Archive for the ‘news’ Category

The Pusher: an epic D&D campaign for you

Friday, May 13th, 2011

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 1981

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 1981

In a used bookstore, I picked up the Oct 1981 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It looked like it had some interesting stories in it, but it was stolen before I finished it, due to a car-door locking mishap.

Before it disappeared, I noted this passage from “The Pusher” by John Varley:

It was a wonderful tale he told. It had enchanted castles sitting on mountains of glass, moist caverns beneath the sea, fleets of starships, and shining riders astride horses that flew the galaxy. There were evil alien creatures, and others with much good in them. There were drugged potions. Scaled beasts roared out of hyperspace to devour planets.

This sounds like a great elevator pitch for an Epic-level D&D campaign. If you put every one of these elements into the campaign, I think you’ve got yourself a foolproof Best Campaign Ever.

It sort of seems to takes place in the same time period as Krull (which would also make a better D&D campaign than it did a movie).

Finally you can have your own sweet Mazes and Monsters GM screen!

Monday, May 9th, 2011
This entry is part 33 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

The original Mazes and Monsters MC screen.

The original Mazes and Monsters MC screen.

Or Maze Controller’s Screen, to be more precise. Just like the one that Daniel rocked in the movie.

I’ve made a printable screen that is JUST AS COOL as the original, and it has all the Mazes and Monsters charts you need to run the game. (Edit: I’ve added a blank template as well, for use with other games: see below.) Wandering monster matrix, Maiming Subtable, it’s all here. It looks something like this:

Click for a bigger view

Click for a bigger view

Here are all four PDFs you need to construct it. They’ll be in the completed M&M PDF.
left front section
left section
right front section
right section

Or if you want blank templates so that you can play with your own rules of choice but LOOK like you’re playing Mazes and Monsters, you can use these instead of the left section and right section:
left section (blank)
right section (blank)

I’ve tried printing and cutting it out, and the completed castle looks pretty nifty. I can’t wait for my next M&M playtest.

Atta

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Atta by Francis Rufus Bellamy

Atta by Francis Rufus Bellamy

I’ve always found giant ants to be a boring monster. The foot-long giant ant dungeon pests of 1e are actually OK for an encounter; but the horse-sized formians and similar races seem to require a whole adventure or episode of their own, and the idea of raiding an anthive and killing hundreds of identical monsters fills me with a naptime feeling.

Francis Rufus Bellamy’s 1953 adventure novel, about a guy who shrinks to half an inch tall and adventures among the ants, strikes me as the right way to go about using formians in a game. This way, you don’t need to put aside a part of your world to be ruled by a giant ant kingdom; you can vary the encounters with battles against giant bees and grasshoppers; and you can have a boss fight against a badass shrew. Those guys are super mean and scary looking! And they can be any size from half an inch to a foot long! You can use any of the excellent official D&D shrew minis already in your possession.

A super weird looking shrew.

A super weird looking shrew.

While your PCs are shrunk, have them make discoveries about their familiar surroundings they couldn’t normally make. Perhaps they climb into a tiny crack in the wall, and discover Diamond as Big as the Ritz, or a giant gold ring. When they return to their normal size, they can retrieve it. (Come to think of it, a ring makes some interesting defensible terrain for ant-sized PCs, forming a little fortress around one or four squares, behind which they can take cover.

The key to an interesting ant adventure is to make the ants sentient, as Bellamy did. Have the PCs choose sides in a war between an ant colony and a rival colony of slave raiders. Have them befriend ants, and ride them like mounts in daring cavalry attacks. When the PCs return to normal size, maybe they’ll have different feelings about the ants scuttling beneath their feet, over whom they now have such power.

treasure of the unicorn gold

Friday, April 29th, 2011

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 1981

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 1981

I lost my 1981 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, so I can’t make a scan of the bizarre real mystery it contains.

Among the usual contents of the magazine (fantasy and science fiction stories, mostly) was an ad for “unicorn gold”. I don’t remember the ad very well, but I don’t think it was clear about what it was for. I think it was one of those oblique buzz-creating ads, like the spots in the old Strategic Review magazines that just said “The Dragon is coming!!”

