REACTIONS TO OD&D: ENCOUNTER PROBABILITY

In OD&D time is measured in turns (10 minutes) and rounds (1 minute), with 10 rounds per turn. You check for wandering monsters at the end of every turn, with an encounter being indicated on the role of a 6 on 1d6. Hence, the probability of a random encounter is:

Hanging around in the dungeon obviously isn't conducive to a long or healthy life. (Not that this should come as any sort of surprise.)

However, it should be noted that -- if the PCs are in a position where the wandering monster would not necessarily be aware of them -- surprise is achieved 33% of the time (1 or 2 on 1d6). There's really no way to calculate this into the numbers above (because too much depends on circumstance), but certainly in practice I found that this gave the PCs a not infrequent ability to avoid the wandering monsters. (Particularly once they realized what was going on and made certain preparations -- like shutting the doors to a room while searching it -- which would make it possible.)

What the 16% chance of an encounter every 10 minutes really boils down to, however, is a very active dungeon complex: The monsters are not just sitting in their rooms waiting for the PCs to kick down the door. (This is a topic I'll probably be re-visiting in later essay.)

Working out the probabilities for wandering monster mechanics can tell you a lot about the nature of the setting. (And, conversely, when you're designing a setting you should work out the probabilities to make sure you're doing what you think you're doing.)

For example, I've been homebrewing a structure for 3rd Edition wilderness exploratory adventures. The strucutre is based around a 4 hour watch (with 6 watches per day). The length of the watch was chosen because it's convenient for the hex scales I'm using for my wilderness map.

Since I'll be setting up random encounters for the various wilderness regions, I whipped up this quick cheat sheet for the probabilities involved:

(I may eventually end up standardizing these checks to X in 1d20 -- 2 in 1d20 is identical to 1 in 1d10 and 3 in 1d20 is fairly equivalent ot 1 in 1d6 -- but I wanted to start off with a more traditional approach.)

Obviously, the higher the probability the more likely the PCs' journey will be interrupted. If I set the probability very high (2 in 1d6), then I'm virtually guaranteeing that their progress will be slowed to a crawl. If I set the probability very low (1 in 1d20), then I'm allowing them to potentially move through an entire region without ever meaningfully interacting with its contents.

DEFINITIONS OF SPECULATIVE FICTION

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud carefully constructs a very detailed and specific definition of what the term "comics" really means. With that definition in hand, he goes on to explore the incredible depth and breadth of the art form without any preconceptions or biases.

I first read Understanding Comics when I was fourteen years old. This approach to critical analysis had a profound effect on me. Forever after I understood the importance (and power) of having precise definitions.

Which brings me to the definitions for the various genres of speculative fiction which I devised and then perfected over several years of participating in discussions of science fiction in the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup and at various other places face-to-face and around the 'net. If you, like me, are heartily dissatisfied every time you read someone quoting Damon Knight's definition of the genre ("science fiction means what we point to when we say it"), then this should be right up your alley.

SPECULATIVE FICTION: A form of fiction in which the story takes place in an imaginary world which exists as a result of one or more "what if?" questions.

SCIENCE FICTION: A form of speculative fiction in which the "what ifs" which define the imaginary world are based on science and/or technology. Usually this setting is an imagined future, but this is not always the case.

FANTASY: A form of speculative fiction in which the "what ifs" which define the imaginary world are based on the existence of magic. Usually this setting is an alternate reality or an imaginary epoch in Earth's ancient past, but this is not always the case. 

MAGIC: The term "magic" can be applied to any ability, effect, phenomenon, or creature which cannot be explained through the rules of science as they exist in *this* universe. This does not include theoretical future revolutions in scientific theory, the technology which those revolutions make possible, or authorial mistakes. If a work explicitly refers to an ability, effect, phenomenon, or creature as 'magic' (or synonymous term), then the ability, effect, phenomenon, or creature should be considered magic, regardless of its other characteristics.

SCIENCE FANTASY: A form of speculative fiction in which the "what ifs" which define the imaginary world are based on magic and speculative science and/or technology. In other words, any work which meets the definitions of both science fiction and fantasy.

ALTERNATE HISTORY: A form of speculative fiction in which the "what ifs" which define the imaginary world are based on hypothetical changes in the way that history actually played out.

