A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - A is for Adventurer Magazine

As some of you are aware I am based in the UK and I've blogged before about how the roleplaying scene differs in Blighty to that across the pond (and probably that over in the Eurozone to boot).  Here's an attempt to pick out some of the highlights of what it was like to be a roleplayer back in the dark days of Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s (cue the V for Vendetta trailer)...

A is for Adventurer (Superior Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

Adventurer was the first of the "independent" roleplaying magazines that made it out of specialist stores (in the US read FLGs) and into the High Street newsagents like John Menzies and W H Smiths.  Published by the liverpool based Mersey Leisure Publications, it  ran for a total of 11 issues between April 1986 and July 1987 and appeared in the wake of TSR UK's IMAGINE magazine which had closed the previous year.

It was put together by a small team on a small budget and the quality of the interior artwork sometimes suffered as a result, but that was always made up for by the glossy full-colour front covers.

The first issue featured:

• The Black Tower (John S Davies) - A Rolemaster/AD&D scenario in two parts (Issue 2 containing the second part)
  
  
• White Fire (Uncredited) - A Call of Cthulhu scenario featuring an amazingly detailed cut-a-way illustration of the mansion which was the main location.
  
  
• How to become a Method Role-player (Steve Rawlinson) - An article discussing approaches to method acting in RPGs.
  
  
• Gumshoe (Peter England) - A preview of the detective RPG of the same name set in the "gangster-ridden" streets of 1930's Chicago.  I've never played Gumshoe, but it was released by Sleuth Publications who were also responsible for the bookcase boardgame Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective which is well worth picking up if you can get it as it is the closest you'll ever come to a Boardgame / RPG crossover.
  
  
• A review of the First British Play By Mail (PBM) Convention - The concept of PBM (ie: posting off your turn every week (including the small fee) to the GM for them to send you back a letter telling you how it went)  seems so quaint looking back from this high-speed broadband always on mobile internet world that we live in, but it was the great granddaddy of the MMORPG, just done via snail mail.
  
  
• Psychology in Games (Stephen Dillon) - A Roleplaying Theory article explaining the basic concepts of Psychology (ie: Motivation and Personality) and how they manifests themselves during play in PC and NPC interaction.  Padding anyone?
  
  
• Blood Loss (Paul Evans) - An article which offers an alternative way to describe damage to characters (particularly those high level characters with 50+ HP).  Death by a thousand cuts anyone?

Regular Columns were also present in the shape of:

• Figures Front (Martyn Tetlow and Will Hannah) - doing a reasonable job at reviewing new miniatures and featuring a page of full colour painted miniatures although the photography and printing were pretty grim by todays standards.

• Live By The Sword - The defacto "letters page" including a letter requesting submission guidelines from Marcus L Rowland who was a contributor to White Dwarf and has since gone on to create supplements for GDW's Space 1889, Call of Cthulhu and his own RPGs Diana Warrior Princess, Flatland and Forgotten Futures.
  
  
• Shop Window - Reviews of new RPG releases including; A View to a Kill (007 RPG), Gods of Glorantha (Runequest), Send in the Clones (Paranoia), Alone against the Wendigo (CoC), Fluffy Quest (Generic Fantasy scenario), Super-Power the boardgame (Games Workshop) and Time & Time Again (A Timetravel RPG)
  
  
• Town Crier - A news section discussing products in development and new releases.
  
  
• Once Bitten  - A regular comic strip with artwork clearly inspired by the work of underground comic artist Robert Crumb.

The Adventurer Team:

Editor: Stephen "Ste" Dillon - Is this the same Steve Dillon who has since gone on to be a celebrated comicbook writer? you decide (see inset pics).   

Miniatures Reviews - Martyn Tetlow and Miniature Painting Tips - Will Hannah.  

Artists: Robin Parry (who created the cover for issue 1) and George Jones.

When I could get hold of a copy I would pour through it avidly as it had a certain homebrew appeal and was pitched at a slightly maturer reader. 

This was at a time when the other dominant force in the UK RPG (Games Workshop's White Dwarf) was still publishing RPG material for CoC, Golden Heroes and my favourite Judge Dredd and it had yet to morph into the Warhammer brochure that it is today. 

I've since discovered that they're all available online via mediafire, if anyone else would like a slice of RPG nostalgia along with their cup of tea.

