Blog of Holding

Warriors of Synnibarr by Gary Gygax

April 11th, 2013

Raven McCracken’s Synnibarr RPG takes a lot of criticism for – well, for a lot of valid reasons; but one of its poorer mechanics is this:

If “Fate” (the GM) doesn’t know how likely the players are to succeed at something, he should roll a d100. The result is the players’ chances of succeeding. A second roll is then made. If the second roll is LESS than the first roll, the players succeed.

It – almost – seems plausible until you think about it, right? But rolling a random difficulty threshold, and then rolling the same die against that threshold, is really always a 50% shot. You might as well play an RPG where you flip a coin every time anyone tries to do anything.

As this review of Synnibarr says:

“Fate [the GM] then makes a percentile die roll to determine whether the empty ship will be safe or not. The first roll is a 33. This indicates there is only a 33% chance of the boat remaining safe. Fate then rolls again. The resulting roll of 40 indicates that their ship won’t be there upon return. How and when the ship is lost is up to Fate.”

This is the stupidest thing that I’ve ever seen done within a role-playing game. Besides removing a potentially useful element from the adventure, it removes control from the GM and puts it into a pair of dice rolls; and they’re both entirely random. You could roll a 95% chance of being safe or a 5% chance of being safe, but it doesn’t matter, because there’s nobody at the switch; just a series of random encounters determined by blind idiot luck. It’s like Azathoth designed a role-playing game.

Agreed? Bad mechanic? Now check out these rules:

Missile Fire Procedure:
The firing player rolls two [d6] dice in sequence: The first is the number he must match or beat in order to score a hit, and it is modified by his status, weapon, the range, and so on. If the modified number is not matched or exceeded by the score of the second die the missile failed to hit its target.

This is from Warriors of Mars by Gygax and Blume, 1974. (I’ve also seen the same rule in a fairly recent edition of Pendragon.)

To be fair, one of the Warriors of Mars die rolls is modified by various factors. That doesn’t really change the issue, though. Rolling up a random target number on a d6 is no different than setting the target number to 3.5.

Warriors of Mars is from the very dawn of roleplaying, and Gygax would go on to create much better subsystems than this (and a few worse ones). Still, if you’re a rules hacker at all, it might be comforting to see that every RPG developer starts at level 1.

Posted in game design, legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 12 Comments »

in praise of the funhouse dungeon

April 8th, 2013

A Dungeon Master’s Tale reminded me that “the dungeon is the mythic underworld; the sprawling underdark manufactured or discovered by the Ancients and now given over entirely to enigmatic and inscrutable things.” I’ve seen that mythic underworld phrase before but it resonated with me this time.

I usually try to make each of my dungeons a themed, well-justified, sensible little environment, where the whole tells a story. That’s a worthy goal, but perhaps there are some things that such a tidy dungeon can’t do. I’d like to run a mythic-underworld game, with dream logic and primal hooks from the subconscious and all that Joseph Campbell stuff.

I started to think how I’d make such a dungeon, and I realized that a bunch of good steps – hostile doors and darkness that thwart PC but not monsters, changing maps so that the dungeon is forever unknown – are all in the original OD&D books. I always balked at them because there was no good explanation for them. How’s this for an explanation: it’s the Mythic Underworld, or, to put it another way, it’s a horror movie down there. Dammit Gary! You beat me to all the cool ideas.

I do think there is a place for the sensible, well-curated dungeon, as opposed to a constant diet of funhouse-dungeon pie. To perhaps overthink it: all underground chambers start as sensible environments, but if left alone they eventually “go bad”: huge monsters spontaneously generate in rooms with tiny doors, strange altars emerge from the rock, passages connect to other dungeons. A complicated labyrinth under a palace might remain under its builders’ control for centuries as long as they patrol each part of it. But woe betide them if they forget about some locked broom closet for a few decades. It might turn into a stairway, leading down…

Posted in fluff/inspiration, legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 1 Comment »

Rangers! An Exciting New D&D Class

April 5th, 2013

Strategic Review #2 featured the first appearance of the Ranger class, by Joe Fischer. I think it’s one of the few pieces of OD&D that Gygax didn’t have a hand in writing.

Gygax says: “Joe Fischer played in my group, and he did an article in THE STRATEGIC REVIEW introducing the Ranger Class for the D&D game. From that I built the AD&D version.”

Let’s compare the Strategic Review ranger with the PHB ranger to see how much building Gary had to do.

