I wasn't aware of this nifty item from Muppets from Space until today. Here it is in GURPS DF terms and generically DnDish terms, as well.
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy
Door In A Jar (Grenade). This jar of greenish slime is thrown against a wall. It creates a door, 7' tall by 3' wide in a wall up to 4 yards thick. The door lasts for 10 seconds, and allows travels in both directions. It is otherwise identical to the Create Door spell. $3,000, 1 lb.
Generically D&D compatible
Door in a Jar. This jar of greenish slime is thrown against a wall. It creates a door, 7' tall by 3' wide in a wall up to 10' thick. The door lasts for 1 round, and allows travel in both directions. The door does not actual create a hole, but rather a two-way short-ranged gate that bypasses the material between the two points. 750 gp, 500 xp.
Why so expensive in DF, and cheap in D&D? In both, I put it on par with Flight/Flying - potions which otherwise bypass obstacles that are at the heart of dungeon delving. DF puts a high premium cost on things that do so; D&D cares a lot less about this. So the pricing is in line with how both games value such things.
Why not just make it a liquid version of Passwall? Go right ahead, but I like the effects of Create Door a lot so I went that route.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
A Year in Other Gaming
Yesterday's little DF retrospective was actually really fun to write, so I'll do one for my non-DF gaming.
Swords & Wizardry - I got in two sessions of Swords and Wizardry this year with Erik Tenkar. Good stuff - really enjoyable. It reminds me of how fun playing can be. It also reminds me why I GM GURPS, not a DnD clone, because what's abstracted is what I usually want more detailed and vice-versa. But still, good players, good pace, and a good GM + a system I understand = fun, fun game.
Video Games - I played a bunch of Skyrim, including Dragonborn. I love the game, although I've done pretty much all I was interested in doing with it. Still, utterly beautiful and really enjoyable. An extremely well-timed sale on Borderlands 2 for $9.95 on Xbox Live convinced me to finally pick it up after watching my friend Ryan give it a whirl. I immediately gravitated to Salvador, the Gunzerker, because if you've ever seen me fight in competition, you know I tend to try to pick you off at range, until you hit me and then I charge straight in to point blank and chase you around if you back up.
Borderlands is kind of annoying in that you have to clear whole stages before a save does more than set you back to the beginning with a full re-pop, so I have to put it aside until I have the couple of hours I need to work my way through a stage. More than once I got killed by marauders that repopped when I was just heading back to a vending machine to sell some loot before I quit for the day. Annoying. Still, enough fun that I started a replay through on a harder mode (Ultimate Vault Hunter) and when I get a bit of time I pull out the controller, go gunzerk and spray cartoony world with gunfire. The irony to the good price is the expansions are too expensive compared to what I paid for it, so I've cruised solely on the core game. It's more than enough fun for me. Although I do spend a lot of time tracking down Claptrap just to hear his dubstep song again.
A good lesson in that game is the BBEG taunts the living hell out of you the whole game, coming across as twisted, annoying, and arrogant yet a little insecure. He interacts with you regularly, not enough that you tune him out but enough to bug you. By the time you meet him you're extremely ready to kick his ass. It's a good lesson for roleplaying games, too - all too often the BBEG is just some powerful guy you've never heard of, and have no special reason to loathe. No one playing Borderlands 2 is going to say "Handsome Jack? Was that the BBEG's name?" No, you know him well by the end and can't wait to shoot at him. GMing Tip: Play some Borderlands 2 and have your BBEG in contact with the PCs . . . you won't need rails to get them to chase him down, they'll fly after him willingly.
I played some Halo: Reach, too, but it got annoying after a while and I just stopped. Same with Assassin's Creed - I'm very bad at jumping games, and it's a jumping game. Sorry, I am a ten-thumbed brawler and it's not for me. Black Flag looks awesome, and sounds fun, but I know I'll just be frustrated trying to play it. But GTA:V is on my to-do list for next year.
Board & Card Games - I played a couple partial games of Awful Green Things with a student, but that won't last because there isn't enough hard vocab or difficult concepts to practice (I teach ESL.) I got zero games of Munchkin in this year, sadly - my best partners for it are my DF group and we always prefer that to Munchkin. I played so many games of Fluxx (3.0 not 4.0, no Creepers, just Keepers) with my ESL students I can't even count them. Great ESL tool, because it's easy to explain but they must read the cards and understand the English to have a chance at winning. The faster they read, the better their chances. The newer version with Creepers and Keepers is harder to explain, too hard for beginning readers, and just didn't work well in the classroom because of the difficulty in understanding what to do. Simple with growing complexity is better than immediate complexity for second-language learners. Amusingly I also have that edition in Japanese, and I used to handicap myself by playing with those cards in Japan, which just tells you how many times I've played the game since I could explain the rules even when I couldn't read the characters on the cards.
I also got in a single game of Deluxe Ogre and I hope to get in more.
I played other games, but nothing too exciting - Uno, Go Fish, etc. - purely educational/speaking practice stuff, not actually gaming for fun. Fluxx still manages to count as fun.
Minis - I painted a bit pile of minis this year. Finished my Grenadier Hirelings, painted a bunch of Bones (and took delivery of, and traded off, a lot of my Kickstarter rewards). I backed the next Bones Kickstarter. I did some show-and-tell.
Importantly to me, I finished a lot of partly-done minis I had laying around, like these hyenas, and some guys I love but just couldn't figure out how to finish. They're done now and waiting for their tabletop debuts. I even got a freebie flying base (well, I traded a Bones bat swarm for a couple) to base some flying minis I have.
I stopped painting when it got cold, but I'll start back up when it warms up and I'm slowly stockpiling the art supplies I need for when that happens.
Writing - I wrote a little bit this year. Nothing too much - but Sean Punch and I got a Power-Ups article crammed into Pyramid 3/61. I wrote at least one other article, but it's gotten bumped for space at least once . . . and then once again by my own stuff. It's fine - a thin year for publication but it was still good.
My other works sold steadily - a handful or so of copies of each, each and every month, so the long tail effect of always-in-stock PDFs worked for me. Still, I need to get more done. But Doug Cole and I have been banging around on two articles - one potentially awesome, and one awesomely amusing (to us at least) - so I'm hoping to get at least three items published this year. I have a vague idea for a full-sized e23 book, but it depends on a lot of yes answers.
All in all, combined with a lot of DF gaming, it's been a good year for gaming. I am looking forward to more of the same - more S&W, more video gaming, more writing, more minis painting - but it hasn't happened yet. I won't count as done what's not yet done. Still it was a good year and there isn't any immediate sign the next one can't be good too!
Swords & Wizardry - I got in two sessions of Swords and Wizardry this year with Erik Tenkar. Good stuff - really enjoyable. It reminds me of how fun playing can be. It also reminds me why I GM GURPS, not a DnD clone, because what's abstracted is what I usually want more detailed and vice-versa. But still, good players, good pace, and a good GM + a system I understand = fun, fun game.
