tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42737294959442085362024-03-13T02:06:46.188-07:00Ruminations of a GeekRPGs, Miniatures, Programming, Odds and EndsEd Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.comBlogger282125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-57203720924825304372023-03-29T13:19:00.001-07:002023-03-29T13:51:17.756-07:00Handful of Dice random dungeon generator<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Outline for a dungeon randomization method to apply to the Bakemono Caverns by the Mountain Crevasse Bridge. Will be running this location tonight in the Bushido flavored Barbarians of Lemuria campaign, thought of this approach on my walk to lunch, fleshing out a bit as I write this up.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ab815b2a-7fff-dcdd-0b49-c2e7b95681e1"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When generating a room or cave:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throw a die for each of these categories. Dice that come out high will mean that feature is present, for some in a binary fashion, for others in a scalar, with 4 meaning some, 5 meaning more or larger, 6 meaning a lot or very large or intense.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If applying to other locations, some categories might not be appropriate, like leaving out or reducing odds on horror or weird elements.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monsters - Scalar</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other complications/dangers - environmental or traps - Scalar</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Horror - Scalar</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weird - binary</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Treasures - Scalar, add 1 each for monsters or dangers being 5 or 6, a 6 total or more should include something magic.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plot hook characters 5 or objects 6</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something significant is concealed/hidden (about location or paths to leave it) binary, on 5-6</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If not already mapped:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Natural/Constructed transition vs previous location- on 6</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Termination vs branching 1,2 termination, 3 single path beyond, 4 Two paths 5-6 branching </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elevation change - 5 Up 6 Down, could be the space itself or a branching in that direction on exit</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Branchings can loop back to connect to previously discovered branchings as appropriate.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Test:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">411156223</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-85e3b5f4-7fff-6e40-ada1-2eb89e1d7229" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Yields:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Some monsters</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">A character or characters that are a plot hook</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Something concealed - will be the monsters or plot hook character(s), since no exit paths or other things</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Terminal room on this path</span></p><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-42360721851494543292022-12-04T11:39:00.001-08:002022-12-04T12:43:42.678-08:00Marco Arnaudo's Pulp! skirmish rules from Osprey, a first impressions review<p> <span data-offset-key="3vs6s-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18.75px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This weekend I've been reading the rules to Pulp!, Osprey's latest skirmish title, by </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18.75px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marco</span><span data-offset-key="3vs6s-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18.75px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Arnaudo who most of you probably know from his Youtube boardgame reviews.</span></p><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="74sa9-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="74sa9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="74sa9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="dvasa-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dvasa-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dvasa-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Presentation-wise it is a classic Osprey blue paperback. It has a good number of photos of painted minis in nice scenery, mostly from Bob Murch's Pulp Figures and some paintings of pulp adventure scenes. 64 pages inside the cover.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="a2cit-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a2cit-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a2cit-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="e3bms-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e3bms-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="e3bms-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Like other blue stripe Osprey titles, the layout still suffers from my pet peeve, tables with small print and alternating dark blue gray and light blue gray backgrounds. I'd much prefer Osprey to use white and an even lighter blue gray backgrounds for the alternating stripes to maximize contrast with the text for my aging eyes. And bump the text size a step. I'd rather pay a few more dollars for rules that don't cause so much eye strain.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="82ipp-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="82ipp-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="82ipp-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="9jd9a-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9jd9a-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="9jd9a-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">It's a lighter game than Pulp Alley, with more focus on combat than other adventure perils, less character customization, and a simple D6 combat system. Each player will be typically moving around a dozen figures, most of them in small groups of 2-4 with a few heroes, sidekicks, and villains as singletons. The character stat bar has 8 columns, pretty typical of a combat oriented skirmish game.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="anksb-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="anksb-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="anksb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="4bhol-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4bhol-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4bhol-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">You are dicing for initiative each turn, and activating by alternating groups. Before the general activations phase begins there is a continuing melee phase where both combatants in a continuing melee from the previous turn have option to withdraw, hidden choice, and if neither do they fight again. If either or both do, the one that stood the ground can activate normally but withdrawing figures are spent by their withdrawal move. When a group takes its turn, it must roll to activate, easier for heroes than mooks, and will have a reduced defensive Partial Activation on a failure with only a few options. A group that gets too separated, with some figures outside of a 3" cohesion distance, will have the out of touch figures suffer a penalty to their activation roll which they'll roll separately after the in touch part of the group is resolved. I like this activation scheme pretty well as it sits about halfway between, say, Mordheim and my own Rencounter. One of the possible actions is marking for Reaction Fire, which allows a shot at a moving or shooting target. </span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="2es21-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2es21-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2es21-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="7i4ij-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7i4ij-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="7i4ij-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Combat is a D6 to hit, with a save ala GW rules, that varies with the armor level or agility of the defender. </span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="8dao3-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8dao3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8dao3-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">A low quality character that is hit is taken out. A high quality character is suppressed by the first hit, wounded by the second, and taken out by the second wound from the third hit, with certain special actions accelerating that to inflict both a suppression and wound together. Suppression is a penalty to activation, reduces melee defense, removes Reaction Fire tokens, and halts movement if suffered while moving due to Reaction Fire. A suppressions clears after it affects the activation roll.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="fdrhe-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fdrhe-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="fdrhe-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Movement speeds vary from 2" to 8" depending on what the figure is doing. Armor is a heavy penalty, medium armor halving moves and heavy armor quartering moves & preventing jumping. This armor movement penalty strikes me as too much, since characters slowed that much make for boring game play. Also, in real life, armor doesn't slow you down much, except for all out racing. It fatigues you faster instead. It's probably the one thing I'd change. I'd either reduce the effect to 3/4 and 1/2 or actually model it as fatigue by having 2" and 4" (walk) moves unaffected and charge 6" and run 8" moves require a follow on activation check that causes a suppression if failed, with heavy armor checking at a -1. I might also reduce the effect of shields, heavy, and medium armor against guns by a point or two depending on the setting and modernization of the armor.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="bgknu-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bgknu-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bgknu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="4nh8j-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4nh8j-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4nh8j-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The status changes you'll be tracking or marking on figures are suppression, wounded, reaction fire, defensive stance (an action that gives a one attack defensive bonus, one of the Partial Activation options), usage of single use weapons like grenades or thrown spears, and a small pool of special points, 0-4, depending on the unit, which can be spent for the figure or unit to use one of a menu of special benefit actions, once per turn. There are about 20, described on pages 28-31. </span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="bnltq-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bnltq-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bnltq-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="32vaa-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="32vaa-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="32vaa-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">There is also a Life Experiences profile option, which brings a semi roleplaying element, reducing a figure or unit's Special Benefits choices to a thematic pair and granting an additional thematic special rule for the unit to make up for the reduced special benefit options.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="coaqn-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="coaqn-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="coaqn-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="1kmj6-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1kmj6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1kmj6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">There's the typical weapon and gear charts, animals list, terrain rules, guidance on building teams and scenarios, a handwave towards campaigns, a fully developed example scenario, etc. Vehicle rules are explicitly not present, just a mention that if the pilot does not survive in some remote setting the remainder of the team might be trapped in the locale and be a scenario loss.</span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="5rg0f-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5rg0f-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5rg0f-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-text="true" /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="u2pt" data-offset-key="60pgp-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="60pgp-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="60pgp-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Overall, I like the rules in Pulp! and plan to give them a try. It's actually a testament to quality when there is only one rule in a skirmish set that I immediately want to change. It's a set that is definitely worth paying the cheap Opsrey blue series price for.</span></div></div>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-43757986717065890652021-07-28T18:27:00.003-07:002021-07-28T21:56:50.090-07:00New Old School Campaign<p> On Wednesday nights, I've been playing online with some of my oldest gaming friends, a group that goes back to the 80s, scattered now around Northern California & one in Arizona, using Discord and a couple virtual tabletops, lately Owlbear Rodeo. When I joined into Wednesday nights, Martin wrapped up a campaign and Pete was getting an Old West themed game started, set around SF around 1880, and we got in a few sessions of that. Pete got busy with work so Stu started a Basic Fantasy OSR game to fill in. Stu's work calendar clarified to only alternate Wednesdays being good for him t run, so, feeling the itch to DM again, I started a very impromptu OD&D & house rules campaign for the alternate weeks. Pete might pick back up at some point. Martin also has something brewing, possibly with Barry co-gming.</p><p>Since I was starting very ad hoc and unprepared, I picked out what books to use, and settled on the three little brown books and part of Greyhawk. I might grab a snippet from Blackmoor but there is not much there that appeals to me. I'm using the spell casting part of my 80s house rules and turn undead variants on this blog, and following Barbarians of Lemuria for weapon damage D6L, D6, D6H, etc. I grabbed the old Judges Guild Wilderlands map of the area around the City State of the Invincible Overlord, but didn't have any key handy to it, so just randomly placed them in a hex to start. The initial session had only three characters in it, Stu having managed to actually roll OD&D Paladin stats at first go, and so began Sir Manus Handofitay.<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span>Martin playing an FMC Half Elf Marinus Vanderlube, and Jim the thief Wardenson. Asked them if they were knockabout freelancers or wanted to be on a mission, they went with the latter, and after a few dice rolls we discovered there was a Priory of a Holy Order in service of St Cuthbert in Landmarch, Sir Manus is member of the Order, and they were on a mission for it, which turned out to be prisoner transport from the village nearest the starting hex back to the Priory. Some dice to determine the prisoner, and more discovered he had escaped just before they arrived. They set out hunting him with the help of a couple local lads and a dog for tracking.</p><p>The second session saw Barry and Pete join in, and both had attributes that said cleric to them, so we have two clerics (Barry: Joseph of Aren and Pete: Brardor Nusk ) showing up with the barred wagon that had suffered a breakdown and fallen behind the lead group. They get directed to the pursuers, leave the wagon in the village, and hustle to catch up. The rest of the session saw the party track Esdin, a soldier devoted to Hextor, through the woods south of the village, have a peaceful encounter with a couple goblins, and follow Esdin's trail through the night to Skaney, which the dice told us is a hive of scum and villainy. Jim's thief tracks Esdin's trail over the town wall but he loses the trail atop it and drops into town to try to pick up the trail. The rest talk their way in at dawn at the south gate and find lodging at a local inn. Once rested they take the dog for a walk along the inside of the town wall and pick up the trail, leading to the back alley door of a house in a run down neighborhood. Then the clerics, having learned that there is a small temple to Odin in Skaney, and Pete's cleric Brordor Nusk is in service to Odin, so they go there to ask about the house. Barry's Joseph of Arran serves Istus, Goddess of Fate. The priest is away, but the old woman caretaker tells them of the recent death of the old residents. Meanwhile the others do some scouting of the street the house fronts on, and spot a couple of young lookouts, indicating the house is in use by some sort of nefarious gang.</p><p>Before the third session I determined that the house is occupied by a cult, not a secular criminal gang, and some particulars of the cult. Just before the session I sketched a floorplan map of the house and set it into a row of outlined houses.</p><p>The third session begins with a small retcon of departure of the clerics from the temple, in which Brordor Nusk has a mysterious vision from Odin giving some foreshadowing hints about a dark ritual in the house that is their target. Most of the party hung out on the market cross street watching the Paladin perform a religious soap box sermon/rap battle with a rival speaker/rabble rousing effort to stir the mob against the cult house. Wardenson snuck through the neighboring ruined building to the right and looked for sneaky ways in. He ended up crossing roof to roof and into a dormer window of a leader in the cult. He had an encounter with a guard in the upper hall that took a shine to him (boxcars reaction roll) and snooped out some of the upstairs rooms, spying upon two important figures in the cult before fleeing down the stairs, and past the front door guard. Running to the rest of the party, he escaped and with a quick decision to attack, the party split, the two clerics down the back alley and the rest to the front door. In a quick series of fights they stormed the ground floor of the house and took down most of the cultists, two in a particularly grisly way as they were thrown into the statue of a vine tentacled dark god that drained them to husks and then activated to attack our heroes. By dint of luck and tactics the party overcame the statue after defeating the cultists, all without losing any party member.