It's Elemental

I took a bit of my own advice regarding arcane wards, portals, and traps for the elemental-built level of a my Pathfinder group's recent dungeon delve into the lowest reaches of ancient dwarven catacombs. In short, I took typical game traps and simply allowed characters to use Arcane Knowledge instead of Perception to detect/understand a magic ward/trap; instead of Disable Device, they used Spellcraft to suppress, bypass, or otherwise safely negotiate a number of elementally magicked areas encountered during the heroes' underground ramblings.

For the most part, these were just simple affairs applied to doorways and the like. I did use a standard spiked pit trap and jazzed it up like some kind of earth elemental worm creature. As far as game mechanics go, it was nothing more than a trap that could move around in a room.

One of the key parts of the climactic encounter in the undead-filled temple (see last post) was to allow the heroes a chance to prevent - or at least hamper - the transmission of a a large lightning elemental to the temple via a large (10' x 20') black marble altar which served as a kind of portal between the planes when properly activated. I reasoned the mighty being was only sending a portion of his essence to aid the heroes' cultist foes. I also reasoned that such a challenge would be the equivalent of a lightning trap - if they could overcome the trap, they could further limit the elemental creature's avatar (for lack of better word) from arriving in the temple - ie. shrink him down to a medium-sized or small elemental instead of taking on a ten-foot tall man-shaped angry cloud of thunder and lightning. If they failed the disarm attempt, they faced a lightning attack. It seemed appropriate that the monster could channel its electrical energy through the altar/portal if the heroes could do the same.

This was a great way to give the players some choice - take a chance on getting zapped to reduce the effectiveness of a truly tough enemy or just let him come on. As it turns out, they failed in their attempts, but that just made things more exciting. This is where we became much more familiar with weapon resistance rules.

I Advance Masked

I couldn't resist the Andy Summers reference for this piece. I'm sure it will all make sense once you have recovered from Police-related nostalgia and read the latest dispatch from my dungeon.

I wanted to bring back that hint of Lovecraft that appeared fairly regularly in 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and fit so well with the elements of the game's pulp fantasy appeal. Beyond the slimy and tentacled horrors such as mindflayers, beholders, and aboleths, players got to glimpse at the Elder Ones in any number of ruined (or active and secret) temples and cults. A step further, we find gods like Tharizdun (god of entropy and madness) and god-like elemental powers playing well with the sphere of alien intelligences bent on spreading destruction in the world. Pictured right is the cover to The Temple of Elemental Evil, the classic mixing of eldritch, elemental, and fiendish creepiness.

It's certainly easy enough to place those elements in a regular dungeon-delving setting. On the group's first outing they took a medallion shaped like a mindflayer head from leader of hobgoblin mercenaries, so from the start they know that they face a faction of horrific overlords and probably a mixed of sneaky and/or crazed cultists. In time, they learn of an as yet-explored abandoned(?) temple in the wilderness. Even better, they begin to piece together a cult-driven conspiracy within the safety of the adventuring base, a human/dwarven mountain enclave.

When it came time to expose the secret horrors playing in the lowest levels of the town's ancient catacombs (built by dwarves and elemental beings), I had to make it memorable without being too overpowering for a low-level group. I re-purposed some game mechanics for traps and monster powers and did some cosmetic things that gave the adventure more personality.

I reasoned that the corrupting influence of evil and alien powers could certainly transform the faithful into sentient undead, so I used ghouls as the local cult leaders. I thought about beefing the head honcho up as a cleric, but I settled on letting him be a ghast (a ghoul with the advanced template in the Pathfinder RPG) and substituted a cleric's channel energy power for the normal stench ability. Instead of using two claw attacks for these monsters, I had them used curvy, sacrificial swords (short swords) instead - the damage was the same, but the image made for a better fit. Once these creeps put on silver fish-faced masks and some robes, they weren't just any old ghouls - they were devotees of the Old Ones.

Their minions were simple skeletons as far as game mechanics go. However, I determined that the skeletons were sentient - not because they needed to do anything complicated, but because the players needed to get an understanding of the madness and hate that drove them. Furthermore, the skeletons were the remnants of skum (an aberrant race of fishlike humanoids created by eldritch horrors long ago). These guys were dancing around a large black marble altar when the adventurers arrived. Yeah - I did fudge here - I really didn't want to beef up the skeletons to match Skum stats, but they were no less a challenge for all that. Like the ghouls, they gave the encounter the feel and power level it needed - both were memorable to the players.

