Meditating on OSR Innovation

Another bandwagon I am compelled to hop onto is this meme about innovation in the OSR: rules or settings? First, let me get this out of the way: when hasn’t the OSR been innovative? Seriously. I will grant that we can look like a bunch of reactionary grey bearded curmudgeons, but from the get go we have been pushing rules written at various times in the 70s and 80s in all kinds of interesting directions. Why are people looking for the next Tékumel or Blackmoor when there are literally as many astounding worlds as there are bloggers?

For example: part of the “complaint” about innovation is getting beyond 2000 cp in a dusty room…a reference to all the whinging about the Dwimmermount experience. How wasn’t Dwimmermount innovative? I said this before and I will say it again — James Maliszewski pushed us all to deal with, understand and chew on the concept of the megadungeon. Regardless of what you think about how his Kickstarter was handled or whether or not you care for the final product, the whole experience has made the hobby better.

For myself, I was never much influenced by Tékumel or Blackmoor. I hold no special place in my heart for either of these products, nor do I have any real interest in investing much time on either product. The same can be said of most setting products. Those who read this blog know that I have never played a single game in either Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. The guys I play with have always been DIY when it comes to world building.

On the other hand, new systems don’t really float my boat either. Look at me, my favorite system was written back in 1981 and, when push comes to shove, I’d be happy playing nothing but B/X for the rest of my life.

What do I really want in a product? I want to be able to use it at the table. This either means that I can easily plug and play with an adventure or have a product that gives me awesome ideas that are easily applied to my games. This is the best way to be innovative, because there are so many products out there that are not very easy to use. Let me give you a couple or three examples of what I believe are innovative products:

Demonspore by Matt Finch
This is one of the best adventure modules ever produced by the OSR simply because it is designed to be plugged into an existing dungeon. It doesn’t have to be, but it can and I did and it was brilliantly easy to do.

Realms of Crawling Chaos and Starships & Spacemen 2e both by Goblinoid Games
Both of these products are plug and play tool kits for Labyrinth Lord (though S&S 2e can function as a stand-alone game). Frankly, anything in the Labyrinth Lord line is designed to be modular so that if I want to do a Star Trek/Flash Gordon/Horror/Mutant Apocalypse mash-up without house ruling everything, I can. Indeed, I have yet to fully take advantage of all of the modular goodness provided in RCC and S&S 2e.

This whole discussion began with JB of B/X Blackrazor and his problems with the game White Star by James Spahn. Personally, I really appreciated JB’s perspective. I was pining over the game because of the excitement generated around this section of the internet, but my gaming budget is still Free. JB let me realize that I would have had buyers remorse if I’d scraped together the cash to buy it.

Like JB, I worked on my own version of a Flash Gordon-esque version of BX/0e but abounded it because it wasn’t a game I really ever wanted to play. Now, before I get accused to being bitter about Spahn’s success in the same way JB did, I have already shared what fruits came out of that whole experiment.

Way back when, I did a series of posts stripping the 0e spell list of special effects in order to create a system to build new spells based on 0e assumptions. I shared it as Ye Auld Skool Spell Creator. What may not be obvious is that this whole project began as an attempt to create a tool kit for creating Jedi-like powers for a sci-fi version of BX/0e so that my version of a Star Knight (or whatever else you want to call it) wouldn’t have to have Bless or Purify Food and Drink on their spell list.

Speaking for myself, this is not the best thing I’ve ever shared with this community; however, I do believe that it is the closest thing that I have ever produced that demonstrates what I want in terms of the Rules vs. Setting discussion. It is innovative in the way I want my OSR products to be innovative: I can use it at my table to create my vision of a sci-fi campaign or add cool new spells to my 0e-inspired games.

In other words, I don't need publishers to give the new Tékumel or Blackmoor, I want them to give me cool tools to help me make it myself.

Do We Still Need Labyrinth Lord?

Now that both Moldvay’s Basic Edition and Cook’s Expert Edition are available as .pdfs from WotC, one can legitimately ask the question: Do we still need Labyrinth Lord?

I would answer that question with an unequivocal YES for two very important reasons:

1. LL is an established brand with a license that hobbyists like myself and small publishers can easily and legally publish under with full knowledge that whatever we produce can be used by those who want to do the B/X thing with virtually no conversion at all.
2. More importantly to me, LL has a library of compatible games that are specifically designed to be modular. Original Edition Characters, Advanced Edition Companion, Mutant Future, Realms of Crawling Chaos and Starships and Spacemen 2e are all specifically designed to be able to be integrated together to create all kinds of cool homebrew campaign worlds without having to house rule. In addition, Dan Proctor has provided several free .txt documents for us hobbyists to do exactly that.

