The Braunstein Essays

Over at chirine's workbench chirine ba kal aka Jeff Berry hangs out and writes wonderful essays. This series from back in 2014 concerns The Braunsteins. The Braunsteins were run by David Wesely and when he went overseas in the military Dave Arneson took them over and continued to run them. They were one of the inspirations for his game Blackmoor which became Dungeons & Dragons after Dave Arneson showed his game to Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz and group. Gygax wrote it down and did the heavy lifting to get it published.

Here is some information about how to do a Braunstein.

Essay On The Braunstein - Part The First, For July 15th, 2014 - Art or Science?
Essay On The Braunstein - Part The Second, For July 17th, 2014 - Science Or Screenplay?
Essay On The Braunstein - Part The Third - July 19th, 2014 - Rulers, Numbers, And Crunching
More On The Braunstein - Questions From The Floor! - July 21st, 2014
Essay On The Braunstein - Part The Fourth - July 28th, 2014 (Game Aids - 1)
On The Braunstein - A Pause For Questions...
The Braunstein - More Of Your Questions!
The Braunstein - A Question From Ed
A Braunstein Interlude - Maps And Campaigns

More Dave Hargrave and Arduin Links

If you are a Dave Hargrave and Arduin Fan then I reccomend that you take a look at this post.

More Stuff from the Recent Dave Hargrave Day and Links to Arduin Extra's

There are about a dozen links in the linked blog post.

The Passing of Paul Mosher

The Passing of Paul Mosher Paul Mosher was one of Dave Hargrave's (Arduin) closest friends.

Here are Aprel’s words (Paul’s wife):
On Sunday April 15, 2018:
“I wanted to let you all know, that this morning with no fuss Paul quietly slipped from this world into ARDUIN forever. He had not been sick, and it was a real shock…Please let anyone else you think of know.”
On April 25, 2018:
“They have finally signed off on Paul's death certificate and he was cremated last night. I will be picking up his ashes Thur. Hopefully today or tomorrow I will be meeting with the Vet guy and will be getting the arrangements made for the memorial. “

No other information is available at this time. Paul was a veteran and military funerals can take a while to arrange. Paul Mosher, we salute your years of service and for being a great friend and family man.

Celebrating Dave "The Dream Weaver" Hargrave Day

It is May 25th and time to celebrate Dave Hargrave Day his birthday, he would have been 72 today and still a young man. Unfortunately, he died an untimely death from complications of diabetes in 1988. Dave Hargrave also known as The Dream Weaver, was the designer of the Arduin campaign and the author of the Arduin Grimoire.

Arduin also known as Arduin, Bloody Arduin is one of the greatest campaign world's ever committed to paper and it easily surpasses everything created by WotC. Dave Hargrave in his grimoire published hundreds of ideas and these days these ideas are put in print in new products and the authors and publishers pretend these are new ideas instead of stolen ideas. Why they don't want to give the idea creators credit is anyone's guess, but it is so, so wrong.

The Arduin Trilogy is available over at RPGNow and is described as follows

564 pages of Arduin History...
The original three books:

•     The Arduin Grimoire (Arduin Grimoire volume 1)

•     Welcome to Skull Tower (Arduin Grimoire volume 2)

•     The Runes of Doom (Arduin Grimoire volume 3)

The volume that came after:

•     Arduin Adventure

And a whole lot more!
BY: David A. Hargrave
These are the volumes that started it all. These books inspired tons of RPG's, authors and fans alike. Let your imagination set wild and come back to the old Arduin Grimoire series to re-inspire you from old or create inspiration of new! There will certainly be something of value in these Grimoires for all. New rules, monsters, items, spells, character classes, races and more… all from the World of Arduin, for use in any and ALL role playing game systems - past present and future!
This was Emperors Choice first attempt to organize the large amount of material presented in the original Arduin game system.  While reorganized and placed with a new typeset, imagery and tables it maintains its original presentation.

Emperors Choice is now seemingly dead and the Arduin IP languishes in purgatory. Only a few books are available at RPGNow but right now you can get the bundle of all the books and items that are available over at RPGNow for $51.95 instead of the full price of $102.84. Entire Arduin Digital Collection [BUNDLE]

In my opinion either the Trilogy or the Bundle are a good deal and you should try to get one or the other while you still can. The IP holder has not responded to email and stopping shipping hard copies multiple years ago and could pull the plug on everything. Dave Hargrave's Arduin is Classic and has a lot to teach and illuminate.

