Bestiary Cover

Christian N. St. Pierre, the artist who did the covers for the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Players Manual and Game Masters Toolkit, has come through again with the third and final cover in the series. I give you the Bestiary:

The idea for the series of covers was to show a party of adventurers going through the various phases of dungeon exploration; the Players Manual shows them getting ready to face the unknown, the Game Masters Toolkit shows them fighting off hordes of undead to save the sacrifice from the evil high priest, and finally the Bestiary shows them in a final showdown with a pit fiend amidst a vast hoard of treasure.

I cannot recommend Christian's work highly enough to my fellow publishers. 

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Dexcon schedule now up!

The complete schedule of events for this years's Dexcon convention in Morristown, NJ over Independence Day weekend is now up. Lots of really good stuff there, including some old-school stuff (a brief glance showed at least one Expert Rules game on the schedule, and there are doubtless others). I will be running/helping with:

• Friday 2:00 - 8:00: Q0003: "OGRE Macrotures 2013" by Steve Jackson Games. Steve Jackson himself will be there to oversee the festivities!
• Friday 8:00 - Midnight: R0268: Adventures Dark and Deep; "Tomb of the Pirate King" (which will be played on an enormous table featuring 3D terrain from Legendary Realms)
• Saturday 8:00 - Midnight: R0325: Adventures Dark and Deep; "Tomb of the Pirate King" (ditto)

It looks like a light schedule for me, but that Ogre macrotures game is 6 hours long, and I will also be manning my first con booth as a publisher for the duration of the convention, so getting away this long was a bit of work.

If anyone is in the area, I cannot recommend this convention highly enough. They have something for everyone-- old school and new wave indie RPGs, Pathfinder, miniatures, board games, LARPing, computer games, console games... the thing is easily the finest fan-run gaming con I've been to. See you there!

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Vin Diesel on D&D and Riddick

From io9:

I make these movies […] because somebody's paying attention. That's my motto about Hollywood and films, continuing these franchises. There's two lines of thought in Hollywood, one is the audience doesn't give a fuck — excuse me, it's late, I'm in Riddick mode, you're lucky I'm not killing you guys […] Then there's that world-builder, that D&D player that's really meticulous that believes the audience does care and can draw the similarity between Riddick's headdress and the headdress worn by Linus Roache [in Chronicles of Riddick] who reveals in one moment that he is a Furyan that went the wrong path. It's very subtle, but just the fact that you mention it means that it was worth the week-long dialogue about the construction of one little piece of [armor] […]

I haven't board-gamed in a while, and I have people that are asking me to board game. I have a buddy who wrote a beautiful Gary Gygax script. [Dungeons & Dragons creator] Gary Gygax's wife wants me to play him. [laughs] Yeah, I don't get it either. I was like, "Me? I'm Vin Diesel! How do you want me to play it?"

I guess that's cool. I guess some people think of me as a dweeb or something. It's beautiful. I haven't boarded as much as I want to, although friends of mine, like Michelle Rodriguez, she'll say she thinks I DM Hollywood, because I'm able to do these things that are just preposterous, like shoot Riddick.

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Bestiary Art

The prolific group of artists have begun to start sending in the first pieces for the upcoming Adventures Dark and Deep™ Bestiary, and I thought I'd share a few with you all. First up is the giant boring beetle by Chris Letzelter:

And I thought I'd also show you one of the new undead dragon types, the tumulus dragon by John Bingham:

So far with more than 25 of the new pieces received, we're right where I want to be in terms of scheduling, and will (hopefully) be releasing the book in advance of the official March release date.

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Review: Against the Slave Lords

As is well-known by now, Wizards of the Coast has been re-issuing a number of classic books and adventures in suped-up fancy versions, as well as making more and more of its back catalog available in pdf. While this is certainly laudable and speaks to their intention of serving fans of previous versions as well as new versions (doubtless with an eye towards bringing in the former when D&D Next rolls out next year), I've largely skipped the re-issues because I have all the originals, mostly purchased when they first came out.

However, when I heard that WotC was not only reissuing the original A1-4 "Slavers" adventures, but also including a brand-new A0 prequel module, I had to get the book, if only for the sake of completeness.

I have to say I'm pretty impressed.

The new adventure, written by Skip Williams, is A0 "Danger at Darkshelf Quarry". It takes up 23 of the first 28 pages of the book, and seems to be a suitable way to easy the PCs into the machinations of the Slave Lords (although it takes place in southernmost Nyrond, as opposed to the Wild Coast where the other adventures in the series take place). It's designed for characters level 1-3, but given that Slave Pits of the Undercity is for levels 4-7, and I don't really see any way the adventure could jump up PCs 3 or 4 levels, some more intermediate action is probably going to have to be invented by the DM to bridge the gap. One thing I really like is that there's a mocked-up module cover for Darkshelf Quarry on the back card of the book, done up in a similar style to the other four module covers. That was a nice touch.

The rest of the book is given up to the classic series of 4 modules. It's not merely a scan of the original; everything has been retyped and formatted to follow the original, although there are obvious discrepancies between the two in terms of where paragraphs begin and end on the page, etc. The book features the wonderful original art and maps from the 1980's modules, and ends with a gallery of modern fan-art inspired by the series (among whose ranks you'll find several artists who also appear in the Adventures Dark and Deep™ books). They did a very good job of recreating the original look and feel, and all in all this would be a fine way to introduce the classic series to new players.

