The Armchair Adventurers - The GROGNARD Files

A year on the Grog

I’m sat in the den, packing away the tinsel for another year, because Dirk Towers is saying farewell to the festive period. I’m back at work, serving The Master in return for food tokens, so I’ve begun to console myself in looking forward to 2016.

The first 6 months of the new year look like a veritable feast of gaming with an unprecedented 20 sessions planned between now and June. We haven’t done this much RPG since those heady days of the early 80s.

If we pull it off … if we pull it off … if …

HIGHLIGHTS

The next episode of The Grognard Files podcast will be about Games Conventions in general and Dragonmeet 2015 in particular.While I was there, I got a (signed) copy of Nights Black Agents and I’ve been reading it ever since. The hardback is packed to the brim with resources and enough inventive ideas for you to shake a stake at, but I’ve had a difficultly getting my head around it. I suspect that there’s less to the Gumshoe system than meets the eye. It’s an example of what my English lecturer, Chris Baldick, used to refer to as ‘periphrasis’, in other words, a lots of words to say something very simple.

That said, when I’ve watched actual play demos, it actually seems workable, and I’m looking forward to being the director of a Bourne-meets-Buffy type extravaganza because I think it will suit my style of Games Mastering perfectly.

There’s a great demo-game available for download that will get them into the pace of the action in media res with an exciting car chase emulating the high-powered super-spy genre with great panache.

Night’s Black Agents is an improvised story game that uses the idea of ‘spending’ resources to improve the chance of success for your actions. Numenera uses a similar principle and for most of today, in between nursing a sick child, I’ve been preparing my character, because we’re going to start playing next month with Judge Blythy as the Games Master (or whatever irrelevant variant on the GM title Monte Cooke Games have devised).

It’s ages since I’ve enjoyed creating a character as much as I did making the choices for the Numenera. It’s relatively simple and allows a great deal of flexibility for the player to use their imagination to develop someone that they want to play, rather than being at the mercy of dice rolls.

Zadie Zenokey IV (or Zen 4) is a nano (a kind of Numenera magic user) with the descriptor of ‘Mechanical’ which gives her a great insight into the ways of the Numenera magic. Her focus is flesh and steel, the source of her magic is through ports in her spine and cables under her skin to a cpu on the right-side of her brain and her cybernetic left-arm. Her back story concerns her ancestors who were all but wiped out by a virus, the survivors and subsequent generations developed mechanics to cope with their mutations. Zen 4 has developed a secret order who are seeking the remaining Zenokey so they can reunite.

“DO SOME OLD”

It’s not all about the new stuff. Some of the highlights of the coming months include the continuing campaigns of Fungi from Yuggoth (CoC) and the Aramis campaign (Traveller), keeping it old school.

In February, I’ll be opening the Grognard File labelled STORMBRINGER, Fantasy Role-playing in the world of Elric. Over the past few weeks I’ve been rediscovering Moorcock and hitting e-Bay, filling the gaps in my collection of supplements. I’ve been overcome with an impulsive desire to consume souls, however it seems unlikely that I’ll be sated, therefore I’ve decided that I’ll run a game instead. We have one scheduled for the end of the month.

In the coming months, the Runequest classic bonanza will be released from Moon Design’s epic Kick Starter campaign, marking the celebrations of 50 years of Glorantha. In the podcast we have talked about our group reviving some of the classic Choasium games, so I’m going to continue this endeavour by resurrecting another OSR classic for my group.

On top of all this Armchair Adventuring, we’ve been invited to a marathon session of D&D 5th edition, which is very exciting.

So, as I plug myself into the collective unconscious of work, facing minor disappointments with stoic indifference, I can console myself that there is an escape pod available. As long as the Fun Prevention Officer gives me the key.

Chaosium’s Worlds In the Balance

At the moment. I’m preparing the introduction to the Stormbringer episode of The Grog-Pod (due in February). This blog post does a great job at examining the various iterations and developments of the game. Recommended!!

Dragonmeet 2015 – Too Much Cthulhu?

