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RPGs

Review – Swords & Wizardry Complete and GM Screen

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In the spirit of Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day, I ordered the hard back Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook, and the Swords & Wizardry GM Screen. They arrived on April 29th, but I have not had time to do more than unpack them and make sure they arrived in good shape, until now.

The Book Itself:

This volume is well put together and the black ink on white paper is easily legible for older eyes. It is 134 pages including three intitial blank pages, cover page, table of contents, Swords & Wizardry license, OGL, and index. There are an additional six pages of supporters, I am guessing from a Kickstarter, These are followed by a full page illustration advertizing a game I have not heard of, a page mentioning the S&W SRD, two pages with a heading of “Notes”, and two final blank pages.

What It Is/Isn’t:

Inside you will find almost AD&D/OSRIC. It has all of the classes from AD&D, except for the illusionist and the bard. There is no mention of psionics. The hit dice are different than OD&D, but not quite AD&D. Magic users and monks have d4, clerics, druids, assassins, and thieves have d6, and the fighter types have d8. As in AD&D, the ranger starts with 2d8. Monsters are d8 as in AD&D.

Armor Class:

Armor class has the two options of ascending, AAC, or descending AC, with descending starting at 9. There is a single saving throw, with a mechanic for the saving throws for each type of peril. I am drawn to the simplicity of AAC and knowing what you need to hit based on the AAC number.

Spells:

The spells described go up to 7th level for clerics and druids, and 9th level for magic users. There is, as with other sections, a house rules section, where Matt Finch describes how he handles spells above 6th level. The spells are presented in alphabetical order for all spells. For old grognards, like me, who like the spells arranged by level within each class, as in AD&D, this takes getting used to. Page 73 marks that last page of spells and the end of the player’s section.

GM Section:

The “Referee” section has an introduction emphasizing the need for Rule 0 [Is there a better link for this?]. It then moves on to how to design an adventure with a basic dungeon map with key and a wilderness map with a key. The discussion then moved on to discussing monsters in the dungeon and challenge levels/ratings. There is just over one page listing all the following monsters by challenge level up to 13.

Monsters:

Before it gets to the monsters, it discusses wilderness encounters and has encounter tables. It then discusses mass combat, siege combat, aerial combat, and ship combat. The monsters presented are most of what I consider the most common/favorite of the genre. The monsters are followed with a page and a half listing of challenge levels up to 17. Finally, there is a concluding page to this section on creating your own monsters.

Treasure:

The treasure section has ten pages of the various types of magic items. It begins with one page on generating a random treasure hoard. Other than the index, the last game worthy page is the sample character sheet. It is only one side of the page, the other side holds the S&W license and the OGL statement. Since this is not the pre-internet age, and the PDF is free, you can print this from the PDF. As always, you can just write your information on a piece of paper, making your own as you go, or find one of the many available online. If not for the internet and the availability of the PDF, this page should be perforated for easy removal, and the licenses would need to be on a different page.

Packaging:

Unlike other resources I have ordered online, the packing job did not cover the entire back of the book with bubble wrap. There was a small area about two or three inches square that was not covered in the center of the book. The cardboard did cover the entire book. I did not have any damage to my order, but this was the only weakness in the packing job. I only noticed this based on the packing jobs of all the other OSR products I have received. This is minor enough that it may just be one of those things that happens when there is a flood of orders. I didn’t get a good picture to illustrate it, like I thought I did. In the grand scheme of things, since the order arrived in perfect condition, not a problem.

Content Of The Book:

In addition to being easy to read and having a solid layout, there are many illustrations of various sizes, including full pages. There are a few corners, or nearly half the side of a couple of pages that were empty. Because the majority of all of the other pages filled the page to all the corners, the white space stood out. Some seemed to call for an illustration, or an illustration to fill the entire space available. There were only 5 or 6 pages in the whole book like this, again a minor issue.

There are suggested house rules and rules variants. As with S&W Core and White Box, there is lots of room to house rule to make it your own. I especially like the forward by Tim Kask, that the rules are only a framework and are not meant to bog the flow of play down into paper shuffling and arguments, and the GM has the final word. The main thing is to have fun! See Rule [-1].

Since the PDF is freely available, one can modify the PDF to include only the player information for use at the table or in online games. Be sure to include the S&W and OGL if you do so in a product you plan to market.

