RPGers

Without a doubt the best role-playing game session I have ever watched (without, unfortunately, attending the game myself - I was a mere spectator) was a game of Immortal - a role-playing game about immortals in a strange, futuristic world (see the link below for more information). There was nothing special about the game itself but, the gamemaster in that session: he was a God in the disguise of a GM - an unequivocal genius.

When the game started, the players (who hadn't met each other before, this was at an RPG convention in Finland) had a pencil and an empty A4 sheet of paper in front of them. Nothing more; no dice, no manuals, nothing. Just a plain pencil and a paper. Needless to say, the players were very confused.

Now, the GM dimmed the lights in the room, and started describing a scenery to the totally clueless audience he had. Everyone was paying 100% full attention to the gamemaster (quite a feat on its own, that), waiting for an explanation to the bizarre situation they were in. It never came. Instead, the GM described the scenery, the looks of each player character and then started leading them through a series of events. Then, at some point, he stopped and made some questions to each player and, depending on their answers said a single word to each player and told them - with a very detailed description as to how - to write that word on the piece of paper they each had.

This went on for several hours until a dim spark of comprehension started shining on the face of one of the players - that player had realized what was going on, and he was clearly awed by the genius of the idea. The players were on an introspective mission inside their own heads; a mission to figure out who and what they were, as role-players, instead of how good their characters were or how they could improve them. For the whole of the time, the GM had paid very close attention to what and how the players spoke to each other off-game, how they treated each other and how it affected the way they treated each other in-game, and made notes.

At that point I felt compelled and obliged to walk up to that one of the players who had understood. I tapped him on the shoulder and told, half to him, half to the GM: "as a reward to what he has achieved, this player's character suddenly feels a tap on his shoulder but, as he turns, he does not see anyone. Instead, he notices a delicate red rose in his hand and hears a silent whisper, much like a relieved sigh". Then I walked away as the target of half a dozen completely clueless, blank stares and two smiles that conveyed comprehension.

--- edit: Jan 08, 2002

I forgot to mention, the genius of the GM did not end there; I presented an element of surprise, both to the players and the GM. Yet, he accepted my intervention in the game and managed to turn that rose into an essential part of the final solution that concluded that role-playing game session.

--- End of edit

I can - without fear of losing - bet my place in heaven on that after that session there was one person, who had never before felt as rewarded about attending a role-playing game session. Not because of what I did, but because of what the GM helped him understand.

---

More information about Immortal, the role-playing game:

http://www.eternity.com/imrpg/

The Temple of Elemental Evil is an adventure module for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a location within the fictional world of Greyhawk and a computer game; today I will be discussing all three of them briefly.

The Location

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a vast undergroud catacomb located near the village of Hommlet in the Viscounty of Verbobonc in the world of Greyhawk. The Temple is dedicated to the dread god Tharzidun, although that is a secret that is largely kept even from the priests of temple. Most believe they are serving something called the Elder Elemental Eye or the fungi demon (goddess in 1st edition) Zuggtmoy.

The exterior of the temple is a soaring cathedral built in the gothic style and decorated with stained glass windows and obscene carvings. Normally this part of the temple is abandoned or empty, as the temple itself is usually presented as having been looted or destroyed in the past and just now beginning to rise to power again. There are normally four dungeons levels below the temple itself, with the third level being notable for containing portals to four different elemental nodes (demi-planes), with the final level being the home and prison of the demon goddess Zuggtmoy herself.

Within the temple there are normal four sects of competing priests, each serving one of the four classical elements, with a fifth set of priests who serve the greater temple as a whole. The priests themselves are served by bugbears, bandits and giants of all types.

To date this location has been presented three times (in the Temple of Elemental Evil module, in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and in the computer game) with a fourth presentation scheduled for the fourth edition of the Dungeons and Dragons rules.

The adventure module

T1-4 (TSR product number 9147) was released in 1985. It reprinted the module The Village of Hommlet that had come out several years earlier (T1) as its first section, but otherwise consisted of original material. Originally it was supposed to be four separate modules, but that idea was scrapped after the first one in the series came out, and thus it was just released as a supermodule (with 128 pages of action, and 16 pages of maps done in the text light style of 1st edition it is easily one of the largest adventure modules ever created). It was designed to take characters from 1st to 8th level under the 1st edition AD&D rules and thus was good for many months of gameplay.

