lions and tigers and bears

I held off getting a copy of Edward R. G. Mortimer's Heroic Expeditions for years because the cover say it is "A Judges Guild UNIVERSAL fantasy supplement."  I'm pretty sure this label started appearing on Guild products after they lost their license from TSR to put "approved for use with Dungeons & Dragons" on the cover.  More importantly, the UNIVERSAL products I've seen from Judges Guild all use Bob Bledsaw's universal fantasy system, which he never actually released a rulebook for.  Instead, it existed as a stand-in for actual D&D stats.

The upshot of this is that every other UNIVERSAL book basically requires you to translate every statblock into D&D-ese from a language you don't speak.  I have run many adventures for the wrong system over the years and I mostly translate stats on the fly.  But running, say, a Tunnels & Trolls adventure and turning it into D&D right in front of the players feels like a fun challenge.  I enjoy it.  Bledsaw's universal statblocks feel leaden and unwieldy in comparison.  Working with them doesn't feel like playing with a strange toy, but more like doing your taxes.

Heroic Expeditions neatly avoids this peril by having the UNIVERSAL label on the front, but using mostly normal D&D statblocks inside.  Sneaky.  Anyway, the name of the module is Heroic Expeditions, plural, because it has three small adventures inside.  "Spear of Darkness" is designed specifically for a pair of half-orc characters.  I don't think I've seen a just-for-half-orcs adventure anywhere else.  "Quest for the Book of Ancestry" is designed for two halfling characters.  I'm pretty sure I've read a novel that featured a couple of halflings as the protagonists, but I don't think I've encountered any modules written that way.  The final adventure is called "Cave of Despair" and is designed for messing with the head of a lone PC of 12th level or higher.  It's one of those adventures that tries to be deep and get to the emotional heart of roleplaying, which means it is perfect for use at some tables and will ruin friendships at others.

But my favorite thing about Heroic Expeditions is not the adventures.  It's pages 37 to 40, the monster section.  This might be the greatest small bestiary ever published.  Here are the creatures it provides stats for:

Badger
Bear, Black
Bear, Brown Grizzly
Bird, Game
Boar
Bugbear
Centipede, Giant
Dog, Wild
Dragon, Green
Duck
Frog, Giant
Goat
Goblin
Goose
Hippogriff
Imp
Lion, Mountain
Minotaur
Mosquito, Giant
Ogre
Opossum
Orc
Rabbit
Raccoon
Stag (and Deer)
Spider, Giant
Spiders, Large
Sprite
Tick, Giant
Tiger, Forest
Weasel, Giant
Wolf
Worg
Dwarf
Elf
Gnome
Hairfoot
Half-Orc

That is a very silly list of critters and I love it.  Note that most of the animals are perfectly normal.  The rabbit is not a Pythonesque vorpal bunny, just a 1/2 hit die beastie with no effective attack form.  Some of the normal animals can put a hurting on a PC, though.  Here's my favorite example, transcribed so that you can use it in your game:

Goose
AC 7 (natural)
HD 1+1
Move 6" (ground), 24" (air)
Damage 0-2 (bite) or 0-1/0-1 (wing/wing)

I guess I'd use d3-1 and d2-1 for the damage rolls, or maybe d4-2, d4-3.  Either way, a goose would be a not insignificant challenge for a first level adventurer.  Maybe not as bad as the housecat stats in the in the Monster Manual II, but still a legit threat.  I've attacked PCs with Dungeon Chickens before, but those were preternaturally large (hobbit-sized) and exceedingly grumpy poultry.  I don't know if I have it in my heart to murder a PC with a perfectly ordinary goose.

helluva cold open

Events are moving quite fast. Beyator Rangorin has gathered wanderers together, Selisa Rangorin has dropped her blood quest against Omanir Poratir until Pwatok is overthrown.  Great Eldritch Magics are being performed: ballads once gone, long forgot, are now remembered; Fieral, master of the day, the white beacon of light now glows a dingy red; the Spawn of Circe ride; near the ancient evil called Circe the earth spews forth all hell and death; Bessa the Blesses, Lady of the Dawn has disappeared and not even the ancient Mage Myek can discern where she is.  Avinor Elamon has joined forces with the powerful Wizardess Mysim to search for Bessa.  None the less Visha Hakor, Orgo Binon, and Morga Parimor search the world for a suitable replacement for the Council of Glend lest the Blessed Lady be gone forever.

