Heartbreaker

Okay, I'm not a huge hockey fan...but man I can't believe we lost to the US. They had one helluva goalie though; good job this time guys, but we'll be back. Right now its 1- nothing for the Canadians against Germany.

Not Just Another +1 Sword

When I was young and playing (dm'ing actually) I became jaded very quickly to simple +1 weapons. I wanted my magic weapons to have more, do more, and be more. I blame part of this on my youth and the monty haul approach I had to the game when I was young; unlike some others,my small and I were completely self taught in D&D; and boy did we end up doing some pretty "bad" things rules wise with the game. Now though, being older, more experienced, and enjoying the feel of low magic adventure, I want each magical weapon I bring into the game to have some weight behind it; to give an impression of power and history, no matter if it is "just" a +1 weapon or not; and I think I've come up with a few ideas on how that I'd like to share.

My first thought is naming; I believe EVERY magical weapon in a campaign should have a name. I don't know about you, but as a player I'm certain as hell that I'm going to be more frightened if the Gulthor the evil Orc lord is growling at me in a low chuckling voice "Now fool its time for you to taste the cold touch of my blade Night Strike" as opposed to "Now fool its time for you to taste the cold touch of my +1 blade". Naming weapons is just more evocative, pure and simple.
Here's a list of some words I think would make cool sword names, the list is certainly not exhaustive (in fact as I'm writing this I can think of more) but here goes:



autumn horn shred

bane hug silver

bind ice sky

bite kill slay

blade lightning slice

blind luck smash

blood master split

bone metal spring

burst mountain squash

carve night star

claw omen star

cleave part steel

cloud pierce sting

conquer pulverize stone

crusher quelch strike

cutter quell summer

death quick sun

despair razor sweep

edge scratch swift

embrace sea thunder

envy seduction tooth

ever sever torment

fall shade wind

fire shadow winter

flame sharp wound

foe

god

gold

hack

hand
(Sorry about the formatting, copying tables into blogger is turning out to be more difficult then I had thought)

Looking at this list it occurs to me that I could try and create some random table to create two word weapon names. Some of the words are not meant to work alone of course, just like some verbs work better in their -er form " eg. bone pulverizer". Weapon names can be single words alone (ala Sting), double words (God's Hand ), or describe their function (Sea Spark the Flame Quelcher). I think the names should have some sort of air of mystery, or personality: calling the PC's new magical mace "Envy", for example, is going to lead to some interesting questions from the one who found it.

    Of course the names don't have to be in English, or "common". I personally like Old English words, there's something very direct and hard about them; instead of calling the battle axe "Death" call it ifgedæl, or forðweg. Both here and here are some useful Old English links, there's also old Norse, if you prefer. You get the idea; any old language will add some history and weight to your weapon naming. If you prefer something out of a true historical context there's this site that has a random name generator for many things, weapons included.

You may want to keep in mind whether or not your going to include more powerful weapons later in your campaign. It'd be more appropriate to keep name's like DemonSlayer for that +3 battleaxe +4 vs demons, and give the +1 sword Wolf's Tooth. Both are cool, but the first one does seem better suited for the more powerful weapon.

Names can give clues as to the weapons abilities, but that's not a necessity. Sometimes a little vagueness is a good thing, for example: Silver Bane could give a +2 vs lycanthropes, but who's to say for certain. I could keep going on about naming, but I think you get the idea. The main point is that we should not  discount the power of even a simple one word name to add a little something to your "plain old +1 weapons".

I think I'll add more to this topic, dealing with other ways to bring the magic back to magic weapons very soon.

Education is painful

So, I've learned two very important things today, the first is that I'm not twenty anymore, and can no longer teach grappling right after lifting weights..or is that I can't lift weights just before I hold a grappling class (either way my back hurts and I'm not happy).
But I've also learned there were some big mechanical differences between original d&d and the Moldvay set. You see last night I decided to buy the pdf of Micheal "Chgowiz" Shortens Swords and Wizardy's Reference Sheets. Well I was very pleased with the product, I felt it gave concise information in a useful format, and even gave intstructions on how to make a booklet form of the sheets (I guess I learned something new about my printer too). However when I crossed referenced the mechanic info on levels, spell progression, and turning values ( heck even item prices) I was struck with how much diference there was between oD&D and B/X D&D. I mean I should have been aware of the fact that there would be some differences yes, but I hadn't realized the extent. As a quick example take the cleric (please....ohh groan); in swords and wizardry ( and by extension oD&D I'm assuming) a 10th level cleric requires 225,000 exp, as opposed to B/X which requires 300,000. In swords and Wizardry the spells at 10th level are 3,3,3,3,3; while in B/X its 4,4,3,3,2; the same with turning in B/X they can destroy a vampire (I'm not sure I like this as a smart vampire makes a good NPC foe you just don't want to be obliterated so easily, in Swords and Wizardry ( and again by extension oD&D) you don't have this problem as they can only be TURNED on a 10 (on a d20 of course). This is only one example. Again I knew the mechanics were not exactly the same but I'm still surprised to see just how different they are. A general trend would show that characters progressed faster in terms of exp points in oD&D, maybe not time wise as it may have been harder to earn said experience points in the first place, while B/X D&D had slower progressions with more powerful changes at each new level. I wonder why that was?
Well any way the reference sheets are still good for me, but not quite as usefulr for my game as I thought, because Its going to be a combined Moldvay/Mentzer D&D game (I just hope these two aren't different mechanically.
Maybe I can find a way to create my own sheets...ummm food for thought.

