Clerical Spellcasting

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I've been wanting to switch up clerical spellcasting for a while. Make it a bit more realistic and historical based on how real world religions believe miracles work. Make clerics different than wizards. Yet I also want to do this with the least amount of work possible, not because I'm lazy, but because I want to keep it as close to D&D as a I can. I'm not trying to make a new game here( I already did and have since abandoned it, I will probably put it up here this month), just tweaking the current game to get the flavour I want.

I came up with a system that I was satisfied with at first and then rejected. First of all cleric spells are rituals or prayers not "spells". So a cleric can perform any ritual that he is high enough level to cast. each ritual takes a number of turns equal to the spell level to perform. At the end of the performance the cleric makes a wisdom check to see if the ritual was successful. The  check is modified by the following formula: 1d20 =< wisdom - spell level + (spells/day of the same spell level - 1). So a cleric with 13 wisdom performing a 1st level ritual who normally can cast 3 1st level spells/day would need to roll a 14 or lower: 13 -1 + (3-1) = 14.

There is also the easy solution that basically equates to mana points. the cleric has a number of prayer points equal to the total number of spells he can cast, and each prayer costs a number of points equal to the spell level.

I want to be able to continue to use the cleric spell list, while changing the method of cating to reflect clerical rituals; which means that limiting the prayers or rituals by a number per day are incompatible with my goals.

There are 3 factors I think are important for priestly powers: the proper performance of the ritual(holy symbol, holy oil, number of steps, etc), the will of the deity, and the faith of the priest. How to model those in game mechanics compatible with D&D is the problem.

D&D Story 1: Introduction to the Game

So this is an inter view I did with my Dad on April 4th; I've been sitting on this completed transcript for a week now because I was going to edit it, get rid of repetitive parts and add punctuation, but since I keep putting it off I'm going to post it as is. I may come back and edit later. 

My questions/comments are in standard color while my Dad's answers are in blue.

If you want to listen to the audio you can download it here.

UPDATE: I have uploaded all of our interviews as a podcast on Anchor called Dungeons and Dragons and Duncanites. This episode can be found at https://anchor.fm/lance-duncan/episodes/DD-Story-1-Introduction-to-the-Game-e3n491

We are recording okay umm so just start with telling me about how you got into D&D the whole your whole story however you want to tell it

Okay well the very first time to it at all role-playing games was in 1973 at tech school for dog handling law enforcement school in the air force two of my roommates were playing a game they called allies and axis which we now find out has absolutely nothing to do with the ones that’s on the market and I watched them and they tried to encourage me to play and I said no I’m having much more fun watching you two guys beat your heads together

Can you describe that game in detail?

Well most of the game the guy that was playing the allies was losing until the guy that was playing the axis invaded Australia and the united states at that point both the Americans and the Australians went guerilla warfare

Guerilla warfare was accounted for in the rules of the game

Yup and the

That’s definitely not axis and allies lol

Yeah, I know but it wasn’t called guerrilla warfare it was just called you want my guns come take them

Yeah

You know and which is the essence of guerrilla warfare and the guy who had the axis said I’ve won you don’t have an army you don’t have the government you don’t have this you don’t have this you don’t have that so I’ve won and he said no not until you get all of to say that you have and it was just so funny watching them play and also reason why I did not want to play that was the very first experience I had and that game took a week

Lol yeah that sounds like axis and allies though but there’s lots of other games like that too

Ok and then the 2^nd time I was exposed to it my brother was getting married and needed some time with his future wife and asked that I would go with her brother to a party to get me to leave my brother alone this was right after I got home from my mission which would have been 1980 and I got the drift so I went to the party the party was a D&D game and it was actually dungeons and dragons 3^rd edition and well it was

What was the color of the book

It was dark brown

Brown

It was the big thick one advanced dungeons and dragons

Ok so it was the first ok yeah Which you could count as third its first edition but technically you could say its 3^rd because there’s original and there was the Holmes book and there’s AD&D which called itself 1^st edition

