Nicodemus Dirt

It was Monday, 16 January, and four from the fields we know found themselves in view of the ruined castle. The caravan had stopped again, and wouldn't move til dawn. Blixa, Darf, Dodekatheon Spider Priest, and The Intrepid Randy all stood ready. They hired one of the caravan outriders, Gunter, to come along as a man at arms.


They chose to enter the Great Hall again, inside the inner bailey. Perplexed by the absence of the remembered windows on the side of the edifice, Blixa made his way up the rope to the ruined 2nd floor. From there, they found the stairway down into the centre of the building. Emerging into a leaf-strewn corridor, they decided to examine a new area, the room opposite the stairs.

Gingerly opening one of the several doors into the room, they saw a massive, once-grand throne room. Either side, under twin stone balconies, they saw huge stone statues, 12 feet high. The reluctant but well-payed Gunter steeled himself and walked toward the distant thrones, at his employers' request. Half the distance had been trod, when the statues began to shed their stony countenance. Now giants of flesh with sparkling blades, they converged on the hapless travelers.


Thinking quickly, Randy brought forth the preserved head of Vanessa the Medusa. Despite their obvious resistance to being turned again to rock, five of the giants were frozen in stone. The remaining trio hammered into the travelers. After a hard pitched battle, and the heroics of Abe the talking hound, the giants had fallen. But so had the Spider Priest's trusty manservant, Ike. Not wanting his sacrifice to be in vain, they piled his split remains on the thrones to test them for oddities.


And oddities they found. Opening behind the thrones, a steep stair gaped downward into darkness. The travelers were not staid by this, but plunged into the black abyss. Following a long and winding stair and passages, they managed to uncover a guardpost manned by fearsome bugbears. Randy stoned half their complement, cowing the rest.

My GM Questionnaire

I am filling out my GM questionnaire. I did not use number 2 pencil.

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
This is kind of a tough one, right off the bat, because I'm thinking back through all my games since 1988. The ones earlier.. didn't invent much. I suppose it would be the giant mega-roomscalator from hell. Sort of like an escalator, but made of small rooms that tilt and climb. You end up going through a door each time a room stops tilting, to go into the next room. Each time you open a door, a new monster is waiting there for you. That's where Hannibal contracted tiger-lycanthropy.

2. When was the last time you GMed?
Monday night, 16 January, 2012. My players were Zak Smith, Jason Kielbasa, Roger Burgess and Cameron McGowan.

3. When was the last time you played?
Last night, 17 January, 2012. I played in Chris Kutalik's Hill Cantons.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
Planescape's Sigil is Oliver Twist's London, with Oliver Reed from 1968, and the players have to find and recover an artifact in the city before the band of thieves do it.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
They wait for me more than I wait for them. This is known as a Bad Thing. When I do wait for them, I cook up funky turns for them.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
I always used to eat Igor's Piroshkis with extra cheese on top. They stopped making them, and all you can get now are those damn little hot pocket abominations. Thus, I no longer eat while gamemastering.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Unfortunately, I find everything physically exhausting, since I have fibromyalgia. GMing actually helps me forget the pain for a while, which is pretty damn sweet.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Father Jack, upon realising the party was being charged by two Nehwonian Ghuls inside a golden Melnibonean war barge, grabbed two big fluffy satin pillows and threw them at the ghuls' feet in an attempt to trip them. Party fumbles ensued.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
So far, players have injected precisely the right balance of jocularity. One slip and it's off with your heads.

