King Arthur Pendragon 5.1

It's been a long while since I wrote in this blog. In fact, two years went by and my gaming time suffered some changes. Some players left, others joined. In fact, for a full year now, I have been playing King Arthur Pendragon 5.1 by Greg Stafford, of Glorantha fame. So far, this has been the most I have played the same game for any stretch of time. For those who don't know (and if you don't know, shame on you!), King Arthur Pendragon, or KAP from now on, is a game about the Arthurian mythos, primarily based on Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory but also drawing from a number of other sources, mashing the many legends and tales about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in a mostly coherent whole.

As you have already guessed by the name, this is version 5 of the game, first published in 1981. In fact, this new version (5.1) is version 5 with corrected typos and errata added. And this version is set in the years of Uther Pendragon, father of Arthur, allowing the players and GM to play the years before Arthur draws the sword from the stone. This can be somewhat misleading, and disappointing, if you are expecting to play a game about King Arthur and his knights. In fact, as written, the game only allows the creation of knights from Salisbury in the year 485 AD (Arthur only draws the sword from the stone in year 509 AD), but by setting the game in this era, the knights can witness, and be an active part in, the prehistory of the Arthurian mythos (Uther conquers Cornwal, Uther beds Ygraine, Merlin takes the baby, Uther dies, etc.). As I understand, earlier version of the game were set in 530 AD which is the era commonly associated with knightly adventures in Arthur's court and enchanted tales of damsels in distress and magic fairies in the woods.

What drew me to the game was simply its mechanics (being a great fan of Arthurian lore helps). This is one of those few games where mechanics are so wedded to the source material that you dissociate one from the other. Many elements contribute to this: for instance, the skill list is focused on knights with skills such as Falconry, Courtesy, Battle and Lance (you won't find here stealth skills or sorcery skills). However, the central element are the paired traits.

There are 13 pairs of opposed traits such as Merciful/Cruel, Chaste Lustful or Pious/Worldly. Although a knight has many personality traits worth playing, these are the ones that most define his behavior. And by sometimes allowing the traits to control the actions of the characters, even those players who never picked up a book about King Arthur or saw the movie Excalibur can follow the genre conventions. How?

The sum of each pair is 20. So a knight with Chaste 13, has Lustful 7. If Chaste raises to 14, Lustful drops to 6. When a situation occurs that would trigger a certain type of behavior falling under the purview of one those paired traits, the characters is allowed to roll to see how he behaves. Most of the times, the players just behaves however he thinks his character would and he earns a check in a trait (more on these later). Sometimes, the GM deems the situation important to ask a player to roll a d20. Let's suppose it's a choice between being Chaste 13 or Lustful 7 (either you resist temptation or go to bed with the daughter of the castle's steward). If the player rolls equal or under Chaste, he acts in a most chaste manner. If he fails his Chaste roll, he immediately rolls his Lustful 7. If he rolls equal to or under Lustful, he must behave in a Lustful manner. Whatever was successful, receives a check, which means that by the end of the session, there's a chance to improve whatever traits or skills were checked (if you know the Call of Cthulhu system, of which KAP is an adaptation, you know what I mean).

Whatever the characters do, by keeping their traits in check and enforcing proper behavior according to traits, the genre conventions are followed in a way that few others systems applied to settings do. Since this is not a review but my thoughts about the game, here are a few others things I really like about this game:

• It's a generational game. Sessions are played in years, not in weeks or months. Roughly, each sessions is about 1 game year, ending with a Winter Phase (see below). Since the game is played in years, and the campaign extends from year 485 AD to year 566 AD, when Arthur dies, you are expected to play your character, his son and probably his grandson. This lends an epic feel to the game as family is more important than a single character. And believe me, when years pass and you don't have a male heir, players will start to fret.
• The Winter Phase is where you improve your skills, compute your Glory (a sort of reputation) and apply modifiers by getting older. By setting this roughly at the end of each session, you can visibly see the evolution of your character as he grows older, marries, has children, improves his skills and becomes a well-known knight of Britain.
• The Great Pendragon Campaign, this is a MUST HAVE. You don't have to buy it to play a good campaign of KAP, but it provides a roll of years, and adventure upon adventure from the time of Uther to the death of Arthur, touching upon all the milestones of the Arthurian mythos: the drawing of the sword, the coronation of Arthur, the wedding of Arthur, the conquest of Rome, and the Battle of Camlann. It's a sort of meta-plot to end all meta-plots and one that does not force you to play it to have fun (I'll post more about this campaign later).

I love this game to bits. The players love this game. But don't take my word for it, go get it NOW and play it. You won't play rogues or sorcerers, elves or dwarves, but knights of Britain in the time of King Arthur. To some, this laser-focus is a drawback. To me, it facilitates how to present the game to the players, narrows their choices (how many game present so many choices the player agonize for days) and sets a clear starting point for a campaign. This is rightly called a classic. My only regret is having taken so long to start playing it.

Legacy of the Ancients - The Towers

Warning: This post contains spoilers for my upcoming Numenera campaign. If you are a player, stay away..

Every campaign should have a name and this one is no exception: Legacy of the Ancients. The name just popped into my mind and I really don't care if it's already used somewhere else. I like it. It conveys what the campaign is about. Besides, it's a cool sounding name for a campaign.

Below, you can see a diagram of the existing towers. Eons ago, the network covered the whole planet. Are there other towers still standing? Most likely. However, they are not longer part of the network because the portals inside are no longer active.

The diagram is a handy reference. It doesn't represent the towers' geographical position nor the spacial position between them. I will place each tower on the map of the Ninth World as it suits my campaign. For instance, tower 8 is not necessary in the center of the existing network as the diagram shows. The lines indicate how the towers are connected as follows:

• Dotted lines indicate non-functioning portals.
• Solid lines show working portals.
• Arrows indicate one-way or two-way portals and direction of travel. For instance, tower 3 connects to tower 5 via a one-way portal. The PCs will travel to tower 5 but cannot return to tower 3. Tower 3 also connects to tower 4 via a two-way portal. PCs can arrive at tower 3 from tower 8 but cannot go return the same way.

