#Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 001)

Sean McCoy at this link laid out the challenge of doing a dungeon room a day for all of 2023. He says: 

Well, I love dungeons and megadungeon play, but writing a megadungeon is difficult! It takes a lot of energy and it’s hard to know when to work on it and for how long. This simplifies things.

A dungeon room a day, every day, for 2023. That’s 365 rooms. I’ll do a level a month, so 12 levels. Every week is a little area of 7 rooms, so I can keep my focus small.

I am going to answer the call and do this myself and post daily for 365 days to create a dungeon.  But I am going to disagree with him a little bit. First of all, I would say that a dungeon of 12 levels and 365 rooms is not a mega-dungeon. IMO it is on the small end of the range of medium sized dungeons.

The second thing that I am going to disagree with him about, is that it takes a lot of energy. I don't believe that. First of all, I do not normally sit down and create a dungeon outside the game. I have always created my dungeons in game in real time on the fly. Bitd we typically played for 8 hours two days in a row for 16 hours, sometimes we played a lot longer than that. Over two days we often played 20 hours or more.  IMO creating dungeons that way is fun and energizing.  He also talks about keeping his focus small, to which I would  reply, "Why?"

Aside from the things of which I disagree with him, I thought it was a very good post, I like the idea and I wish him and everyone who is doing this, great success. I hope everyone of us is able to keep up and post every day for 365 days and I hope that no one has any real world tragedies mess this up for them.

As an aside you may want to read this post about my first dungeon.

One note about the writing of the actual rooms below. I am going to write down what runs through my mind as I think about each room. In game, I don't necessarily provide all of that information to the players. Information given is fairly terse and concise. Questions by the players elicit more information, based on the questions they ask. They often ask questions, that will not be part of what I write here and those questions are to be answered on the fly as they occur.

Important note: This campaign uses a Silver Standard, so Copper has more than enough value to carry out of the dungeon or wilderness. Silver is found in smaller quantities than Copper, Gold in much smaller quantities than Silver, but its value is quite high, Platinum is rare and extremely valuable (a required component of the special magical inks used in the making of scrolls. There are other valuable rare metals. Copper is 120 coins per pound, Silver is 240 coins per pound, Gold is 180 coins per pound and Platinum is not found as coins, but as quarter pound bars that are worth 5 times their weight in Gold. 

So now on to the dungeon beneath The Ruins of Mount Auyán.

The adventuring party arrives  at the Ruins early in the day. They set up camp and their hirelings will take care of the livestock and keep things together while the party are underground. They have been at this a while, so they have a couple of wagons and a goodly amount of supplies and are prepared to stay awhile. 

They start combing the Ruins and by mid-afternoon they have found a couple of old stairways that are filled with debris and after some discussion decide to just clear one and not both. It is near dusk when it has been cleared enough to be passable and they set a guard on it for the night. 

In the morning they start down into the dungeon. The steps are worn as those many thousands of feet have trod them for many years. At the bottom of the steps is a landing area roughly 40 by 40 in area and there are 8 corridors leading out of this area, two to the front, two on either side and two to the rear on either side of the stairs. None of them have doors, nor is there any sign that they ever did.

This concerns them some; however, they do have an experienced group of henchman and hirelings to watch the camp and to ward the stairs and keep watch over it.

After a short discussion, they decide to take the front right corridor first. The initial landing is a bit damp from recent rains that drained down into the dungeon, but there is no standing water and they do find a couple of drains that are only partially clogged. The floor is cobblestone and that continues into the corridors. They did not hear anything at any of the corridors and they all have a slight musty smell. What will they find?

Level One

So we have:

Corridor 01 - front right

Corridor 02 - front left

Corridor 03 - left front

Corridor 04 - left rear

Corridor 05 - right front 

Corridor 06 - right rear

Corridor 07 - rear left

Corridor 08 - rear right

***********************************************************************************

Corridor 01 - front right - standard 10x10 design, cobblestone floor and the walls are mortared stone.

Twenty feet in, there are heavy wooden doors on both sides of the corridor facing each other. Each door has a wooden handle but no lock or latch. 

#1 The door on the right is swelled and will be very difficult to open, but once opened you can tell it is designed to swing shut and it is heavy enough that it takes some effort to hold it open. Inside this room is old broken furniture, chairs and tables, quite a bit of dust, rodent droppings and it looks like at one time there where things hung on the walls. Perhaps mirrors or tapestries and such. There are no traps or secret doors to find and wise players will quickly scan this room and move on. 15'x15'

#2 The door on the left is also swelled shut, is not nearly as tight as the other and it is only moderately difficult to open. This room has much same contents as the first room, but one of the chairs is intact and although the dust on the floor is not disturbed, the chair has the dust brushed off the seat as though someone recently sat in it. There are no traps, but there is a secret door in the floor underneath the chair, if found and opened it is a chute 4'x4' which leads by a slide down to the 3rd level of the dungeon.  20'x15'

Another twenty-five feet down the corridor they come to two more doors across from each other. These are metal doors that appear to be very heavy and they have locks and pull handles, the locks may be locked.