In the module the characters come to the village of Hommlet and learn about a nearby abandoned moathouse filled with bandits. In the moathouse they encounter Lareth the Beautiful and his bandits who are servants of the temple. After that the action switches to the temple itself, where the characters fight their way through many hundreds of monsters and cultists, four demi-planes culminating in a battle with the demon goddess Zuggtmoy herself (who in an example of first edition style play could also be encountered as a wandering monster).

The Computer game

The computer game appears to be well described above, but I do have a few notes to add.

The original release is so buggy as to be almost unplayable. Not only were there various lockups and crashes there were hundred and hundreds of bugs with the D&D rules. This ranged from bugs of omission, like the fact that there was no place in the game to get sling ammunition, to spells and effects that didn't actually do anything, to serious problems with the internal plot. Enemy spellcasters were almost completely ineffective since they invariably began combats casting their lowest level spells first, while other monsters were accidentally given great power because their statistics were entered incorrectly into the game engine. This was particularly notable with gnolls who for some reason had a damage reduction rating of 10 (this means that they take 10 less damage than normal from attacks), when they weren't supposed to have damage reduction at all. There is one very early room full of gnolls in the game that often slaughtered low level parties who couldn't even hurt them at all.

The various official patches fix some bugs but many others still remain. Fortunately there are some unofficial patches that go way beyond the official patches and largely make the game playable. As of this writing there are still some serious game issues that will probably never be fixed (the last unofficial patch hasn't been updated in some time). The main issues I have encountered as a frequent player are as follows.

1. Druid and ranger animal companions are largely worthless. They tend to follow along at the end of the party and you can't control them directly, so they often just stand there not doing anything because they are too far back to "see" the opponents. When they do go into action they move without paying any attention to attacks of opportunity or area effect spells, and thus end up killing themselves as often as they kill baddies. This is particularly annoying since some of the best druid spells are the same ones that the animal companions hurl themselves into.
2. Paladin mounts are not implemented, as horses are not implemented. Nothing else has been added to the class, so the paladin class has been significantly depowered.
3. Archery is basically worthless as none of the bows in the game add strength damage.
4. The game is very inconsistent about attacks of opportunity, sometimes movements that should provoke them simply don't do so, while other times attempting to do an impossible action that would provoke attacks of opportunity will result in the attacks followed by the game telling you "invalid action". Monsters can drink potions without provoking attacks of opportunity while players cannot. Tripped characters automatically attempt to stand up at the beginning of their turn and are given no choice in the matter, meaning that monster trip attacks are far more deadly than they should be. Meanwhile prone characters do not threaten other squares, even though they are supposed to under the D&D rules. However the game still implemented the penalties for making an attack while prone even though the removed the ability to do so (only reason I even know it is implemented is that you can see them show up if you are using an item or effect that automatically attacks back when you are attacked).
5. Misclicks while assigning a full attack action can cause you to simply not get some of your attacks.
6. If the green button (which indicates that you want to end target selection) is on a part of the screen that is covered with the fog of war then all targets may be deselected when you try to click it.
7. The game does the math wrong when adding multiple extra effects to a magic weapon (flaming, ice, etc), and you can upgrade magic armor to +3 for free, making it far cheaper than normal to make the weapons and armor. Everyone seems to like that though.
8. Wands have 20 charges and not 50.
9. Masterwork (and thus magical) versions of most weapons don't exist in the game, unless you add a special separate patch that also adds extra game content.
10. One of the hostages you free inside the temple attacks you after you bring her back to her husband (run away from this).
11. Sometimes a party will simply stop being able to find secret passages, making the game almost impossible to complete, this usually happens pretty early on, and once it happens that individual group will never be able to locate one ever again.
12. The magic swords Scather and Fragarach will often result in the game getting eternally stuck in the turn based system with no way to get out without killing the application from the windows task manager. This makes both swords essentially unusable, or really, really frustrating to use. If you do use them remember to always switch them out as soon as you see a fire creature (it ALWAYS happens with fire creatures), and to consider doing the same against bugbears (it often happens with creatures that trip you and bugbears trip like it is going out of style). Unfortunately there are a lot of bugbears and fire creatures in the game, which makes it pretty hard to even try the conservative approach to using these weapons.
13. It is impossible to advance past 12th level as a rogue, because rogues are supposed to get a rogue bonus feat type thing at 13th level, but the game doesn't recognize anything on the list as a valid choice for a 13th level rogue, however it does recognize them as valid at 10th level the first time they are supposed to get one.
14. Ray of Enfeeblement does temporary ability damage in this game, rather than assessing a temporary penalty like it does in the real game. The minor difference means that they stack and you make most creatures worthless by hitting them with a few of them.
15. Reach weapons (like glaives) threaten at both 10' and 5' meaning that they basically rule the game. The spiked chain also acts that way (it is supposed to) but has such a slow animation that it will drive you crazy if you try to use it.
16. The game does weapon sizes and such like 3.0 D&D did and doesn't correctly interact with size changes. This leads to enlarged glaive wielders holding a giant glaive in one hand rather than 2. This also allows you to slap a shield on an enlarged character who is wielding a two handed weapon, and it will stay there after they return to normal size, this further pushes the game in the direction of glaive wielders being the best choice.
17. Sorcerors if played to high levels will often get stuck being unable to gain a level because they cannot select their new spells due to their being no new spells for them to select (the new content patches mostly fix this).
18. Bad guys can "see" invisible creatures just fine, although they still suffer a 50 percent miss chance against them. Invisibility is still good for sneaking around past monsters who are not in combat. Parties resting with while invisible will still attract groups of wandering monsters who surround them completely and just stand there doing nothing.
19. You can apply the extend spell feat to a spell multiple times and it redoubles the duration each time. This means you can make normally short duration spells like haste last for an entire temple raid with only one or two casting by using a high level slot to cast the spell. Needless to say you aren't supposed to be able to apply the same feat to a spell more than once, and even if you could in D&D math doubling something twice triples it, while doubling something three times gives four times the norm and so on.
20. Finally the boots of speed are glitched and tend to crash the game if you try to activate them.

