Free Adventures: Ammersfurt #8

The Secret of Ammersfurt is a free role playing supplement for the Dark Dungeon 2nd Ed game. Every week for thirty-five weeks, you'll get new bits for the Ammersfurt adventure setting, like monsters, NPC's, locations, skills, character templates, role play tips, and so on. And also every week, you'll get an adventure seed, which you can turn into a weekly adventure.

Adventure Seed 8: The Pirate at Ammerbrugge

Our heroes are invited by the Schout (Sherrif) of Ammersfurt, who lives in Ammersbrugge, way downstream on the Ammer. The older Schout is somewhat annoyed that his castle is to become the new summer residence of the Bishop of Utrecht, who is his liege. And he has another problem too. A group of pirates keeps stealing from ships, small farms and barns in the neighbourhood. Worse, he suspects that the pirates want to steal the treasures of the house. Such as the special runic chest and runic table silver. He wants the help of the heroes to catch the pirates.

Download the eight part of The Secret of Ammersfurt here!

Pick #40: Mazes & Minotaurs

Just suppose Gygax and Arneson, the inventors of the Dungeons & Dragons game would not have looked at Lord of the Rings. The book I mean, because the movie is post-1972. Just suppose they went to Ray Harryhausens Jason and the Argonauts, and thought, hey that's kewl. Let's do our game about Greek Gods and Monsters. Just suppose.

Then it might have looked like Mazes & Minotaurs. Or more like the 1972 version of Mazes & Minotaurs.

What, 1972? I hear you say. That's before Gygax! It's older! No it's not. Because it's not really from 1972. It's just made as if it is so. Frenchman Olivier Legrand wrote them after an idea coined by Paul Elliot. And it's actually BECOME a very intriguing game - well made - probably very playable too.

So, if you ever wondered how D&D would have looked if it were Classic Greek fantasy instead of Medieval Fantasy... or if you're wondering now, screen the game. And if you start a session, invite me please?

OSR Experiments #2: Converting Sister Rebecca

Yesterday I changed Morgan from Moldvay into Dark Dungeon stats. Now it's time for Sister Rebecca, the Lawful cleric, a true goody two shoes. Rebecca is also second level, so she also gets 50+5 points and just one skill at level 6. All other skills cannot exceed 5.

Oh yeah. If you really want to understand what I'm doing you should download the free Dark Dungeon Rules and have a look. Or you can figure out by telepathy. Whichever you prefer ;-)

Sister Rebecca, female priest, 55 pts (again 50+5 for second level)

Rebecca is a priestess, obviously, and since she heals Morgan in the combat example in Moldvay, a sister of the Order of Greyfriars would make most sense. These have Saint Gabriel as their patron Saint, and their most prayed for miracle is that of healing of wounds. But first let's do Rebecca's abilities first.

Strength 0

Dexterity 1

Constitution 1

Intelligence 3, required to learn Latin, which is required for a Priest

Willpower 4, as it is a near equivalent of wisdom, this is Rebecca's best stat

Appearance 3, I always saw her as convincing and charming

That's 12 times 2, or 24 skill points. Leaves 31 for the rest.

Special Skills:

Faith, Saint Raphael 6, this would be her forte skill, at a masterful level

Crosstian Ceremony 4,

Latin 3, required

Read & Write 3, required

The Dark Dungeon main religion "Crosstianism" does resemble Christianity in many respects, but it's a fantasy version of Roman Catholicism. Saints can be prayed to more or less directly, to ask for divine favor. There are no "spells" like in D&D.

Faith in Saint Raphael (page 17) allows Rebecca to pray for healing and protection against bodily and spiritual harm in many ways. Including long breath under water, healing diseases an raise the dead. Dark Dungeon Rebecca may indeed have a few more options than D&D Rebecca. She even has a theoretical 10% chance to recover a party member from the dead (She would have to roll an 18+ with d10 + skill 6, but a natural 10 also would suffice).

But Saint Raphael also requires that Rebecca keeps her faith. She may not kill or severely hurt anyone, which may put her at odds with the rest of the party. On the other hand she will receive even more supernatural aid if she rescues someone from certain death, while staking her own life. It does resemble the Lawful alignment in D&D. But if the other heroes kill and loot as in the average D&D game, Rebecca can hardly stand by and do nothing. She might have to be more strict than just say that Morgan cannot torture or kill captured goblins – as in the example in Basic D&D.