#3 The door on the right can be opened by picking the lock or using a spell to open the door. This room has no dust. In the center of the room is a table and four chairs, all in really good condition. To the right of the door there are two cabinets, the back wall has a tapestry with rolling hills and a stream running through it. In the distance is a giant, oddly enough if you study the image the giant moves towards you. To the left, the wall has a map of the area that you traveled through outside to get here. The map features are not quite like the current area, but very close. If they stand and look at the tapestry for a full turn the giant will move forward close enough to reach out into the room and grab someone, pulling them into the tapestry, if this happens the players can follow their party member into the tapestry. As long as no one stares at the tapestry for a full turn, nothing will happen. There are no traps or secret doors to find. 20'x20'

#4 The door on the left will be found to not be locked, although the door is a bit difficult to open. This room has a long low table with 10 cushions on the floor around it. On the table sit four metal pitchers, one has a clear liquid, one a bright yellow liquid, one a dark purple liquid and one a green liquid. Beaded moisture is on the outside of these pitchers. If tasted the clear liquid seems to be cold spring water. If drunk, it is just water. If tasted the bright yellow liquid will be bitter, if drunk extreme nausea and vomiting will last for an hour and weakness lasting a day will result. If tasted the dark purple liquid will be very sweet, if drunk hallucinations will last for two days. If tasted the green liquid will be invigorating, if drunk a person would not have to rest or sleep for two days. If any of these is poured into a flask, they turn to dust in the pouring. The pitchers cannot be removed from the room. The walls shimmer like heat in the air, but no heat is felt. There are no traps or secret doors to find. 20'x20'

Another 20 feet down the corridor and the slope of the corridor angles steeply down and over the next 100 feet you drop at least 20 feet in elevation. The corridor appears to dead-end into a 35'x35' room that is completely empty, but it does have the following:

On the right side there are rooms

#5, #6 and #7 10'x10' rooms with door opening but no doors in place. In each of these rooms is table with two chairs and a lit lamp in the middle of the table. A smell of incense is in each of these rooms. Anyone who sits in one of the chairs will see in front of them across the table a woman with dark hair and exotic features and clothing looking into a crystal ball. She will be speaking a language that cannot be understood. No one not sitting can see the woman or the crystal ball.  She will stop talking and look at you expectantly, if you give her a gold coin, you will be able to understand her and she will tell you things you don't want to know and you will be in a hurry to leave the dungeon. When you get up, she disappears and it will take your companions a bit of time to calm you down. In a few minutes you will not able to remember anything she said, but her beauty will haunt you a long time.

#8 On the left side of there is a single door, a large heavy wooden door with metal reinforcement. This door is stuck and will be very difficult to open.  Inside the room is are 8 bunk beds. Beside each are two dressers. The bottom drawers on each will contain blankets, the top drawers will be empty. These beds are standard size. There are four tables each with four chairs. There is no dust and the room has an air of recent occupancy. All the walls are bare except at the center of the back wall a floor to ceiling mirror four feet wide is attached to the wall. If you are directly in front of the mirror you see the room behind you. If you look at the mirror from the side you see a completely different room full of orcs staring at you as they draw their weapons. If you continue to stare at the mirror from an angle for a full turn, that view becomes reality and you and your companions will be attacked. Otherwise nothing will happen. *If you break the mirror there is a secret passage behind it, a five foot wide corridor that will lead 20 feet to a door and behind that door is stairway leads down. 30'x30'

Back out in the main area the wall ahead of you is blank and there are no traps or secret doors to find. The wall on either side of the stairs is also blank and there are no traps or secret doors to find.

*I will eventually come back to this.

My First Dungeon (January 1976)

I previously wrote this in a blog post here. I first started playing OD&D in September of 1975 and started refereeing not too long after that. 

The guy that introduced us to D&D never ran a dungeon, it was all city and wilderness, but after I had reffed for a little while I decided to do a dungeon. My prep for the game was selecting nine quotes.. When the game started they set out across a desert for two weeks until they came to an old set of ruins (yeah, I liked Ruins from the beginning) and eventually down into the dungeon below. Somewhere in a box I might still have that list of quotes. My first dungeon ran horizontally and after travelling for a ways through a rock walled cavern they came to a large oak door that looked very old and was covered with cobwebs. Beside it on the rock wall was the first quote carved into the wall. They got the door open and the adventure began. 

They eventually made it through each area, (some of which involved game weeks) and continued to the next door. I do not remember a ton about it without being able to look at the quotes, but I do remember that it was a very psychological adventure, one area being one where they had to figure out that they were being lulled to complacency from which they would never leave, one of them figured it out and then had to convince the rest of the group to continue which he almost failed to do. At the end of it they had obtained no treasure and fought no physical battles, but they talked about it all week and I got a lot of good feedback on the game.

Well I found the nine quotes and I thought that I would post them here for you.  I used each quote as the improv prompt and created each dungeon area and contents on the fly from each quote. 

It was a series of mental puzzles and we played two back to back 14 hours game sessions going through it. There were no deaths; however, they were within moments of TPK on three occasions during this game session, although they did not realize it until they were out of it, then they had a few moments of panic.

I looked up the quotes during December of 1975 during Christmas break and brought them back to college in Athens, Ohio and this was the first game I ran for the new year in January of 1976 and this was the first dungeon I tried. I did not follow the example in the rules at all, but when off on this entirely different tangent.

Each of the nine quotes was carved into rock, and they could have explored the areas in any order. When they finally came out above ground they were miles from the oasis and the ruins. I have used ruins from the very beginning. Also an oasis is something that has reoccurred in my games quite a bit, now that I think of it.

So what were the quotes that I used as a mental prompt to improv my first dungeon on the fly, well I found the sheet and here they are. I got 28 hours of gaming in two long hauls with 20 players that talked about it for weeks. There was no treasure and no combat. Yeah, they were on the verge of a TPK three times with no combat involved and as noted they did not realize they were in so much danger until they were out of it. Physical danger was a small part of the danger. These were each carved into the dungeon walls.

The Quotes:

1. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us.

2. Those who have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, have neglected much, and most of all themselves.

3. You may light another's candle at your own without loss.

4. It's not enough that we do our best, sometimes we have to do what's required.

5. The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.

6. Water becomes worthless when it stagnates. So do people.

7. If in the morning a *Gypsy you meet,
the rest of your day will be lucky and sweet,
but if a black-robed priest comes first,
your luck is gone expect the worst.

8. Let your red blood and my red blood,
run together in one stream,
let it drive a mill
and that mill should have three stones;
It's first stone should throw white pearls,
It's second stone should throw small change,
It's third stone should produce love.