That's the first paragraph of the player's handout for the old Judges Guild module Sword of Hope, by

Dave Emigh.  Mr. Emigh ranks high on my personal list of overlooked, almost-greats of the early days of the hobby.  He did some work for Games Designer Workshop, technical advice for some sort on both Mercenary and the 2nd edition of High Guard.  And his small press monograph The Quest is an forgotten classic of the formative days of the hobby.

That being said, I'm not sure Sword of Hope is very good as a standalone module.  It started life as round 2 of the D&D tournament for Winter War IV in Champaign, Illinois.  Next year is Winter War 45, so that pegs the origins of this module at 1977 or so.  I haven't read Sword of Hope in years, but as I recall not enough was done to change a team-competitive module into an adventure for normal tabletop situations.  If memory serves the problem was further exacerbated by the fact that some of the background didn't make sense without the content in the round 1 module, Tower of Ulission (also by Emigh).

But what I love about Sword of Hope is that amazing prose.  Emigh was clearly one of those weaver-of-worlds kind of DMs, gifted with the ability to suggest vast vistas with a few choice phrases.  I wish I was better at that sort of thing.  Heck, you could build a whole dang campaign by simply unpacking that paragraph above, just by answering simple questions like "Who is Beyator Rangorin?" or "Why did Selisa Rangorin declared a blood quest against Omanir Poratir?" or "What are the Spawn of Circe?" or "What is the function of the Council of Glend?"  A brief document that explains every item mentioned in that paragraph would give you the launching point for a dozen sessions of play or more.

Don't give up. Don't beg for mercy. Bargain!

Over the years almost all the explicit gaming advice I have offered here has been directed to the referees, Dungeon Masters, and Game Masters of the hobby.  After all, these deranged individuals need all the help they can get.  But today I'd like to offer some advice to the players who must put up with these sick, sad weirdos.

And here it is: bargain for your life.

Years of con sessions and tabletop campaigns and Google Plus gaming have shown me lots of players who all too readily give up at the very moment they should be marshaling their every resource.  That is the moment when their PC kicks the bucket.

Here's the thing.  The title of my current campaign handout is Jeff Rients Wants to Kill Your Fucking Character, but that title is, in fact, a lie.  I want to try to kill your character.  And I certainly will kill your character.  But what I really want to happen is for you to survive by the skin of your teeth, exiting the dungeon with the thrill of knowing you very well could have died.  Frankly, the treasure is just icing on the cake of daring to enter the dungeon and getting away with it.

It's kinda like how I teach (actually how I teach is kinda like how I DM).  At the start of the semester I tell the students what I will expect of them in terms of the reading, writing, research, and thinking.  I tell them they will be challenged.  Then I tell them that if they don't do it, they will fail the course.  Now, I don't want any of them to fail.  (In fact, I basically only give out F's for not showing up or not handing things in.)  What I want is for them to be challenged and then congratulate themselves for rising to the challenge and doing great things.  I'm rooting for my students to succeed.  Very few things in the world make me happier than to see my students learn stuff and get good grades.

But at the end of every semester I get at least one student who didn't believe me when I said I would not hesitate to fail them for Not Doing the Things.  They show up to my office and/or email me extensively, desperate to wriggle out of the bad predicament they've gotten themselves into.  They ask for extra credit.  They offer to revise and resubmit.  They outright beg.  They cajole.  Sometimes they cry.  It's an unfortunate scene and thus far it has never worked.  But I don't mind taking these meetings.  These young people are simply trying to avoid the chickens coming home to roost as best they can.  I just wish they had been as quick-thinking and resourceful earlier in the semester.

I think more players should be a little bit like those students.  Doom comes at an unknown time for the PC, not at the end of 16 weeks ill-spent.  Why accept your fate with quiet dignity?  Dig this fairly typical scene:

DM: Hendrik the Beefy rips the door off the hinges!  Unfortunately, the hobgoblins on the other side heard your argument about whether to check it for traps or not.  They have crossbows ready.  Hendrik is hit five times for 19 points total!
Player (crumples charsheet): I only had 6 hit points.  I'm dead.

Protip #1

NEVER DECLARE YOURSELF DEAD.  Let the DM do that.  I want your PC to live, but if you've given up on them, why should I care?  I can't tell you how many times I've seem something like this.  I think it stems from players a) assuming they know the rules in play and b) thinking the rules are in charge of the game.  I love my D&D rulebooks, but they aren't running this show.  I am.  Give you and your PC the breathing room to see if that fact cuts your way or not.

