DragonQuest Adventure and other updates

Expanding from my dice.camp post :

I’ve been trying to pull together the pieces of a DragonQuest adventure idea for a while. I’ve had ideas for a couple interesting things earlier this spring – and in particular, a sequel to my first published DQadventure, The Water Works – but it wasn’t coming together completely. This weekend’s breakthrough was coming up with a framework for what is going on. I’m not sure if it’s going to work out yet, but I have something that I can start to work around. As a seasonal metaphor, I have a skeleton, and now I can see if I can put flesh onto those bones.

I often start with the architecture, and build up the narrative to inhabit that place. I have a couple locations I wanted to use, but had to figure out who was in them and why they were there. Now that I have some of the why, the next pieces will start to come together, hopefully.

I’m always leery of predicting that the path forward is now clear, because prior experience has taught that that is never the case. But, if you are a DQ GM who might be interested in this, I’d like to line up a couple of alpha reviewers for feedback about parts of this once it starts getting to that point.

The premise for this, in the broadest terms, is going to be another elemental magics laboratory to be explored; this time it’s a facility for the College of Air Magics. The final title will be something different, but for now, I’m referring to this as the Gasworks.

Other updates

There are now three sets of #dungeon23 Pamphlet Zines available. I’m still looking for one last piece of art for the last three issues; if you have a lead on someone who has a small piece of dungeon-related art that they would be interested in licensing for use in a small zine project.

If you want to pick up a copy of one or several of the PDFs for these, they are available at both DriveThruRPG and rthorm.itch.io. Each zine is a single-sheet, legal-size, double-sided, black-and-white zine with random tables, map fragments, and a thematic article. Hardcopies are available from Exalted Funeral or directly from us through the itch.io site. You can pick up single issues from Exalted Funeral; if you purchase through itch.io, they are available only as a set of 3 zines (sets divided in each quarter of the year).

On a more personal note, things have been a little more sparse around here the past few weeks because we had a house fire earlier this year, and all the complications from that are taking a lot of attention. But hopefully we can start to do a bit more on some other RPG things.

A New DragonQuest Adventure?

No promises, yet; but I’m thinking about a potential new DragonQuest adventure.

(Isn’t that game, like, a century old?)
Thank you for asking; what brings you to this site, anyhow?

The Water Works was the first DQ adventure that I published. Between the backstory in that scenario and the organization of magic in DQ, there is an implication that there could be other ‘Works’ adventures. But inspiration has been fickle and fleeting.

It’s been a nagging thing at the back of my mind ever since I created the first one. There have been occasional little bits of ideas through the years. The titles were there: Earth Works; Gas Works; Fire Works(!); even Clock Works (for Time Magics, which is an Elemental College). Some ideas have stuck around for a while, but never with any real sense they were going anywhere.

This time seems different, though.

A couple months ago, something put a couple pieces together, and it clicked as the latest inspiration. It feels like something I might have some traction with this time. For the first time, there are characters (NPCs) who might be there. There are a couple of set-piece elements that could be developed into something that might be cool. I even have a rough, drawn-on-lined-note-paper sketch map for a locale that starts to suggest some elements.

It’s too soon to say anything more than this about it, but at the same time, I want to see if anyone else is even interested. Many years back, I ran a crowdfunding campaign (with IndieGoGo) to produce a DragonQuest adventure. The ways these things were done was a lot less well understood, and it took a long time to bring it together. I won’t make that mistake again, but if it’s going to be something that I’m going to do, I want to open the process up and let people who are interested in it get to participate in it from the early stages. There aren’t a lot of DQ players out there, so if I’m going to do this, it should be something that those folks can participate in.

So, if you’d like to hear more about this, drop me a line on Mastodon (for those of you using Mastodon; I’m (at) rthorm (at) dice.camp) or good old email dragonquest (at) antherwyck.com. If this goes further, I’ll let you know.

Wilderness of Ordurak print map

The Wilderness of Ordurak adventure has been out for a few years now. The original backers (who picked that level) got print versions with both the adventure book and a poster (12″ x 18″) copy of the map. But, since it was made available on DriveThruRPG, the print version of the map has not been available, until now.

There were a couple of typos in the original Ordurak map. After the crowdfunding campaign, when we first made the adventure available to the public, after making the corrections, the print version had a lot of bad, unexplained pixelation. I tried a couple times to re-send the file, but I couldn’t get a decent print version. So this got shifted to the back burner. Most people were okay with getting just the PDF version anyhow, it seemed.

