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Are Magic Users Too Weak, Part II
by Solomoriah
Back on January 11, 2014, I posted Are Magic-Users Too Weak? about the persistent notion that, by the book, Magic-User characters are too weak because they get just one spell per day. I thought my post had dispelled that notion, but evidently not, as it has come up several times on our Facebook page.
I honestly don't understand it. I explained all the same things to those folks that I explained in the blog post, and they still said things to the effect that the magic-user was useless because he (or she) could only participate in one combat before running out of magic and therefore being unable to do anything.
Now certainly, if you want to run a more heroic game, and you've beefed up the other classes in some way, giving the magic-user more magic might be entirely appropriate, and I will neither judge nor question you if that's the game you're wanting to run. But the question of whether or not magic-users are "too weak" by the book still comes up, and I still do not understand it.
First of all, magic isn't all you can do. Classic games of the old days, the ones that Basic Fantasy mimics, expected that a first-level magic-user would start play with a handful of daggers for throwing. It was also expected that, since that character needed no armor and only cheap weaponry, his or her expenditures would be for party-useful items like rope, spikes, and maybe a ten foot pole.
But the blog post linked above shows a more important truth: By the book, no first level character is prepared for more than one battle before retiring to a safe place to recover. I did the math and presented a valid answer, and thought it was over.
It wasn't.
Last night and this morning I wrote a simulation script. The parameters are simple: One each fighter, cleric, thief, and magic-user, all first level. Each character has a +1 in his or her prime requisite attribute, and is otherwise average. The magic-user has one spell, magic missile, the number two choice for magic-users (as sleep is generally the nuclear option for first level parties, ending an encounter almost before it starts). The opponents are a group of four goblins, of average nature. I assume the fighter and cleric, being beginners, had only enough money for chainmail and shield, giving them AC 16, while the thief has AC 14 due to leather armor and that +1 DEX bonus. The magic-user is, of course, AC 11. Everyone gets to roll hit points twice and take the higher result, while the monsters are stuck with a single roll; this is the only advantage I gave the players, and I did this specifically because most GMs won't make a player suffer with 1 HP at the start. The fighter has a longsword, the cleric a mace, the thief a shortsword and the magic-user has a dagger. Ranged weapons are omitted on both sides, and the fight takes place in a 10′ wide corridor, so initially the fighter and cleric are the front line facing a pair of goblins; if either the fighter or cleric dies, the thief moves up, so the magic-user is in melee only if two party members die. Also, surprise and morale effects are ignored; everyone fights to the death. This is the "cold steel" option, the harshest one, which should nail down the power level of the party as a whole as well as the magic-user's place within it.
After 10,000 combats were fought, I had results. The monsters won the fight, killing everyone, 1,664 times; the players won 8,336 times. Though ties were possible (as I modeled the standard initiative rules), there were none. So the players were 83.36% likely to win… but what did winning look like?
All four player characters survived in 3,805 of those battles, or in other words, in about 46% of battles where the PCs won, all four walked away. That doesn't sound too bad, does it? The average damage taken by the entire party in these situations is about 2.8 points, which sounds a lot like one hit from a goblin. Doesn't seem so bad, does it? But even so, at this point one of your front-line characters has taken about half of his or her hit points in damage. Fighting on is not a great idea, but many would go ahead.
This is, of course, the situation when all four party members survive the combat. What about when it doesn't go so well? In 32% of the battles where the player characters win, one of their number falls; in 17% of those winning battles, two party members are down (the fighter and the cleric, of course). In just 6% of combats, only one walks away, by the skin of his or her teeth it seems. Sensible player characters absolutely will withdraw to safety if even one of their number dies or is rendered noncombatant (if you use the negative HP rule, for example); if both front line characters go down, there's just about no other sane choice. Thus, in about 46% of battles, it might make sense for the party to fight on, and in those cases the magic-user has "nothing to do."
I'm not convinced that is true. Throwing daggers is always a good option. I've actually had people tell me that magic-users should never be reduced to using non-magical combat options, which is silly. A first level magic-user is just starting out (we used to call them "apprentices") and thus is not yet ready to depend on his or her magic nearly that much.
But wait, there's more. Remember I said the magic-user had magic missile? What if that weren't so? What if the magic-user didn't do an automatic 1d6+1 points of damage in the first round of combat?
Let's find out. I modified the simulation to omit that spell, and here are the statistics: The PCs win just about 74% of the time, rather than 83% as above. All four PCs survive their winning battles just 37% of the time, instead of 46%… 33% of the time, three survive, 21% of the time two survive, and only one survives just 8% of the time. Without that one spell, outcomes are significantly different.
There is one rule I find interesting… many GMs apparently allow magic-users to use a "magic dart" attack of some kind that does 1d4 points of damage, and requires an attack roll to hit. This obviously does not unbalance the game significantly, as the character could just as easily be using daggers to do this, so it's just for flavor. While it does not appeal to me, I see nothing "wrong" with it from a game balance perspective. I still think, though, that the apprentice magic-user who is not yet sure of his or her magic and so is armed with a collection of throwing knives is a more interesting archetype than one who shoots off sparks of magical energy whenever he or she gets cross with someone.
But again, I believe I've successfully shown here why the first level magic-user is not, in fact, "too weak" by the book. I hope, anyway.
This entry was posted in Development, Opinion on October 28, 2019 by Solomoriah.
The Companion Question
I'm frequently asked about why there is no "Companion" rulebook collecting races, classes, items, spells, and other rules that are presently supplements. Sometimes the questioner asks for an "Advanced" game combining the current Core Rules with those same supplementary rulesets. I've answered this question many times, but yet it still crops up regularly, so I'm writing this blog post as a permanent answer to the question.
In the 2E era of the "world's most popular role-playing game," one of the things that began to appear in great numbers were so-called splatbooks: rulebooks containing supplementary classes, races, items, spells, and so on, put out by the same publisher who created the original rules. The 3E and later eras of that game continued this tradition. Players would buy these splatbooks because they appealed to them, naturally, and then they would show up at a game session and tell the GM "I want to play THIS." If the race or class didn't fit well with the GM's world, he or she was naturally permitted by the application of Rule Zero to say "No, sorry, I'm not allowing that in my world." But just because the GM could do so did not mean that he or she would… the player might say, "But, but, this is official!" and the GM would feel pressured into allowing it. 3E and later books had, if anything, even more power over the GM, since that game sharply curtailed Rule Zero.
One of the things I feel strongly about is that this should not happen. Players should be allowed to have a good time, of course, but the GM should never be forced to allow something he or she doesn't want. It is for this reason that the supplements on the Downloads page will never, ever be compiled into any sort of official book, whether a Companion supplement or an Advanced rulebook.
This doesn't mean such a book is impossible. In fact, I have plans to publish my personal compilation, the Glain Supplement, in print at some point in the future. But it will not be an official Basic Fantasy Project publication… it won't carry the crenelated border that marks all our works, nor will it appear on the Downloads page, ever. It's my personal house rules, and house rules compilations are not permitted on the Downloads page nor as official print publications, for the same reason I just gave above.
One of the curious, and very pleasant, side effects of doing things this way is the shorthand it allows the GM when starting a new game. The GM can simply say, "I'm running a Basic Fantasy game with the Half Humans, Gnomes, and Thief Options" and everyone knows exactly what options are available in that game. It's easier to do it that way than to say "I'm running a Basic Fantasy game with just some of the Companion Supplement items. Here's a list." This might seem just as easy, but done this way the players may end up having to figure out what pages to print from that Companion book, or might buy the book only to use a small part of it. When our standard supplements are used, the player need only print out the supplements relevant to his or her character.
This entry was posted in Development on April 15, 2018 by Solomoriah.
The Non-Problem with Skill Dice
Today a snippet of a blog post showed up multiple times on my Facebook wall, posted by several of my friends. A little Google-fu allowed me to find the actual post, which is here:
https://housesarepeople.netlify.com/post/skills/
Go read it, and then come back.
OKAY, so, I'm mainly commenting on the part after the subheading "The Problem with Skill Dice" (which you probably guessed given the title of this post). Michael's opinion of the "n in d6" mechanic is pretty clear:
This is unintuitive, clunky, not uniform, and scales oddly, implicitly preventing attributes from doing what they normally do.
I disagree with this part in general; I use this mechanic all the time. Typically it's used in places where the odds of success are normally low, and the character's ability score is the only significant modifier. Opening doors, for example, is successful on a 1 on 1d6, with the Strength bonus added to the range of success (so a Strength bonus of +1 makes the roll succeed on 1-2 on 1d6, a +2 is 1-3 on 1d6, and so on). This is a standard mechanic in Basic Fantasy RPG.
Personally, I extend this mechanic in two ways: First, an ability score with a penalty bumps the die size up (so a -1 Strength penalty makes it a 1 on 1d8, a -2 is 1 on 1d10, and so on). Second, if the difficulty is greater than normal, I bump up the die size; the best example of this is when a character tries to lift a portcullis or bend some bars. In that specific case, I bump the die all the way up to 1d20 (so a character with 18 Strength succeeds on 1-4 on 1d20, a 20% chance, while an average character has only a 5% chance of success).
