Work on the Old School CD continues

I didn't get as much done Thursday as I liked on the Old School CD but here is the webpage I am including. Please free to use the comment section of this post for any corrections and comments. I thank everybody who posted comments to the first post.

I stress this is represent my editorial judgment. One thing I noticed is that the Old School Renaissance has growing really really big as far one person. It is either at the point or just passed the point where one person can keep track of it all. Which is why the list has a fantasy orientation and certainly should not be considered definitive.
Feel free to use this as a starting point for your own lists. Hopefully between all of us we can get a comprehensive list going. That includes not just fantasy but all the retro stuff that going on.

Hopefully I will have a second post this evening with the ISO with contents of the CD.

Here is a preview of the CD Cover.

Yes I plan on including a free copy of the Majestic Wilderlands pdf in the CD.

Mapping, Pen Tablets, and Drawing by Hand

Recently I bought this a Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet. When browsing the various cartography and art forums I keep seeing references to using tablets and the Bamboo line is pretty affordable as these things go ($70 for this model).



The way it works is that the active area is inside the white lines. If I touch the lower left corner the cursor on the monitor jumps to the lower left corner. If I touch the center the cursor jump to the center. The pen has a nib that is pressure sensitive so it can sense how hard it is pressing on the tablet. The effect is that when I am using it draw it is like drawing on a piece of paper.

Note that you quickly learn that you don't have to stare at the tablet. Just holding the pen and looking at the monitor results in a pretty effective illusion that you are drawing on paper.

The following is a crude map drawn up using the tablet. I used a combination of colored pencils and pens.




Where it is weakest on is lettering. But everything else pretty much felt like when I did my hand drawn maps. There is probably a ton I could do to make this a better handdrawn map but I just doing a quick example.

I also used in Monday's Swords & Wizardry game with Fantasy Grounds. I had much better control over unmasking hidden areas and drawing lines. I suspect with this I could use a blank square or hex temple map and just treat like I do my dry erase plexiglass gameboard. I need to read up on Fantasy Ground drawing tools and practice a bit.

Here is the wikipedia article on Wacom which explains their line of tablet. I have the Bamboo Pen.

Mapping, Manors vs Farms

One setting noted for it's detailed mapping of locales is Harn. Unfortunately it is a snapshot in to specific period of time where manorialism was the dominant form of rural organization. Manorialism means that the countryside is divided into dozens of small manors each with a small village of 20 to 50 families attached to the estate. Other time periods had vaguely similar rural organization like the latifundia of Rome and the plantations of the antebellum south.

I pretty much accepted this style for when I do detailed maps for my Majestic Wilderlands. But recently a question by Dwayne of Gamer's Closet got me thinking about this. What would the countryside look like if dominated by farms not manor/estates.

To play around with this idea I drew this base map. Each of the small hexes is 2.5 miles and roughly 3,000 acres in area. The large hexes are 12.5 miles across. The reason I chose this scale is that it take one hour over level terrain to cross one of the small hexes.

Below are the settlements common to both types of rural settlements. There is a castle (solid circle) by the large river and a two keeps (open circle) one on the west side of the map and the other on the east side. The yellowish striped terrain is cropland. The dotted terrain are hills, the green are forested areas with over 50% tree coverage. The light green are woodlands with <50% tree coverage. There are two swamps represent with an off green overlaid with a fill of swamp symbols.

A countryside dominated by manorialism looks like the below. Each diamond represents an manor with 20 to 60 families working 1,800 to 3,000 acres. Roughly one manor per full hex of cropland. Note I omitted the roads here. The two keeps and Castles serve as market centers for the surrounding manor up to 4 to 5 hexes away. Roughly 1/2 day travel.


A farmed countryside looks vastly different. There are few distinct settlements. The villages are rather large (think Hommlet size) with probably 80 to 150 families living there. All the farm within a 1/4 day (2 to 3 hexes) travel will use these villages for their day to day market needs. The two keeps and castles will serve as major market probably travelled to once a week.

Each full hex of cropland will have anywhere between 6 to 15 families each owning an individual farm. Farms range from 200 to 500 acres. There are a few large estates with small hamlets of 5 to 20 families likely attached in a sharecropping arrangement. These are marked by the triangles.


I am intrigued by the farming arrangement as this seem more like the world that the village of Hommlett existed in. A farm oriented setting avoids the grinding grittiness that the medieval manor exemplifies. While I like gritty fantasy it is nice to have an alternative when I need it and still be able to generate the numbers if I want to run a campaign where the players are raising troops.

