return of "Arduin Grimoire cover to cover" (part 8)

So way the heck back in Sep-friggin-tember I started a cover-to-cover write-up of Dave Hargrave's original Arduin Grimoire.  You can go back and read the first seven installments here, here, here, here, here, here and here if you'd like.  Here's where I got stuck trying to prepare part 8:

The combat section is where the Arduin Grimoire goes off the rails for me and tackling it was looking like the opposite of fun.  But today I'm going to try it.

Before I dive into 15 pages of combat rules and chartery, there's this single page on alignments.  Here Hargrave gives his thoughts on threefold alignment, which is kinda unexpected given that 35 pages earlier he served up a chart expanding the ninefold system.  Feudal England, Nazi Germany and modern socialist Sweden are given as examples of Lawful society, so watch your back.  Also, here's a little story from Hargrave:

A party of three went into a dungeon.  One was chaotic, one neutral, and one lawful. During the course of the expedition they caught a troll and were discussing what to do with him. The lawful guy said, "Tie him up and let's move on." The neutral said, "No, let's put a rope around his neck and let him be our point man and open all the doors and test for all the traps," and the chaotic said "Phooey! Let's put him too the torture and see if he knows where there is some treasure," at which point an amoral spider came around the corner and ate all of them.

I swear, Dave Hargrave is basically the Walt Whitman of DMs: "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes.)" (Song of Myself, stanza 51).

The next three pages are entitled "General Notes on Monsters, Combat and the Like."  Basically this is a bunch of rulings Hargave has come up with.  Here's a sampling:

• Undead, excepting skeletons and zombies, can always see invisible because they existed partially on another plain of existence.
• Creatures that petrify can only be petrified by members of their own species.
• Fireballs and other area effect attacks divide their total damage among all effected.  (E.g. a 30 point fireball against 3 targets does 10 damage each, against 2 is does 15.)  Weird.
• Two warriors can fight side-by-side in a 10' corridor, three warriors at -2 to hit and four warriors at -4. (Two-handed weapons mean one less dude fits.)
• Armor penalizes Dex.  Platemail is -3, chain -2, leather -1.  Important since initiative is Dex based in Arduin.

There's a lot of good ideas and a few very odd ones, but overall they strike me as the sort of thing that a DM should figure out on their own.  You'd be better off drawing up your own list of miscellaneous rulings than adopting Hargrave's wholecloth, in my opinion.

Next up is a section on "Movement of Men and Monsters", wherein the standard movement rates of D&D are found wanting.  There's not much to get worked up about here if, like me, you don't use a tactical display very often.  Maybe Hargrave is right that D&D movement is about one tenth as slow as would be realistic and maybe everyone should be allowed an extra adrenaline-based burst of speed, but I'm just not into it.

So now we arrive at the page I showed up at the top of this post, the Melee Chart.  I can understand some folks wanting to take facing and turns and shield positioning seriously.  But I feel differently. If I have time to worry about details like this in such a systematic way then not enough crazy stuff is happening.

Then we come to four pages of weapon charts.  Normally I'd be all into 4 pages of death-dealing implements, but these leave me cold.  Two pages are weapon versus AC charts, just like out of the 1st edition AD&D Players Handbook.  The other two are damage charts.  Remember how in AD&D1 weapons do one range of damage versus small and medium foes and another range versus big dudes?  Instead of 2 categories we've got 12 here, by hit dice.  So if you attack an orc in chainmail with a broadsword your attack roll is normal and damage is 1d8.  Use that same sword against an ogre in platemail and you're -2 to-hit but do 1d10 damage.  Why?  Why do 2-handed swords do 2d10 damage against creatures with 6+1 to 8 hit dice but 3d6 against 6 or 9 HD?  I just don't see anyway to justify this sort of thing.

The to-hit chart that follows isn't that different from D&D.  A first level fighter needs a 10+ to hit Ac9 and gains +1 at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.  Clerics work the same but they don't get their first advance until 5th and wizardly types have to wait until 7th.  Then they advance at the same rate as the fighters.