</p><p>The fourth session saw the group dealing with the aftermath of their attack on the cult house. They collected clues, loot, fought Esdin as he showed up at the back door with some hired ruffians that he expected to introduce to the cult to take on a mission. A sleep spell took out Esdin and the thugs, and a brief fight defeated the half plant woman in the front room, before searching the upper floor and exiting quickly to be met by the cordoning Watch that had arrived after reports that there was fighting around and in the house. Notably, the pit down to the cellar before the statue was not much examined, and they had a glimpse of plant creatures down there. They were taken in for questioning by a magistrate, who released them and let them take their prisoner away. Returning to the village of Shavenoar, they were feted when one of the prisoners they had freed showed up in the company of watchman dispatched from Skaney. They locked Esdin in the wagon and drove back to Landmarch, capturing a bandit chief, and meeting an Order patrol along the way. The session ended with some treasure examination and a report to Prior Adelbert. A lot of XPs were calculated from all of the foregoing and some of the characters reached level 2.</p><p>Tonight, unless one of the other GMs wants to run something, we'll explore the mission Prior Adelbart gives them, probably including a return to Skaney to deal with cultist loose ends.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-89864910566425394062021-07-28T17:55:00.000-07:002021-07-28T17:55:20.462-07:00Character sheets for Organizations and Powers in a Roleplaying or Wargame Campaign<p> I found some old notes about a side project on quantifying and generating groups like governments, religions, thieves guilds, cults, and the like. So capturing them now to the blog.</p><p>This was inspired by various sources. Tony Bath's book "Setting Up a Wargames Campaign" is the biggest influence. It's still available as part of "Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming" on Amazon for a reasonable price and worth getting.</p><p>The iteration of the idea that I am looking at today has the following attributes with a note to roll 2D6 for each or set them to values to model a specific idea. The idea was to stat out a variety of clashing organizations and then at time intervals roll to see what they do in a Monte Carlo campaign simulator backdrop to a roleplaying campaign. The rolls would generate & resolve actions that would be fleshed out descriptively to give some life to the campaign world. There was also an idea of fractally defining larger and smaller groups that are nested, a guild in a city in a county in a country, or a squad in a platoon in a company in a regiment in an army for examples.</p><p>The attributes list:</p><p>Size: Might be land area or numbers in membership. Might be split if both of those should be distinctly captured</p><p>Wealth: Can they buy what or who they want? High wealth and low power might mean they are more a target than an actor, or that most of their wealth is committed in ways that make it less useful as a tool for group to group interactions.</p><p>Power: If they take action, how much power can they bring to bear? Should correlate somewhat with wealth but some organizations will have other forms of power. This is probably the main stat for conflict resolution.</p><p>Cohesion: How unified in mindset and purpose is the group? A low cohesion group is more likely to have internal faction fighting or break up into separate, possibly rival groups.</p><p>Aggressiveness: How likely is the group to try to expand & attack other groups</p><p>Activity: How fast is the group to take action to seize an opportunity or react to a threat?</p><p>Scruples: Will the leadership of the group tend to honor agreements? Can they be trusted to deal honestly?</p><p>Centralization: The higher it is, the fewer people need to be in agreement on actions</p><p>Alliances: Does the group have relationships with other groups that might assist it or call upon it for assistance?</p><p>Infiltration: How much of the group has outside loyalties that conflict with their loyalty to the group? Probably covaries with Cohesion</p><p><br /></p><p>Example Group:</p><p>Knights of the Flame</p><p>Size 5</p><p>Wealth 10</p><p>Power 8</p><p>Cohesion 7</p><p>Aggro 4</p><p>Activity 4</p><p>Scruples 9</p><p>Central 7</p><p>Allies 10</p><p>Infil 8</p><p><br /></p><p>Once an active military order, the Knights of the Flame have become a body of elder statesmen and councilors of the King. They are very well connected in society, wealthy, and honorable, not prone to act in haste or indeed at all in many cases.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-44429211532042475462021-05-24T09:25:00.000-07:002021-05-24T09:25:17.774-07:00Vaccinated Gaming<p>Well, we're back to playing in person. A couple games of GMT's Apocalypse Road, a couple one on ones of Stargrave, and now a group minis game, a variant of Frank Chadwick's Men Under Fire, with a scenario in Japan's drive through Malaysia, in 28mm. It was John Carnahan's lockdown project and a good looking game. I'll need to transfer some pictures from my phone. </p><p>I'm four months into a #hobbystreak, posting WIP photos on Twitter @edallen and on Instagram. More reliably on Twitter, with grouped catchups on Instagram. It's helped me stay focused on painting. I've actually put a dent in my backlog. </p><p> It's been a long time since I posted anything to the blog, but I'm starting to feel the itch again. So maybe?</p>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-74916128768554251942020-09-05T14:47:00.000-07:002020-09-05T14:47:24.658-07:00Fantasy Miniatures Campaign full deck<p> In 2014 I did a <a href="http://geekruminations.blogspot.com/2014/01/reconstructing-half-forgotten-card.html">blog post</a> about my late 70s fantasy miniatures campaign. At the time I could only find half the deck of cards at the core of it, since I had bagged it in two small bags, and lost one of them. Well, yesterday, I was poking around a bookshelf, and spotted some telltale red in a small plastic bag, deep on a different shelf than the one where I had just seen that half-deck of cards. Dug in past the stuff in front, and YES! the missing baggie of cards. So now I'm going to fill out that deck list started in that previous post. </p><p>Then I will go hunt for the campaign notes and rules folder, and when I find it, reproduce the map, rosters, and miniatures rules, and see if I can resurrect that game. When I have the full list entered, I plan to look into having the list printed as deck by one of those online custom card printers that support game designers.</p><p>As I type these in, it brings back the memory of sitting in the high school library writing some of them up. They are all in black felt tip on red construction paper that I must have cut out to card size with a sheet cutter. When I have the full list entered, I plan to look into having a set of real cards printed from the list.</p><p>This is a now-old school system (then new-fangled) intended for fair minded interpretation as cards are played in a friendly campaign game as a scenario generator. It is not suitable for a seriously competitive game. At the time, I remember we switched sides as we met for subsequent sessions, and maybe even between battles on the same night, so did not have an interest in arguing vague points for advantage. I'd recommend playing it the same way.</p><p style="text-align: left;">A note on resource abbreviations: </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>GT - Gold Talent, think of it as about 100 Gold Pieces in old D&D. </li><li>GTJ - one Gold Talent's worth of Jewelry, </li><li>ST -Silver Talent, about 100 Silver Pieces. </li><li>CG - Common Goods, maybe 100 GP worth of food, beer, ordinary furnishings like sturdy but unadorned furniture, farming or crafting tools, militia armaments, etc. Bulk cargo requiring wagons, boats, or a pack train to transport</li><li>PG - 100 GP worth of Precious Goods, a mix of things like gems, jewelry, arms and armor for the nobility, artworks, alchemical tools and ingredients, fine wine, and spices, much more compact to carry than common goods</li></ul><p></p><p>We never actually played a scenario from a dungeon expedition card, but I did draw up maps, and the idea was to try a hybrid dungeon crawl using the skirmish minis rules for combat and pulling in what was needed from original D&D to flesh out exploration mechanisms, with the opposing player stocking a map that had one to three dungeon levels with reasonable contents to give the dungeon crawling group both opposition and treasures if they succeeded, if I hadn't already gotten to fully stocking first. It would play somewhere between original D&D and something like Heroquest in terms of detail level. The skirmish system was basically scaled like Chainmail with 1 to 2 OD&D hit dice per hit that a model could take. It would have either been one player running the whole expedition while the other DMs it, or roping in some other friends and dividing up the expedition among them for a session.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; margin: 0px; position: relative;">The Deck</h3><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Tithes </b>B 1<br />Tithes must be sent by the Temple of the Goat to the City of the Gods to the amount of 50 GT. 10 GT may be collected from each allied force to pay part. One raid may be conducted to pay the tithes. 1/2 force, plus 1/3 of allies called by <b>Summon Allies</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Tithes </b>B 2<br />Tithes must be sent by the Priests of Godseye to the City of the Gods to the amount of 50 GT. 10 GT may be collected from each allied force to pay part. One raid may be conducted to pay part. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">1/2 force, plus 1/3 of allies called by <b>Summon Allies</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Royal Entourage </b>B 3<br />The Great King and twenty knights and their retainers will travel through on a pilgrimage to the City of The Gods. The Lord of Orly Castle must protect them and house them at the expense of 20 GT.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Ambush </b><span>E 4</span><br /><span>The Orcs of the Wild Wood may ambush one party on the High Road with up to 1/3 of their force. Allies may be called, up to 1/4 of each may help if a Summon Allies card is played.</span></span></p><p><b style="font-size: x-small;">Ambush </b><span style="font-size: x-small;">E 5</span><br style="font-size: x-small;" /><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Great Orcs may ambush one party on the High Road with up to 1/3 of their force. Allies may be called, up to 1/4 of each may help if a Summon Allies card is played.</span></p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span><div><b style="font-weight: bold;">Ambush </b><span>E 6</span><br style="font-weight: 400;" /><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Badlands Goblins may ambush one party entering the Pass of Skulls or Carrion Gulch or traveling on the Holy Road with up to 1/2 of their force. Up to 1/3 of the Hillmen or the undead may be called if allied and a </span><span><b>Summon Allies</b></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> card is played.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><b>Ambush </b></span><span>B 7</span><br /><span>The Undead may ambush one party on the High Road or the Path of the Dead. Up to 1/2 of each kind of undead may be attacking. The Undead Lord will <b>not</b> be present.</span></span><br /><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Treaty</b> B 8<br />The High King will invoke peace on all warring armies. Having determined the war to be the fault of Lawful forces, they must pay the Evil ones 10 to 60 GT in tribute. All prisoners must be returned. Ransom of 5 per Hit may be demanded.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Treaty</b> B 9<br />One war will be settled by negotiation. No tribute will be paid by either side.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ransom:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: xx-small;">1-6 per warrior</span></li><li><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2-12 per monster</span></li><li><span style="font-size: xx-small;">5-30 per leader</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Treaty</b> B 10<br />Due to pressure from his Queen, the High King has invoked peace on all wars. She has him declare that evil armies must pay lawful ones they are at war with 10 GT each in damages.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ransom: 3 per warrior, 10 per monster, 20 per leader</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Truce</b> L 11<br />Any Lawful army may demand a truce with one enemy for one week. Prisoners may be exchanged.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ransom: 3 per warrior, 10 per monster, 20 per leader</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Truce</b> E 12<br />Any Evil army may demand a truce with one enemy for one week for prisoner exchange.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ransom: 3 per warrior, 8 per monster, 16 per leader</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Truce</b> B 13<br />A one month truce is imposed in honor of the High King's Birthday. All prisoners must be exchanged at <b>no</b> ransom. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Mercenaries</b> B 14<br />All mercenaries leave to accept a higher offer from a warlord to the north.</span></p><p><b style="font-size: x-small;">Mercenaries</b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">B 15</span><br style="font-size: x-small;" /><span style="font-size: x-small;">All mercenaries are inducted into royal service and immediately leave for the Great Kingdom.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Invaders</b> L 16<br />Army of conquest(30 LF, 12 HF, 12 archers, 3 2H Knights and 1 warlock) enters from the east and attacks the evil forces. It will attempt to capture one evil stronghold to dwell there.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Invaders</b> E 17<br />A band of nomad raiders from the Dry Wastes swings down from the N.E> and attacks Demsley.<br />Nomads: 18 M. Horse, 4 M. Horsebow, 1 3H M. Horse Hero</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Weather </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 18</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Week-long rainfall stops all fights, reduces movement to 1/3 normal. Rivers are flooded and impassible except at bridges.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Weather </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 19</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Battle prevented by terrible storm.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Either side may withdraw. If neither does, the fight will commence the next day.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Weather </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 20</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">Air elementals revolt. High winds prevent all missile fire and make all spell-casting -2 on success. Any air elemental summoned will become double strength and hostile. <i>(duration was not specified, but probably intended to be somewhere between one battle and one week).</i></span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Disease </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 21</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Plague strikes one stronghold. Roll die for each occupant.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-3 no effect</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4-5 ill for one month</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">6+ killed</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">If besieged, add one to the die. Presence of Bishop or Patriarch will subtract one from the die.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Disease </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 22</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One army is struck by a strange, magical malady. Roll for each member.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-3 no effect</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4-5 ill for one month</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">6+ killed</span><br /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Famine </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 23</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Vulture Badlands are struck by a famine.30 CG must be expended by the Goblins and 10 by each Hillmen tribe for food. For each CG short, one starves. One raid may be initiated to gain funds or food. Up to 1/2 may go. </span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Famine </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 24</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Demsley and Bannock's Freehold are struck by a famine. One CG per fighter must be expended for food relief. Any shorted will die. One raid may be attempted by each in order to capture enough food. Up to 1/2 may go.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Holy War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 25</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One third of all lawful knights and men-at-arms must travel to the Great Kingdom to fight in a crusade. After two months roll one die for each.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">1-2 slain in war</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">3-6 returns with 1-6 CG, 1-4 PG, 1-10 GT and 1 additional hit. Any leader going will also gain 1 magic weapon.</span></span></li></ul><p></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Quest </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 26</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One lawful warrior or leader will be summoned to the City of the Gods to perform a Holy Quest. After 1 month roll a die.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-3 slain</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4-6 returns with +1 Hit, 3-30 GT and a magic weapon.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Quest </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 27</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One Evil warrior, monster, or leader will be summoned to the City of the Gods to perform an Unholy Quest. After 1 month roll a die.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-3 slain</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4-6 returns with +1 Hit, 3-30 GT and a magic weapon.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b>Travelers</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 28</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A band of 1-6 adventurers of 1-4 hits each comes up the High Road to the Last Chance Inn and will join the lawful force there. Each will possess 1-6 GT, 1-10 GTJ, and have a 1/3 chance per hit of possessing a magic item. Roll for each:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-2 Fighter</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">3 M-U</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4 Cleric</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">5 Elf (1-2 F, 3-4 M-U, 5-6 Both)</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">6 Dwarf or Hobbit</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b>Travelers</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 29</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A company of 3-30 pilgrims (1-3 are clerics, 1-3 are multihit fighters) will come from the Great Kingdom headed for the City of the Gods. The lawful side must see to their safety. If all survive, reward is 30 GT. If some survive, no reward. If party wiped out pay 50 GT penalty to the High King.