A Hobbit Inspired Campaign

I've mentioned before my love of Tolkien's The Hobbit.  I really, really like it.  My fondness for it has only been growing over the years.  On the other hand, I don't much care for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  But that's another story.  (Oddly enough, though, I really like The Lord of the Rings movies but not The Hobbit movies.)

Two of my favorite blog posts out there on the gaming blogs are "The Hobbit 1937" at The Hydra's Grotto and "1937 Hobbit as a Setting" at Rise Up Comus.  Both of these riff on using The Hobbit as it was originally written as a campaign setting.  The current version of The Hobbit was modified when The Lord of the Rings was publish in the 1950s to fit better the series' lore.  So the posts ask, what would a campaign be like with just the information available in The Hobbit, as originally published, but with none of the later lore added by The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's other works?

These two blog posts really make me want to play/run a campaign in that world.  It's essentially a points of light campaign, which I find fascinating.  Though it can be a harsh and grim world it also has a touches of fairytale whimsy.  And it shows how a small group of people can have an oversized effect on the world.

While I'm interested in playing in the setting itself or a close analog, I'm not really interested in using any of the of the licensed games.  Except, perhaps, The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (LOR), a simple game released in the early 90s by Ice Crown Enterprises as an introduction to their Middle Earth Role Playing game.  But I'll talk about this game in another post.

I can think of several rulesets that I could use for this.  TSR D&D and OSR rulesets jump to mind immediately because that is what I'm most familiar with.

The first for me, of course, is B/X.  With the exception of the cleric it fits quite nicely.  The demi-human race-as-class fits the archetypes well in my mind and the other classes are spot on.  As for the cleric, many people online have suggested that the cleric's magic actually fits Tolkien elves better than magic-user spells.  I will take their word for it because as much as I like The Hobbit I am not a Tolkien scholar in any way, shape or form.  I could do away with the cleric altogether and have elves use clerical magic instead.  I just purchased BX Options: Class Builder by Erin Smale (aka The Welsh Piper) so I could just build the class from the ground up so it would be customized to my liking and have different x.p. requirements suitable for their modified powers.

The second to come to mind is The Hero's Journey by James Spahn.  Either the First or Second Edition would work fine.  The First Edition adheres more closely to its White Box roots.  It does add more classes, modifies how attributes are generated and actually adds two attributes, luck and appearance.  It also uses only shields and dexterity to determine armor class and has armor reduce damage.  The Second Edition makes many more changes to better match Mr. Spahn's vision.  I wrote about it in more detail in this post.  I like both editions but the First Edition draws me to it more at this point.  So if I were to go with The Hero's Journey I would use First Edition suitably modified.  I would throw out some classes and a race to make it fit my vision better.  (Buh-bye Bard, buh-bye Jester, etc.)  And the cleric would have to be dealt with again.

I could go with White Box with added classes and options from Mr. Spahn's White Box Omnibus and White Box Compendium.  This would essentially be taking the building blocks that he used to make The Hero's Journey and brew up my own version to try to more exactly meet my vision.  I would certainly add Greenleaf Elves, rangers and druids and perhaps the barbarian.  I would also probably add the druid spell list from White Box Expanded Lore by Simon "Noobirus" Piecha.  A little more time consuming but the process can be fun in and of itself.

Then there are several other noncommercial OSR games that are aimed at a LotRs feel.  There is Drums in the Deep, which is a modification meant for Holmes Basic.  There is also Balrogs & Bagginses.  B&B states you will need a version of Basic or AD&D to use it.  Whereas Drums in the Deep is 11 pages, B&B clocks in at 58.  I haven't read these in quite a while so I'm not going to say much about them at this time.

I think I'll wrap this post up for now and talk about non-OSR options next time.

The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying Second Edition

I really liked The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying by James Spahn so I helped kickstart the Second Edition.  I've got the PDFs and hard copies of the core books in softback now and I'm going to finally create my first character.

The first step is to choose your lineage.  There are six:  Changeling, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, and Human.  Though I usually like to play humans I'm going to choose Dwarf in order to illustrate some of the differences between character creation in The Hero's Journey and it's progenitor White Box.

So the next step is to roll your attributes.  First, the attributes have different names and somewhat different functions.  Second, though Humans rolls 3d6 down the line, the other lineages roll different combos to better reflect their natural abilities.

