You can do what you want (Oral moral I), 1989  You do what you can (Oral moral II), 1995 
 Artworks found thanks to jean louis mazieres. 
 The official site of the artist can be viewed here.

Everyone entering knew they had one chance. The testing was sound: the world’s first time corridor was live, with timeanchors on either side of the chronal abyss keeping the fantastically complex mathematical construct complete and taut. The plan that day … Continue reading →

The name of the game was Dungeons & Dragons.  So there was a certain expectation on, well, dungeons.  But that is not all of what we got.  Sometimes we went outside.

Day 11 Wilderness

Live-Action Role-Playing was not really something we knew a lot about back in the early to mid-80s.  Yes even in my little town we had heard about SCA but that was something that happened far away in places that sounded exotic to us.

We did know about live D&D. 

Of course, we had heard stories of people getting trapped in their make-believe world. I mean we had seen Mazes & Monsters right.  But still in the time after discovering D&D and before discovering easy access to alcohol there was a time when my D&D group would run around the woods wearing all black to play "live D&D."  Sometimes this was near the train tracks near the Hospital north of town but most often it was at the local Boy Scout camping area out way west of town.  Known as Ebaugh County Park, we always called it Ebaugh Corner since it was on this corner of old Route 36.

It felt a lot bigger than what is on that map I can assure you.

We didn't get out there often.  Our town was hit with Satanic Panic back in the mid-80s and we worried the cops would come out and harass us. 

Not a lot of D&D was played here really.  Frankly, my eyesight was getting bad then (and it never got better!) so running around in the dark was not something I could well.  I was actually pretty pathetic really!  I remember my last time there too.  June 1987 right before college.  

I never really did try live-action D&D again. Was never really my thing.

This has come up again recently as I am getting ready for a trip to the Renaissance Faire in Bristol, WI.  My son and his friends are all dressing up in Assassin's Creed gear. I have been there in the past in Steampunk gear.  Though I must admit I want to go in period clothing and keep a Star Trek badge hidden, just in case.

Hope to head there this weekend.  It might not be the actual wilderness, but for a city kid like me, it is close enough.

It’s August in North Texas, which means that everyone is making plans for what they’re planning to do when (a) the heat finally breaks in September and (b) the COVID-19 alerts signal “All Clear.” This also means lots of local … Continue reading →

Going for another alt-word today. Plus it gives me the chance to talk about one of my favorite topics.

Day 10 Advantage

One of my favorite new mechanics with D&D 5e is the Advantage / Disadvantage ruling.  It is pretty simple really. A situation is in your favor, roll with Advantage, that is roll two d20s and keep the highest.  If a situation is against you then roll with Disadvantage; roll two d20s and take the lowest.   

It's not really revolutionary, but it is a nice quick way to adjudicate rulings and many rules use it.

Simply if you have advantage due to one condition and advantage on another one you still have only two d20s.  If you have advantage and disadvantage they cancel each other out. 

The thing that I like about it the most is the nice probability curves they generate. 

You might recall that prior to selling my soul to the dot com world I was a Statistics professor at the University of Illinois colleges of Education, then Medicine. I taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels for years.  I LOVE statistics.    

I knocked together some simple frequency graphs of rolling a d20 normally, with disadvantage, advantage, and with a simple +3.   These are chances of rolling the number (1 to 20) or higher on a d20.

The Data

The Graphs

Rolls are on the X-Axis (1 - 20) and the Probability on the Y-Axis (0.0 - 1.0).  

The red line is our normal d20 roll. Blue is disadvantage (2d20, take lowest), yellow is Advantage (2d20, take highest), finally, the green is normal +3. 

Is it much?  Not really in the short term, but over 1000s of rolls over the last 7 years the effect has added up.   And it is always a lot of fun.  Especially when you are rolling and get two 20 (a 1 in 400 chance). Fun when you are rolling with advantage, but fantastic when you are rolling with disadvantage.

I have adapted it for use in my OSR games and it works great.  

Back in the days before quarantine, when we still thought that 2020 was going to be a typical year, the plan was to host a series of carnivorous plant workshops at Curious Garden in Dallas. Jason Cohen, the co-owner, has … Continue reading →

It's a Monstrous Monday and it is also Medium day for the #RPGaDAY. 

Day 9 Medium

Most of my monsters in the various Basic Bestiary are Medium-sized.  This works out well for a number of reasons, but mostly it is a boon for something I had been wanting to do for a while.

In D&D 5 monsters have different HD die types depending on their size.  It works out like this.

Table: Size CategoriesSizeSpaceHit Die Tiny2½ by 2½ ft.d4 Small5 by 5 ft.d6 Medium5 by 5 ft.d8 Large10 by 10 ft.d10 Huge15 by 15 ft.d12 Gargantuan20 by 20 ft. or largerd20

So Medium monsters use the common d8 for hit dice and the truly monstrous Gargantuan creature gets a d20.  While AD&D and Basic D&D went more for larger creatures having more HD this works for what I call the giant baby problem.  A gigantic creature can have a lot of hit points, but no combat ability, two things that HD covers. 

I also like this idea for personal reasons.  When I moved from Basic D&D to Advanced D&D I often used a d10 for monster hit points and not the RAW d8.  I figured the monsters had to be more "advanced" so they got more hp.  I also rationalized this with the fact that Basic fighters use d8 for hp, and Advanced fighters used d10.  Of course on average, this is only 1 extra point per HD, but I liked it all the same.

3e and 4e also used different die types for hit dice, but these were different for different types of monsters.  I like the 5e way of using these for size. 

You might have seen these in some of my write-ups.  The Mad Hatter Goblin is a small creature. I list it's standard HD is 2 and it's average hp from a d8 and it's Con mod is 9 +2 or 11.  As a small creature, the same 2 HD and +2 con mod gives the creature an average hp of 7 +2 or 9.   Sure not a lot of difference, but enough over the long run. 

