound the wounded, and then let my combined follow-on forces mob the remainder. It's just slow.

I'm interested to see how this wraps up. I enjoy the game in spurts. This is one of those spurts. I hope to finish it this week!

Discworld RPG Bundle

There is a Bundle of Holding for the GURPS-based Discworld RPG:

It's $14.95 and nets you the Discworld RPG - normally $30 alone - plus Low-Tech and Fantasy Tech 1. I'm not sure why those two, except that they kinda fit. Whatever the reason, it's a good price for either DW or the two accompanying books, so if you're missing DW or missing those two or all three, it's a good way to fill out your collection.

If you're in, click here.

Minor Felltower Work

Sunday is about Felltower, and I think we're playing next week. So I spent it doing a little maintenance.

- I re-familiarized myself with some of the areas I think the PCs may go to.

- I updated a few modules on the VTT.

- I did a little work on the Felltower file itself, just cleaning up some junk that's crept in. Keeping the whole dungeon as one big file has lots of upsides but also some issues with notes that aren't important anymore. Unless something is blatantly wrong (spelling error, rules page reference error, etc.) I just use strikethrough text to indicate something changed.

That's about it . . . Felltower needs delving to live.

Random Thoughts and Links for 4/5/2024

- Wayne's Books has a post up about "The Game" - the way the designers at GDW resolved the shift from Twilight:2000 to Traveller: 2300 AD.

The Game

- The Defense Policy wonk-in-training that I was in college looks at this and thinks of the consequences of an invasion of Taiwan. The game in me - who's been around longer - see this and thinks, can I play?

Wargaming an Invasion of Taiwan

(BTW, the Wall Street Journal explainer videos are in general really excellent.)

- This Grognardia post made me realize that while I know a number of gamers at work, they're all female. My client's daughter plays. My department sub-group coordinater plays with (I think GMs for) for husband and son. One of my clients plays and GMs for her daughters and her family members. I'm not actually sure I know any male gamers through my work. The gamers I know outside of work are almost all male, but they're also almost all either my gaming friends, or friends I made through gaming. The people I know who just turned out to play RPGs - almost always D&D5 - are all female.

Just interesting to me, honestly. I don't talk to them about gaming much. I just say I play, it's GURPS not D&D, and that's about it. I just don't like to game with my co-workers . . . I did that once or twice in the past and it didn't work for me. These days I like to firewall my gaming from my work. Still, I enjoy the fact that gaming is just a casual hobby these days that doesn't require instant bonding between fellow outcasts. And all three of the people I mentioned are very cool folks. I just want to hack-and-slash with different folks.

- My spam is getting nasty. Not just spam links but the the occasional hostile attack on me as a person have popped up. But they've been from anonymous folks. In other words, cowards.

- Game day should be next Sunday. I honestly can't wait. I'm rusty as a GM at this point, and if we don't get a game in for April, I'm not sure it's worth trying to keep the campaign going over the slow months of the summer. So fingers crossed!

A few thoughts on PCs Making Magic Items vs. Buying Magic Items

This post is almost entirely in the context of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. It's influenced by my current game's actual play, but also in light of the way my original game - AD&D - treated acquisition of magic items.

In standard DF and DFRPG, PCs cannot make magic items. That's exclusively something NPCs do. They can buy magic items in town - and quite a broad array of them, even using just DF1 or Adventurers for a list.

What are the implications of PCs being able to buy magic items?

PCs buying magic items:

- has a loot cost, primarily cash but also selling found items that don't match your preferences to fund the creation of one that does.

- no time cost; time to enchant is a delay on receiving but doesn't take the PCs out of play.

- limits on what you can buy can seem arbitrary but can be tied to in-game social abilities (Status, Wealth, Social Stigma, etc.)

- no template limit on purchases.

Cash found in a dungeon, and things exchanged for cash, can be swapped into magic items of whatever sort the PCs need unless the GM puts on specific limits or creates sale item lists. PCs just delve, spend, repeat. Time delays on purchased items can be imposed but the time limits are on the item, not the PC.

What about making items?

PCs making magic items:

- has a loot cost, some cash but also finding the "right" ingredients, if required (either as baseline rules or color.)

- has a time cost, because time spent enchanting is time not spent delving.

- if the loot cost is primarily finding ingredients, this can have a neutral effect on selling found items.

- limits on what you can make can seem arbitrary but are more easily tied to in-game magic/knowledge abilities.

- template limits.

If you take an AD&D-style enchantment approach, you're going to need a lot of monster bits and specific gems to make things go. Even a GURPS Magic approach will have some specific requirements on design and ingredients. Cash alone will usually suffice but may not for all things. There will also likely be time costs - if it takes 100 days to make a magic items, you're out of play for 100 days. What templates and abilities you need to enchant are likely to limit item access. Bards and wizards may be able to make items, clerics some other items, but most other templates might be out of luck. Or maybe not, if you allow shamanistic barbarina practices, fighters to hone steel so well that it becomes enchanted, or thieves to go through certain rituals to make magic keys and dead man's candles and so on.

All of them come with time out of play, definite needs to find ingredients before you can just go get the custom magic widget of your dreams, and in-game advantgae or skill acquisition.

It might be that to make money less of a way to get custom magic items, and make found items more important, you might benefit from letting PCs make the items. It seems a little counterintuitive but the thoughts above point that way.

I need to spend a bit more time noodling this over. Maybe the future of magic items in Felltower is PC made?