Lair of the Vampire Queen

Pirate Kingdoms Adventure #2

A Pirate Kingdoms adventure set on Fibber Island for 1^st and 2^nd Level characters.

Note to all readers. This is an original adventure module designed for the Dungeons and Dragons game. This module is compliant with all Open Gaming License and D20 SRD regulations. If this sort of thing doesn’t interest you then you might want to click here.

This adventure is designed for game masters who run light hearted games, and is not intended for more serious campaigns, although it could be used a break in a normally serious campaign.

GM Background: This adventure begins at Alvin’s Hot Dog and Pie Haven, which is located on the beach at the tail end of high street on Fibber Island. The gamemaster may want to download a map of this location, which is available at http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x135/pjoliver/HotDogandPieHaven.jpg

Fibber Island is largely a resort and trading island, with a smattering of hotels, eating establishments, a boat harbor, several beaches, and other tourist type attractions. Think of it as similar to Hawaii. The island is officially owned and managed by the dwarves (who consider it part of their kingdom), but most of the population is human. The Elven Empire also claims this island as well, but they have no offices here, and elves are generally made to feel a bit unwelcome.

General Adventure Outline.

The general plot of this adventure is fairly simple, the characters venture into a set of purple worm tunnels in search of a missing man and possible vampires and encounter fake vampires of several kinds. If the players do not have existing characters then you may want to hand out some of the 2^nd level sample characters from the Pirate Kingdoms rulebook, if you have it.

The Pirate Kingdoms rulebook and the Fibber Island sourcebook are not required to play this adventure, but it would be extremely useful if the game master has a copy of one or both, as those books detail many locations on the island that do not appear in this module, as well as providing campaign specific rules options

A few things are usually frowned upon in the Pirate Kingdoms; they include heavy armor, direct damage spells, and finishing off downed opponents. People wearing heavy armor either stick out as completely clueless, or people assume they are looking for a fight. While direct damage spells and finishing off downed opponents is seen as cheating like the dirty elves do.

Characters who are not native to the island should begin at encounter #1, while characters native to the island, (or at least familiar with it), should begin at encounter #2.

Text in bold is meant to be read aloud to the players.

Encounter 1. Landfall.

Ah, you are finally here, the world famous Fibber Island, you can't wait to relax on the beach with a fruity drink, perhaps eat at Alvin's World Famous Hot Dog and Pie Haven, and maybe, just maybe venture into the Safari Zone to hunt the really big game. As you make your way down the gangplank onto the beach you are greeted by native women (wearing nothing but gray body paint) waving at you, while several donkey carts await, each carrying a driver and bearing the sign of a different hotel. The drivers call out at you, listing their various amenities and asking you to climb aboard.

