2nd Edition Reprints

You've probably heard that Wizards of the Coast has announced they will be reprinting the core 2nd edition books, plus some adventure modules. I will not be buying them, but I think having any of the (current) four editions available is a net positive. The one thing I think they did wrong is release them as collector's additions instead of books meant for gaming.

This decision has me questioning their end game. I don't think Wizards actually want to maintain active support of all of these editions. That these reprints are being released while 5e is being assembled makes me wonder if Wizards is looking to gauge which previous edition they should emulate most. I know this is a cynical view, but I sincerely doubt they released these reprints because fans want them. If nothing else, I'm willing to bet they were reaction to the OSR and Pathfinder. After 5e drops, whenever that is, what's the likelihood that Wizards will release Collector's reprints of 4e?

FTP Alert: Dungeonslayers

I just discovered this via The Iron Tavern and I have to say, it looks pretty awesome. I haven't had the chance to look at the rules yet, but, from the review, the game is all about speedy resolution so you can keep things moving (you only use a d20!).

The best part? It's completely free. I'll definitely be adding this to my ever-expanding collection of games. Even if I never play it, I'm sure that some of the 170 page rulebook (only 10 of which are actual rules) will be useful as source material.

This game has actually been around for a few years and was released under the creative commons license. That means you can take the work of German designer Christian Kennig and mold it to suit your needs. Several variants already exist, including options for modern day zombie-killing and Mutant Future weirdness, albeit in German. I'm sure as this product gains steam over here, we'll see those options, and many more, make their way into translation.Check it out here.

Mouse Guard: First Impressions

This weekend was a lot of firsts. It was the first time my old group had met in about two months. It was the first time I ran an adventure on the fly in. . .a long time. Most importantly, it was the first time I ever played Mouse Guard.

I was a little bit uncertain as to how this game would go over, honestly. To start, this game is painfully adorable. If the visual of a determined group of mice braving a rain storm as they cross a lake the size of a puddle in a leafboat is too cute for your tastes, I can understand. But I would highly recommend you leave your doubts at the door and soldier on.

We played two sessions. The first was the sample mission, "Find the Missing Grain Peddler." For these more intense, story driven games I always find it best to start using pre-made characters. The downside of this, in my experience, is that while players will do their best to accommodate the personality they have been handed, they are never particularly invested, especially if there is no plan to continue the story after the first sessions.

Afterwards, we dove right into character creation. This section is so incredibly straight forward and easy to do on the fly that you can, as a group, open right to this section and begin the process having never read it prior. An hour after doing so, we had our patrol ready to go.

I hadn't originally planned to run our first session, but I was feeling good about how character creation went and decided to run with it. Two hours later, we were done our first mission. One of things that make this game so much fun is how big the world is in comparison to you. Everything is a challenge when you're about three inches tall. We hit a few snags trying to talk about distances, but once we decided to not worry about the actual scale of what was happening, things moved very quickly.

I am very pleased with the system, and am currently trying to arrange for us to get on a weekly schedule. For anyone interested in The Burning Wheel, I highly recommend starting here just to get the hang of things.

Joining the Guard

I picked this up today. Now I just need to convince my players that pretending to be mice is just as cool as pretending to be Orcs, Elves, and Dwarves.

Help! I Need Somebody!

Teamwork is one of those things that I ensure is vital to any party hoping to survive my campaign. One of the most common ways to lend a hand is on a skill check, but few systems have explicit rules on how to go about multiple characters contributing to a task. I've developed a simple system for such a situation. One character acts as the primary participant, while everyone else is support. The sole character in the primary role makes their check a normally, rolling a 1d20 (or whichever die is appropriate). Anyone in a support roll does the same, but their result modifies the overall check as follows:

1:     -2 to check
5:    +1 to check
10:  +2 to check
15:  +3 to check
20:  +4 to check

DCC RPG Alternate Cover

I posted the sketch a while ago, but Joseph Goodman revealed the color version this week. Now I just need to convince myself I need a third copy of this rulebook. Or maybe I just need to convince my girlfriend that this would make a great Christmas present.

Creeping Miasma

Often disguising themselves as clouds of fog, Creeping Miasma's are the products of cult activity or evil spirits who remain on the material plain to feast on the flesh of the living. Anyone who enters the cloud immediately feels a burning sensation throughout their entire body. For each round a character spends in the cloud they suffer 1d6 points of damage.

Init +7; Atk SP (see above); AC 17; HD 10d8; HP 45; MV 30', Fly 30'; Act SP (see below); SV Fort +3, Ref +7, Will +3; AL C

Trying to escape a Creeping Miasma is incredibly difficult. Should its prey attempt to run, it takes the form of a massive python. While in this form, use these stats:

Init +7; Atk Bite +7 (1d8 + Poison); AC 17; HD 10d8; HP 45; MV 60'; Act 1d20; SV Fort +3, Ref +7, Will +3; AL C

Poison: This venom rots the victim's flesh from the inside out. A player bit by the snake form must succeed on a DC 15 Fort save or suffer 1d6 points of dame per round for a number of rounds equal to their margin of failure. 

