Do you read Blogs?
Posted: March 17, 2011 Filed under: bitching, blogs, Dragonsfoot, Dungeons and Dragons 3 Comments
Do you read blogs? Yeah, I know, a stupid question. Obviously, if you are reading THIS you probably* have read at least one blog at least once in your life (this one), but the topic seems to come up perennially (like crab grass) on discussion boards like Dragonsfoot (i.e.: this conversation here). And, from having read more than one of these discussions on DF, I get the feeling that a sizeable number** of people who might identify themselves as ‘players of “old skoole games” (whatever that might be)’ seem actually somewhat hostile to the idea of old skoole bloggers writing old skoole blogs. I didn’t start blogging until I got rather disenchanted by the ‘discussion forum’ scene. I still visit the forums (but not as much as when I had a really boring job at a desk that required I sit and wait for long periods of time until someone wanted something from me). I’ve been reading both blogs and Dragonsfoot for a while now (I don’t really visit many forums at all), and, given how much overlap there is between the two communities in both membership and interest, I find the hostility surprising.
And I suppose I count myself as an ‘old skoole blogger’ or a member of the OSR, even though I am not always certain what those terms mean to others. Then again, as a general practice I don’t think I can help what other people think… I can try to influence what they think, but as many ‘discussions on the internet’ seem to indicate, nothing on the internet seems as cherished as an opinion that someone else has disagreed with.
The argument against ‘blogging’ that seems to get raised again and again and again is that a) blogs are undemocratic and b) blogs are narcissistic.
In theory, I can see the point in the argument that “blogs are undemocratic because the blog owner is always in charge and can delete any of my comments and that seems unfair… plus I can’t start threads on your blog…” In practice, however, I’ve developed a very low tolerance for what some people consider a ‘contribution’ to a forum discussion and sometimes wish boards like Dragonsfoot would police their forums with a heavier hand (yeah, I know the irony of ME saying that) simply because there are (in my opinion), too many Dragonsfoot members who post what I consider ‘garbage.’ ‘Garbage’ (in my opinion) would include unnecessarily argumentative posts and replies (especially the ones where the responder offers a point-by-point refutation with quotes as to why the previous poster is an idiot), trolling (in all of its forms) and the dreaded self appointed ‘guardian of the board’ (who want to spend a great deal of time smacking down other members out of some sort of sense of ‘ownership’ of the forum because they spend a great deal of time there). All that ‘garbage’ makes wading and sorting through the trash in search of treasure all the more irritating. I actually like the ‘tighter focus’ that blogs engender simply because the democracy seems inherent in the medium because if I don’t like what you are saying on your blog, I can search out another blog I like better (or, even better, I can start my own). Taken singly, perhaps “blogs” do not seem democratic, but, viewed as a whole, they are perhaps MORE democratic because individual owners seem to be more more committed to making their blogs interesting and useful (perhaps because as bloggers we feel more of a sense of ownership of our own blogs). Perhaps blogs that are uninteresting to me just slide off my radar, whereas in a forum, I am continually having to ignore posts from some members. Everyone may have an opinion, and everyone may feel that they have the right to that opinion, but nothing says that I have to spend my time enduring them expressing that opinion.
We’ve had the conversation on DF about blogs where anti-blogites cite the inherent ‘egotism’ of the blog medium as a bad thing. I think the ‘egotism’ of blogs is not a bad thing; it MAY be a good thing. I read (or look at (because some of the blogs I follow are more pictures than words)) the blogs on my list because I find myself interested in what that person might have to say or show. If I’m not interested in what a blogger has to say, I don’t have to follow his blog.
on DF, Premier wrote:
What about ‘Content’ blogs as opposed to ‘Opinion’
ones? You know, stuff life Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets, all about
posting new monsters, spells, items and stuff. Do people read those, and why/why
not?
I read both… I read all kinds of blogs. My favorites are the art blogs where people post pictures they have been working on (like Russ Nicholson) or pictures they think are interesting (like http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/)… or some have ‘catch all’ blogs where people post whatever they want. In my own blog, I dump everything in the same place — art, politics, game ideas, etc (which may or may not be a good idea).
