Yay!

Vornheim got an award for Christmas.

Books, being inanimate and leading basically sedentary lifestyles, are pretty hard to shop for. But that'll do.

Thank you to everyone over at Diehard GameFAN.

For no reason, here's a picture of a lich:

Ok, I'm Confused

I hate to step on Raggi's toes and steal his "let's discuss this discussion" thing, but this one honestly, honestly has me baffled.

Is Vornheim really that weird?

I mean, the only real difference I can see between it and other city supplements like it is they go:

"This neighborhood has the fish market. The fish market has fish. Boats with fish on them sail in and out of this neighborhood. In the words of Granar Blazonhelm 'I smell fish, I must be in Fishinghood'. There are many adventures to be had in this place--you might not realize it, but boats can be exciting! Sometimes there are things on boats in addition to fish! Like cargo! Cargo comes into this fishing neighborhood from all over Worldimadeuppia, from as far as Vaguelysketchedoutjapanequivalentium. NPCs you might meet in this neighborhood include people who sell fish, people who buy fish, people who pilot boats, people who are riding on boats and people who fix boats. Here's a picture of a boat."

And I don't.

If there is something actually confusing about the book--let me know. If I ever do anything other RPG stuff I'll change it.

"You Are Listening To Me Talk"

Here I am on the Save or Die Podcast.

Is it interesting? Maybe!!!!

Here are the rest of the interviews I've done on game podcasts, with and without James Raggi...

Dungeons and Donuts
The Game's The Thing (including my favorite James Raggi interview material ever)
Gamer's Haven(w/funny photo of me from the New York Times)
All Games Considered (with Kimberly, Satine and Mandy)
Yellow Menace (with Mandy)
RPGCircus (with Mandy)

Random Notes With Jetlag

Hey...

So here's a strictly utilitarian post:

-Vornheim Contest Winners I haven't forgotten you. I am just getting things settled 'cause I'm here in Montreal for the moment. Be getting your prizes to you as soon as I am free and you email me saying which ones you want.

-Constantcon fans, note that the Google + game calendar on this here page (on the right there) has been changed to Eastern Standard Time, since I myself have changed to Eastern Standard Time. Some cool stuff going on this week including Gigacrawler and James Q starting a series of old TSR modules.

-Kenneth Hite waxes audiopoetic on Vornheim: The Complete City Kit over on This Just In...From Gen Con

-As long as I'm pointlessly hocking my book to a bunch of people who probably already own it I would be pretending to be more modest than I actually am if I did not point out that Jeff rather dubiously claims it's an achievement comparable to blowing up the Death Star.

-Played a lot of games lately, but the only one that wasn't basically just D&D was playing Empire of the Petal Throne for the first time courtesy of ckutalik. Which was basically D&D. (In a good way.) The sophisticated/barbaric/exotic southern hemisphere atmospherics were all there and operative (reminds of me of William Burroughs and JL Borges more than I expected. but everything does, I guess.) but, really, anybody who says you need a linguistics degree to grasp or play in this setting is just hanging out in the mezzanine flinging peanuts. It's a game, it has a setting, you fight things, it's fun. Recommended.

Use This Stuff, It's Good, I Know I'm Gonna

So, the judging of the "Vornheim: Hack This Book" contest is complete. It really was harder to judge than I expected--I promise I'm not just saying that: I decided if I'm going to use a given table or hack, it has to win a prize. So more people won prizes than I expected. If there is ever a second edition of the book, I will try to get some of this material into it. Seriously.
__________
Let's start with the 5-way tie for third place:

-Kiel Chenier's "Random Tavern Entertainment" table should liven up your local dive and maybe give you some plot hooks on the way;

-Marquis de Carabas' re-skinned a huge chunk of Vornheim for use in a modern day “Vampire: The Masquerade” setting. Although I don't play Vampire probably somebody who reads this does--and it's hard to imagine them not finding at least some of his massive pdf useful--so he gets a prize;

-Next, the indefatigable wrathofzombies deserves a prize for his gruesome and inspiring "Grave Diggin'" table, perfect for those times when neither you nor your players knows what's supposed to be in that coffin;

-Adam's "Random Criminals" table gives you about 100 more (slightly neurotic) NPCs to play with;

-Steve of Bevedog's "Vornheim Communication Networks" is the kind of thing I wish I'd thought of when I wrote the book. And now, thanks to him, I have the opportunity to pretend I did.
___________
Now, second place goes to Jeremy Duncan's "Rival adventuring Parties" and "Rural Innn/Tavern" tables, which are interesting and thorough enough that a lazy GM could probably get a whole session of adventures out of them without much effort.
__________
And first place goes to Dan Voyce (quoth Connie: "That Dan Voyce is pretty creative") for his "Theater Amphisbaena" location, which I already posted and which I will be chopping to fit Vornheim Earth-Prime momentarily and also for his less-gigantic but still entirely disturbing and more-original-than-you'd-think-at-first "Nasty Little Idols" table, which I now reproduce here.

