New Product: Five Lairs

NOTE: There is a minor technical glitch at RPGNow. Five Lairs is for sale, but you can't search the title right now. Please use the link below for now.

  Five Lairs is for sale! You can buy it here.

  It is also $1.00 off until Monday.

Our new OSR Supplement 'Five Rings' is now available!

Find it here.

An update and, well, a Bleg

  OK,so about a month ago I was suddenly laid off, no warning, along with the entire division I was in. This came hot on the heels of two major car repairs and medical bills so we were already virtually broke.
  Yay!
  The company used various methods to avoid their separation policies resulting in me NOT getting a severance package as promised in my contract.
  Hooray!
  I have a new job, thank heavens, but it is straight commission - long term? I think it will be great.
  Short term?
  I don't get paid for weeks.

  I am settled in enough that I will start putting out new content soon both here (hopefully later today) and on RPGNow, etc. So I am hoping that people will look at my highly-reviewed OSRIC-compatible products and buy some! My publisher's page is here;

  RPGNow

  and here;

  DriveThruRPG

  I hope to have fresh, new product up this week, too!

  I am also considering selling my very extensive library of D&D 3.5 books if there is interest. If you want/need a 3.5 book ask - I probably have it.

  Sorry for the quiet, but it is about to end!






PS: Yes, I have a donate now button on my sidebar.

New Product - Five Henchmen

I added a new PWYW supplement today, it is called Five Henchmen

  And, yes, it is about 5 NPCs.

Relax

  Note: For me gaming is a pastime, a hobby, a way to have fun. Sure, I write supplements and sell them, but that is more about sharing and funding my book-buying habit, not as a career. For those of you who don't know my training is in ethics and morals and I spend a fair amount of my time teaching those topics. My day job is about keeping people safe.
  Today I am talking about a topic that a lot of people get emotional about. While I encourage comments, I have a comments policy. I put up with zero personal attacks, harsh language, or idiocy. I have no problem blocking anyone and I will report people who violate terms of service, etc.
  And for anyone who wants to make assumptions about me based on what I am about to write: I've faced personal, direct discrimination and lost jobs because of my racial background and because of my religion. Keep that in mind.
  Thank you for your time.

  There is a conversation about tabletop fantasy games that always leaves me nonplussed. I read another variation of it just a few days ago. While varied it always goes something like this,
  "The idea that a race, like goblins, is inherently evil is problematic."
  And the ultimate variation,
  "Well, the idea that drow are inherently evil is a real problem because they are black."

  I have always wondered what these people are going on about. Let me give you three reasons.

  One: Hobgoblins, etc., aren't a race as the term is used in the contemporary world. Beyond the fact that the very concept of race within humanity is terribly muddled and has a very shaky definition that originally covered everything from people who shared a common language to people who had the same occupation to all the people roughly the same age in the world.
  Throughout this all one fact remains - in Real Life the various races, no matter how shakily defined, are all human beings.
  Goblins aren't humans. Neither are orcs, dwarves, elves, xvarts, grimlocks, or gibberlings, They are all separate species of beings. They aren't humans. Being not-human is a defining characteristic of what they are. And this is not just explicitly part of tabletop FRPGs the reflection of humans having multiple races is also 'baked into' the OSR games. Oriental Adventures specifically addresses non-White human races and the World of Greyhawk gazetteer was rather detailed in all the various races of humans around Oerth and specifically pointed out that they are all human while demi-humans and humanoids aren't human.
  Gary himself even threw in a curveball with the 'savages' of Hepmonaland being descendants of a race of fair-haired, fair-skinned humans meaning that in Greyhawk the jungle savages are - the whitest humans around.
  You caught that, right?

