MythicGME and a Five Room Dungeon Adventure

For awhile now, i've been mulling over how to use MythicGME for a scene based dungeon adventure. The idea was in part inspired by marketing tactics of several games that claim a new school approach with an old school feel. 

In my mind, new school means, at least in part, scenes, not the gritty details of exploration (and probably a lack of resource management as a game mechanism), and the supremacy of the narrative over individual desires e.g. being willing to do something with your character that is to their detriment, but makes the story that much cooler. 

For some time, I could not wrap my head around how to do this with a dungeon crawl. 

I have no doubt it's because I really enjoy crawls, dungeon or otherwise (stating the obvious to regular readers of my blatherings). Why would you NOT want to encounter empty rooms, map your progress and track how many torches you have left?

But, at the same time, it seemed like a scene based dungeon could be fun - a different kind of narrative, especially given the nature of MythicGME.  This would not be a replacement to my usual approach, per The Ever Expanding Dungeon, but rather, something more likely for one-offs.

Still, I could not figure out how I would approach it. For one, I had to let go of the idea that it'd be a crawl in any traditional sense and accept that the map would probably abstract if one existed at all, and the overall approach more cinematic. 

And then, the other day it hit me, borrow the 5-Room Dungeon structure, using MythicGME to fill in the details. Like the 9Q's from SoloNexus, the 5-Room Dungeon provides a structure upon which you can hang ideas that result from randomizers, like Rory's Storycubes or the Subject and Action lists in Mythic.

Excited, I sat down to play on Monday night; I quickly learned that there's a caveat when using MythicGME. 

Mythic being Mythic means that it's possible, like my first attempt, that you can  setup a scene but it might not happen that way (you roll to check to see if there's an interrupt or an altered scene). As you'll see when I post that effort, this completely undermined my intent, although I enjoyed the end results none the less.

If anything, it shows how with Mythic, you can't even railroad yourself!

The mistake I think I made is that my first scene was not yet inside the dungeon. So, I followed that up with a slightly modified approach where I put the party into the dungeon in the first scene. The results were much more in line with what I thought would happen, at least in terms of the structure of the session - content, as always, was news to me based on my interaction with the randomizers.. 

I'll post the session summary of the first attempt tomorrow, as it's basically written, and follow with the 2nd attempt soon after.

2013 Goal: Run a Dungeon Crawl for my Local Meetup Group

One of my goals for 2013 is to run a game for my local RPG meetup group. While I have met some people in the group, it's a large group and there's no telling who would come out for an old school dungeon crawl.

Time is running out and I need to get a jump on this.

After some arm twisting, my regular players and some additional friends agreed to "play test" a couple of dungeons to help me pick the most enjoyable one. If I'm going to go out and run a game for strangers, I'd like the adventure to be interesting enough to give the players something to work with.

We started last night and didn't even get inside (they opted to go in via the roof rather than the front door, but that led to some hilarious complications), but already I have learned a few things:

It's best to use pre-gens or have players create their characters before the game session. We lost over an hour and that's even with my menus of equipment packages that were intended to speed up that part. 

I want to use physical representations of resources - torches, oil flasks, arrows, etc. Maybe glass beads or pennies or some other token, to give the player a real world representation of their diminishing resources.

Spells, per one of my players suggestions, should be printed out on an index card that the player turns in when its cast. Again, resource representation.

Another player suggestion, make the character sheets modular. The idea is to have the basic equipment lists on index cards, character stats on another, weapons and armor on another, special skills (thieves, turning for clerics), saving throws another (create several for each class in case mulitple players play same class). They could be laid out in a rectangle on the table in front of the player, like an ordinary character sheet.

Since it's a 1 shot, all PCs have the same chance to hit, make that a hard-coded piece of the character sheet.

***

I'm really trying to step up my game after DragonCon - just going all in. I'm excited about the next session and seeing how they'll approach the dungeon.

In addition to determining which crawl I'll run for the meetup group, I'm on a mission to show my regular players that a dungeon crawl is neither necessarily hack-and-slash or a railroad. Already, I have dispelled some of the players' misgivings about dungeon crawls, just by letting them go in through the roof.

DragonCon 2013: The Games I Played

My DragonCon began Friday morning with a train ride into Peachtree Center station and a walk up the longest stairwell I've ever seen in person. That was followed by a race-walk to the Hilton, which is where the gaming is located.