However, one long-time DQ fan wanted a print copy, and helped keep this in my attention. I recently got Affinity Publisher, and decided to try using that to export the print file, now that DriveThru is explicitly recommending Affinity as software to produce print ready files. So I used that to export the image file for the map and sent that to DriveThru.

And, although it’s the busy season, I got the proofs back yesterday, and this time, they look fine.

I think what had happened was just a production glitch; but I could never understand why the problems that we had cropped up. The side-by-side image above shows the older, pixelated version (right) and the current, corrected version (left). The pixelation is not in the original image file, and anyone who got the PDF version of the map had a perfectly good copy. But something about the printer’s settings at DriveThru caused problems.

So here is the link for the Wilderness of Ordurak map, if you’re interested in picking up a copy of the map yourself.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150356/The-Wilderness-of-Ordurak–Map-only

Unfortunately, if you want to get print versions of the whole package (the adventure, the gazetteer, and the map), you have to place two separate orders, and pay shipping twice, because the map is printed by their cards facility, rather than their book facility.

If there are a number of people who want to get the full print package, I could assemble sets myself, and send them out as a complete package. It probably won’t be until mid-2023 that we’d do this, but if you would be interested in a complete print package from us, shipped all together, let us know here: orders@antherwyck.com

If we get enough interest to justify it, we’ll put together some whole sets for you and send them out.

AntherZine v1n2

The latest issue of AntherZine is now available!

The contents of this issue include DQ articles discussing Poor Brendan’s Almanac, notes about a podcast interview with Chris Klug, and a new creature for DQ. There are also articles about managing an inn, which uses some DQ references, but is highly adaptable to any FRPG, and a table of interesting water crossing encounters. And, on the SF side of things, we have a remix of the game Scream! Into the Void! that was originally released last year by HodagRPG.

Right now, you can get it at DriveThruRPG .

If you just want the free stuff, it will be set to a PWYW price after the initial release period, so you’ll have to wait for a while, but keep on the lookout for it later this year.

The previous issue of AntherZine is also available as a Pay What You Want at DriveThru RPG.

Antherwyck & DragonQuest Updates – Feb 2021

There’s more to this post than originally intended, and I blame Froth, and Twitter.  A few weeks ago, I was listening to the ThoughtEater Podcast Humpday RPG Show when I was shocked to hear a question about DragonQuest come up: “I’ve heard of it; has anyone ever played it?”

Obviously, I have a few thoughts and a little bit of experience about the subject.  And so, after a little messaging back and forth with Froth – who had asked the question, and some wrestling with sound recording, a couple weeks later, I had a recorded a few minutes of discussion about DQ which was included on the show a couple weeks later.

Separate from this, we had started talking about ZineQuest, and thinking again about the Anther-Zine we had started working on, and had roughed out, before 2020 really blew up and turned into all that 2020 was.

We’re polishing things up and getting AntherZine Volume 1, Number 1 ready, and will be releasing it as a PDF in the next couple weeks.  We’re hoping that it will be something that we can start doing on a regular basis, and have also started working on the first issue for Volume 2.  The present plan is to have a forward-subscription model.  If you support us for one issue, you’ll automatically get the next one.  And if you support that one, you’ll automatically get the one after that. And we’ll have a subscriber-supporter level where you sign up for a year’s worth of issues.  Past a certain point, back issues will be released in pay-what-you-want mode.  But those who want to support it can get earlier access.  We will also probably do some physical copies, and figure that a few people may want to get those.  We’ll have some more about all of this when we officially release it.

Also, perhaps as a result of the DQ discussion on the podcast and accompanying posts on Twitter, an old friend showed up and had some questions about the Wilderness of Ordurak adventure and about any other forthcoming DQ projects.  We’re looking into making it possible to get print copies of the regional map from the Wilderness, and hope to have something on that soon, as well..

Until now, I haven’t wanted to say much about it, because it’s early, and these things tend to take a lot of time to complete, but I have started on re-working and expanding the Medford Adventure, which was outlined in the DQ files years back.  There wasn’t a lot there, but it was a solid outline to work from.  I’ve been working on it sporadically for a couple months. There’s no specific timeline for it yet, but it’s underway, and I’ll start giving some updates about it as it moves along.  It’s going to be more in the range of The Sentinel Keep in size, rather than another Wilderness of Ordurak.

