Towards an Arnesonian XP System Without the Gold

Anyone familiar with my musings on how to run a campaign is well aware of my long love-affair with Arneson’s rule of 1 gp of treasure spent = 1 xp. It is genius and it is the mechanical engine that makes a sandbox-style game purr. Handing over agency to a group of players is one of the true pleasures I have as a Referee because it guarantees an experience that I cannot get by writing short stories, novellas or novels: utter surprise. I had no idea stirge meat was a delicacy in the Lost Colonies until my players decided to ask a friendly monster NPC to cook one up. To this day, this fact and all of the various consequences that are derived from this fact are some of my favorite features of the Lost Colonies campaign world.

There is, however, one glaring weakness in Dave Arneson’s xp house rule: it assumes a gold-based economy in a post-apocalyptic world where treasure hunting is an inexpensive but lucrative (if dangerous) endeavor. It won’t work in the Third Imperium. Whereas there is a lost, ancient civilization, the locations of these ruins are often tightly controlled secrets or in places that are cost prohibitive to get to. In addition, the stuff that can be found is generally cultural and/or scientific, not monetary.

One of the reasons B/X is the one RPG I would choose if I could only ever play one RPG for the rest of my life is because it best expresses (and allows for) the madness of a sandbox campaign and players armed with the near-complete agency Arneson’s xp rule grants. One of the reasons I don’t regularly Referee games like Traveller, Call of Cthulhu and Champions is that these genres and systems lend themselves much less easily to the sandbox campaign (not that they can’t).

The discussion that followed my most recent rant about 5e and xp got me thinking about how it might be possible to marry the madness of Arneson’s xp rule and a sandbox campaign to another genres where Arneson’s assumptions about the world do not or cannot exist.

At the root of this whole issue is player agency. The way in which Arneson’s rule empowers players to advance exactly how they want to is a marvel to behold. The surprise factor and the world-building and world-altering factors are huge. Therefore, here is a stab in the dark at a framework upon which to build an experience system that could potentially give me the same kind of satisfaction in other games and genres that I get from Arneson + B/X:

There are six different methods of earning experience:

1. Party Campaign Goal: This is a task the players set for themselves as a group. The expected time necessary to complete this task should be around the 2-5 session mark. For example: The party decides that it wants to figure out where the Tomb of Horrors is located. This would have a value of 2(x) for each character where x is an arbitrary number used consistently throughout this thought experiment.
2. Player Campaign Goal: This is a task that the player sets for their character alone. Again, this is something they should expect to take 2-5 game sessions to complete. For example: The ranger decides that he wants to take out 20 orcs, while the Magic-user wants to visit the Great Library in the Capital City. Again, this would have a value of 2(x).
3. Party Mission Goal: Similar to the Party Campaign Goal, but is something the party wants to accomplish over the course of a single session. For example: The party wants to get to the Village of Sages in order to find out the most likely place to find a map associated with the Tomb of Horrors. This would have a value of (x) for each character.
4. Player Mission Goal: Similar to the Player Campaign Goal, but is something the player wants to accomplish over the course of a single session. For example: The Cleric wants to cast three utility spells that actually help the party. This would have a value of (x).
5. Secret Player Goal: This is something to help me notch up the surprise factor for both players and referee. All of the above goals are assumed to be public knowledge so that everyone has a chance to negotiate with the other players to maximize their ability to gain experience. At the beginning of each session, the player’s also write down a goal their character has for the session that no one else is privy to, including the Referee. At the end of the session, these goals are revealed to the table and experience is granted for those who pull it off. This would have a value of (x).
6. Referee Discretion/Secret Goal: This is also an attempt to up the surprise factor. The Referee could hand out (x) experience to players who showed exceptional bravery/cleverness/role-playing etc. and/or at the start of the session, the Referee could secretly write down a goal they hope the party accomplishes over the course of that session. This, too, would be worth (x) experience.

I think this would allow enough flexibility to just about any genre to pull off a sandbox campaign as well as offer enough structure to allow players to feel empowered on how their characters advance through the system and the campaign.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 10

Stocking the Dungeon

When I put together the Wandering Monster Tables (WMT) for a FF Basic Edition, I promised to find a map and stock it using those tables. At the time, I had in mind the maps of Dyson Logos, whose hand drawn maps have found their way into my games on more than one occasion and also spearheaded the geomorph revival that gets put to such good use over at Dave’s Mapper. Unfortunately, Dyson’s recent output has been rather sparse and can usually fit on a 3x5 index card. Undaunted, I decided to string together several of his recent maps to produce a large enough map to really give my WMTs a good test run. I had to fiddle with the maps a little in order to make them fit, but here is the result:

For those interested (and to give Dyson proper credit), the originals are here, here, here, here, here and here.