Each portal or transport bubble is similar. It's a large bubble - approximately 3 meter radius - floating in the center of a large chamber. Its transparent surface ripples much like water on a pond disturbed by the wind. Inside, there is no gravity. Many unidentified symbols glow on interior surface. Some appear and disappear. Occasional, smaller diagrams are visible but these are meaningless. The symbols can be manipulated by touch (like a touch screen). With an Intellect roll the PCs can "dial" other towers. Transportation is instantaneous and seamless. The PCs feel no transition other than that the chamber in which the bubble is standing changes slightly according to the destination ("The room changes slightly. You see a pile of dead bodies that wasn't there before").

I still don't want to go into much detail about the towers' location, precise operation or even layout as these will adapt to suit the story of the campaign. Many eons passed since the towers were built. The geography changed, some were looted, others are occupied by creatures - natural or otherwise.

THE FIRST TOWER

Here's what I sketched about the first tower: it is now in a marshy area of the Orrimare forest - a fungal forest of giant mushrooms. Nearby is a small village. The tower itself is two structures: A cube made of an unidentified black metal that barely reflects the light. Each face is about 30 meters long and there are no doors or windows or any other openings. It floats on the air, slowly spinning on its axis, with one vertex pointing down to the top of a stone-like, tapering, rectangular pillar, 9 meters high. Inside the pillar, the PCs will find a control room. From there, they can teleport into the cube and explore further. There are many rooms inside the cube and these will be detailed for my first session. One of these is, obviously, the bubble chamber.

Numenera - Genesis of a Campaign (Part 3)

Continued from a previous post.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for my upcoming Numenera campaign. If you are a player, keep away.

Now that we have a basic premise for the campaign and a potential powerful technological artifact - The Eye of Azhura - as the McGuffin (aka Ronin's suitcase), it's time to write down some of the potential oposition the player-characters will face either willingly or unwillingly. Not every one of these non-player characters are out to get the Eye of Azhura. Some want to loot the towers, others are secretely spying the player-characters and still others are doing their own thing but fate puts them in the player-characters' path.

Some of the following non-player characters were created by me, others were suggested during character creation. These are only the initial ideas. The campaign is always in flux and much can be changed depending on the players' ideas and characters' actions.

There are three characters in play so far: a nano, a glaive and a jack.

• A Tough Glaive Who Controls Beasts.
• A Mechanical Nano Who Exists Partly Out of Phase.
• A Graceful Jack Who Entertains.

I asked the players to roll/choose from the connection table on each type.

NPCs suggested during character creation:

• Kreel, the glaive's pet. This NPC has lots of potential for GM intrusions. According to this focus, the kreel hates another player-character. I sketched the beast as it exists in nature.
• The teachers of the nano and the powers that be who are keeping an eye on him rolled on the Nano Connection table. I'll leave these "powers that be" open for now. The players will provide me some ideas later. Perhaps they are the teachers of the nano, perhaps a different faction within the same school or a different group altogether.
• The jack's troupe of travelling minstrels and performers rolled on the Jack Connection table. These can make an appearance anywhere as they are a travelling group. They can help or hinder the player-characters.

NPCs suggested by the campaign premise:

• Tregor and Helion, a warrior and a nano. They lead a force of ragtag misfits and cutthroats. Initially, they will be pursuing the jack as she came into possession of information regarding the location of a source of potentially valuable numenera. Tregor is a violent man who leads by fear and force. Helion is no less violent but resorts to manipulation to achieve his own ends. He keeps Tregor in check. In fact, Tregor fears him. At first, it will seem Tregor is the leader of the two, but, in fact, Helion gives the orders.
• Volarus, the wanderer. I don't know who this NPC is... yet! He will be introduced early in the campaign and perhaps play a major part. My idea is that once he was a normal man who came into contact with ancient technology. Something blended with him and rewrote his DNA. Now he is something else, more transhuman than human. He will seem to be a mere observer with an unknown agenda. He can heal the most serious wounds by touch and he has little recollection of his past.
• The Outsiders. They crashed on Earth a long time ago. Longer than any living human. They seek a power source for their starship so they can return home. The only power source in existence powerful enough is the Eye of Azhura. They wear dark hooded cloaks and metal gloves and hide their faces with metal masks in the likeness of the human physiognomy  In truth, these are suits that allow them to survive on Earth's atmosphere. They are not human, although I haven't decided their true nature yet.

At this point I don't think I need to over-complicate things. Two or three opponents with conflicting agendas is all that's needed to propel the plot. Other NPCs appear on a scenario to scenario basis like the local innkeeper or aeon priest.

Next: The Towers' Map

The Gap in Play

This post in The Signe of the Frothing Mug mirrors most of my own experiences. Sometimes it happens unexpectedly. With so many busy working schedules, family issues and other real life issues, someone misses one session. As we are in a middle of a scenario, we take the time out waiting for the player to return. Suddenly, someone else fails to show up on the second week. Before we know it, we don't play for three weeks in a row, and I begin to lose interest. After all, I'm not willing to spend time preparing a session if I don't know whether we're playing or not. And then, the campaign implodes as everyone loses interest. Some of us been there and done that. So, what can we do to avoid a campaign implosion by lack of attendance?

In the past, we arranged for a quorum, that is, if at least half the players could make it, we would still play regardless. This almost guarantees the campaign never stops. I used this with mixed results. I never got the sense I was playing with a cohesive group as different players failed to show up on different occasions. I was never playing with the full group. This meant individual storylines failed to take root and even the overall story arcs didn't generate much interest because no player was there all the time to play through it.

We also tried to play in episodic style. This style meant sacrificing long, involving and complex stories for shorter stories of 1-2 sessions. This worked better specially if there were a rotating cast. Every story started with whoever was available and off they went. At the end of session, they returned to their base camp (or ship or whatever) to rest. Next session, rinse and repeat. The problem is this only works if the group is traveling in a mobile base (a spaceship or a boat) or if the campaign is bound within certain geographic limits and the group returns to the same place to rest. In some games, requiring lots of travel, it becomes increasingly difficult to rationalize why some of the missing characters manage to find the rest of the group if they travel all the way to the other side of world.

In the end, I find that both solutions are not ideal ones. When I start a new campaign, I just hope the players commit to the game schedule we agree and take it seriously. Currently, we play twice a month. We hope that, by devoting one week to gaming and another to our families, we will maintain a regular gaming schedule and the campaign won't implode from lack of interest generated by long gaps in play. It still doesn't solve the problem of one player missing a session and waiting three weeks to be able to play again, but then again, by not imposing a weekly game, perhaps the players will show up more often because they are not forced to choose between the game and other things so often.

