Thoughts & Links for 5/9/2025

- OSRIC 3 launched. I'm thinking of going for it, and seeing if I can't tempt some of my players into trying this version of AD&D.

- Speaking of AD&D, has anyone tried to feed the DMG into, say, ChatGPT and see if it can figure out how initiative works? I'm curious, but also lazy.

- I've been too busy for Battle Brothers. I am looking at trying some quality-of-life mods, like sped up overland movement and stopping on sighting enemy groups . . . but I've never done mods before so I'm putting that off until I have a little more time to unwind any damage I do if I mess up.

Rules, Rulings, and Notes for DF Session 208

Here are some additional notes for Session 208.

- I've noticed that my players sometimes get stuck in a dead end, right next to a way out, like a character with poor pathfinding in an old video game. Part of it must be my descriptions, which aren't eliciting in their heads the things I see in mine.

Equally, people do get fixated on what they perceive to be in front of them. In a game with secret doors, traps, mazes, weird little things to discover, and danger at all turns, that happens more.

Sometimes it's just outsmarting yourself. They deliberately snuck around the back of the cloud fortress, only to find it doesn't apparantly have a back door, and then assumed the way in was through the only thing they saw sticking out. Lots of what they did made perfect sense. It's just that I'd thought they'd have checked for doors all over before deciding what they found must be a door. Once entering the dome didn't work, looking around seemed like a better first step than digging through the cloud and searching for secret doors with See Secrets.

It's always clearer from my side of the screen, I guess . . . but groups do get fixated.

- The PCs were very cautious with their cloaks - they want to use them as emergency backup devices, and mainly rely on Walk on Air so they can walk and fight midair. Sadly for them, the environment is quite hostile to that, and much friendlier to wings. It's amusing they have mythic artifacts designed for exactly their circumstances and think, "These will make a nice backup." It's akin to Thor keeping mjolnir as a backup weapon because he doesn't want to risk dropping it. Or maybe like the X-Men having Storm keep them aloft on winds instead of using the Blackbird because they can't freely fight from within it. It's amusing. It makes logical sense, with a certain kind of logic, but it cuts the value of the mythical artifacts, doesn't it? The solution always seems to be, spam out some free-to-maintain spells and back it up with spellstones and then with whatever is designed to do exactly the job that needs doing.

- The trap took a lot of time, but I don't think people were annoyed by it. It was painful, and really beat up their resources, but still . . . I think it's because the puzzle had lots of things to try and costs for trying them. It didn't feel like the answer was, "Nothing happens." That "Nothing happens" describes a few places in Felltower, including some merely mistaken for puzzles.

GURPS DF Session 208, Felltower 135 - Exploring the Air Gate, Part I

Game Date: 5/4/2025
Weather: Wet, warm.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery (322 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (358 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (318 points)

We started off in town, with the PCs gathering rumors despite a desperate desire to not get sidetracked. They did not - they finished their shopping and headed right into Felltower.

They went in through the well and reached the 1st, and then 2nd, levels, using their usual path. From there, it was through the Giant Fantastic Staircase and down to the "gate level." They began to head to the air gate, but Hannari and Vlad suffered from the stale, close air of the level. As they moved forward, Vlad heard a clop-clop noise, like hooves, and a ragged, deep breathing noise. He peered around to the left in the intersection they needed to take, and saw, quite a ways down the hallway, a hunched blue figure and two boars. The Lord of Spite!

They ran back up to the 2nd level and found a place to hang out, away from any dead ends. After 30 minutes or so, nothing - the Lord of Spite didn't follow them.

They went back down . . . and did the same routine. Only this time, Durak was closer - only a dozen yards or so away. Vlad saw him, and he saw Vlad - and laughed, low and breathy, at him. They ran, but this time in a big circle to get to the air gate by the long way. They managed to do so, and heard the drag-stomp of the Lord of Spite moving in their direction. Again, they ran.

They reached the air gate, 9' off of the ground in an ovoid room. They felt wind picking up and smelled ozone. So they piled through the gate, wing-cloaks at the ready and Walk on Air on everyone.

The gate deposited the delvers on a cloud. They stayed above it, but found the steady and often strong breezes made it hard to stay "on" a cloud while staying above it to keep their cloaks dry - they won't work wet. They saw a nearby cloud with a giant bird flying around, but they got distracted and the bird was gone when they looked again. Eventually, they headed in the direction of the only significant thing they saw in the sky - a large cloud with a fairy tale looking castle on the top. Walk on Air was too weak, but their magical wings did it. They flew and landed on the cloud near the castle. They approached it. It was a beautiful grey stone, with fluttering penants of blue and white. Thor knocked on the door using the giant knockers on the pine-like wood-made doors. A voice boomed out, "Who rings?" and Thor answered with his name.

The door opened up and let them all in. Beyond was a castle - empty, and not recently used. The doors let into what they called a "great hall," lined with banners. There was a "trophy room" - with giant animal heads, includings dragons and giant crocs and a huge bison, and also broken (mostly human-sized or SM+1) weapons. There was a kitchen with a smoky door that opened to the trophy room, sized for huge beings but without any sign of recent use. And so on. Stairs led up to an "aerie" above, with T-shaped posts and giant bird feathers here and there.

Also, all of the PCs felt just calmer and more relaxed upon entering the castle. Others, Thor and Percy (I think), felt very calm. They decided it must be some kind of gas attack (I'm not sure who decided this.) They explored the castle and used Gift of Tongues to read the names of the banners - it seemed like there was an overall slogan repeated - "We rule the skies and ground" - and a half-dozen other phrases they decided were kingdom names. Thor suggested the castle is a neutral meeting place, but Vlad is going with a hunting lodge for a group of giant-sized big game hunters.

As they searched, though, a large cloud closed in on them - they called it "cloud #2" - and they used their wings to go to it - deliberately choosing to go around the "back," away from where it was facing. Up and around the cloud, and to the top. They saw a crystal dome on top of a low tower. They climbed it, they looked for entrances, tried to get in any which way but could not. Tempers flared (mostly out of game) and people got frustrated.

Eventually it occured to someone that maybe the entrance was at the front. And lo, it was - they'd out-thought themselves and snuck up on a building to the roof and couldn't figure out why it wasn't a door. But the entrance was a flat aerie, with some T-poles and staple-like crosspole (a "hitching post.") Lots of feathers and a couple of man-sized bird crap piles also decorated the platform - it was clearly in use, unlike the much cleaner previous castle. A glowing rectangle in the wall of the white-stone building embedded in the clouds turned out to be a touch-open portal . . . 50' high and 30' wide, just like the corridor beyond.

They followed it into a circular room with eight exits. Each had an archway, colored around the outside edge, that led to a short hallway to a large portal. The archway behind them was yellow, and the others in a circle going clockwise were orange, red, black, violet, indigo, blue, green. They decided the colors must mean something. Two people said, "Black!" and two "Anything except black!" so they decided to go for orange. They got zapped for 10 injury, and found the portal they saw was gone, but they stood at the lip of a pool of water 3' down from the corridor with 10 enourmous (but not G-giant) crocodiles and a door beyond it. They stayed out of reach with Walk on Air and Vlad shot them in the eyes until they ducked out of sight. Naturally, he dropped his bow on a critical failure and had to have Duncan retrieve it with Apporation from the murky water.

They opened the door and water flowed out, filling the room and releasing the crocs from their pool. A couple survivors went into the main room. The PCs followed them out, bracing for damage but receiving none, and Vlad shot them down. They did note the archway was white from the far side.

They also noticed the colors changed, wheeling around one each in (IIRC) a clockwise direction. They proceeded to try the same archway with a different color - this time, 24 damage zapped them. They spent a chunk of time, lots of paut and potions, and managed to heal everyone enough. The same croc pond awaited them. Hannari posited it must be a proving ground - a rite of passage to prove your manhood, say, or a gladiatorial challenge kind of thing. Hence, the puzzle and the post for birds.

This time the colors didn't change.

They ended up trying all of them, in complementary color order, and then what felt like more or less at random in process of elimination. Each color did something different - inflicted catatonic madness, delt damage, poisoned to death (only Duncan fell victim, and was saved from Mortally Wounded by Chop), turned ethereal, and even petrifaction (Duncan, again, saved by Chop.) They delt with a pit to the ground below (Thor avoided it), an acid pit blocked with a force wall (Hannari and Walk on Air foiled that), a dead end, an empty room, and so on. The colors changed sometimes, sometimes not, sometimes clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise. They marked furiously on note papers and with black wax in the room itself. They couldn't figure out the pattern or what room and color went together, or what color order was the way to go.

In the end, they healed up as best they could, and went for black.

And found themselves elsewhere. Behind them was a dead end, with a black-edged archway. A glowing portal lay ahead.

We called it there for time.

Notes:

- The players were being a bit timid today - not just avoiding the Lord of Spite. They wanted to fly safely, sneak up on the castle, sneak up on cloud two. It's when they got a little bolder that things got moving a bit.

- Persistent height advantage is lethal to animals.

- I didn't design this puzzle, and it didn't seem like it would be as cunning as it turned out to be. I'll tell where I stole it after the Air Gate stuff related to it is finished.

