Welcome to Skullfuck Mountain!

In a far-off land there is a small lake. On the lake's south end, there is a small village that has a cozy inn, a few shops, and a well-regarded brothel. On the north end is a giant fucking skull-shaped mountain reputed to have monsters and treasures in it. What would you like to do?

Last Saturday my home D&D group of friends met up in my back porch to play. It had been over a month since we played, and I was hemming and hawing about whether we should continue our Gamma World game, or the DCC-based Demonland game we played last time we met. So I did what any good ADD-afflicted DM would do - I started a brand new game!

I've been drawing some modular maps in the style of Stonehell Dungeon, or the One-Page Dungeon if you prefer. The only difference is that I did mine 20x20 instead of 30x30, just as a matter of personal preference. I'd also been daydreaming about a Castle Greyskull/Gamma World-based megadungeon for a while, and the kicker was when I stumbled upon this old thread about the UK version of Holmes Basic. I found the artwork to be very inspiring, and it prompted me to break out my Holmes book and give it another gander. So I cobbled all these ideas together, keyed a few of the maps I made, and grabbed a few unused or lightly-used things from my regular Outland campaign that's been going strong for a while now. I linked everything together so I had levels for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and some extra stuff in case something crazy happened. The end result was maybe 10 sheets of notes and maps, roll up some ultra-shitty Holmes PCs, and off to adventure!

Phony alternate universe cover I made with FF art by Fangorn

It turned out to be quite a fun adventure. The dwarf fighter rolled 1 hp, so right away the thief kept trying to gank him and lost two characters trying. That fighter ended up being one of two survivors, and was able to make 2nd level after carousing. He then proceeded to roll an 8 for his next hit die. Pretty sweet if you ask me. That is the stuff of legend. There was judicious use of the mule for cover, and the super-deadly 2d8 Holmes firebombs. I typed up the house rules we used on the Smith Corona XE 6000 my mom dug up and gave to me after the game, and that was a fun exercise in itself. I really dig the finality of it all when using a typewriter (my correction ribbon is expired). The typewriter itself probably post-dates Holmes by 8 years or so, but who cares. Old and crappy is old and crappy, right? Anyways, I think this things has legs, so we'll be playing this again next time.*

PDF of the typewritten house rules, for those that might be interested.

P.S. - I finally got an excuse to use the magnificent Dying Earth Spells for D&D, so that's a big plus as well!

P.P.S. - This is totally ConstantCon/FLAILSNAILS-able, and I think these guys could use some competition.

* Unless I get struck by another bout of ADD

Outland Map Update

Outland Campaign Map

I redrew my Outland map today. 5 miles to the hex as God and Gary intended. Just needs a bit of tweaking and some color. You know, from time to time, inaccuracies are discovered in maps, and it's the DM's prerogative to "correct" them. :) Actually, I've just been wanting to practice making some hand-drawn hex maps that look somewhat better than that which a preschooler might create. I think I'm starting to find my way.

It's pretty amazing to me how much adventure I've gotten out of this area that is so tiny compared to a lot of those super-gigantic campaign maps you see from time to time. I've been running adventures here for a year or two, and there is still plenty of stuff to explore and plunder.

Here are some of the highlights:

0107: White Plume Mountain. I ran this under DCC last year for Free RPG Day. Only the east branch was explored, so I integrated it into Outland with the east branch stripped of its loot. The game store group spent a session in there and made it out with a few nice things. One of the party's wizards is currently wielding the unholy artifact Ebontide, the trident of Dagon.

0309: Castle Blackmeyer. Some crazy dude named Stephen Blackmeyer used to own this lovely place in some long-forgotten age. This of course is a nod to Blackmoor, and was set to potentially be the central "tent pole" megadungeon of the setting, but it hasn't been visited in a long time, and is currently languishing in the form of three sparsely keyed levels.

0407: Blackmire Village. Once populated with Carcosa-style brown men, the village has since been completely overrun by beast-men.

0602: Dungheath (not shown). The secondary crapsack starting location. Brilliant name courtesy of +Evan Elkins.

0605: The Mud Hills. Some adventure was had here in the form of Geoffrey McKinney's Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer.

0702: Tower of the Stargazer (not shown). TPK happened here. It was awesome.

0708: Chaotic Caves. My reworking of B2's Caves of Chaos.

0805: Tegel Manor lies on the outer edge of the forest. Many fun excursions into this place. Still nowhere even remotely close to being cleared.

0807: The Outpost. Sort of like the keep from B2, only made of wood and way crappier and dirtier. This is where it all started. In the beginning, it was just this and the Chaotic Caves.

0906: That sinkhole you see there is for Raid on Black Goat Wood by Shane Mangus. A sweet little adventure that we had a great time with.

0907: Durza's Castle. This castle was won by a player via the Deck of Fickle Fortune. We rolled randomly to see what hex it would be in, and strangely enough it came up adjacent to the outpost. The last several sessions at the game store have been spent clearing out the three-level (~60 rooms) dungeon beneath, and now all the brown man refugees from Blackmire Village have come seeking the aid of Baron-Mage Durza, thanks to a failed carousing save.