I actually think blogs have the possibility of being less narcissistic (I know that sounds counter-intuitive) than frequent posts on forums simply because the blogger usually invests a little more time and effort into putting the blog together. In many ways, as a reader of blogs I often find a new set of pictures on a blog like ‘monsterbrains’ (pictures of old magazine covers, comic books, etc., with monsters) or on Russ Nicolson’s blog to kind of feel like a treat for me since I usually enjoy what they put up and I might have never seen these images or read these words otherwise. When forum posts are good, they are a joy to read, but too often I have to wade through garbage posts and dickwagging to find my way to the good stuff. Reading yet another flame war on why the way so-an-so does initiative in AD&D is wrong-wrong-wrong (to name just one example) feels like more of an encounter with the narcissim of the participants than seeing some art or ideas for a campaign or someone’s musings on D&D in general (or so many other topics). I’m sure there are shitty, narcissistic blogs, but I don’t tend to read those… just like I skip a lot of posts and threads in the forums I visit.
*Before the pedants point out that someone could read these words elsewhere (like on a web aggregator or as a paper print out) and thus never direct their browser to a ‘blog’ and thus never actually READ a blog, I did say ‘probably,’ OK?
**I have no idea of the actual numbers but suspect it is a small yet determined bunch on Dragonsfoot. The disposition of “anti-OSR blog people” elsewhere is unknown to me.
On my own Initiative
Posted: March 13, 2011 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, rules 3 Comments
I don’t currently run a game and with each passing month it seems become less and less likely that I ever will… but I find myself very interested in and drawn to some of the games I see documented around the web… like adventures taking place under the Rotted Moon… or the Adventures in the Pnakotic Ruins… or Fomalhaut… or Terry’s Dunrawl Campaign… or others. And theres lots more. So to distract myself I like to spin out a little sometimes and wonder what it might be like if I did run another game and had all my druthers.
My Favorite Adventures
Posted: March 13, 2011 Filed under: adventures, creativity, Dungeons and Dragons, project 1 Comment
Planet Algol is asking for reader’s favorite adventure recommendations, but, speaking as someone who has enjoyed making up my own adventures almost as much as running them, I thought I would describe a few of the favorite adventures that I made up in broad strokes.
(at right, my illustration of one of the encounters in my megadungeon, “Mines of Khunmar”)
1) Mines of Khunmar: One of the advantages of making up your own is that you can be a lot more cavalier about the details since you will usually know what you mean and the briefest of notes will usually be sufficient. Years and years ago I created a ‘megadungeon’ in the old mode (like the dungeons of Castles Greyhawk and Blackmoor). Even after I stopped playing D&D, every once in a while I would look this thing over, sometimes adding a little more. It’s been decades since I have hosted an adventure in Khunmar (an outline version is floating round the internet). Khunmar has seven or eight main levels, many sub and side levels, etc., and consists of 30 to 40 maps, each with an average of 25 or so numbered locations. My rational was that Khunmar, like Tolkien’s Moria, was originally a dwarven mine/fortress which was subsequently abandoned and overrun by humanoids after the dwarves ‘delved too deep.’ The upper levels have areas controlled by goblins, kobolds, orcs, undead, etc., and nastier creatures lurk below.
Geoffrey (occassional reader of this blog) took scans of all of my handwritten notes and typed them up and I keep telling myself that I will use that to create a finished product; the only question is when.
2) Gastan’s Gold Mine: I created Gastan’s Gold Mine for my players back in the early 80s. The gold mine was accessible from 2 points: either down a well on an abandoned farm or through a cave occupied by a cave troll and over an underground chasm. The mine was infested by the animate bodies of dead miners, dead adventurers and dead goblins who were all infested by a black mold that animated them like zombies. If you were struck by a zombie, it was likely that you would be infested too (and eventually become a black mold zombie). Since the zombies were animated by mold, they could not be turned by a cleric (although I suppose a ‘control plants’ spell might work; the players never tried that). The zombies couldn’t cross the chasm or climb out of the well, so the mold zombies could not infest the surrounding countryside, but the body count from the mine (and the troll) was very high indeed. Large numbers of valuable gold nuggets could be looted from the mine but I think only 1/2 or less of the players made it out alive. The victims joined the other ‘mold zombies’ in the mine.