I am presenting both sets for people that want to use my "Advanced" set of size-based hp calculations or the standard RAW ones.   I have been using this for a while now and while there might not be a significant difference in the play of the vast majority of monsters, the ones it does affect really affects them.

I hope people, especially in the OSR crowds, take to the change.

MontiDots Ltd. is best known as a British Old School Renaissance publisher of scenarios steeped in British folklore, such as MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall: A MontiDots Adventure for early versions Fantasy Role-playing games and Limbus Infernum. The latest scenario designed for this general fantasy setting is The Raven Stone – A first level adventure of old school fantasy. This is an adventure designed for beginning characters using which uses Knights & Knaves’ OSRIC™ System (Old School Reference and Index Compilation), although with some alterations it can be used with the retroclone of the Referee’s choice. It takes the all but clichéd set-up of a village in peril and gives it a nice twist upon the other cliché of the rising dead. The set-up is fuelled by greed—not once, but twice, and will see the Player Characters dealing with the corpse cavalcade and tracing the cause back to its origins, a storyline which will see them protecting the village, dealing with the village ne’er-do-wells, either negotiating or combating a tribe of Kobolds, and ultimately exploring the dungeon below their tower home. Note that due to the extensive presence of the undead in the scenario, a Cleric is very much required when playing The Raven Stone.

The Raven Stone is set in and around Siquanna Falls, a fishing village sat on the confluence of the Ure and Undine Rivers in a narrow, heavily wooded valley. It lies some two days’ travel from the nearest town and supports a nearby iron mine. A merchant caravan run by Muskan Ganto, regularly delivers a variety of trade, luxury, and special request goods to both the mine and the village, protected by hired mercenaries. The Player Characters are visiting Siquanna Falls—and one of them should ideally be a native who has returned home—when odd things begin to happen… First the Gurney brothers, whom the Siquanna Falls-born native Player Character will remember as a pair of lazy thieves and thugs from a family of lazy thieves and thugs, turn up at the local inn, The Laughing Carp, with luxury goods to sell. Second, Muskan Ganto is late in making his deliveries. Third, several corpses slither out of the lake and begin attacking the villagers, followed by corpses clawing their way out of the ground and attempting to escape the village cemetery. Could all of this be connected?

Initially, the Player Characters are asked by the innkeeper to find out what has happened to Muskan Ganto and then find out what is causing the dead to rise in the village. The starting point for the former is probably going to be to question the Gurney brothers, but the Player Characters are specifically told that they cannot use force and they cannot come to harm otherwise the authorities will act against them. This sets up a fun challenge for the players and their characters, but other means of getting out of the brothers are perfectly viable, whether that is through persuasion, intimidation, guile, or stealth. In fact, the Gurney brothers—or least the Gurney family—are likely to be grateful to the Player Characters when they come to their rescue as the dead seem to be flocking to their shack… Which of course begs the question, what is attracting the walking dead to them? It turns out to be an artefact that the brothers found (the Raven Stone of the title) and if the Player Characters take it—and the likelihood is that they will—it will begin attracting the undead to them. So, where did the artefact come from and why has it only begun working in the last twenty-four hours…?

Backtracking into the plot to The Raven Stone should eventually see the Player Characters find Muskan Ganto and his caravan, visit the iron mine, and eventually the Chimmekins, the local Kobold clan. The Player Characters are free to approach the Kobolds however they want, but they are told to be careful as the Kobolds can be dangerous, but in general they keep to themselves, not wanting to arouse the ire or attention of any local authorities. So the Player Characters can muscle in and attack the Kobolds if they want, but the Kobold king is willing to negotiate. He will allow the Player Characters to explore the dungeon below the tower where much of the clan lives and which has recently been beset by attacks by the undead.

The Raven Stone consists of two parts—the sandbox mystery above ground followed by the exploration of the Kobolds’ tower and the dungeon and below. Its strong plot hook should keep the players and their characters busy for multiple sessions, but the plotting is not as strong as it should be nor as easy to purvey to the players and their characters as it should be. The connections to the Gurney brothers and back to Muskan Ganto and his caravan are easy enough to follow, but the connection to the iron mine and then the Kobolds are not as obvious as they should be, and the Dungeon Master needs to take the time to go through the scenario and develop them herself. Perhaps by having Siquanna Falls’ two leading NPCs—the innkeeper and the local priest being ready sources of information should the Player Characters have questions, and definitely by preparing a briefing for the player whose character is native to the village about what he knows. The latter would certainly prime both player and character. In addition, this could include information and history about the immediate region, since once the Player Characters get into the dungeon, there is background information which will seem unrelated to either the plot or the region.

Except for the background to the region, there is a lot of detail given in The Raven Stone, from the descriptions of Siquanna Falls and the Gurney family home to the location of Muskan Ganto and his caravan and the Kobolds’ tower and dungeon. The latter two areas are very nicely described with a good amount of flavour and explanation, the dungeon itself divided between areas occupied by the Kobolds and those not. It should become clear that the dungeon was once an extension of the tower and that it was home to a ruling noble sometime in the past. This gives it the feel of a long-abandoned home rather than a random dungeon, so a stronger theme than it might otherwise have had. It is a pity that this aspect of the dungeon and tower is supported by background and history for the Player Characters to discover. 

One issue with the dungeon and tower, and probably the scenario as a whole, is that it contains a lot of treasure, especially magical treasure, right up to an artefact that in essence is a mini-Deck of Many Things. The Dungeon Master may want to scale back some of the rewards to be found, especially if she does not want her Player Characters to become too powerful, too quickly. Another issue is that unless the Player Characters push to explore them, and in all likelihood anger the Kobolds in doing so, some of the areas of the dungeon and tower are out of bounds for the Player Characters, so that certain secrets may never be discovered. Only by being aggressive will the Player Characters be potentially rewarded, and perhaps it would have been appropriate for the scenario to have presented another way around this, especially after giving the option for the Kobolds to be open to negotiation earlier in the scenario. Lastly, the absolute need for a Cleric and the ability to turn undead—and potentially there are a lot of the undead, probably very attracted to the Player Characters later in the scenario—does suggest that The Raven Stone might be too challenging a scenario for First Level characters. Perhaps Second Level might be more appropriate, at least?

