Is the Cleric spell Protection from Evil too powerful?

This question, one of many from Mark, regular gamer and commentator on all things Vanishing Tower (VTP), is definitely an issue I put in the undecided box. And is a spell, much like Read Magic, which I struggle with cap-stoning with a definite and unequivocal opinion. The tendency for myself and players is towards specificity. The nebulous definition of “Evil” in a variety of fantasy relevant context is rendered more apprehensible with hard walls. Hard and fast definitions. “Elves are good, Orcs are evil.” Black is back and white is just alright with me, just alriiiight, oh yeaaah. 

But my game world, my fantasy campaigns tend to begin with the question, or nature, of evil relatively unanswered. Outside of societal norms defining moral and its opposite, evil, the nature of a roleplaying game is to have these big questions answered in play. And so is why everyone wants to know the answer to these type of questions before play, or when they come up.

So my answer is the bullshit one, it depends. What is the right call at the moment? Everything in a roleplaying game is case and or context dependent. Some one has to decide what is or isn’t evil in the game world and that job ultimately ends in the DM’s lap. My best efforts have come to a couple of “best practices” I’ve adopted for myself. Have the player define what their god considers good and evil. Accept it and incorporate their ideas into the pantheon developing. And when I say accept it I don’t mean make it all true. Just be super-mindful of it and you can be prepared for when you have something they believe their spell would protect them, and it doesn’t! If they really start to push on it sucking ask them if they have considered their god may not be correct in all things? Maybe their god is fucking with them? Maybe their god lied about this subject? It makes sense to attack, or frame, the PfE spell with less specificity on the front end because it preserves the fascinating feature of emergent play.

A Caller Questions the Conversion Guides; previous post addendum.

One of my players poised a question on the podcast recently on some of the wherefore and why's of my 1e ADnD adventures fascination, specifically what was the genesis behind the DM Guild's 5th edition conversion guides, and perhaps what new found appreciation I may have uncovered. You can listen to the episode here - What is up with the 5e Conversion Guides?

Using 1e ADnD modules in your own game world...

I did not intentionally start the new campaign of Rom’Myr so as to stuff as many 1e AD&D modules as I have into it, but once I reviewed S4 I wanted to try. The Rom’Myr campaign is a homebrewed Dying Earth setting offering the trappings and tropes of an original Vancian city, and the colorful denizens to be found therein. I started with Jack’s own stories of his fabled dying earth. My cardinal rule of source and inspiration of a genre is to reread the original material. By and large a ttrpg setting is devoid of the magic and juice the original creator transfused into their work. Carcosa would be an exception here, but the author and setting writer are one in the same. An organic kernel of fucked-upness which birthed a nation. So, I was quite convinced when reading S4 it was utterly the most Vancian module Gygax wrote. I needed a sharp range of mountains to hem-in the sword and sandle city of Valla’Tair, the campaigns home starting point. S4 is on my shelf so I was eager to make it “work”. The nuanced harmony with Vance’s stories S4 has made hacking the module a simple process. Many, many things of the original module were left intact.

Remember in high school when the DnD adventure recently purchased was going to be the adventure to be played that weekend? That is how I remember it all. The only elements of a traditional DnD campaign would be using the same character for each adventure, giving the character survived the previous one. Rather unsatisfying considering the true potential of the medium. Hence the idea was born, and gauntlet thrown down. I became determined to weave as many classic DnD adventure modules into the campaign as I could! Not in any slap-on, haphazard methods of old, but only when the module “fit”. I was betting the best use of this material was exactly how the authors said to use it; make it your own! Now this does require re-skinning the mod. Changing names, replacing monsters with your own, tossing out material that doesn’t work for you, this will need to be done to slot correctly into your game. But if you have chosen wisely then the work is brisk and intuitive.

Here are the AD&D modules (among many, many other sources) used so far:

S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

T1 Village of Hommlet

X2 Castle Amber

C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess

WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

The early DnD modules, or at least the ones I have used, are masterful tools which willingly support whatever the DM is attempting to build with their players. I subscribe to the notion that other people’s ideas are intrinsic to a successful campaign world (also known as a “living world”). These different (they don’t always need to be good, I learn from bad) ideas and adventures help link my best ideas together. There wasn’t any connection by players of the classic modules they are battling through.  This is because the players were pursuing their goals, their advisories, the consequences of their actions. Enough slight-of-hand achieved so Tsojcanth is the Yonni’Hor mountains and the mysteries lying within. Tomoachan is the lower catacombs and sewers hiding the Cult of Sleep. Castle Amber and Hommlet is the home of the eccentric Ansulex family and their strange studies, werewolves in thrall to the Archbishop are stalking rebels and radicals, and the whimsical Palace of the Silver Prince is lost to the macabre house of the vampiric Knight of Gore. I don’t think I would have thought of a martial order of ghouls if it wasn’t for using B3. That dinner party was the shit!

