Solo Play: Memories of Game Books -- Part I

When someone mentions solo play -- not RPG play where there's a GM and one player, but an RPG played by one player and some module or book only -- I immediately think of three things: the Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Lone Wolf, and some old D&D modules by TSR.

But I must admit that the first one that comes to mind is the Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone -- the version before it become #1 in the Fantasy Fighting Gamebook series.

Just remove the "25th
Anniversary Edition" tag
and this is pretty much the
cover of the book that my
late grandmother bought
for me many, many years ago

I think the reason that this really worked for me and hooked me is the cover. It was very different from nearly all the covers beside it, and when I looked closer, it said somewhere on the cover or in the book or on the back cover: "Part story, part game, this is a book in which YOU become the hero!"

Because I'd been unable, at that point in my young life, to actually play D&D with anyone other than my sister (and I didn't quite get the rules either), this was a fascinating opportunity for me.

I remember that the combination of the simple rules, the occasional illustrations, and the encouragement to map the place really helped reinforce that feel of playing in a dungeon game by myself. Puzzles, traps, and strange monsters and room were all part of the wonder.

The fact that I died quite a lot before finishing also helped with the re-play value.

I clearly remember getting my classmates hooked on this same series of books back in high school, and we all compared maps and strategies until people started solving them on their own -- and they all returned to Apple computer games.

When more gamebooks in this series started to appear, I was overjoyed and picked them up right away. Though a bit disappointed that I didn't get to bring my gear and character over from the prior books, I was happy to remain in that space for a time.

Until Lone Wolf and the Magnamund-set series came about, but that's another story.

Isle Imperium 1.44 -- Rise of Diamond; Fall of Amber

The destruction of a Legion has devastating effects on the surrounding
landscape, and nearby cities must endure terrible destruction.

Proudly displaying his first day’s worth of work on the Undercity to his number, VARIAN realizes that he is able to build two types of extraordinary structures on this inaugural day, and one per day thereafter (up to seven slots’ worth of each type), filling a total of 49 structural slots (some types taking up more or less than a single slot) for the entire city.

He decides to begin with ten Hazard Towers—well-received, apparently, by the legendaries that immediately take residence in the six towers customized by Ian and ALECTO—and one Bastion of Warders, equally appreciated by the five ruling warders present to occupy and receive the evident enhancements stemming from it. Aside from direct benefits to the first tier, the fruits of Ian’s labors also bestow on all mounts ten inner reserves and the ability to reshard every six hours while in the Undercity.

After the tour and congratulations that follow, mounts are finally able to reshard, with ARCTURUS repurchasing the abilities of and mastering Brother Sun at almost no expense, leading to the latter’s commencing to essentialize. Arc meets the four entities that comprise Brother Sun, in the process determining the shard’s inclination—dawn or dusk—in its next phase as Paladin of Dawn. The four entities thereafter ask him if he is willing to accept the challenge they levy for the right to bear the Paladin: to defeat its proximate nemesis, the Ascendant Champion, without using any of their associated abilities. Arc later meets with SER ORLANDO to pray, and brings up this issue (the Champion being one of Orlando’s shards), which remains unresolved.

As the exhausted CATALINA and Ian retire for the night, Aly goes to visit her parents (bringing MANTIUS and joining MEGAERA for dinner) and then KENJIRO, with whom she has a lengthy conversation concerning Terentius’s worth as a suitable partner for Cat. Among various other points of discussion, Kenjiro—disgruntled on Cat’s behalf—reveals that Terry has put some kind of “eye” on her (which Kenjiro has told him to remove and has been blocking) while Kenjiro has taken the liberty (with what he has interpreted as Cat’s permission) to write his brother Katsumoto a letter encouraging the latter to present himself as a suitor for Catalina. Before proceeding to other activities, Aly also learns that Aji of the Emerald is Kenjiro’s younger sister. She later shares this information with the Fifth before returning to the First’s dormitory to share the other information with the appalled Cat and KHIMERE, the latter of whom uncovers and identifies the eye on Catalina as a healing eye.

Mantius is summoned by ISAACUS along with LADY ADRIA. To these two, Isaac reveals the secret of his Circle of Insight, to be passed on to his successor in the event of “the permanent cessation” of his physicality and intellect, assuming his two appointees find said successor worthy. The Circle is composed of six seers and one actuary, as follows:

Torrent Hazard ♂ Farsight Talon ♀
Cyclopean Visionary ♂ Pearl Court Dreamwalker ♀
Oracle of the Empty Bowl ♀ Feylight Seer ♂
GALIA, Bejeweled Actuary ♀

It is not until later that Mantius realizes that the entire Circle except for Galia is dead; he is the only one that can see them. In an acerbic exchange, Galia informs Isaac that there is a 98% chance that a legion other than Diamond will fall within the next three days, its writ destroyed. After pondering the news in his own somewhat alarming fashion, Isaac swears Mantius to secrecy before dismissing him, thereafter instructing Adria to attain access to Master AUDEN’S secret records. Presumably spurred by  all this secrecy, Mantius’s Second Secret (from Nesimal) then attempts to leave its hiding place in his heart, throwing his body around and trying to wrest control of his tongue. It is stopped by MR. POTIOR, who speaks to Mantius about “our enemies who are not chaos… I cannot escape forever; it is not in my nature… Court the legendaries—they will do until I achieve my status.”

The next morning, Aly is very much surprised to find the Saint of Warrens shard still in its place in the girls’ breadbasket. Learning that the Saint of Consonance was birthed by Warrens--yet they evidently remain the same entity—she goes to share the news with Ian, who discovers that not only has the Saint of Shadows become essential, but there are also two new shards in their possession. Further investigation reveals that these are the Stalwart Warder and Paladin of the Lost Hour, which Aly’s saint was able to recover and restore because “there were those nearby who held a piece of them in their hearts”.

