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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:01:26 GMT -5
This begins a section where during character creation the Character Class and motivation are determined. Additional dice rolls can be made to created a more varied character. The remainder of this section are the tables and examples of how it is done.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:01:55 GMT -5
Then we come to: Magical Research could occupy a lot of player time and effort, as well as risk.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:03:10 GMT -5
Given some of the stories I have heard of Arneson's rather quirky sense of humor, I can see him giving out a really dry textbook to read and then quizzing the player on it to verify that he did the research, as the way of playing this out.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:04:55 GMT -5
I am pretty sure he never did this, but think of making players learn a real world language in order to gain one in the game. Not OK!
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:06:25 GMT -5
How to Become a Bad Guy(Basic Procedures) OK, you are all here, that is great. First, I must confess that this title is a bit misleading which you will understand shortly. Second, if you are a hard core BtB zealot, you might want to skip this post, because it is going to offend your sensibilities greatly. I am happy to have you read it, but you have been warned! Third, when I first read this section I was quite frankly thrilled because I had been running my own variation of this since the very first game that I refereed.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:07:38 GMT -5
So off we go: OK here we find out that the monsters have variable hit dice and also advance in levels very much as do the players. He begins here to tell us how it all works. So while he is not really going into how a player would become a bad guy at this point, he does start laying out how the monsters work.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:09:00 GMT -5
Here he lays out advancement for the monsters. Now he says you take the Hit Dice and the AC and multiply by 1000. So I am not sure what we are doing with the AC in this calculation and I would love to hear from anyone who does. He gives an example and obviously the progression would look different for each monster. If I were going to do this, I would assign each armor class points, say 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and so on or 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 and so on. So he says that a creature can never be more than 10 times as powerful as its 1st level version. So that tells you how it all scales from orcs to dragons. I obviously do not stick to the 10 times thing with my dragons.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:11:38 GMT -5
Then you call look at the Dragon section to see just how something like a Dragon was handled and credits the Dragons which we will look at later to Richard Snider. We also find out that the Special Characters (read really powerful) are limited in numbers appearing.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 13:18:29 GMT -5
Now here he touches on how to become Bad Guy by defining what a Bad Guy and a Good Guy are. The most defining thing is Good Guys take prisoners and Bad Guys do not. So you just look at what the players do when these situations come up and they sort themselves. So yeah, if you slit the throats of those orcs that were slept by your Magic-Users, you are a Bad Guy. So if you were just in the middle then you did not get to use the most powerful items. I also like this, both the Good Guys and the Bad Guys were obligated to try to kill the Neutrals - everyone in the middle. Of course the Neutrals would know they could surrender to the Good Guys and live, but not so with the Bad Guys.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:03:40 GMT -5
Now what is it that I have always done in my game as a referee? I have always given my monsters variable hit dice. For instance, in OD&D an ogre was 4 HD +1 or a maximum of 25 HPs. My ogres can have up to 80 HPs. I did this for all of my monsters. I did not write down how many points it required for them to advance by levels. But having 1st Level and High Level versions of my monsters is something I did from the beginning. For instance my Dragons could have up to 25 HD.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:04:13 GMT -5
Every time I find something were I was kinda sorta thinking like Arneson from the beginning, it buoys my faith in my instincts. Especially since I was learning about these similar things 30+ years after the fact. Arneson and Hargrave are the two people I measure my creativity against. (There are many others I could mention Kuntz, Ward, Wesely, Barker, but for me these are the prime ones) This has the effect of making me continually strive to up my game and do new things I have not done before.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:05:39 GMT -5
Oh and why would BtB people not like this section? I have been told by a number of BtB zealots that having variable hit dice (levels) for monsters is cheating because the players know by what monster it is whether or not they can beat it, but to me the whole point is they should not be able to look at men or monsters and be sure. Because when they are not sure, they will be more creative in getting what they want without combat. Or more attentive to gaining an advantage before combat.
IMO a lot of BtB people cater to murderhobo style gaming, which I am not interested in. If want to be a murderhobo, then my game is not for you.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:07:23 GMT -5
Svenson's Freehold
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:07:40 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:07:55 GMT -5
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:08:57 GMT -5
Gerg Svenson is also the creator of the Tonisborg Dungeons.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:10:28 GMT -5
Next up are "Richard Snider's Additions." Arneson says Richard Snider's AdditionsA 10th Level Gold Dragon has a 26 HD breath weapon, that sounds about right to me.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:11:08 GMT -5
Then he provides an alternate method to determine damage by a breath weapon. A (IMO) major deficiency of most rule sets is that they give short shrift to alternate methods, I want rule books and supplements that are not shy about giving multiple ways of doing things. Do not censor yourself, let the user decide what works for them. (Yeah, I feel another essay coming on, but that will have to wait, it needs to marinate for a while).
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:12:15 GMT -5
Forget about humans trying to subdue Dragons, how about Dragons subduing and capturing humans. I also like the idea that a Magic-Using Dragon might target Magic-Users with magical attacks to assert dominance. I think we can assume that the humans subduing Dragons in OD&D came from Gygax.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:13:17 GMT -5
I like the above, partly because I think most campaigns really under-utilize Dragons mainly because people do not really know what to do with them. Also people tend to only think in terms of combat and I personally want Dragons played as very smart and crafty and a bit sneaky. I want Dragons that are evil and deceitful and I want Dragons that are generally very good and very honorable and yet, and yet very proud, touchy and easily offended. I like Dragons to be complex and above all very, very powerful. I want Dragons that you do not want to get on the wrong side of.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:14:37 GMT -5
We will continue looking at Richard Snider Changes in his campaign as compared to Blackmoor. This is also a good way to learn things about Blackmoor that are otherwise not stated: Differences in Creatures from Blackmoor GameI am taking this to mean that Balrogs cannot initially immolate by touch, but can as they level up.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 15:15:09 GMT -5
Or, or they could do both. Key evil laugh.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:07:56 GMT -5
That is, his Ghouls only do normal damage unless they kill you, so no wounded infection that will still turn to worry about.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:08:34 GMT -5
This is a severe restriction on these races as compared to humans. Not to my taste, but really good for a primarily human game.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:09:10 GMT -5
Do you love creatures that can turn you to stone, I do. I like the full range of options.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:16:54 GMT -5
Good rule IMO, so apparently Arneson's could not regenerate while in combat, but Snider's could.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:17:17 GMT -5
I like the infective Lycanthrope Bite myself.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:17:42 GMT -5
I love this, seems like something you could teach the players to really hate.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:18:06 GMT -5
I can see this both ways, I run mine this way though.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 2, 2023 16:18:38 GMT -5
You do not really need to have a lot of different types of Dragons, you just need every Dragon to have a unique personality IMO. But I still design many different types.
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