Standard Hirelings

The Grinding Gear is Ground. On to Andronia!

2010-12-20T20:27:00.005-05:00

After many, many torches, our bold party managed to wind their way successfully through the Grinding Gear. I wanted to thank Carl for introducing us to that and I believe he was going to write up a review of it for a future blog entry. Very fun.

I also wanted to remind everyone to write up a journal entry on how your character viewed their time spent in Andronia and Akbar's Dungeon. The evening ended in quite an epic battle. Despite the Barnowl falling at the hands of Varda, the evil cleric, the party has much to rejoice.

Lastly, we need to think about when we can play again. I'm hoping we can squeeze a session in before most of you have to get back to teaching. We can have that discussion over at the campaign's home on Epic Words. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Next Campaign

2010-12-13T22:32:00.007-05:00

I'm really looking forward to Jay's birthday and finishing up The Grinding Gear this weekend. In case you hadn't heard, Carl is putting his campaign on hiatus for a while after Saturday. I ran a mini campaign for Carl and Matt H. this summer when they came down for a Yankees game and it worked so well, I asked if they minded if we open it up for everyone. If there is time after The Grinding Gear--assuming we survive to escape!--we will actually start up my campaign currently titled The Dungeons of Akban.

I'm currently writing up a summary of what Carl and Matt's characters accomplished and you'll all join in when they return to town. I'm trying something different though to support the campaign. I'm keeping all of the material for the sessions, including the summary of events up till now, over at Epic Words. It will allow us to keep track of all kinds of information in a central location. The first thing everyone will want to do is create an account there and search campaigns for "Dungeons of Akban." Join it using the password "Andronia." If you want to create a character before Saturday, you can put all his/her information there and even create a journal entry telling us your backstory. The site will allow us to keep a record of all the loot as well as a place you can always see your experience points. I'll post summaries of the adventures there as well as any files that might be relevant like maps. The interesting thing will be seeing everyone's journal entries describing the adventure from your character's point of view. If you have any questions, just let me know. I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I will. Take care.

Our Next Session - The Birthday Marathon

2010-11-23T19:34:00.001-05:00

When: Sat. 12/18
Where: Jay's Place
Start Time: 4PM or ?????

As many of us discussed this past weekend, we appear to be set to play our next game on Sat. 12/18. In honor of Jay's birthday, Barb as graciously agreed to allow us to start at 4PM or even earlier if possible.

To help get a proper head count, could everyone respond in the comments thread to confirm attendance and let us all know just how early you could join us (e.g., before 4PM)? We can then make an informed decision about exactly when to get the game rolling.

Thanks for a very entertaining evening, everyone. It had been too long!

OK then . . .

2010-10-28T18:44:00.000-04:00

How does the weekend of November 19 or 20 work for everyone? I cannot do the sixth of November.

Next Session

2010-10-12T13:30:00.002-04:00

How does Friday 10/22 or Saturday 10/23 work for everyone. Do either tickle your fancy?

D and D Cancelled this Saturday

2010-10-07T12:36:00.001-04:00

I'm very sorry everyone, but due to unforseen circumstances, I will not be able to DM this Saturday. I am terribly sorry about this.

The Fallen Lands: Session 9 Reminder

2010-10-07T10:25:00.000-04:00

Just a reminder that after our long hiatus, we are set to play our next session this Saturday night. I hope you all are still able to make it! The Grinding Gear, Witchspire Hill, Leng's Tower??? So many choices...

See you Saturday!

When: Saturday, Oct. 9
Location: post festum's house.

Time: 6:00PM

Next Session - Second Try

2010-09-13T12:31:00.002-04:00

Since so many of us cannot make it on September 24 or 25, I would like to propose the weekend of Friday October 8 or Saturday October 9 as our next session. Any thoughts?

Next Session

2010-09-10T12:44:00.001-04:00

How will Friday, September 24 or Saturday, September 25 work for everyone for our next session date?

Next Session

2010-08-17T14:23:00.001-04:00

How does Tuesday 8/24 or Thursday 8/26 work for everyone for out next meeting?

Witchspyre Hill: Session 6

2010-08-06T15:11:00.005-04:00

May 16 - May 22

Our last session began with our intrepid adventurers descending once again into the gloomy depths of the dungeon below Witchspyre Hill. The group journeyed for about an hour through corridors and passageways that had they had previously explored, intent on visiting a previously unknown section of the underworld. Along the way, they stopped to make a rubbing impression of a mysterious copper disk that they had previously found that was covered with strange and unrecognizable magic runes. The party's magic users, Imgmar and Abu, thought that Bytor of Null's Harbor might be interested in trading the information for knowledge that he claimed to have regarding a possible clue to the dungeons strange origin.

Shortly after this, the party was attacked by a band of roving lizardmen. After besting the reptilian humanoids in combat, the group pressed forward and made the acquaintance of a strange individual, a filthy long haired human who emerged from behind a secret door and claimed that he was willing to trade goods and supplies for gold. Puzzled by this strange encounter, the party attempted to gather information from him. His answers to their questioning proved to be evasive. Who was this strange individual exactly? How did he come to be in the dungeon? These questions remained unanswered and the party decided to return to Null's harbor to trade their information with Bytor and hire an additional hireling. On their way out of the dungeon, they were beset by a group of strange froglike humanoids. The fight went well, though one of the mysterious creatures did manage to escape.

Back in town, Abu hastened to Bytor's shop and discovered that the mage was in fact very interested in the rubbing, though he claimed not know or understand its meaning. In exchange, he produced a very old tome that had been in his collection for some years. The book was entitled "Tales and Legends of the Old Empire" by Thentis the Sad - written in 603 (more than four hundred years earlier). It contained a collection of legends of the old empire that had existed in what is today Thrang over a millennium earlier. Bytor drew Abu's attention to the third chapter entitle "The Mysterious Dissappearance of the Tower of the Four Faces" It purported to be a retelling of a scroll dating from 1000 years earlier, now lost, that contained a story by someone named Skelos of an incident that took place some fifty years earlier in a coastal province of the empire. A tower with four screaming faces inhabited by Zorander, a powerful wizard stood once stood on a high hill by the western sea. A crude map included indicated that this spot was in all likelihood what is today Witchspyre hill. One day, according to Skelos's account, the tower and its foundations just mysteriously vanished into thin air. (Note: these events, if true, would have taken place 1,498 years earlier). Written in the margin by a hand other tahn the author's was the word "Malfarazzaar?" Bytor claimed that it seems likely that the tower of the faces may in fact be the same tower that appeared atop the Witchspyre just months earlier. When asked what the word "Malfarazzaar" might mean, Bytor claimed that he had no idea, nor did he know what later owner of the book may have authored this marginal gloss on the text. His own magical inquiries had only revealed that the word was a proper noun, but beyond that he had never been able to learn any more. He recommended that they seek out the advice of Sul-tas the sage, a learned man who lives on Boar's Head Isle in the Drakenspree Tarn and who specializes in ancient and obscure languages and history. When Abu asked him why he had never sought the advice of this sage, the mage claimed that he had never deemed the matter to be of much importance, or at least he never had until the tower mysteriously appeared recently. Bytor claimed that his business interests in town prevented him from making the journey to see Sul-tas himself at this time, but that he would be happy to share in any costs if Abu and his companions wanted to travel and ask him themselves.

The rest of the night passed without much incident, though several members of the party decided to enjoy some wenching in Sorrowside. This led to mixed results. Abu awoke the next morning only to find that in his drunken binge he had had an image of the tower of the faces tattooed on his back. Igmar also awoke with a new tattoo, a mysterious symbol on his wrist that he could not explain or understand. Wolfgar the cleric had had a less successful evening. Apparently, in a drunken revel he had managed to accidentally set fire to several fishermen's shanties by the harbors edge. Uncertain, if anyone knew that he was responsible for the accident, Wolfagar was understandably eager to leave town.

And so the party did, after hiring an additional hireling, one Zelig Croop, a heavy set, talkative individual whose breath reeked of garlic. On the journey back to Witchspyre Hill, Zelig privately told Wolfgar that he knew that he was responsible for the fire in Null's Harbor but that the town watch did not. He intimated that, as long as he was well taken care of by the party, he would make sure the town watch did not learn of this either.

The party arrived back atop the hill on May 22 only to find the remains of a recent campsite in the ground floor of the tower, a likely indication that another group of adventurers had recently preceded them into the dungeon. And that is where we left off. Thanks to all of you for a great night of gaming.

Experience: 60 points for all involved.

Expanding the S&W Canonical Spells?

2010-08-03T23:20:00.002-04:00

What can I say? I'm very happy to have made it to third level with my first s&w magic user and I wanted to pose a few questions to the group and the DM regarding including a few variations on just a couple ad&d spells that I want to submit for inclusion in the spell canon of this dm's game. I feel pretty confident that the selections I made wouldn't really risk unbalancing anything if interjected into the s&w core rules. Let me know what you think

Suggested ad&d First Level Magic-User Spell Additions

Enlarge/Reduce (p. 65 PHB)

Excerpt: This spell causes instant growth/reduction of a creature or object. Any creature grows/shrinks 20% per spell caster level (200% max). All objects grow/shrink 10% per level (100% max). Does not make weapons more powerful per se, but an enlarged table would be heavier and an enlarged door more resiliant to damage, etc. Unwilling creatures of this spell are given a saving throw to negate all effect.

Find Familiar (p. 66 PHB)

Excerpt: A familiar grants certain benefits to the magic user. However the magic user has no control over the type of creature it summons. And this summoning can only be done once per year. The familiar can converse and spy, etc. with the magic user who summons it.

When within 12ft of its master, the magic user adds the familiar's minimal hit dice (2-4) to his/her own. If the familiar dies double that number is permanently subtracted from the master.

Results Table
d20
1-4 Black Cat Excellent Night Vision and superior hearing
5-6 Crow Excellent Vision
7-8 Hawk Very superior distance vision
9-10 Screech Owl Night vision, visual ability, superior hearing
11-12 Toad Wide-angle vision
13-14 Weasel Superior hearing and very superior olfactory powers
15 Special Table
16-20 No Familiar Available within Spell Range

Push (p. 67 PHB)

Excerpt: When uttered, this spell allows the caster to cause an invisible force to strike against whatever object he or she is pointing at. The force of the push is not great, being 1 foot pound per level of the caster, but it can move small objects up to 1ft in any direction away from the caster, topple objects, or cause a creature to become unbalanced (loses its attack that round).

Suggested ad&d Second Level Magic-User Spell Additions

Ray of Enfeeblement (p. 71 PHB)

Excerpt: a magic user weakens an opponent by reducing their strength and ability to do hit point damage 25% or more (subtracting and addition 2% per level after 3rd). Duration: 1 round per caster level.

Current Top s&w Second level Magic User Spell Choices

So this is my list of suggested additions. For those of you willing to lend me your ideas, I'm also leaning toward selecting from the following 2nd level s&w spells. You can also quickly view all second level choices here if you want to make other suggestions.

Invisibility
ESP
Web

next session

2010-07-25T14:15:00.002-04:00

It turns out that I cannot play on Friday the 30th after all. August 6 is bad for me as well. Thus, by necessity, our next session will have to be August 7. Looking forward to it.

next session

2010-07-23T16:56:00.001-04:00

How would Friday, July 30 work for everyone?

Next Date

2010-07-21T22:14:00.001-04:00

I would like to propose either August 6 or August 7 as the date for our next session. How will this work for everyone?

Renaissance Festival, Anyone?

2010-07-20T13:30:00.001-04:00

Anyone interested in making the trip with Sophie and I to the Sterling Festival before it ends in mid-August? Given our other travel plans, the best weekends for us are as follows:

Sunday, August 1
Saturday/Sunday, August 7&8

Witchspyre Hill: Session 5

2010-07-14T12:08:00.003-04:00

May 10 - 15 HR

Last session began with the surviving party members hiding below ground, waiting out the evening of May 10 after the ill fated battle with the spiders the previous day. Fortunately, the evening passed without incident, and on the following day, the survivors were able to make it out of the dungeon without encountering further danger. Bloodied but unbowed, the survivors started the two day journey back to Null's Harbor to recruit more members.

Once there, the survivors returned to Jack's Place in Sorrowside and made the acquaintance of the fighter Bian Fu, Wolfgar a cleric of Kord, and Abu Thistlestrike a portly and jovial Magic User with a taste for ale. After some discussions over hearty flagons, these three agreed to join the party. At this point, Igmar decided to go back to Steng's brewery to negotiate with the underworld figure and hopefully see what potential help the thieves guild might be able to offer.

At the brewery, Igmar sat down for a council with Steng and his mysterious, blue handed, sorceress companion. Igmar proposed that his party of adventurers would be willing to offer a greater percentage of the profits taken from Witchspyre Hill, if Steng could offer any additional assistance to their group. Steng claimed to be intrigued by this offer, but said that he would need to see greater evidence that Igmar's group was competent before providing any assistance. He told Igmar that he might be willing to offer assistance for a greater percentage of the loot, but that he would need to see evidence that the party was able to pull significant wealth from the dungeon. He then reminded Igmar that the party had agreed to pay him and the guild a full twenty five percent of treasure taken from beneath Witchspyre Hill. Just as the negotiations were concluding, the deformed Igmar surprised everyone concerned by rising to his feet, bowing, and presenting the lovely, raven haired sorceress with a single flower as a tribute to her great beauty. The blue handed woman's icy demeanor shifted for a moment from cool aloofness to amused curiosity as she thanked Igmar and accepted his gift.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party was back at Thumbless Jack's attempting to hire some new hirelings. Given that no hireling had as of yet returned from Witchspyre Hill alive, not many were willing to join the group. After some clever negotiations on the part of Thimble the Thief the group hired two individuals - Tuck, an over weight, somewhat asthmatic man wearing an ill fitting suit of leather armor, and Joboron, a shifty eyed drunken mercenary from parts unknown.

The following day, May 13, the group arose early, intent on resupplying and heading back to Witchspyre Hill. Before leaving, however, Abu wanted to visit Bytor's magic shop located in Maintown. While browsing in the crowded and cluttered interior of the shop, Abu asked Bytor, a lean and wiry individual, if he knew anything about the mysterious appearance of the tower atop Wichspyre Hill. Bytor shut the door of his shop, produced a bottle of wine, and confided in Abu that he did have in his possession something that might reveal crucial information about the tower, but that he would only trade it for magic. He was not interested in gold. He also cautioned Abu against getting too involved with the church of Wee Jas, though the mage turned cagy at this point and refused to specify why such caution was necessary.

While this discussion was going on, Igmar entered Hezroat's spice shop and asked the merchant directly if the deal regarding Bartok's head was still in effect. Attempting to bluff, Igmar claimed that others had also offered him money for the head of the missing adventurer. Hezroat, however, seemed to know that Igmar was bluffing, claiming that he could not possibly imagine why anyone but he would want proof of Bartok's death. When asked by Igmar why he wanted such proof, Hezroat emphatically said that he could not say, but did stress that the offer of gold for such proof was still in effect. Igmar thanked the merchant, purchased a pouch of Devil's Weed for his pipe, and took his leave of the merchant.

Their business in town concluded, the group began their journey back to the mysterious dungeon beneath Witchspyre Hill.

They resumed their exploration on May 15. The party made some further headway, mapping some more unexplored corridors and chambers, and finally uncovered what appeared to be some long forgotten tomb or burial chamber hidden behind a secret door. Within, the group made the acquaintance of the crypt's occupant, a horrible animated skeletal figure clad in chain mail and armed with a gleaming and oddly untarnished longsword. A desperate battle ensued when the horrific figure arose from its ancient undead slumber and closed with the group, its skeletal hand closing around Tuck's throat and chocking the life out of the the pudgy hireling. The figure appeared to be radiating some sort magical aura of terror and several members of the group began to flee. Even those who appeared resistant to the thing's horrid power did not all seem to want to engage it however. Thimble, for instance, chose to withdraw with the those who were fleeing while Joboron, quite drunk, refused to fight the thing and ran as well. Things looked like they might turn grim when the horrid corpse seized Wolfgar by the throat and began to strangle him, but Abu the mage crushed its skull with a sling stone and saved the cleric from certain death. Released from its fear effect, the rest of the party regrouped and proceeded to loot the tomb, recovering 1200 gold pieces and the skeleton's apparently enchanted sword. At this point, three ghouls emerged from the corridor and attacked. A fierce fight thus followed, but the party quickly gained the upper hand. Noteworthy in this encounter, Lilyth actually dealt the "killing" blow to each ghoul.

And this is where we left off. After dispatching the ghouls, the group decided to pull back to the surface and camp for the night the ground floor of the tower before proceeding. Thanks to all for a fun night of gaming.

140 xp each for all concerned.

Next Session

2010-07-05T10:41:00.002-04:00

Jay has suggested Saturday, July 17 as a possible date for our next session. How will this work for everyone?

Friday's Session

2010-06-30T14:00:00.001-04:00

On Friday July 2, we will be playing at Matt and Heather's home in ER. Thanks to them for graciously volunteering to host. We will begin at 7:00.

Witchspyre Hill: Session 4

2010-06-25T15:50:00.008-04:00

May 6-10 1051 HR

Our last session began on the morning of May 6 in the year 1051 HR. After the very briefest of forays into the basement beneath the ruins of Leng's Tower, your party, consisting at this point of Igmar Houndhaven, Thimble, Pipstrelles, and the hirelings Steng and Doobin Bungbolt, decided to return to Thumbless Jack's in order to reunite with other party members and possibly recruit new adventurers. At Jack's, the party reunited with the fighters Lilith and Goram Ironfist (who apparently had waited out the zombie outbreak upstairs at the inn with a jug of Jack's best gnomish whisky). They also made the acquaintance of a new party member, one Pisspot Jenkins, a greenhorn who had recently decided to strike out upon the adventuring life to see what it had to offer.

