In which the last horse crosses the finish line, or "Hey Rachel, why come so many dungeons?"

You may not know this, but I spend a lot of time around Reddit. One of my favorite subreddits is /r/AskScienceFiction, where people ask questions about sci-fi, fantasy, and occasionally other fictional universes, and the answers are provided from an in-universe perspective. Some of the time the answers come from an obscure bit of canon, but a lot of the time it's just a platform for who can come up with the most interesting speculative answer.

Recently, someone asked what defensive fortifications look like in a high-magic fantasy world. After all, he reasoned, real castles evolved to combat the siege tactics that were being used historically, but a world with magic-users, dragons, and other fantasy elements would present different challenges to a lord looking to protect his holdings.

One common answer we use is that these things are so rare that it seldom presents an issue. But that doesn't quite jive with the assumptions most versions of D&D (really, any versions that I can think of) present about the world by default. But there's another answer that does. To put it simply, the keep as we know it is obsolete as a form of defense in D&D. It is replaced, interestingly enough, by the humble dungeon. A thick layer of earth provides a barrier to many forms of divination, and hinders many magical forms of ingress (teleportation becomes a risky proposition if you can't see where you're going, even with otherwise relatively safe short-range methods like Dimension Door), The narrow, twisting passages of a dungeon reduce visibility, create defensible chokepoints to halt invaders from, and discourage the use of area-of-effect spells by an attacking force, and can be constructed to be a difficult or impossible fit for larger enemies.

More traditional fortifications do retain some use-- after all, moats, palisades and curtain walls will still serve as obstacles for an approaching army, and towers offer a vantage point for spotting any approach, as well as high ground for archers and mages to rain death from above on. But the construction of these will differ. I would expect to see, rather than the more conventional open roofs with parapets, a wide room or machicolation with a sturdy roof and many arrow slits, the better to protect the defenders from being snatched up or dive-bombed by flying monsters.

Most people, and most domesticated animals, will still prefer to live aboveground, so there will likely be buildings inside the bailey. Generally these will be made from cheaply-replaceable wood, as the auxiliary buildings of many real-world castles are, but even the main hall stands a good chance of being made of wood. Any strategically-important business must be conducted underground where prying magical eyes and ears will have a harder time spying on it.

In short, the reason your campaign setting is peppered with underground complexes is because the dungeon is the natural evolution of a castle to defend against the kind of threats unique to a fantasy world. Much as abandoned or ruined castles are scattered across the countrysides of Europe today, so will the remains of an old or conquered fortress be a common sight for travelers and explorers. The advantages of underground fortifications against magical or monstrous assault will have been realized early, probably even before the advent of masonry, so the dungeon will remain even when the wooden structures and fortifications of more ancient castles are gone.

As always, questions, critiques, or further insights are welcome.

I like Dungeons and Dragons

I don't know how else to phrase it. I just... like D&D. Not just the broad idea, not just the essential salts of the game, but the D&D IP. I like the way that Wizards presented their vision of how it looked and felt during my teenage years (which coincided with 3.x and a goodly chunk of 4e,) even if I grew desperately sick of the mechanical implementations they used in 3.x and 4e.

That right there is the main reason why, since about 2011, I've been very involved in the OSR-- mechanically it is much less ponderous. You've probably picked up on this tendency yourself, given how much effort on this blog I've devoted to backporting one thing or other from WOTC!D&D to whichever retroclone has my attention that week.

From what I've seen of 5e, it works for me. It has all those bits of modern-D&D flavor that accumulated in my brain all through middle and high school and shaped my understanding of my hobby, but in a more streamlined, effective system. It's not perfect, maybe, but it works, and perhaps more importantly, it works while feeling like home to me, like the thing that I turned to for a good time in high school. It feels like the D&D I thought I was playing in those days, until my (then-)girlfriend turned it into a chore of a red queen's race, until I realized that even low-level NPCs had become a second batch of homework.

I know this: I don't want to get on the supplement treadmill again, and I don't want to devote hours to character builds. Unless the final product has some egregious mechanical fuckery, is unplayably broken, or holds back important content to sell more splatbooks, I suspect that once it's released, it will become my system of choice. I don't know what will happen to this blog then. I'll probably keep writing something here. Maybe more fluff articles.

The Cleric: a gamepiece

Regular readers of this blog (All five of you) are aware that the existence of the Cleric (and what sort of religion she might belong to other than the to-me-unsatisfying choice of Fantasy Pseudo-Christianity #326?) is something with which I often grapple. Some might ask why I bother, when instead I could just drop the silly thing from my worlds altogether and save a lot of hassle. To them I would say that it is because I think of D&D mainly as a game, with the classes being different kinds of pieces. Therefore, I am concerned with the unforeseen impact on gameplay that might be had by either denying the functions it provides, or shunting them off to another character class-- most likely the Wizard/Magic-User. Frankly this is mostly just a ramble, but it seems that something or other has to give eventually. Will I stop worrying and learn to love Crystal Dragon Jesus? Will I just kick the cleric to the curb? It remains to be seen.