The GM Screen:

The GM screen has the usual charts for attack matrices for characters and monsters, turning undead, indoor and outdoor movement, saving throws, and information on melee and missile weapons. This is on four pages on the GM side of the screen. The player side of the screen are covers of the various iterations of the printed rules. This accordion folder screen is one piece. It is laminated to protect it from wear and tear and spills. It is a light card stock, so not as thick as my AD&D DM screens.

If you use AAC, then nearly two pages of the screen are not needed. You could easily use a binder clip to place information over that portion that you need such as the map or note on the current adventure, or other rules needed frequently during play.

The accordion fold is determined to make the screen look like an ‘M’ when viewed from the GM side. I supposed with use, or a strategically placed small binder clip, one could get a shape that is more suited to use at the table.

Takeaway:

Since we are encouraged to make the game our own, we can hack it to make it closer to AD&D if we choose, to make the character class hit dice the same, and if one has the AD&D manuals or OSRIC, one can easily have all the creatures, spells, and items that are there.

Whether you are old, like me, or just like to have a physical book, it is well worth your while. You could just get the free PDF and print your own, but the issue of binding a hardback is a challenge few wish to face.

I like the simplicity and brevity of Swords & Wizardry Complete. It has enough to do more than get you started. A creative GM can make the creatures in this single volume cover years of play. I have played for over 35 years and have not encountered all the creatures in the AD&D Monster Manual either as a player or a DM.

I am also very into the AAC and how easy it is to calculate without needing a chart. The single saving throw may be tough for some, but it does bring simplicity.

I like the simplicity and don’t like when play bogs down to look up a rule. I mind it more as a player than as a referee, but as a DM it does not take long to feel all eyes upon me, and get frustrated. That long pause of a grinding halt interrupts the momentum. Either mark every page you need for rapid access, make detailed notes, or memorize it, if you don’t want to make it up on the fly. Keep the game flowing. Play should only stop when there is a natural break in the action for a bathroom break or it is the end of the agreed upon ending time, after the last extension runs out.

The GM screen is not a must have for play. One can easily make their own by printing the necessary information from the free PDF, if you even use a screen. I tend to use a screen when I run AD&D for two reasons, tradition and the need to look up combat and other tables. The AD&D screens would be better served to have other information on them than the psionics table, unless there is a lot of psionic activity in a game. I find that distance and a book or clipboard or sheet of paper is enough to cover maps and notes from prying eyes.  Unless your game space puts players right next to the DM, I don’t see much use in a screen. I do still like them for the mystery it conveys by hiding something “secret” and “mysterious” from the players. I think the decision to use a GM screen is up to the individual GM. If you are comfortable with the rules, and don’t need it to add to the aura of mystery to game play, then you probably don’t use one.

New Goodies!
New Goodies!
Barely shows gap in bubble wrap.
Barely shows gap in bubble wrap.
Book and Screen
Book and Screen
Inside of GM Screen
Inside of GM Screen
Back of GM Screen - Shiny!
Back of GM Screen – Shiny!
RPGs

Effects of Playing RPGs

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I tend to be a quiet person most of the time. I am the type of introvert that can seem very extroverted. I tend to be quiet around new people or in new situations, but once I get my bearings, or in the right circumstances, I can be very energetic. RPG’s tend to pull introverts out of their shell, and can help “over the top” extroverts to reign it in.

RPG’s are great at helping people explore different aspects of their personality while making new friends and deepening relationships with existing friends and family.

Being able to do things in make believe that I could never do in reality is the appeal.

Magic, monster-slaying, being fantastically wealthy, exploring other planets, traveling in space.

The guy from my high school who said he’d open his own game store and did, says that he tells parents who are concerned about RPG’s that the biggest problems are that their kids will read more and do more math.

I get just as vivid images in my mind with RPG’s as I do reading a book. It transports one out of their current circumstance to another world, so to speak.

RPG’s require participation and cooperation. Problem solving and listening skills are improved.

There is a lot of good to be found in playing RPG’s.

There are downsides to RPG’s. They can be a time sink. One can find total refuge from the real world and ignore dealing with real world needs and situations. We all need to step away from our issues periodically to “catch our breath”, or re-charge so we can deal with the trials and tribulations of real life. Seeking only refuge and escape, as with drugs, alcohol, or whatever your method of hiding from reality is, can be a problem.

