My Perception vs. Player Perception

In our last session the party climbed into a hole in a cloud. At the bottom - deep inside the cloud - they found a small river leading to a dark lake, the extent of which they could not make out in the dim light. Gemma the dwarf and Dvin the gnome eased out to the end of a rickety boardwalk extending out over the water. Just below the surface of the water, at the edge of the light, bones were emerging from the water. They clicked and they clacked and the water bubbled, and the bones self-assembled into a bridge extending from the darkness towards the party. Fingerous phalanges eventually wiggled out of the water near the adventurers, as the terminus of the bridge pulled itself up onto the boardwalk. At the edge of the light, ghouls with scabbed, cracked faces shambled across the bridge towards the party, and animated skeletons emerged, self-assembling, from the body of the bridge itself. A tough fight! The party won! The adventurers then walked across the skeletal bridge to a small island, where they found a prize in the ghoul refuse: a small golden orb bearing microscopic engravings - a map of an unknown world.

...so the whole session was basically a single encounter. I thought it was a good, fun encounter and I had a blast as the DM. I felt a little disappointed afterwards, however, because there wasn't much in the way of exploration, narrative advancement, or NPC interaction in the game. I try to have every session present a good splash of each of these elements because it's the kind of stuff I like when I play. Also, there was a lot more chit-chat than usual that night (which is cool, the players are friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a while), music was playing the background, and there were plenty of miniatures and gratuitous Dwarven Forge settings - all in violation of immersion dogma! I had fun, but I wasn't sure how "well" I did as a DM...

Within the fews days after the session, however, three of the players separately mentioned to me how much they liked the session - especially the skeleton bridge. Ok, cool!

Dear Princess Celestia: Although this truth should always be self evident, it's important for me to always remember that sometimes it's okay to have a simple night of beer, metal, monster killing, and treasure fondling. As a Dungeon Master I shouldn't fret too much about packing every single session with mapping, dialogue, and weird characters. The simple, perennial pleasures of death dealing and leveling-up will never disappoint anyone who plays the game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Session 7 ghoul smashing music:

ACKS Minimal Edition for OD&D Fans

If I were going to start a new campaign I would almost certainly go with the Adventurer Conqueror King System for a ruleset. For me this game hits closer to the sweet spot between crunch, flexibility, and user friendliness than perhaps any of the other retro D&D-inspired systems out there. I was aware of ACKS when I started my current campaign, but decided not to adopt it because the core rulebook is still a bit too long and fluffy for my tastes. It contains a lot of material that is of extremely high quality, but is largely extraneous for my own campaign.

Damn. If I had only known about THIS:

The ACKS Character Codex. This book is a beautiful thing. It is the core of ACKS system condensed into a small digest-sized booklet. It's essentially a Men & Magic or Player's Handbook for ACKS. And it's only $4.45 on Lulu! (This isn't an advertisement, by the way - I have no connection to the creators of this item.) This means if a referee wants to adopt the system, they could afford to buy a stack of copies to hand out to players. The referee could then use the more voluminous core book as a reference.

This book looks great. Here you can see it compared to the Grey Co. Spellbook supplement and the original Men & Magic:

Here's the title page:

Tavis Allison tipped me off on this thing. Apparently the Codex is not considered an official Autarch publication, however Tavis tells me that an official version of the Codex is on Autarch's lengthy to-do list. Let Autarch know if you want more stuff like this. I do!

Brief Log of Catheign Sessions

Friday night was Session 7 of our Cloud Mines of Catheign OD&D game. Below is a brief log of sessions, localities, and loot for the campaign, primarily for the benefit of those involved in the game. Hopefully I'll get to post some better descriptions and illustrations related to the game, but unfortunately it's been hard for me to find much time for blogging these days...

