tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41691419610904091622024-03-14T08:15:12.564-07:00Roll Some DiceA game-design blog for the <i>rest</i> of us [read: me].Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-42650699703382157902023-06-22T23:19:00.004-07:002023-10-02T10:19:19.026-07:00Bonus Actions: Not So Fast<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlSu_yX4e3yYT2RH5qwLkJNA8IS_KmY44Y1Fu77Dj_xnn73q9ORwrUeBQAGwUmvA_zAsSA9bSos3jJFmPkFbcXVyOQAVOB-S1DeC9Y_BxWxeQj6Y7gBQ6sHMp8ssDuA1B41FIGwuo6d2FLnAwIvP8VZXXUKVYoUgb7McgAY_WtrU2jrXp00mxwoVEJ8UM" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlSu_yX4e3yYT2RH5qwLkJNA8IS_KmY44Y1Fu77Dj_xnn73q9ORwrUeBQAGwUmvA_zAsSA9bSos3jJFmPkFbcXVyOQAVOB-S1DeC9Y_BxWxeQj6Y7gBQ6sHMp8ssDuA1B41FIGwuo6d2FLnAwIvP8VZXXUKVYoUgb7McgAY_WtrU2jrXp00mxwoVEJ8UM=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"We've had </i>one <i>wind, yes. What about </i>second <i>wind?"</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I am, admittedly, a rules-as-written kinda guy when it comes to 5E. I don't typically use houserules -- due in no small part to playing and running so many Adventurers League games -- but there's one pretty common houserule that's always bugged me. I've never really thought about <i>why</i> it bugged me so much, but I figured it out, and the answer involves something I don't think I've really seen anyone talk about online.<p></p><p>The houserule in question: allowing a PC to drink a potion as a bonus action. And the reason it bugs me is that that's not what bonus actions are for.</p><p>I think there's a lot of unspoken confusion about that, what the bonus action represents in the narrative, and consequently it seems like there's also a lot of people who've silently agreed on what that <i>is</i>. The question "Can I do that as a bonus action?" with regards to opening a door or drinking a potion implies that because the thing the player wants to do is so quick, it shouldn't require a "full" action. I can understand that line of thinking. But the thing is, bonus actions aren't <i>fast</i>, they're just... <i>bonus</i>.</p><p>We've had swift actions, minor actions, fast actions, immediate actions, and move actions, all of which basically mean "an action that doesn't take as much time or effort as attacking or casting a spell." And we know that 5E's design loves to reference previous editions for terminology (e.g., the upcoming <a href="https://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2023/05/d-new-weapon-mastery-is-from-80s.html">weapon mastery</a>). If they'd wanted to call it something that meant "fast action," there was plenty of history to pull from. So why didn't they?</p><p>The "fast" interpretation implies that time isn't a social construct in 5E. We don't divide time into segments, or have spells that take between 2 and 9 turns to cast. Of the 6 seconds in a round, how many go toward moving, and how many go toward attacking? If my speed is 45, are more of my 6 seconds dedicated to moving than a dwarf with a speed of 25? If I don't move at all, can I take two Attack actions? Because if I can use my action to Dash, which essentially lets me move again, it stands to reason that by not moving I could Attack again. Or if a bonus action is faster than an action, can I cast two <i>healing words</i> if I don't take an action? No to all of those, for many reasons. Six seconds is just a convenient unit of time they settled on so there could be 10 of them in a minute. If you can't tie any of these things -- moving, actions, and bonus actions -- to a consistent fraction of 6, you can't really justify any of them as being any faster than any of the others.</p><p>A better "translation" for bonus action might've been "special action," although that sounds... kinda weird, so I'm not faulting them for not using it. Still, "special" is more accurate, if you ask me. Bonus actions are -- well, let's go to the metaphorical videotape:<br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFgl5jC6Z86lMxj5P1j_6baUffE3GM_msiZtdUG5wEFlNut9tzuAbv-QkeEHrmedcyV0iFyK-k5S2aFeKCCZ-UnAqd50ITKK53YMv1tTca2anTlW2746FsGt50mgdVqQHZ1IQKNaRdc6J5JkMcOZD-yNKnpDgw1abKkGx90QppVbkTBxn_x2bZX9eahrw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="1303" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFgl5jC6Z86lMxj5P1j_6baUffE3GM_msiZtdUG5wEFlNut9tzuAbv-QkeEHrmedcyV0iFyK-k5S2aFeKCCZ-UnAqd50ITKK53YMv1tTca2anTlW2746FsGt50mgdVqQHZ1IQKNaRdc6J5JkMcOZD-yNKnpDgw1abKkGx90QppVbkTBxn_x2bZX9eahrw=w640-h229" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Courtesy of D&D Beyond.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />In other words, you have special training that lets you essentially turn an ordinary action into something extraordinary, or take two actions in the time it would take someone else to perform only one. The only catch is that one of those two actions must be something closely tied to that special training of yours. <p></p><p>(Do the rules perfectly align with this non-fast interpretation of bonus actions? No, of course not, but I'll get to that.)</p><p>Let's take a closer look at those two use-cases.</p><p><b>The extraordinary ordinary.</b> This is stuff like Rage, Bardic Inspiration, and Second Wind. On their own, these bonus actions represent things the common person can't do. There's no existing action equivalent for adding a static damage bonus, giving someone else a die to add to a d20 test, or independently regaining hit points outside of a short rest. But it's also clear that the design intent here is for you to do these things the same turn you use your action for something <i>else</i>, like attacking or casting a spell. When the barbarian charges forward, Rages, and attacks, his class feature is enhancing the Attack action. When a bard casts <i>hypnotic pattern</i> while shouting words of Bardic Inspiration to a companion, they didn't somehow speed up the casting of the spell, and besides, speaking doesn't require an action. When the monk/fighter Dodges or Second Winds, she's not dodging faster or healing faster; she's adding the narrative detail that her injuries or circumstances aren't not as bad as they look.</p><p><b>Two for one.</b> The classic examples here are the aforesaid rogue's Cunning Action and the monk's Martial Arts. I think a better case could be made here for bonus actions being faster than standard actions, especially in the monk's case. They punch you real fast! But it's disingenuous to say that the Attack action always represents only a single attack, rather than how many of the sword-swings you make in 6 seconds have a meaningful effect. Step of the Wind's another good example: spend a ki point to Disengage or Dash as a bonus action, but <i>also your jump distance is tripled</i>. Putting these together makes it clear the intent is for you to jump real far, either to retreat or to close distance. So do two things at once, but also do something ordinary in an extraordinary way. The rogue's Cunning Action is all about being slippery in combat -- you get in, you Sneak Attack, you get out, or you take a shot then Hide -- not because you're doing these things <i>faster</i>, but because you're doing them <i>better</i>. Nearly every spell with a casting time of "Bonus Action" falls under this umbrella, too. Lots of people can cast spells, but your class (or a feat or whatever) lets you cast two at a time, if one of them is closely tied to whatever gave you the ability to cast that "bonus" spell in the first place. Spellcasting and Pact Magic are class features, which makes the spells you can cast with them quasi-class features as well. </p><p>Really, "action" is the wrong word for the vast majority of what bonus actions do, but you don't want to confuse people with too much jargon. "Action" is close enough for jazz.</p><p>Anyway, let me get to the elephant in the room.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKlb4ZBpKsYI3tlWZ21kwyZ5sQq-qUx3UEQyZK11ulmxyEL3DyhfvGkN1kCBo3Tp-lZTUZ3Wc_ff7retrlsXnVAUvhXsinXS0aLo9DF8_8UCluvyXs0WkkI7fM2NDfq8nV-H7kqwVgBxFotI_sTbl6jnJt5jwj-wSCZ9ay1vZMwowe5s1MgtHj9sJNlfM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="1269" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKlb4ZBpKsYI3tlWZ21kwyZ5sQq-qUx3UEQyZK11ulmxyEL3DyhfvGkN1kCBo3Tp-lZTUZ3Wc_ff7retrlsXnVAUvhXsinXS0aLo9DF8_8UCluvyXs0WkkI7fM2NDfq8nV-H7kqwVgBxFotI_sTbl6jnJt5jwj-wSCZ9ay1vZMwowe5s1MgtHj9sJNlfM=w640-h132" width="640" /></a></div><br />Okay, look. I have an easy explanation for this: bad design. Well, "bad" isn't really fair -- I don't feel good about using the word "bad" -- but... how about "problematically inconsistent" instead?<p></p><p>I think it's just that they needed to limit how many times you could attack with an offhand weapon, and bonus actions were <i>right there</i>, so that's what they used, even though doing so didn't jibe with the rest of what bonus actions were used for. The description of bonus actions cites "various class features, spells, and other abilities," but this conspicuously leaves <i>equipment </i>out of the discussion. Plus, in the 2024 <i>One D&D</i> playtest materials, attacking with an offhand weapon no longer requires a bonus action. That course-correction indicates to me that two-weapon fighting relying on bonus actions was a "good enough" solution, but not the <i>best </i>one.</p><p>So let us now return to the idea of drinking a potion as a bonus action. It doesn't derive from a class feature, spell, or other ability, and thus violates the very definition of the bonus action. Except, of course, in the case of the Thief, whose Fast Hands feature explicitly lets them Use an Object as a bonus action. Letting just anyone do this, even just for drinking a potion, erodes their niche protection. This is Thief erasure, in other words. Which would be a real problem if people played Thieves. (I'm sure you're out there, Thief players -- let me know in the comments how much I've disrespected you!)</p><p>One last thing about bonus actions. Why do they exist at all? I think it's pretty clear they're a bit of a kludge. Step of the Wind could say "Until the end of the turn, your jump distance is tripled, and when you jump, you can also Dash or Disengage once without using an action." Is that <i>better</i>? It's certainly <i>wordier</i>, but a few more words might've been worth it to eliminate the concept of a bonus action. At least one original lead designer of 5E has gone on record as saying they wish bonus actions didn't exist. I mean, <i>hunter's mark</i> and <i>hex </i>could be spells you cast as an action or as part of the Attack action, for example. In fact, Second Wind could be divorced from the bonus action required to use it without missing a step! So why keep the bonus action?</p><p>Because 4E, that's why. Doing two things at once was a hallmark of 4E's powers. The cleric could laser a guy <i>and</i> heal an ally; the fighter could attack and push an enemy simultaneously, every turn if they wanted. But for the people who didn't like 4E, that sort of thing was (in my experience) a frequently cited reason why. Too video-gamey, breaks immersion, etc. When you split the secondary effect off into its own thing and charge a bonus action to use it, the tiny bit of agency feels more... pre-4E, let's say. I have no inside knowledge, but if I had to guess, I'd say that's a big reason why bonus actions exist in 5E.</p><p>This is obviously way too long and seemingly obsessive (I swear it's not!) as it is, but before I let this go I want to say that this whole thing is a bit tongue-in-cheek. You wanna let players use bonus actions to open doors and drink potions, more power to you. Just know that if I'm at your table when you do it, I'll probably mutter something to myself that, if you can manage to make it out, will be the URL of this blog post.</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-24705370864187903642023-05-13T09:16:00.001-07:002023-05-13T14:00:41.271-07:00D&D's New Weapon Mastery Is from the '80s<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNWfxI0emhTxBimQpZizq6kSiHf3yoEiw4aFEmTHvkAC4rHvbrtb-lKumTD6ZO39OQF_5egrBvo1Ewrd8RGslYyWkRCs8no6kZgC3s3VhZXF3spavJlb26ctJcHj4s-iL-9xgE8IoBRbJX47Lnl7PFwj8rmhSm58buaLZi3SiL6LMwLCI10w2gona8" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="613" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjF2neOmzW3LEg2dK4WyKJ8Xxa8A-OgPqa3ku6jPq9oCT8srUSImtj9lBuDg51yrbpLaz-Tvq70RN30J0MQLyGu2GTy902wHVLXzVSn7Kb3JU-h7kbCVtukToew5I9AdFJedbiViu_kmn_dAlq5ZF4oGbGLgFsTZxUNJQDe98UWXPgAJh4CJRZk5Qnz=w640-h204" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">From left to right: Rules Cyclopedia, One D&D Playtest Packet 5</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div></div></div></div><p></p><p>I'm a big fan of the <i><b><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic" target="_blank">D&D Rules Cyclopedia</a>.</b></i> Published in 1991, it compiles the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal boxed sets (aka BECMI) into a single chunky book, complete with Darlene-style hex maps of the "Known World" of Mystara in the back. It may be the best single-book edition of <i>D&D</i>. It may also be the <i>only</i> single-book edition of <i>D&D</i>, but that's neither here nor there.</p><p>The <i>RC</i> has a lot going for it besides the form factor, like non-weapon proficiencies, something like prestige classes or subclasses, and... weapon mastery.</p><p>Yes, weapon mastery, the cool new thing in the most-recent <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/one-dnd" target="_blank"><b>One D&D</b> playtest packet</a> that has everyone abuzz! And for good reason; it's a little something extra for the martial classes that doesn't come close to addressing the power discrepancy between casters and non-casters, especially at high levels, but still. (In addition to being a big fan of the <i>RC</i>, I'm a big fan of fighters.) </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Weapon Mastery in One D&D</h2><p>If you haven't seen it yet or absorbed it via subcultural osmosis, weapon mastery in the most-recent playtest packet adds a "mastery property" to each weapon. If you have a class or feat that gives you mastery with one or more weapons -- not to be confused with proficiency! -- then when you attack with that weapon, its mastery property activates. For example, the greatsword has the mastery property of Cleave, which means that when you attack with it and miss, you still deal damage equal to your ability modifier to it. (Damage on a miss! Rejoice, 4E fans!) There are other properties like Nick, Vex, and Flex. </p><p>Higher-level fighters (but no other classes) have the ability to shift a weapon mastery property from one weapon to another, which is interesting. For example, if you have mastery with the spear (Push) and the greatsword (Graze), you could Push with the greatsword or do damage on a miss with the spear. So it's a little more versatility for the fighter. Ironically, it also kinda means that while a lower-level fighter might swap out one weapon for another to better suit the situation, thus giving them a meaningful choice to make in combat, a higher-level fighter is less inclined to need to make that choice.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Weapon Mastery in the <i>Rules Cyclopedia</i></h2><p>How does this differ from the <i>RC</i>'s weapon mastery? In concept, marginally! In execution and complexity, quite a bit.</p><p>Weapon mastery in the <i>RC </i>is an option available to all human characters, regardless of class, although fighters are better at it. At 1st level, a non-fighter gets two weapon choices and a fighter gets four, although none of them can spend more than one choice on a single weapon until they hit 3rd level. The more choices you expend on a single weapon, the greater the degree of mastery. For any weapon restricted from your class, you're Unskilled; for any that aren't, you have Basic skill with each weapon you choose. This is the equivalent of proficiency in 5E. At later levels, you gain additional weapon choices, which you can use to learn how to use new weapons, or -- more crucially for this blog post -- you can increase your Basic skill with a weapon, from Skilled to Expert to Master to Grand Master. </p><p>Nonhuman characters, "due to their longer lifespans and wilderness-oriented lifestyles [...] start with basic skill in all weapons not restricted from their classes." I.e., unless it's a weapon their class (which is also their race -- <i>Basic D&D</i>!) specifically says they <i>can't </i>use, they know how to use it. They have the time and motivation to be more broadly skilled, which I think is a pretty effective way to address that whole "But I'm a thousand years old! Surely I know how to [whatever]!" thing that can come up with elves and dwarves. Halflings, sorry to lump you in there despite your average lifespan not being that much longer than that of the typical human, but them's the breaks. You don't like it, you shoulda thought about not being a demihuman. </p><p>Anyway, you gain more weapon choices at higher levels, and can spend those choices to train with weapons you already know how to use (which takes time and money) rather than learning new ones. As your level of mastery with a weapon increases, you get some passive benefits, like bonuses to attack rolls, AC, and range. You can even cause a "despair effect," which forces your opponent, and sometimes even just other enemies nearby, to make a morale check! This happens more or less at random, though; the rules provide a few hardwired circumstances, like dealing max damage with the weapon, but then also give the DM space to call for it whenever they see fit. </p><p>Then there are special effects. While the new weapon mastery rules of not-5.5E have a pretty concise list of mastery properties, the <i>RC</i>'s are more wide-ranging. These include Charge, Deflect, Strangle, Second Attack Knockout, Skewer, and even <i>Death</i>, which is exactly what it sounds like. Some weapons, like blowguns, blackjacks, and bolas, get their own, slightly more complex rules governing their special effects, but given the average prevalence of these specialty weapons in most games, it doesn't seem that onerous to me. </p><p>These may sound pretty powerful, and they are, but most of them are contingent on a failed saving throw of some kind. What I really like about them is how they get around a common issue in <i>D&D</i>, namely an inconvenient surplus of hit points<i>. </i>Sometimes the action would suggest that a single well-placed blow ought to incapacitate or even kill an opponent who has plenty of hit points left, usually leaving the DM with a choice between just hand-waving the monster to death or coming up with a nice way of telling the player that their character isn't quite as effective as they thought. But when your weapon mastery means that each time you hit the monster with your blowgun, there's a chance you inflict the Death effect it, or that in your hands a blackjack actually <i>can</i> Knockout a creature in one hit, fighting with a weapon instead of casting a spell sounds pretty attractive. Some pretty weird weapons, admittedly, but weapons nonetheless.</p><p>There <i>is</i> the drawback of the defender frequently having to make a saving throw each time they're hit, thus slowing down the action, but I dunno, for me that's a small price to pay. The DM can just roll it when the player rolls for their attack.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjodwiJnZR6TvcaxCjeGKPegLWZLWTFnmiiIB7UqdgB1kS_HiLufTB6rb61f3QifXg6eDcmYt2XFhNVCBIyrP4sk-Z1csmQQTyiG30LwNtVbgooG3HgJQ4wwaOV9lu0Z2vLSI9fiZOsHcM_PlrLOXpCgUhIh43duWV1McJhTNHPLEF_CN324-jBOE_r" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="551" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjodwiJnZR6TvcaxCjeGKPegLWZLWTFnmiiIB7UqdgB1kS_HiLufTB6rb61f3QifXg6eDcmYt2XFhNVCBIyrP4sk-Z1csmQQTyiG30LwNtVbgooG3HgJQ4wwaOV9lu0Z2vLSI9fiZOsHcM_PlrLOXpCgUhIh43duWV1McJhTNHPLEF_CN324-jBOE_r" width="254" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pictured: Weapon mastery.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>My Point</h2><p>So why go on about this, on a blog that sees very little attention, especially from me? I dunno, I just think it's notable that in all this talk about weapon mastery in One D&D, it seems like no one has said <i>anything </i>about its origins in BECMI <i>D&D</i> or the <i>Rules Cyclopedia</i>. It even has the same name! You'd think Crawford would've mentioned it in passing, at the very least. "We decided to return to an old friend from the '80s: weapon mastery."</p><p>Maybe someone somewhere has already made this connection, but if so, I haven't seen it. And it's too bad, because there is such a wealth of material to plunder from older editions of <i>D&D</i>, especially those editions that fly a little under the radar. Personally, I really like the <i>RC</i>'s weapon mastery rules and would like to see how they might translate to 5E, but then I'm also the guy who'd play <i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/88652/Rolemaster-Classic-Character-Law" target="_blank"><b>Rolemaster</b></a></i> at the drop of a hat, so... grain of salt.</p><p>But now I want to hear from you. What do <i>you</i> wish the One D&D design team would bring forward from a defunct edition of the game? Or would you prefer they leave the past in the past and do something completely new? Let me know in the comments below.</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-26184321673486808202023-01-24T09:31:00.006-08:002023-01-24T21:03:46.696-08:00Umomkegeth, 1-8 to 1-15<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrR9BdoI6Sc2caAZ86WqlYYKvLD7BO6xJYTXC5irFEY6gvhLPhFI-q5JFYfYnykuutqmNrJQMgsl1EqDR08rAgQQVw46ptj-KfggfGlg5Hmj5Sui8AbB5zkfurab2CkBpqEC7YA7HYjj2V65TZcItJixcF8fK0g3XR4a_z4TE773EZZbNszHI11D6t" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="1275" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrR9BdoI6Sc2caAZ86WqlYYKvLD7BO6xJYTXC5irFEY6gvhLPhFI-q5JFYfYnykuutqmNrJQMgsl1EqDR08rAgQQVw46ptj-KfggfGlg5Hmj5Sui8AbB5zkfurab2CkBpqEC7YA7HYjj2V65TZcItJixcF8fK0g3XR4a_z4TE773EZZbNszHI11D6t=w640-h298" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">I'm further along than this, I swear, but transferring material from the notebook to the blog is a thing that takes time. So here's another week's worth of Umomkegeth!</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-8 Guard Room</h3><p></p><p>Dwarven guards once stood here to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the Hall of Artifacts (1-9). Bas reliefs of craftsdwarves cover the walls, as does the blood of the dwarves who died here.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-9 Hall of Artifacts</h3><p>This used to house Umomkegeth's finest artistic achievements on stone pedestals distributed throughout the room. It was a source of pride for the dwarves, and a point of interest for visitors. Now the pedestals are toppled and broken. Behind a tattered tapestry on the west wall is a secret door.