Mongoose Traveller

In an earlier post, I reported my good fortune at discovering I still owned some classic Traveller books, and wondered whether the Mongoose version of Traveller was a worthwhile update to the classic rules.

Last weekend, I visited my FLGS and bought the "Pocket Rulebook" version of Mongoose Traveller. This version is 5.5 x 8.5, the same size as the old classic Traveller little black books.

Having given it a quick read, i'm actually rather pleased with Mongoose Traveller, as it retains the classic Traveller rules and materials almost completely intact. And the price was right, at $20.

My only quibbles -- from my admitedly cursory read -- are that Mongoose Publishing chose to ape the classic Traveller look, rather than putting their own stamp on it ( an understandable decision, considering that they want the product noticed, and purchased, by those waxing nostalgic for classic Traveller ) and they watered down the risk of death in the character generation process. However, they do provide you with an "Iron Man" character generation option in the book, allowing you to risk it all on your survival roll, so the old-school character generation approach is not entirely jettisoned.

Mongoose Traveller greatly expands the available career options to 12, from the original six. That expansion of the career options may have been a feature of MegaTraveller or Traveller: The New Era, but it has been so many years since I last possessed any of those materials that I cannot be certain.

You still have the options of the Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts and Merchants careers. The sixth career, "Other", has been expanded, to include Agent, Citizen, Drifter, Entertainer, Nobility, Rogue, and Scholar. I have no complaints about the expansion of careers, as I don't recall even rolling up a character using the "Other" career path. Providing some definition to that "Other" career path may make that more appealing to players.

Since it's been several years since I last looked at Traveller, I am hard pressed to see any significant differences in the game mechanics between this version and classic Traveller. Thus, considering the modest price, and the handy booklet format, I don't see much downside to using Mongoose Traveller pocket version as your basic Traveller ruleset.

Now, if only I could find time to boilerplate Mongoose Traveller to the 2320 universe near-star map...

Sage Advice from Jean Wells, or, My Eyes Just Melted

More questioning goodness from the "Sage Advice from Jean Wells" column, appearing in The Dragon magazine, Issue #32, December 1979.

Question: I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for several months, to the point where I have challenged Asmodeus and won! Is Asmodeus in lemure state now, until he can regain his former status, or is Baalzebul in charge? Answer: Several months? What took you so long? No, you're in charge now. Good luck with that.

Question: I have a female character who has gotten herself pregnant. How should I handle this? Answer: "Time passes. You give the child up for adoption and continue adventuring." Any questions?

Question: I am having a romance with a god, but he won't have anything to do with me until I divorce my present husband. How do I go about divorcing my husband? Answer: I presume your question relates to your D&D game, and are referring to your in-game husband ...

Reality check, reality check. Testing, testing, 1-2-3.

I have to go lay down now.

The Beholder In D&D Adventures: The Fell Pass

The Beholder makes its first appearance in the pages of Supplement I: Greyhawk, in 1975.

We would have to wait until 1979 to see a Beholder appear in a published adventure. That adventure was "The Fell Pass", which was published in The Dragon magazine, Issue #32, in December 1979.

The Fell Pass is a dungeon crawl. It reminds me (a little) of the episode from The Hobbit, where the Dwarves are captured by the Goblins, and Bilbo first encounters Gollum. Since it is a mountain "pass", the party may enter the dungeon from either side, and make (or fight) their way through to the other side.

The Fell Pass is interesting, as it can be played simply as an attempt to make it from one side of the pass to the other, without dying. Alternately, you can also treat it as your standard dungeon crawl, or have a patron assign the cleansing of the pass to the party. In any event, there are no over-arching themes, no BBEG to kill, just some good old-fashioned tricks and puzzles, and mindless hack-n-slashery.

That is not to say there are no challenging adversaries or mind-blowing dangers in The Fell Pass. It is a dangerous module, and was probably informed by the other early modules of the day, including that most infamous of killer-dungeons, The Tomb of Horrors.

As for the Beholder, well, let's just say that Xorddanx is a wily and crafty opponent, and the Players will have a difficult time defeating him, as he uses the terrain and his followers to great advantage.

While The Fell Pass is not an "official" D&D module (you will not find The Fell Pass on any list of officially published adventures) it certainly could have been, it has that early D&D module quality and feel to it.

Starfire Novel: Insurrection

I was mentioning earlier that Starfire's assumed universe became so popular that it was eventually captured in novel form. Here is the first Starfire novel, Insurrection, published in 1990, based on that game's assumed universe.

In total, five Starfire novels were published.

