Dagger: The RPG for Kids (apparently my kids...)

"Be sure they notice our cool t-shirts!"

My five year-old twins (fraternal, in case you're wondering) had their first RPG experience this last Sunday, playing the excellent Dagger RPG by Brave Halfling Publishing. There's both a free, condensed, b&w version, or a color version with a few more useful pages for all of a $1.00 (worth it.) This is a game made with young kids in mind, and AFAIC, John hit it out of the park with this one.

The game is really a stripped-down version of early D&D--stripped down meaning no stats, only one saving throw, only four character classes (knight/wizard/elf/dwarf). Well, and an optional halfling. I got the twins (Nate and Sam) thinking about their characters the night before, so on Sunday they were ready to go: Nate wanted to play a knight named...Nate. Sam wanted to play an elf named Spike. At this age, they love to write anything, and the character sheets were perfect:



Spike the Elf



Sammy actually first wanted to play a wizard, but we were using the figure stand-ups and map from the Pathfinder Beginner Box, and the only male wizard was an old guy, which wasn't doing it for him. He finally found a pretty bad-ass elf, made even bad-asser by the fact that he had a wand and could cast...MAGIC MISSLE! 



Nate found a stand-up knight with a gigantic shield shaped like a lion, and it was love at first sight.

Nate the Knight



I used descending AC because it was easier to tell them the AC of the monster they were fighting and then have them find the number they needed to roll to hit. I also let them roll two dice for HP and pick the highest one, 'cause I just can't play without at least one house rule. Or, actually, two. It wasn't completely clear to me from the rules how many times a magic-using character can cast their spells, so I limited it to once/spell/encounter. That magic wand needs to recharge, you know...

As for the Adventure, Nate the Knight was summoned to the throne room by King Kesher. He explained that their elfish ally, the Elf Queen, had had her magic bird stolen by Garg the Ogre, who wanted to eat it to gain magical powers. Nate was given the quest to rescue the bird and slay the ogre, which he promptly accepted. Accompanying him would be Spike the Elf, one of the Queen's favored heroes.

At the entrance to Garg's cavern lair, they were taunted by some goblins whom they promtply slew. Faced with the choice of an open doorway or a stairway leading upwards, they chose the stair, went up it, and then crept down a short corridor. Ahead, through an open doorway, they heard some strange scuttling sounds. Spike strode boldy ahead, and his torch revealed a large room completely covered with spider webs, especially the ceiling.

This was interesting in that they weren't sure what to do--there was no immediate threat, only a mystery. I told them they could do whatever they wanted; what did they think their characters would do? So Spike decided to touch a hanging bit of web with his torch. It flamed up and out, and something moved through the webs up above from the middle of the room over towards the door where Nate was standing. The dithered a bit more, so then the (surprise!) spider dropped a coil of webbing around Nate and began wrapping him up.

Though they could now see the spider, Spike decided to shoot an arrow at the strand of webbing and see if he could cut it in half to set Nate free. Um, awesome, so yeah, do it! Roll that twenty-sider! He rolls a 19... 

With Nate now free, they make short work of their foe, and then it was time for them to go over to their grandparents' house, so we paused the adventure. 

It was a blast. Could we have done it using ODD, or B/X, or whatever? Sure. However, Dagger had it all laid out already, all the changes I might've made, and a few good ones I probably wouldn't have. 

The other great thing about the game is it's easy reskinnability (I leave with a neologism...) As John points out in the $1 version, let the kids play whatever they want. Just use a current class as a base and tweak as needed. Play in space. Play in the time of the dinosaurs, pirates, pokemon, whatever. And of course, the rules can be used to good effect in adult groups, too. Simple, fast, flexible. Worth every dollar. :) 



The Best RPG Deal on the Internet: AS&SH, Is Now Even Better!

What do ghouls do during the daytime? Play AS&SH, of course!

Seriously, if you haven't already picked up the pdf version of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, go get it now at RPGNow. For the rest of this week it's only...

$7.50

That, my friends, is a crazy deal. It's like buying a Cadillac for the price of a Yugo.

(graphic demonstration)

I think I've made my point.



A New Campaign Rises...INTO SPACE!

Feathered hair is a galactic constant...

After much rumination and discussion, in just a bit less than two weeks I'm starting up a Classic Traveller Campaign. I haven't run this game since I was, I don't know, 14? However, I've been getting tons of good advice from Victor Raymond, I've got a passel of excited players, and I'll be ready with my subsectors at launch time!

This whole experience will be different too, in that we're not going to be playing at a game store. My family and I moved into a bigger house last August, so we're going to actually be playing in the (wait for it)... basement. Awesome. On top of that, I mean for this to be an actual campaign in pure sandbox style, but more on that later.

For now, some great CT resources:

• Free Starter Traveller
• Rob Conley's "How to Make a Traveller Sandbox"
• Citizens of the Imperium
• Traveller Forum at Original Dungeons & Dragons

The Medium Is the Message

In an RPG as such, role-playing is the fundamental MEDIUM of the game, just as poker is a card game, and chess is a board-and-pieces game. Without the MEDIUM, you have a different kind of game. Gambling w/o cards, instead using dice,frex, is craps: a dice game. Gambling, as such, is a larger thematic classifier, not a MEDIUM.

