About what happened last session

Illustration of a goblin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

* the thief lies dying on the ground after an attack, slowly bleeding out, the goblin cleric was just hit with a critical and lost his ear. What is the most reasonable thing to do? Heal the ear first of course! Stupid human weakling is  not as important as a good goblin ear.

* they have cornered the wererat and his minions who have taken over the dwarven cave and killed all it’s inhabitants. What do they do? Parley of course. So they get another job: bring us one of the bouncing bears from the surrounding forests because we are hungry.

The end result: the orcish warrior now has a nemesis in a purple gummi bear who swore to avenge his brother. And I just wanted this to be a bit of comic relief.

* I dropped a deck of many things on them, and what does the thief do? Draw five. How bad did it end for him? Well, he is more dexterous now, more experienced, and got a treasure map and a magic weapon. So the goblin cleric tries the same. He lost all his experience but gained a bit more wisdom.

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[Tools] Old School Tool

Now that is something nice I came across today when looking through the categories at Sourceforge (I was looking for a task managing tool that could sync with Google Tasks, I ended up in the Games section…): a Java based  GM screen tool for AD&D or OSRIC (although it can be adapted for 2e and 3e). Java-based means it will run pretty much on every system that has Java on it, and GM Screen tool means it is supposed to replace the usual paper one with some additional functionality.

Even better it is actually quite customizable, with all the tables in the program being changeable and extensible as far as I have seen. So if I wanted, for example, to use the whole thing for my campaign and I had specific armour for my campaign that was not in the OSRIC book, I could add it easily via the main window to have it accessible in the GM screen window during actual play.

That GM screen window is actually what this is about: the window can be used as a convenient GM screen that allows to look up stuff and calculate things on the fly. The combat and save tables can be found in there, as can the magic item tables, and the latter ones can generate treasures on the fly. Neat. I might think about using this during my next game.

What the whole program is not is a replacement for actual rules, or for a real campaign planner. This program is only there to help during the game. Considering that I already have been using my notebook as a DM screen I think this program might make the whole thing a bit easier.

Related articles

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• Counterbalance (barkingalien.blogspot.com)
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• New Revised OSRIC SRD – and it’s Free (of course) (tenkarstavern.com)

Poker Chip Ideas

English: Poker Chips (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bennies

The idea comes from Savage Worlds, a benny is a single token that can be exchanged at one point during the game for a certain effect. Every player (GM included) gains a certain amount of bennies per session. In my game I was thinking about giving it the ability to 1. soak damage for one attack 2. change 1 1 critically failed check into a normal failure 3. Reroll a check and keep the better. 4. Make a normal attack into a +1 attack (including counting it as magical/blessed) The GM has it’s own pool of Bennies and may use them for Monsters and NPCs, or award them to players for especially cool moments

Hit Points

I was thinking about using poker chips for these. Every player has an amount of chips in the size of his/her hp. When damage happens they lose those until they reach 0. Alternatively the GM hands out red chips for wounds. The kobold hits? Here’s three chips. This actually might work together. With the rules I have in place to soak damage (Shields shall be splintered! and maybe the Bennies from above) I might just assign the red chips, and if the character doesn’t soak the damage next round the amount of red chips gets taken from the hp chips.

Mana

The idea also would work with spell points or, if that ever happens in my games, power points. I guess it would be easy to keep track of those with chips. Of course I use straight Vancian magic, so most likely not.

Experience Points

Here’s an interesting idea: have the players assign the XP in the end. Just drop a load of chips with the right amount on the table and tell them they can divide the XP among themselves. This actually might be useful even during the game. Character does something freaking awesome? Have an xp chip.

