Myths & Legends

Recently, someone asked why someone who didn't cut their teeth on AD&D 1E would choose that edition over the others. What follows is an account of my personal experience playing RPGs, from my first books to the present day. I think it shows that my "why" has evolved over the years. The first D&D books I ever owned was red box which I got for Christmas when I was 8 years old. I'd been saving up my money to buy it myself, so I was able to use that money to buy the expert blue box. My grandmother noticed my interest, and because she ran a flea market, she was always at auctions and thrift stores looking for bargains, and any time she'd see a D&D book, she'd get it for me, so I quickly ended up with a mish-mash, and by the time I was in 6th grade and running my first long-running campaign, 2nd Ed had just come out, so we were playing a mish-mash of BECMI, 1E, and 2E. The group I played with in high school had gravitated towards 2E--they were just

Busting Myths, Slaying Dragons This one's going to be a bit long. For those of you who like the short version of things, I'll drop the conclusion up front. Dragons are deadlier than you think. Use the 1st Ed stats. Anything else is too powerful. The response I always get is some high level character, about 10th or so, decked out, buffed, and otherwise optimized to specifically fight the dragon. The unspoken assumptions that go along with this is that a 10th level character is somehow a reasonable, middling level character, not on the highest ends of the spectrum, so it surely shouldn't be able to whack the monster the game was named after. Now I strongly feel that any one of those assumptions can be attacked as dubious. But I'm not really going to get into any of that here. I generally prefer to zero in on things that don't get talked about rather than talk about things that have been done to death. I - Aerial Combat I have no idea where to find the

Question: What if an archer is in a very small room with a door, bow at the ready and a fighter opens the door quickly weapon in hand wanting to strike the archer, (in melee range) , the archer can’t fire the bow at close to point blank range? Answer: I assume we're talking about a room so small that whoever walks through the door doesn't need to "close to striking distance." If that is the case, this falls under " weapon strikes during the course of the round with respect to opponents who are engaged in activity other than striking blows "--which is the same rule for striking someone casting a spell. The tricky thing here is whereas the PHB tells us how many segments a spell takes to cast, it doesn't tell us how many segments missile fire takes up. Not directly, anyway. You can infer this from RoF. A bow & arrow, with a RoF of 2 normally takes 5 segments. In this situation, though, the archer is already ready, and presumably already aimed at th

By request, a sequel to 16 Town Encounters, Day or Night . To skew the use of this list and its prequel in favor of more ordinary townsfolk, simply use this list only when a "random encounter" is called for but otherwise assume there will always there will be some ordinary folk around during the day. Multiply the rolls of two d4's to determine the number. Randomly decide whether they are male or female, and then assume they are "nondescript" unless you think of something better fitting to the situation. At night, there will only be people out and about when a "random encounter" is called for, but alternate or randomly select (50/50) whether to use this table or to randomly roll for ordinary folk. A garish but otherwise well-dressed woman that is 50% likely to be confused as a magic-user or 50% likely to be confused for a haughty courtesan but is actually a goodwife! (F0, 2 hp) Any offensive treatment or seeming threat will be likely to cause the

I know a man named Miles Davis. Not the famous trumpet player. Although the Miles Davis I know does play the trumpet. He studied trumpet and music in college. He's got a masters degree in it, in fact. As a masters student in music, you learn a lot about the writing styles of famous artists and composers. And your asked to compose in the style of so-and-so. This struck him as odd because it's not like Mozart set out to compose in the style of Mozart. He set out to play what sounded good to him. Mozart's style was only later defined by scholars in hindsight. Miles also told me that when you're a trumpet player named Miles Davis, people expect you to be familiar with his music. And so Miles came to realize a few things. The famous Miles Davis wasn't a great trumpet player in terms of technical ability. And the music he wrote reflected his limitations--how he'd tend to avoid certain notes towards the ends of his phrases because he lacked the breath to pull i

