Three City Books for your campaigns

City-State of the Invincible Overlord 
Necromancer Version 
Revised Version 
Original Version 

 The granddaddy of all RPG cities and holds up well over the decades.

Cities of Harn 
Proof that a complete cities can be done in a dozen pages or less.
The newer versions are longer but are still have the smallest page count of any city supplement out there. 

Cities by Midkemia Press
The best random encounter table ever written for city adventures. Also has a nifty Catchup table for what your characters does between adventures and a random settlement generator.

Revisiting Rulings not Rules

In Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming the first zen moment is Rulings not Rules. He describe how in the absence of mechanics or guidance the referee has to rely on his common sense and experience to come up with the mechanics to adjudicate the actions of  a character.

Since I started actively refereeing Swords & Wizardry several years ago I come up with some handy concrete guidelines that help make up a ruling without staddling the game with overly complicated mechanics.

First off I look at Swords & Wizardry and the classic editions to see what tools I can come with.

1. There is the to hit roll.
2. Saving Throws
3. Modifiers 
4. Some type of roll based on a characteristic.
5. A skill roll.

The To Hit Roll
This is best used when the ruling involves throwning, swinging, or hitting something. If it is just about hitting the target with no real damage I usually set the target number based off AC 10 (or 9 depending on the edition).  The same with targeting a piece of floor or a specific section of a wall. If just hitting a large building, wall, rock, etc. Then I will add +2. I will also use the range guidelines for darts and other thrown weapons as a guide to when to impose range modifiers.

Saving Throws
I use saving throw to resolve actions where player is attempting to have his character do something non-lethal to another character. A character wants to do disarm or trip an opponent. I will generally say he needs to hit the target and the target gets a save. If the save fails then the character is successful in his action.

The implication is that it harder to do certain things against higher level character or monsters. I feel this is OK as in my mind higher level or HD represent characters/monsters with more points or build in other systems.

Modifiers 
The benchmark I go by here is that it is -4 to hit an invisible opponent or to fight in complete darkness. Generally this means modifiers range from +4 to -4.
There is also the issues with modifiers granted by characteristics. Some editions like ADnD have extensive modifiers while other don't. I found I was happy with this chart.

18 +3
15-17 +2
12-14 +1
9-11 +0
6-8 -1
3-5 -2

Some type of roll based on a characteristic.
I don't use this a lot myself but other referees. The basic options are
1) Roll under the characteristic with a d20
2) Roll a d20 add the characteristic and get 20 or higher
3) Multiply the characteristic by 5 and roll under the number with percentile dice.

A skill roll.

With the introduction of the Thief class skill rolls became part of DnD. The original class used percentile dice modified by race and dexterity. This is something I never really liked.  I preferred something similar to 3rd Edition version which is a d20 roll and beat a target number. I consider skill rolls valuable because they allow the creation of character class that are better at various non-combat things. Ultimately what I adopted was roll a d20 and equal or beat a 15 modified by the relevant characteristic and any bonus given to you by your class.

However the spirit of the oldest editions make for a game where characters can attempt anything. So instead of skill I added abilities. That way anybody can still try to pick a lock but burglars are better than anybody else.

By combining these various elements I can come with the mechanics needed to adjudicate just about any a players wants to do in my campaigns. With the virtue of still making the game feel like you are playing a classic edition.

This OSRCon is on!

OSRCon is on for 2013!  It going to be held at the Manulife Centre, August 3rd and 4th (Saturday & Sunday). They are also welcoming dealers this year. Good to see that it is on.

Fond memories of Ray Harryhausen

The Scroll of the Beginning and commentary

I have written a lot of personal material on the Majestic Wilderlands over the past thirty years. Most it is in note form or half done articles. One of these is the creation myth of the Majestic Wilderlands.

Recently I upgraded my CorelDraw to version X16. This is the software I use to create my maps and other graphic material. So I decided to try it out by turning my creation myth notes into what it would look like in-game.


You can download the result from here.