1007: This area hasn't been explored yet, but there has been some gossip in the multiversal rumor mill that The Last Dragon of Dundagel has been spotted in the area.

1302: This is a new city that I just decided to add today. All I can say is that I have GURPS Goblins on it's way to me, so that might have some influence on what this city becomes.

1308: I figured Outland could use a terrible desert with a wicked space pyramid in it, so I tossed that in as well. This will probably be a high-level thing.

So anyways, the moral of the story is this: I started with just two hexes - one with the starting "village" (the outpost), and an adjacent one with a series of small dungeons. Once I had those things we started playing and things sort of took on a life of their own. I'm always adding stuff little by little, but between the deck of many things and Jeff's carousing tables, the campaign(s) have more or less written themselves. That, my friends, is an awesome thing.

Demonlord Hex Map

So I think Jamesnardia talked about this a long-ass time ago, but I was doing some searching looking for some cool hex maps that belong to other games. The Outdoor Survival map is sort of bland. The Divine Right map is really fantastic, but the hexes go the wrong way and they aren't numbered. I stumbled across this old rpg.net post, which pointed me to this page of old war games that you can download for free. There are a couple of nice hex maps in there. The Barbarian Prince one is very good, but I think the DEMONLORD one is my favorite, mainly because someone took the time to clean it up so nicely. It prints out beautifully on portrait-oriented 11x17 paper. I printed up two copies and will be keeping them in my back pocket for a bit. If I can manage to find a way to shoehorn already-explored Outland locations into a suitable spot, I may even decide to use it as my new campaign map. Only a few hexes have been traversed in Outland, so it is likely within the realm of possibility. I also sent a copy to a buddy who is decent with photoshop to see if he would be able to remove the place names to allow for further customization. Anyways, I thought it was neat and worth sharing.

Races of Outland (updated)

I've been silently working on a project that is an OD&D supplement that includes all my Outland stuff in it. I normally don't like to talk about things I'm working on until they're done, because of the very real (and likely) possibility that I'll never finish. My hard drive is littered with half-baked ideas and unfinished projects. Further, Outland steals from is inspired by so many other sources, I often have doubts about whether sharing such a document would be a good idea to begin with.

Anyways, I figured it would be a nice thing to use in my game and sort of a cool souvenir for my game store players. I really enjoy reading other people's homemade game supplements, and I can appreciate the time and effort that is required to document one's lifted material ideas in a way that can be used by others.

Anyways, to make a long story boring, I at least have the Races part done, so I figured I'd at least share that much, in case I never get any further. It can be found on the "Outland OD&D Game" menu item above, or just get it HERE.

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Outland Session 5 (Unique Gifts & Games)

This past Monday, four intrepid adventurers decided to pay another visit to Nagle Manor. I got all of their real names written down, but of course I forgot to get their PC names. I'm a terrible record keeper. Anyways, there were 2 magic-users, a cleric, and a thief. I know that much. Each had a henchman in tow as well.

On the way to the manor, they were assaulted by a large poisonous spider which surprised them in the tall grasses. One of them was horribly bitten and died right there in the field - that is until the cleric remembered about his vial which still contained two drops of angel tears. Using a drop of the stuff, he was able to bring his companion back to life. The party took a detour, and were able to follow the spider's tracks back to it's lair where they found a half-dozen human-sized cocoon-thingies. They cut them open and found some odds and ends, you know, like dead bodies, in addition to a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Since there was no fighter, they now have one very strong thief.

Once they reached the manor, they decided to go in a less conspicuous entrance. Although they knew that the main floor had been more or less fully explored, they decided to go over it again anyways, in case some good treasure was missed. They made away with some valuable silverware and dishes, and one of them managed to get badly bitten by a man-faced rat (a.k.a. brown jenkins) that was hiding in one of the cabinets for reasons undetermined.

They figured out a way to rescue a previously lost 0-level nobody from the cursed mirror, but spent their final angel tear to make that happen. A bit more wandering around, narrowly avoiding death by animated flying butcher knives, and they concluded by managing to swipe a deck of cards off of a table before being chased off by some ghouls whose bowling match they so rudely interrupted.

So now there have been four separate excursions to the haunted Nagle Manor, and still no one has gone beyond the ground floor.

Not a very profitable adventure, but I think it was pretty damn fun.

Outland Appendix N

Just for fun, I figured I'd list some of the inspirational material I have used or plan to use for the Adventures in Outland campaign.

Stefan Poag does Fomalhaut

Let's see...

Gaming Materials

• OD&D+Chainmail, of course
• Jason Vey's Age of Conan and "Doc's" Warriors of Mars
• Mutant Future
• Realms of Crawling Chaos
• Carcosa
• Isle of the Unknown
• Arduin Grimoires I-III
• Metamorphosis Alpha
• B2 - Keep on the Borderlands
• S3 - Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
• Tegel Manor
• Blackmoor / The First Fantasy Campaign
• Judge's Guild Dungeoneer Compendium 1-6
• The first 15 or so issues of White Dwarf
• Vornheim
• All the Fight On magazines
• All the NOD magazines
• ASE1 - Anomalous Subsurface Environment
• Encounter Critical
• Booty and the Beasts (this is in dire need of a re-release!)
• Empire of the Petal Throne
• Pathfinder RPG Bestiaries 1, 2, & 3
• City of Strangers (Pathfinder Supplement)
• AD&D Fiend Folio
• The original Yaqqothl Grimoire map (sadly, he took it down, but luckily I saved a copy!)

