Sandbox and RL play update

I'm almost finished unpacking and all that jazz after having moved. Yes, I do procrastinate a lot, which is why I'm still doing this stuff three months after having moved.

Picked up a good number of books on GothCon, all of them LotFP-issued. This was planned. I'll be writing reviews of them later, although they've already been reviewed pretty much everywhere else. Still, my opinion is important.

My sandbox world is taking shape, as you can see. Sure, it looks pretty boring right now, but it's just an overview. I've already hexed it up and started adding stuff to the hexes, but for fear of spoilers I can't write about it here. Keep in mind that distances aren't to scale here (because why would I do something like that). Eh. It works, I guess.

The reason why I'm doing something like this is that when I play online I can't expect the same group all the time, because we're all adults with lives outside RPGs (silly as it sounds), so I can't do any massive campaigns or story arcs. Instead I have a sandbox where people can go wherever they want, and group composition/membership doesn't matter. I think it can work, I just gotta map it out somewhat. Still, 7 hexes down, only ~44 to go.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Gender showdown

Just went through All Flesh Must Be Eaten, because I was unpacking RPG books. It's not a very good rules system, but for ideas the book is alright.

And I know that how you represent isn't necessarily how you identify, but for illustrations we can't go by anything other than how the characters are presented. In addition, the game is so old that the gender discussion hadn't really penetrated into RPG circles.

28 males, 8 females. That's a 3:1 ratio, amusingly enough. 9 characters are difficult to see what sex they're supposed to represent, so we'll leave those as Unknown (although I'd guess male for most of them). Most of the illustrations were of zombies, which I didn't feel the need nor inclination to count. But there are a lot of zombies in that book.

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO AD&D SEX

Aight, so I’m researching sex spells because RPGs and there’s a ring called Lust and all that jazz, and what should find its way on my google search but some serious misogynistic shit? And I’m like whoa, I never thought nerds were this bad, but hold on, maybe I’m reading too much into it, and then I see this:

The Bitch Rule

The Bitch Rule is an option that makes a female PC or NPC very moody. DMs may make this a requirement for all females. Other alternatives are making it an insanity, disease, or curse. The Bitch Rule works best for chaotic characters because they seem to have what it takes to work.

The following are the steps to develop a moody female:

• The female character must roll 1d6 every eight waking hours for an attitude.
• The female may reroll if a situation has been unusually stressful (i.e. after melee, during an argument, etc.).
• Any person who comes in contact with the female (ex. other player characters) may request a reroll once per day. Only one reroll may happen each day. The reroll represents people who influence the female thereby changing her moods (for better or for worse).
• For a roll of 6 on the table, roll 1d6 again. A 1 indicates an obsessive behavior. Thus, she becomes obsessive about whatever the party is doing at the moment to the point of not letting anyone or thing in her way of trying to accomplish her goal.

TABLE: Moods & Attitudes

1. happy, cheerful, optimistic, helpful, friendly
2. self-pity, unhelpful, brooding, pessimistic
3. pissed off, vengeful, cruel
4. playful, energetic, daring, foolhardy, practical joker
5. vain, proud, lazy, bored, omnipotent feeling
6. restless, impatient, takes control, urge to get on with things, roll 1d6 for obsession check

Needless to say, running a character with all of these different attributes which change all of the time tests the player’s ability to roll [sic] play to a maximum.

Girls, ya’ll only have 6 different kinds of mood. That’s right, you have been reduced to 6 lines. I especially like the power other players have over the female PC, by requesting a re-roll on the table. That’s right, you’re not even in control of your own emotions, other people are!

But let’s not stop there, let’s go through this entire thing because it seems like a fun thing to do and I totally don’t have other things I really should be doing anyway…

Seduction: More than reaction rolls

This is a simple yet effective way to handle a seduction. It is far more fun than making endless reaction checks and it certainly keeps players on their feet.
The following are the steps for seducing:

When the character first comes in contact with someone he/she wants to seduce, a normal reaction roll is made (see DM’s Guide page 103).

If the reaction of the victim is friendly, then a seduction may take place.

The preliminary moves are made (i.e. role playing) and attribute checks are made.

The seducer makes a Charisma check with modifiers from Table 1. Thevictim makes an Intelligence check (to see if he/she is dumb enough to fall for it) with modifiers from Table 1. If the seducer beats the victim’s roll by 4 or more, he/she is doing well and may continue.

The DM decides how many more checks should be made with suitable pluses or minuses to the attribute rolls (take into account how well the player is role playing). Usually no more than three more successful checks are necessary. Failed checks mean that the victim of the seduction lost interest, but the seducer can try again with the Charisma check halved (its not easy to get back up on that horse after being shot down).

