Friday, February 11, 2011

Your Moment of Zen

"When I get 16 I'm going to get a car and drive to the game store and play Living Forgotten Realms with the RPGA." my ten year old son said suddenly from across the room.

"That's fine with me," I said as I worked on the map at my desk.

"I want to go play," he sighed, "I miss it."

"So do I. We had some good times there.  But you know I can't support the RPGA if they are going to allow those cards in the game."

"But I want to play D&D."

"We will be playing D&D.  Two of the guys from the old group are interested in playing Labyrinth Lord."

He perked up.  "They are?"

I chuckled.  "Yes, the are.  I've told you ten times already."

He looked as if it was the first time he had heard it.  "Oh."

"And you could play yourself, yanno.  You have friends around here.  You could DM a game."

He shrugged and grunted.

"And there is that map you drew and the character I made.  I do want to play with you."

The boy sighed.  "I don't know how to DM.  I'm too young."

I shook my head.  "You know, I was just a little older than you when I started to play  Less than a year older.  Practically your age.  I picked up the D&D book, read it, and started DMing without anyone teaching me how.  There was no one to teach me how.  There was just me and my friend Chris and neither of us knew anything."

"Really?"

I nodded.

"But it's a big book."

I nodded.  "Yes, it's pretty big.  But do you want to know a secret?"

"Yes," he said as if that was an extremely stupid question.

"Have you ever noticed how in fourth edition that everyone expects to follow the rules in the book?  Players even correct the DM and the DM nods and goes along with what the player said, or people will argue about a rule and someone will have to pull out one of those big hardcover books from their bags?  There are so many rules that it takes a whole table of people to try and remember them all."

He looked at me like I was telling him the sky was blue.

"Well, in classic D&D, the DM is the rule book."

He looked at me as if I was telling him that martians made all of the bubblegum in the world in a secret chicken coup in Mumbai.

"What?"

"The DM is the rulebook.  You have final say on the rules.  Not some book."

"Oh," he said, staring off into the aether.  Then he looked at me. "I'm the rule book?"

I nodded.  Deep in thought, he stood up and wandered off in a daze.

A few minutes later, he came back with a crooked smile and a bag of dice.  "Can I use your book and some paper?"

"Sure thing," I grabbed the Labyrinth Lord book and some paper and a clip board and pencil and handed it to him.  "What do you want the book for?"

"Prickly the hobbit will need retainers, right?"

I tried not to smile.  "Yes."

He sat down across the room and began flipping through pages.  "Would he like short people to adventure with him?  Like a dwarf?"

"Sure,"

He stopped at a page, put a sheet of paper on the book and began writing.  Then he started rolling dice and writing again.

"Just remember," I said.  "If the NPCs have all 18s, it makes the PCs feel kind of useless."

"Oh," he said, and began erasing.

I smiled and turned back to the map.


- Ark

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Feycutter

In my file rummaging I found another sea-faring related idea of mine that I had forgotten - the feycutter.  As my Sea of Tears campaign was 4e, it contained the requisite eladrin PCs and NPCs.  For those of you who don't know, an eladrin is like a super-elf, hailing from the Feywild, which is like the super-elf plane oozing with super-fairy dust.  Some eladrin lived in the 'real' world, and basically put their elven cousins to shame on how 'elfy' they were.

A feycutter is a ship of eladrin design, exquisite in form and durable in function.  The feycutter can travel up to 15% faster than a similarly classed ship.  This speed boost comes from having at least two masts - one normal, and one magically enhanced to catch the wind in another dimension - usually the Feywild.

As the feycutter's sails are pushed in two different directions, crew members must have extensive training on how to operate and maneuver these lithe vessels.  The fey-sail's immersion into the Feywild is variable, so the additional thrust can be carefully applied and much less tacking is necessary.

Also, since the feycutter uses 'more' wind than standard vessels, it can always outrun a standard vessel of similar class at a particular time.  Due to the difficulties inherent in construction, a feycutter will cost at least 300 times that of a similar, single-winded craft.

To translate the feycutter into more classical versions of D&D, one could say they were manufactured by elves and are their 'feysail' is actually tapping into the etheric wind.  Note that these are not spelljammer ships.  They float - they don't fly.

Feel free to use the feycutter in your own campaign.  They are particularly effecive when used by jerky, drunk elves who throw beer cans at the PCs, then sail away without any fear of being caught. :)

- Ark

 (Check out the rest of the Sea of Os'r Project over at the Lands of Ara.)