Lastly, a quick reminder that there is a listserv for DQ discussion if you are looking to start new discussions.  You can sign up for that at:
http://dq.antherwyck.com/listinfo.cgi/dq_discussion-antherwyck.com

Poor Brendan’s Update & Bug Hunt

The printing company that works with DriveThruRPG for their production is phasing out their saddle stitching. So, many smaller print books that used this as an option are going to have to be converted to a perfect-bound format. (So, in less print jargon, any books that were stapled together, like a comic book, are going to instead have to be bound like a paperback book.)

Some titles are able to be converted automatically (or at least automatically enough that the printer is going to do those. Others, though, are going to require a new cover design, and will have to go through new proofing in order to be available again.

For the Antherwyck Games titles, this affects Poor Brendan’s Almanac, our DragonQuest rules supplement. So, there are a couple points to be made. First, Poor Brendan’s may be unavailable for a short while (though the PDF will still be there, of course; this only affects print hardcopies). But, if we have to revise the print version, we ought to clean up any typos and errors in the current version while we are at it, and maybe make some other updates to the book at the same time. So, if you’ve noticed a typo (or something worse) in the book, let us know, and we’ll get it corrected in the new edition, and we’ll add you to the contributors list in that version, as well.

And, for those of you with just the PDF version, when the new updates are put through, you should be automatically contacted to get the revised copy of your PDF, as well.

Zine ideas for 2020

Next month, Kickstarter is running their ZineQuest to encourage people to produce RPG-related zines.  Thor and I have been discussing a couple of options.

One is a general interest, RPG topics kind of zine, with pieces of some of the fragmentary game ideas we have been kicking around but haven’t yet been able to get to a finished state, along with other supporting materials for games.  A miscellany, in short.

The other idea is to bring back the DragonQuest Newsletter.  My initial thought with this is to take the old DQNs and re-format them for print/PDF, and add some new material with each issue.  I’d have to take a look to see what sort of size of project

With either of these, I think we’re looking at doing a print version for US, and PDF available worldwide.  We could also have a delayed print level for non-US subscribers where you wouldn’t get the print copies until the end of the year’s run (assuming 4 issues/year). So we’d only have to do one international mailing, and that’s probably viable without us incurring stupid-ridiculous mailing costs.

If you have any thoughts about this (especially if you are a potential supporter of the project), let me know in the comments, or drop me a line.

Another UCon (2019)

I was scheduled to run a couple of sessions of DragonQuest at this year’s UCon in Ypsilanti MI this past weekend.  I missed last year due to conflicts with my old job. Two years ago, I had one session with zero attendees, but the other session was sold out in advance (which turned out to be a group of players who all knew each other and were a gaming group back in their hometown; they were all interested in DQ, but had never played it before).  So that turned out to be a fairly interesting session.

Unfortunately, I had no one show up for either session of my game.  There was a guy who walked by on Friday evening and saw my DQ book on the table, and remarked on remembering playing DQ in college (me too).  But there were other things also being run that night, and one player wasn’t enough to get anything going.

It was my hope that signing up to run a couple events would spur me to work on writing a new adventure, but then we decided to buy this house we’ve moved into, so I’ve been kept busy with house moving and everything around that.

However, I did see a couple local people I’ve played DQ with in the past, and those conversations have started another cycle of thinking about starting a new DQ campaign, particularly now that I have a larger space that could be more accommodating to a group getting together here once a month, or so.

But, along with that, I’m thinking about how to make a lighter game system that would be more accommodating to a group of people who want to play the game and develop the story we are telling, and is less about the bits and pieces of the game mechanics.

Once more, I’m thinking about DQ Lite in some fashion or other.  Something that is easier to pick up and run with if you are only having infrequent sessions (which is the reality for most of us).

“The End Is Nigh” (for Yahoo Groups)

[Edit to add email address for subscribing: dq_discussion-subscribe@dq.antherwyck.com]

As you may have heard Yahoo Groups is shutting down as of December 14 (They will be freezing the uploading of new content as of October 21^st [some places say October 28^th).

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/yahoo-is-deleting-all-content-ever-posted-to-yahoo-groups/

John Rauchert (from DQPA) has been working on archives of the various DQ lists.

