Fighters: Swords & Wizardry

Fighters are the neglected children of Dungeons and Dragons.

Fighters have been chronically underpowered, compared to the other D&D fighting classes, such as the Ranger, Barbarian, Monk and Paladin.

I'm likely opening myself up for criticism here, but I feel very strongly that there should be some modicum of balance, if not between classes, then between the sub-classes within a class.

I'm not advocating some perfectly balanced, mathematical symmetry, as is trying to be achieved in 4e (though I am not critical of that attempt), but I don't think that a player electing to play a fighter should be disadvantaged in her "in-game performance", as compared to someone who selects a ranger or paladin, having the same ability scores.

In at least one of the iterations of D&D (it may have been AD&D and/or 2e) attempts were made to power-up the fighter class. Those power-ups included weapon specializations rules and extra attacks as you increased in level. You may be able to identify several other attempts.

The Swords & Wizardry Core Rules gives Fighters a special ability to power-up the fighters. When fighting monsters with less than one hit die, fighters get one attack per fighter-level, per round. So, if I am a 7th level figher, and I am confronted by a host of kobolds, I get 7 attacks against the host of kobolds, each round. Of course, if it is a host of gnolls, i'm limited to only one attack per round.

I like the idea of extra attacks for fighters, based on their level, as it is a simple mechanic, that simulates the additional combat proficiency gained as one levels-up. But why should the extra attacks be limited to situations involving monsters of less than one hit die?

The Black Hand

The Black Hand is a notorious guild of extortionists, thieves, con-artists, pick-pockets and ne'er-do-wells. While their membership ebbs and flows, the organization continues to exist from year to year, decade to decade, based on the reputation that name has developed. Even when the entire organization has been captured, and its members executed, there are always unsavory characters that will resurrect and re-use that feared moniker.

In the past, members of The Black Hand tatooed a black hand onto their bodies, as a guild mark. This was greatly appreciated by the authorities, as it made detection and conviction much easier. The Black Hand has since changed its identification system, instead using words and gestures to identify other members of the guild.

Because of The Black Hand's past ruthlessness, a black handmark on someone's door is often encouragement enough to ensure protection money is paid promptly. And some of the more audacious pickpockets will slip a scrap of paper, with a black hand imprint on it, into the pocket of a victim.

Player Characters may begin as a first-level thief, and be a member of The Black Hand.

Those characters begin with leather armor, shortsword, dagger and club, and thieves tools, and start with 1d6 x10 gold.

Priestesses of Celicia

The Order of Our Holy Lady Astra Celicia was established in 559 CY.

Although little is known of her early years, the first mention of Saint Celicia is her appearance, in the Westeven, in 548 CY. Now considered the first Priestess of Solaris (the priesthood had theretofore been restricted to men), she prophesized of the return of Set, and exhorted the patricians and citizenry to repentance and preparation.

The Imperial apostateship from the Solarian Church was reversed due largely to her efforts.

In 556 CY, Saint Celicia disappeared, only to reappear three years later, in 559 CY, with what is now known as the Celician Codex, a scripture some 500 pages long, bound in leather and printed on tablets of wafer-thin metal, readable only with special glasses, and intricately and beautifully illuminated. Along with that Codex, she brought chests overflowing with ancient coins, and a train of foreign craftsmen and laborers, who built her first Solarian Abbess, devoted to helping children and the poor. She also appointed several of her female followers as Knight-protectors and Prioresses, to assist in her efforts.

Shortly after Celicia disappeared again, in 563 CY, rumors of miracles, performed by her Knight-protectors and Prioresses, began to circulate, resulting in a flood of donations, and a declaration of Sainthood for Celicia, by Emperor Perfero Agmentum Aurum.

Saint Celicia is the saint of orphans and the poor. Her Abbesses are ubiquitous, found in nearly any town that also boasts a Church of Solaris.

Any female Characters may begin as a first-level cleric or paladin, and be a Priestess of Celicia.

Those characters begin with a helmet and breastplate, a mace, and a round shield emblazoned with a stylized sun (Paladin) or sunflower (Cleric). They also start with 1d6 x10 gold.