I am interested in hearing about your own experiences and solutions to this problem, and how did they work out in the end.

Numenera Creatures: Kreel

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for a creature in upcoming Numenera campaign. My players are advised to stay away.

One of the players in my upcoming Numenera campaign is a Tough Glaive Who Controls Beasts. Instead of forcing the player to take of the creatures from the bestiary of the Numenera corebook, I allowed him to flex his creative muscles and give me a description of a creature he envisioned for his character. The Ninth World being a weird place filled with many creatures created by past civilizations, this was only fitting. According to the corebook, the creature starts as at level 2 and progresses from there, and since it exists in the world, there are more like it. So, level 2 is a good baseline for this creature. Below I present this new beast in Numenera format.

KREEL (LEVEL 2)

A kreel is a writhing mass, the size of a human head, of yellow-orange tentacles with purple tips. This mass envelops a minuscule body with a toothed orifice that serves as mouth. They slight shift coloration from deep red to bright yellow, perhaps a form of communication with other kreel. They move silently, gliding through the air in short bursts.

Kreel are rarely seen in nature. Scholars debate their exact nature but it is commonly agreed they are an animal / plant hybrid with a diet of small animals, complemented by some sort of photosynthetic process.

Motive: Breed and protection.

Environment: Found only in deep underground caves or the giant mushroom forests of Drej and Orrimare.

Health: 6

Damage Inflicted: 2 points

Movement: Short

Modifications: Moves silently as level 5.

Combat: Mostly found in colonies, kreel flee if alone unless cornered. They attack the exposed skin of the opponent, trying to wrap their tentacles around an arm, leg or even head. Then, the creatures releases a small, stinging poison, while biting with its mouth.

Interaction: With an animal level of intelligence and no means of communication, a kreel is very difficult to interact with. They are aggressive and territorial. More often than not, they attack whomever comes into contact with them. Even someone capable of handling animals will find it next to impossible to interact with one.

Use: The PCs wander into a colony of kreel while exploring. Someone hires the PCs to capture a kreel alive to breed as a pet or curiosity for some bored noble. The acid in their tentacles can be extracted and processed into a poison with alchemy (inflicts 1 additional point of damage).

Loot: None, although kreel flesh is a delicacy in The Steadfast and can earn the PCs good shin.

GM intrusion: The acid of a kreel is stronger than normal. The PC suffers wracking pain and muscle spasms loosing an action. A kreel is larger than normal. It has 8 points of health and inflicts 3 points of damage.

Final Note: In my campaign world, no one can tame kreel except the PC (who helped me create it) using an tattoo-like implant on his forehead that glows when he sends impulses to his kreel in a higher frequency range than the normal human ear can pick.

Comedy of Horrors

Today I participated in a meeting of several roleplaying groups under the theme Horror and the Fantastic. Being so close to the Halloween, this was only fitting. I took a break from preparing Numenera to run a session of Trail of Cthulhu. I used a Purist adventure called the The Dance in the Blood. For those who don't know, in Trail of Cthulhu there are two modes: the Purist mode, typical Lovecraft, in which the investigators will never make a difference, their efforts are futile and all their beliefs will be rendered null at the end of the scenario, and the Pulp mode, in which the investigators have a fighting chance, they will go down but with guns blazing, it's a mode designed to simulate Robert E. Howard's Mythos stories. You can mix and match several modular rules to achieve the proper mode or anything in between.

As I stated, we were playing in full Purist mode (and the game was advertised as such), meaning the investigators would be trying to solve the case and reach the final revelation before going mad or dying. Everyone knew the story would not end happily, although the characters would have a chance to solve the case, they would not survive unscathed.

It's was a public place. I don't like playing Trail of Cthulhu with background noise. I like my Trail of Cthulhu sessions in a quiet place to achieve the proper mood and immersion. These notwithstanding, we did quite well. There were three players: two girls and a guy, not that it matters, but I think Mythos games tend to attract a higher ratio of girls. The girls were doing quite well, but for some reason the guy was not, breaking constantly the mood and telling jokes. I ignored some of it at the beginning for the simple reason that I was playing in a public meeting and we don't get to choose the players. It's a a demo session, after all. However, the silly behavior was annoying me.

I had to pause the game to remind the players (I avoided talking directly to THAT player) that they were also responsible for preserving the mood and horror of the game. Despite the many nods, he didn't stop. He wasn't being a jerk. He thought it was only natural since it's "just" a game, and people play to have fun. To him, fun obviously equates to telling constant jokes and distracting other players. He finally admitted it was a sort of defense mechanism much like when we say something funny when the tension is unbearable. Not that it was that, we playing in a public place and all.

He was also the first player I met who actively resisted the system. In other words, he didn't think his character should loose Stability EVER, he justified every Stability loss with some logical reason (in his mind). It went something like this:

Keeper: "You finally understand YOU are a monster beneath your human skin."

Player: "Ah, I would never lose Stability because I already had a dream about it so I'm used to it."

And this went on and on and on specially during the climatic encounter when revelations were coming fast and loose. Nevertheless, the girls were doing OK and much of what worked in that session was because of them. They were roleplaying their characters, they were investigating, the reacted adequately to every situation even in sanity-shaking moments.

My point being that some players don't really understand Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu. It's not a game for everyone (worse still in Purist mode). However, some people also don't seem to get that their inability to play a certain game should never be an excuse to drag down the game and annoy the other players. Just walk away please or better yet, make sure you, at least, enjoy the premise before signing to play. I would be less miffed if he would be honest and say something like "Sorry guys, this game isn't for me, I'm bowing out".

Some Nice Pictures

Two weeks ago, I GMed my first Numenera session, the Nightmare Switch, an exclusive kickstarter scenario. It went quite well, I think. At least, everyone had fun so I use that as measuring stick as to whether I did ok as a GM. Perhaps sometime soon I'll post a brief review / actual play of that game that took three and half hours to complete. In any case, one of the players was constantly sketching as I was playing and here are some of his drawings:

This is the tower where the priests of the village lived, a clave of Aeon Priests. It was secured by a garden of poisonous plants and an odd device that rendered people unconscious should they get too near the inner tower.

