Dungeon Rules: Holmes Dungeons & Dragons + GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

I am a big fan of GURPS DF. I also have very special place in my heart for the Holmes D&D Boxed Set. My original experience with D&D back in 1977 was with the first printing* of the Holmes boxed set. My little thought experiment today is mashing these two together, using the race and class configuration of Holmes D&D to create the list of GURPS DF templates.

My boxed set of Holmes D&D goodness did not contain an adventure module. Instead, it came with dungeon geomorphs and monster/treasure lists. The two lasting effects of this were: (1) Each person in my original group created a dungeon to use when it was their turn to DM...my first year of D&D was homemade megadungeon only; and (2) We never used adventure modules (it is only in the last 10 years that I have even owned an adventure module).

GURPS Templates
Here is what I think a Holmes-inspired GURPS D&D game would look like in terms of templates:

• Dwarf Templates: Dwarf Cleric, Dwarf Fighter, Dwarf Fighter/Cleric.
• Elf Templates: Elf Fighter, Elf Fighter/Magic-User, Elf Magic-User.
• Halfling Templates: Halfling Fighter, Halfling Fighter/Thief, Halfling Thief.
• Human Templates: Human Cleric, Human Fighter, Human Magic-User, Human Thief.

If my math is correct, that is 13 different templates, which I think still gives players a fair amount of choice. The beauty of GURPS DF is that the template for an Elf Fighter can be very different from a Dwarf Fighter.

Points
A key part of GURPS is determining the starting points players receive to create their characters:

• 250 Points: This is the default number of points for character creation in GURPS DF. There are some good reasons for it as 250 points provides more options in character building and more tactical options in play. Characters are tough but still vulnerable.
• 200 Points: Characters are still hardy but would have fewer options and more vulnerability.
• 150 Points: This would more closely mimic the experience of low level Holmes D&D but GURPS doesn't have the same kind of power curve, meaning more experienced GURPS characters are left in the dust by their D&D counterparts. The dual class character templates could be particularly anemic at 150 points.

Eric Smith has some additional thoughts on what GURPS DF character templates could look like at different point levels.

Conclusion
Right now, my schedule is not allowing me to do much gaming. Weekend evenings are filled with music performances and weekday nights are spent on other things. It is fun, however, to do some thought experiments and blogging as a substitute.

*I wish I still had my copy of the Holmes rule book as it was the first printing. "Hobbits" were one of the four races and this was later changed to "Halflings" in later printings.

Related Posts
Comparing GURPS and D&D on Dungeon Design
Systems Matter: Exploration, Encounters and Intent in the Megadungeon

Five for Friday 29: Things I Like About D&D 5e

I decided that when I restarted my Rusty Battle Axe blog, I was not going to do reviews. I will, however, occasionally highlight a product that I like. It turns out that the newest iteration of Dungeons & Dragons has made it to that list. Here are five things that I like about it:

• Excellent Player's Handbook: The latest edition of the Player's Handbook is at the top of the list, in terms of the rules themselves, organization, clarity of content, etc. The D&D team managed to create a product that serves newbies and RPG veterans equally well. While it is more complicated that AD&D 1e, the rules are more cohesive. And it is far less clunky than D&D 3.x/Pathfinder.
• Advantages/Disadvantages: What a simple and elegant system! By adding a second die to a die role, the game gains more texture and variability at the cost of a tiny bit of complexity. 
• Death Rolls: This adds a clear rule for how to handle that often vague zero hit point thing. At the same time, it adds high drama to that otherwise passive act of lying in a pool of one's own blood. 
• Groovy Character Classes: I like what WotC has done with the character classes in 5e. Lots of player choices without a lot of overlap. And the choices matter, each class has strengths and weaknesses. There are a lot of strategic and tactical options for players and DMs alike without creating a creaky clunky Byzantine ruleset.
• The Monster Manual: The monsters actually get the biggest overhaul. I have only started reading the MM, but it is very well thought out and every monster has a twist that will matter a great deal in play. 

