Monster in the Details: MR and the Attributed Encounter.

I happened to be re-reading the hill giants hanging out in the the wilderness between Thornguard and Willowmoss of Peakvale, and it just so happened that my T&T 7plus rulebook was open to the "Rare Kindred Attribute Modifiers" pages. You know, like I was writing a T&T scenario or something to that nature. But then something struck me about Scot Malthouse's assignment of 90-120 range for the MR for the creatures, his detailed example of a specific hill giant and the Attribute multipliers. The numbers translated nicely considering the calculus of T&T Stats.

Now this doesn't surprise me. Scott Malthouse tends to be from the under-reported school of the empirical T&T designers. While many authors run around worrying about the most dramatic event that they can think in a solo, usually meaning the instantaneous death of the single PC or a very lop-sided combat, leading to a not so quick death of said PC, "Malty" takes the time to think about making an obstacle possible, even likely, to be overcome by the PC or group of them. I noticed this when I read his "Depths of the Devilmancer" and "Forest of the Treelords" scenarios some months, maybe a year, ago. I happen to be one as well, which is why I like to work with the man. So while our works don't get half the press, mostly complaints about "dungeon" lethality, and long-lengthy articles trying to come up with game norms to increase survivability of the player's character, our audience generally doesn't perceive much imbalance in our scenarios.

Once again, this isn't what is interesting. What is odd, is that Scott and I never sat down and talked about our methods, outside of reading each others shorthand at our blogs for creating encounters. Over the years, I've spent more time trying to explain T&T's "Monster Dice" to people more familiar to D&D than Our Game and trying to explain why one does not really have to worry about size. Indeed, our infrequent correspondences have been about two handfuls over five years and mostly pertaining to projects that one or the other has going on, not rules discussion. But somehow his encounters for this or that "Level" of Delver in T&T game terms mathematically add up to me when I read them. So I've spent this morning figuring out how is this so.

You take the eight stats (Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Speed, Intelligence, Wizardry, Luck and Charm) and apply 1/10th of the MR to each. Then you apply the Kindred Attribute Modifiers. Figure in a 3d weapon, really any weapon or just a single die for fists or kicks but there will be a bigger difference in results. And add the Combat Adds. To proof yourself, you do the damage potential ranges (excluding DARO and TARO), for both the detailed encounter and then the generalized "MRed" encounter. What will vary will be the Combat Adds between the two, but the damage potential ranges will be within 9-12 points of each other, with the Detailed encounter doing less than Rated one.

Godsheads, I am glad I've gotten this out of my head. Now I can get some real work done.

From the Desk of Mad Roy Cram

This just came in my mailbox today from Roy Cram, who's Yorda personna is as developed as my own Kopfy, following up on an article that he wrote. He adds adventure seeds for my New Khazan T&T setting. I am dying to see more of this Professor Whenn character of his.

Dear Kopfy,

Yorda asked me to provide you with some info on the T'wall for gaming purposes. You have read the description and seen Grummlakh's nice picture (they are uglier than that). Based on my travels and talking with people who have met them T'wall come in the following sizes:

Hatchling - = Grizzly bear - shell = chail mail MR 100-200 
Small - = Kodiak Bear - shell = plate mail MR 300-400 
Large = Rhinoceros - shell 2 x plate mail  MR 500-700  
Ohshit size = elephant to Mammoth size. Armor = 3 x plate mail MR 800 plus

They are fire proof (though lava and molten metal will hurt them); liquid air will freeze them, but not kill them. They can be shattered if frozen this way. Otherwise they are impervious to ordinary cold. Electricity, short of a full fledged lightning bolt will just annoy them. No known disease can hurt them (though a specially developed bioweapon might be developed if one had time and the resources.)  Fortunately, most of the specimens encountered are small and usually injured or impaired in some way. This unfortunately makes them even grumpier than usual. They tend to be magic resistant. Hope that is helpful. If you have questions or comments trollmail Yorrdamma and he will get in touch with me.

Your humble servant and friend,

Professor Whenn

T&T Gameplay: Showing Some Skills... (Talents)

Apologies Paul (G'noll) not the topic you inspired just yet.

A quick word on Talents. I am as fond of talents as one who is lactose-intolerant likes milk shakes, but I have allowed them since I started playing T&T 7plus. At first it was because I wanted to "play-test" them and see how well they worked. Later, after the play-test campaign, my rationale was more like, the burger joint that I like to go to keeps the customers coming in with them. Now that there has been some discussion of them over in the Halls, I've had to take a look at why I not only think they help Our Game appeal to other, less true T&T-heads, but why I have grown fond of them.