Now it not the most original myth ever written as it heavily inspired by Tolkien's Simarillion. But it is not a straight copy either.  My main objectives in writing this was to

• To have absolute evil. Demons who are the enemies of creation and want to reshape it to their own whims.
• Leave open shades of gray.  Basically the gods with extreme philosophies as a result of the Uttermost War. Yeah they hate demons too but what they preach is not exactly pleasant.
• Explain the multitude of sentient races. The Demons mutated human using magic into the hundred+  races of the D&D Monster manual and most fantasy RPGs.
• Explain the origin of magic.  Low level magic was part of the creation of the Wilderlands but the act of creating the Abyss focused the ambient level of magic and allowed spells to be used instead of only rituals.

The scroll I created only goes up to the start of the Uttermost War. I have projects to complete for various folks so I didn't have a lot of time to format the full story.

What follows is a short Uttermost War story for each of the ten major gods of the Wilderlands. Revolving around how they rallied the survivors of the sack of the First City to fight back. Eventually liberating the Demon's slaves and finally defeating the demons on the island of Tiranog.

The story concludes with nine of the gods creating a crystal of power each of a single color. Veritas uses the Chromatic Crystal to create the Abyss and the Nine Crystals are used to seal it imprisoning the Demons until the final battle. A side effect was that magic became potent enough to used in spells instead of long rituals only.

In-game The Scroll of the Beginning is one of the seven scrolls that make up the Chronicles of Mitra, the holy books of the Ghinorians who believes themselves to be the holy people of Mitra. The other scrolls are the Scroll of Exodus, Scroll of Judges, Scroll of Kings, Scroll of Prophets, Scroll of Hymns, and the Scroll of Palanon.

The last one was supposedly written by the first Imperial Prince of the Ghinorian Empire, Palanon the Great. It provides a crucial but controversial piece of theology that transformed the Ghinorian Church of Mitra from a parochial religion of a specific tribe to a universal religion where anybody professing belief in Mitra is considered Ghinorian. And as critics note aided Palanon and his successors to successfully weld the disparate peoples they conquered into a single empire.

Yeah there is a bit of heavy adaptation from the structure of the old testament.

So I hope you enjoy this and I hope it inspires you to write your own legends for your campaigns.

Note that Inkscape does everything that I use CorelDraw for. The reason I don't switch is because of the volume of stuff I have in CorelDRAW but for somebody starting out using vector graphics for mapping Inkscape is the way to go. Plus it is free!

A Basic Outline of Ur-Dungeons & Dragons

Here is something I think that will be useful for folks writing supplements and/or retro-clones. It was adapted from Matt Finch's Swords & Wizardry Core Rules. 

---

Chapter 1: Introduction

• The Dice
• Creating a Character
• Character Sheet
• Roll Ability Scores

Chapter 2: Character Classes

• Choose a Character Class
  Cleric
  Fighter
  Magic-user
  Thief
• Choose a Character Race
  Dwarves
  Elves
  Halflings
• Choose an Alignment

Section 3: Items and Equipment

• Buy Equipment
• Starting Gold
• Calculating Armor Class
• How Much You Can Carry
• Movement

Section4: Playing the Game

• Gaining Experience
• Time
• Saving Throws
• Combat
• Damage and Death
• Healing
• Morale
• Magical Research

Section 5: Spells

• Cleric Spell List
• Magic-user Spell List

Section 6: Monsters

• Monster List

Section 7: Treasure

• Magic Potions
• Protection Scrolls
• Unusual Armors
• Unusual Weapons
• Wands
• Rings
• Staffs
• Misc. Magical Items
• Cursed Items

Last day of the Dwarven Forge Kickstarter

Yes I joined the madness and got in at the 5 set (dungeon gray) level. If you like using props for your miniatures this an excellent deal especially with the stretch goals included.  I also plan on picking a few of the add-ons which will prove handy even if I don't go the full dungeon maze route.

This should prove an excellent companion to the Reaper miniatures I will be getting.