Primary PCs:

Bas – human thief (played by Reese of Kingdom's in Trevail)

Dvinsfeldfar – gnome MU

Broom - human cleric (played by Nathan of Secrets of the Shadowend)

Gemma - fighting dwarf

Kale - fighting man

Occasional PCs (currently residing at Inn in Tilman’s Grove):

Skuldge - human MU (played by Greg of Gorgonmilk)

Rufus – Fighting ½ giant

PCs gone or dead:

Sillus – fighting lizard man of Peis

Nix – cleric, left Catheign

Flurd – MU, left Catheign

Hu – fighting man, RIP

Session 1

            Arrival at Tilman’s Grove, Catheign

            Triangulation of cloud mine, initial foray up to first level

            Janis and Filby hired to join party

            RIP Hu and Filby

            Items recovered:

                        Goggles of Seeing Through Dense Mist

                        Some minimal goblin coinage

Session 2

Meia and Janis join party

            Thorough exploration of first level of cloud mine

            Goblin fights

            Ghoul falls from sky onto roof of first level

            Items recovered:

                        6 gold ingots

                        Scroll: ESP

                        Mic. Jewelry worn my vain goblins

                        Silver dagger with ancient script

Session 3

            Discovery and initial exploration of High Star Garden

            Zymos moondial, Gadeaxe stardial, Orchid of the cloud fountain

            Confrontation with ghouls seeking Dvin’s snuffbox

            Borgus the goblin, and his basket of black mushrooms

            Items recovered:

                        4 gold bracelets

Session 4

            Initial exploration of Low Pyramid of High Star Garden

            Room of animated mosaics

            Gol stonecutter Frammus

            Battle with Mielle’s Guard

            Death of Meia

            Items recovered:

                        Unidentified fungus

                        2 ancient, inscribed short swords

                        gold bracelet

                        90 gp

                        ring of feather fall

                        MU scroll: magic missle, invisibility

                        Dagger (unremarkable)

                        Meia’s Gem

                       

Session 5

            Exploration of low pyramid

Note from Mielle and encounter with Mielle’s projection

            (stopped session in burnt library)

            Items recovered:

                        Small silver effigy of fine workmanship

                        124 platinum pieces

Session 6

            Continued exploration of low pyramid         

Chased Mielle to shanties as base of observatory tower

            Crash of wasp-covered wooden orb into the star garden

            Discovery of excavation at base of observatory tower and undercloud river

    

Session 7

            Spiked down excavation wall to undercloud river

            Encounter with self assembling skeletal bridge

Ghoul encounter

            Broom paralyzed by ghoul, almost drowns

            Small island with old statue

            Items recovered:

Finely engraved orb map of unknown planet

Crit: Roll Double or Double Roll

I tried this out last night, and players seemed to like it a lot:

On a natural 20 a player must make a quick decision before rolling damage:
1. Double the result of the roll, or
2. Roll double damage dice

The player is choosing between a flat distribution and a bell curve. This has very real strategic implications, and there are definitely situations where one would be preferred over the other. This is a nice little way to introduce some abstract strategy without bogging things down.

What I Want in a D&D / Clone Rule Set

Tomorrow night I'll be running my first session of D&D since moving to NY. Six players have RSVPed - a mix of friends, internet acquaintances, and listserv respondees. It will be an interesting mix of newbs and experienced players.

I've been struggling for some time with what ruleset to use. Hands down, my personal favorite flavor is original D&D. It's easy to learn, play, run, and customize. It also has an undeniably attractive weird mojo. Materially, the game itself is like an artifact from another world. OD&D is part utility, part enigma, part oral tradition. AD&D has similar characteristics, but it's impractically heavy for me. Right now I'm facing the prospect of refereeing mainstream gamers who may come to the table with certain expectations and may want to peruse rulebooks between sessions. So I'm thinking OD&D may be pretty much out, because the books themselves may be too confusing for normal players, and, most importantly, they're difficult to get copies of.


So maybe it's retro-clone time. Here are some of the features I would want, and why:

Separate race and class
This makes homebrewing easier because you don't have to reinvent both race and class to do something new. I also like the bizarre non-canonical combinations some players pick, but that I probably wouldn't consider myself.

Ascending AC
In my experience, this is simply easier to play at the table. After much thought and experimentation, I can't think of any compelling reason to stick with descending AC once the decision is made to stray from primary gygaxoarnesonian sources.