Eventually, Starfire was also turned into a computer game, although that computer game bore little resemblance to that initial 1979 Starfire game.

Other than Starfire, Warhammer and WH40k, and Dungeons and Dragons, what other game systems got the novelization treatment? Star Trek and Star Wars don't count ... they were movies before they were novelizations before they were game systems.

Metagaming: Dragon Magazine Ads

I presumed everyone knew about the Metagaming Ads in Dragon Magazine. Seems I was a mite presumptuous.

Here is an example of a Metagaming ad that appeared in the Dragon Magazine. The first thing you will notice is that it isn't a very good ad, from a design perspective. Not that any of the ads that appeared in Dragon were much better.

This particular ad appeared on the back page of the December 1979 Dragon magazine (#32). That was the same issue of Dragon magazine that featured "The Fell Pass", a fan-written adventure, winning the first annual(?) International Dungeon Design Contest.

This particular advertisement is promoting Metagaming's micro-game subscription service. You could become a micro-game subscriber, and have each new micro-game delivered to your door, as it was released. No more running down to the FLGS to see if the latest micro-game was available.

The images around the outside edge of the advertisement are pieces of artwork from several of the micro-games that had already been released, including Ogre, Chitin I, WarpWar, Wizard, GEV, Olympica, and Death Test.

Microgames: Starfire

I have been a microgame player nearly as long as I have been a role-player.

The microgame concept and design philosophy was quite simple. Design and publish a fun, inexpensive game, that can be played in a few hours, that can fit in your pocket. Microgames were popularized by Metagaming, and anyone who remembers, or has seen, Dragon Magazines from the late 70's or early 80's will remember the Metagaming ads that appeared on its pages. Metagaming was very successful at producing interesting, fun little games.

But Metagaming's "apparent" microgame success spurred other game companies to dive into the market. TSR produced at least eight minigames. Task Force Games also joined the market, producing many excellent pocket games. SPI created its own line of capsule games. Steve Jackson left Metagaming and created his own company, and produced several excellent microgames. OSG, Mayfair Games and Heritage Games also joined the fray. The Classic Microgames Museum is a great place to check out the microgames that were produced by those disparate companies.

During those few short years, some excellent microgames were produced. Eventually the microgame market collapsed, but during that time, some classic games were created.

One of those classics was Starfire.

Starfire was first published by Task Force Games in Amarillo, Texas, in 1979 (interestingly, Metagaming was also sitused in Texas). It was the second microgame to be published by TFG, after Valkenburg Castle (another chit-based dungeon crawl, similar to SPI's Death Maze). The picture above is the "boxed" Starfire set, which was published in 1984.

Starfire is arguably the simplest, most elegant starship combat game system ever devised. I have to think that Starfire emerged from a computer programmer's mind. Back in the early days of programming, computer memory conservation was critical, because computer memory was so valuable. Starfire was designed the way a computer programmer might think: every "starship feature" was replaced by a single alphanumeric code, and each starship was represented by a alphanumeric string, called a "control record".

For example, here was a control record for the Destroyer McClellan:

McClellan - DD2 - (2) SSSAAAIHFIWDIII (6)

With (S)hields, (A)rmor, (I)on Drives, a (H)old, and three weapon systems, a (F)orce Beam, (D)efence system, and (W)eapon [missile].

The (2) at the front of the control record represented how many hexes the ship had to move before it could turn, and the (6) at the end was the maximum velocity of the ship.

Ships took damage, from left to right, which is why the shields and armor appeared first in the control record.

The game was designed as a dog-fight in space: you wanted to avoid having an opponent get behind you, as you took more damage if you were attacked from behind.

Sadly, this game suffered from the same malady that inflicted other great gaming systems. It's popularity encouraged rules and supplement bloat. The game, and it's assumed universe became so popular that it was novelized, and eventually turned into a computer game. If you can find a copy of the original game, or someone that owns a copy and wants to take it for a whirl, you will not be disappointed with the game-play.

Legends of the Ancient World: The Dark Vale

I make no claim to being the greatest DM in the world. My skills are serviceable, my style pedestrian. I spend a great deal of time preparing, as i'm not the best ad-libber.

So when I come across a product that will save me prep time, give me tools to better improvise, and add some colour to the game, I tend to be quite enthusiastic about it.

Chgowiz and Chatty put together a one-page dungeon codex, earlier this year. I was pleased, as the one-page dungeon is just the kind of product I find useful. Everything I need to run a dungeon is on a single page. I can review the one page prior to the game, and there is no flipping between pages to figure out what is in this or that room.

