Sword Opera

Option #2 is a sandbox setting inspired by Wuxia/ Kung Fu movies. It's a bit of a kitchen sink, drawing additional elements from Gamma World and Spaghetti westerns. It pretty much sprang from my love of the visual aesthetic of Afro Samurai (even though I can never make out exactly what the hell is going on in that show). In most episodes I've seen, the protagonist (I think) is usually walking around villages that look like they could somehow be found in both ancient Japan and the Wild West. Samurai Jack also trod similar visual territory. Frequently these towns are also lit by old neon signs, further blurring the lines of time and place. It's kinda like someone had the idea to set Blade Runner in Deadwood. The effect, to me at least, is an arresting, dreamlike atmosphere that I'd love to experience first hand, at least if I was a badass who could wield a katana without accidently cutting off my own dick.

As kids, we loved Oriental Adventures. It's only drawback was a criminal lack of illustrations. Asian history and mythology are an easy sell for D&D. It has the fantasy tri-force of Sword, Knight, and Dragon, as well as tons of the weirdest monsters ever dreamed up. It's very rich stuff, still provoking a reaction in me 20 + years later. I mean, if you were a kid growing up in the midwest in the 80's, chances were pretty good that you had a pair of nunchaku purchased from a flea market, or at least some throwing stars got from the county fair. Extra points if you spent hours trying to recreate the training sequence from A Nightmare on Elm Street pt 4. We were all pajama ninjas, and those aren't the kind of memories that ever leave a man.

In creating a kitchen sink-style sandbox, my aim would be to provide a handful of dials that I can adjust as needed. There'd be parts of the setting where the "Heartbreakingly Beautiful Traditional Mythology" dial is turned way up, and others where the "Grindhouse Kung Fu movie", "Steampunk Western" and "Crazy Anime Weirdness" dials get involved. There's something really compelling to me about the idea of a wandering Ronin cutting down a mountain village full of Hungry Dead on his way to battle the Evil Cyborg Ninja that killed his Sensei, only to learn that said Ninja was merely one of five highly specialized assassins employed by a criminal clan of shapeshifting dragons to make the aforementioned Ronin's life hell.

If I'm being honest with myself, this campaign probably has a much higher chance of sustaining my interest over a longer period of time.

Rules I'd be looking at:
-Again, BECMI/Cyclopedia D&D with Oriental Adventures and Ruins & Ronin
-Gamma World/Mutant Future for weird monsters that fit further up the anime dial. Rather than being radiation-derived, I'd probably describe these creatures as the offspring of devils or products of Alchemy.
-Also, this setting would probably work really well with 4e, whose totally over-the-top character abilities are practically specific to this type of game. Had 4e been released as "Oriental Adventures 4e" rather than D&D 4e, nobody would be bitching. The 4e game I was running before we abandoned it to return to old schoole play was heavily influenced by asian mythology and it fit like a glove.

Fluff:
As I said, the visuals of Afro Samurai & Samurai Jack would be an influence, but the content much less so. Using one kitchen sink to inspire another is usually a bad idea. Therefore I'm looking at:
- The Bridge of Birds by Gary Hughart
- Jade Empire (video game)
- Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

If I wanted to further blur the lines and go more "Journey to the West" I might replace one of the above with Ramesh Menon's beautiful novelization of the Ramayana. Rakshasa and Oni seem like they'd play well together.

Dark Horses Running

I had one other idea for a campaign building exercise. I thought I was totally settled on the Arthurian one, but Runner Up won't leave my head and now seems to be shouting at me, so I'll present it here as well. I had originally wanted to get back to a more traditional vanilla High Fantasy setting, but I think I need to give the other one a chance to be heard before locking myself into the extended work of developing one or the other.

I'm going try and nail the two of them down into elevator pitches and see how my players react. One or the other will probably be the next campaign once Gammafrost winds down (which admittedly may be a while). Anyone who reads this and wants to throw their 2 cents in is also welcome to join the conversation.

In an Age of *ahem* Chivalry

“In Camelot, the war isn’t going well. Villages are burning, more and more children are being kidnapped by the Fey, and Merlin fears that even the royal court has been compromised by changeling spies. The Knights are few and stretched thin, and the light of Excalibur has not been seen for years. But Merlin has a plan to turn back the forces of Chaos.

The Children’s Crusade is that plan. All over the realm, young boys and girls are being trained in the arts of espionage, insurgency, and guerilla warfare. These are their orders: “Play near the forest, get captured, escape and report. If you cannot escape, create as much havok as your little hands can manage and take a dozen of those Seelie bastards with you when you die”. Then they are hastily knighted and sent off to their doom.

