"That porn chick slew my elf!"

I said "slew," right? Whew!

Zak Sabbath, an avant garde artist, activist, and performer in several “alternative” adult videos (I’m not sure “porn star” should apply to Zak, but I guess that is subjective) has a blog page hit on his hands with his Playing D&D with Porn Stars site. How could he not with a title like that? Not to take anything from Zak; he seems intelligent and capable when it comes to the usual niche talk about gaming. But there can be no doubt that his blogs popularity has more to do with the fact that he knows porn girls, strippers, tattoo artists, and other alternative types than his post looking at what monsters start with the letter “f”. The fact is, having grown up here in Venice Beach and living in LA my entire life, I have known a pretty good variety of these sorts myself. But for Zak these type of people orbit around the things he is into, and more power to him for getting some of them to game with him.

With the video series I Hit it With My Axe at The Escapist, we get a glimpse into the actual gaming Zak does, namely, Zak’s DM’ing for a motley crew of underground misfits, including a hair dresser, a stripper (who doesn’t look much like the glammed up strippers at most higher end clubs), some punk rock guy you barely get a glimpse of, and a couple of “name” starlets. One is Kimberly Kane, a name I had actually never heard of, but Is apparently the winner of several AVN awards for Gang Bangs and facials and all that great stuff. Also Sasha Grey, a name I have heard of, who I have to admit seems like a gimmicky tack-on to the entire proceedings. I didn’t get the impression she was there because she wanted to play D&D. I kind of doubt she had ever heard of the game before that day. Outside of Sasha (who has a great “girl next door look” similar to that pregnant chick from “Juno”), none of the group are the good looking cutie dolls of mainstream porn, but seem more likely involved in labia piercing and nipple chain goth porn that doesn’t usually show up on shelves next to the latest opus’ from more big name stars. I suppose I shouldn’t say, because I haven’t seen anything with any of these people in them (and believe me I watch my fair share), but as far as my tastes go I like girls with much less of a “hard” street look.

In the background of the very small room that the game takes place in, a sort of wary looking dude sits on a bed and reads Zak’s comic collection, looking up occasionally to scrutinize the proceedings. He is the boyfriend of one of the girls, and his very presence outside of the game seems to indicate to me he is there more like the guy who goes with a stripper to a bachelor party – there to watch out for the girls interests and protect her. His presence there really give me the impression that at least one girl is there more as a publicity thing than as a player. Kimberly, however, does come across as a seasoned player.

We don’t get a ton of idea of the game play, but Zak at least sounds like a capable DM.At one point he starts the game of saying “let’s skip the usual do what you want city stuff, and cut to the chase.” All us DM’s have been there, so you for sure get a “shared experience” vibe from that. But other people’s game are rarely all that interesting to us, so the gimmick here has great importance towards the number of people who have watched and commented on the video. Hopefully we’ll get more detail on the gameplay itself in future eps, or even better some of the girls will start taking their clothes off and making out. Either or.

I have to say the camera work and editing are total shit. No bones about it. Sure, it’s nice to have a Blair Witch thing going on, but the point should be to see more of the gaming and get more of an idea of the characters and situations. But bottom line – this is just another project by a guy with a lot of irons in the fire. Of course this is totally gimmicky, but the truth is Zak does play D&D with some porn-related folk. I’d like to think that Sasha would show up to a game that had no cameras, but I seriously doubt it. But even without Sasha, the whole thing does hold interest for some of us who would like some actual pornie babes at their games. All I get to my games are good girls who only know of “facials” as something you get while you’re getting a pedicure.

Over the last few days there has been some kind of controversy in the old school community regarding this videos presence on The Escapist. I really don’t have time to do all the research, but I guess some folks are up in arms because gaming is a “kids” thing, and sure, that is where most of us start our gaming life. But I for sure have no problem with it (I don’t have kids, nor do I want to game with them), and the video itself has nothing salacious about it (sad to say). It’s just some lower end adult industry people playing D&D. Nothing more.

I want to say finally that from what I understand Zak has a few charities that he is personally involved in, and not just on a “wish I could do something about this” level. He actually donates sizable amounts of money from his endeavors to these charities, so he isn’t just talking the talk. If you give money to a cause, you ain’t no poser.