NASTY LITTLE IDOLS
By Dan Voyce (click to enlarge)If you won a prize, email me. I know you know my address because you already used it.

And Happy Birthday Gary. We still play your game.


_______________
P.S. Wanna play via videochat? At least three DMs have posted games they will be running on the Constantcon thread already as of right now and a few more are threatening to. Check it out. (If you're interested in running or playing please do post there, not here, it'll make everybody's life way easier.)

Notes On Stuff + Only A Couple Days Left for the Hack Vornheim Contest

-Gary Gygax's birthday's coming up: July 27th. Meaning the Hack Vorheim Contest is almost over. Send in those hacks soon.

-Went down to comic con last minute (didn't expect to) with Satine for work (meetings with some people at One Of The Big 2 about maybe making something for them). Had fun at the Chessex table: didn't go in for all the shiny candy dice but did pick up: d8 result weather die, d8 random race die, d12 random class die (they make ad&d, 4e and 3.5 versions, so far as I can tell), a d12 random hit location die (not sure exactly what mechanics to use it with yet) and, most exciting, some blank dice. (This stuff mostly availble here, I think mostly. The actual Chessex site is useless.) Me and Connie and Cameraman Darren had fun writing our names on the d4 and playing "if-your-name-comes-up-you-have-to-tell-a-true-story".

-Did not buy the random monster die (1-in-12-chance of getting a dragon? mmmm...not so much) or the random trap die (tempting but it's too small--really hard to read)

-other comic con notes:

Flash on a Segway. Slower than a normal man!

just like the Adult Video awards, everybody in the industry congregates at the same hotel bar every year. unlike the Adult Video awards...well, everything else.

best and/or worst possible costume not sure: large gentleman, Next Generation Trek officer's suit, Alien facehugger completely covering his face. Grinning maniacally the whole time.

some guy told me out of nowhere "hey, you should grow half a moustache!"--I look at this guy:
nametag: Scott Shaw!. I go "Holy Hell! you taught me to read!"

Boba Fett's taller in person

"Hey, this is the artist I was telling you about"
Superman editor: "Your stuff is really great. If I put you on Superman they'd crucify me, but still--amazing work"

"Excuse me, is that a costume or are you actually hot?"

D&D events all day. thought about it. thought about it. didn't.

Con begins with me getting up at 6 so my friend can stand in line to buy a new Mattel toy and ends with Justine Jolie telling the Penthouse Pet of the Year to have sex with me.

-I decided that since having half the players skype in totally works in play, I can do something I never thought I'd be able to do with all these no-regular-scheduling-logic-known-to-mankind entertainment industry types: schedule gainm unilaterally whenever I want. No scrambling around each time we wanna play to see who has work and who has to flake. If you show, you show, and if you don't I have enough other people scattered around the country who play that we'll have at least 3 PCs rain or shine any day for any game. Very excited. Super excited.

"It's also funny watching morons froth at the mouth"

--James E. Raggi IV

So there's me and James Raggi talking about games on a podcast again. This time it's The Game's The Thing. As usual, it starts with me and James doing our whole salesguy catalog spiels and slowly transitions into advanced GM theory and drunken namecalling so if you just want that stuff, feel free to skip ahead.
__

On to the serious business:
__
INITIATIVE QUESTION:

Is there any RPG that does initiative like this:

-Each side rolls initiative (one die for all the PCs, one die for the GM).

-The winning side has one character go (if it's the PCs, they just choose among themselves who'll go first)
-Then the losing side has one character go
-Then the winning side has one character go...
etc. etc. the side with more characters has the leftovers all go at the end.

?

I've never played that way but it seems like it combines the tactical complexity of having individual initiative with the simplicity and "hey everybody put those Cheetos down and pay attention" quality of group initiative.