Yeah which it wasn’t

But yeah technically you could say it was the third game

Yeah it was the third game

Lol

And um rather than roll a character up for he just handed me a char sheet prerolled and I was not the highest level character but I had I was a knight who had really good plate mail armor really really good sword horseback style sword he called it a he didn’t call it a bastard sword but he called it something else and it had a really long blade almost the length of a two handed sword and then I and that all I had I didn’t have arrows or anything else so I was the upfront fighter and I was at 4^th level and everybody else stood back while I went up front and just slaughtered everything and if something was gonna get me from behind the entire party would then focus in on that one entity and usually cleaned out that one while I cleaned out 4-5 five at a time between my horse kicking biting jumping and all that other stuff and me with my sword or my lance either way anything I came up close to was down for some reason I was definitely even though they were

You were rolling good

I was rolling good very good and it was really exciting because everybody’s telling me oh that was a great roll oh that was good oh that was this that was that and just really getting me excited about it and finally it was time to go to bed for him because he was like 15 the dungeon master

Lol

And so he decided rather than just cut it everybody count up your experience points and go home he decided to kill everybody off and so these entities whatever they were I don’t remember all of what was in it but I know they started killing people off starting with the thief and the magic user and then working their way up and then last area there were only three of us I think it was the cleric me and a berserker and we stumbled into an area that was prehistoric so tyrannosaurus rex brontosaurus all of them were there and at that point a tyrannosaurus peaked around a corner and swiftly took out the berserker and was headed for the cleric just in time to get lanced by me and I rolled a natural 20 and with my horse in full charge and me with an 1825 strength we skewered him very soundly and he was dead and then a brontosaurus came around the corner and stepped on my cleric

Ok lol

She was walking so you know it was easy she wasn’t paying attention I on the other hand saw that and flew into a berserk rage of a knight thus losing my knighthood in the process and oh because I was not just a knight I was a

Paladin

A paladin yes and so losing my paladin stuff I went into a full berserk rage and went and tried to skewer the brontosaurs and yes, the lance did go in but have you ever seen the size of a brontosaurus

Yeah

Yeah it was a pinprick and he swung around and

Wait when did Jurassic park come out that was the 90s right

Yeah

Yeah ok

He swung around and hit me with his tail knocked me off my horse killing the horse and so I got up and got my 2-handed sword and started whacking at his toenails off and he came down with other foot and squished me and I thought that might be a fun game never touched it again though until I got married and found out that all of my wife’s best friends husbands loved D&D and they played the boxed sets the originals

The original red box

Red and blue boxes

That’s called the magenta box now

Yes

It’s not red box that we have it’s the earlier red box

Yes

The 1981 red box right

Yes

Ok just making sure

Yeah so anyway they got they rolled up a character for me his name was gurgen don’t ask me why I just picked something weird on purpose he was an elf who was a thief which means he had some magic abilities but he was able to steal now I’ve looked over that book since and there’s no way that you can have an elf thief with magical abilities

Yeah

Either you’re a thief or a mage the fact that you’re an elf doesn’t make you have option of both unless you go with the dual class which they did not tell me about otherwise I would not have gone with the dual class so anyway I was mag thief and I was getting beat up all the time while they were laughing and there guys were doing good I was more of a distraction for the other people so that  my guy my team could go kill them all it was fun for them very fun for them and I got kinda discouraged that my because he would get so close to dying and faint he did not get any experience points for killing because at that time whoever dealt the killing blow got the experience points

Yeah

And I wanted to get experience points so they convinced me that if you don’t like the way the game is played maybe you should become a dungeon master tis was

Of course they would do that

This was their way of making sure none of them had to be the DM and I did so I took about 6 months reading up learning all about it then we finally had our first game which was the one with all the mushrooms in it

Search of the unknown

Search of the unknown

The module

Yep

B1

Yeah, we did that one they cleared it out I put some extra little tidbits in there and that weren’t in the book because it says that there’s

It tells you to

Yeah that too and they all survived they all loved the game and so they wanted to do another adventure so I said ok and I got up the nerve to start reading some more modules and stuff let’s see the 2^nd one before I got done with the project I was working on they handed me the elf that stole the sword of truth

Yeah, the yeah ok the sword of justice

Sword of justice

It’s in dragon magazine

Right and because that I thought because that was such a short one it would be an easy one to do

Lol

And so, I got all that and then as we went down into the ones underneath where there you roll up what turns in there before hand it seems that my rolling of the monster was much higher grade than their level of characters because eventually they all died

