Current Clacking

In every player pack I created for one of my Realms campaigns, I included “current clack”—news and rumors characters would hear locally (including from caravans passing through their locale) as play began. This is…how it all begins, every time—because if you, the players, are going to choose where your characters go and what they explore, I must dangle an array of possibilities before you. You have to feel the world is no lifeless backdrop, but a gigantic flood of many lives constantly unfolding. 

Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster’s Forgotten Realms, p. 45

That’s Ed demonstrating his old school roots (as if there was ever any question). From that one quote, you see that Ed’s Realms campaigns were “sandbox” affairs, even if he didn’t use—or even know—the now-common term. And although 2^nd edition AD&D somehow got the reputation for being the version that eschewed the sandbox for the railroad, there’s nothing in the actual rules that says it has to be played that way. Deneir knows I wasn’t going to run my campaign that way.

Taking a page from Ed’s book, I created a list of rumors the PCs would know at the start of the campaign and then did some minor preparations to cover my ass should they choose to pursue them. I specifically didn’t flesh out every possible avenue of adventure, cribbing from the old Dungeoncraft articles the adage “Never create more than you have to,” but sketched out an encounter or two related to each rumor. I figured once the players chose a direction to pursue I could add more details to the scenario they wanted to explore. That method has worked well for me in the past and it continues to do so now.

After character creation in the first session, the players got a single page of rumors. Here’s what it contained:

Current Clack for the 9^th of Mirtul—Year of the Shadows (1358 DR)

• Rumors are flying that a trade coster (caravan) traveling from Loudwater up along the Dawn Pass Trail was attacked and looted by brigands of uncertain origin. The ambush occurred a half-day’s travel west of the Nighthunt Inn. Common opinion holds Zhentarim raiders are responsible for the attack, but no definitive evidence links the Black Network to the brigands.
• In light of the recent ambush, a small caravan bound for Lonely Oak is seeking to strengthen its defenses. Polgan Dranthmir of the Thunderpine Trading Coster is looking to hire stout swordsmen and spell-hurlers for the roundtrip journey from Elf Water to Lonely Oak. The trip is expected to take two tendays. Dranthmir is offering 3 silvers per day for freeswords and 5 silvers a day for spell-masters.
• “Elf fire” was spotted late last tenday by travelers approaching the village. The mysterious green fire was sighted south of the western trail near the vicinity of Grumber’s Meadow. Elf fire is believed to appear in places were lost treasure is concealed or where ancient spell-casting once occurred.
• Heavy spring storms have uncovered a sealed portal set in the rocky walls of the Orc Trough, a deep gully located west of town. In addition to this recently unearthed door, the Trough contains a number of old catacombs believed to be of elven origin.
• Erig Wholodown of Wholodown Brewery has a standing offer to buy leathertop mushrooms. He is offering 2 silver per dozen toadstools. Leathertops are found throughout the Southwood, typically in moist earth between the northern roots of crumblebark trees.
• Fresh land urchin tracks have been spotted along the western river bank, indicating a “quill” of land urchins is hunting the area. These curious creatures often form pearls within their bodies, and some older urchins have been known to create up to two dozen pearls with each valued between a hundred and six hundred gold coins. Unfortunately, the bizarre creatures’ myriad spines are poisonous, so urchin hunters should take care.

In the end, the players seemed most interested in the hired caravan guards, the unearthed portal, and the land urchin hunt rumors. They would do a little rumor-mongering of their own in the first session before deciding on which one to pursue. Their choice and the subsequent events will be covered in the next series of posts.

As an aside, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about these Realms posts. I hope you’re enjoying my return to Faerûn and maybe are inspired to make your own visit, either for the first time or to reacquaint yourself with old ground.

Change is Good

No, this isn’t a post about the just-announced and forthcoming version of Dungeon & Dragons (but we’ll get to that in a moment). This is about looking forward to 2012 and new directions in the year to come—which may be important on the off-chance the Mayans knew something we don’t.