Game 1: Old School D & D.

The first game I played in was billed as Old School D&D although the exact version wasn't clear from the description. As it would turn out, it was a mash up. Quite a mash up.

The DM was new to b/x and to running a game at a con. His biggest flaw was his refusal to say "no" when someone walked in wanting to play. The result: 18 people. 

It was like a small army going into the dungeon. It was also the first time I have ever played in a group that legitimately needed a caller or two.

Needless to say, he wasn't prepared with characters for that many people I'm not sure how long character generation took, but it was awhile. It seemed like every time he thought he was finished, someone else would walk in.

Mistake number 2 was not really explaining b/x and how it was different than 3.x and 4e which, it seemed to me, was most everyone's starting point, save a handful of us.  Before you could blink, there was a drow magic user, an elven thief, a barbarian? (i think someone mentioned they wanted to play paladin or ranger or some such). And then he rolled out the battle mat.

He made an attempt to explain that it wasn't about where your miniature was on the map, but that's a foreign idea to a lot of people with 3.5 and 4e backgrounds and it became inevitable that we were playing just that kind of game. The minis, on the other hand, were classics from the 70s and 80s and that was pretty cool.

Other things that didn't sit well with me: Clerics had unlimited casting (he referred to the cleric more than once as "the healer" which, to me, is a modern take on the class and not a b/x take on it), magic users got unlimited casting of their one spell as well, and death was at -10 or -CON (i can't recall).  To my mind, the unlimited casting broke the game.

18 people in the Caves of Chaos and not one death. Or a wandering monster for that matter.

The DM did an admirable job wrangling 18 people (combat took forever), and I had a great time despite my criticisms - he was funny as were many of the other players and I laughed a lot (how could you not when you play a game that included "Spit on the dwarf" as a solution to a problem). I even liked my character, a thief  I named Bumble the Bouncer (T:1).  i bought a 10' pole and was tapping around for pit traps constantly, until i went blind and then it was for navigation. But, it just wasn't what I thought I was signing up for; i felt like the love of my gaming life was tremendously short changed. 

Game 2: Malifaux Demo

They were running a number of miniature game demos in the basement of the Hilton throughout the con. I got pretty excited when I saw Malifaux in the program, as I've mentioned here before.

I got to squeeze in a game Saturday morning before a panel I was looking forward to.

The game, for those that don't know, is based around a range of miniatures and as such, is not something you'd pick up to use with other manufacturers' products. There are several factions, but unlike many games, the requirements for a faction are fairly small - literally a handful of figures suffices for play.

You also need the rules (2nd ed is due out in September or October, I forget) and a Malifaux Fate Deck - you could use ordinary cards, but the decks are available for under $5 online.

I had done some reading about the system and one thing it's not typically used for is fights to the death where one figure remains at the end. Typically, scenarios are built around multiple objectives. But for demo purposes, a no quarter given fight is probably the easiest thing.

The guy running the demo was not totally familiar with the 2nd edition changes, but he was just filling in for someone who couldn't make it, and he did a good job explaining everything else, that it really didn't matter.

The fact that the game uses cards not dice made it all the more appealing to me, given my penchant for card based systems. The low investment in miniatures is nice too - a starter box is pretty much all you need to get playing. Have I mentioned that the miniatures are beautiful?

While the rule book isn't cheap, it's not outrageously priced either.   

So, I took the plunge and ordered two factions and 2 decks on Sunday night when I got home from the con. This and Flame of War will give me two social miniatures games to play.

I'll wait to order the rules since they're pre-order right now. In the meantime, I can paint up the factions.

Game 3: Games on Demand - Fate: Accelerated

This group was just 5 people plus the GM so already a better set up. We had a choice of 4 different indie systems and Fate: Accelerated was the winner at our table.

I had tried to read the Fate Core rules in the past with little luck but playing it this way, it made so much more sense. 

The setup was that we were mixed lot hired to recover a downed airship. I played a goblin pirate and failed mutineer. Other party members included an elven thief with huge debt, an itinerant human priest, a human wizard's apprentice with a penchant for pyromania, and an orc mercenary that took his contracts seriously. Very seriously.

