Playtesters

I am looking to send materials to 2-3 judges who would run Dungeon Crawl Classics playtests for me. If you can run a playtest with about a week's to two week's turnaround on a regular basis, please let me know. Sorry that I won't be able to take everyone who wants in (someone must be left to buy the materials), but if you want playtest credits, here's your chance!

Shoot me an email at ravencrowking at hotmail dot com.

The Revelation of Mulmo

Is now live!

At RPG Now and Drive Thru.

Get it, before it gets you!

From Mercury to Yuggoth, and All Points Between

There came a point, when I was soaking myself in the delightful text that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game, that I decided to go back and read the Appendix N fiction.  I mean, I had read quite a few authors and novels on the list, but there were also many that I did not know, and works of fiction that had passed me by.  If you don’t understand what I mean by soaking myself in the DCC core rulebook, you either have not read it, or your appreciation for the genre is very different from mine.  Because you are reading this blog, I am going to assume that you know what I mean.

Eventually, there came a point where I was not just reading the list; I was studying it.  Whenever I worked on a new DCC project, it became integral to my thinking that no fewer than three homages to Appendix N sources should be intentionally included.  I have tried to do this as consistently as I can…although I admit that I allow for a greater breadth in Appendix N sources than some others might.  For instance, I do not stop at the Mars and Venus books of Edgar Rice Burroughs…nor do I even stop at Tarzan, The Moon Maid, and other adventure fiction.  Works like The Oakdale Affair and The Efficiency Expert are fair game in my books.

Within the 1^st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, Gary Gygax mentions setting adventures on Jack Vance’s Tschai and Burroughs’ Barsoom.  Conversion notes are given for Boot Hill, indicating that perhaps the westerns of E.R. Burroughs and the weird westerns of Robert E. Howard might also have fit into Gygax’s vision of Appendix N.  What is very clear, though, is that a lot of stories in Appendix N fiction take place on other worlds.

And why not?  Who would not wish to adventure on the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, or C.L. Moore?  Who would not want to quest across the solar system as envisioned by Leigh Brackett, or travelled to far worlds like Skaith and Tschai?  Who would not want to be equal to – or even surpass! – Eric John Stark, John Carter, or Northwest Smith?  The canopy is vast, and the characters loom enormously over the landscape of their worlds and of our dreams.

The pulp magazines were full of stories like these.  John Carter could not adventure across Barsoom alone - he must also investigate one of its moons, and then travel as far as Jupiter.  Seeking out strange new worlds is a driving passion of many of the Appendix N authors.  These sort of stories even outnumber "lost world" stories, like those of the Pellucidar series, various survivals in Robert E. Howard stories, and the Caspak series that begins with The Land That Time Forgot.  Alien princesses and Low Canal Dwellers outnumber even the dinosaurs.

Likewise, Manly Wade Welman was not content to merely write about Hok the Mighty - he also wrote of aliens coming to take over that primitive world.

One of the first adventures I converted to the Dungeon Crawl Classics system was from Gamma World, as part of a funnel adventure.  I am actually playing this same conversion online, at Unseen Servant.  Fun, as far as it goes, but it does not go nearly as far as it should.

It has been suggested that the structure of the planes in AD&D was lifted from the works of Michael Moorcock.  Reading through Appendix N, I do not believe that this is completely accurate.  Moorcock’s work was influential, yes, but he was neither the first nor the best at using multiple planes of existence.  I tend to think that works like The Carnelian Cube and The Fallible Fiend, the Silver John stories of Manly Wade Wellman, and the writing of Philip Jose Farmer, Andre Norton, and Lord Dunsany, at the very least, were equally or more important. 

In the DCC core rulebook, Joseph Goodman suggests using other worlds as destinations for adventures, exactly in the same way as various heavens, hells, and elemental planes are used in many fantasy role-playing games.  I find this good advice, and I think that Dungeon Crawl Classics is admirably suited for such play.  Sure, you need stats for laser guns, blasters, or similar weapons – possibly specific critical and fumble charts as well – and unique classes for the alien races you might meet.  But those things are actually little more than local colour…the same sort of local colour, perhaps, that any fantasy world should be given.  The system remains intact. 

I am beginning to think that, running parallel to my regular DCC campaign, I should devise a setting that intersects, which is pure science fantasy of the type epitomized by certain Appendix N authors.  Not just a single world, such as Barsoom, Venus, or Ganymede, but an interconnected system of worlds.  Something that would make C.L. Moore or Leigh Brackett feel right at home. 

What do you think?  Is this an idea anyone else would be interested in hearing more about?

