A Fake Thing That Should be a Real Thing

Constant readers might recall that I once proposed that the OSR really needs to create a fanzine based on the "manly men" magazines of old. As soon as somebody gets that off the ground, somebody else needs to start publishing this pulp on a regular basis:

Cure Humorous Wounds

High art, this is not, but I know some referees will introduce this particular bit of wonderworking into their campaigns with tremendous glee. Think of it as a companion piece to my long-forgotten One Hundred Random Ridiculous Magic Items Table.

Cure Humorous Wounds (reversible)
Level: 1
Duration: Permanent
Range: Touch

This potent but specific spell cures a single character or creature (including the caster) of all damage suffered from one or more wounds. However, the injuries healed must be humorous in nature. Any injuries sustained in a less than entertaining fashion are unaffected by this spell.  Whether a wound is considered humorous is left to the Labyrinth Lord’s discretion, but suggested comical wounds include an arrow in the buttocks, a sharp blow to the genitals, injuries sustained from custard pies, and other similar damage. If the majority of the players (not characters) succumb to laughter as a result of the wound, it is also considered humorous.

Cause humorous wounds (reverse of cure humorous wounds) inflicts a single injury on a creature if the caster touches his opponent and the victim fails a saving throw vs. spells. The exact nature of the wound can be determined by the Labyrinth Lord or by rolling on the table below:

1) Shot to the Danglies: Lose all actions for one turn automatically. Each subsequent round, the target must make a save vs. paralysis to recover. If the save is failed, the creature loses another round of action as he/she/it groans in pain.

2) Hot Foot: Target’s boot/foot/hoof/etc. catches fire causing them to hop about comically for 1d4 rounds or until they extinguish the appendage. The small fire inflicts 1 point of damage each round.

3) Eye Poke: Woo-woo-woo! Target is poked in the eyes and cannot see for 1d4 rounds. All attacks and saving throws are at a -2 penalty.

4) Mallet to the Head: A hammer of force descends upon the target, smiting them upon the pate. If wearing a helmet, the basinet is crushed and forced down over the victim’s eyes, blinding them until it can be removed with a successful STR check. Target’s without helmets are stunned for 1d4 rounds and illusionary, tweeting birds circle the victim’s head.

5) Tongue Grab: A hand of force grasps the victim’s tongue and yanks. A successful DEX check must be made to remain standing. Spell-casters are unable to perform magic for 1d4 rounds afterwards.

6) Atomic Wedgie: An unseen presence yanks the victim’s undergarments upward with great violence, reducing their movement rate to the next lowest speed and inflicting a +2 penalty to AC. This effect lasts for 1d4 rounds or until the victim spends a full round readjusting their undergarments. 

New Goblinoid Games Playtesting Underway

Regular readers will remember that I hinted at (well, OK, blatantly plugged) the fact that I've written a new game for Goblinoid Games using the Pacesetter System. As of today, the playtest document is now open to Labyrinth Lord Society members. If you want to get in on the action, you'll need to sign certain documents writ in the burning blood of Orcus and become a Labyrinth Lord Society member.

The following except is from the email that went around to Society members this morning. If it piques your interest, why not go to the LLS page and sign up!

I'm looking for playtesters for a new Pacesetter System game developed by Michael Curtis. The genre is urban fantasy, particularly of the dark urban magic variety.

Playtesters will receive credit in the book and free PDFs of the final release.

In order to be a playtester you need to have a currently active gaming group willing to play, and be willing to commit to playing three sessions before September 1st. I would also ask that the GM submit a playtest report, briefly describing your experience running the game and any comments by the players. Ideally you will already have played similar games like TIMEMASTER, ROTWORLD, SANDMAN, etc., but this is not mandatory.

I'm really excited about this game! I think Michael Curtis has done a great job with it.

Dan Proctor

Goblinoid Games

In Case You Missed It

You might have seen that Goblinoid Games is continuing to gobble up Pacesetter titles for re-printing and to create new games using the Action Table system. Buried in the most recent announcement that Dan Proctor has acquired Sandman: The Map of Halaal (I put him in a head-lock at Gary Con and refused to release him until he agreed to buy it) was this:

Looking for more Pacesetter System^TM games? Michael Curtis has just finished writing and playtesting an all new game using this system. It will be opened for additional playtesting very soon to members of the Labyrinth Lord Society!

