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Post by cadriel on Apr 8, 2009 20:11:29 GMT -6
My deepest and sincerest condolences to his friends and family. I hope it is some small comfort that his life enriched so many others, and that he leaves behind him a tremendous legacy.
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Post by cadriel on Apr 5, 2009 16:42:24 GMT -6
It would be a tremendous tragedy to lose Dave so soon after losing Gary. All by best hopes and thoughts go to him and his family. I hope he pulls through.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 31, 2009 18:14:36 GMT -6
Ordered the Compendium. Hopefully it helps.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 30, 2009 8:37:00 GMT -6
Sweet deal. Is there anything on connecting the PoLII material (geographically) to PoLI maps? The Wildlands is pretty much what I want to start using as my default setting, the time and culture assumptions are just what I want, but I'd love to be able to connect to some of these as potential expansion sub-settings.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 20, 2009 11:24:10 GMT -6
any or all of several types of lizardmen (iguana, komodo, plated, horned, spiny, chameleon) It'd be awesome if any artistic renditions were done up for my lizardmen variants...anyone who needs more info feel free to PM me.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 19, 2009 8:01:05 GMT -6
That's a game I hear a lot about, but I don't have a copy of. That would be interesting to see. Yeah, I'd recommend picking up the new hardcover from EmpCho. I'm kind of kicking myself b/c I bought the booklets a year or so ago and may just get the hardcover for durability and bigger page scans anyway. Go ahead. It was written to be stolen. My interests tend more toward "natural" stuff than economics of D&D. Though I'd be interested to use it once it's done.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 18, 2009 21:29:18 GMT -6
In the very early Alarums & Excursions, I don't think there was a lot of discussion of the actual mechanics of buying mundane items. Most of the debate was about the frequency, acquisition and sharing of magical items. Hargrave's list of prices in Arduin is the most obvious example I've seen of attempting to "correct" the D&D price charts and insert some variability into the process.
Personally, I think verisimilitude would be served by having basically three charts. One would be a list of what merchants sell each type of item, with the probability that such a merchant would be in (a village, a fortress, a castle, a major city). The second would be a percentage chart to determine whether an item is available at the time the PCs are looking for it, and a third would be the actual price listed as a multiplier for the listed price. It may not be a realistic macro-economic scenario, but it'd have the basic effect of jazzing things up a bit.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 17, 2009 8:14:57 GMT -6
Last week, I finished The Fallible Fiend by L. Sprague de Camp. I found it really enjoyable, and will be reading the other Novarian books sometime in the near future. I love the idea that the "man-eating demon" is a quiet, philosophical type on his home plane.
Currently I'm on Hiero's Journey by Sterling Lanier - only about a dozen pages in, but it's intriguing so far.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 16, 2009 7:36:02 GMT -6
Generally, I think 88 pages or so is just fine. I think it's got to be a balanced 88, though - an issue with too many behemoth articles is going to lose out on having enough variety, especially with things that are easier to insert into an ongoing game than say a lengthy setting description or a module.
Honestly, these are the things of most use to me as a referee, and I have a feeling I'm not the only one. I think it'd be great to have a special section dedicated exclusively to new content - all the awesome charts, new monsters, spells, magic items, races, classes, the "little things" that sort of get tossed throughout the magazine as it is. If they were in one section, it wouldn't feel like "filler" (because it isn't), and it'd be a lot more useful as a day to day reference. As it stands, you kind of have to flip through the magazine to find everything.
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Post by cadriel on Feb 22, 2009 5:50:04 GMT -6
Great post, and I particularly like this point. If there is a pantheon of gods, then clerics would be POLYTHEISTS. It is a pet peeve of mine when clerics in a polytheistic world worship (monotheism-style) only one of the pantheon. A cleric should worship every god in the whole pantheon--whether lawful, neutral, or chaotic. Most D&D supplements historically have assumed either henotheism (worship one god while accepting others as basically decent gods) or monolatrism (worship one god, but hold that while other gods exist, they are not worthy of worship). If you read the Old Testament, there are strong implications that the ancient Hebrew religion was more monolatristic than monotheistic. And in reality, pagan societies zig-zagged between traditional polytheism and forms of henotheism, rather than being an even pantheon-based polytheism at all times. Frankly, there's good pulp fantasy roots for D&D-style henotheism; if you think back to Lean Times in Lankhmar, the gods in Lankhmar generally accept henotheistic worship, with clerics devoted to one deity at a time. Fafhrd is pretty busy boosting Issek of the Jug over the other deities, and things only go wrong when they arrogate Issek above the gods of Lankhmar. That's your D&D type henotheism right there, and in a hell of a classic S&S story.
