Quality Time

My son and I just finished watching Episode 3 of Thundarr the Barbarian - Mindok The Mind Menace on Youtube. Holy crap, I love that cartoon!

A Day in the Life or When We Next See Our Heroes?

Over at Tankards & Broadswords the subject was raised of Episodic vs Campaign focused games. This came at a interesting time for me as I am finding myself increasingly focused on episodic style games. I know that this is a result to all of the heavy lifting I have done for my Northern Marches campaign and prior to that the work I did for my Castles & Crusades campaign.

I am enjoying the Northern Marches game immensely! It has been great to see so many things come together into a very enjoyable campaign and I am hoping it goes on for quite some time. But I have been discussing getting my old C&C group back together for some gaming and the thought of putting together another long-term campaign does not interest me. If they were interested in the Northern Marches game that would be great but they are not.

Ideally, I would like to run a series of short "arcs" each one taking approximately 6 sessions - micro-campaigns if you will. Each micro-campaign could be kicked off with a collaborative brainstorming session. What does everyone want from the game? What flavour? Epic or gritty? Sword & sorcery or high fantasy? Political or dungeon crawling?

This would also allow for players to say, "Hey, remember Oscar the fighter I played a couple of months ago? He was fun. I want to play him again and try to kill that rat bastard wizard that fireballed his horse...". Or they could say, "I have always wanted to try a political game set during a war. How about we roll up various advisors to the king and try to win a war?".

Favorites could be revisited or new things could be tried.

Now admittedly these small mini-campaigns would be slightly railroady but I don't have a huge problem with that as everyone would have agreed during the brainstorming session as to the goal of the game.

The ideal of having a finish line is attractive to me right now. The Northern Marches game scratches my ongoing campaign itch. To mix my metaphors, the horizon of the Northern Marches is vast and unexplored. I can't wait to see what is over the next hill. But for starting a new game, I want a light at the end of the tunnel.

What type of games do you prefer? what type do you usually play? Are there any pitfalls to watch out for in an episodic game?

Easy Come, Easy Go

Since I made the decision to leave my job back in January, the household has been pretty conservative on expenses. But after a few good months of gains in the market and careful management of expenses I went a little crazy at the Friendly, Local Gaming Store this weekend.


Purchases included:
- Dragon Warriors
- D6 Adventures
- D6 Fantasy
- Savage Mars
- Sundered Skies
- Slipstream
- 50 Fathoms



The Dragon Warriors was an impulse buy. When I saw it in the store I remembered all of the good talk about it.

The D6 games were also a bit of an impulse. I have not read or played a dice pool type game except Burning Wheel. I have heard that Burning Wheel is somewhat similar to D6. Reading through Burning Wheel it definitely had some gameist aspects that scratch my itch in that regard. But it is waaaaay to rules heavy for me.

The Savage Worlds settings, particularly Slipstream, were the reason I went into the store in the first place. I have owned the SW Explorer's Edition for some time but just lately got around to reading it. It seems very interesting. I picked up the settings to get a better feel for Savage Worlds.

Lots of reading to do...

You got your Kingmaker in my Greyhawk

I have mentioned a number of times about using Barbarian Prince for a roleplaying setting or how I am adapting some of the mechanics from the game for my B/X campaign. This got me thinking about other wargames or boardgames that could be used to supplement a D&D campaign. We all know that Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival was and continues to be used for a map for wilderness exploration. In fact part of it has been adapted into the Northern Marches.

One thought that came to mind was taking the mechanics and cards from Kingmaker and adapting it for a Greyhawk campaign. The game could be set in Furyondy or Keoland and it could focus on political intrigue.












Another thought could be to use Citadel of Blood to develop a wizard's citadel. Or the related Swords & Sorcery game's wilderness map could be used in a similar fashion as Outdoor Survival.












Awhile ago, Jeff Rients mentioned using Divine Right as a campaign setting.
Has anyone else used a boardgame's or wargame's mechanics or map for an unrelated RPG?

Are Maps Required?

I ran a session of Northern Marches last night where a small party of adventures investigated a small dungeon below a ruined temple.
I ran the entire dungeon without a prepared map. I quickly made up a list of creatures that I thought would be present and used tables from Dungeon Bash to make the dungeon as we went.

