Every Day is Free RPG Day

...on the internet. How about twenty monsters, each with but a single hit point, to go up against one or two first level characters?

 Or free pdfs of a complete OD&D Clone, Delving Deeper?

Or free pdfs of Holmes Basic clones Blueholme Prentice or Mazes & Perils?

But today is also FREE RPG DAY 2013 in a participating store near you: Store Locator.

Azathoth returns!

And here's the loot list for 2013.

The OSR is well-represented with modules for Swords & Wizardry (by Frog God Games), LotFP, DCC RPG, Tunnel & Trolls and Castles & Crusades

Noble Knight Games is also offering each of the items on-line for 1 cent each along with a $15 purchase (i.e., get one 1 cent item per $15 spent). See their blog post.

[this post is an updated version of the one posted last year on Free RPG Day 2012]

Update:
As announced today as part of Free RPG Day, all issues of the Fight On! zine will be offered for free for short periods of time. Issue #2 (Summer 2008) is currently a free download on Lulu (account required).

The OSRIC (AD&D clone) module AA10 The Lost Keys of Solitude (levels 6-10) is being offered as a free download on RPGnow, starting a few days ago.

Holmesian Random Names

Meet & Greet at the Green Dragon Inn? Illustration by DCSIII from B1

Often I have trouble thinking of interesting character names on the spot, so I've put together a table of 100 syllables for generating random character (player or NPC) names. The syllables are drawn from the proper names in Holmes Basic Rulebook and the module B1 by Mike Carr (mostly the many pre-gen characters in the back, but also some from the text). B1 was included in the 2nd edition of the Holmes Basic set, so this list generates what someone having only that set might have come up with for D&D names. This list could be used with B2, the other Holmes module, which has no proper names at all for the many inhabitants of the Keep.

First, roll d100 for the # of syllables in the name:
01-10 One syllable (double the last letter if desired)
11-70 Two syllables
71-90 Three syllables
91-100 Four syllables

Syllables can be placed together to form one word, or separated by spaces or hyphens.

Second, roll d100 for each syllable:

1. Af
2. Al or Ael
3. Baf
4. Bel
5. Ber or Berd
6. Bes
7. Bo
8. Bor
9. Bran
10. Bru
11. Car
12. Chor
13. Cig
14. Cla
15. Da
16. Do or Doh
17. Don
18. Dor
19. Dre or Dreb
20. Eg or Feg
21. Er
22. Es
23. Ev
24. Fal or Ful
25. Fan or Fen
26. Far
27. Fum
28. Ga or Gahn
29. Gaith
30. Gar
31. Gen or Glen
32. Go
33. Gram
34. Ha
35. Hag or Harg
36. Ho
37. Ig
38. Ka
39. Kar
40. Kra or Krac
41. Ky
42. Lag
43. Lap
44. Le
45. Lef
46. Lis
47. Lo
48. Lu
49. Mal
50. Mar
51. Me
52. Mez
53. Mich
54. Mil or Mul
55. Mo
56. Mun
57. Mus
58. Ned
59. Nic
60. No
61. Nor
62. Nu
63. Os
64. Pal
65. Pen
66. Phil
67. Po or Poy
68. Pos or Pus
69. Pres
70. Quas
71. Que
72. Rag
73. Ralt
74. Ram
75. Rin or Ron
76. Ris
77. Ro
78. Sa
79. See
80. Ser or Sur
81. Sho
82. Sit
83. Spor
84. Tar
85. Tas
86. Ten or Ton
87. To
88. Tra
89. Treb or Tred
90. Tue
91. Vak
92. Ven
93. Web
94. Wil
95. Yor
96. Zef
97. Zell
98. Zen
99. Zo
100. Vowel (roll d6: 1=A; 2=E; 3=I; 4=O; 5=U; 6=Y)

Finally, if desired add a title (pick or d20):