Protip #2

When you believe you are dead, think quickly and try to come up with a very brief retcon.  A good DM understands the fluid nature of the shared imaginative space the game inhabits and will allow reasonable and judicious editing of the last few moments of play.  Here's what could have happened:

DM: Hendrik the Beefy rips the door off the hinges!  Unfortunately, the hobgoblins on the other side heard your argument about whether to check it for traps or not.  They have crossbows ready.  Hendrik is hit five times for 19 points total!
Player: Dang, I only have 6 hit points...  Wait a second.  You said I ripped the door off the hinges, right?
DM: Yeah, I guess I did.
Player: So maybe the door gave me cover against the crossbow bolts... eh?
DM:  That makes sense, I guess.  But I've already rolled to hit and damage, so I'm not going to take back all of the hits.  Roll a d4.  That many bolts hit the door instead.
Player (rolls): A three!
DM: Okay, the first two bolts hit you but you pull the door up in time to block the rest.  You take 5 points total.
Player: Whew!  Hendrik's only got 1 hit point left, but I'm still in the game!

Looking for these sorts of environmental factors is something you can do for other players as well.

Protip #3

All your precious things are less important than your life.  That goes double for your PC and their stuff.  Trade that crap away!  Not every DM will take the bait, but some will eat up the opportunity to let you live in exchange for making your life miserable.

Player: So maybe the door gave me cover against the crossbow bolts... eh?
DM: No way, dude.  You suspected there were hostiles on the other side of that door.  We both know Hendrik would discard that thing as soon as possible to get out his axe and shield.
Player: Okay, looks like Hendrik is going down.  But maybe I can linger at negative hit points for at least a round so the cleric can heal me.
DM: Not at negative thirteen hit points.  Minus nine or less, maybe you've got a chance.
Player: Shaving off four hit points might save my bacon?  Okay, imagine that the one bolt that is worth the most damage doesn't hit my body.  Instead...
DM: I'm listening.
Player (snaps fingers): Instead it hits my magic amulet!  You know, the one that allows me to cast

I haven't seen that flick in years.

Strength on myself 3 times a day?  I wear it on a chain around my neck.  Maybe it catches the deadly shot just like the cigarette case in Johnny Dangerously!  Whaddya say?
DM: Okay, I'm sold.  Your amulet is shattered into a dozen fragments and you hit the floor.  You're at negative nine hit points and not dead.  Not this round, at least.

Many of us, myself included, get so excited about magic items that we sometimes forget that their primary purpose is to keep our PCs alive for another day.  Your magic sword might be hella sweet. but it doesn't do you any good if your PC is a lifeless corpse.  (I guess that puts me in Thulsa Doom's camp vis-a-vis the Riddle of Steel.)  Why not trade that enchanted blade for your life by offering to have it block the death blow, breaking it in the process?  Heck, I might let a regular sword do the same job.

This idea is just a less formalized version of Trollsmyth's famous Shields Shall Be Splintered! house rule, which IIRC tied with Dwimmermount's Liquid Courage for Best New House Rule of 2008.  You bet your ass you should be offering to shatter your shield to save your PC's life.  Helmets ought to work well, too.  I might even allow suits of armor to be busted up, say to the tune of d4 points of AC lost.  Sure that means the next attack will be easier to land, but when you life is in peril you worry about the next thing next, not now.

Look for other opportunities to trade mere stuff for a prolonged life.  Maybe that dragon's breath didn't incinerate you.  Maybe it set your cloak of elvenkind alight and you quickly discarded the burning garment.  Instead of falling into the pit of acid, your buddy caught you in the nick of time.  Sure, you dropped your large sack full of loot into the acid, but at least you're alive.  And coldblooded PCs should be putting their henchmen and hirelings between themselves and the grim reaper whenever possible.

Finally, consider the difference between your PC's body and their soul.  Better to lose a limb or an eye than die outright.  Next adventure you could be rocking a peg leg or a eye patch.  How cool is that?

He lost his magic sword and his fighting hand,
but he lived to level up another day.

