Player HUD

A heads up display (HUD) is a transparent or projected screen of information for a fighter plane, so that a pilot does not have to take their eyes off what they are doing to get vital information. 

Telecanter, who appears to have a bag of 1001 ideas, had the idea of creating one for D&D play, so that what a player is holding and what role they have in combat is clear both to the DM, and probably just as important, to other players at the table.  While this may seem unnecessary to veteran players, for new or more casual players, this sort of thing is pretty useful.  Many times, a character sheet seems to get in the way of role play, as players are looking down at their sheet, and away from each other and the DM.

Telecanter's Version

In the comments to Telecanter's post, I mentioned that I have used name tents to encourage players to call each other by character name [and help me remember!], and yellow sticky notes to show who had light sources, and wondered if it would be possible to combine those ideas with the player HUD. 

Then we had a baby arrive, and I did not have the time to develop the idea further until now.


Click it to get very large

So here is my "improved" Player HUD, with attached mini character sheet.  The idea is that during the game, this is all you need to look at, although for higher level play with more spells/abilities/powers, it would start to be too limiting.

Facing the DM and other players we have right hand/left hand, combat role, player character name, and a light indicator.  Facing the player, we have an injury track, the reduced character sheet, and a d30 reminder.  I also have a "ready equipment" list and a spells list.   This should be everything that a player needs to get going during an encounter.  To make it a "tent" it folds on the dotted line, and then again in between the name/Role line, and the damage track/reduced character sheet line.

The Injury track is supposed to be a way to show other players how your character is doing with a sort of slider, just like in real life you can see if your buddy is bleeding or injured with a glance. You might use something like these Post-it flags, or just a paperclip. 

Obviously your 1hp magic user is not going to be able to use the injury tracking the same way that a fighter might.

Thoughts?  Would this help in your games?

Roman Resources

Yesterday I submitted my entry in to the Roman adventure contest being run by Ramblings of  Great Khan, even though the deadline was extended to cover the weekend.  My entry ended up being six pages in length, and had four maps, a number of random tables, and a bit of information about the Roman world.  Indeed, one of the nice things about writing an adventure for the Roman world is how much we know about it.  There are a large number of writings from the period which have survived, and combined with archaeological research, we have a general picture of life in the Empire (although there are still plenty of knowledge gaps and new things to discover). 

Here are some resources to help a Roman campaign:

Sea Power:
Although Rome was never a "naval nation" in the sense of Athens, Carthage, or England, the Roman navy was important to the Republic and Empire, as it prevented piracy, and was used to move the army around Mare Nostrum.  Like most navies, figuring out the exact composition of forces is difficult, as they used the names of specific ship types for entirely different later classes of ships.  (Much like the destroyer or frigate in a modern navy).  Ship types changed little from hellenistic era ships, but they did mount more and heavier artillery.  Happily there is also a game for fighting out naval combat.

Land Power:
Everyone is familiar with the Roman Legion, an unstoppable force of red shielded jack-sandled thugs fighting barbarians all over the frontier.  Who would not want to play them?  Possibly someone familiar with the 25 year enlistment period!  Aside from the familiar legions, Rome also had auxiliaries to supply cavalry, archers, slingers, and extra infantry.

Maps and Travel:
Due to the hard work of some folks at Stanford, we have a handy travel calculator called Orbis, which allows for calculating the cost, duration, and route between two points in the Empire.  So if one wanted a party to travel from Londinium to Rome itself, in January, you can do that, with a variety of options to prioritize land vs sea travel etc.  (and we find it takes 30.8 days and would cost over 1600 denarii).  There is a similar program called Omnes Viae that includes destinations outside of the Roman world, such as India. And if you like Google maps (and who does not?) there is a similar program for the ancient world called Pelagios, and another called Vici that shows all the known Roman artifacts and influences in an area (and you can even overlay it on the Pelagios map).

Gladiators:
People who fought beasts and each other to the death for the amusement of crowds... what is not to like? (in a fictional D&D setting)  Different types of traditional gear were used, and gladiators were assigned roles based on the gear they used.

