That's Lucky, that is.

Level one characters are squishy as milk, and maybe that's what you want, especially if you're running a filter. But what can you do if you don't want to your characters to be so squishy that a single hit from a dagger will kill them? Well I've a couple of ideas.

Fate points like in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, were/are a non-renewable and limited resource that you can spend to get your character out of trouble. Each one of these points should be narratively powerful, able to reverse a killing blow or allow an escape from a trap. These are precious life-saving points and you only start with 1-4 of them and you never get any more.

How about some "Luck" points like in Mekton, where you have a luck stat. Each session you can spend your luck points to increase the result of rolls. At the beginning of the next session the points refresh. This doesn't exactly save the characters life but would certainly help them take down opponents, and climb walls. How many luck points does your character get per session? How about having a new Luck stat or starting with a pool of 6 modded by the characters WIS mod?

Another option is Patsy-Points, these work like the Fate points I mentioned above, but rather than starting with them you earn a Patsy-Point by your character dying. Each time you lose a character you get a Patsy Point. If you lose a second character, you start your next character with 2 Patsy-Points, and so on. It kind of mediates your awfulness as a player, LOL.

Are the points systems described above very OSR.... mechanically at least , OSR is all about the unforgiving grittiness, but they do have their place. Perhaps if you are bringing in new players you can soften the blow, or perhaps if playing with kids. Have a little think about before you start your next campaign, and work out if these or a similar mechanism might be worth a go.

Nerin and Wizard between missions

 This is an update on my current solo Scarlet Heroes campaign. I have two characters , Nerin and an unnamed Wizard (unnamed because its only level 1 and not worth the effort of getting a name), have bee through a dungeon and brought back some hundreds of gold coins. It occurred to me that if want to take these two out on another adventure, they can be carrying around all these hundreds of coins. If they go into the dungeon carrying them that'll reduce how much they carry out, so less loot!

What do they do with the coins while they go adventuring? They could just find a lonely spot and bury them, but that's hardly secure. So I decided they needed a base of some sort. The two characters only had a couple of hundred gp each so buying a castle was out of their reach. In the end I opted to rent a room for a couple of weeks and pick up a lockable chest. 

But who looks after the chest while they are away? So then I recruited a retainer, dropping this new guy 10 gp a week until we get some booty at which point he'll get a promise of 15% of Nerin's future hauls. This new recruit  also got outfitted with Hand axe, chin armour, shield, short bow and arrows. As Nerin is level 2 that means his retainer is half his level and therefore is promoted above "Normal Man" to level 1.

Considering that I don't name level 1 characters as they are so disposable, BUT I'm going to name this retainer. I'm doing this as I don't plan to take him on any missions. His job, for now, is just to look after the heroes gear, and have sandwiches ready when they get back from the job.

I'm now diving into UNE The Universal NPC Emulator to pad out the Retainer. A roll of 49 on the "Modifier" table tells me that the retainer is "scholarly" and for table 2 I roll 88 which is "professor". Serendipity, a jobless teacher! 

Now motivation, on table 3 we get "access" and on table 4 we get "service", so our guy is looking for a position of scholarly servitude. This could be great. I can see him running the "house" and using Wizard's library for research. Sure I've given him weapons, but this weedy guy's strength is brain work not swords. I like it. Table 8 Focus, and I roll 60 which is "antagonist", but you know what, if I nudge the dice to 61 it becomes "knowledge" which is much better for how I see this going.

A quick dive into an online name generator and I've named this guy "Lufar Hollie"

Name: Lufar Hollie

Focus: Knowledge

Motivation: Access Service

Modifier: Scholarly Professor

So there's our brand new retainer. 

Empty Rooms in Dungeons

If you've been reading this blog you know my recent Scarlet Heroes games have seen me taking my two heroes through the Beneath Brymassen scenario from Basic Fantasy's  "Adventure Anthology 1".  As I was going through the dungeon I ran into a couple of effectively empty rooms. They weren't completely empty there was some description, but they WERE effectively empty.

