[REVIEW] Crypt of the Lizard Wizard

Jeff Rients, Eat Your Heart Out!

Crypt of the Lizard Wizard (2021)

by Sawyer Young

Self-published

Levels ?Low? 

The clash of different genres and the resulting gonzo aesthetic has been a basic pillar of D&D since its beginnings. The game’s early years are full of bizarre non-fantasy stuff cropping up in fantasy worlds, from fallen starships in Temple of the Frog and Wilderlands of High Fantasy to The Dungeoneer’s less fondly remembered tin foil monsters. Dave Hargrave, barely remembered in the modern OSR, was perhaps the king of this sort of thing, of balrogs versus battle tanks, mantis man and demonkin player characters, and star wizards battling kill kittens. RPG fantasy was yet undefined and without boundaries; and when the boundaries were fixed, something was definitely lost – even though that “something” was often just stupid, random, and ultimately dissatisfying. The tradition lived on here and there; in RIFTS, one of the great summits of traditional gaming; in Encounter Critical; and a few old-school modules here and there (perhaps best in Anomalous Subsurface Environment, which combines a wild imagination with craft).

Crypt of the Lizard Wizard is a module in this manner, and if you look at the ultra-cool cover, you will immediately see what kind of thing it aims to be. Hell yes! And it gets weirder: you are not buying just an adventure in the package, but a home-drawn illustration booklet and the module’s own soundtrack: not since Dragonstrike have such peaks been trod. However, the review is about the module: production values are appreciated, but they should not allow them to cloud our mind!

Crypt of the Lizard Wizard is a mini-dungeon amounting to approximately five loosely typed zine pages’ worth of text, a map (one page), and the illustration booklet. There are no stats, nor much in the way of treasure – but this is an odd module. There are eight keyed areas, which is not much, although all eight are actually descriptions of larger areas than your typical dungeon room, more like a small sublevel in scope. This is not a flaw by itself, but it does miss out on some development potential. In very broad strokes, the scenario outlines a swamp dungeon leading to the inscrutable relics of a fallen high-tech civilisation. It is a wild ride with decaying supercomputers, a step pyramid in a subterranean jungle with a radioactive altar (cool!), and man-eating plant life; mostly linear with the odd detour.

There is fine imagery throughout: “The ruins can be found several miles downriver, towards a morass where the river slowly sinks into the blood-sodden earth. Two heliotrope and crimson moons regularly drift above the primeval stone monument, but never set beyond the horizon.” Or: “Beyond the steel doors lies a temperature controlled walkway, leading to a great glass fixture, and a jungle biome beyond the arched panes.” That’s brief and essential; little more needs to be said to set a scene. The encounters effectively combine technological decay and bizarre bio-horrors. There are interesting interactive elements and environmental puzzles responding well to player curiosity and creativity throughout. Some are always present (e.g. the portable jungle biome always has amphibious leopards, man-eating tulips, and a water generator), and some are added with a room-by-room random content generator whose results can radically change the nature of a baseline location or encounter. For example, the first area where you approach the ruins may have something like “Souls of the swamp fields rise, looking for the enemy!” or something like “It is raining plagued frogs, again.” No two games in Crypt of the Lizard Wizard shall be identical!

It is, of course, too small and the scope is too narrow, like every itch.io release ever made. When we look at the random tables in the different areas, we see some good variety, but this setup actually describes six radically different situations, even though the players will probably only experience one. What if these tables were six actually different places scattered around a wider swamp map? What if it was all developed – not into essay-length entries, but a paragraph each, on a more expansive map? There are no stats, nor even a description of monster numbers. Too much is left ambiguous. Ambiguity is good in moderate doses, since it allows for customisation and a sort of co-creation process between the writer and the GM; here, it just hangs in the air. In many respects, Crypt of the Lizard Wizard feels more like an outline for an adventure yet to be developed than the final deal – the detailed concept document of something bigger. It is a cool grab-bag of ideas but not a good adventure. Much is forgiven if something is done well, but not everything can be.

There is the start of something in this module, and it could be quite good with some expansion and improvement (perhaps something like the Five Cataclysms modules). Imagine the same energy, given more structure and a larger framework. Dare we dream of a 20-40-area dungeon in the same vein? Still not megadungeon territory, but something we can actually bite into. This is the curse of itch.io, where genuine creativity is being wasted for lack of structures and ambition: and in this dark swamp, many talented writers shall be lost! This is one of the better releases on the platform. Even in its present form, Crypt of the Lizard Wizard has its homemade charm, and if I saw it on the Acaeum, it’d easily be classified as some dodgy OD&D-era relic which was still struggling with the ideas of presenting game materials to a brand new audience. It is, however, not the 1970s anymore.

No playtesters are credited in this publication. In fact, even the author is only credited in a small footnote on the last page. Weird flex but OK.

Rating: *** / *****

[NEWS] Helvéczia: Announcement and Preview

Helvéczia: cover art by Peter Mullen

“Venture into a rugged land of stamp-sized, steadfastly independent petty states, populated with robber bands, pious clergymen, wig-wearing philistines, adventurous countesses, and wily cheats: the cantons of Helvéczia, a territory of forbidding mountain ranges and endless forests betwixt rival empires. (…) A re-imagination of old-school fantasy role-playing in a late 17th century Switzerland that never was, Helvéczia is a fast-paced and colourful game of guns, dames, deviltry and steel, based on swashbuckling tales, penny dreadfuls, local legends, and the strange stories of the Brothers Grimm.”

I am happy to – finally! – announce the forthcoming release of Helvéczia (pronounced “Helvetia”), my pseudo-historical fantasy RPG set in a strange alternate-world Switzerland. This is going to be a self-contained game system published as a 204-page hardcover ($40, so fully packed that I could not even fit a product list into it), and what’s more, a very sturdy and handsome boxed set ($60, so fully packed that together with the packaging, it is just barely below the postal shipping limit), with a cover painting by Peter Mullen, and player map by Sean Stone. We are now in the production phase where things are being printed, bound, and assembled: not yet there, but there-ish, and perhaps ready for a May release. And now, for the details – for that’s where the Devil tends to lurk!

* * *

Concept

Helvéczia is built on a simple premise: what if old-school gaming was built ground-up on a different list of inspirations? What if their creators had watched the Three Musketeers and countless swashbuckling films about robbers, stagecoaches, and swordfighting scoundrels? What if, instead of the great American pulps, they read historical adventure, picaresque stories, and penny dreadfuls? What if the games’ mythical and folkloric inspiration came not from the Anglo-Saxon and Northern European tradition (with a bit of Greek myth via Harryhausen), but the Brothers Grimm, and the broader legendarium of Central Europe? What if Gary Gygax had set his campaigns in a fantastic Switzerland, the homeland of his ancestors, A.D. 1698? The game is an exploration of these questions.

To the death!

Like D&D is slightly different than a sum of its parts, Helvéczia brings the same transformative quality to its source materials: it does not strive for historical or mythical accuracy or a representation of any specific book, movie or legend that went into it; rather, it treats them as ingredients for a fantastic adventure game which freely mixes historical fact with historical fiction – and both of them with the modern imagination. You do not have to be a student of history or 17^th century pulp literature to play and enjoy Helvéczia (although neither does it hurt if you happen to be one – as it happens, picaresque stories are often the precursors to modern adventure pulps, and immensely enjoyable). It is game first and foremost, and the Devil take the rest! Speaking of the Devil: you will certainly meet him at Helvéczia’s crossroads and seedy taverns, and the game shall teach you how to play cards with him – or how to thwart his plans with the Holy Bible.