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-10 West Barracks</h3><p>Stone bunk beds for eight dwarves line the walls of this room, surrounding a stone table in the center carved from the living rock itself. There is nothing else of interest here.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-11 West Drill Hall</h3><p>Rotted remains of wooden swords and axes litter the floor. In amongst them is a <i>grown wooden sword</i>, a gift from an elven visitor long ago. Treat this as a magical short sword that deals bludgeoning damage.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-12 West Armory</h3><p>Stone armor stands and weapon racks line the walls here, all empty. The secret door in the north wall is concealed behind a weapon rack.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-13 East Barracks</h3><p>This room is identical to the West Barracks.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-14 East Drill Hall</h3><div>The trappings here are similar to those in the West Drill Hall, except this room is occupied. A dwarven <b>wight </b>stands here, overseeing four dwarven <b>specters</b> locked in an eternal training session. These five were killed in the second undead wave, and their captain (the wight) blamed his squad's poor training, coming as they did from the B-squad of whoever remained after the <i>first</i> undead wave. They'll happily attack an living "invaders" now, though. </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-15 East Armory</h3><p>This room is similar to the West Armory, but lacks the secret door. Hanging above the door is a <i>greataxe of vengeance</i>, inhabited by the vengeful spirit of the dwarf who wielded it in life and fell in defense of the colony. Attuning to it also grants the ability to read and understand the Dwarven language.</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-26432445107955893512023-01-07T22:11:00.000-08:002023-01-07T22:11:06.813-08:00Umomkegeth, 1-1 to 1-7<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxgvlgmgC3pfmOjrd336_gt8m1dMFGxqXg8irje4_pQoFJAm-AtfNOrCJocD-0IDZXwq4r1d30uIsVm2dE-__xqLBva_3d4ofeUqPoYbigHKugO-Ah_5s470pY06ol7nF5fk0qqJd3TYppocwSmLHdEAx6grrBks3-10Hy60hBrbbiMgNeRIFPsR8u" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1191" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxgvlgmgC3pfmOjrd336_gt8m1dMFGxqXg8irje4_pQoFJAm-AtfNOrCJocD-0IDZXwq4r1d30uIsVm2dE-__xqLBva_3d4ofeUqPoYbigHKugO-Ah_5s470pY06ol7nF5fk0qqJd3TYppocwSmLHdEAx6grrBks3-10Hy60hBrbbiMgNeRIFPsR8u=w640-h386" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Map created using Dungeonscrawl.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>Okay, a day later than promised, but let's do this!</p><p>Actually, wait -- first let me briefly talk about what's on the surface, above the entrance.</p><p>The dwarves established the colony on a plateau and digging down, as opposed to in the side of a hill or mountain. That entrance was within a simple but solid stone structure, just four walls and a set of double-doors. Beside this, they erected their trading depot, to more easily transact business with merchants from distant lands. (Better that than inviting them in.) </p><p>Today, the depot is all but gone. Whatever wasn't obliterated by the undead was worn down by time and the elements. The stone edifice still stands, but the formerly impressive double doors are now just two slabs on the ground, half=buried and overgrown with weeds. Without them, nothing prevents any creature so inclined from just waltzing in and descending the stairs within. Despite this, only adventurers are foolish enough to do so. </p><p>Okay, <i>now</i> let's--</p><p>One other note: Unless otherwise noted, at least for this first level, the doorways are all devoid of doors, either because they're broken, lying in the doorway, or missing entirely. I may decide later to figure that out on a doorway-by-doorway basis, or just roll 1d6 (1-3: broken, 4-5: in doorway, 6: missing). Those few doors that remain after the multiple sieges are either especially sturdy (and stone) or barricaded on one side or the other.</p>Okay, so <i>now</i> now let's do this.<p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-1 Entry Hall</h3><p>Stairs descend south in this bone- and debris-strewn room that once served as the grand entryway to the dwarven stronghold. Signs of the dwarves' repeated defensive efforts against the undead are apparent, from scorch marks to chunks taken out of the walls. Corridors exit to the south, east, and west.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-2 Antechamber #1</h3><p>The rubble in this room includes remnants of the wooden furniture that once provided honored guests a place to put their feet up while waiting for an audience with the baron. The tactically minded can discern an overturned table among the wreckage that seems to have been used as a barricade. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-3 Antechamber #2</h3><p>This room bears a striking resemblance to the other antechamber, with the exception of a trapdoor set into the floor against the east wall. Character knowledgeable in masonry can tell it's not part of the original construction. It opens into a chamber beneath (14).</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-4 Panic Room</h3><p>The masonry in this chamber is nowhere near the fine quality of the rooms above. Even those who know next to nothing about stonework can tell it was dug out hastily and without aesthetic regard. Initially intended to be an emergency shelter in the last wave of undead (after which this level was abandoned entirely), it ended up serving as a makeshift prison for <b>four zombies</b>, who are still here. Three of them were once human, but the fourth is clearly a dwarf. The dwarf still wears a chalcedony bracelet that was made right here in Umomkegeth. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-5 Junction Room</h3><p>Six corridors diverge from this room. A stairway down in the south wall is choked with rubble and impassable. In the middle of the room is a stone fountain, bone-dry and sporting a wide crack down its middle that's home to a <b>giant wolf spider</b>. It normally feeds on whatever vermin it can catch here, but will happily lunge from its hiding place to attack any creature that comes near the fountain.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-6 Craftsdwarves' Studios</h3><p>These rooms were once the workplaces of Umomkegeth's finest craftsdwarves, and still contain detritus indicative of their function. Determine randomly for each studio in what medium its occupant worked (bone, stone, wood, or metal) and what trappings it contains. (I'd use the <i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/406161/The-Dread-Thingonomicon" target="_blank">Dread Thingonomicon</a></i> or the ol' <i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/63106/Ultimate-Toolbox" target="_blank">Ultimate Toolbox</a></i>, but dealer's choice.) One of these eight rooms is home to another <b>giant wolf spider</b>; determine that randomly, too.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1-7 Materials Stockpile</h3><p>The door to this room is intact, locked, and barricaded from the inside. Getting it open is a matter of time and effort, but it can be done. Most of its square footage is taken up by a variety of chests full of raw materials for the craftsdwarves, including a handful of uncut gems, bars of iron and silver, bones of exotic creatures, and the like. To the east, a spiral staircase descends to a lower level. A series of seven rune-inscribed slabs have been set into the floor against the north wall. Each is dedicated to a dead dwarf, and briefly describes their fate -- all were killed in the undead sieges. A short distance away from them, a blank slab lies on the floor. </p><p>If the characters come near these slabs, a dwarven <b>ghost</b> will materialize before them and silently shout at them. It won't attack if the character backs off, but won't hesitate to defend itself if necessary. This is the ghost of the last surviving craftsdwarf, who barricaded themself in here and memorialized their fallen comrades. Without a memorial slab of their own, though, they found themself imprisoned here upon their eventual death, unable to move on until their name too graced the final slab. As a ghost, they are unable to complete this task, but if a character can, the ghost will vanish, finally put to rest. If reduced to zero hit points, the ghost will likewise vanish, but will reappear here in 2d12 hours.</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-41119113371320360302023-01-05T07:52:00.000-08:002023-01-05T07:52:11.847-08:00Dungeon23 X Dwarf Fortress<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJdLf-wZ2LDsB4C4VB-hB1X3xSS3P3SyK891E9RZphz0B8WTkLNj1Ou5YOxKP_65rnrOqCP9pyffv3uMxromQpK_1RBsvG3a_gsH4qBU62c-7E6wOwF08i5a48b_uawILhon2wbcW1y-czfy7AK7ANF-1q70iR1zbc2RvxCcwJPTzEkJhZt7D4Dc7h" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJdLf-wZ2LDsB4C4VB-hB1X3xSS3P3SyK891E9RZphz0B8WTkLNj1Ou5YOxKP_65rnrOqCP9pyffv3uMxromQpK_1RBsvG3a_gsH4qBU62c-7E6wOwF08i5a48b_uawILhon2wbcW1y-czfy7AK7ANF-1q70iR1zbc2RvxCcwJPTzEkJhZt7D4Dc7h=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><a href="https://seanmccoy.substack.com/p/dungeon23" target="_blank">Dungeon23</a>! Cool idea. One room a day, one level a month, culminating in a 12-level, 365-room megadungeon. </p><p>It's also... a lot.</p><p>Fortunately for me, only a few days before I saw the posts about Dungeon23, I started playing <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/" target="_blank">Dwarf Fortress</a> for the first time. Even more fortunately, <i>I am bad at it</i>. Let me explain why that's good.</p><p>If you're not familiar with the game, it's an <a href="https://dwarffortresswiki.org/" target="_blank">extremely complex world-simulator</a> with no real endgame other than having fun. What that means is up to each individual player. You could train your dwarves to be killing machines, raiding their neighbors and conquering the world. Or maybe they're farmers instead of conquerors. (Full disclosure, I still don't really know how to do either of those.) You can tunnel deep into the earth and establish a home surrounded by subterranean wonders, send your dwarves up into the trees to contend with giant squirrels, cut down a forest of trees to build a floating town on a lake, or whatever else you can think of. There are best practices, but no real "rules." </p><p>My first few fortresses, everyone starved or dehydrated to death. Then I got one up to 100+ dwarves (you start with seven) that got wiped out, one by one, but a rampaging bronze golem that must've hated dwarves. That was followed by another delicately dug 100+-dwarf colony that was overrun by the living dead. It was so elaborate that I decided to reclaim it, only to suffer the same fate. Quickly. Twice.</p><p>Then Dungeon23 comes along, and I'm like, hey, I think I have a starting point here.</p><blockquote><p><i>In the year 250 of the Age of Myths, the dwarves of the Mountainhomes dispatched an expedition into the wilds to establish a new colony. Under the guidance of their leader, Olod Inodkoman, a septet of dwarves founded </i>Umomkegeth<i>, the Darkholds, on land rich with natural resources. Years passed, and the stronghold prospered. Its craftsdwarves developed a reputation for their handiwork. Many fine and valuable pieces were produced there, highly prized by dwarf, human, and elf alike. Umomkegeth continued to attract more dwarves to its banner, and even developed trade agreements with nearby non-dwarf communities. When the living dead swept over the land, Olod and his kin were caught unawares. Many dwarves lost their lives in the siege; when it was over, Umomkegeth still stood. But that was only the first wave of many. Seeking safety, the dwarves dug deeper into the ground, eventually abandoning the upper floors and taking desperate measures to keep the undead at bay. What they hadn't anticipated, however, was that with each level they excavated, they were drawing ever closer to an even greater evil.</i><br /><br /><i>It has been more than a century since Umomkegeth finally fell, but whispers persist of the riches still buried there, waiting to be claimed by anyone brave or foolhardy enough to do so.</i></p></blockquote><p>That'll work, right? Feels sufficiently old-school to me. I'm not going to copy any of my fortresses, but I'll use them as inspiration for a while.</p><p>And to encourage [read: strongarm] myself to keep at it for the next... 360 days, I'll be blogging about it here. Maybe it'll be interesting to people; I dunno. Being interesting to anyone other than me has never been a priority for this blog before, but still. New year, new... this.<br /><br />Starting tomorrow I'll share the first five days of dungeon-building, so if you're into that, stay tuned! And if you're participating in Dungeon23 as well, let me know in the comments, and drop a link to your own work online if that's how you're rolling.</p><p>P.S.: If you're interested in Dwarf Fortress, whether you've played it or not, check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@kruggsmash/playlists" target="_blank">Kruggsmash's videos on YouTube</a>. They're mostly from the pre-Steam version of the game, but for years now he's managed to spin the lives of these little ASCII characters into compelling and entertaining narratives accompanied by charming art. Personally, I started with <a href="https://youtu.be/ojT99rDmq5M" target="_blank">Scorchfountain</a> and its sequel, <a href="https://youtu.be/yWqme-3M6IU" target="_blank">Chamberpoint</a>, and found them to be a good entry point. You may be surprised at how invested you get in the exploits of Beetlebane, Winks, Ted, and many, many others.</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-9673609299115587102022-06-03T11:27:00.000-07:002022-06-03T11:27:13.995-07:00This One's for the DMs<p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">SPOILER ALERT</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This post is about an inconsistency in one of the maps in <i>Skullkickers: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque</i>. If you're a player in a group that's currently going through this adventure, for your own sake you should stop reading now. DMs only from here on out. Thanks!</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXtwmGSFBubg0Vz-qZubZQ9jYGfrwHN_ZOEIEGLJVxfu43lQJ5xAP2eJ9t7A2f6sc67Qebh7u-4kJgh75HHqiOxHnF6u4es6RYnMWelGPYKeoM-AnJe-ATMk-lMskgbPnlCdCN1L5MXPIDUIT98_XTd9KGEsIj_Q8JwPmZavyscMgb0Y3r-T9gIaN/s2094/dungeonbs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="2094" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXtwmGSFBubg0Vz-qZubZQ9jYGfrwHN_ZOEIEGLJVxfu43lQJ5xAP2eJ9t7A2f6sc67Qebh7u-4kJgh75HHqiOxHnF6u4es6RYnMWelGPYKeoM-AnJe-ATMk-lMskgbPnlCdCN1L5MXPIDUIT98_XTd9KGEsIj_Q8JwPmZavyscMgb0Y3r-T9gIaN/w640-h150/dungeonbs.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">An eagle-eyed reader sent us the following:</div><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i></i></p><blockquote><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>On level 3 of the dungeon, the rotating room in D50 is controlled by the wheel in room D51... but the only way to get into room D51 is to enter through the rotating room in D50.</i></p><p><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Is there supposed to be another entrance to D51? Is there supposed to be another way to rotate D50? Maybe I'm misreading it, but I can't figure it out. </i></p></blockquote><p>First of all, thank you for your feedback, kind Kickstarter backer (I assume). It's a good question. And you know what? They're not wrong! But let me give you some reasons why it's probably okay.</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The areas beyond D50 can still be accessed without messing with it or D51 at all. It's a more circuitous route, but it's entirely possible, and they don't have to miss out on anything by doing so.</li><li>This is a very old-school kind of problem. In that sense, this is fitting.</li><li>We've seen evidence that this level of the dungeon has some, uh... <i>design flaws</i>, let's say. Those flaws were intentionally written to be that way, even if this one wasn't, but it's inconsistent with some of the other over-thought traps and rooms down here. Plus, the dungeon is old, and most of it has fallen into disrepair. This level is in better shape than the two above it, thanks to the cultists, but still, it has its issues. There very well could've been a magical means to rotate D50 that's no longer operational. This is more of an explanation than a solution, but it makes sense, if you ask me.</li></ol><div>So, speaking of solutions, I have some solutions:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i><b>Go With It.</b></i> This is a matter of DM fiat (like everything else), but nothing really precludes the PCs from finding a way in there anyway. Closely examining D50 could reveal that the space behind the north wall is hollow, a character on the Ethereal Plane somehow (using, say, <i>blink</i>) could see D51 from D50 (or even the east-west hallway north of there), a character with a pick-axe or even a portable ram could conceivably create an opening between D50 and D51, etc. Sure, this is a little far-fetched and really puts the onus on the players, but every other room they've seen that looks like this rotates. There's every indication that this one rotates too, but they don't see the mechanism that rotates it. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that this could prompt a party to investigate it, discover the existence of D51, and find a way to get in there. Totally in the DM's hands (again, like everything else).</li><li><i><b>Change the Map.</b></i> Put a wheel in D50 that rotates it. The wheels in D51 still rotate it too, but now there's an easier way in there. Probably the simplest solution.</li><li><i><b>Change the Mechanism.</b></i> Disabling the traps in D49 also rotates D50, just like using the wheels in D51 to disable the traps does. This is maybe the most old-school, unfair-dungeon-crawl solution, because they'd have to put quite a few puzzle pieces together to even notice what's going on, but it's an option.</li><li><i><b>Change Another Mechanism.</b></i> There's a pressure plate somewhere in D50 that rotates the room 90 degrees clockwise when triggered, then locks it into place until one or more wheels in D51 has been turned. After doing so, stepping on the pressure plate again rotates it 90 degrees for each wheel that was turned. The solution is turning two wheels, then going back into D50. Turning all three puts you right back where you started! This is probably my preference, I think.</li><li><i><b>A Wizard Does It.</b></i> Introduce a magical solution. A spell scroll of <i>stone shape</i>, a <i>lyre of building</i>, a <i>Cli lyre</i>, or some totally made-up thing like a <i>potion of umber-hulk form</i> could all solve it pretty readily. You'd have to seed that somewhere earlier in the dungeon, but that wouldn't be too hard. Heck, plant that spell scroll on a skeleton in D49. </li><li><i><b>Oh Yeah!</b></i> Someone or something has already busted a hole in the wall between D50 and D51. This is only a partial solution, because they still have to figure out how to turn one of the wheels in D51 while standing in D50, but I'm sure they'll think of something. (I vote for <i>unseen servant</i>.)</li><li><i><b>Oh No.</b></i> If all this is more trouble than it's worth for you, nix D50 and replace it with a T-intersection. Done and done!</li></ul><div>I'm sure there are a thousand other in-game solutions to this, though. If you have one, let me know in the comments!</div></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i></i></p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-9705010333643142932022-04-09T19:04:00.006-07:002022-04-11T10:26:25.641-07:00Mistakes Were Made<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7x5jpBGulgkd28-m5ePdp69epbLbjFT0Sz7a4TCRV6HxJubPp3Jnlr4bY9d0utDdRW4opJnzAA001KH1bO6octx4Zh0qhS32ceZ5-l9XsEnNDVdVrxBQ0wV4Z8P-cTeKEgwO-rCm5h1MD0JX5jKpSVndH1JYsP-IHwp8WcDnf14R8LrEumRv0_QM7/s1087/mistakes.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="1087" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7x5jpBGulgkd28-m5ePdp69epbLbjFT0Sz7a4TCRV6HxJubPp3Jnlr4bY9d0utDdRW4opJnzAA001KH1bO6octx4Zh0qhS32ceZ5-l9XsEnNDVdVrxBQ0wV4Z8P-cTeKEgwO-rCm5h1MD0JX5jKpSVndH1JYsP-IHwp8WcDnf14R8LrEumRv0_QM7/w640-h190/mistakes.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;">Well, it wouldn't be a <i>real</i> RPG book if it didn't have errata, right?</p><p style="text-align: left;">It seems that in Skullkickers: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque <a href="https://zubkavision.pledgemanager.com/projects/skullkickers/participate/" target="_blank">(now available on a website near you</a>), a couple artifacts from the previous relationships subsystem sneaked through into the final product. Fortunately, it's only embarrassing, as opposed to something that causes an actual problem.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The passages in question are on pages 45 and 47, but deleting the offending sentences is enough to fix it.<br />Here's the one on page 45, down in the last paragraph on the page.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_R11igYYa_tXQuzy8LeyLg7H24puojOkUGwe16Z5H4pHryvPHRgLa6-k0Jv5SzCIRwhYjr3OFXqXY1toocVLWZPo2c6pjrk6freMiheXuV7e_5cQypkZ1y3UN8FJGUv4-CDaA4isObTulWlv8nTfFsxN1Cd7owuBdyfWlGqZk93eNE54Pcu7OadWm/s570/p45.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="570" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_R11igYYa_tXQuzy8LeyLg7H24puojOkUGwe16Z5H4pHryvPHRgLa6-k0Jv5SzCIRwhYjr3OFXqXY1toocVLWZPo2c6pjrk6freMiheXuV7e_5cQypkZ1y3UN8FJGUv4-CDaA4isObTulWlv8nTfFsxN1Cd7owuBdyfWlGqZk93eNE54Pcu7OadWm/s320/p45.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If you can't see that, the two sentences to cut are these:</div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If a character has an NPC roommate, that NPC</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">immediately becomes an Acquaintance,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">assuming the character spends a little time</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">getting acquainted with them. See Social</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Studies (page 10) for what that means for the</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">character. </div></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The two on page 47 are more of the same.