Might    (2d6+6)     17

Finesse  (2d6+1)    10

Resolve (2d6+6)    15

Insight   (3d6)        10

Bearing  (2d6+1)   11

Weal      (3d6)        8

Next you choose an Archetype.  There are eight of them, including standards such as Warrior, Wizard, Bard and Ranger.  Humans can achieve the 10th level in any of the Archetypes, while other lineages can only reach the 10th in one and are limited in others.  Dwarves can reach the 10th level as Warriors so that's what I will go with.  Since Warriors need a minimum Might of 8 the character easily qualifies.

Now the character receives some advantages for being a Warrior Dwarf.  As a Dwarf he can wield axes and hammers even if his Archetype limits it, he has an eye for the value of gold and gems, he is naturally resistant to damage, has a good sense of direction when underground, is resistent to magic and poison and has dark vision.  As a Warrior he can use any weapon or armor, strike extra blows against certain weaker foes, can use Shields Shall Be Splintered, rally comrades, extra damage using two handed weapons and specialize in a particular weapon.

Next you acquire some equipment for your character.  To do that you have to determine your background.  Your background determines your starting money and sometimes extra pieces of equipment.  So I roll a d100 and come up with a 95 which is a Weaponsmith.  I start with a long blade or battleaxe, of course I'll pick a battleaxe, and 3d6x10 gold.  I roll a 7 for 70 gp.   

I'm going to skip buying equipment but a note on armor and shields.  They work a little differently.  Armor class is ascending and is determined by shields and finesse only.  Armor works as damage reduction.  As I've mentioned elsewhere, this is natural to me because I started gaming playing Melee and armor works as a damage reducer in that.

So, that's the very basics of creating a character in The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying Second Edition.  

If you want a full overview of the game you can find one here:  https://rollingboxcars.com/2020/03/04/a-look-at-the-heros-journey-2nd-edition/

The Hero's Journey 2e

One my favorite OSR games is The Hero's Journey by James Spahn.  James takes Swords & Wizardy White Box and mold it into a Middle-Earth flavored gem of a game.  Well, he was quite satisfied with the result and so he has reworked it.  You can read about his reasoning on his blog here and some of the changes and some excerpts here.

And it just went up on Kickstarter today.  As I write this it's less than $200 away from it's $5000 goal.  Have a look if you're interested.

Games I'm Looking Forward To

I'm currently looking forward to two games.

The first is the second edition of The Hero's Journey from James Spahn.  This isn't just a fix the typos and a made a few adjustments second edition.  This is a complete overhaul to better meet Mr. Spahn's vision that he was trying to meet with the first edition but didn't quite reach.  You can read the specifics about the why in this blog post, The Hero's Journey, Second Edition: Why?  You can read more about the changes on his blog Halfling's Luck.

The second game I'm interested in is Sword of Cepheus.  This is a sword & sorcery version of the Cepheus Engine science fiction rules.  Which is based on Classic Traveller.  I love Traveller of the little black books with its lifepath character generation and I love sword & sorcery so I can't wait to see the results.



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The Hero's Journey 2nd Edition

James Spahn is going to do a second edition of The Hero's Journey.  The interesting and fun changes the made to S&W White Box really hit a sweet spot for me.  I can't wait to see what he does with the new edition.  You can read about it at his blog Halfling's Luck.  Oh, and he has the cover art posted.  I really like it.

Campaign Plan Changes

I've been slowly putting together a sandbox-ish campaign for The Hero's Journey.  Slow going chiefly because of my large capacity for self-doubt.  However, it all may be a moot.  I introduced one of my co-workers to Beyond the Wall.  We spent a lunch hour making two characters and a village.  She loved the playbooks.  I mean loved them.  And really liked creating the village too.  I lent her the rule book and she took it home and went through the character creation process with her husband.  He really enjoyed it.  He's big into world building so he particularly like building the village.  She likes the magic system too.  She really wants to play Beyond the Wall and experience character/village creation with a larger group.  Since she is kind of the key to the nascent group, I believe we will be using Beyond the Wall for the campaign.  I made sure that she was cool with ultimately having only three actual classes.  After all, she was the one excited to play an acrobat and looked forward to founding a carnival.  And, since I have Further Afield, after the first adventure we will be making a shared sandbox for the setting so at least some of the setting pressure will be lifted.

