Torchlight 3.5

As I've probably shared in the past, the Torchlight campaign setting -- originally known by the more evocative title Woden's Gallows -- was my submission to Wizards for their big contest to create a new D&D setting. (Ultimately, the winner was Eberron. How could anyone top magic robots?!) I'll call that one Torchlight 1.0. 

A few years later, I ended up using Torchlight as the setting for a couple of early 4e campaigns, one in-person and one chat-based. This world was not a great fit for 4e, however, because of the new dragonborn and tiefling PC races introduced in the PHB for that edition. Incorporating those races and their cultures into the world resulted in Torchlight 2.0, which I felt was a pretty boring place. It had lost much of its unique Anglo-Saxon flavor. I didn't use Torchlight at all in the early days of 5e, since by that time my kids were  already playing in the Shattered Realm setting. 

In 2020, when we were all spending a lot of time by ourselves for some reason, I decided to resurrect Torchlight. I did a lot of world-building, but it was not system-specific. I scrapped all the D&D 4e nonsense and got back to the setting's roots in Anglo-Saxon poems like The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer, and, of course, Beowulf. Now I had a great setting again -- Torchlight 3.0 -- but with no real plans to use it in a campaign, primarily because it still just didn't feel right as a D&D setting.

Enter the Cypher System. That was really the (Torch)light bulb moment in which I realized that Cypher was a far better system for this world. It quickly became the default fantasy setting in my growing Front Porch Multiverse spreadsheet that brings together all the (non-Druid Cycle and non-Shattered Realm) campaigns of my gamemastering career. Recently, I felt inspired to flesh out the world even more, adding a whole new continent and hundreds of new characters and locations. It's not a revamp of what preceded it, but there are some pretty big geographical and historical changes, so I'm calling it Torchlight 3.5. I can't wait for an opportunity to bring it to life with players!

Random Retro-Gaming Thought

We'll never get old-school D&D games on Evercade because of the licensing costs -- but why not games from The Bard's Tale franchise? Make it happen, guys!

Phase 2 -- Stat Blocks

I now have a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet compiling the names, places, factions, etc., from non-5e D&D campaigns of today and yesteryear. These campaigns include:

• Alien 
• Cyberwars (with all of its prequels, sequels, and spinoffs)
• Dark Enigma
• Doctor Who
• Earth Commanders
• The Ladder
• The Other World
• Project Descartes
• Tales of the Ternion
• Torchlight
• The Vanguard Saga

Putting the spreadsheet together was the main objective of this phase of my project. However, in order to create a true multiverse where characters from various campaigns can cross over and interact with each other, the characters all need compatible game stats. The list above reflects a wide range of rules systems, from the Alien RPG (Alien) to TinyD6 (Dark Enigma) to 4e D&D (Torchlight). As I noted in a previous post, I've opted for the Cypher System as the common platform for the Front Porch multiverse. As such, my last step for Phase 2 is to assign a Cypher System level and stat block to all the characters in the spreadsheet. The core rulebook is a huge help, but I also picked up a copy of the Cypher System Bestiary, which looks like it will give me enough examples to balance characters from such wildly different genres.

Happy Halodays!

Howdy, everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season. 

The boys got some fun gaming stuff for Christmas this year, including D&D miniatures, a copy of the new 5.5 Player's Handbook for each of them, and the cool new Halo miniatures game. We also played through one of the adventures from the Cypher System Starter Set, which required a lot of deep dives into the rulebook, but it turned out pretty well. We're still a long way from starting a new campaign using this system, but at least it's another step in the right direction!

D&D 2024

Over a decade ago, I invested countless hours in playtesting what would ultimately become Fifth Edition D&D. I submitted vast amounts of detailed feedback through many rounds of playtest materials. (Click the "5e" label and dive in to those earlier posts, if you dare!) The game that was published in 2014 was, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece -- the best version of D&D in the game's long history. 