Cults/secret societies:
Rome was awash in weird cults in the Imperial period, like the cults of Dionysus, Isis, Mithrandis, Jesus, and more.  The authorities would periodically crack down on them, and religious fervor was the cause of plenty of revolts and revolutions.  Lots of scope here for eastern magi cults, spy intrigue and other actions between minor groups.

Miniatures:
Rome has long been popular with wargamers, and as such there are miniatures for Rome and its primary enemies in every scale, from 2mm-54mm, so if you want to do big battles or detailed skirmishes, you can.  Wargames Foundry has figures for Punic war republic, Late republic, Early, and Late empire, as well as a horde of useful greek figures, and various barbarian types.  Wargames Factory makes plastic figures for a Caesarian period, and Warlord Games makes plastic figures for early Imperial battles, and also publishes Hail Caesar!  There are lots of options for Gladiator miniatures, in pretty much all of the larger scales.

The Romans even had a mechanical calculator, and could have had steam engines.

There are plenty of resources for Roman play and campaigns.  So get out there!

d100 Supplies

Sometimes you and your fellow redshirts are on an extended away mission, and you need a teleported case of supplies.  In exchange for one cubic meter of local valuables collected by the long range teleporter system, the ship then sends you one cubic meter of supplies.

Typically this will be just what you need for the current adventure, such as glow sticks, synthetic fur clothing, laser pistol recharges, dried rations, trade goods, the lovely new ensign from  the medbay etc, but sometimes the teleporter computer gets a bit.. confused.  It is after all a 3000 year old relic that was drifting alone in space for the majority of that time, and it apparently wrote over its request parser about 2999 years ago, after it ran out of blog posting space.  Now when it hears "20L water", only the dice know what it hears and returns...

Earthscraper

Ever wondered where your mega-dungeons came from in your post apocalyptic setting?

Behold the Earthscraper, a giant inverted skyscraper.  This one is intended to replace the Plaza Major in Mexico City.

Just add a century of decay to this, and you have a dangerous dungeon with all sorts of treasures.  (it even has a museum at the bottom, which ought to have treasures worth seeking).

Also, a welcome to Galpy, a new follower.  Hope you see more of whatever it is you like about this blog. 

Twenty Questions

Jeff has a great post about 20 questions you should be able to answer about your game world.  His point is that these are the things that your players care about, not the eras of history you have written up in a binder somewhere.

Here are some generic answers for the Deepest Sea:
1.What is the deal with my cleric's religion? - assuming human, you worship the Shepard, a singular god who sent you over the plains to the known world. Has priests, monks, bishops, all that jazz.
2.Where can we go to buy standard equipment? - towns have standard equipment
3.Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended? - Plate does not exist, otherwise, from an armor smith in a larger town.
4.Who is the mightiest wizard in the land? - Martletock, an elf. He's quite mad you know.
5.Who is the greatest warrior in the land? - of all time? Remoos, long since dead.
6.Who is the richest person in the land? - The Emperor.
7.Where can we go to get some magical healing? - Larger church in a town, from random hermits who can heal.
8.Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath? - Larger towns have churches with significantly high leveled clerics. Question is, would they want to heal you?
9.Is there a magic guild my MU belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells? - not as such.  There are secret societies of magic users, and colleges, but access to spells is closely guarded, particularly beyond the first two levels.
10.Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC? - large towns or cities.  These guys are not hanging around cow towns.
11.Where can I hire mercenaries? - pretty much every town will have some muscle that can be hired, either knights who need cash, or bravos/toughs.
12.Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law? - swords are illegal in most towns, particularly if you are not a Noble.  magic is restricted by social custom (meaning they might hang you).
13.Which way to the nearest tavern? - nearest village has a pub.
14.What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous? - depends on the locale, but most areas have sufficiently scary monsters living in the mountains, and failing that, there are always sub-humanoids to slay.
15.Are there any wars brewing I could go fight? - Chénez and Gyor do not get along all that well, and local barons are always cattle raiding one another.
16.How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes? - in the City.  You are most likely going to end up dead though.
17.Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight? - if I told you, they would not be all that secret, would they?  The Empire is reputed to be rife with such things, and you know how those Laténs go for societies and factions.
18.What is there to eat around here? - Mostly simple things like salted mutton and rough bread, the City has the really good stuff like larks' tongue paté.
19.Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for? - The titans left many treasures in their towers and mines, the problem is that people might want to burn you for going there.
20.Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure? - look in the high mountains.