Crosstian Ceremony is closer to the rituals of the church. Ceremony will allow Rebecca to bless her party members, turn undead, and bless water to make it holy water. She can also make circles of protection against unnatural evil. So basically the Dark Dungeon ceremony skill nicely gives the typical clerical abilities of D&D. I'm actually surprised myself.

Meanwhile, the special skills took up another 16 points. Leaving 15 for weapon proficiencies and other skills. I'll pick a few from the list.

Weapons:

Brawling 3, this seems less lethal to me than most combat skills, befitting Rebecca's pacifism

Mace 2, high enough to threaten with and stop a fight

Other Skills:

Preaching 3

Poison Lore 2, always handy for the upcoming poison needle incident with Black Dougal

Swimming 2

First Aid 3

There, now equip Rebecca, and we're set!

Mace (weapon class 2)

Leather helmet (armour class 1 on head)

Grey Robes & Clothes,

Crucifix & Bible,

Bandages & Healing Herbs for First Aid,

Candles & Tinder Box

Backpack, Food & Wine Flask

And some odd coins amounting to 30 silvers worth (the mace cost 10 of her original 50, the helmet another 10).

Rebecca should avoid combat, not just for moral reasons, but also because she has little armour. And for a dungeon exploration the team should probably buy some torches, a lantern and some rope. Other than that she is set. And for D&D this would be more than enough.

But in Dark Dungeon, I'd like to give Rebecca just a little more depth. Let's say she's very young, only 17, but unusually strong in faith. She already noticed when she was four, when she saved her mother from death with a prayer to Raphael. Her faith was noticed by the matron of a local cloister, who took her in and taught her how to become even stronger. For some time she worked in a hospital in Hardby, where she met Morgan. Now she has left the convent to find her younger sister of twelve, who was kidnapped by the goblins.

There, two party members redesigned. I feel Dark Dungeon approach makes the characters a bit more three-dimensional. But we'll have to see later on what holds. To be continued!

The borrowed classic, excellent drawing is actually cleric Aleena, by Elmore.
 

Pick #39: Dave's 3D tabletop models

If you like geomorphs, and if you like miniatures, you also might like dioramas. And you might like filling whole basements, attics, sheds and living rooms with models. I don't. Not anymore. Because there's enough other stuff in these already.

But when I first saw Dave's 3D models, I was tempted for a moment. David Graffam makes models in InDesign (a DTP package for all I knew), and sells them as PDFs which you can then print on your PC to cut, paste and build them into nifty houses, ruins, boats, dropships and other stuff. You dig?

In layman's terms, Dave makes beautiful paper buildings. You can buy them as a computer file, print them and paste them on cardstock, and then build them too. They are often multilayered, so you can choose the exact of a model for yourself. That is, you can choose things like what color the bricks are, and what words are on the boards.

The cardboard building kits are very useful in games, as they are the right size for most lead figurines used in "the hobby". So you can do whole battlefield setups. Or you can totally fill up your basement.
If you have time, paper and ink for spare.

OSR Experiments #1: Morgan Ironwolf meets Dark Dungeon

Okay. I've set a new challenge for myself. I'll try and translate my Dark Dungeon game to Old School and the other way around.

I've been wondering a while now why old school attracts so many followers. And also why does it intrigue me aswell? Is it just nostalgia, whistfully thinking about the time we were young and (at least somewhat) nerdy? Longing for the sense of wonder we first experienced playing the game in the eighties? Table-o-mania? Is B/X a best game ever?

Yet, I haven't played D&D for some twenty odd years. Instead I have mastered and played my own game which evolved from home brew D&D – into something quite different.

So why do I prefer playing my own Dark Dungeon game above old school? Or why not?

Perhaps I can find out by translating DD into Old school and vice versa.

My first set task challenge: converting the Moldvay example adventure to Dark Dungeon stats.

[Just for the record here, I'm talking about Dark DungeoNNN which I wrote, with a few friends in 1989, and which evolved during the 90s. You can download the lite version here. I am NOT talking about the Dark DungeonSSS game retro style D&D clone of a much more recent date. Translating D&D to a clone would not be much of a challenge, would it? - Thanx for pointing out the potential confusion, Jeff!]

Challenge 1: Redesigning Morgan Ironwolf

My Dark Dungeon game was actually never written for dungeon romps, as our playing groups had grown out of the dungeon already. We went for more cinematic style adventures of one or two game sessions at that time. But who knows, it might hold up. Let's try.

