Warhammer 40k OSR?!

While my focus in gaming is pretty much back to RPGs and computer games these days, I have a soft spot in my heart for wargames. I'm a big fan of the 40K setting, both its current incarnation in the hands of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell, and its early days with Elves! In! Spaaaaaace!

I prefer the Abnett-verse for my 40k RPG needs, but if I play the wargame, my inclination is towards the ridiculous gonzo early days - both the 2nd Edition (same basic premise as the current setting, but sillier and more 2000 AD showing through), and Rogue Trader (no Chaos explicitly mentioned, half wargame/half RPG, Space Marines are crazy psychos instead of boring warrior-monks).

While checking around for resources to run a Dark Heresy game over G+ using a system that's not the FFG Dark Heresy ruleset, I happened across this fellow, who's blogging about an OSR movement in 40K. I'm absurdly happy about more folks being interested in what I find to be some of the coolest stuff in 40K.

(Oh, and ol' Mandamus gets a shout-out there too!)

And now I'd better get back to this final paper. Last one for law school...!

Mistress Meena's Travelling Circus

Here we finally go, only like 2 months late.

The wastelands near Sanctuary are a grim enough place, and it's always nice to have a little bit of color, glamour, and spectacle to liven up the land. Even if the color, glamour, and spectacle is as terrifying as Mistress Meena's Travelling Circus.

Mistress Meena appears human, but she's been around for hundreds of years. Probably since the Bieth fell. Her circus takes in the wretched, the poor, the dying, and those simply down on their luck. She doesn't flinch from the sick, the leprous, those twisted by the magic coursing through the wastelands.

That's because she changes them. She shapes their bodies, ripping and tearing, fusing metal and wire and wood to flesh and bone, and reweaves them into what she needs.

The acrobats that dash across the stage have springy spurs of bone emerging from their calves, allowing them to bounce and bob with the utmost dexterity. When they spread their arms wide, the scarlet, pink, and blue ribbons stretch from their arms down to their ribcage.

The clowns have had the color bleached out of their skin and concentrated into their hair and nose, their lips swollen comically, their eyes cartoonishly large.

The harp that plays itself has a human head, with golden tresses, and she sings to accompany herself. The graceful arc of the harp's body used to be her spine. Arms and legs, she has none. The trapezes used to be two lovers, and now they come close each night but never touch.

Mistress Meena seems to be the only unshaped person in the circus. She never doffs her black domino mask.

The circus caravan proceeds through the worst parts of the wasteland. They never turn aside, and never seem to be molested by the wild creatures or bandits.

When the circus comes, you do not turn it away. Once in a while someone from an outlying village, or even Sanctuary or Lithquil, will approach Mistress Meena after the show. She will smile kindly, and touch their arm, and lead them away. Sometimes their friends see them again, changed into another component of Mistress Meena's show. If they do, they always regret it.

Think: Freaky batshit John Blanche art, travelling circuses, and Alistair Reynolds's Diamond Dogs with a creepy-ass Zatanna as Dr. Trintignant.

(Disclaimer: idea cribbed from a description of the Circus Tresaulti I heard, but I haven't read any of the stories yet.)

Relevant quote from the Amazon preview: "Their dancing names are Sunyat and Sola, Moonlight and Minette. (Their real names don't matter; no one in the circus is real anymore.)"

Dungeons and Dominion (or campaign setting idea generation)

This is a little trick I came up with when trying to come up with cool bits to work into my D&D homebrew setting, but it can work with most any fantasy setting.

First, a little background. If you're not interested, skip over it and get to the bolded part.

There's a Twitter game I play called Echo Bazaar. In Echo Bazaar (or #ebz as it is sometimes abbreviated) a lot of the various NPCs you encounter are not named, but given suitable epithets. An adjective, and then a title. To wit: a Retiring Blackmailer, a Winsome Orphan, a One-Eyed Bishop, a Wry Functionary, and so forth.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to come up with some tidbits to make my homebrew campaign setting more interesting and alive. I was looking through the Roleplaying Tips magazine, and came across the Idea Seeds method by Mike Bourke.

The gist of the Idea Seeds method is to list a bunch of nouns, say 12, which are to show up in your campaign ("goblin, king, mercenary"). Assign each one an adjective ("heroic goblin, sad king, grizzled mercenary"), use the noun-adjective in a sentence ("the heroic goblin slew the evil dragon"), and...well, it goes on from there.

