I hesitate to write about how wrong this is for reasons related to length of post, breadth of topic, and losing my ever-lovin' mind to rage-induced psychosis. Mainly because there is a lot more to RPGs than combat. But also because there is a lot more to combat than damage density AND mages are better at melee than you think.
Showing posts with label Tales from the table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tales from the table. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Why the Heck is your 1st Level Wizard Just Standing Around?!
Not too long ago someone I was discussing gaming with was very dismissive of 1e, 2e, OSRIC, S&W, etc. because low-level mages had so few spells and could not do damage in combat more than once. They felt that all the caster did was 'stand around' while important stuff (i.e., fighting) went on.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Tales From The Table: Number 23 and How NPCs Can Matter
We all have those stories. You know, the tales from the table about success or failure, triumph or death.
They're one of the reasons I play.
Here is a tale that explains one of the reasons I try to remember how important NPCs are to the players.
In Lew Pulsipher's campaign for many, many years the last bastion of safety and civilization was the stronghold of a 9th level cleric. This fortress, called simply 'J.C.'s Castle', was not just the leaping off point to explore Mount Thunder, Skystone Castle, or the Lake of Dread, it was the first line of defense for the poor peasants of the countryside against the ravening hordes of monsters lurking in the wilds.
More than once the adventure was to hold J.C.'s Castle against those very hordes.
The one I remember most clearly had a party of 5th-6th level with the men-at-arms/followers of J.C. defending against an army of many lurfs (think furry 4 armed kobolds with atlatls) and a few cavewights (think hairless bugbears with troll strength that can Spiderclimb stone) led by a cabal of pyromancers. The paladin, cleric, thief and fighter led teams of followers in holding the walls while the mage took to the central tower to snipe foes with spells.
J.C. was gone on a mission.
Lew uses numbered tiles of various colors/number colors to represent foes and hirelings, etc.
Through the long, long fight a number of memorable events happened; the mage drained the last charge from his laser rifle killing a pyromancer 700 yards away and emptied his pearl-handled .44 magnums (kept in shoulder holsters under his cloak of protection) into a cavewight; the paladin held a doorway by himself against 30 foes for 6 rounds only to have to pivot and hold it the other way for 5 more against another 20; the thief never missed a backstab or missile weapon to-hit roll; the cleric ran out of spells, potions, items, and scrolls of Cures for the only time since 1st level.
And a lone man-at-arms survived. Tile #23, the 3rd ranking sergeant, stayed in the thick of things the entire battle. At one point #23 was back-to-back with the fighter on top of a tower eventually cutting down 4 lurfs while the fighter killed 2 cavewights. At another time he rallied other men-at-arms and led them in a counter-charge which held a wall but cost the lives of the other 6 NPCs.
When dawn came the evil army was broken and fled, the spell casters were out of spells, and everyone was in single-digit hit points. But #23 was alive, if with just 1 h.p.
Cool story about a fun adventure.
But a few real world months later a different party went to J.C.'s Castle. The thief was the one from the defense and the player was careful to say,
"I look up #23."
He was the new top sergeant of the fortress' staff. The thief's player said his character would certainly tell the story of that night and #23's bravery to the party.
This kept happening; as characters from that adventure leveled up the players were careful to look for #23, tell his story, even give him things like potions or +1 chain.
In the 28 years since the Third Defense of J.C.'s Castle I've thought about that fight often. Not just because that was my mage, but because f the impact that an NPC had on the campaign. Not a hero; not a villain; not a sage; not a henchman. An expert hireling of another NPC who was never, ever even given a name. And yet that event was so memorable that in 2001 I was relaxing with an old friend. After 5 beers and a cigar he asked me,
"Hey, remember #23?"
And we laughed about that event all over again.
Every GM has the experience of the carefully-crafted NPC with a page of backstory, a list of plot hooks, and well-practiced mannerisms that the players don't care about and can't remember no matter how many times you give them notes. Why are they forgotten but not #23?
I have a handful of theories, but the two I want to touch on are Interaction and Independence.
#23 interacted with the PCs. Sure, sure, there was virtually no dialog (which was probably good) but just noting 'he sticks with the fighter' and 'he makes sure to cover the fighter's back' was critical. This interaction was both relevant to what the PC was doing and actively part of the action of the adventure. The player was, not surprisingly, feeling that his character was exposed and in danger; #23's interactions with the PC were about that element of the game, making the player emotionally invested in what the NPC was doing.
That well-crafted NPC mage with all the backstory? If the party's magic-user meets with him about copying spells there isn't going to be a lot of emotional investment in the words or deeds of the NPC. You have to make them memorable some other way.
And by independence I mean the NPC must be shown to be more than a prop.
So, learn the lesson of #23 - have your NPCs interact in meaningful ways when possible and make them independent.
In my own campaign there is a scout henchman fairly infamous for going off to do thing while the party is making camp - fetch wood, hunt for game, scout their back trail to see if someone is following them - all sorts of things. But he often just - leaves - and doesn't tell anyone until he gets back. He is reliable, and honest, he just is gone during camp setup. This is the whole 'independence' thing as well as, sometimes, interaction when he brings in a pheasant or captures a kobold that had been trailing the party.
More to come!
They're one of the reasons I play.
Here is a tale that explains one of the reasons I try to remember how important NPCs are to the players.
In Lew Pulsipher's campaign for many, many years the last bastion of safety and civilization was the stronghold of a 9th level cleric. This fortress, called simply 'J.C.'s Castle', was not just the leaping off point to explore Mount Thunder, Skystone Castle, or the Lake of Dread, it was the first line of defense for the poor peasants of the countryside against the ravening hordes of monsters lurking in the wilds.
More than once the adventure was to hold J.C.'s Castle against those very hordes.
The one I remember most clearly had a party of 5th-6th level with the men-at-arms/followers of J.C. defending against an army of many lurfs (think furry 4 armed kobolds with atlatls) and a few cavewights (think hairless bugbears with troll strength that can Spiderclimb stone) led by a cabal of pyromancers. The paladin, cleric, thief and fighter led teams of followers in holding the walls while the mage took to the central tower to snipe foes with spells.
J.C. was gone on a mission.
Lew uses numbered tiles of various colors/number colors to represent foes and hirelings, etc.
Through the long, long fight a number of memorable events happened; the mage drained the last charge from his laser rifle killing a pyromancer 700 yards away and emptied his pearl-handled .44 magnums (kept in shoulder holsters under his cloak of protection) into a cavewight; the paladin held a doorway by himself against 30 foes for 6 rounds only to have to pivot and hold it the other way for 5 more against another 20; the thief never missed a backstab or missile weapon to-hit roll; the cleric ran out of spells, potions, items, and scrolls of Cures for the only time since 1st level.
And a lone man-at-arms survived. Tile #23, the 3rd ranking sergeant, stayed in the thick of things the entire battle. At one point #23 was back-to-back with the fighter on top of a tower eventually cutting down 4 lurfs while the fighter killed 2 cavewights. At another time he rallied other men-at-arms and led them in a counter-charge which held a wall but cost the lives of the other 6 NPCs.
When dawn came the evil army was broken and fled, the spell casters were out of spells, and everyone was in single-digit hit points. But #23 was alive, if with just 1 h.p.
Cool story about a fun adventure.
But a few real world months later a different party went to J.C.'s Castle. The thief was the one from the defense and the player was careful to say,
"I look up #23."
He was the new top sergeant of the fortress' staff. The thief's player said his character would certainly tell the story of that night and #23's bravery to the party.
This kept happening; as characters from that adventure leveled up the players were careful to look for #23, tell his story, even give him things like potions or +1 chain.
In the 28 years since the Third Defense of J.C.'s Castle I've thought about that fight often. Not just because that was my mage, but because f the impact that an NPC had on the campaign. Not a hero; not a villain; not a sage; not a henchman. An expert hireling of another NPC who was never, ever even given a name. And yet that event was so memorable that in 2001 I was relaxing with an old friend. After 5 beers and a cigar he asked me,
"Hey, remember #23?"
And we laughed about that event all over again.
Every GM has the experience of the carefully-crafted NPC with a page of backstory, a list of plot hooks, and well-practiced mannerisms that the players don't care about and can't remember no matter how many times you give them notes. Why are they forgotten but not #23?
I have a handful of theories, but the two I want to touch on are Interaction and Independence.
#23 interacted with the PCs. Sure, sure, there was virtually no dialog (which was probably good) but just noting 'he sticks with the fighter' and 'he makes sure to cover the fighter's back' was critical. This interaction was both relevant to what the PC was doing and actively part of the action of the adventure. The player was, not surprisingly, feeling that his character was exposed and in danger; #23's interactions with the PC were about that element of the game, making the player emotionally invested in what the NPC was doing.
That well-crafted NPC mage with all the backstory? If the party's magic-user meets with him about copying spells there isn't going to be a lot of emotional investment in the words or deeds of the NPC. You have to make them memorable some other way.
And by independence I mean the NPC must be shown to be more than a prop.
QUICK ASIDE: How often are the henchmen and hirelings in the game simply forgotten? Here is a great example from film.
In Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail we see retainers like Patsy, hirelings like Sir Robin's minstrels, etc. But the others only appear, as if out of thin air!, when needed.
In addition to being a barely credible excuse to insert Monty Python into my blog it is a great example of how a lot of NPCs are treated. They aren't there until you need them, then they appear to fulfill their purpose, soon after a monster eats them.
When #23 led that charge he proved he wasn't just a prop; he had independence. His own thoughts and the ability to make decisions and take action. Between that and covering the fighter on his own the only real difference between #23 and a PC was who was running him. And not only is Lew immune to GMPC effects, #23 was obviously just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Again, if that NPC with a ton of backstory only reacts to/responds to the PCs then he isn't going to seem "real" (whatever that means in context).So, learn the lesson of #23 - have your NPCs interact in meaningful ways when possible and make them independent.
In my own campaign there is a scout henchman fairly infamous for going off to do thing while the party is making camp - fetch wood, hunt for game, scout their back trail to see if someone is following them - all sorts of things. But he often just - leaves - and doesn't tell anyone until he gets back. He is reliable, and honest, he just is gone during camp setup. This is the whole 'independence' thing as well as, sometimes, interaction when he brings in a pheasant or captures a kobold that had been trailing the party.
More to come!
Saturday, July 11, 2015
DM's Report: Back to Skull Mountain
Background (outside the game)
After a very long climb they came to an iron lid secured by a locking wheel. After opening it they found themselves on the upper slopes of the mountain itself, near a concealed trail. The trail leads to the very pinnacle of the mountain which, they find, has a very large concealed hollow open to the sky. Obviously long abandoned, the oval shape has a staircase and ledge at the far end, which they walk to. Looking back over the hollow the party realizes it is a dry dock!
On the ledge iis a large device like a spyglass mounted on an articulated arm. The spyglass allows them to look out over vast distances. Seeker notices that the several joints have dials marked 1 through 4; by aligning the joints with the numbers the spyglass has 4 pre-set targets; 4th is the middle of Timber Lake (which is well over the horizon); 3rd is the sky almost directly above; 2nd is the city of High Morath, which is not just over the horizon, but on the other side of a mountain range; 1st is the peak of the Demon's Eye, an offshore volcano.
After some calculations and referring to a book Telnar and Seeker agree that the place in the sky is the location of the Third Moon at midnight on Midsummer - three weeks away.
Seeker remembers finding a long-abandoned trail to the peak from a place in the Briars on a previous expedition, but does not take the time to look for the other end.
Returning down the ladder, the party went back to the guard post -
and surprised a kobold inspecting his dead comrade! Seeker backstabbed it, killing it instantly, and Kaspar picked off the one on the other ledge with his bow.
The party slipped to the North end of the cave, finding the small outbuildings were still there, around the 'side door'. Seeker heard noises on the far side, but the door was unlocked; the party squared up and kicked open the door.
More dice weirdness! The party had 2 segments of surprise, letting Kaspar use his ambush bonuses for being a scout - and rolled under a 5 with all 4 arrow shots! Luckily Clint and Brigid made very short work of the 4 kobolds. The party then cut through a supply room and crept into a massive kitchen, surprising and killing another kobold who was guarding two human teens who were chained to the stoves, cooking.
The party got ready explored the vast dining hall adjacent to the kitchen. The kobolds were only using a few tables near the kitchen entrance. There was a raised dais at one end; Kaspar and Starfalcon hid behind an overturned table that had been there for years, it seemed. The rest waited in the kitchens and had the rescued slaves follow the usual routine. Before too long 15 kobolds and a goblin were seated, chanting for food. After the teens had served, the party casually walked in, hoping to surprise them.
The goblin noticed them, prompting Starfalcon and Kaspar to begin firing; they were very deadly with their bows! Brigid's rage kicked in, turning her into a death machine. Clint stuck close to her and was also mowing down foes. Telnar protected the mage - by also killing kobolds.
The fight was over in a surprisingly short time. After the goblin was cut down the remaining kobolds surrendered and were trussed up, but there was still damage done to the party. Seeker checked the other door into the dining hall...
...and saw a large figure, in a robe, rushing toward the door with a jerky, staggering gait. He slammed the door and the party prepared for the Hairy One (obviously a bugbear) to come in at them.
The screams of the teens, still hiding in the kitchen, alerted the party that the bugbear had circled around.
The bugbear burst in, attacking with a staff. The party did a fair job against him and then - Seeker got off his Sleep spell, dropping the creature before it could complete it's own spell.
The hour was late, the party was tired (the kobolds had hit much more frequently than they should have), hurt, and low on magic, and they had not just kobold captives but rescued NPCs; they left for camp. They were careful to confuse their trail, then met up with the hirelings at camp and rested. The hirelings had made camp against a spinney (an impassable ticket of briars) under a needle tree:
Back in 1979 I started my first Skull Mountain maps, my early attempts at a 20 level dungeon. Those maps and notes are long, long gone. I did a reboot in 1986 when I moved and started all new people in the Seaward campaign, then I cleaned it up in 2002 when the kids got a little older. About 3 years ago I decided to change it radically below the third level, which is ongoing.
Background (in the game)
The origins of Skull Mountain are lost in obscurity. The Old Road existed when the elves arrived and was old then. The Keshi (human barbarians that were the first people in the region) speak of it in folktales as existing when they arrived, although they tales often contradict each other.
What is known is that centuries ago the Black Cult, devil worshipers, moved into the upper levels and used it as a base. From Skull Mountain they effectively ruled the Briars and the forests all the way to the Freshet River. Their raiding parties took captives and victims as far away as the borders of the Four Counties. The granite dwarves set more fortresses and the forest elves set more guards because of the Black Cult.
After the coming of the Robians and the crowning of the First King of Seaward, however, the new kingdom began to push against the cultists. After 50 years of conflict the forces of the cultists were broken at the Battle of the Plateau and a triumphant King Alaris led Archbishop Ulfrick into the mountain to shatter the foul altar.
A garrison was left at the mountain for a generation, but then withdrawn. Over time the interior of the Briars became ever more wild even as villages crept towards the edges. Drawn by stories of hidden treasure in the 100 years since the garrison left occasional expeditions went to the mountain but encountered little more than kobolds or a lone ogre in the ruined caves. Two years ago an expedition (of PCs) went there and wiped out a small band of bandits but found access to most of the complex blocked off.
Recently
Two different groups of PCs have noted columns of smoke coming from the area of Skull Mountain, always the morning after a Full or New moon. Ominously, those are the times the Black Cult would perform sacrifices. A few of the PCs decided to round up a team to explore Skull Mountain.
The Party
Brigid: 2nd level Barbarian (one of my custom classes). From the island of Eiru. Armed with Mor Altach, an enchanted broadsword of mysterious origins and power. Played by my wife.
The Seeker: 2/2 level Magic-user/Thief, half-elf. Has a Ring of Invisibility he took from an ogre. Played by my oldest son.
Starfalcon: 2nd level Ranger, half-elf. Excellent hit points, no magic items of note yet. Played by my second son.
"Clint": 2nd level Paladin, human. Technically, has not revealed his name. Has a Minion's Sword. Played by my third son.
Telnar: 3rd level Cleric, human. One off maximum hit points, great armor class. Played by my fourth son.
