Dwimmermount on the Horizon

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog to learn that I plan on publishing my home campaign's megadungeon, Dwimmermount, in a form usable by other referees. What may be a surprise is when I'll be publishing it and how I plan to go about doing so, though at least some of you have already puzzled this out -- not that it was exactly a secret. The gist of it is the good folks at Autarch, who produced the excellent Adventurer, Conqueror, King, have kindly offered to assist me in crowdfunding Dwimmermount through Kickstarter and, later, distributing the hardcover book that results, should the project be successfully funded.

The official launch of the Kickstarter will be at the end of the month. In the meantime, I can announce that the book's front cover will be illustrated by Mark Allen, with the back cover illustrated by Jeff Dee, and interior artwork by Mark and Jeff as well as other talented artists, such as Ryan Browning (who illustrated much of Adventurer, Conqueror, King) and Conor Nolan (conornolan.com). The book's layout will be by Adam Jury, who made the new edition of Thousand Suns such a thing of beauty. Backer rewards will include the PDF of the finished product; the PDF plus hardcover; both plus a separate map book in softcover; a vinyl play aid for tracking dungeon factions and the impact of the party's progress using wipe-erase marker; and handbound copies of the book signed by all creators. In addition, the first bonus goal of the project is the donation of original Dwimmermount materials -- maps, keys, character sheets, etc. -- to Tim Hutchings's Play Generated Map and Document Archive and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection at Texas A&M University.

I'm sure people will have lots of questions about this project. Some of them, I hope, will be answered over at the Autarch blog, which has a FAQ already online. Others I'll do my best to answer in the comments and in other posts over the course of the weeks to come. I'm very excited to finally get this project under way and I hope others share my enthusiasm.

The Articles of Dragon: "Of Grizzly Bears and Chimpanzees"

As I've said innumerable times on this blog, in my heart of hearts, I'm really more of a science fiction fan than a fantasy one. That's why, much as I love D&D, I'm perpetually pining for the opportunity to play a sci-fi RPG. In my younger days, I had a slew of SF games I'd pull out to play whenever my friends and I decided we were tired of D&D. One of the most popular was Gamma World, which some would no doubt call a science fantasy game (and, to be fair, that's how its first edition bills itself), but I don't think that alters my essential point, namely that, when I wasn't playing D&D, my first inclination was to pull out a science fiction-y game like Gamma World or Traveller or the FASA version of Star Trek.

Consequently, I loved "The Ares Section" of Dragon, whose articles, even when they weren't of immediate use to me (like the articles on, say, Universe). Among my favorites, though, were the Gamma World articles by John M. Maxstadt, which I often did use in my games. A good example is "Of Grizzly Bears and Chimpanzees," which appeared in issue #89 (September 1984). As its name suggests, the article is devoted to detailing the unique abilities of animals, in this case as stock for mutated animal PCs. Maxstadt provides some basic statistics for a dozen different animal types -- bears, big cats, herbivorous animals, primates, snakes, and birds. These statistics include things like general size, their ability to vocalize and grasp/carry items, in addition to more obvious game stats like armor class and movement rates. The idea behind the article is to rationalize the abilities of mutated animals both from a game mechanical and a logical perspective, thereby making them more attractive to play and easier for the referee to accommodate.

Looking back on the article now, what's fascinating is how simple it really is in the end. There are a couple of pages of game stats, presented as Monster Manual-like entries, followed by a couple of pages of explanation of what the stats mean and how they interact with other aspects of the Gamma World rules. That's probably why I found them so easy to use. At the same time, they carry with them an implicit vision of Gamma World, one that's a bit more limited than the wide open "wahoo!" style usually associated with the game. Maxstadt, for example, doesn't provide stats for insects or amphibians, so the referee is either left to his own devices in coming up with his own or else disallowing such mutated animal types, as Maxstadt apparently did. Now, there's nothing wrong with such a limitation and indeed there's definitely a case to be made for it, but, somehow, the idea of playing Gamma World with any limitations seems to go against its fundamental grain and, were I ever to run a campaign again, I'd probably not use this article's system or else come up with additional stats for other types of animals.