That bugs me. What is the purpose of an empty room? How does that improve the game? What level of excitement does it add to the player experience.

None, in my view.

I'm not demanding a combat encounter in every room, I don't necessarily want my games to turn in combat slogs, but I do want the room to exist for a reason. Now that reason might be to give the players a place to rest up, but even then if its effectively empty it'll be boring. These "empty" rooms should be able to intrigue the party that wanders in, it should peek their interest. The point being that the room with no encounters should provide something some kind of resource to the PCs, something that makes it meaningful.

The form that the resource takes can vary wildly. It could be as simple as adding to the lore of the dungeon, a manuscript history for instance (Balin's tomb), a water or food source, perhaps only grass that can refresh the torches, but its should add something. Long bending corridors suffer the same problem, long empty hallways offer nothing to the player. Why does it suddenly bend to the left? There should be some rational reason for it. Having such reasons provides verisimilitudes that bring the story to life.

If you can point me at an adventure that dodges the empty room bullet, please post a comment linking to it.

Indulge your Sparkle Troll

Found this character pack going for free on DriveThruRpg, and I'm impressed with the art. It contains 100 full length character portraits in the chibi style and is branded for 5e. Even if you don't use 5e the characters are cool to look at and the stats appear entirely compatible with OSR games. At the price of "free" you can hardly go wrong, even if you only use the pre-generated stats and character details and ignore the art.

Rules for Fishing in OSR RPGs

Fishing? Really? Yep. There isn't an online video game in the world (well, maybe one)  that doesn't include fishing as an activity. Yet as I started to write this post I went looking for fishing, and "lo" did I find Vinlocks Ultimate Guide to Freshwater Fishing. It is pretty detailed and seems a little heavy to me for normal OSR play.

Why no fishing inmost games? I can see why there wouldn't be rules, fishing after all is boring as heck. Also it gives the PCs a free way to feed themselves. Some designers might want to force PCs to buy food and use that mechanism to strip the players of gold pieces.

Personally, I think its just because fishing is boring. None the less it might be important at some point for the players to keep their characters alive! I'm presenting here some rules for you that should remove the "boring" from the act of fishing and resolve the action with the "excitement" of an exploding die. So I'm going to assume here that we are talking about survival fishing and with that assumption we are not including the use of fishing nets, spears, or traps, but rather a rod and pole of survival manufacture, or a pre-purchased rod.

Fishing Rod: A two part rod that can be fitted together to create a longer rod. A number of strands of twine-like fishing line and a number of metal/bone hooks. Costing 5gp

Manufacturing a crude-rod, line, and hook while in the wild (assuming you have at least a knife) takes at least three hours and produces a crude rod, line and hook that can only be used once.

The act of fishing takes at least an hour. 

Roll 1D6, 

+1 for having a Fishing Rod (not Crude-rod)

+1 when fishing in moving river, or a lake of 1 acre or more in size.

On a 6+ You get enough fish to feed one character for one day. 

If the die rolls a natural 6, it explodes, and continues to explode on further 6s. Each additional die rolled (regardless of result) grants enough fish for another character, and costs an additional 15 minutes. Mods do not apply to exploding die rolls.

Example: Jake has a purchased fishing rod (+1) and is fishing a moving river (+1). He sits beside the river to fish for an hour (rolls 6, +2 mods = 8) . He has enough fish to eat for a day. The 6 on the die means he gets to roll a second die (rolls a 4, no mods apply). The second die does not explode again as he didn't roll a 6, however just  rolling a second die means he gains enough fish for a second character, and this took 1 hour 15 minutes.

RPG idea, Joker minions

I came up with this idea while trying to fall asleep. I'm not sure if it kept me awake or if I was filling time until I could relax enough to sleep. Anyway, the big idea is that you play as a minion of the DC character The Joker. Not playing the big guy himself but rather playing one of the little people that makes his plan possible.

