Mapping Progress, and Thanks

Three levels mapped, one more described fuzzily enough that I could probably wing it (not that I expect the PCs to make it that far in one session).  Time to stock.  This is, I think, the first time I've properly designed an abandoned dungeon; did all the mapping first with the perspective of the original occupants / constructors in mind, and the stocking of completely unrelated creatures comes after.

I'm...  fairly hopeful about this one.  I've been jayquaying to the best of my ability; there are at least two paths between each level, and generally more (challenge to players: find them all!).  I'm looking forward to seeing random encounter / time pressure on the players (in a kind of academic way), and tweaking the stocking tables (and then reusing them as wandering monster tables) is the next thing on my to-do list.  I've got traps and secret doors, but only in places where the occupants would reasonably have put them, and the traps are reasonably supportive of player agency.  I've got a how and why for the dungeon to exist in the setting, and it has links to other dungeons.  I've got a hook to kick the players into the dungeon in search of loot, and while I don't like restricting them to that course of action, I've come to terms with the necessity of a railroady first session premise even in what is ideally (and will hopefully become) a very free sandbox.  I have no idea what classes any of my players are playing yet; the setting and the adventure exist independently of the characters.  It's not tailored to anyone's backstory, or capabilities, or anything else.

In some sense, this is the culmination of the last year or so of reading OSR blog posts.  It's been that long since I last GM'd seriously; I ran Traveller in the spring of '11 (it was actually ending as I wrote my first post), and while I was beginning to use some old-school techniques (particularly small / simple stat blocks, randomness as inspiration, PC death happens, and sandboxing), there were also a lot of new-school things there (skills for everything, little focus on resource management or loot, little focus on player skill, research, or interrogative play).  I've played and seen the problems of high-level 3.x (again) since, and am quite looking forward to the speed and simplicity of both old-school and low-level play.

So, I guess thanks, gentlefolk of the OSR blogosphere, for the advice and for keeping the flame alive.  Also, this one's for you and your crazy stories of 1e in college, dad.

Prep Time

Well, the ACKS game is launching hopefully in the next 4-5 days.  It's crunch time as far as prep goes.  Have enough setting fleshed out; time to build a dungeon.  It was going to be a small dungeon...  but after writing the specs for it, I'm not sure I'm going they're compatible with that aim.  So the time has come to dust off BtBG's megadungeon resources (though I'm really looking at a mediodungeon), and to break out the graph paper...

Hey cool, I found a reasonable use case for traps and secret doors.  Dear players: you may wish to consider bringing one or more of the following: thief, elf, ten-foot pole.  It is worth noting that one of these things does not want a share of the treasure and won't steal your stuff.

Freeport

No, not that Freeport.  Well, actually kind of.

The primary port and largest settlement of the Shieldlands is Freeport, located at the mouth of the Tongue.  It's a lawless, pirate town without much in the way of government; technically there's a mayor, one Redjack, but he's a retired pirate himself and there's not a whole lot of power that comes with the office.  The remnants of his crew make up a nominal police force, but...  they're pirates.  People, including thieves and cultists, mostly do as they please, and a body in the gutter is by no means an uncommon sight.  Naturally, this makes the place somewhat popular with merchants moving questionable merchandise, provided they can provide for their own protection.

Freeport was not always so free.

Before the Zaharan cataclysm, Freeport was the seat of the merciless House of Nacht.  The nearest humans to Zahar, they paid tribute to it and worship to its gods, and were greatly favored, to the point of marrying into the Zaharan nobility.  In time, their sorcery grew strong enough that they raised a castle of solid black stone from the earth beneath Freeport itself, and in the labyrinthine catacombs beneath it they performed rituals most foul.  When the Zaharan War came, they stood with the Zaharans, and paid the price.  It is unknown whether any survived, but their legacy remains in the looming form of Castle Nacht over Freeport Harbor.  The castle is now thoroughly haunted; pirates and cultists alike go in, seeking forgotten treasures and ancient knowledge, and those that come out tell terrible tales of the walking dead and fouler things.  Their stories are occasionally verified when things that were imprisoned in the bowels of the castle get out into town...  [Meta note - I'm looking to make the basements of Castle Nacht a smallish megadungeon type thing.  In due time.]

It is well known that several chaos cults to the myriad chaotic powers are active in the seedy underbelly of Freeport, but which ones are anyone's guess.  Cults come and go in an ideologically-consistent random fashion.  Fortunately, much of their scheming is directed against each other, though the city's poor often feel the sting of their sacrificial blades.  It is unknown whether there is something in the Castle that draws cultists naturally, or if at this point it's just an established cultural institution.  No significant outside force has attempted to eradicate the cults with any success since the War, though individuals have certainly carried out bloody vendettas against individual cells, which are soon replaced.