  Two: Humanoids, etc., are not "stand ins" for human races. In addition to the fact that many of the oldest TFRPGs specifically mention various races of humans the Big Three humanoids, orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins, come specifically from folklore. Orcs (a cognate of ogre that means 'eater of people')), goblins ('troublesome spirit'), and hobgoblin ('mischievous goblin'), bugbears ('scary thing that eats children' or 'something unseen that causes terror'), etc., make it obvious that the folklore origins of these creatures are much less subtle than standing in for races (especially since they became folklore long before the surprisingly-modern ideas of race existed).
  No, evil humanoids simply represent evil.
  That's right. While the elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and humans represent good the orcs, ogres, goblins,etc. represent evil. Good guys and bad guys. That's why one small group of 'non-humanoid sentient beings that are humanoid is appearance' are called demi-humans and the rest are called humanoids - demi-humans are good guys allied with humans, humanoids are bad guys opposed to humans.
  Does this lack of subtlety bother you? Well, to paraphrase MST3K,
  "Repeat to yourself 'it's just a game, I should really just relax'."
  Never forget some very important facts:

•   This is about made up creatures, not real people.
•   They are based on traditional folklore or the imagination of players.
•   They exist only within the rules of a game.
•   How they are portrayed is entirely up to people who play games locally.

  We will cover this more in part three.

  Note what I am not saying. I am not saying that things in a game can't be offensive. I have met guys that can turn eating a bowl of breakfast cereal into a racially offensive display. I assume that these buffoons could do the same to a TFRPG regardless of the rule set.

  Three: It is a nonsensical argument to make in the first place.
  The last two times I ran into people ranting about this in person I asked them the following questions,
  "The Monster Manual says dwarves are lawful good. Why did Gary put an evil dwarf into the Hall of the Fire Giant King if dwarves are lawful good?"
  and,
  "The Monster Manual says humans are neutral. How can you play a monk, ranger, or paladin if humans have to be neutral?"
  The people both answered the exact same way,
  "Well, just because the books say...."
  And stopped talking.
  In both cases I asked this next,
  "Have you ever heard someone complain that High Elves are inherently good?"
  And neither of them had.

  This happened because the premise requires that in addition to ignoring that goblins aren't humans, and ignoring that its a game we all decide how to play, not Real Life, it requires that we ignore the repeated admonition that the rules books are just guidelines. I would hate to have to go through the 1e and 2e books to see how many times the concept of 'the DM can change stuff' is specifically mentioned, but I am sure it is pretty frequent.
  In case this has somehow slipped past you, the alignments in the Monster Manual, etc., are guidelines.
  Frankly, considering the number of times I have seen solars, lammasu, planetars, and other beings that are presented as the living embodiment of Good portrayed as evil because of a curse or insanity (or just because) I am not sure how anyone could have missed that.

  You want some non-evil humanoids? Feel free. Heck, a tribe of Lawful Neutral, edging up on Good, goblins are a critical part of my campaign world. Want to have some non-evil drow? Since there are canonical good gods for good drow to worship this doesn't require much work or creativity.

  Speaking of drow, I want to add a bit of a fourth point - a lot of the people I read and meet that obsess about 'inherently evil races' in AD&D seem to just insert their own - problems - as they try to 'fix' things. One of the things that prompted me to write this was a guy complaining bitterly about drow being inherently evil and dark-skinned. Since he found this such a problem he fixed it all up by keeping them totally evil...
 ...and making them albinos. Because that is not offensive at all - I mean, it isn't as if there are prejudices about albinos, right?

  I guess this entire post boils down to what I said earlier.

  "Its just a game. Relax."

Inspired by Other Bloggers - Back in the Day and Now

  Last night I saw an interesting article in my Google+ feed - this fun bit. Inspired, I will do the same and related my experiences.

  I started D&D in '77 on March 15th. Yes, I remember the specific day because there was a Shakespeare play going on at the time. The guy running it was a college freshman at Ball State and was using the white box rules for a game with his girlfriend, some high school kids - and me. I am forever grateful to the two girls who insisted I be able allowed to play even though I was 9.
  I remember setting as fairly important; the DM used French to indicate when we were speaking to traders from other lands and his girlfriend used German to represent the barbarians from the North. I was soon with a group of middle schoolers with a high school age DM and he also had a fairly detailed setting with the politics between the elves and the dwarves really setting the tone.
  By the end of the year I had Traveller, the Holmes basic set, and Chivalry & Sorcery. C&S has a huge impact on me because it was very focused on setting and on background. And Traveller added skills! I loved the snap and crunch of Traveller with all the math, the ship design, etc. And I liked the complexity of C&S. But I played D&D the most, with a bullet.
  In '78 I started working on a setting for my own D&D campaign, a port city called Seaward. Originally it was a crude map of a small city, a nearby set of smugglers' caves, and where the wizard's tower was. My players seemed to love the background and settings. The style of play for us was similar to this;

-Make characters (3d6 in order, roll 3 sets and pick the one you like)
-Make the new character part of the setting with backstory
-Have fun.

