D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 29

Day 29: What number you always seem to roll on d20?

Natural one. Seriously. I have a lack for rolling ones.

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Days 23-28

     So, my computer was broken for almost a week (and there's not much hope it'll keep working for long), but I wanted to catch up on this:

Day 23: Least Favorite Monster Overall

In earlier editions, this would have been easy. Once upon a time I would have said "vampire" . . . in 1st edition, if it even hit you, it drained 2 levels. You would go into an encounter at a high enough level to defeat the vampire, theoretically, and after a couple of rounds, you would be a low enough level and know you were doomed. Nowadays, I don't have a least favorite.


Day 24: Favorite Energy Type

Kill it with fire!


Day 25: Favorite Magic Item

I used to really love some of the staves - like the Staff of the Magi or Staff of Power. Those were cool!


Day 26: Favorite Nonmagic Item

Ummmm . . . rope?


Day 27: A Character You Want To Play In The Future

A specific character or a type? Hmm. I wanna play a warlock! Warlocks seem cool!


Day 28: A Character You Will Never Play Again

A specific character or a type? Hmm. I never say never.

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 22

Day 22: Favorite Monster Overall

It probably doesn't show in my current campaigns, but the Lich is probably my favorite monster overall. Extremely powerful, great "master villains" who can send minions after the PCs, difficult to kill (you can destroy them, but unless you get the phylactery, they'll be back!), extremely customizable (as collectors of magic items and spells, Liches could reasonably have any powers the DM wants, whether from items or spells) . . . I haven't had a party directly encounter a Lich in years, but there are some lurking in the background of current campaigns . . .

Not at all the intent of the question, but the most common "monster" in my campaigns are humans and demihumans! Human beings are their own worst enemies, much of the time! And when the villain is a powerful and high-ranking member of the same society as the PCs, they can't simply rush in with swords swinging and spells blazing like they can with a dragon or lich or what have you. They need to win social victories!

Countdown Reminder! 

My novel, The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper, is still on Kindle Countdown Sale until Sunday! Right now it is just $1.99! Get it now, before the sale ends!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 21

Day 21: Favorite Dragon Color/Type

Call me a traditionalist, but I still love the classic red fire-breathing dragon!

Kindle Countdown Update!

     My novel The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper is still on Kindle Countdown Sale until Sunday! Right now you can get it for just $1.99!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 20

Day 20: Favorite Monster (Humanoid/Natural/Fey)

That's a pretty big category! Probably Dryads. I don't know why. Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of tree-spirits, the animistic notion that everything that exists has its own minor god or spirit, including trees. And I grew up in forests. So . . . yeah. Dryads have always been a favorite.

Kindle Countdown Continues!

My fantasy novel, The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper, is on Kindle Countdown Sale. As I write this, it is still just $0.99, but in a few hours it goes up to $1.99! Get it while it's cheap! Epic Norse swords-and-sorcery fantasy with vikings, shieldmaidens, runecasters, and dragons! Happy Reading! Skál!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 19

Day 19: Favorite Monster (Elemental/Plant)

I can't have a favorite elemental, unless it is a category thereof - the Princes of Elemental Evil! First introduced in the original Fiend Folio, I loved that there were these bizarre evil elemental rulers, all of whom had strange names and appeared to have backstories about which the authors were only revealing the slightest hints  . . . I was a little bemused and oddly pleased that one of the first adventures for 5th edition D&D was Princes of the Apocalypse, which focused on these largely-forgotten favorites of mine. Heh. I'm a D&D hipster, now - I liked the Princes of Elemental Evil before it was cool!

But I don't know if you can count a category, and I don't have a favorite elemental monster otherwise. OK, then, plants? I guess the treant. Because ents, that's why!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 18

Day 18: Favorite Monster (Immortal/Outsider)

How to pick just one? I love Outsiders! Favorite? Maybe . . . maybe the Pit Fiends . . . Incredibly powerful, destructive, dangerous . . . and given that they are Lawful Evil, more capable of planning than their Chaotic Evil counterparts, the Balors . . . Pit Fiends are great Outsider master villains!

