Abraham Lincoln - 19th Century Superhero

What can I say? I really, thoroughly enjoyed this film.

As it's so new I won't give a lot of info for fear of spoilers, but this film manages to be a nice period piece, a fun bit of alternate pulp history and a great superhero flick all at the same time.

From costuming, to sets, to effects, it's an over the top ride through a period of history that is compelling, full of political and social tension - just the right setting for a good superhero tale.

I think as a gamer, I could not watch something like this and find myself taking notes and inspiration away from it. After the movie, I began thinking of what other historical figures could be blended with the supernatural for an entertaining ride through untold history. It's been done before both with historical characters and classic literary characters.

Some ideas I had -

1) Davy Crockett: Werewolf Fighter

Davy finds himself forging into a wilderness populated not just with the dangers of the wild and indigenous people, but also with the unspoken unknown of the unexplored in the form of a savage pack of shape-shifters. Unhappy with settlers invading their traditional hunting grounds, these furry fiends assault the newcomers with Davy defending them with his bear-wrestling talents.

2) Lewis and Clark: Explorers into the Unknown

This one would make a great ongoing series or campaign. Drawing on similar themes as the Davy Crockett idea, this story would have the explorers and their retinue moving throughout early America encountering one supernatural mystery and threat after another. This might make for a pretty cool series of connected miniatures scenarios.

3) John Henry: Man vs Machine

In an age of burgeoning industrialism, the unbeatable John Henry must take up his hammer to beat back the less savory side of increasing technological advancement. In a bold fight against an almost Steampunk back drop, the former railroad worker will bash his way through one mad scientist and evil robber baron after another.

4) The Hidden Adventures of Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison uses his fortune and scientific know-how to fight off evil forces threatening to plunge America back into the darkness of myth and terror. Science versus the supernatural prevails as the Wizard of Menlo Park is nothing short of just that, using his secret gizmos and gadgets to bust ghosts, battle demons, and slay the undead.

There are likely dozens more iterations of such stories. Take a historical figure, find their angle and go from there. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter really is a crafty piece because it really doesn't tie directly into anything the character was known for. It subtly weaves its tale around the real world elements of his life.

-Eli

Tis The Season

A little light thought and a quick post to look at holidays in gaming.

I think all of us have tapped into the holiday vibe either directly or indirectly in our games. Whether it's a scenario that directly involves a specific holiday or something that simply taps into the vibe of the season games can benefit greatly from some holiday coating. How you go about depends on the intended effect.

Direct Involvement

In these sorts of games, the character/players are involved in the activities or folklore of the holiday. The holiday is not just a backdrop for the story, but is a good part of the story. Characters can be helping a holiday spirit accomplish its task, or are making sure that the local holiday is observed properly.

Examples of this would be delivering gifts for Santa, saving Santa from evil-doers, making sure the mid-winter hobgoblin is sufficiently bribed so that he will not interrupt the festivities. Whatever it is, the players and their characters will have some direct effect on the holiday.

Holiday Backdrop

What can I say? This is every Die Hard movie. The characters are undertaking action using the holiday as window dressing and/or a story factor. If the holiday is a factor in the events of the story it's usually in providing suitable obstacles to the adventure or game. Limited availability of help, local closures of services, or even limited movement due to the environment at that time of year. Perhaps the players have a time commitment and have to be home for the parade of the Elf King and his winter court.

This particular method is really a good way to establish character in a fantasy world. Holidays speak volumes about their parent cultures and you can get a lot of mileage out of featuring a holiday observance in your RPG campaign.

Holiday Feel

The holiday doesn't have to play into this at all, but the adventure evokes the feel or themes of a holiday. This is popular among gamers who like to run spooky horror games coinciding with Halloween, but could tap into other holidays. Superhero themed games are easy for this as you can have villains with holiday motifs and all sorts of holiday-inspired villainy.

"Do You Speak Common?"Interpretting Common Language in RPGs

Just about every role-playing game has some form of common language. This is generally done for the convenience of the game and in many cases, such as D&D doesn't even veil it with any sort of thematic guise. But are common languages really a cheat? For me this is a yes and a no.

The real world is and has been full of them in the past and present. Known as pidgins or jargon, these languages usually take the form of simplified versions of language, often combining words from several distinct languages to form a medium by which people of different languages can communicate. North America alone was home to dozens of jargon. One of my favorite words, "skookum" comes from the local Chinook jargon.

Common tongues have not and do not necessarily have to be simplified languages. In many cases they are root languages or languages of status that are used by a culture at large to communicate across national boundaries in a way to bind people together or to lord over them. Latin is an example of such a language, having been used by the Romans to bind their empire together under one common cultural umbrella. No matter what province you were from, if you spoke Latin, you knew you were part of a greater empire and would likely find somebody you could talk to no matter where you went.

Today, we see the same thing happening with English and Spanish. Both languages have spread far and wide because of the early colonial efforts of their parent cultures. In more modern times they continue to be used as common tongue and even trade languages because so many people have bothered to or naturally speak them.

In an RPG setting where you usually have so many languages about it makes perfect sense, from a game design standpoint, to have some sort of common tongue. This can be making things too easy for your adventurers and the presence of a common tongue can very quickly invalidate the need for those languages in the first place, but a lot of the power of common tongues comes from how they are used or abused.

Common tongues do not have to be all encompassing. Just like the dozens of jargon and pidgins found in North American native culture, RPG commons can have a regional basis. A jargon in the west of  a campaign setting may not be used in the south or the highlands or the coastal regions, etc.. Travellers crossing between regions may find their common tongue of limited use or even useless.

Another way to handle common tongue is not to have a common tongue at all but to groups languages into linguistic families, much like we have in our own world. Individual nations or cultures may have their own specific dialects or distinct languages within these linguistic groups, but people of a common linguistic group may find some common ground for communication in the basic roots and common sounds and ideas within their particular group. To use the above example, the people of the west may all speak one form or another of a language even though there are at least five distinct nations there. Those along the coast speak another language distinct from the western people and the highlanders have their own strange language with a dozen dialects depending on what valley you hail from.