I know Gygax and others tied their unique creations, eventually, to an official setting. Just like coming up with unique traps and challenges weekly is hard work, having all the answers to the player’s questions is unrealistic. Having some fleshed-out pantheon provided, or collection of kingdoms presented, saves time creating buildings, towns, and secret labs. There is only so much time in the day. But I’ll say you have to have your own unique campaign world to give a good game a chance. You must have horizons you are passionate to reveal. A DM is on the right track world building when prewritten adventures are easily adapted to situations at hand. One, they are good. They are good spaces to move around in, there are ample examples of what threats can be encountered there, major NPCs to make your own supervillains out of. I’ve hung the best, weirdest stuff I can on these old modules and I’ll tell you, it isn’t nothing they haven’t seen or can’t help make better.

Less games but More thoughts (Champions)

 Summer season 2020 is running like most summers since gaming has returned to my weekly schedule, big gaps between games. I get it, me, and everyone else in the gaming group does what summer begs us to do, get outside with friends and family! Vacations! Fuck yeah! Going on one tomorrow. All three of the games I’m involved with are getting hit with month long gaps. So, I got some time for a blog post before the holiday disconnect and I’m going to drivel on about the Champions United campaign. Eight sessions down and the superhero effort is, is, ummm, fun! I haven’t read comics on a regular basis since ’94. I like The Max and Savage Dragon and Marvel and Batman. Pretty standard fare, nothing exotic. I think it was the regular Magic tournaments held at my college comic shop that stopped me from visiting regularly. But like much of the “modern” genre in ttrpg’s I feel I run a rough game of supers. Specifically handling fantastic powers and fast combat procedurally while keeping the emergent relationships forming fresh and forceful.

 My belief rules are for the players and not the DM collide with Champions combat procedure. Injecting unpredictable and additional action during combat dialog is a refereeing technique I favor. Champions thick combat options are getting deliberated during the game sessions. It is almost unavoidable. The more rules in a game the more players will implement them to control the pace of the game, to exert control over their game world. With a DM which wants to push the action with a chaotic fight scene they will constantly have the PCs throwing roadblocks in the form of rules or debating a rule to try and wrest that control back. I want to dialogue and describe some actions the villainous villain is taking and we got to then start counting inches.

It’s a good game. Champions United is running with only two PCs and we have already survived (in style) with an initial PC backing out after three sessions, but the story unfolding is sticky with plot hooks, cool NPCs. The Capitol City Universe of 2020 has interesting things going on all at the hands of interesting heroes. First person, in character interaction is going really well to. Kind of essential in a supers game.

We play bi-weekly and only have a two-hour session. The reason why I get anxious about running an efficient combat encounter with Champions. I want a superhero game session to have investigation, interrogation, and an important combat. Not in any particular order, but as an outline to keep the action moving forward. If these three types of encounters are present the session will have an exciting pace and the settings surprising. The only conclusion so far I have drawn is Champions requires everyone at the table to resolve actions with the simplest application of the rules. Which means instinctively knowing when to follow strict procedure and when to disregard possible “code” exceptions buried in the rules. But this only works with a level of trust the players have to give the DM which I rarely see. How deep do you go with combat modifiers to find out if you need a roll less than 8, 11, 15 to hit? Could players be on board with reducing the amount of combat modifiers they can apply at any one time? Is it more important I have the PC roll the dice to hit fast and only use a big-picture conception of modifiers (I’m thinking like when you have a scale of 1 to 5 and you quickly reduce modifiers to an “appropriate” number). The only other way I can see combat avoiding lengthy rules discussion is everyone is responsible for knowing how their powers work in most situations. Velocity, Move Through damage, how to knock a person prone, these all need to be rote by the player using these abilities. Not so much that everybody is getting every rule right all the time, but everyone is comfortable with the logic of the game mechanics and can quickly decide how the 11 or less to hit should be adjusted.

I’m satisfied I can run Champions. I haven’t found any other supers game which solve these particular challenges in any noticeable way. 11 or less to hit on 3d6 with modifiers is a pretty simple method of adjudication. Contested attribute rolls where highest BOD count wins is fucking simple to. It must just be the eye-glazing effect of all the other considerations you can make which trip up players. At some point isn’t too many combat options unhelpful?

I’m not down on Champions, I’m trying to give an honest appraisal. For players to design their original superhero, for all these different designs being able to work with each other coherently Champions is really, really good. I think I could come to appreciate the DC Heroes resolution and effects charts and live with their character creation process. But I can get a Champions game going and not a DC Heroes game.

Yeah, this is the dynamic I’m working against. There has to be rules for all the powers and their effects. The more rules you have you end up slowing down game pace. Where is the sweet spot? As I search this out through continued play my final conclusion, for now, is to keep flapping my villain’s gums and have them performing extraordinary fucked-up shit. It is one of the ways I have found works to engage the PCs with the characters and not the character sheet.

Here is the list of systems researched and played with. Marvel FASERIP, DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes, Supergame, Icons, Mutant and Masterminds, Villains and Vigilantes, Cowls and Crusaders?, the Hero Instant. They are all different systems so it is a chore to get a comprehensive look on how one game may be an improvement over the other. My yardstick for improvement is a reduction in times I have to turn to the rule book during play. And I haven’t found any of these other games do this. I’ll keep playing Champions because like DnD, if I want to play a game of supers I can play with a system I want and have an empty table or use Champions and have a black and blue campaign world with real, original characters.