3) Marshville: I always liked the Lovecraft story, “Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and created my own ‘deep one hybrid’ community for D&D I called Marshville. The players arrived in town and found the locals ugly, stand-offish and unfriendly. The towns resident drunk drops some ominous warnings before the locals slip him a mickey to shut him up and they make contact with a local old wise woman (one of the few pure humans left in town) who warns them to ‘get out while they can.’ They eventually got into a fracas with the locals and discovered that some of the towns older residents were more and more ‘fishlike’ and the residents of some of the older residents are equipped with bath tubs that the locals use as ‘beds.’ Eventually, the deep one hybrids turn pure fishman and retreat beneath the waves (I placed a temple underwater but never got around to designing that part of it but the players never went there anyway) There are tunnels and chapels to a perverted sea god under the town that the players explored and they employed hit-and-run tactics against the locals until finally having to leave town via a teleport spell since all of the residents (full fishman and still able to pass as human) were after them.
One of the peculiarities of the adventure is that the players left town with an unusually large number of magic tridents.
4) The Haunted Monastery: In my own homebrew world, I have a religion I call “The Allfather.” The Allfather’s followers are somewhat like the medieval Catholic Church; basically lawful but inclined to an excess of zeal and dogma. When local authorities make it possible, the Allfatherians persecute or forcibly convert non believers and some races (like elves) are declared an ‘abomination’ while others (like dwarves) are tolerated as second-class citizens who can never attain ‘grace’ through the church. The Allfatherians seek to form a theocracy with their clergy as rulers. The players happened upon an apparently abandoned Allfather Monastery high in the frozen mountains while attempting to lead a group of human slaves liberated from an underground village of goblins to safety. The monastery appeared empty and the slaves were freezing because they lacked food and clothing, so they took shelter there. A single monk, apparently mad, committed suicide by jumping out a window. The players discovered that there was an ancient crypt deep beneath the deepest cellar of the monastery that the monks had discovered and the monks were all gone because they had released a plague of undead as they sought to expand their beer cellar. The most powerful ghost was one that could freeze anyone who stood in proximity to it and drive people mad with his babbling. While there, one of the players picked up a cursed mace and then secretly began murdering the rescued prisoners (the other players had no idea that this was going on and assumed that the ghosts/zombies/ghouls were doing the killing).
OSR FOR SALE
Posted: March 6, 2011 Filed under: adventures, art, Dragonsfoot, Dungeons and Dragons, OSR 6 Comments
Rob Conley has been writing about ‘The Commercialization of the OSR’ over on his blog, “Bat in the Attic.” In his posting, Rob references Mythmere’s useful analysis of the history of the OSR (here and here). I’m still digesting both Rob’s and Mythmere’s posting, so I hope this post does not come off as me as attempting to ‘refudiate’ what either of these people have said. One of the issues that strikes me, however, which may be tangential to Rob’s and Mythmere’s posts, is the idea of the ‘virtue’ of free OSR product over ‘for pay’ product in the OSR. A number of pretty vocal people tend to spout the sentiment that ‘all OSR stuff should be free’ whenever OSR product for pay is mentioned.
One of the primary arguments advanced by the ‘anti-sales’ contingent is that many of the products offered for sale are not worth the asking price. Of course, this sidesteps the religion of capitalism (the market will decide if products succeed based on people voting witht heir wallets). But “quality” is a relative thing, isn’t it? Back in the day, we had a lot of fun with adventures like “Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor.” As far as the usual markers of quality goes in terms of completeness, adherence to the rules as written, professionalism of layout and art, etc., etc., “Badabaskor” seems pretty “bad” by the standards of most products (even free ones) today. Some of the art is pretty amateurish, the spell casters do not have spells listed, many things are not explained adequately and there are editorial mistakes galore. Despite this, we had a lot of fun with that adventure. In some ways, it’s incompleteness was almost a virtue since the DM seemed to have a lot of fun filling in the details. So was it ‘worth’ what we paid for it? I’d say if the value of such a book is in the fun that you get from it, the answer is “yes.”
