Arrows of Indra by Bedlamdan

Introduction

posted by Bedlamdan Original SA post

Introduction

RPGPundit's Arrows of Indra has finally moved onto the scene, not so much with a bang as with a whimper. Unlike Pundit's other recent work, Lords of Olympus, there's been next to no discussion of the game outside of Pundit's website, with a couple of one or two page threads about it on forums like rpg.net, Circvs Maximvs, and ENWorld. This isn't actually all that odd, to be honest, as the game is exactly what it bills itself as: Old School D&D with a thin Indian veneer, as opposed to a thin European one. It's inoffensive, and doesn't really bastardize Indian culture any further than The Legend of the Five Rings bastardizes Japan, which is to say it's irritating if you were expecting an accurate depiction of a culture but fine if you want to play an elfgame on a weekend.

I'd like to stress a few things before I start the review. The first is that yes, the author is a shitheel, and prides himself on this fact. And, I'd much rather this review be about his game, rather than about his personality. The second is that I'm going to be fairly critical with his treatment of Indian myth, culture, and folklore. This is not because I'm offended by his take on Indian culture: cultural myths and beliefs have been re-appropriated and modified to the point where they amount to a shared body of fanfiction across human history. What I take issue with is how he shifts folklore to fit D&Disms, rather than adapt D&Disms to folklore. You'll see what I mean as we go on. And third, this review gives me an excuse to sperg about the stories I heard when I was small.



Enjoy it everyone because this is as good as both the art and this book will get. It's all downhill from here. I think the line "It's the same heroic adventuring you know and love, but with a new and exciting environment" is particularly irksome because god forbid fans of old school games be exposed to too much change. The idea that changes from OD&D must be cosmetic at best lest the game lose all appeal says more about the author than the oldschool gamers he's trying to appeal to.

We then proceed to the introduction.


More or less, the baseline setting of Arrows of Indra is the Mahabharata, which along with the Ramayana are two extremely influential works of Indian literature. Hindu or not, in India you'll have at least seen one adaptation of both stories. My first exposure to the Mahabarata came from a low budget serial that was conveniently subtitled for whitewashed little me. Both myths are very, very old, and were put into paper around fifth century BCE. To summarize, very briefly, the Mahabarata is about a feud between two branches of a clan over the control of the Kingdom of Hastinapur, the Kauravas and the Pandavas. I'll elaborate a bit more further on, but to be honest the backdrop of the Mahabarata is little more than window dressing for this game.

That's not even touching upon why he never refers to Dungeons & Dragons by name when describing "the classic and original Role-Playing Game." I know, from prior experience with the hobby, what he means, but someone entirely new to this would be scratching his head. But that's fine, RPGPundit doesn't want to appeal to people who are new to this sort of thing.




This is the second paragraph in the entire book and I am annoyed . He's made it eminently clear who this rpg is for: it's for people who were fans of Old-School D&D who want to try an Indian setting, and not fans of Indian Settings who want to try Old-School D&D. I don't understand why he chooses to exclude the latter, or why accommodating newcomers to the hobby is so difficult for him. The only people who could use this book are fans of old-school D&D, and it's become somewhat clearer for me as to why very few people are talking about this game. You'd think that he'd want to bring in more gamers who'd want to play the game he likes.

Nowhere are these terms defined. I'm still not sure whether or not his game uses ascending or descending AC, I don't know which edition he's putting on a pedestal here because I joined the hobby way after TSR died! God damn it, when most new gamers think classic and original D&D they think of 3rd Edition. He thus leaves anyone who might be interested in using his game as a gateway into the hobby in the dust, with only a condescending plug for his website as consolation.


What it implies of course, is that if it weren't Old School, it would be unapproachable. I can't help but feel Pundit is projecting more than he ought to be upon his potential audience. Even odder is his decision to marry the Mahabarata with Old-School D&D. The Mahabarata is a story that revolves around talented heroes who range from incarnated deities to human beings that are demigods in terms of excellence. Old-School D&D focuses on a careful, measured approach where mistakes are often lethal, and you're a nobody clawing your way to greatness or death (more likely the latter). I can't dispute the fact that he likes both things, I can't criticize his decision to combine two things that he likes, but I can say that there is a serious disconnect between what is expected versus what is delivered. It would be like making an rpg based on the Illiad, but the players are definitely not Achilles, certainly not Ajax or Hector, hell they're not even fucking Paris . They're the Trojans being slaughtered when the wooden horse pops open. I certainly believe that it's possible to run an old-school adventure in an Indian setting, but his decision to choose the Mahabarata as its specific backdrop is baffling. There is a world of difference between D&D adventurers in Mythic Greece versus D&D adventurers in the middle of the Trojan War.


This, at least, is a nice sentiment. I wish he added A Note on Culture , and A Note on Game Design along with it.

Next Time: Making Characters

Character Creation, Castes, & Races

posted by Bedlamdan Original SA post

Part 2: Character Creation, Castes, and Races

With some help, I was able to piece together the particular edition of D&D RPGPundit was referring when he talked about "the classic and original Role-Playing Game," in this case Advanced Dungeons & Dragons by E. Gary Gygax. As opposed to the original white box, the Basic Set, or the Expert Set and all this is frankly byzantine to me. However, as luck would have it I do in fact have the recent reprint of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons lying at home. Now firmly equipped, we dive balls deep into RPGPundit's magical realm.


