Random Links for 11/17/23

Random Stuff For Friday!

- This is months old, but still. It's a (very) short film on Fiore de'i Liberi, an Italian fencing master.

"FIORE"

It's well choreographed and solid attention to historical detail, as seen in this behind-the-scenes which is almost as long as the film. It's a shame they couldn't make a longer feature.

It has that Black Angel feel of, I wish this was longer because it's all so good.

- I'm a sucker for Space: 1889 and Cloudship battles.

- Underwater magic items for GURPS DF! The underwater breathing one should be admistered . . . differently, though, in Professor Farnsworth's opinion.

- Dark Greyhawk. I have to admit this is pretty cool.

Dark Greyhawk

- It's been too damn long since I played Chrononauts. I used to play it at school with students, with my gamers, and with my family. Fun stuff. I have the American history one, too, but it's not as fun for whatever reason.

Friday Random Links for 9/22/23

A few links for Friday.

- We're playing Vic's Felltower Adjacent game Sunday.

- Bret at ACOUP takes a look at Baldur's Gate armor, and thus D&D5 armor.

- Random Rumor tables are part of the fun of Felltower. Where did they begin? Lich Van Winkle takes a look.

- A brief look at the World of Greyhawk (1983) boxed set. I had both, and I liked the second one better. It was more useful, in my experience, than the other when I ran games in Greyhawk. Had they come out in reverse order the original would have seemed like a downgrade.

Random notes & links for 3/25/2022

Back to the weekly links.

- I saw this article on Warren Spector. Yes, the SJG Warren Spector. Warren Spector

- I was a big fan of John Arendt's "Black City" campaign, which mixed fantasy with ancient super-tech. Now, the Great Khan has decided to launch his own campaign based on the notes from this.

That's pretty cool. I'd be weirded out if someon else was running a "Felltower" game, though. Good God, Y'all! I'd have to consult with "Red" Raggi and Ragnarsson & Raggissons, Attornies at Law and see what my options would be. Heh.

All of that said, fair warning - if I ever run an AD&D or D&D-based campaign, there will be a mix of tech and magic. Why not in GURPS? It's actually easy in GURPS, but GURPS also pretty realistically handles the massive difference in killing power between swords and modern firearms . . . which makes for less "sword and blaster" and a lot more "blaster and more blaster." Also, muscle-powered weapons are a poor choice against robots designed to fight against guns. You can see the hoops you need to jump through in our (on hiatus) GURPS Gamma Terra game. In a D&D game, you just say AC 0, immune to edged weapons, and it does 1d12+1 damage with its laser and you're fine.

In an age of search engines, why use published materials unchanged?

In my current campaign, DF Felltower, I've used a few things with major changes:

- Garden of the Plantmaster (a map and a general concept, merged with The Black Heart of Ulom)
- bits of Stonehell dungeon (two map sections, really)
- Dwellers of the Forbidden City
- an unnamed AD&D module (redacted for spoilers)

I've used a few materials with minor changes:

- the Caves of Chaos
- another unnamed AD&D module (redacted for spoilers)
- some magic items from my own previous campaigns
- the name Sakatha

And I'm using published material for a currently-being-explored gate destination.

I specifically asked for no comments related to the names, etc. of the places in my last session, and I'm trusting my players not to go out and search for terms, download PDFs, buy old materials, etc. But why tempt fate? Why use these materials unchanged when I could simply change some names and details and make sure it's not an issue?

Change and Lose?

I think if you change things, you potentially lose out on a number of things:

- the benefit of someone else's creativity. The more I change to my own style of names, my own choices in monsters, my own loot, make my own map swapovers, etc. the more I'm just making my own.

- the joy of experiencing someone else's creation. Not only do you lose out on their prep work and their style, but you don't get to experience how it would go had you just used it straight up.

- the name recognition for your adventures. Perhaps Felltower is getting well known in the tiny pond that table-top role-playing gaming, but it's not really that widely known. But everyone can come into my game summaries with a sense of recognition and understanding when the players hit the Caves of Chaos.

All of that depends on how much you keep, of course. The less you change, the less you lose of that.

Use Unchanged and Lose?

Of course, I think if you grab published stuff and use it straight, you also potentially lose out on things:

- the seamless meshing with your own materials. Let's face it, if my orcs are not like published orcs in your supplement that features orcs, using yours unchanged means I get some very different orcs. That might be great, but it also might clash. ("How come these orcs aren't blood-bound by their oaths like the other orcs we met? Why are these pig-faced creatures called orcs if orcs don't how pig faces where we're from?")