Concise and separate player's handbook
Separating player and referee material into separate books is ideal. I want monsters, spells, and magic items to all be new and mysterious - I don't want to encourage players to meta-game off of this type of referee material. Physically, a simple digest-sized player's reference < 24 pages is just plain practical. Character generation, advancement tables, and the basic rules of play. That's all. This is one of the things I love abut OD&D and AD&D - self contained player's handbooks.

Streamlined encumbrance system 
...like Delta's stones. This is simply better and more playable, and doesn't detract from OD&D mojo in my opinion.

Free or cheap
Obvious... I can point prospective players to a website so they can download the rules.

Parsimonius ability modifiers
Over time I've developed a severe, and probably irrational, allergy to extreme ability modifiers. Anything more than +1 annoys me. Conversely, negative modifiers annoy players. I love OD&D because it really holds back on modifiers, and makes any + something special. After experimenting with various approaches, I've found this stingy approach to modifiers makes for a more intense and fun game. Players quickly get jaded to piling up + modifiers. And for players it just sucks to have to always take -1 or -2 off your rolls if you have a low Str or Dex score. OD&D is king of modifier parsimony.

Digest size books
Just an aesthetic preference, I guess. It can't be denied, however, that small books are more practical.

No specific setting, but definite flavor
Another aesthetic preference. Early TSR editions are a perfect model.


Lacking any one or two of these wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, but it would be nice to have all these features in one place. The best option, in my opinion, would be to make customized player handbooks for each campaign world. LIKE THIS. I'm working on this for my Myceaxe setting, but it's not quite ready yet.

So what to do for tomorrow night? I emailed the players to recommend downloading S&W Whitebox, but this still lacks many of the above features. Additionally, I have been extremely frustrated with S&W in general because of the constant rule changes between printings. I bought some of the physical books a while back, but the most recent printings have lots of little rule changes (in the wrong direction) that make them incompatible with my physical books. It's driving me crazy, and has lessened my interested in S&W, even though I think it's basically a great game.

Instead of blogging right now I should be working on my Myceaxe PHB.

Is WotC Afraid of B/X?

Amazing. All of the major editions of Dungeons & Dragons are now back in print, or will be shortly. Actual, real, material print. Yes, books:

Original D&D

AD&D

AD&D Second Edition

D&D 3.5

D&D 4

Except one... Notice anything missing? How about the best selling (by far), and many would argue the best, version of D&D ever printed: The 1981 Basic / Expert sets. B/X - only the most popular RPG of all time. A game that sold millions of copies and changed the entire culture of gaming by bringing to a massive popular audience concepts like hit points, levels, character classes, etc. B/X is far and away the most played RPG ever.

It is true that B/X is now available for purchase as a PDF download. And the interesting thing is that it has been the hottest seller at RPG Now for weeks. Obviously there continues to be a hunger for this game.

So why doesn't WotC do a "Premium" print run of B/X for the types of nostalgic geezers that snapped up the AD&D reprints? If WotC wants to move books, surely a B/X reprint would be a no brainer, right? I mean, why in the world would they reprint OD&D before B/X? It doesn't make sense.

Well, there are two possible explanations that immediately come to mind. The more benign one is that WotC wants to do a B/X re-release right, and they are simply taking their time to design a great product.

The second explanation is that WotC is afraid B/X is too good and it will take market share from the 5e Basic Set (and, by extension, 5e Advanced). There are millions of us with B/X backgrounds that could easily jump right into this beautiful game. The two little books - B and X - are all you need for years of gaming. This game is so easy to understand. So well written. For the same reason that Labyrinth Lord is the most popular retroclone, I suspect that new and returning players would be much more attracted to B/X versus OD&D, AD&D, or 2e. And for 3.5 they would just go with Pathfinder.

WotC probably should be afraid of B/X and probably should not print it. And, despite the fact that I desperately love the old 1981 boxed sets, I actually would not be upset if WotC left B/X sitting simply as PDFs. Assuming 5e Basic will essentially be like B/X, but with a few updates like ascending AC and revised encumbrance, I would want it to succeed and to serve as a bridge between younger and older players. B/X is such a powerfully great game, a reprint might only contribute to the edition-driven fracturing between generations.