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b>Travelers</b></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 30</span><br style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A band of evil adventurers comes from Seaspray to join the Wizard in the Wood. 1-6 adventurers of 1-4H. 1. Fighter, 2. M-U, 3. Ogre, 4 Cleric, 5 Troll, 6 Were beast or Gargoyle. Each will possess 1-6 GT, 1-10 Street, 1-3 PG and have a 1/3 chance per hit of possessing a magic item</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summons </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 31</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Lord of Orly Castle and at least 3 retainers must journey to the Great Kingdom to appear at the wedding of one of the High King's sons. Each will return with 1-6 GT and 1-3 PG as guesting gifts.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Undead </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 32</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Undead will assist the lawful side in one battle. 1/2 of each type will appear. The Undead Lord will come on a 1 or a 2. (<i>slightly rephrased for clarity to match E 33</i>)</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Undead </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 33</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Undead will assist the evil side in one battle. 1/2 of each type will appear. The Undead Lord will come on a 1 or a 2. </span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Rebellion</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 34</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One captured stronghold will rebel against the garrison with one half their original strength but without a leader.</span><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Rebellion</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 35</span><br style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One captured stronghold will rebel against the garrison with 2/3 their original strength and a leader equal to the one who originally led them if that one is dead or not present.</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;">Tribute </b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px; font-weight: 400;">E 36</span><br style="font-size: 15.4px; font-weight: 400;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px; font-weight: 400;">must be sent by the lawful forces to Sea Spray in the amount of 50 GT to the Great Kingdom. If it is captured, it must be sent until one shipment gets through.</span></b></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Tribute </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 37</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">must be sent by the evil forces to Sea Spray in the amount of 30 GT. If it is captured by someone en route, more must be sent until one shipment gets through.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Taxes </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 38</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Taxes may be collected by the lord of Orly Castle from tributary territories to the north to the amount of 12 GT, 30 ST, 40 CG, and 10 PG.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Taxes </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 39</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Taxes may be collected by the Wizard in the Wood from subject towns to the east. The amount will be 8 GT, 40 ST, 30 CG, and 15 PG.</span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Dungeon Expedition</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 40</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One party may go from any lawful group to the Dark Citadel. This may include 1/4 of its force plus 1/4 of any ally called by the </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> card plus ALL lawful adventurers if any.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Dungeon Expedition</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 41</span><br style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One party may go from any evil group to the Dark Citadel. This may include 1/4 of its force plus 1/4 of any ally called by the </span><b style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> card plus ALL evil adventurers if any.</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> Dungeon Expedition </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 42</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One party may be sent from any evil group to the Great Stone Mountain. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">This may consist of 1/3 of its force plus any evil adventurers.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Dungeon Expedition</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 43</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">One party may be sent from any lawful force to the Great Stone Mountain. This may consist of 1/3 of its force plus any lawful adventurers.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Dungeon Expedition </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 44</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil adventurers may go to either dungeon.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Dungeon Expedition</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 45</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful adventurers may go to either dungeon.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Reinforcements</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 46</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4 knights, 6 men at arms and 6 crossbowmen come from the Great Kingdom to enlist at Orly Castle.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Reinforcements </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 47</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">12 Heavy foot and 2 Evil Vicars come from the City of the Gods to join the troops at the Temple of the Goat.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Reinforcements</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 48</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">6 heavy Foot and 1-6 Adventurers join Demsley or Bannock. They come from Sea Spray. Adventurers:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1 Fighter</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">2 MU</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">3 Cleric</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">4 Elf (1-2 F, 3-4 M, 5-6 T)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">5 Dwarf (1-4 F, 5-6 T)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">6 Hobbit (1-3 F, 4-6 T)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-3 Hits each, Each possessed 1-6 GT, 1-3 GTJ and has a 1/3 chance for each hit of having a magic item.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Reinforcements</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 49</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">1-2 8 Goblins and a Bugbear join the Badlands Goblins from the East.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">3-4 6 Orcs and an ogre join the orcs in the Wildwood.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">and 1-6 adventurers join the Wizard in the Wood. (See card 30 for specs.)</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 50</span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 51</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 52</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 53 </span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 54</span><br /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Summon Allies</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 55</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Magic!</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 56</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Lord of Orly Castle searches his armory and finds the Sword of the Mists. It is +2, does double hits to ogres, and casts spells as a seer. (If the Sword of the Mists has been found already, roll for another magic item.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Magic!</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 57</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Goat God bestows on his High Priest the Staff of Kings. It strikes as a flail +1, finds secret doors and casts spells as a lawful vicar.( If the Staff of Kings is already in play, roll for another magic item.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Magic!</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 58</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A wandering gnome digs a well for the town of Demsley which once did him a good turn. The Goodly Well crates a magical elixir which can be drawn forth once a week and acts as a potion of healing. If it goes unconsumed for a month, its magic dissipates.</span><br /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Magic!</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 59</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">The Wizard in the Wood perfects a ring which summons one gargoyle per month.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Mercenaries </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 60</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A mercenary company 0f 12 H.F. and a 2H leader heads to Orly Castle from the Great Kingdom. They will offer their services for 20 GT a year plus support.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Mercenaries </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 61</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A mercenary company from the City of the Gods heads to the Temple of the Goat for employment at a rate of 20 GT a year plus support.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Mercenaries: 12 Heavy Foot and a 2H heavy horse hero.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Mercenaries </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 62</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">12 mercenary dwarves and a 2H hero dwarf come down to the Last Chance Inn from Seaspray. They will hire on for 6 GT per month plus board.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Mercenaries </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 63</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A company of 18 mercenary orcs come from Seaspray to the Wizard in the Wood for service at a rate of 20 GT per year plus board.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Caravan</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 64</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A caravan loaded with 80 CG and 12 PG travels from the City of the Gods to the Great Kingdom.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">It will leave 5 CG at each stronghold along the way in payment for services. Its guard force consists of 8 longbowmen, 12 heavy foot, 6 medium horse, and 1 Magician with 8 wagons.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">(</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Note, both are offmap locations, so this is crossing the map.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">)</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Caravan</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 65</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">The Sorcerer Bortus is taking his magic wagon from the Great Kingdom to Seaspray loaded with 60 GTJ. It is self-propelled, 18" move, 4 lances mounted on the front. It is magically invulnerable to fore and spells. Bortus and his 6 elven helpers add +2 to their defense and +1 to attack when fighting from the top.</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Caravan</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 66</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A caravan loaded with 30 PG and 40 ST is going from Panjud to the City of the Gods. The guards are 6 Elf light horsebow and 6 Elf heavy foot.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Spy</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 67</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">For 5 GT a spy can be hired. When he is sent into an enemy camp roll a die. On a 1-3 he is captured and slain. On a 4-6 roll again. A 1-5 indicates the number of cards that the hirer can examine from the opponent's hand. On a six, he was too inquisitive and caughtCards to be examined should be determined randomly.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Spy</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 68</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">For 10 GT a spy can be hired. When he is sent into an enemy camp roll a die. On a 1-2 he is captured and slain. On a 3-6 roll again. A 1-5 indicates the number of cards that the hirer can examine from the opponent's hand. On a six, he was caught. Determined which cards randomly. If he survives he can check again the following month for an additional 5 GT. In later months, he can try again until caught.</span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Assassin </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 69 </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">For 20 GT an assassin can be hired to slay one enemy leader.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">On a 1 or 2 he will be successful. A 1 to the roll if the target is a spellcaster. Subtract 1 if the assassin is aided by a spellcaster.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 70</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid by Badlands Goblins on Bannock's Freehold to capture Bannock's daughter. Up to 1/3 of Goblins plus up to 1/4 of card-called allies.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 71</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid by the forces of the Wizard in the Wood up target of choice to capture treasure and slaves for experiments. Up to 1/2 of Wizard's force plus up to 1/3 of any allies called by cards.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 72</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid by up to 1/3 of any evil force plus up to 1/4 of any card-called allies up any lawful force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 73</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A raid by up to 1/3 of any lawful force plus up to 1/4 of any card-called allies up any evil force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 74</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A raid by up to 1/2 of the force at Godseye may be made against the Temple of the Goat to capture the High Priest. Up to 1/3 of an card-called allies may help.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Raid </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">L 75</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">A raid by the army of Orly Castle on the Hillmen tribes. Up to 1/3 of the force plus up to 1/4 of an card-called allies may attack. </span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 76</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any force may declare war on any opposing force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 77</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break one enemy alliance.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 78</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break one enemy alliance.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 79</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break all alliances of one enemy force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> B 80</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Break all alliances of one enemy force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 81</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil force may form an alliance with any other evil force.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 82</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil force may form an alliance with any other evil force.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 83</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil force may form an alliance with any other evil force.</span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 84</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any two non-allied evil forces may form an alliance.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 85</span><br style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful force may form an alliance with any other lawful force.</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 86</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful force may form an alliance with any other lawful force.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 87</span><br style="font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful force may form an alliance with any non-allied lawful force.</span></span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Alliance</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 88</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any two non-allied lawful forces may form an alliance.</span><span style="font-family: Tinos;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 15.4px;" /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Attack</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 89</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil force may attack one lawful force with up to 2/3 its strength plus up to 1/2 of all card-called allied forces, if it has declared war on that force using a </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> card.</span><br /><br /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Attack</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> E 90</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil force may attack any lawful force with up to 3/4 of its strength plus up to 2/3 of all card-called allies, if war has been declared by one force upon the other by use of a </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">card.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Attack</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 91</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful force may attack any evil force with up to 2/3 of its strength plus up to 1/2 of all card-called allies, if it has a declared war on that force by either one or the other playing a </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">card.</span></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Attack</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 92</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful force may attack any evil force with up to 3/4 of its strength plus up to 2/3 of all card-called allies, if war has been declared by one force upon the other by use of a </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">card.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 93</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any force may declare war on any opposing force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">B 94</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any force may declare war on any opposing force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;"> L 95</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any lawful force may declare on any evil force.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">War </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">E 96</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: tinos; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Tinos; font-size: 15.4px;">Any evil force may declare war on any lawful force</span></p><p><br /></p>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-20388196178521682142019-04-16T22:56:00.002-07:002019-04-16T23:04:57.324-07:00Thinking out loud about Procedural GenerationDunGen has been around awhile now. The theming tags are a success in making the kind of rooms & monsters used make sense together when applied, but the random placement is still lacking for what I'd like it to be. I think they need at least one more level of tagging that would help organize usage, maybe "inner" versus "outer" for each room label, and a clumping algorithm that tends to make rooms from the same theme clump together adjacently more often, with "outer" room labels being used more around the edges of clumps and inner labels more where they don't border labels from other themes. Still make it all biases and not absolute so there can be serendipitous adjacencies to spice things up. Then do something that creates explicit bosses and groups them and the bigger treasures more in "inner" rooms. Entrances could be made explicit, and be "outer" rooms. I'll need to think about algorithms to get this effect. I'd also like some sort of explicit locks and keys mechanism where some rooms have elements that are made accessible by bringing some item from another room. I'd like to have something of the vibe of the computer game "Unexplored" in that feature. Another pass through adding an attribute to every label doesn't sound like much fun to do, but I think it might be worth it for this effect. It probably would be a good idea to clump creature types somewhat as well.<br />