Should its prey, in a fit of foolish bravery, choose to stand and fight, the Creeping Miasma takes the form of a hideous, razor-toothed maw surrounded by six tentacles. While in this form, use the stats below:

Init +7; Atk Tentacle +7 (1d6); AC 17; HD 10d8; HP 45; MV 30'; Act 6d20; Any creature struck by one of the tentacles Is automatically grappled and will be thrust into its hideous mouth on the following turn unless they succeed at a DC 15 Reflex save; those who fail automatically suffer 1d6 points of damage from its bite attack; SV Fort +3, Ref +7, Will +3; AL C

All forms reduce any damage taken by half from non-magical sources.

Hiatus

Normal updates will resume next week.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

It doesn't matter how many dice I own, a new set is always welcome. Yesterday, my players surprised me with a new set of Gamescience Precision dice. They have been sanded down, inked, and are ready to begin their PC-slaying career starting tomorrow night.

Who Built This Thing?

 I've been thinking about the megadungeon recently. How I've never played one. How I want to design my own. About ones like Barrowmaze, Dwimmermount, Castle Greyhawk, Rappan Athuk, Undermountain. Mostly I've been wondering where the concept came from.

While the megadungeon will forever be associated with "old-school gaming", it seems no one who was part of the original wave of RPGs actually used this term to describe the sprawling underground complexes they spent their adventuring lives exploring. Massive, labyrinthine complexes full of traps, monsters, and treasure was what these game were about. Perhaps the term developed after the size of dungeons shrank and more modules emphasizing narrative came about? If anyone could demystify its origins, I will be very grateful.

Should that mystery be solved, there lies an even greater one: what are the literary precedents of the megadungeon? I am hardly well read in Appendix N fiction, but I don't think there are very many examples in Gygax's famed list of inspirational reading. The only one I can think of, which may simply be due to my inexperience with pre-genre fantasy literature, are the Mines of Moria. While Moria is indisputably a megadungeon, the Fellowship does not navigate it in the way that most players in RPGs would, which makes the origins of this type of locale all the more mysterious.

If any of you could provide answers or links to further my education on this subject, you can scratch your good deed for the day off your to-do list.

Where I Been, Where I Goin'

You may have noticed (not likely) that my normal M-W-F schedule of posting has been, well, nonexistent the last week or so. Fear not, for I have returned! I will say it will likely be about another week before I can resume with any regularity. My work and personal lives have eclipsed the personal time I normally use for this blog at the moment.

I have, however, still been gaming regularly. It's kind of amazing that it's taken me 12 years to find a group that plays on a weekly basis. It has definitely been worth the wait. Our last session was a very transitional one. Up until now, the players have kind of been wandering from town to dungeon, through wilderness, more or less sight-seeing in this world. This last session established the major story arc of the campaign and introduced the group's first long-term villain. I purposely made him this frail, unimposing Wizard so that the group would feel overconfident in their ability to deal with him.
I believe I succeeded, as their first battle with him lasted a full hour and was rife with death and near-death experiences.

Afterwards, the group wandered the wastelands in which they found themselves stranded. They slowly came upon slaving villages and began liberating them, culminating in many battles with slavers. They now have an army of about 300 unskilled ex-slaves and are marching back into the Outlands just beyond the empire's reach.

The group has expressed interest in forming their own nation and this feels like the beginning of those motions. Many sessions ago they cleared out a crumbling Keep and are currently en route to it with their middling army. I can hear the drums of war beating from the future.

The Greenskins Get Official

Look at this character sheet one of my players made for the Orc class I designed:

Race, Class, and Genre

When I first saw the beta for DCC RPG I wrinkled my nose at the concept of race as class. I am accustomed to allowing any combination of the two with obvious synergies between certain mixtures. I fought my tendency to change this rule and have been running DCC RPG rules-as-written (mostly) since then. Having spent the last few months with this game, I realize race as class is a key part of the pulp fantasy world.

In pulp fantasy, the wider world, its denizens and dimensions, are not known. Common townsfolk rarely travel far from their village and, seldom know more than rumors of their neighbors. The adventurer, by comparison, risks life and limb to travel to those unknown places. Humans, who are always represented as varied creatures in these settings, have so many options to reflect this multitudinous nature. Demi-humans are not given as many options. The implication is that these societies are not nearly as numerous as humans and those who take up a life of adventure are even rarer.

Recent editions of the world's most popular roleplaying game, which do not have these restrictions, are not pulp fantasy. High fantasy implies a world with much more stability and where knowledge is not so scarce. Each civilization is thriving to some degree, and, though adventurers are rare, they are not so rare that you cannot find representatives of every class archetype for most races.

