Keepin on keepin on...

I just got finished editing and creating maps for a very nice introductory Labyrinth Lord module, written by James C. Boney, who many people may know through his great work writing 1e compatible adventures that are published by Expeditious Retreat Press. Work continues on various other projects as well, some of which is creative while other work is administrative.

One thing I'm looking for right now is a person who is a fan of Labyrinth Lord to take the reins of a major community project. This role would be largely administrative, and is especially suited for someone who is active at conventions or understands how conventions work. I may need more than one person, too.

I've had chats with various people about the state of Goblinoid Games, and things have definitely gotten to the point that I need to start designating responsibilities elsewhere simply because I can't handle everything myself. I've taken things nearly as far as I can all by myself, and I particularly need dedicated community supporters to give me a hand to launch us to the next phase. So far Goblinoid Games is just getting to the point where we can take on paid freelance projects (by reinvesting 100% of sales), so at this time help with these things would be strictly on a volunteer basis (though free swag, free PDFs, and/or other free or reduced price product is certainly doable).

Labyrinth Lord is not dead! (I promise!)

I was perusing the blogosphere when I came across a couple of troubling statements on this blog. Here are the relevant quotes:

"Labyrinth Lord is pretty much a single product with nothing new on the horizon. Why would I pick it up now when there's just oodles of stuff coming out of every quarter supporting Swords and Wizardry?"

"Labyrinth Lord looks, at first blush, to be a little dead on the vine."

"It's just that I'd like to see a Labyrinth Lord companion or something like that hit the shelves."

Before I comment on these quotes, I want to make it clear I'm not picking on the author in any way. I don't interpret the author as trying to be mean. In truth I've gotten a sense lately that Labyrinth Lord is viewed as sort of the stepchild of the retro-clone games. I think part of the reason for this is that there are many new people to the "Old-School Renaissance" scene, so they don't have any context. A year ago there was a great deal of buzz around Labyrinth Lord, and there continues to be in circles that don't include the usual blogs associated with the OSR. It's true that it has not enjoyed as much recent discussion as it used to, which I attribute to several reasons.

One reason is that interest in OD&D surged after Gary Gygax died. It wasn't long after that when Swords & Wizardry was released, so a lot of the energy emerging for OD&D went to S&W. Combine that with the emergent popularity of James Maliszewski's blog (he plays and talks about S&W a lot), and S&W is effectively constantly advertised to a fairly large portion of the audience interested in old-school games, and many of those people became interested specifically because of an interest in OD&D.

So I think there are a variety of reasons why Labyrinth Lord might be viewed as less popular. I was out of the country much of last year and the first part of this year, very busy, and wasn't able to maintain the constant presence and pot-stirring needed to keep interest fresh, much less work on many LL projects.

But, no worries, things are picking up. Now to address some factual mistakes. Labyrinth Lord has enjoyed a great deal of professional support from Brave Halfling Publishing, and will continue to do so. We are constantly working to improve the look of Labyrinth Lord, and you will see some big changes starting soon, climaxing this fall. In addition to BHP, Prime Requisite Games is putting out beautiful material in support of Labyrinth Lord. Goblinoid Games currently publishes the Scribe of Orcus, which contains support for Labyrinth Lord. We've released other support materials, including the Monster Listing, Original Edition Characters, and the Tomb of Sigyfel. Not to mention a German edition of Labyrinth Lord.

In addition, another companion book (besides Original Edition Characters) is in playtest, called Advanced Edition Characters. We have two modules on the way, already received from freelancers and ready for editing. Brave Halfling Publishing has an aggressive release schedule as well. Things are going full speed ahead for 2009/2010, with another "secret" project about 70% written that should see release before the end of 2009. Through one route or another Labyrinth Lord will go back into commercial distribution, probably in the fall, to move forward with our intentions of establishing it in the "real world."

Now, personally, I believe there is always room for great games, which is why I do not perceive Labyrinth Lord to be in competition with Swords & Wizardry. Nonetheless, I'd like to answer the question above, "Why should I pick up Labyrinth Lord...?"