There is not much time for jubilation, as it is quickly discovered that a third shard was likewise recovered, Kim’s legendary MIRAJIN, previously destroyed in combat. The shard wastes no time in physically striking Khimere, despite the latter’s pleading with it to stop and Aly’s attempts to block and summon Master Auden. Mirajin moves Aly out of the way and freezes Auden, materializing as a physical manifestation when it contemptuously removes the Imperious Magister from Kim’s person and shards itself upon her instead. Following Kim’s scream of distress, Varian is able to persuade the shard to release Khimere, with the lure of Diones’s new towers and the possibility of finding a better mount. Notwithstanding Mirajin’s demand to know who the First Woman of the Diamond is—as well as its chilly inspection of Arc as a possible bearer—the shard appears to be convinced and agrees to accompany Ian to examine the Undercity. Cat and Arc remain to comfort Kim and explain to Auden.

At the Undercity, the shard flies up to each of the six occupied towers, appearing to threaten and then be rebuffed by the shards therein, particularly the Lord Inquisitive, which seems to send Mirajin on his way without too much difficulty. As the shard finally settles in its own (previously unoccupied) tower, Aly, Ian, and Mantius turn to greet the assembled mounts of the Second and Third Numbers, there to attend the opening of courtship with the legendaries as scheduled.

This event is delayed, however, when all numbers are summoned to the courtyard, where OLIVERUS announces that all personnel are to evacuate to the Undercity, given the information uncovered by Isaac earlier. The numbers move to obey, and Auden begins to literally and figuratively pull members of the Diamond from outside Peerdin into the dome once more erected by Lord Salinicus. Just as the last of the present population are safely moved below ground, a storm of terrible magnitude strikes outside, such that wind, rain, and various debris including chunks of mountainside are hurled against the protective dome.

Within, some of the madness is brought along with the refugees, so that Mantius, at Aly’s hollered instructions, is soon busy leading a team of healers; Kim, heading damage control; Arc, directing efforts to catch many people who come in at dangerous velocities, and Aly and Varian, transporting large groups from aboveground via civilar traverse to the Undercity, where LORD HANOR and Lady Adria are leading the endeavor to explain and organize. Cat saves Auden when the latter pulls in and is nearly run over by an entire ship, and is thereafter kept busy along with ROGELIO as various ships come thundering through. Even a few houses begin to arrive, managed by the Pinpoint Architect Artenas Artilian.

The effort is obviously hugely draining for Auden, who is helped by Mantius’s team. Ser Orlando attempts to take the recruitment warder’s place, but is unable to; he then turns his efforts to stopping Ollie, who is frantic at the continued absence of Terry, ALOYSIUS, the Seventh, and the Ninth. He wants to go out and find them, but is prevented first by Orlando, then by Isaac. Finally, after over 400 people, including future recruits such as COLIAN, are brought in, Auden collapses, exhausted. As everyone is heading underground for final lockdown, Cat, supported by her number and several of the First Tier, is able to use the Unconquered Warder’s warder summons ability to bring in a badly-injured Terentius.

In the four days that follow, it is confirmed that only five numbers of Diamond’s total 66 were lost and that Aloysius was rescued by Kenjiro. Terry, being too injured to perform as Master of Strategy, is regretfully removed from office and temporarily replaced by Lord Hanor. The storm soon abates, and the numbers are permitted to go topside again to perform cleanup and repairs, in the course of which the First spies the occasionally moving hand of someone evidently still alive outside the dome. Cat tries to sustain the person by activating passionate life repeatedly on her side of the dome; and her efforts are rewarded when the dome finally comes down and the man, one LINDARIUS of the Diamond’s 53rd number, is found to still be alive.

With the dome down, the Diamond soon becomes host to around 200 shards fleeing from the destruction of what is surmised to be the Amber Legion. Of these, only 35 survive intact, not counting the pride shard that is later learned to have reached Emerald with its mount, Pandora. At the inter-legionary meeting at which this is revealed, it is determined that no other shards of Amber are known to have escaped; and Diamond, having recently stymied their opposing court by means of the Tabernacle Run, is left with the difficult decision of how to support Copper, now faced with the combined forces of its and Amber’s opposing courts.

Special Structures Erected by Varian during the Five-Day Period:
day 1: 10 hazard towers (5 slots)
1 bastion of warders (1 slot)
day 2: 1 chamber of warders
day 3: 1 redoubt
day 4: 1 shard aegis
day 5: 4 specialist towers
day 6: 1 library

Structure(s)	Prestige	Defense	Offense	Bright Light	Warder Ability	CivImpression
base	10	5	0	5	5	10%
hazard towers	21 (3/occupied)	21 (3/occupied)	14 (2/occupied)	7 (1/occupied)	0	7% (1/occ.)
bastion	4	7	0	5	10	3%
TOTAL	35	33	14	17	15	20%

Isle Imperium: Episode 1.43 -- Building

[ All in CAPS are PCs and NPCs first mention in the summary; all in italics are shards. ]

Ossis Potior (Bone Collector)portrayed in my mind
by Christopher Eccleston

En route to visiting Senator PATRICUS in the Undercity, the First have a discussion about the newly-acquired legendary shards, in which KHIMERE posits that it would be taken amiss unless most, if not all, of the First were to “pay court” for consideration as mounts; and it is resolved that the First will open the opportunity for courtship to the Second and Third as well.

The junior GRALIDUS arrives to fetch ALECTO and MANTIUS on behalf of Master ISAACUS. They depart with him and the remainder of the First goes on to Patricus’s domicile (which strikes them, VARIAN in particular, as considerably less than the statesman deserves), where they meet THESSALY and proffer their greetings and well-wishes.