I like the Legends of the Ancient World (LotAW) adventure products for a similar reason. You get a complete adventure in a small, 5.5 x 8.5 booklet, with each individual encounter or room, contained within the adventure, being only one paragraph (and that paragraph includes all the monster stats and treasure for the encounter). Dark City Games (DCG) has published 15 adventures (3 of those are free), and each of those adventures follow the "pre-programmed adventure" format that was briefly popular in the early 80's.

The Dark Vale is one of those adventures. The booklet itself is 48 pages (although only 32 of those pages are the adventure, the rest of the booklet consists of the complete LotAW rules, along with some maps and five Appendices). As mentioned earlier, all of the DCG products are "pre-programmed adventures". Those products are specifically designed for solo-play: while a DM can run those adventures, a player can use this product by reading the relevant paragraph, and resolving the encounter herself.

From the back cover of The Dark Vale: "Word has reached the streets of Redpoint that a lost artifact of great power lies to the southwest, in an obscure vale in the ancient Seawatch mountains. It is the Blackstone, a relic of ancient power from a mythic age. There are only a few references to it in the tomes of history: all of them fearful and despairing. The potential for an era of unchecked evil abounds, unless you find the Blackstone first and destroy it."

Pre-programmed adventures are like decision trees. Each encounter will give you several options. Depending on which option you choose, you will be referred to a different paragraph in the adventure. DCG has amplified this format by adding "plot-words" to the game, so that you can go to the same paragraph, again, but the possession of a plot-word will allow you to resolve that encounter differently. You obtain the plot-words as you make your way through the adventure.

I like The Dark Vale adventure for a couple of reasons. First, it scratches my micro-game adventure itch. All of the DCG products are mirrored on the micro-game "pre-programmed adventure" model. I am a fan of the micro-game design model, because that design model forces game designers to provide the best product they can in the smallest format possible. I find the text-bloat of the modern mega-adventure obnoxious.

Second, The Dark Vale is a wilderness adventure. I have preferred DMing dungeon adventures, in the past, because the options are bound: when a party gets to a T-intersection, there are really only 4 choices, left, right, back or stop. Wilderness and city adventures are far more challenging, since the players have a much larger range of choices, making for a more challenging night for the DM. So, when I read The Dark Vale, and found that this wilderness adventure gives the illusion of choice, while still providing the DMing with pre-planned adventures and encounters, I was encouraged. The map, above, is the map for The Dark Vale, and players can go from location to location, having encounters as they enter a new area.

Third, The Dark Vale provides a rich backdrop to the adventure. There are several groups in the Vale, all competing to obtain or destroy the "Blackstone", or prevent its capture. The players can either play the adventure "straight", or they can use those competing groups, by aligning themselves with one, or provoking those groups to fight amongst themselves.

Fourth, the adventure is your typical scavenger hunt. In order to obtain the Blackstone, you must first collect several "plot-words" and items. You might think that this is a bad thing, but once the players twig to this, they will likely get into the adventure, and have a great deal of fun, just like they might in a real-world scavenger hunt.

While I quite like this product, there are several things that could have been done to improve it. First, while I like the pre-programmed adventure design model, those products are difficult to use if being DMed. The traditional "pre-programmed adventure" design requires that the reader jump from paragraph to paragraph. For example, you might go from paragraph 1, to 162, to 37, then to 288, and so on. The point of that feature is to foil the reader from "cheating", by reading ahead in the adventure. Frankly, if a solo player is going to cheat, they are going to do that, despite the game designer's best efforts. Therefore, even though it is against the traditional design aesthetic, these products should be written in a more linear fashion, to assist those who need to read the book in preparation for game-night.

Second, while the map is an excellent tool, I would have preferred to have had two maps. One, for the players, might have signposts or markers to suggest where encounters might occur. The other map, for the DM, would have the paragraph number, and a few words to remind the DM what sort of encounter is to be had at each location.

Third, and this is not a criticism of The Dark Vale specifically, but pre-programmed adventures generally, the adventure design requires the limiting of player choice. Each encounter in a pre-programmed adventure normally limits the players' choice of actions to, at most 3-5 choices. A good DM can mask those limitations, but you should be aware that the design of The Dark Vale, and every other pre-programmed adventure, includes the limiting of player choice. Of course, this is true of every off-the-shelf adventure. The advantage of text-light adventures like The Dark Vale is that there is little to "break" if the DM needs to react to something not anticipated in the original adventure design.

The Dark Vale is a nice product. While expensive, at $13, it is a good example of the micro-game adventure, and should provide for some fun and challenging adventuring.

The Fantasy Trip: Legends of the Ancient World

Like OD&D, The Fantasy Trip has benefitted from an interest in all things simple, flexible and elegant.