Out in the desert, there was a mysterious dome of a previous civilization with many strange machines inside of unknown purpose. I was quite satisfied with these drawings as they accurately depict what I had in mind and my description of these places. It was also a first for me to have a player who was drawing my descriptions so I asked him to take these and scan them to share with you all.

Retrospective: Shadow World Master Atlas

My recent posts here and here concerning my Numenera campaign brought back memories of an old setting favorite of mine: Shadow World. Published by Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) in boxed set format, it caught my attention at a time when I was being introduced to roleplaying games. Prior to 1990, I had only played the Dungeons & Dragons red box.

At the time, this boxed set was dual stated for Rolemaster and Hero System. I recall visiting my local game store with two friends. Each of us had decided to buy a different game so we could each take turns as GMs. I bought Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP), another bought Shadowrun (1st edition) and the third bought the Hero System plus Fantasy Hero. He also bought Shadow World. This was my first contact with the setting, although I never had a chance to be a player in it. Instead, my friend decided that being a GM was too much work and I borrowed his books.

I played a lot of MERP in those days before finally getting my hands on a copy of Call of Cthulhu. My gaming priorities shifted from fantasy to horror. Even though I occasionally tried other systems (the occasional AD&D one-shot or a few sessions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay), my heart was set in Call of Cthulhu and I never looked back.

However, I read the Shadow World boxed set. I even managed to pull myself from Call of Cthulhu for a week or two to try and create characters with my players (one was a centaur, as I remember) but, alas, it never came to pass. And yet, I enjoyed the setting a lot. It was a typical ICE product with a lot of emphasis on minutia such as flora, fauna and weather patterns. I was used to such information from the MERP books, although in retrospective much of that is unnecessary to create a good campaign and useless to all but the most detailed-obsessed readers. The layout was two blocky columns with a minuscule font filled with page after page of stats. Taking a cue from AD&D's Monster Manual, it even had stats for the deities, although I suspect (my memory is a bit hazy) that those were more super-beings than divine beings.

Shadow World was a typical high fantasy world where magic coexisted with psionics and divine spells so it could make full use of the Spell Law book from Rolemaster with its three schools of magic: Mentalism (psionics), Essence (magic) and Channeling (divine). Most of the standard fantasy races such as elves, dwarves and hobbits were also present as well as the more commonly known fantasy creatures, such as trolls, orcs and dragons.

In retrospect, what fascinated me most about it were the science-fiction elements. They were subdued, of course, but they were there. Kulthea (the main planet) had been colonized by beings from a galactic empire in the distant past, some of who were still alive working in the shadows. Technology from that empire could still be found in remote place and deep in underground dungeons. Unlike my present game, Numenera, the system made no distinction between these technological artifacts and magic items, but the very notion of them being there was enough to pull me into the world. I could envision fantastic underground structures with sleek corridors and technical panels, forgotten tombs with mechanical guardians and all sorts of mysterious technologies. The moon of Orhan, where super-beings live, is described as possibly having been terraformed a long time ago.

In Numenera, the world is a fantastic place shaped visibly by impossibly advanced technologies. In Shadow World, the world feels more "natural" because the sci-fi elements are more subdued. They are there to be sure, but the setting never strays far from its fantasy roots, focusing on high fantasy rather than a melange of both genres. I can still find some inspiration there, as my recent posts attest, and I still find it a good setting to create adventures and even very adaptable to other systems (as was the original intent). It is one of my top five fantasy settings even if it's not one of the most original out there.

Numenera - Genesis of a Campaign (Part 2)

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for my upcoming Numenera campaign. Players: stay away!

In my campaign's first post I described the basic premise of the campaign. From the get-go, even before I considered using a network of transdimensional gates as a clothesline where to hang the player characters' stories, I decided I wanted to include a powerful artifact. And where there is a powerful artifact, you can bet there are all sorts of factions trying to get their hands on it.

This being Numenera, the artifact is called the Eye of Azhura. The players will find a mystifying veil of stories and old wives-tales surrounding the Eye of Azhura. Most of the people of the Ninth World is superstitious and understands little of the technology left by the super-advanced civilizations of old. They know what trickles from the distant past in musty old tomes and oral tradition. It's a powerful gem or perhaps the eye of a god that unleashed divine wrath and brought the dead back to life. At this moment, I'm still playing with the form these legends will take, but it won't be a gem except in the minds of the people who tell these tales.

Taking inspiration from one of my favorite settings of 80s, Shadow World, published by Iron Crown Enterprises, the Eye of Azhura is an energy source placed inside a shrine to power a force field around the Earth that protects it against energy forces inimical to all life. In fact, there are two Eyes of Azhura: one on the north pole and the other on the south pole. How does this tie with the network of gates? As the player characters explore the tower structures, they learn about the Eyes (perhaps both the artifacts and the gate structures were created by the same civilization) and that others also seek to control the towers for their own ends including a group of voyagers from the stars stranded on Earth long ago who seek a functioning power source to restart their ship and leave the planet. This, of course, poses a problem since the removal of either Eye will deactivate the Earth shield, thereby exposing the planet to deadly energies.

Since I like to complicate things, not all of these opposing groups want or seek the Eyes. Some just want to reach far away places through the gates for their own purposes. Some are just in it for the numenera. I don't want to turn this into an epic affair with whole armies battling for a powerful artifact. I want to keep low-key approach with a small cast of player and non-player characters. Numenera runs quite well by introducing little by little the sci-fi elements. When the players look around, they will be knee-deep in transdimensional gates, powerful structures filled with ancient machines, an artifact that is a power source of a planetary force shield, visitors from the stars and ancient space ships. I like where this is going so far.

Next...

In praise of Grognardia

I don't remember how I came across Grognardia, James Malizsewski's blog about old school gaming. I don't even remember if I learned about the blog's existence before I began playing AD&D 1st edition two years ago or if I was surfing the web looking for old school gaming advice after I started playing AD&D 1st edition. What I can say with certainty is that Grognardia was a source of inspiration and entertainment for a good many months, mostly between 2010 and the end of the blog in 2012. I was reading it even before I knew what OSR (Old School Renaissance) was. I wasn't part of that movement. My reading of the blog was more of an attempt to learn about that nebulous period (for me) that encompasses the origins of the hobby, from circa 1974, to the mid-1980s.