This can also be done with non-human languages. Tolkien had Black Speak, the language that all of the evil creatures of Mordor seemed to share. In my own games, I have the goblin tongue, which is a common name given to the language group that most humanoids speak. Different tribes and regional groups may speak variations, but they share the same root. Elves in my games are treated similarly with sylvan elves having a more rustic dialect than the high elves which is still removed from their original tongue spoken only by a very small group of elves living in the elven homeland.

Mechanically speaking, a GM may have to tweak the language system of whatever rules set he is using to allow for the increased variety in languages and players will have to work a little harder to keep track of their languages. The end result can be quite interesting though, as local color and dialectal differences may cause some trouble for the unsuspecting adventurer. A deal made by an orc of the Brackish Pool may not hold as much water when interpreted by his cousins of the Rabid Weasel clan.

Make sure you check your tense when conjugating your trollish verbs and don't forget that there is no gender tense in southern Drakkish like there is in the other Drakkish nation.

Take care,

-Eli

[Labyrinth Lord] Elwyren - PC Races II

Now that I have had some time to play with my new world of Elwyren, I have been able to define the specific changes to some of the ordinary races that usually haunt the classic fantasy worlds. Even though most of my new gaming group is new players or players coming back to the hobby after a long time away, I didn't think that changing up the races would be too hard on them. Besides the reskinning of the halfling, gnome and half-orc into new races, I modified humans, dwarves and elves to be a bit more unique in this setting.

Presented here are the descriptions of these races as they are in my game world, along with the specific game mechanics I have come up with for them. Some of this material is reposted from part one of my post on Elwyren races, but I've included here again to cut down on the need to flip back and forth between posts.

Human

The humans of Elwyren are the newest of the races, having only arrived in the world in the last few thousand years. The humans of this world all come from the same root culture, having divided into variations on the basic people depending on region. In most cases they can communicate on a common linguistic level even if they may not speak each other’s distinct dialect of their original language.

 

Humans have gained an innate magical sense when their ancestors pasted through the veil between worlds and entered Elwyren. This allows them to sense the presence of magic in an area, even if they cannot determine its exact location. With practice and experience they can refine this ability to allow them to determine the general and then later the precise location of magic.

Game Mechanics: Detect Magic 2 in 6. This ability allows them to automatically sense magic in an area but not it's specific location. It is an innate sense and will be triggered by the presence of magic items and spells or innately magical creatures within a 30' radius. The die roll is to allow them to pinpoint specific sources of magic or to filter out the magical energies of their own spells or magic items.

 

Elf

Elves have lived in the land of Elwyren almost as long as the beast folk and have developed a kinship with the natural forces of the land nearly as deep. The elves are a diverse people, having long adapted to a number of regions. Though they often have their own tribal or place names, they are often referred to by the type of terrain they dwell in – wood, desert, mountain, etc.

 

Elves have long memories and a sort of magical link to those who have preceded them. In fact, elves speak with their ancestors in a sort of memory recall that gives them a subconscious access to centuries of experience. Because of this elves often seem to have a supernatural sense of intuition as these ancient memories provide them with insight on current situations. This same long memory allows all elves to speak the same language, though local accents and minor dialects still exist.

Game Mechanics: In additional to their normal elfin abilities, the elves of Elwyren can draw upon the experience of their ancestors. This is done unconsciously and is an innate part of the elves' spiritual being. Once per encounter or event, the elf may choose to re-roll the results of a single die roll. This can be done for any roll whether or not the initial roll was a success but the elf must accept the second roll.

 

 

Dwarf

The dwarven people are a gregarious, but also stoic people with a strong sense of kinship and honor. They are robust, dwelling in areas strong in natural resources and are rather industrious beings. Valiant warriors with an indomitable will, dwarfs have long held a status as heroes of the land. Dwarves are very fond of heirlooms and traditions and it is not uncommon for a young or inexperienced dwarf to be found wielding a weapon which might seem, to others outside of dwarven society, beyond his status.

Game Mechanics: The starting primary weapon of a Elwyren dwarf adventurer is a magical weapon of  +1.

Pechi (Mouselings)

One of the beast folk races left in the world, the pechi appear to be anthropomorphized mice, standing anywhere from 2-3 feet tall. They are homey and shy, but friendly. Pechi are found throughout the land in small enclaves with a very tight community structure. They live in underground burrows often finished and outfitted inside as others might do with a surface dwelling.

Game Mechanics: Pechi are treated as halflings with the additional ability of a natural ability to climb and escape snares and holds. Pechi use their natural claws, ill-suited for combat, to aid in climbing and gain a +25% bonus instead of the normal halfling penalty. The mouselings also possess a 3 in 6 chance of being able to wiggle, squirm and disjoint their bodies out of any snare, gripping trap, hold or bindings.

 

Hurgeons (Hedgers)

Another of the beast folk races and the second most common after the Pechi, the hurgeons are a simple, reclusive folk who can be found in wild forests or even among the hedge rows of more civilized areas. They are robust, quick-thinking and hardy and very resistant to many forms of magic and poison. Unlike pechi who tend to freely mingle with other races, hurgeons do tend to keep to value their privacy, but will mingle when needed or when visitors call.

Game Mechanics: Herbalism - hurgeons are masters of herbal medicine, healing and apothecary arts. With this the hurgeon gains the ability to brew minor, non-magical mixtures, unguents, and ointments with a 25% chance of proficiency increasing by +5% per level of experience. These mixtures take a full hour to complete per dose and may have one of the following effects -

• heal 1d6-2 points of damage.
• neutralize poison
• sleep poison (for weapons)

Hafgir

Strangely similar to humans, but a race of their own, the hafgir are brawny, bristly beings standing from 6-8 ft tall with a very hard exterior. Their corded bodies ripple with raw physical power, their angular features making them look severe even though they may not be. Excessive body hair, wild head and facial hair, gives them a slightly bestial appearance, even though they are not in any way an animal hybrid. The hafgir are actually descended from an ancient race of giants. Hafgir tend to be slightly less intelligent and slower witted than other races.