Lastly, the ghouls were served by zombie slaves - human and dwarven victims of the cult. They were definitely playing the animated servant role as defined by the game, but I did have them provide a disturbing chorus as part of a summoning ritual the party intruded upon.



In the next post, I'll talk a little bit more about the elemental elements of the game.

Against the Hill Giants

G1 - Back Cover

Today I will follow on my last post on the classic AD&D module, G1 - Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.

First, lets take a look at these giants as they appear on the cover of G1 (similar illustrations appear within the module; see cover in last post). Also note the giant log hall/settlement of the back cover. These 1978 images don't quite jive with the near-caveman appearance and description of hill giants found in the 1st edition Monster Manual and later editions of the game.

I think I have found it more appealing to play hill giants like they appear in G1 - ie. more like shabby barbarians than neanderthals. This is a rather cosmetic thing, but I think ogres already do a good job of filling this niche, and with the just right amount of fantasy wonder. Why do it over again with any of the core races of giants? As mentioned before, this is a matter of taste and I suppose there's no reason we can't have caveman giants and giants that are more akin to barbarians of the Iron Age or Classical Antiquity.

As for the power levels, I realize the hill giant adventure was meant for 9th level characters and higher - and this was back in the day when the adventuring parties had seven or more characters. Mike Mearls reported on a lunchtime game on his take on G1 back in 2007 - check it out in the Wizards Archives here. Mearls goes for old school intent: eight 11th level characters. I think it would be worth trying out his recommendations, even with the Pathfinder power shift in characters and monsters.

However, I'm wondering if the module could be tweaked for the higher end of mid-level play, something like 7th or 8th character levels, with groups of six to eight players?

What brings me to this thought is the old school hit points of the hill giants in the module: most of them had like 38 or so hit points. You can get those kind of hit points by applying the advanced monster template to Pathfinder ogres. Not only would you get a tougher ogre, but a smarter one. At Challenge Rating 4 (one advanced ogre should be an average challenge for a party of four 4th level characters), this could be the ticket. If I recall the challenge rating math correctly, then about six advanced ogres would make a CR 10 encounter. That makes for challenging encounters for 7th level characters. Considering that a hill giant is supposed to be an average challenge for four characters of 7th level, the power downgrade seems about right. Six hill giants should make a CR 13 encounter - a similar difficulty level for 11th level characters.

Except for the chieftain's dining hall, the characters probably won't encounter that many giants (or advanced ogres as may be the case). This will probably require some tweaking, considering the hall had - I think - over 20 giants plus some ogres in it. Of course, I'm thinking the point of the adventure was to break up the dinner party and draw the giants into ambushes and tight spots whenever possible. Once you throw in places to hide and add windows (which seem oddly absent from the steading map, but not on the back cover illustration), then I think a good-sized party of 7th or 8th level characters has a chance.

One last thought, touching upon the map - it now seems to me that the steading was still a dungeon crawl despite its hill fort setting. I would even be tempted to redo the steading as a number of separate lodges instead of one big building with attached tower and auxiliary storage. Of course, there's also the basement, which hides the chieftain's treasure vault, a lost Cthulhu-type temple, and caverns full of rebellious orcs. Almost seems like an adventure in itself.

Against the Giants

I would like to revisit some classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons modules for my Pathfinder RPG games. I am in the process of doing that kind of thing already with some of the Slavers series (the A series modules), but this definitely will take some more imagination on my part. The Slaver modules were mid-level adventures and don't require too much tweaking, except maybe in numbers of foes in a given encounter. The Giants series (G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and G3 Hall of of the Fire Giant King) not only have large foe numbers to deal with, but the giants have grown tougher since the first edition of the game.

I don't think anyone could run the Giants modules "as is" by simply substituting the current versions of hill giants and the like into the adventures. What might have worked as a challenging adventure for high level characters (say, 9th to 12th level) just won't work out right these days, at least in regards to enclaves of giants.

I'll post some ideas on how I might deal with G1 - Steading of the Hill Giants in my next post.

In the meantime, you can check out some of my thoughts on the old AD&D Slavers series here and here.

Scary Monsters & Super Creeps: The Faceless One

Dungeon #125

I utilized several low- to mid-level adventures from Paizo's Shackled City and Age of Worm adventure path (AP) campaigns that ran in Dungeon magazine back in the old print days (somewhere between 2002 and 2005). I mixed those conspiracy-riddled episodes with other like-minded adventures from the magazine, taking bits and pieces here and there (sometimes a locale, encounter, or monster/villain) if not entire modules.