The native women themselves are not actual native women, they are simply locals who work for the various hotels, if the players interact with them they attempt to steer the players in onto the cart of the hotel they work for. The various hotels are detailed in the Fibber Island Sourcebook. Although they are all pretty much the same and the GM can feel free to make up their names if he doesn’t have the Fibber Island Sourcebook. Amenities they might have include hot springs piped in, bicycle track, full fruit bar, authentic native "massage", hairstylists, souvenir towels, and cat racing. The GM is responsible for handling any action that might go on at the hotel.

Encounter 2. Alvin's Hot Dog and Pie Haven.

Ah, some of you might have been waiting for this place, hot dogs and pies served in a large swimming pool where you swim up to your table and a beautiful waitress serves you hot dogs, pies, and fruity drinks. A man of about 30 years old with tan skin, dreadlocks and a large stain on his shirt waives you over and tells you to sit down, from what you have heard you would say that is Alvin.

Alvin’s Hot Dog and Pie Haven is one of the most popular restaurants on the island, it is located in the Southern Bay area. The entire seating area is located in a swimming pool. You swim up to your tables, where the waiters serve hot dogs, pie, and fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them. They open each evening at around 6 PM, and are usually open late into the night.

Most of the restaurant itself is absolutely ancient, the main pool area and tables were already present when the island was first developed 50 years ago. The restaurant building proper is a much more recent structure, built in standard Hawaiian style.

Alvin is a human in his mid 30s, his life dream was to own a hot dog and pie restaurant on Fibber island. Of course Alvin was never much of a worker, and wasn't particularly intelligent or motivated, but then he hit it big at the roulette table, and used his proceeds to open his restaurant.

Alvin has no important statistics as far as this adventure is concerned. He is of mixed African and European heritage. Alvin is mostly a slob, but is very personable. He spends much of his time eating pie and hot dogs with his customers. Hot dogs and pie are his passion though, and he gets up at the crack of noon every day in order to start baking pies. His favorite subject is jousting and he tends to talk about it all the time, although on Fibber Island most jousting tends to be done by small characters riding donkeys and dogs and not by humans on horses.

The price is one gold piece, and everyone pays before anything is served. Alvin himself prepares the food, and his waitress Katie does most of the serving. You don't actually select anything from the menu; Katie (or Alvin) will just carry trays of hot dogs and pies to each table. Beverages consist of fruity drinks with umbrellas. They are all basically the same drink (rum and water), but they look quite different and have different kinds of fruit in them.

Katie is an attentive server, she keeps the pie trays full, the hot dog plates full, and makes sure everyone has a drink in their hand at all times. She deftly dodges unwanted attention from the assorted drunk patrons, and his pretty much what keeps the place running. She is unrelated to Alvin, having run away from home at a very young age, she is currently 16 and has been Alvin's only waitress for 3 years. Alvin thinks of her as a daughter, but that doesn't stop him from making lots of suggestive comments to her.

Who is here?

The current set of patrons are a mix of island residents, sailors and tourists. If using the Fibber Island Sourcebook the following characters are present. The Vaughn Family (minus Alberto), “Brackish, the black hand of Bordeaux”, Iuliia with a random boyfriend (Tailor shop), Daria from the Pet Shop, 6 male sailors, and a tourist family. There is a cat juggler performing at the entryway, and another group of 4 sailors watching the juggler and making bets on the cats.

Allow the characters a bit of time to enjoy themselves and interact with the nonplayer characters before moving on to the next encounter.

Encounter 3. Runaway Cart

You hear a clattering sound up the road that gets louder and louder over a period of a few seconds. You manage to look up just in time to hear someone yell “runaway cart” and watch a halfling sailor dive out of the way just in time to miss a donkey cart going full tilt down the hill and into the pool, striking a sailor and throwing an old man from the seat onto your table. You can almost swear you could hear the old man yelling “bad donkey” on his way through the air.

The old man, (one 83 year old Jeremiah Finch), got into his donkey cart at the top of the hill and started off, unfortunately he had trouble remembering how to drive the thing and kept whipping his donkey trying to get it to slow down, which of course made it go faster. The donkey does not survive the crash, it was nearly dead from exhaustion and whipping when it crashed into the pool.

