Mini-Review: Decahedron

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Decahedron Cover Issue 1Decahedron is the first issue of its free fanzine from DwD Studios. The inaugural issue supports their recent RPG release BareBones Fantasy, a rules-light fantasy genre roleplaying game. Haven’t heard of BareBones Fantasy yet? Don’t worry, we will be taking a closer look at that system in an upcoming post at The Iron Tavern.

Decahedron is a short 10 page fanzine and is available for free. One of the driving goals is to provide a location for fans to get their content published and out to the community.

The first issue weighs in with six articles and a high resolution map on the back cover. The map is a typical dungeon map with 25 rooms for the crafty GM to populate and drop into his campaigns. The inclusion of a map is supposed to be a regular feature for future issues. So even if you aren’t a BareBones Fantasy RPG player or GM, it could still be worth your time to grab a copy of the fanzine just for the map.

First up in this issue is a table of 100 descriptors for use with your character in BareBones Fantasy. A portion of creating your character in BBF is to note a descriptor, or short phrase that describes a focus or trait of your character. Something like “follows a strict diet” or “drinking songs invariably evolve into sacred hymns”. This table has 100 such descriptors to either get your creative juices flowing or to roll randomly on.

A new spell called Commune is included in a feature called Grimoire. The entry contains plenty of crunch to be dropped into your BBF game if you are looking to add new spells to your game.

The next article was Game Options. This article covered the process that evolved into coming up with the rules for two-weapon fighting in BBF. I found this article particularly enjoyable for a couple of reasons. First, I still envision being able to play a dwarven berserker type that wades into battle with two axes. It is sort of a test as to how well a system is going to suit me! This optional feature looks promising, striking a balance between offense and defense. Second, I enjoyed reading the thought process of what discussion went into crafting the crunch for this optional mechanic. Definitely a good read!

A short adventure from Matt Jackson makes its way into the pages. Only taking three pages of print, a map, adventure hooks, and encounter descriptions are all included. It looks like a fun adventure to drop in as a side encounter for an ongoing BBF campaign or perhaps as a one-shot to demo the game for folks at a convention.

And finally the issue closes out with a new creature from Larry Moore and a new character race by Mike Wikan. Both are one-page articles that seek to add more options to the BBF game.

The art in this fanzine is excellent. DwD Studios is picking up the tab on the art contained within to help keep the fanzine free for people.

Check the fanzine out even if you are new to BBF. Even if BBF isn’t your game, the map at the back is sure to be useful. The adventure within could always be adapted to your game of choice as well.

Interview: Quinn Conklin

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Occult_MoonThe Iron Tavern recently interviewed Quinn Conklin, one of the driving forces behind the Toys for the Sandbox series from Occult Moon. In addition to writing the weekly fantasy series he also has a role in the post-apocalyptic and science fiction flavors of Toys for the Sandbox as well.

Because keeping a weekly series churning out is not enough to keep the man busy, he also has taken up writing some adventures for new to the scene, BareBones Fantasy, a rules-light fantasy RPG from DwD Studios.

Quinn also has a couple of side projects that he picks up as time permits. Between all of this he still manages to squeeze in some time for gaming!

And with that, let the interview begin!

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The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the name Quinn Conklin is the Toys for the Sandbox weekly series you write for Occult Moon. Can you tell us a little more about that series?

Kings GateThe core of the series is a simple idea. Develop a location that a GM can drop into their game when they need to add a bit of color. But a setting is just a place to make it come alive it needs history,people and a bit of bustle. So each issue of Toys has a bit of flavor text covering the history of the place and what it looks like, four NPCs that could be encountered there, six plot hooks with three twists each to serve as a launchpad for an adventure and a few (usually magic) items that the party might find there as well.

For readers unfamiliar with the Toys for the Sandbox series, are they written with a specific system in mind or are they system neutral?

They are system neutral which presents its own set of challenges, I can’t describe a magic sword as +5 I have to use phrases such as gives a significant bonus to damage.

Which issue is your favorite in the series so far? What makes it stand out for you?

That is a hard question, when I am writing one I am very excited about it, but that fades as I move on to the next. A few do stand out, The Dormant Volcano comes to mind mainly for the character of Jeremy, a young man who drank from a cursed pool and is now stuck in the body of a flying squirrel while the squirrel is running around in his body. The Weeping Widow has a lot of plot lines started that have spread out to other issues, and the recent arc I have been working on, The City by the Sea, has been fun as well and has let me explore some issue about race and politics.

You have a print version of the first 18 issues of Toys for the Sandbox coming up. How has that been coming together? Do you have an anticipated release date for this print version?

Honestly it has been slow. The series has gone through a lot of growth since it started back in January. We started with a four page product and now are up to around 13. Some of that came from great NPC descriptions and back story and that meant going back and updating some of the old text so each would have a standard feel. Also when I started writing Toys and was trying to keep things to the four pages I tended to have ideas that did not fit so they wound up posted on the Occult Moon website. In doing the print edition we decided to make room for those posts as well.