5e: Returning to a Basic / Advanced Model? Awesome!

A few days ago Mike Mearls made a fairly exciting post on the D&D Next website. In it he expands on some earlier discussions outlining plans to craft a two-tier system for D&D Next, where there would be a completely stand-alone basic core set that could then be expanded to make a crunchier 3.5/Pathfinder like game if players so desired.

Mearls description of the core set makes it sound like it would be squarely aimed at OSR-types, new gamers, and returning gamers. His vision essentially describes as a virtual re-release of the 1981 Basic/Expert set combo. I am stoked! This model would be something that would differentiate 5e from Pathfinder while also leveraging D&D's pop cultural visibility to attract new players into roleplaying. I like it and I hope it happens.

Mearls' post is also kind of amazing because it reads like he is making a point-by-point response to my previous musings on the last D&D Next playtest packet, right down to paring down combat options and citing Settlers of Catan as a model for maximum rules complexity. Hmmm....

I just want to express how excited I am by what is being expressed. I am hoping to see a playtest packet of the new Basic Set soon!

D&D Next and the Ultimate Criterion of a Good Game

For me to adopt a roleplaying ruleset it must meet my ultimate criterion: non-gamers can jump into a game quickly and not have to spend time between games reading rulebooks.

Why? Practical experience. Many of the most enjoyable, creative, and engaging players I've had in sessions are not gamers per se. They are people who would likely never think of buying or reading a roleplaying rulebook, even in the depths of a regular campaign. I've found that a player's previous experience playing RPGs is a fairly weak predictor of how fun he or she will be at the table. Behaviors that are much better predictors of player quality might better include... say... daydreaming, frequent laughing, weeping in the cinema, doodling in margins, appreciation of telescopes, the ability to identify mushroom genera, playing fiddle, or staring at clouds.

Thus, the rub is that rulesy games risk precluding great players.

I'm a gamer and I have no problem with rules. In fact I pride myself for my ability to absorb and teach rulesy boardgames very quickly. But take my friend the biogeochemist, take my friend the puppet maker, take my friend the insect taxonomist, or take my friend the thirty-something lapsed gamer. There's no way these people are going to sit down with me to play the current flavor of Dungeons and Dragons, even though it's an amazingly cool game for what it is. But, hell, I want them to come over to my place, enjoy a stout, and pretend to be elves.

One of the wonderful things about the original D&D boxed sets and their retroclones is that they meet my ultimate criterion perfectly. In 15 minutes I can have a non-gamer cheering, talking in a funny voice, or trying to communicate with a goblin in sign language. This is remarkable if you think about it.

After the original announcement my hope was that D&D Next would fit my criterion. It would be a simple, intuitive set of core rules with the complexity level of Monopoly or Settlers of Catan, yet, because it's called "Dungeons & Dragons", it would still sport name recognition and commercial reach such that there would be significant interest in mainstream gaming circles and no dearth of would-be adopters.

My reading of the first D&D Next playtest packet made it seem like this could quite possibly happen. With sadness, however, I just browsed the newest playtest packet released Dec. 17. It's now crystal clear this isn't going to happen.

D&D Next is becoming too too too complex. Like the edition(s) before it, it's a game targeted at gamers. There are too many pages presenting lists of formalized special powers with capitalized names. There are too many categories of these abilities, specializations, and so on. There are too many formal actions a character is permitted to make in combat. Simply, if a session were to go smoothly a player would have to know a lot of rules before coming to the table. Players couldn't simply describe in plain English what they would want to do - they would have to present a list of capitalized code words that would permit reference to highly specific formulas in the text. There is just no way I could have a quick session of this game with my non-hardcore gamer friends or family. For a session to work, all players would have to have read the rules in some detail beforehand and would constantly be consulting books during play. This is antithetical to the fast-moving, intuitive style of roleplaying I prefer.

Having just moved to a new town I was toying with the idea that eventually I could get a group together where we could start by playtesting D&D Next, then ease into the final published version. Not now. Too bad, really.