Kindle Countdown Sale

While I'm posting this, let me also mention that my Norse fantasy novel, The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper: A Midhgardhur Fantasy, is on Kindle Countdown Sale! Until Wednesday you can get it for just $0.99!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 17

Day 17: Favorite Monster (Animal/Vermin)

Dire wolves, man!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 16

Day 16: Favorite Monster (Aberration) 

This one is a toss-up between two favorites (both of which remain intellectual property of D&D and do not legally appear in any variants or retroclones) - the Beholder and the Mind Flayer!

      Here is the art from the AD&D (1st edition) Monster Manual for the Beholder. Awesome, right? And every one of those eyes has a different magical power! They kick ass!

     This is a depiction of a mind flayer at work devouring brains from the back cover of the classic AD&D (1st edition) module, Descent Into The Depths of the Earth. Mind Flayers are psionic (psychic) and they bore into your skull and eat your brains. How cool is that?

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 15

Day 15: Favorite Monster (Undead)

OK, sorry I'm a day late with this, but I spent the day sick in bed yesterday and didn't even get up to post online. Anyway, this one is easy! My favorite undead is the Lich! Ever since I first read about them (in the Mentzer Black Box D&D "Master" set!), I've thought the Lich is the best undead monster ever! I over-used them a lot in my early days of running D&D because I loved the idea of them so much, but now they tend to be master villains for campaign climaxes - trying to give them the respect they deserve!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 14

Day 14: Favorite NPC

So many over the last 31 years, how am I supposed to choose just one? But currently? Hakon Finehair the Skald!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 13

Day 13: Favorite Trap/Puzzle

     I've never been a big fan of puzzles in D&D. They just don't seem fair. Whether or not the PCs progress can depend upon whether or not they solve some silly riddle or puzzle, which really depends on whether or not the players can solves riddles and puzzles - the character may have an Intelligence of 18 with the Nonweapon Proficiency/Proficiency/Skill/whatever of "Puzzles and Riddles", yet they won't get there unless the player does. Which they may or may not. It sucks. Simple problem-solving is fine; for some people, that  may be the appeal of an RPG. But riddles and such? Nope! They can be fine as plot devices, I guess, as long as a character solving it all isn't the sole key to all progress.

     That having been said, who doesn't love traps? The difference? Well, those depend on the player to remember to look for them (that's just part of the game!), but whether or not they are found and/or deactivated depends on the in-game skills of the character. Much the same as whether the fighter hits, the cleric turns the unholy, or the wizard's spell penetrates the resistance of the enemy. That's how the game works!

     So what's my favorite trap? I don't know that I have one. I'm a fan of the classics - pit traps, spiked pit traps, arrow traps, poisoned arrow traps, scything blades, etc. Biologically augmented traps are cool, too - the pit trap that dumps you in slime or a gelatinous cube, the mimic, and so forth. But I would be hard-pressed to name a favorite!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 12

Day 12: Favorite Dungeon Type/Location
   
     I've never been a fan of "gonzo" dungeon locations for their own sake (on a spaceship! inside a monster's belly! on a city in the clouds! on the back of a giant turtle swimming in the ocean! on a series of giant spider webs! etc.). Nope. I favor traditional ruins/underground dungeons, including so-called megadungeons (like many Gamers, I had early experiences linked to Castle Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and then there was Undermountain in two boxed sets . . .). Descent into the  Depths of the Earth (with the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa) was a classic!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 11

Day 11: Favorite Adventure You Have Run

     Well, this is tough. Pure D&D? Modules or just in general?
     Assuming D&D modules are meant: probably the classic I6 Ravenloft. They don't get much better written than that!

     If we're talking about stuff I wrote, I can't pick a favorite. I had a great story called "Mad Dreams In The Witch House" that was for AD&D 2nd edition. I loved a bunch of bounty-hunting stories I did for AD&D 2nd edition. I had a great campaign for 3rd edition/D&D 3.5 called the "Swashbucklers (Inc.) Campaign" that was incredible. I once saw a half-ogre named Everett the Downtrodden decapitate a foe . . . with a hammer. Great stuff.

