three quick items

• Tuesday's picture post seemed to go over fairly well. Gameblog reader Jayson noted "Looks like a coherent campaign setting to me!" while the mysterious d said "I want to play this. All of it.NOW." Guess what, folks? As it turns out all those images were from my file folder labeled 'Encounter Critical pics'. Maybe I'll post the color pics from that folder next week.


• Basic/Expert D&D and its retro-clone Labyrinth Lord do not have stat requirements for human characters. I like that a lot. This allows one to play a puny fighter, foolish cleric, dimwitted magic-user or clumsy thief. What's weird is that you can end up playing an illiterate magic-user. Anyone ever see that in play? I'd probably run such a dude as a Hollywood-esque Rain Man style idiot-savant, capable of reading and using hypermathematical incantations but unable to read simple Common.


• I vaguely remember someone leaving a random off-topic comment on the blog asking about the Tom Moldvay game Dino-Wars! If that was you, shoot me an email at jrients to the blogspot dot com. Similarly, I promised someone a copy of a map missing from a module they bought second hand. If you're still out there, please email me again. Sorry I blew you off the first time!
  

i made this

Image borrowed from Fear of Girls.

Gary's weirdest rule?

From page 182 of the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide (click to embiggen):


I can't help but wonder if back in the day some nascent campaign was utterly ruined because some 1st level spellcaster threw a cure light wounds or detect magic and Orcus showed up.

two years gone: a re-post

don't mourn the death, celebrate the life

Things You Can Do To Keep Gygax's Memory Alive

• Play some OD&D or 1st edition AD&D, or one of the other games Gary created.
• Adapt one of his modules to whatever fantasy system you are using nowadays. B2 The Keep on the Borderlands is a particularly good choice for "serious" role-players, if you focus on all the intrigues surrounding the various factions of humanoids in the Caves of Chaos.
• Name your next pet Gary, Gygax, or Mordenkainen. (I am not taking any responsibilty if you name your next kid Gygax or Mordenkainen. You're on your own on that one.)
• Build that Dragonchess set you've been meaning to construct ever since you read about it in issue #100 of Dragon.
• Players: Specialize in an oddball polearm, swear "by Gygax's beard", play a cleric of Zagig.
• DMs: drop the Ring of Gaxx into your setting, sprinkle some scrolls of Mordenkainen-brand spells about your dungeon, use a rust monster or a bulette.
• Write that module or game or whatever that you've been meaning to get around to. Submit it for publication or publish it yourself.
• Keep a sharp eye out for the next weird little game that might become a breakout hit, spawning cartoons, films, comic books, novels and countless imitators.
• Tell the hobgoblins "It's okay, Gary sent us!"
• Crack open your 1st edition DMG and just luxuriate in the unmistakeable Gygax prose.
• Send a letter or e-mail to another game designer thanking them before it's too late.
• Introduce someone else to the fun that is this crazy little hobby.
• Game like there's no tomorrow.

the most important rule I overlook

From page B24 of Moldvay's Basic D&D:

MONSTER ACTIONS: Some monsters always act in the same manner (such as zombies, who always attack). However, the reactions of most monsters are not always the same. The DM can always choose the monster's reaction to best fit the dungeon, but if he decides not to do this, a DM may use the reaction table below to determine the monster's reactions (roll 2d6).

Monster Reactions

Dice Roll/Reaction

2/Immediate Attack

3-5/Hostile, possible attack

6-8/Uncertain, monster confused

9-11/No attack, monster leaves or considers offer

12/Enthusiastic friendship

When I don't use this chart my monsters immediately attack way more often than the 1 out of every 36 encounters suggested by the chart and they pretty much never act friendly. That's a damn shame, as it encourages the "we see it, we fight it" mentality that can really drag a good game down. And I really like the inherent instability in making friends with one of the chaotic dungeon denizens. That's a situation chock full of interesting possibilities.

It might be interesting to note that there seems to be a lot less demi-human/humanoid animosity in Moldvay Basic as opposed to AD&D. Dwarves still hate goblins and vice versa, and will usually attack each other on sight. But that's about it. A few monsters are specified as usually attacking anyone, such as minotaurs and gargoyles. But going by the monster entries in the Basic book it should be possible for any PC to befriend ghouls, gnolls, hobgoblins, lizard men, lycanthropes, orges, orcs, owlbears, shadows, skeletons, thouls or wights. Skeletons aren't noted as lacking intelligence or agency and nothing in the rules suggests that undead in general are automatically hostile to the living.

non-Shatner picture post, black & white edition

Urban Encounters

I talked about the wandering monster charts in OD&D a while back and today I want to revisit this topic. Specifically, I want to look again at the subject of wandering monsters in the city. As I pointed out back in that old post, the OD&D wandering monster charts only allow for two different kinds of monster to be encountered randomly in urban environments: Undead and Men. The Men subchart lists the following types of humans: Bandits, Brigands, Berserkers, Necromancer, Wizard, Superhero, Lord, Evil High Priest, Patriarch. All that boils down to two real possibilities: a big gang of cheap thugs or a high level character and their retinue.

Clearly, cities are chock full of people besides the Hell's Angels, Conan and his homeboys or Count Dracula. A lot of great work has been done in expanding the random encounter possibilities in cities. My favorites include the encounter chart in the front of Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets, Uncle Gary's city encounter chart from the 1st edition DMG (home of the original Random Harlot Sub-Table), Midkemia Press's Cities, Matt Finch's City Encounters, and James Mishler's 100 Street Vendors of the City State.

Later non-Advanced editions of D&D expanded the possible encounters by a bit. '81 Expert D&D greatly reduces the chance of encountering undead and adds a possibility of humanoid/demi-human encounters. I like that Pixies and Hill Giants are just as likely to show up as Elves on that chart. The '81 Expert charts also incorporate more human types, particularly the human "monsters" from Moldvay Basic: Traders, Acolytes, Nobles and Veterans. The loss of those entries from the monster sections of later D&D editions was unfortunate in my opinion, but probably another post for another day. The Rules Cyclopedia adds a 1 in 8 chance of being sent to SubTable: 11. City Encounters, which has 160 entries of the butcher, baker, candlestick maker variety. That subchart looks inspired by the Judges Guild chart I mentioned above.

While I like all the expanded post-OD&D options for city encounters, I can't help but feel that there is a lesson to be learned from the simplicity of the OD&D chart. The original version, where the only encounters in cities were undead, name level people, and bands of rowdies, suggests something to me about the original conception of the game terminology "encounter". I think the OD&D version, by omitting encounters like "chamberpot accidentally dumped on you" and "bump into angry muleskinner" and concentrating instead on uber NPCs puts player negotiation and/or the NPC reaction charts front and center. Your party spends a day in the big city and the dice say that something involving a Necromancer goes down. Unless your PCs are already ultimate badasses, they may want to talk their way out of that situation.

Now obviously some things were omitted from OD&D due to simple lack of space, so one shouldn't read too much into something not attested in the text. But plugging the holes in moldy oldy D&D yourself instead of letting later editions do it for you can be a lot of fun. In this case what I find juicy about the stark OD&D charts is that at the end of the day, (assuming everyone makes it out of the encounter alive) some very interesting NPCs will be fast friends, sworn enemies or at least passing acquaintances of the party. That beats the pants off of dealing with pesky beggars, brawling drunkards or hassling city guards, which is how I've seen a lot of city encounters play out.

Also, we went to the big city looking to blow money on ale and wenches and instead we ended up fighting some mummies?!? How cool is that?