RECESS Report: Siege on the Borderlands

This is another game played at RECESS, the NerdNYC-sponsored gaming convention in Manhattan, that I ran on Sunday, January-16. It's a revised version of "Siege on the Borderlands", played using my Book of War draft rules for D&D, and a big ol' castle on a high bluff made for just this purpose. (You can see the previous playtest blogged here.)

Setup -- With the defenders pre-set (red), here you see the monster players (blue) deciding where to arrange their forces for the initial assault. As usual, recall that each figure represents 10 of a given creature type. The defenders have 25 figures (250 men), mostly polearms and crossbows in chain, and a few heavy swordsmen in plate. The attackers have a major combined force of 56 figures (560 creatures), a motley mix of goblins, orcs, hobgoblins (with crossbows), ogres, and a squad of frost giants. (Side note: This force is some 6 times larger than the sum of all the warriors in the nearby monster caves!)



Turn 1 -- Here you see the start of the first turn. In this scenario, the monsters have poured out of the nearby woods under cover of darkness, and unseen, attempt an all-out escalade of the bluff and castle walls (with a variety of crude ropes and ladders). While the monsters can act freely at night, the defending men peer over the walls with sputtering torches, only able to shoot at the attackers once they come part way up the bluff and into the light (and so negating much of the advantage of the castle's commanding height). The monster players have picked a strategy of keeping the strongest portion of their forces off the board and out of sight for a prolonged time (unique in my playtests); the first wave here is mostly low-level monsters, but the threat of another attack from any point keep defenders posted all around the castle.



Turn 3 -- The defenders are doing a pretty good job fighting off the assault on the lower end of the castle; they're scoring hits from missiles & rocks, and you can see a force of goblins routing off the top side.



Turn 5 -- Here, one figure of ogres has managed to escalade over the wall into the outer bailey -- but they already have 3 out 4 hits against them; one more and they'll be eliminated. Other than that, the monsters attacking the wall have thinned noticeably.



Turn 7 -- Second Wave. At last, the monster players send in the rest of their forces, including more orcs, hobgoblins, ogres, and the squad of angry frost giants; they've chosen to send them en masse against the lower outer bailey again, where the defenders have already been stretched and weakened. (There are also sizable units of goblins thrown at the upper end of the castle, out of the picture here, mostly as a diversionary sacrifice.)



Turn 9 -- The giants have forced their way over the wall into the castle, and are being followed by scrambling units of goblins and hobgoblins. While fighting continues in the outer bailey, the defenders have chosen to collect their main strength in the strong inner gatehouse which defends the upper level of the castle.



Turn 11 -- At this point, the outer bailey is entirely taken over by the monsters. However, they seem to be tied down in a fire fight, exchanging stones and missiles with the crossbowmen at the upper level of the inner gatehouse and wall. The giants have taken 6 of their 10 allowed hits. Troublingly, however, a final squad of ogres is fighting their way up the wall and through a flanking tower (at top of the next picture).



Turn 13 -- The last of the giants go down! And, the ogres remain bottled up the guard tower by a squad of plate-armored heavy swordsmen. However, you can see how thin the remaining defenders have become after repeated devastating barrages of crossbows and giant throwing-stones.



Turn 15 -- Here, the remaining defenders are choosing to flee to the final keep fortress; the monsters are just now securing the inner gatehouse (and melee with ogres continues just behind the gatehouse).



Turn 17 -- The small number of remaining monsters exchanges some missile fire in preparation for the final assault. Note that the last ogre squad has taken 3 of 4 hits.



Turn 19 -- Endgame. The monsters make a final all-out rush against the final bastion. What happens next is: The ogres succeed at bashing down the gate, but are killed in hand-to-hand combat inside the entry hall. The rest of the monsters are too much for the defenders, however, and rush in, overwhelming them to the last man. A narrow victory for the forces of chaos!



Big thanks to my players here: Tavis, Adrian, Eric, and Joti. Really a total blast to run at this convention, I received really great feedback, and lets me further refine both Book of War and this particular scenario. Thanks, guys!

Basic D&D: Normalizing Resolutions

An opening question: Are most mechanical task resolutions in D&D (attacks, spells, skills, saves, etc.) simulating an act of intensity or one of accuracy? That is, it more important to "go big" or to "be right"? I will argue for the latter.