Pages 60 and 61 are the infamous Arduin critical and fumble charts.  These are some of the greatest charts ever written for gaming, but use them at your peril.  You can check out my transcription of the crit chart here.  The fumble chart is less gruesome, but almost as big a pain in the ass when it affects your character.

The last two pages I'm going to cover today are the Brawl Charts.  If I'm reading this right every round of a brawl you choose one of 24 attacks.  These range from the prosaic Right Cross and Left Uppercut to  low, medium or high Flying Dropkicks to the 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper approved Double Ear Clap.  You also pick a defensive move along the lines of Duck Right, Jump Back or Turn Sideways.  You cross-index your attack against your foe's deense to find out your damage range.  Most damage is temporary but every successful strike has a percentage chance of actually hurting people.  I really like these brawling charts.  There's room for some interesting fights.  People fall down and get stunned and pull all sorts of shenanigans.

Okay, that's enough for today.  The next sections involve were-apes and dinosaurs and sharks, so I doubt you'll have to wait months for me to tell you about 'em.

A Surfeit of d6s

I pulled a little switcheroo on the gang at the Armored Gopher last night.  Hot off my Monsters! Monsters! con run I was eager to see how the Tunnels & Trolls engine would work for normal dungeoneering operations.  So last week I got the crazy idea to convert all active PCs in my campaign to T&T 7th edition standards.  Then I grabbed a couple of old T&T dungeons from e23: Uncle Ugly's Underground and Dungeon of the Bear.  Both adventures have this "Tomb of Horrors, Jr." killer gonzo vibe to them, but I eventually settles on running level 1 of Dungeon of the Bear.  Ryan, Carl and Charles were extremely good sports about the whole thing.  Some players aren't up switching systems for a session just to humor the jerk behind the screen.

So we discovered some things about playing T&T instead of D&D.

The slightly more abstracted combat system (where you don't roll initiative and you don't target specific baddies most of the time and to-hit & damage are merged into a signle throw) is too little player interaction for some tastes.  Sure, the Saving Throw mechanic (which is also the skill system and the 'do everything else' mechanic) is wide-open, but the simple act of beating mooks up seemed less satisfactory than baseline D&D.  At least to these players.

The spells with the stupid names ("Take That You Fiend", etc.) that turn off so many people were a big hit, both for the names and what they do.  The first level wizard especially enjoyed summoning up some skeletons.  They weren't that hot in combat but they absorbed some blows intended for the PCs. 

Also, I think my one page, one line per spell handout really helped.  I ought to do that for my D&D games.  As soon as I finish my custom spell list.  Have I mentioned here I've got about 160 spells in a draft google doc, based upon completely scrapping the present D&D list (but not mechanics) and going with spells powered by invoking angels and demons?  Here's a randomly selected entry:

Yellow Ray of Iophiel  - power: Iophiel  - party: heaven  - level: 2  - magical light, bullseye lantern in dimensions, sunlight illumination, lasts 12 turns - d6 damage per round against vampires, etc. blinds and possibly routes nocturnal monsters such as orcs

I'm currently working on adding spells based upon the demons in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, a 16th century work listing infernal dudes that can be invoked.  But now I'm left wondering if maybe my players would prefer less showboaty book-learning based spells and more Take That You Fiend.

Another thing that I discovered is that rolling 5d6+20 for each of four or five monsters gets to be a pain in the ass after a while, even though I can roll it all at once as 25d6+100.  Carl and Charles, being computer science guys, spent some of the time I was rolling and adding discussing the technical details of how the players can total their side's attack in parallel versus the serial approach of the GM.

7th edition T&T introduces a concept called Spite Damage.  In previous editions the side with the lower combat total took damage equal to the differences between the two attack totals.  Spite Damage is where every 6 rolled on a die indicates a point of damage is inflicted no matter which side wins and that damage ignores armor.  I can see why the mechanic was developed, but I'm not sure whether I like it or not.  I do enjoy all the monsters in the 7th edition monster pamphlet that have some sort of subsitute to Spite.  As an example, a medusa might get off a gaze attack only when it rolls at least 2 sixes in combat.  Or a chimera might only breath fire on 3 sixes.  It's an interesting concept whereby some monster behavior is random, somewhat akin to my Stupid Dracula Tricks chart.

