Creating the Geek Elite

I've always felt that there was this unspoken, yet universal, thing in geek and fanboy culture: Geek Cred. You don't just own a lightsaber toy - you own a $1000 replica of Luke Skywalker's lightsaber from The Empire Strikes Back. You don't just own a copy of Deities & Demigods, you own a first print copy with the Moorcock and Mythos stats in it - oh, and it's signed by Gary Gygax. It's like this weird race that somehow reflects one somehow being a "better" fan because they own rare or expensive products.

I get it. I've been caught up in it. I'm not judging it. If you're having fun chasing down rare collectibles or expensive replicas then rock on. But as "geek culture" becomes more and more mainstream, I've noticed something beginning to happen. Items typically associated with Geek Cred are being produced with more and more regularity. I think this is an intentional action on the part of the companies that produce these high end items. The products probably cost far, far less than their sometimes ridiculous price tags and this means that the producers only need to sell a fraction of such items (when compared to more standard items) to reap a profit.

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice allowed movie-goers to buy an "Ultimate Ticket" for a mere $100. Monte Cook has successfully kickstarted Invisible Sun, an RPG with a minimum $200 buy in. New Line Cinema has just released an edition of the Extended Editions of both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy with a price tag a penny under $800. 

All this can be yours if you skip your mortgage payment this month.

And people will buy it. Maybe you won't. Maybe you will. But companies wouldn't sell these things if they didn't think it would turn a profit. I can't help but think that with so many traditionally geeky things going mainstream, that the market isn't tapping into that and trying to create a "geek elite" kind of subculture. As if the measure of how cool a geek you are is somehow measured in a price tag.

Or maybe I'm over analyzing things. Either way, I've got my limits and while some of these types of items are cool in and of themselves, I'm a man with responsibilities and financial obligations, so I don't have nearly a thousand dollars to drop on a set of movies with a few knick-knacks and extras included in the package. But, if you do, then more power to you. Have a blast and enjoy your high end purchases - just remember, it doesn't make you somehow cooler or a more dedicated fan of your hobby or interest simply because you've got more disposable income.

Half-Elves in Labyrinth Lord

Labyrinth Lord Revised does not include rules for half-elf player characters. I understand why, given the game's streamlined nature. However, I personally really like half-elves being a viable option at the gaming table and while I wrote a Half-Elf class for Labyrinth Lord years ago, I had an idea to change things up to help diversify things a touch. Half-elves are known for the their range of abilities and potential in many different professions, so I tried to capture that in a very simple fashion.  It's really simple. Want to play a half-elf? Awesome. Here's how it works:

HALF-ELVES

• Half-elves select a class at character creation. They may select Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, or Thief. They may only reach 15th level in their selected class.
• Half-elves have infravision at a range of 30 feet.
• Half-elves receive a +2 to all saving throws made to resist ghoul paralysis.
• Half-elves can speak their alignment language, common, elvish, and orc.

That's it. Yes, it's a bit of race-and-class, but it's super simple and don't see it getting in the way of Labyrinth Lord's quick-and-easy style of play.

Brave the Labyrinth is Back!

BRAVE THE LABYRINTH IS BACK!

Small Niche Games and Barrel Rider Games have joined forces to announce the return of Brave the Labyrinth, the Labyrinth Lord™ OSR magazine! We're looking for submissions!

Brave the Labyrinth is a magazine published by Small Niche Games for the Labyrinth Lord™ roleplaying game community. It consists of fan-created material designed to cover all types of Labyrinth Lord™ and Advanced Edition Companion™ gaming.

Submission Deadline
Brave the Labyrinth is now accepting submissions for its fourth issue. The submission period for Issue #6 ends on October 1st. Any material submitted after this date will be considered for Issue #7.

Submission Guidelines
The following are the submission guidelines for the Brave the Labyrinth fanzine. Please read these guidelines carefully. If you have any questions, email smallnichegames -AT- gmail -DOT- com.