Kaspar: Henchman to the Seeker, human. 1st level Scout (another custom class).
Merle: Hireling of Clint, human. Mercenary footman with a spear, short sword, scale, and shield.
Alferd and Gerd: Hirelings of Brigid, both human (and first cousins, too). A merchant and porter. Fiercely loyal because Brigid saved them from being sacrificed by a kobold shaman.
The Adventure
Seeker and Clint had been on the previous expedition to Skull Mountain and still had notes and a crude map they had made. Brigid had seen the smoke and mentioned it to Clint in the town of Old Bridge. Clint knows Telnar, Telnar knows Starfalcon, and Starfalcon knows Seeker.
The group had to wait a long time for the weather to be a bit more steady and to prepare, finally setting out at the end of the month of Highsummer.
The first day was very hot, so hot the warriors shed their armor and the party was slowed. Luckily they were still in patrolled lands. They made it to the village of Esber just before Noon.
Esber was bustling with activity. The walls were freshly patched, hoardings were being constructed facing the Briars, and barrels of rain water were scattered around to fight fires. The party stopped at the Bloody Sword tavern to rest, cool off, and listen to gossip.
Others had noted the smoke besides the players and the Baron of Old Bridge had stepped up patrols near the Briars and up the Old Road. Eventually the Count had heard of this and had sent one of his own patrols to scout all the way to Skull Mountain just a week prior.
The patrol was never seen again.
So Esber is getting ready for war.
The party didn't linger, but continued toward the Old Road. They reached the entrance at twilight and camped by the entrance to the Briars without incident.
The next day was cooler, although still.
The next day was still cooler and about as uneventful until later. A black bear wandered into camp and attacked!
That's when an evening of dice weirdness began -
Brigid was on watch and armored. The bear could not miss her.
No one could hit the bear.
After far too long the bear was dead and Brigid needed a ton of healing, but was fine. The cleric went to bed and in the morning the part moved their camp off the road 100 yards (hard in the briars!) and left their tents, horses, extra rations, and the hirelings. Then the players and henchman headed to the plateau.
The party swept the plateau, all while under the forbidding gaze of the entrance (which resembles, of course, a massive human skull with an open mouth full of fangs) and found the remains of a massive bonfire on the center. From the bones in the ashes the party concluded the Count's patrol had been sacrificed and then burned, which is what legend said was the custom of the Black Cult.
The party entered the entrance cave, a massive space over 120' across and 90' high. Reflected light revealed that the massive bronze doors that guarded the Long Tunnel (which leads to the ancient Cathedral of Devils) were still shut. After a brief look around the party felt they were being watched. As they were leaving they were attacked by javelins, mildly hurting Clint. It took a few rounds to locate the attackers, but eventually the party's arrows killed two kobolds, each on a separate elevated guard post.
Searching revealed that there were concealed ancient iron ladders leading to each position. Seeker scouted and concluded neither had been on watch long and, on the higher post, found a secret door.
More dice oddness: each and every time the half-elf came within a few feet of a secret door I rolled a 1. They discovered secret doors that evaded multiple searches on the last expedition!The door led to an old, but sturdy, spiral staircase of iron going up. About 40' up was a landing with a mesh separating the interior from the flock of stirges that inhabit the cave behind the eyes. The landing was obviously long untouched. In a corner was set a crystal, seemingly enchanted, that allows people to watch the opening to the plateau from the Old Road. The staircase continued, so the party followed it.
After a very long climb they came to an iron lid secured by a locking wheel. After opening it they found themselves on the upper slopes of the mountain itself, near a concealed trail. The trail leads to the very pinnacle of the mountain which, they find, has a very large concealed hollow open to the sky. Obviously long abandoned, the oval shape has a staircase and ledge at the far end, which they walk to. Looking back over the hollow the party realizes it is a dry dock!
On the ledge iis a large device like a spyglass mounted on an articulated arm. The spyglass allows them to look out over vast distances. Seeker notices that the several joints have dials marked 1 through 4; by aligning the joints with the numbers the spyglass has 4 pre-set targets; 4th is the middle of Timber Lake (which is well over the horizon); 3rd is the sky almost directly above; 2nd is the city of High Morath, which is not just over the horizon, but on the other side of a mountain range; 1st is the peak of the Demon's Eye, an offshore volcano.
After some calculations and referring to a book Telnar and Seeker agree that the place in the sky is the location of the Third Moon at midnight on Midsummer - three weeks away.
Seeker remembers finding a long-abandoned trail to the peak from a place in the Briars on a previous expedition, but does not take the time to look for the other end.
Returning down the ladder, the party went back to the guard post -
and surprised a kobold inspecting his dead comrade! Seeker backstabbed it, killing it instantly, and Kaspar picked off the one on the other ledge with his bow.
The party slipped to the North end of the cave, finding the small outbuildings were still there, around the 'side door'. Seeker heard noises on the far side, but the door was unlocked; the party squared up and kicked open the door.
More dice weirdness! The party had 2 segments of surprise, letting Kaspar use his ambush bonuses for being a scout - and rolled under a 5 with all 4 arrow shots! Luckily Clint and Brigid made very short work of the 4 kobolds. The party then cut through a supply room and crept into a massive kitchen, surprising and killing another kobold who was guarding two human teens who were chained to the stoves, cooking.
In another bit of oddity, the party got surprise every single time they struck at kobolds!The teens had a lot to say; a monster had snatched them from their beds weeks before and carried them here to cook for the kobolds; there were about 40 kobolds all together; the kobolds ate in three shifts of 15, 15, and 10; a human male was leading the group and he had a human lieutenant, a goblin thug, and 'the monster' - a great hairy creature in robes that had kidnapped them from their village weeks ago; a strange woman in a hooded robe came by every month to give the human leader orders - everyone was afraid of her; and the next meal for 15 kobolds was going to start real soon.
The party got ready explored the vast dining hall adjacent to the kitchen. The kobolds were only using a few tables near the kitchen entrance. There was a raised dais at one end; Kaspar and Starfalcon hid behind an overturned table that had been there for years, it seemed. The rest waited in the kitchens and had the rescued slaves follow the usual routine. Before too long 15 kobolds and a goblin were seated, chanting for food. After the teens had served, the party casually walked in, hoping to surprise them.
The goblin noticed them, prompting Starfalcon and Kaspar to begin firing; they were very deadly with their bows! Brigid's rage kicked in, turning her into a death machine. Clint stuck close to her and was also mowing down foes. Telnar protected the mage - by also killing kobolds.
The fight was over in a surprisingly short time. After the goblin was cut down the remaining kobolds surrendered and were trussed up, but there was still damage done to the party. Seeker checked the other door into the dining hall...
...and saw a large figure, in a robe, rushing toward the door with a jerky, staggering gait. He slammed the door and the party prepared for the Hairy One (obviously a bugbear) to come in at them.
The screams of the teens, still hiding in the kitchen, alerted the party that the bugbear had circled around.
The bugbear burst in, attacking with a staff. The party did a fair job against him and then - Seeker got off his Sleep spell, dropping the creature before it could complete it's own spell.
The hour was late, the party was tired (the kobolds had hit much more frequently than they should have), hurt, and low on magic, and they had not just kobold captives but rescued NPCs; they left for camp. They were careful to confuse their trail, then met up with the hirelings at camp and rested. The hirelings had made camp against a spinney (an impassable ticket of briars) under a needle tree:
Like this, but with a lot of thorns
and had put up a thorn barrier around the horses and the tents as well as a sort of briar boma around the fire. All this was because of the threat of stirges so close to the mountain. The night was quiet.
The party set out at dawn, alert for ambush. The found that a tripwire had ben set over the entrance - linked to crossbows set up in the shadows. There was also a concealed strip of poisoned needles and another tripwire connected to a hidden ballista. All were discovered (the dice!) and disabled. While searching for traps the party also found that one of the horses had been brushed, fed, watered, and was saddled up, ready to ride. This one was concealed in a corner of the cave behind a natural pillar. Seeker sabotaged the girth strap so that the saddle would fall off after just a few miles of riding, at most.
Inside the first room all was quiet. They immediately found a trap on one of the doors they had not yet taken and, again, disarmed it. Beyond was another ballista set up to fire when the door was opened. It was in a long corridor and, about 120' along, the party saw a man carrying a lantern turn right at a junction in the corridor.
The party went into Deliberate Mode, checking all the doors as they passed, watching for tripwires, and maintaining a 720 degree scan. They found that the ancient complex was mostly empty with the kobolds taking up just a corner of the space that once held only the entrance guards. They did, though, find a door marked with the rune of a mage of House Relleth. The party avoided the Wizard Marked door as it appeared it had been untouched by others, as well.
The party also avoided trying to enter the obvious prison area (the locked iron grate helped deter them). But at the end of a another long corridor they spotted a man bent over a table studying something and taking note. The door to the room was open and there was a lit lantern beside him. Suspecting an ambush, the party started checking nearby doors.
In the first room they surprised a group of kobolds and wiped out all 8 in a single round. As they returned to the hall the man in the room left through a distant door. The party continued their deliberate course and over time wiped out the rest of the the kobolds and the last lieutenant, a human. But the man they had seen had vanished.
They quickly found a secret door (AGAIN!) and followed a passage then chased the man all the way to the entrance cave, where he leapt upon the prepared horse and ran off. The party pursued on foot as fast as they could, hoping to get to their own concealed horses before he lost them.
On the road, however, they found their mercenary hireling holding a horse! he explained he had been watching the road (as ordered) when a man came galloping by - and his saddle fell off, dumping him! The man had simply kept running. The party mounted their own horses and pursued.
before too long they saw him on the road ahead and called out. He turned, calmly drew his sword, and waited. Clint remained mounted, with his lance, as a backup as Starfalcon and Brigid closed in on foot. Seeker turned invisible and began creeping around and Telnar stood by, ready to assist. The fight began and it quickly became obvious that the leader was a very skilled warrior.
For a round or two.
The dice kicked in again! All day the monsters had been hitting a lot. The kobolds were obviously hitting about twice as often as statistic said they should. At the same time, the party was hitting well below what they 'should' be (their rolls vs. the bear random encounter were so terrible they joked the bear was invulnerable).
Well, that was all corrected immediately. The boss, a 6th level fighter with a magical sword, hit very seldom and did little damage. They party, though, made up for previous bad rolls in hitting and hurting the guy. After 6 rounds he was dead and the fighters, although bloodied, were all alive.
The party returned all the way to Skull Mountain and tossed the place, bringing in quite a haul of stolen goods and a few magic items.
More soon!
Monday, December 29, 2014
Play Report: Car Wars Amateur Night
This Christmas I received a copy of Car Wars (the nice retro-looking box set). Now, the last time I played Car Wars was in the Spring of 1985 and the last time I saw a game was in the Summer of 1990, so I was pretty rusty. My third son and I did a quick 3 sessions of amateur night for great fun. Last night we ran the following:
The Setup
Killer Karts, the arena, no skills for the drivers as a 'get to know the rules' game.
The Players
Me
Son #1 (17 years old)
Son #3 (15)
Son #4 (12)
Play
We each entered from different walls (#3 North, me East, #4 South, #1 West) with everyone but me at 20 mph; I was at 10 mph.
Early-
Sons #1 and #3 make a run at each other at low speed (~30 mph) and chew up each other's front armor, using a lot of ammo. Son #4 is approaching their position. I am puttering along at 10 mph, drifting past obstacles.
Sons #3 and #4 make a few head-on shots at about 30 - 40 mph as they close near the center area of the map. Son #3's front armor and MG iare chewed off and his power plant takes a few hits (no fire). Son #4 has his front armor greatly reduced, but they are passing each other.
Then Son #3 pulls a 90 degree turn and T-bones son #4 into an observation tower. The impacts destroy Son #3's power plant and lightly injure him and he is stopped. Son #4's left armor is torn off but he is still armed, dangerous, and doing 30 mph. Son #1 is in the northwest corner, I am approaching from the east at 20 mph.
Son #3 decides to get out of his car and run for a tower.
Son #4 then pulls off a bootlegger's! Halfway through the maneuver Son #3 starts getting back into his car. Then Son #4 come to rest facing son #3 (who is dead stopped and unable to move or fire) at about 3.5". Son #4 fires but misses with a 3!
Unfortunately, Son #4 is now at a stop 4" dead ahead of me with no cover and his unarmored side facing me. I snap off a burst, roll lucky twice, and Son #4 is dead. Son #3 gets back out of his car and runs for a tower.
Middle-
Son #3 is cowering by the entrance to the central tower as I vector in on Son #1 , who is in the SW corner trying to pull off the 'build speed, maintain a good handling, and not hit something' trick. Son #1 realizes I am about to corner him and floors it. I am up to 40 mph but he is at 70 mph. I prepare to keep turning inside and control the center until he is forced to either come at me with his damaged front armor or I can get in behind him.
As I and Son #1 are heading to the SE part of the map Son #3 begins moving. Soon he is at Son #4's car where he jumps in and begins starting the (still armed, still functioning) killer kart! In the NE corner I almost get Son #1 trapped but he (once again) floors it and my 4 long range shots, all Hail Marys, all miss. About this time Son #3 realizes I am almost in position to rake him along the side with no armor he dives out of the far side of Son #4's car and runs for the tower again. I let him go so i can focus on Son #1.
Late-
Pretty soon we are in Turn 25 and Son #1 and I are still lapping the arena. While he has never been in a position to even fire at me with any hope of success, he has been keeping his speed and distance up so I really can't get him, either. Son #3 is still lurking by the tower but has no real hope of starting and using Son #4's kart. It is very late so Son #1 and I agree to call it a draw.
The Chatter
There was a lot of very happy buzz from the kids over this game (we had some very similar games, but one-on-one, over the previous few days). The best comment was from Son #1 after this game, though,
"Dad, I expected to play this game every now and then to share a game with you, but this turns out to be the most fun boardgame-type thing we own that wasn't made by Lew Pulsipher by hand."
Wow.
The sons all want more than karts so I informed them we will do vehicles up to $10k next time (total cost - Son #3 wants body armor and a personal weapon!). Son#3 (at least) will be designing a new vehicle.
The Questions
Where can I find a nice download of all the important charts?!
What other maps, etc., do people recommend?
And what other rules should I acquire, since this is a hit?
The Setup
Killer Karts, the arena, no skills for the drivers as a 'get to know the rules' game.
The Players
Me
Son #1 (17 years old)
Son #3 (15)
Son #4 (12)
Play
We each entered from different walls (#3 North, me East, #4 South, #1 West) with everyone but me at 20 mph; I was at 10 mph.
Early-
Sons #1 and #3 make a run at each other at low speed (~30 mph) and chew up each other's front armor, using a lot of ammo. Son #4 is approaching their position. I am puttering along at 10 mph, drifting past obstacles.
Sons #3 and #4 make a few head-on shots at about 30 - 40 mph as they close near the center area of the map. Son #3's front armor and MG iare chewed off and his power plant takes a few hits (no fire). Son #4 has his front armor greatly reduced, but they are passing each other.
Then Son #3 pulls a 90 degree turn and T-bones son #4 into an observation tower. The impacts destroy Son #3's power plant and lightly injure him and he is stopped. Son #4's left armor is torn off but he is still armed, dangerous, and doing 30 mph. Son #1 is in the northwest corner, I am approaching from the east at 20 mph.
Son #3 decides to get out of his car and run for a tower.
Son #4 then pulls off a bootlegger's! Halfway through the maneuver Son #3 starts getting back into his car. Then Son #4 come to rest facing son #3 (who is dead stopped and unable to move or fire) at about 3.5". Son #4 fires but misses with a 3!
Unfortunately, Son #4 is now at a stop 4" dead ahead of me with no cover and his unarmored side facing me. I snap off a burst, roll lucky twice, and Son #4 is dead. Son #3 gets back out of his car and runs for a tower.
Middle-
Son #3 is cowering by the entrance to the central tower as I vector in on Son #1 , who is in the SW corner trying to pull off the 'build speed, maintain a good handling, and not hit something' trick. Son #1 realizes I am about to corner him and floors it. I am up to 40 mph but he is at 70 mph. I prepare to keep turning inside and control the center until he is forced to either come at me with his damaged front armor or I can get in behind him.
