Upcoming projects

As many of my regular blog readers know, publishing Mord Mar has been a dream of mine for 5 years or so. Thanks to a push by Swords and Wizardry day, I now have the tools available to do this. InDesign is an amazing program that will take me forever to learn. But, I learn best while doing. After getting Goblins of the Citadel out, I have begun working on the first actual sourcebook for Mord Mar. It's going to be called Stonemire. I hope to have it done before the end of the year, and am expecting about 128 pages.

When I revised Mord Mar: Goblins of the Citadel, I intentionally re-wrote a couple of blocked off areas into it. There will be a sequel coming, where the stone slab above Mucksnort's throne room is moved, and the PCs and GMs can begin to see the true scope of the citadel. This should be out in a couple of months. A few of the lingering questions from part one should be answered: where did the Goblin Mirror come from? Who put it there? Part 2 will answer these questions. But, I plan on a 4-part series, so there may be more questions than answers when its done . . .

Ian (my partner) and I think we have hit on something for the Swords and Wizardry Light community with my weather chart. We are brainstorming several more charts, and intend to make a 25-50 chart book for S&WL. They will be compatible with any fantasy role-playing game. We have another ten or so ideas that we just need to sit down and write. I hope to push this one out right around NTRPGcon.

Ian has submitted a one-page adventure for S&WL to Tenkar, Mike and Zach. It will probably show up soon in either a print, or PWYW PDF format. . .

Look for this logo. It's ours!

Monster Monday

Everybody who plays RPGs knows of Dungeons and Dragons. Most people who don't play RPGs in the Western World know of Dungeons and Dragons. Those of us who do play, know that monsters are integral to the game. That's why Dragons is in the title. Today I'm going to look at 5 "entry level" monster books for some of the games I have played over the years.

Image from paizo

5. Pathfinder Bestiary (Paizo, 2009): Paizo may have saved our hobby from the 4e massacre. They picked up the 3.X mantle and gave the players something worth playing. Paizo put a great monster book together here, with amazing art, and a sturdy frame. I did enjoy Pathfinder for several years, but now I prefer less "crunchy" games.

4. AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium (TSR, 1989): I loved this book. Right up until I bought my 4th or 5th Volume. I loved that I could arrange the monsters in my notebook next to the encounter descriptions. I loved being able to keep hundreds of monsters in a single binder. Then the holes started ripping. The printers couldn't line up the pages from volume to volume. I spent way too much time putting them back in order when I was done. It will always have a place in my 14 year old heart, and on my shelf.

Image from Troll Lord Games

3. Castles and Crusades Monsters & Treasure (Troll Lord Games, 2004?): I love C&C. It's probably my favorite game behind Swords and Wizardry. I rank this book because I only need it for, well, monsters and treasure. C&C doesn't suffer from too much crunch. And Troll Lord seems to always be running a sale. 

Image from Drive Thru RPG

2. Swords and Wizardry Monstrosities (Frog God Games, 2013?): As much as I love S&W, that's not why this book makes #2. What makes this book head and shoulders above the modern competition is that every monster has an example set up. At the very least, this makes it entertaining to read. And, more often than not, I want to find a way to included the described encounters into my game. To top it off, it is a Frog God production, so the book will probably outlive the campaign it is used in.

Image from Tome of Treasures

1. Monster Manual (TSR, 1977): There's not much to say about this book that you don't already know. We all love it. A book with the same name has appeared in 4 of the 5 D&D editions (sorry 2e). This book has stoked imagination in one form or another for 2 full generations. Its longevity and iconic nature make it a must have, in at least one edition. 

A quick note: I wouldn't trust those prices at Tome of Treasures. They seem a bit out of date.

Swords and Wizardry Day: Bonus Post!

For you S&WL players, you really didn't think I would forget you, right? Here's a weather generation table, just for you. (Not really. It can be used in pretty much any RPG.)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyvuzgpnuc8o1yi/Weather%20Table.pdf?dl=0

There's the Dropbox link. I'm probably going to send this one over to Tenkar's Tavern to try and get it put in Torchlight. So probably no Drivethru or RPGNOW.

Roll some dice, and slay some monsters!

Swords & Wizardry Day!

Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day is here! My contribution is an old module that I ran at Gen Con in 2014. It's been slightly re-worked, edited and re-formatted from PF to S&W. It was a straight forward module at GC, and still pretty much is.

