This is just a selection of the RPG books and products I have spent some time with in 2011. Some of these may get more extensive review posts in the future, especially the modules after I have used them in play. I’m probably missing several, and I often find myself grazing RPG products more than reading cover to cover (so some of those probably won’t show up here). In no particular order:

ASE1 Anamalous Subsurface Environment

Excellent gonzo setting marketed as a megadungeon level (it is that too). One of my favorite products. The only flaw is that there are ways to get from the first level to the second level (which is not included) relatively quickly. This one I read cover to cover. Unless you can’t stand robots and laser guns in your games, I would consider this a must-buy.

Realms of Crawling Chaos

Nice Lovecraftian crunch for Labyrinth Lord (or B/X).

Fourth Edition core rules

I started playing this when I got back into the roleplaying because it was the newest (and several of my players were familiar with it). More thoughts here.

Hammers of the Gods

Very atmospheric (though slightly linear) minidungeon. I’ve been working the backstory of this into my Nalfeshnee game (they have found some of the dwarven books), and I’m looking forward to when the PCs manage to read the treasure map they found and make their way to the adventure site. I still have some work to do in writing 4E conversions for some of the monsters.

XP1 The Spider-God’s Bride

Sword & sorcery D20 system rules, setting, and adventures. There is lots of flavor here, but the book is flawed by the fact that the maps (including dungeon floor plans) are digital-only, making the book strangely incomplete. A number of the adventures (I think there are 10 in all) are also rather linear (which the author fully admits). This could have been an excellent & seminal product (even allowing for the 3E rules, which I don’t use), but I don’t think it lives up to its potential.

Weird New World

An attempt at a LotFP arctic sandbox setting. There are some interesting ideas here that I may lift, but overall the setting feels a bit too sparse to function as a campaign setting without major work. This is probably due to the limited size of the product. Not bad, but I would check out the other LotFP stuff first.

Tower of the Stargazer

This has become one of my favorite modules, though I have not run it yet. It contains a perfect balance, in my mind, between classic fantasy elements and some gonzo genre bending. It’s not that large, but I bet different groups of players could approach it in many different ways. Also, though some might find the pedagogical sections patronizing (it was meant to be a referee teaching module), I found them very useful.

Eldritch Weirdness Compilation

Unique crunch (spells etc). Very open ended. Contains a random elemental creature generator. Recommended.

Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox

Like an annotated version of 1974 D&D. This helped me understand the 3 LBBs.

The Complete Book of Necromancers (Second Edition supplement)

There is lots of padding here, but also lots of good material (including an “necromancer’s isle” module as the last chapter which can be dropped into any campaign). This is one book that I used often in the 90s for PC creation (I loved and still love necromancers) despite the fact that it is intended for the referee. Many good spells that can also be re-used. I tried to read this cover to cover, but got bored.

Demonspore

Excellent pair of modules by Matt Finch (of Swords & Wizardry) that can easily be inserted into any campaign setting. Sinister fungus beings that are attempting to grow a new god. I can’t wait to use this content in my game. Read cover to cover.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition

Perhaps the most innovative product I’ve read beyond the original rules. The encumbrance system is excellent (to the degree that my players are no longer handwaving encumbrance). This rule set has made me think more about how D&D works than pretty much any other source out there. Best “Appendix N” period (with extensive annotation). I haven’t had the time to read all of the spells unfortunately, but I have heard that they are excellent. High production values. Very graphic art though, if that bothers you (it doesn’t bother me). This is one of the few OSR products that I think might actually serve as an real introduction to the hobby (as opposed to the enthusiast fan base of most of the retro-clones and OSR products; not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Vornheim

Worth it alone for the bits of strange lore sprinkled within. Several have already strongly affected my settings. And the book is beautiful (unsurprising, given Zak’s day job). I haven’t tried to use the map generation techniques yet, but they look interesting.

The Dungeon Alphabet

One of the standout OSR products, as far as I’m concerned. Concise, fun to read, plenty of useful tables, and excellent art.

