d30 Sandbox Update

I know that many of you are wondering what the hell is going on with this. Well, I ran my test print before Christmas, but I've only this past few days had a chance to start my "practical" test. That is, I'm trying to do some world-building with it, and using it the way I intended (flipping back and forth, rolling my d30, etc.)

Honestly, I can't tell you how often I use my d30 DM Companion, but suffice to say, it's ALWAYS at arm's length (or closer). And now that I have the d30 Sandbox Companion test print, I'm already seeing how it works as a "unit" (as opposed to loose pages, or computer files). I'm afraid I'm going to start rubbing the NPC pages raw.

More importantly, I'm seeing where some tables are confusing. It's good to put things away and come back to them, and say... "what the hell?" I'm seeing where tables could be more obvious, and directions should be clearer. Hopefully I can nail some time down with Welbo next week, and he and I can come close to really getting this thing polished up.

Update on the Creature Compendium to come later this week.

Repost: New Oe/BX/1E D&D Monster: White Elephant

This is a repost of last year's Christmas Eve post. As part of my mother-in-law's over the top Christmas festivities, we all participate in a white elephant gift exchange. The fact that she gets so adamant about our participation, and the demand to out-do one another, often feels like the burden of the namesake creature. It just had me thinking about this new monster from last year, and how I like the idea of having to role-play around owning one.

WHITE ELEPHANT

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Very Rare NO. APPEARING: 1 ARMOR CLASS: 3 MOVE: 12" HIT DICE: 6 % IN LAIR: 30% TREASURE TYPE: F NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-12/2-12/4-32 SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below MAGIC RESISTANCE: 40% INTELLIGENCE: Exceptional ALIGNMENT: Lawful (neutral) SIZE: L (10' tall) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil

BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 3 HIT DICE: 6** MOVE: 120' ATTACKS: 2 tusks or 1 trample or special DAMAGE: 2-12/2-12 or 4-32 or see below NO. APPEARING: 1 SAVE AS: Fighter: 6 MORALE: 7 TREASURE TYPE: F ALIGNMENT: Lawful

It is said that when the gods and demons churned the seas to produce the nectar of life that would make them immortal, nine jewels surfaced. Among those nine were the elephant, a jewel to be preserved and protected. The most precious variety of that particular jewel is the white elephant, a pachyderm that bears both the boon of sacred powers and the burden of responsibility. Too divine to be worked, anyone owning a white elephant must cater to them as royalty. While some see this as a blessing, others see it as a hardship, considering the white elephant typically lives to be 500 plus years old.

A white elephant is able to use the following spells once a day: detect evil, protection from evil, bless, hold persons, speak with animals, cure disease, prayer, remove curse, and dispel evil. A white elephant may consider using those spells for the benefit of others, but only if the person wishing to engage the services of the elephant has first made some sort of offering, and doesn't "ask" the creature directly for his assistance; instead, the "petitioner" must present his/her situation and speak of the benefits of the elephant's assistance if it were to be offered.

If attacked, or if its owner attempts to draw it into service, a white elephant will become ethereal, susceptible only to others in ethereal form (e.g., through oil of etherealness or armor of etherealness. Furthermore, white elephants are immune to the phase door spell.

At its moment of death, a white elephant is capable of granting one wish to its current owner, assuming 1) the owner has taken good care of the elephant while in his charge, 2) makes the elephant as comfortable and cared for as possible during its dying moments, and 3) does not ask the creature directly for the wish.

My 7 Most GM'd RPGs (Meme Response)

Here they are, visually presented in roughly chronological per my introduction to them ...

When most of my 8th-grade friends where knee-deep in the hardbacks, I was running adventures where all the alignments consisted of one word instead of 9 different 2-word combinations. But it wasn't long before I was really running sort of a house version (before I knew what that meant) combining the two games.

In retrospect, what I was running at first was probably closer to the LBB rules. Eventually, the BX boxes got shelved, and the hardbacks became the go-to's.