I used the dungeon stocking table from Moldvay with one addition. Holmes provides a table that allows wandering monsters from tables above or below the current dungeon level. Since I had WMTs for levels 1-3, I wanted to take advantage of them all and so utilized this table from Holmes.

Here are the results (with initial thoughts in parentheses):

Rooms with traps: 1-7
Rooms with traps guarding treasure: 8-17
Rooms with unguarded treasure: 18-20
Rooms with specials: 21-32
Rooms with monsters sans treasure:
33. Goldbug
34. Snyad
35. Iron Cobra (was this created by the Conjurers in 46 & 61 or is it a remnant from earlier occupants?)
36. Veterans
37. Warriors
38. Bullywugs (spies from more dungeon levels accessed by following the river?)
39. Dakon (trying to get his treasure back, I assume)
40. Garbug
41. Garbug
42. Firesnake
43. Giant Bats (or Gorbels if you happen to be Scott)
44. Death Dog
45. Death Dog
46. Conjurer (one of two — brother/sister combo that now rules the dungeon?)
47. Kenku (are they the friendly kind or the slaver kind?)
48. Flind
Rooms with monsters and treasure:
49. Quaggoths (did these steal the Dakon’s trasure?)
50. Snyad
51. Norker
52. Firenewt
53. Death Dog
54. Grimlocks (some of the original occupants?)
55. Assassin Bugs
56. Coffer Corpse (the reason there was construction here in the first place?)
57. Footpads (lying in wait to backstab those in combat with the Veterans in 63).
58. Kenku (helping the other Kenku)
59. Meazle (plotting against the Conjurers?)
60. Witherstench
61. Conjurer
62. Flind
63. Veterans

The fun part of this whole exercise is that this dungeon doesn’t feel all that different from a classic sample dungeon for a Basic Edition — its a pair of Magic Users who employ some evil humans and humanoids as guards. However, all the various familiar elements are twisted just enough to be unfamiliar and therefore dangerous. I especially like how the demi-human stand-ins (Dakon, Kenku and Quaggoth) don’t necessarily seem out of place or are automatically an encounter that will help out an adventuring party.

EDIT: Since there has been an interest, the map above is now a larger version and I am including this version sans numbers:

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 9

Wandering Monster Table Level 3

This is a continuation of my posts here and here. An interesting thing starts to happen with the Level 3 Wandering Monster Table (WMT) in Moldvay. The variety of monster types begins to expand. Trying to define some of them is actually quite challenging. For example, a Shadow is not undead in B/X and how does one categorize a Doppleganger? I was forced to categorize Medusae and Lycanthropes as humanoids because petrification is not common in the FF and there are no lycanthropes at all in the FF. For what it is worth, here is my attempt to strip out creature specifics and just leave general categories (the numbers in parentheses are HD and asterisks indicate special abilities, where two indicate more powerful abilities):

1. mammal (4)
2. insect (3+1)
3. humanoid (3+1)
4. scavenger (3+1*)
5. ambusher (4*)
6. insect (4*)
7. flyer (4+4*)
8. slime/ooze (4*)
9. flyer (3*)
10. construct (3)
11. humanoid (3*)
12. human (1**)
13. humanoid (4**)
14. NPC Party (var.)
15. slime/ooze (5*)
16. humanoid (4+1)
17. extra-planar (2+2*)
18. insect (4*)
19. undead (3**)
20. undead (3*)

Once again, the dearth of insects in the FF rears its head. I was forced to substitute some other kind of animal for every insect slot in this table. Surprisingly, the various weird categories had decent fits. The Skulk has a similar strategy as a Doppleganger, the Shocker is an extra-planar being like the Shadow and the Whipweed fits the scavenger slot as nicely as the Carrion Crawler does. The only other stretch I had to make was the Thoquua as a construct. The FF has a number of creatures that fit this category, but they either don’t have the right HD or are specifically not wandering monsters. Here is what I came up with:

1. Osquip (3+1)
2. Gorilla Bear (4)
3. Firenewt (2+2*)
4. Whipweed (2+4; 1+4)
5. Skulk (2*)
6. Fire Mephit (3+1*)
7. Grell (5*)
8. Stun Jelly (4*)
9. Mantari (1+1*)
10. Thoquua (3*)
11. Crabmen (3)
12. Swordsmaster (3rd level fighter)
13. Lava Children (4*)
14. NPC party (var.)
15. Algoid (5*)
16. Meazle (4)
17. Shocker (1+2*)
18. Firedrake (4*)
19. Sons of Kyuss (4*)
20. Huecuva (2*)

This WMT has a distinctly elemental feel to it. One of the reasons I chose the Thoquua as a construct was that it fit very nicely with the elemental theme. The one element that stands out is fire. Firenewts, Fire Mephits, and Firedrakes all have breath weapons. Thoquua and Lava Children have heat-related powers that can render various items useless. Another observation: there are a lot of multiple and special attacks on this list. PC parties better be ready to be creative because going toe-to-toe with this list of creatures is not a recipe for long-term success. If there isn’t an easy way to the surface from the third level of a dungeon, even one combat could place a party in danger of a TPK just trying to get out.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 8