Happy Birthday to Dave Hargrave and here is hoping that your IP can be brought out of moth balls and made fully available once again.

Chirine ba Kal's blog post and "Pre-School Gaming"

See Chrine ba Kal and his Truth Bomb blog post titled Pre-School Gaming - Before 'Old School' and 'New School" meaning of course game play as originally done by Dave Arneson, Phil Barker aka M.A.R. Barker and Gary Gygax back pre-publication. All three of which continued to play the same way all their lives. What about Gygax you may say, well Gygax played the same way his whole life; however a short time after D&D was published he started preaching a different way for others to play, although he never followed his own very bad Standard Play advice, which required the use a purchased module from TSR instead of doing it yourself the original way.

"Pre-School Gaming" and I have also seen it called "Original School Gaming" and this new term is really needed ever since the Murder Hobo Module Slaves stole the term "Old School" and corrupted its meaning. Old School used to mean how Dave, Phil and Gary played, but not anymore.  Old School has been corrupted to mean those that pretend to be Old School while playing with purchased modules, railroaded game play and the juvenile and immature murderhobo trope. DISCLAIMERL: I am not saying that the murderhobo trope is Bad Wrong Fun. The murderhobo trope is fun for many people, but fun or not it is still juvenile and immature and always a big hit with 10-12 years olds. If you are 25 or 35 or 45 or 55 or whatever and you enjoy the murderhobo trope that is perfectly fine, but don't pretend it is not juvenile and immature, don't pretend (and prevaricate) that it is the original play style, because it is not the original play style.

My original quote was "Always remember, as a first principle of all D&D: playing BtB is not now, never was and never will be old school." I guess I will have to update date it and replace "old school" with "pre-school/original school."

"Always remember, as a first principle of all D&D: playing BtB is not now, never was and never will be pre-school/original school."

Fast Approaching is May 25th Dave Hargrave's Birthday

May 25th is Dave Hargrave of Arduin fame and some of us will be posting tributes on that date to Dave Hargrave and to Arduin. Please check back for that post and later in the day I will post links to other similar purpose posts.

A Tibbit about Mega-Dungeons (Original Edition RPG Appreciation Day / OERAD)

Original Edition RPG Appreciation Day (OD&D) is today May 5th, 2018. Join the festivities and read posts all across the blogosphere.

Dungeons and Mega-Dungeons in OD&D. 

In the original Dungeons & Dragons published in 1974 the focus of the game was (and is) exploration. Whether you are in the Wilderness or in a Dungeon the focus is exploration.

If you were running a campaign that was more dungeon focused, it often evolved into a Mega-Dungeon. A basic dungeon is described as 

A good dungeon will have no less than a dozen levels down, with offshoot levels in addition, and new levels under construction so that players will never grow tired of it. There is no real limit to the number of levels, nor is there any restriction on their size (other than the size of graph paper available). "Greyhawk Castle", for example, has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, more than that number branching from these, and not less than two new levels under construction at any given time.

A Mega-Dungeon is when this basic dungeon reaches maturity and the size and number of levels continues to grow as it is developed. A true Mega-Dungeon is impossible to fully explore. If the players ever finish a dungeon, then it was not a Mega-Dungeon.

A few definitions are in order

Mega-Dungeon is a massive dungeon that goes way beyond a basic dozen levels with twenty or more being typical. They also typical have over 200 room or spaces per level - not counting sublevels.

Campaign Dungeon is a meaningless term, since if play is restricted to just a dungeon you do not have a campaign, you have a limited sample game.

Campaign is a full fleged OD&D game where all parts of a campaign are present being Dungeons, Towns/Cities, Wilderness, Sea-Going and mulitple planes.

Choke Point is when options become very limited and things become linear aka railroads. This is not a feature of old school campaigns. The opposite of Choke Point is normal design.

Dungeon levels have full footprints as you go deeper into the dungeon.

Dungeon sub-levels have partial footprints and are usually have fewer access points than is normal for a level. To avoid the spector of the railroad, it is suggested that at least three access point be provided, although some can be through secret doors or other types of access. It is also suggested that they have at least three ways out. It is acceptable for the way in to be different from the way out or for them to be difficult to find.