I know that to some purists, Car Wars isn't technically an RPG (not the earliest versions of it, anyway), so you can't really GM it. I started with the little black case (one of the favorite items of all time in my game collection), but graduated to the deluxe edition-- mostly because it took all the extra arms and armor from all the ADQs and compiled it into a master edition. Even with character rules, I can't recall EVER using them. This is really more of me "starting" games with it, rather than GM'ing in the purest sense of the term.

I still love the uniquely old-school approach of V&V. You might base your character's normal persona on your own (in real life!), but you roll for everything else. None of this "choose your powers" stuff. No, sir.

We were lucky enough to have a game club in high school, which meant a built-in group of guys to game with. Once a week after school, twice a week during activity period, and occasionally before school in the library for a year or two. We played A LOT of V&V.

I think early on we played so much V&V that by the time Champions 3e came out, we were ready for a different game--one where we BUILT our characters. That, and Champions felt like it had more "power" than V&V (which felt a little constrained).

I'm not sure how we degraded to MSH from Champions and V&V, but I will say this... a really streamlined system like the original MSH made it easy to take the rules and adapt it to other settings (but I guess that's the nature of a comics-based RPG). I ran some non-super-hero sci-fi stuff using MSH for quite a while. It was just so... simple. It really has a nice pulp feel when you play with limited power levels! And it's a no-brainer to run. If I wasn't so focused on my own Starmasters stuff right now, I'd love to start up some new pulp sci-fi gaming with this.

I think I've run this game more than anybody I've ever met in my life. I haven't played it in a while, but I swear back in the day I ran campaigns with this shit! I kid you not. At its core, it's sort of a simplified version of The Fantasy Trip, and could probably be retro-cloned pretty easily into a quick and dirty fantasy RPG. Replace shticks with spells, and... voila!

Mail call! CC, d30SC, B&T, HOW

I took advantage of last week's Lulu sale to both do some due diligence on my own projects, as well as pick up copies of a couple of other new RPGs. And by big ol' box was waiting for me on my doorstep when I returned from lunch yesterday.

My Due Diligence: Creature Compendium
As the Creature Compendium starting growing in page count, I began to admit to myself I would probably have to go with perfect binding instead of saddle-stitch. I wanted the "non-laminated" look of the saddle-stitch books because it would match the d30 DM Companion and the d30 Sandbox Companion. But the intended color on the saddle-stitch version was dark and smeary, and the page count (72pp) made the cover buckle (this could have been from shipping/packing, but I want as much quality control as possible), so I'm going with the perfect bound option. And since it's entirely possible some pages will be added, this will be the safest option. I still have a handful of illustrations to finish, the appendices need to be written, and the whole thing needs to be proofread, but I'm close on finishing this one.

My Due Diligence: d30 DM Companion
Unfortunately this project is VERY close to completion, but has been on the back burner. Work demands of my co-conspirator Welbo has severely limited his time and our proofing on this has gotten way behind schedule. The book is essentially done (though we picked up 2 new pages we're trying to decide how to use). The introduction section still needs a little work, but the Companions are VERY proofing heavy. I'm hoping the holiday week gives us a chance to catch up. As for the proofing copy I received, the cover looks great, and the layout is tight. Just a tweak here and there (and maybe an illustration or two) but this is also very close.

B&T & H&OW
Like I said above, I also used the Lulu discount opportunity to pick up a couple of other items I'd been wanting, namely John Stater's Blood & Treasure (Complete Rules paperback), and Chris Brandon's Heroes & Other Worlds. At 380 pages, B&T seems a bit daunting to dig into, so it's like to sit for a couple of weeks before I find the time. HOW, on the other hand, is compact and seems like a quick study. Besides, I've always been a Fantasy Trip fan, so I'm anxious to dig into CB's take on this one.

New Illustration: Yeti Battle

New Oe/BX/1E Monster: Striga (Roman-inspired)

After a brief blogging hiatus, William over at Ramblings of a Great Khan has continued his string of themed adventure design contests with a Roman-themed adventure design contest. And 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place will be receiving a PDF copy of 43 AD, a recently released RPG set in Roman Britain (William helped edit and playtest it).