Depending on your interests, here's why:

1) Labyrinth Lord has wide penetration in terms of name recognition, to an audience even outside the typical forums and bloggers. It was in distribution briefly (our agent went out of business) which slowed us down, but we'll get back out there soon.

2) Labyrinth Lord emulates the Moldvay rules, as many people know. So if you are a fan of that rules set, core Labyrinth Lord is for you.

3) Labyrinth Lord + Original Edition Characters (a player's handbook) actually gives you the "feel" and rules emulation of Oe much more accurately than any other retro-clone out there to date.

4) Labyrinth Lord + Advanced Edition Characters (coming out later this summer) will provide the game feel of "advanced" games for people who prefer that style of play.

So in short, you should take a look at Labyrinth Lord because it is currently the most flexible, widely appealing retro-clone out there. It enjoys great support from multiple publishers, which will only increase over the coming months and years. It will be aggressively pushed beyond the internet, thus increasing its use to a wider audience. We have more plans ahead for community building.

Welcome to Fugilroag

The popularity of megalabyrinths waxes and wanes through the gaming community. But for a while now I've been thinking of a megalabyrinth Labyrinth Lord community project. It is not necessarily geared toward formal publication, although at some point it could be. For now I am kick starting a collaborative "world" to promote some of the best concepts of the megalabyrinth in a flexible community-based format. The text of what I have so far as the "seed" follows. Visit my forums for discussion, maps, and other information.

Copyright 2009, Daniel Proctor

Fugilroag
Demi-Plane of the Underworld

Introduction
Fugilroag is at its heart a classic megalabyrinth with a base town. However, there is a twist. I wanted to create a megadungeon project for the Labyrinth Lord community that is conducive to group development, and that is infinitely flexible. That means nothing one person creates can invalidate someone else’s creation, it is infinitely expandable, and can accommodate characters of all levels. No one section will be dependent on the completion of another, so everyone can develop it at their own pace. Read on to see how we accomplish this.

Welcome to Fugilroag
Fugilroag is a small demi-plane. Its main section is the large Fugilroag cave, which is approximately 32 miles by 42 miles. Fugilroag interacts with other planes through a seemingly infinite system of transient passages that appear and disappear on the cavern walls. Some passages have been present so long they seem to be permanent, while others may last but a few hours, days, or weeks. There are small populations of humans and halflings that are permanent to the cave. Members of other races sometimes arrive, but often do not establish themselves. Many people live on family farms, but there are two small villages. Cave Port is a fishing port, and is the center for that economy. The village of Fugilroag is a farming center, and trade goods constantly travel between these villages. The approximate total population is 1,500 for the entire cavern, with members distributed among the communities and farms. There is a militia composed of 70 young men, divided into sectors throughout the cavern to keep watch for creatures that might emerge from the caves. While most residents are farmers or fisherman, a few misguided youths take to adventuring caverns, and are often never seen again.

The following discussion illustrates how the transient caverns work. On a Material Plane, adventurers may be wandering the underworld only to find an opening to a vast cavern with a mushroom forest. Somewhere else, perhaps adventurers are on a raft on an underground river, which opens into a placid subterranean lake. In each case, they find themselves in Fugilroag, and most often the passage behind them is gone. As a general rule, though not always, when a passage opens that delivers creatures, it disappears immediately.

Other passages open, leading to new unexplored tunnels. Some may be natural caverns, others clearly constructed. Some are small labyrinths; others may be sprawling underground complexes. Some are barren of life while others are filled with totally alien creatures and devices. Most are isolated, that is, they do not lead to another world. However, there are exceptions. Although a few natives sometimes decide to explore these tunnels, there is always a transient population of visitors who explores the tunnels hoping to find their way home. The locals are extremely suspicious of visitors, but do take them in for their precious money, which is scarce locally. Most visitors are never truly made to feel welcome.