I came relatively late to the hobby around 1989 with Frank Mentzer's Dungeons & Dragons red box and skipped right to Middle Earth roleplaying game (MERP), then Call of Cthulhu. I never played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons regularly, except for the occasional one-shot scenario during the second edition years. Fantasy-wise I was mostly a MERP and Warhammer Roleplaying game fan, although most of my hobby time was devoted to Call of Cthulhu. My serious involvement with old school gaming, to the extent that involvement implies not only playing the game, but also reading about the early days and its key figures, began in 2010.

In the end, it matters little how I discovered Grognardia. What matters is that the blog was my go-to blog for a few months. It was inspirational reading and many a night I spent pouring through hundreds of articles. I learned more about funhouse dungeons, what particular historical context a certain module was published in, who some of the most influencial figures of the early days of the hobby were, and many other facts. I learned to what extent the Dragonlance modules influenced TSR to go from a dungeon-oriented model to a story-oriented module, I learned some entertaining facts about those who tackled the legendary Tomb of Horrors and something about the history of the long lost Greyhawk campaign.

Its influence on the whole OSR movement, of which James Maliszewski was a fierce proponent, is undeniable. Now that the blog seems to be dead, I join others like Once More Unto the Breach in remembering. Would you care to share some of own your memories about Grognardia?

Numenera - Genesis of a Campaign (Part 1)

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for my upcoming Numenera campaign. Players: stay away! This is the first in a series of posts where I describe the genesis of my campaign and what sort of events I'm planning.

In about three weeks, I'm running my first Numenera adventure. Hopefully, it will be the beginning of a campaign. As experienced GMs know, a campaign doesn't require complex plots or even any long-term planning. You just need the player characters, an introductory adventure and things will develop from there. The players will immediately begin to develop their own plans either from scratch or from previous events, and I just have to develop things from there. I could make an episodic campaign, where each adventure is unconnected from previous ones, a picaresque story of sorts, with the PCs wandering the setting, getting into all sorts of mischief. However, I decided to create a connecting thread, something that provides a rationale for all that is going on.

Inspiration can come from unlikely places, and this one jumped right out of the Dungeon magazine pages, namely issue #10, volume II, March/April 1988. It's called Secrets of the Towers. I would hesitate to call this an adventure. Rather, it's a series of short descriptions of the eponymous towers, twelve in all. The premise is that there are twelve magical towers scattered across the world. They are ancient structures (at least 2000 years old) that once formed a quick transport network via magic portals. Now, you are beginning to see how this could easily be transplanted to the Ninth World. The towers become structures impossibly old. The 2000 years become millions of years and the structures true purposes are all but lost in time. They don't even need to look like towers.

Each tower vignette in the article includes a short description of the place (easily expanded) and some antagonist that is also interested in the place. For instance, in tower one, it's an orc shaman leading a band of orcs. Again, this can easily be changed into humans or margr or other abhuman interested in the tower (or, in Numenera, structure).

I'm still collecting my thoughts about this, but already ideas are flowing. The structures are nothing but a mcguffin that propels the campaign forward. What happens in each location or in-between is what's important. Since the towers can be placed anywhere in the world (after all, they are connected by transdimensional gates), I can lead the player characters to wherever I want and drop any adventure in their path. For instance, let's say they activate the portal in tower one and travel to tower two but a malfunction deactivates the gate in this tower leaving them stranded away from home. They can search for a power source for the tower, leading to all sorts of interesting side-plots or return home, which can also lead to all sorts of adventure or any other thing I can think of. I can even place a tower outside Earth or in another dimension. There could also be a number of opposing factions vying for control of the structures.

Does it matter what the towers do or that the player characters are able to find them all or even control them all? Not in the least. As I said, it's only a plot device to keep the campaign going. It's also a source of numenera and even these can be potential story hooks. In the end, what matters is the journey and not the destination.

Next...

Combat: The bane of roleplaying?

One thing I hear a lot goes something like this (not exact words): "We were roleplaying the scene when suddenly combat broke out. After we killed / drove off / defeated the enemy, we resumed our roleplaying of the scene."

I am always perplexed by this way of thinking. It's not universal but it's more frequent than we think. What does it even mean? People are roleplaying their PCs' interactions with NPCs and when combat starts, roleplaying ceases to be and it all becomes a tactical / mechanical game? Is combat mutually exclusive from roleplaying? In my opinion, no, and it's a fallacy to play any roleplaying game based on this false assumption. It's true that I see this more often in games like D&D and GURPS where the rules that govern combat are more complex and extensive, so there might be a reason why people stop thinking in terms of roleplaying during combat when they are forced to micromanage an endless rooster of mechanics. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible, and even preferable, to maintain a modicum of roleplaying during physical conflicts of any sort.

People who consider combat extraneous to roleplaying are splitting up what are essentially two complementary elements. Everything should flow naturally from one scene to the next, and roleplaying should be always on the forefront. After all, if roleplaying is acting like a character would in any situation, why would the character stop acting the way he does in combat? In the reality of the setting, does the character thinks in terms of turns, rounds, the mechanical bonuses of his sword or the level of the opponent to determine spell resistance? No, he thinks in terms of moments, of how sharp or strong his sword is or how tough or mind-resilient his opponent is. He would think in terms of the elements natural to the setting. The mechanics don't exist in the setting, though they exist in the game to define what is permissible in the setting.

This is why so many roleplaying games take the time to encourage the players to describe their actions in combat, to embellish what is happening. Otherwise, combat turns into an exercise of cold management of mechanics and bonus crunching. And this is why so many players complain that combat cease to be roleplaying and turns into a boring tactical conflict. There's nothing wrong with tactics. It's even encouraged in some systems. What I contend is that both can coexist.

Perhaps it would be more helpful to think in terms of social and physical conflicts. These terms do not preclude roleplaying, so they are not so restrictive in the mind of the players. In both types of conflicts, rules are called for and applied. I roll Persuasion to convince an NPC of something he does not believe in (Social) and I roll my Sword to attack an NPC who doesn't want to be hit (Conflict). In both cases, I'm acting against an NPC and that NPC is an obstacle to what I want to do. In both cases, I always consider what my character is doing or thinking before I act. And this includes speaking IN CHARACTER. The character shouts orders to his men in combat, he/she runs to a beloved friend to protect him from the orcs and he cries in anguish when an ally falls down.