Caravans through Freeport are highly uncommon; to the south lies blistering desert, and while to the north are festering mires.  Riverine and sea travel are about the only ways into and out of the city.  Boats traveling upriver are most often headed up the north fork to Deal and Ironbridge, while ships out the bay are usually bound for Dardantus or Soros.  Small coastal schooners occasionally run north to Fishtrap (though the rumors of that place are fell), and to Myrmidia beyond.  Most reputable merchant cartels avoid moving cargo through Freeport, leaving that risky business to independent captains.

In short: as dangerous a city as they come...  but a class II market, which means you might actually be able to buy or sell permanent magic items there.

More Notes from the Road

So it turns out that once you start taking notes of names, it becomes a fun habit.  Here're some more:

Places:

• The Crazy Mountains
• White Sulfur Springs
• Bear Canyon (gee, I wonder what lives there?)
• Pipestone
• Tobacco Root Mountains
• Anaconda
• A town called Opportunity
• Gold Creek
• Bearmouth Recreation Area
• Beavertail Hill
• Sapphire Mountains
• The town of Superior
• Dry Creek
• Lookout Pass
• Spirit Lake
• Treaty Rock
• Fishtrap
• A town called Deal (sounds like Bartertown to me...  this one is definitely seeing use)
• Stampede Pass

NPC names (towns in real life, but probably better as NPCs for my purposes):

• Absaroka
• Tarkio
• Mullen
• Cataldo
• Kootenai
• Kittitas
• Kachess

I've also started reading the Black Company series.  There were two primary reasons for my interest here.  I first encountered mention of the series through True Sorcery, which is a standalone version of the magic system found in the Black Company Campaign Setting.  That there was a setting which had magic resembling TruSorc intrigued me, but wasn't quite enough to push me to pick it up.  What did that was Daztur's Combat As War post on EnWorld, which cited the Black Company's exploits as canonical combat as war material.  I finished the first book last night at around 2AM PST / 5AM EST, and I was not disappointed.  It started with combat as war, then gradually shifted to focusing more on the high sorcery of the Taken.  Particularly interesting here is that the 'PC' wizards of the Company appear to be around 5th level by TruSorc's standards (focusing mostly on Sense and Illusion), while the Taken are in the 10ish range (with powers like Shapeshifting, Healing, and Air Lore; I really liked Stormbringer, since I quite enjoy building True Sorcerers who do that), and the Lady seems to be in the 10-15 range (the Ritual of Taking, at the very least, should require Create Undead, and she definitely has Telepathy as well).  Given that the Company's wizards have already had their lives extended by magic, and the Taken are kind of undead, this means that reaching high levels takes a loooong time in this world.  Combined with the way these level ranges match up nicely with ACKS', this pleases me.

TODO: write True Sorcery Lite for ACKS.   Yeah, that's happening...

As a result of leisure reading and traveling, though,  actual prep work for ACKS has suffered.  Now I have names and ideas, so things should go faster.  Hopefully?

Notes from the Road - Place Names

I've been doing the annual-ish roadtrip move for the last couple days, so I've had a decent bit of time to think on gaming topics.  Not terribly productive, since I'm ever-so-slightly exhausted (haven't had an 8+ hour night of sleep in May so far that I recall, what with final projects and then 8:30 finals and now moving), but better today than yesterday or the day before that.

First, place names.  The Midwest has some pretty good ones which may have to see use in ACKS.  I submit for your consideration:

• White Lake - lakes aren't usually white.  Is it white sand, or bubbles, or some eldritch contaminant rendering its waters like unto the Dyne?
• Tongue River - dare I ask...  ?
• Crazy Woman Creek - Is it called this because a crazy woman lives here, or as a general statement?  The first is more useful; could be a hag, a witch, a sorceress, a whole band of female berserkers...  who knows, as long as she's crazy.  And crazy folks make great PCs, enemies of PCs, and quest-sources.
• Dead Horse Creek - Maybe somebody's horse died here, or maybe the water kills all horses that it comes into contact with.  Or something stranger still.
• Mead Creek - Well, this is an easy one.  Readily distinguishable from other creeks by the fact that nothing lives in it and the fumes sometimes ignite during lightning storms.  Perhaps it has its source in a dwarven brewery automation project gone awry (but that's Dwarf Fortress talking again).
• The town of Acme - Renowned for the works of its most famous resident, a demented (and possibly not-so-skilled) dwarven machinist.  Responsible for Mead Creek?
• The town of Reliance - What do they rely upon, I wonder?
• The Busted Nut Bar and Grill - I kid you not.  Probably not going into ACKS, though.  Unless it sells a variety of alcohol produced from fermented legumes...  ?  Now that I'm entertaining the notion, I suppose The Busted Nut Tavern might actually have to be a place.

Along similar lines, I realized that if a GM tried to name a mountain range "The Rocky Mountains", he'd get shouted down hard by his players with cries of "What's next, the Sandy Desert, Muddy Swamp, Plains of Flatness, and Frozen Tundra?" The fact that a name of such quality is in common use in real life therefore amuses me.  There's also the counterargument of "Yeah, it might not be inspired...  but your players will definitely remember it."