TABLE 1: Attribute Modifiers

Moves Made | Seducer | Victim
Drunkenly | -2 | +2
Sleazy/Raunchy | -1 | +1
Aggressive | +1 | -1
Gentleman/Lady | +2 | -2

So if the “seducer” is a Nice Guy, he/she (let’s be honest here, this was written by guys) gets +2 on his test to see if he succeeds in fooling the victim (their words!) or not. Likewise, it’s easier if your victim is drunk, and you should be aggressive (but still Nice Guy) in your approach.

This is some fedora-wearing shit, I tell you.

There are also sections for “non-weapon proficiencies”, which include stuff like massage, contortion and “sexual endurance” like whoa, how old are you guys, 8? Then something about sexual diseases, which isn’t that interesting (note that the random tables for sexual diseases do not cover prostitutes, for reasons I’ll cover later). Oh, also, poor people are more sexually diseased, and elderly people don’t have sex. They also cover some common STDs, and then move on to Magical Sexual Diseases, and let’s just go through that real quick?

Table 3: Magical Diseases

1. Acidic Secretion
2. Bitchy Magical Syndrome (B.M.S.)
3. Fiery Secretion
4. Mummy Crotch Rot
5. Orgasmatic Flight
6. Orgasmatic Monster Summoning
7. Orgasmatic Polymorph
8. Poison Secretion
9. Sexual Audible Glamer
10. Sexual Chill Touch
11. Sexual Clairvoyance
12. Sexual Invisibility
13. Sexually Transmitted Lycanthrope
14. REROLL

Most of these are self-explanatory. Number 2 (heehee) only affects females (because guys are deep, multi-faceted creatures with more than 6 moods). “Orgasmatic Flight” makes your character into a bouncing ball after reaching orgasm, bouncing off walls and shit like that. 

The next section is insanity, and our lovely Bitchy-themed shit is still going strong, in the aptly named “Bitchamania” (I swear I’m not making this shit up you guys). Guess what? Only affects females.

Next we get to Spells. What can these masters come up with, I wonder?

Delay Orgasm

Oh ffs, I thought ya’ll had some

Know Sexual Preference

actual imagination, but you’re just

Change Sexual Preference

whoa, hold on now. I know it’s magic, but don’t you feel this is just a tiny bit on the strong side?

Power Word: Rut

Whoa, what the fuck I better read this

When this spell is cast, the recipient gains a condition of sexual excitement and productive activity. This reflects in the recipient as a gain a +2 modifier for every three levels of the mage to dexterity with respect to having sex. Thus, this spell won’t effect any other aspects of dexterity; only sex. Also due to his hyper state, the recipient gains a +1 to hit. Furthermore, two points of Intelligence and one point of wisdom is lost; and one point of charisma is gained. These bonuses end when the spell ends.

Only affects males. I’m beginning to see a pattern here. I like the touch of dexterity affecting how good you are in bed, because everyone knows that elves are just inherently better at sex than humans.

Voyeur

A spell that lets the mage see through clothing to “examine sexual organs.” Alright.

Kiss of Slavery

A charm person spell in the form of a kiss. I can accept tha

The victim of this spell will obey any order unquestioningly.

This is some rape shit, isn’t it? You guys don’t actually care if the person is willing to have sex with you, do you?

Sex Change

Oh, I’m sure this isn’t going to be horrible at all

The DM must make sure the victim of the spell acts in the manner appropriate to the sex. If not, then the spell doesn’t really seem powerful.

Yup. No binary gender bullshit here.

Kiss of the Nereid

Maybe a bit overpowered, but a kiss that drowns the victim I’ll actually accept (you do get a save).

Magic Items Your Mom Wouldn’t Approve Of

Oh please no

Underwear Of Virginity 

Does it automatically restore someone’s virginity? These guys do know that 

This underwear is very popular among protective fathers. When worn, the underwear cannot be removed without the command word (usually the father’s middle name said backwards). The underwear is normal in respects to touch, but it is impossible to rip or tear. The underwear also magically disposes of body waste before it leaves the body, so there is no mess and absolutely no reason to remove it.

Yeah, because heavens forbid you’d want to take a bath. Eww, that’s just a gross, gross item.

Sword Of Castration

There’s no way this can be bad

This weapon has a +2 bonus to hit and damage. The real power of the sword is when the attacker rolls a non-adjusted 20 on the attack roll. When this occurs, the victim (if male, ignore if female) will lose his most treasured body part. Legend has it that this sword was created by evil (and bitter) Amazon Warriors.