I'm not even going to try to explain how the game is played but I'll note that, combat is slick in that it's just one opposed roll basically (although we had almost no combat). The game is about story telling first and foremost. You can define any kind of character you could possibly want. Advantages and stunts are pretty cool and I found myself trying to play the character as circumscribed by these items on the character sheet, in order to bring those things into the game. Rather than feeling game-y, it felt like they encouraged characterization.

It also seemed more collaborative than I usually experience as well, but I don't know yet if that was the GM or the rules. I'll know soon enough - I bought the rules and 4 sets of FUDGE dice (which Fate uses), I liked it that much.

Game 4: Portal Beneath the Stars - Dungeon Crawl Classics

This was my final game of the con and it was my favorite. 

Portal Beneath the Stars is a Dungeon Crawl Classics 0-level funnel. I've only played DCC once before (Sailors on a Starless Sea), but I love the funnel concept and couldn't wait for this. I only wish I had signed up to play some of the GM's other sessions!

Our GM, Brandon (SavageGM on Twitter) was full of energy and enthusiasm for the game. He knew the rules and the adventure like they were his own, rolled dice in the open and spent as much time standing up and pointing out where features would be using the room we were in, where statues were and how they were posed, and acting out various bits, as he did seated behind his screen. 

Even though I was exhausted, not once did my attention wander. It couldn't - he was riveting.

He was also totally inspiring - I wanted to go home and run a game right away (Sadly, that didn't happen).

This was what playing a game at a con should be - it should pump you up so that you go back to your home group fired up to play, and give you new ideas to improve your own GMing or new story ideas or just renewed enthusiasm.

****
Gaming at DragonCon was better than I could have imagined. It was such a downer to realize on Sunday night that I wouldn't be going back downtown to play another game.

I can't wait for next year! 

With some better planning, I can probably squeeze in another game or two, or maybe, I'll run Labyrinth Lord or b/x and try to convey my excitement for the game to others.

DragonCon 2013! The Loot Post

DragonCon was AWESOME!

I had a fantastic time playing games and people watching. 

Unlike the first time I went in 2010, this time, I made it home before midnight each night and got actual sleep. Also, unlike that 1st time, I did the convention my way.

In 3 days, I played 3 RPG sessions and a demo of Malifaux and went to two gaming panels. The games and panels will get their own write-up in a separate post as I want to give them their due.

In addition to the game playing and people watching, subsisting on almonds and energy drinks, and climbing the Peachtree Center stairs of DOOOOMMMM! more times than I'd ever want to, I also shopped.

A lot.

Here's my haul:

I got my mustache!

Purely for reference - and maybe a really detailed skirmish game.

Lot's of maps and rumors and such.

I have always loved the look of  TWERPS. I'll probably never play it. Lou Zocchi  himself gave me an incredible sales pitch for the module.  I couldn't say no!

More on this in the game post.

These books and gm screens, plus the TMNT rules I already had, bring me that much closer to a complete Palladium mutant collection
 

Most of the RPGs were at awesome discounts (except Fate: Accelerated ,but that's just $5 new anyway, and the TWERPS games) - even the used copies were less than the sticker (most were purchased at 30% - 50% off).

Next up, I'll post my thoughts on the games I played.

Let slip the Flames of War

OK.

Once again, my human failings rise to the fore. I know I said I would not expand my 15mm collection, but, well, I have.

Hear me out  though.

It occurred to me recently that I need to get out more than I do - I've been here 3+ years and know very few people in the area, considering. 

I thought it'd be nice to meet some new folks and play some games while I'm at it. I do this with RPGs to some extent, but there are only infrequent one-shots of interest to me (I can't commit to a campaign). However, there are miniatures games with weekly meetups, just drop in.

So, after surveying the local gaming scene, I came to the conclusion that of the miniature games that are out there and getting frequent play, only one really captures my interest, Flames of War. 

(Malifaux does too, but it's not terribly popular here at the moment, although it was in the past. Perhaps the soon to be released 2nd edition rules will bring players back.)

I know, I know. 

A lot of people seem to have an axe to grind with Battlefront. I don't - although I don't like the recent change to "Battlefront-only minis for official Battlefront tournaments," it's not hard to understand why they would do it.

But you don't have to use Battlefront minis. Unlike, say, 40K or Warmachine, you can get 15mm WWII minis from many sources, and you can still play the game. It's only if you want to play in a Battlefront sponsored event that it matters.

