OSR Christmas Prize - Towns & Villages

So according to Tenkar's blog, I won this:



In print, no less. Neat!

I don't use city or town maps a lot, but if/when we get to another wilderness area it might be very handy to have some town and village maps. I've got castles covered with a Judges Guild book - Castles II - but not villages and towns yet.

Names and Ethnic Origins of my NPCs and PCs

I mentioned yesterday that we've seen a fair amount of characters in my current game with very specific historical backgrounds. Roman, Carthaginian, Spanish, Viking (lots of those), English, African to name a few. We've equally had a large number of folks with fairly generic backgrounds and more "fantasy game" style names.

These days I often make NPCs off of miniatures, or reasonably close to minis I have. But I have had some very specifically ethnically-inspired characters in my own stable of NPCs, although they are mostly dead these days - Raggi Ragnarsson and Father Hans leap to mind. Even so, the NPCs are generally generic fantasy types or of some really strange made-up ethnic group. The Meeposian brothers, the folks of Cashamash (Prince Vlashkalabash III, Black Jans), even Brother Ike (who had a mostly-Zulu name but wasn't really Zulu) . . . they're not really from any Earth group. I tend to blend and mishmash on purpose.

I grab names from random sources - Prince Vlashkalabash III and Rangol Grot, for example, were both named by Japanese kids I taught English to. Gort of the Shining Force got named because someone was playing some video game during the game session - someone, I say, but I mean the now-player who runs Crogar. Crogar is the kind of name I'd choose, given half of a chance.

My own characters are like that, regardless of the campaign.

I tend to make my characters off an idea of options, potential weapon use, or just a straight-up lack of interest in trying out difficult rules or complications. My names are often inspired by fairly odd sources - Arnold Maytreks and Tarjan Telnar and Mirado the Black Warrior, say.

I also tend to make my characters fairly bland. I'm not a half-drow with a reverse gripped sword in one hand and a custom kukri in the other. I'm a human fighter with a shield and a sword with a dagger, axe, and spear to round out my loadout . . . and a bow if it's affordable. I don't make a mutant with super powers, I make a martial artist crime fighter. I'm interested in a simple character who'll let me interact with the world as I see fit, rather than either restricting my options or forcing the world to react to my very specific approach.

So I'm sure that translates over to my game worlds, and they feed each other in turn.

Where in Pseudo-Europe is Stericksburg?

During our last game, someone asked Aldwyn's player where Aldwyn is from. He said, "From where this world's England is."

Since the players help define the world, this means there must be some Britain/England/Avalon/whatever type place, presumably bordered by where "Mild Bruce" came from.

But the same player stated that he thought that Stericksburg was in this world's pseudo-Germany, because of the use of the title "Baron" by Baron Sterick the Red.

Interesting. I actually hadn't defined this area as Germanic. I've got a Russian/Slavic area to the East, for sure - Molotov. I've got a French/Flemish/Belgian/Norman area to the West (the city of Arras, for example.) But this one? Germanic . . . I don't really think of it that way.

Sterick isn't actually from this area. He's been defined as a wandering adventurer type who showed up, seized Felltower with his troops on behalf of the Kingdom, and then eventually revolted (detailed here.) It's still not clear why, except that the players decided that it's because he's either Evil or just a bad person. That's not exactly the whole reason, but it'll do for now.

In any case, he's not a local. Neither are his Viking-esque men, who are less Viking-like than Hjalmarr was because I'm just not as into Vikings as he is.

So where is Stericksburg?

The map sure doesn't say much.

In my mind's eye map of the world, Stericksburg is rather far north. There isn't much north of it that's civilized, and that extends West and East pretty far. Molotov is notably north of Stericksburg but it's much further East of Stericksburg than it is North of it.

There is a big crescent-shaped area north of those cities that's howling wilderness at worst and semi-occupied borderlands at best.

Still, though, I haven't defined it as a specific European country, not like Darklands does with Germany and its neighbors. I don't really think there is sufficient value in doing so. The more defined the area is by comparison with some half-understood stereotypical Middle Ages version of a modern country it is, the less useful it is to me. The less I can stick in because, hey, that's sure convenient right now. I'd like to avoid definitions that pin me down instead of expand the value of the area as a campaign-boosting bit of background. To define something is to put boundaries on it.

Erol Otus's Shub-Niggurath

This has always been one of my favorite images in D&D:



It's completely awesome. Eyes peering out madly, strange beings sallying forth but still connected to the main being (including a member of the cone-shaped race inhabited for a time by the Great Race of Yith, there in the back up the stairs) . . .