D&D 5e is definitely in the D&D family, moreso than 4e, for sure. That being said, it is its own version. It is clear that, beyond the character class system and d20 foundation, the designers held nothing sacred. The ruleset is elegant and well-designed. While I will almost always go for the simplicity of Swords & Wizardry Core or Delving Deeper, I am really enjoying playing D&D 5e.

Happy 40th BDay, Dungeons & Dragons

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1977. I had read about it in the Detroit News, Detroit's afternoon newspaper. There was long article in the weekend Living/Accent section about the game (which I have since tried unsuccessfully to track down). I was already reading science-fiction and fantasy books, plus playing Strat-O-Matic sports games and Avalon Hill wargames. Dungeons & Dragons didn't seem like much of a stretch.

I scored a ride with my cousin, whose orthodontist was in Ann Arbor, near the University of Michigan. His Mom always took him to a nearby comic book store after his appointment, so I went along and looked for the game in the store. I asked the guy at the counter and he handed me the box containing the Holmes Basic Dungeons & Dragons set. It had to have been from one of the first three printings, as it contained the dungeon geomorphs and not B1 or B2. The absence of an adventure module was probably the most influential aspect of that particular boxed set, as our group never bought or used adventure modules in the early days. We each built giant dungeons or Middle Earth-like worlds and then took turns DMing, although I always ended up DMing when the entire group (four of us) were present.

We quickly added the original D&D boxed set of three books, the four original supplements, the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, and Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets to our game. It ended up very similar to the Swords & Wizardry Complete rule set (which explains my fondness for the S&W Complete rules).

Awarding Experience

In the earlier editions of D&D--and the current retroclones/simularica--the management and attrition of hit points are the core element of the game (more about that in a later post). The ability to avoid, withstand, and inflict hit point damage forms the most fundamental aspect of the game.

A key facet of hit point attrition is the ability to increase one's own hit points and also increase the ability to inflict hit point damage. This, of course, is done through moving up in experience levels. This, in turn, is the resulting of gaining or earning experience points through play.

Giving the importance of awarding experience, I am baffled at the lack of attention this gets in the many rule sets. When I was playing Castles & Crusades, I was at a loss as to how to award experience. Well, not really at a loss, I just used my systems from my AD&D 1e days. When I started using Blood & Treasure, I discovered that the guidelines for awarding experience were not included . While that is a publishing gaffe, I have been using the x.p. awards for monsters overcome plus 1 x.p. per gold piece of treasure (nothing for magic items). I plan on tweaking that as my first "official" house rule for the Montporte Dungeon campaign.

Five for Friday 18: Dungeoneer's Library

I don't have a huge amount of gaming books. I have even less after selling a big pile of D&D 3.x e on eBay a few years ago, although my new-found love of GURPS is filling up the shelves again. Anyway, I tend to only buy stuff that I am going to play. One exception is dungeon-related books. Here are some of my favorite dungeon reference books (excluding actually published dungeons). These are in alphabetical order:

• Central Casting: Dungeons--Robert Sassone's masterpiece--if we can use that word here--presents 180 pages of dungeon-creating tables. There are lots of dungeon room ideas, as well as a lot of detain, even if you don't use the random-generation approach. This is the one dungeon book I would take with me on a spaceflight, lifeboat, or desert isle.Engineering Dungeons is similar and more recent, but also drier and lighter on content.
• Dungeon Builder's Guidebook--This little volume--from the AD&D 2e era--is a nice companion to Central Casting: Dungeons. It is not as comprehensive or detailed, but it includes some weirder dungeon variations (e.g. underwater, aerial, and interdimensional).
• Dungeoncraft-- A D&D 3.x e product from Fantasy Flight Games (part of their Legends & Lairs series). I nice collection of dungeon ideas, mixed in with the obligatory prestige classes.
• Dungeonscape--This Wizards of the Coast publication was intended for D&D 3.5e. The content is uneven and a bit thin but it does have some groovy ideas and interesting magic items. If you combine this with the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, you end up with something kind of decent.
• Tome of Adventure Design--This Frog God Games product is still in print and is a go-to book for me. Lots and lots of excellent tables. They are not all dungeon-related but there is enough dungeon goodies to put this on the list (I use this book a lot...more often than any other book on the list). Kellri's Encounter Reference, available for free as a PDF and is excellent. Michael Curtis' The Dungeon Alphabet is a fun book with some great off-the-wall creative and useful ideas, but is lighter on content. If you are looking for dungeon tables, check out The Dungeon Dozen (blog) and also my own blog page, Megadungeon Links II: Maps, Tables, Generators.

