SHADE AS A CLASS: Or Things To Do When You Are Dead

Not Dead...Yet...

Related to this very long ago post, but demonstrates why blogging is peak when its just half-scribbled notes to yourself. Maybe also related to skeleton as class. 

Basically, I was thinking of an OSR game where one wouldn't die, but maybe could become a shade when at 0 or negative HP. But what would a shade do? Then it hit me that perhaps the PC would then be made of a bunch of magic spells. Hear me out.

Shade As Class

"Shuffle off this mortal coil": The player character manifests in 1d4 turns beside their body. They are exactly the same; however, they now have gaseous form permanently cast on them. They make no noise and cannot be harmed by non-magical, non-silver weapons. If the PC is "killed" in shade form, they are taken to the Underworld. They can also be invisible at will.

"To be or not to be...": You can use the following abilities any number of times per day equal to your level +1:

• Ghostly Illumination (as Light), it only emanates from around you, and it is like moonlight
• Poltergastic Touch (as Unseen Servant)
• Haunting (as Ventriloquism)
• Visage of Death (as Cause Fear) or, if CHA is 13+, Alluring Presence (as Charm Person)

"Death waits for no man": However, if your character is higher than level 4, your soul is too valuable to not be gathered by Death immediately. And so your friends will have to journey to the Underworld to retrieve you.

Light of Law banishes you: You cannot manifest your presence in sunlight, nor enter a church.

I am thinking this gives the newly deceased some ability to still participate in the game, but does not allow them to become too overpowered by being untouchable. And avoid the desire to start body-jumping by not providing any sorta posession ability. Buuuut...

A likely OP possession ability: A target may make a save vs. Death to avoid you taking them over. You may then act as them for as many rounds as your level +1. Treat them as having half the stats as normal as you are so unfamiliar with the body.

MAGIC NEEDS MINI-PROBLEMS NOT MINI-GAMES: A Defense of Vancian Magic

Self-Portrait with Magic Scene by Pieter van Laer, 1635
Honestly, a really great painting- a meme before memes

With love, and in the style of the original post over at Among Cats and Books. And yes, yes insert the usual caveats for personal preference ect. ect. And if you're curious about my other thoughts on magic, check out my Practical Magic series.

Vancian Magic Is Based Because Magic Just Fucking Works

Dungeons and fucking dragons has Vancian magic and its been a joy and wonder in this game forever!

Not only have you this class-based restriction bullshit, so you are fucking special when you pull off shit no-one else can do, but every fucking spell is a standardized mechanic. You can just do! You're expected to just do it!

When you want to cast fucking fireball and blow the shit out of the lich's bullshit undead army- you just do it! "I cast fireball!" Boom! ~23 points of damage to however many boneheads you can cram in a 20' radius sphere 240 feet (!) away from you. A buddy that's a lot of undead dickheads.

That's right! Humans can fight or flee, but magic-users have an extra two "effs"-- fucking fireball. Oh wait, I guess I can also fly at the snap of my fingers! So three "effs". Amazing. Just like that. I want to fly- I can! I'm 2/3rds on my way to practically being a dragon- flying and spitting fireballs- which is in the title of this game and now I guess I know why! 

Just like Fern or Frieren, I shout "Zoltraak!" and light. a. dude. UP! Or just like in Final Fantasy, press "FIR3" and wooosh! Love it. Oh! In the last issues of Tower Dungeon, Lilicen absolutely blows the shit outa some leech thing. Gives me motivation to make it through 5 levels of d4 hit dice. That is an adventure and some bullshit!

I'll stop now. No one comes to this blog for that kind of energy- it's a young person's game.

Magic Doesn't Need Mini-Games, Magic Needs Mini-Problems

Turning magic into a mini-game is no different than trying to make lock-picking a mini-game via dice stacking or fighting a mini-game via Souls-like tactical rolling/combat. These sub-systems have always been proposed and rarely widely adopted. Just look at AD&D's spell rules, which did require a component use, but often ignored by a majority of players. But I think the big flaw here is not the specific system, but the solutions incorrectly identify where the boredom is. Its not in the "tool" or the mechanism of action/resolution; it's in the problems the tool is applied to.