This has implications for the statistics (probability distribution) we might use for our underlying task-resolution mechanic (built into any tables, for instance). Many probability distributions can be described as "location-scale families", in that they have exactly 2 parameters -- one indicating the position (mean), and one for the likely spread around that center (variance). Perhaps it's important to think really carefully about which of these 2 parameters should be affected by increasing levels/skill/abilities/etc, and what that implies for our probability distributions.

Intensity Versus Accuracy

Again with the initial question: Are most mechanical resolutions in D&D (attacks, spells, skills, saves, etc.) simulating an act of intensity or one of accuracy? Let's consider some examples.

Melee attacks: More important to hit "hard" (in any random place) or to hit "right" (on the enemy, in a vulnerable spot)? I would argue the latter; slipping past the enemy's shield/armor/defenses/dodging is the key. This is reflected in increasing the attack bonus with level; the character is getting more skilled and accurate, not swinging harder and harder. (Obviously using the Strength bonus to-hit indicates there is some intensity that is important, perhaps smashing through a shield, etc., but I think it's a minority part of the task).

What about missile attacks? Obviously a case of accuracy -- the missile has to be shot in the right location, and no amount of special "ferocity" on the part of the shooter will help. What about casting spells? In classic D&D, again a case of accuracy -- "The energy flow is not from the caster per se, it is from the utterance of the sounds, each of which is charged with energy which is loosed when the proper formula and/or ritual is completed with their utterance" [Gygax in 1E AD&D DMG, p. 40]. It is the "proper formula" which is important, and a particularly bombastic rendition of it by the caster will not help things.

What about traditional thief skills? Open locks, remove traps, move silently, etc. -- Obviously these are all things that require carefulness and dexterity. Being too far left or too far right would equally result in failure; smashing tools into the lock harder than anyone else does not help.

What about expanded skills (non-weapon proficiencies)? Looking at the 3E skill list as an example, practically all of them seem to be more accuracy based than intensity based -- the ability to appraise, craft, disable devices, forgeries, intuit direction, knowledge, perform, search, speak languages, tumble, etc. -- there's a "right" and balanced way (to name another such skill) to do these things that would be the goal of any practitioner.

Perhaps the only exceptions I can see are Strength-based items: Maybe climb, jump, and swim would benefit from an exceptional "burst" of effort. Perhaps, more generally, any raw application of an ability score would qualify as seeking special intensity -- like Olympic-style events of running, lifting, throwing for distance. But even with these some would argue that there is a "correct form" that is more important than anyone's raw Strength.

Thus, speaking generally, I think that for the great majority of tasks simulated in a D&D-like RPG succeed based on accuracy (landing in the "right place"), and not on intensity (sheer power/ distance). For most stuff, doing it doubly-hard would be a disaster, not a benefit.

Mean Versus Variance

So, granted that for most tasks it is accuracy that is key (having a "correct" place to be and landing there), does that mean that the important consideration is location or scale? Or in other words, is it the mean or the variance of results that is most affected by increasing skill level?

Here's an example that I use in my statistics class: Consider two basketball players, each taking three shots at the hoop. The positions of the three shots are shown for each below.

Notice: They're both aiming at the same spot -- If you average the positions of the three shots, the result is "5" for each player (that being indeed within the rim); which is to say that the mean (central location) is the same. But which player's shots are bunched up closer together; that is, have less variance (spread)? It's Player B. And which player has more shots going in the hoop? Again, Player B. (2 shots in to Player A's 1 shot.)

So we can see that it's really variance which dictates accuracy. Assuming that you're aiming anywhere near the target in the first place, then increasing your accuracy is really a matter of reducing variance. (Or technically: accuracy and variance are inversely related.) Which is to say, your training and skill acquisition are making the result more predictable, and closer to the "right" result, more of the time.

Again, throwing the ball extra super-hard and getting, say, a +15 bonus on your shot position (mean location) would be ruinous; every shot would miss wildly, for every player.

As an aside -- You see the same observation in modern portfolio theory -- granted that you've picked a particular target return rate, the real work then is to "reduce the total variance of the portfolio return" [Wikipedia], i.e., make the return as predictable as possible. (And that's done through diversification, i.e., increasing sample size, which reduces variance.) And if you watch some cable TV high-stakes poker shows, for really enormous pots you'll usually see the pros "run it twice" (or more) for the exact same reason.