As to release date, I have the proof in hand now and so does my editor, we have come across a few last minute changes that need making and then we will be putting it up for sale. My hope is that we can have it go live on the 26th.

There are two spin-offs of the Toys for the Sandbox series that cover the sci-fi and apocalypse genres. Those are a little earlier in their lifecycle. What has been your role in those lines?

Old Coffee HouseThese two series have always been planned as a limited run project. The target was 10 issues of each but as usually happens we had more to say then we thought and the Post Apocalypse Toys line wound up going to 11. Sci Fi is still going on and publishing monthly rather than weekly. I have not been that active in Sci Fi Toys line other than creating the flavor text, character, and hook format. With PA Toys I co-wrote it with Gary Montgomery and did the design and layout.

The publication schedule you adhere to for these series is what many would consider quite aggressive. Between writing the product, getting it through layout, and published for sale, how do you keep up?

The key for me is having a process. Monday after the new issue goes on sale I know it is time to start working on the next issue, I need to have the flavor text and characters done by Tuesday night so I can send them off to my artists so they have time to work. That keeps the momentum going and the rest of it just flows.

By now the layout is not that hard to get through, I have a template I work from and it is really just a matter of plugging the pieces in.

Do you have issues already written and in the queue? Or is the issue you work on this week the one you will be publishing on Monday of the following week?

I would love to try and have issues in the queue and I have managed to make it happen a few times but it never lasts. One of my first paid writing gigs was working for Patch.com writing daily news. So coming out of an environment where I would get a call at 7 a.m. saying there was a protest going on at such and such a place and having the story in by noon, a weekly schedule is not that insane.

In addition to writing volume you also have the pressure to come up with a new idea every week. How do you come up with that many workable ideas and turn it into a product week after week?

Again I do it by having a plan in place. I try to alternate issues between wilderness and city locations for starters. The other thing I do is set up large locations and explore them, The Hermits Island, The Pirate Island and now the City by the Sea are good examples. When I have these series within the series going I don’t want to beat people over the head with them so I usually work on those every other issue or every three depending on the scope of the place.

But sometimes ideas are hard to come buy, if I really hit a snag i will take requests on G+ for things that people want to see, The Hamlet Under the Waterfall and the Wandering Wells of Mistomore are issues that started that way.

Other times it is just a matter of asking the world around me the right question. Issue 49 The Salt Mine is a good example of that. I was sitting down to brunch with my character artist, it was Tuesday morning and I had no idea what I was going to write about still. I looked at the table and started thinking about the condiments and asking them where they were going to take me today. We are probably lucky the salt shaker answered before the hot sauce.

Tell us a little about your gaming background. What were the first games you played?

I started off on AD&D and the original Red Box in the early 80’s or perhaps the late 70’s, it was 3rd or 4th grade. Champions, Gamma World and Star Frontiers were other games I had early but did not play much. FASERIP Marvel was the game we played through half of high school then we moved our supers world to the Palladium system.

What games are on your current playlist?

The big ones for me at the moment are Dungeon World, BareBones Fantasy, and Fate Core. My home group has really loved the Dresden Files but then people moved and syncing schedules got rough. The writing schedule does not give me as much time to play as I like.

We’ve talked about Toys for the Sandbox and associated projects. As we begin to turn the corner to a new year, what else do you have in store for us?

A few other things on the Toys front, we are planing to get the rest of this year’s back issues collected in two more omnibuses in the first quarter of 2013. After that the PA toys line will get its own collection and when the first run of Sci Fi toys is done it gets an omnibus. Also year two of toys will be rolling out at the same breakneck pace.

I have a few irons in the fire and it will be interesting to see where they go, I have been working on a pair of systems that I hope to have ready for release in the next year. One is a story game called Agents and Champions that is more in the vain of DO or Fiasco but crunchier than both. The other is my own fantasy RPG called Whack Pack Adventures, that one started to see a lot of feature bloat and I needed to walk away for a bit.

I am also working with DwD Studios and writing adventures for BareBones Fantasy.

Can you tell us a little more about Whack Pack Adventures?

WPA is sort of my answer to the OSR scene but rather than trying to create a game that models the rulesets I loved in high school I am working on something that models the feel of those games. We, and by we I mean my gaming group when I was growing up, would play these pick up games that we just called Whack Pack. It had an anything goes mentality with people playing monsters and the dice falling where they may.

It is hard to say more without getting into specifics of the game you know 20 races, separation of race and culture in character creation, spell customization, every things is combat, blah blah blah…

BBF Bigger ProblemBareBones Fantasy from DwD Studios has been on my radar. You wrote A Bigger Problem for them, right? Tell us a little more about writing adventures for the BareBones Fantasy system.

Yep I wrote A Bigger Problem and the follow up The Children of the Giants Fist. Currently I am working on the last part of that story arc.

Writing adventures is weird for me because I am the guy who never ran a module, well almost never. I tried to run one canned adventure for Brave New Worlds and wound up literally throwing the thing over my shoulder as the party saw a solution that was logical and so far off the rails of the printed material that it was useless to me at that point.

