Damn Lulu

 A while back Lulu updated their website.  It was a debacle.  I, and I believe others, had their libraries destroyed up.  I lost many of the PDFs I had acquired.  There is no record of the titles.  And I can't remember them. Now many of these were free but it is still frustrating.  Today I realized that some of the things I lost were the Labyrinth Lord version of Dave Bezio's Phoenix Barony setting.  This is extremely frustrating.  I do have the White Box version of Phoenix Barony itself but the LL version and it's supplements are no longer available.

Damn Lulu.

Apes Victorious

Goblinoid Games has released a Planet of the Apes type game called Apes Victorious.  It uses a system compatible with Labyrinth Lord and Starships & Spacemen.  You can play astronauts or apes or underdwellers.  You can pick the PDF up at Drivethru for less than $5.  Or, better yet if you are unsure about it, you can pick up the free, no-art version from Goblinoid's website.  Grab it here.

I Blame James Spahn

I blame +James Spahn.  James Spahn and his nifty little game White Star.  It's all his fault.  See, I picked up White Star in March.  I read through it and really liked it.  It did science fiction in the simple way that I have grown to appreciate as I've grown older.  Yeah, it has classes and levels and such but I'm ok with that.  I like that it has ascending armor class and the base hit bonus.  That makes the game even easier.  No need to look up numbers on a chart.  Unified savings throw with bonuses under certain circumstances?  Nice.  And it is easy to play around with and to modify it.  For example, White Star has a very Star Wars vibe built right into it.  Star Wars not your thing?  That's cool.  Various supplements can steer you in a different direction.  Like Star Trek?  Pick up Five Year Mission and you are off and running with, dare I say it, years of gaming goodness.  How about pulp sci-fi based in the Solar System?  Have Death Ray, Will Travel is your supplement.

Great.  Cool game.  Flexible.  No problem.

So time passes and I decide to take a look at the game White Star is based on, Swords & Wizardry White Box rules.  I looked it over and thought it was neat how James modified the base rules and turned them into a science fiction game.  What a flexible set of rules!  Now here's where the problem starts.  You see, I have gamer ADD.  A serious case.  I was just looking at my order history for DriveThru.  I have placed 597 orders since 2008.  I kid you not.  Granted, the vast majority of the items I've acquired are freebies but I've still dropped a goodly amount of cash there.  Way too much if you ask my wife.  And that doesn't count the smaller number of games from LULU or the free ones I've grabbed from the internet.

So what's the problem?  White Box is made to be modified and tinkered with.  So now I want to modify and tinker with it.  You see, I was happy with B/X supplemented by Labyrinth Lord material.  A nice simple game that covered my D&D needs without any fuss or muss or extra complexity. I had been essentially ignoring Swords & Wizardry because I didn't need it.  B/X had me covered.  But then I started thinking about running a Viking campaign.  Well, Savage Worlds can do that easily.  But what if I wanted to use a D&D type game?  B/X could do it with a bunch of modifications.  Then I ran across a site that had already modified both Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry for Vikings.  You can find both at the Sword +1 blog in the links section to the right the page.  This and White Star made me realize just what a superb toolbox White Box is.

Now all I want to do is tear it down and rebuild it to meet my own vision and specifications.  Vikings?  I want subtle, low level magic that is out of the hands of the average PC.   Perhaps illusion based stuff.  So, in goes the npc Illusionist class.  I need to research magic in Norse culture more but I further modify things if I want to.  Demi-human PCs?  Nope.  Gone.  Elves and dwarves are things of legend and characters will be lucky to see them once or twice in their life.  Mike at Sword +1 has Berserker, Warrior and Thane classes.  I want a Skald class too.  Like a Bard but with no magic.  The music will work like a charm spell.  I'm sure I can find that somewhere or make my own.  And so on.

Now, I could take Barbarians of Lemuria and remove or tweak a few careers and change the setting.  Easy peasy.  Or I could put in a bit more work and use Savage Worlds.  No, not me.  I essentially want to make my own neo/retroclone based on White Box.  A project that if I get started I surely will not finish.  A project that will suck up what little free time I have.  A project that will probably leave me frustrated in the end.  And half way through I'll have another idea and want to work on THAT one.