I’m having attract-fish-flashbacks @GoodFriendsOfJE @dragonmeet

Numenera – a grognard’s guide from Blythy

I recently acquired the Numenera core rules. I’d heard a lot about it and it thought that maybe an old grognard like me should enter the 21st century or, to be more precise, the ninth age, the time in earth’s future when Numenera is set. The ninth age is a billion years into earth’s future and while the setting is essentially pseudo medieval fantasy (humanity has slipped back to that kind of era) there have been eight great civilizations that have risen and fallen. These civilisations are mysterious and unclear in their nature. However, some weren’t human and some had interstellar and even inter-dimensional travel. This means that there’s lots of technology lying about to be found and used by the human population. Moreover there are strange and mysterious energies in the atmosphere that some humans (Nanos) can harness and use rather like magic. That’s the basic setting but it’s important not to think of this as some post holocaust RPG – Aftermath or Gamma World. Yes, there will have been holocausts perhaps that brought down the previous great civilizations but this isn’t some post nuclear primitive world where the players will unearth a machine gun or an old iphone. It’s much stranger than that and much more like science fantasy. In literary terms I think the creators of the game have mentioned Gene Wolfe’s book of the new sun series. Another comparison could be Moorcock’s Hawkmoon books.

When I first got into RPGs in the early 80s one of the great advertising lines of RPG publisher’s was that to run fantastic adventures for your friends, “All you need is this book.” But it was never quite true. Dungeons and Dragons meant you had to buy three rule books at least (Player’s Handbook, DM’s Guide and Monster Manual), Runequest meant you really needed at least Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror. But with Numenera it really is the case that you only need the core rules. There’s masses of background for the setting, lists of artefacts, and monsters, all with full colour illustrations. Yes, you’ll want to buy the supplements (I’ve already bought the Ninth World Bestiary) but you don’t have to. I honestly think you could play regularly for several years with just the core rules.

The rules to Numenera are pretty straightforward and slick, deliberately so given that the game wants to encourage action and story rather than crunchy simulationist stuff. For a BRP grognard like me, I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity and logic of the central concept. In the same way that BRP reduces every action and task to a percentage, Numenera reduces it down to a score out of 10. Sometimes the score is determined by the rules (monster and NPC combat being the best example) or by the GM. What’s appealing is that it’s easy to conceptualise degrees of difficulty. How difficult something is on a score out of ten isn’t far removed from the way people think in ordinary life. For example, the players have to climb a rock face. The GM says it’s pretty difficult and gives it a 5 out of 10. The 5 is then multiplied by 3 and to climb the rock face, the players must each roll a 15 or more on a d20. Now I imagine that some of you are ahead of me at this point and have seen the obvious problem with such a system – anything given a difficulty level of 7 or more is literally impossible if multiplied by 3 and rolled on a d20. Well, yes it is because tasks like that are pretty difficult. For example, suppose that rock face had been made from some strange alien glass and covered with ice. The GM may have said it’s a 8. So a 24 or more on a d20. This is where skills, artifacts and stats come in. Your character might have a climbing skill and so he/she can reduce the difficulty two grades (now a 6) and then spend some points from their agility stat poll (more on that later) to reduce it by another grade (now a 5). So the roll to climb is now a 15 or more. Now difficult but do-able.

For grognards like me and my group, the most unsettling thing about Numenera is the stat pools or “spend system” element of the game. I know these type of systems are out there and nothing new these days but old timers like me are used to stats (STR, INT, DEX etc) being fixed and the only stat that goes up and down is hit points or maybe power in Runequest or SAN in Call of Cuthulhu. Numenera has three statistics – Strength, Agility and Intellect. As described above, the player’s use these stats as points to spend to achieve certain tasks or combat rolls. To go back to the example above of climbing the sheer glass wall. To reduce that 8, your character can spend three points from, for example, an agility of 12 to knock the difficulty down. Thier agility is now 9. Points replenish throughout the game, but it’s an odd concept on first reading when you’re used to fixed stats that give bonuses or penalties. I think this is the element my group might struggle with, especially when you consider that the stat pools also operate as hit points. It’s a big leap to ask players to consider using points they might need to soak up damage later to achieve tasks.