[Labyrinth Lord] Chocobo

Chocobo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chocobo (Riding Bird)

No. Enc.: 1d4 (1d20+4)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 60’ (30’)
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 2 +4
Attacks: 1 (bite 1d8+2 or claw 1d6+2)
Damage: 1d4+2 or special
Save: TH4
Morale: 7
Hoard Class: None
Large birds looking like a cross of a giant chicken and an ostrich. With long necks and intelligent eyes they can be found in flocks in plains or isolated forests.
They can run quicker than any other bird, even when carrying an armored man.
On average 7 feet tall and about 400 pound heavy they often react to paladins’ call for mounts or Summon Nature’s Ally III
Black Riding Birds: rare variant that can be bred by selective breeding of other variations. They also have a fly speed of 90″

I have been playing Final Fantasy IX for the last two weeks or so. My mind might be affected negatively. On the other hand: this is not a first. There was an article on Chocobos in some old issue of Dragon Magazine.

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[Labyrinth Lord] Spellslot System

Spellslot System (aka The Even-more-Vancian-and-a-bit-Pratchettian System)

When Magic users gain experience they gain a better understanding for the workings of magic and wizardry. Their mind becomes more capable of holding more and more spells of smaller sizes, or spells of larger size.

Magic users basically can exchange the spells they have memorized in between levels in a ratio of 2:1, meaning two spells of a lower level are worth 1 spell of the next higher level, and the other way around. This can also be used over multiple spell levels.

Example: So, the sorceress Linda (2nd level) just found a scroll with a second level spell and dutifully copies it into her spellbook. The next day she and her companions are in an area in which this spell might come in handy, so she does not memorize her two first level spells, but one 2nd level one instead.

Spells are fickle beings, a sort of memetic daemon that exists only to fulfill it’s use and then disappears (which is why magic users have to relearn their spells every time they have cast them). They also are a bit jealous of other spells and want to be treated right. A magic user can only ever safely learn a single spell once a day (so only one of each kind of spell) and it might feel cramped if the magic user doesn’t have a slot for this kind of spell yet. If this is the case the magic user is in Overcast state, which is a bit like carrying around an unsecured weapon. If the spellcaster fails any save during this time or loses hitpoints 1d4 spells are released randomly. If the fail is critical then all the spells are randomly released. In this case the GM decides what exactly happens.

Example: Linda prepared a web spell that was over her limit. The she and her companions are surprised by a couple of crafty kobolds shooting darts at them. The wound was only small, but smarted like hell.

“Ouch!” says Linda and loses concentration. All of a sudden glibbery white mass is sprouting all around her and her companions and keeps them from moving. Now they can hear the hollering and whistling of the kobolds as they prepare another volley of darts, and there is no way to run from them…

Random Spell Release Table

1. all the spells just disappear in an explosion of shining light *poof*

2. all the spells hit the spellcaster and everybody around (both friends and enemies), random determination of who gets hit by what

3. half the spells hit everybody, the rest just disappears without any effect

4. the spells cause 1d6 imps to appear out of thin air. They will hang around for another 1d6 hours and play the most imaginative and dangerous pranks possible

5. the spells manifest themselves as magic daemons and linger around

6. The spells manifest themselves as magic daemones and wander off somewhere else

Spell

This small creature looks like a whirl of energy, somehow similar to the spell it technically is. It gets bigger with spell level and can be baited onto a piece of paper and pergament, creating a scroll, or captured in a jar. If it attacks it will just use the spell it is made of as an attack and disappear into nothing.

Related articles

• [Untimately] 2d6 Vancian Variant (untimately.blogspot.com)
• [Untimately] Theorems & Thaumaturgy (untimately.blogspot.com)
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• On 1st Level Magic Users (cirsova.wordpress.com)
• No Spell Scrolls for Clerics (zenopusarchives.blogspot.com)
• On Arcane Institutes (cirsova.wordpress.com)

My Frankenstein

I was not idle the last few weeks, I was just busy with other things and in places that didn’t have a good internet connection for blogging. Christmas, and work, and other stuff kept on interfering with that. I still worked on my own rules compendium. I renamed it from Gonzo to Frankenstein, because by now it feels less like improvised mayhem, and more like a carefully crafted body made out of parts of other bodies. It still looks weird.

