New Blog and Great Post

So I have accepted the fact that I am basically failing as a blogger.  I can't think of the last time that I posted something original or my own.

But that's okay, because I'm using the blog to record things that I don't want to lose.

Today, I came across a blog that is new to me: Elfmaids & Octopi.  I'm really digging reading through it.  The author has a sensibility that is "different" enough to make reading a lot of fun.  Even better for OSR-types is the large number of random tables that inhabit the blog.  Massive tables.  Numerous d100 tables.  Many smaller ones.  It is fantastic.

Here is a post that I REALLY like: Psychonian Citadels.  The top illustration is evocative.  Within seconds of looking at the picture and then scanning down through the many tables beneath it, I realized that a huge citadel (skyscraper, arcology, whatever you want to call it...) would make an incredible megadungeon.

There's really not enough time in the world...

The Great Blog Roll Call

The title says it all.

I don't know who Charles Akins is, but he has done a great service to readers of OSR blogs everywhere.

Check it out.

World Engines (My Own Part Three)

First off, yes, it's been a long time since I've appeared here.  I apologize.  Honestly, I've been passing this way almost continuously since you last saw me--I just didn't stop to say hello.

So.  Hello.

Okay. On to the topic at hand.

So Dave (here or here) and I have long talked about coming up with a system for a DM to generate a world (continent, region, kingdom, whatever...) history in a relatively short period of time using a set of random charts, similar in concept to the Events Charts from the AD&D Oriental Adventures.  We have talked about it and discussed it for a long, long time.  (A dozen years or more?)  We were talking about it just a few days ago, in fact, the last time that we spoke.

It turns out that others are talking about such a system as well.  They have, in one small way, gone a step further than us--they've given the system a name.  World Engine.  I have to say that I like the sound of that.  Anyway, first go here for Part One of the talk.   Then, go here for a little commentary on Part One.  Finally, go here for Part Two.

I don't have much to say on the topic today, but I wanted to dip my toe in the water and grab a spot at this bar.  I will have more to say in the coming days.  I hope that those others do as well.

Names, Names, Names

Speaking of names, what he said.

Also, thank you, Brendan, for pointing me toward this.  A handy little name generator that, based on my initial playing-around, works nicely indeed.

Perhaps Worth a Look

So I found myself over at Goodman Games' website, at this page specifically, and they've put up three "design diaries" about their new Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg.  I'm not sure if people have already been talking about it, because I've been pretty scarce around these parts lately, but I found what details they've released to be pretty intriguing.

Here are links to the design diaries:

General thoughts on the game.
Appendix N in 'modern' gaming format.
Magic Use.

I really, really like their ideas for magic use.  I like the fact that they are purposefully making spellcasting more unpredictable.  That is the way it should be.

Map Roundup -- 13 January

I know that I missed a bunch of map-related posts over the holidays.  I'm also continuing to realize just how many great gaming blogs there are out there.  Anyway, here is the first map roundup of the new year.  Enjoy.

Havards Blackmoor Blog, 10 Jan: A post containing a map of Castle Blackmoor and links to a nifty little project--for those of you who dig Blackmoor.

Of course, old Havard has many map-related posts in his archives, so I'll link to them here (in chronological order):

Havards Blackmoor Blog, Oct 06 (2009): A B&W map whose style I enjoy and a link to an interesting theory regarding the history of Blackmoor maps.

Havards Blackmoor Blog, 21 Dec (2009): A very nice map of Blackmoor during the Age of the Wolf, which, if you are fan of Blackmoor, you will understand.

Havards Blackmoor Blog, 05 Apr (2010): A color hex map of a region of Blackmoor by one Dave L.

Havards Blackmoor Blog, 08 Apr (2010): More Blackmoor maps by Dave L.

The Tao of D&D, 20 Dec: I know that Alexis over at Tao has been working a wiki based on his campaign world and including maps and such.  I have been remiss in not linking to any of his stuff before now, but here goes.  He talks a little about and links to some of those maps in this post.

The Tao of D&D, 03 Jan: A really old real-world map and some maps from Alexis' world.

The Tao of D&D, 10 Jan: Maps from the 3rd updated a bit.

Lost Papers of Tsojcanth, 10 Jan : A link to some town maps and a link to some of Dyson's maps.

Aeons & Augauries, 10 Jan: A sketched campaign map in black and white.

Dreams in the Lich house, 12 Jan: A nice hex map of a Gothic Greyhawk.  But even better, I like the idea that he proposes in this post.  It is something that closely matches some of my own thinking.  I definitely see the topic for a post of my own here.