9. The river is deep, the river is wide
Milk and honey on the other side.

Also, if I were ever to do this again, it would be completely different as the details are mostly lost to time. But twenty college kids between 18-20 and all of them steeped in a background of fairy tales, Greek, Roman and Norse myths and mythology along with English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish sources and fantasy literature, that group can never be duplicated again. 

*Disclaimer* in 1975-76 no one of college age in rural Ohio ever suspected that Gypsy was a slur, in fact I viewed it as a positive word and was very surprised in the last 5 years to find out that it is viewed as a slur, something I would never have guessed. Note especially that the quote uses meeting a Gypsy as a very good and positive thing. Even to this day when I read the word Gypsy, it has a positive connotation to me. It brings to mind for me a robust culture and community. I guess now the correct term is Romani. They have a rich tradition of music and dance and folklore. I have always viewed them as an admirable people. 

A Few Planned Posts for 2023

I thought I would mention a few of my planned posts for 2023. One of the things I will be posting about at least once a month during 2023 is the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the Original Dungeons & Dragons, yeah, 2024 is the 50th Anniversary of OD&D. Fifty years occurs in January of 2024 and will be celebrated for the whole year. Since no one knows the date the first copy of OD&D was sold, I have been using January 25th (Friday in 1974) as the arbitrarily chosen date and that will be a Thursday in 2024. Other people may use another date, which is also arbitrarily chosen.

Along the way, I will be talking about how WotC/Hasbro blew it for the 45th Anniversary of OD&D and how they are giving every indication that they will blow it for the 50th Anniversary of OD&D as well.

Also along with this I will talk some about 6E "D&D" aka "one D&D" and the planned conversion to the "bleed your fans" for every nickel and dime you can, while avoiding providing any real value model. So far it appears that they will focus entirely on the virtual world and you will be renting the rules instead of owning them. That focus appears to be to the complete detriment of the table top gaming aspect of D&D.

Right now I am planning on trying to do two posts a month on these topics for each month of 2023 and then post daily in January of 2024 and then monthly the rest of 2024.

I am bringing this up now, so that anyone else who wants to join me in doing this can. It would be great if we could collectively generate enough posts to shame WotC into honoring the original game and honoring Arneson, Gygax and the other people that brought D&D to life, instead of their (IMO) obsessive focus of trying to get every possible penny from the fan base.

The Three Base Classes (Part III)

First Draft continued

SBM TSH Bonus/Penalty for SBM and TSH full chart.
     For SBM bonus is to Damage, for DAQ bonus
     is to Hit, for TSH bonus is to Hit Points.
     Unless otherwise noted the below notes apply mainly to SBM.
3-4 3-4  -10 These
5-6 5-6  - 5 Penalties
7-8 7-8  - 3 Are As Observed
  9   9  - 1 Out In The Real World
10-11 10-11    0 Normal/Average
12-13 12-13  + 1
14-15 14-15  + 2 Normal Hobbit Maximum, along with Goblins and                                    
Kobolds
16-17 16-17  + 3 Normal Elf Maximum
 18  18  + 5 Normal Human, Orc, Hobgoblin, Bugbear, and Gnoll
Maximum, Extraordinary Hobbit Maximum along with
Goblins and Kobolds

Extraordinary Ability Below For Humans, Elves, and Dwarves (note exception)
 19  19  + 6 Normal Dwarven Maximum
 20  20  + 7
 21  21  + 8
 22  22  + 9 Extraordinary Maximum for Elves
 23  23  +10
 24  24  +12 *Trolls, *Ogres
 25  25  +13 *Minimum Hill Giants, Extraordinary Maximum for                                
Humans, and Dwarves along with #Orcs, #Hobgoblins,
#Bugbears, and #Gnolls
 26  26  +14 *Minimum Stone Giants, Max *Hill Giants
 27  27  +15 *Minimum Frost Giants, Max *Stone Giants
 28  28  +16 *Minimum Fire Giants, *Cloud Giants, Max *Frost
                                Giants
 29  29  +17 *Minimum Storm Giants, Max *Fire Giants, *Cloud
                                Giants
 30  30  +19 *Minimum Titans, Max *Storm Giants
 31  31  +20
 32  32  +22 *Maximum Titans
Note only the SBM and TSH Columns apply for those creatures with the * or # indicated.
For all other things those creatures with a * or # follow 3-18 with two exceptions:
Titans may have CWI, AWE, CLE and PBA up to 25. All Trolls have a TSH of 32, due to
their aggressive regenerative power.

This table is generally only for humanoid creatures, although you can treat Centaurs
as Hill Giants and Minotaur's as Stone Giants for SBM and TSH only.

The Three Base Classes (Part II)

Warriors                Mages                           Holy Warriors
Level  1    0 Level  1    0 Level  1    0
Level  2 2,000 Level  2        2,500 Level  2        1,500
Level  3 4,000 Level  3        5,000   Level  3        3,500
Level  4 8,000 Level  4       10,000 Level  4        7,000
Level  5       16,000 Level  5       20,000 Level  5       15,000
Level  6       32,000 Level  6       40,000 Level  6       30,000
Level  7       64,000 Level  7       80,000 Level  7       60,000
Level  8      120,000 Level  8      150,000 Level  8      120,000
Level  9      240,000 Level  9      300,000 Level  9      240,000
Level 10      360,000 Level 10      450,000 Level 10      360,000
We can come back and add new Level Titles Later. No Level Limits by Race/Species.

