Dungeon Tiles: Are They Useless?

   There’s been a lot of talk about Dungeons & Lasers, and it should be no surprise; these sets are absolutely breathtaking. But before you dish out enormous sums of money, ask yourself this question: do I need modular dungeon floors and walls?

   Who runs endless megadungeons these days? Who has the time? If you manage to get your entire group around a table for a few hours, first, you’re my hero, and second, would you like to run a fresh, eventful adventure with beginning, middle, and big finish – or are you simply going to pick things up where you left off three months earlier, in room number 18c, and proceed to rooms 19 and 20... and perhaps 21a, if all goes well?

   So here’s the truth.

   You can handle the truth.

   Corridors are a nuisance.

   Corridors are killing the fun of role-playing games by making it always the same fight: wizard in the middle, fighter up front, rogue rearguard, cleric at the ready to heal the tank. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you?

   Static. Boring.

   Even in Gloomhaven. Yes, and the reason why so many groups fail within the first room is because it’s the first room: you can’t park your tank in the doorway and then do everything else with ranged attacks – which is what you do in rooms 2 and 3. Not always, mind you, but most of the time.

   You cannot change Gloomhaven, but you can change your own game of D&D—

   Get rid of corridors. And staircases.

   Open spaces only, à la Chris Perkins.

   Take Prisoners of Slaughterfast, for example – the game they played at PAX Prime 2010. Aeofel is stranded in Hell, all alone, standing in front of a huge fortress. In other words, he is fucked. And then, just in the nick of time, his three friends appear in the distance, riding on the back of a hell-cow!

   The entire fight takes place in front of that hellish fortress, in the open, with the big bad looking on from the top of the battlements. Now that’s D&D.

   In the PAX Prime game of 2015, a robot beholder apparatus takes the party to a cavern somewhere in the Underdark. There is a noxious pond in the middle, steep cliffs on both sides, and the head of a (dead) purple worm jutting out from the top of a mound; there’s even some sort of lodging inside the worm’s gaping maw. Looking for loot, Jim climbs up there – and starts hallucinating. Meanwhile, Viari is up a cliff and cutting off a rope bridge, while Omin and Binwin are down by the pond, gauging an Illithid and a weird, shambling Kuo-toa.

   They didn’t split the party, not really, and yet they’re all over the place – still within earshot of each other – in that awesome-looking cave. It ain’t static. It ain’t boring or tedious.

   Another example: the PAX Unplugged game of 2019 happens in and around a colossal hell-vehicle made from part of a tarrasque’s carapace, complete with a stage on top of it, and seating for more than 60 people.

   You should always run that.

   I blame video games for the way doors and corridors are “tactically” put to use in tabletop role-playing games these days.

   Imagine you’re reading one of Robert E. Howard’s classic Conan the Barbarian stories, and you get to a part that goes like this:

   “Broadsword in hand, Conan stepped into the sanctuary; eleven demons lurked in the low-lit columned room, wielding warped, unholy blades. The Cimmerian quickly closed in on the first two demons, delivering five savage slashes and two backswings – but then he had to retreat into the corridor, because his arms and chest were severely lacerated by the demons’ nasty claws and curved blades.

   “Conan drank his first potion of healing.

   “When he reentered the sanctuary, he noted that one demon was in his death throes, sprawled on the blood-soaked pavestones. More demons charged towards the intruder.

   “Conan’s sword chopped off an arm and punched right through another demon’s jaw; that opponent toppled immediately, while the one with the chopped arm was reeling. Conan freed his weapon just in time to swing it at another demon – then, alas, he had no choice but to retreat again into the corridor.

   “He was bleeding profusely from at least ten grievous cuts.

   “He downed another potion of healing and ate a magical berry that the priestess of Asura had offered him right before he journeyed to this fell temple.

   “Conan reentered the sanctuary. Eight demons left.

   “The melee resumed, and the Cimmerian parried scores of deadly blows. He managed to hit the two demons closest to him; one died, and the other lost a leg below the knee.

   “Conan retreated to the relative safety of the corridor yet again.

   “He was covered in blood: his own, and the demons’ evil blood that burned his torn flesh.

   “He quickly drank his third potion of healing.

   “Five down, six to go, he thought.

   “Bellowing Crom’s name, he charged back into the sanctuary...”

   Who would read that? It’s absurd. It ain’t entertainment.

   Personally, I would throw such a book out the window.

   But that’s how most video games work.

   Don’t allow that to happen in D&D. No corridors. Your game can only be improved. There are no downsides whatsoever. And if the party is overwhelmed, the wizard can still cast rope trick, and they can take refuge in there for a while.

   The Dwarven Forge and D&L stuff is beautiful, but you don’t really need it. The only thing you need is one fantastic location, Sly Flourish style, with lots of different things going on in that place. Players and monsters will do the rest.