A Quote from Yesterday's Game

Because of changes in our gaming group's makeup, I haven't been refereeing D&D in any form for a while, but I have been playing in a Labyrinth Lord campaign that uses the excellent Red Tide setting. In that campaign, I play a cleric of the Maker named Brother Egon. In the course of the adventure, our party rescued a wounded young boy, who, upon waking up, began to cry hysterically, making it impossible for my no-nonsense cleric to interrogate him about how he came to be in his current predicament. Unable to calm the boy, Brother Egon turned to one of our female companions, a Viking-esque warrior woman named Inga Skarsgard. I implored her, "Inga, you're a woman, calm the boy." Then, my wife, who's playing Inga, said, without missing a beat, in a loud voice, "Stop crying, stupid boy!"

It was priceless.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Stardock

In my experience, it's rare that an idea enters one's mind wholly unbidden. Usually there's some cause for it, some inspiration or influence, even if it's often unrecognized or at least unacknowledged. That's certainly the case of most of my own ideas, whose originality has always been suspect. Lately, in thinking about the megadungeon of Dwimmermount, I found myself pondering where I got the idea for a huge mountain filled with treasure and reputed to have once been the citadel of the Ancients, who fashioned the great works of the world. And while it's true that fantasy is replete with examples of such things, I had to wonder about the specific image that gave birth to Dwimmermount. In the end, I decided it was probably Fritz Leiber's Stardock, from the short story of the same name, which was first appeared in the November 1965 issue of Fantastic.

"Stardock" is a tale of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, focusing on Fafhrd's obsession with scaling a mountain peak from northern homeland. Fafhrd's father, we learn, was a renowned mountain climber. Known as the "Legend Breaker," he topped numerous peaks believed to be unclimbable, earning him great fame and, ultimately, a death on the slopes of White Fang. Fafhrd admits to being nowhere near the climber that his deceased father was, but nevertheless he strongly desires to test himself against Stardock, about which the following was written:

Who mourns white Stardock, the Moon Tree,
Past worm and gnome and unseen bars,
Will win the key to luxury:
The Heart of Light, a pouch of stars.

Fafhrd goes further, explaining to the Mouser what his people say about Stardock:

"They say the gods once dwelt and had their smithies on Stardock and from thencem amid jetting fire and showering sparks, launched all the stars; hence her name. They say diamonds, rubies, smaragds -- all great gems -- are the tiny pilot models the gods made of the stars ... and then threw carelessly away across the world when their great work was done."

It was this very passage that was the seed from which Dwimmermount sprang. Though the megadungeon eventually grew beyond this initial idea, it was Fafhrd's description above that first inspired in me the idea of an impenetrable mountain fortress filled with ancient treasures.

Naturally, the Mouser is intrigued with the idea of finding the great wealth rumored to be found atop Stardock. He suggests that the "Heart of Light" mentioned in the poem might refer to the largest diamond in all of Nehwon, a gem he'd love the opportunity to steal. And so the Twain set off to best Stardock, hoping, in the case of Fafhrd, to achieve something even his famous father could not, and, in the case of the Gray Mouser, to gain treasure beyond imagining. The story that follows is a long one and, I'll admit, often slow going. Leiber, as I understand it, was fond of mountain climbing himself and it shows in the lengths to which he goes to describe the details of his protagonists' ascent. However, this is also a sword-and-sorcery yarn; Fafhrd and Mouse encounter numerous challenges other than the high peak, some of which are quite memorable.

I can't say much about what is truly atop Stardock without spoiling the fun of this story. I will say, though, that I think "Stardock" is one of Leiber's better tales of the Twain -- charged with adventure, eroticism, and more than a little melancholy. Indeed, it's that last quality that I think elevates "Stardock" above many of its competitors in the canon of Nehwon. Though Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are, in many ways, the quintessential happy-go-lucky vagabonds for whom life is nothing but a grand adventure, they do grow and change over the course of that adventure. You get a clear sense of that growth and change in "Stardock" and I think it helps to make this story more than a plodding, even dull, recounting of a mountain climbing expedition. That said, it's also probably not to every reader's tastes, which is why, though I love it, I can easily imagine others might not. 