Curse those amazing women. Sounds like you guys could go under the knife, as it were, because I’m not sure I want you to run around with your “most treasured body part” intact.

Personally I value almost every other body part more than I value my dick, but maybe that’s just me.

Wand of Vibration

I’m not even reading this.

Oh look, an entire section on prostitutes. Some short notes, because no way in hell am I commenting on every line of stupidity there:

The major measurement of a man is 1d8+4 inches.

All men are between 5 and 13 inches tall.

Charisma directly correlates to bust, hip and waist sizes, with higher charisma equalling a bigger bust, and slimmer waist. Also, if you have really low charisma, you get really wide hips too.

There is much more, like “inclination” ("does she like Anal Sex, Larry, does she!?"), whether they have STDs or not, etc etc. It’s not very uplifting.

The End

Oh look, a list of contributors.

No female names

Well that came as a complete surprise to nobody.

You can find the guide, if you really want to wade through it on your own, here. Since it’s a .edu address, I think we must unfortunately assume that these guys are not, in fact, 8 years old.

(This was originally posted by me elsewhere, which is why the formatting might be a bit wonky. Tough luck.)

Current plans: Online gaming

(I will ignore the fact that I've not updated this in four months, because I'm that kind of guy. I have been moving and busy with other things, however that isn't really an excuse.)

Aight, so I'm planning a thing for online gaming. I'll write more on it later, but it's going to be interesting to say the least. The idea is that since the group won't be the same members every time, I need to approach it differently than usual, so I'll write it down as I go along. Right now I'm sketching out the starting area and all that jazz, but to begin with, here're Jeff Rients' 20 Questions:

1. What is the deal with my cleric's religion?
2. Where can we go to buy standard equipment?
3. Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?
4. Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?
5. Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
6. Who is the richest person in the land?
7. Where can we go to get some magical healing?
8. Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath?
9. Is there a magic guild my MU belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?
10. Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
11. Where can I hire mercenaries?
12. Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
13. Which way to the nearest tavern?
14. What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
15. Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
16. How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
17. Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
18. What is there to eat around here?
19. Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
20. Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure?

1. There will be many different religions available, with two or three major ones in the starting city.
2. Standard equipment is available in most cities -- of which the group only knows their starting one to begin with. Gunpowder weapons will be harder to come by. Laser weapons and beyond nigh impossible.
3. Again, the starting city is your best bet; it's the most civilized, has the largest population.
4. Agrippa the Undying, a woman transported to this place centuries ago. She keeps to herself, and nobody alive knows about her.
5. Grimwulf Fourfingers. A raider, can sometimes be found carousing in a tavern.
6. Ssyth, a lizardfolk woman, runs the largest merchant house on the continent. What she doesn't trade in isn't worth bothering with.
7. Find a cleric. You'll pay outta your ass though, or be indebted to some god or other.
8. There is a "hospital" run by the city of Roanoke, but the technology level isn't very high and some practices are really weird, see those for poison and diseases. Curses might be dealt with by the clergy, lycanthropy you need to find a wise woman who actually knows the cure (Saral, a halfling); polymorph you'll need to dispel, alignment change is permanent, as is death. Undeath can't be cured.
9. No, you gain spells on level up with the Inspiration rule. You must still spend gold for the spell as if you had researched it though.
10. Roanoke.
11. Roanoke.
12. No, although swordfights are heavily fined in Roanoke proper.
13. That way. Most villages have a tavern or some other kind of community gathering place, too.
14. TBD
15. TBD
16. There are unarmed combat competitions held throughout Roanoke, the biggest one is held during the Harvest festival. Basically just slugfests.
17. TBD
18. The standard fare. No potatoes though. Stews. White bread is expensive, as are eggs.
19. Yes, definitely. Have a look around some of the ruins and dungeons littered all over the place.
20. There are no dragons here. Or are there?

Yeah, so I have some stuff to write up obviously. It's gonna be great.

Hey Hey, I'm still alive!

I'm sorry that I've not posted more, but between December being the busiest month at work, having two wonderful kids, and moving in January there's just not been enough time; this is just an "I'm not dead!"-post. Regular updates will resume in February, with any luck. Again, I'm sorry, but it'll be worth the wait because I have a shitload of stuff to translate for you guys.

When Murderhobos Attack, part 2: Dealing with it.

Today we played some stuff. Gregor couldn't make it, but the group was instead joined by former tavern wench-cum-magic user Estonia, played by someone that has never in their entire life played an RPG before (except WoW).
Estonia
Human Magic-User
Cha 11, Con 9, Dex 10, Int 13, Str 10, Wis 11
Spells: Read Magic, Summon, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic
When asked for a description, the player asked "so can I do whatever I want?" to which I said sure. So Estonia is 17, has purple hair, eyes that glow in the moonlight, and wears too much make-up.

