Here’s the first part of a list of 26 lesser-known roleplaying games, one for each letter of the alphabet. Some of these you’ve probably heard of, others  you may not. Many of these are out of print, but can frequently be found from used game outlets or on PDF reprint sites like Drive-Thru RPG. Maybe you’ll find something new that sounds fun to try:

• Aria: Really a game more about making a world than playing a character. Based on the idea of the “monomyth“, Aria drew on ideas popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth.
• Bunnies and Burrows: No, I’m not making this one up. Yes, it is a game where you play a rabbit. Inspired by the novel, Watership Down, the game (published in 1976) is known for being the first (to the best of my knowledge) to introduce martial-arts and skill systems.
• Chill: A horror RPG system. Though never as popular as Call of Cthulhu, it did have a loyal following in the late ’80s and early ’90s (including myself).
• Dr. Who: Published by FASA in 1985, and based on the British television series, players played renegade Time Lords and their companions working for the CIA — that’s the Celestial Intervention Agency, an illegal Gallifreyan organization set up to protect the universe from threats such as the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master.
• Empire of the Petal Throne (Tékumel): Originally published in 1976, Tékumel outshone the other games of its day when it came to sheer detail of a fantasy world. It’s creator, Professor M.A.R. Barker created a world of astonishing complexity, including an actual language and written alphabet.
• FUDGE (Free Universal Donated Gaming Engine): The first (to the best of my knowledge) widely-available free game system, Fudge offers a universal, rules-light system designed to be adapted to any setting the GM desires to run. It’s still available and still free. You can download it at Grey Ghost Press, Inc.

On Monday, I’ll post part 2 of this series: G-K. Until then, happy gaming!

*Ball of Abysmal Flame

One of my all-time favorite RPGs is Ars Magica. I love the fact that it doesn’t try to impose game balance limitations on mages. I also love the troupe-style play where everyone gets to play a magus/maga and something else. As a Storyguide, I love the fact that the group as a whole works together to create at least some of the NPCs (grogs).

But something else I hadn’t expected when I started playing Ars was how much it would improve my D&D characters.

I’d never really played many magic-users in D&D 1st ed., mostly because (and my current DM and fellow players are going to laugh at this) I couldn’t figure out how to use spells effectively. Seriously — beyond Magic Missle, Lightening Strike, and Fireball, I’d look at my spell list and my brain turned to jelly. Nothing MUs were able to do seemed to compare to the ability to pick locks, do massive amounts of damage with a two-handed sword, or lay hands to heal people.

Enter Ars Magica.

Ars has something of steep learning curve. Its magic system is definitely very different from D&D. It threw me for quite awhile, but after several game sessions of watching my fellow magi at their best, something clicked. I started to be able to see different uses for my Arts and Spells. I came to love Ars’ Sponteneous Magic. To this day, I rarely use formulaic spells.

Then I came back to D&D. I decided I wanted to give magic-users a try again, hoping my experience in Ars would help me. It did. I had a little difficultly refocusing my mind on formulaic spells, rather than spontaneous casting, which led me to prefer the sorcerer over the wizard class. Yes, I was still constricted to a spell list, but at least I could use any spell I knew any number of times. Truthfully, though, it wasn’t so much a number of spells or the amount of times I could cast one that made the decision for me: it’s the idea of the sorcerer as a natural caster that appeals to me.

I admit, when I create a new magic-user in D&D now, I think of them in Ars Magica terms first, then translate that into D&D as closely as I possibly can. For example, I’m currently play two different sorcerers in two different games. I’ll break them down into Ars concepts, then show the translation to D&D

Galen Gerhardt: In Ars Magica terms, Galen would be a member of House Jerbiton. He’s a court sorcerer and bard (and spy, but that’s neither here nor there…) of a powerful prince, with a Gentle Gift and an Animal Affinity. His specialty is Rego Mentum magic, though he’s got a strong amount of Rego Animal in there, too. In D&D terms, that translates into a human sorcerer heavy on the charm magics and people skills. His favorite spells: Eagle’s Splendor, Charm Monster, Charm Person, and Touch of Idiocy.

Feynan Starshadow: In Ars Magica terms, Feynan would be a rather stereotypical Flambeau, except his magic focuses on electricity rather than fire. Still, he’s heavy on the Creo Ignum magics and has faery blood. In D&D, he’s a half-elven sorcerer of the blaster type. His favorite spells: Lightening Bolt, Electric Loop and Lesser Orb of Electricity (from the Spell Compendium), frequently combined with Web.

By thinking of my magic-user in Ars terms, I’ve managed to create two completely different characters. I haven’t yet tried it with other game systems, but I can image it would work for them, too. And I’m sure this thinking would work for characters other than magic-users. How about you? What other systems have you drawn on to create D&D characters?

Oh — and for those of you wondering:

ArM Code 1.5 4- Ca+ R H++ L- G+++ Y1995 T– SG P++ HoH Cr+ Tr+ Ty++ J+ FZ C+ Cd

Predicting is always a tricky prospect. Where will D&D be in five years? 10 years? 20?

While I would love to sing D&D’s praises to the highest, I’m afraid that five years down the road, I won’t be playing it. What I mean is, that it’s unlikely I’ll be playing whatever the current edition of that time is. Most likely, I’ll still be playing 3.5 ed with the occasional “beer and pretzels” 1st ed game.

You see, I actually left the D&D fold completely after the introduction of 2nd ed. After playing (pretty much exclusively) D&D for almost 10 years, I got far more intrigued by other games: Amber, GURPS, Ars Magica, Trinity, World of Darkness, Traveller, various home-brew systems, including my own. I’d gotten frustrated with 1st ed’s limitations — that a thief always had the same skills as every other thief, etc., not to mention the whole alignment controversy (which I won’t go into here).