This is something that I have kept in mind as I have been writing for BBF. Make the players choice count for something, though that might not be obvious in the first two installments since those are about the players reacting to problems in town but even then there are opportunities for real choices by the players.

The system is easy to write for but does not feel too simple. A lot of rules light games, at least for me do not offer much in the way of room for characters to grow, that is not something I feel with BBF. The world feels big and the people in it feel real and the system has let me write some complex skill challenges that are more interesting than pass or fall to your death.

The guys over at DwD are great to work with as well.  Larry Moore is always encouraging me to expand their world, add monsters and magic and all that good stuff. And Bill Logan is good about asking the right questions to put the polish on things.

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The Iron Tavern wants to thank Quinn for taking the time to answer my questions. It was a pleasure interviewing him!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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The Hobbit Unexpected JourneyBackground

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has not been without its naysayers prior to release. Many wondered why it was going to be released as two movies and even more grumbled when it was announced that Peter Jackson was going to extend it to a trilogy. The Hobbit as a book was a relatively short book and moved along at a fairly rapid pace. How was Peter Jackson going to stretch it out to the length of a trilogy?

The answer of course was to draw in material from the appendices and other sources. I believe there are various interviews with Peter Jackson where he says they were licensed to use up to 125 pages of more material in total. This additional material would add the extra minutes to tell the tale and extend the movie from two films and finally to a trilogy.

Now the movie has been out for a few days and as expected the reviews are at various points on the spectrum. Some folks love it, some folks hate it. Some say the extra pieces detract from The Hobbit as a story, breaking the flow of the original story. Some say 90 minutes of the film could be dropped and nothing would be lost. Some say this film is better than any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Obviously opinions vary quite widely on the movie.

Here are my thoughts on the movie. For those seeking to avoid any spoilers at all, you may want to bookmark this post and come back after you have seen the movie. Otherwise, read on!

Which version do I go see?

The Hobbit is being offered in a myriad of formats. 3D, 3D with high frame rate, IMAX, and good old fashioned 2D.

It was an easy choice for me. I went with the 2D version. I tried 3D in the theaters when it was all the rage again. I watched a movie or two in 3D this time around and I still thought it looked a lot like Jaws 3D did back in 1983. I just wasn’t seeing that great of an improvement. If anything it was simply annoying to wear the glasses and the kids weren’t a fan of the glasses either.

While I was intrigued by the high frame rate version, I still chose to go see it in 2D at my local theater. I have no regrets about that.

Who went?

My wife had no interest in going, plus due to a current medical condition it is best she not be exposed to a germy movie theater. She isn’t way into Tolkien or really long movies in general, so she was not terribly disappointed.
The DwarvesOn the other hand my kids, son at age 9 and daughter at age 5 are huge fans of Middle-earth. My son has an attention span that rivals most adults I know, so I had no concerns about him. My daughter however can’t sit still for more than five minutes on most occasions. When I saw this release was 2 hours and 46 minutes I started trying to talk her out of wanting to go. Yesterday she told me “Dad, I don’t care what you say, you are not talking me out of going.” Yeah, I am going to be in trouble when this girl hits age 13.

Luckily, my Mom was willing to go to the theater with the sole purpose of taking my daughter out for a walk or break if she got restless. She volunteered for that duty without me even asking!

So I attended the movie with my two kids and my mom. My daughter, at age 5, was a rockstar! She had no issues sitting still through the movie. We never had to take her out of the theater for a walk or distraction. I did cover her eyes for a couple of brief scenes. But despite the length of the movie, she did great!

My son enjoyed the movie. I had forgotten to warn him that this was now a trilogy, so he was a little disappointed at that. But he had a good time with the film.

How was it?

I thought the movie was wonderful! Were there deviations from The Hobbit as written? Definitely. Did I care at all about the artistic deviations Jackson made with the film? Nope! I would have easily watched more in one sitting if it had been included.

The Hobbit GandalfI think of people go into the movie expecting a chapter by chapter rendition of The Hobbit are apt to be disappointed. The movie does not try to be a direct recount of The Hobbit. It tries to paint a much deeper and more detailed picture of Tolkien’s Middle-earth story. The extra pieces did not detract from the movie at all in my opinion.

The opening scenes helped set the stage about the dwarve’s history. While many my readers here are likely Tolkien fans, or at least familiar with The Hobbit story, not all moviegoers will be as familiar with dwarven history. I thought the scenes helped give the viewer that information. And knowing how The Hobbit does play out later on, I think pieces of information from these prelude scenes will really come into play.

I thought the dwarves were well done. The scenes in Bilbo’s house were splendid with the dwarves “being rude” as my daughter said. They did not all have long, gruff beards associated with dwarves, but these dwarves seemed younger than what I expect of most dwarves.

Radagast was depicted much differently than I would have expected. I am not sure if I really like how he was depicted in the movie, I can certainly deal with it in the course of things. He seemed just a little too “out there” for my tastes. But he did have some fun moments in the movie. His “sled-rabbits” were great!