The tone of Helvéczia is above all meant to be light-hearted and adventurous: from history, it mainly draws that which is action-packed, strange, and colourful, and does not dwell on its miseries. While life is certainly cheap in Helvéczia (just ask the young Giona Baruch, devoured by a pack of striga in his first adventure; or my own poor Brother Rodrigo Cordial, who perished in a failed first aid attempt – many such cases!), this is not a “grim and gritty” game, nor one about horror and atrocity. In the game setting, the Thirty Years War is a distant, dark memory, and the choice of the era is deliberate: it is a time of healing and reconstruction, although also a time which still has much of the past’s “gothic darkness” as well as its rustic, human charm. Helvéczia has room for darker tales and gothic horror (a sub-chapter discusses running doomed romances and similar fare), but its interest lie more in fast-paced adventure, tests of wit, social satire, and quick reversals of fortune.

Players' map by Sean Stone

Scope

Many old-school systems offer relatively simple hacks of the original games they are based on: their changes are mainly aesthetic, and do not go very far – they are broadly compatible with the (usually) B/X-based systems popular among old-schoolers. Helvéczia took a different path, more comparable to the likes of Stars Without Number or Wolves of God. This is a complete and in-depth reworking of the old-school game experience to serve its set of influences, while leaving intact the underlying structures of play. That is: everything is changed, but everything is in a familiar place.

The company prepares
for an adventure...

Classes, levels, hit points, spell memorisation, random encounter tables, dungeons and hex-crawling procedures are all present in the game, but all of them are altered to fit. Your character might be a Spanish Sharpshooter or a Polish Student, their weaponry might be a fine sabre and a brace of pistols, the Student in the group might know spells such as Dr. Mabuse’s Mesmeric Mirage or The Devil’s Astrology, and the Cleric might employ Judicious Lesson on a group of robbers or an advancing crowned serpent, but the end result should still fit like a comfortable set of clothes – although perhaps a different cut than you are used to.

Secondly, Helvéczia is a complete game. In the book, you shall find more than a collection of alternate rules: the game comes with a bunch of procedures, playing advice, context, and examples of play, 120 spells (most of them new), as well as a loosely described setting (the titular Helvéczia – although, as our more recent campaign in fantastic Catalonia proves, the basic concept translates well to other corners of late 17^th century Europe). And that’s only the player’s half of the book: the Gamemaster’s Almanac contains plentiful gamemastering advice (both general and specific), adventure design methods, a bestiary’s worth of strange new monsters (foregoing the usual dwarves and giants we know all too much, it dips into the weird end of European folklore and the author’s imagination), comprehensive encounter tables, setting-appropriate magic items (many of them stemming from actual 16^th and 17^th century magical superstitions), and an appendix of random inspiration tables. That is: he core rules themselves are simple, while much of the book’s 204 pages is supporting material – designed to be helpful and fun, not overwhelming.

* * *

Rules

A diabolical plan is
set into motion...

Helvéczia employs a quick, vastly simplified, old-school variant of the time-tested d20 system. This bears some explanation, as d20 does not enjoy a stellar reputation in old-school circles: indeed, games with this foundation are often excluded from the “OSR” label altogether (whether this makes the author a “shitbrewer” or False OSR Enthusiast is up for debate). Nevertheless, this is the lineage Helvéczia’s rules come from – and the results only retain the basic framework of the system found in 3^rd edition D&D. The rules have been drastically simplified to allow for quick character generation and smooth, fast-paced play, and where it matters, they have been altered to follow old-school ideas. Some parts of d20 have been cut altogether (feats, the abundance of oddly specific classes, or the emphasis on tactical combat), and other elements have been significantly toned down or revised (the pace of advancement, skills, stacking bonuses, combat complexity). This is, I believe, a simpler, cleaner system than the original. The rules have undergone a whole lot of polish over the years; in fact, this is the second edition of the game, improving and expanding on the Hungarian-only 2013 boxed set in all respects – first and foremost in presentation and ease of use.

One feature of special note is found in the game’s closed advancement scale. Following the “E6” variant (the smartest take on 3e-era D&D that I know of), Helvéczia is a six-level system. No more and no less: characters, NPCs and monsters are all restricted to the sixth level. Not even the King of Spain or the aristocracy of Hell are above this rule – although they, of course, have a few tricks up their sleeve to even the odds. From combat abilities to skills and spells, all fit this scheme. Player characters typically start on the second level, as slightly seasoned adventurers who are a cut above the rest. Practically, the E6 power scale establishes an implied setting where none are super-powerful, but a combination of luck, ambition, and wits can save the day even in the most dire circumstances.

Ammertal and the
Oberammsbund

To mention one outcome of these rules, adventures designed for Helvéczia do not have a level designation: any company can attempt them, but a group of second-level beginners will probably have to employ a more careful approach than a table’s worth of sixth-level veterans. Second: fortune plays a strong role in the game (it is fairly “swingy”), and rolling with the punches or seizing a good opportunity are important elements during play. As a picaresque game, Helvéczia is filled with sudden reversals and odd detours – once up, once down; easy come, easy go. Third: where much of modern role-playing is about “the adventuring day”, resource management in Helvéczia is usually more of a weekly affair. Characters can expect to do much of their adventuring while wounded, low on spells, poor (money is relatively scarce, and easily spent on gunpowder, fast horses, and fine lasses), inconvenienced, or otherwise depleted: and they shall triumph nevertheless! Fourth: Helvéczia has somewhat weaker niche protection than B/X or the AD&D lineage tends towards. Combatant characters can excel at a few scholarly pursuits, and Students can stand their own in a duel – although they will be no match for a master swordsman like Álvar Diaz Garcia Vega de Valencia y Vivar (who also carries the sword of his distant ancestor, El Cid!)

* * *

Release plan

Helvéczia will be released in two formats, followed by a PDF release a few months down the line. The hardcover ($40) will form the basic edition, with the following content:

• the A4-sized hardcover book (204 p.);
• a double-sided, hand-drawn foldout players’ map, labelled on one side and unlabelled on the other;  
• and a deck of cards to play with the Devil (this is a 32-card Hungarian card deck depicting the main characters of the Wilhelm Tell legend – ironically, entirely unknown in Switzerland proper).

The first supplement, Ammertal and the Oberammsbund ($14), shall also be available. This A4-sized, 72-page supplement includes:

• a hex-level description of the two eponymous mountain cantons, with a wealth of ruins, strange homesteads, brigands’ nests and adventure opportunities;
• three adventure modules providing examples of dynamic wilderness scenarios, dungeon crawls, and both the mundane and odd side of Helvéczia;
• a handful of mini-adventures, additional materials, NPC adventuring parties and local legends;
• two foldout hex map sheets depicting one quarter of the lands of Helvéczia, one for the GM, and one (with much left blank) for the players.

Generous treasures
are found in a chest!

