Gongfarmers on Sea-Devil's Island

Inspired by this podcast - Christian B. has an entertaining and edifying and justice-aware view of the ways that business and corruption drive our lives.

So: the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook has a 0-level starting occupation that is a pretty interesting in that it's literally the shittiest job you ever heard of: Gongfarmer. What is a gongfarmer? well, it's someone who empties chamberpots and collects shit and piss for other things. I think historically speaking it was tanneries that used piss and shit in an economical way. Turning shit and piss into money is a special kind of alchemy, I guess. So - the job sucks, but within the framework of DCC you leave it (assuming you survive your first adventure) and become an adventurer. But like, a REAL adventurer who already knows how to muck around in the shit-soaked underground and bring out a living.

Thereafter, all your occupational rolls - anything involving the collection of shit and piss and underground exploration and survival - are at d20 rather than the lowly d10 that an unskilled check would involve. Pretty broad, because there's a lot of shit and piss in the world, and a lot of terrible places to fuck around in.

Brings me back to the aforementioned podcast - so in the mid 1800's in the US - around the world, really - it was discovered that nitrogen found in guano of birds (and later bats) could be reliably transformed into fertilizer. I think you would be surprised at what a big deal this is, and what having reliable crop fertilizer does for a population of humans. It's pretty transformative.

And so, inevitably, capitalists, indutrialists, colonialists, and all the other worst sorts of entrepreneurs seized upon the notion of finding sea-bird infested islands and stripping them bare of everything. Well, not everything, but all the birdshit which was the important part.

This really happened, and as I drove in a mindless lull, listening to this young woman relate the tale of desperate men on a blazing hot, shit-soaked island in the Pacific, struggling against weather and famine and oppression and rats, I got a sense of what a REAL Gongfarmer's Adventure would look like - something like trying to take on The Isle of Dread (X1) but instead of a sword all you have is a trowel at first and maybe some Kuo-Toa, and Cthulhu rising out of the cyclopean depths at the end...

Anyways, it's a decent podcast and Busted Business Bureau is totally worth a subscribe.

INSERT NEW TABLE FOR GONGFARMER EQUIPMENT (A work in progress)

1. Shit-and-piss-proof boots

2. Canary in a cage (for deadly gas detection)

3. Umbrella/Umbrella hat for staving off the evil sun's hateful rays

4. UV50 protection sunscreen/paste/mud

5. Rusty pick (d6) - may cause disease on a critical

6. Rusty shovel (d8) - see 5 above

7. Guano-bag

8. Rat-poison pellets

9. Mermaid-resistant earplugs

10. Thick-soled leather knobbly-lugged climbing shoes

11. A rope with a lot of knots tied in it

12. Makeshift crampons

13. Hardtack/biscuits in a water-and-shit proof container

14. The nightshift has non-flame electric torches because the gas is explosive

15. Natural immunity or resistance to several terrible illnesses

BRIEF ADVENTURE FRAMEWORK

Island/Nautical

Terrible "employers" (really slavers) just begging for an ass-whooping

Deep-Ones/Kuo-Toa cultists lurking around constantly

Mermaids - I mean what horned-up, broke-ass, desperate shit-miner wouldn't be tempted by mermaid song?

Pan-Lung water dragons, tired of eating seabirds and seals

Maybe a shit-encrusted temple underneath a couple of tons of/layers of rock-hard guano

Deep-One gold artifacts here and there (but the tyrannical slavers who run the place want it for themselves)

A well-guarded and ugly (but fast and seaworthy) ship to get away in when the guano hits the fan

Finally, and most-dreadfully, the imminent arrival of Dagon/Hydra/Evil Neptune/Nodens/Cthulhu telegraphed by weird astronomical and weather events, and freaked-out birds and rats

The Long Dark Teatime of the Blog

Hey don't worry, internet pals! I'm still alive. What's good with you? That's great! What's good with me?  Uhh, we're playing a pretty fun extended "campaign" of 5e/DCC/Holmes/PbtA/ItO - pretty regular, rulesets vary but the setting and vibe is pretty much always the same. "Thrend" is a mixed-genre thing with Mutants and Magick and Weird Technology and Feudal Fantasy Americana/Oz/Tolkienisms. Mostly an excuse for us to get together and have pizza and beer every few weeks and laugh hilariously. I've been mulling over really putting the screws to my players and making them count arrows and torches and encumbrance etc. but uhhhhhhh I don't know. I sort of like the vibe we have. Think: Wizard of Oz crossed with Shadowrun and Star Frontiers. Picaresque, characters totally disposable but hilariously memorable mostly.

Sort of stole this, sorry OP, but it's close

The order of play is:

1) Sit down, catch up, order pizza, drink first beer.

2) Roll on my stolen-from-Oriental Adventures 1e monthly and weekly and daily events chart.

3) Interpret each roll in the context of the friend chat - interestingly my players are totally down with even half-hearted abortive jokes being used as canonical truths in the game narrative. No joke is safe from becoming interpreted into the campaign world.

4) Roll for carousing. My one player whose name rhymes with "Will" has a 3rd level Holmes human magic-user with an 18 charisma so his reaction roll is pretty disruptive to my plans and he's leaving markers and IOUs all over town. But luckily the carousing results prompt all sorts of events and hilarity.

This is how every game starts for the group, basically.

5) Do we make it to the dungeon? Yes - we are playing Zach H.'s refit of the Holmes starter dungeon, in preparation for running "Things Better Left Alone" which is Holmes' actual home dungeon and appears partly in the Boinger and Zereth novels - get thee hie to find if ye've not done

6) Use loose Holmesian rules to play, loose Moldvay order of combat/explore (including reaction rolls always), DCC vibes to vibe it, and Dungeon-World/PbtA/Perilous Wilds when adjudication needs, uhh, adjudicating

Example: last week, an incursion of haughty winged elfin refugees from the Sky Islands onto Portowne's southern farmlands and the deaths of a few innocent plebs required intervention. Carousing had already happened, mysterious amounts of money done spent, and obligations and complications discussed. The party, with new orc and goblin bar-back hirelings in tow, falsified the deed to the cliffside above the ocean on the dungeon and the elfs were too dumb/proud/irritating to check, so off the whole tribe went in a flash. I guess they will contend with the pirates, Dagonites, and Amazonians that are in the vicinity already, so that's fun. Then they went into the caves, murdered some pirates, bullied some Dagonites (who all hit the road back to the reef and probably tattled). The party DID NOT make it into the Dagonite mini-ziggurat, but they DID fight some weresharks and the fighter(paladin?) of G.I. Jesus contracted a suspicious fever, so they hot-footed it back to town and were quested by the Temple of The Red Mother's abbot to root out and destroy the Dagonites in the caves. They were given an Amazonian Spear +1 to put a dent in the weresharks, and I guess we needn't rely on the only magic weapon (a +1 dagger) they have to get much further into the dungeon.

So the Aerth is on fire, the current architects and administrators of the land are rabid hateful gibbons, upheavals everywhere, and superstition and barbarity are the order of the day. High technology is ubiquitous - almost magickal! And magick is making a resurgence. Androgyne elfs and robots stalk the land. 

Wait, is this my campaign, or is it the Waking World? The answer is: YES!

Luckily, I am playing things I don't share too much or often - you Dear Reader might be amused by the hilarity of my group. I beat Tears of the Kingdom last month which was practically a religious experience.

