The Chaotic Caves for the Basic Fantasy RPG

When I picked up Basic Fantasy, I also picked up "The Chaotic Caves", a beginning adventure for the same system. I had a longer version of this review written, but I scrapped it as I think I can make my point with fewer words. Let's compare this adventure to "The Keep in the Borderlands", home of the Caves of Chaos:

• One-page-square-gridded wilderness map in both? Check.
• Kobold lair in both? Check.
• Goblin lair in both? Check.
• Hobgoblin lair in both? Check.
• Bugbear lair in both? Check.
• Gnoll lair in both? Check.
• Undead lair in both? Check.
• Two Orc lairs in both? Check.

Now there are a couple of variations - the bandits and lizard men are moved into the cave area in "JN1" instead of being wilderness encounters as they are in "B2", and the ogre lives in a separate mini-dungeon instead of in the caves, but let's be clear here: this adventure is a straight rip-off of B2.

It's not an "homage" with a few nods to the old module. It's not a conversion of it to a new system. It takes almost every element of the most-published, most-owned, most-read, and most-played adventure in RPG history, rearranges some of them slightly, and then is published as a new adventure for a new system. It's a terrible way to do things and to me it looks really bad.

Here's why: If someone wants to play B2 they can just get a copy of B2! How about putting together something new for your new interpretation of Basic D&D? There is nothing even slightly new, innovative, or interesting here. Just as one example of the kind of thing I mean here take a look at The Haunted Keep here at Dragonsfoot. It takes the starter adventure from the Moldvay Basic book and expands it into a full 3-level dungeon. There is a nice combination of respect for the original material, connecting to something familiar, and new material.

When 3E came out one thing that was really popular for a time was the conversion document. These took an known adventure, typically a well-liked AD&D adventure like the Saltmarsh series, and put all of the stats for the creatures, magic items, and some relevant skill checks into a document with a numbered key that could be used alongside the original module. Something like that would have been welcome here too.

The closest analogy here that  I can think of is this: Have you read The Lord of the Rings at some point? After that have you read the Iron Tower trilogy by Denis L McKiernan? Did you walk away from it thinking you'd just read a lesser version of LOTR? That's the same feeling I had here. I think there is plenty of room to do something connected to KotB and the Caves of Chaos, but it's not this.

The copyright date on this one is 2009-2011 so this didn't come from some dark age - eBay and PDF's have been around for a while, as have used bookstroes and Noble Knight Games and other places.

My final point: As a level 1-3 adventure, a lot of people coming back to D&D type games in general and new to your game in particular might pick this up as their first expedition. Is this what you want them to play? Is this the best you can do? Shouldn't this be something that makes a strong positive impression rather than an edited version of an older starter adventure. I can see how people might like Basic Fantasy as a game, I don't see how the people creating it can be happy with something like this as one of their main starting adventures.

The Basic Fantasy RPG

I haven't really looked over a new OSR game in a while and then I came across this one while wandering around Amazon.  My "recommendations" have a whole lot of dungeon-y dragon-y type stuff so I didn't have to wander far. The price is certainly right (it's under $4 as I write this) and with Prime the shipping is free so what the heck. I've read it now and have mixed feelings about it so I thought I would share.

First up it's a pretty complete version of Basic/Expert-style D&D. It's not level capped, it has a fair selection of monsters and magic items and rules for cross country travel, followers, strongholds, etc. There are some odd choices regarding mechanics: race and class are separate but race has very little mechanical impact on a character - it mainly serves to limit class choice. The number of spells per level is ... small, but after looking back at my Cyclopedia's lists it's comparable so it's really only lacking compared to AD&D's lengthy lists. If someone is looking for an inexpensive one-volume B/X style game then Basic Fantasy certainly works.

The thing that bothers me though is that this is not really a new game - like a lot of OSR games. The vast majority of it is B/X D&D with a different editing job and some changes in mechanics for no clear reason. AC is ascending instead of descending, but it uses the old type of saving throws. Race and class are separate but  but there are some new restrictions on ability scores and hit points that shift them back to being very close to the old "race as class" approach. Thieves have the same old percentile skills fixed by level but the percentages are off by a few points from the table in the Cyclopedia, and not consistently! Some are higher, some are lower, some by 10% and some by 1%! Why? It boils down to what looks like someone's house rules or personal preferences, not some kind of effort to publish a truly new game with reverence for an old style, and at that point I have to ask why? Why take someone else's house rules for old D&D instead of making and using your own?

My questions aside, it does seem to have resonated with at least a few people. There is a fair amount of support on the website, much of it provided by players and DM's. All of the rules are free there so the only reason to pay for the book is to get a printed copy. The whole system is run as open-source and mainly non-profit, which is commendable enough. The people driving it don't seem to be terribly hung up on touting their own greatness which is refreshing as well.