Another thing that I like is that different weapons and armor are rated for Str and/or Dex required to use it. You can wield a weapon that's too heavy for you, but it makes you tired (you lose Str equal to the amount you're short to qualify).  Traveller also uses these minima to great effect and Empire of the Petal Throne requires a certain Str rating to use various two-handed weapons.  Maybe I could put variable damage back into my game if I used a similar system.  One has to be careful when setting the mins, though.  As it stands in T&T 7th and ordinary Broadsword has a Str min of 15, meaning most starting warrior types won't qualify to use it without penalty.  I'm not sure I dig on that.

Anyways, the game itself was a pretty good time.  Traps were activated.  Giant snakes, trolls, vampires, orcs and batwinged toadmonsters were all defeated.  The party members scored over 500gp apiece in loot.  And one of Carl's Welsh bowmen put on a magic ring that turned him into a vampire.  At first we considered ignoring that item for continuity purposes.  But then I decided we'd turn that call over to the dice.  The roll said his PC will continue to be a vampire in the D&D campaign.  I can't wait to see how that turns out.

draft Wessex linguistics rules

[Language is an extremely slippery topic when one tries to be the least bit realistic.  This essay tries to be useful without being over done.  Especially when "You speak Anglo-Norman and Anglish" works as a simple default.]

Most people in the campaign, including all PCs, can speak Anglo-Norman, which serves as the Common Tongue for the campaign. Persons of low social standing will tend to have more Anglish grammar and vocabulary, while those of high rank or aspiring to such a position will tend to use more French.

Anglo-Norman is the native tongue of very few people, so almost everybody (including all PCs) speak a second language. For locals to the setting that means either Anglish, French, Cornish or Welsh. Choosing French as your native tongue probably indicates either that someone in your family (father, uncle, older brother or half-brother) is a knight (which at this point in history is not yet a hereditary title) or that you are from France. Some folks originating from just off to the northeast of the map may actually speak a local dialect of Danish, as those ratfink Danes controlled a vast chunk of eastern England not that long ago.

Of course, you can play a foreigner type and speak some other tongue. The Gaelic tongue of the Irish, Scotts and Manx have yet to substantially diverge, so all those guys effectively speak the same thing. The aforementioned Danish will do you for all your stock viking types as well. Other very interesting options would be Hebrew for a Jewish character or Arabic for a Spanish Moor. Flemish mercenaries figure in some English armies of the period. Such characters would probably speak Frisian or Dutch or maybe German or French. The County of Flanders seems to be a pretty multilingual sort of place.

Latin serves as the Common Tongue for western Christendom, though almost no members of the lower classes speak it. All magic-users automatically speak Latin and it assumed that their spellbook is written in this tongue unless they are a native Hebrew, Arabic or Greek speaker. Any PC who is not a magic-user may start play knowing Latin if their Intelligence score is 11 or higher.

For simplicity’s sake all PCs are assumed to be able to read, with a low Intelligence score indicating various difficulties such as needing to form the words aloud, slow reading speed, limited vocabulary and/or poor comprehension. Writing is considered a separate skill and among PCs only magic-users have the necessary training.

Many magic-users can read and write (though perhaps not speak) a bewildering array of ancient languages or obscure languages. For each point of Intelligence above 11, they may select fan additional language. Below is a d12 chart with some possibilities. Pick or roll.