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Post by cadriel on Feb 15, 2009 20:58:59 GMT -6
The "old school" approach, I think, would be to buy copies of OD&D, the Arduin Grimoires, and Gamma World, and combine without particular regard for authorial intent, careful balance or anything beyond what you want to see in play. (Depending on tone, you could probably also slot Encounter Critical into that list.) The trappings and specifics may be things you wind up inventing, but the fact that there wasn't a game for it never stopped people from making up what worked for them back in the day. No reason it should stop you today.
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Post by cadriel on Feb 2, 2009 12:01:50 GMT -6
Honestly, I have to say that EGG nailed it. In the various discussions that got me into OD&D, one of the core differences between D&D's original design philosophy and that of modern games is that D&D took it as a given that you weren't emulating literature, you were creating games - emphasis on the game - that were inspired by it. Flourishes were drawn from the literary roots of the game, but the original design prioritized the idea that it was a game and not a literature emulation engine. The dungeon, which is a brilliant way to make a sandbox manageable, is pure game. And it works beautifully in game.
When you say you want a more S&S feel in the game, what are you really looking for? Flavor? Structure? Creatures? I think the procedural result of this will depend on what you are aiming at.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 27, 2009 11:29:29 GMT -6
I have to say, I appreciate the work done for S&W: White Box. But...I've got a couple of problems with the game.
Perhaps my biggest problem with both editions of Swords & Wizardry is that what are, IMO, some of the most important rules are left out entirely. None of the guidelines for dungeon exploration - secret doors, wandering monsters, listening, opening stuck doors, falling in traps - are there. That's a shame, and I hope a future revision will correct this - these rules, made open gaming content by several other retro-clones, are the ones I use constantly through the course of a game. These are solid, simple guidelines. Everything's done on a d6 and the numbers are easy to remember. Sure, prospective referees picking up S&W could improvise them, but these are the light, simple core of the dungeoneering rules and I think it's a shame to deprive new players stumbling upon S&W of the simple and thoroughly old school basic rules.
Aside from that, I don't like that the "rules text" have assimilated some game-significant chunks of house rules, while other house rules are clearly marked as such. Now, I do like some of the things that are changed - I actually have come to like how saving throws are handled and will probably be using them in my own games. But there are mechanical changes that change things I'm not interested in changing - for instance, the "standard ability bonus" based on Con hit point bonus changes the Dexterity to-hit bonus, which I don't care for. And I won't be using a Strength bonus as outlined here. I really dislike how prime requisite bonuses were altered as well. Within classes, I'm not big on how turning was handled for Clerics - the whole "T" category is gone, which I don't like. And for Fighting-Men I am probably going to go with Dave Arneson's suggestion that they get to attack another opponent when they kill the previous one, which gets rid of the whole "Combat Machine" thing. (The last probably should've just been a house rule). And the Fighting-Man chart cuts out most HD bonuses; again, I'm not a big fan.
Now, none of these things are all that big on their own. But put together, they make Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 much too divergent from how I play to use the Lulu.com print of WB that I ordered as the core rule set for my game. It's still an excellent book, and I may use it as a replacement for handing around M&M for equipment and spells, but I was hoping I would be able to make a complete jump, and I'm disappointed that I can't. What I'll probably do is whip up a document that gives all the statistic and class information, along with my combat matrix (different than WB) and give copies of that out instead of using S&W: WB.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 20, 2009 10:20:06 GMT -6
This is the codified house rules I'm thinking of:
Starting at 4th (Hero) level, Fighting-Men who have slain a foe in combat may move on and attack another foe within five feet. Starting at 8th (Super-Hero) level, Fighting-Men may engage two opponents at once (that is, roll to hit two foes per round) so long as both are within range of the fighting-man. Super-Heroes and higher level Fighting-Men do not receive multiple “to hit” rolls versus a single foe.
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Helmets
Jan 11, 2009 13:03:00 GMT -6
Post by cadriel on Jan 11, 2009 13:03:00 GMT -6
My house rule for this is simple:
In normal combat, there is a 1 in 6 chance that a foe’s attack will be at the character’s head. If the character is not wearing a helmet, he is treated as effectively AC 9 for that attack.
So for characters with no helmet, there is a 1 in 6 chance that opponents will be rolling against AC 9 rather than their armored AC - I figure it'll have the actual effect of making people choose to use helmets pretty frequently.
