Rich and Creamy

 A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that, after so many years of refereeing Empire of the Petal Throne, I found myself craving a vanilla fantasy setting – something simpler and more straightforward than Tékumel but that was nevertheless very well done. I received a lot of good suggestions in the comments to that post, but one of the best ones came directly from Rob Conley, a fellow blogger who's done some truly excellent work over the years, especially regarding the subject of sandbox settings, both for fantasy and for Traveller. If you're at all interested in sandboxes, I highly recommend you check out those series of posts. In my opinion, they're pretty close to definitive.

Rob has done a lot of other great stuff worthy of your attention, like Blackmarsh, a free hexcrawl setting in the tradition of the Outdoor Survival map OD&D suggested the referee use for adjudicating wilderness travel and exploration. Blackmarsh is one of my favorite things from the first few years of the Old School Renaissance. I made use of it in my Dwimmermount campaign to represent the region immediately to the north of the main campaign area. It's a great example of well-done vanilla fantasy, providing a referee with just enough material to spark his own imagination without limiting his options.

Now, Rob is preparing to release another sandbox, one built on the foundation of Blackmarsh and related projects: Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Marches. As its title suggests, The Northern Marches is connected to Rob's Majestic Fantasy RPG, but is completely usable with your preferred old school fantasy rules. In that respect, it's a lot like Judges Guild's old Wilderlands of High Fantasy material in that it sketches out a huge amount of real estate that can be adopted and adapted as the referee sees fit. Rob has a long history with the Wilderlands setting, so I doubt he'd argue against saying his Majestic Fantasy Realms setting has been inspired by it, even if it's very much its own unique thing.

Rob very kindly shared with me his latest draft of The Northern Marches, which is an immense document of over 100,000 words. Don't be put off by its length. Though there are some high-level discussions of history, geography, politics, and religion, the vast majority of this text is devoted to short but evocative descriptions of the notable hexes of the four regional maps included with the book. Just as useful is the section devoted to traveling within the setting and all that that entails – caravans, ships, exhaustion, rates of travel, and more. This is, after all, a sandbox setting, so these sorts of things are absolutely essential to make full use of it. 

You can see the full table of contents, along with a preview of the setting here. Another overview of the setting and this project can be found in this post on Rob's blog. It's really well done and very much in keeping not just with the excellent material Rob has made before, but also with his work on creating and running sandbox campaigns. I was very impressed by the scope of The Northern Marches, not to mention the obvious work Rob has put into making it accessible and usable. While it's still too early to say how I might eventually decide to sate my craving for vanilla fantasy, I can say there's a very good chance I'll make use of The Northern Marches in one way or another. If that sounds like something you might be interested in, I highly recommend checking it out.

Adventures Dark & Deep Kickstarter Launches

Joe Bloch's longstanding "what if" project, Adventures Dark & Deep, now has a Kickstarter for its Players Manual. In case you're not familiar with Adventures Dark & Deep, it is, in Joe's words,"an attempt to explore what the world's most popular role-playing game might have looked like if its creator had been allowed to continue developing it, rather than leaving TSR in 1985" and is "based on extensive research into Gary Gygax's public statements about his vision for the next edition of the game, using the game's 1st edition rules as a jumping off point. It's not a retro-clone, but an entirely new game with a very familiar feel."

Even though I wouldn't call myself a player of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons these days, I still find this project very interesting. This Fall, Joe released A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore, which is a kind of "sampler" of some of the player-oriented aspects of Adventures Dark & Deep (character classes, spells, etc.) for use with existing retro-clones like OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord. I thought it quite well done and will probably swipe some stuff from it for use in my home campaign. I have little doubt that the full Players Manual won't be similarly good.

Old School Minis

One of the other fun consequences of the renewed interest in old school fantasy gaming over the last few years is the greater availability of old school miniature figures. Several companies have sprung up and are producing some of the best minis I've ever seen. That they're modeled so closely on the illustrations and esthetics of RPGs of yore is almost icing on the cake. A good example of what I'm talking about is Fractured Dimensions, which seems to specialize in doing some of the more obscure and outré monsters of D&D lore, such as:

The intellect devourer

and Joiblexx, Slime Lord of the Bleak Fens, among many others. I fear these photographs don't do these miniatures justice. They're very attractively sculpted and it pains me that I don't have any talent for painting (almost as much as it pains me that the player in our group who painted most of my Otherworld Miniatures has moved away).