The back cover card does indicate that the adventures are "Playable with D&D Next rules found at DNDNext.com". However, there are no mechanics for the new version of the game in the book; to use it with the new rules one must download a conversion packet from the website. Even the new adventure is written using the 1st edition rules. I didn't see any module conversion notes in my copy of the latest playtest packet, but I did see a bestiary with D&D Next stats for the various A0-4 monsters (well, A0-5; apparently this month's Dungeon magazine will feature another new adventure, "The Last Slave Lord").

On the whole, I'm very pleased with this book, and will probably want to integrate Darkshelf Quarry into my next Greyhawk campaign.

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Top Five Star Trek Episodes

I happen to be one of the lucky folks who can watch MeTV, and they play the original Star Trek series on Saturday nights. They recently restarted the series from the beginning, and I've been happily ensconced in the first season of my favorite television show ever. I thought I would grace you with my own list of top five Trek episodes; ST:TOS only. I might do an all-Trek top ten list at some later date.

#5 Where no Man has Gone Before (Season 1, 2nd pilot). I love this episode because it has a strong and interesting villain; Gary Mitchell. Gary Lockwood (who would later co-star in 2001: A Space Odyssey) does a terrific job, but it's the slow and subtle betrayal of a friend of many years that really makes this for me. And at the end, when he's in full-blown psychic god mode; "Pray to you? Not to both of you?" "PRAY THAT YOU DIE EASILY!" Terrific.

#4 The Doomsday Machine (Season 2, written by Norman Spinrad). The performance by William Windom as Commodore Decker (apocryphally said to be the father of Captain Decker in ST:TMP) is just fantastic. When Kirk asks him what happened to the crew of the Constellation, and Decker tells him that he beamed them all down to the third planet in the system under attack by the planet killer, and Kirk says, "There is no third planet!" "DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT!? There was! But not any more!" A really great performance, and the music really adds to the tension in this one. Bonus points for Decker playing with the tapes while sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise, just like Captain Queeg with his ball-bearings in The Caine Mutiny.

#3 Who Mourns for Adonais? (Season 2). For me, the last ten minutes of this episode catapult it from a good episode to an "oh my Gods this is amazing" episode. Michael Forrest as Apollo just captures the grief and pathos of the alien god who waited for 3000 years for humans to find him, expecting them to worship him again, only to be rejected. It's incredible to watch.

#2 Balance of Terror (Season 1). A submarine vs. destroyer film in the Trek universe. There's so much more going on here than just one ship hunting another; the play between Stiles and Spock with its undertones of racial prejudice, the (self-aware) parallels between Kirk and the Romulan commander, the unexpected ending where Tomlinson (who we see about to be married at the beginning of the episode) was killed... Just hits all the right notes.

#1 Spock's Brain. (Just kidding.) Space Seed (Season 1). Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singh. What more do I need to say? It's a brilliant performance, and he created a character that remains event today as the iconic Star Trek villain.

No tribbles? No Mirror, Mirror? No City on the Edge of Forever? No... they're terrific episodes, no doubt about it. But if I limit myself to five, I've got to make cuts, and those just didn't make it. For me, anyway. Of course, everyone has their own thoughts on such things-- what would you put in your top five?

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Monster Books

Since I'm deeply in the final stages of putting together the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Bestiary, I was wondering if there were any OSR-type monster books that I'm missing from my collection.

I've got Malevolent and Benign, Teratic Tome, Tome of Horrors Complete, Varlets & Vermin, and Monsters of Myth. I've got the C&C books Monsters and Treasures and Classic Monsters. I don't have Treasures and Monsters of Aihrde or the three M&ToA supplements; can anyone tell me if they're significantly different than the regular Monsters and Treasures Book?

Please let me know if there's anything of significance I've missed. You can't have enough monsters!

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Essential High Fantasy

Over at io9, they have assembled some links to several fantasy authors' lists of essential lists of works of "high fantasy". There's no definitive definition of what, exactly, that is, so there are some odd choices, but it's certainly worth looking at. There are also some more links to additional lists in some of those links.

Now, I do have something very specific in mind when it comes to high fantasy, and have a list of my own. I don't claim it to be definitive, essential, or exhaustive, but here 'tis, in no particular order. I don't include what I call "sword and sorcery" or science fiction, and my list also includes books, television, and movies.

The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings. I'd include both the books and the Peter Jackson films. The changes between the books and the films honestly don't bother me one whit; both are terrific and stirring in their own ways, and both work for what they are.

A Game of Thrones. I haven't read the books yet, so I can't rightfully include them in my list. But these are certainly epic in scope, and deal with themes of fighting evil (even if in some cases that evil is relative).

Dragonlance. Say what you will about the impact of Dragonlance on the development of D&D, the books themselves were quite decent (especially the early ones), and the quest to defeat evil was certainly epic. I found the characters very compelling, and the setting was certainly well detailed.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Not your typical high fantasy epic thanks to the nature of the anti-hero Thomas Covenant, but this series of books influenced my own gaming and writing for years, and still does.

The Mists of Avalon. This might well be the first book that self-consciously tried to conform to the tropes of heroic fantasy, but it's still good for all of that.

Excalibur. This film version of the Arthur legend can drag at times, especially in the final third, but man does it have gravitas. And a score by Richard Wagner for crying out loud.

Hawk the Slayer. Yes, it's schlocky, but the overarching theme of vengeance and the fight between good and evil place it firmly in the high fantasy category for me.

Conan the Barbarian. I place the original film in the epic fantasy category, but I wouldn't include either the stories or the other films. Complaints of the REH purists aside, there is something utterly magnificent in the cinematography, the score, and the primal theme.