- MVP was Chop for a lot of critically important healing.

Felltower pre-summary

The PCs did a few things today:

- bravely ran away from a random encounter!

- bravely ran away again from the same random encounter!

- went through the air gate, bravely running away from a possible guardian!

- walked on clouds!

- flew like birds!

- and explored both cloud #1 and part of cloud #2.

A lot of fun to be expounded upon tomorrow.

Friday Roundup 5/2/2025

Busy week with work and ice hockey playoffs, so I didn't do much gaming and practically no posting.

- Played a fair bit of Battle Brothers. The tricky bit for me is that combats can take a while, and you can't save during them. So I've had to avoid playing the game because I'm about to get into a fight and yet don't have the time to complete it. This makes it a bit more of a time investment for a play session than, say, firing up Diablo for a little bit and playing that.

I really like the game - the visual representation of troop conditions are great. So is the combat system, which makes me feel like every weapon has a niche, even if one I don't particularly need to use. I also really like that even a savage beating on a brother can leave them alive, but crippled - and yet still useful. My current group has a one-eyed guy who lost it early on. He's still one of my best front liners. Another suffered brain damage (!) and learns at a reduced rate. But he's tough, good at melee, has a solid base of stats overall, and worth keeping. In any other game he'd be junk. The only guys I shoved aside were so badly mauled as to be useless, or turned out to be useless. Just a permanent injury that doesn't make you do your job less well? Stay on the team.

- I like the idea of "load" for Disadvantages. I tend to get one-two big disads if possible rather than as many minor ones as possible.

- Next Felltower is 5/4. Seems like they'll go through the Air Gate.

Create Servant abuses

Someone asked about abuses of the Create Servant spell in Here a few things people used Create Servant for that I did allow:

- touching basically anything that a PC might touch that wasn't immediately, obviously dangerous (no touching living things, say)

- as scouts. They're terrible scouts, but you can make them act as lookouts and hope for the best with their low Per and IQ

- carrying things

- taking up back rank space so attacks from behind will have to shoot past them, or just take them out and spare a PC a single attack

- opening doors (stuck doors, no, because of ST 9)

Anything that basically had them be a warm body without the will to resist a potentially (but not obviously) harmful suggestion worked out fine.

Here are some things they wanted to do, but I wouldn't allow:

- havng a servant go into the druagr tombs and pour oil all over the place so someone could lob in an alchemist's fire to light it up

- having a servant hold a grenade potion and then drop it at their own feet

- using servants to throw grenades

- pretty much anything that allowed for a combat use except as a speedbump

- set off traps meant for living things (they aren't living and won't detect as "life.")

My logic for these is not that they can't fight well, but that they can't fight at all. They just crumple under the pressure of doing anything remotely violent. Even in combat, they won't stand around and force someone to kill them - they'll whimper and curl up and move out of the way. Bend a little on this, and I expect the floodgates would open. They'd be running out into mobs of foes with grenades and getting shot down by the scout to act as a kamikaze, holding weapons to fend off attackers with their default skills, etc.

This is almost a teaser of a list - if you read the session summaries that feature Dryst, you'll see these guys getting used and abused to the point that everyone assumes Dryst is basically the Evil One of the servants. But this is a start.

Felltower & Mapless Combat

I recently posted a set of guidelines for non-tactical, mapless combat for Felltower. I wanted to get down in one place all of the rules I'd made to supplement the rules in GURPS Basic Set: Characters for my own play. I also wanted to mention the Retreat ruling and the range bands.

All of this, except for the Retreat rules, has been seen in play already.

Before 2020, we played in person. We did mostly mapped combats for anything that was confusing, but also did a lot of mapless combat. All mapless combat used those rules, except that instead of formal range bands I'd just state a reasonable-sounding range based on the map and go from there. Come 2020, though, we had quarantine. We couldn't game together. We swapped first to the Roll20 and then to Foundry based on a Forge server. Suddenly, almost 100% of combats were mapped. Unless it was against a tiny amount of foes - one pudding, two spiders and some swarms, a single giant, etc. - we did everything on the battle map. The fact that we need icons on a map to roll against pushed us even more towards that.

But over the past year or so, I've tried to push here and there for mapless fights when I felt they'd be fast enough and small enough that no one would complain. When I did so, those were the rules I used, except for the "Retreat" ruling and the Reach ruling. I even used Range Bands. I didn't say I was using range bands, but the range penalties I'd offer up were straight from there. No one complained.

It's with that in mind that I decided to push a little more for mapless combat. My players are willing to give it a try. It'll be interesting to see how people react to formal, visible rules for something I ran informally (but almost identically) and with hidden rules determining the rulings.

The goal? More combats resolved in less time. Big set pieces are fun, but 1-2 hour fights for nothing really special just because someone really wants to make sure they clip as many people as possible with their area attack or get a +1 to Parry when they Retreat isn't really worth the cost in gaming time.

Let's see how it goes next week.

Friday Links for 4/25/2025

Made it most of the way through the week. What random stuff is on my mind?

- I like wargames with clever rules. This one, Race to Berlin, is a two-player game, the Allies vs. Russia. How do you handle the Germans? The Allies play the eastern front Germans, the Russians play the western front Germans. This prevents the old issue with 3-way games, which is the losing player deciding to play kingmaker and throw in with one side to let them win. In this case, that can't happen. Nice. Clever.

- I finally broke down and bought Battle Brothers. So far, it's a lot of fun. I expect to get my money's worth in the long run. I didn't sprint for any DLC but it came with one free one that adds a monster and a banner, IIRC. I'm playing my first game on easy for everything except combat, which is on Expert. It's fine and doesn't feel unfair or especially difficult to this point. I do get the occasional issue of not really having a clear idea of what to do next. Whatever. For now, the Cheat Commandos ride across the lands of whatever this land is called.

Enjoyable game, and I finally had some time . . . and it clearly wasn't going on sale for less than $14.99 so what the hell.

- Under Tenkar's Tavern, for levels 1-3. I love it.

Felltower - Loot, Exploration, and Combat, in that order?

What is Felltower about?

"Felltower is all about safety." - Ulf

Well, that, and loot, exploration, and combat, in that order. The XP system rewards loot heavily, exploration second, and combat not at all. Combat is inherently set up in the game as an obstacle to gaining loot and exploration.

PC builds, though, are about combat, almost purely. Some of that is inherent in the game - Sean Punch made these templates combat machines for the most part. In a game where combat can end your paper man, players are incentivized to put their points into combat. That can leave a party a little less able to deal with anything that isn't combat.

Evaluating loot? Can't do that without surviving combat, so that's often set aside.

Finding hidden loot? 1-5 total points in this, if that. If See Secrets and Search rolls with a couple points in the skill don't do it, too bad, that's what we've got. Seek Earth is standard.

Exploration? Cartography gets an investment, sometimes, but not always. Otherwise, exploration is treated purely as a player-facing exercise.

Other ways of interacting with the world are all tertiary to this. If a spell doesn't kill, heal, or help you move in combat . . . it's basically considered a wasted point in a prereq.

I think because the game system gives you so many ways to deal with combat, it's also the way you most want to deal with the environment. Negotiation won't always work but combat always results in combat, so again, combat power gets emphasized.

I am not sure where I am going with this, just thinking that, even if the rewards system heavily prioritizes the results of an expedition over the how, a completely non-rewarded and costly method can dominate how you get there. Phase 1: Maximize combat power. Phase 3: Profit! It's not clear how you could go about changing the desire for combat (and the explantions, both totally correct and heavily rationalized, that drive it.) Putting XP on it sure didn't help D&D become about loot and exploration, and taking XP away for it would likely be counterproductive and unfair, at best. So how to make sure the game spends more time on exploration to find loot instead of combat to find loot?

I still don't know the answer to that.

Friday Post Roundup

A few posts of interest for the week or so.

- Grognardia has a brief look at the Victory Games James Bond RPG Q-Manual. A great supplement back in the day, for your Lotus and Aston Martin driving Bond days.

- I love this picture, although it's very RPG and not terribly realistic. Still makes me want to game ASAP.

- Zero traction so far on my Felltower to do list. Everything on there was my entry. Hopefully I get a bite on this from my players, so "What is there to do?" becomes less of a challenge in play.

Possible Mapless Combat approach for DF Felltower

I'm trying to do more mapless combat in my DF Felltower game, especially because it's hard to get a combat map of every place in Felltower up for the PCs to fight in.

In order to make mapless combat work quickly, but also to avoid player demands to used mapped to not lose out on perceived advantages of their characters, I am thinking of the following rules.

In these rules, the term "narrative reason" is used a few times. Only the GM will decide if there is a narrative reason for an exception to occur.

Melee

Mapless combat will assume that fights are in a rough melee, with multiple combatants able to engage one another more-or-less freely. If narrative reasons dictate it's more of a series of small duels, that will occur instead.

Flanks, Back shots, and Runarounds

These only occur if a GM-ruled narrative reason explains them. Exception: Backstabs work normally, but require the appropriate rolls and situational prerequisites.

