In Points of Light I introduced the Boglings a race of amphibious humanoids. Here their full stat for Swords & Wizardry.
Boglings
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 2+1
Attacks: 2 claws (1d3)
Saving Throw: 16
Special: Underwater, Jumping, Extensible Tongue
Move: 6/12 (when swimming)
Challenge Level/XP: 2/35
• May breathe underwater indefinitely
• Can Jump over 60 feet and up to 20 feet in height.
• Has an extensible tongue can immobilize a target if it fails it’s saving throw.
These are amphibious humanoids with bulbous eyes. Boglings are noted for their ability to jump long distances and for their extensible tongues. They are found in tribes in tropical swamps and rainforests as well as on several of the outer planes most notably the Swamps of Acheron home to the god Set.
The Boglings originated in one of the rare planar adventures I ran. Two PCs were adventuring in the Swamps of Acheron searching for the Artos the lost King of Nome. One of the players was a bit cocky, Tim of Gothridge Manor, and convinced the other, Dwayne of Gamer's Closet, they could directly assault one of Set's outposts that were scattered along the swamp. They had their asses handed to them but luckily were able to escape. Severely injured, they found the Boglings who gave them healing and aid. In their gratitude the PCs swore that they would find a way out for the Boglings after they rescued Artos. An oath they eventually fulfilled.
That adventure also proved that the Codex of Infinite Planes can be useful in the right hands. The way I was calling it the Codex transferred a 10 foot globe and everything in it from one plane to another. Well as it happened one of Set's guardians was a Turtle Dragon. The two decided to rest on an island when it started moving. The Turtle Dragon's head emerged from the much and calmly informed them that he was taking to see his master Set. Both of their character were not tough enough to take on a Turtle Dragon.
A few minutes into the trip, Dwayne calmly asks me if he could sit on the Dragon Turtle's head. I told him the Dragon Turtle doesn't care. Then Dwayne pulls out the Codex and start reading. Before the Dragon Turtle could figure what going on both Dwayne and the Dragon Turtle's head were transported back to City-State.
Earlier in the campaign the two bought the Red Pearl Inn in the waterfront quarter. After the adventure they razed and now the Turtle Dragon is now part of the structure of a new establishment; the House of the Dragon.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Original City-State Reproduction
Bill Owens, one of the founding members of Judges Guild, has located the oldest copy of the blueprint used by Bob Bledsaw Sr. to create the map of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord.
As I found out for myself this was not an easy project. It being sold on eBay and there are 144 copies all signed by Bill Owens and Bob Bledsaw Jr.
I haven't snagged one yet being in the midst of Christmas Shopping and monthly bill time but if there any left in two week I plan to get one myself. From the few pictures posted there appears to be small differences between this map and the subsequent product something I look forward to checking out.
City-State Map Reproduction
As I found out for myself this was not an easy project. It being sold on eBay and there are 144 copies all signed by Bill Owens and Bob Bledsaw Jr.
I haven't snagged one yet being in the midst of Christmas Shopping and monthly bill time but if there any left in two week I plan to get one myself. From the few pictures posted there appears to be small differences between this map and the subsequent product something I look forward to checking out.
City-State Map Reproduction
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Art of Character Sketches
While not practiced by every player making a sketch of your character is a time honored tradition. Especially if you character sheet has a little box to put it in. Even better when the character sheet has an outline to help the artistically challenged.
I doubt I will ever turn into a triple threat like Paul Jaquays (writer, artist, cartographer) but here are a few of mine. Mostly of NPCs I had over the years.
The feared tin-can orc Grandar. Virtually unhittable in GURPS 3rd edition and even if you do his plate armor soaked up most of the damage.
Just went kinda of crazy in sketching out the whole scene. An otherwise nondescript hafling fighter NPC.
A crack halfling archer. Had a quirk of shooting small game continually while on the trail.
A priest of the Nature God Silvanus. The colors represented the seasons.
Gil-Tarin the one handed elf. Just to show that not all elves are sweetness and light.
A priest of Set and they don't use frickin maces. This guy was Lareth the Beautiful from the Village of Hommlet. I created a GURPS version of Hommlett in the early 90s.
Serina a necromancer from one of my adventure. She is an albino which is not much of disadvantage for her profession when you think about it.
Menstice the Rogue from a GURPS Campaign where all the players played 50 point characters. The normal start is 100 pts. 50 pts in GURPS is pretty close to playing a 0-level character in AD&D.
