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Post by krusader74 on Feb 7, 2014 22:30:13 GMT -6
I almost forgot to mention the following B/X supplements, in the Mystara Gazetteer series, which also have write-ups for playable character classes of Faerie folk: PC1 Tall Talls of the Wee Folk by John Nephew - Brownie
- Centaur
- Dryad
- Faun
- Hsiao
- Leprechaun
- Pixie
- Pooka
- Sidhe
- Sprite
- Treant
- Wood Imp
- Woodrake
PC2 Top Ballista by Carl Sargeant - Faenre
- Gnome
- Gremlin
- Harpy
- Nagpa
- Pegataur
- Sphinx
- Tabi
GAZ05 The Elves of Alfheim by Steve Perrin GAZ06 The Dwarves of Rockhome by Aaron Allston
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 7, 2014 19:53:18 GMT -6
Anyone interested in using folkloric elves and Faerie folk in their setting ought to take a look at Dragon #155. These articles are for AD&D, but I easily adapted them to a B/X adventure circa 2006-2007. The relevant articles are: "Wild Into the Woods", The point of view of the grugach-the wild elves, starts on p. 9. "The Elfin Gods", Four new additions to the elven pantheon, by Denise Lyn Voskuil, starts on p. 20 "In the Frost and the Snow", A new elven character race: the snow elves, by David S. Reimer, starts on p. 26 "The Ecology of the Satyr", Taking a look at Mr. Fun himself, by Gordon R. Menzies, pp. 42-45 And my favorite article in this issue: "The Folk of the Faerie Kingdom", A full list of faeries and faerie-folk, by Vince Garcia, Art by Robert Klasnich, pp. 33-41 - Atomie (MM2)
- Bogart (MM2)
- Booka (FF)
- Brownie (MM)
- Buckawn (MM2)
- Dryad (MM)
- Faerie Dragon (MM2)
- Grey Elf (MM)
- Grig (MM2)
- Killmoulis (FF)
- Korred (MM2)
- Leprechaun (MM)
- Pixie (MM)
- Quickling (MM2)
- Satyr (MM)
- Sprite (MM)
- Swanmay (MM2)
- Sylph (MM)
This article also has a complete write-up of Rhiannon, The Faerie Queen: Also take a peak at Dragon #87, "The Ecology of the Dryad", by Shaun Wilson, pp. 18-20 And Dragon #109, "Hooves and green hair", by Bennet Marks, p. 58-59, describes Half-satyrs and half-dryads
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 6, 2014 1:58:28 GMT -6
Here's an idea for an exotic sci-fi or fantasy setting: a toroid planet. Quoting from the article's summary: The author does a great job detailing what such a world would be like. The same author also muses about a Double Earth--a planet twice as big as earth. Last year on these forums, there was a post about using a Double Torus as a setting. It's worth noting that a sphere, a torus and double torus each have different geometries: - A sphere has an Euler characteristic χ=2, meaning it has an elliptic geometry.
- A torus has an Euler characteristic χ=0, meaning it has a Euclidean geometry.
- A double torus has an Euler characteristic χ=-2, meaning it has a hyperbolic geometry.
I'm fascinated by these unusual settings. I also like the idea of a Hollow Earth such as Pellucidar. Has anyone used settings like these in their campaigns?
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 4, 2014 0:56:45 GMT -6
Okay, I'll take a swing at a couple things The one thing that's been bugging me is, how do I go about [building a megadungeon]? *Seriously, make up some $hit you think will be fun. Very apropos to point out the etymological connection between the word "dung"eon and the word "$hit." The mainstream dictionary etymology links the English word "dungeon" to the Latin word "dominion," but that's a stretch of fancy, to hide the filthy truth. Here's a more honest derivation: - Proto-Indo-European "dhengh": to cover
- Proto-Germanic "dungijo": dungheap
- Old English "dung": manure or soil covered basement, underground weaving workshop
- Middle English "dungeon, dungeoun, dungun": castle keep, prison cell below the castle, dungeon
An interesting write-up about actual ancient Roman dungeons here. Dungeons were literally $hitholes, where prisoners awaiting trial were thrown. Here's a quote from this article (italics mine):
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 4, 2014 0:03:36 GMT -6
The Italian winemaker, Poggio Anima, has pictures of demons imprinted on their wine labels. In the US, these wines are imported by Vine Street Imports. I have tried these wines, and I highly recommend them. These wines give meaning to the phrases "demon alcohol" and "demon in a bottle." Tonight with dinner, I enjoyed two glasses of "Asdmodeus." Quoting verbatim from the VS Imports website about Asmodeus 2010: RE: "Devil" vs "Demon", Wikipedia says: Since this narrative comes from a Jewish text, Asmodeus is therefore considered a demon (=Mazikin), and not a devil. I noticed an interesting connection between demons and wine (or at least grape vines) in the Babylonian Talmud, Berachos 6a: The description of the Lilith 2011 says: The description of the Belial 2011 says:
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 3, 2014 23:30:55 GMT -6
I wonder if the Louve and/or British Museum will reproduce this die again? The replicas were available when this die or one like it was sold several years ago for ~$20,000 (so if this is the same die sold back then, it depreciated by 10%). Kevin Cook used to have a picture of the old auction at www.dicecollector.com/diceinfo_roman.PNG but he's apparently replaced that with an image from this new auction sale. Google found me this replica of an Egyptian 20-Sided Die for sale, but unfortunately I couldn't find a reproduction of the Roman 20-Sided Die pictured above.