Wandering Monster Table Level 2

This is a continuation of what I started yesterday. Although I am itching to stock a dungeon with yesterday’s Wandering Monster Table (WMT), I am going to hold off until I complete all three levels of WMTs that would be found in a FF Basic Edition. In his advice for stocking dungeons, Moldvay suggests that there always be at least a couple of encounters that are placed rather than randomly determined. For these encounters, I like to look at and even roll on WMTs a level or two higher than the current dungeon level — a strategy akin to making them “boss” encounters.

Here is the WMT for Level 2 from Moldvay with the specific monsters stripped out. The numbers in the parentheses are HD and an asterisk indicates a special ability such as poison:

1. insect (2*)
2. human (1+1*)
3. mammal (3+2)
4. demi-human (1+1*)
5. undead (2*)
6. humanoid (2)
7. slime/ooze (3*)
8. humanoid (1+1)
9. reptile (4+2)
10. humanoid (2+1)
11. humanoid (2)
12. human (1 to 3)
13. fey (2)
14. insect (1*)
15. mammal (2)
16. reptile (2*)
17. insect (3*)
18. humanoid (2*)
19. human (1 to 3)
20. undead (2)

I will continue my strategy with humans — use classes and indicate level using level titles. A number of other challenges arise due to the variety of monsters in the FF. Undead are scarce, thus the Coffer Corpse will make a second appearance on Level 2. For a similar reason, Kenku will also make a second appearance; however, with the extra HD comes spell use. Therefore, they are not quite the same.

This is also true of the Garbug — Level 2 will see a stronger variety of this strange arthropod; however, one thing that I am beginning to notice about the FF is its dearth of insects. Yes, they do exist, but while traditional D&D monster sections have a good variety of insects that populate a number of HD ranges, the FF is spotty at best. One strategy might be to take a lower HD insect and increase the number encountered; however, I like more variety.

Therefore, I decided on placing the Gryph in one of the insect slots because using adventurers as a reproductive host seems to be a popular trope (and quite insect-like). I ran into a similar conundrum with reptiles. There are quite a few in the FF, but they are all higher HD. Thus, I went with one of my favorite FF monsters, the Volt. Here is what I came up with:

1. Gryph (2*)
2. Conjurer (3rd level MU)
3. Hoar Fox (2*)
4. Kenku (3*)
5. Huecuva (2*)
6. Qullan (2)
7. Enveloper (3*)
8. Norker (1+2)
9. Fire Snake (2*)
10. Ogrillon (2)
11. Grimlock (2)
12. Warrior (2nd level fighter)
13. Dire Corby (2)
14. Pernicon (.5*)
15. Rothé (2)
16. Volt (2+1*)
17. Garbug (3+1*)
18. Flind (2+3)
19. Robber (3rd level thief)
20. Coffer Corpse (2*)

In a strange way, this table feels a little more familiar than the Level 1 WMT. The humanoids, while still very different from your everyday run-of-the-mill orc, are still somewhat familiar. Norkers are akin to hobgoblins. Flinds are a variety of gnolls. Ogrillons are literally a cross between orcs and ogres. Even the strange looking Qullan remind me of the type of berserker I’d expect to see two levels down in a dungeon.

Of course, this doesn’t stop me from realizing that there is a kind of dangerous Alice in Wonderland kind of feel to this list. Everything may seem familiar, but beneath the familiar facade is a dark twist that contains a deadly surprise if you are not careful. I am particularly interested to see that Ghostbusters moment when a party realizes that the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man really is demonic and wants to absorb you and use your powers against your friends...

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 7

Wandering Monster Table Level 1

Among the other members of The International League of Fiend Foliasts, Chris of Vaults of Nagoh has already done an analysis of the Wandering Monster Tables (WMT) in the FF. I am not here to duplicate his work, rather I want to refashion the WMTs of Moldvay’s Basic Edition using FF monsters.

Thus, let us take a look at the WMT for Level 1 in Moldvay. For purposes of this analysis, I am categorizing the entries rather than listing specific monsters. The number in paranthesis is the HD of the creature and an asterisk indicates a special ability (such as poison):

1. human (1)
2. human (1)
3. Insect (1+2)
4. demi-human (1)
5. demi-human (1)
6. humanoid (1-1)
7. slime/ooze (2*)
8. demi-human (1-1)
9. insect (.5*)
10. humanoid (.5)
11. reptile (3+1)
12. humanoid (1)
13. mammal (2)
14. undead (1)
15. reptile (1*)
16. insect (2*)
17. fey (.5*)
18. flyer (1*)
19. human (1)
20. mammal (2+2)

It is actually quite surprising how easy it is to find a number of choices to fill many of these categories. In particular, flyers and humanoids with similar HD are in abundance; however, creativity is necessary in order to fill the human and demi-human slots since the FF has no entries for humans (no bandits, berserkers, traders, etc.) or traditional demi-humans (only drow and svirfneblin). I am going to take a page from Holmes here, and place classes for each of the human slots using level titles. For the demi-human slots, I will use my substitute demi-human race-as-class examples here. The biggest problem is the slime/ooze slot. All the various creatures in the FF that qualify for this category have much higher HD. If, however, one considers a slime/ooze to be akin to a plant, I figure a Yellow Musk Zombie could be an interesting substitute.