Last but not least, the boxed set ($60) shall also be available for purchase. The Helvéczia boxed set – a sturdy thing packed to the brim – contains the following:

• the hardcover Helvéczia rulebook;
• Ammertal and the Oberammsbund;
• nine map sheets, including the players’ map and four hex maps each for the GM and the players, respectively;
• a deck of cards;
• a folder containing character sheets, an almanac for timekeeping, and reference charts.

Shipping for the hardcover and the box set will be $23 to Europe and $28 Worldwide, while Ammertal shall ship at the rate of zines, for $6.5 or $8, respectively. Do note that the boxed set is heavy, and we had to be careful not to exceed the 2 kg (4.4 pound) shipping limit with the packaging. Accordingly, every box will ship separately from other ordered items.

* * *

Preview

The following 21-page preview provides the introductory chapter of the game with an example of play, a basic introduction, design principles and an “Appendix N”; and a handful of pages showcasing the game’s spells, GMing guidelines, and bestiary.

Helvéczia Sample (24 MB PDF)

[STUFF] The Nocturnal Table – Fantasy Grounds Integration

Now Even More Nocturnal

Guest Post by EOTB

I am pleased to announce the release of the Fantasy Grounds version of The Nocturnal Table. This version of the city adventure game aid was developed by EOTB for the virtual tabletop, and integrates the different features of the supplement into a complex system. You can use it to generate encounters and local colour, with all statistics and details at your fingertips.

I have to stress that this is a tremendous work that takes a loosely interrelated collection of “idea” tables, and not only connects them in a way that makes sense, but adds fine-grain detail on the level of individual statistics, and features like caravan generation (something that’s fun but rather busy work on paper). It should be a formidable toolset for FG users who like city adventures. Whether you prefer to use the general encounter system, the 300 more specific entries, or the “local colour” tables to generate inspiration for your games; individually, as a whole, or in unimagined combinations: these tools are here for you to use at your leisure! I am much indebted to EOTB for his conversion effort, and particularly with sharing the results with the gaming community. Much appreciated!

With that, I give the floor to EOTB!

--Melan

* * *

This Fantasy Grounds module requires the Fantasy Grounds rule set for 2nd Edition AD&D for use. Three (free) community additions or modifications to that base rule set are highly recommended to fully use The Nocturnal Table's ability to generate content in addition to table results:

OSRICfor2Emod found at: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?60442-OSRIC-conversion-for-2E&highlight=OSRIC

OSRIC Magic Items Mod found at: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?61083-OSRIC-Magic-Items

AD&D Core 1e Extension (if you want to use the module in the most 1E-like environment possible; not really required if preferring to use OSRIC content in a 2E rules engine) found at: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?37986-AD-amp-D-Core-1e-Extention

The Nocturnal Table - Fantasy Grounds adaptation (39.8 MB)

* * *

Adapter's Notes

A good set of tables is gold to the harried DM. The 1E DMG is still used by referees of many varied systems just for its tables; other supplements have similar utility. But for urban encounters, The Nocturnal Table by Gabor Lux (Melan) is one of the best table supplements this adapter has ever encountered.

The book itself is not very large - 56 digest-sized pages. But like all excellent sets tables their impact to the game can't be counted.

In adapting these tables for Fantasy Grounds in my own campaign, I sought to leverage their utility by ensuring all the content they indicated was pregenerated. I wanted the tables to produce gameable results in Fantasy Grounds as opposed to mere direction or ideas. This necessitated creating all the various record types implicit to the tables, and linking them their output. The very useful OSRICfor2E mod by Sterno , and OSRIC Magic Items mod by AlterZwerg were drafted for contributions to the effort (many thanks to you both for you great work!), and their entries are prominent throughout this mod, but the unique flavor of Melan's implied setting demanded many new records of varying types.

Please note there are some table results which draw upon content in the above modules. The user should load them if desiring all of the entries to auto-populate . Otherwise such results will generate a error message. (The user may still manually generate details in these cases)

These mods are freely available at:

• OSRICfor2Emod : https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/s ... ight=OSRIC
• OSRIC Magic Items Mod : https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/s ... agic-Items

It is hoped that in addition to serving up results for immediate play, that the templates bundled into this mod ease and speed the creation of adventure modules and other content. While OSRIC monsters are well-represented in existing mods, this mod contains an NPC of every character class from levels 1 through 12, including new types from Melan's world such as Amazons, and the Kung-Fu Monk adapted from Kellri's Dangerous Dungeons. There are also types of fighters with appropriate equipment, such as Northmen, Pirates, Nomads, and more. All of these include such conveniences as XP formulas, with a maximum XP value pre-entered (to be modified according to the appropriate XP formula as the DM sees fit).

Use of Celestian's 1E Extension

This adapter uses Celestian's extension with the 2E ruleset, to get as close to the "OSRIC Experience" as possible in Fantasy Grounds. In using non-monster NPCs this requires a compensating effect for To-Hit rolls and Saving Throws in the combat tracker, as NPCs by default use the 1E monster to-hit table and fighter saves - and the monster to-hit table is particularly generous at low levels compared to most non-fighter class types.

These compensating effects, found in the "Effect Features" area of the main tab on NPC entries, may not be useful if using this module without that extension, or different ruleset. If so each DM should remove those entries.

Celestian's 1E Extension is freely available here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/s ... -Extention

Adaption Choices

Due to the layers of "pulls" required by the multiple levels of tables in The Nocturnal Table, the tiers of tables are set up and named alphanumerically; beginning with a number, lower numbers belonging to higher-order tables so as to make them appear first on the lists. Odd-numbered tables generally apply to encounters; even-numbered tables generally apply to "dressing" or "colour". The basic structure as follows:

• Primary tables in the group "The Nocturnal Table - Encounters" are named starting with an "00", "01", or "02"; however, for the most part "00" tables don't pull playable content directly - I am not sure why, perhaps there is an upper limit to how deep in a table structure FG can pull into an encounter. The "00" tables are primarily to determine which of the largest "01" tables will be used, anyway, but when embedding the "01 tables into the "00" tables, no results returned. Unlike when using the "01" tables directly. So use the "00" tables as direction only, unless they return a "special" encounter - which they would pull directly.
• "02" tables comprise most of the "urban dungeon dressing" type tables in the book.
• "03" tables feed the "01" encounter tables; e.g., a table of fighters is an "03" table that feeds an "01" result that could be any of multiple character classes.
• "04" tables feed the "02" tables; these are less numerous but many of the colour/dressing tables are implicitly two layers deep as they contain a null chance; so the first layer yes/no choice is a "02" table, while the "if yes" table with all the individual colour entries is an "04" table.
• Late in development it was determined to add systems for pilgrim and caravan generation, as these are table results comparatively hard to wing (and rarely do DMs have a few caravans or pilgrimages just lying about). These also followed the two-tier system with the main tables taking "05" designations, and their sub-tables "07"
• treasure results are "06" tables in their own group, feeding other tables as needed

• A fully numeric system proved hard to search in related groups as the table list grew. So, while it is admittedly ugly, relevant abbreviations were used and tiered. This kept groups together and also allowed quick searches such as "npc" to pull up small lists of related tables, such as when generating pilgrimages.
• It is hoped that by maintaining list proximity and search distinction, that users will be able to navigate the many tables should they need to find a feeder table quickly. But the main tables, always near the top of group lists, should be the only necessary references in normal play.
• One item to be aware of: FG doesn't seem to perform multiple sets of die rolls into one encounter; e.g., an encounter with travellers will generate the leaders(s) into the encounter but not the second set of random number of common travellers. Some few table results direct you to manually ADD a random number of some NPC type to an encounter result generated.