Books / Fiction

• The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
• At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
• Miscellaneous Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
• Miscellaneous Clark Ashton Smith (particularly the ones set on distant planets)
• Miscellaneous Robert E. Howard
• Michael Moorcock's Elric Stories
• Andre Norton's Witch World series

TV & Movies

• Alien
• Adventure Time
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
• Ghost Dog
• Wizards (Ralph Bakshi)
• He-Man
• Zardoz
• Conan the Adventurer cartoon
• That Spanish Dagon movie
• Dr. Who
• The Twilight Zone
• Indiana Jones
• Star Trek
• Star Wars
• Ninja Scroll
• Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon
• The Pirates of Dark Water
• Thundarr the Barbarian
• Thundercats
• The Lost City (1935)
• 2001
• 2010
• Apocalypto
• Pan's Labyrinth
• Planet of the Vampires (1965)
• Soloman Kane
• Sodium Babies
• Spaceballs
• Stargate
• Fire in the Sky
• Pretty much every David Lynch film
  

That's all I can think of at the moment...

Current Adventuring Opportunities in Outland

Rather than have to explain all this and take up valuable gaming time, I figured I'd just make a post here outlining the basic details any adventurers coming to Outland would know, or be able to learn in a brief time hanging out at the Inn Between Worlds.

1 hex = 1 mile

0. The Last Outpost of the Undying Empire - A great place to party and do a bit of shopping. Most visiting adventurers go to The Inn Between Worlds to organize their expeditions, but those strapped for cash might frequent the more rough-and-tumble Bell & Weasel outside the walls. Turjin the Sage offers sagely services, such as identification of magic items and the occasional alchemical concoction. Finally, an enterprising gnome tinkerer has opened up a shop called Dirty Dwayne's Dungeoneer Gear. It should be noted that pretty much everything he sells is an experimental prototype, but he will pay small sums for field testing reports and testimonials.

1. Nagle Manor - The greater part of the first floor of this haunted house has been explored, and stairs leading both up and down have been discovered. However, no one has yet dared to venture upstairs or downstairs. There is a rudimentary map of the ground floor that can be found here (scroll all the way to the bottom of the post).

2. Satyr Sinkhole - A farmer's daughter was rescued from a horrible blasphemous orgy here. All the satyrs are believed to be dead, but people stay away from the area for the most part, so it's hard to say for sure.

The Weird Caves

3. Weird Caves - Three of the caves here have been explored, in whole or in part.

• Cave A housed a tribe of cyclops monkeys that have been eradicated.
• Two separate groups have gone into Cave B. An entrance to a greater dungeon was found in there (reportedly more or less due west of the cave entrance, although no map has been shared), as well as the tomb of some otherworldly undead guy.
• Cave C was ventured into, after rumors of ruthless amazons being spotted entering and exiting the cave were circulating, but that particular group has not been seen again, and their whereabouts are unknown.
• People have reportedly seen strange-looking orange-skinned men wearing primitive clothing and metal collars shuffling in and out of Cave D.
• No one knows what's up there in Cave E. 

4. The Blackmire Swamp/Village/Castle - Although many trade caravans have attempted the journey, only a single man has returned to tell of the village that overlooks the ancient ruined castle that can only be seen on a clear day. He reports that the people are weird and very superstitious regarding the castle. If you mention it, they will stop talking to you. Apparently some creature lairing in the mountains is what makes the voyage so difficult. It is described as a great winged beast with the tail of a scorpion.

5. Choose Your Own Adventure - As you can see, very little of the area has been explored. A daring group of adventurers might choose to simply head off into the wilderness to see what they might find...

Outland Session 3

Last night at Unique Gifts & Games, we had 5 players. Two made it back from the first session, and three were new. Thus, we had the following PCs:

• a 1st-level thief
• a 1st-level magic-user
• 14 zero-level scrubs

The group decided to venture into the caves - the alien caves to be specific. Here are some of the highlights:

• One of the zero-level guys rolled an 18 for intelligence. Sadly, he failed his save against radiation later on, causing his eyeballs to explode for 1 die of damage. He did not survive.
• A swarm of beetles that had the appearance of gold nuggets near the entrance was expertly avoided.
• A trollish-looking child was met and befriended. He was sad because the other kids wouldn't let him play "dodge-rocks" with them. He led the group to a tomb he and his buddies found, but weren't strong enough to open.
• On the way to the tomb, a large crystal egg (very valuable) was found in a hidden hole with a magical darkness spell cast upon it. Thank the gods it wasn't a gnomish hand-getter trap!
• The group went to the tomb, opened the sarcophagus, and awakened a pissed off undead Darth Varaxis. There were a few casualties, between this guy's lightsaber and the radiation unleashed in the room when his sarcophagus was opened, but the group made it out with some new toys - Darth Varaxis' Cloak (+1 AC and Stealth); Darth Varaxis' Helmet (infravision, breathe in any environment, telekinesis); Darth Varaxis' Suit (basically leather armor a mage can wear); Darth Varaxis' Lightsaber (Whoever wants to use it will have to roll on the item complexity chart, possibly killing themselves in the process. Everyone was too scared to try it.)
• The little green guy tried to steal the lightsaber and run, but was overpowered by a cluster of 0-level nobodies. Amazingly, the group didn't even kill him for his transgressions! Perhaps he's PALS4LIFE material...
• Only one PC, the magic-user, caroused. He gained enough XP to reach level 2, but he failed his save and ended up making a drunken foxhole prayer that led to a quest spell from Ishtar.