Bundles & Deals

Purple Duck Games and Mystic Bull Games have bundled their latest products.  If you haven't picked up AL 4: The Waystation, AL 5: Stars in the Darkness, or In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer now is the time to act and save 25%.

The Revelation of Mulmo

At the time of this writing, The Revelation of Mulmo has just been approved by Joseph Goodman, and should be available soon at the usual locations, such as rpgnow and drivethru.  

This pdf is 76 pages long.  Even including maps, a one-page advertisement, and covers, that is a lot of pages of adventure, with 60 described areas, a new spell, and three new patrons.  

(These are incomplete write-ups - no patron spells! - but I think you will find them useful.)  

Important information is reproduced from Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between for judges lacking that reference work.

If you backed Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between, well, this was the last piece in the puzzle.  Lead developer Sean Conners will be up late tonight sending emails and moving the project to a close. So good news there.

In addition to using the same terms as Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between and Tomb of Curses, allowing other writers and publishers to use the included patrons in their own approved DCC work, The Revelation of Mulmo adds several monsters to the OGC, allowing them to be used by anyone and any time and with any game system.

Why?  Because we love the Open Gaming License, and we think that you will want to use some of these monsters in your own work. Like the fellow to the right.

Art is by David Fisher, and I think it is quite good.  I have included a couple of samples in this blog post to whet your appetite.

While every monster is not added to the OGC, the monsters added follow a particular theme, and I truly hope that someone will pick it up and run with it.

Did I mention that the new spell (Scrying) is also added to the OGC?

In terms of price point, the prospective judge should find enough material between the covers to get a lot of reuse out of this adventure...if not by reusing the location itself, then by reusing some of the patrons, characters, creatures, and items within.  

From the back cover text:

Death comes to us all…But what price are you willing to pay to bring back one you have lost?

In The Revelation of Mulmo, brave adventures risk magic, monsters, and the passage of time itself to bring a fallen comrade back from the dead.

This module describes a fallen elf hill, with descriptions of 60 locations, additional patron information, and a new spell. It makes use of patron information from the DCC rulebook and Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between by Dragon's Hoard Press.

If you are wondering how to make patrons more active in your campaign, this is the adventure for you!

If you are tired of elves being treated as goodie-goodies who live in the forest being nice to each other and to everyone else, this is also a module for you.  The elves in The Revelation of Mulmo take their essence from all of the depictions of elves in Appendix N fiction, including some which go by different names.

Taken together with this author's Stars in the Darkness (published by Purple Duck Games), you are given strong tools to completely rethink elves - making them less what they are in Lord of the Rings rip-offs, and a hell of a lot more Dungeon Crawl Classics!

Or, at least, that was my intention.  Hope you enjoy.

All I Have to Do is Dream…

Dream sequences are a significant part of the fiction that inspired the game.  Conan meets with the Epemitreus the Sage in a dream in The Phoenix on the Sword.  Frodo sees Gandalf escape in Orthanc in a dream in The Fellowship of the Ring.  The Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft beckon, and John Carter’s adventures on Mars occur while his body sleeps in a near-death state on Earth.  Dreams can reveal information, supply gear, or even be places to adventure in their own right.

I. Simple Dreams

The purpose of a simple dream is to supply information to the player/PC involved.  This is what happens when Frodo dreams of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings.  These dreams may be simply prophetic, or they may be the result of powerful supernatural beings trying to communicate information to the sleeper.  This sort of information is generally coded, and must be interpreted correctly to be of value.

As an example, in one Dungeons & Dragons game I ran, a paladin character was presented with some ethical problems, and was strongly considering acting as the party wished rather than as conscience dictated.  The character had a dream wherein he was confronted with a man juggling nine coloured balls, with the admonition that no one could hold them all at one time.

In another (online) game, I had a dream occur with a parable relating to the current situation.

In ancient times, dream interpretation was taken very seriously, because it was known that the gods sent messages to dreamers.  Dream interpretation was a valuable service, if one could do it well.  Even today, there are many books on dream interpretation available at bookstores – although we tend to believe that dreams are messages from our subconscious, rather than from gods.

I find that these sorts of dreams are best represented by writing the dream out, printing it off, and then giving it to the player to read.  Importantly, after the player is done reading it, I take the sheet back.  It is up to the player to note the salient points and write anything down he or she may wish to remember.

Some of these dreams should be red herrings – they are just dreams, and not messages from beyond.

Simple dreams can have effects on the waking characters as well, such as lack of rest or even physical damage, if they arise from a choice the players have made.  See James Raggi’s Death Frost Doom for an excellent example of how choices made by the PCs can have consequences when they sleep.

