The Ashgate Academy

I’ve been a vocal advocate for the “shared world” experience in role-playing games. Although the referee is responsible for the majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to detailing the campaign world, I don’t believe he or she should be the only one carrying the load. As a game master, I encourage player creativity to help fill in the unpainted corners of the world we’re all exploring and experiencing together. It not only jump-starts my own creative process, but allows for a greater investment in the setting on the part of the players.

The following is a result of that refereeing style. In my Kingmaker Pathfinder game, the party’s wizard often refers back to his time at the magic university he studied at prior to his adventures in the Stolen Lands. Player Rich has elaborated a wonderful backstory about how his wizard paid his way through college as a bootlegger brewer and regularly provides bits of information and lore with the preface “When I was studying magic in Strormfast…” I, for one, believe such creativity should be rewarded, and, inspired by Rich’s anecdotes, have sketched out a brief description of the hitherto unnamed university his wizard attended. Rich’s wizard is of the evoker school and, based upon his usual method of prying information from prisoners, I thought the benefit provided for studying evocation at the Ashgate Academy is fitting.

The Ashgate Academy can easily be dropped into any 3.5 or Pathfinder campaign with a name change or two. Older editions of the game can utilize the Academy with a little mechanical tweaking.

Ashgate Academy 

Founded in 1499 G.C.R., the Ashgate Academy is one of the few renowned and respected schools of the magical arts in the harsh northern kingdoms. Situated in Strormfast, the college earned its name from the site of its construction. The Academy stands at the base of Pyre Cliff, the traditional site of cremation for the city’s dead. Following the incineration of the deceased’s mortal remains, the funeral procession bearing the ashes pass through a wrought-iron gate erected at the base of the cliff. The Academy’s main building faces this “Ashgate,” thereby earning its designation. The Academy’s sigil is a crimson flame inside the archway of an argent gate on a field of deep azure.

The Ashgate Academy is best known for producing exceptional practitioners in the schools of enchantment, evocation, and necromancy. Instructed by masters of these magical arts, the graduates of these three schools enjoy a minor benefit from their education. These benefits manifest as follows: 

Graduates of Ashgate Academy’s enchantment college are well-schooled in the identification and classification of magical auras. Enchanters of the Ashgate Academy gain a +1 circumstance bonus on Spellcraft checks made to determine the school of magic involved in a magical aura or to identify the properties of a magical item when using the detect magic spell. 

Graduates of Ashgate Academy’s evocation college are famed as battle wizards and feared for their ability to rain destruction down upon enemies. Evokers of the Ashgate Academy receive Intimidate as a class skill. 

Graduates of Ashgate Academy’s necromancy college receive intense training in the funeral practices and beliefs of many diverse cultures. Necromancers of the Ashgate Academy receive a +1 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (religion) skill checks regarding funeral rites, afterlife symbolism, and the identification of deities possessing the Death domain.

The Aspiring Lich

I’d like to take a moment and direct your attention to the blog, The Aspiring Lich. Chris, the blog’s author, is currently suffering under my refereeing efforts in the Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path. Like many of us prodigals, Chris cut his eyeteeth on AD&D and then drifted away from the hobby for awhile. He’s recently returned to the fold, taking the route that many suffered through upon coming back: sitting down to play the more recent incarnations of the game before rediscovering his old school roots.

It’s fascinating to watch that process from the outside, looking in, simply because it’s very similar to my own path. I came back into D&D with 3.5, struggled to make it resemble the game I remembered it to be, and then realized there was no need to do so when my old books and the various retro clones allowed me to play the game I was weaned on. Chris is sitting behind the Labyrinth Lord screen for the first time and realizing that is a world of difference between herding the cats and meowing amidst the masses of them. He’s already written some insightful things and turned his attentions to crafting OSR goodies. Please check out Chris’ work at the Aspiring Lich if you get the chance. Steering some traffic his way is the least I can do considering what lies in store for his Pathfinder PC…

Kingmaker

Congratulations to Paizo: Their Beginners Box has effectively cast its spell upon me and is working as intended. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was very impressed with their introductory boxed set for Pathfinder and, after reading it, I decided to dip my toes back into the often-times muddied pool of 3.5-based gaming.