After some discussion over hearty bowls of Jack's famous fish chowder, it was decided that it would be best to set out for Witchspyre Hill once again in the hopes of reaping even more and perhaps richer rewards. Before doing so, however, the party decided that some method for safely storing and securing its treasure must be found as it was becoming unwieldy to carry around so much coinage upon your persons. The party hit upon the idea of purchasing a structure in Null's Harbor and using it as a base of operations and a storehouse for its wealth. Thumbless Jack informed you that Steng, the owner of Steng's Brewery owned almost all of the free property in Sorrowside and it would be best to talk with him. Jack did, however, caution you that it was best to tread lightly and use care when dealing with Steng.

This advice proved to be well founded. After arriving at the brewery, you immediately realized that something was amiss. While Steng's was a working brewery,you saw no laborers at work, being greeted instead by six heavily armed thugs. Steng himself soon appeared accompanied by a beautiful, raven haired sorceress or magic user with blue stained hands. You quickly concluded that Steng was no ordinary brewer and that he may be highly placed in the local thieves guild. Negotiations proceeded and Steng suggested that he could sell you a small stone structure near the town's north wall for five hundred gold pieces. After examining the structure, you decided that you were in fact interested and sent Pipistrelles back to negotiate further with Steng and his mysterious blue handed companion.

Upon hearing of your interest, however, Steng became suspicious. How did such a group of neophyte adventurers such as yourselves have the coin to make such a purchase after all? Was it possible that you had returned from some adventure recently and had more riches at your disposal than you were admitting to. Not wishing to pay the tax levied by the guild on such swag, Pipistrelles lied, claiming that this was not true. But when Steng threatened to place him under a charm spell to ascertain the truth, the novice monk began to flounder, fumbling around with his words and finally stammering out that, while it was true that he had not told the whole truth, he had not actually lied.

This double talk did not satisfy the brewer and, after some increased pressure, the monk finally confessed that the party did in fact have a fair amount of wealth in its possession having recently returned from an expedition to Witchspyre Hill. Steng informed the monk that he expected his fair cut of this haul and sent a henchman to invite the rest of the party into the brewery to consider his demand.

It was at this point that things turned very ugly.

Upon hearing Steng's offer, Goram, the dwarven warrior shouted a profane challenge at Steng, drew his axe, and exhorted his comrades to fight. Pipistrelles kicked off the melee, introducing his staff to the skull of one of Steng's henchman and shattering it like a china bowl. Lilith followed suit, disemboweling another foe and spilling his smoking entrails onto the brewery's oak planked floor. Quick thinking Igmar also got in on the action and cast a charm spell upon another henchman. This early success was short lived unfortunately. At this point, one of your own henchman, Steng from Goat's Alley, switched sides declaring that he wanted no part of the fight. This treachery barely had time to register when the mysterious raven haired spell caster raised her blue hands and traced some weird runic shapes in the air before her, bringing a sleep spell down upon all of you and sending you falling into a crushing helpless slumber.

It should be noted that Thimble avoided this fate by quietly stealing away from the melee and fleeing across the burnt patch of Null's Harbor to Maintown.

The rest of you awoke tightly bound in a stone chamber, empty but for a flickering torch, beneath the brewery. Steng soon arrived and did not seem pleased. He informed you that as a price for lying to him and challenging his authority, he was going to take all of your gold (the wealth you had acquired from the recent sale of the great diamond to Jazzle the Jeweler). Furthermore, he expected you to pay a full twenty five percent of all future wealth taken from beneath Witchspyre Hill. Faced with little choice, you accepted his demands. But Steng was not finished. As payment for the loss of his henchmen, he had no choice but to take some your flesh as well. Drawing a dagger from his belt, he sliced off Pipistrelles's ear, sawing through the cartilage with several long strokes and cauterizing the wound with the burning torch. Pisspot Jenkins fared no better, worse perhaps. Annoyed by the neophytes contrary nature and smug back talk, Steng used a set of metal workers tongs to pry Pisspot's mouth open before cutting out his tongue with a pair of tin worker's shears.

Beaten and seething with resentment, you found yourselves released by Steng. You quickly headed back to maintown to meet Thimble, who incidentally had escaped with all of her wealth intact. Given the unfortunate recent turn of events, you all deemed it prudent to leave town as quickly as possible and journey back to the Stony Brow Hills to resume your exploration of the Witchspyre. The journey back to the hills lasted four days but passed without noteworthy incident. The screaming faces carved into the mysterious tower atop the hill loomed menacingly above you as you began the ascent up the steep sided, rocky edifice and, on May 10, you once again descended into the gloomy nether realms that unfold beneath it.

Your party decided to explore a region of dungeon that you had not previously visited. You soon came upon an incredible site, a great hallway, fifty feet wide and lined with granite pillars, its ceiling lost in darkness above. Curiously, the vast corridor was lit by ever burning torches in sconces mounted on the passageway's mighty pillars. Impressed by its magnificence and assuming that such a fabulous corridor must lead somewhere significant, you decided to follow the grand hallway to its terminal destination.

After following it for a short distance, you found that it opened into a large chamber containing a weird and horrific statue of a hermaphroditic naked woman. In addition to an enormous erect phallus, the bizarre artifact also sported a mouthful of fangs and two glittering emeralds for eyes. Unable to resist the lure of treasure, Goram Ironfist pried the emeralds loose from the statue but, in so doing, triggered some arcane sorcery that altered the very fabric of reality and, in a pulsing flash of light, changed his sex from male to female. Stunned by this odd turn of events, you continued to follow the grand hallway along its winding course through the dungeon.

After traveling for an hour or so and passing several side passages and doors along the way, you came upon an ominous sign, a dessicated web shrouded corpse lying in the middle of the great corridor. Not long after this, the party was beset by a pack of gigantic spiders that dropped silently on silken cords from the darkness above. A desperate fight thus ensued in the flickering reddish glow of the torchlight. Goram, Lilith, Pisspot, and Pipistrelles engaged the horrid monstrosities with steel and staff, while Thimble and Igmar engaged at range with bow and spell. While you did manage to fell three of the aberrations, more kept coming, silently and relentlessly, from the darkness above, and the tide quickly turned against you. Goram, Pipistrelles, Pisspot, and Doobin all met horrible fates, falling beneath the cruel, dagger-like and venom filled fangs of the giant spiders. Igmar, Lilith, and Thimble made a desperate and hasty retreat turning their backs upon their fallen comrades and fleeing for their lives. In fact, Thimble, a character who has proven herself to be quite good at escaping, even had to shuck off her backpack and leave over a thousand gold pieces behind in order to make her exit.

The three surviving characters did manage to make their escape and found refuge in some sort of abandoned and forgotten storage room and safely barricaded themselves within. This is where we left off. Once again, the party has been decimated and will undoubtedly need new recruits. This assumes of course that our three survivors can make it back to the surface. Thanks for a fun night of gaming everyone.

Experience: 653 each for Igmar, Lilith, and Thimble

Next Session

2010-06-23T14:54:00.000-04:00

How does Friday, July 2 work for everyone for our next session?

What Kind of Polyhedron Are You?

2010-06-12T00:37:00.002-04:00

As you prepare for our next session...In the spirit of full disclosure, my results are below. Strangely, it is fairly accurate. Especially about the dice. I've always had a particular fondness for the d4.

You are a d4: You are bright, perceptive, and driven. You would be considered a blessing to mankind, if you didn't insist on using your powers for evil. You are devious, deceitful, doubtful, and downright dangerous. Assassins can learn a lot from you. If your fellow party members knew how rotten you were, they'd go over and join the bad guys. Justified or not, you are meticulous in your ways: A poison for every person, and a dagger for every back. Much of your day is spent scheming or plotting. The rest of your time is spent trying to convince others that you're simply misunderstood.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Witchspyre Hill: Session 3

2010-05-31T18:04:00.006-04:00

April 29 - May 6, 1051

Our last session was certainly full of grim surprises. Play resumed with your party still standing in the hall of statues, smelling the seared flesh of your fallen companions, and contemplating the fabulous diamond that you had just won at so dear a price. Eager to convert the gem into spendable coinage and badly in need of new recruits to replace your lost numbers, you decided to take the two day journey back to Null's Harbor.

The journey passed without incident.

Back in town, the surviving members of the party spent the night drinking and relaxing at The Green Griffin and it was there that they made the acquaintance of several new adventurers who had also been drawn to the port town by rumors of possible treasures to be had in the Stony Brow Hills. The party's ranked were thus filled out with new meat. The following day, Thimble the Thief, Goram the Dwarf, Fizbon the Magic User, and Pipistrelles the Monk lost no time in selling the gem to Janzal the Jeweler, but were surprised when Janzal urged the group to keep their possession and sale of the diamond as secret as possible. The adventurers were puzzled by the merchant's emphatic desire for secrecy, but the mystery would soon be cleared up.

Back at the Green Griffin tavern, the rest of your party was relaxing and enjoying a leisurely breakfast of homemade biscuits and salted cod when they were approached in the tavern by one Rayas, an acolyte of the temple of Wee Jas. Rayas expressed a keen interest in knowing as much as possible about the Witchspyre Hill anomaly and even offered to pay for valuable information. Seeing an opportunity to make a little extra coin, Igmar Houndhaven lost little time in turning a tidy profit by selling Rayas the copy of "A Theory of Gateways and Inter-Planar Rifts" by Judge Ofic Gundap that you recovered from the mysterious tower atop the hill.

Not long after Rayas took his leave of you, those of you in the Griffin were approached by yet another figure, a wiry shifty young man who introduced himself as Max. Max claimed to represent a local organization dedicated to the protection of merchants and tradesmen from the predations of criminals and wrongdoers. For the small fee of five percent of all wealth recovered from the Hills, Max guaranteed that his organization could protect you from any unfortunate acts of violence or criminality that might otherwise befall you. Quickly inferring that you were in fact dealing with the local Thieves' Guild, you agreed to pay Max his tithe from your sale of Gundap's treatise, but were very glad to have kept the recovery of the diamond a secret. Slightly unnerved by the encounter with the Guild, your party decided to leave town that day and head back to Witchspyre Hill in the hopes of winning more wealth and riches.

The first day of your journey back to Witchspyre Hill passed without incident, but on the morning of your trip's second day, things began to turn ugly. You arose on the morning of May 2 to find the hilly terrain of eastern Gnut shrouded in a dense, virtually impenetrable fog. Pressing on and closely following the steadily rising road you discovered an ominous sign, an abandoned turnip cart, stained with blood and left on the side of the road. You did not have to wonder for long about the answer to this puzzle. About an hour later, the zombies attacked. With little warning, a gang of the mindless walking dead came lurching out of the mist and attacked. Fortunately, the party's cleric was able to call upon the benevolence of his mysterious deity and drive the horrid walking corpses with the sheer power of his faith. Shaken but undaunted, your party pressed on, climbing upward into the rugged and craggy Stony Brows, finally arriving at the foot of the Witchspyre just before nightfall. Needing rest, you decided to sleep atop the steep sided conical prominence, just beneath the shadow of the mysterious tower. The setting sun shone weakly through the mists, hanging like a drop of blood in the murky sky as you set up camp.

The night did not pass well.

Shortly before midnight, the moaning sounds of the walking dead arose from the cold fog that cloaked the rocky slopes below your campsite. This gave little warning and, almost before you knew it, the zombies were upon you, lurching into your ranks, mindlessly driven by their obscene and unholy lust for living flesh. Within moments, Fizbon the magic user was slain. He had barely sat upright in his bedroll when one of the fiends bit into his throat and tore out his jugular. Perhaps the hen-pecked mage finally met something more frightening than his wife. The party's hirelings, Dent Footknocker and Filthy Pete, fell next, cut down while they impotently fumbled for their weapons. Beric called upon the power of his mysterious and unknown god once again, but alas, this time the power of his faith was not enough to turn back the shambling figures lunging from out of the fog. At this point, some in the party began to retreat to the shelter of the tower itself while others, Augran (sp?) the Dwarf and Biter the Fighter girded themselves with their tools of war and turned their steely faces to confront the undead menace. Unfortunately, their bravery was not enough to carry the day, and moments later, the rest of the party watched their last two fighters vanish forever beneath a grasping and clutching wave of putrefied flesh. Alas, the groans of the zombies could not drown out their screams. The rest of the party thus closed the tower door on a scene whose description is probably best left to the imagination.

The rest of the party, now consisting of Igmar Houndhaven the Magic User, Beric the Cleric, Thimble the Thief, and Pipistrelles the Monk spent a nervous night barricaded within the mysterious tower, keeping one eye on the outside door and the other on the stairway leading to the monster haunted under-realms below. Shortly after dawn, they nervously peered out of the tower, expecting the worst, but finding instead that the zombies had withdrawn, perhaps lured elsewhere by other, less fortunate prey. Lacking fighters, the most prudent course of action was to try and return to Null's Harbor and recruit more muscle. The journey back passed without more combat, but the distant moans of the walking dead occasionally met your ears as it drifted wraith-like through the dense, miasmic fog that still blanketed Northern Thrang.

When you arrived at the town gates on the evening of May 5, you learned from the guardsmen that Gnut had indeed been the victim of a zombie outbreak. While the walking dead often do wander from out of the Wargwood Forest to the north, occasionally they come in far greater numbers than usual. The last three days had witnessed just such an onslaught. Nevertheless, they reassured you that this outbreak was deemed minor by the kingdom's inhabitants and that King Haldric had swiftly ordered troops to quell the menace. The situation was supposedly already well in hand.

Once in town, the party decided to lay low and struck out for Sorrowside, the town's westernmost neighborhood frequented by adventurers, mercenaries, and other miscreants. You arranged lodging at Thumbless Jack's, a rowdy but friendly tavern, and put out the word that you were seeking swords for hire. The evening passed without incident for most of the party with the exception of Igmar and Beric who decided to hit the town and spend some of their newly acquired loot on wenching. This led to mixed results at best. On the morning of May 6, Beric awoke stark naked and penniless in the temple of Father Dagon, a sea god of sorts worshipped mostly by fishermen and sailors throughout the Thrangian Kingdoms. Apparently, deep in his cups and unaware of what he was doing, Beric generously donated all of his wealth and worldly possessions to temple. Frantic negotiations with the chief cleric of the place failed to rectify the situation and Beric was forced to return to Jack's Place to rejoin his comrades and nurse his hangover. Hopefully, he now has the favor of Father Dagon. Meanwhile, Igmar awoke as a prisoner, locked in a cell, in one of the western guard towers. He learned that, in a drunkenly belligerent state, he had argued with the watch over some trivial matter and had even attempted to ensorcel a guardsman. Needless to say, this was mightily frowned upon and the guard promptly clapped him in irons. Fortunately, the town watch is used to such shenanigans, especially in Sorrowside, and the rest of the party was able to secure his release with some smooth talking and the payment of fifty gold pieces to the officer on duty.

Back at Thumbless Jack's, the party secured the services of two new henchmen, Steng from Goat's Alley, a drunken, shifty eyed fellow with a horribly burned visage and Doobin Bungbolt, a strapping brute missing his two front teeth. Deeming it best to wait for the zombie outbreak to fully subside but still thirsting for adventure, the party decided to tentatively explore the ruins of Leng's Tower, an abandoned ruin in the town's burnt patch. Not much exploration was done, however. You descended to the entrance room of the tunnels below the tower looked around and decided to hold temporarily. This is where we left off. All in all, I thought it was a fun, if somewhat blood soaked, evening.

225 experience points each go to Igmar, Beric, Thimble, and Pipistrelles

Next Session

2010-05-24T09:52:00.000-04:00

How does June 11 or June 12 work for everyone for our next session?

Witchspire Hill - Session 2

2010-05-12T17:26:00.002-04:00

Dates: April 26-28, 1051 HR

Our second session began on April 26, with your party hundreds of feet below the surface of Witchspire Hill, peering into the monster-haunted gloom of the under passages that have appeared there so recently. Over the course of the next three days, you cautiously and methodically continued your exploration of the vast labyrinth searching for hidden treasure and attempting to make sense of the enigmatic structure.

Thus far, the dungeon has been reluctant to give up its secrets. Undead seem to predominate, though other vermin like monstrous centipedes, rats, and stirges appear to be in abundance as well. The complex also contains a variety of traps in the form of pits and dead falls, as was discovered by the much missed fighting man , "Murder," who had the misfortune of tumbling headlong into one such engine of death. The party did discover evidence that there may be more intelligent inhabitants of the under-realm as well. The corpse of a bipedal, toad like humanoid, clad in chain mail and a scarlet cloak was found, for instance. The identity, or even species, of this mysterious individual has yet to be determined.

The party also managed to translate the curious red leather bound book recovered from the upper tower, learning that it was a treatise entitled "A Theory of Gateways and Inter-Planar Rifts" authored by some one named Judge Ofic Gundap. The book was written in an unknown language.

As the exploration continued, even more curiosities began to be found. Perhaps one of the most baffling came in the form of an immensely long corridor lined with niches containing busts of humanoid heads. No two busts were the same and seemed to depict unique individuals, each rendered in exquisite detail. As if this were not strange enough, you noticed that one of these busts portrayed the startled visage of none other than Raylene Marybegotten, a former member of your party who you had seen slain before your very eyes just days before.

But on the morning of April 28, you discovered at the end of this hall of heads what was perhaps the dungeon's most memorable horror thus far. An enormous diamond hung suspended in mid air atop an elaborately carved pedestal bearing a sculpture of a leering, laughing devil. Before the pedestal, the floor bore an intricate, but scorched, sunburst pattern. When you approached the pedestal, the devil sculpture animated and claimed the diamond to be shield by a magical force field. In order to lower the field and recover the diamond, it told you, a single individual must stand in the sunburst and answer three riddles, the condition being that only the one in the sunburst may answer. Silas the Magic User bravely stepped forward, uttered a few obscenities, entered the sunburst, and listened to the animate sculpture recite its first riddle. Unfortunately for Silas, Bella the Monk, overcome with excitement that she knew the answer, blurted out a response to the riddle. The party then learned the consequences for answering out of turn as they looked on in horror as Silas was engulfed in a pillar of blinding flame; his screams of agony echoed down the long corridors of Witchspire Hill as his flesh melted from his bones and his eyeballs poached like eggs in his skull.

