Planning a Holiday Soon?

Does anyone remember the Dungeon Planner Sets from Games Workshop? I remember seeing advertisements for them in White Dwarf but I never encountered them in the wild. I was very intrigued by the ads and likely would have purchased one of them had I ever seen them for sale in a store. Unfortunately, the ads were the closest I ever got to them, so I'd be curious to hear from anyone who did own one (or even just saw one).

Learning by Experience

As you've no doubt noticed, I've lately been pondering the way that Dungeons & Dragons handles experience. In particular, I've found myself somewhat dissatisfied by the way the game ties advancement in every field to advancement in level. I fully understand why D&D works this way and can respect the decision. For certain styles of RPG campaigns, I actually think it's a very good choice. For others, particularly those where cultural immersion is an important part of the fun, it's somewhat limiting (and, dare I say, unrealistic?). 

Consequently, I find myself being drawn more and more to the approach to experience in Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing family of games. Now, BRP is quite unlike D&D in its design, being almost entirely skill-based, so there are limits to the lessons that can be drawn from it. Even so, there's a lot I like about its design, such as learning by experience, as presented in this section from the second edition of RuneQuest:

This version of learning by experience is, in my opinion, more complicated than it needs to be in its specifics. Call of Cthulhu – at least in its classical version; I can't speak to the current edition – makes use of a simpler version. Other BRP games employ their own variations. What matters to me is the basic conception of tracking individual advancement in each area of character's competency (skills), not any particular implementation of it. Indeed, I think it might well be possible to come up with a simpler application of it that nevertheless retains the core idea.

I don't know. My thinking is all over the place at the moment and I apologize if my recent spate of posts on experience and levels doesn't completely make sense. I suppose I am thinking aloud in order to decide what I like and want as I puzzle my way through the design of Secrets of sha-Arthan. Ultimately, my goal is a set of rules that is straightforward, if not not necessarily simple, and that is robust enough to handle a setting that's as culturally immersive as Glorantha, Jorune, or Tékumel (all of which are, to varying degrees, influences upon sha-Arthan). 

As always, I appreciate your comments.

Know then, O Prince ....

Here's a TSR UK advertisement for the 1985 Conan Role-Playing Game. It's a disappointingly understated ad in my opinion, especially given the subject matter. That said, I have a strange affection for the game, which was, objectively speaking, nothing great, but my friends and I had fun with it and that's the true measure of any RPG. 

(I feel compelled to point out that the tagline of the advertisement, which is ostensibly an excerpt from the Nemedian Chronicles quoted at the beginning of "The Phoenix on the Sword," is wrong. The adverb "then" does not appear in Howard's original text. Mind you, what follows below is itself a paraphrase, omitting certain words and praises, so perhaps we shouldn't judge this too harshly.)

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Devotee of Evil

After last week's post, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at the third story featuring Clark Ashton Smith's author insert, Philip Hastane. Entitled "The Devotee of Evil," Smith finished writing it in early 1930 but had difficulty in finding a market for it. After failed submissions to Ghost Stories, Galaxy, Illustrated Detective Magazine, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, he included it in his self-published The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies, which appeared in June 1933 (and also included the eponymous "The Double Shadow" and "The Maze of the Enchanter"). Almost a decade later, it re-appeared in the pages of the February 1941 issue of Stirring Science Stories. 

The story concerns new owner of "the old Larcom house," 

a mansion of considerable size and dignity, set among oaks and cypresses on the hill behind Auburn's Chinatown, in what had once been the aristocratic section of the village. At the time of which I write, it had been unoccupied for several years and had begun to present the signs of desolation and dilapidation which untenanted houses so soon display. The place had a tragic history and was believed to be haunted.

This owner is one Jean Averaud of New Orleans (hence Smith's submission of the tale to the Times-Picayune). Averaud – whose name is reminiscent of the French province of Averoigne – is reputed to be "a recluse of the most eccentric type" as well as "extravagantly rich." He moves into Larcom House with his beautiful woman "who was believed to be his mistress as well as his housekeeper." 

Hastane serves as the story's narrator and mentions that, before their first formal meeting, he had seen Averaud several times and made an assessment of him based on his appearance.