CATALINA and Kim go on to visit the former’s mother and daughter, in the course of which both LEPIDA and Kim are distressed by Cat indicating Terentius as her significant other, whom she intends to introduce to ALIA. ARCTURUS goes to visit his cousin JERENAIS, in the course of which he is much dismayed to witness the current living conditions in the Undercity, including unclean well water and an enormous cat menacing the populace. Jerenais asks Arc to “put in a good word for him” in the matter of mount recruitment—a request that does not go over well with Jerenais’s wife MICA, landing Arc in the middle of a domestic dispute. He eventually manages to extricate himself and join Cat and Kim, departing the Undercity before curfew and arriving at the dormitory just in time for Cat to receive a summons to appear at her own disciplinary hearing the next day.

Varian attempts to improve on the building plans for the Undercity, but is rebuffed by the new Pinpoint Architect, ARTENAS ARTILIAN (his son Erasmus having been injured in a construction accident). With the assistance of juniors ENNAIS and LOGINUS, Ian is able to gain audience with masters AUDEN, KENJIRO, and SER ORLANDO, as well as mounts TALTUN and Ennais. In the course of this, documents are signed, enabling Ian to alter building plans as necessary, and the finance team calculates and approves a budget of 21 million bright light, the first million of which Kenjiro promises by noon the next day.

Meanwhile, having individually undergone Isaac’s inquiry into their loyalties, Mantius and Aly are drafted—as Bone Collector and Saint of Consonance, respectively—into the highly classified Veiled Number, among whose surprising roster Aly meets Ian’s brother HADRIAN and Terry’s brother CARDIUS. Led by Isaac, BENJAMINUS, Aly, Thess, Mantius, DANIELUS, and LADY ADRIA promptly embark on their first mission—recovering LEONTES, the Voice of Warders, and the Fellmind from the latter’s mount, TORRENCE of the Black Number, who is then summarily killed by Ben.

That night, Aly, Cat, and Ian have conversations with the shards Saint of Consonance, Fire Mage, and Bejeweled Warder respectively, in which Aly gets the okay to pay court to the Saint of Shards; Cat warns JEREN about the upcoming hearing and gets permission to pay court to a legendary; and Ian is surprised to find himself at a dinner at which he meets the legendaries, and DIONES makes it cordially clear that his mount is already in a committed relationship. Arc prays with Ser Orlando and receives his advice on legendaries as well as ladies.

The next morning, Cat is summoned by Kenjiro, who proceeds to tear up the summons to her hearing and instead take her, Taltun, and Ennais on a frantic whirlwind of bright light facility acquisition, which lasts until late afternoon and nets around 20 such establishments (and during which Kenjiro kills a courtier and they decline to enter a facility with a legendary inside).

At breakfast, Aly is picked up by Auden for her promised advanced training, which leads to her helping with the recruitment of prospective future mounts AJANUS (age 6), COLIAN (5), DERIADA (12), and more. She also winds up participating in some training and evaluation of the fast-rising 11th number, comprising:

• Hadrian, Cyclopean Titan HERACLIUS, Hammer of Night
• JUSTINIAN, Blue Light Infiltrator ARANIA, Lucent Warder
• BASILICUS, Auric Decalogue EUDOSIA, Daughter of Storms
• DUCAS, Brother Stone

which Auden expects to replace the current Tenth within six months’ time. Upon her return to Peerdin, Aly indirectly warns the Tenth, in particular MAISI, about this possibility.

Varian pushes forward with his improved plans for the Undercity, with the very reluctant cooperation of the Pinpoint Warder. He manages to win over the rest of the building committee:

• KILLIAN, Master Builder KAIZA, Keystone Engineer
• LORIC, Cloud Anchorite TOMASSI, Thunder Mason

as well as the complement of approximately 100 builders. The foundations are laid and the Bejeweled Warder’s vision begins to become reality in stunningly short order.

Mantius officially invites the Second to pay court to the legendaries after resharding the following day, and is unofficially invited to Lord Hanor and Lady Adria’s upcoming wedding. He spends the rest of the day waiting for Cat outside the shadow corridors (not knowing that she has been stricken from the list of disciplinary hearings), where he greets a distressed Lord Hanor, a furious ELINORA, a cheerful AMALTHEA, a sanguine TOBIAS, and QUINCEY of the Eighth, all apparently reporting for their own hearings. Mantius and Toby wait together until the frazzled Cat finally comes back from her many missions.

Arc delivers the same invitation to the Third, which is received with disdain by Elinora, to LUCIA’S annoyance. Lucia later apologizes further to Arc, only to again be interrupted by Elinora’s rudeness and her conviction that it was Cat who reported her to the ruling warders. After warning Arc that the First should expect challenges from many of the numbers after the three-month moratorium on challenges ends, Lucia leaves, to be replaced by STEPHANUS, IONIS, and Meg, who have a lot to say about Elinora, including that it was Meg who reported her and fully intends to do so again, at the first opportunity.

Waiting in line for salarium disbursement, Cat decides to confront Elinora, whom she feels is the one who reported her. They have an exchange of sharp words, but it ends civilly enough until the intervention of Kim, who slaps Elinora and is stunned to be slapped back. Elinora runs off (missing her salarium), and Kim is kissed for her action by Meg, Stephan, Ionis, and Toby.

Ian shows his friends what he has accomplished so far, and all witness are much impressed by the Undercity’s development.

NPCs of The Court Adamantine - Michael Canar

Talking about your favorite NPCs is sometimes akin to talking about your favorite character; it's hit or miss in terms of interest. However, since Favorite NPCs is the topic of the month for the RPG Blog Carnival, I thought I'd write in a way that's useful to GMs, such as:

• the roles that they played in the campaign
• the ways they were characterized
• why I liked them.

NPC of The Court Adamantine: The Rogue

Michael Canar is the human form of one of Isle Imperium's most notorious shards: The Renegade Warder. One of my character's two favored shards, Canar had a reputation as a constantly scheming shard -- cunning, charming, ruthless, and loyal to his friends.