New books don't make old ones obsolete as far as army lists go - at least as I understand it.

Thus, I do not at all see Battlefront in the same light that I see GW. 

So it was that with much research and contemplation, I decided to invest in the Open Fire! starter box, picked up on ebay at a decent price.

The box contains a boat load of stuff - including a pile of 15mm plastic minis and, most importantly, a mini version of the rulebook (I didn't want to sink the money into the big hardcover upfront) and the other kit included in the box looks like I can use it generically. 

Not to mention that the British tanks included can form the basis of a late war Polish tank company, provided I like the game enough to invest additional money into it.

Worst case, I don't like it, and I have 2 15mm forces to use with the other WWII sets I play.

The box is due to arrive on Thursday, just before the start of Dragon Con weekend. I will probably through the rule book in my bag to read during any "down time" I have.

Great Northern War Phase 2: Swedish Infantry

On Friday, a copy of Terry Wise's Introduction to Battle Gaming arrived. It took about 30 seconds of skimming through and glancing at the pictures to become inspired, especially by his focus on 20mm plastics.

So, with that bit of momentum to carry me into Saturday evening and today, I started getting my Zvezda Swedes ready for painting.

The figures are very clean and despite my hack job freeing them from their sprues, they needed little other than a clean up of the bases, from my perspective. 

Others may want to go around looking for mold lines and such. I have done that, but usually at great peril to the figures - not to mention it's time consuming, mind numbing and completely deflates any bubble of enthusiasm I may have for the entire painting task.

This time, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

And here they arrayed for priming:

 

 This represents two boxes of figures, 43 per box. 

Notice the paltry number of pikes - odd, considering Zvezda is a Russian company, and they should know better. Of course, their Russian set suffered the same disproportion. 

They also inexplicably give you nine of the marching pose per box. Most everything else is in 6s, which works great for my 12 figure units. Nine, not so much.

Combining the pikes with the marching pose, however, does give me two 12 figure units, with 25% pikes per unit. That works for me, although the remainder of the unit will be pike free for the time being.

Unlike the Russians, who still need their officers and standards painted, I'll be priming these by hand and painting them in small batches and including the officers early on. I intend to mix cavalry and artillery for both sides in between the completion of every 2 units, with the intent of being able to field very small engagements, with 1/2 size units (6 figures) using some variation of Bob Cordery's various grid-based rules, or using as 1:1 for various skirmish rules for 18th century.

Less than 1 Week Until DragonCon!

DragonCon is, as the subject says, less than 1 week away. It's "the largest multi-media, pop-culture convention focusing on science-fiction & fantasy, gaming, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!"

Hyperbole or not, it's a sight to see.

The first time I went was in 2010. I had no idea what to expect - so many people. And so so so many in costumes (or in some cases, not much at all. After dark the convention becomes, depending on your family, somewhat family unfriendly ).

It was OK.  

Like I said, I didn't know what to expect and consequently found myself blown about by the whims of the people I was with. Had I really known what I could do there, I'd have done it differently. I would have been better prepared.

I did manage to get to 3 or 4 panels - including one on your rights when the police come knocking at  your door and one on Chinese zombies or something  (seriously, something for everyone here), and saw a few musical acts (Voltaire and The Crux Shadows, two acts I'd seen before, the latter many times, when I lived in Philly).

This year, my 2nd time going, and I know way more about it thanks to that first visit.  I intend to do what I want to do - which is attend gaming and writing panels and playing games, as many as I can squeeze in.

For a convention that's not gaming specific, there's a decent offering of games and systems: Here's the gaming program.

So far I'm officially signed up for:

• An old school D&D session
• A Dungeon Crawl Classics session 
• Games on Demand session

I'm contemplating signing up for something else, but we'll see. My parents are coming to town to take care of Young Lord Shadowmoss, but I don't like the idea of saddling them with bath time and putting him to bed more than 1 night.

One game I really wanted to play is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, but one session conflicts with the OD&D game and the other is Monday morning, which puts me at the mercy of Young Lord Shadowmoss's mother getting up before noon after hitting the Sunday night parties, since my parents leave early Monday. I have owned this game since it came out and I have never done more than roll up characters.

I plan to get in on a demo of Malifaux on Saturday or Sunday morning. I like the looks of the minis, you only need a handful and it's a game I could play with others if the urge were to strike me.