Michael says this mechanic "scales oddly." I don't see it that way… rather, I see it as a specific choice in scaling, one that makes a typical task difficult for an average person but relatively easy for a superior character. Where that type of mechanic makes sense (i.e. when opening a door), I think it's fine. One of the most important elements of the old games is the use of whatever mechanic seems to fit the situation… a sort of game mechanical pragmatism that stands in full opposition to the idea of a "core mechanic."
Michael goes on to say:
Skill dice discourage imaginative, descriptive play in favor of using a skill from a sheet.
This assertion is not really related to his earlier statement. First, he describes how he doesn't like "Skill Dice" as a mechanic, and then he says he doesn't like how the mechanic affects play. They really are separate things.
The short answer to the question is, how else do you do it? When I play a thief, I'm playing someone who knows how to do something I don't know how to do (and if you ask my wife, it's not Open Locks that I fail at, it's Move Silently). It won't do me any good to describe HOW I'm doing a task, when I'm doing a task the character knows better than I do. If my success is keyed to how well I can describe the action… folks, I'm screwed. And that's not what the game is about.
I do believe in rewarding players who go the extra mile. If a player says, "I check the door for traps" then I make the roll and tell the player what the character discovers (or does not discover). If that player says, "I look all around the doorknob, and before I look under the door, I want to slip my dagger in there an inch or so and slide it around to make sure there's nothing there" then I will adjudicate that action however I see fit; probably, I'll still make the same roll, but I might very well grant a bonus.
You have to have some way to resolve actions. Keying them entirely to the character's ability scores is very limiting; it becomes hard, for example, to have a character who is good at one part of his or her profession and bad at another. And, depending on what mechanic you choose, it may make ability scores too important (or too unimportant).
So I guess I'm arguing both points too. You do need "Skill Dice" of some sort… some way to resolve actions. And you do need multiple ways to do such resolution, so each situation has an appropriate chance of success.
This entry was posted in Opinion on April 4, 2018 by Solomoriah.
How to Make a Ranger (or, How to Use this Website, Episode 1)
by Steve McKenzie
The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game Core Rules were first released on this website in 2006, after much preliminary work on the Dragonsfoot forum. Since then, they've been edited many times. In addition, a wealth of supplementary material has grown up around the Core Rules. It's an open source project, and the owner, Chris Gonnerman (or, 'Solomoriah'), has encouraged many others to participate in the creation of new material for the game.
When you are planning your first Basic Fantasy campaign, there's a range of things to bear in mind about this supplementary material. This blog post is designed to give you some ideas about how to select the appropriate supplements for the game you want to run.
The best way to get your head around the supplement system is to read the text at the beginning of the Downloads Page. That will show you how the material is categorized. For this blog post I am only looking at common Download and Showcase items, as the Workshop items are works in progress.
Many of the most frequently-downloaded supplements are adventure modules and campaign settings, such as the classic Morgansfort campaign. These are designed for use with the Core Rules and will work well with supplementary rules material too. The website also contains a variety of monster supplements, character sheets and other printable forms. Once again, these are all designed for use with the Core Rules and you can use whichever of these you like without concern.
Finally, there a wide array of rules supplements. These detail extra races, character classes, optional rules for existing classes, new magical spells, optional rules for combat, skill systems, and much more. It is only when you select these rules supplements that you need to be aware of how their use may affect the style and balance of your game.
For this blog post I've decided to concentrate on the 'Ranger' sub-class of Fighter and make some observations on how to pick the right supplementary rules for that class in your game.
Variant Versions
As this is an open source project with input from participants over many years, it is natural that there are variant versions of the same archetypes presented. For example, there are 5 main versions of a 'Ranger' type sub-class of Fighter on the website as I write this post:
– the Ranger in the Rangers and Paladins supplement (HD8, 2200 exp to 2nd level, fighter sub-class, stealth skills, percentile tracking, bow specialization, chosen enemy).
– the Scout by Jason Brentlinger (HD6, 1500 exp to 2nd level, thief sub-class, most thief skills, bow specialization, surprise, percentile tracking, dual weapons, armor limitations).
– the Hunter in the Quasi-Class showcase supplement (HD as base class, exp +500 on base class, treat as base class, stealth, percentile tracking, woodcraft, chosen enemy).
– the Ranger presented by William Smith in his Fighter Subclasses supplement (HD 8, exp 2000 to 2nd level, fighter sub-class, unarmored AC bonus, stealth, percentile tracking, healing, bow specialization, extra damage vs. humanoids).
– the Hunter in Additional Fighting Subclasses (HD 8, exp 2000 to 2nd level, fighter sub-class, some armor limitations, stealth, chosen enemy, percentile tracking, general outdoorsmanship).
All are different expressions of the basic woodsman archetype, although the expressions are very different. Most of them are 'treated' as sub-classes of Fighter, meaning the character fights and saves as a normal Fighter according to the Core Rules. The Scout is a sub-class of the Thief with outdoors expertise, and the Hunter 'Quasi-Class' is a template that can be added onto any base class (see below).
The first and most important question when designing your game, do you even want Rangers? If you are running a game set primarily underground or in a city, you might want to forgo these options, and concentrate primarily on material that will bring out the best in your particular game and the characters in it. The Assassins supplement, for example? Or the Scrapper, for all those bar-room fights that might break out?
If you decide that you do want Rangers in your game, there are a few key things to bear in mind.
Compatibility and Overlap
As there are numerous different versions of the same ideas, it is also natural that some of the material presented here will not be fully compatible with rules in other supplements. Sometimes that's because of overlap, at other times because of a contradiction. You'll need to change or alter any rules that don't seem to work.
For example, the Scout supplement notes that the Scout character may wield two weapons at the same time, giving either a defensive bonus from parrying with the smaller off-hand weapon, or, an additional attack at a penalty. The supplement suggests that it is only the Scout who specializes in this mode of combat. However the Combat Options Supplement states that any character may wield with two weapons, with very similar advantages as the Scout.
You may decide to treat the rules presented in the Scout supplement as a handy duplication of the rules in the Combat Options Supplement. In my campaign, however, I have decided that it is only the Scout character who may wield two weapons. That gives the Scout a certain flavor in combat that no other character possesses.
As another example, the Hunter in the Quasi-Class Supplement and the Hunter in the Additional Fighting Classes Supplement are very similar. They're both by the same author (Kevin Smoot). The first is just a treatment of the class as a Quasi-Class, while the second is as a proper class. You probably don't need both in your game. Pick the supplements that are going to work best for the game you want and ignore others that duplicate the same concepts.
What's a Quasi-Class?
The Quasi-Class concept was developed by Kevin Smoot and furthered by Martin Serena, both long-term contributors to the game. Instead of having entirely new classes for the Ranger, Paladin, and so on, the Quasi-Class system treats these as "add-ons" to the base classes, with an additional amount XP required for the character to advance in level. If you wished to turn a Fighter into a Ranger, you could simply chose the Ranger Quasi-Class option, and that would become the official version of the 'Ranger' in your game.
The Quasi-Class system is simple, but also very flexible, because the add-ons can be applied to any of the base classes, not just the most obvious ones. For instance, if you wished to have a Magic-User who was raised outdoors and knew many secrets of woodcraft, you would add the Ranger Quasi-Class to the Magic-User base class. That would create an unusual and memorable character.
Note that the Quasi-Classes can only be applied to the base classes, not to other specialized classes. For example, you shouldn't have a Monk and then add on the Ranger Quasi-Class. Ideally, if you pick the Quasi-Class system, that should serve all the additional class needs for your game. If you can't see a Quasi-Class that suits your needs, make your own.
Weapon Specialization
You've already seem that your Ranger will probably have some kind of weapon and attack specializations – typically with the bow, or against certain enemy types. There are 3 main supplements that deal with weapon specializations for Fighter characters:
– the Combat Options Supplement (level-based).
– the rules in Simple Weapon Mastery (level-based).
– the Fighter Options rules in the Sword and Board house-rule set (one-off bonuses).
Clearly, only one of these systems can be used in your game. The first two are general rules supplements, while the third one is part of an entire 'house-rule' set made by a particular DM, which will have some internal logic and consistency already. The first two supplements see the character gain extra bonuses with specific weapons as they level up, whereas the third one applies a one-off bonus at 1st level. Pick the one you like best.
Note that all of the systems all specifically for pure Fighter classes, not sub-classes or Quasi-Classes, who already have their own combat bonuses. If you allowed all the Fighter sub-classes (like your Ranger) to access weapon specialization options as well, you would end up with characters having extremely high bonuses at lower levels compared to the basic Fighter class, and this would unbalance your game.
All of the different types of Ranger described above use a percentile system for determining if the Ranger character can track enemies or animals. It's the same way Thief Skills work in the Core Rules. There's also an entire supplement which extends the Thief Skill system to cover the activities of Rangers, Assassins and Bards.