To people he respects, he is very candid about having secret plans and personal agendas, but he wouldn't be Canar if he didn't often exaggerate, obfuscate, or lie outright about certain details. His long-term plans and willingness to fool himself into believing certain things in order to achieve his goals -- along with his many abilities, sequestered and stolen abilities, and secrets -- made him a beloved and feared figure in the Isle Legions. One part Odysseus, one part Batman; small wonder that he made it into the The Court Adamantine.

His roles were:

• as a shard -- a source of mysterious abilities and information, a foil and sometimes an antagonist due to his agendas, a friend and confidante for PCs and NPCs involved in the game of shadows and espionage with its ever-shifting alliances;
• as a person -- a reborn hero slowly remembering what being human is like, with contiguous memory and the ability to see plans through more easily without the occasional lapses in knowledge and consciousness that comes with being a shard; a loner or isolationist slowly learning what it means to be a sly, cunning, suspicious individual working within a large organization like a court. With his tendency to be restlessly inquisitive and working toward goals, he can be a bit like a monkey wrench thrown into plots of both PCs and other NPCs.

Characterization techniques:

• as a shard -- since early on very little speaking to shards was done (we were often told that they weren't people, just tools), characterization was done through abilities of the shard -- listed and unlisted. Signature abilities with names like Implicate (which passed on damage and afflictions to others) and Discernment (which allowed an intuitive understanding of mysterious effects at play) gave a distinct flavor to the more combat oriented shards available. Also, the fact that the shard itself had a bank account in the Diamond Legion (separate from the shard bearer) clued us in to his affinity to costs and avoidance thereof.
• as a person -- when he's at easy or his guard is down, he's arrogant, intelligent, and occasionally abrasive, much like a toned down master villain. But you know he's offended and possibly dangerously angry when he becomes very, very polite and charming. Long time friends will hear the knife being sharpened even as his face breaks into a warm smile.

RPG Blog Carnival: A Quick Look at Kitchen Sink Settings

Well, look at that. End of the month already, and I've missed out on many posting opportunities.

So, for a last stab at Campaigns I'd like to run, I'll just quickly mention my series of posts on Kitchen Sink Settings, which is a term I use for RPGs and RPG settings that have been crafted in such a way as to allow the easy integration of many elements from books, TV shows, comics and movies in the same genre, and sometimes even across multiple genres.

The reason I want to run them? It's so easy to come up with adventure ideas!

Here are the three kitchen sink settings I've already done:

Lightspeed

Lightspeed was a Fuzion-powered RPG whose major setting elements seemed to be taken from a universe that held Star Trek, Star Wars, Aliens, Blade Runner, Cosmo Police Justy, Space Precinct and other science fiction properties in its core (with the numbers filed off, of course).

Rebel pilots, space police, exploration vessels, ultra-powered psychics, ship-to-ship battles and space marines all in the same universe! Plus a system that I could easily tweak or convert to D20 or Hero, depending on my mood. What's not to like?

Lightspeed Post List:

Kitchen Sink Expeditions: Lightspeed -- Part I (Background & Broad Strokes)
Kitchen Sink Expeditions: Lightspeed -- Part II (Federation, Empire, & Old Earth)
Kitchen Sink Expeditions: Lightspeed -- Part III (Espers, Races, & Ships)
Kitchen Sink Expeditions: Lightspeed -- Part IV (Default Campaigns & Strange Brews)

Code: Black

This is a horror genre RPG that calls to mind X-files, Call of Cthulhu, Silent Hill, Kolchak the Nightstalker, Supernatural, and perhaps even Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The genius of the setting -- the interlocking extradimensional prisons that make up our Earth reality -- allows for multiple horror sub-genres to be tackled within the same consistent setting. Think Delta Green meets Esoterrorists meets Chill meets Kult meets The Laundry meets Wonderland, and you have a good starting point. The game system is EABA, but there's no reason you can't use the core source material and then finally crib from all the other Horror RPGs you've been meaning to play!

Code Black Post List:

Setting Expeditions: Code Black -- Part I (Overview & Inspirations)
Setting Expeditions: Code Black -- Part II (Good, Evil, The Brotherhood, & the Flawed Prison)
Setting Expeditions: Code Black -- Part IIIa (Inspirations, Adventure Spine, & Name that Movie)
Setting Expeditions: Code Black -- Part IIIb (Monster Hunters, Mythos, & True Reality)

The Hero System Universe

Did you know that the Hero System has / had its own universe setting? And we're not just talking superheroics and pulp heroes here.

There was a time & place for pirates and consulting detectives, for sword-swinging barbarians and blaster-shooting space mercenaries, and everything around and between -- starting from the dawn of time, all the way to the distant future and beyond! And there was an overarching meta-history (very much reminiscent of the DC / Marvel Universe histories mixed in with some good Wold Newton, and a mish-mash of Future SF timelines) that you may want to pick and choose from -- or just have ready when your players want to jaunt across time & space!

It was the grand vision of Steve Long, who actually came out with a multi-page document outlining this grand span of history, which I used, updated, and added to with my own ideas for campaigns and little slices of fictional gaming opportunities.

Hero System Universe Post List:

Setting Expeditions: The Hero Universe, Part I -- Pre-Cataclysm
Setting Expeditions: The Hero Universe, Part II -- Post-Cataclysm to the Medieval Era
Setting Expeditions: The Hero Universe, Part III -- Musketeers, Pirates, and Revolutions
Setting Expeditions: The Hero Universe, Part IV -- Cowboys and Victorians
Setting Expeditions: The Hero Universe, Part V -- Mystery Men and Super-heroes
Setting Expeditions: The Hero Universe, Part VI -- The Future

I'm a little bit sad to see this RPG Blog Carnival go -- but then again, it turns out that I've been posting about campaigns I'd like to run for a long while!