These soldiers are poorly trained and almost certainly doomed to die in the forest. But war is hell, kids are lucky, and the Children’s Crusade may be our only hope.”

That’s the overall gist of American Barbarica’s new campaign. It’s silly, obviously, but that’s part of what attracts me to it. The idea of playing l’il knights trapped behind enemy lines started to crystallize after seeing this Penny Arcade strip proposal. Also, I’ve had the idea for a while that Harry Potter would be a lot cooler if more students had died like The Gashlycrumb Tinies. These, combined with the fact that I love Arthurian mythology and have always wanted to do something D&D with it, started to congeal in my head over the weekend.

I’m already probably circumventing Jeff’s Alchemical Recipe, but I don’t think the campaign police are going to kick down my door anytime soon. I’m not committed to a ruleset just yet. I think I want to let the themes cook a little longer and then look for the best fit.

I’m probably cheating by using mythology as a source of campaign fluff, but the fun thing about using myth for a role playing game is that you can bend it to your will and make it do whatever you want without simultaneously taking a dump on human culture (that’s what social networking sites are for). Arthuriana is a self-contradictory mess already anyway. If I want to combine Morgana and Nimueh into the same person, or model Merlin after Dick Cheney (they both have the Devil as a father, after all), or make Launcelot a robot or a dashing french Gnome, there’s no reason to feel guilty about it. The audience who shames me is sure to be small.

*Note: For the context of the setting, the terms "Knight" and "Adventurer" are pretty much interchangeable. It's a catchall name for all officially sanctions Agents of the Crown, including Fighters, Wizards, Clerics, and Thieves

Current list of inpirational books:
-Mallory’s Le Mort De Arthur OR T.H. White’s The Once and Future King - for the Arthur’n, though my recent purchase of Garry Gianni's and Marc Shultz's new Prince Valiant collection Far From Camelot may well unseat either of these.

-Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions - for the descriptions of Fairie

-Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 - For the ridiculous military satire.

Possible list of Rule bits:

BECMI/ Rules Cyclopedia D&D (my go to game)
Dark Ages Bestiary (from Whit Wolf's Dark Ages line)
Pendragon
Grimm"
and due to recent talk in my game group, I may even look at such heretical texts as the most recent edition of "The World's Most Popular Role Playing Game". Don't shoot me for mentioning it.


This week: More crap like this, an essay on the concept of Chivalry According to Mallory, some commentary on that Merlin show I hate to admit to liking, and ...The Questing Beast!
EDIT: If the Runner Up ends up capturing my heart, these posts may not all see the light of day.

Heeding the Call to Arms

On wednesday of this week, the ever-awesome Jeff Rients gave us an alchemical recipe for a new campaign. Jeff's proposal is pretty similar to how I (and many others, I suspect) approach campaign planning, but I think his post nails down what is otherwise a pretty nebulous process into something more concrete and useable.

World building has always been a fascination for me, and one of the key elements of my attraction to Dungeon Mastering. The Gammafrost campaign is finally settling into the "sweet spot" of having just enough detail without overburdening the players (or myself) with loads of information that gets forgotten the moment the players leave the table. The sandbox is full enough to to play in without being overcrowded.

But you're never really done, are you?

Next week, American Barbarica kicks off a new campaign project. I have a vague idea of a starting point, but no clue whatsoever as to where the path will lead. It may very well be, as Jeff suggests, a complete trainwreck. It may even be a trainwreck that never sees so much as an afternoon's use, and that's fine. The point is to produce something to entertain myself, and to hope that someone else out there finds the process entertaining as well. I'll be using the weekend to try and sort out some of the pieces, and we're off to the races come monday morning.

Don't Trust the Cleric!

On March 9, 2008, my gaming group decided to herald Gary Gygax’s arrival in Valhalla by running S1 Tomb of Horrors, a module which none of us had ever managed to play despite (or perhaps because of) it’s infamy.

Tomb of Horrors, as it happens, is probably the most brutal module ever written. Concepts so central to modern incarnations of “The World’s Most Popular Role Playing Game”, concepts like survivability, fairness, an expectation of non-adversarial DMing, or of encounters balanced to character ability, are nowhere to be seen in this, the Big Bad Momma of meat grinder dungeons. In Dungeon #116’s “30 Greatest Adventures of All Time”, Mike Mearls calls it like it is:

“Anyone who claims they made it through without losing a single PC from the party is a liar, a cheater, or both.”

Honestly, I’d imagine that anyone claiming to have made it all the way through with even so much as a single PC surviving is lying too, or at least had a Dungeon Master who took pity on them. It’s that gnarly.

