Knights and Snails

There is a whole genre of illustrations of knights fighting snails in illuminated medieval manuscripts. There are various explanations for why monks laboriously copying books would draw a confrontation between a knight and a deadly snail. Symbolically the snail stood for the deadly sin of sloth; a monk might decide to illustrate them on that basis. Pragmatically the monks were often gardeners, so this may have been a bit of satire based on their own experience and the uselessness of professional knights. No one's really sure.

AD&D, of course, had the flail snail, a multi-headed monstrosity of a giant snail. But I see some potential for using snails of about the size in the manuscripts, an implied 2' to 3' tall and fighting against armored humans, as monsters. These are probably no more than 3 HD, although they should have very good AC (maybe the range of 4 to 2) to represent the protection of their shells. Their movement rate would naturally be very slow, and they'd attack with their pseudopod-like bodies.

The interesting question is their slime trails. This has plenty of real-world uses but if we're making a D&D monster it should be something with some mechanical impact. It's a bit on the nose, but one possibility is that the slime causes opponents to act as if under a slow spell. For straight-up damage it could be acidic, working like the attack of an ochre jelly: destroys wood, leather or cloth, and does 1d6 or 2d6 damage per turn if the victim fails a saving throw. Alternatively it might be poisonous, with the precise effect depending upon the individual referee's rules for poison.

Some snails might have magical properties to their slime, or in their shells. For instance the slime might bring on hallucinatory visions (something I think is under-utilized in fantasy games) or the shell might be immune to some form of attack such as lightning. And both can be powerful magical ingredients; in real world magical thinking, snails are associated with divination and love magic.

The reason I'm presenting all this as possibilities is that I think any time you have a giant snail in a game, it should be unique. These oddities of illumination deserve no less.

The roleplaying in old school RPGs

Apologies that my postings have slowed down lately. I've been doing some work on non-blog gaming projects and most of my game writing time has gone toward that lately. Unfortunately for the blog that may continue for a while.

In the games I've run in 2013, I've found that roleplaying is often a stronger suit of old school gaming than I think people give it credit for. Mostly people think of roleplaying as "something you do in town," or areas where players engage in amateur dramatics. I've had that, sometimes to good effect as players get advantages (like getting on the good side of an NPC, or indeed the bad side). But it's viewed as kind of peripheral to the main event, something you do if you have time.

But that's not how older D&D is built at all. It's a game that encourages roleplaying in crucial ways that really make an impact on the game. The structure I like best is how it's built in the OD&D rules: players make offers to the monsters and the referee makes a reaction roll to see if the offers are accepted.

It's not just "roleplay it out" - this is a set of concrete rules that is built to handle the roleplaying interaction between PCs and monsters. And it does it well, encouraging prolonged negotiations - 6, 7 and 8, the most common rolls on 2d6, are "uncertain" and call for more discussion. Higher Charisma PCs get bonuses, and good or bad offers result in adjustments to the roll.

The impact of the 6/7/8 "uncertain" rolls really encourages some creativity. PCs who are trying to pull one over on monsters or get them to join have to think on their feet as they are met with skepticism or confusion. Good rolls might be "blown" on a relatively simple offer such as "don't attack" to initiate a truce.

Other parts of the simple OD&D rules play into this. For instance, the language rules - which unfortunately gets toned way down in Moldvay - put players in the boat of strategic choices about what monsters they may face in the future. Magic-users, particularly in OD&D and Holmes where there is 1 language per point of Intelligence over 10, should be strong polyglots and useful negotiators.

In practice, this form of roleplaying is crucial in older D&D. Since combat is a failure state, it becomes critical to avoid combat whenever possible. Good roleplaying (defined as making good offers to the monsters) gets a material bonus in not having to fight and risk resources. Smart players are ones who bluff, bully and negotiate their way through a dungeon rather than rolling the dice and hacking their way through. That seems entirely fitting within the literature that inspired the earliest games.

A flexible standard for OSR Compatible

In my last post I discussed creating an open standard for "OSR Compatible" in RPG products so that supplements and modules could be released independent of the various clone games out there. I think the stat block I presented doesn't give the degree of freedom that such a standard needs, but I think there's a solution.