It was 3rd ed. that brought me back. The addition of skills and feats meant that I could have a thief that was more of a highway man, or a magic-user who was a “people person” and not a high-powered blaster. But despite the new additions to the system, I felt it still managed to keep the flavor of D&D. Now don’t ask me to quantify why — I can’t. It’s just to me it still, for some untangible reason, “feels” like the 1st ed. D&D done better.

Now 4th ed. doesn’t do a thing for me. To me, it feels like an MMORG brought to the tabletop. Not a bad thing, if that’s what you’re into and I can see how it would be very accessible for brand new players. It looks like, from my read-throughs, that it’s a good game in it’s own right. It’s just not my cup of tea for a number of reasons. And, to me, it doesn’t feel like D&D. Again, that’s an emotional, gut-reaction and I can’t put my finger on why. But because of it, I’m very unlikely to buy anything from the line.

Will there be a D&D in the future? I think there’ll still be something called “Dungeons and Dragons”. It’s staying power has been proven. Will I be playing it? That all depends on what the game does between now and then.

This post is part of the RPG Blogger’s July Blog Carnival.

Sometimes creating a believable city or town is one of the hardest parts of building an adventure or campaign. You don’t want all your towns to look the same and you definitely don’t want to get stuck in the generic “fantasy town”, consisting of a tavern/bar, inn or other lodgings, magic shoppe, etc.

Below I’ve gathered a list of web resources to help provide city building know-how and inspiration. Enjoy!

• City Overseer 3D. Software to help you build cities for your game. I haven’t tried it, yet. If anyone else has, I’d love it if you wrote a review for me. If it’s well-written, I’ll even publish it here!
• City Rant Part One & City Rant Part Two. Some great ideas for city building basics, including details usually overlooked, like what are the conditions of animals in the city and using sound to describe your city.
• Culture and Curfew in Fantasy City. More an article on the darker side of Liverpool, London. But it does ask questions and bring up points useful for adapting to a fantasy or SF city.
• Fantasy Cities – Wizards Community. A forum board with some great advice and example of building fantasy cities.
• Fantasy City Project. A collaborative fantasy city being built on-line and you can join in.
• Free fantasy city generator downloads. A download site for free software designed to help you create a city. I have no idea of the quality of safety of this software. Use at your own risk.
• How to make the “shantytown” in your city REALLY gritty/scary. A forum discussion about ways to “dirty up” your city.
• How to Plan a Country or Region in a Fantasy RPG World. While not focused on city creation itself, this article does give some step-by-step advice on creating RPG settings that could easily be applied to cities.
• How to Start a Campaign: City Building (The Harrow: The RPG Collection). Some good ideas for setting up the basics of a new city.
• Shared World’s Top Five Real Fantasy/SF Cities. Fantasy and SF authors pick real-world cities that would make great locations for stories.
• Welcome to the Page of City Resources. A list of links useful for creating fantasy cities
• What might help me create the history of a fantasy city-state? A question posed to Yahoo! Answers. The reply brings up some good points to consider when creating your city.

Here’s some listing of world-building sites who’s information can be adapted for city creation:

• 30 Days of WorldBuilding. A step-by-step guide to creating a fantasy world
• Creating the Fantasy World
• Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions Part 1. A listo f questions to answer as you’re creating your fantasy setting.
• How to Create Fantasy Worlds
• Magical World Builder

Related Posts:

• Location Worksheet
• Meadowbrook. Details of an example fantasy city

As a D&D player, I’ve developed a reputation for making combat use of non-combat spells. Sure, dealing out massive amounts of damage with Fireball or Lightening Strike is a lot of fun — there’s no denying that — but I get even more enjoyment out of find ways to use other spells in a fight. Whether it’s casting Nystul’s Magic Aura on all the party’s weapons (great for intimidating opponents in low-level games) or using Animate Rope to trip an opponent, I love watching the DM’s face whenever I come up with an idea he’s never seen before.

When I started playing 3.5 ed., I discovered that familiars can carry touch spells to a target and a whole new world opened up to me. My biggest success to date is the Touch of Idiocy spell. While our opponents were camping in the woods, I sent my weasel familiar to deliver Touch of Idiocy to the group’s sorcerer while he was tending to a “call of nature”. Since we were in a wooded area, I guessed he wouldn’t notice the presence of a normal woodland creature.

He didn’t. After removing 4 pts (each) of intelligence and wisdom and 6 pts of charisma, our opponents were without their spellcaster for the entire combat, allowing us to defeat them more easily than we would otherwise. Unfortunately, this trick now only works once in awhile, as word got around and our opponents have started killing every small creature than came near them.

Other “creative” spell uses I’ve come up with:

• “Blanking out” written mission orders using Erase
• Researching a new version of Reduce Person that only shrinks the actual person — not anything they’re wearing or carrying — and using that in combat. It’s really fun to watch your opponent get tangled up in their own clothes.
• Using Detect Thoughts to determine if there were any invisible opponents around us. Granted, it doesn’t tell me where the invisible critters are, but it can at least warn me that I need to start looking for them.
• Luring an opponent into a room with a single small doorway, then casting Enlarge Person on him, effectively trapping him until the spell wears off.
• Using Levitate on a dropped or thrown weapon to put it up out of an opponent’s reach, keeping them from retrieving it.
• Hiding an ambush using Rope Trick
• Mending an opponent’s sheath opening. This traps their dagger or sword inside the sheath, making it take longer for your opponent to draw their weapon (thereby — sometimes — creating attacks of opportunity for our side).
• Casting Grease on an opponent’s weapon handle (preferably before they draw it, thereby avoiding the need for a saving throw).

This post is part of the July RPG Blog Carnival, hosted (this month) by 6d6 Fireball.