Random Encounters/Making Memories

Tonight, Jen and Catherine are at a Stevie Nicks concert leaving me and Nathan to fend for ourselves for dinner.  Nate and I picked a local favorite and got to talking... about D&D. 

This only sometimes happens. He plays e5 while I am into AD&D e1 or OSE. They seem wildly different, to me anyway. But tonight proved that wrong. 

Halfway through dinner, Nathan realized he planned a D&D session with his friends. He looked rather glum about it. I said I was envious because I have very little time to game. 

The problem was he didn't know what to do for tonight's session. I asked him about the past sessions and he filled me on the problems first. They are 4 sessions into this campaign and they skipped a planned Session 0. Nathan was forced to cob together a very basic idea into a full-fledged campaign due to a lack of planning. 

Here is the gist of that idea: The players have found a cursed town. There are a couple of levels to the curse. A dragon is rampaging around the edge of town, but cannot enter due to a spell cast by a witch. The witch stole the dragon's eggs and placed them around the perimeter of the town to protect the town from a threat, a non-dragon threat. The hag was killed by the dragon mid-cast, so the spell is partially broken.  

Currently, the spell is supposed to protect the town from a threat. Thus far, this averted threat is limited to the rampaging dragon. The spell should be fixed on and powered by the maturing dragon eggs, but unfortunately, it is wavering. When a person touches the edge of the spell, say by entering or leaving the town, their memory becomes corrupted. The corruption is like amnesia, people forget personal facts but don't lose skills or abilities usually. 

Two characters have already been corrupted and lost the knowledge of a spell and resources. The mage forget the spell is in their spell books and are surprised every time they see it. The other character has forgotten he is rich. This is being played for laughs. 

Nathan, dressed to impress.

That's it. Nathan didn't define the threat to the town and threw the characters right in the middle of the mess without a plan to get them out. Worse, the players are fighting a bone construct for one of the eggs. Nathan has no idea why he introduced this combat. The players are hell-bent on destroying the egg for unknown reasons. The last session ended in the middle of that battle. 

Memory... funny thing that is. 

I parsed out the whole situation, problems and all. 

Here is what we came up with as a solution. The hag, a witch, was the town shaman. Unfortunately, she was fated to die young but didn't know when. As the appointed day came close, she bargained with the dragon for its eggs. She would cast a spell on the eggs, to protect the town from bad weather and disease in her absence while also protecting the eggs as they matured. People who found the eggs would be afflicted with memory loss about the eggs and would not harm or steal them.  

Problem one is solved, we know why stuff is happening. That's important. 

Next, time to tackle some other issues. Nathan starts every session with a synopsis of what happened in the last session. He simply reads from a notebook. Tonight, he decided that will change. Instead, he will hand out notes to all of the players. Once they have the notes, he will absentmindedly flip through his notebook as if looking for the notes he just handed out. 

Queue the laughs. He'll ask someone to read the synopsis for him.

Oddly, there will be no mention of the combat with the bone construct. Instead, the players will find themselves in an ancient and desecrated graveyard at the edge of town. It says that right there in the game notes. The graves have been pillaged for something. In the dark, a shambling bone creature will disrupt their investigations. The bone construct was made by a previous shaman with the intent to protect the town in their absence. As long as the party doesn't attack, it will not attack them. It needs them alive to protect the town. 

It seems all of the players are suffering from memory loss. They didn't fight a bone construct, they are about to fight a bone construct. Maybe. When they return to the town proper, fight or not, they will find some of the NPCs have changed. These will be subtle changes, maybe someone needed to step out for a while and a friend took over. 

Now for the real fun. One of the PCs wears a wedding band. The same player inquired about having it turned into a ring of wishes in the prior sessions. This was an off-handed comment, a part of their character background. They would wish their spouse back to life if they could. Obviously, they recently saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie. 

A week from now, Nathan will be armed with a letter from a sage explaining how exceedingly rare rings of wishes are and that it would be virtually impossible for this particular ring to be one of wishes. Of course, no player character asked a sage about this. But here is a letter like they did. 

