Why "Supplement I" May Be The Most "D&D" Of All D&D Books (well... the Oe ones, anyway)

BE FOREWARNED: WHAT FOLLOWS IS MORE OF A LATE NIGHT STREAM OF THOUGHT THAN ANY SORT OF TRUE SCHOLARLY DISCUSSION.

For some reason, over the weekend I got to thinking that regardless of how good of a movie "property" that D&D and should be in Hollywood terms (e.g., built in fan base, potential for crossover sales, etc.), that it will probably never be that for a few very important reasons.

First, the majority of the clichés of the game were "borrowed" from other sources, the most obvious and pervasive being LotR (duh.) So open up the "Men & Magic" book from your Oe trinity and start scratching out things like elves and dwarves as being even remotely unique to D&D. Then go to the Monsters and Treasure book, and start scratching out the things that come either from specific mythologies (e.g, the Greek monsters that are definitely more Clash of the Titans than uniquely D&D), general mythologies (vampires, giants, nixies, pixies and dryads), or from LotR (well, TSR actually had to do that pretty early on anyway, didn't they?) That doesn't leave too much that is uniquely D&D there, does it?

Second, production companies seem obliged to include dragons in any version of D&D they attempt. (Please don't go reviewing the ones they've done. God forbid you have to re-expose yourself that Wayan's brother movie with production values lower than 1980's version of Flash Gordon, or the 3rd rate CGI from 2005's Wrath of the Dragon God.) And as any of us know (and as has been discussed repeatedly on the blogalogs out there), rarely do dragons make it into what most of us consider "normal game play" anyway. Why? Because, though "dragons" is part of the name, there is so much more to the game than that.

Third, you can't call it "Dungeons & Dragons" if you want anyone who's never played the game to see the movie. Hell, I'm 45 years old and the only time I ever use the full words "dungeons and dragons" (out loud) is when someone asks me "What's D&D?" because they're not familiar with the term. More than that, though, I feel like in some ways "dungeons and dragons" has become a fairly generic term to those outside of RPG circles. Try to tell someone outside the hobby what Tunnels & Trolls is and my guess is they're likely to say, "Is that like Dungeons & Dragons?"

So how do you solve the above?

To the first point above... USE THE PROPERTIES THAT ARE TRULY UNIQUE TO D&D!!! And as anybody who's ever had to deal with the OGL knows, that means: beholders, blink dogs, carrion crawlers, displacer beasts, gelatinous cubes, phase spiders, rust monsters, stirges and umber hulks. Holy shit! Every single one of those is from the Greyhawk supplement and half of them are "product identity" owned by WotC. The only other quintessential monster missing from that list is the mind flayer. Not to mention Supplement I is also responsible for magic items like the dancing sword.

To the second point above... WHO THE HELL NEEDS DRAGONS WHEN YOU'VE GOT BEHOLDERS, RUST MONSTERS AND UMBER HULKS??? Honestly, throw a wise/advising dragon, or a starving one that needs some monsters vanquished and the nod has been made. The dragon does not have to be the villain. (Yes, I know you know that, but Hollywood doesn't.)

And finally, to the third point... "GREYHAWK" SOUNDS A HELL OF LOT COOLER AS A MOVIE TITLE THAN "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" ANYDAY. Just picture the word "GREYHAWK" in the font Trajan moving slowly at you on the screen with dramatic orchestral music, then a flash cut an extreme close-up of an umber hulk with a loud snarling burst. (BTW, the entire audience has to make their saving throw at -1 due to surprise.)

Now that's some shit I'd spend ten bucks to see (though I think it would actually work better as a cable TV series.)

d30 Feature of the Week: Sandbox Magical Places Generator

As I mentioned in the d30 post from two weeks ago, I had intended to have a slightly more complete "Magical Places" generator at that time. This week's d30 feature is the potential of that chart brought to fruition, and getting ready for its place in the d30 Sandbox Companion.

To download a free PDF of today's chart from MediaFire, click here.

It's Official: I've Signed Up for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2012

Long story short, I have no idea what I'll do yet, but...

The way I figure it, A to Z is 26 entries. So add a title page and an index (or appendix or map!), and that gives you a 28-page book (plus cover.) So whatever I do, my plan will be to create something that I can quickly turn back around and publish as a complete book in May.

New Oe/BX/1E Monster: Abysmal

Among other resources, I like to troll old public domain comics for monster ideas.
This is one is inspired from an old pre-code comic from the 50s.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Very Rare NO. APPEARING: 2-5 ARMOR CLASS: 3 (-variable) MOVE: 12” HIT DICE: 8 (+variable HPs) % IN LAIR: 35% TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-12/2-12/2-8 SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below MAGIC RESISTANCE: See below INTELLIGENCE: Low ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil SIZE: L (12’ tall) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil

BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 3 (-variable) HIT DICE: 8 (+variable hit points)** MOVE: 120’ ATTACKS: 2 claws/1 bite + special DAMAGE: 2-12/2-12/2-8 + special NO. APPEARING: 2-5 SAVE AS: Fighter: 8 MORALE: 12 TREASURE TYPE: Nil ALIGNMENT: Chaotic

DESCRIPTION
Abysmals are subterranean dwellers that feed on both the fear of their victims as well as their flesh. They appear with a roughly octopus-like shape, walking aright on 6 tentacles, with 2 arms and a head that are vaguely humanoid, rubbery skin that is mottled gray, and bodies that seem waterlogged and bloated.