So what?

It thus makes no sense for players to be rewarded for role-playing, any more than it would make sense to reward poker players for using cards. If you're not role-playing, you're playing a fundamentally different kind of game.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can't play a different kind of game without role-playing; if you give all your chess pieces names and personalities and have them trash-talk each other while playing, you're still playing a board-and-pieces game. You can remove the role-playing and the MEDIUM remains the same. In exactly this way, you can add miniatures to an RPG without fear of changing it into a war game.

Now, how to define "role-playing", well, that's another whole rant...

Follow the Flamingodile...

The Vanishingly Rare Flamingodile

Alex Fontinakes (aka monk) presents for your perusal issue three of his face-shredding hardcopy 'zine, Wizards Mutants Lazer Pistols. I only found out about this fine publication when I volunteered to do the above illustration for the current issue. Anyone who spells "lazer" with a Z is alright in my book...

While you're at it, check out his old school module Beneath the Ruins, the first in what I hope will be a long line of products from Geoffrey McKinney's newest venture, Psychedelic Fantasies.

Good. Stuff.

Proof of the Existence of Glob!

 Ask, and it shall eventually be given...  Alexandre Ilitchev at Blood Ghost has made my dreams come true with Adventure Time: The RPG!

The Good: It's freaking awesome.

The Bad: It's a full-color pdf, and so essentially unprintable on a home printer (well, my home printer anyway...) It also has no bookmarks.

The Controversial: It's based on 4e.

Now, that's probably only controversial to the Old Skool crowd I run with, most of whom have no real use for 4e. Actually, it'll probably be more disappointing than controversial. I myself have an on-again/off-again fascination with Type IV, especially in its Essentials manifestation, so it doesn't particularly bother me.

On the contrary, I think it's a sorely-lacking example of how flexible 4e can be. This game really strips the system down to its fundamentals, and shows (also for the first time) that 4e does humor with no problem. Frex, if you play a Candy Person (and of course you can), your racial power is "Candybalism", which allows you to break off and eat a piece of yourself in order to immediately use a healing surge. Completely. Algebraic.

There's also an online Character Generator, which allowed me to create Sweet Cheeks the Awesome, Sticky Bun Warrior of the Candy People, in all of two minutes.

Do yourself a favor and check it out. If you're not familiar with Adventure Time, well, stop living in a cave and join us in the Land of Ooo; you won't regret it. Well, at least not as long as you have a sense of humor...

You know what Time it is!

D&D Next Playtest, or A Goblin Bloodbath...

Hey! Three Little Brown Books!

Well, after one failed attempt, we finally organized a D&D Next playtest! Will, of course, needed booklets, and so not only hosted us, but set the tone with his old school rendition of the newest school. Awesome.

The Crew

From left to right: Chad, Will, Sean, and Susan. My awesome Brave Halfling gaming box is standing in for me...

The Characters

• From left to right: Rhynar the dwarf Cleric of Moradin; 
• Parsley, the elf Wizard; 
• Darro, the halfling Rogue;  
• Slayer the dwarf Fighter.

As usual, I couldn't keep names straight, and immediately starting referring to Rhynar as Rhino, and Darro as Pedro, but there you go.

The Adventure
In which goblins are taught the futility of their existence...


Our intrepid heroes enter the realm of the Caves of Chaos. While deciding which cave to approach, Rhynar feels a greater evil emanating from the caves at the far end of the ravine. Sensibly, they decide to enter a cave near the mouth of the ravine...

They immediately encounter a goblin patrol, and almost as immediately obliterate it. As the red fog clears, they hear the flat-footed approach of more goblins, and so duck down a dead-end corridor, hoping to find a secret door. Parsley comes up empty, and so as a clump of goblins at the far end of the corridor notice them, our heroes open fire with crossbow, sling, and magic missile. Goblins die. Slayer and Rhynar rush forward; Darro ducks and weaves through the fog of war. More goblins die. Some goblins run away. All is momentarily quiet.

Not for long. A door is heard crashing open. Heavy footsteps and basso-profundo rumblings approach. Our heroes ready themselves and behold a sight they'll not soon forget: A naked ogre, bilious yellow in color, with violet eyes and a great shock of lank black hair, shouldering a big chunk of wood. He sees Parsley and smiles hideously. "Ellllllllff..." he grumbles, and lumbers forward.

A furious battle ensues in which heroic tactics win the day: Parsley shows why it's so vital to master cantrips, and locks the brute in place with Cone of Frost. The dwarves wound and are wounded, and Darro stays out of the ogre's line of site and pelts him with sling bullets. He begins to break free of the ice, and is promptly frozen in place again. Rhynar ends things with a righteous warhammer bringing justice to ogre genitalia. The creature collapses, and Darro finds himself crushed beneath what is later termed "the flaccid ogre bulk." Thankfully he suffers little more than bruised dignity. The party takes a short rest to allow Rhynar to shake out his battered shield arm, and then push on.