Have you ever tolerated a thieving party member?

Thieving from the party that is. Well, not directly from anybody (yet), but, well, here’s the tale.

One of my fairly new players is running a magic-user/thief named Lily. A few games ago when the character was started, the party was on the way into the Night Below setting. Lily and another new player character were tied up and about to be added to stew for a hearty Gnoll feast. The party slew the gnolls and took on these new party members.

Lily is a child of the streets with a tragic family background. She is a thief and a prostitute who learned some magic from a “boyfriend” to help her get by. Lily is not a great fighter, and the most she usually helps out is by throwing the occasional dagger at an enemy during combat. There is a single classed MU in the group a little higher level than Lily, so Lily is sort of outshone in both combat and magic-use.

But she really loves move silent, hide, and pick pockets. She will use her abilities each time she is near a treasure stash, and she is more often than not the first to the treasure area (while others still slug it out with the monsters) and she usually nabs a small item or two for herself. Mostly gems and jewels, but once a decent magic item too.

Last night Lily was on fire, getting to the biggest treasure pile in the campaign so far while the others were in combat (but a couple of wary characters trying to catch glimpses of her movements while they fought). With some lucky rolls on hide and pick pockets (I was using that to see how slick she was with grabbing a couple of small gem boxes), she got some more good stuff.

Already suspicious of her (and sort of catching her red handed in a previous game), the female drow of the group used detect lie and threats of strong arm tactics. Lily handed over the gems she just took, but that did not satisfy a couple of the characters. The two other female characters took her aside for a strip search, finding a couple of other suspicious items. Lily managed to “kiester” her small magic item and they didn’t find it.

Lily does not tell them what they want to hear – that she is sorry and is just used to stealing to get by. She is unabashed and comes off with a fairly nihilistic attitude. “It is what it is.”

She is still in the party, but I’m not sure this would be the common outcome in other games. So, what would your party do about Lily once she had her say?

A Sword Named "Finslayer"

Finslayer, the most iconic magic item to be found within the Night Below setting for AD&D 2nd edition, is about to be found by the party in my current 1st edition AD&D run of NB. Located (as indicated in book 2 of the 3 book set) in the treasure trove of a Rakshasa and hook horrors, it is looking to be taken into the possession of a neutral good Ranger.

Finslayer was created a few hundred years ago by an unnamed wizard, for a ranger named “Pajarifan.” Pajarifan had different racial enemies than the typical ranger. Instead of goblins and giants, Pajarifan hated Koa Toa and Drow. Finslayer was made to complement the hatreds of Pajarafan, who, as the greatest hero of the southern settlements, quested into the southern Underdark to defeat his enemies. Finally defeating the drow, Pajarifan unwittingly opened the door for the Aboleth to one day rule this part of the underworld. In the module, Pajarifan’s final fate was unrevealed, but it may be safe to assume he took the fight to the Aboleth eventually, and met his doom somewhere around The Sunless Sea.

Here are Finslayer’s powers and abilities:

-Finslayer is a long sword, +3, +4 vs. aboleth and drow, +5 vs kuo-toa.
-It is of NG alignment, very intelligent and has an ego to match.
-It converses with you via telepathy. It speaks in common with the others. It also speaks Undercommon, Drow, Aboleth, and Kuo-toa.
-At will (or by your request) it can:
o detect invisible objects within 10'
o detect secret doors within 5'
o detect magic within 10'
-It can cast "Strength" on you once per day, but the duration is a full 18 hours. If Finslayer strikes a kuo-toa it will confuse it for 2d6 rounds (they get a ST)
• Finslayer will not stick to kuo-toan armor.
• While holding Finslayer you are immune to kuo-toan Symbols of Insanity.
• Finslayer has extensive knowledge of kuo-toa, drow, and aboleth.
Finslayer will come in very handy at the climax of book 2, “The City of the Glass Pool,” where a Kuo Toa army is one of the obstacles to be faced.

Now, I made a couple of changes to the history of Finslayer. For one thing, I decided for some reason I wanted Pajarifan to be a female, so I added an “e” to the end of the name and made it “Pajarifane.” Nice, eh?