How did that happen? Who paid for it? It appears to be the guy who can't remember he is rich. 

The path is now clear, the party needs to become the protector of the town and eggs while the spell casters try to correct the malfunctioning spell or end the spell by finding another shaman. It would be helpful not to be eaten by the dragon while doing this, but it's starting to look like one of the PCs or NPCs will become a dragon snack. 

That's fine by Nathan. Not only is he counting on it, he has a friend scheduled to show up with a brand-new character, and prepped and practiced to act as if he has been there since the beginning. 

It's amazing how a chance dinner-time meal can turn into a campaign session. 

Setting, Theme, and Narrative

Last week, I was so hopeful. I would get myself back on track by returning to reviews until I was back on a regular posting schedule. Thursday morning, that goal was evaporating as my son got sick and by Friday evening, I had it too. 

It's been 147 days of Sudafed haze and sinus hell since Friday night. It's one of those sucky things you can't shake off. That's a shame because I wanted to post about something I received in the mail: 

Dragonlance is one of my favorite settings, my most hated modules, and THE THING that made me think about game design. It is a great setting. I can't wait to review these books and get into the Setting, Theme, and Narrative. 

My Friends, I Have Wasted a Year - Civilization II Gold Review

Title: Sid Meier's Civilization II Gold 
Publisher: MacSoft
Author: MicroProse
Year: 1999
OS: Mac OS 7.1 up to OS 9.2
Overall Rating: 5 of 5 stars

The misquote in the title is from Emperor Titus in 79 A.D. and is apt for a review of any of the Civilization Games. 

There were so many changes from Civ I to Civ II and the Gold version expanded on those, this version is like a brand new game. This particular version is my favorite despite being "made of glitch". I have delayed reviewing this game due to the incredible breadth of content and play options. 

This is an exploration strategy game, if not THE strategy game of the late 90s and early 2000s. You pick a civilization headed by an avatar representing that culture/civilization. From there you select a map type, either pre-made like the one below or a randomly generated world. Next comes scenario modifiers, where you can race for Alpha Centauri or have a slugfest to dominate our Earth (or approximation of Earth). 

From there, you explore and build cities to support both combat units and non-combat units like explorers and settlers while also competing to complete Wonders. The incredible number of wonders, improvements, and units keeps the fun going for hours if not weeks or months.  

Now, here is where the fun begins. In Civ Gold, you get a wonderful introductory video (if you have the CD-Rom, that is) and a scene cut of your wonder being built. These videos are beautiful and well-timed so as not to disrupt gameplay while also being fine enough for educational purposes. They actually enhance gameplay rather than being annoying. 

The Throne Room option is annoying because it adds nothing. 

In addition to the basic game, the Gold came in the form of a scenario editor, a cheat mode, hot-seat multiplayer options, and three collections of scenarios. Conflicts in Civilization, 8 "Best of the Net" designed by fans, and a final collection called Civ II: Fantastic Worlds based on MicroProse games. 

Additionally, the AI was much improved over the last iteration... Ha-ha, Just kidding!

Seriously, there must have been some improvement made to the AI, considering it would have to deal with random scenarios, new city improvements, new wonders, new units, and a mess of different scenario concepts all of which could be modified by hot-seat multiplayer or scenario parameters. This is asking a lot of any AI, even today. 

So it was taught to cheat, like instantly constructing units or improvements at will while having barbarian hordes wash over the map. Add in some actual gitches and you have comedy in the making. My personal favorite is you can use a wrapping map that the AI doesn't get. It will try not to go off the non-existent edge and send troops the long way around the world.  

The most famous glitch was allowing the AI to have Gandhi. Each AI-controlled civilization has a preassigned level of aggression, 1 to 10.  One is non-aggressive and 10 is omnicidial manic. This would be fine if it weren't for the modifies applied by technology gains. Democracy applies a -2 to aggression right about the same time cultures start getting cruise missiles and atom bombs. Gandhi starts at 1 then goes two less with Democracy. In computer math, he ends up with nukes and an aggression level of 255 on a scale of one to ten. Amusingly, if you disable nukes (through the scenario editor), Gandhi's opts for a Macrosss style cruise missile massacre. 

