The OGL and other STDs and you!

I am of the opinion that I do want to acknowledge the true authors and artists of the D&D game, and I want to point out that I am a hobbyist gamer who loves to kit-bash rules and make the game my own, but by sharing the kit-bashed stuff on the internet, someone might force me to take it down or worse: try to get blood out of a stone and actually sue me for money. In either case, I'm afraid that if I don't post the following crap, I'll be sitting my ass in a trebuchet sling. But on the other hand, I'm afraid that if I DO post this crap, I'll be cutting the rope that stays the sling every time I post something game-related. 

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I'm going to post something here in a half-assed attempt to cover sling my ass. Maybe I'd be better off wadding it up and stuffing it in my mouth or my ass, since I talk out of that orifice a lot.
This post, is no exception, but the fine print is actual, the Fool's Errand stuff is meant to be light-hearted and sarcastic, yet true.

OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a

The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc ("Wizards"). All Rights Reserved.

1. Definitions: (a)"Contributors" means the copyright and/or trademark owners who have contributed Open Game Content; (b)"Derivative Material" means copyrighted material including derivative works and translations (including into other computer languages), potation, modification, correction, addition,

extension, upgrade, improvement, compilation, abridgment or other form in which an existing work may be recast, transformed or adapted; (c) "Distribute" means to reproduce, license, rent, lease, sell, broadcast, publicly display, transmit or otherwise distribute; (d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the methods, procedures, processes and routines to the extent such content does not embody the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor, and means any work covered by this License, including translations and derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product Identity. (e) "Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content; (f) "Trademark" means the logos, names, mark, sign, motto, designs that are used by a Contributor to identify itself or its products or the associated products contributed to the Open Game License by the Contributor (g) "Use", "Used" or "Using" means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game Content. (h) "You" or "Your" means the licensee in terms of this agreement.

2. The License: This License applies to any Open Game Content that contains a notice indicating that the Open Game Content may only be Used under and in terms of this License. You must affix such a notice to any Open Game Content that you Use. No terms may be added to or subtracted from this License except as described by the License itself. No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License.

3.Offer and Acceptance: By Using the Open Game Content You indicate Your acceptance of the terms of this License.

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

5.Representation of Authority to Contribute: If You are contributing original material as Open Game Content, You represent that Your Contributions are Your original creation and/or You have sufficient rights to grant the rights conveyed by this License.

6.Notice of License Copyright: You must update the COPYRIGHT NOTICE portion of this License to include the exact text of the COPYRIGHT NOTICE of any Open Game Content You are copying, modifying or distributing, and You must add the title, the copyright date, and the copyright holder's name to the COPYRIGHT NOTICE of any original Open Game Content you Distribute.

7. Use of Product Identity: You agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity. You agree not to indicate compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark. The use of any Product Identity in Open Game Content does not constitute a challenge to the ownership of that Product Identity. The owner of any Product Identity used in Open Game Content shall retain all rights, title and interest in and to that Product Identity.

8. Identification: If you distribute Open Game Content You must clearly indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing are Open Game Content.

9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.

10. Copy of this License: You MUST include a copy of this License with every copy of the Open Game Content You Distribute.

11. Use of Contributor Credits: You may not market or advertise the Open Game Content using the name of any Contributor unless You have written permission from the Contributor to do so.

12 Inability to Comply: If it is impossible for You to comply with any of the terms of this License with respect to some or all of the Open Game Content due to statute, judicial order, or governmental regulation then You may not Use any Open Game Material so affected.

13 Termination: This License will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with all terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License.

14 Reformation: If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable.

15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

"Fool's Errand Enterprises is copyright 2015, Robert G. Weber. Levels Beyond Basic house rules, Hordes & Hoards house rules, and Lair of the Marrowbeast titles are copyright 2015, and are trademarks of Fool's Errand Enterprises, but the original works of Dungeons & Dragons, 'Holmes'' Basic D&D, Advanced D&D, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook, et. al. found in these hacked titles remain the properties of the original authors and artists; no copyright infringements were intended, besides the hacks to make these house rules and campaign settings, adventures, scenarios and/or modules. Fool's Errand Enterprises trademarks acknowledge that we are standing on the shoulders of giants because none of this is terribly original anyway at http://primereq.blogspot.com/, with posted links to hacked rules and scenarios."