Wintermute is going to take my job and kick my shit in for all those LogicBomb 3.0s back in '87

Reading when I am able. Tearing apart/putting back together guitars and making weird instruments often. Collecting the tools I will need when Artificial Intelligences (blast them!) actually do take my job. Printing and painting the occasional mini - Cawdor warband, greenskin army, and a Rogue-Trader era Nurgle Genestealer Cult are on the bench but there is literally no pressure to ever finish those. I also have an orky Blood Bowl team always in progress - last week I printed out some bases and stripped some BB2e models I found for a steal.

Things are okay, but blogging ain't a priority at the moment. I'm still here tho!

La Rona Crossing

So we got Animal Crossing : New Horizon

It's a real cute time suck. That's pretty much all it is. It's adorable. I can't think of anything more adorable, except maybe Golden Sky Stories. I hope that it gets some more involved modes, but I am not too hopeful since it's pretty nice to just poke around a little community, fishing and gardening, not doing quests n shit. The biggest dangers are wasps (which sting your face in a cute way) and tarantulas, which send you back to your house. Absolutely no penalty for "failure" states, which this game doesn't even really include.

I had in mind a Stardew Valley/Dungeon Crawl Classics mashup a couple of years ago, with fishing and friend making and delves into the dungeon. Daniel Bishops Faerie Animal class is very suggestive in this regard - in fact I just purchased Gnome Jambalaya and may run it tonight for friends. That's going to need to be later, after I finish running these chores for this nefarious Raccoon Taskmaster (n.b. he's a Tanuki. A Tan Nookie). The little Gnome by Yves Larochelle from Crawl #6 has a gnome which is magical and might fit right in but an Animal Crossing Halfling might be pretty great thing to run with.

So there's a terrific little couple of integrations with previous Animal Crossing games - mobile ones and DS ones. You can scan designs with your iphone Nintendo Switch app, and integrate them into your game. I'm pretty new to it, but here's some of the shirt designs I've cooked up via this wonderful site that generates QR codes for scanning. If you hold your Nook Phone app up and scan these, they'll be available in game for you.

GOD BLESS THE WONDERFUL CODERS AT AC PATTERNS

Crummily-Converted Hapless Henchman Logo! Impress your friends, you troglodyte!

5 cool points if you know where this one is from

Enjoy - expect my Stardew Crossing Crawl Classics hack sometimes later this month, provided I don't die of respiratory failure or boredom.

Gunslingers and Galoots

Listening to the Sanctum Secorum Halloween Episode whilst on the ole stationary-bike-in-the-basement (as a Florida native I am not interested in doing exercise when it's chilly).  It's chock full of good stuff and you ought to check it out if you like Appendix N Book Club-type situation and also free DCC content and ideas (since the time I wrote this, they put out another episode or two!)




Cimarron Rose here was associated with George Newcombe in the real world!

Meanwhile, I release the Gunslinger to you in easy-to-read, plain n' simple 6x9 no frills format. Sometimes, you gotta have a guy or gal who will kill people with a gun and by definition these folks ought to be better at it than your average schmuck.  So there you have it.





As for average schmucks, I kin offer the following:




The way Boot Hill does it, it separates all characters into a couple of different stats, those being things like tracking (superfluous for me in DCC), horsemanship (also superfluous), bravery (DCC doesn't do morale too much/well but for me it varies and I use the Moldvay way), and drawing speed (LOOK OUT NOW!) and accuracy (VERY IMPORTANT WHEN A PERSON HAS A BEAD ON YOU).  I think it's easier to keep accuracy and speed as a single thing but YMMV.  I included a rudimentary morale and fleeing system in my own DCC rules lite solo book, and I believe in these things in my heart.




Now, since there's no demi-humans, mostly, and no goblinoid or orky bad guys n such, but there are a great number of apathetic men of low character who would like to shoot you, I offer a very simple and no-frills stat block - suitable for a wide range of games - to pepper your Old West with gun-toting thugs and desperadoes.  Assume Neutral or Chaotic alignments, as you like, since it seems to me law-abidin' folks don't go about shooting up citizens, but hey your dog may hunt otherwise.  Things like Personality/Wisdom and Strength are superfluous but can be generated on the fly


I assume knives, bowie knives, clubs, pistols (1d8), shotguns (2d6, 6s explode another die), carbines (1d12), and rifles (1d12) for gear.  If you use Transylvanian Adventures rules, then you can steal Ruin points to give these folks an edge that would likely let a party cruise right over them.  Maybe an occasional fool would have a boomerang, sword, or staff but for the most part in the West, if you're not packing heat then you're not a viable opponent.




Common Thug
HD: 4 HP
AC: 9
Morale (Low: 6-7)


Other Scores (2d6+2)


Bandito/Desperado/"Cowboy" (note "cowboy" in the pejorative sense of 1880s)
HD (Average Party level -2) or 1, whichever is more.  I figure about 6 HP each, and a good clean shot with a small arms, or a knife blade, ought to finish these folks off or prompt an immediate withdrawal or surrender...
AC (12)
Morale (Average: 7-8)
Other scores (2d8 when needed)


Gunfighter
HD (Average Party Level) I figure about 6 HP per HD
AC (10+d6 - assume these folks to be taking cover, crouching, relatively quick)
Morale (High: 9-10)
Other Scores (2d6+4 when needed, a focus on Agility for DCC)
Arms and equipment will be slightly better.  Can critical hit like Warriors or Thieves/Specialists/Valiants
In terms of Boot Hill 2, these folks will have survived 2d6+2 gunfights, and killed 1d10 men or women.  Gunfighters ought to have attack bonuses for high Agility when shooting, IMHO


Star Bad Guys
HD (Average Party Level +2) again at about 6-8 HP per HD depending upon the needs of the thing
AC (10+d8 skilled killers would be deft and survive owing to Luck)
Morale (high to fanatical, so about 9-12)
Other Scores (3d6 as PCs, maybe one ability at 15 or above)


Kellri has put out a terrific rip of the Boot Hill 2 stats blocks, and with his permission I might do a little conversion with his document so as to make some of the historical gunfighters and the in-system fictional ones.  At the link you'll find a PDF of a good number of the things, but mine would be a rough approximation with some spreadsheet calculations to put the dudes (almost all dudes, IIRC maybe Calamity Jane the exception) into a DCC or d20 stats framework.


Hmm.  Seems to me we could use some fairer-sexed gunslingers in this Weird West world.  +Doug Kovacs has it locked on Catastrophe Jane, and +Brenda Wolfe may soon advance her professor of phrenology (I think it was phrenology) into the adventuring classes.  I envision Head Acolyte +Jen Brinkman as some sort of Galadriel spooky-fast sea-faring pirate gunslinger but that's just me.


Keep your powder dry, cowpokes!

DCC Monster - The Alzabo

Voracious, ghost ridden, carnivorous, and strangely polite - the Alzabo is alien to Severian's Urth of the New Sun.  This is a little more than midway through the Urth of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe; I highly recommend it and it's getting a good deal of traction in the community these days.



Alzabos have the peculiar habit of partially subsuming the personalities of those they eat, on a very rudimentary level. This allows them to speak in the voice of their former victims, ostensibly to gain the confidence of new prey - especially family members who they appear to relish devouring afterward.

It can be quite unnerving to be faced with a wily and canny predator who not only knows your habits, but can also speak with the manner of your father who it ate the day before.  A common Alzabo ruse is to complain of chills or hunger outside the doors of huts and inns, in the hopes that some unsuspecting rube will open the door and allow it free entry.

They are rendered down into a concoction that, when used to embalm the dead, will allow those that consume the cooked flesh of the corpse to know the memories of the deceased.  In this way Severian the Torturer, Lictor of Thrax, came to be haunted by his dead lover's memories.