Massive spoilers yadda yadda.

To get the new character into play ASAP, it was decided that the group had travelled to Denethix since they forgot the gunpowder, and stayed at The Wailing Claw inn, located on the Street of Lesser Men. During the discussion over breakfast, Estonia overhears them talking about needing barrels of gunpowder and since she knows Ott, the owner of a gunpowder store (this was decided by the player, I just went along with it because hey that works) could show them the way. "So, will you guys pay me to take you to the best gunsmith and gunpowder place in town?" They agreed, Estonia quit her job as a tavern wench on the spot.

Gregor seem to have left the inn sometime during the night. Quote from Dinah and Fenriz: "We'll have to hunt him down and silence him, I don't like people that betray me like that." so Gregor's player will have his hands full next time he's with us.

They get to the store, strikes a deal with Ott (Estonia gets a cut on each sale she brings in, apparently!) and purchases two barrels of gunpowder (they pay much more than what it's actually worth). Estonia and Fenriz (the thief) goes to buy a buckler but gets chased by slave traders that want Fenriz's body for their nefarious trade (Estonia goes free because she has a large, aggressive dog and also papers that proves that she's a free citizen), but the slave traders eventually gives up. Estonia is hired to drive the wagon with gunpowder to Chelmfordshire. "You'll get paid later."

Arrive, stay at the inn over the night (GM thought: some of the adventurers lodging in Chelmfordshire have taken an interest in them now, since they leave and return and are bringing back gunpowder?), make their way to the cave entrance. Still no bear, but they don't seem unduly worried. They store the gunpowder barrels in the Officer's Bathroom (room 6?) and start looking for the Sergeant and his two automatons. They find him (seriously, they walk through the entire level and don't get a single encounter), walk back with him and his two men after convincing him that it's finally time to kill the Abomination, pick up the gunpowder barrels and make their way to the Abomination's lair. At the reactor Dinah gets attacked by radioactive stirges and nearly falls off the ladder, but winds up hanging upside down. Dinah nearly gets eaten alive by stirges before they're all killed.

Arrive in the corridor before the lair, set up gunpowder barrels, taunt monster and run for it. Explosion kills Abomination neatly, but the loot is strewn all over, and nobody bothers trying to pick up small fragments of gold wire. Fenriz tries to open the chest guarded by two statues, but bolts as soon as they start to move. They make their way back to town after stripping the God Eye frame of stones and having found some stuff in the reactor room too. Still no bear.

Not much happened this time, but the Abomination obstacle has been dealt with so that's a huge thing. There was some roleplaying between Dinah and Estonia in the form of "You're not the boss of me!" and "Now listen here young lady, while I pay you I AM your mother." bickering. She said she had fun, but the lack of actual spells might be a bit of a turn-off.

Chances that campaign world will be fucked went from 10% to 90% on account of the Summon spell. That's fine. Whatever happens, happens.

When Murderhobos Attack, part 1: Into the Anomalous Subsurface Environment

Wheee~

Okay, so a group of players got together to do some dungeon crawling. Most of these guys and girls aren't that used to actual OSR stuff, but come from a more modern era of roleplaying games, where it takes a huge amount of time to create a character. One guy already had his character made; Gregor the Cleric, from the Shadowbrook Manor episode. Well the village of Talb... Tolb... whatever just got its name changed to Chelmfordshire and some caravan guards just entered The Grotesque Cousin lookin' for some help about some merchant family getting attacked.

Let me introduce the new characters:
Fenriz
Human Thief Specialist
Cha 6, Con 16, Dex 15, Int 18, Str 10, Wis 12

Dinah Mantorande
Human Fighter
Cha 10, Con 14, Dex 11, Int 13, Str 13, Wis 11

Being the kindly souls that they are, and Terry and Phil (the caravan guards) also mentioning something about a chest full of gold, they decide that they should probably see if there's something they can do about it all.

They get there, notice that the dead caravan guards had much better armour than they themselves and immediately strip them of their armour. Totally not unhinged at all. They find the obvious track of the moktar attack, and follow it to the dungeon/lair. Fenriz immediately falls into the pit trap, and seconds later gets a visit from a fairly confused wolf that he proceeds to drown, but only after Gregor jumps down to help him. Dinah suddenly comes to think about the fact that nobody brought a rope, immediately goes "you guys hang tight, I'll fetch some rope. Be right back!" and before anyone can reply she's off. So Gregor and Fenriz have to sit in that disgusting, star wars-esque trash pit for two hours and some (the Moktars come by and look for their wolf, but they're all too sick to make an effort and they figure it's run off or something, they never check the pit itself). Dinah returns and helps the guys up. They dispatch of the lone guard, then kill the 6 moktars in the guard room (I actually switched that and the common room around), barely. Retreat to the Kennel room and hole up for the night -- Terry and Phil have been more than useless up to now, so they're put on guard duty.