I have to confess that I had some pretty frustrating experiences with publishing a ‘free’ OSR-type adventure through Dragonsfoot. I submitted an adventure for ‘free’ publication a number of years ago and waited for about two years for someone to get around to reading/editing it. It was only when I said I wanted to take the adventure elsewhere (since I thought it would never see publication) that it got pushed into publication. Then, when it was in editing, I had a number of editors demanding I make changes that I did not neccessarily want to make or agree on. One editor was quoting rules from one of the rule books in his messages to me in a manner that kind of galled me, especially since I had written the adventure years before and based the adventure on how I had ruled or interpreted rules. Finally, as author I wanted to also illustrate the adventure, but at one point the editor sent the images back to me, saying they looked like ‘crap.’ I had done the illustrations in black and white and then added a ‘zipatone’ texture digitally. The editor demanded I remove the zipatone texture because he didn’t like it. What disturbed me was that the editor seemed to be under the impression that I didn’t give a shit about how it looked when I felt like the whole project was really MY BABY and he was just the midwife who was really supposed to make sure we dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s before we sent it out.Strange Monsters
Posted: February 20, 2011 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, history, monsters 5 Comments
But most people puzzle over a creature that evolved to exactly fill a 10×10 corridor and just slides around the dungeon, like a big see-through Roomba, sucking up everything and anything in it’s path (does anyone else find it creepy that the company that makes the “roomba” is called “irobot”?). Perhaps the gelatinous cube did not ‘evolve’ to be 10x10x10, but some wizard bred it to be that way… like the way that the Chinese bred their little dogs to have pushed-in looking faces.
"We don’t explore characters, we explore dungeons…"
Posted: February 18, 2011 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, OSR, philosophy 7 Comments
“We don’t explore characters, we explore dungeons…”
"But your character wouldn’t know about that!"
Posted: January 20, 2011 Filed under: Dragonsfoot, Dungeons and Dragons, philosophy, rules 2 CommentsBochi, over on Dragonsfoot, posed a pretty simple (but thought provoking) question about whether or not players should be allowed to peruse books like the DMG and the Monster Manual.
This opens up the whole, “player knowledge” versus “character knowledge” debate.
That said, I find it fun (and refreshing) to play with people who don’t know the Monster Manual inside and out. I think as a fellow player, the “gee whiz I wonder what will happen next” idealism of new players just introduces more fun and a less jaded energy to the group.
If I were to DM, I would not mind that player characters acted on player knowledge… to expect a seasoned player to sit there and let a rust monster eat his character’s +5 sword just because the character never encountered a rust monster before (but the player HAS) seems the height of folly to me. It’s a game, not a pure simulation. Just like someone playing their 10,000th game of chess is going to have an advantage over a new player who is still asking, “How does the horse one move again?,” so, too, the player who has been playing D&D for years can be expected to have a few advantageous nuggets of wisdom that may help his character in a pinch… then again, players that assume that everything is going to be the same in my campaign as in the one run by their chum in highschool might be dissapointed (I think it’s fair game to introduce variant monsters like a variety of green slime that is vulnerable to cold instead of fire or traps that strike the area that most seasoned players might expect to be safe). If you need a justification, just allow that the new character sat on his grandpappy’s knee every night while that retired adventurer told him about rot grubs, green slime, harpies and gelatinous cubes.
The Giant’s Adventures: I love them
Posted: December 11, 2010 Filed under: adventures, campaigns, Dungeons and Dragons 4 Comments
I love some of the earliest adventures published by TSR back in the day, but my absolute favorites are what I call “The Giant’s Trilogy” (includes “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief,” “Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl” and “Hall of the Fire Giant King,” (later the three were gathered into one adventure called “Against the Giants”)).
If you are accustomed to the modern “adventure path” style adventures, the first thing you will notice is how physically insubstantial the ‘Giants’ booklets seem in comparison. The older version comes in 3 skinny folders with maps printed in light blue on the inside (in the age of photo copiers, I think this color was chosen because 1970s era Xerox copiers had trouble reproducing it, thus TSR was probably attempting to prevent ‘analog age’ file sharing). There are no boxes of text to be read aloud to the players. Most creatures are not described with any more detail than their hitpoints (other details were to be found in the AD&D Monster Manual). The room descriptions mostly just tell you what (monster, treasure, furnishings) is in any labeled location and may include details like how they will react when player characters come strolling in or any traps or hazards that might be found in the area. Add a few wandering monster lists as well as some suggestions on tactics the giants will use as well as a ‘hook’ to get the players on to the next installment and that is it. The third in the series is a little more elaborate; it includes a couple of named NPCs who will be of interest (as well as introducing ‘The Drow’ to D&D players for the first time) and the suggestion that the adventure can be continued in the D-series of adventures.