At it’s core it still is OD&D (well, Labyrinth Lord), although the surrounding elements have changed. There is a certain mechanical orthodoxy that I like about the game, and I don’t want to change too much. I want this to be still recognizable as based on OD&D, that is why so far I tried to get around things like spell points or Ascending AC, both of which I find more natural and easier to handle. I did introduce Delta’s Target20 mechanism and a corresponding Fighting Ability score though, mostly because I find a single formula easier than looking up stuff in the tables. This, by the way, is also one of the reasons why no ascending AC so far: the Target20 mechanism uses descending AC beautifully. Also I would have to change ACs on all my monster statistics.
So far I have mostly added to the whole thing (classes, races, spells), purged a few things I did not like (alignments and a few spells connected with them), and then found a lot of optional rules that might come in handy once in a while. True, that does go against the idea of “Simplicity” and “Rulings instead of Rules”, but I try to keep them simple and mostly collect mini-games/subsystems for the sake of variety and ease of use.
That is what I am actually mostly going for: ease of use. Because I am the one editing this system, I slowly gain a good understanding of what different parts really do.

The chapter on combat gained a few more interesting bits, basic rules on how rule some specific combat situations, which all are just variations on a theme (it all boils down to “you get that bonus if you attack with that minus”). I know that this might keep people from really improvising in a battle, but they might show people what is possible.
It’s not like the whole thing is too long anyway. I cut down a lot of superflous stuff, made a few things easier to understand, and so on. The largest part of the whole thing right now is actually the endless lists of spells and psionic powers. I didn’t really want to cut too many of them  because I like variety. The amount of spells is a large part of the game in any case, and the characters don’t really need to read more than the ones they can actually use anyway.

I don’t want to allow players to gain more than a few whimsy spells from their guild, or whatever place they buy spells at. They will either have to research spells or find them on scrolls during the adventure. What sort of a wizards’ guild would just give out what amounts to spells of mass destruction to any PC just waltzing in anyway?

Anyway, so far the largest parts that changed are:

1. there now are 5 base classes that can be played by anyone without requirement and the psion is one of them, all other classes need requirements and/or special DM allowance

2. combat has become easier and has more options, the tables were replaced with a unified system which did not actually change anything mechanically

3. race-as-class now are called paragon classes (yeah, I stole that from 3.5) and cannot advance higher than a specific point, this doesn’t matter too much as multi- and dualclassing is available for all characters. Race/Class combinations are the normal way. I just noticed that my players all had played Baldur’s Gate before and had brought some ideas from there.

4. I reinstated the typical AD&D spell names

Still working on the whole thing. We finally might manage to play again next Saturday, so there it might get tested.

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[Tools] Tavern Soundset for Syrinscape

Medieval Tavern

Remember when I wrote about Syrinscape last week? It’s a soundscape program for RPGs that allows to create background noises for your RPG sessions. It already comes with a nice amount of different soundscapes that can be used for different uses, but at least one was a blatant omission: there was no soundset for a tavern or inn. The place where the whole adventure starts in, or at least stops by at one point or another.

But do not fret, I was sick the last week and spent a lot of time playing around with my computer. So here it is: the Tavern soundset.

Download (zip) 42mb (downloads from Dropbox)

Some notes about it:

1. To use it in Syrinscape it has to be unpacked  into the Syrinscape folder. After that it can be chosen as normal from inside the program

2. I originally created this with the Tavern music from Dungeons and Dragons Online in the background. Of course I can’t put that one on here for copyright reasons. If you want to use it then just download the DDO tavern music into the folder, maybe convert it to .ogg, and rename it so the additional files start with “e4″. The program then uses them in the music channel.

3. the soundset does use sounds found on freesound.org and CC-licensed music found on Jamendo.com (specifically from Fatzwerk, ENoz, and The Racoons, check them out!)

Where do all these undead come from?

mausoleum (Photo credit: andrewpaulcarr)

One of the ideas I just was having while thinking about the Wilderlands and their inherent danger was the amount of Undead one might encounter.  Where do all these come from anyway? There is not really a necromancer around everywhere, is there?