I can't release any details until Dan makes a formal announcement, but let me just say I had a blast writing this one. If I could only tell you some of the weird-ass books I used as reference material on it... I was worried I went a little too far into Bat Country, but so far, those who have seen the game really dig it. Forget D&D Next! Sign up to become a member of the Labyrinth Lord Society and get a first-look and chance to playtest it before it hits the shelves!

Beware the Crazy-Ass Miniature Level of Stonehell!

I took a brief jaunt up to the FLGS today to clear my head before taking a late night stab at the next phase of my current project. I’ve mentioned before that my local game shop regularly buys old gaming collections from those poor sods that’ve been forced to abandon this rather bizarre hobby of ours for various reasons. When I got there, the owner was sorting through one recently acquired collection and he knows I love getting first dibs on newly received stuff.

The collection was all pure 3.5 stuff: modules, sourcebooks, dungeon tiles, and a bunch of WotC pre-painted minis. Really, really crazy-ass minis, like Aspects of Tiamat, 15’ tall werewolves, frost giants riding on mammoths, and the like. All stuff I’ve never seen before. But while there were one or two pieces that caught my eye, I can’t justify spending $20 on a mini I might use once. However, it did give me an idea.

I’m going to spend the next few days going through all my minis—plastic and metal—and pick out the strangest of the lot. When that’s done, one quadrant or more of Stonehell is going to showcase them all. I’m not certain how (if at all) I’m going to rationalize it, but I guarantee anyone wandering into that area of the dungeon is going to meet something they’ve never seen before. I’ve got some crazy-ass minis that have been collecting dust for far too long and it’s about time they see the light of day (or at least the dim glow of a hooded lantern). If you’re one of those anal-retentive referees who simply must use the “correct” monster miniature in your games, my apologies in advance, because you’re going to hate this part of the dungeon!

I've Never Laughed Harder While Being Terrified

Thanks to Jim Ward for sharing this on Facebook. I'm on record stating that the alien from Alien absolutely terrifies me, but I heartily endorse this sort of prankery. If more people thought like this, the world would be a much more magical place.

Why is the OSR not producing a fanzine like this?

There are many fine amateur and semi-professional publications out there in the OSR, but I sense there’s a niche that needs to be filled. We need our very own “armpit slick” fanzine complete with covers done in the style of the men’s adventure magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. Hell, most every cover blurb for the stories inside scream to be transformed into a roleplaying adventure (OK, maybe not “The Diet That Can Double Your Sexual Batting Average,” but still I make a good point).

I can’t do it. I’m booked solid and I’d make a lousy publisher anyway, but couldn’t you see a quarterly OSR fanzine done in this style and containing adventures for Call of Cthulhu, Weird Adventures, and other RPGs of that ilk? Man, I’d be all over that slick, especially if it occasionally did tell me about “The Nation-Wide Shame of Teen-Age Sin Clubs” and where I might find one in my neck of the woods.

Signs & Portents

So by now you’ve all heard that WotC’s re-releasing the trio of core 1E books for D&D. There are of course caveats to the release (limited release, available in North America only, new covers, quality and quantity yet to be determined, etc.), but on the whole this seems to be a good thing. Maybe it’s merely a publicity stunt by WotC to try and generate some goodwill amongst older gamers or a test run to see if there’s a market for similar releases in the months ahead. Frankly, I’m not privy to any inside information, so this is speculation at best.

Others more versed is such matters have undoubtedly already addressed some of the issues I’m about to mull over, but I’ve been head-down trying to catch up on projects and haven’t had much time to wander the blogosphere and the forums to see so for myself. Please forgive me if you’ve seen this hashed to pieces already.

Having mulled over this news for most of the day, I’m wondering what this means in the long term for the OSR and the retro-clones. If this is indeed a limited run, never to be repeated again, the re-issue won’t have much of an effect other than generating more interest in the “obsolete” forms of gaming we’ve all been harping on for years now. That, I think we can all agree, would be a good thing.

