I finally arranged a playtest for the the game today – chips and soda is on the table, mini-adventure is written, generally ready to go. Since I had to write up a couple villains for the occasion, I though it might be nice to share.
Weiss Fabrice – fab68 – lives in Strasbourg, which has existed between Germany and France for many years but is currently part of the former. He produces some really nice images. Enjoy.
Six guides to see your safely through the wilderness (or not!), listed in order of their “skill level” as a guide.
1. Percivius is a haughty, arrogant escaped slave who would like to believe himself a leader of men. He primarily worked as a clerk for his master. When his master expired one night from a heart attack, the manor slaves rose up, killed the guards and torched the manor, leaving Percivius out of a job (so to speak) and in just as much trouble as the others. He struck out into the greenwood and nearly died on more than one occasion, but finally made it over the mountains to a city-state where he was unknown. He now works as a wilderness guide, lecturing his charges and scoffing at every survival mistake they make along the way (and doing his best to explain away his own errors). Percivius is short and, thanks to his new life, well muscled and fit. He is balding (hiding it under a Phrygian cap), but still has a few platinum blond ringlets. He has beady eyes that suggest a life of reading by lamp light.
2. Ghadra is a sergeant in the local guard who works on the side as a guide through the wilderness. She makes patrols with her company of crossbowmen every two weeks, and tailor’s her journey to suit her employers. Ghadra is no woodsman, but she knows enough to get along. She primarily relies on strength of numbers and a knowledge of the terrain (the trails, the pitfalls, etc) to get from point A to B safely. If she perceives weakness on the part of her employers, she isn’t above a little brigandry and knows the best places to hide the bodies.
3. Northstarr is a barbarian who clings painfully to the image of the half-naked savage popularized in copper-dreadfuls throughout the Motherlands. A city boy, he set out to remake himself as a barbarian hero, dressing in a red kilt and mail shirt and carrying a bastard sword (the love of his life!). On his head he wears an ornate dragon helm that imposes a -1 penalty to hit on him in combat, but is suits him so he doesn’t really care. Northstarr is a competent woodsman, possessed of mighty thews and, though he adopts a Thulian accent and plays the strong, silent type, has an active and imaginative mind.
4. Fiona appears to be the ultimate guide – tall, fit, competent and self-confident, beautiful. Pity she’s actually a succubus who leads a party into the wilderness and then abandons them there, stealing away the most powerful warrior they have and leaving that warrior’s withered remains on the trail back to town as a taunt. She never appears in the same town twice – at least not without a couple hundred years in between appearances.
5. Mavewyn in an ex-soldier, a pioneer who fought in three major campaigns before retiring and setting up shop on the newly conquered frontier as a guide. Rugged and quiet, he has a good relationship with the barbarian and humanoid tribes in the area – they may not like the incursion into their homeland, but they know he’s a man of honor and they fear his bow and blade. He balks at taking adventurers into the wilderness who aren’t at least 4th level, for after all, if Gygax had intended 1st to 3rd level characters to explore the wild, wilderness rules would have appears in the Basic Set.
6. St. Eudoxius appears to people as a young man in a woolen tunic and blue cloak and carrying a crooked staff. The patron saint of homesteaders, he often appears to those who are lost or in dire straits in the middle of the night, holding a lantern (illuminates 120-foot diameter area as though it were daylight) in one hand and a brace of conies (or whatever game is most appropriate) in the other. After a quick repast (his water skin never seems to empty), he will head off into the night, beckoning people to follow him. Saint Eudoxius knows the location of all strongholds and freeholds in an area and his presence assures one a night of safety (though if he knows a lord or yeoman to be wicked, he will advise the adventurers to quickly be on their way the next morning). He accepts donations of gold that always appear in the nearest Lawful temple or shrine the next morning.