Unique areas can be present that are isolated (but not railroaded) from other areas.

Rooms and chambers differ in that chambers are large rooms that have or had a specific purpose rather than a general purpose, such as, an audience chamber.

Chutes are ways to rapidly get from upper levels to lower levels although sometimes they operate the opposite way. They are often found behind secret doors or combined with a pit trap or trapdoors. Chutes are completely enclosed throughout their length.

Slides are also between levels but differ in that they are not completely enclosed so that one could roll or jump off of one along the way.

Portal is a door between different worlds or planes with usually minor clues to tell players the type of choice they are about to make.

Underworld aka Underdark is the entire complexity of underground campaign areas of which dungeons and mega-dungeon are just one small part.


Lairs are really tiny dungeons of only a few rooms or areas.

The RPGPundit and an Anonymous SJW attack at OBS

As most of you likely know by now, some SJW(s) at OBS aka RPGnow, have been messing with The RPGPundit, by playing around with the url for his really sweet new product Lion & Dragon. They keep changing and/or deleting the url so that they can keep his product out of the top ten in sales. The SJW(s) can't stand The RPGPundit because he is pro-freedom and stands against censorship. I agree with him on some things and abhor his stance on other things, but I do support his right to hold those positions and advocate for them. The SJW(s) desire a one-note echo chamber and believe that only their views should be protected by free speech and that all opposing views should be permanently silenced.

Support freedom, by supporting The RPGPundit, because love him or hate him, he is one of the few voices of freedom in the RPG world.

One of the links below should be working and I will try to update this post if they change.

You can read The RPGPundit's take on things here:

Blog entry cancelled  

RPGnow Sabotaged Lion & Dragon, & What You Can do About It

RPGNow Has Screwed Me Over YET AGAIN, Day 3

Lion & Dragon / RPGnow Fiasco Conclusion & Some Reasons To Buy It Now!

Lion & Dragon / RPGnow Fiasco Conclusion & Some Reasons To Buy It Now!

In short, if someone was responsible for trying to sabotage Lion & Dragon on RPGnow, they're probably kicking themselves right now.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, over the last 4 days either through massive incompetence or intentional malice by some disgruntled employee, Lion & Dragon had been effectively rendered unreachable not once but TWICE, just as it was celebrating a month on the top-10 list, which it of course lost as no one could find the book anymore.

First, all the good news; and basically, this is all about YOU. Against ALL odds, and in spite of essentially losing all its viable links TWICE in the last 4 days, Lion & Dragon has made it back into the top 15! As of this writing, thanks to all the people who came forward and purchased the game, it went from being way down at #30 and dropping, all the way up to currently #13 and rising on the bestseller list for RPGnow.
I want to thank all the people who have stepped up and helped spread the word. The ones who bought the game obviously, but also the ones who made the effort to share the links to the new L&D URL and telling other people about what had happened.

On the best selling list he is back up to number 13 right now, who know what it would be if OBS hadn't taken a leave of absence from ethics. EDIT: now up to number 11.

RPGnow's Bestselling list

Current Link:

Lion & Dragon

Bad Advice at RPGNET - How to Run a Railroad

Over at RPGNET the bad advice continues in General "Do"s and "Don't"s the alleged expert says:

For Game Masters

• DON'T - Write a rigid, linear plot. If your story requires your players to go from A to B to C, it's pretty much guaranteed they'll head to X at the earliest opportunity.
• DO - Write interesting locations, and NPCs that you can drop in any location. That way, if the players go from A to X, you can just move your plot to X.

He starts off good saying don't write a rigid linear plot, but then instead of giving good advice and saying don't write any plot, allow the players to make their own decisions as they become acquainted with your world, he instead goes off the deep end with the worse advice you could give a new GM.

NO, he says " If your story requires your players to go from A to B to C,"  which is a gross violation of how to play an RPG because in saying "your story requires your players to" he tips his hand that he does not believe in old school sandbox play but in the new school railroad play where players are merely puppets in the GM's novel.

But it gets worse, much worse, he says "DO - Write interesting locations, and NPCs that you can drop in any location. That way, if the players go from A to X, you can just move your plot to X."