As a replacement to the DQN-list, I have a listserv I set up through Antherwyck.com that can serve as the new home for DragonQuest discussions.  If you get an archive of old DQ lists and content, we can add links to those from the pages for the list.

http://dq.antherwyck.com/listinfo.cgi/dq_discussion-antherwyck.com

It’s very rudimentary, and mostly using default settings right now, so some tweaks will need to be made in the next few weeks.  But hopefully this is an appropriate and useful replacement for the Yahoo groups, and can help support the DQ community into the future.

(I’m in the midst of a move into a new house, so I’m a little distracted and overwhelmed at the moment, but I will try to stay on top of the administration to get this launched well and up and running.)

Cheers!

–Rodger Thorm

Podcasts – Sept 2019

Having a little impromptu conversation about the DragonQuest community earlier today, and that prompted a couple of thoughts.  One, that I will save to expound on later, is considering a re-start of the DragonQuest Newsletter.  Post Google+ implosion, there has not been a good central community for DQ discussions.  There are a number of social media platforms, and many of the communities that found traction with common interests don’t fare as well as standalone communities.

I’m not sure if podcasts serve to replace those communities, but they are, for me, at least, a better gateway to the wider range of things going on in gaming circles, even if there’s not a specific one related to DQ.

Here are a few gaming-related podcasts I’ve become a somewhat regular listener to, and which might be of interest to some readers here. These work for me; YMMV

Making a 21st Century DragonQuest

There was some discussion on Twitter this weekend posing the question: “What clunker of an older game do you dream of pairing with a modern ruleset that you think would make the world shine?”

I misunderstood the question (Twitter does not encourage thoughtful reading), and I took it less as an A-plus-B question than as a question of an older rule system that could shine with a more modern revision. And, of course, my mind went directly to DragonQuest (though I certainly don’t think it’s a clunker, but it is lost in a mostly forgotten corner of the gaming world.

So what might a modern DQ look like? That’s the discussion I’d like to start having.

I’ve more or less set aside the Open Source DQ project, because I don’t think it would accomplish that much to re-write the game. And the Seagate Rules are a pretty comprehensive version of that for those who want something like that to work with. But a more thorough reworking of the system could potentially be more interesting, and a better project at this point. And a new version of DQ could be appealing to a new generation of players.

In my experience, newer players have had difficulty managing and tracking all the minute details of the game. And I would rather have a faster moving game that could still do all the things DQ does, with less of the calculation that generally slows things down. Making things a bit more streamlined, and paring back some of the detail that doesn’t contribite that much to the game to create a faster playing game that nevertheless retained much of the character (other than the accounting-level numbers) of the game.

Since the original game is percentile based, it would be comparatively easy to make a D10 version that was fairly cross-compatible with the parent. If your strike chance was 73 and the first digit rolled was a 4, you didn’t need the second digit. You could keep track of the character with percentages, but use a faster D10 system that simplified and speeded up actions during play.

Chris Klug at one point a few years ago was talking about adapting a d20/DQ ruleset that built on the ubiquity of D&D. I’m not sure that’s the best way to go. Speaking personally, one of the things that drew me to DQ was the more human level of the characters (even high-level heroes are comparatively vulnerable in DQ, versus the accumulated Hit Points in D&D). And the infinite range of characters based on skills and abilities, rather than a handfull of classes. D&D has done a lot since the version that was around when DQ came out, but I don’t think D&D is the direction to take a new variant for DQ.

And because of the modular nature of the DQ rules, it would be possible to swap in new combat rules, for example, but keep the magic and skills as they are. Or other combinations short of full conversion would also be possible.

But this kind of project is a different kind of thing than what I’ve been discussing in the past; the formatting and coordination and organization is secondary to the general approach to the major game systems.  I’ll have some preliminary ideas about these in the next couple weeks.

DQ World Generation

[EDIT: First link is now direct to file. But I encourage you to check out Phil’s article, as well.]

A draft copy of the World Generation supplement for DragonQuest (direct link) has been located and is now available.  If you had bet that you’d be getting a copy of previously unseen DragonQuest materials for the first time in 2019, collect your winnings at the door.  The rest of us are just going to enjoy having a chance to look this over.

Enormous thanks to Phil Wright, who had gotten a copy of it many years back (you can read his story on his site where he has the PDF) and who is hosting and sharing it:

https://dqmusings.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-unreleased-world-generation.html

Some parts from this index are missing in the final draft, but the pages have been OCRed and cleaned up, and it’s quite a manuscript.