Video Games - I played a bunch of Skyrim, including Dragonborn. I love the game, although I've done pretty much all I was interested in doing with it. Still, utterly beautiful and really enjoyable. An extremely well-timed sale on Borderlands 2 for $9.95 on Xbox Live convinced me to finally pick it up after watching my friend Ryan give it a whirl. I immediately gravitated to Salvador, the Gunzerker, because if you've ever seen me fight in competition, you know I tend to try to pick you off at range, until you hit me and then I charge straight in to point blank and chase you around if you back up.
Borderlands is kind of annoying in that you have to clear whole stages before a save does more than set you back to the beginning with a full re-pop, so I have to put it aside until I have the couple of hours I need to work my way through a stage. More than once I got killed by marauders that repopped when I was just heading back to a vending machine to sell some loot before I quit for the day. Annoying. Still, enough fun that I started a replay through on a harder mode (Ultimate Vault Hunter) and when I get a bit of time I pull out the controller, go gunzerk and spray cartoony world with gunfire. The irony to the good price is the expansions are too expensive compared to what I paid for it, so I've cruised solely on the core game. It's more than enough fun for me. Although I do spend a lot of time tracking down Claptrap just to hear his dubstep song again.
A good lesson in that game is the BBEG taunts the living hell out of you the whole game, coming across as twisted, annoying, and arrogant yet a little insecure. He interacts with you regularly, not enough that you tune him out but enough to bug you. By the time you meet him you're extremely ready to kick his ass. It's a good lesson for roleplaying games, too - all too often the BBEG is just some powerful guy you've never heard of, and have no special reason to loathe. No one playing Borderlands 2 is going to say "Handsome Jack? Was that the BBEG's name?" No, you know him well by the end and can't wait to shoot at him. GMing Tip: Play some Borderlands 2 and have your BBEG in contact with the PCs . . . you won't need rails to get them to chase him down, they'll fly after him willingly.
I played some Halo: Reach, too, but it got annoying after a while and I just stopped. Same with Assassin's Creed - I'm very bad at jumping games, and it's a jumping game. Sorry, I am a ten-thumbed brawler and it's not for me. Black Flag looks awesome, and sounds fun, but I know I'll just be frustrated trying to play it. But GTA:V is on my to-do list for next year.
Board & Card Games - I played a couple partial games of Awful Green Things with a student, but that won't last because there isn't enough hard vocab or difficult concepts to practice (I teach ESL.) I got zero games of Munchkin in this year, sadly - my best partners for it are my DF group and we always prefer that to Munchkin. I played so many games of Fluxx (3.0 not 4.0, no Creepers, just Keepers) with my ESL students I can't even count them. Great ESL tool, because it's easy to explain but they must read the cards and understand the English to have a chance at winning. The faster they read, the better their chances. The newer version with Creepers and Keepers is harder to explain, too hard for beginning readers, and just didn't work well in the classroom because of the difficulty in understanding what to do. Simple with growing complexity is better than immediate complexity for second-language learners. Amusingly I also have that edition in Japanese, and I used to handicap myself by playing with those cards in Japan, which just tells you how many times I've played the game since I could explain the rules even when I couldn't read the characters on the cards.
I also got in a single game of Deluxe Ogre and I hope to get in more.
I played other games, but nothing too exciting - Uno, Go Fish, etc. - purely educational/speaking practice stuff, not actually gaming for fun. Fluxx still manages to count as fun.
Minis - I painted a bit pile of minis this year. Finished my Grenadier Hirelings, painted a bunch of Bones (and took delivery of, and traded off, a lot of my Kickstarter rewards). I backed the next Bones Kickstarter. I did some show-and-tell.
Importantly to me, I finished a lot of partly-done minis I had laying around, like these hyenas, and some guys I love but just couldn't figure out how to finish. They're done now and waiting for their tabletop debuts. I even got a freebie flying base (well, I traded a Bones bat swarm for a couple) to base some flying minis I have.
I stopped painting when it got cold, but I'll start back up when it warms up and I'm slowly stockpiling the art supplies I need for when that happens.
Writing - I wrote a little bit this year. Nothing too much - but Sean Punch and I got a Power-Ups article crammed into Pyramid 3/61. I wrote at least one other article, but it's gotten bumped for space at least once . . . and then once again by my own stuff. It's fine - a thin year for publication but it was still good.
My other works sold steadily - a handful or so of copies of each, each and every month, so the long tail effect of always-in-stock PDFs worked for me. Still, I need to get more done. But Doug Cole and I have been banging around on two articles - one potentially awesome, and one awesomely amusing (to us at least) - so I'm hoping to get at least three items published this year. I have a vague idea for a full-sized e23 book, but it depends on a lot of yes answers.
All in all, combined with a lot of DF gaming, it's been a good year for gaming. I am looking forward to more of the same - more S&W, more video gaming, more writing, more minis painting - but it hasn't happened yet. I won't count as done what's not yet done. Still it was a good year and there isn't any immediate sign the next one can't be good too!
Monday, December 30, 2013
A Year in DF Gaming
I'm not a huge fan of retrospectives, but I found a few things interesting about this year's gaming with my face-to-face gaming group.
Players - We had 8 players place at least one session. This is up from seven the year before. A couple guys had long layoffs (Borriz's player, Honus's player) due to scheduling and work issues, not to mention Honus's player living in Boston while we play in NJ. Another player has been out most of the second half of the year, but he's still in the game and will hop back in when his schedule clears up. Plus we added a new guy just under the wire on our last session. We started back in 2011 with five players - four made it that day due to me messing up the date and thus someone's ability to make it. All of those five still play.
Since our policy is "play with your friends" we've got a solid group. Even if the only thing we do together is game, it's fine. We just ensure these are people you'd like to spend time with, which helps keep the game fun. The biggest personality difficulty we have in the group is . . . sorry, I can't think of any.
Sessions - We had 19 sessions this year. Some of them were in a big clump when I could run game nearly every week. Others were scattered about. But in general, we've kept up a fairly regular schedule.
We've played a total of 38 sessions in the campaign - sessions 20 through 38 were in 2013. It took 15 months to play the previous 19, including a solo adventuring session.
Power - We start all PCs at 250 points. Out of the original batch of five, three are still going, at 297 points (Honus), 308 points (Borriz), and 401 (!) points (Vryce). Perhaps a little surprisingly, the game hasn't really gotten any easier for the adventurers, even with what would have seemed like ridiculous skill levels based on our prior game - Borriz with Axe/Mace-28, Vryce with ST 18 and Two-Handed Sword-26, guys with Magery 6, etc. The more power they gotten the more lethal the challenges, and the more lethal the challenges the more fun we've had. Nothing feels broken. Which is counter to what a lot of folks will tell you about GURPS and 3d6. Skills in the 20s? Eh, too high, it breaks the curse and GURPS doesn't do it well. Nah, I'll tell you right now it does just fine in actual play at those levels. And Vryce at 401 points has a long list of stuff he wants to keep himself alive, Dryst's list of spells he needs hasn't gotten shorter, and everyone wishes they had more HP.