Elric. This is a toughy, as there are so many elements of Elric that could legitimately be said to be firmly within the realm of swords and sorcery. The theme here is not so much good vs. evil as it is man vs. destiny, which in its own way is just as powerful a motivation as the most pure-hearted paladin could bear.

The Winter of the World. This little-known series of books deals with a prehistoric civilization that sortakinda retells the Norse myths, but against the backdrop of an impending ice age. Really worth checking out.

The Dark Crystal. Yes, the film by Jim Henson. When you realize the film isn't about the trials and travails of the Gelflings at all, but is really about the restoration of the UrSkeks, it takes on a whole new flavor.

Clash of the Titans. It doesn't get more high fantasy than this. Dashing hero out to save the princess from the evil prince cursed by the Gods.

Lacunae: In preparing this list I discovered just how many foundational works of high fantasy I have never read. Shanarra, The Belgarion, The Wheel of Time, the Riftwar Saga, the Chronicles of the Necromancer, etc. Time to stock up for some summer reading, methinks.

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Magic as cargo cult

One of the standard tropes of both swords-and-sorcery literature and Dungeons & Dragons type game settings is the lost ancient civilization which was possessed of high technology, fell through some cataclysm, and is now known only through legends and a few obscure artifacts.

In fantasy, we see this in many places. The Dying Earth is an obvious example, the World of Greyhawk has its Mighty Servant of Leuk-O and Machine of Lum the Mad, the Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign setting has its share of technological artifacts scattered about the landscape, and Blackmoor has a veritable City of the Gods. We see it in Ralph Bakshi's wonderfully bizarre film Wizards. The theme is echoed in the legends of Atlantis and Lemuria, and even Middle Earth has its sunken Numenor, which ruled over what could be called a Golden Age, albeit without the benefits of high technology.

There is historical precedent for this as well. After the fall of the western Roman Empire, the successor barbarian kingdoms of the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Burgundians, Langobards, etc. found themselves rulers over regions that contained architectural wonders that they were flat-out incapable of recreating. Roads of incredible durability, aqueducts demonstrating precision structural engineering, and even baths and villas with central heating that were simply not able to be replicated. Surely these were the works of gods or giants.

I can envision such a fallen technological civilization giving rise to a magical culture, as a sort of cargo cult attempt to replicate the now-unduplicatable wonders of the ancients. Stories are told of wondrous devices that can project an image from one end of the world to the other in an instant, complete with sound. Incapable of making a videophone, the barbarians in the ruins, through trial and error and hard work, manage to figure out the crystal ball instead. Hearing tales of weapons that could spit fire and lightning, but themselves incapable of creating a laser pistol or flamethrower, eventually come upon the secret of fireball and lightning bolt. And so forth. Use of magic develops because technology is no longer within reach.

Arthur C. Clarke once famously observed that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That presupposes that the technology comes after the magic. What if a game setting reversed that trend and postulated the corollary?

"Any sufficiently sophisticated magic is indistinguishable from the technology of the ancients."

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My Favorite NPC: Vert

This month's RPG Blog Carnival topic is "Favorite NPCs". I have several that stand out in my mind.

There was Beldo, the Rhenee crime boss with the vaguely eastern European accent who complained that the player characters once paid him off with a golden frog statuette ( "I send you for money and you bring me frog? Why don't you go someplace and sell frog, then bring me money. Then everybody happy!").

There was also the witch who tormented a different group of player characters with a hand of glory, transmuted their rivals into mice, and was generally a ruthless and brilliant enemy.

But my favorite, I think, has to be Vert.

Upon entering an expanse of forest, the PCs made camp and were approached by a man named Vert, who demanded from them all of their coins in return for being allowed safe passage through "his" forest. The one party member who had been on guard duty, and who had witnessed his transformation from human form to that of a green dragon as a means to convince her of the folly of resisting, convinced the rest to comply, and most did so, albeit somewhat reluctantly. (All dragons in my campaign can shape-shift between human and dragon form.)

Upon reaching the village on the far side of the wood, however, they were informed by the locals-- with no small amount of mirth-- that Vert was indeed a green dragon, but one only three years of age, and eagerly accumulating his first hoard of treasure! He was something of a mascot to the town, as he never harassed them at all (probably due to the fact that they knew he could be beaten off with a broom handle if it came down to it), and they took particular delight in hearing the tales of travelers whom Vert had fleeced out of yet another few dozen coins.

I don't think the PC who was on guard duty that night ever lived that down.

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Climate, barbarian migrations, and icebergs full of trolls

One of the most profound developments in European history was the Migration Period, which lasted from roughly 400 to 800 CE and which saw the Germanic tribes come out of southern Scandinavia and Germany and into what is now western Europe (the Roman provinces of Gaul, Britannia, Hispania, north Africa, and Italy).

There were doubtless several factors leading up to these migrations. Climate has been cited as a factor; in the winter of 535-536 written sources tell of an especially harsh winter and cloud-occluded sun (perhaps caused by a massive volcanic eruption). With crops failing due to colder temperatures, tribes would tend to move southwards into more fertile lands.

Asiatic and Slavic migrations would also push the Germanic tribes ahead of them, who would in turn push other tribes, like billiard balls knocking into each other. This is how the Franks ended up in Gaul (which then became France), the Lombards ended up in northern Italy (Lombardy), the Burgundians in eastern France (Burgundy), etc.

Now imagine a similar mechanism at work in a fantasy world.

In cold and snowy Trollheim, vast numbers of trolls and ogres dig their warren-like homes deep into the glaciers. As the climate grows warmer, however, the glaciers fracture and some calve into the sea as icebergs, taking the troll-warrens with them. Currents bring those icebergs into proximity of Scandia, "Mother of Nations", which is inhabited by a number of human barbarian tribesmen.