And a couple of clarifications: 

First, certain technologies (like non-relativistic FTL and most time travel) are grandfathered into the SF genre. By this, I mean that they have become so traditional within the genre that it is no longer necessary to actually invoke the speculative science necessary to justify them. Thus, if you have someone using a jumpgate, stepping through a time portal, or using psionic powers, it's not necessary to launch into an explanation of the speculative scientific revolution which made them possible: The reader will simply assume that such an explanation is lurking under the covers.

Second, there are a few works in which characters will describe something as "magic" even though the author's intention is for the reader to recognize that the "magic" in question is actually science or technology that the characters don't recognize as such. Even though the definition of "magic" might lead one to classify such a work as fantasy, they are more properly classified as science fiction: The characters may be referring to it as "magic"; but the work is not.

This, of course, is all my opinion. But, in my opinion, these definitions do a better job of matching "science fiction" and "fantasy" to the stuff which is actually labelled as such on the shelf than any other objective definition I've seen.

Final thought for the day: It can be argued that there is a continuum between fantasy and science fiction, and the line between "speculations with magic" and "speculations with science" is a fuzzy one. But for the sake of argument, let us call this division the Clarke Line, in honor of Arthur C. Clarke's famous Third Law.

ON THE DEFINITION OF GENRE

The concept of "genre" can be a fairly slippery one, but allow me to propose that genres of fiction can be broken down into four categories:

Which can roughly be explained like this:

(1) If a book is set in the 14th century, its historical fiction. If a book is set on Mars, its science fiction. If a book is set in a magical fairy kingdom, its fantasy. And so forth.

(2) If a book's plot is significantly based around solving a crime or puzzle, then it's a mystery. If a book's plot is significantly based around two people falling in love, then it's a romance. And so forth.

(3) If a book is supposed to make people laugh, it's a comedy. And so forth. (This one is a bit harder to get your thumb on.)

(4) If a book is meant to be read by children, it's a children's book. If it's meant to be read by teens, it's a young adult novel. If it's not meant to be read by people younger than 18ish, then it's a mature novel.

You can freely mix-and-match between the different types of genres (a historical children's mystery comedy). Mix-and-matching with another genre of the same type is bit trickier. I think the only genre which is truly exclusive is setting.

DON'T PREP PLOTS

If you're GMing a roleplaying game, you should never prep a plot.

Everyone's tastes are different. These matters are subjective. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Yada, yada, yada.

But, seriously, don't prep plots.

First, a definition of terms: A plot is the sequence of events in a story.

And the problem with trying to prep a plot for an RPG is that you're attempting to pre-determine events that have not yet happened. Your gaming session is not a story -- it is a happening. It is something about which stories can be told, but in the genesis of the moment it is not a tale being told. It is a fact that is transpiring.

PREPPING WITHOUT PLOTS

Don't prep plots, prep situations.

What's the difference?

A plot is a sequence of events: A happens, then B happens, then C happens. (In more complicated forms, the sequence of events might fork like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but the principle remains the same.)

A situation, on the other hand, is merely a set of circumstances. The events that happen as a result of that situation will depend on the actions the PCs take.

For example, a plot might look like this: "Pursuing the villains who escaped during last week's session, the PCs will get on a ship bound for the port city of Tharsis. On their voyage they will spot a derelict. They will board the derelict and discover that one of the villains has transformed into a monster and killed the entire crew... except for one lone survivor. They will fight the monster and rescue the survivor. While they're fighting the monster, the derelict will have floated into the territorial waters of Tharsis. They will be intercepted by a fleet of Tharsian ships. Once their tale is told, they will be greeted in Tharsis as heroes for their daring rescue of the derelict. Following a clue given by the survivor of the derelict, they will climb Mt. Tharsis and reach the Temple of Olympus. They can then wander around the temple asking questions. This will accomplish nothing, but when they reach central sanctuary of the temple the villains will attempt to assassinate them. The assassination attempt goes awry, and the magical idol at the center of the temple is destroyed. Unfortuntely, this idol is the only thing holding the temple to the side of the mountain -- without it the entire temple begins sliding down the mountain as the battle continues to rage between the PCs and villains!"

(This is derived from an actual, published adventure. Names and milieu have been changed to protect the innocent. Bonus points to anyone who can correctly identify the original source.)