A Myrmidon of Set my LE variant of a paladin
Calurin a priest of Mitra I played in a GURPS Campaign that revolved around going into Judges Guild Dark Tower. It was some campaign I tell you.
I doubt I will ever turn into a triple threat like Paul Jaquays (writer, artist, cartographer) but here are a few of mine. Mostly of NPCs I had over the years.
The feared tin-can orc Grandar. Virtually unhittable in GURPS 3rd edition and even if you do his plate armor soaked up most of the damage.
Just went kinda of crazy in sketching out the whole scene. An otherwise nondescript hafling fighter NPC.
A crack halfling archer. Had a quirk of shooting small game continually while on the trail.
A priest of the Nature God Silvanus. The colors represented the seasons.
Gil-Tarin the one handed elf. Just to show that not all elves are sweetness and light.
A priest of Set and they don't use frickin maces. This guy was Lareth the Beautiful from the Village of Hommlet. I created a GURPS version of Hommlett in the early 90s.
Serina a necromancer from one of my adventure. She is an albino which is not much of disadvantage for her profession when you think about it.
Menstice the Rogue from a GURPS Campaign where all the players played 50 point characters. The normal start is 100 pts. 50 pts in GURPS is pretty close to playing a 0-level character in AD&D.
A Myrmidon of Set my LE variant of a paladin
Calurin a priest of Mitra I played in a GURPS Campaign that revolved around going into Judges Guild Dark Tower. It was some campaign I tell you.
Friday, November 27, 2009
What Tolkien meant for roleplaying.
At the height of RPG's popularity in the early 80's one element of Tolkien's Style stood out above all else.
The appendixes for the Return of the King.
From the Greyhawk Folio to latest Forgotten Realm Hardback. From Wizard to well just about any RPG company. The appendix of the Return of the King was the ur-document on how to present a setting. After Shannara this format dominated the alternative formats notably Judge's Guild Wilderlands and GDW's Traveller.
As a 13 year old gamer in the late 70's Tolkien was the only source I had for writing up a campaign world. With King Lists and Timelines galore. However Tolkien has some major weakness as a source for RPG campaigns. Only a dozen or so elements made for good additions to a D&D game.
It the same problem that drove me from Greyhawk to the Wilderlands. The howling emptiness of the map. While Tolkien had a wealth of details in the appendixes, only a few areas were detailed enough to run an RPG campaign in: Bree, the Shire, Rohan, etc.
Myself and I am sure others turned to other sources to plug in the gaps and after Shannara there plenty to be found for whatever taste of fantasy the group preferred. One thing I learned that the format of Bob Bledsaw's Wilderlands and Marc Miller's Traveller was way better for running a campaign then Tolkien style.
The appendixes for the Return of the King.
From the Greyhawk Folio to latest Forgotten Realm Hardback. From Wizard to well just about any RPG company. The appendix of the Return of the King was the ur-document on how to present a setting. After Shannara this format dominated the alternative formats notably Judge's Guild Wilderlands and GDW's Traveller.
As a 13 year old gamer in the late 70's Tolkien was the only source I had for writing up a campaign world. With King Lists and Timelines galore. However Tolkien has some major weakness as a source for RPG campaigns. Only a dozen or so elements made for good additions to a D&D game.
It the same problem that drove me from Greyhawk to the Wilderlands. The howling emptiness of the map. While Tolkien had a wealth of details in the appendixes, only a few areas were detailed enough to run an RPG campaign in: Bree, the Shire, Rohan, etc.
Myself and I am sure others turned to other sources to plug in the gaps and after Shannara there plenty to be found for whatever taste of fantasy the group preferred. One thing I learned that the format of Bob Bledsaw's Wilderlands and Marc Miller's Traveller was way better for running a campaign then Tolkien style.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Some Sandbox campaigning advice
A lot of referees feel a little lost when running their first sandbox campaign. Feeling overwhelmed by the need to generate dozens of locales and having no idea what the PCs ultimate objective will be.
A good way to over come this is to make a sandbox setting but have a campaign where the PC are doing missions at the start. They are all members of the City Guard, one of the Guilds, or the King's Court. The mission helps focuses your preparations. Then let the players have free reign to decide how to accomplish the mission.
Then follow up on the consequences of their decision both bad and good. The follow up is important because this establish the sandbox nature of the campaign. Several sessions in, the players find themselves driving the campaign as they follow up on the consequences of the consequences of the consequences of ... well hopefully you get the picture.