To be clear, what this fake expert is preaching is this, it doesn't matter where your players go or what decisions your players make, they are going to have the same encounter regardless. This is the mark of a complete incompetent new school GM, that is deserving of never having players for his game.

The correct way, yes Virginia there is a correct way, to run an RPG is that the players choice do matter and going different places encounters different things and different situations.

Bad Advice at RPGNET - The Starting Gate: New Player/GM Help Commentary Two

Bad Advice at RPGNET -  The Starting Gate: New Player/GM Help dispensing bad advice to newbies, it's what RPGNET does.

So let's go back to where I left off in my previous post, [Essay Section] Fundamentals Of Tabletop Roleplaying and in the next paragraph the moderator says this,

Now, we might not agree on just how tough your character is, or how sneaky, and those matter, so I get you to describe your dragon a bit more, and we figure some way of resolving it (rolling dice, say) so we don’t end up bickering. We’ll bias things in your favour if your dragon is good at sneaking and fighting, or against you if your dragon is bad at those things. In the interests of being fair, we’ll try to codify how we did it this time, and write it down, so that we can keep it in mind for the next time that character has to scout something out; it’s good to be consistent. And we’ll make up a few other rules to make it feel more like being a dragon.

You are the ref, why don't you just do a write up of the dragon character the way you want it to work in your campaign. Just go back to the basics, it is your campaign and the players can play anything they want but your job is to decide what it can do at level 1, level 2 and so on and so forth. And you know what makes it feel like a dragon, how the player plays the character not a bunch of extra rules. If the player is so lacking in imagination that he plays the dragon the same as his last 20 fighters or whatever he always plays then the rules are irrelevant, but if the player has imagination, what you get will be unique.

Then he goes on to,

As you might expect, the situations tend to get a lot more complex - a simple situation like the dragon hunters won’t last us long unless there's a lot more to it than it appears, and building more involved ones is a bit of a trick, but one that can be managed easily enough. 

Instead of letting play develop on its own as the players and the ref's characters interact and react, this guy wants to write it all out up front, so you know, he can keep everyone on the railroad. A game takes on a life of its own if you just play it and don't try to force it into specific preformulated paths, but allow it to find its own path, its own identity. Putting shackles on everything is not the way to have something worth remembering and talking about.

Some parts of the essay are pretty good or at least not bad, but here he goes off the deep end again,

Balancing The Game. Characters can often be specialized in very different activities. It’s important for a Guide to attempt to provide opportunities which will make the different kinds of characters that the players choose to play equally viable. Getting a good balance is all about providing opportunities for every character to enjoy their chosen traits and specialities; as a Guide, always keep this in mind – a “balanced engine” won't correct for it if all the challenges you throw out there are oriented to one or two specialities.

Balance has no place in the game, balance is about making sure that in every encounters everyone gets the same amount of face time and that everyone always wins and no one dies, it is about taking the challenge and risk out of things. Balance another way of saying guaranteed victory with the refs thumb firmly on the scale. Balance is for a murderhobo game, not for a game where players are expected to be able to think, reason and make decisions and hope they made the right one.

Again I am not claiming that coddling a bunch of murderhobo munchkins through victory after victory is bad wrong fun, not at all, if that floats you boat go for it, but to tell beginners that it is the only way to go is just ridiculous. You should present the game in all its open-ended glory and then if the newbies decide to dumb it down into a mindless murderhobo game then that is their decision based on full information instead of being told that is the default setting and don't change it.

Bad Advice at RPGNET - The Starting Gate: New Player/GM Help Commentary One

Bad Advice at RPGNET -  The Starting Gate: New Player/GM Help dispensing bad advice to newbies, it's what RPGNET does.

Where should I start, there are so many places that I could, so how about this one,  [Essay Section] Fundamentals Of Tabletop Roleplaying. In the first post by a moderator the following advice is offered

Before we get into details, just imagine that we’re sitting at a table, and I say to you “So, you’re a dragon, and you're up on a mountaintop, looking around. You've just seen a group of people making their way towards your lair, and they look like dragon hunters. What do you do?” - and you respond “Well, I guess I'm going to try and figure out if I can beat them in a straight fight, first, so I'm going to slip down closer and scout them out”. I think about it, and tell you a couple of possible ways to slip down the mountain to get closer, and you pick one, and I respond with more stuff; and we’re playing. I’m the GM, and you’re the player. We have a fictional role (you're a dragon), and we’ve got a situation that works, one where you have a goal, some obstacles, stuff like that. So far, easy.