That said, I can see how the spend system ties into the idea of a more narrative form of RPG, which is one of the things Numenera wants to achieve. Imagine a point in the game where the villain raises his sacrificial dagger to strike and your character wants to knock it from his hand with a well placed arrow. A difficult shot but wouldn’t it look great in the film? Spend some stat pool points and you have a better chance of achieving it. The spend system allows the players to influence that narrative and events in a more dramatic way.

There are other elements of the system that also play into the idea of narrative and giving everyone the things they want from the game. There’s the idea of GM “Intrusions.” these are points in the game when the GM can offer experience points for giving the players a chance to accept a challenge. For example, maybe the players go into some ruins and have a map of the area. The GM may suggest that the map turns out to be wrong and useless. The players can accept this intrusion and earn experience points. It’s possibly the strangest element of the game and it remains to be seen how it will work out when we play. However, I can see how it could be the GM’s equivalent of a stat pool. While the stat pool’s allow the players to decide what they think is important to achieve, intrusions allow the GM to develop the story in ways that they players will enjoy. Moreover, the intrusions idea taps into another key these in the design of Numenera and that is that everyone should have fun and play the kind of game and character they want to play. The character creation system is a good example of this. Rather than roll dice, you describe your character in a phrase from a list of words in the rules. So for example you may choose to say your character is a Clever Glaive (fighter) to fights with two weapons. This then generates points and skills in line with the chosen words. Worth noting as well that that’s one of the more pedestrian descriptions available. You can be a shape changer who “howls at the moon” or a mutant with a “halo of fire.”

Again, for us grognards this seems a bit odd. But ask yourself this – how many times have you wanted to play a strong warrior and rolled a low STR score? Or a clever thief and rolled a low INT? That can be dissatisfying and resolving the problem by allocating points can lead to power gaming and min/maxing. Numenera offers players the chance to be what they want but without allowing them to power game the stats.

There are lots of other interesting elements of the system. The idea that the GM never rolls a dice is a very unusual idea. The monster and NPC stats are very easy to create on the hoof, which give the GM lots of flexibility.

It remains to be seen how Numenera will work in play. I’m still wading through the detailed setting. I think my group will find it a challenge in some ways but not in a bad way. If things get tricky when I’m running it I may just have to spend some intellect points and lower the level.

BLYTHY

Current Vacancies: Crew Members Required

I’ve been preparing for a future podcast about TRAVELLER RPG and have found myself falling into a vortex of reading and re-reading the material that I once knew so well. I rarely refereed the game back in the day, but I was an enthusiastic player. I loved the potential of world-hopping: encountering the weird and the wonderful and being stuck with them in Low Passage for a week.

THE TRAVELLER ADVENTURE

Even the die-hard, rose-tinted fan will admit that most of the published adventures produced by GDW, in the little black books, were a bit weak. They provided a sketchy plot, a little local colour and a couple of plans and expected the referee to busk the rest while on the fly. If you were being generous you could describe them as a ‘framework’ for your gaming group to build upon. If you were being honest, you’d have to admit that they were a bit of a swizz.

There was an exception that proved the rule in the form of THE TRAVELLER ADVENTURE, which was the first real attempt at creating a ‘role-playing’ campaign pack, all the others seemed like deck-plans for a table-top SF skirmish, war game.

I played the adventure twice, and both times it was completely different, because of the style of play by the referee. The first time was brisk and combat heavy. The second was bureaucratic and talky. Both versions were wrapped in an intriguing plot.

ARAMIS: THE REVIVAL

I’m going to play it again… this time as a referee in an online game, and you are invited.

I need a crew for THE MARCH HARRIER, a 400 Ton subsidised merchant that serves the worlds of the ARAMIS TRACE. The subsidy is owned by a blind trust based on Regina and the crew will have a broad discretion in selecting cargoes, destinations and charters, providing basic financial and contract obligations are met.

THE MARCH HARRIER has been running the assigned route for over five years. It’s built up a credit of 80 weeks can begin operations outside of the ARAMIS TRACE at any time.

Presently the ship is in dock at the space port in LEEDOR the capital of ARAMIS …

The game will take place fortnightly in short sessions (in the style of a space opera serial!) online.

‘Session Zero’ will commence on Wednesday 23/09/2015 – Google Hangouts, using the Roll 20 app. Commencing at 21.00 until about 23.00 – a chance to meet your fellow crew members and to walk through the decks of THE MARCH HARRIER.

