Mad Gaming Madness

Many moons ago, in Dragon magazine #39 (July 1980), the article "Good Got You Down? Try This For Evil: The Anti-Paladin NPC," by George Laking and Tim Mesford. It introduced an NPC foil to goodie two-shows PC paladins in the form of their diametrical opposite: a foe who received power by following vices and eschewed virtue. Since it was presented as a class, there were tables that allowed player character anti-paladins, but it was presented as purely an NPC class. Adding to inversions of the paladin's abilities they also added the thief's backstab and the assassin's use of poisons, so they weren't exactly balanced for play. Later, in issue #106 (February 1986), there was an article called "A Plethora of Paladins," by Christopher Wood. To the lawful good Paladin and the chaotic evil Anti-Paladin were introduced 7 more paladin-alikes:  the neutral good Myrikhan, a lightly-armored questing knight of good with a bit of a focus on fire. the chaotic good G...

Back in Dragon magazine issue #156 (April 1990), John M. Maxstadt had an article called "Yet Even More [Gods Forbid] Outrages From the Mages." The name refers to his article in issue #144 (April 1989) called "Still More Outrages from the Mages," but where it 1989 article had joke spells, the 1990 article had joke magic items. While most of the items are pure humor material (such as the ring of spell storing which just spells the word "storing" out loud when activated), some of them had more gamable content. One of these, my personal favorite, was the robe of useless items . The normal robe of useful items is a good low-level reward for adventurers: a magic robe that can produce mundane items that characters might find useful that they frequently forget to buy when shopping. Or, items that can't be bought, like a door that automatically installs itself. To the best of my knowledge, this item first appeared in the AD&D 1st edition  Dungeon Master...

So, I got sidetracked a few months ago, and managed to miss posting for a while. I'd try to remember to post, forget it on the Monday in question, then put it off because, "It's Monstrous Monday! Not Tuesday!" That's a great way to procrastinate yourself into never doing something. So, today's ridiculous monster from the "Not Necessarily the Monstrous Compendium" article from Dragon #156 is the paper dragon, which is actually one of my favorites and one that I've used more than once. It's a great critter to put in an abandoned wizards' library, or similar location.

 One of the delightfully-creative things to have come out of the OSR wing of RPGs is legamon, or "legallydistinctémon." Created for the GLOG RPG (Goblin's Laws of Gaming, a minimally-structured ruleset that retains much of the essence of D&D while dropping most of the trappings), legamon are monsters much like the ones from an unnamed popular franchise, yet legally distinct—hence the name. It started on the Numbers Aren't Real blog  with tables to create your own legamon, which was automated in a post on Whose Measure God Could Not Take , and has spun out of control ever since. Good blog posts to see for more can be found here , here , and here , and many more places on the Internet and on Discord than I could link to. It's a fun setting with interesting permutations and repercussions that have a lot of gamability. The one downside was that, of course, the original franchise is very well known for some iconic art pieces depicting their most popular monsters, a...

Yes, I've already gone through all the editions of D&D and adjacent games in my search for a flavorful witch class or alternatives. But I'm not the only guy who's done so, and it occurred to me to link to others so you can see what they have to say. Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3  |  Part 4

I still intend to finish my D&D/OSE things, but I've got a lot of stuff saved up in the back of my mind. I need to make room! The Aldrya Tradition In the beginning was the One. Boundless and, yet, constrained, it contained the limitless All. All that was, and All that was Not. Being and non-being. This paradox, the Paradox of Self, fragmented the One, and it became Two: Grower and Taker.     The Grower contained within it all potential. This potential took the form of the Seed. This was the beginning of the First Plantings, the Age of the Grower.     From within the One, the fluid parts separated, and thus came the soothing waters, Eron. The waters were changing and fluid, containing within her nature almost all potential. Eron encircled the Seed of the Grower to provide nourishment.     Next, the heavy parts of the One accreted together, forming the solid earth, Gata. The earth was dependable and stolid, locking her potential within in s...

 I was reading the Alone in the Labyrinth blog post " Genius Loci — Linking Encounters, Hazards and Reaction Rolls " and it gave me a few ideas. The concept is that, during overland exploration, each "hex" (or a number of hexes defined by a geological feature) has a genius loci , an entity that is tied to it, that forms from the magical (or spiritual) energy of a place the same way that life forms from the matter. And that the actions of a party might cause such an entity to regard them favorably or disfavorably; the blog post suggests a reaction roll for the genius loci instead of an encounter roll. Now, this concept sees a lot of use in some settings. In Glorantha, every dang tree, stream, and maybe boulder has its own resident god, or spirit, or essence, depending on what kind of magic it's associated with. Larger genius loci associated with a valley or mountain might receive a lot of worship, and develop detailed personas that allow them to grant boons to ...

So, I still intend to finish writing up some 5E D&D content, but I'm not running that system right now. One thing I might get to run soon, at a face-to-face honest-to-God gaming table, is HeroQuest. Back in the day, I started work on a campaign set in the classic world of Glorantha, but the game fizzled after session 1, so I never finished the work. Now, I'm dusting off the material I started on, and since they're written for HeroQuest 1st edition (which is now defunct several times over), I should probably commit it to the Internet for others to pick over for their own games. First up, the religion of the dwarves The Way of Mostal The World Machine In the beginning, there was the World Machine. A device of wondrous complexity, It encompassed the entirety of the Universe, somehow becoming something greater than the sum of Its parts. Self-created, it contained all possibilities within itself. It remains beyond the comprehension of lesser beings, but it may be termed Most...