Next day they clear out the rest of the dungeon -- most everyone is almost dead or actually dead from the sick stone, but Fenriz finds the map. Dinah realizes what the stone actually is, and drops it into the refuse pit. I had the chest moved from the crab spider room to the Chieftain's room because I felt like it, and when they find it and see that it's full of gold they immediately go "splitting it three-ways is much better than five-ways..." Commence operation murder caravan guards. Phil bolts, but forgets about the pit trap and gets caught in it. Fenriz kills him from above (with bow and arrows).

They find metal plate, when Fenriz finds the small switch and flips it to "up" position. Dinah and Gregor nearly dies, but nobody gets squished. Fenriz actually thinks twice and pads the floor with dirty rags and stuff, so that they don't take damage when he puts the switch to "down" position. They debate for a while, then quickly checks the spider crab room, but decide that fuck it, it's not worth risking our lives for. Drop steel pyramid, get the hell out of there. Fenriz volunteers in fetching the sick stone, because he don't want the others to know how Phil died.

They get to the Gatehouse, waltz around for a bit and Fenriz finds the pit/cage trap (above room... 17?) -- I go with the "traps only go off on a 1 on 1d6" for some stuff, because they're only three and I can be kind at times -- nearly dies, again. But they have a rope with them, so they haul him up. They draft the automatons in room 5 and force them to lead them to the Sergeant, after having shown them the golden wings pins. They muck about a bit and take the money in room... 31?

They've expanded on the Sergeant's squad with some lesser automatons that they forced into service (because otherwise: violence), and have gotten many of the rooms mapped out by the Sergeant's guys... It's always a good idea to act like you're actually the guy running things around there. They haven't found room 14 and 15, nor the secret corridor, and they've yet to visit 29, 24 and 25. They flip the lever opening/activating the ASE, as a final gesture.

Hoping to find awesome laser weapons that the Sergeant said might exist in the lower levels (he actually didn't say anything like that, but they thought he did and I didn't feel like correcting them) they go downstairs into Level 1. They find the letter in room 1, found the corridor of bones (and opted to NOT enter it), then found room 4 but didn't trip any traps, before they decide that maybe later.

They quit the place and go back to Chelmfordshire to get some kegs of gunpowder because the Abomination sounds like something they can't deal with. So they get to Chelmfordshire, noting the searchlights and all that jazz (since it's just an hour or so since they opened it, nothing much have had time to happen yet), buy a new horse for their wagon (which they bought earlier) and off to Denethix. They sell some of their phat lewtz, and return to Chelmfordshire the day after-ish, drunk as fuck on their wagon (they rented a coachman in Denethix), only to find that the inn has become super popular (because you know, something's afoot in Mount Rendon and adventurers might wanna check that out), but for some sexual favours from Fenriz the innkeeper might let them have their old rooms back.

When they wake up, with the hangover from hell, the first thing the cleric says is "Fuck! We forgot the gunpowder!" and that's where we ended today's session.
--
A few thoughts: might move from LotFP to LL; not a huge difference but I feel that I might you know? Gonna check to see what they take for printing it at the local print shop. LotFP rules are still very fast to create characters, and combat is fluid enough. Not very good at integrating other races into the game, although there were some "this cave [the moktar one] must have been made by dwarves." (with the response "fucking dwarves, always ruining something") and other shit going around. Gonna have to work on that. Need a name list so I can just grab a name for an NPC, because I fucking suck at coming up with names on the spot. I'm not amazing at describing combat either, but on the plus side Dinah's player is so much better at it and revels in providing gory details. I feel comfortable leaving it as it is -- that is, players describe their shit if they want to, or I give them a generic battle-ish description -- but I definitely want to improve on that. NPCs in Gatehouse could have acted better, but they were super lucky with encounter rolls. Group will need to learn to check for traps better than they do, but pit traps made sure they remembered to do so for a while afterwards and that's good enuf for me. Their searches are also not really that descriptive, but I'm fine with that for now -- it'll come in time.

Next time we'll hopefully also have a completely new player with us, and Mother Russia might also join and I think that's a pretty good line-up: 2 fighters, a cleric and a thief, with one slot for newbie and whatever she wants to play.