Fourthcore and Pathfinder

First I should apologize for my absence. I've noticed most blogsters don't like lots of personal explanation why a blogger has been gone--just get back to blogging, eh? Well said. Let's just say life gave our family a double whammy the past month or so. Happens sometimes. I have been doing lots of gaming though. Our twice a week Pathfinder game is rocking hard. We had one TPK and about 5 other deaths on top of that. Most just made second level now though and these young gamers are starting to get wise as to what it takes to stay alive in the deadly world of an Old School Golarion that is their home. So things are good.

But that's not what I'm blogging about at any length today. No, all this Pathfinder gaming has made me reevaluate alot of things in relation to old school and what it is and what I am. I've written alot about this before, but it bears repeating now, since so much has been better assimilated with time. I've always wondered if old school meant rules lite. I personally have never been a rules lite gamer. I liked a depth to the rules that in my opinion enriched the game. I suppose that's why I always played AD&D instead of BX, even though I had both sets. But so much of the old school community are into rules lite role playing. Where did that leave me?

Well, not really out of the genre. I knew I preferred a hard core game. And by that I mean a deadly and extremely challenging sort of gaming that caused plays to dig out the best in themselves in order to stay alive. This often takes the form of sinister traps; incredibly intelligent, responsive and evil adversaries; horridly adverse environmental challenges; a weird and wonderful fantasy world full of newness and bizarre magic; magic items are rare, dangerous and powerful and unfortunately often cursed or tainted. The tropes that drive my adventures aren't really the high fantasy of Tolkien as much as the weird strangeness of Jack Vance, HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen, Michael MoorCock, Star Trek TOS, Dr. Who, Lin Carter, L. Sprague DeCamp, Robert Lyn Asprin and others. If it gives you any idea of what I am talking about my favorite adventures were the S series from the AD&D period. Especially Tomb of Horrors and Expedition to Barrier Peaks. I am famous for inventing monsters not in the books, magic items that while they give a powerful ability or two, also tended to be possess by evil spirits, cursed by twisted magic or linked to some nasty demon or two; and for my blatant over use of dismembering traps; and save vs death poison. Good stuff that.

So where the heck did I fit? Hard to say, but my games had a certain old school feel reminiscent of early Greyhawk from what I could surmise based on reading old accounts of such gaming and talking to gamers even older than me. I wasn't alone--just a bit of a rare bug. A love of baroque, gothic rules structures as twisted and labyrinthine as the dungeons they spawned. I personally loved the massive expansion of the 2e period, even if I didn't like some of the rule changes.

Well, not long ago I ran across Fourthcore. Fourthcore is a concept or gaming genre that supports 4th edition dungeons and dragons, but from more of an old school mindset. In fact for a detailed summary of what Fourthcore is all about read their manifesto. To summarize here Fourthcore basically consists of the following assumptions:

• Adventures should be DIFFICULT
• Adventures should be DEADLY
• Magic and treasures should be GREAT
• Everything should be OVER THE TOP
• The world should be BLEAK
• One word: DEATH TRAP DUNGEONS!!!! Okay three words with lots of exclamation points
• GAMIST

I must say that I really like this approach. not as something I will adopt, but as a good explanation of what I am about when I game. It's sort of like what I already am. I struggled a bit with the Gamist approach, but when I realized the way I game I had to admit my penchant for detailed and complex rules really fostered a gamist approach in my campaigns. You have to know the rules and use them to your advantage. While metagaming can detract from the story, one of the surest ways to death was focusing too much on the way you think things should be and not taking the way the game works into consideration. After all gaming IS about GM vs Player. Some might say that my focus is more story oriented or Narrativist than pure Gamist, and they might be true to a degree. But put a contest up between the two and Gamist would come out on top. How? Simply because I am not going to rescue players from their own stupidity or bad die rolls simply so the story can go on. The story unfolds with or without the PCs. The story does not drive the game the game does, but the story is what is generated by the game. I've spoken to this before also.

So what does this have to do with Pathfinder? Well it has everything to do with my Pathfinder. Because this is the way I play, and currently I am playing Pathfinder. So I suppose you could say I'm playing "Pathcore". Which was the point of my last few published posts back in early November. That gaming sweet spot for me that combines the best of various resources that support my style of gaming. Just built on a Pathfinder base. There are a number of gamers doing just this right now. Check out the Fourthcore site and also new adventure designers like Stephen Newton at Thick Skull Adventures. Goodman Games did the same thing for 3.5 with their DCC line of adventures. Though Goodman is now headed more towards his new game DCC RPG.

Which, btw I'm really looking forward to. I've already got my copy ordered. It will give me all sorts of food for my style of gaming. Even Stephen is thinking about heading that direction. But I'm sticking with PF, and it's rule heavy gamist structure--I'm coming to like it quite a lot. It's just that the DCC RPG will be in my stack of add ins that make Pathfinder Pathcore for me and my gamers. Good stuff that.

My Hybridized Pathfinder Game--Take 2

Second session two days ago. We've broke the groups up into two, and three people didn't show up to the Tuesday session. That means we were down to five, which is pretty darn close to ideal. We all fit at the table anyway. Tonight's group is listed as 10, but I'm hoping a few drop out there too. The first group I'm running (on Tue) is going through: DCC #28 Into the Wilds

They are having a blast so far. The dire bat riders were quite a challenge but they made it to Wildsgate for some healing and made alliances so they can try to talk with Lady Aborn. Can't wait until they get underway to the caves.

My Thursday group is going through my bastardized refit of Hackmaster's version of B1 Quest for the Unknown, which I mentioned previously.