And a Star to Sail Her By

I ran a 4e campaign for almost two years called Sea of Tears.  The idea behind it was that an entire continent had sunk 100 years previously and there were only mountaintops above the waves.  Kind of like a D&D Waterworld, without Kevin Costner.  Ships and boats were very important, and the surviving halfling population, deprived of their forested lowland hills (or their natural habitat per 4e - rivers) had become the masters of the waves.

I found a folder cache of my stuff from the campaign.  I forgot that I had created ship layouts for use with miniatures.  Apparently I was pretty proud of them since I pdfed the thee pages of maps and scrawled name all over.  I submit them to you for your use in wherever a boat or small ship map would be appropriate.  What I did was to print out the maps and glue them to card-stock, then cut them out and had pirate attacks!  Follow the link here. Oh, and they look lousy in Google Docs, so after clicking the link, you'll need to click File and then click Download Original, and then open with that Adobe thingy.

- Ark

 (Check out the rest of the Sea of Os'r Project over at the Lands of Ara.)

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Living Forgotten Rant

No, this isn't about those cards.  Something has been festering in my gut.  It has to do with mandatory DMing.

I have no idea if mandatory DMing is an official RPGA policy, but it was practiced where I played.  I've seen mention of Living Forgotten Realms being run that way on other blogs, so I assume it's a common practice.  Other gaming groups attempting organized play probably use it too.

Now I have no problem with playing a game under a learning DM.  I have no problem playing with a horrible DM.  Once. (I always have the choice of who I play with.)  But the flip-side of mandatory DMing is mandatory NOT DMing.

You heard me.  Mandatory NOT DMing. 

How it works is this - I check out the games that are scheduled for play.  There is no game with an opening (there needs to be two openings for my son and I.) 

So I say "Hey - there are some other players who want to play, my son wants to play, I want to DM - lets' do this.'

And the organizers say, "No.  You have DMed this month.  You may only DM once every four weeks."

"But," I say, "No one is willing to step up.  No one wants to.  I would LOVE to DM.  Gimme a mod.  I will DM it.  Gimme the back of a cereal box.  I will DM that.  I want to play."

"Sorry," they say, "Someone else has to."

"But, if I don't DM, there will be no game.  I DM - there is a game.  I'm happy, people are happy.  Right?"

"Wrong.  If you DM, then someone else is shirking their responsibility of DMing.  They won't DM, they won't learn how to DM.  They'll just sit there and play and never give anything back to the community."

I then start chewing my leg off rather than explode in a volcano of cuss words that would flambe everyone within 50 miles.

So, because of the mandatory DMing policy, five to seven people don't get to play in the RPGA that day, even though they was space, they had enough players, they had a table, and they had a DM.

On an organizational level, I get it.  They need DMs.  If people don't try DMing, they don't learn and there will be no new DMs.

On a personal level - AAAAAAAAAA RRRRRRRRRR GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yanno, if it was just me - well, I'd say, those are the breaks.  But my son was getting kicked around by this policy.  That is very frustrating.

The only way to be sure to have a spot was to hover over the sign-up sight and wait for a DM and sign up the second a table was posted - whether I knew we had Saturday free or not.

I never could resolve the whole thing satisfactorily in my mind.  It makes sense on paper.  In my gut, it feels all sorts of messed up.  I just don't know.  Since I don't play in the RPGA anymore - it's not really an issue - so I suppose I should just let it go.

There - I got it out of my system.  Grumpy post done.  Now I hope I can have a slew of ungrumpy posts. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Map's Up


Okay, not the island one - the boy's map.  He finally finished tinkering with it and coloring it and the wonderful work of art is up on display here.  It's the land of Flornar in the year 1207.  Apaprently, EVIL is afoot.

For the first itme in 25 years, I've rolled up a character for an RPG that I seriously intend to play.  I'm quite tickled.   Prickly Buckthorn is a gentleman adventurer who owns no shoes, but is proud of that fact.  He's from the Misty Isle of Isniri where, evidently, people disappear in the mist and never return - or so says my son.  

Prickly is kind of concerned about the whole mist thing and has decided to leave his home island as soon as possible.  After all, giant alien bugs could be in the mist.  That would be bad.  But luckily the boy doesn't read Stephen King.

The boy appears to be trying to drum up some players over there on his page.  I might have to help him redirect that energy to the kids in the neighborhood. 

Does anyone know of some low level OSR adventurers that are relatively short and easily digestible by a ten year old boy - adventures his father could just print out and hand him without having to read and spoil the surprise. :)

- Ark

Monday, February 7, 2011

Surts' Isle

Actual photo of the real island.
Sea of O'sr Island Teaser

Surts' Isle is modeled off of the real life island Surtsey off the coast off Iceland, but with some D&D twists. 

