Questions, Updates & Cool Stuff

First of all, let me say that I'm so excited to see the magical number "100" to show up in my Followers bar!

And now for some serious shit about the New Blood-gers column. I'm trying to get two very cool bloggers to participate in a little Round Table in the style of the one that appeared on Beyond the Black Gate quite a few days ago – I really hope they're going to answer the call! Still, I have two new unpublished interviews to post, and some others that should arrive sooner or later. My question is this, should I post them daily? Weekly? Monthly? I'm thinking that if I post'em weekly, I can have a "blog free" day once in a while, which is not a bad thing at all. Be sure to post your own opinion in comments.

And now for a very exciting, upcoming product, check out the announcement of the new Exquisite Corpses edition by Lamentations of the Flame Princess here and there! I can't help but say that between Zak, Geoffrey and Stefan, Mr. Raggi has truly found the way to make all my dirty dreams come true! Definitely can't wait for these.

And finally, for some (Hopefully) Cool Stuff! The bad news is that I have completely lost interest in posting the game recap of my birthday party, because it's too boring. Seriously. The good news is that instead I'm gonna give you my notes from the session! As long as Austrodavicus proofreads them for me (you don't wanna read my crappy english, I guess.) So stay tuned, the good stuff is on the way.

Birthday Party Game Recap

FIRST you get a pic of me wearing most of the presents:

Front Me

Back Me

And yes I had a Black Cloak, Some Stupid Fake Glasses, a Scepter, a Crown and a home-made t-shirt of Zardoz (which I'm wearing right now.) Other presents included some home-made hydromel, a bottle of Trappist Beer and a bottle of Cider – I call this fucking loot!! Also, my girlfriend gave me a Mokone (or a very big moka that is not really a moka in that it is actually an espresso machine), and me myself presented me with a wonderful new mobile phone (hell yeah finally I will blog from the phone!) aaaand I'm planning to also present myself a copy of Vornheim City Kit – goo! And also a copy of Carcosa, when Jim'll finally manage to get it in print (MAAAN I'M DYING FOR THAT CRAZY BOOK!!) (YEAH I'M SCREAMING RIGHT TO YOUR FACE BUDDY GIVE IT UP NOOOOW!!!)

Ok, so that's me and my loot – MUHAUHAUHAUHAUHAUHA. Fine.

I had six players (four guys decided not to play but to get drunk laughing loudly – I was already drunk and, yeah maybe also something else that I'm not explaining to you) (to be honest the only non-drunk guy was my brother) (screw you brother! WTF?! Wasn't it supposed to be a party?!). Character creation took about 10 minutes: roll attributes, tell me about your attributes, I suggest a class for you and if you're fine it's okay, then you choose a race between the standard ones or something else (unfortunately, only my brother dared to play a Wookiee.) Then you have chainmail (if you are a warrior) or leather armor (if you're one of the sneaky types) or nothing at all (if you're a mage) and a two-handed weapon/weapon + shield/missile weapon of your own choice. Fine, now the guy playing the Dwarf Warrior has a two-handed double-headed battle axe and shuriken – that's so fucking punk yes. Also, my girlfriend made up Xeena, but unfortunately she didn't actually play (as she was too involved in getting drunk – my sweetie.) Recap from hereon in is in the form of the conversation as I recall it from saturday night.

Human Paladin, Human Magic-user, Dwarf Warrior, "alotofbeer"

DM: "So you start in this city named Ibkah. The place is particularly famous for its slave market, its sorcerer ruler and some other shit. You were told of the great possibility for adventure: to the east, there's an dense jungle which is said to contain a Black Ziggurat; to the west, there's a venomous swamp which is said to be the site of the temple of a truly powerful demon; and finally to the north there are some mountains and a village, and most merchants will be happy to hire you as mercenaries."
Barbarian: "Uh, Black Ziggurat – sounds groovy."
Paladin: "We go to the fucking Ziggurat!"
DM: "Fine, you walk for a couple of days following the river *check-check-check* and nothing relevant happens. The fourth day you sight a colossal Monolith. It looks like you're not alone: some figures are approaching the monolith too, but they are too distant to tell who they are."
Paladin: "I want to go closer and loudly say «HELLO THERE!»"
DM: "Still too distant – they can't hear you."
Paladin: "Ok so I go even closer."
DM: "As you approach them you see that they are wearing strange suits – blue, red and yellow. The one that looks like the leader (who is tall and blond) says something to one of the guys that looks somehow like an elf. «Who are these autochthonous Mr. Spock?»"
Paladin: "Did he actually say Spock?"
DM: "Yes, at least..."
Paladin: "...I stab him in the face!"
DM: "Oh - fine. Ok so this is combat: all of you tell me what your characters are doing."
Dwarf Warrior: "I shoot 'em with my shuriken!"
Half-orc Barbarian: "I charge!"
Hobbit Thief: "Can I hide?"
DM: "Of course you can! As a matter of fact, you're pretty good at hiding."
Hobbit Thief: "Oh! So I don't hide, I ultra-hide! And if someone dies I take his stuff."
DM: "Fine!"
Magic-user: "I cast Magic-missile!"
Wookiee Warrior: "I charge with my halberd!"
DM: "Ok, fine, let's check initiative. One of you guys rolls a regular die for your party, I roll one for mine, the highest attacks first."
*roll roll roll*
DM: "You have initiative. All of you attacking, roll the funky die and tell me what you hit – the MU only rolls a d6, for Magic-missile never misses, and the Thief is just sticking close."
*roll roll roll*
People: "We all hit Kirk."
DM: *shock* "Oh, so Kirk falls dead to the ground."
Thief: "I TAKE HIS STUFF!!"