First Draft: This table has notes that will not fit on this screen width; however, this table is setup to cover humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, all the humanoid monsters and all giants and titans all in one table.
SBM CWI AWE TSH DAQ CLE PBA Bonus/Penalty
3-4 3-4 3-4 3-4 3-4 3-4 3-4   -10
5-6 5-6 5-6 5-6 5-6 5-6 5-6   - 5
7-8 7-8 7-8 7-8 7-8 7-8 7-8   - 3
  9   9   9   9   9       9       9   - 1
10-11 10-11 10-11 10-11 10-11 10-11 10-11     0
12-13 12-13 12-13 12-13 12-13 12-13 12-13   + 1
14-15 14-15 14-15 14-15 14-15 14-15 14-15      + 2
16-17 16-17 16-17 16-17 16-17 16-17 16-17      + 3
 18  18  18  18  18  18  18   + 5  19  19  19  19  19  19  19   + 6
 20  20  20  20  20  20  20   + 7
 21  21  21  21  21  21  21   + 8
 22  22  22  22  22  22  22   + 9
 23  23  23  23  23  23  23   +10
 24  24  24  24  24  24  24   +12
 25  25  25  25  25  25  25   +13
 26  --  --  26  --  --  --   +14
 27  --  --  27  --  --  --   +15
 28  --  --  28  --  --  --   +16
 29  --  --  29  --  --  --   +17
 30  --  --  30  --  --  --   +19
 31  --  --  31  --  --  --   +20
 32  --  --  32  --  --  --   +22



The Three Base Classes (re: my thoughts about abilities)

These are some thoughts about the three base classes riffing off my thoughts about abilities found here.

How about this for the three base classes:

Warriors instead of Fighting-Men
Holy Warriors instead of Clerics and replacing Paladins BTW
Mages instead of Magic-Users

How about a maximum of 10 levels?

Warriors are hands down the best pure fighters?

Holy Warriors are good fighters, but really powerful against undead and unholy things? And keep the Paladin limitations of behavior? If Holy Warriors are not Holy, they become just Warriors.

Holy Warriors have their own spell list and can cast 1st Level Spells at 1st Level, 2nd Level Spells at 2nd Level, ... and 10th Level Spells at 10th Level?  Their Spell list has fewer spells and is specialized.

How about 1st Level Mages can cast 1st Level Spells, 2nd Level Mages can cast 2nd Level Spells, .... and 10th Level Mages can cast 10th Level Spells?

In those cases where there is a Spell overlap between Holy Warriors and Mages, there is a distinct difference between the spells for the two classes, they are similar, but different. Minimize the existence of overlapping spells as much as makes sense.

Only one type of Mage, not split into a lot of different types; however, the player can focus his Mage on a particular type of spell. The limitations come from the chosen focus and the limitations of the time commitment of what one person can do. You can still learn everything (not really) if you can live long enough.

Holy Warriors are the good guys that Clerics were supposed to be, but rarely ever were. 

Warriors gain some features of Rangers and can enhance different variations by choosing a focus. Only one class of Warrior, but you can customize through play and in collaboration with the referee.

Iron Falcon '75: The Lakeside Adventures

Iron Falcon is a game by Chris Gonnerman that quite accurately emulates OD&D plus the Greyhawk Supplement. It has been out since 2015 and you can get it here in pdf for free or you can purchase a hard copy if you wish.

Chris Gonnerman now brings you an adventure called  Iron Falcon '75: The Lakeside Adventures. The premise is this:

What if magic was real? What if, long ago, monsters walked the Earth... ogres, giants, dragons, and vampires, and the smaller, scarier things that haunt the darkness? What if heroes and wizards did battle against them, in defense of humankind? What if the magic went away? What if it all just faded into the shadows? What if all the monsters and magic became nothing more than myths or superstitions, remembered by few and believed by even fewer. What if it all came back? What if monsters once again stalked the night, slipping out of the shadows to slay the unsuspecting and the skeptical? And what if a few people knew, and went out to fight against them? This is Iron Falcon '75.  In this game, players will take on the roles of modern-day people of the year 1975. No one but a crackpot would believe in magic, or giants or dragons or any of that nonsense. Yet your player characters will enter this world of magic and mayhem, willingly or otherwise, and do battle with monsters they once thought were just myths! This book includes background materials, supplementary and optional rules, and three adventures to get your campaign started. You will also need a copy of the Iron Falcon Rules for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing in order to use this book. The time has come to face what lurks in the shadows...

I don't use adventure modules directly, but when something good comes along, I do read them for inspiration. This looks to me to be one of the best, well worth reading and borrowing from and if playing through modules is your thing, this as I said looks to be one of the best of the genre. 

The Abilities (preliminary thoughts)

If you were going to change from the standard OD&D 6 ability stats (of STR, INT, WIS, CON, DEX and CHA), what would you do and how would you define them? I posted this on my forum three years ago and am still thinking about it. I suppose I should do something with it.

The Abilities (preliminary thoughts)

Name Items Normal/Extraordinary Range Notes
SBM Strength, Brawn, Muscle 3-18 / 19 - 25
CWI Cleverness, Wit, Intuition 3-18 / 19 - 25
AWE Awareness, Will, Empathy 3-18 / 19 - 25
TSH Toughness, Stamina, Health 3-18 / 19 - 25
DAQ Deftness, Agility, Quickness 3-18 / 19 - 25
CLE Character, Leadership, Eloquence 3-18 / 19 - 25
PBA Presence, Beauty, Attraction 3-18 / 19 - 25
If you roll an 18 (3d6 in order, then you get to roll d10,000 to see what level of Extraordinary Ability you might have.

Roll on d10,000 Result
00001 - 05000 Normal no change
05001 - 07500 19
07501 - 08500 20
08501 - 09200 21
09201 - 09700 22
09701 - 09900 23
09901 - 09999 24
10000 25

John Arneson - David's Father passed on April 18, 2022 at 98

John Arneson - The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived at Secrets of Blackmoor Blog

John Robert "Bob" Arneson Obituary

Picture linked from the Obituary

What a great life this man had and to have raised the son that he raised.

Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. is back (Part Three)

The new website is mostly operational and is supposed to be fully operational on November 7th, 2021.

Quoting

Website, Storefront, Orders, and Future…

Hello Fans,

Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. (EmpCho) has updates to share:

•The new online store will be located at www.empcho.com

•The new website/store is scheduled to be fully operational on November 7, 2021, for taking pre-orders.

•Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. is an independent company, which produces its own products; we do not have large quantities of stock on hand in between manufacturing runs. Miniatures are often manufactured on demand in house, and printed products need time to be ordered, produced, and delivered to EmpCho. Books and miniatures are then, packed and shipped by EmpCho. Pre-Orders will allow us to determine how much product we need to manufacture and order. We apologize for pre-orders, but we are anticipating a lot of orders. All of Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. products are proudly made in the USA.

•An email will be sent by November 1, 2021, to everyone with past unfilled orders to place their order into the new store. We cannot import the past orders into the new store. Therefore, if you wish to keep your past unfilled order, please place a new order into the store.

•All orders received will be shipped by the end of January 2022. This is due to the large quantity of past orders, time to produce the books, manufacturing of the miniatures, and shipping during the holiday season. If overall production escalates more rapidly, then the timetable will be moved up. Emperors Choice Games and Miniatures Corp. (EmpCho) will work extremely hard to complete all orders as quickly as possible!

•As a Thank You to all our fans, our prices that are 7+ years old will remain in effect for all orders, with only very minor change for very few items. These prices will remain in place until 1/1/2022, at which time an increase will take effect due to increased raw material and/or printing costs. In addition, our 10% discount for all Veterans will remain in effect indefinitely and all customers with a past order will receive an additional 10% off their entire order! This can be combined with the Veteran discount, for a total of 20% off for a Veteran, with a past unfilled order.

•We also wanted to take the opportunity to clarify a bullet from the last post on which was: “There are things in the works besides the new website and storefront. I will be posting news on Arduin as it becomes a reality.” This statement simply means Emperors Choice Games & miniatures Corp. is working on NEW Arduin products for the future, and as things are developed for release, then we will inform everyone.

•Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. looks forward to continuing to bring Arduin to the world. This cannot be done without all your help and support through the years, now and in the future!

In the words of David A. Hargrave:

“To you and yours, I lift a tankard of Rumble Tummy’s ale in respectful salute!”

The awakening continues…

Sincerely,

Dave Bukata
President
Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp.

George De Rosa
Vice-President
Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp.

Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. is back (Part Two)

The new website is mostly operational and is supposed to be fully operational on November 7th, 2021 

Quoting 

It has begun!

Hello Fans,

Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. (EmpCho) has an announcement:

The new online store located at www.empcho.com is up and fully operational now!

Our timetable was moved forward with the website/storefront rebuild and we were able to bring everything up ahead of schedule. I want to give a very large shout out to Dave Bukata, President of Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. for his dedication, steadfastness, and tireless weeks of hard work on the site. Without his efforts, the website/storefront would have never been live in such a short amount of time. We still have much to do including gearing up for miniature production, preparing for order fulfillment, organizing vast amounts of material, and drawing up plans for the future of Arduin. As always, we thank you all for your outstanding support!

It has been too many long, long years of tragedy, trials, and hardship. Now the fresh air of the present and future, along with friends old and new have made things much easier!

Sincerely,
George De Rosa
Vice-President
Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp.

Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. is back (Part One)

 Quoting

An awakening is under way at Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp….

Hello Fans,

Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp. is in the process of creating a new website and store front!

Here are the details:

• The online store at www.empcho.bizhosting.com is no longer active, due to the creation of a new store front.

• The web page is still active for the product pictures, downloads and information until the new site is uploaded.

• All past orders are still with EmpCho and will be addressed! I am very truly sorry for the frustration with orders for Arduin products, but things will be set right!

• There are things in the works besides the new website and storefront. I will be posting news on Arduin as it becomes a reality.

Again, we truly appreciate your patience with all the frustration, years of hibernation, and lack of communication. That is all going to change now! The awakening has begun…

Sincerely,
George De Rosa
Vice-President
Emperors Choice Games & Miniatures Corp.

A Review of "Dave Arneson's True Genius" from the Internet Archive

I wanted to share this review with you and I am doing so with the permission of the author, Nick Monitto. It is found at this link on the Internet Archive Guest Review Dave Arneson: True Genius. Some of you may have missed it and I wanted you to have a chance to read it. A couple of pictures were not saved by the archive. So I am adding this picture of Dave Arneson and a picture of Rob Kuntz further down the page.

Dave Arneson

 Reprinted with permission from the author.

GUEST REVIEW DAVE ARNESON: TRUE GENIUS

 Guest Writer: Nick Monitto, July 31, 2017

I would imagine it is a safe presumption that anyone reading this website is a fan of Role-Playing Games.  Given the strong emphasis on here for original old-school and OSR products, it is also probably a good bet that readers will know of the original TSR and its stable of games, led by the well-known “Dungeons & Dragons”.  Ask most gamers about the creation of “D&D” and you will hear repeated mention of Gary Gygax, certainly an important figure in both gaming (in general) and at TSR (in specific).

The name of Dave Arneson is not as well known, though, and that is a shame.  I knew of him, but not as well as I perhaps should have.  For me, he was the creator of the “Blackmoor” realm that I had seen as a supplement for the original “Dungeons & Dragons” game.  Later I found his name on a series of adventure modules that seemed to run the gamut from city to wilderness to some far future setting!

Several books have been written over the years about Gygax, but this is the first I have come across about Arneson.  Technically, this is not a book in the traditional sense.  Rather, it is a series of three essays by Robert J. Kuntz, a name which also should be known to fans of RPGs both past and present.  This is what I would consider a deeply academic work, and I do mean that in a positive way.  The writing is very detailed, with numerous footnotes to give background and definitions.  Its depth seems to speak to Kuntz’s love for the game, and for Arneson himself, urging others to understand just how important his contributions were.