My only have two hangups with this.  The first is that I really like The Hero's Journey and Swords & Wizardry Whitebox as a rule-sets.  I like that you essentially just use d6s and d20s.  I like the unified savings-throw.  So I'm thinking I will somewhat hybridize Beyond the Wall.  Beyond the Wall and The Hero's Journey/ S&W WB are not too different so it shouldn't be too hard even for me.  Beyond the Wall only lists 10 levels so I will stick with that.  It also has ascending AC and a To Hit Bonus system, which is my preference.  It will be easy enough to unify the savings-throw.  But classes have different hit-dice and weapons do different dice damage.

So, it's advice asking time.  With BtW having different hit dice for each class, should I stick with BtW rules-as-written?  Or should I use THJ/WB stats?  Weapons do variable dice damage so changing that depends on the hit-dice used.  Or vice-versa.  I've really been wanting to try The Hero's Journey rules for armor damage reduction value.  That's one of my favorite parts along with the increase in the utility of the shield when it comes to armor class.  So should I fold that in?

My second hangup is whether or not I have the improvisation shills to handle a setting not completely in my control but unless someone has advice about that I'll have to deal with it on my own.

Oh, I guess I should ask.  Has anyone mashed up THJ/WB and BtW?

Analysis Paralysis

So, I mentioned before that I have semi-committed myself to running a campaign for a group of co-workers.  This is the first time in nearly 20 years at my work location that there is a group of RPGers.  They are all in there twenties and have a Pathfinder background with there current campaign being 5e.  I'm always blathering about old-school this and OSR that and they called my bluff so here I am.

I Still love this cover!

They all like The Lord of the Rings so I plan to use The Hero's Journey as the rules-set as it gives off that vibe.  I want to use my own setting so I have some basic, cliche background ideas.  Basically, 500 years ago the Golden Empire was assailed by the forces of the Dark Lord™ because, you know, Dark Lords can't abide peace and happiness.  The Dark Lord™ was ultimately defeated but the Empire was shattered and the land fell into a dark age.  Now, with civilization crawling back towards the light, the successor kingdoms are reclaiming and re-inhabiting land once ruled by the Empire.  The PCs have been gathered by the most prominent wizard in the kingdom to help a young, newly-minted baron tame the underpopulated borderland territory he was enfeoffed with.  The king charged him with uniting and civilizing the area.  This will be a cool place for the players to adventure in.  Plenty of ruins to explore, competing factions, threats from beyond the border as well as from within.  And did the wizard mention something about a resurgent evil?  Something about him suspecting the Dark Lord™ is making a comeback?  I even have a rough idea what the map of the nascent barony will look like.

So, here's the problem.  As is my nature I am overthinking this.  When it comes to drawing the map and populating it I go into analysis paralysis in a couple of different forms.  I haven't created a "formal" campaign since I was a kid.  I want to do it right.  As is also my nature I research.  There are lots of good articles and posts about setting up campaigns.  So I get lost in the research.  Then, some of the articles have contradictory advice.  Which do I follow?  How should I do this?  Then, throw in my Gamer ADD and I have a real mess.  I just read a post about using central Asia and the Silk Road as the inspiration for a campaign.   Cool!  Maybe I should chuck my initial idea and do this!  Then I read something else and want to add or subtract or otherwise modify what I am doing

Arrgh!

You can see my problem, right?  I've taken what is a relatively simple task and overthought it and over complicated it.  Why the hell do I do this to myself?

The Children of Galdren 2

In the beginning, Tuharis, the Lady of Light, formed the Land from primordial chaos.  She then brought forth the first people to inhabit the land.  She created the first elf, Elion, from the wood of the trees and the first dwarf, Galdren, from the stone of the mountains.  Elion lived in the Great Forest with her children, learning the way of plants and nature, sky and water and about all, magic.  Meanwhile, Galdren founded the first dwarf home and delved into the secrets of the earth, creating wondrous artifacts and grand structures from the stones and metals, minerals and gems.  The Land was harmonious and all were happy.