Game Mechanics: Earth healing - the hafgir are able to draw on an ancient connection with their world and use it to heal their injuries. A hafgir, rooted in place with his bare feet on raw stone may heal 1d6+2 per level worth of hit points damage once per day.

 

 

Retrofitting a Campaign #1 - Doing It Old School

No, this is not an RPG porn title, but it does sum up an idea I had for going through and converting my 3.5 world, Artaera, that evolved out of my AD&D 1E/2E days back into something a bit more OSR in feel.

Now, because the world of Artaera has existed since my high school years it has had many layers lumped one on top of the other. As new supplements and editions came out more concepts, classes, special rules and such were layered back into the fold. I'll try to preserve as much of this flavor as I can without getting all mired down in the things that eventually drove me from this world and on to create new ones, but I'm sure some of it will have to go.

People Are People But So Can Animals BeAn Alternate Take on Far Eastern Settings in Fantasy RPGs

Most conventional fantasy RPG settings I've played in have a far-eastern component. This is usually this is a hodge-podge of real world Japanese and Chinese concepts, culture, classes and equipment thrown together into a sort of melange and given some fancy name. Oddly enough, these already cluttered settings then try to get even more complicated by presenting a number of uniquely Oriental player character races in addition to the people that exist there. Now, there is nothing wrong with this at all, though it seems odd to me that most campaign settings operate on the basic core races in every part of the world until you get to the Far East.

One idea I had for trying to streamline these lands came to me while reading the wonderful series of articles (seven so far) being done by Joe Kushner over at Appendix N. Joe is going through various volumes of the compiled Usagi Yojimbo comics done by Stan Sakai and, while reviewing the work itself and giving commentary on Stan's work, pointing out some insights on role-playing pulled from the pages. Though his observations on how the contents of these stories relate to good gaming are excellent, what inspired me more was the setting itself. Usagi Yojimbo's world is not Japan and it has no humans in it. Every character in Usagi Yojimbo is an animal of some sort. We have fox ninjas, samurai ronin, rhinos, cats, etc.

Animal spirits or folk are common themes in many eastern cultures and most rules systems allow for these as player races, but they exist on the periphery of human society. I think that a land populated mainly by intelligent, anthropomorphic animals would be quite memorable in a game. A GM could then create a society in which these animals lived in a heterogeneous society where tigers and monkeys existed side by side. If this seemed a bit too touchy-feely and utopian, certain strata could exist within this animal society with some animals being limited, shunned, or outcast. Maybe there were lands which were predominantly one species or another or perhaps some animals held themselves separate from the greater melting pot?

Such a land would seem all the more exotic, in my opinion, offering travelling adventurers a chance to rub elbows with something other than elvish lords, dwarf kings and halfling sheriffs. When an imperial crane advisor presents your party with a summons to the court of the lion emperor how will they respond? When a drunken rhino picks a fight with them or they are beset by monkey bandits they will know they are far from home. You could go so far as to have the various animal martial arts developed by the animals themselves. Monkey style is just Monkey kung-fu. Tigers traditional fight with their own fighting arts.

If you are not familiar with Usagi Yojimbo, then perhaps Kung-fu Panda might make a good bit of source media but all in all it's the same idea but Chinese as opposed to Usagi Yojimbo's faux (or is that fox) Japan.

Maybe I'll give it a try next time I need such a land.

-Eli

More Tales From The Wood

A couple of times in the last few years I have mentioned a little pet game of mine called Tales From The Wood. By pet game I mean a game that has a special place in my heart and that I find myself drawn to over and over, despite the unlikelihood of me getting to play it much.

TFTW is one of those games that seems to hide a secret potential that it will likely never access due to the fact that most people I tell about it seem to misunderstand or misjudge the game. At it's heart, the game is one of role-playing non-anthropomorphic woodland creatures through the adventures of their lives and this is often read as some form of kiddified gaming. Truth be told this is not the case.

This is a game that has as much depth and potential for adventure as any other RPG but it offers the unique perspective of playing from a non-humanoid point of view. Like any other RPG, TFTW offers the players puzzles to overcome and characters to flesh out. Though the creatures are not anthropomorphic they are allowed to have names and personalities as well as a level of understanding that does surpass that of natural creatures to the extent that the players do and must know more about the world they live in than a common critter.

As a DM, I have found writing adventures for TFTW to be exciting and often challenging in a good way. Writing adventures that do not take advantage of technologies or even the basic building blocks of civilization and still keeping them intriguing and entertaining is a real adventure writer's iron man race. I find that I must constantly filter my ideas through the eyes and other senses of animals, trying to make sure that I am not allowing them to become too human. That being said, TFTW is written to allow the plots to venture outside the realm of natural animals to some degree, most notably by the inclusion of gnome characters.

Rather than continue on with my attempt to explain and define TFTW's appeal to me,  I would like to share with you you a few of the adventure ideas that I have come up with for the game in hopes that they do a fair job of demonstrating what this game is about. The following little blurbs name characters and adventures from my actual games.

SPIKE'S RIVER JOURNEY

Twitchet the squirrel leads the players to a strange log that he has found along the river bank. The log (actually a beached toy sailboat) is intriguing but the PCs must outwit a group of skulking rats who have shown up to lay claim to to boat. In my game Spike, the hedgehog decided to bluff the rats with a bluster that placed him on the boat where he managed to dislodge it from the river bank by accident and set himself on a trip down the river.

THE THING IN THE TREES

In this halloweenish adventure the creatures of the forest are being terrified by a glowing, cyclopean phantom that has been seen scrabbling through the trees. Twitchet the squirrel recounts his horrifying close encounter with it. When a creature of the wood turns up dead, the terror grows and the PCs are sent out to try to find out what this might be and how to stop it.

The truth of this adventure is that the rustling phantom is a plastic shopping bag that is being blown about the wood by the autumn breeze. It's glowing appearance and haunting red eye are a result of the translucent bag and its red logo being back-lit by the moon. The creature that turned up dead was an unfortunate victim of the plastic bag, having suffocated.

