Gnomish Snail Jousting?

Gnomes Jousting on snails, good idea or a little crazy?

Here's the scribbles for the idea I madly whipped up last night while watching Glee with my teen daughter. Gnomes with pointy caps charging each other on valiant war-snails can't be all wrong can it?

The Cargo Cults of Yesterday

Once upon a time every group of D&D players were not at all unlike a cargo-cult. Each group of players had very limited contact to the game and only a handful of game products by which to relate their common experiences. Meeting up with other D&D players was very much likely to result in a clash of cultures. We each had different entry points and very different cultural backgrounds even though one wouldn't think that would be the case.

 My introduction to D&D was purchasing the original basic set in a chain hobby shop. I had some experience with games from Avalon Hill but in the main I was totally ignorant as to what D&D actually was when I first purchased it (I had imagined it to be a skirmish game that allowed one to play surviving characters in further exploits) and was totally blown away when I realized what the game actually was. The folks I initially played D&aD with were my family (father, younger brother, uncle and grandfather), a neighbor kid, and a schoolmate along with some of my father's co-workers. These co-workers were a couple of older teens (5 or so years older than I) and two experienced war gamers (neither of which had played any D&D); so there I was at 11-12 years of age DMing for a group that varied in age from 10-60 and I was their introduction to D&D and RPGs. For some odd reason all my first games took place on dungeons that fit huge sheets of graph paper setup so that 1" = 10 feet and players ended up building a dungeon map/board in scale as we went along. It took me more then a year to make sense out of the sample dungeon and the module included in the basic set but we all still had fun. Hideously powerful monsters weren't uncommon and players won by trickery and guile far more often than they would have prevailed by successful hit rolls.

We moved when I was in 8th grade and I met several new D&D players and experienced the clash of cultures that was present when cargo-cults bumped into each other. One group of players had tons of high level characters who ruled nations and they knew their game as "The Wars", another group hardly knew the rules at all and played in a game utterly dominated by DM fiat. I played with both groups and the differences in play were amusing (one group didn't know waht an Ogre was). I had little experience with characters over 4th level in my own games as we played about twice a month and even clever players had a hard time staying alive so my experience with high level play started in the deep end. I ended up poaching a couple players from the dm-fiat campaign as I paid some attention to the game rules and gave the players a fighting chance. I had to explain to one group of players that character ability scores were rolled with 3 six sided dice and not on 1d20 (they had been re-rolling scores of 1-2 and 19-20 and found it annoying).

 I also joined a briefly lived D&D club; this club was very interesting as pretty much everyone owned the 1st or second basic set and possibly a few AD&D books. A couple of the players had older brothers who had been playing D&D for whole year or two longer and they helped us out but generally stayed out of the club games as they were for younger players (some of them having moved on to Traveller and Runequest becasue they were more sophisticated than D&D). New concepts leaked into my play such as critical hits and hit locations. It was in this campaign where I had the only character (who was totally average in scores except for a fairly high CHA) to survive from the beginning of the game because I understood encumbrance and movement rates: you don't have to outrun the thief and MU, you just have to outrun all the fighters in the party wearing plate and carrying thousands of gp when the party decides it's time to run.

 Near the end of highschool I discovered a group of football player, biker, burnout, C-Bers mostly a couple years olde r than I also played D&D regularly. Two of these fellows play D&D with me to this day. This group of players had critical hits and fumbles, they also gained a level after each successful adventure and would cycle through DMs. They had 25th level paladins with +6 holy avengers and ability scores over 20 (they didn't seem to understand experience points) but really liked the game and several of them ended up playing in one of my longest running D&D campaigns where we played twice a month for 7-8 years. I recall killing 3 dragons in one session of a game run by a DM in that group without having to roll a single die...sometimes I look back at that in ridicule, other times with gleeful nostalgia.

 As the years rolled on I would bump into plenty of D&D players but I noticed a familiarity in campaigns and player expectations that were missing in the earlier days (and man oh man would I tire hearign about peoples 25th level multi-classed paladins). Availability of products and more available contact between gamers was creating it's own gamer culture. Gone were players who didn't know how saving throws worked, or how to calculate AC, variants were so common they seldom needed much explanation.

With the modern internet the last culture clash came about the time third edition D&D came to be as players who had managed to be isolated discovered the game had changed when they weren't looking, and all the changes were not for the better.

 Eventually the time will come when no players remain who was part of a cargo cults. No one will ask "what's an Orc?, everyone will know dwarves are bothersome scottish/norse greedy drunks and dark elves are leather fetishists into spiders. Maybe there are cargo cults out there yet reaming to be discovered huddled around a table with only a single twenty sided die used by a half dozen players all passing about a handful fantasy paperbacks who have yet to discover they have been playing the game wrong...

