Parts of an adventure.

This has been said before, but I'll put my spin on it, for the sake of covering all aspects of adventure design.

When making an adventure, I try to put in an equal amount of role playing opportunites, combat and problem solving.
Role playing is any encounter where the characters get to interact with an NPC in an interesting way, or that gives them a chance to explore their character. Negotiating with a greedy merchant. Deciding what to do with freed slaves, deciding whether to keep treasure that they know is stolen.
Combat is fairly self-explanatory, but always be answering the Dramatic Question of why the characters are fighting, and what the stakes are. Also, every fight can benefit from some kind of complication. Burning barrels of pitch, shifting tiles, swinging platforms, fog, darkness and/or hazards.
Problem solving can be as simple as figuring out how to ford a dangerous river, or as involved as a magic puzzle trap in a mad wizard's tower. It can also be logistical in nature. Figuring out how to transport a large hoard of treasure.

I don't always get the ratio at a perfect 3/3, but I do try to shoot for that ratio, and if an encounter overlaps with two or three types, all the better.

Angry GM gives this stuff away for free!

If you haven't checked out The Angry GM you probably should. His latest article is gold, and I completely agree with it.

Every adventures a dungeon

I'll only add one thing. If you see an encounter as a node, and every lead from an encounter as a connection, then you can "see the matrix" of adventure contstruction.

A node can be anything. A place, a person, or an event. And a node can lead to other nodes through hallways, or clues or items. Also, a connection can be anything. A key to a bus depot locker is a connection, and a rumor about a haunted mine is a connection. A time based encounter is just a node in the 4th dimension. A plume of smoke on the horizon is an event that leads to a place. A rumor is a bit of information that leads to something else, like an NPC or an item or a place. Etcetera.

Choices, Part 3. Choosing Evil.

Arthas from Warcraft III is probably the prototypical fallen paladin, and an excellent example of how to do a fallen paladin right. 

Arthas asked the spirits of the cavern for the sword to be released from its icy prison, proclaiming that he would "give anything or pay any price, if only you will let me save my people." 

Arthas knew full well what he was doing when he took up Frostmourne. He wasn't tricked or browbeaten by an upset DM. He was given a choice, and he made that choice.

Now, I've covered morality choices a lot up to this point. And I'd like to change tracks. The idea that a choice has to be set up so that the player actually has to consider all the decisions can be used for nearly any point of choice.

The trick is to set up two goals in conflict. 

Take weapons, for example. Long or short range? You'd take long range every time, if there were no other factor. But if long range came at reduced damage, you'd have to make a choice on which you value more in a weapon. 

Every option should have a benefit and a drawback. Every course of action too. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien wrote the story so that the fellowship eventually retreated from Caradhras and go through Moria, but in your game, the party might make it through Caradhras. Neither choice was desirable, and both had their risks.

Choices, Part 2. Dungeons and Dragons and Alignment.

Staying with Quark for a moment. There is an excellent episode of DS9, Business as Usual.
In this episode, Quark finds himself on hard financial times, when his cousin, Gaila comes along and offers Quark a job showcasing weapons in his holosuites. Quark is reluctant, but his poor financial prospects and the promise of great profits cause him to agree.
During the course of the episode, Quark confronts several situations where it is made clear that his profits are coming at the cost of lives. Eventually, Quark decides to get out of arms merchant business, with some clever planning.
The choice here isn't "Does Quark want wealth?" Of course he does! The question is "What is the limit of Quark's greed?" Does he have a limit? In this case, the answer was yes, Quark does not want wealth if it comes with the knowledge that he would be responsible for the deaths of millions. for Galia, the answer was different. He was fine with it. There is no right answer here, because the question isn't "Is it moral to sell weapons?" The question is "What will the character do for profit?"

Let's get back to D&D with the concept of paladins. A paladin is a holy warrior with a code that is required to choose the lawful good alignment. This here is an excellent point to test the character's values. Does a particular paladin value good over law? Or the other way around?

I'm going to make an important point here. When setting up scenarios like this, never penalize a paladin character for failing alignment due to such a scenario. The very point is to explore the character's motivations, not to test their paladinhood.

So, I'll set up a quick and dirty scenario testing the character's value of law versus good.