My B2 Plot Hooks (thus far)

Well, I've been reading through B2 Keep on the Borderland, and trying to decide on some plot hooks to incorporate to keep it from being all hack'n slash. Some things that are needed are connections to the people in the keep, goals while in the caverns, chances for roleplaying and negotiation, the chance to overcome some tricks and traps, and finally some mystery to keep the players wanting to investigate these caverns. Here are some ideas I've gotten and decided to write down, so they don't get forgotten; they're not presented in any order, and they are pretty rough right now:

1) Once the characters have established themselves, and been introduced to the Castellan, a memeber of his family could go missing (kidnapped by the priests of Chaos). I'm picturing the Castellan as an older man (mid forties-fifties), a rough frontier type noble very common sense and straight forward (probably not favoured by any distant "court". His son a promising heir with an expectant wife (don't know why).

2) If the Orcs capture the characters in the net trap, they may try to use the characters to rescue their brethern from the goblin/hobgoblin alliance, or to kill the hired "Big Guns" aka the Ogre. I see the proposed warring groups as splitting between lines of those aligned with the priests of chaos and more independent races. One idea I've been toying with is that the goblins are natural beings of chaos who are subservient to the priests while the orcs and gnolls are magically created to be superior, but proved to unreliable and rebelled against their masters.

3)The jewel merchant may have a story of a trusted seller coming with a famed necklace who barely survived an attack from tiny dog faced demons known to lair at the foreboding caves.

4)The hermit may have been an apprentice of Zelligar the Unknown. I don't want to dismiss Search of the Unknown, and the hermit maybe a nice link between the two. Aswell the Zelligar, and Rogahn may have fought the Priests ( or worked with them). Of course there is nothing set in stone here, just an idea to link the two modules. It would mean looking at how to show signs of this link in the adventures' tower-cavern complex though.

6) The treacherous priest the treacherous priest, oh what to do with the treacherous priest.

Well these are just some hooks I thought of using, there are still more to come. I also want to flesh out the priests of chaos a little bit : why are they there, what are their goals, are they a death cult, do they serve some elder evil god, how prevalent or powerful are they? While I don't want to restrict myself too much in the beginning; some history here would help.
My goal here is to leave pausible plot hooks without forcing a railroad plot on people. I'd like to know what others think; are any of these good ideas, too railroady, am I over-thinking this ( okay I probably am over thinking this, but its fun!).
I know there is a vocal group out there who have gone away from total world creation before getting started (and I for one agree), however I'd like to have a little background history to work with, as opposed to make it all up on the fly.

Good News

Okay, so what happened right, why didn't I get a game going?
Well being in a predominatley French part of Canada has always proven to be a challenge on extra curriculars, bought especially in something like D&D which relies so heavily on verbal descriptions, and lets face it describing a detailed dungeon room is challenging enough in English, my French is just not good enough to make it work.
Recently though I had read a post from James raggi at LotFP describing how to get players, well the gist of the article was to tell me to get off my butt and ask, so I did just that. Since I had no takers from the letter I had posted at the game store, I just sucked it up and asked people at work. Low and behold I got four takers ( a couple I didn't think would) with a couple of other maybes. So I told them that I was going to set up a game for them after we move in a month (it's just too busy and chaotic in here right now).
My wife and I will have a new home and I'll be set up to host them in style (maybe with a little home baking as well). My question now is which module to introduce them to classic d&d with; my gut is saying B2 Keep on the Borderlands: I like to idea of starting them in the small keep and its combination of dungeon, town, and wilderness possibilities; with some work I can hopefully create backstories to open up the dungeon so its more that just exploring the dungeon for exploring's sake. I don't what railroady plots, but I feel that they'll want some goals to work towards, particularly in the first session. It's got to be something that will hook them in to want to play more (three of the four have never played before).
My only hesitation with B2 is it does seem to be combat focussed, with very little in the line of purpose (which I will have to create, and very few traps, there's just one I think). I think I can change things up to maybe add an extra danger or too; and maybe some connection with the evil priests in town (after all the hobgoblins have prisoners from town, and captive orcs...so maybe there's possibilties there as well).
So I'm not completely sold on B2 yet, but if anyone has any input about B2, or ideas for introducing new adult players into the game, let me know.

P.S. This is the first time I've created a link on blogger, It's supposed to be idiot proof, which sounds just about right for my level, so let's see if it worked.

