RMA: Thouls

These have come up recently in a few online forums and groups, so now they are on my mind.

A memorable take on the creature by the late, great Steve Zieser!

Thouls are pretty well known among a certain segment of the old-school D&D crowd. They are definitely one of the weirder creations within the BX books. The theory behind their creation that I subscribe to is that some DM was trying to fake their players out with something that looked like a normal humanoid, but had weird abilities.

Despite the fact that they have an almost iconic status. I have rarely seen them used outside of a written encounter in the module B10: Night's Dark Terror. 

Thoul (from Moldvay):

AC: 6

HD: 3**

Move: 120' (40')

Att: 2 Claws or weapon

Damage: 1d3/1d3 or weapon

No. App: 1d6 (1d10)

Save: F3

Morale: 10

Treasure: C

AL: C

Thouls are described in Moldvay as "a magical combination of a ghoul, a hobgoblin, and a troll." What this means in practice is that they look like a hobgoblin, but can paralyze you and they regenerate. They do appear as a level three wandering monster. With two potentially paralyzing attacks per round, 1d6+ of these creatures could give a low-level party a very bad time indeed. There are a couple of points to clarify, though.

1. They do not look exactly like hobgoblins. At close range, there are visible differences. A party might be able to spot them and prepare accordingly (or flee!).
2. Despite "ghoulish traits", they are not undead. This means that while a cleric's turning power is useless, Sleep or Charm spells can work. 
3. Their regeneration is only 1hp/round. While it is (apparently) not stopped by fire or acid damage, it will not revive a killed thoul.

I imagine thouls as a sort of sub-race to the hobgoblins. The description says they might be found guarding a hobgoblin king. Perhaps they are viewed as useful freaks? Who knows? As a DM, I think I would likely use them mixed in with the normal hobbos, so as the PCs work their way through the foe, there are a few nasty surprises waiting in the mix. Even though a Sleep spell can work on them, if they are among a bunch of 1+1 HD hobgoblins, the lower HD critters will take the brunt of the spell's effect. Their regeneration also means a bit more book-keeping in running them, but adds tot he scariness of the encounter.

The Endgame: Getting to Name Level (part 0)

Old-school D&D systems in general, and "non-Advanced" versions in particular, have a bit of a reputation for slow advancement and lethality (not necessarily in that order). How many 1st level corpses lie in the Caves of Chaos? How many brothers, sisters, sons, or cousins of the original PC had to take up the mantle before one of them made it to 2nd, or even 3rd (!) level? Some players are frustrated by this, and that's a fair point. The PC that perseveres may one day not only graduate from the red book to the blue, but eventually reach the airy realms of 9th+ level. A world where strongholds and wizard's towers may be built, followers start following, and the PC can move from murder hobo to robber baron.

Of course the party might choose to continue their wandering ways, slaying bigger and badder monsters and taking bigger and cooler stuff. Perhaps they need to gather a bit more hard coin before they can afford that moat for the castle. Maybe they're trying to impress the king so they can receive a title and fiefdom. In any case, a campaign that manages to get to this point is likely to see the dungeon crawl for crawling's sake as getting a bit stale. Players may well be ready for a new kind of challenge.

I confess that I've never run a BX game that got to this level. The closest it ever came was having a couple of Labyrinth Lord PCs reach 5th-6th level by the end of B10: Night's Dark Terror. Back in the day, our 1st edition game saw name level PCs and strongholds, etc. but we were pretty monty haul as kids & teens in the 80s. We hardly explored the political or military aspects that could have been integrated into the campaign.

For the next few posts, I plan on taking a look at the "name level PC" rules in BX, as well as some of the secondary rules associated with this level of play.

What to run?

(Forgive the lengthy rambling. I'm working a few things out in my head as I type.)

So my group is talking about wanting a more extended campaign instead of a series of short adventures and round-robin GM-ing. After Night's Dark Terror (which ran almost a year), we kind of took a break from longer campaigns. I totally understand wanting to play the same character for a longer stretch though. The question: What to play?