10. What do you do with goblins?
Personally, I roast them slowly while basting with a mix of hearty yet piquant spices. In my games, it is more varied. So far in my OD&D Greyhawk game they all wear red caps, dyed in human blood. Some of them look like Pathfinder goblins, and some others they've met look like Labyrinth goblins. Minus David Bowie and The Codpiece of Doom. They are cheery and dumb, and have proven rather amusing to talk with. They tend to have Stoogesque arguments among themselves. In my Castle Nicodemus game so far, they look like the goblins from the Rankin/Bass Hobbit. Only a statue of one, or perhaps a victim of petrifaction, has been found as yet.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
I can't say the last thing, because that would be telling. Previous things = 60s TV show The Prisoner, The King of Elfland's Daughter by Dunsany, Cher.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
A new player (character named Jack) joined the party by seeing members of the group appear out of nothing as they exited a Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. He maintained they were demons. One of the party (character named Tom) embarked on a 20 minute debate, roleplaying in character, trying to convince Jack that, in fact, he, Jack himself was the demon. By the time Tom was done, Jack pretty much believed he was actually a demon, and had sworn an oath to Tom on a dagger made out of spinal column.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Planescape - The Planewalker's Handbook. I was reading it just because it's interesting.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
I can't decide between Simon Bisley and Rodney Matthews.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
It has before, back in my face-to-face days. It was very rewarding.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I ran Dyson's Goblin Gulch in my Labyrinth Lord Eberron game. Excellent.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
Big round table, easy to control lighting for spookability, computer handy for music, sounds, visual aids, and references like Wikipedia.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
1st Ed. AD&D and The Window.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Coop's Devil Girls and The Wind in The Willows.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Someone intelligent with a good sense of humor.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
Exploring in the woods.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Not really. Many I want are out of print, however.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
My wife. She's interested in what I have to say, and sometimes gives me ideas, but remains adamant that it's "not her thing."


Thanks Zak, for getting me motivated to at least write something this morning.

Planet Caravan

This week Migellito's caravan was transporting Blixa & Abe the Talking Dog, Leo the enormous holy knight with the strength of ten men, Darf the Dwarf, Taurus Clown-at-Arms, Farley the Dwarf, and Stanley Serpenthelm. As so often happens on this trip, their path through the Black Forest found them in the eaves of a far different wood. Answering the temptation of the nearby ruins of Castle Nicodemus, they set out on their own and decided to explore the old main hall.

The Gypsy Woman

They literally danced past the guardian door, and then finally got a chance to employ the Standard Anti-Voltron Maneuver. Taxidermy heads proved small obstacle to their determination, and they were rewarded with an 800 pound marble. Which no-one in the caravan wanted to buy. Hopefully, they have more luck selling it back in The Fields We Know.

Fortunately, however, the large deck of thick bone plaques was quite hurriedly and eagerly snapped up by the gypsy woman who tends to travel with the caravan. She is very grateful for adventurers.

An Entry to Anglia

Traveling west from The Dark Country to Wessex, your caravan boss this time is an enigmatic man with long black hair and long black mustachios. He claims to be Italian, and goes only by the name Migellito. You believe you are somewhere in the Black Forest when you notice it has become much darker. The vaporous air hangs in an aphotic curtain. Passing through this preternatural twilight, you journey through trees grown rugose and monstrous, glowering down over your caravan. Lurid hints of golden light creep and lurk behind the wood’s black boles. The gloom-heavy forest splits, and you look out onto grey undulant hills hunched beneath a leaden sky. A damp and forbidding chill crawls along the turf and embraces you.

The caravan was bound west, but you have emerged going east. In the distance to the north you see the smoke of a small village. In the distance to the south you see a group of hills crowned with the sprawling scattered bones of a ruined castle.

Migellito speaks, telling you “this has happened before.” He points to the smoke. “There lies Bridgewater. It holds a smithy and an inn. What else, I do not know, nor do I wish to.” He points to the ruins. “There lies Nicodemus Castle. Some who chance there don’t return. Those who do bear heavier pockets, on the balance of it. We make camp here, and with the dawn we turn back into the forest and on to the lands we know. Do as you wish, but the caravan leaves at dawn.”

Black Goat of The Woods

You have trouble defining the feeling of these woods. They are not necessarily evil. They are.. Wrong.

When seen from a distance this goat looks unusual, but not impossible. It is dark. Black, in fact. It has 4 horns, which normal goats sometimes have. There is something disturbing about its back.

When you can see it properly, you see the dozens and dozens of moving eyes on its back and shoulders. The eyes are of many sizes. They gaze in many different directions. You dare not look closely enough to see if they are of many colours. Then you see the many mouths opening and closing.

Then you see the intermittent dripping. The dripping of eyes. The eyes slide down its sable hide to the ground and grow. They grow and transform.

1d6 eyes and mouths slide from the goat's back and shoulders each round, each growing to a full Spawn of Shub-Niggurath in one round. The goat itself is an avatar of Shub-Niggurath, and as such is virtually indestructible. As an instantiation of the Old Ones, it is also all but oblivious to mundane creatures, such as adventurers. Due to its constant propagation, it is horribly easy to follow its trail, though perhaps unwise to do so.