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYWipHcCpScggZNDW3leSxqsbwW8McFocRDXmXbzUTdUQI6HzlkfQ4qGUcYSXoF1TMhNNFjbeKsrrQDyPALGi1kGg8ILGLhLuhL1Wm1h7kiYfkd5_ZsN6b_kgo9md4NXIx7wqRVWXuoIhNpO3c38p9gl32klO4RcU7qCtjnNJ1FDnfCsTEfvF09Po/s570/p47.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="570" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYWipHcCpScggZNDW3leSxqsbwW8McFocRDXmXbzUTdUQI6HzlkfQ4qGUcYSXoF1TMhNNFjbeKsrrQDyPALGi1kGg8ILGLhLuhL1Wm1h7kiYfkd5_ZsN6b_kgo9md4NXIx7wqRVWXuoIhNpO3c38p9gl32klO4RcU7qCtjnNJ1FDnfCsTEfvF09Po/s320/p47.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Again, the sentences to cut are these:</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Any character who spends a</div><div>good portion of the evening with an NPC</div><div>strengthens their relationship with them (from</div><div>Stranger to Acquaintance). They can</div><div>strengthen only one relationship this way.</div></div></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">Simple and straightforward! No updating to 2.0 required.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Updating to 2.0</h2><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">Even without the old relationship subsystem, it's probably pretty clear what was meant by each of these two passages: use these scenes to encourage the players to interact with NPCs. The specific mechanics involved don't have to matter (and like I've said before, they were way too fiddly to be good in the first place, so I don't think you're missing anything).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">Could Popularity, which replaced these old mechanics, do the same? Sure. The book even describes it as "a useful abstraction of the various acquaintances and friends they gain (or lose) over time." </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">If you're interested in this, give the PC a few Popularity points (like 1d4) if their player makes a solid effort to socialize at the post-ceremony mixer. Simply meeting a new roommate or two is unlikely to have an effect on one's Popularity, but it's certainly possible to leverage those new acquaintances at the mixer, which would more or less result in the same benefit.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">Alternately, you could treat the evening as an abbreviated Meanwhile activity -- probably Partying, but possibly Bootlicking. Use the results as a rough guide for how the PC's night goes, but don't feel obligated to stick to the tables as written. In particular, consider using any complications that arise as narrative flavor rather than A Thing That Happened. And definitely disregard any modifiers to their next Whiffle Sparks check.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">For example, Rex's player says he drinks too much, dances on tables, and ends up wearing a metaphorical lampshade on his head by the end of the night. "Give me a Constitution (Persuasion) check," you, the GM, might say, and then Rex gets a 14. "Party buddies! Gain 1d6 Popularity." The player's 1d6 roll results in Rex gaining 3 Popularity. He's still a Nobody, but he's on his way. You can use the tables on page 10 to quickly determine the passions of his new party buddies, and fill in the details later, if needed.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">Again, sorry for the error, but I hope this helps smooth things over. I'm proud of the job we did with the editing on this book, but pobody's nerfect, after all!</span></p></div></div><p></p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-45682722868416734402022-03-04T23:28:00.003-08:002022-03-04T23:28:29.767-08:00The Actual Adventures<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://zubkavision.pledgemanager.com/projects/skullkickers/participate/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">BUY <i>SKULLKICKERS: CASTER BASTARDS AND THE GREAT GROTESQUE</i> NOW!</span></a></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNTj7W8Hx0xGW-1-Z_TTavGO9Gu_f6HPIi6sujZiuDsfE3JK1ymKe8uQc5R8lMCd-obsiWQ7cvT0u_mMb7VE_haLNCgfBQbkoz8XPb_mgITrLiN2R7QpK6U5O9drGEYJOFz7qujXD47LYXSHQiNvf03ns4C1Rmuv5NJVOeHq40gAyDu_c6dZfTCh73=s1400" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNTj7W8Hx0xGW-1-Z_TTavGO9Gu_f6HPIi6sujZiuDsfE3JK1ymKe8uQc5R8lMCd-obsiWQ7cvT0u_mMb7VE_haLNCgfBQbkoz8XPb_mgITrLiN2R7QpK6U5O9drGEYJOFz7qujXD47LYXSHQiNvf03ns4C1Rmuv5NJVOeHq40gAyDu_c6dZfTCh73=w640-h320" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>These Strixhaven students would appear to be on some sort of adventure.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>Whoa, this got away from me, huh? First it was the holidays and then our 3rd grader went back to school in person after a long, <i>long</i> period of online learning, which you'd think would mean I'd have all kinds of time to be productive, when in reality my "one week to decompress" turned into, like, almost two months. But this Skullkickers-meets-Strixhaven series of posts has been on my mind the whole time, so let's get to it!</p><p>So in this post, I'm going to look at the core of each of these two books, the adventures themselves. When the PCs aren't doing school stuff as students, or dealing with their relationships, or any of that, what's putting their lives in peril? What feats of heroism are they called upon to perform? Like that.</p><p>I want to note right off the bat that there's a significant structural dichotomy between these two books that makes this comparison a little more difficult than the others. In <i>Strixhaven</i>, the adventures is the book, by which I mean that everything the characters do in their academic careers is presented in the format of a series of adventures, and when the last one's done, you're at the end of the book, more or less. It's like any other hardcover adventure from WotC. Nothing wrong with that!</p><p>In <i>Skullkickers</i>, well, I don't want to give anything away, but the portion of the adventure in which the PCs are students doing student-things is only the first of three acts. In the second act, there's the Graduate Dungeon, and in the third act there's... something else. In a sense, the purpose of the adventures in Act I is to show the players around the tower and all it has to offer. It's a big tower, and if you don't make the players go places they wouldn't ordinarily go, well, they wouldn't go there. And although I am proud of that Act I content, this isn't just vanity. Knowledge of the school's layout and locations will be helpful later on. No spoilers. Act I is a sizable chunk of the book, but it's only one of three.</p><p>Regardless, an implied message in each is "Something is going on here, and we don't know what." <i>Strixhaven </i>provides the characters with clear direction -- there's a prompt for characters to get involved in something, and then they do, and that leads to other adventures. There's wiggle-room to allow for player shenanigans, but there's also an intended arc there, with a an over-villain at the end. Each year, a series of events occurs that tends to follow the same narrative thread, each one (usually) building on the one before, and which culminates in a finale that wraps everything up, or at least everything that the players didn't contribute themselves. </p><p>(It's easy to see how <i>Strixhaven</i> can be split up into four short campaigns, or a series of one-shots, or one longer campaign that takes the characters from enrolling to graduating. This makes a lot of sense in light of changes with the Adventurers League. In years past, WotC has produced AL-specific adventures to pair with each hardcover. That's not happening anymore. Instead, the hardcovers themselves will be the AL's focus. You could always play the hardcovers as AL games, going all the way back to <i>Hoard of the Dragon Queen</i>, but it was clear that they weren't written with the AL's specific needs in mind. And also they want us to buy the books. Anyway.)</p><p>Act I of <i>Skullkickers</i> has a similar structure, but there's no larger-scale "wrapping up" at the end of each semester. I mean, there is in that each semester's three-part story does come to a conclusion, but it's not something (usually) that concerns or affects the entire Academy to any significant degree. The answer to the question "What's going on here?" doesn't so much point the characters in a new direction as it does just confirm that "Yeah, things are weird, right?" That weirdness is something that the Academy's residents have just come to accept as their day-to-day. Weird things happen, sometimes with tragic results, but it isn't especially focused or directed. </p><p>That may sound counter-intuitive, or like it doesn't frame the characters as heroes solving problems, but that's not the case. As I said earlier, <i>Skullkickers</i>'s school-time adventures are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. (I'm sorry, I should've had some wordplay there, but I'm fresh out.) If the adventures in Act I consistently presented problems so severe that they threatened the Academy itself, then other students, maybe even the professors, would get involved. The end of each semester's story leaves the players with something to think and wonder about, but for everyone else's it's more along the lines of "Okay, show's over, back to your seats."</p><p>There's one other thing I wanted to say, and please don't take this as me running down <i>Strixhaven</i>, because I don't mean it that way, although I do think it's worth pointing out. A lot of adventure scenes in Strixhaven rope the players in by having a student say something like "You gotta come see this!" or "Come with us!" The you gotta see or go with them for is generally something rather light-hearted student-life stuff that snowballs from there into something that potentially leads to combat. </p><p>Look out, I'm going to use an analogy. Say you're driving on the freeway (I'm in Southern California; we do a of that here) and you see a billboard for a diner. If you're hungry, you'll choose to get off at the exit and eat. If you're not, you won't. Compare that to, say, having a blowout, or being pulled over by a cop -- it happens directly to you, and you have to deal with whether you want to or not. The adventure hooks for most of these adventures are like the billboard, not the blowout or cop. As long as the players at least say "I could eat," it's all good. </p><p>I think that wraps up this series! Two great books with distinctive identities. We talked about academics, student life, relationships, adventures... yeah, I think that's everything. In the unlikely event that it isn't, please let me know by leaving a comment on this post, and I'll look into it.</p><p>Also, as subtly mentioned above, <a href="https://zubkavision.pledgemanager.com/projects/skullkickers/participate/" target="_blank"><b><i>Skullkickers: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque</i> is now on sale</b></a> in both PDF and hard-copy form. Go get it now!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://zubkavision.pledgemanager.com/projects/skullkickers/participate/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="1024" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggOO9XvFOb88bZ2QREnvcp27uwFTs72miRLzB4c0Y5aBMveO4k44LznF_ALgMr_RhPafuH8WrVDU1MLUKwHHRnvPkUK306NyeIPSF8KG1_Vybzn0jJ45TXovMWHkuLgai2UMyASDalXkWBuKXV2QiqFBRbyA2noCJdNTop6mHGVpBEl9UDffsI1NU9=w640-h358" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-44158854394121151252021-12-23T14:12:00.001-08:002023-08-03T16:23:48.089-07:00Student Life<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrSofZ0W2SFh-VrIU-jpX6JOZcJ-H6yu_cvj99JanULNdNZ5VK88Rim8rb716HlIuDvzIvrerMzym5XdJrPhRKVTmwN6uet_MdIF-sfqkjCpgNsh6ILs4yGWbDsB3oazwRVmY0fTxEF_SdUxvE8iLo2DlHzQJ5FfqrBo85zXD0psM_GQVLS6WtPixw=s1200" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrSofZ0W2SFh-VrIU-jpX6JOZcJ-H6yu_cvj99JanULNdNZ5VK88Rim8rb716HlIuDvzIvrerMzym5XdJrPhRKVTmwN6uet_MdIF-sfqkjCpgNsh6ILs4yGWbDsB3oazwRVmY0fTxEF_SdUxvE8iLo2DlHzQJ5FfqrBo85zXD0psM_GQVLS6WtPixw=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Hey, but what about all the other stuff you do at school as a student that <i>doesn't </i>involve relationship drama or actually getting an education? I'm talking about the stuff a college puts in its recruiting brochure to convince graduating high-schoolers that it's a "cool place to be!" -- that hazy melange of social activities that adults think of when they look back on their college years.</p><p>I think the difference in tone between <i>Strixhaven:ACoC</i> and <i>Skullkickers:CBatGG</i> is worth repeating here, because it has a huge effect on the limits of "student life" at each of these institutes of higher learning. One of the first things Strixhaven tells you about the place is that "It's Cosmopolitan." It attracts students and faculty from across the <i>M:TG</i> multiverse, all of them "united by a desire to learn." Pretty classy!</p><p>In contrast, while the Academy is a highly esteemed school to the wealthy families that send their progeny there to increase their own status in polite society, to everyone else it's... something else. It's a place to drop off the village kook that's making everyone uncomfortable. It's a tower of riches waiting to be plundered. It's a weirdness magnet that draws the lost to itself. So there are all kinds of reasons someone might come to the Academy, and not all of them involve learning magic, or much of anything at all. </p><p>Plus, Strixhaven University is located on a world called Arcavios by default, but the book also suggests it could be placed in <i>Planescape</i>'s Sigil or "in an interplanar nexus." The Academy is located in the remote Tower of Magyle, many miles from the nearest settlement where it can't cause any trouble. </p><p>With that out of the way, let's compare how each book handles student life through mechanics. Clearly, these two very different schools are going to have very different versions of student life -- or <i>are</i> they? (They are.) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlR0ZTADPvvogtJnbVsnvxLRLq7hDBXlEJcfrmeCpjQTWKtc2V2qVoqp9RgNNX6D3wvkgd8_aICPMy2XtYmQARbkkIfBLUsxSglrfrpVOHNH2QS8NhpeHivuZl-X1E_FOFlpcJirSgxWC7qw42kXDiLxh767ch2Ob83aud15amoFdL9VzdxQVDigux=s970" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="970" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlR0ZTADPvvogtJnbVsnvxLRLq7hDBXlEJcfrmeCpjQTWKtc2V2qVoqp9RgNNX6D3wvkgd8_aICPMy2XtYmQARbkkIfBLUsxSglrfrpVOHNH2QS8NhpeHivuZl-X1E_FOFlpcJirSgxWC7qw42kXDiLxh767ch2Ob83aud15amoFdL9VzdxQVDigux=w640-h396" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Students at Strixhaven can participate in Extracurriculars, which are essentially clubs, and have Jobs, which are, uh... jobs. Each of them can confer certain benefits and, narratively, require some of a PC's downtime, if not time-time. Uptime? We never talk about uptime. Anyway.</p><p>Extracurriculars feel very contemporary in that way that both <i>M:TG</i> and D&D sometimes do. I mean, theoretically, D&D is some sort of cross between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in terms of technology, but then there's, like, steampunky artificers and magictech stuff. Strixhaven takes this even further with its LARPing club and intra-mural sports. A PC can join two clubs at the start of a given academic year (or one plus a Job), and gets a d4 Student Die to spend when using either of the club's two skills. </p><p>(BTW, is it me, or does are they capitalizing a lot more terms than they used to?)</p><p>Jobs are similar, but replace the Student Dice with gold. Also similar between the two is how they interact with the relationship mechanics -- every year (I think?) a PC can gain a positive or negative Relationship Point from an Extracurricular or Job. I say "I think" because the actual wording is "participate in an Extracurricular" and "works a Job," which could possibly be interpreted as when the character actually does that thing in a scene as opposed to right off the bat. You can only gain each benefit from an Extracurricular or Job once per term, so there's that limiter in either case. </p><p>Other than that, it looks to me like most other stuff that'd fall under the heading of "student life" is either part of the adventures (because they involve a lot of fun activities I'd put under that header) or implicit in a student's college of choice. I mean, just look at this star-studded video intro to the five colleges and tell me it's not saying something about how their students spend their free time!<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gCzcJf3r-SU" width="320" youtube-src-id="gCzcJf3r-SU"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2B7AsxendmkxTOMlQ4IRA6vKdC5F3nN76mmWi_Kjg2YwU28ULnsSNozES_H5_prlHUX4bZMl4ydIvF5_L0WMao389ZpoSDhaOuvkL9EaV2J0bLplfCqsMJyqSj8rxfqp6dYCwvYbs-hbrIgQWCo5TmeqYmmf1FloGo01bi5QM63DUimZjmTRQ9tDu=s998" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="998" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2B7AsxendmkxTOMlQ4IRA6vKdC5F3nN76mmWi_Kjg2YwU28ULnsSNozES_H5_prlHUX4bZMl4ydIvF5_L0WMao389ZpoSDhaOuvkL9EaV2J0bLplfCqsMJyqSj8rxfqp6dYCwvYbs-hbrIgQWCo5TmeqYmmf1FloGo01bi5QM63DUimZjmTRQ9tDu=w640-h438" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Incoming students receive their companion animals before the emblems of the five cabals.</i></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Fun-ish fact: The stories in <i>Skullkickers</i> -- that is, the adventures set in the Academy during the first third of the over-arching adventure -- were originally called extracurriculars, but I eventually changed it because I didn't think it accurately described them. </p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Anyway, <i>Skullkickers</i>' Academy isn't quite so modern as Strixhaven. I referenced this in an earlier post when I said there were no LARPers or magic coffee pots (although we came close on the latter!). There are no clubs (well, sorta), and the students' only "job" is their studies. Student-life stuff is largely comprised of downtime activities and the cabals.</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The cabals are five student organizations that date back "centuries," according to the text. Each was founded by a prominent student (compare with each of Strixhaven's colleges being founded by a <i>dragon</i>) and takes a certain animal as its symbol and namesake. You can see them in the picture above, but in case you can't, but they're Wolf, Eagle, Stag, Lion, and, um, Duck. The founders had some pretty high ideals, but those have been watered down or subverted in the years since, and now they're more or less fraternities with different philosophies and focuses.</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For example, Wolves are all about advancement and power, often through less-than-savory means, while Stags, like Strixhaven's Prismari, are the theater kids. Whatever a cabal is about, it provides a different benefit at each student rank. The big one is a new downtime activity for medial students specific to the cabal's aims. The Wolf cabal grants the Skullduggery activity, the Eagle cabal gives access to the Do-Gooding activity, Ducks get the Fowl Ritual, and so on. These can provide greater benefits than the general downtime activities available to everyone, and often with less-severe complications. The upshot is that as fledglings, most PCs will be pursuing the same goals, but as medials, each brings something special to the table. </p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Joining a cabal isn't mandatory, though, so for everyone else -- like the protagonists of the source material -- there's the Iconoclasts, a non-cabal cabal. Iconoclasts get their own downtime activity called Rocking the Boat, and can engage in one additional downtime activity each semester, since they don't have a cabal making demands on their free time.</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Those downtime activities are the other place where student life happens, whether Partying, Snooping, or Bootlicking. The complications and/or benefits that come from these are frequently social in nature and feed into a PC's Popularity total, which in turn can affect the action in the story or exam phases.</p><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Dorms and Getting Around</h3><p style="text-align: left;">One non-mechanical thing I wanted to mention that I think belongs here is the physical spaces of Strixhaven and the Academy, because they're very different and imply even more stuff about student life. Every Strixhaven college has its own dormitory, and starting in a student's second year, they're expected to live there. The colleges are spread out in something like a five-pointed star around the Biblioplex, the center of campus life, and have their own architectural styles and subcultures. </p><p style="text-align: left;">In contrast, all of the Academy's students stay in the same dorms, located here:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgc9DOsQCX0rDXrx4PSWlt56D70fmecgM_AVX1lzF-NI-bnH1ksLzzrpAi_myJnNtKVNlb0FPXmTw84fynx4_FDqwC6YWwBVoAD-cNd9V_ozYa2wvYCxQwAJo7mfb6iq_RgltRf004gWdQnueFzHWpZsDqfeO6qH8KsXewxrt25ZevqRDMjdvY0-9JU=s869" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="869" data-original-width="844" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgc9DOsQCX0rDXrx4PSWlt56D70fmecgM_AVX1lzF-NI-bnH1ksLzzrpAi_myJnNtKVNlb0FPXmTw84fynx4_FDqwC6YWwBVoAD-cNd9V_ozYa2wvYCxQwAJo7mfb6iq_RgltRf004gWdQnueFzHWpZsDqfeO6qH8KsXewxrt25ZevqRDMjdvY0-9JU=s320" width="311" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">That brings me to how students get around. Both schools have teleportation circles, but only Strixhaven's actually <i>work</i> (although they're only used by the faculty and a handful of students, and even then can be unpredictable). <i>Strixhaven:ACoC</i> also has carriages that run between colleges like a campus shuttle. The Academy has a sort of magical elevator, but otherwise it's very... vertical. The primary way to get from one floor to another is via the 700-foot staircase that wraps around the tower's core. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The big thing I wanted to mention I now can't find in the book, but it's this: Things like stairways and ramps on campus magically adjust themselves to accommodate differently abled students. I like that, and wish we'd thought to include something like it. I mean, there <i>are</i> some ramps, and the teleportation circles and elevator-thing I mentioned earlier, but that's about it. The lower-magic setting makes true accommodations harder to pull off, given the prevalence of stairs, but we could've found a mundane solution. If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments, and if you have the book, consider this permission to use the ones you like!