  Character death was fairly common.

  Around 1980 I noticed that the modules I had gotten had really changed the map - figuring out where to put them, how they fit into the world, etc. really spread out the map and added a lot of depth. My house rules were both well begun and under constant revision. I was actively trying to figure out how to get Traveller-style rules in my D&D setting when three things happened in quick succession; I moved, I received the World of Greyhawk folio as a gift; and I received Rolemaster as a gift.
  The impact of Rolemaster on how I thought about gaming was huge, bigger than C&S had been. The Greyhawk folio made me look at the Seaward setting from a 'top down' perspective; my new set of players were very, very strong on the rules without being rules lawyers.
  Before you know it I was running two campaigns; one in Greyhawk where it was official modules and Seaward where it was original stuff. This was also the time of my first 'reboot' of Seaward - much like Crisis on Infinite Earths I fixed continuity errors and cleaned up the maps and storylines. Another interesting development was how the players wanted to move characters between the two campaigns. We also all used what we called 'strict time'; sometimes characters were unavailable so we began having henchmen go as adventurers when their boss was out - the beginnings of what I call jazz band adventuring although not nearly as sophisticated as it became later.
  During this time;
-setting was still very important as a tool for adding depth to the game
-a lot of my players had henchmen as quasi-substitute characters
-When character death was a little less common character 'so messed up he is out for months' was more common than ever

  After joining the army I was all over the map in more ways than one. My looooong training schools allowed me to participate in a very, very fun game of Champions and play in a campaign where the GM had only ever played Rolemaster, knew every rule inside and out, and was running in a homebrew setting. Those two GMs taught me a great deal about being prepared, session prep, plotline development, and collaborating with the players. I was also playing a fair amount of D&D including a number of very memorable 'one shots' with someone who went on to win several prestigious awards as a movie producer.
  Then I was lucky enough to join Lew Pulsipher's D&D group. As I have mentioned before, Lew had already solidified what I call 'jazz band adventuring' and his setting, Tonilda, was a revelation in its simplicity. Most importantly, he is a full-blown game theorist and we often had long discussion about theory and did a fair amount of experimentation.
  Of course, 2e cam out shortly thereafter and I did my second reboot of Tonilda to incorporate a lot of the things I had learned.
  During this time;
-setting settled in as what I still consider it to be to this day - a framework for plot development that allows various stories, characters, etc. to interact so that there is a feeling of verisimilitude to the game and more depth for all involved
-I realized that the balance between complexity and simplicity should vary and that the difference in 'feel' between systems is often about this balance

  I wanted to insert a little note, here, about my experiences as a gamer.
  I feel like I am a bit unusual as a gamer - I have been to two RPG conventions ever and while I enjoyed them well enough I doubt that I will ever be to many more. I have never, ever had any experience with being bullied, etc., about gaming. I had motorcycle racers and football players in my games from day one and a small majority of all of my players were special forces, airborne, or rangers. With a few exceptions I have always had girls or women in my gaming groups. I sometimes feel that this is anomalous since a fair number of my peers talk about their experience as very different than this.

  Storytelling/White Wolf/WoD came along just as I was transitioning from the army to civilian life. I have mentioned other places that I largely enjoyed WoD as a concept but I did not ever run it and was not a fan after playing it. Story and setting had been a part of my campaigns from the beginning but were always secondary to adventure and fun.

  I did run 3e for a number of years and used Seaward (not the main campaign area) for those games. While there are certainly great elements in 3e the complexity level was a bit too high for my players and I to enjoy it as much as earlier versions. We kept largely the same attitude; fun and adventure is first, story and setting add to fun and adventure, rules need to be balanced between simple and complex. My 3e campaign died a neglectful death since my players were always asking to play something else.

