Micro-solo 1: The Creeper in the Temple {T&T}

Introducing Trollish Delver's micro solos for Tunnels and Trolls. Once a month, I'll put up a new solitaire adventure on the blog  that is around 10 paragraphs long. The idea is to create a string of adventures that will constitute a solo campaign that you can run through with your own character. All adventures are 5th and 7.x edition friendly, but each will range in difficulty. All you have to do is roll up a new character, or use the pre-made one below and get playing.

Level 1 Human Warrior
Height: 5'1", Weight: 160 lbs.
ST:    11,   IQ:     8,   LK:    10
CON:   11,   DEX:   18,   CHR:    8
SPD:   12,   WIZ:   15
Adds: 6

Total Armour: 6
Wt. Possible: 1100
Languages: Common Tongue 
Gold: 50 gp

Sax, Dice+Adds: 2+5

Buckler, Hits Taken: 3

The Creeper in the Temple

The Creeper in the Temple is designed for a single 1st level character. You have been travelling for a few days seeking adventure and fortune. You arrive in the city of Yabberesh after a long trek across the Starlip Plains. Your adventure has finally begun...

1

You arrive at the gates of Yabberesh and see fairies and leprechauns wandering in and out. If you are either
of these kindred, you get in free. If not, pay 1 silver piece towards the maintenance of the city.
Once you enter you can go to the Wishing Well Pub (go to 4) or the temple of Sinders (go to 9).

2

You carefully open the cupboard. Inside you find a bound and gagged fairy who's struggling to speak.
You remove her from her bonds and she thanks you. "The Antodile took my money and threw me in here.
Here, take this anti-poison salve. It will help if you haven't already killed the thing."
You can either go back to the t-junction (go to 6) or leave up the stairs into the temple (go to 5).

3

You agree to help Laddy in exchange for a price. He offers you 100gp to kill the creature.
You may try to haggle and make a L1-SR on CHA. If you succeed, he offers 150gp. You then venture
into the temple and down the trap door. Go to 6.

4

The Wishing Well Pub is bustling with activity. Leprechauns and fairies dance to music played
by a bard with a lute and a lovely fairy serving lady is flying around with trays of wine.
You can either play a game with the patrons (go to 7) or go to the temple of Sinders (go to 9).

5

You leave up the stairs and return to the temple where Laddy is waiting. If you killed the
creature then he gives you your reward. If not then he grumbles and tells you to get back down
there (go to 6). If you haven't been to the tavern, go to 4. If you have then you leave
the city and take 50AP.

6

After descending down a flight of stone stairs, you arrive at a t-junction. To the left you can
smell the sweet aroma of wine and to the right you can hear a muffled sound. Turn left? (go to 8) or turn right?
(go to 10).

7

You sit with a group of leprechauns who are playing cards and ask if you can join them.
They say they're playing 5-card Spit, which is a game well-known in these parts. If you would like
to play, bet an amount, roll 1d6 and consult the table below:

1- lose triple the amount bet
2- lose double the amount bet
3- Lose the amount bet
4- win back the amount bet
5- win double the amount bet
6- win triple the amount bet

Once you're finished, you can leave and go to the temple of Sinders (go to 9) or if you have already been
there, you can leave the city and gain 50AP.

8

You enter a small room full of prayer books. In the corner is a large cupboard where a muffled
voice can be heard. Do you open the cupboard? (go to 2) go back to the t-junction and turn right (go to 10)
or go back to the temple (go to 5).

9

You enter a small temple dedicated to the fairy goddess, Sinders. Fairies sit on tiny benches praying
to the large fairy statue on the north wall. A fairy priest welcomes you and introduces himself
as Laddy. He wonders if you might be able to help him with something. Last night, just as he was locking the
temple door, he heard a thud coming from within. He went back in and saw a hideous creaturer run across
the room and dive down the trap door into the basement. It had the head of an ant and the body of
a bipedal crocodile. If you want to help go to 3. If not, you can go to the tavern (go to 4). If you
have already been to the Wishing Well Pub you can leave the city and gain 20AP.