To be continued...

Very First Impressions of Tonight's Birthday Party

• I got awesome presents!! Including a t-shirt of Zardoz +3 and a Cloak of Evil.
• The game was a blast!! The players eventually killed Spock, Kirk and another guy – only Bones escaped!
• They also fought a mutant T-rex.
• And had weird hallucinations in the Black Ziggurat...

Pics and recap ASAP!! Also, when I went gaming I had 77 followers, now I have 83 – so thank you to all the new guys I hope you're going to have nice time here!

Sorry for my speaking, I'm drunk and, actually completely drunk. YO

Goodnight Bad Morning

Yeah, I know all of you metalheads out there are going into nervous NERDRAGE seeing me posting such a video, but I love that song and it is really appropriate for7 how I feel this morning.

Today is Birthday Party Day, or B-Day. I should arrive at this moment having all the pretty stuff ready, and take the time to relax before the storm. On the contrary, I still have tons of things to do! In no particular order:

• Fix my girlfriend's Liquid (we had problems updating the firmware to 2.1 last night);
• Design and fill Black Ziggurat's Level 1;
• Design and fill Karzahd's Level 1;
• Design and fill Temple of the Toad Demon's Level 1;
• Go out and buy some cointreau and tequila (for margarita);
• Buy also nachos and cheddar (for chili nachos);
• Have a shower (I smell like some decomposed stuff.)

Shit, looks like tons of tons of things to do. I'm sorry I won't be able to update the blog that much today, although you can count on a very detailed play report with photos and the like for tomorrow. Until then, if you know of any mantras/prayers/rituals/ceremonies that would allow me to have a couple of additional hours/make everything go well, let me know. Black Ziggurat I'm coming!

Special Encounters in Map 01

Refer to this map. I've tried to follow the advice ChicagoWiz kindly left to me in the comments of this other post:

For instance, the wandering monster tables you mention. In opening up new areas, I don't do that so much. I just have a list of monsters that I'll use and I roll against generic tables like from the ref sheets or in OSRIC/DMG. Depending on that result, I'll check against the monsters I've specified. So if the result is dragon, I'll see what is dragon-like in my own list, or what is as strong as a dragon, and go from there.

As you will note, I went even a bit further. The following encounters share the same structure of the ones found in Carcosa or Planet Algol. Only, they aren't hex-fixed. Once I give this a try, I will let you know if/how it works.

Ibkah City Encounters

1. Òzmul The Mad sit in his sedan chair surrounded by his eunuch bodyguards and slave chicks.
2. Thief trying to jostle the characters.
3. Naked mad preacher predicting The Day of Judgment.
4. Cardinal Azor and his servants.
5. Pusher selling hallucinogen drugs, stimulants, opiates and such.
6. Slave market – very good prices (discount up to 40% on emasculated kleengons.)
7. Gambling house.
8. Kids playing (will offer aid to strangers in exchange for 1cp.)
9. Pimp offering pussies for a penny.
10. KORGOTH.

Jungle Encounters

1. Patrol of 2-12 cannibal aborigine hunters.
2. 1-4 alien, talking, albino baboons armed with laser weapons.
3. Vampire flowers.
4. Random colored lotus*.
5. Giant stone heads.
6. Ruins hunted by 1-6 radioactive ghouls lead by a ghast.
7. Patrol of 2-8 Mi-go scientists**.
8. Ooze/Mud/Pudding and the like.
9. Congo's giant killer gorillas.
10. Tropical downpour (lasts at least a week.)
11. Mutated T-Rex.
12. Decrepit robot*.

