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I bet thinking about polyhedral dice monsters led to modrons. Clicky for more.

The 2nd Annual Three Castles Award

[Posted on behalf of Michael Badolato]

The 2nd Annual Three Castles Award is still accepting submissions through the end of the year (December 31st) for next year's award, to be given out at the 4th annual North Texas RPG Con. If you published a RPG adventure, setting, rulebook or sourcebook between October 1st 2010 and October 1st 2011 you are eligible. The focus of the award is on design, and last year's nominees (LoTFP Boxed Set, Stonehell Dungeon, Dungeon Alphabet, Majestic Wilderlands and B/X Companion) and initial winner (Michael Curtis' Dungeon Alphabet) exemplifies the type of excellence in small press products we want to publicize with the award. The NTRPG Con makes nothing off the award; on the contrary, we will NEVER break even considering the amount Doug paid for the absolutely beautiful statuette award given to the winner!

This is a designer award, not a publisher award, although the publisher is welcome to submit anything they wish for one of their authors. The only way this award will one day be able to boast an impressive run of quality winners is if the VERY BEST items are submitted every year, and that is up to the writers/designers themselves. So please, if you have neglected submitting your item so far, take the time to visit the site (ntrpgcon.com), go to the 3CastlesAward tab, fill out the required paperwork and send in three copies of your product for the initial selection process. Every year the judges are shuffled, and this year they are going to be Dennis Sustare, Rob Kuntz, Sandy Peterson, Dave "Zeb" Cook, and Steve Marsh....a group with an impressive list of skins on the wall in terms of products and ideas in the industry.

Share this with as many RPG designers as you can, and if you know of someone with an impressive RPG product release in the last year, encourage them to send in a submission for the award. Besides obviously promoting our convention, we really want to promote the industry and some of the great products out there that may be overlooked by gamers who only pay attention to the biggest companies releases each year.

Jeff Dee, Recreating His Lost TSR Art

Jeff Dee has kickstarter project to recreate all of his TSR art starting with Egyptian Mythos from Deities  & Demigods.

Kick ass!

I'm trying to contribute at the sweet "get all 13 signed prints" level of $200 but Amazon Payments is being troublesome.

Check out this original / recreation of Elric. Right side being sweet example of the new recreations Jeff Dee aims to make.

Surprise Suxors

DMing lately I've realized I don't like surprise... rules. They are (to lessor or greater extent depending on system) a confusing exception to combat sequence.  Esp in OSRIC!  Surprise has the same, bad "swingy" characteristics of criticals (unfun to be surprised, an anti-climatically "win" button to surprise).  Worst of all, asking for a surprise check eliminates any actual surprise!  [Don't generally wanna roll dice in secret for players.  A mechanic that requires me to, is a bad mechanic].

I'm not against surprise.   But, it doesn't have an effect on play often enough to deserve it's own specialized mechanic and it should not be a part of every combat.   Surprise should be uncommon and special.  Not, "ho-hum we rolled for surprise".  Instead, "Holy fuck where did that come from!"  Certain creatures that attack from ambush, should roll for surprise.  Or, just give them the initial attack automatically.

My just formulated rule of thumb; If ambusher is something like jaguar, piecer, mimic combat will start with their "free" attack.  Then roll for initiative.  If it's just some schmuck orcs with bows hiding in the woods I'll give them first initiative.  Which, I guess is a surprise rule.  So, I must alter my initial statement to "I don't like existing, complex surprise rules.  I like mine."  Which is really no surprise ;)

Still, describing how a stalagtite has fallen from ceiling, knocking down Sir Roderick and piercing his shoulder is much more fun/dramatic/tension building than annoucing "roll for surprise".

Publishers & Products

This is an Epic post of Publishers & Products, also where to get them online.  Epic amount of work, epic amount of usefulness, and shows breadth and depth of hobby's commercial side.

One snippet of post (System Equivalence)

Game Master Philosophy

Another from Roleplaying Tips Weekly Blog/Newsletter http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issues/txt/530.txt


What's your philosophy of running a tabletop game?

It varies by type of campaign.  Although after writing this out I seem to be converging ToEE towards style I preper.


OSRIC ToEE 

1. What sort of environment does your story take place in? Is everything random? Semi-random? Carefully planned?

World of Greyhawk before 2nd edition stupidness.  Magic is common but not a technology replacement.
Mostly player triggered semi-random consequences. There are some events that I roll randomly to see if one happens.  But mostly world reacts to players.  For instance they wiped most of Lareth's minons but went back to town before dealing with him.  Instead of sticking around for obviously powerful party to return, Lareth being 18INT/18WIS decided it was time for strategic retreat and moved into the Temple Proper.  Player inaction also triggers events.

2. Does your environment support the characters, challenge the characters, or both?
Challenge players.  There are many, many factions.  Some strictly for or against characters.  The rest will ignore, help, hinder party based on what that faction learns about what PC's are doing.  There is opportunity for much support, mostly ignored by players even when waving it infront of them.