A situation, on the other hand, looks like this: "The villains have escaped on two ships heading towards Tarsis. One of the villains transforms during the voyage into a terrible monster and kills the crew, leaving the ship floating as a derelict outside the coastal waters of Tharsis. At such-and-such a time, the ship will be spotted by the Tharsis navy. The other villains have reached the Temple of Olympus atop Mt. Tharsis and assumed cover identities."

THE DIRTY SECRET

Many people are intimidated by the idea of prepping without a plot. It seems like a lot of work. If the players can do anything, how are you supposed to cope with that?

The dirty secret, though, is that it's actually a lot more difficult to prep plots than situations. 

To understand why, let's take a closer look at our example of a plotted adventure. It's a tightly-knit sequence of events that, when broken down, looks like this:

What you're looking at is a chain of potential points of failure. Each of these points is heavily designed with a specific and expected outcome... and if that outcome doesn't happen the GM is left to railroad the players back onto the tracks he's laid out.

By contrast, let's look at what we need to design this same adventure as a situation:

(1) The PCs have to pursue the villains. (This is the hook into the entire scenario. It's a potential failure point shared by all scenarios. If the PCs aren't interested in going to the red dragon's lair, it doesn't matter how you prep the lair.)

(2) You need to design the city of Tharsis. (Where is it? What's it like? What can the PCs do there? Et cetera.)

(3) You need to design the derelict ship.

(4) You need to design the Temple of Olympus.

(5) You need to stat up the Tharsis navy, the villains, and (possibly) the survivor.

(6) There needs to be a way for the PCs to know the villains are hiding out in the Temple of Olympus. (In the plot-based design, this is one of the failure points: They either question the survivor or they have no way of knowing where to go next. In situation-based design, you would use the Three Clue Rule and figure out two additional methods by which the PCs could reach this conclusion. This can be as simple as making a Gather Information check in Tharsis and/or questioning the captain/crew of the ship the villains took.)

Here's the dirty secret: Take a closer look at that list. With the exception of #6, those are all things that you also needed to prep for your plot-based design. (And even #6 is one-third complete.)

ROBUST DESIGN

The advantage of situation-based prep is that it's robust. Surprisingly, however, that robustness doesn't require a lot of extra work. In fact, as we've shown, it usually requires a lot less work. Here are a few things to consider while doing situation-based prep.

THREE CLUE RULE: I've already devoted a lengthy essay to the Three Clue Rule. Basically, the Three Clue Rule states: For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.

The theory is that, even if the players miss two of the clues, you've got pretty great odds that they'll find the third and figure things out.

The Three Clue Rule can also be applied to adventure design in general: For any given problem in an adventure, you should always prep at least one solution and remain open to any potential solutions your players may devise. But for any chokepoint problem (by which I mean "a problem which must be overcome in order for the adventure to continue"), try to include three possible routes to success.

That may sound like a lot of work, but these distinct paths don't need to be particularly convuluted. (In fact, they shouldn't be.) For example, a problem might be "Mickey Dee has a piece of information the PCs need". The solutions can be as simple as (1) knock him out and take it; (2) negotiate with him for it; or (3) sneak into his office and steal it. The actual prep that you do for any one of these solutions takes care of 99% of the prep for the other two.

It should be noted that, just because any given solution is "simple", it doesn't mean that the scenario will be (or should be) simple. The convulution of the scenario arises from the way in which a series of problems are overcome. And the nice thing about situation-based prep is that you don't have to figure out exactly how these problems will be strung together -- that arises naturally out of the actions taken by the PCs.

GOAL-ORIENTED OPPONENTS: Instead of trying to second-guess what your PCs will do and then trying to plan out specific reactions to each possibility, simply ask yourself, "What is the bad guy trying to do?"

The most effective way of prepping this material will depend on the particulars of the scenario you're designing. It might be nothing more than a sequential list of objectives. Or it might be a detailed timeline.

Note that some scenarios won't be based around the bad guys trying to carry out some specific scheme. They might just be going about business as usual when the PCs decide to show up and make a mess of things. In other words, the "goal" might be nothing more than "maintain the standard guard rotation".

If you're interested in seeing this type of prep work in action, I've put together a lengthy example of using detailed timelines from my own campaign. (My players should not click that link.)

