A complaint about DCC

I was reminded of my earlier maxim by blog reader and professional artist Fred Dailey.  In thinking about it, I realized I did not get to draw little headshots of the three characters I rolled to test out char gen in DCC.  I call foul.

Yes there is a "notes" section, but it's just not the same.

Nightwick Abbey Session 18

The whole of the Adventure Capitalists were present for this last session and as such we had...

Roger Le Douche, 2nd level Paladin

Pillsen, 2nd level Magic User 

Jop, 2nd level Frogling

Ffraid, 3rd level Cleric (of the Old Gods)

and Slimey, 3rd level Thief

The session began with Slimey and the gang meeting with Halfdan the Black, resident wizard who lives just outside of Nightwick Village.  Slimey had heard that Halfdan had a hatred for the Bishop of Lichegate and wanted to share his recent antics with him.  Halfdan was rather aghast that all of these feats had been performed by one man, as the bishop and his men believed them to be committed by a veritable gaggle of satanists, or so Halfdan's sources said.  Halfdan offered to identify the bishop's ring, though he admitted it would take some time.  Still he gave Slimey a huge discount due to the terror Slimey had wrought on Lichegate.

It seems that Halfdan originally operated out of Lichegate itself, but the bishop drove him away due to his need to exhume corpses.  Halfdan assured the party this was just to get a better understanding of the body, but the party seemed unconvinced.  While Roger was off on other business, Slimey decided that he would begin a campaign to make the bishop more terrified than ever.  After some debate with the other pagan PCs, and many Life of Brian references, the Slimey decided to spread the acronym PLF (Pagan Liberation Front) on anything he could.  Of course this was not a "movement" yet as it only consisted of one man.

I say it only consisted of one man because even the other pagan PCs seemed to abhor the idea of getting involved in politics.  It will be interesting to see what happens with this in future sessions.

At this point those who were discontent with the idea went to join Roger, who was near a gathering in the village commons.  Apparently Lord Echard had been called back to Lichegate to route out the vile pagans who were harassing the good bishop.  His departure was met with nonchalant-ness by the party; however, Slimey, who was now done with his meeting with Halfdan concocted a plan.

He tricked Lord Eckhard into believing that his horse needed to be shod, and offered to do it himself.  Using slight of hand he made it appear that his lie was the truth, and took the horse to the dumbest blacksmith in town.  After teaching the smith two letters (P and L, he already knew F), he had the smith make a PLF mark on the shoes so that it would be left along the muddy road everywhere Lord Eckhard went.  He explained to the smith that it was for Paladin Lord Fitzgerald, which he seemed to buy.

After all this, the party headed back into the abbey, much to the relief of those players who didn't wish to get involved in the political arena.  They debated whether or not they should go tangle with the Wight that had been created from their fallen comrade several sessions back, since they now had a staff of power, but Roger's player believed that none of it's offensive capabilities would have any affect on the creature.

After some hints from me, they realized that they had little hope of ever "clearing out" the first level and since they were beginning to outpace the challenges it posed they should head down to the second.  The felt that first they should go and see if the zombie painters whom they had given paint in an earlier session had actually painted anything.   Unfortunately their route was blocked by a number of shadows, six to be exact.  Five of them appeared to be the current party, but one looked like the long dead Mo'ongo who had fallen into the Swamp along with his magical sword.

They decided to beat feet rather than fight them, since Jop's player assured them they didn't want to close into melee and they have ranged magical weapons.  He also assured Ffraid's player that her turn undead ability would not work on these strange figments created by the Abbey.  They through torches down at a choke point to discourage the shadows from following, which seemed to work.

Eventually they found the stairs they were looking for and began exploring the initial corridors of the 2nd level.   They seemed to expect monsters around every corner, but found none.  We had to wrap it up just as they had explored the initial area due to the late hour.

This was an interesting session.  For the first time DMing for this group I saw the oft talked about problem of monster memorization.  While one of the players had earlier questioned how a monster worked, he was far more familiar with 3e and was therefore incorrect.  Now, the players did not test any of their theories in the game, so they could be wrong, but one of them knew what was going on because he had used the creature in his own LL game recently.  I must admit that this makes me wonder if I should run Uz or the Underworld for these guys just to make everything a bit less clear cut.

While we did decide that we'll pick up immediately where we left off next time, the week after that or so I'm going to be running a DCC playtest to see how it goes.  One of my players is very interested in the game, and I want to put her through her paces myself.  I'll probably be using the Village of Hommlet and still have it be set in the Dark Country, but we'll see how that plays out.

Heraldry From the Dark Country

The following  shields were made with made with Inkwell Ideas Coat of Arms Design Studio.  I'm not sure if there is a way to add the helmets on top in the free version, so these lack them.  I used some information from Fleur-de-lis Design to come up with them.  I recognize that the meanings of heraldic symbols are hotly debated and are likely all rubbish anyway.  Still I'm more interested in medievalism than medieval with the Nightwick Setting.

There are obviously more that need to be made, but these are the ones which the PCs in my campaign might be aware of at this point.