Where an RPG blogger draws the line is interesting. I suppose if you make your living in the world of designing and playing, or making accessories of one kind or another, RPG’s can make them like any other job, where one finds their fill a bit quicker than one would like.

What is too much time lost in the realms of RPG’s for me is not too much for you, and vice versa. Unique individuals each have different tolerances, and we should know those limits and not cross them. For GM’s too much time preparing can lead to burnout, so that is bad.

As with any activity too much is not good, and we can all agree that not enough is a tragedy! Find the balance in your life, make the RPG part of your life a way to build relationships with others. Perhaps you will find the right people you need in your life for other situations.

RPGs

Labyrinth of Egypt

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I saw this article online about a 3000 room labyrinth in Egypt and the claim in the video is that they supposedly found it basically intact. If that were true, you’d think one could find an article about it on a major news site, and not just websites the specialize in outrageous claims.

I’d like it to be true.

Writers of the ancient world described it, so the question is, how much of what the ancients wrote about it is accurate? The size of the site seems to be accurate, but if the canal cut through it revealed the labyrinth, why don’t we know about it?

Still it is an interesting idea. It would be a pain to do a map with 3,000 rooms. Then you have to figure out how to populate them with information, decoration, emptiness, treasure, monsters, etc. Even if only a single level, 3,000 rooms is a megadungeon. How many rooms do the recently published megadungeons of he OSR have?

They have an FB page.

Robert Schoch the geologist who claims the Sphinx is 10,000 years old, or some such, has weighed in on it. The episode on the History Channel about a decade ago on this idea seemed somewhat reasonable that the Sphynx was a natural stone outcropping that had perhaps been worked prior to the rise of Egypt. (As I recall, that was the gist of his argument.) I don’t see why prehistoric humans couldn’t have done that.

The name of the site is Hawara.

The Labyrinth of Egypt website has a page on previous expeditions.

RPGs

White Box Omnibus – A Review

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I won a copy of White Box Omnibus, by +James Spahn of Barrel Rider Games on the Happy Jacks Podcast for Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day.

Things have kept me busy since then. After White Star came out and I reviewed it, I figured I better hurry up and read through the Omnibus and do my promised review.

James’ own introduction to the text explains it well:

White Box Omnibus is a compilation of six previously published
products: White Box Companion, White Box Bestiary, White Box Treasures, White Box Adventures: The Wererat’s Well, White Box Adventures: The Wizard’s Tower and White Box Adventures: The Dragon’s Hoard. But a few extras have been added. In addition to cleaning things up a bit, there are a few new things you’ll find.

The Monk has been added as a player character class. It is written in the spirit of Arneson’s Supplement II, but streamlined to fit WhiteBox. You’ll find simple, easy to implement rules for introducing powerful magical artifacts into your campaign along with new monsters in the bestiary.

The three adventures featured in White Box Omnibus have now been augmented by an appendix – The Willow Valley Gazetteer. It’s a mini-campaign setting which can be used to tie the three adventures together, or even continue having adventures in that region.

Section 1 – Class options – Contains variations on standard classes that give bonuses in one area, but limitations in another. Such as the “sub-class” of cleric, the healer, who can use a healing touch once per day but has a -1 on to hit rolls.

Bard Class – This is a simple class designed to work within Swords & Wizardry and other D&D clones, instead of the kludge of AD&D.

Druid Class – A version of a cleric with a Forestry ability that allows tracking, passing without trace, or dealing with wild animals.

Monk Class – Similar to the class in AD&D, with house rules suggestions to make it more like the AD&D monk.

Paladin Class – With the exception of leaving out the warhorse, this is the paladin we recognize.

Ranger Class – With the Forestry ability, like the Druid.

Thief Class – Single skill called Thievery using a 1d6 mechanic based on level. This covers all the thief skills in a big separate table in AD&D. There is a house rule for climbing that add a bonus to the roll.

Section 2 Magic Items – A list of very interesting armor and shields.
potions, scrolls, rings, staves, wands, weapons, and three pages dedicated to miscellaneous magic items. The miscellaneous items has a house rule about “purposed magic items”, i.e. Artifacts.

Section 3 – Bestiary – This includes many creatures that are well-known from other versions of OD&D & AD&D.

For example, Brain Lord – Squid headed humanoids p. 39-40.