If you are interested … then please let me know and I’ll get you on the roll call … join me – it’s going to be a blast!

Vicari-Con 2015

Thirty years ago I went to Dragonmeet Convention in that there fancy London. I’d only just turned 17, so it was a big deal that I’d managed to organise the trip myself. My parents were surprised, given that I was struggling with the most rudimentary tasks, such as “picking up socks from the floor.” Planning the journey involved travelling to Manchester to buy the tickets from Games Workshop – there was no online agent – I handed over the cash to the guy at the counter with an air of sophisticated superiority, as if I was joining a private members club. He explained that there were no spaces on their specially chartered charabanc so I would have to arrange for my own transport. No one else from our group was able to come, for various reasons, so it meant I had to travel alone. In order to keep the costs down, I arranged to travel overnight on the National Express with the safe assumption that I would sleep in my seat, ready to wake refreshed and ready to explore the delights of the gaming delectation that would await me in the Royal Agricultural Hall.

It didn’t work like that. I spent the whole night sat next to an over-weight, old fella, who rubbed his inside legs constantly during the entire journey. The combination of the rasping friction noise and the fear that he would make a move on me while I slept, meant I stayed ‘on watch’ all night. When I arrived bleary-eyed in London at 5am, I wasn’t sure what to do, the convention didn’t open for 5 hours and there was nowhere to go.

I decided to head to Hyde Park and have a lie-down on a park bench. I hadn’t been settled down for long before a police patrol car, cruising through the Park’s pathways stopped. “Where have you come from pal?” asked the copper in a friendly manner, clearly believing that I was a runaway (my sandwiches wrapped in a spotted hanky on the end of stick were an obvious give away.) I did the sensible thing and explained that I’d come to the capital to “Role-Play”. They exchanged glances.

They left me alone, with a few warnings about talking to strangers, and not sleeping on park benches, in case I was taken advantage of in my sleep.

At the convention itself, I spent the entire time in a sleep deprived delirium, walking between tables and stalls in a confused haze. After all the effort of getting there, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do. It wasn’t like Northern Games Day, that I’d gone to a couple of years before, it was ten times bigger. At Northern Games Day, I’d managed to get into a game of Runequest with an enthusiastic Games Master and 6 other players. I’d never played the game outside of our group (when I say a group, it was me and friend). Playing with other people, for the first time, I realised that we had interpreted some of the rules incorrectly.

There were no games available, so just wandered around, in slow circles with a fixed grin on my face.

In the afternoon, I’d arranged to meet up with a group of players of a PBM, The Gadiators’ Gazette, including the Games Master who had drawn a t-shirt using felt-tip pens, so he could be identifiable in the crowd. Once we’d exchanged stories, we talked excitingly about Call of Cthulhu which was beginning to gain popularity. None of us had managed to bag a game, so we decided to run an impromptu game of CoC off the hoof, with no characters, dice or story. I sat in a corner, drifting in an out of consciousness, while the voices around me merged into a Charlie Brown’s teacher’s drawl.

I’ve been thinking of these Dragonmeet memories over the past few days thanks to the social media coverage of GENCON. In the comfort of my own armchair, I’ve been watching twitter friends meeting up, like I did with my PBM friends. I’ve enjoyed the cos-play, the live play beamed by periscope, and the seminar feeds (particularly the exciting announcement about Moon Design’s take-over of Chaosium).

The Armchair Adventurer’s club are heading south again at the end of the year to Dragonmeet 2005. I’m looking forward to recreating the experiences that I’ve enjoyed vicariously this week.This time, I’m taking no chances and getting there the day before so I can have a good sleep.

If there’s an old fella rubbing his legs on the train, Eddy can sit next to him.

“Is this on?” … creating the Grog Pod

A couple of months ago I decided that I’d have a go at producing a podcast. I have been enjoying sharing some experiences and memories of classic RPGs via twitter, so thought that it would be good to develop this further with a podcast. I’ve written a couple of episodes which each focus on a featured game. I was inspired by Jim Moon’s approach to podcasting. His Hypnogoria family of programmes are in-depth explorations of the weird and wonderful from his archive. Jim gives his personal reflections as well as providing detailed, engaging research on his chosen subjects. I particularly enjoy his obit. pieces, I recommend his Brian Clemons episode and his recent series on Sir Christopher Lee.

