Circle of Dar Janix

This is a game about herding sheep Video Games: I have logged about 45 hours in Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky over the last few weeks, and I am really enjoying it. I believe this was originally an early 2000s PSP release, but I am playing the PC port. This game is right up my JRPG alley. It is in the early PS1 style, kind of like Grandia. The world building is excellent. While there are not as many books to read as in an Elder Scrolls game, the ones that exist are more focused on relevant information. This allows the game to feel like it is set in a bigger world. I also really enjoy the combat system. While it remains firmly in the traditional turn-based JRPG mold, it adds just a touch of Final Fantasy Tactics inspired strategy. While there is a bit of anime goofiness, it is not too heavy handed. I also started Persona 4 Golden on my Vita. I loved Persona 5, so I have been really looking forward to this one. Stars Without Number: I am looking for a few more players...

Tonight, I ran the first sessions of the D&D 5e Starter Set adventure, Mines of Phandelver. It went really well. One of the players is in my C&C Stonehell group and runs 5e on a regular basis. The other two have only played a RPG once before during a Greyhawk Reborn event. They did very well and are a lot of fun to play with. I made some changes to the adventure. Most obviously, I set it in Mystara instead of Forgotten Realms. The players started out in Threshold and headed out for Phandelver to look for their missing dwarf friend Gundark. They discovered the remains of his caravan and were ambushed by goblins. They tracked a fleeing goblin to a cave. As they made their way into the cave, they were hit by two floods from goblins breaking dams above them. They decided to try another route. Their initial push into the cave saw them rescuing Sildar, one of Gundark's bodyguards. Sildar told them that Gundark had discovered the long lost Wave Echo Cave, and that he believed th...

On Saturday, I played in two Greyhawk Reborn modules and had a good time. It is a pseudo-revival of the old Living Greyhawk campaign from the 3.x years. The interesting thing they have done to avoid IP issues is to make every DM run modules of her/his own design. This means that it is more like a massive, organized, home game than like one of the old living campaigns with prepared modules. Modules are still submitted for editing and the campaign overlords still develop approve the awards on the Adventure Record for the module. The campaign has many of the old Living game trappings like Adventure Days, travel between regions, and standardized rewards. Both modules were well paced at about three hours each, I met some really nice people, and I am thinking about becoming a DM for the campaign myself. This was also my first time playing 5e, and I loved it. If I wasn't already a C&C player, this would probably be my go to version of the game. They are a lot alike. Actually, they ...

The first episode of Roll20's Moldvay Basic D&D game is up. It is an introduction by the GM, not an actual session, but it is still really interesting. He takes the time to show off some of the features of the Roll20 app, I am especially interested in that since I am playing in a Roll20 DCC game and am interested in running my own. Sadly, Keep on the Borderlands won the adventure straw poll instead of Caverns of Thracia. I love both of them, so it is a win either way. Hopefully he will do the Caverns of Thracia in a later series.

A few days ago, I linked to a video of Adam Koebel from Roll20 discussing Moldvay Basic D&D and why he loved it. It was a great video, and one of the better explanations of the attractions of Basic D&D I have seen. If you haven't seen it, go watch it . I'll wait. Now you can vote on which old school adventure they will be playing. The choices are: Keep on the Borderlands The Lost City The Caverns of Thracia The Palace of the Silver Princess While I feel like I should vote for KotB, because it is a great learning adventure, I really want to see how this guy runs The Caverns of Thracia. I will be voting for that. How about you?

This guy gives one of the best explanations of old school D&D and the Moldvay Basic Set I have ever seen. Roll20 GM Chat.  Sorry, I can't figure out how to embed a Twitch video and I cannot find the video on youtube. I think this guy's name is  +Adam Koebel

So, how do I go about planning my Stonehell customization project? I already have a good first pass at a high level definition of my goal: A customized version of Stonehell dungeon that is consistent with the history of my campaign world and reinforces careful play and resource management. I will need to sharpen that as I go, but it will serve to keep me pointed in the right direction for now. I can't talk about the history part yet because my players have spent the last several sessions almost stumbling on some big reveals. Some of my players read this blog, so I don't want to spoil anything. I can discuss the play style of my group though. My current Stonehell group consists of people who either work in, or are students in, the science and technology area. There are both professionals and skilled tradesmen in our group. I am a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. As you can imagine, my group has a very methodical play style. They carefully explor...