  I experimented pretty heavily in this time with Rolemaster, Fantasy Hero, new C&S, etc. but always kept coming back to 1e and 2e. I was an eager fan of HackMaster 4th and really enjoyed it. My wife is a huge fan of AD&D 2nd edition Skills and Powers so I eventually created a new campaign world, Blackstone, to run a dedicated 2e S&P campaign.

  Blackstone was the primary campaign for a few years while Seaward lurked about. Eventually my kids wanted to play more 1e and Seaward was back out in full. We still keep story and setting in support of adventuring and fun, as the kids age we use jazz band adventuring more and more, and we like the level of complexity between 1e and 2e S&P.

  4e went by pretty fast and it was some time sbefore I got the books - my sons play it as a tactical warfare simulator. I heard of and acquired OSRIC, S&W, etc. all pretty early and enjoy them a great deal.

  I currently run a 1e campaign (Seaward), a 2e S&P campaign (Blackstone), and a Champions campaign (Champions of Atlanta). I still wish I could figure out how to play Rolemaster more. I still wish I played as much as I GM.

  What are your histories like?

Product Review - Syrinscape

  Another first for Don't Split the Party - a product review!

  Before we get too deep into the product itself, let's talk about gaming ambiance. We all know that the setting for play can matter as much as or more than the setting in the game. If you have a group of investigators creeping into a dank, cobwebbed cavern at night hoping they can stop Nyarlathotep playing on a beach with laughing bathers nearby is not going to enhance the mood. Playing a silver-age, four-color superhero campaign in a steam tunnel will not enhance the mood. GMing for players standing on a windswept, rain-soaked mountain peak as they gaze down at the orcish hordes marching to crush the last dwarven city is not the time to be playing j-pop.
  Not that there is anything wrong with j-pop.
  Back in 1982 I had already been running Seaward (my 1e campaign) for about 5 years. I had handouts (thanks, mimeograph machines!), a few props, and things like a wall hanger sword for when we played. But one night while I was DMing I left the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack running.
  The players loved it, especially Mary and Shelby.
  Pretty soon I had 5 mix tapes (ah, cassettes) for gaming; forest, underground, sea, desert, and battle. I would play them during sessions and players would sometimes donate new music.
  This is pretty common, I know, and more people seemed to do it when CDs and (eventually) digital music came along.
  But I always was searching for more and more. I was an early adopter of soundboard programs and when game-centric soundboards hit I started trying them all, including for my phones.I also mined audiosparx, soundrangers, and other such sites from the dim, dark past to get the sounds and ambiance I wanted.
  There were a lot of OK solutions and a few good ones, but I always ended up back in a mixer program fixing something. Why? Because I am a hard to please jerk that way, that's why.
  But I am happy now.
  I downloaded Syrinscape last week and went ahead and tried it and some bonus packs.
  First thing I love is that that is runs on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. With just a touch of work I got it working on an Ubuntu netbook. The sounds are crisp, professional, and varied. I can adjust the various sounds either with presets, make my own, or on the fly. It was easy to use, has a ton of add on content (I highly recommend the SoundSet Starter Pack; it was a big hit at the table) and it looks like more is coming, too.
  On the technical side, it was not a resource hog either in memory or RAM usage, I didn't have to fiddle with my sound controls a lot to make it audible, and I never experienced any skip or lag, not even with my wimpy little netbook.
  My only complaint is - I could not find a tool that would keep my screen from going to sleep while it was running. Yeah, I know, that may not be a quibble to many but a) sessions run long and if the screen is open I don't have to pause so much to keep going and b) I am a hard to please jerk, remember? Of course, I have been running it on Ubuntu so this may not be an issue on a fully supported OS and I could always take the 30 seconds to change my screen settings.
  Huh. Looks like I am a hard to please lazy jerk.

  My score is
  9 out of 10 stars, highly recommended for any game master. I suspect I won't be able to live without it.



  Thanks to Benjamin Loomes of Syrinscape who was kind enough to email me personally about the firm's product and get me some free sound sets for this review

Mage Guild is on Sale!