Let us say it is the law of the land that deserters must be executed. A group of the King's guard are ambushed and all but one are slain. The survivor is a young lad, barely a man. Scared and hurt, he deserts the battlefield and hides in a nearby village. Our paladin character discovers the lad, and learns that he ran from the battlefield. 

Is it moral for the paladin to execute the lad? Is the law just? Is it the place of the paladin to question the law? Is it the place of the paladin to judge the lad, even though the law says he must?

The interesting choice here isn't whether the paladin should execute the lad. The question is, why did the paladin make whatever choice he made?

Of course alignment isn't the only motivation for characters, which is why I chose Quark for the first example. But alignment can drive some interesting choice scenarios.

Now, taking in mind my previous statement about penalizing characters, I'll address that in the next part. Choosing Evil.

Filling up the empty spaces.

Way back when, my interest in rpgs started with the AD&D Coloring Album.

I loved this thing, and I still do. It's full of D&D tropes, has neat artwork, and a fun little D&Dish game inclued in-between coloring pages. I think what interested me most of all isn't what was in the book, but what wasn't in the book. Given a bit of descriptive story and artwork, and a simple game, my imagination wanted to fill in all the details that weren't in the book. How could I do a ranger that fired a bow? Can there be ways to have more spells? How about rules for going back to the tavern in-between journeys into the dungeon?

The next step for me was the Moldvay boxed set. It did answer a lot of those questions that I had from the coloring album, but still left quite a bit to be explored. I feel the Moldvay/Metzner boxed sets were just right in the amount of rules and details, while giving the players plenty of empty spaces for their imaginations to wander around.

Take B1, In Search of the Unknown for example. 

"In Search of the Unknown was an introductory scenario intended to teach Dungeon Masters (DMs) how to create dungeons.^[1] Mike Carr intended it for use as an instructional adventure for new players. The module is a beginner's scenario, which allows the DM to add their own choice of monsters and treasure.^[1][3] The module is coded B1 because it was created as the first adventure for the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, though it is possible to convert it to Advanced Dungons & Dragons.^[4]The adventure is designed for characters of first to third level, and was written for DMs and players with little or no gaming experience"

Empty spaces, used cleverly, invite players to fill in those empty spaces by engaging their imagination.

Choices, Part 1. Good and Bad choices.

A common complaint about choices in games is the moral choices that can be distilled down to "Kick the puppy" or "save the puppy". Critics rightfully mock these choices as not choices at all. I want to break this down a little more, to explore why these scenarios are not choices.

Let's first define what a good and a bad choice is. For this discussion, a good choice is any choice that the character desires, and a bad choice is one that the character wants to avoid. Note that there is no moral aspect to this definition. An evil character will consider bad things to be good, if they benefit him. And a good character will consider beneficial things to be bad if they hurt others.

On a meta level, consider the game Mass Effect. If a player desires to play a Renegade character, then any decisions that increase their Renegade score are "good" for the character, and thus desirable for the player. There is no choice, because there is nothing to choose. Red = good. Now, for players who are playing a Paragon, the situation is reversed. Blue  = good. And for players who choose the middle path, being a Renegade when they feel it's appropriate, and being a Paragon when they feel it's appropriate, is a little better, but the important point is, What criteria are they using to make their choices? This often comes from the personality of the player themselves, or the image of their character that they have in their imagination. Unfortunatley, the Mass Effect game rewards extreme Renegade or Paragon paths, with reskins of the character and opening up dialogue choices, but those who choose this middle ground wind up losing out on the extreme rewards of playing an extreme character.

Consider the character of Quark from Deep Space 9. Quark likes wealth, often latinum (space money) but any valuable object as well. Any choice that Quark makes that gets him more wealth will be a good choice for Quark. Any choice that reduces his wealth is a bad choice for Quark, even if it might be a good choice for another character. Like giving money to Bajoran War Orphans. "But wait!" You might say, if you're a fan of DS9. "Quark often offered to give latinum to those poor orphans." And you're right. He did. Which will segue nicely into Part 2, Dungeons and Dragons and Alignment.

The Rachni Queen.

