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Lecroix is an anomaly among hearth elves. His features are craggy and weathered from spending much time outdoors, tanned and ruddy, unlike the typical image of elves with smooth, pale features. His nose is flattened, from at least one break that was never set correctly. His hair is pure white and cropped short, and his eyes are pale sky blue.

The leather armor he wears was once shining white, and while still in good repair it has faded to gray and shows signs of long use. A family crest over the breast shows three leaves, green, red and brown, with a black cauldron superimposed over them. Most folk assume him to be a hearth knight, and he does nothing to either correct or encourage them. In truth, the body he took the armor from probably was a hearth knight. Armor is useful in this dangerous world, and it fit perfectly, so it was obviously a gift of fate.

In truth, the elf who now calls himself Lecroix was a simple farmer when his village was massacred. His friends, his family, his enemies, all gone, leaving him as the sole survivor. He remembers his life before, but he doesn’t remember the attack. He doesn’t know what happened. He just remembers dreaming of the Norns, of them telling him that he will do their bidding now. He remembers waking up to everyone dead, forest and fields in flames, everything destroyed.

So he started walking. Picking up equipment from the dead he found as he traveled. Never trained to use a sword, he found a mace and figured no skill is required to swing a blunt object as someone’s head. His orders from the Norns come to him in dreams, and he keeps walking with no purpose other than to be an agent of fate.

Lecroix only uses the powers granted him by the Norns in their service (Vow Hindrance). He will cast magic when faced with Things That Were Not Born (undead, constructs, demons) or when on a mission given to him by the Norns (Orders Hindrance, they speak to him in dreams), and no other time.

Lecroix already has the requirements to take the Disciple of the Norns Edge when he becomes Seasoned.

Lecroix Novice Hearth Elf Wild Card
Agility: d6 Smarts: d8 Strength: d6 Spirit: d6 Vigor: d6
Charisma: 0 Pace: 6 Parry: Toughness:
Skills: Faith d8, Fighting d8, Guts d6, Riding d4, Shooting d6, Survival d6
Hindrances: Code of Honor (Major), Orders (Minor), Vow (Minor)
Edges: Arcane Background (Miracles), Luck Racial Edges and Hindrances: Agile, All Thumbs, Forest Born, Low-Light Vision, Natural Realms
Powers: Precognition, Insight, Bolt

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The following are some guidelines on creating fictional holidays for your roleplaying game setting.

Scope of the Holiday
Is the holiday something everyone in the world (or universe celebrates, is it national or even regional? Is it an ethnic or religious celebration, or did it start that way and cross over into the mainstream?

Origin of the Holiday
How did the holiday start? Does is commemorate a person, a group of persons, or historical event?

Traditions
How is the holiday celebrated? What types of food, activities and decorations are unique to this holiday? Have those always been te traditions, or have they evolved over time, or incorporated traditions from similar holidays?

Importance
Does everything come to a halt for the holiday, shutting down business and government, or is it obscure or merely acknowledged but not truly celebrated?

The Downside
Are there any negative reactions or effects to the holiday? Financial burdens caused by the cost of celebrating? Depression of those who feel left out or marginalized? Intolerance swelled by national or religious observances? Protests against the people or events being recognized? Any unintended consequences?

Roleplaying Hooks
Once you’re familiar with your fictional holiday, you’ll see where the story hooks fall. All holidays cause some sort of conflict, whether it’s at the family level, an ideological level, or violent behavior cause by alcohol or mob mentalities. Holidays can also be used as complications in your game, by forcing characters to deal with obligations of family, country, and faith.

Actual Obscure Holidays
The calendar is full of bizarre holidays people have invented to promote something or another. Look to those to see how it could be elevated to a major holiday in your game setting. For an example of an obscure holiday used this way, see the article on Let It Go Day at Examiner.com.

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A few people have stated that you can’t run or play a Dungeons & Dragons-style game without using some actual form of the D&D rules. Allow me to debunk this myth.