As I and Son #1 are heading to the SE part of the map Son #3 begins moving. Soon he is at Son #4's car where he jumps in and begins starting the (still armed, still functioning) killer kart! In the NE corner I almost get Son #1 trapped but he (once again) floors it and my 4 long range shots, all Hail Marys, all miss. About this time Son #3 realizes I am almost in position to rake him along the side with no armor he dives out of the far side of Son #4's car and runs for the tower again. I let him go so i can focus on Son #1.
Late-
Pretty soon we are in Turn 25 and Son #1 and I are still lapping the arena. While he has never been in a position to even fire at me with any hope of success, he has been keeping his speed and distance up so I really can't get him, either. Son #3 is still lurking by the tower but has no real hope of starting and using Son #4's kart. It is very late so Son #1 and I agree to call it a draw.
The Chatter
There was a lot of very happy buzz from the kids over this game (we had some very similar games, but one-on-one, over the previous few days). The best comment was from Son #1 after this game, though,
"Dad, I expected to play this game every now and then to share a game with you, but this turns out to be the most fun boardgame-type thing we own that wasn't made by Lew Pulsipher by hand."
Wow.
The sons all want more than karts so I informed them we will do vehicles up to $10k next time (total cost - Son #3 wants body armor and a personal weapon!). Son#3 (at least) will be designing a new vehicle.
The Questions
Where can I find a nice download of all the important charts?!
What other maps, etc., do people recommend?
And what other rules should I acquire, since this is a hit?
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Super Heroes at the Dinner Table
This past Saturday I hosted my very intermittant Champions game. All of the players were introducing new characters and we were adding 2 new players. All the layers are teens or close enough, so I was prepared to have a ton of fun.
The players (sex and age) and characters (powers) were:
KF (M/18) - Senor Iago (A Portuguese Knight of a Holy Order placed into a cursed slumber by a witch and recently awoken. Wears enchanted armor and shield as well as a number of magic items, fights with an enchanted mace, can summon a pegasus)
JS (M/17) - Bob Perkins, Defender of the Universe (an array of energy attacks, drains, and boosts)
KB (F/17) - Thunderclap (Power armor user with a number of sonic attacks)
DB (F/16) - Speedre [rhymes with the typical pronunciation of 'Dierdre'] (full-body cyborg super-speedster)
AS (M/15) - Tombstone (Pilot of a war machine that can transform between being a 36' tall battle mecha and a large RV; he is from a parallel dimension where nuclear weapons were never developed and battles were fought in huge anthropomorphic war bots)
JB (M/15) - ...[Ellipses] (Gadgeteer) because of his physique and his sewer base sometimes called 'sewer urchin' or 'the swole mole'
SS (M/14) - Сжигание Молот ['Flaming Hammer'] (WWII Polish warrior who was forced to be a super-soldier for the Soviets; put in cryo-stasis after the war and only recently awoken. Super gadgets and armor as well as an enhanced body and martial arts)
TB (M/13) - Xianke (A Shaw Brothers/Wuxia style martial artist)
NS (M/12) - Mandible (A scientist who, post lab accident, can transform into a sort of 'were-insect' with a variety of insect powers like vast leaps, clinging, etc. Also quite tough)
Whew!
So, as background:
Senor Iago and Flaming Hammer were in Atlanta because of the Temporal Displacement Research and Treatment Center at ICICLE Tower, near the CNN Center [ICICLE (Intergovernmental Committee on International Criminal Law Enforcement) is the SHIELD/UNTIL/UNCLE/etc of my campaign)], Tombstone's RV pierced the dimensional barriers near Atlanta because of events related to the last session. Mandible and Speedre came out of local high-tech labs. Ellipses and Thunderclap are from the 'local high-tech scene' in Alpharetta. Xianke won't tell anyone why he is here. Bob Perkins, who just got back from the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal, isn't really sure why he's here.
The session started with some of the heroes learning that there was something falling from space into Atlanta. The various heroes, who had not yet met, converged on the CNN Center, the estimated impact point. Thunderclap saw the impact from a distance - whateveritwas landed in the intersection between the CNN Center and ICICLE Tower. Flaming Hammer and Iago saw the impact and donned their armor. Ellipses and the rest also heard or heard of the impact and began to close in.
At that moment Bob Perkins appeared a few feet away from the impact crater. He asked a passerby what planet and year it was and then approached the impact - it was an alien in a Star Ranger uniform whom Bob recognized as the one assigned to the local region [No, not a Green Lantern!]. Obviously dying, the Ranger ordered his staff to find a replacement and then told Bob,
The various supers are all there or almost there when everyone hears a sonic boom and sees a vapor trail heading towards them. A moment later the Brute lands in the intersection! The only creature on Earth labeled an Omega Level threat, the various rookie supers collectively hold their breath.
The massive, gray-skinned Brute looks at the Star Ranger and shouts,
"Who killed my friend?!?!"
and just then - an energy bolt fired from the ICICLE Tower strikes the Brute, which promptly triggers his Berserk and its time for combat.
-Speedre does a move by at full speed: hit, no effect
-Thunderclap hits with her biggest gun: hit, no effect
-Xianke and Mandible start to close with the Brute
-Ellipses and Flaming Hammer get to a roof for sniper work
-Bob Perkins drains the Brutes strength: after defenses 1 point is drained, which is enough to trigger another berserk.
Did I mention that each berserk triggers a strength boost?
net result - Bob made the brute stronger
-Tombstone fires his vortex cannon: hit, no effect
-The Brute makes a short leap and grabs Thunderclap
-Senor Iago, who has been holding his action, makes a Presence attack: he slammed his mace down to get the Brute's attention and said,
Everyone goes to post phase 12 recovery.
Next turn Thunderclap tries to break free from the Brute's grasp, but it is like this
Even with power armor.
Bob Perkins also makes a Presence Attack to try to calm down the Brute, as does Iago, again. The Brute is rapidly calming down!
Then Xianke kicks him.
Perfectly in-character, too. He doesn't do any damage through defenses, but the Brute might have noticed. This upset Flaming Hammer who uses his maser rifle to...
...snipe Xianke, knocking him out with a mostly invisible beam.
But not invisible to the sensors on Tombstone's mecha. Tombstone tracks back the point of origin, zooms in and sees...
...a filthy Commie! [Flaming Hammer still has red stars and the hammer and sickle on his armor) Originally a soldier in a much hotter Cold War Tombstone draws his "pistol" (a 3' long cannon) and fires on Flaming Hammer. He hits but Flaming Hammer can take it.
The Brute then glances around before hurling Thunderclap north.
Very, very hard.
There is a sonic boom as she vanishes toward Dalton.
Speedre (who has been holding her action) sprints off at her overdrive speed, hoping to catch Thunderclap on the way down.
And the Brute leaps away to the East, also causing a sonic boom as he goes.
At this point Mandible steps between the various PC heroes who have been (or are about to) fighting each other c\and calls for calm. The 7' tall cockroach man succeeds in reasoning with everyone and various mutual introductions and apologies are made.
At this point Bob Perkins wants to know where the closest McDonald's is. 3 blocks down Marietta Street later and the heroes are all eating big macs and talking (Thunderclap picked up the tab; Bob had lost his wallet on a planet near the Garnet Star a few weeks before).
After a few minutes two Icemen (ICICLE investigators) arrived and began to debrief the heroes. A few minutes after they left a young man in the uniform of a Star Ranger arrived: the staff had picked him and he was there to recover the body of his predecessor and return to the local Star Ranger base for training. The group assisted him in getting the body and he then vanished into the sky.
The heroes exchanged various methods of contacting each other (except for Bob. He said he tends to be where he's needed). Bob vanished into thin air as he was about to bite into his 4th big mac and everyone else was soon heading home.
I was a little pleased with how much fun this intro session went!
The players (sex and age) and characters (powers) were:
KF (M/18) - Senor Iago (A Portuguese Knight of a Holy Order placed into a cursed slumber by a witch and recently awoken. Wears enchanted armor and shield as well as a number of magic items, fights with an enchanted mace, can summon a pegasus)
JS (M/17) - Bob Perkins, Defender of the Universe (an array of energy attacks, drains, and boosts)
KB (F/17) - Thunderclap (Power armor user with a number of sonic attacks)
DB (F/16) - Speedre [rhymes with the typical pronunciation of 'Dierdre'] (full-body cyborg super-speedster)
AS (M/15) - Tombstone (Pilot of a war machine that can transform between being a 36' tall battle mecha and a large RV; he is from a parallel dimension where nuclear weapons were never developed and battles were fought in huge anthropomorphic war bots)
JB (M/15) - ...[Ellipses] (Gadgeteer) because of his physique and his sewer base sometimes called 'sewer urchin' or 'the swole mole'
SS (M/14) - Сжигание Молот ['Flaming Hammer'] (WWII Polish warrior who was forced to be a super-soldier for the Soviets; put in cryo-stasis after the war and only recently awoken. Super gadgets and armor as well as an enhanced body and martial arts)
TB (M/13) - Xianke (A Shaw Brothers/Wuxia style martial artist)
NS (M/12) - Mandible (A scientist who, post lab accident, can transform into a sort of 'were-insect' with a variety of insect powers like vast leaps, clinging, etc. Also quite tough)
Whew!
So, as background:
Senor Iago and Flaming Hammer were in Atlanta because of the Temporal Displacement Research and Treatment Center at ICICLE Tower, near the CNN Center [ICICLE (Intergovernmental Committee on International Criminal Law Enforcement) is the SHIELD/UNTIL/UNCLE/etc of my campaign)], Tombstone's RV pierced the dimensional barriers near Atlanta because of events related to the last session. Mandible and Speedre came out of local high-tech labs. Ellipses and Thunderclap are from the 'local high-tech scene' in Alpharetta. Xianke won't tell anyone why he is here. Bob Perkins, who just got back from the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal, isn't really sure why he's here.
The session started with some of the heroes learning that there was something falling from space into Atlanta. The various heroes, who had not yet met, converged on the CNN Center, the estimated impact point. Thunderclap saw the impact from a distance - whateveritwas landed in the intersection between the CNN Center and ICICLE Tower. Flaming Hammer and Iago saw the impact and donned their armor. Ellipses and the rest also heard or heard of the impact and began to close in.
At that moment Bob Perkins appeared a few feet away from the impact crater. He asked a passerby what planet and year it was and then approached the impact - it was an alien in a Star Ranger uniform whom Bob recognized as the one assigned to the local region [No, not a Green Lantern!]. Obviously dying, the Ranger ordered his staff to find a replacement and then told Bob,
"The Riders are coming"Before he died.
The various supers are all there or almost there when everyone hears a sonic boom and sees a vapor trail heading towards them. A moment later the Brute lands in the intersection! The only creature on Earth labeled an Omega Level threat, the various rookie supers collectively hold their breath.
The massive, gray-skinned Brute looks at the Star Ranger and shouts,
"Who killed my friend?!?!"
and just then - an energy bolt fired from the ICICLE Tower strikes the Brute, which promptly triggers his Berserk and its time for combat.
-Speedre does a move by at full speed: hit, no effect
-Thunderclap hits with her biggest gun: hit, no effect
-Xianke and Mandible start to close with the Brute
-Ellipses and Flaming Hammer get to a roof for sniper work
-Bob Perkins drains the Brutes strength: after defenses 1 point is drained, which is enough to trigger another berserk.
Did I mention that each berserk triggers a strength boost?
net result - Bob made the brute stronger
-Tombstone fires his vortex cannon: hit, no effect
-The Brute makes a short leap and grabs Thunderclap
-Senor Iago, who has been holding his action, makes a Presence attack: he slammed his mace down to get the Brute's attention and said,
"Sir, I do not know you, but I ask you to calm down. None of us are your enemies; none of us hurt your friend. We are good people made afraid by our anger. I beseech you to cease fighting and we will help find the people who killed your friend."And he rolled really well, giving the brute a chance to try to recover from one of the berserks, which he did.
Everyone goes to post phase 12 recovery.
Next turn Thunderclap tries to break free from the Brute's grasp, but it is like this
Even with power armor.
Bob Perkins also makes a Presence Attack to try to calm down the Brute, as does Iago, again. The Brute is rapidly calming down!
Then Xianke kicks him.
Perfectly in-character, too. He doesn't do any damage through defenses, but the Brute might have noticed. This upset Flaming Hammer who uses his maser rifle to...
...snipe Xianke, knocking him out with a mostly invisible beam.
But not invisible to the sensors on Tombstone's mecha. Tombstone tracks back the point of origin, zooms in and sees...
...a filthy Commie! [Flaming Hammer still has red stars and the hammer and sickle on his armor) Originally a soldier in a much hotter Cold War Tombstone draws his "pistol" (a 3' long cannon) and fires on Flaming Hammer. He hits but Flaming Hammer can take it.
The Brute then glances around before hurling Thunderclap north.
Very, very hard.
There is a sonic boom as she vanishes toward Dalton.
Speedre (who has been holding her action) sprints off at her overdrive speed, hoping to catch Thunderclap on the way down.
And the Brute leaps away to the East, also causing a sonic boom as he goes.
At this point Mandible steps between the various PC heroes who have been (or are about to) fighting each other c\and calls for calm. The 7' tall cockroach man succeeds in reasoning with everyone and various mutual introductions and apologies are made.
At this point Bob Perkins wants to know where the closest McDonald's is. 3 blocks down Marietta Street later and the heroes are all eating big macs and talking (Thunderclap picked up the tab; Bob had lost his wallet on a planet near the Garnet Star a few weeks before).
After a few minutes two Icemen (ICICLE investigators) arrived and began to debrief the heroes. A few minutes after they left a young man in the uniform of a Star Ranger arrived: the staff had picked him and he was there to recover the body of his predecessor and return to the local Star Ranger base for training. The group assisted him in getting the body and he then vanished into the sky.
The heroes exchanged various methods of contacting each other (except for Bob. He said he tends to be where he's needed). Bob vanished into thin air as he was about to bite into his 4th big mac and everyone else was soon heading home.
I was a little pleased with how much fun this intro session went!
Thursday, October 23, 2014
A Hot Meal and a Cup of Tea
When I DM and when I play I am often surprised by the simple little things: player treat horses like bicycles; they never ask about the weather, and they treat fire as nothing but a light source.
I already talked about the weather a bit and I plan to write about horses, so let's talk about fire.
We'll start by talking about encumbrance.
No matter where you fall on the matter of encumbrance (and I am a hard-ass stickler that will slow you down, give you penalties, and expects you to track every 1/10th of a pound) on a long journey it will be very hard to bring enough food and essentially impossible to bring enough water since the minimum a person needs is 10 lbs of water a day. So we must assume that adventurers are getting water from somewhere (streams, springs, and wells above ground. And you have water sources in your dungeons, right?) and that these sources aren't always (maybe never) pure water.
Have I mentioned my disease and parasite rules?
In Real Life over 3 million people die each year from water-borne diseases. Even crystal-clear water from an alpine creek can cause lethal diarrhea. Now, there are a few ways of avoiding this ranging from adding 1 part red wine to 3 parts water (which does an amazing job purifying drinking water, thus why the ancients did it) to drinking only beer to Purify Food and Drink to being a paladin.
But one of the most direct and best is - boiling the water, which also kills parasites.
There are other impacts, too. A series of studies in America and the UK show that office workers are more mentally alert and observant if they have a hot beverage (tea or coffee) in the morning. World military forces have been aware of the positive impacts on morale of plentiful hot beverages, as well, and I have very rarely seen a canteen, chow hall, etc. that didn't have hot tea or coffee available 24 hours a day.
Another thing to think about is, well, the temperature. In the modern world where we go from heated home to heated car to heated office it is easy to forget that it gets cold. Imagine being dressed in chain mail on horseback in a biting wind and cold drizzle for 8 hours on a late Autumn day. Or sleeping in the open on the ground in early Spring. The Wilderness Survival Guide had some great ideas about dealing with cold weather (or hot weather, for that matter) but I often just do something simple - at a certain point travelling in the cold without adequate shelter and heat is force marching. Eventually just being out in the elements is force marching, too, even if you aren't moving.
