Game Viet Nam

Jennifer Steen interviewed me for one of her Jennisodes podcasts.  She was a lot of fun to talk to.  You can check the interview out here.

Nine days left in the fundraising period for my adventure.

Felipe Budinich's tromp l'oeil approach is a great break from stock fantasy art and the execution is great, too.  Like the witchy gal above, the connection to choosing a name for your PC is a little obscure, unless Felipe is attempting to comment on the strange metafictional nature of RPG characters.  Whether there's a message here or not, I'd love to see a whole game illustrated this way.

When I thunked up this contest I included a category for art appropriated from other sources so the non-drawing inclined could join in.  But I only got one entry, so hail the winner, my buddy Kirk.  Let's check out his submissions:
Calling attention to the airship lurking in the vehicle price list is a great idea.  Raise your hand if you missed that LotFP included airships as a canonical mode of transport?  I missed it.

If you're going to swipe your art, choosing a fun source like the Order of the Stick is aces in my book.

So, Kirk, congratulations on your victory by default, Heinz Doofensmirtz's favorite kind of victory.  Since Jonas selected the Boxed Set Bonanza, you may pick from one of the following grab bag prizes:


The Hardbound Hoard
The Minibox of Mystery
The Preposterous Miscellaneous


Pick one and I'll bring it to Wednesday night's game.

This delightful drawing, by Adam Thornton, should have been party of Wednesday's judging but got caught in the spam folder.  Sorry Adam!

To avoid this problem coming up in the other categories, you might want to send me a follow-up email if your name does not appear on this list: Kirk Hess, Craig Brasco, Felipe Budinich, Jennifer Weigel,   Will Routsalainen, Michael Brough, Brett, Scrap Pruncess.

If what I'm saying here makes sense, please consider pledging for the Broodmother Sky Fortress crowdsourcing campaign.

Have fun!  Win fabulous prizes!  Enjoy the respect of some guy and the folks who read his blog!

The Lamentations of the Reskinned Princess Art Fiasco Contest!


Step One: Go get the free 'no art' PDF version of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing: Grindhouse Edition Rules and Magic book.  Here's a direct link.

Step Two: Find either a single page or a two-page spread (even page left, odd page right) with some text and some empty space for art.

NOTE 1: You can't choose entirely blank pages or the pages that just say "Dwarf", "Elf", etc., but are otherwise blank.

Step Three: Get some art all up in there.  You can print, draw on it and send me the scanned results or do the whole thing on your computer.  You may do original work or appropriate some appropriate material.  Do not alter the text.

Step Four: Email me the results: jrients at the gmail to the dot com.  By doing so you are granting me the rights to post what you send here on the Gameblog.

Step Five: Get judged by me!  Things I will be looking at include: do I find it aesthetically pleasing?  Does the art fit the selected text?  Would substituting this stuff into the rulebook make LotFP author/publisher Jim Raggi's head asplode?

NOTE 2: I will be grading on a bit of a curve here: if you botched the placement of a graphic a bit or there's some jpeg fuzz I won't toss it in the bin if the idea is clever.

NOTE 3: The point is to produce alternatives to the horrific art in the full-fledged edition (as mocked here), not to emulate or outdo the real art.  I want to be amused or intrigued by your submission, not grossed out.

Step Six: Win a prize (or don't).  I will be awarding at least three prizes, a minimum of one in each judging category:  Amateur Original Art,  Amateur Appropriated Art, and Pro/Pro-Am Original Art.  Or as I like to call them, Crayon Doodle-Horrors, Sucking Up To Jeff Via Ripping Off Erol Otus, and Hey My Art Appears In Real RPG Books But I Like Prizes Too.


The prizes consist of grab-bag type gobs of gaming stuff, mailed to you by me.  (Yes, I will send the prizes to Foreignlandia.)  Here's what I've got so far:


The Boxed Set Bonanza - Four boxed sets and one hardbound book, all slightly used but in excellent shape, all for D&D type things.  Pick a set of rules and you could run a pretty wicked campaign using this stuff all together.  Since the box to hold all this crap is slightly to large, I've also thrown in like eight or nine trashy fantasy and sci-fi novels that I bought for a song at various secondhand joints and have never gotten around to reading.


The Hardbound Hoard - Four or five (I forget) hardbound D&D type books in great to near-mint condition.  There's rules, campaign materials and monsters.  Also, there's a boxed set of another entire RPG, because hey, why not.  Again, the padding consists of various old genre novels.