Vaults of Vyzor, session #10

Roster

Brax of the Tallstones, savage human fighter (Brad Black)
Young John, 0-level Likely Lad (NPC hireling)
Yareh Falsong, mutant thief (Sam Mameli)
Gwalin Rustbritches, dwarf   (NPC hireling)
Merrill Meadows, fighter (Michael Julius)

Brax, Yareh, and Merrill emerge from today's expedition to the Verdant Vault dripping in orc blood from head to toe.  Even better, they bring out a treasure chest full of equal parts copper, silver, electrum, gold, and platinum coins!  Young John is only slightly splattered with orc blood, as he spent the entire session carrying the torch, avoiding combat.  Everybody doff their caps for a moment of silence, as Gwalin the Dwarf does not return from his trip below Castle Vyzor.  ("Good riddance!" mumble several dwarves nearby.  Why Gwalin was a pariah among his own kind will remain a mystery forever.)  Loaded with riches, the three heroes carouse mightily, blabbing all bout their adventure.

Using this well-known map of the first level of the Verdant Vault, they plan on making a straight push through to the stairs down near the southwest of the level as it is known.

Aside: I am loving the communal nature of the maps.  In my first Google+ campaign a fair number of people were tight-fisted with maps. There's plenty of treasure (and peril) to go around, so making maps publicly available seems like a great move to me.  It's like the adventurers are members of communal effort to plunder the Vaults.

One big, happy, larcenous family.

Anyway, I should've made a not about this next bit at the time, but I didn't.  One of the players suggested trying to recruit the Bargain Wolves to join their expedition.  Whoever said that should take a bow in the comments, because the reaction roll dice came up boxcars and the wolves helped the party out for a few encounters.

Apart from allying with the Bargain Wolves, the rest of the expedition was orcs, orcs, and more orcs.  The orc guard post was ravaged, after which the party used a secret door to launch a raid on the orc training facility.  Brax took pity on the teen-aged recruits, quaking in their boots at the sight of a flesh and blood opponent.  He ended up knocking out three of the poor kids before the majority of them ran in sheer terror.  The previously-encountered one-eyed orcish drill sergeant was brutally murdered for his trouble.

The routed recruits start pounding on a nearby door, begging for help from whoever was on the other side.  The party and the wolves split ways at this point.  The wolves stay and pick off the surviving recruits only to become embroiled in a fight with a crap-ton of veteran orc soldiers coming out of that door.  The party makes a judicious withdrawal and heads down the stairs to level 2 of the Verdant Vaults.  There they discover another big L-shaped 20' corridor similar to the one that dominated level one, though not quite as long.

In the one room they explore, past that crazy hall of oblique angles, they find five orcs who have just discovered a treasure chest concealed in a decorative pillar.  The party charges and what follows in one of the best low-level D&D fights I have seen in a long time.  Yes, there was a round or two where no one hit anybody else, but that only served to contrast the big cinematic things that happened the other rounds.  Merrill viciously critted two orcs in back-to-back rounds, spraying orc blood all over the room.  He will henceforth be known as Merill the Orcslayer.  Yareh injudiciously joined the melee at one point and was nearly slain by a mighty blow, but Brax heroically intervened, his shield splintering and his forearm taking the brunt of the blow.  Poor Gwalin fell here to a vicious orc warhammer blow to his face.  This was just one of those beautiful, chaotic fights that nicely demonstrates that you don't need a bunch of levels or feats for an encounter to be epic as shit.

Alas, our time was nearly up for the session.  I threw some rolls for wandering monsters, which came up nil.  The party caroused as mentioned.  Yareh blew her saving throw and awoke with a new tattoo on her back.  Something like this:

But with scrollwork around it labeling the piece "Brax the Bold."

The dotted line is the mysterious elevator shaft.

ONGOING ROLL OF THE DEAD

Gwalin Rustbritches (dwarf hireling)

Jarrod the Magic-User (Ian Reilly)

Jonesy (0-level NPC)
Little Liam Linkboy (0-level NPC)
Limpy the Naileteer (Jeff Call)
Engsal the Enchanter (Alex Joneth)
Elfbraham Lincoln (Jeff Call)
Littlens (0-level NPC)
Biggens (0-level NPC)
Stimpy (0-level NPC)
Ren (0-level NPC)

Rumour: A Lord and his minions intent on looting the Vaults have arrived.  They are now guests in the Azure Tower.

The Best Box of Monsters

So here's something cool I dug up a while back and meant to share with all y'all.

Back in 1982 or so tabletop fantasy gaming was so big that Grenadier Miniatures, one of the best manufacturers back in the day, started a division aimed at a more mainstream audience.  I don't think Pinnacle Products was around for long, but they did manage to release a pair of Dark Crystal figure sets and 2 Masters of the Universe boxes.  That's right, back in the day you could get Skeletor and the skeksis in 25mm.  What a time to be alive.  (Skeletor and the Skeksis would be a pretty decent band name.)