First, in my opinion we need the heroes. In Moldvay, we find five of them. A dwarf, a warrior, an elf, a cleric and a thief. In Dark Dungeon these would be a dwarf, a warrior, and elf. A priest and a thief. So far fairly easy, eh?

But, let's provide some stats. Moldvay doesn't give many. Only Morgan the female fighter has a complete character sheet. Fredrik the dwarf is 1^st level, and has only 6 hit points. Sister Rebecca can cure wounds. And all but Fredrik are 2^nd level. So, I guess I can make up the rest. Here goes.

I'll give all second level characters 55 skill points. That is 5 above the starting 50. At this moment I'm just winging it, but I guess that 5 more points per level would be okay, especially at the lower levels. Also, I'll allow one skill at level 6 for each second level character. That's one skill point in the master range for each level above 1.

So, how would the heroes look? Today I'll try Morgan.

Morgan, female mercenary, 55 pts

Strength 5, (actually 16 in D&D, but there's a limit in DD for starting characters at 5)

Dexterity 3, (this would relate to D&D Dex 13, as 10 is average in D&D, and 0 in DD)

Constitution 4, (14 in D&D) good for taking blows

Intelligence -1, (7 in D&D)

Willpower 0, (10 in D&D)

Appearance -1, I'm surprised at the D&D dump stat Charisma: Morgan has score 8 in D&D

This makes for a total of 10 abilty points, or 20 skill points. Leaving 35 for the rest.

Combat skills:

Mercenaries fight for their daytime job, so the brunt of the skill points can go here.

long sword 6, this would be her main weapon, so this is the one skill above 5

shield 5

dagger 4

brawling 5, if she runs out of weapons

short bow 5, nothing beats a good ranged weapon attack

That's 25 points in combat skills, leaving 10 for the remainder.

Other skills:

Hm. Ten points. I'll just have a look at the template on page 5 of the DD rules. Yes, these are the Dark Dungeon rules you can download here. I'll pick a few and divide the ten points equally.

Swimming 2

combat tactics 2

hunting 2

leader 2

survive rural 2

Now I'll equip her from the template too.

Ringmail brigantine & light helmet (armour class 2 all over)

Longsword (weapon class 3)

Dagger (weapon class 1)

Short bow & a dozen arrows in quiver (weapon class 2, range not important in the Lite rules)

Shield

Leather boots

Backpack with food & flask of wine

Money worth 100 silvers (I'll say that's 4 in gold and 20 in silvers)

Morgan has some more equipment in D&D on her sheet, like a silver arrow, torches, iron spikes and fifty feet of rope. For ease I'll figure that that costs about a gold coin, leaving her 3 gold, 20 silver.

There. Morgan Ironwolf is ready for dungeon delving. However, I'd also would have to provide for some background in Dark Dungeon. Let's say she's served in the city guard of the nearest large town, Hardby. There she had the rank of assistant Serjeant. But after a conflict with her superiors (which she does not readily discuss), and a short time spent in jail, she went working for the highest bidder. Now, returning to her home hamlet, soliciting for the position of assistant sherrif, she finds that her brother Paul was taken by a goblin warband. Morgan is a natural blonde, blue-eyed, strong built, in her early twenties.

You may notice that I didn't mention hit points. If I would fill out a wound box for Morgan however, as described on page 11, Morgan would have four additional Light wounds she could take, in her arms, legs, chest and guts respectively.

To be continued...

Sheet gratefully borrowed from D&D Basic.

PS updated Morgan Ironsword into Morgan Ironwolf... guys... help me proofread?

OSR Experiments: What makes a game OSR?

Of course, Old School Renaissance is a style of play rather than a particular game system. And in my mind it's no use to argue about which game would be old style, and which one isn't. Perhaps some masters and players out there manage to play old style feel with 4th edition D&D, just ignoring most of the rules and advertisements and products that do not help them.

Perhaps there are OSR style players who don't even know they actually play what many OSR protagonists would say is their type of game. And maybe also the other way around.

But... lurking in the shadows of the renaissance, I started to wonder. Is my own Dark Dungeon 2nd Ed. game in a way OSR compatible? Can it have that feel? Or is it doomed to be something else entirely?

I decided to do some experiments, which you can see coming up in the next few weeks.

News #12: Swordplay

While indexing some Spanish language sites, I stumbled on this fencing video. You might want to have a look too, it's impressive, stylish, and neat.  And if you regularly think Ork, then this gives a whole different idea of what western style swordfighting could look like.



Thanks to Luiz Miguez of Feldkirch, a Spanish Fudge RPG.