Impressive 4th Doctor Who minis range

The weekly sale over at Black Tree Designs has a really impressively complete list of figures for the 4th Doctor Who era.

Ahem:

4TH DOCTOR - 4TH DOCTOR IN SHERLOCK HOLMES HAT - 4TH DOCTOR III



ROMANA - ROMANA II – K-9 – LEELA - HARRY SULLIVAN

DECAYING MASTER – MASTER UNIT SLR - 1975 UNIT SOLDIER W GRENADE - UNIT TROOPER W SMG – ZYGON - ZYGON ADVANCING – DAVROS - MARCUS SCARMAN – NAMIN – NIMON - ROBOT MUMMY - ROBOT MUMMY ATTACKING – ROBOT - ROBOT OF DEATH - ROBOT OF DEATH ATTACKING – SUTEKH - WENG CHI - LIH, SEN CHANG - MR SINN - VICTORIAN POLICEMAN - SUICIDE DALEK - PROFESSOR KETTLEWELL - PROFESSOR CHRONITIS - COMMANDER ANDRED - SCARGOTH THE JAGEROTH - MORBIUS MONSTER – MANDREL - MANDREL ATTACKING - VORUS VOGON LEADER - VOGON WARRIOR - PRESIDENT OF GALLIFREY – KELLMAN – FOAMASI – WIRRN – ELDRAD – MOVELLAN - MOVELLAN WARRIOR - WOOD BEAST OF TARA – CAILLEACH - VIVIAN FAY – SHRIEVENZALE - SWAMPIE WARRIOR – SWAMPIE LEADER – GARRON – THARIL - COUNT GRENDEL - THE CAPTAIN - PIRATE GUARD - THE MARSHALL – MELKUR – FENDHALEEN - ROHM DUTT - SERVANT OF SUTEK – HEIRONYMOUS – NUCLEUS – RUTAN - THE MONITOR - STYGRON THE KREULL - SONTARAN WARRIOR

Well okay then. I'm not seeing a lot of people left out. And as a former subscriber to the newsletter from The Jersey Jagaroth, I like the inclusion of Scaroth!

New Felltower Magic Items

Here are a couple of new magic items for Felltower!

Al-Jaffee's Book of Quips and Comebacks

This convenient pocket-sized book is made with a soft cover, and weighs only 0.5 lbs. Using it requires holding it open with one hand (a Ready maneuver.) Using the Book allows for multiple uses of Rapier Wit on the same foe as long as the user succeeds. If the victim successfully resists, they are no longer vulnerable to Rapier Wit for 24 hours.

Attempts to use Rapier Wit against the holder of this book are risky, too. When held ready, if an opponent tries Rapier Wit on the holder, roll a quick contest of Will - and the loser suffers stunning normally.

Price: $1000

Dwarven Hammer, Loyal Thrower
Power Item: 4 FP

The Dwarven Hammer, Loyal Thrower can be thrown with these stats: Acc 1, ST x 2 / x3, sw+3/crushing. One second after impact, it summons the bearer to wherever the hammer hits, pulling the thrower along at Move 12 as if under Flight spell. The bearer travels by the most direct route possible for the hammer to pass; be careful throwing it through narrow gaps! If the thrower's path intersects a barrier, foe, or ally, treat like a slam at the thrower's ST and Move 12 (so, +5 per die.) The bearer will keep being pulled to the hammer until they meet. When the bearer arrives at the hammer, the thrower immediately falls down and takes damage as if from a fall from the height the hammer hit or 2 yards, whichever is higher.

This can be used to travel. Simply throw it to whereever you'd like to go and brace yourself for impact! The pull of the hammer is equal to the ST of the thrower, if that becomes relevant.

In melee the hammer is sw+3/crushing, Parry 0, Reach 1.

Price: $25000, 5 lbs.

Felltower Status Update

Not much to update on Felltower.

- Next game is tentatively 4/14. We have a couple of people who can play but we don't have a quorum of players willing to commit to the day yet.

- I've done a little bit of writing to Felltower, but not too much. Not until we're playing again am I willing to put in a lot of time into development ahead of where they are now.

- I did update some of my notes and maps, however. I still have the struggle of the maps being too damn big for the VTT . . . not sure how I'll ever deal with this problem.

Mapping Lessons from Ancient Ruins

I toured around Pompeii on my trip to Italy. Naturally, noted a lot of things from a mapping perspective.

- rooms are pretty small. A lot of the rooms in buildings - and solo residences - were not much bigger than 10 x 10 or 15 x 20-ish. Not a lot of the giant rooms I like to stick in dungeons.

- lots of doorways in corners.

- lots of small, narrow doorways. Couple that with the door in the corner, it's enough that "face the doorway and choke the enemy off in the doorway" will be difficult. There wasn't much room for 2 people, nevermind 3, to face the doorway. On top of that, the portals were pretty tight, and it would be hard to engage someone in the doorway with a swinging weapon - the sides and top of the doorway would severely restrict that.

- ceilings were quite high, where there were ceilings. So 10 x 10 rooms were a thing, but not 10 x 10 x 10 rooms. Ceilings were way above my head and I'm over 6'.

- raised sidewalks would give a real height advantage in a street fight. Enough to justify a 45 degree angle bonus in DFRPG rules.