3. Do character actions have a meaningful impact on the environment?
They could.

4. Does the environment have any laws that differ from the laws of our universe?
Of course, this is fantasy!  There is magic, gods & demons that exist, etc.  Things that may trip up players but their characters would know or rules issues (many new players), I warn them about.  For instance Paladin's detect evil ability requires vocal/somatic and thus is clearly visible and considered rude to do on people.

5. Are your characters regular joes or heroic types?
Above avg joes & semi heroic abilities (cause AD&D expects some level of munchkinism).  ToEE campaign is LG so "heros" in that sense.  But, death and failure are very possible.  There is no guaranteed happy or heroic ending.

6. Are the dice weighted in the characters' favor or is the universe unforgiving?
Worse than unforgiving.  If players rely on dice/mechanics over wit and strategy they will fail.

7. Should the characters trust the GM? If not, why not?
Not as NPC / Monster, obviously.
Yes for rules (although I make tons of mistakes etc.  Overall I strive to be fair.  Also, never penalize players for my mistake)
For rest,  in a way no and yes.  I challenge *players* (which is the yes part.  DM role is to challenge, otherwise might as well do collaborative storytelling or play computer RPG)  One way to challenge is subtly using psychology against them.   For instance if they know they are in a race to get through area.  I will give them every opportunity, temptation even, to dawdle.  Just by providing a word or two extra description on something will often lead players mistakingly believing that something to be vastly important and waste inordinate amount of effort on nothing.



Labyrinth Lord / OD&D mashup Gold & Glory

1. What sort of environment does your story take place in? Is everything random? Semi-random? Carefully planned?
Exploration based sandbox.  Crazy mashup of Science Fantasy, Steam, Post-Apocalypse, and anything else that catches my fancy.  The world is unknown (to characters) everything must be discovered.  There's tons of stuff placed on map ala JG Wilderlands or Carcosa (btw some of that in there also).  Many, many random tables for fleshing out, filling in blanks.

Despite that I consider it carefully planned, lots of (learnable) internal logic.

2. Does your environment support the characters, challenge the characters, or both?
Indifferent and Uncaring.  There are few if any self-less "good" NPCs/Monsters.  Everyone has their own goals and agenda, just like in real life.

3. Do character actions have a meaningful impact on the environment?
They could.  But, only if characters do something meaningful.

4. Does the environment have any laws that differ from the laws of our universe?
More so than most campaigns.  The Wilderness and Dungeons are "Mythic", they don't follow any rules.  Goblins don't have ecology, they are in this room to eat you!

5. Are your characters regular joes or heroic types?
Outcasts and "failures" of society.  If they had skills (say blacksmithing) or even ability to settle down make a farm & family.  They sure as hell would be doing that rather than risking death and worse poking around in dungeons.

6. Are the dice weighted in the characters' favor or is the universe unforgiving?
Random.  You lose control over your fate if you leave it up to dice.  It's almost always better to anything other than dice rolling. (better to trick dragon out of treasure than fight for it) No skills, descriptive adjudication.

7. Should the characters trust the GM? If not, why not?
They should (but probably don't) trust that I'm not out to kill them.  They shouldn't (but probably do) trust that I'm gonna only provide challenges they can handle, that I'll lead them along a path of success, that campaign world exists to provide them regular, safely acquired, parcels of treasure and experience.

Three Minute Magic Items

Roleplaying Tips Weekly newsltter/blog posted great article http://www.roleplayingtips.com/gm-techniques/how-to-create-great-magic-items-in-just-three-minutes/  Here are a few items I just created.  The best advice I can give is use a crazy random name generator (several are linked in above article).  At least for me it spurs the imagination and leads to things I wouldn't have come up with otherwise.


Bloodstained Maul

Appearance - Large, two-handed, iron shod oak maul. Wood is weathered, gouged, and bloodstained. Iron shows rust where it's not caked with blood.

Benefit - On critical hit or killing blow the target's blood seeps into wood and down shaft along now visible pulsating veins.  Invigorating wielder with healing or bonus hit points.

Drawback - Automatically contract any disease, lycanthropy, etc target had.

Lore - Prior to the Battle of the Mounds a lone Barbarian prayed for victory, his god responded with this maul.

Twist - Over time, develop insatiable thirst for blood.


Illuminated Medallion

Appearance - 4" circular gold medallion, inner recessed surface covered in intricate cloisonné

Benefit - 1/day after 1min concentration the cloisonné will alter to depict current view of known or nearby area e.g "other side of this door"

Drawback - There is 1 in 20 chance of user becoming trapped within cloisonne picture.

Lore - Created for Czarina Aneska who worried excessively over and wanted to keep eye on here many children.

Twist - When user becomes entrapped, previous victim is released.