   And sometimes you don’t even need miniatures, only a detailed diorama – this is gonna blow a few 40K minds, obviously. Take a look at the PAX West 2017 game (Tomb of Annihilation), or the Apothecary / Switcharoo games of 2018, or that one with the aforementioned tarrasque vehicle, and you’ll see.

   I don’t despise modular dungeons per se; I just don’t want D&D to become Warhammer – loads and loads of terrain with a tiny thread of actual gaming buried underneath all that pricey hardware.

   Folks who build and assemble their entire dungeon up front suffer from what we might call the Minecraft Syndrome. If they have fun doing it, that’s fine. Personally, I don’t have that kind of time, so I cut corners – like a movie director. Indeed, when you shoot Star Wars, you don’t build an entire Death Star, you only build the 5 or 6 parts you need for your story.

   I’m not against D&L or Dwarven Forge: I just can’t afford it. But if you have the money, knock yourself out. I shook Stefan Pokorny’s hand after the premiere of The Dwarvenaut. “Lucky you,” I said. “You do what we all love.”

   Model-building is a wonderful craft: you listen to your favorite music, drink some tea or coffee, and forget about absolutely everything else. Hobbyists have been doing it for over two hundred years.

   If you still want to build the whole thing, suit yourself; play Minecraft D&D and then Call of Duty D&D if that’s what your players want. The only overarching rule is fun.

   But if your group seems to be ready for a style that is more targeted and more “open” at the same time – get rid of corridors! Instead of building megadungeons to accommodate your awesome adventures, build awesome adventures to accommodate unique, extraordinary locations, whether it be a vast purple worm cavern or the Darkmagic mansion or the Moloch statue from the iconic cover of 1978’s Players Handbook or a gigantic tarrasque vehicle in Avernus or Arneson’s Comeback Inn (e.g. once the PCs have entered, whenever they try to leave the establishment, they “come back in,” as in inescapable pocket dimension).

   Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins and Dave Arneson all did it.

   Why wouldn’t you?

Most Popular Posts & Why Stay on Blogger

   A few months back, Jeremy of Black Magic Craft shot a video in which he was sort of reflecting on all the things he’d built since the beginning of his YouTube channel, looking back at his entire journey. Personal inventory, et cetera. I couldn’t help but think, “Is he about to call it quits?”

   But he wasn’t. Thank the gods.

   As a blog admin, you get a nice little control panel with all sorts of numbers and statistics and traffic info, so you can confirm that 12% of your blog’s visitors use Firefox – that sort of thing.

   Every time I check those “statistics,” it’s always like, USA 50 views, Canada 35 views, UK 25 views, Germany 12 views... and there’s always: Mozambique 1 view.

   Mozambique? That’s awesome! One person in Mozambique checks out my blog every time I post a new article? One person in Mozambique loves hearing about old-school tabletop role-playing games. I absolutely love that.

   Or maybe Blogger is in fact throwing random statistics in your face just to keep you happy, as they are wont to do. Who knows?

   Blogs do not get tons of comments. It’s not Facebook. The blogosphere is definitely not a Like-based or a Share-based platform. People read a post, they agree, or perhaps disagree, but they still move on to the next post – or the next blog. I’ve been reading lots of blogs since 2010, and I don’t think I have written much more than 50 comments in all those years.

   Blogger is frustrating, that’s for sure. Fonts keep changing randomly, line spacing keep changing, and sometimes you have to tweak the very same thing three or four times before it looks okay – and it looks okay in the web version, but not on phones.

   I read somewhere that no serious employer will ever contact you if your blog has a blogspot address. Well, okay then. A talented person in a cheap car, or a dumbass in an Alfa Romeo, is that really the question?

   Bottom line is: if Blogger was good enough for Grognardia and Chirine’s Workbench, then it’s good enough for me. You’d probably have to tweak as much stuff on WordPress anyway.

*

   Looking at my most popular posts is an interesting and funny exercise. People come to my old-school tabletop role-playing games blog for the things that aren’t old-school tabletop role-playing games. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Blibdoolpoolp

[January 2015]

   This post was just plain silly. I wanted to speak about the goddess Blibdoolpoolp, that’s all. But I made the mistake of mentioning a porn star. And that’s it. That is my blog’s most popular post. If you mention a porn star, you’re gonna get traffic, even if it only pops up on the sixth or seventh or eight page of search results.

   If you want to read this one, read it now, because I might delete it soon.

The Desperate Housewives One Page Dungeon

[August 2014]

   This one is my second most popular article. It was also quite silly, although not as much as Blibdoolpoolp. Let’s assume that it gets this much traffic because of the “Desperate Housewives” part, and not because of the “One Page Dungeon” part.