I also like the magazine format of RPG Gamer Dad’s podcast. He is rediscovering his love of role-playing games through his young family. He has an infectious enthusiasm and great interview guests. I urge any games designer to get on the podcast, because immediately after an endorsement from RPG Gamer Dad, I can help myself, I have to buy it!

The GROGNARD files is the name of the Podcast that I’ve written, but now in the painstaking process of recording. I have developed a new-found appreciation for the effort of all podcasters. They make it look easy. The creation of the first episode is proving to be a painful birth for all involved.

First – I can’t seem to find a quiet place to record it! My first attempt was blighted by the low hum of the dishwasher in the other room and the dog barking at me because she thought I’d gone mad. The next attempt was interrupted by Mrs Dirk bursting in asking what make of car seat we have, as a friend needed buying advice. This morning, I got up early to have a go, and child number 2 thought he would join me as he was feeling a bit unwell. Now the neighbours are using a chainsaw on their privets. Will everyone please SHUT UP!

Second – I don’t have the best diction and often get tongue-tied. I was once edited out of a corporate video for being too boring. Playing back some of the early efforts, I can understand why. I’ve had to go back and re-record sections because I’ve not understood what I’ve said, never mind anyone else. Also, we have our distinct pronunciations of some of the fantasy words, that didn’t matter before, because only we heard them. How will people feel towards me saying Y-RUMS instead of WORMS for the bits on The Empire of the Wyrms Friends. Let’s face it, Y-RUMS doesn’t sound as daft, does it?

Third – I don’t think I was prepared for how technical that it was going to be. I was expecting to do it all in Garageband and press a button. It turns out that there’s a bit more to it than that! There’s a section in the podcast where I will be recording a discussion over Google hang-outs, and I still haven’t really worked out how I’m going to achieve it.

Any way, it’s coming, and I expect the first episode (about RUNEQUEST) to be available at the end of the month/ beginning of August. In the meantime, keep checking back here for updates, and ANY advice would be appreciated (on how to stop a chainsaw).

Dirk

It’s a Kinda Magic – RQ6 Magic for Glorantha

RUNEQUEST 2nd Edition created something of a paradox when it came to magic. Unlike other systems, characters didn’t need to be part of a particular class to cast spells; magic was available to all. The advantages of this are obvious, there’s no need to depend on a cleric character to heal the adventuring party, because all the characters are sort of clerics, worshiping gods in exchange for spells. The rules more accurately simulated combat compared to a game like D&D, so fighting could be deadly, the tactical use of a ‘Battle Magic’ spell could tip the balance and keep characters alive.

It was the game mechanics that created the paradox: there was magic everywhere, but it didn’t feel very magical, because it was so matter of fact.

Battle Magic gave additional points towards chances to hit, increasing damage, or improving defence or a resistance to damage; there were an assortment of ‘detection’ spells; and the most powerful spells could befuddle, disrupt or demoralise an opponent. In addition, there were a handful of spells that did practical tasks like ‘glue’ and ‘repair’ and a few others that did interesting things but it was unclear of how useful they could be (Lightwall, for example). Once a character progressed in status in their chosen cult, characters could get access to ‘Rune Magic’ which was a bit more powerful, but pragmatic and munchkin-like in its deployment (Mindblast is particularly nasty).

It was also difficult for a standard adventurer to attain Rune Magic as the spells were limited to Rune Lords and Rune Priests, and it takes a lot of effort and hours of play to reach the appropriate level to gain the use of Rune magic.

Back in the day, spells were merely part of the adventurer’s armoury, enhancing the sword and the shield and providing the means of sticking a limb back on in the heat of battle. In recent months, when we have been playing through the classic supplements BORDERLANDS and GRIFFIN MOUNTAIN we’ve been more canny with the use of spells. Particularly the NPCs, who have used magic in unexpected and ruthless ways to spice up encounters: summoning elementals or becoming invisible at key moments in the encounter; it still feels rather mechanical and rules heavy.