For those who haven't played the first Mass Effect game, there's an encounter on the planet Noveria with a species called the Rachni. The creatures were a menace to civilization and thought to have been wiped out. but the corporation Binary Helix found a surviving Rachni queen and attempted to raise their own Rachni army. In typical sci-fi fashion, this proved to be a Bad Idea, with the Rachni young going feral and attacking people at the research station. The protagonist of Mass Effect, Commander Shepard runs into this situation, and after learning about what Binary Helix is up to, is eventually presented with a choice. Either use the facilities containment system to destroy the Rachni Queen, or let the Queen go free.

Now, the Queen at this point converses with Shepard through a proxy, and explains that it was a misunderstanding between the species, and claims that the Rachni can learn to live in peace with other races.

So Shepard is faced with two choices here. Destroy the Queen and exterminate a race of intelligent creatures, or free the Queen and possibly unleash a threat upon the galactic community. There is no real right choice, simply the choice the player thinks is the right one. It's a great scenario, and possibly the best in the original Mass Effect game. "Did you kill the Rachni Queen or let her go?"

There's a lesson in there for GMs on interesting choices that don't have a clear correct choice.

Eight kinds of fun.

Have I mentioned that I love the Angry DM? In a totally hetero GM way.

http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/

Random musings.

Imagine a party of characters made up of a Ferengi, a Klingon, a Romulan and a Vulcan.

Imagine how each character would approach a problem. Imagine what would motivate each character. Imagine how the party would resolve any interpersonal conflicts during an adventure.

A harmonious group is a boring group.

Adventure Design I: A basic lair.

First of a series on adventure design. I'm going to start with a very basic lair. Experienced GMs may wish to skip this one, but I do plan to build up concepts gradually.

First, I decide on the system, I'll use Basic D&D. I then come up with a concept. In this case, a small band of orcs. Their lair is in a cave. I'll arbitrarily decide on how many adventurers, and of what level. If I were going to make this lair for an existing campaign, I'd instead use the number of characters and their levels of the current players.
4 characters of level 1.

Next, I come up with a map. There's lots of mapping software on the web, and many maps from existing modules or geomorph resources could be used. In this case, I'll simply freehand a map on plain paper.

Map layout is pretty important. For example, a string of linear encounter areas is dirt simple, and very boring.

Instead, I'll break up the encounters by including branching paths.

I also added a sixth enounter area to break up the symmetry of the map.

I tend to number areas as close to how I think they'll be encountered by the party. Of course, since I've got branching paths, I can't do it perfectly. But I try to get it as close as possible, since it will make finding encounters in my notes a little easier.

I'm now ready to make a key. I'm going to put in some orcs, and keep the level range and number of characters in mind. Considering the low level, I'm going to use 50% of the total party level for an easy encounter, 100% of the party level for an average encounter, and 150% of the total party level for a hard encounter.

1. 2 Orc lookouts are guarding the entrance to the caves.

AC: 6, HD: 1, HP: 3 ea, Attacks: 1 weapon, Damage: 1d6, Save as: Fighter 1, Morale: 8, AL: C.

I tend to use just the relevant stats. I don't necessarily need the Treasure Type or Number Appearing for a key. I also like to decide by die roll or fiat how many HP the monsters have.

2. Central cave. There are 4 orcs here, roasting a giant lizard on a spit.

See encounter 1 for stats on the orcs.

A little flavor text, and I don't need to retype the stats for the orcs in this part of the cave.

3. Storeroom. There are sacks of mouldy grain, and dirty pelts here.

Not every location must have a combat encounter. 

4. Hoard. This cave holds the spoils that the orc raiders have taken. There is 500 gp worth of trade goods stolen from the nearby town here. 3 orcs guard the hoard.

5. Guard room. There are 2 orc guardians here, they are particularly tough, and have 6 HP each.

6. Chief's lair. The orc chief and some of his minions are here. The orc chief has 3 HD, and 9 HP, his minions are standard orcs, use the stats from encounter 1 for them.

The orc chief has a magical axe +1 to hit and damage. In his personal stash of loot is a potion of healing (which he may try to use during a fight), 36 gp in coins, and an ivory tusk worth 50 gp.