Dungeons are pretty chilly, I suspect. Remember, it tends to be cool underground and is often damp. According to my friends who are into caving and online caving guides one of the biggest dangers of caving, if not the biggest, is hypothermia. I assume that this is probably a problem in any deep underground place, even a worked dungeon. So PCs are going to need to warm up and/or dry off routinely.
Last is food. I have certainly lost track of the parties that blithely announce that they will supplement their rations by 'hunting along the way' when in the wilderness. If they are very far from civilization they will also state they are having a 'cold camp' without a fire. I then ask them how they are preparing the food they hunted....
I did mention my disease and parasite rules, right?
Rick's disease and parasite rules are included in his supplement Far Realms, available in print and as a PDF. Far Realms also includes new hirelings, such as the healer, new PC classes, like the barbarian, and more than 30 pages of new spells. Suitable for any old-school campaign, please consider buying Far Realms today!
Anyway, while cooking your food does greatly reduce your chances of dying horribly from disease or parasite hot meals are important to alertness and morale, too. British and American forces in combat reveal that eliminating a hot breakfast has twice the negative impact on soldier morale than doubling the amount of time they are in active combat zones. That's right, soldiers are twice as upset over no bacon and toast than they are about getting shot at more often! Just giving soldiers the ability to heat field rations has a notable positive effect on morale and performance.
So all this long rambling is to support my actual point.
Characters in fantasy RPGs should worry about being able to start and maintain a fire.
So why aren't coal and charcoal seen more often on equipment lists and in character inventories?
Yes, I am starting another 'stop thinking like a modern person and think like a medieval person' rant, why do you ask?
People have been making charcoal for thousands of years, so far back we aren't sure when it started. But since charcoal is critical to metalwork, I have always assumed it is readily available in virtually any fantasy campaign.
Now, actual charcoal looks very little like those briquettes for your grill. Lump charcoal looks like what it is - chunks of charred wood. from finger to fist size. Lump charcoal can range from low quality stuff that has a strong smell and a fair amount of smoke when it burns to expensive types that have virtually no odor and very little smoke when burning.
In any case, lighting charcoal is relatively simple - flint & steel with a good tinderbox should do it as log as the charcoal is dry. Lump charcoal gets to temperature quickly and burns hotter than briquettes and the more expensive types leave less ash behind. A handful of lump charcoal will burn long enough to bring a gallon of water to a boil and maintain a boil for a full minute; a double handful is enough for 2 gallons and a meal for four-5 people.
Coal can be more expensive or hard to find than charcoal and its quality varies from lignite to anthracite. Bituminous, which is the type usually used by smiths, is fairly easy to light (easier than charcoal), doesn't burn as hot as charcoal, and makes more smoke and ash than good charcoal. But it will light and burn when wet (although it smokes more) and the same volume of coal burns longer than charcoal. Anthracite burns with much less smoke and ash than bituminous and burns a long time but can be difficult to light. A lrge lump of bituminous coal can boil 2 gallons of water and a double handful can boil 4 plus cook a meal for 4-5 people.
I should also mention peat - a sort of 'pre-coal' from bogs and mires, when properly dried peat can burn for a long time and produce a nice amount of heat. It has a distinctive smell and a fair amount of smoke, though.
In each of these cases, charcoal, coal, and even peat, you get more heat for the same space/weight than wood. Also, since most wood needs to cure and dry for a while to make a good fire (and it might be wet, besides) these are great ideas outdoors as well as underground.
Field cooking equipment is very old. Romans had all sorts of things to make army cooking in the field better and by Medieval times field cooking gear was fairly well developed with small portable iron fireboxes (about the size of a helmet), fire stands, griddles, field cauldrons (again, about like a helmet), and such. Wooden and earthenware mugs we also pretty common back then.
The small iron fireboxes typically had a lid and such so that the airflow (and thus temperature) of the fire could be controlled. This lets them double as a heater for tents and small areas and for a small amount of fuel to last a long time. In my opinion, each party should have at least one iron fire box, a field cauldron, a small griddle, a fire stand, and some charcoal or coal.
Which brings us to another point; air. No matter how little smoke is made, fires consume oxygen. Even in AD&D you should make sure there is enough fresh air to safely make a fire.
No, this post is not a description of camping gear and a safety statement.
Well, not just those things, at least.
I concern myself with these details for a number of reasons.
First, I want verisimilitude in my campaign - I track water usage, encumbrance, weather, etc. because it makes the world I built more internally consistent, which makes the rest of my job easier.
Second, in my experience it allows the players a better chance to immerse themselves into their characters and the world and gives many opportunities for roleplaying - little bits like who is good at building a fire and who can't cook are fun and add a ton of depth, all on the cheap.
Third, it is another way to weigh down characters while vacuuming money out of their belt pouches.
Fourth, it has implications that can be plot hooks.
For example, where does the coal come from? In Real Life the easily accessible coal was gathered very early. Are there coal mines? Where? You need coal and charcoal to make things like, oh, iron, so - do the dwarves mine it/make it? If they don't they have to get it from somewhere!
Charcoal can have a huge impact on a region. Interesting fact - no forest in Finland is more than 300 years old. Why?
They cut down all the trees for charcoal over the course of about 250 years!
Mainly to get wood tar, but it was the charcoal process and it really, really changed Finland for a century+. In my Seaward campaign colliers slip into the forests between civilized lands and the orcish city-states to make charcoal to sell. Very, very risky, but very profitable. The gnomes of Gladdenstone make a lot of money mining anthracite and selling it to the dwarves. The barbarians of Eiru have to collect peat from the edges of the haunted Moorlands to heat their homes in the harsh winters of their island nation.
So think about it. Maybe have a henchman demand more pay or have a hireling quit suddenly because there is never a pot of tea at dawn, or have the party suffer a -1 to hit from fatigue after 3 days of near-hypothermia in a dungeon's depths. Gnomes increasing prices for coal might push the dwarves to the brink of war and orcish raids in Autumn could lead to suffering as the poor run out of charcoal to heat their homes in deep Winter.
Or just imagine going 3 days with no tea, coffee, or hot food yourself and build an adventure from that. Mine would have lots of murder and naps.
We'll start by talking about encumbrance.
No matter where you fall on the matter of encumbrance (and I am a hard-ass stickler that will slow you down, give you penalties, and expects you to track every 1/10th of a pound) on a long journey it will be very hard to bring enough food and essentially impossible to bring enough water since the minimum a person needs is 10 lbs of water a day. So we must assume that adventurers are getting water from somewhere (streams, springs, and wells above ground. And you have water sources in your dungeons, right?) and that these sources aren't always (maybe never) pure water.
Have I mentioned my disease and parasite rules?
In Real Life over 3 million people die each year from water-borne diseases. Even crystal-clear water from an alpine creek can cause lethal diarrhea. Now, there are a few ways of avoiding this ranging from adding 1 part red wine to 3 parts water (which does an amazing job purifying drinking water, thus why the ancients did it) to drinking only beer to Purify Food and Drink to being a paladin.
But one of the most direct and best is - boiling the water, which also kills parasites.
There are other impacts, too. A series of studies in America and the UK show that office workers are more mentally alert and observant if they have a hot beverage (tea or coffee) in the morning. World military forces have been aware of the positive impacts on morale of plentiful hot beverages, as well, and I have very rarely seen a canteen, chow hall, etc. that didn't have hot tea or coffee available 24 hours a day.
Another thing to think about is, well, the temperature. In the modern world where we go from heated home to heated car to heated office it is easy to forget that it gets cold. Imagine being dressed in chain mail on horseback in a biting wind and cold drizzle for 8 hours on a late Autumn day. Or sleeping in the open on the ground in early Spring. The Wilderness Survival Guide had some great ideas about dealing with cold weather (or hot weather, for that matter) but I often just do something simple - at a certain point travelling in the cold without adequate shelter and heat is force marching. Eventually just being out in the elements is force marching, too, even if you aren't moving.
Dungeons are pretty chilly, I suspect. Remember, it tends to be cool underground and is often damp. According to my friends who are into caving and online caving guides one of the biggest dangers of caving, if not the biggest, is hypothermia. I assume that this is probably a problem in any deep underground place, even a worked dungeon. So PCs are going to need to warm up and/or dry off routinely.
Last is food. I have certainly lost track of the parties that blithely announce that they will supplement their rations by 'hunting along the way' when in the wilderness. If they are very far from civilization they will also state they are having a 'cold camp' without a fire. I then ask them how they are preparing the food they hunted....
I did mention my disease and parasite rules, right?
Rick's disease and parasite rules are included in his supplement Far Realms, available in print and as a PDF. Far Realms also includes new hirelings, such as the healer, new PC classes, like the barbarian, and more than 30 pages of new spells. Suitable for any old-school campaign, please consider buying Far Realms today!
Anyway, while cooking your food does greatly reduce your chances of dying horribly from disease or parasite hot meals are important to alertness and morale, too. British and American forces in combat reveal that eliminating a hot breakfast has twice the negative impact on soldier morale than doubling the amount of time they are in active combat zones. That's right, soldiers are twice as upset over no bacon and toast than they are about getting shot at more often! Just giving soldiers the ability to heat field rations has a notable positive effect on morale and performance.
So all this long rambling is to support my actual point.
Characters in fantasy RPGs should worry about being able to start and maintain a fire.
So why aren't coal and charcoal seen more often on equipment lists and in character inventories?
Yes, I am starting another 'stop thinking like a modern person and think like a medieval person' rant, why do you ask?
People have been making charcoal for thousands of years, so far back we aren't sure when it started. But since charcoal is critical to metalwork, I have always assumed it is readily available in virtually any fantasy campaign.
Now, actual charcoal looks very little like those briquettes for your grill. Lump charcoal looks like what it is - chunks of charred wood. from finger to fist size. Lump charcoal can range from low quality stuff that has a strong smell and a fair amount of smoke when it burns to expensive types that have virtually no odor and very little smoke when burning.
In any case, lighting charcoal is relatively simple - flint & steel with a good tinderbox should do it as log as the charcoal is dry. Lump charcoal gets to temperature quickly and burns hotter than briquettes and the more expensive types leave less ash behind. A handful of lump charcoal will burn long enough to bring a gallon of water to a boil and maintain a boil for a full minute; a double handful is enough for 2 gallons and a meal for four-5 people.
Coal can be more expensive or hard to find than charcoal and its quality varies from lignite to anthracite. Bituminous, which is the type usually used by smiths, is fairly easy to light (easier than charcoal), doesn't burn as hot as charcoal, and makes more smoke and ash than good charcoal. But it will light and burn when wet (although it smokes more) and the same volume of coal burns longer than charcoal. Anthracite burns with much less smoke and ash than bituminous and burns a long time but can be difficult to light. A lrge lump of bituminous coal can boil 2 gallons of water and a double handful can boil 4 plus cook a meal for 4-5 people.
I should also mention peat - a sort of 'pre-coal' from bogs and mires, when properly dried peat can burn for a long time and produce a nice amount of heat. It has a distinctive smell and a fair amount of smoke, though.
In each of these cases, charcoal, coal, and even peat, you get more heat for the same space/weight than wood. Also, since most wood needs to cure and dry for a while to make a good fire (and it might be wet, besides) these are great ideas outdoors as well as underground.
Field cooking equipment is very old. Romans had all sorts of things to make army cooking in the field better and by Medieval times field cooking gear was fairly well developed with small portable iron fireboxes (about the size of a helmet), fire stands, griddles, field cauldrons (again, about like a helmet), and such. Wooden and earthenware mugs we also pretty common back then.
The small iron fireboxes typically had a lid and such so that the airflow (and thus temperature) of the fire could be controlled. This lets them double as a heater for tents and small areas and for a small amount of fuel to last a long time. In my opinion, each party should have at least one iron fire box, a field cauldron, a small griddle, a fire stand, and some charcoal or coal.
Which brings us to another point; air. No matter how little smoke is made, fires consume oxygen. Even in AD&D you should make sure there is enough fresh air to safely make a fire.
No, this post is not a description of camping gear and a safety statement.
Well, not just those things, at least.
I concern myself with these details for a number of reasons.
First, I want verisimilitude in my campaign - I track water usage, encumbrance, weather, etc. because it makes the world I built more internally consistent, which makes the rest of my job easier.
Second, in my experience it allows the players a better chance to immerse themselves into their characters and the world and gives many opportunities for roleplaying - little bits like who is good at building a fire and who can't cook are fun and add a ton of depth, all on the cheap.
Third, it is another way to weigh down characters while vacuuming money out of their belt pouches.
Fourth, it has implications that can be plot hooks.
For example, where does the coal come from? In Real Life the easily accessible coal was gathered very early. Are there coal mines? Where? You need coal and charcoal to make things like, oh, iron, so - do the dwarves mine it/make it? If they don't they have to get it from somewhere!
Charcoal can have a huge impact on a region. Interesting fact - no forest in Finland is more than 300 years old. Why?
They cut down all the trees for charcoal over the course of about 250 years!
Mainly to get wood tar, but it was the charcoal process and it really, really changed Finland for a century+. In my Seaward campaign colliers slip into the forests between civilized lands and the orcish city-states to make charcoal to sell. Very, very risky, but very profitable. The gnomes of Gladdenstone make a lot of money mining anthracite and selling it to the dwarves. The barbarians of Eiru have to collect peat from the edges of the haunted Moorlands to heat their homes in the harsh winters of their island nation.
So think about it. Maybe have a henchman demand more pay or have a hireling quit suddenly because there is never a pot of tea at dawn, or have the party suffer a -1 to hit from fatigue after 3 days of near-hypothermia in a dungeon's depths. Gnomes increasing prices for coal might push the dwarves to the brink of war and orcish raids in Autumn could lead to suffering as the poor run out of charcoal to heat their homes in deep Winter.
Or just imagine going 3 days with no tea, coffee, or hot food yourself and build an adventure from that. Mine would have lots of murder and naps.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Lies, Mistakes, False Confidence and Your Campaign
I hope you will forgive me if I get a bit wonky.
Thanks in advance.
Many years ago I spent an entire Summer studying demographics (some details here as to why a 10 year old would do that) and concluded that I would reject what was being written about by lepidopterists, science fiction writers, and others about overpopulation and, rather, agree with actual demographers, all of whom insisted overpopulation wasn't a problem then and wouldn't be for a long, long time. The doomsayers of overpopulation stated 1970 was far too late to prevent hundreds of millions of people from starving to death in the 1970's and that nothing could prevent famine from wiping out England by 1980.
Turns out the demographers were correct and the popular voices were wrong.
Now several major nations are grappling with rapid underpopulation and the contraction of world population should begin within my own lifetime.
During Desert Shield I encountered a group of journalists, the leader of whom was very excited. Why? He had a big scoop - he said he had caught the army lying. You see, the army had said the PATRIOT missile system was operating at more than 90% success but he had proof - proof! - that less than 1 in 4 launched missiles was even reaching the target; the rest were blown up in mid air remotely!
I said,
"Of course, that is how the system works, but it doesn't change the success rate."
You see, when a potential target is spotted 1/2 of all available launchers fire an intercept missile. Why? Safety! There isn't enough time to launch one at a time, so you launch multiples in case the first or even more miss, and then remotely destroy any that aren't needed.
I spent the next two hours fruitlessly trying to explain the critical difference between 'individual element accuracy' and 'system success rate'. He ignored me, broke his "scandal", and made headlines.
To this day I know people who know the army lied about the success of the Patriots because of that journalist.
This phenomena where someone who is incompetent at something but believes they are competent at it, even has a name - the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This state, in very simplified terms, that people who are unskilled in a certain task tend to honestly believe they are very skillful, even masters, of the task while people who are very skillful at the same task tend to rate themselves as mediocre.
"Wait a minute, Rick," you say, "I've heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, sure. But I know/googled/looked up/etc. overpopulation and the Patriot missile system and, well, they are terrible examples because overpopulation is a huge issue/the Patriots don't work!"
Actually, we're just getting to the point of this post, so thanks for chiming in.
Because this post is about misinformation in your campaign.