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Image from HERE
Every good blog / magazine / forum devoted to fantasy gaming needs to address alignment eventually, especially if it can find a way to annoy its readers in doing so. Today is the day for The Land of Nod …
And before I go any further, this entire blog post is declared Open Game Content.
Law Means Sacrifice
Let’s assume, for the moment, that human beings, and therefore characters in an RPG, have free will. They can choose to kill the goblin children or leave them alive, steal the sacred goblet or leave it alone, etc. Adhering to a code – call it Law or Good or Lawful Good or whatever – means choosing to sacrifice your freedom to do things that might seem tactically or strategically wise, or just emotionally satisfying, in deference to a higher authority. In AD&D there was a hint of this in terms of which alignments were allowed to use poison and flaming oil. Clearly, poisoning a weapon (especially when poison usually meant save or die) was tactically a smart thing to do for adventurers. Kill your opponents more quickly, save your hit points for later battles, collect more treasure and thus collect more XP. The paladin, however, chooses not to do such a thing – just isn’t cricket you know! So, the notion here is that characters who choose to obtain their XP the hard way receive “compensation” from the higher powers.
Assumptions
Besides the assumption of free will above, an alignment system like this one makes a couple other assumptions that probably make it anathema to many campaign worlds and play styles. Understand – I’m only proposing this as a notion of how an alignment system could be modeled, not how an alignment system should be modeled. Therefore, if you feel the need to comment something like “No, this system is wrong, alignment shouldn’t be handled this way at all”, save yourself the trouble – I already know.
Assumption #1 – The God/Goddess/Deities of Law created the universe. This isn’t too far afield for a fantasy game – many mythologies work on this concept. First their was chaos, then there were titans/giants who gave birth to the gods who destroyed their parents and used them for spare parts while creating the universe and setting up its laws physical and spiritual. If you’re working on a more temporal universe or a Lovecraftian universe, this alignment system is almost certainly not for you.
Assumption #2 – The good gods are doing their best to hold back or defeat the bad gods/demons and they reward mortals for toeing the line. This alignment system operates on the idea of XP rewards for good behavior, which means experience points don’t just represent training and skill, but also the blessings of higher powers. It also means there is a universal establishment of right and wrong in the campaign, and those who submit themselves to it gain a palpable benefit. If this does not fit with your or your player’s sensibilities about life or how things should operate in a campaign, then this system is probably not for you.
Virtue and Vice
Now that we have the assumptions out of the way, we get to the system. Since this is a blog for rules light, old school gaming, the system is simple and draws on an existing system in the game – XP bonuses. You can use this system alongside XP bonuses for high ability scores or have it replace the existing system as you like.
Before we get into the rewards, let’s discuss virtue. This article will present virtue on quasi-Abrahamic grounds, since the Abrahamic religions were kind enough to put down things like Commandments and Cardinal Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins in writing. The point here isn’t to promote one faith over another. Feel free to rewrite the commandments.
Using the medieval concept of the chain of being, I’m going to put down a few commandments for adventurers in an order based on how difficult these rules would make dungeon delving. Commandment 1 is the most difficult to keep, Commandment 10 the easiest. I am then going to write down three systems of rewarding player characters with XP bonuses based on how they interact with these commandments.
Ten Commandments for Adventurers
1. You shall not murder/kill
2. You shall not steal (even from evil temples, though feel free to destroy their idols)
3. You shall defend the innocent and helpless with your life
4. You shall donate a minimum of 10% of your acquired wealth to the poor / the temple / etc.
5. You shall not use wicked tactics in combat (i.e. poison, flaming oil)
6. You shall not lie
7. You shall share treasure equally with other adventurers
8. You shall obey legal authority anointed with legitimacy by Law
9. You do not have improper relations with tavern wenches / stable grooms / etc.
10. You shall only worship (i.e. tithe, sacrifice to, call on) Law
Note that you can interpret “Law” in the above commandments as The God of Law, Creator of the Universe or The Deities of Law, Creators of the Universe or however it makes sense in your campaign.