However, what if this is a sign that WotC is dedicating themselves to finally getting their ducks in a row and cleaning up the mess they made for themselves with the release of 4E? I’m not edition bashing, but I think we can all agree that the release of 4E was a bit of a fustercluck whose long term effect was to fracture the consumer base. The wide differences between 3.5 and 4E systems made it difficult to use material across editions, thus impacting sales. And as much as we like to harp on the fact that Paizo is now at least equal to WotC in the market, can anyone dispute that Paizo’s success was not predicated by WotC fumbling the D&D ball?

Unless you’ve been marooned on a deserted island for the last few weeks (and if that’s the case, why are you reading this blog and not out drinking your bodyweight in booze and chasing people with lax moral standards?), you know that WotC’s plan for D&D Next is to end the edition wars once and for all and bring us all back under the D&D tent. Obviously, there’s been debate as to the feasibility of this goal. I’m not going to go on record to say that WotC can’t do it, but it’s going to be a hell of a task to do so.

Continuing in this vein (and remember this is mere speculation), what happens if the 1E books sell like hotcakes at a lumberjack competition? Wouldn’t the next logical step be to see if more out-of-print editions have a place in the market? Is the OD&D bookcase set we’ve been asking for, one to put in the game closet next to Monopoly and Trivia Pursuit, an inevitability? Again, this is a good thing.

Unfortunately, if this is indeed the future of things to come, it’s going to have an impact on the OSR publishers out there, especially those individuals currently responsible for the retro clones available. The success of Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and OSRIC is based on the fact that the rules they are reproducing are out of print and increasingly difficult to acquire. There’s already a percentage of the player base that shuns the retro clones on the grounds of “Why play this when I already have the ‘real’ books?” Admittedly, the intent of the retro publishers is to keep these types of games available in a market that had no official support, to provide a means for amateur and not-so-amateur designers to create material for the games they love, and to keep this form of gaming alive. However, I think it’s going to be hard going for these same publishers if WotC steps back into the marketplace and re-introduces the real thing. Those of us active in the OSR might continue to support the old school retro clones, but when push comes to shove, the average gamer is going to pick up Basic D&D over Labyrinth Lord. It’ll be a shame if the OSR did win the war as some posts have claimed in recent months, only to succumb to its own victory.

Now assuming that WotC continues with an OGL with their releases, the 3^rd party market will survive. We must remember that the original plan for the OGL was so that 3^rd party publishers would take up the slack and produce adventure modules for D&D that are notoriously small sellers and don’t constitute a large part of the overall profit pie. WotC could continue to concentrate on the big sellers and let the little guys nibble on the crumbs. As we know, this isn’t the way things worked out, but this might still end up being the case for the publishers currently supporting the OSR. I’m not crying that the sky is falling, but I doubt anybody with a stake in the old school market isn’t at least considering this possibility today. I sure there’s been a few closed door conferences going on over at Paizo HQ in recent days as well.

I might be reading too much into this announcement entirely and completely outside the realm of reality. Nevertheless, I think there are interesting times ahead for us all in the months to come and I’ll be watching future developments very closely. The reprints of 1E have certainly lit a fire under my own ass in regard to getting Stonehell completed and out the door on the off-chance we’re in for a very severe sea change in the hobby and the industry that supports it.

They were Gods in those Days

Jeff Rients recently wrote two posts regarding the wild and zany antics the boys in Lake Geneva got up to back in the early years of this hobby. Inspired by those anecdotes, I wanted to share one of my favorite old war stories from years gone by. This one was recounted by Roger E. Moore in an editorial on fear that appeared in Dragon #156 (April 1990)

I was in a GAMMA WORLD game that Jim Ward ran a few years ago. It scared me to death. Jim has a habit of rolling huge numbers of dice of damage at the snap of a laser, and his campaign was full of amusing things such as Cthulhu-size lake monsters and deathray satellites that diced up ground targets with impunity. But his most famous creation was the subtly named Death Machine, a nice little military relic of the Social Wars of the game’s background.

What’s a Death Machine, some of you may ask. Here’s a story: A few years ago, when I was in the Army, I told everyone in my gaming group to each pick his or her favorite deity from the AD&D® game, and prepare to role-play that deity in a special scenario I had developed. The next hour was spent in feverish excitement as a large assortment of gods and supermonsters met on a deserted plain and awaited their opponents. Suddenly a huge space-time warp opened up in front of the incredible assembly . . . and out of the alien warp came three brand-new, fully armed, fully powered Death Machines on random programming.