The Minibox of Mystery - This is a smaller box, so I put smaller stuff in it, i.e. digest sized.  There's a could three small but complete roleplaying games, a couple of wargamy things, some enigmatic cards, a few dice and even a couple of collectible items.  No novel since this box is so small.


What'll happen is that the Amateur Original Art winner will get first pick of the grabbags, the Amateur Appropriated Art winner will get second pick and the Pro will get third pick.  If I scrounge up some more boxes maybe I'll award some additional prizes.


NOTE 4:  This contest not associated with or approved by Jim Raggi.  Also, he is not allowed to enter this contest cause that would be weird.  Sorry, dude.

NOTE 5: All submissions must be in my mailbox by one week from today, so get crackin'!

"Wounds and Weeds: Plants that can help keep characters alive" by Kevin J. Anderson appeared in Dragon #82, February 1984 and was reprinted in one of the Best of collections.  It had some good ideas in it for using detailed herbalism in a D&D setting, but was just a bit too cumbersome for my tastes.  Here's my attempt to cut it down to a manageable size.

Adder's Tongue Tea - Doubles natural healing for the day consumed.  25gp buys enough to make into 20 cups of tea.

Birthwort Poultice - Grants a second saving throw against poisons if applied within one round, magic poisons and venom from weird or magical monsters excluded.  15gp per poultice.

Comfrey Root - Heals d4 damage to one wound if applied within one round. 10gp per root.

Dried Bogmoss - Doubles natural healing for up to d4 days. 10gp per bunch.

Garlic Juice - If applied bodily has a 50% chance of repelling insects.  Applied locally it heals one point per each insect sting or bite.  May ward off vampies.  7gp per vial.

Juniperberry Paste - Mash into mouth to grant d4-1 points to any character that is unconscious or at death's door, but further strenuous activity that day will do d4 more damage.  Elves are affected as if by a love/lust potion unless they save versus poison.  15gp per per dose, worth 10 times as much to some elves.

Kingscandle Flowers in Wine - A vial of this painkiller will remove 1 hit point of damage from d4 wounds.  8gp per vial.

Marshwort Leaf - Cures d3 damage, cuts and punctures only. 5gp per leaf.

Saintswort in Wine - Pour onto a single wound, which will be healed d4 points.  10gp per vial.

Sweetweed Poultice - Heals d2 damage on a burn-based wound. 5gp per poultice.

The prices are completely bogus, by the way.  Anderson didn't give any so I just plugged some half-assed numbers in there.  Assume they include a ridiculous mark-up for rude adventurers flush with cash.  Also, don't assume that all herbs are equally available everywhere.

To make some of these work hit points need to be tracked on a 'per wound' basis.  Here is how that would work.  Get out a separate scrap of paper and mark it up like so:

THORGAR'S HIT POINTS    MAX = 24

slashed by orc scimitar 4
punched by angry jester 2
torch to face 6

Now you know that Marshwort Leaf can help with the orc-inflicted cut an Sweetweed applied to the face will soothe what ails you.  Magical healing should probably be applied to one wound at a time.  If you heal a whole wound, any overage can be applied to the next one. Natural healing is distributed randomly.

A five point Cure Light Wounds might be shown like this:

THORGAR'S HIT POINTS    MAX = 24

slashed by orc scimitar 4
punched by angry jester 2 0
torch to face 6 3

Thorgar's player is obviously expecting that Marshwort to help with the orc-slash.

Optional Rule: Any single wound of six points or more is considered a severe wound and incapacitates the character for a -1 to-hit and saves.  The penalty is removed when the wound is reduced to 5 points or less.  That ought to give the players an additional complication to worry about when healing people.

For even more fun track the wounds received and healed on a single record you keep for an entire campaign.

First, a message from Barry Blatt:

Brief report from expedition 2 - look out for the giant parrots dive bombing camp at night though. There is a road out to the west, follow it south and there's a temple thingy, just play it cool and you'll be fine. Natives are stone age reptilians who speak 'Snakish', friendly enough.

Here's the updated map:

These aren't intended to be all used at the same time.  Today I'm just exploring the idea of adding additional stats to the traditional six.  Some of the mechanics below are aimed at LotFP.  Since that's what I'm running right now that's what I'm thinking about the most.

Perception

Additional: Roll Perception or less on d20 to avoid being caught flat-footed by an ambush.