Yeah

And they thought it was good game but they didn’t like their characters dying because those were some of their favorite characters

Lol

And so, we’d take another one and so we did the not the keep on the borderlands but the one where the carrion crawler is just outside to the left underneath

Oh, that’s the 83 red box

Ok

That’s the adventure in the module I mean in the rules in the dungeon masters guide whatever

Yeah so, I did that one and I built that one from scratch all the way out to the end and had a secret passage that led out the back on the bottom

Right

Into a river that was kinda infestigated infested with crocodiles Nile crocodiles

Of course

Yes, well they didn’t know that until one them fell in and the Nile crocodile caught hold of his foot and they were able to grab him in time and they only had to do major healing to make it where he could continue to walk and they continued looking for the wizard of that game and found him and brought him back to justice so they were happy with that game and that started my dungeon mastering

Ok. wait, never mind

Anyway, I played with them for a couple years and then we had children and Linda and I moved down to Clairmont ca and no longer were able to play but while at work some coworkers mentioned that they lived pretty close to us in their opinion they lived about 15 miles away from where we lived

Yeah people will go pretty far to play D&D

Yes, they will

Wait so mom was playing in your earlier games

No she didn’t really like it but when I had these other friends come then she wanted to play and she played for a while she was a magic user and did not do well but the other 3 people did quite well with or without her and we played for about a year and half and then I got let  go of the job that I was at again and had to leave went up to Sacramento didn’t play again until my kids were older I think Cassie was maybe 7 maybe 8 Heidi would’ve been then 6 Bridget would’ve been like 3

Bridget obviously wasn’t playing at the time

She thought she was

Lol

And then we just kept playing adding new characters for new members of the family like lance and Jared

Yeah but you forgot about me later remember

Yeah

Yeah ok so when you ran that castle from the boxed set you know the room with the harpies

Yeah

So, in the book it says that you shouldn’t allow them into that room until they’re 2^nd level so how did you handle that

Oh, that was easy

They were 2^nd level already

Yeah, they were usually 2^nd level I kind of directed them as to which way they should go

Ok

By giving them options or not giving them options

Right

This door is locked you don’t have the ability to unlock it

Ok\

Well see last time I ran that dungeon back when I was in college I had forgotten about part oh they have to be 2^nd level and so I was like ok well you can’t open it but then they took basically they had a battering ram and burst the door open

Lol

Because because I’m like well ok yeah, your gonna open it that way

Yes evidently

With enough force you will open it lol and so they went in and all of them were charmed except for one and basically the harpies made the ones that were charmed kill the one that wasn’t charmed

Yeah

Ok and the harpies ate all the rest

Yep that’s how it works

There’s a reason your supposed to be 2^nd level

Yep

Lol ok so ok so something you kinda mentioned earlier kinda touched on was so when you played right after you got married that was like 84

No, it was still 83 when we started playing

Ok that was 83 so was it all guys

Yes

What was your experience what was the group when you played with your brother or your?

My brother never played he thought it was silly

Ok but when you played the first time you played

Oh, with my bothers girlfriend’s brother

Ok complicated

Ok that was totally mixed and it was about equal

Ok did how was the treatment of the guys towards the girls in those games

Rather suggestive I mean there was propositions going on left and right and these were all shall I say minors and because they were roleplaying they could do anything they want and since their characters were adults guess what they did

Yeah ok that leads into the next question ok were you older than most of the other people you played with because you got in the game at what 23

yeah

1980 you were 23 right

Yep

Ok so

No no 1980 I was 26

Cause that’s the first time you played right 1980

Yes

Yeah you were 26 ok so

And yes, I was older than all of that group and when Linda and I got married yes, I was older than all of those people

Ok cause there’s a lot of people who are online or I meet at other places and there’s a lot of them that started in the early 80s or the late 70s but they started when they were like ten or their early teens you know like the latest usually is like 17

Right

So, in comparison you’re really old

I understand this concept

I don’t know how was that for you did you feel the age difference

Logically oh yeah there were things that I would never have done but they did which is why oh and some of them especially in my quote in quote brother in laws group they really got to the point to where I started worrying about them because they couldn’t tell and then I had read stuff when I was working in the university about people who had gotten down into the service tunnels and were playing games in those service tunnels and one person actually came up dead in the service tunnels

Yeah, the Pulsipher case

Yes

Which half of it basically a private eye was hired and then he wrote a book and half of the stuff in the book was made up

I believe it

But anyway, that got me to thinking that this is an enjoyable game and there are going to be people that are really stupid playing the game that will lose their minds and can’t tell the difference that when I took level of dungeon master a lot more seriously and I decided that my children will probably want to play and id better make sure they understand the difference between fantasy and reality

Yeah did you see the movie mazes and monsters with tom hanks

No

Did you hear about it when it came out cause?