     Moving beyond pure D&D to encompass Pathfinder and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG: I write all my own stuff for Pathfinder. I'd be hard-pressed to name a favorite, but a long overland journey to Argyropolis (the equivalent of Vikings traveling from Sweden through Russia to Constantinople) was great! For DCC RPG I have so far only run modules, and I think the best so far has been DCC#81 The One Who Watches From Below!

 

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 10

Day 10: Craziest Thing That's Happened That You Saw

Sticking strictly to D&D, I think it would have to be a massive battle with the PCs leading a small army against an army of evil NPCs led by demons. One PC, named Vic, has a sword called "Demonslayer" that lived up to its name. Anyway, Vic is a high level fighter with the berserker kit (AD&D 2nd edition rules). Vic charges and makes multiple attacks on demons just as I finished setting up minis. He crits several times. he simply hands me back the minis and says, "Here, you can have these back . . ."

If you want "craziest thing that's happened" in a fantasy RPG expanding beyond D&D, you have to check out the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. It is MADE for crazy stuff. Playing a module in which the PCs must flee from a collapsing dungeon at the end, a wizard used several buffs to cast a super-maximized force manipulation spell to make a giant globular force field around the party. They ran out of the collapsing dungeon like they were in a hamster ball - the whole thing tearing apart all around them, but they were safe in their bubble of force. That was fun and amazing . . .

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 9

Day 9: Favorite Character Tiy Haven't Played

      I wanted to make this badass warlock character (3.5 or 5th edition), but I've never yet had the chance . . .

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 8

Day 8: Favorite Character You Have Played

OK, well, I'm usually the GM, not a player, but I had an elf named Ethrindal whom I enjoyed playing several times.

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 7

Day 7: Favorite Edition

     So far, my favorite edition that I've played is 3.5, if we're sticking strictly to D&D. Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed Basic D&D for what it was, and AD&D 1st edition. I played more AD&D 2nd edition than anything else, and have SO many happy memories of that, But D&D 3rd edition was great, and the 3.5 revision made it even better.

     I HATED 4th edition with a passion that would probably surprise you. It wasn't even D&D as I understand the term. I played it a couple of times, and gave up. Ugh. I thought it would make a better board game than RPG. Then, sure enough, I played the Castle Ravenloft board game  based on the 4th edition rules, and that was kind of fun - but that's all 4th edition was. A board game wishing it was an RPG.

     For the record, I have purchased 5th edition, but haven't tried it. It looks as good as 3.5 in its own way, though. I bet I would like it.

     Going beyond D&D to its near relatives, it is a toss-up for favorite between Pathfinder (which I like even more than 3.5) and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (which I think newer gamers would love for its style and simplicity - it has me for those, and for its nostalgia factor as well!).

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 6

Day 6: Favorite Deity

Probably Odin. In my campaign, spelled Odhinn. I've used him in my old AD&D/AD&D 2nd ed./D&D 3rd ed./D&D 3.5 campaign, and in my Pathfinder campaign, and in my novels and stories. I get a lot of use out of him! Expanding beyond D&D though, my Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG campaign has a cleric of Bobugbubliz who is very entertaining . . .

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 5

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 5 - Favorite Set of Dice?
     This one is easy! My favorite dice sets at the moment are from Goodman Games, designed specifically for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (a retroclone - of sorts - of D&D), but they would work well with D&D too! These are called Hugh's Weird Dice and Shanna's Weird Dice:

       Why do I love these dice? Aside from being aesthetically pleasing (especially Shanna's black-and-gold dice!), they have the "weird" dice needed for DCC RPG's "dice chain" mechanic, including d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, and d30. This supplements the "standard" D&D dice of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d%.
     The thing is, Gamers today consider the "standard" D&D set to be . . . well, standard. Gamers today will rarely - if ever - understand the absolute wonder and excitement of using anything other than a d6! In the 70s and 80s, when I was growing up, no one I knew had ever even seen a die that wasn't a d6. I got my D&D Basic Set (the Mentzer "Red Box") and it came with polyhedral dice! Everything in the "standard" set except the d% (to roll percentiles, you rolled the d10 twice). These polyhedral dice were funky. They were weird. Heck, D&D players even had their own lingo (that has since become Gamer "standard" - calling a four-sided die a "d4" and so forth.
     So now Dungeons & Dragons is on its 5th edition, and the standard set by D&D has prevailed - D&D still uses the polyhedral dice. But DCC RPG uses "weird dice" or "funky dice" for its "dice chain" - and it's like opening my Red Box for the first time, all over again! For someone who has been using polyhedral dice for 30 years, it takes a lot to bring back the magical feeling of wonder inspired by those weird dice that were in my Red Box! The DCC dice did!