Plain Encounters

1. Caravan of merchants (may hire adventurers as mercenaries, see Ibkah description for daily fee.)
2. Tribe of 30-300 nomadic barbarians (30% women, kids and elderly*** unable to fight, at least one 7th level barbarian leader and some 3rd level barbarians lieutenants – all other are 1st/2nd level barbarians.)
3. 3-6 pterodactyls**** attack from the sky!
4. Strange pool of brackish water, possibly radioactive or otherwise venomous.
5. 1-4 pilgrims, heading either towards Ibkah or the Monastery of Renewed Pain (50-50.)
6. Game (boars, gazelles and such.)
7. Farmers from Tadék headed towards Ibkah's monthly market.
8. Mr. Spock, Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy and two other anonymous officers headed to the monolith (strange alien activity detected.) Will attack Kleengons on sight.

Mountain Encounters

1. 1-3 Shoggoths**.
2. Abandoned outpost of the Space Aliens* – defense systems still active. The outpost is haunted by a mad AI (type G treasure inside, plus artistic stuff and some laser weapons.)
3. Pterodactyl's**** nest (1-8 adults plus 2-24 chicks.)
4. Lair of one Ettin.
5. Snowstorm (lasts 3-6 hours.)
6. Spawn of Shub-Niggurath*.
7. 2-4 megalo-centipedes.
8. One poisonous snake.
9. 7-12 dire wolves lead by one worg.
10. One carrion crawler.
11. Decomposed human remains.
12. Lair of one huge scorpion.

Venomous Marsh Encounters

1. One Spawn of the Toad Demon.
2. 2-12 sub-humans (worshipers of the Toad Demon.)
3. One crocodile.
4. Water pool with black lotus on the surface, full of leeches.
5. Giant mutated snail (acid slime.)
6. Toxic fumes! Chose a random lotus* for effects.
7. Tribe of 5-100 troglodytes lead by one evil troglodyte 2nd level shaman (qv DMG pg 40.)
8. Ooze/Mud/Pudding and the like.
9. 2-8 radioactive ghouls.
10. 3-9 white lotus zombies (once adventurers.)

_____________________________________

*Stats from Carcosa.

**Stats from D&DG

***Kids over 7, young women and men below 45 are regular fighters, so this percentage only shows "unable to fight" types.

****Same stats as Pteranodons (see MM, Dinosaur.)

A Much More Yaqqothlian Map

Birthday Party is coming, and I'm still fucking around with GADD – sometimes I just hate myself. By the way, here's another hex-map, which should resemble the old one, although it looks much more Science Fantasy to me (and this is what this blog was meant to be about, right?) So I'll keep it. Can I key all this stuff in less than two days? Hell, no! But I'll do my best, starting from right now.

0202: The Black Ziggurat. Hidden in the deepest jungle and chocked full of giant mutated fungi lies a colossal obsidian ziggurat, so ancient that even legend forgot its existence. The Black Ziggurat is one of the aspects of the Blackest Tesserzigguract, and a door to all the worlds that host one. This Black Ziggurat, in particular, is also the tomb of the most powerful king of a lost Maya-like civilization (probably the same which built the Ruined City in hex 0403.)
0403: The Ruined City. Once known as Makapìchu, this ruined city now host a tribe of 400 cannibal aborigines. They speak their own, incomprehensible language (though a Magic-user would roughly understand what they say because of similarities with ancient, forbidden tomes of eldritch sorcery), and are ruled by The Superior Bone-cruncher, a Chaotic Human Evoker. They worship the Hungry Mother, a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth that dwells in a well in the center of the city, and feed her once a month with a female child.
0509: The City-state of Ibkah, ruled by Òzmul The Mad, also known as the Iridium Sorcerer. It's a port, featuring a flourishing slave trade, and one of the most famous Assassins Guild of all Yaqqothl. The inhabitants of Ibkah actively worship The Demon Lords of Sarnath, and the city hosts one of the most impressive temples of the cult, The Cathedral of St. Bérzul, lead by the self-proclamed Cardinal Azor. Azor is famous for his extreme positions and iron fist against heresy and the worshipping of false gods. Merchants and slavers are always in search of brave (and unscrupulous) adventurers to hire as mercenaries, the regular fee being 1gp per day for land travel, and 5sp per day for boat trips.
0603: Nest and hunting ground of a couple of mutated T-Rex. Their mutation consists of the fact that they are able to breath acid just like a Green Dragon (you don't want to try.) If stolen, their eggs can be used to produce great quantities of a powerful hallucinogen, or sold for the same reason (worth over 500gp each in Ibkah.)
0705: The Crystal Monolith. This weird monument is a sort of landing signal left by the Outer Ones, just in case of a trip back to Yaqqothl. It was made out of an alien, transparent, iridium gem, and holds no special powers. According to the rumors, it shows the way to the Black Ziggurat.
0907: The Monastery of Renewed Pain, ruled by Father Garxygyg. A group of about 100, mad monks live here, committed to prayer, copying old tomes of lost knowledge, cultivating the land and producing a fine malt beer. They are all devoted to the Demon Lords of Sarnath, and keep a vow of chastity.
1103: The Village of Tadék. Once an important commercial crossroad between Karzahd and Ibkah, nowadays a small, well-defended farm-community. The village is ruled by Sir Belziel, a Lawful Human Lord. The peasants avoid both the jungle and the mountains, for great perils lurk therein. The most profitable activity is farming, and also the caravans of merchants who cross the valley to the north. Thus, the valley is full of bandits (there's also a tribe of nomad barbarians, but they don't attack the caravans, although it is commonly believed that they are responsible of all the attacks.)
1203: The Fallen Gates of Karzhad. Once a fortress of the Mole-men, it was abandoned eons ago. Some says the Mole-men still live beneath the mountains, others that they dug too deep and too greedily and eventually awakened He Who Must Not Be Disturbed. Whichever way it went, during the curse of thousands of years many, nightmarish creatures have crawled into the darkness beneath, to avoid sunlight and look for easy prey to eat. None have dared to enter here from time immemorial.
1209: The Forgotten Temple of the Toad Demon. Hidden in the deepest recesses of the Venomous Marshes lies this temple, which once attracted thousands of faithful. During its decline, the most fervent believers refused to leave the cult, and over the course of hundreds of years evolved into primitive sub-humans, totally bound to the Toad Demon. They still celebrate obscene ceremonies and sacrifices in his name.

