Levi is being Levi again...

...exploring the interface between internets technology and traditional RPG play. His latest project is dragonish rpg deal called Hoard. I'm not sure I want to follow him down that particular rabbit hole, but I'm a sucker for stupid quizzes with bloggy thing-a-ma-bobs.

Want your own dragon?

Mightiest Monsters: Moldvay Basic

Here are the biggest critters (by hit dice) in the D&D rulebook with which I started my roleplaying hobby.

Dragons (6-11 HD)
Great Cats (3+2 to 8 HD)
Bears (4-7 HD)
Minotaur (6 HD)
Lycanthropes (3-6 HD)
Giant Lizards (3-6 HD)
Ochre Jelly (5 HD)
Owlbear (5 HD)
Rust Monster (5 HD)
Living Statues (3-5 HD)
Snakes (1-5 HD)

I don't remember Sabre Tooth Tigers being so bad ass, but at 8HD they were mightier than some dragons! Imagine how freaked out the PCs would be if they stumbled upon one of these big cats chewing on a freshly killed dragon! Cave bears and Polar Bears are also high up on the food chain, which I think is totally awesome. I think the record will show that I am firmly pro-bearmauling in my games.

If you compare this list to its predecessor, you'll note that the HD trend lower with the exception of dragons. The Moldvay edition may be the secret origin of the "OMG! Dragonz R teh best!" design trend over the last several editions. If the people who built the stats for the 2nd and 3rd edition dragons started playing with Moldvay Basic, of course they would assume that dragons are supposed to be the toughest monsters in the world. That runs counters to the assumption that because dragons are in the name of the game, they should be ubiquitous as well. Thus you end up with the situation in 3e where dragons range from tiny lizard babies at CR -2 to Godzilla level CR 57,000 threats. Personally, I'm not of the opinion that dragons have to be supergiganto to work in D&D. They should be too tough for low level adventurers to handle, but high level people should be able to subdue them and ride them around like firebreathing skyponies. That's one of the advantages of being high level!

The other thing I notice about this chart is that, aside from dragons, there is no overlap with the Holmes list or the OD&D list. Adventurers coming up in the implied setting of Moldvay's version had a very different world than the earlier incarnations of D&D. Perhaps Moldvay's vision of the D&D world was more inspired by lost civilizations struggling to survive the extinction of the ice age? That would go far to explain all the giant bears and sabre tooths and bigass snakes.

Mightiest Monsters: Holmes Basic

One of my favorite posts from OD&D blogger Delta is this great analysis of the baddest mofos in the original game, looking at hit dice as the primary indicator of raw power. I've decided to look at other D&D books with a similar eye, just to see what monsters rule the roost in various editions. I'll be starting today with the Holmes version of Basic D&D, the so-called 'Blue Book'. So here are the toughest monsters in my copy of that venerable tome:

Hydra (variable, see below)
Yellow Mold (variable, see below)
Purple Worm (15 HD)
Giants (8-15 HD)
Dragons (5-11 HD)
Black Pudding (10 HD)
Chimera (9 HD)
Vampire (7-9 HD)
Djinni (7+1 HD)
Griffon (7 HD)
Hellhound (3-7 HD)
Troll (6+3 HD)

Under Dr. Holmes's rules Hydra's possess one hit die per head, like most other versions of D&D. However, no range for the number of heads is given. A one-headed hydra is a legit encounter under these rules, as would be a hundred-headed hydra. Now that I think about, that would be awesome. Maybe that bigass hydra doesn't really have a hundred heads, but it has so freakin' many that people call it the Hundred Headed Hydra. It would be the Tarrasque of a Holmesian campaign world. Similarly, Yellow Mold gets 2 hit dice for every 10 square feet of contiguous growth, with no upper limit. By my math if the Humungous Fungus were a yellow mold it would have over 18 million hit dice!