In the end, I want to like the game but I keep coming back to this: I'm not sure what the point of this one really is. If I like the original, why wouldn't I play the original? This one is basically someone else's house rules, it's not strictly compatible with old adventures due to the mechanical changes, and it leaves out a lot of the later expansions and mechanical refinements. Sure it's simpler than 3E or Pathfinder or 4E but it's not simpler than other old school rules including the originals! It's not terribly challenging to go get a copy of the old D&D Basic or Expert rules if that's what you like. I see 3-4 sets on Ebay right now for $10 or less. The PDF is available on DNDClassics.com for $5! Heck, if you want the uber-original the Cyclopedia PDF is only $9.99! I know the PDF's weren't always available, but eBay's been around for a long time now.

How is this better than B/X D&D? To me, it's not. Heck, If I want tweaked old school D&D then Labyrinth Lord is closer to Moldvay Basic than this if I want "authentic", and its Advanced Edition Companion is a much more comprehensive effort to add in some of the player character options from AD&D. For this particular niche, I don't see myself using it a whole lot.

When would I play this? Maybe if someone was running Basic Fantasy specifically and I was really looking for an old school game, I'd give it a try. I don't really dislike it, I just like those other options better.

Bonus Note: Basic Fantasy is home to the greatest character sheet ever designed:

So ... it's not my cup of tea, but it clearly works for some people and if this particular flavor of D&D got you back into a game then that's cool. I'm going to look at some of the other material out there for it too and I'll post those thoughts here as well.

Book Review: Star Trek Online: The Needs of the Many

This is a different kind of book: It's a Star Trek novel (there are plenty of those) but it's tied to the MMORPG. That's an unusual case. It's also unusual in other ways.

For one, the book is set in 2409. Original Trek took place in the 2200's, and Next Gen Trek was set in the 2300's, so this book (as is the game) is set in the future of the original timeline and recaps much of the "future history" after the last Trek movie set in that timeline - Nemesis. It includes nods to other Star Trek novels as well, from the Vanguard series (TOS era) to the Titan series (TNG era) which is a nice touch.

The other unusual aspect is that it's not a novel, or at least it's not a single coherent narrative like most other Trek novels, nor is it a collection of short stories. It's written as a series of historical interviews looking back at the past 30 years or so and covering specific incidents in Trek history over that time. From Data's return to the breakdown of Federation-Klingon relations to conflict with Species 8472 and many others, there is a lot of interesting material here.

The format though is a problem. It reads more like a series of blog posts than a narrative or set of short stories. It doesn't even read like a history book - I have plenty of real-world history books and none of them choose this particular device and for good reason. Each one is an interview with character X on development or event Y. Some of the characters are well known, like Worf or Geordi LaForge, while others are not. The presentation comes across more like the notes that a historian would use to write a historical account of something rather than what they would actually publish.

As far as sitting down and reading it front to back, well, it was tough and this is mainly due to this choice of structure. The writer doesn't spend much time with any one character or one event, so this is much more of a survey/overview and there's not much depth there. While there are several parts I thought were fine, there were several segments I thought would make an interesting novel by themselves, or at least a good short story.

The silver lining here is that if you were looking to run a Trek RPG set in this time period, this format gives quite a few interesting ideas with just enough context and ties to the existing Trek universe to let a GM run with them and turn them into something interesting. Having all of the trappings of the TNG era Trek with further progression of the timeline to take those big characters off of the main stage  and one interpretation of the future history of Trek to use as a backdrop - that has a lot of potential for a good campaign.

So, to wrap up:

• As a novel, especially compared to other Trek novels, this is terrible
• As a tie-in to the computer game, it's interesting and does let you know how things got  to where they are in the setting if you're new to it
• As a source book on the Trek Prime universe circa 2400 it's actually pretty good

A Superhero Kickstarter - Valiance Online

Valiance Online is a City of Heroes successor project, an effort born in the wake of the shutdown of the City of Heroes MMORPG.

The Kickstarter page is here. I think it covers things pretty well. If you're interested in superheroes in general, and computer/online  games where you can play one in particular, this is worth considering.

This is the second of the three known successor projects to go to Kickstarter after last year's City of Titans successful run.  Now normally I'm not big on pimping things online but I'm happy to spread the word on this one as I had a blast playing CoH and the team here seems really interested in creating a similar experience. Plus they appear to have made enough progress to get some gameplay video in their pitch.

Full Disclosure: I've backed it. I don't know or have any relation to the people working on the team but I am interested in this kind of thing so I am putting some money into it.

Motivational Monday

Overreaction Friday - D&D goes Pathfinder

There's an interview with Mike Mearls here and some additional discussion on EN World here that spurred this post. The short version is that it looks like WOTC is adopting Paizo's core approach:

• Paizo puts out two Adventure Paths per year, with separate supporting books for players and DM's


• WOTC will put out two "stories" per year, with at least a supporting source book aimed mainly at players

Now Paizo also puts out additional material like poster maps, flip-mats, cards, and sometimes miniatures for each of their AP's but they have been doing this for a while. WOTC will likely be doing a little more than this too, from miniatures sets to a special DM screen (they did one for Tyranny of Dragons) to tie-ins with the Neverwinter MMO. 

They also note that they have plans through 2018. I think that's interesting because I don't think Paizo plans out their AP's that far in advance other than having a pool of ideas suggested previously. I suspect part of that may be that WOTC is deliberately drawing on D&D history and has a list of the first ten or so things they want to tackle while Paizo has less "legacy" to deal with given their separate campaign world. 