MAGICAL ADDITIONS TO THE LATER EDITIONS

Subsequent editions of the rules tried to address these deficiencies by adding more types of magic and some additional rules to boost their power. RQ3 was a more generic system that introduced sorcery as a school of magic. The Games Workshop version separated the rules into basic and advanced and this editorial chopping and changing made the rules around magic unintelligible. Our group concluded at the time that ‘Sorcery is for NPCs only’. None was encountered.

We are about to return to the COLYMAR CAMPAIGN – from the Moon Design SARTAR: KINGDOM OF HEROES campaign pack – which I am converting from Heroquest to the Runequest 6 rules. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been painstakingly studying the rules around magic so it can be introduced to the campaign. I say painstaking due to the different levels of conversions at play: as a group we are getting our heads around Runequest 6, which are generic rules (an ADVENTURES IN GLORANTHA supplement is due out this year) and the Heroquest supplement is “story-based” with no character stats to give clues to the magical ability of the NPCs.

The SARTAR … supplement provides phenomenal detail to the setting and revises some of the original Chaosium material. Glorantha is a very magical setting, so I’m keen to reflect the essence of the SARTAR supplement which brings some sense of awe to spell craft and feats of spell craft.

The SARTAR supplement actually provides some meaning to Runes and the affects that they have over characters in Glorantha. As part of character creation, Runes are selected that reflect the character’s soul, temperament, personality and magical drive and Games Masters are encouraged to award characters according to their actions that bring them closer to their runes. Progression becomes a ‘Rune Quest’.

HEROQUEST’s magic ‘rules’ are very fast and lose, allowing the players to create any magical effects as long as it’s consistent with he narrative. I like the potential of this free-form approach as it will allow our group to get inventive around the table, but I know from experience that such freedom will blow the players’ Grognard brains: “we need the rules, we live and die by the rules.”

ADDING SOME EXTRA CRUNCH

RQ6 provides five schools of magic: Folk, Theist, Animism, Sorcery and Mysticism. Thankfully, the rules are very clearly written and easy to understand in principle – the real test will be at the table – but I have the wireframe of the mechanics sussed out, so I don’t think there’ll be any problems. In essence, casting magic is a percentage based skill that can be adjusted using the ‘step difficulty’ modifier or it can be resisted by targets using the ‘opposed roll’ mechanic that I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Folk magic is more or less a straight swap for Battle Magic, but much more toned down. In Glorantha terms, they are spells that exist outside of the provision of the gods as they are passed through the generations via charms and handy cantrips.

Animism is the manipulation of spirits to the bidding of Shamanistic cults (such as Darka Fal) and Mysticism is a transcendental magic that will be available to the Elder Races such as Dragonewts.

Theist Magic is more or less Rune Magic with two ‘skills’ associated with its application. ‘Devotion’ is the measure of the cult member’s status and progression through the religion and ‘Exhort’ is the skill used to coerce the gods to intervene and provide the aid requested. To fit within the society described by SARTAR: KINGDOM OF HEROES, levels of Devotion and the availability of spells will be awarded for participating in rituals with the clan and for taking actions that fit with their character rune affinities.

Sorcery, in Glorantha, is more esoteric and throw-back to the Second Age and the God Leaners who worshiped Malian, the invisible god, who stole knowledge and artefacts from other cultures. The Sorcery rules are interesting because they allow for inventiveness from the players. It’s possible to Invoke sorcery from ancient artefacts, spell books, or demons from another plane. The spells in themselves are not particularly spectacular until the sorcerer uses their ability to ‘shape’ the outcome by combining spells together, or extending the range or duration or increasing their magnitude.

It’s possible for characters to remain loyal to their gods yet still teach themselves the powers from an ancient grimoire. It’s going to make things interesting and provide some unexpected twists and turns in adventures.

We are meeting on Roll 20 next week, where I hope to introduce some of these newly learnt elements to the adventure as they choose their next path. I’m hoping that the fuss-free crunch provided by RQ6 will allow for some interesting flights of the imagination.

It will be great to inject some magic into the magical world Glorantha for my long-in-the-tooth group… if they can get over not being able to pepper targets with a multi-missile.