Alignment

From Strategic Review:
Rangers are a sub-class of Fighting Men, similar in many ways to the new sub-class Paladins, for they must always remain Lawful or lose all the benefits they gained (except, of course, experience as a fighter).

OD&D’s alignments were limited to Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic, with Lawful often standing in for Good. In AD&D, where we had the full dual-axis alignment system, “All rangers must be of good alignment, although they can be lawful, chaotic, or neutral otherwise.” The main literary model of the ranger, Aragorn, is probably Lawful Good, so I guess he can play in OD&D and AD&D games.

Prerequisites

From Strategic Review:
Strength is their Prime Requisite, but they must also have both Intelligence and Wisdom scores of at least 12 each, and a Constitution of at least 15.

In AD&D, the prerequisites are changed to 13 Strength, intelligence 13, wisdom 13, and consitution 14. Both classes are pretty hard to qualify for, although not as hard as the AD&D paladin (whose stat prerequisites were so demanding that, paradoxically, anyone who claimed to have rolled up a paladin was by definition a liar and not worthy of paladin status).

Hit points

The Strategic Review Ranger got 2 Hit Dice at level 1, while everyone else got one (“either with the standard [d6] system or the alternate system which allows fighters 8-sided dice”). That’s what happens when you let a player design his own class: you get power creep. Oddly, when Gygax revised the class for AD&D, he let the ranger keep its weird bonus level die, but to balance it, he gave the ranger d8 Hit Dice while the other fighter classes got upgraded to d10s. It sort of balances out, but it gives rangers a big lump of HP at level 1.

Spells

The SR ranger got alternating levels of cleric and magic-user spells starting at level 8, so that a 13th-level ranger could cast level 3 cleric and level 3 magic-user spells. The AD&D ranger had a slightly slower progression, starting at level 8 and ending at level 17. Also, instead of cleric spells, the ranger got druid spells. That makes sense: druid spells didn’t exist when Joe Fischer first wrote the class, but they’re more woodsy and ranger-appropriate than cleric spells. I’m sure Joe Fischer approved.

Disadvantages

In older versions of D&D, mechanical bonuses were often balanced by role-playing and campaign-world restrictions.

From the Strategic Review:
Until they attain the 8th level (Ranger-Knight) characters in the Ranger class are relatively weak, for they have a number of restrictions placed upon them. These restrictions are:
– They may own only that which they can carry with them, and excess treasure or goods must be donated to a worthy cause.
– They may not hire any men-at-arms or other servants or aides of any kind whatsoever.
-Only two of the class may operate together.

The AD&D ranger kept most of these rules intact, except that “no more than three rangers may ever operate together” (emphasis mine). Did Gary end up with some D&D group where three players wanted to be rangers? Heaven help him.

XP Bonus

From the Strategic Review:
They receive no regular bonuses for advancement due to ability, but they automatically gain 4 experience points for every 3 earned.

OK, Joe, this is a bad rule. Granting an across-the-board 25% bonus to ranger XP is exactly the same as lowering the XP needed for each level, except it’s much more of a pain in the butt this way, since players have to fiddle with their XP every time they get it. Now if this rule were introduced into 3e, where every class uses the same advancement chart, it would actually mean something (and it would still be a bad rule).

Gygax, an experienced game developer, of course removed this rule in AD&D. He also lowered the XP needed for level advancement to compensate.

Tracking

From the Strategic Review:
They have the ability to track the path of most creatures when outdoors, and even in dungeons they are often able to follow:

There follows charts for the ranger’s ability to track in the dungeon and the wilderness – the dungeon subsystem is based on the d6 and the wilderness subsystem is based on percentile dice.

When Gygax reprinted the tracking subsystems in AD&D, he converted them both to percentile systems.

Surprise

From the Strategic Review:
Because of their ability to track Rangers also are difficult to surprise, requiring a roll of 1 instead of 1 or 2.

In AD&D, Gygax saw that, and raised it: “Rangers surprise opponents 50% of the time (d6, score 1 through 3) and are themselves surprised only 16 2/3 of the time (d6, score 1).

Damage Bonus

From the Strategic Review:
All Rangers gain a special advantage when fighting against monsters of the Giant Class (Kobolds – Giants). For each level they have gained they add +1 to their damage die against these creatures, so a 1st Level Ranger adds +1, a 2nd Level +2, and so on.

(I guess this is because Aragorn is really good at killing orcs?) Gygax kept this rule in AD&D. It’s especially good at low level because so many low-level D&D battles are against kobolds, goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins. That plus the 2d8 HP at level 1 make the ranger a low-level juggernaut.