There have been several games called “Dungeons & Dragons” over the years, from White Box “OD&D” to the current 4th edition rules. Many of these editions are incompatible with one another to the point that they are essentially different games. They are all still D&D, however. Therefore, there are similarities and common elements between these editions that must form the heart of what D&D means. If you sit a bunch of D&D fans down at a table and ask them to define what those elements are, you would find some commonalities, but you would also find disparity. “D&D” means different things to different people. It’s like porn; you know it when you see it. Some people will state that D&D-style means classes and levels. Others will say killing things and taking their stuff is D&D-style gaming. Other will refer to dungeon delves and maps or other stuff. But it all fits. You don’t need to have all of those things at once, but some of them will “feel” D&D to most people.

D&D-style is a sub-genre of heroic or “high” fantasy. It has tropes that can be pointed to, and you can say “yes, that right there, that makes it D&D”. But like any genre, there is a range of tropes that are broad and deep and inconsistent. Let’s look at the science fiction genre as an example. You’re got stories about aliens, stories about robots, stories about time travel, stories about rocket ships, and more. But not all stories have all of those elements. Some science fiction stories have none of those elements, yet they still feel like science fiction, and can be classified as science fiction.

With settings, we have things as wildly different as Ravenloft and Dark Sun’s Athas. They’re both D&D. Greyhawk and Eberron are really different. Both D&D. Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Dragonlance, Blackmoor, Spelljammer, a bunch of third-party settings, and million homebrews. All D&D. Sure, you can argue that they all use the same rules. But, oh, wait, they don’t. Even settings released within the same edition of the rules are heavily hacked. Magic works differently in Ravenloft than it does in Athas, and both of their magic systems are different than the 2nd edition rules as written. Each setting ends up with unique classes and playable races and spells and “house rules”. But all of them are still D&D.

We’ve got the Old School movement and the Edition Wars, which acknowledge that there are wildly different styles of play and very different rules. No one disputes that any particular edition is D&D from a legal perspective – TSR, Wizards of the Coast, and Hasbro have made those calls over time. People will argue that “that’s not D&D to me”  because certain elements or tropes have been changed or are missing. There are retro-clones, which attempt to emulate one form or other of D&D-style play through the replication of the rules. There are OGL fantasy games that have spun the rules in new directions or simply created knockoffs. There are games, like Wandering Monsters High School, which add new rules to old tropes for a D&D-style experience.

In the end, D&D is a feeling. Something you love. Something you hate. Memories, experiences, styles, social interactions. It’s different things to different people. Your D&D-style play isn’t required to be my D&D-style play, and thank heavens for such diversity!

So, at the end of the day, while he’s over there running a 4th edition Eberron game, and she’s over there running a 2nd edition Spelljammer game, and they’re over in the other corner running a homebrew 3.5 game using only the PHB and a stack of 3rd party materials, if you tell me that the high fantasy game I’m running using FATE, or Risus, or Savage Worlds, can’t truly be called a “D&D-style game”, I’m going to just point at you and laugh hysterically.

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Cornerstone by Good company Games is a sort of reverse-Jenga. Rather than taking pieces out of a tower and hoping it doesn’t fall down, you’re constructing the tower and hoping it doesn’t fall down. Each player gets an assortment of blocks, made up of a number wooden cubes. The smallest pieces are 1 cube, the largest made of 6 cubes. On each turn, the player rolls 2d6 to determine what type of blocks they can use; if a 4 and a 6 is rolled, for example, the player can pick a block made of 4 cubes, or a block made of 6 cubes. Roll doubles, and the player can use any piece he chooses. If you run out of pieces of the size you roll, you have to forfeit another piece of your choosing. To make this a little more complicated, each player has a climber. You can move your climber up the tower like steps, as many moves as you’re able. To win, you need to have the highest climber when all pieces have been used or the tower falls down, whichever comes first.

When I played this at Ides of Gaming it quickly became more challenging than it looks. The cubes are arranged in a checkboard pattern, alternating between plain wood and each player’s color. Your climber can move on the plain wood or your color, but not on the other players’ colors. The players are building on each others’ construction to get their climber higher, but can also block each other and even get other climbers trapped. A player can ‘take a mulligan’ and start over at the base, but depending upon how the tower is constructed it may not be possible to get back up. To add to the challenge, the blocks are pretty roughly constructed and a bit uneven, so the towers aren’t particularly stable, This is actually a selling point; it would be a lot easier, far less nerve-wracking and not nearly as much fun if the pieces were all smooth and uniform like Jenga blocks. To make it even more challenging, we were playing on the opposite end of a large table that was also hosting a game of Pandemic, increasing the likelihood that the table would be bumped. We eventually attracted a crowd, who gathered around to see who would make it fall. To everyone’s disappointment and our own amazement none of the players knocked it down, and the game ended when we ran out of pieces.