The Unicorn Gold ad caught my eye because it had messages written in runic. Because of a childhood misspent playing the Ultima games, I can sort of read runic script. I remember translating the runes – but I’ve now forgotten what they said. I feel like the dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. “I wrote them down so I wouldn’t have to remember!”

After my copy of the magazine was stolen, I went online to see if I could find any information about the ad. What was it for? Did anyone else remember it? And that’s when things got weird.

It seems that it was part of a promotion for a 1980 Steve Jackson RPG called The Fantasy Trip. One of the RPG products was called “Treasure of the Unicorn Gold”. As part of the advertising campaign, the book was part of a real treasure hunt: a real golden unicorn statue was buried somewhere in the United States. The RPG book contained hidden clues to its location, most of them oblique and many of them in heiroglyphics or other ciphers.

Here’s the thing: the publisher, Metagaming, went out of business before the contest ended. The golden unicorn was never found. The people who buried it have stayed silent about its location.

Here’s a story about a guy who went on a road trip to find the unicorn, and his solution for the puzzles. He didn’t find the unicorn, but he thinks he came close.

The unicorn statue is probably long gone – or, in the midst of Metagaming’s financial troubles, they never buried it at all. That would explain their later silence on the issue. But maybe it’s still buried, and some intrepid puzzle solver will find it some day.

I keep thinking about the ad in my lost copy of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I haven’t been able to find any scans of it online, or mentions of it in the lists of Golden Unicorn clues. What did that runic message say? Was it a clue, like the message on the back of the medallion in Raiders of the Lost Ark that tells searchers to subtract 1 kadam from the measurements given on the front?

There’s a fantasy for you. Maybe there’s a treasure still out there, buried somewhere in the United States, just waiting for someone who can find and read the map.

Mazes and Monsters: Monsters!!!

Monday, April 18th, 2011
This entry is part 32 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Here’s the M&M bestiary from levels 1 to 5, from the lowly Pixie to the mighty Mazosaurus Rex. The Mazosaurus Rex is not SPECIFICALLY attested in the movie, but I think it can be inferred from the awesomeness of Mazes and Monsters.

Download Monsters PDF

The Key to Rebecca

Friday, April 15th, 2011

The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett

The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett


The desert was carpeted with flowers.
“It’s the rain, obviously,” said Vandam. “But…”
Millions of flying insects had also appeared from nowhere, and now butterflies and bees dashed frantically from bloom to bloom, reaping the sudden harvest.
Billy said: “The seeds must have been in the sand, waiting.”

During and shortly after a heavy rain in the desert (an event about as common as a rare planetary alignment, which is to say once during the PCs’ career), giant, extravagantly colored flowers carpet the desert. Bees, butterflies, and flower fairies seem to be everywhere. For a day, it looks more like the feywild than the desert. The flowers are called desert blooms, and the PCs will make a fortune if they harvest and preserve them. They’re a magical ingredient coveted by wizards. The PCs will have to hurry, though, because the blooms will have disappeared in a few hours. Desert blooms hold water like cups, so for a short time, the parched PCs will have as much water as they can drink.

Crossroads Adventures: stats

Friday, April 8th, 2011

I’ve mentioned Crossroads Adventures, the 80’s choose-your-own-adventure series. As far as I know, it didn’t have a D&D license. On the inside of my copy of “Warhorn”, it says “CROSSROADS Adventures are authorized interactive novels compatible for use with any role-playing game.” “Any role-playing game” is remarkably similar to D&D, because the Crossroads mechanics involve +1 swords, healing potions, and Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, all rated 3-18.

Each Crossroads book includes an essay explaining a bunch of gaming terms, including the six D&D attributes. The best part of this essay is that, unlike D&D, it explains each of the 16 possible values for each attribute, and for most of them, includes a real-life example. The examples are worth the price of the book. They’re pretty well thought out; they do a better job of letting you know what it means to have, say, a 15 in an attribute than does D&D. They’re also hilariously 80s.

