My First Red Box

It was on the back of a Captain America comic books that I first saw the horn helmed fighter warrior raising his sword against the red dragon in that cavern of infinite treasure.  I must have told my parents how neat it was because soon enough a battered red box appeared.  It was a hand me down from my older cousin.  The books had been drawn in, the dice were long gone, and the character sheet filled out, but the first foray into the lair of Bargle was as fresh as ever.  This was 1987. I was 10 years old.

I have a distinct memory of sitting on the sidelines of a basketball game at the high school gym, where I would line up for P.E. four years later, reading the solo adventure for the first time. I still have a fondness for the blacksmith who told me knew me as a small boy as he prepared my first set of platemail.  Then it was off to battle snakes in the lair of Bargle and mourn the tragedy of Ahleena.  I didn't watch the sports being played that night.  I am not sure if it was basketball or indoor soccer.  It was far less exciting than the game I held in my hand. 

The Dungeon Master Cut His Hand Off

Amongst Goblins and Trolls

I arrived promptly for the event. I was directed to the wall-eyed referee. Two was not a quorum. The ref explained that few came to this game and he had not prepared. The pirates' din drowned his mumbled monotone. He told how he had severed his hand in a stump-splitter. He named the price of repair.

(This 300 character story was submitted to Matchbookstory.com)

The Saga of the Seventh Wanderer: Wolverhampton

What twisted skeins the looms of Fate have lain
Across my path! They haul me hinterland
Far from bloody duty, but never doth
Hammer rest. Here bathed in ghostly froth
I stand, last breath of ancient squire
Abjures me now to serve an eldritch ire.
Forgotten enmity 'twixt green and red,
Does gird my limbs to pass through flames inspired.

What twisted skeins have brought me here,
In flight from port-town's existential fear,
I've fallen in with travelers passing strange,
Deliverance of living statue's grange.
We walked the shadowed forest path,
Soon to find crime's bloody aftermath.
A reaving horde burdened with plundered fare,
We gave chase at a glimpse of golden hair.
A sprint! then heady row, a hammer's blow,
A reaver shorn of plunder's glorious share.

By twisted trails, and forest byways,
Sent our lady's vengeance astray.
The poisonous doom that bloomed in messhall pot
Gave silent sigh from leaves that shadow brought.
So the incarcerated wights went free,
To wreak fell carnage through the Banyon tree;
When savage champions begged forfiet 
Red Wanderer turned to face the fiery lea.

Emboldened knights, like gods of ancient song
Came charging forth to face the monster's throng.
With lassos' loop of eldritch rope he's bound
His flight suppressed, they pulled the beast to ground.
My Lady's saviors hurled themselves unto
The burning wing -the lizard's tail askew-
Though dirty birds hurled clods of filth and fire,
Those fearless knights cast spell and sword of virtue.

Oh, what twisted runes are carved upon the tree of life
That takes this wayward king from strife to strife!


(This poem is the retelling of the last four sessions in a campaign in which I am playing a Paladin called Wolverhampton the Wanderer)

The Castle of Dreams

(This will be an occasional series wherein I will take a bit of classic fantasy literature and extract some bit of gaming goodness from it. The descriptions that follow the poem are meant to be evocative and vague. I leave the stats to you.)

It lies beyond the farthest sea,

This castle whereonto I flee
When life and time hang wearily.
Yet though so far, 'tis strangely nigh:
Within the breathing of a sigh
One gains the walls secure and high
Of the castle of dreams.

Divinely beautiful and great,
Of pearl each dome and tower, and gate,
It stands, a hold of kingly state.
There gyving Time and Space are not,
And cares of Life are all forgot.
No breath of restless change is brought
To the Castle of Dreams.

I walk each wondrous court and hall,
Their varied treasures mine at call,
For there I am the lord of all.
If gold and gems of land and sea,
And broad estates were offered me,
I would not take them for the key
Of the Castle of Dreams.