Good Enough is Good Enough - A lot of the systems I threw together just to get us started have worked okay for longer than I'd have expected. A one-off dungeon stocking decision stuck and worked. Maps I drew up and stocked in 2011 are still posing challenges and surprises to the players in 2013. A rough traps system has kept me going until now. Monsters I pulled from various sources and modified on my own have provided a good mix of interest and threat. My XP system has show a few minor creaks but nothing we couldn't address. And more importantly, perhaps, the ad hoc "problems not solutions" approach has made it easy to set up the dungeon and constantly rewarding-yet-risky to the PCs.
A lot of games start hard and fast, and then peter out. Not this one - it's accelerated. I don't expect 2014 to dramatically exceed 2013. It may not even match it, schedules depending. But around the same amount of games would be great. I'm glad my "let's play a DF one-off" turned into "let's play some sessions until we get bored" and then into "let's keep playing for the forseeable future." It hasn't gotten less fun to play, but rather more fun. The group has gotten bigger. The dungeon has gotten deeper, both literally (I drew more levels) and figuratively (it's a richer environment thanks to ongoing play.) I'm very pleased with that.
Players - We had 8 players place at least one session. This is up from seven the year before. A couple guys had long layoffs (Borriz's player, Honus's player) due to scheduling and work issues, not to mention Honus's player living in Boston while we play in NJ. Another player has been out most of the second half of the year, but he's still in the game and will hop back in when his schedule clears up. Plus we added a new guy just under the wire on our last session. We started back in 2011 with five players - four made it that day due to me messing up the date and thus someone's ability to make it. All of those five still play.
Since our policy is "play with your friends" we've got a solid group. Even if the only thing we do together is game, it's fine. We just ensure these are people you'd like to spend time with, which helps keep the game fun. The biggest personality difficulty we have in the group is . . . sorry, I can't think of any.
Sessions - We had 19 sessions this year. Some of them were in a big clump when I could run game nearly every week. Others were scattered about. But in general, we've kept up a fairly regular schedule.
We've played a total of 38 sessions in the campaign - sessions 20 through 38 were in 2013. It took 15 months to play the previous 19, including a solo adventuring session.
Power - We start all PCs at 250 points. Out of the original batch of five, three are still going, at 297 points (Honus), 308 points (Borriz), and 401 (!) points (Vryce). Perhaps a little surprisingly, the game hasn't really gotten any easier for the adventurers, even with what would have seemed like ridiculous skill levels based on our prior game - Borriz with Axe/Mace-28, Vryce with ST 18 and Two-Handed Sword-26, guys with Magery 6, etc. The more power they gotten the more lethal the challenges, and the more lethal the challenges the more fun we've had. Nothing feels broken. Which is counter to what a lot of folks will tell you about GURPS and 3d6. Skills in the 20s? Eh, too high, it breaks the curse and GURPS doesn't do it well. Nah, I'll tell you right now it does just fine in actual play at those levels. And Vryce at 401 points has a long list of stuff he wants to keep himself alive, Dryst's list of spells he needs hasn't gotten shorter, and everyone wishes they had more HP.
Good Enough is Good Enough - A lot of the systems I threw together just to get us started have worked okay for longer than I'd have expected. A one-off dungeon stocking decision stuck and worked. Maps I drew up and stocked in 2011 are still posing challenges and surprises to the players in 2013. A rough traps system has kept me going until now. Monsters I pulled from various sources and modified on my own have provided a good mix of interest and threat. My XP system has show a few minor creaks but nothing we couldn't address. And more importantly, perhaps, the ad hoc "problems not solutions" approach has made it easy to set up the dungeon and constantly rewarding-yet-risky to the PCs.
A lot of games start hard and fast, and then peter out. Not this one - it's accelerated. I don't expect 2014 to dramatically exceed 2013. It may not even match it, schedules depending. But around the same amount of games would be great. I'm glad my "let's play a DF one-off" turned into "let's play some sessions until we get bored" and then into "let's keep playing for the forseeable future." It hasn't gotten less fun to play, but rather more fun. The group has gotten bigger. The dungeon has gotten deeper, both literally (I drew more levels) and figuratively (it's a richer environment thanks to ongoing play.) I'm very pleased with that.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
DF Game Session 38, Felltower 29 - Golems & Wizard
December 29th, 2013
Weather: Unseasonably warm, but rainy. Some snow still on the mountaintop.
Characters: (approximate net point total)
Galoob Jah, goblin thief (250 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC)
Vryce, human knight (401 points)
Basher the Thug, semi-human thug (?? points, NPC)
Father Hans, human cleric (130 points, NPC)
Shieldbearer Jon, human guard (62 points, NPC)
Blurk, orc warrior (?? points, NPC)
* Joining later:
Dryst, halfling wizard (324 points)
Still in town:
Borriz, dwarven knight (308 points)
Chuck Morris, human martial artist (303 points)
Christoph, human scout (258 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (327 points)
Honus Honusson, human barbarian (297 points)
We started in Stericksburg as usual, but this time also including a new character (and new player), Galoob Jah, a goblin thief. Galoob has the odd delusion that humans are just the result of strange elf-goblin crossbreeds, and that halflings are a crazed abomination, so I decided he clearly was recruited by Dryst who had dared him to come adventuring with them. Clearly, Galoob doesn't hold it against him.* Galoob has also met Raggi and had heard endless stories of their prior delves, yet joined anyway.
They picked up rumors in town - Raggi had heard a troubadour ("some jerk with a lute") sing a song called the Lament of Lost Sigurd's Sword, about a lost dragon-slaying sword. The also heard that goblins had been evicted from Felltower by orcs, and that still more goblins (Galoob's tribe) has been looking for work as mercenaries. And one about bloodless wizards - wizards who traded their blood for deathless immortality and power.
The gathered up some gear, including light stones from (latecomer) Dryst, and headed up to Felltower. Once there, they stashed some extra gear (blankets, overcoats, etc.) and headed into the orc-held upper works. Some gesturing and pointing and coin paying later, they headed down into the dungeon, accompanied by an axe-toting orc named Blurk. Since the group was pretty thin, Vryce suggested clearing out parts of level 2. Galoob was all for level 3, but Vryce's plan prevailed.
They headed down and to the left, past the gargoyles (who fled when they saw who was coming) and then around to the library and down the trap door.
On level two they spotted a slug trail (using Galoob's infravision) but no monsters, and dropped down. They explored to the right and found one of the statue rooms. One of the three doors in the room was iron (meteoric, Dryst told them later when he showed up to criticize their mapping skills), and showed signs of failed assault on the door and scorches in front of it. They headed out the only door that showed any signs of traffic, and into what turned out to be an orc-held area. Blurk tried to talk to them, but he doesn't speak Common or Goblinian, and they don't speak Orcish, so little communication actually occurred but both sides seemed to think it occasionally had.
They went through the orc-held area and into what turned out to be the wizard-held area, which they'd visited twice before and did little except to get Zed killed.