</p><p style="text-align: left;">This may be the last post before Christmas, in which case Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it. Next time, I'll take a look at the two books' <a href="https://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-actual-adventures.html">campus adventures</a>. Did I say last time that I was doing that next time? Because obviously I didn't do that, but <i>next </i>time, <i>definitely</i>.</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-5505995817428913002021-12-19T00:28:00.002-08:002023-08-03T16:23:16.791-07:00The Social Game<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0jGM2f1o__NwBrqGyuNyDd7Entb1R8ckxELHtpRM_9YQo2L2Z8D8X8Re6rIhWxOKT0bF7eVVMF8ZfKVe8207RfrklKyC3KsAf6GvaI7tzl4thWIXbx3ADic_QLJxPqLMpsV7kX80SGHp7Fys_5y6g8ECNLyG0IFuMXiDWa-7__ubR-D5TkaF-yLpj=s1189" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="1189" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0jGM2f1o__NwBrqGyuNyDd7Entb1R8ckxELHtpRM_9YQo2L2Z8D8X8Re6rIhWxOKT0bF7eVVMF8ZfKVe8207RfrklKyC3KsAf6GvaI7tzl4thWIXbx3ADic_QLJxPqLMpsV7kX80SGHp7Fys_5y6g8ECNLyG0IFuMXiDWa-7__ubR-D5TkaF-yLpj=w640-h362" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Rolf being "charming."</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>One of the big things I knew we had to figure out for an adventure set in a school was the social stuff. And There are the dramatic relationships that punctuate a student's life in college or high school, yes, but also the kind social soup that a student ends up in that consists of acquaintances, members of clubs or organizations they belong to, dorm-mates, and so on. If a big chunk of the adventure was going to involve day-to-day student life, then those relationships needed to be engaging. It couldn't be just rolling Persuasion and Insight over and over, and I wanted the DM to have something to fall back on, just in case.</p><p>I come from indie-ish games, sorta, where social interactions are often mechanized. For example, in Fate you can threaten someone with Provoke and deal mental stress to them, and that could take a character out of the scene as easily as a sword could. But D&D is a different beast, and usually relegates social interactions to one of a handful of skill checks. I wanted to put more meat on that bone.</p><p>So when previews for <i>Strixhaven</i> talked about relationships too, I was really eager to see how the team handled them. I couldn't help feeling that a similar approach would mean I'd done it "right" (that's the imposter syndrome talking), but on the other hand if they'd come up with something totally different that worked, that would've been good too!<br /></p><p>First of all, both <i>Strixhaven</i> and <i>Skullkickers</i> have a section that emphasizes the option to not use any of these rules at all. Not everyone likes mechanics in their social pillar, and that's fine. But like I said, if I'd done nothing, it would've felt like the book had a huge hole in it, and clearly the <i>Strixhaven</i> team felt the same. I mean, all rules are optional, really, but sometimes it's nice to think "I don't need this!" and then have the book tell you "BTW, you don't need to use this."</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjpv75THuuOdoiF0V6d-rnDQ6mskNPnlM5oviFyZKk6PjeeoYv5lAFd7VvaUn8xGjCEi__DKG6ouf25qwC7yfZQutifC70OXNCYdIfpVgl82iHLFRMRcy0n31KK3NvIlTgn7OZHOne0aA-YIaHPmRh_OLX6jIMcdGd3Y-ygMZIDCPuysu2PQCaqqJ1b=s512" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="512" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjpv75THuuOdoiF0V6d-rnDQ6mskNPnlM5oviFyZKk6PjeeoYv5lAFd7VvaUn8xGjCEi__DKG6ouf25qwC7yfZQutifC70OXNCYdIfpVgl82iHLFRMRcy0n31KK3NvIlTgn7OZHOne0aA-YIaHPmRh_OLX6jIMcdGd3Y-ygMZIDCPuysu2PQCaqqJ1b=w640-h470" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><i>Strixhaven</i> uses a point-based system to track a PC's meaningful relationships with friends and rivals. Friendly interactions increase the PC's relationship point total with an NPC, while rivalrous ones reduce the total. At a certain breakpoint, an NPC can become a Friend or Rival, and important enough to warrant a Bond Boon or Bond Bane for the PC. There's a whole section of pretty detailed NPC students that includes what effects a boon or bane will have. These are generally narrative in nature.</p><p>A PC can take their friendship with an NPC further by declaring them their Beloved. You can have more than one Beloved, too. Each one gives you a special brand of Inspiration that automatically refreshes after a long rest, to a certain limit. There's a tracking sheet to record point totals for relationship point totals, Inspiration, and boons/banes. </p><p>The numbers for all of this are low, which is good thinking. Merely having a friendly interaction with an NPC earns you a point. There's also something implicit here about quickly making friends and enemies in college. If that was intended, I like that it's emergent instead of explicit.</p><p>Several scenes in the four adventures provided include an opportunity for social interaction in the form of a Relationship Encounter. The text on these is always more or less the same: There's a suggestion of how the PCs might interact with any NPCs present, and instructions to use the rules in Chapter 3 in case they do. Nothing wrong with that; I like clarity, and it presents the social stuff as an additional layer on top of the existing scene rather than its giving it its own focus. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIMGsN4gu1cvA8NzH15oY2WrsaASVupt1Ijic5aQXnrAEF-o7CHNXKYVVDox5gLkujTcXVjuEVkm2K_wFABvJJZ1RfJ0N0oiB-wK-Je6Qr4w3RAuzZjbpCj8SVatQL7HEPvDh0S-ex4jRgYFkdWbm6DbolUBNJkJnm0FziZ_eUDAFnJFhZzZQnbN_W=s1419" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="1419" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIMGsN4gu1cvA8NzH15oY2WrsaASVupt1Ijic5aQXnrAEF-o7CHNXKYVVDox5gLkujTcXVjuEVkm2K_wFABvJJZ1RfJ0N0oiB-wK-Je6Qr4w3RAuzZjbpCj8SVatQL7HEPvDh0S-ex4jRgYFkdWbm6DbolUBNJkJnm0FziZ_eUDAFnJFhZzZQnbN_W=w640-h166" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>The funny thing is, <i>Skullkickers</i> worked a lot like that at first! But because it's me, it was a little crunchier. There were multiple degrees of friendship, including Acquaintance and Companion, plus Rivals and Frenemies, with guidance about what that all meant. Several downtime activities would earn you points to spread among your existing relationships, or create new ones. </p><p>In practice, this was a pain. Players would accumulate points and not use them, or forget to record them or how to use them. Even I, as the DM, found myself frequently glossing over the importance of them. So I ditched the points in favor of using an existing D&D mechanic. When I hack or design for a game, I like to use its established structures as much as possible, so a new player only has to learn to apply a thing they know in a new way, rather than learning a whole new thing. In this case, the existing mechanic was Piety, reskinned to Popularity.</p><p>The point of Popularity is to give everyone an abstract idea of how well-connected a PC is, and then let the player or DM get specific about it when the story calls for it. A low Popularity total means you're disconnected, for whatever reasons suit you, while a high one is probably a result of Partying rather than Studying. At a certain level, once per semester a player can declare an NPC to be a friend, whether the player creates a new NPC or uses an established one that makes sense in context. This friend sticks with the PC for the duration and does friend-things. </p><p>Those downtime activities I mentioned in the last post are the most common way to change your Popularity score, but they can also net you a rival as a complication. Their mission is simple: to make the PC's life difficult. What that <i>means </i>depends on the rival. As the PC advances in rank, the rival does as well, and earns one of several improvements along the way to keep up with the targeted character. </p><p>To help make NPCs distinct and make their personalities and interests matter, each one has something called passions. Most have two: a thing they Prize, and a thing they Despise. There's a table for determining these randomly with a d20. It's a great way to encapsulate what an NPC is about. A glance at an NPC's passions tells the DM a lot about their personality.</p><p>When speaking with an NPC, if the PC brings up one or more of their passions, their ability check (if any) is affected, positively or negatively. They might add a die to the roll, or ending up rolling at disadvantage. Those are the only two options, actually, so it doesn't get too convoluted.</p><p>And because this would mean a lot of opposed rolls, which can be annoying <i>en masse</i>, intelligent NPCs also have a Resolve DC. Every applicable NPC statblock has one, there's simple, loose guidance for how to determine it for any NPC statblock not listed in the book.</p><p>This may seem a little involved to you (or not). Keep in mind that for the most part, the combat pillar <i>doesn't exist</i> in everyday student life, and yet we are still playing D&D. Giving the social pillar a more robust set of mechanics lets it sub in for combat more easily as "the thing we roll dice for." Now, for some, the highest praise they can give a session of play is "We didn't roll dice at all the whole time!" That's cool! But I don't expect those people to use these rules.</p><p>Geez, this ended up being long. Up next... <a href="https://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2021/12/student-life.html">student life</a>, I think. How do Strixhaven's colleges, jobs, and clubs compare to the Academy's cabals? For now, this is a rhetorical question, but in the future, I will provide an answer. Stay tuned!</p>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-12688909414301080482021-12-15T23:11:00.003-08:002023-08-03T16:22:31.169-07:00Academics<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5a_HzWMxs-NOVmDspF19i-qorcc2Xlv8pJHFkzcn-z4auciNt6-ZBmejocmYcnlNfvI-HmfdHUvKcKrNJXXS7SPwRHOWkxeyeTxucfRhLieoxCLOZiuDyAf6ksGHSBHU5SdznJ-akZcfXQ-q24Q8-frkEZvgSRsvw5iYfILAD2gDP90R8akJaxQOi=s1200" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5a_HzWMxs-NOVmDspF19i-qorcc2Xlv8pJHFkzcn-z4auciNt6-ZBmejocmYcnlNfvI-HmfdHUvKcKrNJXXS7SPwRHOWkxeyeTxucfRhLieoxCLOZiuDyAf6ksGHSBHU5SdznJ-akZcfXQ-q24Q8-frkEZvgSRsvw5iYfILAD2gDP90R8akJaxQOi=w640-h334" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>In wizard school, books hit you.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>One of the big challenges with an RPG setting that revolves around school is figuring out how to make that part interesting. Yeah, there'll be adventures when Something Goes Wrong that more closely resemble mainline D&D, but just glossing over the school-stuff will rob the setting of the intended atmosphere. At the same time, going day-to-day with the school-stuff is obviously not an option. The tricky balance between those two poles will be our first point of comparison between <i>Strixhaven</i> and <i>Skullkickers</i>.<p></p><p>Let me reiterate right off the bat that the tones of these two schools are drastically different. Strixhaven is a storied, respected, and successful institute of learning, magical and otherwise, attended by beings from across the multiverse. After all, as per the back-cover blurb: <i>"The greatest minds in the multiverse meet at Strixhaven University."</i></p><p>The Academy of Serious Sorcery and Holistic Occult Learning, on the other hand, is practically driven by ulterior motives. Its best days are at least a century behind it, back when magic was more plentiful in the world. These days it's more concerned with keeping up appearances -- and tuition -- than with turning out a new generation of wizards. In the loosely defined setting of the <i>Skullkickers</i> comic series, magic is a rare, dangerous, and distrusted thing. There are any number of reasons someone might enroll at the Academy; "to be a wizard" is only one of them. (F'rinstance, in the comic that inspired the adventure, our protagonists pose as students for heist-pulling purposes.)</p><p>I mention all this because I think it's important to keep in mind when looking at their subsystems for handling the "education" part of getting an education. So let's get into it!</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Structure and Focus</h2><p>Strixhaven University offers a four-year course of study, in which students learn a variety of subjects through largely magical means. It's easy to think of Strixhaven as a "magic school," as in a place where people learn magic, but it's literally a <i>magic school</i>, in that not everyone's there to learn magic, but everyone uses magic to learn. Each of the university's five colleges (Lorehold, Prismari, Quandrix, Silverquill, and Witherbloom) has its own focus. In <i>Magic: The Gathering</i>, each college is limited to two opposing colors -- Lorehold is white and red, Witherbloom is black and green, etc. In narrative terms, this means that each college merges two opposing philosophies. The most obvious of these, to me, is Witherbloom, with its studies of life and growth (green) and death and decay (black). The other combos all work and make sense and are good, but Witherbloom is the exemplar, if you ask me.</p><p><i>Strixhaven</i> (the book) emulates all this with four adventures, each of which represents a year of study, that take characters from 1st to 10th level. Most of these take place on campus, because the campus is big enough to basically be a town unto itself. There are excursions off-campus, but they aren't the focus. Each student receives their education through one of the five colleges. </p><p>In contrast, the Academy bills itself as a place where, as the headmaster puts it, students "strive to uncover their spellcasting potential." It doesn't put a time limit on this process, though -- instead, students earn something called "Whiffle Sparks" (don't laugh, it's very serious) through their studies and actions. When a student's Whiffle Sparks total is high enough at the end of a semester, passing their exams means they advance a rank, from fledgling to medial to prentice. When a prentice with 99 Whiffle Sparks advances, they go to the Graduate Dungeon under the Academy's tower. If they emerge alive, they graduate! (No one has graduated in about 40 years.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPnwKd5PHfr-pj16s2vYDm7mt1QDcR7JrkJcUQSRfJaIABplbhIu5MOlbLnQkGZrPYRkMoDC2ctg3DaWyqRkxq8ITHTyXfmJ4Ec3tBFX3gW4pzkX5Jjq6bE43Ru-ptuIzozVAZJRfDbkX-MJB7BrWWs38jufrG8uLPm2AM0lyIMG496E7u_bQXlmRL=s506" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="506" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPnwKd5PHfr-pj16s2vYDm7mt1QDcR7JrkJcUQSRfJaIABplbhIu5MOlbLnQkGZrPYRkMoDC2ctg3DaWyqRkxq8ITHTyXfmJ4Ec3tBFX3gW4pzkX5Jjq6bE43Ru-ptuIzozVAZJRfDbkX-MJB7BrWWs38jufrG8uLPm2AM0lyIMG496E7u_bQXlmRL=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><i>Skullkickers</i> (the RPG book) is split into three parts, and only in the first of those are the PCs students. Most of that section is meant to be relatively straightforward student life, with semester-long story arcs. Because things go all kinds of wrong in the second and third parts, it was important that the PCs' time as students feel like its own distinct thing. A semester is divided into downtime and story phases and ends with an exam focusing on one of the eight schools of magic. The story phases are where the adventure-type things happen. Replayability was a design priority from the start, so while there are four semester-long story arcs provided, the GM is expected to need only three, and there are also guidelines for creating more. All of this takes place at the Academy. </p><p>Both books use milestone leveling, telling you in each section what event triggers advancement. The structure of alternating downtime and adventure time (not <i>that</i> Adventure Time) aren't exactly the same between the two, but they're pretty similar. Obviously, I think that's the best way to do it, since that's the way we did it, and I struggle to think of another way to present a school term in a way that combines the mundanities of school-stuff with the exciting D&D-stuff most players are probably used to.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Curriculum and Exams</h2><p>How does each book handle the business of actually taking classes? That is, how can you know what class(es) a character takes in a term, and how does that manifest mechanically? What are exams like? Because you know there's gotta be exams! </p><p>In <i>Strixhaven</i>, each of the four school-year-long adventures provides a table of courses to either randomly determine which courses the PCs take, or let the players choose. There's also a required course for each year that every PC takes, which provides a convenient justification for giving them a common goal at some point. Exams start with a studying phase, and the exam itself is reflected in the testing phase with a couple relevant ability checks. The exams seem to be pretty hard-coded into each adventure, with guidelines specific to the year's compulsory course. For example, in the first adventure, all the PCs have to take Magical Physiologies, and each of the exams is about a different kind of monster. </p><p>There are multiple exams each year/adventure. Studying is optional, but there isn't any opportunity cost or anything for doing so, so there seems to be no reason not to study. Studying involves making an ability check using any ability and skill against a DC established by the exam. On a success, the character gets one reroll in the testing phase. Short and sweet!</p><p>Passing your exam nets you one or two Student Dice, expendable dice that can be added as a bonus on a future ability check that includes one or the exam's two skills. They're lost at the end of the year, so don't be afraid of spending them. A character who aced all of their exams for the year sock away as many as six Student Dice, which is pretty significant. Note that they're only for ability checks, not attacks or saves, which makes sense.</p><p>The intro adventure (which I playtested -- the truth can now be told!) starts with a scavenger hunt that more or less compels the PCs to explore the campus. It's a good way to orient them and maybe get them involved in some detours. This includes Relationship encounters, but those will have to wait. </p><p>In <i>Skullkickers</i>, I really wanted to make more of academics to both emulate the source material (highest priority on a licensed product) and make school feel like an active thing. The interesting twist here is that the source material and the game material were being written concurrently, so we RPG writer-types ended up influencing Jim's story too. Cross-pollination!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw0Vzo_bK6SjAvn6wR4JVrztbe3O0B_xibvjxZ6uxqY0L6FnS3BqiZkfAc29bENyoKbIGMRFgeS9CBCt0qmyhDub031vsAQ4EOcW87-cGHuEaxaDUNRDumnLjQ2Lv_tZbU0FkJeht22hmNn88rXE363jKUI2zSvYxIfCDdmPBl8w5VggoCDM0hP4nr=s438" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw0Vzo_bK6SjAvn6wR4JVrztbe3O0B_xibvjxZ6uxqY0L6FnS3BqiZkfAc29bENyoKbIGMRFgeS9CBCt0qmyhDub031vsAQ4EOcW87-cGHuEaxaDUNRDumnLjQ2Lv_tZbU0FkJeht22hmNn88rXE363jKUI2zSvYxIfCDdmPBl8w5VggoCDM0hP4nr=s320" width="292" /></a></div><br />The comic shows our heroes, Rex, Rolf, and Kusia, taking classes montage-style, intercut with the story that builds outside of class as the term goes on. To that end, each semester's story is split into three story phases separated by downtime, or meanwhile phases. The meanwhile phases are the montages, while the story phases are where we zoom in on a more conventional level. PCs can pursue lots of different activities during the meanwhile phase, from Studying to Partying. <p></p><p>Every meanwhile activity carries its own rewards, but Studying is the most efficient way to earn those precious Whiffle Sparks every student needs to advance in rank. It also comes with the fewest complications, but no meanwhile activity is free of those. At the end of a meanwhile phase, each player rolls a d20 to determine how many Whiffle Sparks they earned (or lost) in that time. This roll is often modified by the results of their meanwhile activity for that phase, but not always. Sometimes a PC who spends the phase Partying can come out of it smelling like a rose, academically speaking. </p><p>The stories of each semester aren't generally academic in nature, but in brief, they're self-contained, extra-curricular adventures that start small (usually) and spin into something bigger. I'll save the details for a future post comparing the two books' on-campus adventures.</p><p><i>Skullkickers</i> provides eight exams, one for each of D&D's schools of magic. These exams are usually the most dangerous portion of the semester, though most of them don't start out that way. The professors of the Academy aren't out to kill their students, but, like... y'know, magic is unpredictable. No refunds. There are no mechanical benefits from passing an exam other than gaining a level.</p><p>I almost forgot about the courses. Like <i>Strixhaven</i>, <i>Skullkickers</i> has a random course generator, but because I was the lead writer, it's significantly larger. It also serves as a random school-of-magic or random professor generator. And, uh, it's kinda silly. Here's an eighth of it:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiptuRq8KfKP9sJ9pj89OFYAYbN-6GTINdFjZW62qWfm3K2uPVCQAYjChSBulvk8IC3RZbBYFSUAztsI7N8Ia99aVmGtqJcQEd46VODm-Xe_9cYdH2vU5HMyK3MT2iIYVuEX6eekryzX6xl2yX1KRMXCrW1KPEBq0my685NvWeKzfRt8aodWjwj47EW=s516" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="516" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiptuRq8KfKP9sJ9pj89OFYAYbN-6GTINdFjZW62qWfm3K2uPVCQAYjChSBulvk8IC3RZbBYFSUAztsI7N8Ia99aVmGtqJcQEd46VODm-Xe_9cYdH2vU5HMyK3MT2iIYVuEX6eekryzX6xl2yX1KRMXCrW1KPEBq0my685NvWeKzfRt8aodWjwj47EW=w400-h113" width="400" /></a></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Next Time</h2><div><a href="https://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-social-game.html">Social stuff</a>, maybe? That's a pretty big part of both books. Stay tuned!</div><br /><p><br /></p></div>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-25209631995539903232021-12-14T17:21:00.001-08:002023-08-03T16:22:05.065-07:00Rival Schools?<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8WDEUWS0fUIDUxX31eoEAw5dWS9acyZhDgiVuMICQt7NfX_FcEBa-F_FdfEowu0gGxleBifzd-cG75PixuzrTSWBnpSnGS34BXEYMmqrH0u49peVIe5INC_lbFv04J1DuOkz85FHBrxtInSK1GKsdCu6yUjrIjkqlzVw6LaZFPxAsSTJSpATycV54=s1086" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="1086" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8WDEUWS0fUIDUxX31eoEAw5dWS9acyZhDgiVuMICQt7NfX_FcEBa-F_FdfEowu0gGxleBifzd-cG75PixuzrTSWBnpSnGS34BXEYMmqrH0u49peVIe5INC_lbFv04J1DuOkz85FHBrxtInSK1GKsdCu6yUjrIjkqlzVw6LaZFPxAsSTJSpATycV54=w640-h416" width="640" /></a></p>In July 2020, I was lucky enough to be hired as the lead writer for a D&D supplement in which the player characters would be students at a wizard academy. Because a lot of it didn't involve traditional D&D monster-slaying and world-saving, the social game was a big focus. There were also new downtime activities to abstractly handle the actual business of going to school, and each term inevitably involved something going wrong at academy for the PCs to set right. The school had five organizations to which the PCs could belong, each of which came with distinct benefits. Throw in some new spells and magic items, along with an extensive adventure, and buddy, you got yourself a book!