As icebergs full of hungry ogres and trolls come ashore, at least some of the human barbarians decide that the time is right to pick up and move southwards, into the more civilized lands, where they begin their own raids and settlements along the frontier.

Not only does that give a reason for barbarian (or humanoid, for that matter) raids and migrations with an historical precedent, but also provides a ready-made excuse to have floating ice dungeons full of ogres and trolls. And that is a good thing in and of itself.

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Adventures Dark and Deep Character Sheet Contest!

Well now that the Kickstarter for the third and final core rulebook is in the rear-view mirror (and thanks again to everyone who was a supporter), the time has finally come to see about an official character sheet (or sheets) for the game.

Up until now, I've been content to use the old goldenrod AD&D 1st edition character sheets in my own games, suitably scrawled over modified for the new and updated classes, or to just use notebook paper like in the good old days. But I'd like to have an official character sheet for the game, and that's where you come in.

Beginning right now, I'm holding a contest to find the official Adventures Dark and Deep™ Character Sheet(s). Here's the info:

• All entries must be received by 11:59 PM eastern time on Friday, June 14.
• All entries must be in pdf format.
• All entries must be sent via email to joseph@brwgames.com with the words Character Sheet in the subject line.
• All-in-one or one-per-class formats are fine (or anything else that you come up with), and no preference will be given to any style.
• Submissions must not include any copyrighted work, trademarks, or other intellectual property belonging to anyone except yourself. (You may use the trademarked term Adventures Dark and Deep™ for this contest.)
• Multiple submissions are acceptable.
• Submissions will be judged based on aesthetics, usability, specific applicability to Adventures Dark and Deep™, and a certain je ne sais quoi. The decision of the judge (me) will be final.
• The winning selection will become the sole property of BRW Games, LLC.
• By submitting an entry to this contest, you are agreeing to these terms, which may change without notice. Any dispute concerning the rules is subject to a binding decision by the contest judge (me).
• The creator of the winning entry will win a $50 gift certificate at OneBookshelf.com (the fine folks who run RPGNow.com, DriveThruRPG.com, etc.). 

Have at it!

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Kickstarter after-action report

As is my wont, I thought I'd share some of the details of my just-concluded Kickstarter campaign in order to help those who might also be considering jumping into the crowdfunding ring. This pertains to the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Bestiary.

First, the basics. Here is the adjusted backers report day-by-day for the duration of the campaign, May 1 through June 1. It is "adjusted" in that I have removed one backer who pledged an unrealistically large amount early on, and pulled it as the campaign neared its end. I never expected that particular pledge to actually happen, and removing it makes the true trend easier to visualize. (If you'd like to see the unadjusted numbers, you can check them out at Kicktraq.)

Some points to note:

Kickstarter itself accounted for about 28% of the total pledges. That includes things like being on the "just started" page, the "Tabletop games" page, searches on Kickstarter.com, etc. This blog accounted for about 10% of the pledges.

On March 7, stories about the Kickstarter campaign went up on various websites like ENWorld, Tabletop Gaming News, etc. That produced a noticeable bump starting on May 8. On May 30, the 48 hour warning notices went out automatically from Kickstarter to all the people that had clicked the "remind me" button on the campaign, and we see another big bump then.

One new thing I tried was advertising. I did a small buy (100,000 impressions) as a test from Gamerati.net, which feeds image ads to various websites like ENWorld, RPGNet, etc. I ended up getting 569 clicks, which is a .569% clickthrough rate, which I'm told is very high. The ads ran from May 25 through June 1.

However, as far as I can tell, there wasn't any appreciable uptick in pledges due to the advertising. I can tell this because on May 27 there was a freakishly high clickthrough of 228 on that day alone. If the ads were responsible for pledges, I should expect to see a spike on that day. However, I saw nothing beyond the normal slightly-up trend that came before and after. Just as a guess, I'd say the ads paid for themselves, but were a net zero overall. Did I do a fantastic job creating the ads, and couldn't clinch the sell on the Kickstarter itself? Maybe. I'm not sure I'll do ads if I do another Kickstarter. 

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On Transhumanism in RPGs

From time to time, various RPGs present themselves that are billed as being transhumanist in nature. As a transhumanist myself for more than a decade, I find myself both disappointed and annoyed by the vast majority of such outings, as they clearly do not understand what transhumanism actually is.

My own bona fides; I've been a transhumanist for more than a decade, served on the board of directors of the World Transhumanist Association for two years (now HumanityPlus), have given lectures on transhumanism, and wrote the WTA's pamphlet on human cloning. I think I know whereof I speak.

One of the greatest misunderstandings about transhumanism is that it is merely high-tech, technophilia, genetic engineering, bionics, cyberpunk, virtual reality, a technological Singularity, or a combination thereof. It is not.

Simply put, transhumanism is the process of consciously improving oneself, or a group of people, beyond the limitations of "baseline" humanity, and thereby create a new, post-human species. Without that conscious desire to exceed humanity, one is neither a transhumanist nor a transhuman. One can be a technophile, or a cyborg, or genetically enhanced, but unless that is coupled with the goal of moving beyond "humanity", it is not transhumanism. There is a reason that a common transhumanist symbol in the early days was >H.

Now, transhumanism certainly can involve all those things I mentioned above. Space exploration, nanotechnology and post-scarcity economies, cybernetics, virtual realities, cryonics, artificial intelligence; all these things and more are staples of transhumanist interests and projections. But they do not, in and of themselves, make something transhumanist. For that, one must have the desire to create (or become) a new, post-human species.

