Gary Con 3 In Lake Geneva

Gods and Monsters offers a fresh perspective on an old character class, the monk. Unlike Dungeons and Dragons, monks are not exclusively martial artists. Gary Gygax in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual describes monks as "monastic aesthetics who practice vigorous mental and physical training in order to become superior." In contrast, Jerry Stratton in Gods and Monsters Rules, describes the monk as "a master of the powers of the mind." He continues, "Monks are deeply intune with their own mental and intellectual abilities." The monk is not a warrior but a psychic who wields the power of mind to enhance and manipulate the physical and the meta-physical.

The Gods and Monsters monk can spend verve points to unleash their psychic energy having spell like effects on the out come of a the game. Some of these effects include: Heal damage, harden skin, increase jump, stun, sense the future, travel distances ala dimension door and create illusions.

God's and Monsters does leave the door open for further development of the monk character beyond this initial description of a psychic hero. Each character has a "specialty". Think of someone you know. They probably have one or two things that sets them a part from others you know. Maybe they are good at music, art, or writing. This is a specialty. And within the game of Gods and Monsters you can take martial arts. But monk characters don't have too. There are plenty of other specialties that would enhance the character of a monk: Nature Friend, Animal Form, Familiar, Scholar, Alchemy, Vigilant Sleep, Animal Companion. So while the inital image of a monk is that of a buddist in a monastary, the end picture can be so much more.

In the game of Gods and Monsters by Jerry Stratton, there are three scores that determine your characters survival in a game session, verve, survival, and injury points. Gods and Monsters has a very unique way of dealing with surviving in a high fantasy game.

Here's how it works.

Verve

Each archetype (think "Class" in games like Labyrinth Lord) has a certain number of verve points. Verve is the ability of a trained professional to recover gracefully. The dictionary defines verve as enthusiasm or vigor. Verve points absorb damage when you are doing a archetypal activity. If I'm a warrior and I take 6 points of damage in combat, it all comes off my verve until I don't have any left. If I'm a Thief and I fail a climb check the fall damage comes off of my verve total first. Verve is important in the game of Gods and Monsters because it encourages player characters to play their archetypal role. If I'm playing a Thief, I'm less likely to engage in combat because a hit will come right off my survival points. Which are not as plentiful and are difficult to recover. Verve on the hand is easy to recover. It all comes back to the character after a single night's rest. Verve points are increased when a character gains an even number level. Points are increased by 1d10 at 2nd, 4th, 6th level and so forth.

Survival Points

Survival points are the unit of health in Gods and Monsters. Every archetype starts the game with just 5 survival points. At each odd numbered level the amount of survival rises by 1d10 regardless of archetype. When a character's survival points gets to 0, the character may fall unconscious or even die. Survival points are restored at the rate of level per nights rest.

Injury Points and Death

When survival points reach zero, further damage is added to your injury points. When the total number of injury points is greater then or equal to the character's survival point total, the character runs the risk of dying. They have to make a contested Endurance check where the roll is penalized by the total number of injury points they have received. Overall this is refreshing way of handling death. Every advantage is given to the player to survive death short of making death impossible. Yet there is still a certain randomness to the event. Even if the player misses his roll and is considered unreversably dying they can still make a "Last Heroic" effort and make yet another roll with their level as a bonus.

Compared to traditional games likes Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy, the game gives every advantage to the characters survival. Where in Labyrinth Lord 0 hitpoints = death, in Gods and Monsters death is more elusive. I would point out that I haven't found a judge of Labyrinth Lord that rules it that way. There's always house rules to make death a bit more difficult to attain. Still Gods and Monsters addresses this difficulty on the outset and sets up some rules. I'm interested to see how these death rules plays out during a game session.

Spoiler Alert!!

Rush's Time Machine Tour had it's third show last night in Milwaukee Wisconsin at the city's week long party Summerfest.

The band played two sets with a brief intermission between. The set list wasn't that far off from my predicted list. Instead of playing a slew of old songs they promoted recent albums like "Snakes and Arrows". Here's the set list:

• Spirit of Radio
• Time Stand Still
• Presto
• Stick It Out
• Working Them Angels
• Leave That Thing Alone
• Faithless
• BU2B
• Freewill
• Marathon
• Subdivisions

Intermission

• Tom Sawyer
• Red Barchetta
• YYZ
• Limelight
• Camera Eye
• Witch Hunt
• Vital Signs
• Caravan
• Drum Solo
• Closer To The Heart
• 2112/Temples of Syrinx
• Far Cry

Encore

• La Villa Strangiato
• Working Man

Rush had some surprises for it's old classics like Closer to the Heart. Closer to The Heart had a nice acoustical lead in with a modified chorus after the guitar solo and no extended exit as in previous tours. I was surprised and delighted to hear "Presto" one of my favorite songs from the album of same name. Neil has reworked his drum solo and I was delighted by it.

