Some "I Hit It With My Axe" News...

Watch the first video here to see the latest news on 'Axe'.
Mildly not safe for work.

Have You Seen These?

If you're like me you need pictures of the dessicated carcasses of imaginary creatures all the fucking time...

Here's like a hundred of them.

Why Are We Even IN Here?

This came up when somebody (can't remember who--Alexis from Tao of D&D maybe? Too lazy to link.) ran James Raggi's Death Frost Doom adventure (still too lazy to link). (Interested parties too lazy to find them over on the right there know my pain.)

Anyway, idea is James' module starts with all kinds of ominous signs of spooky death. Gnarled trees, gravestones, a crazed hillbilly saying "Don't go up thar!" etc.

And so the DM's players were like "Ok, so let's not go up there." And, knowing their DM had prepared a whole complete rest of the world to romp around in, wanted to go somewhere else.
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Now it should go without saying that a lotta other players would've wanted to go into the dungeon on account of the ominous signs of spooky death.

Here we have an issue of calculation, where the player weighs:

A)His/her interest in keeping his/her PC alive

and, possibly...

B) His/her interest in playing his/her PC in character--(unless the PC's so greedy or curious that s/he would want to go in there no matter what)

versus...

C)His/her desire to go where the DM had something interesting ready to go.

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C is seldom spoken of but it is a powerful motivator. Players want to play, and while DMs talk frequently amongst themselves about the merits of funneling or corralling or railroading or cajoling their players into going where the fun is, players (if they were as chatty as DMs) could go on for just as long about how they do things because if they didn't they'd worry they wouldn't be actually playing.

I mean, sure my PC could go pick beets instead of duel the wicked Archbaron but that doesn't mean the DM has an awesome beet-picking adventure ready to go, or that s/he should feel any compulsion to invent one.
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A variation on this came up for me while playing during the first session of our Rolemaster campaign. I was playing, essentially, a kind of investigator, looking into some sort of mysterious culty activity.

Our boss laid out that there was this Source of Chaos somewhere, and then there was this Possible Pawn of Chaos (a high level NPC) and this pawn was located in the Thieves' Guild, and that there were 3 NPC Contacts who could help us get to him.

So, naturally, here's what I'm thinking: The Source of Chaos is where the fighting of the craziest monsters and seeing weirdest stuff is in this game, so I wanna get to that as soon as I can. Today, if possible.

I know where The Possible Pawn is, so let's call up these NPC contacts and tell them to get the lead out and get us over where he is as soon as possible so we can get this shit started.

So I go and find the first Contact, get him to take us to the Guild, ignore all the scenery/plot hooks and immediately head for the Pawn and offer this guy (turns out to be a crimelord) our services.

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Now I chatted a little, out of scholarly interest, with DM Darren about the adventure and we discussed the sandboxy nature of the campaign.

Quoth he: "You went way faster than I expected--you didn't investigate the Contacts to find anything out about them, you didn't check around for info on the Thieves' Guild before going in, and there were lots of other ways of investigating The Pawn other than just walking right up to him and offering him your services, and there's a million other things going on in the Thieves' Guild."

Sayeth I: "Yeah, but, I figured that guy was where the fun was--he had a name and everything (all the other characters were spot-named after drinks--Gin, Manhattan, Lime Rickey--my character was named Jagermeister. It was all Connie's idea, I think.). I might've checked out the Contacts if they were the only people I knew about in the game, but the way it was set up, they just seemed like road bumps on the way to my objective."

DM: "He is pretty dangerous."

Me: "Good! We kept not fighting anybody. I wanted to get to somewhere we could use the Infamous Rolemaster Crit System until we met him--we only got into one fight all night and it was a random encounter with a bunch of thieves. The Pawn seemed like he might know where some monsters were, or at least some puzzles."

Now, really, DM Darren has got stuff ready to go in every direction--but he has a great pokerface and so there's no way of knowing that when he says "Well you could go meet the guy or you could do something else..." that there's just as much crazy madness behind the Something Else as there is behind meeting the guy.

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Point is, the DM sometimes inadvertently draws your attention to things (I know I do it all the time), and some players will just move toward these things because they are there and have a name and therefore the player expects things to get exciting when they get over there--even if that's not what the DM was trying to do.