[OT] Keep The Zombies Away

We had to bury our old cat today. Morgan was an 18 year old medium hair tortoise shell calico that has been suffering from kidney disease and being old as heck for some time now. I dug the grave on a little hillock just a few dozen yards from the river in a sunny spot. The teens are way for the weekend but the toddler is home so we brought him down to explain what was going on and why we were burying the cat (in a box). After we placed the cat in the hole and filled in the dirt I dragged over a couple logs to sit on top of the grave until the earth hardens and the toddler agreed that was a good idea becasue it would keep her safe and buried so we could keep the zombies away.

What's Going On In the Dungeon? (part One)

You've got a dungeon, it's full of monsters... but what's going on down there?

while it can impact the setup up of a dungeon without a doubt the going's on in the dungoen will impact how play evolves and is impacted when the PCs descend the first staircase. Here's a few notes on general goings on for now:

Civil War- Two factions are at war with each other, there will be traps along seemingly open travel routes, fresh barricades, patrols, heavily armed (or dangerous) bands of combatants, frequent patrols, and sentries near borders. Delvers may find stockpiles of food and weapons, battlegrounds full of fresh corpses, an explosion of dungeon vermin feeding on the freshly dead and forces on edge that will be difficult to surprise. There should be opportunities to exploit the situation, perhaps a side can be joined or a treasure left unguarded?

Menagerie- this is a mad wizards zoo. The dungeon is here becasue a Wizard did it. the dungeon is here to either grow monsters, collect loot from hapless delvers, or hold the wizard's collection(s) of oddities. There may be clean-up crews and guards along with apprentices and colleagues on site. Oddities are unlikely to be undefended and some of the occupants may long for escape with the assistance of the PCs.

Home Sweet Home- This is where the monsters call home. There will be a dominant faction of occupants going about their normal lives all others within will be minions,guests, pests, or thieves and the dominant faction will react to them appropriately. PCs may be able to strike a deal with the occupants to clear out some troublesome creatures or find employ as mercenaries. If the outer perimeter can be breached with little incident the party should have greater opportunity for stealthy thievery with less threat from wandering monsters of unexpected sort.

Prison- It's a prison. The occupants are either jailers, prisoners, or vermin. Depending on the nature of the prison there may be little to loot and it may be possible for PCs to find themselves trapped within. There may be factions within the prison population, VIP prisoners that will offer reward to liberators and possibly future henchmen of worth to be recruited. There will be regular patrols and procedures of the jailers to deal with and the whole problem of how to get in and out without being noticed.

Mining- The dungeon is a mine currently being exploited by one or more groups. There will be invaders, claim jumpers, miners, and possibly slaves to deal with. Stockpiles of ore (or whatever is being mined) will be present as will supplies and tools for the miners. Monsters within the dungeon will be employed in mining, defense, or pests interfering with operations. Miners may be very happy to have adventurers on hand to clear out some troublesome invaders. Maybe the PCs can take over the mine for themselves?

Catacombs- the dungeon is a collection of crypts, it's a resting place for the dead. An abandoned an old catacomb is familiar dungeon-fare filled with undead, traps, and tomb robbers. A catacomb in use will have funeral processions, vagabonds hiding in secluded corners, serve as a meeting place for illicit business and may house secret cults going about unusual rites not generally approved of by society outside the catacombs. The normal users of the catacomb may well be common folk that will not take kindly to bands of "adventurers" looting the remains of their ancestors and loved ones.
while the dead are supposed to stay put in a catacomb the place is not necessarily abandoned or under-used.

Wilderness- the dungeon is a subterranean wilderness occupied by a varied host of creatures. Tribes of creatures will still be hashing out their territories and relations with other humanoids. Fearsome monsters may lurk that are unknown to most occupants and the by-ways and passage ways will not be regularly patrolled or known to any. A dungeon wilderness presents room for exploration,exploitation, establishing allies, and finding employ for PCs. There is no established order and no dominant factions.

Gish....

I hate the usage of the word Gish. Somehow in the past decade Gish has become an acceptable in some of RPG land as a generic term for Fighter/Magic-User. How the heck did that happen?

Gish, is title for a specific type of Githyanki as presented in the original Fiend Folio. For the vast majority of D&D campaigns, there is no reason for this word to have leaked out into general use. I've probably used Githyanki a dozen or so times in the past few decades but they've never stopped to discuss how their forces are designated or identified and the PCs (and players) never bothered to ask.

How did this decidedly uncommon encounter type enter the lamestream of D&D fandom as a common term to define character types? And why?

Nothing screams heroic archetype like a fictional word for a subset of a rarely encountered monster from within a society decidedly separate from the traditional D&D societies...

Dice Tower?

After getting some funky dice and seeing how they roll I realized I might need myself a dice tower to make sure the new dice (and the old one as well) roll as fairly as they are capable of rolling; a dice tower seems to be the best solution for looks and utility.

Anyone know where there are good plans for do-it-yourself dice towers?

The Demon Queen Meets Her Match

She never had a chance....cruel, cruel, multiverse...