In response to this hasty outburst, Zizek the Magic User seized Bella and shoved her into the sunburst, demanding that she too answer a riddle. But while Bella knew the answer to the first of the statue's riddles, she failed to answer its second and thus found herself consigned to the same terrifyingly fiery death as Silas. At this point, some among you raised the possibility of leaving this puzzle trap behind and cutting your losses. But the lure of the fabulous diamond, hanging glittering in the air before you, proved too tempting to ignore and you pressed on with the perverse and deadly game. Thus began a grim procession as two more characters - Chalice, priestess of Veccna, and the much loved Brother Coin - entered the dreaded sunburst only to be immolated as those who had gone before had been. Spirits began to sink as the corridor filled with filthy smoke and the nauseating smell of burned flesh and rendered fat until, at last,Goram the dwarven fighter stepped forward and answered the statue's final question thereby releasing the diamond.

This is where we left off. In order to reap full xp for the gem, you must of course return with to civilization, but you are of course under no compulsion to do so.

194 xp for each surviving PC

Next Session

2010-04-26T12:02:00.001-04:00

I will post a campaign update with experience points, but for now I just wanted to suggest either Friday May 14 or Saturday May 15 for our next date. Thoughts?

Witchspire Hill: Session 1

2010-03-31T17:23:00.002-04:00

Date: April 22-25, 1,051 HR

Our first night of play began with our hardy adventurers arriving at dusk outside the gates of Null's Harbor, principle town of the the Kingdom of Gnut. Upon entering the town, the party lost little time tracking down the truth to the rumors that had been trickling down the coast road into central and southern Thrang. After some inquiries were made at The Green Griffon tavern, the party made the acquaintance of a local jack-of-all-trades known as "Filthy Pete," who claimed to have information about the strange goings on in the Stony Brow Hills and the stories that had lured the party to Gnut.

According to Filthy Pete, five months earlier, a mysterious black tower manifested itself one night atop a remote hill know as Witchspire Hill. No one witnessed any construction of the structure - it was simply "there" one November morning. Needless to say, the bizarre occurrence created a stir when news of it reached the Null's Harbor which lay just one day's march to the west. Unable to resist the lure, a local adventuring company known as "The Wild Boys" headed out to investigate. They returned to town one week later telling tales of an extensive network of tunnels, galleries, and chambers laying beneath the tower. Significantly, they also returned with treasure in the form of gold coins, gems, and some strange and foreign looking objets d'art. After resupplying, "The Wild Boys" headed out again to investigate "The Witchspire" as locals had begun to call it. That was late November.

As of yet, they have not returned.

Following the discoveries of "The Wild Boys," two other adventuring companies - "The Undermountain Boys" and "The Bronze Dragon Adventuring Club" - set out for hill hoping to recover additional loot. Not a single member of those groups have returned either.

Despite the obvious danger, our adventurers could not resist the lure of possible treasure to be found and quickly formulated plans to set out for the Witchspire on the following morning. After some negotiations with Filthy Pete, they managed to convince him to come along as a guide and even serve as a shield bearer for Igmar Houndhaven, one of the party's magic users. Filthy Pete offered to find an additional hireling to serve as shield bearer for Silas Graylock, the party's second magic user. Pete made good on his promise and returned the following morning with an affable if somewhat dim-witted bumpkin named Dent Footknocker.

Also at the Green Griffon, the party learned from three burly dock hands about the recent execution of Gnut's Queen. Apparently, King Hardric VII, current monarch of Gnut discovered that his wife, Queen Yvonne, had been cuckolding him with her music tutor. He promptly dissolved their marriage and had her executed. But because Queen Yyvonne was sister to King of Alfonso, ruler of the Thrangian Kingdom of Eknad, a political dispute has ensued. King Alfonso is not at all happy about the execution of his sister and tensions between Gnut and Eknad are nearing a boiling point.

The following morning, the party made ready to leave town by purchasing supplies and questioning some local merchants who had purchased some goods from the Wild Boys.

But while leaving Bytor's Magic Shop, the group's two magic users, Silas and Igmar, were approached by an indiviual identifying himself as Legas who claimed to be an agent of Hezroat, a prosperous local spice merchant. After cornering the two neophyte mages for a private conversation, Legas informed them that his master, Hezroat, would pay everyone in the party 100 gp each if they returned to town with the head of Bartok, leader of "The Wild Boys." Legas offered no information concerning Hezroat's motives in offering this deal. After some discussion, Silas and Igmar took the deal, but decided to keep the deal to themselves and not tell the rest of the party.

The rest of the morning was uneventful except for the actions of Thimble, the party's thief, who took the opportunity to pilfer a silver comb from a merchant's stall in the central marker square.

The trip to the Witchspire was uneventful and the party arrived late in the afternoon on April 24.

Upon investigating the tower itself, the party discovered what appeared to be a ransacked wizard's tower. Little was learned beyond that, but the group did find a secret compartment containing a scroll and book bound in red leather, both written in a strange and unfamiliar language. After camping for the night, our adventurers finally began their descent into the regions below the tower on the following morning.

There, the group began exploration of what they presumed to be a large underground complex. And sure enough, the complex was not uninhabited. Horrid undead in the form of ghouls and a strange bull headed skeleton assailed the party within their first hour of exploration. It was here that we suffered our first loss. Rayleen Marybegotten, a female fighter, was savagely gored to death by the bull headed skeleton during the desperate, torch-lit battle. Though shaken, the party decided to continue, and after stripping Rayleen's corpse of all useful items, they did just that.

And this is where we left off, poised on the edge of the unknown mysteries and dangers that lie beneath Witchspire Hill. Nice work everyone.

Experience Points Awarded: 43 points per character. 5 bonus points go to Thimble for her theft.

Next Date

2010-03-23T21:45:00.001-04:00

I'll post a campaign update sometime in the next few days, but for now I'd like to throw out some possibilities for our next session. How does Friday, April 16 or Saturday, April 17 sound for everyone?

Welcome to the Kingdoms of Thrang

2010-03-14T19:18:00.002-04:00

The Kingdoms of Thrang, also known as the Thrangian Kingdoms, are a collection of minor principalities, about sixty in number that lie along the eastern edge of the Great Western Sea. [Editor’s note: For those of you who have played in the Fallen Lands before, the northernmost part of Thrang lies about 560 miles due south from the town of Southwaite on the Hrothgar Peninsula]. The region is populated mostly by humans. Thrang is characterized by rolling hills and deep valleys. Its Kings and Queens rule from dark and ominous hilltop castles and forts. The climate is warm and temperate [similar to Northern Virginia in our world], but gloomy. The towering Somber Horn Mountains that comprise Thrang’s eastern border effectively block the moisture laden west winds that blow from the sea, making the region quite rainy and almost perpetually overcast.

To call the Thrangian principalities “kingdoms” is quite generous, in fact; most have a population that averages around four to five thousand souls. But kingdoms they are nevertheless, each ruled by its own monarch and attendant aristocracy. All of these minor kingdoms share a common culture and religion, one of the main reasons for conceptually grouping them together in the first place. Moreover, most of the Royal families of Thrang have intermarried over the years, thus strengthening and reinforcing the bonds that give the region its unique and distinctive identity.
Despite this sense of commonality, however, there is seldom peace in Thrang. The Thrangian Kingdoms are given to great intrigue and rivalry. Blood feuds, plots, schemes, and outright war are common in Thrang as its various petty monarchs vie and compete in the attempt to usurp each other’s power.

[Yyrg the Bald, chief historian at Canaladaer Keep, described Thrang as existing in a state of “perpetually controlled chaos.” These remarks were made in his famous treatise on the region entitled Mandeville’s Travels: An Actual Excursion to Thrang Along with Imaginative Speculations of the Lands of the Distant South which May or May Not be Ruled by Snake Men.]

There are several reasons why the region does not simply devolve into total anarchy or gradually coalesce into increasingly larger and more powerful polities as the various kingdoms annex each other.

First, the threat of outright war is somewhat held in check by the fact the entire region is threatened from without by even greater dangers that could potentially spell the end of all the Thrangian Kingdoms. To the north lies the dreaded Wargwood Forest, home and spawning place of hordes of foul undead. To the east, Thrang is bordered by the towering Somber Horn Mountains. In one sense, these mountains are a blessing in that they shelter Thrang from the predations of the fierce Gnoll tribes that rule the Pack Lands beyond them. But, the mountains are also home to their fair share of monsters. Each spring and summer, bands of mountain Trolls, Ettins, and primitive Giants descend from the Somber Horns to raid the eastern kingdoms. To the south lie the Pirate Holdings of Zed, another source of continual danger. Given that Thrang is surrounded on all side by such threats, its ruling monarchies have naturally come to a tacit understanding that whatever their potential grievances with each other may be, it is in everyone’s best interest to collaborate militarily at some level for the common good.

Conflicts between the kingdoms thus tend to involve assassination attempts, espionage, sabotage, duels, and other forms of covert subterfuge. Nevertheless outright war between kingdoms is not unheard of.

The second, and perhaps most significant cause, for the “stabilized chaos” that characterizes Thrang is the Church of Wee Jas, Goddess of Magic and Death. This church is the official, royal religion of almost every kingdom in Thrang. According to custom, the Thrangian monarchs all rule with the divine blessing of the Goddess and the church maintains major temples in every monarch’s court. The church must sanctify every royal marriage and coronation. Make no mistake though, Thrang is not a theocracy. The church’s power, while considerable, is mostly of the “indirect” sort. It has no power to pass legislation and commands little in the way of military power. Because they lack the strength to affect a complete takeover of power, the Magician Priests of Wee Jas must be content to manipulate the political landscape from behind the scenes. But it is in their best interests to maintain the current state of fractious squabbling among the Thrangian monarchs. The more those monarchs are at each other’s throats, the easier they are for the Magician Priests to control. A strong ruler, one who amassed considerable power and allies would be threat to the power of the church. Thus, the church maintains a highly trained cadre of clerical advisors who pour honey into the ears of Thrangian kings and queens, who subtly arrange a marriage here, a poisoning there, all in the name of maintaining the status quo.

To be sure, Wee Jas is not the only deity worshipped in Thrang. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of minor deities, are worshipped by the common people. Demon and Devil worshipping cults are quite common.

Our Game begins in the Kingdom of Gnut, ruled by King Hardric the Seventh, which lies at the extreme northwestern tip of Thrang. Gnut huddles under the eaves of the feared Wargwood Forest from which the walking dead are frequently known to wander. The villages of Gnut thus have good walls and stout gates. Merchants and travelers are advised to go armed and avoid the roads at night. There are wolves, zombies, and worse things loose in the dark.

You have come here lured by the promise of adventure and treasure. Vague rumors have reached your ears that strange things are afoot and treasure has been found in the Stony Brow Hills, a rugged and desolate region that separates Gnut from its eastern neighbor, the Kingdom of Zilb. These hills are home to many weird ruins, remnants of a lost civilization that predates the rise of Thrang. Some of these ruins may hold ancient treasures. Vague, partially formed, hints have trickled southward down the coast road and reached your ears, something about a mystery in the hills and the possibility of loot.

We begin with you heading northward on route to Null’s Harbor, a port town on the Western Sea and Gnut’s principle settlement. You are several hours from your destination. It is mid afternoon and a steady drizzle falls from the nickel grey sky overhead. It is April, the cruelest month. Pray that it not be for you.

Session 1 - The Fallen Lands (RSVP ASAP)

2010-03-10T21:58:00.003-05:00

Date: Friday, March 19 2010

Start Time: 7PM

Location: DM's Home.

*Please RSVP in the comments as soon as you can. If you need an address or directions, let the dm know in the comments as well.

It looks like we are going to freeze the dramatic fight between "The Eight" and the goblins (and other?) inhabitants of Giantscrag and start our next round of Eime campaign sessions in medias res when we return to the Island.

Our next session, then, will be devoted solely to starting our next campaign in Ironbeard's "Fallen Lands" setting. In the coming days perhaps our dm can post and/or send any campaign-related information to the players?

Finally, it would be great if all the regular players in the group weigh in on the comments about their availability on this new date...I know many of you have responded negatively to the 3/20 date, but let's try to get a March session going before we slip into April.

Next Session & Comment Test

2010-03-07T21:57:00.003-05:00

Date: Saturday, March 20 2010

Start Time: 6PM

Location: TBD

We've been having a fairly serious comment problem of late that threatens to make the Blog a bit useless compared to other media for organizing the monthly sessions of our group. I've followed just about every help suggestion that seems relevant via Blogger/Google so I would ask that all who read this drop a quick comment so I can help determine if the problem has been solved or at least minimized.

Those in the group who still find themselves unable to comment, please send me an email.

Session 8B - Eime Campaign / Session 1 The Fallen Lands Planning (Please RSVP)

2010-02-27T20:42:00.004-05:00

I'm still planning on posting an abbreviated summary of Session 8a before we next get together to complete the session and this round of the campaign, but in the meantime let's start talking about Session 8b and the beginning of our next campaign cycle in the Kingdom of Thrang.

I won't be free again until March 20 at the earliest, so I thought I'd take a chance and see who could make it if we held our next session next weekend. So who can make:

Date: Saturday, March 6 2010

Start Time: 6PM

Location: TBD

*Please RSVP in the comments as soon as you can.

Session 8 Planning Update - Eime Campaign (Please RSVP)

2010-02-13T21:25:00.007-05:00

Date: Friday, February 19 2010

Start Time: 6PM

Location: The dm's humble home.

*Please RSVP in the comments as soon as you can. If you need an address or directions, let the dm know in the comments as well.

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 7

2010-02-08T01:12:00.014-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, during the Fourth Week of the 10th Moon, between the Day of the Rabbit and the Day of the Weasel.

In our last session those that call themselves The Eight not surprisingly found themselves struggling to find their way through the Frowning Forest. Seeking to return to the Jinstown compound to regroup and rethink their pursuit of the retreating goblin armies, in the end it was a long abandoned Eime memorial that they found instead of the isolated refuge home of Pog Jin. And, true to form for many in the group, the decision to explore and pick through the old bones of a dead civilization took precedence to rescuing the kidnapped Steevin Jin. At the end of our evening of adventuring the party had fully explored this "Memorial to the Ones First Lost" - including using considerable cunning to gain access through its magically sealed door and to its secret crypt area.

After having fled the devil in the dark, our adventurers debated and decided their best bet given the late hour and lack of visibility was to follow the purr of the Brass feline statue first discovered in the tomb of Sybil the Lachrymose. The Eight walked on through the dark trees well into the evening "following" the sound, and, as it turned out, walked well longer than sense suggested proper if they had indeed been heading in the direction of Jinstown.

Our heros then attempted to reconsider what to do once it had become undeniable that they were lost. Besides an obvious 360 degree turn and return in the believed direction of the amphitheater and hideous Bone Devil, the party's female monk Lilyak sought out moss on the surrounding trees that might suggest a north/south direction. Upon discovering that a thick black moss covered a wide swath of trees in their entirety - thus being no help in distinguishing north from south - the two magic users of the group were struck by an unknown magical power that deprived them of their entire memory of the last 24 hours; including, most importantly, their knowledge of the spells and proper incantations they had prepared that very morning.

As a result of this sudden unexpected and unexplained weakening of the party in an already precarious position, The Eight prepared to make camp and wait for better luck to prevail in the morning sunlight, however defused it might be through the veil of the high forest canopy. It was at this point that Drin the fighter, on reconnaissance of the area immediately surrounding the camp, abruptly stumbled upon an impressive sight: a near 18 foot tall wall of heavy Eime brass that jutted out from the tree line and blocked their path. The perimeter of this giant wall - covered in layer upon layer of thick and jagged intimidating-looking thorns - was traced by the party and by their best guess determined to be a complete ring or circle extending some 90 feet in diameter. Having a well-justified concern for their safety should they expose themselves with a camp in the open, the group made a deliberate and patient scaling of the the wall of this imposing ring and hoped to use its inside perimeter for protection from the general horrors of the Frowning Forest.

On the inside of the ring The Eight found a serene and beautiful garden of luxurious grasses with a gentle and satisfying aroma. At the center of the deep and thick and unblemished grass garden lay a collapsed stone structure with only a single tall metal candle stick positioned directly at its center, itself topped with a large candle that appeared to have never been lit. After setting up a guard schedule, the party retired to an evening under a nearly opaque sky while reclining on the most comfortable of plots of land they had found on the Island.

The morning of the Day of the Weasel brought the discovery by fighting man Ayak Akai of a simple 3ft by 3ft flat and plain panel or plaque of brass inlaid in floor of the stone monument. Akai's gaze seemed to trigger the emergence of an Eime sentinel face that greeted his countenance and the faces of those around him with the exclamation: "We are glad you have come back to us. The sisters forgive everything...If you but ask and show us your true faces." This statement was addressed to the names "Cassia the Wistful" and "Luir the Intemperate". With a flash of insight, Akai recalled the casual gift of two white masks The Eight had received from the Lord Mayor of Colony Company Town 2. These masks were made of a strange light painted wood in the shape of faces exaggerated in their elongated features. Nearly one month earlier Newbold Philo had referred to these masks as "Elven" in origin, so the fighter Akai and the magic user Gwyd donned the two masks in the possession of the party and starred back at the face in the floor.

The crackling of crust built up on a mechanism after eons of disuse followed, and the stone plate dropped away revealing a few stone stairs down into an unknown darkness. Understandably curious, the adventurers followed the opening down into a tomb structure that, to the extent a glance may reveal, seemed considerably older than the resting place of Sybil the Lachrymose they had found within the Boundless Buckle mine. As they moved down the stairs en masse and began to take note of all significant details, none other than the fighter Akai whose quick thinking had gained them access in the first place found himself triggering a pit trap to open beneath him and which dropped him some 20 feet deep into a thick pool of an awful liquid. After a brief encounter with some water-born rats, and the discovery of a rusting but not ancient suit of plate mail armor, Ayak Akai was pulled back to safety and the party continued to explore the strange antechamber before them.