II. Complex Dreams

If the character has something to gain other than simple information, it may be worthwhile to briefly play the dream out in-game.  This allows the GM to judge just how much should be gained, if anything at all, in the same way as occurs in other parts of the game.

For instance, imagine that your PC(s), like Conan, gain an audience with some supernatural patron while dreaming.  In this case, how your players choose to react, and what they have their characters say, is probably important enough to the outcome of the sequence to spend game time playing it out.  Character sheets are probably not needed…most dreams of this sort can be resolved simply through description and role-playing.

The simplest form of complex dream allows the character to choose between two options.  For example, imagine that a character is being haunted by a dream hound, which hunts him throughout his sleeping hours.  After a brief description of the hound and the scene, the GM asks the player what he will do.  If the PC confronts the hound, it is rendered powerless, and the haunting ends.  If the PC runs, the hound is empowered, and some debilitation occurs to the PC in the waking world.  Again, the simplest form is that the PC gains no benefit from rest.

Within a complex dream, there is something to be gained, something to be lost, or both.  In order for the choice to be meaningful, it has to meaningfully affect the game in some way.  Otherwise, you are much better off simply treating the sequence as a simple dream, above.

In these sorts of dreams, objects can manifest from the dream world into the material world, as was the case in The Phoenix on the Sword, but that is not the only option.  A dream might unlock the key to a wizard’s spell if the player chooses wisely, or it might grant luck or supernatural patronage.  The level or type of information gained from a dream might be linked to choices made in the dream itself.

Characters can die in dreams.  They may or may not die in real life as a result.  Dream creatures can cause physical injury, or eat away points of Intelligence, Personality, Wisdom, or Charisma (depending upon your game of choice).  At this point, though, dice are going to be rolled, and you are probably looking at a full-on dreamscape.

III. Dreamscapes

A dreamscape is a dream which seems to have a physical, objective reality of its own, even if the rules do not conform to those of the waking world.  My module, Through the Cotillion of Hours (Purple Duck Games), is an example of a dreamscape.

When devising a dreamscape adventure, the prospective GM must determine (1) why the dreamscape has formed, (2) what the rules of the dreamscape are, (3) how the characters enter the dreamscape, and (4) whether or not they are transformed by entering the dreamscape, and if so, how.

Answering (1) will help in answering the remaining questions.  If there is but a single player involved, the dreamscape can spring from that character’s mind.  Otherwise, some supernatural or psychic entity is probably responsible, and that creature can determine to some degree what the conditions of the dreamscape are.  A demon-formed dreamscape is hellish, while that formed by a goddess reflects her theology, portfolio, and symbolism.  If a dreamscape is formed by the mind of a PC, its texture and details arise from what the GM knows of the PC and her experiences.  There is also the possibility that the dreamscape is another plane unto itself, and needs no creature’s thoughts to sustain it.  H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, and the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs can be treated in this manner.

So then, what are the rules of our dreamscape?

A dreamscape can be temporary, or recurrent, or enduring.  A temporary dreamscape is intended to exist only for a single adventure.  A recurrent dreamscape is used as the location of a number of adventures, or even the same adventure repeated multiple times until “solved”.  An enduring dreamscape, like Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, can host entire campaigns.

The prospective GM will have to answer, at the very least, the following questions.  It should be noted that, in a game in which dreams play a major part, the answers to these questions can differ with each and every dreamscape encountered, if the GM so desires.  In fact, giving dreams their own rules is part of what differentiates dreams from other adventures.

1. Can the characters will the dream to change?  Can they introduce elements?  Can they change the wallpaper?  If so, how?  What are their limitations?

2. How does magic work in the dream?  If the game system has a cost for magic, does that cost actually get paid by the character, or is the cost part of the dream as well?

3. How does combat work in the dream?  What happens if the character is wounded?  Do the wounds manifest on her body, or are they healed upon waking?  What if the character dies?

4. Are there limitations on the character’s actions?  For example, in a nightmare, the character might attempt to flee, but be unable to move.  This could be given game statistics by reducing movement speed in some or all parts of the dreamscape, requiring a saving throw to act, or other means.

The GM should remember, when describing a dreamscape, that the rules of the waking world need not apply.  Within a dream, it may be entirely possible to have conversations with ghouls, for example, without worrying about having your face eaten.  Characters may be able to fly.  There are no limitations due to time or distance – architecture need not make sense.  It is even possible to have the characters abruptly find themselves in an earlier part of the dream again. 

Think about what your own dreams are like.  Use them.  Buy some dream interpretation books.  Use the symbolism in them.  Think up gonzo shit, and have fun with it.