Cavern Basics
The most abundant life in the greater cavern is various fungi, including moss, mold, and mushrooms. Various insects are present as well, though they most commonly occupy wastes. The cavern itself is subject to slight seasonal variation in temperature and humidity. The cavern is illuminated by phosphorescent molds and lichens on the walls and ceiling, in a cycle that corresponds to the seasons. In the winter the light is dim, and in the middle of the winter it is completely dark for four weeks. The light produced increases through spring and summer, and for a like period in the summer it is always as bright as normal day. However, the light has a greenish-blue tinge and does not support photosynthesis. It rarely ever reaches freezing in the cavern; it is never hot. During the “winter,” when it’s coldest, the humidity is lower. In the summer it becomes very humid and often fog enshrouded, with “rain clouds” that form in the uppermost part of the cavern, so that rain does occur.

Food and Economy
Monetary wealth is highly coveted, since metal coinage only finds its way to Fugilroag via the travelers who become stranded. Most of the time commerce is conducted strictly through barter, and rarely will people exchange goods for the few metal coins they’ve acquired. There are various industries in Fugilroag, many of which are typical to small towns, but may take on a unique character here. There are brewers who make ale from moss and mushrooms or wine from the fluids of bizarre subterranean beetles. Tailors weave cloth from various soft lichens, and so on.

The following agriculture is most common:

Mushroom farming: There is a great diversity of mushroom types in Fugilroag. Grand, fast-growing mushroom forests provide a dense type of mushroom used for “lumber,” firewood, and paper making. There are dozens of edible mushroom types, both wild and domesticated. Mushroom farmers often specialize in one or a few types, growing them either in fields or underground pits.

Moss farming: Moss forms the staple diet in the cavern. Fortunately, there are a few fast-growing nutritious types that taste respectable and are often used in stews, stuffed mushrooms, and other meals.

Animal husbandry: The most common farm-raised animal is the chicken. However, there are a few “native” animal types, all cave dwellers, that may originate in Fugilroag or they may have wandered in centuries ago from transient passageways. The following animal types are the most common of these, but several other less abundant and more exotic types exist:

Cave bison: These diminutive, eyeless descendents of bison forage on the ubiquitous moss available in the greater Fugilroag cavern. The bison reach no taller than three feet high, and are covered in thick, shaggy bone-white fur.

Mole Rabbit: These hairless, eyeless, pale rabbits are burrowers, living almost completely under the soil. They eat mostly moss and insects, and reach up to two feet long. They are farmed both for their meat and the supple leather that may be produced from their skin.

Bearer Ant: Perhaps one of the most exotic of the more common farmed animals is the bearer ant. These docile, one-foot long ants are covered in tawny black fur. They are raised primarily for the eggs the queen produces. Queens can be up to six feet long and produce as many as thirty, 8” diameter eggs per day. The eggs are leathery and typically stabbed to drain the milky contents, or eggs may be boiled and peeled. This ant has clearly been domesticated a long time, and is completely dependent on human care to survive. Common workers are discarded or sold as pets, but kings are coveted and traded among farmers so as to maintain the various herds.

Fishing: Fishing is an important component to the Fugilroag economy. In the greater Fugilroag cavern there is large fresh water lake that is home to many cave-adapted creatures. The most prized is the blind white trout that lives in the colder, deeper parts of the lake. Most abundant are the 2” long white cave shrimp that are netted near the cavern walls as they feed on molds and slimes. Finally, spiny white cave eels are netted by the swarm and form a less desirable, but abundant, protein source. Other less common fish are often caught and go to market, but are expensive delicacies. Fishing is a dangerous enterprise, for no one can know what creatures may inhabit the lake, brought in from underwater passages.

Scribe of Orcus, Vol. 1 Issue 5...now available!

The Scribe of Orcus is a periodical produced by Goblinoid Games to support "retro-clone" game systems, and to provide "compatible" material for various old-school RPGs. These systems include (but are not limited to) Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, "First Edition," 4C System, and GORE. Most issues of the Scribe of Orcus will vary from 5 to 10 pages, and will focus on solid gaming text.

This issue of the Scribe of Orcus brings you 9 full pages of mutant mayhem!

Mutant Future Factions 3: The Steel Clad, by Ryan Denison
This mysterious faction terrorizes villagers as their members raid the wasteland, adorned in power armor that makes them a force to be feared.