Encounters and more soon!

I Need Your Help, Again - Geomorphs Anyone?

Yo guyz! The Birthday Party is approaching and I still have tons of dungeons/levels to map. Therefore, I need to be pointed to some on-line tools that uses geomorphs; I remember one that allowed you to choose the sets (Dyson's and others) and eventually save the map? I don't need anything random, I need something that actually lets me choose each geomorph – or at least allows enough customization on randomness. I don't actually need anything that "fills" the dungeon for you, just the maps. If you have suggestions, it would be much appreciated! Rock on!

Lake Kalij, Part II

Part I.

The problem with using the 2-20 table for random encounters is that you come to have a great variety of encounters you may not want. Thus, I've implemented the following 2-12 table:

2. Very Rare
3. Rare
4. Uncommon
5. Uncommon
6. Common
7. Common
8. Common
9. Uncommon
10. Uncommon
11. Rare
12. Very Rare

This way, for those of you who love statistics, you have 36 possible dice combinations (6x6), of which 16 (5+6+5, roughly 45%) will result in Common encounters, 14 (3+4+4+3, roughly 38%) in Uncommon encounters, 4 (2+2, roughly 11%) in Rare encounters and 2 (1+1, roughly 6%) in Very Rare encounters. You may add more complexity by rolling 3d6 for each encounter (in that case curves are in the DMG, so it's even easier.)

Western Forest
2. Troll
3. Convoy
4. Patrol, orcs
5. Patrol, goblins
6. Boar
7. Squirrel
8. Wolf
9. Centipede, giant
10. Patrol, worg rider goblins
11. Worg
12. Patrol, Gruknartz

Plains
2. Centipede, megalo-
3. Wolf, dire
4. Boar
5. Mercenaries
6. Convoy
7. Bandits
8. Patrol, peasants of Stadt
9. Horse
10. Snake, poisonous
11. Worg
12. Pilgrim

Mountains
2. Carrion Crawler
3. Caveman
4. Snake, poisonous
5. Scorpion, huge
6. Orc
7. Ogre
8. Bugbear
9. Hobgoblin
10. Weasel
11. Gorgon
12. Ettin

Hills
2. Ettercap
3. Pilgrim
4. Snake, giant poisonous
5. Bandit
6. Skunk
7. Raven
8. Mule
9. Ghoul
10. Bear
11. Patrol, Baron Petrowitz Knights
12. Basilisk

Swamp
2. Spawn of the Toad Demon
3. Sub-human
4. Basilisk
5. Toad, giant
6. Centipede, huge
7. Flying, swarm
8. Crocodile
9. Snail, giant
10. Leech, giant
11. Ghoul
12. Ghast

Eastern Forest
2. Dryad
3. Ant, giant
4. Badger
5. Skeleton
6. Toad, giant
7. Squirrel
8. Wolf
9. Zombie
10. Leprechaun
11. Brownie
12. The Silent Watcher

Convoys are usually composed of 10-20 men-at-arms and 6 light horses. The merchant is demi-human only 1 in 6 (2-3 dwarf, 4 elf, 5 hobbit, 6 other). Most merchants (80%) sell slaves – male slaves are chained and must walk, women and children are transported in wagons. Other goods include jewels, weapons and armor, food and wine. Roll a d6 to determine destination: 1-4 Ibkah, 5 Stadt, 6 Castle Petrowitz/Broon.