Knights Imperious

Founded in 793 CY, and endorsed by Emperor Anguis Perditus Vispera in 796 CY, the Order Of The Poor Supplicants Of Solaris And The Dispensers Of Imperial Justice, more commonly known as the Knights Imperious, is a military order attached to the Church of Solaris, but only answerable to the Emperor. First established as a fighting order, during the Sepelioserpentis Wars, the Knights Imperious was subsequently transformed into an administrative order by the Emperor.

Barracks for the Knights Imperious can be found wherever a Church of Solaris exists. The responsibilities of the Knights Imperious include protecting travellers, maintaining the peace on trails, highways, and areas outside the confines of free-towns, providing protection to Imperial tax collectors, acting as the personal guards to the Emperor, and rooting out and dealing summary justice to worshippers of Set. In practice, most of these activities are undertaken by local constables, militia, and so on, since the Knights Imperious numbers less than 250 soldiers. However, Knights Imperious always have jurisdiction in those matters, and are empowered to mete out swift justice to those who resist them.

The seal of the Knights Imperious shows the Emperor battling two serpents, one in each hand. That seal is displayed prominently on the shields borne by the Knights Imperious, which are symbols of their authority.

Player Characters may begin as a first-level fighter, cleric or paladin, and be a soldier of the Order of the Knights Imperious.

Those characters begin with a helmet and breastplate, a mace and longsword, and a round shield with the seal of the Knights Imperious. They also start with 1d6 x10 gold.

New Campaign

I have had several questions about starting up and/or participating in a new local campaign.

I intend to do that, early in 2010, although I have not yet given a lot of thought to what rule-set I would like to see employed, nor to the type of campaign I would like to play in. I would prefer to play using a retro or rules-light system, simply because I am more of a casual gamer: I don't want to get bogged down with complicated rules.

I am open to suggestions on the rule-set, but do want to use a rules-light system that is also being actively supported with new material, whether that be Castles & Crusades, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord or some other retro system. As for the type of campaign, I am open to having a conversation in that regard. To be honest, my preference would be a sand-box campaign with rotating DM responsibilities.

Unfortunately, my work schedule, and other commitments, prevent my participation in a new campaign before the new year.

I am curious to know whether there is any appetite for a rules-light / retro game in Calgary. And if there is, i'd be interested in hearing some thoughts on how that might work.

Fantasy Trip: Death Test

Metagaming was the innovator of the pre-programmed adventure. Those adventures allowed for solitary role-playing games, as you moved from paragraph to paragraph within the adventure module, depending on the options you selected.

The idea of the pre-programmed adventure spawned a whole industry of pick-your-path adventure books, everything from adventure novelizations to solitary D&D adventures.

The Fantasy Trip: Death Test was the first pre-programmed adventure ever published. While that adventure was designed for solitary and referee-less play, a gamemaster could also run it. You played the part of an adventuring party, fighting your way through a labyrinth in an attempt to impress the local Warlord. If successful in exiting the labyrinth, you were offered a job with the Warlord, based on how well you did within the maze.

Death Test was a lot of fun, in the day. I'm sure that was due to the innovative nature of the pre-programmed adventure product, in addition to the fact that this used the simple combat rules of The Fantasy Trip.

Like the microgame "game design", pre-programmed adventures all but disappeared from the mainstream of entertainment and gaming. They were replaced by computer games and, eventually, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The reasons for that are pretty straightforward. Computers could do what the players did (navigating between adventure episodes, and keeping track of the gaming minutae), and you got pretty pictures, besides.

The downside to those pre-programmed adventures was that you only had a limited number of options to choose from, in navigating the story. This was a problem for those that preferred the game-mastered approach to rpgs, as a good game-master would allow you to do something outside of the pre-planned options. In addition, many of the products suffered from poor editing: you would often find "path orphans", where the editors had either forgotten to direct you to the next paragraph, or forgot to provide the reference to that particular paragraph.

The nice thing about those pre-programmed adventures was that they were very "details-light", meaning they were easy to embellish, change and augment.

