Return to Zylarthan's Tower Part 4

When I was young, table top RPG's like "Dungeons and Dragons" and "TMNT" and "Marvel Super Heroes" were considered a big waste of time by the "big folk". I was encouraged to do something else more productive. When compared to the new MMORPG games like "World of War Craft" or "Guild Wars" the old table top variety are quiet educational. Especially those games done in the "old fashioned" tradition: games that haven't been assaulted by "marketers".

Here's a list of life skills I acquired by playing table top RPG's.

• Reading, AD&D had a pretty good reading level.
• Logic and Reasoning, traditional RPGs have complex rule sets
• Memorization, see the one above
• Debate, rules have to be worked out in a friendly way
• Event Organization, getting 6 or more players together on the same night is difficult even for adults
• Writing, everyone who plays writes an adventure or a back story
• Math and statistics, can't play RPG's without doing some math or figuring out probabilities
• Imagination, creative problem solving, imagining the scene
• Budgeting, all those books aren't cheap and when you are young you generally have to save up for it
• Self-learning, mastering all that information requires determination and you become a master of teaching yourself
• Extension, imagining what a character or other person would do

Notably I left off acting. While RPG's might inspire someone to acquire the skills of a thespian, I have a cousin in this category, the acting at the table is less then inspiring.

I probably left something off this list. What did you learn?

The tower was deadly Tuesday! There's TROLLS in the Dungeon! When last we heard from our intrepid heroes, they hand "wandered" into the hands of a mummy. And through luck and a little Greek fire, torched it.

Tonight we didn't get much further into the story. The 10 player characters, average level 2, wandered into a room full of trolls; 4 of them. We're all rolling characters up next week. Not. Only one of us bit it. But the Labyrinth Lord doesn't play the 0 HP and dead rule. If he did there would be 4 less player characters. I can't remember his house rule, but you get some number below 0 for unconsciousness.

We managed to escape from the tower and headed back to the town of Kingsbridge.

Maybe next week we will take down those hobgoblins!

I read this old DM of The Rings post this week. Got a kick out of it. Can't tell you how many doors are like this in Zylarthan's tower.

The first printing of TSR's Dieties and Demigods is a very collectable book. Only the first printing contains the pantheon of Cthulhu and Melnibonean gods. Buying a copy online will easily cost you $60 or more.

Yesterday I found me a deal at a used book store. Picked up a copy for $4.98. So if you are collecting D&D books or you're just a casual old school player, don't give up on local used book stores.

The book is in good condition besides. How much did you pay for your copy?

Besides Deities and Demigods, I found a boxed set of Hollow World campaign setting. The books and maps were included.

Doing some real light reading of late. I'm reading "The Price of Power" by Rose Estes. The story is set in the Dungeons and Dragons Greyhawk campaign setting. Maelfesh the demon attempts to take revenge on Mika for taking down Iuz. Seems kinda of odd, far as I can tell everyone takes down Iuz eventually in Greyhawk. Mika, the protagonist, has to find away out before Maelfesh grows tired of him and ends him.

The best part so far? Mika's wolf gets turned into a wolf-troll. No more spoilers. Promise. ;) What's your favorite part?

Tonight we returned to Zylarthan's Tower continuing the quest from last session. Last year in November it was just Victor Raymond and I playing Labyrinth Lord. Tonight, we had 9 players and 11 player characters!

It would seem the Hobgoblins have really dug in. We tried going through a familar route to their lair. But were thwarted again and again by traps. There were traps at every door, and on every stairs, and in every hall.

After facing down several traps in this manner we decided we needed to find a safer route to the lair of the Hobgoblins.

We tried descending directly to the 3rd level using a different route. In the end we found it necessary to go all they way to the 4th level. Hopefully we will find a stairway leading back up to level 3.

Here's some highlights:

1. Kyle (my pc) killed a mummy with a single strike with some good old fashioned Greek fire.
2. We encountered 5 Beserkers and dispatched them quickly.
3. We found that Kobolds are now working with or for the Hobgoblins.
4. We found a key that seems to open all the Hobgoblins locked doors.

Something learned: tatics are far superior to toe to toe fighting. And while Kyle was able to kill the mummy with a single strike, it would have been better had I recalled the sound mummies make and avoided it. I should have known. We had encountered mummies on this level before.