Ability Rolls for 'Woodcraft'
But there's a lot of other things the Ranger can do besides tracking, right? Like gathering food, finding or making shelter, lighting fires in unfavorable conditions, using smoke signals, and generally 'roughing it'? How do you handle all of that? There's no way you could write a rule system that could cover every possible thing a player might attempt.
The ability roll system in BFRPG determines success by a roll on a d20, aiming to get higher than the target number listed in the Core Rules (page 153 in the current release 107, under Optional Rules). This system gives the character a target number on a d20 based on their level, when attempting something outside of the Core Rules or their Class Supplement. Ability modifiers apply, and as GM, it's your job to pick which ability is relevant to what the character is attempting. Gathering food is probably based on Wisdom, but you might decide that recognizing a type of plant is based on Intelligence.
The ability roll system is based on the idea that every type of character can attempt any type of action not covered in the Core Rules. A Cleric could find food by making a 'Wisdom' ability roll, for example, or a Thief could make a roll to construct a shelter with the same type of roll. Generally, all the supplements agree that adventurers know how to adventure. It's a basic game, and your players may get frustrated if you tell them that they are utterly incapable of doing these things.
But shouldn't the Ranger be better at all of that stuff than his city-slicker allies? Certainly. The Ranger has additional skill in woodcraft, acquired through his background, that gives him a bonus on these rolls. There's three main supplements on the website that detail these background skills.
– Background Skills by Omer Golan-Joel. This gives each character a background skill slot, which they can spend on a skill based on their profession. It suggests that characters with a background skill (in woodcraft, for example) should only need to make an ability roll under very difficult circumstances, otherwise they will automatically succeed in their attempted actions in that area. Other characters without the skill will need to roll more frequently.
– Secondary Skills by Ray Allen. This is a more complex system which still uses the ability roll mechanic but sets variable target numbers depending on whether the skill is a 'class' or 'non-class' skill. Survival is listed as a general skill which means anyone could attempt it with a standard ability roll. A +1 bonus is granted for anyone who has the survival skill.
– Finally there is Alexander Lars-Dalman's Tiny Skill Companion. It doesn't actually provide a list of skills, but details exactly what bonuses on ability rolls a character would receive for having skills at various levels of expertise.
All three systems note that more 'slots' or skill points become available at higher levels, so your Ranger can become better at outdoor activities over time. Your higher level Ranger might end up greatly superior to his companions in this area.
If you decide to have background skills, remember that these three systems are not compatible so pick the one you like best and grant your Ranger the woodcraft skill. You could either do that for free, or make the character purchase it with one of his background skill slots. (In my campaign I usually pick the first option because I do not want characters having to pay for things that should already be part of their class package.)
As a final note, there is also an Adventuring Supplement which details many aspects of outdoor adventuring not covered in the Core Rules – weather, chases outdoors, sleeping in armor, effects of terrain, and so on. This is generally pretty compatible with most of the other supplements.
What about Companion Animals?
Many fantasy role-playing games grant the Ranger an expertise with animals, and some even grant the Ranger a special companion animal which serves in almost the same way as a wizard's familiar.
None of the existing Ranger classes have this feature so if you want it, you'll have to add it. Bear in mind that such animals can be very useful, and their addition may make the Ranger much more powerful than some of his fellow adventurers.
The best source for rules on animal training is in the Secondary Skills system by Ray Allen. It details all the tricks a trained animal can perform. In my campaign I would not allow animals to be used for guarding, tracking or combat unless the character in question had sufficient background skills levels in animal handling.
Do I even Need a Ranger Class to have Rangers?
It's possible to have a character that behaves like a Ranger in your game without necessarily having a Ranger class. You could take this option if you just want to stick to the Core Rules, but have a bit of extra flavor for your characters.
In this scenario, your Ranger is probably a plain Fighter. You would use weapon specialization rules listed above to give the character a specialization in bows, and also, grant them a background skill in woodcraft, meaning they were somewhat better at it than their fellow characters. Viola, a Ranger-flavored character without needing too many supplements!
Introducing Rules Progressively
Many DMs run BFRPG by introducing new rules as the game goes forward. That way, it's not too much to handle all at once – especially for young and inexperienced players.
You might begin at 1st level by using the Core Rules and nothing else. Once again, your Ranger would be a plain Fighter. Then, at 2nd level, you could introduce the idea of background skills, to grant the character a bonus in woodcraft and / or animal handling. At 3rd level, you may wish to introduce the idea of weapon specialization, and the fighter would gain an advantage with bows. By 4th level, you might actually introduce a Ranger Quasi-Class or Class system into the game. (Bear in mind the Ranger will probably need a few more experience points to qualify for those.)
If this post is useful to you, let me know in the comments. I'm intending to do another post on magic-users in the future.
Steve 'Longman' McKenzie.
This entry was posted in Advice and tagged ability rolls, character generation, ranger, rules supplements on June 14, 2017 by Steve McKenzie.
How I Write Adventures
Probably close to two months ago (in real time) I was needing a game-time-filling side quest for some of my player's characters. So an NPC told them a story about Thaumerion Daelant, a wizard dead for almost two hundred years; his tower, they were told, had been raided repeatedly by adventurers over the years, but no one ever found the wizard's personal treasures. Besides his spell books, a thing always worth having, the stories told that Thaumerion had been the owner of a Staff of Power.
That was enough of a hook to get them moving. I didn't have the tower detailed yet; indeed, all I knew about it was what I just wrote above. They spent a session traveling overland to the locale, and still I didn't have the dungeon done, but no problem… I just put J.D. Neal's Insect Valhalla from our AA1 Adventure Anthology 1 multimodule between them and the tower. I'd wanted to run that adventure for a while anyway, so it seemed like a perfect time.
They finished it (as in, got from one side to the other) in a session, and due to scheduling issues I had a month to get the tower done.
A week ago, I still hadn't done anything, and I knew I was down to the wire… they were literally at the outer door of the tower. I had to get it finished.
Tuesday I was driving down the road on the way back from visiting a customer, thinking about the tower, when I suddenly saw it all in a kind of a flash… how to build the dungeon so it could be repeatedly looted and still have significant challenges, and present an enemy who is not what it appears to be at all (subverting one of the oldest RPG tropes in the process).
Tuesday night I sat down and drew the maps, then converted them to MapMatic +2 format. Wednesday I laid out the basic document format, wrote up a first draft of the GM's introduction, the main encounter and roughly a third of the other dungeon rooms. Thursday I filled in all the remaining rooms, and had James Lemon start taking a look at the adventure. I've redone some of the maps and touched up the text a bit since then, and as far as I'm concerned it's almost ready to publish.
Seriously, I don't normally write adventures that way. Most of the time, filling in the last 50% or so of the dungeon is a slog, and I rarely am able to fill in the mundane contents of the dungeon, or the flavor text, so easily as I did this time. Writing the adventures I publish, or revising those submitted to us, is almost always a slow process. Sometimes, though, inspiration hits… just in time, in this case, as I will be running the adventure in an hour and a half.
Thaumerion's Tower will appear on the forum soon (after my players have been through it and I fix up whatever issues they expose) and I have plans for it to appear in AA3 Adventure Anthology 3 when we begin work on that document.
UPDATE: Thaumerion's Tower is now part of BF3 Strongholds of Sorcery, which with any luck will be in print before Christmas!
This entry was posted in Development, Opinion on April 30, 2017 by Solomoriah.
Response to "Read-Aloud Woes"
Over at Angry Hamster Publishing, Liz wrote about her love-hate relationship with read-aloud text (what we call "Boxed Text" in Basic Fantasy adventures). I tried to post commentary on her blog about the subject, but it thinks I'm a robot. (Can you imagine?) So first, visit Angry Hamster for her perspective on the situation:
Read Aloud Woes
And next, you can read mine:
For adventures distributed by the Basic Fantasy Project, I always require what we call "boxed text." As a GM, I only use it sometimes, and when I do I paraphrase what's there. Why do we require it?
Because of secrets.
See, if you write fluffy descriptive text in the middle of the GM's bit, and the GM is describing the room to the players, it's tempting to just read what's there. But imagine this bit appearing in the GM's description of a room:
This fine parlor contains two large comfortable chairs toward the right rear of the room with a table between them. The table has a single drawer, and inside it is a dagger +1, +3 vs. undead. The back wall is covered floor-to-ceiling in overloaded bookshelves; there are several scrolls and one rare book, as listed below, scattered among the other books. Each turn spent searching yields a cumulative 10% chance per character searching that one will be found; the GM should roll randomly to determine which one is discovered each time the roll succeeds. On the floor is a large, ornate rug, somewhat moth-eaten but still impressive. There is a fireplace roughly centered on the right-hand wall, and that wall is covered in paintings depicting different members of the Baron's family. Behind one of them (the painting of Hilda, the Baron's third cousin once removed) is a small wall-safe containing 122 PP and a ring of fire resistance. The left-hand wall is dominated by a huge mirror centered on the wall; on either side of the mirror is a painting of a pastoral landscape. The mirror is, in fact, a secret door, opened by means of a slightly-protruding brick hidden behind the right-hand landscape painting.