Nope

Cause

I just now heard it for the first time

I think it was in the late 80s it was but yeah it was a movie about people who played dungeons and they didn’t call it dungeons and dragons they called it mazes and monsters because copyright

Right

But you didn’t hear about it when it first came out

Nope

Ok cause a lot of people in gaming hate that movie

Why is that

Well because it portrays roleplaying games and they think it portrays them in a bad light because the main character tom hanks he obviously has mental issues but in my opinion, I watched that movie a few years ago and that movie really is not if anything has a good view of D&D because it shows how he copes with D&D that’s my view of it

Ok

But most people just they like you know but they were alive when the movie came out too so whatever

Ok so so you got the sword of justice from the dragon magazine but that was given to you

Yes

Did you have any more encounters with dragon or dungeon magazine

They would occasionally give me their latest purchase to read and peruse and I found that most of the stuff that was in dragon magazine bored me

Yeah

To the point to where I could probably get through 3 or 4 paragraphs of each article and then just go ok I don’t care

What about dungeon magazine that was only adventures

Same thing I just you know these people that their nitpicking or they were fantasing beyond logic it was just I had the feeling that these people had the mentality of an 8-year-old playing dungeons and dragons as a dungeon master

Yeah well that’s cause a lot of them were 8-year olds

Ok

Lol 12 more likely but you know so when you first started out you started with modules

Yes

What do you think about their quality of adventure writing well B1 is to teach you

Yes

How well did that teach you

Pretty good pretty good the red book going through the adventure for yourself taught me very well and all the modules all the games that were in the red and the blue books were very interesting I created some of my own dungeons with them as the background and they were fun but I find that where I had the most fun was when I started having my children play and their friends coming over

Ok

That would’ve been when we moved to citrus heights

Right but when you were DMing with other people before you were playing with us it was all you were only doing modules

Yes

Ok

And only what was in the module I did not

You didn’t tinker with it

I didn’t tinker with the module

Except for like B1 because you had to

Yes I had to roll up monsters and encounters and all kinds of things that’s as much tinkering as I go at that stage but what did happen was because of that I learned that I had to write down not only the characters abilities each one of them but I also had to write down each and every room and what was in that room and if they came to that room at a certain time did the thing that was in that room stay if they missed it or did it come out of the room cause it heard noises down the hall and that was a very enlightening thing because if they have a treasure in reality they’re less likely to leave the room unless they bring the treasure with them if the treasure too big to bring with them they aren’t leaving that room they might call for backup which couple of times they did and they may be dead but then backup came and it made for interesting game but more interesting learning experience for the dungeon master

So, did you so you did modules so is that did you play mostly in dungeons or wilderness or what was the mix

It was mostly dungeons but you had to do some wilderness to get from one dungeon to another so that amount of wilderness yes

 It was more of a journey type thing

Yeah and you know things happen on journeys you know you stick your hand in a plant and it eats your arm off

Or there’s dinosaurs

Yes

What was I gonna say more about rules so we used a lot of house rules when you were playing with us

Boy did we ever

Yeah, I didn’t know how many until I really started studying but once I went through and read more of the stuff from dragon magazine or the gazetteer series based on the known world a lot of the house rules we used were in those other products so did you take rules from those products or did you develop you own house rules

I mostly when I read dungeon magazine and dragon magazine and all those things I would see these rules and I would say yeah that’s a good idea but I don’t like the way they’re doing it so let’s do it with a little tweak and it would be almost the same so that everybody who read dungeon or dragon magazine or all the others they would remember something about that rule and would accept it