Oranj / Birthplace of the Ice Elementals

Northern Finland

I've been trying to squeeze in some D&D before the move north. I have three unreported sessions in our whitebox campaign I'm hoping to make write-ups of in the near future - primarily for the sake of the players.

Because of my upcoming move it's likely that last week's session will be the finale for this campaign. The party ultimately found an astrographer in a stalled underworld rent-ship who was able to draw a map to the Dendriton tube. They also found a flying box allowing them to traverse Wiggin's Rent without the costly aid of micro dragons.

I've been using a new character class - Syndaens - which are "modular" fungus / humanoid hybrids that I've been using as NPCs for quite some time. Players can absorb mycelial hyphae into their characters to gain new abilities, and possibly lose old ones. I was frankly inspired by the different regional humanoids in A Voyage to Arcturus which were able to modulate head growths on the protagonist as he traveled from land to land.

Thinking about new settings and scenarios... Inspired by the move to upstate NY I'd like to realize an adventure in the ice. Snow trolls, wayward ice elementals, unsetting suns, icebergs floating in the sea and in the sky, canopies of fleshy ice plants, underground moss gardens, ice breathing potions. What does it feel like for an ice elemental to melt? I heard that in one region near Smithon's Boundary free-living ice elementals have an irresistible desire to feed on warmth. They hunger to dissolve into steam, to transform into gas and to float on the wind.

The Greatest Dicebag in the World

One of the greatest x-mas gifts of my life. Look what my wife knitted up!

No ambiguity about who owns these dice. I am he, and he is me. BOB!

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

My heavy rollahs...

She spins like Lolth. Lovely work, yes?

Official Dungeons and Dragons Frisbee by TSR (c. 1984)

Back in 1984 one of the advantages of upgrading to "Advanced" Dungeons and Dragons was the expanded range of missile weapons...

Criswell: WotC to Reprint 2e

The Amazing Criswell says: I predict that in the year 2013 fans of Dungeons & Dragons will take an incredible journey back in time! Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition will rise from the dead! However you MAY BE SURPRISED because this well-loved modular zombie may GO BY ANOTHER NAME! In my mind's eye I see THE NUMBER FIVE!

Rejoice, friends, because in this not-so-distant future I see gamers around the world joining hands as they march through the GATES OF FUN led by their RESURRECTED LORD! I see..

There will be "an underlying foundation or core game, which is D&D distilled to its essence"!

"If you like a tactical game with lots of maps, miniatures, attacks of opportunity and the like, you can use modules to have that game"!

You can "build your own castle"!

"have followers"!

"mix with royalty"!

You can have "extensive skills and ways to customize your character"!

You can have a game that is "tactical"!

...or "epic / high-level"!

Yes, friends, the future will soon be the past!


[Criswell thanks E. Foley, Monte Cook, Mike Mearls, and Jeremy Crawford for their help (in quotes) visualizing these future events!]

Paizo Spanks Hasbro: Pathfinder Continues to Outsell D&D

There is no question or ambiguity. Pathfinder is now consistently outselling Dungeons and Dragons. ICv2 just releaed RPG sales ranks for Summer 2011:

Top 5 Roleplaying Games – Summer 2011
	Title	Publisher
1	Pathfinder	Paizo Publishing
2	Dungeons & Dragons	Wizards of the Coast
3	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Fantasy Flight Games
4	Dragon Age	Green Ronin Publishing
5	Shadowrun	Catalyst Game Labs

This follows on the heels of identical results from the previous quarter:

Top 5 Roleplaying Games – Q2 2011
	Title	Publisher
1	Pathfinder	Paizo Publishing
2	Dungeons & Dragons	Wizards of the Coast
3	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Fantasy Flight Games
4	Dragon Age	Green Ronin Publishing
5	Shadowrun	Catalyst Game Labs

Rients, Maliszewski, and Early OSR Blogging

As is probably the case for a lot of you out there, Jeff's Gameblog and Grognardia are the first blogs I ever read that focused on old school D&D. I still love both of these blogs - they just keep going and going and going and are filled with a lot of great content. They are also supposedly two of the oldest gameblogs on the block and I don't think anyone would argue the fact that they've played an important role in shaping our collective view of the Old School Renaissance.