Behold!

[June 2014]

   Third most popular. This one was made mostly for my friend Jerry who is obsessed with Beholders and has always wondered how Beholders manage to reproduce. I’m not sure what key word gave it away – or maybe it was just a couple 10-year-old boys who found it and sent the link to all the other 10-year-olds. It’s the Internet.

   Really not one of my best articles.

Arneson and Saint Paul (not the city)

[March 2016]

   In my top four, this is the only one that sees traffic because of actual RPG reasons, and not a TV show or a porn star or whatever.

   This is a good one indeed, and I still like it five years later.

Top Five Monsters

[August 2015]

   What do you know – a post on the top five monsters or role-playing games is in my top five most popular posts! I like that. Well done, monsters. Especially you, cultists.

   Guess what? I’m not about to call it quits. We’ll see how it goes. I won’t mention porn stars or TV shows or Shawn Mendes unless I absolutely need to.

   According to those mysterious Blogger statistics, I get something between 80 and 100 readers per article. That’s good enough, right? So I’ll keep blogging for a while.

   I’m doing it for you, Mozambique.

"Bad" Treasure

   Last winter, people on Twitter talked about the new Pathfinder book, and they noted that most of the treasure troves provided within were “questionably sourced.” Their words, not mine.

   But it got me thinking: what is a perfectly “good” treasure?

   Obviously, it would need to be collected with full voluntary consent from each and every contributor – but that is no longer treasure, it’s a fundraiser.

   What is the very first treasure a party of adventurers might find at level 1 in The Keep on the Borderlands? Let’s assume it’s the Mad Hermit’s treasure. Dagger +1, Potion of Invisibility, Ring of Protection +1, 31 g.p. and 164 s.p.

   Upon finding this modest stash, the party should immediately turn back, stop looking for those infamous Caves of Chaos, return to the Keep forthwith, and start investigating. What travelers were robbed of a dagger +1? What nearby farm was recently burglarized? Who lost 31 gold pieces? Is there any story about a lost Potion of Invisibility?

   That +1 dagger belonged to someone before it came in the Hermit’s possession. It should be returned.

   That potion was intended perhaps for a wizard’s unjustly detained mother. It should be handed back.

   Those 31 gold pieces were stolen from various shrines and temples in the country. They should be redistributed.

   Abandoned shrines... Ruined cities... Forgotten temples...

   Maybe they were not abandoned willingly. Maybe the people who built and maintained those places were forced out by an epidemic or some other gruesome calamity – and they couldn’t haul everything away with them? Does it make it fair game? Pompeii is destroyed by a volcano; the magic item that is later recovered from Marius’ house should become the property of Marius’ niece who lives in Rome, right?

   A sword +1 doesn’t just appear out of the blue one day. A wizard had to craft it and enchant it, and the finished weapon was surely meant for someone very specific, maybe the wizard’s nephew, or a trusted ranger friend, or the local castellan. How that sword was taken from the castellan or the ranger or the wizard’s nephew ain’t relevant: it should be handed back to its rightful owner, period.

   See where I’m going with this?

   Locals don’t usually venture into ruined temples or abandoned tombs, because they respect tradition and fear the wrath of the gods – or spirits – or ancient fallen warriors – or whatever. Venturing into ruined temples and abandoned tombs is a foreigners’ thing, like those British “explorers” who went to Egypt in the 1880s. They were no explorers, mind you. Just bored rich guys. The poor working man stuck in a remote mining town in South Wales couldn’t afford to go fool around with his peers in far-off Egypt.

   Is that what a party of adventurers in D&D actually is? Bored, rich folks who can afford to leave their villages and go break into ruined temples and forgotten tombs?

   Let’s take a step back.

   What are the most famous treasures of all?

   Ali Baba’s treasure

   It’s been a while since I read One Thousand and One Nights, but the hoard hidden within that “Open Sesame” cave belongs to the Forty Thieves, right? These guys were not even Rogues, no; just plain old thieves, like in First Edition AD&D. Questionably sourced, for sure.

   Also, the Forty Thieves are stupid. Why have a cave full of unimaginable riches that just sit there, doing nothing? They should put all that money in hedge funds – like the normal thieves do.

   Smaug’s treasure

   It’s been a while since I read The Hobbit, but I don’t recall Smaug volunteering to work with special needs children in Esgaroth and receiving lots of gifts from the very grateful parents. It’s more likely that he ravaged the town several times over the years, and made off with everybody’s own little retirement fund. Same thing he had done to Dale and the Lonely Mountain. Questionably sourced, yes.