L1 The Secret of Bone Hill

Wonderful little mini-hexcrawl. I wrote about it in more depth here and here.

B/X: Moldvay Basic & Cook/Marsh Expert

If I had to pick a favorite rule set right now, this pair of books would probably be it. The level range is perfect for my taste (1-14) and it contains enough crunch examples (including plenty of iconic monsters & treasures) to be a complete game. The included dungeon and wilderness setting are nothing special, but they contain all the necessary techniques to get started. This was before my time (my exposure to “basic” D&D was the black box and the Rules Cyclopedia), so this is not nostalgia for me, but new exploration.

The Random Esoteric Creature Generator

A LotFP monster generator (though it came out before the rules). I hope to use this more in the future.

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Warning: I don’t think there are any spoilers here, but I am not afraid to quote later sections of the novel.

Many creative endeavors are the synthesis of two or more unrelated things. The Black Company is The Lord of the Rings (without demihumans and humanoids) crossed with the Vietnam War, told from the perspective of a mercenary company employed by the Dark Lord (though in the case, the Dark Lord is “The Lady”). And the Lady in the Tower has an all seeing eye that visits characters in their sleep (I’m going to be charitable and consider that an homage).

This may sound contrived on its face, but it works surprisingly well. Diseases, for example, are referred to by modern scientific names. I don’t usually favor settings that use magic as a replacement for technology, and there is plenty of that here. Instead of helicopters, there are flying carpets; wizards function as artillery; healing magic is used repeatedly (though its effect is limited since it seems to be the domain of very powerful sorcerers).

On flying carpets, page 176:

Flying carpets buzzed around the Tower like flies around a corpse. The armies of Whisper, the Howler, the Nameless, Bonegnasher, and Moonbiter were eight to twelve days away, converging. Eastern troops were pouring in by air.

And modern medicine, page 191:

At least I would not spend my night amputating limbs, sewing cuts, and reassuring youngsters whom I knew would not survive the week. Serving with the Taken gives a soldier a better chance of surviving wounds, but still gangrene and peritonitis take their tolls.

I think the fact that this works is due in no small part to the spare, almost clinical style. Only the horrific elements are granted much description (this might be another lesson for referees). What the other characters are wearing, for example, is mostly left to the imagination of the reader, which grants the narrative a somewhat timeless feel. Had there not been mention of bows, swords, and siege towers, I would not have had much difficulty imagining these characters toting M-16s or tanks assaulting the fortresses. The names are mostly short, descriptive, and sarcastic. It’s unclear which are nicknames and which are “real” names. This is exactly how I would expect cynical soldiers to talk. And this novel is tightly edited.

This is a gaming blog though, not a literature blog, so what is there here that can inform tabletop RPGs? First, I would say that the Taken are one of the more interesting depictions of lich-like beings in fantasy literature. They are called Taken because somehow The Lady (and her husband, the still-trapped Dominator) were able to bend the wizards to their will. When The Lady captures rebel wizards, she is able to “take” them into her service, to replace her fallen sorcerous lieutenants.

Many people seem to like the idea of dangerous magic (for example: the conflation of evil, chaos, and the arcane in LotFP). This is most often conceptualized in two ways. The first is as a danger of screwing up majorly and summoning something you can’t control. The second is as a creeping taint that slowly corrupts (some games use a sanity system to model this). What if using arcane magic not only attracted the attention of powerful entities but also made you susceptible to domination by them? Geas or quest spell mechanics could perhaps be used.

Here are some inspirational quotes regarding the Taken.

Page 45, on their origins:

The city of Oar lies in northermost Forsberg, and in the forests above lies the Barrowland, where the Lady and her lover, the Dominator, were interred four centuries ago. The stubborn necromantic investigations of wizards from Oar had resurrected the Lady and Ten Who Were Taken from their dark, abiding dreams.