The Saharan Archipelago by Derek Holland, 24 new Mutant Future creatures. Take a tour of the fauna from the Saharan Archipelago, a dangerous and exotic place full of never before seen mutants!

Buy it here

Essentials of D&D lineage

There are a number of new people discovering older games. In addition, there are a number of new people discovering older games through the various retro-clone games. Not everyone new to the scene, or even rediscovering these games, has played or read all of the older editions of Dungeons & Dragons. What I present here is a concise and simplified lineage of what I'm calling the "three pillars" of early D&D. I'm not leaving any of the other editions out because I don't think they're as good, it's just that they are tangential to this discussion.

BEHOLD my complicated graphic!



Yes, it's that easy! Let me explain. What follows is a synthesis of my personal experience reading and playing these games, as well as from reading various posts from the relevant creators of these games.

The original D&D game was closely tied to Chainmail, the rules for miniature mass combat. The core classes were the fighting man, the cleric, the magic-user, the elf, the dwarf, and the halfling (yes, race-as-class). The elf was a unique class, a bit vague in description but most people interpreted the elf to be something of a dual class character (fighting man/magic-user) that only had access to one set of class abilities each day. As many know, these rules were spread among three books. There were many vagaries in descriptions of, well, everything. Partly this is because there was a lot of excitement when the game was being developed, and it ended up going out the door as a rush job. In the current "old-school" climate it will be unpopular to say this, but many or most inconsistencies and vagaries in OD&D are not because it was intentionally left to be house ruled or "imagined the hell out of." That was for the game in general, and yes for rules not covered, but I'm talking about something else. Many of the rules vagaries were simply oversites or failures to anticipate what details would be most needed in play, or by simple error of ommission. This of course is understandable, because the game was revolutionary and treading new ground. By no means am I an OD&D hater, I just think it is appropriate to look at it in its historical context, not the romanticized context many have for it now, which is the only reason I bring it up.

Then the various supplements started coming out. Each one added more complexity to the game, not just in new classes or magic, but in the way attributes affect the game and in the assumptions of "power level." The monsters become more powerful, able to deal more damage.

Then, for reasons that may forever lie in the mists of time and lawsuits, OD&D underwent the "great divide." The rules had become a mess anyway, and reorganization was in order. Couple that with the pending Arneson lawsuit, and it was seen to be desirous to sort of "split" the game, not unlike Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzeneggar in the movie "Twins," so that all the genetic garbage went to AD&D, and all that was good and wholesome went to the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh D&D (just kidding!).

So, most of what was seen to be "derived from" original D&D went to Moldvay/Cook/Marsh. Much of the added material from supplements, with the added complexity, went to AD&D.

There never actually was a "basic" D&D, just D&D and AD&D.

What was the result? The main result was that the core OD&D rules went to Moldvay/Cook/Marsh virtually unchanged. The thief class came, too, and the elf was made into a sort of "multiclass" fighter/magic-user. But largely if you ignore the thief and the elf, you have a revised, clarified OD&D in Moldvay D&D.

Meanwhile, AD&D added the greater complexity of separate races and classes, bumped all the HD up so the characters are tougher, and added other detail to monster stats, PC stats, etc. All-in-all, probably the only true mechanical incompatibilities, aside from the greater complexity in general, between D&D and AD&D was that time works a little different in AD&D, and AD&D has a 0-10 AC system instead of the 0-9 system handed to D&D from OD&D.

Yes, this is somewhat simplified, but not too much so. I'm painting with a broad brush. There are people who could list various little details that are different among these additions, but I'd argue that they are largely irrelevant to most people, and those things are not noticed in play. There's a reason so many people never realized D&D and AD&D were "two different games" back in the day, and played by mixing the two. Most people actually played AD&D pretty much as outlined in Moldvay D&D, except with the added classes and races.

These are the essentials of the three-pillar lineage.

"Old-School" is dead, Jim.

Not to beat a dead horse too much, but I thought I'd chime in with just a brief comment on the recent debates raging in the "old-school" blogosphere regarding the term "old-school," what it means, or should mean, etc.