The Book of Worlds, 03 Jan: Harald, the writer of this blog, complimented me in the comments section to one of my posts recently, which led me to jump over to his blog.  Some really great stuff in it, and I've only read those posts visible from the front page.  This post includes a map of New York City, but even better, it links to an article and pictures about urban spelunking.  Awesome topic!

The Book of Worlds, 28 Oct (2010): I'm doing a little digging into Harald's past posts, looking at his Realms of Argos.  What I like about his blog is that he uses photos of real world things to depict gaming locales and objects.  His descriptions are also fantastic.  This is a handdrawn map of his island of Cora.

The Book of Worlds, 22 Oct (2010) : Another high quality post.  This regards the Kingdom of Pendrell.

The Book of Worlds, Atlas of Argos: Harald also has a flickr page where he houses some of his maps.  Nice.

The Book of Worlds, 06 July (2010): No maps in this post, but a Metaphysical Topography of his world.  (Basically, a map in words.)

Tower of the Archmage, 09 Jan: The title of this post is 'Megadungeon Map - Level 3.'  It REQUIRES that I link to it.  And it's a sweet looking map as well.

Tower of the Archmage, 12 Jan: Maps of outerspace are cool.  Especially when they look as nice as this one.

A Terrible Admission

This post is going to be an admission, but before I get to that, I have two points to make.

First, I typically don’t get too worked up by what I read in the blogosphere. You occasionally come across vitriol and bitterness in flame-wars and such, and my response is to usually laugh at that stuff. Yes, hurtful things occasionally get said. Yes, some people reveal themselves to be total pricks. But most of it just rolls off—at least for me personally.

Secondly, I know that some people really DO NOT like what he has to say. There is a vocal minority that seems to really resent his opinions and believes that he is a pompous A-hole. I am NOT one of those people. Typically, I am in agreement with James M on what he says; Grognardia is a site that I visit without fail. But his point here is one that I do not agree with.

So here it is:

My Terrible Admission

Currently, I am not playing any rpgs. In fact, I haven’t played any in years.

There, I said it.

...

I don’t have the time. With a career, three small children, and a wife who has interests of her own, I cannot support the time expenditure required. Does that mean that I should just hang up this blogging thing?

For me, I blog (and try to be involved in this online community) specifically because I don’t have time to play. Of the two, blogging takes up less time than playing would. If I made the decision to play, I certainly couldn’t play and blog at the same time. It would be impossible.

I am envious of those of you who play—more envious of you who write amazing blogs and still have time to play. But that is just not going to be me anytime soon.

Needless to say, I disagree with James’ assertion that people who write about playing should be playing as a prerequisite to writing about it.

"Our EPT?"

Interesting post from the Windy City Wiz, but I'm wondering if I agree with him.

I think that there are new and original things being done that haven't been done before.  The Wiz claims that Raggi is an ass but respects him for what he is doing with his products.

How about Al's Warriors of the Red Planet?  (Yes, I know I linked to the blog, but, in case you are not aware, that blog is supporting a game that Al will be releasing (hopefully) this spring.)

I know that there are others out there, and a few are mentioned in the comments following the Wiz's post.

My feeling is that there is a lot of stuff going on that is interesting.

Hottest Blogs

Thank you to Cyclopeatron for his continued ranking of blogs.

I suppose that I am luke-warm?  Better than being cold.

Portfolio: Two Houses (And a Contest)

Continuing with a portfolio of my maps, here are two more that I made.  As before, both of these maps may be familiar to people who inhabit our little corner of the blogosphere.  Also as before, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT comment where either of these came from--part of the deal is that their identity remain a secret. Also, I do have the permission of the original map owners to post them here.

We have, first, a big house:

And now we have a slightly smaller house:

To be quite honest, the first map is a bit more obscure than the second (at least to my mind, you may disagree with me).  So to make things interesting, I shall propose a small contest.  If anyone can tell me IN AN EMAIL, NOT IN THE COMMENTS where the first map (top map, the big house) came from, I will give you a free copy of any two of the products on sale at my RPGNow store--you get to pick 'em!  My email address is fantasy.cartographic@gmail.com.  This contest shall remain open until midnight, Eastern Standard Time, Sunday night, December 19th.  I will read all emails that I receive with the subject line 'Map Contest' and the first person to correctly state where that map was originally found will win.  I will then contact that person by email on Monday to arrange prize delivery.

Portfolio: A Dungeon Map

In this post, I am going to do what I did as a youngster that would always annoy my older brother:  I am going to post an image of someone else's map.

Actually, it isn't quite someone else's map, it is actually my reproduction of a map that, in my opinion, is more aesthetically pleasing than the original.  I am posting it to show people what I can do.  Call it an entry in my cartographic portfolio, if you will.