Jeremiah himself comes through the crash relatively uninjured, although the same cannot be said for the sailor that the cart hit, who is at -6 hit points, and pinned underneath the remains of the donkey under the water.

It will take a DC 16 strength check to pull the sailor out from under the donkey. If the sailor dies then his shipmates will be out for blood and will try to kill the old man, even going so far as to toss him a weapon before attacking him. If the sailor is healed then he will also attempt to duel the old man, albeit by himself. The old man will attempt to fight and will not flee.

If the sailor is merely stabilized then his buddies will carry him off and the old man will sit down to eat like nothing happened.

The sailors are not pirates and none of them have any allies on the island. There will be no repercussions if the players fight them, provided they fight fair.

After the cart crash Alvin will ask for help in pulling the cart out of the water and he will stash the cart behind his building, he absolutely refuses to give it back to the old man for fear the old man will crash it again.

Once the action dies down the locals will start telling stories about crazy things that old people have done recently.

“Why I remember about 5 years ago when old Captain Harding crashed his ship full speed into the dock. Most of the ship is still down there, although divers have recovered everything of value from it.” The sailor then produces a jeweled dagger with the word “Harding” engraved upon the blade, and smiles revealing a few gold teeth that don’t seem to quite fit correctly.

A half-orc (Brackish the Black) begins another story. 3 days ago crazy old man come to Brackish Meat shop. He ask for lots of meat. He say he go to worm tunnels to hunt vampires and wanted to bring lots of steaks. Brackish not see old man since then.

If asked Brackish can remember that the old man’s name was Marcus and that he used to come to the shop every day, but he hasn’t been seen since then, not by Brackish, or by anyone else present.

Other people around are mixed in their opinions about the worm tunnels, some of them insist that it is perfectly safe, while others insist that there are vampires down there. Almost any of the locals can give directions to the tunnels. One local (A Farmer Lister) is particularly insistent that the tunnels are safe, one comes out near his field, and he travels in them on almost a daily basis.

You can use the following statistics for the sailors. There are as many or as few as you wish to use.

Sailors CR1

Male Human Fighter 1

N Medium Humanoid

Init 1 (+1 Dex); Senses Listen +0, Spot +0

Languages Common, Orc

AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10

hp 12 (1HD)

Fort +4 Ref +1 Will +0

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)

Melee mwk rapier +4 (1d6+2/18-20)

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +1; Grp +3

Abilities Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8

Feats Blind-Fight, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike

Skills Climb +6 (+4 ranks, +2 str), Handle Animal +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Intimidate +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Swim +6 (+4 ranks, +2 str).

Possessions mwk rapier, 13 gp, 15 sp, 16 cp.

Jeremiah CR1

Male Human Commoner 1

N Medium Humanoid

Init -2 (-2 Dex); Senses Listen -2, Spot -2

Languages Common

AC 8, touch 8, flat-footed 8

hp 5 (1HD)

Fort -2 Ref -2 Will -2

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)

Melee mwk rapier -1 (1d6-2/18-20), whip -5 (1 hp damage).

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +0; Grp -2

Abilities Str 6, Dex 6, Con 6, Int 10, Wis 6, Cha 10

Feats Endurance, Toughness

Skills Disguise +2 (+2 ranks), Jump +2 (+4 ranks, -2 str), Use Rope +2 (+4 ranks, -2 dex).

Possessions mwk rapier, whip (non proficient) 13 gp, crashed donkey cart, dead donkey. He doesn’t actually own a rapier, it is included in his stats because it is highly likely that someone will throw him one to defend himself with.

Personal Info: Background: Sailor, Ht: 5' 9", Wt: 164lbs, Hair: bald, Eyes: Brown, Age: 83.

Encounter 4. The Worm Tunnels

The Purple Worm tunnels are a huge complex of tunnels that start north of town and lead to many different places on the island. The worm that dug them was killed about 10 years ago and may have been the last purple worm on the island, as no one has seen one since then. Some of the tunnels are used rather extensively and are easy to follow due to all the footprints. Those tunnels all lead to various other places on the island, most of them coming out by various plantations, farmhouses and fields. Other tunnels lead further underground and do not appear to have many footprints at all.

There is no map for the tunnel complex, as the characters will have to wander around quite a bit if they hope to find anything. The encounters below can happen in any order the GM wishes, although running them in the order presented is just fine.

It will begin raining lightly before the characters enter the tunnels.