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (Patricia A. McKillip) - Appendix N and Beyond!

Title: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Author: Patricia A. McKillip
Appendix N Status: Should have been on the list . . .

     A really good story told with a simple and direct style which I envy and to which I aspire. Published in 1974, this could have been on the original Appendix N, but wasn't. I'm not sure if Gygax never read it, didn't like it, or simply didn't consider it formative, but it's exactly the kind of fantasy that was so fundamental for early D&D. The main protagonist is Sybel, descended from a wizard's bloodline, who wields power over minds and wills of others through their names (similar in some ways to the "Earthsea" books of Ursula K. LeGuin). Sybel summons forgotten magical beasts and keeps them at her home on Mount Eld. She gets drawn back into the world of mundane humans because of a more mundane relations of hers.

Fantasy RPG Elements: The powers of Sybel could be those of a Conjurer, an Enchanter, a Druid, a Psionicist/Occult character, or perhaps a Pathfinder Summoner. The unique monsters - the "forgotten beasts" of the title - could all be RPG monsters, maybe unique , maybe not.

     I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes classic fantasy RPGs. Very cool stuff!

D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 4

Day 4 - Favorite Gameworld
      Argh, I'm supposed to be able to choose just one? OK, well, when I was a kid I loved them all. Greyhawk and Blackmoor were tied to the very roots of D&D, so I loved them, and the "Known World" of Mystara in Basic D&D was tied to my initiation into the game, and expanded through Bruce Heard's "Princess Ark" stories in Dragon Magazine. Greenwood's writing made me fall in love with the Forgotten Realms. The Dragonlance fiction sucked me in, although there was something I always found a little uncomfortable about it. Ravenloft was one of my first and favorite AD&D modules, and when it became its own world, I fell in love. So many worlds . . .
     But these days, my favorite Gameworld - official published on, I mean, not one I created - is Áereth, the Gameworld created by Goodman Games for the Dungeon Crawl Classics series of modules for D&D 3rd, 3.5, and 4th edition. It combines so much of what I loved about Mystara, Greyhawk, and the Forgotten Realms. Great stuff. It's also the default setting for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, which has evolved from D&D.

D&D 30-Day Challenge, Days 1-3

I intended to start this on April 1st, and circumstances conspired to prevent it. For religious reasons, I could not begin on April 2nd (a dies ater). So here we are . . . the D&D 30 Day Challenge, days 1-3:

Day 1 - How you got started
     I don't remember exactly how I got interested. But once I did, I was hooked. I really got started with the Frank Mentzer "Red Box" Basic set, with the Larry Elmore cover. Classic:

     From there, I quickly got into Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st edition):

     This was the cover of my first DMG! Anyway, from there, I got into all kinds of RPGs. Always loved D&D, though. I was an early adopter of 2nd edition. Thought I would hate 3rd edition but loved it (and 3.5, and Pathfinder). Thought I would love 4th edition but hated it. And while I like the look of 5th edition, I have not yet tried it. The Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG has recently brought back all the mystery and wonder I felt when I first opened my Mentzer Red Box. 

Day 2 - Favorite Playable Race

     I don't really have one anymore, but I have always loved elves (I was half an elf myself, growing up, spending as much time wandering alone in the forests of New England and dreaming of immortality and magic). I've recently really begun to appreciate under-rated races like gnomes and halflings. 

Day 3 - Favorite Playable Class

     I always loved playing the magic-user, mage, wizard, whatever it was called. I like the idea of sorcerers and how they evolved from the classic wizard class. In the more recent editions, I love the idea of the warlock class, but have never played one (yet!).