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So maybe the room count is established, then the graph gets linked up. Then instead of the random rolls for each room, roll up separate lists of room labels, retaining the whole object for each, and a list of monsters (or blanks) and traps (or blanks) and quirks (or blanks) and hooks (or blanks). Sort the lists by monster theme tags and level total, or room theme and inner or outer. Then draw off of these as decks, starting by placing the entrance and several edges away the boss room or boss rooms, which should also be spread apart if of different factions. Then deal out inner room labels in rooms adjacent to boss rooms and outer labels for the entrance and adjacent rooms, and then remaining inner rooms around similar theme inner rooms and outers to fill in the gaps. Some sort of shuffle and draw might place creatures, traps etc, as objects, only rendering out to strings at the end, so the final result is editable by the DM using the tool.<br />
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This is still more ideas than implementation, but I think something along these lines could move DunGen the next step along towards making coherent, useful procedurally generated dungeons with less tweaking needed between generation and worthwhile playability. It's concrete enough for me to start thinking more clearly about implementing it.<br />
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Another, back of the mind thing I've been thinking about is doing classic multi-level dungeons, from midi to mega size, with built in side views, themes for different levels, and linking entrances/exits that jump you from one level map to another. This would probably make more sense to do after a rebuild along the lines above, but keeping it in mind, while working up what goes into a level.Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-22683991191369851882019-03-21T09:13:00.000-07:002019-03-21T10:52:45.819-07:00Warding Undead - adding partial effect to the Turn Undead rollThe cleric's Turn Undead effect in OD&D is an awfully binary affair. Even in the rolled range, the result is T or nothing. Some drama could be added by having a close miss on the roll have partial effect. Here's a possible rule: A turn roll missed by one or two points give the effect W, Warded. The cleric's holy power is having some effect on the undead but it is still contested. While the Warded condition is in effect, undead attacks that just do conventional damage have it halved, round up and undead attacks that do drains have it downgraded to dice of damage. A shadow's strength drain or a wight's single level of life drain becomes a die of damage, a spectre's two level drain adds two dice of damage while warded. So there is still a fight on, but the party is protected temporarily from the scariest effect of powerful undead, their life drain. The warding effect emanates in a 30' radius around the cleric.<br />
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So, how long does warding last? That depends on how strong you want it to be and how much mechanics are worth keeping track of. The simplest answer is one combat round. Next might be 1D6 rounds, or a round plus at the cleric's next action, there is a new roll, that either resolves the condition or continues the ward. There could be rolls against WIS or CHA to maintain concentration each round, or when damaged by an undead, or other finer grained mechanics.<br />
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I think I would go with this: the cleric can maintain the ward until choosing to reroll for resolution or damaged by one of the warded undead. While maintaining the ward, the cleric can attack but not cast spells.<br />
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<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-67618783075445016462019-03-20T21:49:00.001-07:002019-03-20T22:09:36.300-07:00The Temple of Zozer<i>This is an example of starting from a run of <a href="http://meta-studios.com/dg/dungen.html" target="_blank">DunGen</a>, and digging in and editing the results until a usable scenario emerged. It was a basic run, so makes a midsize, unthemed dungeon for a low level party, approximately 1st-3rd in OD&D. I put in about an hour and a half making edits and figuring out what it is about. </i><i>And another hour and a half making it into the blog post and revising some more. </i><i>I relabeled edges, added more description & elements to rooms, moved some linking edges, customized the entrance rooms on the map to make them stand out, tweaked names, moved some items to rooms they fit better, renamed monsters, etc, to adjust it from being a hodgepodge to what it is now.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Most of the spiderkin started out as "spiders" but when I looked at it, they needed sentient agency, so the spiderkin were born. Zozer and his religion started out by rationalizing and expanding on some vague hooks. The hooks got religious themed because the preponderance of random rooms that weren't caverns happened to be religious theme rooms. </i><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span>n the tip of a peninsula stands the crumbling ruin of a lighthouse and in the caverns beneath, an ancient temple of the god Zozer who traveled the sky in his skyship. The temple is desecrated and overtaken by a Spiderkin cult (think lesser ettercaps, mostly level 1, led by a mad science inclined wizard). Some unlucky mushroom men got captured by the Spiderkin and a few who escaped and are trying to get out completely are on the wandering monster table. They might talk the PCs into rescuing their comrades from the wicked experiments of Vvixx. There are a couple of ways here to draw Zozer's attention and one way to make a distant magical travel to another place for a sequel scenario.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTC7Tmcpc7W_StzH8QA2opbRDIY4ceya-pNlRriB3q0hs3jC-OcliaFdJorp0YnOzT34aBly70JaY-hqX-90r06N746YVJ6PwD8Vv6babQilj5vz0h6L7mp9HkwkJrkEPngCRecuZG_c/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-20+at+9.11.31+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1451" data-original-width="1600" height="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTC7Tmcpc7W_StzH8QA2opbRDIY4ceya-pNlRriB3q0hs3jC-OcliaFdJorp0YnOzT34aBly70JaY-hqX-90r06N746YVJ6PwD8Vv6babQilj5vz0h6L7mp9HkwkJrkEPngCRecuZG_c/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-03-20+at+9.11.31+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Location<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Descriptions </b></div>
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1: Spiral staircase down<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Tp: Filled with magical darkness,</div>
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This trap can be disarmed by concealed lever in the shape of a ship's bow, </div>
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projecting from the wall, just inside the darkness at the head of the stairs.</div>
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An incautious person might stumble and fall when stepping onto the first stair in the dark or fall if out into the open space in the middle. The drop is 30 feet.</div>
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2: Bridge in cavern<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A ten foot oar leaning in the corner</div>
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A ghostly scene of priests boarding a ship that flies into the sky plays out and repeats hourly.</div>
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Ts: 100 silver, Jewelled brooch worth 10 GP</div>
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Mg: Necklace of Accents</div>
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3: Fane<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is a small, empty basin projecting from one wall, </div>
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and an empty oil lamp on another. </div>
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A healing aura will fill the room if holy water is poured </div>
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in the basin and sacred oil lit in the lamp.</div>
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4: Cave crossed by stream<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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M: 3 sick zombies lurking in ambush beneath the water</div>
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Ts: Bracelet worth 480 GP</div>
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5: Fane<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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Empty, but for a broken basin and ugly marking scratched into the walls. </div>
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There is are niches that used to hold oil lamps near head height on the walls.</div>
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Loose bones, about half a human skeleton, </div>
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are around and some under, the fallen part of the stone basin.</div>
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6: Fortified cavern<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>M: 7 spiderkin, 1 is Sivvik, a 3HD monstrous boss who wears a necklace roughly set with the four blue sacred gems (@1000GP as treasure) that fit and activate the altar in the Curtained Cavern (7)</div>
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Ts: Torc worth 20 GP, 10 silver, 4 electrum</div>
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7: Curtained cavern<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hook: Stone altar shaped like a ship, </div>
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stripped of 4 sacred gemstones.</div>
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If activated by their replacement, it will heal, cure of conditions, and emit a 30' radius Protection from Evil aura.</div>
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This will also draw the attention of the diminished god of the Sky Ark, Zozer.</div>
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8: Pentagonal room<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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Ts: Illuminated Hymnal of Zozer worth 550 GP</div>
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Mg: Potion of Levitation</div>
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Hook: Rare imported spices in small jars, </div>
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would be very valuable sold to nobles or rich merchants. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Enough to spice about 100 meals richly, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
200 GP is the maximum value they might sell for.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
9: Chapel<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Tp: leg breaker pit near entrance</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
M: 2 spiderkin hiding behind statues</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Ts: 20 gold</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Mg: Mace +1, +2 vs undead held by statue of Zozer</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The mace, Zozer's Fury, will draw the attention of Zozer,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
and give its wielder dreams of restoring his power</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
10: Chamber<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>M: 4 spiderkin pacing, one is poisonous and 2HD</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
11: Laboratory<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>M: Vvixx, spiderkin wizard 2 and 2 spiderkin assistants performing weird experiments on a mushroom man wired to a strange machine, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
with two more horrified mushroom men in a cage.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Vvixx wears the Ring of Protection +1, with a crown shaped like a winged golden ship.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Ts: 500 silver, Jewelled box worth 120 GP, 40 electrum</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Mg: Strong healing potion that can cure spider poison</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
12: Stream<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Torchlit by ghostly torches</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
A skittering voice in the dark</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Tp: spiked pit, triggered by opening door</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
M: 2 unquiet spirits, incorporeal, drain 1D4 constitution (recovered at 1 point per hour) on a hit, 1 HD, AC 0, vulnerable to holy water, turn as 1HD undead</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
M: 1 water spider</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Ts: Ring worth 878 GP beneath the water</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Mg: Healing potion lodged amongst some detritus along the bank</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
13: Stockroom<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Remains of food stored in amphorae, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
4 red jars of sacred oils (fire plus holy water effect if set alight), </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
and moth eaten vestments.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Hook: inscribed pillar</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The pillar remains from previous use as a temple. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The inscription, if deciphered, is in the ancient tongue of the Primacy of the Sky Ark, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
effectively a scroll of a spell that when spoken will transport all in the room to the Sacred Sky Ark, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
a place of holy power, now desecrated and occupied by unholy enemies.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
14: Cave with pool<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Tp: slippery oil trap on sloped floor, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
triggered by tiny earth elemental that looks like a rock, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
would make victims slide into pool and risk drowning</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Ts: 5 x 10 GP gem</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
15: Lair<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A crumbled lighthouse tower. It shows signs of a sea bear having laired here. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The sea bear is out on a hunt and won't be back for 4D12 hours. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
A corridor leads away into the remains of the curtain wall.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Links</b></div>
<b>blocked tunnel</b> 7: Curtained cavern to 3: Fane<br />
<b>channel</b> 1: Spiral staircase down to 3: Fane<br />
<b>rope climb</b> 8: Pentagonal room to 3: Fane<br />
<b>crawlway</b> 2: Bridge in cavern to 7: Curtained cavern<br />
<b>archway</b> 13: Stockroom to 3: Fane<br />
<b>narrow hallway</b> 6: Fortified cavern to 8: Pentagonal room<br />
<b>empty room</b> 12: Stream to 2: Bridge in cavern<br />
<b>barrel vault</b> 5: Fane to 2: Bridge in cavern<br />
<b>secret tunnel</b> 4: Cave crossed by stream to 1: Spiral staircase down<br />
<b>subterranean river</b> 11: Laboratory to 3: Fane<br />
<b>subterranean river</b> 14: Cave with pool to 2: Bridge in cavern<br />
<b>long tunnel</b> 10: Chamber to 6: Fortified cavern<br />
<b>corridor with collar of spikes trap to deter the seabear</b> 15: Lair to 1: Spiral staircase down<br />
<b>passage blocked by huge corpse</b> 9: Chapel to 4: Cave crossed by stream<br />
<b>door</b> 6: Fortified cavern to 7: Curtained cavern<br />
<b>stream</b> 14: Cave with pool to 4: Cave crossed by stream<br />
<b>winding subterranean river</b> 2: Bridge in cavern to 3: Fane<br />
<b>spiked door</b> 10: Chamber to 14: Cave with pool<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Wandering Monsters</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
1: 2 least demonspawn, one is malicious, both have a spiderlike aspect</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
2: 1 Yellow Slave cultist waiting for orders:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Othoix Boneshaver: charismatic fighter 2, charmed by the Spiderkin wizard Vvixx</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
3: 5 mushroom men evading capture, one is ribald</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
4: 3 giant spiders guarding, one is infectious</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
5: 4 spiderkin</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Notes</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Possible hook: The wizard Whaltis hired the party to retrieve the Ring of Protection from Zozer Caverns. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Basic spiderkin are 1HD, look like a cross between people and spiders, and have chitinous hide equivalent to leather armor. The spiderkin have a poisonous bite they can employ in the round following a successful grapple. Each spiderkin can use this bite once per day.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Organizations involved:</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The Sky Dancers - descendants of the cult of Zozer</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The Yellow Slaves - Spiderkin cult</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Settlements nearby:</b></div>
Henoxcross, population: 41, middling, half a day's sail to the northwest.