The introduction to the first adventure, “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief,” consists of a pargaraph saying that giants have been raiding the lands of humans with greater frequency and unusual efficiency recently. The player characters have been ‘shanghaied’ into investigating; a greater plot is suspected and the player characters have been commanded to find out who is behind the attacks. If the players refuse, they are to be executed (how is that for motivation?). Any treasure the party can find is theirs to keep. The noble who gives the players this draconian assignment isn’t even named in the adventure. With that, players are led off to the nearby ‘Steading’ of the hill giants (kind of a stockade fort/cabin) and told to come back with answers.
If the players succeed in defeating the hill giants, they can move on to the icy caves of the frost giants. If the frost giants are defeated, then the players can proceed to the caverns of the fire giants. The giants have various pet monsters, traps and allies in their lairs, but the adventures consist of a lot of fighting.
So what’s to like about an adventure like this? I’ve heard fans of the 3e and later eras of Dungeons & Dragons dismiss this type of play as ‘hack and slash,’ and, if ‘hack and slash’ means killing monsters and taking their stuff, I suppose they are right. But other than being forced to deal with the giants, the players have complete freedom of action. From my limited experience, this is unlike the more modern ‘adventure path’ adventures where players usually have to first go to location A and talk to NPC B, then retrieve relic C and bring it back to NPC B, who will tell them that they then have to go to location D and defeat bad guy E… but bad guy E will escape, etc. The ‘adventure path’ reads more like a really long novel than what they thought of as an ‘adventure’ back in the mid to late 1970s. During that era, an ‘adventure’ was really just a location — and it was us to the players to provide the ‘inspiration.’
You just can’t go back…
Posted: November 29, 2010 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, games, philosophy, rules 7 Comments
Sometimes I wish I could re-create the fun my young friends and I had back in 1978, starting with the ‘basic set’ (pictured at right). Maybe I’m looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, but it seems as though we were less jaded that the players I encounter (or the player I have become) today.
One of the most obvious changes seems to be in the number of options and choices available to the players in preparing a character to play. Here I guess I’ll start to sound like the old Dana Carvey curmudgeon who wheezes about walking barefoot fifteen miles to school in the snow each day, uphill both ways, “and we liked it,” but I actually find myself nostalgic for the very basic and simple ‘cookie cutter’ characters and classes in the original D&D. One started character creation by rolling dice to determine your strength, intelligence, wisdom, etc., and then, based on what you rolled, you chose a character class. One could adjust your scores in very minor ways: you could swap two points of intelligence for one point of strength if you were a fighter, etc., but one usually ended up with characters whose average ability score was 8 to 10.
My memory of those games is that as players, our pleasure in the game was much more immediate and less abstract — what we as players decided to do or not do seemed to have more bearing on events than anything written on our character sheets. There seemed to be less ‘rules lawyering’ because there were fewer rules to lawyer with. Instead of resolving all actions through balanced universal d20 mechanics with things like ‘roll a dice to notice’ or ‘roll a dice to listen’ or ‘roll a dice to use your engineering knowledge,’ we would talk about what we wanted to do. “I want to look under the bed and behind the dresser” instead of “I roll a search check.”
I’m thinking about these things because recently a friend of mine, who was running a session of a newer RPG told me that the last time they met “he had the worst session ever.” I don’t honestly think that a different set of rules would have helped or hindered (the problems were probably more a set of abrasive personalities rubbing each other the wrong way), but our conversation about what went wrong at the session made me want to think about what goes wrong or right when we sit down and play (I was not at this horrible session, BTW).
Baby Cakes: Be Aggressive
Posted: October 18, 2010 Filed under: art, Dungeons and Dragons, inspiration, music 1 CommentThanks to Lord Gwydion for turning me on to Brad Neeley’s comics.