Every adaption requires choices to make certain things work. A close comparison of the tables in the original work with the table structure in this module reveals some structural differences; e.g., in Melan's tables you generated a fighter and then rolled the fighter's level. In FG, to generate a working encounter record it is necessary to have a subtable of pregenerated fighters of the entire level range, that the master table draws upon. While the structure may vary slightly by necessity, every effort has been made to ensure the table function is maintained.

In some instances of low probability, this would have required even more tables than is included. An example is alignment. I was faced with a choice of generating multiple tables of alignments so that classes with restrictions wouldn't return incompatible results. It was chosen not to do this, as incompatible results are possible but not frequent; the DM should instead review and modify in such instances. But this and similar examples are few and far between.

Often the complexity of the table interactions raised questions as to which type of output (chat, story, encounter, etc.) was the most efficient selection for inserting results immediately into play while also recording/transmitting to the DM the most useful information provided by the tables (sometimes which output omitted the most useless data squibs the interacting tables generated, too).

In each case the DM should consider their own preferences vs what this adapter has set, and change as they see fit. Encounters, stories, and chat are the most frequently used for results other than treasures.

ALWAYS CHECK THE RAW ROLL RESULT IN CHAT AGAINST THE APPROPRIATE TABLE ENTRY

Most encounters have a random element to the number of NPCs appearing. When output to chat you will see this number; when output to an encounter this information is not provided. In testing, the fastest path from "encounter has occurred" to the combat tracker was to have the encounter box and type auto-generate and throw dice to adjust the number appearing in the box, rather than get the number appearing and manually create an encounter box. If the other method is more convenient, reset the output type to "chat" from "enc" in the top-level table.

Here a ghoul entry was rolled and a ghoul encounter box was created, but it only has "1" ghoul in it. Cross referencing the roll of 41 showing in chat with the table, we see there are 2d8 ghouls encountered. Those dice are thrown and the encounter box is updated to 12; I hope there's some elves in the party...

If the referee wishes a spread of hit points among large numbers appearing of the same type, drag-copy that NPC type in the encounter and assign; e.g., the referee wants to throw five militia with 2, 4, 6, 6, and 9 hp at the party. The one militia entry in the encounter box should be drag-copied three times so that there are 4 militia entries; each entry assigned one of the hit point results and the entry of militia assigned 6 hp set to two appearing. If one entry for the militia type is used in the encounter box and hit points are left blank, the number of hit points will be randomly rolled (once) on 1d10 but all militia will have that same random roll result of 1d10 hit points. If it doesn't bother you that all militia in the encounter have, perhaps, 4 hp, then none of the above is necessary of course.

The more detailed encounters numbered from 100-399 are listed in story entries and include embedded encounter and parcel entries. We've discussed adjusting the encounter boxes, but also review the parcels to ensure the appropriate amount of equipment loot remains after an encounter completes. Some number of each type of loot is already in a parcel, but this will rarely be accurate for common equipment to that encounter as-played.

Purely random encounters generated from the tables won't have parcels pre-made; the referee may manually generate one and add such treasures and items to it as are appropriate.

To reduce the size of the file, common armors were not added as discrete items to NPCs or parcels, but if taken by PCs as loot these can be added as necessary to parcels via drag and drop from The Nocturnal Table or OSRIC Items group(s). Likewise, experience points derived from an encounter likely require adjustment for number encountered, possibly hit points rolled, and the value of treasure taken.

Every effort was made when customizing a base template for a specific NPC to update associated stats; e.g., if different armor resulted in a different movement rate, or if morale was higher or lower than base template morale for this level. However, each time I review results I'll find another instance where some aspect was missed. If you notice any anomalies between the record entries and any story entries, presume the anomaly is an omission and correct it. The 3rd level fighter in standard plate mail shouldn't have a move rate of 90 or 120; the stray thief or assassin with a high dex but utterly standard thief ability scores should be adjusted, etc.

There are magic items, spells, and other odds and ends named in The Nocturnal Table as published in hard copy which aren't detailed; the detailing is left to the user. In Fantasy Grounds I have put some flesh on those bones in order to provide a useable game item for play, but that flesh is my best guess and not further direction from the author. In all cases you, the user, should modify such items at will.

Near the end of production this module was back-ported to FG Classic due to issues with the Author extension that creates the module from the entries, and also embeds the illustrations, not yet being compatible with FG Unlimited. This introduced some anomalies in that multiples of D4, D6, and D8s were dropped from items, spells, etc. (e.g., weapons doing 2d4 damage, etc.) and also some text were re-rendered with formatting artifacts. Every effort has been made to locate and correct these anomalies, but if some are missed you have the adapter's explanation, and they may be corrected by inputting the missing information.

Lastly, this adapter is still a novice at Fantasy Grounds, ignorant in coding and unable to work in the raw data files, scouring wiki pages and forum posts when unable to find a way to produce a result. It's entirely possible, and likely, that a FG pro would notice parts of these tables constructed inefficiently, or even clunkily, because I didn't know a better road to Rome. In these cases, I apologize in advance.

[REVIEW] Fire in the Hole

Layout magic: No fucks given

Fire in the Hole (2021)

by Derek Jones

Self-published

Levels 4–6

This adventure is one of a rare breed: a Castles & Crusades scenario. While much of the modern “OSR” owes its existence to an ancient flame war among C&C’s playtesters, the game itself does not seem often discussed, and the official adventures have not really ignited the public imagination. However, Fire in the Hole – an amateur module available for the cost of ONE Dollar Americain – is not only a recent publication, but an actually decent effort. It will not win awards for cover art by OSR luminaries (being a white page with a page number and Times New Roman text on it), nor layout (using mostly two-column Times New Roman), nor digital maps (the maps are perfectly legible scanned pencil work), but it is a fine modular scenario to fit into an ongoing campaign, and occupy perhaps one night of gaming.

Fire in the Hole has a strong “little people have big problem” premise: while extending the wine cellars of hobbit gentry Mr. Thistletine, the workers found a mysterious tunnel leading downwards. One worker lowered with a rope disappeared with a horrid scream, and was never seen again. Adventurers were called in to investigate. On the other side of the tunnel, we find a dungeon level populated by a band of gecko-men, who raid the outside world through maic portals. These not particularly formidable, but decently organised chaps are divided between their allegiance to a chief and a group of scheming priests, offering opportunities for sowing division and making short-term alliances with the dungeon inhabitants. Or just killing them all without going into deep contortions about their motivations (sorry, gecko guys). It is all small-scale, petty, and walks a fine balance between “raiding humanoid lair” and “strange underground place”: low-concept, just done well.