Page 142, on The Hanged Man:

With the Guards battalion was the Taken called the Hanged Man. He was improbably tall and lean. His head was twisted way over to one side. His neck was swollen and purpled from the bite of a noose. His face was frozen into the bloated expression of one who has been strangled. I expect that he had considerable difficulty speaking.

He was the fifth of the Taken I had seen, followed by Soulcatcher, the Limper, Shapeshifter, and Whisper. I missed Nightcrawler in Lords, and had not yet seen Stormbringer, despite proximity. The Hanged Man was different. The others usually wore something to conceal head and face. Excepting Whisper, they had spent ages in the ground. The grave had not treated them kindly.

Page 144, on Shapeshifter:

I spied a brown hulk shambling down the switchback road. Shapeshifter, going out to practice his special terrors. He could enter the Rebel camp as one of them, practice poison magics upon their cookpots or fill their drinking water with disease. He could become the shadow in the darkness that all men fear, taking them one at a time, leaving only mangled remains to fill the living with terror. I envied him while I loathed him.

The last thing I note is the excellent and whimsical depiction of magic duels. Forgive the long quote, but it only really makes sense in context (page 166):

I heard a rustle, turned my head, found myself eye to eye with a snake. It wore a human face. I started to yell-then recognized that silly grin.

One-Eye. His ugly mug in miniature, but with both eyes and no floppy hat on top. The snake snickered, winked, slithered across my chest.

“Here they go again,” I murmured, and sat up to watch.

There was a sudden, violent thrashing in the grass. Farther on, Goblin popped up wearing a shit-eating grin. The grass rustled. Animals the size of rabbits trooped past me, carrying chunks of snake in bloody needle teeth. Homemade mongooses, I guessed.

Goblin had anticipated One-Eye again.

One-Eye let out a howl and jumped up cursing. His hat spun around. Smoke poured out of his nostrils. When he yelled fire roared in his mouth.

Goblin capered like a cannibal just before they dish up the long pig. He described circles with his forefingers. Rings of pale orange glimmered in the air. He flipped them at One-Eye. They settled around the little black man. Goblin barked like a seal. The hoops tightened.

One-Eye made weird noises and negated the rings. He made throwing notions with both hands. Brown balls streaked toward Goblin. They exploded, yielding clouds of butterflies that went for Goblin’s eyes. Goblin did a backflip, scampered through the grass like a mouse fleeing an owl, popped up with a counterspell.

The air sprouted flowers. Each bloom had a mouth. Each mouth boasted walruslike tusks. The flowers skewered butterfly wings with their tusks, then complacently munched butterfly bodies. Goblin fell over giggling.

One-Eye cussed a literal blue streak, a cerulean banner trailing from his lips. Argent lettering proclaimed his opinion of Goblin.

I have a number of these, and a few of them are about gaming. In no particular order:

1. Create a dungeon of significant size. Maybe mega, maybe not. I’m interested in exploring the creation of dungeons that can change significantly based on PC actions. I’m inspired by some of the dungeons from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and the Tomb Raider games, particularly how they control access using flooding and other mechanical tricks.
2. Miniatures. I am totally new to this gaming subculture. I ordered some Otherworld minis a while back, not knowing that they would require much assembly. Well, they do. Even if I don’t care about painting them artistically, they still need to be based, and some sculpts come as more than one piece and need to be glued. I also bought some old Grenadier AD&D lead-based minis (including hirelings!) from Ebay. I want to give these a coat of primer or something so that I don’t feel paranoid about exposing myself to lead. I’ve already received some great suggestions for how to do some of these things (see here, here, and here).
3. Classic D&D. I’m enjoying running my Nalfeshnee Hack game, but I want to play some traditional D&D. I have some ideas for a house document that I would like to try out (some of which have already seen draft form on this blog), so I’m going to say that’s the ambitious version of this goal: finish the house document and start up a game. Or, less ambitious: make some time to play in one of the many ConstantCon games.
4. Art. I used to make art. I’m really out of practice though, and I want to get back into the habit. Somewhere I came across a quote about how a beginning artist should plan to throw away their first 100 attempts (the only reference I could find is this, but I don’t think that was the source I heard it from originally). I bought a sketchbook and messed around a bit already, but my efforts so far have made me embarrassed to think they might stick around, which has resulted in a distinct lack of enthusiasm. So, my goal is to knock out at least 100 pieces on looseleaf so that I can start to feel good about putting things in the sketchbook.
5. Wilderness map. I am working on a hexcrawl setting for a B/X game. I’ve produced a few maps, but they’re mostly just for practice so far. I want to finish something with all the moving parts (encounter tables, strongholds, special hirelings, important monsters). Not finished in the sense of a published campaign setting, but finished in the sense of enough hooks to be ready for players. And maybe put it to use with item 3?
6. Gaming purchases. I went from owning only the three core Fourth Edition books this past summer to lots more. (When I played in the 90s, I had a shelf full of mostly Second Edition gaming books, but I sold them all when I went off to school in 1999.) Time to slow the acquisition down. I have plenty to read and use now. Something like a purchase per month from now on is probably reasonable.