Beyond the pit they found a slightly large room with a door along one wall, a statue of the Goddess Eime along another, and an roughly carved but unadorned stone wall to the left of the statue of the goddess in the pose for which she is most often represented: drowning Pelor's children in a garden well. The large door appeared to be composed of iron and although no obvious hinges could be located, three large metals dials could be discerned along with four identical groups of symbols set around each dial. The statue had written along its base in the Eime script the inscription "I've Returned for I am Sorry" and a noticeable leftward orientation to its left hand and its overall gaze.

The monk Lilyak - again proving herself brave and useful to her comrades at arms - stepped forward, Spear in hand, and repeated the words on the inscription into the open ear of the statue, introducing herself as the barrier of one of the weapons first used by elf to murder elf. At this declaration, the statue shifted subtly and pronounced a puzzle to the group:

"Once to the Left, and One Small Step Down.

Twice to the Right and Your Salvation is Found.

Embrace Any Other Path, My Sister

And to Oblivion Your Soul is Bound."

For several minutes the party pondered this strange polysemousness. Taking a chance that its left/right reference was to the strange iron door and its dials, the party pressed upon the magic user Cleg's adjutant Smutty Booth to test their interpretive readings by setting the dials to their direction while the party removed itself back up the stairs for safety's sake. After promising the reluctant young man Booth a share in the total haul from the contents of this particular delving, he stepped forward and seized the chance to show his fellows and his master his true mettle. And as he set the last of the three dials into position in accordance with his master's instructions, The Eight collectively gasped as Smutty Booth of County Cash simply ceased to exist before them.

It took the party just over four minutes of great suspense to find their way to Smutty's prison. In this time the party successfully solved the puzzle spoken by the goddess made possible by the invaluable suggestion of the Drin the fighter that the party disregard the iron door altogether and search instead for trace of a secret door on the one bare wall that was to the left of the brass statue of the beautiful and young filicidal goddess. This search, in turn, lead the group into a secret passage and, even further, to a secret door within the passage itself. Leading the way at several turns - vocally if not physically - was the normally reserved Finneaus Cleg who stopped at several times to call out for his missing comrade in the hopes that his reply might guide their pursuit.

Once they had decoded the initial riddle of the statue, the party lost little time in moving through the rest of the small complex of rooms and soon after they entered the largest room they'd yet encountered; a vaulted room filled with 10 stone sarcophagi. Ominously named "Ten to Replace the Ones First Lost", this room was scavenged and our heroes found more than minor reason for rejoicing in the discovery of the weakened and seriously dazed but still very much alive Smutty Booth sealed in one of the tombs pinned along with several other human skeletons.

The elation at the rescue of young man Booth was palpable among many of The Eight when even his master had come to fear for the worst. But this elation was short-lived as the group found itself immediately set upon by pack of jackal-like creatures that attempted to storm into the room as The Eight braced to defensively open the large doors that blocked the end of their path. These creatures, resembling jackals with black fur, burnt with a black/red fire that shed no light and looked black when viewed in the fire light of the adventurers. Acting and seeming as other undead act and seem in most ways, these fierce creatures were unlike most other undead in at least two notable ways in that they seemed only minimally corrupted and rotted, and, what was worst of all, that the black fire that surrounded these beasts could stream forth and envelope other creatures, doing minimal damage, but damage none the less to several party members.

Of all members, Ayak Akai took the brunt of this damage. This is because the group agreed to position the fighter in the narrow neck of the passage to act as a human breakwater against the encroaching jackal-beasts, beating them back with foot and sword both. Akai lasted a great many rounds in this highly vulnerable position, and to his credit destroyed several of these savage undead beasts before he eventually succumbed to cumulative damage and was forced to retreat to the back ranks of the party. As the few remaining "Hydu" (a small scroll later discovered would reveal their name to be) pressed into the room the party was able to dispatch them handily given the work of the fighter Akai.

In the final room of the memorial complex The Eight found a large pedestal, a chest made assembled bones, and ten humanoid skeletons posed in position of guard about the chest, frozen yet each baring a sword that marked them potentially dangerous. Agro the Axe suggested the warriors of the party take up position around these creatures and when the step from Drin onto the pedestal triggered their attack, the adventurers were well positioned to easily dispatch these weak undead foes before any serious damage could accrue to any party members.

In the final stages of the exploration of the memorial, while other members busied themselves attempted to break open the unfamiliar lock on the chest of bone, the fighter Drin stepped away from the party to explore the area immediately behind the central pedestal and in the processes stepped on a pressure plate that set to opening a large drawer anchored itself with a long femur that seemed to serve as a decorative handle. Out of this space emerged the awful Gibbering Mouther that save a tremendous stroke of good fortune would have surely taken her life. Our evening came to an end with the party coming to the quick rescue of the unconscious Drin and removing its newly acquired loot back towards the opening of the complex.

Total XP per PC (not including individual XP bonuses): 411

Session 7 - Hero of the Night

2010-02-08T00:01:00.000-05:00

Hi all - Can we have some discussion and final votes in the comments from folks regarding their choices for "Hero of the Night"?

There are clearly lots of good choices, and I've posted some insightful comments on the subject by Andy in the comments to get us started. Please vote early and often as is your pleasure.

First, a Word from the Mouther

2010-01-31T22:10:00.010-05:00

Because I am just that kind of obsessive personality: I thought I would throw up a quick apology (in the strict classical sense) regarding a mistake I made very very late into our last session on Saturday night.

For better or worse for players, I take a little pride in not pulling punches when death truly is on the line in a game. Above all, I think players should know that that the PCs live in a dangerous world where death is always possible. Even more, I think there is a kind of justice to the rule of the arbitrary dice in these circumstances. My sense is (although I could be wrong about this) that players learn to respect the choice not to fudge or change rolls for no reason other than to benefit the PC in situations where death is a likely result, and, even more, that they can become quite peeved if they perceive that this Rule of the Abritrary isn't uniformly applied to all. If all feel themselves equally subject to the capricious determination of the dice, then, somehow, the rule of the dice seems less capricious and even less arbitrary as if (again, somehow!) a little bit deserved.

At the very end of the final encounter of a long night of gaming, the latest addition to the adventuring party - a plucky female fighter named Drin - acted perhaps a bit rashly and found the tables had turned on her more quickly than she had anticipated. One moment the party found itself victors over 10 skeleton "Ones First Lost" and almost counting their treasure, only to be immediately faced with a terrible Gibbering Mouther. Drin found herself strategically cut off from the rest of the group, opening herself up to at least one attack from this awful creature before she could retreat.

Again, let me emphasize that it was very very late at this point.

But as I rolled the six attack rolls (see my exhibit 1 from the ad&d Monster Manual II above) I mistakenly attributed 3 points of damage to each of the 3 mouths of the mouther that successfully attached themselves to Drin, and then announced to the group that Drin had suffered a total of 9 points of damage that round. Drin's player Julia quickly announced at this point that Drin had died as a result of that damage, having had sustained a wound in the earlier combat and only having had 3 hit points left before the Gibbering Mouther attacked. I don't think I am alone in saying that this came as a complete surprise to me. I had sort of thoughtlessly assumed that Drin might be crippled by the surprise attack, but capable of living to fight another day. And I don't think I was the only one thinking that.

Given how surprised several of us were at the announcement of Drin's sudden death, my realization moments later that I had incorrectly calculated the damage of each of the Mouther's mouths (since each mouth = 1 point damage and not 3 as I had mistakenly assumed, then the correct total was 3 mouths = 3 points damage) no doubt sounded like it must have been too good to be true. Rather than dead, our new adventurer Drin is only knocked unconscious and does indeed live to fight another day. Understandable sidelong glances predictably followed from my correction of my mistake. Could it be the DM so brazenly changed a roll?

And I also suspect that Julia herself is the kind of player who would object soundly to undeserved treatment of behalf of her character. So I also wanted to explain this event and to post the creature's stat block to remove any doubt from all minds. (I'm sure you've all lost sleep over this issue). As you can plainly read above, there is no way that during the first round that the six mouths the mouther used to attack could generate 9 points of damage. At maximum, had all six mouths struck, 6 points of damage could have been done that first round. And, given my error at the time, I would have called this 18 points of damage. Deadly stuff, those Mouthers. But 18 points is pretty steep for a creature of its challenge level (so is 9 points for only 50% hit rate) so I suspect that I would have been tipped off to re-read the stat block either way.

Rest assured, however, that this judgmental DM still blames Drin's very near demise on her own impetuous grab for just a bit more before the night ended. Just wanted to make it clear that he is not responsible for Drin's near-miraculous survival. The Rule of the Arbitrary is still firmly in place.

Thanks for another great night of gaming, everyone. Session summary to follow shortly.

Session 7 Planning - Eime Campaign (Please RSVP)

2010-01-25T22:56:00.002-05:00

Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010

Start Time: 6PM

Location: Batman 1970's place

*Please RSVP in the comments as soon as you can. If you need and address or directions, please let Bat know in the comments as well.

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 6

2010-01-18T00:01:00.012-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, during the Fourth Week of the 10th Moon, between the Day of the Dog and the Day of the Rabbit.

10th Month continues to prove itself cruelest on the Island of Eime. Far from their homes, surrounded by treacherous slavers, secret organizations, and wild goblins that breed like cockroaches in the many cracks of the great Eastern Mountains, the adventuring party that calls itself The Eight moved 24 hours closer to end of their first month on the island. A day earlier they were hired body guards serving a supporting role in a straightforward transportation mission. As the exploration and negotiation this session continued, the party changed its purpose and now found itself acting as the de facto special operations forces for this reclusive and tight-lipped (even if friendly) community of deep-forest homesteaders.

And, perhaps more importantly, the session ended with the adventurers in full flight and retreat into a dangerous and virtually unknown forest well after the sun had set. Such a choice would appear unwise or hasty in all but the most extreme circumstance. The discovery of the party by a devil made of bone whilest they had busied themselves looting its treasure convinced The Eight that such drastic measures were required in this particular instance. The dm humbly agrees with the collective judgement of the party on this matter.

Aron, Gwyd the Silver-Tongued, Corbin the Grey Haired, Finneas Cleg, Agro the Axe, Ayak, and Lilyak the Monk ably proved themselves in their collective defense of the homestead of Jinstown as our session opened. The patriarch of Jinstown - the ever-convivial Pog Jin - provided support to the group with some precious supplies of Eime weaponry (apparently horded by his father's original adventuring gang nearly 4 decades earlier). And The Eight also made good use of the green but motivated townsfolk, including two of Pog Jin's own sons, Markus and Palus, in their careful and well-reasoned pre-assault planning. But it was clearly their deliberate tactical preparations that made their defense of the homestead relatively easy. Despite attempts to draw the PCs out into the open, our adventurers held their position and forced a bottle neck in what seemed to be the first wave of goblin assault. Add to this some strong work with bows fired from positions high in the Great Hall and behind the palisade as well as the clever idea to light the entire battle field so as to negate the goblins' natural advantage and, for the first time since the very first session, not a single PC or NPC in their direct service died during the night.

Through some thoughtful dialog with Pog Jin, the PCs were given access to an ancient scrap of Eime parchment that appeared to be a letter from one "Sister Emmel of the Great Mother Island Elves". This letter, long an incidental part of Mug Jin's cache, describes a withdrawal of the Eime elves to a mountain "retreat" called Lilymar at some unknown point in the past. It also instructs that all available treasure should be brought for safety to Lilymar in its secret location, as well as "all available of your children to feed the One." One result of reading this ancient billet was the successful search by Finneas Cleg for a tapestry in the Jin collection that responded to the needle he had received as a gift from a Weaver in Stonewell. In point of fact, Cleg found two such tapestries in Jinstown (as well as the suggestion of a third) and each responded to the touch of the needle by magically revealing a map hidden in the fine threadwork. Unfortunate as it is for our party, it was not immediately obvious to anyone just what place this map depicts.

When additional waves of the goblin assault failed to materialize, the PCs learned that Steevin Jin - the brother they had left behind them on the trail to Jinstown through the Frowning Forest - had himself been kidnapped by a goblin assault force after The Eight had left his side. As a result of his brother's kidnapping, Pog Jin showed the party fear and worry for the first time. At this time Pog Jin also tried to further secure the aid of our adventurers by digging deeply into his father's weapons cache, and offered to each of them a weapon of absolutely unique construction. Swords that do additional damage and give bonus to attack, spears that wrench flesh and return when thrown, small metalworks that scurry over the body and make themselves at home there...all designs beyond most imaginations of the ordinary people of Emerick. And yet all the members of our party - having only just glimpsed Pog's great book - would feel justified in thinking that these gifts were only drops in a great well that is this man's collection of relics and exotic weaponry - the sum total results of a lifetime spent picking the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit on Eime.

The rest of the session was spent with the party exploring the remains of three now-deserted goblin camps that were discovered just beyond the tree line. In addition to pieces of a letter to the three goblin-kings Onox, Mirt, Onnag by someone calling him/herself "Arnot the Young" that strongly suggest that the collaboration of the various tribes present during this aborted assault were ordered by another party entirely, in effort to gain access to some "Toyalis Tapestries". Also, the exploration of the three camps revealed several goblins corpses (each wearing inferior leather armor with crude blades in red chalk across the chest) piled together with their throats slit and two divergent paths leading away from the goblin camps. It was determined that one path was chiefly marked by the prints of horses stolen from Jinstown and the other marked exclusively by the large majority of retreating goblin foot soldiers.

Some might think it odd, but rather than exploring either of these two options, The Eight took a chance and followed instead the strange and unexpected "purr" of the brass cat they had discovered a week earlier during the exploration of the tomb of Sybil the Lachrymose. Here, deep in the forest, the statue lead them to discover what appeared to the party to be a "piece" or fragment of the Brass Rail highway (a highway that all current inhabitants of the island believe ends miles to the south and west of their current location, by the way). Not sure what to make of their discovery, the party followed it, even going so far as to forego their chance to return to Jinstown before the sun falls.

Stuck somewhere deep within the Frowning Forest, The Eight followed this lost section of the Brass Rail as it lead them to ancient Eime outdoor amphitheater built out of the side of a small rock outcropping in the Frowning Forest. As they approached, the party happened upon a small light in a third floor window, as well as a young woman's scream from the stage area of the theater. After a very quick search of the area (and the evasion of a giant centipede discovered in the basement), our heros made their way through the theater at a quick pace, finding the body of a young women suspended by chains directly above the stage, with several deep-set wounds designed to allow her blood to drip away from her and flow down to a lower, basement level.

Exhibiting a lack of even the slightest of desires to give the recently deceased minimal respect in death, the party left the young woman's still-warm corpse hanging where they discovered her, and sought to finish its search for the third floor light they had seen on their approach. In the process of this search the crew encountered (and defeated) an aging, drunkard magic-user calling himself Lazlo who attempted to shrug off a drug-induced cloudy head. Helping themselves to his property (including a strange tomb bearing the title "Gruumsh's Ineffable Malice"), various members of The Eight expressed interest in a Lazlo's dying comments about "his pet" and decided that the party was sufficiently strong to press on to the lowest level of the theater and finish their survey of the building.

One locked door and one secret stone door under the ampitheater stage later, the members of The Eight set their eyes on what is likely to have been the single largest pile of coin and jewel they had ever seen prior. There it sat, apparently for the taking, and the group hesitated only a moment before rushing forward to take a share. And while each party member was able to quickly fill their pockets and spare bags with precious stones and gold coin, just as soon as they had each taken their share an enormous Bone Devil burst into the area and gave immediate chase and our prudent adventurers turn and fled into the night.

Total XP per PC (not including individual XP bonuses): 989

HERO OF THE NIGHT VOTE

Thanks again to all who were able to make it. If you were a player in Session 6, it is very important that you take a moment and cast your vote in the comments for the player that you think deserves the bonus xp for the session. In a couple of cases this might make the difference between leveling up or not, so please share your thoughts asap.

Looking forward to the 30th and to a virtual session whenever enough of our players let me know their interested.

While you wait...

2010-01-16T22:59:00.004-05:00

Another great evening lasting well into the morning hours! I promise to have the summary and xp totals for Session 6 posted within 24 hours, but in the meantime I'd like to enlist the help of any interested members of the group on a very short project.

I'd like to coordinate with 1-3 other folks a test of a free and simple software that might be very useful if we ever try an entirely "virtual" session. Called, GameTable, this software is really basic and suits our purposes exactly (at least I think it does).

All that would be required of the needed playtesters would be to download the software and spend no more than an hour some time in the next week or so trying to set up a "game" with my machine as the host.

If you're interested in helping me out, download the software and left me know in the comments.

Session 6 Planning - Eime Campaign (Please RSVP)

2010-01-07T22:44:00.006-05:00

Suggested Date: Friday, January 15

Suggested Time: 6PM

Suggested Location: TBD (Suggestions?)

*Please RSVP in the comments as soon as you can.

UPDATE: We are set to play both 1/15 and 1/30 at 6PM. Please update your status in the comments if it should change.

UPDATE 2: Our 1/15 session will be held at the dm's home starting at 6PM.

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 5

2010-01-06T14:24:00.012-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, during the Fourth Week of the 10th Moon, between the Day of the Frog and the Day of the Dog.

Barely four days have passed since the party that once called itself "The Eight" left the tricks and traps of the tomb of Sybil the Lachrymose and found themselves in the employ of the Brothers Jin and the collective wives, husbands, and families of the Jinstown Homestead. During this short period of time The Eight faced ambush twice, came in contact with the mysterious cult of Weavers, was hunted by owlbears, chased by dire wires ridden by goblins, and practiced the fine art of prisoner interrogation with both extreme predjudice and with what some might judge a touch of malice aforethought. And, as always, the lives of those who come into the employ of our adventurers continue to be brutally short.