1. of the North/South/East/West/City/Hills/Mountains/Plains/Woods/Coast
2. the Bold/Daring
3. the Barbarian/Civilized
4. the Battler
5. the Black/Blue/Brown/Green/Red/Yellow
6. the Fearless/Brave
7. the Fair/Foul/Lovely/Loathsome
8. the First, Second, Third, Fourth etc (roll d20)
9. the Gentle/Cruel
10. the Great
11. the Merciful/Merciless
12. the Mighty
13. the Mysterious/Unknown
14. the Old/Young/Boy/Girl
15. the Quick/Slow
16. the Quiet/Silent/Loud
17. the Steady/Unready
18. the Traveller/Wanderer
19. the Unexpected  
20. the Hooded/Cloaked/Robed

Options:
The character's class or race can also be added: "Old Magician", "Loud Dwarf" etc

Clerics can roll for the name of their deity using the same process, and then add, "Servant of" (see example below).


Examples:

Bru Preslap
No Yar the Loud
Fan-lo the Merciful
Tenron
Eg Tasharg
Mezron the Mysterious
Posten Milberd
Borr the Unexpected
Nu Berd 
Raltig Os, Foul Wizard
Donsur the Old
Da Fen of the Woods
Ralt the Steady
Nuglen
Ragg the Wanderer
Mez-Feg the Green Halfling
Milterkagram 
Tar-gahn, Servant of Gram Al

Equipment Packs, take II

I've been re-thinking the equipment packs from my previous post.

First, here's a generic pack that can be bought by any character for a discount.
It's 50% of the normal cost because it is  previously owned and reclaimed equipment from deceased adventurers. The buyer will note some scratches and use to the equipment. The entire pack must be purchased as the retailers are trying to move the surplus material.

Adventurer's Pack (40 gp value for a cost of 20 gp)
Water/Wine Skin
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• Iron Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 50' rope
• 12 Iron Spikes
• Mallet & 3 Stakes
• Tinderbox & 12 Torches
• 2 Flasks of Oil
• 2 Large Sacks (300 c.c.) and 1 Small Sack (50 c.c.)

Using this as a base we then have the following starting equipment for each class:

Fighter
Chainmail & Shield
Sword & Spear
Short Bow & Quiver with 20 Arrows
Adventurer's Pack
3 gp

Magic-User
Book of First Level Spells (contains known spells)
Scroll with one first level spell (choose from known spells)
2 daggers
10' Pole
Adventurer's Pack
3 gp

Cleric
Chainmail & Shield
Mace
Wooden Cross (or other holy symbol)
1 Vial of Holy Water
1 Bunch of Wolvesbane 
Adventurer's Pack
8 gp

Thief
Leather Armor
Sword & Dagger
Short Bow & Quiver with 20 Arrows & 3 Silver Arrows
10' Pole
1 Set of Thief's Tools
Adventurer's Pack
6 gp

Totals are still based on 110 gp, except for the Magic-User whose total is 130 gp (or gets his scroll at a discount for 80 gp). 

Equipment Packs for Holmes

 

An expedition begins, illustration by DCSIII from B1 In Search of the Unknown

In my early D&D days, buying equipment during character creation was fun, but these days it feels like more of a chore to complete before play can begin. It also slows down the process of character creation, which can be an impediment for new players.

Taking a cue from Jean Wells*, and others since, here's an option for Holmes Basic: each new character can choose to take an equipment pack for the appropriate class in lieu of rolling for starting gold. A standard dwarf or hobbit gets the fighter pack, and a standard elf can choose the fighter or magic-user pack. The DM can also use these packs for on-the-fly determination of NPC equipment. They can also be used for OD&D, which has essentially the same equipment list, if you are using the Holmes' rule for scroll creation. One reason I created these packs is to highlight that a M-U with sufficient funds can start with a scroll.