4a. Arr’

This should happen in one of the commonly used tunnels.

You spy a light in the tunnel ahead, it appears to be moving towards you, and you can hear whistling. Coming towards you is a man in a black cloak, carrying a torch; you see that he is wearing a pair of pistols.

This is farmer Lister. The characters probably spoke to him the previous day at the Hot Dog and Pie Haven. If this happens to be the same day then he went home to change before going back out to a different bar.

He is all dressed up because he is going out drinking, and is going through the tunnels to minimize the distance he has to walk in the rain. If the characters do nothing he will tip an imaginary hat as he passes by and say “Arr’”.

Farmer Lister CR1

Male Human Commoner 1

LN Medium Humanoid

Init 0; Senses Listen +0, Spot +0

Languages Common

AC 10, touch 10, flat-footed 10

hp 8 (1HD)

Fort +1 Ref +0 Will +0

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)

Melee none)

Ranged mwk pistol +1 (1d6/18-20)

Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +0; Grp +1

Abilities Str 12, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 11, Cha 8

Feats Endurance, Toughness

Skills Handle Animal +3 (+4 ranks, -1 cha), Intimidate +1 (+2 ranks, -1 cha).

Possessions mwk pistol with 28 bullets, 9 gp, 10 sp, 16 cp.

Personal Info: Background: Farmer, Ht: 5' 5", Wt: 134lbs, Hair: Red, Eyes: Grey, Age: 42.

If the characters talk to farmer Lister they will find out he is a sheep farmer and one of the tunnels comes out at the edge of his field. He has recently lost about a half dozen sheep. He has been finding them in the mornings with bite marks on them. He thinks it must be some sort of animal.

4b. Old Man

Up ahead at the far range of your light source you can see what appears to be a man laying on the ground, as you come closer you can see that he is obviously dead, his neck has been ripped open and dried blood covers the ground near his body.

This is the old man who went into the tunnels several days ago to look for vampires. His backpack full of steak attracted a passing dog who killed him and dragged his backpack off. He still has 3 copper pieces in his pocket.

Characters may attempt to track to find out some information here. The track check to find the tracks of the wild dog is DC 18 +1 for every day the characters let pass since hearing about the old man. Those tracks will eventually lead out of the tunnels and into the woods, where they will be lost in a stream. The remains of a ripped up bloody backpack lay beside the stream. A DC 10 track check will find another set of tracks, a group of barefooted humanoids, who seem to be fairly lightweight, perhaps elves or goblins? Those tracks are fresher, they approach the body, stop about 5 feet away, and then turn around and head back out to the main tunnels, where the tracks get mixed up with all the other ones that are already there. Track checks made at all the rest of the keyed encounters in the tunnels can find those same tracks.

4c. River

The tunnel appears to have intersected an underground river. The slow moving water appears to be very deep, but only about 10’ wide. There looks to be a crude raft tied up to a rock on the other side. The raft strangely enough has a small sail that has been decorated with a holy symbol of Blocky. A single paddle lies on the shore near the raft.

If characters search around here they can find the evidence that people regularly eat here, specifically crumbs of food and the remains of a small fire. Several of the rocks have been carved upon. They are mostly crude drawings of fanged humans wearing capes, but there is also a picture of a man with a whip, and several messages.

The messages include the following, “Beware, Vampires past this point”, “Kim loves Donald”, and a series of scratches keeping track of something that adds up to 254, surrounding a carving of some sort of 4 legged creature that is too crude to identify.

4d. Hideout

Someone appears to be living at the end of this short tunnel. There is a small chair, a blanket, a pile of torches and a wooden box here. It looks like a fire is lit here on a regular basis.

The box contains a half empty bottle of brandy and several rather dull wooden stakes. Underneath the box is message written neatly in pencil on a sandwich wrapper. The I’s are all dotted with neat circles instead of dots.

I fear that I do not have long to live. The dreaded vampire queen has bitten me and I fear that I will soon be one of the undead. If only the vampire hunter Donald had came sooner.

The last sentence is crossed out and the entire sandwich wrapper has been crumpled up.

4e. The Lair of the Vampire Queen

You can see the flicker of torchlight around the bend. Before you can come any close you hear several voices. “You will never get away with this Vampire Queen, Lady Katarina will be here any second.” a softer voice says, “Ah, poor deluded fool, Lady Katarina has already been turned!” “You evil fiend, you will never take me alive”.