The Ruins of Ramat is an adventure for first level characters, published by Brave Halfling Publishing and written by John Adams. While I have already reviewed the Ruins of Ramat, today I finally got to run the quest as the "Labyrinth Lord".

Spoiler alert!! If you are planning on playing the Ruins of Ramat as a player, stop reading now.

For the first time in 20 years, I ran a game today. We had 7 players and some pre-generated characters. It took about 5 hours to run the adventure start to end. It's one thing to read an adventure. It's another to run it. Here are a few of the "gotchas" and speed bumps I ran into today.

The hook at the beginning of the module to rescue the young girl's dog was not a very good hook. It barely got the attention of the players. I think it would be better to skip the dog or replace the dog with a missing girl who was last seen with the dog.

The background in the module is for the referee. The "Ruins" are lost for 1500 years. So how do the players, or that matter "the villagers" know anything about it? What is there motive to go down into the ruins in the first place aside from the dog? This plot element is essential to sparking interest in the adventure. Today I handed out "hints" or rumors to spark their interest. It would be nice if the story were more coherent and if there was some way that the history of the place could be revealed during exploration. At least this way while trying to rescue the girl or the dog the players could solve a mystery.

In today's run of the game, the most difficult creature turned out to be the shadow in the training room. None of the player characters could hit the shadow because they had no magical weapons and only one magic missile spell. The ruins have magic weapons, but they are not in any linear path to the room with the shadow. Attached to the training room is a weapon room. But the module stocks, of all things, a cursed shield in there. Hmm, I moved a magical mace from another room into this room. It made for an interesting save for what would have otherwise been an unsolvable problem for the players.

The medallion and the golden disc is a difficult problem for the players to solve. Hours of game time can pass between finding the medallion and getting to the disc where the medallion is be placed to find the spear of Ramat. I had to drop some big clues, and then practically give it away to get the players today to make the connection.

We had a good time playing the Ruins of Ramat today. But I would change a few things the next time I run it. It needs a bit of polish. Would I run it again? Yup. But I'd rework some of it before I try it again.

Update, Jerry Stratton has posted an excellent follow up to this post here

Gods and Monsters RPG uses a very clear set of "Moral Codes". In comparison to Dungeons and Dragons' assorted explanations for "alignment", I found the explanation in Gods and Monsters more accessible and understandable. When I got done reading I knew immediately: I am Chaotic Good.

You can read the rules for Gods and Monsters online. Here's the moral code.

In Gods and Monsters there are four moral poles: Good, Evil and Order, Chaos. And there are combinations of each: Ordered Good, Ordered Evil, Chaotic Good, and Chaotic Evil. Making in total 8 possible moral codes. If you include "Unaligned" there are 9. This is very similar to Gygax's lawful/neutral/chaotic/good/evil spectrum. There isn't anything called "neutral". But Good, Evil, and Unaligned are a close match.

It's hard for me to imagine an unaligned person. Perhaps a small child or magical creature? Or a Druid...

Jerry Stratton's approach to explaining the moral codes through historical and fictional references made it very clear how these moral codes relate to real life things. After reading the descriptions, the whole thing "clicked" for me.

I have just one question. The rules state that you do not have to choose a moral code for your character. Does this make you unaligned? Or are you ignoring moral codes altogether for the purposes of the game. I'd assume the later, moral codes are an optional element of the game?

Player characters in Gods and Monsters cannot be evil. And that's fine with me. A game where players could take on evil moral codes would surely end poorly for all.

What moral code do you adhere to?

The Tuesday night Madison Old School D&D game is back. After a couple weeks of playing Classic Traveller, we are back on the trail of the hobgoblins again.

It's been a while since I posted about my regular Tuesday night gaming group. We play OD&D using Labyrinth Lord rules with the referee's personal tastes intertwined. He doesn't like Druids and absolutely no half-orcs allowed.

For the last couple of game sessions we have been in the town of Corrain. Tonight we travelled to the village of Kingsbridge. Along the way we defended the caravan we travelled with from giant spiders. When we reached the village we obtained help from the residents. Now that the hobgoblin queen's location has been revealed to us, the quest is to defeat her and the hobgoblins dwelling in the ruins of Zylarthan's Tower once and for all.