Okay, now try to read out just the parts the players can see from that description without giving away the locations of the treasures or of the secret door. Unless you are more skillful than me, you'll naturally pause as you skip over those bits, giving away that there is something there.
Breaking it apart makes it much easier to avoid giving things away, and as a bonus, you can also break up the different interesting bits into separate paragraphs so that all relevant info is easy to find.
Like this. First, the boxed text:
This fine parlor contains two large comfortable chairs toward the right rear of the room with a table between them; the table has a single small drawer. The back wall is covered floor-to-ceiling in overloaded bookshelves. On the floor is a large, ornate rug, somewhat moth-eaten but still impressive. There is a fireplace roughly centered on the right-hand wall, and that wall is covered in portrait paintings. The left-hand wall is dominated by a huge mirror centered on the wall; on either side of the mirror is a painting of a pastoral landscape.
Next, the GM's part:
Inside the drawer of the small table is a dagger +1, +3 vs. undead.
There are several scrolls and one rare book, as listed below, scattered among the other books on the bookshelf. Each turn spent searching yields a cumulative 10% chance per character searching that one will be found; the GM should roll randomly to determine which one is discovered each time the roll succeeds.
The mirror is, in fact, a secret door, opened by means of a slightly-protruding brick hidden behind the right-hand landscape painting.
The paintings on the left-hand wall (around the fireplace) depict different members of the Baron's family. Behind one of them (the painting of Hilda, the Baron's third cousin once removed) is a small wall-safe containing 122 PP and a ring of fire resistance.
… and I can't tell you how many times I've done exactly what I just did here to a dungeon room description in a submitted adventure. Usually the author of the adventure has provided all that is needed for the boxed text, but has just not organized it. Even if you NEVER read the boxed text literally, isn't it nice to have the non-secret part boxed out for you to use in creating your own description?
This entry was posted in Opinion on April 11, 2017 by Solomoriah.
Why not add X to the game?
This is an answer to a question I get a lot, and I've answered a lot… and saying the same thing over and over is inefficient. So from now on, when I get the question, I'll point the questioner here.
One of the secrets of the success of Basic Fantasy RPG is the fact that I had a clear vision of what the game needed to be. Four classes, four races, brief equipment list, manageable spell list, enough monsters to keep you busy without getting too weird, and so on. I had what I called a "coverage target," that is, a list of things that the game had to have. I made a point of adding very little that was not on that list.
The rule I used was simple. Many people would send me email messages that said "Your game is really good, but it would be great if it had X in it" where X might be sorcerers or half-dragons or whatever. Very few people repeated the same request; when I saw a request being repeated, that was an indication to me of something I should consider adding. Consider carefully, mind you… very few things got added that way. It's why we have (brief) wrestling rules, for example, rather than none at all as was common in the 1981 era that BFRPG seeks to emulate.
Any X that was requested by just one guy? No, not getting in, sorry. Even when several people asked, I was really careful.
One thing in particular I am always careful of… new classes. It is so hard to create a new class that is not objectively better or worse overall than the core class it is closest to. Balance is hard, people, especially in a game that embraces the "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" situation (look it up, it's interesting reading).
The Basic Fantasy RPG Core Rules will probably never include more than the four classes and four races you find in the current edition. Keeping the game compact, and providing those "cool" bits as supplements, helps to keep the feel and style of the game consistent and familiar.
This entry was posted in Development on December 14, 2015 by Solomoriah.
Save or Die Podcast
Episode 108 of the Save or Die! podcast focused on the Basic Fantasy RPG, and I joined the hosts to discuss all aspects of the game. Click on the banner to jump straight to the podcast!
This entry was posted in Promotion on May 26, 2015 by Solomoriah.
Review: Sheet Yourself
by James Lemon
Note: this review is for the iOS version; there is an older version for Android
Note 2: I was given a promo for this app in exchange for writing a review
There are numerous RPG-related apps for rules reference, character development and management, etc. available, although most seem to be for Pathfinder and the like, rather than OSR-focused games. The only OSR-focused one I've used until now is Purple Sorcerer's Crawler's Companion, a very useful as well as well-maintained and updated app. Today I'll be taking a look at SparkNET's Sheet Yourself, a system-neutral app to create and manage characters as well as spells, abilities, weapons, or pretty much anything else you'd need to keep track of.
When you first open the app, you'll be prompted if you want to use iCloud to backup/sync your sheets. Next there is prompt for a short video that highlights the app's features. At four and a half minutes it's not terribly long, but you may want to skip and dive right into the app. The video can always be accessed in the app's menu.
By default you'll see a couple entries, one of each type of common things you'd likely create and want to keep track of in a game. You can tap on any of these to quickly see what information is shown for each sheet.
If you only want to view one category of items, you can tap the menu icon at the upper left and then tap which category to view. Slightly confusing is that in this menu there is a Menu button at the top; tapping this brings up the option to view the intro video, access SparkNet's social media, and view your iCloud backups. This is also where you'll add any new sheet types or campaigns by tapping the "+" at the upper right.
What's nice about this app is that it's truly system-neutral. It doesn't assume you're playing any specific game, and you can literally type in anything you want. This is also its downfall, as you'll first have to type in everything. You'll spend a lot more time setting up everything you'd need for your game(s), but once in you can easily re-use those items for any sheet in the app.
To create a new item you'll tap the "+" at the upper right. By default it will set it as a Character type; to change this you'll have to tap "Character", the second-from-the-bottom button; this is kind of confusing, as I would think the type should be under/over the name at the top. Related is the naming; by default the name is also "Character"; for those new to the program you may think this is where the sheet type is set, rather than actually the name of this sheet/item.
If you want an image, you can tap the person icon (shouldn't it be a generic photo/camera icon since you can set an image for a weapon, spell, or anything else as well?) to either choose an image or take one with your camera. Once you set an image however, you can't remove it, only choose a new one.
You can also link the sheet to an existing campaign here. However once you link to a campaign there's no option to un-link it (at least as far as I could tell); so if you need the sheet un-linked you'll have to duplicate it and then delete the original.
If you need to email the sheet you can use the email icon at the upper right; it will compose an email with the sheet as an attachment (as a file with a .sheet extension); the email text provides links to the Sheet Yourself program on both iOS and Android. As a test I sent this email to myself to see if the file could be read with a text editor, but unfortunately it can't be; so if you need your sheets and possibly hours of typing accessible outside of the program you're out of luck.
As mentioned above, you'll have to type in everything, at least at first. Luckily there is a duplicate/copy option, although it isn't obvious. On the main screen, tap the pages icon at the upper right corner of the item you want to duplicate; you'll be prompted and then tap "Yes" to duplicate the item; it's a true duplicate, even in name (I do wish it'd add "2" or "copy" at the end of the name), so you'll need to edit that first just to know which one you're working on and don't accidentally edit your original sheet. At least the duplicated item won't be linked to any campaign if the original item was.
If you need to delete one or more sheets you'll need to do it from the main screen by tapping the Pencil icon at the upper right. Be sure you really want to delete something, because once you tap the Skull & Crossbones icon on a sheet it's deleted, no confirmation asked!
In general I'm not too big on relying on technology for my RPGs (beyond PDFs on a tablet), however like any aspect of technology I can see where this app can be convenient as well as a possible hindrance. As there's no free version of Sheet Yourself nor any way to demo it I can't tell you if it would be a helpful app or even a vital part of your game. I'll be curious to see what future updates and fixes the app receives.
This entry was posted in Review on April 7, 2015 by James Lemon.
My Reply to "Who's Afraid Of The OSR?"
I honestly don't remember how I ended up reading Smiorgan's post on the Department V blog, but no sooner was I reading it than I felt compelled to reply. At first I planned to post a comment there, but those who know me, know that brevity is not my strong suit.
So here I am.
First of all, let me say that it is an interesting post. One of the first things that stood out to me was this quote by Ron Edwards:
I suggest that the systemic differences among many OSR games, even the retroclones, are so profound that they exceed the community ideal of compatibility, which then must be papered over by claims of some kind of homogeneity.
I know Ron is supposed to be some kind of gaming expert, but honestly, what the heck is he talking about? I routinely use materials (primarily adventures) written for Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, and Swords & Wizardry (not to mention the classic games on which they are modeled) in my games, converting materials on the fly. Claims that the systemic differences are "profound" is, well, a profound overstatement.
More to the point, though… Smiorgan provided a list of things he (I think it's he) says could be changed to make D&D-like games more palatable to modern players. Let me say that I tried pretty much all of those things, and found the results wanting.
Back around 2002-2003 or so, about the same time Castles & Crusades was being developed, I wrote a set of core rules intended for use with spells and monsters from any edition of the classic game. I called my rules "Project 74" and my plan was to achieve compatibility with classic materials, much as I just now described, while including modern features. I didn't go after Smiorgan's list, of course (as it was just now written) but rather followed along with the list written by Mark "Kamikaze" Hughes titled "What's Wrong with AD&D."