Special Monsters are described in their respective one-page adventures.

Random Weather (Winter)
2. Snowstorm
3. Snow
4. Storm
5. Rain
6. Cloudy
7. Windy
8. Cloudy
9. Rain
10. Storm
11. Snow
12. Snowstorm

Random Weather (Autumn/Spring)
2. Storm
3. Rain
4. Rain
5. Cloudy
6. Windy
7. Sunny
8. Windy
9. Cloudy
10. Rain
11. Rain
12. Storm

Random Weather (Summer)
2. Hailstorm
3. Storm
4. Rain
5. Cloudy
6-8. Sunny
9. Cloudy
10. Rain
11. Storm
12. Hailstorm

Birthday Party House Rules, Final Draft

Ruleset: 3LBBs + Greyhawk.
Other Books on the Table: Player's Handbook*, Monster Manual**, DMG*** & Carcosa****.
Dice: 20-sided, 6-sided.
Abilities & Saving Throws: 4d6 drop the lowest, assign in order; no minimum for classes; easy peasy modifiers (i.e. >15 +1, <6 -1.) Single Saving Throws as per S&W (Thieves save like Magic-users.)
Classes: Fighter, Magic-user, Cleric or Thief. Sub-classes like Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Druid, Illusionist, Monk, Assassin et al are available on request.
Hit Points: 6 + Con mod. at first level, then 1d6 + Con mod. each new level; Fighters get 6 + 1d6 + Con mod. at first level, another d6 + Con mod. at second level and so on.
Races: Standard; those required by players (i.e. wookie) get one or two special abilities by DM's fiat.
Psionics? Maybe Carcosa ones.
Spell Casting: Magic-users memorize spells, then cast, then they can memorize again (even if just one turn has passed since they last memorized a spell.) Point is that to be able to do this, they have to carry their books around, and you know this may be very dangerous. Clerics do the same, but the divinity may not answer their call (i.e. you cure someone, than ask again for another cure and no one is listening to you, fucking jerk.) Point is divinities are just like Dungeon Masters: unpredictable. Clerics need no spellbook.
Equipment: basic class equipment is provided by the DM (i.e. armor and weapon for Fighters, weapon and spellbook for Magic-users, holy symbol, armor and weapon for Clerics, rope, armor and weapon for Rogues), then you get 1d6x10gp to buy whatever you want.
If you want do to something that is not in the rules and I really need to roll some dice rather than just issue a decree: You roll a d20, modified by one relevant ability, and I consult the following table – if you score higher, you succeed.

Difficult 9
Hard 12
Very Hard 15
Nearly Impossible 18
R'u Serious?! 21+

_____________________________
*Only for equipment.
**I'll use monster stats from Monster Manual. It's way easier to read.
***I'll use To Hit and Item Saving Throws from DMG.
****It's always cool to have Carcosa on the table, and I can also have spawns and droids and cool technological stuff on the spur of the moment. Yeah maybe also Cthulhu if I'm a bastard.

Lake Kalij, Part I

Part II.

First of all, this ain't no Grognardia! Just my last layout deviation. Don't worry, things may return to normal in a while as I change my mind again. I like to reskin The Grimoire once in a while. By the way...

Map 01

Introduction: I decided to run a very small sandbox for my birthday party. I think this is absolutely the best way to introduce the noobs to D & D, since it allows rooms for exploration and decisions. The map was, in some way, directly inspired by this map posted yesterday over at The Underdark Gazette. I wrote no introduction, and put my notes together in a way similar to the One Page Wilderness Template (although I didn't use the template itself.) Unfortunately my notes are in italian, so my pdf is not suitable for publication. Thus, I decided to report everything here for you to comment on.