They encountered fewer guardians than before, but once again triggered a 5d damaging attack (Deathtouch) and a cackling laughter when they moved into one of the rooms. Vryce had set it off, and just stood there to see if it would keep killing him - it didn't, it was one-shot. So they moved on.
They found the room with the smashed wardrobes, and had just decided to head into the one room they really hadn't explored much when Dryst arrived. He took command of this venture, cancelled their foolish commands, and then said they'd head into the one room they really hadn't explored much.
Vryce forced the door open and they found a large, dusty room. After some created servants jumped around on the floor to ensure there wasn't a pit trap, the group headed in. Dryst checked the dust, and it reminded him of his old days learning alchemy. So they left the room and Dryst used Create Fire to burn a section of the dust - but it was nothing, it was inert and safe. They found a single door leading out, iron-bound wood and locked. They found no traps, either by looking or by having a servant touch the door. So Galoob picked the lock (easily) and they moved in. They found they were in a small complex of cells, some of which had skeletons in them. Vryce took out his undead-slaying sword and whacked the hand off of one - which worked out less well then they'd hoped.
Instead of disarming an animated skeleton, they woke up what turned out to be eight flaming skulls. The undead critters ignited and they flew out and attacked. They used their superior movement to dive-bomb the PCs, attacking on the pass and then flying back out of range. Immediately, Raggi charged forward, Blurk's morale snapped like a twig and he ran, Galoob melted into the shadows, and Shieldbearer Jon and Father Hans turned to watch the rear (while Hans drew his holy sumbol, in case they had a Dread.) Vryce did some good work on them with his undead slaying sword, which seemed to be proof even against their Diffuse nature. They did some harm to a few PCs (and Basher) but Dryst got to work and put Resist Fire on himself, Vryce, and then Basher.
As they fought, and as Blurk ran, Dryst presciently said "This is when the wizard and golems attack us from behind." And that's what happened. Blurk ran out, and into the fists of a flesh golem. Shieldbearer Jon saw him go down and cried out. The PCs quickly redeployed, with the flaming skulls going from menace to distraction in no time. Vryce stopped and quick-drew and then quaffed his potion of Hero's Brew, then ran back to block the door, but the golems simply charged liked giant (SM+1) sized linebackers into and through him. They trampled Hans, showed Jon aside, and attacked Vryce. Dryst had started casting Great Haste just in case, and put it on Vryce.
What followed was a wild close-in melee in tight quarters. The wizard (who controlled the golems) threw Stench over the area. Stench is a very brutal spell - 1d damage if you fail a HT roll, and you immediately begin to suffocate (since no one has time to take a breath), which means -1 FP per second. Ouch. He followed it with a Mass Sleep spell over the combatants. Combined, that choked Father Hans, put Shieldbearer Jon and Dryst (who also choked for 1d) to sleep, nearly put Vryce to sleep (Luck), and naturally didn't affect his golems. Vryce fought hard, cutting down some golems (and Raggi decapitated one), but the fight seemed to be turning against them. Dryst out, folks choking and dying, Great Haste winding down, and Vryce even dropped his sword on a critical parry by a golem. He'd cut a golem's legs off, and then couldn't really hurt it with his undead-slaying sword and it had grabbed his legs. All was going badly.
Then two important things happened. First, Vryce (resisting some takedowns from a legless golem who'd grabbed his leg) managed to recover his Puissance +1 sword. Next, Galoob held his breath and plunged into the poison gas to wake up Dryst. Once Vryce had his sword back and he started to cut his way out of the mist and through the golems. And once Galoob woke up Dryst he was able to Purify Air and clear the Stench spell. As Father Hans was desperately crawling away, burning skulls swarmed him, burning him badly. Dryst put Resist Fire on him.
Meanwhile, Vryce carved his way out of the cell area and into the next room - and even Evaded past a golem only to get zapped for 5d of Shocking Touch from an invisible wizard to his side. Naturally, I rolled awfully (16 damage, aka, much less than average), but it was still enough to hurt and stun metal-armored Vryce. Two golems too advantage. One slammed him from behind and knocked him flat, the other crouched and grabbed his ankles. The wizard moved out of range. Vryce desperately wanted to pull his Magebane grande and fling it, but realized (as one golem planted a foot on his back) that he couldn't. So he recovered his sword, and while face down with a golem standing on him swung wildly behind him. He hit a leg and chopped it off, randomly hitting the leg planted on him. The golem fell. He rolled aside only to get grabbed again, just as Raggi stormed into the fray (he'd been sparring with flaming skulls on the far side of the stench spell before this) and killed a golem (with a hard body blow followed by two savage neck shots). Vryce lopped the arm off the golem grabbing him and stood back up as his Great Haste spell wound down.
The wizard turned invisible. The group sprang into action. Galoob ran into the room and slammed the door behind him. Raggi sprinted across the room at Vryce's command and slammed that door shut. The wizard - if he hadn't run fast enough - was stuck in with them. Vryce got his sling ready with a meteoric iron bullet. Goolob tried to spot the wizard's track with Infravision, but it's rough to scan a whole room for barely-warm prints from booted feet. Raggi guarded his door.
Then, Raggi suddenly slumped over, asleep. The door by him started to open - Vryce took a shot at the spot the opener would need to be in . . . but missed. Galoob ran over. The wizard (invisibly) was escaping. Just then Druyt cast See Invisible on Vryce, after failing twice before thanks to range penalties and many spells on. Vryce sprinted after him as Galoob woke up Raggi.
Vryce caught up in the hall of lenses, and saw the wizard at the fringe of his light source, at a full run. He shot, drilling him in the back with a sling bullet. He didn't know it, yet, but the shot was enough to kill the man outright. He took a couple more shots as he advanced, putting a second bullet into him. Once he got to the wizard, against his usual principles, he cut his throat. Can't trust a wizard to be dead, he figured.
They dragged him back, and rest for 30 minutes. All the wizard had was an empty potion belt, a magic robe, and a magic staff (a normal staff with the Staff spell on it). Clearly he lived nearby and didn't tote treasure as part of his battle-load.
Searching around further in the lens room let them map it out and locate all 9 lenses and some doors out. One pair of doors was to one side, a single metal door was opposite the way they came in. The wizard was clearly headed there.
That door was locked, and after ensuring there were no traps Galoob had at it. He popped the lock easily despite its difficulty. Behind it was a maze of some sort - made entirely of some mildly magical metal that seemed ot futz with seek spells. And reflect lightning spells.
They searched the maze a bit, but only found one rune on a floor, which annihilated a servant sent blindly in to take a rubbing. Some extra exploring and Seek Earth spells didn't turn up much, and it was late, so they decided to retreat and come back again with a scout with Absolute Direction.
They never woke the orc back up, simply turning him over to his tribe and telling them, via Gift of Tongues, that next time they want a brave orc. They went back to town and sent Basher on his way without even a tip or a thank you, but he wasn't very useful this trip. The robe was a Hooded Robe of Protection, which would have been awesome for a SM+0 wizard or Father Hans. But if they kept it, Galoob's first trip wouldn't have been profitable so they sold it and netted 975 each including the staff (I said 960 each, but I forgot the Staff and the Fortify spell on the robe). Vryce and Dryst also voted Galoob MVP, because Vryce kicking ass is his job, but Galoob was purely useful and his waking up Dryst (running into poison gas to do it, after overcoming his cowardice) was really the most valuable thing anyone did all session.