Kevyn over at the Geometry of Madness has an ongoing Prydain Project that is awesome. Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series is a foundation for my love of fantasy. I read those books many, many times growing up. I actually read them all again about three years ago. So far Kevyn has a map, classes, a couple of monsters, and some magic items. You can guarantee I will keep checking on this one.

I continue to think about The Castle Whale . I am pretty far off from starting any real project here, as I do not have any outlet to run it at this time. I am already running a megadungeon game set in Stonehell, so I don't think my group would appreciate me jumping at a new shiny. But I am thinking about how I would go about it if I ever get the chance. I think, if I was going to build a megadungeon from scratch, I would do it as a complete stand alone game with a rule set specifically tailored, not just for megadungeons, but for the specific dungeon. I would probably make a rule set descended from either Swords & Wizardry, Searchers of the Unknown, or E6. I would probably go the route of having characters be a bit more survivable than baseline D&D, with more hp and faster recovery options. The combat system would be theater of the mind and abstract to facilitate quick encounters. I would probably use a lot of ideas I discussed in a previous post about streamlined games...

Ken H. at The Rusty Battle Axe started an interesting discussion about streamlined rules in the dungeon the other day (you should go read it now). He asks the question, "What if the dungeon (in this case, a megadungeon) was a unique feature in an otherwise mundane and non-fantasy medieval world?" He goes on to describe a system, based on S&W Core , that only uses the Human Fighter and the Human Thief. He goes on to describe how this would focus play and force the players to make more creative decisions. He also raises some concerns about gaming this way: The lack of healing The lack of character class choice The loss of tactical options with magic gone It would suck My first thought when I read this was that it would still be really fun. I have always been enchanted by simplified and pared down rule sets. I have been wanting to run an entire campaign using only the Pathfinder Beginner Box set and some monster books. I was intrigued a few years ago by a discussio...

I have continued to run Stonehell since my last post here and have continued to use Castles and Crusades to run it. While the group has not met regularly we still have managed to get several good sessions in, and have even added a player. I am happy with this, as I now live more than an hour from the rest of the group. Last weekend I ran two sessions of Stonehell at GenCon. I took a different approach than I have in the past when I run Stonehell at a convention or other "one shot" situation. In the past, I have had a prepared adventure that is set in Stonehell. My thought process was that players at a convention would not be interested in undirected exploration. It turns out I was wrong. In both sessions I offered the players a choice, they could either start at the top of the steps and begin exploring, or I could use a prepared adventure set in the dungeon. Both time the players made the unanimous choice to just start exploring. There wasn't even any real discussion ...

Well, the Swords and Wizardry game did not go off as planned tonight because we did not have enough people show up at start time, but it actually turned out for the good because we played Lords of Waterdeep instead. Lords of Waterdeep is a board game based on the classic D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms. Waterdeep is one of the most famous cities in that world, having been passed by Baldur's Gate in the '90s for name recognition. But don't worry if you aren't into dungeon crawlers, because Lords of Waterdeep is a worker placement euro game in disguise. And don't worry if you don't like euro games, because it is fast paced, with a lot of interaction, and a lot of fun. There is no trading logs and bricks in for castle parts for the king in exchange for victory points here, you are gathering a band of adventurers to take on quests. In Lords of Waterdeep, you have a limited number of workers to place each round and you have to choose between placing them...

Tomorrow I will be running a Swords and Wizardry game at my local gaming store, High Tide Games. This is the same store that I run Edge of Empire in every week (last weeks play report coming soon). hopefully I will be running the game for many of the same people. I billed the game as Basic D&D on the stores calendar, because I assume that the awareness of the Swords and Wizardry name is not very high. I will be using a heavily house-ruled version of S&W that I like to use at conventions. I draw heavily on Akrasia's Swords & Wizardry house rules , as well as various other house rules that I have picked up over my years of OSR reading, and many that I have developed myself. I am thinking about posting these rules, the problem is, I have no idea where I got half of them anymore, and I am not sure if they are all Open Gaming content. I may post them after further investigation. The players will playing in my long-running campaign world that contains my Castles and ...