Luck

I don't really like Luck as a stat, since I tend to think of Luck as entering the game when you roll the friggin' dice. But since it has a long pedigree going back to T&T, I thought I'd give it a try.

Social Status

STAT	Starting Clothes	Free Stuff	Contacts
3-5	pitiful beggar rags	choice of random disease or random bad limb	beggar, madman, leper
6-8	filthy peasant garb	dagger or woodaxe	blacksmith, hedge witch, poacher
9-12	respectable yeoman dress	longbow, quiver, 12 arrows	local priest, forester, publican
13-15	sturdy merchantwear	d6 x 10 extra starting gold	ship captain, magistrate, scribe
16-18	minor noble finery	sword, dagger, riding horse w/kit	mercenary captain, bishop, alchemist

Contacts: PCs have a total number of usuable contacts equal to 3+Cha modifier.  The listings of contacts for each social strata are meant to be suggestive.

Attack Skill

STAT	BAB, fighter	BAB, other
3-5	0	-1
6-8	+1	0
9-12	+2	+1
13-15	+3	+2
16-18	+4	+2

I was reading WFRP 1st edition for the first time this weekend, which uses Weapon Skill and Bow Skill as primary stats for characters rather than deriving them from other properties like class levels or hit dice.

Dodge

STAT	Unarmored AC
3-5	12
6-8	13
9-12	14
13-15	15
16-18	16

The Dodge stat is intended for genres where most people run around showing a lot skin: Barsoom, a campaign based on Frazetta paintings, etc.

Magic Aptitude

STAT	MU/Elf Spellcasting	MU/Elf Miscellaneous
3-5	Int roll to cast any spell above 1st level	Start with only one random spell in book
6-8	Int roll to cast any spell above 3rd level	Start with only two random spells in book
9-12	Int roll to cast any spell above 5th level	-
13-15	Int roll to cast any spell above 7th level	Free Detect Magic 1/day with Int roll
16-18	Int roll to cast any spell above 9th level	Free Read Magic & Detect Magic each 1/day with Int roll

The Int roll for Spellcasting applies to scrolls and devices as well as normal memorized spells.

Faith

STAT	Cleric/Paladin Spellcasting	Cleric/Paladin Miscellaneous
3-5	No duplicate spells in the same month.	Can�t cast spells while wounded or under any fear type effects.
6-8	No duplicate spells in the same week.	Can�t cast spells while under any fear type effects.
9-12	No duplicate spells in the same day.	-
13-15	One pair of duplicate spells per day.	Free Turn Undead 1/day.
16-18	Two pairs or one triplicate spell per day.	Free Turn Undead and one other random* spell 1/day.

The Spellcasting Column hear is meant to work with my No Double Memorization house rule.


*How random is that other random spell?  Gonzo version: any spell in game.  Non-gonzo version: Roll on highest level chart cleric can cast.  Sucky version: Random 1st level.

Here's the roster of the first expedition from the Furthest House of Ahaziel:

Moab the Malefactor - a rather dodgy dwarf and organizer of the party
Anak the Nephilim - a diabolic-looking elf
Nehi the Orange - a magic-user escaping persecution among the Nephites, where sorcery is illegal
Goliath the Lesser - a warrior with the proportional strength of his namesake, too bad he's only 5 feet tall

Hearing rumors of a ruined city along the shores of an inland sea to the north somewhere near a waterfall, the party set off in that direction from the Furthest House.  They returned four days later, delighted and rather surprised to be alive.  The wizard Nehi sports a strange double-line scar on the palm of his left hand, but other than that they seem intact.  They spent most of their time hacking their way through tall prairie grasses, but they did find the shores of a large body of fresh water.  You ever try hacking through prairie grass with a dwarf and a shrimpy fighter?  Half the party is invisible for much of the day.

Here's the updated map:


The northernmost "ruined city" icon is actually a small village of maybe iron age technology that has been partially burned down and completely abandoned, unless you count the numerous spiders as inhabitants.  This place does not seem to be the city of the rumors, as it is only a village and no waterfall was found nearby.

The tree two hexes south of that is a rather large, old walnut tree.  Not particularly exciting but there's a small stream of refreshing water nearby and it's on high enough ground to make a good landmark.  The crossed sabres icon is what the party presumes to be an old battlefield, as it's full of bones.  They didn't get too close to that.