Some Odds and Ends

-This pdf is the most useful game tool I've come across in a long time. And I don't even have a d30. Download it and check it out. It's free.

-Anybody remember a 2e-era module with like a dwarf city with giant worm tunnels all over it? What's it called?

-So, like I said, Connie and I played in a Type IV game yesterday. We had fun. Was talking to the DM, cameraman Darren for a bit after, I've played Type 4 twice, he's played Type 4 since before it came out (he was a beta tester) and we agree--the fun of Type IV is like this:

It's fun while you're taking your cleric and slowly finding a way to turn him into a perfectly-tuned chess piece. But if and when you ever finish doing that, you look at your character and it's suddenly not a cleric anymore, it's just a chess bishop. Your powers are in general so much more powerful than any lateral-thinking tactic you could think up, so you just gotta use 'em. Then hopefully you level up and there are new fiddly bits and it's fun to figure out how they work again if they're interesting fiddly bits.

Anyway, it was me and Connie and a bunch of D&D newbies. We pretty much just fought 3-and-a-half rounds of a bunch of kobolds invading a village and it took four hours and it was lovely.

-Transylvanis 1600 seems oddly compelling. Despite the fact that I usually think having more than one vampire in a story ruins vampires. Thing is: James' version will probably contain lots of (eww) rural peasantfolk and (double eww) Renaissance stuff. So I may have to make my own doubly-decadent Hungary-1600-that-only-exists-in-my-head version.

The phrase "anti-Camelot" keeps popping up in my mind.

I've been there--Hungarian Renaissance sculpture is actually really interesting. It looks, superficially, like Italian Renaissance stuff and is just as technically polished, if not better--but it has this creepy, downcast angsty look to it and lots of sharp edges. One of those things they don't teach you in art history class. Fucking Vasari.

--The hack Vornheim contest is still rolling.

-Another thing still rolling is Gigacrawler. Some of you left additions in the comments in the last few months and had them swallowed up by the spam filter--but I just found that part of blogger and cleaned it out, so your comments are back and that won't happen again. Sorry bout that, and thanks!

-If you took a look here yesterday and saw me making a head, you might be interested to see how these things end up. Here's Connie's head, done the same way......and here's the finished piece...-And here is a work I just finished entitled "Furries Undermine Legitimate Cosplay"

Vornheim: Hack This Book Contest + All Games Considered

So I'm doing a contest...



See, I did this D&D book and, judging from the links I've been getting, people like it...



"It is inspirational reading; the most so I have seen in maybe 25 years for any sort of RPG. "

Dragonsfoot Forum



"It’s probably the most-bang-for-the-buck RPG product I’ve ever bought in my life. "

Lost Papers of Tsojcanth 1 and 2



"This is quite simply one of the best and most useful RPG products that I have every purchased and read through in my entire gaming career."

WrathofZombie'a Blog



"[Vornheim] is like the first crash of Johnny Ramone's guitar across the bow of fantasy arena rock. Vornheim is, as I have said elsewhere, like the Sex Pistols covering Ptolus."

Hite, Kenneth



"I can't recommend it enough. No matter what edition you use, or retro-clone, this is going to help any campaign you make. Not just for the city games either."

RPG: Rants and Raves



"I can pretty much guarantee you that if you have any interest in running urban-based fantasy at any point in your campaign, then you, too, will find it worth every penny."

Alexandrian, The 1 and 2 and 3



"The stated goal of the book is not only to allow a GM to create a city on the fly, but to make it interesting, memorable and fun, and I would argue that it more than succeeds in that task." Brighton Role-Players





"So the real magic of the book, like I said before, is how it becomes easy to create textural elements, randomly or semi-randomly, with very little effort"

Drawings and Dragons



"This compact book does contain enough genuinely useful material for detailing a fantasy city on the fly to make it indispensable to any referee whose campaign involves regular urban forays outside the dungeon."

Grognardia



"Smart and yet playful. A bold kick up the arse to other setting books."

Haque in Black



"For me, Vornheim - The City Complete Kit is the most innovative role-playing product for a long time and is a hot candidate for an Ennie."

LeckerTHAC0! (English Translation)



"And it's all a very inspiring and stylish package"

Metagame (English Translation)



"I have to admit I am rather impressed... 5 out of 5 stars"

Other Side, The



"It's inspiring and I want to skip work, press gang my players or co-workers and use it right now."

Places to Go, People to Be



Planet Algol 1 and 2 " It's an innovative product, but it shouldn't be; that not an indictment of Vornheim but of what RPG products are generally produced."