The Rivendell scenes later in the movie were wonderful as well. The splendor of Rivendell always rings true with me for how I visualize elven cities and population centers. With The Hobbit it is no different. I do wish they had shown a bit more of Bilbo’s exploration of the city, but I was fine with what it was.

The Stone Giant scene is spectacular. It does deviate from The Hobbit in interpretation, but it made for great movie scenes! This was a favorite scene of my Mom.

thorin_with_bowThe capture from the Front Porch in the mountains deviated from the book as written, but again in a way that I think worked for the movie. I have read that some thought the scenes here were action for the point of action, but I still think it played out well. I could see that some folks might be disappointed if they desired a strict interpretation from the book. But I was happy with the way this scene was interpreted.

The scenes with Bilbo with Gollum were were great! The riddles going back and forth between the two were quite similar to the book. My only complaint here was that I sometimes had a hard time hearing Gollum’s riddle clearly. But that may be my hearing more than the movie audio!

Escaping the clutches of the goblins, the dwarves, hobbit and Gandalf find themselves tracked by the orcs still. Forced into trees with worgs snarling at the bases of the trees led to a climactic scene with Thorin doing battle once again with the master orc.

The movie ends with the heroes being rescued by the eagles and dropped off within site of the Lonely Mountain in the distance.

I have heard a few complaints about the acting by some of the characters. I did not notice these issues. I did not see anything that I thought was forced. I did think the acting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo was excellent! Much less grating than how Frodo was portrayed in the LotR trilogy.

Summary

I was very pleased with this movie. While it is not a blow-by-blow account of The Hobbit was written by Tolkien, it was a wonderful film! I was actually disappointed when we reached the end of the movie and could easily have watched more. I really like what Peter Jackson has done with bringing Middle-earth to film and have no qualms with the liberties he has taken. For me, 2 hours and 46 minutes was too short of an experience in Middle-earth and I anxiously await the next installment of the trilogy.

Traps for DCC RPG

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photo courtesy Christian Haugen

I have been going through some of my writing folders and finding some of the gems that have yet to see print.

Today it is a series of traps I wrote up to go along with the Critical Hit Trap Table I wrote back in early August. I actually have cleaned that table up a bit since its original publishing, I will post that update in the near future.

The traps below all use Attack rolls, making them perfect candidates for use with the critical hit trap table!

The Traps

Spiked Step: A pressure plate is engineered on a step (find / disable trap DC 15) on a flight of stairs, when depressed multiple spikes punch horizontally outwards (Atk +4, dmg 1d6) from the step behind the person’s leg.

Pit Trap, Spiked: A 10′ pit is concealed with a faux stone cover (find / disable trap DC 12). PCs that do not find the trap must make a DC 12 Reflex save or fall into the trap for 1d6 damage. The pit has numerous spikes at the bottom. 1d4 spikes could impale the falling character (Atk +3, dmg 1d4 per spike).

Poison Needle Lock: An intricate lock (pick lock, DC 16) that is also protected by a poisoned needle (find / disable trap DC 13). A failed pick lock or disable trap check will trigger the needle (Atk +6, dmg 1d4 plus poison: DC 14 Fort save or -1d4 Stamina).

Scythe Hall: Four slender scythe blades are recessed in the ceiling of this hall in 5′ intervals (find DC 20). A portion of the floor under the fourth scythe is weighted in a manner to cause all four scythes to swing downwards at the same time (find / disable trap DC 18). Failure to find the trap or disable it triggers the trap, each scythe targeting the character in that square (Atk +8, dmg 1d12)

Falling Block: A large stone block is rigged above the doorway of a closed door. Opening the door without finding the hidden lever (find / disable DC 15) triggers the trap. The large block falls from the ceiling potentially crushing the character opening the door (Atk +15, dmg 4d6).

Poison Arrow Trap, Repeating: Failure to find or disable (find / disable DC 16) this trap results in one arrow being fired every round for 6 rounds. (Atk +6, additional +4 if standing in doorway, dmg 1d6 plus poison: DC 13 Fort Save or -1d3 Stamina)

Grimoires for DCC RPG

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What follows is a write-up I did a couple of months ago on Grimoires. It is time it saw the light of day!

About the Grimoire

Wonderful opportunities are often lost when characters find a grimoire of a vanquished wizard or left long forgotten in a subterranean tomb. All too often the Judge simply says “you find his grimoire, it has, uh… a red cover and some pages in it. It is sort of thick… and smells old.” He then rattles off a list of spells it has or maybe makes the character spend some time and resources to read the magic within before rattling off the spells within.

Grimoires have a myriad of appearances and they have history. Who used to labor over this book? Who made the notes and diagrams within? Who eventually created this book after long hours and days of research that finally resulted in a usable spell?

The grimoires detailed below are a tool for the Judge to use when he needs to drop in a found grimoire. The books have names, sizes and enough description to make them different from each other. Each grimoire also has a short history with it, sometimes with the name of the previous owner and others with a vague look at its history. Finally each grimoire has a list of spells it contains, each from the DCC RPG rulebook.