All were happy, that is, except for Ahtarr, the Lord of Darkness and the twin brother of Tuharis.  Ahtarr loved chaos and strife.  He reveled in the primordial chaos and resented Tuharis for changing it and taming it, even a part of it.  Thus Ahtarr began to scheme.  Afraid to confront Tuharis directly, he began to introduce bits of chaos to the world in order to ruin the happy Land.  He brought forth monsters to prey on the people and to bring them fear.  He fashioned Dark Magic from chaos to warp and twist the unwary users' minds and souls.  And he created the goblins to kill the first inhabitants and to ravage the Land.  The quickly reproducing goblins were a particular threat to the long-lived but less prolific elves and dwarves.

Thus, Tuharis created humans to counter the threat of the goblins.  Humans had neither the great knowledge and magic of the elves nor the endurance and industriousness of the dwarves.  And they short-lived compared to both.  But the humans were supremely adaptable and reproduced much more quickly and were therefore very successful.

The human/elf/dwarf alliance eventually won the great Goblin Wars and drove the goblins to the far north beyond the Northlands.  But the alliance paid a great price.  The Land was ravaged and the forests were burnt and many died.  Without a common threat the alliance dissolved as each people looked to their own needs.  And Ahtarr took advantage of the situation to sow discord between the three.  And thus, though the Land has recovered, when Flametongue flew out of the north, the dwarves could find none to aid them (even their southern brethren it turns out.)

Today, the Land faces its greatest peril since the advent of the goblins.  Disunited and fragmented in the face of Firetongue in the Northlands and the goblins throughout the mountains, the three peoples and the Land itself may be destroyed.

Will heroes rise to face the challenge?

Next up, a bit about the inhabitants of the Land, their beliefs and customs and their view of the world.

The Children of Galdren

I have been pondering another setting/campaign/adventure, this one specifically for The Hero's Journey.  In fact, it was inspired by its cover and...well, you'll see.

Two hundred years ago the wyrm Flametongue descended from the North and attacked Goldhome, the great dwarven hold in the Northlands.  The dread dragon killed many and drove the few survivors from their halls and into the wilderness.  Many of the homeless dwarves tried to join Stoneheim, the remaining dwarf kingdom to the south.  However, their insular kin would not admit them.  With no support and little hope the survivors scattered to the points of the compass to find work and sustenance amongst the human kingdoms.  Dwarven metalwork was highly sought after and expatriates found good work in the smithies and foundries of man.  Though the dwarves found acceptance and work that they liked, few were ever truly happy.  No matter where they lived or how respected they were it was not and never would be their home.

Meanwhile, Firetongue settled onto his new hoard and rested.  With the bulwark of the dwarven kingdom removed and the dragon slumbering, goblins began to infiltrate southward through the mountains.  The trickle became a torrent when the goblins met no resistance and soon the mountains were filled with the wicked creatures.  Their eyes soon turned to the lowlands and they began raiding the petty human kingdoms and have managed to carve out small enclaves for themselves.  A few of the boldest have even ventured into the great forest of the elves.

This is how things stand today.  The human kingdoms, though threatened from without,  are too busy fighting amongst themselves to notice the plight of the border kingdoms, the elves turned their mournful backs on the world after the Goblin War of long ago and the remaining dwarf kingdom looks inward and downward, ignoring humans, elves and the goblin threat alike.  And, to make matters worse, there are rumors from the Northlands that the dragon is stirring.

All is not lost though.  A few astute humans, including one of the greatest wizards in the land, are attempting to raise awareness of the threat.  The elves have even sent an ambassador into the world to speak with humans on the matter.

And, some of the children of the exiled dwarves, raised on the stories of the glories of Goldhome, have started talking about taking "their" kingdom back.  Some even seek the advice and aid of the great wizard while trying to obtain the service human mercenaries and adventurers.  These young dwarves call themselves the Children of Galdren after the semi-mythical founder of Goldhome.

Adventure awaits.

Next time more history and a little cosmology.

Thoughts on a Grimmsgate Campaign

I showed my previous blog post about a Grimmsgate Campaign to a coworker who is also a gamer.  She read it over and had some questions and suggestions for me.  Here are her questions and my replies.  The following may contain spoilers for Grimmsgate.