There is something to be said that Talents aren't just combat enhancers. As Talents are in the current 7plus of T&T, Ken's (Trollgod's) rule that Talents cannot enhance combat. I quote here, "What about a Talent for combat? Wouldn't that make the character fight better all the time? No!... ." I'm not going into the specific reasons that Ken St Andre ruled this way, I'll let others go into that wording and what is right or wrong about with the rule. I agree with it. I just agree that talents presented on the tabletop during a role-playing session should bring something more than a damage bonus or a foil to an attack, that's too much like wargaming to me.

Because of this, what Talents have done for almost a decade now for me in T&T has been to retain the convention of a role-playing game to have a rule that prompts something other than combat during a game session. At first, during the initial sessions, Robin (Peryton) would challenge herself to come up with a "Talent" versus a "Feat," a term from That Game. This meant that she would find something other than a tactical shortcut that could be used during game play, and often it had nothing to scenes where violence was occurring.

Now as any good TV watcher faked violence is not a problem, and it is a lot of fun for the audience; but there is a difference between a wrestling match and a good prime-time soap opera. And the wrestling only airs when the network doesn't have any money to show anything else. The T&T Talent gave me something else besides sexual titillation to help craft a fantasy melodrama along with my players. And as Robin and I are married, we don't do a lot of sexual titillation for the other guests at the role-playing session. We did have a nice sun set in Athebes where my main NPC and her Wizard character made it to the top of my version of Mount Kilimanjaro, but we just flirted as I revealed background information on the setting for everyone. Still Jonathan, Ziggy and Shelly stopped rolling dice to watch the scene unfold. Anyway... !

Later games, new players to the game were just flat-out intrigued by the Talents. Most I feel were just trying to recreate combat feats, unsuccessfully, from D&D 2e. Quite a few complaints arose with words like "subjectivity" and "idiosyncratic" came into play. But some did try to experiment. A few of these flexible few were able to move beyond describing acts that everyone else in their imaginary world should be able to perform, on a daily basis, at that. Almost half of these Talents didn't even come from Star Wars or Star Trek. It was fun to see a Rogue able to basically psychoanalyze the minotaur in the maze by the way he was munching on pistachios (Thanks Lumberjack!).

Most recently, a fellow by the name of Andrew at the BASHCon convention last February, was insistent on playing a Citizen. To define his character, he and Robin, as I was not paying that much attention to him as he was dead meat in book, came up with a couple Talents that a cook would have. Me being the every dutiful GM, came up with a reason as to why he would come hang out with a group of grave-robbing and Prone-to-Violence sociopaths that call themselves "Delvers." You guys want to know what, the Cook made the whole of the "Leprechaun Island" scenario work. Don't believe me? Ask Robin, Paul and Jerry (Jherri).

So these days, I give people insistent on having Talents some respect. They have some skills that can be shown. And they keep it about the story, not the "disarming" and "power surge" of combat.

.

The Case For Warrior-Wizards, err Paragons

According to Paul Haynie, G'noll at the Halls, Uncle Gnoll elsewhere, "...I REALLY dislike Paragons in 7.x. In 5.x, they turned up about one time in 360, which was already too rare to waste rules space on for my money. In 7.x, the two additional attributes make it one Paragon in more than 2500 characters, which is pretty much an absurdity..."

Statistically speaking, he's right. I've even argued this point with Ken St Andre about Warrior-Wizards from 5th edition back in the 80s over a dispute with my players. My rule was "Warrior-Wizards had to be rolled up in front of me, the GM. Or another GM that knew and trusted."

I suppose knowing that I trusted no other GMs besides myself, my players went to extreme measures. And after being very publicly embarrassed by two players with letters proclaiming me a bad guy, I had to write my letter to the Game Designer, THE CREATOR. And I eloquently, for a 16 year-old who didn't speak English that well and didn't like to proofread anything, argued the strict math and pointed to the number of the Types that were coming across my perusal. So a week, or maybe ten days, later I was able to show a letter from the man that I now know as the Trollgod, reversing himself and stating that I could, and should, run my tabletop any way that I want I want to.