Dark Jarfer, population: 126, wealthy, four days walk to the southeast.
Chael, population: 50, middling, two days sail to the southwest.
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-59018181476990420292019-02-06T20:32:00.000-08:002019-02-06T20:32:35.217-08:00Game night map doodling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQ8gaIn6gGL7CUERes1HAeMTRTiQjJ3lItptcaCbCzs5GoON3wtgfHOPdFd53BVC8VhgalRxyRkbrSFXsGGHYV0JcWhUYG8JFz_FyIUhpzYtJnGfEHJU1NWXzI5-L_QFlAiUcb-_dkI8/s1600/DC082B25-336E-4215-8A6E-FC9C5D44D844.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQ8gaIn6gGL7CUERes1HAeMTRTiQjJ3lItptcaCbCzs5GoON3wtgfHOPdFd53BVC8VhgalRxyRkbrSFXsGGHYV0JcWhUYG8JFz_FyIUhpzYtJnGfEHJU1NWXzI5-L_QFlAiUcb-_dkI8/s640/DC082B25-336E-4215-8A6E-FC9C5D44D844.jpeg" width="389" height="640" data-original-width="972" data-original-height="1600" /></a></div>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-24360012338131256822018-10-23T08:45:00.001-07:002018-10-23T08:45:45.472-07:00More Cohesive NPC Groups in DunGen and DunMapOne thing that bothered me a bit is how much of a grab bag each group of NPCs was, with a completely random selection there was no implied story there. So now there is an experiment towards remedying that.<br />
<br />
Here's what I put in this morning.<br />
<br />
When generating a group of NPCs, build a virtual hand of cards.<br />
Start with one Fighter card, since simple combatants are the baseline in old school D&D.<br />
Roll a D8 and draw that number of virtual class cards to match rolls on the old random NPC class collection. This makes up the hand of class cards for this group, a subset of the whole class collection, biased towards fighter, and possibly biased towards another class or classes.<br />
<br />
For each NPC, the class is a random draw from the hand of classes. So now it is more likely to make groups that are a wizard and guards or some clerics, a bard, and guards, and similar groups with more than one of the same class, rather than all looking like balanced random PC parties.<br />
<br />
Let me know what you think.<br />
<br />
<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-27241958419067503412018-10-21T09:52:00.003-07:002018-10-21T09:52:45.481-07:00DunGen & DunMap content updateWith the new theme tag system in place for details, I spent a couple hours this morning adding to the details list, so there are more to choose from when a theme or two is selected. I'm also experimenting with doubling up on details. Currently one room in six has a detail, and now one in three with a detail gets a second one. I may have to do some sort of weighting system though, so when I add variations, like more kinds of books or corpses, they don't imbalance the table too much in favor of books or corpses.Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-85334014109591153772018-10-20T19:06:00.001-07:002018-10-21T07:32:44.220-07:00Updating my Dungeon Generation Tools<p>In the past month I have put in a lot of time on <a href="http://meta-studios.com/dg/dungen.html">DunGen</a>, <a href="http://meta-studios.com/dg/dunmap.html">DunMap</a>, and <a href="http://meta-studios.com/dg/hire.html">Hiring Hall</a>.
</p>
<p>
Hiring Hall got extended to have an option to do hirelings for Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Though it needs another pass to round out the occasional classed NPCs, particularly bringing up their abilities to the minima for their classes.
</p>
<p>
DunGen and DunMap got a major lift in the handling of notes, with separate editable fields for things that were all being lumped in the notes field. This is the first step in a UI rebuild that should make it a lot better for the case of saving, editing, and running dungeons.
</p>
<p>
DunMap got an important bug fix to allow it to load the map images of imported dungeons, so it can properly work like DunGen and allow at least some movement from one computer to another. This is also a first step towards allowing some sort of remote save, maybe by storing your dungeons in your Google Drive or Dropbox, so you can access them from other devices, without making them dependent on a server run by me.
</p>
<p>
Today I finally finished a long planned feature to extend the theme to the little descriptive details for things found in rooms. Now these are tagged like room types, so if you choose the fort and palace theme, you won't get the weird, horrible stuff tagged with the creepy theme. I'll start adding more again, now that I have them all tagged.
</p>
<p>
Then I did a few passes at squashing bugs that had snuck in while I was making the UI and content changes mentioned above. Maybe fixed half the outstanding bugs?
</p>
Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-51503081853122963912018-09-20T06:55:00.000-07:002018-09-20T06:55:04.087-07:00Barbarians of GenebackisThis morning I woke early (been doing too much of that lately) and mulled over the idea of running a campaign using Barbarians of Lemuria set in the Erikson and Esslemont's Malazan world. It's a lighter set of mechanics than GURPS that they originally used, better suited to the amount of time and energy that I could invest in campaign creation. The magic system would have to be morphed to fit the world, or replaced. The boons, and flaws would have to be adapted, and a suitable set of regional backgrounds worked up, but the fit would be pretty good. The rate of character advancement would not care about the Conanesque treasure wastage at the end of a session, and be more about "How deep did the character have to dig to survive?".
If I actually go with it, I'll post more here.
Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-54006503457086313162017-12-02T14:37:00.002-08:002017-12-12T18:44:49.074-08:00Stressed Spell Casting<div>I am working on houserules for my Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerors of Hyperborea campaign this morning. The main topic of the moment is variation from straight old school Vancian magic. Back in my 80s OD&D campaign I addressed making magic less predictable and a bit more epic, by including a D20 roll at every spell cast to get a spell off, with fumble and crit effects, spell level, caster level, and casting attribute bonuses involved, and allowed overcasting beyond spell slots at a penalty to the roll and taking HP damage based on the level of the spell and how the roll went. So casting was pretty reliable until spell slots were used up, then less so, and costing damage to self to overstrain. It worked pretty well, but was not really high on story flavor.
<br /></div>
<div>
The primary concept is that magic is chimerical and capricious. A sorceror can manage the inherent riskiness of magic by preparation and not overtaxing himself. Vancian "finals cramming, with memory wipeout" style has always seemed odd to me, especially with multiple copies of the same spell being memorized into slots. So I will use each spell slot two ways. It is a spell that the sorceror has prepared enough that day to be as safe as possible and a packet in a sorcerous energy buffer to allow spells to be cast without undue strain. So a caster has two first and one second level slots can have two first and one second level spells prepared, and could cast either first level spell with each first level slot and either one or the prepared second level spell with the second level slot. That's all pretty straightforward and pretty similar to a 3rd Ed or 5th Ed sorcerer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Various circumstances will add STRESS to a spell casting, and with Stress things are more likely to go wrong and in unpredictable ways. Stress will be a sort of currency, casting a spell with more Stress will likely make it go more spectacularly wrong. Casting with even one level of Stress should be dangerous. More should be really scary. Casting a spell over your level is a deeply desperate measure. This mechanic might replace various printed mechanics relating to armor, scrolls, interruption by damage, etc. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Stress causes I am considering using:</div>
<div>
<table>
<tr><th>Cause of Stress</th><th>Amount of Stress</th></tr>
<tr><td>Not having the spell prepared</td><td>1 (2 if spell level > 3 )</td></tr>
<tr><td>Not having the spell slot for it</td><td>spell level/2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cast a spell from your list and level range that you have seen but do not have in your book/preparable repertoire</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Each armor step beyond sorcerer's Armor Allowed</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Being struck for damage during the cast and not aborting</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Casting anything besides touch attack/melee escape spells in melee contact</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cast a spell over your highest spell slot level </td><td>2 + 2/level over</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ritual casting - extended time and materials</td><td>-1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Using a scroll from outside of your school, for a spell shared by your school</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Using a scroll from outside of your school, for a spell not shared by your school</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Casting using a scroll beyond your level</td><td>1+</td></tr>
</table>
<br /></div>
<div>
Each point of Stress will cause one roll on the table below. For each result, I plan to offer the choice of the rolled result and the next one farther down in the list. Followup rolls will be AFTER the choice. Each point after the first will modify all rolls by +5. Dungeon Crawl Classics has some nice tables in the right direction, so some of these results refer to those tables, which might take some results reinterpretation to fit in.
<table>
<tr><th>Roll</th><th>Effect</th></tr>
<tr><td>01-20</td><td>Escaped without harm</td></tr>
<tr><td>21-30</td><td>Spell fizzles</td></tr>
<tr><td>31-35</td><td>Add a level of Stress to all casting until well rested</td></tr>
<tr><td>36-40</td><td>Wipe out preparation of one spell (the attempted one first, if prepared).</td></tr>
<tr><td>41-45</td><td>Wipe out energy of one spell slot(the attempted one first, if slot was used, else highest available).</td></tr>
<tr><td>46-49</td><td>Knocked down</td></tr>
<tr><td>46-49</td><td>Destruction of minor or consumable magic item on caster (1st) or friend</td></tr>
<tr><td>52-55</td><td>Attract the unwanted attention of a nearby magically sensitive creature</td></tr>
<tr><td>56-58</td><td>knocked back 10 feet per level of spell</td></tr>
<tr><td>59-61</td><td>Destruction of an item in hand</td></tr>
<tr><td>62-64</td><td>Stunned for one round</td></tr>
<tr><td>65-67</td><td>DCC Generic Spell Misfire (5-6, pg 120)</td></tr>
<tr><td>68-70</td><td>Attract the unwanted attention of all nearby magically sensitive creatures</td></tr>
<tr><td>71-73</td><td>Save vs or Stunned for one turn</td></tr>
<tr><td>74-76</td><td>Experience point loss - 1D4 x 5% of highest level</td></tr>
<tr><td>77-79</td><td>DCC Minor Corruption (5-3, pg 116)</td></tr>
<tr><td>80-82</td><td>Take 1D6 psychic damage per level of spell</td></tr>
<tr><td>83-84</td><td>Attract the unwanted attention of a powerful but potentially remote magically sensitive being</td></tr>
<tr><td>85-86</td><td>Roll on the madness table, effect lasts 1D6 days</td></tr>
<tr><td>87-89</td><td>Take 1D6 damage to a random attribute</td></tr>
<tr><td>91-94</td><td>DCC Major Corruption (5-4, pg 118) if arcane or Deity Disapproval 5-7 if divine (chaotic or evil divine could be either)</td></tr>
<tr><td>95-97</td><td>Destruction of a significant magic item on caster or friend</td></tr>
<tr><td>98-100</td><td>The spell gains/replaces a Mercurial Magic effect (DCC 5-2, pg 111)</td></tr>
<tr><td>101-102</td><td>Gate in an inimical demon of level equal or up to 2 higher than caster, within 30' of the caster</td></tr>
<tr><td>103-105</td><td>Destruction of a most significant magic item on caster or friend within 30 feet</td></tr>
<tr><td>106-109</td><td>DCC Greater Corruption (5-5, pg 119) arcane; deity disapproval, worse of two rolls, if L/G/N divine; C/E divine could be either</td></tr>
<tr><td>110+</td><td>Attract the (potentially ongoing) attention of an inimical divine being. In this campaign that might mean Cthulhu awakens, and starts disturbing the caster's dreams, sending minions, and eventually showing up itself.</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<div>
<p>
So, Bilzor the Magician, at first level, has cast his one prepared sleep spell for the day, and his party is being overrun by bandits. He tries to save the day by casting another sleep spell, but his only spell slot is drained. He rolls a 47 and has the choice of loss of a minor magic item or attracting the attention of a nearby magically sensitive creature. He picks the item, and since he has a Potion of healing and a level 1 spell scroll, the GM dices and the potion bottle shatters. Had he picked the attention, he gets a creepy being watched feeling, and the DM consults his notes and decides the Ixian witch a level deeper in the dungeon feels the emanations of the reckless spell, and gets a glimspe of Bilzor in her mind's eye, and a general sense of where he is, and might come hunting for him or is at least alerted, can make preparations, like dispatching a minion to spy, and is not surprised by the party for the next day.