Anyway, one of Pinnacle's releases was, in my humble opinion, the single greatest boxed set of monsters in the history of the hobby.  Their humbly named Fantasy Monsters set contained eleven pieces.  One of them is one of the best sculpts of a smallish, wingless dragons I have ever seen:

Called the Vermillion Dragon, according to the box.

But what really makes Pinnacle's Fantasy Monsters stand out for me is that the other ten figures were bat-shit crazy-go-nuts.  Dig 'em:

Barracuman!

False Phoenix!

Green Gaunt!

Ram Horn! 

Is it just me or does Ram Horn look a bit like a squished version of the monster from the second Conan flick? The face is also a little reminiscent of the Phantom Stalker in the D&D cartoon, I think.

Sand Ripper!

Of all the figures in the set, this one is the hardest one for me to get excited about.  In the few photos I've been able to find online, it doesn't really look like anything in particular.

Five Eyed Terror!  One Eyed Pit Fiend!  Tri-Ora!  Red Horned Mane!

Trust me, you'll want to click to see these bad boys close up.  Don't miss the One-Eyed Pit Fiend's troubling toes or the fact that those aren't crab claws on the Tri-Ora.  They're mouths.

Six Legged Nightmare!

I saved the Six Legged Nightmare for last because that paint job is by the one and only Erol Otus.  That shading from peachy pink to brownish purple is vintage Otus.

I can't find a scan of the cover of the boxed set online, but here's the front of the painting guide that included with the figs.

Why is this boxed set so great?  Firsta of all, any campaign should have at least one or two custom GM critters that feature prominently in play.   This box set gives you ten new freaks that you could stat up and be assured that no one has ever encountered them before.  Hell, this set is practically a taunt in 25mm lead form, "Here's a dragon kid.  I dare you to figure out what to do with the rest of these weirdos."

Second, if you're the kind of DM who uses miniatures, you should always have at least one figure that you can use as the "What the hell is that?" monster.  Ideally, you don't want to use a figure that evokes any particular hit dice or abilities or behavior.  If you use a troll, for instance, the players will tend to start thinking trollish thoughts about your decidedly non-troll weirdo monster.  A figure that is monstrous but a blank slate as far as past associations is best in these circumstances.

And there's no reason why you can't do both with these figures.  Take your favorites and turn them into regular features in your campaign and take the ones you consider duds and set them aside as fill-in-the-blank figures.

The one thing these critters don't have going for them is size.  I'm pretty sure that the dragon is the tallest figure in the bunch and I don't think it's any bigger than 2" tall.  The five eyed terror is more typical of the set, and it is about 30mm tall.  That's not very big and menacing in today's 28mm world.  Of course, nearly all the monsters in your minis universe (except orcs and skeletons and whatnot) could be much bigger is you started using Caesar 1:72 plastic Adventurers, Copplestone Castings 10mm Heroes and Halflings, or Perfect Six Scenics 6mm Adventurers.  Heck, nowadays you can even buy 10mm dungeon rooms, corridors, and furniture from Pendraken.

By they way, three of the figures in Pinnacle's Fantasy Monsters set were also sold by Grenadier in a blister.  Fantasy Lords number 147 contained the One Eyed Pit Monsters, Ram Horn, and Barracuman.  Grenadier was later bought out by the French company Mirliton, or they purchased the molds or something like that.  You can still get a lot of old Grenadier designs at www.mirliton.it, including a four pack called Horror Monsters, which contains the Five Eyed Terror, One Eyed Pit Monster, Tri-Ora, and Red Horned Mane.

Anybody have this set back in the day?  What did you do with it?

Almost forgot: much of the info and many of the images in this post come from the thoroughly excellent Lost Minis Wiki.

What does the party look like?

I don't usually use the jump break thingy when writing a blog post, but I'm going to try it here today.  Hopefully it works.

Anyway, I'd like you to close your eyes and imagine a typical D&D party.  Once you've got that idea in your head, click the thing to load the rest of the post.

a handout for raw recruits

Running a demo game somewhere?  Luring some nice, normal people into the sordid world of elves and orcs?  In my experience, one of the hurdles newbies often face is making sense of the weirdo dice.  So I made this:

How to Dice

This document is a public domain release.  The images are already in the public domain.  So, please feel free to include this page in other stuff like demo packets and GM kits if it meets your needs.