The characters come around the corner to see several short figures in the dim light, which comes from a single torch and about a dozen candles. The tunnel contains an ornate wooden chair and a crude coffin.

One of the figures is young, male and wearing and adventurers costume, he is holding a short female vampire at bay with a comically large holy symbol of Blocky. The “vampire” is wearing a long black cloak over a dirty white dress. Rising out of the coffin is a slightly taller female “vampire” dressed identically and holding a candle. Another “vampire” girl in a black velvet dress jumps out from behind a wooden throne at the party, but then she stops short and just sort of stares at the party.

The rest of the vampires (all children 10-13 years old), quickly drop out of character and stare at the party waiting for them to say something.

There are 4 children here. Their complete statistics are in the Fibber Island Sourcebook, (they probably won’t be needed, so they are not listed here). None of these children are real vampires. They did not kill the old man, although they did find his body the previous day, they left it because they didn’t want to get in trouble. They are not responsible for the dead sheep either. In fact the only thing they are really guilty of is going further into the tunnels than their parents would like. If the players appear to be carrying any of the things they left behind in the tunnels then they will ask for them back.

Donald is 12 and lives at the Bottle Shop with his father and sister Katarina. He is wearing an adventurer’s outfit, carrying a short whip, several rather blunt stakes and a very large holy symbol of Blocky. He is very protective of the girls, and everything they have here.

Katarina is a blond girl of about 11. She is wearing a black velvet dress in poor condition and is the one who jumped out at the party, she assumed that they were more of their friends. She is likely to quiz the party on what they are doing and write it all down in her notebook (which contains mostly fanciful vampire stories and listings of things that many random townspeople were seen doing). She has several blunt stakes and a large holy symbol of Blocky sitting on the ground.

Ally is a rather plain brown haired girl of about 13, she will be rather quiet and prefers to let everyone else do the talking. She is dressed in a dirty white dress with a black cloak and is carrying a candle. Ally and her sister Kim live on Port Street.

Kim is a blond girl of about 10. She was playing the vampire queen. After the initial shock of encountering the party wears off she will start fooling with her dress and her hair and will try to apologize for appearing in such a messy condition. She will also try to subtly kick a doll underneath the coffin before anyone sees it.

4f. Exit, stage left.

On your way back out of the tunnels you see the crumpled form of a black-cloaked man lying upon the ground. He doesn’t appear to be moving.

The dead body is that of Farmer Lister. He has two puncture wounds in his neck and has been completely drained of blood. He is in a well-traveled tunnel with so many tracks that tracking is impossible. He is still wearing his pair of masterwork pistols.

The end.

The real vampire (if there indeed is one) does not appear in this adventure.

The Magic Box is the last book released for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer roleplaying game, and it is also the most difficult book to find (more on that later). The Magic Box (so named for the magic shop on the television show) is a sourcebook that details the use of magic in the Buffy universe.

The Magic Box is not actually a box so much as it is a 128 page color softcover book. Honestly this a real let down compared to the other books for the Buffy rpg, as all the other books are hardcover and glossy, and a heck of a lot easier to actually purchase. You see it appears that The Magic Box came out right before Eden Studios lost their Buffy license. To say that it is difficult to find would be an understatement. Forget the store, it won't be there. 95 percent of the time there won't even be a copy of it on eBay, which is significant because at any given time almost any RPG supplement ever published for any game is available for purchase on eBay. However Amazon.com usually has two or three sellers who have a copy for around $100, which is frankly a whole lot more money than this book is possibly worth. I found my copy in the opening minutes of a game convention, and actually got it at 20 percent off cover price.

The book presents a solid spellcasting and technology system for use in the game, which is a good thing because spellcasting is very loosely defined in the Core Rulebook. The biggest drawbacks to the magic system is that it is a lot more complicated that the rest of the rules are. I also had the minor quibble that the spellcasting rules actually added a rare situation in which the gamemaster would actually have to roll dice! The gamemaster doesn't normally use dice in the Buffy game (long story short, it is an opposed roll system in which non-player characters have fixed rolls, and it uses action points), and I always quite enjoyed being able to run games without bringing any dice.