These are tools. The judge is free to modify as they see fit. Too many spells in the book or ones you do not like? Replace with what you feel is more appropriate or perhaps more of the pages are damaged than I thought, rendering some of the spells unusable. The history portions should fit in with a multitude of campaigns, but freely adjust to something more appropriate for your campaign or use the details here to start off a new quest. Use these tools in their entirety or modify as needed to fit your campaign. 

The Grimoires

Manual de Rattus
Dimensions:  9″x12″x1.5″
Weight: 3lbs
Description: Fine fur of a rat, dusty brown with flecks of white, cover this grimoire on the front and back cover. A cured rat’s tail acts as a leather thong to clasp the book closed, wrapped around a small brass post on both the front and rear cover.

The pages within the tome are thin sheets of leather, the writings of magic scrawled across the vellum-like sheets. The contents appear to be a mix of half-finished formulas and diagrams amongst what certainly appear to be complete spells. The majority of spells appear intact, though some damaged and torn pages litter the book.

History: Master Endgellan, a naïve wizard who sought the power of the rat-men from ancient times, previously owned this grimoire. Master Endgellan long-sought the location as proof of this ancient races existence and finally recovered it from the long lost burrows far beneath the Old City. Within months of discovery Master Endgellan succumbed to disease before unlocking the secrets of this tome.

Spell List: Level 1: Animal Summoning, Spider Climb, Ward Portal Level 2: Monster Summoning, Strength Level 3: Haste

Grimoire of the Void
Dimensions: 6″x9″x1″
Weight: 1lb
Description: The cover of this grimoire is composed of a fine-grained soft leather, blacker than the black between the stars. The cover of this pitch-black grimoire appears to absorb the light of an illuminated room, casting it into shadowy light regardless of light source.

The pages within the grimoire are also black. The legible writings are a cross between white and silver in color easily viewable even in darkness. There appear to be several complete spells amidst the partial work of the book. A large amount of the notes in the grimoire appear to be diagrams of the stars at various points of the year. Several constellations depicted in the tome do not exist in the present day sky.

History: Few have been able to retain ownership of this tome for more than a year or two. Finders are frequently puzzled by this grimoire for its innate ability of the book to seemingly absorb light. Upon further study over time the owners of this tome are driven to madness and frequently choose to abandon this grimoire of their own accord before unlocking its secrets.

Spell List: Level 1: Chill Touch, Force Manipulation, Patron Bond Level 2: Detect Invisible, Phantasm, Scorching Ray Level 3: Dispel Magic, Planar Summoning Level 4: Wizard Sense

Ironbound
Dimensions: 1.5’x2’x4″
Weight: 15lbs
Description: This massive grimoire is immense in size and weight for a wizard’s tome. Thick iron bands edge the corners of this red leather grimoire and two thick clasps with locks keep the tome shut (Pick Lock DC 18). The iron bands have bizarre etchings in them, a series of intricate patterns and symbols.

The pages have rust-red gilded edges and the paper appears woven with thin strands of metal that glint under any source of light. The words of the spells are written with great care, extremely neat and legible.

History: Arcane master Tzekien Carlastra had a deep interest in the manipulation of the elements. His studies were meticulous in nature and he always sought to retain control of his magic and not fall whim to the powers that he called upon. Tzekien managed this delicate balance between knowledge acquisition and self-control for many long years. His career was ended when an elaborate heist was planned in a raid on his laboratory that resulted in his untimely violent death and the disappearance of his primary grimoire.

Spell List: Level 1: Ekim’s Mysical Mask, Flaming Hands, Read Magic, Magic Missile Level 2: Fire Resistance, Scorching Ray, Shatter, Phantasm Level 3: Fireball, Gust of Wind, Lightning Bolt Level 4: Control fire, Transmute Earth Level 5: Magic Bulwark

The Black Flower
Dimensions: 7″x7″x1″
Weight: 1.5lbs
Description: A black lotus upon a white background decorates the cover of this square grimoire. The cover of the tome is soft like the petal of a flower, though not nearly as fragile. An almost sweet, though stale, smell rises from the open pages of the grimoire.

The grimoire’s pages are surprisingly thin and quite fragile in appearance, though only in appearance, as the pages are quite resistant to tearing. The stale, sweet smell is quite strong near the pages themselves. The pages are full of writing all the way to the edges. The ink used is slightly raised and black as pitch on the white pages.

History: This grimoire was lost to the Cult of the Black Lotus decades ago. Previously having belonged to one of their high arcanists, the grimoire disappeared shortly after his assassination from within the cult. The tome never surfaced after the assassination and its disappearance a mystery to those of the Cult of the Black Lotus.

Spell List: Level 1: Feather Fall, Mending, Ropework, Sleep, Color Spray, Chill Touch Level 2: Levitate, Locate Object, Spider Web, Wizard Staff Level 3: Demon Summoning, Lightning Bolt, Slow Level 4: Control Ice

Grimoire of the Root
Dimensions: 9″x12″x2″
Weight: 4lbs
Description: This bark covered grimoire emanates a distinct cedar smell. The grimoire is quite rough to the touch and has several thin vine-like tethers keeping the tome shut. Of a manageable size the heft of this volume seems added to by the thick bark cover of the grimoire.