As the evening of the Day of the Dog of the last week of 10th Moon set in, our wayfarers ended their long day of travel apparently under seige inside a lonely and isolated family homestead set deep within the Frowning Forest. Here, in a place the locals call Jinstown, they find themselves besieged by an unknown number of goblins who are hiding just beyond the pallisade of the homestead in the surrounding wilderness. And, most worrisome of all, our adventurers find themselves desperately short of escape routes and potential allies-to-the-rescue.

The path that brought them to this destination started with the decision by the magic users Finneas and Gwyd to leave the Boundless Buckle mine in County Cash and head toward the Frontier Region of south western Eime Island. While most populated areas of the island have been loosely organized into administrative units or "counties" by the ruling families of the Colony Trading Company, the "Heel" or Frontier Region has been largely left alone as it is considered to be too far away from resource or source of trade or commerce to make regular administration economical even if it were potentially profitable. A wild, river valley region, the Frontier sits between the unmapped vistas of the Eastern Mountains and the dark expanse of the Frowning Forest. It has much about it that is untamed and beautiful and precious little about it that could qualify as civilized or settlted. The only two true cities of the region - Gold Run to the north and Threshold to the south - are widely looked upon as dangerous and havens for the worst sorts of scoundrels. And while the continual prospect of a large strike or discovery in the Eastern Mountains draws new blood to the region every month, it remains the case that most of the population of region come here to escape something. Or someone. If there is such a place as the middle of nowhere, "The Heel" is easily located somewhere near its backwater. Or, if you prefer, it is the place where those who are already lost go to remain that way.

Moving on temporarily from the Boundless Buckle on the previous Day of the Mouse, and not wanting to have their faces seen so soon again in Colony Company Town 2, our party sought out the seasonal shanty village of Stonewell in the Frontier Region in search of new partners and hirelings as well as looking for interesting, new employment. During the course of an excited evening of chat and drink with several conversation-starved prospectors, The Eight observed a procession dedicated to the Leper God, along with several other would-be worshippers of new and second-rate deities lining the only road in town, prostilitizing to all who will listen. Finneas Cleg himself was approached by a member of the strange Order of the Weaver and offered a silver needle and brass wire "thread" in fulfilment of some unexplained vision.

Additionally, it was during that evening in Stonewell that our adventurers first became acquainted with the couple of Steevin Jin and his young companion Ila as well as gained three new full share members to their association - Lilyak, a female monk, a stout and steadfast warrior who calls himself Agro the Axe, and a woman fighter, Drin, who displayed a quick wit and deft skill with a sling. After some conversation, Steevin Jin offered The Eight short term employment as protection for a transport of recently captured wild white horses rare but native to the Island. The transport would take no more than four days and leave from the famiy homestead set deep within the Frowning Forest and travel to the city of Threshold at the mouth of the River Fingol.

On the Day of the Cat the party set out north up the River Fingol on an unnamed barge with both Steevin Jin and his young wife on board, as well six oarsmen and Captain Jaan. Ambushed at Misha's Ferry after a full day's journey, The Eight smartly and without hesitation dispatched several attackers using a combination of team work, melee assault, magic, and a final well-aimed cross bow bolt fired at an underwater target by Ayak Akai. Even more, The Eight learned through interrogation that the marauders were a section of the Iron Ring - a mysterious slaver gang composed of small, quasi-independent cells composed of "Hounds" (former slave foot

soldiers), "Reavers" (cell leaders) and "Bosses". Showing a bold and borderline malicious streak, the Halfling Horvan Graveltoes lead a series of escalating interrogations in which flesh was torn and eyes removed in order to attain information to his satisfaction from captives named Erle and Finbar.

In the end, these interrogations showed much about the mettle of our adventurers. From their would-be assailants they learned some odd details about the Reaver of this particular cell of the Iron Ring, a magic user named Goldmir, as well as about recent raids on local homesteads in search of "tapestries" at the order of Goldmir. And at the offer of good pay, a former Two Eye calling himself Milyx joined the party as it set out the next day into the Frowning Forest towards Jinstown. Milyx's tenure with The Eight tied or perhaps even bested a record originally set by the hireling Elbert for the shortest term with the party, with his death coming later that day as the razor-sharp beak of an Owlbear ripped his head from his shoulders.

As the party moved deeper into the Frowning Forest, they emerged into a large clearing extending for several miles to the west and north. Notable, too, was the change in weather, the first change experienced since our adventurers set foot on Eime Island, to a damp, cold, and wet. And, almost immediately upon entering the clearing, the advancing party was set upon by refugees from Steevin Jin's homestead called Horse Meadow. These refugees, mostly women and children with a few surviving men, lead a small wagon train in flight from their homes that were set to torch by a raid of goblins. In response to this news, our adventurers accepted Steevin Jin's request that they head swiftly towards Jinstown in hopes of aiding against any related goblin raids or attacks, leaving Jin himself behind to guide the wagon train.

Finally, no summary of our last session would be complete without mentioning the loss of Teenie Tenbar, the promised fiance of Cleg's faithful adjutant Smutty Booth, to a well placed arrow fired by a bowmen of the Iron Ring. Tenbar had served the party quite well as a hireling, and just how Smutty will take this loss in the long term remains to be seen.

Total XP per PC (not including individual XP bonuses): 533

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 4

2010-01-06T14:17:00.005-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, during the Third Week of 10th Month, between the Day of the Cat and the Day of the Frog.

As the sun set in the western sky of the Island of Eime on the Day of the Frog, a small party of weary adventurers stumbled out of the Boundless Buckle mine, located in a southern county of Eime Island, their soot-covered eyes stinging in the thin ambient amber light. Undoubtedly written across each face was the unmistakable mixed confusion of the bittersweet. As in previous adventures, the body count continues to grow. This time no less than four individuals met their grisly end in the bowels of the Tomb of Sybil the Lachrymose. At least it seems these deaths were not in vain as considerable information and treasure was gathered through the exploration made possible by these sacrifices. And, indeed, given the number of fiendish traps the party encountered this time out, there is little doubt that the death of these few helped to prevent the death of all.

Our adventure began with the return of the party to Colony Company Town 2 in search of Dick Maggoty. Through the course of normal resupplying and carousing, the party learned that fast on the trail of "the man with the bat on his face" was a unnamed but intimidating tatooed man of the secret organization, the "Two Eyes". After much discussion, the group decided that the most likely explanation for this manhunt was a torture-aided "recollection" of the now dismembered Hirelings United clerk who had served the party as a black market contact a week earlier. A consensus was then reached to spread a false story of the party's return to Aleine while actually leaving town and returning to their exploration of the Boundless Buckle hoping to hide their tracks.

The deepening intrigue and deliberations of the early evening was set against the raucous backdrop of the official first day of Beerfest -- the near-universally celebrated fall holiday in which the Lord Govenor of the island orders the Trading Company's private casks opened for the free consumption of all for a period of 48 hours. As revelers drank and sang and pissed themselves and passed out in the streets, our party secured the services of a young and proud axe maiden-for-hire and made preparations for departure. And while many slept the evening away in the common room of Lightfoot Krom's Boarding House, both the monk Pym Sykes and the magic user Finneaus Cleg found the time to sow their oats and carouse and wench with the spifflicated throngs in the street.

In the cool light of the morning Cleg found himself the bleak-eyed but proud owner of an expansive dragon skull tatoo splayed from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. At the same time the usually reserved and always sharp monk Pym found himself the object of wide public derision as a result of the drunken spectacle he was told that he had created the night previous. From the vantage point of the present, this now appears to be a portentous moment. Luck, it seems, had chosen that night to forever desert the monk who lived out an order of self-reliance.

After contracting for the services of a new shield bearer- the betrothed of Smutty Booth, a stout and sturdy female by the name of Teenie Tenbar - the party descended once again into the Agora Hills and reentered the ancient tomb complex with an eye toward exploring the hitherto neglected section to the north. By the end of this adventure, it appears that the entire northern section had been successfully mapped by our party, but at a very steep cost: the deaths of a much beloved "hero" of the party as well as a brand new addition. The quietly wise Pym Sykes lost his life to a freak accident while attempting to help his comrades by taking up the obviously risky job of crossing a 15-foot chasm, hand-over-hand, with only a rope around his waist and a makeshift beam made of rope-lashed staffs and materials available at hand. Against the odds, during his climb both this pole and his fail safe rope snapped and he dropped like a stone into the deep darkness never to be heard from again.

The new addition to the party, its second full-share member who had taken vows within the Order of the Son of the Bat, himself went by the name of Baat. Upon meeting our fellows during their resupply mission to Colony Co. Town 2, Baat found himself immediately adopted and taken in by the party (perhaps as a result of the affinity they had once shared for a brother-monk of his). And while Baat helped the party a great deal during his little time as a full-share member (e.g., he fought bravely against the attack of skeletal raven gravebirds as well as took real personal risk in helping the party recover several important treasures, including the special shields and swords of Odo the Warlover and Roark the Benevolent), it is most likely that his final moments had the largest impact on his fellow adventurers, with his eyes bulging and capillaries bursting and distended by the suffocating force of a single long, quick amphibious tail that belonged to a swift, attacking hawktoad. No doubt burnt into the mind of each surviving party member was this scary image: a reminder that the brave and the strong are no less mortal than the rest. It is also possible that the party's stout fighter, Rand, might have been personally affected by this death, as both he and Baat were suffering the effects the same Grave Fever, contracted through their wounds earned in their struggle against the Gravebirds. This Grave Fever is similar to a more common disease, Mummy Rot. Like the Rot, Grave Fever prevents magical healing and causes wounds to heal at 1/10 the normal rate. Thankfully, such a condition can typically be cured by a Cure Disease spell. If only The Eight could gain access to such a spell....

And if only the party's losses had ended with these tragedies. Instead, our fellows spent the better part of four days finishing a careful exploration, treasure-hunt, and mapping of the northern end of the complex, gaining and then losing two more members from its already thin ranks. First, the party was joined by a female monk and fighting man who went by the name Ayak Akai. These new companions were met acting as couriers for the irrepressable Grover Griswold. The female monk was not destined to be long with the party, however, falling to what presumably must have been her death atop a stone pillar that was in the process of collapsing fast into large, deep pit. Such a death, shocking to the rest of the party as it stood by, was apparently triggered by an impetuous grab for what turned out to be a trapped urn of as-yet unidentified scrolls. Her quick death so soon after joining The Eight in that murderous room of urns, was soon followed by the similarly dramatic death of the green axe maiden, Kaari the Younger.

In the end the adventure yielded many interesting and valuable items, ranging from two exceptionally lightweight shields that can be sacrifised to absorb any single attack roll; a brass sculpture of a cat that purrs when stroked but whose function is unknown; a large collection of ancient beeswax preserve that, oddly enough, seems to still be consumable as well as worth several hundred gold pieces; and a large cloth sack cinched at the top that containing 15 5' by 6' diamond cut glass panes. Each of these panes of the clearest glass delicately etched with the same image: a depiction the story of the goddess Eime intentionally drowning her many children to thwart the ambitions of her older consort, Pelor, the god of white magic. This last item alone has an incredible value, likely to fetch the party something in the area of 2250gp when sold to a collector. Along with these items of note the party also worked together to find an ingenious way to cross a partially collapsed stone bridge, and thus gained access to an enormous mural that mapped out in detail a number of large islands in addition to Eime island proper as well as depicting numerous fantastic locations spread across the Northern seas such as "The Royal Forge and Mint of Maristan the Dim," the "Arcane Repository," and the "Great Emerald Mines".

At the end of the exploration of the Room of Urns, the party also discovered the grisly corpse of Teenie Tenbar's father - Ty Tenbar - at the bottom of a pit trap in the very room that took two of their party's lives. After securing the valuable supply of beeswax from the final accesible urn, and having completed their exploration of the northern section, the remaining party members decided to remove themselves from the Tomb of Sybil the Lachrymose and once again lick their wounds and find a way to regroup.

And, after three weeks on the Island of Eime, those PCs who have been lucky enough to survive from the ocean crossing in the Barbarossa until this day are just beginning to feel the benefits that hard experience brings. Let us hope that they themselves survive to see their experience continue to grow in this cruel, capricious, and bloody new world.

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 3

2010-01-06T14:12:00.005-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, during the Second Week of 10th Month, between the Day of the Weasel and the Day of the Cat.

Following our third session it became clear that the fledgling adventuring consortium that set foot on this land calling itself "The Eight" in light of its number might have to consider changing its name to "The Six". This is because the finger of death touched the party's only trained fighting man, Hakkon, as well as the monk Chauve-Soris - the self-anointed voice of the good whose face was covered by that unmistakable chiroptara.

Our session started out with a strategic retreat and an evening spent building new alliances with the Maggoty family. This involved hiring Old Man Maggoty himself to return to Colony Co. Town 2 and fetch a much anticipated letter as well as the hiring of the young and the suggestible Smutty Booth. The next day was filled with some classic, old school dungeon exploration, including encounters with a six-foot Giant worker ant, another tunnel prawn that practically emerged out of the ceiling, some ancient Eime pictograms, a now-familiar Eime brass column that repeatedly announced the proper name "Sybil the Lachrymose," as well as a room filled with more fine Eime brass columns that called itself "The Room of the Teacher" and offered a lecture on techniques for ocean navigation by starlight.

In addition to these encounters, "The Eight" also found within this tomb complex (now deeply within the Boundless Buckle mine) three seemingly significant features: A six-foot tall, three-foot diameter stone column covered on all sides with hundreds of two-inch holes, their first secret door, and four living tree "Harvester Arrows" that not only inflict minor damage each additional round as the branches grow deeply into the flesh of the victim (1d4 per round until death or ripped from flesh by victim for a one-time penalty of 1d4+1 damage) but also produces a fruit from the dead tissue of a fallen victim which, if eaten, has the ability to restore lost hit points of an unknown amount.

Some careful thinking on the part of the magic user Finneas (and the sacrifice of the partnership's bedrolls) proved essential to saving at least the life of the dwarven warrior Epoc and probably many others besides. At the end of another day of exploration, the party returned to the surface and to the home of Dick Maggoty. Without a guard to raise the alarm, The Eight slept the night away as a threatening team of "elves" took up position and set up an ambush that ultimately took the lives of both Hakkon and the monk Chauve-Soris.

The plucky, deft melee work of the halfling Hawkeye, in conjunction with cooperative efforts of the team's stout Dwarven guards Epoc and Enyd allowed the remaining six party members to survive the assault and to conduct a search of the local farm and surrounding area for Dick Maggoty's wife and daughter. The search yielded no results, not even a body, and the party agreed to head back to the Colony Co. Town and set aside for the time being further exploration of the tomb in a hasty search for Dick Maggoty.

Upon arrival back in town, the Eight Who Are Six learned of the vicious murder and dismemberment of the Hirelings United attendant who had originally secured the hirelings Bone and Elbert for the party, as well as put them in original contact with the indigenous relic collector (and Lord Mayor of the town) Newbold Philo. And while there is no report or sighting of Dick Maggoty, the party concluded the evening by reading the letters that had recently arrived for them from Simi the Magic User from the port city of Aleine. These documents include Simi's signed translation of the party's purloined letter, the letter itself, and a third document addressed to the party directly. Siimi's translation talks of a suspicious guard who is attempting to alert his bosses about the potential betrayl of a joint business relationship by the man who calls himself Grimsby.

The letter addressed to the party directly turned out to be a letter from Grimsby himself wherein he thanks the team for its service, hopes that the full disclosure of the letter will be taken as a sign of his confidence and trust in them, and tells them he has paid their outstanding bill to Simi for his translation and spell-breaking.

In addition, Grimsby bids the party to return as soon as possible to the porty city of Aleine if the new work he has for them: work that promises wealth "beyond anything they can imagine."

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 2

2010-01-06T14:04:00.006-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, Between the Day of the Cat and the Day of the Weasel, the Second Week of 10th Month.

In our second session, the fledgling group of adventurers set about finding work, gathering information, and gambling and arm wrestling in the city of Colony Co. Town 2. In addition, they flirted a bit, drank, negotiated, evaded a few nasty traps (one or two of which they might not even know they narrowly avoided) argued over several moral niceties, as well as began exploring a recently discovered ancient underground complex in the rural southern region of Eime Island called County Cash, where the Brass Rail ends.

After a relaxing and reflective evening in the small Anslem's Inn, the party contracted with the local hirelings' union, Hirelings United, to be joined by two men-at-arms, Elbert and a man who called himself simply "Bone". In addition, the party sponsored a courier to return on their behalf to Aleine and retrieve Davy's blank parchment from Simi the magic user. With a retinue of three hirelings (including the usually quiet and always forgettable Boyyd who had made the trip on the Barbarossa), our party of opportunists spent a second evening in town performing a clandestine job on behalf of the Lord Mayor of Colony Co. Town 2, one Newbold Philo: to secure a large golden bowl on route to the Lord Govenor house in Aleine. During what for others might have been just a routine burglary, our team of vagabonds continued to practice their strategy of "cut-throat realism", executing all possible witnesses among the three soldier/teamsters and female magic user who portered their coveted freight (killing two in their magically-induced sleep, it should be noted).

Under the cover of darkness, the team traded the golden bowl and received the second half of their 500gp payment from Lord Mayor Philo and then immediately returned to their assignment to secure the Boundless Buckle mine for Grimsby and his partners. Although the rest of the trip was largely without event, two native born settlers - Dick Maggoty and Smutty Booth - greeted the arrival of the adventurers with fantastic news: within the mine itself they had found a potential opening into a larger, long-forgotten complex. After little negotiation, the party took it upon themselves to further explore the new discovery of Maggoty and Booth and within a short period found itself face-to-face with some nasty creatures, including 4ft dia. giant spiders and small yet quick climbing Tunnel Prawns.