"In terms of art and graphic design, Vornheim looks like no other RPG book ever."

RPG.net Forum Discussion



"This is definitely not your daddy's Greyhawk or 2e Renfaire Realms anymore."

RPGSite Forum Discussion



"This is really my cup or tea."

Savage Swords of Athanor



" It gave me a whole lot of flexibility that I've never really experienced in a game before. Seriously, if you haven't bought Vornheim yet, you really need to. Even if Zak's game isn't your style, use the format and concepts and fill in the tables with things that meet your style. It's that useful."

Gaming All Over The Place



"Everything you've read about it is true. Including and especially the talk about changing how people make stuff for their games."

Seeking Wing, The



"I want something that will make it easier for me to run sessions in cities with little or no prep, and I really want this Kit to do that for me; so, first impressions, does it do the job it sets out to do? My quick answer: yes!"

Sky is Full of Dust, The



"HOLY **** IT'S **** AWESOME!"

UK Roleplayers Forum Discussion



"I will definitely use the book at the table."

Apprentice of Old School (English Translation)



(the Underdark Gazette liked it, too)



"I think this is probably the best product I think I've ever come across."

This guy did a video review (cue up to 7:29)(and even though it's from "Scary Hair Studios" I swear I had nothing to do with this video)



"It's exactly what it says on the tin: a thunk-provoking tool kit that'll probably be great fun to unleash on the players."

Vaults of Nagoh



"In some urban RPG’s, an unexpected player decision might be disastrously time consuming; not so with the aid of Vornheim. Vornheim provides the referee tools to handle any number of circumstances that might occur within a city adventure."

Vorpal Dice



"It crawls with cunning charts & maps"



"The biggest problem I have with Vornheim: The Complete City Kit is that it's going to make all other city sourcebooks seem dull by comparison."



"It is a beautifully illustrated and very well constructed book."



"...Vornheim is an amazing approach to doing a city sourcebook which, although intended for old-school D&D, has plenty of utility for story gaming."



"...felt like a breath of fresh air after all these colorful, overproduced RPGs"



"Looking over Vornheim. Wow. this is really, really good."



"Infinite *s out of 5...The book is almost insidious in nature as it seeps into your own creativity and basically challenges you to be more creative, to raise your game to another level, and to be better at running your games."



"Zak dribbles more creativity and inspiration on page 3 (territories surrounding Vornheim) than most books manage in their entirety. And that's a pale shadow of page 7..."



"... too valuable not to have in you DM arsenal."



"I read Vornheim during my vacation and was amazed. Zak's really got something great here. I'd say award-winning."



"Random tables and charts, strange characters and locales, and snakes as books. Brilliant."



"The quality of the book is exceptional in every way."



"This totally raises the bar, you realize."



"Where Ptolus is a huge, whopping, incredibly detailed city book, this is stripped down the the very basics, the bare minimum, so that all that’s left is the raw rock and roll. It has exactly as much as you really need, leaving the gamemaster to play around and flesh out the rest..."



"...Vornheim is Byzantine, brilliant, and exhilarating..."



"Vornheim is, in my opinion, one of the most innovative RPG products I've seen in years. It is exactly what it claims to be, a city building toolkit designed to make life easier for the DM and provide a vast and interesting urban sprawl for your players. If you are even remotely entertaining the possibility of a city-based campaign, you need this book."



"It's a damn good book, full of useful stuff."



"If you are planning urban adventures, Vornheim is AWESOME for it. I ran adventures in a small town of 1300 and it was very useful."



"I honestly can’t find anything negative to write about this book, it really is a slice of fantastic RPG creativity and I urge anyone who enjoys fantasy city gaming to pick up this gem before the print-run of 2000 copies disappears."



"Good ideas, great tables!"



"It is an amazing toolkit and wonderful aid."



"It is a work of art, brilliant in how useful it is."



"I have to give you props sir, your experience and insight into city play made for a better night for me and my friends."



"The book is crammed with quirky and imaginative ideas."



"Once I next run a game set in a fantasy metropolis, I will most certainly have my Vornheim by my side, whether it be set in Sigil or Kaer Maga or the City of Greyhawk."



"Actually at last count I have read this think five times. Each time I read it, I realize more and more, this is the perfect city book."