Retreat

Each character can Retreat once per turn, unless it is prevented by some GM-ruled narrative reason that prevents it (backed into a corner, especially tight formation, etc.) or rule that disallows it (Grappled, Rooted Feet, took a Maneuver that forbids it, etc.). No actual "movement" takes place.

Range Bands

Characters in melee will be treated as using the Melee ranged band with one another. Characters outside of Melee are at Short range to the Melee, and either Short or Medium to foes also outside of melee depending on the GM-ruled narrative situation.

Movement

It takes a Move or Move and Attack to close from the back ranks into Melee, or from Melee to the back ranks. You can't move "partway" in order to reduce spell penalties; penalties are fixed by range band.

Reach

Weapon reach is essentially a non-factor. You cannot use your longer reach weapon to keep a foe at bay or "step" in order to keep reach. Neither can your opponents. You're just in melee and able to strike at will. Close combat still works as written, for attackers and weapons that require it. Optionally, there can be no Close Combat unless you're grappled, but I'm concerned this creates a big difference between mapped and mapless resolution results for attackers that depend on CC.



I think as an accepted basis of the game, this can work. You can't get flanked. You don't have to worry about "leaving room to Retreat" becuase you just get that bonus once per turn. It should just work, especially for fights that can't be easily mapped. My approach would be to use this by default, and used mapped for cases where it seems like a big potential set-to.

I'll see what my players think of this and try to give it a formal go during our next game.

Skald: Against the Black Priory - Finished

I finished up Skald yesterday.

It's a fun game - well worth the ~$10 I paid for it. It's a low-res retro-style game. I found the low-res part annoying. I can't make out most of the images of gear to tell you what was what. But the text was readable enough and the gameplay solid. The run game well on my laptop and I actually left the music on the whole game. I tend to turn ambient music off right away but the music in the game is pretty charming at its best and non-annoying at its worst. The game, in generally, is a lot of fun. Better than it appeared from some of the early reviews I saw.

I hit 93% achievents in my first playthrough on Normal difficulty. Also, I went back today to an earlier save game to try a different approach in one encounter, which netted me the sole remaining Achievement left - so I have 100% achievements. Total play time was just under 25 hours, and that includes a bit of play with a new character.

It's kind of tempting to play it again on a harder mode, but probably not. It's not like it was too easy or too hard, so I didn't feel a lot of frustration and generally felt a good level of challenge.

The only bits were, as always, I ended the game with a pile of unused resources. A LOT of ingredients for potions I never found recipes for, food items without recipes to use them, lots of prepared food - days and days and days worth - that I didn't need . . . the usual. Oh, and more gold than I could spend if I played again with it in my pocket from the start. And so many potions, that despite my aggressively using them all over the place I had dozens of extras of most of the basic ones at the end. My only big issue with the game were arrows - I couldn't fletch that many, and in the end I shot off every single arrow I found and bought in the game. My two bow-centric characters at the end were in melee because I'd long since shot off every arrow I could get. I didn't expect to run totally out of ammo. If I played again, I'd aggressively buy every single arrow in the game, even the cruddy ones and overly expensive ones, so I would have ammo at the end.

But overall it's good - the story is good, the gameplay is solid, and the engine apparantly can be used for mods . . . so I find ones I like I can potentially play more games on this chassis. Time well spent.

DF Felltower, Foundry, and Foundry Modules

Inspired by the same post for Arden Vul, here is what we run DF Felltower with.

Host: Forge

Pricing is quite reasonable - for a year, they charge less than I can make net in a couple hours of work, and hosting would take more than those hours. Win/win.

Core VTT software:

Foundry VTT version 12

Latest stable version; I upgrade as they come along. With the length of DF Felltower's play I need to keep updating to the current, stable release. It's $50 for the license.

System:

GURPS 4e Game Aid (GGA)

You need this to run GURPS. It's generally a very good package. It's free, but I'd pay for a better version. It just upgraded to 0.17.19.

Modules:

I will admit right out, I run a bunch of these because Vic suggested I do so based on his own use. I'm reluctant to just disable or change them because I don't want to mess up what's actually working, but I'd like to kick out what's not useful or helping anymore. I'll add details as I note what's actually helpful about each one.

About Face

Changelogs & Conflicts

CodeMirror

Covered Token Rescue HUD-GURPS

We need this for close combat, but I'll give Z Scatter a look.

Dungeon Draw

I put this one on to help me draw maps, but I honestly haven't found it sufficient to do the whole job.

Gaming Ballistic's GURPS Quick Reference Character Sheet

Hide GM Rolls

Illandril's Token HUD Scaler

libWrapper

Math.js

Monk's Bloodsplats

Monk's Combat Details

Monk's Combat Marker

Monk's Hotbar Expansion

Monk's Wall Enhancement

Nightmare Fuel Bestiaries

Ownership Viewer

PnP - Pointer and Pings! (BETA)

PopOut!

socketlib

SortableJS

Tidy UI - Game Settings

Token Actiob HUD Classic

Toen Border Supplements

Token Mold

Token Tooltip Alt

Universal Battlemap Importer

Friday Roundup 4/11/2025

What caught my eye this week?

- Tactics in Adventure Gaming. I liked this look at tactical combat and mapless combat.

- My blog is in the top 90 RPG blogs.

- This list of modules for a GURPS-based Foundry VTT game is very helpful for me. I will have to put up my own list - maybe Sunday - and try one of them myself.

- Next game is in May, so expect lots of little housekeeping posts from me and no big summaries. Interesting discussion in my telephone game post, too. I'm still wondering what I can do to improve things.

I can't complain, but sometimes I still do

Overall, my Felltower campaign has been a success. A solid group of core players, some coming and some going in and around the core, for what will be 14 years this year. I haven't needed to do too much mapping of the main dungeon after my initial waves. A few more side areas than I expected to need - the Cold Fens, the Lost City, and the Brotherhood Complex, instead of just the Caves of Chaos - but not as many as I might have. Lots of great games. Lots of fun. Many, many stories.

So my posts where I pretty much complain about my game is going? The Joe Walsh quote that titles this sums it up pretty well. Our game is good. I really enjoy getting to GM it, more often than not. I feel rewarded for the work I put it. I complain because I'd like it to be better, more enjoyable, more eventful, more rewarding to play in. But it's not because it's bad. If it was bad, I could complain much more rightfully but I'd also need to just end the game or totally overhaul it. It doesn't need those . . . it just needs some effort. I think I can make it easier for people to see the big picture of things left undone . . . and do a bit more to make it obvious how to get the answers they want. After that, if still the game feels stalled or limited, then perhaps it's time to set it aside. It's not that time. Felltower's been good to me so far.

The Mysteries of Felltower - Status

I will attempt to keep an ongoing list of solved and unsolved puzzles, mysteries, and oddities in Felltower.

Some of these aren't really that mysterious. Some of these puzzles aren't actually puzzles. Some are, kind of. A few had clues to "solve" them - or at least understand them - that were destroyed through PCs actions.

I will mark as solved those things that, as a GM, I've confirmed were resolved. They aren't mysteries anymore and are effectively resolved. Creative players may find a further use for them but they are basically done. When I get time, I will update this, and I'll add links relevant to the mystery in question.

Solved or Resolved

Rotating Statues. Revealed a treasury, long since looted.

Golden Fish & Pool of Water. Fish was sold for 50K.

Sterick's Tomb. Sterick slain and the magical doors opened permanently.

Twinned Temple. The secondary temple is gone permanently.

Stone Altar on Felltower Level 2. Effects largely known, limited to one touch for beneficial effects.

Unsolved or Unresolved

Orichalcum Doors. One key is still in the possession of PCs.

Crystal Mirrors aka Crystal Lenses. Use unknown.

Circular Rooms Beyond the Repelling Doors. Use as yet unknown. Method to bypass the repelling doors is known.

Optical Illusion of additional stairs on the first GFS.

Green Gemstone Zombies.

Room of Pools. Some of the pools are still an unknown, but all have been heavily investigated.

Headless Busts / Aka Saints of Felltower. Some are still headless.

Chained Doors. Twin giant chained doors on the Gate level, near the Olympus Gate.

Brotherhood Complex Tapestry that detects as Gate magic.

Unopenable Door on the 2nd floor of the first GFS.

Map found in this session. A sage who saw a "X"-free copy of the map made by Vlad was unable to determine where the island is, as the map is too vague.(from VL)

Map found with the golden swordsmen. (from VL)

The Telephone Game & Felltower

Last game session, we got to enjoy the telephone game - I mentioned this Friday, but it's worth repeating here.

"The telephone game is alive and well. One of my players suggested getting some arrows of dragon slaying, because Puissance +3 is cheap on arrows and any weapon with Puissance +3 is Slaying. So, almost none of that is actually true. But half-remembered rules and events get passed along and become, to paraphrase Phillip J. Fry, widely-believed facts.

You have to wonder how many things in Felltower are regarded differently than they actually are thanks to similar half-remembered details passed along, morphed, and then re-remembered. I'm half curious but mostly I deliberately tune out the player discussions to avoid giving away what I actually think."