There is much wrong with this, but I am going to focus on the part that I placed in bold print. In the first post in this thread we immediately establish that this moderator doesn't know anything about refereeing D&D. The ref is clearly cheating when he tells the player how he could slip down the mountain and has the player pick the action presented by the ref. Is he going to rule against his own idea? Of course not, because in this style of play there is no risk and success is guaranteed. So lets break down what is happening here.

So you the player have decided to play a dragon (which means you are starting at first level not as an ancient powerful dragon) and you are in your lair on the mountain top and instead of you adventuring (possibly with other young dragons or other types of PCs) before you can even get started the ref throws a bunch of dragon hunters at you as the first encounter. REALLY! That is how you start the game off? So to continue the player says, “Well, I guess I'm going to try and figure out if I can beat them in a straight fight, first, so I'm going to slip down closer and scout them out”. 

Two things here, scouting them out, good idea if you can pull it off, but beat them straight up, not likely as a young dragon a first level dragon (I am assuming that this is the case, since the moderator did not label his advice for a "start at high level campaign").

At this point the player should tell the Ref, how he is going to try "to slip down closer and scout them out." That's right the player comes up with the ideas about how to perform the actions he wants to take. Even if you were playing with players with severe mental challenges you wouldn't spoon feed them, you would help them learn to think and to reason so that they could have fun and grow both in game and out of game from playing.

Now let;s go to another item in the paragraph above and focus on the parts placed in bold.

Before we get into details, just imagine that we’re sitting at a table, and I say to you “So, you’re a dragon, and you're up on a mountaintop, looking around. You've just seen a group of people making their way towards your lair, and they look like dragon hunters. What do you do?” - and you respond “Well, I guess I'm going to try and figure out if I can beat them in a straight fight, first, so I'm going to slip down closer and scout them out”. I think about it, and tell you a couple of possible ways to slip down the mountain to get closer, and you pick one, and I respond with more stuff; and we’re playing. I’m the GM, and you’re the player. We have a fictional role (you're a dragon), and we’ve got a situation that works, one where you have a goal, some obstacles, stuff like that. So far, easy.

So here we have a new player and the GM(or more correctly Ref) and what does this so called GM do? He mandates that the player is a dragon, instead of letting the player pick what he wants to play. That is bad advice item one. Then he says "we have a fictional role" and this is wrong on two levels, first we as in ref and player don't have a joint fictional role, the players has a character that he has created to play, the ref does not run or create the character that the player chooses to play and secondly by saying fictional role, he implies and in "new school" parlance he mandates that there is a pre-written "STORY" a script that the player is expected to follow. The player does not get to choose, the ref tells him what to do. Wow, sounds like fun, a player gets to be a puppet in the story the ref wrote. 

Now I accept that there are a lot of people lacking imagination and the ability to think, imagine and reason that probably enjoy playing railroaded scripts and if that floats your boat, then more power to you and have fun on that train. But I take exception to a whole forum that wants to teach newbies that that is all they can expect from a roleplaying game. I for one think it is wrong to limit what people can do from the get-go like this.

Why not at least allow an opposing viewpoint that espouses the original open-ended game without limits that OD&D was designed to be and is. I would be highly surprised if RPGNET allows any advice that deviates from the new school party line of RAILROADS, RAILROADS, RAILROADS, don't think for yourself, the ref will take care of that for you. Or the from the newest school party line, which has this viewpoint 

In some cases, the authority of the GM will be split up among the players in various ways.

That is, of course how a  RAILROAD becomes a real TRAIN WRECK.

Champions of ZED: Zero Edition Dungeoneering Review Part 3

Continuing on with the review

Next up is Character Growth

Life energy levels, accumulation of experience points and Tiers of Advancement. Fighters, Clerics and Magic-Users have Tiers of Veteran, Hero, Superhero and Lord. For example the Veteran Tier for Fighters is Levels 1-3, for Cleric 1-5 and Magic-Users 1-6 and at the other end of things the Lord Tiers is levels 13+, 14+ and 16+ respectively.