(3), How the characters enter the dreamscape, is important, because it is entirely possible that the characters do not know that they are dreaming.  The Doctor Who story, Amy’s Choice, has the Doctor, Amy, and Rory experiencing two dreams sequentially, with a challenge to discover which is the real world and which is the dream world before they all die.

Randolph Carter enters the Dreamlands intentionally.  John Carter is paralyzed in a cave when he feels his soul detach and head towards Mars.  Through the Cotillion of Hours occurs at some point when the characters are already sleeping.  If the dreamscape actually exists as a plane unto itself, there is no reason that the characters cannot enter it bodily and awake.

Which leads into (4).  Characters entering the dreamscape need not use the same statistics as they do in waking life.  Different dreamscapes can also use different statistics.  There is no reason not to devise a dream in which the PCs are all talking ducks, or panda bears, or goblins.  They could be disembodied, stronger than normal, weaker than normal, or as normal.  They could have to reroll their statistics, and use the new stats in the dreamworld.

In an extended campaign with an enduring dreamscape, each character may have two sheets – one representing his waking self and one representing his dream self.  These need be nothing alike.  They need not even be using the same game system.  They need not even involve the supernatural.  It is easy to imagine, for example a Traveller game wherein there is a machine that allows characters to share dreams.  When hooked up to the machine, characters dream themselves into a Dungeon Crawl Classics game.  If their DCC personae die, they wake up.  Either they can choose to start over, or they can pay X credits to “restore” their personae.

Even within the above scenario, there is no reason that a character cannot have a “dream within a dream” or a separate dream, that uses different statistics and/or follows different rules.  In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the holodeck functions as extended dream sequences, but this did not prevent Jean Luc Picard from experiencing a more visceral dream in The Inner Light.

When a character has more than one set of statistics, and is not aware he or she is dreaming, the GM need not tell the character to switch sheets until game events make statistics relevant.

Conclusion

Dreams are a part of life – once considered an important part – and they can easily be used in role-playing games to offer insight, a sense of connection to the larger supernatural world (in fantasy games, anyway, and perhaps in others, depending upon your tastes), and variety in gaming experience.

Use the different levels of dreams to have different effects in your games.  Use them sparingly or often, use them appropriately, and have fun with them.

More On Adventure Design

It would be really nice to have a big get-together and raise a few pints and talk about adventure design.  This post came about as a result of some conversations I have had on that topic recently.

I've cut the specifics out, but otherwise it is as I said it the first time.

I caution you against thinking about adventures in terms of story.  There is a story....what happened before the PCs became involved....and there will be a story after PC involvement is done and the players are reliving the events, but I do not believe that the GM can or should know what is going to happen at each point along the way.

I would like to talk a little bit about layers and trigger events.  Also about overt and covert threads.

What most people do when they start working on an adventure is the covert thread...what is really happening that the PCs must uncover in order to bring events to a satisfying conclusion.  Most adventures need a layer of overt threads...things that happen out in the open, the ways that the players (and locals) first view the events and places in the adventure.  If you think about an adventure as a mystery, the covert thread is what really happened.  The overt threads are all of the other side issues, the alibis, the red herrings, and the daily life that conceals the covert thread from the detective until the mystery's climax.

Some rules of thumb:

• For every part of the covert thread that the characters must uncover, there should be at least six clues.  
• For any part of the covert thread that it would be cool if the characters uncovered it, there should be at least three clues.
• For every location you want the PCs to go to in order to discover these clues, there should be overt reasons for them to go there.  Note that NPCs saying not to go there, even if there is a hoard of gold lost on those old burial grounds, is almost certain to make any PC walk into a death trap, let alone a creepy swamp.

As an example of what I mean here, consider ADVENTURE  The characters are going in to GOAL.  That's an overt reason for action.  They need GIZMO to get in the LOCATION.  That's another overt reason for action.  Along the way, they are given many clues about the covert thread (the nature of the CREATURES in this area) which should lead them to a second covert thread (maybe we shouldn't DO SOMETHING THEY WERE PROBABLY PLANNING ON DOING).  The presence of various treasures and things to manipulate give the players more overt reasons to explore beyond a strict linear progression to the pool.

As the PCs examine the various clues, their understanding of the adventure changes.  Some of what was covert becomes overt.  This continues throughout the adventure.  As a result, the players' understanding of the adventure (and adventure location) develops a layered depth created through interpreting and re-interpreting what they encounter and whatever events occur.  We all experience this in film or fiction, and we all know how shallow a movie or novel is that fails to cause us to reinterpret what has gone before.  It is the difference between Dark Knight and Batman Forever.