In our game the PCs had to hunt for clues, finding some discarded takeout in styrofoam containers and venturing to the lair of an ancient owl who had been around long enough to remember the last time the wood was visited by such a creature. The PCs even had to battle a monstrous guardian to the owl's lair in the form of a large centipede that had grown big living in the rotted tree.

STAR NIGHT

In this adventure the PCs had to find a missing baby mouse while the rest of the wood readied itself for a special night where they would all view a celestial event. This adventure culminated in my daughter's character, a mole, working with Longfoot the rabbit to rescue the mouseling from the clutches of the weasels who lived in the briars.

MR. BIDDLE

This is an adventure I have yet to run as well. It is a bit of a character piece that will create an ally among humanity for the animals. The story takes the form of the PCs trying to learn about a new human who has moved into a cottage inside the edge of the wood. He is a veterinarian but his collections of animal specimens and models will lead to many misunderstandings.

LONGFOOT'S LONG JOURNEY

This is one I have yet to run but it will be my first multiple adventure story arc. It involves the adventurous Longfoot and his quest to find the giant white rabbit he viewed one night. He is convinced that the rabbit he saw was some sort of spirit and he sets out across the local countryside to find it. In reality the white rabbit was simply a logo on the side of a delivery truck from a local pub.

As you can see there are plenty of ideas that can be worked into the game without having to resort to simple confrontations between man and beast or beast and beast. I habe even discussed the inclusion of classic trolls in the game as a sort of "evil" counter to the gnome and an additional supernatural element.

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into my work with Tales From The Wood.

Thanks,

-Eli

[X-Plorers] New Races For X-Plorers - Iskabob

Iskabob are a species of artificially engineered beings that possess an unusually high degree of technical prowess. As a race they are natural tinkers, mechanics, builders and technicians. They have little in the way of a society, having originally been conceived of as living tools, but what social structure they have is centered on the team or a work group. Members of a team or work group are regarded as trusted fellows and given nearly complete trust by Iskabob. This can make these diminutive aliens a bit naïve at times.

Physically the Iskabob are squat, standing about 1.5 meters tall with an ovular main body. From this trunk radiate three legs and three arms at equidistant from one another around the body. The central leg and arm are both oriented to what can be considered the default from the of the alien, though this is only a technicality as the anatomy of the Iskabob is semi-fluid with a cartilaginous frame making nearly any orientation of limbs and head possible. The arms of the Iskabob are equipped with two double-jointed elbows and a freely rotating wrist, each terminating in a hand with tow long agile fingers and a centrally mounted thumb. Their feet are short and end in stable, padded pedestal-type feet.

Iskabob are identical to one another in appearance and can only be distinguished by their individual mannerisms and the marks they accumulate throughout their life experiences. Members of the species seem to be able to tell one another apart, but to those who have not spent much time around a particular Iskabob, it can be hard to tell who’s who. All Iskabob have a bright blue skin and dark eyes.

Restrictions

Iskabob can advance only in Scientist and Technician classes.

Attribute Adjustments

Iskabob must take a -2 penalty to PRE and -1 PHY to reflect their inherent lack of personality and their below average physical stature. They receive a +2 INT and +1 AGI bonus reflecting their preternatural gifts for calculation, information retention and the flexibility of their anatomy.

Bonuses

Iskabob are naturally resilient to damage and may add a +1 to their AC to reflect this.

[X-Plorers] New Class For X-Plorers - Star Marshal

One of the concepts I have always liked in scifi settings is the concept of how law does or can work in space. Many settings have some representation of law enforcement and whether they are marshals with no borders, local sherifs, or some sort of corporate security, they all provide a fun and enriching RPG alternative to the usual adventuring or military stories that most scifi RPGs seem to be built around.

Law enforcement games present some interesting possibilities to players and GMs alike. With cop games, the adventures are often a bit easier to initiate as all it takes is being handed a case, but they are also open enough to allow players to stumble on things or create their own missions or goals through role-playing. Another interesting point of law enforcement campaigns is that though the characters have a good amount of power, the nature of star law usually leaves the characters with little or no backup. So, though they may have lotso f resources in material they really do have to be careful how they use that as opposed to military campaigns where the soldier characters seldom have to worry much about how they use their resources.

I think that X-Plorers has a place for some sort of law enforcement role-playing as well. Though they might not mesh well with "galactic troubleshooters" all the time, these characters could definitely make guest appearances as NPCs or as short-term PCs. Also, entire side campaigns could be played around them or they might present an interesting opportunity for a game with fewer players than normal.

The class presented here is an adaptation of a concept originally conceived of by Will over at Green Skeleton Gaming Guild and I for an alternate X-P setting we had been working on. I have made the class a bit more generic so that it mightb e used by anybody regardless of the themes of their setting.

Star Marshal

Throughout space there are men and women tasked with dispensing justice and upholding the law. Because of the vast reaches of space and the relatively low number of personnel in this single organization, star marshals are given sweeping judicial powers. Though their code of conduct strictly forbids abuse of these powers, marshals are given complete police powers, as well as those of jury and if needed executioner.

Marshals are allowed to pursue their quarry to the ends of known space and even given authorization to cross political borders if needed, though they are wise to do so under cover so as not to risk undue strain on political relationships. The execution of a target is frowned on even if it is authorized and marshals are encouraged to pursue non-lethal means if at all possible.

[X-Plorers] New Class For X-Plorers - Pilot

X-plorers seems to make a lot of generalizations in its approach to sci-fi adventure and in doing so seems to completely miss a few of the standard archetypes of the genre. Even in the canon X-P setting, it seems odd that there is not a professional pilot among the character classes. To this end, I have cobbled together what I beleive is a suitable specialist pilot character class for the game.

The pilot is not intended to replace the scout and technician class but provides players with a character who is most at home behind the controls of a starship. We all know the sort from Han Solo to Starbuck to Buck Rogers pilots have been counted among some of the most memorable heroes of the scifi genre. It should also be noted that there is no reason that a pilot should be left out of the action of the meat of any adventure. In the science fiction genre it is not all that uncommon to see our space jockies leading the way with blaster and ray gun at the ready.