1D6 Adventurers’ Arsenal

Remember when there were supplements that featured pages and pages of new weaponry? It was like a big macho-catalogue for players to pour over and calculate what was needed to kill every melon-farmer in the room… Some rulebooks went to great lengths to fetishise the descriptions of the weapons available; the early editions of Tunnels and Trolls, for example, was notable for the weird and wonderful descriptions, alongside detailed illustrations of exotic armoury.

There never seemed any point to this level of variety as players often settled on a combination of their favourites. We were RUNEQUEST players and the 2nd Edition rules provided slim pickings for the adventurer in search of a set of irons for his caddy. The ancient world setting meant that there were only a handful of equipment staples.

The following list has been compiled in conjunction with @sjamb7 – Blythy The Cautious – the master tactician – and rules lawyer at our table.

1 – CRITICAL HIT – The Sling

Every adventurer should have a sling in his utility belt and get good with it too. They are light-weight, concealable and ammunition is never very far away. The RQ rules mean that they can be lethal in the right hands too. One of the first games we played with an ardent D&D player nearly came to an abrupt end when he went gang-ho towards a crack squad of Trollkin slingers. In seconds, he was on his back with a shattered knee-cap.

This is what Malcolm Gladwell says in his book DAVID AND GOLIATH:

Slinging took and extraordinary amount of skill and practice. But in experienced hands, the sling was a devastating weapon. Paintings from medieval times show slingers hitting birds in midflight. Irish slingers were said to be able to hit a coin from as far away as they could see it, and the Old Testament Book of Judges, slingers are described as being accurate within an ‘hair’s breath’. An experienced slinger could kill or injure a target at a distance of up to two hundred yards. The Romans even had a a special set of tongs made just to remove stones that had been embedded in some poor soldier’s body by a sling…

Also, doubles as an eye-patch or, if you are Purdy from The New Avengers, a bra.

2- Broadsword

Our characters were usually strong and quick enough to carry a Bastard Sword, but often we would go for the Broadsword because … its a classic. With a medium shield combo, you can’t go wrong.

Also, its the name of a great Album by Jethro Tull with a brilliant Iain McCaig cover which was a perfect accompaniment to a role-playing session.

3 – The Composite Bow

The missile-weapon of choice for most discerning adventurers. With good-timing and a multi-missile spell its possible to pepper a broo with arrows before they’ve even had time to fart noxious fumes in your general direction.

What makes the use of a bow interesting is that it can shift the adventurer’s luck if the arrows find their mark. More often, it is a spectacular disaster, but when it goes well, you can’t beat the satisfaction of taking out an opponent from a distance.

4 – Spear

A two-handed spear is awkward looking thing at doesn’t stand up to much parrying. A one-handed spear, on the other hand, is a great way of keeping critters at bay and it looks good too. Many of our characters adopt the legionnaire tactic of chucking a spear before advancing with a sword and shield.

5 – One Handed Axe

Popular with starting characters because there is a low base-chance. Before too long, it’s possible to be adept at cleaving heads. They’re also a useful tool for the adventurer needing a swiss-army knife of equipment without being overly encumbered. They also have the advantage that they can be chucked too.

Our group likes throwing things at an opponent!

6 – FUMBLE – The Flail

I once had a lengthy debate about the merits of the flail with a D&D player (the one that clobbered by a sling) when I was playing a cleric. I went for a mace rather than a flail and he was trying to persuade me to go for the damage advantage of a flail. The aim of a flail is to scatter and scare multiple opponents when faced with a skirmish. Get out of my way!

I refused on the grounds that they look stupid.

1D6 Settings

I’ve been making impulsive RPG purchases over the past few weeks, burning through some Christmas gift cash. There are much more important things I need such as food, clothes and other essentials, but it wouldn’t be in the spirit of gift-giving if that tenner from my Auntie went towards a tank full of diesel for the car. Instead, I’ve been browsing through eBay looking to expand my RPG horizons.

I’ve been drawn towards a couple of games purely on their setting, as they both seem to offer an opportunity to explore imaginative corners of worlds that I find fascinating. I used to have the JUDGE DREDD RPG back in the day, but I’ve lost it along the way, I think we only played it once. What could be more appealing than to patrol Wincey Willis Plaza to apprehend a perp in Rusty Lee Block? Mega-City One is such a rich setting that the scenarios write themselves. I seem to remember being a bit po-faced about it when I was 15, but now I can see the humour would play well with our group.