The pages inside are quite rigid with very little give. They feel more like smooth balsa wood than paper. The words scrawled across the pages are carved into the pages as opposed to written upon the pages.

History: The grimoire formerly belonged to a neophyte follower of the world root. The tome became ownerless due to an unfortunate accident to neophyte follower involving sudden flames and destruction of the follower’s laboratory. The grimoire found its home with another world root follower, but was eventually misplaced becoming lost for several years.

Spell List: Level 1: Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Magic Missile, Mending

When the Dice Turn Against You

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The Scenario

In my last session of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG I ran, what I thought was going to be a fun encounter almost turned into a TPK. With that said, it was still a fun encounter, just much more deadly than I had thought it would be.

I am running the group through Sepulcher of the Mountain God from Purple Duck Games. It is a fun little module and I worked it into the Sunken City campaign by staging a little “favor” the two wizards owed their patron. The patron did not really give them much of a choice about it.

We started last night’s session off with the group plunging deeper into a set of caverns. One character got caught up in a nasty trap, but the group recovered and continued on. While investigating a precipice they were ambushed by several creatures. The creatures had surprise and then won initiative. That right there should have been a sign that things were about to head south quickly.

In addition to the creatures winning init and effectively getting two attacks in a row, my dice rolls were on fire. I don’t think I ever rolled much below a 17 and when I did it was a 14 or so against a low AC wizard. Before the party ever really had a chance to act, three of the characters were bleeding out on the ground. None of the enemy combatants were down.

When the PCs did get their chance to act, they couldn’t roll above a 5 or 6 it seemed. Certainly not high enough to actually hit one of the creatures. The next round was another round of my rolls being high and theirs being low, though not quite as bad, they still couldn’t take any of the creatures out.

The group started getting desperate and several heroic attempts were made through lots of Luck being spent and wizards spellburning their lives away. I was nearly ready to have the creatures do something unusual flee into a pit, as if they were just passing “through” the party, but my players are hardcore and wanted the dice to fall where they may.

So we did. The wizard managed to get a nice Invoke Patron off which helped get another combatant on the field and draw some of the attacks. Then he enlarged it the next round which also helped. The others took advantage of the newfound cover and the party did turn the tide.

In Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG there is a “recover the body” rule that allows a body to be “rolled over” up to an hour after they fell. The character makes a luck check and if successful it turns out they were only knocked out. They awake with one hit point and lose a point from a physical ability score determined at random.

Each of the three characters made their Luck check, so in the end it worked out okay. The party was pretty beat up and did end up spending a good amount of time resting to recover some health, spellburn damage, and spells.

The Thoughts

I am not a judge or GM that is necessarily afraid of killing characters. I am probably softer than I was in my initial comeback to gaming, but I certainly like for their to be risk for characters and for them to feel like they earned something. As it turns out my players for this particular campaign are pretty content to let the dice fall where they may – even if it means a TPK at the hands of an encounter that really was not intended to be a pinnacle encounter of the adventure.

During the game I think this is what made me hesitant as it looked like this encounter was going to be a TPK. It wasn’t that the characters had made bad decisions that led to this. It was that bad luck moment where their dice went cold and mine went hot.

The combination of those two things can be a deadly turn of events for characters and campaigns. It was that combination that made me feel a little guilty for how things looked to be headed. Who wants to see their characters die at the hands of a few 2HD chumps?

As it turns out, the remaining characters were able to regroup and pull things back out of the fire. They saw my hesitation as judge, but acknowledged to let the dice fall as they may.  I did that. The creatures kept up with their attack and by the end the heroes were once again victorious. And I think by the end they felt like they had really earned that victory.

From here on out I know with this particular group that they want no holds barred. I think that is great and I am happy to run that game for them. I am not sure all groups would have been okay with how things were headed and might have wanted some GM fiat to bail them out. Not my DCC RPG group, which is probably why we are playing DCC RPG.

What would you have done?

So what would you have done? Killing a party is well and good, but when that bad luck combo of the player’s dice going cold while the judge’s dice go hot? Does that make you think of altering the creatures’ actions a bit or would you have stuck with it?

How about as a player in that situation? Would you have preferred the judge intervene a little bit or would you have wanted to roll with it like the group I run for on my Tuesday night game?

Review: Crawl! Issue #5

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This issue of Crawl!, the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG fanzine wrangled by Reverend Dak was released in early November. I am running a little behind on getting my review of it posted! This issue is the monster themed issue and weighs in at the standard 24 pages in length. Crawl! is only available in paper form, though it is a welcome form of mail when my subscriber issue arrives!

What is Inside?

The issue opens with an article called Monsters with Class by Reverend Dak himself. This article covers adding class abilities to NPC monsters. These are guidelines to quickly apply class abilities to monsters that do not otherwise have them. They include boosts to Hit Dice, Saves and some additional abilities depending on how many Hit Dice the monster has. This is another example of keeping things simple and manageable with a minimum amount of prep time for an upcoming session.