Should I be putting this blurb on the PDFs I make and post here and other places, or should I just let a sleeping giant un-prodded?

The Lair of the Marrowbeast, Part One

During the recent illness, I got a wild hair, and followed up on it. It started out with a simple map sketch of the dungeon located within the cliffs at Dockside, Portown. There isn't an exact location picked yet, just a general location, but that's good enough to get it off the ground and flying.

That's the first rule in gonzo Holmes D&D: Learn to fly before you walk, or run. That may be the only rule... Hrmmm.

The result is a 7 page 10 locale dungeon worthy of uploading. Well, my sole criteria for worthiness is simply that I finished it. I dunno if its any good, but I finished it, with a caveat that there may be more, once I find another angle to present the "Marrowbeast of Portown". I may have wrapped things up a bit too neatly in Part One, and that's just fine for me and for other refs who don't like to rely on 2 or 3 parters. Wrap it up and move on, I like that too. Pulp novels with famous characters did that a lot. That could be why I'm such a fan of the short story format, and I think more dungeons could benefit from that philosophy.

Of course, these ten rooms aren't going to offer enough XP by way of monsters or treasure to level up even a first level thief, (well, maybe...) but that's not the point. The point is to enjoy the setting, implied or spoon-fed, its in here, it's pulpy, it's sloppy, and it's incomplete, which calls for at least "Part Two"....

Campaign Journal: The Exploration of the Djangorün Depths: Part Eight through Part Ten is uploaded!

Part Eight through Ten is uploaded at Dragonsfoot, at this link:
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248&p=1674997#p1674991

...and I hope that link works. These last three installments wraps up what I've written for the Djangorün Depths, unfortunately. Part Ten is the denouement and prologue for the next chapter in our intrepid campaigners' adventures.

Truth be told, I hadn't written more than this, or even speculated what the elements of a supposed next chapter be; I had a simple idea in mind about the Druids in my world, and I wanted to exposition them at some point. The idea isn't all mine, as it came from many phone conversations with Katkin Kalvin concerning druids in 0e and 1e, among a lot of other 0e and 1e things we talk about once a month or so.

Now that I've exhausted all that I've written so far concerning this tale, I can concentrate on where to go next, or possibly focus on Rindo Rissun's exploits in the Djangorün Depths, but, as glory hungry as this NPC is, I'm actually surprised he didn't hire a Bard to tell his tale.

Campaign Journal: The Exploration of the Djangorün Depths Part Seven

I finally posted the next instalment of my intrepid party's foray into the Djangorun Depths over at Dragonsfoot. Here's the url: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248&p=1669595#p1669595

I think I may have promised to post another new monster here, but I find my time is running short today, and I have a doozy of a Non-Standard Dragon post scheduled for later on this week or early next, so that'll have to wait.
Stay tooned! ;)

Hordes & Hoards: The Dagonites

Its been years since I've actively tried to write a "module", and even longer still since I've tried to write a series of encounters that you might either call "adventures" or "modules". Its been so long since I've played, the old noodle is rusty. :P

Thankfully, I am keeping part of the creative process from going completely dull by working on LBB & H&H. Occasionally, a flash of genius lights up my brain-pan, and I get an idea for a really cool encounter, or even a series of encounters. The trick is to write it down before I forget it all.

That happened to me again last night. My problem probably lays in where to start. There are over a million good ideas rattling around in here, and I mostly write in story-teller mode, so its very difficult for me to set up an encounter for a 'module. 

Editing the monsters for Hordes & Hoards might help me curb my desire to overwrite everything, and simply put in relevant details without boring the reader. (Yes, I have a tendency to bore myself when I overwrite, in fact, I'm sure I'm doing it now...) (yawn)

The trick to good dungeon/encounter design is to pick a monster (or treasure, or trap, or any combo) that will be interesting, challenging, and playable for the referee. Nevermind if the players think, or don't think these things for the moment; its the ref's job to MAKE the encounter these things. If you can sell the encounter to the referee, you got a game!