In the original, they are covered with red fur and have uncannily intelligent eyes.  They are prone to be as honorable as those they have eaten, and to chase down associates and loved ones of previous prey - the Alzabos' ability to acquire memory this way drives them to want community within themselves.

In the DCC Space Dungeon game, I gave them a stout head filled with multi-hinged jaws, razor sharp teeth, scaly green hide, and 4 eyes.  Long, spindly legs for terrifying bursts of speed, the ability to snip off a head in one bite, and crushing mastication that can destroy a helmet in a few moments of pressure.

The Philosopher's Stone Foundation in Fed Station rendered down two Alzabo heads into Potions of Reincarnation.

Alzabo: Init +5; Atk bite +6 melee (1d8+2); AC 15; HD 3d10; MV 40’; Act 1d24; SV Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1; AL Lawful (but malevolent!)

If very badly pressed or wounded, a sapient Alzabo will bargain and parley to avoid imminent death; non-sapient ones are still savvy enough to mimic speech in a convincing and unnerving way.  All who hear an Alzabo use the voice of someone they know must make a DC 13 Will Save or be charmed for 1 turn, acting as it suggests.  The simple mimicry ability still requires a DC 11 Will Save to resist, with a +1 bonus if the victim can see the beast.

3rd Party Classes for DCC List

DarioFish's Fantasy Races

What you should see here below is an easier-to-manage list of 3rd party classes and race/classes for DCC. If you have a suggested update or I have missed credit where credit is due, please let me know however you can.

If there is an entry without clear information, it's because I know of the class but haven't had access to it yet owing to it being a purchasable thing that I haven't got. Other than that, I try to update it when something is brought to my attention on the DCC G+ community.

New Races for DCC Prompts - I Double Dungeon Crawl Dare You

In a last-ditch effort to procrastinate on my own publishable project, I hereby call you out, reader.  You have a twinklin' of an idea for a playable race?  Fingers too tied up with legerdemain, or possibly you already build dangerous wooden and brass Lamentation Configurations in your spare time?  Engaged in high treason, or listlessly wooing a stunning enchantress from the time in Earth's future right before the Beetle People arise?

Spellvexitus knows the Vancian Operation of Clone Vats - at Skill Level 7, and how to paste an image URL

Well, worry no longer!  We here at The Hapless Henchman can take those unused and abused alpha- and beta-waves and put them into our cogitators on site, giving you real, 3rd dimensional (possibly plus or minus a dimension with a 22 percent alpha) access to your own idea, on paper, and in-game.

Submit in the comments your own feeble whispers of an idea for a NEW PLAYER CHARACTER RACE OR CLASS, and me and my own shoulder imp Spellvexitus can do the hard thinkin' for you!  He's mildly dyslexic, but he knows the Dewey Decimal System inside and out, so he's good for helping in library research when we're jaunting around in the early 1990's before they pulled all the skin-bound codices from the Widener...

As a gesture of goodwill, I offer the first 5.75 people or entities who/that post an idea for a new class or race in the comments here a copy of my very own thing when it comes out.  That would be the DCC Solo Module THE HOUNDS OF HALTHRAG KEEP - shooting for late summer, still.  The first three (3 - an integer) people to post a thing, I'll get them a copy of either Crawljammer #1, or Crawling Under a Broken Moon #1 as a downloadable PDF from RPGNow and we can compare notes.  If you already have it, then good - but maybe we can figure something out.  Don't try to canoodle me, either.  I've got a thousand wyrd spirits imbued in my fridge, just waiting to be set plaintively loose to spite someone/something

BE WARY!  For those who post a thing that exists ALREADY will be harshly dealt with and derided, and Spellvexitus will have first crack at your plainly withered soul when you're done with it, soon.  How will you know? Well, look at the sidebar on your right and it'll show you a way to see what's been elucidated and illuminated before you, you conniving gong-farmer, you...

Take that interwebs!  Spellvexitus, get your Mystical Third Eye and crowquill all revved up!

Don't let me down, you malicious little hobgoblins!  Maybe when I'm done I can make it into a sweet little PDF and give it freely to the cold and unfeeling universe to stave off inevitable heat death.  If more than I can use at the start arrive, then I will do my best to trickle them out as I can - absolutely no promises implied, BTW

Psionic Moon Man - received!

Current Solo Module Plot Paths

This will likely mean nothing to you, unless you're interested in the way the design process is turning out for my DCC solo module.

Art is chugging along - you've seen the cover illo and a couple of my own inside monster portraits.

You saw the nodes for the random encounters of a previous iteration of the monster set (updated, I think, a couple of times since then)

I could show you the map - loosely based on a somewhat famous castle from a pretty famous movie - but I won't.  That'd spoil some stuff.  I think I will make a regular low-level DCC module out of the materials I have and release the monsters for freebies to the community (after I finish THIS project).  Maybe some of the gods and patrons, also.  I have 3 0-level spells that are good intros into working magic for untrained schmucks, at least where the ley lines intersect and the barriers between dimensions are thinning.

However, I can show you the current-a-couple-of-hours-ago node-map of the entries in which the PC runs around the keep all desperate n' stuff.  It's about maybe half finished and written, and when the last entry is done I can practically plug the text into InDesign, plug the graphical elements to fill in the gaps, twerk the layout, and submit to the authorities in this matter.  I think it will come to about 180 entries in which the player is trusted to play by the rules as well as possible.  At times, it is cruel and unforgiving and seems impossibly hard.  I don't know if that is a plus or a minus.  It seems to fit with my memories of the CYOA books and especially the Fighting Fantasy series.  I think it will make, at two or three columns with facing pages, a pretty nice and hefty module when printed in the old TSR style.  I'm trying to figure out a way to export the whole thing to kindle format but that might need to wait a while.

Here, try this:

It's not evident, but the little watermark at the bottom is for the program's author and website.  I'm not afraid to say anymore, since I am within striking distance of submitting the thing within the next month, that I'm using The Gamebook Authoring Tool by Crumbly Head Games.  For what I set out to do, it's perfect and frankly indispensable.  I may have mentioned I tried to start this project off with Twine, but it proved unsuitable for what I wanted.  There was TXT2CYOA but that wasn't right, either.

This thing is exactly what I needed and wanted and perfect in every way.  I feel like I have jilted the author so far, since I wrote about 40 or 50 entries for the Wandering Monster section.  I tried to base it loosely on the flow of the basic and expert solo modules by Merle Rasmussen, you see.  Wander around, mark the entry on the character sheet, and resolve your combat, go back, wash - rinse - repeat until dead or victorious.  I don't know how he could have done something like this project without the aid of this software or something like it - but I imagine about a million million index cards and a giant corkboard.

I'm coming up pretty quickly on the 100 entry maximum for the main keep entries so a full sale is coming for Crumbly Head Games, soon.  And they deserve it!  As I said, it's right as rain and does what it advertises smoothly and elegantly.

I'm looking at about 6 weeks out and I am happy with the way it's going at the moment.  I'll lose about a week between now and then for vacation, but we'll see.

I think I might like to get in touch with Merle and nostalgia-fanboy vomit all over him and Ian Livingstone and rejoice in the memories of hours of my whiled-away youth

Hmm.

Proposal for Tweaked Spell Duel for DCC (WIP)

It should be apparent by now that I love the DCC.

Of all the great things I love about it, simple mechanics, clarity of PHUN, wildly pseudo-randomized tables, hearkening back to the old school days that a lobe of my brain says MUST BE RIGHT GODDAMIT...