Good thing they didn't come across this guy...

All in all, I'd say it was a very profitable expedition.

An Experiment in Hexploration

In reading about the sharing of maps and information in the original West Marches campaign, I've decided to try and implement a similar thing in my own Outland campaign. At the Inn Between Worlds, there is a large crappy table known as "the adventurer's table", where adventurer's carve their maps directly into the table. There is the overland map, and also any location maps of adventuring sites that have been explored.

I've gotten the thing started, and will bring it to the gaming sessions for the players to add to. It will probably be some time before enough exploration is done to expand the map, but we shall see how it goes.

Outland overland map - player version

Also, not sure how to handle this with online players. Keep a current photo posted? How will they update it? Keep another version in Hexographer? Not sure yet...

Outland Session 2

On December 23, I was visited by out-of-towner friends Steve from Atlanta and Mason from Milwaukee. We decided to do some gaming, and after being presented with the available rumors of locations to be explored, they went with the haunted house - now dubbed Nagle Manor.

Two players, with 5 PCs each entered the manor, and made use of the map shared by the previous explorers. They explored the majority of the ground level, and found stairs going both down and up, but chose to limit their shenannigans to the first floor.

Here are some highlights from the adventure, in no particular order:

• Animated curtains began to strangle two adventurers, but the curtains were foiled by a well-thrown bear trap and later burned.
• A well-stocked library attended by a powerful yet crazy magician. One of the PCs attacked him, and she was turned to stone for her efforts. The others perused the books and were each allowed to check out a book, being told that they must be returned in 4 weeks. Books checked out were a treatise on all matter of slimes and oozes, a book on fishing, and two tomes dedicated to the accurate valuation of works of art and fine furniture, respectively. Successful study of these books may aid the adventurers in the future...
• A black pudding was encountered, and sent through the floor to the lower level of the manor.
• A ballroom full of dancing ghosts was discovered. The ghosts seemed to pay no mind to the adventurers, but some clumsy navigation of the room led to one of the PCs brushing up against a dancing ghost. The cold chill of death caused the PC to die where he stood.
• A room full of bowling ghouls was discovered. The PCs fled immediately!
• There was a locked door in the northeast quadrant of the manor that the adventurers were unable to gain access to.
• An armory was discovered, but a suit of plate animated and sent an adventurer or two to their graves.
• Some sort of magical painting depicting a great battle was discovered. At some point, a barrage of arrows flew forth from the painting, killing yet another PC.
• Treasure taken from the manor includes a magic sword, a ring of telekinesis, a dragon control potion, a bottle of elvish whimsey wine, and miscellaneous items to the tune of a ~3,000 gp value. An encrypted treasure map was reported to be found as well.

Here are the adventurers that met their demise at the hands of Nagle Manor, illustrated by Mason:

Big Lurch - death by cursed scroll

Dweebal Zappo - bumped into a dancing ghost

Moonbeam Zappo - pissed off the librarian and was turned to stone

Moonshine Bloodgood - killed by arrows fired from a magical painting

Stephan Suxley - killed by animated suit of armor

Ulthon Steelhide - also killed by animated suit of armor

The following adventurers made it home, did some partying, and two of them advanced to level 1 somebodies:

Jim Titanium - advanced to 1st-level Fighting-Man

Jim Titanium action shot

Scarecrow Hooker - advanced to 1st-level Thief

Gordo Murvin - promoted to henchman of Jim Titanium. Hey, it's better than being dead!

Gordo enjoying his one true love - fishing!

Barkbeard Woodsack - Scarecrow Hooker's new meatshield

Updated map of the manor (scale and accuracy are questionable)

I was told that zero-level adventures are super awesome fun. The end.

An Idea for Knowledge Skills

As the players in my last session were searching through the books in Nagle Manor's library, it occured to me that maybe it would be a good idea to have some basic rules for knowledge acquired and that sort of thing. Here are my initial thoughts:

• A book can be studied in week-long increments. At the end of the week, the PC makes a read languages check (percentage chance equal to Greyhawk's "% chance to know spell"). If the check is successful, the PC gains a knowledge point in the particular subject, or some other benefit. If the check fails, no gain is made.
• Only one subject may be studied per character per game week. Also, only one week of study may be performed per each session played, so players that play more often will be able to make use of this more.
• Knowledge points are used in an identical manner to LotFP's skill points. Each PC has a base 1 in 6 chance of knowing something useful (to be determined by the referee). Each additional point earned through research represents an additional 1 in 6 chance of success.
• Subjects should be relatively specific, i.e. a specific monster or monster type, a specific type of potion (if trying to learn how to make one). "Magic" would not be a suitable subject, as it is too broad. Knowledge skills should never lend combat bonuses (like +1's, etc.), but they may give knowledge of certain monsters' strengths and weaknesses.
• I'm thinking 4 in 6 should be the maximum level of any knowledge skill, at least until the PCs are rather high level.
• The referee can of course modify any of these rules based on the circumstances at hand. For example, some very obscure arcane study that has a big payoff could require 4 weeks of successful research and significant monetary investment in order to gain but a single point of knowledge in that area. These are just meant as loose guidelines as a means for rewarding players that take the time to develop their characters in this way.