These tiers have "all sorts of social implications in the campaign," depending on the individual campaign.

Then they go into other ways that the Tier interacts with the character and bonuses or other things that acrue to the character. Fear Immunity and Reputation are two of those items as the Tier level increases. Reaching the Lord Tier is more about attract followers possibly of higher level (talking here about above 1st level), important titles, leadership positions, "likely to establish strongholds, towers, castles, cathedrals and so forth."

Tables for magic-users and then an indepth discussion of experience and all the ways it is earned.

Tables for level progression by class, experience points needed and possible hit points gained.

Elves and their dual nature fighter/magic users. They only earn experience for one or the other at a time. They do have all the abilities for both at the same time. They can only carry magical weapons and armor and still be able to cast spells, if they have mundane weapons or armor they must be laid down/removed before casting a spell. The big restriction is that they have to decide this before the adventure starts If they go as a fighter with mundane equipment then they are locked in as a fighter for that adventure and vice versa - having magic weapons (daggers, swords, bows, arrows etc) and armor essentially removes the restriction for everything other than experience.

Then he goes into dual class characters for non-elves. In most ways they are more restricted than elves with one important exception, they can split experience between the two classes enabling simultaneous advancement.

Next up is a discussion of 0 level characters (NPCs), the effects of ageing are discussed and how to apply them.

The next section is Starting the Game.

Here coins and the economy, scale, time, movement, effect of encumbrance, common item weights. From there it continues with Time and Movement Scale, Movement by Moment and Movement on Journeys. A table is provided for the Movement by Moment and method of calculating Movement on Journeys are provided for land, sea and air. Examples are given and discussed along with the example being illustrated on a map.

Location in the Hex, hazards, terrain penalty to movement and travel by water are discussed and a table for a whole range of watercraft is provided. Others topics with tables include Wind Direction, Wind Conditions, and discussion include Underwater/Swimming, Armor and Burdens While Swimming. The chance of drowning has a table.

While there is a little bit about waterborne encounters you are referred to other games for naval battles.

Here he switches back to the chance of having adventure while traveling with examples and two approaches. Additional discussion of out of lair encounters is added. A table is provided and options for adjustment detailed. Surprise and pursuit is discussed and the effect of sighting difference.

Castle encounters with tolls, taxes and fees along with other options are discussed.

The chance of adventure when resting or flying and a typical sequence of play.

"When players travel beyond the existing map, the Referee has two options:

1. Draw more map

2. Flip the map and reuse the existing map board" have them enter it at a different place and direction to the line of travel. I would always go with number 1 as my option.

Champions of ZED: Zero Edition Dungeoneering Review Part 2

I really urge you to take a look at this game, whether you want to play it or not. I hope to convey to you how much of a resource it is so that you can go do your own thing. The people who where there back in the day, who played in the original games with Arneson and Gygax are quoted throughout this document and it is worth reading just for that alone.

Developing A World

I will try to hit a few high points here (this is not intended to be an exhaustive study, more like an appetizer) and try to convey the depth that is presented.

In order to play you need a world to play in and you need to know what kind of world it is. It can be vague or detailed according to taste and time. You can base it off of any culture or time period or you can imagine an entire new world(s) and culture(s). You can borrow from fiction and non-fiction as much or as little as you want or strive to create something completely original.

He then talks about questions to ask yourself about the world you are designing. Things like social structure, geography, mythology and so on. The amount of effort can be great or small, according to your taste, time and proclivities. As in any venture, extra effort in this area will be rewarded in the unlimited opportunities it creates for you and your players.

I would add that time crunched does not have to limit your fun and you don't have to create a huge area of the world to start or even do more than rough it out a bit to begin. Much of the creation occurs through play.

His writing is an enjoyable read and it is quite clear IMO. Next Hex maps are discussed and how to create them and a number of random tables are provided to assist you in that and he does say it is best to start in small stage and recommends 7-30 hexes numbering them for a key with any additional information the Referee might like to have. He advises keeping other areas to explore and expand later. There is a healthy section of text that does into how to flesh out the information from the random tables in each hex.

This is important, he says you can use dice or creative judgment and it is worth emphasizing. The dice and the random tables are there to help you, not rule you. Design it the way you want. IMO Dice and Tables are there to help you when you get stuck creatively and often you may find that you use those tools and that spurs a better idea that you go with.