The tower is an ancient structure constructed out of megalithic blocks joined without benefit of mortar.  In it the party encountered lethal vines, some sort of undead wielding a magic dagger and a big scary snake.  The latter did its level best to bite Moab right in his little dwarfy face.  And the party nearly encountered some sort of gigantic bird of prey that alighted (alit?) upon the top of the tower.  Later they found a full grown bull elk up there, picked clean of much of its meat.

Treasures brought back included 2 jaguar pelts and three jaguar skulls (earned the hard way, the third pelt was left behind because they hacked up that jaguar badly before it died), an enormous rack of antlers, five red and green feathers each 3' long, a crude copper bracelet with pale greenish-blue stones and a rather nice non-magical longsword with a silver-chased hilt done up with a fairly tasteful skull motif where the cross-guard meets the blade.  If anyone wants the later it's available for 200sp (that's 200gp if you come from a game with a gold standard).

All in all, I thought it was a pretty good start to the campaign.  Nobody struck it rich, but four first level characters got through four days of unforgiving wilderness trekking.  That's pretty impressive.  I'm still getting the hang of the differences between the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules and BX D&D, but hopefully I'll get better at that.

by DeviantArtist Stephen Daymond

I had an idea this morning for a short RPG campaign where the PCs are survivors of a stone age tribe broken up by some sort of disaster, like a bigass storm wrecking their camp and scattering the clan.  There's been a handful of caveman style RPGs over the years, and at least one GURPS supplement (GURPS Ice Age, IIRC) but I'm thinking Lamentations of the Flame Princess would get the job done in a suitably creeped up fashion with just a smidgeon of work.  One place that would need a little bit of thought is the Common Activities rules, a.k.a. the skill list.

Architecture - This is basically Find Traps/Find Sliding Walls/etc of the older versions.  While architecture as such probably hasn't been invented yet, similarly interesting environment factors can come into play, like figuring out if a cliff is too crumbly to climb safely.  Maybe call it Enviromental or something like that.

Bushcraft - I kinda want to split this into Hunting and Gathering, since I imagine those two activities taking a lot of time and being split up among different specialists in the tribe.

Climb - No change needed.

Languages - If you assume that language is a fairly new invention and that everyone speaks a slightly different dialect of the same ur-tongue then the LotFP "roll to understand the new guy" rules actually make more sense.  No change needed.

Open Doors - Since doors probably haven't been invented reskin as Feat of Strength or something like that.

Search - No change needed.

Sleight of Hand - No change needed, but with no pockets to pick this might not be the most useful skill to develop, though I'm sure some enterprising player can get some use out of it.

Sneak Attack - No change needed.

Stealth - No change needed.

Tinker - Locks don't exist yet and mechanically fiddly traps are probably rare as hen's teeth, but I like the idea of a skill that rates technological prowess.  Flintknapping, bowmaking, even basket-weaving could fall under this category.

A few other things in LotFp would need to be changed as well.  The MU would need to be modded to lose the books and lab.  How demihumans would fit into the scheme would need to be addressed.  How one earns XP in a world without an excess of hidden riches is another issue.

These freaks have been generated for use with the Summon spell from Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition, using the procedure on pages 143-148 of the Rules & Magic booklet.  The demons below should hopefully be enough to cover the ref's ass for a session or two should a PC start with Summon in their spellbook.

Fang-Fronded Frog, HD 0 (d6 hp), AC 12 (9[10]), 1 attack d6 damage, Move 120' (leap 150'), Morale 10, no additional powers

Prehensile Machine Seaweed, HD 0 (d6 hp), AC 12 (9[10]), 1 attack d6 damage, Move 120', Morale 10, no additional powers

Thorn-Winged Transparent-Feathered Canine with Incomplete Genitals, HD 1, AC 21 (0[19]), 1 attack d6 damage, Move 180', Morale 10, no additional powers

Seaweed with Running Teeth, HD 1, AC 12 (9[10]), 1 attack d6 damage, Move 120', Morale 10, Stone Shape at will

Gossamer-Eyed Slime with Adhesive Shell, HD 2, AC 17 (4[15]), 1 attack d6 damage, Move 60', Morale 10, immune to normal weapons, Phantasmal Force (at will, one at a time)

Excrement with Adhesive Feathers, HD 2, AC 12 (9[10]), 1 attack d6 damage, Move 120', Morale 10, Cloudkill (at will, one at a time), vulnerable to electricity (+1 damage per die)