News from the Tékumel Foundation

Victor Raymond sent along word to me that the Tékumel Foundation, the non-profit corporation charged with supporting and protecting the works of Professor M.A.R. Barker, is preparing to release "the original, never-before-released rules draft for Empire of the Petal Throne.  As such there are some subtle and some not-so-subtle differences between it and the published version from TSR." Though the price for the PDF version of the unreleased EPT is still being determined, Victor says that it'll likely be under $20. A print-on-demand version of the same is under discussion as well, though when it will be available is still uncertain. The PDF will be made available through RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, where a wide variety of other Tékumel-related gaming products are already available.

As a teaser, here's a photograph of a copy of the original EPT rules, put together by Professor Barker in 1974, as well as one of the earliest maps of Tékumel, drawn by the professor. The Foundation intends to release the map to the public too at some point, but is still deciding the best way to do so. Once again, I stand in awe of not just what Professor Barker has done but what the Foundation is doing to promote and support his work. It's a pity more of the hobby's creators aren't in a similar position to be able to preserve and make available their works.

Open Friday: Who Are These Guys?

I'm going to be lazy and self-indulgent with today's Open Friday post (how is that different than usual, you may ask?). You see, just before the release of Thousand Suns in late December, I received proof copies of both the softcover and hardcover versions of the game. These proofs showed me that I needed to make a few small tweaks to the game before it was released for sale. I still have the proofs, sitting on my desk, and I was wondering aloud what I should do with them. My wife suggested that I give them away as prizes in a contest and so I shall.

Below you will find two images. They were both drawn by the always-awesome Mike Vilardi, with whom I've wanted to do a project for, literally, more than a decade. He did a number of pieces in the Thousand Suns rulebook and he's currently working on some pieces for upcoming supplements. One of the things he recently did was a series of sketches for pregenerated characters in an adventure for the game. I haven't yet gotten round to generating the characters, so that's when I had an idea: what if I present a couple of these sketches and ask readers to come up with descriptions of them, the two I like the best getting one of my proof copies of the game?

So, take a look at images below. Choose one (or both) and write up a brief description of the character: his or her name, occupation, personality, and background. Put your description in the comments. Don't worry about game mechanics or anything like that. I'll produce those after I've found two descriptions that I like. Remember that Thousand Suns is a science fiction RPG inspired by the imperial SF of the '50s, '60s, and '70s (and their contemporary descendants). It's neither hard sci-fi nor cartoonish space opera. Think Anderson, Chandler, and Piper, among others. You can make as many entries as you wish, but no single person will be able to win more than once.

I'll make my decision between now and February 16 based on originality, concision, and how closely the entries evoke the literary inspirations of the game. One winner will receive the hardcover and the other will receive the softcover, which being which determined by a 1D12 roll. Likewise, I'll credit the creator of the description in the upcoming adventure and send along a copy of it when it's released (probably during the summer). If anyone has any specific questions, put them in the comments, just like the descriptions. Please don't email them directly to me. I already have a backlog of emails I need to answer as it is.

Without further ado, here are the two images:

©2012 Mike Vilardi

©2012 Mike Vilardi

REVIEW: Game of the Year

As a general rule, I'm not a fan of "gaming movies." Most of them, in my experience, are either inhabited by broad stereotypes intended primarily to appeal to mainstream audiences (who then laugh at how pathetic the gamers are) or are vapid feel-good films intended to show that "gamers are people too." Very few of them show any evidence that their producers have had any personal contact with gamers or gaming in decades, let alone are gamers themselves, never mind self-aware and thoughtful gamers. Consequently, when I received a copy of Chris Grega's Game of the Year, I was wary. But then I saw the cover of the DVD (pictured at left) and I started to wonder, "Could this finally be a good gaming movie?" Or, at the very least, could it be a movie that shows more understanding of the hobby and its participants than what can be gleaned from hazy, quarter-century old memories of gaming's heyday?