Really, that's what this whole issue comes down to: archetypes. Humans in a pulp fantasy world have no archetype, which is why they have more class options available (though often less than their high fantasy counterparts). The other demi-human societies do have archetypes though, which is why they fewer or no options in regards to their class.

Clawing Your Way Back From the Grave

I have never been a fan of spells like Raise Dead or True Resurrection. In the past, I removed these from my games because I thought they minimized death's impact. How do players fear character death if they know they can cart their corpse down to the local temple and be up and walking again within a few hours? They don't. Removing simple magical means of resurrection presents its own problem: how does one return to the land of the living?

The DCC RPG recommends handling this matter with a quest. I think this is the right method. I've also been reading up on the megadungeon and am looking to combine these two ideas. I can't say too much right now because I'm still in the very early stages of figuring out what I want to do, but I will be working on this a lot in the coming weeks as one of my players lost his favorite character last session.

Weird NPC: The Old Mountain Kings

Set in a forked path in the stone are three ornately carved rock-faces. Upon approaching, the stones begin to shift and these faces speak in loud, booming voices, asking "Who dare disturb my kingdom?"

After the party answers, the stones begin bickering with each other over exactly who is the one true king. This will go on as long as the players let it, though if they try to leave they will be reproached for not being respectful of the Old Mountain King, whoever that may be. Each rock face is distinct from the others.

Karn: He has large, exaggerated features including a prominent, bald forehead and nose. Karn loves to boast, insult others, and claim undue credit. He is Chaotic.

Valerius: He has sharp features and is well groomed. Valerius like to make decisions for the others and will often begin any claim with "We think/We decide/We know", which leads to disagreement immediately. He is Lawful.

Orrin: This rock face has hair that runs all the way down to the path and a beard to match. He acts as the mediator of the others, pointing out the blatant falsehoods that Karn and Valerius tell. He is Neutral.

These NPCs are full of lots of information about the history of the world as they have spent aeons demanding boons from travelers, misdirecting them, and telling riddles. If asked a question, each one will provide a different answer making it impossible to discern which one is reliable. In truth, none of them are. They are all stubborn and wish to be recognized more than the others. 

The Economics of RPGs

Tabletop roleplaying games are one of the cheapest hobbies around. While the cost is going to be relative to the game you purchase, all you really need are books and dice. The Pathfinder Beginner box will give you everything you need for less than $40. The DCC RPG book is $40, and you can find sets of dice for less than $10. Add another $10 if you want the Zocchi shapes. D&D offers a beginner box for about the same price as the Pathfinder box. The Burning Wheel book is $25. No matter where you start, the cost of entry is not high.

Even better, these games often return huge dividends for these very modest investments. Who can even begin to count the hours they burned slaying Orcs, crawling through muck-filled tubes, or greedily coveting each and every gold piece to fall into their character's hands? There is no /played command for pencil & paper gaming to tell us, but I suspect that those who have stayed with the hobby for a few years have logged the same number of hours that many World of Warcraft players have in that same time period.

I was thinking about all of this as I picked up DCC RPG #71 The 13th Skull at The Compleat Strategist yesterday. Modules are the one thing that don't have quite as high of a return investment, though, again, it really matters what you purchase. A Pathfinder Adventure Path, which consists of 6 softcover books and will give you an entire campaign, are going to set you back $120 and give you roughly 400 pages of material to work through. That might seem like a lot of money, but if you run it as-is, that's a lot of hours of your back as a DM. DCC RPG modules are $10, a little more than the price of three comic books and about thick as one, but each one will give you 1-2 sessions of fun.

I don't have much to offer today. I've just been thinking about how great this hobby is and how consistently I get excited every time it's game night, a cool new book comes out, or one of my players does something inspiring. Cheers.

Do You Scale Difficulty to the Party?

Modern roleplaying games have a surfeit of rules for balancing encounters. It wasn't until recently that I realized these rules are near-useless. After years of planning encounters following these guidelines I can say that they are seldom accurate. Two monsters of equal challenge rarely pose the same threat. That's all beside the point, really. The question I want to ask is: as a DM, do you scale your encounters to your party level?

To some extent, everyone should be answering yes to that question. After all, we do want our players to have a fighting chance. What we don't want to do is design a world that scales with the levels of the players. Just because your party reaches level 3 doesn't mean they should suddenly encounter monsters of appropriate challenge. They need to look for them.

That's the reason I force my players deep into the wilderness if they want really tough fights: powerful monsters simply don't lurk within the bounds of civilized borders. In the few cases that they do wander within the bounds of a kingdom, it is usually to challenge that authority.

That's the long view of things. Within an adventure, however, the answer becomes a little more complex. Each adventure should, in my opinion, have several encounters below the party's level. It should have a fair number that are adequate challenges and even a couple that are very, very hard.


All of this is on mind because one of my groups is getting ready to venture deep beyond the bounds of civilization and they're going to see the difficulty of encounters spike almost immediately. I hope they have the good sense when to hold their ground and when to run.