I should also mention GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, as I have been working my way through the various PDFs.

What books or blogs have been helpful for you in designing dungeons and in creating adventures?

Five for Friday 14: My Favorite Avalon Hill Wargames

This post is a sequel of sorts for my post, Five for Friday 13: Favorite Non-RPG Games.

Chess and Stratego are my favorite two player strategy games. However, I have a deep and abiding affection for the Avalon Hill games that I played as a high school goof before that fateful day I cracked open the Holmes D&D box. Once we started playing Dungeons & Dragons, we never looked back. However, back in the 1970s, Avalon Hill games reigned supreme. Growing up in a rural area and being in high school meant that I didn't have ready access to many opponents. I did have a cousin and two other friends who would occasionally play AH games. Later, the four of us would comprise my first D&D gaming group.

Here, in alphabetical order, were my favorite Avalon Hill games:

• Panzer Leader & PanzerBlitz: These two games utilized very similar mechanics. PanzerBlitz was released first, focusing on the World War 2's Eastern Front. I mainly played Panzer Leader, which was a small unit tactical game that simulated combat and tactics on the Western Front. These two games were innovative in a number of regards, but the big RPG connection is that these two games pioneered the use of isomorphic mapboards that are now staples of dungeon fans everywhere.
• Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: The grand strategy game of World War 2. This game takes into account economies, economic development versus armament production; international logistics, strategic bombing, naval activity, alliances, and, of course, combat. There are a lot of moving parts here but it is a fun, playable game due to the ingenius game design that involves a high level of abstraction and a thoughtful combination of differing game mechanics. I think this game, as different as it is from early editions of D&D, allowed us to quickly grasp the abstract concepts of hit points, armor class, and the Vancian magic system.
• Russian Campaign: I bought this game right after it came out in 1976. It is my favorite wargame, hands down. The rules for "double impulse" allowed for a nice simulation of mass breakthroughs and encirclements that were bread and butter strategies on World War 2's Eastern Front.
• Starship Troopers: I was a science fiction fan before I was a gamer, so I was excited to find out that Avalong Hill had released a game of one of my favorite sci-fi novels. I still think it is the best sci-fi game around and wish I owned it.
• Tobruk: I only had a chance to play this once and I never owned it. I had borrowed the game friend, so it true gamer fashion, had read the rules multiple times. The game was released in 1975 and simulated combat in North Africa, circa 1942. It utilized even small units (infantry platoon and individual vehicles/artillery) than the PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader (company level) and I often think about this game while playing GURPS. Not that there is similarity in mechanics, but GURPS feels like Tobruk to me for some reason--lots of cool tactics and a simple mechanics to support them.

Avalon Hill produced hundreds of games during the heyday of board-based wargames. When I look at the list of games, there are a number of games I wish I had a chance to play, including: 1776, Afrika Korps, Jutland, and Midway.

And the Answer is "Hit Points"

Take one of the older editions of Dungeons & Dragons (or your favorite retroclone), strip away everything except the one most fundamental and essential element. What do you have left?

Five for Friday #6: Send in the Clones

Here are my five favorite retroclones (or simulacra, if you wish) of the world's most famous tabletop fantasy RPG game:

• BLUEHOLME Prentice Rules: I started out my RPG career with the Holmes version of D&D. This is clone is well done (plus it is free).
• Blood & Treasure: A quirky combination that draws on all the pre-4e material. The end result is very streamlined and playable. It hits a sweet spot for me. If we decide to make our recent Montporte session (AD&D 1e) an ongoing dungeon campaign, I think we will be going with Blood & Treasure.
• Castles & Crusades: When I came back to gaming, at the request of then-tweener daughter, we started with D&D 3.5e and I felt like the caveman thawed out of the glacier. Totally bewildered. After doing some checking around, we ended up playing C&C and our in-house gaming group still uses it as our rule set (I quit gaming in about 1982 and was totally clueless about "editions"...my fellow gamers will tell you I still have not found a clue).
• Crypts & Things: This is such a groovy twist on Swords & Wizardry. While the rules and accompanying setting reflect a pulpy swords & sorcery inspiration, I would be tempted to swipe the mage class and magic rules and use them in an urban fantasy setting.
• Swords & Wizardry Complete: When I was fanatically gaming in the late 1970's, our version of D&D looked like this (more about the Holmes, Oe supplements, Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets mashup here).

Do  you a favorite(s) retroclone?

Being the Cool Dad Once Again (Thanks, D&D Next)

I was a playtester during the opening rounds of D&D Next playtesting. It turns out that the best outcome of my D&D Next playtesting is that I am now the Cool Dad among my daughter's college friends (they are the Dr. Who crowd at her university).. I am well aware that the Cool Dad title lasts but a short while. I was the Cool Dad with my son's friends for span of time, thanks to playing in a couple of rock bands. But the coolness wears off quickly when you have to say Read Dad stuff like "Get a job" or "You'll put an eye out" or "Eat all of your brussel sprouts" or "Holy Crap, your girlfriend is hot!" or "The UPS man is your biological father, ask him to cosign your student loan documents." Yes, I know something will happen along the way that will bring shame to my children and I will just be regular Dad again. But I will enjoy the Cool Dad title while it lasts.

A Historical Vancian Analog? The Art of Memory

There are a lot of caveats I could offer here at the start, but I will restrict myself to two: (1) I have not done any research on the Art of Memory (Ars Memoriae) and (2) I am not making the claim that Jack Vance borrowed this concept to use in his Dying Earth novels (maybe he didn't, maybe he didn't, I don't know). I first ran across this idea in Frances A Yates' book, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (which I read after reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco). Yates makes several references to the Medieval and Renaissance use of the Art of Memory (she has also written a book on the subject, The Art of Memory...clever title). I have not read that book, so most of this information comes from the Wikipedia article on the Art of Memory.

The Art of Memory is first found in existing ancient documents as a set of memory tools for rhetoric and oration. It is mentioned by Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, among others. Early Christian monks, who generally had some familiarity with the classical tradition, transformed the Art of Memory into a way of remembering and meditating upon sacred texts, Psalms, prayers and the writings of the early Church fathers.

With the rediscovery of Aristotle during the later Medieval period, the practice of the Art of Memory was reinvigorated. Thomas Aquinas was a proponent, claiming that the Art of Memory was useful for meditation upon the virtues and to examine one's own spiritual state.

The weird groovy part of all this comes during the Renaissance with folks like Giordano Bruno and Ramon Llull, who took the Art of Memory, Christian mysticism, occultism (mainly the Hermetic tradition), and some emerging scientific thoughts and mashed it all together. To quote Wikipedia (the universal authority on everything): According to one influential interpretation [of Ramon Llull], his memory system was intended to fill the mind of the practitioner with images representing all knowledge of the world, and was to be used, in a magical sense, as an avenue to reach the intelligible world beyond appearances, and thus enable one to powerfully influence events in the real world.

See any similarity between the Art of Memory and the Vancian magic system? The Art of Magic has given me something to hang my hat on in terms of a gaming concept without having to monkey in anyway with game system mechanics. At the same time, I never really felt like I needed to have an explanation for how the D&D spell system worked. I learned it back in the 70s with Dr. Holmes and it works for me. I am also fine with how FATE (e.g. Dresden RPG) and GURPS each approach magic. I am too much of a gaming pragmatist, so I only worry about whether it works "in game" or not. I find the Art of Memory mainly interesting as a student of history, not as a gamer. Even so, I thought the similarity to Vancian magic was very cool.

Thoughts?