Tonight's session had a good mix of role play and combat. Sessions that have no combat seem to drag on. Over at Grognardia there was some discussion about the stocking of dungeons for a game session. To me a good evening is a mix of all of it: traps, puzzles, combat, and set up (role play). The game gets dull when any one of these elements dominates the evening. A good referee should find ways to get a variety of these elements into the gaming session. Having said that I think we all know that: 1. it's hard to predict what players will do and 2. forcing events is almost as bad as the event not occuring at all. So rather then figuring a percentage of monsters to rooms, just populate it with your eye on the mix you want and it'll turn out fine.

This week's aquisition is "Greyhawk Adventures" by James M. Ward. It is the last of the orange spined books published by TSR. It's also the last orange spined book to complete my personal AD&D hard cover collection.

Greyhawk Adventures was released to the public just before 2E was released. In fact, it has the new morale rules from 2E in the monsters section. The book is 128 pages and as far as hard cover campaign books goes, it feels a bit incomplete. The only other campaign hard cover to compare it to is the Dragon Lance book. Here's a few things that fall down for me in this brief, massively belated, and 22 years in the making review.

There's no introduction to the World of Greyhawk. The first section of the books is Clerics and the Gods. How about, "Greyhawk is a world of ..." The content pops around abit. Clerics, Monsters, Spells ... The book is lacking organization. The information for players and DM's is mixed. Its clearly a book made for people already playing Greyhawk. If you hadn't been playing it already you'd be really lost. How bout a map of Greyhawk? Just one would do. Maybe it's just me but if feels like a project that lost its internal company sponsor.

All this aside, Greyhawk remains a great world for those who like loose, gritty, dangerous, high fantasy campaigns.

I've written before about what I feel the OSR (old school renaissance) is about. It's not about games being dead, very rarely played, or simply out-of-print. It's about a style of play in which the players do what they want and the referee makes judgements. You might say it's a referee centric game.

Given this criteria, what would make a good litmus test for any "OSR" game? What test can you perform quickly to see if the game meets this main OSR requirement? I propose the simplest way is to make a character. In an OSR game, the characters should be simple to generate and take at most 1/2 an hour for a first timer. The process when guided by an experienced player should take 15 minutes. Contrast this with games you know are clearly not OSR and you'll understand why this makes sense. The idea here is that you should be able to sit down and get started in an OSR game in the same amount of time it would take to set up a common board game.

I decided to apply this litmus test to Gods and Monsters to see how old school it really is. I hadn't actually gamed a session. I'd done nothing but read the manuals, and that only sparsely.

Overall I was pleased with the experience of making my first character. I finished in 28 minutes. I intend to suggest a run of this game at my monthly meetup group where we try old school games. Clearly this game is old school. OSR litmus test, passed.

When making a character I ran into some speed bumps in the presentation of information. I was working off electronic copies of the game. I found it frustrating to have to flip around to the charts for attribute/minor attribute contributers, reaction adjustment charts and so forth. I was using the Rules Book and Lore Book. But still it would be nice if this information were presented together in the book. However, having to look things up in the Lore book was also a minor annoyance. A summary chart simliar to the summary pamphlets would be a nice edition.

If you haven't downloaded Jerry Stratton's Gods and Monsters, you should. It's free; no cost to download. And it's free as in freedom: it's distrbuted under the GNU Open Document license.

Here's my character:

Kavor Kalamon Warrior
Level: 1
Experience: 0
Moral Code: Good
Kavor adventures to sharpen his sword on the spine of evil!

agility 12 +1/0
charisma 7 -1/0
endurance 14 +1/0
intelligence 11 0/0
strength 15 +2/+1
wisdom 9 0/0

6 health
6 fortitude
4 willpower
5 evasion
4 reason
5 perception

verve 7
survival 6

6 Mojo

37 Gold Pieces

Specialty:

Fighting Expert (Slashing)

Skills

• Fighting Art +1
  
  • Unarmed Combat
  • Weapon Fluency
  • • Sword
    • Dagger

• WarCraft
  • Weapon Smith

Defenses
Gaming Science


Equipment
Scale Mail (45) Defense +3 Skill Penalty 4
Shield (5) Defense 1

Weapons:

Sword d8
Dagger d4

Ordered my badge today for Gary Con 3 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It's 3 great days at a smaller con with plenty of opportunity to game with the guys who started it all. Come on where else can you go to play old school AD&D for three days? There are other games scheduled, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill, Gamma World and more. Gary Con 3 is in March 2011

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.