It got me thinking about Felltower and the "played out" nature of it. It's been voiced repeatedly by my players, old and new, that Felltower really has no more easy areas and only near-certain death areas. You need to be X points to survive what's ahead, no one is X points, and getting those points requires new exploration or loot and that's all played out in the survivable areas. How true is that?

There are a good number of "unsolvable" encounters, auto-death locations, places that need special abilities to usefully interact with, and so on. But are they always what they seem?

There are a few places that newer players - and some vets alike - would like to go and deal with. But they're shot down when suggested because they are rejected by a sufficient number of players (a plurality, in general, of nos vs. a minority each of yesses and agnostic.) I think some of them are a variation of the telephone game. You get player memories of events their previous PC enountered, accounts written down by me after the game session, and what people remember being told second hand. It creates a stew of uncertainty.* My players are, to a degree, willing to risk their PCs in a fight, but only if they know it is winnable and has a reward. But what gets defined as "winnable" is colored heavily by the telephone game.

More than once I've heard people bring up an idea, and have it shot down for reasons I know are, at best, oversold. This can be a big downside to a megadungeon or any other repeat-play area. Because you can find out things now to make tasks easier later, there is a reluctance to take a jump into the unknown, and a strong reluctance to try where group memory says something is hard.

I am not really sure what a solution is for this problem. It remains one of the big issues of Felltower right now - people have combed over the "easy" stuff again and again and again, and take a shot at the risky stuff only when there is no choice. Or not even then. Sometimes they're right to do so . . . but other times, it's just a case of misinformation becoming common sense. How to resolve this? I don't actually know.




* I need to stat up Stew of Uncertainty at some point. Maybe next April 1st.

Friday 4/4/2025 Roundup Post

Friday roundup!

- The telephone game is alive and well. One of my players suggested getting some arrows of dragon slaying, because Puissance +3 is cheap on arrows and any weapon with Puissance +3 is Slaying. So, almost none of that is actually true. But half-remembered rules and events get passed along and become, to paraphrase Phillip J. Fry, widely-believed facts.

You have to wonder how many things in Felltower are regarded differently than they actually are thanks to similar half-remembered details passed along, morphed, and then re-remembered. I'm half curious but mostly I deliberately tune out the player discussions to avoid giving away what I actually think.

- I'm writing a new DF Felltower Questionairre. Unlike the last one, this one is entirely focused on player responses, not the PCs. My last survey did both. My goal at this point is to just figure out what things within the game and rules are working well, and what are not. It's surprisingly hard to word them in a neutral way while also eliciting the feedback I'm interested in.

- Do you kill the hobgoblin children in the Caves of Chaos? 20% of respondents, and 100% of Desmonds, do!

- This guy - Togilius the Chamberlain is pretty neat. He'd make a good NPC wizard in my game. Or a PC wizard in my game.

DF Felltower Spellstones further rulings

There are a bunch of rules about spellstones in this post - I'll duplicate them here, to save clicking around when my players search.

Spellstones

Crushing a spellstone takes the Concentrate maneuver. However, unlike most spells, you can crush a spellstone while grappled if you have it ready and the hand holding it can potentially crush the stone given the circumstances (which is usually the case.)

You must crush it willingly to complete the spell. You must crush it with your hand and will it to activate, it can't be done accidentally.

You cannot crush more than one spellstone at a time. It takes a full second's concentration to complete the action.

You can hold them in your mouth, but remember, they're small (1-5 carats for 1-5 power). You will have issues if you're wearing hand armor beyond light (cloth or light leather) - this may require a DX roll with Ham Fisted modifiers.

You cannot learn Fast-Draw (Spellstone.) They're too small.

You cannot hold one ready in the same hand as another item unless you have the "Third Hand" perk.

You cannot use a spell stone on another person by crushing it against them. Known Exceptions: Gem of Healing, Gem of Awakening.

Only Wizardly magic can be made into spell stones, with the exception of the Awaken spell. Gems of Healing and Gems of Awakening are made by the church in some secret process, and are available for sale.


***


Here are the additional rulings/frequency asked questions:


You can't put maintenance costs into a stone. It's just a one shot, base duration spell. You are not able to, say, buy a 4-point powerstone that contains 3 rounds of maintenance for a 1-energy spell.

You can buy an Area spell with a larger than 1-hex AOE, or Missile spells with larger sizes, or Resist Fire at a higher level of flame resistance, or similar improved castings.

You cannot maintain the spell yourself, since you are not the caster.

Unlike GURPS Magic, which specifies that the spell is cast (against the Power level of the enchantment) on the turn after you activate the stone, in DF Felltower the spell takes place immediately - in other words, on the turn in which you Concentrate and activate the spellstone. That can make them more effective, but means spells that require an action to effectively use must have a duration longer than one second in order to be useful.


Finally, although the parlance in my games is to "crush a spellstone" the actual verb phrase is to "Concentrate and activate a spellstone." I understand what is meant, but a lot of the "can't I?" questions come from assuming "crushing" is the goal - can I hit it with a hammer, can I put one on the tip of a blunt arrow and shoot it at someone, can I bite one with my teeth, can I crush more than one, etc. It's more like reading a scroll or activating a wand or staff or special ability - it takes Concentration and, in this case, a specific hand action - holding a stone in the hand. A good number of FAQs are self-answerable by changing the verb phrase to the most accurate one.

Felltower Disads & Point Total clarification - item disadvantages

For DF Felltower, when a magic item gives or has a disadvantage, the PC that wield it/owns it suffers from the disadvantage but their point total is not decreased.

For example, Percy is 318 points and carries Agar's Wand, which is a Weirdness Magnet. Percy suffers the effects of the disadvantage, but does not drop to 303 points in value.

This is done so that PCs do not have a loot requirement (see DF21) that is below a given threshold thanks to have a magic item that has disadvantages. It's purely disadvantageous, and carries no additional benefits.

FWIW, this also applies to disadvantages earned/gained in play that take you below -55 points. The cap of effective point reduction for thresholds is -55, regardless of how or why the additional disadvantages were gained.

GURPS DF Session 207, Felltower 134 - Exploring the Gate Level

Game Date: 3/30/2025
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (358 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (318 points)

Before the PCs headed out, Hannari and Duncan went looking for Black Jans to sell him some things they'd found. No luck, though - his tower wasn't anywhere to be found.

The PCs headed up to the castle ruins above the town, and down the well entrance and more or less straight to the "gate level." A couple PCs wanted to try the teleporter, but others were vehemently against it. They went down the GFS, carefully.

At the bottom, Hannari decided to get cute and follow the painted-on stairs that seem to keep going down. He made it most of the way around before getting nauseous, throwing up, and passing out. They dragged him away from where he fell and used Awaken. Thor and Hannari tried to replicate what happened, but to no avail.

They walked out into the very still, very tight area of the level. Next, the Lost City - the plan was, go there, kill the "dragon" reputed to live in the lake, or near the lake. Sadly, thought, the gate wasn't functioning when they arrived. It's a little flaky and it wasn't active today.

Next, they decided to go kill the dragon on the level below. With their Daedalus' Wings, they could fly down from a pit that gave way to the dragon's cave, and attack it. So they put Flight on Vlad and he flew upside down to see what was up. He saw the dragon below, facing away - but clearly awake, and clearly (and loudly) sniffing him out. He backed off and they decided not to attack the dragon. (I think the plan was, kill the sleeping dragon by shooting its eyes shut before it woke up. Awake, there were concerns.)

Next, they headed to the Bottle Prison to loot the bottles there. Long story short, Thor got zapped with fire, they took three bottles (blue, white, and copper) and found they couldn't leave. They tried one by one but the same thing occured. So Duncan cast Analyze Magic a bunch of times and determined all of the bottles had a kind of imprisonment enchantment, at Power 20, and a password they couldn't discern.

They put them in place and did the same spell on the "strength + crazy bottle" - a metal bottle that had humorous effect last time and found it had a very powerful, but essentially chaotic and random, effect on it. They left it alone.

Next they decided to go kill the beholder, and headed down the long way to reach it. On the way, though, they decided to cut down the netting blocking off a side passage, and moved through and found a curtain. Vlad heard something(s) waiting beyond it. Thor tore it down, revealed two gnolls, an ogre, a hobgoblin, and two distorted orcs. Chop joked, "Parley!" but no one meant it. They butchered the lot, but a second went by before Chop put down Silence on the fight. It was enough to alert the others. After the PCs killed their opponents (in a few seconds), Vlad looked ahead and saw some living quarters with space for more than they had fought. He came back, Hannari came to him, and they decided to pursue. They ran after what - to judge by bedding - was more than a score of human-like folks and a half-dozen gnolls and another ogre. They kept after them, but the humanoids had fled out of a little complex of tunnels they clearly lived in, past a "garden" of mushrooms, glowing lichens, and weird grey eggplants. Followed them, they entered into a large carven and saw lots of gargoyles. They fled back.

Duncan put up a yard-thick earth wall with Create Earth and then turned it to stone with Earth to Stone. They did the same with another side passage that led to the same gargoyle caves.