Game of the Year is presented as a mockumentary about a group of adult roleplayers hoping to win a spot for themselves on the fictitious reality TV show after which the movie is named. Should they succeed in this effort, their reward is running a game company for one year, but, before they can do that, they must first prepare themselves for the tryouts at an upcoming convention. Enter Jennifer and Neil, the director and cinematographer of the documentary. Every week, they venture into the basement of John Schiendheimer, where he and his friends gather for their gaming sessions, and film what they see there. In addition to John, who's more of a hex-and-chit wargamer at heart (because it's "based in reality"), there's the slightly pompous Game Master, Richard Matherson, Shawn Biondo (the "normal guy"), Mark Otus (the uber-gamer), Kyle Martek (the "cool guy" who insists he's "not really a gamer"), and John's cousin, Billy, who's attendance is spotty and who's easily distracted while playing.

With the introduction of the characters, I found my initial skepticism evaporating. From the little allusions to people and things from gaming's past to the games and paraphernalia scattered about John's basement, everything started to feel familiar -- and not in the sense that I'd seen all this before in other gaming films. Rather, I found myself reminded of my own experiences, both as a younger man and now. The characters are indeed stereotypes, at least initially, but what struck me is that many of these stereotypes weren't the usual ones you see in movies involving the hobby. Instead, they were stereotypes that spoke of real life experience with gamers and gaming. I was particularly taken with the characters of John, whose wife doesn't really approve of his hobby, and Kyle, who doesn't want his girlfriend to know what he does each weekend with his buddies. Both of these characters are broadly drawn -- this is a comedic film, after all -- but these are people I've known, people whose hobby has had repercussions in their personal lives and not entirely positive ones.

Like any gaming group, the one portrayed in Game of the Year is quirky and riven with little disputes, but, by and large, the guys get along well and have fun together. Whether they're the "Olympic" gamers they believe themselves to be is a question that never really occurs to them, as they plan for the selection process at the upcoming convention. What I really liked about Game of the Year was how much time the film spends on gaming sessions and not in a boring or silly way. Rather, the movie gives a good sense of what it's like to actually sit at a table with a bunch of adults, roll some funny dice, and pretend to be a fantasy character in an unfolding adventure. It's a small thing in some ways, but it's a huge one in others, since, I think, it simultaneously highlights the virtues and exposes the flaws in our shared pastime.

The real plot of the movie takes off when Jennifer steps onscreen and begins to game with the guys, at Richard's suggestion. Though enthusiastic and more knowledgeable than the average person about roleplaying, she's no gamer (she names her character Wonder Woman, leading others to follow suit and rename their own characters after various superheroes), despite the excuses being made for her by Richard, Shawn, and Mark, all of whom vie for her affections (while John and Kyle look on in horror). Again, in other hands, the whole "girls ruin gaming" trope might come across as puerile and small-minded, but, here, it's well-handled and used as a device for examining the inner lives of the various characters. It also precipitates a break-up of the gaming group, throwing into question their possible selection for Game of the Year, as well as introducing some hilarious scenes as the gamers struggle to find new players and new groups who match their own styles. Again, these scenes rang very true to life and also brought us into contact with the film's "villain," Gary Elmore, a former friend of Richard's, with whom he was once going to start a game company, Void Dragon Enterprizes. Gary's appearance, like that of Jennifer as an active participant in the game, is pivotal to the unfolding of the overall story.

Game of the Year is ostensibly a niche film. Some of its dialog and even plot points might be lost on non-gamers, though I should point out that my non-gamer wife, when I described some of the the scenes and dialog, rhetorically asked, "Where have I heard that before?" So, while familiarity with the hobby is certainly helpful, it's not essential. More to the point, I'm not sure Game of the Year can really be described as a "gaming movie" anyway. Rather than being about the hobby, it's about people, who happen to be involved, to varying degrees, in the hobby. For that reason, I think it's actually a lot more accessible to non-gamers than it might first appear. Likewise, I think it's a much more interesting and occasionally insightful film than one might expect, given its title and subject matter. In the end, I enjoyed Game of the Year a great deal, as has at least one other member of gaming group. It's an amusing, thoughtful, and sometimes cathartic movie neither pokes fun at gaming nor lauds it uncritically. If you have the chance to see it, I'd recommend it highly.