Despite the fact that I gleefully grabbed up the .pdfs of B/X (and was very pleased to see how well they are bookmarked) I still plan to use LL as my default ruleset precisely because of the versatility it provides me as a hobbyist. There are still many things within the LL library that await to be exploited to go places where B/X on its own can’t go without a lot of work that has already been covered by the LL library.

Thus, while I am very happy about what WotC is doing for the hobby and they deserve my gratitude and thanks, Dan Proctor also needs to be thanked because his work has greatly expanded the awesomeness of B/X and taken it to places it never went on its own.

Monster: Enslaver

For those of you that read my last Lost Colonies Session report, you know that I was very much inspired by the Moon Things of Realms of Crawling Chaos. I do, however, have to admit, I fiddled with the statistics and made my own version (something that I do on a regular basis, by the way, to keep some of my players on their toes):

Enslavers

In all truth I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave. — John 8:34

Number Appearing: 3d4 (1d6 x 10)
% in Lair: 15%
Alignment: Chaotic
Armor Class: 8
Move: 9
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: by weapon or see below
Special: Damage Reduction, Disarm, Sleep attack — see below
Save: F2
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: XVIII
XP: 33

Enslavers are a cephalopod-like semi-humanoid race originally engineered by Brain Lashers for the purpose of hunting down and capturing food. Although still found in service to their designers, they have been found to be in service to other creatures and even as independent slavers and pirates.

Their spineless bodies not only allow them to fit through tiny spaces and elongate their limbs into whip-like weapons, but it allows them to "roll with the punch." As a result, they only take half-damage from all normal attacks. Cold and fire attacks do normal damage and they take double damage from electrical attacks.

Although capable of using normal weapons when attacking, Enslavers prefer to attack first by elongating their limbs in whip-like fashion. A successful attack does no damage, but requires the target to save vs. spells or drop their weapon. Regardless of the success or failure of the save, the Enslaver gets a +2 on their next attack roll. This second attack normally utilizes the mass of squirming tentacles Enslavers have in place of a face. A successful attack has a similar effect as a Sleep spell (no save). This attack is not magical in nature and therefore can affect elves.

Enslavers have ultraviolet vision.

On Playing a Cleric

Yesterday, there was a very interesting turn of events at Jeff's Gameblog. Jeff made (from my perspective) a wonderful journey from specifically excluding the cleric class from his Surfeit of Lampreys campaign to an understanding that they are, in fact, a perfect fit for his Wessex setting. As usually happens, however, when one starts talking about clerics and their place in D&D, the comments were a mix of those of us who like clerics and those who as yet can't get their head around them for a variety of reasons. As I've been meditating on this, I am beginning to wonder if (as more than one commenter and Jeff himself implied) the reason for the level of discomfort with the cleric is cultural more than anything else.

Most of us live in a largely secular and pluralistic society that is quite comfortable with the schizophrenia of 30,000+ denominations of Christianity, let alone all of the different flavors of other religions that coexist within our communities. Very few of us have any experience with the shared and assumed daily rituals of Medieval Christendom. Virtually none of us know the monastery and the Church as the center of civilization and learning. [As an aside, a good deal of what we know about classical philosophy and science was bequeathed to us by Christian monks.]

Jeff nicely sums up an outsider's view of the role of the cleric with this observation:

Have we crossed all the i's and dotted all the t's so that God doesn't get mad at us and sends us blessings rather than curses?

Being more an insider who has spent time living in and studying places where there is a shared cultural daily Christian ritual, I thought I'd dedicate some time to help shed some light on what it might mean to be a cleric in a D&D context.

Central to understanding the role of the cleric is the fallenness of man. We know good and evil — where evil is the absence of God. We are intimately familiar with a world that has no God — it is full of misery, disease, decay and death. In Goblinoid Games' Realms of Crawling Chaos, Daniel Proctor and Michael Curtis outline several literary themes found in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. They include:

• The Insignificance of Man — man is nothing in context of the infinite sea of space and time.
• The Vastness of the Universe — we are truly alone in an incomprehensibly large and unknowable cosmos.
• An Uncaring Natural World — nature will kill us many times over before it shows one ounce of compassion for our existence.
• The Reality of Man as an Animal — we are no better than the basest of animals.

In a world where there is no God, all of these things are true. More than that, all of the misery, disease, decay and death that overwhelms the world are all evidence that we are careening towards nothingness. These are the cold, hard facts of the fallen world.

Standing in defiance of this reality is Christ — where God and His creation are united in one person. He is the one point of historical reality where man is no longer insignificant, but the center of God's plan for salvation; where we have Emmanuel (God is with us) and man is no longer alone; where all of creation can and should be sanctified by the presence of Christ and His Church; and where man is the mechanism by which God works His salvation in the world.