Modeling with a Normal Curve

For a variety of good reasons, mechanical and muscular variance (i.e., "error") is most frequently modeled with a normal distribution (i.e., Gaussian; the z-curve; bell-shaped). As one example, see this abstract on "Analysis of Small-bore Shooting Scores":

For a competitor with a given average score, a calculation model based on the central circular bivariate normal distribution has been used to calculate the expected distribution of the displacements of shots from the point of aim, and hence the expected variation in the competitor's scores... [Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C (Applied Statistics), Vol. 21, No. 3, p. 292]

For our purpose here, results off on the tail of the normal curve are not good (whether too far left or too far right). Our "target" is that central position (mean), like the center of a basketball hoop, or an archery target. So, we can draw a zone where our attempts count as being "on target"; the area of that zone reflects our probability of success. Increasing skill will reduce the spread/variance, narrowing the curve of possible results, and thereby getting more shots/attempts in the "target zone". Specifically, the probability of a hit/success is given by the common technique of a standardized table of areas for the normal curve (or alternatively: software like Excel or any spreadsheet program; or maybe you can do complex numerical integration in your head).



Here's an example of what we might try: Say that any result within z-score +/-2 on the normal curve counts as being "on target". At the top, for what we'll call "success level" 20, assume the standard deviation (square root of variance) is simply 1. Say we increase that error/variation by +12% (multiplying 1.12) for each step to a lower level. Then we can use a spreadsheet to easily calculate the probability at each level of landing "on target", and translate that to success target on a d20. (The previous graph shows the curve/success shape at the 10th level, in fact.)

Observations: This probability distribution has many very nice qualities. First of all, the numbers throughout levels 1-20 are broadly similar to the OD&D numbers for success at hitting AC0, or making a save vs. spells, or succeeding at a thief skill. Secondly, the numbers are "smooth", in that they don't jump at coarse increments. Thirdly, throughout the "meat" of our level progression (7th-18th), the numbers conveniently increase by 1 per level (see "The 5% Principle"). Fourth, at the bottom, we don't have the problem of very abruptly switching from possible to impossible: an advancement beyond AD&D's 6 repeated 20's, here we see an even "softer landing": 2 copies each of 15-17; 3 18's; 4 19's; and a long string of 10 20's, before success is effectively impossible. All of these desirable features automatically pop out for us by using the right model to reflect known physical systems of success and failure.

To use this, now we really would need to commit to using the resolution table all the time. (The results are not linear as with classic D&D/ d20 System/ Target 20, so there's no simple arithmetic shortcut to the procedure.) For attacks, take the character's "fighting level", add in the opponent's AC (classic descending), plus any other bonuses or modifiers; then find that "level" in the table, and look across to see what roll of d20 counts as success. Saving throws, thief abilities, special skills, etc., can all work in a similar fashion. In other words, all modifiers must be made to the "level" value (equivalent to moving up or down rows in the table); no modifiers are ever (EVER!) applied to the resulting "to hit" score.

Can I Accomplish The Same Thing By Rolling Many Dice?

No! Although it's a common mechanic to roll several dice and add them (generating a bell-shaped-like probability distribution), if you do this and compare to a minimum target number, then you're actually doing the exact opposite of our procedure.

Compare the graph above to the one on the right; in this proposed process, it is the dice results (not success results) which are bell-shaped. The target is not the in the "center", instead it is all the extremely high results out in the tail. Bonuses and modifiers (regardless of whether we apply them to the dice roll or the target number) will now shift the mean/center location, when our argument all along has been that we need to keep that fixed and alter the variance, or the spread of the curve.



Quick example: Say you roll 3d6 (range 3-18) for your resolution mechanic, and see the table to the right. Note that for our "normal resolution" process, the flattest spot was in the middle (levels 7-18), where every step was consistently a 1-in-20 difference in success; but here the opposite is true -- the very center is actually where the wildest fluctuations occur (a single step around target 8-14 changes success by the equivalent 2 or 3-in-20). The more dice you add, the spikier the distribution gets, so the more this disturbing effect will be exacerbated. And you certainly don't get the long "soft landing" effect of many 20's as shown in the AD&D DMG.

Conclusions



In summary, for almost any kind of skill you can think of (hitting/ shooting/ dodging/ picking locks, etc.) character level shouldn't change the mean result (i.e., the target); it should change the variance of the result (i.e., get closer to the desired target, reflecting increased accuracy). And, the standard normal (bell-shaped) curve would be an excellent choice for use as a model of "error level".

A summary table (without the normal-curve statistics on display) is shown to the right. An Excel spreadsheet of the original calculations is here if you want to confirm or play with the numbers involved.