1, 3, 6, and 7, are all mostly identical to character creation in older editions of D&D. Ability scores are determined by rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest result, and are assigned in order to Intelligence (Int), Charisma (Cha), Wisdom (Wis), Dexterity (Dex), Constitution (Con), and Strength (Str). Higher scores add a bonus to skill checks, while lower scores add a penalty, ranging from a +3 at 18 to a -3 at 3. In addition to skills, ability scores factor into other things: wisdom modifies saving throws against spells and the possibility of priests obtaining new spells (called Enlightenment Powers), Dexterity affects ranged to-hit rolls, AC, and Initiative rolls, Constitution affects your chances of getting resurrected, and so forth. What do these terms even mean? Fuck you for even asking, you swine. If you don't already know the secret handshake you're not allowed to play this game!

And now, let's talk about RPGPundit's handling of the caste system.


Even in modern India, the concept of caste has created serious social issues that are still being overcome today. It is definitely a sensitive topic, and I was curious as to how Pundit was going to handle this. I can't speak authoritatively on matters of caste: even though I'm ethnically Indian, I'm not a Hindu, and nearly everything about caste and culture in early Vedic India is up for debate (and is debated). I will say a few things about it, however. The importance of caste in Vedic India is contested and upward and downward mobility might have been more possible than some think. Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana, and Vasya, author of the Mahabaratha, were both of lower castes. There is evidence of members of lower castes becoming kings, where Vedic priests would trace their lineage to higher castes in exchange for gifts, or else these kings would become Buddhist, Jainist, or Saivist, which didn't place nearly as much emphasis on caste. Chandragupta Maurya was king who founded an empire, and most sources agree that his origins were very humble.

To be frank, I'm conflicted on how the game handles caste. On the positive side, Pundit does address the possibility of social mobility with the following:


On the negative side, caste is randomly selected, provides modifiers to your ability scores, and determine what classes your character is allowed to be (independent of the required ability score minimums for certain classes). I'll provide a brief summary of the castes in this book, and their modifiers.

We begin with the Dalits , or the untouchables. The word Dalit is derived from a Sanskrit word meaning oppressed, broken, or crushed. It's a bit of an odd choice to use Dalit as the name of this caste: the term Dalit didn't emerge until 1958 and was meant to place the very concept of the caste system in a negative light. This makes it fairly out of place in a setting where the caste system has primacy, but given that the original Indian terms for untouchables are now considered slurs I am rather happy to go with Dalit.



It's nigh unplayable, horribly unfun, and shows how an entire class of people lived for centuries. Fortunately, at least, the author is willing to acknowledge what a masochistic experience playing a Dalit might be.


Next up are the Sudras , or servants.


Well that doesn't sound so bad!




Unlike Dalits there's no option to change your caste, nor is there any suggested method of protection against another player who won the caste lottery. It would be simpler, I'd think, to just let players select their starting caste and decide group dynamics from there, but I suppose that would make this game too fucking gamey .

Next are the Vaishyas


Palatable, if dull, though the bonus to charisma and penalty to wisdom seems rather arbitrary to me. You could make a case for Dalits and Sudras making sense, the former living difficult lives while bearing the scorn of others, and the latter being servants and laborers without formal education. Vaishyas, on the other hand, are portrayed as extremely diverse in this game, and the modifiers seem to be there for the sake of having modifiers.

Next on the list are the Kshatriyas .


Why, in the same paragraph describing them not only as warriors, but also as statesman, leaders, and landowners, do Kshatriyas get a bonus to strength and penalty to intelligence? Because not even an entire social class can escape the dumb fighter stereotype of Dungeons and Dragons.

Lastly there are the Brahmins , at the top of the pyramid.


While this may sound like a good deal, in practice Brahmans are just as much of a pain in the ass to play as Dalits or Sudras:


While these taboos may or may not be accurate, it's clear that a Brahmin isn't very suitable as an old-school adventurer. Given that the game consists of finding monsters, killing them, and taking their treasure any PC Brahmin is going to be very bad at fulfilling the obligations of his caste. Which animals qualify as unclean? We never find out. If a Brahmin is in the same party as a Dalit, things will get really miserable and/or uncomfortable. We finish with art depicting members of all five potential castes (well, more like four castes plus Dalits and oh god that statement makes me feel horrible! )



Drink it in goons. Drink it in. Because we'll be seeing a lot more like this. What is wrong with everyone's feet? What hideous mutation has afflicted their skulls? WHERE IS THE HORSE'S HEAD ?

We escape this cavalcade of horrors by moving on to Family Background


Hey, I agree! Anything to discourage murder-hobos is a good idea in my book.


Wait, what?


But I-


But why can't I pick-




Most games would at least let you pick your family ties. Or your back-story. Or even your job, or social rank. Hell, some games let you pick and choose what stats you like! I can't even tell if this is bad game design or a stunning indictment against the concept of karma. But hey, we wouldn't want to be telling a story here, best to just let the dice handle it.

Moving the fuck on.

Barbarian and Non-Human Races

And now we're really cooking here. Oh yes.

There are five other races that can be played besides the default humans, which include Bhils, Gandharvas, Rakshasas, Vanaras, and Yakshas.



Aside from the same problems that afflict the art, I can't help but feel that some of these races look suspiciously familiar. You all know what I'm getting at here. And if not, I'll be getting into much more detail during their individual write-ups.