Done. A simple lair that should provide about 30-45 minutes worth of gaming, and only took about 15 minutes to write up. It's very simple though. In further entries, I'll punch the lair up a little.

Murder Hobos

I read an essay by Tracy Hickman that really struck me regarding D&D play styles.

I often think about an experience I shared with the players in one of my own games. I was the 'dungeonmaster' for a D&D game. We were playing 'Ravenloft', an adventure written by my wife and I about a vampire.
On the surface, this seemed like a typical old movie plot; Eerie eastern European location with lots of fog and fallen leaves. There was the obligatory castle high on the craggy cliff with the wolves howling in the woods. Sure enough, the vampire was up there in the castle.
To most of the players it seemed like a straight forward task: find the vampire and kill him.
However, Ravenloft had more to it than that. The plot of the story behind the game dealt with why Strahd von Zarovich, the Count of Barovia had fallen from grace to become the first vampire. As the game progressed, one of the players began discovering this background.
The vampire had once been a great and noble warrior. When he conquered Barovia and established the castle there he sent for his family to join him. There was a particular girl in the town that he wished to marry. In the end, however, the girl fell in love with the Count's younger brother. Strahd blamed his age for the girls rejection and vowed to live forever through the dark arts. He believed if he could rid himself of death that the girl would somehow find him attractive.
Of course, the brother was killed by Strahd. The girl threw herself from the cliffs of the castle but her body was never found. Strahd found that his pact with darkness had caused that he should not die but that he should not live either. Thus did he become a vampire.
At the end of the game, my friend held the sword which could destroy Strahd. As his companions fell upon the vampire, my friend found that he couldn't kill the monster. He saw all the sadness and tragedy which the mans life had once been. Ultimately his companions in the game were forced to finish the job.
After the game, we spoke. "He deserved to die better than that," my friend said.
"Yes," I replied, "But that is how it is with people who fall from greatness. He chose his end when he first chose to kill his brother. How could it be any different?"

http://web.archive.org/web/20110722122149/http://www.trhickman.com/Intel/Essays/Ethic3.html

How indeed. In my opinion, this was a rather poor way for Hickman to address the player's decision. The strength of this hobby is that players can explore for themselves what is good and what is bad. That player was justified in showing mercy to Strahd. Just as another player would be justified in striking Strahd down right away. Both would have a point, and the GM, favoring one interpretation or the other is, again IMO, bad form. This is a great oppportunity to examine morals and ethics within an RPG framework. Having the GM come down with a moral proclimation of what is good and what is bad robs the player characters of their agency. Why bulid up an interesting and potentially sympathetic villain if the GM is only going to expect a certain outcome? I will say that at least Hickman brought it up post-game with the player, instead of forcing a certain moral choice on the character in the moment.

The Orc Redeemed

Tolkien orcs are often brought up as the example of irredeemable orcs. Cannon fodder mooks for the big bad guy to fling at the heroes to die in droves.

Tolkien himself was never clear on just how evil the orcs were, or even gave a clear story on their origins.

But there are moments in the books when orcs and trolls show some amount of compassion and at least a notion of morality:

"Poor little blighter," said William. He had already had as much supper as he could hold; also he had had lots of beer. "Poor little blighter! Let him go!"
"Not till he says what he means by lots and none at all," said Bert. "I don't want to have me throat cut in me sleep. Hold his toes in the fire, till he talks!"
"I won't have it," said William. "I caught him anyway."

"It's my guess you won't find much in that little fellow,' said Gorbag. 'He may have had nothing to do with the real mischief. The big fellow with the sharp sword doesn't seem to have thought him worth much anyhow – just left him lying: regular elvish trick."

Maybe the orcs (and trolls) of Middle-earth aren't irredeemably evil. Maybe the influence of Morgoth, and then Sauron, and to a lesser extent, Saurman, reinforce their evil tendencies. They've been so long under the control of the bad guys, that they simply haven't had the chance for anything else.

"I'd like to try somewhere where there's none of 'em. But the war's on now, and when that's over things may be easier."
"It's going well, they say."
"They would.  We'll see.  But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room.  What d'you say? -- if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there's good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses."
"Ah!  Like old times."
"Yes.  But don't count on it.  I'm not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay, ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes.  Something nearly slipped, you say.  I say, something has slipped.  And we've got to look out.  Always the poor Uruks to put slips right, and small thanks.  But don't forget: the enemies don't love us any more than they love Him, and if they get topsides on Him, we're done too."