Section 4 – Adventure – Wererat’s Well 15 pages including the introductory illustration and map by Matt Jackson [G+ account deleted before archived.].

Section 5 – Adventure – The Wizard’s Tower – 20 pages including the introductory illustration and map by Dyson Logos.

Section 6 – Adventure – The Dragon’s Hoard – 18 pages including the introductory illustration and map by Matt Jackson
[G+ account deleted before archived.] .

Appendix – The Willow Valley Gazetteer – 22 pages including the village map by Matt Jackson
[G+ account deleted before archived.] , and an area map done in Hexographer. There is a d20 rumor table for the village and a couple of pages on communities of halflings, dwarves, and elves. This mini-campaign setting has a detailed village, and the area map ties it all together into the three adventures and several of the new creatures and items.

I am a big fan of AD&D. Mostly because it is what I knew and played for so long. I am growing to be a major fan of simple. Less rules and less “fiddly bits” that get in the way.

This large collection of material that supplements Swords & Wizardry White Box to give it many of the things I like about AD&D, or supplemental material from the later LBB’s. It also streamlines them and makes them easy to use, like the bard. In AD&D, the bard class is a mess. I don’t know anyone who started as a fighter, changed to a thief prior to getting the benefits of a 9th level fighter, etc.

The simple bard class presented here, plus the simplified single skill abilities for druids, rangers, and thieves make it easy to avoid paper shuffling and digging through the manual.

The magic items are new and interesting. They have given me many ideas.

I also like how James separates out ideas for house rules in grey highlighted text.

The simplicity of what is presented here is also modular, so that one can pick and choose what you want to use, and easily house rule things that you feel are missing or “not your way of doing things.”

I only skimmed the three adventures. They are clearly presented and to the point. There is enough detail to help out the DM and enough openness to easily supplement the material or drop it in to an existing campaign.

The gazetteer is a village with a map of the village and an area map that ties the three adventures together with the setting. This could easily be the start of one’s own sandbox campaign, or be dropped in as a new area to explore. It is a good model of one way to build a sandbox.

The layout is well done and the whole thing is easy on the eyes and easy to read on a screen.

Just as with the recent White Star, I recommend the White Box Omnibus!

RPGs

Device Silences Unapproved Speech

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Interesting Science Fiction turned reality, bad for freedom of speech.

“Gun” that prevents people from speaking.

I can see despots and those who don’t truly believe in freedom of speech using this.

It would be great if during a true debate that the moderator could silence one party while the other party completed their statement, to enforce civility, but that’s a whole can of worms right there. We only seem to have true debates in structured settings that will never fly in the world of politics.

There’s a few people I know that won’t let you get a word in edgewise. This would be good for the DM to keep each player quiet while the one who had the turn to speak had their say.

However, this is yet another invention that excuses bad behavior, and instead of teaching people to share the floor and let others have their say, someone will get to decide who gets to have their say. Who gets to decide who can or can’t use this device?

While I think the world would run smoother if everyone else did certain things my way, I am smart enough to know that that would not be a viable solution. There are certain things on which  I disagree with others, and definitely things I don’t want to hear from others, but that is a selfish and isolating way to live. Many things that I like, I can’t do or create on my own, so I need people who are different from me.

If no one had the chance to say, ‘No.’; or to point out problems, or make suggestions, how soon might we regret that?

If you really don’t want to deal with the rest of the world, move to the wilderness, and unplug from all media.

Personally, I think this technology should only be used in the realm of science fiction and RPG’s. People should be held accountable for their words and actions, not denied the freedom to use their words and actions as they see fit. People will find a way to be a jerk, if that’s what they really want to do.

 

RPGs

White Star – White Box SF RPG

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White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying, by +James Spahn of Barrel Rider Games is all the rage at the moment. It has a vibrant and rapidly expanding G+ Community. It also has its own compatibility logo!

Appropriately enough, it was released on May 4th, for Star Wars Day.

I am a big science fiction fan and my first love in reading was science fiction over fantasy. I have played Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Traveller, plus various board games such as Imperium, and several video games. I tended to be the one who ran Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World, to give my brother a break from DMing AD&D.

However, my days of playing/GMing science fiction RPGs faded and have not revived like fantasy based RPGs, like AD&D or recently DCC.