So here is the pilot optional character class for X-Plorers...

Pilot

Though scouts and technicians have skill in piloting, Pilots are the true specialists. When it comes to getting the most out of a ship, Pilots are the people to talk to. Keen senses and intuition allow a Pilot to turn a spacecraft or other vehicle into a deadly weapon. Pilots also have the necessary skills and expertise to repair and maintain their vehicles as well as the survival skills to endure should they find themselves stranded or wrecked by the countless dangers of space.

Sides or Scenario? - Setting Up Miniatures Games

Back in my early days of miniatures gaming it was always quite easy to figure out the setup of our games. Everyone played an army that had a distinctive motive and affiliation and the battles were simple meeting engagements. As time goes on, this becomes less and less the case. As I diversify my collection, tastes change or find myself the only one collecting a particular genre, I have been forced to think more about the games I play.

One of problems I have been facing, lacking a regular miniatures gaming group or club, has been attachment and investment into armies. When individuals collect their own armies, simple battles are easier to get them into because they have already invested so much in the game and their force. When they are using armies provided by a club or another person, this attachment and the motivation for personal glory seems to dwindle. This is where scenarios come in.

Outside of factionalized games, the scenario is what provides motivation and "emotional" investment in a force to the players controlling them. Before the game, a particular player may never have controlled or even considered a force of pirates, 1930s gangsters, or the 108th Nova Guards, etc and is likely to care less what name you give them. If you give him a scenario with a back story and a set of objectives then he may very well find a bit more to go with. Suddenly the miniatures game gets him back into that little bit of role-playing that all miniatures games possess at their core.

The cool thing about scenario play is that you don't have to have everyone collecting individual armies and nobody everh as to play the same army twice. Even in a campaign game, the player(s) controlling bad or good guys doesn't always need to be the same, especially if everyone is more into the scenario and/or story. The guy playing Dirk Danger one week may very well find himself playing the minions of Abu The Mad the next and letting somebody else play the lantern-jawed good guy. This also has the added benefit of instilling a bit more balance in scenario design and game play as nobody really gets a chance to stack the campaign in their favor.

This post may be a little disjointed and rambling but as I am currently working with miniatures projects again, I find myself considering the best ways to get into actually playing some of them. My wife has even expressed an interest in pushing some lead again but I really don't have anything ready for any fo the games she knows. She and I are discussing getting into a new project together, though the genre is up in the air at the moment.

Thanks for reading and take care!

-Eli

Adventures Into The Unknown - Characters

Design page fo Sgt. Buck Bronco's Wild Raiders by Eli Arndt

In planning the game for Adventures Into the Unknown, I decided that I wanted to use pregenerated characters. This was done for a few reasons but mostly because I was playing with this group for the first time and didn't want to wrestle with trying to get a bunch of relative strangers to make characters appropriate to the game I was running. It also had the advantage of me fudging a few things behind the scenes to allow the characters to be a bit more individual instead of all being generic humans.

I suppose a little information on the cast of heroes is in order. So, here is our international team of Nazi-busting heroes -

Sergeant Buck Bronco - Cigar-chomping, American G.I.. Leader.

Corporal Jimmy Barnes - Freckle-faced, corn-fed American G.I. kid. Mechanical wiz, pilot, and driver.

Bruno - Hulking Russian paratrooper and certifiable brick.

Markowski - Jewish Polish refugee and psychic.

Leiutenant Benchcroft - British demolitions expert.

"Sasha" - French resistence fighter, spy, assassin and all around scary lady.

Pvt. Finnigan - Irish-American pugilist and streetwise thug gone G.I. (late addition and not pictured)

One of the tricks I decided on was to create the heroes using the standard Labyrinth Lord races, applying their modifiers to the appropriate hero and marking his race type with appropriately themed pulp genre archetype. The big Russian in the group, Bruno, would be given the stats of a Goon (half-orc). Finnigan, the street tough scrapping Airborne soldier would be given the stats of a Tough Guy (dwarf). I would do this as appropriate for any of the characters that needed a bit of spice. There would still be humans, but this seemed like fun and an easy re-theming of the races.

I also looked at the various classes in LL and the found that for the most part, they all worked. Sure there wouldn't be any Magic-Users or Paladins and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be seeing anything resembling a Ranger. Using the Rogue (actually a rogue mystic) class, borrowed from Savage Sword of Athanor, I could do a reasonable approximation of a psionic operative for Markowski. Sasha, the French resistence fighter/spy could be an Assassin (fits her character better than Thief). I haven't worked it all out, but I think I'm on the right track here. If I could find or cobble a non-magical version of the Ranger for LL that might apply nicely to one or two of the members of Sgt. Bronco's Wild Raiders.

So, this is my starting point. The picture above shows some of my earlier conceptual sketches for the team. I have this odd urge to try and find somebody to do a good solid drawing of them. Even if this game doesn't go anywhere, I like the characters and could always use them later.

Stay tuned!

-Eli

Adventures Into The Unknown - RPGing On The Fly

So, for a bit now it's been clear that running na RPG with my regular group isn't all that likely. The guys are all cool and none of them is against a good RPG, but it's clear that they like our regular Friday thing the way it is and I can't blame them. It's nice to wind the week down with a good bit of socializing with your pals and cracking open a board game. No fuss, no muss. But I still want to do some RPGing.

A bit ago I got back in touch with an old friend who invited me to play in his games. I'm already spread a bit thin and really didn't want to jump into the middle of somebody else's game. Besides, I'm primarily a GM and have a hard time being "just a player" after so many years behind the wheel. So I politely passed but kept in touch with him and just recently we started talking about me running a game for his group on a sort of guest GM basis. I still didn't like the idea of getting in the middle of an existing gaming group in them idst of one of their games, so I asked if he and his group might be open to the idea of me running my own game for them and then sort of sat back to see what would come of it.