Note: The accompanying image contains three "memory seals" of Giodano Bruno (source: Wikipedia)

Five for Friday 4: Holmes and Nothing But Dungeons (My Early Gaming)

Here is a list of five of my early gaming influences. Back in the 1970s, gaming for me was all about the giant homemade dungeon. Here is why:

1. The Detroit News (one of two daily newspapers in Detroit): There was a big article in the Sunday edition of The Detroit News (probably in the Accent on Living section) that described Dungeons & Dragons. This would have been 1977. 36 years later all I really remember from the article is a description of a giant homemade dungeon where the game took place. It was the dungeon idea that captivated me.
2. Holmes Basic D&D (with the dungeon geomorphs): I’ll get to the Holmes ruleset itself in the last point. The key point I want here were the dungeon geomorphs. We took their presence as a sign that we should be making giant homemade dungeons as the setting for our game.
3. No Modules: My Holmes set did not include a module and we never bought any. We didn't have access to a store that sold modules and so no one in my group even knew about them.To this day, I do not own any of the classic D&D modules. I have not played them nor have I read them. I am a freak, I know, and my eyes glaze over in incomprehension when gamers my age talk about their favorite modules of yore.
4. Rules Mash-Up: Most of my early gaming involved a ruleset mashup of Holmes, the AD&D 1e Monster Manual, the four Original Edition supplements (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry and Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes), and Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets (which gave us hours of fun with the Buffoon Class). The present retro-clone that comes closest to our early games is Swords & Wizardry Complete, which has a special place for me among the recent reiterations of the game.
5. Other Games: All four of us in my original gaming group had played Avalon Hill war games and Strat-O-Matic sports games. I am not sure we could have deciphered Holmes otherwise. We did not know any other gamers, so we probably would not have tried to play had we not been comfortable decoding Avalon Hill rules.

A couple of years ago, the original four guys in my gaming group reconvened (after a 28 year break) via GameTable and Skype. We started another dungeon-only campaign, using Castles & Crusades, but it fizzled after about 8 or 9 sessions. We were only able to meet online once a month and if we had to cancel, we couldn’t reschedule. Playing once a month and skipping some months altogether did not make for good gaming. I think we were also finding that going back to the dungeon (albeit a different dungeon) was not nearly as satisfying the second time around. There is only so much monster lunch money you can take until the fun wears off.

What (or who) influenced your early gaming? How has your gaming changed from that time?

Thoughts on Medieval Urban Fantasy Settings

So, the first thing to note is that I have a name for my embryonic medieval urban fantasy campaign: Onyx (which likely reflects my recent rereading of Black Company and my list of two syllable words for naming RPG things). My second choice was Twerpshoppleville (which likely reflects the fact that there is a short circuit north of my neck).

I've noticed that there are two main approaches to urban-based fantasy RPGs. One approach is to take the typical D&D style fantasy game and sets it in an urban setting. You get the medieval tech levels, magic, elves, dwarves, etc etc.

The second approach is to take a modern (or near-modern) urban setting, like the Dresden RPG, that is based on the real world. The magic or fantastical elements, that represents true reality, are hidden from the majority of the populace. To be sure, there are many other approaches (clockwork, steampunk, horror, pulp, etc), but I do think that there exists two sets of tropes that are commonly used for urban fantasy--the medieval D&D approach and the modern hidden reality approach.

My intention is to take the modern approach--with magic and the fantastic mostly hidden from plain sight--and use it in a medieval urban setting. It means that +1 swords will not be available at the corner store, unicorns will not be for sale at the city's livestock auction (sorry, Tim), and humans will be the only race available as player characters. I think this sort of setting lends itself to systems like GURPS and FATE. I could see using a very stripped down D&D retro-clone, like Swords & Wizardry (maybe a slightly tweaked Crypts & Things would work well, with the mages having to operate in secret).

Conceptually, I am starting with a real-world city (Constantinople), creating a realistic fictional city based on it (so I don't have the cloud of historical accuracy lingering over my head), and then infusing it with magic and the fantastic (much like Jim Butcher does with the Dresden Files). I think it could create a very different feel than starting with a standard fantasy setting and creating a city for it.

I would be interested to hear what you think.