Would I use this myself? Actually, I don't expect to. I like the Target 20 freedom from tablature (saving table space) and honestly, the results are "close enough" in the key central part of the chart (level 1-20) that it's approximately correct most of the time anyway. I might, however, use this in the future as a basis to analyze (for example) archery ranges; but if you use it in a game yourself, be sure to tell me how it went!

Community: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

The title of last week's episode of the NBC show Community was, intriguingly, titled "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons". The show is already one of the favorites for me & the girlfriend; we both really enjoyed the episode, and it pretty clearly came from someone with a great fondness and knowledge of the game. We watched it online at Hulu (available for the next 30 days). Here are some observations:

(1) While the adventure is fictional ("The Caverns of Draconis"), the trade dress and all of the other many books shown on camera are faithfully late-era 1E AD&D. For example, the Gary Gygax DMG appears in numerous shots (2nd cover with orange spine; i.e., 8th printing 1983+). Module Q1's "demonweb" map is in front of Abed while he DM's the supposed adventure.

It's interesting that none of the later iterations of D&D seem to be "sticky" in popular culture. Early-to-mid-1980's (the exponential fad years, of course) D&D is stuck in people's minds; and I think some of the asserted success of 3E publishing and even the OSR bears that out.

(Side anecdote: One of my best students mentioned last week that her slightly-older boyfriend recently re-acquired all of his original 1E AD&D books off EBay, and is now excitedly teaching her the game.)

(2) The DM rolls all of the dice. That was maybe the one outright jarring thing to see; although of course there's no mechanical reason not to do that. Possibly it read better on camera to have the one uber-geek handling the dice. (?)

(3) The adventure semi-accidentally winds up involving a big flock of Pegasi as a key plot point... kind of like, you know, the thing I posted the day before this episode aired last week. Freaky.

Super Saturday: In Praise of Secret Wars

Comics post of the day: I've got a good bunch of perfect-bound collections of classic comics on my shelf, and the one I find myself re-reading the most often, and with the greatest satisfaction, is Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. I'll broadly assume that you know what that is; the 1984-5 series by Marvel in which their highest-profile heroes and villains are whisked to an edge-of-the-universe battleground by the omnipotent Beyonder and told to "Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours!" If you need more on the specifics, look someplace like here or here. You could complain that it's a simplistic premise, and even that the overall motivation for the project was crassly commercial (according to writer and company editor-in-chief Jim Shooter: "Kenner had licensed the DC Heroes. Mattel had He-Man, but wanted to hedge in case superheroes became the next big fad. They were interested in Marvel's characters, but only if we staged a publishing event that would get a lot of attention, and they could build a theme around.") That said, I think that Secret Wars is one of those examples of a product that surpasses the commercial limitations in which it was incubated. The primary things that I'll praise are that (1) the number of heroes and villains featured is limited and manageable, (2) the story is entirely self-contained, and at no internal point does it intrude on any other Marvel publication or setting, and (3) there is a specific narrative through-line for its plot, towards which all the action is building throughout the series. Mostly this is a compare-and-contrast operation as regards other superhero cosmic mega-crossovers that I've read, such as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths or Marvel's Secret Wars II, etc. If you have a truly "unlimited" number of characters, then they tend to not have enough time onscreen for any character development (or more broadly, for the reader to learn and remember who they are). Furthermore, most of those other crossovers feature many promotional tie-ins to other publications of the following ilk -- Hero X appears for two panels, gasps "Oh my god, look at what I'm dealing with!!", a footnote says "Read more in Amazing X #497", and then you switch to some other unrelated scene. This is an almost unbearable intrusion in the long-term collected form, where I've got no potential or interest to actually encounter those referenced works (and sometimes barely even know the character who just appeared). When the whole work is largely a patchwork of such blurbs, it's almost totally unreadable. Fortunately, the original Secret Wars manages to avoid both of these pitfalls -- I don't think that there are any forward-references in the entirety of the work, nor any characters appearing on only a single page. Note that structurally the story is not set on Earth at any point, thereby effectively "firewalling" the story from random intrusions, while the other crossover examples above are not in that category. It is, in fact, a flamboyant but self-contained story with a recognizable beginning, middle, and end, a characteristic which is frequently lacking in other examples of major-publisher superhero art. Is it without flaws? Certainly not. Here are some of the initial criticisms I would lob at it: (1) While I really like the art by Mike Zeck, issues #4-5 are filled in by Bob Layton, and the work there is clearly sub-standard (a particular shame in #4, which features an entire mountain range being dropped on the heroes, temporarily held up by a maddened Hulk until they can escape -- I would've loved to see what Zeck would do with that). (2) Although initially the Battleworld is indicated as being made from the fragments of a ruined alien galaxy, about halfway through the series it changes course to assert that one of the chunks was a suburb transported from Denver -- allowing the introduction of several new human characters (Volcana, Titania, Spider-Woman), but popping the "totally alien and forbidding" tone of the story. (3) The very end kind of falls apart a bit, anticlimactically, with the villains goofily hunched in a space-traveling suburban apartment, and the heroes departing meekly in separate groups -- except for the Thing, who stays behind, and whose concluding monologue tellingly trails off in ellipses. That said, a pretty good artifact of mid-80's major-label four-color superhero comics. All I can say is I keep re-reading it and being kind of surprised at how satisfying it is. Excelsior! (P.S.: See also Zak S.'s blog for a serendipitous post on Secret Wars earlier this week.)