EDIT: I stand corrected. Buffalo Castle, for Tunnels & Trolls, was first issued in 1976, and appears to be the first solo adventure ever published, pre-dating the Metagaming products by roughly two years.

Before Metagaming collapsed, they published no less than eight pre-programmed adventures, under the Microquest line, starting with Death Test and Death Test 2, and branching out to other adventure genres, such as proto-historical fantasy (Grail Quest) and Science Fiction (Security Station).

Metagaming popularized the "micro-game" format, with such firms as TSR, Operational Studies Group, Mayfair Games, Steve Jackson Games, Task Force Games, Heritage USA, and SPI all jumping into a format, which ultimated proved to be commercially unviable.

For an interesting trip down memory lane, you may want to visit The Maverick's Classic Microgames Museum, at http://maverick.brainiac.com/cmm/cmm_index.html which hosts cover images of most of the micro-games ever published.

Swords & Wizardry: Reference Sheets

The existence of Reference Sheets for Swords & Wizardry is relatively old news. Michael Shorten of Chogowz's Old Guy RPG Blog fame, edited and published this handy little reference.

I make mention of it, here, because it is part of my inspiration for working on the revised classes and archetypes.

I am thinking of putting a little 16-24 page booklet together, similar to the Chogowiz's S&W reference sheets and Quick Start, but customized for individual classes or archetype categories, complete with map of the town the players start at, a character sheet, a list of items for purchase (and where they can be purchased), an explanation of what the six attributes mean, and anything else that would be useful as a "take-away" resource for new players.

I am hoping it will be fairly straight-forward to create some standard pages, with a few customized pages for the individual classes.

I hope I haven't bit off more than I can chew.

D&D Naming Conventions

Over at Grognardia, there was an interesting post, and discussion, on naming conventions in Dungeons and Dragons.

Being late to the party and all, I did a little digging, to get "up-to-speed" on the Gygaxian naming conventions that were being referred to, and I found this old gem, which I presume many of you are already aware of, listing the derivations of many names from the early Dungeons and Dragons Supplements and Modules.

Enjoy.

D&D Attributes: Psycho-Social Matrix

Several days ago, I had promised to post my thoughts on the D&D attributes. I first needed to post some comments regarding the Myer-Briggs and Enneagram typologies, simply to provide some context.

I promise to post a more detailed description of how I view the three psycho-social attributes (Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma). In a nutshell, here is how I see them.

Intelligence: knowledge of things (the physical world)
Wisdom: knowledge of others (the emotional world).
Charisma: knowledge of self (the spiritual world).

This may help to inform my archetype classifications. A more detailed description of those three attributes will follow soon.

Archetypes: Enneagram and Myers-Briggs Typologies

You can find game inspiration in many places. That's why it is often said that being "well-read" and having diverse interests is a boon to creativity.

One of those places to find inspiration is popular psychology. I must admit, I love hitting the bargain-basement bins at the bookstores, picking up pop psychology and "speculative non-fiction" books.

About a decade ago, I attended a party where about 30 of us took the Myers-Briggs test and shared the results. Having know most of those people previously, it was illuminating to discover new things about them, based on that personality test.

Years later, I took the Enneagram test. I prefer that typology to the one used in the Myers-Briggs System, as it seems more prescriptive that descriptive: the Enneagram promotes self-improvement, whereas the Myers-Briggs seems to merely pidgeonhole you.

Bringing this all back to D&D: there are many ways that players can classify their characters. The traditional approach is by character class, whether it be the Fighter, the Magic-User, or some other class. Another approach to character class could be based on Enneagram typologies. You could play the Thinker, the Loyalist, the Motivator, the Protector, and so on. Each in their own way, the classes, archetypes, typologies, or what have you, represent abstractions of reality, and different ways of seeing and interacting with the world. But just because I am a "reformer"in the enneagram typology does not mean I am the same as every other "reformer."

I don't know that I am promoting a switch to the Enneagram for D&D character creation. However, looking at role-playing from a pop psychology perspective would be interesting.