   Treasure Island’s treasure

   It’s been a while since I read Treasure Island, but the titular Treasure, which is buried in several locations on the Island, is what old Flint amassed during years and years of piracy throughout the West Indies: Spanish merchants, French traders, English passenger ships and Portuguese caravels. Questionably sourced, arr!

   As for real-life treasures, most of the time they’re just rumors, and so it’s even harder to tell if they’re “good” treasures. Chances are, they are not.

   The Templars’ treasure? The Templars had some gold in each of their monasteries, but not the unique Treasure Tower people talk about. What would have been the point? They were bankers – they needed a gold reserve at every one of their major “branches,” not all in one place.

   Captain Kidd’s treasure? This madman made just one voyage as a pirate captain, and captured three ships. Then his own vessel wasn’t seaworthy anymore, and Kidd had to leave it behind in Madagascar. How much gold are we talking about here? They didn’t capture a friggin’ Spanish galleon. His men probably spent it all on rum and whores.

   The Nazis’ gold? Confiscated jewelry and art collections, sure; but there ain’t no massive iron chest full of eagle-stamped gold bars buried somewhere in Argentina.

   Oak Island’s treasure? Gimme a break. There is no treasure on Oak Island. This whole affair started when two kids noticed an odd circular depression in the ground. Who in the world is dedicated enough to dig a 100-foot pit and then refill it, and careless enough to leave a depression to mark the spot? It makes no sense.

   King Tut’s treasure? This one’s real all right, but it was grave robbery. If I ransack King Henry III’s sepulchre in Westminster Abbey, they’ll throw me in jail. But a Pharaoh’s final resting place, that’s okay? Again, bored rich guys. Questionably sourced.

   I also have a bone to pick with the verb sourced, believe it or not.

   “Sourcing” implies a contractual agreement between parties. Outsourcing: having something made in another country. Crowdsourcing: having something created by many collaborating individuals.

   If you take a walk through the woods and happen to pick up a couple perfect mushrooms, you can’t say they were sourced from the woods; there wasn’t any contract there. The mushrooms were right where they’re supposed to be. You just picked them up. Let’s not invent fancy new verbs for old things. Even the yogurt I ate this morning is made with “peaches harvested in Canada.” Harvested, not sourced.

   But I digress – as I often do.

   Treasure troves are always “bad.” They’re questionable. Sane people don’t amass treasure.

   Smaug is evil.

   Kidd was crazy.

   The Templars were corrupt.

   The Forty Thieves were, well, thieves.

   Now, what does it say about your own treasure-hauling character?

   They, too, are crazy.

   Yep.

   We play these games because they allow us to be crazy. It’s a luxury that real life can’t provide anymore.

   That’s the real treasure.

"Natural 20" & "Double Damage"

   You haven’t really played Dungeons & Dragons until your very first roll of 20 on a d20. It really is the hallmark moment of the game, and one of the greatest thrills in all of role-playing games.

   But where does the expression “natural 20” comes from? Why was it coined in the first place? And why don’t we ever mention natural 12s, natural 17s, or natural 1s?

   It comes from the Attack Matrices in First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Each character class had its own Attack Matrix, and there was one for the monsters, too. This one here is for the fighter types. Look at how the To Hit requirements progress on the table: 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 20, 20...

   The number 20 is repeated 6 times. It is the same on all Attack Matrices.

   The first “20” there is a normal die roll, which can include all the usual bonuses. Your fighter has a +2 To Hit bonus because of her strength, and she wields a +2 magical longsword; she rolls a 16, add her bonuses, and the final result is 20. It’s a hit.

   The 5 subsequent 20s are a different kind of beast. Regardless of your character’s bonuses and magic items and spell effects, she’ll need to roll a 20 if she wants to hit that opponent. So, you get 5 rows of Armor Classes that are not exactly hit proof, but... your character is gonna have to roll heroically. Who rolls multiple 20s in the same fight, right?

   In the AD&D heyday, we only ever used this expression when someone or something attacked someone else or something else whose AC put them right into those five “perfect hit” rows for that class.

   “You’ll need a natural 20 to hit that will-o’-wisp.”

   “But I have my +6 flaming vorpal holy avenger two-handed relic blade thing!”

   “Won’t do you any good this time.”

   Here’s what Gary Gygax wrote in his 1979 Dungeon Masters Guide:

   “Consider the repeated 20 as a perfectly-aimed attack which does not gain any benefit from strength or magical properties of any sort – spell, missile, or weapon. That is, the 20 must be attained by a roll of natural 20. All bonuses accrue only up to and including a total of 20, so that even if a character attacked with a bonus for strength of +3 and a +3 magic sword he or she would have to roll a natural 20 in order to score a hit on any creature normally hit by the second or successive repetitions of 20, i.e. the bonus (+3 for example) could not exceed a total score of 20 unless an actual 20 is rolled.”

