I had a 3rd level thief, er specialist, in my game before he died precipitously recently, and we have a 1st level henchman.  I found that they took a lot of search, tinkering and find traps at first level, giving them each a 50/50 on most die rolls.  It was nice having thieves that didn't suck.  The moment we got out of the dungeon, and stealth, languages and climb came into play, they saw the need to start diversifying; I'm not worried about overloading in a regular game.

In a megadungeon like Nightwick Abbey, I guess there's the risk they overspecialize unless you explicitly warn them you'll have situations requiring the skills of well-rounded specialists.

The companion set question is tough though... I'd still keep the projected campaign arc as 1-10 or 1-12 levels like B/X or WFRP, and just integrate the companion rules earlier; allow dominions earlier, use the war machine.  I really hated when Mentzer came out and thief skills, that were scaled for lower levels, suddenly had to stretch to level 36 and B/X level thieves took a big hit.

In a campaign with deities, I like the idea that an invading religion could cause "interference" that disrupts the ability of clerics to get spells; it's a more aggressive implementation of "deities get their power based on the number of believers" and would fuel a lot of religious fighting.

Having spells channeled down to clerics by bored technicians or customer service agents manning those orbiting satellites... wow, that's really messed up - but so true to gonzo old-time sci-fi/fantasy.

What popped into my mind was The Truman Show.  The sophisticated race that built the satellites came to this war-mongering, backwards planet for entertainment purposes.  Masquerading as deities keeps the pot stirring and the bullets flying.  Great for the ratings back home...

The reason for the DM to answer the question is pretty simple - having divinely-powered agents of human-friendly gods in a setting meant to embody cosmic horror runs counter to the conceits.  Unless your game is about supernatural horror/ good vs evil; my current campaign is; I don't want any part of it in the future campaign.

I didn't ask how I could handle the issue in my campaign, I asked how (Jim and others) handle the cleric in your own weird horror campaigns.  Some of you guys appreciate the ST Joshi criticisms, you hate the Derleth approach to the mythos, I want to hear how you kept your game from devolving.

Me - I'll probably take an approach like this if someone wants to be a cleric:

"Many gods are worshipped and prayed to, but they've never spoken to you or answered your prayers; you wonder whether they're really out there.  Through your priestly training, you were taught rituals and devotions that have allowed you to cast spells and do amazing things; the priests of your order claim this is proof that your god is real.  You're not so sure.  Could the power of your spells be coming from somewhere else?"

...And pretty much leave it at that.  Allows the cleric to exist, but with doubts as to the source of divine magic, and no clear belief that there are any greater powers whatsoever on the side of humanity.

How do you handle clerics in your game?  I suppose it's meant for James, the pioneer here on blending D&D and Weird, but I'd love to hear from anyone running a Weird Fiction game that draws inspiration from the pulp horror masters.  I just started a blog to document my progress on the weird fantasy megadungeon idea, and the first thing I keep running into when I consider the setting is how to handle humanocentric, spell-granting deities in a setting based on Weird Fiction conceits.

Here's the thing - Lovecraft is basically an atheist (his universe has deities, but they are either inimical to humanity or impersonal forces of destruction like Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth).  My knowledge of CAS isn't deep, though I'm devouring his work rapidly - so far, it's not looking good as far as sympathetic priestly characters.  I suppose REH has a few evil priests for Conan to smash.  Certainly nothing like the quasi-christian Cleric class we're saddled with in D&D.

Just wondering how you handled it in your games and whether the class wrecks the Weird vibe.  Thanks for any insight!

55

(7 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

fmitchell wrote:

The Shaver Mystery provides a slightly different model...

Wow, that is an amazing read... thanks for the tip-off.  "The Shaver Mystery".  Huh.  Where truth is stranger than fiction.  Inspirational stuff.

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(7 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

I'm with you on using At the Mountains of Madness as the inspiration; it looks like it'll be something called 'The Black City' or 'The Lost City of the Hyperboreans'.  I loved 'Beyond the Mountains of Madness', the Chaosium follow up to the Lovecraft story.  I'm picturing a sprawling ruined city (similar in concept to the old adventure module 'Dwellers of the Forbidden City' - that introduced the Yuan-Ti) except placed in the frozen north, with huge dungeons beneath the city.

It'll be a sprawling ruin of basalt buildings and strange, cyclopean architecture.  The ancient Hyperboreans were a prehistoric race of decadent men, the first users of magic. The ruins will have elements of weird science and alien magic. Perhaps the city was built in a time before the world shifted on its axis, rotating the land into the arctic circle.  The dungeons would get warmer the deeper you go, lingering effects of Hyperborean technology.  The dungeons themselves will be the ancient laboratories and halls where the Hyperborean scientist-wizards perfected their arts; there will be no lack of strangeness down there.

Anyway, I need the monsters to be stranger and more alien than a traditional D&D game.  No standard humanoids, for instance.  But at the same time, megadungeons are usually a mix of things:  populations of resident monsters/inhabitants; set piece encounters and fantastic destinations; wandering monsters; bosses and memorable encounters.

I'm thinking repeated encounters with the 'regular inhabitants' will make them seem a bit more mundane (even if they are cannibal humans or atavistic descendants of the Hyperborean's ancient slave races), but those set piece encounters could be truly memorable and horrible.  I think it can work!

Has anyone tried to use the 'Weird Fantasy' in a megadungeon setting?

On it's face, the premise seems dubious.  Megadungeons are traditionally like monster zoos and funhouses.  Level one has the goblins and the kobolds, level two has the hobgoblins and the orcs, level three has the bugbears, and so on.  (And all the other funny men dressed up in their humanoid suits).