<div><br /></div><div>That book was <i>not</i> the recently released <i><b>Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos</b></i>. It was, rather, <b>Skullkickers: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque</b>, a setting/adventure based on the <i><a href="http://www.skullkickers.com/" target="_blank">Skullkickers</a></i> comic series written by Jim Zub to celebrate its 10th anniversary. But the parallels are notable and interesting to me, so I wanted to do a little compare-and-contrast. By the time previews and leaks from <i>Strixhaven</i> were hitting the Internet, <i>Skullkickers</i> was text-complete, and I've been eager to see how I and our team (<a href="https://hexjellyfish.wixsite.com/erfjordan" target="_blank">E.R.F. Jordan</a>, <a href="https://www.kiltedfiend.com/" target="_blank">Clint Cronk</a>, and of course <a href="http://www.jimzub.com/" target="_blank">Jim Zub</a>) approached the idea of "D&D in school."</div><div><br /></div><div>(Plus, Wizards of the Coast were nice enough to send me a review copy of <i>Strixhaven</i>, so it seems only right that I, y'know, attempt to review it.)<br /><br />On the surface, the two books would seem to have a lot in common, but scratch a little deeper and they're quite distinct. Yes, they both but D&D characters through school, provide students with personality-defining organizations to join, include new social mechanics, and include new downtime activities, spells, and magic items, not to mention statblocks. However, as you could probably guess just from looking at their covers, the tone each sets is drastically different from the other. <br /><i><br />Strixhaven</i> takes its cues from the typical American (it seems) university experience, including social clubs and student jobs. In contrast, <i>Skullkickers</i>' Academy of Serious Sorcery and Holistic Occult Learning -- and that acronym only reinforces this difference in tone -- starts with the comic's loosely defined setting and extrapolates a wizard school from that. There are no magic coffee pots or LARPers, not that there's anything wrong with those.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So that's the deal. I'm resurrecting this blog after a nine-year hiatus to make a metaphorical Venn diagram of these two books, starting, I think, with <a href="https://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2021/12/academics.html">academics</a>. And also tomorrow, I further think. Fingers crossed!</div>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-74119223547696563132012-08-27T13:00:00.000-07:002012-08-27T14:30:18.346-07:00Gamex 2012: Better Late Than Never<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvLJLPxwJJrVVoJLfrpuecdrwA84k2F365KrSnt-OvMA0-Ccw3p8SHeQpAtvKU8FXlp9a8LIonJo7MEhbP5YQJSjq0MpsRhVPwwTt6B1APOXEm27By8P4PKI5bwVmJN24uJ7ffZq0FIKY/s1600/dtmonodrone.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvLJLPxwJJrVVoJLfrpuecdrwA84k2F365KrSnt-OvMA0-Ccw3p8SHeQpAtvKU8FXlp9a8LIonJo7MEhbP5YQJSjq0MpsRhVPwwTt6B1APOXEm27By8P4PKI5bwVmJN24uJ7ffZq0FIKY/s200/dtmonodrone.png" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Our hero.</i></td></tr>
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Hey, so <a href="http://strategicon.net/" target="_blank"><b>Gateway</b></a> is this weekend and I never even did a proper recap of <b>Gamex</b>. What can I say? I've been busy. In lieu of recapping -- and also because I'd like to recap GenCon sometime before November -- I'm just going to post some pictures of the Big Board and some props.</div>
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A brief recap of the storyline, though:<br />
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The Modron Hierarchy has decided that the Prime Material Plane, and specifically the plane-hopping adventurers therefrom, is a serious threat to Mechanus and the Hierarchy. They believe there's a correlation between extra-planar incursions from the Prime Material and the rising numbers of rogue modrons over the millennia. The obvious solution is to destroy the Prime Material, and thus preserve Order.<br />
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But you can't just destroy a plane of existence like that, not if you're a modron. There are procedures and protocols to follow. Forms to fill out, presumably. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly. Plus, you have to be <i>sure</i> about these things, or the consequences could be dire. So Primus, the One, has decreed that representatives from the Prime Material [read: the PCs] will be subjected to a series of trials to determine whether the plane is worthy of continued existence.<br />
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The modrons have spent thousands of years getting this all in motion. A big part of it has been the creation of what I guess we can call "habitats" -- geographical areas designed to support, and then seeded with, certain lifeforms, or combinations thereof. In most cases, the lifeforms in question aren't even aware they're living in and perpetuating this weird experiment for the Hierarchy. [Read: A lot of wacky dungeons and stuff are actually artificial constructs built by the modrons as part of the trials. F'rinstance, one of the trials was <i><a href="http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/9100557/images/1270886909253.jpg" target="_blank">White Plume Mountain</a></i>.]<br />
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To make the Primes feel at home, the modrons have constructed a little town in Mechanus meant to emulate what they see as the adventurer's natural habitat. But the base modrons who created it are somewhat lacking creativity, so the illusion is... incomplete. It's called Town. There's an inn called Inn, a tavern called Tavern, a "general store" called Store, a temple labeled Temple, and so on. It's like putting a frog in a jar with a leaf and a stick and expecting him to feel like he's back in the forest. The Primes they've abducted and brought here form the pool of PCs (and most hirelings) for the weekend's five game sessions.<br />
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<i><b>What with one thing and another,</b></i> the finale Sunday night involves a massive war between the armies of the Hierarchy and those of the rogues (La Resistance), the latter of which are led by a PC (Ajax, the Halfling Fighter) and Rinaldo Two-Eyes, the charismatic tridrone leader of the rogues. Simultaneously, the other PCs, in an attempt to disable Primus' pool of positive energy from which new modrons are generated as quickly as they die, end up attracting the attention of a giant demonic owlbear named Isgoth, the Apocalypse Dragon, the sea-god Procan, and a formless elven life-force. All of these converge in the body of Hawthorn the Inconstant, a cleric of mercurial faiths and loyalties (who, during the course of the weekend, has served both Isgoth and Procan), as he drowns in the massive pool of positive energy.<br />
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The result is the creation of the Prime Material Plane. Or <i>a</i> Prime Material Plane, anyway.<br />
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Retroactively, we called the weekend's chronicle <i><b>Deux Ex Mechanus</b></i>.<br />
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Anyway, here are some pictures. (Looks like some of these need rotating -- sorry!)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmDFEHD9i8X3rHldd5m9NW5fDTGRvmt8y7gBad2zx2l7E4J4Tg0ei1-tbofMktlFAWZM0SJMGJGWC5MTTGlWEJwKVRCrgU46c-qau83Yk6AkXsK-62Psqqx30_2PtPZx47OJKhwxS7AU/s1600/IMG_4668.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmDFEHD9i8X3rHldd5m9NW5fDTGRvmt8y7gBad2zx2l7E4J4Tg0ei1-tbofMktlFAWZM0SJMGJGWC5MTTGlWEJwKVRCrgU46c-qau83Yk6AkXsK-62Psqqx30_2PtPZx47OJKhwxS7AU/s320/IMG_4668.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Big Board, recopied.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepaVCLJbn_bEorpqHvV70C3Xi3b3t64-7N0avwXmQ8PKUvX1Xf7wi_DD028Uj1C7-vIaQw3_EmXY73gZfQJSygOb1crSak4CQZBGZytZD5yQa84UicpOBLd-I4Ub3UyaqngycfutJmUQ/s1600/IMG_4686.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepaVCLJbn_bEorpqHvV70C3Xi3b3t64-7N0avwXmQ8PKUvX1Xf7wi_DD028Uj1C7-vIaQw3_EmXY73gZfQJSygOb1crSak4CQZBGZytZD5yQa84UicpOBLd-I4Ub3UyaqngycfutJmUQ/s320/IMG_4686.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The size of OH MY GOD!</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxvQQT5_m4xFx-q_Dn6ZgAhrSLshNjgLtktghxyHSQP_rvWf7HNns13oMklG-kOVuIfr5gyiDlxgsnB5ihnBBJu6OEwtpGfLo-7JmKzSUyOG7SRnXnKpfo5vpEbMnV-tbuadodUzbU1MM/s1600/IMG_4687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxvQQT5_m4xFx-q_Dn6ZgAhrSLshNjgLtktghxyHSQP_rvWf7HNns13oMklG-kOVuIfr5gyiDlxgsnB5ihnBBJu6OEwtpGfLo-7JmKzSUyOG7SRnXnKpfo5vpEbMnV-tbuadodUzbU1MM/s320/IMG_4687.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sharp-eyed readers may recognize Pelanor and his order of paladins from <br />the first Living Dungeon World, back at OrcCon.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qg_q9ABTbZHER0zFiV_WfhgJbmDWhZNFZIOls1Lq08ioum33W78pr1jfD_VS7l-P7j3gLOuiPpviWI-2GWHHKhO-a68IDJDhQf_E37xK1WyuUwFtwclQgU0D8RzzjbpvZU2-0guEtkE/s1600/IMG_4688.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qg_q9ABTbZHER0zFiV_WfhgJbmDWhZNFZIOls1Lq08ioum33W78pr1jfD_VS7l-P7j3gLOuiPpviWI-2GWHHKhO-a68IDJDhQf_E37xK1WyuUwFtwclQgU0D8RzzjbpvZU2-0guEtkE/s320/IMG_4688.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bet you didn't know the Prime Material Plane experiences a constant, global Aurora Borealis. <br />You've lived with it so long you don't even notice it anymore!</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_gVlN7L6moO_tdc84lm0yp7l-yr7vqmayI1bkYCAs2swTBZct8-egCfY_xoq8M-oLJvn5O1HSzBKgwzpK1_tC7i1LaULzMHJmuf7x0V8YgkuJMgqQPkV7ZbJlgOUo5VJ_vsp8u9mxzE/s1600/IMG_4689.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_gVlN7L6moO_tdc84lm0yp7l-yr7vqmayI1bkYCAs2swTBZct8-egCfY_xoq8M-oLJvn5O1HSzBKgwzpK1_tC7i1LaULzMHJmuf7x0V8YgkuJMgqQPkV7ZbJlgOUo5VJ_vsp8u9mxzE/s320/IMG_4689.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Non-elven rangers don't speak with any particular conviction, I guess.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>ALL OF THEM!</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A bunch of props: magic items, hirelings, modron allies, and XP cards.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>XP cards, doubling as postcards. Every player got one.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguj_nBdWZ_EKxKiw7xAjRauRCs9R9GPz_dorbXW2ZQzqaDrRKUrYOHoeuvbL8CCtY_PKkhcGAHV2Ev_GX0wFYNNe09uc0RkP1tv3xg9J2YmimVC4BtoqVAXtpNnngb6QdBaUYsFS4JFsY/s1600/IMG_4696.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguj_nBdWZ_EKxKiw7xAjRauRCs9R9GPz_dorbXW2ZQzqaDrRKUrYOHoeuvbL8CCtY_PKkhcGAHV2Ev_GX0wFYNNe09uc0RkP1tv3xg9J2YmimVC4BtoqVAXtpNnngb6QdBaUYsFS4JFsY/s320/IMG_4696.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Three-Fingered Pete!<br /></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunU5RFPrYYH9IOPjcRzCZdrjz0RXdrm5b_7E_2_c4vzMiKba_e_nG2VM0KMdrKvAK8Z-5NxF1OqqdOydjGAse3y9Pnqmui3WZCZ3gQaz81LzuIvdk7Kz2rVrAYNTO9XRvMuVzO89F2UE/s1600/IMG_4698.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunU5RFPrYYH9IOPjcRzCZdrjz0RXdrm5b_7E_2_c4vzMiKba_e_nG2VM0KMdrKvAK8Z-5NxF1OqqdOydjGAse3y9Pnqmui3WZCZ3gQaz81LzuIvdk7Kz2rVrAYNTO9XRvMuVzO89F2UE/s320/IMG_4698.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wave, whose powers convinced Hawthorn to give Procan a try.</i></td></tr>
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That's it! See you at Gateway!Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-10530572130619554682012-06-02T18:09:00.000-07:002012-06-02T18:28:30.040-07:00Gamex 2012: Some Pics of the Big Board<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0IUXmpRIVSr8xplL6nLYnpC-2wEvyMHCxBj8D-qTmixu3xmCwlAu6Bv84g0zX_h7onX9PIUq9S_jRcf0SM7D9c8LCLw7rEAnYkCRYYntx_BfJo1s9rK9_68_PHLJBRoWsLOce_rz4Uc/s1600/Living+DW+Logo+2012.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0IUXmpRIVSr8xplL6nLYnpC-2wEvyMHCxBj8D-qTmixu3xmCwlAu6Bv84g0zX_h7onX9PIUq9S_jRcf0SM7D9c8LCLw7rEAnYkCRYYntx_BfJo1s9rK9_68_PHLJBRoWsLOce_rz4Uc/s1600/Living+DW+Logo+2012.png" /></a></div>
Finally got around to taking a few pictures of our <b>Living Dungeon World</b> <b>Big Board o' Facts</b>. Right now, those facts are still in sticky-note form. I'll recopy them on the board for improved legibility and post a recap of the weekend soon, but I thought I'd post some pictures just to give you an idea of what went on. (Disclaimer: They will give you no idea of what went on.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmDFEHD9i8X3rHldd5m9NW5fDTGRvmt8y7gBad2zx2l7E4J4Tg0ei1-tbofMktlFAWZM0SJMGJGWC5MTTGlWEJwKVRCrgU46c-qau83Yk6AkXsK-62Psqqx30_2PtPZx47OJKhwxS7AU/s1600/IMG_4668.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmDFEHD9i8X3rHldd5m9NW5fDTGRvmt8y7gBad2zx2l7E4J4Tg0ei1-tbofMktlFAWZM0SJMGJGWC5MTTGlWEJwKVRCrgU46c-qau83Yk6AkXsK-62Psqqx30_2PtPZx47OJKhwxS7AU/s320/IMG_4668.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An overview of the chaos.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgz3EF0U28wNMRsVxa_TESfT0AZq3QQasuhqKEEe3C68uyHRkjnoYNi8ir67SzjjshXKojeyiIt17V3lCtRXT-IGvn-OYwtZLE5pae8hhN1AQ6Q9Tpn0p0hUaWxEZyzWLpAkXTa-zuBA/s1600/IMG_4669.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgz3EF0U28wNMRsVxa_TESfT0AZq3QQasuhqKEEe3C68uyHRkjnoYNi8ir67SzjjshXKojeyiIt17V3lCtRXT-IGvn-OYwtZLE5pae8hhN1AQ6Q9Tpn0p0hUaWxEZyzWLpAkXTa-zuBA/s320/IMG_4669.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Multiple Prime Material Planes, and my shameless AD&D cribbing.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isgoth, an owlbear the size of "OH MY GOD!"</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgv40h4jsMtmeu1JeQnvB2b6Tk7J3R2McJB1_rUQKLdPagpVazju0KRuD0UlLLAupItkcHSF_xpWdwfBz4D3NNwyNvk5XG55vH7dI6WOjnFIZmLL8hQM3z0-d1e1XTnWnGHzTrP3YGJ8/s1600/IMG_4671.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgv40h4jsMtmeu1JeQnvB2b6Tk7J3R2McJB1_rUQKLdPagpVazju0KRuD0UlLLAupItkcHSF_xpWdwfBz4D3NNwyNvk5XG55vH7dI6WOjnFIZmLL8hQM3z0-d1e1XTnWnGHzTrP3YGJ8/s320/IMG_4671.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halflings are boring homebodies who do parkour. "Boring" is a relative term here.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKvAGiFury-lOVu6GvdJmOPMs2tkAclmBmXeNubq2XI9M-db_d6eX8D1tdytM6_g9oBsCdOqJ4b9pmpZ_9zc-AI_uvBYKx0IVhYpBuHbRxFIl6bGIlm0yfOHX4UjQpUr1wFGizffov4w/s1600/IMG_4672.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKvAGiFury-lOVu6GvdJmOPMs2tkAclmBmXeNubq2XI9M-db_d6eX8D1tdytM6_g9oBsCdOqJ4b9pmpZ_9zc-AI_uvBYKx0IVhYpBuHbRxFIl6bGIlm0yfOHX4UjQpUr1wFGizffov4w/s320/IMG_4672.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bards : Narcotics :: Kobolds : Hot Oil.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gFimMAZqztfupwbd4lwTWZbReBiS4pXoyAYoqKfLr_4hgUnQwUtlUMSiMVWZ5xgqPbHIPRuad1rjow2EUy1LIr1UYlmMOYCi_uWmohtylKn75gunRnkJjfqiOlU7ht68nSo33ptOzbE/s1600/IMG_4673.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gFimMAZqztfupwbd4lwTWZbReBiS4pXoyAYoqKfLr_4hgUnQwUtlUMSiMVWZ5xgqPbHIPRuad1rjow2EUy1LIr1UYlmMOYCi_uWmohtylKn75gunRnkJjfqiOlU7ht68nSo33ptOzbE/s320/IMG_4673.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halflings are complicated. (Also, more S2 nonsense.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMC_dS1a5lFX-QAuCNdEeWJIfdH6BsF-7G0ACp3jWFReDrDcCrtReS95WpsrWv51nkp7tof3tMfN6I8G8ALo9Pbiiq0NnR-kVpcbM9lGEkGE7A6GaagY96B1Ms3q_zqUzcAE7qm8we510/s1600/IMG_4674.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMC_dS1a5lFX-QAuCNdEeWJIfdH6BsF-7G0ACp3jWFReDrDcCrtReS95WpsrWv51nkp7tof3tMfN6I8G8ALo9Pbiiq0NnR-kVpcbM9lGEkGE7A6GaagY96B1Ms3q_zqUzcAE7qm8we510/s320/IMG_4674.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rinaldo, daring two-eyed leader of the Modron Rebellion!</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFFAkH_fHuMPkUphRCzAkLM3v5lbx5eGigRsK1PReUUoQOKcgJXe0ZgSO6-Vj17byUuElSeJBaojcQHoZyEiYMNNnSrtQBX9-3tCw9TnyUQXEXvmesukXXgb-I35elKe91B6jdB5dv-8/s1600/IMG_4675.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFFAkH_fHuMPkUphRCzAkLM3v5lbx5eGigRsK1PReUUoQOKcgJXe0ZgSO6-Vj17byUuElSeJBaojcQHoZyEiYMNNnSrtQBX9-3tCw9TnyUQXEXvmesukXXgb-I35elKe91B6jdB5dv-8/s320/IMG_4675.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shh! Don't tell the Protectors of Dragonmount their lives have lost all meaning.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Confused yet? That makes three of us.Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-79523073198360288992012-05-04T22:31:00.003-07:002012-05-04T22:31:43.538-07:00Gamex 2012: LDW Change-UpLittle change of plans for <b>Living Dungeon World</b> at <a href="http://strategicon.net/" target="_blank">Gamex</a>. It's still on. We're just trying something new.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0IUXmpRIVSr8xplL6nLYnpC-2wEvyMHCxBj8D-qTmixu3xmCwlAu6Bv84g0zX_h7onX9PIUq9S_jRcf0SM7D9c8LCLw7rEAnYkCRYYntx_BfJo1s9rK9_68_PHLJBRoWsLOce_rz4Uc/s1600/Living+DW+Logo+2012.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0IUXmpRIVSr8xplL6nLYnpC-2wEvyMHCxBj8D-qTmixu3xmCwlAu6Bv84g0zX_h7onX9PIUq9S_jRcf0SM7D9c8LCLw7rEAnYkCRYYntx_BfJo1s9rK9_68_PHLJBRoWsLOce_rz4Uc/s200/Living+DW+Logo+2012.png" width="200" /></a></div>
I'd <a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2012/04/gamex-2012-living-dungeon-world.html" target="_blank">previously alluded</a> to us doing something very much like <a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2012/02/orccon-2012-post-mortem.html" target="_blank">what we did at OrcCon</a>, but we've since decided to scale things back a bit. In part this is because two of our GMs from OrcCon won't be around for Gamex (<a href="http://anarchangel23.livejournal.com/" target="_blank"><b>Hamish</b></a> has returned to his ancestral homeland of New Zealand for the summer, and <a href="http://mostdangerousgames.com/" target="_blank"><b>Andrew</b></a> recently relocated to the Bay Area), and while <b>Colin</b> <i>will</i> be around he'll be running the Houses LARP on Saturday night, so he'll have his hands full with that. So with our numbers thusly reduced, it seemed, shall we say, <i>foolhardy</i> to try to replicate what we did last time. New plan!<br />
<br />
<b>Jesse</b> and I have recruited one <b><a href="http://twitter.com/clonebot" target="_blank">Vernon Lingley</a></b> into our ranks -- whom, if you are lucky, you already know -- and the three of us will be running a total of five <i><a href="http://dungeon-world.com/" target="_blank">Dungeon World</a></i> sessions over the course of the weekend. Yes, that's cut down from the 10 previously scheduled, but we have an idea that turns the smaller scale to our advantage, story-wise. Please join me in hoping we're right.<br />
<br />
The <i>new</i> schedule is as follows:<br />
Saturday, 9:00 am<br />
Saturday, 2:00 pm<br />
Saturday, 8:00 pm<br />
Sunday, 2:00 pm<br />
Sunday, 8:00 pm<br />
<br />
So nothing Friday night, and one game in each standard Saturday and Sunday slot except Sunday morning, because seriously. If the schedule doesn't currently reflect these changes, it will soon enough.<br />
<br />
Did you know that pre-reg for Gamex starts <i>tomorrow</i>, Saturday the 5th, at about noon? I did not know that until last night! It's a good thing I didn't have to do any last-minute scrambling or anything to make sure I had enough hours to get a GM badge! HAHAHA.Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-63060106505614397492012-05-03T01:03:00.000-07:002012-05-03T01:04:16.024-07:00Games Chef and Fu: Design Contest UpdatesSo hey, this happened: My <b><a href="http://gamechef.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Game Chef</a></b> entry, <i><a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2012/04/game-chef-eleventh-hour.html" target="_blank">The Eleventh Hour</a></i>, is a <a href="http://gamechef.wordpress.com/2012-results/" target="_blank">Finalist</a>. Pretty cool! I was more than a little surprised to discover that, to be honest -- not because I'm not proud of my work, but because seriously, there were <i>96 other entries</i> this time around. And 15 of them were in Italian! How'm I gonna compete with that? Apparently, the answer is "Somehow."<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSXuYuNb3x1PwGHsW-ijh1grzJcKtXxdGXP9LY31Y_mJSVdDlNt" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSXuYuNb3x1PwGHsW-ijh1grzJcKtXxdGXP9LY31Y_mJSVdDlNt" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bell pepper symbolizes games.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about this turn of events, because it means I've made the Finals three years in a row now, which certainly feels like a feat. I kinda don't really count 2010's <i><a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-chef-2010-nice-job-finalist.html" target="_blank">Action City</a></i>, which may be unfair, but the Finals for that year didn't even involve any peer review or any real critical process. Still, I did get positive feedback about it, so I'm not dismissing it altogether.<br />
<br />
I do not expect to win, nor do I care one way or the other about winning (honestly!). There were a ton of really interesting, innovative entries this year -- there always are, but the sheer volume of entries means that there were just <i>more</i> -- and I'm honored to be counted among them, competition or no. So... thanks, peers!<br />
<br />
(And, obviously, "winning" Game Chef is... well, it's a thing that happens, sure, but simply <i>entering</i> -- sticking to the constraints and finishing a game by the deadline -- is where it's at. It's about learning and refining your skills, not scoring accolades.)<br />
<br />
Right on the heels of Game Chef's conclusion comes another <a href="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?623604-TRO-Challange-Game-fu-9-You-cannot-Defeat-my-Resplendant-Pheonix-Style" target="_blank"><b>Game Fu</b> competition</a>! There hasn't been one of these in <a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2010/03/game-fu-8-tales-of-glass-slipper.html" target="_blank">over two years</a>, so it's cool that it's starting up again. The ingredients are interesting without being too limiting (which is good or bad, depending on your point of view), and from the time I saw it'd been announced I just assumed that I'd submit something.<br />
