d12 and Initiative

So I find myself for the most part creating all my random lists in my RPG writing based on a selection of twelve in order to make use of the d12. I find it strange that twelve seems to be a very common number in our culture and society (especially in pre-metric times and places) and yet the d12 in RPGs is underutilized.

My own observation is that twelve is commonly used by people to understand and quantify the world. It is used to create separations that describe the cosmos and the passage of time. These things occur at a regular interval or are otherwise fixed, standardized or sacred. There really isn't much call to randomize these things in an imagined world.


One area that comes to mind here that I think is being overlooked and makes complete sense to me when considering the paragraph above it that of the combat round. In the games I currently play Castles & Crusades and Pathfinder the combat round is 10 seconds and 6 seconds respectively. In Basic D&D its 10 seconds and in AD&D its 60 seconds (a whole minute)!


I am suggesting that in systems that use a d6 (D&D, AD&D) or d10 roll (C&C) use a d12 instead. In the Castle Keepers Guide it suggests that the use of a d10 is preferred over d6 as each value represents the segment that action occurs in. Looking at it like that I feel that it would make sense to divide the time into twelve segments, like the numbers on a clock or the months of a year. In any case the d12 would have a new lease on life.

JimCon

JimCon was a great time.
Friday evening I played Twilight Imperium from 3:30 until 11:30. It was fun. Sure didn't seem like eight hours.

I ran Dark Journey for Castles & Crusades on Saturday morning and afternoon. I had three players playing a total of four characters. Pretty fun stuff but it was really loud in the main room and a bit hard to talk over all the activity. We didn't finish (only cleared out most of the first level) but I got to run through character generation and show off the system for people who have never played C&C before.
New players picked up the SIEGE Engine mechanic right away.

At 6:30 I played Blood Under Absalom for Pathfinder Society. Super cool multi-table event. My Elf Sorceror character Azdiron really made use of his raven familiar Nebulus to deliver  Shocking Hands touch attacks.

I took sunday off to spend with my girlfriend and family. I was going to play a Mentzer Basic game but by the time I ate breakfast I'd decided that I was on RPG overload. I also wanted to play Dawn Patrol as someone was running it and I'd never played it before.


Also of Interest was the Avalon Hill  Dune board game just sitting around waiting to be played. I'd have been all over that, as I've been wanting to check it out now for several months, but I didn't have the time.

What to Run at JimCon

I will be running a game of Castles & Crusades at JimCon on November 12, 2011. Still deciding what to run. It might be a published adventure, either a classic TSR or recent Troll Lord one, or perhaps one of my own that I'm wanting to try out. The slot starts at 9am but I want to allow for some character generation, to explain the rules a little to those not familiar with the subtleties and to let people come to the table for a while before the game starts at about 10.

DIY and the OSR - A Theory

I was thinking that the era celebrated by the OSR is contemporary to Punk Culture and that both include as part of its composition a DIY ethic.

Punk LBBs?

I was wondering if somehow, consciously or subconsciously, that RPG gamers brought a bit of that with them to the OSR.


"Central to the ethic is the empowerment of individuals and communities, encouraging the employment of alternative approaches when faced with bureaucratic or societal obstacles to achieving their objectives.

Rather than belittling or showing disdain for knowledge or expertise, DIY champions the average individual seeking knowledge and expertise for him/herself. Instead of using the services of others who have expertise, a DIY oriented person would seek out the knowledge for him/herself."

Been Busy With Work - Hang Tight Folks We Have Something Good in the Works

I couldn't help quoting the home page message from the Gygax Games Website. 
Been busy with work so I've been neglecting the blog.

I want to talk about my "Legends of Early Greyhawk" campaign in future post and a few other ideas that I hope I wrote down somewhere because the details have slipped my mind at the moment. 


Started running "Council of Thieves" for my Pathfinder group a couple of weeks ago as scheduling has put a pause if not an end to my Legends campaign.  So looks like its more Council tonight.

In other news I'm taking a bit more of a fascination than usual with the Ongoing Campaign section from the Dungeon Masters Guide. The Six Guns & Sorcery and Mutants & Magic conversions for Boot Hill and Gamma World respectively have always interested me although I've never played either game. This looks like the seed of the what would evolve into the multi-genre roleplaying system, Dangerous Journeys being the stillborn fruition of this concept for Gygax (Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying had already been doing this for some time). Mythus was the only genre published before TSR sued GDW for ownership of the system. Unhallowed, a horror genre was partially written but never published. 

I find that the d20 system takes much inspiration from this concept and the multi-genre idea seems obvious now, but look at the DMG Ongoing Campaign section and the genre mixing idea is present although the unified system idea seems to be several years down the road for most designers and publishers at that time.

Goblin Invasion

Here's a look at the first two counters I made. A goblin hoard of two. 

I only purchased a pack of ten counter stands but I can anticipate needing more. My idea here is that because I didn't want to draw the fronts and backs of these I just took images from the AD&D Monster Manual (mostly because I have a strong connection to these classic illustrations) and the Pathfinder Bestiary (because that's what I am playing with a group right now). I'm guessing that for the Pathfinder group the PF side will be the front and the classic side will be the back. Its a little more exciting than the wooden checkers I've been using for monsters.

Wyrm Issue 3

The Wyrm Issue 3 is finally up.


If anyone has a lead on any OSR short fiction please let me know.