They played a humerous short again at the beginning of the show which featured the band dressed up as other characters trying to help the band "Rash" find their sound. Rash was playing The Spirit of Radio first as a polka then as a country-western song. The skit was entertaining. Although from my seat section 5 I couldn't see the full screen for the PA speakers.

Alex had a lot of technical problems at the show. A couple of times the sound was out on his guitar. You could see him strumming but there was no sound. On vital signs, Alex switched to his telecaster as expected, but a string broke. I'm sure they'll pull it together for the next shows but this one was rough. I saw Geddy a time or to trying to get the sound board guy to do something.

Overall the show was very entertaining a lot of planning went into making the show worth while and enjoyable. I'm sure they'll work out the glitches in equipment for the next showings. Out of the 15 slots that were unknowns, I guessed 9 of them in my predictions. Not too bad.

Spoiler alert! This isn't the real set list it's my guess. Read on!

UPDATE: If you want the real setlist it's here.

The big day is tomrrow.. The third show of Rush's Time Machine Tour. The big question? What's on the set list?

We know that the following songs will be on the set list.

• Tom Sawyer
• Red Barchetta
• YYZ
• Limelight
• Camera Eye
• Witch Hunt
• Vital Signs
• Caravan
• BU2B

We also know some songs are always and forever on the set list. Although I would rather have them play something else.

• The Spirit of Radio
• Closer To The Heart
• Free Will

From Snakes and Arrows they'll play one or two tracks.

• Far Cry
• Armor and Sword
• Hope/Faithless

They'll play the most popular song from Vapor Trails.

• One Little Victory

They'll play a few recent songs.

• Animate
• Bravado
• Dreamline

Other then those, I'm predicting an older set of songs this go round.

• Circumstances
• Bytor and The Snow Dog
• Working Man
• In The Mood
• Xanadu
• La Villa Strangiato
• Digital Man
• The Trees
• Passage to Bangkok
• 2112 Overture/Temples
• Entre Nous

Yup, I think they'll pull "In the Mood" out of the vault. I haven't heard it in concert sense 1989. Otherwise most of those songs have been in their set list for a while now. But they always pull something I'm not thinking of.

I'll post the real set list Sunday.

Every RPG game has a name, monicker, or title for the "referee", that guy that sits across the table from the "players" behind a screen of charts. If you're having fun in a RPG game it's the referee's fault. It's a hard job.

At my Tuesday night Labyrinth Lord game, I called my referee "Labyrinth Lord". My name calling prompted a response from him, "I'm the referee." Which of course prompted an evening of saying "Labyrinth Lord" in different ways like "Labryinth Lawd" and so on. The rules do refer to the referee by this name.

DM or Dungeon Master has become a rather well known and respectable title.

How do you make the abbreviation "LL" an acronym? LOL?

"Gods and Monsters" calls the referee the "Adventurer's Guide". This is a very descriptive name for what the referee does. But the name is a little long. I can't imagine referring to the referee that way for an entire evening. Although "Guide" might be good shortened version.

"Referee" brings to mind sporting events and people I didn't get along with much. Me, I prefer "judge". It carries some respect and the idea of make judgements on the rules. It's descriptive enough of the job. What's your preference?

Father's day was a good day for the treasure chest. Yup the day was good for me. Loot includes:

• Deities and Demigods, First Printing (with Cthulhu)
• The Book Of Marvelous Magic in great condition.
• Lankhmar City of Adventure in excellent shape complete with maps.
• D&D Expert Rules 1985
• B2 Keep on The Borderlands

Thanks to the wife.

The first thing you evaluate in an RPG after character generation is combat. I skimmed the first and rushed to the later with Gods and Monsters.

Combat is surprisingly easy to navigate in Gods And Monsters. Time in combat is measured in 10 second rounds during which players can take any one action. There is no initiative, everything happens at once and so it's not ordered either.

To Hit Rolls

A hit in combat is easy to calculate. A score of 11 or lower on a d20 is a hit. Each participant in combat has a to hit bonus and a defense score. The hit bonus adds to your chance to hit and the target's defense score subtracts from your chance to hit. So Larik the warrior has a +3 to hit but the orc he's fighting has a defense of 4. So larik needs to roll a 10 or under to successfully strike the orc.