The Emerald Enchanter is Dead

. . .and so is one of our characters. I finally was able to rotate this module into one of my ongoing campaigns and all I can say is that Goodman Games continues to offer some of the best modules on the market. The Emerald Enchanter has all of the classics trappings we've come to expect. Missing Villagers? Check. Weird monsters that will have your players cursing and running? Check. A mysterious dungeon inhabited by an evil wizard? It's all here.

I ditched the whole premise of the adventure because this group  is more likely to enslave, torture, or murder the innocent than save them. Instead, I pitched it as a good opportunity to acquire some serious loot. Depending upon how much of the dungeons your players see, they could emerge from the Emerald Enchanter's citadel with a pretty heft pile of magical items. DMs may want to tone this aspect of the adventure down if they use these sparingly.


I want to highlight the second encounter in this adventure. DCC RPG stresses the unknown and the unique when it comes to monsters. DMs scratching their heads on how to accomplish this should run to their FLGS immediately and pick up The Emerald Enchanter. This encounter shows how a little twist on something familiar is all it really takes to make "just another monster" memorable for years to come.

The Emerald Enchanter nails the spirit of Appendix N adventuring and continues to prove that Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics line of modules is the best on the market. DMs looking for a challenging, easy-to-insert adventure need to look no further.

Mighty Deed of Arms: Volley of Arrows

A Warrior using a shortbow or longbow can attempt to fire a volley of arrows as their mighty deed. A Warrior may fire one additional arrow per attack per action die. The success of whether both arrows hit or not is determined with a single attack roll. A skilled Marksman may even try to split their shots between two or more enemies.

If the deed fails but the attack succeeds, roll damage normally for the arrow that hit; the other fell short or went long. If the deed succeeds, apply results as appropriate:

Deed Result	Effect*
3	Roll 1d3 damage for each arrow that hit.
4	Roll 1d4 damage for each arrow that hit.
5	Roll 1d5 damage for each arrow that hit.
6	Roll 1d6 damage for each arrow that hit.
7+	Roll 1d7 damage for each arrow that hit.

*These effects are not added to the damage roll, but replace the normal dice used.

Crawl! #3 Arrives!

I got my  copy of Crawl! #3 on Saturday morning and finally had a chance to go through it this morning on the subway. As you can see, this issue's theme is the magic and features rules for NPC magic, Patron Spells for Van Den Danderclanden, Familiars and more. Building each issue around a theme is a smart decision, and there are some real treats in here to make either your adventuring or party-killing lives easier.

As you know, magic in DCC RPG is very different from most other FRPGs on the market. Success is never guaranteed, failure is catastrophic, and, should you be so lucky so cast a spell, the effects will wreak havoc on your targets. While these rules are a blast to use, it can be quite time-consuming to fully implement them for NPCs. Reverend Dak has given us simple rules for handling NPC magic that I will be adopting for my future games. You still make spell checks, but it the effects are static and the spell check is handled similar to a skill check. Also included are rules for critical hits.


The real highlight of this issue are the patron spells for Van Den Danderclanden, the patron that one of Dak's players made and introduced to the world from Craw! #1. If you have spent any time on the Goodman Games forum, one of the most common requests is rules for creating patrons. While you'll find no how-to rules here, these are an excellent example to model yours after. Now that we have the full rules for Van Den Danderclanden, he will beshowing up in my game as soon as a Wizard shows up in the party.

I also really appreciate Raven Crowking's Magic Wand spell, as the rules for doing so were not present in the DCC RPG book. At the same time, you may wish to disallow players access to rules for creating every type of magic item available and just offer them as rare loot. No matter how you approach Wands, these rules will be useful. 

I can't stress this enough: if you're playing DCC RPG and not getting Crawl!, you're really missing out. While your mileage is going to vary from issue to issue, it's a steal at $3.50 (that includes postage!). Besides, if you're not finding the kinds of things you want to see, you could always submit.

Thursday Night Group Session Highlight Reel #1

• The Thief backstabbing two enemies in a row rolling the same result on the critical table each time. His new title, as he reached level 2, is fitting: murderer
• Watching the Cleric roll five failures in a row gaining permanent disapproval until a holy quest is completed
• The Rage mechanic for my Orc class working as intended! Seriously, I think the class is this close to having all of the kinks worked out
• The look on the players faces after seeing the bandits they just bested in combat rise from the dead with dregs of flesh falling away from their bodies
• In the final battle, when all of the characters were in inches of their life, the Orc threw a Scimitar, scored a hit, and dropped the final monster of the night
• The party behaving as a party should! Disagreements based on differing ideology, pooling resources to increase longevity, and thinking things through
• The Cleric suggesting they plug their ears upon hearing the siren's song. They went through an entire dungeon making plans only by using hand gestures

Minor Magic Item: Asmodeus' Coin

Minted on one of the seven levels of Hell, this coin is both a boon and a curse to anyone who comes upon it. Anyone who looks at it can see it is different immediately. Slightly larger, it seems to emit its golden sheen like a torch casts light. A player who spends their time examining it will be surprised to see the faces change as they flip it back and forth. In total, there are three faces: a snake, a fox, and a lion.