Del Toro in New Yorker

The Feb-7 New Yorker has a profile on Guillermo del Toro (director of monster-heavy movies like Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, worked on the Hobbit for 2 years of pre-production). The latter part of the profile digs extensively into the pre-production monster work for H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, "the movie that he most longs to make" (sketchbooks starting at least 1993, script written by 1998). Has James Cameron producing and some of the same staff/studio/technology from Avatar working on it.

Sounds interesting if (and that's a big IF) it gets made; recommended reading. Thumbs up for clearing the "did somebody give a shit?" bar (quote: "You try not to fall in love... But I'm hopelessly in love with the creatures."). Also check out the sidebar video link that looks at his sketchbooks and design process from paper to films.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/07/110207fa_fact_zalewski

A small adolescent part of me is actually hurt that Erol Otus isn't involved in creature design here. Another part of me is very happy that reading something like this conjures Otus' hallucinatory illustrations of Old Ones and Shoggoths to mind...

War Nerd: Egypt

A friend of mine today pointed me to a site called ExiledOnline.com, with a blog post by one Gary Brecher, who's written a book called "War Nerd". Here he makes a compelling analysis of the current news from Cairo, Egypt as -- with modern military standing on the sidelines -- the streets basically turn into middle-ages warfare: massed foot movements, skirmisher/missile troops, shield walls, and even cavalry charges, with clips from Al-Jazeera English TV. (If you check the comments, you'll also find a link to a photo of protesters building a catapult to lob stuff at barricades.)

Warning: Strong political content. Significant violence content. Some ethnic jabs. Not for everyone.

http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-spartacus-live-on-al-jazeera

A key line: "Cavalry that’s stopped is dead cavalry." (Eerily, compare to my post Monday of this week expanding on the thesis, "Cavalry attack is intrinsic to the unit's own movement".)

RECESS Report: Corsairs of Medero

Here's a scenario that I've run a couple of times that I call "Corsairs of Medero". (Previously seen here.) In it, the players take the parts of adventurers seeking to capture three merchant vessels for the King of Medero over the course of a 16-week sailing season (and so be declared Barons of the Realm). The players control and outfit a single ship of corsairs; weekly turns are played out for encounters; and most of the mechanics come straight from OD&D Vol-3 (including the basis for ocean encounters, ship profiles, wind force, naval maneuvering and combat, etc.). There are potentially three levels of action: (1) strategic (weekly sailing orders and encounter checks), (2) tactical (ship-to-ship or monstrous creature combat at 1:10 scale), and (3) man-to-man (boarding actions, with a hit=kill rule for normal men). At the tactical level, I use my Book of War rules for mass combat (replacing Chainmail, so as to interface with high-level PCs and their spells and special abilities).

This run of the game was played out at the RECESS convention in New York City on Saturday, January-15. (That being a quarterly event sponsored by NerdNYC.com.) With an very well-organized convention and really great players in attendance, this was really a whole lot of fun for me to referee that Saturday.

The thing about classic D&D that's a true joy is that in relying on a lot of randomized tables for wilderness (and dungeon) encounters, it inevitably generates some real surprises, and really stretches my improvisational abilities as a DM. For example here, a story definitely develops by the time we're done; but it's nothing I would have conceivably imagined in advance, and it's probably a whole lot more creative than anything I could have plotted out in advance on my own. The interaction of certain naturalized-fantasy statistics, creative player problem-solving and strategizing, and my own ad-libbing, truly generates something greater than the sum of its parts.