RPG Blog Carnival: "Give Chance To Others"

There was a Filipino saying -- in English words, but not necessarily English grammar (we're funny that way as a bilingual country) -- that advocates letting everyone have a chance. When a child has been monopolizing a swing or a see-saw, parents will say: "Give chance to others." When someone in class tends to have all the answers, the teachers will say: "Give chance to others." When someone doesn't have a college degree, or the requisite experience for a political office like the office of Senator or President, the people say: "Give chance to others."

In that spirit, and in the spirit of the RPG Blog Carnival theme Campaigns I'd Like To Run, here's a list of  some of the RPGs out there that I'd love to "give chance" to -- primarily because even if I'd get a chance to run these games, the niched nature of these would make the players agreeing to it a long shot! But I'd really like to try out these particular systems or settings, because the interest me in particular.

EABA by BTRC

EABA is one of those Universal Roleplaying Systems that can handle multiple genres. It has game system elements similar to the DC Heroes / MEGS exponential scale table and the D6 system. And it's got a number of interesting settings to its name.

The setting I'd like to try is Verne, which is a Victorian Steampunk & Science Fiction setting (as you may have surmised from the title). Here's a bit of the blurb:

Battle dirigibles, Cavorite, steamtroops, dinosaurs, Martians, Selenites, mad scientists, clacking Babbage engines, the works. Verne starts off with the historical Victorian Era and then merges it with the fiction of Jules Verne, H.G.Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and others to create a seamless alternate history that the adventurers get to shape and be part of. Verne can be as stiff-upper-lip fictional or Victorian Era grimy as you like, with detailed historical and cultural information, half a dozen adventures and numerous plot-centered NPC's and gadgets. 

Verne is nearly 220 pages of steampunk with the traditional BTRC attention to detail. Also available for Verne: A free interactive character creator for Verne, and a map pack with nearly 20 adventure locations, including an annotated interactive map of London.

Oh yes, it should be fun!

Traveller Hero

Yeah, these two books are out of print, but I'd still like to get my hand on a second-hand copy of both books and run them using the HERO System. It's the system I'm most comfortable with for modern and future settings, to be honest. One of my favorite SF campaigns was a Star Hero campaign, so Traveller with HERO is a logical leap. Boy, was I bummed when I found it it'd gone out of print (the license had been revoked) and I hadn't been able to buy it!


Pathfinder + NeoExodus: A House Divided

The setting is interesting enough for me to pick up Pathfinder, which I wouldn't normally do due to my allergy to the escalation of Feats that annoyed me about D&D 3.5. But with the OSR house rules and other things I've learned, I'm willing to make a streamlined run of the game to explore this interesting melange of concepts.

I did an Armchair Review of this particular book. Check out the link for more information on NeoExodus.

Sales & Promo Watch: OSR Promotion on RPGNow

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It's good for these 12 featured OSR titles! The coupon code is good for the week of Monday 5/13 - Sunday 5/19 only; use it while it's still valid!

RPG Blog Carnival: Mystara Mash-up

Starting off the Campaigns I'd Like to Run theme for May's RPG Blog Carnival is a Mystara Mash-up campaign.

Rationale: When I first started gaming, the B/X  and BECMI D&D world was my first exposure to the hobby. Of course, I didn't know that T1: The Village of Hommlet was an AD&D module, and thought that Advanced D&D was what you played once you were done with Basic and Expert D&D. Also, I thought that D&D was all one world (hence my own fascination with the series of Mystoerth posts by Timothy Brannan).

But the modules and the Gazetteers didn't always match up to one another (the word I would later use is canon), and I was always trying to learn about the world so it could be portrayed properly, because -- as a kid -- I didn't know I could make it up on my own.

The Mystara Mash-up campaign, therefore, would be a romp through the world of Mystara -- geared at showing the breadth of the world through a series of strung together adventures based on the classic D&D and AD&D modules that are shoehorned into my own take on the mythology of the world of Mystara.

Key Posts: I've made a number of Mystara-oriented posts over the years; these are the ones relevant to this particular campaign.

• A Mad God in the Machine - how to have a campaign premise that allows for multiple PCs coming and going, but still retaining continuity, and allowing PCs to rub elbows with gods and kings early on in their careers; just have to be careful that they don't get overshadowed by the mad god who runs into them once in a while. 
• Dark Corners of Mystara: Strange Waters - when they're being sent on missions by the Mad God, they may not be traveling overland exclusively. This is, of course, inspired by the river-based campaign from WFRP's Enemy Within campaign. Speaking of WFRP...
• Stealing From WFRP: Roadwardens - and yet another campaign premise for the PCs when they've finished their river adventures.
• Some Geography is in order - taking from my Enigmundia posts, I underscore the key elements that I'd like to emphasize for the setting.
• Enigmundia: A List of Ingredients 1 - some talk about getting the essence of Karameikos experience right
• Enigmundia: A List of Ingredients 2 - the major nations of the world that I'd like to focus on, with some substitutions from other sources. Ierendi, in particular, might make a nice place to stick the new Razor Coast material.
• Enigmundia: A List of Ingredients 3 - similar to part 2, but with emphasis on the big leagues of nations.
• Fate, Fortune, and the Adventurer - my own rationale for things like hit points and levels and the movers and shakers of the world being so powerful compared to the normals of the world.
• Gods, Magic, and the World - a series of posts that deal with my take on the cosmology of Mystara's universe
• Spheres, Magical Fields, and Outsiders - the gods and the magical field they created and maintain protects reality from things outside it.
• Dark Corners of Mystara: Dwarves & the Hounds of Tindalos - highlights my preference for a slightly stranger feel for the campaign, preferably lurking just beneath the surface of a normal (albeit tumultuous) campaign world. I like the idea of Old Ones and Ancient Things being something that the Immortals keep at bay while they pursue their own twisted schemes of power.
• Pagan Magic-Users: Pythagorean Mathemagicians - how the magic of the world is skinned, based on a given pantheon. Yes, it assumes that magicians invoke the names of gods in their spells, and 'pagan' ones at that.
• Pagan Spells of Mercury - A sample listing and rationale of several 1st level magic spells attributed to Mercury.
• Pagan Spells of Apollo - A sample listing and rationale of several 1st level magic spells attributed to Apollo.
• Pflarr and Hermanubis - an attempt to merge the Pflarr of Mystara with an actual Jackal-headed Roman god (with a picture of the statue in a museum).
• Cults of Orcus - an attempt to merge the Orcus of myth with his portrayal in D&D's pantheon.
• Sleep, Dream, Fantasy, and Nightmare - the gods of the underworld, where many an adventure spends time, are stranger and more powerful than you think
• Additions and Expansions
• Add: Ravenloft - adding to the mystery of the powers of the Outsiders and the corruption of the Sphere of Entropy, I wanted to mix little of the Demi-plane of Dread
• Add: Spartacus - to really push the decadence and the skill of the Thyatian gladiator class, some liberal lifting from this show.