Locating the ogre's aromatic den, they poke around and quickly leave with a large sack of coins and an unopened cask of fine brandy. A bit farther on they find a room which seems to be full of goblins. They confirm their suspicions by throwing a torch into the darkness, which is greeted by squeals of panic and flight of arrows. Our heroes charge in, the dwarves leading the way, and indeed find a roomful of foes. Battle is joined and many more goblins die. Quickly. Gruesomely. However, Parsley is knocked unconscious one moment, only to be reinvigorated by Rhynar's healing chant. He leaps up and brains a goblin with his staff, then starts melting off faces with Shocking Grasp. Rhynar plays the knightly defender to the hilt, interposing his shield between friends and foes, saving Parsley and Darro several times from potential injury. Slayer, well, slays. A lot. Then the Goblin King rushes into the room with his retinue.

Hurling a spear, it strikes the already wounded Slayer in the chest, knocking her unconscious. Parsley shouts out the runes of Sleep, and casts his glittering dust over the newly arrived foes. Darro ricochets a sling bullet off the the King's helmet. Four of them collapse in slumber, but the King, while shaking his head groggily, pushes forward. Parsley and Darro drag Slayer out of the room while Rhynar goes into pure defense mode, protecting his companions with a fighting withdrawal. The King presses his attack furiously, but simply can't break through Rhynar's defense. Out in the hallway, Slayer thrashes back to life, her enforced short rest bringing her back to groggy life. As Rhynar and the Goblin King back out into the corridor, Darro ends the fight with a well-aimed sling bullet.

Realizing that both the giant sack of coins and the cask of brandy are still in the room, our heroes show their true mettle and rush back in, suffer a few wounds, but secure their loot. With resources running low, they exit from the ogre's cave and head back to some semblance of civilization...

We take confidentiality very seriously. Pizza, too.

The Summary
We had a blast! Though in essence it wasn't anything more than a smash-and-grab killfest, it was really fun.

Thoughts:

• The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic
• Simple, elegant, and completely useful. In fact, we used it constantly. Even if I never played D&D Next again, I would steal this mechanic.
• Backgrounds and Themes
• Simple and colorful. They functioned as easy to grasp hooks for character personality. Slightly confusing was the fact that the Rogue had both a Scheme and a Theme, but I imagine that'll shake itself out. The potential for easily individualizing characters without needing to spend a half-hour poring over lists of feats and skills is huge.
• Ability checks, saving throws, etc
• Easy-peasy. I'm a huge fan of the fact that all checks are now tied to ability scores. I find it intuitive, and honestly, is something I've been house-ruling almost since I started playing with Moldvay Basic.
• Skills 
• Here's the cool thing: Though all the characters had skills tied to backgrounds and themes, none of the skills were described in the accompanying rules---and it didn't matter. There was no question of how or when to use them.
• Characters
• We all agreed that every character had cool stuff to do out of the gate. I think it's arguable the Wizard may be a bit over-powered to begin with (does he really need magic missile AND shocking grasp, for instance?), but that'll likely work itself out, too. I love that the Fighter with the Reaper theme does damage even when he misses. Awesome.
• Hit points/dice
• Though it took me a bit to overcome the gravitational pull of past-edition expectations, I have to say I really like how hit points are being handled. It seems to me a well-considered blend of AD&D and 4th Ed. healing surges. And even the rules as they stand describe the whole concept of hit points in the clearest language since the AD&D DM's Guide: They are an abstract measurement of overall ability and endurance. Down to half your HP's, and you show no physical damage. Less than half, some cuts, bruises, abrasions. Zero, you're knocked unconscious. Below zero, someone got through your defenses and you are dying. IMO, this makes the idea of characters taking a short rest to shake off the battle makes complete sense, especially since they can only recover a number of times equal to their HD (level), and they only recover a random amount based on that class HD. So, a Wizard can take a short rest to recover HP's, but will most likely always recover less than, say, a Cleric or Fighter.
• Flow of play
• This whole session really felt no different to me than playing ODD or AD&D. In fact, since characters had some more options, it was in ways more fun. It was fast, and encouraged DM rulings and player innovation. Works for me.
• Experience
• With the rules as they stand, I have no idea how experience is being generated, except that at this point, characters only get XP for overcoming foes. There's actually very little monetary treasure in the whole adventure. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it is confusing to me why, for instance, the Goblin King was worth 400 XP, and ogre only 350, when the ogre was definitely a more dangerous foe (with twice the HP's!) I'm willing to let that sit for now, but it was interesting that all the characters left with XP's putting them halfway to 2nd level.

If it isn't obvious, I think WotC is heading in the right direction. I'm pumped for our next session (though I'm also in the midst of moving, so it might be a few weeks...) I'm also really interested to see the next iteration of the rules, which will reportedly cover character creation.