So at the game tomorrow night the party is about to dig in to the treasure trove, and Finslayer will be found. As it turns out (quite by accident, I created her long before deciding to do Night Below), the NPC in the party is a teenager ranger girl from the same area as Pajarifane, named “Dia.” The party had already discovered that she is special. A dozen games ago or so they found out she was the secret daughter of Arcturus Grimm, the most famous ranger in history and occasional benefactor to the characters. So Dia comes along being exactly what Finslayer is looking for – a neutral good ranger. So the weapon will most likely go to the NPC. That is probably going to work out pretty good, because it leaves me free to do what I like with Finslayer without basically controlling a player character.

So we will see how it goes tomorrow night. It is especially going to be a fun night, because it is all around the biggest and best treasure find I am bestowing upon the players in a year and a half of these characters adventures. I’ll hopefully get to kick back most of the night while the players argue out who gets what in all the great stuff, that in addition to Finslayer will include a druidic Scimitar +2, +4 when used outdoors in full sunlight, an elvish +2, +4 vs. goblin types long bow, +2 mace, wand of lightening bolts, and a few other goodies (note: I have heavily modified the treasure trove from what the book indicates).

Night Below - Ecology of the Rakshasa

I really thought that after a year and a half of this campaign, I would finally kill at least one character last night. OK, just from that statement you can tell I am not a “killer DM.” After 50 games or so most groups would have experienced some death. Well, with the party facing a crafty and powerful Rakshasa and its Hook Horror cronies, I thought I would get my kill.

Right now the party is in that area of the Night Below setting where Quaggoth and Hook Horrors engage in almost constant conflict over their territory of caves. I should mention that these creature types, and also the eventual “boss monster” of the area, the Rakshasa, are not monsters I have used much in the past. I don’t find quaggoth and hook horrors all that interesting. But I wanted to run some of the Night Below by the book, and I would do so with this section. Also, the quaggoth, as one-time slaves to the drow who once ruled this area (until the drow civilization here was destroyed by an ancient ranger with a magic sword called “Finslayer) were an interesting clue for the groups one drow character to find out more about the people of the old drow city of Sunkenhome. As for the horrors, they were basically thralls of the rakshasa, and therefore made good fodder to weaken the party for the rakshasa fight.

I should mention that the party had found an old stone ziggurat at the entrance to the complex, with drow writing on it. Turns out this was an old wilderness outpost of the drow city below. With there being a drow PC around, I decided to add a little more drow history for the characters to learn of. If you are familiar with the Night Below setting, then you know that the drow are pretty much long gone in this area. Putting in an outpost with some text and graffiti around would add a little drow flavor for the sake of the drow PC, while at the same time keeping the drow-free feeling (refreshing for an Underdark campaign) of the setting.

After some combat, and then parlay, with the quaggoth, the party went on to fight groups of the hook horrors in order to find a rumored horror leader that was able to cast spells and was said to have a vast treasure. This was indeed the rakshasa, who had been appearing to the monsters as an exceptionally strong and magical leader hook horror. While he had the creatures making trips into the tunnels to search for his estranged and marked for death brother (who, according to the module, would be later found by players in the Jubilex Temple area down the tunnels a bit), the rakshasa stayed in a cave lair with this copious treasure trove.

When the party approached his cave, the rakshasa cast a stinking cloud from hiding, and much of the group was temporarily incapacitated. The rakshasa immediately sent in several more horrors to attack the disrupted party, and I had them worried for awhile. But they managed to regroup and destroy the attackers. The party has two magic-users, and they help a lot by casting growth and strength spells on the fighters.

Rushing into the rakshasa lair, they saw three more hook horrors, seemingly guarding a tied and prone female figure. The rakshasa had taken on the appearance of a former party member named “Nutriciia.” The party was none the wiser, and as they attacked the horrors so they could save the girl, she revealed herself as the rakshasa, and snuck up behind a character to sink in claw and fang.