Speaking of Otherworld Miniatures, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention their crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the production of a new series of minis called "Dungeon Adventures." Here are the greens of the first batch of these adventurers -- a magic-user, a cleric, a fighter, and a thief:

There's a lot to like there if you're an old school gamers, from the wizard's pointy hat to the Friar Tuck-style cleric to the fact that that thief looks downright untrustworthy. Other installments of the series will include sub-classes, demihumans, and females. It looks to be an excellent collection of miniatures.

Countdown

As I write this, there's just a little over 24 hours left till the end of James Raggi's "Grand Adventure Campaign" on Indiegogo. Of the original 19 adventure pitches, two have funded so far -- those by Jeff Rients and Vincent Baker -- but several others stand a good chance of funding too, most notably Kelvin Green's "Horror Among Thieves." Kelvin's is a particularly interesting one, not only because he's a great guy and the subject matter of his adventure is intriguing, but because (in the words of Raggi):

If Horror Among Thieves does NOT fund, LotFP will still be publishing the adventure. It won’t necessarily be on the same timetable as if it were to fund, but we’ll put it out.

Anyone contributing $10+ to the campaign will get the adventure PDF, WHETHER OR NOT THE CAMPAIGN FUNDS.

Anyone contributing $20+ to the campaign will get the physical book, WHETHER OR NOT THE CAMPAIGN FUNDS.

Monte Cook also contributed an adventure to the campaign, "The Unbegotten Citadel," and anyone who contributes $100 or more to get it funded will receive a free PDF copy of Cook's Ptolus, which is itself worth $60.

There are several other freebies and special deals for contributors to this campaign -- too many in fact for me to keep track of. If you want to keep abreast of them, your best bet is to head over to James Raggi's blog, where I have little doubt he'll be posting like crazy between now and 11:59 PM Pacific Time on July 31, 2012.

Hulks & Horrors

With so many excellent old school crowdfunding campaigns under way these days, it's easy to miss some of the smaller ones, such as John Berry's Hulks & Horrors, which he describes as  

a classic dungeon crawl experience with a mashup of gonzo sci-fi and space opera tropes from the golden ages of the genre, with a touch of good humor, shocking horror, and good old fashioned fun

The basic premise of the game is described at some length on the game's webpage, but I thought the following section might be useful in sparking the interest of regular readers of this blog. Berry writes:

Set in a galaxy left almost stripped of sentient life by an ancient and horrific plague, in Hulks and Horrors players take on the role of troubleshooters and private explorers called "surveyors," contracted to explore distant worlds, and given full license to kill and loot whatever they find there. Players in H&H will encounter a host of dangerous foes, from plague horrors, to indigenous beasts, to rogue surveyor crews.

Hulks and Horrors takes its inspiration from the classic science fiction and fantasy roleplaying games of the 70s and 80s, particularly the works of Gygax, Moldvay, and Ward, as well as the pulp science fiction of comics, TV and film, and artistic works from the likes of Rodney Matthews and Roger Dean, and magazines like Heavy Metal and 2000AD.

If that sounds at all intriguing to you, hop on over to the campaign's Indiegogo page and consider making a pledge.

For Your Consideration

I'm sure, by this point, a lot of you are tired of hearing about more crowdfunding campaigns, but, after the success I enjoyed in my own, I feel I have an obligation to do so, especially when I think they're particularly worthy projects. Today, I present you with three, all three of which involve people I consider friends and all-around good guys.

The first is for the second edition of Goblinoid Games's Starships & Spacemen, an old school take on science fiction roleplaying on the Final Frontier (*wink, wink*). The second edition is not only revised and expanded but compatible with Labyrinth Lord, which increases its utility greatly, particularly for referees who like to throw phasers into their dragon's hoards.

The second is for Brave Halfling's Appendix N Adventure Toolkit series of modules in support of Goodman Games's Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. This looks to be a fun collection of adventures for DCC RPG. Plus, John is one of the nicest guys in the hobby and it's always a pleasure to see what he has in store.