By this point you will have learned what tricks and techniques work best for you. How to best use your (limited) prep time.
A good way to over come this is to make a sandbox setting but have a campaign where the PC are doing missions at the start. They are all members of the City Guard, one of the Guilds, or the King's Court. The mission helps focuses your preparations. Then let the players have free reign to decide how to accomplish the mission.
Then follow up on the consequences of their decision both bad and good. The follow up is important because this establish the sandbox nature of the campaign. Several sessions in, the players find themselves driving the campaign as they follow up on the consequences of the consequences of the consequences of ... well hopefully you get the picture.
By this point you will have learned what tricks and techniques work best for you. How to best use your (limited) prep time.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Shannara and the Long Shadow of Tolkien
While Tolkien was fundamental to the development of the D&D rules, Lord of the Rings was just one of many influences on roleplaying games as a whole. Swords & Sorcery, other fantasy subgenres and even science-fiction were all thrown into the mix of those early games.
Why?
Just because it was cool in the eyes of the players and referees.
As for Tolkien the author and the Lord of the Rings rose in popularity through the late 60s and the 70s. However he didn't spawn much in the way of imitators. Far more popular among authors were the 1001 variants of swords & sorcery with a sprinkling of original works like Elric, Earthsea, the early Deryni novels and many of the novels of Appendix N of Gygax's DMG.
Then came Terry Brooks and the Sword of Shannara around 1977.
It didn't have much of literary impact. Many ripped it apart for being a pastiche of Tolkien. Even among gamers I never heard of anyone saying stuff from Shannara was really cool.
However Brooks did manage to break into the New York Times bestseller list. Something that no fantasy author including Tolkien managed to do.
My opinion of the book was that it was a fun and easy book to read. But not memorable in any particular way. I never followed up on the sequels after taking a stab at the Elfstones of Shannara, once was fine.
Since it was a big epic fantasy in the mode of Tolkien that cracked the NY Times list every fantasy imprint started putting out epic fantasies. Another early success was the Thomas Covenant series.
Despite the emphasis on the big epic the resulting market expansion brought in a lot of different styles of fantasy. Two of my group's favorites were the Guardian of the Flames series and Thieves World. My personal capstone of the era was Elisabeth's Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion series released in the late 80s.
After Shannara, Tolkien's style dominated the mass market for fantasy which had a lasting impact on RPGs. The most visible result was the release of Dragonlance.
Why?
Just because it was cool in the eyes of the players and referees.
As for Tolkien the author and the Lord of the Rings rose in popularity through the late 60s and the 70s. However he didn't spawn much in the way of imitators. Far more popular among authors were the 1001 variants of swords & sorcery with a sprinkling of original works like Elric, Earthsea, the early Deryni novels and many of the novels of Appendix N of Gygax's DMG.
Then came Terry Brooks and the Sword of Shannara around 1977.
It didn't have much of literary impact. Many ripped it apart for being a pastiche of Tolkien. Even among gamers I never heard of anyone saying stuff from Shannara was really cool.
However Brooks did manage to break into the New York Times bestseller list. Something that no fantasy author including Tolkien managed to do.
My opinion of the book was that it was a fun and easy book to read. But not memorable in any particular way. I never followed up on the sequels after taking a stab at the Elfstones of Shannara, once was fine.
Since it was a big epic fantasy in the mode of Tolkien that cracked the NY Times list every fantasy imprint started putting out epic fantasies. Another early success was the Thomas Covenant series.
Despite the emphasis on the big epic the resulting market expansion brought in a lot of different styles of fantasy. Two of my group's favorites were the Guardian of the Flames series and Thieves World. My personal capstone of the era was Elisabeth's Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion series released in the late 80s.
After Shannara, Tolkien's style dominated the mass market for fantasy which had a lasting impact on RPGs. The most visible result was the release of Dragonlance.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
D&D would not exist without Lord of the Rings
But not in the way you think.
The consensus is that roleplaying started to jell with the Braustein games of Major David Wesley. The short version is that every player portrayed a spy in a Napoleonic era town of Germany. Each player had their own motivations and goals. They were free to whatever they wanted within the town limits. Wesley refereed any actions taken by the players.
Dave Arneson took Wesley's ideas and applied them to the exploration of Blackmoor and it's environs. It is in Arneson's Blackmoor games where all the major elements of roleplaying came together in one game.