In game terms, as well as in fiction, the ripest field for exploring this theme is the conflict between baseline humans and the transhumans (and/or posthumans). Conflicts between different transhuman factions are also possible, maybe based on their attitudes towards the baseline humans. (And yes, there are definitely "factions" among contemporary transhumanists along such lines, as well as how transhumanist-potential technologies should be distributed or made accessible.)

So when I see a game, or read a novel, that makes the assumption that having a bionic arm or having a virtual reality world is de facto evidence of someone being a transhuman or posthuman, I get irked. On the one hand, I'm happy that transhumanism is gaining more mainstream acknowledgement, but on the other hand I'm bothered by the fact that it's being misunderstood, watered down, and made "safe" for the corporate, mainstream world (which is a phenomenon certainly not limited to RPGs).

Sort of like punk music. The punk label got noticed by the mainstream, and once that happened, it started getting applied to all sorts of things that were anything but punk:

Yeah!

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter ends at midnight (ET) Saturday! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Wikipedia is the GM's Friend: Hanna-Barbera Adventure Cartoons

For most of the latter half of the twentieth century, animation studio Hanna-Barbera absolutely dominated television animation. They're best remembered for shows like the Flintstones, Scooby Doo, and the Smurfs, but they had a large stable of adventure-type shows that were full of action, had humor without being wacky, and could definitely serve as inspiration for the game master in need of a quick jolt. The full list of H-B cartoon shows is massive. I loved these things when I was growing up, and they would definitely be a part of my own personal Appendix N.

The first, of course, was Jonny Quest. The title character, the young son of scientist Dr. Benton Quest, would fly around the world with his father, his father's partner Race Bannon, and his friend Hadji, solving all sorts of problems and foiling evil. And their dog Bandit, too, of course...

Then there was Space Ghost (the original, serious one). It actually consisted of two different cartoons; Space Ghost, with the futuristic super hero and his two proteges, and Dino Boy in the Lost Valley, which was a sort of Lost World homage with cave men, dinosaurs, and a young boy getting into and out of various perils.

Birdman and the Galaxy Trio came next, with superhero Birdman (again, the original, serious, one) fighting various villains in one half of the show, and the Galaxy Trio, an otherwise forgettable threesome of outer space superheroes doing likewise.

The Herculoids was somewhat high-concept for its day; it's set in the future, on an alien planet, but the protagonists are a family from a high-tech society that have decided to settle on a savage planet and live a primitive lifestyle, and defend the planet against technological encroachments. There are a bunch of different intelligent races on the planet, and there are many opportunities for peril, as well as the family's collection of semi-sentient alien-companions. There were a few crossovers with Space Ghost, if I remember correctly.

Shazzan is one of my personal favorites, a riff on Aladdin, with a brother and sister who together can summon the genie Shazzan. The kids seem to be from the modern world, but the series is set in a very fantastic Arabian Knights sort of setting. The plots are interesting, up to the point where they wrap up with the kids putting their rings together and having the genie save the day.

Mightor was one of the segments in the Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor show, which featured a prehistoric superhero (complete with secret identity) foiling various villains seeking to harm the peaceful inhabitants of a prehistoric village.

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour consisted not only of the costumed rock band playing some (actually fairly decent) songs and telling jokes, but with four recurring series as well; the Arabian Knights, which featured a band of good-hearted rogues (actually, a strongman, a magician, an acrobat prince seeking to get his throne back, his cousin who is an expert in disguise, and a shape-shifter) trying to overthrow the evil usurper of Baghdad, Danger Island, which featured a family shipwrecked on an island with pirates, dangerous animals, and savages who liked to paint their bodies like skeletons; and the Three Musketeers, which was pretty much as the name implies. There was also a fourth, Micro Ventures, which was pretty dull, and consisted of the family being shrunk down to very small size and using their dune buggy to escape now-giant ants.

The Adventures of Gulliver featured the titular character seeking a treasure, with an evil pirate trying to get the map from him, always foiled by the tiny people of Lilliput.

Sealab 2020 (once again, the original, not the later parody) was a neat science fictiony type adventure series, centered around an underwater research station. This was about the last of Hanna-Barbera's "serious" adventure shows.

After this point, they stuck with the predictable formula of cheap gags and silly situations (with the exception of the truly amazing Pirates of Dark Water, which deserves a post of its own), but for a time there in the 1960's and 70's, they had a great raft of solid adventure stories that could definitely serve as inspiration for a game today.

And with that, I leave you with this über-cool boardgame-themed Jonny Quest promo from Boomerang...

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter has just one more day to go! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Bestiary Kickstarter in the home stretch!

As of right now we're about 60 hours from the end of the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Bestiary Kickstarter (it ends Saturday night). About $9,500 has been pledged, which means more than 1/3 of the 900 monsters in the book will be illustrated.

I've got to say, that is an enormous accomplishment and I'd like to thank everyone who has backed the project. Kickstarter being Kickstarter, I'm sure we'll see a bump at the end, and I'd be thrilled if we passed the $10k mark (and ecstatic if 40% of the monsters got illustrations).

The book will have 900 monsters, including nearly all of the creatures from the MM, MM2, and FF (some are being left out on purpose, while some can't be included for legal reasons, but for the latter there are suitable substitutes that can be used in lieu of the real thing). There are also a passel of new monsters, like undead dragons, faeries and sidhe, new oozes and slimes, and the fearsome giant mantis shrimp. They're written with the Adventures Dark and Deep™ rules in mind, but things being what they are, that means you'll be able to use the book with most OSR-type games with little difficulty.