I see the PCs as something slightly above completely disposable. You'll play the characters that offer skills or abilities that the funny guy wants and can use. So he'll be abusive, mean, and ungrateful to them but wont kill them out of hand... hopefully. In fact the "will he kill you" question could be a mechanic of the game.

So as his minions, you're the one that's got to get the bombs on the other boat, piling the money into a nice burnable pyramid. Maybe you never even follow the big guy onto a heist, those guys are the disposable ones.

I don't see your PCs as able to take on big names, the Batman would shrug them off, the Joker likewise would shrug off any aggression from the PCs. That's not to say the PCs cant do anything, they are completely capable of defeating civilians and cops, they are thug-like henchmen that get things done.

I've no idea what system would work best for this idea, or if it even needs its own system. If you know if this idea's been done, or if you know what system might suit this idea best, please post a comment below. 

That Little Thing in RPGs

Maybe you've come across this, little thing. You've read through a new RPG loved every line, and then come to use it. You crack open the book and sit down to create characters, vehicles, homesteads, whatever, and then you find THE little thing.

In Scarlet Heroes the little thing I found was just the movement speed of Player Characters. I'd played two or three sessions when I wanted to work out if my halfling guy could outrun a hobgoblin.  I went back to the book, and well, I couldn't find the speed of a PC. Surely I was just missing it. I nipped online tried to DuckIt and came up without a straight answer. A few gallant attempts were made in posts referencing various spells and comparisons that could be found in the rules, but in the end it just wasn't laid out in the book in plain language.

In Traveller version 4 a.k.a. T4 there is a little thing. Having only had the 3LBBs version previously I was so delighted to get my hands on T4. When it came through the door I literally "whooped" with joy. I took it to work and read it at lunchtime I was so glad. It looked great, the art was nice, the new (to me) skill check system was good I liked that too. I knocked up a few practice characters to get the hang of it, then wanted to put together a ship to place these characters on.

[If this were audio, this is the bit where you'd hear the record scratch sound effect]

Only I couldn't build a ship. THE little thing here was the missing drive table in the ship building section. Literally an entire table needed to carry out a core action of the rules was missing. When I convinced myself I wasn't missing something I turned to DuckDuckGo, and low and behold there was official errata giving me the missing data. I was so disappointed.  Fortunately this "little" oversight was not repeated in Mongoose Traveller, or indeed in Cepheus Engine, and I still had the original Traveller to fall back on.

Another "little thing" I came across was with MERP. I've played a lot of MERP and simply ignored this little thing as it didn't get in the way, in fact it was kind of the opposite of the problems mentioned above. There was an additional spell-casting table printed right in there but no rules discussion of what the table was for or how to use it. Odd, and entirely possible that I've been playing Spell Casters completely wrong in MERP for years.

Short Sessions are Good Sessions

We were all young once, and we had free time, so much in fact that we could spend entire days playing roleplaying games. But no more. Mortgages needs to be paid, spouses want attention, children needs parenting. So we adults all have much less time to spend playing games.

But this is a good thing, and here's why! (<== What great headline.)

I remember days long games of the classics, MERP, D&D, Runequest, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu (in which we did some dungeon crawls), Spacemaster, and these games lasted the entire day. Yet... the more I think back, those days were actually long drawn out affairs. I remember them included trips to the shops for snacks, or even pizza. I remember taking breaks to watch films (on VHS!), and even the odd game on Nintendo. Therefore when I probe a little deeper, they were great fun times, but they were more "themed" around roleplaying rather than doing the actual roleplaying.

Fast forward to today, my last year long campaign was played in strict two hour sessions. My IP blast of games using FATE  to play in the Dune, Judge Dredd, and Tron universes were likewise only 2 hour sessions. When I joined a group playing Monster Hunters, they were running two hour sessions.

In short the two hour time frame is much easier for a grown ass adult to carve out and reserve for play, and the two hour sessions are packed full. I've never played a two hour game where it was session-zeroed, that sh*t would take the entire session. No, instead players were given pre-gens, rolled them up before hand, or we were playing games where characters are created through play. The point here being that no one playing wanted to "waste" time on the preliminaries.