Either works exactly like this: 

Despite all of this, it is very easy to kill a week or more playing this game non-stop. I give it 5 stars due to the endless replayability provided by the scenario editor and the excellent modding tools provided out of the box. 

Adventures in Dungeonland

It has been a while since I've posted. I have a lot going on but I would like to return to a regular posting schedule. As a head-clearing exercise, I would like to return to reviews, a process I enjoy. From the title, you know the module in question. 

Title: Dungeonland
Rule Set: AD&D 
Levels: 9-12
Year: 1983
Author: Gary Gygax
Publisher: TSR
Pages: 32 pages plus a map
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

This is a classic module from 1983 by Gary Gygax. I recall two DMs running us through this module. One followed the note in the beginning to avoid Alice in Wonderland references while the other DM simply did exactly what he was told not to and introduced The White Rabbit as an NPC. 

It works both ways. I feel that back in the 80s, most people would have been familiar with either the Disney movie or the books but not both so it didn't instantly set off alarm bells. Back in 1983, you would have seen Alice in Wonderland in the theater or one of the smooshed-up, edited-down Disney TV shows. VHS wasn't even an option, as it didn't come out until '86. 

Gary Gygax mashes up the books by Caroll with the Disney film Alice in Wonderland to great effect. The module is short and by necessity, almost feels like a single-session series of events. Everyone I've played with has been drawn in and wants to see what comes next as quick as possible. I guess I could have called it "engrossing" and saved some words. 

Now, this module isn't for every player but I think it is well worth a run-through. You can play this one a lot of different ways, with a bunch of different party types. One thing of note is that you cannot play this in a single session. Were I run this again, I might do it as a "special event" having several sessions a week.  

The intro is quick and to the point, so a DM has very little to set up. The high-level play, 9-12 levels of experience is sort of a drag for a DM who really wants to play this module. But with a lot of prep, you can dumb it down to any level. 

The module has six sections, one of which is "a blink and you miss it" intro, with all of the others lasting for several pages. The artwork is excellent and holds up over time. But there is strangely a lot of it for a book of this time period. I am going to circle back and blame the creative art team for enjoying this book too much. 

This module has so many creative scenarios, odd monster matches, and atypical magic that it really instills a sense of wonder, a dream-like experience for the players. 

I have personally used this module 3 times, once with the exact same party that experienced it as low-level characters before reaching the 9-12 levels as suggested on the cover. The third time with some folks who experienced Dragonlance burnout.

Here is a spoiler, the module starts with falling into a dream-like world. I mention this because the experience of falling and dreaming happens to people quite often and it can become a vehicle for launching the module with zero preparation as in getting the party to you know, actually fall down a hole.  

The first time I ran this module with low-level characters, I merged it with a Fritz Leiber story called The Howling Tower to make it survivable. 

 

The characters found a shrine with a crystal moon on an altar. I dropped some not-so-subtle hints as to what was happening. The walls of the shrine had a club and spades motif while the crystal moon prominently featured the rabbit in the moon and various areas noted with diamonds and hearts. When the characters removed the crystal moon from the altar, they were sprayed with a contact poison which they all misinterpreted as a gas as I hoped. 

This was done to force the players to all fail their saving throws as planned. Some characters made the first save only to be forced into a second or third save by touching downed characters. It didn't take long for them all to fall into Dungeonland.

The events of the module were their final moments of death stretched out in a bizarre hallucination. Escape from Dungeonland meant survival in the real world. 

Once in Dungeonland, if a character was dropped to 3 hp or less they got another save vs. poison. If they succeeded, they vanished from Dungeonland and reawoke in the real world. They had 3 rounds to consume wine, water, and food which magically healed their delusional wounds. Feeding others in the real world also heal them, too. Perhaps they could cast a spell before sinking back into Dungeonland. 