Castle of Dreams
Suggested Monsters for level 15 D&D4e: Dream Hag, Fading Dream Fearmonger, Countess Tesyn ir'Lantar, Water Archon Waveshaper, Dire Shark, Sea Kraken, Peryton(Runic Gargoyle), Emerald Claw, Object Mimic, Thieves Curse trap, winter nymph, Oblivion Moss, Mossling, Banderhobb, Catoblepus, Prismatic Dragon, Secret of Vecna, etc


It lies beyond the farthest sea...The adventure begins with the heroes sailing the Seas of Fate. They may be literally sailing upon the ocean, gliding upon the Astral Sea, or even experiencing a collective dream. In any case they find themselves approaching the Isle of Dreams.

Yet though so far, 'tis strangely nigh...
Question #1: Will they moor at the dock or circle around and land on the leeward side? A lone figure can be seen standing upon the old greenstone quay.

At the Emerald Dock the heroes encounter an Insane Noblewoman, Zuleikha Carvalho, whose entire crew and retainers have been shorn from her by the enticements of the Castle. She docked her ship her two weeks ago and her retinue disapeared into the Castle. She waits at the dock and demands to be taken back to civilization immediately. If denied, her histrionics are deadly. She yet commands a pair of Storm Archons. Reasoning with Zuleikha is possible, but must be undertaken delicately.

Landing on the leeward side requires special skill to navigate the rocky shoals and avoid a fight with a Kraken. There are sharks in the water. The ship must be anchored and a rowboat sent ashore.


And broad estates were offered me...
To approach the Castle of Dreams one must pass through the Enchanted Forest, avoiding lions, tigers, bears, catoblepus, banderhobbs, and boars. Strange and delightful flowers such as the black lotus, the vampire rose and the oblivion moss may be a danger or boon. Any amount of exploring in the woods outside the castle initiates an encounter with the Dream Hag in her Scampering Hut, who holds the veritable key to the Castle (Her name, Queen Rosaria), but who exacts a terrible price.

To lay the night with Rosaria is to break her curse and to take it upon oneself. Rosaria becomes a beautiful Eladrin woman. Her lover becomes a hobgoblin. She begs her new lover to leave the Castle before it consumes him. A man who has lain with the queen can expect no quarter from the Feasting Army.

The Scampering Hut is a sort of creature itself, sentient and constantly picking itself up on stilt-like legs and finding a new location to settle. He hut contains many interesting items such as a crystal ball, ioun stones, and a deck of many things.

One gains the walls secure and high...
The Living Gate demands the Name of the Rose. If the Queen Rosaria is named, the gate is opened. Within the gatehouse resides a crystal knight, the Voice of the Gate. This Knight is in a daze, only vaguely aware of his surroundings, mumbling about living a dream within a dream. The guards' quarters contain a chest that is actually a Mimic. The walls are 100 feet high and made of purple marble. The battlement crenelations host the nests of 50 Perytons.

I walk each wondrous court and hall
Courtyard of Splendor is a miasma of flittering pollen, butterflies and fairy dust. Stately crystal statues walk the paths of vibrant floral arrangements, but do not respond to words nor deeds. The hedges contain vampiric roses, oblivian moss and black lotuses. It is not necessary to walk amongst them to enter the towers or the hall. There are two towers as well as the Hall. Both connect to the upper levels by slender stone causeways. To the east is the Tower of Hubris and to the west is the Tower of Humility.

The Tower of Hubris holds a Prismatic Dragon flitting about in the gossamer foliage of her silver tree. To climb the tree to the High Bridge, one must impress the dragon (Ceiliaflora). This may be done in battle, epochal entertainment, through demonstrations great magical knowledge or acts of recklessness so foolhardy as to be respectable.

There gyving Time and Space are not...
The Tower of Humility is a shrine to the mysteries of the world, a structure that seems ever more vast at each turn. It is an Eternal Library, where every book that could ever be written lurks on infinite shelves that turn in upon themselves... tended by the Thought-Eaters, parasitic Enigmas of the Lord of Secrets. Those who enter the Library lose themselves, and only through immense powers of concentration is it possible for one to navigate the 4 dimensions of space properly to exit the tower, while fending off the tender ministrations of the Cerebral Spectres). The exit location is determined randomly:
 
1-front door

2-high bridge
3-a window looking out over the west wall
4-roof of the tower where the Perytons nest
5-door into the Scuttling Hut of Rosaria
6-directly into the Dungeons of the High Hall
7-home
8-an alternate dimension such as the City of Brass, the Land of the Dead, or Fairyland

The High Hall itself has three levels, Dungeon, Festhall and Throne Room.