The Faceless One from Mike Mearls' "The Three Faces of Evil" was a heavy duty player from almost the beginning. He appears as an important cult leader in the adventure as written - definitely a major player, at least on the local scene; he would prove to be relatively small in the ultimate scheme of things for Age of Worms AP, but he made the perfect kind of second rank commander for my campaign. While a small cabal of fiendish and fiend-blooded foes topped the conspiracy for my campaign, this guy made himself felt in a much more material way. 

As envisioned by Mearls, he was a bizarre and ruthless villain. I imagine his appearance was warped through the vile beings he consorted with or maybe he was some kind of alien. Between his appearance, lair (a magicked maze), and his kenku (murderous crow men) cultist followers, I knew he would be memorable even in the context of the one adventure. However, I knew The Faceless One could be so much more.

There was no shortage of skullduggery in this campaign - clashes with bloodthirsty cultists, kidnappings, etc. Whenever the players gathered information during their investigations, The Faceless One became a recurring name. While they never got to meet him face to face (sorry, I couldn't help myself) until they penetrated his secret lair, they felt a dreaded familiarity with him - physically and psychologically.

His kenku killers provided a great connection, serving as a corporate recurring villain in many ways. They seemed to show up as tangent adversaries (or simply observers) in encounters with other groups of villains. It got to be that their appearance indicated deeper secrets to the obvious drivers of the games (ie. "stop the bandits, stop the orcish warbands, etc.). What's more, they kenku also disposed of weak-linked allies. By the time the player characters met The Faceless One, they knew what kind of villain he was. The formula was simple - take every other adventure and just add kenku. OK, I kind of kid you a bit there - the decisions to insert kenku felt very organic; they showed up whenever The Faceless One needed something done in secret.

He was a tough encounter. He destroyed a brave/foolhardy dwarven warrior with a point-blank lightning bolt in a final showdown that also saw the end of another brave hero - and his lair was nothing short of a nightmare of ambushes and mad spirits. However, I think the sessions leading up to his demise did as much to build up this foe in the gamers' minds as the bloodbath they witnessed that evening.

The end of The Faceless One wasn't the end of the campaign, but he was a great milestone. In fact, he would have proved more than adequate for a complete story arc if I had decided to move onto other adventure objectives and foes altogether.

Seedy Villains...delayed

Dungeon 125 by Paizo Publishing

My expose on revamping/re-purposing fantasy RPG villains to make them more memorable has taken back seat to a number of expected and unexpected projects. In the meantime, check out the cover to Dungeon #125, which had Mike Mearls' "Three Faces of Evil" in it. Here's a spoiler for the next villains installment - this adventure had the creepiest villain I've ever had the pleasure to have in a campaign: The Faceless One.

Seeding (Recurring?) Villains

After my teaser post on the subject of making easier work of bringing recurring villains to your favorite fantasy game, I reconsidered my choice of making an example of the stable of villainous leaders to be found in the pages of TSR D&D module A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade. In fact, why don't I just share some things I actually pulled off a few years ago?

I think it all goes back to the concept of re-purposing published adventures and working in your own material - plots, characters, whatever. I have run campaigns in which I created quite a bit of material from scratch, but more often I have connected published material into a series of adventures to form campaigns. My guess is that is how many game masters do things.

A few years ago I used the Shackled City and Age of Worms adventure paths from Dungeon Magazine (these were 12-issue series published between 2003 and 2006), intermixing the low- to mid-level adventures with others that suited my taste. Both revolved around conspiracies and worked out well with the kind of campaign I decided to run. I just tweaked them as needed. More importantly - and making my point, I hope - is that some of the really great adventures had some excellent one-shot villains that weren't really expected to last beyond a memorable showdown or they were sideshow baddies who had no specific plans beyond the current adventure. I wanted to make some of these guys really memorable, because I thought their strength of despicable character would resonate well with the campaign. In short, with some tweaking, I could re-purpose some of the villains and give them a prelude to their glorious stage exits when the players finally met them in battle.

Next time, I'll give some examples of how I reworked some villains and how they made a bigger impact on our games.

Coming Up: Creating Recurring Villains in Fantasy Gaming

A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade

Recurring villains can make a good campaign even better. Players like to fight the big, bad boss monster that will show up at the end of the campaign, whether or not they know who it is early on. Well, a few bad lieutenants can really help maintain and build the group's desire to defeat their ultimate foe. I finally figured out to put recurring villainous leaders and champions in a campaign without requiring a huge amount of story arc development and all that. I think that kind of thing is awful hard to figure out before the dice have rolled in the first of many adventures that make up a campaign. Even if you have it all planned out or use a published series of connected adventures (such as Paizo's Adventure Paths), I think some of the tips may come in handy for an organic feel to recurring villains you may not have even considered at the start of your campaign.