10

You enter a large wine cellar. The walls are lined with racks of wine and there are open caskets
of the stuff on the ground. There is also a sack of money on the ground near the wine rack. Suddenly,
a creature pops up from behind the barrels, the same one that was described by Laddy, with an
ant's head and a crocodile's body, except bipedal. It creeps towards you, hissing. The Antodile has
MR30 and every comabat round you must make a L1SR on LUCK or take 1 poison damage unless you have an
anti-poison salve. If you kill it you find 100gp in the sack and a bottle of vintage wine worth 90gp. You can either leave to
the temple (go to 5) or return to the t-junction and go left (go to 8).

Roleplaying games as art {RPG Philosophy}

The roleplaying game is a strange beast. Right from the get-go we usually have the author of the rulebook describe to us what exactly a roleplaying game is, and it's often along the lines of, 'It's part storytelling, part dice-rolling, where YOU are the hero of the story'. Clearly, the act of weaving a narrative is a traditional art form that dates back to the dawn of humanity; so there's no disparity there. However, a game is not thought of as an art form. You cannot say that basketball or tennis is art, yet there is probably an art to certain aspects of those sports. So are roleplaying games, as part-storytelling, part game, art? 

Firstly, we need to determine the term 'art'. Really, it's an expression of arrangement that evokes emotion and thought. A film constitutes various aspects, such as actors, camera people and the director, arranged in such a way as to present the audience with a product which elicits one or multiple responses. Similarly, a painter arranges her paint of different colours, thicknesses and styles in order to create her painting. The term 'art' has leaked out from these more traditional outlets recently into the digital realm of video games, where the question I'm posing for roleplaying games rages on.

Which bring us to the crux of the matter. If video games can widely be considered an art form, can roleplaying games? After all, they are essentially the same product, just with different modes of interactivity and presentation. A video game is created by a developer who usually creates a story, a character for the audience to control, and interactive elements. Clearly, the main point of the medium is to be a game, like basketball or tennis, but what sets a video game apart from these are the narrative and stylistic aspects.

Roleplaying games are the same. The GM creates a narrative, NPCs and a world. While there is art style in terms of paintings in sourcebooks, most of it comes  from the GM and the players' descriptions of the roleplaying universe they inhabit. Can these games elicit emotion? Of course they can. A player can become sad if a trusted NPC dies, or happy when they finally solve the puzzle. Of course, all good art carries some kind of message, which is something that usually doesn't come into RPG adventures other than 'good is better than evil', unless the game has an integrated setting that is awash with allegory and metaphor.

So yes, the roleplaying game is an art form for all the reasons stated above, but what does this actually mean? To be honest, it doesn't mean much. The reason why the question is such a big one in the video games world is because it's such a massive industry and there are still people who don't see what use it has in comparison to cinema. The artistic integrity of the roleplaying gaming industry is never brought up in the mainstream and really there is no need for it to be. It's just an interesting question where the answer can define how we look at the hobby.

What will D&D 5th edition look like? {D&D}

We're getting to that point in time now when we know that something's cooking in the Wizards of the Coast offices. From book cancellations, the new skirmish game and Mike Mearls' column; it's clear that the company is getting primed for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. 

The comment feed on JoeTheLawyer's latest blog post has sparked some cynical conversation about the future of the game, most notably concerning Hasbro's influence on WotC. One commenter recognises that sales can be enhanced by collectable elements, which we can see has happened with Fortune Cards to some extent. However, in my mind Wizards is going to go one of two ways.

The 'Traditional' RPG

Earlier this year Pathfinder surpassed 4e in sales. Now, to be honest this isn't too surprising considering 4e has been out longer, but it's still food for though for WotC. It's R&D department must be taking notes on what has been happening in the roleplaying community over the last year or so, with the emergence of the OSR movement and the emigration from 4e to Pathfinder. If they haven't been analysing these trends, then they have a lot to worry about.

The smart thing for Wizards to do would be to try to appease the players they've lost by going back to a more traditional game, but keeping elements that make 4e a good game. If they begin to focus more on roleplaying and storytelling than dice roll checks, but still keep the dynamic monsters, I think they would reclaim some of their 'lost souls', as it were. Perhaps dial down the emphasis on powers, so the characters have a small but focused group of At-Will, Encounter powers etc, like the recent iteration of Gamma World. Furthermore, they need to make it easy to write characters up by hand or at least type them. Not everyone is going to want a DDI subscription and having to flick back and forth through the Players' Handbook can get tiresome.