The Dungeon is below, and may be accessed by the staircase. It is full of wailing women who weep in the darkness for their lost menfolk, who, unbeknown to them, glut themselves in the hall above. The wailing women are Banshees who may be reasoned with.

And cares of Life are all forgot...
The Festhall is full of grand warriors at table, drinking endless flagons of ale from jeweled goblets, devouring whole roasted pigs on golden plates, and singing merry songs. They do not notice that their women are long gone. If they are reunited, they will not be available to the King in His Castle, should he grow weary of his visitors. These are Eladrin Winter Blades.

The Throne Room is where the King in His Castle resides, looking out from a high window over the Sea of Dreams. The room seems to be made entirely of mirrors. He appears to be a most ancient and lordly aspect of whomever addresses him. He sits upon a crystal throne attended by his Chamberlain, a Banderhobb. The King is a Ghaele of Winter. The King demands fealty of all who tread upon his land, and if he gets it he sends them to feast with his warriors. Dissension is met with wrath and the Chamberlain summons the feasting army. However, the King is under the sway of the Chamberlain and may be released with proper intervention. When released from the Banderhobb's enchantment, the King becomes a handsome Eladrin of ageless visage. He smiles and touches his brow in humble thanks.

For there I am the lord of all...
The defeat of the Chamberlain, who flees to the Tower of Humility if pressed, breaks the horrific enchantment over the Castle of Dreams, and turns it to a place of life and laughter once again. Rosaria returns and proclaims one of the heroes to be the new king, but he must stay on the island forevermore.  If the honor is refused, then the sitting king offers generous boons.

Gardens of the Moon: Literature in Fantasy Roleplaying

Dungeons and Dragons is in its 4th edition and as far as I'm concerned that game is better than ever. I love the rules, and the wealth of material available. I love the adventure modules and the minis and the computer programs for creating characters. But if I were to air one gripe about the contemporary game, it be the focus on "new-fangled fantasy", the aesthetics of comic books, manga and video games. While these are all well and good, I miss seeing the old literary sources applied to the modern rules.

Archaic Art Forms
The myth and literature that the fantasy genre was built upon is often mentioned but rarely mined for material these days. Back in the old days(!) Dragon Magazine used to run quite a few articles translating various historical and mythical characters and settings into game terms, complete with bibliographies. I don't see much of that in today's D&D blogosphere. One of the great things about D&D is that it provides an excuse for indulging in anachronistic art forms and subject matter. One of my favorites is the epic poem.

As a DM, I am always devising excuses to drop yet another poem by Yeats or Clark Ashton Smith on my unsuspecting players. I love to write introductions to scenes and locations that imitate the purple prose of my favorite fantasy authors, like Smith, Robert E. Howard, and R.R. Eddison. Perhaps a fragment can be used as a riddle, or to illuminate a character, or at least, to fill out a library in far more detail than necessary.

To me, this mixing of storytelling genres is one of the great strengths of the hobby. Adding different types of prose and verse to our improvisational dialogues and descriptions can only add to the depth and atmosphere of a game. Quotations and old literary forms can be a great way to establish a tone of high adventure at the gaming table, and also to recommend further reading to your players!

Sketches from the Old Masters
I propose to follow this post with a series wherein I attempt to rectify the situation. I will publish a series of articles that directly uses source material to inspire adventures, locations, and encounters for D&D games. My sources reflect my own prejudices of course. They will include poems by Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E Howard, and scenes from both authors fiction as well as that of R.R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros". All of these are veterans of the old Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. The reader may wonder at the absence of Lovecraft on my short list, but I think that of all source literature, Lovecraft is perhaps the most fashionable at the moment, and least in need of reintroduction.

Stay tuned for the "Castle of Dreams".

More Than a Game: An RPG Manifesto

When I dig through my files and piles of old gaming material the things that tickle me and bring a smile to my face are the hand-made maps and character drawings, painted mini figs, verbose letters from one villain to another, distressed and singed to be more "scroll-like".