Cram* the Gnome was the first to die, climbing into the Green Devil Face like it was the ball cage at Chuck E Cheese. Cram’s player was apparently unaware of the existence of the Sphere of Annihilation.

Nustij* (a Drow if memories serves me) went down in the Chapel of Evil by the Alter Trap. I believe Nustij pulled the ol’ “I flick a coin at it and see what happens”, a dungeoneering classic that has saved the bacon of many hapless adventurers. In this case however, the resulting explosion killed Nustij and badly injured two of the three remaining characters. Yelkcub* the Cleric was mostly unharmed due to positioning.

Yelkcub began to dole out the healing spells, first to Ov Nhim* the Elf (a ranger, I think) and then to Ielime* the Fighting Woman, both of whom were busy looting what they could from other bits of the Chapel.

It was at this point that Yelkcub revealed his treacherous endgame. Ielime, preoccupied with a strange orange mist which obscured the room’s other exit, failed to notice that Ov Nhim had just dropped dead at the ‘healing touch’ of Yelkcub the cleric. In fact, Ielime didn’t realize until too late that Yelkcub’s Cure Wounds spells were actually reversed. Ielime made her save but missed her attack roll, and the cleric caved her skull in with his mace.

Yelkcub survived the Tomb of Horrors. He walked out of that hell hole whistling a merry tune, laden with treasure looted not from the dungeon, but from the dead bodies of his comrades.

This summer marks my 25th anniversary as a gamer. I consider Yelkub’s treachery to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen go down in a game. I’ve told the story to a number of other gamers, and I’m always surprised at how offended people seem to get on hearing it. Had this happened in a long running campaign with established characters it probably would have been lame. For a one shot session in the Tomb of Horrors, however, it was right on the money. Gary was out to kill your character. Why shouldn’t your fellow players follow suit?

I see PC-on-PC violence as a minor calling card of the Old School. An unpleasant and perhaps juvenile calling card, but one fully in keeping with D&D’s origins as a Swords & Sorcery game. My first character was murdered by one of his mates because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and nearly got everyone killed. This happened in my first session ever, and I was ten years old. I wanted to cry, but I figured the other kids would never let me come back had I showed any sign of weakness.

Perhaps that initial experience colored my opinions somewhat, but I think the world of D&D should be brutal; in it’s most basic form it’s a game about tomb robbers who are rewarded for murder. It doesn’t come up often in my games anymore, nor would I want it to. In my Gammafrost campaign the sun is dying, the planet is freezing, evil Fey are gathering for war against the Lawful races, and the world itself is pretty much out to kill you. The characters need to be able to trust each other or it would all get too grim.

But in a world where faces are regularly smashed with maces, no one should be truly safe…

* It’s probably obvious that these names were a bad attempt at Gygaxian naming hijinks, backward versions of the player’s first or last names. Ielime was a bitch to pronounce.

Challenge of the Super Wizards

"Having spent three weeks on this backward planet, the Super Wizards were tired, hungry, and irritable, a condition which was rudely exacerbated when their Damnation Van finally ran out of fuel in the Valley of Electric Terror. Thangar, greatest of the Atlantean warrior kings, knowing that their vehicle ran solely on the blood of wizards, considered slashing the throat of Murthos of Mu, who owed him a considerable sum of money.

Murthos, as if seeing his fate reflected in the eyes of Thangar, reminded his companions of a village passed not three miles back, one that stood in the shadow of a ragged bluff, atop which rose a gleaming tower such as one in which only a wizard would dwell. Seeing no reason to kill each other over such a petty thing as fuel, the Super Wizards armed themselves with steel and spell and began to walk…"

This was the opening of a one-shot I ran three weeks ago, on my birthday. I've been wanting to try and sell my crew on Encounter Critical, but rather than try and teach a new game I just ran a BECMI game full of EC tropes. It was a hell of a lot of fun. Here's how it all went down:

*sorry about these terrible cellphone picks, but you get the gist.
Murthos of Mu (wizard)

The text bellow the portrait says "Murthos of Mu is well over 200 years old, though he stopped aging at 5". Murhtos was played by my old DM Ned (more on him later). Ned decided the picture made Murthos look more like a 2 year old than a 5 year old, and he played him accordingly. It was hilarious.

Serpent Ghandi (fighting man)

Serpent Ghandi (brother of RPG.net's Snake Ghandi) is a "Deadly Snake Man from the Phasic Swamps of Stygia Prime". He was played by Vo (who plays Samuel in our Gammafrost campaign).

Byclops (wizard)

Byclops is a"tragic victim of Polymorphic Addiction". One of his heads is lawful and one is chaotic, and their spell selection is divided between the two. Each round, Justin (who plays Hubert Holbrook in Gammafrost) had to roll to see which head was in charge. This worked out great for a one shot, and Justin roleplayed this ridiculousness with aplomb.