Thanks, also, to Steve Jackson, the original author of the work, for allowing it to be shared publicly at this point.

I’ll have more to say about this once I’ve read the whole thing.

[I had a chance to start looking at this before Phil got his link up, so this began as an article saying it was coming soon, but I just got work from him that it’s now posted, so go download a copy and check it out yourself!]

Post- Deal of the Day Thoughts

Thanks to the folks who picked up a copy of “The Sentinel Chapel” as yesterday’s Deal of the Day at DriveThruRPG. It was good to get a few sales, and now it’s in the hands of a wider range of folks. Hopefully, a couple of them will give some feedback, and then, maybe, we’ll work on putting out a sequel to it (?)

No promises there, but it’s in the back of my mind.

I’m surprised at the uptake from Fantasy Trip (TFT) players, and I only started re-discovering the close connections between DQ and TFT over the break, when I put together the conversion page. But, with the recent new activity for TFT, this might be a useful synergy.

“Sentinel Chapel” Deal of the Day

We just got the word that “The Sentinel Chapel” adventure will be the Deal of the Day at DriveThruRPG on January 2 (starting around 11am EST; 10am CST; … Later in the day for European friends.) PDF version will be on sale for $2.97

#DragonQuest #TFT #FantasyTrip #OSR

https://www.drivethrurpg.com?affiliate_id=313167

Late in the year, as the harvest season is closing, and towns and villages are preparing for the coming winter, word has reached the group that someone is looking for a small band of adventurers for a dangerous, but well-paying task. They are to travel into the Fealhoa Valley, a region that has been deadly dangerous for the past 30 years, when it became overrun with monsters and undead creatures. A village called Cambray, several days’ travel into the Fealhoa Valley has been cut off, and no one has been in contact with that community for many years.

The adventurers are to travel to the site of a chapel located about a day’s travel from the town of Cambray and recover the silver letters on the family graves of a group of silversmiths who were originally from Cambray, and whose remaining family members now live in exile.

Mixing DragonQuest and The Fantasy Trip

The most recent Antherwyck House Games adventure, “The Sentinel Chapel,” was written with DragonQuest rules.  But it seemed that it should be easy to convert it for use with other systems.  And now we’ve done just that with conversion notes to use the adventure with Metagaming’s (and now Steve Jackson Games) The Fantasy Trip.  The PDF is now included with the adventure files from DriveThruRPG, and can also be directly downloaded here.

TFT shares a lot with DQ.  Both are based on tactical, single-figure combat rules systems (Arena of Death from SPI, which became the DQ combat system, and the Melee Microgame, which is the TFT combat system). Both are hex-based, as well, and close enough in scale (5 foot hexes for DQ; 1.33 meter hexes for TFT, which are about 4.4 feet, so close enough for interoperability).

Beyond the functional similarities between systems, they are both systems that maintain the relative fragility of human beings.  Unlike heroic RPG systems (D&D et al) where characters level up to absurd levels of power and durability, a starting character is not that much different than an experienced one in either DQ or TFT.  And a seasoned hero can still be felled by a single well-placed blade (unlike characters who need to go through rounds and rounds of hit point attrition to wear them down).

There is also no hierarchy of classes to restrict what any players’ character can or cannot do.  There are instead, lots of talents or skills that any character can obtain, allowing for a much more interesting and unique set of abilities for any individual character to have.

I probably never really dived into the potential cross connections between the two systems, despite the fact that I played in campaigns of both as some of the earliest RPG games I was in decades ago.  Both DQ and TFT are comparatively orphan games, but with TFT making a comeback now that Steve Jackson Games has re-acquired the rights to the game, maybe things will get interesting in the coming year.

Please get in touch if you’re also a TFT player.  Having now dug out my copies of Melee, Wizard, and In the Labyrinth to work on this conversion, I’m really interested in exploring this further, and in getting feedback about this from other, more experienced TFT players.

And, if you’d like to see us issue conversions of our adventures for other game systems, let us know what you would like to see.

DragonQuest Adventures Published

Electronic versions (PDF) of two DragonQuest adventures, as well the Gazetteer and map (the setting for the Wilderness adventure), are now available on DriveThruRPG:

---

The Wilderness of Ordurak adventure bundle includes the adventure book, map, and a gazetteer book with more information about the region. If you are interested in the print version of these, please let us know. Because DriveThru requires separate orders for books and for cards (and the map is considered as a card because of their production methods), it will probably be easier for us to assemble bundles with the adventure book and the map, so that you don’t have to make two orders and pay for double shipping.