Given all of that, I'm a bit more likely in the future to do smaller rooms, corner portals, and high ceilings in an ancient style setting. I might also, in a realistic game, put in rules prohibiting - or limiting - cutting attacks launched into doorway hexes in a small doorway. You'd need a clever angle to get one in, and that would also limit your path of attack and logically make it easier to predict. Stabbing away would be a solid tactic in those cases.

And maybe I shouldn't make so many rooms 50 x 50 or 60 x 80 and things like that. I could be going a bit overboard.

Random Links for 3/29/2024

And I'm back.

- I got what might be an AI comment on my blog. Or maybe not. It's actually well written comment that reflects the contents of the post well, and expresses an opinion on it that makes sense in a way spam comments don't . . . except the profile of the commenter is a sales redirect. Weird. If it was just anonymous I'd have let it through.

- I took a short trip to Italy. I don't normally discuss my non-gaming life here, but it's relevant to gaming.

First, I have a post coming about mapping and room layouts after cruising around Pompeii for a few hours.

Second, I met up with one of the playtesters for GURPS Martial Arts, who I've known online for decades but finally met in person. If anyone remembers Peppe, aka Luther, that's who I met up with.

And third, this door in Roma very close to the Spanish Steps is more Trampier than anything except actual Trampier.

- We're potentially looking at 2 sessions of Felltower in April. Crazy, I know.

Away for a bit

I won't be able to post for a week or so . . . see you guys next week!

James Ward - thanks for the games

I just heard from Tenkar that Jim Ward passed away.


My second post here, back in August 2011, was a repost from my non-gaming blog, talking about Jim Ward and his games. I never got to play with him, but things he wrote and games he helped develop gave me a lot of joy.

I've posted about him enough that he had his own label - in case you want to traipse through the posts I put up with his name on them.

The frustrations of spells vs. effects in Pathfinder: Kingmaker

One real frustration I have with Pathfinder: Kingmaker is when descriptions and effects don't really match.

Many, many debuffs have very specific counters. You can get stats drained, paralyzed, petrified, frightened, stunned, level drained, blinded, sickened, exhausted . . . all good. But then how do you fix it? It depends. You have spells like Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Remove Curse, Inspiring Recovery, Heal . . . which one fixes what? It's not always clear.

It's not always clear what effects are countered by what countermeasure. I've had plenty of my companions made to flee by a fae's Frightful Moan . . . despite being accompanied by a Paladin who cast a spell to render them immune to fear effects. Cast Delay Poison, Communal to be immune to spider's venom . . . but not the stat-drain poison of other monsters or the save-or-die poison effect from a Prismatic Spray.

Countermeasures seem very idiosyncratic, specific, and arbitrary. From a person versed in the game Pathfinder only from the video game, it's tough. I often struggle to figure out what exactly would help me counter foes who spam Slay Living or Prismatic Spray. I have to dig, dig, and dig in the rules to figure out what does what.

It's really annoying. Mostly I deal with my issues with Mass Heal, rest, and lots of healing spells. But even several playthroughs through the game, and late in the game, I just have a vague idea of how to deal with certain issues. It's not really ideal.

When it comes to magic, I really like when effect-based counters just work based on the effect. If you are immune to fire, fire damage should just fail. Poison immunity? Then "save vs. poison or die" should just be something that garners a chuckle from you. And so on. It's useful food for thought as I continually revise my version of GURPS Magic for Felltower . . . I want it to seem clear why something works or does not work; strange exceptions should be rare and should allow for an "ah-hah!" moment as you figure out why. I'm not getting it from this game, but it is making me think about how not to do things the way Pathfinder seems to do them.

No Felltower today

Nothing for Felltower today - we're pretty much unable to schedule a game at least until April. Admittedly that's only 3 weeks away . . . but we don't anything like a firm commitment from anyone, just a few firm "no"s from players.

I'm more than a bit disappointed . . . I like to run the game, I write more and better when I play more, and I also rent the server so it's painful to rent it for nothing.

But here we are - no game until April at least. Let's hope we get a game in then!

Friday 3/15/24 Roundup

Friday means links and thoughts!

- Still no sign of game. Some of the core players are busy and I haven't heard from the rest. I may just have to put the whole thing on hold so I can open up my Sundays for something else until I see some light at the end of the tunnel.

- Very old Blackmoor memories - thanks Havard's Blackmoor Blog.

- Erol Otus book cover for Playing at the World 2.

- Still messing around with my Paladin playthrough of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. As always, it's the puzzle-like endgame that is slowing me down.

- I don't know that I ever explicitly connected Traveller: 2300 with Twilight: 2000. It fits, but I didn't really think of them as a sequel and a prequel. But there it is.

Another shot at Saethor's Bane for DFRPG

Doug is beginning the "smoke test" of surveys for DFRPG . . . and is accepting late pledges. If you want to play some solo DFRPG this is for you.

Saethor's Bane Update

Felltower: Fun Should Drive the Game

I mentioned yesterday that Felltower is just a dumb game designed to give the players a chance to have fun.

But the XP system doesn't reward meta-fun, but in-game loot. Treasure, followed by exploration (which largely is intended to lead to treasure) drive XP. XP drives PC improvement. But PC improvement is not intended to drive the game.

PC improvement is just there to provide an in-game reward for in-game actions. It's meant to drive what decisions people generally make in game. The players know they need loot to gain XP, so they tend to aim for loot. But if we have a session where people laughed, and chatted about stupid non-game things during break, and made silly jokes and had fun comments . . . I'm sure I don't care if their was a lot of looting and experience.