Their early explorations of this structure within the Boundless Buckle mine has revealed few unambiguous details -- some stones mounted in the wall which seem magically prepared to give off a soft light for eternity; a slogan writ large across the wall of an entry room in an archaic version of Common that read "A Light to Guide Your Way Out of the Eternal Darkness, Dear Sister"; a cloth bag filled with stone mason tools (themselves clearly valuable as historical relics); one door sealed in a thick paste of wax and a second door surrounded at the base by a heavy covering of melted wax; and twin rock columns aligning a door, wrapped in what is coming quickly to be familiar Eime brass, which bend and contort to mimic the faces of those who approach, always bearing a somber and morose continence.

It was during this initial exploration of the mine complex that our party first experienced the pall of death within its own ranks - with Boyyd and Elbert being quick dispatched by a surprisingly accurate and sharp-clawed Tunnel Prawn. For many adventuring parties, the first time death strikes their collective morale dips precipitously. And this is especially true on the Island of Eime, where the thought of untold, easy wealth blinds many an adventurer to the ever-present prospect of death until, as is usually the case, it is too late.

Whether or not the death of two companions so early in their exploration of this new locale will have any real effect on our team and their resolve to further explore the underground complex remains to be seen.. The dm humbly submits that, if past experience is any guide to the future, the chance that "The Eight" retreats rather than plunges forward in pursuit of the potential riches contained within this small mountain in the Agora Hills is highly, highly unlikely.

The Islands of Eime Campaign - Session Summary 1

2010-01-06T13:53:00.015-05:00

A Brief Account of the Activities of the Party in the Year 640LB, during the 9th Moon and the First Week of 10th Moon.

According to documents in the Colony Trading Company House of Records for Aleine County, in the year 640LB, on the Day of the Frog, first week of 10th Moon, a group of eight adventurers disembarked from the aging ship, the Barbarossa, which was recently arrived from the continent of Emerick, and entered the port city of Aleine. Calling themselves an adventuring party, which they referred to as "The Eight", the following eight names were entered into the port registry as known associates, in exchange for several copies of a map of Aleine city and two color copies of the latest available map of the entire Island of Eime produced by the famous "Cosmographer": Epic, a male Dwarven fighter; Enyd, a female Dwarven fighter; "Hawkeye", a Halfling burglar; Chauve-Souris, a Human monk; Rand, a human fighter; Finneas Cleg, a human magic user; Pym Sykes, a human monk; and, last but certainly not least, the silver-tongued Gwyd, a human magic user.The group had arrived in Aleine after having joined fortunes on the deck of the Barbarossa during the long and not uneventful cross-ocean voyage. Of most importance was their agreement to begin working for the aging Grimsby, agreeing to serve as protection after the death of his first guard.

As the weeks at sea wore on, The Eight also accepted a sea nixie's quest and descended to the bottom of the Great Ocean via a magic vortex and bubble chasm, where they found the wreck of the Stutterer's Mill - a former ship belonging to the Colony Trading Co., which lay in two pieces on the sea floor. As they explored the area, the recovered many large oysters while doing battle with two exploding bones skeletons as well as three skeletal former pirates who were captive prisoners on the ship before it sank.In their exploration of the shipwreck, the party was fortunate to have discovered a mysterious helm that seems to increase the acumen of its wearer at least once per day, as well as a ship's manifest detailing a cargo of slaves bound for Colony Company Town 2, as well as two "Malforms" that were to be transported back to the human port city of Palon on the northern coast of Emerick. These "malforms" were to be investigated, according to the manifest, since they were of a "strange" and "as yet unidentified magical nature".

While back on the Barbarossa, the party then faced a crucible: whether or not to follow Grimsby's request and "dispose" of Grimsby's remaining guard, Jonesy. After much moral reflection (and some minor hand-wringing), The Eight decide to throw a weakened Jonesy

overboard while the Barbarossa was still far from land, thus deciding to accept the employment opportunity presented them by Grimsby. Chauve-Souris, a monk of the Order of the Son of the Bat Man, in the end dropped his moral objection to this plan but decided that his own hands would not be stained if he simply refused to be present when the deed was done.After several rounds of inter-group debate and negotiation with Grimsby (fronted by the very able and silver-tongued magic user Gwyd who the others seem to trust to speak for their interest) the party learned from their new employer that he and his partners possessed a claim to a new and as yet untapped mine called the "Boundless Buckle". Grimsby worries that his partners were trying to use magic to remove him as an obstacle to their sole possession of the mine. He also tells The Eight that the law of the land in Eime requires that 1000gp of value be removed from a claim before it can be "officially" registered as belonging to an individual or party. And, if they agree to help him protect the claim from jumpers until he can hire a sufficient force to protect the mine full-time as well as complete the necessary paperwork in Aleine, then he will give them first crack at removing that first 1000gp value from the mine.

The Eight made landfall and, after spending an eventful evening at a rauckous Aleine inn called The Monk and the Duck, pressed on towards the small hills to the south said by Grimsby to be the location of his claim. Their evening in Aleine wasn't entirely without event, however, as several members of the group made a small profit by placing side bets on their very own halfling Hawkeye's chances of surviving a dual of Drunken Daggers. That afternoon and the following morning, the group sold a few of its few treasures, did a little resupplying, and made their way out of Aleine and decided to follow south and east the strange, ancient and strangely beautiful road called by locals "The Brass Rail".

Another Glimpse into the Islands of Eime

2009-06-15T13:56:00.011-04:00

Still working on s&w game world I mentioned a few months back. While still a work in progress, I am planning on having the campaign open with the various PCs making a perilous ocean voyage while chasing the promise of fortune and glory in the new "goldrush" that is just breaking out on a recently discovered chain of islands. Knowing little about the chosen destination before they left home, each PC will receive on arrival (in exchange for registering their names with the local town officials) a simple, handrawn copy of the only map known to exist of the new island that waits to be explored...

Improvisation and the Art of the Good DM, Rule 1

2009-06-09T21:00:00.006-04:00

"Yes...and-ing"

When you watch or listen to good group improvisers with an eye or ear aimed toward discerning rules and order out of what is apparently chaos and pure spontaneity, one the first things that leaps out at you is the readily repeated pattern of "yes...and-ing". That is, when a group member first introduces a new name, object, objective, phrase or whatever into the shared collective "frame" of the group, the implicit rule obeyed by successful improvisers is to always take in or accept the new element being introduced, as well as the changes to the collective frame it brings with it, and then immediately add to or begin to build off of this new change. This is what "yes...and-ing" means: good improvisers always take what they are given by their group mates, and spin it into gold, so to speak. The only rule is that you cannot refuse a cue or a direction or a decision made by a partner.

The "...and-ing" is just as important as the "yes-ing". Taking the groundwork that others have laid and doing with it what you will, making it your own in the process is a way of acknowledging or recognizing your improv partners and their contributions to what is essentially a collaborative activity. This is why refusing to follow this convention makes for both bad improvisation and often leaves your partners to improv feeling disrespected. More on this below.

But "and-ing" is just as important, for it is a way of "showing off your chops" as a player of the game. Anyone who understands the rules of improv can take part in the game, but it takes real talent to be able to add something interesting, intriguing, or poignant since the material you have to work with is partially contributed by others. Above all, through creative "...and-ing," talented and the well-prepared performers distinguish themselves by making their contributions count, creating interesting hooks and setups for the next performer.

It is not surprising, then, that when asked to describe their craft and the kinds of skills they use to perform it well, improvisers themselves often resort to metaphors and images of balance and self-composition; of being in a "groove" with their partners that allows them to take risks and venture successful anticipations. And, above all, the metaphors improvisers use to describe their craft is of finding a way to maintain the right kind of poise.

This is why group improvisation is often described (by folks like Henry Louis Gates and Ralph Ellison) as all about drawing out bits and pieces of who you are, thus taking significant risks, and making gold out of the hay you've been handed. "...and-ing" is how the best performers show what they can do and (at the same time) a little bit of who they are. Being denied the chance to yourself deny how another person changes the terms of the game at any given time is a lot like gradually spinning out of control on a slick, icy surface. You can struggle against the pull of the spin, but experience tells us that that just makes things worse. Rather, one of the chief skills of the improviser is the ability to maintain the appropriate balance on the icy surface. This requires quick thinking, good anticipation, and a "feel" for when to turn into the slide and when to turn away. And, above all, a knack for remaining always in control. It's no surprise that world-class improvisers are some of the most attentive and sharp-witted individuals, a la Stephen Colbert (a self-identified d&d player, BTW).

Now d&d is obviously more than just group improvisation. This is even true of the older, more "free form" editions. But it is partially about improvisation. DM's clearly are not equals with players when it comes to the ability to add to or change their "shared" fantasy world, that is true. The DM, of course, remains entirely responsible for almost all of the explicit world-building and for running every aspect of the game outside of the PCs themselves. But there are few DM's who run such a tight ship as is technically within their rights. Existing along a spectrum, most good DM's allow a good to the contribution of the player, from ideas about histories to cultures and economies, and so much more. While they are not equals, good DMs and players practice "yes...and-ing" all the time, with the result being the "thickly" described, shared world that we've all experienced when the game's played at its best.

Above all, you notice the rule "yes...and-ing" when it isn't being followed. You find beginning improvisers are most prone to mistakes in this regard. What the rule aims to prevent is the denial of some contribution of a fellow group member just doesn't fit with the direction that another player has decided the improvisation is to take. This is precisely the admittedly exaggerated weakness of rookie improvisers such as "The Office"'s Michael Scott, who is repeatedly banned from his group improv class, because he cannot seem to NOT dominate what is supposed to be a truly collaborative exercise. Michael Scott was famous for twisting and turning (and sometimes telling others that their contributions to the improv were just plain wrong) in order to make every improvised scene into a gun battle in which he alone always emerges victorious.

Such behavior brings attempts at group improvisation to a screeching halt. But, more than that, it is also experienced as a kind of disrespect by fellow improvisers, and not simply as just a failure in performance. This is because, as mentioned above, the act of improvisation itself seduces you into opening yourself up to others in a potentially risky way. And so every "No" you receive is magnified in a very real sense.

Unfortunately the kind of failures in "yes...and-ing" that experienced players and DM's encounter are rarely as obvious as this. But even when they are more subtle, they are are often still just failures to abide this relatively straightforward rule. For example, Boris, a PC dwarven fighter who, at a crucial moment in an encounter "reveals" that he is actually the long, lost nephew of the crypt keeper and that he, therefore, "knows best" how to negotiate with his kin is doing more than grinding the collaborative action to a halt; he is tacitly insulting his companions by challenging the DM to explicitly stop the flow of the game and break Rule 1.

DM's, too, can make mistakes related to the rule of "yes...and-ing" besides the obvious. For example, when a DM allows players the freedom to explore and fully develop backstories for ancillary parts of their PC - such as a familiar - it is of the utmost importance that the DM respect that story and its details. Any failures on the DM's part to remember important details contributed by the player are likely to be experienced as doubly injurious on the part of the player precisely because it is experienced as a kind of disrespect - a violation of the implicit agreement to abide by Rule 1.

Even a well-meaning DM can run afoul of this if she tries to incorporate elements of the a PC backstory into the events of the campaign (not necessarily a bad idea by itself), yet resorts to tactics that effectively strong arm the PC into a particular course of action as a result (e.g., A mysterious letter arrives from someone who is - and not just claims to be - a long-lost son). Or, the DM who attempts to build off the contributed backstory of a familiar, but who completely mischaracterizes, say, the basic nature of the relationship as originally described by the player.

These are simple and relatively easy errors and certainly forgivable. But they're instructive for what they confirm about the importance of "yes...and-ing" to successful improvisational performances. Good DM's and players intuitively know this and try to keep sharp and observant and look for creative ways to keep the game going and "setup" up their partners.

Improvisation and the Art of the Good DM: Introduction

2009-06-09T19:44:00.004-04:00

Introduction

I've always had more than a passing interest in what might be called the ethnography of group improvisation, be it in music (i.e., jazz) or in improv comedy troupes. That is to say, I've always been interested in the sort of implicit rules that seem to govern the dynamics of a "good" improvisational performance; rules that talented performers just seem to know and that they continue to develop and refine and test in practice.

I've decided to combine this interest of mine in improvisation with my deeply-held belief that there is a real skill or objective form to the art we call being a "DM" or a "referee" in a role-playing game. Now, given the sort of blanket subjectivism that seems popular in the rpg blogosphere, I'm not sure that many will find my musings enlightening in the least. However, for the few who aren't ready just yet to concede that all artistic taste is purely arbitrary, I plan on offering a series of posts in an attempt to define or at least make more explicit one aspect of the art of the good (notice the normative!) DM - as an improvisational performer.

In my view, although the art form we call DMing or refereeing is complex and multifaceted, it remains a kind of techne that, because it can be learned and taught, is just as "objective" as the art of shipbuilding or gardening.

Why be interested in improvisation if you're a DM or even just interested in our hobby? After all, improvisation is just "making it up" - so by definition there can be no rules to uncover, and, hence, nothing to talk about or learn from studying it, right? And anyone can just make stuff up just as well as anyone else, right?

Anyone with more than passing experience with rpg's in general - and Oe d&d specifically - knows that there is much more complexity to improvisational performances that these naiive questions suggest. What it is that a DM and his players are doing it is definitely not just "making stuff up" or at least not just making it up willy nilly. Even more, it's pretty hard to deny the reality that, despite the apparent paradox, some folks do indeed seem to be better at "making it up" more than others.

What I hope to explore in this series is my suspicion that good DM's and referees know both these things really really well, whether or not they know that they know it.

The reason I'll offer a series of posts rather than just one quick summary of the "Art of the Good DM" is that the rules that tend to govern good improv are mostly implicit rather than explicit. So, we have to act as anthropologists of sorts and examine both how those good at what they do in fact do what they do, as well as draw some inferences about what they take themselves to be doing in the process of doing it. This, at least, is how I understand an ethnography. And, consequently, a bit more time is necessary to uncover these rules than can be accommodated in a single post.

The implicit rules of good group improvisation are rarely stated directly by skilled improvisers (many even seem to follow them without really knowing it). Nor are these to be considered "rules" in the sense of universally binding on all participants equally. What rules there are to improvisation are strange in that they are neither sacrosanct nor inviolable, with even the most skilled performers often twisting or tweaking or even occasionally breaking them with outstanding effect. As we will see, these rules guide and inform the craft of improvisation rather than determine it's every outcome.

Granted there are certainly many sides to the question of what makes for a good DM. But, as I've said, I'm going to focus this series on the special improvisational skills and techniques that are necessary. If it is generally true that referees and DM's are all improvisers of sorts, then it is even more the case when it comes to the "old school" DM who deals largely in what Matt Finch has appropriately called "free-form" role-playing. Such a DM lives and dies by her wits, as they say.

I think we DM's and players can learn a good deal about what kinds of improvisational techniques and skills make for a good "old school" DM performance by considering the implicit norms and rules that govern good group improvisation more generally. That is the assumption of my next few posts, at any rate.

Gygax on Combat

2009-04-23T16:57:00.006-04:00

Consider the following statement by Gary Gygax concerning how much detail and complexity should be accounted for by D and D’s combat mechanic:

“If, in fact, D&D were a game of simulation of hand-to-hand combat utilizing miniature figurines, such detail would be highly desirable. The game is one of
adventure, though, and combats of protected [protracted, sic] nature (several hours
minimum of six or more player characters are considered involved
against one or more opponents each) are undesirable, as the majority
of participants are most definitely not miniature battle game enthusiasts.” (The Dragon, April 1979)

This precisely captures a huge part of my disenchantment with the 3.5 rules. Combats simply take way too long and depend upon an unnecessary level of complexity. The result feels more like a “miniature battle game” as opposed to an RPG. I offer this quote, not because I feel that Gygax’s statements should be treated as some sort of holy writ that express the “truth” of what D and D is supposed to be, but rather as an insight into just how prescient he could be about the future of the game he created.

Admittedly, Gygax is mostly talking about and rejecting complicated combat systems that make extensive use of hit locations and such, not the elaborate array of feats used in 3.5. But the point is that, several times in this article, he stresses that D and D is not primarily about combat, but rather the development of an imaginary persona. Combat is only a means to this end. Later versions of the game, while often paying lip service to this idea, seem to have increasingly lost sight of it.

House Rules for Turning Undead

2009-04-22T16:55:00.002-04:00

As written, the SW Core rules state that, if a Cleric rolls the requisite number on the Turning Undead Table, he or she turns "all undead of the targetted type." Isn't this a bit powerful?

All? In what context? By this logic a first level cleric could turn 100 skeletons if she rolled a 10 or better (50% chance). I'm thinking of allowing the cleric to turn 1d6 per level of undead of the targetted type.

The next question is how many times should the cleric be allowed to do so? Maybe I'm just missing it, but I can find no answer to this question in the rules.

My inclination is to allow 1 turning attempt per hour.

Any thoughts?

The Sandbox Again: Gygax on Plot

2009-04-20T20:17:00.004-04:00

In an earlier post, I expressed concern with the term “sand-box” play to define the dominant style of how D and D was played in the old days. Not to rehash that post too much, my main concern was that “sand-box,” as it is conventionally used, typically signifies the opposite of “story.”

First, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with DMs using implied narrative elements in their campaigns as long as those narratives are not absolutely pre-scripted and as long as the characters are free to interact with said story elements as they see fit. Fetishizing this idea of “sandbox” can easily lead one to assume that the best way to play is for the DM to simply create an environment that the characters just kind of wander about I while looking for things to do. Any hint of narrative arc must be eschewed

Second, I don’t think that this is how earlier versions of D and D were typically played. In the previous post, I offered as example the strong narrative elements present in the classic and iconic G and D series of modules. Just for more food for thought, consider the following statement by Gary Gygax made in the February 1979 issue of Dragon Magazine:

“each Dungeon Master uses the rules to become a playwright (hopefully of Shakespearean proportions), scripting only plot outlines however, and the players become the Thespians” (29).

This statement, which appears in an article entitled “Dungeons and Dragons: What it is and Where it’s Going,” certainly suggests that in 1979, the height of D and D’s golden age, Gygax had most definitely not rejected the idea of plot. Clearly, Gygax is not advocating the use of pre-scripted plots. Nevertheless, the idea of plot outline seems to be perfectly acceptable.