Avid players of roleplaying games understand much of the appeal of the game is that it is wondrous and creative on many levels. The tactile joys of rolling dice and pushing miniatures around, the theater of stories both epic and ignoble (which never turn out quite the way the DM envisioned!), and the friendships we develop all contribute to the tabletop experience. There are books of new rules, plastic miniatures, dungeon tiles, and computer programs (all great stuff!), begging to stimulate our minds, but it is when I think of the objects players produce I am inspired by the RPGs I have played and run. Here's to the arts and crafts of D&D!

The best thing about tabletop gaming, which it shares with war-gaming, but most emphatically does not share with video games, is the spontaneous outpouring of creativity that goes along with every session of a game. At the very least we have the clumsy theater of role playing our characters and trying to make sense an imaginary world, but those golden the evenings end with someone having drawn a map, another promising to write out the glib limerick that struck the villain dumb, and a third convinced to paint his own mini fig for next week. These are not great works of art, often barely competent, but that is not the point, and no one cares about quality. We are not creating in order to be judged, but for the purest of reasons, spontaneous expression of joy and fascination, a gesture toward the collective fantasia.

The Arts and Crafts of tabletop are anachronistic, but they are inevitable in the process of playing, and they are what makes the hobby more than a game. There are dozens of products out there, pdfs, pre-painted minis, adventure modules that might be a higher quality than what we do ourselves, but we are roleplaying express our own imaginations and so there's still nothing quite so charming as our own imperfect products of our collective imaginations.

To those who may read this: What are some of your favorite ephemera from playing rpgs?
Here's one of mine:

Fields of Battle: Fight Challenges

The Skirmish rules could also be used for mass battles, either with heroes fighting against overwhelming numbers or with players controlling small units attempting to capture a large field of battle. I call these Fight Challenges.

The idea is to use the mechanics of Skill Challenge to achieve tactical/story victory, causing a route or capturing a prize. Slaying foes would of course yield success, but the Fight Challenge opens up skill use as well.

Failure may come simply from players dying or taking enough damage to flee the scene, or, for a larger battle when a certain fraction of their forces have been defeated.

Alternately, a round limit to the battle could be imposed. For example, if they are not pushed back, hacked, blasted and intimidated in 10 rounds, the Rats of Nim overwhelm the castle walls.

Nuts and Bolts

• Skirmish rules for gridless combat, simplified initiative, and damage (At-Will, Encounter, and Daily powers do 1, 2, and 3 Hits respectively.
  
• Hits per Success: This may vary with larger battles, but let's begin with 5 Hits per success. This encourages use of Dailies and Healing Surges to finish the battle quickly.
• Skill Checks for Success: Using story appropriate skills contribute success. Skill Checks are a minor action in the Fight Challenge to encourage their use and speed resolution.
• Opponents use standard Minion stats, damaging PCs normally.
  

Siege at the Red Dragon Inn
Perhaps the players are holed up in an in with a thieves guild up going to war against them, attempting to set the inn on fire. They rush the front door, they come in through the roof and from the basement. The Siege at the Red Dragon Inn could be played as a Complexity 5 Fight Challenge, needing 12 successes to win the encounter before the inn catches on fire and is over run, in 5 rounds.

First, using the Skirmish rules presented in the previous post, the Thugs will be 1 Hit minions, and Lieutenants have 3 Hits.

Every 5 thugs defeated equals a success. Defeating a lieutenant is one success. A successful skill check garners a success as well. However, characters may not use the same skill two rounds in a row.

Players are encouraged to embellish their turns with Skill Checks as Minor Actions, in fact they will need to do so in order to complete the challenge in time.

• Intimidate and Bluff to encourage defections in the ranks and hurt morale. Moderate DC
• Stealth to get the drop on someone, to get away or wait it out. Easy DC
• Acrobatics swing for chandeliers to get to a lieutenant. Hard DC (Defeating a lieutenant is a success in itself.)
• Streetwise for dirty tactics such as knocking down chandeliers & throwing bottles of liquor. Easy DC
• Athletics to battle through the crowd or flip tables. Moderate DC
• Arcana and Nature to put out fires. Hard DC

Failure would of course occur if the heroes decide to retreat, or, if they are not victorious in 5 rounds the Inn is burning, so destroyed that it is not worth saving, and they are more or less taken prisoner.

Here we have a dynamic way to run a very nebulous and complicated encounter with real consequences for the players and the story, a tasteful melange of abstract roleplaying and tactical combat.

Have fun storming the castle!