I didn’t know anything about THE DYING EARTH RPG, produced by Pelgrane Press, until I spotted it on a shelfie. It was released in 2001, long after I’d stopped buying new games, and it’s one of those new-fangled story-based rules that sound interesting, but I can’t imagine actually playing them. The rules are very entertaining to read and worth it for the little quirky ideas and the additional detail around Vance’s Dying Earth.

This is the first of our One-D-Six lists. This is how it works – roll a d6 – 1 is a critical, while 6 is a fumble!

1 – CRITICAL HIT – The Young Kingdoms

The setting of the cyclical history of the Eternal Champion, which was conceived as an antithesis to the anodyne Middle Earth. The world of Elric is by turns exotic, nasty, inventive, diverse and fantastical and a natural setting for a role-playing system. The battle between chaos and law and the mastery of the elements and demons gives a very immersive and convincing magical system.

We were Moorcock fan-boys back in the day, so we would love the sense of being bit-players in the stories that we knew well by occasionally meeting characters from the books. Our Player Characters were Non-Player Characters in the stories of Elric.

2 – Dying Earth

Recently I’ve been rediscovering Jack Vance’s world set at the end of time, with the sun fading, a world where magic is freely available. Reading the yellowing pages of the paperbacks that I devoured as a teenage is a nostalgic trip, to a place and an author that I adored. It’s well documented that Gary Gygax took his inspiration for D&D magic from Vance, but other than ‘levels’ and the limits to memorising spells, the Dying Earth is far removed from the generic setting of GreyHawk. Foppish characters with razor-sharp wit, combined with elegant use of language make Dying Earth strange and wonderful.

Although we’ve never set any adventures in Vance’s world, after reading his books over the summer of 1986, my style of GMing was never the same, all of my Runequest Adventures were inflected through the prism of Vance. In 2005, when we had a brief dalliance with D&D, I created Azir Voon, a magician character inspired by the books of Vance. He studied at the Vermillion University and believed that that magic could be comprehended through the physiology of the eye. His motivation for delving through dungeons was to collect more specimens for his collection.

3 – Mega City One

Thanks to the recent publicity around the return of the Dark Judges and the Dredd Mega Collection, I’ve returned to Mega City One after a thirty year break. As a setting it’s sharply satirical, hyper-real and darkly humorous and the judges have a great Player Character motivation to stay ahead of the perps.

4 – Cthulhu (1920s)

Watch a season of BOARDWALK EMPIRE and you can appreciate why the roaring twenties is such a rich setting for role-playing. It has it all – gangsters, conspiracy, the rise of the KKK, republicanism in Ireland, and much, much more. This was a period of analogue globalisation, where it was possible to travel the world, but very slowly.

Cthulhu in the twenties works well because it was the age of exploration and plundering of ancient sites. It is possible to create world-spanning adventures yet create the experience of being isolated. Alone, with nothing but a brown derby… roll SAN.

5 – Glorantha

For much of the eighties, we were in a love/ hate relationship with our parallel existence on the plains of Prax. We loved the character of the place, the other worldly gods and creatures; we hated the fact it was so dense and that there were so many supplements that we couldn’t afford.

Now we are more relaxed and have a more laid-back attitude to the place, as we appreciate that OUR Glorantha can be very different from the published version. We have three versions in play at the moment: one in the corner of Prax, at the end of The River of Cradles in the employ of a Lunar noble; another campaign in the plains of Balazar, carving a living as a mercenary under the wary eye of the Lunars; and finally, a campaign set around Sartar, where barbarian clans are in open rebellion against the Lunar occupation.

6 – FUMBLE! – Gotham

I’ve never really been a fan of the ‘Supers’ genre of RPGs, preferring grit and jeopardy to sheer fire-power. If I had extending limbs, I don’t think I’d bother leaving the house.

If the recent TV series has told us anything, it that there is nothing intrinsically interesting about the Batman’s stomping ground – it’s New York with 40 watt bulbs – it’s the characters that give the place its colour. Specifically, it’s the bad guys that make the setting interesting, even the Batman is a bit boring. When’s the Penguin coming back on?