He was a sallow, saturnine Creole, with the marks of race in his hollow cheeks and feverish eyes. I was struck by his air of intellect, and by the fiery fixity of his gaze — the gaze of a man who is dominated by one idea to the exclusion of all else. Some medieval alchemist, who believed himself to be on the point of attaining his objective after years of unrelenting research, might have looked as he did.

In time, though, Averaud specifically seeks out Hastane, whose reputation as a novelist of the weird has elicited his admiration. When he finds him, Hastane is in the midst of reading an item in the local newspaper about an "atrocious crime," namely the murder of a woman and her two young children. Averaud takes note of this and uses it as an opportunity to philosophize on the subject of evil.

"I believe in evil — how can I do otherwise when I see its manifestations everywhere? I regard it as an all-controlling power; but I do not think that the power is personal in the sense of what we know as personality. A Satan? No. What I conceive is a sort of dark vibration, the radiation of a black sun, of a center of malignant eons — a radiation that can penetrate like any other ray — and perhaps more deeply. But probably I don't make my meaning clear at all."

To the contrary, Hastane understands his meaning quite well and is intrigued by his musings. Some time later, Averaud invites the novelist to Larcom House, an offer he accepts, in part to sate his curiosity about both the ancient building and its newest inhabitants. In Averaud's library, he finds "an ungodly jumble of tomes," dealing with "anthropology, ancient religions, demonology, modern science, history, psychoanalysis and ethics. Interspersed with these were a few romances and volumes of poetry. Beausobre's monograph on Manichaeism was flanked with Byron and Poe; and "Les Fleurs du Mal" jostled a late treatise on chemistry." 

"You have been looking at my books," he observed immediately. "Though you might not think so at first glance, on account of their seeming diversity, I have selected them all with a single object: the study of evil in all its aspects, ancient, medieval and modern. I have traced it in the religions and demonologies of all peoples; and, more than this, in human history itself. I have found it in the inspiration of poets and romancers who have dealt with the darker impulses, emotion and acts of man. Your novels have interested me for this reason: you are aware of the baneful influences which surround us, which so often sway or actuate us. I have followed the working of these agencies even in chemical reactions, in the growth and decay of trees, flowers, minerals. I feel that the processes of physical decomposition, as well as the similar mental and moral processes, are due entirely to them.

"In brief, I have postulated a monistic evil, which is the source of all death, deterioration, imperfection, pain, sorrow, madness and disease. This evil, so feebly counteracted by the powers of good, allures and fascinates me above all things. For a long time past, my life-work has been to ascertain its true nature, and trace it to its fountain-head. I am sure that somewhere in space there is the center from which all evil emanates."

Averaud further explains that his studies have led him to believe that "certain localities and buildings, certain arrangements of natural or artificial objects, are more favorable to the reception of evil influences than others." He adds that he has a theory that, because of some manner of "interference with the direct flow of malignant force," there has never been an instance of "pure, absolute evil" manifesting itself in the world, only echoes of varying degrees of potency.

Averaud intends to initiate an experiment that test this theory. He tells Hastane that

 "By the use of some device which would create a proper field or form a receiving station, it should be possible to evoke this absolute evil. Under such conditions, I am sure that the dark vibration would become a visible and tangible thing, comparable to light or electricity." He eyed me with a gaze that was disconcertingly exigent. Then:

"I will confess that I have purchased this old mansion and its grounds mainly on account of their baleful history. The place is unusually liable to the influences of which I have spoken. I am now at work on an apparatus by means of which, when it is perfected, I hope to manifest in their essential purity the radiations of malign force."

Hastane soon takes his leave of Averaud, unsure of just what to think about the eccentric fellow and his plans. Though fascinated by Averaud's notions about the true nature of evil, he is less certain about the feasibility – not to mention desirability – of finding a means of manifesting pure, absolute evil in the world. The remainder of the story details what happens when Hastane returns to Larcom House to witness a supposed demonstration of a device invented by Averaud for this very purpose – and the consequences of its operation.