The 'Board Game' RPG

Fans are critical of WotC because of their allegiance with Hasbro, which has obvious influences on the way games are made. 5th edition could introduce more collectable elements to the game, such as card expansions to go along with campaign books. While Fortune Cards are currently entirely optional, it's entirely possible that the next edition could go down the Gamma World route and make them compulsory. Now, I don't mind the card elements in Gamma World because they add a great feature that fits in well with the gameplay style, but D&D is fine as it is without them.

A further emphasis on DDI could also emerge with 5th edition, with a deck creator and online tabletop (finally?) to create a more digitally integrated experience. Even boxed expansions could become commonplace, containing minis, cards and the adventure, along with a code for DDI to unlock hidden extras in the scenario.

In the end, WotC is a business and like any other business it needs to make money. Clearly there is more money to be made at face value with the latter approach, but winning back fans could potentially make them more.

What I want to see in 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons

I've sort of outline my feelings above, but here they are in a more concise format:

• Less emphasis on roll playing and more on DM/ PC imagination in the mechanics
• Keep powers but trim the fat. Go for the Gamma World approach
• Character sheets players can write by hand without  taking half a day
• Official adventures with less of a focus on encounters
• Sets of miniatures dedicated to sourcebooks 

Of course, these are my opinions and I don't expect everyone to share them. I know plenty of people who love encounters and others who despise them. 5th edition won't please everyone, but the question is: will it please most? 

Want a good encounter? Get tough on your players {4e}

In my last 4e session I had what I think was the best encounter I've ever run. There are multiple reasons for this, including random events (a skiff falling into a building during the fight), a strong reason for the encounter and player co-operation. However, I do think a main factor in the success of the encounter was that it was a bitch.


It's been repeated before throughout the community and I've echoed it here on numerous occasions - it's hard to kill players in 4e. This isn't because we're 'doing it wrong', but because the mechanics are fashioned in such a way that the PCs get distinct advantages over their enemies. Matching levels in an encounter can produce some good results in Heroic, but mid-Paragon upwards things start to get stale.

So last session I threw in a fight that included a monster over 4 levels above the PCs, with other monsters being a couple higher. I did have to dial it down a notch due to the party's tank being otherwise engaged, but it still worked out in the end. It wasn't just the enemy difficulty that I upped though. The PCs had to also deal with re-enforcements appearing and helping innocents to boot. The whole experience brought out the tactical best in my group, who are all intelligent guys with a good degree of strategic know-how, and it was great to see them discuss which powers they need to save and how their abilities can compliment each other.

The next encounter is going to be tougher still, so I expect to see them pull out all the stops to take down their foes and handle everything else I throw at them.

As a side note, I've finally finished my latest Tunnels & Trolls adventure for Elder Tunnels Halloween 2011, which is why I've not been posting this week. It's pretty much a love-letter to Evil Dead 2 and I hope you guys pick it up when it's out and let me know what you think.

Some exciting announcements {News}

It's been awfully busy in the troll cave, I can tell you. I've been typing away, scribbling and often sleeping, but now I can make a couple of groovy announcements to you, my good friends. 

Firstly, a scenario I am currently putting the finishing touches to will be included in the next edition of Elder Tunnels - the Halloween issue. The adventure is based on the Evil Dead movies, which are my favourite films of all time. I wanted to bring something different to the table this time around, so this one is a little special. I just hope you enjoy it.

Secondly, I have joined forces with the amazing folks at Peryton Publishing to release a regular series of Tunnels and Trolls adventures starting at the end of the year. I don't want to give too many details away, but I'm massively excited to work with such a fine publisher and I look forward to sharing more with you nearer to Christmas time.

Lastly, because of my workload in the last few months I haven't been working on my DemonLord RPG, which I really wanted to release earlier this year. However, I am getting back on track with it and I'll have a beta release pretty soon. Watch this space.

Phew, that's a lot of announcements. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some words to make.

True Heroes {Heroes}

Most people who read this blog have an interest in escapism and most of the time when we escape we are heroes; whether that be a noble paladin, a Jedi Knight or a super hero.

Ten years ago one of the worst possible things happened. If it were a roleplaying game I'm sure the disaster could have been averted with some die rolls; but we all know that life isn't a game and most of us aren't heroes.

But there were those brave few who selflessly risked their lives for people they had never even met, and some died doing it. These are the true heroes in this world and we owe them our full respect and admiration for what they did ten years ago.