Is there a monster you really, really, want to make sure gets an illustration? You can sponsor a picture and you get to pick the monster you sponsor. Make sure your favorite gets a picture! (The various SPONSOR levels, plus you can add a sponsorship to any reward level.)

Ever wanted to see yourself being eaten by a troll or an anhkheg? Our artists can make that happen. (The YOU HAVE BEEN EATEN BY A GRUE reward level.)

Looking for original art to hang on the wall of your gaming space? We're giving away a limited number of original pieces as an additional reward. (The ORIGINAL ART SPONSOR reward level.)

So please, if you've been on the fence, now's the time to pledge. Every $25 pledged is another monster illustration for the book. Remember, it's already written, the Kickstarter is just for art and editing. Let's make the book beautiful!

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Gamers helping Oklahoma tornado victims

Here's a great story from io9.com:

The Merciful Cousins is an order of cavaliers for the Pathfinder role-playing game that functions as a sort of D&D Red Cross. Now, if you buy the PDF that details how to use them in your D&D campaign, you can help the actual Red Cross bring aid to Oklahoma tornado victims.

The Merciful Cousins (aka the Masons of Recovery) were created by Super Genius Games, and the book was written by RPG journeyman and Oklahoma native Owen K.C. Stephens. Artist Wayne Reynolds donated a sketch for the book's cover. The PDF costs $2, and all proceeds will go to the Red Cross, which is helming recovery and aid efforts in Oklahoma. The city of Moore, OK was recently devastated by a monstrous EF5 tornado.

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RIP Jack Vance

Legendary fantasy and science fiction author Jack Vance has passed away at the age of 96.

Fans of Dungeons and Dragons and role-playing games in general will surely remember him as the inspiration for so-called "Vancian Magic", wherein magic spells, once cast, leave the mind of the caster and must be re-memorized.

However, his contribution to both gaming and the world of science fiction and fantasy writing is enormous both in quantity and quality. He is known for the Dying Earth, yes, but there were many, many more. Lyonesse, Space Opera, the Demon Princes, Planet of Adventure; he wrote more than 60 novels altogether.

I came to appreciate Vance as an author late in life, only a few years ago, but once I started to read his work I couldn't stop, and now can't imagine not having read it.

You will be missed, Mr. Vance.

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What should come next?

If you cast your gaze to the upper-left corner of the blog, you'll see a new poll up there, asking opinions as to what you'd like to see next. With the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Bestiary moving into the art stage, I'll have quite a chunk of writing time freed up. I'd like to get your opinion as to how best to fill it up. Nothing's binding, of course, but I'd like to get a sense from you guys.

The first option is something I've talked about before; Adventures Great and Glorious™. It would cover rules for large-scale warfare, large-scale economics, political maneuvering, and dynastic considerations. Intended for use with Adventures Dark and Deep™ but compatible with most OSR-type games, of course.

The second is a full-blown fantasy setting with gorgeous poster maps, a gazetteer-type guidebook, and so forth. Since the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting seems to be closed to the gaming public for the foreseeable future (officially, anyway), this would be my attempt at making something similar in concept, but taken to its logical conclusion. Again, it would be lite enough in mechanics to be usable with most OSR-type rules.

The third is a series of smaller adventure modules. Some would have arcs connecting them, some would be location-based adventures that exist more or less in a vacuum, some would be larger and some would be smaller.

And, of course, there are probably a dozen things folks might be interested in that I've not listed here. Feel free to make your suggestions in the comments.

Thanks for your input!

Update: Obviously the polling gadget is the work of the devil, and doesn't function properly. I've seen votes disappear before my very eyes. So just sound off in the comments here. Thanks!

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Thoughts occasioned by OOTS #890

If you're a reader of Order of the Stick, you've hopefully read the last couple of strips, including the latest one, #890. If you haven't, go ahead and do so, because this won't make any sense unless you have.

All done? Okay.

See now, in a real game, this is the point where the players collectively leap across the table and force the DM's dice down his throat through a funnel until his abdomen ruptures from within.

Imagine this: After six months of (real-world) play time, where everything has been going *perfectly* for your character, with never a die roll flubbed, all the villains slain, and all the treasure won, the DM suddenly asks everyone to make a WIS check. And when you do, he tells you that the last year or two of game-time never happened, it was all an illusion, and your characters are still back in that dungeon you thought you cleared out months ago. Oh, and he happens to have copies of your character sheets from back then, so here you go, you're five or six levels lower than you thought you were.

That there is a recipe for murder. Damn I'd like to try it sometime, but I just don't have the guts.

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Wizards won't have a booth at GenCon

According to this article over at io9.com, "Wizards will not have a presence on the Gen Con exhibit floor" (the exhibitor's map at the GenCon site confirms this).

Wow. Nothing. I realize they're trying to lay low in order to build excitement for D&D Next, you'd think they'd have something there to, I dunno, hump M:tG or something. This is the 20th anniversary of Magic: The Gathering, for crying out loud. You'd think they'd want to make a splash with that other than just tournaments.

They will be running events, and are an official sponsor of the convention, but no booth.

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Remember those who have fallen

Thank you.

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A Setting Book That Would Hit a Few Buttons

So I was driving home today and was struck by an idea for a setting book. It's something that would definitely hit a few buttons, among OSR types in particular.

The idea would be a "grand campaign" book, akin to The Great Pendragon Campaign, which would advance the timeline of the setting 25 years or so. So that's one button; I know a lot of folks don't like "advance the setting" things at all, and some do. (Please don't turn the comments into "advancing the setting is evil"; that's not the point of this post.)