   Regular readers know that I have been running a First Edition AD&D campaign since 2014, and yet I never had to tell a player he needed a natural 20 to hit an opponent. The party never faced anything so strong that their Armor Class placed them within those five dreaded rows of the Attack Matrix.

   That gives you an idea of how rare an occurrence this is: it wasn’t put to use at my table in over 20 game sessions.

   It is a level 1 fighter trying to smite Demogorgon. Literally.

   In 5e, rolling a 20 doesn’t entail anything special besides giving you your highest possible To Hit score. If all your bonuses amount to +8, then you can hit Armor Class 28, and that is quite impressive, since Demogorgon in 5e has an AC of 22.

   Chris Perkins still uses the expression whenever he rolls a 20, but it is just an old habit and nothing more. 5e Dungeon Masters never ask players to roll natural 20s – it is simply not part of the game mechanics anymore.

   In 2018, my players were fighting a giant troll in a giant swamp. The ranger rolled a 20 on his To Hit and instinctively yelled, “Natural 20!”

   He remembered that those words had some special meaning; but in this case, it wasn’t relevant, since the ranger needed 17 to hit the troll. Anyway, all the other players latched onto that like it was the Second Coming of Christ or something. Now they say “natural” ALL the time.

   Player: “Natural 11.”

   Me: “But what’s your total – with bonuses?”

   Player: “Natural 15.”

   Me: “There you go. It’s a hit!”

*

   I only ran Empire of the Petal Throne once, and it was a rather short campaign. The City Half As Old As The World proved deadlier than Lankhmar, and the party never even made it out of the Underworld. Plus, the guys (it was an all-boys school) were obsessed with Middle-earth, and few were interested in Tékumel. So Greyhawk was a good compromise, with all the usual Middle-earthy kingdoms, and some nice, exotic realms to the south and west. Ekbir, Zeif, Tusmit and Ull certainly had some EPT undertones – and you could still get your hands on puzzling technology à la Tékumel if you ventured to that mountain range called the Barrier Peaks, or to the “City of the Gods.” But I digress.

   At school, in the days of the D&D club, I introduced my players to the mechanics of Empire of the Petal Throne. In that game, an attack dealt double damage whenever you rolled a 20. Plus, you could get an instakill if you were lucky enough to roll a second consecutive natural 20 or a 19.

   So, you had one table playing regular D&D, and another table playing EPT. Once in a while, someone at the EPT table screamed, “20! Double Damage!”

   Some of the players sitting at the other table naturally assumed that double-damage-on-a-nat-20 also applied to D&D, but it didn’t. I saw several DMs hopelessly scour their books to find the elusive rule – to no avail.

   Here’s what Professor M. A. R. Barker wrote in his 1975 Empire of the Petal Throne:

   “A 9^th Level warrior who hits a 1^st Level opponent (i.e. an opponent with one hit die) does FOUR 6-sided dice of damage – almost certainly killing him! This becomes important, of course, in melee conditions where one advanced-level person fights more than one low-level opponent. [...]

   If a player hits with a 20-sided die score of 20, he does DOUBLE hit dice damage.”

   That’s how it happened for me, in ’84. And it must have happened to countless other gaming groups all over the world. Even today, players I didn’t know back then can roll natural 20s and shriek, “Double Damage!”

   Most of the time they have never heard of Empire of the Petal Throne.

   The double damage feature is the one thing most AD&D players know about EPT, without knowing that it comes from EPT.

   Dungeon Masters are welcome to use it, though. If you want to implement that rule in your campaign, why not?

   Personally, I prefer the “full damage” rule. Indeed, what’s the use of dealing double damage if you roll poorly on your damage dice and do just 10 points? You’ll never deal just 10 damage with the full damage rule, unless you play a magic-user with a non-magical dagger.

   This concludes our little piece about the origins of the natural 20, as well as another year of blogging.

   Adios, 2020.

40Kriegsspiele

   In ’87 or ’88, one of my AD&D players told me, “There is a new game with no role-play, only miniatures, and the entire table is a battlefield!”

   I was curious.

   Of course, there really wasn’t anything “new” about miniatures wargaming. They’ve been around since the early 1800s under the common name Kriegsspiele.

   From the get-go, I knew it would be an expensive hobby. The price tag for a standard army today is around $600. With magnetization, add another Benjamin or two for those tiny magnets and a half-decent drill. And that cost may have been higher in the eighties, because the figures were all metal. I couldn’t afford any of it.

   The setting didn’t appeal to me all that much, either. Empires and eagles and ginormous plasma guns. It was just too aggressive. I remember walking into the local game store one day and coming face-to-face with this issue of White Dwarf:

   I was rattled. What with all the live, obnoxious skinheads that prowled our streets in friggin’ 1989. Games Workshop didn’t see any problem whatsoever with putting up that kind of artwork on the cover of their magazine? Really?