Good ol' family racism! RPGPundit gives us all these interesting races (or at least tries to) and then discourages anyone from playing them. Why he tried to go out of the way to mention inter-racial and inter-species prejudice is a bit beyond me: there's already plenty of drama on that end that was built into the caste system.


Bhils are also an actual ethnic group that still exists in modern day India, and conflating them with barbarians seems to be a can of worms waiting to open. Also that stat block looks familiar.




Let me revise my previous statement. Bhils are an actual Indian ethnic group who have been given racial modifiers identical to half-orcs. The can of worms are now open, and they are crawling all over my face. Moving on.


Gandharvas are the elf looking bastards in the art I posted earlier, and already I'm raising an eyebrow. Gandharvas, in folklore, weren't so much distant relatives of nature spirits, so much as deities in their own right. They were exclusively male, rather than a species proper. The Apsaras were their female counterparts and wives, and Gandharvas would play music in the court of the Devas, or gods. My own whining about the canonicity of Indian folklore aside, why did RPGPundit make them look so much like elves? Some myths depicted them as centaurs, or half-man/half-beast. They could also take stranger, more hideous forms and had to appeased through prayer, gifts, and sacrifice.


Well that's nice. If you roll badly on picking your caste, just decide that you want to be Gandharva instead and you'll instantly be in a higher caste. What that song and dance was about interspecies prejudice was, I don't even fucking know, but it seems very odd to play up human xenophobia earlier on when they are, apparently, just fine with Gandharvas. What also bothers me is that the reason RPGPundit interpreted Gandharvas the way he did was clearly because he needed a stand-in for elves, and if you doubt me look at their racial abilities.



He does make some effort to make them unique: Gandharvas can detect magic at-will, get a bonus to perception and performance, and only get a +1 with bows as opposed to a +1 to both bows and swords that elves get. Also, in addition to the AD&D racial modifiers, they have a further +1 to CHA and a -1 to STR. Now, let's take a look at Rakshasas.


What is strange about this is that pretty much every myth I'm familiar with makes Rakshasas and Asuras synonymous: Rakshasas are literal demons that are opposed to the Devas (gods), rather than a human subrace. I suppose making literal demons playable wouldn't be acceptable in an ostensibly low power game like AD&D. The only problem with this is that Indian myth is anything but low power. As I said earlier on grognards.txt, I am still very happy he didn't go with backwards armed tiger-head dudes, though I'm not sure hairy human with great chest hair is much of a consolation compared to say, this:



While it's true that most Rakshasas are depicted as human-like, that's really no call for making them more or less humans with a few bells and whistles on top, I'd think.

These bells and whistles include the ability to see in the dark, immunity to poisons, resistance to magic, a bonus to hit with bladed weapons, and sharp claws. As far as I can tell, no D&D analogue exists for Rakhasas, so they might just be an original race!

Though if he just ripped off a non-core D&D race's racial abilities, feel free to inform me.

Speaking of copy-pasting racial abilities...



Vanara are great because monkeys are great! And then Pundit goes and ruins it by giving them identical racial statistics to halflings, with the same resistances to magic, poison, size limitations for weapons, AC bonus versus large creatures, and a +1 to DEX and -1 to STR.

We conclude with not-dwarves.


Well, it's true that some depictions of Yakshas have them appear as stout and portly little men. However, that's not the only depiction of Yakshas. One of the more interesting ones I had seen was the depiction of Yakshas as shapeshifters who were kin to Rakshasas and could turn into giants. But that goes out of the window, in order to fit them into a dwarf-shaped hole .

Yakshas, like AD&D dwarves, cannot be magic users (in spite of being semi-divine beings favored by gods ), get a bonus to saves against spells and poisons, and...get a +4 bonus to AC against giants. Which is a trait that dwarves have in D&D 3rd Edition . That's not old-school Pundit. That's not old-school AT ALL. Though I'm a little bit happy that he's willing to rip off more than just AD&D. He's willing to rip off other editions of that game too!

Except 4th Edition because swineswineswine.

Next, we'll cover Classes . And yes, there is more copy-pasting of AD&D in a setting where D&Disms just don't work.

Class, Alignments, & Skills

posted by Bedlamdan Original SA post

Part 3: Class, Alignment, and Skills

Continuing the review after a slight delay, we proceed with character creation! As stated before, on top of the fact that every class has ability score minimums to qualify for, some classes also have caste restrictions as well. So to be a Priest, you must roll a 15-18 on a 3d6 to qualify for the Brahmin caste, on top the minimum wisdom of 9. This means that your odds of playing a priest is less than ten percent.

What we’ll begin with is an overview of all the classes, wherein I point out the incredibly obvious copy-pasting of D&D concepts in a setting that has nothing to do with medieval Europe. First, the priest :


Now, I’m not entirely certain if this is accurate, but it’s certainly inoffensive. The priest has the same characteristics as the AD&D cleric, with a few minor changes: the amount of experience points they need to level up has been modified slightly, and like all spell casters in Arrows of Indra they get feats that confer per-day spells rather than spell levels proper. They are otherwise identical to clerics. How identical , you may ask? Well




This is strictly an AD&Dism, put there because Gygax and company liked vampire movies and myths about European fighting clerics who used blunt weapons to avoid shedding blood. It has absolutely nothing to do with India

This, by the way, not the worst example of copy-pasting in this book.