The area where the module shines is found in its basic construction. The dungeon level is a real pro effort of alternate routes, ambush points, reserve barracks and hidden passages. A loud and messy assault will end up with a bloody and desperate corridor battle against overwhelming odds (even for a strong party). Quick and decisive action and some improvisation helps lead to victory. The level’s relative openness allows the characters to execute a surprise strike (and the entrance hole is right in the heart of the gecko-man lair), but also to have them surrounded and cut off from escape.

The quality of the design shines through in the small details. The order of battle provides an outline of gecko-man defensive measures, while the random encounter chart features them engaged in random activity – “tormenting a cuddly little animal” and “plotting to harvest a little stink-juice from the troglodytes” are possible outcomes, providing not just colour, but information and a possibility for more complex interaction. There are “barrack rooms” treated correctly; in a few broad-strokes sentences or just as a room name instead of meticulous-obsessive detailing. Special rooms with a stronger spotlight receive more attention, as they should, and they showcase the adventure’s imagination and whimsy: a forge staffed by mechanical ogres who will cart off fallen combatants from a melee to forge them into enchanted bone weapons. A tiny pocket dimension accessed from a fire pit. A magical tapestry which follows the balance of power on the level through what it is depicting. A less powerful and less deadly cousin to the deck of many things, with fun draws like “enmity between you and Squishsquash, a water elemental” and “gain service of an ogre”.

Not everything is good. Fire in the Hole repeats C&C’s annoying “feature” of embedding whole stat blocks into the flowing room key, perhaps the least practical solution ever devised for presenting monster info. The tactical setup, while it represents one of the adventure’s main strengths, is a bit too tight in the beginning. There is a non-negligible possibility that the characters descending into the very first chamber make enough noise to bring the whole combat roster down on their necks. In this case, the adventure may take place in a single cellar room; and should the company be victorious, the rest will be a not very challenging mop-up operation in a dungeon largely emptied of its defenders. In this case, having the first areas be lax and even temptingly easy should deliver a more even play experience. There could be a bit more treasure.

In summary, Fire in the Hole is a labour of love, and a very fine effort if a beginner work. It has charm, good fundamentals, a very solid map and combat setup, and the right scope for a modular one-session adventure. It fulfils the original promise of Castles & Crusades. It is just one buck, too, making it much better value for the money than pretty much everything from itch.io.

No playtesters are credited in this publication.

Rating: **** / *****

 

[ZINE] Echoes From Fomalhaut #08 (NOW AVAILABLE!)

Welcome to Castle Sullogh!

I am pleased to announce the publication of the eighth issue of my fanzine, Echoes From Fomalhaut. This is a 52-page zine dedicated to adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school rules, with cover art by Stefan Poag, and illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Graphite Prime, and the Dead Victorians.

The first adventure in the zine takes players to the shores of the Twelve Kingdoms, a cold land of rival petty kingdoms and strange wonders. Here stands Yrrtwano’s Repose, a ruined manor house whose walls now protect an entire village. Lord Yrrtwano’s time has long passed, but he sleeps under the manor still, and the great hunter is said to slumber most uneasily! This is a dungeon adventure with 15 keyed areas, for levels 3-4 (my players brought a small company of NPC knights to share the glories and the dangers).

The sullogh are coming! The zine’s titular scenario, Castle Sullogh, was the penultimate adventure in our Isle of Erillion campaign. This woodland ruin had stood in its place from the beginning, just within reach, but always too formidable to tackle until the adventurers had no other choice left. It is suitable for levels 5-9 (much depending on the party’s approach – ours was repelled pretty badly on their first foray, and had to turn to more careful infiltration on subsequent tries), and covers 55 keyed areas, including buried secrets, the quarters of three powerful witches, and the halls of the murderous sullogh who were brewed for murder!

This issue also describes the western half of the lands of Thasan, “beyond the City of Vultures”. Arid wastelands dotted with tiny pockets of lush vegetation lie next to deep blue seas where islands hide weird inhabitants and unknown dangers, and two great empires, one ancient and sinful, one recent and fanatically pure, clash over parched wastes devastated by ancient catastrophe. Venture into the dreaming ruins of Zangul and shadowy Korlag Thyr; walk the Road of Iskarades, and try your guile against the wily masterminds of Virkat and its great Judgement Machine! Great phantasms and jewelled palaces await – and therein lurk beauty, strangeness and death in equal measure. This is a large hex-crawl describing half of one map sheet with 103 keyed and briefly described locales (which is where our games were located).

Long time in the making, Echoes #08 is a larger than usual issue, with a double map sheet: one of them a splendid players’ colour map of the Isle of Erillion, courtesy of Istvan Boldog-Bernad, who made it in Wonderdraft. (He also played Armand the Scumbag, human assassin, in our campaign.) The other sheet contains GM’s maps: one of Castle Sullogh, and one of Thasan and its strange lands.

The print version of the fanzine is available from my Bigcartel store; the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with a few months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge.

Map sheets, booklet, and UVG dice

[BLOG] Great Tables of D&D History

...very pleased to meet you

The random element in D&D gameplay is one of the great, underappreciated design features of role-playing games. We rarely question its presence, and only notice it when it is absent from a particularly contrarian ruleset. Things could have gone differently: if RPGs had emerged from experimental theatre, randomness would presumably play a much lesser, even marginal role. But random chance in game, character generation, and game prep, is at the heart of the role-playing experience, responsible for a lot of its variety and unpredictability. “Roll a saving throw against poison” is one of the tense moments in any adventure – for a moment, the whole world stops as the fate of adventurers hangs in the balance, and great things are decided by the roll of a 20-sider.

Random and semi-random methods have added a curious layer of chance to running the game as well. The GM runs the game, but even with a pre-written adventure, he does not know exactly what game he will be running. What if the players blow a few crucial rolls and they cannot get through a particular locked door? What if the bad guys roll terribly, and a dangerous foe goes down in a few rounds of desperate melee? What if a random encounter is taken as a major clue, derailing the course of the campaign? These factors, even beyond player decisions, make sure we are kept guessing – and hopefully at the edge of the seat.

And of course, random generation is useful in preparing adventures, from the general framework to the room- or encounter-level descriptions. Random tables – used intelligently – take our mind where it would not go without prodding. What the computer people call “procedural generation” can determine a lot of incidental detail in a lot of CRPGs beyond the basic RNG – going all the way to the construction of random landscapes and political systems. But computers have not been given an imagination yet: they work fast, but they can only regurgitate and combine; they cannot truly create and interpret. And so, tabletop gaming’s random tables remain wedded to a combination of random rolls and the human personality. Your take on “ruined tower, giant snails, archives” will be different from mine, and from one random “seed”, we would build radically different worlds.

Of course, not all tables are created equal. We may try a lot, but we will gravitate to a few which are particularly useful.Some are plain better, more useful than others. This is why I present here my personal list of favourites, all of which I have used extensively due to their usefulness and longevity. No distinction is made here on the basis of age, nor official or unofficial status: tables are a meritocracy. However, there is no order to the choices in this final selection: all are great in their own way, and to rank them further would not be useful. So!