Event wise, I'm looking forward to the docent tour of the machine guns in the Armory, a campaign management session, another on world-building and a puppets on a budget session (I love me some puppets).

I don't cosplay (I won't say never. Although I've adamantly said   just that in the past. This morning I seriously contemplated putting together a Return of the Jedi Biker Scout suit for next year), so it makes prepping for the convention considerably simpler - and as I live not far from a MARTA station, I'll take the train each day, rather than driving and dealing with traffic and the parking madness near the convention hotels.

In the vendor hall, there are a few things I want to pick up, but this is first among them: 

That's a moustache monocle for those keeping score, available from Geek Chic.

WWII PTO : Defend Against a Raid

Watching Ken Burns's The War has been giving me the itch to play more wargames and I had some time Friday night, so I grabbed my old cloth, threw it over the table and then randomly generated the terrain using the rules from War Against Japan.

For the actual game I used Disposable Heroes & Coffin for Seven Brothers, but I've been thinking part of the problem with any platoon sized game at 1:1 is moving the figures can take up precious game time. 

The obvious answer was multi-figure bases. So I used some cheap DIY movement "trays" (craft foam glued to cereal box) with 2 figures to a base. 

Voila, 1/2 as much to move!

For my force, I decided to use the Early War Marines (as detailed in Red Sun, Red Death) - treating the game as taking place in '42.

The scenario I rolled was Defend Against a Raid and was generated using Platoon Forward. The Japanese were on the attack and my Marines were dug in and defending an observation post. Only 1 squad would be on the board with a 2nd squad available as reinforcements.

The Japanese were to capture a prisoner. Odd, I though, given the "no quarter given" nature of the Pacific, but, OK. 

Tactical decisions for the Japanese were handled by Platoon Forward's "All Knowing Odds Table" which is like a simpler version of Mythic GME using just 1d10 and no Chaos factor.

Since I use a card activation instead of the rules-as-written initiative for DHC7B, as suggested by Platoon Forward I added an event card (when drawn, roll a d6, 6=event, then roll on appropriate tables in Platoon Forward).

The setup:

My squad set up on the hill, per the scenario description. 

My BAR team is top most, sarge and the rifle team is in the foreground. 

The Japanese started out represented by four Type A blinds (infantry) and 1 Type B (support weapons). They would not be revealed until they shot,  even if they moved  into the open.

The Game:

There wasn't much (any) movement on my part, save for being forced to Fall Back and then advancing to the original position. 

During turn 1, four A blinds were revealed, two were nothing, one was an LMG team, and one was this:

an entire squad plus their platoon commander.

In Turn 2, the B blind turned out to be an HMG team and the Japanese began their attempted assault on my position.

[here the pictures stop. They were breaking my flow and I was really getting into the game]

The LMG and HMG did a number on my squad but we still managed to force the Japanese to fall back.

Multiple times I contemplated getting my squad off the table and conceding the game to the Japanese, especially since my reinforcements seemed to be AWOL.

But the dice gods decided to grant me some favor and, suddenly, I was cutting down the Japanese, nearly entirely eliminating that once imposing full squad. 

So each turn, I'd tell myself, "just one more and then we'll fall back if the reinforcements don't show."  I wanted my men to put up a good fight, but I didn't want to see them massacred. Even if this wasn't a campaign game, I didn't want to lead them total destruction.

But I got greedy. I wanted to win, not just escape.

Their HMG and LMG managed to eliminate Sarge and the rifle team and then, to my surprise, the LMG team decided to advance, with the HMG providing covering fire and pins.

Activation went their way for several turns in a row and the Japanese charged into close combat, at which point it was clear that the dice gods had decided to abandon me.

Outnumbered 4 to 3 (the bar team suffered a wound back in Turn 1), I thought I had a chance still. Especially when, after the Japanese finished their portion of the round of melee, I only suffered 1 loss. My attacks missed their mark entirely though, and on the Japanese 2nd attempt, they scored 3 wounds. 

I counted this as taking 3 prisoners. It took 9 turns, but they achieved their objective and won the game and I spent the rest of the evening replaying the game in my head.

I should have gotten those boys out of there. I should have learned the rules for artillery fire and taken advantage of the fact that the odds were high that i'd have arty support. 

But I was lazy, and then I got caught up in the thrill of combat, and those boys paid for it.