Good game, and it's nice to have a roster of 8 players now!
* "Because in spite of his race, this man is extremely valuable to me." Halfing or not, he's a heck of a wizard.
Notes:
My flaming skulls differ a bit from DF2, and have an Achilles Heel that can negate their Diffuse damage resistance. What does so isn't clear, but both Vryce's undead-slaying sword and Raggi's magic axe seemed to work just fine on them.
Stench is badly named. It's not a bad smell, it's a suffocating lethal gas. It's cheap - and if you can trap people in the area effect - surprisingly lethal. It didn't kill anyone this time, but it almost turned the entire fight.
Vryce is aiming now for human maximum ST and HP. 20 and 30, respectively, and then Striking ST 21 to get to 4d to maximize the Weapon Master bonus for his sword. BL 80 won't hurt, either.
As written, Sleep is like a poor man's Daze spell. You wake up at any loud noise, any slapping or whatever. Daze takes damage or spell resistance to do it. I ruled you need a HT roll to wake up from Sleep, and that loud noise has to be really loud - louder than combat. It really needs to be fixed in the RAW to work as a stronger version of Daze. I also ruled that taking damage from losing FP after 0 doesn't wake you up from sleep. Sorry, it's slow death from system shutdown, not pain.
Before anyone asks, yes, you'll see the Hero's Brew at some point. Maybe in Pyramid, or elsewhere, we'll see. When I finally put all my Felltower magic items together somewhere. Suffice to say it boots your ST and DX and Speed, but at some cost in foolhardiness. Vryce hardly noticed.
Weather: Unseasonably warm, but rainy. Some snow still on the mountaintop.
Characters: (approximate net point total)
Galoob Jah, goblin thief (250 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC)
Vryce, human knight (401 points)
Basher the Thug, semi-human thug (?? points, NPC)
Father Hans, human cleric (130 points, NPC)
Shieldbearer Jon, human guard (62 points, NPC)
Blurk, orc warrior (?? points, NPC)
* Joining later:
Dryst, halfling wizard (324 points)
Still in town:
Borriz, dwarven knight (308 points)
Chuck Morris, human martial artist (303 points)
Christoph, human scout (258 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (327 points)
Honus Honusson, human barbarian (297 points)
We started in Stericksburg as usual, but this time also including a new character (and new player), Galoob Jah, a goblin thief. Galoob has the odd delusion that humans are just the result of strange elf-goblin crossbreeds, and that halflings are a crazed abomination, so I decided he clearly was recruited by Dryst who had dared him to come adventuring with them. Clearly, Galoob doesn't hold it against him.* Galoob has also met Raggi and had heard endless stories of their prior delves, yet joined anyway.
They picked up rumors in town - Raggi had heard a troubadour ("some jerk with a lute") sing a song called the Lament of Lost Sigurd's Sword, about a lost dragon-slaying sword. The also heard that goblins had been evicted from Felltower by orcs, and that still more goblins (Galoob's tribe) has been looking for work as mercenaries. And one about bloodless wizards - wizards who traded their blood for deathless immortality and power.
The gathered up some gear, including light stones from (latecomer) Dryst, and headed up to Felltower. Once there, they stashed some extra gear (blankets, overcoats, etc.) and headed into the orc-held upper works. Some gesturing and pointing and coin paying later, they headed down into the dungeon, accompanied by an axe-toting orc named Blurk. Since the group was pretty thin, Vryce suggested clearing out parts of level 2. Galoob was all for level 3, but Vryce's plan prevailed.
They headed down and to the left, past the gargoyles (who fled when they saw who was coming) and then around to the library and down the trap door.
On level two they spotted a slug trail (using Galoob's infravision) but no monsters, and dropped down. They explored to the right and found one of the statue rooms. One of the three doors in the room was iron (meteoric, Dryst told them later when he showed up to criticize their mapping skills), and showed signs of failed assault on the door and scorches in front of it. They headed out the only door that showed any signs of traffic, and into what turned out to be an orc-held area. Blurk tried to talk to them, but he doesn't speak Common or Goblinian, and they don't speak Orcish, so little communication actually occurred but both sides seemed to think it occasionally had.
They went through the orc-held area and into what turned out to be the wizard-held area, which they'd visited twice before and did little except to get Zed killed.
They encountered fewer guardians than before, but once again triggered a 5d damaging attack (Deathtouch) and a cackling laughter when they moved into one of the rooms. Vryce had set it off, and just stood there to see if it would keep killing him - it didn't, it was one-shot. So they moved on.
They found the room with the smashed wardrobes, and had just decided to head into the one room they really hadn't explored much when Dryst arrived. He took command of this venture, cancelled their foolish commands, and then said they'd head into the one room they really hadn't explored much.
Vryce forced the door open and they found a large, dusty room. After some created servants jumped around on the floor to ensure there wasn't a pit trap, the group headed in. Dryst checked the dust, and it reminded him of his old days learning alchemy. So they left the room and Dryst used Create Fire to burn a section of the dust - but it was nothing, it was inert and safe. They found a single door leading out, iron-bound wood and locked. They found no traps, either by looking or by having a servant touch the door. So Galoob picked the lock (easily) and they moved in. They found they were in a small complex of cells, some of which had skeletons in them. Vryce took out his undead-slaying sword and whacked the hand off of one - which worked out less well then they'd hoped.
Instead of disarming an animated skeleton, they woke up what turned out to be eight flaming skulls. The undead critters ignited and they flew out and attacked. They used their superior movement to dive-bomb the PCs, attacking on the pass and then flying back out of range. Immediately, Raggi charged forward, Blurk's morale snapped like a twig and he ran, Galoob melted into the shadows, and Shieldbearer Jon and Father Hans turned to watch the rear (while Hans drew his holy sumbol, in case they had a Dread.) Vryce did some good work on them with his undead slaying sword, which seemed to be proof even against their Diffuse nature. They did some harm to a few PCs (and Basher) but Dryst got to work and put Resist Fire on himself, Vryce, and then Basher.
As they fought, and as Blurk ran, Dryst presciently said "This is when the wizard and golems attack us from behind." And that's what happened. Blurk ran out, and into the fists of a flesh golem. Shieldbearer Jon saw him go down and cried out. The PCs quickly redeployed, with the flaming skulls going from menace to distraction in no time. Vryce stopped and quick-drew and then quaffed his potion of Hero's Brew, then ran back to block the door, but the golems simply charged liked giant (SM+1) sized linebackers into and through him. They trampled Hans, showed Jon aside, and attacked Vryce. Dryst had started casting Great Haste just in case, and put it on Vryce.