After they rested for a few minutes and Duncun downed 4 paut, they shaped a hole in the closer wall. Vlad moved through, backed by Thor. They saw 25-30 gargoyles moving around, alerted to the PCs by their lights. A few seconds later, a beholder appeared in the distance, coming out of a tunnel in the far wall, some 50-60' off the ground in this 70' foot or so tall cavern. From it came a low, menacing laugh. Vlad put two Cornucopia arrows into its main eye . . . except the magically created arrows disappeared. He tried again with two more arrows, this time one fine and one magical. The beholder dodged one and disintigrated the other.

They fled. A gargoyle landed near the hole they'd made, Dodged two arrows from Vlad (one created, one magical), and then Duncan sealed the hole.

They ran back to the level above, and headed home, pausing only to Seek Earth on gold (which failed) and to check out the big, chained doors marked on their map.

After that, it was just back to home.

Notes:

The original plan was the Air Gate, but my own personal busy-ness made it hard for me to prep for it . . . and then Persistence's player couldn't make it, and they didn't want to go without him.

The next plan was the Lost City, but it's only open on a 1-5 on a 6. I'd have preferred they hit that gate, too . . . but I rolled a 6, and I rolled because I wanted the dice to decide.

Plan for next time is the Air Gate, unless someone comes up with something spectacularly better.

MVP was Chop, chosen at random. 1 xp each for exploration (the humanoids' tunnels were new), so 2xp for Chop. Point totals above should be accurate as of game start.

Seek Earth

DF Whiterock has a nice post on Seek Earth.

Find it here.

In DF Felltower, I do the following:

- Even a single coin is a "significant" amount. This means that small hoards, and even single coins layed out, can distract a Seek Earth spell.

- I don't allow specific gemstones. Casting on gold, silver, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, etc. one after the other - trivial with high skill - just doesn't work out. I basically just shut this down to avoid the annoyance of needing to know the direction to everything in my dungeon from every point in my dungeon, in three dimensions.

- I give relative directions but not "lead" people to anything. Directions are rough - I tried being very specific, but people believe their maps and measures, so if I said 40 yards northwest and they go what on their map is 45 yards NW and find loot, they think there is more 5 yards closer as well and keep looking. Insisting on vague has actually made for more clear communication.

- I always choose to lie on critical failures. Lie, lie, lie. Oh, and roll on the table for what else happens. Information spells are great, but when they're wrong, they're really wrong.

Optional rule ideas:

- Give a -1 for each source you ignore in the casting. Make everyone pool their gold together or move away from them so you can treat them as one "hoard" of gold. This fits the DF -1 per adjective approach to obstacles, makes for a challenge to find a "big" hoard in a mess of little ones you're carrying, and rewards the 20+ skill of better casters. It also explains why skill-12 pikers out in the world have troubles and your IQ 16, Magery 6 guy does not.

- Make it akin to an divination spell - give a direction, but not a distance. Let people triangulate . . . it'll be easier for you, the GM, as they do the trig to determine how far to go.

- limit the castings to once per period of time - says, once per hour, or once per substance per day. Don't allow spamming it out.

I haven't tried, these, but I love the second one and like the first one . . . and that first one is an easy implementation.

Friday Night Roundup 3/14/2025

Stuff for the week.

- Things I Want to Do Differently This Time over at DF Whiterock is well worth the read. I do this kind of thing myself, but only an exercise in passing along lessons . . . my game is just an undying series of sessions without a cold restart.

" I'm hoping that if players want more XP, they try to make their PCs achieve more per session, rather than whining about the GM." I have to pat myself on the back for my XP system - this is pretty much what happens. The current version, especially so. People don't moan at me, they moan that they can't find the loot they are (correctly) sure I have stocked the dungeon with.

Also this: "Ultimately it's up to the players what they do, though; the GM provides challenges and incentives and hooks but the players act." Yes.
I will keep a close eye on what he chooses to do and how it works out.

- Speaking of Megadungeons, Castle Zagyg is up and running on Backerkit. I'm out . . . I don't need it, and the price tag is (probably appropriately) steep.

- I've got a bit of a break coming up, so I may not post much - or at all - for a week or two.

Rules & Rulings from DF Session 206

Two quick notes from last session.

How does healing, etc. work with the odd downtime?

The PCs didn't go through a gate, but a lot of time elapsed. In game, the PCs finished their delve December 12th/13th, and we finished the session March 9th. Healing - and weapon and armor repair - dates from that time. No one sits around not healing. Fixing gear is the same to me as healing.

Enchantments and special orders, though, happen from 3/9/25. It's a sanity-saving device where I can date from my actual emails and notes when something was ordered. Letting people back-order means I have to be stricter with travel time, rest time, etc. and it rewards people who count the days and buy accordingly. I just don't love that aspect of the game in the first place enough to add more of it on top.

Re-assembling armor

I ruled that re-assembling the suit of mail they'd found was a simple task of lots of time, and the Armoury (Body Armor) skill. Thor will learn it and assemble the suit. Costs are minimal - it probably should be 5%-ish of the cost of a suit - but the container did say it contained everyone for a suit.

The players wanted to know if they could re-assemble the suit into a dwarf-sized suit of mail instead of human, since both are SM 0. No. The armor is fine, and thus exactly tailored to a specific build. You can't just swap pieces. This is mail, so I get the idea that you can just move rings from here to there, and here to there, and so on, but a) I'm not sure that would actually realistically work, b) fine says no, and c) it seems iffy to claim that mail armor is just a square footage that is totally fungible into new shapes. Same with making "adjustments" to a different size - at that point, you're paying a substantial premium to have the armor rebuilt and extra, matching quality/enchantment pieces need to be made. In this case, that's Fine, Elven, and Fortify 3. Not cheap, not by a long shot. Better to just put it on one of the humans that it will already fit.

GURPS DF Session 206, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part VI - Exploring & Looting

Actual Date: 3/9/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
      Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (335 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
      Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Persistance Montgomery (303 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
      Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
      Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
      Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
      Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (298 points)

We picked up where we left off last time.

The PCs carefully moved through the Iron Witch's room, finding a series of rough tunnels behind one door. They eventually found they all were dead ends each to a covered spyhole out into the hallway. They tossed the main room, taking a framed picture they believed was of the King of Cornwood (it wasn't), moved furniture, etc. All they found of interest was a book stand with a snapped-off chain on it - whatever book was there had been very recently torn off the podium and removed.

They went where the Iron Witch had to have gone - another side door they'd briefly explored past and then returned from. That turned out to lead to a "treasury" - an alchmical lab, a workbench oilstained and scarred up from metalworking on the top, some food, and coffers and urns. They found a big haul of gems, some gold, silver, and copper coins, some rings, a suit of unassembled magical mail, and sone food. Oh, and some purple lotus flower dust - a hallucinogenic that also makes the taker very susceptible to suggestion.

They organized it up, sealed the clay urn with candle wax to keep the drugs in, and carried it out to their wounded compariots. They also found a second set of stairs down, right near the Iron Witch's room, behind a secret door revealed by See Secrets. They went to their wounded friends and spent a bit of time healing them up. That done, they carried their loot, their fallen friends, and what they could pull off the cultist wizards (paut and a few Hooded Robes of Protection) and headed ot the surface.

There, they set a few of their men guarding the camp, took two guards - Ferd and Aaron - and Brother Quinn, and headed back in.

They spent the rest of the delve exploring the third level underground. Most notably, they found the "junk room" where a previous group had struggled with some demon grunts, the torture chamber where a previous group had fought some torturers, a couple of rooms redolent with the smell of the incense they'd found above, and a demonic temple.

The temple was incomplete. The altar had a blood-caked obsidian knife and silver (or silvered) cup, and showed some heavy use . . . but nothing recent. Some statues nearby showed signs of having held . . . something . . . that was missing. None of it was magical - it was the tools needed to make a summoning easier, but not enough to summon without just flat-out casting Summon Demon. It was Low Sanctity, as well. Chop surmised (correctly, in the end) that there was an older cult of demon-worshippers or demonic servants, and the Brotherhood had moved in long after and used the temple area and the hallucinogenic drugs to condition their recruits until they were solid believers.

Further exploration found many sets of robes for the brotherhood, but also a study area, and a long-disused set of cult paraphenalia - a silver mask, an onyx ring, an ebony staff with an onyx head, and iron knife, and a black robe unlike that of the Brotherhood. The mask, looked at from the front, was an odd mix of demon and babboon. From the left, it appeared more babboon-like. From the right, more wolf-like. "Demogorgon!" they agreed, but luckily only a couple times out loud . . . and nothing came of it.

They took the ring, shredded the robe, broke the knife, and snapped the skull off the staff. Thor rolled up the solid silver mask like a frying pan in a strongman show, and Percy helped pound it into a lump they could sell for its weight in silver. Beyond this area were "natural" caves . . . with many bones of animals and some humans and human-like bones as well. Nothing complete . . . but a lot. Vlad decided things came in here to die. Yeah, no one else saw it that way. They wanted out before whatever was killing things made an appearance. They headed out.

What followed was a lot of exploration. Just going around looking for the wizard's room - they didn't find it - and anything else. They found stairs up that led eventually to an illusionary wall right near the entrance. They also found an armory/storage room. They took some weapons, but left the old construction materials they found that matched those used for the temple area.

