I want my monsters to feel at home

I dislike running or playing in an RPG session that is arbitrary.  Oh, sure, I have nostalgia for the old Gygax tables but I used them for ideas to keep things from being stale.  I would immediately find a way to make the idea logical, or internally consistent (verisimilitude - there I said it again).  I will not say I am looking for realism because I am not.  There is nothing real about magic missiles or displacer beasts.  However, used in the proper context magic missiles and displacer beasts can seem perfectly natural in the given context.  In other words, players do not suddenly go, "WTF!  Where did that come from?"  Rather I want them to go, "Ah, I see how that fits.  Man why didn't I see that coming!" 

This is not a revelation to me, this has long been my personal quest to make the games I am running be internally consistent, so that the laws of nature, magic, & gods in that environment work and the players can expect actions to have relatively expected reactions.  (you can see this theme in some of my other posts).  What made me feel like spouting again was my recent rereading of Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions.  (see below).  One of the many things I like about the book, even though it is fantasy, there is a logic at work and you can expect the heroes, villains and monsters to all live within that logic.

First there are the humans, who can be good or bad.  The best of the humans are paragons of virtue and the proponents of law.  Second there are the Fay, who are typically capricious and self serving.  The Fay are the primary proponents of chaos, that is when they feel like it.  Lastly there are the monsters, while you are not always sure where they come from you are clear they are on the side of chaos, when they feel like.  The power of the holy Christian God, and the associated artifacts, is proof against the Fay and the monsters.  However, men being weak willed beings, often behave in a way that puts them in a graceless state and therefore susceptible to the Fay and monsters.  A human in the state of grace, who cannot be readily harmed directly by Fay or monsters can of course be harmed by another human who has chosen to support chaos for their own selfish purposes.

In one paragraph that largely sums up the internal logic of the creatures in the world.  I find it elegant for this story.  I would not port this exactly for a game environment, there are some drawbacks in using that for an RPG.  Perhaps that is another blog post some day.

In my homebrew, I try to have a reason that monsters exist rather than having them show up arbitrarily during an adventure.  So there are humans, humanoids, giants and the like that live on the various islands and have their own lands and a creation myth that puts them there.  I am a firm believer that humans are some of the most dangerous monsters.  Dragons play a role in my creation myth, and though rare, have a place in the ecosystem and are involved in the early history of magic.  Aberrations, though by their nature are somewhat random, are not arbitrarily placed in adventures but were created at some point in time by fell magic.  That point in time may have been long ago or very recent.  Those few that survived  from long ago and bred may inhabit an area in numbers, those created recently are likely to be the only ones.  Original undead are always created, either by necromantic arcane or divine powers, or by even darker rituals that turn the living user of that ritual into something beyond life.  Some undead are able to continue their line via their dark appetites.  Lastly there are the higher and lower planes populated with those beings of light or darkness with their own higher or lower purposes.

Where I struggle is with the magical creatures.  I give in to a little bit of capriciousness with them, I suppose, because that is in their nature.  To some extent I have the creation myth that covers the internal logic of their existence, but I try not to overdue it.  I try to make the appearance of these be special and unusual and by that, in their own way, fantastic in the old world definition.  So I assuage my struggle with this logic by admitting, in the end, this is a fantasy RPG.

I do not dare to compare my little world to Poul Anderson's, but I hope in some way that my monsters feel like they belong and are willing to hang around.  That is until the characters kill them and take there stuff.

Three Hearts and Three Lions, again

Over the last two days I spent some horizontal hammock time in the shade of two very large hemlock trees while reading Three Hearts and Three Lions.  As noted below, I have read it before and it is still a favorite.  A fast easy read with no lack of depth, even while some of the characters described with brevity they still stand out.

It has been a while since I last read the book.  I had forgotten how many things are borrowed by original versions of D&D straight from this book.  If you want to add some color to your description of a troll battle, an encounter with a nixie, the struggles of a paladin, or a view of law versus chaos, this might be the book for you.  This was a fun walk down memory lane for me, like meeting an old friend and reliving good times.

If you play D&D and you have never read this book then you are missing out.  What are you waiting for?

Three Hearts and Three Lions

I am suddenly having a hankering to have another read of Poul Anderson's classic, Three Hearts and Three Lions.  Though Anderson was most well known for his science fiction, he demonstrated he was also an able fantasy writer as well.  Though the book was written five decades ago, it strikes me as fresh and poignant today as it was then.  Some topics on the human condition do not change.  Besides the interesting influence it had on the RPG hobby and other fantasy writers, it is just a darn fine read.  Around 250 pages, accessible and easy to read but with a hidden depth of character it is long a favorite of mine.  


What say ye in the RPG hobby?  Does this story of the Dane and the Swan May resonate for you?  How many of you old timers have read this before, and how has it influence you or your game?

A dead guy, a black sheep on its back, and who put the apple in the beer?

I got a variety of beers for my birthday a while back, I took some notes but did not get to posting them all.  Doing some catch up.