Back after an insanely long layoff

Well color me embarrassed; I mean I didn't really plan to be away so long. I never planned on being a daily blogger or anything, but I mean 5 months, wow. Of course work does take its toll, just like for everyone else, but that's still no excuse. I could try to blame the fact that I had no real new rpg info to add; I still don't think that's reason enough. No the reason is, that only truly possible reason sheer laziness. Yep
You see part of the reason for doing this has been to not only record my attempt to play d&d again. but to also try and become more familiar with the technology of the medium. I teach at a school where computers have become highly prevalent, so I thought this would be a fun way to get better at some of the web technology being used, which means that I can't get lazy about doing my blog, because it could help me at my job (a little at least, I still believe my first responsibility as a teacher is to teach).
Of course, once the school year started this all went to the wayside, as not only do I teach, but I also coach some sports with the students after school. Plus not to get too personnel, but the wife and I have been busy since the summer house hunting (a none too easy task let me tell you).
So long story short (too late) life started to get in the way, but I'm sure I could have posted something if I hadn't been too lazy. That said though,there is some interesting information to share which I will get to very shortly

Update

Well I saw that at least one person read about my attempt to start playing again, so I felt I should update what has happened since my first post long ago. I did get a chance to dm during the summer. I was visiting Nova Scotia, and had a chance to start running B10 Night's dark terror.
I started everyone at 3rd level, b/c even though it's a basic game, it is a "higher level" basic game. Now let's see if I rememberwho played what; my brother played a thief who's name I can't remember, but he decided to personalize him a little with a very distinct accent, his girlfriend played an elf (she was actually more of an Ad&d elf as a multiclass elf/fighter), having been used to 4ed, I think she found the whole limited spells thing somewhat annoying, but she pulled off some amazing stat rolls that if I hadn't have seen them, I wouldn't have believed them. Their neighbor upstairs played a cleric dwarf; I don't even remember if they were allowed, but my #1 rule of the night was to have fun, and he really seemed to get into the concept. Lastly was the new convert, my brother-in-law John who had never played before, he decided on a fighter (good choice); Sorry that I can't remember their names, but this was back in July.
I rolled 2 random magic items each ( one to be a weapon), a piece of advice I took from Grognardia's blog was to give the weapons a name as opposed to just stats, so although they were only +1 weapons (except 1 which actually rolled a +3 yikes) it gave the weapons an air of mystery to them.
Well without going through a play by play, the group really seemed to get into the game, even trying to get more information on the horse trading before heading out. They had two main battles, an ambush on the ferry , as well as the major seige of the small settlement of Suksikyn. as well as a couple of smaller encounters along the way. My only regret was not having more time to go further with them, but we were already way past our bedtimes by the end.

Here are a few observations on my part after the game:

1) Although I've never had a need for miniatures, I've a take'em or leave'em attitude, I was glad that I had made a large table sized map for the seige, and it makes me wonder that if I do get a chance to play regularly, if I shouldn't invest in some sort of writable table map.

2) Playing on the fly has some challenges that I had forgotten about, like the need for excellent record keeping. I got by that night but future dming would need more organizing and better use of space. AND WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN

3) A dm screen would have been helpful to have all the info I needed in easy reach. (I know some would probably say they have all their info memorized, but again not having played in almost 15 yrs these are all new to me again.

4) Memorize the module, or at least have all major info rewritten. We were lucky that we ended were we had, because although I had read the whole thing before, I didn't have it memorized much past where we had stopped. I don't want to have to stop the action by reading ahead during play, so I'm going to have to try to make some sort of index notes for these things.

Even barring these hiccups I'd have to say the the night was a great success, There was real anxious tension during the seige; in fact I wasn't sure they'd make it through, but a lucky moral roll after defeating one of the goblin kings cut down the enemies numbers, and allowed them to make it through the night. Everybody enjoyed themselves, which is of course the most important thing, and I'm pretty sure I made a new convert out of John who's anxious to play again. My brother who's more of a 4ed player had a blast, and really enjoyed the free flow of the combatand rules. I made a special rule that night where very high rolls, and very low rolls (18+ and 3-) carried with them some effect either positive or negative which led to some pretty humours and annoying moments...I couldn't count the number of times John would curse over fumbling with his sword. It was an experiment which I'm not sure if I'd repeat only because a large number of low rolls slowed down the combat ( I tried to offset this by making the fumbles very colorful).

Now a question for anyone who may be reading this:
I was somewhat soft on character creation, allowing 4D6 with the lowest die dropped now I know many would groan at this, and I too wasn't sure but I went ahead anyway, don't ask me why because I'm not sure myself. What i want to ask, are there others out there who have been soft on character creation, what did you do, and what affect do you think it had? I think if I had been doing a campaign maybe I would have been stricter but for a one shot ...oh well... I didn't find it made any super characters...just no below average ones. Give me your thoughts on this.