The noun-adjective thing reminded me of Echo Bazaar, and how powerful those two-word descriptors can be.

And then I had my moment of inspiration. The card game Dominion is themed around a medieval low-fantasy setting. I could use that to generate even the nouns...

So Here's How To Do It

Go to a Dominion set generator (I like this guy) and generate a set of 10 cards. Use all the expansions you want.

This will give you a set of 10 cards. You don't care about anything except the names. Arrange them in 5 pairs of two.

For example, I just got:

Vineyard and Upgrade
Secret Chamber and Tactician
Shanty Town and Royal Seal
Alchemist and Venture
Lookout and Minion

Right. Now, grab a random adjective generator. I like this guy, because Exalted names have awesome punchy adjectives. Generate a list of ten adjectives, and assign them in order to your nouns. (Yes, you could do it out of order, picking and choosing, but then that is NO FUN.)

In the example, I would get:

Secret Vineyard and Crimson Upgrade
Savage Secret Chamber and Stalwart Tactician
Bounteous Shanty Town and Grey Royal Seal
Ebon Alchemist and White Venture
Exaltant Lookout and Sagacious Minion

Now assign temporal states to the examples, alternating between current and past.

(now) Secret Vineyard and Crimson Upgrade
(past) Savage Secret Chamber and Stalwart Tactician
(now) Bounteous Shanty Town and Grey Royal Seal
(past) Ebon Alchemist and White Venture
(now) Exaltant Lookout and Sagacious Minion

The pairs are (or were) interacting, somehow, in your setting. Figure out where, and put it in!

In some cases, this may come up with stuff which just feels stupid ("Savage Secret Chamber" sounds pretty dumb, even though Stalwart Tactician sounds awesome). I recommend tossing the pair out entirely, if one is mediocre. The good thing about this method is that it is pretty quick, so generating multiple sets of 10 doesn't take very long at all.

Conversions!

OK. First a few magic items, converted over from a few places.

Earthdawn

Targeting Eye

"A targeting eye is a magically treated piece of quartz hollowed out, filled with a gel worm and nourishing fluid, then attached to an eye patch. When worn, the worm burrows into the wearer's eye, destroying it. Though the fluid in the gem makes this process relatively painless, the wearer" loses one HP permanently. When making a missile attack or sufficiently similar action, the wearer may take a +4 penalty to initiative to gain a +1 bonus to their attack roll. "A targeting eye cannot be removed, and the damage point can never be healed." -quoted text p. 259, Earthdawn rulebook (1e?). Italics mine.

Blood Pebbles

"Blood-pebble armor is a form of living, elemental armor. Hundreds of small elemental stones are embedded in the wearer's skin, drawing power from the magic in his blood. A character wearing this armor takes 4 Damage Points," (loss of 4 HP, easy enough) "which cannot be healed as long as the character wears the blood pebbles. Implanting or removing blood-pebble armor requires eight hours of work by a trained Weaponsmith." (Or a nasty Bieth laboratory, which could likely do it much quicker. Magical AIs are wondrous useful things!) Blood-pebble armor provides AC 5, improves all saves by +1, and allows for a saving throw vs. magic missile spells. -quoted text p. 255, Earthdawn rulebook. Italics mine.

OK. Next, let's bring in some cool things from Warhammer Fantasy. These spells are taken in concept from the WFRP 2e supplement "Realms of Sorcery".

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery

The Beast Broken (p 138)

Level 1 M-U Spell (replaces Mending)

Duration: Permanent

Range: 36'

"You break the wild spirit of a single animal (that can be domesticated) within 12 yards. These animals include horses, dogs, and some birds of prey. It does not include normally wild animals like wolves, bears, snakes, and so on...On a failed test" (aka failed save vs spell) "it remains docile towards Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, and Halflings forever, though it is still likely to be afraid - and rightly so - of creatures like Greenskins, Skaven, and those tainted by Chaos." Replace Humans, Elves, etc. with 'PC races,' unless you want to make it specific - a bit of anti-Dwarf prejudice? - and similarly, broaden the Greenskins et. al. to just include inhuman beings. This spell functions as a poor man's 'Charm Animal,' but adds a significant deal of flavor to the abilities of an M-U, permanently dominating the mind of an animal and exerting arcane influence over Nature. Druids ought to flip out if they find an animal that has been mentally gelded in this fashion.