Here are some example subjects that PCs have already acquired books for that I would allow them to develop knowledge skills in:

• appraising art and fancy furnishings
• fishing
• ecology of oozes/slimes/jellies (would give a chance to know strengths and vulnerabilities)
• beginning magic for the mentally challenged (successful study and a minor monetary investment could perhaps lead to the learning of a random 1st-level spell or perhaps a cantrip).
• first aid (ability to make minor poultices, etc.)

Here is the read languages table I use, borrowed from Greyhawk:

Thoughts and criticisms are always welcome!

Outland Session 1

24 0-level noobs arrived in the land of the two suns this past evening to try their luck at one of the many fine adventuring locations Outland has to offer. At the Inn Between Worlds, they were able to survey a crude map carved into the table by some other crazy adventuring types that had come before them, and learn a bit about the immediate surrounding area.

After acquiring a small loan at a 100% per two days interest rate from Calbraith the Legitimate, they equipped themselves modestly with some spears and a few suits of leather and headed north, to investigate the spooky manor house that was reportedly burned down by a previous adventuring party. A recent trade caravan had returned from that direction a few days prior and claimed it was still standing, so they decided to check it out.

Upon arrival, there was no evidence whatsoever of a fire. A rock was thrown at the door from a good 60 yards, and a devilish figure in a tuxedo, reminiscent of Satan himself, opened the door and bade the group to enter, and offered to take their coats. After doing so, he faded from view as if some sort of apparition.

The group of course jumped on the opportunity to raid the coatroom, and were rewarded for their efforts with a bit of gold and some fine outerwear.

The rest is hard to make out from their drunken ramblings, but there were bits of information concerning a bathtub filled with blood that contained a cursed sword and someone's wedding ring, a magic mirror that sucked in Bleat, the poor dwarven goatherder, and releasing some other grateful young woman who quickly fled the scene. There was also some banter about a painting they boosted, picturing a group of werewolves playing poker, and a dozen skeletons seated for a grand feast, one of which was relieved of his gem-studded iron crown by a nimble-fingered hobbit.

Three of the PCs caroused, all failed their saves, and each of the three were involved in some sort of mixup about where it was acceptable to take a leak in the middle of the night. Luckily, each of them were able to talk their way out of any fines that might have been imposed.

The expedition could be called a great success, with only one PC lost, and they earned enough money to pay back the loan shark and free the one poor fellow of his newly acquired cursed sword. The party was feeling so generous that they carved their makeshift map of the parts of the manor they explored into the adventurer's table at the inn.

Outland OD&D Character Sheet

Here is the "official" Outland OD&D character sheet (at least until I decide to change it).
Click HERE for the PDF.

Come Have Some Adventures in Outland

So I finally got up off my butt and I have most of the pieces in place. The official start of this campaign will be Monday night, December 19th, 6:00pm to 9:00pm CST.

System: OD&D+Chainmail (hacked and bastardized, of course)
Setting: Outland - Newly discovered region of your stereotypical D&D planet. You can play as orcs and goblins and go fight things that aren't orcs or goblins.

There are two components to this new "campaign".

The Game Store Game
Beginning December 19th, and every other Monday thereafter, the game will be run at Unique Gifts & Games in Grayslake, IL from 6:00pm to 9:00pm CST. I am willing to handle up to 10 players. Sign-ups are encouraged, but not required, as long as there are less than 10 players.

Upcoming Dates for the Game Store Games
12/19/2011
01/02/2012
01/16/2012
01/30/2012

The Google+/ConstantCon/FLAILSNAILS Game
Beginning December 26th, and every other Monday thereafter, the game will be run online via Google+ hangouts from 10:00pm to 12:00am CST (Tuesday 4:00am to 6:00am GMT). To get added to the list of players that will be randomly selected each week, just shoot me an email at aplus/86erz/org with your FLAILSNAILS PC's class, level, and system he/she was created under. I will do the player selections on Tuesdays. Currently, PCs from any D&Dish systems will be accepted, but I will attempt to have the PCs near each other in level. If we happen get a group that is interested in it, we can do zero-level play, which is a ton of fun in it's own right.

Upcoming Dates for the Google+ Games
12/26/2011
01/09/2012
01/23/2012
02/06/2012

I've made a sad attempt at documenting my house rules and that sort of thing, or at least all the info you'd need to create a new zero-level PCs and advance them to actual 1st-level PCs with classes. It's basically LBBs with a touch of Greyhawk, ascending AC, Chainmail combat (I will switch combat systems from fight to fight depending on my mood because I'm like that), and a few other oddities thrown in for good measure. You can click on the "Outland OD&D Game" link at the top of the page if you are interested in that sort of thing, but it certainly isn't necessary. I'll address anything important as needed before or during play.