Simple combat rules with no charts. I like it.

Suprise

The rules for surprise in Gods And Monsters are more complicated then D&D but simpler then AD&D. Instead of a single round of suprise, the character is seemingly "off balance" or "out of focus" until 2 rounds have passed or the player makes a willpower or fortitude roll. The rules can be found here. (Gotta love games distributed under the GPL, you can reference the rules online.)

So far I like what I'm reading in Gods and Monsters.

I'm going to start a review of RPG's that are being distributed under GNU/GPL copyleft style license. No the open gaming license doesn't fit the bill. My first game up for review is Gods and Monsters. I've downloaded the game and have started reading through it. Why don't you do the same.

This entry is a response to the Greyhawk Grognard's post RPG Business Models

Before I go on to say what I feel compelled to say, I'm going to first affirm that people who create cool stuff should be rewarded for it.

Having said that, RPG's, the core rules, should belong to those who own it. Who are they? They are the ones who play it.

I find it appalling that games like AD&D are no longer in print. Fans of the game have to play knock offs of the original to keep a thriving community.

AD&D is a great example of a community driven game. Many still play the game, and even more would if acquiring it wasn't so difficult. Why was the game successful? Was it because the rules were so unique and perfect? No. Was it because there was a community of players who made as much contribution to the games as the "originators"? You bet. They played and they told their friends and their friends told their friends. Look at Fiend Folio, it's a great book of ... FAN created creatures.

These games should be free and distributed under a copy left licence similar to the GNU/GPL. I've written about this topic before. I'm writing about it again because I still feel the same way about it. Checkout the Gods and Monsters game license. Compare it to the so called "Open Gaming License".

I hope the author of Gods and Monsters prints copies up and distributes them through game stores. I'd buy one and so would many others. The cool thing is if the author gives it up, we, the community of players get to keep it forever just the way it is today -- FREE.

This weekend's old school acquisition was an AD&D second edition boxed set called, "Dwarven Kingdoms of Krynn". The box set details the history of the Dwarves in the world of Krynn, Dragon Lance. I found the boxed set for $9. Maps and box are in pristine condition. Who ever owned it prior never used it. The box barely has a scratch on it. It contains two books, one which delivers a narrative of the history of the Dwarves and another that outlines the places and people, for the DM of course that's why I'm not reading it. ;)

What was your latest acquisition?

In the last two Tuesday night sessions of Labyrinth Lord, we have plunged deeper into Zylarthan's Tower, avoiding the areas known to be inhabited by Hobgoblins who have proven to learn quickly; setting up deadly traps, and using magic against us. The question is how to go straight for the gold.

Tonight we stumbled into a room of ants. Yes ants, and a large fissure on the floor. Kyle, the locksmith, ended up crushing a couple to death. Emerging out of nowhere came 2 "ant men". Then during combat, another ant man emerged when another ant was crushed to death. It was all the party could do to slay these foes. 1/3 of the party spent the evening unconscious on the floor. But we finally defeated them. No treasure to speak of. We headed back to town empty handed again. So the question is how do you sneak past rooms such as this and find the loot? Hmm there has got to be a smarter way of doing this.

Next week I'm going to try a few things differently.

1. Scouting ahead solo.
2. Not entering every room, but peering in looking for good signs.
3. Exploring corridors to get the "lay of the land"
4. Gag, the half giant before he brings the whole dungeon in on us!

The owl bear, (sometimes compound "owlbear") is one of D&D's most iconic creatures. More dangerous then an ogre, many low level characters have met their demise in it's arms. According to Wikipedia, "The owlbear is among the earliest monsters in Dungeons & Dragons and like the bulette and the rust monster, was inspired by a Hong Kong-made plastic toy purchased by Gary Gygax for use as miniature in a Chainmail game."

The Frank Mentzer Basic D&D manual describes the owlbear thusly:

An owl bear is a huge bear-like creature with the head of a giant owl. It stands 8' tall and weighs 15,000 cn. If both its paws hit one opponent in one round, the owl bear hugs for an additional 2-16 points of damage. Owl bears have nasty tempers and are usually hungry, preferring meat. They are commonly found underground and in dense forests.

