pick #10: Beauty in the Eye...

Beauty lies in the Eye of the Beholder. Even if in this case, the beholder is a demonic creature from the deep.
Waterdeep, in fact, a creature from beneath the town of Waterdeep.

Eye of the Beholder is a dungeon crawler computer adventure made by SSI, for Dungeons & Dragons. Okay, twenty years ago, in 1990. But I still have fond memories of it. When we first laid hands on it, we built a party of our favorite player characters - the same ones we played in Dark Dungeon during weekends. And then we set out to rescue the town of Waterdeep. Or at least bash as many monsters on the way as we could, and collect all sorts of treasure while solving the puzzles of the game. Until next morning if we had to.

But why talk of such an old game, just nostalgia? No. If you are a webbook owner like I am, you may sometimes yearn for a game that its slow processor can handle. And old games are typically... slow enough!

Eye of the Beholder is such a game, which runs sweetly on an EEE-PC. And better than that, you can now download it for free here.Or you may search for parts one, two and three here, or here.

Pure portable nostalgia.

Classic RPG Review #5: Tunnels & Trolls

boxed set, fifth edition

by Ken St. Andre

1975, 1979 Flying Buffalo

Even in the early days, some people found that D&D was too expensive, too complex, and too commercial. One of these people was Ken St. Andre, and he wrote a simpler dungeon delving game called Tunnels & Trolls. It was cheaper, and it used six-sided dice, which were at that time much easier to obtain than the multifaceted twenty-siders, tetrahedrons, octahedrons and dodekahedrons needed for D&D. The D&D people were not amused, and did not see why they needed competition.

St. Andre thanks the people of the No. 1 game for their groundwork though, and states that his game is sufficiently different to deserve a place of its own. Is it different? Well. Yes and no. Dungeons & Dragons tries to mask that it's mostly a game of search, destroy and loot. Tunnels & Trolls squarely admits that's the whole concept of the game. You build a Dungeon, fill it up with traps, treasure and monsters, and then you invite the demolition team. Once the demolition team has done their jobs, you restack the same Dungeon, change a few things, and invite them in again.

No need for an adventure rationale, no need for a complex storyline, no need for a well conceived backdrop. The Tunnels just are. Like the trenches in the first world war. And that's where the delvers go, to gain glory, gold and power – or to die.

Dying is a lot more likely than during the mid-levels of D&D, so it is advised that players play more than one hero at once. Players do not control a single hero, but they have a whole team of three or four at their disposal. Making a new hero is easier than in most games, probably also because of the death rate. Once you get the hang of it a new hero is made in minutes. It won't have much depth, but where is the need?

Monsters are even easier to make. You just give it a Monster Rating, a figure from 1 to 100 or more, which determines how tough it is. And that's it. You can think up a name for the creature, try to imagine how it looks, or give it special abilities. But for the game you do not need to.

Combat is a team effort in this game. Both combating teams add up all their dice, add all their bonusses, and the highest team wins. This part is especially fun if you have a lot of dice in your home – the rattling sound! The losing team divides the difference equally among it's members, and takes that as damage – either on their armour, shields, or their constitution. Monsters take damage on their monster rating of course, no need to make things complex there. If your constitution or monster rating reaches zero, you're dead.

Heroes with a high IQ may also become wizards. These may cast spells, often with silly names, instead of just adding dice to the pool. As long as the wizard knows a spell, he or she can use it at the expense of strength points. There is no need to decide beforehand what one might need, like in D&D, and that makes the game a lot more flexible and fun. Most later games systems copied this feature, though spell casting then typically drains other statistics than strength. Not all wizards are as muscular as those in T&T.

All in all, the game is fun to play. It's simple and straightforward, even if you have to do a lot of dice rolling and adding up. There are nice illustrations by Liz Danforth, and there is something attractive about mindless slaughter and dungeon demolition. But it also has virtually no depth. So as a player I quickly moved on.

RULES 3/5

(rules are simple, elegant, open ended and not very realistic)

INSPIRATION

2/5 (the game has a thrill of it's own, but source material is limited, and the backdrop is maybe overly simplistic, avoiding any storyline)

PLAYABILITY

2/5 (although the game plays fast and easy, it also bores easily)

GAME FEATURES

(mindless slaughter and looting in a fantasy setting, human based but with dwarves, elves, halforcs, ogres and the like, combat with pooling each side's many six sided dice, limited professions, magic accessible to those of higher IQ)

OVERALL 5/10

Pick #9: Alatriste as an RPG

Seventeenth century hero Alatriste has not only made it to film, he has also made it into role playing. In Spanish.