My Collection Includes:

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Scenario Writing: Non-Linear Plots and Node-Based Design

A fine post from Justin (The Alexandrian) about Advanced Node-Based Design with respect to scenarios made me realise that I'd been been doing this for years without realising that there was a formal theory surrounding it.  In an earlier article I described some of the techniques I've used to write linear plots, which can also be described in this node-based design approach like this:

Although the example is deliberately simple it demonstrates how taking this approach can and does prepare you for almost any eventuality and may even reap rewards in the design stage by focusing your writing (in a similar way to a mind map) and offer other plot possibilities that you hadn't thought of initially.  Why does the patron want the artifact? Can it be used to control the Evil?  Was the patron behind the event which threatened the PCs life?

However, this node-based design approach works best with non-linear adventures, particularly those where investigation is required and the DM has left clues which send the PCs off in one direction or the other as in this example:

Again the deliberately simple diagram above only details Two Clues per node and I cannot reccomend enough the importance of following The Three Clue Rule lest your scenario grind to a halt in a choke point.  However, as you can see, the PCs may take any route through the scenario they choose and you will have already done the hard work of designing each node in advance and be prepared for most eventualities.

As Justin quite rightly points out these do not have to necessarily be clues, they can be events, objects or rumours which PUSH players into moving to the the next node or equally their desires can PULL them in a particular direction.  It's quite fun to watch your players sweat over equally enticing possibilities or for them to choose what they think is the easy option only for it to turn nasty.

Passing on the Torch

One of the joys of parenthood is passing on your bad habits to your kids and I have been hopeing that I can pass on my love of Sci-Fi and Fantasy literature to my 12 year old step daughter.  This has been a struggle (personally, I blame Jacqueline Wilson novels) but my heart skipped a beat when she brought home her Key Stage 3 reading list from school.  Here are some of the titles:

The Hobbit

Plague 99

The Mortal Engines

The Wind Singer

The Crysalids

The Hunger Games

Classic 20th Century Fiction:

• The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien) - Despite her reticence to read my dogeared and yellowed 1973 copy which was handed down from Father to Son many moons ago (the book is one year younger than I am).  By the time you read this we will be over half way through and I think she's secretly enjoying it (but trying not to show it).  Of course I couldn't help myself but to put on a good Andy Serkis voice whilst reading the part of Gollum.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Plague 99 (Jean Ure) - I know absolutely nothing about this book and am quite worried that other books by her have titles like "Girlfriends: Pink Knicker's aren't Cool" or "Frankie Foster Freaks Out!"
  
  
• The Mortal Engines Quartet (Phillip Reeve) - I've been waiting for a good excuse to read these.  I've been lusting after the Dystopian Wars miniatures from Spartan Games which appear to be inspired by them.
  
  
• The Windsinger (William Nicholson) - From what I can glean from the internet this looks like a run of the mill fantasy trilogy.  We may have to pass on this as I'd really like to get her opinion on Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy.
  
  
• The Chrysalids (John Wyndham) - Can't wait to read this with her.  She really enjoyed the BBC2 version of The Day of the Triffids.
   
  
• Harry Potter (Series) - J K Rowling - She's expressed a strong dislike of Mr Potter, so we're going to have to skip these (which I'm rather glad about as I think they're purile derivative nonsense as well).
  
  
• The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) - I know nothing aboout this book other than that it is being made into a movie slated for a 2012 release starring Jennifer Lawrence (who played Mystique in X-Men First Class).  It's IMDB summary is "A young girl volunteers to take her sister's place in a fight to the death in a dystopian future" so sounds promising then.
  
  
• I am Number Four (Pittacus Lore) - We really enjoyed the movie and I suspect that the book is a lot better.