To better understand the origin of OSR blogging a while back I did some archive snooping to see how Jeff Rients and James Maliszewski (of Jeff's Gameblog and Grognardia, respectively) originally got into writing about old school gaming.

It turns out that Grognardia grew out of a LiveJournal blog called "The Schizonomicon: Musings of a Sleep Deprived Dad". Maliszewski started writing this blog in 2002 and it was initially filled with posts about very personal non-gaming issues. Starting around 2006 a significant amount of gaming content started popping up but it was almost all about modern RPGs and/or Maliszewski's creative projects (e.g. Thousand Suns).

It was January 10, 2008 when, as far as my skimming reveals, Maliszewski made his first post dedicated to Original D&D. It was two sentences long and titled "Things I Learned From OD&D". This post was rapidly followed by a succession of OD&D-related posts including the classic "Kill the Cleric":

"Lest anyone think my respect for gaming tradition prevents my being an iconoclast when warranted, I offer you this: D&D would be better off without the cleric.... If, as I contend, D&D is primarily a game of pulp fantasy and if you want, as I do, to see it return to its roots in a powerful way, there's really no choice. The cleric must go."

By March 2008 Maliszewski had started Grognardia to focus on OD&D-related material and The Schizonomican was shuttered by October. In sum, it appears that the seeds of Grognardia were planted in early 2008 and really only grew into a dedicated blog in mid-2008.

Now let's look at the origin of Jeff's Gameblog. Rients started blogging on February 25, 2004 on tripod.com. From day one his blog was called Jeff's Gameblog and was completely devoted to gaming. On his first day of blogging Rients is talking about 80s RPGs including D&D Expert Set, Call of Cthulhu, and Heroes Unlimited. As far as I can tell this is the first glimmer of retro-RPG consciousness in the blogosphere (please correct me if I'm wrong).

If there's anything I can discern about the evolution of Jeff's Gameblog over the last 7+ years it's that the early exclusive focus on games gradually expanded to include more general retro pop/geek-culture material, especially 1980s stuff.

So what does this all mean? Probably not much, but I do think Jeff Rients deserves a ton of credit for being one of the true founders of OSR blogging. Probably the first, in fact... by a long shot...

Sneak Peek: Erol Otus' Island Town

This summer I played in an AD&D game run by Erol Otus at the North Texas RPG Con. Erol has always been one of my favorite fantasy illustrators and the Fantasy Arts Enterprises gaming supplements he published in 1979 (Necronomican, Booty and the Beasts) are some of my favorite gaming materials ever. Period.

Well it turns out the Erol is an exceptionally great DM. As great as you would hope if you're a fan of his art style. Playing with him is like walking into one of his weirdest and most whimsical paintings. For me the experience was like being in gaming heaven, really. Erol even has a homemade screen covered with his art (that's Tavis Allison peeking over Erol's arm, by the way):

The eight-hour session we played in was a test run of Erol's new module Island Town. All players are descendents of a shipwrecked crew of humans, dwarves, and halflings living on an isolated island. You can play any of these races, or you can play a hybrid called a "Moojongi" and choose which body parts you want ascribe to which pedigree! We all started at Level 0 and began the game by harvesting Hazu bulbs in the lower levels of the islands. You see, young residents of the island have to prove their worthiness to ascend to the breeding chambers in the upper island by spending several seasons making fermented Hazu cakes. This manifests as a series of competitive semi-strategic dice rolling games between teams of players. The whole process was so beautifully and poetically described by Erol in terms of the ancient traditions of blade wielding, injecting, and cake rolling - it's hard to describe the creative genius of the whole thing.

Erol explains some nitty gritty: "Here on Island Town a "0" level gets but 2D6 per stat.  You will add 1D6 per stat for each significant encounter/achievement/discovery becoming 1st level after each stat reaches 3D6.  Normally citizens achieve a 1D6 addition to a stat. after the yearly Hazu Harvest thus becoming 1st level 6 years into the 10 year stint of harvesting duties. "

This is a great mechanic. As a reward for achieving various tasks (harvesting, etc.) the 0 level characters get to roll an extra 1d6 for the stat of their choice. Once each stat gets up to 3d6 you become Level 1.