Signs in the Stars (p. 151)

Level 3 M-U Spell (replacing Invisibility 10' Radius)

Duration: 1 month/level

"You...write a subtle message in the stars. The message is not detailed and can only serve to communicate complex ideas if you and the one you intend to receive the message have discussed the signs you intend to send in advance." Anyone with significant knowledge of astronomy or astrology can observe the sky and see that someone has cast this spell; however, "without knowledge of what you intend to communicate...the meaning cannot be easily divined."

I'd like to convert some of the rituals included (particularly The Impossible March of the Damned Soldier, p. 168). I also plan to convert the demonic bargains options available to the Demonologist into retroclone/similar format.

NPCs:

This is less for posting new and creative ideas and more to force me to start fleshing out NPCs within the LotB setting. Right now, it's an extremely basic sandbox with a few sparse NPCs, and that needs to change. Sanctuary is an interesting place, but just telling the folks that it's interesting won't cut it!

So.

Murdach (hob m F2): Murdach is a travelling peddler and sometime fence, usually roving between Sanctuary, Kwannom, and points south.. He seeks to circumvent the taxes on the Bieth relic trade. Murdach is a bulky ruddy-skinned hobgoblin, carrying a curved sword at his side and a large smile on his face. His left eye is glazed over and his left ear is forked - courtesy of a wild magic zone that he and his partner Feihong traveled through to escape Ungern's riders back in the day.

Friendly and garrulous, Murdach nevertheless deflects discussion of any shady wares away ("Artifacts? Nonsense! But if you want wondrous items, observe this beautiful teapot..."). It will take a bit of coaxing before he can start to show the Real Goods. Feihong (h m Lvl 0) is Murdach's partner, a thin man dressed in green wearing a box cap. As Murdach rattles on, Feihong will quietly and solemnly display their wares. He hardly ever speaks - not from any desire to keep a mysterious demeanor, but because he has been cursed to spit out a small creature (snake, frog) each time he gives voice. It's pretty awkward all around, but it makes him a good partner for Murdach. While the hobgoblin babbles and distracts, Feihong inspects their potential trading partners.

D&D and Roadside Picnic - an Epiphany

I'm splitting this off from my personal LiveJournal, so I'm going to post some duplicate entries here that were originally posted there. Here's the one I'm proudest of:

A successful D&D adventurer should have an outlook like that of the Stalkers in Roadside Picnic. This is what I aspire to in my games from now on.

The Zone, as the Strugatskys present it, is a place of terror and wonder. There is danger at literally every step. It is a place where an individual can find everything they want - maybe. If they are both exceptionally skilled and exceptionally lucky.

The bones of those who tried and failed litter the Zone. The echoes of the past, and the monstrosities of the present. There are wonders, there are unexplained mysteries, and there are horrors unimaginable. It is the Zone, full of terror and mystery, a crucible. It is not unlike The Dungeon.

And so those who thrive, in either place, require the same sort of paranoia, method, discipline, and nerve that the stalkers have. Their objective - wealth in a place of grave danger, where most who venture die - is the same. There are some who would use the treasures found to benefit others, and some who would use it for lucre.

Those who enter the Zone do it because, like Red and Buzzard, they don't fit into society, they are the loners, the wild ones. Or like Kirill and Arthur, because they have a cause which necessitates great risk. It's not a safe business where one does it just to make wealth. Death is nigh, and life is cheap.

"I understand what you've done here, Q, but I think the lesson could've been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew."
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid."
-Q, "Q Who", ST: tNG

Rules-Heavy Games

Randall, over at RetroRoleplaying, just made a post titled THE House Rule for Rules Heavy Games? where he mentions a house rule which some 3.5e players have adopted - that when taking an action, the player has to have the rules for the given action immediately at hand, or else they will get skipped in initiative until they can find the rule.

Randall is somewhat aghast by this, as well he should be. It seems terrible to me as well - I have a sad memory of giving a friend playing in one of my early AD&D2e games 30 seconds to find a given rule, or else I would make something up on the spot; he flipped so quickly through my copy of the PHB that he ripped a page nearly in half.

I can't say that I never have to ask a player to check the rules on something - I am not that well acquainted with the precise rules of most of the cleric/wizard spells beyond "cure light wounds" and "magic missile." But other than those and checking a monster statblock in the MM if I'm running a random encounter and didn't have time to prep generic stats, I am generally not minded to open up the book and search for the rules.

