Remember when Modules were Modular?

As mentioned before, I've been gaming since the early 80s.  I like using modules even if I rarely leave them unchanged.

Ranting here.

The NICE thing about the old modules is they didn't expect/force you to use a specific campaign world.

Look at this example, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks from the S1-4 Realms of Horror reprint:  

Locating the Adventure

It is assumed that this adventure is located in the WORLD OF GREYHAWK fantasy world setting.  As presented here, the spaceship lies in the Grand Duchy of Geoff, i the mountains northwest of the city of Hornwood.

Of course, if you want to use this adventure in your own campaign world, feel free to do so.  You need only to locate it in a mountain range not far from a city large enough to finance the expedition.

Boom.  Done.  

Most of the old stuff was set up this way.  The handful of BX/BECMI* modules I have were every bit as easy to drop in anywhere.

I was happy to see that they left Saltmarsh in Greyhawk, but from what I've seen of the rest of the 5e modules, you BETTER love the Sword Coast.

I don't.  In fact, I don't care for the Misbegotten Realms at all; Ed Greenwood and his Elminster totally my OC <cough, cough Gandalf cough, cough> and RA Salvatore are hacks.

So what's my point?  Well, to cut on prep, and since thematically it worked well with my homebrew of Folia, I decided to run Tyranny of Dragons.

The first book was fine and reasonably easy to use - but FFS, The Rise of Tiamat is a grand tour of the Forgotten Realms, and in true FR fashion, NPCs and factions that are cooler than you are waved in your PCs faces.

I grumbled about this over on theRPGsite, and was pointed to promising project: Tales of Lothmar.  We need more of this.

*BX is Basic/Expert, BECMI refers to Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortal sets

Gygax, G., &amp; Schick, L. (1987). Locating the Adventure. In Realms of horror (p. 43). Lake Geneva, WI, WI: TSR.

Better Ideas than 'Fantasy Wheelchairs'

 There's a colossally stupid idea floating around, and again its in the name of 'representation' championed by people that it doesn't represent.

<sigh>

Do a web search for it. 

Here's a Q&A Snippet: (DocJones took one for the team reading it)

"But it can float up and down stairs! Isn't that unfair?"

"No, unless you plan on making all the able bodied characters at level 1 also remain on ground floors only and never go up and down stairs and into dungeons. If you were planning on doing that then that's fair."

Short version - the article creator, and advocates of the idea, posit a high-power artifact level wheelchair for you to imbalance your game with.  Floats/flies up stairs, well-nigh indestructible etc.

Just the sort of thing a first level character should get for free.

RPGPundit goes into detail on why it isn't about what they say it is.

Grim Jim has an excellent video debunking it.

It's just a dumb idea under D&D rules.

Well, after a 'spirited' discussion over on theRPGsite, that spans over thirty pages spread over two topics, and quizzing my players, even the most dyed-in-the-wool liberal of which rattled off a half dozen better solutions.  Here's a top ten:  

1. A semi-sentient suit of armor, a la Iron Man
2. Flying Carpet
3. Modifed Tenser's Flying Disk spell
4. Master/Blaster, Yoda Backpack
5. Fancy Saddle and mount.  Especially if a gnome or halfling, use a big dog.
6. Necromatic spell, bone legged 'walking' chair. (Thanks Ghostmaker)
7. Animate Object on a regular (legged) chair.
8. Magic Gondola
9. Golem Carrying you around
10. Magical 'Cybernetics'

...and the obvious solution - Have it fixed magically.  If you're rich enough for the chair, you can afford the healing magic.

Resources and hangouts:

As mentioned, I'm going back Old-School.  Random tables to shake me out of ruts.  Roll and Shout over Stop and Look it up.  Most of these are going to be useful/interesting links to any GM.  I'll perma-link and update as I can.

theRPGsite - Holy crap, an honest to God forum.  This is the Stoa where I go to watch bad ideas die.  If you're at all thin-skinned, avoid.

Medieval Fantasy City Generator - watabou has an awesome one-click tool to toss a city down.  I recommend using it with some flavor of random city system like - Vornheim or grab the city crawling rules from Last Grasp; alternately use his Cörpathium system.
I mean, if you're a real psycho, you could expand the map and detail it.

While you're there, Last Grasp has generators for nearly everything.  If you can't find one, make it.  You can save the links in your bookmarks for the seat-of-your-pants DMing I prefer.

The Angry GM is good for getting my focus back, and solving problems I didn't know I had.  And creating new ones.  He's a dick.

The Monsters Know What They're Doing - and so does Keith Ammann.  I bought the e-book, by way of thanks but the blog is excellent.  While it is very 5e system specific, no matter what rules you use, his habit of deconstructing what a monster is, and how that should drive its behavior, should be studied.

I switched from Evernote to OneNote for the purely pragmatic reason of having been paying for it as part of Office, but then I discovered Cryrid's templates and it has been nothing but WIN.  Hands down this has worked out best for my scatterbrained DMing.

Goblin Punch has me half-convinced I've been doing it wrong for a lot of years.  Funny, insightful and awe-inspiring by turns, if you look at NOTHING else here, you must read why God Hates Orcs.  In fact, f*ck this blog and go read his.

Land of Nod is another good gaming blog, his bar fight rules well, rule.

Scribd is my go-to library these days.  Tons of books and audiobooks to mine for  inspiration - poke through the Appendix N reading list and go wild.



Currently, My Reclamation campaign is using D&D 5e rules, but I'll either be changing to some flavor of OST or FantasyCraft (depending which leads to less of a player mutiny) after the current campaign arc.  

F***ers have me blogging now.

...and that's a good thing. 

STATE OF THE GAME

I had put my long-running game to bed some time ago, and like most things it died with a whimper - nuclear explosion notwithstanding.

It had its roots in my World of Greyhawk shared campaign world from the 80s, and persistent NPCs, history, and had traveled from rules-set to rules-set from , 2nd Edition AD&D->RIFTS->GURPS->Savage Worlds.

Those roots had become shackles.  The continuity (I'm kind of a nut about continuity) had become

After being rudderless for sometime, I decided to go back to D&D.  I had played a few sessions of some flavor of 3.X; played one 4e game at a convention (it was fun, but didn't feel like D&D), and started running a Pathfinder Adventure path.

None of them quite clicked for me... and I dipped into 5e.  It's pretty ok.  There's sections still lifted whole-cloth from 1st edition, and its backed off from some of 3.5/Pathfinder-isms.

What's got me ACTUALLY inspired is my new home-brew world.  I'm taking a more old-school approach to world building; nothing exists unless it needs to - I only render it when the PCs get there.

We're two plus years in of not quite once a week gaming, and I'm just now finishing the map of the campaign area.  It's been pretty liberating.

So most of my posts will be of interest to my players, lurkers, and other GMs.