"The Devotee of Evil" is frequently criticized as little more than an imitation of better works of H.P. Lovecraft. While I can understand why one might make such criticisms, I don't think they're entirely fair. Certainly, the story is not one of Smith's best – it's much too short to do justice to its intended subject, for example – but its central conceit, the idea of evil as a fundamental force of the universe akin to those of the Standard Model of particle physics is a genuinely clever idea. Indeed, it's one I'd love to see developed further in one form or another. Consequently, I have some fondness for "The Devotee of Evil" and recommend it as an all-too-brief examination of a chilling notion.

An illustration by the great Hannes Bok that accompanied the story

"Has Steve Jackson lost his mind?"

An advertisement from issue #120 (April 1987) of Dragon magazine. 

What Are Levels For?

In light of my earlier post on levels, I find myself wondering: what are levels for? This is a sincere question on my part. Levels – by which I mean experience levels – are simply one of those things that Dungeons & Dragons has always had but whose purpose I never questioned. Obviously, levels are a marker of accumulated experience and thus advancement, but why does that even matter? 

In OD&D, there's an implicit suggestion that experience level is indexed to the difficulty posed by the typical inhabitants of a given dungeon level (hence the re-use of the key term). However, that suggestion is a very loose one, since the Monster Level Tables found in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures don't present a one-for-one correlation between dungeon level and monster level (which is to say, hit dice – itself an inexact measure of relative difficulty). And, of course, the Wilderness Wandering Monster tables don't even make a pretense of correlating difficulty with monster level/hit dice, so what's going on?

Again, I want to reiterate I'm being sincere in asking about the purpose of levels in D&D. It may very well be that, despite my long years of playing the game, I've simply been too thickheaded to understand their point beyond providing a simple milestone for when a character gains access to more potent abilities. If so, I'd be grateful to anyone who can enlighten me on this matter. Plenty of other RPGs manage to get by without levels; why does D&D have them?

Grousing about Levels

Having extensively played Dungeons & Dragons in one form or another – including Empire of the Petal Throne, which is clearly derived from D&D – for more than four decades now, I've pretty well made my peace with its idiosyncrasies. That said, there is one aspect of the game that increasingly vexes me and that's the way that experience points and levels interact with one another. 

One of the first things you'll notice if you take a look at an experience table for any class in any edition of D&D is that, as level increases, so too do hit points. Glancing at other charts indexed to level reveals that nearly every important mechanical feature of a class, such as its combat effectiveness, saving throws, spell and other abilities, likewise increase in step with level increases. 

While it's certainly simpler to tie every ability to a character's level, it doesn't make much sense. Logically – to the extent that word has any meaning in this context – abilities ought to go up separately, as a character makes use of them and thereby becomes better at using them or through study and practice. Of course, this is not how D&D works or was ever intended to work. I don't blame the game for not conforming to this specific understanding of experience.

In my House of Worms campaign, which uses Empire of the Petal Throne, this issue has reared its head several times. Unlike D&D, EPT includes a rudimentary skill system that delineates the areas of knowledge a character knows at the start of his career. In addition, as the character gains levels, he has the opportunity to acquire new skills, in addition to the more usual D&D-ish benefits of more hit points, greater combat effectiveness, etc. But what if a character wants to pick up a new skill outside of a level increase? This is an issue, because level increases in EPT occur much more slowly than in D&D. Furthermore, among the possible skills are things like foreign languages that ought to be learnable simply by seeking out a tutor or by spending enough time in a foreign land among native speakers to develop some degree of fluency. (To be fair, this is also an issue in D&D, which ties language acquisition to Intelligence score.)

In my campaign, I allowed characters to acquire new skills (and spells) by spending time and money to study with someone capable of teaching them. This made logical sense to me, since that's how people acquire new skills in the real world. It was also attractive as part of the game, because it immersed the characters further in the setting. If, for example, they wanted to learn the Livyáni language prior to their visit to that far-off land, they'd need to find and hire an NPC to teach them. If one of them wanted to learn the sphere of impermeable quiescence spell, he'd need to visit the Temple of Sárku and cajole one of its sorcerers into instructing him in its intricacies. All of this led to a greater connection to the people and institutions of the setting, which I consider important to the long-term success of the campaign.