In the end, that's about all they found - they never found the gnoll's rest area, where the two plate-armored cultist leaders stayed, or where the wizard's stayed. They jsut got tired of going round and round and headed out.

In the end they did take some serious loot - it worked out to almost $10K each - and put down the Brotherhood in this place. The Iron Witch, though, and that one wizard cultist got away, and they never figured out exactly how. They're currently in Stericksburg, recovering and plotting their next moves.

Notes:

A rare no-combat session. Not a single blow aimed in the session. We spent a good chunk of time in combat time, though - maybe 2 1/2 hours? - as the PCs were stalking what they thought was a carefully hiding Iron Witch. They weren't willing to break off pursuit until it became clear they could not and would not find her.

MVP was Chop for caring for the NPCs and his very helpful See Secrets spell.

The PCs are already talking about going back and mapping the complex to ensure they found everything. We'll see if that's the plan for next session or not. It'll be a few weeks from now, and many weeks from the delve they just completed.

Friday Night Fun - 3/7/2025

The usual fun for Friday!

- I stumbled on this video on YouTube of a military vet on the Warlord demo team showing off a setup for Bolt Action. Looks beautiful.

- I purchased Skald: Against the Black Priory. It was on sale for like $9 all in, so I got it. I figured if I disliked it, I'd return it. The videos of gameplay I saw seemed okay. It's actually a lot more fun than it looks, although it can be hard to read the text. Worth the money for a deeper game than Diablo 1, but not so deep that I can't just learn to play as I play.

- Game is Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I hope it's the last session in this delve, but that's partly up to the players and partly up to the dungeon's environment. DF Felltower isn't a "fast forward" kind of game, so the more time spent in combat, the less time to explore - and neither gets handwaved. I think we'll have time, despite that. Fingers crossed!

Attacking where I think the Vitals should be

One of the many banes of my GMing life is, "I attack where I think the Vitals should be."

Vitals has a lot of upsides for impaling and piercing attacks. A number of PCs in my campaigns - rather a lot of them - have taken Slayer Training for attacks to the vitals. So they have a mere -1 instead of the usual -3 to hit the Vitals.

The problems with "I attack where I think the Vitals should be" are plentiful.

First, it implies that your PC just knows where these things are on beings that they haven't encountered before. Knowing these things is exactly what the rarely-taken, rarely-used Physiology skill is actually for in a Dungeon Fantasy game. DFRPG Adventures, p. 85, says this outright. It's IQ-6 for a default. People don't want to roll that, generally, but just know because their guy is some kind of expert in killing humans in the Vitals. Better aim doesn't imply better knowledge - they're seperately purchased.

You can't easily just tell everyone if you do make the roll, either. If the Wizard has IQ 16 and rolls a 10, hurrah, the Wizard remembers where the Vitals are. Talking is a free action on your turn, but can you explain where to attack in a clear, concise, and easily understood fashion? Maybe. That's a Complimentary Skill roll to give the person you're telling a +1 to their own Physiology roll, in my opinion. Harsh? Maybe. But we are discussing 250 point characters who didn't bother to take a skill that enhances their ability to do the thing they want to do. I don't mind harsh. I'd allow a bonus or even automatic success if there is a clear target - "The horn is its life!" - but that's an exception, not the basic assumption.

"Wouldn't my PC just know?" No, see above. There is a skill that does this.

On top of that, asking - or describing a location and then hoping it just works - is offloading this all onto the GM. I get to decide if you know, if "vitals" on a Distorted Death Brain are in the spot you're describing, and then if it works I need to remember it. All the time there is a skill to do it.

"Can I guess?" Sure. Blind Physiology roll. Go for it.

So that's why I get grumpy when people want to "shoot where I think the vitals should be." There is an in-game, in-rules, easy way to deal with it, and saying that isn't it.

New DFRPG megadungeon game - Ardun Vul

Amplifying the signal:

DFRPG Ardun Vul

I can't reliably make the time . . . bummer. But maybe some of you can!

GM's Day GURPS Sale

March 4th is GM's Day, and SJG is having a GURPS sale:

GURPS GM's Day Sale

I'll have to see what I'm missing and fill out the collection while there is a sale. As always, I appreciate any purchases of my books!

Diablo update

Last time I left my Diablo game, I was stuck. I had a pile of goatmen archers (mostly Fire Clan) that killed my guy outright in seconds, no matter the tactics I tried.

I "solved" this problem the old fashioned way - I ran away. I piled up 8 full healing potions, and made a run for it through the goatmen and through a door. It cost me about 6 of those potions, but I made it through that door and past another and, eventually, down a level deeper.

I cleared out a few levels below. I still can't take out the fire clan goatmen, but I'm steadily killing off the stuff on the levels below. We'll see if I can get back up and clear them out eventually.

I may take out Nightmare-mode Diablo before I can handle those goatmen. Hah.

Intelligent Items of DF Felltower

DF Felltower features some intelligent items. Not a lot.

There are several items people have ascribed intelligence to, but which totally lack it - they're merely magical effects. One example is the Targe of the Tiger (a variant Ward of the Wolf). It does something on its own, kind of, but it's just an effect of magic that makes it appear to be a living thing in some ways.

A couple of items and spells summon intelligent-ish beings - temporary magical effects in the form of an animal or humanoid form. The Statuette of the Death Goddess and Dragon's Teeth do that, as do Create Servant and Create Warrior and Zombie. They have some intelligence, but they're not sapient or independently thinking. They're more akin to a pre-programmed thing that can handle limited if-then situations.

There are all of three known intelligent weapons in Felltower. Agar's Wand, Malice, and Sigurd's Sword (aka Gram, Balmung). That's it.

Sigurd's Sword is intelligent, and communicates in feelings to its owner. It has its own goal - dragonslaying* - and imparts some of that onto the bearer directly, and the rest by projecting feelings the bearer can sense. Sigurd's Sword can't do much of anything on its own, it needs a bearer it can push and steer.

Malice is semi-intelligent. Possibly more, but there isn't anything to support that. Malice can only be malicious, and remember slights and force the bearer to strike first, strike hard, and show no mercy. It also can't do much directly to affect the world around it without a bearer.

Agar's Wand is intelligent. It is self-willed and able to act on its own. It sometimes will. Its goals are broadly clear (fight evil) but vague in implementation and in what "counts" towards that goal. You can count on it to defend a good bearer, and fight effectively when it has something to fight for, but you can't direct it around. It won't direct its bearer, either - you're either allies or it's not working with you. It's also, incidently, the only Weirdness Magnet in the campaign, given that I do not allow it as a disadvantage on PCs.

That is a complete list of known intelligent items. There may be more, but I wouldn't bet a PC's life on it.

Intelligent items are an interesting plot device and Deus Ex Machina in books. They're a bit more of a problem in games, in my experience. I don't use them heavily because I don't want to either hand out an Ally or have another NPC to run. I have one - Agar's Wand - and that's plenty. My players tend to ascribe intelligence and will to things that lack them, which is interesting, but doesn't add an IQ stat to anything.

The intelligence on those items serves a purpose. If they weren't intelligent, they wouldn't work as effectively. Sigurd's Sword without intelligence just has a negative effect ("Go fight that dragon, NOW!") that people would want to resist because, well, rationally, fighting the dragon later is a better choice. With intelligence you're angering your magic item and might not get to keep using it. Agar's Wand without intelligence has nothing except a PC to direct it, just making it a weapon that fights for you, and, thanks to conflicting enchanments, doesn't do it very well at all. Malice without intelligence is just a cursed sword with some upsides, and sparks questions about Remove Enchantment and Remove Curse as way to keep the upsides and remove the downsides. Intelligence binds their properties together into one thing - you can't see removing one without the other, or ignoring part and keeping the rest.

But the meta-game cost of it is high - lots of work for the GM, another NPC to run or to hand off to the players to min-max value out of. And therefore intelligent items are going to remain rare in DF Felltower.



* And presumably, saving Bwunhilda, she's so wovwy.

Friday Night Links & Thoughts 2/28/25

Busy week, as usual lately.

- Ernie Gary Gygax Jr. - son of Gary Gygax and player of Tenser - has passed away. News on Gizmodo.

- When did 20s become automatic hits? Delta has a look. That wasn't a think when I was playing, has become a meme (as, per Fry, a "widely believed fact"), in the years since.

- A look at loot. A bit math-heavy for my own games but an interesting read.

- Next game is in a few weeks, I think.

What's your GURPS DF / DFRPG magic item placement approach?

Magic item in placement in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game is naturally of a lot of interest to me. I started playing DF a bit late in the line's life - I wrote DF12 before I was able to get my first pure DF game going. I felt like I had to come up with my own approach since there was no system being handed down from above to determine treasure by level or monster type, as I had back in my AD&D and then Rolemaster days.

DF8 provides random treasure tables, which of course can place magic items. You can determine the total value of treasure to be placed used the tables in DF21 Megadungeons. The latter is what I developed out of my own thoughts on how to randomly allocate total value of treasure.

But I largely place magic items directly - either on a cost basis ($10,000 worth of enchanted items, and then I go pick) or a wing-it basis (I think these guys should guard Grimslaughter.)