Juego de Rol del Alatriste. And it's a good game, according to critics. The rules resemble those of GURPS, but are lighter and with less fluff. And the rule book is full of historical background information about the Spanish Empire and the 17^th century. The century that Catholics and Protestants clashed violently. The century of the three musketeers. The century of colonies in the Americas. The century of swashbuckling and captain Alatriste.

Unfortunately, if you don't read much Spanish, the book is probably not for you. The makers promised to do an English translation somewhere in 2005, but as that time long passed, the deal is probably off. If you do understand Spanish, or are just plain stubborn, you might order your copy here. Or have a look at some fanzines to get a taste.

Alatriste is a cool hero. If you haven't picked up the movie yet, read last week's review, and consider again. And if you did see the movie, and liked it, then start learning Spanish. Maybe you can teach the game to me.

Brugghes #6: Lamb to the Slaughter

If you're new to this column, read the read this first. Play date: october 1, 2010

Serapha woke from her feverous dream. How much time had passed? She wasn't sure. But it looked like dusk had finally come. The night would hide her, and she could seek out her new mistress. There she was, on the street, ready for the sun to set. Except that it did not.

Francesco just lost a few hours of memory. Was he on this street before? He rubbed his sore neck. There was blood. Serapha clenched him suddenly. “You startled me” he said. “It's almost night, we should go to the Thyssen place” she whispered. “No it's almost day” he could know. For he had been out all night.

What I tried to do as a game master in this session was mess a lot with the characters senses and their sense of time. And with those of the players too. Cutting scenes at moments that were unexpected, skipping whole hours of memory, give disorienting descriptions. Why? Because these two heroes (or are they villains? – the difference with my player characters is often thin), because these heroes are under the influence of vampyric blood. I'll tell, it's cool to GM delirium.

Both heroes tried to infiltrate the nest of two vampyre princesses, elven vampyres at that, hiding with the powerful businessman Thyssen. One, Leni von Brockdorf even married to him. Serapha tries to infiltrate, looking for an even more powerful undead. But unfortunately she is also addicted to the blood. Francesco is still human, and actually on a mission of his own. But he fell for her charms.

Will (played by a woman – Serapha played by a man), their mutual... well, someone they met and works with them - Will does not agree with their relationship. Will has his own goals. Yesternight he saw how a dragon was shot from the sky, and made an emergency landing on the Thyssen estate. Together with its rider. Will snuck unto the grounds, and confronted the guards and their dogs. There the dragon was, in all her majesty – and he could speak with her, for Will was trained to do so when he served as a dragon rider in the ImperiMor army. But she was wounded badly, and her rider was captured. By the Thyssen men. And more soldiers came. All Will could do was make a diversion, so the dragon – her name “Blue Thunder”, couldn't resist the pun – could escape swimming in the river. Hit by shrappnel, Will dove after her in the cold water.

So that's why Will needed Francesco. To help hide the dragon. Which they did eventually, in a boat house – feeding it some poor sheep – which they mercifully executed before letting them be eaten... And Will needed Francesco to prepare a rescue mission into the Thyssen house, to get the dragon rider. But preparing such a raid is not easy, when the Brugghes officials are patrolling the streets, and vampyre spawn are on your tail. That's where some more psychedelic GM-ing came in.

Francesco planned to invite Will and Serapha for a talk in his luxury office – which he hired to attract the arms traders he was actually staking out – but that's another tale. And while they admired the view, they noticed Leni's friend vampyre, Evi. Small, with a powerful and unamused gaze she looked up at them. Will hid, Francesco ducked. When they looked again, she was gone. And the stairs in the building creaked. 't is always great fun to see one's players spooked. The thing on the stairs turned out to be the new neighbour. Who of course also was not okay. After he tried to attack them, and they shot his arm off, he just kept standing. Until Serapha's focus lapsed, and the GM jumped her player mimicing a stake and mallet. It's always good to act things out physically a bit for effect.