"Lot's of goodies to use for any city-based adventuring. "



"I have to say that thus far it’s really changing the way I look at city campaigns and the build of a fantasy city in general. Zak really is an amazing wellspring of ideas; he’s sort of the Grant Morrison of D&D..."



"It is awesome."



"It's official...Vornheim is freakin' amazing. Best city supplement ever."



"It's quite inspiring...I can't believe that anyone would not be able to take some creative inspiration from it."



"...a beautifully produced handbook for running city adventures."



"...brilliant..."



"...mind-blowingly awesome and original..."



"I would like smaller books that take an approach kind of like what Zak S. did with his Vornheim book: give me the means to make and use good content on the fly for a specific adventure type"



"Vornheim is an amazingly cool supplement. I've been using mine (PDF) almost since the day it came out." (down in the comments)



"Vornheim is awesome; I'm still getting used to it, but there are so many tables in there that allow me to generate interesting things on the fly."



"Flipping thru my copy of Vornheim. I'm pretty sure I want ZakSmith/Sabbath's brain..."



"That thing is a friggin' work of art."



"Vornheim is excellent. Atmospheric, great spur for creativity. Can't wait to use it!"



"This is a damned good game book. Even the first part of the book, which presents Vornheim itself, is full of material that can be directly incorporated into any city campaign. The whole book lives up to the subtitle ("The Complete City Kit"), not just the ingenious shortcuts and excellent tables."



"This little book by Zak S, best known for I Hit It With My Axe, and the D&D with Porn Stars blog, is pretty damned awesome."



But so anyway, yeah.



So here's a contest:

The Official Vornheim: Hack This Book Contest



So what I want (and what we all want, because we like useful new GMing tools) is for you to hack Vornheim. Expand it, make it bigger, make it more fun, make it do things it doesn't yet do....



For example:



-Re-write a table in Vornheim for a different genre of city: a sci-fi city, a modern city, a gilded steampunk city, a pirate city, whatever.



-Re-write something in Vornheim for use outside a city--make it into a dungeon table or a wilderness table or a seagoing table.



-Expand something in Vornheim--like the Immortal Zoo of Ping Feng but feel like it could use an aquarium? Want to make 80 more legal situations? Want to make the encounter chart into a d1000 table? Knock yourself out.



-Did I forget something? Make a whole new table or tool for use in medieval urban adventures.



Point is, take any idea in Vornheim and run with it. Entries will be judged on:



-Usefulness: Does this thing look like it'd produce gameable results at many different tables? How often? At how many different tables? Or how many times at one table? Give us something that makes our job easier or more exciting. Your Random Medieval Funny Hat Table may wow them at your Friendly Local Game Store but, to be honest, it doesn't really do a lot of heavy lifting.



-Efficiency: Did you manage to get what you need across without the GM having to dig for it?



-Style: Did Zak think it was neat?



Rules:



-Enter as many times as you like, however, since the secret reason for this contest is to give us all more game stuff, each entry must be published on-line so that everybody can use whatever tool you've devised. If you don't have a blog or wish to remain anonymous, then send it to me at zakzsmith at hawt mayle dawt calm and I'll publish it if it's any good and I have time and I feel like it. If you do publish it on your own blog remember to email me and tell me you did it.



-Entries should be no longer than a double-page spread in Vornheim itself. Remember: efficiency is beautiful, efficiency is art.



-If it doesn't have to be a pdf DO NOT MAKE IT A PDF (or at least not only a pdf). In an email, text is fine: "cut" "paste". In a blog entry just type it. Pictures are fine.



-Speaking of art, don't just send a picture unless it is also a map or diagram or otherwise part of a game-useful tool.



-I reserve the right to be totally arbitrary and my decision is final and entering the contest means you waive any legal rights to claim damages or claim anything legally-binding about this contest or anything arising from it and me writing this constitutes I'll do my best and try to be a right guy about all this shit and if you don't trust me, don't enter.



-Contest ends on Gary Gygax's birthday, July 27, 2011. Winners will be announced soon after unless there's like a gazillion entries.



Fabulous Prizes:



First place winners will receive a signed copy of Vornheim PLUS a single prize package thingy of their choice from the list below, second place winners will get to pick one thingy from what's left over after that, third place winners get to choose one from what's left over after that...



-Art: Original artwork from the interior of Vornheim signed by me



-Work: A d100 table on a topic of your own devising written by me (if this prize is chosen it will also be posted here on this blog).



-Game stuff: I will give you a list of all the game stuff sent to me over the years that's left around this house and you can pick something and I'll send it to you.