Special Followers

From the Strategic Review:
-From 2-24 followers will join the character as soon as 9th level is
attained by him. These followers are detailed later.

[…later…]

Special Followers: For each of the 2-24 followers the Ranger gains
a dice roll must be made to determine what the follower is. Further
dice rolls to determine type, class, and/or level will also be necessary.

Type
01 – 60 Man
61 – 75 Elf or Half-Elf
76 – 90 Dwarf
91 – 99 2 Hobbits
00 Extraordinary (see below)

Class (Men Only)
01-50 Fighter
51-75 Cleric
75-95 Magic-User
95-00 Thief

Multi-Class (Elves Only)
01 – 50 Fighter
51 – 75 Fighter/Magic-User
76 – 90 Magic-User
91 -00 Fighter/Magic-User/Thief Level of Ability (Roll for each)
01 – 50 2nd Level
51 – 65 3rd Level
66 – 80 4th Level
81 – 90 5th Level
91 – 99 6th Level
00 7th Level

Extraordinary Followers
01 – 20 Ranger, 3rd – 7th Level
21 – 40 Lawful Werebear
41 – 55 2 Unicorns
65 – 70 Pegasus
71 – 80 Hill Giant
81 – 90 Stone Giant
91 – 99 Golden Dragon
00 Take two rolls ignoring any 00%u2019s which might come up

A couple of things to note on the Extraordinary Followers table:

-2 Hobbits? Why do hobbits come in pairs? Well… there is some precedent, in Merry and Pippin… and Frodo and Sam… I withdraw my objection.

-2 unicorns?? Why do unicorns come in pairs? The second one is wasted, unless you plan to have them pull your coach. Or start a unicorn breeding program, I guess.

Unicorns are a symbol of all that is wild and unattainable. It just seems like a waste to have two of them. It’s like finding two philosopher’s stones.

-If you roll a 91-99 on the Extraordinary Followers chart, you get a GOLDEN DRAGON. How awesome is that. You’ll pretty much be the baddest ranger in the room (which isn’t saying much, since only 2 or 3 rangers may ever share a room).

The odds of getting a golden dragon aren’t very good: each follower has a 1 in 1000 chance of being a golden dragon. Rangers do get 2-24 followers, though, so the odds are actually better than 1 in 100.

The kinds of people who “honestly rolled up” a character good enough to be a ranger, though, probably ended up with 2 or 3 golden dragons.

Posted in legacy D&D, news, RPG Hub | 8 Comments »

interactive version of Random Dungeon Generator as a Dungeon Map

April 2nd, 2013

Now you can use the Random Dungeon Generator poster to construct dungeons online!

Click here!

This is a reward from the Random Dungeon kickstarter which I’m making available to everybody.

My ambition is to add a “Dungeon Robber” game mode so that this interactive version of the poster can be used as a fiendishly difficult roguelike. For now, though, players can use this as a First Edition DMG-compatible rooms/passages/monsters/traps generator for solitaire D&D and DMs can use this for designing dungeons.

Posted in RPG Hub | 2 Comments »

the first grapple rules

March 28th, 2013

A lot of ink has been spilled about D&D’s confusing Grapple rules. To refresh your memory, here are D&D’s first Grapple rules ever, which can be found inside a combat example in issue #2 of Strategic Review (1975):

Combat Example:

10 ORCS surprise a lone Hero wandering lost in the dungeons, but the die check reveals they are 30′ distant at the time of surprise, so they use their initiative to close to melee distance. lnitiative is now checked. The Hero scores a 3, plus 1 for his high dexterity, so it is counted 4. The Orcs score 6, and even a minus 1 for their lack of dexterity (optional) still allows them first attack. As they outnumber their opponent so heavily it is likely that they will try to overpower him rather than kill, so each hit they score will be counted as attempts to grapple the Hero:

– Assumed armor of the Hero: Chainmail & Shield — AC 4.

– Score required to hit AC 4 — 15 (by monsters with 1 hit die).

– Only 5 Orcs can attack, as they haven’t had time to surround.

Assume the following dice scores for the Orcs attacks:
Orc #1 – 06; #2 – 10; #3 – 18; #4 – 20; #5 – 03.

Two of the Orcs have grappled the Hero, and if his score with 4 dice is less than their score with 2 dice he has been pinned helplessly. If it is a tie they are struggling, with the Hero still on his feet, but he will be unable to defend himself with his weapon. If the Hero scores higher than the Orcs use the positive difference to throw off his attackers, i.e. the Hero scores 15 and the Orcs scored but 8, so the Hero has tossed both aside, stunning them for 7 turns between them.