Here's the link:
(removed. Now on RPGNow, see below)

If that doesn't work for you, I plan on having it up on DrivethruRPG and RPGNow before the end of the weekend.

Here's the new link:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/210351/Mord-Mar-Goblins-of-the-Citadel

Roll some dice, and slay some monsters!

My 5 most important GM resource books

There are a lot of books that GMs can use to make their game better. Tonight I am going to highlight five of my favorites, and give a couple of honorable mentions. My game is a megadungeon, so that may influence this list. Here it is, with a few words on each:

5. The Name Book, by Dorothy Astoria (1992, 1997). It's simply a list of 10,000 names in alphabetical order. When I need a name, there is always one close at hand with this book. Pretty much any name book will do. Nothing is worse than Barkeep #12, so avoid that with a book you can find at a flea market or garage sale for less than a dollar.

4. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide (1st Edition), by E. Gary Gygax (at least 18 printings from 1979-1987?). The granddaddy tool book, this volume is quintessential to running any good game. Sure the rules are not well edited, and you have to hunt for similar things in different places. But, Appendix A is worth the confusion. You can literally create a dungeon by rolling dice with Appendix A. Appendix N is a list of "inspirational and educational reading" that can get any GM's creative juices flowing. You can find it for as little as $10 on Ebay, and probably cheaper at used bookstores, comic shops or conventions.

3. Bill Webb's Book of Dirty Tricks, by Bill Webb (Frog God Games) is a great resource for when the player-characters get out of control. He expertly explains how to bleed gold, resources, time, or anything else they might stack up too much of. And he makes sure the players still have fun! The PDF can be bought for $5 at the link to Frog God Games.

2. How to Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck, by Goodman Games (2017 - It may not be available at retail yet) This book contains advice from a lot of great designers: Jim Ward, Christopher Clark, Skip Williams and Brendan LaSalle to name a few. They cover a huge range of topics, from context to description. It's going to be $30 when you can get it. It is worth it.

1. Tome of Adventure Design, by Matthew J. Finch (2009, 2016), again published by Frog God . This book literally walks you through creating adventures. It has charts upon charts (and what self-respecting GM doesn't love charts?) with everything from location names, to types of clues, and
special effects for teleportation devices. It is basically the 1E DMG on steroids. It's going to set you back $21 on PDF or double that for print. Every time I am working on a dungeon, I pull out this book.

I'm not going to go into detail with my special mentions, but I think they are noteworthy. Someday, they may even get their own post. Here's 3 more books to be on the look out for:

Special Mention #1: Storyteller's Thesaurus by James Ward and Anne K. Brown
Special Mention #2: The Dungeon Alphabet by Michael Curtis
Special Mention #3: The Random Esoteric Creature Generator by James Raggi

Hunt them down. You will be glad to have them all in your collection.

What makes a dungeon "Mega"

My list of megadungeons post yesterday was the best read in my blog, ever. Thanks all 500+ of you that looked at it! A few people commented on my Facebook posts about what makes a megadungeon well, mega. I think it is an important question. One I plan on delving into right now.

BadMike said "There are a few sites online that describe what a megadungein is. Some characteristics are: you cannot reasonably map the entire thing; there are areas controlled by different factions; there is a backstory to the dungeon that goes back a very long time; etc"

Another poster (named Kreeping Deth) on Facebook said: "Large enough and with enough treasure, interesting places, monsters and factions to support multiple parties of different levels exploring all the time. There's no "winning it," because "cleared" areas always repopulate with new inhabitants. No matter how far you go, there's always more. This dungeon can serve as the basis for an entire campaign for dozens of players that can span years and years. Some people like elaborate backstories for them, but that's less important to me because I think that ultimately limits the scope and constrains creativity. It's OK for the origins of its creation and development to remain a mystery.

- chainsaw "

These are both viable answers.

A couple of bloggers that I read have attempted to answer this question as well (links to their discussions):
Dungeon Fantastic
The Angry GM

With that background, on to MY criteria:
1. It can never be fully explored or mapped. PCs should know that they haven't found everything. There is always a mystery of "I wonder what we missed." Undermountain was particularly famous for this. Castle Greyhawk and El Raja Key would literally move walls around to make this true.

2. A megadungeon must have a theme. Castle Triskelion is about a crazy family's home. Castle of the Mad Archmage (and Castle Greyhawk) is about a crazy wizard. These themes don't show up in every room, but they do show up over and over and over.