Luckily, there are friends in the neighbourhood. The paladyns from Cluny have promised the Brugghes mayor to clean out the Thyssen vampyre nest. Aster Floryn, a hardened female warrior who smokes cigars for breakfast, is one of them. Aster is a long standing NPC. But while Aster'd like Will and Francesco to participate in the raid – who can then rescue the dragon rider in the process – she does not quite trust Serapha. She suspects Serapha is an ImperiMor enemy agent. And a vampyre too. Yet... she unwittingly shares information with Serapha. “Read this book”, she says. And in the book are her notes of preparing the raid.

Serapha remembers flashes of lying in bed with another woman. A love relationship? No... or yes? It's her new mistress Leni, and they speak of the coming attack by the Paladyns. Has Serapha betrayed them already? This, and more... in the next episode of Brugghes.

Brugghes Campaign: Read First

I've game mastered for about thirty years now, and every once in a while I try to seek out new challenges to keep the game interesting. New ways of storytelling, new ways of constructing stories, new story arcs, new worlds, new ways of letting players interact, new ways of cooperating with other game masters. And telling about what I'm doing now is a way to share what I learned – and still am learning.

So, also inspired by James “Grognardia” Maliszewski 's reports about his campaign Dwimmermount, I'll give it a try my way. Currently I'm running four different campaign lines on my world Nirdday, which is a mirror world of the Yaddrin world which I and some fifty other game masters shared since twenty years. The Brugghes campaign is one of these lines.

In Brugghes, the heroes try to unravel a network of crime – both in money laundering, drugs and arms trade – and they find vampyres, bone relics and ancient secrets. Nice detail is that most of the heroes were hired by player characters in another campaign, who need financial information about the criminals.

Writing on this blog starts at session #6, mostly to be up to date as I start. The first five episodes may appear some other day. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

Movies for Gamers #2: Alatriste

This is part of a series of reviews of movies particularly interesting or inspiring for role playing. Because of their setting, style, characters, editing or story. Read the introduction here or here if you are new to this series.

El Capitan Alatriste is a Spanish mercenary in the seventeenth century. He isn't really a captain, but he does know how to fight. And because that's basically all he knows how to do well, he ends up in one battle after another. Mostly in the Netherlands.

Now if you're Dutch, like I am, Alatriste is a shocking different view of our “Eighty Year's War”, which you might know as the “Dutch Revolt” during the heyday of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC). At school, we always were taught about the evil Spanish, and their torturing Inquisition. In Alatriste the Netherlands are a horrible breeding swamp of pirates and rebels who don't really fight fair. The Dutch are seen as the Nemesis of Imperial Spain. And if you thought trench warfare was an invention of the 20^th century? Think again. Alatriste and his compadres move around in real trenches and even tunnels a lot. You can smell the gunpowder while watching.

Maybe you'll find that Alatriste is a bit long. But if you know that Alatriste is a regular Spanish hero from pulp fiction, like a cross breed between Don Quichotte and Batman, then maybe you can appreciate the episodic structure of the movie. Alatriste, a creation by Arturo Perez-Reverte, seems to be hugely popular in Spain. So the makers tried to put the history of all the books into one movie. As an hommage, I suppose.

Why did they choose Viggo Mortensen to play the lead role? Probably to attract an international audience. His Spanish is curt, but sounds true to me. And he's a believable captain, struggling to show his emotion, even as he finally dares to declare his love to a high level courtesane. I won't tell you the outcome. He's cute.

Go see the movie, and learn something about history along the way. You might even want to upgrade your fantasy campaign to the 17^th century. I already did.

Pick #8: The Secret World

The Call of Cthulhu pen and paper game is great. And H.P. Lovecraft's writings might make for a great online role playing experience. Travel from Arkham to Dunwich, solve a few mysteries and nearly go insane. Great stuff to share in an online community. You might think.

When text only MUDs (the precursor of MMOs) were the norm, I tried to write for a Cthulhu MUD that was starting up. I had a lot written, but the game never really got off the ground. Until much later. Cthulhumud may be what its now. Or perhaps they went on to do Cthulhu Nation, a sort of graphic multi player game from the UK.

Or... would this be the next real thing? It looks like it might be. They seem to take in beta testers, if you dare. So why not have a go and tell me how you do? I'll wait for you to come back... sane, I hope.

Dark days are coming. Hm.

This MMO might be to scary for me anyway...