<br />
But y'know... Game Chef just ended, and I have, like, <a href="http://atomicroborpg.com/" target="_blank"><i>paid</i> game-design work to do</a>*, not to mention music to write and <a href="http://strategicon.net/" target="_blank">games to plan</a>, so I really do think I'll do the responsible thing and sit this one out. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't enter, if you're so inclined. <a href="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?623604-TRO-Challange-Game-fu-9-You-cannot-Defeat-my-Resplendant-Pheonix-Style&p=15348349#post15348349" target="_blank">Check out the ingredients</a> and get something together by next Wednesday. It'll be fun, and you'll be glad you did it. I speak from experience!<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*#humblebrag</span>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-36027024001731422952012-04-25T01:01:00.001-07:002012-05-05T15:47:40.505-07:00Gamex 2012: Living Dungeon WorldHey! We're bringing <b>Living Dungeon World</b> back for <a href="http://strategicon.net/" target="_blank">Gamex</a>, this Memorial Day Weekend. What's Living Dungeon World? Glad you asked!<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>This is DUNGEON WORLD.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a world of monsters and heroes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">gods and demons,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">swords and sorcery,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and Evil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is <i>your</i> world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>And it's alive.</b></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0IUXmpRIVSr8xplL6nLYnpC-2wEvyMHCxBj8D-qTmixu3xmCwlAu6Bv84g0zX_h7onX9PIUq9S_jRcf0SM7D9c8LCLw7rEAnYkCRYYntx_BfJo1s9rK9_68_PHLJBRoWsLOce_rz4Uc/s1600/Living+DW+Logo+2012.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0IUXmpRIVSr8xplL6nLYnpC-2wEvyMHCxBj8D-qTmixu3xmCwlAu6Bv84g0zX_h7onX9PIUq9S_jRcf0SM7D9c8LCLw7rEAnYkCRYYntx_BfJo1s9rK9_68_PHLJBRoWsLOce_rz4Uc/s1600/Living+DW+Logo+2012.png" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Living Dungeon World</b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is a weekend-long series of connected heroic-fantasy games. Play in as many or as few games as you like. Start as a lowly villager Friday afternoon and forge your legend over the course of the weekend, or drop in on one of the nine sessions just to see what this whole awesome thing's all about. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Change the world, or just visit it. It's up to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">New to <i><a href="http://dungeon-world.com/" target="_blank">Dungeon World</a></i>? No problem! <i>Dungeon World</i> is a simple system based on Vincent Baker's <i>Apocalypse World</i>, but focused on action and adventure rather than interpersonal drama. No previous experience is required, and all GMs will be happy to have first-time players at the table.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ten sessions. Many GMs. One world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>Unlimited adventure!</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two separate games in each of these time slots:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Friday 2:00 pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Friday 8:00 pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saturday 2:00 pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sunday 2:00 pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sunday 8:00 pm</span></div>
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Excitement!</div>
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For those of you who participated in <a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2012/02/orccon-2012-post-mortem.html" target="_blank">Living Dungeon World at OrcCon</a> and are wondering what it's all going to be about this time (now that Orcus has been killed)... well, you'll find out at Gamex. But I will say that we're moving the timeline along a few decades. This lets us use the best of <a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2012/03/orccon-2012-living-dungeon-world.html" target="_blank">the Big Board</a> for inspiration without making anyone feel like they're tied down to a bunch of setting information. And yes, we'll be bringing back the Big Board again (and every time, I imagine, because it's a lot of fun). </div>
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Also, if you've been following the development of <i>Dungeon World</i>, you probably know it's gone through some significant changes since February, and may go through a bit more before Gamex is upon us. What does that mean for us? We'll likely put our own touches on it, like we did last time -- apparently, <i>DW</i> SoCal Style is kind of its own beast -- but it'll still cleave close to the current revision (which, as of this post, is Beta 2.2). </div>
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<a href="http://strategicon.net/" target="_blank">See you there!</a></div>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-72643698241094978252012-04-16T01:37:00.000-07:002012-04-16T01:37:19.039-07:00[Game Chef] The Eleventh HourA number of readers wrote in about <b><a href="https://gamechef.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Game Chef</a></b>, and both of them asked, "Hey, when does the next Game Chef start?"<br />
<br />
The answer: <a href="https://gamechef.wordpress.com/2012-contest-rules/" target="_blank">Last week!</a><br />
<br />
Next question: When's the submission deadline?<br />
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Answer: <a href="https://gamechef.wordpress.com/2012-submissions/" target="_blank">About 90 minutes ago!</a><br />
<br />
Yeah, sorry I didn't mention anything about it until now. Honestly, I've just been busy with stuff, including my own Game Chef entry, and ended up not getting around to posting about it in time. So... I hope you found out about it on your own and submitted something, because I was useless in that regard.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the theme was "Last Chance," in honor of the imminent demise of <b><a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php" target="_blank">The Forge</a></b>. I'm sure it'll produce a lot of lighthearted, fun little games. Like my game.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdgPXPWzib3BFEM_p8pcYwrC-Qh8kmH7tvD0_ZThC3KajO7HPByIFhWCQvj3b4aRpIUNkNhjoqUCBPVZ-lAMRcmU-r0EV9RlWw5bIV0OMPI69tVSJT-Z76MiZaJQ-yXifjqFkuZBZzDHM/s1600/EleventhHourTitle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="47" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdgPXPWzib3BFEM_p8pcYwrC-Qh8kmH7tvD0_ZThC3KajO7HPByIFhWCQvj3b4aRpIUNkNhjoqUCBPVZ-lAMRcmU-r0EV9RlWw5bIV0OMPI69tVSJT-Z76MiZaJQ-yXifjqFkuZBZzDHM/s400/EleventhHourTitle.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is a game about four cultists working in the shadows to bring about the end of the world. The Grand Convergence – an alignment of heavenly bodies that only occurs once a millennium – approaches, and with it a rare opportunity to call forth an otherworldly entity of unimaginable power into the Earthly plane. Extradimensional portals don't just open themselves, though. It's going to take a lot of effort on the cultists' part to drown the world in blood and darkness. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
However, all is not what it seems. At the eleventh hour, one of the cultists is revealed to be an investigator in disguise, working from within to foil the cult's plans. But will it be enough to save the world? Or will the cultists make good on this last chance to summon their dark god?</blockquote>
The rules are <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxqgBqsJh6aGTUw3ZHloQUU5eHc" target="_blank">here</a>. The character sheets are <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxqgBqsJh6aGZUMtWDdCa0NUckU" target="_blank">here</a>. The cult sheet is <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxqgBqsJh6aGZTdzX0FXNVBQck0" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Happy end-of-the-world!<br />
<br />Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-9329152299706532392012-03-16T01:12:00.002-07:002012-03-16T01:13:08.549-07:00OrcCon 2012: Living Dungeon World PicturesSo! I finally got around to taking some pictures of the Big Board at <a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2012/02/orccon-2012-post-mortem.html" target="_blank"><b>Living Dungeon World</b> last month</a>.<br />
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The Big Board was... well, it was the big board on which we tracked all of the emergent world-building stuff that came up during play. Whenever a player or GM came up with a detail about the world, like the name of a god or an important past event, or when something significant happened in play, like and outstanding warrant or a character death, we'd write it down on a Post-It and stick it on the board. At some point, I transcribed most of those notes onto the board itself.<br />
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Since we all had such a good time with Living Dungeon World at OrcCon, we're pretty set on doing it again for <a href="http://strategicon.net/" target="_blank">Gamex in May</a>. The idea is that we'll have another Big Board, but the setting we collectively created at OrcCon will serve as a foundation on which to build. It should also be noted that none of us really knows what we're doing, and we're pretty much making it all up as we go.<br />
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Anyway. Here are a bunch of pictures!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtc7Qsdrb6idihHTlglQ9UtdrkJgaCDSUTOiDclYcxWS4MY6jG9j0elW2H025Z70kKVlM6dxB47P4RQyRhErQO13SHcNU5AWx0GcEDZROpmJGwdDJ8yO0N0PNdjCYh0mRbL7O9_Zi9_Oc/s1600/IMG_4500.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtc7Qsdrb6idihHTlglQ9UtdrkJgaCDSUTOiDclYcxWS4MY6jG9j0elW2H025Z70kKVlM6dxB47P4RQyRhErQO13SHcNU5AWx0GcEDZROpmJGwdDJ8yO0N0PNdjCYh0mRbL7O9_Zi9_Oc/s320/IMG_4500.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The big picture of the Big Board.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTX7NIvtkCOuAVGEmCA3VadNZl3XzDDvpWnh6mTpOO9jL-5Dt2QWNQv0zcStRYZaZDQW7AIazvkpewwVrppNVLozbkER_289KzESQoUF12r4rb1G0Ru6nnX76vLiEAYPpM0pxMWFYs1VA/s1600/IMG_4501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTX7NIvtkCOuAVGEmCA3VadNZl3XzDDvpWnh6mTpOO9jL-5Dt2QWNQv0zcStRYZaZDQW7AIazvkpewwVrppNVLozbkER_289KzESQoUF12r4rb1G0Ru6nnX76vLiEAYPpM0pxMWFYs1VA/s320/IMG_4501.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They killed Orcus. Spoiler alert!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ-SXllVZc77KrEml9VGrzdRCuVZu-HlAM1_EWjY1mOSwGH_U4sEOwal0gl94eNLQlLV4fJl65QT2wWjV4F4uTRn8Apyb4oHepKdada2eRIm3q2FgA3m_IxKLHZeq7-UU_Ae5aUgSQPzQ/s1600/IMG_4503.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ-SXllVZc77KrEml9VGrzdRCuVZu-HlAM1_EWjY1mOSwGH_U4sEOwal0gl94eNLQlLV4fJl65QT2wWjV4F4uTRn8Apyb4oHepKdada2eRIm3q2FgA3m_IxKLHZeq7-UU_Ae5aUgSQPzQ/s320/IMG_4503.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elves have animal eyes. Goblins don't have toes. Advantage: elves.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MfNmbCgdBedXTTpnuNH2TN6ljJn7XquWFT-wk3GU5guE11Vdud0wQQp5u0foSRinK2he9ZwWmCVGHdve6FPlZqudLbhK-Em3WT6ESNU8bcU1a-qmi-vnK9YAvDlLh4Ucv4v4yDLvH9A/s1600/IMG_4504.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MfNmbCgdBedXTTpnuNH2TN6ljJn7XquWFT-wk3GU5guE11Vdud0wQQp5u0foSRinK2he9ZwWmCVGHdve6FPlZqudLbhK-Em3WT6ESNU8bcU1a-qmi-vnK9YAvDlLh4Ucv4v4yDLvH9A/s320/IMG_4504.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It all started in the Hollows (and half-ended in Dusk's Harbor).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFmrfoqCscPIe9cXtzvqbQk4OrIUFxW6XGV1mCUpHwTv5AKLpD7te-YR6wpINEgq1l4b573LoBbbwbxFXAjkhQG-3U0UyZyQ3Tx-ZCo8SXe9CPRQgfOfPpLKP3-lE38xG0HrNLrm5RHA/s1600/IMG_4505.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFmrfoqCscPIe9cXtzvqbQk4OrIUFxW6XGV1mCUpHwTv5AKLpD7te-YR6wpINEgq1l4b573LoBbbwbxFXAjkhQG-3U0UyZyQ3Tx-ZCo8SXe9CPRQgfOfPpLKP3-lE38xG0HrNLrm5RHA/s320/IMG_4505.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chopps wins the prize for awesomest death.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdinmRE8oXRBMel64GfC8rMSXEh2HqIGy2g0IPKyGjKVAgTvZKAZhEE_zzNtVPsZAWzCYzFo587VT2X060YSC_2zKo4qx7QOqit_bOWrNJLn1DCsSDsjrvdko9zJ7yNaRkX331YUJhKc/s1600/IMG_4506.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdinmRE8oXRBMel64GfC8rMSXEh2HqIGy2g0IPKyGjKVAgTvZKAZhEE_zzNtVPsZAWzCYzFo587VT2X060YSC_2zKo4qx7QOqit_bOWrNJLn1DCsSDsjrvdko9zJ7yNaRkX331YUJhKc/s320/IMG_4506.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emory made... quite an impression.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEESmaIKhibCp0hHUceKNiviJkrXlBi1xZsHzSyWmVEIQEhd3nJLXTqVZ5mmkxJxMI2fjMqHrZu-quZz9nQb38f0GX3xNUcSlEVrS5mBqGBKGXjviURpIZF2VwNwasna-GofBxfHL9aWo/s1600/IMG_4507.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEESmaIKhibCp0hHUceKNiviJkrXlBi1xZsHzSyWmVEIQEhd3nJLXTqVZ5mmkxJxMI2fjMqHrZu-quZz9nQb38f0GX3xNUcSlEVrS5mBqGBKGXjviURpIZF2VwNwasna-GofBxfHL9aWo/s320/IMG_4507.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What's worse: the rampaging colossal, corrupted water elemental or a place called the City of Skulls?</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SzSA_ZzdxEl6jRJ930bTOk2sqAoNXYZ4NPeq3CoaB4nNECK2YABK7yvVBLHtFfzpCTvK_lRkzLF_PIrrXVlYuvzws1w8KdK-TqI_JaSnlKcCtcO4ZHBZjUPQLUZQc0AxmQvpfXjtAl8/s1600/IMG_4508.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SzSA_ZzdxEl6jRJ930bTOk2sqAoNXYZ4NPeq3CoaB4nNECK2YABK7yvVBLHtFfzpCTvK_lRkzLF_PIrrXVlYuvzws1w8KdK-TqI_JaSnlKcCtcO4ZHBZjUPQLUZQc0AxmQvpfXjtAl8/s320/IMG_4508.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steel cage match, Pelanor vs. Osgood! Two gods of mercy enter, two gods of mercy leave!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCiMNe-x6s6kJmBllItqt98CMTOaKLwJswPHP8uCRW4fX-RC11qT9lPsM3iqA7FrIPOiag469AAwK1L8zgQphhLl9aaYcySW1dCrKZVwhjLShoVYMq1h20AwBTdrUshYjdRwnZgrZfdlY/s1600/IMG_4509.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCiMNe-x6s6kJmBllItqt98CMTOaKLwJswPHP8uCRW4fX-RC11qT9lPsM3iqA7FrIPOiag469AAwK1L8zgQphhLl9aaYcySW1dCrKZVwhjLShoVYMq1h20AwBTdrUshYjdRwnZgrZfdlY/s320/IMG_4509.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, that does say "street wizards."</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSmW8VKMDKbjJlMAk9AzCWowgqWfcH28atzDQicg7jeWeFSYRU99q7R_AbuPdMTSmeAfpIiu2K3Kz9DyJpbclAqJazdXcfUOfJ96nIGGflISzLUqbG8Pp74KyDDdTaKrc043RfpW080QM/s1600/IMG_4512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSmW8VKMDKbjJlMAk9AzCWowgqWfcH28atzDQicg7jeWeFSYRU99q7R_AbuPdMTSmeAfpIiu2K3Kz9DyJpbclAqJazdXcfUOfJ96nIGGflISzLUqbG8Pp74KyDDdTaKrc043RfpW080QM/s320/IMG_4512.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are a little hard to read, but they're records of Boots' shrines to the Banshee Queen. That guy was crazy for shrines.</td></tr>
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<br />Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-56024323725415101022012-02-26T17:01:00.000-08:002012-02-26T20:01:36.172-08:00OrcCon 2012 Post-MortemThis year's OrcCon proved a notable convention for a few reasons. One, it was practically bursting at the seams, with record attendance and so many RPGs submitted that around 30 had to be turned away for lack of space. (Crazy, right?) Two, I managed to cajole pop-culture writer and RPG virgin Todd VanDerWerff into attending the full con to finally experience for himself what this whole RPG thing is about. Three, LIVING DUNGEON WORLD.<br />
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(And four: A game of <i>Descent</i> that finished in under five hours. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)<br />
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<i>Note:</i> This is super-long. You've been warned.<br />
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<b>Friday afternoon,</b> I ran <i><b>Dungeoncrew</b></i>, my D&D-ish hack of the excellent <i>Supercrew</i>. This is how bad this whole hacking thing has gotten for me: I'd never run or even played <i>Supercrew</i> before, but as soon as I read it, I started wondering how easily it could make the leap to the dungeon. The answer, of course, is "So easily it's almost there already." If you haven't gotten it, get it. Fourteen bucks on Lulu.<br />
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Now, I already posted my hack, which consisted of replacing some Abilities and replacing them with others to enforce the genre. By the time the con rolled around, though, I'd added a few more. I'll go through them here real quick, for those who are curious.<br />
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<ul>
<li><b>Hero Points = XP.</b> This is just a renaming, but flavor counts.</li>
<li><b>Levels.</b> Everyone starts at Level 1. When you've spent 2 XP within a Level, you Level Up.</li>
<li><b>Anecdote Bonus = Tales of Past Glories.</b> Every odd-numbered Level, you get the anecdote bonus (+1d6 on a roll) once.</li>
<li><b>Tricks of the Trade.</b> Every even-numbered Level, you can regain the use of a Trick you've used by replacing it with something else. I like those Tricks, and it bugs me that in a one-shot you might only get to use each of them once. Plus it forces players to constantly push forward with what their characters can do. And it's highly flexible. Did you pick up a nice pair of gloves in that wight's lair? Maybe they're <i>gloves of dexterity</i>. Boom, there's your new Trick.</li>
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That's it, really. It was a total success and a lot of fun to boot. Rolling up characters was quick and fairly intuitive for the players, but the full extent of what it means to see everything you do in the game through the lens of their three Abilities didn't really hit them until about halfway through. When it did, though, it hit pretty hard. The example in the book of the Bullfinch fighting a fire using Martial Arts (by punching into a wall and pulling out a water pipe) kinda brought it home for them, I think.</div>
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Our PCs were a charismatic ogre with a club, a drow cleric of Pelor with a <i>mace +1</i>, a thiefy-type with a dagger and a grappling hook, and a book-smart magic-user. They fight crime! Seriously, they do. The adventure was the classic <i><b>AD&D</b></i> module <i>Slave Pits of the Undercity</i>, and I was blown away by how easy/fun it was to convert stuff from <i>AD&D</i> to <i>Supercrew</i>. Most monsters could be boiled down to one or two Abilities and a Trick -- likewise with traps and other hazards. It probably took me 40 minutes to convert the whole thing, or at least the portion of it that I chose to use, and that was with me overthinking it.</div>
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My little tweaks worked pretty damn well, and there were a lot of funny and/or cool moments. One of my favorites was when the drow cleric went toe-to-toe with a wight. I'd made a note on the wight that he always defended with 3 dice against anything but magic or holy weapons. Suddenly that tongue-in-cheek <i>mace +1</i> of hers become a big frickin' deal, as she was the only one who stood much of a chance against it. The ogre's irresistible charisma came in handy more than once, made all the more hilarious by his "trick" of incomprehensible screaming. The thief got something like 6 Effect (which is nuts) while stealing some half-orcs' swords, and the wizard used his telekinesis to toss a few slavers and aspis guards around like rag dolls. Best of all, in the end the drow cleric was the only one still standing. All in all, a very good time.</div>
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(I've already started to hack <i>Supercrew</i> for sci-fi. Oh, look! I'm done. <i>That took two minutes</i>. Seriously, get this game.)</div>
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<b>Friday night,</b> my Living Dungeon World weekend began, with me as GM. The set-up: The area around the town of Three Crossings has been the target of increased goblin raids lately, and the call has gone out from the Lord Mayor for help from some adventurer-types. Enter the PCs.</div>
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This was a throwback to low-level, old-school <i>D&D</i>, with no direct connection to the meta-plot in the living campaign. By design. My feeling was that if everything everyone did the whole time was directly in service of The Big Story, it wouldn't feel nearly as "alive." Early on, there had to be room to explore other stuff, before larger concerns consumed everyone. So that was the idea.</div>
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It, uh, didn't work all that great, to be honest, but I don't think it had anything to do with what I was trying to accomplish. Rather, I made things a little too exploratory and investigation-focused, with relatively little in the way of combat. A surprising development, really -- how hard is it to throw in more combat? -- but hindsight's 20/20, and all that. Add to that the fact that I managed to kill off a PC in a spectacularly non-heroic manner, and all in all I came away from it more than a little dissatisfied with my performance.</div>
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Anyway, back to the set-up. After arriving in town and meeting with Lord Mayor Belin, who they discover has been hoarding most of the town's guardsmen for his own manor house rather than using them to protect the citizens, the PCs -- Augustine the paladin, Emory the ranger, Hob the fighter, and Darrus the bard -- head up into the hills, to the abandoned mine shaft in which the goblins have apparently made their home. When they get there, they discover that the mine is clearly not only several hundred years old, but also of dwarven design -- odd for the area.</div>
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In the mine shaft, the party triggers a trap that send them sliding, but manage to find safety in a branching side-passage. This passage is clearly no mine, though. It's of finely worked stone, expertly designed and constructed, and stretches far beyond the light of their torch. As the party cautiously makes it way forward, jets of fire from the ceiling and walls threaten to roast Emory alive -- but Augustine the paladin, who just happens to be immune to fire, shoves him to safety. Guessing that goblins are manning this trap, he calls out in an authoritative voice for their assailants to show themselves. If I recall correctly, something -- maybe this, maybe something else -- caused the goblins to flee the scene, and the party, badly beaten and singed, carried on.</div>