In a nutshell, that's all old news.

Walk with me on a little tour. Open another tab in your browser, and paste this link...

www.rpgnow.com

Now click on the link to the left for "Genre."

Now click "Fantasy."

Now click "Old-School/Classic."

Scroll around a bit then tell me which of those 500+ products you think are "old-school."

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Before RPGnow merged with Drivethrurpg, that category pretty much only held OSRIC products, with a few stragglers from other areas. After the merger, it is a full-fledged "genre." The OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord material would be completely drowned were it not for the fact that they gave them their own categories. I mentioned in my interview from Knockspell #2 that the term "old-school" will pretty much just become a commodity. I wasn't really correct in that, because it already is.

But that's all old news. It's been merely a commodity since the birth of 3.x. The term "old-school" was really burned into meaninglessness long before the old-school "movement" (does that make anyone else chuckle a little?)

Long before many 1e compatible products were being created commercially, the old branding was already being "hijacked" for "old-school" 3.x use. By the time we showed up on the scene it was already too late to make it mean anything. No one who cut their teeth on 3.x can really be expected to "get" where we're coming from. Our crusty 1e format looks just like the crusty 3.x Goodman Games module format. What's old-school?

To me, it's pointless to spend energy trying to wall off old-school. Just let it go. It is far more productive to talk about specific games and how we like to play them, rather than create a hypothetical category of game. Besides, we're spinning our wheels by trying. Many people, when it comes down to it, don't give a crap about what the system looks like so long as the cover art tickles the old-school funny bone and the ad text claims retro-heritage. It can be poorly written, have miles of errata, not be as advertised, etc. I can't count the number of posts I saw around on forums from people who were never interested in Hackmaster 5e* before they saw the Erol Otus cover art. But slap an Erol Otus cover on something and it becomes old-school. The point is, these things are all shallow anyway.

*Before I'm bombarded by comments about how HM 5e will be a great game, I'm not denying that it will be. Will it be old-school? Well if we could answer that this debate wouldn't be happening.

Labyrinth Lord Storms Germany!

When Moritz Mehlem wrote to me asking whether I'd be interested in a German translation of Labyrinth Lord, I was thinking the usual thing. I've been contacted by various parties interested in translating Labyrinth Lord, parties representing five languages to date, and most disappear in the ether. It's a lot of damn hard work writing this stuff, tedious, and takes time. It's no wonder people are enthusiastic at first but then at some point realize the scope and abandon it.

Well, I should have known better than to even briefly entertain the idea that the Germans would do the same. Some of you may know that Moritz writes material for Labyrinth Lord, published with my good friends at Brave Halfling Publishing. He assembled a team of like-minded people and had the Labyrinth Lord rules translated in a matter of just several weeks. We set a goal of making the book available at a major gaming convention in Germany (Moritz, maybe you could step in with a link, and a link to your interview?), which occured in April. We really came down to the wire in getting this layed out, edited, and books ordered in time. There were moments when I was kind of freaking out (which may have been partly because I was still in India at the time) but through everything Moritz was always calm and optimistic.

We did it. Moritz was able to present Labyrinth Lord for the first time at this convention, along with a great array of Brave Halfling products in German. He sold a very respectable print run there, and after now fixing some errata the Labyrinth Lord German translation is now available to all. It will enter the "psuedo-distribution" plan that makes it available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other online vendors that are hooked into this system. We may work out other things as well. Right now I'm offering it at a very low price, but come April 1st it will have to be raised to meet distribution prices.

This is a significant development for the Old-School Renaissance. Until now, development of Labyrinth Lord products has largely been limited to the US and the English language (with one very notable exception). But now I think only time will tell what might happen since the retro-clone phenomenon has started to spread to other countries. The revival is only beginning.

...and now a shout out to the translators who worked so hard...

...Thorsten Gresser, Moritz Mehlem, Clem Carlos Schermann, Alex Schröder, Marcus Sollmann und Jörg Theobald...

Guys, I hope we can share a few pints some time!