I've been building terrain and painting miniatures recently. Using a hot glue gun is not interesting. Using a hot glue gun to build a ruined church out of cardboard and popsicle sticks IS interesting. Figuring out how to make things look like I want is the compelling piece- what I DO with a tool. Same with fireball or sleep; they are the means, not the end. And we shouldn't try to make them the end.

Players find it exciting to see the choices they make have impact and result in reward. Magic-Users especially, because their class power is a series of hacks and short cut. Playing an MU requires players to make a selection of spells at the beginning of a session, with limited slots, then maximize those spells when the opportunity arises during the adventure. When used creatively for maximum gain (i.e. treasure), a very joyful moment is created, even if that moment is a correctly anticipated threat. 

We need to write mini-problems in our adventures with magical solutions in mind. Using magic is boring when the choice is minimal, and the outcome is no different than a more mundane solution. It's boring to simply fireball a group of 5 skeletal guards in plate mail; it's far more exciting to fireball a group of 20 skeletal guards in plate mail. In the former situation, the fighter and cleric might easily defeat 5 enemies; in the latter case, destroying an overwhelming number of enemies is a highlight. But we can do better than simply dealing a lot of damage. 

A DM can use the existing spell lists to reverse engineer what sorta of problems an adventuring group might face in the underworld✤. Just consider what obstacles might be present that could be answered by the top triad of first-level spells light, charm person, and sleep✤✤. 

Floating disc seems worthless until you are hauling out a 400-pound gold idol to Moloch worth 4000xp at 1st level without having your dwarf and fighter carry it. Hold portal seems terrible until you can block an “offal” of 20 zombies with a door. Detect magic is underwhelming except when determining which clear pool is the magic one and which one is potentially acid. Invisibility is fun when, like Frodo, you are going to steal a piece of treasure from a sleeping dragon✤✤✤.

Daniel Gardner, 1775

A Ritual Or Component Should Be an Enhancement, Not A Requirement

Wolves on the Coast certainly demonstrates how ritual magic can be incorporated into an RPG, but a vast majority of players do not desire this setup. True, a DM could also set the magical problem to be more singular and climactic, but a player-desired hallmark of wizardry is also frequency of use. 

Players chafe at even Vancian magic because it is a limit. Just look at the evolution of the magic-user into 5e's warlock and sorcerer classes as examples. Designers seem to be attempting to create mechanical matches to more recent media that informs D&D. Or that some sorta spell point system or the GLOG's spell dice pool are attempts at allowing greater frequency of casting. Other broader examples include, most players even chafe at tracking encumbrance, light, arrows and other limiting factors to "the doing of adventure". In modern playstyles, bags of holding are given out quickly, darkvision is incorporated more broadly, and even a component pouch is just assumed.

It is often said that positive incentives are better ways to encourage behavior than negative ones. So instead of assigning negative bonus values to strength scores to encourage magic-users, a system should incorporate positive bonus values to intelligence scores instead. Or for encumbrance, instead of penalizing movement/actions for carrying too much, provide bonuses to movement/actions for carrying almost nothing at all.

So instead of components being required to cast a spell, let's collect them to enhance a spell a MU can already cast. This provides the "eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog" aspect of ritual magic and strongly incentivizes collection. As always for things like this, d4 Caltrops comes to our aid with a beautiful list of components derived from D&D monsters. This is not the first I've thought about this method of play before, and in my previous post about "dungeon cooking", I wanted to put a lot of the work on players.

But perhaps another way of going about it might be to assign a defined effect when a spell is powered by a related component. Here are the MU 1st level spells plus fireball:

Santiago Caruso

• Narcissus Flower: Charm Person- Everyone treats you as a friend, but if you catch your own reflection (2:6 around mirrors, pools of water) you will be wholly preoccupied for a week with it
• Caged Pixie: Detect Magic- Alters the spell to also detect secret doors, but 3:6 chance the captured pixie disolves in a puff of pink smoke
• Bound Sprite: Floating Disc- The disc is now be held in place but can be moved vertically; is dispelled if liquid is poured in; bound sprite dissolves in a puff of smoke at end of spell
• Withered Gecko Limb: Hold Portal- Attaching to the target portal will cause creatures of 3HD or more to open in 2 rounds of effort; more limbs does nothing; 4+ animates the door
• Fire Beetle Glands: Light (Reversible: Darkness)- Light becomes a soft ball that can be thrown, kicked, or swatted around for the duration of the spell; illumination as spell, range as spear
• Arrow That Has Slain: Magic Missile- A singular missile deals 2d4+1 dmg; component is destroyed; 3:6 to recover an intact arrow from a slain opponent
• Spell Cast on a Risen Skull: Protection from Evil- Holder of the skull becomes the target of the spell; profane; all non-chaotic PC holders take 1d6 dmg
• Elf Tongue: Read Languages- Target can speak unknown languages in a trance & can't remember what was said; can be purchased in goblin & ghoul markets
• Two Giant Spider Eyes Affixed with Silver Wire: Read Magic- Allows the casters to read magic from sun up to sun down; non-fire light, however brief, ends the effect
• Zombie Heart: Shield- Caster is protected against level drain from 3*HD or lower undead but takes 1d4 damage instead due to biting cold; profane, all non-chaotic PCs take 1d6 dmg; must be worn; consumed at end of spell; protect in lieu of normal description
• Crushed Midnight Moths: Sleep- Can affect 4+1 HD creatures, however, everyone but the caster must save vs Spell or fall asleep
• Small Statue: Ventriloquism- When placed in a room, all but the caster must save vs Spells or become nervous, wry and convinced the statue is possessed for the duration of spell
• Hellhound Liver: Fireball- Reroll all "1"s; MU takes 2 dmg for each re-rolled "1"

By assigning effects, there is already prealignment on what a component can do while still leaving a lot of choice to the player. Some tables are great at DM-PC negotiations, but sometimes it eats up too much time in a "mother-may-I-situation". Also the above components could be known in starting spellbooks, but also be something MUs have to research.

✤The problems might be free-form like these from Goblin Punch or these from All Dead Generations. 

✤✤ I also don't think this is a bad thing to do with a standard dungeon equipment list either.

✤✤✤ I think its also noteworthy that designing this way shows how even low-level players have access to cool solutions to very fantastical problems!

CRYPT CRIBS OF THE CORPSE CHILDREN: A Dungeon Patch (with a Geomorph)

 

A geomorph:10 X 10 for the win!

Geomorphs

Josh over at Rise Up Comus has been writing about dungeon nodes as “dungeon patches”, or small clusters of dungeon rooms that can be easily written and assembled to form a larger dungeon complex. Building on the idea of sewing patches into a larger dungeon level (/quilt) idea, I’d like to reintroduce the concept of the dungeon geomorph (see the one below). In fact, one of my favor megadungeons, Nightwick Abbey, is built using this same principle, but I think it was Dyson Logos who made them popular in the OSR around ~2009- it inspired Dave’s Mapper.

I like geomorphs because they keep everything in a condensed unit that has a high variety of connections, such that when you assemble them, interesting loops and paths emerge. They are helpful when you have ideas about an area of a dungeon but maybe not a clear idea of how it will connect to another area because you can easily “pick up and move” chunks of the dungeon like Lego bricks. You can also rotate them. And in terms of layout, each geomorph section itself conveniently fits on a page with its own key. Making them highly usable at the table and easy to trade with your friends!

CRYPT CRIBS of the CORPSE CHILDREN

Design Note: Its close to Halloween; I’ve never run vampires, and I wanted to have a theme that felt a little offbeat from where you’d normally find vampires. Also, I too was scarred by that baby from Trainspotting. I’ve generally keyed this one to BX/OSE standards: 2x monsters (one with treasure), 1x trap (+treasure), 2x empty (+treasure, hidden), 1x weird

Background: The Baron and Baroness wanted to give the most to their two children. Previous loss of children weighed heavily on their souls, and so they wanted to ensure no harm came to their newest ones. During the plague year, both parents fell ill with the fever, and in a fit of madness, the story goes, struck a deal with a mysterious entity from the forest. The entity promised to keep the children’s hearts safe and forever without harm. But this emptied the children of growth, empathy, compassion and…mercy.

1. The Gallery of a Tragedy (Empty): On the north wall between the two doors are four paintings that depict the family. The first shows a couple in stately morning. The second shows a pregnant woman, sharing an anxious look with the man to her left, yet her hand is out stretched to a kneeing game warden hands are outstretched from the bushes. The third shows two cribs in a nursery; charms against plague are hung about, prominent are a silver rocking horse and gold dragon. A dark figure with cat-like eyes is hunched at the very edge of the painting. The fourth depicts two twins center and looming large in perspective to everything around them, their parents are peering from a doorway centered between to larger wooden doors east and west (reference to the secret door in room #06). Several hounds are painted in a death-like repose.