However, it would be a bit different than TGPC, in that there would be several major decision points that the game master would decide upon at given intervals, either by his own fiat or by player intervention in the various plots and events that are boiling, and the outcome of each influences the outcome of the others. Thus, it turns from a railroad-type plan into a "choose your own adventure" book. That's the second button; I know a lot of folks have fond memories of "choose your own adventure" type books.

I've run the math, and assuming four major plot points over the course of 25 years (with intervals where things run along until a new decision point is reached), that means around a hundred different chapters would be needed to cover all the various permutations over the space of all the years. That can be condensed by compressing the number of years between decision points, or expanded by making the decision points spaced wider apart.

With two pages to describe the world-as-it-is on any given year in any given timeline, that gives a 200 page book, which is eminently doable.

The mechanics would work just like a choose-your-own-adventure book. In year 3, for instance, the game master is given a choice; if Iuz defeats the Shield Lands, turn to page 7. If the Shield Lands survive, turn to page 44. And then there would be more descriptions of how the world unfurls until the next decision point; if the giants controlled by the drow House Eilservs conquer Sterich, turn to page 24, if not, turn to page 72. And so forth.

The idea would be that of the four plots, it would be easier to influence them earlier on, but there would be fewer signs that the fate of the world hangs on the outcome. Once it becomes obvious that it's a world-changer, it becomes much harder to deflect.

And of course if the game master just wants to have all the wars and politics and such going on in the background, as a backdrop to the player characters' actions, he still has choices and can have a ton of options for how his campaign unfurls over the course of time. There end up being 16 different outcomes with four plot-points. That can start to get a lot bigger as you start to add a fifth or sixth plot point or more than two possible results of any given plot point...

I figure that gives me the best of both worlds; it advances the timeline, but gives the game master a lot of choice beyond a single "Raistlin can't die in Pax Tharkas so he can be around later to stop Takhisis". If you want your player characters to influence events, you can, but if you don't, it's perfectly acceptable to let things just unfold in the background and keep them guarding caravans and exploring ancient ruins.

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Thoughts on Dragonspear Castle

So the announcement about the first D&D Next adventure, Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, has hit the blogs, and there is a bit of buzz going on around it. They also seem to be cementing their relationship with Forbes, with a spiffy article all about it.

Erik Tenkar isn't pleased (to say the least) that it's being offered as a GenCon-only offering. Meaning, you can pre-order the adventure, but there is no shipping option. You must be at GenCon this August to pick up your copy. Personally, that doesn't really bother me. It's a marketing decision, and they want to be able to have some sort of big D&D Next presence at the convention besides seminars and presentations, so this is a way to build buzz. I get it. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to get a copy, but I can't say it bothers me.

I'd like to talk about a couple of other things in the announcement, though.

First, it's not just going to be an adventure, but the book will also have a copy of the playtest rules in it. They're marketing this as a sort of yearbook, even with places for folks to sign their copy. It marks a point in time in the design cycle, not just the release of the game itself. I still have those 4E preview books, and they served the same purpose (although they were sold in Barnes & Noble).

Second, I'm a little put off by the notion that it's a "mini-campaign comprised of four thrilling adventures designed to advance characters from 1st level to 10th level." 10 levels in four adventures? Considering the latest playtest rules are 316 pages long, and this book is "over 200 pages" long, even if they smoosh down the rules a lot, there's not a lot of room for the adventures themselves. 10 levels in 50 or 60 pages? It seems a bit much, and doesn't fill me with confidence about the speed with which characters are expected to level up, and thus what the "sweet spot" of PC level is going to be for the game. I prefer a low-level game, and anything over level 20 is for gods and godlike NPCs...

Third, I was hoping that we'd finally have a definitive ruling on what the official name of the game will be, but it seems they're still being coy. The upper-right corner of the cover sports the 4th edition logo, while the lower-right says "Playable with D&D Next rules". And the Forbes story refers to D&D Next as a code-name. So will it be just D&D? D&D 5th Edition? D&D Next? Something else? It seems like we still don't know.

Fourth, I'm intrigued by the announcement of the Candlekeep playtest adventures that will be run at GenCon (from the Forbes article):

All throughout the entire weekend, we’re going to have a constantly running game where you just get in line –if you want to DM, you can DM your friends or we’ll have volunteer DM’s on hand– and you can play through scenes of this climatic battle.”

After each group finishes the adventure, the results of their actions will be collected and tabulated, and used to determine the fate of Candlekeep, which will be announced at the end of the convention. “If you’re told to go behind enemy lines and trash a supply caravan, whether you succeed or fail will tie into the greater results of the entire weekend. Essentially it’s one massive interactive adventure.”

I'm not a fan of having big campaign-impacting decisions decided by a single convention, but I love the idea of different groups of adventurers being sent on different missions associated with the same adventure, all interacting with, or at least impacting, one another.

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Wikipedia is the DMs Friend: Medieval Demographics

Most (A)D&D worlds are generally sparse in population, with but a single village in an entire 30-mile hex, if that. Many find that sort of emptiness unsatisfying from an historical perspective, and seek to beef up their worlds' population accordingly.

Many are probably already familiar with S. John Ross's excellent Medieval Demographics Made Easy page. In it, he crunches a bunch of numbers and comes up with likely numbers of people, occupations, population densities, and so forth. If you haven't read it, it's worth the time.

There's also an excellent and informative Wikipedia article on the subject of Medieval demographics. While it is not (obviously) focused on the sorts of data that would be most of use for RPG world-building, it does have a broader overall picture, stressing that demographics in Medieval Europe went through several booms and crashes over the centuries.