I have an idea of what kinds of items I prefer to put down in the loot, too, as discussed previously.

But what about everyone else? What systems and approaches do you find works for you? What hasn't worked? Where are you at now, and where would you be if you started over again (or plan to do next time)?

DF Felltower: Looking back on magic item placement

Looking back on my Magic Item Placement post.

How am I doing on these themes?

The best is found, not bought.

This is still true for magic items. The opportunities to buy magic items are even more restricted than when we started the game and no freer than in 2016. PCs generally buy their consumables and armor, but the best armor out there was found in the dungeon - Magescale, Sterick's Plate, and the Targe of the Tiger - the latter two since lost and destroyed, respectively, the shield in the act of finding the first. Hooded Robes of Protection have turned up pretty often, but that's all of DR 2 and mostly useful as a Power Item.

But the good stuff is still found. Doing okay here.

Offensive is better than defensive.

The tendency of my players - maybe players in general, I can't say for sure - is defense. Given a choice between offensive firepower and survivability, they'll choose survivability. It makes sense, but it does mean they'd rather have DR than damage, HP than to hit, and immunities over attacks. So as stated in the original post, I lean heavily towards the former. I give out more offensive items not defensive items. That may encourage defensive builds even more, but I'm inclined to think not. Back when I gave our more armor and defensive magic items people just doubled down to maximize their value.

The PCs have found a few items which can be either/or - a Potion Ring, for example, which the players immediately decided was best for defense and allocated as such.

But largely, I've placed a lot of offensive weapons. Aecris came along, but Vic handed that out. I don't love it - I try to avoid post-DR damage adds as they are rarely decisive and always time-consuming - but it's an offensive weapon. Agar's Wand, which does fight for its wielder, is primarily defensive. It's the only one you'll see in my game. Even then, it is its own thing, and isn't just a magic sword someone can sic on foes. The players really want it to be a self-propelled semi-autonomous killing machine and try to use it as such, but it's one of the rare mostly defensive items I put out here.* Magebane (technically not magical), a Universal Sword, and Shieldslayer were all pulled out of Felltower.

I've put in magic arrows (which amusingly got sold, because they just tossed them in a pile of saleable weapons and didn't investigate them at all), a Wand of Fireballs (given to the best possible user in terms of accuracy, but who usually has 3-4 better things to do than fire 4d Fireball spells), and a few unique potions that largely disappeared into the "we'll use it someday" pile and may have been lost.

I feel like I've largely kept on with this one. Yes, I put in Gorilla Gloves and the armors mentioned above, and there are a few more items out there, but it's magical offense that is found most often.

Enhance but don't replace abilities.

I think I've done well on this one. One swords that'll fight for its wielder, a bracelet that dispelled magic, and a few utility items that do things nothing else quite does. But in general, the majority of items just enhance what people do already. They mostly let them do them better.

Not a lot of detail here, but I think I largely kept to this.


So far, I think I'm doing okay on this. I do it all by feel. But we're mostly on track.



* And it's aimed at wizards. It's a wizard's item, but a non-wizard stepped up and took possession of it. There has been discussion about finding a way to pass it on to to the wizard, but they haven't made any determination of how to do that. Or even ideas. The best so far is, "We should look into that" and fishing questions in my direction in the vague hope I'll provide a simple answer. No luck so far.

Weekly Roundup - 2/21/25

- I've started reading through Power-Ups 10. I have a lot to think about when it comes to potential implementation, but in generally I like skill trees so I like the basic concept.

- I've stalled briefly on Diablo. I've got a pack of Flesh Clan goatmen to deal with who can slaughter my guy before he can kill one. I've cleared everything short of them. I'll give it another few tries before I give up and start a new single-player game for my guy to level up in. I hate to give up on clearing a level, though.

- Our next Felltower game is in a few weeks. I can't wait to see how my players handle the situation they're in.

- If you're into DCC and mutants, the Mutant Crawl Chronicles is up on a Bundle of Holding.

How did I miss this? Power-Ups 10

Thanks to Blind Mapmaker for reviewing this . . . I completely missed this GURPS release.

Given that I've spent a bit of work on compressing the number of skills we use, this is right up my alley. I'll give it a look and see what might be a potential way to upgrade DF Felltower to a simpler skillset.

GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees

DF Felltower: Tiger Sprint, Haste, and Serenity.

Our current martial artist PC did a lot of running around last session. Questions came up - not relevant at the time - about Tiger Sprint from DFRPG Adventurers, pg. 31.

Here is how we'll deal with it in DF Felltower.

First, although DFRPG doesn't show you under the hood, this is Enhanced Move with a Chi limitation (-10%). Thus, when we need rulings, especially with how it interacts with the non-DFRPG Power-Ups in other, GURPS DF sources, we'll have to go back to how it was built in GURPS before becoming a rules-lite version of itself.

It doesn't affect Basic Speed, Basic Move, or Dodge. It only works when Sprinting - from the second consecutive Move maneuver where you use all of your movement points to travel "along a relatively straight, smooth course" (p. B52).

How does this interact with . . .

Serenity (Pyramid 3/61, p. 12)? This improves DX, which improves Basic Speed, and thus improves Move before multipliers. For reasons mostly due to hating impenetrable defenses, I don't have any plans to allow the optional version of Serenity that affects Basic Speed. My post on the matter has been amended to make that clear.

Sprint Bonuses are a final add, and Tiger Sprint is used instead of the listed bonuses . . . taking the +20% for sprinting (min +1) to +50% and +100%. But DF Felltower doesn't use Sprinting. To be perfectly fair, this should increase the price of Tiger Sprint to 10 and 19, respectively, with a 1-point perk to cover allowing a non-used rule to apply. I won't do that.

Haste? Haste adds to your final numbers. We've been playing with Haste for a while and I have it add to your final numbers. If it adds to your base, then encumbrance should affect it. Have Move 6 and medium encumbrance? That's 6 x 0.6 = Move 3, and you get Haste +2, you're at Move 5 in DF Felltower. If it adds to the base, then it's 6 +2 = 8 x 0.6 = Move 4. No one liked that, so we don't do that. As a result, this also means that things that multiple move multiply your base, and then Haste is added afterward. This includes all similar effects from magic items. Speed elixirs do add to your base, as it specifies increasing Basic Speed, which then affects calculations down the line. So, Haste +2, for example, will add +2 to the final move after multiplying.

Some notes on all of this:

- This will not apply to Move and Attack. DFRPG Exploits, p. 33 is very specific about calling out Move and Move and Attack for how movement works. It then only references Move, not both Move and Move and Attack, under "Three-Minute Miles" and Sprinting on the same page.

I take that as sufficient evidence that you cannot "sprint" and do Move and Attack together.

- You must use all of your movement points for this; if you miss using your full movement points the sprint bonus ends. This may end up with seeming oddities like being able to run 18+ in one second or only half of that, not in between, but it's not unreasonable to have your weird Chi power only work under specific circumstances. If it bothers anyone sufficiently, it's probably better to save your 9 or 18 points and spend it on straight-up and more versatile Speed and Move.

- Although you can technically run in a circle with "forward movement," Exploits and Basic Set also say that when running away you only get a sprint bonus for "A straight, clear course (not twisting tunnels)" so I'll be harsh on attempts to zig-zag to keep speed up or otherwise min-max a sprint bonus.

- Perception rolls at speed will be penalized by your own speed on the Size and Speed/Range Table. It's hard to scout while running full speed.


I'll modify this post if anything changes or additional qualifications or notes need to be added.


These types of posts are fun, but this took a few hours of on and off writing, reading, and cross referencing. That's all for a movement powerup that someone may or may not take, and may or may not use. That's why I don't write as many as I used to back when I worked many less hours per week!

GURPS DF Session 205, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part V - Mopping Up & Pursuit

Actual Date: 2/16/2025
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
      Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (335 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
      Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Persistance Montgomery (303 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
      Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
      Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
      Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
      Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (298 points)


We picked up where we left off.

Thor was facing a pair of cultists in the stairs - one running, and suffering from Magebane and one stunned and down at his feet - and a gnoll behind him. Meanwhile, Hannari was facing off with a cultist with a ready Ice Dagger. There were a couple of standing gnolls (including one lightly-injured one I think Hannari had thrown and everyone just assumed was dead in the confusion of the melee) and a number of badly mauled, weapon-arm-less mechanical knights.

Thor dealt with his opponents by slashing and stabbing the downed cultist, then turning and decapitating the gnoll behind him, and then going down the stairs after the rapidly-running cultist who'd failed to hurt him last time with Explosive Lightning.

Percy finished off a gnoll with some help from one-armed Vlad distracting it, and then waded into the remaining gnoll and knights. He'd kill the gnoll quickly and then slowly bash the knights down. Eventually, at the urging of Vlad, he swapped to his greataxe from his flail and finished the last knight off with two blows - one too little to penetrate the armor, the other enough to penetrate the neck and disable it.

Hannari threw a meteoric knife at the cultists he faced and wounded him, but took an Explosive Ice Dagger back. He was against a wall so chanced Parry Missile Weapons but it didn't matter - it blew up on contact and wounded him. He threw another knife but Missile Shield took care of that. So he ran up and slammed the cultist and knocked him down, and then finished him off (I can't remember how.) He spent some time retreiving his weapons from the body and heading downstairs.