A little note on using pregens here. When I provide pregens, they are a place holder, and if the game goes beyond one session, the player can come back to the second session with their own new character and just drop it in to replace the pregen.

With only two hours to play, the scenarios have no filler-scenes, no slow initial pacing to ease players in, the time constraint means that you drop the characters into the middle of the scenario and game just goes. There's no roleplaying of "the boring bits", the journeys between locations are reduced to "cut to the next scene". Combats can not be long drawn out affairs, with staid and reserved counting squares on the board and moving slowly, it needs to move at pace. The end result is that its a literally action packed session that everyone gets the most out of.

If you haven't tried strict short sessions, I urge you to try it. If you are still able to play for a day, try and organise your day into a series of different 2 hour games. It could be great experience, almost like a con.

There are games out there that are designed for short sessions, one of which you might want to look at is called Challenge Dungeon.

Sparkle Trolls

"I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it" ~  Justice Potter Stewart

I'm almost definite that Stewart wasn't thinking of Sparkle Trolls when he made that statement, but it does kind of some up the situation. So what is a Sparkle Troll. Well I know it refers to tabletop RPG players and that they tend to be the latest generation of 5e players.

I think the term is derived from the idea of "sparkling vampires". When the glitter vampire hit TV screens it was met with derision from "real" vampire fans who picked on the sparkling aspect as their tag. In the same way, new players embracing the weird or furry character races in D&D are getting tagged as Sparkle Trolls.

But there's more to it. This term's non specific nature means that books and material such as the recent "Radiant Citadel" can be termed as "Sparkle Trolls", meaning as-or-of  Sparkle Trolls. This brand of Trollism therefore encompasses worlds, adventures, and monsters designed to appeal to the new players.

Sparkle Trollism also covers those that like to play without fear of character death, in adventures where the ultimate power is "friendship", and orcs just aint evil. Its a new generation that appear to be playing the weak-sauce version of D&D rather than games where you might lose three characters in the first half hour. Although focused around 5e, not everything 5e is encompassed by Sparkle Trollism, there is hope (LOL).

So that brings me to the mock-up card from a game that doesn't exist, included in this post. Poor old Shawn had no idea I'd abuse him by putting in this thing. But the card, I guess, represents a battle between the old guard OSR and the "invasion" of Sparkle Trolls into the hobby.

Pocketmod RPGs - Weird West

A good few years ago I was listening to the "Feat the Boot" podcast when they interviewed the author of "Weird West" which was a pocketmod PDF. I'd never heard of "pocketmod" so grabbed a copy of Weird West and investigated.

It turns out a "pocketmod" is not a type of RPG but is the name given to a booklet made from a single sheet of paper. Its pretty neat. Fold the paper in a certain way, make one short cut with scissors and you have an 8 page booklet that can fit in your top pocket.

Which leads us to a "Pocketmod PDF". This is a standard pocketmod BUT some with its 8 pages filled with the rules of an RPG. That's the core of it, a short RPG but in a tiny little form factor. Its cute! It also shows you that the core of a game can be a tiny thing and that the 400 page games are waaaay more than is really needed.

This format is also so small and cheap to print (a single side of A4/Legal), that you can print out a copy of the rules for everyone at the table. Of course you can pack it to take on holiday too if you want, or smuggle one into a prison between the sheets of a toilette paper roll!

I was so enamoured by the concept of the pocketmod RPG that I've gone on to write a few myself. I've also produced some tools for game masters in the format, as having such a small format save on printing out A$ manuals to carry around.

If you want to try it yourself, you start needing something that allows you to save to PDF. For instance Microsoft Word, or Open Office's Writer. Then write your 8 page RPG and save into PDF. Trawl the web and download the "PDF to Pocketmod" software and run your PDF through it. 