At the start of any book with the OSR Compatible logo (we still need one), there should be a box with a description of the stat block. For D&D type games, I see this looking something like what follows:

This module is OSR Compatible, and will work with most old school fantasy RPGs and their modern clones. It was designed with the classic game in mind but can be adapted for your game of choice.

Encounters are listed in the following format:
Orcs (4) - AC 6 (13), HD 1, #AT 1, D 1d6

Armor Class is given both descending and ascending values. An unarmored character is AC 9 (10) and chainmail gives AC 5 (14).

Unless specified, all encountered creatures and men are assumed to have the same movement rates as normal men and to use the same saving throws as a fighter of the same level as their hit dice.

The important notes to hit will be:

• The boilerplate indicating compatibility. I think talking about "original," "advanced" and "classic" games will let us indicate compatibility in a broad and understandable way without stepping on any toes.
• Encounter format. A basic stat block for illustrative purposes.
• Armor class. This should always be described and an unarmored character's AC given, along with an example of one armor type (typically leather, chain or plate).
• If you choose not to include movement rates, armor class, hit dice, or damage, give a brief description of your default values. For instance, if all creatures are assumed to attack once per round for 1d6 damage, say so.
• If you use any stats other than the basics, present a brief description and what value is better. For instance, Moldvay-style morale would be described as: "Morale is given as a number between 2 and 12. Creatures with a high morale are less likely to flee from combat."

Ultimately what I'd like is to have an official "OSR Compatible" logo, and a website (osrcompatible.com is available) describing what the designation means for a product, giving instructions for publishers, and having links to publishers of OSR Compatible products.

To be clear - this is a self-designation, not a license, and I'd want to have the logo be licensed via Creative Commons CC-BY (by attribution, allowing it to be used in derivative works without requiring that the larger work be released as a CC license).

How does this strike people? I think it's going to be easier to build consensus around a flexible standard than to come down with a list of things that someone has to use, and it's best to be up front about exactly what parameters we're using so that it's as easy as possible to convert.

A Proposal: OSR Compatible

I've been slowly working on a few things, and one issue that has come up is - what system should everything be compatible with? The early OSR clones started as ways to produce material compatible with AD&D (OSRIC) or B/X D&D (Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord). But now there is a proliferation of clones that are played on their own. Each has some amalgamation of rules differences from the next, including armor class and similar concerns. Little or none of these make much difference in the long run.

Because I have it handy, here's a stat block from B2 Keep on the Borderlands:
AC 7, HD 1, hp 4 each, #AT 1, D 1-6, Save F 1, ML 8.

Also handy is a stat block from N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God:
AC 5; MV 12"; HD 2; hp 10 each; #AT 1; D 1-6

The first is a B/X module, the second an AD&D module - the B/X line actually has a bit more information. What I'd propose is that, instead of indicating compatibility with say OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry or any other particular clone, OSR games use a generic standard compatibility as follows:

Monster Name & number appearing - Monster's name with the number appearing in parentheses afterward.

Armor Class (AC) - give the descending AC. Different games with ascending AC use different bases, so it's not useful to list ascending ACs. There will be a slight difficulty where an unarmored person with a shield would be AC 9 in AD&D and AC 8 in B/X D&D, but this isn't big enough to worry about.

Movement rate (MV) - listed in feet, i.e. 120' rather than 12". Easy enough for OD&D and AD&D players to drop the 0; scale inches tend to confuse things.

Dexterity (Dx) - listed 3-18. This is for several games which use Dexterity to break ties in initiative (or Holmes D&D and its clones that use them to determine it in the first place).

Hit Dice (HD) - number of hit dice. Optionally this can include B/X style * for special abilities.

Hit points (hp) - a number of hit points. This should be in every stat block. List multiple creatures as "a,b,c,d" or "x each."

Number of Attacks (# AT) - the number of attacks per round.