1 - Latin
2 - Greek
3 - Hebrew
4 - Greek
5 - Aramaic
6 - Egyptian Hieroglyphics
7 - Norse Runes
8 - Basque
9 - Enochian
10 - Old Irish/Ogham
11 - Persian
12 - Atlantean

an important chart

so let's get into this

So Fey Corgi left this comment recently on the blog entry where I talked about the dude who was unhappy with his wuss dark elf character in my Monsters! Monsters! game:

Giving a player a character that's terrible and almost worthless compared to the other members of the party is generally considered bad by reasonable people, because it makes them totally replaceable by NPCs. Not having a meaningful contribution to the game is boring. I'm completely for crazy free-wheeling games sometimes (I have a 1E Gamma World game I run that is just that), but the Dark Elf player had a point. I'm not sure what you would consider "meeting you halfway". It was a little disappointing to see you dismiss his concerns, because you've otherwise always seemed like a cool GM.

I don't think I'm dismissing the dude's concerns.  I am still unhappy that he didn't have a good time in my game.  What I'm dismissing is the concept that comparing your stats to other players is a meaningful metric for how much fun you are going to have.  Sure we had a giant demon with the 12' tall scythe and a flaming dragon in the party, both of whom were much more valuable in a fight.  Guess what?  They were also more valuable in a fight than everyone else in the game!

No one else said to themselves "That dude is playing a bigass skeletal demon with 10 times as many dice as me in a fight and that chick is playing an even bigger, badder flaming dragon, I guess I can throw in the towel right now."  Instead everyone else took their crummy statlines and made characters out of them.  Kathleen decided that her Black (i.e. Chaotic) Hobbit with a Sax (the knife-type weapon the Saxons were named after) was actually Bleeding Gums Murphy in furry-footed midget form.


And like I said before, the Warlock actually had crappier stats than the Dark Elf.  Every time he cast one of his puny 1st level spells he would fall unconscious and need to be revived.  That didn't stop him from seducing the comeliest bar wench he could find, or torching the village bar with a molotov.  That dude and Doug's Chinese Fox (more crappy stats, though he could shapeshift to look like other people) would end up being the ones who burned down the big city, not the dragon or the demon, who wouldn't have been able to get within a mile of the place without raising a hue and cry.  


The Rock Person had somewhat better combat stats than the Hobbit or the Chinese Fox or the Warlock or the Dark Elf, but I don't remember her for her fighting ability.  I remember her for how she spent much of the session trying to find and kidnap the prettiest male in the village to bring home to her lair to serve as pool boy.  Imagine adventurers on a dungeon expedition finding a captured paladin, not in the torture chamber on the rack or in some filthy cell, but chained to the wall of the underground swimming facility and forced to wear golden bejeweled swim trunks as his only attire!


Even the dragon and the demon weren't just walking piles of combat dice.  The demon took several opportunities to sign up people for contracts with his infernal boss.  (One smooth merchant said he needed to have his lawyer doublecheck the language.)  And the dragon was always on the look out for the proper herbs and spices to employ whenever she roasted some victims.


In short, while there were some fights in the session, we weren't playing a combat game.  We were playing a role-playing game.  And I dispute the idea that one needs good stats to make the magic happen, or even stats that are as good as the other players.  What I mean by not "meeting me halfway" is that the dude made no effort to develop a personality or goals.  That crappy dark elf could have been many different things.  "I'm looking for my cousin, the jerk with the 2 scimitars who is embarrassing the rest of us."  "I'm a playing a ladytype in standard drow dominatrix garb.  She's a feminist evangelist hoping to free women from the perverted patriarchy of the surface world." or even just "Hey, I've got a 30 Charisma so why don't I play the faceman for the party and see what I can talk people into doing for us?"


Also, no PC is totally replaceable by NPCs.  That's just crazy talk.

physical artifacts of my M!M! game

Here's the character sheet I put together for last Sunday's game of Monsters! Monsters! I'm pretty sure I made it the Thursday before.

Hmm.  Looks like Gregg's base save should have been 6 rather than 16.  Poor guy used the Adds column by mistake.

N.B. I cheated the baseline mechanics of M!M! slightly for simplicity's sake.  Normally you get an "add" (i.e. a combat bonus) for each point of Str, Dex and Luck above 12 and a penalty for each point below 9.  But when you're running a little-known system in the last slot on the last day of a con, you want to strain as few player braincells as possible, so I set the combat bonuses equal to Stat minus 10.