High Levels

In LBB-only OD&D, it's stated that "There is no theoretical limit to how high a character may progress." However, the game's tables stop at 10th level for clerics and fighting men and go to 16th level for magic-users. Guidelines are provided for "levels above those listed," but those guidelines only cover hit dice, fighting capability, and spells. The number of experience needed for those additional levels isn't stated, assumption being, I suppose that one can intuit an appropriate rate of advance based on the existing tables.  

Supplement I includes expanded tables for both clerics (to 20th level) and magic-users (to 22nd level), in part because of the introduction of new levels of spells for both classes. The thief class is also introduced, but its level progression table ends at 14th level. There is no new chart for fighting men. Interestingly, the next two OD&D supplements, Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry, introduced new character classes that had explicit level limits: assassins (14th level), druids (13th level), and monks (16th level).

I bring all this up because I've often wondered why it is that we so often hear D&D players complain that the game "breaks down at high levels." That statement may in fact be true but, in all my years of playing D&D, it was rare that a character ever legitimately achieved a level higher than 12 and even then such an accomplishment was rare. The highest level character ever played in any of my pre-WotC D&D campaigns was 16th and he was a noteworthy exception. In my Dwimmermount campaign, after 2+ years of play, the highest level PC was nearly 8th level and, owing to death and attrition, most PCs were a couple of levels lower than that.

One wonders, then, where all these high-level characters have come from. Have I been doing something wrong all these years? More to the point, was D&D written with the expectation that PCs would reach much higher than 10th-12th level? My own feeling is that it wasn't, even if the game leaves open the possibility of such a thing -- but then the game also leaves open the possibility of dragon and balrog PCs, too, so I'm not sure that says much.

Retrospective: Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space (Volume 1)

Published in 1985, Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space appeared just after the period I cover in these weekly retrospective. I decided to include it both because I'm in a very science fictional mode these days (I wonder why?) and because I think Zebulon's Guide offers an interesting example of how fads can affect even game designers. Written by Kim Eastland and Bruce Nesmith, this book was ostensibly a supplement to TSR's science fiction roleplaying game, Star Frontiers. In reality, though, it was in fact a massive overhaul of Star Frontiers, changing nearly every aspect of the game to the point where I consider it a reboot rather than a revision (and certainly not a "streamlined" one, as claimed in the preface).

Back in 1985, a mania for color-coded action resolution charts had overtaken the hobby. Numerous games, such as Marvel Super Heroes and Chill, to cite just two with which I was intimately familiar, used such charts and I'm guessing that they proved very popular not just with players but with designers. I say this because it wasn't long before it seemed as if every RPG had action resolution charts of some sort, including some that hadn't originally included them, such as Gamma World and Star Frontiers. Zebulon's Guide was where Star Frontiers made its ill-fated transition to the world of action charts. I say "ill-fated" because Star Frontiers didn't survive the transition. Zebulon's Guide was the last supplement to the game and, while I can't say with any certainty that the rules change was directly responsible for this turn of events, I don't think it helped matters. TSR clearly intended there to be additional support for Star Frontiers, since Zebulon's Guide was released as "Volume 1," but no subsequent volumes ever appeared.

In addition to a new universal resolution mechanic, this book introduced classes -- "professions," they were called -- that worked in conjunction with a new skill system. The original Star Frontiers rules were skill-driven, it's true, but they were limited in number and utility, the assumption being that a lot of actions didn't require explicit rules to cover them, leaving their adjudication up to the referee. Zebulon's Guide changed all that by presenting us with skills for nearly everything. The skill list was huge, larger than Traveller's and fast approaching that of Space Opera. I don't necessarily mind lengthy skill lists; they can be appropriate to some games. However, the increase in the number of skills was such an about-face from what we'd seen in the original Star Frontiers that it made it hard to accept that this was somehow the "same" game.