The sight of an abysmal alone alone can cause fear which the abysmal will then “feed” upon. For every creature that views an abysmal and fails his saving throw vs. magic, the abysmal gains a -1 bonus to its AC (cumulative against all attackers) while those creatures are within 100’ feet of the abysmal. The only further effect on the attackers that have failed their saving throws is an internal feeling of angst that will persist until that particular abysmal is dead, or the fear has been removed by magical means (even if the creature moves beyond the 100' distance.) Any AC bonus for the abysmal remains in effect while the affected victim is in proximity to the abysmal, regardless of whether the fear has been removed. If the affected creature leaves the effective distance, the bonus to the abysmal is lost, but the affected creature must make another saving throw (as per the first) should he return close enough to view the abysmal again.

In addition to the visage of an abysmal causing fear, every attack the abysmal makes (on successful “to hit” rolls) with its razor sharp talons and/or gouging bite also has repercussive effects. During any melee round that a defender is successfully attacked by an abysmal, the wounded creature must make a saving throw vs. magic (1 throw per melee round per abysmal, regardless of the number of successful hits by that abysmal) or become full of a sense of dread and fear that reinvigorates the abysmal by adding a number of hit points to the abysmal equal to the damage inflicted upon the character (that has failed his saving throw) during that melee round. The number of hit points that an abysmal may gain is not restricted by his starting hit points or his number of hit dice.

Abysmals are immune to the effects of fear and charm.

d30 DM Companion Update: New Back Cover Image

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Dave had remarked that my first version of the new back cover image (below) for the d30 DM Companion felt like the guys and background were more interesting than the statue, and he was right. I think the new version (at top) is much more dynamic.

Both images ©2012, Richard Jean LeBlanc, Jr./New Big Dragon Games Unlimited. These images are NOT CREATIVE COMMONS! You must have my permission for all uses of these images.

d30 DM Companion Update: Additional Editing Round

I know what many of you are thinking...
"Enough already! We're jonesin' man. We need our d30 fix! What's taking so freakin' long?"

Answer... 3 things. But as you'll see via the notes below, I think the updates were well worth it.

1) In looking at the test print from Lulu, Dave took at look at the layout and remarked how the numbers on one page were bolded where they weren't on most of the others. I'd only done it because the page had a strange layout (because of space requirements) and bolding the numbers allowed me to share numbered columns between results tables, thus conserving space. However, it wasn't until Dave said this that I realized doing this throughout the book would make every page easier to read and, more importantly, use. So I went back through all of the pages and made the numbers bold to aid in readability. (See first sample above.)

2) Based on the way I'd done the shorthand monster descriptions, I realized I'd never done a true and proper job of trying to make sure they had any real consistency for a specific rules version. Given that I want this resource to be useable by anyone running most games (Oe, BX, 1e, LL, SW, et al.), I wanted these stats to be as complete as possible so that if someone didn't have the stats for a specific monster because it's not "native" to their version. However, it also needed to be as stat-generic as possible, regardless of version. That meant I needed to balance out (or "average"?) things like hit dice (e.g., some monsters are stronger in 1e than they are in BX) and movements (oddly, many monsters that are stronger in 1e are actually faster in BX.) Plus there were some other things that, when stepping away and coming back, needed more clarification anyway. (See second example above.)

3) And finally, since there's now going to be a d30 Sandbox Companion, there were a couple of pages from the d30 DM Companion that felt better served in the other book (and I want to avoid too much duplication), as well as a couple of pages of "fluff" that I'd added to the DM Companion to adjust for page count (especially since Lulu doesn't print interior covers- ugh!) that really just felt like needed to be removed. Also, I wanted each spread (2 pages next to each other) to be as complete as possible, throughout the book. This meant a couple of hours of playing around with re-pagination. For example, in these first versions, the monster descriptions took the 2nd half of 1 spread, a full spread of another, and the 1st half of a 3rd spread. Now those 4 pages aren't spread across 3 spreads (6 pages) and appear in just 2 spreads. The whole book is like that now. What's left is a tight piece of pure meat (that's what she said.) I do not feel like there is a wasted page in the book. I do not believe in "spreading shit out" to make the buyer feel like they're getting a higher page count for their money. I believe in giving DMs a useful tool that requires as little page-flipping as possible.

And all that's left to do now is...

1) Finalize editing the descriptions for human/demi-human encounters (an extension of the monster descriptions from #2 above)

2) Move the page numbers back to where I had them originally (long story short, I moved them thinking it would make it easier to use, and it didn't so they have to move back.)

and 3) Rework the back cover illustration. Dave remarked that it felt like the guys and background were more interesting than the statue, and he was right. Hopefully, I can just redraw the statue portion and photoshop the other elements together.

Start polishing those rhombic triacontahedrons, I'm getting close.

How To Embalm A Corpse!!!

In doing some "research" this week, I was perusing through the online copy of Weird Terror #13 from September of 1954 and came across this informative little article. I'm not really sure what pre-teen boy in 1954 might do with this information, but I honestly have a more interesting question... was this "essay" a copy of the one written by author Robert Benchley as a satirical response to a school assignment (c. 1908?) when asked to write and essay about "something practical?" (BTW, Robert is the grandfather of Peter, author of Jaws.) Questions aside, I thought this might have place in some folks' game worlds, so I present it to you for your perusal and/or use as source material.

Special thanks to "leinad" who scanned in this public domain gem for the Digital Comic Museum.