A New World Begins to Take Shape...

2009-04-14T23:11:00.005-04:00

In several months I'll be starting a new s&w campaign, and I've just begun playing around with general cosmological details and other fun stuff. And while I like this kind of big picture world building, I generally tend to prefer beginning from the small and only expanding to the "big questions" as necessary.

So I've started building my first maps for this new campaign world - a return to and reworking of a campaign world I started on a few years ago. And, in my way, I've started with only the smallest piece of the world, a distant and legendary archipelago.

While it will likely be some time before my next substantive posts on my progress and preparation, here is a small taste of the first maps of the island chain of Eime....

dm tools: wikidpad

2009-04-12T20:49:00.004-04:00

There are certainly as many ways to organize your campaign and world-building notes as there are worlds waiting to be created. Especially for those who insist on using digital technology in addition to good old pen and paper at the game table, there are an enormous number of different organizational program options that could do the job equally well.

Speaking for myself only, I've grown tired of the mountains of paper notes and scraps that have already started to accumulate just during the last two years. Also, I hate hate hate when several notebooks have to be flipped open in order to find that one entry....So I've gone almost exclusively digital with an eye toward speed and ease of use. And, even more than this, I want a one-stop-shop. That is, I want a single software program to serve ALL my needs, such as:

1. Serve as word processor / database for all world-building, dungeon, npc, monster states and notes.

2. Serve as an easy to use database for any house rules that I may be running.

3. Above all, I want all of the above cross-listed and in easy-to-use hypertext.

4. I want any particular monster stat, room or trap description, treasure or piece of local gossip to be accessible in no more than 2-3 clicks.

For my purposes, which also includes not wanting to have to learn HTML, I've found WikidPad to be the absolute best.

It is fast, easy to use, and provides everything I could need in a personal wiki. On the downside, you cannot import maps or images into your wiki entries. But this seems a minor complaint for old school gamers, and I can attest that personal wikis that do allow images (such as TiddlyWiki) are far far more complicated and less elegant.

Other than pen and paper, other personal information management programs that you find useful for both planning a campaign and dming at the table?

Ability Checks in Swords and Wizardry

2009-04-09T14:45:00.001-04:00

Here’s an interesting system for determining the outcome of ability based checks that I’m thinking about using in Swords and Wizardry. This comes courtesy of Wesley D. Ives and was published in the very first issue of Dragon Magazine way back in June of 1976. Pretty old school, eh? At first, the system seems a little baroque, but I must say that I have become intrigued by it and am interested to hear the opinions of others. Here’s how it works:

Step One: Basically, when a character wants to perform a task, the DM first determines which ability score (character attribute) would be most relevant (moving a boulder = strength, convincing someone to join you = charisma, etc).

Step Two: Next, the DM rolls d100, adds the character’s ability score to the result, and consults the following table to determine which die to roll in step three:

1-20 d4
21-40 d6
41-60 d8
61-80 d10
81-100 d12

Step Three: the DM (or player) rolls the die type indicated in step two and multiplies the result by relevant character ability score. The result of this calculation is the percentage chance that the character can perform the skill.

The DM can of course modify the result as he or she sees fit.

For example, suppose Baldo the Baldheaded wants to perform a task that requires strength. Let’s say his strength is 16. The DM rolls a 29 and adds 16 for strength resulting in a 45. This indicates that we should roll a d8 next. The result of this roll is 6 which we multiply by 16 (Baldo’s strength score) resulting in a 96% chance of success.

I’m not sure what the concrete advantages of this system are exactly, but it appeals to me. It definitely overcomplicates things. Mostly, I think I like it because it comes from the first issue of the Dragon. This is a purely romantic sentiment, I know, one rooted exclusively in nostalgia.

But I also like the fact that it really randomizes a character’s chance of success. Under this system, even a character with a high ability score could wind up with a very low chance of success, though that chance could never be lower than the ability score itself. Over the long haul though, a character with a high ability score would make out alright. Just for fun, I ran Baldo through 15 strength checks using his strength score of 16. Below are the results, the percentage chances that he will be successful.

96, 80, 16, 48, 80, 16, 96, 96, 16, 100,
96, 100, 32, 100, 80

As you can see, the results range from a low of 16% to a high of 100%. The average result would be 70% for Baldo, not bad and what we might expect of a guy with a strength score of 16.
[Note: I’m not a statistician so if I have made an error with these calculations, please let me know]

I suppose the draw back here is that this method involves a lot of dice rolling and math before the ability check is actually made. A calculator might even be necessary. I used one to multiply 16x6. While I could not prove this conclusively (or even inconclusively), I suspect that that back in 1976 part of the appeal of this rule lay in the simple fact that it got almost all of the polyhedral dice involved.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Ives also says something very interesting and potentially relevant to those of us interested in old school gaming. In addition to laying out this system, he offers guidelines for determining which types of skills and tasks should be associated with which attributes. According to him Intelligence checks would be called for in situations in which characters are:

“discovering [the] proper method of operating all mechanical devices, including magical devices, discerning patterns, deducing cause and effect, recognizing types of lairs . . . etc”

This suggestion seems to contradict much conventional belief that old school gaming always favored role-playing over roll-playing and tended to test the player rather the character. Admittedly, Ives is hardly one of the most influential people in the history of our hobby and his ideas can hardly be taken as characteristic of the hobby’s early days. I don’t mean to suggest that they are. I also don’t mean to suggest that I intend to adopt roll-playing over role-playing in my upcoming SW game. I call attention to this historical curiosity only to provide what I hope is a useful reminder that people’s attitudes in the early days of the game were not nearly as unified or as monolithic as they sometimes might seem from our own historical vantage point. Also, we may want to further discuss the implications of this.

Isn’t interesting that the much reviled modern tendency to substitute skill check mechanics for player ability actually existed in a nascent form almost in the very beginning?

Captures My Feelings about 3.5e Exactly

2009-04-08T23:10:00.000-04:00

RobertFischer's description of an important lesson I've learned recently.

Heh. I’ve been known to say this in defense of 3e: It showed me what I want by giving me what I thought I wanted.

Critical Hits and Misses

2009-04-06T20:48:00.005-04:00

There was a really cool post today at the RPG Dumping Ground concerning some pretty nifty tables for determining the results of critical hits and critical fumbles. I really like this sort of thing. I think it adds a great amount of drama and tension to the combat. My only concern is that these rules seem a little, well, harsh. I mean a critical hit or fumble is going to happen 5% of the time. It seems a little bit of a stretch that a professional fighter, even a novice one, will screw up this badly one out of every twenty attacks. Maybe this is one of those instances in which verisimilitude should be sacrificed to more fun and free wheeling game play. Maybe not.

The author of RPG Dumping Ground claims that his gaming groups loved these rules over the years and I’m willing to take him at his word. Still . . . I’m not sure. While I love this set of tables and the attendant results, I’m concerned that going to the table 5% of the time will result in too much gritty realism. What of the rules they use in 3.5 that require one to roll and confirm the critical hit or miss?

Any thoughts? Am I being too concerned? I guess there’s no way to know for sure without playing it out, but I would love to hear some ideas before putting it into practice. Does anyone know of any other good systems for adding new possibilities to critical hits and misses?

Sex & the Hamlet?

2009-04-05T11:03:00.006-04:00

I'm doing some thinking and research for a later post about sex and gender in d&d. I'd especially appreciate any ideas or reflections from gamers on a set of related questions.

First, a little background information so that I don't give the wrong impression. I was introduced to the hobby back in 1981/82 through the proverbial "older boys next door" and continued playing without serious break in a variety of "older" groups through 1988. Thinking back on it now it seems that each of those groups played a variant of the whole game that was fairly common at the time: borrowing liberally and freely from the all the available editions (Basic and Expert sets, 1ed ad&d, at least), treating the primary source books as a near seamless whole fabric. During this time we played a wide range of non-d&d RPGs as well, including some dabbling in Boot Hill, Top Secret, and even some early Rifts and Cyberpunk.

But in each of these various groups d&d was, almost as a rule, the central game and the only one we returned to time and again. And almost as a rule, these first gaming groups of mine were exclusively male.

I left the game rather abruptly in 1988 and with one or two exceptions didn't play or pick up a source book until nearly 20 years later. Like many who have recently returned from the d&d diaspora of our generation, my return to the game came via nearly two years of 3.5ed. And during this time I have grown progressively disenchanted with a number of this edition's features; problems which I have come to consider systemic.

But say what you will about the many problems of the d2o system or the "superheros" that PCs have become, it cannot be denied that during the move to 3ed a deliberate attempt was made to show examples of women PCs of a variety of classes and races as active members of an adventuring party. This may have been the result of nothing more than WotC marketing strategy, but since no edition of d&d that I am aware of has ever placed ability penalties or other restrictions on women-PCs, it is a bit odd that that so few strong women PCs are depicted in earlier editions, no?

My admittedly anecdotal sense during this period of time was that an increasing number of women had entered the hobby of role playing games, at least compared to when I had originally left it back in 1988. These new women gamers may not have all been playing d&d, but all one has to do is quickly scan the most prominent and popular RPG websites and forums and gamer podcasts and the increased presence of women in the hobby is easy to see.

Now in the last year or so I have begun avidly following the very lively (and very friendly) discussions in the "Old School" blogging and forum community. There is so much creativity and cross-fertilization currently going, especially via fanzines such as Fight On! and Knockspell, that I was quickly swept up into the fervor of this exciting "Old School Renaissance".

And yet given the easy inclusivity practiced by most OSR bloggers, it remains striking that there are remarkably few women who actively seem to participate in this growing online community.

I understand that my judgement here is also based on my admittedly anecdotal experiences. That is precisely why I wanted to throw the following questions out to the OSR community. And given the anonymous nature of the Internet, I suppose I could be mistaken. But, among other things, the widespread exclusive use of the masculine pronoun (both in singular and possessive tenses) even in retro-clone source books strongly suggests to me that I am not.

So, here are my questions:

1. Are women coming to the OSR at the same rate as women typically came to RPGs in general (and d&d in particular) over the last twenty years? Please share any experiences with your gaming group - has it been easier/more difficult/about the same difficulty getting women to play an "old school" game and system?

2. Why are women less visible as active members of the OSR online community compared to other RPG online communities? Is this just a mistaken perception?

3. Is there something about the OS format that discourages women's participation? (Speaking just for me I find this highly unlikely, but I'd love to hear from those who might disagree)

Ultimately I am most interested in these questions because, like many of you, I now have a young daughter that I would like to introduce to the hobby in the coming years. I know that many of you are at various stages of introducing your little girl to d&d, and I'd love any observations, analysis and tips.

Character Back-Stories and Portraits

2009-04-04T15:56:00.012-04:00

I’m getting ready to start a new campaign, and among other things, I find myself thinking about the question of character back-stories. In addition to sharing my own thoughts on his matter, I’m especially interested in how other gamers handle this issue.

By “back-story,” I mean information about a given character’s background, history, place of origin etc. Conventional wisdom holds that, the more detailed this information is, the richer the role playing experience becomes. I pretty much concur with conventional wisdom on this account.

The question that I’m trying think through here is: is it better to encourage players to work up their back-stories by using great amounts detail and by using techniques similar to those associated with fiction writing? I will call this the “creative writing approach.” Or is it better to go with something looser, a rough sketch of an idea or an outline that simply gives the player something to work with, something to play off of at the table? Let’s call this the “basic outline approach.”

Obviously this is a complex question, one for which there is no final or correct answer. Ones answer to this question will largely be a matter of personal taste and what each individual wants to get out of a role playing game. But that said, I still cannot help but wonder if one approach or another might tend to produce a more enjoyable experience at the gaming table than the other. What are the relative merits and weaknesses of each approach?

I currently play in a campaign that promotes the creative writing approach. Participants in my game are encouraged to post character back-stories on a blog that we maintain mostly for this purpose. Players begin by posting background info on their characters’ history. As the game progresses, players reveal more detail about their characters, typically by creating further stories about their characters’ personal histories and by offering up fictional vignettes that situate their characters in the “present” reality of the game world and describe those characters’ thoughts about recent events. Characters’ internal psychic landscapes are revealed in short story form for all to see. In order to encourage this sort of thing, characters receive a small bonus in xp for each post, but can only receive the bonus for one post per level.

This system is a lot of fun and adds a tremendous amount of depth to the characters. It infuses the game with great deal of psychological realism, which is I think for many people one of the primary pleasures in playing RPGs. There are some potential problems with this approach, however.

(1) It often turns into a kind of creative writing workshop in which other players offer advice and feedback regarding the aesthetic merit and intellectual content of each others work.

So why is this a problem? It’s not in and of itself, but with the creative writing method, some players will eventually begin to write back-stories and character portraits primarily to hone their craft as writers or to provoke interesting discussion with their fellow gamers, rather than to contribute directly to the game. When this happens, players’ writings and the subsequent discussion tend to take on a life of their own, independent of the game itself. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but while these writings have a tremendous amount of intrinsic value, I’m not sure they ultimately help to develop the campaign very much.

For instance, one of my fellow gamers is very sharp fellow who plays a wizard. When he posts a character portrait to the blog, he will often use the character’s persona as a platform from which to philosophize about how elements in the game world can be thought of in relation to similar elements in our “real” world. These posts, in the guise of excerpts from the character’s fictional journal, read like really witty, insightful, mini-philosophical treatises. One of my favorites drew a complex and nuanced analogy between how the alignment system works in the D and D world and our own. The analogy was not overt of course, but drawn by way of clever innuendo and subtle allusions. I love reading stuff like this. But this sort of philosophy or social commentary can be difficult to import into the game. Practically speaking, my friend has two characters, the one who is a social critic and philosopher on the blog and the one he plays when we all sit around the table. Don’t get me wrong—I love them both. But there are two of them.

Let me be clear. I don't think this is bad in itself. I’m just trying to think of ways to use character back-stories to help enrich the “at the table” experience, to better integrate the highly personal world of a player’s imagination with the collective experience of the group..

(2) The creative writing approach can also create problems for a DM who wants to maintain an internally coherent world and a consistent style of presentation of that world. Inevitably, circumstances will arise in which players write stories that contain factually incorrect information about the campaign world or in which a player introduces elements inconsistent with the world’s style or tone. In these cases, the DM is in an awkward position. Should he or she correct the player and potentially invalidate something that the character has put a great deal of time and effort into? If the player just has some rough ideas in his or her mind or sketched out on a piece of note paper, such a correction is easy to make.

It’s much harder to say, “I’m sorry but that short story you just wrote and published on our game blog, the one you spent a week on, is entirely based on things that simply don’t exist in this campaign world.” A typical response to such a concern might likely be to simply say: “who cares? Why not just go with it? If those elements did not exist before in your world, they do now.” According to this position, the players are allowed to share in the overall creative process; they are helping to create the world. While this is a good idea in theory, it does not always work in practice. When you have several people collaborating on something like this without a clearly defined and shared sense of how the game world works or what it is supposed to feel like, you can easily wind up with an incoherent mess.

Suppose for instance, I’m DMing a campaign heavily modeled on ancient Hellenistic society. I have a player in my game who really loves pirates, pirates modeled on the popularized Hollywood version of the historical pirate of the eighteenth century. Now suppose that every character portrait that this player writes and publishes to the blog is filled with references to ships of the line, tri cornered hats, knee high cuffed leather boots, people who say “matey” a lot, and all sorts of things that don’t quite “fit” in my campaign world. Would I be out of line were I to say, “You know that kind of ship doesn’t really exist in this world. Why don’t you make it a trireme?” Maybe I would be.

What happens when everyone begins to introduce their own stylistic twist on things in this manner? Each new post, each new story introduces another jarring dissonance into the ontology of the campaign world, threatening to reduce it to a cacophony of mismatched cultural referents and contexts. In one player’s posts, the world is Pirates of the Caribbean, in another’s it’s the world of the ancient Norse, in another perhaps the Byzantines or Harry Potter.

Moreover, once a player’s individual stylistic take on the game world has been written and published for all to see, it assumes a level of reality, of concreteness, that it would not otherwise have. It doesn’t really matter if a player in my Hellenistic campaign wants to envision his character as an eighteenth century pirate as long as I’m not fully aware that this is what’s going on inside his head. Heck, every one’s probably a pirate in there. But when his idiosyncratic interpretation of the game world is codified in the form of a published document, it becomes much more difficult to ignore. Its permanence endows it with a certain reality status that a simple verbal utterance lacks. It therefore alters the game world. Ironically, the creative writing approach’s greatest strength, its capacity to encourage a greater level of inter-subjectivity, actually may work against the DM’s efforts to create a believable and internally consistent world. Of course, this is only problematic if creating a coherent and believable world is high on one’s agenda. Each DM and each group has its own preferred style of play.

In the final assessment, both approaches (the creative writing and rough outline method) have their strengths and weaknesses. Having used the former for a while, I am inclined to encourage the latter in the campaign I am about to begin. I think I will suggest that players jot down basic points about their character’s identity and origin, but rather than use the external mechanism of a game blog to develop these points, I will encourage them to do so “in game.” Obviously, I’m very interested in hearing the opinions of other gamers regarding these issues. Are there other methods to encourage characters to develop their back-stories that I have not considered here?

The Sandbox Revisited

2009-04-02T15:10:00.005-04:00

While the notion of “sandbox” style play has become widely accepted as one of the most salient aspects of old school gaming, I must confess I’m not entirely comfortable with the way the term is often used. Before I go further, however, I want to make it clear that, generally speaking, I agree with the larger set of ideas that the term “sandbox” typically designates. That said, I believe that there are several conceptual problems inherent in the idea of sandbox play as it is conventionally understood.

