BX Psionics Update

I've been plugging along steadily with my BX mystic class and psionics system (along with a ton of other gaming projects and diversions). But, as of this morning, I'm feeling particularly accomplished. I just finished writing the fifth section of the psionic disciplines.

Since I've tried to go back to Steve Marsh's original concept for psionics (mental abilities based on a character class inspired by Indian mystics), the different groups of disciplines (which Steve Winter did a great job of breaking out in 2e's Complete Psionics Handbook) into 6 different chakras (a concept which, IIUC, Steve Marsh originally intended before Tim Kask hacked up the concept in Eldritch Wizardry).

From an email I received from Steve Marsh: "Major powers correspond to the chachras and the traditional powers so that each character had a consistent core."

This led me to attempt to define the disciplines by chakra (my preferred spelling). All chakras are not open to the first level mystic. New chakras are accessed as the mystic attains new experience levels. (This concept will likely seem familiar to those with knowledge of the 2e psionicist.)

The six chakras I've defined (based on metaphysical teachings,
and hopefully true to SM's ideas) correspond pretty well to the 2e groupings...

1. The Root (Psychometabolic) Chakra provides the mystic power over his or her own body, granting control over its physical aspects.

2. The Sacral (Clairsentient) Chakra connects the mystic to knowledge and information, including the past, present, and future.

3. The Plexus (Psychokinetic) Chakra supplies the mystic with dominion over different forms of matter, including its movement and its state of being.

4. The Heart (Telepathic) Chakra provides the mystic the abilities of communication and thought, including control over emotions and desires.

5. The Throat (Psychoportative) Chakra permits the mystic to access other dimensions and allows the mystic to travel through space and time.

6. The Third Eye (Metapsionic) Chakra is accessible only by a mystic who has accessed the the other five. This chakra is interdisciplinary, and allows the mystic to combine the powers and energies of the other chakras.

As of this morning, I finished the fifth group of disciplines (throat/psychoportative). That means the following sections are complete: 1) the mystic class, 2) the first five groups of disciplines, and 3) the "optional" psionic combat system.

So what's left to write? 1) the third eye/metapsionic disciplines, 2) BX stats for psionic monsters (including the psionic creatures I've written for the Creature Compendium), 3) a "Planar Primer", 4) the "Planar Travel Guide" (planar travel and adventure is HUGE part of Steve Marsh's original concept for the mystic class), and 5) a section on creation and use of astras (supernatural weapons and artifacts related to specific deities, which I see as part of extra-planar adventuring).

The book is likely to come in at 40 pages (plus cover), and I feel like I'm about 80% of the way there with the content (even if that leaves a BUNCH of illustrations to do).

No target on publication, but I imagine I'll start reaching out for some playtesting in the next few weeks. Updates to follow.

(BTW, before you ask about the Creature Compendium... I'm close. Just a few more illustrations to finish up. I just haven't had the time to concentrate on them.)

A Recap of My Time at the NTRPG Con

My time at this year's con actually started nearly a week before. I was doing things like getting print copies together of Dragon Horde zines #1 and #2 (BTW, #2 will be available this coming Monday at RPGNow, and print will be available on both starting the same day), picking up the 2nd print run of the d30 Sandbox Companion from the printer (I do these in batches of 50), getting my sign from FastSigns, etc.

Wednesday night, I trucked it over for the pre-con events. There was some sort of HP event finishing up at the hotel, so instead of being in the atrium, the pre-con events were relegated to wherever space could be found. Our game of Battle Royal (under the direction of Frank Mentzer) took place in the bar (which was about as noisy as you'd expect, being full of patrons, and what with the Hewlett Packard karaoke festivities echoing from the nearby ballroom). But we did our best. Battle Royal is a sort of mix of traditional wargaming and RPGs. Each team was an identical group of D&D PCs which battle it out in an ever-changing arena until you capture the ring and return it to your starting pit, or you kill the other team (whichever comes first). We got a late start (several of the special guests inbound flights were delayed, including Frank's), I was not staying in the hotel that night, and had a 45 minute drive home, so I cut out about 12:30. They didn't go much longer after I left. Although the battle didn't finish, the arena was in a position such that everyone was trapped/blocked from where they needed to be (and who knows how long it would have been until the walls moved to allow passage).