   Many people have discussed Warhammer’s problematic imagery over the years, and I won’t get into that here. I just want to address the seriousness of it all. For me at least, it all boils down to one simple thing: do I wish I’d be right there in that room with those guys? If the answer is no, well, I won’t play that game.

   I remember seeing pictures of a 40K convention in Greece. It was a huge room full of bald guys dressed in black, with tattoos. I did not want to be there. I don’t have the required clothes, anyway. Wearing all black all the time, for fear of passing for – what? Not serious enough? A noob? Are we still this insecure?

   When I catch an episode of Acquisitions Incorporated, I always want to be sitting at that table with that bunch of lunatics. Every. Single. Time. That’s it. That’s the magic recipe.

   The seriousness I’m talking about stems from competing. 40K ain’t casual: there is a winner, and there is a loser. Even Magic: The Gathering isn’t casual, because there’s a winner. D&D can be taken very seriously, too; but it is – mostly – casual. There are no winners or losers in role-playing games. It makes a big difference.

   I’ll buy one Space Marine and put it in my D&D campaign. He’ll be stranded there in the world of Greyhawk. His powered armor ran out of energy months ago, but he keeps wearing it. And he had to learn how to use a crossbow. It’ll be funny. Especially when he crosses paths with a cowboy from Boot Hill and a Chaotic Good, “Drizztian” renegade Mind Flayer!

*

   Obviously, avid gamers are gonna get curious from time to time – about other styles of play, alternative mechanics, different settings, and so forth. A year ago, Sly Flourish was pondering “lightweight” game mechanics based “on 2d6.” Well, that is Dave Arneson’s original Blackmoor – the First Fantasy Campaign. They didn’t have funny dice back in 1971, so everything was rolled on 2d6. A 12 was a crit, and a 2 was a fumble. Every once in a while, curious gamers feel the need to return to that. Back to their roots. Curiosity is a good thing. It’s a sign of intelligence.

   Every once in a while, some tabletop gamers, not all of them, but some of them, will want to go back to the basics that is miniatures wargaming. It’s okay. Just know that 40K isn’t the only option.

   Why not go rogue and create your own system? One of my friends did it a few years ago, and I actually blogged about it on here. If you want to read that post, go to the Archives and click on 2015-11-25. Basically, he printed a (very) large color map of a besieged city in his campaign world, created cardstock counters and tokens, and then our regular characters each had to lead a squad of militia and battle the invaders block by block, sometimes house by house. With a DM, the whole thing is less competitive, and much more enjoyable. I recommend it.

   If and when I decide to do something similar, I’m gonna go full H. G. Wells and download Little Wars. Imagine the thrill of playing with wargaming rules that were written in 1913!

   We’re gonna push lead around a table the old-fashioned way.

*

   Saying that “Warhammer is for everyone” is like saying that model trains are for everyone – and, evidently, they are not. Those miniature railroad sets are costly, and it’s a time-consuming hobby. Sure, Games Workshop has hired a media relations manager, and they have to say that. And then, of course, 40K YouTubers will disagree for all the wrong reasons, simply because they don’t want change. It’s the battles you choose to pick that ultimately reveal your true colors.

   Here’s a bit of sage advice that is found in AD&D’s Battlesystem (1985).

“Because of the profusion of strange monsters, magic spells, and magical items in both the AD&D and D&D games (and the likelihood of much more to come!), and because of the different playing styles that each player can adopt, it is inappropriate of us to tell you what is the only ‘correct’ way to play.

However, we can tell you that the use of common sense will greatly improve your enjoyment. [...] Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from putting together an arbitrary and silly battle for an evening’s pleasure.”

   I think that it validates my whole point, which is: go ahead and play any kind of miniatures wargame, any way you want to play it.

   Teenagers living in war-torn countries can still whip up a game of D&D once in a while, theater of the mind; but they certainly can’t build an entire village with a miniature railroad looping through it. Some hobbies are “for everyone,” and some are for restricted segments of the population. It’s just the way it is. Soccer: accessible. Golf: privileged.

   Kids in Africa desperately want to play soccer, even though they can’t afford a ball, and sometimes, not even shoes. Still, they find something round, locate an area which is relatively flat, and play soccer barefoot. The goaaaaaal here is to play the game, right? Why nobody plays MTG with photocopied cards is beyond me. Maybe the collecting really is more important than the playing itself.

   In D&D, if you want an evening of over the top powergaming, it’s easy enough to set up. Roll a couple level 25 characters, equip them with ultra-powerful magic items, print out Orcus’ stat block and a few hundred zombies, draw a battle map – and go for it.