Prices of PDF

Oh my, I am shocked at the prices I see on some PDFs from DriveThruRPG. Not pleasantly surprised.

I know this is a personal thing born of a lifetime of never having spare cash but I am often appalled when I see the prices of some PDFs. Appalled for my wallet, that is. The worst part of it, is that it seems to always be the RPGs I want that are priced like this.

That's market forces I guess, those publishing these games know I want what they've got. Yet I feel that this is more than just that my inner Scrooge, I feel its a value for money thing too!

£25 for an Rpg PDF (such as the Traveller High Guard book from Mongoose) seems way too much. In fact I baulk at a purchase for a PDF if it goes over £8.99 that's the limit that my Scrooge wants to impose. I have no real idea why that's the number, it just is.

I understand the increased costs of physical media, but I just can't mentally  agree to the increased prices for a digital product that has no ongoing overhead (speaking as someone who sells digital goods). Sure I know art, editing, layout all costs. I know there's a big cost to be recovered from creating a big flashy game, even if its only in PDF. But that IS a one time cost that will get covered by ongoing sales over time.

So to sum up my argument: Whaaaaaa its not fair, I don't got that kinda money. Wahhaaaaaaa!

Big Geek Emporium launches

Its been a while coming but the Big Geek Emporium web site has launched. 

But "What is it?" you cry! 

Its a new online site for selling RPG related products. 

Its early days, at the time of writing (16th Aug) there are only 29 products for sale. I expect more products to be added as people find out about it. From such small beginnings grow great big monsters, and I'm really hoping that this site takes off.

Will it explode into market dominance? I doubt it. I think BGE has a long slow growth path ahead of it. 

I'm going to be throwing a few products up there over the coming months, and I think that's vital for this enterprise to take off. They need a big product base in order to catch passing traffic, and to keep visitors looking through the catalogue. 

Anyway, take a look at the site, bookmark it even, and check back from time to time to see how they are doing, and of course to support the indie developers that are throwing products up there... like me!

Edit: 20th Aug, there are now 45 products, its growing.

Edit 29th Aug, there are now 66 products, yep, growing.

OSR Settlement Generator

This post is about a pretty interesting product called OSR Settlement Generator. As the name suggests it lets you quickly come up with the aspects of a settlement for use in any OSR game. Like many similar products its based around a series of tables each of which makes up one part of the settlement's description, for instance: 

• How many people live here?
• How many mercenaries are available to hire?
• Are there any pubs?

There's certainly enough here to throw the outlines together in a random way that can inspire your imagination. 

But there's something different and special about this! As well as the usual PDF you also get an automated version of the product. In the package you get an HTML (web page) that you can run in your browser. Simply dragging the file out Windows Explorer and dropping it into your browser starts it up. On screen you get a button to push, and pushing it runs the generator. What I liked about this was the fact you could just keep pushing the button until you get a set of results that suit your wants/needs.

I've not seen this combined PDF/HTML option before, but I do hope to see more of it.

Edit: I see the product's been updated since I wrote the above, more tables/features added.

2up Adventure Continues

We finally return to the solo adventure I was running with two PCs. I'm using characters created created in Scarlet Heroes along with its combat rules. I'm using the spells from Basic Fantasy, and running the 2 PCs through a published scenario from the "Adventure Anthology 1" for Basic Fantasy. Part 1 of this story was published on this blog on the 19th. So, to continue....

Erin and Wizard leaves the room heading south to a door they'd glimpsed. They pass a side passage but can't see to the end. Listening at the door reveals nothing. Nerin gently edges the door open to find an empty room. There are three other exits all with text scrawled on them the one to the east says "Storage", so they opt to go that way. Nothing heard, so Nerin quietly opens the the door. Beyond is a 20' corridor and another door.

Another listen at the woodwork reveals multiple whinning voices beyond. Nerin quietly opens the door and inch and sees 6 Kobolds. He and Wizard nock arrows and shoot through the gap and both down a Kobold each, before Nerin Slams the door. Both our heroes back up and nock another arrow. There's shouting from beyond the door, then a breath's length of silence, and the 4 Kobolds burst into the room. Wizard flinches sending the arrow wide, but Nerin's arrow hits his target but it lodges harmlessly in the kobolds belt.