A character may flip this coin once per day. If they do so, roll 1d3 in secret and apply the results as follows:

1) The Snake: The coins luck has run out for you! Treat the next action a character takes as if the player had rolled a natural 1.

2) The Lion: You feel uncharacteristically confident! Increase the dice rolled by +1d on the dice chain for the next action your character takes.

3) The Fox: You feel lucky! The next time a character burns luck, add +1 for each point burned.

The coin has a mind of its own and often betrays its owner, leaving them unusually irritable and unable to focus for a time. A DM should track how often a players relies on Asmodeus' Coin. Should the player ever lose this item, have their character make a Will save (DC = the number of times the player has used the coin, maximum 20).

If the player fails their save, reduce all actions on the dice chain by -1d for a number of days equal to the DC (20 days at the maximum DC). During this period, the coin is a constant presence on the character's mind. Should they ever recover it, they will be furious to see that the powers it once granted no longer work.

For these reasons, no one in possession of the coin ever willingly relinquishes ownership. Ownership is established by flipping it.

No One Wants to Save the World

Before running DCC #67 Sailors on the Starless Sea, I had never run a module. All of my prior twelve years gaming was spent playing material I wrote. Looking back, the tendency was towards epic, save-the-world type stories. For all of the fun we had, no one actually ever saved the world. The scope of these campaigns was simply too big for teenagers with short attention spans to ever finish.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG has offered my groups a completely different style of play thus far. Every campaign I've run has been a series of episodic adventures where the only real constant is the PCs. This is partially a time consideration. One of my groups plays on a very erratic schedule which makes extended stories harder to maintain.The other reason is that, after nearly a dozen years of never finishing these epic campaigns, I find smaller scales quests to be more enjoyable simply because you can them through to completion with more consistency.

Really, it comes down to the fact that "save the world" is not a good motivation for most players. How many players actually care about the world beyond the immediate situation presented by the GM? Even if the campaign ends with an adventure where the entire fate of the world hangs in the balance, this can never be a starting point. The road to that climax will be marked by several smaller adventures where the players are motivated by the prospect of finding powerful magic items, hoards of wealth, becoming stronger, gaining prestige within an organization, etc.

The Birds Outside the Academy

You may have noticed the Twitter feed that has replaced all of those awesome (and well-funded) Kickstarter projects. The amount of time I spend planning, prepping, and reading about games is considerable, but I don't have the want to increase the number of times I post here beyond my normal schedule. It's mostly an issue of just not having enough time to give a post enough attention more than three times a week. That's where the Twitter account comes in.

In addition to various game-related miscellanea, my Twitter feed will contain live impressions of every module or RPG product I consume. I feel it's bad form to to a full-length review of something before it's lived on the gaming table for a night, but there's not as much room for the granular details and observations I make as I work through this stuff in those longer pieces either.

You can expect live commentary as I conduct my readings of the following books in the very near future:

• DCC Free RPG Day 2012 Module
• DCC#69: The Emerald Enchanter
• DCC#70: Jewels of the Carnifex
• AD&D First Edition Players Handbook
• AD&D First Edition Monster Manual
• AD&D First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide
• Swords Against Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
• Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber
• Swords in the Mist by Fritz Leiber
• Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber

All of those have been acquired or are in the mail making their way to my hovel in the city. In addition, expect to see any future Goodman Games modules for DCC RPG, the newly-expanded Dungeon Alphabet, and the Brave Halflin Press Appendix N modules get the same treatment as they trickle in throughout the year.

To get a sense of what this will look like, you should dig through my past tweets as I've already covered DCC#68 The People of the Pit. 

The Rage of the Orcs: First Impressions

I posted a rough draft of my Orc class for DCC RPG two weeks back. Last night, we finished our first playtests of the mechanics. As it stands, they are just a little too powerful. When designing the mechanics, I imposed steep penalties for fatigue to discourage players from holding in their rage. The mechanics as written currently give too many bonuses to prevent players from accessing the higher bonuses on the rage table.


The player suggested scaling back the mechanics, but I've already done that: anyone using these rules should omit the Will, Morale, Threat, and AC columns. It's too many abilities. I think the bell curve works, but the speed and ease at which Rage builds is the issue. I have a few solutions in mind. The first one is a suggestion from a member of the Goodman Games forums. Rather than track rage at all, the player chooses to get a bonus to the rage roll for a penalty for the fatigue check. This is very simple and has far less bookkeeping than my current system. The only question is, how do you set limits on a bonus?

Another simple method is to just use your level as the modifier. This knocks the weakest entry on the table (1) off, and scales well until the last few levels. Using this method, here is the range of possible results.