In my campaigns there are things everyone knows to be true that aren't and things everyone know to be false that aren't. And you might need to consult a sage to find this out.
Here is an example from Seaward:
Maury looked grim, "My divinations and research have explained the strange things that Sessy saw and heard; the new master of thieves is a rakshasa."
"A rakshasa!", exclaimed Sessy, "this is foul news indeed."
"What is a rock-shasta and if it bleeds, why do I care?" asked Eirik.
"Rakshasa," corrected Maury, "a magical creature from a far land. Virtually immune to magic and proof against all but the mightiest enchanted weapons it cloaks itself in a nigh-perfect illusion of being a person or creature you trust and then destroys you when you are unwary. They are cunning and powerful."
"But not invincible," added Brother Reynaud, "I recall hearing from another cleric that the merest scratch from a crossbow bolt that has been Blessed can slay them."
"I had heard this rumor, as well, " agreed Maury, "and my research in the Imperial Library confirms it. We shall confront the evil with Eirik and his henchmen armed alike with a score of Blessed bolts!"
[2 weeks later]
The series of ambushes and traps from the thieves had been bad enough, but the two doppleganger servants of the rakshasa had been even worse. The adventurers were all bleeding from various injuries and Sessy was on her way back to the surface with half the surviving henchmen guiding her; the poison-induced blindness should wear off in a few days.
With surprising ease they made it to the Master's Room. The interior was well lit and empty except for a figure lounging on the gem-encrusted throne in in the far wall. The figure looked like a tall, powerfully-built man with the head of a tiger. The rakshasa put down his hookah pipe and smoothed his silk robe as he stood, revealing that his thumbs were on the 'wrong' sides and that his fingers curled backward, not inward.
Brother Reynaud called out, "Prepare for your death, foul one! Your doom is here!"
It took a moment for the adventurers to realize the rumbling growl was a chuckle.
"Fools," growled the creature, "my minions and traps have done naught but prove you cannot harm me."
The rakshasa strode toward them, it whiskers twitching.
"Fire, men, fire!" called Eirik as his 3 surviving henchman joined him in launching crossbow bolts. Two struck true with Eirik's own quivering in the beast's throat. Soundlessly the rakshasa slipped to the ground.
Eirik leapt forward with a shout of triumph. But as he prepared to collect the thing's head it leapt up, snarling. After a swift exchange of blows Eirik drew back, bleeding from half a dozen new wounds. The rakshasa paused to pluck the bolts from its hide, the wounds sealing up instantly. He briefly sniffed one of the bolts before tossing it aside.
"Run," hissed Eirik, "run for the surface. If I live I will rejoin you."
As players in my Seaward game now know, very well, rakshasa are not harmed by crossbow bolts that have been Blessed. Crossbow bolts that have been Consecrated, however, are instant death to the horrible creatures.
Yes, my players were horrified. Yes, at least one was indignant ('but the Monster Manual says!'). But why not? After all, plenty if people think that 15th century Europeans thought the world was flat. They didn't. Indeed, the main opposition to Columbus was because the majority of scholars agreed on the circumference of the earth and expected him to run out of supplies before he reached land. Columbus was wrong about the Earth's circumference (the scholars were really close, actually), there was just a landmass or two that were not as well known in the way. But not only is this belief ['15th Century Europeans thought the world was flat'] common it can be found in school textbooks and even books in college reference libraries.
So add some facts to your campaign and make some of them fun, interesting, and true ['adding a drop of red dragon blood to the components of a Fireball makes it hotter' and give a +1 per die if they do this; 'the ichor of a slithering tracker makes you immune to a gelatinous cube's paralysis for an hour', etc.] make some of them them fun and false ['adding a drop of blue dragon blood to the components of a Lightning Bolt makes it more powerful' when it doesn't; 'if you tie the death shroud of a murderer across your face as a mask ghast stink doesn't affect you' but this doesn't work, etc.]. Also have things that 'everyone knows' be false [like the rakshasa] and that everyone disbelieves be true [for example, only superstitious peasants nail brass keys to the lintel of their door frames with a single iron nail - educated and sophisticated people sneer at this superstition.
But what if it does prevent intelligent undead from entering the home? Maybe it only works for actual family homes with a relatively small total square footage, or an average value or less, or some other limitation that means it doesn't work on castles, or wizard's towers, or churches, or the town homes of rich merchants but it does work. That isn't going to break anything, skew the campaign, or help players with their lordly manors, but it might be an interesting plot point and, is handled right, can really mess with the players.
You can do this with NPCs, too. Everyone, but everyone, knows that Kregar the Shining is the best swordsman in the West. He has been challenged on a number of occasions by renowned swordsmen but has always prevailed. People come from distant lands to train under him but he selects just one man every two or three years. These men go on to state with great pride they were trained by Kregar and laud his mastery far and wide.
He is beloved in the city, too. He tips well, is generous to friends, gives freely to the poor, and has been known to help out young, down on their luck adventurers from time to time with cash and introductions. He is charming, friendly, and soft-spoken.
In reality he is a 5th level fighter with a 16 Dexterity who is specialized in the broad sword and has a magical sword that means he always strikes first (although he has no idea it is magical). So he is pretty good, but not that good. However, he is truly convinced in his heart that he is the best swordsman in the world.
In addition to the personality traits listed above he is also prone to 'humble-bragging' such as;
'I hope you do not mind having dinner with me. If I am busy when the general comes perhaps he will stop pestering me to train the king's guard'
'I grow so weary of famous swordsmen coming just to challenge me to a duel. It disrupts my training so much.'
'Perhaps you will accept this as a gift? it was sent by a master swordsmith from a far land, but the humble blade I found years ago has been more than enough for me to win every duel.'
etc.
This can go the other way, too. Just think of Aragorn in LotR - heir to the kingship of all Men of the West and dedicated to protecting the frontier from evil the locals called him 'Strider' and though he was a disreputable sort, going so far as to warn travelers not to associate with him.
And remember, none of this has to be purposeful or malicious. These could all be no more than honest mistakes!
But why do we do this? A few reasons.
First, it cuts down on meta-gaming. Players that have memorized the books will have less of an 'advantage' in these situations.
Second, it reflects Real Life at least a little. We all are subject to this sort of mistaken confidence and false knowledge, so why not your characters, too?
Third, it makes your world unique. This is a simple way to differentiate your campaign world from anything else.
Fourth, it makes in-character research and divinations more valuable. Access to good libraries, the casting of expensive divinations, and travel to distant sages suddenly are all worth it.
And last, it adds to the sense of wonder that makes the game more fun.
Thanks in advance.
Many years ago I spent an entire Summer studying demographics (some details here as to why a 10 year old would do that) and concluded that I would reject what was being written about by lepidopterists, science fiction writers, and others about overpopulation and, rather, agree with actual demographers, all of whom insisted overpopulation wasn't a problem then and wouldn't be for a long, long time. The doomsayers of overpopulation stated 1970 was far too late to prevent hundreds of millions of people from starving to death in the 1970's and that nothing could prevent famine from wiping out England by 1980.
Turns out the demographers were correct and the popular voices were wrong.
Now several major nations are grappling with rapid underpopulation and the contraction of world population should begin within my own lifetime.
During Desert Shield I encountered a group of journalists, the leader of whom was very excited. Why? He had a big scoop - he said he had caught the army lying. You see, the army had said the PATRIOT missile system was operating at more than 90% success but he had proof - proof! - that less than 1 in 4 launched missiles was even reaching the target; the rest were blown up in mid air remotely!
I said,
"Of course, that is how the system works, but it doesn't change the success rate."
You see, when a potential target is spotted 1/2 of all available launchers fire an intercept missile. Why? Safety! There isn't enough time to launch one at a time, so you launch multiples in case the first or even more miss, and then remotely destroy any that aren't needed.
I spent the next two hours fruitlessly trying to explain the critical difference between 'individual element accuracy' and 'system success rate'. He ignored me, broke his "scandal", and made headlines.
To this day I know people who know the army lied about the success of the Patriots because of that journalist.
This phenomena where someone who is incompetent at something but believes they are competent at it, even has a name - the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This state, in very simplified terms, that people who are unskilled in a certain task tend to honestly believe they are very skillful, even masters, of the task while people who are very skillful at the same task tend to rate themselves as mediocre.
"Wait a minute, Rick," you say, "I've heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, sure. But I know/googled/looked up/etc. overpopulation and the Patriot missile system and, well, they are terrible examples because overpopulation is a huge issue/the Patriots don't work!"
Actually, we're just getting to the point of this post, so thanks for chiming in.
Because this post is about misinformation in your campaign.
In my campaigns there are things everyone knows to be true that aren't and things everyone know to be false that aren't. And you might need to consult a sage to find this out.
Here is an example from Seaward:
Maury looked grim, "My divinations and research have explained the strange things that Sessy saw and heard; the new master of thieves is a rakshasa."
"A rakshasa!", exclaimed Sessy, "this is foul news indeed."
"What is a rock-shasta and if it bleeds, why do I care?" asked Eirik.
"Rakshasa," corrected Maury, "a magical creature from a far land. Virtually immune to magic and proof against all but the mightiest enchanted weapons it cloaks itself in a nigh-perfect illusion of being a person or creature you trust and then destroys you when you are unwary. They are cunning and powerful."
"But not invincible," added Brother Reynaud, "I recall hearing from another cleric that the merest scratch from a crossbow bolt that has been Blessed can slay them."
"I had heard this rumor, as well, " agreed Maury, "and my research in the Imperial Library confirms it. We shall confront the evil with Eirik and his henchmen armed alike with a score of Blessed bolts!"
[2 weeks later]
The series of ambushes and traps from the thieves had been bad enough, but the two doppleganger servants of the rakshasa had been even worse. The adventurers were all bleeding from various injuries and Sessy was on her way back to the surface with half the surviving henchmen guiding her; the poison-induced blindness should wear off in a few days.
With surprising ease they made it to the Master's Room. The interior was well lit and empty except for a figure lounging on the gem-encrusted throne in in the far wall. The figure looked like a tall, powerfully-built man with the head of a tiger. The rakshasa put down his hookah pipe and smoothed his silk robe as he stood, revealing that his thumbs were on the 'wrong' sides and that his fingers curled backward, not inward.
Brother Reynaud called out, "Prepare for your death, foul one! Your doom is here!"
It took a moment for the adventurers to realize the rumbling growl was a chuckle.
"Fools," growled the creature, "my minions and traps have done naught but prove you cannot harm me."
The rakshasa strode toward them, it whiskers twitching.
"Fire, men, fire!" called Eirik as his 3 surviving henchman joined him in launching crossbow bolts. Two struck true with Eirik's own quivering in the beast's throat. Soundlessly the rakshasa slipped to the ground.
Eirik leapt forward with a shout of triumph. But as he prepared to collect the thing's head it leapt up, snarling. After a swift exchange of blows Eirik drew back, bleeding from half a dozen new wounds. The rakshasa paused to pluck the bolts from its hide, the wounds sealing up instantly. He briefly sniffed one of the bolts before tossing it aside.
"Run," hissed Eirik, "run for the surface. If I live I will rejoin you."
As players in my Seaward game now know, very well, rakshasa are not harmed by crossbow bolts that have been Blessed. Crossbow bolts that have been Consecrated, however, are instant death to the horrible creatures.
Yes, my players were horrified. Yes, at least one was indignant ('but the Monster Manual says!'). But why not? After all, plenty if people think that 15th century Europeans thought the world was flat. They didn't. Indeed, the main opposition to Columbus was because the majority of scholars agreed on the circumference of the earth and expected him to run out of supplies before he reached land. Columbus was wrong about the Earth's circumference (the scholars were really close, actually), there was just a landmass or two that were not as well known in the way. But not only is this belief ['15th Century Europeans thought the world was flat'] common it can be found in school textbooks and even books in college reference libraries.
So add some facts to your campaign and make some of them fun, interesting, and true ['adding a drop of red dragon blood to the components of a Fireball makes it hotter' and give a +1 per die if they do this; 'the ichor of a slithering tracker makes you immune to a gelatinous cube's paralysis for an hour', etc.] make some of them them fun and false ['adding a drop of blue dragon blood to the components of a Lightning Bolt makes it more powerful' when it doesn't; 'if you tie the death shroud of a murderer across your face as a mask ghast stink doesn't affect you' but this doesn't work, etc.]. Also have things that 'everyone knows' be false [like the rakshasa] and that everyone disbelieves be true [for example, only superstitious peasants nail brass keys to the lintel of their door frames with a single iron nail - educated and sophisticated people sneer at this superstition.
But what if it does prevent intelligent undead from entering the home? Maybe it only works for actual family homes with a relatively small total square footage, or an average value or less, or some other limitation that means it doesn't work on castles, or wizard's towers, or churches, or the town homes of rich merchants but it does work. That isn't going to break anything, skew the campaign, or help players with their lordly manors, but it might be an interesting plot point and, is handled right, can really mess with the players.
You can do this with NPCs, too. Everyone, but everyone, knows that Kregar the Shining is the best swordsman in the West. He has been challenged on a number of occasions by renowned swordsmen but has always prevailed. People come from distant lands to train under him but he selects just one man every two or three years. These men go on to state with great pride they were trained by Kregar and laud his mastery far and wide.
He is beloved in the city, too. He tips well, is generous to friends, gives freely to the poor, and has been known to help out young, down on their luck adventurers from time to time with cash and introductions. He is charming, friendly, and soft-spoken.
In reality he is a 5th level fighter with a 16 Dexterity who is specialized in the broad sword and has a magical sword that means he always strikes first (although he has no idea it is magical). So he is pretty good, but not that good. However, he is truly convinced in his heart that he is the best swordsman in the world.
In addition to the personality traits listed above he is also prone to 'humble-bragging' such as;
'I hope you do not mind having dinner with me. If I am busy when the general comes perhaps he will stop pestering me to train the king's guard'
'I grow so weary of famous swordsmen coming just to challenge me to a duel. It disrupts my training so much.'
'Perhaps you will accept this as a gift? it was sent by a master swordsmith from a far land, but the humble blade I found years ago has been more than enough for me to win every duel.'
etc.
This can go the other way, too. Just think of Aragorn in LotR - heir to the kingship of all Men of the West and dedicated to protecting the frontier from evil the locals called him 'Strider' and though he was a disreputable sort, going so far as to warn travelers not to associate with him.
And remember, none of this has to be purposeful or malicious. These could all be no more than honest mistakes!
But why do we do this? A few reasons.
First, it cuts down on meta-gaming. Players that have memorized the books will have less of an 'advantage' in these situations.
Second, it reflects Real Life at least a little. We all are subject to this sort of mistaken confidence and false knowledge, so why not your characters, too?
Third, it makes your world unique. This is a simple way to differentiate your campaign world from anything else.
Fourth, it makes in-character research and divinations more valuable. Access to good libraries, the casting of expensive divinations, and travel to distant sages suddenly are all worth it.
And last, it adds to the sense of wonder that makes the game more fun.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Seaward Campaign - Brigid's Adventure Log
Real time: July 5-6, 2014
Je. played Brigid, a human Barbarian
Ja. played Seamus, a human Druid
A. played Starkiller, a half elf Fighter/cleric/magic user
S. played Clarence, a half elf "fighter-thief"/assassin
N. played Akira, a human monk
Backstory:
I am Brigid, born of the sept O'Mara, clan Branaugh. I was born under a summer moon, some 18
years ago. My family has a proud history with our clan, one of the strongest on Isle Eiru. I have such
fond memories of roaming the hills and valleys of my beautiful homeland, first learning to spar and
fight by playing games with my ten siblings and countless cousins. And then the dark times came
when I was but 9 years old. A blight came upon the land, and our previously fertile hills were
practically barren for too many years. It hit our family's homestead particularly hard, and the wicked
pains of hunger are never far from my memory. My body grew taller and taller as I approached
adulthood, with only the strength born of my happy childhood sustaining me during these lean years.