Messing With Magic Again

Little gnomes stay in their homes.

I’ve gone over this ground before, but today I’m riding it on a different horse. In getting ready to run a hangout game on G+, I needed to make a decision about two main things. Magic and hobbits.

It isn’t that I don’t like hobbits. I think hobbits are great. I love their anachronistic lifestyle, with waistcoats and sideboards and grandfather clocks plopped in the middle of a medieval milieu. However, I also think hobbits only really belong in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Sure, there are little tiny people in lots of legends and myths and tales, but they’re not really hobbits. Leprechauns and brownies and hobgoblins are not hobbits. Hobbits are setting-specific.

Now back when I ran my old old game, I said it took place on Middle Earth.. just not a part of Middle Earth anywhere remotely near the events of the books. This let me put in hobbits and other things with a clear conscience. I think I’d like to distance myself from that idea though, and have events take place in their own world. Thus, for now at least, no hobbits. Instead, folk-myth gnomes. Smaller than hobbits, remotely similar anachronistic lifestyle, living in and under trees instead of in and under hills. A big difference is that these little gnomes aren’t skittish about adventures or magic.

That’s sorted! Now for magic.

The problem with magic is the same. The system used by DnD throughout most of the game’s history, and used also by the overwhelming majority of similar games, is setting-specific. The idea of only being able to hold, like bees in a jar, a certain number of spells within one’s mind, and then having them disappear to blankness upon casting, is very interesting. It makes spellcasters engage in some strategic decisions, which is a good and interesting thing. However, I also think it only really belongs in Vance’s Dying Earth. The majority of magic in old legends and tales just isn’t done that way.

The problem with all the ideas I was having about how to deal with magic boil down to pretty much one issue. How do I keep magic from being overused without adding more mechanics to the game? Spellcasters in stories clearly have something against blasting a zillion spells around all the time. Something to do with the balance of nature and not wanting to incur the wrath of chaos or dark outer gods or something, I’m sure. Spell points are too fiddly, I’ve decided. Besides, what are those points measuring? Fatigue of some kind? Fabled spellcasters only seem fatigued after certain specific things, not just everything. On the other hand, I hate it when perfectly interesting spells go unused for ages and ages because the likelihood of needing them is so low.

Here’s what I came up with!

Casters use the memorisation tables in the rules they’re currently using. For an OD&D magic-user, for example, this means 1 first level spell at 1st level, 2 first level spells at 2nd level, etc. They also say which specific spells they have prepared, just like usual.

But!

Their prepared spells are just the ones they have at the front of their mind, ready at a moment. They can, instead, cast any other spell they know of the same level, but at twice the casting time. Have Sleep prepared and want to cast Charm Person instead? No problem, but it will take you 2 rounds to cast that Charm Person instead of just 1. A big difference when death is on the line!

What if your 2nd level magic-user has already cast two 1st level spells and needs to cast another? Same thing - it will take double the casting time to get it off. That’s not all though. For exceeding that spells-per-level number on the memorisation chart, you need to roll a good old fashioned save vs. spells when you cast it. If you make the save, no worries. Fail the save, and you have to roll on a spell failure table. Instead of creating extra work, rolling on a table if you fail should just create some anxiety and suspense, which are great things for a game.

Ooh, a table!

No, I didn’t make one of my own yet. I’ve seen several out there that looked pretty neat. If you’ve made a spell failure table for some reason, stick a link to it in the comments down there. :)

This also works if you want to let spellcasters attempt spells which are beyond their current ability, something which happens in the stories now and then. Apply penalties to the save vs. spells depending on how far beyond their abilities they’re trying go. I wouldn’t allow a 20 to always succeed in this case, either.

One more thing I’ve decided. A character can only benefit from one casting of any specific healing spell once per day. Once Dilbod has been healed by a Cure Light Wounds, the magic needs some time to sink in before another Cure Light Wounds will have any effect on him, regardless of who casts it. A different spell, like Cure Serious, could help him some more before tomorrow though. This may be fairly harsh, but I think it’s necessary if I’m giving casters a way to exceed their limits. I’ll allow people to bind open (only) wounds to stop bleeding and get back 1hp, once for each combat in which they get themselves hurt.