The result of this scheme might look like this (again, the number in parenthesis is HD and an asterisk is a special ability like poison):

1. Seer (2nd level MU)
2. Veteran (1st level fighter)
3. Assassin Bug (1+1)
4. Dakon (1+1)
5. Kenku (2)
6. Xvart (1-1)
7. Yellow Musk Zombie (2)
8. Quaggoth (1+2)
9. Goldbug (1*)
10. Jermlaine (.5)
11. Jaculi (1)
12. Bullywug (1)
13. Witherstench (2+2*)
14. Coffer Corpse (2*)
15. Iron Cobra (1*)
16. Garbug (2+2*)
17. Snyad (1-1)
18. Giant Bat (.5)
19. Footpad (2nd level thief)
20. Death Dog (2+1)

Overall, I think this list is a tad more frightening that the one found in Moldvay (one is more likely to get poisoned, ambushed, used as a reproductive host and/or have your treasure stolen). Running away must necessarily be part of an adventuring party’s repertoire (not a bad thing, actually).

Interestingly, though, there is a weird kind of bio-diversity here that seems absent in Moldvay. Whereas the WMT of Molday seems to yield goblinoids and giant animals, this FF Basic Edition WMT yields a wide variety of things — carnivorous plants, constructs and Chaos-touched animals as well as goblinoids and giant animals. I am very tempted to find me a map and roll me up some encounters to see just what kind of an ecology this WMT produces...

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 6

Frogthulhu

When I was a kid and just learning to read what my children now call “chapter books,” I spent a lot of time in my local library perusing books in the mythology section. Of particular interest to me were stories from various Native American tribes. This was something I had yet to encounter and I found them both fascinating and horrifying.

The one thing I vividly remember about these books was an illustration of the Spider Woman. Though not necessarily understood to be a monster, this illustration certainly made me think of her as one. Ironically, despite my fascination with this depiction of the Spider Woman, I have never been a big fan of D&D’s Spider Woman — Loth. This is, in part, because of her association with the drow, which I have always found . . . boring.

This is, in part, because my childhood imagination was better than a bunch of dark skinned elves. The Spider Woman (and by extension Loth) imply the horrifying notion that creatures of the insect and arachnid worlds not only look completely alien, they are alien. They are manifestations of forces in the universe intent on destroying humanity — Cthulhu in an exoskeleton, in other words.

I mention this because though there is a (short) list of creatures in the FF that hail from the lower planes, none of them invoke the hostile alien intelligence that my young mind saw in that illustration of the Spider Woman (and later in the writings of HPL). There is, however, one group that can — the grossly underutilized Slaad.

Though their alignment is technically Chaotic Neutral, not only have I argued in the past that there is so little difference between Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil that they might as well be the same, who could argue that the Lord of Entropy and the Lord of the Insane (the Slaadi Lords Ssendam and Ygorl) could easily be seen as despots of the lower planes?

What sets the Slaad apart, however, is that they are basically all frogs. Slaadi do for amphibians what the Spider Woman does (and Loth ought to do) for insects and arachnids. They transform an entire classification of animals into an ancient alien menace determined to wipe out humanity.

This is reinforced by the fact that there are several monsters within the pages of the FF that could easily be qualified as amphibian (and therefore Slaadi minions):

• Babbler
• Blindheim
• Bullywug
• Firenewt
• Firetoad
• Vodyanoi

One of the things I really like about this understanding of amphibians is the way it plays with classic tales like the Princess and the Frog. In fact, I do believe there is an adventure in there somewhere . . .

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 5

Dark Fantasy

As I have meditated upon this thought experiment — envisioning a Basic Edition that uses the FF for its monster section — I have pointed out the fact that it heavily implies science fantasy rather than pure or high fantasy. That does not mean, however, that the FF is purely science fiction or exlusively science fantasy. Take a look at the number of monsters that are distinctly or peripherally creatures of the fey:

• Al-mi’raj
• Booka
• Carbuncle
• Dark Creeper & Dark Stalker
• Dire Borby
• Forlarren
• Galltrit
• Gryph
• Hellcat
• Hound of Ill Omen
• Kelpie
• Killmoulis
• Meazel
• Mephit
• Mite
• Needleman
• Poltergeist
• Screaming Devilkin
• Scarecrow
• Skulk
• Snyad

What is striking about this list is that the alignments of these creatures are overwhelmingly Neutral and Evil. Yes, both the Booka and Killmoulis are listed as Chaotic Good, but only parenthetically (their primary alignment is Neutral).