- your players can have things spoiled for them by recognition. You may have a positive regard for player knowledge in your game, or a negative one. But if you use things they're recognize, you potentially allow them to spoil the exploration of the new by using what sounds like (and may be exactly like) what they already know.

- immunity to spoilers. If it's not anywhere but in your head and in your game notes, you can't have anything spoiled for your players. If it's published somewhere, it can be discovered and read, deliberately or accidentally.

- you can't control canon. In other words, you use something unchanged, and then more materials come out and change it from how its been experienced in your games or color it in some way.



So as I see it, there are upsides and downsides to keeping things unchanged. For some of what I'm using, the joy of experiencing something unchanged - getting to use something I like - outweighed my concern about players going out and reading the books (unlikely) or hearing it on my blog (I can control that.)

Power Score on Mordenkainen, Gary Gygax as a GM, and Castle Greyhawk

I'm posting this so I don't lose the links when I need them.

Sean McGovern over at Power Score put up a post about Gary Gygax's character Mordenkainen. Sean seems to own everything and have read everything, but comes at it with a freshness as if he's just read all of it right now and was totally keen on telling you all about it.

Linked off of that post is a good one about Gary Gygax as a GM, and about encounters Gary used in Castle Greyhawk.

It's all my kind of post, and the type I tend to lose track of . . . unless I can search my own blog sure it's there someone. So I share with you so I won't struggle to find it myself.

Doug's Kickstarter Update

Just a quick note here today:

Doug's Nordlond Saga's Kickstarter has passed its initial goal, and funded, and is now on to stretch goals. Doug always puts out exceptionally high quality product, within the promised delivery period, and pays his contributors on time and generously. You can't go wrong backing his campaigns.

Game Inspiration: The Fallen Sky Castle

My previous GURPS campaign was set on the Known Worlds of the D&D Expert Set, using much source material from the Gazeteer series plus my own spin.

One of the spins I put was the wreckage of a fallen multi-dimensional sky city in the northern parts of the Principalities of Glantri.

The PCs never visited it, nor did they follow up on it. I'd largely forgotten about it until I started re-reading Michael Moorcock's "The Knight of the Swords."

Here was the weed-grown wreckage of the vast sky city that, during the month-long battle [. . .] had careered from one plane to another, rupturing the fine fabric that divided the different dimensions of the Earth until, crashing at last upon the gathered ranks of the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, it had destroyed them. Bring of a different plane, the tangled metal and stone of the sky city still retained that peculiar shifting effect. Now it had the appearance of a mirage [. . . ]

- Michael Moorcock, The Knight of the Swords, First Book of Corum

The book states shortly after that the ruins look differently viewed from different dimensions, and they are sprawled out in an area 20 miles in circumference.

That description really grabbed me. It also reminded me then and now of one of the ghostly "wrecks" in Stewart Cowley's Spacewreck. So I had to put it in.

I'm not sure I ever had written notes on what I intended to do with it - I may have had little besides a description. But I sure would have done something with it eventually.

But it started life like a lot of my ideas do - vague sketches based on bits I liked elswhere, as stub-ends for eventual adventuring use.

Victory Lap for Gaming Ballistic: Unlocked!

Douglas Cole's Kickstarter for his DFRPG supplement, The Citadel at Norðvorn, has funded:

FUNDED!

This is a well-earned success by Doug; I've said it before and I will say it again - he puts out high quality material and treats those he works with - and writes for - well.

I'm very happy to have come home to this particular piece of Kickstarter news. And the DFRPG Monsters Kickstarter is only $10K from funding, and $55K from the max-length book stretch goal. If need be, I'll kick in some extra for some extra monsters when the end comes.

The Citadel at Nordvorn

Doug's new Kickstarter is live.

The Citadel at Nordvorn

Amplifying the Signal: Norðvorn Kickstarter

You probably saw this, but if not:

The Citadel at Norðvorn: Feb 19 at 10am on Kickstarter

Per Doug: The Citadel at Norðvorn is a mini-setting for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG. It consists of three major settlements, many small villages, at least one ruin, and two primary sources of conflict: The Hunted Lands to the northwest of The Palisade, and the Endalaus Forest, to the north and east of Audreyn’s Wall.

Return to Norðlond, a Viking-flavored world with its own history, culture, and expectations. Visit as an outsider, or fresh from a victory rediscovering the Hall of Judgment."