The actual doing of the thing is the fun part. The rules just drive what thing we generally do. I don't care if success or failure in the game occurs so long as we enjoy ourselves. Generally it's more fun to succeed, but not always. And we've had sessions where PCs got lots of loot but it wasn't an especially fun session. Still good, but not, "THIS is why I game!" fun.

It's all subjective, which is fine with me. I only want objective measures for in-game objective rewards. But they're not why I game.

What it takes to live & thrive in Felltower, Part II: Players

This is part II of my series on what it takes - from the ref's point of view - to succeed in Felltower.

Here is Part I.

What does it take to be a successful player in Felltower?

This is what I think, looking from the GM's side of the screen. I think two things are critical for success, and one, for enjoying the game.

Creative Thinking

Felltower rewards flexibility and creative thinking. It's a simple framework - monsters in rooms with treasure. But it's not a simple game. You need to be able to look past the easy answers. If you solve your problems by looking at your character sheet to see what you character can roll against, you're likely limiting your own options. You really need to look at the situation in the totality of what a being could do in that situation, and then narrow it down from there by what you can accomplish given your tools and skills. Too often people get hypnotised by the stats and skills on their streets. And this isn't a GURPS thing. Any time you have things to use or roll against, you look to use them or roll against them. If you have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. In Felltower, this can sometimes be, "If I didn't bring the tool or the spell or the skill, it can't be done until next time when we do." It's a self-imposed creativity constraint.*

You need the ability to simplify. A lot of the problems of Felltower - puzzles, monster issues, factional conflicts, character limitations, whatever - seem complex. Some of them actual are. Most are not. Felltower rewards players who can identify a way to get simply to the heart of the matter. What is your goal, and how can you get to that goal?

This isn't to say you have to play a simple game. You can't just, say, exterminate everything you face and expect it to go well. But overthinking can lead to issues - wether it is causing yourself a long, drawn out journey to avoid facing a problem head on, to talking yourself into truly bizarre solution attempts - like throwing a key at a door to try to open it.

You do have to think . . . and be clever . . . but avoid overthinking. You have to avoid the dangerous either extreme of oversimplifying and overthinking. Keep in mind here that when I write for Felltower, I really don't put a lot of thought into how a problem will be solved. I put them out there and see what happens. There might be a key for that door, or not. There might be a clever way around a situation, or not. I often don't know . . . some trying to discern the solution isn't helpful; trying to create a solution is. Sometimes that solution is very simple - break down the door, kill the monster, disarm the trap, grab the treasure. Other times, it is not.

An aside on engineering: All of that said, it's a dungeon exploration game, not a construction game - I've seen a lot of "creative solutions" that were just using magic and brute force to dig through obstacles. The game is designed to make that difficult and to generally punish the attempt; if Felltower is like a video game, it's Diablo, not Dig Dug.

Boldness

Caution is certainly important. But there are huge opportunity costs to not taking risks in Felltower. All success in Felltower comes from taking risks, not from playing it safe. Let me put it another way - in the long run, anyone who delves in Felltower eventually dies, unless the player just quits or retires the character.

Given this, it's understandable that players might play with great caution - this is a very risky environment. But it's a false choice, really. If your paper man is going to die eventually, no matter how cautiously you play, you aren't gaining your desired end - longevity of your paper man - by being maximally cautious. You might even be shortening it, by playing a succession of sessions that each pull in very little XP, very little treasure, and don't pave the way for future gains. Starved of XP, the PC doesn't improve. Starved of funds, equipment can't be easily replaced or upgraded. And starved of success in the dungeon, it's less and less likely you'll want to play.

You have to be willing to bet the "life" of your paper man. I've long argued that from my side of the screen, I see a lot of strategic caution and a lot of tactical risk. Felltower is built to reward strategic boldness and tactical caution. That's not just fighting in hallways and bottlenecking foes into doorways. My players over the years have turned to tactical caution, but strategic caution + tactical caution doesn't work any better. It's what leads to resting in the dungeon in a dead end so no one can sneak up on you, when neither resting nor cornering yourself lead anywhere good.

Being unwilling to fully commit is a related issue. You have to be willing to push your chips in when it matters. You can't wait for the perfect time because it's never the perfect time. There are bad times to do things, but no perfect times to do things. A delve or two from now, you'll wish you did the thing this time.

Felltower is designed as a pick-up game, lethal, on "hard mode," and generally a erring on the less-serious side of the serious-silly spectrum. It's not above being meta, having the world designed to support the play style, and otherwise being a construct for a style of play. It's not a long term, serious fantasy campaign with long-lasting characters. You can try to play it that way, but ultimately, it's going to fail. There is way too much baked in to the premise to undo with roleplaying and heroic characters intended for long-term play. The adventure in Felltower - the intended source of fun - is the experience of the good and bad happening to PCs. It's a meta kind of fun. You, the player, should enjoy the discoveries, the riches, the wins, and the losses. The PC is a tool to do that job. You don't have to play it that way . . . but the game will revert to form.

Finally, you need a Sense of Humor. It's a dumb game, deliberately. You have to be willing to have you, or the dice, or your friend, do something mind-bogglingly frustratingly stupid to your guy . . . and laugh. Straight-up enjoy it. If you can't, this isn't the game for you. It's just a way for those of us who are already friends to do some activity together that's entertaining for a few hours. It's satisfying when you win. It's annoying when you lose. But it better be fun the whole time. Taking it all too seriously is a bad idea.