In addition to the dungeon, The Raven Stone includes an appendix describing the pantheon of gods used by MontiDots Ltd. and a guide to ‘Prentice Potions’, that is, potion brewing by Wizards who are less than Seventh Level. This requires a liquid known as Aqua Conjurum and if included, increases the versatility of the Wizard at lower Levels. Further, the scenario lists some house rules that the author uses for his campaigns and thus The Raven Stone. This includes polytheistic and dedicated Clerics, the turning of the undead, and starting spells for Magic-Users. Again, all to make both Classes more versatile at low Level.

Physically, The Raven Stone is nicely presented. Both the artwork and the cartography are as good as you would expect from MontiDots Ltd. It does feel cramped in places and does need a stronger edit in places.

The Raven Stone is a likeable scenario. The idea of the Player Characters getting hold of an artefact which attracts the undead and their not knowing what to do with it is a fun idea, and the fact that the scenario is driven by greed and foolishness rather than anything evil is refreshing—especially when it comes to the undead. Yet, the scenario is not as clearly developed as it could have been, leaving the Dungeon Master with more preparation than is really necessary. Overall, The Raven Stone is an entertainingly detailed and fun adventure—once the Dungeon Master has put a bit of work into it.

We are back around to Sunday and that means we are all on the same word.

Day 8 Stream

I think it is no great assumption to say the advent of streamed games online has changed how the public sees RPGs in general and D&D in particular.

Making the claim that shows like Critical Role have increased the number of people interested in RPGs is not really disputed regardless what one's opinion of them is.

Personally, I am not a fan of watching or listening to others play D&D.  I have nothing against them, and I think many of them are quite nice and I am thrilled for their successes and for what it means for the game as a whole.   I just get bored with them.

Right now my favorite streaming pass time is The Great Courses.  Thanks to this I have listened to/watched the history of the world in various courses from early pre-history to the Victorians. I have listened to a number of courses on religion, detailed history on England, and more about the Vikings than I care to admit.  Currently, I am listening to How We Learn by Monisha Pasupathi, Ph.D. It is really great even though much of it is a repeat of my Undergrad days. Though I am chaffing under dismissal of treasured theories that have since fallen out of favor. ;)
Most of these Great Courses feel like undergrad courses, but I have really been enjoying them. 

So far I have gone through about 33 of these, about 75% of another Undergraduate degree. Though this degree would most likely be in history. Sadly there is no homework, no assignments, and no exams, so there is no opportunity to show I have been anything more than a passive learner.

Mind you in my choices here of one stream vs. another (say Critical Role vs. the Great Courses) is not a value judgment in any way other than how I choose to spend my own time.  I also listen to a lot of highly questionable music while at work.  

I think for my next stream I could work on shoring up my German. A language I learned in High School and for a couple years in college that I have not used in nearly 30 years. 