Too many goals? I hope not. This year I managed to keep my Nalfeshnee game running as a continuous campaign (15 sessions so far), built my little collection of RPG books, and learned from the OSR that there are words and concepts for many of my old practices (not to mention all the new things I have learned).

Anyone who is familiar with the Linux community should recognize this phenomenon; it is the same thing as the proliferation of Linux Distributions. With a hobbyist community, an open license, and low startup costs, everyone wants to make their own “one true version”.

To get a sense of the scale of this, check this out:

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

Each one of those is a more or less independent, more or less compatible retro-clone of the Unix operating system.

This post is just a restatement of a comment I made over at Stefan Poag’s blog, but this idea has been in the back of my mind for a while. I’m surprised I haven’t seen this parallel drawn before, though it must have been. It seems really obvious to me. There must be a big overlap between RPG hobbyists and Unix hackers, and there are strong “old school” subcultures in both communities.

I think the same sociological forces are at work.

In a previous post about fighters & weapons (and probably a few other places), I mentioned that I’m planning to have weapon damage by class, rather than by weapon. I think this deserves a dedicated post even though it has been much discussed in other places.

Here is how it works. There are no weapon restrictions. Any class can use any weapon. Characters use their hit die for weapon damage. If wielding two weapons or a weapon with both hands, 2DTH is used. That’s it. Modified for situational factors by ruling (though that should go without saying). Missile weapons too, though range is by weapon.

You might be wondering, if all weapons inflict hit die damage, why should I prefer one weapon over another? Why not just write “two melee weapons and a missile weapon with 20 shots” on my character sheet and be done with it? For one thing, weapons can be used outside of combat as well. For example, a quarterstaff might be used to span a hole and secure a rope. A dagger might be hammered into a wooden timber and used as a foothold (try doing that with a battle axe). A dagger is easy to conceal, a two-handed sword is not. Bulky weapons are extra-encumbering. Some longer weapons can attack from the rear ranks (such as spears & pole arms). Some weapons can be thrown. Some weapons may grant automatic initiative in a one on one fight (this would depend on the circumstances). And so forth.

As I said in the post on fighters, this incentivizes smaller (for encumbrance purposes) and cheaper weapons, which seems to make sense. Why spend extra money and backpack space on a military weapon if you are not trained to use it?

I think this system follows the spirit of OD&D, where all weapons do 1d6 damage. It makes weapon choice more about a trade-off calculation than about mechanical optimization. The question becomes: should I carry a weapon & torch, weapon & shield, two-handed weapon, or pair of weapons?

This scheme is very similar to one presented in this Grognardia comment. Akratic Wizardry also has a similar system, though it uses a base damage die for medium weapons based on class and allows you to go up or down a die for small and large weapons, respectively. For example, if the base damage die is d6, then down a step would be d4 and up a step would be d8). This breaks down if the base die is d4 though (if you want to stick with the common polyhedral dice), and Akrasia also adds in some special cases (such as the ability of magic-users to do d6 damage with a quarterstaff despite the fact that it is categorized as a medium weapon).