But none of this, strictly speaking, is allowed by the game. More to the point, it's contrary to the way skill acquisition is presented in the Empire of the Petal Throne rulebook, which ties it to level advancement, just like hit points or saving throws. Now, obviously, I'm well within my rights as the referee to change anything in the rulebook I want and have done so without any qualms. However, that doesn't change the fact that what I am doing – detaching a level-based ability from levels – is the camel's nose under the tent for uncoupling experience gain, level advancement, and ability improvement. 

I'm by no means opposed to this line of thought. Indeed, I'm rather well disposed toward it, especially of late. At the same time, there's no denying that it inevitably leads to some places I'm not sure Dungeons & Dragons (and games based on its model, like EPT) can go very far. That might explain why I find myself looking longingly at Basic Role-Playing and its descendants for inspiration, even though I am instinctively more inclined toward the D&D approach to most things, given its relative simplicity for newcomers. 

I'd be very interested in hearing others' thoughts on this matter, particularly from those who've wrestled with it in their own campaigns.

Dare to Be Stupid

In my post about my ongoing Twilight: 2000 campaign, I mentioned that the players are frequently afflicted with analysis paralysis. By this, I mean that the players sometimes spend sessions doing little more than discussing the pros and cons of the various options available to their characters rather than making a decision and acting on it. I don't mean to sound harsh in pointing this out, particularly since some of these sessions spent discussing options have actually been very enjoyable. They're more like in-character strategizing than what is usually meant by analysis paralysis. At the same time, I can't deny – and I suspect many of the players in the campaign would agree – that not every such session has been so enjoyable. Indeed, far too many have amounted to little more than the characters spinning their wheels, hoping that the "right" path ahead becomes clear.

Caution, of course, is to be commended. At the same time, an abundance of caution is not the gateway to adventure – and adventure is the point of nearly every RPG I've ever played. For that reason, I've come to realize that it's vitally important that every group of players have at least one player willing to be That Guy™ from time to time. You know who I mean: the fighter who rushes headlong into combat with nary a thought to his (or anyone else's) safety; the thief who sneaks ahead to pick the pocket of the High Priest of the Temple of Chaos, the halfling who decides to find out what the lever in the middle of the wall does by pulling it, etc. etc. 

Some of my fondest memories from roleplaying campaigns involve players leaping before they looked, whether because they felt it was "what my character would do," an impish sense of fun, or simple boredom. Whatever the reason, recklessness proved vital to shattering the vise grip of caution over many a session. One of the many joys of a roleplaying game is the ability to do things, through your character, that you'd never do in real life. This includes acts of supreme foolhardiness that, even in context, don't always make sense – yet are undeniably enjoyable nonetheless. 

Lest it appear that I'm laying the blame for circumspection solely at the feet of players, allow me to demonstrate my own role in encouraging it. In my House of Worms campaign, there's a player character named Kirktá, who's a young and inexperienced priest of Durritlámish. He joined the campaign as a 1st-level character, while most of his companions were 4th or 5th-level at the time. Kirktá is physically weak but very eager and so, from his earliest days in the campaign, would often rush into battle with his trusty staff, even though there was a good chance that even a single blow against him would result in his death. Every time Kirktá's player stated his character intended to do this, I'd always ask, "Are you sure you want to do that?" To his player's credit, he almost always forged ahead, in spite of my warnings.

I intended my questions to act as a reminder to Kirktá's player about the seriousness of what he was planning for his character to do. I'm not the kind of referee who revels in players making bad decisions and suffering the consequences. In general, I prefer to make sure everyone is aware of the possible consequences of what they say they're doing. At least, that's what I think I'm doing. Lately, though, I've come to realize that my regular "Are you sure you want to do that?" might be encouraging the very overabundance of caution that sometimes brings the action to a grinding halt. My Jiminy Cricket act might be having an adverse effect on the campaign by throttling the brash enthusiasm that is the very stuff from which good gaming is made.