I'll offer a teaser with the cover of the second module of the classic Slave Lords series - A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade. It has a wealth of villains worthy of seeding into any fantasy game campaign.

Re-Thinking the Slave Pits of the Undercity

Module A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity

I now turn to my favorite TSR Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module - Slave Pits of the Undercity. I have talked about it at length in a previous post, but today I'm going to delve deeper into some elements I would use to change the adventure to suit my tastes now; some of which are driven by certain aesthetics and game-play experiences.

I have brought the module out for play for a number of players for the first and second editions of the D&D game, but not the third (or its spiritual successor, the Pathfinder RPG). I thought about leaving the module 'as is', but the more I think about it I want to change the physical aspects of the location for clarity. I'm not so much worried about the cast of monsters.

The adventure takes place in temple ruins and a underground level, which includes part of old sewer system as well as some new construction (such as the iron-barred cages of the slave pits). In my mind, the upper level of the temple and ancillary buildings were made for the dungeon-minded. It seems like spaces between buildings/gardens/etc. are more corridor-like than open to the sky. The buildings seem to lack any windows. Also, I'm not quite sure what parts of the compound were actually under the same roof - they certainly made for some odd-shaped buildings if they did. Were the characters in passageways or paths between very close structures? What if I just re-imagined the the place on a historical model?

So, I think I've decided to incorporate the core features and encounters of the module into a redesigned space/series of spaces. As the module's artwork strongly suggests a sense of Greco-Roman Antiquity, I thought I would work in elements of actual classical temples and early medieval monasteries (esp. Eastern European and Coptic designs). Google, of course, is a great help here. I have to say I think I hit the goldmine with some floorplans under the Abbey listing in Wikipedia. I've seen them round and about over the years.

One thing I noticed in favor of the windowless concept of the original upper level of the temple buildings is that it is not totally out of line in comparison to the floor plans and 3D renderings I found in my research. However, I think we are probably talking more about pagan temples (ie. think the rectangular, column-girded sites, with the Parthenon serving as a great example) and the outside walls of the self-sufficient monasteries/abbeys. I'd have to say the module's temple grounds remind more of a medieval abbey compound with classical elements. Finally, after taking a look at the St. Gall monastery plans, there seems to be a number of odd-shaped buildings there as well.

Ultimately, I think what I want to do here is create a gaming area where the adventurers can think well beyond tunnel crawling, get out in the open (probably to their chagrin), and maybe scale a wall or two for sneaky entrances or escapes. Also, the slavers will likely need some adjustments to how they guard avenues of approach to the site's entrances.

To that end, that leaves me with redesigning the maps or using other sources. I've thought about bringing in some of Paizo's flip-mats for the occasion. I think a good medieval village inn or monastery with a courtyard might really work here. More later when I make up my mind...

Review: GameMastery Guide (Pathfinder RPG)

GameMastery Guide

I hesitated to purchase Paizo's GameMastery Guide when it came out last year. I thumbed through the pages and nothing immediately leaped out at me. It has a lot of good info for novice game masters and all sorts of tables and info, but nothing that seemed like I really needed. The book's authors/designers had consciously tried to make an effort for their work to offer the kind of catch-all material found in Gary Gygax's Dungeon Masters Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, published over 30 years ago. I'll say this - they did a great job of marrying that concept to the conciseness of the D&D 3.X core rulebooks. However, I felt there was nothing new under the sun for me there.

Well, I was wrong.

I finally got a copy of the book once I realized it had a full-blown NPCs gallery - over 50 pages of them. Each page has a NPC archetype - warrior, knight, bandit, slaver, assassin, thug, cultist, guild master, pick pocket, etc - with full stats and plenty of suggestions for tweaking combat abilities and the like. They run the gamut of challenge, from low to high level, with about three NPCs of various power levels fitting in with a general theme, such as criminals, aristocrats, city watch, and crusaders.

I realized this would be a great tool for a lot of situations, but I like it most because it would save me time on putting together my villainous humanoid leaders and followers - ie. orcs, goblins, etc. These guys, of course, have core stats in the Bestiary, typically as Warriors (NPC fighting class that is substandard to the more practiced Fighter). Now with just a few tweaks I can turn those human nefarious types into monster commanders and champions.

It's already proven some value in getting me a low-level cleric into our group of heroes, and on very short timetable. I made a tweak here or there, but it took me nothing like the time it would to start from scratch.