B.E.H.E.A.D.R.O. (fighting man)

"Robot Conquerer of the Twelf Dimension".
B.E.H.E.A.D.R.O.'s axe was forged at the heart of a black hole and he has a special compartment on his back for Murthos to ride in (Murthos gets tired easily). B.E.H.E.A.D.R.O. was played by Jose (who plays Perryck in Gammafrost). Jose never broke character as a Murderous Robot who is also an Efficient Nanny.

Thangar, Last and Greatest of the Atlantean Warrior Kings (fighting man)

"Thangar's lust for battle is matched only by his lust for Lemurian Slave Girls". Thangar rolled a Girdle of Giant Strength on the magic item table, but failed to roll a weapon. He fought pretty efficiently with his fists, though. Marc (who plays the oft-killed Murst in Gammafrost) played Thangar like a Manowar roadie. Awesome.

and finally, Blastarr of Cadavra (wizard)

"Even as a young zombie, Blastarr dreamed of wizardry". Patrick (who's rejoined our crew after too long an absence) played Blastarr. He decided that Blastarr and the rest of the Super Wizards were a touring rock band, and Blastarr was the bass player. He challenged a banjo-playing commoner to a battle of riffs, but the commoner totally whooped that ass.

These characters should give you a pretty good idea of how the game would play out. Ridiculous though it may be, the adventure hook of "kill a wizard in order to refuel your Damnation Van and get the hell off this backwater planet" may be one of my all time best. The Super Wizards strutted into the village of Mysterion like they owned the place. Roleplay and info gathering on the whereabouts of the nearest wizard (Yoth the Devil Binder by name and reputation) was followed by the requisite drinking, gambling, and whoring.

The party learned that every maiden from the village is kidnapped on her 18th birthday and carried off to Yoth's Tower by swarms off Giant Bees, never to be seen again. Shocked, Thangar offered to de-maidenize any girl approaching the age of 18 (for their own protection, you understand). Mercifully, his offer was refused. In the morning they set out toward the tower.

Yoth's Tower stood atop a sheer cliff of volcanic glass. Close inspection revealed several cracks in the cliff face from which oozed a substance suspiciously like honey. The cliff was bested through judicious application of Levitation spells, and entrance to the tower was gained. Inside, a Super Mario Bros.-style disappearing floor nearly dumped Byclops into an enormous vat of honey. Next, the party was ambushed by a gang of Bee Girls (actually the stolen maidens of Mysterion, transformed by pairs of magical Bee Wands driven into their skulls like antennae). Short work of was made of the Bee Girls, with the exception of one extraordinarily lucky lass who managed survive long enough to lay eggs in Serpent Ghandi's shoulder.

In the Laboratory the Super Wizards were horrified to find a preserved Bee Girl Queen pinned to the wall as part of Yoth's bug collection. The lab's unusually tall ceiling (tiled to look like a honeycomb) must have put Murthos on his guard, and a quick Detect Magic spell revealed an invisible figure (Yoth) floating above them. Murthos's shouted warning to the party caused Yoth to panic and he let loose with a Fireball.

Everybody failed their saving throw.

I laughed maniacally as I prepared to describe the awful death of the entire party (which was to be my first ever One Hit TPK), but my victory speech was interrupted before it could begin. Turns out Ned, player of Murthos, had an ace in his sleeve in the form of a L'il Ring of Spell Turning (rolled at character creation and promptly forgotten about by this Dungeon Master). Yoth's sorcery bounced back like a tennis ball, I rolled a 1 on my save, and the Yoth the Devil Binder was no more.

This battle may seem anticlimactic, but I couldn't have written a better (or more hilarious) ending (the only disappointment was that Yoth died before waking the Honey Golem, dammit!). Yoth was defeated but his body was too badly charred for any wizard blood to be had from it, meaning that the Super Wizards would be stuck indefinitely on this crap planet. This, coupled with the fact that Serpent Ghandi was now pregnant with Bee Girl Larvae, made it a phyrric victory at best.

Which brings us to the truly awesome part:

The birthday cake (courtesy of Jose & Marc), complete with edible map of the Gammafrost Campaign! I can't even describe how rad (not to mention tasty) this was.

This game was great. I laughed hard and long, and real life troubles were far from my mind.

That's all I've ever wanted from the game.

Thanks, dudes. You are the best.

Made my Resurrection roll.

I'm just now getting back on my feet after a particularly rough patch of medical crapola. American Barbarica is back to it's normally erratic posting schedule. Thanks for looking.