Must-Include Modules

I'd like to have in the mix some classic modules for the Mystara experience, and I'm sure this will grow in the future. Off the top of my head:

• T1: The Village of Hommlet - I'd transplant it to Mystara, place it near the Black Eagle Barony and suggest that perhaps the Baron was under the sway of the Temple of Elemental Evil.
• B2: Keep on the Borderlands + B5: Horror on the Hill - both part of the Roadwarden experience, where they players must help the local militia and military presence clear out increasing monstrous aggresssion.
• DA1 through DA3 - The Mad God in the Machine will send them to Blackmoor to retrieve something he needs in the past.
• X1: The Isle of Dread - a place 'near' the Razor Coast, as well? Or perhaps a place that the PCs hear about when sharing stories over a drink. May hold some secrets of the Mad God as well.
• X2: Chateau d'Amberville - not all the 'Timelords' are necessarily good or evil, yes? Some of them are just curious about new sources of Immortality.

As with many things on this blog, this is a work in progress. More to come!

RPG Blog Carnival for May: Campaigns I'd Like to Run -- Overview

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is something close to my heart: Campaigns I'd Like to Run.

Longtime followers of my blog know that most of my posts are about campaigns (long or short) that I'd like to run, but rarely get a chance to (hence, the Armchair Gamer moniker).

I'll have several posts on this, of course. They are:

• A brief tour of the broad settings that I'd to like to explore as long term campaigns (check out the links at the top of my blog for a hint).
• A return to my Kitchen Sink Settings of the past. 
• Some interesting RPGs that I'd like to run like a TV mini-series (because I don't think I could sustain the tone and the escalation in stories necessary to retain plausibility), where you get to make major changes at the end and then possibly shake things up in the next mini-series.

I'll try to tackle why I'm drawn to these, as well. I'd like to throw out there to other GMs why certain RPGs appeal to me, and why I feel I can sustain certain campaigns for a year or more -- and why others must necessarily be a shorter engagement.

Inspiration: Father Brown

As I cast about for various real world and fictional anchors for my Fading Suns priest PCs, one fictional one immediately came to mind: G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown.

This fictional detective is not cut from the same cloth as Holmes, as his solutions tend to be arrived at from an understanding of human nature -- culture, prejudices, desires, and weaknesses. Furthermore, he runs counter to the 'exceptional detective' template, as the author has taken great pains to underline Father Brown's unexceptionalness. As very succinctly put in his Wikipedia entry, "Father Brown is a short, stumpy Catholic priest, 'formerly of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London', with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella, and an uncanny insight into human evil."

My first encounter with him was high school short story reading: "The Blue Cross". It was apparently the first story of the series, and ran counter to the mysteries I'd read up until that point (I was a big detective novel buff, before Madeleine L'Engle introduced me to Science Fiction & Fantasy via A Wrinkle In Time.) in that both the inspector and criminal were outwitted by Father Brown.

I never read anything else until about six years back when I started writing fiction again. I picked up a G.K. Chesterton anthology of his works and was charmed by them again.

Upon reflection, there might be an argument for a priest
to have his own entourage, just like a noble might.

Father Brown would be an interesting character to create and play as a PC or NPC. His intellect is quite keen; after all, his more intuitive and empathic approach to crime solving does not preclude an ability to reason.

In fact, his debut highlights his high esteem of the use of ratiocination when he tells Flambeau -- a culprit that he's helped arrest -- the giveaway in his attempt to impersonate a priest: "You attacked reason. It's bad theology."

Religion figures into every story, even if it's just the unique perspective of this very Catholic priest. He has a stinging condemnation of one of those bad priests we encounter often in fiction, delivered in an indirect manner as he attempts to convince the same priest to confess:

"I knew a man who began by worshiping with others before the altar, but who grew fond of high and lonely places to pray from, corners or niches in the belfry or the spire... He thought it was given to him to judge the world and strike down the sinner. he would never have had such a thought had he been kneeling with other men on the floor."

Throughout the stories, he is concerned about addressing injustice -- but his first priority is the salvation of a soul. In the stories I've read, he never intimidates someone into a confession. He comes across more as a stern, but sympathetic confessor rather than an avenging servant of the Lord.

Refreshingly, he is portrayed as genially passionate about his beliefs, but is also quite humble about himself. Quite likely, hearing the sins of the world so often has not turned him cynical, but reminds him constantly how we are all a misstep away from evil.

Most importantly, he always comes across a true man of the cloth, rather than someone merely playing a role.

The new Father Brown mysteries (with Mark Williams as the lead role), seems to really capture that essence of the character in a slightly more modern era -- though I must admit ignorance of the prior portrayals. The almost comedic, very friendly, but unyielding Father Brown will surely inform some of the Fading Suns priests I build.

On the Radar: Gaming in the 'Verse

or Why Must You Take All My Money, Margaret Weis Productions?