What We Want
New Classes: At least one new class or race/class complete with special abilities (if any), saving throw table, weapon/armor restriction, and detailed description of how and where they fit into the typical fantasy campaign world.
New Races: At least one new playable character race, complete with special abilities (if any), saving throw table, weapon/armor restriction, and detailed description of how and where they fit into the typical fantasy campaign world. This submission should be compatible with the Advanced Edition Companion™.
New Weapons and Equipment: At least five new weapons or pieces of equipment not found in any of the Labyrinth Lord™ core rulebooks. If exotic weapons (katanas, falchions, boomerangs) are submitted, we ask the author to stick a specific theme (Far Eastern, Middle Eastern, etc.).
New Magic Items: At least five new magic items not found in any of the Labyrinth Lord™ core rulebooks. Added background information on who and why the items were created is always a plus.
New Spells: At least five new spells not found in any of the Labyrinth Lord™ core rulebooks. Added background information on who and why the spells were created is always a plus.
New Monsters: At least three new monsters not found in any of the Labyrinth Lord™ core rulebooks. The monsters should be fully statted out and described using the same format found in the core rulebooks.
Optional Rules: Submit a house rule or two used in your game or a game that you've played. Tell us what the rule is, what rule it replaces, and the issues you had with the original rule that forced you to make the change.
Short Fiction: Brave the Labyrinth will occasionally publish fan-created short stories. These stories should be compatible with the medieval fantasy nature of Labyrinth Lord™ and comply with all Brave the Labyrinth submission guidelines.
Artwork and Maps: Any fantasy medieval artwork and any medieval-style maps (castles, dungeons, taverns, cave systems, etc.). Whether you're a professional artist or just like to doodle, show us what you can do.
Cartoons: 1-3 panel cartoons showcasing something amusing about the game we love. No serials at this time.
Locales: A shop, home, cave, ruin, or any other location that can be easily dropped into any settings. Submissions should contain a simple map, statted NPCs/monsters, and at least three adventure hooks.
Adventures: An adventure can be a dungeon, series or wilderness encounters, a trek through a city, or anything else the author desires. we're looking for 5 - 10 page adventures that can be easily dropped into any setting.
Anything Else: Did we miss something? If so, send us an email with your idea and if it's Labyrinth Lord™ related, we'll consider it!

What We Don’t Want
Brave the Labyrinth is a PG-13 publication so graphic depictions of sex and/or violence will not be accepted. Content that is felt to glorify or promote hatred against a specific (real world) gender, (real world) race, or (real world) culture will not be accepted. Pretty much anything else is open for submission, though.

Rights
Any content submitted to Brave the Labyrinth is assumed to be an original creation submitted by the sole author. Brave the Labyrinth accepts reprints for consideration, but prefers previously unpublished content. Small Niche Games retains the right to publish accepted content for any future issue of Brave the Labyrinth, including Best Of's and Anthologies. The author retains all copyright to his or her own work, but is asked not to publish submitted content (if applicable) until one month after that issue of Brave the Labyrinth is released.

Stat Blocks
The following stat blocks should be used for all monster and NPC entries. The first stat is a template; the second stat is an example of it in use.

Monster
Monster Name: AL ; MV (); AC ; HD ; hp ; ‪#‎AT‬ ; Dmg ; SA ; SV ; ML ; XP .
Giant Spider: AL N; MV 60' (20')/web 120' (40'); AC 6; HD 3; hp 16; #AT 1; Dmg 2d6 (mandible) + special; SA poison; SV F2; ML 8; XP 80.

NPC
NPC: AL ; MV (); AC ; Class/Level ; hp ; #AT ; Dmg ; S , D , C , I , W , Ch ; SV ; SA ; ML ; XP ; magic items (if any), equipment (if any), wealth (if any).
Drumas Long: AL N; MV 120' (40'); AC 7 or 6 (unarmored or leather armor); T5; hp 16; #AT 1; Dmg 1d6+1 (short sword + Str), 1d4+1 (dagger + Str); S 13, D 17, C 13, I 15, W 13, Ch 12; SV T5; SA backstab, thief skills; ML 8; XP 800; pick locks 35%, find/remove traps 33%, pick pockets 40%, move silently 40%, climb walls 91%, hide in shadows 30%, hear noise 1-3; potion of poison, potion of healing, thieves' tools, 27 gp, 34 sp, 13 cp.

Open Game Content (OGC)
Brave the Labyrinth will comply with the terms of the Open Game License. All stat blocks for any submission will be considered OGC. The individual author of each submission may designate which other items are OGC (if any) and which are Product Identity.

Compensation
Brave the Labyrinth depends heavily on fan contributions. The PDF of Issue #6 will be offered as a free download. The author of accepted content receives a free print copy of the issue, to be delivered within one month of the issue's publication.