It is interesting too in that up until very recently all we heard was that "adventures don't sell" - yet Paizo found a way to make that work. In fact, it's to the point that now WOTC seems to be basing their whole approach around a similar adventure-centered concept. What changed? Did gamers suddenly decide to spend more money than they did in the 90's? I'm going to say no. I think building a fair amount of setting material into the adventures probably helps, as does tying a source book for players to a set of adventures. 

I also think it's interesting that WOTC's D&D team is smaller than Paizo's Pathfinder team. Both of them use a lot of outsiders/freelancers. Maybe it's just setting more reasonable expectations for tabletop D&D at WOTC - if so that seems like a good thing to me. It will also be interesting to see if it stays that way.

Pathfinder Updates

Somewhere along the way Pathfinder shifted from a side game last year into the one game I am consistently running these days. I just ran session #20 of our Wrath of the Righteous campaign. I need to get the summaries up on here sometime soon but for now some observations:

• Locally (DFW Texas area) I don't see any loss of momentum in PF as might have been expected with a new version of D&D. I think that to some degree they cater to different tastes as far as game mechanics, even if the type of games run are similar. I suspect a lot of people are playing both. Regardless, the local Pathfinder Society is adding games at more stores rather than any kind of cutback so that's good news for Paizo.
• Paizo ran a big sale in October and this forced me to think about some things. I have a "collector" impulse that flares up from time to time and with a game as big as Pathfinder that can be a bad thing. As I was about to place an order for a fair number of discounted Pathfinder AP modules I had a moment of insight that I thought I might share: I already have 5 or 6 Adventure Paths that I would like to run or am already running. Assuming it takes two years to play through one start to finish, I already have 8-10 years worth of material here! That's not even counting any kind of self-created campaign, and it's not counting any conversion of older material. I ended 3rd Edition with a lot of good adventures I never ran because we just ran out of time and moved on. There's a sort of ranking process that happens in my head  - "what would I run next?" and "what would I run if a separate group wanted to play right now?" - if I have two or three campaigns I'm looking forward to do I really need another Pathfinder campaign right now? I'm getting to where the answer is "no" for a change. There are enough "system" books for PF to keep me interested for quite a while, so I really don't need to go back and fill in all of the older AP material. the only reason would be to say at some point "I have them all" and while that's nice for research purposes, I've realized I can probably live without unlocking that particular achievement. While it is possible, given the miracle of the internet, to collect every published item from any given game system, I don't really want to turn my house into the Texas Paizo Museum.
• Playing and running in the same system really does invest you in the game. Rules we cover in one campaign inevitable turn up in the other. Some nifty character ability or item in one sometimes generates a "hmm" when I sit down for the other. There is some synergy there that I haven't experienced in a years.
• A quick rundown of the previous, current, and upcoming AP's. There plus Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star - and maybe the Emerald Spire big dungeon - are my main Coming Attractions for PF for the near future.
• Wrath of the Righteous - awesome, epic, and a lot of fun to run so far. Mass combat has been quick and fun as well as the party invades and lays siege to the city of Drezen.
• Mummy's Mask - looks like a lot of fun with a pretty big scenery change from Fantasy Europe to Fantasy Egypt. No big rules tweak here like Mythic for WotR, just a different environment.
• Iron Gods - pretty wild mix of fantasy and tech. Lots of new stuff for technological items. Very different environments though there is still quite a bit of traditional fantasy in there, including dungeon crawls.I expect there will be a lot of SF conversions cooked up using the books here as a core. 
• Giantslayer - not a ton of details yet but it looks like this is going to be Pathfinder's "Against the Giants" and I have high expectations for it. I always enjoy running giants as a DM - I'm not sure why, I just do. The descriptions so far have me very interested. 
• Hell's Rebels - I don't know enough yet to have a strong opinion. On the surface, running around rebelling against an evil empire doesn't interest me as much as some of the others but then again it could be a decent fantasy Star Wars and what's wrong with that?
• Watching my son play alongside friends I have had for years is a pretty cool thing. It's not an indulgence on their part as far as I can tell, and it's not dragging a half-interested youngster into an otherwise grown-up party - he's old enough now and experienced enough that he can hold his own and contribute just like anyone else. It doesn't matter what game, or even really what hobby - having some shared interests and watching them grow up and do their own thing in something you both understand and enjoy is a really good feeling. 

Something New for FATE - Save Game

"Save Game" is a new campaign for FATE that caught my eye. This is the description:

A vicious computer virus threatens to corrupt the entire internet, and the only ones standing in its way are the characters from your video games.

8-bit heroes battle monsters and corrupted files—it's Wreck-It Ralph meets Lord of the Rings in a fight for the fate of the world!

I have to say that it worked - I'm interested. Interested enough that I'm reading it now. I'm thinking the younger set is going to like it on the idea alone, while the older set will appreciate some of the humor.

I needed an excuse to look at FATE again anyway - this was it. I'll have a more about it next week. If you're interested yourself it's on DTRPG here.

Motivational Monday

Happy Halloween!