As the title suggests, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it presents a guide and a gazetteer to the little understood country of Afghanistan in the Late Victorian Era, not just the history and the geography, but the Mythos and the folklore, and more. Although it is not a comprehensive guide—being relatively short at just forty pages—it presents more than enough information to bring a campaign to the British Empire’s North-West Frontier, whether a supernatural campaign for Leagues of Adventure or a Lovecraftian investigative horror campaign for Leagues of Cthulhu. In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or Victoriana.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan explores a country which has been much contested over its long history, many times conquered, including by Alexander the Great and the Mongols, but never truly tamed. Sat on the Silk Road between the East and the West, it has been an important crossroads for both Central and South Asia, not just for trade, but also for learning and faiths. Previously a great centre of Zoroastrian and Buddhist learning,  in more recent times the Emirate of Afghanistan has become known as a fiercely independent Islamic state which despite defeating the British Empire in the First Anglo-Afghan War has become a British protectorate under the sway of the British Raj in India following its defeat in the more recent Second Anglo-Afghan War. Essentially Afghanistan has become a buffer state between the British and Russian Empires as part of ‘The Great Game’. Though mountainous and remote, with only one real point of access—up the Khyber Pass after a thousand mile journey by rail north from Bombay, what this means is that the crossroads of Asia are open to the intrepid explorer, adventurer, historian, and archaeologist, should they be brave enough to traverse its dense mountain ranges and deep valleys, all the whilst minding their Ps and Qs, and doing their very best not to offend local customs.
Of course, the region has a history older than some mere ape descendants, and in most cases, older than some mere ape descendants can imagine. In the long geological past, it has been home to an Elder Thing city, whilst in the more recent geological past, the Serpent Men settled in Afghanistan’s lower lying regions, and to this day, the Mi-Go continue mine the country’s higher peaks for rare minerals. In more recent times, Alexander the Great campaigned against the worshippers and entities of the Mythos, but in the millennia since his death, dark faiths, dark entities, and dark artefacts have been traded back and forth along the Silk Road. Many found a home in Afghanistan and almost as many were destroyed by the wave after wave of invasions the country would suffer in the course of its history, most notably under the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Fragments of these cults, the subjects of their venerations, and their blasphemous objects and texts remain; in the libraries of religious scholars, amongst the wares of curio dealers on dusty backstreets, in the ruins of ancient cities and monasteries, and carved into the walls of buildings usually avoided by the local inhabitants or into the rock high up on the side of remote valleys. Some will be familiar to scholars, but some maybe new, whilst others simply hint at something else or something older… Worse still are the secrets that some tribes hide or at least do not talk about. Often things best left assuaged through sacrifice or locked or buried away, not through ignorance, but fear for family and tribe—and more should such things be free once again to ravage the Earth. Though not all such tribes act to protect the world, some do, whilst other tribes and cults are true worshippers, reviled and feared by other Afghans in equal measure.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan opens with an introduction to the country. This covers its history, both the outré and the ordinary from prehistory to the modern day of the Mauve Decade; explains how to get there (starting with an airship since Leagues of Adventure and Leagues of Cthulhu are steampunk roleplaying settings); and provides an overview in turn of its geography climate, peoples, cuisine, economics, entertainment, and more. A lot of this will add flavour, such as the dishes that the Player Characters will likely eat, but details such as the lack of ready information sources, that is, no newspapers except those which are weeks old from outside the country, and Pashtunwali, a guide to Pashtunwali, the code of conduct that the Pashtuns adhered are more likely to have an impact upon play and what the Player Characters say and do. Much of this is straight background material, but elements of the fantastic are added in sections of boxed text also. For example, The Book of Arda Viraf is a Zoroastrian Mythos tome, Pashtunwali is detailed as a Code of Conduct, and a new League of Adventure is described. This is ‘The Alexandria Club’, whose members are dedicated to locating and excavating all of the many cities built across Asia by Alexander the Great.
The Gazetteer covers just some of the various ancient sites, monasteries and temples, rock inscriptions, natural features—from the Hindu Kush Mountains to the Khyber Pass, and settlements to be found across Afghanistan, all given a paragraph or two each, and a rating for their Eerie Atmosphere, with most accompanied by an adventure seed. For example, the Mountain of Genies, lies in south-eastern Afghanistan, its barren heights inhabited by a tribe known locally as the Sky Devils, feared for their stealth and their propensity for stealing away animals and people without trace, though sometimes mutilated bodies are found in the valley below. The disappearances include British troops committed to the region during the Second Anglo-Afghan War and almost every expedition since has failed to reach or map the mountain and its surrounds due to disaster and mishap. Indeed, the adventure seed involves a member of one such expedition staggering into Kabul, raving about “winged devils”, “monoliths from beyond time”, and so on. Elsewhere, the members of the Prospectors’ Club have explored too deep below Mes Aynak, which sits atop the country’s largest deposits of copper and come across the last remnants of a very ancient and alien civilisation, whilst Zorkul, a lake in the Pamir Mountains lying on the contested border with Russia, was noted by a Chinese explorer as containing an idol of sea-green stone depicting a ‘water dragon’. Perhaps the lake was the site of ill-fated Sarnath and when rumours spread of a ‘dragon’ statue seen in the lake following a drought, perhaps the Player Characters have the opportunity to confirm this?
The Mythos itself is kept fairly light in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan. Mentions are made of various entities, such as knowledge of Shub-Niggaurath having been brought into the region with the Persians and Yog-Sothoth via the Zoroastrians. Two or three cults are mentioned, such as the Cult of the Black Hand which works to set the Russians and the British at each other’s throats and the Illuminated Fraternity of the All-Seeing Eye, which seeks world domination, but these are mere mentions and left wholly undeveloped. The Cult of the Silent Fire, whose members take a vow of silence to violent, self-mutilating extremes, is given a more detailed wrote-up, as is one of its leading cultists, and also a Mythos horror, the Darkness from the Void, a collective intelligence which takes the form of a thin, black sludge which comes down from space and infects organism after organism. The Cult of the Silent Fire seeks to spread its inner truths to all those who will listen and then learn the reality, whilst the Darkness from the Void seeks to infect all in an attempt to acquire all knowledge and come to a true understanding of the universe. That all said, the author also simply advises that at times, the monster need be no more than a tentacle, whether emerging from some cold deep lake, or the blackness of a tunnel.
Numerous stock NPCs are detailed, such as Afghan Craftsman, Russian Spy, and British Junior Official, whilst Afghan War Veteran—very Doctor John Watson, and Correspondent-at-Arms are written up as sample Player Characters. Perhaps the most entertaining NPC detailed is one Peachy Carnehan, an ex-British army sergeant, Freemason, and adventurer, now a crippled and scarred beggar wandering the streets of Kabul with a strange bundle in his arms. Devotees of Rudyard Kipling and likely Sean Connery and Michael Caine will enjoy this inclusion.
Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is decently done. It needs a slight edit here and there and whilst light on illustrations, it at least comes with a map or two. These are very useful, especially given the lack of familiarity that many a reader of the supplement is likely to have with Afghanistan during this period. It would have been useful if the previous region guide, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, also had such maps.
One obvious issue with Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is that its subject matter is likely to be contentious, since it deals with the Imperialism and racism of the period. Fortunately, the author addresses these issues and handles them with some care. For example, it is suggested that the attitudes of the Victorians towards the natives be reflected not in actual expressions of racism, but rather that all Afghans initially suffer a Bad Reputation Flaw because of the poor attitudes and ill-informed opinions of the British and other Europeans towards them. Then this can be roleplayed initially, but as the Player Characters interact, they can learn otherwise and it effectively fade into the background and not be applied. The other advice is for the game play to be respectful of ruins and holy places, lest offence—in game and out—be caused. Overall, simple, but justified advice.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan has much in common with the earlier Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria in that it combines a solid overview of the region and its people with the Mythos worked deep into the fabric of the country. However, there is less of an emphasis upon folklore and myth and superstition behind which the Mythos can be hidden than there is in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, perhaps because of the lack of familiarity and far away strangeness of the setting. Most of the manifestations of the Mythos in Afghanistan are relics from its long and ancient past, though there are some which are active, but whether relic or active, they are underwritten and will need no little development upon the part of the Game Master or Keeper to turn into a full mystery and bring to the table. The disappointing lack of a bibliography will not help the Game Master to that end. 
Overall, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is an interesting and informative introduction to Afghanistan during the late Victorian era, especially given our general lack of familiarity with both period and region. There is no denying that Afghanistan deserves its own supplement for Lovecraftian investigative horror, but in the meantime, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is a good, if imperfect, starting point.