Note that when Sauron is absent, the orcs and trolls tend to become 'mere' bandits and raiders, and show little ambition past that. The Goblin King was willing to parley with Thorin's company. Maybe just to find out more about their doings, but it does set the precedent that orcs can be parleyed with, even if they're not likely to show much mercy. Perhaps after Sauron's demise, if the orcs were left alone, they just might move on from the raiding lifestyle and adopt more 'good' habits and relations. Personally, I think it would take a long, long time, and one could hardly be faulted for being wary of orcs until they had proven themselves out from the long influnce of the evil powers of Middle-earth.

Leveling Items

An excellent idea that I first encountered in 1st edition Earthdawn, and have used in other systems, is the idea of leveling items. Magic items whose bonuses scale to the level of the owner. For example, a 2nd edition D&D character gains the Blacksteel Sword. This sword has a bonus to hit and damage based on it's owners level:

Level          Bonus to hit and damage
1-4            +1
5-8            +2
9-12          +3
13-16        +4
17-20        +5

Or, in Dungeon Crawl Classics:

Level          Bonus to hit and damage
1-2             +1
3-4             +2
5-6             +3
7-8             +4
9-10           +5

At certain levels, a specific power could be unlocked, that gives flavor and theme to the item.

Blacksteel Sword special powers
Level 3          +1 to saves versus magic spells
Level 6          Spellcasters struck with the Blacksteel Sword must save vs Will (spells) at DC 10+CL, or forget one randomly determined spell.
Level 9          Once per day, the Blacksteel Sword can cast an anti-magic shell, that lasts for 1d6 turns.
And so on...

This gives characters a reason to hold onto an item instead of trading up, and allows the game master to have much less items floating around in the campaign world.

DCC: Invasion of the Saucer Men

Rumors of bronze men who kidnap villagers are being heard in the town of Ravenshire. A saucer craft from the outer dark has crashed  near Ravenshire, and the saucer men are attempting to repair their craft and return to whence they came.
The craft requires rare minerals and crystals for repairs. Also, the saucer men require blood for sustenance. Thus, they send their bronze mechanical men to search for materials for repairs and people as food.

Intro encounter-
While searching for the bronze men, or travelling to their next destination, the party encounters a group of 3 bronze men carrying unconcious villagers back to the craft.
Bronze Man
Init +3, Atk  stun beam +3 ranged 10/20 (1d6+2 non-lethal damage) or claw +3 melee (1d6+2 dam), AC 13, HD 3d6, HP 10 ea, MV 25' Act 1d20
SV Fort +3, Ref 0, Will +-2, AL L
After rescuing and reviving the villagers, they can learn a bit about the attack. The bronze men attacked while they were herding sheep. They stunned the villagers.
A sucessful track roll vs DC 10 will lead the party to the crashed saucer.