Then of course, there's the treasure tables. This is another time saving set of tools that has always been a part of the game. You don't really need the tables to sort out a good treasure mix for your players, but they make things so easy.

And for advice - well, I haven't read the entire book yet - but I have already found one gem that suggests really giving a memorable scene to one particular treasure - either its appearance and/or the circumstances of its discovery. Description and atmosphere are good for bringing an imaginary place to life for each player, but too many special events and they lose their uniqueness. I have to agree, and I used it to good advantage in the start up of a new campaign. One player discovered a small bag of garnets inserted into the crack of a cavern wall. That little treasure comprised about 5% of the total value of the adventure's haul, but they remember it as much as a truly special (and creepy) medallion found in the same adventure.

 I highly recommend the book if you are playing Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 (Pathfinder is backwards compatible).

DM's Guide - TSR, 1979

Coming Up: Recent Epiphanies in Fantasy RPG Gaming

I'm working on some posts regarding Paizo's Gamemastery Guide (part of their Pathfinder RPG line, but quite compatible with D&D 3.5) and rethinking some ideas on the classic D&D module, The Slave Pits of the Undercity. More later.

Paizo's Gamemastery Guide

Dungeons & Dragons and Me: 30 years on

D&D Basic Set box cover art

Dungeons & Dragons has been around for a little longer than 30 years; I think something close to 35 year or older if you count Chainmail and the other early works by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. It was around Easter in 1981 that I got a copy of the D&D Basic Set. This was at a time when the D&D game was published under a couple of different rules/brands. The short of it is that Basic D&D (and its follow up companion, Expert D&D), is that it was simpler than the regular game (called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons), although it they shared core mechanics. The biggest thing that comes to mind is that it combined race and class into one class. All dwarves would probably translate into dwarven fighters in AD&D; elves would be like elven fighter/magic-users (ie. wizards); halflings were like halfling thieves or maybe fighter/thieves. Fighters, clerics, and magic-users were all human.

It was a major epiphany for me to play this game - it was like nothing else. No board, no pieces - just paper, pencils, and maps (that you might not be able to look at). You played a character in a fantasy setting - which was already kind of out there for me. I hadn't really read any fantasy at that time, and about all I could relate it to was The Hobbit animated film I had seen around Thanksgiving back in 1977. 

Speaking of art - dig that picture on the box cover to the Basic D&D Set, which included a rulebook and The Keep on the Borderlands adventure module. That's Erol Otus - one of the signature artists that defined the look of the game in the late 70s/early 80s.

The game itself sometimes had a pulp fantasy feel to it (at least what I recognize as such in hindsight) - and it felt great. Time to pick up some dice soon, and kick off some new campaigns and revisit some old ones. 

Pathfinder Bestiary 2: Review

I'll go ahead and say it - Paizo's Bestiary 2 is the Fiend Folio of the Pathfinder RPG. For those of you not familiar with the classic Dungeons & Dragons reference, let me take you back to 1981.

The Fiend Folio was the second hardback creature tome for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game (now known as 1st ed D&D). It had some monsters that came directly from some of TSR's adventure modules (the drow or dark elves from the Against the Giants and Drow series readily claimed iconic status), but a good chunk of it came from fan-based creations in the UK. Some were winners, some weren't. It's hard to imagine the game without the likes of the planes-traveling Githyanki (who graced the book's cover), or my favorite - the dark folk (dark creepers and dark stalkers). Some of the monsters were way out there, and all of them showed a lot of imagination, regardless. While I never considered the book superior to the original Monster Manual, I cannot deny that I always brought a selection of FF creatures into my games.

Well, that's what Bestiary 2 feels like to me now. There's plenty of stuff in there that if you want to populate your adventures with B2 monsters, you can readily do it. It definitely has that otherworldly feel to it, considering the number of extraplanar creatures, fey, and aberrations you can find in between the covers. Of course, you get a number of dinosaurs, magical beasts, and giant mammals and insects to boot.

I recognize a number of the creatures from prior Pathfinder publications, although I'm fairly sure a number of them are seeing print for the first time - at least in regards to how Pathfinder has re-imagined a lot of the classic monsters of the D&D game. I must say, I do like how they did some interesting takes on freaky monsters from the old D&D 3.0/3.5 Monster Manual like the destrachan and the howler - and that's just the artwork.

Oh, and the dark slayer (a new addition to the dark folk), may be a new favorite of mine.