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(See, this was part of the issue. So far there's been danger and damage, but no actual <i>enemy</i> to face. Not sure why I went that way with it. Anyway.)</div>
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The corridor ends in a huge subterranean thoroughfare, and it's clear that this "mine" is actually a sprawling dwarven city, lost to time and unknown to the townsfolk in the valley below. Here they meet Mortak, a dwarven ghost who promises to help them rid the place of goblins if they can help his spirit move on to the afterlife by ridding him of a bunch of gold. They readily agree, because <i>gold</i>, and as he leads them through the city of Mountainhold he fills them in on the goings-on.</div>
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Goblins, of course, have no toes. We all know that, yes? Okay, good. When goblins die, they have to face Worxag, their god. If they win his approval, he stabs their feet with a five-bladed sword, thus giving them toes. Some goblins believe that halflings are reincarnated, semi-divine goblins who have been sent back into the world by Worxag. </div>
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As it happens, a halfling by the name of Kiki Tangletoes has discovered this tribe of goblins, and they in turn have mistaken him for something of a demi-god. He's had no objection to this, because it means he has his own tribe of goblins to go out and raid merchants and get things for him. It's a good arrangement. But the tribe's shaman, Gorgozamoth, has used Kiki as leverage to whip the tribe into a religious fervor. He's replaced the chieftain (<i>with extreme prejudice</i>), and word of the tribe's demi-god has spread far and wide. Every day more goblins arrive to join Gorgozamoth's (and Kiki's) crusade against the humans in the valley. They're readying an army of some two thousand goblins, far more than Three Crossings can repel, and if left unchecked every human in the valley will be slaughtered.</div>
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So. Fine and good. Information learned, stakes raised.</div>
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This is where I did a lame thing. I had the ghost dwarf turn out to be a dick who purposely leads the party into a tight corridor where they're exposed to green slime, then disappears with whatever the dwarven equivalent to a middle finger would be. I wanted to shoehorn green slime in there somewhere, but this was a bad way to go about it. First, why did Mortak have to be lying about his curse and where they were going? It could've been a legitimate accident. As a ghost, the slime would never take notice of him, so how's he supposed to know it's there? Because then he vanishes, and the only purpose he served was to deliver exposition and make the party Defy Danger once. Whatever. I wasn't happy with it.</div>
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Also, notice there's been no combat yet. WTF?</div>
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<i>What with one thing and another,</i> the party manages to navigate through the city and find where the goblins are camping out. Or some of them, anyway. A couple hundred have made their home outside the doors of what's clearly a throne room or something, because it looks quite fancy. As they look down on the goblins from some sort of viewing balcony above, a goblin enters the scene, barks some orders, and all but a dozen or so of the critters take up arms and march away to do who-knows-what. (Not something good, one imagines.) The players figure they can handle a dozen goblins, so they spring into action.</div>
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Augustine and Hob find a stairway down to engage in a frontal assault while Emory and Darrus remain above to snipe and sing, respectively. (Bard.) In the fracas, a couple of the goblins make a break for the throne room doors and manage to push them open. Inside are Gorgozamoth, four metal constructs of some kind (Iron Dwarves), and, wearing a heavy crown and sitting uncomfortably on the throne, a halfling. Somewhere in there, the bard's music attracts unwanted attention -- a goblin arrow hits and kills him -- his Last Breath roll is... a 5. Hrm. So long, Darrus. We hardly knew ye.</div>
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Combat is joined in earnest. Even Emory jumps down to bring it to these goblins -- specifically, to Gorgozamoth. Hob wrestles Kiki to the ground, thinking if he can kill this halfling the shaman will lose his authority. Kiki looks up at him and pleads, "Help me!" Complication! Augustine manages to kill Gorgozamoth just as the 200 goblins, alerted by the blowing of a horn out in the hall, return, ready to fight. The paladin talks them into letting them go -- Kiki commands it, and Gorgozamoth's dead -- and go they do, back to the surface. </div>
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Then, in town, Emory's carousing results in him burning down a luthier's shop in (suspected) revenge for his dead cat. In other words, there's an Oustanding Warrant for Emory in Three Crossings.</div>
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So it was okay, and still fun, but not what I'd wanted, to be honest. My players were great, though, so hat's off to them.</div>
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<b>Saturday morning,</b> I played <i><b>Top Secret</b></i>. And I was totally psyched about it. I have fond memories of <i>Top Secret</i> from, like, 5th grade, and I've been jonesing to play it again for a couple years, back when I wrote a piece for wind ensemble based on <i>Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle</i>. The was advertised as being, and I quote, "hilarious," so when the premise turned out to involve six world leaders getting a preview visit to Disneyworld the day before it opened (in 1972), I figured we were in for it. I was not wrong.</div>
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<a href="http://www.happyjacks.org/" target="_blank">The two GMs</a> did a fantastic job of prepping for this game. Every player was given a sweet-looking dossier with a character sheet and various other information, along with an authentic full-color brochure on Disneyworld from the '70s and Mickey Mouse ears. Instead of name tags, our Mouse ears were frickin' <i>embroidered</i> with our character's name. (That alone probably ran them about $100, by my estimate.) And naturally, we had to wear them the whole time.</div>
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My character, a Belgian State Security agent named Sirte Maginot, was the sharpshooter of the group. With an Offensive Value of 93, he pretty much couldn't miss with his 9mm Baretta at Short range (within 50 feet). It was when he picked up a terrorist's AK-47, though, that he got a little ridiculous. Despite his broken arm -- he had a broken arm by then -- and the AK's autofire penalty, he could still nail three Called Shots (another penalty) to the head with frightening reliability. And when he got behind that 50-cal, forget it.</div>
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If I had to come up with a gripe for this game, it'd be that the GMs apparently didn't like the game system, and didn't hesitate to say how awful it is. "We did all this game prep because the mechanics are so shitty!" Well guys, I signed up for a <i>Top Secret</i> game because I want to play <i>Top Secret</i>. Why are you talking smack about this game I want to play? I'm totally cool with referencing three tables to determine the severity of a gunshot wound. I'd even <i>like</i> to reference <i>five</i> tables to do proper Martial Arts combat, as written. That's part of the charm for me. They ran it well and everything. I just wish they were fans, I guess.</div>
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<b>Saturday afternoon,</b> I played in <a href="http://apap.libsyn.com/" target="_blank">Jesse Burneko</a>'s <i>Dungeon World</i> game. I'd promised myself that if Kiki Tangletoes survived my game that I'd play him for the weekend -- so I did. Playing a halfling in <i>Dungeon World</i> means being either a Fighter or a Thief. I'd kinda pegged Kiki as a Thief, but when it came down to it the Fighter playbook was more attractive, so that's what I went with. We also had Omar the Thief (another halfling), Lanethe the Ranger, Lenore the Cleric (played by Todd, incidentally), and Uri the Wizard. </div>
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The story opens with the party nearing the gates of the City of Skulls, home of Morghadam's Library. Uri is there to magically recover two years' worth of lost memories. As fate would have it, the heavy iron crown the goblins had made Kiki wear back in Mountainhold is, in fact, the key to the library itself: Placing it on the head of a statue outside the library opens its doors. </div>
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But before any of that can happen, we have to get into the City of Skulls itself. The city's walls stretch beyond the limits of our vision, and as we get closer we see they're made of what must be millions of skulls. Before the city's gates stands a huge guardian, covered in plate armor and holding an axe befitting his stature. When Lanethe and Omar approach him to talk, it quickly becomes apparent that to get in without a fight we have to donate a skull to the wall. One of ours, presumably. So... it's a fight. Everyone acquits themselves well, although <i>what with one thing and another</i> Lanethe ends up falling from the top of the wall into the (apparently) river of blood on the other side. Classic <i>D&D</i>-ish moment: Uri the Wizard ends up striking the killing blow to the guardian with his quarterstaff.</div>
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Within the city, a Charon-type guy ferries us across the river. The creep factor of everything is in keeping with the blood river. The streets are made of still-living flesh that cries out when we walk on it, undead are everywhere, and everything reeks of danger. It's an urban planner's nightmare, unless the urban planner is a lich, in which case... City of Skulls!</div>
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We get to the library without incident (except the screaming flesh-streets, which in any other circumstance was probably qualify as "an incident"), and sure enough there's the kneeling statue bereft of headwear. Behind him, flanking the doors, are a pair of iron golems. It's pretty clear to all of us what's going on here, but what're we gonna do, not go in? We put the crown on the statue's head, the doors open, and the golems animate and immediately breathe poison gas on us. After a little danger-defiance and some misguided hacking and slashing, we all make it inside, where we find an old man surrounded by towers of books and compulsively writing in a book. Turns out he was a bard who came to the City of Skulls because he wanted to know all the stories in the world. Morghadam granted him his wish, and he's been compelled to write story after story ever since. That was a thousand years ago. Now he can't stop writing unless someone takes his place. He wants of us to do that, naturally, but we're not dummies, so Uri conjures an unseen servant to take the bard's quill and carry on writing. The bard gets to leave! Yay, bard. (It's not really how the spell's supposed to work, but I'm glad Jesse went with it. I thought it was a clever idea. Plus, who doesn't want to read the stories of an unseen servant?)</div>
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Anyway, also in the room is a tesseracty map of the library (we've been warned by the Charon-guy that <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zqili2e6wFqamtjDOyCVAdbrvBZS8jHECNPuHmCIlWHrHW_75EP_jGkgIoOWrwo5RnSM-4hXinDq0mMtgsD08hjc6pSUzBC_OQgyG1l_YyiRdo5o4f003x4JA-R0Vrhc3CNqe8vJTdxj/s1600/tardis+2.jpg" target="_blank">it's bigger than it looks</a>), which we take time to copy down. I think we may also have rested for an hour there so Uri could re-prepare spells. Typical! "Let's take a little breather in this evil library in the middle of a city of undead!" Also, classic. Then we start wandering around, and find a free-standing building (it's a big library -- it contains buildings) that's all locked and chained up with seven enruned chains. Gotta be something good in there, right? So Uri conducts a ritual to unlock it, which eventually works. Inside is a pedestal, atop which, under glass, rests a single book. The whole thing's surrounded by corpses. Uri and Lenore go inside, at which point the doors immediately slam shut. The floor's infused with Negative Energy, but they manage to walk on the corpses and retrieve the book. It's the <i>Book of Vile Darkness</i>! Yay?</div>
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Meanwhile, outside, Omar and Lanethe are surrounded by a bunch of rats. Kiki, having just re-opened the doors to the Shed of Vile Darkness, jumps in there to protect them while Lanethe manages to clear a path with a hail of arrows. Then we open up another door, and Omar and Kiki are attacked/webbed-up by giant spiders within, and it's all a big mess. Lanethe spies another enwebbed figure in the room and cuts them loose, but they're long dead. Fortunately, a cool-looking mace drops out. Unfortunately, it's followed by hundreds of fist-sized spiders that swarm all over Lanethe. At about this time, Kiki's freed, so he charges over there to defend Lanethe, and soon enough everyone makes it out alive.</div>
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It was about here, I believe, that the rats turn into rat-men and take us (we don't have much of a choice unless we want to die fighting a bunch of rat-men) to their queen. Uri tells her he's had a vision of a jeweled skull (which is true) and asks her where it is, ostensibly because he thinks it'll help him regain his memories; in exchange for some rations, she leads us there. The secret entrance is out back by a fountain we passed earlier (of course, the fountain!), which conceals a spiral staircase going down. As she walks, the rat queen's necklace -- a circular golden medallion that contains, it seems, a small beating heart -- points the way, as if it were dragging her along.</div>
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And there it is: an ancient skull, eyes and teeth replaced by jewels. A little Lore Spouting tells us that this is the skull of the demi-lich Acererak, so... bad news, there. Moreover, if the skull is joined up with the Rod of Orcus, it forms a powerful artifact called -- wait for it -- the Wand of Orcus. And Orcus' followers are even now trying to get that going. More bad news!</div>
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<i>What with one thing and another</i>, both Lenore and Uri end up with their souls trapped inside the skull, but at least we learn that the key to getting them out lies in the demi-lich's phylactery. We're not sure where that is. Ah -- it's the queen's beating-heart necklace.</div>
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While we're sorting this out, the demi-lich's spirit emerges and gives us a hard time. He seems especially attached to Omar. Omar attempts to run away, back up to the surface; the demi-lich follows. </div>
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The rest of us leave Uri and Lenore's bodies behind (but take the skull) and race back upstairs. I kinda feel like there was some negotiation with the queen regarding her necklace, but given that I pretty clearly recall Kiki grabbing it and cutting it off her neck, it's likely we ended up taking it by force. It's only a matter of time before the demi-lich's spirit form kills us all, so Kiki, operating on a guesstimate, stuffs the phylactery into the skull's mouth in an attempt to re-bind the spirit. I don't remember the move I used, but I do remember that I got a 7-9, so I was given a choice: It doesn't work, or it works but kills Kiki in the process. So Kiki died, and I rolled a 5 for my Last Breath (Omar's player, BTW, was the player of the Bard I'd killed the night before -- I could tell <i>he was loving this, the bastard</i>), so... heroic death for Kiki!</div>
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I liked this game quite a bit. Creepy, atmospheric, dangerous... <i>Dungeon World</i> at its finest. Plus, Acererak and the <i>Book of Vile Darkness</i>! And that mace was the Mace of Disruption! I'm a sucker for a good <i>AD&D</i> reference.</div>
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<b>Saturday night,</b> I played <i>Descent</i>. As <i>Descent</i> games go, this was something of a cake-walk. Not only did we win, we finished in under five hours. Marty, the Overlord, also ran the last game of <i>Descent</i> I played it at Strategicon, and I think he learned his lesson. It seemed like he chose a shorter and somewhat less-demanding scenario, although we each died at least once, so I can't say it was <i>too</i> easy. Anyway. Always a good time, <i>Descent</i>. I don't care if it <i>does</i> last seven hours. I still enjoy it.</div>
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<b>Sunday morning,</b> I did nothing! It was awesome. I should do that more often. </div>
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Well, I did do <i>something</i> productive, I guess. For Living Dungeon World, we'd been keeping track of all the player- and GM-generated worldbuilding info using stick notes on a big tri-fold cardboard thing. What town are you from? Write it down and stick it on. Goblins don't have toes? Elves have animal eyes? There's a goddess called the Banshee Queen? There's a dwarven clan called Rockthunder? There's a place called the Steel Desert? You were killed by a goblin arrow in Mountainhold? Your paladin serves Pelanor, the god of mercy and judgment? Your cleric worships Osgood "the True," the <i>real</i> god of mercy? <i>Write it down and stick it on</i>. </div>
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By Sunday, we had a ton of sticky-notes on that thing, so I categorized them (Gods, Organizations, Geography, Events, Sundry Facts, Outstanding Warrants, and The Fallen), wrote them all down, then re-copied them on the board in Sharpie. Except the locations -- I had this idea that we'd draw a map on there, but that ended up being too big a task to do on the fly. When it was all written down, it looked pretty darn impressive. Pictures were taken, though not by me.</div>
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<b>Sunday afternoon,</b> I ran my second Living Dungeon World game. Three of my four players were the Olson clan -- Eric, Brian, and Michelle -- who'd been playing the same characters (Chopps the Fighter, Boots the Cleric, and Cherish the Thief) <i>all weekend</i>, just as the Founders intended. Boots and Cherish had even started out in Colin's Friday-afternoon Prologue game, using the Villager playbook. My fourth player was Rob Sanderson, back with Lanethe the Ranger from Jesse's game the day before.</div>
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Lanethe ended up with the Skull of Acererak, and took it to the town of Crownsguard to figure out what to do with it. While there, we can surmise, she ran into Boots, an ambitious priest of the Banshee Queen newly returned from converting nomads in the Steel Desert and overseeing the construction of another shrine to his deity. Boots immediately recognized the significance of the skull and the importance of preventing the Wand of Orcus from coming back into existence, so he, Cherish, and Chopps agreed to accompany Lanethe to the library at Dusk's Harbor (lotta libraries that weekend) in order to learn how to destroy the skull once and for all.</div>
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We were a little slow getting off the ground for this game. Everyone but Lanethe had end-of-session and between-sessions moves to take care of, but the practical upshot was that those moves informed where the story was about to go. For example, Cherish gained a promotion within the Thieves' Guild, but it wouldn't have meant much in Crownsguard, since the action was about to leave there <i>forever</i>. So I figured we'd get to Dusk's Harbor and apply the effects there. That was the case with pretty much all of the between-session moves. I know that's not how they were <i>intended</i> to work, but in this case they worked very well that way.</div>
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This made for a rather civilization-focused game, at least at first. There was a lot going on in Dusk's Harbor. Let me see if I can bullet-point it.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Chopps learned that the mysterious army who'd wiped out his entire village were most likely the Vashar, a degenerate race of humans spawned by the Demon Prince Graz'zt. They're kind the human equivalent of drow.</li>
<li>Cherish spotted a pick-pocket in a crowded inn and picked <i>his</i> pocket, but he caught her. However, he was still impressed at her skill. They got to talking (in Thieves' Cant, of course), and he offered to introduce her to the city's Thieves' Guild. <i>What with one thing and another</i>, she was accepted into their ranks and allowed to operate within Dusk's Harbor (her promotion).</li>
<li>Cherish was also caught by a city guard while trying to pick the pocket of a wealthy merchant, but Chopps managed to keep her out of the guard's grasp by promising to punish her horribly himself. </li>
<li>Lanethe, lacking the funds to get a room at the inn, slept off their hard journey in the stables. (So... she didn't do much after all, I guess.)</li>
</ul>
<div>
Thanks to Cherish's new connections, the party's able to get into the Great Library after-hours. A thief-librarian (they make good money selling books to scholars in the city, and with <i>so many</i> books in the library, who's going to notice?) bearing a lantern takes them in and shows them around. Boots and Cherish want to research how to destroy the Skull of Acererak, while Chopps drags Lanethe along to find out more about the Vashar and Graz'zt. Collectively, they learn that the remaining Vashar have retreated far to the east, that Graz'zt is a powerful rival of Orcus', and that the skull can be destroyed by causing it to be consumed by one of the five heads of Tiamat, the Chromatic Dragon.</div>