Fighter
Chainmail & Shield
Sword & Spear
Short Bow & Quiver with 20 Arrows
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• 50' Rope
• Tinderbox & 6 Torches
• 2 Large Sacks (300 c.c. each)
• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 5 GP

Magic-User
Book of First Level Spells (contains known spells)**
Dagger
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Small Sack (50 coin capacity), holding:

• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• Scroll with one first level spell (choose from known spells)

Cleric
Chainmail & Shield
Mace
Wooden Cross (or other holy symbol)
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• 1 Vial of Holy Water
• 1 Bunch of Wolvesbane
• Tinderbox & 6 Torches
• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 13 GP

Thief
Leather Armor
Sword & Dagger
Short Bow & Quiver with 20 Arrows & 2 Silver Arrows
10' Pole
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• 1 Set of Thief's Tools***
• 12 Iron Spikes
• Mallet & 3 Stakes
• 50' Rope
• 4 Flasks of Oil
• Tinderbox & 12 Torches
• Large Sack (300 c.c.)
• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 5 GP

Specific Notes:
*As far as I can tell, the term and concept of "equipment packs" first appeared in TSR D&D in the original orange-covered version of the module B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, by Jean Wells (1981). There may be an earlier non-TSR source.

** "Magic-users can not bring their magic books into the dungeon with them" (pg 13 of the Basic Rulebook). This is presumably because they are unwieldy "giant volumes" like the thaumaturgist's spell books in the Sample Dungeon (pg 44). There's no cost in the rules for these spell books.

*** "Thief's Tools" are not found in the equipment list, but can be found for sale at bank in B2 Keep on the Borderlands, with an actual value of 35 gp. Here, I've assumed that each thief starts with one set at no cost, similar to the magic-user's spell book. These can be omitted if you don't use them in your game. 

General Notes:
The packs are based on 110 gp, just above the average rolled by 3d6 x 10 (105 gp).

I've assumed that Leather and Chain Armor come with appropriate head coverings, and the Helmet on the Holmes equipment list is either for Plate Mail, or replacement cost. This is open to interpretation as neither OD&D or Holmes has clear rules for the Helmets listed in the equipment list.

Each pack has a light source, food and water, so that each class can operate somewhat independently in a dungeon.

I favor the view of the Thief as "Expert Treasure Finder", and they have the most spare money, so here I've given them the most dungeoneering tools - 10' pole, 12 iron spikes, mallet, etc

I'll eventually make some class-specific character sheets including these packs, to speed up character creation. This will be part of Holmes Ref, which is still in progress.

D&D: Dangerous For Your Health?

Cover of the Winter 1982 issue of the short-lived Beyond magazine, image from philsp

The author's blurb in Maze of Peril mentions several magazines with articles by J. Eric Holmes. I tracked most of these down long ago, but the one from Beyond eluded me until a few days ago. I wasn't even sure what publication it was in, as there have been several Beyond magazines over the years. I still don't have a copy of the article - the publication appears to be vanishingly rare - but I finally located a citation for it a few days ago in the amazing Internet Speculative Fiction Database. ISFDB is a "community effort to catalog works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror" and it goes deep, listing every article in the periodicals that it covers. 

It turns out that Holmes' article was in a Beyond periodical that existed briefly in 1981-1982,  a "SF magazine containing stories by Harlan Ellison & Robert Silverberg apparently issued only as free supplements in (some) college newspapers" as a "small newsprint tabloid, 11.5" wide and 14" tall" (according to another database, philsp). This kind of limited, ephemeral newspaper distribution would explain its rarity - I didn't find any copies for sale anywhere on the internet.

According to ISFDB, Holmes' article is in the Winter (Jan) 1982 issue and is titled "Dungeons & Dragons: Dangerous for Your Health?". The date of this article places it shortly after Holmes' FRPG book came out in late 1981, and it may cover similar ground to Chapter 13, which is titled: "Are They All Crazy?" (short answer: no, of course not). This was the era of intense public interest in the phenomena and "dangers" of D&D, so the cover of the magazine teases the article as "Dungeons & Dragons: Breeding New Demons?"

I'd love to read this article, so please keep your eyes out for it.