1. Entrance.
The saucer has a single hatch that remains open so the Bronze Men can come and go. There are two laser beam turrets in the entrance room that will attack any intruders who are not saucer men or their servants.
Laser Beam Turret
Init +2, Atk  laser beam +3 ranged 10/20 (2d6+2 damage), AC 12, HD 2d6, HP 8 ea, MV 0' Act 1d20
SV Fort +2, Ref -6, Will 0, AL N
2. Room of strange rods.
There is a console in this room with 3 rods made of gemstone. If a character touches or handles a rod, roll on the following tables.
Ruby Rod: 2d6
2: Lose one point of Stamina permanently
3-11: Gain 1d10 temporary hit points.
12: Gain 1d4 permanent hit points.
Sapphire Rod: 2d6
2: Lose one point of Intelligence permanently
3-11: Gain +1d4 to spell checks for the next 24 hours.
12: Gain a permanent +1 to spell checks.
Emerald Rod: 2d6
2: Lose one point of Strength permanently
3-11: Gain +1 to hit and damage for 24 hours.
12: Gain a permanent +1 to Strength
After being handled 3 times, a single rod will burn out and go dark. It will not affect the character until it regenerates after 24 hours.
Removing a rod requires a Strength check at DC 25. The rod will go dark after being removed and have no special effects, but each rod is worth 100 gp.
3. Engine room.
This room is full of strange energies emanating from the cylinders that drive the saucer's otherworldly engines. Anyone tampering with the cylinders must make a Luck save vs DC 15 or take 2d4 electric damage. There are 8 cylinders, and each has AC 15 and 20 hp. Destroying a cylinder will create an explosion that deals 3d8+5 damage to everyone in the room, and has a 1 in 4 chance of setting off a chain reaction that will destroy the entire ship. Characters caught in this blast will be killed with no save, along with the saucer and everyone else inside.
4. Examination room.
There are various tables and examination tools here. A dwarf lies on one of the tables, dead and in the process of being dissected by two of the saucer men. A bullete is restrained in a cage. The saucer men will attack, and fight to the death. The bullete can be released by levers along the wall. Any character tampering with the levers has a 1 in 4 chance per attempt to open the cage and release the bullete. The dwarf's gear is here on another table. He had 3d6x10 gp in gems, quality chain mail (+1 non magical armor), a crossbow with 12 quarrels +2 of lycanthrope slaying (lycanthropes hit by these quarrels must make a Fort save vs DC 18 or be slain. A sucessful save means 3d6 extra damage), and a snuff box half full of snuff worth 12 sp.
Bullete
Init +5, Atk  melee bite +5 (2d8+4 damage) or claw +3 melee (1d6+2 dam), AC 18, HD 6d10, HP 45, MV 40' or burrow 20', Act 1d20+1d16+1d6 (bite, claw, claw)
SV Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +2, AL N
Saucer Men
Init +3, Atk  stun beam +3 ranged 10/20 (1d6+2 non-lethal damage) or claw +3 melee (1d6+3 dam), AC 15, HD 4d8, HP 20 ea, MV 20' Act 1d20+1d20
SV Fort +4, Ref 0, Will +5, AL L
5. Harvesting room.
This room has 2 saucer men feeding on blood taken from various humanoids. There is an orc, elf, and two humans in this room. They are half alive, and hooked up to machinery that drains their blood, depositing it into cansiters for the saucer men to drink from. If rescued, they are in no condition to fight, but can flee the saucer.
Saucer Men
Init +3, Atk  stun beam +3 ranged 10/20 (1d6+2 non-lethal damage) or claw +3 melee (1d6+3 dam), AC 15, HD 4d8, HP 20 ea, MV 20' Act 1d20+1d20
SV Fort +4, Ref 0, Will +5, AL L
6. Storage.
There are boxes, barrels and containers of all sorts. The items stored here are not understandable by the inhabitants of this world, buy may be of interest to a curious sage. Such a buyer will pay 3d6x100 gp for the documents and artifacts that can be transported out of the saucer. There are 2 Saucer Men and 2 Bronze Men here, guarding the lift to the bridge.
Bronze Man
Init +3, Atk  stun beam +3 ranged 10/20 (1d6+2 non-lethal damage) or claw +3 melee (1d6+2 dam), AC 13, HD 3d6, HP 10 ea, MV 25' Act 1d20
SV Fort +3, Ref 0, Will +-2, AL L
Saucer Men
Init +3, Atk  mental blast ranged 20/40, or claw +3 melee (1d6+3 dam), AC 15, HD 4d8, HP 20 ea, MV 20' Act 1d20
SV Fort +4, Ref 0, Will +5, AL L
SA Mental blast- Target must save vs Will at a DC equal to 1d20+4. Failure means taking 1d6 attribute damage to Intelligence.
The saucer man can either attack with claw or use it's mental blast per round.
7. Lift room.
This room has a pad in the center, with a regular, hexoganal pattern made of crystal. Anyone stepping onto the pad will be transported to room 8.
8. Bridge.
From this room, the Saucer Man leader coordinates his underlings. There is the Saucer Man leader, one Bronze Man, and one Saucer Man in this room. They will fight to the death.
Saucer Man Leader
Init +6, Atk  mental blast ranged 25/50 , and claw +4 melee (2d6+2 dam), AC 18, HD 6d10, HP 45 ea, MV 20' Act 1d20+1d20
SV Fort +5, Ref -1, Will +6, AL L
SA Mental blast- Target must save vs Will at a DC equal to 1d20+6. Failure means taking 1d6+1 atttribute damage to Intelligence.
The saucer man leader can make both a claw attack and a mental blast attack in the same round.
Saucer Men
Init +3, Atk  mental blast ranged 20/40, or claw +3 melee (1d6+3 dam), AC 15, HD 4d8, HP 20 ea, MV 20' Act 1d20
SV Fort +4, Ref 0, Will +5, AL L
SA Mental blast- Target must save vs Will at a DC equal to 1d20+4. Failure means taking 1d6 attribute damage to Intelligence.
The saucer man can either attack with claw or use it's mental blast per round.
Bronze Man
Init +3, Atk  stun beam +3 ranged 10/20 (1d6+2 non-lethal damage) or claw +3 melee (1d6+2 dam), AC 13, HD 3d6, HP 10 ea, MV 25' Act 1d20
SV Fort +3, Ref 0, Will +-2, AL L