The priest also includes a sub-class called the priest-shaman, which is the counterpart of the AD&D Druid (which at that time was a sub-class of the cleric). Both the priest-shaman and the druid get the same widgets that differentiate them from priests/clerics: they can identify plants and animals, determine if water is pure, and are unhindered in rough natural terrain. Unlike druids, however, priest-shamans don’t get to shape shift and have immunity to charm spells like AD&D druids.

This is because RPGPundit divided the druid into two separate cleric subclasses, the other subclass being the rakshasa priest. This class gets the more interesting half of the AD&D druid, specifically the ability to change into animals and get charm resistance. They are also always evil, so it figures that Pundit would keep the more interesting stuff out of PC hands.

Next are the fighters :


I do think it’s nice that fighters aren’t restricted to caste. There’s really nothing new to say about fighters: just like AD&D fighters they have the same ability minimums, hit point progression, and they get multiple attacks per round as they level up. Nothing to see here, folks.

Next is the Virakshatriya :




He had the balls to copy-paste the paladin and put it in India . It should be noted that no such term as “Virakshatriya” has ever existed, Pundit made it up for the purposes of his game. We’re going to take some extra time with this one.











No, no. No. This is stupid and we’ll be here all day. Let me just highlight the differences. There are TWO.

The first is that, instead of a summonable intelligent warhorse, the Virakshatriya gets to summon a Garuda instead. In Indian myth a Garuda is a giant eagle that typically serves as a mount to deities.

The second is the code of conduct that the paladin Virakshatriya must adhere to.




It’s a more restrictive version of the paladin’s code, in that along with a proscription of being lawful good, a Virakshatriya must also adhere tightly to caste restrictions. Even more tightly, actually, than an honest to goodness priest (who is merely stuck using a hammer all the time). How this works in play, I have no fucking idea. “I am sorry Ravi, but because that untouchable pickpocket bumped you slightly you lose all Virakshatriya abilities until you atone.”

Not only that, but he is bringing in something right out of the Arthurian Mythos into the Mahabarata. I’m convinced I’ve walked right into someone’s fanfic, right here.

We’ll quickly gloss over the scout class. Long story short, there aren’t any apparent caste restrictions to this class, and it’s the AD&D Ranger sans spell casting.

Next up is the Siddhi , which is the counterpart of the AD&D Magic User.


The word “siddhi” means perfection, and doesn’t refer to groups of people so much as techniques, which include telepathy, levitation, growing and shrinking in size, and so forth. The term he uses in the description, Siddhi-yogin, is perhaps a more accurate term for a person, and it’s pretty odd that he continues to refer to people as siddhis for the rest of the book.

Siddhis get the same progression table as the AD&D Magic User, though like the priest their method of using magic has been changed. I’ll elaborate further once we get to the section on magic. Oddly enough, the Siddhi also doesn’t have any caste restrictions. One wonders why he even bothered at all, really.

Like the scout, we’ll gloss over the thief . It has no caste restrictions and is a direct port of the AD&D thief, the only difference being that they don’t get the “Thieves’ Cant” secret language and aren’t able to read magic scrolls.

We then move on to the Thuggee , the counterpart to the AD&D assassin.


I don’t quite know where to start with this.

One of very few differences between the Assassin and the Thugee is that under AD&D rules the Assassin is always evil, while in Arrows of Indra the Thuggees alignment is “Holy” (though in Pundit’s defense he stresses that this doesn’t necessarily mean ’good’) and supposedly adhere to a strict code of conduct.

This really is not the case. I don’t know what sources Pundit was using but they’re very different from mine. First, the Thuggees as I understood them were far more indiscriminate, with a tendency to pose as travelers, gain the trust of people they came across, and would then murder and rob them. They had less in common with the popular image of Crusades-era Hashshashin (who themselves were badly exaggerated, much like ninjas) and could be likened to criminal gangs.

The idea that it’s not looked down upon to hire a Thuggee also has no historical basis: as far as I know they were not for hire as killers, and that Thuggees may have been little more than superstitious highwaymen, with any religious motivations they might have had always coming second to a desire for money. Their principle targets weren’t any supposed enemies of Kali, they were merchants and members of caravans. Also, the fact that the Thuggees were only ‘revealed’ as a society in the nineteenth century means that a lot of information about them is suspect.

In all other respects the Thuggee is identical to the AD&D Assassin, including the ability minimums and the fact that they need to kill higher ranked members in order to progress in level.

We bid goodbye to our friend the Thuggee with this picture:


I have no idea why the sleeping man has a pillow for a hand.

Finally, we conclude with the Yogi , which is the counterpart to the AD&D Monk.




How does RPGPundit confront the fact that Yogis are strict aesthetics who seek to divorce themselves from earthly concerns and eschew violence? By making up a type of Yoga that is pretty much Shaolin.

Musti Yuddha, by the way, is a type of unarmed combat style originating in 3rd Century BC, similar to kickboxing. Spiritual training was emphasized as well as physical fitness, though it really had nothing to do with Yoga. From what I learned, bouts were banned in the 1960’s, owing to the fact that there were very few rules and people tended to die.

Once again, Yogis are more or less identical to AD&D monks, because when you think of peaceful ascetics eschewing civilization for contemplation you think of Stunning Fist and Death Touch. If he really wanted to make Yogis combatants he should’ve just abandoned pretenses towards historical accuracy and just give us a class that emulates Dhalsim from Street Fighter.