* I'm a big believer in the ability of constraints to help teach physical skills, though - but that's not the same thing as you get in a TTRPG.

Last Hours for Doug's Backerkit DFRPG Solo Adventure

Last chance everyone - two hours left.

Saethor's Bane

Random links for 3/8/2024

- I played a bit of Pathfinder: Kingmaker with my paladin. Probably because I've done it before, my kingdom management was more efficient this time . . . I basically completed everything of worth to me with time to spare, and now I'm waiting on endgame stuff. That's trickier because so much of it is multi-phased locations you have to, essentially, clear multiple times in a proper sequence. Cool, but I rarely feel motivated to do puzzles.

I get how my players feel about them, which is why I make mine simple (and no, the orichalcum door isn't a puzzle) and infrequent.

- One of the Felltower regulars guest hosted Sandwiches of History today:

Vic LaPira on Sandwiches of History

- ~30 hours left in Saethor's Bane.

- And not much else this week. Busy work week = slow gaming week.

Last Day for Saethor's Bane DFRPG Solo Adventure

The campaign link is here.
It's about $500 from being full color . . . I am posting this in the hopes that more people see the project and decide to jump in. $10 will get you the PDF for an already-funded book . . . nothing really to wait on or guess about.

What I Got on Sale

Here is what I picked up on sale - well, two thing at 10% off and one at full price.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 2: The Room

Dungeon Fantasy: The Devil's Workshop

https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/locations/hellsgate/" target="_blank">GURPS Locations: Hellsgate

I think those should give me some value I can turn into Felltower goodness, don't you?

SJG GM's Day Sale

SJG is having an GM's Day sale from 3/4 to 3/7.

It's 15% off on select items, and as far as I can tell 10% off on pretty much all the rest of the GURPS and DF books I've written, such as GURPS Martial Arts, DF Monsters 3, and so on.

A full list of my books and Pyramid issues on sale is here:

Peter Dell'Orto's books

I'm taking advantage to pick up a few items I just never got around to getting. Hey, 10% off is 10% off, to paragraph Geddy Lee. Enjoy!

What it takes to live & thrive in Felltower, Part I: Characters

Felltower is a tough, tough place. It has a graveyard list that dwarfs the pool of available, current PCs. The only real-world Felltower swag I know of is a I Died in Felltower sweatshirt someone had made. Eventually, everyone seems to end up on the graveyard list at least once . . . and the lucky few don't end their careers as an entry on it. Most do.

The environment is proudly DF on hard mode. It's old school in some of the worst ways. A neutral referee, a hostile environment, and cruel rulings. It plays fair in the sense that the rules aren't broken for the environment, but it's set to harsh.

But what would help you gain success in Felltower, besides quitting while you're ahead or just not entering the place at all?

For characters, here is the referee's view of the situation.

Statistics

Really, any level of stats are fine . . . as long as they are at least a 10+. That said:

ST is really helpful. High ST delivers damage. Importantly, it also helps open doors (see Forced Entry in skills, below) and carry your dead friends and your loot.

HT is a double-edged sword. It's mostly good, but the longer you stay standing in a fight going bad for you, the more you get shredded down towards instant death. Still, you're better off with it, and it's worth the 10/level it costs you. Templates don't come with HT under 12, and you shouldn't, either.

Secondary Characteristics

Perception is key. Noticing danger is critical, and finding hidden loot isn't always as simple as just casting See Secrets. You want 10+, preferably 12+, and 14+ is necessary for a group. Combat Reflexes will negate some of the issues with getting attacked by surprise, but won't help you spot an attack coming out of the darkness or from a blind spot. And there are some amusing treasures people have literally walked past since 2012 without noticing because they're dependent on insufficiently high Perception and magical support that doesn't always work.

Will is vital. There aren't a huge amount of Will-affecting abilities and spells deployed against your paper man in Felltower, but they're all save-or-suck. You can coast on your Knight's 10 for a while, but in the end it will limit where you can go and how much your friends have to plan to do to you when the bad guys make you change sides. You won't get out of mental domination by evil with Sense of Duty as a get out of jail free card. It's not that kind of game.

Hit Points aren't as critical as you think. From a breakpoint perspective, you want 20+ for any fighter type for the doubling of healing effects . . . although this does double your damage from falls (see The Bigger They Are . . ., Exploits, p. 67)

That said, while being fragile doesn't help any, you'll find a lot of high-HP guys in the graveyard alongside low-HP guys. It provides a buffer but errors that cost HP will get you even with 40+ HP. IIRC Bruce was closing in on 50 HP and he's dead . . . he would have died if he'd had 100 HP in that situation. High HP, like high DR or HT, can fool you into thinking you're invulnerable. Bring all the HP you can but they're not enough on their own.

Move is critical. Oh, I mean Speed, right? Or Basic Move? No, Move. Your actual Move will determine your ability to exploit tactical advantages, or escape fights you don't want, or don't want anymore. It's a combination of encumbrance (see, ST) and Speed. Being slow will always be a liability. The PCs with the most mobility tend to last the longest and have the most impact.

Skills

PCs will get further with everyone having all - or at least most - of these skills. Magic can sometimes substitute, but you really need:

Climbing comes up so often that it has halted play as people try to magic their way around poor or lacking Climbing skill. This leads to less actual time spent killing and looting, has forced extra rest times in the dungeon because of FP expended to make up for the poor or lacking skill, and fights with treasure-free wandering monsters that occured because of extra time in the dungeon. We've made Levitation much easier to do but it's not always the answer.