Robert J Kuntz from Three Line Studio

The first essay, entitled “From Vision to Vicissitude: The Rise and Reversal of Arneson’s RPG Concept” is the longest and most detailed of the three.  It begins by quoting Herbert Simon’s explanation of a scientist’s problem-solving path as being like “…a search through a maze”- seemingly appropriate for the subject at hand!  Further down in the quote we find the key parts for Kuntz’s foundation.  Explaining that problem solving involves transformation of current expressions to new ones (and testing them to see if they are reaching the goal), Kuntz uses this as the framework for Arneson taking existing open and closed gaming systems, and transforming them into an entirely new one.  He presents a long list of the leaps in design that were made with his “First Fantasy Campaign” (aka the aforementioned “Blackmoor”) including “World Building”, “The ‘Unending Story’”, and “No ‘right way’ to play”, something which is particularly significant in later matters.

Kuntz then moves ahead to 1974 to discuss the early days of TSR, as the company enjoys dramatic growth and expansion.  The “Dungeons & Dragons” game was a new thing entirely at that time.  For its players, it was not just about buying the products and consuming them for their entertainment.  Now, they were getting something that they could use to create their entertainment for themselves.  While holding on to this philosophy strongly in the early days, TSR’s first products were more like true supplements.  Players were encouraged to take things as catalysts and use them, in part or in whole, to create their own adventures and worlds.  Given the way that some companies operate nowadays, this can seem like a rather odd approach indeed.

Next, we are brought back to the end of Simon’s quote, where “…Indications of progress spur further search in the same direction; lack of progress signals the abandonment of a line of search.”  We see how TSR has started to spread out, offering a wide range of games while still remaining strongly behind “Dungeons & Dragons”.  There were more products being put out, but they were along the lines of mapping aids or charts of monsters & treasure- the kinds of things that still fed into a do-it-yourself approach.

The narrative becomes rather personal at this point, when Kuntz describes a stockholder’s meeting that turns rather contentious.  Arneson felt that he was being overlooked and underused in his time at the company, so he and others thought that an additional member on the board would help to alleviate that.  I will leave the details to your own reading in the essay but spoiler alert:  the discussion turned ugly pretty quickly, and the fallout was fast and furious.  Kuntz himself and Dave Megarry (one of Arneson’s friends) resigned from TSR within a handful of days afterward. Kuntz’s brother Terry and Arneson himself were pushed out shortly thereafter.  This was perhaps the first of several seismic changes the company would eventually see.

The next section starts with several quotes from Gygax, some of which seem quite contradictory, as to whether “Dungeons & Dragons” should be viewed as something where the rules are strict constructionalist, or more loosey-goosey.  We see the game, under Gygax’s hand, move away from that earlier “no ‘right way’ to play” idea and become remade into a more closed system.  Stronger rule sets and the new focus on adventure modules made for a more rigid game; at least as far as the marketers and product makers were concerned.  Kuntz notes that the feeling seemed to be such that “less choice equals less monetary yield”, an idea that he strongly disagrees with, and I find myself largely on his side in that matter.  In fact this idea seems to have grown for quite a long time with the game, and I am not sure if it has really eased off yet.

He concludes by bringing it all together with the meat of Simon’s quote, that TSR made “progress towards the goal” with the use of Arneson’s concept, but that they went on to “diverge” and change in order to “[increase] the market yield”.  Arneson’s original strong idea was taken in and used for a time, but then cut down and sacrificed, losing some of its greatest aspects.

The second essay, “Dimensionality in Design: An Examination of Dave Arneson’s System of Systems Thinking” is perhaps like a bit of engineering, after the first largely conceptual discussion.  The “System of Systems” idea is defined as “viewing independent systems as part of a more complex one”, where you learn about the smaller parts to something in order to understand the bigger thing they make up.

Not simply adapting to what was then the mentality of the market, Arneson kept true to his ideas and sensed out for himself what the next steps forward should be.  He was able to make a number of “dimensional leaps”, going above and beyond what had come before.  Kuntz uses the metaphor of a work table containing thousands of odd parts.  One can start to combine them and see if the desired functionality is achieved.  You keep on adding and subtracting the parts, and each step creates a new situation, a new ‘start’.  But the connection with past steps is irrelevant, only progressing towards the goal.

Kuntz concludes the second essay stating that the dimensionality (defined as complexity joined with diversity) that Arneson started to show in early “Blackmoor” and “Dungeons & Dragons” has still not reached its full potential.  Market pressures, as they did decades ago when Arneson began his writing, continue to fuel stagnation even today.

The final essay, “Debunking the Chainmail/Braunstein ‘Derivation’ Claims” goes after one of the biggest issues, and one of the things that I had heard myself, before reading this work.  The assumed history (helped along by some of Gygax’s quotes) claims that the original “Dungeons & Dragons” game descended from the “Chainmail” and/or “Braunstein” games.  This part is the briefest of the three, diving in quickly and making its case rather effectively.  Arneson had a conceptual model that was tested for two years before it was brought to folks in Lake Geneva.  The model and concept itself was never truly altered, just that subsystems were added on.

This essay feels almost as though it has gained momentum from the previous two: Kuntz presents his case in just seven pages, all of them quite well-used.  For example, nearly two full pages of bullet points list characteristics of Arneson’s system, and in almost every case we are shown that neither of these other games contains those features.  Kuntz concludes with a nice afterword that ties things together and provides a bit of a teaser for a more detailed future book.

For a piece with a relatively small page count, it is definitely a heavy read.  I ended up going through it twice, a few days apart, as I put together this review.  But unlike some things I have encountered, Kuntz’s essays are heavy from a purpose and depth of substance.  I do recommend this as a good piece for anyone who is interested in learning about the method of Arneson’s work.  As I noted in the beginning, we are greatly lacking for writing about the history of Dave Arneson himself and about his side of the creation of “Dungeons & Dragons”.  Let us hope that this is only the beginning, and that more books will be written before too long.

Robert Kuntz’ website can be found at Three Line Studio.

******

Nick Monitto is a gaming geek who came of age on the classic games of the 1970’s and 80’s.  He is spending some free time now trying to decide on his secret agent code name identity.

Here is a direct link to buy the book https://www.tlbgames.com/collections/dave-arnesons-true-genius, and no I do not get any compensation for this. 