What followed was a wild close-in melee in tight quarters. The wizard (who controlled the golems) threw Stench over the area. Stench is a very brutal spell - 1d damage if you fail a HT roll, and you immediately begin to suffocate (since no one has time to take a breath), which means -1 FP per second. Ouch. He followed it with a Mass Sleep spell over the combatants. Combined, that choked Father Hans, put Shieldbearer Jon and Dryst (who also choked for 1d) to sleep, nearly put Vryce to sleep (Luck), and naturally didn't affect his golems. Vryce fought hard, cutting down some golems (and Raggi decapitated one), but the fight seemed to be turning against them. Dryst out, folks choking and dying, Great Haste winding down, and Vryce even dropped his sword on a critical parry by a golem. He'd cut a golem's legs off, and then couldn't really hurt it with his undead-slaying sword and it had grabbed his legs. All was going badly.
Then two important things happened. First, Vryce (resisting some takedowns from a legless golem who'd grabbed his leg) managed to recover his Puissance +1 sword. Next, Galoob held his breath and plunged into the poison gas to wake up Dryst. Once Vryce had his sword back and he started to cut his way out of the mist and through the golems. And once Galoob woke up Dryst he was able to Purify Air and clear the Stench spell. As Father Hans was desperately crawling away, burning skulls swarmed him, burning him badly. Dryst put Resist Fire on him.
Meanwhile, Vryce carved his way out of the cell area and into the next room - and even Evaded past a golem only to get zapped for 5d of Shocking Touch from an invisible wizard to his side. Naturally, I rolled awfully (16 damage, aka, much less than average), but it was still enough to hurt and stun metal-armored Vryce. Two golems too advantage. One slammed him from behind and knocked him flat, the other crouched and grabbed his ankles. The wizard moved out of range. Vryce desperately wanted to pull his Magebane grande and fling it, but realized (as one golem planted a foot on his back) that he couldn't. So he recovered his sword, and while face down with a golem standing on him swung wildly behind him. He hit a leg and chopped it off, randomly hitting the leg planted on him. The golem fell. He rolled aside only to get grabbed again, just as Raggi stormed into the fray (he'd been sparring with flaming skulls on the far side of the stench spell before this) and killed a golem (with a hard body blow followed by two savage neck shots). Vryce lopped the arm off the golem grabbing him and stood back up as his Great Haste spell wound down.
The wizard turned invisible. The group sprang into action. Galoob ran into the room and slammed the door behind him. Raggi sprinted across the room at Vryce's command and slammed that door shut. The wizard - if he hadn't run fast enough - was stuck in with them. Vryce got his sling ready with a meteoric iron bullet. Goolob tried to spot the wizard's track with Infravision, but it's rough to scan a whole room for barely-warm prints from booted feet. Raggi guarded his door.
Then, Raggi suddenly slumped over, asleep. The door by him started to open - Vryce took a shot at the spot the opener would need to be in . . . but missed. Galoob ran over. The wizard (invisibly) was escaping. Just then Druyt cast See Invisible on Vryce, after failing twice before thanks to range penalties and many spells on. Vryce sprinted after him as Galoob woke up Raggi.
Vryce caught up in the hall of lenses, and saw the wizard at the fringe of his light source, at a full run. He shot, drilling him in the back with a sling bullet. He didn't know it, yet, but the shot was enough to kill the man outright. He took a couple more shots as he advanced, putting a second bullet into him. Once he got to the wizard, against his usual principles, he cut his throat. Can't trust a wizard to be dead, he figured.
They dragged him back, and rest for 30 minutes. All the wizard had was an empty potion belt, a magic robe, and a magic staff (a normal staff with the Staff spell on it). Clearly he lived nearby and didn't tote treasure as part of his battle-load.
Searching around further in the lens room let them map it out and locate all 9 lenses and some doors out. One pair of doors was to one side, a single metal door was opposite the way they came in. The wizard was clearly headed there.
That door was locked, and after ensuring there were no traps Galoob had at it. He popped the lock easily despite its difficulty. Behind it was a maze of some sort - made entirely of some mildly magical metal that seemed ot futz with seek spells. And reflect lightning spells.
They searched the maze a bit, but only found one rune on a floor, which annihilated a servant sent blindly in to take a rubbing. Some extra exploring and Seek Earth spells didn't turn up much, and it was late, so they decided to retreat and come back again with a scout with Absolute Direction.
They never woke the orc back up, simply turning him over to his tribe and telling them, via Gift of Tongues, that next time they want a brave orc. They went back to town and sent Basher on his way without even a tip or a thank you, but he wasn't very useful this trip. The robe was a Hooded Robe of Protection, which would have been awesome for a SM+0 wizard or Father Hans. But if they kept it, Galoob's first trip wouldn't have been profitable so they sold it and netted 975 each including the staff (I said 960 each, but I forgot the Staff and the Fortify spell on the robe). Vryce and Dryst also voted Galoob MVP, because Vryce kicking ass is his job, but Galoob was purely useful and his waking up Dryst (running into poison gas to do it, after overcoming his cowardice) was really the most valuable thing anyone did all session.
Good game, and it's nice to have a roster of 8 players now!
* "Because in spite of his race, this man is extremely valuable to me." Halfing or not, he's a heck of a wizard.
Notes:
My flaming skulls differ a bit from DF2, and have an Achilles Heel that can negate their Diffuse damage resistance. What does so isn't clear, but both Vryce's undead-slaying sword and Raggi's magic axe seemed to work just fine on them.
Stench is badly named. It's not a bad smell, it's a suffocating lethal gas. It's cheap - and if you can trap people in the area effect - surprisingly lethal. It didn't kill anyone this time, but it almost turned the entire fight.
Vryce is aiming now for human maximum ST and HP. 20 and 30, respectively, and then Striking ST 21 to get to 4d to maximize the Weapon Master bonus for his sword. BL 80 won't hurt, either.
As written, Sleep is like a poor man's Daze spell. You wake up at any loud noise, any slapping or whatever. Daze takes damage or spell resistance to do it. I ruled you need a HT roll to wake up from Sleep, and that loud noise has to be really loud - louder than combat. It really needs to be fixed in the RAW to work as a stronger version of Daze. I also ruled that taking damage from losing FP after 0 doesn't wake you up from sleep. Sorry, it's slow death from system shutdown, not pain.
Before anyone asks, yes, you'll see the Hero's Brew at some point. Maybe in Pyramid, or elsewhere, we'll see. When I finally put all my Felltower magic items together somewhere. Suffice to say it boots your ST and DX and Speed, but at some cost in foolhardiness. Vryce hardly noticed.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Last-minute game prep
Tomorrow we're playing another session of my DF game. Lots of last minute stuff to get done or that I did manage to get done:
- restocking parts of the dungeon (partly done, will finish tomorrow morning)
- packing my bag for game (partly done)
- ensuring I have the maps, mouse for my laptop, and minis (check, check, check)
- re-reading rules for some special attacks, just to be sure I them down right since they haven't come up often (check)
You'd think I'll be all ready what with 3 weeks since last session, but no, it all gets shunted off to "do on Saturday night" and that's when I get it all done.