Reward System One – Humans are Basically Evil
System one establishes that human beings are basically wicked and incapable of following any of these rules, and therefore rewards adventurers for adhering to any of these commandments. After an adventure, the Referee should award a +3% bonus to earned XP for each commandment an adventurer obeyed, working up from #10. As soon as you come to a broken commandment, the accrual of bonus XP stops.
For example, Sir Rodd of Todd gets back to town after delving in the Caves of Chaos. During that foray, he never called on Neutral or Chaotic gods, had no improper relations with men or women, obeyed the castellan and paid his taxes, shared treasure equally with the other adventurers, but did tell a lie to an orc sentry. So, he managed to obey the first four commandments, and thus earns a +12% bonus to earned experience points on the adventure.
Reward System Two – Setting Saintly Standards
In system two, we divide the commandments into the Greater Commandments (1-5) and Lesser Commandments (6-10). This scheme works much as the first, except one starts with an XP penalty and gradually lessens the penalty before it becomes an XP bonus. So, the commandments now look like this …
1. You shall not murder/kill [+15%]
2. You shall not steal (even from evil temples, though feel free to destroy their idols) [+12%]
3. You shall defend the innocent and helpless with your life [+9%]
4. You shall donate a minimum of 10% of your acquired wealth to the poor / the temple / etc. [+6%]
5. You shall not use wicked tactics in combat (i.e. poison, flaming oil) [+3%]
6. You shall not lie [-3%]
7. You shall share treasure equally with other adventurers [-6%]
8. You shall obey legal authority anointed with legitimacy by Law [-9%]
9. You do not have improper relations with tavern wenches / stable grooms / etc. [-12%]
10. You shall only worship (i.e. tithe, sacrifice to, call on) Law [-15%]
With this scheme, you again look for the highest level of “goodness” you manage to achieve, and are rewarded accordingly. Using the above example of Sir Rodd, the best he manages to do is share treasure equally, so he suffers a 6% penalty to earned experience points.
Obviously, this represents a much more severe attitude by Law to vice and virtue, and chaotic types had better make sure they score lots of experience points with their evil, because the universe is going to be acting against them at every step of the way.
System Three – Karma
Our last system is a modification of system one. In this case, you receive a +3% bonus for each commandment you obey and a 3% penalty for each commandment you break. All commandments are considered equal in this scheme – there is no chain of commandments from low to high – every one kept is a bonus, every one broken is a penalty.
Let’s again look at Sir Rodd. In our first example, we know that he kept the first four commandments and then broke the fifth. Perhaps he also abstained from wicked tactics, gave 10% of his treasure to the poor and defended the innocent with his life. That would give him 7 commandments kept (+21% XP) and 3 broken (-9%), giving him a total XP bonus of +12%.
Conclusion
Obviously, this is not a system for everyone. Take it as nothing more as a notion that struck me one day about how one might design an alignment system based on deeds (i.e. what you do) rather than words (i.e. what alignment you profess). If you find something of value in it, feel free to play with it, modify it and use it. If you think it sucks, feel free to ignore it.
Just finished watching my first episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (note, the presence of a colon in the title does not necessarily mean its a White Wolf product). I love it – which means thanks to Netflix I’ve had the chance to become a fan of two great old TV series, Doctor Who being the other.
So, the first episode concerned an immortal or ghostly Jack the Ripper. For fun, here’s some stats for the ripper for both Swords and Wizardry and Mystery Men! …
JACK THE RIPPER
Hit Dice: 8 (60 hp)
Armor Class: 2 [17]
Attack: 1 weapon (1d8+2)
Save: 3
Special: +1 or better weapon to hit, immunity to cold, fire and poison, double damage from electricity, magic resistance (40%), spells
Move: 15
CL/XP: 12/2000
The Ripper may once have been a man, but long ago he slipped into legend as an immortal spirit of murder. He appears every few years in a different city, murders five women and announces his murders with rhyming letters sent to the authorities and then disappears. The Ripper can use the spells at etherealness, haste, jump and levitate at will. The Ripper consumes the souls of the women he kills (and only women). With each soul consumed, he gains one additional Hit Dice, six additional hit points and improves his Armor Class by one. Once five souls have been consumed, he is able to teleport to another city to continue his murder spree, his statistics being set back to those presented above.