I took his list of complaints, which surprisingly after more than ten years is still at the same URL, as a list of things to correct. I boiled the rules of those classic games down to a sort of mechanical ideal, "refactoring" (to use a programming term) the rules to make them more "sensible." I addressed Mark's list with my own philosophical statement, still available on my website.
In my opinion, I did a very usable job of creating a rules-light, semi-modern game system that managed to retain D&D-isms like class and level while having a full skill system. I made an effort to make all game mechanical systems properly "first class" (in a programming sense) so that the rules would have few special cases.
The game was not satisfactory. Oh, I ran my ongoing campaign, set in the world I created back in 1982, using those rules, and things went along well enough. But there were things that just felt wrong.
I could give an exhaustive list, if I felt like racking my brain long enough (remember, I last played with these rules around 2007), but I'm not going to that much trouble. Rather, I'll point out the one thing that really stood out to me.
Opening doors.
My game had a unified skill roll system. Every "difficult" action other than combat was resolved using a standardized core mechanic; this was similar to the D20 method, but arguably the same thing as in games like RuneQuest, where percentiles are rolled for everything. The end result was that the party half-ogre with 17 Strength was actually not a lot better at knocking down doors than the party dwarf, also with a +2 Strength bonus (Project 74 used a similar attribute-to-bonus mapping as BFRPG). Yeah, I gave the half-ogre a bonus because he was big, but I also had to assign bonuses or penalties (for easy or hard doors) using larger numbers than I generally assigned as "situational modifiers."
I could have messed around with the numbers, sure; but it was by far simpler to switch back to the classic 1d6 roll to open a door. Each bonus was worth 16.7% instead of 5%, and the adjustments were very obvious. I wrote down in my last version of Project 74 a new rule that even allowed for changing the die size as an indicator of difficulty. Though it's not in the BFRPG rules, it's exactly the method I use now, as it works beautifully.
Why didn't I write it down? See my post on this blog entitled "Metarules" for an explanation of that.
It might be tempting to think I'm a true grognard, i.e. a grumbler, one who loves the classic games with a religious zeal. I'm not. I'm working on a game called "Realms of Wonder" right now, a fantasy game set in a world that differs markedly from the kind of world defined by games like Labyrinth Lord or OSRIC, or of course BFRPG. Mechanically the game is a lot like the kind of game Smiorgan seems to want, and I expect it to be a lot of fun… breaking the player's expectations usually is. I wrote another game, shared on my website but never actually published, called Variant V; it owes more of its DNA to RuneQuest than anything. I ran that campaign for several years. The point is, I like the classic class-and-level games for their own merit, not because they are the only kind of game I want to play.
Do I have a point? Yeah, I think I do. Trying to "fix" the classic rules is a mistake. They aren't broken… they're just different.
This entry was posted in Opinion on February 5, 2015 by Solomoriah.
Are Magic Users Too Weak, Part II October 28, 2019
The Companion Question April 15, 2018
The Non-Problem with Skill Dice April 4, 2018
How to Make a Ranger (or, How to Use this Website, Episode 1) June 14, 2017
How I Write Adventures April 30, 2017
James Lemon on How I Write Adventures
James Lemon on Why not add X to the game?
dymondy2k on Dungeon Ecology, and Other Religious Beliefs
What Are We Risking? | Basic Fantasy RPG Blog on Special Snowflake Syndrome
dymondy2k on I'd like you to meet my friend Alan
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text:
"I Didn't Even Know I Was Pregnant!"
October 13, 2016 Baby Care Tips Giving Birth, Pregnancy 0
Just as a much-needed vacation was getting under way last summer, Jennifer West woke to a painful period: cramps, back pain, achy all over. Miserable, she was ready to stay right where she was until her discomfort passed. But lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wasn't helping. In fact, her back felt a little worse like that. Her side, maybe? No luck. She sighed. So much for vacation.
West, 31, and her husband, Dan, of Villa Park, Illinois, were staying in a cabin in Wisconsin with two friends, Anna Puccinelli and Jan De Keyser. Dan's parents were just down the hill in another cabin. They'd planned a low-key long weekend for the Fourth of July, but on the morning of July 3, the thought of just watching fireworks made West cringe. She couldn't get comfortable, no matter what. She walked in circles around the cabins, and up and down the steps that connected them.
By afternoon, she was so exhausted that she begged off mini-golf. "Come on, you'll be fine," Puccinelli, her best friend since childhood, urged. But West knew she wasn't up to it.
"I'm going to try to nap," she said. "I'm sure I'll feel better by the time you all get back." She managed to nap, fitfully, for an hour or so, but woke up panicked. Could the pain actually be worse? Five years before, a fibroid tumor had caused a similar sensation in her abdomen. Then there was the ruptured ovarian cyst she'd experienced in 2002, which had also hurt like terrible cramps—and had started with a backache. She couldn't bear the thought of dealing with either again.
So while she was relieved when Dan and her friends returned, what they saw took them aback. Pale and unhappy, West was whimpering involuntarily every few minutes. "This isn't like you," Dan said. "I think we should go to the hospital." "No, no," she protested. "I'll be fine." Whimper. If she didn't go, she thought to herself, then nothing could really be wrong.
But Dan could tell that something was wrong. His wife was not one to moan and groan. She'd stoically made it through ulcers, the fibroid tumor, the cyst. For her to be near tears was bad—and the fact that they were so secluded was making him nervous. "Jen," he said, "we're going." And they went.
An unbelievable surprise
They arrived in the emergency room of Hayward Area Memorial Hospital around 7 p.m. "I'm having the worst period of my life," West told the nurse on duty. After she gave her medical history, another nurse ran an ultrasound wand over her stomach, listening for the noise fibroid tumors make as blood flows through them. West heard a familiar "thump, thump," and her heart sank.
"Well, it could be another tumor, or it could be a baby," the nurse said.
"It's not a baby," West said. Wondering if she'd need surgery again (and when? How soon? Would she have to miss work?), she realized that this, at least, might explain the weight she'd gained recently: She knew that large fibroids can sometimes cause abdominal swelling.
The nurse left to get a doctor. When Brent Kelley arrived, he gave West an internal exam. Then he said the last thing she expected to hear.
"You're eight centimeters dilated."
"What?" West said. "What?!"
A nurse rushed out into the hall to tell Dan: "Great news. Your wife's in labor!"
"My wife? Oh, sorry, you must have the wrong guy," he said.
But she didn't. While Dan stood, shocked, trying to take in what the staff was saying, his wife was trying not to panic. In labor? How could that be? Her mind raced. But she'd been getting her period! They were using condoms!
She noted that the nurses seemed excited for her, but why, when she was about to have a nervous breakdown? She wanted to tell everyone to stop so she could think, but apparently there was no time for that. All she could do to keep herself together was to listen, very intently, to every word the doctor and nurses were saying. As she was wheeled into the delivery area and told what to expect, she tried to take in their breathing instructions, figuring that if she could do everything exactly right, she'd be okay.
By the time she was asking, "Can you repeat everything you just said?" Dan's mother, Linda West, arrived. She'd left her cabin soon after Dan and Jen had. "I'll just see if the kids need anything," she'd told her husband. "It's so boring sitting in a hospital." Not tonight.
She first spotted Dan standing under a sign that read, "Labor and Delivery," and thought, Uh, oh. Jen must have more female issues. Why else would she be seeing a gynecologist? But when she reached her son, he was stone still. The nurse told her, "Jen's about to deliver."
"Deliver what?" Linda said. A second later, the words sank in. She was floored, like Dan, but also scared. In labor? If Jen hadn't known a baby was on the way, how far along could she be? She didn't think this could end well.
Back in the delivery room, things were moving fast and West was almost fully dilated. To her, Linda's voice was the most beautiful sound in the world. She was so relieved: Someone calm! Someone who's done this before!
By 8 p.m., Linda was diving in to give her daughter-in-law a crash course in pushing, and trying to keep her own worries at bay.
The hospital staff were concerned, too, but were sure, at least, that the baby couldn't be dangerously premature, given the size of West's waistline (there'd been no time for a full ultrasound). They gave her antibiotics, since she hadn't been screened for any infections during pregnancy, and braced themselves. No one knew anything for certain about this baby except that the mom hadn't had any prenatal care.
Still too overwhelmed and scared to play the role of supportive dad-to-be, Dan left the coaching up to his mom and walked the halls. Babies were a part of his fuzzy future with Jen, not their life now. Is this for real? Am I going crazy? he wondered as he paced.
Meanwhile, West tried to focus on pushing, but the baby's heartbeat kept dropping, so she was given an oxygen mask, which quickly became her security blanket: Behind it, with the sound of the flowing oxygen drowning out everything else, she felt just a tiny bit calmer. But then she'd put it aside and the noise and craziness would hit her all over again.