Last year, I announced that this blog would be coming to an end. I felt that I had taken the Society as far as it could go based on my original purpose of chronicling my return to the gaming fold and wishing to contribute something to this nebulous thing we call the Old School Renaissance (or whatever OSR stands for this week). In some ways, I still believe that. I’ve done what I set out to do and succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

Since its inception, this blog and the material produced for it allowed me to establish a presence hitherto undreamt of—by me anyway— in the gaming community and the industry that supports us. I don’t think anyone can dispute that The Dungeon Alphabet and Stonehell Dungeon remain examples of some of the better works created by this movement. The Dungeon Alphabet was especially well-received and is one of the few works that achieved success outside of the OSR, drawing praise from not only grognards but folks who entered this hobby in more recent years. That continues to blow my mind.

Having done what I set out to do, my choices were to either start anew or shut down. My workload made me more inclined to the latter. But with the start of the New Year, my attitude has changed. I’m hacking away at the “To Be Done” list, and although I expect it will fill up again (at least I’m praying it will), I think I’ll be able to dedicate some more time to this blog o’ mine. The Society has been around for more than three years now and maintains a steady readership. And while it doesn’t have the number of fans some older and more prolific blogs have, SoTPR is still in the upper echelon of old school blogs. It seems as shame to throw away all that hard work now.

So what to do? First off, it’s high time this place got a revamp. In the weeks ahead I will be playing with the design a bit to come up with something new, but still legible. I’ll be editing and updating my links section and playing with ideas for a nifty new banner up top (I remain one of the few elder statesmen of blognards who has never gone beyond a text header). It’ll likely be a hack job since the visual arts is not my forte, but I’ll endeavor to keep it classy and discrete.

Secondly, I’m going to fold my side blog Secret Antiquities into this one. The premise of having a secondary blog for material not directly relating to fantasy gaming was sound, but the end result was two blogs I ignored and not much progress made on either. Seeing as we’re all gamers, I don’t think anyone will mind too much if I post the occasional design ideas for a system other than D&D and its various clones. Unless my readership starts abandoning the joint in droves, expect to see some reposting of things from Secret Antiquities here as I integrate both blogs into one.

Thirdly, and I know I’ve stated it before, 2012 will be the year the Stonehell sequel is finally released. The fact that it is so far behind tears me up more than I’d like to admit and since my name is synonymous with that dungeon, I feel its failure to see the light of day reflects poorly on me. To correct this, I’m committed to producing one new quadrant of Stonehell a week. While that might mean it takes all year to complete the manuscript, slow progress trumps no progress.

Lastly, although connected to the above, 2012 will see me at GaryCon IV. I intend to try and play as much as I can, but I will be bringing Stonehell with me to Lake Geneva, hopefully with brand new material to test drive. There are no official Stonehell sessions on the schedule, but if you corner me, I’ll gladly run it during the open gaming portions of the con. I’ll even allow your FLAILSNAILERS to bring your PCs for a visit if that’s cool with how things work in FLAILSNAIL-land. As always, Stonehell’s Save Your Ass T-shirts will be honored, so grab one now and edge out your competition for loot.

More projects and plans will be announced as they develop, but I think the above is going to keep me busy for awhile.

OK, with that out of the way, let me say my piece on the 5^th edition which isn’t the 5^th edition of D&D. In all honesty, I was completely indifferent about the announcement. That surprised me a little, but it’s the truth. There’s no gnashing of teeth or rending of raiment here. The game will come, I’ll check it out, and if it’s fun and captures my interest, I’ll play it from time to time. I’ve no expectations that it will heal the great edition rift or create the greatest version of the game ever. I might run it or I might not. I signed up to get a look at the beta version once it’s released, but I suspect that will be the extent of my involvement. I’m certainly not going to attempt to steer its direction. It will be whatever Mike and Monte design within the boundaries laid down by management. I wish them the best and hope Wizards comes out with an entertaining diversion that attracts more gamers to the fold. After all, more tabletop gamers are good in the grand scheme of things.

I don’t expect to give much coverage to the game here so this may very well be the last words I say on the game until it is released. Others will certainly be following its development with close scrutiny. I’ll say this though: “5E” looks really, really strange when seen written out to my eyes. I must be getting older.