No, there isn’t. But what we have is ruins and lost villages, thorps that never had a chance, and the remains from battles long forgotten who never received a proper burial. And even if the dead received a proper burial their people might be gone now, and nobody would take care of their graves anymore.

In a lot of cases it might be that burial rites in a fantasy culture are not so much about giving people some closure about the loss of a loved one, but also to prevent their loved one to come back wrong. If graveyards and other burial places are not taken care of, if the spirits are not satisfied with the care they are given, they might just decide to come back. Alternatively if the empty bodies of the dead are not protected by reverence over time it might be that other, malicious spirits slip in and decide to use the body to fulfill their cravings  and desires.

d10 Why is that Undead around Table

1. Necromancer
2. The stars are right
3. Desecration, intentional
4. Desecration, unintentional
5. The lonely dead
6. Bodyjacker
7. Hell is full
8. Ancient battlefield
9. Wandered off
10. Escaped Slave

Explanations
Necromancer: he/she is training the art of necromancy, local authorities might offer a small amount to catch the graverobber
The stars are right… well, right enough for some dead to come back at least. The rest of the apocalypse might wait a bit longer, but for tonight the characters might meet 2d6 other undead of the same type around
Desecration, intentional: someone desecrated the gravesite, intentionally. Of course they might not have thought that their actions would make the dead walk again, but who would have thought? The gravesite needs a small ritual or cleansing performed to keep the dead from walking. A cleric might know what to do here.
Desecration, unintentional: someone desecrated the gravesite, unintentionally. “What do you mean our inn is build on an ancient Elvish graveyard?”. Technically a ritual would be needed here as well, but finding out what ritual that might be can be an adventure on it’s own. Turns out the tribe that lived here emigrated to the other side of the country, last century or so…
The lonely dead: nobody took care about the right rites for too long, now the dead feel lonely. So they come out of their graves to see their relatives. And then scold them for being so negligent in their duties. This might be solved by holding some simple rites to appease the dead.
Bodyjacker: these bodies were just lying around without an owner, so something (bad spirits, demons, etc.) decided to use them. Now they either need to be exorcised, or the bodies need to be made unusable
Hell is full, the dead walk the Earth. Oh, well… tonight town is full of them, for no reason at all it seems. But pretty much every more or less decent body (and some of the worse off) are on the street. 1d100 zombies and skeletons
Old battlefield: hundreds of warriors fell here, and nobody had time to bury them all. Now that just pisses off some people. There they died for their cause and now they are left to rot. As a twist on this the adventurers have been hired to lay a certain body to rest, but that one has wandered off in the meantime.
Wandered off. Somewhere in the area is a large tomb/mausoleum/dungeon full of the undead. This one just managed to walk past all the traps and doors into the outside.
Escaped Slave: someone in this area has been using the local dead as a cheap if gruesome workforce.  Now that might be of interest to the local authorities. Or it might be just what people do with the dead in this area.

Related articles

• The Undead in the 17th Century – Skeletons from of Pedantry (antiledo.blogspot.com)
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• Turn Living (antiledo.blogspot.com)

[Labyrinth Lord] Easy Multiclassing

The only game I found which handled multiclassing in an elegant and simple way was D&D 3.X. And I had my gripes with that as well, the least being that it demanded a complete rewrite of the system and it’s classes to be feasible.
That was… a bit over the top I guess. But well, the game was a success, and despite the bloat rather playable.
It doesn’t work with the older editions though. In the older editions we have the awful concepts of dualclassing and multiclassing, which both kind of work, but are so artificial I wish they wouldn’t. So this is my way of fixing the whole mess for my games. It’s not an easy system for the characters. It punishes people for focussing too much on one career path, but that is actually quite ok I guess. The more someone advances in a class, the harder it is to learn something new. At a certain point it becomes more feasible to just start over again.
Requirements: this should work with race-as-class classes as well, but of course the requirement here is that the character has to be the actual race to take up a race class.