So,  I blame James Spahn.  He showed me what was possible with Swords & Wizardry White Box and now my life is going to be very complicated..

So, imagine me standing on a rocky outcropping high above the land, raising my fist to the the heavens and shouting:  "SPAAAAAAAAHN!!!!"

Strange Stones

I ran across a blog today that, somehow, I haven't seen before. It is called Strange Stones and covers BoL/BotA, Traveller, and Labyrinth Lord amongst others. One cool feature is a Barbarians of Lemuria Meso-American type setting with bestiary. Take a look.

Clerics: B/X or LL?

Our old-school-type game of choice is Labyrinth Lord. In LL, clerics get a spell at first level. B/X D&D makes clerics wait until the second level before they get their first spell.

What is your preference? Comments are welcome but I've also put a poll up in the side-bar.

Labyrinth Lord and a World Building Exercise

So, my son's interest has wandered back to Labyrinth Lord, which is where we started our RPG journey.

He told me he wanted to play a dwarf. I had him roll six times and apply the results as he wished. This way he was assured a dwarf. A bit latter he told me he wanted the dwarf to be a prince and wield a bone long sword. He was worried about rust monsters, he explained. I could see making his character a prince but I had reservations about the bone sword. I thought that in order to be a sturdy sword the bone sword, or 'Bone Sword' as I started thinking of it, should be a magic sword. And I wasn't going to give a starting character a magic sword. So I decided he needed to go on a quest for it. But why? I determined that I would have to work it into the background of the campaign world somehow. Then I realized that I needed to create a campaign world, which I haven't done in 30 years.

And here is the result:

From the Granite Shield Mountains in the East to the Greycap Ocean in the West, the land of Kalonin was peaceful and happy. The Three People lived in harmony ruled by the Council of Three Kings, a dwarf, an elf and a human. They reigned with the assistance and advice of the Gathering, an assembly comprised of representatives of each of the Three People. The land was prosperous and few knew want. But this golden age was fated to end. Dark forces began to gather in the wastelands beyond the Granite Shield Mountains. A Necromancer of enormous power began to weld the fractious Orcs, Goblins and other vile creatures into a powerful army. To prepare his way, the Necromancer sent twisted humans, dark elves and greedy dwarves into Kalonin to spread the tendrils of Chaos. The agents did their job well. Soon dissension and distrust began to split the peoples and the Kingdom. The evil ones preyed on the weak and greedy of all the races. The land was on the verge of civil war when the Necromancer struck. The hordes of Chaos poured through the mountains and into Kalonin. The battles swept across the verdant land leaving destruction, ruin and anarchy in their wake. The armies of the Three Peoples fought valiantly but, because of the dissension, separately. The lack of unity hampered the defence efforts and prolonged the war. Both the Dwarf king and the king of the Humans fell in battle. The Elf king also fell fighting the Necromancer but with his dying breath he unleashed a powerful sorcery which allow him to vanquish the evil entity with the Bone Sword. Without the Necromancer's leadership, the remainder of the forces of Chaos were destroyed or dispersed.

Kalonin was devastated. The end of the war saw none of the breaches between the Three Peoples heal. Each group shunned the others. The Elves disappeared into the Great Northern Forest and the Dwarves withdrew into the valleys and tunnels of the Granite Shield Mountains. The Humans had been the most populous and had suffered the greatest loses. To this day they have not been able to refill the land and many abandoned towns and other ruins dot the countryside. There is still a Human king but his power is much diminished. He controls nothing beyond his shrunken capitol. The rest of the land is ruled by local lords and other strongmen. The Dwarf king still rules but the Elves did not replace their fallen leader and live in independent bands in their forest fastness.