First up, my favorite beer from this very fine brewery.  If you like real beer, I have no doubt you will enjoy a Dead Guy from Rogue.  Coppery in color, slightly cloudy, medium head, well balanced, right amount of carbonation for the recipe, lightly spicy, a little honey sweet, and very drinkable.  Not the kind you would crave on a sweltering day but a fine brew with food or by itself.  Highly recommend by me.  Its availability in the eastern US is increasing, and not all that unusual to see it in bottles in specialty pubs or even on tap.

Why would you name an ale after a black sheep that cannot right itself?  Sounds suspicious in a 'I am afraid of the real answer' kind of way.  Regardless, Riggwelter was a nice surprise.  A very complex ale with loads of subtle flavors.  Among them I found chocolate and coffee, which in my experience are usually in stouts and not ales.  You are likely not to have more than two at a sitting, or maybe even only the one.  I recommend this not with food, but on its own when you are in the mood to enjoy the myriad of flavors with a drinking partner doing the same.  Move on to another brew after you are done to clean the palate.

The last of the trio is another Rogue brew, Kells, an Irish Style Lager.  The beer is golden in color, crisp and mild in flavor.  The kicker, and I do mean finish kicker, is the crisp apple after taste that only lasts a moment on the tongue.  Given the price of Rogue ales on this side of the country, I will not be having this often but I recommend you give it a try on the novelty alone.  If the brew was half the price, well... I would be drinking much more of this over the summer.

That is all for now, no disappointments here.  Cheers!

Raise a pint for Frank Frazetta

If you have fantasy books in your library, then you likely own Frazetta artwork.  A talented artist that inspired many imagination has passed from among us.  Raise a pint in his honor, even if you are not a muscle bound barbarian on the outside.

Check out the tributes that will be appearing all over the fantasy blogosphere and you will see how truly influential he was.

What Polyhedral Die Am I?

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Hmmmm.... a scienterrific quiz from the folks at dicepool.  Not the result I would have predicted, but I have heard it said, "The dice never lie."

My very own Caves of Chaos

Some thirty years ago my group of war gamer friends wanted to try something new.  I found a D&D basic set on sale at my local toy & game store and, not knowing what it was, purchased it.  I remember reading the introduction repeatedly, at first I found the premise a little hard to swallow.  Finally figuring it was too weird not to try, I convinced the group to give it go.  Location and evening selected, characters with blatantly stolen names from our favorite literature ready to adventure, beverages well stocked, we began the session.  It took a while for me to lead them to the Caves of Chaos.  It took very little time for my first (and only) total party kill, only about thirty feet into the first cave they entered (Orc cave B - for those CoC fans).  Ah, the fond memories.

So here I am many years later with my own version of the caves in my little world.  The description is different, instead of caves in the wilderness it is nicely made caves in the remains of a seaside city long forgotten.  The  adventure retains the basic premise, a location with many mini dungeons to explore.  It seems that the caves have haunted me for many years and now I have released these new caves on my unsuspecting adventuring group.

The group is on a mission from their King; locate the city and reestablish a relationship with the inhabitants that has long faded away.  The King needs allies and wants the party to have a powerful weapon that should be in the possession of the people of the city.  With expectations set high for their role as royal diplomats and after some dangerous travel through the wilderness, the group arrives and is dismayed to find the city only a shadow of its former glory.  The city is now inhabited not only by the shabby remains of its once proud human owners but also with various ogre, goblinoid, kobold, dwarf and possibly some other even less desirable and more troubling squatters.  I watched with surprise and some satisfaction as the group elected to avoid two combats that might have rescued humans in the servitude of ogres and then great goblins because they were not sure of the ramifications in this dangerously balanced ecosystem.  Mostly this group is loath to pass up a combat to save an apparent innocent.  I love it when I complicate their decisions.

My version of the caves is larger and has more complex relationships and economies than the original.  I do not boast that mine is better, but I find that I am not satisfied with an environment that does not have a sense of logic and balance.  The cost in time to develop such an environment is probably not in balance with the outcome.  Such is the curse of have high standards and being anal.

There are no spoilers here for my group.  (sucks for you)  I have no intention of posting full adventure logs.  I have two players who do that for our group only and they have expressed no interest in making them public.  I might post some high level summaries and DM comments if there is interest.

It is interesting to ponder why I came back around to the beginning after 30 years.  Was it just a good idea, or a convenient way to have mini adventures, or am I looking to assuage guilt over my TPK?  We'll have to see how it works out.  When we broke last time they were just about to enter one of the caves.  If they make it more than 30 feet am I absolved from my sins?  Or have I just grown soft over the years and countless tears shed for characters who died ignoble deaths? 

Just kidding - I have just gotten better at bringing them to the brink of failure time and time again.  Dead characters hold no magic for me; rather I covet the moment of fear in the players faces as their beloved creations teeter on the brink and the joy/relief as they or their comrades pull the back in the nick of time.

The dice never lie.