England in 1335 or 1365? It matters...

One of the interesting points I see there that would be suitable for the implied D&D setting is the High Middle Ages, where we see the "great clearances" of woodland and the expansion of agriculture. That would be a ripe time for isolated settlements in the wilderness, whose inhabitants are in the process of clearing away woodlands and badlands for farming, and in the process uncovering all sorts of long-forgotten stuff and disturbing all sorts of Things Best Left Undisturbed.

The period immediately following the Black Death would be an interesting RPG setting as well. Whole regions would be depopulated as people reorganized themselves, leaving behind towns and villages quickly falling into ruin, and into which long-displaced humanoids and monsters might creep to retake the lands taken from them so long ago. There might be lots of things out there in the newly-encroaching wilderness worth recovering, which gives a ready-made excuse for adventuring.

It should be remembered that Tolkien's Middle Earth similarly suffered a Great Plague in the Second Age. That's one reason you see all those old ruins scattered around everywhere in the films.

Think not just about what the demographics are in your campaign, but what the trend is. Are people expanding, and wildernesses therefore shrinking? Or is the reverse happening? Adventure is found in times of change, after all, and the type of change will shape the type of adventure to be had.

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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Original Art Reward Now Available

Thanks to the generosity of one of our artists, there is a new reward level now available for the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Bestiary Kickstarter:

ORIGINAL ART SPONSOR: You get your name listed in the Bestiary as the sponsor of a particular monster illustration. In addition, you get a hardcover and pdf copy of the Bestiary, and your name in the back of the book as a supporter. PLUS, you get the original version of your sponsored piece of art!

There are only five of these rewards available, and we're asking $145 (you're in essence paying $35 to sponsor the picture and $65 for the picture itself in your hot little hands).

I expect these to go quickly, so if you'd like to get the hardcover book as well as an original piece of art, now's your chance!

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Forgive my gloating...

I've been collecting books and other products relating to the World of Greyhawk pretty much since there was such a thing to collect. So as you might imagine, there are very few lacunae in my collection. Today, I filled one of those lacunae with something rare and wondrous. It's a graphic novel called Vecna Hand of the Revenant by Iron Hammer Graphics, and tells the story of Vecna's early days in the ancient past of the Flanaess. It came out in 2002 and is notoriously difficult to find, and when it comes up on eBay usually goes for north of $100 easily. No more were ever produced in the series. It arrived today in the mail.

Just finding one is a coup, but I ended up paying four dollars for the thing. Hence my gloating. :-)

I've only flipped through it, but the artwork is glorious. I'll do a full review once I've had a chance to read through it, as part of my explorations of obscure Greyhawkiana. But man, I am a happy Grognard today.

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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On Intelligent Magic Items

Even back in the very earliest days of my RPGing career, it never made all that much sense to me that the only sorts of magic items that could be intelligent were swords. Perhaps the most famous intelligent magic item in fantasy literature, The One Ring, bucked that particular restriction:
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The One Ring

Forged by the Dark Lord Sauron many centuries ago, the One Ring is filled with a portion of his malignant will. It has an INT of 17, an Ego of 17, and an alignment of Lawful Evil. It will make its wearer invisible whenever worn, and will also allow the wearer to dominate the will of any creature wearing one of the other 19 Rings of Power at any distance. It has a special purpose of reuniting itself with the Dark Lord Sauron and ruling the world.
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That said, the intelligent magic item is not otherwise unknown to fantasy literature, whether it is the Singing Harp from the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, the crown of the former king whose will allows him to dominate his descendants and rule the kingdom through his puppets, or Aladdin's magic carpet. So breaking it out of the intelligent sword mold is a simple enough thing. In fact, it's one of the things I built into the magic item section of the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Game Masters Toolkit. You could have an intelligent ring, an intelligent wand, etc.

That begs the question of just how an intelligent item comes to be. Surely there is something that could happen during the magic item creation process to imbue the item with intelligence, but in most rules that's not spelled out at all. Even in the Adventures Dark and Deep™ Players Manual, there's one way listed in the rules that it could happen (roll a 00 on the mage spell reincarnation table), but it's explicitly stated elsewhere that there are other, undefined, methods.

I've wondered what those methods could be. I didn't want to bake them into the rules, since that's exactly the sort of thing that a game master could use to make his campaign world oh so cool and sinister and interesting. But that doesn't stop me from speculating.

There are basically two possibilities. The intelligence comes from a (formerly) living person, or the intelligence is unique to the item. In the former case, some sort of necromancy could bind the soul of the person to the item, or it could be an accident of the means of death, or an act of utter Will from someone who simply refused to die.

Is Carpet really an eternal
prison for the trapped soul of
some poor sacrificial  victim?

For the latter, it would most likely be either an accident or a deliberate function of the way the item was created. Does tapping into the positive or negative planes at the moment of creation do the trick? Is it due to some rare and unusual material (gem, metal, etc.) used in its construction? Is some variation in the spells normally used responsible? Perhaps there is a unique spell that is unknown to most mages, that creates a new personality for the item.

Maybe it's a hybrid of the two. Maybe if a human sacrifice is attendant to the creation of a magic item, that is enough to imbue it with intelligence. That need not mean the personality of the sacrifice is transferred, of course, unless the ritual goes awry in some way. In which case, the item might well seek revenge against its creator/slayer, and that could be a very interesting plot twist to a campaign indeed...

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Also, please don't forget the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Kickstarter going on right now! 900 monsters, suitable for most OSR-type games, all under one cover. Can you help get us to having an illustration for each and every one?

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