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 3, 2014 23:07:28 GMT -6
[...] Gary used invisible ink. Once the hidden text is revealed [...] Quite plausible actually: Dave Cook wrote the M1 Blizzard Pass solo module in 1983 with invisible ink. The module came with an invisible ink pen.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 31, 2014 2:28:20 GMT -6
"real world" demons -- Goetic demons This website lists the 72 demons of the goetia. It contains a description of each demon along with its sigil and illustration, e.g., #1 Bael: Illo: Sigil:
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 28, 2014 5:18:41 GMT -6
I use the 3 LBBs only. No thief class. But PCs can thieve and scam to their heart's content. Instead of "skill checks," I basically use the "ability check" method outlined in "The Halls of Beoll-Dur" adventure, printed in The Dragon #41, Vol. V., No. 3 September 1980. If you're unfamiliar with this technique, check out page 8 of Aher's " A Brief History of Ability Checks in Dungeons & Dragons". The method is where N=3 for average tasks, N=4 for hard tasks, and N=5 for nearly impossible tasks. (I average over any applicable ability scores, as described on page 10 in the discussion of Katharine Kerr's article in Dragon #68.) ExamplesHere's a 1st level LLB D&D Fighter, randomly generated (at this great website): STR: 11 INT: 11 WIS: 7 DEX: 13 CON: 9 CHA: 14 1. She wants to climb a rope. This is an average task that depends mostly on upper body strength (STR 11), so the roll is: 3d6 ≤ 11. 2. Next, she must climb a wall, but it's slick, covered with some kind of slippery slimey mold. This is a hard task that depends equally on STR and DEX, so the roll is 4d6 ≤ 12 = (11+13)/2. 3. She runs the " Romance scam" on a rich prince she meets at the masked ball. She needs a little cash to get home to Latveria... The prince is young and inexperienced and the amount is relatively small, so this is an easy task vs CHA. The roll is 3d6 ≤ 14. 4. Next she tries to run the " Pig-in-a-poke scam" on a seasoned merchant, and he's about to "let the cat out of the bag." But that's OK. She and her MU partner found a scroll with the 5th level Teleport spell (Men and Magic, p. 28) during their last dungeon crawl. He quickly teleports Homer Zuckerman's prize pig Wilbur into the bag as the merchant opens it. Nice save. No rolls required.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 28, 2014 3:17:39 GMT -6
It would be interesting to find out how people really made maps in the Middle Ages. I've been looking at the History of Cartography. Volumes 1-3 are available online in PDF format. The amount of information is overwhelming. There's a 38-page article on Local and Regional Cartography in Medieval Europe by P. D. A. Harvey, which says that while Roman maps were drawn to scale, medieval maps weren't. Instead, they were topographic diagrams with places and lines drawn between them to indicate direction. Interesting stuff. There are also a few pages on the web with map-making jargon and terminology.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 27, 2014 0:29:52 GMT -6
Any chance it's the thread entitled " About mapping the dungeons," a 2-page thread begun on Sep 16, 2012 on "The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures" board? There's also an older thread on the General board entitled " Mapping." You could always start a new thread on that board posing your specific questions about teaching players to map and mapping vocabulary.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 26, 2014 21:08:38 GMT -6
I ordered the "Premium Original Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game" from Amazon.com on May 21, 2013 for $85.24, a 43% discount off the MSRP of $149.99. The status is
I've also had to submit a form confirming that I still wanted the item, otherwise Amazon would automatically cancel it. I have no intention of cancelling this order, not only because of the high discount and the free shipping, but I'm just really, really curious to see if they will ever fulfill it. I already legally purchased copies from DTRPG before WotC pulled them, so I'm not in any kind of a rush.
I'll let you know if I ever get it...
Hopefully Amazon will fulfill this order before D&D's 50th anniversary!!!
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 26, 2014 20:32:45 GMT -6
There is a discussion of that Yahoo! Games article over at Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126925I left a comment over there giving props to this site and our contributors, recommending anybody interested in OD&D come visit us. (I post on HN using the handle "ergoproxy".) Today is a good day to proselytize to others about our hobby!
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 26, 2014 16:01:38 GMT -6
Christie's is auctioning off a 2nd century AD glass gaming die: www.christies.com/Lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4205385It's an icosahedron with astrological symbols inscribed on its 20 faces: The listing says "gaming die." But the astrological symbols imply it was used for divination (or some other "magical" purpose), rather than gambling. Each of the 5 platonic solids was associated to a different element ( see this). The icosahedron was associated to water, but I don't know if that's relevant to this object or its uses. Lots of interesting mathematical and historical facts about the Platonic Solids, including a brief discussion of Plato's Timaeus, in this recent (Jan 9, 2014) YouTube video: In the second century AD, dice made out of bone were the norm. A glass die would have been difficult to make and hence expensive--another indication this object had a religious purpose rather than being used for gambling. I don't know anything about auctions or auction jargon, but the Christie's listing says "Price Realized: $17,925." This post says "price realized" means Any bidders?
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 26, 2014 5:25:07 GMT -6
The question is: are you doing anything to celebrate 40 years of OD&D, and if so what are you doing? Reading and contributing to odd74, of course! Happy birthday D&D!!! I'd sing the " Happy Birthday" song, but I don't want to pay $1,500 to secure the rights from Warner/Chappell Music.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 26, 2014 4:28:17 GMT -6
The 70s? Ridiculous. We wouldn't have Magic until 1993. But seriously, one definition of "magic" is "the practice of illusory tricks to entertain other people" (and a definition of "trick" is "a difficult, dexterous, or clever act designed to amuse"). In that sense of the word "magic", I guess OD&D did have some real magic in it. The next cell in the Spinnerette comic says: This sounds remarkably like what actually happened to GURPS Cyberpunk. Quoting the Wikipedia article: And while Jimmy Carter didn't confiscate the rules for D&D, during the "Satanic Ritual Abuse" hysteria of the 80s, some people did burn the rule books. I saw this interesting quote in a blog post entitled: "D&D and demons":
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 22, 2014 4:43:34 GMT -6
Sounds like a Philip K Dick novel. Divine Invasion, Ubik, Man in the High Castle, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch were all in mind while plotting this scenario. The singer/kabbalist PC carries a copy of Divine Invasion with her. The chance, however, of finding the right sort of players to discover if the premise is worthwhile or fruitful is nil, unless they are your own friends and you have trained them up as players. These are the only good kind of players IME. Location-based scenarios seem to be the norm. I successfully ran an event-driven Call of Cthulhu scenario once. But I never tried a character-oriented scenario. The players would need to be committed to role-playing, skilled at improv, literate, social, and imaginative. And not simply interested in rolling dice, killing monsters, gathering treasure, and gaining levels. I think because the scenario options are such scientific hogwash Solving the measurement problem or writing a Ph.D. thesis on controlling quantum information wasn't the goal. The aim was just a plausible sci-fi scenario. There's a big difference between plausibility and being "right" in relation to reality. In physics and chemistry, we initially get told this very plausible story about the temperature of a system: - It's the average kinetic energy of the microscopic particles in the system: T = 2 K / (3 N kB) where T is temp, K is kinetic energy, N is the number of particles, and kB is the Boltzmann constant.
- It can't fall below absolute zero on the Kelvin scale.