A Request for Help, OSR Links and lots of them.

I am giving a panel presentation on Swords & Wizardry and the OSR in general at ErieCon 2010 this Saturday. I am going to hand out a CD filled with various OSR rulesets (those that are free to distribute), and other freebies (S&W Quick Start, etc).

What I like to also include a html page with a comprehensive set of links to all things OSR (blogs, websites, etc). The OSR has grown just large enough that I will miss something if I just do it myself. So in the comment section post any links you got and I will compile them into the HTML file. I will post the page on Wednesday for a final look over by the general readership and start burning CDs on Thrusday. I probably will take two dozen or so with me.

I will see about upload an iso of the CD along with the cover I create so if anybody else has an opportunity for distributing free handouts they can grab it and burn a couple of copies.

Thanks
Rob

Spartacus Blood and Sand

I been following Spartacus Blood and Sands, a new Starz show on Netflix. I am finding that I really like it. Tim of Gothridge Manor already beat me to a post recommending this.

What I will add is that this is a show where so many thing "could" have gone wrong. The cinematography echoes that of 300 and Gladiator. It is very minimalist. There lots of blood, lots of nudity, lots of explicit sex.

However they do an excellent job with the basic plot of Spartacus' life. They interject interesting new elements and more importantly follow up on them. For example in an early episode we learn that the trainer Doctore was noted for facing Death and survived. In the latest we learn what that was all about and it was well executed.

But coupled with the plot are the actors and they really make the show. It is a brutal world that the Romans live in and this show doesn't pull any punches. But despite that the actors turn in some surprising performances and begin to draw you into their world. In some cases make you care about what happens to them.

I am looking forward to future episodes of this shows. My personal bet it is that it will be 4 season. The first will be Spartacus at the gladiator school ending with the initial revolt and escape. The second will be about the growing revolt and end with the initial victory against the local Romans on Mount Vesuvius. The third revolt will see Spartacus army come into it's own defeating all comers including a Praetorian army followed by a climax where not one but two Consular armies are destroyed by Spartacus and his men. The final season will be Spartacus downfall at the hands of Crassus.

It is a Harn Day

Got my latest autoship from Columbia Games filled with Harn goodness.

Hunting 22 Pages
This is the center piece of this release 22 pages of hunting. They are through in covering all the techniques including trapping, ambush hunting, tracking, and capturing. Plus what exactly what you earn from doing this. And it wraps up with a bunch of adventures seeds.

A big improvement over the original and the nice is that pretty much you pick what you are hunting so not more sending your players after a cow!

The Drunken Hake 6 pages
This is an inn in the Orbaal (think viking) castle village of Arathal. It is a potential jumping off point for Sealing expedition to the Afarezir islands to the west. Note that the Hake is a type of fish.

Seals 10 pages
This is ten pages on Seals and what one can expect in the way of hunting them. This last Harn release has an article on the Afarezirs where sealing is a major way of life. It not as mundane as it sounds as some of these guys can put up a quite a fight. Coupled with the fact the many of the prime sealing grounds are hazardous locations in their own right can make for quite an adventure.

Irreproachable Order 10 Pages
Due to various reason this was supposed to be a general article on game animals. But some last minute problems were spotted and it was pulled in favor of an article on the Irreproachable Order of the Goddess Peoni.

This is about the male only order. The church of Peoni believes in celibacy and has sex segregated order that are otherwise equal. This includes useful details for roleplaying members of this order. Of particular interest is a mention of a more militant version of Peonism in western Harn developing in reaction to the Agrikism (think Set). Another are the two congregations which are sub orders. The Sons of Tirrala or Tirralmen are battlefield medics, despite the pacifism inherent in being priests of Peoni they have a hard core attitude that interesting. The Shield of Belsirasin or Shieldmen deal with illnesses of the mind and body. There is a cool picture showing one of them dealing with a demon.

Overall all of this is through and well done. Put it is a bit pricey especially buying the individual articles. The detail can be overwhelming but it is written with the idea of using it in an adventure. There is some good stuff to cherry pick for your campaign whether you are using Harn, Harnmaster, or something else.

Magic and Society

Magic are a major part of fantasy RPGs especially in the various editions of D&D. However it's impact on the setting is highly subjective and dependent on the rules that govern magic for a particular system.