Weeks 1-2: In this game, for the first time ever, the players chose at the start to outfit a cog as their vessel (slower, but carries 20 archers and 30 infantry) instead of a longship (faster and more maneuverable, but with more men dedicated to rowing). They were careful to load up at the start with plenty of burning oil, dummy flags of the enemy nations, and even a series of cover stories three-"reveals" deep. The spellcasters used a number of long-lasting charm person spells on their own mercenary crew in order to increase loyalty. In the first two weeks, the slow-sailing cog made its way across the Gulf of Krol to the enemy coast of Richland.



Week 3: The first roll for a weekly encounter is made. The 2d6 roll comes up "12", indicating some fantastic flyer-types. Turning to the "Flyers" table (OD&D Vol-3, p. 18), the d12 comes up a "1" -- which indicates a flight of Pegasi (1-12, which for our purpose we just call "10"), royally wheeling quickly past the player's ship just after dawn. (I probably couldn't have told you in advance that Pegasi were even anywhere in those wilderness encounter tables.)

I place the ship & flyer counters on the table at the indicated range, and ask the players what they do -- The answer being, a barrage of web spells from the party wizards to snag the Pegasi on the one turn that they're in range. Rolled result: The whole batch of them are ensnared and dunked into the ocean. The party thief with a ring of water walking runs to the site, ties a rope, and has them hauled back onto the ship (where they are securely restrained). The players start asking about the possibility of selling them, or training them to be ridden.

So with the very first encounter roll, this scenario has inescapably spun in a direction that I never expected to deal with. One of the players points out that there is a listing for Specialist: Animal Trainer (OD&D Vol-3, p. 22) for which "The length of time necessary to completely train the animals is up to the referee."

Week 4: Having not actually commenced any hostilities with Nevins yet, the party decides to pull into port there (under disguised colors) and proceeds to do two things: (1) find an animal trainer for hire, and (2) scout for intelligence on rich merchant targets, including use of charms and clairvoyance spells (neither of which has ever occurred in the scenario before). For the latter, I allow a few rolls that result in "+/-2 to your next encounter roll in a direction of your choice". For the former, I allow them to find and employ a rather scurrilous, on-the-run animal trainer who's willing to hire up with a sketchy group of mercenaries sailing for parts unknown. This made-on-the-fly character winds up being called "Glarkon the Unsavory; or, Daddy Midnight", and at some point he gets run by a new player who just happens to wander by and asks if he can sit at the table and observe. (Also at one point, the suggestion is made to just sack the whole town, but thankfully cooler heads prevail.)

Week 5: Hunting off the Nevins coast, the encounter roll comes up empty this week. My ruling on the animal trainer goes like this: Each week he gets to roll for 5 Pegasi (that is, one roll per player at the table). Training a Pegasi quickly seems really difficult, so I say a 19-20 on a d20 roll is necessary any week to make one semi-controllable. I'm thinking that's a glimmer of a chance that won't actually come up within the game. Of course, on the very first week, 2 Pegasi succeed at their checks. This continues in later weeks, so as time goes on, the overall action starts looking something like a medieval-fantasy aircraft carrier, with various riders flying off the deck for combat and scouting purposes.

Week 6: An encounter roll succeeds. The result comes up "4 - Patrol (Longship)", but due to the prior intelligence gathering, it's switched by the players to "2 - Merchant (Wine)" (I breathe a sigh of relief that they don't get to pick the Copper merchant, worth 2 cargoes, for fear of the scenario ending almost immediately in success -- see top above for a version of the top-level encounter tables in use). The ships close (under false colors as usual), but the merchants sense trouble with the large number of soldiers, and the players are forced to initiate hostilities.



Wildcat MacCusson (Human Ftr5/Thf6) takes off on a Pegasus in combat for the first time. Noting that the creature is only semi-trained, and the immense speed of the beast (48"), I call for a control roll of d20+level (trying to score 20+; i.e., chances 6-in-20). This fails, and so Wildcat and his Pegasus rocket off the deck uncontrollably -- traveling nearly a scale 1,000 feet instantly, and thereby leaping the miniature off the table entirely (somewhere around the window in the back of the room).