Of Matters Divine and the Three Alignments

Tonight after pain keeping me from sleep, watching Excalibur of all things, somehow shotgunning all three Pathfinder bestiaries in a single night, and revisiting previous discussions with my brother, I think I might have finally cracked some things that have been weighing on my mind.

Gods: Both Law and Chaos have gods. Gods have a physical presence in the world. They are possible though difficult to take down (and it's harder still to bring down a god permanently). They are certainly beings of enormous power, but are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent.

Law: The gods of Law are reasonably consistent in form and power, and not entirely unlike the mortals that are their charges. Some mortals believe the gods of law created the world, others believe they created or bestowed sapience and free will on mortals, others believe they are merely self-appointed guardians of it. Not all lawful gods are nice or good, but many are at least one or the other. The ultimate goals of law are the continued existence of the world and the flourishing of civilization. To be lawful can mean to be cooperative or individualistic, to be rigid or flexible, to be authoritarian or liberated, but ultimately all Lawful beings wish for life as we know it to continue existing in a recognizable form.

Chaos: The gods of Chaos are more protean and singular than their opponents, though generally they have icky tentacles and slimes and things like that and are just nasty all around. Few wander free. It is possible that they are more powerful than the gods of Law, but as they are both rarer and unlikely to present a united front they are dismayed in their efforts to unmake creation. The ultimate goals of chaos are to reduce mortals to savagery or worse and to reduce the world to a blank slate the gods of Chaos may do as they please with. To worship chaos is to be destructively insane and evil on some level.

Neutrality: Neutrality is the alignment of nature. There are no neutral clerics or neutral gods. There is only the land, and The Dragon, and the druids. Unlike the gods, the Dragon cannot be said with certainty to exist (some even believe it to be more of a metaphorical being than a literal one), except inasmuch as the land and sea that its being suffuses is clearly real. Neutrality cares for life, but has no special allegiance towards civilization or to the mortals that make it up, seeing them as things that can (and indeed must) gradually change and adapt like any other thing that wishes to endure. There is a tendency towards belief in natural selection in Neutral philosophy. Neutral people see the Dragon as both creator and creation, the world and its maker are one to them. They teach that the world is defined by the interaction of opposite forces which exist in concordant balance. While they bear Law and civilization no ill, will they also hold that the Dragon maintains itself regardless of the comings and goings of mortals and gods alike (so long as they do not attempt to conquer it outright), and that Law has an overinflated sense of its own cosmic importance. Druids by and large do not show Chaos such tolerance, as the gods of Chaos have proven time and again that they have no regard whatsoever for the Dragon.

Unaligned: Most people are not in fact aligned with anything bigger than themselves or their friends and family. If the gods were to make war, Lawful beings would fight to protect civilization and mortal life, Neutral beings would fight to protect the world and the Dragon, and Chaotic beings would fight to eradicate all other things, but unaligned people would keep their heads down and hope that whoever survives the battle would just let them live their lives. Unaligned people tend to worship whatever gods or spiritual powers hold sway over the place they are in, whether that means singing hymns and passing around a collection plate at a lawful church once a week, or offering Cthulhu space in their dreams before a sea voyage.

Clerics: The very fact that they are not omnipresent is why the gods of Law and Chaos imbue representatives among the mortals, to go where they are not, see what they do not see, and act when they cannot act. The clerical orders of Lawful gods are set up not unlike a sort of feudal system, in which divine authority is delegated down through the ranks, along with the knowledge of magic necessary to fill the needs of a cleric's station. Adventuring clerics, then, are the knights-errant of this system, taking on more power and responsibility as their prove themselves. Many gods of Law emphasize that a cleric's fealty must be as much to the people as it is to their Lord, though others demand absolute, jealous loyalty to themselves. As to the gods of Chaos, they seldom form a hierarchy. Instead each Chaotic cleric is directly the servant of his god, granted power in exchange for the sacrifice of lives to feed their master's horrid appetite or quests undertaken to hasten their awakening. Chaotic clerics are encouraged to take all they can and keep for themselves what the gods do not demand for their own.

Druids: Holy people of Neutrality, known as druids, seek to exist in harmony with the Dragon. Druids are highly individual, though they afford wary respect to more powerful ones than themselves. Most druids are solitary, but not truly hermits, as they periodically enter settlements or tribal communities to attend to whatever matters they feel merit the visit. They view their magic not as a reward for service to the Dragon, nor a tool to do the Dragon's bidding, but merely the natural consequence of existing in harmony with it. Magic is an intuitive thing for druids, they just know it when they do it.