I'm going to back this, even though I don't really like Vikings that much. And have no intentions to ever run it. Mostly it's because Doug makes really good products, and has a perfect track record for follow through. Simply put, he never puts out material that's less than excellent, and it always comes out. He over-delivers. It's going to be worth a look if you're interested in Vikings or DFRPG. If you like them both, just jump right in when it comes out. I'll update this post and post a link after it goes up.

Maps of Greyhawk and Hyboria

Just wanted to preserve some map links.

Maps of Greyhawk:

Greyhawk Maps by Anna B. Meyer

Map of Hyboria:

Mapa da Era Hyboriana

Why no drow?

Drow came up as a suggestion for monsters I should include in my DF game.

I said: "No drow. Period."

Why?

On my ride home from work I thought I'd probably need to address that, if only because at least of my players likes the drow. Here is that attempt to address it.

Basically, because the drow come with a lot of baggage.

First, you have the AD&D baggage of the Eiservs clan, the Against the Giants series, and the Vault of the Drow. Good stuff, but it has a definite shaping of what drow are and what people expect from them.

Second, you have the baggage of later editions's versions of what drow are like, or do.

Third, you have those novels by Salvatore. I haven't read them, but they carry a lot of weight in terms of what people expect drow to be like.

Finally, I have the baggage of how drow were in my own Forgotten Realms-based GURPS game.

They are a pretty interesting race. But there is now way to use them without bringing in expectations that would fundamentally change how people react to them and deal with them.

Contrast that to, say, the six-fingered masters of Felltower. Who are they? What are they like? It's all built in play. There are no expectations of what they are like. There are no novels about them, no memories of how someone's half-drow elf was run, no thoughts about how "good" or "evil" or whatever they should be. They simply are, and what they are is defined by what happens in play.

Simply put, putting in drow would stamp out some of the uniqueness of Felltower and replace it with canon and preconceptions. And that's not a positive.

The Man Cave's awesome game world

I thought I had a good game world until I saw Clichea.

And I thought Clichea was my ideal world until I saw this:

Battles in the Land of Fowlwarren: our Fantasy Campaign

And I quote:

"Our campaign setting is based entirely on this cartoon which I came across last year:



"

!

!

!

Oh, my world of Felltower, Stericksburg, the Lost City of D'Abo (and her fabled bells) . . . it feels so overwrought now.

I may need to deploy people from Hopsland and Mallardia in my pool of hirelings . . .

No Town Game

Another aspect of my game that mirrors the West Marches campaign is the idea of "No Town Game."

A couple of quotes sum it up:

"make town safe and the wilds wild — Having the town be physically secure (walled or in some cases protected by natural features like rivers or mountains) is very useful for making a sharp “town = safe / wilderness = danger” distinction. Draconian law enforcement inside town, coupled with zero enforcement in the wilds outside town, also helps. Once you are outside the town you are on your own."

"the adventure is in the wilderness, not the town — As per the discussion of NPCs above, be careful not to change the focus to urban adventure instead of exploration. "

Both of those describe the four "town" settings my PCs have dealt with: Falcon's Keep, Swampsedge, the pilgrim's camp (aka "Rumshackles"), and of course, Stericksburg.

To be fair, some of this is a basic feature of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy as-written: town is vague and resolved with die rolls and simple effects. Town is safe unless you choose to make a roll and blow it. Town is where adventurers gather and get a minimum of information of the world around them, enough to send them off on an adventure.

Mine is a big less minimal than that, since we've got a big rumors table and sages for hire and recurring town NPCs of mostly color-level importance. But it's otherwise the same: safe, abstract, and not a place where adventure happens.

Again, the reasoning is the same - if you make town a place of adventure, people will adventure there instead. There is always one more thing to do in town anyway, even when the PCs are leaving. Ask this one guy something. Buy one more potion. Check to see if one more spell stone is for sale. Double-check if everyone has enough rope. Check and see if there just happens to be one more hireling ready. Adding actual adventure will mean you spend more time in town and less in the dungeon. Adding important adventures means you'll turn the focus from the dungeon to the town.

And that's fine, for a town-centered game. Or a town-and-dungeon game. Or a game where dungeons provide clues and links and resources that influence town. But not for a game where the dungeon is the thing, and town is a way to allow people to replenish and recharge between delves.

Gamma Terra GM posts

andi, our Gamma Terra GM, posted up a lot of maps, details, description, pictures, and explanations of his Gamma World / Tomorrow Men / 20th Homeland campaign.