I recently bought the Metamorphosis Alpha PDF and printed it out and read it through, with plans of making my own version of the starship Warden, perhaps for a Roll20 campaign.

All the hoopla about White Star is contagious, and I bought the PDF.

I had plenty of interruptions trying to read the PDF. This whole working for a living thing interferes with all my fun.

The art, maps, and layout make it easy to read. The system is designed to be totally compatible with Swords & Wizardry White Box, so any creature or item can easily traverse the two genres. Like the AD&D DMG discussion of combining Gamma World and AD&D, or Boot Hill and AD&D.

The original six standard abilities and 3d6 make it quick to pick up and play.

Rules are presented with a framework, and a clear Rule 0 reference that the Referee can make any changes they want to games in their world.

If you need a lizard man/reptile man in space, you have them stated in Sword & Wizardry already. Take any creature and “re-skin” it by changing its description, and any creature found in S&W is ready to go in White Star.

That is one powerful thing about all the clones and play alikes in the OSR. I have not specifically played Swords & Wizardry, but I “get” it, and since I am used to it, it will not require a lot of effort to run it.

I like how ship to ship combat is a simple abstraction from regular melee combat, with AC, HP, etc. for ships. While certain details are nice, I know that some SF RPG’s are so “crunchy” with rules for every little thing, that the rules get in the way of moving on. Combat can take way too long even in some “rules lite” systems. I’ll have to whip up a couple ships and have them fight it out.

The rules as presented are a sufficient framework to get playing quickly. This framework is familiar to so many, that it is easy to add house rules, ideas from other games, genres, etc., that one can make White Star their own.

Any SF sub-genre could be crafted with this, a generation ship scenario like Metamorphosis Alpha, post apocalyptic like Gamma World, space opera, exploration, war, space pirates, etc.

Race As Class

One thing that others complained about, and I didn’t like at first, until I thought about it, is race as class. In most fantasy worlds with retro-clones or AD&D, demi-humans have level caps. I don’t like that. Also with OD&D clones, there is race as class. I don’t like all aspects of that in fantasy, or in Science Fiction, but I see it making sense in a planet hopping scenario.

If the humans are the dominant group and the “aliens” are tagging along, the level limits will exist because the aliens don’t fit well into the culture, architecture, and design of the human controlled worlds, buildings, and ships. When a handful of aliens are among a huge number of humans, their uniqueness only gives them so many advantages. The hindrances of being surrounded by human sized items, furniture, doorways, etc. will limit how well they can improve their skills among humans. For example, a creature that breathes methane will require special equipment to travel with humans. For aliens that are humanoid to the point of being indistinguishable from humans apart from outward appearance and interior biology, such limits would not be as severe. A ten foot tall alien, however, would have major limitations on space travel.

If the situation is reversed, where a few humans are among a bunch of aliens, surrounded by alien technology, then the humans would have the same issues. I can see someone building a campaign where the humans are a tiny minority in a vast alien empire. If the humans have to have special equipment to breathe while travelling on a ship, it will limit how well and how long they can function outside any special accommodations on the ship added for humans.

Non-humans on their home planet would have advantages that humans would not have.

Humans could have variations leading to sub-species, such as those who inhabited a high gravity planet and get a bonus on their strength when on lower gravity planets and ships.

Rule 0 trumps race as class. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Problem solved.

Forget Rule 0, There’s A Problem

One minor thing is buying bullets for firearms in preloaded magazines. I don’t know why that minor lack of verisimilitude bugs me. Handgun ammunition is usually available in boxes of 50 and shotgun and rifle ammunition is often in boxes of 20. Detachable magazines are usually reusable. In fact, I am not aware of any firearm for which magazines are not reusable. Of course, Rule 0 and all.

High tech firearms in the universe could be different. People are separated from manual drudge labor, to the point of not having to load magazines. What do you do with the empty one? Turn them in for a magazine deposit? Like bottle deposits in Michigan?

Also a pistol with ten rounds – is it small and easily concealable, or bigger and harder to disguise? Is it ball ammo, hollow point, etc? Can I rack the slide to chamber a round and drop the magazine and top it off to carry 11 rounds? It is all too easy to get hung up on little details and need a rule for it. There is always something that we know from our personal experience that makes it seem like a good idea to add complexity to handle it. Rule 0 still accommodates this. If I really wanted to get down to it, I could build rules for different calibers, revolvers vs. semi-automatics, hollow points vs. ball, ceramic/metal/polymer/combination, breech loaders vs. muzzle loaders, etc.