Lockpicking: the game

Telecantar has a great post about using a procedural method to simulate lock picking, rather than just rolling a die and assigning a chance to succeed (based on looking for a solution to the problem posed on rather gamey here).  Basically it is a rock/paper/sissors sort of game, with one correct answer per stage.
(Zak also posted about this here, with some refinements)

This sort of mechanic could be adapted for several different sorts of tests, such as trap disarming, mechanism working etc.  Anything which could be set up as more than an either or solution, but still has a limited set of options could have a little branched path "game" like this, where the player has to make a choice to move along the path to success.   Many computer RPGs have some variant of this mechanic as logic puzzles, since you can not describe what you are doing as well.

The challenge with this system is to make it simple enough that it can be "played" in a few seconds, and not have the rest of the players disengaged.  I think that the way to do that is to limit the total number of steps (d4+1) , and allow for "auto passes" once a lock has been solved.

What do you think?  Does this slow things down too much vs. a die roll?

Five Games...

Concept cribbed from American Barbarica: Five roleplaying games I would like to run if I had the time and the players group.

1) Deepest Sea - A OSR game, using a slightly modified Labyrinth Lord engine and my own home made setting of, well, the Deepest Sea.  A grity low powered dungeon crawl, with a few sandbox elements, and some political hooks for those who are so inclined.
2) Wandering Weißenland - WHFRP sandbox game set in eastern Weißenland, exploring the ruins left from the destruction of Solland, the local politics, and whatever else the players would fancy.  The WHFRP game is pretty low magic oriented, and deadly, so cautious exploration would be key.
3) Skype/Electronic tabletop dungeon crawl - A game played with friends online, using some of the various electronic tabletop replicators out there.  Would probably devolve fairly quickly into a silly inter-party bash like most of our games played in high school.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.
4) Dark Heresy/Inqusimunda skirmish/role play hybrid game - Battling teams of Inquisitors/Rogue Traders/gangers, on a declining world, combat played using Inquisimunda rules, running around looking for clues, and hopefully roasting each other.
5) Dank Medieval city game - Massive rotting city, inspired by the Lies of Locke Lamora, highly political, complex multifaceted religious situation, and low magic.  neighborhoods with different customs, complicated guilds for all aspects of the economy, alchemists, corrupt nobility, etc.  Players as rogues/bravos, trying to make a big score, and escape a debt.  Would have a heavy reputation factor.

Come to think of it, most of my imagined settings are pretty low magic gritty settings.

Also, spent some time today looking through Rolang's Creeping Doom.  Lots of excellent ideas there, including a cleric class which worships a pantheon of gods, but only one per day, which one determined by a d6, with completely different modes of worship and rewards for same.

Online but "in person"

Sorry for the silence lately, but I was in a car accident, and totaled our old car. After a couple of weeks of looking around, and lots of online review reading, we got a new vehicle, so things are back to normal. (and I am fine, only bruised my knee)

Anyway, last weekend, my wife and I had an enjoyable video chat with some friends of ours via Skype. During the end of the conversation, we added my friend's brother to the conversation using the new multiple person video chat(which is a paid aspect of the service). We BSed a bit, and then someone (maybe me) mentioned that it would be fun to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) using this sort of technology. I did endure some ribbing with regards to having time to RP online, but not to play in the D&D online game that they already participate in. (my friend, his wife, his brother, and his brother-in-law all play)

As you might expect, there are already many ways for people to play games, and in particular role playing games online. Besides the obvious MPORG type situation (back to D&D online), which certainly skew more to "roll playing" than "role playing, there are dice rolling tools, specialized chat boards, and the like. Beyond that, there are entire mapping programs that allow for the DM to set up a map, and have players negotiate it. (and similar ones aimed at board games)

Still though, there is something to be said for seeing and hearing someone while you play, after all, the social aspect is what makes RP games so much fun, and conversely so hard to get going sometimes. What do you think? Would you, or have you, played a game online?