So recently I had what I think is a fun idea for an RPG and ran it past my pal and he put it past his group. They thought it was cool and so did he and I even picked up another pal who used to be a member of our regular group but who had been sidelined by life (twins, work, school, etc). The big problem was that the group is bigger than I remember and with my current availability for planning and prep time, I didn't want to run one of the systems I'd usually use which are good for medium to smaller groups but which I don't feel hold up with larger numbers of players. This left me in a bit of a lurch.

I had a game to run and no system to run it with.

I threw up a post a few days back soliciting for recommendations of simple systems that might full the pulpy Sword & Planet meets war-time pulp adventure setting I had in mind. I received some excellent input from a lot of you folks out there but the biggest problem was that any of them would require me to go out and buy another game system for a game that may or may not take off. This was something I really wasn't cool with doing, not yet and not for just a single project. I needed another solution.

That solution came when I was reading through a copy of Spirit of the Century and it's FATE mechanic. I've always loved systems that promote role-play through a useful and simple game mechanic and the Aspect system of SOTC was so nicely done (IMHO) that I almost jumped right into SOTC but was stopped by one key thing the game was missing - STATS!

Call me old fashioned. Call me a dinosaur. Call me anything, but I just love a good set of attribute scores on characters and encounters. the FATE system doesn't have these and this really makes GMing challenging as encounters and characters become more a matter of comparative and interpretive literature than a quanitified easily comparable set of numbers. As a DM, I'd have to pretty much write out a character sketch of every encounter. But, the Aspect and Fate Points were too good to give up. I had an idea.

I had a copy of the free version of Labyrinth Lord already printed up and it's kinship with the old D&D made it an easy game for folks and myself to acquaint ourselves with. I also had a copy of the advanced rules fo LL that I got as a member of the Labyrinth Lord Society (join!). This would make a good foundation and couled together with a few ideas presented in the Savage Swords of Athanor campaign setting for Swords & Wizardry, I thought I might have a winner that could be butted up to the Aspect system of SOTC.

This is wierd for me, because honestly I used to poke fun at people who fused a bunch of systems together. Call it a rare moment of uncharacteristic purism but I had always considered RPG systems pretty sacred unto themselves with very little room for wholesale mixing and matching. I'd poked fun at my share of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk Illuminati crossovers and what-not and here I was about to do the same thing (not for the first time, but that's another story).

So, from all this I think I have a system to run my pulp meets pulp game I am now calling "Adventure Into The Unknown: The Thrilling Tales of Sgt. Buck Bronco and is Wild Raiders"...

Stay tuned everyone, this might get messy.

Take care,

-Eli

30 Flawed Females

We all know that fantasy is full of various female characters. Be they protagonist, antagonist, foil or gal friday, they all play a role in the story someplace. In RPGs, still a decidedly male hobby, these ladies often take the form of NPCs in need of rescue, plot hooks, or random encounters set to either aid or mislead the party. I offer here a number of possible flaws that these encounters might possess. This table is not meant to be exhaustive nor do I mean any sort of slight to the female gender with any of these entries. These are intended to provide some interesting fantasy genre flaws, complications, and affectations for ladies encountered in the course of adventuring.

[Design Note: It has been brought to my attention that it might be right to change the name of the post to 30 Flaws. While I will not do this, I will acknowledge and agree with the reason for the suggestion. It was suggested that these flaws would work for either gender and this is true. Feel free to adjust the genders suggested in the chart into any combination you like. The chart is, like all of them, just a suggested set of possibilities.]

Take a roll and beware...

-Eli

1. Charms men into doing her dirty work for her.
2. Secretly the priestess of a wicked god/goddess and plans to use a member of the party as a sacrifice.
3. Bound by a dark pact to kill the men she falls in love with.
4. Transforms into a dangerous monster when she becomes amorous.
5. A dragon or some other powerful creature in (demi)human form.
6. Daughter of a demon.
7. Wicked queen of an entire kingdom travelling in disguise.
8. The avatar of a goddess.
9. The chosen of a particular god or goddess and jealously protected by them.
10. Poisonous to the touch.
11. Her gaze has some magical effect such as petrification, charm person, feeble mind, etc.
12. Remains harmless as long as she is a virgin but transforms into something dangerous if that should change.
13. The princess of a powerful ruler who would rather his daughter not be involved with the party.
14. The beloved of a local hero.
15. Cursed to transform into some immobile form by day/night (tree, stone, ice, furniture, jewelry, etc).
16. Must do the exact opposite of anything she is told to do.
17. Her words always become reality.
18. Cannot disobey a direct order.
19. Harmed by direct sunlight.
20. Possesses a particularly foul dietary requirement (blood, raw meat, garbage, etc)
21. Can only wear clothing blessed by a particular deity.
22. Harmed by the touch of a particular material (iron, stone, non-silk fibers, tofu, etc).
23. Has a habit of falling insanely in love at first sight.
24. Has horrible dreams that create living nightmares.
25. Bound to the land she lives in sharing its fate as it shares her own.
26. Cannot set foot on a particular type of ground (holy, land, water, agricultural, etc)
27. Cannot speak
28. Cannot stop talking and constantly prattles on about anything that crosses her mind.
29. Attracts monsters.
30. Is Death in human form.

30 Odd Halflings

Following my post on the difficulties in placing halflings and gnomes, I felt a slight pang of guilt. They say that if you are part of the solution then you are part of the problem. So, in the interest of possibly becoming part of the solution, I present to you a d30 approach to creating some oddball and possibly interesting types of halflings.

Enjoy!