This overall orientation suggests that the fey are indifferent to the human codition if not downright malevolent. Indeed, some are positively demonic.

This is a world where the Summer Court, if it exists at all, does not care one whit what happens to humanity. The Winter Court is happily tormenting the civilized world if not plotting its demise.

Personally, I hold that this is as it should be. I don’t know exactly when, but somewhere in our literary and popular culture, fairies became something cute, cuddly and helpful. One need only look at the original Grimm’s Fairytales to get a taste at how gruesome the fey were once understood to be.

There was a time in my life when I was heavily involved in theatre and was even trained in dramaturgy. I was particularly interested in Shakespeare and have often fantasized about doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream as horror. There is a BBC production that comes close, but I always wanted to push it further.

Thus, while it is quite possible to understand the generic campaign world of a Basic Edition using the FF to be science fantasy, there is still a strong fantasy element (via its depiction of the fey) to the monster section. And, according to my own proclivities, it is happily very dark indeed.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 4

The Wilderness Personified

One of the interesting consequences of having the name Dungeons & Dragons is that regardless of whether or not a particular edition is geared toward introductory characters who have no business even talking to a dragon, dragons have to be part of the game. I have mused about this before, one of the striking things about Moldvay’s Basic Edition is that the average HD of the monsters is 3+1. The Holmes edition is even nastier with an average HD of 4+4. There are meant to be monsters that are way beyond the ability of low-level PCs to deal with. Dragons fit that bill.

Though dragons do show up in the FF, they are of a whole different cloth than the now familiar chromatic and metallic dragons of traditional D&D, who personify the great powers of good and evil, who speak with ancient wisdom and hate; who might be able to cast spells and even polymorph into human form to walk among their lessors. The dragons of the FF are inspired more by the Eastern conception of the mythical beasts and every single one of them is some shade of neutral.

Whereas the chromatic and metallic dragons are characterized by their breath weapons, the powers of FF dragons are characterized by the ability to manipulate nature itself. Earthquakes, burning water, weather control, control scaled animals and ice storms can all be found in the flavor texts. Some of these creatures can do these things at will. In other words, FF dragons seem to personify the cruel indifference of nature when natural disasters reduce humanity to dust.

This calls attention to the sheer number of creatures within the FF that have some kind of elemental-type of flavor or power. Those that might appear on the Wandering Monsters Tables of a Basic edition include:

• Fire Newt
  
• Fire Snake
  
• Hoar Fox
  
• Ice Lizard
  
• Mephit
  
• Shocker
  
• Thoqqua
  
• Thork
  
• Ice Troll
  
• Vortex
  

Given that the FF also details five Elemental Princes of Evil, it is fair to say that monsters are personifications of Fallen Nature itself. They are the face and hands of The Wilderness fighting the incursion of Civilization. At the center of all of this are those terrifying and indifferent dragons, who personify natural disasters. PCs, then, represent humanity’s attempts (in vain?) to understand, control and minimize the impact of nature itself even as nature fights back.

Though the classic trope of Civilization vs. The Wilderness is part and parcel to virtually every edition of the game, this particular version (again) has more in common pulp science fiction than it does with traditional D&D game worlds. Whereas Greyhawk is all about Good vs. Evil and St. Cuthbert vs. Iuz, the implied world of a Basic Edition using the FF for monsters suggests a world in the distant future where humanity is not just struggling against chaos and evil, but against the inevitability of its own demise — a dying earth ready to be consumed by the fire of a red giant star or a long forgotten space colony on the verge of being hurled into the void. In this context, PCs don’t necessarily represent heroes, but rather that glorious human defiance in face of inexorable defeat. It is a dark and depressing vision, but with that defiance comes a small glimmer of hope and maybe even the possibility of not just survival, but victory.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 3

Putting the Scare back into the Undead

One of the recurring challenges in D&D is that the Turning ability of clerics tends to take a lot of drama out of encounters with the undead. As a result, they normally do not garner the kind of fear and loathing that the undead ought to. If a cleric (or clerics) get into mid-level and higher, then one has to be creative in order to make undead encounters even interesting.

One of the reasons that I have always liked the FF is that the undead found therein have some bite. Given a little bit of fiddling, undead in a Basic Edition that uses the FF for its monsters could prove to be very frightening indeed.