Wizard kicks open the door and runs through it while Nerin stands his ground and weighs into the fray. In a few seconds three Kobolds are down, and the last one running back through the door. Nerin moves up to the door and sees the kobold cowering at the far end of the room.

Wizard bravely comes to stand behind Nerin. "We should see if knows of a treasure horde."

Nerin lets fly an arrow killing the kobold. "All I see is an ear worth gold."

Nerin sets to recovering a ear from each foe and Wizard enters the room.

Statues line the walls, and he find two bags of coin, one of copper, the other silver. He spills the copper across the floor, "Worthless".

Nerin comes in brandishing three ears, "And I found 41 silver pieces in their pockets."

Wizard holds up the bag. "About a 1000 silver by my guess."

"Huh!" Nerin kicks through the copper and pulls open the door at the far end of the room revealing an empty storeroom. He slams the door. "The Mayor said there were Goblins. Where are they?"

"We must keep looking, sooth?" Wizard smiles.

Nerin leads the way back to room with four doors, he listens carefully at the southern door hearing nothing. Slowly opening the door, he find a short corridor. Carefully testing the ground they move to the next door. Hearing nothing. Nerin edges the door open a crack to see walls lined with shelves stuffed full of bones. "A bonarium. This is not a goblin cave they do not honour the dead's bones." He pulls open the door and enters the room and walks straight to a door in western wall. Listening he hears nothing and opens the door for a peek. A corridor stretches away westward. "Come, lets find these missing goblins."

Walking to the corridor they shortly come to a door in the north wall. Wizard puts his ear to the wood. "I hear kobold voices." He whispers.

"Stand aside, ready your bow." Nerin readies his own bow and cracks the door. They see six kobolds one of which is clearly the boss. Nerin lets fly at the boss. The boss screams and rips the arrow from his arm as Wizard fires a missing one of the smaller kobolds. Nerin kicks open the door and readies his spear.

The kobolds charge, Nerin skewers 2 of them and they can get a hit on him, Wizard backs up and loads another arrow. Nerin's spear quickly takes out the boss kobold and another of his minions. The last two kobolds run to the back of the room quailing in fear. 

With the enemies dispatched the heroes move in and study the room. The sound of snivelling comes from a cage suspended above the floor. Wizard jumps to get a view of what's in there. He sees 5 small children.

"Human children. We should free them." Wizard tells Nerin.

"Why? What reward would be gained?" Nerin asks as he cuts the ears from the dead kobolds.

Wizard rubs his chin. "Perhaps the humans would be grateful for their return."

Nerin spears the two kobolds and takes their ears. "They might at that. Cut them down. We'll take them."

Wizard cuts the rope and the cage crashes to the ground, the children scream and cry.

"Bind their hands, and to each other." Nerin orders as he searches the big kobold. "Ah ha! Gold and silver."

Pushing the children ahead of them, Nerin and Wizard continue along the corridor, often rebuking the children for making noise. As they turn a corner they see a dim glimmer of light ahead. "Cover your lamp. Wait here. " Nerin whispers, and edges ahead to investigate. He sees 5 orcs in the room ahead working on something by the wall. He returns to Wizard telling him to leave the lamp with the children and bring his bow. They bow sneak back and nock arrows.

They loose, Wizard hits his Orc but Nerin misses. In disgust he throws his bow aside prepares his spear. Wizard draws his sword and they both move forward into the fray. Nerin takes out 2 Orcs and Wizard took a slash to his arm. 

Nerin polishes off the final two orcs swiftly, and turns angrily Wizard. "Why draw sword if you can not fight, fool. Bind your wounds."

Wizard binds his wound as Neric picks up his bow and takes the ears.