Two gods died in the first 10 seconds of combat, each taking over 700 hp of damage. A third god died before the minute-long fight was over, and two other gods (including Demogorgon) fled the battlefield in utter panic. All the rest of the deities were pounded with atomic missiles, lasers, bombs, rockets, shells, bullets, force fields, and death rays. Thor bent the nose of one Death Machine with Mjolnir but took a nuke in return. If I had not used random attacks, all of the gods would have died in 30 seconds, no sweat. It was wonderful.

I think we need more of this sort of thing. Thank goodness there are still referees who indulge in these sort of antics and keep the wild and wooly days of yore alive.

What the Heck am I?

Anybody recognize me? I'm a mystery miniature from Mike's youth (as you can tell by my hideous paint job). I have scratched on my base "© 82" and the initial "P" but no other identifying marks. Heck, I don't even look like anything in the Monster Manual. Can someone identify my maker and what the hell I'm supposed to be. I don't seem to be on DnD Lead and that place has everything.

Here's Brian Blessed as M.C. Escher

I'm cleaning out the old hard drive and I found this. I'm sure I had a purpose for saving it, but for the life of me cannot remember why. Nevertheless, I thought I'd share it with you.

Say What You Will About RPG Blogs, But...

They seldom make me contemplate gouging my eyes out with a spoon or make me feel as if my I.Q. dropped thirty points from stupidity contamination. That's something that I can't say about most of the RPG-related forums out there on the ether. Ey-yugg.

Over the Wire & England Invaded

I’ve let it be known that I have a fondness for that historical period spanning from the end of the American Civil War to the end of World War I. I find this era fascinating; so close to our own world-view yet oh-so-different.

While tooling around online looking for Victorian period minis, I happened upon a mention of the miniature skirmish wargame, England Invaded. Produced by Over the Wire Games & Miniatures and available from Warrior Miniatures in the U.K., it seems to be set in an alternate history timeline where World War I broke out a couple decades early. The minis are the perfect mixture of the Victorian and the Great War, and cover the English, German, French, Turkish, American, Cossacks, and a few independent forces (the Americans all have cowboy hats).

I’m not much of a mini wargamer and have no interest in pursuing a second career as Warhammer general, but this line tickles me in just the right places. Has anyone out there had any experience playing this or with the minis? The prices aren’t bad for buying them overseas, but not cheap enough to justify spending the cash without doing some research.

My attitudes and interests when it comes to RPGs have been heading in strange directions lately, and if this turns out to be a winner, I can see strange fruit being born from peculiar trees.

Your Adventure Design Homework for the Weekend

I read this quote today in an interview with Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks, OFF!) and it sounds like just the sort of adventure the OSR minds would cook up. My plate's full, so someone else is going to have to take this one.

Hercules versus The Three Stooges. Or, the Three Musketeers get transported to Mars where they’re going to fight the evil king of Mars, and, as it turns out, Mars is like the party planet; all the women are running around naked and there aren’t very many guys, so it’s kind of like Australia where there’s like 10 girls to every guy. Something like that.

Extra bonus points if you can squeeze in Bigfoot.

All Next Week: School's Out for Summer

What with the edition kerfluffles and the coming End Times, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to turn the Society's attentions on games that do not fall comfortably inside the OSR's tent. Watch in horror as Mike turns in his old school membership card with posts on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week! The Old School's out for summer. Maybe even forever...

And Miss All This?

The Internet is Useless in Certain Endeavours

Such as determining what a certain flower smells like, for instance. In perhaps my strangest search yet, I've been attempting to pinpoint and identify a specific floral scent that I always associate with my time in Los Angeles, and I'm finding that near impossible without "scratch and sniff" computer technology. Just when you think we've made great strides with technology, we discover new limits.

Any L.A. natives (or as close as one gets to being native in a city composed of transients) know the scent I'm thinking of? A light, floral smell that seems most potent in the winter months? I may have to start haunting florists to nail it down

In Order to Discover New Places, You Must First Throw Out the Old Maps

My Labyrinth Lord campaign recently experienced a complete party wipe, which can happen if you decide to let events unfurl naturally rather than guided by a firm yet biased hand. I look upon it with mixed emotions. It puts a damper on campaign momentum, but also allows me to introduce a few changes, ones I was lamenting over in my yearly review not so long ago.