Hope to see you there, and please let me know if I've forgotten anything...

Caught the ConstantCon Bug...

Warning: This is a stream-of-consciousness post, and may be incoherent or hard to follow at times. I got up 4 hours earlier than normal, so bear with me...

Having played in Jeff's game the past two weeks, and playing in Evan's game tomorrow, I've pretty much decided it's time for me to run a ConstantCon game myself.

On a side note, Jeff is awesome because he always positions himself in front of the camera with his eyes peeking over the bottom edge like Kilroy, just as if he were looking over a DM screen.

So then the only question becomes what to run?

My latest fetish has been with OD&D+Chainmail. I can't explain it, but I've just been finding rolling the handfuls of d6s very rewarding and more fun the the old single d20 roll.

I think I could make this work, although it might be weird to people at first if they've never done it before.

The setting I really want to run is a big, weird city with lots of dungeons underneath it. Let's say six dungeons of six levels each to start with. Of course if you are in one part of the city, and the dungeon you want to go into is on the opposite end, it will probably take a good bit of work just getting across the city. This will probably leave out wilderness adventures for the most part, but between the potential city and dungeon adventures, there should be plenty to keep people occupied.

This will have the added benefit of allowing me to play with my friend that moved to Atlanta last year.

Here are some more random thoughts about this game, which is still a zygote at this point:

• The city is tentatively called Licentia, the City of Six Sides (it is hexagonal in shape). It is loosely based on a published product that probably no one reading this would be familiar with. Even if they were, it wouldn't really matter because there isn't a great deal my version shares with the original beyond shape and general feel.
• The city is divided into six "districts". Here are the ones I whipped up, subject to change and/or better names - Dreams, Devils, Portals, Golems, (need a few more as well). ConstantCon needs a Multiversal Bazaar, so might as well have it here.
• Shit, we got a Portals district, so we can do anything, really! Carcosa and Cykranosh are definitely fair game. Maybe a portal to the Land of the Lost and New Jersey as well.
• I like funky classes. The Land of Nod magazine always has some cool classes in there, so consider those fair game in my game.
• If you have a FLAILSNAILS character you really like, you should think about it long and hard before you come here. I give out lots of treasure, but I also have no problem killing/maiming/mutating characters.
• I'll could potentially fuck up other DMs' games depending on their disposition. Check with your DM before you come back from my city with a lightsaber or pet otyugh. They might not dig that.

If this is something you might be interested in, I'd love to hear what you think. Am I getting in over my head?

P.S. - So far it looks like Monday nights 10:00PM - 12:00AM CST. Probably every other week.

cliffside view

what lies below

Zero-Level Chainmail-Style Fun

Saturday night we were supposed to have our Pathfinder game which is being run by my brother-in-law, but we were short 2 of the 4 players, so he didn't really want to run it. As luck would have it, I had just gotten my back issues of Fight On #6 and #7 the previous night, and I had read Jeff Rients' excellent article, "Holy Crap! I Need a Dungeon RIGHT NOW!" (in issue #6). It was a very good article that gave some great and easy-to-remember guidelines for creating a decent dungeon in no time flat.

I purposely didn't bring hardly any of my stuff with me, even though I usually do as a "just in case" measure. So all I had was one sheet of graph paper, my copy of Vornheim, a notebook with a few tables I had done up previously, and Labyrinth Lord and my Zero-Level rules on my tablet.

So, I took the opportunity to whip up a quick haunted house with 3 levels, had each of the two players "roll up" 6 0-level noobs, and we had us a nice little adventure!

This was the closest thing to total improvisation I have ever done, and it went really well. I did take about 45 minutes to put everything together, but they only made it through about a third of the content in the several hours we played, so it's safe to say I overprepped. Both commented on how much fun they had, and I think the whole thing did a good job of showing how you can have lots of fun with very few rules or character details.

For combat, they just rolled a d6 for each PC they had, and they would hit on a 6 with a makeshift weapon, or hit on a 5+ with an actual weapon like a sword. They had one room where they "activated" 4 zombies and 5 skeletons, and we were able to manage the combat very quickly and easily this way. Plus, there's just something gratifying about rolling handfuls of dice. I've been spending a lot of time lately reading about how to use Chainmail rules for OD&D combats, and this session showed me that it is something I really ought to pursue.

Once I got into the flow of things, I found it really easy to add little details on the fly that brought the thing to life. Here are some of the highlights:

• Otherwise empty room with a fortune-telling machine ala Zoltar, from the movie Big with Tom Hanks.
• Random encounter with three wolves was turned into three pet wolves with the clever use of a pound of bacon and a good reaction check. Minutes later, when they were sent into combat against ghouls, 2 of the 3 failed their morale checks and fled. Easy come, easy go!
• Illusory place settings on a dining table in an early room had the players examining EVERYTHING they encountered thereafter through a mirror.
• The players located an invisible coffin hanging from the ceiling in a room. The coffin contained a beheaded vampire with a stake in his chest that wasn't bothering anyone. They decided it would be a good idea to douse him in oil and set him on fire (after stealing his cape) inside the house, apparently forgetting that the manor was constructed of wood. It was getting late anyways, and they had gotten a fair amount of treasure despite never making it to the second floor. After getting back to town, they heard tale of a group of villagers that attempted to burn down the place 40 years prior, and found the place standing the next day as if nothing had happened. So, they can probably go back if they want to.