Outside of being a bit weak in melee (claw/claw/bite for 1-3/1-3/2-5) 1st edition rakshasa have killer defenses. Besides ESP and the ability to appear as somebody they see in a victims mind, rakshasa have -4 AC, and are completely immune to any spell below 8th level! Normal weapons do no harm to them, and any magic weapons below +3 only do half damage. They also have access to MU and cleric spells, and in addition to the stinking cloud this rakshasa had a fireball cocked and ready to use. I really thought that 7 dice fireball had a good chance of taking out at least one already wounded character, maybe more.

But he never got to use it. OK, here is the deal. I have my own version of the bard class in my game world. They really are not much like the standard D&D bard, where you have to experience several character classes to truly be called a bard. My class is sort of a thief subclass, but with a set of musical abilities that begin to act like MU spells as they get higher level. The group’s bard, the half elf Vaidno, is one such bard, and he is now getting high level. He recently accessed the “dance” music/spell ability. It is very much like a somewhat powered down version of the 8th level Otto’s Irresistible Dance spell. For one thing, it allows a saving throw. Well, Vaidno got on his mandolin, started playing a serenade for the rakshasa, and even though I gave it a bonus to its save for being a demonic being it failed. There ya go, my boss monster is pretty much helpless for the next 4 rounds. The characters moved in, and even though their magic weapons are modest, they took him down in 3 rounds. Good for them, because he would have blasted the entire area he stood in with his own fireball. That would have for sure killed somebody (pending save).

So my rakshasa didn’t really get to shine, but the party was pretty happy with themselves. They could tell overall that between the hook horrors and the rakshasa, I had finally thrown a possibly deadly fight their way. No more mucking around and running roughshod over my challenges. They are in The Night Below, and they know now that things are really heating up. And as any of you who know Night Below can attest, there are much worse things than rakshasa in this underworld. I’ll get one of those pesky characters next time!

The Thieves Guild campaigns: The Featherguild & Sword and Gold

These days I’ve noticed on various game blogs, and forums like Dragonsfoot, that thieves as a character class get a lot of smack talk (at least as far as 2nd and earlier editions are concerned) . Most recently, their quality as player characters has been most called into question. Skills with very crappy percentages, lack of affective fighting ability, Magic Users being able to better duplicate thief abilities, etc.

Also, I’ve seen some talk about thief related city campaigns failing and being abandoned after just a few games. Monotony and lack of variety is often cited. I mean, how many times can you get a kick out of burgling gems out of temple towers and city townhouses?

Personally, I’ve had two long thieves’ guild campaigns in my time; one in the 80’s, and one in the 90’s. Both were a huge success. I have to admit that they were both conceits of mine. I didn’t actually discuss them before hand much with players or anything. It was pretty much me deciding to do it. Picture an authoritative voice “OK, this campaign is over, you have to run thieves now in the next campaign.”

Now my players in a meek, almost apologetic voice “Oh…OK”

But they worked out great. The campaign in the 80’s was characterized by infighting and bloody violence; and the one in the 90’s by a sort of family feel.

The campaign in the 80’s came to be known as “The Feather’s Guild Campaign.” The major character was Kraylar Eaglesfeather, a half-elf fighter/thief who worked his way up to mid-levels in standard dungeon adventures. Several of my players at the time had thief or thief-type characters, and at some point they became associated with a guild in the main city of Tanmoor. The guild was mostly human of course, but some of the characters, including named Kraylar, my girlfriend of the time’s MU/thief Jarell, and some others were elvish or partly elvish. They often clashed with the human guild members who were a bit racist and not happy with the amount of elvish blood moving into the city, and that eventually led to violence. The human guildmaster died, Kraylar took over in a bloody coupe, and suddenly PC’s were in charge of what remained of the guild. Renamed “The Featherguild,” it became characterized by its racial diversity.

The Featherguild became strong, but Kraylar joined an adventure that took him to the snowy north, and during the months he was gone his second in command Jarell, also half-elvish, took full command of the guild due to popular opinion. When Kraylar finally returned, the guild split in two and a small war commenced with many player characters caught in the middle.

At some point some innocent folk were hurt in a street battle amongst guild members, and a cousin to the city Grand Marshall was killed in the crossfire. This led to the guild being shut down permanently.