It's a sobering thought and one I've been thinking about a lot lately. One of the seminal moments in the history of the House of Worms campaign, one that set into motion so many of the terrific sessions my players and I have had over the last seven and a half years, was when another player did something foolish by desperately casting a spell while wearing metal armor. By all objective standards, that was a stupid thing to do – and thank the Lords of Stability and Change that he did. Looking back on it now, that moment forever altered the trajectory of the House of Worms campaign and made it what it is today, namely, one of the best RPG campaigns in which I have ever participated. Had that player been more cautious, had he looked before he leaped, who knows where we'd be today?

All of which is just a longwinded way of saying that caution is often the antithesis of adventure and adventure is what we're all here for, right?

9 Months and 18 Days

Earlier this year, I wrote a brief post about the Twilight: 2000 campaign I began in December of 2021. This campaign is in addition to my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign, which is still ongoing. There's some overlap between the players of the two campaigns, but the majority of the Barrett's Raiders players don't participate in House of Worms. I should also note that we make use of the new edition of T2K published by Free League rather than either of the old GDW editions. (One of these days I should write a full review of the new edition, since, after nine months of play, I think I have a decent handle on its strengths and weaknesses,)

The title of this post is a reference to the fact that, while the campaign has been up and running for nine months of real time, only a few weeks of game time have passed – an average of about two game days for every month we've been playing. That may seem like an unduly slow pace, but a lot has happened in those few weeks of game time, as the characters have made their way from Kalisz toward the Free City of Kraków. Along the way they've scrounged for supplies, aided Polish civilians in the town of Krzepice, avoided dealing with some rogue US soldiers who'd established a base in Dobrodzień, dodged elements of the Soviet Third Tank Army, and more. It's been a very enjoyable ride for me as the referee and, I assume, the players, since they keep showing up each week.

Twilight: 2000 has always included a very strong hexcrawl element to its gameplay. The characters, after all, are the survivors of a US mechanized infantry division smashed by a Warsaw Pact offensive and now are left to their own devices. Whatever their goals, whether short-term or long-term, they have no choice but to travel overland through the terrain of war-torn Poland. Much of what happens in a given session is the result of random encounters that occur along the way. The Free League edition of the game is very good in this regard, providing lots of useful tables, not to mention maps, from which the referee can cobble together situations with which the characters can deal. Of course, there are also set encounters, too, scattered throughout the countryside, such as the aforementioned Free City of Kraków.

The characters' ostensible plan is to find other NATO forces so that they can get back to (relative) safety and eventually the USA. That's what led them to Kraków in the first place. As a free city independent of all sides in the ongoing war, they figured it'd be a good place to hole up for a while and get a better lay of the land. Unfortunately, Kraków proved almost as fraught with danger as the countryside, albeit of a different sort. The Free City is wracked with factions, several of whom attempted to recruit the characters to their cause. It quickly became clear that the place was a powder keg about to blow and they'd be better off leaving on their own terms while they still could do so.

While in the city, the characters did succeed in making contact with other NATO (and NATO-friendly) personnel. This not only increased their numbers – providing a pool of secondary and replacement characters – but also opened up more options to them, as they plan their next move, From what they have learned, the remaining NATO forces in Poland have retreated to the northwest of the country, where Free (aka non-Communist) Polish forces have established themselves. That's more or less on the other side of the country from their current location, which is why they're currently considering the use of a boat (or several) to move north more quickly.

As I said at the beginning of this post, the campaign has been very enjoyable so far, though not without its challenges. The wide range of possible avenues for character action has sometimes led to analysis paralysis on the part of the players. This, in turn, has sometimes made it difficult for me to anticipate what they might do and keep even five minutes ahead of them, which is what I prefer in campaigns like this. Consequently, I feel as if I've been thrown back on my heels more often than I like. This isn't something that happens often in, say, my House of Worms campaign, where I feel like I have a good handle on things most of the time. With this, I feel much less confident, but that's probably a good thing. I now have to exercise "muscles" I haven't in a while, not to mention re-learn certain refereeing skills I'd apparently let atrophy. 

Onward!

Retrospective: The Northern Reaches

I mentioned, in last week's retrospective on The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, that I didn't own many modules in the D&D Gazetteer line, in part because of my disappointment with its inaugural release. Despite this, I did own the seventh in the series, The Northern Reaches, released in 1988 and written by Ken Rolston and Liz Danforth – and, to this day, I consider it one of the most interesting things ever published for the D&D game line. 