Fast-forward to the present. I wasn't terribly enthused by the prospect of the 2024 revamp of Fifth Edition, and some of what I was seeing in the Unearthed Arcana playtest PDFs was as troubling to me as anything from The Edition That Shall Not Be Named. But you know what? I watched this video and now I feel a bit better.

Victory Is Mine!!!

During our week here in Los Angeles at my in-laws' house, the boys and I got the opportunity to play an absolutely epic game of Conquest of Nerath, an Axis & Allies-like wargame set in the Fourth Edition D&D world. My brother-in-law Ben joined us for the fun. He took command of the undead realm of Karkoth (black), Matthew led the seafaring elves of Vailin (yellow), Nathaniel played as the humans and allied races of Nerath (silver), and I reigned over the monstrous hordes of the Iron Circle (red), as shown in this pic taken on the game's final turn.

In this free-for-all game, a player needed to amass 20 victory points to win. On the first night of our game, Ben jumped out to an early lead, unleashing the necrotic powers of Karkoth upon those hapless humans in Nerath. Matthew, then, started to mass elven forces on the other side of Karkoth's territory, so I was perfectly happy to let the boys worry about their uncle while I quietly built up my troops in the Iron Circle's desert wastelands. The game proceeded slowly for the first two evenings of play, with all of us scoring a few victory points here and there, primarily by raiding dungeons for magic items. I ended the second night in the lead with 10 points, but the others weren't far behind. 

Tonight, which was our last night in LA, I decided to unleash my master plan. When my turn came up, I launched six separate attacks and one delve into a dungeon for treasure (and, more importantly, the prospect of precious victory points!). Although the troops I landed on the shores of Nerath were repulsed, every other mission was a success. The most glorious moment came when I sailed a strike force across the sea to mount a surprise attack on Matthew's poorly defended capital city. In a single turn, I went from 10 victory points to a crushing 21, thereby conquering the world!

Owlbear...Beard Oil?

Well, owlbears are my second-favorite D&D monster (right after hook horrors), so maybe I need to start growing a goatee again so that I have a reason to partake of this wondrous product.

OGL Update

Wizards of the Coast is in the process of rolling out seismic changes to their Open Game License (OGL), and it's been the biggest story in gaming over the last few days. Now WotC has come out with some revisions to those controversial changes. You can find their statement here. It's, well, it's not really that much of an improvement over the initial draft that was leaked.

Conquest of Nerath

Conquest of Nerath is a board game based on 4e D&D. When it was first released, many years ago, I didn't feel that I could justify the expense. This year, however, as I was looking for cool board game ideas for Nathaniel for Christmas, I got to thinking about Nerath again and figured it would be very much to his liking, as it's a D&D product but also heavily influenced by Axis & Allies, which is probably his all-time favorite board game. I managed to get a copy of Nerath on eBay for a reasonable price, and today we got set up for our first game.

Axis & Allies in a D&D setting really is the best way to describe this game. Oh, and freakin' awesome is probably another way. I mean, just look at that map and all those delightful units! In addition to typical military units like infantry, ships, and siege engines, there are skeletons, elementals, golems, and, of course, dragons! We haven't rolled a single die yet, but we had tons of fun setting up our empires this afternoon. Nathaniel will be playing as the human and dwarven alliance of Nerath (gray pieces in the upper-left) and will be teamed with Matthew as the Vailin alliance of elves and humans (yellow pieces in the lower-right). I'll be controlling the two evil factions, the undead Karkoth (black pieces in the upper-right) and the monstrous Iron Circle (red pieces in the lower-left). 

In addition to the large-scale battles between opposing armies, the game has a dungeon-exploring component, too, as certain types of units can delve into famous dungeons of D&D's history (Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, etc.) and claim powerful treasures to aid their faction. It will be interesting to weigh the risks and benefits of dungeon exploration, as the heroes who venture out in search of treasure are, naturally, unavailable to help out on the battlefield. 

Can't wait go get started!

Gold Box

Oh, come on, you magnificent bastards! Damn you for the countless hours you're about to take from me!

