Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
EDIT: This post from January 24, 2013, is one of the first links provided by a Google search for downloading this module, but it’s understandably a bit out of date. The PDF is no longer free to download, but the current link to purchase it is here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17081/B1-In-Search-of-the-Unknown-Basic?term=b1+.
In case you didn’t hear: You can now download PDFs of prior edition Dungeons & Dragons materials over at http://www.dndclassics.com/. My first mod, B1: In Search of the Unknown, is free to download … 100% legal. With that, I point you appropriately to my article from Loremaster.org, The Rise and Fall of Norrin the Barbarian (Loremaster.com is no longer available).
This is a guest post from DM extraordinaire, Erik Nowak. I was one of the players in this game and have used Rotting Toes in the last season of D&D Encounters. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
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In a recent D&D 4E session set in Neverwinter, the players needed access to the city’s orc-controlled River District. They approached a gate guarded by several bored orc soldiers. Some of the orcs were lightly dozing, while others were gambling, playing a dice game in the dirt. It was to be a simple role-playing exchange: the orcs act tough and demand 10 gold pieces per character to enter their territory – either the heroes paid, or they act tough and refuse and a fight breaks out. Instead it went like this:
“Can I make a check to see what game they are playing?”, one player asked.
[Rolls a skill check; super high result, of course.]
I responded, “Um… sure. It’s called, uh, rotting toes.” That sounded fittingly orcish.
“How is it played? And can we join in?”
“Sure, the orcs are happy to take your gold.”
Then I found myself in a pickle: I needed a dice game! I don’t know any dice games other than craps, and I didn’t want to use that.
So I made one up on the spot.
The first thing I thought of was the old school AD&D method of rolling for ability scores: roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die. I started there and was able to tie it in with the name by thinking that the die-dropping represented a toe rotting away from a diseased foot. Then I made the rest up right there and let the players have a go!
History
The game has its root in the story of an orc warrior who was suffering from a wasting disease of the foot that resisted magical healing. A shaman of Yurtrus, the orc god of death and disease, told the warrior that his fate was in the hand of Yurtrus alone, and the inscrutable, silent god would do as he pleased, unmovable by deed or prayer. All the other orcs could do was bet on whether or not the warrior’s toes would rot off.
(What happened to the orc, you ask? His toes all rotted off. Then his foot, followed by the rest of the leg. Then he died. Orc tales don’t have happy endings, people.)
Pictured: Someone who didn’t take the feat, Skill Training: Math.
Playing the Game
To play rotting toes, you need 4 six-sided dice and a group of several players with coin, one of whom is the Hand of Yurtrus, or “the Hand” (the dice roller). The role of the Hand switches to a new player each round.
The Hand places a bet, typically 1 gold piece. Other players place bets on whether the Hand will lose or win (“rot” or “not”). The Hand has three chances to roll doubles in 2 separate throws of the dice. If 2 throws yield doubles, the Hand wins, and the players who bet on a loss lose their coins, which are distributed evenly amongst the Hand and the players who bet on a win. Otherwise, the Hand loses, and his coins, plus the coins of the players who bet on a win, are evenly distributed amongst the players who bet on a loss.
Order of Play
1) First Throw: The Hand rolls 4 dice, looking for any set of doubles. Regardless of whether or not doubles were rolled, the lowest die is removed from play (a “toe” has “rotted away”), and the Hand rolls again.
2) Second Throw: The Hand rolls 3 dice, again looking for a set of doubles.
If doubles were rolled previously, and doubles are rolled here, the round ends and the Hand wins.
If neither throw yielded a set of doubles, the game ends and the Hand loses.
If doubles were rolled in one of the throws, play continues to a third throw with the lowest die removed from play.
3) Third Throw: The Hand rolls 2 dice, again looking for a set of doubles.
If doubles were rolled previously, and doubles are rolled here, the round ends and the Hand wins.
If a second set of doubles is not rolled, the Hand loses.
Playing Rotting Toes in Your Campaign
To play rotting toes in your D&D game, have a PC take the role of the Hand and place a bet. Allow other PCs to make win or lose bets as well, but these bets are optional.
The Hand then rolls the dice until he wins or loses, as outlined above. For ease of use, I didn’t bother recording the number of actual rotting toes players or how each one of them bet. I simply said that when the Hand won on a 1 gp bet, he gained 2d4 gp to represent the winnings taken from the pot. Anyone betting on the Hand to win gains the same amount. If the Hand loses, any PC who bet on the Hand to lose gains 2d4 gp.
Cheating
One character in my game – the rogue, of course – asked if he could cheat. I allowed for it, but due to the number of eyes on the dice, it would be difficult to do unless the cheater brought his own weighted dice – which the orcs would never allow! To cheat, the Hand throws the dice and makes a Hard DC Thievery check. On a success, the Hand may change the result of one die thrown. A failed check makes the other players suspicious, and the DC for future checks increases by +2. A second failed check confirms the players’ suspicions, and will get the thrower ejected from the game (at best), or attacked. When playing with orcs, a Hand caught cheating is very likely to be killed immediately.
Additionally, it is a little-known fact that when playing with orcs, winning too many times as the Hand will also arouse suspicions of cheating, whether the winner actually cheated or not. Typically, if a player wins more than 3 times in a row as the Hand, he is given a savage beating – even if there is no evidence at all of cheating – just for being “too lucky” and making a mockery of Yurtrus’ judgment.