– Round 2: lniative goes to the Hero.

– Score required to hit Orcs — 11 (4th level fighter vs. AC 6).

Assume the following dice score by the Hero. Note that he is allowed one attack for each of his combat levels as the ratio of one Orc vs. the Hero is 1:4, so this is treated as normal (non-fantastic) melee, as is any combat where the score of one side is a base 1 hit die or less.

Hero: 19; 01; 16; 09. Two out of four blows struck. There are 8 orcs which can be possibly hit. An 8-sided die is rolled to determine which have been struck. Assume a 3 and an 8 are rolled. Orcs #3 and #8 are diced for to determine their hit points, and they have 3 and 4 points respectively. Orc #3 takes 6 damage points and is killed. Orc #8 takes 1 damage point and is able to fight.

– All 7 surviving/non-stunned Orcs are now able to attack.

Continued attempts to overpower the Hero are assumed, and no less than 4 Orcs are able to attack the Hero from positions where his shield cannot be brought into play, so his AC is there considered 5, and those Orcs which attack from behind add +2 to their hit dice. In the case it is quite likely that the Orcs will capture the Hero.

Keep in mind that D&D was so new at that point that they were giving combat examples of things for which THEY HAD NOT WRITTEN THE RULES YET. The actual Grapple rules for which these are an example have, I believe, never been printed. You have to reverse-engineer the rules from the examples – kind of like learning a language via immersion.

I have to admit, I don’t speak OD&D very well. What’s going on here? The enemies all attack, and after everyone has attacked, you make a dice pool with 1d6 for every level of enemy who hit? and you roll that vs. a dice pool that has 1d6 for every level of the defender?

(By the way, the next time TSR printed Grapple rules was, I think, in the 1979 AD&D DMG and it’s MUCH MORE confusing. Lots of percentile modifiers based on what type of armor everyone is wearing, and special rules for rabbit punches and stuff.)

Here’s what Gary Gygax said in 2005 about the Strategic Review grapple rules:

We sometimes used the SR system in grappling melees, but most often the Dm simply weighed the situation and ajudicated without all that dice rolling. thus, eight orcs getting the jump on a 4th level fighter would be assumed to overpower him with some loss to themselves–d6 and another die roll for each KOed in the struggle, a score of 6 indicating killed in action.

The more complex system in AD&D was my error, mainly that of listening to those who wanted combat to be very detailed.

You are on target in regards the examples of low-level monsters seeking to come to grips with a strong PC. Eight orcs will likely be slain by a well-armored 4th level fighter unless they use their sheer numbers to overwhelm him.

I now have that happen when pack animals attack characters. Two wolves, dogs, or hyenas, for example, both successful in hitting the same target human (or humanoid), will knock him down and put him at a considerable disadvantage.

I do like the idea of a bunch of low-level guys being able to pull down heroes by sheer weight of numbers. It simulates fantasy and adventure literature. And it makes hordes of orcs dangerous at any level.

Posted in legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 5 Comments »

one difference between low- and high-level play

March 25th, 2013

In D&D in its purest form, what is the difference in play experience between a low- and high-level character?

There are a lot of play-experience differences that I don’t think are essential. For instance, in most editions, high-level combat has a tendency towards each round taking longer, each character having way more options, and more HP-ignoring attacks being made. But I’d be happy without those characteristics.

What else is there? High-level characters are more important in the story of the world? They have to deal with less logistical inconveniences?

Here’s an interesting statement from the 2e Dungeon Master’s Guide, in the section devoted to timekeeping:

At low levels, characters tend to go on short adventures. A few hours in the dungeon followed by a speedy return is about all they can survive. Therefore, it is easy to have a week’s interval within adventures, since the time passed does not impact on the characters’ activities. As characters reach higher levels, however, their ambitions grow and their adventures become longer.

This is a kind of interesting distinction between low- and high-level characters. In most editions, as characters level, each fight takes up a smaller and smaller proportion of the characters’ total HP. Therefore, higher-level characters can make it farther and farther into the wilderness before they need to return to home base.

As a level-based playstyle distinction, I don’t hate it.

It doesn’t 100% work, of course. At any level, a difficult fight might wipe out your HP and spells. Furthermore, characters quickly become self-sufficient. Characters who can generally recover their HP and spells in the wilderness have an effectively infinite range. Still, from level 1 to around level 5, there’s a nice increase in adventure scope.