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No sooner have they learned these meager facts than each pair of adventurers is beset by dark forms from out of the darkness, their dark hearts full of dark intent! <i>Dark!</i> They're undead revenant-type-things! One of them wields a two-handed sword whose black blade is like unto a piece of the night sky! One of them is Kiki, all trace of goodness gone, now driven by pure evil fury! The other two are, I dunno, some other guys! It's all very disturbing. Chopps and Lanethe fall into combat with their assailants, while Boots manages to command the other two. He asks them some questions, and through gritted teeth they tell him that they've been resurrected by Orcus to recover the Skull of Acererak. Then Boots has them fight one another to the re-death.</div>
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Oh, and they get some pretty cool magic items from their attackers. Kiki was wearing the Boots of Striding and Springing, and the big sword is none other than Blackrazor, the legendary soul-eating sword. <i>Crazily</i>, Boots doesn't want it because he has some very outmoded <i>AD&D</i> ideas of what sorts of weapons clerics can wield, and Chopps prefers his ancestral sword, Forefather's Edge. Fair enough, I guess. Boots hangs onto it anyway. And Lanethe quietly claims the boots. Also, the librarian, killed in the attack, had a book with an infinite number of pages called the Book of Infinite Pages, so they take that too.</div>
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They discover that Tiamat lairs, with her five dragon consorts, on a remote island far to the west. The next morning they charter passage on the <i>Saucy Mare</i>. Her captain, Tarkus the Hand, is a follower of the Banshee Queen, so Boots is able to throw his weight around a little to make this thing happen.</div>
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En route, in the dead of night, the PCs are attacked by half the crew, who also try to steal the Skull from them. It's a hard-fought battle, but eventually the PCs triumph. (As in, "You guys keep missing, this was supposed to be short, and I'm tired of this, so Tarkus and the remaining crew are able to get it under control.") Turns out the "sailors" are actually Vasharan agents of Graz'zt, who want the skull for their own purposes. Chopps is all ready to go to town on them when a huge white dragon shows up and starts breathing frost all over the ship.</div>
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Cherish scrambles to the top of the rigging to attack the dragon as it makes another pass, but is snatched up in its claws. Lanethe uses her new boots to leap straight up and catch on to the dragon's claw, then proceeds to Parley with it. "We have a powerful artifact to give to your queen in tribute -- the legendary sword Blackrazor!"</div>
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This particular white dragon, Karic, isn't especially bright, despite being a consort of Tiamat, so he lands to discuss this business further. Pretty soon he's talked into taking the party to see Tiamat, but demands something in tribute first. Ah, Chopps' Scarab of Death -- that'll do. The party climbs on his back, and off they go (leaving the <i>Saucy Mare</i> essentially stranded in a block of ice).</div>
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Tiamat's island is dominated by a two mountains: one with a high, ice-covered peak, and the other a dormant volcano, somewhat truncated after having blown its top many years before. Karic flies into the volcano and lands on a ledge leading into a vast cavern in the mountainside. As he calls out for his queen, three other dragons -- blue, black, and green -- land on various ledges in the basin of the volcano, while a giant battle-scarred red dragon peers down in curiosity from his own lair above.</div>
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Out from the cavern walks a slender, black-haired woman -- Tiamat in her human form. Karic proudly announces that he's brought her tribute; Tiamat haughtily demands that the PCs explain themselves.</div>
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"We brought you the Skull of Acererak," Boots blurts out. Everyone looks at him, stunned; this admission threatens to seriously undermine everything. The MacGuffin was supposed to be <i>Blackrazor</i>, the players remind him. Not relevant. "Hey, I don't want to give away my stuff!"</div>
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Boots is an interesting character. He started out in Colin's game as a potential problem, but morphed from "the crazy town drunk" to "the weird kid who hears voices and reads." Since then, he'd become a cleric of the Banshee Queen, an outright evil deity, but nonetheless an evil deity opposed to Orcus, so... "the enemy of my enemy." Despite being evil, Boots never attacks anyone if he can help it. He heals like crazy and generally behaves like a decent person -- because it's way easier to gain new converts that way. He's <i>all about</i> new converts. But now and then, his selfishness shows through, like when he's willing to risk a TPK by almost spilling the beans on the party's plan to destroy the Skull.</div>
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<div>
Tiamat instantly distrusts them, but Cherish tries to pull it out with a quick lie. "If you eat the skull, it'll make you powerful beyond your wildest dreams!" Side note: Cherish has a magic item called the Eyes of the Dragonheart. It lets you persuade people to your point of view. If you roll high enough, they become <i>passionate supporters</i> of your proposed course of action. Cherish puts the Eyes on and says, "Eat the skull." Everyone else throws a successful Aid her way, bowing and scraping to the Chromatic Dragon. Cherish's player nails her roll -- a boisterous shout goes up from the table! -- and Tiamat is consumed with the idea of consuming the skull. She transforms into her five-headed dragon form, plucks the skull from Lanethe's outstretched hand with her red dragon head, and swallows it. Her five faces trade self-satisfied looks.</div>
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<div>
However, there's a minor issue no one's really considered, apparently. Acererak's still "alive" inside the skull. Trapped in there, sure, but there's still a demi-lich in there. A sickly greyness spreads across Tiamat's body. She shouts in anger and agony in five-part disharmony. From within her bloated body, a shockwave of Negative Energy blasts the flesh from her bones and knocks the party to the ground. </div>
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<div>
"AT LAST! I HAVE RETURNED!" shouts Acererak, now a five-headed demi-dracolich, and vaults into the sky.</div>
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<div>
The five consorts of Tiamat, bewildered by this turn of events, all have the same thought: "Let's kill those adventurers." They all breathe on the party at once (except the green one, I decide; he'll save the poison for any survivors). Blasted by fire, lightning, acid, and ice, the party Defy Danger by ducking into Tiamat's cavern. All of them make it -- except Chopps.</div>
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He rolls his Last Breath. Eight. Okay.</div>
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<div>
The Kingdom of the Dead, it turns out, is a magnificent, splendorous city, at least for a consistently good guy like Chopps. A tall man appears, dark-haired, two short horns sprouting from his forehead, and offers Chopps a second chance at life if he'll agree to a small bargain. This being needs servants on the Prime Material, and Chopps would make an excellent one. Chopps admits some reluctance to serving a god.</div>
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<div>
"Oh, I'm not a god," says the man. "More a prince, really." It's Graz'zt.</div>
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What happens next is awesome mostly because of how much thought Chopps' player puts into it. Finally, he says, "I can't serve the demon who killed my parents. No deal." </div>
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High-fives all around.</div>
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My session ends with the survivors trapped on Tiamat's island, pursued by the five most powerful dragons in the world. </div>
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<b>Sunday night,</b> it all wrapped up with the big Living Dungeon World finale. Finales, really. Colin's game involves four heroes (Emory the Ranger, Boots, Cherish, and a re-animated Chopps wielding Blackrazor) descending into the Abyss to kill Orcus in his palace. Hamish's game -- well, <a href="http://anarchangel23.livejournal.com/444061.html" target="_blank">just read about it here.</a> I've written enough, and he has the good sense to keep things mercifully short. (I played Daelwyn the Bard.)</div>
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How'd things go in the Abyss? Vernon, Emory's player, got to cross "Orcus" off the list of "The Gods of the World." Mission accomplished, barely.</div>
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Living Dungeon World was an unquestionable success, and definitely exceeded our expectations. There's no doubt we'll do it again at Gamex.</div>
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Whew. What a weekend. Thanks to everyone who made it so great.</div>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-32170297187348653992012-02-04T22:28:00.000-08:002012-02-04T22:32:55.082-08:00Contest: The Game Crafter RPG Challenge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/The_Game_Crafter_Logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/The_Game_Crafter_Logo.png" /></a></div>
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Man, this is exactly the kind of awesome design contest for which I absolutely do not have the time.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.thegamecrafter.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #6e7173; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;" target="_blank"><b>The Game Crafter</b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #6e7173; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;"> is pleased to announce the RPG Challenge! We want you to design a role-playing game in the form of a board or card game. It doesn’t matter whether you build a dungeon crawler like Descent, or more of a story telling game like Betrayal at House on the Hill, or a funny little card game like Munchkin; all that matters is that it takes the form of a role-playing game. It also doesn’t matter whether your game requires a game master, or if the adventure is random, or if there are predefined adventures. </span></blockquote>
I've used The Game Crafter in the past for <i><b><a href="https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/honeymoon:-the-game">Honeymoon: The Game</a></b></i>, a little something I made for my wife to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. (It turns our New Zealand honeymoon into a game, using our honeymoon photos as cards.) But I've always wanted to take advantage of what the site has to offer on a grander scale -- a full-on boardgame or card game or something.<br />
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So this would seem to be a good opportunity, except for <a href="http://atomicroborpg.com/">this</a>, and also <a href="http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com/2011/12/anglerre-gettin-medieval.html">this</a>. Sure, the contest deadline isn't until April 15th, and yes, I have half-formed ideas that would be viable candidates, but seriously -- I do not have the time.<br />
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But maybe you do! So <a href="http://news.thegamecrafter.com/post/16853473181/the-rpg-challenge-is-on">go check it out</a> and design something. A potential grand prize is taking over the site's GenCon booth for half a day! That's pretty sweet.Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-34870148151153546752012-01-27T01:12:00.000-08:002012-01-27T01:12:16.176-08:00OrcCon 2012: Events!Right up front: I haven't posted in a while because <a href="http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com/">it's all been FATE stuff lately</a>. So there. Moving on!<br />
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<a href="http://strategicon.net/"><b>OrcCon</b></a>'s coming up next month -- specifically, February 17th through 20th -- and I'm going to be running some pretty cool games.<br />
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First up on Friday at 2:00 is <i><b>Dungeoncrew</b></i> -- my D&D-ish hack of the very excellent <i><b><a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-supercrew/1428757?productTrackingContext=product_view/more_by_author/right/2">Supercrew</a></b></i>. Of course, <i>Supercrew</i>'s so elegantly rules-light already that there isn't a ton of hacking to be done. In fact, here's the entire hack right here:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>When rolling for Abilities, substitute the following table for the one in the book.</i><ol>
<li>Race:<i> You're a nonhuman adventurer. Pick a race.</i></li>
<li>Skill:<i> An important, real-world skill you've picked up, like sneaking, fast-talking, or healing.</i></li>
<li>Equipment:<i> Mundane gear of some kind, such as a sword, a set of lockpicks, or a suit of armor.</i></li>
<li>Item:<i> A magic item, such as a ring of wizardry, a flying carpet, or a soul-stealing sword.</i></li>
<li>Attribute:<i> An adjective describing a notable physical or mental feature, such as big, fast, or smart.</i></li>
<li>Magic:<i> Pick a type of magic, such as pyromancy, necromancy, or divination.</i></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
That's it!<br />
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I'm going to go a <i><b>Danger Patrol</b></i> route with this, and I also want to find a use for my <a href="http://www.dungeonmorphs.com/index.shtml"><b>DungeonMorph Dice</b></a>. Whatever happens, it'll be a lot of fun. (Right now this is scheduled in the wrong time slot, but hopefully that'll get sorted out before this weekend.)<br /><br />
I'm also running two sessions of <i><b><a href="http://dungeon-world.com/">Dungeon World</a></b></i> as part of our weekend-long <b>Living Dungeon World</b> campaign. We describe it thusly:<br />
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<i>A world of fantastic adventure awaits - a world of monsters and heroes, gods and demons, swords and sorcery, Good and Evil. </i></blockquote>
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<i>This is your world. </i></blockquote>
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<i>This is <b>DUNGEON WORLD</b>. </i></blockquote>
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<i><b>LIVING DUNGEON WORLD</b> is a weekend-long series of connected heroic-fantasy games with persistent characters in a persistent world. Play as many or as few games as you like. New to DUNGEON WORLD? No problem! <a href="http://anarchangel23.livejournal.com/438725.html">More info here.</a></i></blockquote>
Five GMs, nine sessions, one ongoing story! Start out as a virtual nobody on Friday and fight for your life all weekend until Sunday night rolls around and you're a multiverse-saving badass -- just like the prophecies foretold! Or simply drop in for a session to see what <i>Dungeon World</i>'s all about -- just like the prophecies failed to anticipate!<br />
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As far as we know, this is the first time anyone's done this sort of organized-play event with <i>Dungeon World</i>, so we want to make it as cool as we can. But it's not going to be cool in the least without cool players, so come on out to OrcCon and give it a whirl. Sessions are Friday at 2:00 pm (this one's the all-Villager-playbook game) and 8:00 pm, Saturday at 2:00 pm, and Sunday at 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm.<br />Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-51950571660008896182011-12-18T11:33:00.000-08:002011-12-18T12:03:39.195-08:00Stage One: Objective Completed<b>Jonathan Walton</b> finally (and I say "finally" with all due respect) got around to the last batch of <b><a href="http://corvidsun.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/stage-one-an-autumn-invitational/">Stage One</a></b> entries and had nothing but good things to say about <i><a href="http://venturehomenews.com/HalfOfEverythingIsLuck.pdf">Half of Everything Is Luck</a></i>. Things like:<br />
<ul>
<li>"This game is straight-up terrific."</li>
<li>"Mike knocked this one out of the park."</li>
<li>"[One particular thing in the game] is hilarious."</li>
<li>"[Smells like Pierce Brosnan.]"</li>
</ul>
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Anyway, modesty forbids me from any more self-aggrandizement, but <a href="http://corvidsun.com/2011/12/17/stage-one-reviewing-1-3/">you can read the whole thing here</a>. </div>
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Upshot is, Half of Everything Is Luck "definitely gets an invitation" (oops, one more nugget of self-aggrandizement!), so yay me, yay the game, and so on. Thanks Jonathan!</div>Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-64583249721110728092011-11-15T10:41:00.001-08:002011-11-15T10:50:51.755-08:00Stage One: AddendumI have to say I'm pretty blown away by the response to <i><b><a href="http://rollsomedice.blogspot.com/2011/11/stage-one-half-of-everything-is-luck.html">Half of Everything Is Luck</a></b></i>. My last post on it had a whopping <i>six viewers</i>. That's the equivalent of everyone who follows this blog reading it once! It's pretty gratifying when you can reach 100% of your audience.<br />
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Anyway, I've made a couple post-deadline improvements to the game based on feedback from one person, and I figured I'd post 'em here for anyone who's interested. And really, even if only half of the people who read that last post are interested, that's still three people -- enough to play a multiplayer game of <i>Goldeneye</i>! The mind reels.<br />
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So here they are.<br />
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<b>Ammo</b><br />
Instead of spending Rounds and tracking Ammo Reserves, every weapon has a row of check boxes and a set of coins (pennies, nickels, or dimes). The boxes represent its Clip. Every time you roll a 1 on a Shoot die (regardless of whether it's “kept,” if Aiming), check a box. When the last box is checked, the Clip is empty, and you need to Reload.<br />
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A Weapon's coins represent the Ammo for it you're currently carrying. When you Reload that weapon, clear its Clip boxes and spend one of its coins. When you spend its last coin, you're out of Ammo. Ammo Boxes have two coins, while dead Guards and Crates have only one. You can only have a limited number of each type of coin at a time, as shown below.<br />
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PP7: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>□ □ / 3 pennies<br />
AF7: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>□ / 4 nickels<br />
Sniper Rifle: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>□ □ □ / 2 dimes<br />
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You start the game with one penny and no nickels or dimes. If you get one or more coins for a Weapon you don't have, you get the Weapon instead (and no coins).<br />
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<b>Guards</b><br />
Every map segment has a minimum number of Guards it must have: 4 for Drop Point, 6 for Roadway, and 8 for Dam. If the dice give you less than that, roll a number of additional dice equal to the difference, right on the page. This time, though, reset 4s to 1s, 5s to 2s, and 6s to 3s – in other words, every die is a Guard.<br />
For example, if you've only rolled three Guards on Roadway instead of the minimum of six, roll another 3d6. Let's say those dice come up 1, 4, and 6. That gives you two more Level 1 Guards and a Level 3 Guard.<br />
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There you go. Play in good health.<br />
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<br />Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169141961090409162.post-52391555233644349152011-11-06T02:05:00.000-08:002011-11-06T02:05:42.048-08:00Stage One: Half of Everything Is LuckAfter doing some grueling research tonight -- plugging the N64 back in and playing <i><b>Goldeneye 007</b></i> to refresh my memory -- my entry for Stage One, <i><a href="http://venturehomenews.com/HalfOfEverythingIsLuck.pdf"><b>Half of Everything Is Luck</b></a></i>, is done.<br />
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I agonized for some time over the name, and nearly settled on one of several really bad puns, but playing the Facility reminded me of the dialogue at the end between Bond and Trevelyan (which the movie ripped off word for word, BTW). "Half of everything is luck" seems like a pretty accurate summation of this game.<br />
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I've seen people posting about the layout they've done for their entries, and my reaction has been, "Man, <i>layout</i>? For reals? I'm just trying to squeeze everything on the page here." So it's not pretty, and it's not fancy, and it's probably wordier and crunchier than most submissions, but I'm willing to bet it's one of the only one-person games made for this thing, so that's something, anyway. Honestly, it never even occurred to me to make it anything but a <i>solo</i> game, given the source material. That means giving the opposing forces (many, many guards) behavioral scripts, which ate up its fair share of space and brainpower.<br />
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Playing the Dam again was an interesting experience, that's for sure. There's so much I just remembered <i>wrong</i>. For example, why did I think there were two modes of movement, roughly equivalent to walking and running? Uh-uh. It's all just walking. Fast walking, sure, but walking nonetheless. And why did I think there was some PP7 ammo in there somewhere? And why did I think there was more than one sniper rifle? Most of these tricks of my memory were fixed in the final game, but some of them -- like the sniper rifle thing -- weren't, for the sake of gameplay. It's just better, IMO, if all guards in towers have sniper rifles. Makes things a little more interesting.<br />
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I'd also misnamed two of the weapons. AK-47? PPK? What was I thinking? No -- AF7 and PP7. Duh!<br />
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I'm rambling here. Practically speaking, it's an hour later than it really is right now, so that's my excuse. Anyway, check out the game, give it a whirl, and tell me what you think.Mike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.com0