Gygax then learned about the Blackmoor game and developed his own Greyhawk game. This turned into the original 3 booklets of Dungeons and Dragons.
In this whole chain of events there is little mentioned of Tolkien. Greyhawk and Blackmoor were no clones of Middle Earth. So Lord of the Rings doesn't look like it had much or any impact on the development of roleplaying.
However where it did have an impact was in the development of the rules for Dungeon & Dragons. And it all goes back to the fantasy supplement to Chainmail.
The first editions of Chainmail did not have any fantasy supplement. In the late 60s Tolkien was rising in popularity. Both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had these cool descriptions of battles that the miniature wargamers of the time wanted to fight out. Coupled with the stories of Howard (Conan) and other fantasy writers of the time you had a strong push to come up with some rules to allow these battles to be fought.
Thus the fantasy supplement to Chainmail was born. Gygax and Perren say flat out why they included these rules
The fantasy supplement to Chainmail provided the foundation for the rules used in Blackmoor and Greyhawk and later Dungeons & Dragons itself.
Now Gygax said numerous times that Tolkien wasn't a big influence on him writing D&D and I believe him. When it came time to write original D&D that Gygax was using every source of inspiration available to him.
So while the roleplaying side had little to do with the Tolkien. The game side would not have existed without the desire to refight the battles of Middle Earth. What started out as a way to fight the Hobbit's Battle of Five Armies became much more.
I would say that Tolkien influence waned in the early days of D&D and RPGs as people were using the just about anything they could find or think of to drag into their games. It only rebounded after the Sword of Shannara was published in 1977 and fantasy exploded into mainstream publishing. After the Shannara the big epic fantasy in the style of Tolkien dominated fantasy for a long time with a similar effect on the imagination of the players of D&D.
The consensus is that roleplaying started to jell with the Braustein games of Major David Wesley. The short version is that every player portrayed a spy in a Napoleonic era town of Germany. Each player had their own motivations and goals. They were free to whatever they wanted within the town limits. Wesley refereed any actions taken by the players.
Dave Arneson took Wesley's ideas and applied them to the exploration of Blackmoor and it's environs. It is in Arneson's Blackmoor games where all the major elements of roleplaying came together in one game.
Gygax then learned about the Blackmoor game and developed his own Greyhawk game. This turned into the original 3 booklets of Dungeons and Dragons.
In this whole chain of events there is little mentioned of Tolkien. Greyhawk and Blackmoor were no clones of Middle Earth. So Lord of the Rings doesn't look like it had much or any impact on the development of roleplaying.
However where it did have an impact was in the development of the rules for Dungeon & Dragons. And it all goes back to the fantasy supplement to Chainmail.
The first editions of Chainmail did not have any fantasy supplement. In the late 60s Tolkien was rising in popularity. Both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had these cool descriptions of battles that the miniature wargamers of the time wanted to fight out. Coupled with the stories of Howard (Conan) and other fantasy writers of the time you had a strong push to come up with some rules to allow these battles to be fought.
Thus the fantasy supplement to Chainmail was born. Gygax and Perren say flat out why they included these rules
Most of the fantastic battles related in novels more closely resemble medieval warfare than they do earlier or later forms of combat. Because of this we are including a brief set of rules which will allow the medieval miniatures wargamer to a new facet to his hobby, and either refight the epic struggles related by J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and other fantasy writers; or you can devise your own "world," and conduct fantastic campaigs and conflicts based on it.If you look at the original list of monsters you will see Tolkien creates dominate the list.
The fantasy supplement to Chainmail provided the foundation for the rules used in Blackmoor and Greyhawk and later Dungeons & Dragons itself.
Now Gygax said numerous times that Tolkien wasn't a big influence on him writing D&D and I believe him. When it came time to write original D&D that Gygax was using every source of inspiration available to him.
So while the roleplaying side had little to do with the Tolkien. The game side would not have existed without the desire to refight the battles of Middle Earth. What started out as a way to fight the Hobbit's Battle of Five Armies became much more.
I would say that Tolkien influence waned in the early days of D&D and RPGs as people were using the just about anything they could find or think of to drag into their games. It only rebounded after the Sword of Shannara was published in 1977 and fantasy exploded into mainstream publishing. After the Shannara the big epic fantasy in the style of Tolkien dominated fantasy for a long time with a similar effect on the imagination of the players of D&D.
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