I’ve updated my hit point charts for the current season of D&D Encounters to include a “DCs by Level” table in the page footer. If you’re using the charts, you might want to replace them with this one.
I said this on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here. Based on what I’ve seen from the later D&D 4e products, the current season of D&D Encounters, and D&D Next, I feel like all the work I did on the dungeon crawl system was completely validated. (It’s a shame the Living Forgotten Realms living campaign writers didn’t follow suit, as it would have breathed new life into the campaign.) WotC basically took 4e in the direction I took it about a year ahead of time, and after processing the feedback from 4e players, D&D Next is looking like a “dungeon crawl system, second edition.”
Please note that I’m not suggesting they plagiarized my work (though I know they were aware of it), and even if they did, it’s not illegal. I’m simply pointing out that great minds think alike, and apparently I’m a great mind. 🙂
Yesterday I sent in my registration to TerpCon for my FASA Star Trek RPG adventure, “Intruders.” If you’re planning to be in the Washington, DC area on November 17, consider attending. It’s a free gaming convention held at my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Maryland at College Park. They’ll be a good array of RPG events there, but if you have any interest in an old-style, original series adventure, my event will certainly be of interest to you. The gaming schedule isn’t up yet, but you can already create a registration account and check out (or contribute to) the buzz over on their Facebook page.
I ran my other original adventure, Anything but Routine, at a past event, and Intruders involves the same ship and crew. Even if you can’t make TerpCon, you can find several other works published on my FASA Star Trek RPG Resources page and run your own adventures near where you live.
More than a couple of you were appreciative of me sharing my hit point charts I use for running D&D Encounters (or D&D generally), so I’m sharing my next set for this season of Encounters: War of Everlasting Darkness. Please reference that past article for explanations as to read the document.
Hit Point Charts
This season, for lack of a better term, is weird. This isn’t a criticism, but it means that, among other things, I didn’t adjust the combats for parties of four or six players. Each encounter is actually better termed a “mini-adventure.” I suspect adjustments are a bad idea, even if you have seven or eight players, because you won’t have the time to finish the session if you increase the number of NPCs as well (unless you’re cheating and running this at home). Just run the encounters as written, adjusting on the fly as you see fit. If I see that adjustments are practical — I usually have 6 players at my table — then I’ll update the document.
As before, at the time I’m first posting this, I haven’t read the entire adventure. Please let me know if I need to perform edits for any reason. My schedule doesn’t allow me to make any edits during the week. Any changes will have to wait until the weekend.
Pregens
Because some of my players are kids without access to the character builder, and because the season takes the characters from levels 1 to 8 in eight sessions, I needed to create pregenerated characters as well, spanning those levels. I’m creating only two that are specifically designed for the players at my table. They use inherent bonuses, which is suggested by the adventure itself, and they’re designed to be very simple to run. Accordingly, if you like to optimize your characters, these will be disappointing (especially because I took so long to give Darthon Superior Will — I’m not redoing the work :)). However, I’m providing the character builder XML files as well, so if you sort of like what you see here, you can make some adjustments fairly easily.
I’ve uploaded the first version of FASA Trek Digital, my Access 2007 database for the FASA Star Trek RPG. You can find it on my FASA Star Trek RPG Resources page (along with an explanation as to what exactly it is) by clicking here. I’ve never distributed an Access database, so if you’re having any problems opening it, let me know.
It’s an *.accde file (executable), so you might require the MS Access runtime application in order to run it. I haven’t packaged that with the program. I can do that if someone’s having trouble downloading the file, though you can also just download it yourself from the Access help database at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4438. It’s a quick download and installation, and once installed, it should work. (You should not need the Access Runtime Application if you already have Access 2007 installed on your PC.)
I’m happy with the functionality it provides, but remember that “you get what you pay for.” It could be a lot better, but unless I receive some support through (100% optional) PayPal donations, further development isn’t strictly guaranteed. Nevertheless, I’m planning to complete the player character generation component and am willing to entertain specific requests from all of you.
If you have any problems or uncover any bugs/defects, please contact me.
FASA Star Trek RPG Character Sheet (click to enlarge)
I’ve created a new page for distribution of my FASA Star Trek RPG resources. If you’re interested in running or playing the game, this would be a good place to start. It will soon have a digital tool available to generate characters, starships, solar systems, and planets, as well as print character sheets and starship panels. It already has my own designs for the Command and Control Panels and Master Control Panels, a quick reference sheet summarizing the rules, and Anything but Routine, an introductory adventure I wrote. A direct link to the page now appears in the menu at the top of this page, so you can always find it without searching if you come back to my blog at a later date.
In my post, Three Thoughts From Last Week’s Game, I presented a list of terms I use to substitute for “bloodied” (a term used in 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons for a creature who’s been reduced to half their full hit points). It gives the game a bit more flavor. Last night’s game had an addition to the list (care of Luddite Vic) for Aberrations. These are creatures from the Far Realm, which is a plane of existence that’s unimaginably confusing, resulting in insanity relatively quickly for any that visit (and somehow survive that long). The list is updated below.
Oh, and the session was fun. All we got through was two combats, but they’re two of the longest combats in the Hall of the Fire Giant King, and we’re talking high-paragon level. Compared to most 4e D&D games, my Dungeon Crawl System moves very quickly. I wouldn’t want to think about how slow it would have been if I were using the standard system for encounter design.
I said this on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here. Based on what I’ve seen from the later D&D 4e products, the current season of D&D Encounters, and D&D Next, I feel like all the work I did on the 
Play What You Want 