There Is Nothing Extraneous in the Players Handbook

On my lengthy list of things to do is a post about why 1e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a good game for running a swashbuckling campaign.

But Zak got the gist of it already, so go read his post instead.

No. Appearing 30-500

I originally intended to name this blog 'No. Appearing: 30-500.'

The piratical theme was determined by a recently discovered N.C. Wyeth painting I used for the banner and the handle I adopted a few years back for my Obsidian Portal account, Black Vulmea, after the Robert E. Howard buccaneer. I wanted the blog name to have an old school vibe, so I flipped to the entry for Men in the 1e AD&D Monster Manual, to read what it said about Buccaneers.

And there was No. Appearing: 30-500.

I was honestly never a huge fan of any edition of D&D - I played it mostly because that was the game that most people played. That said, I enjoyed the process of making dungeons for the players and their characters to explore, which explains why I refereed far more than I played, and by all accounts I did at least an okay job of it.

My approach to creating a dungeon was heavily influenced by a couple of sources. First was the Temple of the Frog contained in the second OD&D supplement, Blackmoor. From the Temple of the Frog I gleaned the idea of the dungeon with a raison d'être, an active place with a purpose and functionality in the game-world beyond rooms with orcs and pies waiting for adventurers to arrive.

Second was Dave Trampier's "Wormy" cartoon, which inspired me to populate my dungeons with different monsters working together.

Third was the adventure The Lost Abbey of Calthonwey, which featured conflicting factions of monks and clerics locked in a timeless struggle with one another, as well as intra-factional power struggles, all of which clever adventurers could exploit.

The number appearing stat in the MM similarly inspired me in this vein. Number appearing "indicates a good average spread. This number is furnished as a guideline only, and it should be altered to suit the circumstances particular to any adventure as the need arises. It is not generally recommended for use in establishing the population of dungeon levels." Except that last part is exactly what I did: if I decided that a dungeon had goblins in it, then there might be forty to four hundred of the little buggers down there, with leaders and sub-chiefs and, if it was their lair, a chief and his bodyguards. What I didn't do was cram them all in one room, which seems to be the source of the admonition in the MM.

Within those goblins there would be factions. For every forty goblins there is a leader and four assistants - basically a platoon of goblins - and of course none of them liked each other, or trusted one another, so they were constantly trying to get the other guy's goblins to do the fighting while collecting more of the loot for themselves. One of the leaders might take to feeding his rivals' goblins to dire bear in a cavern near where his troops were positioned, while another might lure his rivals to a pit with ghouls in the bottom. And of course these platoon leaders were pawns in the bitter rivalry between the sub-chief and the chief of the tribe.

Number appearing suggests a living world to me.

This digression from discussing cape-and-sword roleplaying was inspired by Zak Smith's advice column the other day, which included the suggestion, "Life's too short for No. Appearing."

Now I'm willing to bet that Zak doesn't really care about number appearing except as it pertains to those who forget that it's "furnished as a guideline only, and it should be altered to suit the circumstances particular to any adventure as the need arises." Constraining yourself because 'the book sez so' is to miss part of what makes roleplaying games so insanely great.

So take your inspiration wherever you find it, but never fear altering it to suit.

And watch out for five hundred buccaneers on the horizon.

. . . seeks the love of . . .

I'm going to have a lot of fun with this.

A Day Late and a Peso Short

More like a few days late, actually - I claim a noob mulligan.

Zak has questions. I have answers.

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

The ring of trollish regeneration - it allowed the character wearing it to regenerate but turned the character into a troll.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Last month - our Flashing Blades campaign.

3. When was the last time you played?

Wednesday - also Flashing Blades.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

In the palace of the khan of Khiva lies Almace, the sword of the Archbishop Turpin. To return the legendary sword to France would earn the gratitude of both the king and the pope, but discovery in the city of Khiva means a horrible death to any infidel . . .

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Struggle to keep in peals of maniacal laughter.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Whatever's lying around the table, which is why I make sure there're vegetables.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

Only when I'm doing it right.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

Fighting a bravo, a lackey, and a trollop over my character's gambling winnings. My character managed to down the bravo with a dirty trick, then proceeded to nearly have his ass kicked by the trollop.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

I think my players take my setting a tad more seriously than I do. I like subtle whimsy, like the Swiss guard who only speaks German yet seems to understand every language spoken around him.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Goblins are Jawas.

Only they'll steal your baby out of its crib instead of your droid from the shed.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

Aside from my entire setting, which is 17th century Europe? The last thing I added to my campaign was stats for petards - the Renaissance version of the shaped-charge - and foussages - the Renaissance version of the improvised explosive device.

Clearly I feel a need to yell, 'BOOM!' coming on.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

One of the adventurers, a King's Musketeer, was trying to get some play from a Genoese lady-in-waiting, but he found her flirting with an officer from another regiment. She started egging the two characters into a duel. The other two players were giving the Musketeer's player a metric buttload of grief - 'She's so playing you. Don't be a fool." -  in and out of character. It sounded just like a bunch of friends at a bar on a Saturday night.

I should mention that the resulting duel ended with the adventurers exiled from Paris.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

The Nocturnals sourcebook for Mutants and Masterminds, just 'cause it's so cool.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

Living? Dan Brereton. Deceased? N.C Wyeth. Honorable mention? Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

One of the adventurers in our game is among the best swordsmen in France. I have only a handful of non-player characters in the setting who can hang with him in a duel.

But the first time a bravo pulled a pistol on him, the player's eyes widened and he sat back in his chair. His character may be Heaven's gift to fencing, but he ain't bullet-proof.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

Vault of the Drow - it's Dark Shadows crossed with Kingmaker. I love the politics of Erelhei-Cinlu, so the drow were constantly trying to manipulate the adventurers into helping them destroy their rivals.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

I want to backpack or paddle to some remote patch of wilderness and bust out a roleplaying game around the campfire, then pack or paddle a little further the next day and do it again.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

A few days ago I was thinking about an Arthurian horror game using Pendragon and Call of Cthulhu.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Clark Ashton Smith is probably not the first name that comes to mind when you think of swashbuckling adventure, but for my campaign I drew inspiration from the Averoigne stories for the remote province of Auvergne. I wanted the Auvergne of my setting to be like Appalachia, a place out of time with the rest of France, more medieval than modern, inhospitable and disturbing.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

My ideal player is The Brain: 'Gee, Brain, whaddya wanna do tonight?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the world!'

The adventure is what you do. So go do something. Preferably something cool.

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

What real life experiences haven't I used in game? My campaigns tend to be full of descriptions of places I've been, people I've known, and things I've done.

Perhaps the mose prevalent experiences are those I've racked up from years of backpacking, paddling, caving, and scuba diving. I've been fortunate enough to live, work, and play in some really beautiful, natural places, so I can draw from a lot of memories when describing the landscapes of my settings.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

A time-space distortion device that would give our whole group more free time to play.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

My kids. Right now 'the role game' is something Daddy does with his friends, and it involves the book with the Musketeers on the cover and the bag of cool dice.

Teach your children well, they say.