Below the jump are some short videos of the game being played, including some humorous and particularly stressful moments.

continue reading…

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Let me just come right out and say it: Savage Worlds kept everything good about 3rd edition, fixed several things that were broken, grabbed the spirit of “open gaming”, and ran with it to create a game that’s absolutely outstanding.

Let’s start with the system. Attributes, skills, and feats (called Edges in SW, but let’s be honest, they’re feats). Roll a die, add any modifiers, hit a target number. These core concepts are improved upon by making it a point/buy system, adding Hindrances to balance Feats/Edges, making the target number static, and replacing the class structure with templates and professional Edges. Yeah, it adds and changes a lot more than that, but using only what I’ve listed above it’s a tighter 3e system than 3e.

Now let’s look at licensing. Where Wizards took the 3e OGL and killed in favor of the GSL for 4e, Savage Worlds found a balance between the two. Anyone can get a fan license to create material and release it for free. Right there, the spirit of the OGL is preserved. 3rd party companies, both large and small, can get a license to release Savage Worlds material fairly easily and without signing away their first-born child. This keeps those 3rd party companies from going into direct competition, and allows for some level of quality control, while still promoting a spirit of cooperation within the industry.

There was an April Fool’s joke, started by Sean Patrick Fannon on The Game’s The Thing, about Greyhawk being licensed for Savage Worlds. The thing is, I can see it. I can see just about any abandoned D&D setting being adapted, and adopted by fans, under Savage Worlds. A lot of those setting, including Greyhawk, would work better as Savage Worlds settings than they would as 4th edition D&D settings. They’d convert easier and maintain the flavor of the settings, something that would be sacrificed to 4th edition.

Again, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I’d like to hear opinions and see some lively discussion. Drop your point of view into the comments below.

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With no disrespect intended toward anyone, I’m about as tired of discussion about what “Old School” means and debating the fine points of “Old School” versus “New School” and “Edition Wars” as I am with any conversation (or flame war) about G/N/S Theory. This will, hopefully, be my last word on the topic.

My view of things breaks down a bit differently than conventional Old/New theory. It’s still a matter of styles of playing D&D and D&D-like games, either variants or retro-clones. It does not encompass games that are not somehow D&D-derived. My breakdown falls into three categories, not two. These are significant enough as to be considered three separate games, even though each is identified as (or with) the name Dungeons & Dragons.

TSR-era D&D
This includes OD&D, AD&D, Basic editions and the Rules Cyclopedia, and any clones or material that expands upon or seeks to capture that style of game play. While many would disagree with me, I do see all of the games under this large umbrella as sharing a style of game play; the differences are largely one of how well each edition supports that style of play.

To me, TSR-era D&D is the dungeonmaster’s game. It relies heavily on the DM’s creativity and interpretation of the rules. Some say it’s more of a player’s game, more freeform and reliant on player creativity as their are no skills or feats, but ulimately it is the DM who decides what is and isn’t appropriate or allowable at his or her table.

3rd Edition D&D
This category includes D20 games that adhere to the rules as written, but not significant variants such as True20 and Mutants & Masterminds, which I consider to be so different as to be separate, albeit derivative, games. While it can be played in a similar fashion to TSR-era D&D, that’s not how it’s designed to play out of the metaphorical box.

There is, decidedly, a distinct style of play here revolving around the wide variety of character customization. For that reason, 3rd edition is the player’s game. It put a lot of control and decisions in the player hands, as skills and feats bound the dungeon master to a methodology rather than winging the rules.

4th Edition D&D
Very much its own animal, 4e is very dependant upon the use of miniatures. While it has fewer skills and has a larger emphasis on combat than 3rd edition, and can be played in a style akin to TSR-era D&D, that is not how it is written to be played.