Yeah

But it wouldn’t be what was in the magazine

So, you would get inspiration from other sources

Yes

Was there any specific rule you made up on your own just because

Yeah when I started playing with Cassie’s friends definitely the rules were coming down faster than I could keep track of them all and that’s when it started losing interest for me cause you know situations would come up and I don’t know I can do this or not example a human being then being cursed to be half human half dragon and wants to be full dragon and how do they then continue to play and I just had problems with that and I don’t know I’m glad that that person quit playing soon after

Right we won’t name her

No

So also, you said your first character was an elf magic user thief

Yes

So that may have been except you were playing AD&D it makes sense for AD&D but in the Holmes book you know the blue book the basic blue book not the expert I have it you’ve seen it right

\yes

So, with that book there’s a little paragraph in there that mentions you can have any character type or class like there it says oh elves and dwarves and halflings can also be thieves and those will be in future rule books

Right

Then it also says relating to the half dragon character you could be any creature as long as you start at low level and reach high level as long as there’s a slow progression you start weak

Right

So that’s been in there since the beginning

Yes, it has

But it’s kind of frowned on these days

And for good reason having a half human half dragon really should not be

Hint hint 5^th edition hint hint

Yeas I mean half orcs is bad enough

Yeah

Can you imagine a half kobold half halfling?

No, my favorite thing is you’re a halfling half of what

Lol yes exactly you definitely aren’t a short human

This is why I don’t when I let people be halflings in my games I don’t tell them they’re halflings I tell them they’re Hin h-i-n which is what they’re called in the known world

Ok

It’s in later products not the original

Oh ok

Because who’s gonna call themselves a halfling

Lol

You know who calls themselves a halfling that’s stupid

It’s like in the movie willow everybody calls him a pick but he says he’s not a pick

He’s a

He’s an Elwyn

Yeah and Elwyn and then the Daiquinis

And the regular sized people are Daiquinis

Yes

And they’re looked down they’re looked downward upon by the Elwyn

Yeah ok so ok so can you describe the people you first played with who they were if you remember

No one was over 17 there was a cheerleader type girl in the group most of the other guys most of the guys were jocks but not jock stars I think my future brother in law was the only one who wasn’t a jock and the other 2 girls that were there I think were just groupies of those jocks and I think the whole get together was a way for my future brother in law to actually curry favor with this in crowd

Ok he was your first DM right

Yes

 And you said he was 15

Yeah, he was 15

So

And he was it appeared that he had some experience in doing this evidently maybe he brought the crew up from 1^st level to whatever levels they were I know one the magic user was 8^th level how he got killed off so easily I still don’t recall or understand

Ok yeah so as a 15-year-old dungeon master how did he DM like what was his style

Hack and slash

There was just a bunch of monsters and you were supposed to kill them all

Yep

Did he roleplay any of the monster or what did he do?

No, they were all insignificants that would just all of a sudden turn up and you had to fight or die or flee

Ok what about the 2^nd group you played with

The 2^nd group I played with they were a little bit more informative about how the game actually worked

Were they closer to your age

Yes, the oldest one I was 26 the oldest one was maybe no I was not 26 I was 29

This is when you were playing with mom’s friends

This when I was playing with your moms friends the oldest one was maybe 28 the others were 25 or so so like those who had been on missions had been home for a while and there was a couple that did not go on missions but they enjoyed and they were part of our home teaching or not home teach family home evening group

In the singles ward

Yeah well it wasn’t the singles ward it was the young marrieds group at the church

Yeah yeah yeah whatever the same thing

Yeah really lol I mean there were 8 young marrieds in this one ward and all 8 couples met for family home evening

Yeah

Cause out of the 8 there was only 1 that had family ties in Escondido so we all kinda grouped together and one of the things they like to go out and do was go out and have pizza and watch star trek and play dungeons and dragons oh till Battlestar Galactica came out

Oh yeah what was I going to say how long were your game sessions and how often did you play

Most of the time the session were about 4 hours and we played when we were at our peak we played every other week

Ok so that’s ok so when you first started playing did you guys use miniatures

No

Or battle mats

Nope that was later

Later as in

When I got my own group going there from coworkers and that was only to give them a sense of direction so they could figure out where they wanted to throw their next strike how they wanted to move their characters and where the enemy was sitting

But you didn’t like buy any miniatures and paint them

No just you know drew out little pictures of their characters and put down on the table and then I had pictures of monsters that they might encounter and the size of the room possibly