Thursday morning started with me loading up the truck and heading back across town just around lunch time to get my table set up. I got to spend a good part of the afternoon at the table, meeting folks and hawking my wares. Then, Thursday night meant Part I of "Night's Dark Terror" with Steve Winter. It's always a slow start at con games, as all the players get the feel for each other. And "Night's Dark Terror" started simply and slowly enough, but had a nice rhythm by the end of the night, to be continued with Part II on Saturday morning.

Friday morning was my obligatory Metamorphosis Alpha game with Jim Ward. If you recall the events of last year, I died in one Jim Ward game, and survived in the other. It was the shame of surviving like a chicken last year that sparked my thought for this year's game... I would alternate;y be brave and cowardly (I wrote it off to a split personality). This allowed me to have fun doing stupid stuff (remember, Jim doesn't kill characters, characters kill themselves) and still have a chance of surviving. It was a blast, and I survived (though barely). I know take a moment of silence to remember my fellow coming-of-age tribesmen who perished in the attempt to prove themselves worthy as adults in the tribe.

Friday night was easily my most anticipated game of the con this year... Frank Mentzer's 1974 OD&D game. We relived the experience of the dawn of D&D, including monsters we had not memorized from the Monster Manual, the inclusion of hobbits before they were an intellectual property concern, and character classes that did not include the thief. Long story short, we investigated a small cave/dungeon complex with hobgoblins and goblins, and faced a final battle with an animated table (yes, an animated table). Earlier in the game, my magic user had found a diagram of the table with notes in a strange language. And when I discovered the diagram in a book, the conversation went something like this...

Me (to other characters): "Should I use my read languages spell now or later?"
Frank (smiling, astounded): "You actually chose read languages?

Look, the spell wouldn't have been on the spell list, even way back then, if it didn't get used. 2-out-of-3 of the adventures I write almost require the ability to read languages. It's a good back pocket spell, even if your 2nd-level magic user only gets 2 spells (the other was a sleep spell that was pretty much necessary). So I did actually choose read languages, and I showed my character sheet to prove it. Turns out, that was the saving grace for our party. When we met the table (and it started attacking, doing up to 4 strikes per round), and I read the diagram, Frank pulled me aside to let me know that all I could make out was that the table was possessed by elemental evil. I related that to the party and we attacked accordingly. Once we saw what the cleric's holy water did, and one of the fighter's oil/torch attack, getting the air (from a small device we retrieved earlier) and dirt (scraped from a couple of boots) returned the table to being just... well... a table. The "Table of the Elements." (Yes! That's the goofiness that, to me, is woven through the earliest days of D&D). Easily one of the coolest experiences I've ever had gaming. And it's got me jonesing to run a White Box game or two.

Saturday morning was Part II of "Night's Dark Terror" with Steve Winter again. No need to go into details here. It was a good game, and the module is very cool, has some great plot points, and some very interesting encounters. When I got home from the con to find out this is the inspiration for the starter adventure for D&D5, it does not surprise me.

Saturday afternoon was the auction and presentation of the Three Castles award (which I am still overwhelmed with having won). Saturday night was to be Shiverwhen with Michael Curtis. But only about half the group showed up, and we were all pretty beat. So we mutually agreed to forego the gaming. The activity moved to the bar with Welbo, Eric Tenkar, Erik's wife Rachel, James Aulds and myself having beers and shooting the shit and relaxing.

No Sunday morning gaming for me, but I did get to sit at the table with my wife Terri, and meet a few more folks, sell a few additional copies of Valley of the Five Fires, and then pack up and head home (after lunch at my wife's favorite Tex-Mex place as a "thank you" for her time helping me at the con").

Among the notable conversations I had while sitting at the table... Steve Marsh and J. Eric Holmes's son Chris. Both very cool. Plenty of time talking with others as well, though I wish I'd gotten to game with Tim Snider.