He's really opened up the restrictions on this one, so I'm hoping it will be easier to tackle than the Mongol contest. I got so sucked into my ideas for that one; what was supposed to be a 2-page wilderness adventure is quickly turning into a 20-page wilderness module/setting.

I'm going to keep my thoughts on the Roman thing to myself for right now, but suffice to say I'm going to try to steer clear combat-driven encounters. So why am I posting a roman-themed Monster of the Week? Because (1) I've been wanting to stat this one up for a while (I have another place I want to use it), and (2) I thought it might help you guys kickstart some ideas.


STRIGA

DESCRIPTION Strigae (sing.=“striga”) are a type of vampire akin to harpies. They have an owl-like body and a woman’s head, and are particularly fond of stealing small children left unattended, returning to their lair, and feasting on the delicacy. As undead, strigae are immune to the effects of sleep, charm, and hold, and can only be hit by magical weapons (+1 or better). Strigae attack with their two claws and powerful bite. The bite of a strigae does 1-6 points on its initial hit. Each round thereafter, the strigae will continue to drain the victim’s blood, doing 1-6 points of damage per round until the victim dies, the striga is killed, or the striga abandons its attack. Strigae speak their own language. They are only capable of understanding common when it is spoken by a lamia, and are incapable of speaking it. Furthermore, lamias are capable of understanding strigae when they speak their own language.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 2-8 ARMOR CLASS: 6 MOVE: 6”/15” HIT DICE: 3+4 % IN LAIR: 25% TREASURE TYPE: C NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-4/1-4/1-6 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Drain blood SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below MAGIC RESISTANCE: See below INTELLIGENCE: Average to very ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil SIZE: M PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 6 HIT DICE: 3+4 MOVE: 60’/150’ ATTACKS: 2 claws/1 bite DAMAGE: 1-4/1-4/1-6+special NO. APPEARING: 2-8 SAVE AS: Fighter:3 MORALE: 8 TREASURE TYPE: C ALIGNMENT: Chaotic

New Oe/BX/1E Monster: Giant Molecricket

One of the things I love about the monsters in BX vs. 1e is the "spirit" in which the insects differ. Compare Moldvay's oil and tiger beetles with EGG's bombardier and I think you'll see what I mean. And the Moldvay cave locust... I mean, come on... that's pure red book goodness. That's the spirit I've tried to capture in today's Monster of the Week entry.

From an illustration standpoint, today's image is a direct response to Welbo's prodding about "giving up" the brush pen in favor of the Faber Castell F Pitt artist's pen I've been using of late. I realized why I stopped using the brush pen... most of the ones I have suck, and the points don't last long. The Zebra pen (which holds up well, and has a tip I can actually control well) is running out of ink. I'm in need of a trek to Shop Minoya (a little Japanese store in Plano, TX, miles north of Dallas proper, where I live) for some new ones. I did, however, manage to squeeze today's illustration out of it.

BTW, this would make a nice wandering monster complement to the Foray to Filmarion Wood mini-adventure from back in July of this year.

GIANT MOLECRICKET

DESCRIPTION Giant molecrickets possess shovel-like forelimbs and powerful “shoving” hind legs, making them natural burrowers (second movement rating). Because they are nocturnal and spend most of their lives in elaborate underground tunnels, it is not uncommon for molecrickets to remain relatively unseen, even in areas where their population is considerably high in number. They may be found in almost any climate (except arctic), usually in areas with soft ground and abundant grass or foliage. In combat, the molecricket attacks by striking opponents with its powerful forelimbs and biting with its razor-sharp teeth. The omniverous molecricket is more of a scavenger than predator, and is not normally aggressive. However, if confined or cornered during a fight, the molecricket will attack with considerable force, gaining a +1 “to hit” bonus and +1 damage bonus to each of its attacks, as well as a +4 bonus to its morale, until it is no longer confined/cornered. In some dwarven and gnomish communities, fried molecricket is considered a delicacy.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 1-12 ARMOR CLASS: 5 MOVE: 9”//3” HIT DICE: 4 % IN LAIR: 30% TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-12/2-12/2-12 SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Non- ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: L (5’-6’ long) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 5 HIT DICE: 4 MOVE: 90’//30’ ATTACKS: 2 forelimbs/1 bite DAMAGE: 2-12/2-12/2-12 NO. APPEARING: 1-12 SAVE AS: Fighter: 2 MORALE: 7 TREASURE TYPE: Nil ALIGNMENT: Neutral

Anybody know anything about the SERPENT RPG?