The final one is for an unusual project called The Shadow Out of Providence: A Lovecraftian Metatext, which is a fancy way of saying it's a book comprised of two short stories and a play that it focuses on "Lovecraft the writer, the thinker, and the cultural phenomenon, rather than the sliver of his work on which most writers fixate." Old schoolers may find it of interest both because one of the contributors is Tim Hutchings of PlaGMaDA. In addition, the legendary Erol Otus is contributing artwork, two of which I reproduce below.

Sample Dwimmermount Page Spread

Things are progressing rather nicely with regards to Dwimmermount. With just a little over a day till the end of the Kickstarter, pledges have topped $40,000, which is four times the original goal. This means that, not only will there be a thirteenth level of the dungeon in the final product, but there will also be an illustration booklet after the fashion of those TSR included in classic modules like Tomb of Horrors, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and Hidden Shrine of the Tamoachan.

I'll have more to say about the illustration booklet soon, but, right now, I wanted to share with a very small sample of the layout to be used in the final product. Adam Jury, the very talented guy who made Thousand Suns look like a million bucks, is once again working his magic and the result is one I like one very much. Nothing you see here is final, including the text, but it ought to give some idea of the approach we've adopted, including the use of sidebars to highlight important information. As the layout is finalized, I'll be sharing additional peeks, but I was so pleased with how things are already progressing that I wanted to show it off.

You can see two more sample pages over at Adam Jury's blog.

Worthy Projects

With the Dwimmermount Kickstarter winding in its final days -- and I, once again, would like to thank everyone who's helped to make it such a success -- I'd like to take the time to point out three other Kickstarters that might be of interest to my readers.

The first is Joe Bloch's A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore for his superb old school "what if?" RPG, Adventures Dark & Deep. Though I don't play any form of AD&D myself, I'm nevertheless greatly impressed by Joe's game, which is an attempt to imagine what second edition AD&D might have been like had Gary Gygax remained at TSR to complete it. A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore is a kind of stand-alone extract of the larger game, presenting new character classes, spells, monsters, and magic items to be used with your favorite class-and-level fantasy RPG. I have a lot of respect for Joe. He's not only extremely knowledgeable about matters AD&D and Greyhawk, but he's a really good guy to boot.

The second is the Myth & Magic Player's Guide. Myth & Magic is another project pertaining to 2e AD&D, though in this case it's a retro-clone of TSR's published 2e rather than an imaginary Gygaxian one. Again, I'm not a 2e guy, but I know many of my readers look back on it with great fondness. Plus, I'm one of those weirdos who considers 2e an old school RPG, whatever my opinion means, so it's more than deserving of a mention here. From what I have seen, this is going to be a very impressive piece of work and I wouldn't be surprised to its Kickstarter do quite well before it's over.

Finally, there's the Ogre Designer's Edition from Steve Jackson Games. This is something a lot of people have been waiting for and I'm glad to see it finally come to pass. I am, unfortunately, saddened that actual, physical copies of this new edition will only be available to backers located in the US. That means SJG won't be getting any backing from me, alas, but, at the rate this Kickstarter is tallying up its pledges, I don't think they need my $100 -- too bad for me, though.

Google+ Gaming Thoughts

So, last Friday saw another expedition of backers of my Dwimmermount Kickstarter descend into the depths of my megadungeon. This time, the trio -- the expected fourth player didn't show -- explored Level 2A: The Laboratory, which is an area of the dungeon that my own players only very briefly visited. Considering that, once again, the party had no clerics amongst their number, I have to hand it to Keith, Josh, and Steve, for how far they managed to venture into the level before one of their number sustained sufficient wounds that they decided to retreat to the surface. Of particular note is the way that the magic-user, whose highest ability score was his Intelligence of 12, spent most of the evening stabbing orcs with his dagger. He successfully took down three orcs all by himself, which is why, by the end of the night, we were calling him "the Orcslayer."

Steve wrote a post on his blog where he recounts his experiences from his perspective. He also includes a rather nice little graphic that I've reproduced below, but do visit Steve's blog for a fuller explanation of what it all means.

With three Google+ gaming sessions under my belt now -- I'm still a tyro compared to guys like Jeff and Zak -- I have to say that I'm enjoying it a great deal. A big part of my enjoyment comes from introducing new people to Dwimmermount, people with whom I'd probably otherwise never get the chance to play. I'm having a blast seeing how different groups engage the monsters and obstacles I've placed in the dungeon.

