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?

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 Greyhawk Campaign - Sessions 1 & 2

Tomorrow I run the third session of our group's campaign set in Greyhawk. I had little time before to write about our first two sessions so I collect my thoughts on this post. We are playing the Keep on the Borderlands, set in Greyhawk, most specifically on the border of Ulek and Pomarj. The group was Edralas (half-elf fighter/magic-user), Areth (human ranger), Lyriel (elf thief), Eric (human cleric) and Shivar Vir (a human monk). I say was, because they players changed from the first to the second session, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The group approached the gates of the Windark fort, a lonely keep, on the mountains that border Pomarj. The guards observed the group as they approached, crossbows at the ready. Someone demanded their identification and purpose. I always ask the players to introduce their characters by saying their names and describing what the others see. After introductions were made, the portcullis was slowly raised and the gate slowly lowered to bridge the gap between the road and the keep. Inside they were greeted by a rather gruff dwarf with a eye-patch and plate mail, called Gwyron, and a slim and tall human with a tunic and hood and white beard, the scribe Master Edwyn, who registered each of the character's names in a book. After handing over their weapons that are strictly forbidden inside, Gwyron warned the characters to keep on their toes as the guard wouldn't tolerate violence or crimes of any sort.

The group was directed to the local inn, The Black Rooster, owned by a cheerful fellow called Rolo. The characters were forced to accept lodgings in the common room as they were low on coins After that they explored the keep and the tavern, The Royal Retreat. Although it was a rather uncomfortable place with a low ceiling, the guards on leave were happily drinking away their hard earned pay. There were other costumers, among them a rather unsavory fellow who didn't like elves and tried to sell his sword to the group by trying to persuade them that they were better off without the Lyriel, and a merchant - Redoc - who had been attacked outside the keep by goblins. He had lost all his goods and hands, including his brother, and he was looking for people to rescue his brother. This seemed like work and the players decided to purchase equipment and explore the wilderness. Since this is a sandbox of sorts, I never once guided the players. They were free to roam however they wanted and do whatever they wanted within the confines of the area.

They picked up a few rumors on the keep, mainly about some caves of chaos where, some said, lived all manner of beasts (orcs, goblins, hobgoblins and kobolds). No one knew where the caves where as the region was too wild and the keep so undermanned that they didn't have enough men to do a thorough search. There was also a rumor of a beautiful maiden imprisoned in the caves.

The group started their exploration from the point where the caravan had been attacked, some distance away. Eventually, they entered the surrounding forests. The ranger player wanted to follow the goblin trail but no tracks were seen so the thief player had the idea of climbing a tree and checking their surroundings. They noticed a thin column of smoke rising from the northwest. They followed it and entered a clearing with a tall oak in the center. Someone was moving inside the oak and a mountain lion was lazily sleeping on a branch. An old, haggard man confronted them, rambling about lost crops and Mielikki (whom the characters recognized as goddess of the forest). Eventually he became violent, believing the group wanted to steal his treasure and food. We had our first taste of combat but the thief played it cagey (she has only 3 hp) and decided to search the inside of the tree. Perhaps she could barter with his treasure. She eventually stole his coins but decided to return them when the group finally subdued the old hermit and released him when he was calmer. He was so incoherent that they could not find anything about their surroundings or the goblins. They decided to walk to the east in the direction of some rock outcroppings.

At this point, the monk player left for personal reason so I ruled he had been killed during the combat by the hermit, but a human fighter - Sidimatus - joined them. He literally ran into them on his way to the fort. After some brief negotiations, they decided to join forces.