Let us begin with a definition. As I understand it, “sandbox” play refers to a style of gaming in which events are not pre-scripted or pre-determined. Players are free, and even encouraged, to interact with the game world as if it were a real world, to be able go where they wish and do what they want in any given situation. As such, a sandbox campaign is often contrasted with the so-called “story-driven” campaign, a campaign in which characters are expected to follow a predetermined sequence of events leading up to some final, predetermined ending or climax. It is in this contradistinction to “story” that my problem with the idea of sandbox play lies.

The problem is that “story” is seldom clearly defined in this schema. I think too often many DMs feel that, in order to run an old school (sandbox) style game, they must completely eschew anything that even remotely smacks of a narrative arc or sequential telos in their campaigns. Any element that suggests that the DM may have anticipated or even planned where the action might go is to be rejected or, at least, regarded with real skepticism. All too often, this leads to a situation in which the players just kind of wander around in the game world, looking for things to do, while the DM hesitates to give them something to do, because “giving” implies a purpose, and purpose implies that some future outcome is anticipated, and in this we have the beginnings of a story. In sandbox play, the story must emerge retrospectively; it can’t be planned in advance. But in my experience (I started gaming in 1978) D and D adventures even those from, back in the day, were often very mission-oriented. They assumed that the PCs would be likely to follow some sort of anticipated pathway as part of the adventure. After all, does not a mission imply a potential story?

Consider for example the case of Gary Gygax’s classic D series of modules for TSR. These are often held up as quintessential example of old school, golden age style game play and adventuring (a claim that is in my opinion entirely accurate by the way). But these modules, D1-3, most definitely do have an implied story arc to them. The modules presume that the PCs, having defeated the Giants on the surface, are planning to on track down the ultimate source of the threat, the drow, in order to learn about them and perhaps visit them with some measure of retribution. My point is that a strong sense of narrative is suggested at the very outset of the adventure. Gygax, in other words, did not just give us an environment filled with lots of cool stuff and say “OK just let the PCs wander around in this underworld and make their own adventure.” No, the whole thing begins with a very a very clearly delineated sense of purpose and direction, a mission. My guess is that most people who played this module pretty much followed this implied narrative trajectory, at least the first time through.

But here’s the rub. What makes these modules old school is not the presence or absence of story elements in and of themselves, but the fact that the PCs don’t have to follow the story if they don’t want to. The module allows for the possibility that the PCs might just decide to wander around and explore, or that they might interact with the story in any way they see fit. Heck, they might even decide to try and cut a deal with the drow. But this is not to say that the modules don’t have strong story elements built into them. The conceptual problem with most definitions of sandbox play is that, we typically have to completely reject the idea of story in order to define what we mean by “sandbox.” I don’t think there is anything wrong having strong story elements in a game as long as the story is not pre-scripted and the players are not forced to do anything they don’t want to do. The idea of sandbox play too often is taken to mean that the players must drive all of the action and that the DM should react entirely to them, having as little influence on the sequence of events that comprise the game as possible. I don’t think this approach necessarily leads to better gaming, nor do I think, as I hope my earlier example illustrates, it reflects the style of play characteristic of D and D’s golden age. Moreover, this conception of sandbox gaming is apt to impose a prescriptive limitation on the DM’s imagination.

It makes more sense to me to define the problem, not in terms of the type of world that the characters inhabit (ie. sandbox), but from the characters’ perspective itself. Several years ago, the writer of the Burning Void (now Errant Dreams) Blog offered up an excellent series of essays on the concept of “free will” in role playing games as opposed to the idea of “railroading.” I believe that, even though she is not speaking specifically of old school gaming, her essays offer a more fruitful and useful way of conceiving this style of play than that suggested by the “sandbox.” According to her, what really matters is whether or not the players are free to choose their own responses to what the DM gives them. In this schema, the DM doesn’t have to worry about whether he or she is including too much narrative, actual or implied, in the game. The question becomes are the characters free to do as they see fit and is the DM prepared to go in different directions (OK, that’s two questions). By the same token, DMs who don’t want to include any implied story elements in the game are free to not do so.

Reconceived in this way, the idea of the sandbox feels less prescriptive. It’s less about “though shall not have story” and more about “hey, do whatever you want, just make sure your players can too.”

Sword & Wizardry "House Rules" of the Web: Akrasia's "Sword & Sorcery" House Rules

2009-03-30T11:21:00.009-04:00

While continuing my troll for especially noteworthy house rules for 0d&d and s&w, Akrasia's really nifty s&w rules for "sword & sorcery" type game over on the s&w forums jumps out as well worth highlighting and discussing at some length. Regardless of whether or not I use any of it, I think many of his changes and additions are almost perfect for the genre. I hope he follows his own suggestion and puts together a KNOCKSPELL article out of this.

(Incidently, I remember how much you appreciate "trade-offs" a la Cthulu, so I thought you might like to see this as well, Ironbeard. Read on, but I must be honest. I don't think I've ever really cared for the cleric and this makes me think I wouldn't miss him much were he gone).

Take a look at the original post for all the details, but I'm most interested in what he does to magic. (Although his modifications of Damage/Hit Point is equally interesting). Here are the highlights:

MAGIC AND MAGICIANS

(1) There is no division between 'cleric' and 'magic-user' spells - all spells can be learned by magicians following the Vancian system.

(2) No Spells above 6th level.

(3) Spells are grouped according to three different "schools": White, Grey, and Black Magic. Akrasia breaks it down even further:

Spells are divided into the following seven groups:
1.Animism (‘white’ magic – promotes life and is ‘in tune’ with nature)
2.Telekinesis (‘white’ magic – involves moving and manipulating objects by magic)
3.Mentalism (‘grey’ magic – involves mental control of others)
4.Illusionism (‘grey’ magic – involves the creation and control of illusions)
5.Sorcerery (‘black’ magic – involves unleashing destructive powers on others)
6.Necromancy (‘black’ magic – involves the creation and control of undead)
7.Demonology (‘black’ magic – involves contacting, summoning, and controlling extra-planar creatures)

White Magic, Grey Magic, Black Magic, and Corruption
-Magicians can cast ‘white’ magic (animist and telekinetic spells) just as the core magic-user casts normal magic-user spells.
-When magicians cast ‘grey’ magic (mentalist and illusion spells) they suffer exhaustion damage equal to twice the level of the spell cast (so a magician who casts a third level mentalist spell would suffer six points of damage)
-When magicians cast ‘black’ magic (sorcery, necromancy, or demonology spells), they suffer exhaustion identical to that caused by ‘grey’ magic spells (twice the spell level).
In addition, magicians casting ‘black’ magic must make a saving throw (the magician adds his/her level to the roll, and subtracts twice the spell level to the roll) in order to avoid ‘corruption.’ If this saving roll is failed, the magician is corrupted slightly and suffers a loss of one temporary point of Wisdom. Lost points of Wisdom can be recovered at a rate of one point per complete day of rest and meditation (no other action possible).

If a magician loses a temporary point of Wisdom, there is a chance that this loss will be permanent. The chance is a percentage probability equal to five times the spell level (thus there would be a 20% likelihood that a magician who cast a fourth-level necromantic spell, and failed his/he saving throw, would lose a point of wisdom permanently).

A magician whose permanent wisdom score is lowered to 2 becomes insane (or possibly the thrall of an extra-planar demonic force). He/she henceforth is an NPC.

"Old School" Initiative?

2009-03-29T22:32:00.003-04:00

As I start thinking about which initiative resolution mechanic is most consonant with an "old school" flavor, I wanted to throw out the general question of what systems have been used in Swords & Wizardry and in the other "official" d&d versions. Also, house rule alternative systems are also of great interest to me.

Four points seem most salient in discussing Swords & Wizardry Initiative mechanic:

(1) Initiative is d6 governed

(2) Initiative is decided by two opposing rolls (one for monster(s) vs one for PCs)

(3) Initiative is rerolled each new combat round

(4) Ties in initiative roll do not necessarily have to be resolved. Simultaneous action is possible.

Here are my initial thoughts on the suitability of this basic mechanic for our purposes.

First, I like the d6, which seems very old school and very s&w. But I fear it will have to go if we tinker with (2) as I am tempted to do. You see, I don't really like making a single PC roll being determinant of all PCs, since it still leaves unresolved the order of action of the PCs themselves. I understand that this could be determined via on-the-spot improvisation, but given (3) you'd be winging the ordering of PCs actions all the time. Why not allow individual PCs to roll for initiative each round and allow for some strange ordering patterns and associated challenges that will follow? (e.g., Blaine the Thief reached 0 hit points the previous round and Johann the Cleric decides he wants to try to make it over to the thief and cast a Cure wounds during the next round. This relatively straightforward action could be complicated by a poor initiative roll on the part of Johann...etc.)

One problem, though, with changing (2) and allowing individual PC initiative rolls (at least in any game s&w game we run in the near future) is that the number of PCs is likely to reach or exceed 8 at the minimum. 8 opposing d6 rolls is going to produce ties and time and time again. Consequently, I wonder if we adopt individual rolls, shouldn't we change (1) to some other die? Thus even a little tinkering in this way leads us further from the obvious "old school" trappings such as the ubiquity of the d6.

I'll offer some more thoughts in the comments as they come to me. I do find it very interesting that the LBB and Greyhawk supplement don't seem to have any initiative mechanic to speak of. Perhaps its the notorious lack of organization, but I don't seem to find anything on the subject.

What are the mechanics in the subsequent editions that are worth mentioning?

Thoughts on House Rules Regarding Combat Movement

2009-03-28T14:26:00.002-04:00

I’m interested in discussing possible house rules regarding movement in combat. The SW rules are, by design I believe, deliberately vague here to allow individual DMs to interpret them as they see fit. Here are the issues that strike me as most pertinent:

(1) The core rules state that a “character may both move and attack in the same round” (16).

Does a character’s attack have to come at the beginning or end of his or her movement, or can a character attack in the middle of his or her movement?

(2) Under what circumstances should a free attack be allowed? The core rules state that a character’s base movement rate “may be interpreted as the distance a character can move in combat without suffering free attacks from enemies or consequences a retreating character may incur” (14). Elsewhere, the rules state, “[m]ost referees allow the enemy a free attack if the character (or monster) moves away by more than its ‘combat’ movement of base movement rate in feet” (20).

This seems to imply that a character can move freely around and among enemy combatants as long as he or she does not exceed his or her combat movement rate or pass through the 3’ of space that an enemy occupies. Do we want to go with this?

(3) The rules also state that “[i]t’s only possible to make melee attacks when the two combatants are within 10’ of each other” (19).

This rule strikes me as a little odd, given that the core rules also suggest “[b]ecause most movement and combat increments are divisible by three, it is easiest to assume that a character ‘occupies’ an area about 3’ across for the purposes of marching and fighting” (20). Should not the maximum distance at which opponents can attack also be divisible by three?

Before offering my opinions about which house rule to use regarding these issues, I add the caveat that I have little experience actually playing SW. My ideas here are thus almost entirely theoretical. I therefore wholeheartedly welcome all suggestions and input from gamers with more practical experience.

I like a little tactical nuance, so my initially inclination was to allow characters to attack during their move. Thus, a character with combat movement rate of 9’ per round could move 6’, attack, and then move another 3’. In order to make things fair, opponents get a free attack if any character or monster moves out of an area that they threaten. The range at with characters can attack in melee should be reduced to 3’. After looking at this closely, I was struck by its similarity to 3.5. My instincts tell me that there might be all sorts of problems with this that might not reveal themselves except through game play.

Another option would be to rule that a character can either move and attack or attack and move. Free attacks are only allowed if a character or monster exceeds his or her combat movement rate or attempts to move through a space occupied by an opponent. This approach appeals to me because it seems more in keeping with the generally tactically light spirit of play implied by SW and old school gaming in general. While I have absolutely no qualms about taking liberties, even generous ones, with such implied assumptions, I am hesitant to do so without having first played the SW rules “straight.” In other words, I’m hesitant to get too fancy until I’m comfortable with the basics.

I’m not sure at this point. I always liked some of the tactical aspects of 3.5, but I’m hesitant to import them into SW where they just seem out of place.

Swords & Wizardry Core Rules Question: XP Distribution Schemes

2009-03-27T21:59:00.008-04:00

Okay, here I have a question and a thought for you on old school experience points:

(1) I've read through both s&w core rules and Men & Magic and I can't seem to find any hint about how to distribute experience points across multiple PCs. In both the sections on gaining experience confine themselves to talking about a single PC. Also, I don't seem to find much discussion of this topic on the relevant forums, so I suspect I must be missing something obvious.

I do know that ad&d's rigid system isn't for me, but what is "common practice" in XP distribution across the entire party in old school games? Equal division of the grand total of XP's acquired such as in 3.5? Or some other scheme?

(2) I read (somewhere?) that the original Blackmoor campaign ran with the requirement that PCs only received XP's for treasure spent. I think I like this quite a bit, since it obviously encourages players to be avarious. But I am still quite confused about how treasure and XP's are related in most people's games.

For example, if one follows the old Blackmoor rule, does that mean that PCs divide treasure amongst themselves first and then each individual PC only gains experience when s/he spends the coin or finds a buyer for the jewels/gems/items? Thus it becomes at least theoretically possible that some players gain more experience than others if they fail to find a buyer or fail to spend all their loot.

But if this is so, what to do in the case of XP's for monsters? Divide equally? Okay, but then when? After each encounter? At some other time? See, its getting overly complicated fairly quickly, with each PC having to effectively keep track of two different pools of XP's.

I'm still thinking about it...

On the Virtues of Descending Armor Class

2009-03-26T17:17:00.003-04:00

Here are my thoughts on the question of whether to use ascending or descending AC in Swords and Wizardry. To some, this probably seems like a silly question. After all, what difference can it possibly make? Both options are, as far as I can tell, mechanically identical. A 1st level fighter still needs to roll a 15 to hit an opponent clad in chainmail whether the opponent's AC is 5 (descending) or 14 (ascending). That said, however, I argue that the fact that the designers of SW decided to allow for this choice in the game rules suggests that that there must be something at stake in opting for one version as opposed to the other, even if the ultimate significance is minor. If ones choice really made absolutely no difference, then it wouldn’t make sense to offer a choice at all.

I am inclined to use the descending version of armor class rules because they are more consonant with the original rules of D and D as they existed in all the earlier editions of the game prior to version 3. As such, they seem to be more in keeping with the broadly defined “spirit” of old school play. It seems to me that much of old school play aims to recreate and recapture the feel of what it was like to play D and D in its heyday. Much of this “feel” derives, not simply from game mechanics, but from the details and peripheral material, the accoutrements, of older versions of D and D. These elements include things like the style of art work, the specific wording or phrasing of game terms, and the specific arrangement of details. I feel that the more of these original details that one includes, the easier it is to invoke the flavor of the original game.

Of course, some of these details, like descending armor class, are idiosyncratic and counter intuitive, and we might thus be tempted to reject them. I remember once reading a justification for the 3.0 rules that argued this very point, that the descending armor class system was counter intuitive. Higher numbers just feel better after all; a greater number should suggest a greater and more desirable value. Moreover, the argument went, the descending armor class system is inconsistent with the rest of the rules which more often than not associate higher numerical values with greater power or advantage. If a higher number of hit dice equals greater strength, shouldn’t a higher number armor class rating suggest more effective armor? This is a legitimate complaint. The descending armor class system is a little counter intuitive and stands as a potentially annoying inconsistency.

But this is precisely what makes the descending armor class system preferable to its alternative. Why? Paradoxically, the very oddity gives rise to its charm. This system, used in Oe D and D, was peculiar and weird from the outset, but then again, so was D and D. Simply put, throughout the history of its earlier editions, part of D and D’s flavor lay in the fact that some of its rules were a little quirky and arbitrary. While many later generations of gamers have come to regard these quirks as flaws, I see them as essential ingredients in the crazy mélange that is D and D. Early generations of gamers accepted these quirks, and as time went by, came to enjoy them. Sometimes people come to love a thing precisely because it doesn’t work the way one initially expects it to.

To illustrate by way of a non gaming example, let us take the case of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. That novel departs in many significant ways from how conventional wisdom dictates that a novel should work. Melville’s story telling is inconsistent; Ishmael is the main character in the beginning, but by the second half inexplicably dissolves into the text to become a virtual third person narrator. Strange chapters on cetology break up the flow of the narrative and really offer little to advance the plot. This is why abridged versions typically omit these sections. I don’t believe Melville deliberately broke with tradition in the name of artistic experimentation. I believe he just got a little sloppy and let his vision and his genius outstrip his literary technique and craftsmanship. But are these elements flaws? In one sense, yes they are. But these idiosyncrasies cannot ultimately be separated from the total experience of reading Moby Dick, a novel of undeniable depth and complexity. Over time, scholars have actually come to view these idiosyncrasies as part of this complexity. These “flaws,” in fact, are part of what makes Moby Dick such a memorable and unique work of art. As generations have gone by, Melville fans and scholars have actually come to love these aspects of the novel, because without them, it’s just not Moby Dick.

In a similar sense, the peculiar elements and inconsistencies of original D and D also made the game memorable and unique. I argue, in fact, that their very quirkiness actually helped to make them more memorable. The more of these elements that I include in my game, the more likely I am to recreate the vibe associated with the original game. When I first started playing D and D as a boy in the late Seventies, I too sensed something odd about the descending armor class system. But over time, this element, along with dozens of others came to characterize the D and D experience. It helped contribute to the gestalt of D and D for me.

In the final assessment, it probably doesn’t matter all that much whether I choose the descending version of the rule over its alternative. It’s just a minor detail. But I believe that good gaming results from the careful consideration and assemblage of such details.

House Rules Question: Descending vs Ascending AC

2009-03-25T23:58:00.003-04:00

To start the discussion off right, how about your current thinking on descending vs ascending AC in Swords&Wizardry.

Which are you currently thinking of using? Benefits and drawbacks of each?

Standard Hirelings: The Grand Opening

2009-03-25T20:16:00.002-04:00

Post House Rules, Classes, Races, Rules Questions, New Spells, Monsters, Interesting Links, and, above all else, musings on Swords & Wizardry and Oe d&d.