Podcast: History of Northport

Listen to the newest episode of my podcast,

Ramblings Of A Gamer And Artist: History of Northport

Had some recent shout outs from other anchorites, Tim Shorts

And Larry Hamilton

At some point, I will figure out how to include call ins to the podcast.

This was a big inspiration, and had a review of GURPS Horror I looked at what it considered to be the weakness of the game, lack of a highly detailed setting, and just kitbashed CoC for it.

GURPS Classic Fantasy

This was a book I used for years, and I borrowed a lot of the setting, Yrth, later released as Banestorm in 4e. Real world medeival folk, complete with religions and all that jazz

Also mentioned: Stonehell Dungeon

Michael Curtis had some stuff I plagerized, like the Plated Mage

The Glass Harmonica

Seriously, Amazon lists two for sale- jump on this!

The Giant Under the Snow

You can get this on Kindle now. Giant earth elementals, witches, liches, armies of undead!

Cappadocia

Enormous Turkish underground city

Ruins of the Undercity

My first OSR purchase! A great way to solo play by Kabuki Kaiser

Lesserton and Mor

What happens after the orcs win the war.

Daggerspell

Katherine Kerr wrote an epic series about a cursed wizard and incidentally did some world building that inspired me.

Swords Against Wizardry

Fritz Lieber describes a megadungeon in the Lords of Quarmall. Gotta have air circulation !

The Chronicles of Prydain

Lloyd Alexander introduced me to fantasy, and to the Gwythaint from which I draw my moniker.

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Hit points

In my latest anchor podcast

I discuss hit points, energy drain, and the basics of GURPS combat. For more worked examples, see what The Mook  has to offer.

Seven with one blow, grab it here

Dungeon Synth: Kobold

Maximus, from Gladiator

ST 14 DX 14 IQ 12 HT 14

Hp 15 Per 12 Will 14 Fp 14

Basic Speed 6 MV 6 Dodge 10

Parry (sword) 14 (other) 13 Block 13

Adv:

combat reflexes, high pain tolerance, toughness, hard to kill +2, born warleader 3, charisma+2, attractive, luck, weapon master(all), armor mastery, rapid healing, Enhanced parry 1, indomitable

(formerly rank 8, social status 2, wealthy, huge ally group)

Disad:

Stubborn, code of honor: soldier’s, status-4, dead broke, Enemy:Emperor

Skills:

Shortsword 18 spear 16 bow 16 knife 16 shield 18 axe/mace 16 brawling 16 wrestling 15, Armory: melee weapons 12, connosieur: melee weapons:12, tactics 14, strategy 14, leadership 17, intimidate 14, teaching 12, riding 14, Animal handling (equine) 14, swiming 13, hiking 14, observation 12

 

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Solo Goodness and Random Generators: A Review of Kabuki Kaiser’s work

Before I relaunched my 2002 game Northport on RPOL.net, I was starved for gaming, and just discovering the blossoming fruit of the OSR.  A few years before, I had given my AD&D stash to a friend, as I could no longer afford to keep my storage unit and had no space in the apartment for games I hacn’t been able to play for over fifteen years.   I had recently discovered Peter Dell’Orto’s blog, and had started buying GURPS supplements for the Dungeon Fantasy Line, and was thinking about reviving the game I had once run using GURPS 3E and some variant rules from a long since vanished website.

I needed a fix, and a dungeon generator, and found both within Kabuki Kaiser’s Ruins of the Undercity.

This also led to my acquisition of Goblinoid Games’ excellent retroclone, Labyrinth Lord, (which while free, is worth purchasing for the art content).  From around this time, I have been swimming in OSR adventures, assorted Retro-clones and alternative bestiaries, and have even bought PDF’s of TSR books long since gone from my grubby little hands.

Ruins of the Undercity, and it’s companion work, Mad Monks of Kwantoom, (both currently available at onebookshelf for only $5 each) stimulated a lot of nostalgia and a drive to acquire in me.  These are not simple random dungeon generators, although that is their core mechanic.  They are one of the few solo products I have seen in years, and their tone is perfect.  The bestiaries they contain are revisionist retrofitting of late 1E critters into the B/X mold of Labyrinth Lord, but the careful editing of selection from the Fiend Folio (in the case of Ruins) is very tone specific, and drives a lot of the flavor of the setting.  The suggestions on how to run the descriptions of the random dungeonscape are extremely useful, and the random events that happen during the player downtime is outrageously good, and some of the entries have been driving plots in my game.

Mad Monks, on the other hand, in addition to bringing Wuxia wow to B/X style games, has a bestiary designed after some really fabulous matchbook covers, and some really high powered mythological set pieces that feel more like unlocked secrets than simple random encounters. The tables for city encounters and events have a grand feel to them, that shifts perspective in play from murder hoboism to giving a sense of belonging within the world setting and instills a desire to obtain status rather than just wealth; to even get to the island where the Pagodas are requires membership in a society.

Dyson Logos gives some examples of play over in his blog, and if you weren’t following him already, for his awesome crosshatched maps, please do.

Kabuki Kaiser has produced some truly entertaining examples of modern old school solo play with these supplements, that are worth mining for details if you ever plan on running a city, and has a thoughtful method for random generation of availability of goods when your PC’s are shopping, in addition to a well thought descriptive system for dungeon design.