Okay, that's about all I've got for now, except that I left the con with a couple of new project ideas. More to come as they may/may not develop.

More thoughts toward a BX version of psionics...

Triarchy (2005) by Jeroen van Valkenburg

About 1-1/2 years ago, I made a post mentioning that I wanted to try to find a BX psionics solution. Let's face it, OD&D and AD&D psionics is unwieldy, cumbersome, and downright confusing. More importantly, there is nothing about the psionic system in those systems that feels anything at all like normal combat in D&D. But I can't blame Steve Marsh (who is co-credited with Brian Blume for psionics' as it appears in Eldritch Wizardry). In a 2009 interview with Grognardia, Steve lamented, "a character class I designed was taken apart and turned into the psionic powers... I wanted a character class, but the editor decided that the abilities belonged available to everyone, except for elves."

IMO, psionics (for PCs) were most successful in older editions when treated as part of a character class. The Psionicist character class was introduced in Dragon Magazine #7 (in an article by Arthur Collins), and re-worked/re-introduced by Steve Winter in AD&D2's The Complete Psionics Handbook. But regardless of how successful these may or may not have been, they did not address an underlying issue... the system of psionics inherited from AD&D by way of OD&D is simply "unlike" what players expect in D&D — especially BX D&D.

So I've been putting some thoughts against this for the last week, and was thinking, "How do I make this as familiar as possible for BX players who avoid adapting AD&D psionics like the plague because it's so... so... whatever it is." So here's where I've landed (for now)...

Psionics is a class-based ability (like magic), with psionicists getting more abilities with each level gained. Psionicists are human (the same way that in the BX-context MUs and clerics are only human) who use d4s to determine hit points, can't wear any armor or carry a shield, and may use only a dagger (and make their physical attack rolls using the MU attack tables). Most importantly, in keeping with the BX spirit, the minimum WIS and INT scores are 9 (though bonus XPs are rewarded for high Wisdom AND Intelligence scores). WAIT! What's that you say? Psionic characters with Wisdom and Intelligence scores of 9? Yes. That's what I said, and here's why...

The number of Wisdom points a character has directly affects the number of Psionic Energy Points the character gains at each level — e.g., characters with a WIS of 16-17 get twice as many PEPs per level as characters with a WIS of 9-12, and high levels that gives wiser characters a deathly advantage; choosing to be a psionicist with that low of a Wisdom score would just be a VERY poor decision.

The number of Intelligence points a character has directly affects their ability to defend against psionic attacks expressed as Mental Class (or MC). "What's Mental Class?" you ask? Well, it's sort of like Armor Class for the mind (based on the character's INT, with bonuses for psionic users based on level/HD). Which brings us to the major innovation in simplifying this system...

All mental attacks (vs. psionic or non-psionic characters) are made using a single Mental Attack Table (which looks like any other D&D attack table)!!! The various combinations of psionic attack and defense modes simply become modifiers "to hit" on the attack table. Non-psionic characters get a saving throw based on their INT (like OD&D) and psionic characters lose PEPs based on the type of attack/defense and the level of two psionic parties involved.

That's all I've got so far, but I feel good about where it's going.

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers!

Well, if you want to kick your RPG game old school... yeah, you do.

The night before the North Texas RPG Con kicked off this year, I had the privilege of playing the old TSR Board Game Knights of Camelot with Steve Winter, Erol Otus, and Dennis Sustare. (See the pics here.) So, during the game, the knights on their various quests across the map have various encounters, including some of the animal variety. That list includes harts, boars, wolves, palfreys (a medieval horse), brachets (an archaic name for a bitch hound), and badgers. Yes. Badgers. Then Erol said something that intrigued me (and I'm paraphrasing here as I don't recall exactly what he said)... "Those TSR guys loved badgers." Why wouldn't they? Lake Geneva is only about an hour-and-a-half from UW, home of the badgers. Gary moved to Lake Geneva in his late childhood. TSR co-founder Don Kaye grew up there. D&D contributor Rob Kuntz was born and grew up there. That's not to say there wasn't a medieval pedigree for the badger; after all, it was hunted for sport (though it was considered inedible).