This brought up a thought... Are dungeon maps necessary for the enjoyment of B/X Dungeons & Dragons?

Would it instead be possible to use an abstract system for goal driven scenarios, such as that from WarpQuest?

For example, the party in my Northern Marches game is looking for some clue or evidence as to what happened to a witch that might be able to help with a disease outbreak in a nearby village.

For an abstract system I could mark off 30 squares on a piece of graph paper. Square #1 would represent the dungeon entrance and #30 would be the goal (in this case the clue). Roll a d6 and mark off that number of squares on the graph paper and have an encounter (monster, trap, whatever). After that encounter roll another d6 and move that many squares on the graph paper and have a second encounter, etc. When the party reaches square #30 they have reached the Big Bad End Guy and the goal.

A larger example of this is the Palace of the Silver Princess Warp Quest Module. The mechanics don't match B/X so it would have to be adjusted but it is illustrative.

The Physics of that World

The other day I was thinking about different campaign ideas and my thoughts evolved to a short list of different campaign worlds (either published, literary, from movies, etc) for each old school game system I am familiar with. The trick is that I wanted to come up with some different ones - games and campaign worlds that normally people would not put together. Here is what I came up with:

- OD&D or S&W: Whitebox in Leigh Brackett's solar system. Not really a world but worlds. The ferocious heat and savagery of Mercury, the mystery of the dark jungles and fetid swamps of Venus, the corrupt hive of Earth and the dusty dying world of Mars.
- Holmes in Dark Sun. Get rid of all of the crappy metaplot and you would be left with low power rule set to reflect the danger of a dying world ruled by Sorcerer Kings.
- B/X in the world of the Sinbad movies. Fast and furious action in a setting from movies watched on weekend mornings - goes together like peanut butter and jam.
- Tunnels & Trolls in Talislanta. Just coming up with all of the kindreds would be great fun.
- Castles & Crusades in Greyhawk. Okay, this one isn't different. To me, C&C and greyhawk work great together.
- S&W: Core in the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy.It might be too depressing to actually play.

Are there any game systems and campaign settings that you would try to mix together?

B/X is my Favorite

Below are a number of reasons why the Moldvay/Cook edition of Dungeons & Dragons is my favorite. I know that a number of them are not exclusive to the B/X version but, when combined with the aspects that are unique, I find the complete system and how all of the pieces interact make this the best version for my games.
These are in no particular order.
1. A complete system in 128 pages
2. Unified bonuses & penalties due to attributes
3. Strong archetype classes
4. Race = Class and meaningful level limitations
5. Clerics have to prove their worthiness to their deity before getting a spell at 2nd level
6. Fighters are good with all weapons
7. The spellbook system
8. A tight power scale with a max of 14th level - I know this one is serendipitous given the unpublished Companion Supplement but I think the power level of the Expert set is about perfect for my games.
9. Complete but small subsystems for adventuring in dungeons and the wilderness
10. The Reaction Roll subsytem
11. It takes about 5 minutes to make a character.
12. It is unapologetically gameist in nature - doors in dungeons are stuck closed. You need to roll to force them open. Why? Because the rulebook says so and it is fun.
13. The importance of retainers.

14. The combat sequence
15. Abstract narrative combat system with just enough to make tactics important. Do you charge into the room or try to draw the monster into the hallway?
16. The BEST morale system EVER!
17. The examples of play - I don't know how many times I have read through the exploits of Black Dougal and his ungrateful companions
18. The roster of monsters - I find the roster of monsters in B/X to be very interesting and a large part of why B/X feels the way it does - a subject for a future post.
19. A "magical" array of magic items.
20. Intelligent magic swords
21. The entire "Dungeon Master Information" section - how to make a dungeon (see my Pit of Tortured Souls, which I really need to do some work on) and how to make a wilderness.
22. The first appearance of Save vs Abilities
23. A simple and very concise Spell Research system that is very important given the spellbook system.
24. An endgame
25. Three alignments and not good vs evil but instead law and society vs chaos and anarchy
Edit: 26. Erol Otus I can't believe I missed that one!