There's something about crappy homemade charsheets I really like.  They organize PC data a crapload better than just leaving it to the players to write stuff down and they have a lot more character than the pisspoor readouts that end up in the back of so many rulebooks.  Not to harsh on the people who put a lot of work into making good character sheets, but off the top of my head I've really only seen a couple examples of truly outstanding A+ marriages of form and function in this field.  That's be an creepily illustrated Carcosa charsheet that was linked a while back from the OD&D forums and a Savage Worlds charsheet made for a Star Wars conversion.  The QAGS (Quick-Ass Game System) charsheet that has the entire rules for the game on the back gets an honorable mention for sheer utility.

The default system for race determination in M!M! is to deal out a card to each player from an ordinary pack of cards.  A Ten of Spades means you're an Orc, a Knight of Diamonds is a Balrog, etc.  I liked the card idea but recoiled in horror at passing around the look-up chart for stat modifiers.  So this is what I did instead:

Note that I cheated again, omitting a card for the Snipe.  Its whole deal is the ability to shapeshift into other monster types, which would require the player to track six or eight different character sheets.  That ain't gonna fly in a one-shot.

some non-RPGs I played at Winter War

Betrayal at the House on the Hill - I've played this before and quite like it.  In many ways it better encapsulates and boardgame-ifies Call of Cthulhu better than Arkham Horror does.  At least the way I run Call of Cthulhu: first half of the game is a Scooby Doo episode, the second half involves things falling apart and centers failing to hold.  Don't get me wrong though, Arkham Horror is nifty, but it doesn't involve exploring randomly placed haunted house tiles and I will never get tired of that.

Dominion with Seaside expansion - Dominion has all the juice inherent in the structure of a collectible card game without the economic shackles of buying more boosters.  And unlike many, many games I occasionally win this one, so that's nice.  One time I even beat my sister, which I consider a braggable accomplishment because I'm pretty sure she basically lives her life looking for opportunities to whomp me at boardgames.  The Seaside expansion cards left me completely flummoxed and I got clobbered.  But I can't blame the game on that though, as lots of games confuse me.  Even something as relatively straightforward as Puerto Rico took me an embarassingly huge number of plays before I figured out what I was doing wrong.  ("Hey, maybe I should try shipping some goods and scoring some points!")

Incidentally, a reliable informant told me that Thunderstone is basically Dominion plus monster fighting.  You know I gotta get in on that action.

Dust Tactics - This is a simple minis game from the makers of AT-43 that dares ask the question: what if World War II had more lasers and robots?  I ended up playing the Nazis, running some laser troopers commanded by a busty Aryan dominatrix type and a couple panzer-mecha.  Bazooka Joe and his four-legged tanks chewed me to pieces, so yay for Uncle Sam I guess.  The figures were nicely done plastics and the dry-erase control sheets did an excellent job of encapsulating a lot of information.  The only thing that I didn't like was that one moved across a giant grid o' squares.  Hexes too fancy?

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game - My opinion of fullblown 4e aside, I really gave this the old college try.  After all, if my major complaint is that 4e is too boardgamey, you'd think a boardgame version might be a hoot.  Good: if you want more figures and tiles for your D&D game, there's a lot of good loot in this one.  Including some sweetass monsters.  Bad: everything else.  Seriously.  If you want to play a boardgame about dungeoneering there are many better options.  I've never played Descent but several people at the table and kibitzing nearby said it was far superior.  Personally, I'd rather play Dungeon! or Mertwig's Maze than Castle Ravenloft.  Or even Munchkin Quest, which seems to have the same endgame flaw as the original cardgame.

Castle Ravenloft did have one interesting new mechanic that I can't quite figure out whether to put in the Good or Bad column: whenever you roll a natural 20 on any die throw your PC goes up a level.  That can only happen once a game since only first and second level are supported, but even several days later I'm pondering the possibilities of level advancement by random occurence...