When I reached the age of full womanhood, my world fell apart even further. A rival clansmen
attempted to dishonor me, and quite frankly, I beat him to the pulp he deserved. Upon discovery of his
injuries, his father, head of clan Donegal, approached my family and offered a terrible choice - I may
marry his son, the rotting lecherous bastard, and save his clan's honor, or he would be forced to declare
conflict with our clan. Weakened by the famine, I could not see my family succeeding against this
challenge, and neither could my poor father. So, I left. Banishment would save my family and also
keep me from wedding the vile son. I am tall and strong, I knew I could make my own way. I will
work hard, further hone my fighting skills, and earn enough gold to restore my family to glory. My
need for revenge upon the forces of evil that brought famine upon our land, and upon the dreadful clan
Donegal, drive me. My faith teaches me that revenge is for God alone, but sometimes I can't resist the
rage I feel deep down inside...
I found passage on a ship bound south for a city called Seaward. I worked the sails for my passage.
The crew seemed somewhat frightened of me after I put down the first man who tried to dishonor me,
but they couldn't deny my hard work and assistance with fighting off pirates, so they left me alone for
the rest of our journey. Once in Seaward, I found work in the city as a sign painter (my fascination
with art as a child actually was valuable, though my cousins swore I was wasting my time). It wasn't
long though before the ugliness and stench of the city got the best of me, and I set out for the
countryside. I hear that the Dwarvenlands might remind me of home, which I miss so very much. I
made my way through various small villages, offering my services at the small taverns and inns,
reprinting signs and drawing portraits in exchange for my food and board. I eventually came to the
town of Old Bridge and found plentiful work, and I knew I needed to rest there for awhile. I am
fearfully lonely.
At the inn where I was staying, I met an interesting fellow who goes by the name of Starkiller. A half
elf, he has been kind to me, and has told me of adventures he has had with a few friends, fighting evil
and coming to the defense of weaker villagers. This appeals to me, I am running out of places to draw
new signs, and I am thus far only making my own way, not acquiring gold and treasure to help my
family. I am, quite frankly, pestering him daily, asking to join him and his friends on their next
adventure. I wonder if I should warn them of the rages that come upon me at times, but I don't want
to scare them off, I must prove how helpful I can be, first. I guess the time for me to prove that is
now, as he has finally come to tell me of a new request for help they have received. Something about a
legend of a town who fears the new moon, and people disappearing. I am intrigued.
Day 1:
I have met Starkiller's friends. One of them, Clarence, is overly fond of drink, and I am somewhat
suspicious of him. Seamus seems like a stand-up guy, and Akira is an interesting kind of fighter. They have told me more about the legend, and the new troubles in the village. Seems that 25 years ago or
so, near the village of Richacre, the local lord, named Sir Tremare, built a great guard tower, so he
could watch over the briars on the border. There was a large gargoyle on the top. About a year later,
he and his men all vanished from the tower. Interestingly enough, the gargoyle disappeared, too. After
that, every new moon, one to three people would go missing. The tales tell that the creature that took
them away was said to look like a gargoyle. Several times men said they had killed it, only to find that
the next morning, its body had disappeared, and at the next full moon, people would vanish again.
After about a year and a half, the attacks simply ended. Well, about two months ago, it seems like the
attacks started again. The village sent out word, asking for assistance. Supposedly another adventuring
party arrived to help, but then they disappeared, too. Seamus has heard of the village asking again for
help, and is organizing his friends to set out. I am joining them, and they were kind enough - maybe
mercenary enough? - to loan me money to buy a horse. I am wary of owing money to that Clarence
guy, but hopefully my gamble will pay off. I must show them my worth and try to keep the rage at bay.
Hopefully I can join them on many more adventures and save money for my family. But, first things
first, we are off to the village of Richacre. As we set out, it is cloudy, misting, and very, very hot. How
I miss the cool breezes of home!
Later that evening...
We passed the village of Ham on Wye around noon, then stopped in Stowanger to eat lunch at the
Tankard and Bowl tavern - a good bowl of stew and some beer, very refreshing. We are really on the
border here, you can practically see the edge of civilization. As we set out, we see a sign and are
headed toward Richacre. We arrived late that afternoon, to find a village heavily fortified, with ditches,
earthen ramparts, and palisades. We entered the open gates, and found twelve buildings inside,
including ten family homes. Towards the forest in back, there was a lovely grove of pecan and walnut
trees.
After we entered the gates, we spoke with Tardyl, the head of the village, and the gatekeeper. Both of
them indicated that the last group that came to help was very shifty, and they weren't all that surprised
that they had disappeared. We spoke with them both about the legends, and Tardyl insisted that
several people actually killed the gargoyle, but the body always disappeared! Now, more people are
vanishing. There is no pattern to the targets, and way back when it first started, people as far away as
Stowanger and Ham on Wye. Many people were scared away, and there are only about 50 people left in this village. They offer us a place to stay in a local house inside the walls, and we all note that there is a full moon in two nights, so we should have time to investigate.
And then, Seamus began talking with a crow! He tells us that the crow said that something that smells
funny flies in and out of the tower, there were humans living in the tower 3-4 weeks ago, and there was
a big monster, a Drake, that they rode around. There is also, apparently, something suspicious in the
forest, and something is calling all the crows south for the battles to come. There is definitely evil
afoot, and I can only hope to contribute to its banishment.
Day 2
We got a good nights sleep and awoke this morning to a dreary, misty day, with a fierce north wind, but
it is surprisingly hot. We approached the tower, and saw lots of tracks going between the tower and a
nearby hill. It is a rather foreboding tower, made of dark grey granite, certainly a guard tower and not
a home. There seems to be a place on the south east corner where the old gargoyle probably was at one
point.
My companions and I decided that we should check out the hill before approaching the tower, and
circled around to try to explore he hill without being seen by the tower. I noticed a strange thing, the
tops of the pine trees all around the hill are scorched, and behind the trees there is a cave. Akira
snuck into the cave and found a 24 foot long red dragon! It was chained to the wall, sitting on a pile of
copper and silver. Thankfully, Akira was unseen! Starkiller detected evil, and tells is it is massively
evil, plotting revenge, and very, very annoyed.
We decided to ignore the dragon for now, since he seems securely chained, and see what we have to
deal with in the tower.
Later that day...
We got to the tower safely, and Akira opened the grate in front of a door and saw two humans with
crossbows, grilling meat over a brazier. Akira knocked down the door and we attack! Inside, I remind
myself to not give in to the rage, and I successfully killed one of the bad guys, and my companions
killed the other. Once inside the tower, we opened a door to a spiral staircase, and decided to go down
first. We found a store room with a well and a secret door. The secret door opens onto a dusty, 40'
long hallway with a door at the end.
We decided to clear out the tower before exploring the evil we detect in the secret hall - best to know
what we are dealing with.
The cellar and the first floor remained as they were before we entered the secret tunnel. We climbed
the stairs to the second floor, and I opened the door just a crack and peeked in. I saw four men, and
rushed in (keep the rage at bay!) I killed a guy, and then another. Starkiller kills another, and
Clarence got the final blow against another. As we are searching the room, a man burst into the room
bearing a two handed sword. Clarence recognizes him as Merle, stupid but strong. How does Clarence
know these bad guys? I definitely don't trust him!
Seamus cast a fairy fire spell on Merle, he glowed with an outlined contrast, which should have made it
easier to hit him. Unfortunately, in the heat of battle, my inexperience shines through, to my shame.
I can't seem to hit anything, and I am no help at all to my companions. Maybe my inner fights against
my rage are distracting me? My companions are fierce fighters, however. Akira punched and stuns
him. Suddenly, a woman peeked in the doorway and touched Merle, healing him. Starkiller threw a
dart at the woman. Merle attacked Akira and knocked him unconscious, but Starkiller healed him and
kept him on his feet. Behind us, a thief type appeared in the window and started throwing daggers.
Meanwhile, Merle started being affected by the heating metal of his armor, thanks to a spell cast by
Seamus. Merle is eventually killed by the heated metal, and I got myself together and killed the
woman in the hallway. As we were healing each other and getting our bearings after the battle, we
noticed a guy fall outside the window, in an oddly slow, light way. I pulled out my longbow and shot
him dead as he tried to run away.
We cleared out the rest of the tower, which was empty. From the top of the tower we could see a long
way, we even saw smoke in the distance by where Skull Mountain must be. Clarence found a spell
book, a book on combat and tactics, and a book on the history of Seaward on a bookshelf.
We went outside the tower and raided the body of the man I killed running away, and got a ring and a
key. He was running toward the dragon, perhaps it is the key to his chains?
We went back inside to explore the hallway behind the secret door in the basement. We went through
the door at the end of the hallway and found a room. It was littered with old skeletons covering the
floor, and there were a couple fresher bodies, plus a pile of coins and a large shield. We noticed two
secret doors, and I opened one of them. I found the gargoyle! I rushed in to attack him, and once
again, I just totally failed. Oh, my dreams of fighting evil to avenge my family, how can I fail now??
The gargoyle attacked me and injured me, which shook me out of my inept stupor, and I finally killed
the gargoyle. We opened the other secret door and found a large room with a big seal on the floor and
glowing moss on the floors and walls. We could sense evil in the corner, and nearby, but decided that
we should rest and heal up before exploring further.
Day 3 We went back down to the large room behind the secret door to check out the lead-lined seal on the
floor in that one room. We detected brooding evil, and decided (wisely, I believe) not to open it. We
need to deal with dragon, and there was great debate over what to do. We decided to take our loot
(including the head of the gargoyle thing, to prove we have actually killed it) to the village before we
deal with the dragon. In the village, we contacted the local hedge wizard to identify our possibly
magical loot. We discovered that we have oil of etherealness, so we decided to use that to kill the
dragon. Clarence rubbed the oil will over himself and then we all got ready in case he needed our
help. Clarence entered the dragon's cave ethereally and when the oil wore off, he was able to surprise
the dragon, attacking the dragon with his sword and killing him with a well placed blow. We gathered
his rather paltry loot and carted it out with a mule train, including the dragon hide (we used the
magical sword we found and Akira's leather working skills to preserve it whole!)
My first adventure. I am ashamed of how often I missed my attacks, but I did kill several bad guys,
and managed to keep the rage at bay, so maybe my companions will try to keep me around?
(from the DM, Experience Points: 1600 - plus 500 extra for Clarence)
Treasure:
9000 cp. 20,000 sp. 3,000 GP
Potion of treasure finding
Oil of etherealness (used)
Scroll (illusion spell, phantom armor)
Potion of extra healing
Potion of invisibility
Potion of Orc control
Potion of heroism
+1 leather armor
+1 short sword
Ring of Feather Fall
Je. played Brigid, a human Barbarian
Ja. played Seamus, a human Druid
A. played Starkiller, a half elf Fighter/cleric/magic user
S. played Clarence, a half elf "fighter-thief"/assassin
N. played Akira, a human monk
Backstory:
I am Brigid, born of the sept O'Mara, clan Branaugh. I was born under a summer moon, some 18
years ago. My family has a proud history with our clan, one of the strongest on Isle Eiru. I have such
fond memories of roaming the hills and valleys of my beautiful homeland, first learning to spar and
fight by playing games with my ten siblings and countless cousins. And then the dark times came
when I was but 9 years old. A blight came upon the land, and our previously fertile hills were
practically barren for too many years. It hit our family's homestead particularly hard, and the wicked
pains of hunger are never far from my memory. My body grew taller and taller as I approached
adulthood, with only the strength born of my happy childhood sustaining me during these lean years.
When I reached the age of full womanhood, my world fell apart even further. A rival clansmen
attempted to dishonor me, and quite frankly, I beat him to the pulp he deserved. Upon discovery of his
injuries, his father, head of clan Donegal, approached my family and offered a terrible choice - I may
marry his son, the rotting lecherous bastard, and save his clan's honor, or he would be forced to declare
conflict with our clan. Weakened by the famine, I could not see my family succeeding against this
challenge, and neither could my poor father. So, I left. Banishment would save my family and also
keep me from wedding the vile son. I am tall and strong, I knew I could make my own way. I will
work hard, further hone my fighting skills, and earn enough gold to restore my family to glory. My
need for revenge upon the forces of evil that brought famine upon our land, and upon the dreadful clan
Donegal, drive me. My faith teaches me that revenge is for God alone, but sometimes I can't resist the
rage I feel deep down inside...
I found passage on a ship bound south for a city called Seaward. I worked the sails for my passage.
The crew seemed somewhat frightened of me after I put down the first man who tried to dishonor me,
but they couldn't deny my hard work and assistance with fighting off pirates, so they left me alone for
the rest of our journey. Once in Seaward, I found work in the city as a sign painter (my fascination
with art as a child actually was valuable, though my cousins swore I was wasting my time). It wasn't
long though before the ugliness and stench of the city got the best of me, and I set out for the
countryside. I hear that the Dwarvenlands might remind me of home, which I miss so very much. I
made my way through various small villages, offering my services at the small taverns and inns,
reprinting signs and drawing portraits in exchange for my food and board. I eventually came to the
town of Old Bridge and found plentiful work, and I knew I needed to rest there for awhile. I am
fearfully lonely.
At the inn where I was staying, I met an interesting fellow who goes by the name of Starkiller. A half
elf, he has been kind to me, and has told me of adventures he has had with a few friends, fighting evil
and coming to the defense of weaker villagers. This appeals to me, I am running out of places to draw
new signs, and I am thus far only making my own way, not acquiring gold and treasure to help my
family. I am, quite frankly, pestering him daily, asking to join him and his friends on their next
adventure. I wonder if I should warn them of the rages that come upon me at times, but I don't want
to scare them off, I must prove how helpful I can be, first. I guess the time for me to prove that is
now, as he has finally come to tell me of a new request for help they have received. Something about a
legend of a town who fears the new moon, and people disappearing. I am intrigued.
Day 1:
I have met Starkiller's friends. One of them, Clarence, is overly fond of drink, and I am somewhat
suspicious of him. Seamus seems like a stand-up guy, and Akira is an interesting kind of fighter. They have told me more about the legend, and the new troubles in the village. Seems that 25 years ago or
so, near the village of Richacre, the local lord, named Sir Tremare, built a great guard tower, so he
could watch over the briars on the border. There was a large gargoyle on the top. About a year later,
he and his men all vanished from the tower. Interestingly enough, the gargoyle disappeared, too. After
that, every new moon, one to three people would go missing. The tales tell that the creature that took
them away was said to look like a gargoyle. Several times men said they had killed it, only to find that
the next morning, its body had disappeared, and at the next full moon, people would vanish again.
After about a year and a half, the attacks simply ended. Well, about two months ago, it seems like the
attacks started again. The village sent out word, asking for assistance. Supposedly another adventuring
party arrived to help, but then they disappeared, too. Seamus has heard of the village asking again for
help, and is organizing his friends to set out. I am joining them, and they were kind enough - maybe
mercenary enough? - to loan me money to buy a horse. I am wary of owing money to that Clarence
guy, but hopefully my gamble will pay off. I must show them my worth and try to keep the rage at bay.
Hopefully I can join them on many more adventures and save money for my family. But, first things
first, we are off to the village of Richacre. As we set out, it is cloudy, misting, and very, very hot. How
I miss the cool breezes of home!
Later that evening...
We passed the village of Ham on Wye around noon, then stopped in Stowanger to eat lunch at the
Tankard and Bowl tavern - a good bowl of stew and some beer, very refreshing. We are really on the
border here, you can practically see the edge of civilization. As we set out, we see a sign and are
headed toward Richacre. We arrived late that afternoon, to find a village heavily fortified, with ditches,
earthen ramparts, and palisades. We entered the open gates, and found twelve buildings inside,
including ten family homes. Towards the forest in back, there was a lovely grove of pecan and walnut
trees.
After we entered the gates, we spoke with Tardyl, the head of the village, and the gatekeeper. Both of
them indicated that the last group that came to help was very shifty, and they weren't all that surprised
that they had disappeared. We spoke with them both about the legends, and Tardyl insisted that
several people actually killed the gargoyle, but the body always disappeared! Now, more people are
vanishing. There is no pattern to the targets, and way back when it first started, people as far away as
Stowanger and Ham on Wye. Many people were scared away, and there are only about 50 people left in this village. They offer us a place to stay in a local house inside the walls, and we all note that there is a full moon in two nights, so we should have time to investigate.