I don’t have a problem with how computers and other technology is presented in games, so why should this bother me? For example, I know a lot about computers, but their functions are so abstract in the internals and have changed so much since the first computer my parents bought in the early 1980’s that I can handle computers being small and powerful with interfaces much simpler than today. The whole touchscreen “revolution” has changed a great deal about interacting with computers. Voice recognition is better and primitive voice interfaces exist with smart phones, such as, the well-known Siri for the iPhone. The whole exposure to the idea of computers in movies, TV, and the written word have shaped our thinking to allow the devices we use every day to still hold some mystery that makes it easy to ascribe special powers to them.

Aliens & Creatures

Chapter eight on creatures leads with an explanation that specific details about color, activity, and diet is left to the Referee so that their imagination is not restricted.

There are a great many aliens and creatures to fill all the desired tropes of science fiction.

Campaigns

There are several ideas for types of campaigns, plus a campaign based in the Kelron Sector.

Adventure

There is a short sample adventure at the end to get things started. It is an interesting scenario with many familiar ideas from multiple movies, TV shows, books, and stories.

Art

The artwork of the cover and interior is awesome. Maps by Matt Jackson are cool too!

Ideas

Even if you don’t specifically play these rules, there are ideas in here that can be used in any variety of science fiction and other genres of RPG’s.

Editing

There are a few oddities in the flow of words and a few misplaced commas, and some other minor things. If you plan to print this out, I would wait for the update to the PDF. These errors increase towards the end.

I think that I will buy this in print, hopefully the textual issues are resolved quickly.

Other than the few issues in the text, the layout is well done, and it is easy on the eyes.

Other

I let my reading this jump ahead of reading and reviewing the White Box Omnibus also by James Spahn, that I won on the Happy Jacks Podcast for Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day.

I have heard good things and after reading White Star, I am sure I will find something good!

RPGs

Campaign Design

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Back in mid-March +Sophia Brandt posted a query [on a now nonexistent G+ page] seeking advice on tools for beginner DM resources for hexcrawls and building your own campaign.

I recommend reading the full comment thread, but I liked what I wrote, as it is a nice summary of what I have used in my efforts in recent years. I have added other links and information that I could not recall off the top of my head, mostly for my future reference.

+Joe Johnston recently published a free PDF, How to Hexcrawl.

Bat in the Attic, The Alexandrian, Ars Ludi, and  The Welsh Piper all have a series on sandboxes and hexcrawls.There’s another blogger who did something on hexcrawls that I am not recalling.

Bat in the Attic- Hexcrawl Series            The Alexandrian Hexcrawl Series               Ars Ludi: West Marches            The Welsh Piper on Hexcrawls

For building a world, the hexcrawl is generally a bottom up way to do it. Pick a starting town and generate a few hexes around town with various terrain, and objects and places of interests and dungeons and monsters. The world is built as the player’s explore it.

One can also do the top down approach, plan out a world, cosmology, mythos, nations, peoples, cities, etc. and pick a certain spot for the players to start, and use a hexcrawl to detain a smaller area.

For me, designing a detailed mythology of divinities is a challenge, so I use either Greyhawk dieties, or something from Dieties & Demigods.

It is easy to get lost in the details, so I think the DSR episode about world building sufficiency, is right on point. Some of us, like me, can easily get lost in details that will never come into play. Build enough to give color and flavor to your world.

My quick suggestions:

  • Decide which monsters definitely will or won’t be used.
  • Generate a ridiculous amount of names for streets, places, businesses, taverns, and NPCs . (You will be asked for what is the name of this or that all the time!)
  • Stay just enough ahead of the players that you can roll with their sudden course changes. At the end of a session ask if they will continue in their current situation, or go somewhere else, to give you time to prepare for a course change.
  • Make index cards with pre-generated random encounters of the creatures they are likely to encounter, so you can just grab it and go. Just make packs based on your encounter tables, whether it is the default tables in the rules, those by others, or your own. I put stats, treasure, etc. on them so I don’t have to slow play to figure it out. Some monsters I use all the time, I can easily wing them. But I like the cards to make sure that every group of goblins is not the same 10 goblins with spears.
  • Once you get a few sessions under your belt, and you and the players get attuned to this world, it will start to make sense how to proceed.
  • If this is your first campaign, there is no right or wrong way to do it. Everything you do, even if it is never used in play will help you figure out what style of world building works for you.
  • Tables – Tables can help give ideas. The OSR is full of new ideas for tables to flesh out or fill in perceived gaps for different tables. You don’t have to roll on tables or accept the results, but they can give a LOT of ideas you might not come up with on your own.
  • Maps – There is a plethora of online maps for RPGs for dungeons, cities, ruins, and other settings. If you play using theater of the mind, then the maps may only help you to solidify your ideas for a location and its layout.
  • d30 Sandbox Companion – New Big Dragon Games game aid for generating all kinds of things for a sandbox setting.
  • d30 DM Companion – New Big Dragon Games game aid for ideas for fleshing out dungeons, not limited to the dungeon.
  • Weather  – Have a quick and easy method to generate weather.
  • Rumors – Have a few rumors to start and come up with new rumors all the time.
  • Events – Use something like the yearly and monthly events in Oriental Adventures.
  • Festivals & Celebrations – What kinds of parties will be going on?

Another person pointed out a couple of resources that I also turn to:

Jeff Rients’ twenty quick questions for your campaign setting has some interesting ideas to define certain elements of your campaign that your players may ask about, or for some reason tends to come out in game play.

One Page Dungeon Contest (OPDC) Maps to quickly generate where a treasure or other found map leads, or for a quick adventure idea when you are running dry.

I find that as I place monster lairs and determine what is in them, that it is easy to make up a story to explain how they all fit together. Are certain groups of humanoids working together? Is there a big bad who is trying to get them to work for him? Are there monsters that can’t be reasoned with or controlled and the big bad leaves them to guard his flanks, and his minions fear them. For example, a group of owlbears in an abandoned mine?

There are all kinds of ways to determine what the various lairs and ruins are. Place them underground in caves, tombs, dungeons, ruins, mines, quarries, etc. Hills, towers, and other prominent features above ground.

Use the lairs closest to the starting village/town/city as sources to begin interacting with your world. Have a known area of fairly picked over tombs in the hills near town, but with the possibility that there are still tombs that haven’t been found, or that have become the home of something else with treasure.

Plan NPCs for all the PCs to interact with, that have the same classes your PCs will use. If you allow paladins and rangers in your game, plan some low and mid-level NPCs so that your players have someone of their class to turn to for advice, training, support, etc. Having a reason for these NPCs to be in and out of town and sometimes inconvenient for the players to interact with makes them a bit more real. Paladins and rangers tend to be out doing good in dangerous places, or on quests and secret missions. Wizards and illusionists and sages tend to get busy doing their research. If the players can’t afford to pay for information or magical aid, perhaps they can pay in favors.

Then there need to be the other NPCs, tavern keepers, bar maids, street vendors, and other types of vendors that your players will tend to seek out. How many from the starting location will be available for hirelings and mercenaries? Is the supply never ending, or will you define how many are available? Will the players have a hard time finding help if they get a reputation for getting their men killed?

As you get to know your developing setting and your chosen rules, you may find that you are comfortable winging various aspects of play. Perhaps all you need is a list of names or a simple name generator, and some generic stats of hirelings. I have found that I can make up all kinds of stuff on the fly. I am amazed at some of the stuff that I come up with and how the players never know I made it up on the spot. However, the players can be quite inventive and always manage to find some avenue in the course of play that I had not anticipated.

If you tell the players that there is someone in town who sells maps, for example, you better know about the maps. Are they all forgeries made by the map maker, or are they the real deal. Where do they go and do any forged maps actually lead to something, or is the loot still there if the map is genuine?

Whatever you mention, be prepared for the players to run with it, so keep some basic notes of what you have told them, and pay attention to them showing interest in certain things.

I have a few background plots running in my campaign that are affecting their immediate area, the kingdom, and the greater region. The players are seeing a pattern to some events that are just random encounters, but I am able to retcon a story that makes it work, because I built my own encounter tables to fit the lairs I randomly placed and populated. The players are able to influence events through dumb luck, or by choosing to follow or ignore hints of something else going on. Players will start connecting dots from what they see, but these connections are tenuous, coincidental, or circumstantial. It is fun to have your narrative as the DM about what all this means, and see how the players actually interact with it.