</p>
<p>
Later in the fight, the party's fighter goes down, Bilzor is beset by a pair of bandits, casts a further sleep spell, and is struck by one of them before he gets it off. This time, he'll have 3 Stress, for overcasting beyond his slots, melee, and being injured while casting, and will be adding 10 to each of three rolls. With a 16 first roll that would have succeeded without backfire in the first instance, he now has a 26 result, and the sleep spell fizzles or he has additional Stress for any further casts until he can rest for the day. He chooses the Stress so his spell might go off. The second stress roll of 77 becomes 87 and he declines the permanence of DCC major corruption and takes a 3 point hit to his CHA after followup rolls, the DM decides these points will recover at one per week. The third roll of 52 becomes 62 and he is stunned for a round, declining the DCC misfire table. Bilzor might survive to recover that CHA if the spell puts all his enemies to sleep.
</div>
<div>I'll probably tweak this some more, but it gets pretty close to what I want in letting low level casters not be one trick ponies, but with significant risks, and letting higher level casters get themselves into deep trouble when they attempt great feats of magic.</div>
Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-60324468243328726452017-11-26T01:27:00.000-08:002017-11-26T21:02:51.362-08:00Putting on my DM Hat Again with Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea<h3>
The Plan</h3>
I got the second edition book for Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea a couple weeks ago via the Kickstarter. I've had the first edition boxed set for a few years, but never got around to actually running it. This time I intend to give it a whirl.<br />
<br />
So, after reading a lot of it, and putting together a few starting characters that'll probably see service as pregens or NPCs, I decided this morning that the way to actually make myself focus is to put out the call. Here's my initial post on G+ and Facebook:<br />
<br />
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">So I'm thinking about setting up to try running AS&SH on Roll20. Potential interest? No time picked yet, but I'd aim to have a starter scenario ready in about a week and do the schedule matching dance along the way. In person is also possible if SF Bay Area people are interested."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
Given the positive initial response, I got started today on a scenario. There's now enough that I could run it in a pinch, and time to polish it a bit. Now I have to fit it onto the campaign map and flesh it out some.<br />
<br />
Sound fun? Leave a comment. Maybe start rolling up a character. The Rules PDF is on still on Black Friday to Cyber Monday sale at http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/221806/Astonishing-Swordsmen--Sorcerers-of-Hyperborea-Second-Edition?term=astonishing+sword&test_epoch=0<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is this Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerors of Hyberborea Game?</h3>
<div>
Imagine D&D was written without the influence of Tolkien, but heavily influenced by Weird Tales authors like Robert E. Howard and Howard Lovecraft. The setting is a pocket dimension overlaying the uttermost North, inhabited by groups descended from historical and not quite historical peoples of the Earth, Vikings who were swept off by a storm, Cthulhu cultists that crossed over in a ritual that went sideways, and the like. The rules have a lot of AD&D flavor, but PCs are assorted humans or nearly human, and not elves or dwarfs or halflings and the monsters have a similar filtering.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Getting Started</h3>
<div>
We'll go with method II for PC attributes.</div>
<div>
Roll 3D6 for each attribute in order: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then do it two more times and pick the set you like best out of the three sets.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then you can trade points by paying down two in one attribute to bump another up one. The range is bounded 3-18, no boosting to 19, and no percentiles on 18 for fighters.</div>
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<div>
The ranges on the attributes for bonuses and penalties is 3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-12, 13-14, 15-16, 17, 18. The bonuses are flatter than late editions of D&D, with an 18 giving +2 to melee attacks and +3 to damage, for instance.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Hit Dice for classes are pretty much what you would expect, D10s for Fighters, D4s for Magicians, D6s for Thieves, D8s for Clerics. Subclasses of each of the main four may redefine that up or down.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
House Rule: Take the best of three rolls at first level, and best of two rolls at each level thereafter. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There is a standard starting gear pack for each class and subclass. We'll go with those, or you can swap to similarly valued weapons and other gear that makes sense for your character.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is a game with class and subclass specific EXPs for levelling, like older flavors of D&D. The level table goes up to level 12, it is unlikely the campaign will last to get close to that cap.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The classes very briefly summarized, with required stats, prime reqs, and notes,just enough to give flavor and see that you qualify (Prime requisites for EXP are in ALL CAPS):</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Fighter, STR 9</div>
<div>
Magician, INT 9</div>
<div>
Cleric, WIS 9</div>
<div>
Thief, DEX 9, Rolls thief abilities on a D12, so abilities are expressed in chances in 12 of success</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Subclasses have two Prime Requisites and both have to be 16+ for the bonus.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Subclasses of Fighter</b>, all have more special rules, but base fighter gets the most weapon specialization bonuses, and extra attacks against weak mooks:</div>
<div>
Barbarian STR 13, DEX 13, Con 13, D12 HD, a lot of wilderness and adventure related skills and abilities, No Rage. Great saves, Think Conan.</div>
<div>
Berserker STR 15, CON 15, D12 Hd, Strong, multifaceted Rage 1/day/4 levels, dangerous to friends if still raging when enemies die, a few skills, Great saves</div>
<div>
Cataphract STR 9, Dex 9, Wis 9, CHA 9, Mounted combat specialists, honorable heavy knights with high damage couched lance close order charge. Kinda meh dismounted for a dungeon crawl, or in the mountains, or in the swamps...</div>
<div>
Huntsman STR 9, Dex 9, WIS 9, Cha 12, Wilderness and prey&pet animal related skills, max of Med armor</div>
<div>
Paladin STR 9, Dex 9, Wis 9, CHA 15 Classic LG Paladin with spells at higher levels 7+</div>
<div>
Ranger STR 9, Dex 9, Int 9, WIS 9 a lot of ranger type skills and has druid and mage type spells at upper levels 7+, sort of an X Files focus, with Lovecraftian special enemies instead of the usual ones</div>
<div>
Warlock STR 12, INT 12 (some Wis 12), D8 HD fighter-mage hybrid, spells from 1st, any mage specialty, L or M armor</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Subclasses of Magician</b></div>
<div>
Cryomancer INT 9, WIS 9- cold focused, it is the demi-arctic</div>
<div>
Pyromancer INT 9, WIS 9 - fire focus is popular when its cold </div>
<div>
Necromancer INT 9 WIS 9, has turn/command undead ability from 3rd level</div>
<div>
Illusionist DEX 9, INT 9</div>
<div>
Witch INT 9, Wis 9, CHA 12 - Spell list and witch trope skills, starting with potion brewing</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Subclasses of Cleric</b></div>
<div>
Druid WIS 9, CHA 12, shapechange starts at 5th</div>
<div>
Monk Str 9, DEX 9, WIS 9, classic martial arts monk with some thief skills</div>
<div>
Priest WIS 9, CHA 9, D4 HD more spells, less fight, no armor, few favored weapons, deity related bonuses, usually specific extra spells</div>
<div>
Runegraver STR 9, WIS 12 Nordic flavor, Fighter-like combat ability, limited spell list, no turning, berserker minions at high level instead of the usual mix </div>
<div>
Shaman INT 9, WIS 12 D6 HD, shamanistic cleric/druid plus mage/necro hybrid</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Subclasses of Thief</b></div>
<div>
Assassin Str 9, DEX 9, INT 9</div>
<div>
Bard Str 9, DEX 9, Int 9, Wis 9, CHA 15 D8 HD A few Thief skills, mez, Druid + Illusionist spells</div>
<div>
Legerdemainist DEX 12, INT 12, Wis 12 if mage subclass requires it, Mage hybrid, pick specilization</div>
<div>
Purloiner DEX 12, WIS 12 cleric hybrid</div>
<div>
Scout DEX 9, INT 9, less theft, more woodsy or dungeon crawling skill focus</div>
<h3>
Races</h3>
<div>
Amazon Women warriors are legendary; their men, not so much.</div>
<div>
Atlantis sank under the waves and Atlanteans are now amphibious and look it</div>
<div>
Common (after a few generations of intermixing, unclear ancestry of multiple lineages)</div>
<div>
Esquimaux</div>
<div>
Hyperboreans are the tall, thin, pale, longlived indigenes, who consider all the Earth exile descendents beneath them, as snooty as other games' high elves without the pointy ears and infravision.</div>
<div>
Ixians - Scythian, Egyptian, Persian heritage, Priests, Witches, Necromancers run society, the Stygians of this world</div>
<div>
Kelts -still led by druids with Celtic-style society</div>
<div>
Kimmerians, Caucusus Cimmerian derived, but with Conan Cimmerian flavor, hate Ixians, some steppe nomads, some are catacomb dwellers</div>
<div>
Kimmeri-Kelts - barbaric hybrid race</div>
<div>
Picts </div>
<div>
Halfblood Picts - Bloodthirsty savages, threatening civilization, orc-like niche</div>
<div>
Vikings</div>
<div>
Other Races - small numbers from nearly any earthly place and time, either recent arrivals or their ancestors stayed isolated</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So roll up a character's attributes and choose a class it suits if you are interested in joining in.</div>
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<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-29964015507207773242017-05-15T09:45:00.002-07:002017-05-15T13:28:50.231-07:00Elm One Day InI've been interested in the Elm programming language for several months, reading and poking around some at code examples but with too many hobbies competing, only finally started really writing some yesterday.<br />
<br />
I usually do a gaming related project to learn a new programming language or framework on my own time, because that is where I have software itches to scratch. This time I started with the simple die roll example and my first step was learning how to take a program where the model is a single Integer that gets updated to a record with two attributes, one the value rolled on the die and the other the size of die to roll. Finding and wrapping my head around the pattern to write to an attribute of a model was my first hurdle.<br />
<br />
That set me up for a first serious project. I have been playing a lot of D&D 5e lately and my character sheet has gotten pretty messy. I've been procrastinating on the rewrite, so making a character sheet application that avoids getting messy and can export nice copies is a natural fit. Also at work, we are thinking about rewriting the proposal submission application, which is a form of similar complexity to a D&D character sheet, with a complex nested data structure and a lot of options. I'd like to be able to say with confidence that we can handle it in Elm and be better off for having used it.<br />
<br />
So, I hid away the die roller part of the UI with a style of display:none, but kept it around as the core of an in situ dice rolling part, and started into the character sheet.<br />
<br />
Design spec: This will be a web based single page application, well loosely SPA since a full character sheet for a spellcaster can run to four or five paper pages, and I'll probably be hiding portions away with paging or tabs of some sort. It will be a full character sheet that can handle multiclassing at least up to three classes. It might not go beyond the Player's Handbook in terms of what it supports with known classes and such, but I might allow for typing in some other options. The displayed form on the web should be usable in game from tablet or laptop, maybe phone but its an awfully big form to navigate on a phone. It will have localstorage persistence for offline use and probably use Dropbox or Google Drive as the personal server storage for accessing the same sheet from multiple devices, but I'm not planning to provide a server that users would depend on with all the authentication, uptime, and cost/monetization issues that entails. In that regard, it will autosave the sheet to at least localstorage as changes are made, with syncing to update remote storage whenever access is good. There will be some sort of list selector to choose the character to to load into the sheet, and something to delete unwanted characters. After a CSS design pass, it should print out a pleasant sheet to use. There will be nested structured data for things like weapons blocks and spell lists, but a lot of things that are simple lists like mundane possessions and encounters to remember will just be free text in text areas. It might be worthwhile to support markdown in text areas.<br />
<br />
I spent most of my Sunday coding on it, and by the end had about 500 lines of good code that displayed and recorded edits to the model for pretty much all the top level fields. I intentionally put off the nested structures, knowing they would be more complex, and did zero to minimal CSS styling, leaving that for after things basically work.<br />
<br />
I downloaded Atom for the editor and a few Elm related packages for it.