Wherein I Ramble About Recharging

Pumpkin being Pumpkin.

In between bouts of work (2 jobs) and child care, I've been trying to recharge my creative battery.

I recently read a zine called "How to Be Creative More Often: even if you have a job, responsibilities, & need more than three hours of sleep each night." (Kind of  wordy, but you can't deny that it is descriptive). One suggestion the writer gives is to have "feeding periods" where you try to fill yourself up with inspiration: movies, art, books, etc. I'm not sure what, or if any, scientific data backs up this suggestion, but it sounded right to me.

So that's what I've mostly been doing. 

I recently finished reading The Castle of Iron by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt and loved it. One book is not enough to judge either author, but I enjoyed it far more than Jack Vance's The Gray Prince, which I had read prior.  Magic and science co-exist in parallel universes, logic and literary verses are the keys, and oh yeah, they have somatic components to the spells.

Currently reading The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs (originally titled "The Eternal Lover"). I should have gathered from the original title more of the plot of this book than I got from the newer title. 

Burroughs is my guilty pleasure. I don't think he's the greatest writer, but for whatever reason I enjoy reading his books. The premise of this one seems exceptionally dubious the more the plot unfolds. Still, I'll keep reading it as I'm curious as to how he'll attempt to explain it all.

I've been re-watching Ken Burns's WWII documentary, The War, on my Kindle - it's free to Amazon Prime subscribers - during my workouts and here and there. I've seen it in its entirety once prior, when it aired originally and find it riveting, tragic and inspiring.

For my much ballyhooed feudal Japan social campaign, i added a tons of free movies  to my queue, including When the Last Sword is Drawn,which was fantastic. The campaign is likely to have a high level of fantasy, but the drama here was so gripping - a samurai caught between clan, family and duty. What more could you want?

Demons and magic, of course.

I imagine the game will probably be more like Moyeo Ken (anime). Watched one episode so far and thought it was pretty terrible, but I admit there were some cool ideas. 

Some plastic did make it to the table the other day for a DHC7B game - my umpteenth play through of the first scenario in the Nuts!2.0 rulebook. The dice were hot and it played fast, with mt US half squad taking out the Germans rather handily.

Finally, this battery charging thing has paid off in that ive got an idea for a 9Qs adventure for The Ever Expanding Dungeon, as well as some  ideas that will end up here or in the next issue of 6 Iron Spikes & a Small Hammer.

And looking ahead, at the end of the month, it's Dragon*Con. It's no GenCon but it wil have to do. I'm signed up to play OD&D and DCC and  I'm pretty excited about it.

Russian Tank Escort with Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers

Citizen, behold a squad of our mighty soldiers escorting a fine example of Soviet modern engineering and made by your own Proletariat hands.

Small dice indicate possible enemy forces to be drawn from a card deck. Mythic would determine whether or not an enemy force revealed itself on any given turn.

See how your brave comrades advance fearlessly despite the threat of the nefarious Barbarians of Fascism!

Even under fire from the German machine guns, the brave children of Mother Russia hold firm and deliver a devastating volley.

Like rot in the grain stores, the Nazi-snake takes much effort to flush out! But the effort was made with the greatest sacrifice of our Defenders of the Motherland!

Anti-tank fire erupts to the North, machine gun fire to the South East

The Germans have no anti-tank weapons left, and are unable to close with the well armored Soviet workhorse.

*****

Rules used: Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers (with card draw activation)

Forces:

Russia - 1 T-34, 1 Rifle Squad (2 sections, one of Sergeant + 5 Privates, and 1 LMG section with Corporal, gunner and Private with Rifle).

German - A deck of 10 cards was set up, 3 of which were blank. The remainder varied from LMG team, panzerfaust team, up to a rifle section.

Scenario objective:  Russians (me) - Escort the tank off the opposite corner. Germans - stop them.

Although the Russian T-34 made it off the table, they lost 9 men to the German 6. So, a victory but another Pyrrhic one at that.

This was primarily to test the feasibility of using a single squad with DHC7B. I found it worked much better than I thought. The idea came about as I considered experimenting with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for WWII.

ki-ken-tai-ichi.

I'm sure some of you at least are familiar with the meme, "First World Problems." That's what this is: I can't decide on a system to use for a Mythic/Feudal Japan RPG. 