And then, Seamus began talking with a crow! He tells us that the crow said that something that smells
funny flies in and out of the tower, there were humans living in the tower 3-4 weeks ago, and there was
a big monster, a Drake, that they rode around. There is also, apparently, something suspicious in the
forest, and something is calling all the crows south for the battles to come. There is definitely evil
afoot, and I can only hope to contribute to its banishment.
Day 2
We got a good nights sleep and awoke this morning to a dreary, misty day, with a fierce north wind, but
it is surprisingly hot. We approached the tower, and saw lots of tracks going between the tower and a
nearby hill. It is a rather foreboding tower, made of dark grey granite, certainly a guard tower and not
a home. There seems to be a place on the south east corner where the old gargoyle probably was at one
point.
My companions and I decided that we should check out the hill before approaching the tower, and
circled around to try to explore he hill without being seen by the tower. I noticed a strange thing, the
tops of the pine trees all around the hill are scorched, and behind the trees there is a cave. Akira
snuck into the cave and found a 24 foot long red dragon! It was chained to the wall, sitting on a pile of
copper and silver. Thankfully, Akira was unseen! Starkiller detected evil, and tells is it is massively
evil, plotting revenge, and very, very annoyed.
We decided to ignore the dragon for now, since he seems securely chained, and see what we have to
deal with in the tower.
Later that day...
We got to the tower safely, and Akira opened the grate in front of a door and saw two humans with
crossbows, grilling meat over a brazier. Akira knocked down the door and we attack! Inside, I remind
myself to not give in to the rage, and I successfully killed one of the bad guys, and my companions
killed the other. Once inside the tower, we opened a door to a spiral staircase, and decided to go down
first. We found a store room with a well and a secret door. The secret door opens onto a dusty, 40'
long hallway with a door at the end.
We decided to clear out the tower before exploring the evil we detect in the secret hall - best to know
what we are dealing with.
The cellar and the first floor remained as they were before we entered the secret tunnel. We climbed
the stairs to the second floor, and I opened the door just a crack and peeked in. I saw four men, and
rushed in (keep the rage at bay!) I killed a guy, and then another. Starkiller kills another, and
Clarence got the final blow against another. As we are searching the room, a man burst into the room
bearing a two handed sword. Clarence recognizes him as Merle, stupid but strong. How does Clarence
know these bad guys? I definitely don't trust him!
Seamus cast a fairy fire spell on Merle, he glowed with an outlined contrast, which should have made it
easier to hit him. Unfortunately, in the heat of battle, my inexperience shines through, to my shame.
I can't seem to hit anything, and I am no help at all to my companions. Maybe my inner fights against
my rage are distracting me? My companions are fierce fighters, however. Akira punched and stuns
him. Suddenly, a woman peeked in the doorway and touched Merle, healing him. Starkiller threw a
dart at the woman. Merle attacked Akira and knocked him unconscious, but Starkiller healed him and
kept him on his feet. Behind us, a thief type appeared in the window and started throwing daggers.
Meanwhile, Merle started being affected by the heating metal of his armor, thanks to a spell cast by
Seamus. Merle is eventually killed by the heated metal, and I got myself together and killed the
woman in the hallway. As we were healing each other and getting our bearings after the battle, we
noticed a guy fall outside the window, in an oddly slow, light way. I pulled out my longbow and shot
him dead as he tried to run away.
We cleared out the rest of the tower, which was empty. From the top of the tower we could see a long
way, we even saw smoke in the distance by where Skull Mountain must be. Clarence found a spell
book, a book on combat and tactics, and a book on the history of Seaward on a bookshelf.
We went outside the tower and raided the body of the man I killed running away, and got a ring and a
key. He was running toward the dragon, perhaps it is the key to his chains?
We went back inside to explore the hallway behind the secret door in the basement. We went through
the door at the end of the hallway and found a room. It was littered with old skeletons covering the
floor, and there were a couple fresher bodies, plus a pile of coins and a large shield. We noticed two
secret doors, and I opened one of them. I found the gargoyle! I rushed in to attack him, and once
again, I just totally failed. Oh, my dreams of fighting evil to avenge my family, how can I fail now??
The gargoyle attacked me and injured me, which shook me out of my inept stupor, and I finally killed
the gargoyle. We opened the other secret door and found a large room with a big seal on the floor and
glowing moss on the floors and walls. We could sense evil in the corner, and nearby, but decided that
we should rest and heal up before exploring further.
Day 3 We went back down to the large room behind the secret door to check out the lead-lined seal on the
floor in that one room. We detected brooding evil, and decided (wisely, I believe) not to open it. We
need to deal with dragon, and there was great debate over what to do. We decided to take our loot
(including the head of the gargoyle thing, to prove we have actually killed it) to the village before we
deal with the dragon. In the village, we contacted the local hedge wizard to identify our possibly
magical loot. We discovered that we have oil of etherealness, so we decided to use that to kill the
dragon. Clarence rubbed the oil will over himself and then we all got ready in case he needed our
help. Clarence entered the dragon's cave ethereally and when the oil wore off, he was able to surprise
the dragon, attacking the dragon with his sword and killing him with a well placed blow. We gathered
his rather paltry loot and carted it out with a mule train, including the dragon hide (we used the
magical sword we found and Akira's leather working skills to preserve it whole!)
My first adventure. I am ashamed of how often I missed my attacks, but I did kill several bad guys,
and managed to keep the rage at bay, so maybe my companions will try to keep me around?
(from the DM, Experience Points: 1600 - plus 500 extra for Clarence)
Treasure:
9000 cp. 20,000 sp. 3,000 GP
Potion of treasure finding
Oil of etherealness (used)
Scroll (illusion spell, phantom armor)
Potion of extra healing
Potion of invisibility
Potion of Orc control
Potion of heroism
+1 leather armor
Ring of Feather Fall
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Magic Item of the Week - Magekiller
No, not all of my magic items are low power or non-combat.
One of the most terrifying NPCs in my Blackstone campaign is the Undying Witchking, Emperor of Zangara. The legends surrounding him are many, but they all agree - he is not undead but he can't die. He's been stabbed, punctured, burned, decapitated, and more and always appears fresh as a daisy a few rounds later. He has also ruled Zangara with an iron fist for 2 centuries and does not appear to age (he is ostensibly human).
Note: Since he is one of the top BBEGs of the campaign and I assured the party I follow the rules very closely for NPCs a major meta-plot was them doing serious rules research to figure out how I did it. I am proud to say that, as hard as it was, they did figure it out.
Two generations ago a conspiracy of Zangaran wizards and clerics worked for decades to create a weapon capable of destroying the Witchking regardless of the methods he uses; the result was Magekiller. The conspiracy was betrayed and killed before they could locate a hero to wield the weapon. The last survivors of the group, a father and son, fled in a ship that was destroyed by water elementals summoned by the Crimson Watch, the Witchking's personal guards (various wizards, clerics, thieves, and fighters). Magekiller was thought lost to the sea.
Just a few years ago a barbarian warrior in a frontier district of the continent of Ansar began to rise in local prominence, eventually founding his own small fiefdom on the utmost border of civilization. He is a swordsman of great renown, considered by some to be the greatest living master of the zweihander. The sword he wields is rumored to be Magekiller, returned from the sea.
Note: the Blackstone campaign is AD&D 2nd edition with all player's options books.
Magekiller
+3 two-handed sword; +4 vs. creatures with spell-like abilities; +6 vs. any creature capable of casting arcane spells, summoned or conjured creatures, animated objects, constructs, familiars, and golems.
Int: 17 Ego: 25 Alignment: Neutral Good Special Purpose: Destroy evil arcane spellcasters
Can communicate telepathically with its wielder, can speak, read, read maps, and Read Magic
Can speak and read: Bandur (the Western Common tongue), Kadathi (the language of arcane spell casters in the campaign), Zanzur (the Eastern Common tongue), Borelath (a creole common to elves, gnomes, and halflings), Low Pidgin (a language common to orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc. with no written version), and Denek (dwarven)
Magekiller can see normally out to a range of 60' and has mystical sight that allows it to see normally in complete darkness (but not magical darkness) up to 10'. Magekiller has a field of view roughly equal to that of a person but can 'look around' like a character by altering its direction of sight. Magekiller cannot see through solid objects, etc., although it is possible to, for example, extend the sword's blade past a junction so that it can 'look around the corner'. Anything seen by Magekiller must be communicated to the wielder or spoken aloud; it cannot share its senses.
Magekiller likewise automatically senses all magic within 30'.
Magekiller can automatically detect if a creature has spell-like abilities or can cast arcane spells within 10'.
Magekiller can detect alignment on arcane spellcasters (only) within 10' automatically.
Much like vision, Magekiller must communicate what it senses to its wielder.
Lastly, Magekiller automatically knows if its wielder is under the effects of a Charm, Quest, Geas, or similar spell.
When worn or held Magekiller;
-Acts as an Amulet of Proof vs. Detection and Location
-Grants its wielder 20% magic resistance
-Grants its wielder a +4 on all saves vs. magic
-reduces all damage from spells or spell-like effects/abilities by 2 h.p./die (to a minimum of 1 h.p. per die); if the attack is set damage, etc., the damage is reduced by 1/4th.
When held and the blade is bared the wielder may choose to activate the sword's power of Spell Turning. This is identical to the Ring of Spell Turning. While this power is active Magekiller does not grant any magic resistance, saving throw bonuses, or reduced damage from spells. The wielder also cannot engage in melee combat with Magekiller while Spell Turning is active, although he can move or fight with other weapons.
When fighting evil arcane spellcasters Magekiller may invoke its special power of Cancellation when it strikes such a target. When used the weapon's blow does no damage but all spells and spell-like effects active on the creature struck are 'turned off'; the creature struck gets no save vs. this spell although magic resistance does apply at 1/2 strength. Cancellation may only be used once a day and only when Magekiller itself decides to use it.
Example: Lord Doomsman and his companions had finally penetrated the catacombs beneath the Obsidian Fortress and cut their way through the hordes of undead - all that remained were the Necromancer Lord Pathin the Foul, his henchmen, and their personal guards.
As the two groups closed with each other Bishop Darkwalk and Mournglow the Mage immediately began casting, their personal henchmen guarding them, while Ember the Pyromancer, always unpredictable, cloaked himself in fire and charged with his flaming sword bared, his henchmen trailing behind. Stardust had simply vanished, as usual. Doomsman charged the cluster of men surrounding Pathin, eager for battle, his lieutenants guarding his flanks as he cut down enemy mercenaries.
The vast cavern flashed with terrible magics as the Death Priests and Necromancers sought to hold off the forces of good. Doomsman saw a Death Priest cast a warding upon Pathin as the necromancer lord drank a foul brew. A blast of shadow swept over Doomsman, Magekiller protecting him from the foul curse. He saw Stardust appear from nowhere and slit the throat of a Plague Priest before she vanished back into the darkness. Mournglow and Darkwalk were both blasting foes and protecting each other from counter-attacks. Ember was laughing with joy as he cut down enemy spellcasters with the cleansing flames of his blade and cloak.
Doomsman and his men slammed into Pathin's personal guard like a hammer, cutting through rapidly. Some of his men froze, gripped by spells cast by the Death Priests, but Doomsman felt the magic glide past him like a breeze as Magekiller shielded him again. Pathin, obviously afraid of the tall barbarian lord, cast a spell that caused him to be surrounded by a shell of shadows.
Doomsman was finally through the last guards and lunged toward Pathin. The necromancer also leaped forward with magical quickness, touching Doomsman's arm; there was a muted flash of green light and, once more, Doomsman felt Magekiller protect him. As Doomsman's first stroke lashed out he heard Magekiller's voice in his head,
"Strike true"
The blade hit but Pathin was unharmed; instead the shell of shadows, the green nimbus on his hands, and all the rest simply vanished [Magekiller Cancelled the spell effects of Prayer, Aid, Bless, Spirit Armor, Ghoul Touch, and Contingency as well as the effects of a Potion of Speed]. Pathin recoiled in terror as Doomsman's backstroke slashed across his torso, almost disemboweling him. The spellcaster staggered back and opened his mouth but the third stroke decapitated him before the scream could start.
Magekiller's personality is very subdued; it almost never speaks aloud and is very taciturn even with its wielder. It will not allow itself to be wielded by an evil creature nor a creature capable of casting arcane spells; in the former case it 'turns off' it powers and uses its telepathy to make the wielder uneasy and fearful of it until it is sold or given away. For the latter it will telepathically urge that it be given to 'someone more suited' as well as 'turning off' its powers.
Magekiller prefers to be wielded by fighters, then multi-class fighters (not including fighter/magic-users or such!), and then those clerics that can use a two-handed sword.
Magekiller will usually only come into conflict with its wielder if the wielder has been Charmed, Geased, etc. If that occurs Magekiller will attempt to 'take over' and force the wielder to seek out counterspells. Note that Magekiller cannot use its Cancellation power on any creature that cannot cast arcane spells!
Magekiller could potentially also come into conflict with a wielder who refuses to oppose arcane spellcasters at all.
Anyone wielding this powerful weapon should expect to fact threats ranging from other who desire to own it to the enmity of virtually every evil mage to the machinations of the Crimson Watch.
[The party that has it is justly paranoid of 'Witchking Infiltrators'].
Some sages suspect that if Magekiller were to destroy the Witchking that the sword itself may become 'depowered', its purpose completed.
Example: Lord Doomsman and his companions had finally penetrated the catacombs beneath the Obsidian Fortress and cut their way through the hordes of undead - all that remained were the Necromancer Lord Pathin the Foul, his henchmen, and their personal guards.
As the two groups closed with each other Bishop Darkwalk and Mournglow the Mage immediately began casting, their personal henchmen guarding them, while Ember the Pyromancer, always unpredictable, cloaked himself in fire and charged with his flaming sword bared, his henchmen trailing behind. Stardust had simply vanished, as usual. Doomsman charged the cluster of men surrounding Pathin, eager for battle, his lieutenants guarding his flanks as he cut down enemy mercenaries.
The vast cavern flashed with terrible magics as the Death Priests and Necromancers sought to hold off the forces of good. Doomsman saw a Death Priest cast a warding upon Pathin as the necromancer lord drank a foul brew. A blast of shadow swept over Doomsman, Magekiller protecting him from the foul curse. He saw Stardust appear from nowhere and slit the throat of a Plague Priest before she vanished back into the darkness. Mournglow and Darkwalk were both blasting foes and protecting each other from counter-attacks. Ember was laughing with joy as he cut down enemy spellcasters with the cleansing flames of his blade and cloak.
Doomsman and his men slammed into Pathin's personal guard like a hammer, cutting through rapidly. Some of his men froze, gripped by spells cast by the Death Priests, but Doomsman felt the magic glide past him like a breeze as Magekiller shielded him again. Pathin, obviously afraid of the tall barbarian lord, cast a spell that caused him to be surrounded by a shell of shadows.
Doomsman was finally through the last guards and lunged toward Pathin. The necromancer also leaped forward with magical quickness, touching Doomsman's arm; there was a muted flash of green light and, once more, Doomsman felt Magekiller protect him. As Doomsman's first stroke lashed out he heard Magekiller's voice in his head,
"Strike true"
The blade hit but Pathin was unharmed; instead the shell of shadows, the green nimbus on his hands, and all the rest simply vanished [Magekiller Cancelled the spell effects of Prayer, Aid, Bless, Spirit Armor, Ghoul Touch, and Contingency as well as the effects of a Potion of Speed]. Pathin recoiled in terror as Doomsman's backstroke slashed across his torso, almost disemboweling him. The spellcaster staggered back and opened his mouth but the third stroke decapitated him before the scream could start.
Magekiller's personality is very subdued; it almost never speaks aloud and is very taciturn even with its wielder. It will not allow itself to be wielded by an evil creature nor a creature capable of casting arcane spells; in the former case it 'turns off' it powers and uses its telepathy to make the wielder uneasy and fearful of it until it is sold or given away. For the latter it will telepathically urge that it be given to 'someone more suited' as well as 'turning off' its powers.
Magekiller prefers to be wielded by fighters, then multi-class fighters (not including fighter/magic-users or such!), and then those clerics that can use a two-handed sword.