  My supplement for adding a guild of wizards to your campaign is on sale!
  Mage guild has 12 new spells, 8 NPCs, 5 magic items, and 2 monsters as well as notes for adding the concepts to you game, a series of adventure and plot hooks, rules on True Names and ideas like Mage Houses.

Detailed Charts to Generate Followers - a Far Realms sneak peak

This is a sneak peak at Appendix II - Followers from my upcoming book Far Realms. This section has detailed charts for generating followers for virtually every class!

"Fighters attract followers when they are 9th level or above and have established a stronghold. Followers require no pay other than room and board. A fighter has three types of followers, Troops, Leaders, and Civilians....

Civilians: These are the additional men and women who accompany the character, even in the field. If the player did not add their character's reaction bonus to the Leaders roll it may be added here, instead.

% roll	Workers	Hirelings	Special
01 to 50	1d20+9 Laborers	1 Blacksmith	n/a
	(will include bearers, teamsters,
	etc. as well as simple laborers)
51 to 75	2d20+10 Laborers (as above)	Blacksmith	Scribe or Steward (50/50)
		Armorer
86 to 90	2d20+10 Laborers (as above)	Blacksmith	Engineer
		Armorer	(50/50 for Sapper or Artillerist)
		Weaponsmith
91 to 100	2d20+10 Laborers (as above)	Blacksmith (2)	Engineer (as above for odds)
		Armorer	Healer
		Weaponsmith
101 to 115	2d20+10 Laborers (as above)	Blacksmith (3)	Religious Brother (2nd level)
		Armorer	Hedge Wizard (3rd level) (50%
		Weaponsmith	chance)
116 and above	2d20+12 Laborers (as above)	Blacksmith (3)	Religious Brothers (1 x 3rd,
		Armorer (2)	2x 1st level)
		Weaponsmith(2)	Hedge Wizard (3rd level)

  note: If you are not using the NPC classes from Far Realms replace Religious Brothers with Clerics (of one level lower, minimum of 1st) and Hedge Wizards with Magic-users (of one level lower)."

 

Talking About my next Book - Far Realms

  Far Realms should be wrapped up this week (should be, should be, should be) with editing and formatting done in another week. While it is officially an OSRIC supplement, it is (naturally!) all about being useful with any retroclone or 1e/2e. It is all drawn from the house rules I developed for my Seaward Campaign which I have been running for 34 years.
  Here is a brief summary of many of the contents:

  -Alternate weapon specialization rules
  -Alternate rules for attacks versus scum
  -Alternate rules for demi-human clerics
  -Modifiers for thieving abilities in armor
  -The Danger Sense ability for certain classes
  -Alternate rules for existing races
  -Four new player character classes
  -Alternate rules for initiative
  -Disease and Parasite rules
  -Costs of maintenance and upkeep
  -Three new NPC-only classes
  -Two new hirelings, the Healer and the Merchant
  -Rules for cantrips and orisons
  -12+ new spells
  -Detailed charts to generate followers for characters who establish strongholds

I am including artwork from local young artists (none older than 15!) to encourage young talent - the artists will all receive a portion of the payments made.
  Since this is a direct outgrowth of my years of gaming, it has been a ton of fun writing it.