Let’s begin with a list of all the undead in the FF:

• Apparition
• Coffer Corpse°
• Crypt Thing*†
• Eye of Fear and Flame*
• Huecuva°
• Penanggelan≠
• Poltergeist†≠
• Revenant†≠
• Sheet Ghoul§
• Sheet Phantom§
• Skeletal Warrior
• Sons of Kyuss

Some notes about this list:

* = though the description seems to indicate undead, these are not specifically described as undead. 

† = these creatures are not really meant to be wandering monsters — crypt things and poltergeists are tied to a specific encounter area; revenants are tied to a specific encounter type. 

§ = sheet phantoms and sheet ghouls do not strike me as undead creatures, despite the fact that they are described as such. Their powers and abilities are much more akin to slimes and oozes. Indeed, the sheet phantom is said to be related to the lurker above and the sheet ghoul functions much more like the non-undead yellow musk zombie than a ghoul. Therefore, I am going to treat them this way because it makes for better undead. 

≠ = these creatures either are completely immune to Turning or there are circumstances when Turning will not work on them. 

° = these might appear on Wandering Monster Tables in a Basic edition.

If we get rid of the sheet ghoul and phantom, the lowest HD undead are the coffer corpse, the heucuva and the poltergeist. Since the latter is normally associated with a single spot and cannot be Turned if it is in that spot, poltergeists don’t really function as undead creatures and can easily be recast as dark fey or some other kind of magical activity.

This leaves the low power undead spectrum to the Coffer Corpse and the Heucuva. Check out their nastiness:

• The Coffer Corpse can only be hit by magic weapons.
• The Coffer Corpse is treated as a wraith on the Turn tables.
• The Coffer Corpse can cause fear.
• The Huecuva can only be hit by silver or magic weapons.
• The Huecuva is treated as a wight on the Turn tables.
• The Huecuva can polymorph self 3x per day.
• The Huecuva can give its victims a nasty disease.

Again, given the fiddling with the undead list from the FF, these are the weakest undead in the game.

There are a few interesting consequences to this:

1. Despite a complete absence of lycanthropes, silvered weapons would still be on the equipment list because they might do damage to the undead.
2. First level clerics are incapable of Turning the undead. At second level, they can Turn a Huecuva on an 11.
3. The undead do not drain levels, but they still have some diseased ways of making you either dead or one of their own.

The long and short: if you see the undead run for your lives! Adventurers will not be capable of having a shot at survival against the undead until at least third level and even then only if the Referee is nice and gives out a few magic weapons.

It must be noted that this renders clerics, as written in B/X, very weak at low levels. They will have no ability to Turn undead and no spells at first level, reducing the incentive to play one. I realize that this will suit many folks in the OSR and will also better justify the low XP requirements for the class. Personally, I would be tempted to use the LL version of the cleric, which at least gets a spell at first level; however, given the mechanical distance this undead list implies for clerics from those of other editions, I would be inclined to chuck it all and use Talysman’s non-spellcasting version where clerics do everything using the Turning mechanic.

In other words, the undead are properly scary and the cleric becomes its own unique miracle-working class rather than something somewhere in-between a fighter and a magic-user.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 2.5

Optional Race-as-class

For those who want to embrace the science fantasy/mutant future weirdness that I suggested in Part 2 for the generic D&D world of a Basic edition that uses the FF for its monster section, I offer this alternate race-as-class:

Qullan

This is a bit of a stretch, which is why I didn’t include it in Part 2. Normally, I would dismiss Qullan out of hand because they would make horrible PCs — they emanate confusion and immediately attack, without question, all strangers. However, their use of individualized war paint of wildly contrasting colors and their insanity suggest that they might be clones — the insanity is a result of genetic degradation over time and the war paint is a means by which to identify themselves as individuals.

Making this assumption allows the use of the Replicant class from Section 9: Mutants & Mazes in Mutant Future. For those that aren’t familiar, they are clones that exhibit various mutations, which might result in some wonderfully weird looking PCs. I have always assumed that such a race might very well be obsessed with cleansing these mutations from their genetic code. The Qullan could therefore represent what happens every time the Replicants have tried to remove those mutations from the genetic material they use to reproduce. This also gives PCs a good reason for adventuring — they are seeking out ancient technologies that can help them do genetic experiments without resulting in Qullan (whether or not this is even possible may very well be a central theme of a campaign).

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 2

No Dwarf, Elf or Halfling PCs

There are no halflings or halfling-derivative races within the FF. The only elves are Drow, who live deep beneath the earth and have little incentive to come to the surface (all their cool toys are broken once they see the light of day). The only dwarf-relatives are the svirfneblin of which we know this from the flavor text:

Only males have ever been seen and those only deep beneath the ground.

Given that in other editions, the various demi-humans that were available as PC races or classes show up in the monster sections, a Basic edition using the FF as its monster section would not have any dwarf, elf or halfling PCs. The latter due to a complete absence and the first two because there is no justification for drows or svirfneblins to go wandering with surface dwellers.