-Eli

1. Have devolved into a race of inbred, xenophobic cannibals.
2. Made a pact with an obscure demigod and now live by the tenants of his beliefs.
3. There are no men among them though there are children everywhere.
4. Live in stilted homes and takes great measures to avoid setting foot on the ground.
5. Are nomads and travel about in large wheeled yurts pulled by stout ponies.
6. Are taller than usual halflings and speak in a lilting sylvan language resembling elfish.
7. Live in fortified warrens of tunnels instead of the typical hilly shire.
8. Travel in bands, using stilts to appear as regular folk. They seem to be up to nothing suspicious, other          than their mode of travel.
9. Are heavily scarred, speak in gruff tones, file their teeth, wear armor festooned with spikes and points and carry wicked swords.
10. A pungent odor surrounds these halflings who dress in colorful clothing, long hair and travel around in garishly painted caravans.
11. Screams when a certain number, word, or phrase is spoken.
12. Speak in riddles and rhymes.
13. Live in dark, wet caverns and whisper secrets among themselves.
14. Are musical and break into song at nearly any occasion.
15. Strut proudly and live in a village built around the statue of a mighty halfling standing atop the slain body of an overly impressive bullete.
16. Rise from their slumber at night and wander into the countryside returning by daybreak.
17. Fall to their knees at the site of the party’s least powerful member addressing him as “Great One”
18. Claim to be caretakers to the body of a fallen god whos tomb rests beneath an unnamed hill.
19. Brew a potion capable of taming some type of monster.
20. Keep the surrounding non-halfling populations living in fear of them and doing their bidding.
21. Live in trees and are master bakers.
22. Live in a monastic order or of monster slayers, riding forth on their noble war dogs.
23. Form a cabal of assassins disguised as a modest farming community.
24. Flee in terror at the sight of one of the party members.
25. Have the gift of prophecy and speak the futures of the party members.
26. Have been enslaved by some powerful creature who they must serve as a god king.
27. Possess the answer to an ancient riddle or secret.
28. Possess strange powers connected to one of the prime elements (fire, water, earth, air).
29. Run a ring of local smugglers, wreckers and pirates.
30. Roll Twice.

[Elf Bait #4] It's The Little Things - Part 2Superstitions and Folk Beliefs

When I'm running games I like to throw out all sorts of little odds and ends that set up the place my players are in. Sometimes it doesn't take a lot of effort and a few small little blurbs tossed out among the usual sights and smells can say a lot about the place people are in. These details don't have to be complete or fleshed out, or even explained by the GM and in keeping them brief you will also add a sense of mystery and heighten the discovery and experience of the players who are venturing into your world.

One of the best ways to do this is through subtle cultural details. In previous posts I have mentioned food as a great way to establish place and culture, but there are other ways. Subtle rituals, habits, even the way that people sit can tell a lot about your world and those that live in it. Perhaps the inhabitants of a particular city have a rule about who sits where at a table that is very conspicuous. The players will not know everything about the meaning behind this (unless they are from that culture) but it will stick that there is some rhyme or reason to the way people gather at tables.

Another example, from my own campaign, was having and innkeeper’s wife leave out a cup of mead and bowl of milk as the party was sitting up late in the common room. At the time, this was a curiosity and had them wondering what was up but little more. The next morning the cup and dish were clean and stacked neatly next to a basket woven from twigs. In the basket were the dead and collected bodies of insects, house mice, etc. The players now saw that there was something going on behind the scenes in this society. This was further evidenced throughout the campaign by other such lesser rituals.

Our own world is full of these little things that we take for granted but will become quite apparent when they are not around us. The way somebody folds their hands, hangs there drapes, positions their doors, any of these things can be used to characterize a society. Whatever you choose to do, it should be able to be conveyed in passing and with little or no divergence from your main story. You want to avoid encyclopedic description or over over-expository statements that destroy any sense of the unknown.

Continuing with my above example, my players learned that the realm they lived in still lived very much tied to its old traditions of faerie lore. They then went on to discover that not only were these traditions strong but rightfully so. The realm the people lived in was very much at the mercy and influence of the fey folk. As I ran the game, the player’s characters began to adopt the local customs and increased their level of sensitivity to these influences. One player even took to praying to a local goddess for fear of angering her while he was in her land. They never had but a single run-in with the faeries but the subtle use of passing imagery set a deeper, richer tone to the environment the players were interacting with.

In the next installment of Elf Bait we'll look at some more "little things" you can do to enhance the character of your game world and its inhabitants. It doesn't take much.

OSR and Innovation

I'll admit that I am relatively new to the whole Old School Role-Playing (OSR) movement. I am an old school gamer and have loved for a long time, but I'm not the sort who never bought or played a new edition or who sees the OSR games as some sacred thing. This leads me to the point of this post, but first, a bit of background on where this post comes from.

As OSR revivalist gaming is still coming into its own or perhaps it is just coming into the light so to speak, there is much discussion of what makes for good OSR and what is and is not OSR. As folks try to develop their latest retro RPG clone or OSR-styled masterpiece (and there are some good ones), I keep finding discussions that seem to want to hem OSR into a very tight listing of "is" and "is nots". Now, maintaining a sense of style and a certain standard is important to uphold that OSR feel. But, does this mean that there is no room for innovation?

I recent project with Will over at Green Skeleton Gaming Guild has really brought some of this thinking to the surface as we discuss whether or not this and that is OSR or not. I should point out here that neither of us is a die hard "it must be OSR" guy but we are trying to work on this project in that same sort of style and so we are using it as a check. Our general concensus is that OSR is more about a feel and a style and as such, no rule should be completely dismissed as "not OSR" just because it is not one of the origjnal conventions of OSR games.

I think it is important to remember that, in their day, the OSR games were the new thing and they were popping with inventive ideas that hadn't been seen anywhere. They also went through a lot of changes and clonings and outright copying as well. The OSR movement itself even includes quite a few systems under its umbrella. The main fear I hear voiced time and again is the worry that a new rule or type of character element might complicate things in a way that is outside the established style of these sorts of game. This doesn't have to be true as there are ways of doing new things in old ways.

For example, OSR games, at least the three or four main systems I have seen, tend to not use racial attribute modifiers but instead default to a set of minimum attribute requirements for particular races. I would argue that neither is any more simple or complex than the other. The main difference is which of them is the more established way of doing things.

Another example that came up in the discussion between Will and myself was whether or not to use the "race is class" concept or seperate Races and classes. Now this isn;t a hard and fast OSR element, but it did spark a minor discussion as to which is the OSR way of doing things. For our project, however, it seemed a bit limiting to have race and class one in the same. The key was finding a way to allow for races to be seperate but in a manner that did not clutter the game in a way that took it outside of that OSR feel.