 

A group of adventurers is sought to aid in unraveling a mystery set in an untamed land. The Barony of Auskenheim is the most recent addition to the Confederation of Baronies, on the frontier where wild magic is more prevalent, and life is more dangerous, than in more civilized lands.

A quasi-sandbox setting for a group of 4 to 6 Adventurer level characters. The Wilderness of Ordurak is a fantasy role-playing adventure scenario designed for 4 to 6 Adventurer-level characters for use with DragonQuest (and other fantasy role-playing games).

 

---

The PDF version of The Sentinel Chapel is also available now. It is also in process with print approval, and should be available in a few days.

 

The Sentinel Chapel is a DragonQuest adventure for 3-6 adventurer-level characters.

Late in the year, as the harvest season is closing, and towns and villages are preparing for the coming winter, word has reached the group that someone is looking for a small band of adventurers for a dangerous, but well-paying task. They are to travel into the Fealhoa Valley, a region that has been deadly dangerous for the past 30 years, when it became overrun with monsters and undead creatures. A village called Cambray, several days’ travel into the Fealhoa Valley has been cut off, and no one has been in contact with that community for many years.

The adventurers are to travel to the site of a chapel located about a day’s travel from the town of Cambray and recover the silver letters on the family graves of a group of silversmiths who were originally from Cambray, and whose remaining family members now live in exile.

Although this adventure has been designed and written for the DragonQuest role-playing game, it can be easily translated for use with other game systems. The GM will need to make the necessary interpolations beforehand in order to do this.

---

Also, if you are interested in a bundle deal on all three Antherwyck House DQ adventures (also including The Water Works, either print or PDF), let us know about that too.

You can email us at DQ [at] antherwyck [dot] com

New DragonQuest Adventures

There is big news at long last from Antherwyck House Games. We have not one, but two adventures for DragonQuest that are going to be available from DriveThruRPG later this week.

Nymph – by Nate Marcel for “The Wilderness of Ordurak”

It’s been more than two years since “The Wilderness of Ordurak” adventure was completed and delivered to the crowdfunding backers who supported that adventure.  And, in keeping with the terms of that project, they’ve had exclusive access to it since then.  But now, we’re opening it up and making it available to everyone.

Along with that, we also have a smaller capsule adventure we are also releasing called “The Sentinel Chapel.”

Both “The Wilderness of Ordurak” and “The Sentinel Chapel” will be immediately available as PDFs. “Wilderness” will also be available in print form, along with a mini poster version of the regional map, and “Sentinel” is in the proofing process and should be available in print form in a week or two, depending on OBS turnaround time.

“The Wilderness of Ordurak” features illustrations by Nate Marcel, The adventure also has a map by Stephen Peto that is an extremely faithful match of the house style of SPI’s maps, and particularly, the “Frontiers of Alusia” map.  “The Sentinel Chapel” includes a map by Eneko Menica which was the inspiration for the adventure.  Both adventures were written and produced by Rodger Thorm.

The next thing to come along (hopefully by the end of the year) will be a Gazetteer for the Wilderness of Ordurak map that provides more background on the region in a similar fashion to the “Frontiers of Alusia.”  The print version of the “Wilderness” map is a 12″ x 18″ mini poster.  Those who like the setting presented in the “Wilderness” adventure will have more information for further adventures set in this region.  And, as was the case with the original “Frontiers,” this will be usable with any game system fairly readily.

Anyone who buys a copy of “The Wilderness of Ordurak” during this launch will also get a free copy of the Gazetteer PDF once it is completed and available.  (Buyers of the print version will be able to get a discount on the print version of the Gazetteer, as well.)

Open DQ Sections and Contents

This is the draft organization index and preliminary table of contents from the old Open DQ project.

Rules Categories

0    - License and Credits
1    - Introduction, How to Play the Game, Game Terms
2    - Characters and Character Generation
3    - Combat
4    - Magic
5    - Skills
6    - Monsters
7    - World and Adventure

Parenthetical numbers in the Table of Contents indicate the corresponding rule number in the SPI Second Edition version of the rules; AW = rules from Arcane Wisdom; PBA = rules from Poor Brendan’s Almanac. Note that the new numbering provided here is a draft version and is subject to further change and renumbering.