As mentioned previously, it will be a social game, not one of my many solo ventures.

And, as such, I'm trying to narrow down my list to just a few choices to present to the players. It will help too, when they let me know what kind of game they want to have (historical, mythic, anime, just a skin with standard fantasy tropes, etc.)

For setting/campaign fluff I have acquired and plan on using one or more of:

• GURPS Japan - lends itself to GURPS but also easily converts to d20 and Savage Worlds.
• Bushido - not sure if there is any simple conversion but system is complete.
• Sengoku - looks like it could convert to d20, which means GURPS and Savage Worlds too.
• Land of the Samurai - RuneQuest but again, looks easy to convert stats.
• Legends of the Samurai - d20 but stats are easily converted. Comes complete with classes, magic, skills, etc.

But for the actual game mechanics, I have an embarrassment of riches.

Contenders, in no particular order:

• Bushido (not as complicated as I feared, but not one I could easily teach someone without a lot of learning on my part)
• GURPS Lite - stripped down GURPS, perfectly usable.
• Microlite20 (stripped down d20)
• Microlite20 OSS (stripped down d20 w/o skills)
• Yamato M20 (stripped down d20, some legwork done for classes and spells for setting)
• Basic Roleplaying Quickstart Rules 
• Serious Risus - I'm not a huge fan of counting successes, but then I do it for Two Hour Wargames, so maybe I should just be quiet.
• Savage Worlds - I've never played this, but I have read the quick start rules, and just ordered the Deluxe Explorer's Edition. If anything, it will give me a system I can use with lot of prepared settings for whatever mood/genre strikes, and it's supposedly a pretty good tactical miniatures game too.
• Labyrinth Lord
• Ruins & Ronin (Swords & Wizardry Whitebox, w/classes appropriate to medieval Japan)

(Why no USR? Because I'm using that for my current social game and because none of the settings books mentioned above would convert as easily as most of the other systems and I'm trying to make this easy on myself.)

Ruins & Ronin is really just a re-skinning of S & W Whitebox, and so I figure I can do the same thing with LL (in fact, several such attempts are available over on DrivethruRpg.) For the most part, it seems to me relatively easy to convert d20 stats to LL.

My concern about going that route is that the mechanics are so familiar that I wonder if I won't end up making it feel like a bog standard fantasy in gusoku. On the other hand, the mechanics are so familiar to me that they won't get in my way.

Microlite20 OSS would be a close second - even though I've never played the rules before, it's an "old school" flavored stripped down d20 without the pesky skills. And my players definitely have a preference for ascending AC. This could potentially make converstion that much easier (not that converting descending to ascending AC is difficult.

All the rest have skills or something similar, and there lies my hangup.

My experience with skills is primarily 1 game of Pathfinder and sessions of Call of Cthulhu, and in both games, I observed players looking to their sheets to tell them what they could do, rather than narrating it and letting the GM decide if they needed to do a skill check of some sort.

Strangely, I see many defenses of Basic Roleplaying noting that it gets out of the way and makes the narrative the most important thing. I'm not sure how that's the case, but I'm willing to concede that it may well be true.

Suggestions appreciated!

The Ever Expanding Dungeon: Sessions 21 and 22

"Zombies!"

Dleggit's shout came over the squeaking of the flood of giant rats plowing through the room. Movement became incredibly difficult. And of course, Sister Linkat, the best possible party member to face off against an undead horde, was clear on the opposite side of the room.  Perceval and Manchiver, who had gone to check out the door in the north wall, found themselves cut off from providing any assistance to Dleggit

[How far are the zombies? about 20 feet away

Do the rats attack the party? Chaos 4, 50/50. 54, No

roll d6, no but they will hinder movement until they get out. for 2 rounds party must save vs turn to stone to move, and then dex to avoid falling ]

The rats, as it turned out were not interested in attacking, only running through, ostensibly to get away from the shambling corpses behind them.

Still, the mule was frightened by the moving knee-high carpet of fur and kicked and reared, its reign ripping from Waldu's grasp.

[Does Waldu drop the torch? 50/50, 51, no]

Initially this would turn out to be a boon, as the mule tried to stomp and bite at the squeaking mass. It was unsuccessful and perhaps fueled on by this failing, turned on Waldu as he tried to regain control of the animal. Fortunately the damage was minimal (1 HP. But, at 4 HP, 1 HP is kind of scary none the less).