While I am hugely tempted to leave this at that (in my old age I tend to lean toward human-centric campaigns), I am guessing that (like me) there are gamers from every generation whose very first character was something other than a human. In order to scratch that itch (and to start making assumptions about what a generic D&D world might look like through the lens of this hypothetical rule set), there are several candidates for non-human PC race-as-classes:

Aarakocra

Even though this is one of the few good creatures found in the FF and it is reasonably anthropomorphic and has a hit die comparable to the elf in the MM, I have to reject it out of hand. The reason is found in the flavor text:

Aarakocra are extremely susceptible to claustrophobia.

Since Basic D&D is all about exploring dungeons, a PC race that won’t go underground sort of defeats the purpose.

Dakon

Although the base damage for these intelligent apes seems high (1d10 x2), the base damage for an elf in the MM is 1d10, the HD 1+1 and they can use spells. Dakon also have an HD 1+1, are lawful, speak common, are on good terms with lawful humans and can be found in a variety of environments except near bodies of water. One flavor text I very much like is this:

…the dakon will never attack except in self-defense or to recover stolen treasure from it.

This immediately brings to mind the dwarves of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and suggests that the dakon will make a very good substitute for dwarves. In fact, one could simply use the same basic stats or (as I might be tempted to) use the White Ape Class from the RCC.

Kenku

Again, the base stats for these bird-men appear to be on the powerful side; however, using the MM elf as a model, it is an easy thing to say to the average player: sure you start out worse, but you are going to end up being a whole lot better. There is even a flavor text that suggests that younger (and therefore weaker) kenku are far more prone to going on adventures:

Particularly adventurous kenku have been known to use [shape shift] to assume the form of a god and accept offerings from credulous worshippers, and this is but one example of the bizarre uses to which the kenku, and particularly the younger of the species, have put this power.

Since kenku can cast spells, they make an interesting stand-in for elves; however, some of the elven abilities would need to be traded out for the kenku abilities:

• Flight 18”
• Shape shift 1/30 days for up to seven days in a row.
• Pass as human via a disguise 50% of the time.
• They don’t appear to be able to speak, though they seem to speak to each other via telepathy. (For purposes of making them PCs, this last one can be done away with or have PC versions be a minority that can speak.)

Though these might be a bit on the powerful side, given that kenku are mischievous and prone to kidnapping as a means of making a living, there would be a powerful social stigma that PCs would have to deal with.

Quaggoth

These white, shaggy bipeds have an HD 1+2, are neutral and speak common (if haltingly). PCs could represent either the most intelligent of the quaggoths or half-breeds. Though they are much taller (7’ +), the fact that quaggoths are immune to poison suggests that they are a good substitute for halflings (and could therefore use these stats). Another alternative is to use the White Ape Hybrid Class from RCC (which combines fighter and thief abilities).

If used, these race-as-classes firmly move the generic D&D world away from high fantasy and a medieval european analog. In essence, these three are intelligent ape-, bird- and bear-men, suggesting a science fantasy world in the distant future where these races evolved through either mutation or experimentation. Such a world would have more in common with Vance’s Dying Earth and CAS’s Zothique than REH’s Conan or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. One might even be tempted to characterize it as a more serious/less gonzo version of Gamma World/Mutant Future. This leaves much room for introducing sci-fi elements and explaining various magic effects in terms of technology (Maliszewski’s take on wands, for example). For me, this is one of the most compelling aspects of this experiment, because it nicely scratches the science fantasy mash-up itch that I usually have to suppress or keep under wraps in most D&D games.

Gamer ADD: Fiend Folio Part 1

Let me preface this by saying that one of my favorite poetic forms is haiku. It seems so easy — five syllables, seven syllable, five syllables; however, trying to create something truly beautiful with something so limited and small is a true challenge. This challenge often brings out my own creativity in a way that other forms of writing do not.

Thus, I was very much intrigued by Jeff Rient’s radical reduction of the 1ed PH weapon tables for his Wessex Campaign. Having had a lot of success, fun and creativity doing this sort of thing myself over the years I whole-heartedly agree with his assessment:

The lesson here might be that with a game as big as D&D one way of getting a handle on it is to cut it down to size.

Therefore, I happily followed him down the rabbit hole where he hypothesizes a campaign that only/primarily uses the Fiend Folio as its source for monsters. The FF had always been my favorite monster tome and I have gleefully used many of its inhabitants (even some of the goofiest).

This got my creative juices flowing and I am in full-on Gamer ADD mode. Given that I am not a huge fan of AD&D, the most likely way that I would ever implement such a concept would be with my favorite version of the game — B/X and its retro-clone LL. This gave me an intriguing way to further reduce the FF into a more easily digestible chunk — what would Basic D&D look like if it were only to use monsters from the FF?

