Random Thought

Why don't we see more about the influences and inspiration of the classic fairy tales in fantasy RPGs?

The basics are there: common folk (often young) end up meeting with supernatural monsters, and often defeat them through cleverness or persistence.  Treasure sometimes is picked up along the way.

I know there have been some attempts at 'fairy tale' RPGs, and some people have had success running fairy tale themed games with D&D or other fantasy RPGs.  But why don't we hear more about it?  Is it some childish desire to make the game seem more 'mature'?

These fairy tales, along with mythology and the Medieval romance, are what informed the Pulps AND the literature that informed D&D.  Both Frodo and Fafhrd owe a debt to Jack the Giant Killer and Hansel and Gretel.

Have your cake and eat it too?

Just a quick thought.  Lots of old school folks (and maybe some new schoolers too?) like the idea of GP=XP, as it spurs exploration and treasure hunting.  Lots of old school folks dislike the idea that adventurers end up with literally tons and tons of gold by the time they hit name level (in my experience, the new schoolers have long since converted all that cash to magic items as they go).

So why not keep the standard XP for treasure brought successfully out of the dungeon, AND use the Arneson carousing rules, where you get XP for any monies wasted in drinking and wenching, or donated to a worthy cause, etc.? 

It provides the players a bit more control over how fast they level up, gets rid of excess gold from the game, and speeds up advancement for groups that only meet every so often, as many of us on adult schedules do.

Tackling the Megadungeon: Conquest!

Continued from here.

The final round of mead was poured out.  Lord Gusorio was looking fairly tipsy, and his small audience were feeling the mead spinning in their heads as well.  But when the baron launched into one more bit of advice rolled into a tale of his adventuring days, they came to attention and made sure to remember what he said.  The stories he told could save their lives.
The baron said, "After we'd been scouting the fourth level for some time, we realized it would take too much effort to haul all of that treasure up to the surface, at least until we'd found the secret exit we'd heard rumor of.  So we ended up clearing out a small section with only one entrance.  Shalea magicked the door.  We posted a few of our men-at-arms as additional guards.  Then we had ourselves a nice little fall-back point on that level.  We went back to town, gathered as many supplies as we could, and stocked it well. 
"Whenever we found a bit of treasure on that level, or on the fifth as well--it took us some time to find that secret exit from the fourth--we would bring it to our strong point.  Of course, having that strong point meant we needed to keep it supplied, and we had to pay quite a bit extra to all the men-at-arms who guarded it.  But it saved us the trouble of having to lug all those coins all the way up every time we secured a treasure chest..."

Sometimes, you want to make the dungeon, or at least a small part of it, your own.  In Gary Gygax's original Greyhawk campaign, several of the prominent characters cleared out and took over the 1st level of that dungeon.  They stocked it with their followers, and then charged a tax on other adventurers venturing through.

Maybe you don't need to take over an entire level, but taking and holding territory within the dungeon can be beneficial.  As Zanazaz pointed out in the comments to my original post in this series, a dungeon can make a great bolt hole for PCs who've gotten in trouble back in the hometown.  It's hard enough to find men-at-arms willing to venture forth with a group of adventurers.  The local law enforcement officials will have a hell of a time trying to get a posse of Normal Men to go track them down.

As I posted in my example, strong points within the dungeon, held by a combination of magic and steel, make for the ideal place for treasure to be stored, healing and spell rememorization to be done, and so on.

And sometimes you might just want to clear out a hazardous area of monsters, then seal it shut to keep them from coming back, and to keep anything new from moving in in the future.  Most Megadungeons are so big that clearing them completely would be near impossible, but small sections can be managed in times of need.

Of course, the group venturing forth to conquer some part of the dungeon is going to need to be ready for quite a bit of combat to get rid of all the monsters in their chosen section.  Spells that can bar access, like Wizard Lock or Wall of Stone are good choices, too.  And a bunch of Elves, or a wand of secret door detection might also be a good idea.  It won't do much good to secure all the obvious entrances to your new mini-lair only to have a secret passage you don't know about inside it.