Wizard picks recovers the children and together they return to the village to claim a reward. They got 75gp reward for the ears, and and sadly an attempt to convince the mayor to pay for the rescued children fails.

Death Spirals

Some random thoughts on Death Spirals. I've not had a lot of experience of Death Spirals, in fact I can't pinpoint an actual RPG game where I suffered from a death spiral. I just have this vague memory of running into it back in the 90s. I've slapped myself a couple of times trying to figure out what game it was. Maybe it was RuneQuest, Stormbringer, or even Space Master, I can't remember!  I've also ran into Death Spirals in Wargames where one unit crumples, and the one next to it is weakened by that, until eventually the whole line starts running.

Anyway, the point is Death Spirals suck. You take an injury or setback, and that causes you to suffer more, and then "more" begets "even more" until you stand no chance and the odds are so stacked against your character it just dies. Sucks.

What is the purpose of the mechanically induced Death Spiral? The obvious answer is to make the player realise they are overmatched and encourage them to withdraw. Yet going into a Death Spiral indicates that the mechanic is failing, the player hasn't taken the hint. So how can you encourage the player to have their character run away?

Hit Points does this in a very simple way. The player tracks hit points and realises the number is rapidly falling. If they take the hint, they withdraw.

Attack Penalty works in a similar way. As the character takes damage they suffer increasing penalties when trying to attack. Such as -1 at half hit points, -2 at quarter hit points. If they take the hint, they withdraw.

There's the issue, it always needs the player to take the hint. If the player doesn't take the hint what can you do? I suppose you might be able to add a personal morale mechanism that forces the player to withdraw. Thus as the character takes damage it has to make a morale check in order to remain in the fight, with each damage the morale check gets more difficult. The result though would be pretty un-fun. the players agency for their character would effectively be gone. The excitement of risk vs reward would be gone too.

So what's the answer?

Perhaps there's is a perfect mechanism, but the nearest I can come up with to ask the DM to keep watch on over enthusiastic players and at least point out to them the risks they are taking. Anything else seems to be taking something away from the player. If you have any ideas, please comment below I'd love to read 'em.

Simple Modernity, OSR today

Simple Modernity is an "add on" for any OSR game. Its a 40 page PDF that can be used to drag that old fantasy style game into the modern age. Inside are rules for modern weapons, and vehicles in almost autistic detail.

How much damage does as choosing Armour Piercing vs Hollow Point vs a guy in ballistic armour differ? Simple Modernity has the answer!

This book contains modern classes for you to play including Soldier (well duh), Heavy Gunner, Crook, Specialist, Sniper, Survivalist, Contract Killer, and Medic. This cool range of classes means you can easily throw together a party for almost any modern game, everything from specialists dropping HALO onto a terrorist held sky scraper, through to crooks carrying out a heist.

However I think my favourite idea for these rules is carrying a modern force through time to the distant past or across a rift into a fantasy world. It makes me go squee! Ever since I read about "Rome, Sweet Rome" I've wanted to play as modern troops taking on the might of ancient Rome! Simple Modernity is set up to deliver that game.

There's a great book series by Myke Cole (Shadow Ops) that runs with the scenario of magic reawakening in our world. People world wide are manifesting magical abilities and of course the government cracks down on that. But there's more, rifts between planes can be opened and there is a modern military base in a fantasy-style world under siege from all the goblin tribes. In short Simple Modernity is giving you the tools to play THAT game.

How about dropping a few modern weapons into your gonzo Basic Fantasy game?

Summary: If you want the simplicity of OSR in a modern game, take a look at Simple Modernity

Spell "slots" in OSR, Dafter than a brush

I'm going to come out and say it straight up. Spell slots and spell memorisation is absolutely awful. The original D&D and almost every OSR derivative has carried on this nonsense (including my first OSR OSRIC), and as far as I can tell, for no good reason.

Why is it bad? 

It is the opposite of fun. Just think about being that Magic User, at the beginning of the session you pick that spell to memorise and never get to use it. Gosh what sterling quality fun that is! The perfect spell that's needed in the minute...was not memorised, more sterling fun.