This map is one that may be familiar to some people in our little corner of the hobby.  If you recognize it, please, PLEASE do not name it or where it came from.  I don't want to give anything away.  Lest anyone get their panties in a wad, I do have the permission of the original map's owner to post my version here.

It is, as I said above, a dungeon map:

Duh.

So my post here proves that sometimes I can be completely oblivious.  Because, as a matter of fact, Cyclopeatron already updated the listing of OSR blogs in not one post but TWO.

This one shows the latest rankings, by follower, of the OSR blogs.  (Yes... see his post for some caveats on that.)

This one shows the rankings as a delta of followers from one month to the next.  Nice.

Forty

Sometimes it's the little things that bring a smile to your face.  Today, I received my 40th follower.  Thanks, imredave, for being that guy.

Of course, what this really means is that I have become a Thinker.  That's a good thing, right?  Too bad there isn't a title for doodler or random-little-map-drawer--because that is probably more appropriate than 'Thinker'.

All of which reminds me of this nice post from Cyclopeatron from back in September.  I wonder how that list would look if redone today?  It doesn't really make a hill of beans, but it is interesting to watch trends and changes over time.

The Hidden Way

The Hidden Way seems like it is an interesting collection of links and other material for use by rpg'ers.  I recommend that you take a look at it.

Especially handy is the link under Settings, entitled World Building.  Lot of useful stuff there.

Calific? You better believe it!

This seems like an exciting development.  As a fan of the science-fantasy genre, I am really looking forward to see how all this turns out.  Good luck to them!

And Russ Nicholson is one of my favorite artists from the early days.  He alone is worth whatever price they're going to charge.  (Well, within reason...)

Gods, Demigods, or Godlings

Over the past few days, there have been some posts about gods in gaming worlds.  Here Scott listed descriptions for a bunch of gods in his game world.  On the same day, that guy over at Planet Algol had this to say on the subject.

Turns out that Planet Algol was the last blog that I read on my trip through the blogosphere last night, so as I lay down to my night's rest, my mind immediately started racing with ideas for "little" gods for a game world.  Then I started thinking, maybe I could write up a little project like that...

Anyway, I present one of them for you here, with others to follow in the coming days:

Chadek-Hadek
(Also known as He Who Bleeds)
(Also known as Rent-by-Daggers)

Chadek-Hadek always appears as a man, seemingly pummeled by a long and harsh existence.  He walks with a limp; his cheeks, covered with salt-and-pepper stubble, are scarred from countless battles; his right arm shows the remains of several tattoos that appear as if he has tried to remove them--they are no longer legible as anything other than smears and random lines.  He wears trousers and a thick woolen cloak.  Beneath his cloak, he wears no shirt, and his chest and stomach are (except when he makes the effort to hide them) bare.  Most shockingly, three daggers, buried to their hilts, penetrate his chest and abdomen; the wounds ooze and bleed, and thick and dark scabs surround them.

Chadek-Hadek is often prayed to by those who have suffered great wounds but who are too poor seek the assistance of the local temple or healers or, for whatever reason, are desperate for help.  They would have to be, because the help that he offers is often exactly the opposite.  If he appears to one who prays to him, he will typically examine the wounded individual and pass judgment.  No one knows (or at least, no one is telling, and he certainly does not) the scale by which he judges someone, but upon making his decision, he pulls one of the three daggers from his body and strikes the wounded supplicant.  The act of pulling the dagger from his own body is obviously agonizing, as he grits his teeth, shudders at the pain, and typically does not handle it well.

Depending on the dagger that he draws, the effect of his attack varies:

The dagger that is buried just above his left hip will cause 1d6 hp of damage to the individual.  (Obviously, quite possibly enough to kill the average 0-level person.)  If the individual survives the strike, they will sink into a coma for 1d20 hours.  When they awake, they will be completely healed of all damage, however, their hit point total will permanently decrease by one.  (If the individual had only one to begin with, the drop will not occur.)

The dagger that is buried in his abdomen just beneath his right rib cage will cause 1d6 hp of damage to the individual.  If the individual survives the strike, they will sink into a coma for 1d10 hours.  When they awake, they will be completely healed of all damage, and their hit point total will permanently increase by 1d4+1 hit points.

The dagger that is buried between two ribs on his left side will inflict one hp damage.  If the individual survives the strike, they will sink into a coma for 1d4 days.  When they awake, they will experience a change described as follows.  To determine the effect, the DM shall roll 2d6.  The first die will determine which character attribute is affected (STR, INT, CON, WIS, DEX, CHA).  The second die will determine how that attribute is permanently changed (+3, +2, +1, -1, -2, -3).