Of course, making that lair behind an already known secret door is also a great idea.  Especially if you can find an area with several small rooms behind it, and no other secret entrances, you'll have plenty of space for bunking down, storing gear and treasure, and setting up a small kitchen area.  Watch out for ventilation problems, though, especially if you have one of those types of DMs who wants you to worry about that sort of thing...

8-bit Bad Guys: Who are your favorites?

So if I'm gonna make a monster book drawing inspiration from old 'pre-Playstation' games, I want to know what are some of your favorites?

Atari/Coleco/Intellivision era, NES era, SNES/Genesis era, and of course arcade and computer games from the same eras.

Post your top 5, top 10, or whatever.  And they don't necessarily need to be fantasy themed games.  There are enough 'sci fi' beasties in D&D already (displacer beasts!), so if Megaman or Bad Dudes is your favorite, go ahead and post it.

Tackling the Megadungeon: "Specials"

Continued from here.

Baron Gusorio finished off another cup of the fine mead.  He sat quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts.  His rapt audience waited patiently for the gray haired man to continue with his rambling advice.  Already, thoughts were spinning through their heads of the great adventures they would have.
Lord Gusorio finally continued.  "I told you about how we rescued Shalea and then had to get her werewolf curse removed.  Another time, we'd found a fountain in the dungeon--on the third or fourth level, I believe--that could cure diseases.  It was hard to get to, though.  There were lots of slimes and molds in the area, and creatures that fed off of those disgusting lowest forms of life.  Well, after we ran into a pair of mummies on the sixth level, Vertosh the Dwarf and I had caught the mummy rot.  We hauled out all the good treasures from the mummy tomb, gave the others a bit of time to rest and heal up, then set off again to find that pool so we could get rid of our affliction...

I think most DMs and module writers have a lot of fun with the 'special' encounters within a dungeon.  They're the oddities, curiosities, magical zones, and weird stuff that tends to be fairly memorable.  Unlike 'orc encounter #38" a room with howling winds from nowhere and a narrow bridge over a lava pit tends to stick in your mind.  They're sometimes challenging, sometimes bizarre, and sometimes useful.

Often they're just discovered randomly, during exploration (scouting), or they're searched out after learning that they might exist (fact-finding).  But once they're known, and properties of them assessed, they can become useful tools for a party of adventurers.

Like in my example above, curative sites or magical 'buffing' sites can be worth visiting over and over again.  Making a small sacrifice at a shrine to a battle deity might result in a free Bless spell before tackling a dragon or other big monster.  A pool that turns the bather invisible might also be a favorite spot to visit.  There could be a machine (or monster?) that takes in coinage and spits out gems of equal value, making treasure easier to carry.  These sorts of specials are most useful if visited as part of another type of expedition.

But there are times when the 'special' might be worth going to all of itself.  Portals to distant lands or other planes may lie within the dungeon.  A monstrous sage (gold dragons, hsiao, djinn, etc.) may lair within the dungeon, and the party may need to seek out that sage's wisdom.  Perhaps a character has a curse that can only be removed at a specific special location within the dungeon.

If the former, characters will want to prepare for the expedition based on their primary type of expedition.  If visiting that invisibility pool while scouting, leather armor and utility spells are likely best.  But if getting invisible as a way to surprise the Frost Giant Ysgeir and ensure a free round to 'soften him up' then it should be plate armor, fire balls, and all that jazz.

In the later case, getting to the 'special' and then home again is the objective, so only what equipment known to be necessary to reach that area should be brought, and the party will likely not need to bring along lots of men-at-arms or the like.  The Fighters may be armored up in case of surprises, and the spell-casters may want a variety of spells, as those annoying random encounters are likely to be the only battles fought (assuming the party has scouted the area well enough to avoid any new monsters that may have moved in since they discovered the area).  But the expedition will likely tend to be a short one.

Concluded here.

Bit of Gaming, Bit of Prep, Bit of Procrastination

Woke up this morning wondering what I should do today.

The Board Game Group is finally starting to meet again, but we failed to get critical mass for this afternoon, so no board games.