Getting back to this last week I was at my parents' and the week before I was celebrating my wedding anniversary.  So let's jump in feet first with another cheesy 80 Sword & Sorcery flick. This time I am watching 1982's Sorceress.

I was pretty sure I had never seen this one before and I was right.  I would have remembered something so dreadful.  Bad acting? Check. Weird mutant creatures? Yup, check. Gratuitous nudity? Oh yeah. Lots of violence against women? Well, yeah it was the 80s.

Let's be 100% honest here, this movie was made for one reason, to show off the nubile assets of Leigh and Lynette Harris, and I am not talking about their fighting ability. Or acting ability. 

Besides being known for being Playboy playmates in 1981. Lynette also went to prison for 5 months in 1990 for tax reasons. She and her twin were both mistresses of businessman David Kritzik.  He was paying them to have sex with him and the IRS doesn't like it when they don't get their cut.  They both would later be exonerated in 92.  Not to be outdone Leigh would later expose herself to some minors.  Their real-life stories sound more interesting than this movie.  Though they seem to have fallen into a bit of obscurity.  Likely that is what they no prefer. 

Hmm...maybe I should return my attention to the movie.

Not to dump on this movie too much.  We do have a cool wizard who gives the twins their fighting powers. A creepy satyr. A generic Viking-like warrior.  An evil sorcerer who is also the twins' father. An evil priestess. Zombies attacking. And a battle of the gods.  So I mean all the right elements are here.

It does have Corman's fingerprints all over it.

They have the same abilities as the Corsican Brothers; they can feel what the other is feeling.  With the brothers that was typically pain, these two...well it's a bit different.  The idea though is not a bad one, I used a similar idea with the Anamchara.  Well, the sensing the others feelings part anyway.  

Roberto Ballesteros, the evil sorcerer Traigon, is really the only one here that has any sort of resume here.  I hope the poor acting here is really due more to bad dubbing.

I will give the director credit on one thing.  While the twins are constantly in trouble they never once appear weak or scared about their situation.  When given the chance they pick up weapons and fight.  Sure they act naive at times, but they were sheltered their whole lives so that is expected. 

In the end rather laughable, but the zombie battle is fun.  The gods battling in the skies is weird, but I will admit I got a solid Deities and Demigods vibe from it.  Ok the D&DG if it were made by Roger Corman

Yeah. Not great.

Gaming Content

The movie is very generic 80s fantasy; derivative to be honest.  It's not so much what you can get out of this for your game since likely your game has already done everything in this movie. 

--

Tim Knight of Hero Press and Pun Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim along with myself are getting together at the Facebook Group I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters to discuss these movies.  Follow along with the hashtag #IdRatherBeWatchingMonsters.

Going with another alternate word today.

Day 7 Inspiration

Every so often I get asked what sort of things inspire me.  I usually half-jokingly say 70s metal, cheesy horror movies, and comics.

Only half-jokingly because there is a not-so-small amount of material in my bibliography of published material and blog posts that are exactly all of that.

Presently I am re-watching Star Trek Enterprise with my wife. We only saw bits and pieces of it when it was new, our kids were babies then, and keeping up on TV was not our main priority. 

So Enterprise takes place before The Original Series, thus the ship feels a little "low tech" and everything has a frontier feel to it.  While I am enjoying it for its own merits I am getting a ton of ideas for my two Star Trek campaigns; BlackStar and Mercy.  Season 1 deals with the Temporal Cold War and the Temporal Accords, which comes up later in Star Trek Discovery.  This is also putting back into the mood for a combined Star Trek/Doctor Who game which means FASA rules.  BUT inspiration aside I don't want to start YET another Trek game. I haven't even gotten the ones I am planning off the ground.

SO...maybe I can add some of these ideas to Mercy, BlackStar is a bit full as is.  Maybe I can add a character from the 31st century on my medical starship.  But why is he/she there?   Maybe I'll leave that to the player.  

Getting back to music for a bit, there is a song that has some solid Trek connotations to it.

One of my all-time favorite songs by the band Queen is '39.  Written by the guitarist, and Ph.D. in Astrophysics, Brian May.   The song deals with 20 astronauts that leave Earth on a one-year-long mission. One of the astronauts says goodbye to his wife and daughter, but due to the time dilation effects of moving near the speed of light, it is many, many years later when they return.  While he is "older but a year" his daughter is a grandmother now.   In the song, they had discovered a new world.

I have often thought it would be possible that later warp drive ships would run into older, slower relativistic ships with a crew that had left Earth decades if not a century before.  You see this played out really well in Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth.   It was one of my favorite books of his and I loved the idea of "gritty" space travel and one very removed from the notion of warp drives.

Now we have seen visitors from the past in Trek before, TNG's first season episode "The Neutral Zone" has frozen humans from the late 20th century, the second season "The Emissary" with frozen Klingons, and the awkwardly named "The 37's" from Star Trek Voyager's second season with humans from 1937 found on a planet in the Delta Quadrant some 70k light-years from Earth. 

This would be an adventure for Mercy.  The starship Mercy gets a distress beacon from a ship that left Earth in 2139, just prior to the wide adoption of warp drive. Yeah, there are cargo ships that can go warp 1.8 or so, but most ships are going to be sleeper ships. Mercy, being Mercy, goes in to investigate and discovers a crew from 156 years ago.  Likely the ship, I might call the Arthur C. Clark, was headed to a planet that is now claimed by the Klingons, or Romulans, or some other species.  

I'll need to ponder this one a little more. In any case, I guess I'll keep looking for inspiration.