To sum up: combat is not a game apart from the main game, where the act of roleplaying is diminished or even banned, not matter how tactical it gets. It should be an opportunity to highlight those traits that are not evident in more social occasions ("I hunger for the blood of fallen enemies"). It should be as heroic or as grim as the game allows and encourage roleplay in that sense. It should also be acting in character. Remove roleplaying from combat and you're just using mechanics and moving pieces like a chessboard. In this sense, it ceases to be a roleplaying game. You might as well be playing a boardgame.

What do you think?

Numenera - First Impressions

Last Saturday I got to run a small session of Numenéra. In case you have been living under a rock, Numenéra is the new roleplaying game by Monte Cook. Set a billion of years in the future, after the rise and fall of nine unimaginably advanced civilizations, the game is about a world littered with these pieces of numenera - remnants of technology from those previous civilizations - that the people of this age don't fully understand and consider to be magical. The premise is the third law of Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". I won't review the game here as I'm sure a Google search will return a number of good reviews about the system.

The system is simple and flexible. It won't be to everyone's tastes, especially if you like your systems more complex, but it gets the job done and in an extraordinarily efficient manner. After a few rolls, in the demo session I ran, the players were using the system without checking the rules within minutes of play. It faded into the background allowing us to focus on the story. The fact that the GM NEVER rolls the dice alleviates some of the burden of running the game. Every action in game is rolled by the players, even those initiated by NPCs. The PC wants to attack someone, he rolls the attack. The PC wants to avoid being seen by a guard, he rolls his stealth. The NPC attacks the PC, the player rolls defense. The NPC wants to sneak by a PC, the player rolls to spot the NPC, and so on. In play, it's runs very smoothly.

The system goes something like this: whenever a PC tries to do something that needs rolling, the GM chooses a difficulty from 1 to 10. In turn, the player must roll the same or higher than a target number equal to that difficulty times 3. So, trying to climb a wall with a difficulty of 3, the PC must roll 9 or higher (3x3=9). And this goes for every thing in the game. NPCs have levels which determine how hard is to target them or how difficulty it is to evade their attacks. For instance, if a level 2 NPC attacks a PC, the player must roll 6 or higher to avoid the attack. If they player wants to attack, he must roll 6 or higher. Remember that the players always roll. Since the players can change the difficulty using a series of mechanics such as skills, equipment or by spending points from their attributes pools, they are always in control of how difficult the task is.

Making NPCs is as simple as the GM noting down: Korr Vehn, village leader, level 2. Since the NPC level determines everything mechanically pertinent about the NPC from health to difficulty numbers for and against the PCs, the GM only has to focus on the visuals, bringing the NPC to life.

The setting is the highlight of the game. The blend of medieval technology with the remnants of numenera bring a sort of surreal quality to the world. The players, and by extension the PCs, never know what they will find around the corner or over the next hill. They could find a metal dome with all sorts of odd machines inside or a cube of energy floating in the air with a person frozen inside. It provides a sense of wonder and mystery which encourages the players to explore. In the demo session, the adventure started with a typical "go there and deliver something" quest but it turned into something more as the numenera became more and more pronounced. The players are constantly reminded that they are not in a standard fantasy world. That priest tower may be stone and mortar but is surely protected by a force field or an automaton or a deadly cloud of nanites. The villagers are plagued with strange dreams that may be data being wrongly transmitted by a malfunctioning machine that the PCs must repair.

Even the creatures remind us that the Earth we know or any other fantasy setting. There are no orcs, dwarfs, dragons or elves. There are no horses. Instead people ride aneen, a long legged quadruped creature. In play, the players loved this strangeness, the blend of sci-fi with fantasy, or sci-fantasy. To sum up: it's a game well-worth playing and I'm looking forward to start my campaign soon.

New Year Resolution

It's true that as 2012 came to an end I began to really consider GURPS as a viable alternative to my previous gaming choices. It's also true that 2012 was not a good year in terms of gaming, not because I had any lack of player (if anything, I had too many players), but because, for one reason or another, every game fizzled. I won't go back to that subject. You can read all about it here.

I read GURPS 4th edition cover to cover. I enjoyed it but as I began preparing my space opera campaign, I realized I was wasting an ungodly amount of time wrestling with the mechanics. I could just sketch the beginning of a campaign and let the players loose with the rules to create anything they wanted within the premise of the game: a ragtag band of misfits wandering the galaxy, treading the fine line between law and crime. Not unlike Firefly or Traveller. However, I knew that none of my players had read the Player's Guide, so it would take God knows how much time to finish their characters by having them pick and choose from the hideously enormous list of advantages, disadvantages and skills. For the neophyte, it can be a daunting task. I set out to prepare templates of occupations instead, so I could pare down the list of available choices to only those I deemed appropriate to the genre. And the more I did this, the more I felt the need to do something else.

GURPS is a very fine system that does what it sets out to do. It just isn't for me. When I waste more time thinking about the mechanics and how to translate into numbers what my imagination creates, it isn't for me. Almost all roleplaying games have this element of conversion from imagination to mechanics in one way or the other, but I'd rather  spend more time conjuring  people, places and plots than defining what are the appropriate skills for a space academic. I even tried to switch to swords & sorcery with GURPS Conan as it's a genre close to my hear, but I felt that trying to pare down the list of skills to maintain the fast-paced tone of the stories was inglorious. I ended up cutting out almost half the list (do people really need business acumen in S&S?) and the more I cut, the more I wanted to cut. Savage Worlds does it so much better with only half a dozen skills.

Looking back to what I most enjoyed playing in 2012, AD&D 1st was at the top of the list. I only played about half a dozen sessions using the venerable Keep on the Borderlands, but they were immensely enjoyable. I never held the players hand or led them by the nose, they showed lots of creativity in dealing with the NPCs at the fort and the obstacles outside, the thief with 3 hp was having lots of fun just surviving combat, the ranger wanted to kick the bad cleric's ass and take the magic plate mail for himself and overall the level of excitement was high. We ended up cutting it short because of a rules lawyer and a whiner. I had to let these two go and, in retrospect, the whiner was whining because his expectations of what an AD&D 1e game ought to be were different from the group's. By the end of it all, much time had been wasted dealing with internal conflicts leeching most of the fun from the game.