NEXT: Astral beings and those who serve them, Arcane Magic, and maybe Witchery

Why do I like ACKS?

I don't hate domain play, but it's not my focus by a long shot. And let's not kid ourselves ACKS's forte is in domain play. Its AC system is... decidedly wonky. I've gotten used to it, but it took some doing. I don't care at all about realistic simulation-- for god's sake my second favorite edition of D&D is 4e (and 3.5 remains my least favorite)!

So what is it? What draws me to ACKS?

Is it the little tweaks? Things like the system of cleaving present in it, or the mage's repertoire and magical research stuff, the hijinks, the d20-based thief skills, or the list of poisons in the GM chapter? Is it Domains of War (which I've only got the free version of), which makes for a fun, effective battle minigame with more for tactics than the BECMI War Machine?

Partly, yeah.

Is it the proficiencies system, which does one of the best jobs of scratching the itch for feats and skills that my WOTC days imbued in me?

That's definitely a factor.

But I think I know what the number one reason is.

It's the classes. I'm absolutely a class slut. The more the merrier, in my book. And ACKS, between itself and the Player's companion, contains pretty much all my favorites. It has my favorite OSR ranger, my favorite bard anywhere, and a solid assassin, and that's just in the core book. The only one missing is the Warlord, and between the proficiencies available to the fighter and Thomas Weigel's excellent Aristocrat class, I'm more than taken care of. And should the mood strike me for a class that isn't already around, the Player's Companion explained the Autarchs' math well enough that it's the work of half an hour to bring my new class into the world. Ultimately that's the biggest factor in my choice.

So I started to work my mojo, to counter their mojo; we got cross-mojulation, and their heads started exploding.

Okay so for those of you that don't know XCrawl... what the fuck, man.

It's this third-party D&D setting from about 10 years ago that is like a cross between regular D&D, pro wrestling, and the movie version of The Running Man. It's bizarre, the art is hideous, and it's about the funniest thing in the world. And a new edition for Pathfinder is coming out pretty soon. But I'm not here to shill that.

I'm here to talk about the one cool mechanic from it, one I don't mind including in my other games on a regular: The Mojo pool.

Basically the way it works is it represents the party's teamwork and exhortations bringing the best out in each other. At the start of the session everyone rolls 1d6 and add up the total, which can never be more than 12. At any time one player can grant another as big of a mojo bonus as she likes to any attack, save, or skill roll, with no limitation other than the amount presently in the pool. There's just one catch: You're not allowed to ask a fellow player for a mojo bonus, they have to offer it to you themselves. If you roll a natural 20 the mojo they offered is not subtracted from the pool, instead you add an extra point of it, but if you roll a natural 1, two extra points are deducted from the pool. Also, particularly well-coordinated groups of NPCs or monsters can also have their own mojo pools.

Has it been six months already?

It seems like twice a year or so I start getting the urge to tweak. Some idea on a blog, or a product I read, or something like that sets my brain to running, and I march off on some quixotic attempt to create the best of all possible D&D knockoffs until I come to my senses a month later amidst a pile of half-formed notes strewn among the bones of Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, or Basic Fantasy RPG.

It's an annoying habit, and yet I can't stop it.

Anyone else plagued by this particular imp of the perverse?

How I'd do Psionics

I'm not usually a big psionics fan, but once in a while they're fun to have around, I guess. I noticed that Telecanter is still looking for a simple psionics system and I figured I'd give it a shot. All this is probably badly in need of editing.

Developing Psionic Powers

If a character's mental ability scores (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) total at least 35, there is a chance that they were born with psychic abilities that set them apart. Subtract 35 from the sum of those three abilities and add it to the following values to get the percentile chance of having the relevant power.

ESP	Telepathy	Telekinesis
2%	2%	1%

Using psychic abilities is mentally exhausting, so you can only use your powers for a number of rounds per day equal to your level plus any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma bonuses. Except where otherwise noted, using psychic powers requires full concentration, much like casting a spell.

ESP

There are several different forms of extrasensory perception. Roll on the following chart once, then again a number of times equal to your WIS bonus, if any.

1d6	Power
1	Aura Sight
2	Clairvoyance/Clairaudience
3	Dowsing
4	Pyschometry
5	Precognition
6	Spirit Medium

Aura Sight: By concentrating, you can see the auras of living creatures. This allows you to Detect Evil, Detect Invisible, or tell if a creature is living or dead. It can also be used to get a general measure of a person's personality, though not reveal their alignment. These abilities function out to a range of about 20 feet.