October 1st - Dave Arneson Game Day - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

Celebrating Dave Arneson Game Day - October 1st - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor.

David "Dave" Lance Arneson - October 1, 1947 – April 7, 2009 would have been 74 years old today; however he prematurely left this world at only 61.

He loved games, all kinds of game, and he loved for everyone to enjoy them. That is what he spent his whole life doing, helping people enjoy their leisure time.

Blackmoor was his creation, also known as The First Fantasy Campaign. Sadly the campaign journal by the same title is out of print and has been for a long time.

Read the following about one fan who is trying to do his part to change that. You can find the story here The First Fantasy Campaign - Digitized.

A couple of months ago I won an eBay auction of the 1977 print edition wherein all illustrations were done by Dave himself. The book cost me $150 -- and yes, it really is that hard to obtain, though it was in rather good condition with both maps present. The books is beautiful and a unique insight into the early days of our hobby. One that I am truly sorry to see people being restricted from by its steep price.

Through the last couple of months I have busied myself with the creation of a digital PDF version of the whole book and have gone to great lengths at creating the best result I possibly could. I will return to this digitizing process below, but before that I would like to present my plans to you.

Please go read the entire thing, no piracy involved, he has a more elegant plan. 

One other thing, were you able to game today? I was not, but I will be gaming tomorrow on Oct 2nd Saturday. I hope you can do that too. Dave would be happy to know people are gaming in honor of his birthday. People having fun, enjoying life while they remember you, now that is a legacy we can all hope to have.

Celebrating Day Seven of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

Today September 30th is the seventh day of Blackmoor Week 2021.

Over at the The Ruins forum one of our European members now has the book Dave Arneson's True Genius and has made his first blog post on it. His field is Continuum Mechanics and I think you will find his approach to the book to be both interesting and enlightening as he is just getting started. As part of that approach he has provided links to some references in the book for our benefit. Go check out his blog which is titled Troglodynasty and he has only made a few posts before this. I am hoping it will be the beginning of a long run.

Dave Arneson's True Genius - First impressions

Here is another review from back in 2019, that you may not have seen.'

Commentaries on Dave Arneson's True Genius

from the blog

Tower of the Red Archprelate

On another topic over at the Tower of the Red Archprelate, is a post about dragons that I think Dave Arneson would have enjoyed and have riffed off of.

The Dragon

Celebrating Day Six of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

Today September 29th is the sixth day of Blackmoor Week 2021.

Today we will link to series of posts from all the way back in 2009. A real blast from the past. Over at the Bat in the Attic blog (Rob Conley) a four part series of posts on The First Fantasy Campaign was done back in April of 2009. 

Into the First Fantasy Campaign Part 1

History remembers Statesmen, Philosophers, Kings, and Conquerors. Dave Arneson was none of those. He merely figured out a cool way to have fun that wasn't seen before. Yet in the last quarter of the 20th century and continued into the 21st century his legacy has impacted millions and ignited fires of imagination that still burns today. And it started in a place that only existed in Dave's mind, a place called Blackmoor.

Into the First Fantasy Campaign Part 2

Into the First Fantasy Campaign Part 3

Into the First Fantasy Campaign Part 4

Next he talks about the Original Blackmoor Magic System. He says it was based on the Formula pattern for most magic. That magic-users were limited because they had to prepared the ingredients before entering the dungeons. Some spell had special ingredients that could only be found by adventuring. A magic-user only gained experienced if he casted spells. The magic-user's constitution also played a role in limiting the number of spells cast.

Spell components in AD&D, the whole idea came from Arneson in early Blackmoor. Think about that and let it sink in. 

When it comes to old school gaming Rob and I have about a 30% field of agreement and a 70% field of disagreement. Our view of things does not have a lot of overlap; nevertheless, he writes a lot of good stuff and has contributed greatly to gaming, you should go read his blog. I just stumbled across this series of posts and read them for the first time today. I thought another look by a third blogger at The First Fantasy Campaign would be a good thing for you all to read.

Celebrating Day Five of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

Today September 28th is the fifth day of Blackmoor Week 2021.

One of the things that Dave Arneson and Blackmoor contributed to OD&D was the Magic Swords and the process to determine what powers a sword might have. Arneson viewed Magic Swords as creatures.

Magic Swords & Matrix

Dave Arneson said:

Prior to setting up Blackmoor, I spent considerable effort in setting up an entire family of Magical Swords. The Swords, indeed comprise most of the early  magical artifacts. A small table was prepared and the Swords' characteristics set up on cards.

Later on a new Table was formulated and used for generating Swords in other Castles. In The First Fantasy Campaign book,  there is a Magic Swords Personality Matrix 

Values run from "A" to "R" and eleven colors.

Following that is another Matrix and it says The Magic Swords of Mythology are varied creatures that can give great power to their owners, who are sometimes helpless without them. Only Swords have these powerful variations and capabilities. 

Other tables follow this, the entire swords section covers several pages. Much is similar to what ended up in OD&D, but quite a bit is different and it is worth using to spice up your Magic Swords.

Celebrating Day Four of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

 Today September 27th is the fourth day of Blackmoor Week 2021.

Today we will link to another series of posts from last year for Blackmoor Week for those who may not have seen it.  The Gnomish Embassy The Personal Blog of B.W. Mathers

This series is about a 5E look at monsters for Blackmoor.

Blackmoor Week 2020 - Dragonborn of Rodhin

Blackmoor Week 2020: Dwarves

Blackmoor Week 2020: Elves

Blackmoor Week 2020: Gnomes & Halflings

Blackmoor 2020: Humans

Blackmoor Week 2020: Orcs & Half-Orcs

Celebrating Day Three of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

Today September 26th is the third day of Blackmoor Week 2021.

Yesterday I linked back to when I wrote about The First Fantasy Campaign early in 2020. Today I am going to link to where another blogger wrote about The First Fantasy Campaign starting in early September 2020.