Amateurs
If you've never been published before, chances are you've been gaming for years, and you can't roleplay for that long without coming up with some cool ideas. So take some time, jot some of those ideas down, and send them in. Who knows? You might get a call from a big-time publisher. You gotta start somewhere! :-)

Publishers
RPG publishers are encouraged to submit. Publishers whose content is accepted to Brave the Labyrinth may send one 1/2 page ad per issue to be placed in the back of the magazine. As the free fanzine will most likely be downloaded by hundreds, if not thousands of gamers, this is a great way to get some free publicity for your campaign setting, new products, and/or your company.

How to Submit
Submit content to smallnichegames -AT- gmail -DOT- com in the body of the email (preferred) or as a rich text document. Place [BtL Submission] followed by the title of your submission in the subject line of the email.

Issue #6Issue #6 is currently scheduled for publication in the fourth quarter of 2016. We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Movers and Shakers: The Living Campaign

I always aspire to run a "living" campaign. No, not those official things like Living Greyhawk or Living Dragonstar from back in the heyday of D&D 3.X, but a persistent world where things continue to happen around the PCs that have little, if anything, to do with them. It helps make the setting feel a bit more alive.

Recently, I've been pondering how to insert some of these living elements into my upcoming Labyrinth Lord campaign. Given that the bulk of the campaign will be based out of Dolmvay, I've got a great urban landscape full of NPCs to work with. So what do I do? I go and make my own. Why? Because apparently I like making work for myself.

So Dolmvay has a city-within-a-city. Valeron, the seat of power for the Church of Law & Order. It's very Vatican City. I thought about having some political trouble brewing within the city. Recently, rumors have begun to spring up that there is a high-end brothel in the city that I'm currently calling "The Garden." This establishment is lead by a madame who is said to be the most charming, intelligent, and beautiful woman in the city. She's also very rich and no one seems to know a damn thing about who she really is or where she came from. I'll call her Eve, for now.

Truth be told, she's a Medusa. But no one knows it because she walks around openly and appears for all intents and purposes to be a graceful courtesan in her late twenties. How does a medusa achieve this? She's wearing a magic ring (or other such item) that projects an illusion over her true form. She and her two sisters recruit woman from across the city. They're well treated, but told only to take on merchants, traders, and the middle class as their clients.

Eve and her sisters - Lilith and Jezebel - are the only ones allowed to take noble clients. Of course they also take clergymen in secret, which is part of why the Church is trying to drive them out. What's more, the Three Maidens (as they're called by the locals) are known for giving large amounts of wealth to the poor and wretched of the city.

The only clue to the Eve's terrible truth is the magnificent statue garden she keeps at the heart of her establishment. But these statues are frozen in poses of ecstasy or grace - not horrified. The Three Maidens are trying to establish a bloodless coup in the city. By keeping in the good graces of the poor (who are often ignored by those with money), they are able to learn the secrets that the ignored and abandoned often overhear. By having those they take into their house serve the middle class they get keep tabs on the economy of the city and its trade deals - both secret and public. By servicing nobles and clergy, the ladies will undoubtedly learn secrets from idol pillow talk.

When the time comes, Eve will strike. Using her gathered secrets and the will of the people, she can sow the seeds of revolt against the church and even potentially convince people that Dolmvay needs new political and religious leadership. She can then install those she controls in positions of power, and eventually overthrow the entire church.

But why? Well, you see according to Greek myth, the original Medusa lived in a foul cave. So I decide that the Three Maidens are actually the last three Meduae in the world and part of a cult which worships the Lady Serpent - an ancient evil goddess . The last temple to the Lady Serpent is in ruins, beneath the sewers of Dolmvay. Why is it there? Because it is said the Lady Serpent slumbers at the base of the Dolm River and when she awakens, she will claim those who would cast snakes into the sea. They shall be taken into her maw, and devoured forever - leaving only those loyal to her. And the serpents shall rule the world, as they once did before the coming of Man.

No blood shed. No massive combat. Just rumors, news, and hints of political strife threading through the campaign. Now, if my players start pulling on that thread things will get interesting, but in the mean time they can come and go freely from the city as they adventure across the land. Meanwhile, the city of Dolmvay becomes wrapped ever-tighter in the serpent's coil.