Ok oh when you first started DMing did you fudge the dice and how often

When I first stated DMing no I did not fudge the dice and I would roll it in front of them and they would always be upset because when I rolled dice at that time in life 20 was common

Lol you ever think maybe you had a loaded die

Yes, several times and we wound up switching dice to prove it

This was with the first group who couldn’t believe that someone this new could roll 20s that often

Like being new has to do with what your rolling

exactly

so, you know that blue set of dice I have

yes

that’s from the original 1983 basic set did you buy that yourself

I did I bought that set

Was that the first set you bought

Yes, it was

Ok so the expert book the green expert book well its green now it used to be more blue

Yes

Did someone give that to you or did you buy that one

Yes, that would be Dwayne Hansen gave that to me

Ok so you had the original isle of dread and the original expert book but then you also had the new the later the revised expert and revised isle of dread

That is correct

You bought those ones

I did

So, you bought all the boxed sets that we have

Yes

Besides the original

The complete box sets

Cause its actually very rare for other people who play the same edition as us to have the immortal box set

Yeah, I know I got that because I thought it was going to be merely a continuation of everything when it got to the point where it’s actually

It’s a complete set of new rules

Yeah, the new rules are god worship

Just be glad you didn’t get into the newer so they did a so you know they did the rules cyclopedia which was all the boxed sets together except for immortals

Yes

And then they did immortals as a separate box set with a special adventure

I did not know about that but yeah

Just be glad you didn’t use those rules because those rules are worse

 I believe it

Cause those rules are more in line with AD&D rules with actual gods they make the immortals more godlike and less less you know like the immortals

Yeah

So, when you got the box sets and there was the immortals how did you view the immortals in the game

Gods

Yeah ok cause a lot of people in D&D they have some strange idea that the immortals aren’t gods

Uh they are like Greek roman

Yeah exactly

Hindu and Pakistani which is now considered a part of the Sumer

Yeah cause you know anyone who’s remotely acquainted with classical literature you know Greek roman whatever literature

Right

You’ll notice that they interchangeably call the gods immortals and gods

That’s correct

You know and how people don’t see it is it really frustrates me so I guess that’s all my questions

My thing is with the gods as a latter-day saint you know those are nice fantasies but you’d really better stay away from that all together because I have seen people go off on the deep end on other things and that’s really one thing you don’t want to go off on the deep end in

Yeah ok that it

Fantastic Fortress: Attacks from the Air

I've been doing research lately on historical anti-aircraft tactics. Looking at what has been published in places like Dragon magazine and then suggestions on the internet about how best to defend against aerial attacks don't satisfy me. Typical suggestions rely too much on magic especially spells specific to D&D, or monsters being tamable. There has to be a more mundane, simpler and cost effective method to defend against aerial attacks from flying monsters, like dragons, with ancient/medieval levels of technology. This article is going to be the first in a series of posts about how a castle would change to defend from the fantastic attacks inherent in a standard fantasy world.

Historically there seems to be 4 main methods to withstanding an aerial assault: defensive aircraft, advanced warning systems, anti-aircraft guns, and bomb shelters. I am going to detail possible fantasy analogues for each method of defense that relies on mundane techniques and not magical spells.

Concerning flights of fighter planes to defend air space, the most common thing that seems to pop up on the internet when air defenses are talked about are flights of knights on trained hippogriffs. Even in a high magic setting I find this solution extremely implausible. I consider hippogriffs to be more like zebras in temperament than a horse. If we're going to go with flying mounts the most likely creature would be a Pegasus or pegataur, but that still requires a setting with all the prerequisites for raising and feeding and training these mounts. They would be obedient to their rider and probably no one else. We would see only the elite with these types of mounts. Whatever the mount is it would have to be domesticated, easily stabled and fed and with an easy way to ride them and still use weapons of some sort. An alternative to a mount would be to befriend a flying beast who can ward off hostile monsters. This could be a lawful dragon or sphinx, or even a flying construct of some sort made specifically for this purpose.

Creating equivalents of advance warning systems may prove to be the most daunting task I have set for myself. Barring magical scrying techniques(and who can afford to pay those extortionist wizard fees anyway) there is no low tech version of radar. Therefore, it is necessary to look to solutions that were used in war before the advent of radar but after the invention of flight. One example used towards the end of WWI was an acoustic detection system. Relatively primitive methods were used at first with multiple metal cones used to identify the distance and direction of incoming aircraft. This was later developed into huge concrete sound mirrors and walls.