To accommodate the referee in this task, the ref needs tools, and not just any ol' tool, although the simplest tools are often the best for creating stuff from near-scratch. (What I'd call "scratch" is a copy of Holmes Basic, dice, pencil & a couple sheets of blank paper; "near-scratch" is adding a copy of the MTA, DMG, MM, B2, graph paper, & a protractor!)

LBB & H&H are supposed to be the tools for my game, so I am taking a lot of time & TLC to make sure that I front-load it with everything I can possibly think of, to a reasonable degree. For H&H I could just as easily use the Monster Manual, as it has nearly all the monsters from 0e, GH, BM, EW, HB and a plethora of monsters from the Strategic Review & The Dragon that many players never saw if their ref didn't a copy of SR or TD. 

I am also convinced that I am not breaking any new ground here that others haven't already thought of as far as cataloguing monsters in a format most usable to the ref on the fly; Al Krombach's "Monsterless Manual" comes to mind first, as does Zenopus' series of one-page reference sheets, and other worthies in this area. 

So, I know I'm not doing anything new, as most of us are gamers first, designers second (or last, in my case), and I know I am definitely standing on the shoulders of some other giant. 

But occasionally, even this old dog can come up with something new, if heavily inspired by one of the First Giants in the genre. Zenopus has already admitted that his "Ancient Builder" monster is an analogue of the Old Ones, and suggests that the Dagonites in Holmes' "Maze of Peril" is an analogue of The Deep Ones. 

Since I've never had the chance to read Maze of Peril, I had to guess at a lot of details when I decided to this evil race of deep subterranean frog-men, and I had no idea that "Dagonite" was possibly used as an alternate name for the Deep Ones. I guessed at a lot of it, and after comparing my version of the Dagonites with the (TD#12) Old Ones, I'm glad I did make those guesses!

DAGONITE (Lovecraftian Frogmen)
Number Appearing:	2-5/10-100
Armor Class:	Variable, 7 to 3
Move in Feet:	60/180 swimming
Hit Dice:	2-5
Dexterity:	10-14
Alignment:	Chaos
Number of Attacks:	2 claws/1 bite/1 tongue
Damage per Attack:	1-4/claw, 1-6/bite, grapple/tongue
% in Lair:	50%
Treasure Type:	D
Source: MP, HH

     Dagonites are commonly mistaken for Deep Ones out of ignorance; but let it not be said that it is unfortunate, for actively searching out any knowledge of the Old Ones eventually leads to madness and everlasting death.

     Dagonites are bipedal humanoids that stand 3 to 6 feet tall with most of the amphibian features of frogs. Their coloring varies from mottled brown, rust, red, gray, blue and green. They hunt in packs of 2-5, but their lair will have 10-100 members.

     Their lairs are 'cities' built in large natural caverns, or a large constructed chamber, with a running water source, and an area for many still, stagnate ponds to lay eggs in and provide a suitable environment for their growing young. The structures of their buildings are mud-daubed and hut-like, but on a large scale, if the cavern or chamber size will accommodate them.

      Their round or oblong huts and buildings are rarely spaced apart -- built close together with common walls, ceilings, floors join at the oddest angles to create many nooks & crannies, and support for a neighboring structure. Huts and other structures are built on others, forming a lump-shaped hive of sorts. When interior walls, floors or ceilings collapse due to stress, the area is cleared out, and the new, larger interior is used instead.

     Dagonites are intelligent and have a language of their own, consisting of croaks and groans typical of frogs, but rarely attempt to communication with other races, let alone any who trespass in their territory. However, there is a 10% chance per hit die of any dagonite to understand the common tongue and half that percentage to actually be able to speak it, with modified croaks and groans.

