Demon City, province of Barovia

The funny thing about Demon City is... well, there are many. I firmly believe that it's the best horror RPG ever made. Anyhow, a funny thing about Demon City is how rememberable it is. I haven't played Demon City in years. When I thought about converting the Hickmans' OG Ravenloft to it, it took me a couple minutes of lazy thinking to recall how the stats, the skills, the "classes" (motivations, that is), and the rest of character creation works, without bothering to actually open the book. 

Demon City's stats system is spelled RATPACK. R for Revenue (I thought it was Resources, probably because I love FASERIP, but no matter what you call it it's about how Rich a character is), A for Agility (so that's Dexterity in D&D, more or less), T is Toughness (and it's how well you can hit and take hits, an elegant in-game solution), P is Perception (Wisdom in D&D), second A is for Appeal (charisma, don't you know), C is Calm (v. important in a horror game, and clearly separated here, designers of games who don't have a stat for willpower should be ashamed of themselves and take notes and make better games), and K is Knowledge, don't you know. There's no Intelligence because it's a player stat, Knowledge decides how much information your character can get. 

And the skills give you slightly better chances to do things than the stats do, so if you're strong you can hit hard, but if you're strong and also a boxer you can hit harder. Little reasonable things like that. 

There're skills for all occasions and you can and should come up with new ones if you need them, I'll just throw away stuff like Hacking and Electronics. I'll also replace Firearms with Archery because I don't like guns. The rest is fine as it is, from Athletics to Forgery to Mechanics it's something that fits right in Barovia. 

The character motives don't really need any changing, because they're universal in Demon City, and answer two important quesitons: why are you even on your way to Barovia, and how do you deal with the horrible things that await you there. The Problem is, of course, my favourite though I never got to play it. Ah well, maybe one day. 

I'll get back to this topic once the players get together and throw some cards and make some PCs. In the meantime, I can fill in the My First Conspiracy... fill-in-the-blanks sheet. The Villain is, of course, count Strahd. The Oracle is the vistani leader, I'll call her Madame Magda because it's a better name, and her method of divination is her Tarokka deck. The minions should take some time filling in, and it should be a fun exercise. 

The villain's Task and HQ?  Why, that's determined by the card reading after the game starts. That's what makes it interesting. 

 

I, Strahd, walk the land, and look smashing while I do.  

Illustrator Clyde Caldwell

LotFP Has A Sale And New Free Books

Basically this. 

https://lotfp.substack.com/p/new-books-now-available-lotfp-year

James and Yannick and Glynn and Matthew are all good at what they do (I worked with them). 

Order some good stuff, get some good stuff for free, I can't think of a better deal. 

 

James Raggi introduces the Nebulith

James describes it as "Zak's best work". Also as something that you, the audience, should buy as soon as possible. 

And here's why.  

 

The Nebulith is here.

 Remember that book about fantasy Okinawa that was in the works for the past couple years? 

Well, it's here now. 

And it looks gorgeous. And soon (like, today or tomorrow) available from LotFP European webstore, and also at Ropecon and Gencon. 

 

And more about it here.

Second to last F. Paul Wilson's book...

FPW is one of my favourite authors, ever. If you just count those who are alive tomorrow, he's definitely in top 3. 

The Keep was one of those books that defined fantasy to me. And then I discovered Repairman Jack, and the idea of an urban mercenary who is forced to fight the unnamed horrors from the pages of Secret History of the world was cool. And there were bits of real life in the stories that made them better - the dirty secrets of modern "psychics" and cults. 

The Upwelling is the penultimate book that he had written. 

The last one should come out this autumn. 

It's like those tales about master swordsmiths who create their finest blades before retiring forever. The Hidden duology is F. Paul Wilson's last. 

It might turn out to be his finest. 

Anyways, you can now buy The Upwelling, first book of The Hidden. 

And keep your eyes open for the second book, Lexie. 

Thinking of more LotFP-compatible stuff...

Fact: Ursula Le Guin was one of the great ones. That goes without saying. 

Fact: Le Guin's magic in Earthsea is cool. It is very non-Vancian mechanically (in the D&D fire-and-forget meaning), but also very Vancian in the mood (wizard of the Dying Earth desperately try to recover lost spells, out of which only about a hundred are still known; wizards of Earthsea spend years finding out a single word of True Speech - not that I think of it, "The Dying Earthsea" sounds like a good adventure title). A wizard talks to the world in the language of creation, and the world listens. 

Which is why I'm now working on a tribute adventure, with a new class and magic and probably a magic item or two and all that jazz. 

And it's probably going to be somewhat like silver bestseller All Dogs Go To Hell which you can buy here, and the magic items are probably going to be along the line of Magic Item Collection and Generator which you can also buy here. It's a little something that I like to call creative style. 

 

Another TCTC Con...

Last weekend I was at Terminal City convention, hosting some Lamentations of the Flame Princess games. 

Tried out Becami's adventure, The Black Chamber, which turned out deadly but not before I unleashed some creative spellcasting violence. The Referee, Austin, wrote a bit about this year's game and a bit about last year's game that I ran, you can read it at WatcherDM. And maybe buy some stuff while you're at it, "Dragons&Dragons" sounds like a good title. 

I ran my murder-investigation LotFP adventure, and it seemed to work fine, different from the playtesting but still enjoyable. 

Also I got to use The Collection and Generator. The players used the Snake Mantle to talk to the Nagadusa, and were so not ready for the snake poetry slam that followed (and smart enough not to challenge the Nagadusa to a staring contest, unlike some people I used to know), but rolled high and thus succeeded. And they killed a horrible creature that possibly was inspired by Donald Trump. 

That's it with the advertisements for the week, let's get back to work. The Convulsium will not write itself. More on that later.