Even setting these weird special cases aside, for a book designed for levels 1 to 3 the upper end of the competition is pretty dang steep. My gut tells me that run as-is a group of Holmes players would spend a lot of time running away from the monsters listed above.

a setting needs a system

I am seriously considering using Original Dungeons & Dragons, the three Little Beige Books, as the baseline for my new not-quit-named campaign setting. I definitely want a system in or near the direct line of D&D descent, with all the attendant clichés. The other primary contenders are BasicExpert D&D/Labyrinth Lord, 1st edition AD&D/OSRIC, Castles & Crusades/C&C Collector's edition, the Rules Cyclopedia, MERP/RoleMaster, and Holmes Basic/Advanced Holmes. Any of those games would work for what, at its heart, is just another DM's rearrangement of the familiar elements of orcs and swords and such. And I'm not ruling out running session set in the World of [insert name here] with those or any other systems that catch my fancy, like Forward... to Adventure! or Encounter Critical or some Palladium mishmash.


OD&D has my eye right now for several reasons. That's where all this dragoning and dungeoning nonsense began and if I'm going to build an old school sandbox from the ground up, why not start with the tools that my predecessors wielded back in the day? And unlike my beloved Moldvay Basic/Cook Expert combo, I can approach the rules without nostalgia. Seriously, I have trouble finding any flaws in the '81 Basic/Expert rules and that's an unhealthly attitude to have towards a system you actually intend to run. And the wide-open, not-ready-for-prime-time nature of the original books really appeals to me. I can tack stuff on from 1st edition Advanced or some old magazine article or another system entirely and not feel like I'm daring to disturb the universe. In fact, I want to add a bunch of other stuff. I'm not looking to be an OD&D purist.

Another reason why I want to go with OD&D is that chargen is super easy. 3d6 in order. No swapping stat points around. 3d6 x 10 gp and a short equipment list. 3 classes. 4 races. 3 alignments. That's about it. I want players to be able to bring a friend and start playing as quickly as possible. This ties into another reason to go with a lighter incarnation of D&D: for this project I'm not interested in the concept of "rules mastery", whereby dominance in the game is achieved through knowledge and deployment of intricate rules. I want players to succeed by judiciously and imaginatively interacting with the fantasy environment. I don't want the players to look for rules-based solutions, I want them to do cool stuff! For this campaign I'm working within the context that the rules are there primarily for when imagination fails. OD&D supports that approach. All-encompassing editions work against it, in my opinion.

More on a name

Now that I'm moved and can start serious work on this new sandbox campaign, I really need to pin down a name. The new poll has a shorter voting period.

Within the context of the campaign itself, I could really see myself using both names. The vaguely Gaelic folks who are native speakers of Common/Westron call the world Cinder. The Adelic-speaking invaders/occupiers/ruling class call the area Andrivøld, because even a generation or two later they still consider the place a whole different world from back home. Tolkien can do those linguistic bits with more aplomb, but seeing as how my whole setting will be more hamfisted than Middle Earth, I think I can get away with it. Whether the official name for the whole setting is Cinder or Andrivøld then takes on ethnic and social dimensions.

Solidarity with Galador

Back on the grid.

Big thanks to all the folks that helped my family and I move over the weekend: Pat, Leanne, Laurie, Andy, Stuart, and Angela. You are all solid awesome in my book. And thanks to my pal Tom for his sage advice on rewiring the dryer with a four-prong plug that fits the outlet at the new place. Amy and I freaked out when we saw that the outlet was incompatible with our old-but-not-ancient dryer.

It looks like I may have to cut down my book and game collection even more. The shelves I have set aside for gaming stuff are nearly full and I don't even have my d20 stuff unpacked yet! Criminy!

On a tangentially unrelated note, right now on eBay somebody else is selling their copies of Encounter Critical and my EC module, Asteroid 1618:

I keep my softbound edition of EC in my briefcase. I often re-read it when I go to court for work. I make it a point to arrive early so as not to miss an appearance so I usually have 15 or 20 minutes to kill. A little phasic insanity fills that time nicely.

Note to collector types: That copy of Asteroid 1618 is one of seventeen in print. For reals.