-Booby prize: If you're a fan of one or all of the DNDWPS girls I can get you signed pictures or memorabilia or some other mutually-agreed upon thing--lemme know once you win.



-Hey man, can you...?: If you have a product to pimp, I will read it or watch it and review it and post the review here.



-15-minute Commission: I will take 15 whole minutes out of my day and draw a thing of your choice, then have the girl who works for me mail you the drawing.



____

Oh, and PS, here's me and Satine and Mandy and Kimberly and James Raggi on the All Games Considered podcast.

Late At Night, After 6 drinks, 2 Stripclubs...

...one lapdance*, and an hour of youtubing, we made this...

Seriously
people
like
Vornheim
and
you
should
get
it.






Apologies to both Sifl and Olly**. Though not Cifal, he can go fuck himself.
____
*Mandy's sister'd never had one so Mandy was forced to accompany her to the booth for moral support.

____
**Sifl and who? Oh, you haven't lived...

Addendum

I encourage any GM running the "Immortal Zoo of Ping Feng" adventure from Vornheim: The Complete City Kit to use these rules to determine the Flailceratops' attacks. Note that results 1 and 4 should be replaced with a morning-star strike and result 17 should be interpreted as swinging the chain around in a threatening manner.

Type II and Type III Conversion Help

Hey there,

So, here is how the monster descriptions & stat-blocks look for the Vornheim City Kit (not the design, just the info provided):

Narcissus Peacock
Appears to be an ordinary peacock--until it spreads its fan...
HD: 2
AC: 9 or 11
Speed: as human
Intelligence: Animal
Attack: Upon seeing any creature, the peacock will spread its fan. Creatures seeing the fan must then save or stand immobile and transfixed. (Theories differ as to what, exactly, a victim sees when it gazes into its tailfeathers – when a PC is frozen, ask the player what s/he sees). The peacock will then begin to eat the victim, causing d4 damage per round. Victims may make another save every time they take damage. The effect ends if the beast is slain.

____________

The current draft of the notes on how to use the stats in different versions of the game will say:

"If you are using a version of the game which requires more information than is provided in the statblocks, assume creatures attack as ordinary fighters of a level equal to the creatures' hit dice. Assume 5 hit points per die or roll d8 per HD. Assume smart monsters save as typical wizards/magic-users of a level equal to their hit dice, fast or sneaky monster save as rogues/thieves, and tough monsters as fighters/warriors."

So here's where I need your help:

I have never played Type II D&D and I have only played our own hacked and AD&D-ified version of Type III.5 D&D, so, I ask players of Type II and Type III (and 3.5) D&D: Is the information above enough for you to run a monster, or do you need something I left out?

3.5 people: Initiative bonus, right? Is there a simple way to do that? Equal to half HD (plus two for fast/sneaky monsters)? How's that? Addenda:...No, that's too high. 3.5 initiative modifiers = +1 for most monsters, + 2 for smart monsters, +3 for fast or sneaky monsters and and -1 for large, armored monsters.

Save difficulties for innate abilities are equal to 12 + creature's HD?

ADDENDA ON DCs:

I figure DC +12 gives us a DC of 14 for this peacock--which seems fair since it's a relatively weak monster.

Also: in this particular product, almost nobody over 10 hd has anything you'd to save against, so the max save dc is 22, which seems like a decent "be-smart-or-get-screwed" price point for 7th level PCs--the highest level PCs who'd be tangling with these monsters.

So basically the DCs go from 14-22 and PCs go from levels 1-7.

ANOTHER ADDENDA:
3.5 people: please stop telling me how to hit and save bonuses are derived from stats in 3.5. I know that, everyone knows that already. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REMIND ME WHAT THE RULES ARE. The question is, if I give you the bonuses and saves up front, why on earth would you need the stats? The bonuses are right there.

I appreciate your help.



________
p.s. If you're Scarius1337 then check it...

HEY SCARIUS1337!

You said you sent me an actual play report for Vornheim on "the 5th":

1-the 5th of what month?

2-how do i identify your email address/name?

3-please send it again.(zak z smith (one word) at hawt mayle dawt calm)

If I can't identify your play report and haven't read it I can't use any of your observations in the final book and I can't give your group credit.

If you are "Reece" then I never got your play report.

I Am Giving You ThisMap

On the inside cover of Vornheim: The Complete City Kit there will be a version of this map.
(By me, with some coloring assistance from Mandy Morbid.)