Oh and the rest of the books on the list are:

Pre 20th Century Fiction

• What Katy Did (Susan Coolidge)
• Heidi (Johanna Spyri) - I used to love watching this on TV as a kid.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Caroll)
• Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)
• Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
• Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)

Classic 20th Century Fiction

• Lord of the Flies (William Golding) - This is a must read.
• Ballet Shoes (Noel Streatfield)
• The Secret Garden (Frances Hodges Burnett)
• Peter Pan (JM Barrie)
• Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery)
• The Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
• The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis)
• The Railway Children (E Nesbit)

Modern Fiction

• A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)
• Girl Missing (Sophie Mckenzie)
• The Princess Diaries (Meg Cabot) - Got to read this.
• Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman)
• Refugee Boy (Benjamin Zephaniah)
• Step by Wicked Step (Anne FIne)
• Saffy's Angel (Hilary McKay)
• Lola Rose (Jacqueline Wilson)
• Feeling Sorry for Celia (Jacyln Moriarty)
• The Exiles (Hilary McKay)

Biography/Autobiography

• Diary of Anne Frank (Anne Frank)
• When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr)
• Chinese Cindarella (Adeline Yen Mah)
• My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell)
• All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot)

Hard at work in The Lands of Dual, Super Random Saturday

Unfortunately work on my campaign world has kept me very busy in the limited free time I have, but I thought I could share what I've been upto.

Castles and Crusades Class Based NPC Generator

As some of you may know I'm using Castles and Crusades for the rules sytem in The Lands of Dual, and I've been winging it with class based NPCs for a while and thought it high time that I created a generator which could knock out stat blocks in HTML.  My programming skills are pretty limited so I usually turn to Excel for this sort of thing.

So far my Stat block looks like this:

NPC #1 (Level 7 HALFLING Paladin) STR (12), DEX (9), CON (12), INT (8), WIS (11), CHA (15) with Hit Points (44), wearing NONE Armour (AC:10). INIT (0) MELEE (6) MISSILE (6)WEAPONS: Hvy Crossbow (1d10), Sickle (1d4)

and the HTML output (which Blogger appears not to like! )

The generator can create upto 10 class based NPCs and I've configured it to give a choice of:

• LEVEL - User can input individual levels for each NPC, Have all the NPCs one specific level, or randomly generate either LOW (Lvls 1-5), MED (Lvls 6-10), HIGH (Lvls 11-15) or HEROIC (Lvls 16-20)
  
  
• RACE - User can either select one race (from the standard PC races) for all 10 NPCs or randomly generate each NPCs race.  This enables the generation of mixed race NPC parties or gangs.
  
  
• CLASS - User can either select one class (from the standard PC classes) for all 10 NPCs or randomly generate each NPCs class.  This enables the generation of mixed class NPC parties.
  
  
• ATTRIBUTES - User can choose to generate the 6 standard stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) either totally randomly or LOW (values between 1-12), HIGH (values between 9-18) or along class lines where NPCs get one PRIMARY (values between 13-18), two SECONDARY (values between 9-15) and three NORMAL (values between 6-12) attributes.
  
  
• ARMOUR - User can choose to randomly generate armour (or not) either Randomly, Random + Shield or give all the NPCs the same armour.
  
  
• WEAPON - User can randomly generate each NPCs weapons from a subset of Melee and Missile weapons. 

Now I can generate my bands of brigands or companies of knights pretty quickly and also automatically create their stat blocks in either plain text or HTML ready for printing or for inclusion into the the campaign website.  Please remember that this is v1.0 so is probably buggy :)

Download Link

• Random NPC Generator (172K) XSLX Format

Magic Item: The Bar of Expectation

This curious item is a 1/2" square section ebony rod 8 inches in length.  It is tipped at one end with a gold cap and at the other with a platinum cap (the business end).  The rod holds upto 20 (2d10) charges and can be used once per round, a charge is spent each time the rod is used.

Using the rod enables the weilder to anticipate the actions of another.  However, the item is a fickle one and only it decides the outcome.

During combat the weilder points at a target and utters the command word (DM decides what the command word is), and the DM then flips a coin secretly.  If the result is HEADS the target always acts after the weilder and the weilder gets a free dodge or parry attempt whenever their opponent attacks.  If the result is TAILS then the opponent always acts first.

The rod can also be used out of combat at the DM's discretion, although it's effects have a time limit of 5 minutes.  Some example uses would be:

• Assisting the weilder in winning games of skill or choice.  Predicting the outcome of a fight or 
• Any form of prediction based on an opponents actions, thoughts and deeds.  Predicting the outcome of negotiation or haggling.
• Assisting in following a target. the weilder always knows which route the target will take

Again the DM tosses a coin secretly and if the result is HEADS, the use will be positive for the weilder or TAILS will be positive for the target.

It cannot be used to predict random events such as the drawing of a random card from a deck or the throw of a dice, nor can it's weilder use it on him or herself.