Nostalgia is a liar, but the go-motion Vermithrax is the best dragon of all dragons.  The Rankin and Bass Smaug rocks, also.

The spell duel is none of that stuff.  It's clunky.  It's awkward. It's a great idea on paper but even playthroughs I've heard on e.g. the Spellburn podcast fizzle out within a few mere rounds or so.  I've done 2 or 3 in play sessions and it wasn't great.  It seemss like it should be AWESOME and RAWKING but it doesn't feel that way.  I feel dirty and confused.  Why?  It feels like a lot of chart referencing and dice rolling and it literally pauses the action of everything else.

Because I saw some Harry Potter, and some Dragonslayer, and The Sword in the Stone, and Big Trouble in Little China.  A couple of wizards or ENTITIES e.g. a big-ass Dragon (it doesn't matter their relative powers, for drama's sake) go at it for a couple of rounds - a wand explodes, the protagonist maybe takes a wound or is routed, if he (always a he!) is Lucky he gets away with a singed forehead or something.

Accio Better Endings!

No offense to Mr. Goodman and Company.  I love the whole of DCC.  All of it.  This one part never gets used much, although it has a great deal of potential.  How would I fix it, then?  Well?  That's why you came, right?

It seems that one problem is that with the Rules As Written, a high level Wizard is going to smash right through a low-level one.  No question.  Also, the spells that cancel each other out are sort of baroque and way too precise for games.  The rules say that Clerics can counterspell Wizards, but there's no spells on the counterspelling list for Clerics, and even Patron Bond/Invoke Patron - it isn't on the Cleric spell list.  I mean, not everybody's going to have the right one, and that puts paid to a unprepared Wizard.  Wouldn't it be better if, instead of specific spells countering each other, ALL offensive spells countered each other?  The common sense rule on page 99 of my PDF says that it ought to be clear, but (hold on, here)...  this is MAGIC STUFF.  There's logic but it's not the logic of the waking world adult.  It's magic stuff!

On three.

So, I propose that all offensive spells and magic effects (e.g. Dragon Breath/Undead Effects/Spell attacks/Whatever) can be used to counter each other, without exception.  In fact, it seems to me that you'll get far more interesting weirdness this way than if specific level 1 through level 3 Wizard spells are able to counter each other and no others.  Obviously, one party will be the attacker and one the defender in each round... so if two parties are engaged in magical combat, then whomever has the initiative that round will be considered the attacker.  Nobody adds any spellburn the first round, since we need to build up steam.  Once the thing is decided, each party makes the action die roll but they're locked in combat for the round - sparks flying/dynamos humming/thunder 'n' lightning.  Nothing happens until the end of the round.  If you really wanted it to be AWESOME, the die rolls can be hid and revealed when the round is up.

The Gorgon's Head Casts Flesh to Stone as a 20th level Wizard

If the rolls are within the higher level caster's level of each other (in the case of the monster instance, the Hit Dice), then sparks fly, smoke drifts, all kinds of neat visual stuff.  Real magickal contests of wills type stuff.  Else, the difference is caused in Hit Point damage to the loser.  When the loser is reduced to zero Hit Points, then the attacker's spell manifests.  Until then, the warring magic powers fight each other for manifestations in the real world.  Next round, each caster rolls a 1d6 and adds their Intelligence modifier, and they may spellburn up to that much that round.  They don't have to, but the aether quivers with readiness.

Nobody loses a spell during a spell duel - this is an exception to the general flow of things.  However, a caster (or both) can incur corruptions.  In fact, the forces that drive magic love these kinds of things since it allows Kaos to leak into the Prime Material plane.  Two bad rolls for both can mean a lot of weird things happening but the duel continues.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I like the "same rolls cause Phlogiston Disturbance" rule.  That's cool.  If either caster spellburns, they can adjust the result up or down to make a Phlogiston Disturbance or to beat the other caster or to beat the level difference to cause damage.

If one caster succesfully casts Dispel Magic, or Holy Sanctuary, or Protection from Evil (or whatever) then the round is a tie.  Go to the next round.  The effects don't occur as usual, they just make all the magic things not happen this round.

For Magic Shield, you get to cancel the Hit Point damage caused by the difference.

For Patron Bond, if one or both parties opt to use it, it's like the nuclear option.  It can only be cast when a party is down to below 2 of their Hit Die in Hit Points.  It's unlikely a Patron will come to the aid of a winning Wizard, in this case.  The thing is effectively over.  The Patron steps in and causes the duel to be over, in addition to whatever effects happen to occur because of the invocation.  The Invocation result is the difference between the rolls.  This could happen in addition to Phlogiston Disturbances, and if both parties opt to Invoke Patrons, a Phlogiston Disturbance is automatic.  The sheer might of two otherworldly entities struggling will bend reality in all kinds of bad ways.

This just gets plopped down on top of regular combat.  For the purposes of the narrative, all kinds of shit related to the spells' castings are happening - fire, lightning, frogs, holy auras, unholy wailing.  All that stuff.  But during the magical combat while the casters are focused on each other, the spells don't cast as usual.  This way, you can't get summarily destroyed by a failed casting on the first round, if you got an 8 and the other guy spellburned for 33 points or something.  You won't lose the spell for after the fight, if you survive.  You may be drained and weak but you can still do the things the party needs.  You vanquished that sumbitch (and maybe could vanquish another if it came to it) but you're not a dagger with legs, now.

This doesn't fix the Cleric side of things - they're included in my version of the rules (not sure if it's the most recent) but it feels like an after-thought.  I think they ought to be able to KABOOM with some divine intervention, too.  Maybe they can request Divine Assistance in the same manner as Invoke Patron, and go for the roll - I'm sure Justicia or Cthulhu would whoop Sezrekan's ass tidily if it came to it, or maybe not.  Maybe that't the point.

The failure of diplomacy is a tragedy.

DCC Alien Races lifted from Star Frontiers - Perk Buy System Method

Since I don't have an original bone in my body and everything I write is stolen from something somebody else already did 30 years ago, here is a breakdown of new races one might try if one is so inclined, taken from the wide-eyed and optimistic Star Frontiers (much of which is available in PDF format from a variety of fan sources out there).  The tone of it is so much more fun than, say 40K.

These are from the Alpha Dawn boxed set expanded rulebook (which I had as a child but never played!).  The allowed weapons and alignments are dependent upon your campaign setting, obviously.

Androidarts' renderings - my favorite versions

http://androidarts.com/misc_stuff.htm

Dralasites (Amorphous Funny Blobs)

• They only see in black and white, but can smell well enough to recognize people by smell alone.  Disguises generally do not work upon them.  They gain a +3 bonus to track a known target by smell (the DC moderated by the judge) but environmental factors may affect this.
• Elasticity - can have a number of limbs equal to Agility divided by 3, rounded up.  Any combination of "arms" and "legs" applies.  For each arm above the second, they gain 1 attack per round, at the end of the round.  For each leg above the second, they gain 10" to move per round.  They take half damage from blunt and impacting weapons, but half again as much damage from piercing and cutting weapons.  Each limb takes a full turn to grow or absorb.  Any number of fingers or manipulators may be grown from each limb.
• Empathic Lie Detection - If a lie is told in the Dralasite PC's presence, it (he? she?) has a DC 14 of detecting the falsehood, modified by Intelligence, rolled secretly by the Judge.
• Base AC 11, HD d8.  They can squeeze into regular bipedal armor, and gain full benefits from it.
• Saves, Crits, and Action Die as a Thief of the same level

Vrusk (Thri-Kreen/Phraints/Bug-Men)

• Vrusks are mostly Lawful.
• Ambidexterity - Multi-jointed arms and two thumbs per hand give them the ability to attack with two weapons without any penalty - they always get two attacks per round, at the same time.
• Move at 40" per round, owing to their 4 walking legs.
• Comprehension -  Vrusk get their Personality bonus to a DC 14 check to understand any cultural interchange that the player him-/her-/itself cannot.  This includes understanding the casting of a spell, a bartered exchange in a market, a religious ceremony - whatever.  With a full turn spent in observation, the Judge can give extra information to the player in secret about what the purpose of the ritual/ceremony/exchange was.
• Base AC 12, HD d8
• Saves, Crits, and Action Die as a Cleric of the same level
• Normal armor for humans and even elves will not fit Vrusk and must be made especially for them.