Shadow of Mogg is so brutally British that it hurts. To play Shadow of Mogg to its fullest, it is necessary to know where you stand in the First Scone War, the Second Scone War, know how to make a nice hot cup of tea (that is, not using a microwave), know when to say sorry, know where to stand in the queue, know when exactly is the right moment to complain about your food, know which baked beans are the best, what your class is and where you stand in the pecking order, and to be a full-on Parliamentary politics wonk. Flying the flag, liking the Royal family, knowing the words to Jerusalem and the right night on which to sing it, understanding when football is coming home, knowing when to invoke the spirit of the Blitz, wearing a Union Jack waistcoat/underpants/dress, hating foxes, loving foxes, hating badgers, loving badgers, loving Mogg, hating Jezza, loving Jezza, hating Mogg, and so on, all optional (or not), but quintessentially British, nonetheless. Shadow of Mogg is also so contemporary that it is either so right now or so right last week and a satire that is so 2020 that is either still amusing as a commentary on the last five years or a prediction of an alternative future yet to come. Think Citizen Smith meets Yes Minister written by Nigel Kneale shot entirely in the studio on a 1970s BBC comedy budget and then updated to 2020 without even a budget increase to allow for inflation, and that would be Shadow of Mogg.

Published by Manic Productions following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game of consensus politics, exploration, and survival in the London underground following ‘The Event’—whatever that was since no-one talks about it or even mentions it. As well as a satire, it is also a co-operative—consensual even—storytelling game with Old School Renaissance styles elements, most notably a dungeon crawl through the tunnels between the stations of the London underground. The players take the role of survivors of this post-‘The Event’ world, the ordinary men and women of the world above forced not only to act together as a Party, but agree upon each and every single action that both every individual and the Party as a whole wants to take. It is almost as if everyone has agreed to become an anarcho-syndicalist commune in which the members take turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week, but which all the decisions of that officer must be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting… All this in the face of an increasingly desperate situation, dwindling resources, and ultimately, tougher and tougher decisions which everyone must agree to.

A character in Shadow of Mogg has four stats—two Body stats, Hench and Dash, and two Mind stats, Noggin and Bants. Hench is physical stat and his ability to handle himself in a punch up; Dash is his agility and speed and handiness with a gun; Noggin is his awareness and his brains; and Bants (or Banter) is his  charisma and silver tongue rolled into one. All stats are rated between one and three. He also has a Class. Each Class provides four skills, one for each stat, two or three items of Stuff, or equipment, some Party Resources—what the character contributes towards the survival of the Party, a Special ability, and a Character Question, which typically asks the nature of the bond the Character has with another Player Character. Some Classes also have Mates who will always support the Player Character. The skills have ratings between one and three, as does the Stuff and Party Resources.

Character generation is easy. The player assigns the numbers three, two, two, and one to his character’s stats. Then he rolls ‘d66’ to determine his character’s Class, notes down all of its details and adds personal details. Many of the Classes are quite mundane, such as Intensive Care Nurse, Church of England Vicar, Brixton Bobby, Black Cabbie, Primary School Teacher, and so on. Others are quite specific, such as Gellar Psychic, RBS Chief Exec, People’s Front of Jezza, Jezza’s People’s Front (splitters!), Mogg Rustler (just what is a Mogg?), and Whigg. All of these Classes are arch satire, but the more specific the Class, the stronger the satire, right up to the Whigg, who might or might not have been the First Lord of the Treasury and/or the Minister for the Civil Service prior to ‘The Event’ (whatever that was).

Dave Trench
Age: 52
Bio: Lifelong Fulham supporter, son of Socialist parents, voted Thatcher (twice), Blair (three times), Cameron (twice, but he was a knob), May (reluctantly), Johnson (once, arse, but good for a laugh), The ‘Event’ (Brilliant!)

Tabloid Journalist
Hench 2 Dash 2 Noggin 1 Bants 3

Skills
Shit Stirring 3 (Bants), Chasing a Lead 2 (Dash), New Hound 2 (Hench), Research 1 (Noggin)

Stuff
Copy of the Daily Mail (1), Flask of Coffee (1), Notepad and pen (1)

Party Resources
1 Molly, 1 Scran

Special
Alternative Facts (Can change a single word in a proposition before it is voted on)

Character Question
Has some dirt on another Player Character—who and what is it?

Instead of acting as individuals, the Player Characters act as a Party, for which the players need to decide what their Party is and what its stands for, its members, laws, and so on. This is recorded on a Party Manifesto Sheet which requires a little set up time and then maintenance during play. The Party Manifesto Sheet also records the Party’s resources—Gubbins, Scran, Slugs, Meds, and Molly—initially contributed by the Player Characters, but can alter as they are scrounged and scavenged, as well as used up and consumed. These use a standard resource die a la The Black Hack and other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games since. The Party Manifesto Sheet also keeps track of the Party’s Anxiety.

To undertake any kind of action requires a Resolution, which requires a proposition as to a course of action—as in “This Party believes that…”—and this can be over everything and anything. Thus, what direction to travel in, how to interact with someone not of the Party, whether to fight or flee, and of course, who eats first? The latter ultimately, likely to be a bone of contention within the Party and likely to be its downfall if its membership are not all dead of starvation, let alone other causes. Once a proposition has been made, the Speaker—as the Game Master is known—asks each Party member to speak on it in turn, and then once everyone has, asks each Party member to vote on the proposition. If it fails, then another, different proposition is made, and so on and so on until one passes. If it passes, then the proposition is enacted, and if the proposition involves risk, violence, or consequences, then the dice are rolled in a Party Resolution Roll.

Before the dice are rolled, each player assembles a dice pool of six-sided dice equal to the values for any relevant Stats, Skills, Stuff, and Mates. A player can decide not to assemble a dice pool at all or add as many dice equal to the appropriate stat as he wants, but if included, the maximum values for any relevant Skills, Stuff, and a single Mate are added. The player narrates how this contributes to the Party Resolution Roll. Ideally, the colour of the dice for the Stats, Skills, Stuff, and Mates should be different, so that the results can be differentiated. If the highest result on any die is a six, the Party action is a Doubleplus Good success; if the highest result on any die is a five, the Party action is an OkGood partial success with consequences; if the highest result on any die is two, three, or four, the Party action is an UnGood failure; and if the highest result on any die is a one, the Party action is a Doubleplus UnGood or critical failure.