And this is the background for my son's character, who as yet is unnamed. The character's father is the son of the Dwarf king's youngest son. Thus he is a prince but not a powerful one. His father has been charged with running an isolated iron mine. The work is important but not glamorous. A large band of orcs attack the mine, a prelude to a larger invasion. The Dwarves fight valiantly, but in the end, futility. Just before leading the remaining warriors in a final stand, the character's father tasks him with taking the news to the Dwarf king. He also states that he believes the Necromancer is somehow behind the attack. It is a harrowing journey but the character makes it and delivers the message. His grandfather, the king, is greatly troubled. He tells his grandson the story of the Bone Sword and that the sword disappeared after the final battle and no one knows its location. Then he sends him on a quest to find the sword.

I have a map of the kingdom in mind and will post it if I can create decent rendition of it.

What do you think?

Gamer ADD and Chaos

It turns out my son has an advanced case of gamer add. Seriously. We've played a total of about six sessions of Labyrinth Lord with three different characters in two different worlds. I'm doing everything on the fly and I haven't gm'd in years and years. He is having loads of fun but we haven't developed either of the worlds very much. Well, one of the settings is Arthurian. He read several King Arthur stories and wanted to play Gawain. He rolled up a first level fighter and away we went. Gawain was still a squire and he was ordered to escort his lord's niece back to her home, two days ride away. Well they just happened to camp near an old barrow which, unbeknownst to the characters, had become inhabited by a small roving band of morlocks. They abduct the girl from the camp and adventure ensued.

This brings me to the second portion of the post title. Chaos. The third character he created is a chaotic aligned elf. That is what he wanted. I don't know where he got the idea because I don't think he knows about Drow. I grabbed a free one-page dungeon off the web and away we went. The one-page is Goblin Gully by Dyson Logos. We've done two half-hour sessions and once again, he's loving it. Ok. He's hacking and slashing goblins. He stated that any wounded goblins he would kill. That's what chaotic creatures do, he explained. He understands alignment and such. Great. But later he secretly informed me that once they completed the adventure he was going to back stab his younger brother's character and take all of his treasure! What have I created! =) (Apparently a dedicated role-player. I told him that the gods and the game master would not be pleased. Hopefully I've squelched the idea.)

Kellach

This is the character my son created for Labyrinth Lord. He named the character after one of the protagonists in the Knights of the Silver Dragon series. In the books, Kellach is an apprentice wizard who has a series of adventures with his younger brother and one of their friends. One thing my son quickly recognized was that, apparently, Kellach wasn't a 1st level wizard. He seemed to have more than one spell at his disposal at one time.

Kellach
1st level Wizard
Alignment - Neutral
HP 5 AC 8

St 8 In 16 W 15 DX 13 Con 15 Ch 13

Spell book:
1st - Magic Missile, Protection from Evil, Read Magic
2nd - Arcane Lock

Languages - Common, Gnoll, Goblin

A Bunch of Equipment that my son agonized over.

Starting Labyrinth Lord

So, when my 9 year old, who I shall refer to as Aha, said he would like to play a game like the books he was reading I said, "Great!" I had recently printed Labyrinth Lord and read it. It is so simple. I did not play the Moldvay version of Basic D&D. I started with Holmes and plunged straight into AD&D shortly thereafter. I really like the simplicity of LL. My tired brain absorbed the rules easily. Something I don't know if it is capable of right now with more complex games. I read a lot of discussion/controversy about race as class. Even though they were separate throughout my playing time it doesn't bother me. I don't know why but have discovered I don't care I don't know why.

So, Aha wants to play a young wizard like one of the protagonists of The Knights of the Silver Dragon. So I explain attributes to him and how they effect the game. He decided to read about each of the attributes anyway. Then we set about rolling up a character. Since this is his first time and he wants to play a wizard I have him roll 4d6, discard the lowest and assign as he likes. He assigns his highest to intelligence and we are off. It actually took us two evenings to finish the character because Aha would deliberate and read some of the book before each decision. Between the two sessions he read the spell lists. Not just the 1st level spells but all of them and he still deliberated for awhile. He then poured over the equipment list and agonized over what to buy. I didn't worry about encumbrance. That can come later. So we finished it and had quite a bit of fun with the process. We planned to start the next time we had the opportunity.

Then my five year old decided he wanted to play.