3. A megadungeon must have lots of entrances and exits. Without this, it is just too hard to move quickly to new areas. Rappan Athuk is a great example of how these portals can facilitate multiple levels of characters delving the same dungeon.

4. Many areas controlled by many factions is another reasonable criterion. Orcs, goblins and gnolls should be holed up in the megadungeon and willing to negotiate to eradicate the other factions. Without factions, a megadungeon is just hack and slash. That gets boring quickly. Felltower (see Dungeon Fantastic blog above) does a great job with this.

5. There need to be goals in a megadungeon. Often, the GM or the players of a campaign will set these. They can be McGuffin quests, search and rescue, get a particular map or any number of tropes. Just sending players in because its there is not good enough for a long term campaign.

I think this is wordy enough for now. Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment if I am wrong, or am missing something.

Megadungeon List

Most of my megadungeon collection

So, I've been looking for a comprehensive megadungeon list for a while, and can't seem to find one that covers them all. This will be an effort to do that. Anything I am missing, please let me know.

THE MYTHS
Castle Blackmoor
Castle Greyhawk + El Raja Key
Underworld of Jakalla

THE TRUTH
ASE - Anomoulus Subsurface Environment
Armaron Castle
Barrowmaze
Castle Gargantua
Catle Greyhawk (joke module)
Castle of the Mad Archmage
Castle Triskelion
Castle Whiterock
Castle Zagyg
The Darkness Beneath
Dark Tower
Depths of Felk Mor
Doomvault (from Dead in Thay)
Dragon's Delve
Dwimmermount
The Emerald Spire
Eyes of the Stone Thief
Felltower
Foolsgrave
The Grande Temple of Jing
Greyhawk Ruins
Hobby Shop Dungeon
Kihago
Maure Castle
The Maze of the Blue Medusa
Mines of Khumar
My Own Private Jakalla
Mythrus Tower
Rappan Athuk
Roslof Keep
Ruins of Kwalishar
The Slumbering Tsar
Stonehell
Undermountain
World's Largest Dungeon

THE CONTENDERS
Caverns of Thracia
The Lost City (module B4) - I finally own this. I need to read it to see if it moves "up."
Palace of the Vampire Queen
Temple of Elemental Evil
Tegel Manor
Tomb of Abysthor

INSPIRATIONS
Skull Mountain (Holmes Boxed Set)



I know there are others out there. There's one that I read about once called Demonsgate or Demonsmouth or Demonshell or something.


Blogs used in this research:
http://castletriskelion.blogspot.com/
http://quasarknight.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-comprehensive-list-of-megadungeons.html
http://dmdavid.com/tag/megadungeons-in-print-and-on-the-web/
http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-design.html

Swords and Wizardry Light

So, the awesome frogs, er people, at Frog God Games (and Erik Tenkar) have created a system called Swords & Wizardry Light. It's a whole game in 4 pages. Seriously, check it out HERE. It's free gaming goodness.

S&WL is getting tons of support too. Tenkar's Tavern is planning a 'zine. I even threw a 1 page adventure toward it. Frog God is working on Tome of Horrors for Light. They are even making Character Cards. Some guy named Mike down in Texas has even started a Society, called Swords & Wizardry Legion.

If you are looking for an streamlined, fun, game with easy to learn rules, check out S&WL. Bring a couple of old friends back to the table with it.

Gary Con Pt 2

Well, it looks like I may get two blogs done in one week! Go me!

Saturday morning we headed to the Gary Con Open finals. We played cautious and moved forward, with purpose. We made it to the final big bad, and killed him! (Still no spoilers). Jon was once again a hoot, and we were missing our Druid from the day before. We handled it, and had a blast in the process.

After the GCO, we ran into my friend Cory, and checked out his group's game Chronomega. It's interesting, but still needs some tweaks to the rules. The board looks beautiful, though. It uses the same mechanic as Ravingspire (3 spinning wheels that change the board). This one takes place on a space station. As we only watched for 20 minutes or so, I can't really tell you the goal. I expect another really fun game from the Madison Crew. Looking at the game, I would expect a Kickstarter in Q3 or Q4.

My last game was another of Bill Webb's Mythus Tower environs. Again, I don't want to spoil it for you if you get the joy of playing. But, there is now a halfling immune to fear running around Mythus Tower, Seriously, that guy was a boss. He took it straight to the boss monster with no hope of winning and crushed the odds! If you read this, shout out, so we can get together on another game with Bill at Gamehole or GaryCon next year. Again, Splat walked away with no magical loot. But he is level 5(?) now!