[Perceval save vs stone: 14, rolls 4  he's unable to even find a way through the rat pack

Sister linkat: 14, rolls 18, she makes her wy into the living carpet Dex is FOUR, rolls a SIX she trips and crashes to the ground

Manchiver -needs 13+, rolls 6, he's unable to wade into the rates

Waldu - to grab the mule's reins he'll have to hit an AC of 5(mule is 7, but the rein is moving too) - needs a 15 or highr, rolls 19. Waldu proves his worth and grabs ahold of the rein and works to calm the mule down]

Sister Linkat, in her efforts to cross against the current, lost her footing and ended up on the floor, rats running over her for the door she had been guarding.

[The rats are intent on getting out, but linkat is down, do they attack her? unlikely 77, no]

Again the mule broke free from Waldu, but with luck and force of will he again, and more firmly, took control.

"Confounded dang blasted no good beast of burden" 

The shouting from Waldu echoed down teh halls.

[Wandering monster: 4 phew]

Perceval was finally able to make it to Deleggit's side, where they slugged it out with the first rank of zombies. But, it was Sister Linkat, once she had hauled herself to her feet, who turned back the bulk of the horde by her faith in the Hedonistic Lumberjack. The remainder were quickly dispatched with hammer, mace and sword.

With the threat neutralized, Sister Linkat cast Cure Light Wounds on Waldu. As both a villager and his employer she believed she had more than reason to use the spell on him.

As expected, she wanted to pursue the undead. She continues to be concerned by the growing number of encounters with them and the meaning that might have for the village.

Perceval agreed, and the remainder of the party saw no need to argue. 

A short time later, she was forced to use the remaining two Cure Light Wounds on Dleggit who had suffered damage at the hands of the zombies, and then fell down a 20' pit trap. 

The party debated continuing - their healing resources were used up, but figured another room or two wouldn't hurt.

After triggering a scythe trap when a door was opened, the party was momentarily overcome with some relief when the room was empty save for 3 stone chests. Dleggit used his natural given Dwarven abilities to try and check for traps. With no traps found, Perceval pried the lid off the first stone chest.

And was promptly struck by a poisoned needle fired from the ceiling. He died immediately. For a cache of 600 sp.

The party took a serious blow to their morale. 

They loaded Perceval's body and the lousy 600 silver he died for onto the mule and prepared to exit the dungeon to make their way back to town. As a native son, the townsfolk would want to say their goodbyes

For the party, their anger was made worse in that there is no one to extract revenge upon; it was the work of the dungeon itself.

Somberly, they made their way out of the dungeon and back to town.

****

Perceval was the sole surviving member of the original expedition into The Ever Expanding Dungeon. He started as a simple 0-level porter but soon found himself embroiled in combat (and the rules are quite clear that once XP is earned, 0-levels pick a class). A valiant fighter who sought glory and fame beyond his village, he was rather ignominiously struck down by a poisoned trap. And, as i noted above, his death really can't be avenged in any traditional sense.

I was, in fact, genuinely down about his loss. I had hoped he would live to maybe make a stronghold of his own. On the other hand, I am glad that I did not fudge the roll. As a solo player, I feel there is a certain sanctity in preserving dice rolls that affect the characters' fate - damage, attacks, attributes, saves, etc. 

I failed the save and so Perceval met his fate. 

The dice do not always give us what we want but they are a neutral judge, jury and executioner.

To put a positive spin on this, I have been noting my preference for Sister Linkat over several sessions - she has such a clear drive to protect the villagers no matter the cost, that she is easy to role play. Similarly, her efforts to spread the word of the Hedonistic Lumberjack provide for ample narrative opportunity for activity between adventures.

Plus, I almost always play a cleric when I play b/x.

Dleggit is so close to 3rd level after this delve. Given he is currently the only dedicated fighter in the group, he is likely to be the party's tank. Surely the loss of his friend to a trap he didn't detect will bring something out in him. Perhaps, as a dwarf, he WILL find a way to extract revenge against the dungeon itself or perhaps I'll find some way to instill him with a berserker rage when he scores a 20 to hit.

Manchiver is too new to be deeply affected. Frankly, he's just trying to survive.

The party will undoubtedly have to make some efforts to attract additional bodies via full fledged members or hirelings.