Felltower Preview: Lord of Spite II

We played a second session against the Lord of Spite tonight.

Long story short - it went the whole day, and the PCs managed to finish off the devil maws (now aka mawbörg) and doomchildren . . . but at some cost in lives. The Lord of Spite was driven back, but at the cost of several limbs. But the fight didn't end - the PCs tried to pursue, but carefully, and the Lord of Spite returned. Full details tomorrow, when I have time to write up Part II of III of Against the Lord of Spite.

DF Felltower - Fiend Folio crossovers

Some prominent blogger said he doesn't like the Fiend Folio.

I obviously love it.

What have I used from the Fiend Folio so far?

Bugbears (DFM1, but draw inspiration partly from Meazels)

Ogrillon

Giant Troll

Golden Swordsmen (my own creation, but draw inspiration from the Githzerai and Githyanki)

Norkers

Demon, Frog (draws some inspiration, and a mini, from the Green Slaad)

So, not a lot so far - but I can promise there are more in the depths below Felltower than come directly from the Fiend Folio.Looking the book over, I've used about half of the monsters in the book at some point in an AD&D or GURPS campaign . . . and I have stats for many of them.

Equally, there are some from the Fiend Folio that ended up downrange from the Tomorrow Men in GURPS Gamma Terra . . . but that's a post for andi jones to write.

Random Thoughts & Links for 12/4/2020

It's Friday, read some other people's stuff!

These are excellent reads:

Blood, Sweat, and Cheers Campaign Part 1
Blood, Sweat, and Cheers Campaign Part 2
Blood, Sweat, and Cheers Campaign Part 3

Sean over at Power Score has a great set of lines about this Yawning Portal Inn premium set that I've seen advertised:

"Some people have mentioned this specific item online, so I decided to check it out. A deluxe Yawning Portal Inn premium set, the tavern which contains the entrance to the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, complete with LED lights and a mini of the bartender, Durnan.

How much do you think this costs? $100? I mean, it's got glowing lights. $125?

Nope. $350. Three hundred and fifty dollars. This thing needs to have an actual working beer tap to be worth that much money."

Damn right.

Did Dave and Gary’s Gift for Finding Fun in Dungeons & Dragons Lead Them Wrong? lists a lot of stuff I still find fun in my games. It's part of the challenge in certain games. And I don't think calculating encumbrance is hard.

d100 How Did These Guys Get Into This Room?
- Elfmaids & Octopi has a fun table to roll on for answering such questions as "How did that big dragon get into that small room?" It's just fun.

Finally, more curses! I like having curses that are not mechanical penalties but have some other curse-like effect instead. Especially if coupled with an otherwise-excellent magical item.

Curses in GURPS

Here is a quick way to add some more extensive curse-like magics in GURPS Magic.

GURPS Magic has some hostile spells that can really mess you up long-term - Flesh to Stone, The Charm of Forlorn Encystment Entombment, Madness, or Curse, for example.

The curse spell is just a mechanical way of inflicting a penalty until a sufficiently good roll is turned into a failure. It's a nice spell, but what if you want to inflict some specific harm on the victim in a way that isn't just a penalty?

In my post about revisiting the Charm Trio, I postulated the idea of a lasting version of Loyalty and Charm at x2.5 cost. Pay 2.5x and the spell, if it is successful and the victim fails to resist, lasts until removed by Remove Curse or other, appropriate magical reversal.

Here are some spells I think would be appropriate for this approach.

Corpulance
Compel Truth
Gauntness
Madness
Sickness
Strike Blind
Strike Deaf
Strike Numb (and other Strike spells)
Transmogrification
. . . and more.

Any spell that has a hostile effect of some kind, especially if it's not just a stat reduction, should warrant a look to see if it makes a good "curse."

Optionally, allow for a curse that cannot be removed with Remove Curse, but only by satisfying a condition specified by the caster. The caster must specify an "escape clause." If he or she does not, the spell is removable with a simple Remove Curse. The clause can be as reasonable or unreasonable as the GM allows. Fulfilling the letter of the clause ends the spell, even if it wasn't the intended way out.

FAQ: I know one of my players will ask this, so let's address it now:

Can you pay the extra cost after you put the spell on a victim? No. You must pay the "lasting" cost when you first cast it. You cannot "upgrade" an exisiting spell on a victim except by casting it again at the full cost.

