I'm Both an Analyst, and a Therapist...

Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over

 - an analyst and a therapist. The world's first analrapist.

-Tobias Funke in "Arrested Development"

I'm trying to categorize all of the traits that one might use to describe monsters. This is a fundamentally analytic practice, adding nerdity on top of nerdity, but it has a reason. Although there are many random generators for dungeons, encounters, and adventures out there, and although many of them are quite customizable, I don't see any that allow you to specify, to the degree of fineness that satisfies me, what types of monsters to include, and what types to exclude.

I envision an online generator, or a simple program, that leads you through an interview process, in much the same way that certain software "wizards" lead you through a set-up of your installation options; at the end, you have a set of encounter tables customized to your specific adventure or campaign. If, for example, you never want to see Brownies in your game, you would have the option of excluding that creature. Or, if you have an underwater adventure, you might specify that all of the creatures must be aquatic.

I envision something with a little more subtlety than that, though; something where you can specify the main type, an anomalous entry, power groups, and the like. But the main goal is to create encounter tables, and from those, possibly encounter lists.

So I came up with the following list of traits to describe monsters for some kind of D&D-like game:

• environment : sylvan, subterranean, aquatic, aerial, elemental, desert, ethereal, astral; (one may be primary)
• order - ophidian, reptilian, mammalian, insectoid, arachnoid, plant, fungus, slime, avian, draconic
•       humanoid - goblinoid, human-like, giant, other
• unnatural : summoned, undead, magical, extra-planar, lycanthrope, animated, incorporeal, construct
•           elemental : earth, water, wind, fire
• size - tiny, small, medium, large, huge
• sociability - unique, solitary, group, horde, swarm
• intelligence - animal, low, average, high, genius, supra-genius
• dominance : leader, follower, independent
• special defenses: bonus to surprise/not surprised, invisible,
•         resistant to : magic, cold, heat, sleep, charm, edged weapons, pointed weapons, non-magical attacks, blunt weapons, gas, electrical
•         camouflaged : magically, naturally
• special attack : no normal defense, area effect, zone control, save or die, save or condition, gaze weapon, natural missiles, level draining, attribute draining, initiative bonus
• speaks : human languages, own language, other beings langauges
• mobility : overland, flying, swimming
• alignment - LG, NG, CG, CN, CE, NE, LE, LN, TN
• other : hybrid, mutated, polymorphing, nocturnal, teleporting
• primes - physical, mental (A Castles & Crusades-specific trait.)
• challenge level - I to XV

I'm sure I'm missing many, and might want to group some things differently, but that's my first go at it. (And yes, I know that "order" includes some things in Kingdom, Class, and Genus, but it also includes dragons, so what were you expecting?)

cheers, Adam

OSR Means Simple Rules, or Something

Everything should be made

as simple as possible, but no simpler.

-- various attributions

The current state of rules for my OSR game:

I start with Labyrinth Lord, except I use the 1st ed. AD&D/OSRIC hit dice for character class and weapon damage. Which character classes to use is still a fluid concept, including race-as-class. Thieves are still a conundrum, because I like Procedural Lockpicking and feel that many of the listed thieves' skills can be performed by anyone, although I'm intrigued byDyson Logos's 2d6 thief skills table.

Speaking of skills, I don't use them. Everything is based either on a character sheet ability, the resourcefulness of the players, common sense judgments, or a die roll as determined below.

AC ascends, and starts at 10. I use the Dex bonus to hit, and add the Str bonus to damage, for both missile and hand-to-hand combat. Intitiative is individual, roll 1d10 + Dex modifier.

Saving throws are mapped from Castles & Crusades, except the base number is determined by the saving throw in Swords & Wizardry. I add a modifier to the roll based on class, any attribute bonus, and selected prime attributes" (from C&C, but with different values), and use the C&C mapping of old-school saving throw types to new (e.g., "Breath Weapon" = Dex).

Anything not covered in the rules that can be resolved as a yes or no question, I use a d20 and a save. Anything where success can be measured in degrees, I use either a generic 2d6 table adapted from the Moldvay/LL "reaction roll" table, or 3d6 (or more) vs. some attribute. The latter is more likely to be used in contested challenges.

Magic use is per Holmes, plus a bit of 1st ed. Material Component fluff. I use the Holmes scroll creation rules so my low-level M-Us can have a little more firepower. I have two house-ruled exceptions to spell use: Read Magic and Detect Magic are both innate skills of Magic Users, although it takes 10+ minutes to use, whereas casting them as spells is near-instantaneous.

I have my own set of grappling rules. Combat maneuvers are like Telecanter's, except I use a saving throw to determine whether damage is taken or the maneuver succeeds. Languages are also per Telecanter, although I have a slightly more detailed way of handling them. Encumbrance is per Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is also mentioned in the Telecanter document.


It's that simple.

cheers, Adam

A Review I Didn't Want to Write

It is with some sadness that I sit down to write my review of the Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide, from Troll Lord Games. I say this because I wanted to like it. I wanted my money to be well-spent. But after perusing its Nineteen Chapters (some only cursorily, I'll admit), I can't say that there's enough here to merit the $24.99 asking price for the digest-sized paperback.

Some of my problems with the book stem from very different assumptions about how to run a game; I prefer the old school, which to me means that there are no story arcs except those that arise during play; characters can fail, and failure can lead to death; that most skills can be role-played or reasoned out between a GM and players, and those that can't can be resolved by a die roll, sometimes following an ad hoc estimate of the characters' chances.