At the same time, I'm not even sure how I'd run that. I could describe it, but it would be hard to keep having it spew out new beings constantly. You'd probably need to use a random generator to spit out stats for the "spawn" that keep coming out to fight and die on the blades of those trying to banish some bit of Shub-Niggurath back to where it came from.

It could be a great set-piece for a high-level AD&D game - you've got stats right there in the old edition of Deities & Demigods - or as a DF ultimate boss monster. It's hard not to think of ways to try and use this, thanks to the great feel of Erol Otus's art.

Oddball Heroes for Bolt Action

Since my Oddball Sherman was so cool, why would I not want more Kelly's Heroes themed minis?

My box arrive with:

Oddball
Moriarty
The Turk
The Bavarian
Kelly
Crapgame
Big Joe
Babra

The minis are nicely sculpted and have tolerable amounts of flash and mold lines. I'm debating prepping and painting them in the order they appear in the film, but I'm not sure that'll really matter in the end. Even so, that's probably a sensible approach as Big Joe, Kelly, Babra, and Crapgame all have similar uniforms, and Moriarty and The Bavarian are both wearing SS gear (the German in his issued gear, Moriarty in gear purchased off of the Germans.)

Fun stuff!

Running intelligent foes - over at The Monsters Know

Nice post on running intelligent foes at The Monsters Know:

Intelligent Enemy Tactics

It's not really new advice, if you've been around gaming as long as I have. But it's a good, readable, and linkable source for it.

One idea I've toyed with for intelligent foes is to allow them a chance to retroactively plan for PC approaches. The GM can roll, say, an IQ roll with a cascading penalty for repeated attempts (-4 is probably workable). If successful, the monster did have something useful planned to forestall that PC tactic. A failure means exactly that - it wasn't ready.

Alternatively, make it a "Gizmo" - 5 points per use for "Tactical Gambit." Each use allows some retroactive planning using the creature's intelligence and native abilities to be ready for a situation it could have reasonably planned for had the GM thought of it ahead of time.

This can be a good way to do unplanned encounters with intelligent foes that would reasonably have planned. Because GMs don't always want to just wing it when the PCs veer left and end up in some area or situation the GM just didn't have time to plan for.

2019 in Gaming

2019 is over. How was it for gaming?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

We had 12 sessions of DF/DFRPG this past year. It was a tough start to the year, as most of the vets were wiped out when they ducked away from an alert dragon into a lurking beholder. So the first game consisted of a lot of new or lower=point PCs. We lost one player for the entire year (he hasn't played since the beholder effective TPK) and another was out except to drop in to play a different game.

Still, our group consists of eight regulars and a couple of drop-ins.

The players also (finally!) went through the "Forest Gate" and discovered the Garden of Trent Oakheart. It took four sessions for them to explore it, it was low-loot and could have been a drag. Instead it was a very exciting series of sessions. The big battles with the orcs and discovery of another way down were fun, even if neither was really taken to completion.

12 sessions, though, isn't great - we had 16 sessions of DF alone in 2018, out of 20 gaming sessions total that year. We had only 12 sessions in 2017, too. My schedule might allow for more Sundays for gaming, though - we'll see.

Playing Gamma Terra

We had three sessions of Gamma Terra, up from two last year. The crew that shows for the game has shrunk to a degree. But we managed to get in three good sessions. It's progressing, slowly, but it's so much fun when we play. I'm hoping we can get in at least two sessions this coming year, and I'd prefer four.

Not just because I get to play, but also because it's such a good change of pace from my style of GMing.

AD&D

We kept up what's now a tradition of playing some old AD&D modules, too.

We had two sessions of AD&D - two parts of A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity.

This one I expected to be two sessions. The players still struggle with the very real tactical differences between decisions in AD&D and GURPS. But we enjoyed the play, and as they improve at AD&D we can try higher and higher level adventures.

Other Games & Gaming

None. I received Trogdor the Game but I haven't played it. I painted almost nothing in the way of minis. I managed to get a book released - Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 3: Artifacts of Felltower.

I played a lot of video games in chunks this year - Borderlands 2, as usual, was a good get-away-from-it-all game. I started Tides of Numenura, finally, once my new laptop arrived. And I played a good chunk of the challenging yet rewarding War in the East. Oh, and I restarted and have been cheerfully playing through GTA: Vice City on my XBOX.

Gaming was a key part of my life this year but we got so little in - 17 sessions, which is barely 1 more than 2018's DF gaming alone. I need to ensure my schedule includes more gaming this year - and painting.