Enymy does some nice stuff with a wild, somewhat weird, abstract style – not Erol Otus weird, in fact not very old school at all, but definitely high on the fun factor. Enjoy the images – and since they’re super hero centric, I’m throwing in some stats as well …
[alas, the image is gone, but I wanted the Spidey stats to remain]
Well, a couple days late – not too bad for a one man operation. NOD 7 is 80 pages and includes:
* St. Valentinus – The saint and his knightly order in NOD
* Antigoon, City of the Sun – A slice of the theatrical, mercantile city-state of Antigoon
* Dress to Impress – Giving characters a reason to take a bath and put on decent clothes
* Blackpoort, City of Thieves – A wicked little city on the shores of Blackmere
* Pandaemonium – Two demon lords for NOD
* Lyoness, the Gleaming City – A city-state of knights and dames
* Cyclopeans – New race/class for PARS FORTUNA plus a mini-dungeon, the Cyclopean Redoubt
* Phantastes – Three more chapters of this classic work of fantasy
I’m finally finished editing NOD 7 and should have it up for sale tomorrow. To celebrate, I figured I’d take a crack of statting up the villain that loomed largest in my pre-teen years …
Darth Vader
Adventurer Lvl 10
STR 10 | DEX 12 | CON 4 | INT 5 | WIL 6 | CHA 3
HP 75 | DC 20 | SPD 2 | XP 15,000 (70,000)
Powers: Catfall [P], Force Hand II [L], Haste [S], Jump [L], Mind Fog [L], Mind Reading [L], Precognition [L], Shield [P], Suggestion I [L], Super Dexterity (+6) [P], Telekinesis [P]
Gear: Lightsaber (sword + energy blade power and potent weapon), light armor (super strength +6), helm with respirator, black cloak
And since he’s right there in that image above, I might as well stat out the dark lord of Latveria as well.
Doctor Doom
Scientist Lvl 8, Sorcerer Lvl 8*
STR 14 | DEX 3 | CON 3 | INT 18 | WIL 5 | CHA 5
HP 43 | DC 25 | SPD 2 | XP 22,600 (70,000 XP)
Powers: Super Intelligence (+12) [P]
Armor Powers: Armor [P], Energy Ray (Electricity) [L], Force Missiles [P], Shield [P], Super Strength (+12) [P]
Sorcery Pool: 10,000 XP
Science Pool: 15,000 XP
Gear: Heavy armor (invested with several powers – see above), green hooded cloak
* Multi-classing isn’t baked into the MM! rules, but I figured they made sense with Victor. Essentially, I just split the XP remaining after powers between the two classes
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Darth Vader versus Doctor Doom by Jim Califiore (TM Marvel Comics & LucasFilm Ltd.)
They are the Herculoids!!
After statting out the Arabian Knights, the venemous pao requested the Herculoids. My love of the Herculoids and their bizarre world of Amzot is second to nobody’s, so here they are, built with 30,000 XP each …
ZANDOR
One of the best things about the Herculoids is that they don’t seem to have ever explained them – at least not in the old days. Here’s my take – Zandor was a brilliant scientist who wanted to get “back to nature”, doing so on the primitive planet of Amzot. He took along his wife and son and a few creatures (part of Project Herculoid) created in his laboratory. The Herculoids are equal parts nature and science. This is the best explanation I can come up with for a guy who lives in a tree yet clearly understand high technology, and who fights using a sling shot and exploding rocks – rocks which also seem to be produced by Tundro. Moreover, if the Herculoids are just alien animals from Amzot, why don’t we ever see any other of their kind roaming about?