Names, True Names, and Magic in my campaigns

  Back in 1979 I had a problem. As a new DM I was desperate to have a gritty, realistic campaign full of sturm und drang (yeah, I was one of those DMs) with Big Ideas and lots of Drama. But, well, everyone in my party was only 12, like me, so the characters had names like BadAxe and Joey Longhair. This didn't fit my Ideas About the Campaign! Why weren't they using the 9 page glossary of common names and name elements, by race? Huh?!
  I like to think my first real insight about being a good DM happened while I was wrestling with this problem. If the players were unwilling to change something like that and it wasn't, oh, unbalancing the campaign, why not change the campaign so that it fit, anyway?
 That is why my campaigns have the concept of True Names. Certain creatures (mainly Humans, demi-humans, humanoids, etc.) are born and first named that is their true name. A spell caster that knows the true name of a target and uses that name in spell casting has a greater power to affect the target. For this reason, most people have what is called a 'Day Name' or 'Friend Name'. Some societies take the idea so far as to have a true name, usually known only to the person and their parents, a 'house name' which is used only be their immediate family, and a Day Name used by everyone else. It is also fairly common for someone to change their Day Name at key moments in their life, such as leaving home, becoming a master at a craft, etc.
  This explains why one wizard may be named Altrazar and the one next to him is Firewalker - Altrazar is probably the Day Name his mother gave him while Firewalker is one taken when he left his apprenticeship. The great thing is, they both make sense in universe.
  What effect does knowing someone's true name have? Well, I have a small section on this in my OSR supplement Mage Guild, that has a handful of ideas, but here is one suggestion: if you know the true name of your target they make all saves vs. your spells at -4 and any magic resistance is cut in half. Mage Guild also has the 8th level spell Naming which allows high level magic-users to really ruin your day if they know your true name!
  If you use a mechanic like this then I suggest that you also make finding a true name tough - asking a Charmed target their true name gives them an immediate save at +4; if using ESP the target gets a saving throw to keep their own true name unavailable to the caster; etc. Learning the true name of a Big Bad can be a major quest worthy of a long series of adventures.
  On a side naote, years later when Glen Cook's novel The White Rose came out my old friend Eric called me up,
  "That is so cool! We did the same thing in your campaign in '83!"
  That was a good phone call.

Mage Guild is up at RPGNow

  Back when I was playing in Lew Pulsipher's Tonilda campaign I had a magic-user named Jonas. Jonas had good stats and generally good luck with one exception - he kept blowing the Learn Spell rolls for the 'best' spells. He failed to learn Charm Person, Burning Hands, Stinking Cloud, Web, Lightning Bolt, and (cruelest of all) Fireball.
  He knew Magic Missile, though.
  On one adventure I found a Wand of Magic Missiles and I later traded some items with a cleric for his Ring of Spell Storing that could hold 4 Magic Missile spells. Then I finally got average and learned Minute Meteors! While I might not have any area of effect spells, I could throw a lot of magical damage down range. While it was fun playing the 'gatling mage' I had glaring holes in my spell combat abilities. I tended to be in parties with two magic-users so we could 'cover for' each other's weaknesses.
  While roleplaying with the crew one evening I got to thinking about how darn difficult it must be 'in-universe' to be a mid-level magic-user like Jonas (then 5th level); effectively no melee abilities; some arcane power, but rather limited; and you have a lot of things that much more powerful mages might want. Tonilda was rife with vile clerics and evil mages of one stripe or another lurking about (especially the dreaded pyromancers from Traprain Law) so this was a credible threat. Since the campaign had multiple parties in it, we had a fair number of mid-level magic-users, illusionists, and multi-class types, as well. On the spur of the moment I proposed we band together into a mage's guild.
  To the surprise of Lew and especially of me, everyone liked the idea. Before I knew it virtually every spell caster in multiple parties was either in or asking to join. We pooled our resources and built a stronghold with a library and lab; hired 2 alchemists; made copies of all of our spell books and stashed them away; set up bylaws and rules; the whole nine yards. Not only was it great role playing and great fun, it clearly illustrated why guild work in the Real World - strength in numbers. Before too long the guildsmen were adventuring as a group with their henchmen and hirelings along as the muscle.
  Never one to miss the extremely obvious when prompted, I soon added an NPC Mage Guild to my own Seaward campaign. I had it run by NPCs, of course, and made it an older institution expanding into the core campaign area. I also gave it a few dark secrets and plot hooks and let it go, hoping my players would take the bait. They did, with enthusiasm. The Guild has been an element of my campaign ever since - 22 years, now, acting as everything from a place where you can get a reliable Identify or sell a wand to advice on how to find a lost command word.
  Mage Guild is a book that captures the essence of these guilds. It describes ways to introduce the guild, either as a brand new idea or as an older institution moving into the area. It includes the bylaws, hierarchy and structure, benefits and fees, and rules of the guild. It also has write ups of the guildmaster, the members of the guild council, miscellaneous members of the guild, and a few others who may be friends or foes of the guildsmen..
  There are also new familiars, new magic items, and a ton of new spells.
  We've done our best to make Mage Guild the way I like the supplements I buy - you can use it as-is, change a few things, or just take what you lie.