He includes ways that players can contribute and help the Referee with the world design without then knowing things they should not and keeping the world a mystery to them. For instance players can come up with names for towns, cities and geographical features which the Referee then uses, the players will later recognize names "they have heard of" even though they don't know the "details."

Continuing on he talks about incorporating events into the fabric of the world as campaign events unfold through play and about using player ideas too.

Provided is a section titled Population. What is the dominant species in an area such as human and/or something else. Working out population centers size, type and many other things. You can go beyond the game itself and develop this as much as you want, but this will get your started.

Then he talks about Adventure possibilities and has a number of tables and lots of explanation to help you flesh out the first few hexes as to what is found there and IMO adjust as needed to get what you want. Beyond that he talks about the finer details of specific locations.

An image is provided with some very basic map symbols for hills, swamp , woods and other to get you started. I would point out here that there are a lot of great map drawing videos on youtube and if you have any talent at all there is lots of great help to teach you the skills and how to develop ideas for the map itself. There is no substitute for doing your own research and your own work. That is the extra effort that was talked about in the beginning.

Talked about are things like a Home Base and whether or not you campaign has one and suggestions on how to use it if you do. The Campaign Dungeon, which you may or may not have. Chance Cards, how to create them and how to use them to devise a basic local history and memorable events.

Character types, races and classes are next up with the basis of the world view that he is designing for. Classes and Class Specialists, character traits/stats, and more are covered in detail.

Champions of ZED: Zero Edition Dungeoneering Review Part 1

Champions of ZED: Zero Edition Dungeoneering by Dan Boggs.

One thing you should like about this is that Dan Boggs is a meticulous researcher and whether you like what he has done or not you should give him the credit that he is due. As listed in the first few pages he asked many questions to ten of the people who where there, some from the earliest days and that they patiently answered his many questions.

The resources used to create this game include Beyond This Point be Dragons, OD&D,  First Fantasy Campaign, Adventures in Fantasy,  Dave Arneson's d20 Blackmoor Campaign Sourcebook,  Garbage Pits of Despair, other things and original material. In essence a mashup of some great material.

He gives an example of play in the Introduction to inform the reader's expectations. Then in The Context of CoZ he states,

Champions of ZED exists, however, to reflect an exploratory, world building style found as a core aspect of the first published edition from 1974, yet almost entirely neglected in later games. Champions of ZED also brings together the scattered intentions of both authors of the original 1974 edition, left unfulfilled when the urge to publish overcame the urge to perfect, while preserving the open ended flexibility for which those rules are famous.

He also "defaults" back to wargame combat rules.

Then a bit of history is provided and he posits what would have happened if Gygax instead of rushing to print, had brought in an editor to further the collarboration and extant ideas. Then preparing an better organized and edited game.

One purpose for CoZ is to serve as a pathway to to a different and neglected style of collective world building  and open, exploratory gaming, or as it is often called, "Sandbox" play.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Introduction................................................................................2

    PART I: THE WORLDS OF ADVENTURE......................................... ...........................5

    PART II: CHARACTERS........................................ ................................................1 8

    PART III: CHARACTER GROWTH............................................ ................................31

    PART IV: STARTING THE GAME.............................................. ...............................42

    PART V: CONFLICT.......................................... ...................................................71

    PART VI: MAGIC............................................. ................................................. ..95

    PART VII: LUCK AND SKILLS............................................ ......................................128

    PART VIII: THE UNDERWORLD........................................ .......................................134

    PART IX: PRIZES............................................ ................................................. ..140

    Appendix I................................................. .................................................. ......154

    Appendix II................................................ .................................................. ......175

    Appendix III............................................... .................................................. ......176

    Appendix IV................................................ .................................................. .....178

    Index............................................. .................................................. .................180

Seven Voyages of Zylarthen - Review Part 4

Continuing with Volume 4 The Campaign

The first thing that he does right off the bat is dispel the "myth" promoted by the anti-DIY, anti-MIY (Do It Yourself, Make It Yourself) gatekeeper lunatics. You do not have to create an entire mapped out world with a full-blown history, mythology, culture or more fully designed up front. 