Next up we have an Orc class. With a brief background on the orc culture the article moves into the mechanics of hit dice, weapon training, rage abilities. The article is complete with orc titles and a level progression chart.

Jeremy Deram’s DCC Monser Helper is included as the center spread in this issue. A series of charts that allow one to generate monster stats quite quickly based on type of monster (animal, dragon, fey, giant, undead, etc). Hit die values, attack bonuses, and which saves are good and which are bad are all noted. An additional chart helps calculate the saves and attack bonuses based on the initial table. I have used the web version of this table before and it is quite handy.

Consider the Greenskins is an article that puts a twist to classic D&D monsters – goblins, hobgoblins, and orks. This is just one example of how standard monsters can be “tweaked” a bit to make them unique to your DCC RPG campaign. Efforts such as these keep the players guessing and offers built-in plot points on how these creatures came to be.

Wandering Monster tables are included for levels 1 through 5, an article previously published by Jeff Rients on his blog. Certainly handy to have and a starting point for a judge wishing to tailor some wandering monster tables for their own campaign.

The final pages include four new monsters from two authors, Brad Littman and Colin Chapman. We get one page write-ups on the Fung-Eye (I will leave the visualization up to you!), the Stonecrawler, and a pair of monstrous canines.

The Standouts

As usual there are several standout articles in this issue of Crawl!. Monsters with Class is a good article that will help those who might be uncomfortable adjusting things on the fly. Just enough guidelines to let people know you don’t need pages and pages of complex rules to give short-lived monsters or NPCs class levels.

Wandering monster tables and the Quick Monster Stat articles are also useful articles, though both have been published on the web via blogs in the past. For those that have not discovered them previously they will prove quite useful.

I really enjoyed the monstrous canines which include the blood hound and gloom hound. Both are well-described and interesting monsters. Each includes a possible seed for a judge to use to introduce them to their game as well.

Several new art pieces were sprinkled about the issue. I really enjoyed Daniel Bishop’s piece Jason Adam’s artwork.

I was not a huge fan of the orc class for PCs. I should note that I think the write-up was good, I am simply not a fan of classes that stray too far from traditional classes. Perhaps simply naming it half-orc would have helped me clear that mental hurdle! I am sure some will be fans of the article and appreciate the new class.

The stonecrawler monster struck me as a little unusual and of questionable use. With its very slow movement rate and little inclination to attack, much less defend itself I am not sure it has a lot of value. Interesting concept, just not sure it merited more than an environmental hazard.

Overall, another fun issue of Crawl!. Looking forward to Issue #6!

Ohio Gamers G+ Community

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Quick post on this Thursday night that actually has limited audience appeal. Google+ released their Communities feature tonight. Likely if you are a G+ user you have been inundated with invites for various RPG groups. The RPG community is very strong on G+.

I have created a community for Ohio RPG Gamers on Google+ Communities. If you are an Ohio gamer or have friends in Ohio, give them a heads up. The group has categories for major regions in Ohio. Feel free to use this group to discuss RPGs, plan meetups in your area, plan meetups at local cons, or even plan some online games made up of Ohio folks!

The Ohio RPG Gamer community group is here:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101745044949056769846

Rolemaster: Playing with Magic

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The post below is written by UbiquitousRat, a guest blogger for The Iron Tavern.

Having played a few sessions with the new Rolemaster playtest rules it’s probably time to tell you a little about how the new system’s magic has been working out.

Spell Law, as described in the earlier article, presents magic through three distinct yet interconnected Realms of Magic. These are the Essence, Channelling and Mentalism realms. In our campaign we have five heroes, four of whom have access to spells; the Ranger and Paladin are both of the Realm of Channelling, the Dabbler is of Essence, and the Mentalist is (unsurprisingly!) of Mentalism.

Low-Level, Low-Power… Yet Useful…

We’re playing at Level 2 right now, having taken the heroes quite quickly up from Level 1. This means that the spells available to our heroes are relatively limited in power.

In Rolemaster you can have a maximum number of Ranks in a Spell List equal to twice your current character Level. Thus, at Level 2, our heroes can potentially know each Spell List up to the 4th Level Spell. Casting spells above your character level is harder but possible, so some of the heroes have taken advantage of this. It’s important to realise, however, that each Spell List must be developed in the same way as any other skill: by spending precious Development Points as you ascend the Levels; this increasing your Rank in each Spell List can be expensive, especially for professions like the Ranger or Paladin who pay more than, for example, the Mentalist per Rank.

So, how useful is the magic proving? In short, very useful.

There has not been a single session so far in which each spellcaster has not opted to use their Spell Lists at least once. Magic in Rolemaster augments the abilities of the heroes, so it is sometimes a minor benefit… but any benefit is precious, especially at low-level.

An example:

Lykos (the Mentalist) is absolutely dreadful in a stand-up fight: as the son of a merchant family with minimal interest in the matters martial, the character can barely manage a Short Sword with a +10 bonus. In combat, however, Lykos has been standing back and using his Mind Attack spell list (which he has 3 Ranks in).