In the 90’s I decided to work in another guild angle, this time with an NPC named Marlow, a young human ex-soldier who had grown up as an orphan thieving on the city streets. This fighter/thief gathered up some 1st level PC’s, and went about setting up his guild. He named his new guild after a small tavern he owned in a poor part of town named “The Sword & Gold”. PC’s went on lots of typical dungeon crawls and such, but most game sessions got bookended by trips to the marketplaces in the city for some nice purse-cutting and other thieving activities.

The Sword and Gold campaign went on for a couple of years, and the characters got to be like family to each other. One teenage female thief character became Marlow’s apprentice, and another female thief character became his lover (she would eventually leave the guild because he would not commit to marriage).

Marlow’s guild was mostly human, and at some point came into various conflicts with a guild of half-elf thieves. Coming out on top of most conflicts, Marlow had a golden touch. The part of the city they operated in became a nicer place as Marlow invested money into the area. He also avoided anything to do with murder or violent crimes, so he got little attention from the city watch. Towards the end of the campaign, Marlow became involved with the unmarried queen of the city (he had bought a local falconry establishment she frequented), further cementing his power on the streets. The campaign pretty much ended with Marlow’s young apprentice being groomed for Guildmaster status. That was all several years ago in game-time, so I’ll for sure have to revisit the Sword and Gold at some point.

I should note that both of the major thieves’ campaigns had a big difference between them. That is, the Feathersguild campaign was very player driven. PC’s got in charge, and they made the big decisions. In Sword and Gold, I had Marlow, an NPC, call most of the shots. But it did free up the player characters from administration chores. Although most characters had high level positions in the guild, they had private lives and agendas they were able to focus on.

Weak and often overshadowed by other character types? Sure. Fun to play in a thieves’ guild campaign? No doubt! It takes some work, and you for sure have to mix in standard D&D stuff with the thievery, but in my case I really lucked out with a couple of great campaigns that I will never forget.

Ecology of the Dire Corby

Yeah, it’s not normally all that exciting a creature. It was one of those morts that first appeared in White Dwarf magazine, then found it’s way into the Fiend Folio. The Fiend Folio is a book mostly known as being filled with monsters that seemed to be randomly rolled off of a bunch of charts, with art by Hieronymus Bosch. The Dire Corby is no exception.

But, it is always possible to make lemonade from the many lemons in the book. The Hook Horror is one of those monsters that has evolved over time away from the terrible depiction in the Folio into a fairly cool beastie. Both the Horrors and the Corbies were featured at some point in those Salvatore Drizzt books, and that probably has a lot to do with them being upgraded, at least in appearance.

I never dreamed of using the Corby. With so many cool monsters around, why bother with the various page-filler scrub creatures that litter game material? But I had a big change of heart about this particular monster some months ago when I bought a cheap copy of a Drizzt graphic novel. I wasn’t a big fan of the books or the character, but I was getting ready to do a campaign set in Night Below, and most of the comic took place in The Underdark. I got it for inspiration.

In the graphic novel, Drizzt and his little deep gnome companion get jumped by a flock of Dire Corbies while they are travelling in the Underdark. They are scary and cool here. They even give the cry of “doom!” It’s sounds stupid in the Folio description, but in the graphic novel it is comes off as chilling. These Corbies are black and sinewy, kind of like the creature from the Alien movies. They have nasty claws, and their heads are those of crows, but with tiny, glowing eyes (unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find them online as depicted in the graphic novel. The crude picture above was the best I could find).

So last night in my Night Below game, the party left the kingdom of the deep gnomes to head to the deeper caverns. They encountered a human ranger of the Underdark, and he told them more about the horrors below, including that they might need to go through Corby territory. Choosing that path over the more hazardous and treacherous tunnel, they found themselves swarmed by flocks of hundreds of Corbies. Not too worry – unbeknownst to them the Corbies would flee when 80 of them were slain (note: I was replacing the Grell encounter area in NB book 2 with this encounter).