HEX KEY
0208: The City-state of Ibkah, ruled by Ozmul The Mad, also known as the Iridium Sorcerer. It's a port, featuring a flourishing slave trade, and one of the most famous Assassins Guild of all Yaqqothl. Here lies the Cathedral of St. Berzul, where Cardinal Azor lives. The Cardinal is one of the most influential men of the Church, and it's said that he could be the next Pope. Azor is famous for his extreme positions and iron fist against heresy and the worshipping of false gods.
0306: A tribe of orcs and goblins ruled by an ogre known as Gruknartz The Harrier. They live in a complex of natural caves beneath a small hill in the wood. They train wargs, and usually plunder the caravans of merchants that cross the wood on the road from Ibkah and the Village of Stadt. Sir Belziel would pay for Gruknartz's head.
0405: The fortified Village of Stadt. Once an important commercial crossroad between Karzahd and Ibkah, nowadays a small, well-defended farm-community. The most profitable activity until a few years ago was hunting, but now going into the forest has become dangerous. The village is ruled by Sir Belziel, a retired adventurer.
0503: Karzahd, The Lost Fortress of the Grey Dwarves. The Fortress has been abandoned eons ago, so that not even the dwarves can recall where the entrance is. Some says the dwarves still live in beneath the mountains, others that they dug too dee[ and too greedily and eventually awakened He Who Must Not Be Disturbed. Indescribable treasures are said to lie beneath the mountain.
1205: The fortified Village of Broon, a small well-defended farm-community. They pay a tribute to The Lord of Castle Petrowitz in exchange for protection. The people of Broon love Lord Petrowitz, and actually put great trust in him. A High Druid secretly lives in this village, and celebrates the rites in a little clearing in the wood in hex 1305 (the clearing is half a day's walk from the village.) If Cardinal Azor gets to know about the druids, he would certainly send Brother Ruin to "purge" the inhabitants (i.e. burn the village and execute the Lord of the Castle.) For quite some time now, some disappearances have occured in the village, at a rate of about one every two months. The Wicked Witch of the Woods or The Dwellers of the Black Marshes are typically held responsible.
1206: Castle Petrowitz, ruled by Baron Petrowitz. The Baron sincerely cares for the inhabitants of Broon, and is really worried about the disappearances. What he doesn't know is that his eldest son Vlad is responsible. Seemingly sweet and gentle, Vlad is actually a sexual sadist and a cannibal. He firmly believes that the Demon Lords of Sarnath are commanding him to act this way. The Cardinal Azor knows that, and considers Vlad to be a living prophet.
1310: The Forgotten Temple of the Toad Demon. Hidden in the deepest recesses of the Black Marshes lies this temple, which once attracted thousands of faithful. When the Church began to Preach the Word of God, the temple was eventually left to its destiny. The most fervent believers refused to leave the cult, and during the course of a thousand years evolved into primitive sub-humans, totally bound to the Toad Demon. They still celebrate obscene ceremonies and sacrifices in his name.
1504: The Lair of the Wicked Witch. The Witch is not evil, but very powerful. Securing her friendship can be very useful, as she is a powerful diviner. Anyway, the Witch has to be defeated to earn her respect.

Dungeons uh uh!

I love dungeon design! It is by far The Reason why I love to DM. As the Birthday Party is approaching (one week, ugh!) I find myself in the middle of the quest to construct at least the first three levels of a simple megadungeon I may reuse in other campaigns (perhaps Yaqqothl?) Damn you The One Who Told Us Megadungeons Must Have Multiple Interlevel Connections! Sssshit. By the way, thanks to Gary G. and Kellri I'm keying the dungeon at the speed of light: it took me about a day to design the first level, and only an hour to fill its 40 rooms. Awesome.

I'll post some pictures and maybe also some notes ASAP. Fight on!

On the D&D Birthday Party Organization

I have received so much good advice from my last request, and I just want say: Thank You. Unfortunately, the "second DM" is not an option, because the only player with previous D&D experience is so excited about playing. By the way, I think that Alexey, Telecanter and Zak in particular hit the mark, so this is what I'm probably going to do:

• No pre-gen characters: when you join the party, you sit down for 10 minutes and roll up one or two characters (depending on how long you are willing to play). I will give standard equipment (armor/shield, weapon, class gear) and 1d6x10 gp. I would like to have the characters be able to return to the local shop any time they need some special equipment (i.e. ropes, poles, tent, bedroll, etc.) No need for special fantasy names: if you name your character Gianfranco, I'm fine.
• Marathon gaming: I'm going to allow 6 to 8 characters at a time, you can play until you lose your character(s) or someone else is willing to join the table. If you join the table during exploration, then you use the character of the player who is leaving the table (or a henchman, if his character is dead), and if you join the table during a break at the local safe-place (city or whatever), then you can use your own character.
• Have them wake up in a dungeon: That's a good point from Zak. Instead, I will have them wake up on The Isle of Dread right after a storm. I will locate a small keep for supplies and such, and add some encounters and a dungeon in the close surroundings.
• Girls: Err, don't know. If you are a girl, then I'll be scared to death or something. I'm fine with girls playing Call of Cthulhu (had an all girls party some years ago, we played Curse of Cthulhu and it was amazing, best party ever), but DnD, ugh. Maybe I can add some Pink Unicorns of Doom here and there...

How Do You Handle 13 Newbie Players?