These postulates are understandable, they're believable, and they're valuable in solving a lot of problems. But they're also hogwash. Anyone who studies physics long enough will get another formulation of temperature when they study thermodynamics: T = dQ / dS where T is temp, Q is heat energy and S is entropy. This relationship allows for negative temperatures (below absolute zero), a phenomenon observed in strong magnetic fields, lasers and black holes. This formulation has a greater scope, but at the cost of being more difficult to understand, accept, or apply. When engineers build something, they invariably use an approximation of pi. So their calculations are hogwash. But it works (most of the time). And when modern mathematicians treat infinity as a completed whole, they're fooling themselves, and it results in hogwash like 1+2+3+...=-1/12, proved legitimately by analytic continuation of the zeta function or by Rumanujan summation (rather than the invalid proof featured on Slate last week). So I'm not sure what's wrong with having some hogwash in science fiction or roleplaying, when we get it in science, engineering and math. We could argue over details like whether a macroscopic object consisting of as many particles as a cat or a person or a planet could exist in a quantum superposition state, as I assume they could in this scenario. But there's no arguing that researchers have already put a small but macroscopic cryogenically-frozen tuning fork in such a state. And consciousness itself has recently been linked to warm quantum coherence. So, whether or not its hogwash, it's still plausible. And it makes entertaining sci-fi. On a more philosophical note, I find myself gravitating more to neo-pragmastism in my old age. I don't think formulas like T=dQ/dS represent things in reality in any relevant way. To be sure, there is a mind-independent reality. We just can't know it. It might be fun or profitable to think about. But it's ultimately a big waste of time arguing such-and-such a theory is "right" in relation to reality. A good theory will have some limited value in adapting to one's environment. But that's all. In short, all science is hogwash, but some of this hogwash is useful to us right now. And someday it will be superseded by slightly more useful hogwash. it would be just as suitable for a high level AD&D game, 8th-10th levels. Any chance you're alluding to "After the Storm" by Kopsiniss and Goshtigian? An AD&D module, 8th-10th levels, published in Dungeon Magazine #6, about a pirate and his ship, wrecked on some reefs in the bay. I thought about doing "Splashdown" as a traditional location-based OD&D scenario or as an event-driven 1920's Call of Cthulhu adventure. Elements like spaceflight, other worlds, aliens, futuristic technology, paranormal abilities, and parallel worlds (or in this case, quantum coherence) certainly crop-up here-and-there in fantasy (D&D) and horror (CoC), but they're the norm in sci-fi, so Traveller seemed the most suitable choice.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 20, 2014 7:16:20 GMT -6
Each character also has a secret identity and secret mission ... A highly mysterious patron aids the characters, guiding them in each quest. He only asks in return that the characters help smuggle him off the planet, suggesting that the sensor responsible for the wreck wasn't setup to detect intruders, but rather to keep him imprisoned on the planet. Interesting. Is there any connection between one character's mission and the 'patron'. Each PC's background plus the clues I provide are meant to steer the player into believing he knows the true identity of the patron: - The ship's skipper moonlights as a drug smuggler (secret identity). He was smuggling a large cargo of dimethyltryptamine on board the ship when it crashed (secret mission). The scenario is devised to give him reasons to believe that the party's experiences, including the patron, are nothing but a drug induced hallucination.
- One of the passengers is an industrialist who financed the experimental sensor responsible for the crash. He's hiding the fact that the sensor has another mode: that of a planetary defense shield. He'll be led to believe that the patron is a psyker, tricking him into revealing his industrial secrets.
- Another passenger is a singer and kabbalist (think Madonna). Because of the Millennial craze, Jews are once again being persecuted, and she's a crypto-Jew, hiding her faith from the public. She will have grounds to believe that the patron is Yah, the male aspect of God, now in exile, attempting to re-unite with His female aspect on earth, the Shekinah. She'll see the events as an allegory: The ship breaking apart is the Shevirat haKelim, the main compartment splashing down into a lake as Tivilah, the necessary work of repairing the ship as Tikkun olam, the return to earth as Teshuva.
- A Zhodani spy on board is secretly trying to learn about the industrialist's planetary defense system. He will believe that the patron and the weird experiences are the work of an anti-psi security firm hired by the industrialist.
- An anti-psi security agent hired by the industrialist will believe it's all a mind-trick of the Autochthones (indigenous species on Fomalhaut) who have psionic abilities and worship a god they call Cthugha.
- A science professor will believe the circumstances are due to quantum effects as explained in the plot sketch above. He will believe the patron is an Ancient, a master of quantum engineering.
- An engineer/mechanic passenger will believe his low berth is malfunctioning and this is all a near death experience.
My idea was that the crew/passengers are essentially Schrödinger's cats, existing partly in several possible states simultaneously (quantum superposition). So whatever conclusions the players make are all possible. The sensor/defense shield is powered by the brainwaves of a creature the industrialist's scientists found on Fomalhaut. The creature was in a deep sleep and couldn't be awakened. The Delta waves emitted by the creature were very powerful and the scientists were able to harness them in order to make measurements of the total energy in a system very precisely. The patron may be some kind of mental projection of this creature. When this creature awakes, the superposition of states will decohere in a thermodynamically irreversible way, and we will be left with only one Truth about what really happened. This is a life and death matter for the PCs. A bigger question is whether the PCs can figure out a way to influence the creature to produce a wave function collapse favorable to themselves...
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 19, 2014 5:25:41 GMT -6
Traveller is part of my "holy trinity" of rpgs, along with D&D and Call of Cthulhu. I have the classic traveller (CT) box set with the LBBs as well as the CD-ROM from FFE that has pdfs of all CT material. CT is the second rpg I ever bought (D&D was my first). Back then, my friends and I wanted to roleplay Star Wars. We didn't use CT's setting. Instead we created stats for light sabres, wookies, star destroyers, the planet tatooine and so on. I only came to appreciate CT's own Third Imperium setting later in life. Back in 2008 I bought mongoose traveller (MGT). I have the hard cover rulebook as well as the pdf from dtrpg. The SRD is free from the mongoose website. There are a couple of web-based versions of the SRD here and there. There was a great pdf version of the SRD on mediafire, but it vanished. There's also the last version of the playtest version of MGT still on the mongoose site (google for the link). I really like the MGT rules. They're like a streamlined version of the CT rules. We had a small group of 4 players that ran weekly sessions for about 6 months in the last half of 2008. We used the default Third Imperium setting, starting in Imperial Year 1105. We bought a ship (free trader type a) for 42 mega credits. Then we had to find ways to make our mortgage payments (180 kilo credits per month). We did this by transporting passengers and cargo from world-to-world and taking on odd jobs in between jumps. Near the end of the campaign we got a "letter of marque and reprisal" to fight pirates and take down an anti-imperium terrorist group. Our GM kept us poor and always on the verge of missing our monthly bank payments. One time we had our cargo stolen and had to get it back from the mafioso. Another time we got shaken down by corrupt law enforcement. There was a lot of accounting we had to do to manage the ship's finances. I actually used professional accounting software and kept a journal, a ledger and so on. I also made forms for (1) the ship cargo manifest, (2) the passenger manifest, and (3) an imperial calendar for time tracking. We thought the ship-to-ship combat could have been streamlined/simplified a little more. It also required quite a bit of accounting. We house-ruled our own experience point system, loosely based on the system from Traveller: The New Era (TNE). I can post these rules if anyone is interested. If I were going to play Traveller again now, I'd still prefer MGT over any prior rule set, but I'd want to tweak ship-to-ship combat to make it easier. I'd also use mongoose's Judge Dredd setting for MGT, but that's my own personal preference. I love 2000AD comics. I just re-read Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 03 and now I'm re-reading The Complete Case Files 05. Lots of great ideas for rpgs in these volumes. The first quarter of volume 05 deals with various crime rackets in Mega City One: - Body sharking - Like loan sharking, except the loan shark takes one of the borrower's loved ones as collateral and puts them in suspended animation (like traveller's low berths) until the loan is repaid. If any payments are missed, the collateral never wakes up.