Damage (D) - this is listed as a range, i.e. 1-6 or 2-7. Multiple attacks should be listed sequentially with "/" between each, such as 1-3/1-3/1-6.

Special Attacks (SA) - list any special attacks.

Special Defenses (SD) - list any special defenses.

Save - this is listed as a class and level. Typically monsters save as a fighter of level equal to their hit dice.

Morale (ML) - morale rating from 2 to 12. 12 is the highest morale rating and indicates least likely to flee.

So the first monster listing from B1 In Search of the Unknown would look like this:
Orcs (4) - AC 6, MV 90', Dx 8, HD 1, hp 5,4,3,2, #AT 1, D 1-6, Save F1, ML 8

The black widow spider would look like this:
Black Widow Spider (1) - AC 6, MV 60' (in web 120'), Dx 15, HD 3*, hp 13, #AT 1, D 2-12, SA poison, Save F2, ML 8

Write-ups for monsters would include all of the above plus Intelligence. Treasure type would have to be determined by the individual referee; it's too disparate across games.

I'd really like to make "OSR Compatible" a thing. Maybe someone with better Photoshop skills than I would be able to make up some kind of logo and release it open-source? I'd like to put it on my own future releases including Dungeon Crawl #4. Also - any additions or changes would be welcome.

Notes on playing B2 Keep on the Borderlands

I ran some more Moldvay B/X D&D last night, switching from B1 In Search of the Unknown to B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Overall I found the module more satisfying, although there's plenty of Caves of Chaos waiting for the next session.

The Keep itself worked out well. The PCs got very into interaction with the various characters, including the Curate. It was an interesting prelude to the actual adventure. It also set them off on the track of the hermit to the north of the Keep, which was an encounter they handled well. They defeated the puma quickly and one player was able to knock down and overbear the hermit himself, tying him and taking him back to the Keep, which netted them a small reward.

For tripping I used an attack roll and then a Strength roll to overbear the hermit. Anyone who says classic D&D combat is boring has little imagination - the "rulings not rules" attitude made the encounter interesting.

Once the PCs headed into the Caves of Chaos, they were surprised that they were multiple caves but wound up picking the goblin cave. They wound up fighting goblins in the first room they entered, and lost one PC; they outnumbered the goblins and beat them, finding the money in a barrel. (The character who got the "Bree-Yark" rumor from one of the guards was a dwarf and knew it was wrong since he knows goblin.)

They encountered the wandering goblins after that, and successfully got them not to attack with a good reaction roll. The dwarf tried telling them a story that their chieftain was going to sell them to a giant as slaves, but the reaction rolls kept them skeptical, and the PCs wound up casting Sleep and killing them. They avoided a larger room of goblins and went to another guard post, where they killed a third group of goblins.

It wasn't a terribly profitable adventure for the PCs, which kept the XP fairly low. That's a danger of the first expedition, but I'm interested to see what tack they'll take in the next game. A large number of PCs makes the combats easier but spreads the XP thin. Outnumbering in older D&D, I'm convinced, is the main key to victory.

B2's map was straightforward compared to the mapper's nightmare of B1. Yet it's a much more tactically interesting environment, since there are so many different possible entrances. The home base and wilderness map also make it really quite good, although the wilderness is not exactly full of lurking peril; it's fairly safe as long as the PCs aren't a few squares from a numbered encounter.

Disasters in the Underworld

Historically, we as humans have spent a lot of time digging holes in the ground. Throughout that history, we've had those holes collapse or blow us to holy hell. Coal miners have been known to bring canaries underground so that the birds would die from carbon monoxide poison while the miners still had a chance to escape alive. Even in modern industrial mines, a blowout can still lead to fatalities and miners spending days or weeks trapped underground with limited food and no sunlight. In Centralia, Pennsylvania, a coal mine fire started in 1962, is still burning in 2013 and will continue to burn unabated for 250 years.

In Dungeons & Dragons there's so much we can take out of this. The point I want to reach is in making underground disasters a challenge and not an annoyance or a simple declaration of "rocks fall, everyone dies."