And my troubles with my players being a little concerned about my houserules for PF has waned considerably since I clarified what I had changed and why. We are using a highly modified critcial hit and fumble table. Multiclassing can only be done back in civilization under a new master for the first level; but leveling up is fine during the adventure. I have restricted certain armor and weapons; taking of a prestige class must be roleplayed between adventures. And to start we are only useing core rulebook races and classes. But that will be expanded as we go. And I'm finding out that as I read through the PF stuff and get more familiar with the rules I'm out rules lawyering my rules lawyers!  so, bring it on Baybeee! I got GAME!

18 Players At The Table!!!



Thinking about buying this table for our weekly game : )



We had a good gaming session yesterday. Noone died, but one of the thieves lost a hand (insert appropriately evil laugh here). And get this, we had 18 players at the table! Yeah I wrote that right, 18 freakin players. I was worried we would lose some from last session because there was 12 at the table. Nope, now we're at 18! Blew my mind. Well, actually it doesn't break out record of 22 players a few years ago. And truthfully this is the whole reason we split groups.

So, as chaotically crazy as the the fun was, we decided to split into two weekly sessions. We'll now meet on Tuesday with a group of 8 and Thursday with a group of 10. Still really large groups, but finding time for one more day right now has been really tough for me. I did offer to allow someone to step up and DM a third game, using my room to game while I worked at my desk. Two of the more experienced gamers were willing, but noone wanted to leave the other groups to to go to their games. I'm limiting sessions to one per week per player. Otherwise we would have 18 in every session we ran. Crazy, huh? But crazy in a good way.

And I've been getting my horror on lately. Reading through the 3.5 book Heroes of Horror to spice up the campaign a bit. And this is really significant for me. After my last post about not being able to read any PF books I took a hard look at my gaming from a purely practical standpoint. I of course felt like running back into the arms of 1e and play with my toys by myself. But I reconsidered. Truth is I haven't really given PF a fair shake. My players love the system right now and the newbies are just starting to get into it. They do love the game, and I should really stick to my word this year and play PF like I promised.

So I was looking through my old 3.5 stuff, which I used to like reading at times (the 3.0 Deities and DemiGods was pretty good) and came across Heroes of Horror. I've been reading lots of horror and dark fantasy fiction lately. Currently the Necronomicon collection of the best of Lovecraft's fiction:

Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey:

About a young kid who is apprenticed to a scholarly monster hunter. And Revenge of the Witch in The Last Apprentice series:

About another young apprentice who is learning to protect his community from monsters, boggarts, spirits, and other more sinister forces that plague the people of the time.

All of these books are giving me great campaign ideas, that I'm really excited about. Of course I'm too busy whining about the fact that noone wants to play 1e with me. Then I picked up Heroes of Horror. And man, I am really enjoying reading it. Some of the campaign creepiness that it suggests, truly wicked adventure hooks, and scary adventure elements have got me more scared than any of the above books, believe it or not. I was reading it last night, and literally had to put it down because a section on story pacing and details in horror kind of weirded me out. All me to quote:

"It's gruesome, and perhaps even a bit disturbing, to describe the dismembered bodies of a family scattered across the floor when the PCs investigate a house. consider instead the benefits of a step by step revelation. Initially the PCs see only an empty living room, barely lit by their torches. They hear only the squeak of hinges and the creak of floorboards. The room appears empty, but successful Spot and Search checks reveal scrapes on the floor and impressions in the dust that suggest the furniture was pushed around recently, then moved roughly back into place. A faint scent, vaguely fruity, hangs in the air, noticeable only as the PCs move away from the front door. T cupboards are fully stocked. Dishes stand stacked beside the stove, in which the fire has gone cold and a bit of ef lies seared to charcoal. As the PCs approach the stairs, the most keen-eared among them (those who make Listen checks) detect the faintest of dripping water.

The stairs creak as the characters climb them, making stealth difficult. Near the top of the stairs, something black scuttles out of the shadows and races across the floor! No, it's just a rat . . . a rat with something in its mouth, something that smears a wet trail across the wooden slats of the second story floor. A strange, flickering light, like that of guttering candles, leaks out into the hall from a door only slightly ajar. The fruitlike scent is stronger here, but it's almost lost amid a much stronger miasma, something coppery and acrid and too familiar anyone who has ever been in battle.

If the PCs carefully push the door open, they find that unlike the one downstairs it doesn't make any sound at all. Examinations show that the hinges have been greased with some sort of rendered fat. Inside the room, on every horizontal surface, jack-o-lanterns glow, lit from within by long-burning candles. In every carved eye socket sits a human eyeball. Every carved mouth displays a macabre grin formed of human teeth. And there, lying on the floor . . ."

And that's just freaking cool.

And of course it couldn't come at a better time of the year, eh? I've been getting into horror more and more lately anyway, but it's all sort of come together in a perfect storm of terror for me. Much to the bane of my players. We are going through my adapted Hackmaster version of B1 and if there's anything that HM does well is it gore. The foyer after the long alcove with the magic mouths is a scene right out of a horror movie and let's just say I used it to full effect.

So, long story short. I'm having fun. Fun with Pathfinder. And fun with 18 eager players at the table. We left the last session with three trash trolls bounding up the towards them. And they were screaming foul that we ended on a such a cliff hanger. But as they gathered their stuff and left they were busily planning their strategy for next time all the way down the hall and out of the building. Good stuff. Well, if you don;t hear from before Monday have a great Halloween and fantastic gaming in truly horrific style.