Akrasia also mentions that dispensing with class-based weapon restrictions potentially weakens the fighter (relatively speaking), as then all classes are able to use magic swords (though with a smaller damage die). However, I follow the OD&D practice of capping bonuses at +1, and further only allow this bonus to be active when wielded by a fighter. Other classes still gain the benefit of the weapon being magical for purposes of being able to damage monsters that can only be harmed by magic weapons.

For more reading, there are Dragonsfoot discussions of similar ideas here and here. And at The City of Iron here. Most of these systems use lots of different types of dice rather than just using the hit die, which seems too complicated to me. There is one interesting variation that I might try out at some point, which is to have more variety in missile damage as suggested here, and maybe distinguish between thrown weapons and other missile weapons.

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I took advantage of one of the recent Lulu sales to pick up the Advanced Adventures compilations (Compendium 1 and Compendium 2). They arrived at the beginning of the month, but I just now had the opportunity to page through them. They are beautiful books, and I can’t wait to use some of the adventures. I think Pod-Caverns of the Sinister Shroom will probably be the first I run, as a prelude to Demonspore (my players have already encountered a raiding party of toad people slavers on the surface). If you’re interested in the contents of the individual adventures, Silver Blade Adventures has a nice series of reviews. I can imagine that it’s going to take a long time for me to even read all this material, much less make use of it on the gaming table. With these and the older TSR modules I have acquired recently, I have a lot to work with.

The heft of a hardcover book feels much more satisfactory than the thin saddle-stapled form of the individual modules (though I don’t like to make it obvious what module I am running and a hardcover is more difficult to hide in a gaming binder). That being said, these collections are literally just the AA modules sandwiched between hard covers. There is no table of contents. There is no index. You have to perform a sequential page search to find anything. These compilations could have become much more than the sum of their parts if they had included things like collected appendices of all the new monsters. I think this is a lost opportunity.

Books are a form of information technology. More advanced books have tables of contents, indices, lists of works cited, collected appendices of common entities, and bibliographies. Books that lack these features are not as capable. Too often, digital publishers don’t understand the technical value of these traditional features, perhaps assuming that full text search is a replacement for a human-compiled index (it’s not). Digital publishers often don’t even make use of the unique capabilities of a digital format, such as hyperlinks and internal bookmarks. I have bought Kindle books that don’t even include a table of contents. Happily, this seems to be slowly getting better (for example, the Carcosa PDF is heavily bookmarked).

Speaking of Carcosa, I wish all paper publishers would follow the lead of LotFP and include a PDF with any hardcopy purchase. It is quite useful to be able to print out individual pages for game binders and easily crop images for player handouts.

The request I got:

Dear Secret Santicore…
I’d like a table or set of tables for generating weird cults.
Thanks!

And here it is.

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MARK II WEIRD CULT GENERATOR

(Use with caution. Service all parts every 30 days.)

Roll 10d10 and consult the tables in order.

Or, roll d10 for the number of tables to consult (let N be this number), and then roll Nd10 to decide which tables to consult and another Nd10 to determine the operative values.

Never, ever, roll on the animal table unless explicitly directed to by another table. Otherwise, bad things will happen. We don’t talk about what happened to those who used MARK I. Just be glad you got MARK II.

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TABLE I: What do they worship?

1. The idea of progress
2. A demon lord
3. The jealous, forgotten god of the chosen people
4. Prince of animals (roll on animal table)
5. The lord of Nod, the land of sleep and hallucination
6. Deposed deified emperor from 1000 years ago (“Dark Augustus”)
7. The universal life-force
8. The new prophet
9. Overlord of a rival state
10. An ancient machine

TABLE II: What is their identifier?

1. Animal tattoo on their back (roll on animal table)
2. Fine silver ring, allowed to tarnish
3. Ritual cross-hatch scars on upper arms
4. Glass eye
5. Secret handshake
6. Green blood
7. Nictitating eyelid
8. Sharp teeth (either sharpened or naturally sharp)
9. Hairless
10. Verbal prayers of thanks to the patron upon any success

TABLE III: What is their ultimate goal?