Subsection 100 of each rule section should be set aside for introduction, terminology, description, etc. x-100 should be section contents. x-120 should be term definitions.

Subsection 200 of each rule section should be the primary rules for the section.

Subsection 500 of each rule section should be specialty rules for the section (specific skills, magic colleges, etc).

Subsection 800 of each rule section should be secondary or optional rules for the section.

This is a preliminary draft and subject to almost certain revision.

Table of Contents

0    - License and Credits
0-100 License
1    - Introduction, How to Play the Game, Game Terms
1-100 
1-110 Introduction
1-120 Game Terms
1-200 How to Play the Game
1-220 General Course of Events (1)
1-250 Requirements for Play (2)
2    - Characters and Character Generation
2-120 Description of Characteristics (3)
2-200 Effects of Characteristics (4)
2-300 Characteristic Generation (5)
2-400 Character Background
2-420 Birthrights (6)
2-450 Aspects (7)
2-470 Heritage (8)
2-500 Creating Experienced Characters
2-550 NPCs
2-600 Character Maintenance
2-620 Recuperation and Upkeep (85)
2-650 Fatigue Loss and Recovery (82)
2-700 Experience 
2-710 How Experience Is Gained (86)
2-750 How Experience Is Used (87)
3    - Combat
3-120 Combat Terminology (9)
3-130 Combat Equipment (10)
3-150 Preparation for Combat (11)
3-200 Combat Sequence (12)
3-220 Actions of Engaged Figures (13)
3-250 Actions of Non Engaged Figures (14)
3-280 Action Choice Restrictions (15)
3-300 Attacking (16)
3-330 Resolving Attempted Attacks (17)
3-350 Damage (18)
3-360 The Effects of Damage (19)
3-370 Fire
3-380 Infection (24)
3-400 Unarmed Combat (21)
3-430 Natural Weapons
3-450 Martial Arts
3-500 Weapons List (20)
3-600 Multi-Hex Creatures (22)
3-700 Special Combat
3-710 Mounted Combat (23)
4    - Magic
4-120 Definition of Magical Terms (25)
4-130 How Magic Works (26)
4-150 The Colleges of Magic (34)
4-180 Magic Conventions (35)
4-200 How to Cast Spells (27)
4-205 Quickcasting (PBA-106
4-220 Restrictions on Magic (29)
4-250 Counterspells and Resisting Spells (31)
4-300 Incorporating Magic into Combat (33)
4-330 The Effects of Spells (28)
4-370 Backfire from Spells and Rituals (30)
4-400 Universal Magical Abilities
4-420 Special Magical Preparations (32)
4-430 Ritual of Planar Travel (PBA-109
4-440 Consequences (84)
4-480 Cantrips (PBA-108
4-500 Thaumaturgies
4-510 The College of Ensorcelments and Enchantments (36)
4-520 The College of Sorceries of the Mind (37)
4-530 The College of Illusions (38)
4-540 The College of Naming Incantations (39)
4-550 The College of Shaping Magics (AW-91
4-600 Elementals
4-610 The College of Air Magics (40)
4-620 The College of Water Magics (41)
4-630 The College of Fire Magics (42)
4-640 The College of Earth Magics (43)
4-650 The College of Celestial Magics (44)
4-660 College of Time Magics (PBA-110
4-700 Entities
4-710 The College of Necromantic Conjurations (45)
4-720 The College of Black Magics (46)
4-730 The College of Greater Summonings (47)
4-740 The College of Lesser Summonings (AW-89
4-750 The College of Rune Magics (AW-90
4-760 College of Witchcraft (PBA-109
5    - Skills
5-250 Acquiring and Using Skills (48)
5-300 Languages (49)
5-400 Adventure Abilities
5-420 Horesemanship
5-460 Swimming
5-470 Stealth
5-500 Alchemist (50)
5-510 Assassin (51)
5-520 Astrologer (52)
5-530 Beast Master (53)
5-540 Courtesan (54)
5-545 Diplomat (PBA-112
5-550 Healer (55)
5-555 Herbalist (PBA-113
5-557 Hunter (PBA-114
5-560 Mechanician (56)
5-570 Merchant (57)
5-580 Military Scientist (58)
5-590 Navigator (59)
5-600 Ranger (60)
5-610 Spy and 
5-620 Thief (61)
5-630 Troubadour (62)
5-800 Minor Skills (PBA-111
6    - Monsters
7    - World and Adventure
7-180 Game Conventions (78)
7-200 The Adventure Sequence (80)
7-220 Preparation for Adventure (77)
7-230 Organizing a Party (79)
7-300 Adventure Actions (83)
7-400 Monetary Matters (81)
7-420 Extended Merchant Tables (PBA-122
7-430 Horse Trading (PBA-121
7-440 Alchemical and Herbal Shopkeeping (PBA-116
7-470 Building Costs (PBA-118
7-480 Peasants and Labor (PBA-119
7-485 Farming (PBA-120
7-600 Guide to Magical Rocks, Stones and Gems (AW-93
7-650 Guide to Herbal Lore (AW-94