Level	Rage Die	Result
1	1d3	2-4
2	1d4	3-6
3	1d5	4-8
4	1d6	5-10
5	1d7	6-12
6	1d8	7-14
7	1d10	8-17
8	1d12	9-20
9	1d14	10-23
10	1d16	11-26

My only issue is it removes the feel of the class. I like that players build rage, and I think there's something fun about watching those bonuses stack up. It does provide pretty defined parameters though and removes the headache of bookkeeping. I did find that my player often forgot to note the bonuses as they accrued.

The last solution involves keeping the mechanics as they are, but, rather than giving a bonus per each instance of a condition (players dropping to 0, killing enemies, critical hits, etc), the Orc can only receive +1 per each condition fulfilled (+5) in total, which scales as follows:

Level	Rage Die	Result
1	1d3	1-8
2	1d4	1-9
3	1d5	1-10
4	1d6	1-11
5	1d7	1-12
6	1d8	1-13
7	1d10	1-15
8	1d12	1-17
9	1d14	1-19
10	1d16	1-21

This gives the Orc the possibility to access some of the higher values on the Rage table than the second method above, but also makes it harder to hit the top results than the second method. Given the nature of the Rage mechanic, I don't necessarily view this as a bad thing, but it may just not work in practice. More reports to come.

To AD&D or not AD&D?

These were released last Tuesday. I haven't acquired them yet, and I'm not entirely sure I will. When I finished my Pathfinder campaign earlier this spring, I was left feeling dissatisfied. I don't think it was because I put together a bad game, or that it didn't turn out the way I wanted. Rather, the amount of work necessary to bring my ideas to fruition was far too overwhelming. Immediately after the campaign ended, I began looking at other systems.

This is when I learned that Wizards of the Coast was reprinting the first edition books. I've never played first edition, or any of the numerous OSR games, for that matter but I knew I wanted a simpler game. It just so happens that Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG showed up on my radar at exactly the same time. If you have read my blog with any consistency these last few months, you know that this has become the preferred system in my gaming groups.

So why am I hesitant about these reprints?

First, If I'm going to purchase a new game system, it needs to do one of two things: make it easier to craft the stories I want to tell or offer a completely different experience. I'm not sure AD&D does either of these things.I suppose I would need to see the rules before I make this claim, but I've been playing some version of this game for twelve years now.

The other reason is the barrier to entry; these books are expensive! Both the Player's Handbook and the Monsterr Manual are barely over 100 pages and clock in at $35 each. The Dungeon Master's Guide is more substantial, but it's also $10 more. I know these are supposed to be collector's editions, but it's my understanding that the only differences between these and the originals is the cover art and the gold-lined, gilded page edges.

It's too hard to resist the temptation to compare them to other games on the market. The Pathfinder core book, which is 500+ full color pages is only a hair more expensive than the DMG. DCC RPG, which includes an entire game system, is only $40. The Burning Wheel core book is over 600 pages and only costs $25. I could go on.

However, despite all of the practical reasons I have to convince myself to pass on these reprints, I am genuinely curious about the game's roots. Not $120 curious, but it just so happens that you can find copies of the originals in decent enough shape for about half that price.

Schools of the Earthlight Academy

The name of this blog is taken from a few places. Earthlight is the title of a collection of poetry by Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism. The Earthlight Academy is also an actual location in my homebrew world that I am in the process of reconstructing. I say reconstructing because a few years ago, when I moved to attend college, I threw everything away and gave my D&D books away. I don't know what I was thinking.

To represent this loss, I've jumped my homebrew world forward an entire age. The present day is set one hundred years after a cataclysmic flood that destroyed most of the Old World and buried the vast majority of accrued knowledge. The Earthlight Academy is a school of Wizards, Sorcerers, and Scribes who seek to reclaim the lost arcane secrets. Essentially, they are archaeologists of magic.

DCC hints at specialist Wizards, but does not have any real concrete rules to differentiate an Enchanter from a Conjurer. The book recommends designing mercurial effects for each school of magic, but I'm going to do one better. I'm going to design specialist Wizards for each major school of magic. These are not going to be entirely new classes, like my Orc, but minor tweaks that coincide with the flavor of each specialty. The first one will be the Necromancer, who is about 50% done.

In addition, expect to see some new patrons pop up on this blog. The ones in the DCC RPG core book are great, but we need a few more options. I plan to create at least one to coincide with the specialist Wizards. The first is going to be Golgomoth, a lich who has accrued vast knowledge about the secrets of life and death. Of course, there is always some fool willing to barter his soul away for such knowledge, and Golgomoth is always willing to oblige.

I don't have any sort of timeline for these projects, but I can promise the wait will be worth it. 

The Hound of Hirot is Dead

I finally had a chance to run the module that came with the pre-order for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Unfortunately, if you didn't snag a copy when the game dropped a few months back, you've probably missed your chance. Actually, if you haven't grabbed the game yet, you may be out of luck for a little while. Joseph Goodman reported that the first print run of DCC has sold out, which is great news. Here is the pitch:

High above the windswept moors and darksome woods, the village of Hirot is under siege. Each night, as the sun sinks beneath the western mountains and the candles burn low, a devil-beast stalks the village streets, unleashing its savage fury on the living. From warlord to pauper, crone to child, no one is safe.