My conclusion is the 4th edition is Wizard of the Coast’s game. It was designed not for dungeon masters or players, but for them. Start with the removal of the Open Gaming License, and the terms of the Game System Licence that replaced it, which placed control of material produced for the game firmly back into their hands. Continue with the previously mentioned need for miniatures, which creates a revenue stream for them with official miniatures and dungeon tiles. Yes, there are other manufacturers of minis and tiles and those can be released generically without violation of the GSL, but the fact that those products are a key component of their 4e business model makes makes it very much a game geared toward their needs above all others.

What This Has to Do with Old School/New School
To me, this isn’t even a matter of edition wars. It’s not really about three (or more) versions of the same game. It’s arguing about the relative merits of three different games. It’s like debating which is better, poker, canasta, or Magic: The Gathering. After all, they’re all card games so they’re essentially the same thing, right? To me, it’s more like debating which game handles superheroes better, Mutants & Masterminds, HERO System, or Savage Worlds? All of them work, it comes down to a matter of personal preference.

My expectation is that people will be critical and disagree with many of the opinions expressed above, but in the end they really are only my opinions. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments below.

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A number of people have asked about the cards shown in the Dice Dish post. They’re Pegleg Pete’s Deck of Royal Rogues, a pirate themed card deck. There’s original art on each card, with a different King, Queen and Jack for each suit. The Aces have ship names and a compass theme. There’s also an extra card in each suit, the Serpent, marked with a “X” so it can be used as either an extra card or the 10. A different sea monster in each suit -  a sea monster for Clubs, a wicked looking sea turtle for Diamonds, a squid (or possibly a kraken) for hearts, and a creepy-looking fish for Spades. The cards are very high quality and extremely durable. Obviously, I got these to play pirate games in Savage Worlds. I first saw them last year at RinCon, when Ron Blessing used them in his Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane game.

My thought is to use the Serpents in Savage Worlds for Wandering Monsters.  I’ll have a monster (or Wild Card enemy, or some kind of random event) for each card. The person who draws it gets initiative as if they drew a Joker, but the “wandering monster” shows up and targets them. Once the wandering monster has appeared, that Serpent gets culled from the deck. Heh heh heh.

(A good photo of some cards below the jump)

continue reading…

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After reading 11 Homebrew Dungeon Master Screens by the inimitable Johnn Four, I became enamored of the idea of the double dog dish for dice (part of #3). Keep your dice in one side, roll your dice in the other. A lot of my friends use fancy trays manufactured by Chessex and others to corral their die and keep them from flying all over the table, but those things are expensive and often bulky. I found a cheap plastic double cat dish for $1 that looks nice, does the job, and doesn’t take up a lot of room in the backpack. Better still, they stack, so if you need more than one they save space.

Why use one of these? It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot. I game in venues that tend to be crowded, with more people crowded around a table than it should technically accommodate. I also game in places with kids and cats running loose. Dice that aren’t corralled tend to get knocked around and lost. Dice in a dish stay put, and if you need to move, or just more your dice to get to the character sheet or books underneath it’s a lot easier to pick up a dish then scoop up dice or push them around.

As a Savage Worlds fanatic, I’ve also found that the double cat dish is perfect for that game as well. In the photo below you can see how it holds a deck of cards nicely. This keeps them from getting bumped and having the play 52 pickup. you could use it for any type of card game, with one side for the discard pile. For SW purposes, I’d use the other side to hold Bennies (plastic pirate coins in the photo below).

continue reading…

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For those of you on Facebook, there is now an UncleBear fan page, with a discussion group. Check it out!

(There are still issues with feeds and stuff, but it’s getting there.)

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Once again, let’s look at a product not on the merits of its intended use, but as an unintentional game aid. 45 Master Characters (subtitled “Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters”) by Victoria Schmidt is a Writer’s Digest book designed to help writers struggling with characterization. It’s a list of common archetypes, and gives familiar examples of each from movies, television and novels. The book also details the villainous side of each archetype, and how it differs from the core archetype. Which makes it, for roleplaying purposes, a book of stock personality shemps.

Unlike the previously discussed Archetype Cards, which I use to create NPC personalities on the fly, I utilize this book when crafting major supporting characters and even my own player characters. Characters’ personalities can drive a story, so a good way to insure a plot will go in a certain direction (without railroading) is to have the right characters with the right traits driving the action.

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