DCC: MOTU continued.

Man-at-Arms from Masters of the Universe, in DCC stats.

Init +6; Atk  Mace  melee +5 (1d6+5); AC 20; HD 6d12; HP: 65; MV 30’;
Act 1d20/1d16; SA 1d8 deed die; SV Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +4; AL L.

Man-at-Arms is a loyal warrior of Eternia. He serves King Randor and often adventures with He-Man.
Man-at-Arms is skilled in weaponsmithing and the technology of Eternia.
Man-at-Arms gear:
Technoplate that grants AC 20.
Shock Mace +3 to hit and damage, in addition to his strength bonus of +2.
On a critical hit, in addition to any results from the crit table, the foe must also make a save vs Fort at DC 18 or be stunned for their next round. (Unable to take any actions)
Laser Pistol: 2d6 damage, Range 80/160/240. 6 shot clip. Carries a spare clip.

Man-at-Arms is a Warrior and may use Mighty Deeds of Arms. He adds his deed die to his to-hit and damage rolls.

DCC: Random ideas.

Stinkor from Masters of the Universe, in DCC stats.

Init +3; Atk Claw +3 melee (1d6+3); AC 18; HD 3d10; HP: 20; MV 30’;
Act 1d20; SP gas cloud; SV Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +2; AL C.

Stinkor is a competent warrior, but his greatest asset is his foul stench. Anyone attacking Stinkor in melee combat must make a Fort save vs DC 15 or be at -1 to hit rolls.
Once per combat (appx 10 minutes) Stinkor can generate a toxic cloud, 12' in diameter. Anyone in the cloud must make a Fort save vs DC 18 or be incapacitated for 1d4 rounds. The cloud lasts for 1d6 rounds. The cloud gives a -2 penalty to ranged attacks against targets in the cloud. Un-dead and mechnanical creatures are unaffected by either the stench or cloud.
Stinkor wields his natural razor-sharp claws and shield, and wears a breastplate with an integrated breath mask. Stinkor is immune to his own stench, but is susceptible to his own toxic cloud effect. The breastplate give him immunity to his toxic cloud, immunity to non-magic gas effects, and +2 to Fort saves versus magical gas effects.

2nd Edition: Dance with Death

Unlike previous editions, 2nd Edition focused on settings and characters, and continuity of characters. While it was, and still is, amusing and fun to have a D&D campaign with frequent mortality, (and I like it in Dungeon Crawl Classics) it's not so conducive to a lot of 2nd edtion games. There have been various house rules and official rules and optional rules to tamp down on the lethality of D&D, like the -10 hit points rule, or making death saves, but really all these rules are saying that we don't necessarily want characters to die when they're knocked down to 0 hit points. So why not just say that? There's an excellent aphorism "Don't call for a die roll unless you're willing to accept the result"
If a character is reduced to 0 hit points, they fall down and are no longer a participant in the combat unless they get healing. That character is not dead, but badly wounded and can be tended after the encounter ends.
So what about save or die? I'm not too concerned about effects like petrification, which is curable. I'm tempted to say that any instant death effects reduce the character to 0 hit points, and the aforementioned "fallen down" rule is still in effect.
That leaves disintegration. Well, my thought is to keep it rare. I still believe in having some monsters and abilities that are very dangerous, but not something for the characters to encounter in every adventure.