Yazirians (Tree-Gliding Ape-Men - could also be Phanatons from X1 Isle of Dread)

• Glide - Yazirians have membranous growths that stretch between their arms, legs, and body.  On their homeworlds, where gravity is somewhat less than that of Aereth, they are able to fly upon thermal wind currents for great distances.  On Aereth, they are able to glide short distances, and take -1d damage from falls on a DC 10 check, modified by Agility.  They may move their Agility score in feet for every 5 feet loss in altitude.
• Night Vision - Yazirians can see in what humans and other demihuman races take for complete darkness.  However, in sunlight or bright light, they attack at -1d unless their eyes are shielded by special goggles.
• Battle Rage - Yazirians may use Mighty Deeds as a Warrior of the same level.
• Base AC 10, HD d10
• If a Yazirian wears armor, they may not take advantage of the Glide ability.  They can wear Human armor with a little modification - they derive -1 bonus to the AC owing to armor worn (except shields, bucklers, and helmets)
• Saves, Crits, and Action Die as a Fighter of the same level

Sathar (Evil Sapient Worm Creatures)

• Sathar favor Chaos
• They may not wear armor made for demihumans or humans.  Their bodies are somewhat limp and are held upright by hydraulic forces.  They receive half damage from blunt attacks.  They may travel on their bellies as a snake at half speed, and squeeze through small openings at the discretion of the Judge
• They receive no damage from electrical attacks, and are immune to sleep spells.
• They may see in a 270 degree arc around them, and so are harder to surprise.  Backstab attacks do not work as well on Sathar, and only the normal amount of damage is done to them.
• Hypnotism - by modulating psionic energies in tandem with the sussuration of their voices, Sathar may attempt to hypnotize any creature with whom they may converse.  This acts as the first level Wizard spell Charm Person, but they suffer no ill effects from a failed casting.  This may be attempted no more than 3 times per day before their psionic stores are depleted.  In addition to their level, they add their Personality modifier to the Action Die roll.
• Sathar may learn and cast one Wizard or Cleric spell per level (the level of the spell is of no consequence - if they find a level 5 spell they may learn and attempt to cast it in the usual manner)
• Base AC11, HD d4
• Action Die, Crits, and Saves as a Wizard of the same level

The following are from Zebulon's Guide, an expansion for Star Frontiers that I saw but never had or played:

Humma (Kangarooish Warriors)

• Iron Guts - they suffer no drawbacks from eating rotten or poisoned food, and never need to make a saving throw to escape the ill effects of ingested poisons.
• Spring! - A Humma may leap up to 50 feet into combat with an opponent, and will gain an initiative bonus of +5 if it does so.  They may leap this distance out of combat, or leap 20 feet straight up into the air, assuming normal gravity conditions.
• Prehensile Tail - a Humma may hold an extra melee weapon in its prehensile tail, and thus gain an extra melee attack per round.  They may use the tail to steady themselves or to lift themselves up, slightly.  Simple operations can be completed with the tail but they cannot e.g. type using a keyboard or paint brush strokes this way.
• Saves, crits, and Action Die as Warrior of the same level
• Base AC11, Hit Die d10

Osakar (Multi-limbed, budding, Smooth Talkers)

• Amibidextrous - Multi-jointed arms that rotate within biologically unusual sockets enable them to attack with two single-handed weapons each round without penalty
• Adapted Speech Organs - Their fluted throats and double tongues allow Osakar to learn 3 times the number of spoken languages allowed by their Intelligence modifier.  Half of these may be held in reserve until such time that they come into play.  These are not necessarily the written forms of the languages; they will know the spoken forms of the written languages they know (as determined by their Intelligence modifier as usual)
• Highly Developed Smell - With a DC 12 check, modified by Intelligence, the Osakar may track or recognize a target through normal conditions, or detect the presence of previously-encountered poisons or compounds.  Environmental conditions may improve or reduce the DC (e.g. rain, smoke, gasses)
• Their weird anatomical forms (4 multi-jointed arachnoid legs terminating in hand-like manipulators) allow movement at 40" per round, and they receive the ability to climb as a Thief of the same alignment and level
• Saves, Crits, and Action Die as a Thief of the same level
• They are unable to use most armor but may use shields and helmets.  They may purchase modified armor at 3 times the usual cost.
• Tough scaly hide gives them Base AC14, with d8 Hit Die

There are other races in Zebulon's Guide, the Ishfnit (pretty much space Dwarves with fancy eyeballs) and Mechanons, which are essentially Robots.  There are plenty of cool robot classes for DCC out there, already, and if you need a link to one, try --- WHOOPS  -- the Robot class is vaporized like maybe its plasma cannon backfired or something.

The Robot Lives!  +Paul Wolfe sent the space-time-informational-reference coordinates

Hmm.  Stand by on that issue, readers.  I'll see if I can fix it.  Meanwhile, the class stuff from +Patrick Wetmore 's ASE fits nicely into DCC, in my opinion, but they would need a little twerkin'.  There's even a Robot!  Keep an eye out for the ASE Player's Guide that Patrick teases Labyrinth Lord fans with (I'm unsure if it's cool to link to it at the moment).  If you haven't yet found the amazingness that is ASE, then I abjure you to check it out at Patrick's blog over thisaway.  It gleefully and lovingly smashes many old school gaming conventions in the way that people must have felt when they first encountered the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

It has guns AND robots!  And a dungeon that generated itself!

Thinking of Perk Buy for DCC Characters

My presupposition, of course, is that if it's not broken then there is no need to fix it. I think that mixing and matching of skill sets is against the spirit of vanilla DCC - in which humans are humans and everybody has their niche.  All the easy old skool niches are covered, and any of the weird ones can get squooshed into the pre-existing class.  The Barbarian DEATHRAGEFURY is a little gauche, if you ask me, but I think it could be admirable done with a regular old Mighty Deed.  Same for Paladin shit (just be a cleric already - they get swords), and rangers are available with gnomes and bards in Crawl (maybe it was number 6).

Some folks don't like to play that way.  I offer you a link somewhere to see a list of a bunch of DCC Character Classes that might get you closer to where you want to be.  Go read it - I'll wait.  There, that's a lot of classes to think about, and I bet a good couple of handfuls have sprung up since that thing started to collect cobwebs on the internweb pipes.  Okay, thanks for coming.  I hope you stumble here again, sometime.

A selection of races that are, on the face of it, better than ELF or HALFLING

...

Eh?  What's that you say?  You want a Merman Warrior or an Elven Cleric or a Minotaur Thief?  Something like the original DCC classes but MOAR cool?