If you wanted rules that pushed this further, what could you do? You might allow each character consecutive “roughing-it” nights equal to their level before they face difficulties from exposure and exhaustion. Thus, a first-level fighter can spend one night in a spooky haunted house, and then he needs to return to town. A thirtieth-level paladin can spend a full month in the Nine Hells, fighting to exhaustion every day, before she needs to return to the Prime Material Plane.

Alternatively, you can let economics take care of PCs’ increasing range. Besides being tougher, high-level characters are richer, and can afford horses and ships. If you’re faster than anything on the random encounter table, you can travel with ease.

Posted in RPG Hub | 8 Comments »

jared, health, art

March 20th, 2013

Jared von Hindman, who’s a good guy, a good artist, and one of the talents behind my kickstarter, has been diagnosed with cancer. There isn’t an official help-Jared fund, like the terrific Help Ernie Gygax page (go there too!), but don’t worry, I’ve been thinking about how we can help.

For the kickstarter, I put up Jared’s amazing dungeon art on Zazzle (all profits to Jared). Now the deal is even better. It’s $50 for a set of 2 paintings (a map and an illustrated map key), of which Jared normally gets about half and Zazzle gets half. Instead of just getting the profits, Jared will now get 100% of what you spend. All this year, I’ll cover the Zazzle cut out of my own pocket, up to $5k. I’d love the total to get that high!

Here are 2 of the 10 paintings:

And the map key:

More…

Buy a couple of these, pick up a couple of the Ernie Gygax eBay items, and you can be pretty proud of yourself today.

Posted in fluff/inspiration, news, RPG Hub | 3 Comments »

randomly generate aeons of warring empires

March 18th, 2013

In this post, I use Mediterranean history to create charts that randomly generate plausible history. If you want to skip the numbercrunching, here are the charts:

1: Each century, for each already-existing empire, roll 1d4:
1-3: It continues to be important.
4: It dissolves or becomes unimportant.

2: How many new empires arose this century? Roll 1d6.
1-2: 0
3: 1
4: 2
5-6: 1d4

What does a plausible fantasy history look like? In order to feel familiar, it should avoid the monolithic extremes of 30,000 years of barbarism of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and the 1000 generations of peace of Star Wars’ Old Republic. Better to stick to something more like Earth history: constantly changing borders as competing empires rise and fall. Not only does this feel more realistic, it lends itself better to D&D play. A big pool of fallen-empires-of-the-week provides diverse dungeons and treasure.

I decided that, to better determine what imperial histories look like, I’d count up a representative sample of Earth empires: How many exist side-by-side, and how often do they arise? From there, I could extrapolate random charts to generate my own game worlds. I limited myself to the Mediterranean from 500 BC to 1500 AD (after iron and before the New World). This is a manageable piece of the world. The Mediterranean is fairly easy to travel, so co-existing empires can interact. Furthermore, it provides the history many of us are familiar with.

Empires of the Mediterranean, 500 BC to 1500 AC

(A lot of data is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires. Specific dates are arguable, but I’m just trying to get a rough count here.)

How long do empires last?

It looks like empires have a half-life of a little more than 200 years: of the 27 Mediterranean empires, half (14) are dead after 200 years, 8 more after another 200, and 4 more after another 200. Only the Byzantine empire defies the odds for 1200 years. You’d be pretty close to accurate if you said that each empire has a 3 in 4 chance of surviving each century.

How often do empires start?

In the 21 century-marks I examine, 7 see the birth of 0 empires, 6 see 1, 5 see 2, 2 see 3, and one exciting century (1200) sees 4 empires arise. Here’s a d6 chart that models that pretty closely.
1-2: 0 new empires
3: 1
4: 2
5-6: 1d4

How big is each empire?

That’s extremely variable, even over the course of a single empire’s lifetime. Most empires reach their height around the middle. The Macedonian empire started small, conquered all of the Mediterranean overnight, and then shrunk again. The Bulgarian empire, on the other hand, is donut-shaped: it started at a decent size, disappeared briefly when it was conquered by the Byzantines, and then re-established itself. Therefore, I won’t make any dice charts for this one. Look at your campaign map and see what fits where. Generally, if an empire shares the world with many rivals, it’s probably smaller, and if it’s alone, it probably spans the known world.

The final empire-building model:

For every 100 years of ancient history, roll on the following tables.

1: Each century, for each already-existing empire, roll 1d4:
1-3: It continues to be important.
4: It dissolves or becomes unimportant.