   In MTG, you can’t.

   In 40K, you can’t.

   You’re a kid in Africa who wants to play soccer, but it’s impossible. “Let’s put together a ridiculous battle just for tonight: my Space Wolves against a humongous, 6,000-point Necron army! Let’s see how fast my guys are wiped out!”

   But you can’t do it. Your pal Josh only owns a standard Necron army. You would have to find two other guys with similar armies who are willing and able to partake in such madness.

   It’s terrible when games are restrictive like that. Video games, I get it. Tournament games, I understand. But when you’re at home with your friends, what gives? I paid good money for this game; can I please fight Orcus tonight?

   Warhammer, The 9^th Age, Frostgrave and other miniatures games are somewhere between D&D and model trains. You can’t just whip up a game for someone’s birthday, and yet it requires less hardware than model trains. It’s not for everyone – but more people can access this hobby than the model train thing. The makers of The 9^th Age actually insist that you play with any kind of gaming aid: paper standees, Lego characters, homemade tokens, anything you want. This is definitely cool.

   The 9^th Age is a game, not a mammoth line of paint / models / terrain. That is the major difference. As I said, just getting started in 40K will set you back $600 at the very least. One 24ml pot of Nuln Oil is $10. Games Workshop makes most of its money with the hardware that goes in and around the game – not the game itself. In that regard, GW may have more in common with Lego than Chaosium.

   “Hardware” and “game” should be independent from one another, but they should be compatible as well, across the board. I’m pretty sure you can somehow take the hobby of model trains and turn it into something gameable. Make two trains run side by side, crisscrossing the entire basement, add some Car Wars rules and weaponry, and fire away. It could very well be the craziest, whackiest, most memorable wargame ever.

   The opposite is also possible. Take an entirely gameable thing like 40K, add a global pandemic, and it reverts to being just the simple hobby of collecting and painting models in your room, all by yourself.

   It is possible to play miniatures without Warhammer, and it should also be possible to play Warhammer without miniatures. And it is. They call it “Paperhammer,” and it’s great.

*

   So, there you have it. Different people are certainly curious about different things in 40K. The setting. The crafting. The collecting. The competing. The community. It’s all good. If you attend or want to attend tournaments, keep at it, the Emperor needs you. If you want to start collecting, go for it, and make sure to check out Corvus Belli’s store. But if you’re just “40Kurious,” then why not go completely off the rails and create your own fucked-up pharaoh motorcycle Barsoom crossover wargame? You know, like Dave Wesely and M. A. R. Barker – and Gygax – used to do on a weekly basis? There are no rules. The gaming fun ain’t tied up with any specific system or brand. It never was.

   Miniatures wargaming is the mother of tabletop role-playing games, and Warhammer 40,000 is just another iteration of it.

A Blessing and a Curse of Strahd

   Anne Rice’s vampire novels were published between 1985 and 1992.

   The role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade hit the shelves in 1991.

   But Ravenloft rocked the AD&D world waaay back in 1983.

   It is safe to place the peak of the vampire craze around ’92. So the Hickmans were almost a decade ahead of the curve. Ravenloft was like an isolated skirmish before the war.

   When I am with my old gaming buddies, if I utter the name “Ravenloft,” the guys will remember the map first and foremost, and talk about that. Indeed, tabletop role-playing games’ first ever isometric map struck the imaginations of millions of AD&D players. The actual adventure – not so much.

   There was a minor debate on Twitter during the pandemic: was it possible to really “fail forward” in a game of D&D? Some said no, it’s impossible. And I thought, what’s wrong with these people? Fact of the matter is, they kept looking at the whole thing on a micro scale. Of course if you roll a 1 your fighter won’t be able to carry that critical miss over to the next two rounds, but that’s not what a fail forward is. Not at all. Forget the dice. A fail forward is on a macro scale. Always.

   I blame the video games mindset for that. If you die in a video game, you respawn at the beginning of the current level – it’s a fail backward, not forward. So, if you can’t fail forward in the [macro] gameplay, what’s a fail forward anyway? It must be on a micro scale then… right?

   I can’t imagine how people are unable to grasp such a basic thing.

   As an adventure module, Ravenloft wasn’t so good. But Tracy and Laura Hickmans redeemed themselves in 1986 with Ravenloft II.

   Simply put, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill is the best fail forward in the history of D&D.

   After dying in Barovia, the PCs awaken in Mordentshire. If they die in Mordentshire, perhaps they awaken again in Barovia. It’s a full-on gothic nightmare: which one is real, and which one is the dream? “Through some freakish warping of the cosmos,” even the Dungeon Master doesn’t know…

   Before there was the Vampire, there was the Alchemist. Count Strahd Von Zarovich was a good man, a sage, no less, but he was deeply obsessed with the dual nature of the mortal soul. Strahd the Alchemist spent years honing his skills and refining his knowledge. Finally, he built a towering machine called the Apparatus.