Defeating the immortal hound will require more than mere blades or even spells. To slay the beast, the characters must delve into the mysteries of the land and its Savage Kings. Only then, armed with relics forged from a bloody past, can the most cunning and courageous of adventurers challenge the hound of Hirot!

There was a rather comical moment right at the outset of the session, when my player's party, led by a gambler who had run out of money and was traveling to Hirot to take part in the lottery learned its true purpose. The adventure opens with the players stumbling upon the Jarl, his thegns, and some 30-odd townsfolk ferrying a woman to a sacrificial altar.The group learned that a villager was scarified every three days to satiate the Hound. Naturally, the group wanted to interfere.

One of the most surprising things about this adventure is how much roleplaying there is. Players will spend the majority of their time in town interacting with NPCs and figuring out how to defeat the Hound. Not that I'm complaining, there are a lot of fun personalities that enrich the scope of this adventure beyond "kill the monsters, get the treasure."

It also doesn't fall into the trap that some adventures do when there are specific kill conditions for the monster. Doom of the Savage Kings offers multiple opportunities for the PCs to acquire the tools necessary to bring peace to Hirot. Not only is this just a great module, but it's a great template for fledgling DMs looking to understand how to run a "sandbox" style game. If you happen upon this in your FLGS or see a copy on eBay, I would definitely throw down the loot for it.

I Hate Fantasy

I have a confession to make: I hate fantasy literature. This might seem odd considering I run a blog about tabletop RPGs that focuses (at the moment) exclusively on the fantasy genre, but it's true. Aside from a handful of books, I loathe fantasy. Maybe I've just read the wrong books. Maybe it's because I went to school for literature and am a snob. I don't know.

However, this year I have set out to change this. I feel like I can't own funny-sided dice and toy soldiers that I've painted, lovingly, without enjoying a fantasy book or two. Last year I read A Game of Thrones after catching a few episodes of the show. I wasn't impressed. Or rather, the experience wasn't compelling enough that I felt obligated to devour the books in the way so many other people have. I have a theory: if I can find someone reading a book on any subway line during any given day of the week, there is no way it is good. Yeah, I'm definitely a snob.

Still, against my better judgement, I dove into A Clash of Kings earlier this year. I enjoyed this one a lot more. I still have issues with GRRM, but I actually felt tempted to dig right into his next book, A Storm of Swords, which I'm currently struggling to finish. I think he crafts brilliant characters who speak with razor-sharp wit. It's everything in between the dialogue that I don't enjoy. I had almost given up on the book, but found myself plowing through a few chapters this week. It seems, after 700+ pages, that I'm committed. I'll likely even read the whole series, because I'm a masochist and don't know when to quit. 

When DCC RPG showed up on my radar in April, it was the first time I heard the term "Appendix N." After doing a little research, I discovered I was familiar with some of those authors. Two exactly: Tolkien and Lovecraft. I know it's sacrosanct to say, but I hate their books. Tolkien's magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings is a series I've never been able to finish. It's really the first 100 pages of The Fellowship that kill me every time I attempt to read it. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is one of those rare fantasy books I actually enjoyed. Lovecraft has the exact opposite problem of GRRM for me. Absolutely haunting descriptions, but flat characters with boring dialogue. I think I liked two of his stories (I read 400+ pages of them), "The Colour from Out of Space" and "Pickman's Model."

It's really the other authors, whom I had never even heard of, that caught my eye, particularly Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard. I've slowly been collecting their books or putting them on hold at the library, hoping that they will provide me with better experiences than other fantasy authors have in the past. After I finish A Storm of Swords, I'm going to dive right into Swords Against Deviltry.

I end this post with two questions and a request: am I missing something in the works of GRRM, Tolkien, and Lovecraft? In some cases, it's been years since I've read their work, should I go back and re-read them? Lastly, what do you recommend to someone looking to make fantasy a "project"?

Dungeon Crawl Classics Alternate Cover: Wizard

It seems like Goodman Games' expectations have been blown to pieces as DCC RPG is already being reprinted. In addition to the regular blue cover out on the shelves, they are producing two variant covers. This is a sketch of what Joseph Goodman is calling "The Wizard One".

I can't wait to see this thing in color. The only issue I have is trying to justify owning three copies of the same core rulebook.

The Green Tide

Orc

The time of the Orcs is here. They have risen from their hovels, crossed the badlands and putrid swamps to conquer all who resist them. They wear their scars like honorable men wear their king's banner. The time of the Orcs is here, and they are angry.

Hit Die: Orcs gain 1d12 hit points at each level.