2nd Edition: Dragonlance

It's almost redundant to say that Dragonlance was both a megahit that rejuvenated TSR, and a point where Dungeons & Dragons made a turn away from it's previous tropes. Unlike modules like Keep on the Borderlands or Tomb of Horrors, the story was the focus of Dragonlance. Notably, this was around the time Bothered about Dungons and Dragons was putting pressure on TSR, and Dragonlance offered a setting that got away from the amoral gathering of treasure, the slaughtering of monsters, and the references to demons and devils. This asthetic would find their way into 2nd edtion as well. I'm not saying that Dragonlance was created in response to the criticisms against D&D, but it certainly was a convenient world for TSR to distance itself from those criticisms.

Unfortunatley, the original Dragonlance modules also removed a lot of the open ended gameplay. DL1 was certainly not a terrible module, but it was very linear. On re-reading my copy, I noted the use of the march of the Draconian army as a tool to herd the players to the ruins of Xak Tsaroth, and a pretty heavy hand in the resolution of the combat with the dragon Khisanth.

I lost interest in the Dragonlance modules after D3, Dragons of Hope. All the Dragonlance modules up to that point were pretty much similar in structure and play. There's a few interesting ideas, like the use of discrete events along with locations, or the politics of the refugee caravan, but these ideas, to me, were not fleshed out or used as well as they could have been. 

And then the novels came out. It was clear to me, even then, that Dragonlance was a much better series of novels than a series of modules. Later on, Dragonlance would get setting books that didn't tie into an overarching plot, and so become much more palatable as a game world. I think it's fair to say that Dragonlance was a kind of precursor to the settings that would come during 2nd Edition.

2nd Edition: The Companion

One thing that popped into my head today was the companion character. Usually an exotic humanoid or beast that shares some kind of close bond with the character.

Often the companion can only speak or communicate with the patron character. In the case of Chewbacca, no one seems to understand his specific language except for Han and C-3P0. Even if others could, they often go through the patron character since their bond means that the patron is more trusted.
Sometimes the patron can even see through the companion's eyes, or listen through their ears, in the case of The Beastmaster.

And the companion is often not human, or even one of the usual demihuman races, but something more strange and unusal, in the case of Dragonbait from the Forgotten Realms.

Game thoughts: My opinion is that the companion should be an NPC under the control of the patron character's player. This would make them synchrynous in how they and their relationship are played out. Plus the companion may be a beast that wouldn't be much fun playing all the time, like Kodo and Podo from The Beastmaster, but fun to pull out when a key needs retrieving or a bad guy needs distracting.

Thinking on it, we often 'adopted' interesting NPCs, making them companions to our regular PCs in our AD&D games. There were the henchmen rules, but we didn't necessarily think of it in rules terms. More like "This guy/girl/furry thing is cool. Let's take him/her/it with us!"

2nd Edition

I'd say everything's been covered regarding the OSR and editions of Dungeons and Dragons that run from the "White Box" up until AD&D. There's not a ton of stuff on 2nd edition, and since that's the edition I spent a lot of time with, I thought I'd start up some thoughts on the subject.

MTV played music videos instead of fake reality road trip shows, we watched Thundercats and Transformers and Star Wars. Our magic wasn't from a Dying Earth, but from a galaxy far, far away, or a land inhabited by Nelwyns. And we inherited D&D from some guys in Lake Geneva, who packaged their strange game with the funny dice, and sold at the corner hobby store, or the Sears catalog.

We didn't have a clue how the game was 'supposed' to be played. Sure, there were the books listed in Appendix N, and the examples of play, but we tossed the rules that didn't make sense at the time, and stuck our own "Appendix N" in there, of battle cats and skesis and luck dragons. I plan to post much more on the subject as I put my thougths together while creating my own 2nd edition style campaign setting, tentativley titled "Palace of the Sun and Moon".

Note that a lot of my 2nd edition inspiration comes from before it was published, as the media and games that influenced my tastes and found their way into my D&D campains predates 2nd edition by roughly a decade.