Allow me to scrutinize you askance, sir or madam or whatever, as it seems that what you want is all the cool stuff from DCC in addition to feats and perks and shit from 3.75 edition or whatever the Hel it is.  No offense, but why do you need all these lists?  Couldn't you just say "I'm a Dwarf essentially, but instead of stonework skills and gold-smell I have fangs and tree-travel" and have you a Mok?  Couldn't you and the other players and your DM just be like "Cool - eff it, I like it, let's play!"?

No - you persist in your need for a firm framework so everything is 'fair'.

Hmm. Alright.  You sure you don't want to just use DCC as a reference book and continue to play d20 or Pathfinder or whatever the kids play these days?  There are a vast number of modules that you can kludge into any form you want.  You could even use the DCC as a loose framework!

No?

Alright. Let's see what we can bubblegum-and-tape together, shall we? Essentially, you take some base character class that exists already and plop down some things and take some things away.  (except maybe the Wizard - the Wizard can already be weird enough to provide an almost infinite variation  DONT FUCK WITH THE WIZARD is a good rule of thumb)

I'm of the opinion that halflings are great in DCC mechanically, but sort of tedious for RP.  Dwarfs, also.  Elfs, ick.  Now, I'm getting back into Clerics after groking ASE and Petty Gods and all that good stuff, and so that leaves Warriors and Thieves.  Understanding the general DCC philosophy of open access to all the abilities at the start, as opposed to incremental improvements at levelling, blow a good wide selection of the things you want your character to do, right from the get-go, blow it all over the place.  If you want mighty deeds and spells, I say (hear me on this), just play a demigod and have all the powers and play some other game, already.  You will notice that elves are fighty and have full access to the spell list - but they got a neat limitations/mechanical problem to work around vis a vis iron problems.  I take this as a model - get a spare framework of stuff, drop something good on it, and then to even it out drop a problem to work around in play.  Clerics and Wizards already have this in spades.  It's my opinion that Deity Disapproval and Corruptions are good things - NAY GREAT THINGS - because it tacks on something weird and fun to roleplay through and drive your character with aside from all the KILL SHIT GET TREASURE RINSE REPEAT

So mighty deeds AND spells - Not in my campaign, bub, but maybe your 3.5 friendly Judge will allow it for a HJ or something.  Or, if you want mighty deeds and spells, then maybe mighty deeds on a ten sided die roll of 10, and a 1 or 2 is a critical fumble (this is a combat tumble mechanic for a Jester class).  Also, you get a limited selection of spells chosen by me, or the corruption range is like 1-8 instead of 1 or 2.  I mean, if you get greedy you need to pay a price, yeah?  My very own Deep One Hybrid class, which to my knowledge is a mere exercise in page layout and thinking about these mechanics which no one has ever actually played, has stealth skills and magic from cleric list and wizard list, and also the Innsmouth Look which is a sort of Tax.  The healing in water thing is a limitation - gotta get back to the ocean, or a murky pond, or whatever, Fishman...

Column A - Fun stuff

1) Luck mechanics (gain, regenerate, trade)
2) Attacks (claws, bites, squirts of insect semen, whatever (note - just seeing if you're paying attention))
3) Movement stuff (flight, levitation, tireless running, leap, swim, climb)
4) shape changing
5) a single spell, or a level of spells
6) wonky adventuring senses (gold smell, infravision, super duper hearing, spot-a-secret)
7) fun miscellaneous mechanics (tracking, bard song, monk type stuff from 1st ed.)
8) any of the perks from, say +Scott Mathis's Transylvanian Adventures

For Column A, a wide range of fun powers, feats, whatever - a jillion jillion sources could inform your choices.  Mutant Futures, Gamma World, Psionics, Robotics Charts,

Column B - Trade Offs

1) Any kind of corruption, minor, permanent, roleplayable
2) madness of any kind, things that compel a player to RP a thing
3) obligations (religious, ethical, whatever e.g. don't eat meat, never kill except in self-defense)
4) slow healing
5) limited but high number of hit points (I think GW did this with robots and androids)
6) any number of drawbacks mutations
7) for bigger awesome powers, the bigger kinds of permanent corruption
8) Decrease the Hit Die

I don't like to play GURPS much anymore, but I did as a kid, and I think you could take a couple of rules o thumb from the GURPS chargen process to design your class.  Forget about the stats and crap and just think about what kind of stuff you could have with a smorgasbord of GURPS books and, say, 50 points of Perks and Drawbacks.  Sky's practically the limit, here!

My opinion, though, is that you don't need any rules of thumb for this, you can kinda eyeball it and agree informally with the Judge on what is fair.  We've done it (me and Evan and the Mok).  Just remember the basic philosophy to get the whole gamut up front without any of the bullshit leveling mechanics other systems offer (let's be Frank shall we Frank, you want the perks to try we all know it, Frank, you want all teh Perks at Level 1).  "I'm  a fighter with four arms so 2 attacks per round, lots of Hit Points, and my skin is green and I have tusks!"  (A Thark)  "Okay, Thark - you can't wear armor better than AC 12 and your Agility and Personality can never be more than 12, either.  You're very big and you take up a whole rank in the dungeon rank and file by yourself, and you sure can't squeeze through any trapdoors."  Fair?  I think so.

this Thark and his mates are going to cut you, Homes

One really cool thing about a good number of the DCC module authors is thay they offer you ways to redo a funnel full of wonky weird character options when your regular party bites it.  +Daniel Bishop and +Jon Marr, in particular.  I can think of three different modules by Daniel that have weird races to play as just casually strewn about the text.  Just like regular humans plus X, minus Y.  Here is one - by the by - it's worth the price of entry just for the extra patrons, but the Moon Men are cool, too.

What are you doing, there, just reading?  Plumb the skeezy depths of the internet and give this dog some hunting room - I think this dog can hunt, I really do.

Sneak Preview Teaser of HHSOLO1

Now with much light-hearted (but deadly nonetheless) Old Skool feels

Still mostly on track for late summer 2014 - this is a rough cover treatment that I'm trying to get together for inspiration - the art is by an amazingly fun illustrator named Sam Schultz who will even do some custom paper minifigs for you for a nominal fee.  (I'm not sure Sam still does it but you can take it up with him)

Check out Sam's stuff over thither:

tumblr: http://slamschultz.tumblr.com
email: sam_schultz@me.com
Twitter(optional): @slamschultz
I have another surprise illustrator (besides me) that I'm mostly going to pee my pants about, but I ran into the real and thorny problem of money - which makes this kind of stuff pretty dicey.

Who woulda thunk that all this work and money goes into a thing up front?  Here's hoping that I can keep the wind in my sails and finish the text and the interior illustrations long enough to put out a first version, nevermind the deluxe version that I have in mind down the road (maybe better as a follow-up or sequel)

Promoting Desperation in Games - What I learned last year from DCC

<<I think I thought this up a couple of weeks ago, and it's been waiting for me to finish and publish it, so here goes, sort of a WHAT WORKS FOR ME PT. DIEUX although I haven't got the balls to implement these kinds of things all the way since it would be like TPK after TPK after TPK>>

One of the things that appeals to me about the OSR, particularly Barrowmaze and Stonehell and the ASE (I guess megadungeons in general), is the sense of desperation that comes with being a schmuck underground with a dull sword and a torch, and maybe a slightly bonkers religious friend and a guy/gal who tends to take things when nobody's looking.  I often feel desperate in real life, or at least I have in the past.  There were a couple of lean years where I was hungry all the time, penniless, and spending a good deal of time in the FSU Strozier Library at night looking for something.  I knew some Greek then, and Latin, and a meager smattering of Hebrew, and my dreams were infected with hunger and longing and the endless quiet of a half-empty dorm room.  I'd spend hours a day hunting for foot-notes in musty disused books, trying to synthesize my understanding of the Gnostic Heresies and POVRAY and Angband.  I may have been a little mad.  I would save up my dimes and nickels for a black bean sub at Subway back when they did that, and I sometimes prayed an atheist prayer that the Krishnas would come and try to convert the kids with free food... Looking back they was some weird times, yes.  But I was sharp as a tack, then.  It were the desperation that made me sharp, I think.  Maybe it was a burgeoning Krishna Consciousness or something.