- Perp running - Smuggling criminals off world to escape the Judges. Unscrupulous perp runners will sell the perps as slave labor to aliens.
- Chump dumping - Selling aliens high passage to earth, and then dumping them out the airlock during the voyage.
- Umpty bagging - Uncle umps umpty candy tastes so delicious it is as addictive as crack. Selling it was outlawed in volume 03. Now its sold illegally in MC-1 by the Jong gang.
- Blitz agencies - Hitmen for hire
- Psyking - Using people with psionic ability to commit crimes, like blitzing or a protection racket.
- Numbers racket - Hacking corporate computers for profit.
- Stookie glanding - Stookies are intelligent, non-violent aliens. Their adifax glands contain chemicals that prevent humans from aging. Criminals illegally factory farm Stookies in the Cursed Earth and sell their glands to rich citizens in MC-1.
- Mob wars - Volume 05 has a story arc about an alien race called the Mophioso that try and muscle-in and take-over all of MC-1's crime rackets. Mophioso are electrical in nature, need to recharge (rather than sleep), can shoot lighting bolts out their finger tips, and short-circuit when exposed to water.
2000AD comics have been printed weekly since 1977, and it's featured the galaxy's greatest writers and artists, so it's a cornucopia of great rpg adventure ideas. I recently purchased the Judge Dredd hard cover ruleset for MGT on ebay for $25. The pdf on DTRPG costs $29. Back in 2008, I got the idea for a hard sci-fi MGT campaign. It was called "Splashdown." I never ran it, because my time was already overcommitted--at the time I was doing weekly games of Traveller, D&D and Warhammer 40K. Here is a brief sketch of the campaign: SplashdownSettingPlaceFomalhaut, grid 1024, Dingir subsector, Solomani Rim sector TimeThe action starts in the year 3,000 AD (= IY -1516), during "The Long Night," roughly between the periods known as "Twilight" and "9PM." The Second Imperium (aka "The Rule of Man") is rapidly collapsing due to - Piracy - The Solomani Confederation has lost control over the Imperial Navy, due to mismanagement and bankruptcy. Pirates sieze the opportunity to attack and rob defenseless trade ships. Individual worlds, increasingly responsible for their own defense, are becoming isolated. Trade is grinding to a halt.
- Xenophobia - The psionic races of Zhodani and Hivers, first contacted around 2500 AD, are becoming more widely known and their powers mistrusted and feared.
- Superstition - Specifically, Millennial hysteria of an apocalypse and an imminent Second Coming of Jesus. After all, the Psalms say a day of the Lord is 1,000 years, and the Gospels say Jesus rose again on the Third Day...
- Greed - With no Imperial trade regulation, opportunistic businessmen find it easier than ever to cheat and gouge their customers.
AFAIK, this time period, though briefly summarized in the Traveller canon, is not detailed in any existing Traveller game system or supplement, which tend to emphasize the Third Imperium, its origin (Milieu 0) its high watermark (Golden Age), its downfall (Mega Traveller) and its aftermath (Traveller the New Era and 1248/Out of the Darkness). I think this lack of attention in the official canon creates a great deal of freedom to imagine a brand new setting that will take the players off-guard and keep them constantly guessing what's next. Genre- Disaster Thriller - The resourceful heroes must overcome their interpersonal conflicts in order to survive a shipwreck.
- Hard Sci-Fi - This is a given for any Traveller game. Everything that happens in this scenario, even apparently supernatural events, are given 100% plausible scientific explanations. The plot premise relies heavily on Time Dilation, Energy-Time Uncertainty (∆E∙∆t ≥ ħ) and Quantum Decoherence.
PlotSplashdown uses a character-driven plot. All characters are pregens. A minimum of 4 players are required by the story. Up to 8 may play. Each character has a publicly known backstory and goal. Each character also has a secret identity and secret mission. Gradually, these secrets leak out, putting the characters in conflict with each other. But they must put their conflicts aside and work together in order to survive a shipwreck. The ship is apparently wrecked by a highly sensitive, experimental sensor, capable of detecting energy entering the Fomalhaut system, with an infinitesimal standard deviation: ∆ E = √(<E^2> - <E>^2) → 0 Collectively, the characters have the skills required to fix the ship. But they must go on a series of 12 Herculean tasks to recover the equipment needed to make the repairs. A highly mysterious patron aids the characters, guiding them in each quest. He only asks in return that the characters help smuggle him off the planet, suggesting that the sensor responsible for the wreck wasn't setup to detect intruders, but rather to keep him imprisoned on the planet. ThemeAppearance vs. Reality is the major theme. Nothing is as it seems: - All of the characters have something to hide
- The mysterious patron maybe an alien, a god, a devil or an hallucination
- Time appears to be broken: The ship appears to have crashed almost 3,000 years in the past or maybe 222,0000 years in the future. Worse yet, time on the planet is nearly frozen. Other ships entering the system at the same time appear to have crashed at different times—perhaps millions of years prior.
- A ghostly version of the character's own ship appears to crash land, over-and-over-again, but in different places with different outcomes, before fading out of existence.