I just spotted this on RPGNow: the Firefly RPG Preview Pre-Order! What exactly is a Preview Pre-Order? Well, according to the page:

This PDF pre-order is for the digital, full-color version of this exclusive and will be available to fans worldwide. Gaming in the 'Verse will include preview material that will be expanded upon and published in the upcoming Firefly Role-Playing Game based on the popular Fox television series created by Joss Whedon. 

* Sample Art and Full-Color Map Previews
* Select Chapter Previews
* "Wedding Planners" a playable Echoes of War adventure written by Margaret Weis
* "Shooting Fish" a playable Echoes of War adventure written by Andrew Peregrine
* "Serenity Crew" a collection of stand-alone characters compatible with the Echoes of War line
* Chinese pronunciation guide
* ...and more! 

All game material provided in Gaming in the 'Verse: Gen Con 2013 Exclusive will employ the Cortex Plus mechanic. The estimated release for the Firefly RPG is Winter 2013.

But that's not all. Check this out:

Fans who purchase this GenCon Exclusive will also receive a 20% discount off the Firefly RPG corebook at DriveThruRPG. This discount will be e-mailed directly after the corebook debuts.

So, what are you waiting f--

What? So this isn't the pre-order for the Corebook? It's the pre-order for the preview. Of course. Quite obvious in retrospect; it's right there in the title.

Ah, got a bit excited there. Hm. Still, I'll probably get it anyway since I plan on getting the core book...

Fading Suns: A Priestly Path -- Part 00

I've tried to read through the latest incarnation of Fading Suns (known as the Fading Suns Player's Guide - Revised Edition) from start to finish. And failed. Multiple times.

Ultimately, I'm so familiar with the Fading Suns material that reading through the first chapter really goes through a lot of material I already know. So I'm skipping ahead to the character creation section instead, and will start getting into it that way.

In fact, I think I'll create a character for each 'faction', starting with the priests.

Priests of a Feather

So, an Urth Orthodox, Brother Battle, and Eskatonic walk into a Cathedral...

One of the most common stereotypes I run into is the 'bad priest'. It's in books, movies, comics, TV shows. And some portrayals are not without basis, I'm sure. Another common stereotype: the 'wise priest'. He's warm, insightful, and almost a smiling saint every time we see him. Sadly, this one is a lot rarer to encounter in real life.

But priests are an integral part of the Fading Suns setting, so it should be interesting to create several characters that are meant to be Player Characters without falling into either.

Yes, I've known a number of priests in my life. And I've also heard about a number of those who passed before my time as well -- and I've read about a number of truly interesting ones as well. We'll see how many of them make it into the final characters I build. I'd love to recreate a Father Brown or an Inigo de Loyola, but I might not have enough points.

"Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?" -- Father Brown

D&D Classics: A Surprising Source of History and Trivia

Some of you may be aware that some of your favorite D&D classic rulebooks and modules are available online on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.com.

However you may not know that the descriptions of some of the products (I haven't gone through them all -- I have a life, really!) have a write-up on their historical significance and some trivia associated with each.

From (WG4) The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, for example, we learn that

Though "Tharizdun" was labeled as WG4, there were no previous "WG" adventures (and never would be). In the Glossography for the World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983), TSR indicated that T1: "The Village of Hommlet" (1979) was meant to be WG1 and that S4: "The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" was meant to be WG3. Meanwhile, in Dragon #71 (March 1983), Gygax revealed that the adventure formerly known as T2: "The Temple of Elemental Evil" was to be WG2 - but he now said it was to be published in two parts.

There's more there with some behind-the-scenes history and speculation on what might have been.

This, of course, piqued my curiosity and I check out one of my own favorites from the Mystara collection of modules: (B10) Night's Dark Terror. I found out that:

the TSR UK office wanted to code the adventure "B/X1," making it clear that it was a transition from Basic to Expert. The home office demurred, though, so the adventure went out as "B10" in the US and was stickered as "B/X1" in the UK. The "B/X1" copies of the module are much rarer (though an original printing of the adventure is pretty expensive on the secondary markets in any form).

Furthermore, it also turns out that

"Night's Dark Terror" marks the start of the second wave of Known World creativity, following the period from 1981-1986 when it was primarily the vision of Zeb Cook. The adventure details many of the wildlands of the Grand Duchy of Karamekios and also introduces new peoples such as the ancient Hutaakans and the Iron Ring slavers. It extensively describes several major locations, such as the city of Threshold. A magic tapestry of the lands that appears within the adventure really helps to define B10 as the gazetteer for this part of the Known World. 

No surprise, then, that this module was the major source for GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos (1987), which got the second wave of Known World publication really going.

Also, further justifying some of my ripping off of The Enemy Within for my old Mystara campaign:

Authors Bambra and Gallagher both left TSR UK to work for Games Workshop in 1986, where they coauthored Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1986). Ironically, they brought a little bit of "Terror" with them: A map of Sukiskyn from B10 reappears in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as "Map 7: Typical Farmstead."

Which I suppose ensures that I'll eventually pick up a PDF of this module that I already have in print form... somewhere in my dusty collection of RPG material.

It turns out that this material is written by Shannon Appelcline, who worked on the highly recommended book Designers & Dragons -- a history of the RPG hobby!

On the Radar: Diceless Lords

Amber Diceless Roleplaying was a game I'd only read about, but had never  played. A friend owned the books, so I only got a quick look through, but never really tried it. A shame, really, since I'm a big fan of the Zelazny books.

But now, there are now a couple of games based on it. Well, one's already out. The other one's got a Kickstarter to complete it.

First, there's Lords of Olympus by Precis Intermedia. Using the core system from Amber Diceless, they created a setting based on Greek Myth.

Portray gods and demigods -- children of Olympian Gods, Titans, or Primordials in this diceless roleplaying game of multi-dimensional mythology Fantasy. Explore new realms or the classic worlds of Earth and Mythological Greece. Visit Zeus' Olympus, Poseidon's Seas, or Hades' Underworld. Mix politics with intrigue, alliances with wars as power-struggles and vengeance drive stories. Or, go the route of lesser power with mortals and heroes. 

