19th Level

“Intelligence work has one moral law - it is justified by results.” ― John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold With John le Carré's A Legacy of Spies coming out this week I've been rereading his George Smiley novels. Doing so has been getting me thinking about espionage RPGs. I don't have a ton of experience running or playing in espionage RPGs. I've been involved in a number of one-offs using Top Secret , Top Secret S/I , and James Bond . Back in my middle school and high school days of the 1980s such games tended to emulate the James Bond movies - some investigation/information gathering, with a lot of thrilling chases.  A lot of Call of Cthulhu  gaming over the past several years has taught me that gaming can be quite exciting with a high degree of tension with minimal combat. In Call of Cthulhu  combat is dangerous. If you need to fight someone, your best bet is to ambush. A fair fight is dangerous, even for someone with a high degree of...

When I first starting playing D&D in the 1980s, Charisma was the most common dump stat. We pretty much ignored the rules on hirelings and henchmen. From what I've read online, our experience was not unique. However, I've also seen for many groups henchmen were an important component of the early game and the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide bears this out, with considerable space dedicated to the acquisition and loyalty of henchmen. In our AS&SH game, one of the players had two characters, both of whom had high Charisma scores. He decided to use some of his starting cash to hire some mercenaries. It wound up being an extremely good investment - giving the party additional firepower while at the same time giving the monsters additional targets to aim for. I suspect should the henchmen survive up to the point where the characters make it to second level, I might allow the henchmen to gain a little bit of experience and reach 1st level, with an eye towards al...

We're currently working our way through The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh in our AS&SH game. It adapts pretty well and at a later point I might write up about adapting the series. This post however is simply a brief review of the adventure itself. If you're in my group it's probably best to hold off in reading this until we're done, though I'd not be surprised if some or all of you have played or run this in the past, as it is a fairly common adventure from the 1st edition... The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh  is an adventure from the UK branch of TSR, copyrighted to 1981. It has a bit of a different feel from most adventures of the period. It has a bit of a heavier plot than most adventures back then - it's not like later adventures which sometimes go so far as to render player decisions moot. Rather it has a set of NPCs with their own agenda who aren't likely to sit waiting for the PCs to arrive. Saltmarsh is a two-part adventure as well as being ...

Including a character generation session, we had our third session of AS&SH last night. I reviewed it over four years ago but sometimes there's a world of difference between reading a game and playing it. So how does it play? As I've mentioned, as far as the rules go it is in many ways a cleaned up version of AD&D. A bit more complicated than Swords & Wizardry  but nothing anyone with gaming experience would have trouble with. Having played it a few sessions there's a few things that I've noticed in play. First, despite being based on AD&D, the lack of demi-humans makes a big difference, even when you aren't going for deep immersion characterization. It definitely gives off the swords & sorcery vibe that the game is going for. While it lacks multi-classing, it does give some sub-classes that represent a number of fantasy and swords & sorcery tropes. For example, it is possible to play the traditional fighter/magic-user as a warlock. ...

This writeup isn't designed to be a work of fiction, it's primarily an aid to my group to summarize what transpired in our adventure. Based on Jeffrey Talanian's adventure of the same name, which was in turn inspired by HP Lovecraft's short story "The Rats in the Walls". Year 576 (Tempest), Month II, Day 4 Cast of characters: Aaron Cèampach, Kelt Warlock Hoom Feethos, Hyberbrean Thief Morrow, Pict Druid Saratos Ochôziakos, Ixian Fighter Sarukê thugatêrOchôziakos, Ixian Witch William "Billy" Welsh - Common Human Pyromancer Henchmen hired by Saratos and Sarukê: Tai, Medium Infantryman Zell, Heavy Infantryman Our bold adventurers had paid a visit to the dockside tavern of the Silvery Eel in Hyperborea's greatest city, Khromarium. They'd heard it was a place to find adventure - even that the tavern keeper might have work he needed doing. They learned that Xill Vuntos, tavern keeper, was dealing with an unusual rat p...

I thought I'd be able to catch up on this year's RPGaDay upon my return from Manhattan but I've come down with a cold that I'm fairly certain is Captain Trips from The Stand . I've been alternating between sleeping and painful coughing. This has also caused me to miss out on some grad school work. Once I'm feeling a bit better that will need to be my priority. 

On August 11, when describing the Dead Game I'd Most Like to Return  I nominated the original D6 Star Wars. Yesterday, just five days later, while waiting for a subway train I received an email from a player in our gaming group sharing with me the news that Fantasy Flight Games had just announced a limited edition reprint of the original D6 Star Wars game and its first sourcebook. I'm going to live with the illusion that someone at Fantasy Flight Games read my post and made the arrangements in record time. In all seriousness, I'm quite happy with this news. I've played D6 Star Wars recently and it has aged remarkably well.