Zebulon's Guide also gave us a fifth, optional profession -- the mentalist. The mentalist is a psionicist, using a variety of mental disciplines to achieve his ends. Again, I'm not opposed to psionics, especially in a sci-fi setting, but their introduction here felt "off." The original Star Frontiers gave no hint of the existence of psionics, at least not of the sort described in Zebulon's Guide. So their sudden appearance here, even as an option, further contributed to my sense that TSR was basically starting the game over again, extensively reworking what had come before into a new game. I was already at the time a big fan of Traveller, which was always my go-to RPG for "serious" science fiction; the appearance of Zebulon's Guide made it even less likely that I'd play Star Frontiers, since it meddled too much with the straightforward simplicity that made that game a viable alternative when I was feeling more "wahoo!" about sci-fi.

It's a pity, too, because there is some genuinely good stuff in Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space. I loved the new equipment, the new races, and the expansion of the Frontier setting. But all of these things were lost in my mind because of the massive and unnecessary changes wrought to the rules and general feel of Star Frontiers -- all in the pursuit of the latest fad in game design. It's an object lesson, I think, on a game's staying true to itself regardless of what happens to be popular at the time. There's always room for experimentation and "innovation," but they're best reserved for new games rather than existing ones, a lesson contemporary designers looking to revamp classics of the hobby would do well to bear in mind.

Falling Damage and Hit Point Inflation

For the moment, I'm not going to wade further into the question of whether real world physics has much to teach us on the question of falling damage of Dungeons & Dragons. However, in thinking about this, I thought it might be worth taking note of the maximum hit points possible for a 10th-level character in three successive versions of old school D&D: LBB-only OD&D, Supplement I OD&D, and pre-Unearthed Arcana AD&D. In each case, I assumed the character to have 18 Constitution.

Dungeons & Dragons (LBBs Only)
Class (10th Level + 18 Constitution)	Maximum Hit Points
Cleric (7d6 + 2 Hit Dice)	51
Fighting Man (10d6 + 1 Hit Dice)	71
Magic-User (7d6 Hit Dice)	49

In LBB-only OD&D, all characters have D6 Hit Dice and bonuses for Constitution are limited to +1 per die. What's of particular interest to me is that clerics and magic-users have very similar maximum hit points figures at this point.

Dungeons & Dragons (LBBs + Greyhawk)
Class (10th Level + 18 Constitution)	Maximum Hit Points
Cleric (8d6 + 1 Hit Dice)	73
Fighting Man (9d8 + 2 Hit Dice)	101
Magic-User (10d4 Hit Dice)	70
Thief (10d4 Hit Dice)	70

Supplement I begins the game's hit point inflation, first by increasing adding giving every class a full hit die at each level (and bumping the fighter's dice type to D8) and second by granting a +3 bonus per die for 18 Constitution. What's especially interesting is that, at this stage, all classes but fighters have roughly the same maximum hit points at 10th level, which was also true in LBB-only OD&D, though the numbers have gotten much large.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Class (10th Level + 18 Constitution)	Maximum Hit Points
Cleric (9d8+2 Hit Dice)	92
Fighting Man (9d10+3 Hit Dice)	129
Magic-User (10d4 Hit Dice)	60
Thief (10d6 Hit Dice)	80

Here's what we get in AD&D. All classes but the magic-user get a bump in their hit dice types, but the bonus for 18 Constitution is knocked down to +2 per die for non-fighters, while fighters get it increased to +4 per die. All classes except magic-users see an increase in their maximum hit dice at 10th level.

These are all quick calculations done in my age-addled and math-impaired head, so I'm sure someone will point out an error or five in my sums. Regardless, my essential point remains: with each new revision of D&D, the overall number of hit points increased, particularly with regards to fighters (whose maximum potential at 10th level increased by over 40%). In addition, AD&D abandons 3D6 in order as the default method of generating ability scores and counsels that characters need at least two scores of 15 or above to be viable, leading to a much greater likelihood that a character will have a significant number of hit points.

Thus, it's my feeling that most, if not all, of the hand wringing regarding the "realism" of 1D6 per 10' fallen is consequence of the fact that it was a rule introduced when a high-level fighter would, at best, have 71 hit points. By the time of AD&D, most classes had seen a significant boost in their hit point potential (aided by ability score inflation) and thus the odds that a character could brush off a fall from a very great height were increased. The problem, then, is not that 1D6 per 10' is, on the face of it "unrealistic," it's that it was a rule from a time before fighters could have well over 100 hit points.