The Gamma World of the Tomorrow Men

Like this expanded map:



or this elevation map, which I'm finding is really helping me visualize the world better:



Nice stuff. For the game summaries, click here and look for GURPS Gamma World.

Operation Unfathomable Kickstarter ends tomorrow

I mentioned this before, but now it is approaching the end of the Kickstarter:



I'm in for the PDF.

Other People's Posts I Really Like

I just want to highlight some posts by other people that I really learned something from.

ars ludi: Grand Experiments: West Marches

I just found these the day before yesterday. That sounds like a fun game. I already do some elements of that:

- the PCs are the real movers and shakers.
- town is a safe place to recover, adventure doesn't happen there.
- start and end in town.
- choices are player-driven.

The player-draw maps of my dungeon, done by many hands, also reflects their map. The drive to be there for the good stuff, same thing. We don't have the same player dynamic - my players aren't rivals. Not even friends with some rivalry. They're friends - so you don't get cliques and factions.

And it sounds like it was a lot of fun. You could do this with Krail's Folly and an online group, for sure. I say you because I'm not going to do that. But I'd try to play.

The Alexandrian: The Art of Rulings

One reason I especially like this post is the discussion of skills. Often you get "skills are bad!" without a lot of discussion of how to use player descriptions in a skill-focused game. Since I play GURPS, skill rolls are central to the game - not just central to combat, like in a lot of D&D-based gaming.

The best takeaway from this post for me? This concept:

"PLAYER EXPERTISE ACTIVATES CHARACTER EXPERTISE

What I mean by this is that the characters don’t play themselves. With the exception of purely passive observation of the game world, players have to call for an action which requires a skill check in order for the skill to be activated."

Basically, tell me what you are doing, and I'll tell you what kind of roll you want to make. It's putting what I meant by my "worst of both new school and old school" line much better. That's what I mean - you the player decide what to do, and say what you're doing, and then rolls determine how well your character is able to achieve it. You can't skip either part, unless the player's decision so self-evidently trumps the roll (something else cover later that same post.)


Good stuff, I'm glad I finally stumbled upon them.

Review: City System (Waterdeep)

Time for another review of a product I own and like.

For more reviews, please see my reviews page.



Written by Jeff Grubb with Ed Greenwood
Published by TSR, 1988.

Contents:
Ten (10) 22" x 34" city maps
One (1) 22" x 34" Poster of Waterdeep
One (1) 22" x 34" map of Castle Greyhawk
One (1) 32-page book

Vic's D&D 4th and D&D 5th Session Summaries

One of my players - Vic - is also a GM. He's got session summaries up of two campaigns.


The Unlikely Heroes of Nentir Vale (D&D 4th, completed)



Greyhawk's Lesser Known Heroes (D&D 5th edition, current)

Folks familiar with Caravan to Ein Arris will find some of the second group of summaries quite familiar . . .

Alb Irex (D&D5)

This is my character for Rob Conley's Majestic Wilderlands campaign.

Alb Irex (Alb Eye-reks)

Elder of Mitra

Cleric
Level 4
XP: Min for level 4.

STR 10 (0)
DEX 8 (-1)
CON 12 (+1)
INT 13 (+1)
WIS 17 (+3)
CHA 14 (+2)
HP 27
AC 16

Domain: Life (adds 2+level to healing spells)

Skills: Religion, Persuasion

Cantrips: Light, Resistance, Spare the Dying, Guidance
Spells: 4/3
Spells Prepared: Hold Person, Command, Detect Magic, Cure Wounds, Healing Word, Lesser Restoration, Spirit Weapon

Equipment:
Mace
Scale Armor
Shield
Holy Symbol
Priest's Kit


***


I made Alb using the default HP and stat scores. I have to say I really like that - it's just easy and I feel like I have some reasonable choices but don't need to overthink those choices. At the same time, it spares me rolling and writing and spending 2:1 to raise Prime Reqs and all of that. I put his Attribute Increase into Wis, because, what the heck, be good at your job. I see Alb as persuasive and wise and smart, used to using his mouth and brains to solve problems in ways Mitra would be pleased with. He's no physical specimen. He'll fight willingly, he's just going to try brains and spells first.

Speaking of spells, I'd have taken Augury, but I can't figure out what it really does, exactly. I cast it and get some benefit, not a precognitive episode? I'm not following the idea behind it.