Mind Attack includes three great spells for combat: Jolts I, Hesitation, and Minor Pain. The first of these, most commonly used by Lykos, stuns the target should they fail to resist it. This means they can’t act for a round… which allows Lykos’ compatriots to clobber them without much threat of reprisal. It might not seem like much but in a fraught and dangerous fight, Lykos can actually deliver this spell repeatedly against a lone target with little trouble, effectively neutralising them. The other spells, while more potent, deliver similar augmenting effects: Hesitation slows reactions in Initiative, and Minor Pain zaps 25% of the target’s Concussion Hits. Ouch!

Risky, but Not That Risky

The other main thing to note about magic is that it always carries the risk of a Spell Failure, and thus a roll on the Spell Failure tables to see what happens… but only rarely disrupts play in a significant way. Thus, even with riskier higher-level castings, the players are able to make an attempt and judge the risks for themselves. We’ve had one disastrous moment when the Ranger found himself reasonably harmed by a spell failure, but nothing (yet) big enough to really deter spell use. This has meant that the guys feel their spell lists are worth the investment.

No Pesky Spell Limits

Finally, it’s worthy of note to say that the artificial spell limits of old D&D, such as so many spells per day, is not a part of Spell Law. The limit is set by your Power Points total, which you can invest in to improve and which is easily managed.

Certainly, sooner or later, your hero will run out of juice and have to stop casting. This is good game design which simply forces players to manage a resource. Yet you don’t ever feel desperately short of a spell unless you’ve been utterly reckless with your casting.

Magic used when needed, wisely and with care, is a constant support to the group. So far, at least, we’ve not come close to running out of Power Points.

Verdict?

We remain positive about the new Rolemaster. There are little niggles, such as the Initiative system, which we opted to simplify using the options in the game, but on the whole it’s playing well.

As for magic… well, it’s potent in a non-flashy kind of way.

Just take it from us that a well-placed yet seemingly innocuous power can prove decisive. And, to our minds, that’s the stuff that good roleplaying is made of.

Game on!

Revised Bio:

UbiquitousRat is a long-time roleplayer and gamesmaster who has a history with gaming going back to 1979. In 1994 he joined Games Workshop, spending 12 years in the gaming industry at the coal-face of tabletop wargaming. In 1998 he founded the Friday Night Roleplay group at his home in suburban Nottinghamshire, UK, and ever since has been the primary GM. Oh, and he’s also a high school teacher during the daytime.

Teach Your Kids to Game Week

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Teach Your Kids to Game

Teach your kids to game week started yesterday. By now you have surely seen posts from various blogs, social media networks, and forums mentioning this occasion. This is the second year for the event that was started by DriveThruRPG.com. DriveThru has a product page up with several options to help you get started with teaching your kids to game.

I am most familiar with Argyle and Crew written by Ben Gerber and published by Troll in the Corner. But there are several more options there, some free for download. The list also includes rpgKids which always seems to get positive comments on Twitter.

Kids and Gaming in Practice

My two kids both game and both started at an early age. Games can be anything from RPGs, to Uno, to Carcassonne, to Zombie Dice, and more. Given this is primarily an RPG blog, I will focus on on the RPG aspect of gaming.

My older son got his start with playing a loose form of D&D minis several years back. This quickly evolved into actual RPG gaming. His first experience was with the D&D 3.5 Starter Box which as a little hit or miss.

A little later I introduced him to my own simplified Pathfinder game. By simplified I mean I chose his feats and skills after asking him how he pictured his character. Using that feedback I helped build him a character to fit that image. This worked pretty well and the interest was sparked.

Eventually his sister became interested and we did the similar thing with her. She’d describe what kind of hero she wanted to play and I built it for her. We handled more of the dice rolls from her, but she had a good time playing.

Later on the Pathfinder Beginner Box was released and we switched from my heavily modified Pathfinder for kids rules and went to that product. We had great success with this and within a short period of time my son was running his own games for his sister and I (and doing a good job!).

From there my son has played a couple of different systems. Over Thanksgiving weekend I introduced him to larger group gaming with a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG one-shot and this past weekend he helped me playtest a module I am working on. He is quite the budding gamer!

Benefits

If you are reading this blog you are most likely an RPG gamer. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in our own gaming and forget to spread the hobby around a bit. You would be surprised at how young a kid can be and start to pick up the gaming bug. I’ve had my son playing since about the age of 5 or 6. His sister has been playing since just before she was 5 (admittedly, she does it more to be social than love for the game at the moment).

Gaming is a great way to be creative and to tear the kids away from the screentime of television or computers. It is sometimes a gateway to them wanting to learn more about areas of history or technology.

Beyond all of that, it is a wonderful way to spend time with your family. It is moments like these that will really count for your kids or even kids in your extended family. I know I am guilty of sometimes spending too much time writing or prepping for a campaign. Take a moment to breathe and share the gaming bug with your kids or your nieces and nephews. They will be moments they will always remember and it will help grow their world.