Ever since Paizo released the Kingmaker Adventure Path back in 2010, I’ve had a lingering itch to play it. When a friend lent me the first module in the series, I read it halfway through before putting it down. Not because I was disgusted with it, but because I really hoped that one day someone would run it and I’d have the opportunity to visit the Stolen Lands for myself. After a year and a half of holding onto that hope, it finally became apparent that nobody was going to run it for me and I’d have to take on that burden for myself. And thus, my latest campaign was born.

The other reason I decided to run Kingmaker is that I’ve been looking to do a campaign that has a beginning, middle, and end. Most of my games have tended to be open-ended, but I know from personal experience that my interest in a specific campaign wanes after time, leaving me looking for the next “big thing.” Hopefully, Kingmaker’s structure will allow me to avoid that. It also has the benefit of getting to the “D&D endgame” much quicker than traditionally happens. By the second module, the PCs are already involved in the domain-building and administration process, and Kingmaker has some interesting mechanics to adjudicate that.

My original intent was to simply use the materials in the Beginners Box to run it, but after I read deeper into the campaign, I realized that running a primarily wilderness-based adventure without allowing the players access to classes like ranger and druid would be cruel. And since I already owned a copy of the Pathfinder Core Rules, I instead opted to limit the campaign to the races and classes included in that tome. I sank the cash into a Pathfinder Bestiary and I’m now ready to roll.

One of the great things about having a campaign world that is not completely detailed, quantified, and mapped is that it is extremely easy to pick a blank section of the map and plop down whatever I feel like running into that portion of terra incognito. And so it was that the Kingdom of Byrsk came to be placed on the far side of the aptly named Wayfarer Mountains that border the Eastern Reaches in the world of R’Nis. Its placement confirms something I’ve long suspected: my campaign world has definite “zones” where specific game rules hold dominance. The eastern edge of the major continent is home to 3.5 and Pathfinder; the central region around the fabled Ring Sea is AD&D land; and the western coasts are where B/X and Labyrinth Lord hold sway.

Last Monday, I gathered with a new group of players to officially dive back into old but somewhat unfamiliar territory. This group is composed of players from several diverse gaming groups I’ve played in over the last few years. One is a veteran of my Labyrinth Lord game, two I met during my D&D Encounters experience, and the last comes from a group I’ve played in on and off for several years. All in all, it appears that they are more interested in just hacking and slashing and crawling through dungeons, which is something I’ve been trying to avoid for a while, having led to my lack of enthusiasm with the old Labyrinth Lord campaign. Amongst the four of them, they rolled up a half-orc barbarian, a human cleric, an elven ranger, and a human wizard. The mix looks good and I’ve made the goals of the campaign very clear from the get-go. This is going to be a campaign about nation-building and all the fun and tragedies that accompany such ventures.

Currently, we’re running through the sample dungeon included in the Beginners Box. I wanted to run a prelude adventure that would allow the party a reason to be adventuring together, give then some experience and magic, try out their various character builds, and allow myself a chance to become acquainted with the Pathfinder rules. They’re halfway through the Caves of Gold Light and we should finish that delve at Thursday’s session. After that, it’s off to the Stolen Lands to forge their legacies.

It’s my intent to run this as a true Pathfinder game and try to avoid my prejudiced attitudes about what D&D is. I’ve accepted the high magic aspects of the setting and familiarized myself with the skill system and DCs as best as I can in the limited time available. I’m making rules notes in my campaign notebook as they crop up in play. I figure that since I’m always on the lookout for new freelancing opportunities, becoming fluent with the rules for the other 800 lbs. gorilla in the industry can only be a good thing. Of course, fun and cool always trumps mechanics, so we’ll see how often those aspects come into conflict as the campaign goes and make allowances when they do.