DON'T PLAN SPECIFIC CONTINGENCIES: Whatever approach you take, the key aspect is that you'll usually be laying out what would happen if the PCs don't get involved. If you get some ideas about contingency plans, go ahead and jot them down, but don't waste too much time on them.

I say "waste your time" because that's exactly what most contingency planning is. The basic structure of contingency planning is: If the PCs interfere at point X, then the bad guys do X2. If the PCs interfere at point Y, then the bad guys do Y2. If the PCs interfere at point Z, then the bad guys do Z2. 

Of course, if the PCs don't interfere at point X, then all the time you spent prepping contingency X2 is completely wasted. Even more importantly, if the PCs do interfere at point X then point Y and point Z will generally be fundamentally altered or even cease to exist -- so all the prep work that went into Y2 and Z2 is also wasted.

This is where situation-based prep usually gets maligned for requiring more work: People think they need to try to prepare themselves for every conceivable action the PCs might take. But, in point of fact, that's not situation-based prep. That's plot-based prep juiced up on Choose Your Own Adventure steroids. It's the type of prep you would need to do if you were programming a computer game.

But you're not programming a computer game. You're prepping a scenario for a roleplaying game. When the PCs choose to do X or Y or Z (or A or B or C), you don't need a pre-programmed reaction. You're sitting right there at the table with them. You can just react.

KNOW YOUR TOOLKIT: In order to react, you need to know your toolkit. If the PCs start investigating Lord Bane, what resources does he have to thwart them? If they lay siege to the slavers' compound, what are the defenses?

Typical "tools" include personnel, equipment, physical locations, and information. 

For example, if the PCs are investigating a local Mafia leader then you might know that:

(1) He has a couple of goon squads, a trained assassin on staff, and two bodyguards. You might also know that he has an estranged wife and two sons. (These are all types of personnel.)

(2) He lives in a mansion on the east side of town, typically frequents his high-end illegal casino in the secret basement of a downtown skyscraper, and also has a bolt-hole set up in a seedy tavern. (These are all physical locations.)

(3) He has blackmail material on one of the PCs. (This is information.)

(4) He has bribed a local cop. (This is a different type of personnel.)

You can think of this as non-specific contingency planning. You aren't giving yourself a hammer and then planning out exactly which nails you're going to hit and how hard to hit them: You're giving yourself a hammer and saying, "Well, if the players give me anything that looks even remotely like a nail, I know what I can hit it with."

(For example, you know that the estranged wife is familiar with the details of her husband's operations and the security of the mansion. That's the hammer. What you don't have to figure out is how the PCs get that information from her: Maybe they just ask her nicely. Or bribe her. Or offer to protect her. Or they plant a surveillance bug on her. Or tap her phones. Or kidnap her sons and threaten to kill them unless she plants a bomb in her husband's mansion. These are all nails. The players will provide them.)

The other trick to designing your toolkit is organizing the pertinent resources into usable chunks. Take the goon squads for example: You could try to track the actions of every individual goon while running the adventure, but that quickly becomes incredibly complicated. By organizing them into squads you give yourself a manageable unit that you can keep track of.

On the other hand, don't let this organization shackle you. If you need an individual goon, just peel 'em off one of the squads and use them. You're drawing a forest because that's easier to map -- but if the PCs need to chop down some firewood, don't miss the trees for the forest.

Despite my tongue-in-cheek opening to this essay, there's nothing inherently wrong with plot-based design. Plenty of great games have been run with tightly or loosely plotted scenarios. And the argument can certainly be made that, "The players don't care if they're on a railroad, if the train's heading to Awesome Town."

But I'll admit that, in my experience, Awesome Town is usually a lot more awesome when I let the PCs chart their own course.

Is that because I'm such an amazingly awesome GM that I can always roll with the punches and come up with some awesome improvisation? Maybe. But I think it has more to do with the fact that the players are actually pretty good judges of what they want. And if they come up with a detailed plan for infiltrating the mob boss' downtown casino as card dealers and gamblers, then they'll probably have a lot more fun seeing that plan come to fruition than if I artificially quash it so that they can go back to my "awesome" idea of kidnapping the sons of the mob boss and using them to blackmail his wife.