A lot happened in the session. After the Hazu harvest we opted to go fishing, at which time we encountered a Vacucmber right out of Booty and the Beasts! We also interacted with some of the elders of Island Town, had a mysterious nighttime encounter with a Rubber Face - one of the original island inhabitants, and went on a quest for sea shells in the worm infested caverns beneath the island. This was one of the most creative roleplaying sessions I've ever played in.

Erol, being the super cool guy he is, handed out drafts of the Island Town module to each of the players after the game. He is planning on making a formal release of the module at NTRPGN Con in 2012. Be sure to get a copy when it's released! Here are a few teaser snapshots of my playtest copy:

A Perfect "Retroclone"?

Jimm Johnson, propietor of the Contemptible Cube of Quazar, passed along a copy of his home campaign D&D rulebook to me:

This thing is beautiful. It's exactly what I wish I had the time to do for my own game. It is a lovely single-booklet distillation of classic D&D. It has everything players need to know, all tailored specifically for Jimm's Planet Eris campaign setting. I wish I had the same thing to hand out to players in my own games. It's a perfect way to summarize core rules, house rules, and lay out new campaign-specific classes, spells, items, etc. It's also great if, like me, most of your players aren't gamers who own their own rulebooks.

Best of all, the cover doesn't beat around the bush. It's DUNGEONS & DRAGONS dude!

I love the idea of personalized "retroclones" at every table. We all make our own houserules no matter what edition or clone we play, so why use a retroclone that is simply a collection of some other DM's houserules? DIY like Jimm. Each gaming group could have its own perfect "retroclone".

The art in Jimm's book is fantastic. It is reminiscent of OD&D and just oozes fear, whimsey, and pure dungeon mojo. Yes, I love the OD&D art style - it looks exactly like something you'd see scrawled in an explorer's notebook. It's as far away from Final Fantasy and Easley as you can get while still being representational.

You can download a PDF of Jimm's rules HERE.

SoCal Minicon 4 - Photos and Recap

 DM Telecanter cackles as player misfortune manifests in a tower of Jenga blocks.

Ha ha! A great weekend! SoCal Minicon 4 was damn awesome. It was twice as big as last year and everyone I talked to said they had a blast and want to come back in 2012. We had a few people this year fly in from back east and the midwest, which amazes me.

The first game I played in, on Saturday morning, was Steve Perrin's SPQR game. SPQR = Steve Perrin's Quest Rules - it's essentially Steve's house version of Runequest. The table was full of great players. For the first ~45 minutes or so Steve explained the historical background of his imaginary continent with the aid of large and heart achingly lovely hand drawn maps. It was great. I love grand introductions to sessions when they're done right. The adventure was an overland journey to locate a wizard's tower and I played a naive, claustrophobic, agoraphobic farm lad on his first foray. I spent a few pleasing hours in the game, which included a battle against three manticores who were trying to eat the party's horses. Sadly I had to drop out of the game early and leave the minicon for the day because of a family matter. I hear the group made it to the tower before dinner time. Nice work!
 
On Sunday morning I played in Telecanter's fine fine Swords & Wizardry session. If you read his blog (and you should) you know he is prone to frequent strokes of creative genius. This tendency of his was well on display in the session. The set up was that the party members were all infected by The Red Plague while staying in an inn, and so were inclined to set off together to the Redoubt of the Red Wizards to find a cure. The Red Wizards were reputed to have created the plague perhaps ~100 years earlier, you see. A sticky bit was that the plague causes infected souls to become hypersensitive to stress and anxiety. So sensitive, in fact, that if a victim is pushed too much she will go berserk. The brilliant game mechanic for this fragile state of sanity was Jenga. Whenever violence or other major stress happened in the session a player would have to draw out a Jenga block. Clockwise around the table the draws went. Every melee round. Every curse uttered. Every gasp of frustration from a player. We all knew if the blocks fell the party would go insane and all would be lost. BRILLIANT FUN! We spent much of the session acting like a bunch of plague-ridden Marcel Marceaus in a freezing cold invisible dungeon being attacked by crawling bones, ticks, and hoodoo stranglers, so there was lots of Jenga action. Of course we got a firehose in the face of all kinds of other creative telecanterian strokes, some of which I recognized from his blog writing. Clerics drawing bones (dominoes) for prayers, apologizing assailants, weird homespun ensorcellments. Halfway through the game Mobad declared aloud that it was the weirdest dungeon he's ever played in. A beautiful game, great fun, a privilege to play. (We won, too!)