It's a good thing too, that I stuck with the rule. If only to see the magic of tabletop role-playing versus statistical analysis. Player-Characters with all initial attributes over 12 do happen, even in 5th edition without the TARO rule, more often than one would think. In practice at my 32 T&T campaigns to date, that lasted over three weeks, the Warrior-Wizards seem to come in runs. At one time, I had three out of six delvers playing Warrior-Wizards. And the guys weren't cheating. In 7plus edition, the occur about once in ten character roll ups. I even had to bar the Type from my first playtest campaign, see Athebes, because I wanted to teach the players "true T&T."



That said, I am not the world's biggest fan of the uber-class of character Type either. But once again, seeing the players in front of me light up as their dice rolls are "on a roll" just melts my heart. Such success in "roll-playing" merits reward. It's like winning a poker game AND collecting on bets on the Superbowl in the same night. How can I be such a minimalistic nihilist (BUZZKILL) and deny the players a "prestige class."

And lastly, it's a popular Type. Doing without it would probably hurt the appeal of the game.

Tom's T&T X Edition: More on Types

There's been a discussion on "Classes and a possible Classless" T&T over at the Halls. Of course, I am chagrined at the use of the term class outside of a socioeconomic treatise, but at the same time the rules tweekers got me thinking on Types. I have to admit it rather expanded my horizons. While I don't like the idea of a classless mode for Our Game, there already is RuneQuest and various other games now in existence for decades now. But a "trans-Type" model came to me.

Citizen= no minimum Stats
Rogue= Lk or Ch or Dx "12"
Warrior= St or Sp "15"
Wizard= Dx "12;" In "15;" Wiz "20"

A player character could advance his Delver from a Citizen into a Wizard as his statistics increase using the Attribute increasing experience system. Given no restrictions as to the "perks" that he could retain, by the time he was a Wizard he'd be a Paragon and go even farther than that. A Paragon with the Roguery Talent, key music,...the Uber-Paragon.

That isn't quiet how I'd use the convention. I am not a big fan of Paragons, uber or unter, except as very occasional delver Types, and it kind of flies in the face of Ken St Andre's mentions of Wizards and Warriors as being occupations of years of training and preparation. The player rising up on the slow road from either a Citizen or Rogue, would be bound to his choice of being a Wizard or a Warrior.

Some disagree with the meta-Type model all-together. One of the grounds being "Ken says, it should take years." This begs the question, how old are delvers when they start adventuring down tunnels? Are the Warriors in their 50s and Wizards in their 60s when they first raid a goblin warren? Considering that this is a make believe endeavor that we're on about, I suppose that can be one interpretation. But I tend to be a media child. If not paperbacks, then film, or even a TV series. So what are the ages of the actors that portray Conan, Perseus and King Arthur? Not a one over 30. So exactly how many years does it take to make a true Wizard or a Warrior? So in mixing up reality and fantasy, I'd equate being a Wizard or Warrior with advanced education. Now while some might think that superior education is unattainable for most, maybe even a matter of genetics. Functionally though, peoples from various backgrounds can attain such at varying speeds, if not social acceptance by those that got theirs first.

To reflect the passage of time, the convention of Experience in the game would suffice. Getting a Citizen's Wizardry score up to 20, to say the least, would be quite a bit of adventuring. In my book that would be an adequate amount of time.

Would the delver have to give up old perks from their previous Type? In my book, no.

Even while working out this more of Type experimentation, my model strikes me as very regulated and over codified. Still It'd be interesting, and maybe not just for a campaign or two.

The Tale of Wakim, part 1.

A little something for Anem Kram. A little yarn whipped up back in the days of whimsy back in the late 80s.

In the last days of the Schism Wars, it became apparent that the Fey could not defeat the Elves and their growing number of allies. One fey known for his masterful sorcery as well as his unconventional ways, even for a fey, decided that he must do something. Jokala his wife, also known for her sorcery but also for more dark than unconventional ways, did not like his worrying.

"We've lost." She counseled. "Let us sue for peace. Or let us be defeated. Doing something drastic would do no good for anyone."

Wakim, knew his wife was wise, but she tended to be a bit bleak as well. She had a taste for darkness and death, complete with blood-drinking. He, himself, understood force, but was not darkly-driven and no fan of fate. He had crafted victories in his own battles with the elves' troll allies under the marshaling of Marduk early in the war. He had foiled every incursion by the elves into his own lands. In short, we was not used to defeat.

He traveled to the closest edge of the universe around him, a trip that took weeks. Along the way, he burdened himself with dry branches and small logs to the point of teetering. In the cold place where the ice of a giant's breath met the stone and kremm of the in-between, Wakim started a fire. And he kept the fire going for many days. During this this he drank only water and hummed.