We did win the GaryCon Open. By about 100 points. Here's my cousin-nephew-son highlighting our win.

Gary Con and other stuff

It's been a really long time since I have had the chance to update the blog. A new business will do that to you. That said, I hope to get back into a decent blog schedule. On to the Gary Con report.

We left on Wednesday for GaryCon, Nathaniel (my cousin-nephew-son) and Jake were with me. We let the recently-turned-eighteen Nathaniel drive the first 2 hours of our journey, to the Michigan-Indiana border. From there, I took over. It was a good thing, too, because Chicago was Chicago. Stop and go traffic all the way to O'hare. Here we grabbed my good friend Ian. After he climbed aboard the trip was pretty smooth.
We arrived in Lake Geneva, dropped luggage, and headed to Frank Mentzer's party. Not much to note there. We looked at some artifacts of our gaming heritage, and had a good meal. Then headed back to the hotel. We headed to the bar and began our hellos with old friends. Zach Glazar, Bill Webb, The Barkeeper, Bad Mike and others showed up throughout the night. Honestly the first couple of nights became a haze. Too much alcohol and too little sleep and food.

Thursday morning rolled around, and Ian and I headed to our game: In Search of the Unknown: A DCC Character funnel. This game was a blast. Chris Lauricella made a great game. We found Blackrazor (from White Plume Mountain), which killed a lot of people. We found several other artifacts that had less impact on the game. I know he said Strahd's Cloak, a Staff of Power and other things were available. The other artifact that had significant impact was Acerack's Skull, which we used to make a momentous end to the game. In my infinite wisdom, I sat in a chair that summoned a demon. A fellow party member threw the skull at the demon, causing the entire dungeon complex to implode on itself. The adventurers who survived were rich beyond measure though, as we had filled wagons with loot and left it outside for our inevitable triumph!

Next up was Jim Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha game. It was a lot of fun. Jim, of course, had TPK'd the group before it was done. He was nice enough to sign my How To Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck before the end of the day. I also ran down and grabbed a copy of Epsilon City to have him autograph as well.

Then we headed to dinner with the Frog Gods. Bill, Zach, Skeeter, Mike and Erik were there, and our buddy Jim had shown up in time to eat too. The steakhouse at Grand Geneva Resort is really good. We were all well sated and most of us well sloshed! We took a bit longer than expected and were about 20 minutes late for Scooby-Doo vs Cthulhu. Our buddy Chad "Danger" had no problem filling our seats.

Friday morning was an exercise in mind over matter. The hangover was palpable. But, with a good nudging from Ian, I was able to get moving. Ian, Nathaniel and myself headed to the Gary Con Open. We were pleasantly surprised to be in the same group as a couple of last year's winners. I'm not going to spoil the module for you, as it can be purchased from GARY CON when they get the bazaar up and running again. Jon Johnson was our GM, and he does a great job. Thanks to a well timed Limited Wish, we advanced to the finals. More about that on Saturday Morning.

Next on my schedule was the 1974 Gen Con demo of Castle Greyhawk. It was supposed to be played at Horticultural Hall, but was moved to Gary's old house on Center Street at the last minute. Paul Stormberg, of THE COLLECTOR'S TROVE ran this event. It was a great deal of fun, with moving floors, a rug beater room, a wrapping room and other oddities of Castle Greyhawk.
This adventure was written by Rob Kuntz, and was a great deal of fun to play. This was the second time I have adventured into Castle Greyhawk on original maps. The other time was what brought me to Gary Con in the first place. Both were in Gary's house. I may be the luckiest fan RPG'er on the planet. I'm willing to share stories, but you need to ask.

At 8 pm, the whole group of us showed up for the Head Frog's Mythus Tower game. Bill Webb is just a pleasure to watch GMing. He skillfully has 20+ people playing through a dungeon. Splat, my fighter, was able to procure a Rod of Resurrection from another character at the end of the night. Bill's games are episodic, and have reoccurring characters that gain levels. The new guys (Nathaniel, Jacob, and Jim) all hit level 2. Ian hit level 4, but I didn't gain a level. Stupid fighters needing lots of XP. Bill has a stable of about 10 re-usable adventures that he runs at cons, so I don't want to give anything away. All I can say is "control the light." This ran until about 1 am.

I'm going to continue Saturday's adventures tomorrow. Hopefully it will push me to get more regular at blogging.