Chadek-Hadek will only "treat" someone one time in that person's life.  If he is prayed to in order to benefit someone that he has already treated and he chooses to appear, his reaction is often violent and random, quite often including attacks against whomever else is around.  Of course, if the person is lucky, He Who Bleeds just won't appear.

If he is encountered when he was not prayed-to, he will typically appear impatient and anxious to be on his way to somewhere.  If combat with him should ensue, he will attack with only his fists--thick fingered and with bulbous knuckles.  He can strike twice each round, and his fists do 1d4 damage each.

...

During a break from typing that, I came across this post from James over at Grognardia.  Sounds like his little project is going to be pretty nice.

And it also sounds like he has beaten me to the punch.  Perhaps my little project will go by the wayside, and I could contribute to his.

Wierd Fantasy and Bards

So I received in the mail a few weeks ago my (two, ha ha ha) copies of James Raggi's Wierd Fantasy Roleplaying.  I'm not going to provide you with a review of it, because, frankly there are a ton of them out there already.  I'm fairly certain that googling it would yield you a bunch of results.  Suffice it to say that I agree with most of the 'good' reviews that you have probably read of it.  (I may get around to posting more thoughts on it at some point, but none of my thoughts strike me today as so original that I need to type them.)

But what I have realized is that I want to produce gaming material for this game.  Of course, compatibility would be there, but his game has enough of its own personality that trying to write material for it would be a fun and interesting challenge.  Some of the material has been bubbling in my consciousness for quite some time and hasn't been inspired directly by his work, but other material is a direct result of reading WF.

Case in point: I commented here that I would love to write a bard class for his game.  Reading the majority of the other comments to that post indicate that most people don't care for the bard.  I don't really care for the AD&D bard (the version with which I am most familiar) but surely a class that relies on charisma can be of value in the 'wierd' world.

But how do you make the new class distinctive enough and wierd enough to fit into that game?  If you own the game, you understand that James worked very hard to make each class unique/useful/interesting (from a game mechanic perspective) in its own way: Only fighters get better at fighting.  Halflings have great saving throws.  Magic-users cast spells.  Etc.  What aspect of the bard do you formalize in a game mechanic to make it worth existing as a class?

Someone in the comments to that post said that, in their game, they added a few skills to the specialist skills list that matched their conception of the 'bard', thereby making the bard merely a specialist who allocated his points toward those skills.  That is one way to do it.  I had actually been thinking of also making the bard similar to the specialist, but instead coming up with several different skills that only the bard has access to.  Problem with that is you might then introduce new rules to account for or make use of those skills.  Not necessarily a big deal, but I don't want to start writing new rules for WF.

Perhaps a combination of spell-like abilities governed by a skill system similiar to the specialists'?  Or is that more of what I just said I didn't want to do?

Back to the earlier question of what does the class do in the game: Perhaps he makes his allies better and his enemies weaker, during combat or elsewhere, through wit, song, special abilities.  Does there need to be a wierd twist?  Not sure.

(Apologies for the stream of consciousness writing--sometimes I have to follow it to where it takes me.)

Case in point #2:  I like so-called 'Vancian magic' as much as the next old time D&D player, but how can it be made (beyond interesting spell descriptions) wierder?  And if not wierd for the DM, at least for the players.  I have some ideas.

There are other cases.  Things that have been sitting on the shelf waiting for a reason to make an appearance.  Perhaps WF provides the catalyst to get them rolling.

Drawings and Dungeons and Bears - Oh My!

I recently stumbled across Drawings & Dungeons and am pleasantly surprised to say that I really like his artwork.  As I have a few projects in the cooker that will at some point require some illustrations, I think that employing his services would fit nicely into my plans.

I'm also going to add him to My Daily Read.  Speaking of which, as my Read gets larger each day, I find myself spending more and more time reading blogs and "keeping up" with the latest goings-on than in working on my own material.  It can be a dangerous trap to fall into.  Especially when I find myself at say Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is on the Read, and then hopping down his 'Other Stuffies to Read' and spending another 30-45 minutes reading a lot of those blog posts and then finding more to read from those that he lists.  I could read fantasy blogs all day--which I suppose is a sorry commentary on myself, but what can I say?

I think that like many of us, I own more gaming material than I have actually used in play.  I have read and linked to gaming blogs containing more material than I could probably use.  And yet I keep doing it.  I keep buying, albeit in low numbers, and I keep reading.  What gives?   Aaaahhhh!  What gives?

Micro-Mega - Interesting Idea

I was initially drawn to this by its title.  Then I decided that I loved the photo that he used in the post--is that place fantastic or what?!  Then I actually read it, and felt that he had some interesting ideas.  Anyway, I offer it to you for your reading enjoyment.

Interesting Discussion on the OSR

Take a look at this if you haven't already seen it.  Nice little post and some good discussion following.