Swimming - PCs have died without it, and arguments that it's not worth it are really funny when your paper man dies because you wouldn't spend 1 point out of the 305 you start with.

Forced Entry is important for a party. At least one person will need a solid skill, here. It's effectively ST-based, and until you put enough points to be ST+1 it's the same as just rolling ST . . . but it's cheaper than extra ST for a few bonus points on those rolls and a lot of extra damage when breaking things. I've had players disagree with me, here, and agree but not spend the points . . . but I've seen plenty of doors hacked or plans changed because they couldn't force the door. That works, too, but again, Wandering Monsters bring damage but not treasure.

Search is more useful than most people suspect; you can't depend on pure Perception to find hidden things. And "real quick we check the bodies" is a gaming and video gaming thing; it takes a while to find pea-sized gems or hidden coins or other small bits and doodads on a person.

Fast-Draw (Potion) will literally save your life. You need this if you expect to get hit while carrying healing potions. Do that and have this skill.

Diplomacy isn't critical unless you want to negotiate; since most players seem to default this it's not helpful if your PC does, too. Don't make these mistakes, especially without any skill to back it up. Intimidation won't always get you what you want.

Those aren't the only skills you need, but they're standout ones that don't get enough attention in my experience, and which aren't always required on the templates.



Hopefully this will help my players, any readers who in the future become players (okay, that basically only happened with Doug and Vic), or spark your own ideas and comments for your own games.

Part II will be next week, on the next Felltower Sunday.

Weekly Roundup for 3/1/24

It's Friday, so my work week is almost over!

- Real-world issues derailed a lot of posting . . . and what little time I had to game I spent on my latest playthrough of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. My LG Paladin is pretty good, but the heavy lifting of everything except Persuasion rolls are carried by the rest of the team.

- A look at DragonQuest, one of those games I only ever saw in ads, never with my own eyes that I can recall.

- Thanks to 3 Toadstools for reposting this - it's an interesting take on what D&D isn't anymore:
This isn't D&D Anymore

- Possibly accurate facts about medieval stairs from Gothridge Manor.

Barrier Peaks!

Over on Wayne's Books there is the first post on a playthrough of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

I played it, in parts, in elementary school . . . and I want to see how someone gives it justice in a modern playthrough. We certainly didn't back then, although I did a pretty good job coloring in some of the black and white pictures in the module on my original copy. Heh.

How is Saethor's Bane doing?

Doug's Kickstarter for a DFRPG solo play adventure is going well. At the moment, it's at $18,169. It's stretch goal is $21,000 for full color. I don't think that will be a real obstacle - even at $10 for a basic pledge, adding another $2900 doesn't seem out of line.

Doug can probably speak better to how the curve of funding goes. But I'm thinking I'll be getting a full color PDF when it comes out.

I am debating upgrading to print . . . but I have 10 days to consider that. Maybe if a little more funding is needed at the end - I'm just trying to avoid shipping costs these days, as beautiful as the book that Doug releases are in physical form.

Please take a look at the Saethor's Bane campaign and consider backing it.

Available Henchmen for Felltower?

For a while, the PCs hired a lot of henchmen. A good number have been killed. But some are still around . . . given that we've had some sessions get nixed because people lacked the firepower and players to want to risk their paper men, I figured I'd take a roll call.

Still around for hire, so many years on:

Basher the Thug (who is 11 years older than he was his last delve!)

Larry the Crossbowman (who won't lightly trust a wizard again, let me tell you.)

Norman the Axe (who won't accept a contract without some written guarantees for replacement of losses)

Deadeye Slim

And not many others . . . Lew McTorchy and Marc Strawngmussel are still alive as far as I can determine.

Red Raggi is the big one, of course, but after two consecutive maulings (in other words, deaths) and the PCs selling his prized axe, he basically hung up his armor and went back to his law practice. Ragnarson and Sons Legal Services still has an office in Stericksburg, run by a partner, but he's not making a lot of delves.

I do need to generate some more henchmen when I get a chance . . . they might provide some help when hired. The players do tend to want them to stay around forever and ever, though, which tends to grind them down and kill them eventually. A few more volunteers might show, too, if the PCs start bringing home some real loot . . .

Friday thoughts & links

Links and thoughts for today.

- Still no time to write this week. Lots of prep work for work, basically. I enjoy my job but when I'm working and not gaming, I write less about gaming.

- Starting HP in D&D-based games is always a thing. We rolled when I first played back in the day. We may have re-rolled 1s, because I don't ever remember anyone with a 1. We switched to max HP at 1st level somewhere along the line. I've similar ideas to this one from Aeons & Augauris before,but instead of on your Prime Requisite it's usually based on CON, but that just makes a good CON score critical for all classes. I prefer to play a game with fixed HP per level, or peferably, no levels and just fixed or purchased HP.

This approach might really work for someone reading so I wanted to make sure it was seen.

- Doug's crowdfunded DFRPG solo adventure continues to fund.

Back in the day, we only used the term "solo adventure" for one player with one PC, actually. It wasn't even considered totally solo if you were bringing henchmen (which didn't see much use, honestly, until we were older). But that said, "one player, multiple characters solo" was a thing - UK5 Eye of the Serpent was one of those. Just an aside . . . so when people would brag that they "solo'd" some module - S1, S2, T1-4, etc. I'd always stick a mental caveat that, well, if "solo" was one PC but a pile of leveled NPCs and fodder you could expend . . . it was much like how the Sheriff of Rottingham fights a duel. "So, it's come down to this, has it? A fight to the death. Mano a mano, man to man. Just you and me and my GUARDS!"