It is not good story telling. When a Magic User pulls out the perfect spell at just the right time, you have a story to tell and share. When the Magic User just shrugs in response to a desperate need from the party there's no story there, no exiting flash of fiction to cause gasps and tales over beer in the years to come. It's a nothing burger.

There's no rational reason for it. I've read the original D&D and plenty of other OSR games, and I've never read a rational reason for it. Sure there's some literary inspiration reference in a book I've never read, but what good is that too me? Am I supposed to go read that book in order to enjoy this game? Not going to happen, So within the game, what the heck is the reason for the limitation imposed by slots? There needs to be a world-reason given for it to make sense. To me the whole structure just feels like a mechanical restriction imposed for a non-story reason. I won't argue that its imposed because of "balance" because there is no balancing a 1st Level MU and Fighter. So I see no genuine mechanical reason for it either.

What is better? I'll offer a suggestion here, but it is just one idea. 

Lets start by retaining the restrictions of the power of spell, thus a 1st level MU can still only cast 1st level spells. This restriction make story sense to me, as the character progresses they learn to handle more powerful spells. So lets keep it.

The existing rules allow higher level MUs to cast more spells, so again this makes sense. A MU learning his craft could clearly learn to use their power more efficiently. So lets keep that.

I suggest we add to the above a points system for casting spells. These points will be representative of the amount of spell casting power that that the MU can wield.  

Thus a 1st level spell costs 2 points to cast, and a first level MU has 2 points to spend.

At second level the MU gains 2 more points to spend.

At third level the MU can now cast 2nd level spells. So lets say a second level spell costs 4 points to casts. The MU at third level gets 2 more power points. This allows them to cast three 1st level spells, or a 2nd level spell and a 1st level.

As levels progress the cost of spells by level and the number of power points the caster gains could be adjusted.

So there you have it. An idea for a better spell system that would be more story-friendly and offer more versatility.  I might add that the progression I came up with in this post doesn't have to replicate OD&D exactly, in fact its probably better if it doesn't especially if you are striving for "balance".

GrandCon in Grand Rapids

Something a little different today. 

A heads-up if you will. GrandCon is running Sep 2nd-4th in Grand Rapids MI, if you pop along there you'll find "DM Blackwall" demo-ing "Horde Wars". He's there every day of the con, so pop along say "Hi".

Ascending vs Descending Armor Class table

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I've been enjoying the heck out of Scarlet Heroes and playing through some Basic Fantasy scenarios. Well this has led me into the clash of Armor Class systems, as Scarlet armour class numbers go down as you get up-armoured, and in Basic Fantasy it goes the other way.

And so to avoid having to do math every time I read a monster stat-block I've knocked up this little chart.

Armor Class Conversion
Basic Fantasy		Scarlet Heroes
11		9
12		8
13		7
14		6
15		5
16		4
17		3
18		2
19		1

The Doom that Came to Astreas

You know what, I've struggled to open the 5e rule books, as they are just too damn big, but then along comes a 5e product that makes me reconsider. The Doom that Came to Astreas is such a product.  I mean, you only have to look at the cover and if you've ever read a Conan book you'll be immediately hooked like me. Go visit the page at DriveThruRPG and watch the supporting video it shows off some of the cool art.

Its a campaign world ideal for any sword and sorcery gamer with some interesting character races, that go well beyond humans with pointy ears! As well as the mighty human tribe, there are three tribes of humans that have been cursed and mutated into new animalistic races.

The land is being overrun by a red tide of monsters driven by an evil queen. The heroes will have travel beyond their tribal lands, battle the hordes and other nasties and eventually perhaps even face the queen herself.

I've read it cover to cover despite its 192 page length. The Lore is fascinating , and the artwork superb, and that is what kept me reading. I understand the author is planning to include 5e and OSR stats in his next project, so I'm going to be all over that. For now I'll have to OSRify this book myself.