German Acoustic Locator 1915

British Sound Mirror 1928

British Sound Wall 1930  

The sound mirrors could detect aircraft 20 to 30 miles away, and with the proper electronic equipment a range of up to 50 miles was claimed. Even without electrical amplification the utility of these devices was impressive. Of course in a low tech environment concrete would probably not be used. It might be more economical to make the large mirrors/walls out of stone blocks or carve them into a mountainside. In either case such an endeavor would require vast resources only available to a large organized state and not a standard feudal kingdom. In the case of less centralized governments the small mobile or personal sound locators might be more common. Regardless the most intelligent use of these devices would be to have several near the outer boundaries of the territory with a line of signals, whether that be fires or reflective mirrors or pigeons, to alert major areas of population about incoming threats.

















Concerning Anti-aircraft guns, this seems to be the easiest solution to solve. As a replacement for the guns themselves, ballistae could prove useful. The ballista could even be modified in a way to fire multiple missile in quick succession similar to the chinese chu-ko-nu.

Think this but big enough to kill a dragon

Other factors play into anti-aircraft than just the guns though. The use of mobile guns and emplaced guns working in conjunction was essential. Both of these are fairly simple to accomplish with ancient technology. Mobile guns can be placed on carts or boats or even simple rail systems(mule powered) connecting key areas of defense. During the latter part of WW2 the germans built several concrete fortresses to mount big anti-aircraft guns on. They were built in pairs, one had lighter defenses and was focused more on range finding while the central one caused the most actual damage to aircraft.

Looks kinda like a castle, huh?

Again these wouldn't be a grand change for medieval architects, simply adding emplacements for ballistae on top of a castle would probably suffice. Though in some cases height may be an issue, as the german towers were more than 100 ft tall and most historical castles didn't reach those heights as far as I know. Height/range may also prove an issue for ballistae too; the range of historical ballista was nothing like a standard flak gun. I guess it depends on how high the target is flying.

The last aspect of air defense seems to already be solved for us. Pretty much every castle and city in most fantasy worlds seems to have underground mazes and dungeons of one sort or another. A logical explanation for the purpose of such complexes is as bomb shelters. So, problem solved right? Probably not. I don't see a real need for bomb shelters in a fantasy world. Dungeons are still an inexplicable mystery for the most part. The problem is this; in a typical fantasy world there are no bombs! What is the point of a bomb shelter without bombs? Yeah, OK, an enemy could take a lot of big boulders and use flying mounts or spells to drop them from great heights(something pretty common in most games I have played), but these simply don't have the destructive power of actual exploding bombs. Without gunpowder or an equivalent to construct exploding shells the use of a bomb shelter is doubtful. Yes, being underground would protect against falling rocks, but so would a sturdy roof made of stone and angled in such a way at to deflect incoming missiles. This may prove as a point in favor of building underground to begin with. But this may cause other problems which we will get into next time.

The next post in this series will discuss threats from below for a Fantastic Fortress, and after that we may discuss the effects of D&D magic or land based monsters, and then finish with an example combining all elements and compare it to historical castle construction.

Dice and Fun

Today listening to the digressions and dragons podcast something was said that I'd like to talk about.

"A RPG in which the gm is not allowed or never gets to roll dice is not fun for the gm."  This is wrong. Why is your fun dependent on the rolling of dice? Go play Yahtzee if you just want to roll dice. As I've said before, I don't play the game to have fun. The dice, and the rules that go with them, are there to impose fairness. When something happens, it's not the gm making arbitrary decisions; the dice or the rules dictate the situation. I can make up all the stories, challenge, or combat I want for the players to go through without any dice, and yes it can be fun for all involved including myself, but without external forces the game will be limited to my imagination. The dice allow for circumstances that would never occur otherwise. The laws of chance are dictating the outcome of this action, and not me, an arbitrary judge. The dice provide justice for the players.