So what have we learned about Arrows of Indra? We learned not to buy it because we can just get AD&D instead and pretend it’s Indian. At least AD&D tells us what Armor Class means.

Alignment


The part in bold is particularly odd, the section on the Yogi doesn’t mention any alignment restrictions for that class. Or caste requirements, but hey! I’m not complaining about that. There are basically three alignments: Holy, Neutral, and Unholy. Pundit stresses that Holy and Unholy doesn’t correlate with modern morality, and is instead a reflection of one’s piety and devotion to the gods. Holiness can be lost through acts of murder, though Unholy people and creatures don’t count, because this is still a game about murder-hobos after all.

It can also be lost through breaking caste taboos and can be regained through purification ceremonies and acts of repentance. Most people in the world are Neutral. People only become Unholy through truly vile acts, and merely breaking caste taboos will not cut it.

Overall, there’s not a lot to say. I appreciate anything he does to differentiate from AD&D, it makes me feel like I haven’t bought the same book twice.

General Skills

The skill system is in fact, not in AD&D! So we’re dealing with some original material here. Let’s see RPGPundit spread his wings and move beyond the works of Gygax!


Starting skills are selected by random rolling at character creation and higher ranked castes get the most skills.

RPGPundit has spread his wings and crashed headfirst into a clear glass window.

What are these skills?


So if you’re a Dalit your contribution to the party can amount to keeping their clothes clean. To say that these skills are a mixed bag is an understatement, your baking skill is literally your skill at baking bread and has no other utility beyond it, while a poet-orator skill can improve other people’s reaction rolls to get them to like you better. Managing corpses is your skill at preparing dead bodies (nothing else) while the Spy skill allows you to disguise yourself as other people.

Skills work just like D&D 3.5, in that you roll a d20 and add your skill modifier to beat the DC.

Now, you can get skills of your choosing as well, you just need to find someone to teach you, pay them money in order to teach you (with the higher caste skills that actually have utility costing more money), and take a few months off to be trained.

There are also skills specific to each class that always have utility. They are also randomly rolled.

Class Skills

First, Yogis don’t get skills of their own, because fuck monks Yogis. Each class as two tiers of skills, basic and advanced. Once you obtain all the basic skills (rerolling if you already have that skill) you can start rolling in the advanced skills table. Basic skills for priests, for example, include the ability to detect someone’s alignment once per day, basic healing, or a +2 bonus to theology skills. More advanced skills include the ability to project a holy aura or increased healing abilities.

Basic fighter/scout skills include weapon proficiencies so it sucks to be you if you want to use a bow, you get a spear instead. Each level of proficiency gives you a bonus to hit and do damage, while the two other basic skills are horsemanship and driving a chariot.

There’s a definite contrast between the advanced skills of martial characters and the advanced skills of spell-casters. An advanced fighter skill gives you a +1 to hit while charging, or can draw a weapon and attack at the same turn with no penalty.

An advanced Siddhi skill lets him or her take control of an army of the undead.


What do you do if you want your alignment to be Holy and you end up rolling this skill? You enjoy your useless level, that’s what.

Next update, we’ll cover Enlightenment Powers, which are the equivalent of spells in Arrows of Indra.

They are also randomly rolled.

Enlightenment Powers, Equipment & Money, Game Master Procedures

posted by Bedlamdan Original SA post

I'll admit that I lost interest in finishing this review earlier: I'm not making excuses, I was just being lazy. But I was surprised to see this thread linked on rpg.net talking about both Arrows of Indra and my review of it. Given that there is interest for it, I've decided to resume the review, and cover as much as I can in as short an amount of time as possible. RPGPundit commented on my review, saying that I stopped before talking about the setting chapter and I believe he is right in that I was unfair to do so. I want to stress that the author does know his source material, and has probably researched it more thoroughly than I have. The reason why this disappoints me is that even though he clearly knows his stuff, he has deliberately eschewed this knowledge to fit D&Disms. Regardless, I want to finish as much of the review as possible and to get to the parts that I do like. I thought this review was just me and some people on SA having a laugh at RPGPundit's expense, but I'll try to do a better job of balancing cheap wisecracks with more of an effort to be informative.

Part 4: Enlightenment Powers, Equipment and Money, Game Master Procedures

Priests and Siddhis, in addition to their class skills, also have a chance of gaining Enlightenment Powers . These powers are arranged from Rank 1 to Rank 3, and take the place of AD&D spells. Every time these classes level up they roll to see if they've obtained an Enlightenment Power, and then roll on a d20 to see which power they get. I am not in favor of this, but it certainly allows for another check-mark to be filled on a list marked "old school." Your odds of gaining a Power are determined by your INT or WIS score, your current level, and the rank of the Power you're rolling for. The maximum number of Enlightenment Powers you can get per rank is determined by your INT score, even for Priests whose odds of gaining a power are modified by WIS. Not exactly intuitive. The casting isn't Vancian, you can't prepare the same Enlightenment Power over and over in a spellbook. If you want to use Generate Food and Water more than once per day, then you need to roll this same power again when you level up to gain an extra per/day use. Finally, unlike AD&D there's no need to fiddle around with bat guano or speak some magic words: the powers just happen .