(Which isn't to say that the PCs should always succeed. Overcoming adversity is awesome as well. But there's a difference between a plan that doesn't work because it didn't work and a plan that doesn't work because I, as a GM, want them to be doing something else.)

And with that so-called advantage of plot-based design laid to one side, I'm not sure what it's really supposed to be offering. On the other hand, the advantages of scenario-based design are huge:

(1) It requires significantly less work to prep.

(2) It empowers the players and makes their choices meaningful.

The latter really cannot be emphasized enough. For me, the entire reason to play a roleplaying game is to see what happens when the players make meaningful choices. In my experience, the result is almost always different than anything I could have anticipated or planned for.

If I wanted to tell my players a story (which is what plot-based design really boils down to), then it's far more efficient and effective to simply write a story. In my opinion, if you're playing a roleplaying game then you should play to the strengths of the medium: The magical creativity which only happens when people get together.

For examples of what I'm talking about, you can also read about the Unexpected Successes from my own table. The Twin Deaths of Thuren Issek are particularly awesome.

On the other hand, if you have a group that's used to being shown the Correct Path and then following it, suddenly throwing them into the deep-end of an open-ended scenario may have disastrous results, just like any other sudden shift in the style of play. Others, of course, will immediately take to it like a fish takes to water. But if you're running into problems, just sit down and talk things over with your players. Explain where the disconnect is happening. Maybe give them a copy of this essay so that they can have a better understanding of what's going on (and what's not going on) behind the screen.

I suspect that once they know the shackles have been taken off, they'll revel in their newfound freedom.

DESIGN NOTES: WAR-TRAINED

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I had a conversation this afternoon that reminded me of something I meant to talk about many moons ago regarding the development of Rule Supplement 1: Mounted Combat. 

Here's the question that jogged my memory: "Is a familiar proficient in the same armor as the caster?"

This, it turns out, is not an easy question to answer. It ends up falling into the middle of several rather murky portions of the rules. The Animal type in the SRD reads: "Proficient with no armor unless trained for war."

The first complication with this is that familiars aren't actually Animals, they're Magical Beasts. And the Magical Beast type simply reads: "Proficient with no armor." So what happens if you take a war-trained animal and make it a familiar? Does it simply lose the proficiency?

The answer to that is: Maybe. The rules for familiars read, "A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a sorcerer or wiard. It retains the appearance, Hit Dice, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, skills, and feats of the normal animal it once was, but it is treated as a magical beast instead of an animal for the purpose of any effect that depends on its type. Only a normal, unmodified animal may become a familiar."

You'll note that proficiencies are not listed in the list of things that the familiar retains when it becomes a magical beast. But, on the other hand, proficiencies can also be a type of feat -- should all proficiencies be grouped under that catch-all? I'd certainly argue that this interpretation of the passage makes the most sense.

But the passage also says that "only a normal, unmodified animal" can become a familiar. Is a war-trained animal a "normal, unmodified animal"?

Good question. What is a war-trained animal?

And here we come to the second murky area of the question: The term "war-trained" is never actually defined in the rulebook. The term is used in the Animal type (quoted above) and in a few scattered references to warhorses vs. normal horses, but it's never explained. You would think since it involves training an animal that it would be referenced in the Handle Animal skill... but no such luck.

This was an issue that I needed to resolve for Rule Supplement 1: Mounted Combat. The way I resolved this issue was to create the War-Trained animal purpose. Animals could be trained with this purpose using the Handle Animal skill:

War-trained (DC 20): A war-trained animal knows the tricks attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel. War-training an animal takes six weeks. You may also "upgrade" an animal trained for riding to a war-training by spending three weeks and making a successful DC 20 Handle Animal check. The new general purpose replaces the animal's previous purpose. A war-trained animal is proficient with all armors (light, medium, and heavy) and shields (including tower shields).

Problem solved. If you adopt this War-Trained animal purpose as a fix-it for the oversight in the core rulebooks, then I don't think it's too much of a leap to allow a familiar to be war-trained (even though they're technically magical beasts and not animals).

However, the may not be necessary if you're willing to make a sufficiently liberal interpretation of the rules for familiar. Those rules state that familiars gain the skill ranks and save bonuses of their masters. Proficiencies aren't mentioned, but that's likely because (a) standard familiars can't use weapons and (b) sorcerers and wizards aren't proficient in any armor. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to allow for the familiar to gain the armor and weapon proficiencies of their master.