I mean, all of Call of Cthulhu works on this premise. It's called Call of Cthulhu, so the player knows that Cthulhu is over there somewhere and therefore s/he will have his or her PC do pretty much do whatever it takes to get over there, self-interest be damned. People make certain decisions because it's Cthulhu and so they think the game will be dull if they don't. In a game of sandbox D&D (or Rolemaster) this attitude can result in the PCs, in effect, railroading themselves right past a lot of options they could've had fun with.

So, yeah, if the PCs start to think the game is called "Call of The Very Dangerous High-Level NPC" then it take skill and effort to assure them that things other than The Very Dangerous High Level NPC are interesting in this sandbox. And to flag these things up a little, because, really, not everything a PC could do should result in a crazy adventure. Otherwise there'd be no point to making choices.

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P.S. If you're wondering how we fared playing Rolemaster I'll talk all about later. Short answer: It was fun and we liked.

Playtesters Wanted...

I well know that the D&DWPS crew has its own distinctive way of doing things, so I'd like to test out a few of the location-based adventures that will be in the Vornheim City Kit on some other groups before unleashing them on the public.

The ones I most want to test are the higher-level locations, since those are the ones where chaos theory really takes hold and difficulty levels and survival rates can vary wildly from group to group.

So: if anybody out there wants to DM a mid-level adventure (4-10--which is a wide swath, I know, but a little playtesting may narrow it down) for their group and give me a report, write to me at zakzsmith at hot mail dawt calm. The adventures are relatively system-agnostic for D&D types I-III.5 and retroclones (they are playable in other systems but since I'm testing for design flaws here I'm sticking to the "native" systems for the playtest--if you play it in Warhammer or Type 4 and it comes out all wonky, that may be more your fault than mine).

I got two locations I'd like to test--specify in your email whether you want the more city-integrated leave-and-come-back-if-you-want location or the more dungeony one.

Also: I only want a handful of testers for each--I kinda would like to make it so that not everybody has seen parts of the kit before it comes out.

I can't pay you but if the Kit does well I may kick you some cash in a fit of largesse, and you'll get credited in the book.

Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, Dollar (Slacker DM Item Costs)

Sometimes, particularly during city adventures, you have to buy and sell alotta items, and you don't want to look them up (or they're not on any equipment list you own). Like if somebody wants to buy a quick disguise to enact a weird scheme and you want to wrap up this part of the adventure before dinner and you don't really want to spend a half hour shopping.

This is a formalization how I generally think of it--Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, Dollar:

Penny
"Penny" items are things that cost less than a G.P.. I assume all the things an average medieval joe might buy in an average medieval day all add up to about 1 gp. So you can get a humble meal or two, some nails, a torch, some thread, and a "dose" or three of beer for less than a gp. Anything on the daily shopping list. Food animals count as if they were the number of days food they represent--like if you think a chicken is 4 days food, then it's about 4 gp.

If you need to know exactly how much a sub-1 gp item costs (4 cp? 24 sp?), stop using this system and look it up, lazy ass.

Nickel
"Nickel" items are anything you'd take camping and basic adventure gear. Rope, pole, spikes, lantern, etc. 5 gp per syllable ("lantern" is 2 syllables--10 gp).

The syllable thing sounds silly but more syllables generally indicates the PC wants a more specific thing (i.e. not just "rope" but "silk rope" not just "a lantern" but "a hooded lantern"). If you ask for something general you're going to get the humblest item that qualifies--like if you ask for a "horse" you won't get a warhorse, and if you ask for a "warhorse" you won't get a heavy warhorse.

Dime
"Dime" items are specialist items--anything that usually only a certain profession or class would use. Thieves tools, navigation tools, a bible, a marionette. Dime items cost 10 x number of syllables in the name. So: a lute costs 10 gp, a cello would cost 20.

Quarter
"Quarter" items are luxury items. A string of pearls, fancy shoes, etc. 25 gp x number of syllables in the name. A "Rich old woman's clothes" would be 125 gp. (You'll notice women's clothes always cost 25 gp more than men's.)