The Speaker narrates the results. Even if the results are a success of any kind, rolls of one on the Stat dice indicate a loss of a point in the appropriate Stat. Reduce Hench or Dash to zero and the player rolls on the Bonk (as in ‘bonk on the head’ rather than the other kind) table or on the Stiff Upper Lip table if Noggin or Bants are reduced to zero. In general, it is better to roll more dice since that reduces the chances of a Doubleplus UnGood or critical failure, but comes with the possibility of roll ones on the Stat dice, so there is a constant friction between taking the risks necessary with a Party Resolution Roll and the rewards to be gained.

In addition, the Speaker also rolls her own pool of dice and they count towards the Player Characters’ success or otherwise in a Party Resolution Roll. The number of dice rolled by the Speaker is equal to the Anxiety rating recorded on the Party Manifesto Sheet. It ranges between one and ten and increases by one when a Player Character dies, when any Stat is reduced to zero, when something horrific is witnessed, when the Party gets into a ruck, and so on. However, it can be reduced through rest, consuming Molly, mediating, and even voting for, punishing, exiling, and even killing a scapegoat—and the scapegoat can be a Player Character or a Mate! This is horridly Stalinist in its approach to internal Party politics, and whilst it has great roleplaying and storytelling potential, it also approaches a line that some players may not want to cross. Should this come up in play, the X-card should definitely be on the table, and this aspect of the game should definitely be explained to all of the players before play begins.

Initially, the Party does not start with any laws, which is odd, since it means that the Player Characters begin play agreeing to be together, but not having agreed to any other Laws or aims or anything at all except for the voting system written into the game. Even that may change if the Party decides it is unhappy with the system!

Shadow of Mogg is played out through the exploration of the stations and tunnels of the Underground using the map included in the back of the book. The Party can travel, scavenge, explore, and rest, the players and their characters expected to work out their own Party-led goals, participate in votes and ensure that all decisions are voted on, and abide by the Speaker’s word.

Her tasks consist of putting the Party into difficult situations—typically generated by the Random Tunnel Events table, that test its members’ morality, loyalty, and will to survive; explore internal Party politics and relations; explore the limits democracy in a post-apocalyptic consensus drive world; and present both the world of the Underground and a growing sense of horror as resources dwindle and conflicts ensue. The Tunnel Events table, divided by the different lines of the London underground are all delightfully thematic, and ultimately, their limited number will determine the length of a game, or rather mini-campaign, of Shadow of Mogg. That is of course, if the Player Characters do not all die first, which is a possibility, it being a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game set in the grim world of the London underground.

Physically, Shadow of Mogg is presented in greyscale in a scrapbook fashion. This gives it a singular look, but often makes it a little difficult to read and the organisation could have been better, the Party Manifesto Sheet really needing to be moved back towards the front of the book as it is part of the set-up. The look of the book is that of fanzine, whilst the feel is more that of a professional book.

Obviously, Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is not literally about Brexit and its effects, but about Brexit and its effects pushed to ridiculous degree—to the point of disaster and beyond. It is also about the truths and untruths of a post-truth world, or rather the effects of truths and untruths of a post-truth world pushed to ridiculous degree—to the point of disaster and beyond. To the point where you cannot agree on what the disaster of The ‘Event’ was, but you can come to agreement on its effects area and what needs to be done to survive those effects, just as long as you vote on it and stand by that vote. Consensus is what matters more than the individual, even if the decision was wrong or goes badly, it was what was agreed upon, and coming to that agreement can involve group think, persuasion, blackmail, secrets, grandstanding, and more, but above opportunities to roleplay. The play is little odd in that because a Party Resolution Roll is required for every decision or action—that is, until laws are passed, enacted, and added to the Party Manifesto Sheet, the game flow may not seem to be as natural as in other roleplaying games, there being a stop-start, stop-start to its play.

The humour of Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG swings back and forth between the tongue in cheek and the satire, but it is a humour that players really need to know and grasp in order to get the most out of the character Classes they play. A great many of them are stereotypes and roleplaying within and around them should be fun and help bring the humour of the satire out. Similarly, there are a lot of terms and details that non-Britons will not be able to grasp easily in this oh so Brexitish satire and despite there being an explanation of the setting’s many terms listed in the back of the book, it still may be enough. Plus, of course, the satire of Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is so very contemporary that it might date itself very fast. Or not, depending on how soon The Event’ occurs (whatever it actually is…).

Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is a funny, strongly social storytelling roleplaying game. Its humour and even its Brexity subject will not be everyone, but for anyone wanting to roleplay a game of exploration, survival, persuasion, and group decision-making in a very British satire, then Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is uniquely perfect.

No Porch Sale this weekend, as the Triffid Ranch moves to Curious Garden for the Attack of the Carnivorous Plant workshop on August 7 from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. (Seating is very limited, so if you haven’t snagged a … Continue reading →

A couple of REALLY GREAT Kickstarters are happing right now.

The Night Companion

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jasonvey/the-night-companion?ref=theotherside

This sourcebook for Night Shift: VSW RPG blows the doors off! New classes, species, magic, monsters, core system options, and more!

Night Shift has been a labor of love for Jason Vey and I.  It has been a chance to use the rules we love (Old-school D&D) and bring it to a modern supernatural setting like the licensed products we have worked on in the past.  If you liked any of my work regardless of the system used then this is a great fit.