For the Sunday afternoon session I ran a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Because a couple of the players had previously played in my Orccon Asteroid Crypts of the Xylbocx Starcult game I decided to make this session a direct continuation of that adventure. I'm a bit conflicted about how much I want to talk about the content of the session. I might like to run it again for another group so I don't want to give too much away. The location the players explored was the CACODAEMON TRANSLUCENT PLANETOID. This thing is a great spherical cyst of a few miles in diameter bearing a giant luminescent cacodaemon embryo at its center, much like a small sun lighting a small hollow world. On the inside shell of the cyst were some localities settled by various interests for various reasons. The adventuring party eventually ended up spending much of the session exploring the Cacodaemon Cyst Yolk Mine where hobbit miners drain and condense embryonic blood of the cacaodaemon from the gelatinous white yolk. (The cacodaemon yolk forms a small mountain range on the inside shell of the cyst.) I was privileged to have a group a super fun players and I want to thank them all for playing in my game. I am flattered that Telecanter wrote up a short recap of the session HERE.

There were many other sessions besides the three I was involved in. Here are pictures to prove it! (Many of these pictures were taken by Chainsaw, as credited).

Chillaxin' between killing imaginary monsters and purloining imaginary gold pieces. (R-L): Shaman, Grodog, Anna. (Photo: Chainsaw)

T. Foster's game. (CW from L): jallison, Cimmerian, Wheggi, Bedivere, Anna, T. Foster, Shaman (standing), grodog. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Steve Perrin's game. (CW from bottom left): Deanna (blue shirt), Cyclopeatron, Steve, grodog, Marcus, Telecanter. (Photo: Chainsaw)

 Perrin's game: (L-R): grodog, Marcus, Telecanter, Cyclopeatron's nose. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Perrin's game.

Joseph Goodman running Dungeon Crawl Classics. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Grodog running Castle Greyhawk.

Telecanter's game: (CW from bottom left): socalcanuck, William, Telecanter, Marcus, St. Yossarian, Summerisle, Mobad (black hat).

Old School Hack at SoCal Minicon!

Just a few updates on this weekend's Minicon in Anaheim:

1. Nick had to drop his Saturday evening Stormbringer game due to work obligations.

2. Kirin Robinson is stepping in to run a Saturday night session of his Old School Hack game! This is a Red Box-inspired D&D retroclone that looks pretty awesome. Sign up now!

3. A seat has opened up in Steve Perrin's Saturday morning game.

4. A handful of seats are open for the Sunday games run by Grodog, Telecanter, and Bedivere.

If you want to RSVP for a game please email me through my blogger profile!

See you soon!

Southern California Minicon This Weekend! (UPDATES)

I'm getting pumped for the 4th Annual SoCal Minicon this weekend in Anaheim!

Click here to view the up-to-date SCHEDULE and PLAYER RSVPs.

Click HERE for various event details and directions.

UPDATE (July 27):

Nick can't make it due to work issues. Therefore:
(1) The Saturday Stormbringer game is cancelled.
(2)  A seat has opened in Steve Perrin's Saturday game

There are still a number of player slots open on Sunday July 31:

Allan Grohe (Grodog), an authority on the Greyhawk setting, is flying out from Kansas for the minicon. On Sunday morning he will be running an AD&D Greyhawk session. There is still one seat open for this game.

Telecanter is running a morning Swords & Wizardry session. There are still two seats available.

Greg (Bedivere) is running an afternoon AD&D game of his Puzzle Tower, for which four seats are still available.

EMAIL ME THROUGH MY PROFILE if you want to RSVP!

See you this weekend!