Owlbear's are almost always pictured with a large beak and bear like body. Alternately sometimes they are pictured with primarily a bear body and an owl head fastened on. Sometimes the body has feathers sometimes it does not. The traditional explanation for the owl bear is that it was the work of a mage who gruesomely combined the traits of the owl and bear. According to the first edition AD&D Monster Manual, "The horrible owlbear is probably the result of genetic experimentation by some insane wizard."

Here's how some other artists have rendered the owlbear.

What I don't get about the owl bear is, why the large beak? Why not have a broad face and large eyes of the owl? If you we're going to combine the features an an owl and a bear why not take their most unique and powerful attributes and combine them?

If I we're designing an owlbear it would have a flat face and the large eyes of the owl to give it superior hearing and eyesight. It would not have the beak of an owl. It's too small. My creature would have the muzzle and body of a bear so it could bite, claw, and maw it's victim's to death. And it would not have a tail. Here's my quick thumbnail:

Clockwork Angels

Sweet.

Two new Rush Singles. Yup, Rush Release Day. They don't come often but when they do ... heh heh, I don't miss them.

The two new songs are Rush at it's best; complex time signature changes over syncopated rhythms and wailing 70's style solos. These two tracks, Caravan and BU2B remind me a lot of Alex Lifeson's solo album "Victor". At least the guitar style does, and that's where that comparison ends. If your favorite Rush album was Hold Your Fire, you probably won't go for this one much. However if you loved Hemispheres and there more recent albums, Vapor Trails and Snakes and Arrows, you'll be loving this one too.

Lyrically, I wish they would go back to their science fiction and fantasy themes. But I can't complain, the songs are well composed and you might even find your self singing along. The song caravan is quickly memorable,"nananananana dahdahdahdahdada, I can't stop thinking big.".

Alex's guitar playing continues it's layered approach, way more then one man can play. It'll be interesting to see how they render these songs live. Anyway they'll be playing these two pieces on tour this summer. Got my tix.

So this is a continuation of the previous post "what is OSR?". The OSR, or old school reniassance, is on to be sure. In this post, I'll attempt to define what makes an "old school" game.

There are many things that make a game old school. And much has already been written on this subject, the best of which is Matthew Finch's "Quick Primer for Old School Gaming". If you haven't read that, you should. If you've only played modern table top RPG's, or if you haven't played old school in a long time, you might be lost in an old school game. Either way the primer is a great starter.

As a player, the defining aspect of an old school game is the character sheet. In many modern games you are constantly looking at your sheet to try to determine what you can do or should do. In an old school game, your sheet tells you nothing. Instead, you just declare to the judge your action and then he acts as the arbitrator. In fact, players seldom need rule books after they've created their characters.

The other side of the coin is the judge's seat. In an old school game, the judge has the rules and makes rulings. In more modern style of play, the judge and the players know the rules and there are very few instances in which the judge needs to make a ruling. This makes for a lot of rules and a lot of rule books. While it's not impossible to play old school style with a more modern games, it's difficult because the rules always win out. In old school games, the judge is the rule. He makes or breaks the game by his rulings.

And that leads us to the downside of an old school game; it requires skill. It requires skill as a player because modules, dungeons, or adventures are difficult and you'll get killed if you think you can stand toe to toe against monsters time and time again and win. It requires skill as a judge because you are challenged to make or break the game. Your judgements have to be fair and your storytelling interesting or you will find your table empty at the next game session.

So to me those are the core ideas of a good old school game. My next game is Tuesday, when is yours?

Downloaded a copy of Joseph Bloch's "Castle of The Mad Arch Mage." It's a huge dungeon, 13 levels and some 182 pages. Just a cursory review leaves me fairly impressed with a hardy, "thanks for the hard work." I've downloaded a copy of it and and have started reading it. It's done in the old school tradition, mostly a keyed map. Old school players know, the story comes by playing. The module is compatible with Labyrinth Lord, other simulacrum, and ol' Dungeons and Dragons. You can download The Castle of The Mad Arch Mage here.

I think some one should elect a govermental body to police the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement to the end that a qualifying list of established OSR games can be created. For some reason folks seem bent on establishing one.

Please ...

In general terms, I'll try to outline what I think us ol' codgers or "grognards" enjoy in a game. I am an authority because 1) I'm old, 2) I like old RPGs, 3) I have an opinion.

OSR is not a game or a list of games, but rather a style of play. While I detest 4e, I can conceive that someone out there might be able to pull off an OSR style game using it. If you've done this, you have my vote for sainthood. Truly, you have performed a miracle.