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Post by cadriel on Dec 13, 2008 20:43:43 GMT -6
I don't want to self-promote too much, but I've put up an article on my blog that I think would be of interest to some of the gamers here: initiativeone.blogspot.com/2008/12/special-post-from-alarums-excursions-15.htmlThe post is a reprint, with the original author's permission, of an actual play report from Alarums & Excursions number 15 (Oct. 1976), detailing a Blackmoor game run at Gencon IX (1976) by Dave Arneson. I liked the article because it presents a player from a different scene (in this case the Los Angeles gaming groups; early A&E had a California slant as opposed to the Upper Midwest that dominated at TSR) coming to a dungeon run by one of the creators. Anyway, I hope folks enjoy it.
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Post by cadriel on Nov 28, 2008 20:23:16 GMT -6
I submitted a chart of drawbacks for magical weapons. Because I like charts for random and interesting things, and life's just more fun when your +2 sword causes rats to follow you. (Not as their leader or anything. They just follow you around. And yes, that's a small preview.)
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Post by cadriel on Nov 19, 2008 19:26:46 GMT -6
Whoa! Awesome, Cadriel. You don't happen to live near Michigan do you? Please let me know if you catch anything glaringly off. I think it's a cool issue. No, I live in New Jersey - I ordered the issue as soon as it was up and decided not to worry about waiting for the proof. I've just flipped through the entire thing, and the only problem I have is that the hex numbers for the "Wild North" are indistinct to the point of being totally illegible. I thought they were missing entirely at first glance, to be honest, but when I looked closer I saw that they were very indistinct light gray. I'll probably order a larger copy of the map for reference's sake. For practical reasons I tend to prefer the articles that can be slotted directly into my games - the charts, the monsters, the magic items etc., and I was very happy to see plenty of articles in that vein. I'll be mining the longer articles for material, but I definitely think the short pieces are more likely to be of immediate value. The "Ready Ref Sheets" feature is awesome, and I'm hoping we can see more in that vein in future installments. (I use the original Ready Ref Sheets in my games and can always use more.) I appreciated the addition of a reviews feature - definitely something worth following up in future issues. Not so much on the fiction. I understand that it's sort of traditional, but I haven't had much use for game fiction since I stopped reading Dragonlance books in high school.
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Post by cadriel on Nov 19, 2008 18:35:20 GMT -6
I got my copy today. It's astonishing how quickly this magazine has grown, and while I've barely even scratched the surface as content goes for this issue yet, I sincerely hope that we continue to see this size and this quality of magazine. I'll post more thoughts soon.
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Post by cadriel on Nov 16, 2008 11:06:22 GMT -6
I think I have to voice the dissenting opinion on this one. Gamma World is a fine game, and I wouldn't discourage for a minute an individual gamer taking it as he or she pleases. But Jim Ward's name is on the game, and he has pretty much always represented the weird and wacky side of gaming. GW was an expansion of the ideas in his funhouse Metamorphosis Alpha, and I think he did a marvelous job of making it accessible for people who want to play it differently, but this was a game that introduced rabbits with guns and had a random mutation chart, and was almost certainly written to be playable as far-out and goofy as you desire. Personally, when (not if) I do a GW level in my megadungeon, it will be suitably wacky in tribute.
In other words, while I think you're doing it right, so is everyone who's having fun, including the cheesiest GW you can think of.
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Post by cadriel on Oct 13, 2008 10:23:15 GMT -6
Thank you very much for all your kind words! So you noticed, too, that no one put the words "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" in that empty space on the cover? To put numbers on it: Of the 48 monsters in the book, 19 of them are OD&D versions of monsters from the Cthulhu Mythos of Lovecraft, Derleth, and CAS. The other 29 are of my own creation. Once again, thank you for your post (which I somehow missed before today). I'm very happy that you like the book! Ah. To be clear, I wasn't sure whether the Cthulhoid monsters were derived from one or the other Cthulhu mythos sources or original -- I'll have to give them another pass. On a closer reading, the rituals are really quite brutal, nasty things. I'd imagine that a game with sorcerers as PCs would spend quite a lot of time on finding components and sacrifices. If you've had rituals in game, I'd be interested in hearing more about them. The alien stuff is a lot of fun, and I might borrow from it for a novelty level in my dungeon at some point. Still love the Random Robot Generator for its potential.