We fumbled the rest of the year but nothing was as fun as those first months when the group adventured in and around the lonely keep on the borderlands. I kept the core group so I decided to make my New Year resolution: to play a campaign of AD&D 1e for as long as it was fun. Will I be able to do it? I am not averse to accepting new players but I have to be more picky. There's a huge disconnect between old school gaming and player's expectations nowadays so I have to be totally open when explaining the gaming style I want for my campaign. I will blog about my experiences as the campaign develops. What's your New Year resolution? Tell me what do you intend to accomplish this year in your hobby?

The True Master

For a few weeks I have been avidly reading stuff about The Tomb of Horrors, that most classic tournament module, reviled by some and praised by others. One thing they all agree on is that the module is a real meat grinder, although some spout that it's an unfair scenario that tricks the players into certain death while others defend it can be "won" by a careful and methodical approach and by ingenuity. I think the picture below summarizes it best. It certainly made me smile.

Trying a New System: GURPS

As I approach the end of the year, I review the last twelve months in game terms. The truth is I didn't play a whole lot. The first few months are a blur, then I started a Deadlands Reloaded campaign which didn't end well and then a short hiatus from September until now during which I ran a short Eclipse Phase one-shot. It was not a very productive year in terms of roleplaying games, which was worse than last year (at least, I completed a short Trail of Cthulhu campaign).

Between March 2011 and today I have played The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu (which ended abruptly), Cthulhu Apocalypse for Trail of Cthulhu (successfully completed). Our group tried Primetime Adventures in a steampunk setting. The system didn't work for us. We also tried Strands of Fate and never made it past the first session. This year I returned to a more classic system with the aforementioned Deadlands Reloaded for Savage Worlds. We played around 6-7 sessions, before I pulled the plug.

Now, I find myself reading GURPS aka Generic Universal Roleplaying System. I think I've been trying too hard to find a game that suited my group's tastes. We never played more than a half a dozen sessions of a particular system, and I attribute that to the disconnect between us and the systems we have tested so far. It's not that my group is devoid of creativity and imagination. It's just that some systems are ill-suited to our playing style. The bottom line is: our group enjoys classic systems, you know, the ones where the game master really acts like a game master, by introducing scenes and directing the story (don't confuse this with railroading), and running the world with the players playing their characters and influencing the world through their actions.

Of all the systems we tried this past year and a half, only Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu fall into this category. And, in the former, I ended the campaign abruptly for reasons that have nothing to do with the system qualities and everything to do with the awful "railroadiness" of the published campaign we were playing (The Flood, if you must know) and, in the case of Call of Cthulhu, the campaign just fizzled when one of the players couldn't play anymore.

Instead of trying to find the perfect system to play (whatever that means), I tried to find the perfect system for us. And that system, ladies and gentlemen, is GURPS. Yes, the venerable and old generic system from Steve Jackson Games finally fell into my hands, I read it from cover to cover (actually, from covers to covers since the system is two books) and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I am running a fantasy one-shot called A Caravan to Ein Arris, which was included in 3rd edition, now made available for free in SJG site and the group is involved and having a lot of fun. I'm already planning a space opera campaign, a steampunk campaign stealing ideas from our PTA game and a cyberpunk campaign.

The main reason to use a generic system is one of practicality and convenience. Each time I want to play a new setting, I have to read a new system. Sometimes, this means reading a 300-page rulebook for a campaign that may or may not materialize. This way, even if we only play a one-shot or a small campaign, we can relax in knowing that the rules won't change and the players won't be forced to learn a new set of rules for our next campaign.

So, from now on, this blog won't be so focused on AD&D. You'll read a lot more about GURPS and my experiences with the system as I develop the campaign. But I also intend to cover many RPG topics as suit my tastes. Hopefully, our group will have fun once again playing and I can write here on a regular basis.

Literature: The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane

I really like the Savage Worlds system a lot. It may seem odd starting a review of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane with this statement but it's all connected. A few years ago, I did not know the Solomon Kane stories, even though I knew who Robert E. Howard was. Pulp fiction was not something I dwelt upon as I was rather focused on Call of Cthulhu and, especially, it's iteration Trail of Cthulhu. As I said before, I tend to gravitate towards books that I can use to actually feed my inspiration on what I'm currently playing. Then, quite by accident, I found an enthusiastic review on the net by one Kurt Wiegel about a "then unknown game to me" called The Savage World of Solomon Kane. I don't know if it was Kurt's genuine excitement about the game or the theme of the game itself, but something struck a chord.

I immediately snatched a copy and proceeded to devour it from cover to cover. It was an absolutely awesome game, using the Savage Worlds system and the Solomon Kane setting. As I prepared my first session, and persuaded my players to try the game, I started reading all of Robert E. Howard's stories about the 16th century puritan who stomps evil with a sword, a gun and his righteous fury. In one fell swoop the game introduced me to Savage Worlds and to the worlds of Robert E. Howard: Solomon Kane and, later, Conan, El Borak and his Mythos tales. And we go back to the beginning: I really like the Savage World system. But this isn't about the system, but rather about the literary source.

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane collects all of the eponymous character's tales, included some unfinished fragments. And like Howard's more famous character Conan, these tales are excellent in their simplicity. Plots are not complex, but the stories are good in evoking mood and atmosphere. Solomon Kane is a puritan who wanders the world, fighting evil. Howard is a master of wedding vivid descriptions of places with the complexities of his character's behavior. It seems, at first, that Kane is a rather straightforward character, who just slashes his sword at anything who is even remotely evil, but he is driven by an inner force, something he can't quite explain, a restlessness that impels him to wander the world. And even though Kane is a rather religious fellow, who considers other races inferior (yes, the most dreaded racist overtones in Howard's stories are also present here), that doesn't stop him from accepting the aid of N'longa, an African shaman.

Some of the tales are set in the black forest in Germany and England, eliciting a Gothic atmosphere of horror. In a few short sentences, Howard evokes the darkness and mystery of medieval Germany. His best tales, however, are set in Africa. Here, we find significant similarities between elements in Conan's and Kane's stories. There are ancient civilizations of primeval evil, sorcerers and sorceresses of dark power, supernatural creatures and pulse-pounding action. There are hints that Conan and Kane share the same literary universe as Howard mentions Atlantis in one of Kane's stories. The tales set in Africa allow Howard to go wild without the constrictions of historical research. This isn't Africa from the real world but some fantastic realm of adventure and fantasy. It's a pulp dream come to life.