Dungeon! Inventory

After playing Dungeon again tonight for the umpteenth time, I finally got around to checking my set (the 1981 revision) versus the inventory list found on Boardgame Geek. As it turns out, I'm missing just a few treasure cards, and no unique ones.

I was also interested in the numbers from a design perspective, since I am toying around with making an alternate board to use with the game for some variety. So using inventory lists I made a summary of the numbers of Monsters, Treasures & Rooms/Chambers in the original (1975) and first revision (1980/1981) of the Dungeon Boardgame. See above.

The first four columns list the number of Monster & Treasure cards for each level. As you can see, the number of Treasure cards exactly matches the number of Rooms on each level, and this was not changed in the revision. In contrast, the number of Monster Cards were drastically reduced in the 1981 revision. This is due to a difference in how the cards are used in the game. In the original version, the Monster & Treasure Cards were placed directly on the board in each room, so extra Monster Cards were needed for the Chambers, which restock. In the revision, the cards were made larger and no longer fit in the rooms, so they are placed in piles off the board. This meant that less Monster Cards were needed, because the monsters in the pile could just be continually reused. The number of Monster Cards was basically cut in half for each of levels 2-6, although no monsters were removed.

Green Grabber - New Monster

Holmes Basic (and OD&D in general) is short on monstrous plants, despite having a Ring of Plant Control. The ring will affect plants or fungi, but the only monsters in this category in the Monster List are Shriekers and Yellow Mold, both fungi. Dr. Holmes' FRPG book (1981) has a beginner's sample dungeon (The Eye of Arzaz) with a few new low level monsters in it, including "Tentacles" and "Flower Stalks" hiding in adjacent rooms. Due to the similarity of these two creatures, here I've combined them into one new plant monster for Holmes Basic.


Green Grabber

Move: 5 feet/turn
Hit Dice: 1 HD per tentacle
Armor Class: 9
Treasure Type: M x 3
Attacks: 3 tentacles
Damage: 0 (see below)

These dungeon-dwellers are actually carnivorous plants distantly related to bladderwort. Adapted to life in the dark, they lurk in pits, chimneys, closets and other small spaces, reaching silently for passersby with three thirty-foot-long tentacles (surprise on 1-4 in 6). Each tentacle attacks independently as a 1 HD monster, and on a successful hit grabs the target but does no immediate damage. If the captured character is holding a weapon, a successful 3d6 dexterity check indicates that the weapon arm remains free and able to attack. On the next round, the victim will be dragged into the monster's central mouth and take 2d6 points of damage per round thereafter. Each tentacle can take 1 HD of damage before being destroyed, and the creature will die rapidly from loss of fluid if it loses all of its limbs. Green Grabbers do not normally move about, but if necessary can pull themselves along slowly with their tentacles to a new hiding spot.

Periodically the monster enters a flowering phase, called Sleepflower, in which the tentacles are weaker but have a large yellow flower at each end. These flowers produce a blood-like nectar that attracts stirges, which pollinate the plants while feeding. In this form the plant protects itself with its pollen. If approached, the monster will extend a tentacle with a yellow flower that opens and sends out a puff of pollen in a 5' area. Any character in this area must Save vs Poison or fall asleep for 1d6 turns. Each flower can send 3 puffs of pollen per day.

They do not hoard treasure, but are occasionally found with incidental treasure (such as a handful of coins) from previous victims.

Bladderwort Traps, picture from Wikipedia

Edit: I also checked on the mobile plants I remembered from Holmes' other stories:

In "The Adventure of the Giant Chameleon" (A&E #14, 8/76) they are described as having "big open flowers and moving tentacles" - which fits well the Green Grabber. In that story the plants are growing in a chasm in a underground cavern lit by a luminescent green glow.  

In Maze of Peril, near the end of chapter 1, there are mobile carnviorous plants that snap their "spine-fringed jaws like a startled starfish" in a floral room in the dungeon but lit by sunlight from above. These seem more like Venus-fly trap type plants.

See also Tony's comment about the tentacles roots in "In the Bag".