It was when he was on his last log, that something in the icy darkness stirred, and a great eye peeked at him from the darkness.

"I thought that was you." The wind howled. "My little brother."

"You were never born." Wakim replied. "I am probably your grandson, you crazy behemoth. But you know me. "

"Stinging sting-haver!" The icy wind ripped everything under a couple of stones weight away from the fey's campsite.

"Yes. I drove you here." Wakim answered.

"You were not alone sprite!" The voice went from wind to grinding stone.

"You are correct." Wakim showed no fear. "But the others would've failed to drive you here without me."

"You are alone." The stone voice ground out.

"You know me." The sorcerer stayed his ground. "And I know you. Your name specifically. Grumjellug, I know you."

The giant, a wildermagick reeled back at hearing its First Name spoken by another.

"And what do you want from me, despoiler?" The wildermagick asked. "The places I dwell now would have no interests you. Too cold for your thin blood. Nothing to steal but frost."

"I have a battle for you." Wakim said plainly.

"A battle which you must be losing." Grumjellug responded.

"Yes." Was the others answer.

"You have stolen all the Fair Lands from me!" The giant's voiced shifted to the wind again. "I can smell me in your veins, and you have driven me here! You want me to fight for you?"

Wakim did not reply at first. Instead he made a point to warm his hands by his struggling campfire, before turning around rather abruptly.

"You and your ilk were doing nothing but freezing these 'fair lands' that you now yearn for." The fey spoke firmly. "You, great primordial force and magic that you are, have no use for these stolen trinkets, Otherwise you would not have allowed me to gain lordship over them. "

The appeal to the giant's vanity worked, the wind died down. A ice-encrusted giant with a red beard and as tall as three elves stepped forward.

Wakim breathed a silent sigh of relief. He continued speaking, almost singing, "You smell us in your nostrils. We are you. We were your thoughts when you battled the dragons. We are your thoughts now when you count the stars beyond your fingertips."

"And who is our enemy, little brother?" Grumjellug asked rather coyly, but still his eyes sparkled with interest.

"Oh Grandfather, it is the elves and their lackeys the trolls." The shorter figure explained. "Along with a horde of muddled kindred that join them out of convenience rather than any sort of conviction."

"Then let us make myself horrible unto them." The wildermagick agreed.

Wakim provided the giant with many a totem and magical artifact during their journey towards the encroaching enemies of the fey in the Schism War. Once there, upon a bluff overlooking a very wide vale spreading towards the east and wet horizons for a day's travel, the giant and the fey sorcerer stood looking at the conquering armies before them.

"This isn't going to be easy or pretty, little brother." Grumjellug commented.

"Do it for your prosperity, brother. Your off-spring." Wakim coaxed.

"I have no mother, you silly dwarf." The giant became much larger than he was a moment before. "What do I really care about ties? You're an idle fancy at best. And the usurpers of my place in the cosmos when I am in bad mood."

Wakim did not reply.

"So what can you provide me to do this task?" The wildermagick asked.

"Nothing but being a part in this struggle." The fey answered finally. " You need more than a fight? A place remembered by us fey. A place as our progenitor and ultimate protector."

Grumjellug laughed heartily, and Wakim cringed.

"Worry not little fey-elf." The giant said. "I like the offer. But think on this; I can only give to this battle what I have to give. And it will hardly be enough for a real victory for you, grandson. My Other name is Ooblun. "

Before the sorcerer could consider what the elder magic giant had said, Grumjellug lept from the bluff into the valley and strode to the approaching armies. Yammar, the Eldest Elf and leader of the advancing forces, held up a hand. With great noise and confusion the cumbersome horde stalled its momentum, and not in equal paces.

The mere giant, hiding his full size, stood a few strides away before the mass of armed assailants. The elven overlord called out to him.

"Dear cousin fey." Yammar sang. "Why do you encroach upon our path? We mean no one individual harm."

Grumjellug laughed. "I am not one of those that you'd bother sparing. Nor an individual that needs to explain himself to an elf."

Yammar, being wiser than most elves of the time, was not insulted at the jibe. And he heard the other words that the antagonist before him had said.

"Oh. You are a giant." The great elf said, sniffing the air. "You should leave this skirmish to those with more involved. I am sure the fey here did not grant you the return of this in-between to you."

"You are someone to speak for the folks that you conquer?" was the giant's retort.

And with that, Yammar knew that a battle was about to occur. He just did not know what scale it was going to take place upon.