On Wednesday, I started drawing up maps for level 3 of my 'new and improved' megadungeon.  Still need to do lots of stocking on level 1 as well.  If my son takes a nap at the right time, maybe I'll work on that.

Reading the final volume of Lankhmar stories, so I may just finish "The Mouser Goes Below" instead.

"Flying Swordsmen RPG" will eventually make it out, but I'm feeling a bit uninspired by it at the moment.  Maybe it's time to rewatch a few wuxia movies.

Got an idea, based on the popularity of my pre-Halloween Castlevania monster write-ups.  A free supplement for D&D/S&W/LL that will compile lots of video game monsters from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.  Eggplant Wizards, chicken dragons, octorocks, lobbers and more!

The November sumo tournament starts today, and with my current work schedule Sundays are the only day I can watch, so I will be sure to catch it, no matter what else.

Will be writing up the last of the planned "Tackling the Megadungeon" posts tonight, and thanks to zanazaz, I'll be posting a 'bonus mission' tomorrow.

Tackling the Megadungeon: Acquisition

Continued from here.

Lord Gusorio proceeded to show off some of his personal treasures to his small audience of would-be adventurers.  A large ruby ring, emerald-studded bracelet, an ebony locket on a silver chain, and of course his intricately carved wooden leg - made of rare teak, it was set with a line of pearls down the front and the etchings on it showed scenes from the baron's life as an adventurer.
"Of course you know the basics of what to do when you secure a treasure hoard.  Take the gems and jewelry, plus anything that might be magical first.  Then fill up with coins from most valuable down to least.  You need to make sure that you don't get overloaded, though.  All that treasure is heavy, and slows you down.
"Once, we managed to wipe out a nest of minotaurs on the fifth level, and they had two huge chests of treasure.  We had hired several men-at-arms, but even with their help one chest was too large to move.  So we had to get creative..."

The point of a dungeon exploration is getting the treasure.  That's where most of your experience points come from, assuming you're playing OD&D, Classic D&D, or 1E AD&D, or keeping the 1gp=1XP rule in some other edition.  By the book, coins are given an unnatural encumbrance value of 1 coin being equal to 1/10 of a pound.  Very few real world coins were ever so large.  But that's part of the logistical/resource management challenge of a megadungeon game.  It's not supposed to be easy to get all that loot to the surface.

So what is a smart party to do?  Carry out what you can the first time you defeat a monster or trap that guards some treasure, of course.  But if you can, you'll want to come back for the rest as soon as possible.  If you don't, wandering monsters, other NPCs, or just the general other-worldliness of the megadungeon will mean it all disappears.

That's why it's important, especially for low level parties, to equip hirelings and retainers with backpacks and bags.  The more people in the party, the more treasure that can be recovered.  Some groups also may elect to have one or two characters and some men-at-arms remain in the dungeon to guard the treasure while the rest of the party carries out what they can.  It's risky to split a party, and to leave some of the members below for an extended time (not to mention bad for retainer morale), but if the hoard is extremely large, then there are times when a group may decide it's worth it.

As groups gain more power, magic of course will come to the rescue.  Spells like Floating Disk increase carrying capacity.  Invisibility and illusion spells can hide a treasure in plain sight.  Bags of holding allow for large amounts of loot to be carried out easily.  Teleport can allow for quick exit and return (if the area of the treasure is studied enough beforehand to minimize the risk of error...). 

Of course, other ways to remove treasure can be to get creative.  Bring mules or carts/wheelbarrows into the dungeon, if possible.  Charm a big strong monster and get it to carry stuff for you.  Secure a small section of the dungeon and leapfrog the treasure from room to room with a 'bucket brigade' of hirelings, sealing it off with a Wizard Locked door when the party needs to return to the surface so it will still be there when you return, and it will be that much closer to the exit.

The key thing to remember on such expeditions into the dungeon is that speed is necessary to get to the treasure (assuming it's one that's already been secured through combat or disabling of a trap and you're returning for more), but the return will be slow.  It's usually best to have all the manpower possible, both to carry out more, and to better guard it until you get it home.

Continued here.