- This is amusing. Rust monster pets are a thing waiting to happen.

DFRPG Solo Adventure on BackerKit - Funded!

Doug's new DFRPG item, written by David Pulver, has funded on BackerKit:

The campaign link is here.

It's $10 PDF only, $20 (+ S&H) for PDF + Print, and $15 for PDF + VTT pack for Forge. I'm going for that last pack, because WTH I like Forge VTT.

No Felltower Today

No Felltower today - we had two players, and two maybes, and it dropped to one yes and two maybes. We did not play.

2024 has not been good for gaming for me so far! We've played only one game session in the first two months . . . and our next one might not be until sometime in mid-March unless we get lucky on the next weekend I'm open to play.

Friday Roundup

Some posts I enjoyed this week, and other things.

- Doors, Our Greatest Nemesis? My players would probably agree.

- So an expensive book is on the way containing very early D&D stuff? Hmm.

- Free Traveller? Tenkar says there is. I think I have those books already, but free is free.

- Not a lot otherwise this week . . . in theory, game is on Sunday! Let's hope so.

What kind of GURPS posts would you like to see from me?

I haven't been posting as frequently, because we haven't been playing very frequently. That cuts down on my Felltower posts and I end up doing other things - like playing video games - or non-gaming things, which don't get posts here.

I do have an idea for a series of posts, but before I get started, I figured I'd ask the people who read my blog - what kind of GURPS posts do you want to see from me? More Melee Academy style posts? Rules discussions? Potential house rules? Spell modifications? NPCs? Something else?

I feel like I need a theme of material I know is of value to get posting about while I wait for our next session.

So what do you GURPS fans want to see from me here?

Pathfinder: Kingmaker video game silliness

I spent a little time yesterday and today goofing off with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, with my LG Paladin (Holgar Carlson, of course.)

It's a fun game, but it has a few really amusing things that come along with being a video game.


- One NPC gives you a quest to help track down some poachers. You see, he needs evidence that someone is poaching . . . and proof to give to the guards. So you know, I, the BARON, go find the proof for him to give to the guards. Okay, I'm Lawful Good, so it vaguely makes sense . . . although I'm empowered as Baron to pass judgment without "the guards" helping. It was even funnier when Molly, my LE Monk, was my PC. Why would a Lawful Evil Baron not just exercise her right to believe this guy and execute the criminal if I wanted to?

- We stumbled across a few bandits while travelling. I wanted to try using a Fireball scroll with a character who needed a skill check to use it. We stood in plain sight of them, a short distance away, as she read the scroll over and over until finally it worked. We somehow achieved surprise and got a surprise round on them.

No, I'm not kidding.

- there are all sorts of cool magic items with cool powers. I have to look them up in an online guide, because in-game I can't find out what they do. So I Alt-Tab to my browser and look them up. It's just annoying. And it means you can't just stay fully immersed in the game.

- We fought a really nasty group of organized foes, and one of my characters got mauled. We needed to rest up before the final fight. So I left, rested, did a side quest, and then came back . . . and the organized foes ignored the fact that someone had massacred their gate guards and half their garrison and just waited for us to come back days later to finish them off.

They clearly hadn't read How to Defend Your Lair.


Still fun. But video games aren't TTRPGs.

Felltower & the Rules for Monsters

When I run Felltower, I generally play using the DFRPG rules set, with some additions from GURPS Magic, GURPS Martial Arts, and GURPS Basic Set.

But I don't strictly follow the rules, even when I have not house ruled a particular rule to work differently.

Monsters are a great example.

I do monster writeups for myself first, and basically note whatever I think in important and useful in case I can publish it. In actual play, I'm bound by my intentions for what the monster does and what makes sense, rather than the letter of the abilities I put down on paper. If they clash, my intentions win. I'll edit the stats later to reflect what I think should actually better reflect how they play. Ultimately, it's about how I intend them to work.

It's not like the players get to read the monster writeups I use, so they won't be led astray. They will if they depend on a letter-of-the-rules interpretation to make something work, though, and meta-knowledge of the system to base it on. If they use in-game experience and some real-world guessing they'll likely be better off.

Rest assured the ones I wrote up for publication are supposed to work as written. But in my games, they're not always finished writeups . . . and I'm reluctant to share my notes until I know how they should work.

Links for 2/9/2024

Here a few things you might not want to miss this week:

- Trollsmyth is thinking about one-roll combat. Not one-roll attacks, but one-roll combat. Like a wargame, in a way, where you settle an enagement for both sides with one roll.

- A review of N4 Treasure Hunt, which features 0-level characters who achieve 1st level as they adventure. I enjoyed this one a lot, and we used it for AD&D and for GURPS a few times.

I stole one of the idea from it - the twisted wish - in Felltower.

- Here is a look about an alternative to Battlesystem for 1st edition AD&D mass combat. The article he mentions, "One Roll, To Go" was extremely helpful in semi-mass combat in my campaign back in the day.

Assorted GURPS Magic / DFRPG Spells questions and answers

I'll use this post to track all of the weird spell rulings I make that don't otherwise have a home.

Does Wizard Eye have 360 degree vision?

No. It has a facing just like any other character would; if you want 360 degree vision cast the appropriate spells on someone.