There. We've covered everything that makes this system different from spells in AD&D. Here are a few of the many similarities:





As you can see, none of the spells I've read are completely identical though they keep the same essential effects. For example, AoI's Blessing has a longer duration and a bigger range compared to its counterpart. Swiftness is identical to AD&D's haste in terms of effect and duration, but its range is larger. Almost all the Powers that have an analogue to AD&D spells have at least been tweaked slightly, with different durations, ranges, damage values, or at least cleaner prose and simplified effects. So if you want to see someone's house-ruled AD&D spell-list with some cleaner prose, this might be for you.

We then move on to Equipment and Money, while I silently wonder why the appendix for the AD&D Player's Guide is in the back of its Dungeon Master's Manual.

Your characters' starting money is determined by your Caste, with higher Castes starting out with more cash. The exceptions are non-humans and barbarian humans whose starting money is very variable, and Yogis, who start out with absolutely nothing. RPGPundit keeps the same GP to SP to CP conversion rates as prior D&D editions and also includes houserules on obtaining loans. Of more interest is how he handles money, describing the repayment of loans, penalties for unpaid debts, and a banking system one can have with a clan. But that's over in three short paragraphs because we've got to find out how much loot your characters can heft !

Encumbrance has been changed from AD&D, and doesn't key off your character's STR or CON score for reasons I do not entirely understand. Every character, regardless of their Strength or Constitution, gets 20 "items" worth of weight that they can carry. A thousand coins or a quiver full of arrows counts as a single item, while heavy armor counts as five items. It's not exactly an intuitive naming scheme, but I'm more than happy to not play Oregon Trail with adventuring equipment. Classes like the Priest, Thieves, and Siddhi can only carry up to ten items before losing their special abilities, while a Yogi isn't allowed to carry any items beyond their standard Yogi accoutrements, period. Because strict asceticism means that the Fighter can move his own damned couch, thank you very much.

Looking over the equipment list, I see that Arrows of Indra uses an ascending Armor Class ! However, it also still apparently uses Weapon Speed and Armor Class Adjustment from AD&D, dampening my enthusiasm considerably. It will mean that I will have to attempt to parse these mechanics, and then explain what, if anything, AoI does
differently.

To put it simply (very simply, I'm not going to explain the math here), Weapon Speed determines how quickly you can act in a round, and determines whether or not you get multiple attacks in a single round. In Arrows of Indra, Weapon Speed has been simplified considerably, and now only adds a flat bonus or penalty to your initiative roll. On the other hand, Armor Class Adjustments are unchanged from AD&D. To quote a very handy AD&D wiki :


As I read the last sentence I transformed into Charles Heston, screaming furiously at the Statue of Liberty. While the values have been adjusted in Arrows of Indra and the table is less dense, it's still the case that something like a Trident gets a +1 to hit against an unarmored opponent with an AC 12 but a -1 against a man in heavy armor, while a Tulwar gets a +1 against someone who is unarmored and a +2 against someone in leather armor. It's certainly more succinct, and laid out more reasonably than its AD&D counterpart: generally speaking the to-hit values decrease as armor class increases, rather than a table of positive and negative numbers in AD&D laid out seemingly at random.

But why is Armor Class Adjustment even necessary? It's still a situation where the players have to consult a table with nearly every attack roll to determine what modifiers they have, and given the simplifications that Speed Factor and encumbrance were given earlier on I'm not sure why this couldn't have been cut out. Other than that there are rules for bronze and steel equipment. Iron is considered the default, while bronze armor and weapons get a penalty and steel weapons get a bonus. Also included are costs for equipment, services, hirelings, and slaves. Generally speaking if it's an item from AD&D, it'll have the same costs in Arrows of Indra.

Before I move on to Game Master Procedures, I'd like to draw your attention to one of the better examples of art inside the book.


This is most likely an example of the public domain art in the book, given that it lacks the artist's unique style.

Going on, I find myself pleasantly surprised in that RPGPundit does bother to explain what Armor Class, Hit Points, and Saving Throws mean, even though he doesn't do so until after he references them throughout the book with no explanation. His earlier statements in the introduction left me worried that he wouldn't be attempting this. Of course, the mechanics would work how you'd expect: roll a d20, add modifiers, and see if you beat the number inside the GM's brain. Aside from the skill system mentioned earlier, a lot of the new content consists of modifications or simplifications of existing AD&D rules. A key difference is that this section is only 9 pages, compared to the 240 pages of AD&D's DMG. To the author's credit he sticks to what would be relevant for a campaign, unlike AD&D which drowns us in rules that most people are likely ignore. Reaction rolls, morale, wilderness travel, experience points, combat, and sources of damage are everything that's covered in this section. Though if you really are concerned about the differences between charging outdoors versus charging indoors, or want a big old list of traps there's still always AD&D, which I assume RPGPundit still intends to be used as a resource.

Significantly more word count is used in the Gazetteer, which clocks in at about fourteen pages and includes some detailed maps. To be clear, the setting of the game is the Mahabharata which is summarized in great detail here . The game starts smack-dab in the middle of the story, and that unfortunately leaves a great deal of exposition to cover. Long story of the Mahabharata is one depicting the conflict between the two royal families of the Kingdom of Kuru, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The Pandavas are the story's protagonists and in the game rule one half of the Kingdom of Kuru. The villain of the story, Duryodhana of the Kauravas, wants their half of the kingdom. He later accomplishes this by getting to the leader of the Pandavas, Yudhishthira to lose all of his possessions in a game of dice.

With all this in mind, I'll try to get to the Gazetteer tomorrow because that one is going to take some more time.