I had planned what I thought were obvious outs in the real world, such as leaving the room, placing someone on the altar and out of the poison would prevent another save, not touching other players or the crystal moon, and so on. Cleaning things or wearing gloves would have worked too, but no one caught on to this aspect as they really wanted back into Dungeonland. 

This party's second go-around in Dungeonland was brought on by one player mentioning the adventure while holding the Crystal Moon they found. 

For my hard-luck Dragonlance players, I yanked them down the rabbit hole via a nasty cabal attack. Each section of the module was the result of an alter reality spell being cast on them. Rather than being a total screw-fest, the Dragonlance characters had abilities and magic not accounted for in Dungeonland and they prevailed handily. 

Additionally, at the end of each sequence, they physically fought the illusionist who cast the spell for that part of the module before being thrust back into Dungeonland by the next illusionist's reality warping. As a consequence, they gained treasures from the dead illusionist cabal which they could use in the world of Krynn to equally deadly effect. As a nod to my first party's run, they also obtained the Crystal Moon device, which is a crystal ball. That is amazingly useful in Krynn. 

This was a confidence builder for getting back into the Dragonlance story after a minor setback which the party took as total failure. Funny how players think. 

This is one of the most fun adventures I have ever played as a player and as a DM. I may take a stab at it using Old School Essentials. 

Topical Topic

I haven't been posting regularly and tried to lead my Dungeonland review with a massive tangent on current events. I have made this its own post. 

I've mentioned my love of Disney. but I have yet to mention my wife's love of Lewis Caroll. When we first met, I pigeonholed her as a non-reader. I was very wrong, she is merely a non-book collector. I was shocked to find that she had read everything by Lewis Caroll, Poe, and T.S. Elliot plus many, many more. She reads something and disposes of the book. 

Blasphemy! How could you get rid of books you read and liked? We are still working on this issue.

This is one of those odd times where our interests collide on a topical subject and also highlights the need for patrons of this website.

How do a D&D module, Lewis Caroll, and patrons merge with current events?

AI, of course. 

I imagine that most of the people reading this site expect me to produce my own content, with my own opinions no matter how odd or off-beat they may be. It's a matter of getting a different perspective. By way of example, I did a review on dx/db. The author dropped in to say thanks, while some of my readers on social media absolutely hated this title and said so. 

Well, I engaged with both and everyone is happy. This website is a service to people of all kinds and perspectives. And I thank them for those differing views. 

Let me take a moment to thank some major backers of this website: Blackrazor, Pulp 716, and a co-worker. 

Blackrazor provided dozens of games after the house fire. Pulp 716 provided a safe haven for my family after the same. It's a wonderful place to meet up, buy THEN read comics, and relax. And my unnamed coworker provided a fabulous Macbook, which comes in handy for writing posts for These Old Games. 

My coworker hit the nail on the head when he asked, "How is that useful? What can you do with a computer too old to connect to the internet?" 

The answer to that is easy, I use it to disconnect from the internet. He didn't see the value in that until I showed him my workflow and then it all made sense. Basically, I write my text and note what sort of image I want in my post on the iBook. Then I can sneaker-net a USB drive between computers and use Blogger's integration with Photos to get the images from my phone. 

Very rarely do I type directly into the Blogger interface, usually only to change wording or kill a typo not found by Apple Works and whatnot. Today, I tried to use it for speed and ease of use. 

Yeah, wrong. 

The interface has broken down. I am experiencing a corporate AI takeover. I use Chrome and Blogger plus Grammarly. At some point, the various spell-checking options switched to highly aggressive mode. It's crazy, I can't really type anything in the standard interface without getting a mess of suggestions that make no sense.  

I've turned it all off which was about as effective as turning off Skynet was. 

On top of this, I have noticed the integration with Photos has gone off, like 6-day-old Chinese food on a soft taco shell. It could work, but I am taking chances. 

If I didn't have the refuge of my good ol' iBooks, I'd be screwed.