Here are some highlights:

STRENGTH:
15 A top athlete or football running back [OR? Dis on football running backs?]
17 Changes tires without a jack
18 Wrestles Arnold Schwarzenegger and wins [OK, why not just peg Arnold at STR 17?]

The essay goes on to point out that an elephant “has a Strength of 23.” How do they know?

INTELLIGENCE
6 Curly (The third Stooge)
13 College professor/good quarterback [a lot of football in here!]
15 Indiana Jones/Carl Sagan
18 Leonardo Da Vinci (Isaac Asimov?) [Really? The author of the essay thinks that Asimov is maybe as smart as Da Vinci? I liked The Caves of Steel but let’s not go overboard here. Also, is Asimov verifiably 3 INT points higher than Carl Sagan?]

WISDOM/LUCK [Here’s where Crossroads becomes slightly incompatible from “any game”: it rolls “luck” into the Wisdom stat.]
13 Lee Iacocca
15 Captain Kirk (wisdom) / Conan (luck) [I take issue with both of these. Kirk, as far as I can tell, succeeds entirely based upon Charisma and maybe Luck. I don’t ever recall him making a wise decision.]
17 Sherlock Holmes (wisdom) / Luke Skywalker (luck) [Again, Sherlock Holmes’ skill is clearly Intelligence. And Luke Skywalker, luck? Apparently the author of the essay doesn’t believe in the Force. He thinks that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.)

CONSTITUTION
15 Olympic Athlete/Sam Spade [Sam Spade? I guess he has a lot of constitution… I don’t remember much about the Maltese Falcon but I’m willing to believethat Sam got knocked out a few times and survived it.]
16 Marathon runner/Rocky [I agree that Constitution is pretty much Rocky’s strong point.]
18 Rasputin/Batman

DEXTERITY
13 Good fencer/Walter Payton [ah, more football!]
15 brain surgeon/Houdini
16 Flying Karamazov Brothers
17 movie ninja/Cyrano de Bergerac
18 Bruce Lee

A dexterity of 20 is possessed, apparently, by The Waco Kid. From Blazing Saddles. BLAZING SADDLES.

CHARISMA [This one is my favorite.]
7 Richard Nixon today [I wish they had statted Nixon’s Charisma at various points in his career. In China, 14! Jowly appearance vs. Kennedy, 8!]
14 Magnum, P. I. [Only 14???]
16 Henry Kissinger/Jim diGriz [one of these is the Stainless Steel Rat]
18 Dr. Who/Prof. Harold Hill (Centauri) [I have no problem with Dr. Who, but it never would have occurred to me to chart his CHA as 18. And apparently Centauri is a lovable character from the Last Starfighter? and Prof. Harold Hill is from the Music Man? OK, The Music Man is (arguably) timeless, but The Last Starfighter must have JUST COME OUT when this essay was written.]

Mazes and Monsters: magic charms

Monday, April 4th, 2011
This entry is part 31 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Gear up your Hanks with a chapter of magic items! Here’s the PDF of the full chapter.

Click to download the pdf.

As a sample, here’s a charm that, for sheer baroque old-school madness, knocks the Eye of Vecna into a cocked hat:

Graven Eye of Gellor. Level 8 charm. This is a faceted ruby with twelve faces. (It looks much like a d12.) On each face is carved the iris of an eye, along with a unique magical rune. To use the Graven Eye, you must actually put out one of your own eyes and put the Graven Eye in its place. From now on, you will probably want to wear an eye patch a lot of the time.