I'm also pleased that, while lacking the immediate physical connection that comes from face-to-face gaming in my dining room or basement or at a con, Google+ still feels "real." We all roll dice and use pieces of paper to take notes and record information. About the only thing that we aren't using old fashioned methods for is mapping, mostly because I think it'd be tedious to do so via video chat. Luddite that I am, it makes me happy to know that we don't have to completely abandon the outward accoutrements I associate with roleplaying games even when playing with people separate by great distances. That alone means that I'm likely to continue doing this each week, even after the Kickstarter campaign has reached its end (and thank you again to everyone who's contributed).

Dwimmermount Kickstarter Updates

Here we are, two weeks in, and Dwimmermount is nearly 200% funded and not far off from its first bonus goal. For that, I am very grateful to everyone who's made a contribution, no matter how small. I honestly had no idea how well received this Kickstarter would be when it was launched, so seeing such a positive response is both surprising and pleasing. Thank you, all.

Work is already well under way on getting the book ready for publication. I've been turning my rather sparse notes into text usable by others and artists have been producing some truly amazing illustrations. What's best about these illustrations, some of which you can see here, is that they're not just flights of fancy but reflective of events from actual play, whether from my home campaign, in the play-by-post I ran back in 2009, in the Google+ sessions I've been running for backers of the Kickstarter, or that Tavis has been running at the Brooklyn Strategist. I honestly think drawing on events that happen in play makes for better -- and more memorable -- artwork and can't wait to share more of what we've got with others.

Party of Fifteen

One of the things I'm most enjoying about the Dwimmermount Kickstarter is that it's given people outside my home group a chance to play in the megadungeon that's occupied my time for the better part of the last three years. In addition to the players I've been refereeing in my weekly G+ sessions, Tavis Allison is also running some of his own at the The Brooklyn Strategist. Among Tavis's players at a recent session was artist Paul Hughes, who drew the illustration above, depicting fifteen PCs and henchmen as they explore the Gallery of Masks on Level 1 of Dwimmermount. I think it's terrific.

Paul has a Kickstarter of his own that might be of interest to readers of this blog, so do take a look.

Dwimmermount G+ 3/16

If you commented on this post under the name "Josh D.," "sabode," or "Welleran," drop me a note at jmaliszeATgmail.com to indicate that you're still interested and available to play online tomorrow night at 9pm Eastern Standard Time. I may have another slot available, as well, and, if so, I'll make an announcement about that here tomorrow.

As for lurkers/watchers, I'm open to the possibility, provided that their presence doesn't adversely affect the running of G+. As I understand it, hangouts can handle up to 10 people, but work best with 5 or less. Last week, we have four players, myself, and one lurker and it worked just fine. So, in principle, I'm not opposed to spectators.

I'm going to continue to do these sessions each week. Starting next week, I'm going to try and schedule a few for different days and times to make them more accessible to players outside the East Coast of North America. I'll post about that when I have the details worked out.

G+ Dwimmermount This Week

This Friday, March 16, I'll be running another Dwimmermount session via Google+ for backers of the Kickstarter. The session will run from 9pm to 12am EST, but will be for 2nd-level Labyrinth Lord characters, since they'll be exploring Level 2A (The Laboratory), which I've been transferring from my mess of notes into a more intelligible form.

If you're a backer who's interested, can make the times, and has access to G+, make a comment below and I'll randomly determine several of you to fill the available slots. I'll let everyone know the results of the random rolls by Thursday evening, which will give us plenty of time to make changes, in case something comes up for anyone between then and the time of the game. Last week, things were a little chaotic and I had to scramble to choose some new players in time to get moving by 9pm.

Thanks!

Delta's Dwimmermount Adventure

Over at his D&D Hotspot, there's a really nice post in which Delta recounts his experiences adventuring on the first level of Dwimmermount, with Tavis Allison as the referee. His post made me really happy for a number of reasons, not least of them being that it's terrific to see others enjoying something that I've created. I was also gratified to read the following:

In my short play experience, it seems that James Maliszewski's Dwimmermount is a whole lot freakier than I expected -- and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Of course, we were dealing with things like orcs, kobolds, and skeletons -- but no element appeared that wasn't corrupted in some deep and disturbing way. Not even the dungeon doors escaped being of bizarre function and construct. It looks like a very memorable place to adventure.