After all, it allows for awesome things like this:

And awesome should always win out in the end.

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OD&D IN THE CAVERNS OF THRACIA

PART 6: THE SECOND SESSION

Go to Part 1

Christopher B. encouraged me in a post over at Grognardia to prioritize these session summaries of my Caverns of Thracia mini-campaign using OD&D. In Part 5 I wrapped up the end of the first session, which turned out to be such a success in the eyes of my players that several players asked for a follow-up.

Ergo, session two.

For this session, the player roster was shuffled a bit: The player for Reeva couldn't make it, but we added two new players. We glossed over the escape from the dungeon and moved everybody back to the logging village on the edge of the jungle containing the ruins.

Herbert the Elf had been rescued at the end of the last session and he volunteered to return to the complex to wreak vengeance (and loot treasure). He was joined by the core of the previous party (Thalmain, Trust, and Warrain), as well as new recruits in the form of Dominic and Thaxter.

Thaxter, it turned out, proved to be one of the two main highlights of the evening. Thaxter was an elderly gentleman who presented himself to the party as a worldly and experienced knight. The party was eager to have such an experienced swordarm as part of their expedition.

Unfortunately, Thaxter was nothing of the sort. It turned out that he was, in fact, the chef from the local inn. He'd seen the gold rush adventurers profiting left and right from the various ruins of the Thracian Empire and wanted in on the action.

The truth came out shortly after they had ventured back down into the dungeon complex: As they were crossing one of the rope bridges over the subterranean chasms, a giant bat swooped out of the darkness... Thaxter panicked and cowered like a little child, tossing his torch aside wildly and screaming in terror.

(The torch ended up landing on the rope bridge itself, and started burning one of the ropes. A couple of the players -- realizing that they weren't carrying any water -- dropped their trousers and peed on the fire to put it out. This was not their noblest hour...)

In short, Thaxter -- as a character concept -- was brilliant, clever, funny, and memorable. When he eventually perished (after finally conquering his fear and bravely plugging a hole in the line when Trust was knocked unconscious in a fight against a band of lizardmen), he was applauded by the entire group.

Ironically, the players' appreciation of Thaxter was not matched by Thaxter's son -- Quinton -- who showed up shortly thereafter looking for his father. Quinton proved to be nothing but critical of his father's (many) shortcomings, which led to this short exchange:

(UN)FUN WITH MAPPING

For this OD&D mini-campaign, I'm not using any kind of battlemap. I'm also (a) strongly encouraging the players to keep a map and (b) requiring that, if they're mapping, then their character is mapping. (In other words, they need to have pen and parchment; they need to be carrying them in their hands; and the map itself is a physical item.)

On the first level of the Caverns of Thracia there is a room that looks like this:

It looks easy enough. But attempting to communicate verbally what this room looks like proved to be really confusing. (And I had several opportunities, because the exact same issue came up again in the third session when somebody else was keeping the map.)

"There's a platform jutting out over a chasm. Directly in front of you, on the far side of the platform, there is a semi-circular protrusion with an altar. Columns lead off to your right, ending in a stone bridge that leads towards a tunnel in the far wall of the chasm."

At one point I even whipped out a small piece of paper and sketched the shape of the room. The map still got screwed up in ways that weren't reasonable for characters actually standing in the room and looking at.

This reminded me why I eventually drifted away from this particular conceit in my regular campaigns. Having the characters keep a map can lead to a lot of fun gameplay: Analyzing the map for clues on where to explore next (or where some secret passage might be hidden). Losing the map. Getting lost due to poor mapping. Chewing up valuable time trying to make the map accurate. Using the map to re-orient yourself after getting forcefully lost.

But on the flip-side, the metagame complexity and pace dragging of trying to communicate any kind of non-standard passage or room shape can be incredibly frustrating. It also strongly encourages the design of relatively uniform floorplans (square rooms, straight corridors) to avoid the headache. But, of course, this uniformity ends up undermining the very type of gameplay that this type of mapping is supposed to enable.

I'm still not sure what the best solution is for this. Or if there is one.

MARCH 2009: 

PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4 - PART 5 - PART 6

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