I started playing 4e at release. I ran Keep on the Shadowfell and a few adventures of my own before my group moved on. I did not touch it again for a few years until I moved and it was just about the only game in town. I played in the Crystal Caves Encounters campaign and enjoyed it. Recently I was a player in a 4e campaign at my FLGS. I know there are a lot of people out there that hate 4e, I am not one of them. I see each version of D&D as a tool for running different kinds of games. 4e was a decent tool for running a lighter game than 3.x and was easier to introduce new players to. But it isn't the best tool I have for this kind of game. There were several games released in the 2000s that aimed for this same slot in my collection, and quite frankly Savage Worlds fills the slot better than 4e. I would go as far to say that Savage Worlds is better 4e D&D than 4e is. The dilemma I have is that 4e is much more popular than Savage Worlds. It is far easier to find a 4e ...

This post at Toa of D&D got me thinking about the history of Charm Person. This post has nothing to do with the substance of his, very interesting, post. It was just inspired by the opening discussion. In Men & Magic the spell is described: This spell applies to all two-legged, generally mammalian figures near to or less than man-size, excluding all monsters in the "Undead" class but including Sprites, Pixies, Nixies, Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls. If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such a time as the "charm" is dispelled (Dispel Magic ). Range: 12" In OD&D there was no limitation as to what the MU could make his victim do. He could force him to commit suicide, or commit acts against his alignment. This situation remained unchanged in Holmes, where the only changes have to do with the duration. It is not until the PHB and Moldvay that there are ...

Way back in the 1980s a young boy was paging through his Mentzer Basic Set and noticed a section about subduing dragons. You could fight them with the flat of your blade, and capture them. Even sell them for money. Oh the possibilities... Historically there are two different methods for subduing a dragon, you can reduce it to 0 hp with subdual damage, or you roll against a ration of damage done over total HP. 4th Edition charts new and interesting territory on this subject. Chainmail : While dragons are in the fantasy section of Chainmail, nothing is said about subduing them OD&D : OD&D uses a ratio method where a ratio is kept of total damage done over the dragon's total HP. Each round percentile dice are rolled, if the roll is less than the ration the dragon is subdued. The rules cap the number of people attempting to subdue a dragon at 8. The characters can choose to sell the dragon for 500-1,000 gp per hit point, or they can keep it in their own service. If they sell th...

Over at Aeons & Augauries, JDJarvis posted a bunch of symbols of different door types . What, you aks, would I want with all those door symbols? The main thing I want with all those door symbols is to figure out how they would mechanically differentiate themselves in game. This is another one of those great blog posts that gets me thinking, it doesn't give me any answers, just a launching point for an evening of RPG related thought. This got me rereading godog's From Kuroth's Quill #01 that dealt with special doors, stairs and sublevels. And this got me excited about getting back to work on my changes to Stonehell (after loosing play time to the snowpocolypse we should be back on track next week, I hope). So what would I do to make these doors different? Pivot Hinge: Have to choose between a one handed weapon attack or your shield bonus while standing in the doorway. There is no enough room for both or for a two handed attack. Flapped Hinge: Surprise penalty while enter...

From time to time I will be writing my thoughts on different editions of D&D. I take a very expansive view of what counts as an edition of D&D. There are several games that are heavily D&D based that will be included. BECMI stands for Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal. These were box sets published throughout the '80s by TSR and put together by Frank Mentzer. They detail the system that is commonly referred to as Basic D&D or Classic D&D. Each box set was intended to cover different levels of play. Basic: 1-3, Expert: 4-14, Companion: 15-25, Master 26-36, Immortal: after the characters ascended to immortal status. They are easily identified by their Larry Elmore cover art. The Basic Set was my introduction to D&D. It was not actually my introduction to the hobby, More on that later. This edition is laid out to teach the game. After a short introduction there is a very simple adventure in which you only roll the D20 to play. That is followed by a...