 

RPG Advice: Necromantic Traps

The undead can prove tough foes in RPG games, and they come in all kinds of makes and models. For the purposes of today's review, we should get into the mindset of the kinds that can be created as servants (animated skeletons and zombies) and those might be summoned and possibly controlled - especially the incorporeal types. Now, consider how those kinds of monsters could be made into integral parts of wards and traps. If spell energies and elemental creatures can be harnessed for magic items and other things, why not evil spirits and other undead?

Necromantic aspects can be strictly cosmetic, but it's probably a little more interesting to introduce some tweaks to game mechanics adapted straight from the RPGs rules for traps. D&D 3.0+ and the Pathfinder game provide stock and trade listings for all kinds of traps, which should make things rather easy than coming up with this stuff from scratch.

For example, instead of using the old spiked pit trap, why not use a pit filled with skeletal arms that attack hapless victims with the same kind of chances to hit and damage? If you juice it up, why not let the skeletal hazard make continuous attacks for anyone not making a hasty climb out of the pit? You should probably assign the skeletal components hit points or something to measure damage - most likely  thanks to an area effect spell or holy energy. Alternately, you might just treat the skeletal bits as some kind of swarm (ie. like hordes of vermin) that inhabits a pit.

Think about the traps that release some kind of energy attack, such as fire or lightning. Why not use necrotic energy instead? This might have the effect of turning killed characters into some kind of undead. Alternately, it might just be a cool way to describe traps that make cold attacks, but be sure to mention that the assault on the characters has a creepy aura - ie. spirits whispering, grabbing, etc. This would certainly be the kind of trap that you could let the priests, holy warriors, or the studious use their Knowledge (Religion) skills to detect and disable/suppress harmful spirit wards.

If a trap normally requires a character to make a Fortitude or Reflex saving throw to withstand or dodge it, respectively, why not replace with an effect that requires a Will saving throw instead? As far as that goes, if the trap deals physical damage, I see no reason why a psychic attack couldn't do just that. Again, I can see malicious spiritual forces at work here, although this is great ground for those Cthulhu-minded.

Finally, let's think about hazards. Drowning is a dungeon-delving problem that can occur while swimming or if buried in enough debris. To avoid drowning, it requires Swimming checks and possibly Constitution checks if the hero goes under. Consider spiritual hazards - say a corridor of howling spirits - that requires Will save checks (or some relevant skill check), but maybe use Wisdom or Charisma checks to "hold their breath" while navigating or floundering the cursed hall.

The cover the right is from Dungeon #125 (back in 2004, I think). Mike Mearl's adventure, "The Three Faces of Evil," has an ultra creepy dungeon complex which features a section that messes with character's minds, if I recall correctly (maybe through an ever-present confusion spell effect). Lots of strange things going on in the adventure that the suggestions above would work well with. Recommended reading for anyone planning on writing  an unholy temple adventure - you just can't beat the feeling Mearls evokes. One day I'll have to write a post of why this adventure is one of my all-time favorites.

RPG Advice: Arcane Roguery (Locks and Traps)

Dungeon Magazine #97

Dungeon-delving often benefits from having a rogue along when playing a fantasy role-playing game. What happens when you've got nigh-insurmountable locked and/or trapped gateways and no rogues or other heroes (and I use the term loosely) with the kind of skills to see you through?

The very epic "Life's Bazaar" (written by the awesome Chris Perkins and featured in Dungeon #97 back in 2003) gave me the opportunity to fathom this query when I used it with a large group of players who had not one rogue between them and none of the questionable types had useful skills for bypassing locks and traps.

 The adventure featured a forgotten and abandoned vault-like warren once inhabited by gnomes. Well, not quite abandoned and forgotten, as the adventure's villains did a small amount of slave trade with victims kidnapped from the urban sprawl above. As it happened, much of the maze-like enclave was protected by portals sealed with magic locks and traps.


So, what to do? I decided against forcing them to languish in the areas they could easily explore - I had too many players (10? I must have been mad) to entertain and the snooze factor could come into play in such a large dungeon. The monstrous foes could have given them the chance they needed - they played a hit and run strategy, but it's quite possible that their abilities to bypass magically sealed portals could benefit a fast and clever bunch of pursuers. Frankly, the group was too large to add an NPC trap expert - I had too much to do and even if I gave the NPC to a player to run, it was still another character to keep up with. I took another route altogether.