It mostly worked for me but I was seeing errors from the package that
was trying to auto run elm-format for me and did not go down the rabbit
hole of working that out. Instead I manually ran elm-format once at
command line later in the day, and mostly just tried to code close to what it would output, which slowed me a little bit. Should probably have run it more often. I had the project sitting in my Dropbox for easy access from other machines, so I did not initialize it as a git repo, but will probably do that in my next big session on it.<br />
<br />
It was a very productive flow, using elm-reactor as the dev server and the Chrome browser to see the results. I already love the Elm compiler, which made it very easy to clean up simple mistakes. The debugger was fun to play with, but not too necessary for the simple, repetitive sort of coding I was doing. The workflow for adding a plain text field was very straightforward. Add a line for then new attribute to the model with name and type. Add the new attribute to the initialization record to match the model, with the default value. Add an update message for it to the messages list. Define the function that responds to the message according to one of two patterns, one where it is just text, another where the value needs to be an integer. Add the field and any framing HTML like a list item or label to the view, with the onInput attribute of the field calling the updater message function. Save and go look at the web page to see if it worked or there are compiler errors to fix. Adding a batch of them at once was easy, the compiler is good at pointing out missing ones in some section, mismatch typos, and similar problems, so I could move along quickly. Using an editor with syntax color and bracket/parentheses matching support has the usual benefits. Besides something like fifty basic input fields, I did the first dependent attribute calculations to show the die roll modifiers based on the primary attributes<br />
<br />
At that point I had two possible places to go - work out the beginnings of persistence to localstorage or start to tackle the deeper data structures beyond placement of H2 headers in the character sheet to show where they would go.<br />
<br />
I went with trying to tackle one of the simpler data structures, the saving throws section where it should have checkbox like controls to mark the two that get the proficiency bonus and fields to enter the value. I also started with intent to have a bonus section for special bonuses to saves like from magic items or feats, and to list the source of bonus, but did not expose that part of each saving throw model right away. <br />
<br />
This is where I hit the wall. In Elm you can reach down multiple levels by dot notation in getters but not in setters. So I couldn't say what I initially tried, { model | saves.strength.proficient = not model.saves.strength.proficient } as the update response to clicking the checkbox for the strength saving throw proficiency. Stared at that awhile and started googling for what to do about it.<br />
<br />
From what I see, you end up writing a custom setter function that reaches down and updates the innermost record you are updating an attribute on, and the one that encloses that, etc, all the way out. These can be kind of long, so you probably want to tuck them in a module devoted to a related collection of them There is a Focus module from Evan that can simplify this process some, with caveats about performance. There is a <a href="https://medium.com/elm-shorts/updating-nested-records-in-elm-15d162e80480" target="_blank">blog post</a> about it by Wouter In t Velt that explains how to make some helper functions to shorten it. <br />
<br />
But all options are enough of a pain that I didn't move on from there last night, and am considering flattening out the saving throws data structure and possibly doing the calculable dependent values based on character class selection, character level (and thus proficency bonus), and primary attribute modifier, and only making editable fields for special bonuses. The downside is less flexibility for additional character classess. I'll also start looking deeper into the ToDoMVC example to see how to update nested elements that are members of variable length lists like spells and weapon stat blocks.<br />
<br />
The take home as a beginner one day into programming in Elm is that Elm is very pleasant and productive to work in if you understand the basics, with a stumbling block once you have to work with nested data models. I expect that is just the first place where I'll be paying back for the benefits of immutability and functional programming. So far though, it feels like a good trade. I want to get back in there and work on the next part.Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-26951774616505724802017-02-14T09:52:00.000-08:002017-02-14T09:55:45.824-08:00LiveCode and Rogue StarsFor the last couple of weeks I have been preparing (or procrastinating around preparing) for the Rogue Stars event I will run Friday at DunDraCon. One of my main tasks has been to prepare character sheets for two dozen characters. I've been going back and forth about how to do it, all the time wishing I still had HyperCard on a machine that would run it, since it was perfect for that kind of quick layout of fields for a deck of cards database. I considered making a little Rails project but was not in the mood to wrestle CSS to lay it out, etc. So yesterday, I did some searching around the web to see if there was a good current HyperCard replacement for hobby projects. And I found it.<br />
<br />
LiveCode is a language and concept descendent of HyperCard. It lets you throw together a UI as quickly as possible by drag and drop, wire up components with a mix of property panel choices and light scripting. It started as MetaCard, and was Runtime Revolution for awhile. I used Runtime Revolution pretty extensively back at Stanford in the oughts, and found it quite serviceable for scientific projects. When I first hit their site the day before I saw the $1K a year license and said "Nope" regarding getting back in for a hobby project. Then yesterday I saw they have a GPL open source version. Bingo! <a href="http://livecode.org/" target="_blank">Download,</a> learn some of the changes in how it works, and I now have an utterly rudimentary character sheets app that does exactly and only what I need to print out a stack of characters for Friday, and about half of the characters entered. It might even be worth spiffing it up a bit and giving it away. I used to make a lot of gaming software in HyperCard, since it was so easy and fun to do.<br />
<br />
Here's what it looks like so far (extra points if you spot the data entry error in the screenshot): <br />
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That blank space at top right will get a picture of the figure if I have time to take and insert the pics.Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-6489137848393506002016-07-25T08:53:00.000-07:002016-07-25T08:53:41.069-07:003D Printing<div class="ELUvyf" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 16px 16px; word-wrap: break-word;">
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The Printable Scenery Kickstarter for Apocalypse Ruins having delivered, I shopped for a 3D printer and ordered a Flashforge Creator Pro from Amazon, kind of a midrange hobbyist printer, with a 4.5 rating a a good reputation for quality, ease of setup, and tech support from the company. Haven't used the support yet, but I can attest to the other two.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />I set it up Monday night and learned to print stuff over the course of the week. Two aspects have been particularly tricky, getting the model to stay stuck down and managing curl from differential cooling of layers of bigger objects. <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />I have a reasonable solution for the first one, melting some of the waste ABS plastic in acetone and painting/smearing it over the print area of the platform to give good adhesion to the first layer of the print. It was the suggestion from online that seems to best match my printer's print bed, though I haven't yet tried kapton tape.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />I have some ideas from online and my own thinking re solving the differential cooling issue, will have to work through them over the next week. <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" />Here's my first painted 2x2" scenery tile from the Kickstarter models collection. I like the result and can see working through a lot more of the set. <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;" /></div>
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Quality has improved a lot from the first 3D printers I saw some years ago at Maker Faire.</div>
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Here is the first miniature figure I have printed. He's a <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.32px;">28mm Elf Ranger v2 print, a free model by dutchmogul, downloaded from Thingiverse, printed at 0.1mm resolution, the</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.32px;">highest resolution rating of my printer. It's a simple, low detail figure, printed out really crisply. I feel the layer texture with my nail, but I couldn't really see it on the raw print without reading glasses. It's more visible in this after-priming photo, especially on the flat expanse of cloak. It took minimal clean up effort with my fingers first and then a bit of Xacto knife work. Primed him with a gray mixed from Americana black and white craft acrylics.</span></div>
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Also pictures of both a good small print and a larger one with cooling curl problems on the print bed. The larger roof piece also has secondarily thrashed support material that got stuck to one of the hot nozzles and dragged out of place, some of it sticking through the roof. It's about two thirds of the way through a poor print. I'd already cleared away some of the dragged support mess before thinking to shoot the photo.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gWj0FxEtDQk/V5UHfiEyycI/AAAAAAAAEC0/khXyrxER6IsDAkZt-eF4599Li533KFCAACKgB/s1600/70e0bc7e-4239-486e-962c-957e2dcd2b53" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gWj0FxEtDQk/V5UHfiEyycI/AAAAAAAAEC0/khXyrxER6IsDAkZt-eF4599Li533KFCAACKgB/s400/70e0bc7e-4239-486e-962c-957e2dcd2b53" width="400" /></a></div>
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A0Qokzmxi4k/V5UHgZJya5I/AAAAAAAAEC0/kyk6ogWkppc-P0e3_LvQAbCTaevAK6pAwCKgB/s1600/ab4e3ecc-1c7d-4311-b3bc-5b1ff5a1a111" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A0Qokzmxi4k/V5UHgZJya5I/AAAAAAAAEC0/kyk6ogWkppc-P0e3_LvQAbCTaevAK6pAwCKgB/s640/ab4e3ecc-1c7d-4311-b3bc-5b1ff5a1a111" width="640" /></a>Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-43113234678142708572016-06-05T10:48:00.000-07:002016-06-07T22:03:58.925-07:00Combat frontage and dungeon design in D&D Want to make your D&D combat on a 5' grid feel a bit more like OD&D? Make your basic hallway map square a spacious 15' by 15', translating to 3 combat squares across, or assume three guys fit in 10 feet if playing theater of the mind. Why? Well, back in the day, moving on from playing Chainmail to D&D in early '75, we packed three guys into line to fill a rank in a 10' hallway, based on historical close order infantry like Romans and Anglo Saxon shieldwalls. One 10' by 10' square held nine, not four guys. Two guy could space a bit open order or split the gaps to the walls on either side and hold a hallway without being flanked, since there was no "snap to grid" of 3rd ed and later, but three could pack in and fight as the first rank.<br />
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This makes a bit of a difference in dungeon crawls, since except in real chokepoints like doorways, bigger parties didn't become such straggle-fests of characters with their line of sight to the enemy blocked. A typical optimized heavy melee front of PCs and hireling warriors was three with weapon and shield in front and three more with pole weapons or missiles or casters in the second rank.<br />
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The 5' grid of later standardization is for the convenience of miniatures play with big single bases after scale creep had driven up the size of figures to 28mm and beyond, often on 1" circle or square bases. Three dinky little 25mm Minifigs or McEwans on close order basing will fit a 10' passage on those maps as long as you aren't sticky-grid about it.<br />
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Does it matter? A bit. Besides more guys obviously getting to do something in a basic hallway, and more possibilities for flanking in a hallway fight, if you don't do 15' but do 10' is three squares, fireballs and other area effects are even more lethal, when over twice as many slavering orcs can pack in and be blasted by one.<br />
<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-86903172870674335362016-05-14T22:17:00.001-07:002016-05-14T22:17:45.287-07:00The Hiring Hall<a href="http://meta-studios.com/dg/hire.html" target="_blank">Hiring Hall</a> is a new web app I made, drawing on DunGen and DunMap. It's a hireling generator, sort of like Meatshields, which helped inspire me to make it by being down long enough to annoy one of the GMs I play with. Meatshields is quite good. I hope it comes back. But in the meantime, and afterwards for variety's sake, give Hiring Hall a try.<br />