Not to mention the pain, which was unlike anything she'd ever felt. It was too late for an epidural, and after pushing for nearly an hour without any relief, she tried to hang on by telling herself it had to end soon: No one could handle this much agony for very long. She was right. Minutes later she gave a last, tearful push, and her baby—a boy—was born. At eight pounds even, he was as healthy as could be. West held him and felt like she was in a dream, but then, her little baby looked right at her, and everything changed again. "Okay," she found herself saying to him, "I'm your mommy. And I'm going to take care of you."
Adjusting to family life
Three days later, the Wests drove back to the cabin (Jen was too sore and tired to endure the seven-hour ride home). In the back was a car seat—their first baby gift—from Puccinelli and De Keyser. And buckled into the car seat was Robert Hayward West—"Robert" after Dan's father, and "Hayward" in tribute to the town where the baby was born and where Jen and Dan were married five years earlier. They stayed at the cabin for three nights, where Robbie slept snuggled in a drawer set atop a dresser. Dan's parents and nearby friends supplied basics like diapers and clothes, and Jen's mom and sister, back in Illinois, sprang into action, hastily planning a shower for when the new family returned.
For Jen and Dan, adjusting to life with a baby was more complicated than for most new parents. Jen found herself grappling with unexpected guilt: "Robbie would have these three-hour fits of crying, and I didn't know what to do. I'd think, 'Is this because I didn't know I was having you?'"
But as the days turned into weeks, and the family settled in back at home, Jen and Dan started to become parents. Suddenly, they had opinions about diapers and how to get Robbie to smile. Best of all, they told their story to so many well-meaning visitors that the whole thing began to sound a little less crazy.
How did Jen miss her pregnancy?
What everyone wanted to know, of course, was: How did you not know? Looking back, though, there was a logical explanation for how West had missed all the obvious symptoms. Morning sickness? She thought she had the flu when she would've been about eight weeks pregnant. Missed periods? She thought she was getting her period just like she always had—that is, irregularly. (The bleeding the day she gave birth may have been the bleeding due to labor or could have been the expulsion of the mucus plug that protects the opening of the cervix.) Heartburn and stomach pain late in the pregnancy didn't raise a red flag, either. "I was sure I'd aggravated my ulcer," she says. Her gynecologist didn't catch her condition because she saw her for an annual exam just before West would have conceived.
Even the baby's movements, which would be so obvious for most women, got past her: She has a tilted uterus, a common condition in which the top of the uterus is angled back, instead of straight up. In West's case, it may have prevented her from feeling Robbie kick, but it probably caused back pain that West attributed to strain.
What she didn't miss was her weight gain, which totaled more than 20 pounds and, near the end, seemed focused on her middle. "I never used to gain weight there, but I figured my body had changed since I'd turned thirty," she says. She took up bike riding and tried watching what she ate but couldn't seem to shed the pounds.
West wasn't the only one who noticed her progressive plumpness. Her older sister, Jeanne Cox, poked her and said, "What have you got in there, a baby?" but West said, "No, I'm just getting fat," so her sister let it go.
Ironically, Jeanne was pregnant herself. "I was thrilled for her, and excited to be a part of a pregnancy from the very beginning," West says. "I actually said to Jeanne that helping her was the next best thing to having my own baby!"
When her sister gave birth at the end of June, West dropped everything to help her. In fact, less than a week before her own baby was born, she was scrubbing Jeanne's house from top to bottom. Meanwhile, Dan was happy about the new baby in the family—Jeanne's husband, Justin, has been Dan's best friend since high school—but still wasn't inspired to start his own family. Babies, it seemed, changed everything.
He was right, of course, but as his own mom points out, it's that way for everyone. "The day Dan was born—not the day I found out I was pregnant—was the day my life changed," she says. No one can imagine life without Robbie now, least of all Jen: "When he was born, I was overwhelmed, but I loved him from the start."
The Wests feel their good fortune extends beyond Robbie's presence and good health. "It isn't until something unexpected happens that you realize how important you are to people," Jen says of the support she's gotten from family, friends and coworkers. They not only pitched in from day one but gave the couple what they needed most: reassurance that despite the rather unusual nature of Robbie's birth, Jen and Dan weren't nuts, and that they're still smart, caring, good parents. But that doesn't mean they're taking any chances for next time around. As West says, "I think I'll be taking a pregnancy test every month for the rest of my life!"
To avoid a similar situation, educate yourself about the early signs of pregnancy.
SOURCE:http://www.parenting.com/article/didnt-know-i-was-pregnant
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Yesterday, Angelina Jolie presented a lecture on Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics.
The lecture was a preview of the Masters degree that she will officially begin teaching at LSE from September, as one of four visiting professors in practice.
Angelina, 41, is well known for her humanitarian work, campaigning particularly for the rights of refugees, women and children.
That's one 9am we'd drag ourselves out of bed for.


Take steps today to keep your heart healthy. Start with these heart-healthy tips!
Eat a heart-healthy diet. This includes fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats like skinless chicken and fish, beans and legumes, and fat-free or low-fat dairy. Click here for more information plus some heart -healthy recipes. Web MD has also compiled a list of its Top Heart-Healthy foods, which you can add to your shopping list and include in your meal plans.
Exercise regularly. You may have recently heard the phrase "Sitting is the new smoking." That's because a sedentary lifestyle is one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease. By exercising regularly, you can strengthen your heart and entire cardiovascular system, improve your circulation, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol and more. Exercise can also help you manage and reduce your weight, another significant risk factor.
Manage your blood pressure and cholesterol. A heart-healthy diet and regular exercise can be extremely effective in managing your blood pressure and cholesterol. However, these conditions are often symptomless, which can lead to big problems if left undiagnosed. The best way to monitor your blood pressure and cholesterol is by having an annual preventive wellness visit with your healthcare provider. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi's Healthy You! wellness benefit provides an annual wellness visit with a Network Provider at no out-of-pocket cost to covered members. The visit includes age and gender-specific health screening s, which include cholesterol and blood pressure. Learn more in the Healthy You! section of our website.
Quit smoking and stay away from secondhand smoke. This is one of the most important steps you can take for your health and the health of those around you. Once you stop smoking, the health benefits are immediate and continue to improve over time. Learn more about the benefits of quitting.
Limit alcohol consumption. Too much alcohol can elevate your blood pressure, which can significantly increase heart disease risk. Women should have no more than one drink per day and men should have no more than two drinks per day. One drink is equal to one 12oz beer or 4oz glass of wine.
Manage stress. Over time, too much stress can lead to a host of health problems, including cardiovascular disease. Learn more about healthy ways to manage stress.


The Diocese of Manchester was established in 1847, and Manchester Cathedral has since then stood as something of an oasis in the ancient heart of a bustling modern city.
This recording, the seventh in Regent�s �A Year at� series, and the first from Manchester Cathedral Choir on the Regent label, documents some of the music performed during the year at the Cathedral, and covers the church�s year from its beginning in Advent to the Feast of Christ the King at the end of November.
The wide-ranging and unusual programme covers music from the 16th to 21st centuries, and includes four first recordings of works written by the Cathedral�s Director of Music, Christopher Stokes, assistant organist Jeffrey Makinson and renowned local Manchester composer Sasha Johnson Manning.
Manchester Cathedral Choir is unusual in being one of only two in the UK that has a treble line made up of both boys and girls aged between 8 and 14. The choristers are all educated at the famous Chethams Music School, which is next door to the Cathedral.
The choir�s previous recordings on the Herald, Lammas and Naxos labels have all received outstanding reviews.


text:
Weird & Funny
Guests A-F
Guests G-L
Guests M-R
Guests S-Z
Oct. – Dec.
Jan.-Mar.
Apr.-June
RED PILLS
Ukraine and NATO Expansion – Peeling Ukraine and Georgia from Russia
Since the coup against the elected Yanukovich government in Ukraine on February 22, 2014, an international crisis has been brewing — involving the U.S., E.U., and Russia, and closely linked to the expansion of NATO since the 90s.
By Labor Beat
NATO encirclement of Russia. Image credit: Labor Beat
Since the coup against the elected Yanukovich government in Ukraine on February 22, 2014, an international crisis has been brewing — involving the U.S., E.U., and Russia, and closely linked to the expansion of NATO since the 90s. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created by the U.S. and Western European nations to militarily counter the Soviet Union. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO was not disbanded but was significantly enlarged.
Rick Rozoff, manager of the Stop NATO website. Image credit: Labor Beat
At a meeting on January 10, 2015 two speakers, authorities well equipped to explore this subject, discussed the background causes of the Ukraine troubles (now drawing the U.S. and Russia closer to possible military confrontation). Speaking were Dr. John J. Mearsheimer, co-director of Program on International Security Policy at University of Chicago; and Rick Rozoff, manager of the Stop NATO website.