I remember in my 4e game a year ago, play stopped for 15 minutes during an encounter because everyone was frantically looking up the rules for whether Power X was able to affect Target Y in an approved fashion. I say this with all affection and respect to my 4e group (they are an awesome bunch and our DM came up with some really interesting and creative ideas) but fuck that noise. To my mind, there are a few options for a GM in such a situation who's seeking to make the game fun and flowing: either make a ruling and have it supersede the rules, or make a ruling and check the book later (the Warhammer solution).

Way I figure...if you think that the rule is really important, then in all likelihood you know it or should know it well enough to fudge it. If it's not all that important, then just make a ruling, go with whatever is coolest or most entertaining, and forge on. I suppose you can look it up if you really, really want to. But you're damn well going to do it afterwards.

In an earlier post of Randall's, he offers this distinction between old-school and new-school gaming:

Let's say there are two major styles of role playing games. From a player point-of-view, the first (and older) style says "Here is the situation. Pretend you are there as your character, what do you want to do?" This style has been superseded over the years with a style that says "Here is the situation. Based on your character's stats, abilities, skills, etc. as listed on his character sheet and your knowledge of the (often many and detailed) rules of the game, what is the best way to use the game mechanics to solve the situation?" Old school play strongly favors the first style and frowns on too much of the second. If your game tends more to the first than to the second, it's leaning "old school." If your game tends more to the second than the first, it's leaning "new school".

I don't say that this is a definitive distinction between the two styles of play, between new-school and old-school gaming. But I think that having to stop and check the rules for 15 minutes (no exaggeration on the time) is a result of the tyranny of the mechanics.

There is a quote attributed to Dave Arneson, which is something to the effect of "The real secret we can't tell DMs is that they don't need any of this," referring to the various DMGs and so forth. I credit PARANOIA with teaching me this - the flow of the game, the story, is maximized when the rules contribute to, rather than define, the setting.

Cast off your chains and be free! You have nothing to lose but your SRDs!

...or something.

Who Is This Guy Anyway? What's This Site For?

So, just who are you anyway?

I'm a relatively young gamer who was introduced to D&D through the Endless Quest gamebooks that TSR put out way back in the day. While my friends and I played versions of D&D throughout elementary and middle school, my first structured, dice-rolling, gameplay began in 1999, when my parents bought me the D&D Basic Set's 19th incarnation, according to The Acaeum. Looked something like this:

(Photo credit The Acaeum)

Now, in retrospect, it isn't a terribly good boxed set - definitely not as compared to some of the earlier ones. Players are given pregenerated characters with no way of making their own, the adventures provided are nothing particularly compelling...but at the time, it was magic.

I soon picked up the 2nd Edition PHB and DMG...just in time for D&D 3e to get released in 2000.

D&D 3e/3.5e is generally the lingua franca game for my generation of gamers. It's only by odd circumstance that I didn't start there, and I'm rather grateful. Now, at the time I was very very righteously angry at D&D 3e - it changed everything and the game was just fine the way it was and double swords were stupid anyway. If I wanted to change to 3e, I'd have to change the entire bookshelf of old AD&D material I had managed to acquire. Who the hell played a dwarven mage or a halfling paladin?

I was also in eighth grade at the time. You're allowed to be whiny and silly in the eighth grade. Thankfully, I managed to grow out of my pique as I grew older; the release of cool d20 products (Babylon 5! The Black Company!) managed to get me to take another look at 3.5e, and I was finally able to try and engage the system on its own merits.

As I mentioned, AD&D 2e was what I started with, but through the delights of used book stores, I started to pick up some 1st edition D&D (and older) materials. They were pretty much directly compatible with 2nd Edition materials, so it made no difference to me; it was all the same game.

Around 2004, I discovered the excellent game PARANOIA. I became a moderator on the primary PARANOIA fansite, Paranoia-live, just in time for the new edition by Mongoose Publishing to come out. Between 2004 and 2008, most of my gaming focused on PARANOIA rather than any version of D&D.

Over the past few years, I've returned to AD&D and similar old-school games. I discovered that there's a very strong old-school gaming community (sometimes called the OSR, or Old-School Renaissance), and that there were some awesome ideas and concepts being bruited about.

I took some of these old-school ideas and worked them into a campaign world I started designing in the summer of 2009, called Legacy of the Bieth. (You can see the abortive Obsidian Portal website I made for the campaign here; this might get updated later.) I'm continuing to develop the campaign, as well as come up with cool and interesting ideas, here.

I hope that you might find these interesting!