Alignment: Orc society is scattered and unorganized. It tends to be structured around roving war bands, with the strongest assuming the leader. Of course, this does not last very long, and most Orcs perish not from a well-aimed strike by their enemies, but by the cold, crooked knife of one of their inferiors. For this reason, Orcs are mostly Chaotic. Occasionally, Orcs separate themselves from the barbarism of their brethren and are Neutral. These arrangements are often familial in structure. Orcs are almost never Lawful, and those who are generally are the product of exile, capture, or orphanhood.

Weapon Training: Orcs are trained to use the battleaxe, blackjack, club, handaxe, javelin, mace, shortbow, shortsword, spear, longbow, longsword, two-handed sword, and the warhammer.

Level	Attack*	Crit Die/Table	Action Dice	Ref	Fort	Will	Rage Die
1	+1	1d10/III	1d20	+1	+1	+0	1d3
2	+1	1d12/III	1d20	+1	+1	+0	1d4
3	+2	1d14/III	1d20	+1	+2	+1	1d5
4	+2	1d16/IV	1d20	+2	+2	+1	1d6
5	+3	1d20/IV	1d20+1d14	+2	+3	+1	1d7
6	+3	1d24/V	1d20+1d16	+2	+4	+2	1d8
7	+4	1d30/V	1d20+1d20	+3	+4	+2	1d10
8	+4	1d30/V	1d20+1d20	+3	+5	+2	1d12
9	+5	2d20/V	1d20+1d20	+3	+5	+3	1d14
10	+5	2d20/V	1d20+1d20+1d14	+4	+6	+3	1d16

*Applies to both attack and damage rolls

Rage: The Orcs have built their reputation, not on their combat prowess, but on their ability to channel their hatred and malice into raw power. An Orc may enter a Rage at any point during a combat, even when it is not their turn. To determine the extent of an Orc's rage, roll the appropriate Rage Die, modified by the following:

• +1 for each creature the party kills
• +1 for each critical hit a party member lands
• +1 for each critical hit a party member suffers
• +1 for each fumble a party member suffers
• +1 for each party member who is dropped to 0 hit points

A player should keep track of these bonuses during combat. If an Orc enters a rage, is knocked unconscious, reduced to 0 hit points, or goes to sleep, erase all of the bonuses accrued. Orcs do not track these bonuses while in the midst of a Rage.

Rage	Atk/Dmg	HP	Fort	Will	DR	AC	Morale*	Speed	Threat	Action Dice
1	+1	+1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	+2	+2	+1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	+2	+3	+1	+1	-	-	-	-	-	-
4	+3	+4	+2	+1	-1	-	-	-	-	-
5	+4	+5	+2	+1	-1	+1	-1	-	-	-
6	+4	+6	+3	+2	-1	+1	-1	+10 ft.	-	-
7	+5	+7	+3	+2	-1	+1	-1	+10 ft.	19-20	-
8	+6	+8	+4	+2	-2	+1	-1	+10 ft.	19-20	-
9	+6	+9	+4	+3	-2	+1	-1	+10 ft.	19-20	-
10	+7	+10	+5	+3	-2	+2	-2	+10 ft.	19-20	+1d14
11	+8	+11	+5	+3	-2	+2	-2	+10 ft.	19-20	+1d14
12	+8	+12	+6	+4	-3	+2	-2	+10 ft.	19-20	+1d14
13	+9	+13	+6	+4	-3	+2	-2	+20 ft.	19-20	+1d14
14	+10	+14	+7	+4	-3	+2	-2	+20 ft.	18-20	+1d14
15	+10	+15	+7	+5	-3	+3	-3	+20 ft.	18-20	+1d16
16	+11	+16	+8	+5	-4	+3	-3	+20 ft.	18-20	+1d16
17	+12	+17	+8	+5	-4	+3	-3	+20 ft.	18-20	+1d16
18	+12	+18	+9	+6	-4	+3	-3	+20 ft.	18-20	+1d16
19	+13	+19	+9	+6	-4	+3	-3	+20 ft.	18-20	+1d16
20+	+14	+20	+10	+6	-5	+4	-4, Fearful Presence (DC 20)	+30 ft. 1st in Initiative	17-20	+1d20

*Applies to enemy morale checks

A rage lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Rage Die result (maximum 20). After a Rage ends, the Orc must make a fortitude save (DC = Rage Check + 1/per rage that day) or become fatigued. Fatigued Orcs suffer -1 to all  action dice, all skill checks are made untrained, and speed is reduced to half. This condition lasts for a number of turns equal to the margin of failure. Clerics who heal this condition are treated as if they rolled a natural 1 on a lay on hands check. While fatigued, Orcs may not enter a rage.

I Smell Man Flesh!: Orcs have an uncanny ability to smell flesh and blood. Orcs can smell any creature with either within 100 ft. Orcs can identify a creature they are familiar with by scent alone on a successful Luck check.

Initiative: Orcs spend their whole lives learning the art of war. While wielding two-handed weapons, they may roll 1d20 for initiative.