As the portals were magicked with wards and the like, it seemed to me that the parties arcane practitioners ought to have some power, or at least handy skills. I reasoned that if normal locks and traps were subject to deft hands and good ears (and maybe a nice set of thieving tools), then magical ones should be subject to Arcane Knowledge or Spellcraft skills. This solution brought the right kind of feel to the game and it got the wizard and sorcerer into saving the day in ways no one really expects - it was kind of cool describing how they would concentrate and make strange gestures to reveal secret runes encircling the ancient stone portals. Depending on how well they rolled on their skill checks, they either suppressed or disabled traps and locks.

Furthermore, it got the game moving in a way the players wanted to go. Even when their arcane skills failed to bypass certain portals, the players felt more in control of their destinies.

So this was kind of an ad hoc solution to a given situation, but it's something I have used a few times since. The Dungeons & Dragons game (and its spiritual successor, Pathfinder) always recommend creative and alternative skill check solutions for given challenges whenever possible. While I think Spellcraft always has a chance to be a winner for exploring magicked ruins and the like, you could easily replace Arcane Knowledge with Religion Knowledge (temples, undead lairs), Planar Knowledge (fiendish or alien domains) or Nature Knowledge (fey or druidic woods) - or whatever matches the nature of the adventure.

When I think about Gandalf, he seems to be the most adept and finding, bypassing, and setting up magically sealed portals out of any of the company he ran with in either The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. Why can't my players' spellcasters be just as cool - and without necessarily having to expend precious spells?

Previews: Monsters, Ships, and Advice for the Young at Heart

Pathfinder Bestiary 2 cover

It's been awhile since I reviewed RPG rules, inspirations, or merchandise. I plan to talk about Paizo's Pathfinder Bestiary 2 soon, as well as some ideas I have for spicing up traps in dungeon-delving - and by spicing up I'm not talking about making super traps or anything like that.

I expect to get my feet wet again with Axis & Allies War at Sea (or is just called Naval Battles?). A friend of mine fell under the spell of the game in a six-player scenario at Nashcon a few years ago and is ready to get some dedicated gaming in. Why, there has even been talk of a campaign - especially with the (sorta) relaunch of the game which is supposed to make gameplay faster. I'll be honest, I didn't think it was particularly slow to begin with, but I'm for getting to the action quicker.

Speaking of campaign gaming, I am in the midst of Rick Priestley's article on the subject in Wargames Illustrated #281 (the Artillery Issue). He gives some solid advice in the article and I recommend it to anyone who wants to run a wargame campaign. As far as that goes, it's probably not bad advice for anyone trying to run a RPG campaign either. Both are demanding, but at least RPG rules typically make the assumption the game will run as a campaign and get the game master in the right frame of mind for handling an ongoing series of games. Ultimately, no matter what your aspirations are, you need to (realistically) answer the following questions: Who are you writing the rules for? What kind of time and interest will the players have for your campaign?

I might have other things to put in here over the next week or so, including a return to Sudan topics. I have just received a copy of 'A Good Dusting' thanks to historical author Neil Smith.

Welcome to Scrape

Dungeon Magazine #16 (going all the way back to early 1989) has one of best adventures you will find in that magazine in the last days of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Technically, 2nd Edition had already been released, but I believe the 1st Edition adventures appeared for several of the bi-monthly issues afterward. The game editions were close enough that a little conversion wasn't too much work. But I digress...

So, what was so great about this particular issue? In a word: Vesicant. That's the name of the adventure and the name of its main villain, a young green dragon with a penchant for magic items and an alliance with Scrape, a town of pirates (human, orc, and goblin). That's her on the cover (right), with the magic wand and the arcane blast of some kind. She was small, clever, and vicious. Vesicant relied on tricks and good tactics to take on the 4th-7th level characters that sought her doom. The idea was that if the dragon was removed, the pirates would be easier to handle.

That was another selling point, by the way - the lovely "mid-level" aspect of the adventure. It's when characters are strong enough to take on tougher monsters, but they cannot ignore the low-level monsters either. Once the characters got to 10th level or so, the low-level monsters just weren't challenging anymore - and you lose some taste to the game. 


Of course, Scrape was a great place to have a lot of role-playing with cloak & dagger perspectives. Without Scrape, the adventure just would not have made such an impression on me. An engaging urban environ that invites the characters to explore, talk, and fight with its inhabitants is always a plus - and Scrape was one of the best places for that.

The heroes just couldn't storm the town, they had to gather info from the port's power brokers so they pick up enough clues to find the dragon's hidden lair in the hills. The human, orcish, and goblin quarters of the town were fleshed out. There was a lot of follow-up adventures to be had in Scrape if you wanted to play them. Hooks were all over the place - the removal of Scrape's tyrant, the half-orc warlord Yorin and his ogre bodyguards could result in a civil war between the town's factions; the appearance of a duergar slaver indicated some trade relations with the Underdark; and a pair of evil elven mercenaries could have meant anything. 