As the elf raised his arms in a different signal to his generals at his flanks and elsewhere, Grumjellug raised his own arms. The giant raised his arms, and his eyes flashed, and thunder rolled over his head in the sky over the valley where he and the invaders were assembled.

(to be continued)

There is a Schism Between the Wizard's Guild and the Leprechauns

Ever since I read that phrase in the 5th Edition of Tunnels and Trolls, I have been addicted. It has worked better for me than the Babylon 5 catch-line from the pilot, "There is a hole in your mind."

It was like heroin to this fantasist stumbling upon it unknowingly. It made me create worlds in words, paragraphs and hand-drawn maps to fulfill the cosmos around that sentence. And since this was the early 80s, I had the great example of Glorantha. Then to a lesser extent the World of Greyhawk and JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth also came into play. So I crafted an epic.

Having been fond of the Norse myth cycle, especially the D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths, the universe had to start out with a lot of ice and giants. And since I was designing something a fantasy role-playing game, having dragons also being a primal force made sense. So I had Fire and Ice covering all of the universe, and what a harsh place it was. But then in the in-betweens of the giants and dragons where the places where the First Peoples arose. These were the Trolls, Elves and Fey.

Seeing how harsh the universe was around them the First Peoples warred upon the individual dragons and giants that were closest to them, to expand the in-betweens making room for more peoples. And it is at this time that we see the Tribes of Mann (human, hobbs, apes and hominids), the golbins, the dwarves and many, many others start to pop up as well.

The First Peoples walked around pretty much as gods in these earliest of times. The elves became associated with light and order. The trolls, something of giants themselves, preferred the dark and powerful. The Fey liked both light and dark, but reveled in chaos. While all three had problems with other, the elves and the fey went at it directly. If the trolls weighed in they helped out one side or another.

Well this war was rather far-reaching and earthshaking for everyone around whether they were involved or not. And towards the end, the fey were losing big time. Up until this certain guy named Wakim came up with a plan. He called upon a giant, Grumjellug, who was related to him. You see the dragons and giants are related to the first Peoples in varying degrees. And this giant was something known as a Willder-Magick, about as powerful as solar flare. Wakim called upon Grumjellug to help out his fey cousins.

So Grumjellug severed the magic from the form, and created nature. And no one was pleased by this. This cure was probably harsher than the illness to most of the First Peoples. The most powerful elves were separated from the natural world, leaving only the youngest and magically diminished there. One elvish Power (god?) lost his arm trying to maintain his hold on his family and followers. The trolls suddenly had to live with sunlight bathing all parts of the world at one time or another, this really pissed them off because they viewed themselves as not participating in the fight-- a partially true claim. The fey were hit hardest of all, well they were losing the war anyway.

As it turned out the fey have a tendency to be allergic to nature and natural means. This mostly meant that those that remained in the world had to stick to a form, except for a few rarities. Some became fairies and some became leprechauns, others became other things. Most of their strongholds in the universe went Never-Never. The only sizable part to remain on the world was the Island of Ooblun, which also happens to be the name of Elder's second moon.

So I put it somewhere in the southern Westerlees on my world of Elder, a sea where it could be said that the North Atlantic meets the Caribbean meets the South China. Now this island tends to rather hard to find. While it is said to remain at the Western Pole of the planet, that has a tendency to move. Sometimes it moves widder, other times it moves widdershanks in its course. And the areas available to access have a tendency to change as well.

And once there, things can be very strange to very dangerously odd. I populated it ettins, pookas, the more magical goblin (not the goblinoid of standard FRPGs), bogey men hobgoblins, Wink-Winging leprechauns and fairies gone wild. There are many more fey running around the place that I just don't have time to list here, heck many more than I myself can ever write down all by myself for that matter.

So why am I telling you all this? Well this last weekend at BASHCon in Toledo, I finally got a chance to start to share some of this with my players. And luckily the players I had about the best group of players possible at a convention. Jerry, Robin, and Paul Haynie are members of Trollhalla; Jherri, Perrryton and G'noll respectively. The fourth player Andrew has played in my T&T games in Toledo before. "Leprechaun Island" definitely needs a better title; but as for a start to one day making Ooblun a place for more delvers to explore. The notes and matrices came together with my earlier static narrative scenes. My NPCs flowed from my subconscious nicely as I could see the players in front of me start to wonder about the bits and pieces of information that they were hearing.

And I still didn't explain the schism between the Wizard's Guild and Leprechaun.