The first type is to take a disaster that happened in the past. It becomes dungeon dressing: this is a collapsed hallway. Perhaps it conceals treasure, or a short cut, or a danger so awful that someone tried to bury it beneath the earth. Or maybe it's just a cave-in. There could be any number of horrors lurking in the earth, both giant insects and various tunneling monsters like the bullette. A wholly or partially collapsed dungeon area is fair game for being inherently dangerous; if it collapses, the existing fall should have served as adequate warning.

Other kinds of disasters than simple collapses could be interesting. Fire is one very dangerous thing; at low levels, a party will tend by its nature to have torches and/or lanterns. In general, there are plenty of flammable gases underground. A methane leak 50 years ago could make the air (or, as we know from modern gas mining, the water) flammable. Areas in an old mine or similar area might have the chance of causing a dangerous flare-off. On the other side you have possibilities like the Centralia mine, where there is literally a long-standing fire underground.

The second type of disaster is the one that only exists in potential. The most obvious of these is the inherently unstable area, where the local stone is weak and prone to shift catastrophically. The legend of the "tommyknockers" is drawn from the knocking sounds made by wood mine supports as they buckle and fail in advance of a cave-in. This is generally a feature that can make dungeons very dangerous, but players are likely to find it grossly unfair if the referee simply has a cave-in kill the PCs, however naturalistic that may be.

Such disasters can be foreshadowed in various ways. Noise is one; queer rumblings deep in the earth could be a dragon or balrog, but they could also be the signals that the earth is waiting to reclaim our band of adventurers. Popping and knocking in a wood-reinforced mine, or even the occasional support that is cracked down the middle or falling, can be one way of signalling this. All of this creates a sense of danger, and creates a time / action pressure on the PCs. It's one way to create what I've called in the past "fast" levels - levels that don't encourage in-depth exploration.

Of course there's also the possibility of PCs being trapped in the underworld. This can be a really railroad-ish tactic for a referee, although it can also really turn the "exploration" aspect of the game up if it leads to a new or different area of the dungeon. In a way this is a deeply Gygaxian trap, something like his teleporters that create a sudden need-to-find-the-exit situation in the underworld. This works particularly well if the cave-in happens to be a sinkhole down to a new level.

Last, a military solution would be an interesting cave-in situation: it is possible that some monsters or enemies have built a counter-mine intersecting with the "normal" dungeon that causes a collapse and then reveals a waiting ambush. For instance, undermining most of the way through a floor might make a normal person fall through it and become vulnerable to the attack below. In general counter-mines are a really fascinating way to fundamentally change a dungeon from beneath the ground.

As usual with my "idea" posts, I'll yield the floor with the question: what have you done with disasters, large-scale fires, cave-ins and other catastrophes in the dungeon?

Dungeon Crawl #4 - Chivalry, Sagas and Scheherazade

I was happy with the content of Dungeon Crawl #3 and its reception, but overall too much of the magazine was written with my byline. I'd really like to get a diversified crew on board for the fourth issue, for both longer articles and shorter pieces written by other people.

The theme for the fourth issue of Dungeon Crawl is medieval legends and mythology. This is a broad category with several fields within it, and I'd welcome submissions that are inspired by any of the following:

• Chivalric Romances. Any of the chansons de geste in either the English (Arthur) or French (Charlemagne) cycles and their descendants.
• Teutonic and Norse Myth. Think of the Nibelungenlied, the Sagas of the Icelanders, and by coincidence also Beowulf.
• Folkloric heroes of the type of Robin Hood and William Tell.
• Non-European medieval legends and folklore. Think The One Thousand and One Nights and generally Arabic / Persian stories.

Of course, the key here is "inspired by." That's a fairly broad category; whether you want to do a sandbox with a Sherwood Forest vibe, a dungeon out of the One Thousand and One Nights, magic items inspired by the Germanic myths, or monsters out of the chivalric tales, there should be plenty of ground to cover.

Submissions for Dungeon Crawl #4 are due by October 31. Send ideas to wrossi81 at gmail to confirm. Anything from a single monster up to a multi-page adventure is welcome.