Dollar
"Dollar" items are things which are lethal or highly dangerous all by themselves--drugs and dangerous animals included. 100 gp per syllable--poison and acid would be 200 gp per dose, a wardog or falcon would be 200 gp, gunpowder or a heavy warhorse would be 300 gp, etc.

Weapons: Melee weapons cost gp = maximum normal damage. Missile weapons cost twice that.

Armor: Armor? Seriously? Look it up.

So, yeah, that's that. All kinds of things are unrealistically pricey or cheap when you do this, but remember, this is just for when you're trying to get things to move fast. If you have time to look up items, do it.

Playing Rolemaster With Porn Stars

I've been pretty successful in getting pretty much whoever to play RPGs with us over the last few years--which is nice. One thing I've been miserable at is convincing new people to run games, however.

Mandy wants to run a game--she claims--Ricky keeps saying he'll eventually DM and Connie keeps saying she's gonna run 'Mouse Guard' but it keeps not happening. It's the familiar story: people are busy, plus the level of preparation new DMs think they need is intimidating*. (Incidentally, I am not of the new-DMs-will-necessarily-suck-until-they-get-some-practice-under-their-belts school--I think it's pretty easy for everybody to have fun as long as somebody knows the rules at the table--and that somebody is both sane and helpful.)

Anyway, point is I get real excited whenever anybody wants to run the game and will pretty much play any game as long as I'm not the boss of it. So Cameraman Darren (he of the cogent psychological analysis on display here) is running Rolemaster for us this afternoon.

Yes, Rolemaster--The Game That Even Nerds Think Is Too Complicated.

I, personally, am terribly excited. Darren has done the necessary programming and devil worship, and here are the pre-gen characters that the Deep Blue has spit out for us to play...(I have no idea what half this stuff means.)


1.Priest of Reann - Cleric - Defender
Syreth (Common man)
Equipment: Mace, Shield, and Dagger - Leather Breastplate and Greaves (AT10)
Spells: Communal Ways - Protections - Repulsions

2.Priest of Reann - Cleric - Combat Medic
Lenn-Rak (Beastial Man)
Equipment: Morning Star, Shield, and Dagger - Leather Breastplate and Greaves (AT 10)
Spells: Concussion's Ways - Blood Law

3.Knight of Reann - Paladin - Cleanser of Unlife
Laan (Noble Man)
Equipment: Broadsword, Shield, Heavy Crossbow, and Dagger - Chain Shirt (AT 13)
Spells: Communion - Exorcisms - Holy Healing

4.Eye of Reann - Magent - Infiltrator
Syreth (Common Man)
Equipment: Rapier, Main Gauche, and Dagger - Leather Coat (AT 6)
Spells: Escapes - Misdirections

5.Eye of Reann - Magent - Assassin
Rhamii (Oriental Man)
Equipment: Scimitar, Main Gauche, and Dagger - Leather Coat (AT 6)
Spells: Assassination Mastery - Disguise Mastery

6.Eye of Reann - Rogue - The Blade Master
Mulri (High Elf)
Equipment: Falchion, Rapier, Main Gauche, and Dagger - Leather Breastplate (AT 9)
Skills: Streetwise - Stealthy

7.Soldier of Reann - Fighter - Berserker
Deglari (Nordic Man)
Equipment: Battle Axe, War Hammer, Long Bow, and Dagger - Metal Breastplate (AT 17)
Skills: Can use any weapon - Deadly even bare-handed

8.Soldier of Reann - Magician - The Traitor
Talani (Common Elf)
Equipment: Short Sword and Dagger - No Armor (AT 1)
Spells: Fire Law - Light Law - Water Law - Wind Law

Here's a game--try to match the player to the character...(we haven't decided yet)

A.


B.
C.D.

E. (The girl who lives across the hall who is not naked on the internet.)

F. Ricky


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*Part of the intimidation is probably because DMs (me included) generally try to give the impression that everything the players are seeing during a game was totally thought out way the fuck in advance, no matter how flimsy the backstory or patch rule they are presenting really is--so potential new DMs naturally assume that the DM needs way more preparation than s/he actually does.

Fragment of Map of Unknown City

Inlaid gold wire, niello, marble and semiprecious stones. Date unknown. (Click to enlarge.)(Click again to enlarge a lot.)