Ten Questions

Late to jump on the bandwagon here, but this seemed like a fun exercise to help nail down some concepts and background for my campaign...

Without further ado, my answers to Random Wizard's "Ten Questions." There are a few other sets of these around and maybe I'll try to answer those too, just to round things out.  We'll see.

Race (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) as a class? Yes or no?
Yes, definitely. I cut my teeth on B/X, and still run Classic D&D.  I strongly believe in races being archetypal in my campaigns, so Race-as-Class is a given.  That said, I also believe more variety for my players is better, and makes them happier, so I use the ACKS model of multiple racial classes.

Do demi-humans have souls?
Honestly, I never gave this one much thought.  My players haven't tried to have anyone Raised, so it hasn't come up. I use fey races that do not. My elves are more fey than BTB elves, so they would not either.  The other "standard" demi-humans in Caldera (dwarves, halflings and orcs) do.

Ascending or descending armor class?
Ascending. Heretical, I know.  I use an attack bonus combat system rather than tables or Thac0 and just convert descending on the fly.

Demi-human level limits?
Theoretically, yes.  Got to give they some reason to play humans.  Of course, I haven't had anyone reach the limit either so it hasn't mattered in practice.

Should thief be a class?
Absolutely.  Didn't start on OD&D, so for me the thief has always been a core class.  I don't like the granularity of percentile skills though, and use a modification of the thief in Delving Deeper which allows improvement of the skills.

Do characters get non-weapon skills?
That they can choose from? No. Skills related to your class are built into the classes, plus I'll wing it based on the player's character concept and background.

Are magic-users more powerful than fighters (and, if yes, what level do they take the lead)?
Eventually, yes.  It's part and parcel of the class.  Just need to survive long enough to develop that power.  When do they take the lead? Not really sure - I suppose that's variable depending upon the spells they've chosen over time.

Do you use alignment languages?
No, don't make any sense to me.  I use cultural/regional human languages instead.

XP for gold, or XP for objectives (thieves disarming traps, etc...)?
Primarily just for monsters and gold.  Using your class abilities to reach your objectives is your job.  Do your job, you find treasure and then gain your XP from it.

Which is the best edition; ODD, Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Rules Cyclopedia, 1E ADD, 2E ADD, 3E DD, 4E DD, Next ?
Best is ridiculously objective.  I have my preferences (Moldvay, Mentzer, RC) but pull the bits I like from anywhere I happen to find them, regardless of edition.

Bonus Question: Unified XP level tables or individual XP level tables for each class?
Individual.  It's part of the "balance" between classes as I see it.

I'm Actually Playing The Game!

So, I haven't been very active here on the ol' blog, you may have noticed.  Not that I ever was. :-)

I've always had a fairly severe case of Gamer ADD and seem to flit from project to project, interest to interest, so it's hard to ever finish anything. Still, I stay interested in a couple of projects - both my cyberpunk game and developing Trevail, my gameworld. Part of the problem is that I have two systems I want to write for. Swords & Wizardry: WhiteBox is awesome and I want to support it by eventually publishing both projects as supplements for that game.  But my true love for a system is still Rules Cyclopedia! GRRR!

As my post title implies, I'm actually running a tabletop game, so while the cyberpunk project sits dormant, I am working on stuff for Trevail.  We've been playing for almost 5 months now, meeting weekly, except for the occasional week we needed to skip.  Not bad right? My group consists of four players.  Three kids, one mine, and a couple friends, plus an older friend of mine.  My friend Rich, and Paul (one of the kids) have some gaming experience, both with AD&D second edition.  My daughter Shannon has some BECMI under her belt, and Robyn, our fourth only had a bit of online RPG experience.  All in all a mixed bag of gaming experience and maturity, so it's been a challenge as a fairly inexperienced DM.

To start things off relatively simply for the beginners, I chose WhiteBox as our system.  In pre-game discussions, Paul indicated he wanted to play a Bard, and of course there wasn't one for WB.  I did some research and found some examples, plus looked at 2E, since that's what he was used to playing, and eventually bashed something up.  Since the Bard is a thief variant in 2E, I ended up working up one of those too, again based on other things I found outline.  Never satisfied, I've continued to tweak them to a level I felt fit the WB presentation and I think I'm pretty happy with them now. Also working on orcs as a playable race.

Esran's Isle by Dyson Logos

I'e also been working on some maps, trying to flesh out a small sandbox region for the group to explore.  I plug in small adventures try to seed rumors for the party to follow.  One great source has been the awesome maps by Dyson Logos.  I strongly recommend you check them out if you haven't heard of him yet. That awesome city map over there is going to be fleshed out as the major city in the region I'm detailing.  I'm using Haldane as a template for how I want to do that.

As a group, they seem to have taken to the game and ruleset and I've already talked about rolling the game over to Rules Cyclopedia.  For the most part, it will be a mostly transparent change for them, I think, and will let me run the system I really want to be using. I'm not ready to do it right away, but it will happen once I'm ready.

So where does that leave us here? I'm going to try and be more active on the blog as a way to force myself to keep working on the game.  I'm going to post my WB classes, and eventually compile it into a supplement form ala Greyhawk or Blackmoor were for OD&D.  It may be just houserules and classes - rules stuff like those old supplements were - and eventually work in the setting stuff, more like Rob Conley's Blackmarsh, though I doubt it'll ever be that good... I also would like to post some game night pics and session report type things.

Finally, I'll need to work up some of this stuff for Rules Cyclopedia - a Bard, which will be more like the 2E one and less like the WB one, a couple orc classes, some elven variations...

Stay tuned!

A Colored Map

Got out the colored pencils and played with some coloring last weekend. I want to get an idea where the mountain ranges are and see the global view brought to life. After that, I'll zoom in on a smaller region and go at it hexmap style.


Just based on how this came out, there are already changes of course. The other "problem" is that I've been playing with putting this image into some software that lets you do proper cartographic map projections, and when it's projected onto a globe (orthographic view) I can see the distribution of the continents doesn't work at all. So, I need to move somethings about, and maybe do a bit of re-sizing here and there to get something that is more aesthetically pleasing.

First Map

Here is the base for my world map. I've sketched out the continental outlines so I have a starting point, and can grow from here. I'm using the AD&D 2e World Builders Guidebook to some degree here. From this world view, I'll be roughing out the gross geographical features and climate patterns. Once that is done, I'll zoom into a smaller region that I can flesh out in more detail for the players.

My plan is to make classic Mystara-style hex maps initially, (OK, maybe not that nice), using the fantastic online utility Hexographer. Then as I feel artistic or more creative, work on redrawing everything more by hand, in the vein of the Tolkien Middle Earth maps, or Darlene's Greyhawk (1) & (2).

This map is a mash-up of a number of hand-drawn maps I made. I did 3 or 4 sketched maps, roughing out continental shapes, and scanned them all into Photoshop. I was then able to mix and match pieces I liked, rotating, flipping, shrinking or expanding, and so on.