It's exactly 14 days to my birthday party, and I still expect 13 players (only one of them has previous D&D experience, and we are going to have FIVE girls!) So, it's time to PANIC. Do you have some tips? Advice? Ritual for the occasion? I don't know, some kind of encounter I should really avoid or things like that. Because I really want every single person at the table to enjoy the experience. Seriously!

Do you have something like 20+ years of experience at the table, if so you HAVE to say something. Please. Especially the girls out there, can you hear me? Dungeonmum? I would normally cry for mum, but this...

AD&D Light

I pictured this scene at the upcoming Birthday Party in the Caves of Chaos:

DM (me): "OK, now you roll a d10."
Seven Players at the Table: "Roll a what?!"
DM: "Oh, yes, sorry. I mean the non-Platonic Solid."
Five Players at the Table: "Non-Platonic WHAT?!"

So far the use of variable weapon damage proves to be problematic. I really love polyhedral dice, and I think they are definitely a very important part of the experience, but I really want to reduce the difficulty as much as I can. I want them to arrive at the end of the session and say "What a crazy awesome game!" rather than "What disturbing mind-twisting fucking unplayable shit!". One of the things I like the most about Labyrinth Lord is its modularity. I think it is possible to allow some people playing race as class and other playing with race and class at your table. So I think I will buy an Advanced Edition Companion Hardcover (I bought the pdf when it came out, but I don't want to bring my macbook to the game table anymore), hoping it will be delivered on time. At worst, I will be using my lovely Player's Handbook. I think I'm done with this topic, so in the next few posts I will be discussing the adventure and the setting.

Birthday Party and Problem Solving

UZZAH! So far the very unexpected number of 11 guests out of 13 invited have pushed the "I'll be there" button on the Facebook page. I say unexpected because a) 7 of the 13 invited have no experience in roleplaying games at all (and two have played Call of Cthulhu but once, one has played Call of Cthulhu once and D&D in a solo-game with me twice, my brother used to play D&D with me when we were just kids, one has played but only a home brew rpg and regularly plays in a Play by Chat game, one used to play D&D but 3rd edition and never played with me) and b) none of them look like potential D&D players (sure, two of them study mathematics with me at university, and one of the girls studies physics, but you'd be surprised to see how many supposed geeky people are not that geeky at all). Also, none of them have experience with MMORPGs and any other variant form of RPG. They are, by the way, all avid players of Munchkin (and this is because of me).

I'm not scared by the potential amount of players (the more we are the more the awesome), neither by the fact that nearly a third of the group is composed of girls (girls play way better, you try) or by the fact that half the group is going to be composed by total noobs. But there's something that scares me: the one guy who used to play 3rd edition D&D (he said "Cool I haven't played for years I want smash some motherfucking goblins I want to play a Half-orc Barbarian yes kill'em all!" without breathing), he is a real enthusiast, although I know for sure he is not a rule lawyer – just a guy who happened to have some fun playing D&D.

Therefore, I have some concerns in running a straight Labyrinth Lord game, for I don't want to say to the only person at the table who happens to have a rough idea of the game we are about to play "Sorry, you can't play your Half-orc Barbarian because I haven't got it in my rulebook". Nor do I want to say to him "forget the saving throws and to hit as you remember them, because we will be playing something else". And definitely I'm not saying both the above things at the same time. So what to do? Going with 3rd edition looks difficult, for I don't want to have them run pre-generated characters (rolling up a character takes 5 minutes in Labyrinth Lord, and I know from previous experiences with noob gamers that rolling up the character is definitely a necessary step), and running 3rd edition without talents, skills and using first edition spells scares me, for I never tried such a thing. Still, the possibility of going completely authoritarian attracts me. Anyway, I have a couple of ideas ready to go, and perhaps I will have to reconsider them. I wanted:

1. Run Labyrinth Lord;
2. 4d6, drop the lowest, assign in order for abilities;
3. Non-variable weapon damage;
4. Standard equipment, but you get 1d6x10 gp;
5. No 1st level spell for Clerics, instead they can Cure Light Wounds;
6. No spells/day; instead, you memorize (reading or praying) a spell, cast it, then you can memorize (reading or praying) another (though it takes some time).

So far, the only possibility of solving this situation seems to be to adopt the Advanced Edition Companion and write up an easy peasy Barbarian class. Still, all the newbie players will have race as class. I will probably have to make some spell cards for the first level spells (for magic-users and elves), or something like that.

Uh oh...