* * *

The Concept Generator: The Locations (Overview) Table (Tome of Adventure Design)

It would take long to sing the praises of the great ToAD, this modern classic of utility products, so let it suffice that its over 300 pages of tables is an inexhaustible mine of what the author, Matt Finch calls “deep creativity” – half-formed idea fragments which emerge into full-blown game material. Like Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu, its treasures are endless. Someone in the middle, there is a four-page 1d100 table for the generation of random thrones. There is enough in that table alone to create and stock The Dungeon of Thrones, if you wanted to. That’s the kind of book the ToAD is. But there, among the tables for “complex architectural tricks”, “corpse malformations”, “religious processions and ceremonies”, and “mist creatures” – which I am sometimes using – there are some that come up all the time (such as a table collection for generating individual-, item-, location-, and event-based missions), and one that is beyond useful. And this is actually the first table in the book: the “Locations (Overview)” table.

The Locations Overview Table

This is a four-column 1d100 table to create basic concepts for major locations (there is one for dungeon complexes, dungeon rooms, and strange features, of course – the book scales down nicely). It could work as a module title generator, of the “Adjective Noun of the Adjective Noun” variety. I have been using this particular table since its original appearance in Mythmere's Adventure Design Deskbook, vol. 1., and found it a great companion for coming up with the initial building block of future adventures, or just interesting places to scatter in a campaign world. Consider these examples:

• Moaning Chapterhouse of the Bat-Sorcerer
• Collapsing Edifice of the Many-Legged Burrower
• Dilapidated Castle of the Bitter Apparition
• Aerial Cliffs of the Hyena-Keeper

I am not saying every one of these results does something for me right now, but three or four rolls almost always provide a basic framework to build on. I can imagine the Moaning Chapterhouse of the Bat-Sorcerer as a place in a campaign inspired by Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborea stories, and the Dilapidated Castle as a locale in a chivalric high fantasy/fairy tale setting. The other two, as the average result tends to be, is weird fantasy; the Aerial Cliffs are great, while the Collapsing Edifice just gives me “centipede monster lair”, and that’s not much added value. The other three, I could use. Sometimes, I take a folded paper sheet, and fill one page with random idea seeds that seem to fit my current mood, then build an adventure around them (The Singing Caverns from Echoes #01 was partially built with this method).

Of course, there is something about this table I have not noted yet: it is not just one table. It is followed by another identical d100 table with different keywords (Sinister Grotto of the Howling Wolves… OK, this is not much – but how about Fossilised Pagoda of the Mist-Pirates, the greatest wuxia OSR adventure never written?), and a two-column table that uses the “purpose approach” for truly weird but sometimes quite cool results (Skin Altar, Time-Well, Spider Separator [?], Perfume Pools [that’s a winner]). That’s a lot of stuff to work with. You could fill a mini-setting with adventures based solely on these tables, because why not.

* * *

Muddle's Generator

The Wilderness Workhorse: Muddle’s Wilderness Location Generator

Yes, this is an internet tool, and you can try it for free, so go ahead. The ToAD, exhausting as it is, is not much focused on wilderness play, and its tables in this section are cool but just not as varied as the dungeon chapter. Muddle’s wilderness table is a good alternative. It combines nouns and adjectives into a list of 50 locations for your wilderness adventure. A lot of these results will be irrelevant to your current project, but you can check these and delete them, then replace them with a new batch of entries, repeat until you have the precise 50-entry roster you need. Here are the first few from the selection I got this time:

• Deep Hills of the Elder Piller (sic)
• Mausoleum of Adamantite Drows
• Dreary Treasury
• Inner Tomb
• Skeletonelder Hole
• Slimefist Tower

A lot need to be weeded out (I have developed a soft spot for Awful Peak, it is staying), and the vocabulary is much more limited than Mythmere’s thesaury (Sorry! Sorry!), but it is quick, cheap, and often does its job. You can use it to build. Deep Hills of the Elder Pillar sounds like the place where people possess a lot of good ol’ folksy wisdom, much of it involving goat sacrifice and non-euclidean things, Dreary Treasury is a place offering an interesting internal contradiction, and Inner Tomb either lies deeper in the wilderness, or it is a tomb with a hidden sub-section. And we have a cultist hideout at the end, I believe.

But that’s not all! Muddle’s set also has a dungeon room generator that’s almost as decent,  and you can force it to select by theme. The other tools are less useful, although the deity generator might make Petty Gods a run for its money (Grundermir Ratvoid, Dread Fiend of Bad Breath; Malumdrim Biscuitfinger, Queen of Ants; Asheeltrym Grumblespoons, Lord of Bannanas (sic); Mulelroun, Godess of Apples; and Grelderthul the Beautiful, Queen of Aggression is certainly a pantheon).

* * *

The Implied Setting: Outdoor Random Monster Encounter Tables (AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide)

In the book that has everything, everyone will find something. Gary’s magnum opus is less methodical guidebook than an occult tome that teaches you, the fledgling DUNGEON MASTER, that horizons are infinite, and the true scope of the reaches far beyond a few narrow possibilities. Last evening, we looked up its advice on underwater combat after two characters fell into a deep pool inhabited by a water spider, and I am sure the “how much damage will I take in my armour type if I transform into a specific lycanthrope type” table has been useful to someone, somewhere – at least once in history.

When the DMG’s readers are asked which is the most important section in there, the teenage munchkin will say “Of course it is the magic items table! Here, have a vorpal mace and two Wands of Orcus!”. The journeyman will point to the dungeon dressing appendix – it is useful indeed – and the old-schooler will at once point to Appendix N for its listing of AD&D’s thematic roots, which we all know is better than the stupid dreck everyone else is reading. The connoisseur of obscure gems will note the “Abbreviated Monster Manual” from Appendix E. Bad people who need to be put on a watchlist will cite “the Zowie Slot Variant”. These are not bad answers, but for my pick, I would go with Appendix C, AD&D’s outdoor encounter system.

You encounter 2d6 Catoblepas

Random dungeon dressing and treasure tables help you fill your rooms, and Appendix N will help you develop a refined taste in genre literature; Appendix C gives you the most practical tool for AD&D’s implied frontier setting. We can appreciate the points of light concept because it gives us our points of light in the practical sense – not as aesthetic, but also as practical procedure. Random encounters, particularly when also used to populate wilderness areas, as in a hex-crawl, give you the gameplay texture to make expeditions in the outdoors varied, fun, and very hazardous. That is, they give you the everyday reality of travelling between two points on the landscape. Here is an expedition of six encounters moving between two cities separated by plains, then hills, a stretch of forest, more hills, marsh, then plains again, assuming one encounter occurring on each stretch:

• Plains: Men, nomads (150), with 13 levelled Fighters between 3^rd and 6^th level, a 8^th level Fighter leader with a 6^th level subcommander, 12 guards of 2^nd level, plus two lesser Clerics and a lesser Magic-User. Assuming the nomads do not force you back in town, or just take you as captives, we can move on to…
• Hills: Elves (140), with 10 levelled Fighters of 2^nd or 3^rd level, 3 Magic-Users of 1^st or 2^nd level, and 4 multi-classed elves (4/5 level, plus a 4/8 leader). Let us not consider the giant eagles in their lair – the elves are bros, anyway. We share lembas and move on.
• Forest: 2 Giant weasels, which are 3 HD creatures. Luck was with us, unless the encounter occurs by surprise, since giant weasels suck blood at a rate of 2d6 Hp/round. They have no treasure, but their pelts are worth 1d6*1000 gp, each enough to hire 100 porters for 10 to 60 months of work, or an army of 50 heavy footmen for the same time span!
• Hills again: 16 Wolves, the basic unit of fantasy wildlife. They are 75% to be hungry when you meet them. Of course, they are hungry this time, too.
• Marsh: this is a great place to meet a beholder, catoblepas, or other high-level monsters, but instead, we get Men, pilgrims (60), 9 Clerics of 2^nd to 6^th level, and a 8^th level Cleric with a 3^rd to 5^th level assistant. There is 60% of 1d10 Fighters (random level, 1^st to 8^th), and 30% for a Magic-User of 6^th to 9^th level, but they are not here right now. Still, these badasses are travelling in the world’s most dangerous terrain type except mountains. Don’t screw with.
• Plains again: 1 Huge spider, which is a good roll on 1d12, and fortunately, it is not the calf-sized 4+4 HD type, but the dog-sized 2+2 HD type. The only downside is that they surprise 5:6, which is a bad value, considering their poison is deadly.