For your pleasure, here are my crappy maps and keys from the session:

top is the ground level, then the 2nd floor, then the "basement"

Another Take on Zero-Level Play

Here's my latest take on zero-level play.

Zero-Level Play

Each player starts with 4-6 guys, and you just roll on 2 tables for each guy and start playing. The rest gets fleshed out as you go along.

One thing thats nice about this is you don't get a situation where a player likes the high stats of one of his zero-level guys, so he decides to hide that guy in the back in order to survive to 1st level. In order to advance, you MUST PLAY THE GUY, and try stuff out that brings all of the abilities into play.

For combat, I figure I'd just use a d6 for each guy. A 6 is a hit for those guys with makeshift weapons like rolling pins and such. A 5 or a 6 is a hit for the guys that acquire actual weapons. Then it's simple for a player to just roll a handful of d6s for all his dudes.

I'll give an update if I ever get around to trying this out at the table, but I like it on paper.

Tinkering with Classes

The other day, Jeff Rients made a post about this old Dragon magazine article that allows you to build custom classes based on the component pieces.

I have been reading that article and goofing around with the basic principles since I read it. I've done some slight reworking of it to fit my game better, probably taking away more than adding, and I think it has just what I need to break out race and class as two separate things for my B/X-ish Outland game.

I took the 400 base XP and split it among the four things everyone must pick - hit dice, fighting capability, weapon damage, and saving throws. For everything else, I just performed the math on the values so that all you have to do is pick what you want and add all the numbers up.

Here is a draft of my version, which includes a very drafty version of some alternatives to the cleric's turn undead. These alternatives (Channel Energy and Cure) are stolen from 3E and DCC, respectively.

Here are some rough samples I created using these as well.

Once I'm comfortable with the basics, it should be easy to add new things that players come up with.

The best part, is this will allow me to split out race and class. Then I can have races with very simple bonuses, and if there's a race with something a little bit too special, we can just tack an XP value onto it. I like that the Labyrinth Lord AEC attempted to do this, but I think their approach is overly complex. Here is just a snippet from that version:

Dwarves receive the following saving throw bonuses:
• +2 save versus breath attacks
• +4 save versus poison
• +4 save versus petrify or paralyze
• +3 save versus wands
• +4 save versus spells or spell-like devices

I just don't like that.

I'd do something more like this:
Humans - +1 to any ability score.
Dwarves - Infravision, +2 to saves against magic (no more special dwarf saving throw table, they just use the class one), and they know stuff about stone.
Elves - Immune to ghoul paralysis. Sometimes when they pass a secret door, it becomes limned in a weird green light. No one knows why.
Hobbits - +1 to all saves. 1 bonus luck point. Can throw or fire a stone as far as a short bow.
Tieflings - Darkness or Cause Light Wounds 1/day.
Orcs - Intimidate: make a medium strength check (2 of 3 d20s equal to or under STR score). Success causes the enemy to make an immediate morale check at -1. Usable 2/day.
Goblins - Infravision. Pick pockets.

Something like that. Then level limits could be removed as well. Just thinking out loud. Anyways, if you see any holes in my basic approach here, please let me know.

B2: Outpost on Outland

Zak with porn stars made a pretty good post about B2 as a one-page dungeon. Since a lot of the work I've been doing with Outland is very similar (although still not as lightweight as his stuff), I figured I'd take the opportunity to say, "Look at me! I'm smart too!"

Outland has barely anything to it right now. This is by design. For me, Outland is somewhere I can dump any idea I have and have it fit in okay. It's kind of meant as a remedy for my gamer ADD. If I get bored, I can just drop in a few hexes of whatever it is that is catching my fancy at the moment, whether it be space aliens, colorful dinosaur-riding men, wicked fey munchkins, the traditional huge ruined pile, a haunted house, castle amber, you name it. In case you are curious, the entire concept of Outland was sparked from this fine piece of work. I hope that guy starts posting again. I really enjoyed his stuff.

The basic framework I've started with and am building upon is of course B2: Keep on the Borderlands. The only thing is it's terribly organized and too wordy, so I'm basically rewriting it for my actual use at the table. I've changed the details, but the basic underlying framework is identical. Outpost of some far-reaching empire... check. Caves with a bunch of monsters... check. One of the things I've learned about myself is that writing stuff down makes it stick in my brain. Even if I'm running a module, I need to write down the important stuff myself, or I'll just forget it all. So I just figured since I'm doing that anyways, I'll just change everything.