Clairvoyance/Clairaudience: These, obviously, function much like the spells of the same name. Depending on GM preferences, you can use both, one or the other at a time, or only one.

Dowsing: Dowsing functions similarly to the clerical spell Locate Object. Its range only extends out to 30 feet.

Object Reading: By holding an object in your hands, you can learn about its past and present. Concentrating for one turn allows you to determine if the object is magical. Additional turns may be used to determine one magical property the item has per turn. In addition, object reading can be used to determine the name and face of the last person, other than yourself to touch the item (additional rounds will reveal additional previous users), or an emotionally strong memory attached to the item of no more than a minute in length.

Precognition: You can see a few moments into the future and accordingly are never taken by surprise. Additionally, you receive a +1 bonus to initiative and a +2 bonus to saving throws against unexpected dangers (such as a trap unknowingly sprung). Unlike other forms of ESP, these abilities are effectively always on. Additionally, by concentrating on a course of action, you can get a sense of the results of those actions, similar to the clerical spell Augury.

Spirit Medium: By concentrating, you can see ethereal creatures, or ask a single question of a departed spirit as if using the Speak with Dead spell, however if you know the name of the soul you wish to contact, you do not need the body.

Telepathy

Telepathy allows a character who has it to do two things: Detect thoughts or form a mental link.

Detecting Thoughts: This functions in all respects except duration as the ESP spell. While using it you must concentrate.

Mental contact: You can form a mental link with other creatures. This requires you to touch the creature you wish to form a link with. Once contact is established with a willing creature, you no longer need to concentrate to maintain it, but can only stay in contact for as long as you could otherwise concentrate. Mindless creatures such as zombies are immune to being mentally linked.

While two creatures are mentally linked, each knows anything the other knows, feels anything the other feels, and can communicate regardless of language barrier and without being heard. All characters in mental contact act on the same initiative (if they don't normally already in the rule set you use) and if even one is not surprised, none of them are.

Multiple willing telepathic characters can enter into rapport, taking turns being in control of the link so that it may last longer. You can maintain contact with a number of other creatures at the same time equal to your Charisma bonus plus one. All creatures in contact with you are in contact with each other as well. While in mental contact with an individual creature, you can attempt to plant a Suggestion as the spell of the same name into it. Doing so requires concentration and expends effort equal to an additional turn of maintaining the link.

Mental contact with an unwilling creature: An unwilling creature is entitled to a saving throw every round to try to break the intrusion into its mind. If the save is successful, the character attempting to force the link takes 1d4 damage from mental backlash. Forming a mental link with an unwilling creature is extremely hard. Each round you remain in mental contact with an unwilling creature requires concentration and takes as much effort as a turn of maintaining contact with a willing creature.

Telekinesis

Telekinesis always requires total concentration. You can move objects weighing no more than twice your Intelligence score in pounds ("light objects") at a rate of 20' with a normal amount of effort, or objects weighing up to ten times your Intelligence score in pounds ("heavy objects") at the same speed with enough effort that each round of movement costs as much as a turn of moving a light object. A light object can be hurled at an enemy for 1d4 points of damage (unless it is a weapon, in which case it can be hurled for whatever its damage is.) Telekinesis can even be used to levitate yourself or another creature if your telekinesis is strong enough. An unwilling creature, or a creature holding an object you intend to try to wrench away from them, is entitled to a save vs. spells to reassert control.


This is probably not entirely ready yet.

Would it ruin my old school cred...

If I said I just don't enjoy making dungeon mapping a fixture of the games I run?

My experience is that it tends to slow down play a bit more than I like because the player in charge of mapping wants to put everything on hold while she draws everything just to specifications?

There has to be a faster way short of just giving the players a copy of the dungeon map directly.

I realize nobody reads this blog, but if you are actually reading it I'd appreciate suggestions.

Off topic: In which I write a poem

OUTSIDE
The one thing I miss about
Being in school
(It just might be the only)
Was how
On Friday afternoons
In April and May,
I'd look out the window
Or be
Dismissed for the weekend,
And how the world
Seemed full of promise
Outside.

Suspension of disbelief

If anyone's even out there... what typical elements of your game of choice do you have a hard time buying into? Me, I'm a D&D girl, but... I just cannot into dungeons above a small "lair" size and population, unless they're so big as to be an environment unto themselves (like the Underdark). Those of us that have crossed paths with Mike Mornard have all heard the story of how he deflected the question of what the monsters in his dungeon eat by putting a McDonald's on the sixth level of it, but (as non-seriously as I normally take my gaming), even then I tend to fixate on how a handful of goblins are going to navigate through all the intervening hazards that presumably exist between his lair on the first level and Mickey D's on a regular basis. Feel free to describe setting elements (from any game) that stick in your craw, or try to disabuse me of my notions, or whatever.