The blog is the OSR Grimoire  and The First Fantasy Campaign posts started with this one: JG 37: The First Fantasy Campaign

He concluded his long series of posts in late December with this post: The First Fantasy Campaign: Remastered.

He says: 

Before his passing, Dave Arneson indicated that he wished to re-edit JG 37 "The First Fantasy Campaign", as reported in First Fantasy Campaign Belongs to Arneson Estate Bledsaw Confirms on Havard's Blackmoor Blog.

Although we can't know exactly what Arneson had in mind, having just completed a review of each section in "The First Fantasy Campaign", I have attempted to reorganize its contents, adopting the OD&D framework:

His suggested organization is pretty interesting, given that this was not a game supplement, but instead a campaign journal. But it begs the question that is the most interesting to me and that is what additional material would have been added? We can only wonder at what might have been added that was probably never committed to paper at any point in time.

Celebrating Day Two of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

 Today September 25th is the second day of Blackmoor Week 2021.

Last year I wrote about The First Fantasy Campaign aka Blackmoor and there are many more posts that follow the link below:

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day One Hundred and Thirty-Six

In response to a question I wrote:

Yes, you are correct. Although it does not happen very often, sometimes the Acaeum does get it wrong and the first print is entirely black and white. On a true first print the black and white image that appears on a title page in the later printings was the cover on the first print.

I provided the following information for the Wikipedia page.

"1st Printing (1977): The Cover and entire booklet are Black and White. The Cover says "The First Fantasy Campaign Playing Aid" with Playing Aid as a subtitle. A large mostly circular picture with Trees in the foreground and a Fire Elemental in the background below which it says "by Dave Arneson" and "Judges Guild". There is no other verbiage on the cover and the price does not appear on the cover. The Back Cover has a product list titled "Booty List" with the highest number being 35 and "New Non-Sub Items" listing product numbers 36-39. It comes with the first printing of the First Fantasy Campaign Maps. This book consists of 92 numbered pages plus the cover, inside cover, back cover and Table of Contents for a total of 96 total pages. The dark red cover was used for the reformatted later printings that used a smaller font and fewer pages."

Since then this correct information has been deleted from the Wikipedia page. However, I have the 1st print from 1977 and the entire book is black and white, it does have a total of 96 pages including the covers and the above image does appear as the cover of the book. If you have any of the dark red covers shown over at the Acaeum, you do not have a 1st print.

 

Celebrating Day One of Blackmoor Week - 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor

Today September 24th is the first day of Blackmoor Week! Remember Christmas break in December is the 51st Anniversary of Blackmoor as it began in December of 1970. As previously noted several places on the Internet several players testify as to this being when they first played in Blackmoor.

Blackmoor Week runs from September 24th through September 30th every year to celebrate gaming and to honor the first campaign (Blackmoor) and the author of that campaign (Dave Arneson). Blackmoor Week is followed on October 1st by Dave Arneson Game Day, celebrated on David "Dave" Lance Arneson's birthday each year. This year as Oct 1st is a Friday, maybe we can all game on Friday night and lift a toast to Dave Arneson. 

We get an early glimpse of Blackmoor in The Temple of the Frog, the first published adventure. Sadly its legacy is not that of instruction, but of what has become THE ONE TRUE WAY, which is to use published modules exclusively. Dave was showing everyone how it is done, the message was ?here is how you DIY and MIY." Sadly that message has been lost over the years.

So this year, celebrate by doing something you make yourself. It will be better than anything you can buy.

Crimson Escalation

 Crimson Escalation

What if you could speed-up DnD combat while making battles more exciting, realistic, and fun? All that with a minimum of bookkeeping!

Let's help Venger Satanis get this Kickstarter to the Stretch Goal. You only need to kick in $1.00 (or more if you are feeling generous. 516 people have already pledged $733 and he only needs $267 to hit the Stretch Goal. I backed it and I encourage you to do it too. It is only a $1.00 and I want to see that bonus mentioned below at the bottom. Have a little fun and throw in $1.00, you spend more than that on anything and everything these days. $1 menus are gone, but this one is still here. Throw $1.00 in and smile, you did a good thing.

This KS is to fund a standalone PDF, allowing gamers who love D20 fantasy RPGs to have Crimson Escalation at their fingertips.  Sure, you could start using it without throwing in a buck; I don't mind.  But if you want to see something like Crimson Escalation proliferate throughout the hobby, like I do, back this sucker for $1 and let's see what happens.

If you want short, brutal combat that ups the tension every single round - without having to keep track of stuff (besides which round it is), this might be for you!  I've found the majority of combats never go beyond the 4th round using this method (7 rounds max).

Feel free to give it a try before backing this project, just to see if it's as good as promised.  You won't be disappointed.  That's the Venger Satanis guarantee! 

This blog post has all the basic information (including an embedded link to Crimson Dragon Slayer D20): https://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2021/08/crimson-escalation.html

Here's a direct link to the FREE Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 PDF (page 7, if you want to go right to the mechanic itself): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/303380/Crimson-Dragon-Slayer-D20-Revised

So, let's talk about this PDF... it's going to have a cover page, a page for Rob and I to give some background on Crimson Escalation, a page covering the basics of the mechanic along with extraneous details (What happens if people join the battle a couple rounds in?  What if a character already has a wider crit range than everyone else?), and a page at the end for credits.

The KS funds will be used to pay for layout (bloodstains on parchment don't just come out with a little soap and water, you know) and the already acquired artwork.

The Stretch Goal of $1,000 is a bonus - the Ten Commandments For Immersion. Who doesn't want their game to be more immersive?

The Perilous Dreamers First Dungeon (a look back to winter 75-76)

 Over at The Ruins of Murkhill forum I have started a thread about the first dungeon I ever created.  I based the nine areas on nine quotes and then improved from those quotes.

You can find the thread here. I will be commenting more about it once people have had a chance to comment on the forum.

I think you will find some things about the dungeon rather surprising.