For reasons like that, I see no need for, say, Chapter Nineteen, "Character Death". For me, there is no question about whether or not I should 'allow' a character to die if they've run into a fatal consequence of a dangerous environment and the dice don't save them. Even though that chapter is only five pages long, I feel they were wasted. And the suggestion of adding a Deus ex Machina or (worse yet) Fate points to the game is unpalateable to me. (As far as I'm concerned, Hit Points and Saving Throws are the Fate points that shield a character from death.) I also see no need for character Feats or Skill Packages; the whole reason I use a modified SIEGE engine mechanic is so I don't need to mark up character sheets with such things.

Another problem I have is with the writing style; now, anyone who reads RPGs for their literary quality should have their head examined, but even for workaday prose, this volume often waxes far too verbose.

An example: "All attributes are designated as either primary or secondary. The chance for an action's success or failure is based on the attribute's designation as primary or secondary; this determines a check's challenge base. If the attribute being checked against is a primary attribute, the check succeeds if the character's die roll is 12 or greater; primary attributes have a challenge base of 12. If the attribute being checked against is a secondary attribute, the check succeeds if the character's die roll is 18 or greater; primary attributes have a challenge base of 18."

Then, on the next page, we have the same fact, restated: "The Challenge Base is always one of two numbers. It is always a 12 or an 18..."

The chapter goes on to say that there are other ways to conceptualize these numbers, such as the base always being 18, but that rolls off of primes add +6 to the roll (which is how I do it anyway). But then they add bizarre variants such as the base always being 20, but you add 8 for primes and 2 for non-primes, or the base is always fifteen, but you subtract three if the attribute is prime and add three if it's not.

Seriously?

This could be written more succinctly: "All attributes are designated as either primary or secondary. Primary attributes have a challenge base of 12; secondary attributes have a challenge base of 18. Alternately, the base is always 18, but you can add +6 to the die roll if the attribute is prime."

This kind of awkward, verbose writing and restatement of the point permeates the book, perhaps doubling the size.

Another style point is the illustrations; they range from the occasionally excellent (p.99 comes to mind) to the serviceable (most others), but what kind of soft-core boy's fantasy inspired pp. 84, 136, and 166? Sexy is great, but the poses these women strike is about as hard to defend as the chainmail bikini.

That isn't to say that there isn't some useful information here; the chapters on dungeon adventures and Air adventures would be useful for GMs/CKs completely new to the hobby, but I wonder how many people really fit that description. Even there, though, the verbosity and poor editing hinder what should have been a worthy offering.

I sincerely hope TLG puts more thought into their future offerings. I really like C&C as a system, and it is entirely playable with the Players Handbook and the Monsters & Treasure book. But that's just a further reason to steer clear of this volume; it just doesn't have enough meat to justify its price.

cheers,
Adam

Unified Mechanics vs. Quirkiness for Quirk's Sake

When I think of 1st Edition AD&D, I don't think of the word "streamlined". Thief skills are based on a percentile roll, finding secret doors is rolled low on a d6, initiative is rolled high on a d6, attacks and saves are done with the iconic d20. Magic resistance is a percentile. The switch to 3.x/Pathfinder changed that: now almost everything is done as a d20 roll against Armor Class or a target number, with bonuses and penalties applied based on the situation and the skills or experience of the character rolling.

Some people think the OSR is all about quirky rules, and doing things the old ways for Old Times' Sake, or maybe because we're just crusty old reactionaries. Personally, I don't like a rule because it's charming, or old, or new. I like a rule because it models a situation in a way that lets me conceptualize it and think of options for play. And different situations (arguably) need different models.

Take Call of Cthulhu's experience system, for example: if you have used a skill successfully, you roll a percentile after the adventure to see if you've improved. If you roll higher than your current skill, you improve by 1d6. The beauty of this system is that it models actual skill growth in an elegant way: when you're inexperienced, you're unlikely to succeed that often, so you don't get to roll much. If you do, though, you have a high chance of improving. The combination of success rate and improvement rate picks up speed until the 50% mark, when it becomes less and less likely that you will make the improvement roll even if you do apply the skill successfully. By the time you approach 100% in a skill, it's nearly impossible to improve, even if you succeed almost all of the time.

But that's not how the Resistance Table works. The table is based on opposing attributes (Strength vs. Strength or weight, Power vs. Power, etc.), assuming that equal ratings gives a 50% success rate. A modern designer might look at this and think "Wait! There's two systems here, where there only needs to be one." This hypothetical designer might decide to make a game based entirely on the Resistance Table, adding numbers to attributes to represent skill (Strength plus Sword Rating, or Dexterity plus Stealth); that might be a fun game to play, but it ignores the simple fact that Skills and Resistance Rolls were meant to represent different situations, and don't necessarily benefit by being modeled with the same numbers.

I mention this because my OSR-based game (cobbled from many sources) uses a modified Siege Engine mechanic (adapted from Castles & Crusades) for a lot of things. It's an attribute-based roll and offers an elegant way to customize your character without littering the sheet with feats and skills. I like the rules I've come up with, but I have no compunctions about altering or adding to them. It might be that a situation only has a few identifiable states, so it could be modeled with a d6; it might be that the situation falls in a bell curve, in which case 3d6 (or other combinations) might be called for. Or perhaps a d100 roll, if I want to break out the calculator and figure out the math to a single percent.

Whichever it is, I think it's better to allow the situation to guide the numbers. It doesn't have to be "quirky", nor does it have to hew closely to an imagined Universal Resolution Mechanic; all it needs to do is be (a) fun, (b) fair, and (c) capable of being influenced by wise player choices.

cheers,
Adam