2. Dining Room of the Heart (Weird): The room is humid; a metallic taste enters PC's mouths, they can feel their hearts beating in their chest more acutely, and it's bathed in a red light emanating from a family portrait on the west wall. In the center is a dining table the ideal height for children. Several seats are knocked over or contain a headless skeleton with it skull on the table.

✤ Hearts Beating: The PCs will feel their heart more in this room and after each action they take, their heart thumps louder and louder. The rug squelches with a red liquid.

3.  The Scolding Room: This bedroom is clean but covered in rust-colored mold. Along the wall are rows and rows of thin, reed rods, each labeled with a small slip of paper. A long chain lead and manacle is attached to the bed- a skeletal hand is in it.

✤ Fire is a "no":  If torches are brough into this room, the door will slam, and a voice shouts "no matches allowed! No matches allowed!" and the torch light or candle light be blown out.

4. Bedroom of the Nurse Hounds (Trap + Treasure): The room smells of wet dog. A cabinet, a tub, and a bed are the only features. A glint flashes under the bed, which looks as if it has been shredded and chewed on, as if an animal was trapped in here a long time ago.

✤ Glint: If someone or something is placed under the bed, a save vs Device/Trap must be made or take 3d4 dmg as spectral hounds bite the would-be-thief. Pressing on the mattress will reveal the feel of several hound skulls. Glint is a golden ball studded in sapphires (750 sp), carrying the ball (heavy, 2 slots) will provide a +1 save vs Poison

5. Grandmother Ghoul (Monster): A gaunt figure rocks in her chair and knits a cloak of human hair from a basket at her feet. On a large circular table is a pile of bones stripped clean and a pewter plater cover in strips of meat and skin. A large key dangles out from a rotten, bloody silk nightgown and cloak of blond hair.

✤ Gaunt Figure: As ghoul with 3HD*; can cast silence and sleep (both recharge on a 1:6 every 2 combat rounds). Hates noise for it will wake the babies. Will stalk the PCs if they run.

✤ Key: Opens the door to #06 

6. Crypt Crib (Monster + Treasure): Two stone sarcophagi shaped like cribs stand among a tattered playroom. One has a lid pushed aside. Also in the room is a silver-plated rocking horse, covered in blood, and a gold-plated rocking dragon with a corpse tied to it. A gold glint peaks from under the closed sarcophagus. All other toys are shattered and broken. The walls depict a 360-degree view of the town and lands that surround the manor, but covered in dried blood, viscera, and ash such that it seems as if the town is burning down; the church appears to be the only untouched building (seam of a secret door to #03 is found there)

✤ Two stone sarcophagi: Corpse Children as vampires of 4HD* (but turn at 7HD). Approaching the sarcophagus will cause the children, Hart and Valentine, to attack by suprise. Hart will leap out of the close sarcophagus. Valentine will drop from the ceiling the next round of combat. Each wears a diadam of set with a polished bezoar carved as a coiled snake (advantage of poison saves).

⭐︎ Corpse Children Hart & Valentine: If fed fresh victims, they can teach a chaotic wizard how to summon a familiar and once that is done, summon a minor demon. Requires fresh for each instance. Do want their hearts back, but can’t leave the nursery as long as "granny" is around (nothing is actually keeping them there other than habit)

✤ Silver rocking horse, gold rocking dragon: Each of these items is plated with the previous metal, but worth 750 sp each if carried out. Encumbers 1 person.

✤ Gold Glint: A Gold ball: Worth 900 sp, heavy and takes up 2 slots. If cleaned by holy water, it is enchanted with protection from evil that will only activate for the lawfully aligned when held.

7. Playroom of Snares (Trap): The room is under continual darkness and the floor is littered with toys, bones, and other shredded bedding, sheets, and pillows. Traversing the room risks a 3-in-6 chance of springing one of the many bear traps under the pile of toys (save vs device or take 1d8 dmg and be held until an open doors check is made)

✤ Bear Traps: Open doors check needed to pry open, but attatched to cow-bells that will ring when triggers and messed with (roll an encounter check each time)