Divergent Classes
Characters can gain levels in up to 2 other classes after they already started a character if they 1) fulfill the requirements and 2) pay XP amounting to the highest level threshold among all the classes. So a character gaining a level in a new class will have to pay XP as if he was gaining a new level in his original class.
The characters uses the best abilities, saving throws, spells, and attack rolls available to him.
[yes, that means if a level 10 fighter wants a level of thief he has to pay 480,000 XP for each level of thief until both his careers are the same level]

Example: William the Wizard is a level 5 magic-user. He travels through the wastelands with his companions, fights quite a bit with strange creatures, and in the evening he lets Fred the Fighter teach him some martial arts. When the time comes to gain a new level William’s player decides that William might need some fighting prowess if he is to survive the wilderness. So he gains a level of Fighter. If he decides to level up his Fighter levels instead of his levels as Magic-User he will continue to pay XP as if he was levelling as a Magic-User, until the cost of the next level of Fighter is higher than that.

Synchronous Classes
Characters whose levels of classes are the same may level both classes together after gaining enough XP for both classes.

Example: William the Wizard is now a Fighter and a Magic-User of level 5. He decides that this is exactly what he is, a fighting mage, and decides to pursue this path of advancement. It’s harder for him now (he has to gain experience for both his careers) but the benefits are larger (he can roll twice for hit points after levelling).

Dual Classing
Characters can change careers and level in another class for the normal cost of advancement from level 1 on. For this the lose all the benefits gained by their previous class (including saving rolls, spells, and hitpoints), as they now focus exclusively on the new class. They gain the old abilities again after they reach the level of their previous class with their new class. After this they can level according to the above rules.

Example: Fred the Fighter learned a lot during his time teaching William. After teaching him a long time he gained some appreciation for the arcane arts. So much actually that he decides to learn magic for himself. When they reach the next city he searches out the local wizard and becomes his apprentice for a while. After a few months the wizard has taught him everything he could teach him, and Fred goes forth, searching for new opportunities to get better in his new craft.

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[RPG Music] More RPG Ambiance Music

EVE Online – Caldari Freighters (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I haven’t really been playing MMORPGs lately, not since I switched over to a Linux system in 2006, and so I am not really current with a whole lot of things here. MMORPGs never really caught my interest that much anyway. The only thing I ever played for longer was The Empire of Martial Heroes, and that one switched off it’s non-Korean servers in 2010. So there is that.

But I have been sickand bound to my bed for two weeks, and during that time I played a lot with my PC. Well, playing in this case was more trying to see if I can get Windows games running on Linux and then losing interest once it works.

I never said I was exactly normal.

Anyway, one of the things I found during that time was that there are a lot of games which put the music from their game online. Maybe for marketing purposes, maybe just as a bonus for fans, but the fun thing is: these things are wonderful for normal roleplaying games as well. Most of them are loopable to some extent, a lot capture the whole fantasy world sound quite effectively, and they are free. What more do we want?

Dungeons and Dragons Online: especially the tavern/bar sounds here are really nice for some unobtrusive background music in bar scenes. There are even different sets of those for different styles of bars. And the rest isn’t bad either. Will definitely use that one.

Star Wars – The Old Republic: made a large part of it’s soundtrack available for free just before their launch. Sounds pretty much like a Star Wars soundtrack should sound like

Eve Online: something more futuristic, synth sounds for space ambience; quite good as well

Lord of the Rings Online: the made the soundtrack available for a while, and it still is online. One of the most impressive ones around actually, I can definitely see me using that one in the next session

Allods Online: this one is a bit strange, as the official website links to a fansite and a torrent because they themselves can’t get to the files themselves. Huh? How is that even possible? Anyway, some nice atmospheric music.

Anarchy Online -Shadowlands and Anarchy Online 2: I don’t know much about these games, but the soundtracks are online and might be useful

Planeshift: well, I wasn’t too impressed the last few times I tried this game. But the soundtrack is quite nice.

Related articles

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