If you’ve read my thoughts on The Best RPG Advice in the World , you have some idea of where this is going. Dungeon adventures are such a significant chunk of the hobby, the topic does deserve some attention all its own. Someone recently posted a link to another blogger’s article with their advice for designing dungeons. And without the slightest sense of irony, the person who posted the link commented about how as young teens the dungeons were completely random with no logic, and it was fun. But now he puts more thought into things. Things always used to be fun, it seems. What happened? The answer is always assumed to be "we just grew up." My answer is a bit different. I can only speak for myself, but maybe a lot of others have experienced the same thing. I used to have fun, then I started reading advice like the one in that blog post linked. And, by the way, I don’t need to link the article because chances are you’ve already seen the advice. it’s always been the same

Scimitar +1, Noonsblade The Noonsblade provides bonuses in combat identical to the Flame Tongue sword (+2 vs regenerating creatures, +3 vs cold-using, inflammable, or avian creatures, +4 vs undead). Beyond that, there are some notable differences. Like a Flame Tongue, it sheds light only when its possessor speaks a command word or phrase. But the sword fills a 50 foot radius sphere with light equal to full sunlight. It will not ignite fires as does a Flame Tongue, but any undead or other creature susceptible to sunlight will suffer the effects of being exposed to full daylight. Subterranean creatures will have to save vs spell or be blinded for 1d4 rounds as their eyes adjust to the light, after such time any normal penalties associated with operating in full daylight are applicable. No natural shadows will persist in the area, and unnatural shadows are diminished in all capacities by 25% each round, being snuffed out completely in 4 rounds if they are not able to escape the area

Universal Combat Initiative System for Turn-based Tabletop Role Playing Games Just a quick introductory note as to the history and purpose of this system. It is a systematization of basically the way I’ve always run RPGs. Of course the roots are in AD&D, but a lot of refining also came through years of playing Lejendary Adventure. The AD&D 1st Ed initiative system has been seen as indecipherable by a lot of people. In an effort to boil down the official “by the book” method for easy consumption, there was an outline produced by a DMPrata that supposedly compiled all the rules. Of course, the thing looked like a mess. I felt this was overblown and really failed to hit the spirit of the rules. Which is that initiative in AD&D was intended to be a simple group initiative. Roll d6. Highest goes first. Like many rules, of course, there are exceptions. And AD&D being “Advanced,” it took the time to try to outline a lot of the exceptions. And that’s where the confusion

These elite guilds of magic-users have some stringent requirements but also have their benefits. They may be able to teach spells not found on the standard lists, and you can generally expect favorable treatment from other guild members. Joining up generally requires some sort of test. A non-refundable testing fee of 100 gp is due upon trying out, and there is no guarantee the magic-user will be accepted. Where there are spell requirements, the guild will teach these spells to the applicant. The magic-user must succeed in the usual % chance to learn spells. Failure to learn even one of the require spells will result in the application being rejected. Once accepted, there is are membership fees. Membership fees are annual and there are multiple levels of membership. Members of the first circle will only be taught 1st level spells by the guild, members of the second circle will only be taught 2nd level spells, and so on. Active membership in all lower circles is a requirement for in

Towns develop as a natural, typically geographical center for farmers from surrounding villages to sell and trade what the farms have yielded in exchange for money to pay rents and taxes to the local lords and the advanced tools and equipment with which to work their lands. Likewise, the lords of the surrounding villages come to a central place where they can meet with others of like social class and partake in luxury services too specialized for a village to economically sustain. What follows are some of the sorts of characters that pass through town. 7 nondescript tradesmen on their way to or from their work. If on their way from work, there is a 75% chance they are headed towards the nearest tavern. If they are attacked, it is 50% likely guards or members of the town watch will come to their aid within 1-4 rounds, and 25% likely that bystanders will step in after 1 round. An ordinary-looking female fighter and her henchwoman is really a paladin (P5, 32 hp) and her squire