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Post by cadriel on Oct 10, 2008 17:33:49 GMT -6
So, the deities of the postal service (weird as they may be) have been kind to me, and I actually received my copy of Carcosa today. The physical product is excellent and fits right in with a whole mess of other D&D books, although the space for the "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" logo is conspicuously bare. Visually, the text is strikingly laid out in a way that makes you forget for a moment that you're not reading the original OD&D booklets.
In terms of content, the book has a number of standouts. Sorcery is really intriguing; the rituals have consistently exotic, flavorful names and many of them could probably spur multiple sessions' worth of adventure to cast once. Psionics are done delightfully simply, one of the better D&D takes on it to date, and taking up just a couple of pages. If you want OD&D psionics, you want to use Carcosa for them. The monsters are mostly OD&D transplants from the Cthulhu mythos, with some unique additions thrown in. But it's really neat in effect when you turn a couple pages further and get to the "Random Robot Generator" - definite fodder for the science fantasy twist put on things here. I haven't gotten the chance to give much of a look at the map key yet, although it seems to have interesting ideas scattered across the setting.
My first impression is that it's a big positive. I don't plan on playing in Carcosa at this point, but this is an excellent new OD&D book to mine for ideas. Great work, Geof, it's a class act and a hell of a self-produced product.
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Post by cadriel on Oct 8, 2008 4:48:13 GMT -6
Order sent!
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Post by cadriel on Oct 7, 2008 8:10:33 GMT -6
Well, I hope that stack of supplements is pretty big, because it looks like you'll have plenty of sales on your first day. :-) I'm very much looking forward to this, and will be diving into the book the minute it is in my hands.
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Post by cadriel on Oct 2, 2008 21:18:30 GMT -6
I like the saddle stitch, it's worth having over perfect binding. At FO!'s length, I don't think perfect binding would be a good solution. If you can increase the circulation of the magazine by offering perfect binding as well, by all means go for it - but I'd continue to buy the saddle stitch.
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Post by cadriel on Oct 2, 2008 5:49:18 GMT -6
Since it's been October for over a day now, I feel obliged to poke...when will we be able to order? Any word on the website?
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Post by cadriel on Sept 28, 2008 19:37:16 GMT -6
Hey all. I just wanted to note that I've started a new blog named after the title my players have given to my periodic OD&D game - Semper Initativus Unum. It will feature looks at what history tells us was going on in the early years of gaming, and how it can inform an "old school renaissance" that's happening now and bringing a do it yourself spirit back into the forefront for at least a significant corner of the D&D world. Hope people will enjoy it.
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Post by cadriel on Sept 27, 2008 14:12:30 GMT -6
Excellent, color me excited. My sincere hope is that you manage to start a decent trend with this effort, and Carcosa is the first in a long line of fan-published new material for OD&D.
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Post by cadriel on Sept 27, 2008 7:18:56 GMT -6
This sounds absolutely fantastic, and I want to get in line to buy one now. I'm of the firm belief that OD&D is best played with the best material culled from different sources, so a supplement that is in ready format should be a beautiful thing.
As far as numbering supplements, we should keep an unofficial count for people who want to release numbered supps to the fan community around here. The next supplement can be Supplement VI: YOUR CAMPAIGN HERE, and so on. Either that, or everyone can just release it as "Supplement: YOUR CAMPAIGN HERE".
In any case, very much looking forward to this. Can we get a picture of the cover maybe to further whet the interest?
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Post by cadriel on Sept 24, 2008 20:53:58 GMT -6
cadriel---how much did your copies cost you, by chance?? For the first 20 (keep in mind that the first seven or eight issues are somewhat slimmer until it evens out by the teens in the 160 page range) it was around a hundred dollars, which averages out at $5 an issue - a price I consider entirely reasonable for the resources involved. I know it involved Lee photocopying her own issues and I'm not sure she would be enthusiastic about repeating the process for a large number of folks, but it's a tremendous resource for getting a feel of how gaming really was BITD. I've been thinking of writing up brief synopses of what I've learned - maybe I'll start an old school gaming blog, as I've been doing a good deal of research from the perspective of what gaming was like in the period roughly running from 1974 to 1980. Perhaps the down side in my mind is the sense that I'm still missing a significant piece of the conversation - A&E and The Wild Hunt really were assuming that you read both mags at the time. I haven't really gotten down & dirty with the numerous actual play reports that initially dominated A&E and I am actually very interested in them. Even in 1975, "3LB BtB" (as the saying goes today) was very far from the dominant play style attested by the actual discussion.
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