...looks like I received multiple pics in reply to my request! I'm stumped, since Yesmar was fastest to reply, Carter shot me veeery many pics and, after I had already published the event on Facebook, even Archmage sent me a pic showing a d30 toe to toe with a d24 (hell, I didn't even considered the d24!) Therefore I have to choose who will receive the Goblin Drawing. I will send it as soon as I return home (I'm currently at the university, with no scanner) - and I still need to think of something to please the non-winners! By the way, thank you very much guys for having answered the call, you are totally awesome!

Also, Spawn stop trying summon me by rolling 23s on your d30s: you also need a pound of long pig meal to complete the ritual!

I Offer a Drawing for a Photo or HOW TO WIN A FREE GOBLIN DRAWING

Hi gentle readers. I was going to write up a Facebook event for my birthday party, and was undecided as to which picture to use. I was going to upload the cover of Keep on the Borderlands or maybe the one on the AD&D Player's Handbook, but still wasn't sure. Then I thought that a pic of a handful of dice would have been better, and found this over at Google Images:

Funny shaped dice!

And then I thought "Wouldn't it be funny if I was celebrating my 19th birthday? I should have a d30 to photograph with the number '23' on top, along with other funky dice!". The problem is that I have no d30s in my collection, for almost no one sells these in Italy, and I still haven't had the chance to buy one. So my request is, if you have a d30, shoot me a picture like the above one but with a d30 showing the number '23' in the foreground. You can send it to malsetto [at] gmail [dot] com.

In exchange, I offer you the drawing (by me of course) of a very rude goblin, for you to use in whatever module you are planning to write, release, publish... completely free.

PS: You can see the drawing I'm offering in this crappy picture:

A Really Rude Goblin folks!

Party in the Caves of Chaos

I have some musings to share about my upcoming D&D birthday marathon. First of all, I own a very worn and heavily used italian copy of Keep on the Borderlands, so much so that the maps are almost unusable. Therefore, I have to print new ones for the game. Fortunately though, google has plenty of good scans of The Keep and The Caves of Chaos, so I managed to find these:

The Caves of Chaos

Wilderness Map

So I'm right for the maps. I will, of course, use Labyrinth Lord to run the game. The only major variation to the rules will be non-variable weapon damage (this is because 99% of the possible players are total noobs, and I don't want them to be puzzled by alien concepts like the d12). Characters will have some standard equipment (magic-users are going to have a couple of magic items too), two cure potions each, enough money to hire some (abusable) henchmen and one random item from the wonderful Deck o' Stuff. Every player will be required to bring to the game a) at least one 6-sided die and b) paper and pencil. I don't expect all of them will bring that stuff with them, so I will buy some cheap pencils, a ream of crappy paper and 36 6-sided dice (I'm not going to spend more than 15€ or so on this). I guess I should have on hand a few pre-generated characters too. That said, it looks like I'll easily be ready within a couple of days. I'm also reading all about ChicagoWiz's awesome experience with the Caves of Chaos marathon, here and there.

I Want the Best Birthday Party of my Life

I hate birthday parties, and mine especially. Every year I swear to myself I won't do anything, and every year I end up having some kind of birthday party, and get bored to death. I think I'm basically a boring person: I don't like dancing, I don't like chatting, I don't give a fuck about football and I don't give a fuck about cars. I like to spend my free time listening to Carcass, watching bad zombie movies, reading novels and sometimes browsing my rpg manuals (Kult, Call of Cthulhu and the DMG topping my list).

A couple of years ago, me and my friends used to organize a party we called "Nerd-fest". The idea was simple: 12-hours playing Super Mario on a very old SNES, Risiko, Munchkin, D&D and any other board/roleplaying/video-game non stop. It was amazing. Unfortunately, my best friend decided that staying in touch with my ex (and eventually fucking her without being brave enough to tell me what was going on) was worth more than our friendship, so I left the group and we never had another "Nerd-fest". I don't really miss the group (I like it when things change, and I'm really happy now with my girlfriend and my new friends), but hell I miss the "Nerd-fest".

So, this morning I happened to think "Hey, it's 29 days to my birthday. I swear to god I'm not having a party this year." Then I started thinking about what I wanted to do on my birthday, and the only thing that jumped into my mind was D&D. Then I thought "Wouldn't it be sweet to have a 12-hour non-stop D&D game?" BANG!

"Either this kid has a light bulb up his butt or his colon has a great idea."

So that's what I will do: I will invite all of my friends to a 12-hour long Magical Mystery Tour of the Caves of K'os, with as much alcohol and junk food they can manage. In fact, I will cook my legendary GIANT BURGERS and hot chili nachos with cheese. I will also ask my girlfriend to make 2-3 liters of (Strawberry) Margaritas, and buy a couple of cases of cheap supermarket beer. Yes. I'm definitely going to have the best birthday party ever. Any suggestion? Don't say "no drunk D&D" please - it's gonna be a party after all!