Adventurer* Lvl 12
Str 4 | Dex 16 | Con 4 | Int 5 | Wil 4 | Cha 2
HP 64 | AC 16 | Spd 0 | XP 23,400
Powers: Heroism I-L, Super Dexterity (+6)-P
Gear: Shield, sling, 10 stones (treat as grenade)
* Okay, I just got through saying that I think Zandor is a scientist, and then I go and make him an “adventurer” instead of “scientist” – why? The scientist class in MM! is good for modeling characters that use lots of scientific gadgets, and often different gadgets in different adventures. Zandor doesn’t, so I’m making him a member of the adventurer class with scientist as his background/occupation.
DORNO (Sidekick of Zandor)
Adventurer Lvl 4
Str 4 | Dex 6 | Con 4 | Int 1 | Wil 2 | Cha 1
HP 32 | AC 11 | Spd 2 | XP 3,000
Powers: None
Gear: Sling, stones (treat as grenade)
IGOO, Rock Ape
Adventurer Lvl 9
Str 11 | Dex 4 | Con 11 | Int 1 | Wil 3 | Cha 3
HP 87 | AC 15 | Spd 2 | XP 12,400
Powers: Armor-P, Enlarge Person-L*, Stoneskin-P, Super Constitution (+6)-P, Super Strength (+6)-P
Gear: None
* Based on the fact that Igoo manages to be about twice the height of Zandor in some scenes and then about two or three times bigger in others. When presented with sloppy editing – make it a power!
TUNDRO
Adventurer Lvl 10
Str 12 | Dex 2 | Con 12 | Int 2 | Wil 5 | Cha 2
HP 92 | AC 14 | Spd 2 | XP 17,400
Powers: Armor-P, Elasticity (Legs)-L, Force Missile-P, Shield-P, Super Constitution (+6)-P, Super Strength (+6)-P
Gear: None
ZOK, Space Dragon
Adventurer Lvl 8
Str 9 | Dex 11 | Con 10 | Int 2 | Wil 2 | Cha 1
HP 66 | AC 17 | Spd 3 | XP 10,000
Powers: Armor-P, Energy Ray (4d6)-P, Fly-P, Super Constitution (+6)-P, Super Dexterity (+6)-P, Super Speed (+1)-P, Super Strength (+6)-P
Gear: None
GLOOP
Adventurer Lvl 5
Str 2 | Dex 17 | Con 4 | Int 2 | Wil 4 | Cha 3
HP 49 | AC 15 | Spd 2 | XP 5,400
Powers: Elasticity-P, Jump-L, Resist Energy (Electricity & Fire)-P, Super Dexterity (+6)-P
Gear: None
GLEEP
Adventurer Lvl 5
Str 1 | Dex 12 | Con 6 | Int 1 | Wil 5 | Cha 2
HP 43 | AC 14 | Spd 2 | XP 5,400
Powers: Elasticity-P, Jump-L, Resist Energy (Electricity & Fire)-P, Super Dexterity (+6)-P
Gear: None
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Image by Nelson Daniel
Two nice pieces of medieval art to choose from, though to be honest, I don’t this one is much of a contest …
Vote in the comments – Demons vs. Cityscape.
NOD 7 should be out February 14th – and if there’s somebody in your life who would actually want it for Valentine’s Day, you are probably a lucky gamer.
Contents should include …
Antigoon, City of the Sun
Blackpoort, City of Thieves
Lyonesse, the Gleaming City
Cyclopeans – new race/class for PARS FORTUNA + a mini-dungeon
Dress for Success – hygiene and costume in fantasy games
Order of the Flowery Skull – a religious order of bardic knights and their patron, St. Valentinus
Pandaemonium – two demon princes for your edification and enjoyment
Phantastes – another chapter or two
I’m thinking it will be in the neighborhood of 80 pages
Land of Nod 