     Dagonites will attempt to capture intruders and hold them in cells to await their fate: either sacrificed to their evil tentacled gods or to be thrown into one of the shallow, stagnant ponds and eaten, raw and alive in a mass feeding frenzy of just hatched, young Dagonites.

     Their clawed and webbed hands and feet are capable of wielding weapons as true hands, but they prefer to make attacks by leaping up to 20 feet onto an opponent and striking with both claws and bite. They can strike with their tongue in melee, as it is coated with a natural, sticky substance and has an innate strength rating of 12-15, capable of disarming armed opponents or grappling an opponent's limb or appendage up to 10 feet away to prevent escape. The tongue, however, when exposed can only take 2-5 hits, separate from the total Hit Dice of the creature.

     The leader of a city will have 8 Hit Dice and the ability to spit acid up to 20 feet 3 times per day. The acid does 1-6 hits per round unless scraped off, taking one round and taking 1-3 hits. This acid is water resistant and takes twice as long to wash off.

     One of the ponds in the city will have a structure built near it, with one end opening up and covering one corner of the pond, like an indoor/outdoor swimming pool. The pond will always be jet black and opaque. This is a temple to the Dagonites' foul, dark god, C'thulhu. Such temples are safe for the Dagonites to come in and perform rites and rituals, but intruders will always attract the attention of the temple guardians: 4-7 Cthulhic Elementals.

Hordes & Hoards work continues... haltingly...

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record when I say things like "I don't have internet at home!" "I'm overworked and underpaid!" "I live in third world country conditions!" /whinging.

Its the way of the min/wage world, but before I leave to put in another application for a higher paying job, I just wanted to put two things out there in the 0e/Holmes blogosphere: I really am sorry I did not devote as much time as I wanted to Michael Thomas' Blueholme drafts, and I am positively sure that there were a lot of other volunteers out there who did take up the challenge of proofreading & playtesting. I have a lot of irons in a few different fires, so...

The second thing I wanted to put out here is that work on my own "Hordes & Hoards" (volume II for my own "Levels Beyond Basic" houserules) continues with many stops & starts, bad ideas, and the general cajoling from a dedicated few that work should even continue on this project, or anything else I've been schlumping around on.

I still don't have a unique view of "Hordes & Hoards", although I've thought of a couple angles that require far too much work on my already overloaded schedule. The first of these 'bad ideas' was to arrange H&H like the Monster & Treasure Assortments, but instead of a single or double line entry for each die roll, each entry would be the MM style entry for the monster, plus a good portion of the entry also describing the monster's lair or locale where encountered (if randomly determined -- most likely a hallway or wilderness setting...) and the Treasure Type written out, not just A, B, or C.

The second idea was to break the Hordes section of H&H into leveled sections of monsters. The 1st to 3rd level "Wandering Monster/Random Encounter" tables would dictate which monsters would be described in section 1-3, the 4th to 6th levels dictating which monsters would be in section 4-6, etc..

My overall feelings towards H&H is that I want a go-to Monster Manual for LBB, but I don't want another boring Monster Manual. Even collating the monsters from 0e & Holmes for LBB to create a MM doppelgänger is a formidable task (for me and my time limitations) that requires a lot of motivation and focus. If I'm not focused in the few hours each week that I have available to work on this, I get nothing done. Not one monster collated into the collection.

So when I say that I have a couple of 'unique' ideas for H&H's presentation, they are just ideas, and are in no way easy to implement -- at least until I get all the collating done. So, for now, just the collating will continue.

What, exactly do I mean by "collating"? I find a basic monster entry from 0e, Holmes, C'thulhu, or any other source, and I reformat it into the stat-block I have currently come to use, which is halfway between Holmes and AD&D's monster stat block:

MONSTER NAME
Number Appearing:
Armor Class:
Move in Feet:
Hit Dice:
Dexterity:
Alignment:
Number of Attacks:
Damage per Attack:
% in Lair:
Treasure Type:
Source:

Other special abilities, especially innate powers, psionics, etc., are largely handled in the description that traditionally follows the stat-block, and if a monster is unintelligent & unaligned, the Alignment entry will not even be present.