Chop ran over to the NPCs and told them to come on up to the front, even as he put Stop Bleeding on everyone not obviously dead. Duncan, who'd tossed in a nearly harmless (3 damage on 4d-4) Lightning spell at a knight, headed over and gathered up Aecris and then headed over to search the bodies.

Once that all was done, Vlad snuck up to watch around the corner where the Iron Witch had run, and saw a closed door. He headed back to the PCs.

Meanwhile, Chop joined Thor and Hannari at the bottom of the stairs. Thor and Hannari ran out, taking turns and trying to find the cultist. He'd headed off into the darkness. Thor went one way, Hannari the other.

Thor ran around for a while, first map east and then map south (actually, north isn't up on the map, so whatever), and then south-east-north through a door and eventually found himself back near the stairs. He gave up, met up with a waiting Chop, and they went upstairs.

Hannari just kept going. He ran, forced doors, and then ran again. His ST is really up from (IIRC) a potion, so that let him force some doors he might not have otherwise. He ran and ran and ran. He found nothing.

Eventually, with the fight done above, Duncan cast Telepathy to talk to Hannari. Hannari said he was hunting wizards. They left him to do so for a while longer - maybe another 10-12 seconds? - and then asked him to return. He wasn't done hunting wizards. They moved to the room where the Iron Witch is - Seeker had failed, but Seek Earth said there was gold in there. Hannari said he couldn't hurt her, so why bother. But he crushed a Haste stone so he could run faster. With the distance he'd run, even a +2 is a big, big jump in overall movement.

He did eventually find a hallway with enough branches off of it to not be sure where to go. So he backed off entirely and headed back the way he had come.

Meanwhile, the PCs, along with their only three remaining mobile NPCs - the two laborers and Leon - moved up to a heavy door. They forced it opened and rushed in. Inside was a circular room with some spare but nice stone furniture, black carpeting, and hundreds of glinting stones set in the ceiling. They forced one door out of it, and started to peer down a rough-hewn tunnel off to another side.

That's where we called it, for time.

Notes:

- We stayed in combat time the entire session. I would have dropped out of it once pursuit was broken off, but circumstances prevented it. Hannari kept up his pursuit quite a while after being contacted with Telepathy, and it took a couple of requests to get him to try to rejoin the group to attack the Iron Witch. Then the PCs started to get in some healing, bring up guys from the back, and set up to go after the Iron Witch . . . so I couldn't just close up the fight, let them regather, and go. That made for a steep real time to game time ratio.

- Parry Missile Weapons vs. Missile Spells - I was asked if an incoming spell was Explosive, since apparantly PMW doesn't work against them. I can't find anything that says that. It's a bad choice against an Explosive spell, but it still "works." Also, explosive variants of spells don't look different. Dodge is always the better choice against a Missile spell unless you have to ensure it, at best, hits you and not others behind you or catches less people behind you in the blast.

- I'm continually offput a little by the exclamations of disappointed surprise people get when a) opponents aren't stunned or knocked down from a non-Vitals, non-Skull hit, or b) Wizards make a successful Will roll to not have their Missile spell affect them when injured. Uhm, without a penalty - and there are only a tiny handful of them - stunning happens at best half of the time. HT 11-12 is more typical, which means it's more like 25-37.5% of the time. Oh, and wizards throwing 9d spells aren't going to have Will under 13, and 14-15 is more likely. It's a nice thing if it happens . . . but it's not likely to happen. It's just a weird expression of surprise. Maybe it's in the same category as people who are surprised patrolling monsters don't have bags of treasure with them. Desire trumps actual knowledge of likelihood.

- I really like the confirmation roll in the GURPS module. We did have some teething issues with it as people add in a bucket of modifiers, then hit the roll, then confirm . . . and find that sometimes the auto-added penalties are already in. Sometimes the confirmation roll has a modifier from an unknown source . . . or so I hear. I didn't have any of that. I wonder if people aren't as keenly looking at, say, their chosen maneuver, or posture, or if they're in close combat or suffering from some other effect.

- We don't use Sprinting, but we did get derailed in a discussion of Tiger Sprint plus Serenity. I'll do a post on how they interact, but. It's possible Hannari was running with a sprint bonus, but we'll see - his player will read this and check. I don't use it at all, under any circumstances, but if someone wants to buy Tiger Sprint as a power-up, it'll be allowed and used per the rules in ways I'll outline in a post later this week.

- Forced Entry is, I think, the only ST roll we use. I do think it might be better to be an effect roll . . . I have to play around with that and see how I like it. Rolling damage would be a better way to handle it (and let people Slam through doors, sometimes), but it has some issues. Not the least of which is, what do I do with Forced Entry as a skill. And there are other issues, but it's worth some investigation. I'll come up with some ideas and then put them past my group. Done right, this can help simplify down to one system.

- MVP was Thor. It was a tossup between him (killing and pursuing and good-naturedly running around trying to find people) and Hannari (killing a cultist wizard and chasing another.) Thor won the die roll.

Felltower pre-summary

Fun session today, but it didn't get resolved just yet.

- the PCs finished off the big brawl with the cultist wizards, Iron Witch of Cornwood, mechanical knights, and gnolls

- the iron witch and one cultist wizard managed to get away from the PCs

- Hannari and Thor chased the cultist wizard, split up, and spent a long time unsuccessfully persuing him

- the PCs got back together, mostly, and moved into the Iron Witch's room

Full summary tomorrow.

Noble Knight Clearance Sale

Just an FYI post - Noble Knight has a clearance sale going right now.

Clearance Items

Just a trio of GURPS-related items - an issue of Pyramid, an issue of Roleplayer, and another zine of some kind. But still, worth a quick look if you have some item you're in the hunt for, especially more recent D&D and Pathfinder items.

Friday Roundup 2/14/2025

Fun stuff for a Friday. Warning: may not include actual fun.

- Ian McCullom / Forgotten Weapons takes apart a functioning replica of Deckard's pistol from Blade Runner.

- I love fishmen, so I like this paint job on a Reaper fishman.

- Some detailed analysis of the Monster Manual here. Not the old one, the newer ones.

- Next Felltower is Sunday. The conclusion of the Brotherhood Complex brawl, and we'll see what the PCs do with it. And what they talk themselves into, and out of!

GURPS VTT module updated

The GURPS module for Foundry was updated.

It seems to have solved the drag-and-drop damage problem . . . I can't be totally sure because we're mid-combat. But that was a big issue in our last session.

Some other bugfixes are in there, as well . . . but I don't know how many will actually affect us.

Diablo - Won

I finished Diablo tonight, in Normal mode, with now-25th level warrior Mirado.

- I'd forgotten that when you kill Diablo you just go to a cutscene, and then are returned to town. I'm glad I didn't need to mop up all of those teleporting wizards . . . but still, it feels very abrupt.

- The final levels were tough - it took a lot of trips, lots of potions, and almost bankrupted my guy in the process. So many witches. Sooooooo many witches. Tough when you're a melee guy without Teleport and without either mana or life steal.

- I restarted in Nightmare. Should be fun, but Hell mode is where it's really fun. I miss the days of using a trainer program to make a 50th level dude, use it to make a Hell-mode game, and dumping a too-low-level guy into it to try and survive. Ah, the good old days of hacking stuff to make it as hard as possible. I expected the early levels of Nightmare to be a bit of a slog, but at least the loot is worth more sold.

Fun game. I'm glad I messed around and got it working.

Logic behind allowing and disallowing Power Ups in DF Felltower

DF Felltower tries to play like an old-school, early-edition RPG game. It's heavily influenced by AD&D, Rolemaster, and my earlier-edition GURPS games. It is intended - like normal DF - to be a higher-powered version of the same. You sure don't start at "1st level" in DF.

But in any case, GURPS DF isn't quite like the source material. I end up disallowing a lot of potentially potent and/or useful adventures. No chi blasts, no magic bolts, no special kill shots, no special skill at parrying with your bow . . . not even if I wrote the damn ability up in the first place. I know cool, and I know the rules, but I also know DF Felltower isn't a kitchen sink game.

How do I decide?

- Is it basically mundane? If the ability is largely just a souped-up mundane ability . . . it's likely going in. I don't mind more power. I like more power. It allows me to put in more and more powerful foes.

- Is it wiz-bang and video gamey? It's likely staying out. If it allows you to bend reality to pull off some cool move . . . or bypass some core power limitation of the basic rules . . . it's out.

- Does it usurp another template? Does it let you replace another template's core skills? Thieves as combat coordinators, scouts as spellcasters, wizards as missile spell machine guns . . . not for DF Felltower.

- Is it a "must have"? Probably not allowed. If it's the kind of thing that, once allowed, isn't something a template can do without . . . I won't include it. I don't want a splatbook approach where a new power comes along and you must buy it or be permanently relegated to second class in your own field.

That's pretty much how I pick and choose.

And, importantly:

The default answer is no. It needs to be "Hell Yes!" or the answer is no. I don't need a Power Up to argue for exclusion, but for inclusion.