There are a myriad of plausible scientific and superstitious explanations for all of these effects, revealed as the story develops.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 4, 2014 1:51:21 GMT -6
PROLOGUEIn 1097, Baldwin departs from his older brother Godfrey. He joins Bohemond's nephew Tancred, to conquer the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. In 1098, Thoros invites Baldwin to Edessa. We know what happens to Baldwin next (see my prior posts in this thread). Meanwhile, the main Crusader army (led by Adhemar, Raymond, Godfrey, Bohemond and Robert) march on Antioch. They arrive outside the city on October 21, 1097. THE SIEGE OF ANTIOCH
Here is a timeline for the Siege of Antioch. DATE MILESTONE 10/21/1097 Crusaders arrive outside Antioch 12/29/1097 Antioch garrison led by Yaghi-Siyan sorties unsuccessfully 12/31/1097 Crusader foraging party defeats 1st Muslim relief force, but fails to forage enough supplies 02/09/1097 Crusaders defeat 2nd Muslim relief force 05/01/1098 Kerbogha fails to recapture Edessa from Baldwin 06/03/1098 Armenian named Firouz betrays Antioch, lets Crusaders through Towers of the Two Sisters in exchange for money and a title 06/03/1098 Crusaders capture Antioch, fail to capture citadel, slaughter Muslim and Christian inhabitants alike 06/07/1098 Kerbogha's army begins second siege of Antioch 06/10/1098 Peter Bartholomew dreams of the Holy Spear 06/14/1098 Meteor strikes Kerbogha's encampment 06/15/1098 Peter the Hermit finds the Holy Spear buried in cathedral of St. Peter 06/27/1098 Peter the Hermit sent to negotiate with Kerbogha, fails 06/28/1098 Crusaders led by Raymond of Aguilers carrying the Holy Spear successfully sortie against Kerbogha's army, which retreats 06/28/1098 The citadel under command of Ahmed ibn Merwan surrenders to Bohemund 06/28/1098 Yaghi-Siyan flees citadel and is captured and beheaded 08/01/1098 Typhus epidemic breaks out, papal legate Adhemar dies 01/01/1099 Raymond departs Antioch, marching on Jerusalem, leaving Bohemond as Prince of Antioch 04/08/1099 Peter the Hermit accused of pious fraud for his visions, undergoes ordeal by fire 04/20/1099 Peter the Hermit dies of his burns 06/07/1099 Raymond begins Siege of Jerusalem Here's a quick rundown on the Crusader leaders: NAME DESCRIPTION Adhemar Papal legate and bishop of Le Puy Raymond D'Aguilers Eldest, most famous, largest army, expected to be the leader of the entire First Crusade Godfrey of Bouillon Older brother of Baldwin, who is the Count of Edessa and eventual King of Jerusalem Bohemond Becomes Prince of Antioch Robert of Flanders Leader of smallest army And here's a breakdown of the forces involved: NAME TOTAL SIZE INFANTRY CAVALRY LEADER NOTES Crusader Army 20,000 12,000 8,000 (see above) Some accounts say Crusader army numbered 43,000 but that includes noncombatants and untrained peasants Antioch Garrison 6,000 ? ? Yaghi-Siyan First Muslim relief army 12,000 9,000 3,000 Duqaq Second Muslim relief army 5,000 4,000 1,000 Ridwan Kerbogha's army 30,000 25,000 5,000 Kerbogha Kerbogha's army includes remnants of first and second Muslim relief force led by Ridwan and Duqaq. There are good summaries of the siege here and here. There are also a number of firsthand accounts. And here's a nice map of the city in 1098: In Chainmail, I'd probably run these battles in 200:1 scale rather than the usual 20:1 scale, in order to keep things manageable. SACRED METEORS, PROPHETIC VISIONSAs I write this post (3 Jan 2014), the Quadrantids meteor shower peaks in the northern hemisphere around 7:30p UT in Europe and Asia--that's 2:30p in the eastern US, but should be visible in clear skies there till at least midnight. The Zenithal Hourly Rate is 80-120 (depending on who's counting). Meteors are powerful objects. Meteors have been found to contain DNA building blocks. And they could snuff out all life on the planet. A recent TV program, Big History Ep. 12, entitled "Deadly Meteors" provides more details. And meteors play an important role in medieval religion and warfare.Baetyli are meteorites revered by the ancients. An example occurs in Genesis 28:11-19, where Jacob makes a pillow out of these meteoric rocks. He dreams of a stairway to heaven (aka Jacob's Ladder). Angels ascend and descend the stairway. The LORD God stands above it. When Jacob awakes, he sets up the meteorites as a pillar, anoints them with oil, and names the place Beth-El, meaning "House of God." And that's where the word "Betyl" for a sacred meteoritic rock comes from. (The ancient Greeks had a similar stone artifact called an "omphalos.") Patrick Moore contends that the Star of Bethlehem was actually two meteors. On 27 Oct AD 312, Constantine and Maxentius prepared to battle each other at Milvian Bridge for the title of Emperor of Rome. Constantine's forces were outnumbered. He saw a meteor blazing across the sky towards the enemy camp. A very good omen indeed. This meteor strike created the "Cratere del Sirente," a small shallow seasonal lake in Abruzzo, in central Italy. It struck at a speed of 70,000 mph with the force of a 1KT nuclear bomb. The result looked like a small nuclear blast, complete with a mushroom cloud of dust and violent shock-waves. Perhaps it looked like a giant cross of light: or maybe like this HOLY SPEAR, INVINCIBLE ARMYThat night Constantine dreamed of a flaming cross consisting of a long vertical spear with a crossbar near the top. A banner hung from the cross with the first two letters of Christ's name: the Chi-Rho. A heavenly voice declared: "In this sign shalt thou conquer!" (IN HOC SIGNO VINCES). Constantine awoke and immediately had the sign emblazoned on his legions' gear and won the battle. This military standard, called a labarum, looks like this: The vertical spear in Constantine's labarum has been equated with the Lance of Longinus (aka Holy Spear) that pierced Christ's side on the cross. This spear has miraculous powers-- (1) An army led by the Holy Spear, no matter how outnumbered, is ensured victory. Napolean sought it. Trevor Ravenscroft claimed that Hitler became obsessed with the spear, but that it eventually fell into the hands of General Patton. (2) The Holy Spear has the power to pierce and immobilize any being, no matter how powerful, even a god. If you've seen the anime masterpiece Neon Genesis Evangelion, you're familiar with this power. (3) A wound caused by the Holy Spear will never heal and may have broader consequences. In Wagner's Parsifal, the evil illusionist Klingsor conjures a beautiful woman to seduce King Amfortas. Klingsor grabs the Holy Spear from Amfortas and pireces his groin; the wound will not heal. The King's impotence and infertility reduce his kingdom to a barren wasteland. In other legends, Amfortas is known as the Wounded King or the Fisher King. (4) Ravenscroft claims that the Holy Spear has these powers because it contains an evil entity that he calls the Anti-Christ. Anton LaVey claims that the sign of the Spear is actually the inverted pentagram. He equates the Holy Spear with Excalibur, Wotan's Spear, and "the lightning bolt that created the protoplasm of life." In what way could the spear point contain a powerful entity? We saw that the Betyl stone was the "residence of god." So fashioning a spear point out of it would surely create a powerful weapon with miraculous powers. Indeed the british museum has a lance blade made from meteoric iron. And in D&D 3.5E / Pathfinder, there's an artifact called a Meteor Spear. DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SPEAR