There is nothing like peeling back those layers, as a player, and suddenly seeing the whole thing clearly.  It is a great feeling, a moment of sheer exhilaration.  Of course, it has to be the players actually doing the work, or it is meaningless.  The GM telling you Bert is Evil is nothing like putting the clues together and realizing that, very much in contrast to what you've been thinking all this time, Bert is actually the evil mastermind who is controlling the entire street.

A note on clues:  Different people can be pressured to play the villain's game in different ways.  One might be promised gold, and his greed makes him do vile things.  Another might have a shameful secret he is afraid will be exposed.  Yet another might simply be trying to prevent the villain from targeting his baby sister.  Various NPCs, being made to do the villain's bidding through various means, offer more clues than do the same NPCs if they are all doing it for gold.  Different motives give rise to different behaviours, which in turn give rise to different chinks in the armour of the mystery, and more ways for the players to crack the shell open.  You want to provide as much context as you can, without overtly spilling the beans, because you want the beans to be spilled.  And it should not matter if they are spilled early or late.

That these different motives also raise the spectre of not all the "bad guys" being bad; that "fighting them" in some cases means (or can mean) "rescuing them" is all the better....because, if nothing else, it allows the players to have moments where they must make ethical decisions.  It also means that a rescued "enemy" can become an ally, and can impart information (context) to the players.

Instead of imagining a climax where the PCs figure out what is going on, try to imagine the climax where the players learn the covert thread earlier, at the time, or never, and it still works.  It is better to offer clues at the end, and give the players the opportunity to either figure it out or not, than it is to spill the beans.

Never knowing is better than knowing because the GM told you.

Knowing because you figured it out yourself is best of all.

Trigger events are things that happen after a particular condition is met.  I.e., after the players ask at the Rusty Fox about the creepy old lighthouse keeper, they are attacked by thugs dressed like ghouls.  Trigger events, when at all possible, should follow as a direct consequence of whatever triggered them, so that the timing is a clue to the covert thread.  Even the dimmest of players will eventually realize that the priest is a spy if, after every time they go to him for help, the Temple of Chaos seems to know what their plans are.

Layering requires paths to explore that are not the main thread.  Each of these paths, in some way, points back toward the major issues and what is moving below the surface.  Both layers and trigger events are used to create the impression of things moving below the surface, and to give the players clues to finally peer below the surface and discover just what is going on.

This relates rather directly to a recent blog post.

Anyway, I am beginning to blather here.

Best of luck with your designs.

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Footprints and Offstage Material

In my argument with Alexis, I pointed out that gaming material is not meant to simply be hung on the wall; it has no value until used.  In an earlier discussion, I had pointed out that material has meaning even if it is not brought directly into play.  These might seem to be contradictory positions.  I would like to explain why I think that they are not.

Let us imagine that a perspective judge is going to convert Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, and White Plume Mountain to include as part of a DCC RPG campaign.  The judge imagines that the game will start in the vicinity of the Keep, and that the Tomb and the Mountain will be locations within the campaign milieu, the first hidden and the second not-so-hidden.

All of these areas are in play immediately, in the sense that the 0-level PCs could decide to tackle, say, White Plume Mountain as their inaugural adventure.  The implication of a larger world is useless unless that larger world is actually there, and can be explored.  The judge can (and should) offer clues as to the relative risks of various campaign areas, but in the end, it is the players, not the judge, who decide whether or not to venture where angels fear to tread.

More importantly, they are in play in the sense that they have a “footprint” on the surrounding area.  The wise judge knows how to use this footprint to give areas meaning, so that when they are brought “into play” in the second sense (actually encountered at the table), they already have acquired depth, meaning, and history.

The evil priests in the Caves of Chaos have a spy in the Keep.  This spy never need appear “on stage” for his presence to be felt.  If the characters have loose lips around the Keep, the spy will learn whatever they say.  That means that the priests in the Caves will learn it also, after some delay, and will be able to prepare for it.  The group should be able to deduce the existence of the spy even without ever encountering or identifying him.

So, on the one hand, none of this material is meant to be a work of art, hanging inviolate on your wall.  You are meant to make use of it, directly or indirectly.  The elements of the campaign world that are not directly encountered can and should impact on those which are.  This is an important factor in allowing the game milieu to gain “a life of its own”.

On the other hand, being used does not always mean being brought directly into play.  The spy in the Keep is important even if never encountered directly.  Knowing that the Tomb of Horrors is out there gives players options even if they never choose to explore them.