The role of the Church in society is to bring the very presence of God into all of creation — to stem the tide of the fallen world by reuniting it with Christ. We do this by the ritual worship of everyday life. The curses that befall us all are not a result of God, but rather the absence of God. The blessing we experience and the miracles that we behold are the result of the intimate presence of God.

The cleric is the one who is trained in all of the prayers and rituals that the Church has to bring about this presence. His role is to teach and lead the people in these rituals and prayers. As an adventurer, the cleric would see it his duty primarily as stemming the tide of Chaos (the fallen world) by making the wilderness safe for Christian civilization and the sanctifying rituals that it brings with it.

Let me present a couple of examples of what I am talking about. Because Jeff is dealing with a fantasy version of England, let me present a couple of prayers found in the Carmina Gadelica — a collection of Gaelic prayers compiled by Alexander Carmichael.

PRAYER FOR TRAVELLING

Life be in my speech,
Sense in what I say,
The bloom of cherries on my lips,
Till I come back again. 

The love Christ Jesus gave
Be filling every heart for me,
The love Christ Jesus gave
Filling me for every one. 

Traversing corries, traversing forests,
Traversing valleys long and wild.
The fair white Mary still uphold me,
The Shepherd Jesu be my shield.
The fair white Mary still uphold me,
The Shepherd Jesu be my shield.

INVOCATION FOR THE BLESSING OF A HOUSE

God bless the house,
From site to stay.
From beam to wall.
From end to end,
From ridge to basement.
From balk to roof-tree,
From found to summit.
Found and summit.

INVOCATION FOR THE BATTLE TO COME

Jesus, Thou Son of Mary, I call on Thy name,
And on the name of John the apostle beloved,
And on the names of all the saints in the red domain.
To shield me in the battle to come.

To shield me in the battle to come.

When the mouth shall be closed,
When the eye shall be shut,
When the breath shall cease to rattle.
When the heart shall cease to throb.

When the heart shall cease to throb.

When the Judge shall take the throne,
And when the cause is fully pleaded,
O Jesu, Son of Mary, shield Thou my soul,
O Michael fair, acknowledge my departure.

O Jesu, Son of Mary, shield Thou my soul
O Michael fair, receive my departure!

Realms of Crawling Chaos

If you hadn't noticed, Dan Proctor announced Saturday evening the early release of Realms of Crawling Chaos (hereafter RCC). Which meant I did something I rarely do — buy something immediately after it comes out. Normally, I read reviews, think about whether I will actually use something and then I might allow myself the purchase. In this case, knowing the work of both Dan and Michael Curtis, knowing that this was going to be a typical modular Goblinoid Games design that would be fully compatible with LL and knowing that it was going to mine one of my favorite fantasy authors (HPL), I felt very comfortable taking the plunge. I was not disappointed.

In a word: brilliant. Regardless of what your own campaign might look like, there are things in here which can be dropped in to make life more interesting for your players. Some highlights for me:

• The new PC races. I love them, especially the White Ape (which fits perfectly into my campaign). Seriously, all of them have already been placed in my campaign world — hopefully in places my players will be exploring soon.
• The Random Artifact tables are awesome. Not only is this right up my alley (I love random tables), it makes magic items dangerous. I also got a real kick out of this aside:

This way, even if the players own a copy of this book, their characters can never be certain what the odd object’s powers and, more importantly, drawbacks are.

• The simple take on Psionics that is completely compatible with Mutant Future.
• A new magic spell category called Formulae which cobbles together magic and alchemy to produce substances and effects.
• Rules on reading eldritch tomes.

What is truly marvelous is how easy all of this is to implement. Besides the races, I have already come up with several ways to immediately use all of the above in my campaign world.

However, one of the things I truly appreciated about this work is the introduction. It brilliantly summarizes HPL's "cosmicism" into six themes that characterize his work. In addition, there are suggestions on how to apply each to any given campaign.

Now, for those of you who have already read RCC and are familiar with my own campaign style with its inclusion of religious themes, you might be wondering why I would appreciate things like The Insignificance of Man, An Uncaring Natural World, and The Reality of Man as an Animal.

The reason is quite simple, actually. Cosmicism, especially as defined in RCC, perfectly expresses what is left when we get rid of God. The abject horror of a world sans God is marvelously expressed in the work of HPL, and in the themes of an RCC campaign. For me, this is a excellent foil for my own themes. It sharpens the realty of our choices and the consequences of these choices.

So, if you haven't already gone out and bought it, I highly recommend RCC.