AT THE SIEGE OF ANTIOCHWhat's all this meteor and spear stuff got to do with the Crusades? On 7 June 1098, Kerbogha's numerically superior army began their siege of Antioch. Inside the city's walls, the outnumbered Crusaders were starving. Starving people are often subject to visions and hallucinations. On 10 June 1098, Peter the Hermit dreams of St. Andrew, who tells him the Holy Spear is inside the city. On 14 June 1098 a meteor strikes Kerbogha's encampment, a good omen indeed. On 15 June 1098, Peter the Hermit finds the Holy Spear buried in the Cathedral of St. Peter. These omens--the meteor, the Holy Spear--evoke Constantine's miraculous victory at Milvian Bridge. On 28 June 1098, Raymond of Aguilers, carrying the Holy Spear, leads the Crusaders in battle. The Crusaders have visions of three saints riding along with them in battle: St. George, St. Demetrius, and St. Maurice. Their sortie against Kerbogha's army is short and decisive. Kerbogha's army retreats. This major Crusader victory paves the way for Raymond of Aguilers to capture Jerusalem in 1099. NOTES ON USING THE HOLY SPEAR WITH OD&D AND CHAINMAILIt's very clear from the firsthand accounts of the Battle of Antioch that the discovery of the Holy Spear had a profound positive effect on the starving, outnumbered Crusaders. In Chainmail, the army that possesses the Holy Spear should roll for attacks and morale as if they were one category higher: Light Horse roll as Medium Horse, etc. In OD&D, the side with the Holy Spear add +1 to their attack and morale dice. Additionally, they may have visions of fighting alongside angels or saints. PIOUS FRAUD(?)The papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy had doubts about the authenticity of the spear discovered by Peter the Hermit. It was widely believed that in AD 615 Nicetas took the real Holy Spear from Jerusalem to Constantinople and deposited it in the church of Hagia Sophia. But Adhemar reserved judgment on the matter after seeing the profound positive effect it had rallying the Crusader army. However, in April 1099, Peter's skeptics openly accused him of fraud. On 8 April 1099, Peter undergoes the biblical ordeal by fire. He walks through a fiery furnace. For the next 12 days he suffers in agony. On 20 April 1099, he succumbs to his severe burns. In my campaign, the PCs are travelling companions of Baldwin in nearby Edessa. But secretly they are procurators of the Holy Inquisition and curators of the Archivum Secretum Vaticanum. They have been charged with investigating cases of pious fraud. They would likely be ordered to Antioch to test the authenticity of the Holy Spear and judge Peter the Hermit. FANTASTIC MEDIEVAL WARGAMESIf you've read my previous posts, you know I like to mix copious amounts of fantasy with the history. This is a matter of personal taste. I have no problem messing with history or adding cool stuff I read in books or see in movies. I recently read Crusade, a graphic novel by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, and Carlos Ezquerra. Originally published in the pages of 2000AD, Judges from all over the world, including Judge Dredd from Mega-City One and the inquisitor Judge Cesare from Vatican-Cit (pictured below) rush to Antarctica to recover a crashed spaceship piloted by Judge Eckhart who claimed to have gone to the edge of the universe and received a message from Grudd himself. Cosmic radiation has transfigured Judge Eckhart into an invincible monster that believes itself to be Grudd Almighty, but before revealing its new covenant and ushering in the millenial kingdom, Eckhart must first try to satisfy his immense hunger by eating a sacrificial meal, starting with Judge Dredd... I'm also a big fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion (the manga, the original series, the remakes), which involves world-seeding "Impacts" by meteoric artifacts housing "Angels," and the Lance of Longinus that's capable of penetrating any AT Field, etc. I'm not 100% sure what I would do with the meteor and the Holy Spear in my campaign, but right now I'm thinking that the meteor that strikes Kerbogha's encampment on 14 June 1098 could be either (a) a Betyl that contains Ravenscroft's antichrist or some other fallen angel (b) a spacecraft that contains a monster or giant robot The authentic Holy Spear may be the key to defeating this foe. The spear Peter found in Antioch might not be authentic. And who knows, the Crusaders and Turks may even need to team up to defeat this new, cataclysmic threat!? Splundig Vur Thrigg!
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 2, 2013 3:28:03 GMT -6
This post with the subject line "Server Issues" appeared in the "Site Notices" folder of the DF forums on Mon Dec 02, 2013 8:27 am:
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 28, 2013 20:42:31 GMT -6
Now let’s take elves as an example. They are listed as lawful or neutral in OD&D but listed as chaotic good in AD&D. Orcs might be something else to consider when trying to get a handle on alignment. As mentioned in this post: On page 9 of Volume I, in the section on Character Alignment, Including Various Monsters and Creatures: it lists orcs as either neutral or chaotic. In Chainmail (page 30) we read, "orcs are nothing but overgrown goblins." But goblins are never neutral in Volume I. Later, in the AD&D MM (1978), orcs are always lawful evil. But in Holmes (also 1978) orcs are always chaotic evil. So there's quite a divergence in AD&D away from Basic D&D in terms of orc alignment. Orcs are spread all over the Law-Chaos alignment axis in just 4 years. In my Crusader-era campaign, Law is Church canon law, the Church hierarchy, and the inquisition; Chaos are heretics, rebels, satanists and anarchists opposed to Church rule. Neutrals are outsiders to this conflict, including Jews, Saracens and Pagans.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 26, 2013 2:01:22 GMT -6
Has anyone fiddled with this? I just read an article written by Jack Scruby called, All About War Games, where he presents the most basic of After Combat Morale checks. It boils down to: 1. After casualties have been removed, each player counts survivors. 2. Each player rolls one die and multiplies it by the number of survivors. 3. Highest total wins and holds his ground. Lowest total must retreat a calvary move back. This is a plain and simple approach, but it lacks any affect on the outcome due to troop quality. I was thinking of a mix of this approach with Chainmails Post Melee Morale. 1. After casualties have been removed, each player counts survivors. 2. Add the morale rating for the troop type. 3. Roll one die and multiply by total from 1 & 2. *double results if less then 20 troops involved on both sides. 4. Compare the difference and apply this number to results of page 15. This will not necessarily give the same results as Chainmail's Post Melee Morale method, but it is fairly straight forward like Scruby's example. Example as in the rulebook: Step 1 & 2: 10 HH attack 20 HF, killing 8 and losing 2. Survivors are 8 HH and 12 HF. Adding morale ratings of 9 for HH and 5 for HF= 17 HH and 17 HF. Step 3: a roll of d6 for each results in 3 for HH and 2 for HF. Multiply both by 17= 51 HH and 34 HF. * Since this involved troops of 20 or fewer figures, these numbers are doubled. 