Gazetteer, The Patala Underworld

posted by Bedlamdan Original SA post

Part 5: Gazetteer, The Patala Underworld

What the Gazetteer shows me, more than anything, is that RPGPundit certainly did his research. I feel, however, that he went much too far in adapting the setting to D&D, rather than adapting to D&D to India. The author has certainly stated that making it into an OSR game took priority:


Whether this makes the game better or worse is a matter for personal taste. But speaking personally, I feel much more invested in Mythic India than the OSR. It shows me that while the author certainly could have created a setting that's more India and less Dungeons and Dragons, he deliberately chose not to do so.

We begin with the geography and culture of the "Bharata Kingdoms," the main region of the game and the home of the civilized humans. I think it's a good word to use! Bharata is a word with a lot of different meanings, but from what I understand the term first came from Emperor Bharata, who according to the Mahabharata united the Indian subcontinent, and then named it after himself. The Mahabharata, the setting for the game, can be translated as the "the great tale of the Bharata dynasty." Further, the word Bharata itself has become synonymous with India, to the point where it is accepted as the second official name of the country.

The individual kingdoms of Bharata are culturally similar but still possess considerable variation. I would like to note that nothing in the Gazetteer was spun out of whole cloth: pretty much every kingdom or region in this section is mentioned in the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Vedas, or another Sanskrit epic. It's certainly better than the sections on races and classes, which introduced some concepts that felt decidedly out of place. This doesn't mean that there's not some left for nitpicking, however.

The geography of the map is pretty much Northern India, ranging from just south of the Vindhyas mountain range in central India to just north of the Himalayas. Except he called the Himalayas "The Himayant Mountains" instead, for reasons that escape me considering that the word Himalaya is already Sanskrit. Along with geography comes a description of culture, including a section on holidays and festivals. And I have in fact celebrated some of these! Diwali (The book calls it Dipavali but that's also a valid spelling) and Holi are major events in even modern India, and are also celebrated in non-Hindu communities such as Punjab, where my family lives.

We continue with a description of the traditions of the Bharata kingdoms, including another explanation of the concept of Caste. Again, RPGPundit does stress that the setting's conception of Caste is much less solid, and that upward mobility is possible. So if one must have a game where Caste disparity exists even amongst player characters of the same group, that would probably be how I'd handle it. The section also goes on to explain politics in the kingdoms, what it's like to be part of an extended Clan within a caste, and what it's like growing up in this region, all of which provides some interesting flavor for the setting.

There is, of course, the Obligatory Note on Gender Roles that follows most pen and paper games. This one is fairly interesting.


That's not entirely accurate and requires a lengthy explanation. I believe that RPGPundit has fallen into a rather difficult linguistic minefield there, but the precise meaning of Kliba is one that is heavily disputed. In modern times, the word hijra is used to refer to biological males who consider themselves to be of a third gender. However, that term did not exist until the 16th century, and older terms such as "kliba" are not necessarily a one-for-one analogue. Generally speaking "kliba" does not refer to individuals of a third gender, but rather acts as a pejorative that refers to what was considered at the time to be 'defective males.' For example, men who are eunuchs, sterile, impotent, transvestites, homosexuals, hermaphrodites, and men who only produced female children. A more appropriate term ancient term for the third gender would be trithiya prakirthi which literally means "third nature" and can be used to refer to transgender people of any type. In the author's defense, "kliba" has been translated to be synonymous with third gender in other works, including translations of the source material. If it were possible, though, I would have suggested a different term.

The story of Shikhandi is an interesting one, but aside from the version that RPGPundit mentions, where a king is told to raise his daughter as a son, there are other versions where she is literally transformed into a man. Shikhandini was born as a girl and either through prayer or in trading her gender with a Yaksha who wanted to be a woman, depending on the version you like, became a man named Shikhandi.

The book then goes on to describe the history of the setting, explaining that is now the Age of Heroes: unlike the Golden Age the gods no longer walk the Earth (though given the ludicrous amount of divine intervention happening in these stories, I question that), and the Silver Age, when the kingdoms were first established and the Ramayana took place. To be frank, I would have preferred the game taking place during the Ramayana as opposed to the Mahabharata, but that's just a personal preference. It would have also have made the mechanics even more of an awkward fit with the setting.

We then continue with an overview of the various kingdoms, almost all of which are referenced somewhere in one epic or another. I am curious as to how much of the details of each kingdom were drawn from sources and how much was the result of authorial license, however everything I can confirm as accurate to the Mahabaratha is accurate. For example the book makes mention that the Bahlika kingdoms to the West are seen as sort of an outsider by the rest of the Bharata Kingdoms, and this is true. In fact Bahlika itself means outsider. The little details that the Mahabharata uses to describe the various regions are all there.

Overall, this section is very well done, and to the best of my knowledge done with a lot of care. I think it would be fair to say that the author knows the Mahabaratha better than I do. I can't attest to every detail, but I do not feel that a hundred percent accuracy to the Mahabharata is all that essential either, especially for a role-playing game. The Mahabharata certainly makes for an interesting roleplaying setting, and it's probably the most worthwhile section of the book. If I had to point out one failing, it's the fact that a large number of NPCs are described but none of them are given any sort of stats. I suppose it makes sense, because I don't think that AD&D can represent characters who are just that over the top. Why the hell would someone like Bhima stop at just strength 18?

I'd also like to provide one example of the artist's work that I do enjoy.