NPC Classes

So continuing my campaign planning, I was going to put together a party of NPCs to serve as drop-in adversaries to challenge my player characters. Now, given that I'm running Labyrinth Lord, my class choices are (by the book) both limited and predictable.

I got to thinking about how to spice things up and I recalled back in some of the old issues of Dragon that we often saw write-ups on NPC classes. Death Master, Archer (and Arch-Ranger), Thug, etc. Back then, I took the very player-centric and entitled stance of "That's not fair! I should be able to play an Arch-Ranger too, if I want."

Now, in my older and more treacherous years, I'm feeling quite different. By having NPC classes, it allows me to throw something new at my player characters while they hold fast to the fantasy archetypes of the genre. I'm not saying every single NPC or adversary needs to be something special, but spice it up on occasion.

So, I'm going to build a team of mercenaries and bounty hunters. They'll be neutral and chaotic in alignment, hired by whatever evil organization happens to fit based on how the campaign goes. Being bounty hunters, I'll include a ranger - which is convenient, since Labyrinth Lord doesn't appear to restrict ranger alignment according to the AEC. Add in a fighter or two, and maybe a thief and I've got a nice simple threat. But the leader of this unnamed band of thugs? Well, for that I'm going to go with +Jason Paul McCartan's Murderhobo - probably the Low Templar variant. Maybe he's a former Paladin who got kicked out of the Church of Law and Order. On the surface, he'll seem like another martial goon, but he'll have a collection of talents and abilities which will help me as the DM adapt to the inevitable clever plans my PCs will devise.

Does this mean I'll be allowing Murderhobos as PCs? Heck no! Other classes outside the AEC? Surely not! But the important thing is that it presents a fresh, but fair, challenge to my player characters and creates an engaging game for them.

Besides, it's always fun to have someone in a campaign that the players love to hate. For bonus points, maybe I'll introduce the Murderhobo early on as McCartan's new class: the Hench. This Hench will likely be someone the player characters hire early in their career and use as a meat shield. After leaving him for dead, the Hench becomes a Murderhobo who takes particular pleasure in his newest bounty...

Building a Campaign Web

So I don't have the prep time I did back in the day. This can make running games a bit tougher than it used to be. To that end, I've come to enjoy modules more and more these days. I've got quite the collection of B/X and LL modules and eagerly add to it on a regular basis.

I always like to open my Labyrinth Lord games with the module Larm. It's a good sandbox adventure with a handful of mini-quests that aren't too deadly for first level PCs. As I thought about how to build on it, I thought of a few other low-level modules I own that I might seed within spitting distance of the village. After some thought I decided to also add Hall of the Mountain King to the rumors and hints around the village of Larm. It'll give the PCs a solid dungeon crawl. I can even tie it to the goblin camp bothering the village by saying they're lead by the mysterious "Mountain King" to create a multi-layered experience.

So now my players spend a few levels running around the village running errands. While they're away on one of these errands, I can tell them that several NPCs arrived in the village while they were off being heroes. One of these is a group of travelers going down the Dolm River to Dolmvay. This allows me to use Dolm River. Another of these NPCs is going to pick up and escort someone back to the city of Dolmvay from a keep far out in the wilderness. This keep is, of course the Keep on the Borderlands. After helping the Keep they PCs can escort the NPCs back to Dolmvay, but learn of their secret past via Kingmaker.

Once they arrive in Dolmvay, they can find assignments from the Adventurer's Guild - which will actively attempt to recruit them, having heard of their exploits in the adventures listed above. Perhaps they get tasked to investigate the events surround Oak Grove Whispers. Or maybe the Church of Law and Order heard how soundly they dealt temple in Larm, and asks them to investigate the Shrine of St. Aleena. Along the way to any of the adventures mentioned above, they might end up staying for a rather troublesome night at the Inn of Lost Heroes.

Holy crap. I think I just organized three months of a campaign with almost no effort. Go me.

The Return (kinda) of Thunder Rift!

Much to my surprise, when I logged into RPGNow this morning I saw that Wizards of the Coast has uploaded the classic Thunder Rift. This amazing little sandbox is one of my all time favorite B/X or BECMI D&D supplements ever released.

They've got the PDF available for $4.99. They've also got Assault on Raven's Ruin for the same price. Hopefully Quest for the Silver Sword and the other products in this line are coming soon.