Those are words to warm the cockles of even the most curmudgeonly referee's heart.

Do take a look at Delta's post, if only to see the photos he's included of the Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles they used to represent Dwimmermount. Good stuff!

Google+ Dwimmermount Game Tonight

As I mentioned the other day, I'm going to be running another session of my Dwimmermount megadungeon tonight between 9pm and 12am EST on Google+. At present, there are two spots available for interested parties. If you're interested in securing one of those spots, there are a few things you need to do:

1. Be available tonight during the specified time above.

2. Have access to Google+. You don't need to have a webcam, though it is encouraged.

3. Be a backer of the Dwimmermount Kickstarter -- it doesn't matter how much you've pledged.

If you meet all of those requirements, post your interest, along with your Kickstarter ID, to this thread on my G+ stream. Around 6pm EST, I'll randomly determine who gets the available slots (along with several alternates) and contact the people in question. They'll need to confirm their availability with me via email before 9pm EST. Otherwise, I'll offer up the slot to an alternate person.

And that's it. I'll be doing this every week for the foreseeable future, so, if you don't snag a spot this week, there will be plenty more opportunities to do so.

Dwimmermount-Related News

I've got a couple of pieces of Dwimmermount-related news to pass along for those of you who care:

1. A very rough draft of the first level is now available to all backers of the Kickstarter. It's basically a first pass in prettying up the notes I use in my home campaign. As the weeks wear on, it'll be expanded and clarified, but here's the chance to see it at an early stage. Both portions of level 2 (since it's divided into two "halves," each accessible by a different means from level 1) will be made available in a similar state between now and early next week. Additional rough drafts will follow in the weeks between now and the end of the funding period.

2. As I did last week, I'll be running a Google+ session tomorrow evening between 9pm and 12am EST. I have several outstanding invites to this session that I haven't yet heard back from, but I anticipate there will be one or two spaces open to newcomers. I'll know more tomorrow, but, if that's the case, I'd like to choose to fill those spaces with backers, as a thank you for helping to support this project. I'll have more details tomorrow on this, but I wanted to let people know now. I should also add that I'll be doing this every Friday night for the foreseeable future, so, even if tomorrow night isn't possible (or you're not selected -- after all, there are already over 300 backers), there will be further opportunities.

Thanks!

Dwimmermount on Google+

Last Friday, I participated in my first-ever session of Google+ gaming. Tavis Allison convinced me to give it a whirl, which resulted in a three-hour session on the first level of Dwimmermount with him, Zak S, and Ryan Browning as players. Tavis resumed playing Locfir, the elf magic-user he played in my ill-fated play-by-post game from 2009, while Ryan played a human magic-user named Burgoth and Zak played a fighting man called Pigfoot. Locfir employed a hireling he picked up in Muntburg. Said hireling had a name but it was quickly forgotten and we referred to him throughout simply as "Locfir's man." For this session, we simply used straight Labyrinth Lord rules rather than using all the little house rules I normally use in my home campaign.

Over the course of the three hours, the players explored maybe a quarter of the first level of the dungeon, encountering mostly empty rooms with weird stuff in it, along with the occasional group of orcs and some giant centipedes. I felt a little bad about this, because, since I really wanted to wow the players with the mystery and majesty of my megadungeon and instead they spent a lot of time poking around dusty rooms filled with stuff that made no sense to them. Of course, that's by design. When I began the creation of Dwimmermount back in 2008, I explicitly did so according to the guidelines in Volume III of OD&D, which means lots of rooms devoid of monsters or obvious treasures. Now, I hope that even these "empty" rooms are nevertheless intriguing to players, but one never can tell. And, since this was my first time using Google+ (or playing with any of these people), I wasn't sure how well it'd be received.

By all reports, though, the session went well. Poor Burgoth died in the closing minutes of the session, when he stepped out from behind cover to cast sleep on some orc archers. He got skewered by their arrows, making him the first casualty of Dwimmermount's online existence. I intend to make Google+ sessions a weekly occurrence, though I still haven't worked out all the details of scheduling or deciding how many people can participate (let alone who they will be). If you're someone with a lot of experience with online play, feel free to offer advice and suggestions in the comments below. Neophyte at this that I am, I could certainly use any and all suggestions you have to offer.