I still can't say it's quality art, but I still think it's rather cute.

Next we go over the Patala Underworld, which also has a mythological basis. And honestly, if the entire book were like this, I'd be much more well disposed to this product! The book presents an overview of the seven regions of the Underworld: Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Talatala, Mahatala, Rasatala, and Nagaloka. This isn't mentioned in the book, but the interesting about Patala is that each region corresponds to a base instinct, summarized here . All these regions correspond to chakras along the leg where base instincts dwell. Sometimes, Patala is depicted as part of the legs of Vishnu.

The first realm, closest to the surface, is Atala. It contains a Naga Kingdom, a lot of aggressive monsters, and is also the home of the demon Bala, son of Maya. We'll get to Maya later. Bala also has a vast harem of succubi who basically have sex with you until you die of exhaustion. To be fair, multiple sources describing Hindu myth says that Bala's realm is full of magically created women that have sex with you until you die of exhaustion. Just not, you know, Medieval European demonesses.

Next is Vitala, which is populated by angry ghosts and... goblin tribes. I've noticed a lot of discussion about the goblins in Arrows of Indra, with the argument for them being that just because they have the same name doesn't necessarily make them D&D goblins. As stated by the author on his website:


Sadly, RPGPundit hasn't done much of anything to distinguish them from their D&D counterparts in the book. Their write ups are short and contain next to no flavor text, meaning that most people are going to fill in the blanks with the goblins they already know. Now, it is true that Shiva is served by creatures that could be construed as "goblin-like," certainly. But it still falls prey to the same same problems I had with Yakshas and Gandharvas: because they can be construed as analogous to D&D creatures, they are therefore D&D creatures.

While there are different interpretations of Ganas depending on what you read, I'd at least like to offer one that isn't cribbing too much from Western Fantasy Literature.


There was a ripe opportunity to show what made these goblins different from D&D goblins. As it is, the entirety of descriptive text the goblins get in this book are "short hideous fanged humanoids who have great tribes here, where they mine for gold" and their description in the monster section is as follows: "These creatures live mainly in the Patala Underworld, especially in Vitala, the 2nd realm of the underworld. However, they are sometimes found in mountain caves near the surface world." Nowhere is their status as Shiva's attendants made clear, and goblins are in fact treated as entirely separate from the creatures RPGPundit does refer to as Ganas, who are depicted as angry looking goat-men who serve the gods Shiva and Ganesha.

I spent way more time than RPGPundit did on the goblins, so let's quickly move on to the next level, Sutala. Sutala is ruled by a demon named Bali, who for all intents and purposes is a fairly decent fellow. The story goes that after Bali conquered three worlds, was banished to Sutala by an avatar of Vishnu. Rather than fight back, Bali surrendered willingly, and Vishnu rewarded him by making him filthy rich. Bali continues to worship Vishnu, though the book adds an extra wrinkle by leaving in question as to how sincere Bali's penances actually are. As such, the realm is guarded by Devas who make sure that nobody can get in and Bali can't get out. The Devas are led by Prahlada, who in the game is an Asura that became a devotee of Vishnu after being saved from his demonic father. It's a bit of an odd choice, especially since the most I know about Prahlada is that he was a human prince who was saved by Vishnu from his certainly evil, but still human father. I assume this was a deliberate choice on the author's part, and it at least is an interesting change rather than a dull one.

The next realm is called Talatala, and is ruled over by Maya, the demon-architect and the father of Bala way back on level one. Maya built three magical floating cities that were prosperous and dominant, but also very impious. As such Shiva destroyed the cities. Maya was spared only after he offered devotion to Shiva in exchange for his life, and Talatala is his place of exile. Shiva is pretty much the most badass god (SORRY VAISHNAVITES). Regardless Talatala is described in the book as a realm of magical wonders but also a realm ruled by a very bored demon. As an aside, Maya was featured in both the Ramayana and Mahabharata: in the former he was the villain's father in law, and in the latter ended up building a magical palace for the Pandavas in exchange for his life.

Next is Mahatala, which the book describes as a realm of powerful but violent Nagas, as well as the realm of the Asura Hiranyaksha, who tried to tried to destroy the world (according to the story, he picked up the world and put it into the bottom of the "cosmic ocean") and fought with Vishnu for a thousand years straight. It occurs to me that I have no idea how a collection of oldschool characters are supposed to contend against something that could fight Vishnu for a thousand years. It should be noted that like the NPCs described in the Gazetteer, creatures like Hiranyaksha or Maya lack stats of any sort.

Second to last is Rasatala, a maze of tunnels and warrens ruled over by Asuras. That's all that can be said and that's all I really can find out on my own.

Finally, we have Nagaloka, yet another realm where there are Naga. But in Nagaloka, there are the most Naga. Tons of Naga. There aren't malicious but they tend to be suspicious of outsiders. It's ruled by that Naga god-king Vasuki, and contains a magical pool that makes one immune to disease and aging. If you go down any further, you will reach Naraka .

The chapter ends with some tables for the random generation of caverns, including their size, lighting levels, hazards, and unique features. This is followed by random encounter tables for all seven levels of Patala. Nnnot exactly riveting stuff after the excitement that the rest of the chapter offered.

And that marks the high-point of the review, and probably the best part of the book. I'll be pretty busy for the next few weeks, and I'm not totally certain that I'll be able to make time for the review for some time. As such, I felt it was very important to cover these sections of the book beforehand.