Of course, this being Robert E. Howard, there is racism but Kane is different. He is unconsciously drawn to Africa. He views himself as a kind white savior and his best ally his a black shaman who offers him a magic staff to aid him on his quests. This isn't an amoral character like Conan, but someone who will help anyone. It is very definitely a good character.

Like the Conan anthology, the Kane's stories are arranged in chronological order. The last one, a poem, depicts an elderly Kane returning to his home and a long lost love, and it goes a long way about hinting at what makes Kane tick and what he has lost in the process. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is not only a fan of Robert E. Howard, but to anyone who enjoys a good pulp adventure yarn.

Strands of Fate and Other Things

The last entry of my blog was posted on May, 16th, more than a month ago. It was so little ago and so long ago. Much has changed since then. Life intruded for once, and the group changed for another. It is one of the vissicitudes of life. Nowadays, groups are less static than they were a few years ago, or at least mine is. The core group remains unchanged but others come and go. Either family, work or any other element forces a change. In other cases, I burn out of a particular game.

Let's face it, I was never a single-game player. I like to play things, I like to try out new things. Not everything suits me, but had I the time, and more money than I could shake a stick at so I wouldn't have to work, I would buy a lot more than I have gathering dust on my shelves. And I would play a lot more. Don't get me wrong. This is not a compulsive desire to have something that looses its appeal once I buy it. I genuinely enjoy reading new systems, to try out new things, to change genres, much like I never go see the same movie genre all the time.

Change is good, at least for me. It keeps me from burning out. And so, taking a break from out game of AD&D, we decided to try other things. I am a fan of wuxia (chinese martial arts fantasy), and I love the Chinese mythology and ancient culture. I have played Chinese-themed games in the past like Qin or Weapons of the Gods. One of my best campaigns was set in ancient china during the Warring States period, so when some of my players began pressuring me start a new wuxia campaign it was just a matter of finding out the best system to do it.

A few years ago, I became also a great fan of FATE, but none of the current iterations of the system were quite what I was looking for: Spirit of the Century is pulp in the 20s, Diaspora is hard sci-fi and the Dresden Files is urban fantasy. Only Legends of Anglerre with its fantasy tropes could fill the void, with enough changes and adaptation as it is more suited to any type of classic fantasy campaign. Then along came Strands of Fate, and I glimpsed immediately all sorts of potential genres that could be emulated by it. You see, Strands of Fate, or SoF for short, is FATE-based, highly changed generic system. I created several characters in several genres and I like the result. The players seemed curious enough to try it.

So, a new page turns. Gone are the days of warriors and wizards, of orcs and goblins, of fallen kingdoms and might realms, of worlds of dragons and dungeons. On a more specific note, I will expand the blog to talk about anything game related, not just AD&D. I love roleplaying games too much to limit myself to one specific topic. So, while I may be playing a particular game, in any given time, I will talk about anything that strikes my fancy. I also enjoy writing on this blog (more than I anticipated). That's one more reason to keep it going. I hope you continue enjoy reading it and enjoying it as much as I do writing it.

Burning Wheel - A New Beginning

In a rapid turn of events, but not completely out of my control, our Friday night Skype game was changed from AD&D to Burning Wheel. Yes, I know. It was not supposed to be but I came to the conclusion our group, as a whole, is more into games where they have a larger degree of narrative control and where story trumps random events.

This was barely noticeable in our first sessions, but as  time went by, I become more and more aware that they enjoyed the game while they were at the Keep on the Borderlands than when they were fighting monsters and looking for treasure. This is not to blame the game itself, but the group subconsciously gravitated towards situations they wanted to see in-game. Now, we all know AD&D has lots of interaction with NPCs, but at the same time, the exploration element, the mapping of the dungeon, the loot and all the little quirky rules contribute significantly to one's enjoyment of AD&D 1E.

However, the players tended to stay in the fort, talking to NPCs, finding more about the realm's religions and trying to weave their little tales of intrigue around the place. I dangled a few carrots in front of their noses, and for the most part went along, but there's a significant diffence between a highly motivated player and one that, while still enjoying the game, is merely following the gamemaster's hooks. So, after inquiring around, we came to realize that the players really wanted to weave their own tales, in their own setting, while still retaining a sense of fantastic adventure. For all that AD&D does well, it does not do what we really want out of a story. Some elements do not mesh well with our creative sensibility (alignments being one and the rigid classes being another). It's not a bad game, in fact I still enjoy it immensely, but it's not for my group.

Therefore, we decided to turn our attention to Burning Wheel, a game where the players and characters fight for their beliefs. What does this mean to this blog? Nothing much. I still continue reading the Dragon magazine, I still read retro-clones and AD&D 1E so I'll keep writing about that and whatever strikes my fancy. After all, The Paladin in the Bag isn't just about AD&D but also about roleplaying games in all forms.

Inspirational Reading

Has it already happened to you to read something because of the game you play? This happens a lot to me. I'm a person with eclectic reading tastes, and some of it stems from my passion for roleplaying games. Until I started playing The Savage World of Solomon Kane, I did not have a clue who Solomon Kane was, and Robert E. Howard was just a name I had heard before mentioned in the same sentence as Conan. After I read the excellent Mongoose's Conan RPG, I devoured all his stories and then some such as El Borak's.

I guess this started way back in 1992 when I first bought the 5th edition of Call of Cthulhu. I didn't know who Lovecraft was but after playing a few sessions I had already bought and read many of his stories. I was also a avid reader of Mythos literature, and I was fortunate that Chaosium published a series of anthologies from various Mythos authors and associated inspirations from Clarke Ashton Smith to Lord Dunsany. After that I created the habit of reading literature associated with the game I'm currently playing.

Thus, in the intervening years, I read many of Louis Cha's wuxia stories (Qin: The Warrying States rpg), Fritz Leiber's Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser and some of Michael Moorcock's Elric's stories (Conan RPG), some Tim Powers (Unknown Armies rpg) and even La Morte d'Arthur (Pendragon rpg). In many of these occasions, the literary aspects even surpassed the gaming aspects. I never finished reading the Unknown Armies rpg or Pendragon.

In the end, even if I consciously try to rationalize my literary tastes as deriving from my gaming tastes, I read because I love to read. It just happens that I can use whatever I read in my gaming sessions.