Here is what the book is right now:

• Four new character classes: the Divine Warrior, the Mystic Martial Artist, the Psychic Gunslinger, and the Spirit Rider
• Rules for playing supernatural species including Celestials, Driven, Ghouls, Infernals, Lycanthropes, and Vampires, expanding upon the "Supernatural Race" option in the core rulebook
• New options for generating ability scores for normal, gritty, and cinematic games
• Rules to convert your game from class-and-level to entirely point-buy
• An alternate Alignment system focused on good, evil, light, and dark
• Guidelines to convert your game to a unified mechanic: both d20-based and percentile-based options are covered
• Enhanced combat rules: variable weapon damage, range increments, weapon classes, grappling rules, jumping, drowning, suffocation, poison, disease, and more
• New Arcane Powers and spells, plus enhanced rules for ritual magic 
• A GM section that goes behind the scenes of the system, talks about keeping track of your play style options, gives guidelines for creating cults and secret societies, and discusses tropes of sub-genres of horror and how to use them in your game
• Dozens of new monsters, enemies, and NPCs for your game
• New art by industry notable Bradley K. McDevitt, commissioned just for this book. At first, it will be the new classes and species, but more may be added depending on how well the Kickstarter does (see Stretch Goals). 

And at the $5,000 stretch goal, I am going to provide a new Night World!  And I am quite excited to bring you this one.

Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/avatar-legends-the-roleplaying-game?ref=theotherside

This one so doesn't need my help. I scored $1 Million in its first 24 hours and has been hitting $1M a day since. 

But it is Avatar and it is a lot of fun.  I am not a huge fan of Powered by the Apocalypse, but this game is just too gorgeous to pass up.  Plus those sweet stretch goals.

So spread the word!  Both of these games are going to fantastic.

Going to go with an alternate word again. 

Day 6 Explore

Back on Day 2, I talked about maps. So I figured today would be a good one to go with Explore.

Exploration is a key factor in a lot of games.  In D&D and other FRPGs exploration is a key element in Hex Crawls. Even in games like Traveler and Star Trek exploration is a key element.

In truth, I don't do a lot of exploration these days in D&D. Most, no rather, all, my D&D games have a goal in mind.  When I ran Vault of the Drow a while back I did a lot of reading on what others have done with it in the past. There is a ton of material out there on exploring the area around the vault of the Drow.  Dragonsfoot alone has more material than I'd ever use in a lifetime. 

For my BlackStar game exploration is the name of the game.  Well, that and horror.  I think that is because in BlackStar I really don't have anything like a "big bad" save for all the horrors of space. I am also not sure what my end game for it is, maybe part of the exploration will be mine as well. 

Dungeons

Also, this month is all about Dungeons at the RPG Blog Carnival and hosted this month by Plastic Polyhedra.  Certainly, the Underdark of the Vault of the Drow qualifies and it would be fantastic to go exploring there one day.  

I think today I will go with one of the alternate words on the list.

Day 5 Community

Today I am going with Community.  One of the things I really hope to get out of this month of posting is to get a sense of community from this.  

While writing these posts is a joy in and of themselves and I do enjoy the challenge, what I am looking forward to is the community. 

I am very curious to see what everyone else does.  Take today for example.  I have no idea what I would write for Throne and I am very curious about what others might write about.  Will someone else choose Community?  What days might occur where each word is chosen.  That might be fun.  

I also feel it is important not to be just a passive participant here.  So I need to make sure I also interact with all the other posting on various social media sites. 

So if you are participating in this please feel free to leave a comment below with links to where you are posting.  I'd love to see what everyone is doing and saying.

A little sidenote between shows and new enclosures: a friend and Day Job coworker took recommendations on carnivorous plant care in Dallas to heart and came across something that would have slipped between the cracks otherwise. As related elsewhere, the … Continue reading →

Excalibur, Stormbringer, Mjölnir, the Sun Sword, Blackrazor, Narsil/Andúril, the Bessy Mauler, the Sword of Kas, Needle, Elbe the Heartbow.  All worlds, whether ours or fantasy have fantastic legendary weapons.  

Quasi-artifacts to quest for or be granted to those that are worthy. 

Day 4 Weapon

Like all good game worlds, I have a number of unique and special weapons.

Demonbane

Demonbane is a bastard sword from The Treasure Trove found in Issue #91 of Dragon Magazine.  The sword is described as "a great, many-hued blade of which the origin has been forgotten, but which was wielded by the great paladin Nord in his single-handed destruction of the Citadel of Conjurers."  Created by Ed Greenwood it would later go on to be called Dornavver in the Forgotten Realms.   In my games, though it became one of the weapons of my paladin Johan II and used to defeat Orcus in module H4.  IT was lost in the Astral Sea and it has been the focus of all my paladins for the last four generations to recover. 

I always thought it might look a little like this sword.  

The "forgotten origin" has been changed to a drow savant, Sharis Val, that created it along with his adoptive father a dwarf cleric of Moradin. The multi-hues come from the variety of metals used in its construction.

Ebonblade, the Sword of Black Flames

Ebonblade's history is tied up in that of Demonbane's.  The story of Demonbane's construction is not as forgotten as reported.  Among blacksmiths, the tale of the swords construction and its use to defeat the Citadel of Conjurers is a tale told by masters to apprentices all over the world.  One such apprentice found where the Demonbane was made and used the leftover materials to make a sword to avenge the death of his killed master.  The materials used in making Demonbane responded to Sharis Val's desire to rid the world of evil and in particular demons.  Ebonblade responded to the hate and desire to kill others and thus became an evil weapon.

The Star Sword

This weapon was made from bit of a "star" the fell to the Earth. Longer than a bastard sword, but not quite as long as a two-handed sword. This sword focuses the magic energies of the wielder into the blade to add extra damage.  

The Mace of St. Werper

Admittedly not all that different than the Mace of St. Cuthbert, in my defense I made mine before I ever read about it in the DMG.  This one though was specific to my first cleric.

The Death Staff

This weapon is the very first Staff of the Warlock used by my character Magnus. It can blast a humanoid with its necrotic power and turn them into a zombie under the wielder's control. 

 What weapons populate your world?