In some ways, Scrape could have worked well as the larger environs of the classic D&D module A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity. I actually used Scrape as part of the Slave Lords' network of outposts. 


Much like I reminisce that Dragon #63 was an epiphany of my early gaming days, this magazine did much the same for me when I rediscovered my love for the game after a few years of hiatus.

A Bit of Thanks

Thanksgiving Day approaches and I thought I might share a few things with you folks about what I am grateful for in regards to history and gaming. 

I'm grateful for the folks who take the time to read my musings on this blog. I hope you find some value you in what you encounter here. 

Thanks, Chris Perkins!

I'm grateful for the historians, authors, and game designers whose talent and love for their callings really inspired me.

I'm grateful that I have had a chance to explore the world of game design/writing. I'd like to thank a number of editors that have played pivotal roles in this pursuit: Dave Gross, Chris Perkins, Jesse Decker, Mike McArtor, Wes Schneider, Rob Broom, Dan Faulconbridge, and Dave Taylor.

I'm grateful for the generosity and camaraderie of a number of historians, writers, and professional hobbyists: Guy Halsall, Neil Smith, Jim Graham, John Bianchi, Andy Hawes, Shane Grubb, and Heine Baekkelund (RIP).

I'm grateful for all the friends and loved ones that have sat at the gaming table with me through the years. I cherish those times.

Spooky Adventures: Tammeraut's Fate

Every now and then, I think it's fun to really bring some horror elements to a role-playing game. I don't think this is necessarily an easy thing to do. I mean, a lot of the mundane monsters in a fantasy RPG would seem rather scary to me - but they are so common and the heroes are...well, heroes. I think a lot of it comes to writing style and game design - if the adventure can hold back some mystery and grab the characters (literally) unexpectedly, then you got something. 

One of the best D&D adventures I've run as a GM was Greg A. Vaughan's "Tammeraut's Fate" from Dungeon # 106. The author took a classic horror film idea - stranded on an island and under siege by zombies - and really made something that resonates. 
It did not seem like a tired cliche or dull or anything less than a suspenseful series of scary encounters. It was kind of fun to do a little give and take on pushing the adventure - the player characters need to drive a bit, otherwise they rightly feel that they are only reacting to situations - BUT - I think they got a kick out of knowing that the situation was out of control while they investigated the island's hermitage. It was tense and they knew they were up against some dark forces even before the sea zombies showed up. As a GM, these are the kind of moments you work towards - when the players are scrambling, using desperate imagination and tactics to get their characters out the other side of the adventure.



This gem from 2004 can be found as a hard copy or PDF from Paizo here.

L5R: Empire at War Scorpions Score!

I tried out my new Scorpion deck from the recent Empire at War release for AEG's Legend of the Five Rings card game. The deck did not do too bad - and all I used was what came in the starter. Considering I have played as well as I do when I have constructed a deck - well, that probably says something about my skill and how good the cards were.


Of course, there were lots of cool synergies to be had, and they actually seemed to fit well with my regular Scorpion "deck of tweaking," which uses a lot of samurai/Bitter Lies kensai and ninjas. Take a look at the Fortress of Blackened Sight stronghold at the right - now that's a good card for the multi-weapon kensai personalities for sure. 

And did you notice the Limited Action ability? That worked great for me. If you pair this up with an Artificer (or three) , you have the ability to really go through those Fate cards. Nothing like getting the weapons or sneaky ninja action cards when you can use them.


Another potential synergy was a ninja actor personality that could replace a non-Unique dead personality. The ninja actor is absolutely dirt cheap too. If you haven't found someone you need to replace, you can play some of your favorite ninja action cards off of the character. I hesitated to attach any weapons, afraid of losing them, but then I realized that a number of weapons in the deck could easily transfer to another character. That's a good combo.

For what it's worth, I'm not a huge fan of collectible card games. I like this game for all the fantasy roleplaying atmosphere it brings to the table. The Celestial Edition relaunch from last year seems to have really gone some way to making casual play very enjoyable, which I thought was one of the game's original strengths back in the mid-90s. Everyone likes cool cards, and even a serious non-competitor like myself can easily land a few nice ones without having to go to ebay. I don't think my Scorpion starter deck was unique, either. It seems like most starter decks have had some hitting power in them without requiring a lot of boosters, but this one really went over the top.