D&D Is for Nerds

So, if you eat NERDS candy, you can upload your proof-of-purchase to their website to get free NERDS-themed D&D adventures. No, gentle reader, this is not a bizarre dream you're having -- it's very, very real. You can check it out here. I don't think I've seen a box of NERDS candy in the past several decades, but I do wonder if the adventures are as gloriously goofy as the Wendy's D&D module from a while back...

But speaking of D&D and candy, this NERDS thing brought back vivid memories of going to KB Toys as a kid -- either at our local Arnot Mall or that legendary hub of commerce, MARKETPLACE MALL in Rochester -- and finding boxes of official D&D candy with actual stat blocks printed on the back. Really, was there a better time to be a D&D-loving kid than the 1980s?!

Sigmar, Smite This Starter Set!

I really dig the Soulbound hardcover rulebook, but I'm quickly becoming disappointed by the Starter Set for this Warhammer Age of Sigmar (I still think they need a colon there) tabletop roleplaying game. In a well intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to teach new players the rules of the game in a piecemeal fashion, the end result is a confusing hodgepodge that leaves me with more questions than answers on every page. The worst part is that there's a showstopper of a problem in the very first combat encounter. 

So, I'm asking myself, do these fyrehunter critters really destroy the characters' armor during the first battle? Like, permanently destroy it? Yes, and yes. Maybe I'm just having flashbacks to the dreaded rust monster from D&D days of yore, but I'm absolutely flabbergasted by the game designers' decision to gank the party right from the get-go. I mean, I get that the setting is intended to be more harsh than a typical D&D campaign, but what do you say to players when you hamstring their characters before they have any idea of what's happening?

LOL grimdark, amirite?!

Here's how it goes down. In that first combat encounter, the party faces no fewer than four fyrehunters. The book indicates that these creatures use their armor-destroying attack on the second round of combat (and the monsters are too tough to one-shot during the first round). Their attack has the Rend trait, and in Soulbound it means that for every unmodified roll of 6 on a D6, the attack permanently reduces the defender's Armor rating by one. The fyrehunters roll 4D6 for that attack, and the odds of rolling at least one 6 on 4D6 is 52%. Most of the pre-generated characters in the Starter Set have an Armor rating of 1 or 2, so even a single 6 is a crippling blow to their defenses. Although the full rulebook provides rules for repairing armor and prices for purchasing new armor, the Starter Set includes none of this information. A character whose armor is destroyed during this first encounter is stuck for the rest of the adventure. If I ever play this system with the boys, you'd better believe I'm houseruling that Rend trait!

Sailing Off Into the Sunset

Our long-running trans-continental Saltmarsh campaign came to an end this past weekend. We'll say farewell to Vlaryn, Moe, Seven, and Ciara, but I'm sure we'll see them again someday! In the meantime,  we'll continue to enjoy this amazing illustration of the party that's now framed in our game room!

When one story ends, however, another begins! Right after wrapping up Saltmarsh, we launched into Matt's new superhero campaign!

Heroes of Saltmarsh

In June of 2019, after wrapping up our long-running Shattered Realm campaign, our Skype D&D group (Matt, his daughter, my boys, and myself) created new characters and began to play through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh D&D book. Over a year-and-a-half later, we're about to embark upon the seventh and final adventure in that volume. To commemorate this epic campaign, Matt commissioned an artist to create illustrations of the four PCs.

Without further ado, I give you...the heroes of Saltmarsh!

How cool is that?!? From left to right, we have the triton hexblade Vlaryn, the dwarf barbarian Moe, the lizardfolk monk/rogue Seven, and the fallen aasimar sorcerer Ciara. A truly great party, now memorialized in artwork!

Full Circle

Matt and I have been exchanging emails about superhero RPGs, and it got me thinking about my first true RPG love, Champions. Long before the Druid Cycle world, long before the siren song of AD&D lured me into TSR's clutches, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Champions fanatic. In fact, the original Front Porch campaign -- one of only two that was actually conducted on my parents' front porch -- was Earth Commanders, which employed the delightfully fiddly Champions system to tell a tale of cosmic superheroes based (where else?) in Montreal.