Interpreting Ridgelines

I am inclined to accept all the lines in the mountains as ridges, though I am not 100% decided on the issue. As I see it, if only ridgelines are shown, then some must both go up and down and meet at low point in the middle. this is caused because there are major north/south ridges with only east/west lines between them and they aren't easily explained as low spot because they are connected to spurs coming out of the range. I picture it as a series of east west ridges connecting the north south ridges forming successive saddles. Sort of like  many strings stung across two rails:

In the map below I have marked what I consider to be the direction of slope in this interpretation. the red arrows point downslope, the red circles are peaks, and the yellow lines are low points or the bottom of a saddle.

the biggest issue with this interpretation is the western side of the lost valley. the mountains around the valley must slope up based on textual descriptions and be steep, this means that the edge of those mountains into darokin is probably a straight drop. It can't be sloping down from teh valley edge to the foothills because that would be a slope over a distance of 2 miles to a height of up to 4000 ft for the valley floor, that is not steep enough to be inaccessible to the outside world.

The main reason I'm thinking the lines are all ridges is because of their complete interconnectedness. If there were a valley in between spurs the lines of the valley bottom wouldn't connect directly to the central ridge, there would be small gaps between the central ridge and the valleys. This pattern can be seen in many mountain ranges on google earth.

RANT: 'It's just a game'

I wrote this last night and wasn’t going to post it, but . . . here's my angry gibberish rant anyway.

reading this post from Alexis and listening to the first episode of the there and back again podcast has focused my attention this week. dnd and rpgs and other creative work is often labeled as a waste of time, trivial, simply 'fun'. well I’ve had it I’m sick of it. dnd is not just a game for me. and it shouldn't be for anyone who cares to put just a little bit of effort in. is basketball trivial. is it played just because it is fun? right now the winter Olympics are on, what makes the things done there important or trivial? is it important because it isn't fun? or because it is? do the performers enjoy skiing, skating, playing hockey? are they in the Olympics because it is fun are they celebrated because they had a fun time, no that is ridiculous. they compete to be the best at what they do, yes, they may take some joy from it and have fun along the way, but if you tell a hockey player to loosen up and just have some fun because its only a game you might be knocked on your butt. 

or to compare another popular game, what about Magic: the gathering of all your money. do people play only because it is fun, is that their only object in playing? don’t people play games for other reasons to have fun, what about competition? that doesn't apply to dnd because it’s a cooperative game? bull shit. do you think dnd is combat oriented just because all nerds have violent tendencies. yeah. right. just like video game encourage violence in among young people. no, don’t be stupid. combat=competition. the players are constantly in competition with the dm, the setting as presented by the dm, trying not to have a character die in the dangerous situations presented by the dm. so yes dnd is just a game. basketball is just a game, risk is just a game, magic is just a game. guess what life is just a game. I can't think of any games where the object is to have fun, is there a game out there where the goal of the game is to have fun? fun is common byproduct of games, and pretty much a lot of other experiences in life. fun is not limited to games. just because you expect a game to be fun doesn't mean that is the reason you are playing the game.

so, in the there and back again episode, Tolkien’s essays on fairy stories is discussed along with the poem mythopoeia. he wrote in response to cs Lewis saying that fantasy/myth was just lies breathed though silver. basically, Tolkien’s premise is that god created us in his image. god is a creator, though we are separated from god we still do as he does. he creates worlds in physical form, we create them though stories and myth. creation is human nature. dnd is one the best vehicle for human creation of our fantasies. we work to together to create a mutual myth. the dm gets to see his creation come to life for other people. his creation can be changed by the actions of others. it's not like a film or book or play or painting where it is done and remains the same, it is not just presented to an audience to say look at what I did isn't it pretty. dnd allows for a creation to morph and change based on how it is perceived by others. a dnd game can be a mutual creation shared and shaped by everyone involved. why do you think it is so hard to watch or listen to a dnd game? you’re not part of it so you can't understand the actual experience.

p.s. I don't feel like taking the time to find the quotes from mythopoeia or the podcast, you can listen to it here.

The Known World at the size of Europe.

As I mentioned in my last post, I think the original map from X1was designed to cover an area similar to europe. As an experiment, I did a quick georeference with thyatis located at rome and the northern reaches in Denmark. the end result is that each hex would be 40.5 miles from top to bottom and 46 miles from vertex to vertex. it would be interesting to play in a campaign where the mainland empire of thyatis is as big as Italy.