The island is not hard to miss.  Smoke continuously bellows from it, visible for miles around in the northern seas.  Merchants avoid the island as much as possible as flaming boulders have been known to fall from the sky nearby.  Pirates, dwarves, and mighty wizards have set sail to Surt's island on purpose.  Few have returned.

Fifty years ago, a cook on a trading vessel reported seeing a tremendous battle in the sky.  An Eftreeti and Djinn, each the size of a mountain, fought tooth and nail in the clouds.  Suddenly, the Djinn grabbed the flaming entity and cast him down into the ocean with such force that only molten rock rebounded from the ocean floor and solidified into a small island.  The cook was the sole survivor of the following tsunami.

Over the decades, the smoldering island has cooled and solidified.  The cook's stories have circulated far and wide, sending many to Surts' Island to seek fortunes.  Returning explorers have spread rumors of new magical alloys, huge rubies the size of watermelons, and the still beating heart of a dead Efreeti deep within a bubbling volcanic cauldron. 

Who would be crazy enough to go there on purpose?

Oh yeah - this is D&D.

- Ark

 (Check out the rest of the Sea of Os'r Project over at the Lands of Ara.)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Thanks

It's been quite a month since I decided to get serious about this blog.  Really, I had no idea where what I was doing, and where I was heading. 

I stumbled into the OSR blogosphere when, back in March or so of 2010, WotC posted about about a D&D show over at The Escapist called I Hit It With My Axe.  I loved the show and the fun group of players.  Especially Frankie.  Luckily the guy who ran the show also had a blog. 

Zak's writing on Playing D&D With Porn Stars was never boring and quite insightful.  The titalation factor of the show and blog was just a veneer hiding actual substance.  Imagine that.  And over at the margins, he linked to other gaming blogs. 

Jeff's Gameblog  was always great, and Alexis's mapping work over at The Tao of D&D spurred me to print out some hex paper and start drawing maps again in that time honored fashion.  There were others.  Inspired, I started up this blog.

The big problem was that they were all doing something that I was not - playing some form of earlier D&D.  I was plugging away with 4e.  I had a good group and a good campaign going - but I've never been in love with the system.  Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons is good for what it does - creating exciting and dynamic battles.  But in 30 years of gaming, it's never been the battles I remember.  It is the character interactions.  It is the role-playing.  It is the descriptive voices and the furrowed brows at having to make tough decisions. 

A complicated game of chess didn't inspire me to write a blog at all.  I kept on reading the OSR blogs though.  It never made sense to me why I kept on reading about a game that I didn't play and had no interest in playing.

Early January saw me taking out the old musty AD&D books.  I didn't like handling them.  Something about the dust on them made my fingers itch.  But I just wanted to take a peek.  I started reading about alignment languages in the Player's Handbook.  It got me thinking and having no one to talk to about it, I just kind of wrote myself a note and published it on the blog. 

Strangely enough, a guy named Jayson answered, and we had a little exchange.

My brain exploded.

I WANTED TO PLAY REAL D&D AGAIN.

I've thought about D&D every day since - and have written about it too.  Over the years, I've had countless web sites and blogs.  No subject I'd write about would hold my interest for very long.  And certainly, no one bothered to read them at all.

Now I find myself with the inability to keep quite about a subject - and I'm attached to a community of people who actually will take the time to listen to what I say.  It's a bit overwhelming.  I was in West Texas in my AD&D years.  Only a handful of us knew anything about D&D - and we had to be quiet about it.  Satan was in those dice, you know.

People's responses have been very encouraging. I even got an award from Tim at Gothridge Manor. Talk about an ego boost.

Now it feels like I've been blogging about OSR forever - in a good way.  I'm excited.  I get to introduce my son the the game I enjoyed so much as a kid - and not just a modern glossy version with no soul.  People seem to enjoy hearing about his ride, too.

My mind reals with possibilities.  There is a tiny anime and comic convention coming to our public library next weekend - with some kind of big names there.  I'm thinking of crashing the gates with Labyrinth Lord.  All conventions need RPGs, right?  And there is that Islet Project that  Paul at Quickly, Quietly, Carefully made me get interested in.  Forced me.  At gun point.  I need more hex paper.  Not to mention my own campaign that I'm working on.  I'm getting quite busy.

So you of the OSR blogging community, and you readers too, thanks for helping my find my roots again.  I really feel like I have come back home.

- Ark