When considering the whole "is it OSR" idea, I do hope that as the movement takes off and more and more folks get into producing new products in this style, we will see some innovation. Given enough time or the need to consider it for their games I'm sure the founding fathers of RPGs would have and indeed did bend their own established rules to innovate their games to go in directions that their original visions might have supported. I hope the OSR community continues to be the wonderful supportive and fun community it is and will receive innovation in a manner that open-minded and cdonsider new ideas with the same interest and attention they did when they first encountered those original ideas that gave them their beloved hobby to begin with.

Thanks to all for reading,

-Eli

[Elf Bait #3] It's The Little Things Part 1What's on The Menu

If you haven't figured it out by now, I like to add a lot of color and background to the things I do. Admitedly this sometimes stalls out or even bogs down the actual point or process, but this is a rarity and so I continue to do things this way. One thing I have found that really adds character to any region in a game world is the food that they eat. Food is such an integral part of any culture and the style, ingrediants and even the way in which it is served speaks volumes about the people who make it.

As an example of this, I offer a brief bit reposted from my Homeland blog for the campaign of the same name. It characterizes the food to be found in the central area of the campaign known as the Shire of Vale found in the Valley of Baryn.

Food is an important part of the human culture of Vale. Rustic and earthy folk, the men and women of the valley have discovered a number of delicacies among the native flora and fauna. most meals include a mixture of vegetables, fruits, nuts and usually one or two meat dishes but there are several noteworthy dishes besides the common steak or mutton chop.

One of these is the poaching of birds of all sorts. The Haelic folk of the Vale seem to have an affinity for the slow-cooking of all manner of avian life from small song birds as appetizers to larger foul. Such dishes are often served with sauces mixed from cream and berries or jelly glazes.

Boar meat is one of the most common of the wild meats served. The native species of boars range in flavor from the musky, gamey flesh of the Razortusk to the spicey, almost peppery meat of the Blunt-Tusked Cliff Boar. Boar meat is often served with a minimum of seasonings, the flavor of the meat allowed to express itself. Sides are offered along with the boar and usually take the form of complimentary nuts and vegetables, often roots and tubors.

Along the rivers, many types of fish are served. Among them are several forms of dangerous, predatory gars and pike, the sort that take challenge to catch, but the rarest and most dangerous is the Bull Eel - a seven foot long eel noted for the horn-like growths above its eyes. Bull Eel is served boiled and whole, all its organs intact and a single eel can feed an entire family.

Mushroom Pie is a favorite baked good, the forest of the valley offering several varieties of hearty, meaty fungus that bake into fragrent, juicy pastries and pies. Often, the mushrooms are mixed with other vegetables and sometimes grains and carried as provisions. One variety of mushroom called the Hearthstool is as big as a serving platter and is sometimes roasted whole or breaded and fried as a food to be enjoyed at social functions.

A special kind of honey is obtained from the Reaper Wasps of the deep forests and it's red-hued sweetness is prized both for its flavor and its reputation as a love potion. Obtaining this honey is dangerous as the solitary Reaper Wasps protect their nests and clutches of eggs with suicidal zeal.

In the South, in Bethalport and the surounding villages, many kinds of seafood are to be had. From Saber Muscles and Shallow Loach Fish, the variety there is great. Cove Octopi are often cultivated in tidal pens and harvested at about a year old when their heads measure the size of a large dog. Cape Perch and Sea Harps (a golden-colored seal) are hunted through the traditional means of harpooning as the struggle these beasts go through in being netted poisons the meat.

Much prized among the Brinefolk are the sholes of Moon Tarpin that gather in the Autumn months under the harvest moon. At this time the tarpin are lulled into a sort of languid stupor as they get their bearings for their upcoming migration to the mosre southerly waters. Huge hauls of Moon Tarpin are brought in by the Portlock fishing fleets during these months, often requiring the recruiting of extra hands to take full advantage. During this time though a special hazard also visits the coastal waters off Vale - the Abyss Shark.

Abyss Sharks are so-called for the fact that their black bodies absorb light, making them nearly impossible to spot in the nighttime waters. Many fishermen have found themselve the victim of a nearby Abyss Shark simply because the predator was unseeable in the hazey night. During the gathering of the Moon Tarpin, these sharks are at their most agressive, using the abundance of easy prey to stock up on food so that they may begin their bi-annual mating duels. Finding oneself in the midst of a pair of duelling Abyss sharks is the sort of thing that rare survivors care little to speak of.

There are more delicacies in the land of Vale, but space does not allow a full disclosure, but the variety and ingenious use of the valley's abundance never ceases to amaze visitors to this rustic land.

As you can see, the few paragraphs above tell us a lot about the people oof Vale. They are social eaters who take their food from the world around them. They eat hearty and take time to make the best of what they have.

Well, that's it for Elf Bait today. I do hope you have enjoyed reading it and, as usual, I welcome feedback, comments, and/or suggestions. Feel free to use anythign you see here and all I ask is that if you do, you give credit and if you feel like it, let me know what you did with it.

Take care!

-Eli

 

Other Blogs By Me

While patrolling through my blogger settings I came across a few earlier attempts at blogging that I had done. These were attempts at using blogs for world building for D&D, an experiment that proved useful to a degree but that utlimately ended up giving way to the use of Wikis instead.

The first of these is my Homeland blog. This was the creation space for my first original D&D campaign world since high school. Up until then I had played in the same campaign setting that had been growing, rather organically, until about five years ago when I decided I wanted to run a new setting. Homeland was an attempt to create a campaign with its roots in a rustic setting from which adventure could grow.

The second is just a beginning but it does details some of the races I intended to use for a campaign setting that took place in Ravania, a land that had previously existed on the edge of my original campaign setting from the high school days. This expansion of a part of the world was modernized, updated and fleshed out with my newer creative stylings.

Give them a look and feel free to comment on the various posts. I've kept them mostly private up until now, but would love to hear what folks think.

Take care,

-Eli