The players put the tougher fighter types into a circle, with the couple of magic users in the middle. They wanted to protect the low hit point MU’s, but they didn’t really do a good enough of a job making a tight circle, and the Corbies just swarmed on everybody. I didn’t use figs for the Dire Corbies, I just said they were on everyone. Each person was on the average getting attacks from at least 3 of the creatures, and the Corbies have two D6 attacks, so it started adding up pretty damn quick. The elvish MU, Lumarin, used levitate to float above the melee, but the MU/Thief named Lily was not so lucky. Lily had a fairly poor AC, and if I had not made lots of poor rolls on her attackers, she would have been ripped apart. Still, when the battle was over, Lily was at negative 5, but Kayla the hobbit cleric did a good job of getting heals on people.

It was nice to run a huge battle without having to move lots of miniatures around. It took the party a while to kill 80 of the Dire Corbies, but nobody got killed. It was a nice long battle, and I was sweating from the bookkeeping and the dice rolling workout. I must have made over two hundred rolls in that hour and a half. Phew!

DM bites off more than he can chew – film at 11

When I started this new gaming group over a year ago, my intention was to run a few games of the characters travelling the countryside with an artisan caravan, having little adventures, and eventually heading into a classic dungeon setting. The type of adventure I can phone-in by now. Easy peasy.

The dungeon destination plan ended when I got a complete box set of The Night Below setting (with a Dark Sun box set as well, that I might never use). I hadn’t really done a full on epic underworld adventure for many years, so I thought “what the hell, why not use the set I bought?”

And so there they are. After a few set-up games, I was able to get the party chasing slavers into the underworld (that I try to refer to as “The Great Beneath” in my games, but always end up calling “Underdark” ayway). When we start the game tonight, they will be in the midst of destroying the trolls for the deep gnomes, as put forth in the early parts of book 2 of the set.

So, after tonight they should be informed of the horrible abominations deep below who plan to conquer the above world. They will more than likely be well on their way to the most dangerous and difficult parts of this adventure module. Those dangers include whole tribes of hostile creatures, and whole cities of aberrations with armies of guards and slaves. Also, there are close to a dozen possible major allies in the depths, all of them with personalities and motivations all kinds of things that make them unique. The characters will be facing tons of hack and slash no doubt, but there is plenty of opportunity for parlay with the entities who have the same enemies as the PC’s.

Multiple parlay, wandering monsters opportunities galore, slow travel, and assaults on cities. Hooboy, this might take a long time. I checked out a few adventure logs about Night Below gamers have posted online, and one of the campaigns seems to have been going on for 8 years! Daaaaaaaaaamnnnnnn.

OK, I have already set-up ideas to move things along a bit faster. For one thing, I’ve reduced the scale of this underworld. In the adventure, the party is expected to move back and forth on foot between locations that are hundreds of miles apart. Again and again they would have to trudge the same endless tunnels. The module makes it very important that you travel to the surface a lot. So anyway, what would be 20 miles on the maps are now 5 miles. That smalling down of the scale will help a bit. The players will still have to travel a main tunnel 150 miles long (which seems a long way to me underground), but I am also having greater use of “flux points,” sort of teleport spots. I’m going to make those a tiny bit more handy so characters don’t have to travel the same ground constantly. I want this adventure to take months in both the real world and the game world, not years.

So, I can cut down on the travel time. But where I fear I have bitten off a lot is the city assaults. First the City of the Glass Pool at the end of the second book, then the battle royal at the end of the third book at the Aboleth city. Hooboy, it’s going to be a lot of work. Not that I haven’t had giant city battles in games of yore, but those usually had the players helping out a large army or something, so the party could be fighting in a certain contained area. But in both city assaults in The Night Below, you are expected to do it in drips and draps. Guerrilla tactics of hit and run, usually including long-ass treks to the surface world, are recommended again and again. Not only can it go on forever, but there is a lot of logistical stuff for DM’s to keep track off. Different races and groups in the cities will react different ways. And in the City of the Glass Pool, you make multiple assaults in order to rack up unique “points” that, if you eventually get enough, cause the collapse of that city. And shit, this isn’t even the biggest city assault of the module.

Can I handle it? I think so? Is it going to be a lot of work soon? Hells yeah. Do I want to do all that work? I…don’t know. We only play for three hours on a weeknight. Some of these battles will be hours and hours long. Again, can I even do this and get it finished before the end of 2010 so I can start a new campaign? Stay tuned…