Old School Renaissance

Back in the summer, I was thinking quite a bit about running a WHFRP sandbox game, as mentioned in this post. During that time, I was reading the Bat in the Attic blog quite a bit, and came across the term "Old School Renaissance" (OSR).

As I see it, the OSR is a movement mostly amongst older gamers to eschew the new and shiny heavily detailed rules of today, and return to the simpler times of their youth, when Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) was new, and rules were simple. This is facilitated by the "Open Gaming Licence" created by Wizards during the third edition of D&D, which allowed for basic D&D rules and concepts to be used freely by other publishing companies, originally to allow for additional source books. With careful work, this has allowed for "retro clones" of various early editions of D&D, (some from before I was born!), and ultimately new rule systems as well. [a primary example of this would be Labyrinth Lord]

The OSR and D&D has become my obsession de'jour after I had a flash of inspiration on the way home from work one day. I was thinking about something else entirely, and suddenly, I started thinking about a dark age pseudo-European setting suitable for dungeon delving. (decaying empires, howling barbarians, and all the usual accouterments) Now I think about it obsessively, and read tons of blog posts about games, rules variations, items, metagame concerns, and so on. Some material has even be cribbed for future use. (Google docs is very helpful in that regard) Not helping matters is that I got Baldur's Gate for Christmas (only 12 years behind the times), and now D&D subsumes most other hobby thought.

Figurewise (every game must have figures), I have been looking at Perry First Crusade for the humans (such as these chaps for thieves), Hasslefree for dwarves (these fellows), and am a bit stumped for elves. I made a post on the Lead Adventure Forum seeking advice, and game away with a few options to try. The Thunderbolt Mountain elves may be perfect, although they tend to scale armor instead of mail, and like many Tom Meier sculpts, look a bit "dead" (the uncanny valley at work?).

So anyway, that is the OSR, and my D&D obsession. Sometime I hope to post more about the setting, and Lord forefend, something about playing a game or painting miniatures.

In a RPG sort of mood

Inspired by Penny Arcade's articles on sandbox gaming [herein defined as free form gaming with multiple plot threads in a prepared semi-dynamic world], and a general interest lately in content creation, I have been thinking quite a bit about a WHFRP campaign, set in southern Wissenland [the southernmost Elector State in the Empire]. Naturally, it would be supported by miniatures, terrain, and so on. (what good game is not?)

Chasing down information online about this sort of gaming, I read the 24 steps of creating a sandbox, as defined by Bat in the Attic, and immediately started to think of ideas and plot lines and so on to hook my PCs. Looking over a map of Wissenland, I decided that Wusterburg looked like a good center for action, with two rivers, the Black Mountains, and other interesting areas to explore and to place. This will also allow for some ruins/empty territory exploring as the area encompasses parts of former Solland. (Elector State ruined by Orcs in 1707 and now subsumed mostly by Wissenland)

This sort of gaming project has extra allure to me because it combines both world building and obsessive detail, both of which I enjoy. It is also useful at the current time, since the offspring makes any actual at home hobby time fleeting at best, and this can be pursued during lunch hours, with mapping and NPC creation.

Difficulties in creating a WHFRP campaign are many fold. First, I do not have any regular playing group. This could be a way to start gaming with some friends of mine. Second, I do not have all the WHFRP books, and would want/have to get more. For example including Skaven would mean that I need the requisite source book. (That the books are now out of print does not help matters any) Third, I have not GMed/DMed/Storytold before. Fourth, I just do not have much free time, and weekly gaming sessions would exceed the time I have. None of these difficulties are insurmountable, but they do make this project more of a fantasy than it would otherwise be.

In any case, this is where my hobby time has been lately, thinking about striking out into the wilds in the southern empire, righting wrongs, and exploring ruins.

As for painting, I have not touched a brush in months... well, a miniature brush that is. I have painted a patch on a wall, and rolled out some paint in the garage, but nothing miniature wise. I think that 2009/10 will go in the records book as the least productive painting year ever.