Just a random encounter, bro!

After this trip, you start to appreciate those sexy harlot encounters in the city (and hope if it comes to worse, it is 8^th to 11^th level Thieves out for your purse, and not a Weretiger or a Goodwife out for your blood), and you start understanding why those points of light remain points, not larger blots, or why those pilgrims travel in groups of 10-100. It also puts your mind into a different frame than level-balanced games with random monsters numbering in the 1d4 or 1d8 range. You can’t fight all those roving death armies, and besides, it does not pay (weasel pelts excepting). You learn to scout, you learn to run, you learn to leave behind food to distract your pursuers (this scales up from rations to pack animals and fellow adventurers – as the great Grey Fox once shouted back to a companion stuck in a bad situation, “What ‘party’? The party is already over here!”), bribes of gold or good, old-fashioned bullshitting to tip over that reaction roll. You learn to grovel before that dragon, planning future revenge. You learn to plan an ambush to plunder that lair you just discovered, and carry away the best valuables. Welcome to the AD&D World Milieu!

* * * 

The Chad Sword & Sorcery Milieu: Ravaged Ruins (Wilderlands of High Fantasy / Ready Ref Sheets)

Wilderlands of Highly Awesome

So you got to know Appendix C, and suddenly gained a new understanding of AD&D. You are on a different level. Here is where it gets stranger. From the OD&D era, Judges Guild’s Wilderlands setting presents a truly bottom-up sandbox setting of minimal detail and high weirdness – recognisably D&D fantasy, but more “Appendix N” and Frazetta than the comparative classicism of Greyhawk or Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. The “High” in Wilderlands of High Fantasy might stand for something else than “Tolkienesque” here, even though the setting also has a generous helping of Tolkien pastiche – right next to old-school Star Trek, classical mythology, pulp fantasy, and Dark Ages Europe/Near East mini-kingdoms. It is just general fantasy enough to kick you out of your comfort zone when it turns out the Invincible Overlord has captured a stray MIG fighter, or that the dungeons under Thunderhold, castle of the Dwarf King have half-buried railway tracks and a gateway to Venus on their fourth level. The described Wilderlands is filled with odd, short idea fragments and juxtapositions, a few throwaway lines like

• “Villagers charged with a centuries old oath to the ‘King of the Lost-Lands’, maintain an eternal bonfire atop a crag to warn ships off the hidden reef.”
• “In a well hidden crypt is a ring of Brathecol, one of the kings of old Altantis. (sic –  ‘Altanis’ vs. ‘Atlantis’ is one of the strange ambiguities of the setting)) A stone golem is  guardian of the crypt which appears as a monolithic block of limestone.”
• “The crystallized skeleton of a dragon turtle is buried on the sandy beach. The skull houses a giant leech.”

However, there is also a procedural Wilderlands that lives in its weirdo random tables and guidelines, which were collected in the supremely fun Ready Ref Sheets, Volume I (no second volume was released, but the first one is a great look into OD&D, and remarkably easy to obtain). Here you can find rudimentary rules for taxation, trade and mining – but the most useful table is the self-explanatory Ravaged Ruins. This table generates wilderness locations to scatter across your hex maps, and let your players wonder about the fallen glories of past ages – something that already establishes one of the major themes of the Wilderlands. The table is relatively small, a simple two-pager with results drawn from archaeology... at least at first glance. It generates a basic ruin type, with nested sub-tables to determine the specific subtype – there are not that many results, but the number of combinations is at least decent. Supplemental columns also establish the condition of the ruins, their covering (definitely archaeological in sensibilities), state, and the monsters guarding the ruin. And it gets weird, as seen in these six rolls:

• Statued fountain, found in a large crater, covered with vines, crumbled and decayed, protected by lycanthropes.
• Bones, above ground and covered with slime, partially operational, no guardians. (What does partially operational mean in the case of a bone pile? Mediocre Judges will frown and reroll. Superior Judges will find an explanation. Perhaps this is a bone mine of extinct creatures, still excavated by locals as trade goods or building material? What of the slimes?)
• Sea-horse carriage, partially sunken and buried in a thicket, dangerous operational, protected by insects.
• Periscope inside cavern, covered in rocks, collapsed and tumbled, mechanical guardians. (Wait a minute! We are not in Middle Earth anymore, Bilbo!)
• Man o’ War inside cavern, dangerous operational, protected by trap. (It has to be a fairly big cavern for that… and what if we roll it for a place far, far from a sea coast?)
• Asphault (sic) road, partially covered in thickets, corroded & eroded, protected by giant types. (So this setting has old, overgrown, eroded asphalt roads.)

Ravaged Ruins

Something, even a random detail, becomes a theme through repetition and exploration: and this is the Wilderlands’: picking through the remnants of older ages, part Dark Ages, part Classical Antiquity, part fallen star-faring civilisation. Antigrav sleds, nuclear submarines and re-entry capsules lie wrecked in ancient ruins guarded by dragons and mechanical guardians next to crystallised skeletons and eroded old idols; the grand works of past cultures lie abandoned in dusty deserts and frozen tundra. There are rat chariots pyramidal palaces. What is this place? In a compact, two-page table, Wilderlands of High Fantasy speaks louder, and in a more game-relevant way, than a full supplement. Yes, this table can be exhausted through use, but by that time, you get the Wilderlands.

* * *

The Panic Button: The Table of Despair (Original D&D Discussion / Fight On!)

Not every great table is enormous, and this one is just a throwaway forum post by korgoth. However, The Table of Despair is a great gameplay innovation, and a high achievement of old-school design. It becomes useful when the characters don’t get the hell out of Dodge before the curtain falls; when someone is separated from the main party for longer than healthy, or when someone flees in blind panic. You roll on the table and weep, mortal. Those are not great odds – in fact, they are downright crummy odds – but this is Jakkalá, and they may in fact be the best odds you can get. All that for a fistful of káitars!

The Table of Dessssspair!

Aside from its chuckling evil glee, the table communicates the danger of the Underworld very clearly. The results are appropriate, and should be pronounced in a booming, hollow voice. It is not applicable to every campaign, and it is a bit repetitive, but it is a work of simple genius. I have included a milder variant in Castle Xyntillan (“The Table of Terror”), which is derived from Helvéczia’s “Through Branch and Bush”, but all of these trace their lineage back to korgoth’s now classic post.