The version of the map in the actual book will be more fun to look at, but harder to read quickly, and harder to write on--both because of the actual colors I used (the book version is color-on-black unlike this one which is color-on-white) and because it will be printed on the inside cover of a book you may not want to write on. Plus it will be kind of small considering how much detail there is, which could get annoying.

So what we are doing is we are going to offer--for free--a color-on-white version of the map that DMs can download and print out that looks like this one, so you can use it if you like.

It will look exactly like the map in this post, only it will be way bigger.

It will be divided into 6 parts, each part will be 8 1/2 x 11 inches.

Or you can just download the whole thing and print out a 33 inch wide poster of it at Kinko's or whatever.

We were originally going to do this inside the book itself, but then that's 12 pages of the book that can't have anything but map, and I figured that's kind of lame. So now it's a free bonus. I think also it'll be automatically included in the pdf version, if I'm not mistaken (ask James.)

Anyway, point is, we all get to have our cake and eat it, too. I get my weird map on the inside cover, you get a use-friendly one, and you don't have to decide whether to write in the new hardcover book you just bought or try to photocopy it without fucking up the spine.

Did You Playtest Vornheim?

(Totally unrelated picture. I like pictures.)

Getting the final Vornheim manuscript together, doing the credits. I asked all the DMs who playtested it for a list of their players so I could include them in the credits but I don't know if all of them actually did it. If you helped playtest Vornheim and do not see your name here, (or if it's misspelled) lemme know now (zak z smith at hot mayle dawt calm)...

Eric Gall, Patrick Mastrobuono, DJ Papcin, Ian Gardocki, Steve Lightsey, Duke Dukellis, Joe Burns, Tim Jenkins, Lon Varnadore, Sam Deere, James King, Chris Lowrance, Craig Wilson, Ken Fernandez, Michael Marshall, Pablo Clark, Nikolai Fullman, Hakon (a little circle over the "a") Nordheim, Martin Skullerud, Aron Riktor, Sven Roald Undheim, Tavis Allison, Mike Monaco, Tom Monaco, Richard sullivan, John Ughrin, Ara Kooser, Susan Rati-Lane, Terran Lane

City Supplement Wishlist

(<--this picture has nothing to do with this post but I like it. Anyway...) Ok, putting the final touches on Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. James is finalizing the layouts and I'm finishing the pictures and seeing just how much extra space is left over in the layout--because I want to cram every single inch of this little book with stuff you can use during a game.

So, since we're in the middle of that, here's a question for you, gentle readers:

Is there anything you would like to see in a book about running D&D cities?

Speak now or forever hold your piece.

This is Raggi testing layouts:

Look at that...

I promise this blog will not turn into "enigmatic product-in-progress update of the day" (one reason being said product is almost done & another being I am not a professional RPG writer so when it is done I won't have another product) but I figured I'd share this, 'cause it made me laugh:

James Edward Raggi The Fourth just e-mailed me his playtest results and told me that my adventure was too hard.

This Is Totally Not The Cover Of the Book or The Title

This is not going to be the cover of the upcoming book--
(click to biggerify--it is entirely worth it)
It's classy as all fuck, but I decided I want something with a little more color...

Nor is it the official title--which is, as of now, "Vornheim: The Complete City Kit".

But, hey, I went to all the trouble to mock it up, so I figured I'd let you see it.

Meanhwile, the book is pretty much done. I just have to edit it and dot the I's and cross the T's and all that.

I'm also getting playtest reports back, which is more fun than I expected.

Oh, here's a request for y'all:

The book will include, among many other things, a somewhat improved, streamlined & DeLuxified version of the Urbancrawl Rules I posted a while back, so if anybody reading this has used those and has ideas about how they could be improved or any suggestions about parts of them that worked extremely well for you, please do let me know.

Playtesters Wanted...

I well know that the D&DWPS crew has its own distinctive way of doing things, so I'd like to test out a few of the location-based adventures that will be in the Vornheim City Kit on some other groups before unleashing them on the public.

The ones I most want to test are the higher-level locations, since those are the ones where chaos theory really takes hold and difficulty levels and survival rates can vary wildly from group to group.