Like all the other entries in the Gazetteer line, The Northern Reaches is, first and foremost, a detailed examination of one of the regions of the Known World setting (soon to be known as Mystara). In this case, the region in question covers three realms, namely Ostland, Vestland, and the Soderfjord Jarldoms, all of whom share a culture that resembles that of the Norse peoples of medieval Europe. However, The Northern Reaches is more than that. In presenting these three nations, including their histories, societies, and major NPCs, the module also presents several new optional rules for use with D&D and it's these rules that, in my opinion, make the module so fascinating.

Co-author Ken Rolston was already a veteran RPG writer by the time this book appeared (as was Liz Danforth). Among the many games on which he worked was Chaosium's RuneQuest, for which he'd eventually serve as developer during the all-too-brief "RuneQuest renaissance" of the early 1990s. I mention this because, in my opinion, Rolston brings to bear many of the skills he no doubt learned working on the mythical world of Glorantha. The Northern Reaches is a remarkable product that takes inspiration from a real world historical culture to present a fantastical version of the same, without forgetting that this is a module for Dungeons & Dragons and should, therefore, be both accessible and fun. 

By and large, Rolston and Danforth succeed admirably in this. One of the ways they do so is through the use of four different NPCs whose viewpoints on various matters of interest can be found throughout the 32-page Players Book, which, along with the 64-page DM Book, makes up the product. These NPCs – three humans and dwarf – all have unique voices and areas of expertise. Consequently, when they describe aspects of the Northern Reaches, they do so with varying degrees of bias. While this means not everything they say is wholly reliable, it also gives players and DM alike a sense of how the people in this region view the world. It's also a terrific guide for playing Northmen either as player or non-player characters. 

The DM Book, though larger, is the least interesting of the two. This book is written in a matter-of-fact way, presenting the history, geography, society, and current events of each of the three realms, with emphasis placed on those that are most useful for adventuring in them. We also learn about the unique nature of certain nonhuman races here, such as the dwarves and trolls, which are based a bit more on their Norse mythological equivalents (though not too much, lest this run counter to the expectations of standard D&D). There are also extensive treatments of the major personalities of the three realms, in addition to multiple adventure ideas and campaign outlines. Interestingly, there are also brief guidelines for converting the module to AD&D and even making use of the material in campaigns set in either Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms. 

The Players Book presents the three realms of Ostland, Vestland, and the Soderfjord Jarldoms as potential homelands for player characters. To that end, there is a section devoted to generating Northmen, starting with an optional personality traits system that's more or less identical to the one in Pendragon, albeit with slightly different sets of opposing traits (no "Chaste/Lustful," for example – this is a family-friendly game product!). There are also optional systems for determining a character's reputation, background, family status, past experiences, skills, and more. None of these systems is mechanically complex, but they're all sufficiently flavorful that I think they'd go some way toward marking a character from the Northern Reaches as distinctive.

There's also a section on the godar, as clerics are known in this region of the Known World. These Norse priests have different abilities and obligations based on the deity – I mean, immortal – they serve. These immortals should be familiar to anyone with knowledge of our world's Norse mythology. Odin, Thor, and Loki are all here, along with several others. Runes and rune magic also get their own treatments here. Again, the new systems associated with these things are fairly simple and don't deviate much from standard D&D, but they do so just enough that the end result is something flavorful and fun.

I'd be exaggerating if I called The North Reaches revolutionary or even groundbreaking. In many ways, it's a fairly ordinary transposition of the historical Norse to a fantasy setting, with almost no changes to differentiate them from their inspirations. Yet, in the context of late 1980s Dungeons & Dragons, that's more than enough to mark it as worthy of praise. That Rolston and Danforth do so in a way that simultaneously conveys the spirit of its inspirations while never losing sight of its purpose as a D&D supplement sets it apart from many similar products in the history of the hobby. That's probably why, even after all these years, I still retain a great fondness for The Northern Reaches and wish I'd paid more attention to the Gazetteer series at the time.