I had suggested running an LL/AEC megadungeon campaign for them, using either Barrowmaze, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, or Stonehell. All outstanding products, BTW. (I wish I'd written one or all of them!) The thinking was that it gave the campaign a definite structure, or at least a sort of axis to revolve around. Also, if the PCs had a base of operations (nearby town, etc.), it would make it easier to change the party makeup when one player couldn't make it or one that missed the previous session came to the next (PCs coming or going from town).

I didn't get a lot of buy-in on the idea, so it left me wondering what to try next. I considered Kelvernia, but the cross-genre aspects were a turn off to some. I realized that you can't please everyone, so I should focus on running something I wanted to run. The trouble was none of these choices really "grabbed" me.

I pondered various settings, modules, systems, etc. for a while, but none seemed a good fit for various reasons. Some of them had to do with me, but I couldn't ignore that player buy-in was crucial to not only the campaign's health, but my enthusiasm as a GM as well. It's hard to sit down behind the screen week after week when the people at the table aren't having fun. Then it occurred to me that I could try approaching this in a different way. I decided to start with what I knew about the players at my table and what motivated them (much like Robin Laws' player types and hooks), then I could look at those things and see where it led my imagination. I've always been more creative with a springboard instead of cut loose in a void.

By the way, if you haven't read Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, do so. NOW.

In the end, a series of distinct, but not wholly incompatible, trends emerged. Without naming names or pointing fingers, this is what I found defined my group as an aggregate. Some are more typical than others, but needed to be accounted for, IMO:

• A desire to see characters progress and "power up" through experience, influence, skill, loot, etc.
• Escapism into a fantasy world where the character can do cool things competently, including a reasonable amount of good old hack & slash.
• A chance to influence the story and the world around them.
• Opportunities to role play and character development through role play, including intra-party relationships and conflict.
• A fondness for military and martial themes (wars, invasions, special ops, etc.)
• A fondness for dark/horror themes.
• Different character types should have their chance to shine.
• A chance to think and act tactically, trying unorthodox or unexpected things. Also having the potential to be rewarded (in-game or meta) for doing so.

Not everyone displays all these traits, but almost none of them are utterly exclusive to one player. 

So what was my takeaway? 

1) A sandbox environment with no predetermined story arc. There should be good chances at combat, treasure, and magic.

2) The rules should allow for on-the-fly rulings that let players be creative and clever when dealing with the challenges in front of them, as well as a variety of challenges besides just dungeon crawls and combats.

3) Next, some sort of conflict like a war or rebellion would be a good hook generator, with a chance for the PCs to become involved, willingly or not. 

4) Ideally, there would be enough diversity and detail in the setting to make it immersive without being overwhelming, and provide RP opps for those who wished to interact with things like NPCs and forge ties to people and places. 

5) Lastly, there should be some element of darkness or weirdness to the place. It's shouldn't just be orcs and dragons. There should be real horrors out there that aren't going away because you can swing a sword.

What do I do with all this? Well, it gave me the germ of an idea. Let's just say that it involves LL+AEC and a published setting, but not a D&D one. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Take that, you fiend!

Awwww yeah!

Well, since Night's Dark Terror has wrapped up, it's time for me to get out from behind the screen for a little while. Our group is going to do some round-robin GMing for the next couple months. The idea is to have each game finish in ≈3 sessions so we can give someone else a chance to run if they like. 

Tonight we're starting a Tunnels & Trolls game. We'll be playing 7th ed. (7.5?), and my familiarity is from having played 5th ed. years ago, but I'm psyched. T&T was always a lot of fun. 

Closing In

I don't normally post about my campaign here. I usually just update the logs over at Obsidian Portal, but I realized that with Session #29 coming up tonight, we are closing in on the end of Night's Dark Terror. For those of you not familiar with B10, it's practically a campaign in itself. The story takes the characters all over most of eastern Karameikos. It's been a ton of fun, and I'm really pleased that we've managed to keep going through the whole thing. (knocks wood)

I will confess a certain level of GM fatigue, since I've been running this almost non-stop (with a few fun breaks) for the better part of a year, and trying to stick to a particular published module can be constraining at times. Perhaps when this is over someone else will run for a little bit. On the one hand that can be a relief, but on the other it's hard to step out from behind the screen and avoid backseat GM-ing. I can only say that if I end up playing instead of running, I will do my best to clam up.