With a new campaign rolling, I’ll likely have to start updating the Archive of the Rotted Moon again. I’m not certain how detailed my session reports will be, but a running log of events is always useful to my increasingly decaying brain. It looks like I’ll need to write up my last few Stonehell forays and start chronicling the Kingmaker campaign there as well. I’ll mark the posts as applicable so folks can read or avoid them depending on their interests.

Why I'll Never Be a Superstar

An email popped into my inbox tonight reminding me that the Paizo RPG Superstar 2012 competition is underway and that the deadline for the first round of entries is January 6th. Normally, this is something that I'd not be moved to participate in, but every since I got my hands on the Pathfinder Beginners Box, I've been examining the game in a somewhat different light. About ten minutes after I received that email, an idea for an entry popped into my head and I figured, "What the hell. Why not submit it?"

Then I read this in the rules: Anyone with a cover credit on a hardcover RPG book is ineligible.

Damn you, The Dungeon Alphabet! If only Goodman Games had been cheap bastards and gone with a softcover rather than a stylish and durable hardcover I might have been the next RPG Superstar! Looks like I'll have to become one the old-fashioned way. Back to work for me.

An Open Letter to Paizo

Dear Paizo,

Greetings! It’s been a long time since we last communicated and we’ve both gone through many changes since then. You’ve left the shadow of Wizards of the Coast to pursue your own efforts to produce enjoyable game products for one of the more fickle recreational audiences imaginable, while I’ve gone back to the roots of this hobby and rediscovered my love for the simpler, and often times rougher, systems of the past. We’ve both been quite successful in our endeavors and this has put some distance between us. I nevertheless understand you’re doing well.

I’m writing you today to bridge that distance. The occasion for this is that I recently purchased one of your products. I admit that I’ve not be a supporter of your efforts financially in the past. Previously, I purchased your Classic Monsters Revisited after reading a positive review of that book (and I concur with that review), and some months ago I purchased your Pathfinder Core Rules thanks to a large discount and a gift card from the now-defunct Borders Books. I’ve paged through one or two of your Adventure Paths, but these were loaners, not purchases.

My impression from these books was that your designers are obviously very passionate about the game and world you’ve created. Your artists do a wonderful job of breathing life into this setting (even if I do find the occasional rendering of a barbarian with a sword the size of her own body more laughable than cool) and more often than not I find an illustration that really leaps out and says “Don’t you wish your character encountered/did this?” So, although I’m far from a rabid fan, I do appreciate your hard work even if Pathfinder itself is a bit bloated for my tastes.

Make no mistake—it is bloated. You did a good job cleaning things up from its predecessor, but when my preferred game systems have rule books that number between 64 and 128 pp., it’s a little difficult to get excited when confronted with a rulebook the size of my local telephone directory. As interesting as I’ve found Pathfinder and the adventures you’ve produced for it, rules of that length are simply a deal-breaker for me.

That brings us to my recent purchase: the Pathfinder Beginner Box. Like Classic Monsters Revisited, I heard a few surprised murmurs amongst my colleagues regarding this product recently. And, finding myself confronted by the box at my local Barnes & Noble with a gift card in my wallet, I decided to pays my money and takes my chances. After exchanging $38.00 and change (tax included), I took the box home. Hours later, I opened it.

Perhaps the greatest compliment of my own I can give you is this: I’d play this game. Hell, I’d even run this game! After even a brief overview of the set I could see that you fine folks at Paizo really, really get it. This product is obviously created by gamers with a love of gaming. Folks who at least had some familiarity with old TSR boxed sets, even if they weren’t the gateway into this hobby for all of you. Having seen the Dungeon & Dragons 4E “Red Box,” I can say that the Beginner Box is a vast improvement in comparison.