Earth Commanders got me hooked on gamemastering, but my favorite Champions memory is unrelated to Front Porch stuff. Decades before taking part in the D&D Fifth Edition playtest, I was a twelve-year-old kid who somehow managed to get access to playtest materials for Champions and related HERO System products. I used to dial up a BBS (remember those?) based in Texas, and, as my parents fretted their long-distance bill with every bit that trickled through my 1200 baud modem, I downloaded drafts of HERO System books and read them with a kind of awed reverence. One day, I mustered the courage to email a fan letter to prolific game designer Aaron Allston -- a fixture on that BBS -- and he sent me a very nice note in response. (Sadly, Allston passed away a number of years ago.)

I think it's high time to share Champions with my own kids, so I've ordered a copy of the most recent edition of the game. With our Alien RPG campaign starting up again soon and our ongoing Shattered Realm stories to continue, I have no idea when we would actually play this game, but it certainly will be fun to share all my old stories with the boys.

Holiday Fun

We're enjoying some downtime this week, basically just bumming around and playing with Christmas presents. One one of the kids' big gifts this year was Hockey Sauce, and although Matthew and I both consider ourselves pretty accurate shooters, I have to admit that we need to hone our skillz!

On the indoor gaming front, we've enjoyed a few memorable rounds of Butts in Space and are now poring over the contents of Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. It's a bit like AVP, but without the "P". I suspect we'll mainly use the components to enhance our Alien RPG gameplay experience in the next campaign. I've also tried introducing the boys to the second edition of Pathfinder, without much success; they're ho-hum about a system that's like D&D but not actually D&D. 

Finally, Nathaniel got a full set of fencing gear for Christmas, so here are a couple of photos of us in action!

Building a Better Box

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Paizo does the best RPG starter sets. Although D&D hit home runs with the original Basic Set and the less renowned but still totally awesome Basic Game from Third Edition, most other starter sets have been lackluster at best. Paizo once again dunks on D&D with the Pathfinder Beginner Box for Second Edition. Like similar products for First Edition and also for Starfinder, this set is an absolute triumph of value for the gamer and a wonderful introduction to the game system. I look forward to giving it a test drive with the boys over the holidays. There's precious little chance it will displace Fifth Edition D&D as our system of choice, but it will be fun to play through the starter content and see how Pathfinder and D&D have gone in very different directions over the past decade!

"A xenomorph may be involved..."

I introduced Matthew and Nathaniel to Alien and Aliens over the weekend. I've had this series on my mind lately as Alien: The Roleplaying Game has received rave reviews. At some point, perhaps post-quarantine, I'll need to check it out. It might give the boys a fun change of pace from our usual D&D stuff, as the vast majority of our roleplaying action is set in the Shattered Realm world -- and even our sci-fi Shattered Realm campaign is a science-fantasy that's more akin to Starfinder than the gritty Alien franchise.

But given that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Ameritrash guy, I need minis. I don't see anything on the horizon for the new Alien RPG, but fortunately a defunct board game can get me my plastic fix. Last night I ordered a copy of Alien vs. Predator: The Hunt Begins, which features gorgeous miniatures as well as modular terrain tiles. We can give this game a whirl and then maybe re-purpose the components for the Alien RPG down the road.

Remote D&D

Click here free D&D materials that you can access during this social distancing, self-isolation world we're living in. New content to be added daily!

Handy-Dandy Dungeon Maps

Speaking of Kickstarter, we received our copy of The Dungeon today!

It's a two-volume set, and each book is chock-full of maps for use with D&D or any sort of game involving miniatures that fit on a one-inch grid. Shown below are two examples of individual pages, but you can also lay the book open for a double-sized map.

Additionally, by laying the two volumes next to each other, you can create larger maps in a square shape, or in other configurations. Great stuff!