Dr. Mearsheimer spoke of the real reason of the crisis: "We are interested in peeling away Ukraine and Georgia from Russia's orbit and making [them] bulwarks of the West, right on Putin's doorstep." Mearsheimer goes on to remind us how sensitive big powers are to that kind of thing with the way the U.S. reacted to the prospect of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. American foreign policy, rightly or wrongly, was obsessed with upholding the Monroe Doctrine declaring U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
Dr. Mearsheimer and Rick Rozoff fleshed out the three parts to the West's strategy vis-a-vis Russia and its immediate neighborhood in Eastern Europe: 1) NATO Expansion, 2) European Union Expansion, 3) Promote Democracy (meaning putting in power leaders who are pro-Western and anti-Russian).
Rozoff provided the background narrative to the steady march of NATO expansion since the 90s. In 1999 NATO held its 50th anniversary summit in Washington, D.C., while at the same time conducting its first war (to break up Yugoslavia, the first war in Europe since WWII). NATO then went on to conduct wars in three continents. Now, US-controlled NATO has 28 full members and 39 partner countries, nearly half of the nations in the UN.
The April, 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest was followed then by a war between Georgia and Russia in August, 2008, precipitated by plans to make Georgia part of NATO.
"It's clear," Rozoff noted, "that policy makers in the United States and also their NATO allies in Europe were envisioning some sort of continental system in Europe…There's not a single European nation…that has not either been a full member of NATO or a member of the Partnership for Peace program and in many instances several intermediate programs…So what we're talking about is the entirety of Europe being subordinated to a military bloc controlled from the other side of the Atlantic, and nothing less."
Both speakers underlined the sobering implications of NATO expansion. Rozoff ended his talk by saying, "I should let you know that both of us panelists objected to the original title that was proposed for this talk which included words to the effect of 'nuclear war' or something. However I woke up this morning to see that someone not noted for ever having being tremendously confrontational with the West, former Soviet President Michael Gorbachev, talk about just that prospect".
Dr. John J. Mearsheimer, co-director of Program on International Security Policy at University of Chicago. Image credit: Labor Beat
Labor Beat here presents a condensed version of Mearsheimer's and Rozoff's 50-minute discussion. Also, we have generously enhanced the video with news photos and maps. Here is an introduction to the Ukraine crisis, NATO, and relevant political geography touching upon Eastern Europe, Russia and the Black Sea region. Length – 25:20
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Catalogue: Medical Monographs
NLM also has a number of anonymous anatomical treatises or groups of anatomical drawings. On the last folio of one copy of a commentary by al-Kazaruni (d. 1357/735) on Ibn al-Nafīs's popular epitome of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine called the Mūjiz, MS A 61, a later hand has started copying the opening of an anonymous Persian treatise on anatomy. Only the start of the unidentified treatise is preserved; for details see the full catalogue entry for (MS A 61).
The remaining anonymous anatomical items in the NLM collections will be catalogued in the following sections. They include a bloodletting figure and a venous figure, probably drawn in the 18th century but based on earlier models (MS P 5 fol. A); six early-modern anatomical drawings showing some European and Indian influences (MS P 20, item 2), and two anonymous Arabic anatomical and physiological treatises, MS A 76 and MS A 21, the latter concerned especially with the function of speech.
[Two Anatomical Drawings: a bloodletting figure and a venous figure] (MS P 5, fol. A)
Two anatomical drawings occur on one side of a loose sheet of paper discovered inside a copy made in 1681/1092 of the Persian-language medical enyclopedia Zakhīrah-i Khvārazm'Shāhī written by Jurjānī (MS P 5). The anatomical figures, however, are on very different paper from that of the main volume and appear to have been drawn sometime in the 18th century. The loose sheet has been designated "MS P 5 fol. A" and is now placed in a separate folder. The two figures are drawn on the same side of the piece of paper. A fold at the midpoint separates the two figures.
The righthand figure shows the venous system, with the internal organs coloured with opaque watercolours and some of the veins labeled. It is clearly derivative from the venous figures usually associated with the Tashrīḥ-i Manṣūri of Ibn Ilyās, examples of which can be seen in NLM (MS P 18) fol. 25b and (MS P 19) fol. 16b.
The lefthand figure has the bloodletting points labeled in a mixture of Persian and Arabic. This figure is clearly derivative from similar illustrations in late-medieval European manuscripts. Late-medieval European manuscripts also often had a related figure on which the points useful for treatment by cauterization were indicated, and such cautery figures are occasionally found with Persian/Arabic labels in Islamic manuscripts of about the 17th century or later. Only the bloodletting figure, however, is preserved in the NLM collections.
[Two Anatomical Drawings: a bloodletting figure and a venous figure] (MS P 5 fol. A)
MS P 5, fol. A
Lefthand Side
A loose sheet with a bloodletting figure having points labeled that were thought best for phlebotomy. Such figures are derivative from late-medieval European bloodletting figures. Undated, probably 18th century.
Righthand Side
A loose sheet with a figure, drawn frontally, showing the venous system. The figure is closely related to those usually associated with the Tashrīḥ-i Manṣūri treatise on human anatomy by Ibn Ilyās, who worked in Shiraz in Iran at the end of the 14th century. Undated, probably 18th century.
Persian. 1 loose leaf measuring 21 x 35 cm. The sheet has one major fold at the midpoint, though it was at one time folded many times to make it quite small. One side of the sheet is blank, while the other has two full-sized human figures. No source, author, or title for these figures is given.
It is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 18th century.
The righthand figure shows the venous system, and the lefthand figure has the bloodletting points, labeled in a mixture of Persian and Arabic.
The paper has vertical, rather wavy, laid lines and single chain lines, but no watermarks. The edges have been trimmed from their original size. The paper is heavily soiled, and the corners have been repaired and the center fold reinforced.
It is a loose sheet with no binding.
The loose leaf (bearing a penciled numeral 204A) was found between fols. 36 and 37 of (MS P 5), a copy made in 1681/1092 of the Persian-language medical enyclopedia Zakhīrah-i Khvārazm'Shāhī (MS P 5) written by Jurjānī. It is made of paper visibly different from the main volume, and has now been placed in a separate folder and labeled "MS P 5 fol. A".
Two additional loose leaves were also found between fols. 212 and 213 of the same volume. They are both on modern paper and contain Persian notes apparently unrelated to the rest of the manuscript. They have been placed in a separate folder and labeled: "MS P 5 fols. B and C". One (fol. B) contains several dates in the years 1308 and 1309 H [1890-1892].
MS P 5 was in the collection of the Army Medical Library in 1946.
No further information is available on its provenance.
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry P 5, p. 331, where it is described as being found between fols. 246 and 247 of MS P 5.
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-131 no. 3.
Tashrīḥ al-abdān (MS A 76)
(The Anatomy of Bodies)
تشريح الابدان
In the collections at NLM is a unique copy of an anonymous Arabic treatise on human anatomy. The treatise itself has no title; a modern owner's label on the inside front cover provides the general descriptive title given here. It is organized in a large number of unnumbered chapters (fasls) covering the bones (fols. 1b-13a), the muscles (fols. 13a-37a), the nerves (fols. 37a-42b), the arteries and veins (fols. 42b-54a), and the compound organs and embryo (fols. 54a-70a). Galen appears to be the only authority cited (fols. 3b, 56a, 61a, etc).
No other copy is recorded.
The treatise has not been published or translated.
MS A 76, fol. 1b-2a
The opening of an anonymous Arabic treatise on human anatomy. The copy is undated, probably early 18th century. No other copy is recorded.
Arabic. 70 leaves (fols. 1b-70a). Dimensions 16.2 x 10.0 (text area 11.7 x 4.9) cm; 12-13 lines per page. No author's name is given. The treatise itself has no title; a modern owner's label on the inside front cover provides the general descriptive title Tashrīḥ al-abdān (The Anatomy of Bodies).
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the early 18th century.
Apparently a complete copy. The text is written in a small naskh script in black ink with headings in red and red overlinings. The end of the treatise (fol. 70a) is written by the same unnamed scribe, but in smaller script and diagonally on the page. There are catchwords.
There are marginalia, some emending the text. There are no illustrations.
The thin, burnished paper has very fine laid lines, single chain lines, and is watermarked. The paper is water damaged near the top.
The volume consists of 70 leaves; fols. 1a and 70b are blank.
The volume is bound in brown leather with tooled borders on the front and back covers. The spine is a modern replacement. There are modern pastedowns and endpapers.
There is an undated owner's stamp on fol. 1b.
MS A 76 was in the collection of the Army Medical Library in 1946. No further information is available on its provenance.
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry A 76, p. 322.
Hamarneh, "NLM", p. 82.
'Ilm al-ṭābī'īyāt al-insānīyah (MS A 21)
(The Science of Human Constitutions)
علم الطبيعيات الانسانية
An anonymous Arabic treatise titled 'Ilm al-ṭābī'īyāt al-insānīyah (The Science of Human Constitutions) concerns human physiology. In the portion preserved, it discusses the function and movement of the head and other parts of the body, focusing especially on the function of speech.