Can this work on beneficial spells? No. It's too cheap for a "lasting" buff, so no, it can't. I don't think you can fairly price buffs that last until magically removed and don't count as a spell "on."

Note that some spells already have a "permanent" or "lasting" version (or effect). Use those as written instead - you can't make a lasting Forgetfullness, for example - just cast Permanent Forgetfullness, instead.

Unwritten Rules of D&D Reaction

I read this yesterday on a short break between bouts of work.

The 4 Unwritten Rules No Dungeon Master Should Break

Points 1-3 are fair to me. I think those are good rules. I think #2 is a bit overdone, since you can just ask the players what their characters do. You don't have to assume for them, nor punish them for not stating things. You can ask, and hold them to what they say. That's fair.

Overall, 1-3? They're fair enough.

4, eh, maybe not. It's very situational, isn't it?

I would agree that you shouldn't overly contrive situations. But what if I have a situation you can avoid, but if you can't, you lose your stuff? I can't do that?

"None of this applies to today’s game. Never take the character’s hard-won gear. They will resent the loss."

Really? Why? I disagree strongly with that.

I've refereed games where people lost their paper man entirely. Gone. Dead. Irrevocably. Do they resent it?

No, it's a game. And it happened fairly, by the first three rules and two of mine - don't gloat, and remember it's their game, too.

I've have people lose their stuff. Remember Vryce had Gram? He literally carried one of the most storied blades in human history. He lost that along with a bunch of stuff once when he got killed.

I don't think his player did much more than sigh and move on. It's stuff a paper man owns. It's not any more real than the paper man. You're at best a secondary user of it - you have an imaginary guy, who has imaginary stuff. Sometimes that stuff will go away.

I'd say a better rule 4 would be, don't take away the agency of the players to suit your plot. Don't force things to come to a result. This bit encapsulates it well:

"Save your escape-from-the-dungeon scenario for a time when players ignore warning signs, make bad choices, suffer setbacks, and ignore any chance to run. Those times happen—trust me. Then, instead of rolling new characters, have the old characters wake in chains. The players will feel grateful for a second chance."

I agree there. Just let your players make decisions within the confines of the game world and the events of that world and the capabilities of their PCs. And let stuff happen. Don't force it. If their stuff goes away, it goes away - and it's a result of their dumb decisions. It's why my players don't gripe about getting TPK'd by a beholder or losing their stuff to Mungo the Troll or that time Dave tried to end-run around a Black Reaver for loot. They made those choices and bad stuff happened. It's not the stuff, or their backstory dependents, that are the issue. It's that it's their decision or not.

Conan: The Cimmerian (video game)

An lo, there came a time when I returned at long last to Zamora and prowled the streets of Shadizar . . .

Way back in the 90s, I played the game "Conan: The Cimmerian" to not much short of completion.

I got stuck at some point, as did my friend Tom. He got unstuck, and explained what to do . . . but I never came back to the game. I suspect I must have lost the disk, or overwrote the save game somehow, or something like that.

But I have had an itch to play it to the end here and there.

Something reminded me of it.

I checked and found it on myabandonware.com.



I finally put some effort into figuring out how to configure DOSBox, did so, and got it to run.

You can play it online, too. It seems to work, even the save game seems to work as well.

But in any case, now I can run around Shadizar, stealing stuff, fighting people, and using teleport scrolls (two out of three for Conan accuracy there) as I try to get revenge on Toth-Amon for killing Conan's scantily-clad wife in the opening game sequence. It's more like an adventure game than a CRPG, but it's enough of the latter to keep me interested. I'll fool around with it and maybe, eventually, I'll deal with that one annoying foe and finish the game out.

Sadly, this time, I didn't get a glitched economy where one shop sells rope for 8 bezants and another buys it for 10. Oh, that was sweet. I'll earn my money the hard way, I guess.

GURPS Call for Playtesters: Hot Spots: Srivijaya

You'll have to get in on this quick if you're interested in being a playtester:

Call for Playtesters: GURPS Hot Spots: Srivijaya

I am too busy, so I need to pass on it, but if you know anything about the history of Srivijaya, they're looking for you especially.