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!