Just enough to make me want to use to add some lovely REALLY high level play for a fantasy RPG setting. Perhaps for Mystara -- which has some of the Greek / Roman-inspired Immortals in it. Perhaps interesting enough to supplant the original Immortal mechanism in D&D's ruleset for it and put a different spin to the task of becoming Immortal.

Next, there's the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow with its own ongoing (at the time of this writing) Kickstarter. A bit more like Amber in setting, but with the numbers filed off. Well, that's unfair. I've heard bits of the setting and read some of the preview, and it's really intriguing. Enough difference and depth to be its own setting, and similar enough to have similar themes to the original game as well. I particularly like the concept of the Grand Staircase -- I envision it as an equivalent of the World Tree, actually, translated into modern understanding. But you can find out about it yourself.

This world is but one of untold many, a flux of chance caught between shadow and light. It is a world poised between great powers that shape and define all matter, one of many battlegrounds in an epic struggle between form and cacophony. This is the battle between the creators, shapers, and destroyers of worlds.

Ah, I hope to be able to play either of these games one of these days.

Watching the Heard: No More Princess Ark

A time for endings, it seems.

According to Bruce Heard's "Bye-bye, Princess Ark" post on his blog, there will be no further writings using that particular bit of intellectual property. As his discussions with the IP manager of WOTC revealed:

"There was no interest in anything involving a transfer of rights, a sale, a license agreement, a permission to publish, or any other option--as a matter of policy.  From what I'd heard of WotC, I knew this going in."

So, no new Princess Ark fiction, and perhaps a curtailing of the Mystara-related posts that had been fleshing out one of my favorite settings from D&D.

I do look forward to the future work of Bruce Heard, in particular his upcoming supplement for The Secret Fire RPG.

The Secret Fire RPG was Winner of the 2012 Innovative Game Design Award from I-CON 31, and is an RPG that apparently blends old school gameplay with storytelling. With Heard's involvement in a supplement, I may just revisit it out of curiosity.

And what of my own posts on Mystara & Enigmundia?

Well, my early instincts to differentiate Enigmundia from its inspiration (Mystara) seems to have made sense. To be honest, it was more because I didn't want to confuse my own wildly divergent ideas from being confused with canon. But in light of this, there'll be a clearer distinction in the future.

No More Marvel -- for now

Well, that's a shame.

According to the press release, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying by the folks at Margaret Weiss Productions is going away.

Here's the official statement from their Pipeline News page.

And in Marvel news… the economics of licensing a tie-in product is always something we have to weigh carefully. We brokered an admittedly ambitious license with Marvel. Our first event, CIVIL WAR, was successful and well received, but it didn’t garner the level of sales necessary to sustain the rest of the line. We’ve learned from this and are taking a very different approach with the other licensed properties we’re bringing out to you in the next three years. We believe we created a great game. Those of you that have supported us have been terrific, and we appreciate you. But, unfortunately, we will not be bringing any new product out under the Marvel line. We know this affects our customers. Those that have pre-ordered Annihilation will receive a full refund or a credit worth 150% of their Annihilation order to use on existing or future product.

It's sad, but them's the breaks with licenses. It's time to pick up all the PDFs you've been planning to get on RPGNow, because they're going to be gone in around 5 or 6 days after this posting.

Timelords and Elements -- opposing factions in a Temporal Cold War?

Some of my thoughts about the Plagues that I posted earlier skipped to the idea of a Timelord analogue, with a fantasy equivalent of Gallifreyan citizens trying to enforce an optimum timeline that saves the best kind of multiverse from an extra-multiversal invasion / infestations (which is how they view the Plagues).

And then I happened upon my fascination with Sapphire & Steel, and decided to take the Timelords entirely out of that setting and figure out how to merge the Timelords and the Elements into a single universe.

The Doctor is, of course, a rebel to his race. The Elements -- well, Sapphire & Steel in particular -- have spoken about others trying to obtain their loyalty These others, known as Transient Beings, apparently can change their appearance and prefer a more centralized chain of command, greater control over time -- even though they apparently seem to be working toward similar ends.

That almost sounds like Gallifrey, particularly when the Doctor starting running afoul of their attempts to curb his travels and 'meddling'. Now that the Doctor locked them away, what about the Elements? Particularly two trapped Elements in a Nowhere trap?

Sounds like a fun element to throw into a DWAITAS campaign!

Enigmundia: War of Plagues

A quick idea I had after listening to the recent "Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff" Podcast involves the cause of the holocaust in the semi-default post-holocaust fantasy world implied by D&D.

It involves a War of Plagues. Future posts will detail some of those plagues, but the snatches of idea that came to me:

• mysterious plague doctors appearing at the time of an outbreak
• plague(s) responsible for decimating or wiping out intelligent, highly advanced races or cultures (like the multitude of elf subraces)
• plague memory responsible for the isolationist stances of some races and cultures
• plague zombies are one of the feared plagues
• caused heal & cure spells becoming so prevalent with clerics 
• prompted mass potion creation for same spells 
• returning to civilization still requires a benediction and cleansing by clerics (and a tax / fee)

That's all for now. More to come.

Confederation Chronicles: A Quick Review

Before I get started on the mini-settings in the macro Confederation Chronicles setting, it helps to review what has gone before.

Last year, I wrote about how I wanted to set up a quasi-military campaign that still allowed for exploration and strange encounters with the wonders and horrors of the universe in part 01 and part 02 of the basic Confederation Chronicles premise.

Having established the broad strokes, I then gave some thought to the mobile base of operations and the fleet that accompanied it in the setting. I even revisited the overall mission that this fleet would be involved in, and how it might occasionally reconnect with the larger body of civilization it's tied to.

Next: some ideas on what the people in this fleet are doing in the short term, and what regular cycles of living and protocols of encounter might entail.