   This Apparatus embodies the real, literal curse of Strahd.

   With his machine, the good Alchemist attempted to “purify” his own soul, but the arcane contraption ended up generating an evil twin, which is referred to as “the Creature.”

   The Creature is concentrated, grade A, 100% pure evil. It seized the Apparatus and used its power to transpossess random inhabitants of Mordentshire, effectively replacing them with his own evil minions – wraiths, ghasts, gargoyles, et cetera.

   That “transpossessed” gimmick really is at the heart of Ravenloft II. As they explore Mordentshire, the player characters can come across “a rather slow and oafish lad” who is also a wight, or “a charitable, kindly and forgiving woman” who is also a lich! Imagine the role-play here. This is gold.

   Just like in the original Ravenloft, a standard deck of playing cards is necessary to run this adventure. This time around it’s not for a fortune-teller, though. The cards are a way for the DM to determine which townsperson has been transpossessed by which monster.

   Instead of a fortune-teller, Ravenloft II gives you Doctor Germain d’Honaire, head of the Saulbridge Sanitarium, and a gifted mesmerist. The PCs can choose to be hypnotized by the good doctor in order to gain more clues – or perhaps regain lost memories of when they were in Barovia.

   Opinions about Ravenloft II vary wildly. The French gamers call it a pure gem. Tom Zunder loved it, and James Maliszewski, not so much. Some bloggers are still pretty confused about it. The fact that the Alchemist looks like Strahd, bears the exact same name, and has the same title of Count, was not a big enough hint for some people, apparently. They think Ravenloft II is about an alchemist who manages to transfer Strahd into another dimension...

   That Alchemist is Strahd Von Zarovich. Ravenloft II is his origin story.

   The title of this adventure can be misleading. They wanted to capitalize on I6’s fame, and that’s fine. But this module can be played independently, and even if you haven’t played Ravenloft. If you choose to run it this way, and not to toggle between worlds, then it definitely has nothing to do with Castle Ravenloft. And even the titular House on Gryphon Hill isn’t really central to the story: the Apparatus is no longer there, the Alchemist no longer resides there, the Creature isn’t there, Azalin the Lich isn’t there, and there’s only a 66% chance that the all-important Rod of Rastinon is hidden on the premises.

   Even the cover illustration is misleading. The Alchemist Strahd is in love with Lady Virginia, the daughter of Lord Weathermay, but the Creature does not care about her. This was a decision made by the artist

   Everything of importance happens on Lord Weathermay’s vast estate, or in town. The encounters are quite tough – this is indeed for 4-6 characters, levels 8-10. A trapper, a lurker above, a band of 83 orcs, 15 ogres, 60 skeletons, 4 quasi-elemental lightnings, and a squad of 28 ghasts, just to name a few. There’s even an angry mob of villagers. Don’t kill Silas Archer, the butcher, and his wife, Violet, simply because they’re “a Mummy and a Groaning Spirit!” How do you intend to explain that to an angry mob, especially since you know that more transpossessed minions are in that mob, and possibly steering it?

   Back in 1986 when I ran Ravenloft II, I remember casting Azalin the Lich in the role of mentor to the Creature. The Strahd of Mordentshire isn’t really a vampire in the classical sense. He wasn’t “turned” by another vampire. He was mechanically, alchemically expunged from the mortal body of Strahd the Alchemist. So the Creature is a newborn – only about one month old at the time of the adventure. I had seen Return of the Jedi five times just three years before, and I couldn’t help but perceive Azalin as Palpatine, and the Creature as Darth Vader. And it worked pretty well. We had fun.

   Depending on your DMing skills, the adventure’s climax can be truly epic, or a huge clusterfuck of who’s who and what’s what. An out of control Apparatus transpossesses everyone at the same time, quasi-elemental lightnings flit and dance about the machine, Hellhounds and Shadow Mastiffs run wild, the player characters have to face evil, foul versions of themselves, and obviously “the vampire form (actually the Alchemist) springs towards the good Strahd (actually the Creature).”

   Running such a scene can be a handful.

   But don’t worry if it’s headed straight for a TPK. You can fail forward yet again and have the party awaken in Barovia, Chult, Khorvaire, Ravnica, Livyánu, or somewhere else entirely. After all, this is D&D. Sky (i.e., the Material Plane) is the limit.

   “It seemed so real! The great towers of some place called Ravenloft… the misty vales and the terrible tragedy of a man who had sold his soul to unlife. Too much to drink? Och, last night! Perhaps the mutton was not quite done.”