102 HH and 68 HF. Step 4: The difference is 34 and applied to the HF troops. Referencing page 15, this results in a retreat 1 move. Anyone else try simplifying these rules to keep the game moving (compared to not using them at all)? Thinking about your simplifications some more, they're highly reminiscent of the morale check used in the Siege of Bodenburg, a wargame that predates Chainmail, and one that Gary referenced as an influence. You can see the complete rules (only 8 pages) here: Siege of Bodenburg--A Medieval Battle Game by Henry Bodenstedt. The morale check appears on page 5. It boils down to this: (1) Calculate the odds, weighted by troop quality. You'll get a number like 1-2, where the first number represents the attacker. (2) Roll 1d6 and cross-reference the die result with the odds from step (1) using the Morale Table. (3) Interpret the results, which can be summed up as one side being eliminated, routing, withdrawing in good order, or melee continues. This system is easier than Chainmail's for two main reasons: (a) the rules are condensed into one easy-to-use table, and (b) the outcome only depends on two inputs: a die roll and the relative troop strengths. By contrast, Chainmail's Post Melee Morale check uses a system of linear stochastic difference equations--a type of model common in macroeconomics and the navy's salvo combat model--but uncommon outside these highly specialized domains.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 26, 2013 0:54:56 GMT -6
In the medieval period I can't think of a single example of a large mass of poor troops pushing back heavier ones. Not breaking, yes. But the wide variation in equipment makes this problematic in the middle ages. I've seen rules modeled as you suggest and they lean towards ahistorical results. I guess it depends on what is meant by relatively "poor" and "heavy" types, but just off the top of my head... The Battle of Stirling Bridge. The well-equipped English army is trapped and destroyed by William Wallace's unarmored, lightly armed Scots. The Battle of Hattin. Heavily equipped crusader knights are trapped in the desert without water and defeated by Saracens forces under Saladin. At least some of the Mongol actions against Russian and Polish forces. At least one example of Germanic barbarian forces trapping and destroying better equipped Romans. I'm sure there are a lot more too. edit: Besides these, in the fantasy context we have the classic orc/goblin masses assailing the relatively few knights in shining armour. The bad guys win sometimes. Two more battles I can think of where poor, untrained rebels defeated heavily armored, well-trained regular troops: First, Boudica eradicated 80% of the Legio IX Hispana circa 61 AD near Suffolk (or Essex). I read about this in Tacitus's Annals as a kid. Tacitus described Boudica's army as a ragtag team of women and Druids waving their hands and screaming imprecations. Nevertheless, they were able to wipe out the entire infantry (about 4,000 heavily armored, well-trained men) of the Ninth Roman Legion. The legion's cavalry (another 1,000 men) survived, but only by retreating back to their fortifications. Cassius Dio claimed that Boudica's army numbered 230,000 but that's likely an exaggeration to allow the Romans to save face. However, her army was eventually exterminated through the combined efforts of the 2nd, 14th and 20th Legions. Anyone interested in learning more can use any of these starting points: Boudica, Massacre of the Ninth Legion, or Legio IX Hispana. Second, in 66 AD, Jewish zealots destroyed an entire Roman legion (6,000 regulars) at the Battle of Beth Horon, considered to be the worst defeat of the Roman army at the hands of a rebelling province in history.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 25, 2013 4:43:36 GMT -6
Has anyone fiddled with this? Here is a jsFiddle that i just whipped up to try to implement the rules as written. And here is the link to fiddle with the source code. The code has no external dependencies. Its written in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. It fits on 1 page, and i've also attached a copy of the source code file in case you want to download it. No guarantees it gets every case right. There's very little validation on the inputs. Lots of room for improvement, especially on the appearance. But it does the example on page 15 of the book OK. It should run on most modern browsers, and ergo most smartphones and tablets. And its totally free! No restrictions on use. I have no plans to maintain it. Feel free to contribute any fixes, or tweak it (e.g., modify it to implement your alternative rules). It shows the results of each step in the rules, 1. - 4. Here's a screenshot of it computing the example on page 15 of the rules: post-melee-morale.html (10.6 KB)
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 22, 2013 22:41:44 GMT -6
On page 5 of Deities & Demigods (1980) we see this: When I read this as a kid, I figured it meant that outside his home plane, a god was only temporarily killable, but that on his home plane, he was unkillable. However an older kid in our game group said it meant that outside his home plane, a god was only temporarily killable, but that on his home plane, he was permanently killable, i.e., if you killed him on his home plane, he permanently ceased to exist, and could never be resurrected, reanimated, raised or whatnot. Everybody went with that interpretation--the older generation of gamers were considered infallible to us youngsters. Later, when I started to read mythology, the above passage began to lose credibility for me-- When Set killed Osiris, he didn't return to his home plane--he went to the underworld (called Duat). He conquered this place and became its king. It took 4 gods (Isis, Nephtys, Thoth, and Anubis) to resurrect Osiris, but the resurrection was temporary, only lasting long enough for Osiris to sire a son, heir and avenger: Horus. Thereafter, he returned to the underworld. Similarly, during the Titanomachia, when Zeus killed Cronos, Cronos didn't return to his home plane--he too went to the underworld, specifically the cave of Nyx in Tartarus. He and the Titans were unable to escape, but able to help the Cyclops escape, in order to terrorize the gods. And later, Zeus relented and freed Cronus from Nyx, allowing him to become the king of Elysium, which is nevertheless still in the underworld (Tartarus). So, in both these mythologies, we learn 2 things: (1) gods aren't permanently killable, but (2) if they are killed, they are basically doomed to stay in the underworld forever. (It's noteworthy that in the Planescape setting, the Astral Plane, rather than the 'underworld', is where gods go when they die or are forgotten.) In the Theomachia (Homer's Illiad chapters 20-21), some gods fight each other, but Apollo refuses to fight Poseidon, because, he says, any pain or suffering they would experience would be transitory and ultimately meaningless. This seems to reflect the pagan idea that the gods are like Plato's Eternal Forms, and can't be completely obliterated; or the idea that gods & men both possess an immortal soul. In that view, when a man is killed, his immortal soul goes to the underworld. If he was a great warrior or a great orator or otherwise great, then he goes to Elysium. But if he failed to attain greatness in life, his soul goes to Limbo. It may be interesting to consider a world where gods are permanently killable. I enjoyed reading Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder series in Marvel Comics where an alien named Gorr the God Butcher is able to wipe out whole pantheons of gods on many planets. And it might be fun to base a high level campaign off this idea. The best advice on "gods as monsters" is summed up by Tim Kask in the Forward to Supplement IV: That is to say: guidelines, not rules. This sentiment is repeated on page 5 of AD&D's Deities & Demigods:
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 22, 2013 21:35:23 GMT -6
Speaking of gods and the Suppl. IV... I might have missed something, but I don't remember seeing an alignment listed in the description of the different deities. Which seems good to me: these pesky moral boundaries or stances are good for mortals, not for the gods! In the Forward to Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes (1976), Tim Kask states the material isn't exhaustive. And while alignment isn't explicit, the deity Set does have the power to change a being's alignment: This conflates 'evil' with 'chaotic', something considered in several threads. The text continues: (Similarly, Osiris may reward a good deed with a wish.) So Set does have an interest in people's alignments, and wants to push them in a certain direction. And he rewards bad behavior. Can we infer from this that Set's alignment is chaotic? Four year's later, in AD&D's Deities & Demigods (1980), we get 3 separate alignment-like stats for Deities: ALIGNMENT, WORSHIPER'S ALIGN and PLANE, noting page 6 says, "PLANE: This refers to the deity's plane of origin. Usually this will be an outer plane corresponding to the deity's alignment, ..." Figures 4 & 5 on page 131 display the correspondence between PLANE and ALIGNMENT. The WORSHIPER'S ALIGN stat opens up the possibility that the worshiper's alignment doesn't need to match his Deity's alignment, and there are many examples of this strewn throughout the book. In AD&D, Set's ALIGNMENT is Lawful Evil, his PLANE is the Nine Hells (=Lawful Evil) and his WORSHIPER's ALIGN is any Evil. He can change any Good or any Neutral being's alignment to Lawful Evil. Does this description of Set's alignment in AD&D simply make explicit something that was implicit in OD&D? Or is it a totally brand new addition to the game? I don't presume to know the answers. Just sharing the questions your post raised for me.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 18, 2013 22:46:57 GMT -6
My solo method of choice, lately, has been to make a group of characters, choose classic D&D modules, and assume my PCs are going through them room-by-room. If the room description says there are 4 orcs inside and a bag of 50 gp, I would roll a d4 to see how many orcs the PCs defeat. If it's less than 4, I assume the PCs had to flee (maybe reinforcements were heard coming) and could not collect the treasure. If the room is cleared out, I also roll randomly to see how much of the treasure they took. I take notes for each room until I've filled up a sheet of paper. At the end of the adventure/sheet of paper, I roll randomly on a range equal to each PC's max hp. If I roll that exact number, the PC died in that adventure. It may not be much, but for a time-crunched gamer, it means a lot to me that I can get through modules G-3 and D1-3 in one hour each. ~Scott "-enkainen" Casper Your idea for running a classic D&D module as a solo is really cool!!! I like how you've compressed combat into one dice roll. I think I'm going to try this, but I might tweak it as follows: A Veteran encounters 4 Orcs. Instead of rolling 1d4 to see how many Orcs are killed, I first refer to WotE's table of calculated probabilities in the post on A Veteran's Odds for a Veteran to defeat an Orc. Assume the Veteran has AC=4, then the probability is about 63.61% to defeat one Orc. I could do 4 separate rolls on percentile dice: d100 <= 64 defeats one Orc. Or I could do 1 roll on percentile dice to see how many Orcs I defeat, using the binomial distribution with parameters n=4 and p=0.6361. See my post here for an explanation how this distribution works. For example, in this case, there's a 16.73% chance of defeating all 4 Orcs. So I would attempt: d100 <= 17 to clear the room. This simplifies an entire combat encounter to just one dice roll, but preserves the probabilities from OD&D. To get the requisite probabilities, there's the table in the aforementioned post by WotE. There's also a Perl script to calculate the odds of a 1-1 slugfest. And there's also a nifty NetLogo simulation of OD&D combat that will actually pit multiple Fighting Men off against a multiplicity of up to 2 kinds of monsters. Screenshots here and there.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 18, 2013 21:55:11 GMT -6
I've done solo play using the DMG tables, and there's some slightly different info about how to do this in the original SR article, IIRC (I may be remembering wrong, though). I've played some solo adventures for CoC here and there, but not any of the T&T solo modules or RQ solo modules. You could always try blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/ too, if you haven't checked it out yet, Scott What solo CoC adventures have you played and where did you get them? Were they any good? The Dungeon Robber game is really neat. I tried it on my PC last night and had a blast. The only drawback is that it seems to be written as an Adobe Flash app, and I'm wondering if that means it wouldn't work for people with an iPad/iPhone? I'd like to see more dungeoncrawls like this, perhaps written as HTML5/CSS/JavaScript single-page applications that could be used on any device.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 18, 2013 21:17:28 GMT -6
Myriador is a company that made d20 conversions of the Fighting Fantasy game books, starting with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Unfortunately, I think they're out-of-business. There's an iPhone/iPad app for the Fighting Fantasy books. I have The Warlock of Firetop Mountain on my phone right now. I also have Steve Jackson's Sorcery on my phone. Specifically, The Shamutanti Hills. What Myriador did is to convert the Fighting Fantasy titles over to d20. They replaced the original FF mechanics with d20 mechanics, adding a seventh "Luck" ability to the other six, along with its own set of rules. I liked these add-on rules a lot. Myriador printed these books and also sold PDF versions on DTRPG. They were about 40 pages each. Here's one review of Myriador's conversion of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain on rpg.net. Though Myriador no longer seems to be around, the original FF gamebooks are still available in print and in app form, as you pointed out. I've enjoyed playing a few of the Fighting Fantasy titles for Amazon Kindle by Worldweaver: - No. 1 - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
- No. 2 - The Citadel of Chaos
- No. 5 - City of Thieves
- No. 6 - Deathtrap Dungeon
- No. 10 - House of Hell
- No. 24 - Creature of Havoc
Most of these titles are also available for iPad/iPhone by Big Blue Bubble, but I don't have an iOS device, so I can't offer an opinion. Tin Man Games also makes a few FF titles for both iOS and Android. I haven't tried these either. As you pointed out, Steve Jackson's (b. 1951 UK) Sorcery! saga is being released for iPad/iPhone by Inkle: - The Shamutani Hills
- Khare: Cityport of Traps
- The Seven Serpents (not published yet)
- The Crown of Kings (not published yet)
Sorcery! adds a spell casting mechanic to Fighting Fantasy. I never played any of these gamebooks, and I don't have an iPhone/iPad to try out these apps, but the info and screenshots on the publisher's web page look really good. What's your opinion of the iPad/iPhone conversions of the FF gamebooks?
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