- restocking parts of the dungeon (partly done, will finish tomorrow morning)
- packing my bag for game (partly done)
- ensuring I have the maps, mouse for my laptop, and minis (check, check, check)
- re-reading rules for some special attacks, just to be sure I them down right since they haven't come up often (check)
You'd think I'll be all ready what with 3 weeks since last session, but no, it all gets shunted off to "do on Saturday night" and that's when I get it all done.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Review: JD1 Cess-Pit of the Bog Mother
JD1 Cess-Pit of the Bog-Mother
by Jeff Dee
10 pages
$2.49
This adventure is written by Jeff Dee, better known for his art and for Villains & Vigilantes.
I got mine "free" as a Kickstarter reward - free because I was in at a good enough level and the rest of the folks chipped in enough to get this nice bonus item. But it's also up for sale on RPG Now.
The adventure basically consists of a small tunnel system under a ruined in a coastal swamp. It's occupied by some typical low-level humanoid foes and, as a boss monster, the titular bog-mother. There are also a few new bog-themed monsters.
It's a forked map, but it's a series of linear forks. It's pretty easy to ensure you don't miss much but you do get some meaningful choices.
The theme holds together well, so you really feel like the monsters belong in this ruin together.
It is way too generous with treasure for its challenge. The challenge isn't much greater than other level 1-3 dungeons but the loot is, in my opinion, too much. The consolation to that is the limit of 1 level gain in D&D clones (leaving you 1 xp short of a 2-level gain), so even with that big pile you won't get too far. But it will allow a much more lavishly equipped subsequent trip, or even a large group to go in and level up despite being able to overwhelm the challenges. Refs might want to dial it down or dial up the monsters.
Overall, though, it's a pretty good adventure. There are also some really cool new pictures by Jeff Dee, and the various monsters come with a clear snapshot of the minis based on them/they are based on, even if said minis seem to be out-of-production.
How is it for GURPS? - Like any other OSR adventure, it's just a question of how comfortable you are converting. The descriptions of the new monsters are clear enough, and the pictures useful enough, to make designing a GURPS version not too difficult. The environment is discussed in enough relevant detail to make assigning HP, DR, and material HT pretty easy, too. It wouldn't be hard to turn it into an adventure suitable for some DF15-inspired "low level" adventurers, or to up-gun it for standard DF.
Is it worth $2.50? That depends, do you need a short pre-made swamp-themed adventure with some new monsters? It's worth $2.50. Do you need some new swamp monsters that your players haven't seen before? Worth it.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Review: Pyramid 3/60: Dungeon Fantasy III
This is a brief review of Pyramid Magazine #3/60: Dungeon Fantasy III.
There are two previous issues covering Dungeon Fantasy cover-to-cover.
I figured it's helpful and interesting to have a brief look at all of the articles. This issue is interesting to me because I know all the guys who wrote for it. They're my friends, co-authors, fellow gamers, or my editor. I may be biased in their favor but I do tell my friends when the stuff they right isn't useful to me.
Wizardry Redefined - by Sean Punch
One problem with GURPS Magic and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that mages have spell restrictions, but the complex prerequisite system can play hell with them. Read strictly, mages could bypass a lot of spell restrictions. Plus, it wasn't always clear what was forbidden and what wasn't in certain edge cases. This would have been covered if GURPS Dungeon Fantasy had been a 240-page hardback, but it wasn't. So Sean covers it here. It's a complete list of the spells you can get as a mage, and can't get, and new prereq chains that avoid the spells you can't have. It's long, but it's useful if you run DF and use GURPS Magic instead of the trendy RPM all the kids are raving about these days.
Eidetic Memory: High-Tech Dungeon Crawl - by David L. Pulver
David Pulver reminisces about having just stocked a dungeon when his players got burned on their game. So he did what anyone would do in his situation when playing GURPS - let them make up guys with guns and then clear the dungeon. This article is part campaign retrospective and part campaign seed.
This could easily have just been "guys with guns in dungeons could be fun, try it!" and it's not. David carefully goes into some of the advantages the group had (guns vs. orcs, for one), pitfalls the group ran into (hospitalization for monster-inflicted wounds), the complications oddly-sourced wealth has in the modern world, and so on. He even looks at it from the perspective of different Tech Levels. Too low, and it's just an edge vs. monsters unfamiliar with it. Too high, and it's easy to toast the monsters but nothing they have except magic is worth going after (The problem of taking $700,000 off that dragon but losing a $2.5 million battlesuit to do it . . . )
If you're going to send gun-armed guys into dungeons, this is worth reading. It's fun too even if you don't want to. Plus, he back-references "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery."
It's a Trap - by Christopher R. Rice.
Let me just say I have my own traps generation system. It's rough, and it requires a lot of GM work providing details, but it's fast and effective. So I wasn't even sure I needed this one - but in the end, a preview of it by Christopher sold me on it (and the rest of the issue).
My system is just a series of dice rolls that tell me all I need to know about the lethality, ease of disarming, and avoidability of a trap. Christopher's system will tell you everything about the trap you need to know. You can start with a blank slate and end with a trap with all questions answered, even the ones I just handwave. It's a system that takes you from what the trap is, to how much damage it does, to how hard to disarm, etc. It'll answer all of the questions and spit out a trap or trick that fits into the format in DF2, p. 20. It does so very well - everything is rules-compliant, rules-standard, fully explained, and explained in a range of power levels so you can scale them. It even makes use of the N/whatever concept from DFA1 in an appropriate way.
Maybe the real downside to me is that there are, in fact, a lot of tables to roll on. Like DF 8: Treasure Tables you need to roll different dice (a 4, 1, 2 on three dice is different than 2, 1, 4 or 4, 2, 1, for example) and look up a table entry. Then roll on sub-tables the same way. This prevents you from just dumping a pile of dice and seeing what you get. Also like TT, it cries out for automation
I was inspired by one part of it to have, say, a place with a trap that kept-resetting to a new trap effect, using just a pointer to the tables. I experimented and found it would stop my game for a couple of minutes and a lot of rolls before I would even know if they'd trigger it. So I gave up on that.
Like some of the tables in The Dungeon Dozen or The Dungeon Alphabet, they aren't for rolling on when you need something right now but when you've got prep time and want to get it all correct. It does that very well indeed, and I've used it to stock part of my megadungeon with traps. A good tool to have.
Mystic Power-Ups - Antoni Ten Monrós
Basically, if you aren't satisfied with all the cool stuff the Mystic Knight can do, its original creator provides more. Including mystically-created weapons and armor. Neither of which you can use with Imbuements on top, which kind of gets rid of a cool character concept but prevents a metric assload of abuse.
I don't play either with imbuements (too Diablo II for my game) or Mystic Knights (see prior comment), so I can't see me doing which with this. But if you do you will want this.
In All Series-Ness - by Sean Punch
Long story short on this one - it's the history of the DF line, including reasons why it's been released in the order it has and not some precision order, what it might have been (including a hardback), and so on. It's a Designer's Notes in the form of a Line Editor's Notes on the line, basically. Or vice-versa.