The copy at NLM is incomplete, for the colophon states that the volume contains only the first part (juz') of the treatise. A penciled note added to the NLM copy states that it is "the first part of a commentary on constitutions". The treatise does not, however, appear to be a commentary.
No other copy is recorded. The title is not recorded in the bibliographical sources or published manuscript catalogues.
MS A 21, fol. 6b
A sample page fron an anonymous Arabic treatise on human physiology titled 'Ilm al-ṭābī'īyāt al-insānīyah (The Science of Human Constitutions). Undated copy, probably 19th century.
Arabic. 71 leaves (fols. 1b-71a). Dimensions 21.9 x 16.5 (text area 18.0 x 10.5) cm; 21 lines per page. The author is not named. The title is taken from the colophon (fol. 71a lines 12-13), which states that this volume is only the first part (juz') of the treatise. The preliminary leaf forms a recent title page on which is written: qit'ah min kitāb fī al-ṭibb (fragment of a book on medicine). Also on the preliminary leaf a penciled note reads: al-juz' al-awal min sharh 'llm al-tabi'iyat (the first part of a commentary on constitutions).
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 19th century.
An incomplete copy. Only the first volume or part (juz') of the treatise, according to the colophon, is preserved in this manuscript. The text is written in a medium-small naskh script. Black ink with headings in red; there are also red marginal headings. There are catchwords.
There are some marginalia emending the text.
The thin, burnished paper has laid lines and single chain lines. The edges of the folios have been trimmed from their original size.
The volume consists of 72 leaves and one preliminary leaf; fols. 1a, 71b, and 72 are blank.
The volume is bound in a red leather modern library bindng with envelope flap. There are modern pastedowns and endpapers.
The volume was purchased by the Army Medical Library in 1941 from A.S. Yahuda (ELS no. 1675).
[Six Early-Modern Anatomical Illustrations] (MS P 20, item 2)
Six anatomical drawings occur at the end of a volume containing Ṭibb al-Akbar (Akbar's Medicine) by Muḥammad Akbar, known as Muḥammad Arzānī (d. 1722/ 1134) in an undated copy probably made in the 18th century. The paper on which these figures are drawn, however, is distinct from that of the main text, though similar in many respects. The illustrations appear to be unrelated to the accompanying text and to draw upon Indian and early-modern sources.
One full-opening of the manuscript, fols. 554b-555a, contains two full-figure anatomical illustrations, one of a female and one of a male. The female figure is of a pregnant woman. The woman holds back a flap of abdominal skin to expose the gravid uterus, while in her other hand she appears to hold a plant rather than a part of the body, though that could be interpreted as referring to the female genitalia. Surrounding the figure are portrayals of individual organs: at the top, two hearts; lower right, the lungs; something unidentifed in lower left (labelled the opening of the vagina).
The male figure has his abdomen and chest opened to reveal the internal organs. His right hand holds a second set of genitalia, and there is a sketch of the liver and gallbladder in the upper left corner. The artistic conventions employed in the production of these two illustrations clearly indicates Western India as a place of production. The 16th to 18th-century European convention of picturing partially-dissected bodies as if they were alive, often with the obliging cadaver holding up parts of their own body for further inspection, can be seen here transferred to the Indian subcontinent. The anatomy of the exposed organs reflects indigenous Indian concepts as well as some medieval Galenic anatomy.
A second full-opening of the manuscript, fols. 556b-557a, contains drawings of individual organs drawn in inks and opaque watercolours. On the righthand page are the liver with gallbladder, the stomach with intestines, the testicles, and a detail of the stomach. On the left are a composite rendering of the tongue, larynx, heart, trachea, stomach, and liver; a composite drawing of the ureters, urethra, kidneys, testicles, and penis; the external female genitalia; and a composite rendering of the internal female genitalia with a gravid uterus. These leaves of individual organs show considerable influence from early-modern European anatomical atlases, while the explicitness of many of the details reflects Indian artistic conventions not found elsewhere in the Islamic world.
A third full-opening of the manuscript (fols. 558b-559a) has two drawings in ink and light-gray wash of skeletons, one leaning on a pedestal and the other leaning on a scythe. These two figures are clearly derivative from Vesalian illustrations. By the 17th century it appears that Vesalius's Latin treatise The Fabric of the Human Body (De humani corporis fabrica), printed in 1542-3, was known -- either directly or indirectly through subsequent treatises based upon the Fabrica -- in the Samanid and Ottoman empires. Several libraries have in their collections sketches made in the 17th through 19th centuries that indicate familarity with illustrations that derive from the Fabrica of Vesalius. For example, the British Library has a short Persian anatomical treatise dated 1696-1697 (1108 H) with an excellent ink rendering of the first full muscular figure in the Fabrica (OCIS, MS Or. 5862, fols. 1b-7b), and Yale University has six folios of ink sketches of individual organs based on diagrams in the Fabrica (Yale University Medical School, Cushing MS Or. 13, fols. 1a-6b).
For further discussion of early-modern Europen influences on Islamic anatomical knowledge and illustration, see F. Maddison and E. Savage-Smith, Science, Tools, and Magic [Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, 12] (Oxford: Oxford University Press and London: Azimuth Editions, 1996), Vol. 1, pp. 14-24.
MS P 20, fol. 554b
Illustrations, in ink and opaque watercolors, of a pregnant woman with abdomen and chest opened to reveal the internal organs and fetus. Surrounding the figure are drawings of [at the top] two hearts, [lower right] the lungs, and something unidentifed in the lower left (labeled the opening of the vagina). Undated and unsigned, probably 18th century, India.
MS P 20, fol. 555a
Illustrations, in ink and opaque watercolors, of a male figure with his abdomen and chest opened to reveal the internal organs. His right hand holds a second set of genitalia, and a horn is in his other hand, with a sketch of the liver and gallbladder in the upper left corner. Undated and unsigned, probably 18th century, India.
Drawings of individual organs in inks and opaque watercolors. Illustated are [in upper left] the liver with gallbladder, [in the center] the stomach with intestines, [lower left] the testicles, [lower right] a detail of the stomach, and something unidentified in upper right corner. Undated and unsigned, probably 18th century, India.
Drawings of individual organs, in inks and opaque watercolors. Illustrated are [at top] a composite rendering of the tongue, larynx, heart, trachea, stomach, and liver; [left] a composite drawing of the ureters, urethra, kidneys, testicles, and penis; [right] the external female genitalia; and [at bottom] a composite rendering of the internal female genitalia with a gravid uterus. Undated and unsigned, probably 18th century, India.
A drawing in ink and light-gray wash of a skeleton leaning on a pedestal. One of six leaves of anatomical drawings appended to a Persian translation of an Arabic medical compendium. The figure shows some knowledge of the illustrations of Vesalius's Fabrica (possibly available through intermediate interpretations). Undated and unsigned, probably 18th-century, India.
MS P20, fol. 559a
A drawing in ink and light-gray wash of a skeleton leaning on a scythe. One of six leaves of anatomical drawings appended to a Persian translation of an Arabic medical compendium. The figure shows some knowledge of the illustrations of Vesalius's Fabrica (possibly available through intermediate interpretations). Undated and unsigned, probably 18th-century, India.
Persian. 6 leaves (fols. 554b-559a). Dimensions 22.0 X 12.7 cm. No source, title, or author is given for these illustations.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, inks, watercolors, and artistic conventions suggests a date of the 18th century and India as a place of production.
The paper is similar to that of the main text in the volume (thin, glossy, biscuit paper with only indistinct wavy laid lines visible), but the laid lines are even less distinct. The paper is wormeaten and waterdamaged at the top. The edges have been trimmed from their original size. The first 50 leaves have been numbered in pencil in Western numerals, paginated from left to right with numerals 511-560. The volume has been recently refoliated correctly.
The volume consists of 559 leaves and one unnumbered preliminary leaf. Fols. 554a, 555b, 556a, 557b, 558a, and 559b are blank. Fols. 1b-553b contain the Ṭibb al-Akbar of Muḥammad Arzānī (MS P 20, item 1). Fol. 1a is blank except for a later note on compound remedies (mujarrabat). The preliminary folio [1a-1b] has a table of contents for three chapters (babs) from a different treatise (on diseases of the head, eyes,and ears), added later.
The volume is bound in a modern European library binding of pasteboards covered with dark-red leather. There are modern pastedowns and endpapers.
The volume was purchased in 1940 by the Army Medical Library from the New York dealer Maggs. See, Maggs Bros. Ltd [sale catalogue], Manuscripts of Asia, Africa and Europe in thirty different languages, Catalogue 687, Spring 1940 (London, 1940), p. 31, Lot 137.
Maggs Bros. Ltd [sale catalogue], Manuscripts of Asia, Africa and Europe in thirty different languages, Catalogue 687, Spring 1940 (London, 1940), p. 31, Lot 137.
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., p. 336, entry P 20.
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-135 no. 3
Last reviewed: 31 December 2014
Last updated: 13 December 2013
First published: 15 January 2004