Meanwhile, the wizards are able to pacify most of the enemy with a series of sleep spells, and thereafter take command of the captured merchantman crew with a series of bribes, threats, ESP, and charm spells. The action with Wildcat, however, will happen a whole bunch more times throughout the game.

Week 7: Here, a result of "Patrol (Longship)" comes up unchanged. The players with their now-two vessels attempt to sail by under their false colors, as the Nevins patrol ship rows close. However, disaffected members of the captured merchant crew raise an alarm and call for help, so that the longship calls for attack speed and lurches forward. Wildcat again erupts off the deck out-of-control to great hilarity (every combat I gave an accumulative +1 or +2 to the check, but generally to no avail). Meanwhile Kjell Greenfish (Elf Ftr4/Wiz5) drops the bomb by pulling out his one-shot scroll of death (6th-level death spell) and devastating most of the enemy oarsmen/fighters. A few sleep spells and mercenary missile-salvos later, and the longship is cleared of hostiles and subsequently scavenged and sunk. (Another ESP spell is then used to identify the shouting merchant mate, who is then dunked overboard by way of Pegasus-flight.)



Week 8: Thinking that the locals may be warned about their activities, the players switch their hunting zone to the somewhat less-rich city of Muirhead, down the coast to the south. Now, a result of "Merchant (Fish)" appears. Again the players try to first hail peacefully for news, with the merchant drawing close before deciding the pair of vessels may be the pirates they've been warned about. Again Wildcat tumbles into the sky uncontrollably, but the merchant is surrounded on both sides, and a combination of magic and missile-shower bring them to bay. A second captured merchantman is added to the fleet -- the players are doing well!



Week 9: A third Pegasus is "successfully" trained. This week the encounter result is a Patrol -- this time not one but two ships, a fully loaded Caravel and companion Longship, on the hunt for pirates, with the powerful Captain Bidari (Female Human Ftr8, Str18) at the helm. The players try to sail away peacefully, but at this point the jig is up. The patrol ships are significantly faster than the player's tubby cogs, quickly tacking from behind them and throwing grapples for double simultaneous boarding actions. A fireball is shot into the midships of the caravel, burning a number of men and setting the mast on fire.



At this point we switch to man-to-man action, with me pulling out 5-foot-per-inch maps of the appropriate ships' decking, and pouring some 150 counters onto the table for all the individuals involved (the tactical-level models are pulled to the side for this). Wildcat shoots off out-of-control as usual. Kjell Greenfish mounts one of the winged steeds for the first time, calls for all the rest of the Pegasi to be cut free, and downs his potion of animal control, taking mental command of a half-dozen of the creatures. The thieves Taber and Gorka run with men below-decks on one of the vessel to set an ambush-and-backstab opportunity. Byrtwold (Human Wiz6, and overall captain) flings spells and charms one of the lieutenants leaping over the railing to attack him. Men from the burning caravel run forward at the urging of the enemy captain, pouring onto the players' decks.



Pretty soon, Kjell is making repeated swooping attacks at the head of his controlled Pegasus-flock, slashing men to pieces and into the ocean (and breaking off his magic spear at one point in the side of an enemy lieutenant). Taber winds up in hand-to-hand combat, nearly overwhelmed by the enemy Captain Bidari. Wildcat decides to land on deck, fails a control roll, and tumbles into the sail (the best of several truly terrible options, given a certain dire roll). Landing on deck, he pulls out his enormous magic two-handed sword and cuts down two of the enemy -- followed by a natural "1", a failed saving throw, and then a fumble result of 87/100 ("critical hit, self"), followed by 78/100 ("leg removed at knee"), effectively taking him out of the combat. This may be the single unluckiest character I've ever seen on a single day!



Unfortunately, as time runs out, the double-patrol forces at last seem to be more than the PC's can fend off. Taber goes down under the furious attack of Captain Bidari. Gorka slashes with his dagger where he can. Byrtwold tells the charmed lieutenant to go below-decks to "burn out the evil hobbits there" -- "there" being the location where they previously stacked up a large load of burning oil. That pair of linked ships effectively blows up (the enemy deck also having been bombed by barrels of oil), and the fireball-ed caravel sinks and pulls down the merchant wine vessel with it, as well. Did the PCs manage to escape and limp to safety with their remaining ship and crew? Or did Captain Bidari win the day after all? Whispered rumors hint at other, darker possibilities...



Enormous thanks to my excellent and good-humored players: James, Adrian, Chris, Eppy, and Tavis, and to everyone at RECESS. It was literally a blast to play with you!