* * * 

The Carousing Table

The Equation Changer: Party Like it’s 999 (Jeff’s Gameblog)

Curiously, very little of the definitive old-school gaming blog has seen print; Jeff Rients just wrote tons of material he gave away for free. And 2008 was a great year, even by the Gameblog’s standards. These carousing guidelines are not radically new, since they build on older principles which go right back to Orgies, Inc. (The Dragon, 1977) and even Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign (Judges Guild, 1977), already in vogue by 2006-2007. But Jeff’s take is the iconic, recognised version; he was not there the earliest, but he was there the mostest. It is simple: at the start of every session, you can just throw away a bunch of gold pieces in wild parties, and earn the same amount in experience points. There is, also, a random table to add risk and complication to the downtime activity. The party may have just been looking for some good fun and easy XP, but a few bad rolls later...

• Brother Otto wakes up with the hangover from hell, cramping his spellcasting.
• Nick the Knife accidentally burned down the inn, and everyone in town knows.
• Sir Wullam wakes up and finds himself with the symbol of the Brotherhood of the Purple Tentacle tattooed on his... oh no! Oh nooooooo!
• Sorceric has a minor misunderstanding with the guards, and is hauled in for six days in the lockup.

The adventure has not even started yet... or has it just started?

At least this inn is not on fire, RIGHT, Nick?

The carousing rule inverts D&D’s core equation, the 1 gp = 1 XP rule. Here, you do not gain XP for treasure you find, you gain XP for treasure you spend. AD&D’s model – which, mind you, works great, although for different reasons – hoovers up excess gold from the campaign through training costs (most of my current Hoard of Delusion party is stuck at their current level, having the XP but not the gp for training), and introduces the strategic dilemma – do we spend it on advancement or other useful stuff? It is also quintessentially 80s action movie – our hero, experiencing hardship, goes to the gym or the old karate master to bulk up for the tougher challenges coming his way. The inverted model removes money through living it up through excessive partying. OD&D’s upkeep rule is a predecessor (1% of your current XP total per arbitrary time period), but Jeff’s carousing table turns it into a mini-game and a source of new mini-adventures. You can also see Ffahrd, the Grey Mouser or Conan doing this, more than them learning new moves under the watch of a wise old instructor. Of course, it is just a table of 20 entries, with a comical aesthetic. But it is a hell of a beginning. I have my own 64-result downtime complications table from the Helvéczia RPG: here are four results for late 17^th century picaresque adventures:

• One of Father Gérome Gantin’s noted enemies has vanished from town, and everyone is eyeing him suspiciously.
• Bettina von Vilingen, the noted scoundrel, finds herself the elected mayor of a tiny podunk village.
• Sebastiano Gianini, Bettina’s partner in crime, has indulged in sins better left unmentioned, and loses 3 Virtue.
• Domenico Pessi, retired mercenary, survives a close encounter with Death, but to correct the mistake, the Grim Reaper is once more on Domenico’s trail...

* * *

The Dipper: The Monster Determination and Level of Monster Matrix (OD&D vol. 3)

For our final table, let us return to the roots: OD&D’s random monster chart. OD&D has often been called badly designed (and until its mid-2000s revival, it was mostly considered a historical footnote), but what it is is badly written, and barely if at all explained. The design itself, taken at face value instead of handwaved or second-guessed, is surprisingly tight – blow the dust off of the covers, and you find yourself something that hangs together quite well as a game. We have already mentioned AD&D’s wilderness encounter charts – here is a simple, elegant and universal matrix for running expeditions into the Mythic Underworld.

The Dipper

The matrix cross-references level depth – the basic measure of zone difficulty – with a 1d6 roll to select a random chart, followed by a roll on the chart itself. It is trivial, but it is quite different from modern random charts, which usually go for weighted results for every level. The matrix mixes up the results by occasionally introducing lower-level (more powerful) monster types to the first dungeon levels, or hordes of low-level types for the depths below. Dangerous monsters travel up from the depths, and weaker creatures band together to establish strongholds and outposts in the deeper reaches. Consider the following expedition, going down to Level 3 and back, with two encounters on the average each level (it is not stated, but usually implied that the number of creatures appearing will be worth one dice per baseline, adjusted upwards and downwards):

• LVL 1: 6 Kobolds (LVL 1)
• LVL 1: 3 Lizards (LVL 2)
• LVL 2: 1 Hero (LVL 3, a 4^th level Fighting Man)
• LVL 2: 1 Manticore (LVL 5 – ooops!)
• LVL 3: 2 Superheroes (LVL 5, 8^th level Fighting Men)
• LVL 3: 9 Gnolls (LVL 2)
• LVL 2: 2 Ogres (LVL 4)
• LVL 2: 3 Thaumaturgists (LVL 3, 5^th level Magic-Users)
• LVL 1: 2 Goblins (LVL 1)
• LVL 1: 1 Swashbuckler (LVL 3, 5^th level Fighting Man)

Although basically meant for on-the-run wandering monsters, this little chart comes into its own during stocking dungeons. Follow the general stocking procedure for rooms along with the room treasure charts on p. 7, and you will soon have something fairly serviceable for a starting effort. It is quick and a lot of fun. Of course, for established monster lairs, I would use a higher “No. Appearing” – perhaps not the 40-400 goblins of the outdoor charts, but at least 1d8*5 for a start – if it’s got treasure, it can defend it. You can also expand the monster listings, or “slot in” alternate subtables while preserving the master matrix. You could have one for mediaeval fantasy, desert tomb-raiding, undercities, or what have you.

The AD&D Matrix

Now, I am not 100% happy with this table – chalk it up to personal preference, or the benefit of hindsight. I do believe it goes too deep. Six levels of difficulty should be enough, for a neat 6×6 matrix. Second, it is weighted towards the more powerful encounters, dredging up deep horrors as soon as you enter Level 3. On Level 2, you are more likely to encounter Level 3 monsters (Wights, 4^th and 5^th level NPCs and Giant Snakes) than Level 2-ones; on Level 3, you will regularly meet Mummies, Wyverns, Hydrae and Balrogs. On the other hand, fun low-strength critters are phased out too soon – Orc, Skeletons, Bandits and the like disappear after Level 2. That is too steep for a good difficulty curve. In our LBB-only, reasonable by-the-book Morthimion campaign, I have adjusted things by using the Level 1 charts for the first two levels, Level 2 for the second two, and so on: that was more than enough for a modern OD&D game (i.e. one played casually, not obsessively every day, every week, as people would do in the 1970s). I also tended to bump treasure values up by one row for largely the same reasons.

E..excuse me, is this Level Two? I thought this was Level Two

All that said, the OD&D monster table is an excellent example of compact, elegant design. With a few alterations – cut it down to 6 levels, rebalance a little, increase encounter numbers for some monsters – it would be powerful even in our day and time. I would adjust it just slightly, but keep the “dipper” aspect. AD&D’s equivalent dungeon encounter chart (Appendix C) is certainly more balanced, but missing some of the cool chaos introduced by its predecessor. It is weighted a bit too much towards “slog” instead of “swing”. Somewhere between the two, I believe we could find the perfect monster encounter chart.