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There are some shortcomings with it being a one day project, so far. The names are lifted right out of the namer for NPCs encountered in dungeons in DunGen and DunMap. So they are a bit dark and florid for your usual bunch of torchbearers and mercenaries. The weapons to character class matches are poor for some of the rarer classes, like monks and druids. So edit those when they come up inappropriate. Some of the quirky adjective phrases are out of place in this context, like describing someone as especially well equipped when they roll off the same table as everyone else. Maybe give them a bump in gear if that comes up, or a magic item. I fudged hit points to a D6 + 1 for all mercenary/soldier types, 1d6 for noncombatant servants, and D8 per level for fighter type classes and D6 per level for other levelled classes to keep the coding down. There is room to add a lot of customization controls, and option in the historical names lists in place or in addition to the syllable masher. All of this stuff is grist for iteration.<br />
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But it generates NPCs. Some of them make me laugh out loud when I consider using them. That's a win. And it got me coding game stuff again and some of the data structures I added to equip characters for it can feed right back into DunGen and DunMap.<br />
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<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-18366809495855018492016-05-05T07:41:00.000-07:002016-05-05T12:17:39.700-07:00Something I have always wanted to do...I have shied away from attempting landscape painting for decades. Painted hundreds of minis, lots of table top terrain, and not one painting to backdrop it for photos.<br />
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Until yesterday.<br />
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I took some photos Sunday of my layout for my first game of Andrea Sfiligoi's <b>Of Gods and Mortals* </b>that I quite liked but the background room clutter really detracted. I started thinking about how I really ought to get started with the airbrush and make a backdrop to hide the clutter for better pictures. Whited in the sky on a couple of handy still-flattened box lids Sunday. Well, I backed off on learning to airbrush too and finished the first painting as a regular brushed painting with some cheap craft store acrylics I usually use for terrain last night. I'm pretty happy with the mountain, not as much with the clouds. But now I know I can do something good enough to use. With the dam broken, I can start getting better. And maybe start learning that airbrush too.<br />
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Anyway, here it is, proof of concept...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13124775_853788658100431_2794352006432399128_n.jpg?oh=d678e456da4f8a56721bbc4c2b6cd315&oe=57B6C2A5" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13124775_853788658100431_2794352006432399128_n.jpg?oh=d678e456da4f8a56721bbc4c2b6cd315&oe=57B6C2A5" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The painting by itself. Yeah, the box lid folds and corrugations show. But it is basically a throwaway learning piece. Took about an hour and a half maybe. I was in the zone and really don't know. There are some little flecks of white still there from a stupid ancient bottle of blue paint whose lid crumbled to plastic dust as I tried to open it. Got most of them off...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRUt3OSIRrsvH1RvmEOojDoBAI3bul5DoYhDe9-U8ZfKRHIfh-W9XbHt44ahGT22yWV5Rh_VckpWGieX7SZKMcIfv78X8inhanzsyxjWxHas0PZZqBsnkL63mf4hDmR_F6B1kkpdxXvI/s1600/f7fcf086-ea57-4873-a10d-c21bd7b7ed3f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRUt3OSIRrsvH1RvmEOojDoBAI3bul5DoYhDe9-U8ZfKRHIfh-W9XbHt44ahGT22yWV5Rh_VckpWGieX7SZKMcIfv78X8inhanzsyxjWxHas0PZZqBsnkL63mf4hDmR_F6B1kkpdxXvI/s640/f7fcf086-ea57-4873-a10d-c21bd7b7ed3f.jpg" width="467" /></a></td></tr>
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Anubis in a fearsome aspect.</div>
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I learned that having tall shadow casting terrain and a sharp board edge in front of the painting is a bad idea.<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> Could take down the towering bits and plunk some lichen or rocks down at the board edge to break the flat line .</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> But hey, he's awesome, so I want a picture here of him until I take a better one! He's an old Diablo-related action figure that I based up on two bases, one for each foot, since he is so big, and could stand, if unstably, without any base at all.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcMX-l10mx9kB4IT260MKh89Kgr534URsshPKMRlOcnSzTLHGuybyD0Kjx0QDEUCQ850dSKDiBjln5yhrwheh1Ra8dRA-F7-XT_r3gWXAYebCRmHhgvGtIoCWGh-ObPsqr6jj3ADNKs4/s1600/f56bf7e5-8762-481b-9051-239fe6b7c896.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcMX-l10mx9kB4IT260MKh89Kgr534URsshPKMRlOcnSzTLHGuybyD0Kjx0QDEUCQ850dSKDiBjln5yhrwheh1Ra8dRA-F7-XT_r3gWXAYebCRmHhgvGtIoCWGh-ObPsqr6jj3ADNKs4/s640/f56bf7e5-8762-481b-9051-239fe6b7c896.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Sobek's left flank guard is the mighty BOAR CROC!</span></td></tr>
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I think my next one will be on foam core to be wider and still lightweight, and not have corrugations to show through. Maybe do two so as to be able to line a 6 foot table edge?<br />
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(Thanks to the guys that reported the pictures problem. I was able to see in from Safari on my work machine. I have re-uploaded the broken images by another path and will see if they are visible soon.)<br />
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* Published by Osprey. More on the Anubis vs Sobek game I'm doing with it in my next blog post. I think its going to rock.<br />
<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-19887263402135568372016-04-07T08:43:00.002-07:002016-04-07T08:43:45.146-07:00The Quicksilver Bow, a Magic ItemThe Quicksilver Bow was crafted for the werewolf hunting ranger Ivar the Night Stalker by his friend Venable the Mad Wizard. It looks like a finely crafted composite bow with silver inlay that ripples and shifts over its surface like the patterns on a cuttlefish. It provides no bonuses to shooting or damage most of the time. When drawn against a werewolf or other target that is vulnerable to silver arrows, some of the quicksilver flows over the head of the arrow, silvering it on the fly.<br />
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Ivar found great success using the Quicksilver Bow for over a decade, in an illustrious career of surprising duration for a man so frequently endangered by werewolves, but all things have their costs and he eventually succumbed to heavy metal poisoning. Mad as a hatter for much the same reason, he was imprisoned on a particularly bad day by the city watch of Fellstein. Long and repeated use (on the order of several years) will afflict PCs similarly.<br />
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It is rumored that Venable also made a Quicksilver Sheath that treats the longsword drawn from it the same way if it is drawn in the presence of a creature vulnerable to silver weapons.<br />
<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-2455185221431736602016-01-29T08:30:00.000-08:002016-01-29T08:30:00.701-08:00Frostgrave at DundraConSo, I have been silent on the blog for over a month now, what have I been up to?<br />
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FROSTGRAVE!<br />
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I'm scheduled to run Frostgrave at DundraCon, Friday Feb. 12 at 4 PM. I expect it will go two rounds with a campaign turn in between and one at the end. The maximum player count I set was eight, so I will have two tables going, either as two 4 player games or four 2 player games. It will be starting warbands with 500 GC. You can bring your own, and I'll have figures for eight pregens set up, with a list for each school of wizard. I've been working a lot on scenery to give it that Frostgrave flavor. Here is a vignette shot on terrain a recent practice game, as an example:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ah5vs9e8cQc/VqQNk0PXh1I/AAAAAAAADRA/2lJs1U1uaQs/s1600/da184bf2-4f56-4017-adf3-bd7d04cbcf4f" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ah5vs9e8cQc/VqQNk0PXh1I/AAAAAAAADRA/2lJs1U1uaQs/s400/da184bf2-4f56-4017-adf3-bd7d04cbcf4f" width="400" /></a></div>
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An earlier practice game before the round towers got painted:<br />
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And here is a shot of my painting table with treasure markers and guys in progress:<br />
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And some scenery in progress:</div>
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<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273729495944208536.post-20172614978375561172015-12-01T00:00:00.002-08:002015-12-01T00:08:20.099-08:00Annoying Magic ItemsTonight, while digging for other things, I came across a sheet of paper with a list of mostly flawed magic items I wrote out in one of those silly DM moments. Apologies if this is an inadvertent reblog.<br />
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Con-man Sword I10 E12, no other powers but talking, pretends it can Detect Slopes, Traps, Gold, Gems.<br />
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Potion of Levitation without vertical hold, you rise and rise until it runs out.<br />
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Magic Sword which drains XPs you would normally gain upon killing the monster.<br />
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Telepathy Crown which warns the opposition.<br />
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Horn of Plenty yielding Spam.<br />
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Sword of Chaos- Powers change with each being slain, shapeshifts. Needs a powers table or just roll on the magic swords table each time.<br />
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Lightning Whip - hit self on fumbles.<br />
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Addictive Potions - probably of Healing<br />
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Lightning Wand with a short. 1/6 chance of self zapping.<br />
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Coin-op magic sword - pay to play. +1 bonus for a GP for 1D6 rounds of combat, or make it eat a platinum or gem and give it a higher bonus.<br />
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Defective Portable Hole, eats stuff on 1/6, or 1/3 if really fritzing out.<br />
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Strength Potion - Adrenalin-like with power rush and weakening crash after duration runs out<br />
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Flying carpet with a penchant for acrobatics.<br />
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Animated shoes<br />
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Dragon gecko - changes when it hiccups.<br />
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Items which convert H.P. to spell levels.<br />
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Casting amulets give a bonus to casting rolls. - huh, a normal one slipped in...<br />
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Hangman's Rope - The rope is thick and coarse, its rough fibers make it painful to grip. It has a noose at one end, caked in brown, flaking blood. It has a pompous magic activation phrase "<name>, It is thy day to die." If no name is mentioned in activation, it randomizes among all beings within 30'. Its reach is 30'. It uncoils quickly and moves fast, striking in a single round, hitting on 8+ on D20. Dex save on D30 to dodge. It jerks the victim from the ground and hangs him for 2D6 damage in the first round and 1D6 each subsequent round, AC 2 and 20 HP that will heal at the next new moon. All attacks or other action rolls by the hanging victim are at -2. If found enshrined, there will be an archaic inscription near it that tells a story of a hanging that includes the magic phrase: "Spake the Charnel Lord: ABROM! It is thy day to die. And the Hangman's Rope did lift the man to kick and jerk his life away. Eyes burst from their sockets, black tongue bit half through, he was dropped to earth and given to its cold embrace."</name><br />
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<b>and... a couple of house rules ideas:</b><br />
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Impediment by weapons - can carry/wear 3 hands worth okay, -1 Dex and To Hit for each further. Alternative to detailed encumbrance, would need more when packing a lot of loot/provisions.<br />
Daggers count 1/2 hand<br />
Handaxes 1/2 hand<br />
Shortbow 1 hand<br />
Longbow 2 hands<br />
Light crossbow 1 hand<br />
Heavy crossbow 2 hands<br />
Most shields 1 hand.<br />
Large, heavy shields 2 hands.<br />
Other weapons 1 or 2 hands as needed to wield them<br />
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A casting variant for semi-Vancian magic, where most spells are memorized to be reasonably reliable and safe, but others can be cast in a crunch. This was with an INT or WIS roll to cast. Pretty close to what was in my previously blogged 80s OD&D campaign house rules.<br />
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Casting unmemorized spells<br />
-2/level of spell on casting roll<br />
Caster takes 1 hit point of damage taken per level of spell attempted<br />
Wipes memory of equivalent in spell levels.<br />
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Casting beyond listed number of spells for that level (Crashing for power):<br />
Casting Roll modified as above for unmemorized spell.<br />
Caster takes 1 hit point/ level for the attempt if casting roll failed.<br />
Caster takes 1d6 damage per spell level if successful.<br />
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Preparation -<br />
Gain up to 1D6 bonus on chance, rolled secretly by ref at 1 point per full turn of preparation with expenditure of 1 GP worth of magical supplies/turn/level of spell<br />
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<br />Ed Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09627812364407769994noreply@blogger.com0