The just outright dislike for 4e and 3.5, and 3.0 is another unifying belief or idea of the OSR movement. I have yet to meet a single person in the OSR movement who likes what has happened to the world's most popular table top RPG.

The defining issue is style of play. To remind the young pups, its called an RPG. That stands for Role Playing Game. If all you do is look up a rule and role some dice, then you might as well be playing an MMORPG; you'll get your results faster and it's easier to level up.

I played 3.5 for over a year. There wasn't much fantasy role play. It was more like fantasy dice rolling. If you're having fun doing that great! But for me, I like my Tuesday night Labyrinth Lord game. I look at my character sheet very little because it doesn't tell me what I can or should do. I just decide what to do and look to the referee to make judgements.

That in its essence is OSR. There's no need to establish a list of games or discuss whether game x is or isn't OSR. It's about educating people about a style of play that we in the OSR movement enjoy.

Like all things that are worth doing, playing in this style requires effort of both player and judge. There's a skill set that's required. But maybe that'll be tomorrow's post.

Ran around on Ataraxia's Haven in Dungeons and Dragons Online today. Posted an image gallery of Ataraxia's Haven. Good times killing things and taking their loot.

At GaryCon 2, I got an opportunity to play AD&D with one of the game's early contributors, Frank Mentzer. Frank was the chief writer of the "Basic" edition of the game in the mid 80's. It was the game I grew up with. In the 5th grade, my friends and I would pull out Mentzer D&D at school and roll up some characters. But that's a story for another day.

At Gary Con, I played the quest "To Aide Falix" an RPGA module Frank wrote. It's an adventure for 7-9 level characters.

I enjoyed my evening playing with Frank. There were a few things he did that I liked and would incorporate into my own game. Here they are ...

Door Procedures

Instead of asking what we were going to do at each door, he asked us what we would do as a procedure at the door. This, then, became the door SOP (standard operating procedure, and pronounced "sahp"). At each door, unless we said otherwise, he would roll the dice and we checked the doors for traps, listened at it, and so forth.

Action Declarations

Another thing he did, that I think judges forget to do when using individual initiative, is to ask us what we wanted to do at the start of each round. In this way, he knew who was firing off spells and firing missles and could figure when the spell would go off in the round sequence.

Good Mapping Directions

Frank gave good, consistent mapping directions. And even though the dungeon map was fairly complex we, the players, were able to represent it on paper very well. Mapping directions is a skill learned by both judge and player. His experienced showed.

Role Play at Every Opportunity

Each trap, secret door, or dungeon contraption had a mechanism. There was method for how it operated. We were challenged to tell him what we would do with the mechanism to stop or otherwise interact with it. It wasn't just, "You found a secret door, do you open it?"

High Negs

If a modified to hit roll would hit deep into negative AC territory, Frank had us just declare "High Negs".

Keep the Game Moving

As I remember it, there were some 13 players at our table and Frank did a great job keeping that game moving forward with so many involved.

So last time we had taken down the hobgoblin guards and their ill conceived ballista they had set up in front of their guard room in Zylarthan's Tower.

We searched the guards' bodies and found the key to the door behind the ballista. Entering, we were finally at the guardroom.

While we stood outside the door arguing how we were going to go about entering, a few of the bumbling hobgoblins came out the door. The last thing those four saw was a small halfling with a very large sword. We dropped all four in a single round.

Entering in to the guard room, we found three more hobgoblins with two captives. We had two more players at the table tonight.

The rescue was on. Grollan was ineffective as usual, flying in, sword swinging, and connecting with next to nothing. Kyle on the other hand unsheathed Troll Biter, his sapient sword, and slew 2 of the hobgoblins in total.

Eventually we were down to one hobgoblin and a captive priestess. The party distracted him while the party Assassin sneaked around behind and sliced him into sandwich meat.

We looted the hobgoblin chest and headed to the exits with our two new companions "Ill Tempered Humor", the half-giant ranger, and a priestess -- whose character name I've forgotten.

On the way out, the best moment of the evening was a surprise attack by an Imp who made the mistake of trying to fly off with Kyle. Kyle, of course, had been accosted by Imps before and knew just what to do. He stuck him with Troll Biter and that was the end of that.

On the way out, the Imp made good take out for the ogre Grum.

That's it for Zylarthen's Tower. We probably will not descend into its depths again. On to bigger and better things for the party.

The evening was a blast with lots of great role playing. We had two new players, folks who had never played an old school RPG like Labyrinth Lord. They were able to generate characters and jump into the game within 15 minutes. That's old school gaming for you.