So: if anybody out there wants to DM a mid-level adventure (4-10--which is a wide swath, I know, but a little playtesting may narrow it down) for their group and give me a report, write to me at zakzsmith at hot mail dawt calm. The adventures are relatively system-agnostic for D&D types I-III.5 and retroclones (they are playable in other systems but since I'm testing for design flaws here I'm sticking to the "native" systems for the playtest--if you play it in Warhammer or Type 4 and it comes out all wonky, that may be more your fault than mine).

I got two locations I'd like to test--specify in your email whether you want the more city-integrated leave-and-come-back-if-you-want location or the more dungeony one.

Also: I only want a handful of testers for each--I kinda would like to make it so that not everybody has seen parts of the kit before it comes out.

I can't pay you but if the Kit does well I may kick you some cash in a fit of largesse, and you'll get credited in the book.

question, progress report, plug, plug, game idea

-Here's a question for you, DMs...Monster stats in RPG products: Ok, you'll want special attacks, defenses and anything unique about a beast to be well-defined, but how much do you really need a product to give you the rest of the stats for new monsters? If it's new, then what's the disadvantage to just telling the DM what the thing is supposed to be about, and DMs can define AC, HP, and damage in whatever way fits his/her campaign?

I mean, if it's just some mook it might be nice to have all that already written out for you, but if a product is providing you with what's supposed to be a cool new monster then wouldn't you, as a DM, want to "custom-fit" it to your world?

Ok, maybe in an adventure module it's different, since the HD etc. tell you where in the adventure's toughness-hierarchy the monster's supposed to fit, but in (say) a sourcebook-type thing? Does me telling you the Orgulus Oozes of Vornheim have 2+2 HD mean anything or help, really?

Give me your pros and cons here.

-Finished almost all the pictures and maps for the city kit, just gotta do the big city map that we're planning to print on the inside of the dustcover. We're (hopefully) doing all kinds of cute format things with this book to maximize the bang for your buck.

-Here's the latest 'Axe' episode, with Bobbi Starr and company getting hurt by gnolls.
The Escapist took out some of the more explicit details of Bobbi and Kimberly's dungeon adventure, to see the uncensored version click that link. The censored version's here, because I can embed it...


-If you live in NYC, Tavis of The Mule Abides is hosting a...thingy (symposium maybe?) on D&D and its relation to contemporary art tonight featuring some excellent and funny and smart contemporary artists that I have personally played D&D with many times and also featuring a video letter from me since I couldn't be there.


-What with all this business I haven't had a proper game in weeks. I played a bunch of German board games brought over by Axe cameraman Darren to pass the time waiting for Mandy to get better: Small World, Samurai, Thunderstone, and Whatever-it-is of Catan.

Catan bored me almost to death. I almost died. Trading sheep? Really? Why people keep making and playing games involving farms I'll never know--so far as this rootless metropolitan Jew is concerned, the point of civilization is to get as far away from animal shit as possible. I'm with Luke Skywalker.

Also it kinda drove me nuts how the little wood pieces didn't really slot into the board, they just sorta sat on top like dry pasta on a cutting board, waiting to get knocked off every time Connie rolled her dice all over them. Which sucks because where the pieces are is really important.

Anyway what I actually want to talk about is how one of the games was really good and has some D&Dable elements.

Hold on, I have to go eat some cheese...

Ok (thank you all dairy farmers) now anyway...

Samurai is a simple sort of cross between Go and Risk where basically you play on a map and there are cities and you build up four types of influence--political, military, religious, and agricultural (yeah, yeah, I know). You have a limited amount of each (represented by cards) and the trick is distributing them around the board, turn-by-turn, in such a way that, when it ends, you've got the right stuff in the right place.

It's not like you have to rule the whole world, you just have to get more total influence than the enemy, so each game results in a distinctive patchwork of overlapping influences over various forces.

It strikes me that, with a little tweaking, this could make an excellent addendum to the D&D endgame or a plot generator for a campaign. Work it like this:

-Play a session of D&D.

-Get out Samurai. Rename the cities (alternately, you could decide the board represents a city rather than a continent, and the PCs are vying for control of neighborhoods). Each player represents a faction, a ruler, or a god (someone or thing that is roughly aligned with the PCs interests).

-Add or subtract cards from the players' hand(s) based on what happened in the D&D game (i.e. if they found the Ice Chalice of Eleth Sussar then they get an extra 2 religious influence or whatever).

-Play Samurai.

-Alter the D&D campaign to reflect the results of this contest of gods/kings/local mafiosos, etc.

-Say "6 months later..." then start playing D&D.

-Repeat.