It also ends with a new template, the Beastmaster!
Random Thought Table: The Decagoblin Dungeon - by Steven Marsh
Steven Marsh takes a single concept - a room with 10 goblins in it - and turns it into a multi-room dungeon each with a room with 10 goblins in it. But in each room, both the room and the goblins aren't what you'd expect. It's more interesting to read than the play, I'd expect, but it's a good exercise in changing things up and being creative with what otherwise be a dull encounter. It's not thinking outside the box so much as saying, you didn't specify what the box was like, so it could be any sort of box. Which is what fun dungeons are all about.
Odds and Ends
This consists of:
- a bonus trap from Christopher Rice.
- a Mystic Knight wildcard skill from Antoni Ten Monrós.
- a 125-point Eldritch Initiate template from Antoni Ten Monrós that'll turn any 125-point delver from DF15 into a 250-point Imbuement user. Nice!
Overall, I'm glad I got this issue. The traps or Sean's spell listings alone would have been plenty useful enough for me, even at this late stage when I've worked so much of that out myself. But the other bits were really nice to have. I especially liked the Beastmaster, and reading David's take on letting his modern-day gun toting Americans put paid to a bunch of orcs and rescue an elf. Good issue.
Again, you can find it here.
There are two previous issues covering Dungeon Fantasy cover-to-cover.
I figured it's helpful and interesting to have a brief look at all of the articles. This issue is interesting to me because I know all the guys who wrote for it. They're my friends, co-authors, fellow gamers, or my editor. I may be biased in their favor but I do tell my friends when the stuff they right isn't useful to me.
Wizardry Redefined - by Sean Punch
One problem with GURPS Magic and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that mages have spell restrictions, but the complex prerequisite system can play hell with them. Read strictly, mages could bypass a lot of spell restrictions. Plus, it wasn't always clear what was forbidden and what wasn't in certain edge cases. This would have been covered if GURPS Dungeon Fantasy had been a 240-page hardback, but it wasn't. So Sean covers it here. It's a complete list of the spells you can get as a mage, and can't get, and new prereq chains that avoid the spells you can't have. It's long, but it's useful if you run DF and use GURPS Magic instead of the trendy RPM all the kids are raving about these days.
Eidetic Memory: High-Tech Dungeon Crawl - by David L. Pulver
David Pulver reminisces about having just stocked a dungeon when his players got burned on their game. So he did what anyone would do in his situation when playing GURPS - let them make up guys with guns and then clear the dungeon. This article is part campaign retrospective and part campaign seed.
This could easily have just been "guys with guns in dungeons could be fun, try it!" and it's not. David carefully goes into some of the advantages the group had (guns vs. orcs, for one), pitfalls the group ran into (hospitalization for monster-inflicted wounds), the complications oddly-sourced wealth has in the modern world, and so on. He even looks at it from the perspective of different Tech Levels. Too low, and it's just an edge vs. monsters unfamiliar with it. Too high, and it's easy to toast the monsters but nothing they have except magic is worth going after (The problem of taking $700,000 off that dragon but losing a $2.5 million battlesuit to do it . . . )
If you're going to send gun-armed guys into dungeons, this is worth reading. It's fun too even if you don't want to. Plus, he back-references "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery."
It's a Trap - by Christopher R. Rice.
Let me just say I have my own traps generation system. It's rough, and it requires a lot of GM work providing details, but it's fast and effective. So I wasn't even sure I needed this one - but in the end, a preview of it by Christopher sold me on it (and the rest of the issue).
My system is just a series of dice rolls that tell me all I need to know about the lethality, ease of disarming, and avoidability of a trap. Christopher's system will tell you everything about the trap you need to know. You can start with a blank slate and end with a trap with all questions answered, even the ones I just handwave. It's a system that takes you from what the trap is, to how much damage it does, to how hard to disarm, etc. It'll answer all of the questions and spit out a trap or trick that fits into the format in DF2, p. 20. It does so very well - everything is rules-compliant, rules-standard, fully explained, and explained in a range of power levels so you can scale them. It even makes use of the N/whatever concept from DFA1 in an appropriate way.
Maybe the real downside to me is that there are, in fact, a lot of tables to roll on. Like DF 8: Treasure Tables you need to roll different dice (a 4, 1, 2 on three dice is different than 2, 1, 4 or 4, 2, 1, for example) and look up a table entry. Then roll on sub-tables the same way. This prevents you from just dumping a pile of dice and seeing what you get. Also like TT, it cries out for automation
I was inspired by one part of it to have, say, a place with a trap that kept-resetting to a new trap effect, using just a pointer to the tables. I experimented and found it would stop my game for a couple of minutes and a lot of rolls before I would even know if they'd trigger it. So I gave up on that.
Like some of the tables in The Dungeon Dozen or The Dungeon Alphabet, they aren't for rolling on when you need something right now but when you've got prep time and want to get it all correct. It does that very well indeed, and I've used it to stock part of my megadungeon with traps. A good tool to have.
Mystic Power-Ups - Antoni Ten Monrós
Basically, if you aren't satisfied with all the cool stuff the Mystic Knight can do, its original creator provides more. Including mystically-created weapons and armor. Neither of which you can use with Imbuements on top, which kind of gets rid of a cool character concept but prevents a metric assload of abuse.
I don't play either with imbuements (too Diablo II for my game) or Mystic Knights (see prior comment), so I can't see me doing which with this. But if you do you will want this.
In All Series-Ness - by Sean Punch
Long story short on this one - it's the history of the DF line, including reasons why it's been released in the order it has and not some precision order, what it might have been (including a hardback), and so on. It's a Designer's Notes in the form of a Line Editor's Notes on the line, basically. Or vice-versa.
It also ends with a new template, the Beastmaster!
Random Thought Table: The Decagoblin Dungeon - by Steven Marsh
Steven Marsh takes a single concept - a room with 10 goblins in it - and turns it into a multi-room dungeon each with a room with 10 goblins in it. But in each room, both the room and the goblins aren't what you'd expect. It's more interesting to read than the play, I'd expect, but it's a good exercise in changing things up and being creative with what otherwise be a dull encounter. It's not thinking outside the box so much as saying, you didn't specify what the box was like, so it could be any sort of box. Which is what fun dungeons are all about.
Odds and Ends
This consists of:
- a bonus trap from Christopher Rice.
- a Mystic Knight wildcard skill from Antoni Ten Monrós.
- a 125-point Eldritch Initiate template from Antoni Ten Monrós that'll turn any 125-point delver from DF15 into a 250-point Imbuement user. Nice!
Overall, I'm glad I got this issue. The traps or Sean's spell listings alone would have been plenty useful enough for me, even at this late stage when I've worked so much of that out myself. But the other bits were really nice to have. I especially liked the Beastmaster, and reading David's take on letting his modern-day gun toting Americans put paid to a bunch of orcs and rescue an elf. Good issue.
Again, you can find it here.
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