Collecting all these monsters from several different sources takes up most of my time. Even the eventual arrival of getting the monsters named set up in alphabetical order was (and still is) an enormous task, but that much is largely done. So now, I go through the listings, and 'spruce up' each entry, making sure that all the versions of each monster from multiple sources jive, or at least do not generally contradict each other, and in some cases, I've added my own grey box text, or changed the wording to it just enough so it does make sense, significantly to give the monster a new direction, or just thought the original text was awful enough to discard it all and make it a wholly new creation -- OR it is a wholly new creation of my own!

Many of the other sources for H&H are Lovecraftian in origin, as that would naturally follow for a Holmes-centric set of house rules. Most of these monsters were penned by Holmes, Kuntz, or Ward, but I've tried to maintain the original entries from Dragon #12 as much as possible from the C'thulhu Mythos Expurgated, adding only what was necessary to make the monster as complete as I think it needs to be for LBB.

A few are analogous creations by a few people here 'n there.

For example, I'm adding Zach Howard's (Zenopus, of Zenopus Archives) wonderful "Ancient Builder" monster, (http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/01/ancient-builder-new-monster.html) and as of right now, it's the first one alphabetically in Hordes & Hoards.
Here is one of my own (see below), that can easily be partnered with another of my monsters, the Dagonites (analogous to the Deep Ones). I'll post that one next week, if I remember to do so, if/when I get online.

C'THULHIC ELEMENTAL (TENTACULA NEVESTA)
Number Appearing:	2-5
Armor Class:	6
Move in Feet:	90 for 30 to 180 feet
Hit Dice:	3-8
Dexterity:	14
Alignment:	Chaos
Number of Attacks:	1-3 + per round
Damage per Attack:	2-12 if dragged into jaws
% in Lair:	100%
Treasure Type:	D
Source: HH

      It is rumored that these slimy horrors were first summoned from the elemental plane of evil (if such a place exists) by ancient priests of Nyarlathotep, and these conjured horrors destroyed their temple and spread under the world via the temple's underworld gates. 

        Living in holes, crevices, or tight spaces no bigger than 10'x10' in total darkness and alerted to any source of light, anyone approaching will always be surprised as 2-5 30' to 180' long green tentacles lash out and attempt to encircle a target. 

       If it misses, the tentacle will try again next round and be joined by a second tentacle, and the third round by a third tentacle, and so on. 

       If the tentacle makes a successful grab attack, the victim must make a dexterity throw to maintain control of his weapons, otherwise his arms and any weapons held are also wrapped tight to the victim's body and will be unable to make any attacks. 

The tentacles do no damage, but they drag the victim to the hole the round after a successful attack. The next round, the victim is dragged down into gnashing jaws that do 2 – 12 per round.

Work on "Hordes & Hoards"

I've wound down work on LBB "Characters & Combat" and "Magic", for the time being, and have started developing Hordes & Hoards, the Monsters & Treasure volume for the LBB house rules.

I want something functional yet modelled after what I will use at my table, but as far as releasing it into the wild internet public, its ho-hum, just another fucking monster manual, so I've been thinking of other functional bits & pieces to add to it to give it just that li'l something that would make it stand apart.

So far, I've decided to add a line of randomly determined treasure according to the Treasure Type of each monster (no big whup there, Bob...) and either a piece of art from ancient D&D times (hello, Greg Bell & C.Corey!), something a bit more modern (who are these pieces by???), or a bit of random dungeon lair (map & 1pd) that features said monster made by yours truly.

The write-up for the bit of dungeon won't even be a quarter of a 1pd (one-page dungeon), but just enough to get the referee something to jump start the ol' creative process when the decision is made to use one of these standard critters.

So far, the sources of monsters for H&H range from 0e (The Single Volume Edition), Holmes Basic, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, and a few from here & there - early issues of The Dragon & the Strategic Review, one mash-up from Classic D&D (that I recall), one from Metamorphosis Alpha, and another (maybe more) from Classic Traveller.

More later (so much for doing blogwork at work...)