There's no way my younger mind could have anticipated those real lean years from 1995 to (2014?) 1998... By that time I had given up on RPGs - our group had just tipped into 2nd edition and things started to seem dull to me.  We had tried Ravenloft, and Dark Sun, Spelljammer (very briefly).  I started a job and picked up the 1st Vampire WoD book to try and keep up with the group and then when they started to play it almost exclusively I bowed out into (get this) Necromunda.  I'm not about preying upon the weak and leaping tall buildings and blending seamlessly into the shadows.  I'm about the grotty, filth covered, desperate picking through goblin-stained rags looking for a couple of silver pieces to make all this poking around in the sewers worthwhile.  When I started to hang with the wrong kind of skinheads over the gaming table, I gave up tabletop gaming and RPGs entirely until about 2008 or so.

I don't need empowerment in my fantasy, really, I think maybe I need a similar situation in which I get some imaginary return on the dreariness of humdrum existence.  I guess maybe it is empowerment, of a kind.  Don't get me wrong - in my waking world I'm fairly fulfilled in that I'm happily married and have a great kid, and my day job allows that I make other peoples' lives marginally less dreary...  So, how do you (well, how do I) promote desperation in my games?  Somewhat more importantly, if others don't look for this in their games but look for something else, how ought I to mesh my deep psychological drives with theirs, so that we can have a fun time and get the thing we need?

1) Maybe the setting.  Barrowmaze appealed to me since resource-management and desperation is implicit.  Looking back, I think DCC isn't such a great match (for what I'm talking about here) since 1st level DCC characters are a little heftier and tricksy-er than other OSR types.  It's perfect for the funnel, though.  After a bunch of funnels, I find I'm worn out on it a little, but it's a hoot for the most part.

2) No permanent spell effects.  Continual light on a rock is a game breaker for resource-worrier types.

3) Spell limits that are a little heftier than what DCC has, so a modification to the system or else a significant ramping up of spell-resistance in encountered creatures, and a boost to the use of spells in humanoid/human NPCs.  I think making loss of the spell connected to any failed roll, or else 

4) CRUSHING DEATH AND GRIEF, SOAKED IN THE BLOOD OF THE TRESPASSING THIEF

5) Frequent random encounter rolls, but I think maybe tandem use of the reaction table to keep things interesting.  Murderhoboing all the other NPCs was hilarious but stymied my attempts to introduce sinister plots, kind of.

6) Bleed the characters of resources if they aren't used up quick enough.  Waves of zombies to get the PCs worried about lamp-oil.  Gusts of wind and dripping water for torches, crossbow-using undead for lanterns and lamps, monsters attracted to spell use and loud noises (It occurs to me that I am stealing all this from the intro to Barrowmaze I).  Gygax said you have to track time and make them sweat resources.  I came up on 1st ed. and YMMV of course.

7) Hideous awful curses, and not the regular vanilla kinds, on magic items.  A good peppering of weak magic weapons and tantalizing miscellaneous stuff right out of the Friday the 13th TV show.  So bad that PCs will hesitate every time they spend a charge.  I know this is not the kind of game everybody wants, but refer to the title of the article, if you will.
8) Grottiness.  This ain't Krynn, it's Newhon or Discworld.  You can die from disease and poison or malnourishment or fatigue.  Kinda sucks, but adventurers adventure so they don't starve, and they need money to fuel the benders they go on, and maybe save up a little at a time for that banded mail for an extra edge.  I was reading ACKS this morning, and it explains that a GP equals one month's worth of destitute subsistence for a peasant, so adventurers are naturally going down into crypts to find a couple of years' worth of wine, wo/men, and song.  I like that policy.  DCC states up front that most 0-level characters have never seen a GP up close.  I think it's in there, somewhere.
9) I don't think I feel great about purchased potions of healing/scrolls of cure light wounds.  Or neutralize poison/cure disease (maybe cure disease is okay, if it comes with a price...)  I want my magic to be a little weirder and more dangerous than that.  Is it okay I say that?
10) I dig the KEEP FIGHTING mechanics of WHFRP 1st ed. in which you can stay up fighting if you save vs. death, but you're incurring wounds and damage so bad that you may never adventure again without some kind of magical/divine assistance.  Or a wooden leg.  High level characters (i.e. 4th level) are riddled with scars and have excellent and thrilling stories to tell.  Necromunda and Mordheim were fun this way, if you went out of action you had a chance to just have been conked out and scrambled back to camp with a concussion and a good story.
11)  Come to think of it, maybe divine assistance isn't so meaningful until PCs reach a certain amount of importance in the world (i.e. never - Lovecraft's mechanistic materialism).  The gods are petty and jealous and underpowered, and arcane patrons are the same.  They want power in the material world and every follower is tested constantly and held to strict standards...  I like ASE's flavor in this way
12) Coins are rare and the high powered stuff like platinum is generally out of circulation - any treasure-y stuff a party finds is going to be chewed up by fences and pawnbrokers and banks and taxation.  That 1000 GP vase you found?  Likely to get broken on the way back and also if you don't have a trusted appraiser then you can expect about half of what it states in the guidebook.  Reaction rolls might make this better, but haggling may be role-played for better results.  Maybe people don't like roleplaying haggling anymore, I dunno.  You could lose the jewels to a pick pocket on the way to the fence!  Adventure!  I mean, what is the pickpocket skill for if not for NPCs to cut your purse?  Also, better be nice to your henchmen or they may just pull up the ropes and leave you down there...
13) TRAPS TRAPS TRAPS  a party full of anxious thieves is better and more fun than a party full of dead clerics and skewered dwarves (in DCC I bet this would be pretty slick).
14) Rust monsters ought to be as terrifying for a party as wights are, IMHO
15) +Zak Smith proposed a rule, I think, in which you voluntarily raised your fumble range in order to expand your crit range.  I think, amongst the number of other clever things the man has written and thunk up, this is one of the clearest uses of simple mechanics to add zest to the game that I ever heard of, since it promotes FUN.  He's really a very smart guy, and make no mistake.
16)  Speaking of crit ranges, maybe the monsters could use the same rule, and cause crits on 19 and 20, and (for DCC) bump up the crit die a couple of notches.  A simple skeleton could turn into a skeleton brimming with serious necromantic energies - feeling worried, with the smell of mould and hate floating around everywhere?
17) for undead, in DCC, you could do worse than unique-ify 'em with my own awesome d100 table (for some zest and laffs)
18) don't let the party just send henchies and hirelings headlong into disaster without reduction of morale, increase in difficulty hiring down the road at the very least, and it cost a share of the treasure for certain
19) if the party burns enough NPCs, then word travels fast and they get dogpiled by a couple of adventuring parties, also (but at least make it dramatic).  A party of murderhobos with a bad reputation is sure to get a comeuppance sooner or later

Right now I can't think of anything else but I'm sure a glancing over of the AD&D DMG later will spring some things into my brain.  I think after some reads of my blog nobody will want to play in a game I run from here out...