2: How many new empires arose this century? Roll 1d6.
1-2: 0
3: 1
4: 2
5-6: 1d4

Differences between the Mediterranean and your campaign world: Monsters and magic!

Your campaign world is probably wilder than ancient and medieval Mediterranean, which should reduce the rise of empires. On the other hand, magic increases each country’s logistic and military might. People must compete for land with monsters, which reduces their imperial resources – but on the other hand, monsters can start their own empires. Let’s say that these opposing factors cancel out. Just make sure that a few of your empires are ruled by demi-humans, humanoids, or monsters. In my campaign world, I’d expect humans to be the major empire-builders. Obviously I have no real-world numbercrunching to do here, so I will just make up an extra, top-of-my-head d6 chart:

Who rules each new empire? Roll 1d6 for each new empire.
1-4: human
5: humanoid or demihuman (orc, elf, etc)
6: monster (vampire, lich, etc)

OR you can just play a game of Small World.

Edit: Gallowglas wrote a sweet random empire generator using these rules. I tried it a few times, and it works great, and I saw some interesting history unfold! Thanks!

Posted in advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 16 Comments »

OD&D cursed items that are not that bad

March 15th, 2013

I issued a challenge to OSR readers to explain why unavoidably deadly cursed items were a good idea. But to be fair, not all cursed items from the Greyhawk expansion are equally bad.

Loadstone: A stone which appears to be a Luckstone until the owner is being pursued by hostile enemies/monsters. In the case of such pursuit the Loadstone slows his movement by 50%.

This doesn’t kill a player, it just adds a complication. I can see this leading to player death, but also I can see it leading to a hilarious panic along the way. By the way, these are way more common than Luckstones, their non-cursed counterpart.

Boots of Dancing: These boots appear to be any of the others listed before them, and they will continue to so function until their wearer is in a situation where an enemy is in pursuit with intent to kill or some similar situation. When this happens the boots cause the feet of the wearer to dance a jig, soft shoe, tap, and an occasional Shuffle off to Buffalo. Naturally, he is then unable to flee or otherwise escape.

Exactly the same gimmick as the Loadstone. I’m sure the “shuffle off to Buffalo” gag got a few chuckles in the 70s.

Horn of Bubbles: This device exactly resembles a Horn of Valhalla, but when it is sounded it will bring forth a cloud of bubbles which surround its holder, completely obscuring his vision for 4-12 turns.

The Horn of Bubbles is one of the few items that doesn’t either kill you outright or necessitate a Remove Curse. It just waits until you are in a situation dire enough for you to need the help of berserker warriors, and instead of aid, you get covered with comical soap. A++! Would sound horn again!

Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity: Although this item appears to be a Girdle of Giant Strength, as soon as it is worn it changes the sex of its wearer. It can be removed only with a Wish

Ah, the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity, introducing hundreds of 70s teens to the ultimate horror: playing a female character!

OK, not all these cursed items are great. But at least they don’t arbitrarily kill you!

Posted in legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 2 Comments »

sherlock holmes is a vampire

March 13th, 2013

Last night I dreamed that I was making a movie pitch: Sherlock Holmes as a vampire. I brainstormed evidence to support this thesis. Here’s what I came up with in the dream:

Travels around a lot at night, or in fogs

Deerstalker hat for maximum shade during the day

Has a 19 Strength (can bend iron bars)

Looks like a vampire

Amoral

Always looking for bloodstains

Scotland Yard inspectors don’t trust him

Pretty decent bulleted list for a dream. I’m sure pop culture has already generated this idea somewhere. I should add something that didn’t occur to me till I woke up: vampires (at least in 1e) have Exceptional Intelligence.

I should add that Sherlock Holmes canon does include a vampire story; a fall off Reichenbach Falls can’t kill him; and he’s still around in modern London, looking younger than ever.

using this in a game

Sherlock Holmes is sometimes presented as an ally of, rather than a member of, society. A vampire that aligned himself this way would be admirably suited to be a detective. Charm powers, plus the various disguise powers like fog and bat form, plus wolf form so he can be his own Toby the bloodhound, plus exceptional intelligence, equal a pretty implacable pursuer of evildoers. Naturally, there’s a Moriarty vampire somewhere in the city.

Maybe the PCs, not NPCs, are the detectives in your game. You might be interested in a Javert-vampire instead: an implacable chief of police that keeps the PCs and other lawbreakers in line. The city might have passed a law that allows him to feed on condemned criminals. There’s motivation to secure convictions!

Posted in RPG Hub | 7 Comments »