The Last Outpost of the Undying Empire (a.k.a. The Keep)

So the keep is roughly the same, but it's crappier. It's surrounded by wooden palisades. Anyone riding a horse there gets their horse confiscated and slaughtered, since the beastmen can smell horses from miles away, and will mount a raid if they know horses are around. The place is watched over by Lord Something-or-other (it hasn't come up yet). There's guards, a sage, some shops, crappy tenements for the poorer folks, and nice apartments for rich visitors. Also a handful of undefined buildings in case I need them for something. The map stays in pencil in case there are changes I feel like making.

A lot of farmers are coming up here to farm the "blue tubers" that grow so well here. They are exported back to civilization for top dollar. No one knows why they're so popular amongst the nobles back home yet.

The Bell & Weasel, a dive bar outside the walls, has been the most popular place to party thanks to the tavern tables from Vornheim. An elf made it to level 2, only to get greedy and try to make some money by pit-fighting in the basement of that place. I just rolled a random encounter, and it was appropriately a pit viper, which he fought against and promptly proceeded to die. He made the first few saves, and came close to beating it, but fell just short.

The Outpost Hinterlands Wilderness Map

Here is the hex map, and you can see a lot of eraser marks on it already. The vast majority of it is still subject to change, as the only hexes that have been adventured in (not counting traveling) are 1014 (the keep), 0816 (the caves), and 1111 (Raid on Black Goat Wood). I love swamps, so I have to have a swampy spot in there, and I'm thinking of a Pembrooktonshire-style village up there by the lake, provided it doesn't get erased, but the thing is pretty wide open at this point, so the sky is the limit. I really like B4, so I may drop that in somewhere if I get around to giving it another read-through and jotting some notes. I'm also pretty certain that one of those forested hexes leads to X2: Castle Amber, a module I was very excited to run a few months back, but it didn't work out.

The Caves of Insert-Word-More-Evocative-Than-"Chaos"

Here's my version of the caves. First session yielded an air shark attack, which was pretty awesome. Can't wait for the Old Lady encounter to come up either. I have absolutely no idea what it is at the moment, so I'll be forced to think of something on the spot, which can be stressful, but it tends to yield fun results.

So far only the cyclops monkey nest has been fully cleared. It would make a decent base for anyone wishing to make some serious excursions into the caves, or the strange dungeon, the entrance to which was discovered in the back of the alien caves. I wish I could post the alien caves map, because I'm pretty fond of it, but it hasn't been fully explored yet.

Cave A: Cyclops Monkey Nest

I can post this one, since it's been fully cleared and the cave is now vacant (but for how long, no one can say). Anyone that's been paying attention to this blog for a while might notice a striking resemblance to a previous endeavor of mine. But, the players from my home group already did that version, so I had to switch it up a bit.   I wish I could nicely type up all my stuff with detailed notes and such for others to use, but honestly, it's boring as shit and takes 100x longer to do it that way versus just coming up with the idea and jotting down the rough notes like you see above.

At any rate, I got the opportunity to give (shameless name drop incoming!) Bruce Heard's cleric a cyclops eye mutation in these caves, and that was one of those awesome moments in gaming. He just gave me this weird, blank look, like, "What the fuck are you doing to D&D!?!?" No idea what was really on his mind, so we'll just have to see if he comes back to play a second session.

Now, I still have a few things left for me to refine in my games:

1. I always bring way too much crap. I need to DRASTICALLY cut down the amount of materials I use in my games. My goal is a single Miscellaneum of Cinder-style booklet that has all the charts I use in one place, so I can stop flipping through literally a dozen books. And I would love to find a single monster book to rule them all, rather than the five or six I usually depend on. No, not Tome of Horrors, that's way too fucking big. I just got my copy of AC9: Creature Catalog in the mail today, and I'm hoping that will do the trick, at least for a while.
2. I think I need to do more work up front regarding treasure. I fancy myself a monty haul guy (learned that from Jim Ward), but I've just been putting rolls on two-or-three-levels-higher-than-party-level treasure tables from Kellri's Encounters Netbook in my adventures, and they haven't yielded the magic item wealth I was hoping for. At a minimum, I think I need to just put rolls on magic item tables specifically in rooms, rather than waiting for them to come up on the treasure tables.
3. I need a better way to organize my NPC notes. They always end up scattered all over the place. Hasn't been an issue so far, but as more and more play happens, I'll begin to lose track of things.
4. Probably a bunch of other stuff, but those first 3 have been the biggest annoyances so far.

So there you have it. This is my creative-outlet-for-an-uncreative-guy thing I've been doing, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. If you made it this far, congratulations! I never read anyone's blog posts about their personal campaigns if they are this long, so I try not to write this kind of stuff myself, but I just felt compelled to do this one. If you read the whole thing I hope you got something out of it.

Outland House Rules Booklet (Draft)

I finally got my Outland house rules booklet about 99% done. I just need to put in the credits to all the people I got art and ideas from, and figure out how to get that damn Quentin Caps font embedded on the first page. If it's something you think you might be interested in, feel free to take a peek and let me know what you think.

click for link to download

This was inspired by the work of Jason Vey, Jimm Johnson, and includes many of my favorite house rules by OSR dudes around the globe. It represents the vision of my personal "perfect D&D" (although that's certainly a moving target, and there's always room for more!)

Enjoy!

P.S. - I will update it as soon as I get the final kinks out as well.