1. Extinction, but they want to take as many others with them as possible
2. Accumulate souls for their account in hell
3. To take back the underworld — men belong underground, monsters above
4. Prepare the world for the ancient masters from the stars
5. Immortality; each cell has part of the recipe, they seek each other out
6. Enlightenment through extreme experiences
7. Reforesting the great waste known as civilization
8. Yellow is the sacred color, as much of the world as possible must be in this hue
9. The end of warfare
10. Reuniting two sundered worlds

TABLE IV: Who is in charge?

1. Mad charismatic crackpot
2. Demon, fae, or otherworldly being in human guise
3. Explorer who found the fountain of youth
4. Swindler, bilking the credulous
5. Swindler, bilking the credulous, unaware that his teachings are true
6. Ancient underground machine
7. Prince of animals (roll on animal table for type)
8. One of the PCs in a past life or before the amnesia
9. An animate painting
10. A telepathic idol of the ancients

TABLE V: What is their taboo?

1. Must not eat vegetables
2. Will not shake hands (it is polluting)
3. If you meet their eyes, you will learn one of their secrets
4. They must wash skin that sunlight touches
5. Dead cultists must be ritually separated in buried in 6 different locations
6. Must not start a fire
7. Sexual abstinence
8. Will eat nothing cooked
9. Must not lie
10. Must always have a clear mind; no intoxicants

TABLE VI: What is their secret power?

1. Start and control fires — pyrokinesis
2. Corpses speak to cultists
3. Discipline of the body — ancient martial arts
4. Preserve corpses indefinitely, either magically or scientifically
5. None, though they believe they can summon demons
6. Rust metal by touch
7. Mind meld — they can read thoughts by touch
8. Fertile — crops tended yield 2 to 3 times normal bounty
9. Sympathetic magic — voodoo that works
10. Influence animals (like the cleric’s turn undead ability)

TABLE VII: What is their ritual garb?

1. Yellow robes
2. Full armor with helm (antiques valued)
3. Official magistrates — they actually run the 
4. Wizard robes, full on stars and moons and pointy hats (they believe they are magic-users)
5. Finely scented loin cloth
6. Black tunic and sandals
7. Masquerade masks
8. Business formal — suit and tie or equivalent for time period
9. Paramilitary uniforms
10. Shape-changers — lycanthropes or other, ritual “garb” is their non-human form

TABLE VIII: What do their nameless rituals entail?

1. Eating live animals (roll on animal table for type)
2. Recitation of ancient sutras
3. Silent meditation
4. Ritual combat
5. Human sacrifice
6. Animal sacrifice (roll on animal table)
7. Burning the sacred texts of rival cults
8. Riddles
9. Summoning
10. Believer suicides

TABLE IX: Where do they hold their nameless rituals?

1. Center for performing arts (amphitheater, boxing ring, etc)
2. Ancient stone circle
3. Fake ancient stone circle (they set it up)
4. Ancient unearthed vessel
5. Town hall — they run the place
6. The home of a ritually slain family
7. A natural glade under an overcast sky
8. By running water to protect from hostile spirits
9. Another religion’s holy sanctum
10. In the northeast of any habitation

TABLE X: How old is the sect?

1. Just founded last week
2. Before any known civilization
3. Was loosed on the world by something let out of a dungeon by PCs
4. During the founding of the current dynasty (or political order)
5. The previous dynasty (cult is all that remains)
6. Cult is a cyclical plague unleashed to punish decadent societies
7. Originally founded by a demigod during the creation wars
8. Older than written history (all cult records are oral)
9. It was born with the leader and will die with the leader
10. Founded based on some past innocuous PC action

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APPENDIX: Animal table

1. Mantis
2. Turtle
3. Ram
4. Wasp
5. Ox
6. Peryton
7. Worm
8. Cat
9. Lizard
10. Centipede