In retrospect, I realize that I made an error in introducing material from the Advanced Edition Companion. Not because the supplement is flawed, but because it essentially undermined my whole purpose for going back to the roots of the hobby for this campaign. The campaign began to resemble AD&D in rules and style, and if that was the case, why wasn’t I just playing AD&D? It was time to chuck all the extraneous material and go back to basics and cultivate anew.

One of my primary goals in keeping to the basics and building from there was that I was hoping to create a game that was uniquely my own and not just another standard D&D world. This has been a mental hobgoblin of mine for quite awhile now, one which gets aggravated every time someone decides to expand the types of playable classes and wanders into the same old paladin, ranger, bard, druid, etc. territory. Having seen some of that appear in my own world, I had had enough and was seriously looking to break out of these same old variations on a theme.

It was a route I had taken before with both my Mule and Octopus class—solid, yet unorthodox player classes that explored what you can do with a class-based fantasy RPG—and one I plan to continue following. So, instead of adhering to the classic fantasy archetypes, I’ve become more inspired by other driving forces: “Is it something I’d like to play?” and “Is it something different?” The answers to these questions so far are indeed inspired.

As an example of where my mind had been wandering, an instance I’m most proud of, I’d like to present you with my latest class: the ghost. That is not a metaphorical name; it is a dead adventurer who continues to practice his former profession, unwilling to let a little thing like kicking the breathing habit slow him down.

I’m continuing to tinker with a trader class, one that relies more on role-playing than combat and avoids the granting of magical powers, which is a route I’ve seen before, but never quite understood. There are a few other classes (or races, rather) in the stew pot and I’ll either debut them here or submit them for publication as they come to completion.

The ghost may not be for everyone, and it is certainly not for all campaign worlds. My vision of what D&D continues to change, even more so after a year-plus of old school playing. It is unlikely that I’ll ever return to what I once considered its default settings, and I’m looking forward to what this new territory contains.

Download the ghost class here.

S&W WB Acquired

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who contacted me in regards to my White Box search. Deals have been made, swag negotiated, and arrangements...er, arranged, so I'm all set. You guys are indeed the greatest role-playing fan base in existance today. I'm proud to be a part of the OSR, whatever that means this week.


Some of my regulars know that I'm a slave to whimsy and odd ball ideas. My latest has me thinking of projects to tackle once Stonehell is complete.

That vein of thought has managed to merge itself with a discussion I had with someone a few weekends ago, and I'm now thinking of coupling it with Swords & Wizardry White Box.

I'm aware that the WB rules remain available, but part of my idea involves taking a seed and nurturing it to its ultimate end--for weal or for woe. Thus, BHP White Box is almost ideal for my purposes.

Having just missed an eBay auction for one, I thought I'd cast my net upon the waters of my readers and see if someone has a gently used set they'll never find a use for. If so, before you put it up on eBay or offer it up to Noble Knight, drop me a line and we'll see if we can come to terms in either cash or swag.

The Final Level of Stonehell Dungeon

I was going to post an incredibly useful PDF about horses, horse trading, and other equine pursuits today, but MediaFire has made “improvements” and I can no longer upload files to share with you fine folks. So, until they give me a workaround, here’s a sneak peak at the final level of Stonehell Dungeon. Get your vorpal swords ready!

Readers may recall that I was lamenting my lack of certain toys from my youth last year during the holidays. Amongst those I was missing were Presto Magix rub-on transfers. Christmas came and, lo and behold, I got a present from my brother in the guise of my two-year old nephew. He had forgotten about Presto Magix until my blog post reminded him of our misspent youth doing these things in front of our titanic wooden television set. He managed to not only track down a Star Wars set but several AD&D sets as well and presented them to me gleefully at Christmas.

Last night, we had snow yet again here in New York and I decided to while away the hours by making a mash-up of both types of Presto-Magix sets. You can see the final result by clicking the image below. The entire time I was creating this masterpiece, the only thing I could think of was that this looks like either the ultimate battle in Stonehell Dungeon or just another day in the world of Encounter Critical. Incidentally, I’m also pretty certain that this is what’s going on inside of Jeff Rients’ head at any given moment…