How much concealment does See Secrets eliminate?

I cap concealment penalties at -10, so it cancels -10. As always, you must be able to see to take advantage of this spell; a secret door will stand out clearly, but if it's behind a curtain it will not, because the curtain breaks your line of sight.

What temperature do Fireball spells burn at?

It doesn't matter - we resolve it all by HP of damage vs. DR/HP of the targets, and the usual rules for setting things on fire (Exploits, p. 68)

Early Champions Bundle

There is an early - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition - Champions Bundle over on Bundle of Holding.

I'm considering getting this. The regular, not expanded version.

I own almost all of the Champions books in the original mix - maybe all of them, I'm not certain about one enemies book. I don't own the screen. All of them are paper, not PDF. I own almost all of the adventures - I'm only missing Stronghold, that I know of.

I didn't get the play very much Champions back in the day . . . but getting the 1st edition boxed set was extremely formative in my gaming experience. I just loved making up super heroes and super villians, and plotting a potential game. I just couldn't get people on board . . . they either wanted to play Marvel or DC superheroes, but not both, and usually not their own made up ones. Plus I'm not as good at plot and story and character as I am at mechanics and open settings and game balance, so I don't think I'd be a great GM. But I loved the system and deeply enjoyed making up NPCs. I liked the adventures, and read them several times. So this is very much in my nostalgia wheelhouse. The question is, do I need them on PDF?

Felltower - a little work

I did a very small bit of Felltower work today:

- I updated the VTT.

- I updated the rumors. There are only 8; the PCs just haven't done very much so I don't have a lot to comment on. Plus I think we're getting to the point where people accumulate them but don't really act on them, so they're almost a distraction more than a valuable way to feed information (not always clearly or accurately) to the players.

- I made sure my maps and notes are in order.

Next game is - tentatively - 2 weeks from today. We haven't confirmed it yet.

Saturday Long Read: Lich Van Winkle on Story

If you've got a chunk of time (like, ACOUP blog post chunk of time), this is a worthy read:

Yes, you ARE telling a story.

But you aren't composing a novel or reading a script. (Not during an RPG session, anyway.)

As someone who lived through a lot of this - with "hack and slash" becoming pejorative, then back to "story" becoming pejorative, and numerous ricochets between, I was interested. It's a long read but worth the time.

These days I play loosely plotted, hack-and-slash games, but I'm okay with it being a story. Most of the dumb and fun setting details we have - Cornwood, the Iron Church, Dwarven as a dead language, etc. - emerged in play but provide the details to the story of the sack of Felltower that helps make it interesting. I don't go for backstory beyond a sentence, maybe two, but front story? Sure, it's not great literature or a prize-winning novel, but it's a story nonetheless. And my "war stories" posts tend to get a lot of hits and comments. Go figure. People want to follow along with the story of my minimally-plotted game. So this resonated with me.

Random Links for Friday 2/2/2024

Fun stuff from around the net and blogs. YMMV.

- This Jon Petersen post is fascinating - D&D turns 50, and hit points and to hit rolls turned 200.

- Nice Swordfish II model!

- I put an update in this Hasbro D&D IP post - basically, Hasbro denies this, according to PC Gamer. We'll see where it all ends up eventually.

- The Giant Groundhog of Felltower saw its Animated Shadow and it says early spring. I'm hoping we'll get some games in before the frost drops off.

New GURPS Release: Dungeon Fantasy: The Devil's Workshop

Somehow I missed this GURPS DF release!

You can get it here.

Hasbro selling D&D IP?

This came up on my news feed:

Hasbro Seeks to Sell IP “DND” and Has Had Preliminary Contact with Tencent

Short version? Hasbro is trying to sell the D&D IP, and Tencent has a line on buying it.

I'm not sure what this would mean for WOTC, the 50th anniversary of D&D, and all of that, if true.

(Editing later: Tenkar has a take on it.)

(Editing on 2/1/2024: PCGamer says that Hasbro says they aren't selling.)

Wayne's S2/S4/WG4 Playthroughs

I follow Wayne's Book's T2K blog . . . but I totally missed him doing playthroughs of three of my favorite old-school AD&D modules using D&D5.

Here is the first post for each of them:

S2 White Plume Mountain

WG4 Lost Temple of Tharizdun

S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

Each of of those three modules was hugely influential on me. How I run the bad guys in a coordinated fashion, and have real buried weirdness in hidden spots? WG4. How I make crazy magic items? S2, which I've also run for some of my current group. And for a direct lift of one level for my own game? S4.

Great stuff. I spent my free time reading through these today.

No Felltower Update

Sunday is my usual Felltower update day . . . but I'm fully ready for the next game, which was originally scheduled for today. It looks like it'll be more like 3 weeks from now thanks to Super Bowl Sunday, so no Felltower until then.

I'm still pondering the future of Felltower. There is a lot to do, but I'm not sure how much will get done. I've tried to put in some smaller encounters with sufficient loot that we don't need 7-8 players with 300 point characters to clear them . . . yet that's what the group wants in order to attempt them. If I cut down the danger level a bit, I expect they'll just sweep up multiples of them - ye olde bottom feeding problem, which comes with a loot-based XP system. I'm still pondering how to make sure this keeps working without, basically, providing assured loot for assured low risk, which isn't very Felltower. Hmm.

Anyway, thoughts don't translate into doing actual work on the dungeon, or a worthwhile update besides this.