Marching on to Chapter 11

Having finished Chapter 10 of the Cyclopean Deeps, I move on to Chapter 11, which already has 21,000 words written. Mainly it's a matter of filling in some gaps with the one exception of still having to write the "boss monster" as it were. So, hopefully, I'll have the chapter finished by the end of the month and be rolling into the last chapter (which is also mostly complete).





Source of art: http://adanai.com/video-games-and-marching-bands-a-nice-combo/

Post-Completion Confusion

I just finished writing Chapter 10 of the Cyclopean Deeps. I tell you, when you finish writing an adventure module (which is what each chapter is), there's a period of time afterwards where you're a bit like a gaffed fish. "Is there something obvious that I missed?" "I should be working on ... wait, no, it's done." I need to send this to someone to read it, to make sure it's tight and organized. Yes, that's our editor, Jeff Harkness. Poor Jeff.

3 days left on Quests of Doom Kickstarter

I'd like everyone to take note that I refrained from posting a "What is the OSR" entry during the (most) recent flap about what the OSR is, was, should be, and isn't. I have something more interesting, which is the old-school-rules version of Quests of Doom, a book of 18 adventures. The authors are definitely old-schoolers, although there's a slant into authors of the late 1e and early 2e era more than the classic 1e or earlier. However, the rule set is Swords & Wizardry (0E) (click format to pdf for free copy of rules), and the mission statement is to produce adventures that fit the 0E/1E mold (avoiding railroading, too-strong NPCs, etc.), and there are strong authors with non-2e chops (me, Bill Webb, Casey Christofferson, and Michael Curtis, to name 4)

The list of authors is: Matt Finch (Swords & Wizardry, Tome of Adventure Design), Ed Greenwood (The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, The City of Splendors), J. Collura (Caverns of Thracia Reloaded, Chaos Rising), Michael Curtis (The Dungeon Alphabet, Realms of Crawling Chaos), and Casey Christofferson (The Tome of Horrors, City of Brass). Throw in a few D&D long-timers like Steve Winter (Tyranny of Dragons, Murder in Baldur’s Gate), James M. Ward (Gamma World, Pool of Radiance, Castle Keeper’s Guide), Skip Williams (Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, The Rod of Seven Parts), and Bill Webb (Rappan Athuk, The Lost City of Barakus).

Can a Dungeon Master Cheat?

I saw this question somewhere on the web a couple of days ago, and I can't find it anymore. Incidentally, that's my biggest problem with social media as opposed to blogs and message boards, but that's a topic for another day.

Can a DM cheat? In other words, does the DM so completely rule the game that there is no recourse under the rules themselves for a player?

It's an interesting question when you get into it, partly because when you try to break down what "cheating" means, there are many different possibilities, and it's all mixed in with the fact that the DM certainly is in a position to make rulings. But to break rules, is that simply a "house rule" or a "house ruling" when the rule snaps in two?

I would tend to say that while a DM can't cheat, there are certain things that are "cheap shots." Depending on how you run the game, some things might be cheat shots at one DM's table, but not so much at someone else's table where the base expectations of the game are different.

The "killer DM" isn't cheating, but he's taking cheap shots that will ultimately destroy his game. Still, I am so much in favor of the word "Referee" as opposed to "Dungeon Master" that just the mental vocabulary tells me that somewhere ... I think a DM could be accused of cheating. Hmm.

Just a thought.

Map Challenge - Domes of the Serpentfolk

Okay, so here's a map in response to Erik Tenkar's challenge. Everyone is supposed to post some maps. So ... this is my original draft for the map of the Domes of the Serpentfolk, appearing in Cyclopean Deeps vol. 1, Chapter 5. The version that actually shows up in the book is Robert Altbauer's rendition of this draft.

The idea of the thin stone wall between the domes, filled with secret corridors of different serpent-folk societies developed while I was drafting the map. It originally just has three domes in a big cavern, and that was kind of boring, so I worked with it until I stumbled on the idea of having not only 2 caverns (that was idea #1), but to have the wall be thick and filled with rooms (that was idea #2). I'm pretty happy with the result.