Who is the "big bad"?  The Dark Lord?
 It's funny that she asked the question this way because I don't usually use the term "big bad" but in my notes this is exactly the term I used.  I thought the main antagonist would actually be one of the most powerful minions of the Dark Lord.  When the forces of Law destroyed the Dark Lord's citadel during the last battle the minion was trapped inside when it collapsed and was entombed.  The minion's powerful magic put him into suspended animation and kept him alive for centuries.  About 200 years ago greedy goblins finally mustered up the courage to loot the ruined remnants of the Dark Lord's holdings.  Well, they got more than they bargained for.  The newly released minion gathered his strength for a couple of decades while he built his own stronghold with the newly enslaved goblins.  Then he began using his powers to disrupt the borderlands in order to weaken the kingdoms in preparation of attacking them.  One of his first acts was to compel a certain acolyte to touch a certain jar containing a trapped demon.

Do all races still co-exist in the shattered kingdoms?  Will they cooperate?  Will they help fight the darkness again?
My thoughts are that after the final battle the elves and dwarves withdrew to grieve their losses and rebuild.  They became reclusive and isolationist, particularly the elves.  I find it particularly tragic when elves die for some reason.  Maybe because they are effectively immortal and don't have to die unless they put themselves in harm's way.  On top of this they are slow to reproduce.  I think that death would hit elves particularly hard and make it harder for them to recover psychologically than it is for humans.  The one scene in the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that particularly saddened me was the death of the elf commander, Haldir, at the Battle of Helm's Deep.

So I think that the dwarves and elves would be reluctant to join a new war.  Particularly because the elves would've been participants in the first one.  I think it would be interesting if later in the story-arc the characters are tasked with heading up a diplomatic mission charged with persuading them to join the battle again.

 The isolationist tendencies would also make dwarves and elves rare in the wider world and thus the object of curiosity and some fear.  Also, as is traditional, the dwarves and elves would be distrustful of one another, adding to the difficulty of any diplomatic mission.

I want to know more about Lord Wulfric's role.
I haven't put much thought into Lord Wulfric's role yet.  I see him as being self-interested but ultimately being on the side of Law.  But at first he will be a hindrance to the PCs because of his self-interest and his distrust of adventurers running around his lands potentially causing trouble.

Grimmsgate Campaign

So, here is my latest scheme to kick off a campaign with my boys.  It will be centered around the Swords & Wizardry module Grimmsgate and have sandbox elements.

The background will be that 1000 years ago, the combined forces of humans, elves and dwarves defeated the Dark Lord™ and his minions.  In the process, however, the kingdoms were shattered, barbarians invaded, chaos reigned and the world fell into a Dark Age™.  The world pulling itself out darkness but, unbeknownst to most, new threats have appeared and chaos is once again encroaching upon the newly re-civilized lands.

One who can see the new darkness is the mysterious wizard Eduran.  He will ask the characters to meet him at Grimmhold, the village near Grimmhold Keep.  Grimmhold Keep is the base of Lord Wulfric Grimmson, whose barony is the closest to Grimmsgate.  Eduran will tell the players he wants to speak with them for two reasons.  The first is that one of them has inherited a house in Grimmsgate from a previously unknown great uncle.  His second reason will be the encroaching darkness as explained in the beginning of the module.  This will be writ large however.  He will ask the characters to act as his agents and to fight the darkness and push it back.  The kings and rulers of the land are blind to the threats so until he can convince them otherwise he needs to work through freelancers, mercenaries and adventurers.  If the characters are successful they can then use a reviving Grimmsgate as a base of operations for other adventures I will plug into the surrounding area.  Eduran will also say he will send along other adventurers in a few days to supplement the party (as there will only be two players.)  He will send one of his apprentices to assist them also.  It will turn out, though, that this apprentice is an agent of chaos and will at some dramatically appropriate point betray the party.  This will be further down the line though.

So, that's my idea.  Once again riddled with cliches.

The first decision I need to make is which version of Swords & Wizardry to use.  Unfortunately, I think S&W White Box is out.  My players will want more choices, particularly for classes.  So that leaves S&W Core or S&W Complete.  However, I've really been grooving on the The Heroes Journey Fantasy Roleplaying by +James Spahn and would like to use that.  I'm going to do a mini-review of it soon but succinctly put it is a greatly modified version of S&W White Box intended for, well, heroic role-playing à la The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.  The drawback to The Heroes Journey in this context is that I would have to do some conversion work.  And frankly I'm lazy.

So, any feedback on the setting idea or on which system to run would be appreciated.