If you have spellcasting characters in the game then you will find this book to be a great addition to the game, if you can find it that is. However if you are like me and run games without a lot of spellcasters then you will find that it is mostly just taking up shelf space. Fortunately it is loaded with pictures of Alyson Hannigan so it isn't a total loss.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a roleplaying game by Eden Studios based on the television show of the same name. Licensed roleplaying games have a reputation for being almost universally terrible (pick up a copy of the WWF Roleplaying game or Street Fighter 2: The Roleplaying Game to see what I am talking about), but the Buffy RPG is actually pretty good. More than pretty good, it is more along the lines of wonderful.

The game uses the mechanics of Eden Studios' Unisystem, which is the same basic system used in the Angel RPG, All Flesh Must Be Eaten and about a half dozen other games. I have been gaming for years, and I have seen all sorts of systems, but this one really surprised me. The basic system is fairly simple and very fast paced, although it features a variety of combat moves that rivals many games that are far more complex. The system is essentially an opposed roll system that does not have separate damage rolls. But it has one wonderful little quirk that gamemasters have got to love. Only the players roll for things. NPCs, monsters and such always get the same average roll, and it is already built into their stats.

For example, if Buffy is trying to kick a vampire then she would roll her attack and it would go against the vampires defense score. If a vampire was trying to kick Buffy then the vamp's (fixed) attack score would go against a defense roll by Buffy. Meanwhile, if that same vampire was trying to bite an NPC (such as Dawn Summers), then the entire thing would be resolved without rolling any dice at all.

In fact, looking through all the books I had, I could only find a single place where the gamemaster would ever have to roll any dice, and that was a fairly limited situation (has to do with having an NPC make spellcasting mistakes).

Players and NPCs alike all get drama points, which they can use to both change the outcomes of their rolls (or non-rolls), or even to make changes to the story itself. Hero level characters like Buffy Summers and Spike don't get a lot of drama points, but "white hat" characters (like Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase) get a lot more of them. When you need for Dawn to be able to stake a vampire on the first try it is time to use some drama points.

The game uses a point buy system for character creation and distinguishes between hero level characters and "white hat" characters. They technically also mention experienced hero as a character type, but we can ignore that. Hero level characters are people like Buffy Summers, Spike, Angel, Anya, and Riley Finn. Heroes can stand toe to toe with the things that go bump in the night. While "white hat" characters are people like Dawn Summers, Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, Tara Maclay and most of the random people you might see in the background. This game encourages gaming groups to play groups that include both heroes and "white hats".

Of course the game also explores the option of playing either an all hero game or an all "white hat" game, in case you don't have the kind of players who could handle mixed power levels. I have found that with older experienced players almost everyone will actually be clamoring to play white hats. I thought for sure I would have 4 people fighting over being the slayer with the other two wanting to be vampires, but instead I had three people fighting over being the watcher, with no one wanting to play the Slayer.

The game books are very high quality and contain details on just about every character you ever saw on Buffy, along with a few that you didn't see. The list of books below is complete, and there shouldn't be any more coming out, as Eden Studios no longer has the Buffy license. "Welcome to Sunnydale" and "The Initiative Sourcebook" do not exist, even though the other books mention them in several places (along with a few other books that never came out).

Products in the Buffy RPG line

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Core Rulebook
This is the main book to the game and the only one you really need, although the others are nice as well. It was available in the original version, in a leather bound limited edition (1000 copies made), and it was later revised and rereleased after the show ended. The revised version adds information on seasons six and seven, and makes some slight rules changes to make the rules better match those of the Angel RPG. There is no real need to upgrade if you already have one of the older books.

Slayer's Handbook
This is obviously a word play on the D&D Player's Handbook. It is a nice hardcover that is all about Slayers. It was also available in a leather bound limited edition (1000 copies made, one of which I own).

Monster Smackdown
This hardcover book has statistics for nearly every monster that ever made it on the show, along with some other assorted badness. It was also available in a leather bound limited edition (1000 copies made).

The Magic Box
This is a shorter soft cover book that greatly expands the rather simplistic magic system that was originally presented in the Core Rulebook. This particular title is almost impossible to find at any price. It took me two months to find my copy. The few copies listed on Amazon.com were up to around $100 as of this writing.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Director's Screen
This is your standard gamemaster screen that comes prepackaged with a few adventures. Highly recommended, not because you will really need the screen, but because it actually has adventures in it. There were no adventure modules released for this game other than the ones that were in the backs of the main rulebooks, which your players probably already read.

Buffy Character Journal
This is fairly self explanatory, at least it only cost $5.