At the beginning of every day, a different face of the Graven Eye will face the world, and you will have a different power when you gaze through the Graven Eye. Each morning, roll on the following table:

Table 9-1: Graven Eye of Gellor
1: Eye of Understanding: You gain the benefit of Read Strange Languages all day.
2: Eye of Fear: You can make an attack on people in throwing range or closer. If you hit, they are Mazed (RONA 6). While Mazed, they fear you. They may either stand where they are, not moving, or spend their turn moving away from you.
3: Eye of Seeing: You gain a trait die on all RONA checks involving seeing or perception. Also, you can see invisible creatures.
4: Eye of Truth: When people are lying, you see them surrounded with a red haze.
5: Eye of Light: You can shine light from your eye as if it were a lantern.
6: Eye of Lies: You can change your appearance to that of any person or monster that is approximately your size. Whoever you change your appearance to must have the Graven Eye of Timor visible as one of its eyes. The change of appearance does not affect your abilities or the appearance of your clothes and equipment.
7: Eye of Change: For the entire day, whenever you go through a door you’ve never been through, you roll on this table (rerolling 7s), temporarily taking on a new power. Passing through the same door multiple times has no effect.
8: Eye of X Rays: You can see through anything within throwing range (walls, curtains, etc) except lead. This doesn’t let you see in the dark, so you can’t, for instance, see the coins inside a dark coin purse or treasure chest.
9: Eye of command: You can make an attack on someone within throwing distance. If you hit, you do no damage, but you may issue them a short command. They are Mazed (RONA 4). As long as they are Mazed, they must follow your order. The Maze ends when the order has been fulfilled. The attack will fail if following the order will obviously lead the creature to immediate harm. (Near future harm is OK. The Mazed creature will not stab itself but will insult a dragon.)
10: Eye of the Mind’s Eye: You may make any images or visions you want appear in the sparkling surface of the Eye.
11: Eye of Darkness: You are blind in this eye. You gain a weakness die on all RONA checks involving seeing or perception.
12: Eye of Flame: As an attack, you can shoot a fiery red beam from your eye. It can attack at bow range, but unlike a bow, can also attack people next to you. It does fire damage. You gain a Trait die on the attack roll.

Warhorn: a crossroads adventure

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Warhorn: A Crossroads Adventure by Diana Kramer


“My plan,” Harold explains, “is to use the temples of the mountain cults for shelter.”

Crossroads Adventures are off-brand-D&D choose-your-own-adventures set in the branded fantasy worlds of established fantasy authors. This one’s based on some novels by Lynn Abbey.

TEMPLES OF THE MOUNTAIN CULTS has such an old-school ring about it I’m tempted to look for it on The Acaeum. So many old adventures used that name structure: “Vault of the Drow”, “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief”, “Dwellers of the Forbidden City”, “Queen of the Demonweb Pits”, etc.

The phrase deserves better than to be casually dropped in an 80s choose-your-own-adventure and never seen again. It’s begging to be made into a published module – or, if not a module, at least some DM’s adventure. An adventure with a title that the DM repeats as often as possible, preferably with reverb. “OK, let’s begin session 2 of… TEMPLES OF THE MOUNTAIN CULTS!” “You light your torch and descend into the… TEMPLES OF THE MOUNTAIN CULTS!” “We can play Shadowrun as soon as we are finished playing… TEMPLES OF THE MOUNTAIN CULTS!

The temples in the book turn out to be safe places to rest where monsters won’t follow you. Not in my temples. Mine are old-school dungeons; and in the course of TEMPLES OF THE MOUNTAIN CULTS, the cover of the 1e demon-idol Player’s Handbook will be shown as a visual aid at least once.

upcoming D&D books I’m excited about

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
  • Unannounced Feywild book: Despite its dorky name, I like the Feywild. It’s one of my favorite parts of 4e cosmology. A DM can introduce fantastic elements in the Feywild: even larger-than-life than the usual larger-than-life D&D stuff. Still, three years into the edition, it doesn’t have a sourcebook.

    According to the D&D release calendar, there’s something called “Heroes of the Feywild” scheduled in November. That looks to be a book of “player options”, though: not details about unsettling faerie courts, clashing cliffs, palaces in strange intoxicating clouds, jeweled beaches, and haunting monsters both beautiful and terrible, but classes and feats that you can give your PC. Lame!

    There’s a shred of hope: This year, “Heroes of Shadowfell” and “The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond” are both being released. “Heroes of the Feywild” is at the end of the release calender. Maybe the next year will bring “The Feywild: The Court of Stars and Beyond” or some similar book.

    (more…)