Magekiller will usually only come into conflict with its wielder if the wielder has been Charmed, Geased, etc. If that occurs Magekiller will attempt to 'take over' and force the wielder to seek out counterspells. Note that Magekiller cannot use its Cancellation power on any creature that cannot cast arcane spells!
Magekiller could potentially also come into conflict with a wielder who refuses to oppose arcane spellcasters at all.
Anyone wielding this powerful weapon should expect to fact threats ranging from other who desire to own it to the enmity of virtually every evil mage to the machinations of the Crimson Watch.
[The party that has it is justly paranoid of 'Witchking Infiltrators'].
Some sages suspect that if Magekiller were to destroy the Witchking that the sword itself may become 'depowered', its purpose completed.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Making Magic Amazing Without Touching Mechanics
Years ago I was in a gaming circle with very regular games and with a fair number of guest DMs. One day my co-DM told me a group of his friends were visiting from another state and wanted to sit in. He also told me they had some simple requests;
1) Not to have the monster manual, DMG, or PHB read from
2) Not to be asked to look something up in the books
3) If there was a discussion on a rule that they be allowed to leave until it was resolved.
Why?
In the 12 years they had been playing as a group not one player had ever looked into a single book. These guys and gals were in their 30's and played twice a month like clockwork and had for almost 12 years but what they knew they knew from what the DM had given them either directly or from folktales and legends in the game.
The players had thought it up as a way to 'keep the wonder alive', and it worked. They were amazed with our magic items, like Boots of Elvenkind and Rings of Water Walking - they'd never seen or heard of them. There were no regenerating trolls in their campaign, so they were a shock!
But one thing that stuck with me was their spells; the elven fighter/magic-user (5th/5th) told us she was 'firing her elf bow'; she explained it was a spell taught to her by her clan. She described her character grasping a smoky, ghostly bow and drawing back the smoky wisp of a string and launching a phantasmal arrow with a single, glittering star as its arrowhead. 'If my heart is true' she said, 'it never misses'. It struck true and she did her damage - 1d10+5
Later the human mage said he was 'summoning the motes'. He cast the quick spell and described how a swirling mass of motes, each looking like a spark from a bonfire, descended from above and surrounded his target. He told us that each mote did 1 h.p. of damage but his concentration determined how many would strike. As he leveled up he got more adept at focusing them so now 4d4+4 motes would hit!
The players each had all of their spells as individual 3x5 cards with the DM's description of them in narrative form; they were (if I remember right) 'The High Clan's Elf Bow' and 'The Calling of Fiery Motes'.
Both spells are, of course, Magic Missile. Now, I love Magic Missile for a lot of reasons (there is a post in there) but this made me love it even more. Of course, when my character cast Magic Missile they'd never heard of it but liked the description ('I hold out my hand and a streak of pure magical forces shoots from 4 of my fingers, striking true of 1d4+1 each'). About 6 months later I finally met their DM and he confirmed that yup, they were Magic Missile. They had, once, tried to learn each other's spells and were sad she couldn't summon motes and of course he couldn't use the elf bow! They once fought an evil mage and tried to learn his spell Golden Lions (that caused miniature golden lions to race to the target and bite it) when they captured his spell book; they "couldn't learn" that spell, either because it was also Magic Missile.
As an aside, have you ever played Hero System, especially Champions? In the game a stream of fire, a lightning bolt, and a sonic scream might all be 8d6 Blasts; only the special effect differentiates the various powers. Hero does this best [its my blog and I say its best] but we can easily take this idea and apply it to a fantasy game.
But let's back up a bit.
I know I am not alone in emphasizing that magic isn't technology. And there is nothing wrong with,
Player: "I cast Fireball centered here"
DM: "Sure; roll damage while I make saves."
I mean - it is fast, it is easy. We all know what we are talking about.
But one of my favorite bits of writing from a game book is from the Complete Book of Necromancers by Steve Kurtz. If you haven't read this book, get it. Here is how he describes a spell,
But just as importantly, these little things can add a lot to the game and not just during play. Let me give you an example from the Seaward campaign.
Many, but not all, wizards belong to a Mage House. Mage Houses are roughly akin to clans or fraternities or similar where all the members can trace their 'magical line' from apprentice to master back to the founder of the House. So if you were the 5th son of a petty baron and were apprenticed to a member of House Relleth once you became a full mage (i.e, first level) you, too, would be a member of House Relleth just like any other mage who had been apprenticed by a House Relleth member.
Now the Houses differ a great deal; some are strict with bylaws, officers, secret halls, etc. while others are very informal and are often little more than an excuse to buy one another drinks. House Murrin has a lot of fighter/magic-users while everyone in House Atrell wears green. It is all over the place. But each major house and many minor houses have unique spells shared only with fellow house members.
Well, you can do that with a lot more than new spells, can't you? What if the version of Fireball taught by House Atrell, called Fierce Verdant Strike, is identical to Fireball except it is a burst of green fire and there is a strong smell of pinewood smoke after? What if House Murrin's variant of Hold Person, called Bind Foe, wraps the target is ghostly chains? What if any spell cast by a member of House Relleth caused tiny motes of light to float around the caster's head for a moment? These things are small but can be everything from backstory to clues ["That Lightning Bolt was blue! That means, the killer is a member of House Toneth!" ba-ba-BUUUUUM].
You don't have to use my Mage House idea for this to work. Every wizard in different and, as we know from EGG's comments on spell books from Dragon Magazine all those years ago, each caster treats each spell a bit differently. This could just be part of a caster's personality and innate gift for magic. Remember, magic isn't technology - it is OK for each caster's Magic Missile to be a little different because Magic Missile isn't made in a factory in Sheboygan, it is a magic spell that is cast a little differently by each caster. In a game.
So its pretty easy to take this to that next level where every spell caster feels unique because each spell looks unique. Those players I met way back when felt that their characters were cut from different cloth because one could cast Elf Bow while the other could Call the Motes. With very minor changes it is easy to do the same for each and every character without a ton of effort on your part.
Here are two examples from my campaign:
This is just a variation of Burning Hands that, to me at least, seems slightly more apropos for a fighter/magic-user. While standard Burning Hands might cause less damage to, say, a hell hound the Warding Blade would do less against skeletons. You could have a fighter/magic-user with Warding Blade, a magic-user with Burning Hands, and a magic-user/thief from the Northern Barbarian Tribes with SnowSpray (another variant) in the same party and each spell caster would have a unique 'feel' and be able to bring subtly different spells to bear, all without a great deal of work or true changes to mechanics.
You can do this with cleric spells, too, of course. For example;
That's just a Prayer gussied up a bit, obviously for a good cleric. An evil cleric might have a version where sounds of cackling witches and smells of brimstone distract good people and inspire the wicked to new heights of evil. One version of Know Alignment might give the caster a vision of two sets of scales on he can see while another will see auras of different colors whole a third might have an invisible imp whisper into his ear. Again, this can add a surprising amount to the game; the 'signature' of the cultists of the Plague Lord might be that all their spells that cause damage appear to inflict a disease while a cultist of the Demon Lord of Slime has an Inflict Light Wounds that looks like his hands are temporarily coated in green slime.
But, just like with magic-users, this can make each cleric feel unique.
And think of illusionists! In addition to "just" duplicating spells with illusions now they can mimic specific versions, even better imitate specific casters!
So think about this; it is a surprisingly drastic change in 'feel' for very little effort.
1) Not to have the monster manual, DMG, or PHB read from
2) Not to be asked to look something up in the books
3) If there was a discussion on a rule that they be allowed to leave until it was resolved.
Why?
In the 12 years they had been playing as a group not one player had ever looked into a single book. These guys and gals were in their 30's and played twice a month like clockwork and had for almost 12 years but what they knew they knew from what the DM had given them either directly or from folktales and legends in the game.
The players had thought it up as a way to 'keep the wonder alive', and it worked. They were amazed with our magic items, like Boots of Elvenkind and Rings of Water Walking - they'd never seen or heard of them. There were no regenerating trolls in their campaign, so they were a shock!
But one thing that stuck with me was their spells; the elven fighter/magic-user (5th/5th) told us she was 'firing her elf bow'; she explained it was a spell taught to her by her clan. She described her character grasping a smoky, ghostly bow and drawing back the smoky wisp of a string and launching a phantasmal arrow with a single, glittering star as its arrowhead. 'If my heart is true' she said, 'it never misses'. It struck true and she did her damage - 1d10+5
Later the human mage said he was 'summoning the motes'. He cast the quick spell and described how a swirling mass of motes, each looking like a spark from a bonfire, descended from above and surrounded his target. He told us that each mote did 1 h.p. of damage but his concentration determined how many would strike. As he leveled up he got more adept at focusing them so now 4d4+4 motes would hit!
The players each had all of their spells as individual 3x5 cards with the DM's description of them in narrative form; they were (if I remember right) 'The High Clan's Elf Bow' and 'The Calling of Fiery Motes'.
Both spells are, of course, Magic Missile. Now, I love Magic Missile for a lot of reasons (there is a post in there) but this made me love it even more. Of course, when my character cast Magic Missile they'd never heard of it but liked the description ('I hold out my hand and a streak of pure magical forces shoots from 4 of my fingers, striking true of 1d4+1 each'). About 6 months later I finally met their DM and he confirmed that yup, they were Magic Missile. They had, once, tried to learn each other's spells and were sad she couldn't summon motes and of course he couldn't use the elf bow! They once fought an evil mage and tried to learn his spell Golden Lions (that caused miniature golden lions to race to the target and bite it) when they captured his spell book; they "couldn't learn" that spell, either because it was also Magic Missile.
As an aside, have you ever played Hero System, especially Champions? In the game a stream of fire, a lightning bolt, and a sonic scream might all be 8d6 Blasts; only the special effect differentiates the various powers. Hero does this best [its my blog and I say its best] but we can easily take this idea and apply it to a fantasy game.
But let's back up a bit.
I know I am not alone in emphasizing that magic isn't technology. And there is nothing wrong with,
Player: "I cast Fireball centered here"
DM: "Sure; roll damage while I make saves."
I mean - it is fast, it is easy. We all know what we are talking about.
But one of my favorite bits of writing from a game book is from the Complete Book of Necromancers by Steve Kurtz. If you haven't read this book, get it. Here is how he describes a spell,
"Lady Ellandra came back on deck, this time shielded by a cold, blue aura. She began to speak in a soft and deadly whisper, her gaze fixed on the wildly shouting men on the pirate ship's quarter deck. Many of the rogues had climbed up into the rigging, where they fired arrows onto our ship. One of the bolts struck Ellandra square in the face, but it was brushed aside by her magical warding."
"As the Lady intoned the last syllable of her dreadful spell, a greenish vapor formed in the rigging above the pirate's quarter deck. Wailing resounded from the skyward cloud, like a distant chorus of lamentations. Ghostly images swirled in the haze. The billowing mist quickly descended onto the decks of Retaliator, and horrific screams rose in a deafening crescendo from the ghastly cloud, echoed now by the terrified men in its midst. Shriveled bodies plummeted from the rigging, each with a sickening thud, onto the decks below. One by one, the pirates'f lesh withered like burned paper, and the scant survivors beheld many more vaporous ghosts now swirling in the foul mist around them. And after the eternity of a few seconds, the howling cloud began to dissipate, leaving behind the wracked and twisted corpses of Retaliator's crew. The pirate ship sailed on, crewed only by the dead, fixed in its final course by a blasted corpse whose corrupted hands still clenched the helm."That was the Death Spell. But shouldn't a spell that kills scores of foes 'instantly and irrevocably' so that only a Wish can bring them back be scary?!
But just as importantly, these little things can add a lot to the game and not just during play. Let me give you an example from the Seaward campaign.
Many, but not all, wizards belong to a Mage House. Mage Houses are roughly akin to clans or fraternities or similar where all the members can trace their 'magical line' from apprentice to master back to the founder of the House. So if you were the 5th son of a petty baron and were apprenticed to a member of House Relleth once you became a full mage (i.e, first level) you, too, would be a member of House Relleth just like any other mage who had been apprenticed by a House Relleth member.
Now the Houses differ a great deal; some are strict with bylaws, officers, secret halls, etc. while others are very informal and are often little more than an excuse to buy one another drinks. House Murrin has a lot of fighter/magic-users while everyone in House Atrell wears green. It is all over the place. But each major house and many minor houses have unique spells shared only with fellow house members.
Well, you can do that with a lot more than new spells, can't you? What if the version of Fireball taught by House Atrell, called Fierce Verdant Strike, is identical to Fireball except it is a burst of green fire and there is a strong smell of pinewood smoke after? What if House Murrin's variant of Hold Person, called Bind Foe, wraps the target is ghostly chains? What if any spell cast by a member of House Relleth caused tiny motes of light to float around the caster's head for a moment? These things are small but can be everything from backstory to clues ["That Lightning Bolt was blue! That means, the killer is a member of House Toneth!" ba-ba-BUUUUUM].
You don't have to use my Mage House idea for this to work. Every wizard in different and, as we know from EGG's comments on spell books from Dragon Magazine all those years ago, each caster treats each spell a bit differently. This could just be part of a caster's personality and innate gift for magic. Remember, magic isn't technology - it is OK for each caster's Magic Missile to be a little different because Magic Missile isn't made in a factory in Sheboygan, it is a magic spell that is cast a little differently by each caster. In a game.
So its pretty easy to take this to that next level where every spell caster feels unique because each spell looks unique. Those players I met way back when felt that their characters were cut from different cloth because one could cast Elf Bow while the other could Call the Motes. With very minor changes it is easy to do the same for each and every character without a ton of effort on your part.
Here are two examples from my campaign:
Warding BladeLevel: 1
Range: 0
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 segment
Area of Effect: see description
Save: none
This spell summons a sword blade that slices through the air in front of the caster causing all creatures that are both in the casters front 120 degree arc and no further away than 3' to take 2 h.p. of damage per caster rank. This damage is treated as 'edged' or 'slashing'. The mystic sword, which vanishes instantly, can harm any creature and it cannot be dodged and never misses creatures in its arc.
The material component is a sliver of iron.
This is just a variation of Burning Hands that, to me at least, seems slightly more apropos for a fighter/magic-user. While standard Burning Hands might cause less damage to, say, a hell hound the Warding Blade would do less against skeletons. You could have a fighter/magic-user with Warding Blade, a magic-user with Burning Hands, and a magic-user/thief from the Northern Barbarian Tribes with SnowSpray (another variant) in the same party and each spell caster would have a unique 'feel' and be able to bring subtly different spells to bear, all without a great deal of work or true changes to mechanics.
You can do this with cleric spells, too, of course. For example;
Defende nos in ProelioLevel: 3
Range: 0
Duration: 1 round per level
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 6 segments
Area of Effect: 60' and special, see below
Save: None
When this prayer is completed all within 60' of the caster have the impression that there are people just outside of their vision; winged men in armor with bared swords filled with a terrible resolve. These creatures are caught out of the corner of the eye or in brief flashes. The righteous are filled with courage and calm, the wicked feel fear and doubt. All thosewithin 60' who are of good will to the caster gain a +1 bonus on all rolls to hit, damage, or to save. Conversely, enemies of the priest receive -1 on all rolls to hit, damage, or saves. The visions and effects end with the spell.
That's just a Prayer gussied up a bit, obviously for a good cleric. An evil cleric might have a version where sounds of cackling witches and smells of brimstone distract good people and inspire the wicked to new heights of evil. One version of Know Alignment might give the caster a vision of two sets of scales on he can see while another will see auras of different colors whole a third might have an invisible imp whisper into his ear. Again, this can add a surprising amount to the game; the 'signature' of the cultists of the Plague Lord might be that all their spells that cause damage appear to inflict a disease while a cultist of the Demon Lord of Slime has an Inflict Light Wounds that looks like his hands are temporarily coated in green slime.
But, just like with magic-users, this can make each cleric feel unique.
And think of illusionists! In addition to "just" duplicating spells with illusions now they can mimic specific versions, even better imitate specific casters!
So think about this; it is a surprisingly drastic change in 'feel' for very little effort.
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