For GURPS, the system I have the most experience with, my opinion that raw GURPSwould result in settings that would be a lot like ours but 20% better. People would be healthier, and wealthier, but it would not result in a societal revolution at the medieval level of technology. This is many because to do the really earth shattering stuff in GURPS you need to have a good number of points. To get that number of points on a normal basis would require a lot of hours of study. During which time you need to be supported with food, water, and quarters. At lower levels you may be highly effective in combat or in crafting but it cost an order of magnitude less resources to get the equivalent capability by having a larger quantity of people doing it a mundane way.

However in many situations magic will make a different hence the +20%. Plaques will be less deadly, harvests more reliable, life expectancy a little longer. Make magic easier to learn or more power quickly then technology level where a magical revolution occurs will drops. Like our own industrial revolution all the rules of society and economics will changes after a magical revolution.

So that is GURPS what about D&D more specifically the form represented by Swords & Wizardry.

The bottleneck is that vancian spell system. You got a slot you can cast a memorized spells from it 1/day. This can be modified by how easy it is to create magic items especially potions and scrolls. Last outside of adventurers (i.e. the PCs) how do people advance in magical ability (or levels). How long it takes?

One thing is clear that like GURPS S&W/OD&D you need to memorize spells. That is do nothing else for a set time in order to have a spell memorize and ready to do. That time not spent farming, herding, or otherwise working. Luckily in our own history we have analogous situations and the medieval monasteries, universities, and cathedrals. Earlier still we have institutions like the Library at Alexandria or the Academy at Athens.

From this we know that if magic doesn't help food production that it's practitioners are going be very limited in numbers. At lower levels of technology the surplus food to support people doing nothing but studying is limited. Plus it will be competing against things like the needs of the nobles, the craftsmen, and especially those of religion.

The more magic effect food production the more surplus there is to support extra stuff. Note it may not just need to effect yield, achieving a more consistent harvest would also have a similar effect.

Let's see what the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules has.

Create Water is a 4th level spell castable by 6th level Priest. A fair amount of training is going to be needed to cast this spells. And it is limited to water for 24 men for a day. Although starts doubling at 9th level and after. Create Food is the same way except it is a 5th level and needs a 7th cleric to cast.

My assessment of this is that cleric dominated groups can easily support themselves. Even a small temple in the middle of nowhere with a 9th level priest in charge can support 48 people with food and water. Lower level staffer can supplant the head's guy's casting allowing a surplus to be built up. These spells are limited to clerics as well. Suggesting that in society clerics have a serious edge over every other profession either adventuring class or mundane.

Control Weather can both increase crop production and harvest consistency. It is a 7th level spell and it's limits are at the referee's discretion. Unfortunately because it is a 7th level that means a 17th level Cleric going to need to cast it. However on the Magic User side it is a 6th level spell which means you only need to be 12th level to cast it.

This suggests to me that the heart of a religion where the pontiff, patriarch, etc resides are regions would have blessing of that religion and experience very regular harvests and the highest yields the technology allows. More common; areas dominated by Wizard Towers would experience the same benefit.

What all of this leads to me to conclude that a world with S&W's vancian magic would one where clerical organization have a qualitative advantage in being able to support themselves. This allowed clerics to gain an edge in any activity not involved in food production.

In western Europe's history the monasteries first developed as self contained communities to allow the monks to get away form the world in their pursuit of understanding God. From Fall of Rome to the 8th century everybody in Europe was fighting to survive in the Dark Age in the ruins of a once empire spanning economy. Alone the monks had the resources to be literate and pursue an education. So soon after they shut themselves in the world came to them to come back up and help them patch things back up. For many centuries the minutiae of trading, and administration was handled by monks.

With the clerics the use of magic make this impact even more out sized.

Likely at the dawn of civilization, society is dominated by theocracies and the rules are priest-kings. But due to barbarian invasions, chance, and time, the overwhelming dominance of the theocracies are challenged by republics and kingdoms. The efforts of the two are bolstered by the magic-users. Since all-important Control Weather can done with less experience by the magic-user, the kings and councils of the different realms can reasonably find themselves with one or more wizards capable of doing this. Also Magic User are somewhat more controllable with the vulnerability of their spell book. Take away and then the spells are gone forever after being casted.

There are a lot of dials here you can play with and the results is that many types of settings can result even they all share the same assumptions I am making. But by doing this type of exercise you find yourself considering the different possibilities. This is can ultimately to a more interesting and fun game for you and your players.