While The Fantasy Trip, being the books Melee, Wizard and In The Labyrinth, and the various adventures and advanced versions of those gamebooks, are out-of-print, and are now available only in the used-game market, The Fantasy Trip lives on under another name: Legends of the Ancient World, which is available as a free pdf from the Dark City Games website.

Legends of the Ancient World (LotAW) is a retro-clone of The Fantasy Trip. Its game mechanics are simple, and are almost identical to those employed by the original The Fantasy Trip game.

For example, there are only three stats in LotAW: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. Each of those three stats begin at 8: you get an additional 8 points to spread between those three stats. Your Strength determines how much damage you can take, and how heavy of a weapon you can employ. Dexterity determines how likely you are to strike an opponent. Intelligence determines the potency of your spells, or the number of skills you may possess. Armor reduces the amount of damage you take.

LotAW truly is "rules-light": the rule-set fits onto a scant seven pages. I have printed the free rules, in booklet style, so that each player has their own copy. While this is a true retro-clone of The Fantasy Trip, there are several interesting additions to the game.

(1) LotAW uses a "plot-word" system to track your progress and modify encounters. For example, you may have an encounter. The results of the encounter will depend on whether you have a related "plot-word" for that encounter.

(2) LotAW has added a number of races that I don't recall being in the original game: Tigrans, Ursans, Caprians, Dwarggs, and Snake-men.

(3) LotAW has added a system of Karma and Wish points that allow players to modify their rolls or change the results of encounters. In addition, there are Curses that appear during play, that affect character rolls or ability scores.

This game is not for everyone. I personally find it a little too simple for a full-blown fantasy campaign, and am not a big fan of using Strength both as an ability measure, and also as your "wound" pool (in TFT and LofAW, wounds are marked off against your Strength). In addition, spell-casting is based on a points-system, with stronger spells requiring more fatigue points, and with spell fatigue also marked off against Strength.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a simple (and free) role-playing and/or fantasy game system, this may fit the bill. I play this game with my kids, and it is a good introduction to role-playing.

Is That A Christmas Carol You Are Humming?

I posted a photo, two days ago, showing a picture of some nice pleasant weather we were enjoying here in Calgary. I knew it was too good to last. As of 9:30 this morning, this is what the culdesac looked like. By the time I finished shovelling and taking this picture, and went back inside, the snow was coming down three times heavier, and all my shovelling efforts were for nought. Worse, this is that heavy wet snow that you expect to see in Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal, not the light fluffy snow we normally get here in Calgary.

The white blobs on the photo is the photo-flash reflecting off of the falling snow.

The American Consulate and the Calgary Chamber of Commerce both report that there are roughly 80,000 Americans living in Calgary (although some vociferously disagree). Whatever the true number, for you ex-pats, and the rest of my American readers, I give you Why Celebrate Thanksgiving Early, Reason #4:

4. Because you can never get too much turkey, celebrate both Thanksgivings. If you are an American, celebrate Canada's Thanksgiving "as a sign of respect for the Canadian culture." If you are Canadian, tell people you are American, and celebrate both Canadian and American Thanksgivings. Other Calgarians will believe you, since there are so many Americans living here anyway.

Resource Cards: Production List

So far, I have completed and posted seven resource card sheets. That includes two armor sheets, two sheets of gems and coins, two equipment sheets, and a sheet of weapons, for a total of roughly 350 cards.

I have at least 17 more sheets in various stages of production. Many are just cards with item names at the top of the box, although I have populated some of those cards with images as well.

Here are some of the other categories of card sheets I am still in the midst of, or am considering, producing: Equipment, Weapons, Magic Armor and Shields, Jewelry, Lodging, MU Spells, Cleric Spells, Elf Spells, Rumors, Clues, Plot Points, Non-Magical Treasure, Magic Weapons, Potions, Scrolls, Miscellaneous Magic, Whimsy, Spell Components, Hirelings, and Special Abilites.

The Non-magical Treasure cards will include such things as pelts, artwork, spices, cloth, drink, and the like.

The Whimsy cards will be similar to the Ars Magica whimsy cards referenced here.

The special abilities cards may be similar to the 4e feats, or may simply be the special abilities possessed by certain classes or archetypes.

The Lodging cards will represent the sorts of places you might call home, such as a tent, hovel, barn loft, floor of a tavern, common room, Room at the Inn, Room at a House, Run of the House, Barracks, Cloister, Nunnery, Manorhouse, and so on.

There will be several sheets of miscellaneous magic items.

What have I missed?