I also had some thoughts on linking the availability of the ACKSPC classes to actions in-game, but it's late and I'm tired, so that's a post for another day.

Still Alive II: Electric Boogaloo

Finals complete, and now I'm just waiting for mechanical checks on my vehicule before I ship out for the summer.  As often happens during studying for finals, I came across a few distractions during the last week:

• First, a fine gentleman by the name of James Jeffers put together a web app for generating random map regions for ACKS in pdf format.  Got me some no-terrain maps with a nice smattering of towns and dungeons in thought-provoking patterns (line of towns?  River, coast, or main road.  Area devoid of any settlements?  Inhospitable desert.  Cluster of dungeons?  Giant cave system).  Excited to by finally actually mapping stuff; sometimes a little inspiration via random table is all you need.
• I was looking for this Black Company for summer reading, but found this Black Company instead, along with its knight-commander Florian Geyer.  He seems the historical instantiation of a PC if ever there was one.  This started a little more research in to the German Peasants' War, which also turned up Götz von Berlichingen, who is similarly very PC-like.  It looks like historical 1500s Germany would be a hell of a setting...  Guess I'll add that to the "To Run" pile, down there with Iron Heroes and Legend of the Five Rings...  (Whatever happened to historical settings, anyways?  That's probably its own post, but it'll take a little research first)
• There's now a Stack Overflow equivalent for RPG-related questions.  It's mostly 4e and Pathfinder, but also a smattering of other systems and general GMing questions.  If you feel like imparting wisdom, or are wondering about something ("Why does the darkness spell block infravision, anyways?"), it's a good time.
• Printed a copy of the ACKS pdf at 1AM while I was working on a research poster in a building with a printer, then picked up a pair of binders for it (one for the players section, one for the DM section).  I'd forgotten how nice gaming books in paper can be.  Need to print a second table of contents for the DM binder, and I should really graphics-up some covers for them (but that's tricky business without a mouse).
• The ACKS Player's Companion draft 6 released on Kickstarter; more on that below.

But yeah...  I've started mapping for ACKS.  Guess we're playing in the Shieldlands; areas not detailed so far will likely get paragraph-length blurbs and class templates. 

I've also stumbled across a few balancing features for some of the Player's Companion classes which lead me to think that they might actually be balanced!  Notably, the Dwarven Delver, while better than a Thief at its various skills, able to use better weapons, and possessing better HD, lacks two important features: the ability to disarm traps with a roll, and the ability to backstab.  Likewise, the paladin, while receiving a number of supernatural features that fighters don't, has only d6 HD and is not proficient with ranged weapons.  Medium hit points + melee only...  looks like you might need Lay on Hands for yourself, never mind your friends.  Dwarven Fury compels me to allow it out of sheer force of dwarfsomeness (it's basically these guys minus mohawks) and, while powerful, has a pretty hefty XP-to-level, so it might be OK.  I also quite like the Priestess; better-than-cleric divine casting on a mage chassis (no armor, low HP, weak weapons).  There's definitely a niche for those.

Finally, a recent addition, the Venturer, intrigues me as a character concept.  It's not dissimilar to Traveller's merchant career; you get social bonuses, price cuts, and market class bonuses.  And d4 HD, thief to-hit, and not much in the armor and weapons department.  Such a character is a strategic asset, able to secure henchmen and needed equipment with ease, but a tactical liability.  Sounds like fun, and I'm really interested in how it fits into ACKS' mid-level region; I think at low levels, it'd be tough to survive and be useful, and at high levels I suspect that they become a bit less useful, but in that 4-8 range I think they could be a lot of fun.  As with all 'support' classes, they'd make good henchmen, too (though they drive a hard bargain in hiring...).  Kind of a pity they got stuck with a bland name, though.

There are a couple that I'm definitely not permitting, though: Gnomish Trickster and Thrassian Gladiator.  Reason: infravision.  None of the core races have infravision, in order to keep the party on the same level of light-usefulness (else elven nightblades would utterly outclass thieves, for example).  This stance makes light management a definite part of the game, regardless of party composition, unlike in 3e where most of the party would end up with low-light or darkvision except that one guy who played a human and ended up having to carry his own damn torch.  Gnome and Thrassian damage that dynamic which was solidly established in core, which is something I kind of want to preserve.  The other classes in the Player's Companion mostly leave me kind of eh, except for Barbarian, which has a very neat class feature regarding the Mortal Wounds table.  Said feature might make a very nice class proficiency available to most fighting classes, though; it hardly warrants the addition of an entire extra class.

And today, we fight the dragon, and Fjolkir finally dies (or worse).  Exciting times.

Final Projects Week

That lovely moment at 3AM when you realize there are more things due in the next three days than were due in all of April, and that about 45% of your GPA for the semester will be decided in the next week.  So I'm doing this, basically.  Updates will resume probably next Friday or so.