Spread Thy Tentacles

Though it was originally conceived as a fairly by-the-numbers D&D style campaign for Castles & Crusades, the more I think about my Freed Lands setting, the more Cthulhu Mythos-influenced it becomes. I don't know if that's a byproduct of my reading a lot of Chaosium material since the BRP rulebook was released, or just a natural outgrowth of my conviction to have it be a setting more about terror and the unknown than one about magic.

I'm learning to embrace this tendency, but I think I'll stop short of going for full-on Yog-Sothothery for Freed Lands. I'm not interested in doing a fantasy Cthulhu game. I'm just reading a lot of the excellent Malleus Monstrorum, an encylopedic monster sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu, and letting some of the cooler entries influence my ideas about the place of the monstrous in my setting.

Fundamentally, though, it's still going to be a game about exploration of the unknown, rather than sanity-blasting things from beyond. Primarily, anyway: I'm not saying there's no place at all for sanity-blasting things from beyond. Just that it's not the focus of the campaign.

Yes, this is something of a vague post. More on this topic later.

After Lovecraft

My friend Rick Dakan, author of many fine books (including All Flesh Must Be Eaten and the Geek Mafia novel series) has returned to RPG publishing with The Horror at Red Hook: The Cold Case of Robert Suydam. As the title implies, this Call of Cthulhu scenario involves characters picking up the pieces after Lovecraft's short story of the same name.

I'm lucky enough to game with Rick almost weekly. It's also illustrated by my longtime friend and gaming buddy Kent Bonifield, whose art has been featured here on Dungeonskull Mountain before. But I'm not just plugging this scenario here because two friends worked on it - no sir! I playtested this adventure (playing a streetwise hobo named Brown Bottle Bill) and so can vouch for its coolness. In fact, my group's characters are included as pregens (though the names, I'm told, have been changed).

You can grab it in PDF format here. Or, if you're a Luddite like me, order it in print here (or at any other fine gaming establishment, be it brick-and-mortar or online).

Folio Imbroglio

I think that a lot of the illustrations in the original Fiend Folio are begging for New Yorker-style captions.

"Have you heard the good news?"

Now, I love me some gorbel, but that picture's hardly the only one worthy of captioning. Anybody else want to try?

Your Sorcerous Ways

Although I haven't mentioned it in quite a while, my homebrew fantasy setting, the Freed Lands, still percolates away in the back of my mind. I sometimes hesitate to post about it, since I get the impression it's largely of interest to myself alone, but this blog is too long neglected, so let me raise for discussion an idea that I hope will generate some commentary:

Fantasy without spells.

That's right - I'm coming to the conclusion that I'd be happier if my setting didn't have magic, or at least didn't have what RPGs generally describe as "spellcasting". The more I think about what turns me off about D&D-style western fantasy - a magic sword for every warrior, wizards chucking lightning bolts at their foes with impunity, priests healing the injured several times a day - I just don't like the idea of mere mortals having that kind of power, least of all on a reliable, predictable basis. I want magic to be scary and incomprehensible. I still want monsters, though.

In a lot of ways, the feel I want is what's depicted in the ultra-violent manga series Berserk, around the time of "The Golden Age" story arc. (The series ramps up the D&Disms shortly afterwards, with the main character befriending an elf and a wizard, among other things.) But early on, the world of Berserk is much like Europe during the 13th century or so, with mercenary bands doing the business of war and terrorizing the populace when work is slow. Whenever anything supernatural occurs, it's monstrously demonic in nature, and met by most of the protagonists with disbelief, confusion, and abject terror. That's more or less what I'm going for.

So, for the moment, I'm thinking of a human-dominated world, where magic is a fantasy, but horrific monsters lurk at the edges. There's still room for a sorcerer or two in this world, I suppose, but they'd be more monster than man.

You know, this concept has a lot in common with the so-called Cthulhu Mythos. I could say that's because BRP's currently the system I'm planning on using for the setting, but I think it's really just the influence of the aforementioned Berserk along with Princess Mononoke and similar films.

Perchance To Dream

I am beginning to think that I want to run a fantasy campaign for which no game system exists, which is simultaneously frustrating (because it means that I can't just pick up a book off the shelf and run it) and liberating (because it means I can quit looking for something already in print and figure out how to put it together myself).

I want it to have the following:

• Subtle magic (i.e. no fireballs or bags of magic swords)
• Detailed and deadly combat that is fast-paced, with use of minis as an option
• Systems for conquering and managing lands
• Hirelings/followers as an integral part of the game
• Support for large-ish battles (involving about 20 to a side)
• Ways to mechanically differentiate one "warrior" character from another
• Non-dicepool
• Characters that can fit on an index card

Does such a game exist? I think not, but I'd love to be proven wrong. I have been thinking of cobbling it together from bits of BRP, which is a close but not exact fit. I am open to suggestions.

You Blew It Up

I generally don't want to be associated with what has become known as the "old school renaissance" movement. Now, I don't harbor it any ill will. In fact, I enjoy reading many of the blogs of its proponents, and I do have an affection for old editions of D&D, but that's about the extent of it: affection. I definitely don't feel that any old edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the "true" one, or even that D&D is my favorite RPG. I like a lot of things about it, but I dislike just as many. That goes for pretty much any version of the game.

Nevertheless, with the announcement of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's 3rd edition, I'm starting to understand how D&D grognards felt when 4th edition was announced.

WFRP3 is drastically different from the previous two incarnations of the game, both in presentation and in mechanics. I can certainly understand why, from a business standpoint, Fantasy Flight Games would seek to make an RPG that includes lots of funky dice and cardboard doodads that come in a big, attractive-looking box which costs $100. If you want to look at it in a positive light, FFG is just playing to their strengths as a company best known for its high production value boardgames. If you want to look at it in a more negative light, they're trying to make as much profit as they can while simultaneously making the game difficult to pirate (something Wizards of the Coast have had trouble accomplishing).

Either way, I don't begrudge Fantasy Flight Games' desire to use a sound business model for their new game. As somebody who liked WFRP 2nd edition a whole lot, bought everything released for the game, but never got a chance to play it, the announcement of a 3rd edition was a little unsettling for me. I have to admit that as I read more and more about the mechanics, my gut reaction is to squeal "but that's not WFRP!" I mean, I know that as the current holders of the license, Fantasy Flight can define WFRP as whatever they want it to be, but there's something deep in my core that is bummed out when I read that the Halfling and Ratcatcher are not in the starting boxed set, or that you can be a High Elf, or that the feel has been brought even closer in line to that of the wargame. Yes, it all makes sense, but it's not what I want, dammit.

So unless somebody buys me the 3rd edition box as a present and I somehow end up loving it, I think I just became a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay grognard. Somebody give me my name badge.

The Doldrums

Bleargh.

I need to take a break from reading RPG forums and blogs for a while, I think. The rampant negativity surrounding practically everything I read lately is just, like, bringing me down, man.

This isn't directed at anybody in particular. I get that the internet is the place people go to vent and express themselves, but dammit... I like RPGs, and I like talking about liking them, not hating them.

Ah, well. I guess I need to grow a thicker skin. Time to get back to playing RPGs instead of bitching about them.