The Open DQ That Is Already Done

There’s a significant followup to my recent thoughts about an open source DragonQuest that needs to be pointed out.

The Seagate Adventurer’s Guild is the largest group of DragonQuest players, with a long-running, interlocked campaign with multiple GMs.  And they’ve been playing for over 30 years.  I had known that they had a draft set of rules incorporating their house rules, but it’s been a few years since I checked in on their site.  I had known about this version several years ago, but they had asked to have it pulled from the Yahoo DQ group files.  Than, Mike Davey reminded me about them in response to my last post, so I went and checked out their version of the DragonQuest rules.

In a word, wow!

Frankly, they’ve already done much of the work I was talking about.  It’s a complete document; almost 150 pages.  The Seagate rules are “copylefted under the GNU Public License, version 2.0,” so this is already an open-source version of the DQ rules.

These rules aren’t a straight one-to-one corresponding set.  There are some sections that are not included, like any creatures, or the lists of Greater Summoning demons.  And there are also many new additions, including several new Skills and new Colleges of Magic.  Elements are reorganized, though there’s a generally similar order of character creation, combat, magic, and skills.  All in all, I think a DQ player or GM could pick it up and start using it fairly readily.

This really changes the scope of next steps.  What I had originally planned, once there was a base draft in place, was a reorganization of the rules to allow for revisions and substitutions.  The numbering system of the DQ rules doesn’t work well if you want to add a new Skill or a new College; there are no open spaces.  But if the rule numbering was more like a library card-catalog system, then it would be easy to keep all the related stuff organized together in the same section.  All the character-related stuff could be section 100, combat section 200, and so on and so forth.

Link: Seagate DQ Rules Edition 2.0.1

 

 

 

DragonQuest rules outline

For years, for decades, really, I have thought about a re-published version of the DragonQuest rules.  Like many other DQ players, it seems so wrong to me that this game should not be available.  DragonQuest still does some wonderful things, but it’s largely forgotten since it’s been almost 40 years since it was published, and SPI didn’t last long enough even to get the first rule supplement to market (though copies of the pre-publication rules are floating around).

So now, I’ve started the outline for a new, open-source re-write of the rules.

The DragonQuest rules outline is (mostly) just the framework of the rules – the first sentence after the rule number in a simple text file.  A couple extra bits were left in for reference in a couple places, but it’s pretty much just the 87 rules of the game.  No formulas, no charts, no numbers, so it’s not playable in this form.  But it distills the rules down to an essence that can be reviewed and then rewritten as a starting point for an open DragonQuest.

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to do something along these lines.  In the past, I wanted to be very open and egalitarian and encourage everyone to contribute to it, instead of writing *my* version of DragonQuest that everyone else would pick apart.  But that never really got going. So I’m approaching it differently.  This time, I’m starting the project as my own project.  I’m going to try to be pretty open about the process, and feedback from the broader DragonQuest and gaming and OSR communities is going to be important to make this work.  But I’m not going to wait on it.  This version of an open set of DragonQuest rules is going to start from this outline, and move along at whatever rate I’m able to work on it.  There will be updates from time to time to show what has been done and have a chance for input from others.

Since Antherwyck House is producing DragonQuest adventures and materials, getting a version of the rules out there only makes sense.  Right now, it’s my intent to have an open-source core ruleset available for free, and then a more complete, detailed set of rules that we’ll publish in a more polished format with art.

This should not be my project alone, and anyone else with an interest in DragonQuest is welcomed to participate.  This is going to be open-source, so as soon as there is a full, working draft available, that will be shared and posted under a Creative Commons license.

The first step is going to be a revision of the old DQOS framework to allow for new rules to be fit in.

Link: DragonQuest rules outline