Therefore, I went through the FF and gleaned only those monsters that might appear in the Wandering Monster Tables of a Basic D&D book — up to about 3+ Hit Dice . There are several very compelling implications to make about this list, so this will take multiple posts; however, I am going to begin with a criticism/concern.

As I was going through the FF and really trying to use it as a whole, one of its features really began to jump out at me — the length of each monster entry. It struck me that there are several truly creative and inspiring monsters like the Berbalang and Pênanggalan that I have never used because the flavor text was so long and complicated as to be virtually unusable for my style of fast and free play (who wants to skim through a page and a half of text to figure out how to use a randomly generated monster encounter?).

Curious, I did a cursory comparison of the FF to the MM. A quick (and probably inaccurate) count of monster headings in the Alphabetical Table of Contents revealed that the FF has about 161 and the MM about 212. The FF fits these headings into 91 pages while the MM does it in 97 pages. This means that while the FF averages less than 2 monsters per page (about 1.76), the MM has almost half an entry more per page (about 2.18). This only gets worse when one factors in monster headings that have a description followed by separate stat blocks like dragons and giants. The FF only manages to average 4 monsters per heading in these cases while the MM averages over 11 (11.4). In addition, the MM has a couple dozen entries that pack multiple stat blocks together (such as various animals with regular and giant versions). The FF has about three.

In other words, whereas the MM was one small step away from the bare-bones monster entries of OD&D and which made the MM one of those tomes that I constantly go back to no matter what version of the game I play, the FF is one (big?) step toward the over-complexity of later editions. Actually reading and re-reading some of these entries I am not sure if their length is a function of the complication of the game over time or simply an editorial need to fill enough space to justify a page count (probably both).

The implications of this for a Basic edition doesn’t bode well. Both the complexity and the verbosity of monster entries suggest a higher page count than 64, something I am not thrilled about. This is especially true when one considers that much of the complexity seems to be related to the growing canon of AD&D world/cosmology concepts like the various planes of existence.

The concept of the inner and outer planes has never set well with me, even before I became an Orthodox Christian. If, then, the page count beyond 64 is primarily taken up by cosmology and how it affects the game world not only are we one step closer to RPGs that spend more time telling us about their world than on mechanics (and thus limiting player freedom), but (more importantly) I may never have played the game.

Since my first exposure to D&D was with the Holmes edition, which itself was an exercise in DYI D&D, I have always been acutely aware of the freedom I had to mix and match as I please with the various components of the rules. AD&D (despite some of the claims of Gygax himself) was never the official way to play the game. Holmes gave me permission to fiddle as much as I wanted to. If my first exposure to D&D had been something I envision a Basic D&D flavored by the implications of only using FF monsters might be — complicated and constricting — I may have left D&D behind for greener pastures (the original Traveller comes to mind).

Two Potential Thought Experiments

JB at B/X Blackrazor and Jeff at Jeff's Gameblog have inspired in me a pair of questions that could lead to interesting thought experiments. I am not sure I will have the time to pursue either of them in the near future, but I wanted to throw them out into the blogosphere to see if anything comes flying back.

JB did a fascinating summary of how various editions of D&D have described (and therefore utilized) traps. The observation that sparked my imagination has to do with what JB calls D20. He notes:

Unlike earlier editions, PCs gain XP from surviving traps, so it is in the adventurers best interest to find and set-off as many as possible.

This, in turn, drives the way the game is played. Thus, players are encouraged to optimize their characters for the purpose of surviving traps and killing monsters (the only other way to earn XP). This drive for optimization (and, in turn, the discouragement and downright punishment of not optimizing) is one of the reasons I find D20 incredibly frustrating. It doesn't leave a lot of room for organic development — players are not free to allow their characters to interact with the campaign world in any other way than to optimize them for more efficient killing and trap solving. To do otherwise would be to invite a nasty death.

So I ask the question:

What would happen to the D20 system if XP were rewarded as it was with older editions of the game — primarily with the accumulation of treasure? Would this reduce the pressure to optimize for combat and allow more player freedom to experiment with skills and feats according to what makes sense for the character rather than combat and traps?

Jeff posted a "to-do" list for B/X magic-users based on textual evidence in the rules. He pointed out how the first three levels are apprenticeship levels.

My question:

What happens when those apprenticeships don't go as planned? What if, for whatever reason, a magic-user is denied access to the goods that allow for the ability to cast 3rd + level spells?

Given how often Jeff intuits the phrases "Joins a band of Brigands/Buccaneers/Pirates" and "Lead up to 30 bandits" there is an implication that this sort of thing happens more often than not (how desirable is it to a bunch of cutthroats to have someone who can cast a couple of Sleep spells?)

Do they stop gaining XP? If they don't, what are the benefits for gaining levels when you cannot cast 3rd+ level spells? Would they start acquiring thief- or fighter-type abilities?

Let me know if anything comes flying back...