The Sword Brothers shield is the most derivative and really only exists as a seprate entity because I couldn't find a version of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword's that looked good on my blog.

I'm not sure if a reeve would technically have a coat of arms, but heres one anyway.  The crosses in the chief represent the fact that the village was originally owned by the Sword Brothers while the black represents sadness at their turn towards darkness.  The bat apparently represents awareness of the powers of evil and chaos, which is appropriate for people who live on the mouth of Hell.

Technically, there is no current Reeve of Nightwick because the last one was executed for his inability to control the peasants (read: keep the PCs from pissing off the bishop).  Lord Eckhard is the de facto governor but uses neither the title nor the shield (see below).

The Bishopric of Lichegate's shield has much in common with the Reeve of Nightwicks, and for many of the same reasons.  The cross in the upper left represents the Sword Brothers, while the one on the right represents the new bishopric.  The black is again sadness caused by the war, and the white castle is the town itself.  The bishop's men will almost always wear a red livery with a white cross on it, unless they serve one of his vassal's that possesses their own device.

The blue represents Eckhard's loyalty to the Bishop, while the red represents his appointment as commander of the whole of the Bishop's host.  The bear is more or less there because Lord Eckhard would be played by Brian Blessed if this was a movie.

Lord Eckhard standing next to the Duke of Averoigne

That picture reminds me, I need to squeeze in someone who would be played by Ian Holm.  I love Ian Holm.

Whatever Happened to the Dark Country?

I'm sure many of you have noticed that there has been a considerable slowdown in Dark Country and Nightwick Abbey related posts that aren't play reports.  The reason for this is quite simple: I've described it already.  Obviously there are things I haven't thought of yet, but my players haven't encountered them yet either so I haven't had a reason to develop them.

Aside from revising the overland map constantly, I haven't really added all that much since session 1.  The party has yet to descend to the second level of the dungeon and much of the first level remains unexplored.  Hell, I added several sections to the first level because I was worried it was too small but they have yet to go beyond the bounds of the original map.

I've stopped doing Monster Monday posts because the monsters I'm using have either already been described or are close enough to their implementation in D&D to make it pointless.  This is also partly why I haven't discussed doing some kind of download or product related to the setting.  It's too reliant on AD&D and Labyrinth Lord and you guys all have access to those books already.

What I'm ultimately saying is that I haven't lost interest in the Dark Country and replaced it with side projects. It's still my baby and theres a reason I haven't started running a campaign of something else.  It's not going away, but I do need some more time to get the creative juices flowing again and to let my players bump into things I haven't described in Dark Country terms yet.

My Favorite Thing About Old School Games

Some of you may have noticed that I almost never refer to a non-D&D game as "old school," or rather that I only use the term Old School as an adjective for the type of D&D I play.  It's rare nowadays that I play a non-D&D rpg and when I do they are almost always one that is in print.  I look at most rpgs as just rpgs, and only need the OS signifier to note that when I say D&D I don't mean 3.x or 4e.

However, I've recently had the chance to look over Traveller and I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something different about the way it's set up that makes it similar to OSD&D but different from World of Darkness or even Call of Cthulhu.  OSD&D and Traveller and a number of other "old school" games contain a large number of tables for determining the nature of the milieu the PCs will be adventuring in.  More modern rpgs tend to assume that the setting and encounters are either lovingly crafted by the GM or spoon fed to you by the publisher.

Personally I absolutely adore random tables in general but go particularly gaga over encounter tables.  In my creative, but at admittedly stunted, mind these tables act as the physics of the universe I'm presenting.  Of course I customize them, bend them, and even flat out ignore them but I'd definitely rather have them than not have them.  It's even better when, like the tables in the Monster Manual II, the author illustrates how to customize the table to fit the particular milieu the GM is running.  That's just goddamn delicious.

Traveller of course has tables for generating is subsectors, stats for individual planets, and random encounters.  In that way I find it almost superior to D&D.  While it's unlikely that it will ever replace D&D in this sword & sorcery lover's heart, I do wish D&D possessed tables for making hex maps and such.  I would add one to my still exceedingly hypothetical Uz supplement, but I'm too dependent on the Welsh Piper's wonderful system.

This has become my biggest "fear" for the DCC RPG.*  The beta version of the rules states several times that it assumes the "judge" is capable of stocking dungeons and determining what monsters live where.  Personally, I miss the tables.  Sure they results are often goofy -- such as the owl from the last session of Nightwick Abbey -- but they provide a sense of phantasmagoric verisimilitude that is utterly lacking without them.  I dearly hope they add some, because without them I have little reason not to just continue playing AD&D.

I want to make it clear that this is not the only qualification something should have to be considered "old school," and I definitely don't require it for me to enjoy the game.  For example CoC is one of my favorite games of all time.  However, I do more or less require it for any game I run as a campaign.  It provides the laws of the campaign's reality and I greatly enjoy that.  If I end up creating a product or free download you can bet it'll have a number of such tables in it.

*I put fear in sarcasm quotes because at worst it means that I just won't purchase it.