Indeed, the Gods Are Crazy

Thinking about the wide range of Orbital Gods that pop up in the first book of the ASE, and some of the games I've played as clerics, lately.  I read this post about what things a fantasy deity would want from boots on the ground, and here goes the list of stuff the two "on the fly" beings I invented might want:

The Great Albino Catfish, the Lord Who Floats in the Deep, Dark Water (from the STOUTFELLAS game by +Doug Kovacs with +Wayne Snyder +Paul Wolfe and +James MacGeorge).  In this I was "Fishbit" Burris, Lawful (but Evil!) Dwarven Cleric - former smuggler turned low-level gangster, turned hamburger by some mighty Pro-Sex Warrior Priestess Woman.

Wants you to (based on the play):

1) Drown
2) Drown things, or murder them unawares
3) Throw nice things in the water
4) Be cold, and/or wet
5) Move quietly in darkness
6) Murder things and dump the bodies in the water
7) Smuggle, but only in boats at night

His granted spells (this is in DCC) manifest as coldness, dark water, catfish-y tentacles, and the silence of the deep.  I think I had Darkness, Detect Magic, Paralysis, and Holy Sanctuary (which didn't get cast in the course of the game).  I was thinking of a big white Aboleth that masqueraded as a fish...  My chosen weapons were the spear and the javelin (recast as a harpoon).  Distinctly a Lawful Evil god, I guess if I needed to pick domains for other game editions I would say, Water, Evil, and Darkness.  Incidentally, the slow-moving and cold sewer water under the city of Cube sufficed for holy water in this case.

Then there was a DCC game I played in as Forthelbert, 1st level Cleric of The Lady of Day Old Baked Goods; as yet unnamed.  Forthelbert was a homely but pleasant artisan (baker) in his former life, and so tried to give succor to the roving bands of adventurers that sprung up like weeds in his hometown.  This is in +Darien Mason 's game, but I didn't get to follow up in it - not sure if he's followed up, either (I think we played a couple of games since then)

If you read this, suggest a name for the Lady and I will include a reference to you in my upcoming solo module for DCC.  Multiple entries will make for better references ;)  (Note: funny that I studied Greek and Roman mythology in college pretty well and didn't recall Fornax)

She wants you to:

1) Break bread with strangers (even evil ones)
2) Pelt non-believers with stale rolls, or hit them with stale baguettes fortified by faith
3) Heal companions
4) Feed the poor and sick
5) Sell leftover (never fresh!) baked goods at a mild discount and tithe it all to the nearest Lawful temple

Spell effects manifested as heat, with the smell of freshly baked bread that passes quickly.  I think the spells I had were Resist Cold/Heat, Food of the Gods, Blessing, and Detect Evil.  His staff was actually a peel (the baking kind), and his sling sent divinely staled rolls shattering upon the brows of the faithless...  I guess in both instances the spells I rolled suggested the god rather than any other method.

The cool thing about ASE is what it suggests - essentially the gods are sort of like the fractured AI from Gibson's Sprawl Series - intelligences spun out into wild personalities that suck up symbolism from human culture.  I think of some God of Orbital Laser Platforms and how a Flame Strike would look as a laser strike from space, silent and blinding and happening here and there as the platform adjusts to the coordinates, like in the final fight in Akira...

Anyways, thanks to +Daniel Davis for the ideas - what do your non-traditional deities do and want?

Late edit: I just came across this thing by Gorgonmilk which is a sterling example of what I have discussed.  Literally Petty Gods

Also, generating minor deities from games with others

If I may say so, these last two are utterly fantastic.  Why are you still here?  Read those things instead, already!

Tomb Rustler for DCC/Transylvanian Adventures

Tomb Rustler for DCC and Transylvanian Adventures

Anywhere the dead are interred with grave goods, there are those who do the work of the Cthonian gods by collecting those goods and spreading them again through the land of the living. Murderhobos, tomb-robbers, defilers – these terms carry serious negative connotations and sometimes sizable legal penalties. It may be that curses and fines and the occasional death by poisoning or trap are well-merited, but these hard-working men and women do not call themselves by the monikers so casually strewn like mud. Among themselves, they are “specialists”, “adventurers”, very rarely the more highfalutin’ “archaeologist”. They can be generous and free-spirited, taciturn and business-like, or miserly and cruel just as other men and women can be, but (as most professionals of any class) they all have a specific set of skills that come to bear on their circumstance.


Tomb Rustlers poach the goods of the dead and buried – sometimes on a small and parsimonious scale, sometimes in grand fashion. To do so, they often must defend themselves from danger and also be able to cope with the mechanical and physical challenges that face them. Further, a good Tomb Rustler knows which goods to take or leave, and the more long-lived ones know a little bit of the sorcerer's tongue so as to avoid curses, poison, and the magical methods by which treasures might be secured.

Action die progression – as Thief

Saving throws - as Fighter of the same level

Hit Points – they get d8 Hit Dice per level, hit points modified by Stamina. Any 1’s are rerolled – the lifestyle does not permit those of ill health and low fortitude.

Alignment: Any

Weapons: Club, mace, short sword, hammer, pick, spear, staff, lasso, crossbow, sling. Tomb Rustlers prefer one handed weapons that can be put to multiple uses besides murder e.g. bashing, prodding, poking, climbing, and setting off traps from a distance. In settings in which they are allowed, a pistol may be used.

Abilities:

Tempt Fate (optional): At any time, if the Ruin system is used, the character may opt to add a Ruin point to recover one Luck point, up to the character’s starting Luck score but not over

Favored save: pick 1 save at character creation, always add the character’s level to the save in addition to any other modifiers.

Pick 3 of the thiefly skills and progress in them as a thief of the same level and alignment of choice (not necessarily the same as the character’s – so for the best modifiers)

Lucky Strike - A Tomb Rustler may declare an attempt to Lucky Strike on any attack – essentially a Mighty Deed roll, on a 1d4 roll of 4 the strike described performs as a Mighty Deed does, although in order for it to take effect the Tomb Rustler must burn a point of Luck. The d4 roll _does not_ add to the to-hit roll but is merely a matter of chance. The attack occurs at the end of the combat round if successful, otherwise it is resolved in the usual fashion. If the Lucky Strike does not occur, then it is still possible for the attack to succeed, and it will not succeed if the Attack roll is insufficient to hit (but at the Judge's ruling other interesting events may unfold from the efforts)

Sense Danger – once per game session, the player may opt to re-roll an initiative roll, re-roll a missed strike, re-roll a saving throw, or re-roll a damage die rolled by an enemy against the character. This costs no Luck, and the better of the rolls (for the character!) is kept – so if the player opted to ask the Judge to reroll the Dragon’s d10 damage die which was originally a 9, and the second die roll was 2, the 2 would stand.

Use magic from item – for the purposes of using a magic item, the character’s alignment and class is considered the necessary one, if the player rolls _over_ the character’s current Luck score on the Action die. This is checked at every use of the item.

Use scroll - The character may cast a spell from a scroll at -2d from the Action Die. This does not impart any protection and may place the character unduly in harm’s way in certain situations.

Sense magic – the character may sense the presence of magic on an item held or touched with a successful Intelligence or Personality check (player’s choice). This imparts no protection and may activate certain items!

Appraisal – The character may determine within an order of magnitude the approximate value of an item with a successful Intelligence check by handling or inspecting it for 1 full turn. If two or more similar objects are appraised, one successful check will determine the more valuable of the two.