I've read about it in some posts/lists regarding retro-clones, but I have not been able to track down anything nire about it. If anyone could point me to information about the game (that is, more than the word "SERPENT" on a list of other retro-clones), it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Trying Some New Line & Shade Techniques

After a year plus a couple of months of being back into the illustration thing, I feel like I'm really just back into full swing. As of late, I've been trying to focus on different line and shade techniques. I've been mostly working with the Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen with the "F" (fine) tip, but am trying different approaches to line and shading. Today, I tried something inspired Tramp's illustration style used for images like the Holmes minotaur and the MM fire giant illustration. I think this turned out okay for a first stab at the style. But I got a ways to go to get mine as tight as DAT's.

Word of the Day: Fabulate

The other day, I saw this word pop up on the screen saver on a computer in one of the classrooms where I teach. It seemed to have the letters "DM" written all over it.

Get a Print Copy of the d30 DM Companion for $6.44

Lulu is having a 20% Off Sale through December 14. I've discounted the list price of the d30 DM Companion print copy to $8.05 (from $8.95). Add in the 20% savings for Lulu's sale and that means you get the d30 DM Companion for $6.44 (a $2.51 savings over the standard price.) This is the perfect opportunity for you to buy a handful and hand them out to your gaming group as Christmas presents!

Get the Print Copy at Lulu for $6.44 (w/ Lulu discount) > 
Get the clickable PDF for its everyday low price of $3.00 at RPGNow! >

What else should go in your basket? Here's what's going in mine...
• Blood & Treasure (Soft Cover) by John Stater
• The TFT-inspired Heroes & Other Worlds by Fenway5 (aka Chris Brandon)

Free Oe/1e/BX Mini-adventure (Characters level 3-6)

Okay, so this was another one of those weeks where I really just wanted to procrastinate on my client work, and started working on an adventure I'm building around the idea I tossed out a couple of months back about a scalable encounter key. Unfortunately, it felt like the encounter key idea was more interesting than the adventure itself, so I turned my attention towards a concept I'd been making notes on here-and-there for the last couple of months.

Most of the adventures that I write tend to be conflict (i.e., "story-based") encounters centered around a simple hook (like Þrymjahellir), it's been a while since I created anything where the adventure was (in many ways) out of the hands of the characters. That's not to imply a railroading approach; in fact, it's the opposite. I mean an adventure where the events are "fixed" (as opposed to the fluidity of Þrymjahellir), and the characters must decide whether the next step or action (as simple or as unimportant as it may seem) will seal their dooms or not. That's the idea behind The Grizzly Graveyard of Grimgortha. (Please forgive the Stan Lee-esque alliteration; it's a holdover from my original A-to-Z idea from April.)

This adventure includes several encounters which requires the players to think rather than to have the PCs fight (though there is some of that). And while there is an actual riddle or two to be solved, the strange occurrences that happen within the graveyard are meant to puzzle the players and fill their characters with apprehension. Hopefully, this adventure will create some paranoia in your players, and it provides the DM with a key option for that, based on knowing his player group (and how they might act in these situations).

The Grizzly Graveyard
of Grimgortha

So much dreadful energy seems to emanate from Grimgortha Graveyard you can truly feel it in your bones—and it does not feel good. Surely something that radiates this kind of evil must be imbued with a darkness so vile it defies all that is good in the universe. It must also be protecting something of great value, though one would hope your concern is ridding the world of its evil.

Click here to download "The Grizzly Graveyard of Grimgortha" from MediaFire.

Anybody ever do a credit trade with Troll and Toad or Noble Knight?

This is more about trade credit than direct sale. I was just wondering if you thought the trade rate was fair, especially given you could turn that credit into something else you might really want in your collection. I have a few collectible items I've picked up recently that aren't really in line with my gaming interest, but were too much of a steal to pass up when I bought them.