The group eventually left the woods and made camp in the rock outcroppings. Night was quickly falling. They took turns on watch. A wise decision as they were attacked by a group of wandering kobolds. I previously agreed with the players that whenever they would say something would happen, it would happen. For instance, when entering a dungeon, if no one says he's drawing his weapons, then when combat occurs, he still has to drawn them. In this case, the kobolds noticed the light campfire and weren't surprise. There was a quick combat that showed the players how deadly and gritty combat can be on the lower levels. Lyriel and Sidimatus fell to the creatures' blows. Fortunately, in AD&D one doesn't die when they reach 0 hit points, so the group's cleric stabilized them until he could study his Cure Light Wounds spells and cast them (he had previously spent them during the combat with the hermit).

The group returned to the keep where they were forced to rest for a full week. So, they spent this time interacting with the locals. Sidimatus, in particular, showed a great deal of interest in the local chapel dedicated to Obhalan, god of warriors, soldiers, explorers. The player is playing his character like a sort of barbarian-like fighter with an intense curiosity in other cultures. Redoc, the merchant, was none too happy that the group had to spend so much time recovering, so he decided to seek help elsewhere. The group also met Rogobar, a scholar, who was seeking artifacts from an ancient culture that supposedly occupied the entire Pomarj peninsula and parts of the wild coast. He had a small book of notes with ancient maps of the area that the group was interested in (perhaps they could pinpoint the location of the caves of chaos using old references). Lyriel pilfered the book but then Rogobard decided to show them his notes. When he found the book missing, hilarity ensued. The group denied having stolen the book, the guards were brough in. It all ended when Lyriel disposed of the book in a corner of the room and Rogobar found it. He was confused so he suspected the characters but he had no proof. On the other hand, he was rightly confused so he he wasn't sure if the book had been stolen or lost.

Finally, the group decided to enlist the help of some locals. They learned of a like-minded cleric who was staying at the inn with his acolytes. His name his Tivor and he showed a great deal of interest in the caves of chaos. He immediately asked to join the group with his two acolytes in fighting the creatures. Thus the session ended with the players happy with their new found ally.

Multiclassing in AD&D

One of the things that tends to happen as times goes by and new editions of the same game are published is that we forget quirky, older rules and how they actually worked. One of those rules is multiclassing. In D&D 3.0 and later editions, multiclassing was possible every time a character leveled up. At that point, he could choose whether to remain in his current class or change to a new class. Furthermore, there were no impositions on which classes he could change to, except the favored class rule which was as arbitrary as any other rule I have seen, forcing an experience point penalty if none of the characters were your favored. Not so in older editions and here I'm strictly speaking of AD&D 1st and 2nd editions.

In those games, multiclassing had to be a demi-human and choose to be multiclass during character creation. He could not start with just one class and choose to multiclass later. The list describing which classes could be combined was limited, too. For instance, an elf could only multiclass as Fighter/Mage; Fighter/Thief; Mage/Thief and Fighter/Mage/Thief. Humans, on the other hand, could be dual class but the limitations imposed were even higher, with certain minimum attribute values of the class he wanted to change to. An additional factor was that all experience gained was equally divided by the number of classes the character had, which meant his progress was slower than other characters.

As I continue my journey of discovery (or rediscovery in the case of AD&D 2nd edition), I constantly run into these quirky little rules that I had completely forgotten. And they work really well in the context of gaming. One of my players was always ecstactic when we played Dark Sun and he could be an elf mage/fighter/cleric/psionicist, which was a special combination only available in Athas. This would impose a greater burden on him since he had to effectively level four classes at the same time, spreading experience by four, but it was great fun as he began playing four different classes with four different sets of powers. And this, more than anything else, more than made up for any disadvantages that multiclassing could bring to the table. In the long run, an elf could reach level 12 as a mage and level 15 as a fighter (if multiclassing Mage/Fighter) whereas a D&D 3.0 could only reach level 10 in both classes.

On a more personal note, I love these tidbits. Though, according to current standards, a player may be forced "to work" harder to level his character. Then again, with each succeeding edition, there is a tendency to apply changes in the name of fun and playability. In AD&D 2nd edition, which was the one I played most, I can't think of a single moment when the rules got in the way of fun.