With a hexcrawl, you can put as much or as little detail and effort into it as you need to make it work. You can do the just in time generation a few hours before the session, or do it as you play and both DM and players figure out the world at the same time. You can obsess over planning your world and generate tons of information that will never enter into play. Whichever way you prepare, make sure it is focused on preparations that leads to play first, and explanatory, fill in the blanks later. As I mentioned above, as you follow this process, you will discover the style that works for you. If you and the players are having fun, then you are doing it right.

RPGs

Genetic Map of the British Isles

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My interest in genealogy and RPG’s cross pollinate ideas, like any other interest or experience in life, many things influence our creative ideas.

In late March, there were several articles about a new genetic map of Britain and how it shows that much of the regional populations there is very similar to what it has been for 1,400 years!

I am of Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry, so this resonates with me. It shows that even with the sweep of mass migrations, war, famine, and plague, that populations are resilient. Without massive slaughter, populations may only be pushed out of their exiting area. This would show just how hard it is to wipe out all the humanoids, for example. They might be driven out of the area, but not eradicated without a lot of effort.

Three articles with a bit of different information in each can be found at Medievalist.net, The Independent, and The Telegraph.

Genealogical Map of British Isles
Genealogical Map of British Isles

 

RPGs

Arbalest vs. Heavy Crossbow

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I did not make note of the article I read this on, but I wanted to get this scrawled note from an index card recorded so I can ditch the index card. I believe this is the article, but there’s no date on it, so I’m not sure.

It discussed the arbalest, a heavy crossbow, that used spring steel arms for the bow and had a range of about 300 meters, longer than 3 American football fields! It also had a fire rate of 2/minute.

They could shoot bolts or stones or shot. I’ll have to dig up the article, but it would be a heavy+ crossbow in D&D terms. Since a longbow is often credited as 12 aimed shots a minute and that is translated to 2 shots per round in AD&D, it makes sense that one shot per round for an arbalest. The heavy crossbow has a more complex cocking procedure, so one shot every other round.

Or is an arbalest just one expression of what the heavy crossbow in AD&D represents?

I mentioned in two past articles (one, two) about my brother, Robert, allowing a Chinese style self loading crossbow that could fire 10 shots a round, and our foolish characters ended up as orc food because we elected to fight with swords instead of our cool crossbows.

Finding the proper scale so that one isn’t dropping a combat changer into the midst of the game is the only part of balance I am concerned with.

RPGs

Earthquake!

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I live in Southwest Michigan, about 15 miles south of Kalamazoo. Today, we had an earthquake of magnitude 4.2.

I live across the street from the houses next to the train tracks. It is an active freight line and big, heavy trains can shake the house. This shaking was much different. We have 5 crossings through town and federal law requires them to blow the horn at each crossing. The Wednesday night, AD&D campaign I play in can hear the whistles if I forget to mute my microphone until they pass. If the windows are open in warm weather, I have people in phone calls ask me if I am standing on the tracks.

I was in my house, built about 1920 on sandy soil. The shaking was slightly similar to a big, heavy train going by, but it felt deeper and more powerful, and lasted just a few seconds.

I swore I heard a boom/roar/loud noise that preceded/coincided/followed the shaking. I can’t explain that. It was over so quickly that I didn’t have time to make sense of it. My thoughts were, there is no train, did a tanker truck explode? That has to be an earthquake.

About ten or fifteen minutes later, there was a very brief aftershock.

This is the first earthquake that I know I’ve experienced. My recollection is that an earthquake needs to be a 2.5 to 3.0 for most people to feel it and know it’s an earthquake. What I found using my google-fu is that it has to be a 3.0 to notice it.

A 4.2 was interesting. Since the scale increases an order of magnitude, a 5 would be impressive! A 6, 7 or more would be mind blowing.

My son took his girlfriend and their daughter to a neighborhood garage sale and met up with some friends. He said that he was sitting on the ground and that the ground beneath him felt hollow. His girlfriend said that she was standing up and that her feet were vibrating and she noticed that the trees were moving one direction and the houses another. Their daughter is 3 1/2 months old and she did not seem to have any reaction.

In addition to an interesting experience, I have a better understanding and thus more able to describe an earthquake in my writing and DMing.