So what's the badger's pedigree with early TSR games? Of the items of note below, I have not listed badgers where they appear in wandering monster tables and the like. (Please note, this list is by no means exhaustive, just based on some of the searchable PDFs I have on hand. If you have any additions, please leave a comment. Thanks!)

Knights of Camelot Board Game: This game includes badgers among the animal encounters. (As mentioned above.)

Gamma World (1st edition): includes an animal called the "badder." It is a "badgeroid" species organized into a society "equal to that of the medieval period in human history."

Metamorphosis Alpha (1st edition): includes a mutated animal called the "metaled one (badger)." It's a 3-foot long badger whose fur has mutated to be composed of hard mineral, "giving it a sort of armor." Best of all, this highly-intelligent creature can mentally paralyze an opponent (assuming the opponent is within 6', because the damned thing is near-sighted!)

1e Monster Manual: Of course it's in here, but there's no pic. How cool would a Tramp or Otus badger illustration have been? Oh. The description does include hit dice and damage notes for the giant badger. The badger has subsequently been included in Monstrous Compendium Volume Two (1989), Monstrous Manual (1993), Monster Manual (2000), and Monster Manual v.3.5 (2003).

1e Player's Handbook: The first creature on the reincarnate list for the 7th level druid spell Reincarnate is a badger (p.64).

1e DM Guide: One of the likely animals for the 4th-level druid spell Animal Summoning is a badger (p.45). For the 7th-level druid spell, Reincarnate, the badger is the example given of reincarnating the character as an animal (p.35); yes, of all the animals they could have chosen for the example, they chose the badger. Also, the badger one of the animals listed for the bag of tricks magic item (p.139) and as a conjured animal (p.222).

Dragon Magazine #69: The badger is one of the forms that Greyhawk deity Obad-Hai may assume (p.29). On a side note, this is the second Dragon magazine I ever bought.

Dragon Magazine #122: In a profile on artist Jeff Butler (pp.68-69), there is mention of the comic The Badger that was drawn by Butler (created by Mike Baron). What the article doesn't mention is that Butler was quarterback for the Wisconson Badgers in 1977, but stopped because of a series of concussions.

Module S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth: Encounter Group 3 in Gnome Vale (p.10) includes animal handlers and 3 giant badgers.

Module Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits: For Lolth's hopefully final attack on the fortress of Kandelspire (gate to the kingdom of Maldev), she has assembled an army that includes 8,000 gnolls, 2,000 bugbears, et al., and 50 giant badgers!

AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn: The character Begol Burrowell (p.23) was once "...trapped by a rabid badger and had to burrow his way through eight feet of soil to freedom."

Mentzer Companion Rules - Players Companion Book: "Badger" is the name of one of the characters in the "The Arena of Garald the Blue" adventure included in the book (p.60).

BTW, Swords & Wizardry Complete includes a giant badger, but no regular variety; Swords & Wizardry White Box has neither (the Oe books did not have a badger, though Blackmoor does include a giant beaver). Also, the standard version of Labyrinth Lord has no badgers, but the Advanced Edition Companion does (the B/X books didn't have any badgers, but 1e obviously did).

Pics from last night's Knights of Camelot game at the North Texas RPG Con

... moderated by Steve Winter, with Erol Otus and last-minute addition Dennis Sustare in attendance.
When I left the game, most of the 8 or 9 knights were dead, and mine was languishing in prison.




Don't forget... find me at the con and get your free button!

And, of course, follow me on Twitter and you might win a copy of The Valley of the Five Fires!

Find me at NTRPGCon and get one of these!

It's the newest New Big Dragon button! Like the yellow buttons I gave out back in February. And the d30 buttons I gave out last May. So find me at the North Texas RPG Con this weekend (if you're there), and ask for yours! Sorry, no mail-outs on this one! Don't worry, though; I'll probably do another d30 button with the release of the d30 Sandbox Companion.

If you're looking for me tonight (Wed. June 5), I'll be playing Knights of Camelot with Steve Winter and Erol Otus. How cool is that?!