On top of that, megadungeons are big.  Full of lots of monsters.

Seems to run counter the weird fantasy advice that monsters should be rare, weird and kind of unique.

Or does it?  Has anyone started sketching out plans for a Weird Fantasy inspired megadungeon?

Back in a bit and I'll post what I got so far...

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(10 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

cyclopeatron wrote:

The LotFP modules are quite cool and creative, but, by design, lack any inherent motivating elements beyond extreme danger and a vague promise of treasure. In discussions elsewhere people have placed most of the responsibility on the DM for integrating sufficient plot hooks into the modules. Fair enough...

Glad you pointed out the lack of plot hooks is "by design".  Stargazer, Hammer of the Gods, DFD and Grinding Gear are all low on plot, slim on plot hooks, but very rich on evocative location and interesting locations.

If a DM can't work in a sufficient motivation for the players to penetrate the location and persevere to have them finish, he deserves to have them leave.  They are frickin' scary and dangerous locations.

What are DM's expecting?  "Here is a dangerous location, you have no reason to go here, but I want you to do it because I bought the module and it's what I'm running..."  Yeah, maybe that worked when I was in 7th grade playing AD&D on summer vacation.

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(218 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

My name is John, 42 year old gamer currently living in eastern Pennsylvania (after spending the past 16 years in Colorado).  I played Moldvay B/X throughout the 80's, some Traveller and a little AD&D; the 90's was the decade of Call of Cthulhu and White Wolf/Vampire while I was in Colorado (D&D was for kids, right?); about 5 years ago my group went back to Moldvay B/X and had a blast.  When I moved to Pennsylvania, I had to build a new gaming group, we started with a short AD&D campaign, experimented with 3.5, experimented with 4E when it came out, and after a year and a half of banging my head against the 4E system, went back to Moldvay B/X earlier this year.  The other guys (all in their 40's) were skeptical about basic D&D up front (isn't that the version for kids?) but have come around to embracing the rules light approach.

I got exposed to LOTFP primarily by seeing online reviews of Death Frost Doom last year and grabbing the PDF off RPGNOW; I was so enamored of the style and atmosphere that I ended up getting much of the back catalog at the time (Grinding Gear, No Dignity in Death, People of Pembrook...).  "And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that!"  That was my epiphany reading Death Frost Doom - if you've read it or own it, you know what I mean.  Wow.  So that's when I became a fan.

These days we just launched a game using B/X that is being converted to WFRP; we started using pieces of WFRP as house rules, and just recently the guys voted to use the whole thing.  Really hoping we see a commercial rules book that is readily available and affordable - a black and white softcover, something.  As DM, I plan on getting the hardback book regardless of how deluxe, but I'm sure the players would love to have their own copies, if possible.

I also intend to feature quite a few LOTFP adventure modules (if possible - I offer a lot of possible places to adventure, but the players ultimately need to decide where to go or not...).  They explored Tower of the Stargazer, are investigating The Grinding Gear, and I have some ideas on guiding them towards Death Frost Doom and Hammer of the Gods in the near future - there is a journal on Dragonsfoot if anyone is interested (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=45047 - read the entries on Sterich).

Totally agree - the front door is awesome.  My group tried it twice!  But it was the halfling both times, and the saves were made.  Good time, good times.

It's on the XP chart for specialists.

It is kinda funny (here) to have all these ideas for abandoning XP for Gold bandied about... after all, these are the LOTFP boards!  I'd expect the whole, 'OD&D, AD&D, B/X, BECMI et al need fixing...' over on RPGnet.

I knew Mr Raggi had made a post about it somewhere in the blogosphere, so it's clear why WFRP maintained the same approach as all the other rules systems:

http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2009/01/xp-for-treasure.html

I can understand the reasons to wanting to tinker (I've been there - giving class bonus XP for doing class things...) but its a big headache.  I think this excerpt sums it better than I could:

"Experience for gold is sublime in its effectiveness in taking everything involved with the playing of the game and abstracting it to an easily trackable game mechanic. You can't think of it literally - "Oh gee, I found a gold coin in the street, so I'm a little bit better at what I do!" - but the placing of gold in places that require role-playing, or mission-solving, or dealing with monsters, or exploration, or characters using their class abilities, effectively summarizes and rewards those activities. And all you have to do is keep track of how much money is gained during adventuring."

This XP business is probably the most fundamental question to setting the tone for the campaign!

In a story-driven system like 4E, the players are going to go where the quests are and battle the monsters the DM sticks in front of them, because they get XP for quests and monsters.  The DM controls the direction of the game by setting the quests.  This would be fine for adventure paths, epic quests, and other lead-players-by-the-nose styles.

If you want the players to have the narrative control and have total freedom to choose what to do and where to go, XP for treasure is really the best.  It abstracts all the work that goes into getting that treasure (which might include fighting or outsmarting the previous owners).  This is best for wilderness sandbox, megadungeon, and exploration style games.

My group just completed 'Tower of the Stargazer' as well.  I've got a full write-up over at my (new) campaign journal over on Dragonsfoot:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt … 21#p950221

Couple of things jumped out at me - my group almost lost folks on the opening door too - it is definitely a wake-up call that this place is DEADLY.  The curious thing is that my group is deciding they need to seize the tower for themselves - they feel like it's the only way to ensure the wizard stays locked up, at least until they're ready to deal with him.

I'm going to start watching for other Stargazer threads and see how folks deal with the wizard - I saw one where they tried the simultaneous attack and lost an initiative...