My immediate impression was that of the old Holmes’ basic set. While the Pathfinder Beginner Box (a name of which I approve of) is not a complete rules set, neither is it “crippleware.” Obviously, it serves your business model to steer newcomers to the game towards the more complete and pricier Core Books, but you’ve nevertheless packed enough material into the Beginner Box to not only allow gamers to extract a sizeable amount of enjoyment from the set, but, for the mad homebrewer or those who prefer a “rules lite” game, you’ve provided a solid skeleton for these types to build their own worlds upon. You deserve both accolades and respect for that. A truly, excellent, excellent job.

A suggestion: If you were to release an Expert or Intermediate Box in a year’s time or so, one that covered levels 6-10 and introduced 3-4 new classes along with new monsters and spell, I think you’d have another hit on your hands. I for one would gladly purchase such a product, as would some of my compatriots amongst us older gamers. You’ve certainly generated some goodwill with the Beginner Box and, given its “Pathfinder lite” rules, may even win some converts from those of us who enjoy simpler and smaller game systems—ascending Armor Class notwithstanding.

Paizo, you stand at this moment the king of the roleplaying heap. You’ve wrested the title from your former masters simply by understanding your audience and respecting them while still turning a profit. The Beginner Box is another step in the right direction and your exalted position in the eyes of both the gaming community at large and the industry is yours to lose. As a friend and a fellow gamer, I offer you this heartfelt advice:

Do not fuck it up.

Sincerely,

Michael Curtis

Kingmakers I Have Known

I’m still in head-down-fingers-flying mode while I work on the book, but I’ve reached a natural point of pause so I thought I’d compose a few words about something I read and something I remembered recently.

Last weekend, I got the opportunity to flip through the first installment of Paizo’s latest Adventure Path series, Kingmaker: Stolen Land. After reading the introduction, background, and the initial encounter, and then flipping through the rest of the book and reading the enclosed short story, I put the book down with the intention of never picking it up again—which, in this case, is the highest praise I can give it.

Simply stated, that brief exposure was enough to make me want to play this one through, and that’s quite a feat (no pun intended) since I’ve no desire to go back to the morass of rules which is 3.5 (or 3.75 or Pathfinder or whatever the kids are calling it this year). In the hands of a decent referee, one who knew a little bit about what a sandbox was and how it differed from the traditional Adventure Path, this one could be a blast. Hell, I’d even be willing to take the role of party leader if I played this one. For those who know me and my general dislike to be the guy in charge, that admission alone indicates how impressed I was with the book.

Of course, since I didn’t read the whole thing, I can’t make a hearty recommendation to others, and I might be completely disappointed by the path in actual play. I’ve been intrigued by some of the Paizo-produced Adventure Paths during their run with Dungeon, but the dew came off the rose quickly after the initial two or three adventures. Once they got out of the sweet spot of mid-level (and I mean old school mid-level, 5th-7th), I wasn’t so charmed anymore. This could be the case with the Kingmaker path, too. However, I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them prove they can really do an old school sandbox with new school rules. If your planning on running this series and need an old school player to roll up a fighter, I'll sit down at your table and gleefully take part.

Now, the whole time I was reading the book, I kept feeling something plucking at a mostly forgotten chord in my memory. Kingmaker? Why is that so familiar? I must have had some association with that in my past. Then it dawned on me: Kingmaker was the name of a wargame that I used to play way back when.

I’ve been trying to remember the title of that game for several months now. I thought it was called “War of the Roses” or some other derivative thereof, but, with my memory refreshed, I checked out BoardGameGeek and, once I saw those event cards, countless lazy summer afternoons came crashing back.

I couldn’t have been more than 12 (the minimum age recommended for the game) when I was introduced to it at my friend Greg’s house. I suspect it might have originally been intended for his Dad, but we kids co-opted it right quick. I can’t remember a single rule of the game, but the heraldry detailed in the game remains crystal clear. I think it’s time to see if I can track down a copy of the edition we used to play and put it on my tiny wargame shelf next to Outdoor Survival.

So that’s Gregg Press editions of the Fafhrd and Mouser books and a used copy of the 1976 Avalon Hill bookcase version of Kingmaker in case anyone’s wondering what to get me this year as a present. Just in case you were stumped for gift suggestions.