SIDE NOTE: Promotion of that "myth" is why there is a fanatical cult surrounding the religion of adventure modules. Is it wrong to use an adventure module, no it is not. Do adventure module tend to be railroads and teach that as a play style, yes they do. So if you really do not have the time to do what is spelled out in Zylarthen, then don't use one adventure module, go grab 10 or 20 (100's are out there free) rip them up a little, do a little interconnecting and destroy the railroad and give your players options.

Back to the review

The world should grow organically, nourished by actual play. C.S. Lewis described the creation of his novel Perelandra - a rich and complex work of a few hundred pages - as beginning merely with a mental picture of small islands floating on tossed seas. Far from having a complete plot and set of characters already in mind, the author discovered the story after he started writing.

There are strong parallels as he points out to campaign world building. Whether you are strapped for time or have lots of it, you can create as you go, you don't have to spend years up front, anyone can create there own campaign world on the go as they play.

The first section covers standard dungeon building with a host of little extras as he discusses building and designing the dungeon, addiing monsters and adding treasure. A multitude of useful tables to aid you with these things are provided.

I understand that supplements are planned and in progress. I would hope that one of them would go more in depth about how to design unique, interesting dungeons, that provides continual surprises for the players. He provided a lot, but it just scratches the surface of what is possible.

The next topic covered is the wilderness saying

Sooner or later the referee will want to create background maps containing mulitple dungeons, mysterious and unexplored forests and swamps, sinister strongholds of evil men and areas of relative safety such as villages, forts, towns and cities, as well as other points of interest that the players may choose to explore. The wilderness is what connects these features, but it is also, so to speak, the nourishing soil that many of them may grow out of without the direct predesign of the referee.

This "The wilderness is what connects these features, but it is also, so to speak, the nourishing soil that many of them may grow out of without the direct predesign of the referee." can't be emphazied too much IMO.

Section titled Alternate Wilderness Movement with tables.

Wilderness Wandering Monsters, the table includes 16 different terrain types, the chance of being lost using a d6 and the chance of encountering a monster using a d20. Check once per day to see if you are "lost." Wandering Monsters checked twice per day. Other issues are discussed. He goes into encounter distance and suprise considerations and a number of other issues. Then you get into a Wilderness Encounter Tables and sub-Tables. Useful, useful, useful.

Advice is given on "How to create a 'World' in under an hour" using the fantasy cartography progam Hexographer by Inkwell ideas. The mapping advice I think is quite good and would help for ideas for handdrawn maps. I have not used the program and can't speak to that. Overall a lot of good general and specific advice for map making.

There is a brief bit of advice on Finishing Touches that is well advised.

He spends a fair amount of time on the subject of monster languages and as part of that he created a list of monsters sorted by intelligence. Low, Cunning, Average, High and Genius. I would add feel free to switch this up in ways that make sense for your campaign.

There are tons of languages, I like this one

All: Native (this will be an utterly primitive, incomprehensible, alien or "lost" language, understood by no other races)

Treasure classes and distribution and then a an Appendix: Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading specific to each of all four volumes.

Thus ends my comments on this Book 4 and on this game.

Seven Voyages of Zylarthen - Review Part 3

Now for Volume 3 Book of Magic

Magic Spells, he lists 20 spells for each level 1-6, followed by descriptions of each spell. Since this game has no cleric, some of the clerical spells are ported over for magic-users.

The spell descriptions are aside from Charm Person, mostly brief and succint. The extra detail on Charm Person is well used.

I like the write up on Magic Books and shortly thereafter he has a bit of blank space for Referee Notes which I think most refs should really appreciate.

This is followed by an Evil High Priest and a separate High Priest Spell Table. Each has five spells for levels 1-3 and seven spells for levels 4-6. Followed by a Witch Spell Table with 10 spells for all 6 levels. Spells not previously described are described in this section.

Next we move to Maps/Magic Determination. There are no real surprises in the items listed, though there are some interesting little twists in the descriptions. Some descriptions have been made more clear and others have clarified who can or can't use them.

Interesting variations of some items are provided. 

The Fabricating Magic Items goes into quite a bit of details about the cost and time of creating new magic items with an extensive lists for each magic item type. Enough information is provided to make it easy to extend to things that are not listed. This should inspire you to create unique items.

I could have said a whole lot more, but I really don't want to draw the veil away.

This ends my comments on Book 3.