Unfocused Thoughts on the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Beta Rules

• I absolutely love the art.  Even the worst pieces in it are completely bearable.
• Speaking of art, they leave Trampier off of the list of influential artists. Not. Cool.  Trampier is the man.  Interestingly enough they include an homage to his famous full page illustration in the treasure section of the Monster Manual.  That's my favorite piece of D&D art ever.
• I was scared shitless when I read "skills," but they're more or less just ability checks.  It's sorta similar to C&C.  Sorta.
• I find it weird that it has a general mechanic but also has percentile skills for thieves.
• The example Wizard's patron is an evil frog demon?  That's what I'm fucking talking about.
• I wish there were a few more monsters in the play test document, but it doesn't look to difficult to spitball.
• I really really hope the final product has rules for random encounters and dungeon stocking.  Thats one of my favorite things about OSD&D (and might deserve a post on it's own).
• Right now there is no guidelines for xp, so I wonder how treasure is going to factor into that or if it will at all.
• The spell tables and crit charts remind me of Warhammer.  This is a good thing.
• I think the tone is a bit too authoritarian.  Can't the judge decide if he or she wants players to roll 4d6 and drop low?
• The setting assumptions are a tiny bit thicker than I would have liked.  I wish the god examples were more explicitly examples rather than just the gods that are in the game.
• That said, the relationship between the gods and the old ones is cool.  I'll probably steal that.
• Luck is cool, and I really like the birth omens thing. 
• I sorta wish they had split race and class, but I can deal.

Note: this is only my thoughts after an initial skimming.  One of my players expressed some interest in it last session so I may run a few sessions to put it through it's paces and to take a break from NWA, but we'll see. This should not be considered a review.

Nightwick Abbey Session 17

This session has a very low turn out, but as long as I can get three players I tend to try to run a game anyway.  We had...

Slimey, master thief
Ffraid, cleric of the old gods
and Jop, ferocious frogling

Slimey suggested that they retrieve the staff of power they had left with the sage back in Lichegate, and Jop and Ffraid agreed.  They called in a favor with Eckhard the Reeve and got two men-at-arms and horses for the five of them and set off down the dangerous winter road.  At about midday the party heard a ghostly baying all around them, and Ffraid was correctly able to identify the approaching creatures as Yeth Hounds.  The party was barely able to give them the slip, and had they not had horses they would have surely been slain.  Just outside of Hommlet they encountered their most horrible creature yet: a herd of reindeer!  They fled, terrified.

They arrived in the village of Hommlet, which lies in the shadow of the city, close to nightfall and decided to rest for the night before continuing onward.  Early the next morning, within the 10 miles between Hommlet and the City, they were attacked by a large pack of wolves.  Luckily, Slimey was able to distract them with a large amount of meat he had purchased from the owner of the Medusa's Head in Nightwick for provisions.

After giving them the slip they arrived at the city, where they were forced to pay a leg tax before entering.  They made their way to Almaric the incontinent's hovel where they conversed with him about the Staff of Power.  It seems that it once belonged to the wizard Shazam, and that the word needed to cast every single spell was in fact Shazam!   Other wizards, such as Vennax the Vainglorious, tended to be a bit more creative with their naming patterns but this was sort of Shazam's calling card.  

The party also presented the sage with Edrick's gilded skull, which greatly unnerved the senile sage.  He said that it would take him a few extra months to research it without having the physical skull to work with, but he preferred it that way.  Slimey was particularly interested to see if there was a way to shut Edrick up, and Almaric said it would be the first thing he looked up.  Slimey also drew an image of the stolen Bishop's wring for the sage, but the sage did not recognize it.  He offered to research it for Slimey, but Slimey decided against this.  He then burned the picture so that no evidence would be left, and the party headed back into the city.

Slimey bought a large bolt of cloth and some black paint and made a sign which read "I still have your ring, asshole!"  Sometime in the night he dressed himself as an old woman and scaled the Cathedral.  Once at the top he set up a system using a candle and bits of twine that would cause the banner to unfurl after he had left the area.  On his way down he was spied by a guard, who asked what the old woman was doing in so dangerous a place.  "She" claimed that she was doing penance before the festival of "Saint Shoulder-pads" which seemed to appease the ignorant guard and Slimey scampered off to find his companions.

It was close to dawn, and the party mounted up and rode hard for Nightwick village.  They paused only to watch the banner unfurl and when a viscous owl flew overhead.  Thus we ended the session with the party getting ready to go see Halfdan the Black, Nightwick's resident wizard in a tower to ask him about the ring and the skull.  Apparently he has a hatred for the Bishop rivaled only by Slimey's.

It was a pretty good session, though admittedly I was a bit easily distracted.  At one point most of us were looking at Slimey's Player's Goya art books which brought both a level of class and a number of pictures of Satan to the table.

Sorry I haven't been posting much recently.  I've been spending some time flipping through Traveller and sleeping a great deal.  I, unfortunately, didn't get to run much over my vacation in Mississippi so I don't have any further notes on Uz.  I'll try to get back to posting more regularly