Device of Lighting

Appearance - 2' dia copper/silver Tesla coil on 4' rosewood pedestal and stable iron base.  Thick, stiff 15' cable attaches pedestal with matching 2' rosewood box.  Attached to side of box is large hand crank.  On top of it is large metal contact blade switch.

Benefit - After one round of cranking electricity crackles around the coil.  After the second or any subsequent round of cranking the switch may be thrown releasing a Xd6 bolt of lighting where X is the square of the # rounds cranked. 2rnds 4d6, 3rnds 9d6, 6rnds 36d6.  Bolts may fork to multiple targets, e.g. a 9d6 bolt may fork to 4 targets doing 2d6, 2d6, 2d6, 3d6 to them.  Max range is unknown definitely further than the 15' cable.

Drawback - Big, clumsy.  Overloads, friendly fire, rain, water/damp ground.

Lore - Bennie Frankinbottom, the infamous Gnome tinker is blamed for inventing this device.  It is said to be the primary cause of Sultan Al-Dinsur's defeat at Bugbear Grove whose army was operating the device.

Twist - Those in full metal armor with helmets are insulated from damage (bolts pass harmlessly to ground)

South Texas Mini-Con August 20

[Ripped announcement this straight from Kutalik's Hill Canton's Blog.  I plan to be there maybe not at 9am!  Also, maybe run a game in the afternoon.]


The details are a little more firmed up for our August 20 day-long old school mini-con in New Braunfels, TX. The Con starts at 9am and runs to 8pm. Admission is free, free, free (donations welcome), just leave us a note here on the blog or drop me a line at kutalik at gmail dot com to save yourself a seat.


Site details can be found here. We are in breakout room 105 which is on the righthand side of the convention center.

Below is the tentative schedule. We are still willing to entertain proposals for one or two more games if you want to run a game. 

Morning: 9-12:15
• Starfleet Wars (Mack H.)
• open gaming

Afternoon: 12:45-4
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition  (Brad E.)
• When the Navy Walked  (Don M) 
• Red Sand Blue Sky (Ed/Two Hour Wargames)
• open gaming

Evening: 4:30-7:45
• Empire of the Petal Throne, Jakallan Underworld (Yours Truly)
• Surprise Special Guest Session
• open gaming

Modules I Want to Run Before I Roll my Last d20

Got the idea for this list from John Four of roleplayingtips.com

Limiting this to published D&Dish modules of the non- darksun/dragonlance/spelljammer/hollowworld/etc  variety.  In a not too particular order:

• B2 Caves of Chaos [done many times to great success]
• T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil [doing this right now, haven't got to the temple yet though]
• G1-3 Against the Giants [having looked over this (and decided to start T1-4 instead I'd rather do a Against the Giants flavored adventure(s) of my own creation.  It just seems a little too "archaic"/bad old school, I don't like Q1, and not supper excited bout D1-2 at least as follow on's to G1-3.  Drow bore me.]
  
• S3 [oh hell yes]
• Caverns of Thracia [old Judges Guild or new Necromancer's]
• Tengel Mannor [old Judges Guild]
• Hellpits of Nightfang [old Judges Guild]
• EX1 EX2 Dungeoland [these fascinated me when I first got them as a kid]
• UK2 Sentinel & UK3 Guantlet [ran parts of 1st one in larger campaign (players did not pick up glove and campaign went different direction)]
• I3-5 Desert Desolation [never looked at it, heard it was good]
• U1,U2,U3  [I did run sinister secret when young, vaguely want to do the series now that I actually know something about DMing]
• X1 Isle of Dread
• X2 Castle Amber
• JG1 Thieves of Fortress Badbbaskor [Goodman's]
• JG2 Citadel of Fire  [Goodman's]
• JG3 Dark Tower  [Goodman's]
• Ptolus [or Freeport, or Vornheim] some mega city.
• Stonehell Megadungeon
• Bottle City
• The Keep [Role Aides Fantasy vs Nazis!]
• City of Brass [I don't think any published ones can (or do) live up to what DMG cover made me imagine.  So I'll proly have to roll my own...]
• Gygax's Necropolis
• The "mega" dungeon from Fight On!  
• Anything from Gabor Lux's Fomalaut!  
• Butt loads of 1page dungeons

Special mention:  OA, Oriental Adventures some or all (haven't looked at more than a couple (mad monkey and haunted castle one)

I know almost nothing about the AD&D H, I, R, and parts of the UK series not mentioned above.  Nor about D&D B, X series beyond the B2 & X1 that came with my boxsets back in the day.  Any recommendations of must play modules from them?

Detroit - Great Postapocalyptic Inspiration

Modern Detroit is an abandoned, deteriorating wasteland.  Perfect inspiration for Mutant future.

Many more pics at http://detroiturbex.com/content/neighborhoods/bwhousing/bwhousing.html