A Few Changes To Our Campaign

I've decided to change couple of things at our Swords & Wizardry table.

The first is that every session now begins with an email explaining the set up to the night's session - the traditional background, so to speak. I use to do this face to face and it was less focused and more of a session recap then a prelude to a new session.

With the email (just a couple of brief paragraphs) it gets everyone prepared for what will happen at the start of the session. It gets people thinking and anticipating the game (hopefully more than they already do!).  It also has gotten everyone at the table talking and planning right away as opposed to me recapping the previous session while table chat goes on.

It also helps me as GM prepare for the sandbox session.

In fact, this actually allows me to plan less pre-session making my job as GM easier as it lets me participate during the session more, reacting to the players actions on the spot.  I think that's because I've narrowed the direction of an open ended sandbox and given the players a bit a direction to spark their action right off the bat instead of spending time and energy getting them to 'hook' onto something I hope they bite on.  I know it sounds weird but that's how it's working for me.  Believe me, the sessions are still open to anything goes once the dice start rolling but it gives me and the players the same starting point.

Here are the backgrounds I used for our last two sessions:

Session 52 background
Session 53 background

The second thing I've changed are experience points.

In my campaign, experience points are gained from treasure, monsters and the occasional completed 'quest' or plot point.  Fairly traditional and by the book.

So instead of splitting monster xp gained in a session between all players, all players gain all experience from monsters killed.  For example, last night the players as a group killed 5 ghouls at 60 xp each.  In the past that would be 300 xp divided among five to seven players.  That would give the PC's between 43 and 60 xp each.  I have no problem with that method. However, considering that we've been playing for almost three years and the character's only range from level 3-5 the slow pace of advancement is becoming a campaign flaw.  This hasn't stopped our players from expanding upon their 'characters' in the slightest, and it does make achieving a level quite an accomplishment. However, since our play is scattered from twice a month at best to even longer play-gaps, I thought advancing the pace of advancement an enhancement to our campaign and should help to keep things moving nicely.

Coin & gem treasure will still be divided between players based on gold piece value.

Players still have to be present to gain that experience though.

Icons: Split Dice

We had an Icons session on Monday (I'll post a recap shortly) and we quickly decided to "split the dice".

I have to say that it made combat move much quicker. I don't think anyone had an issue with rolling only one die as opposed to two - more dice equals more power. Anyway, the original ICONS method of the positive and negative die + ability/power + modifiers then compare for outcome always seemed to slow combat down while the numbers were worked out. With the Split Die roll, add and compare moved things along much quicker. I think we'll be using this from now on.

One other point is that when players have to make a general ability test we were still rolling the positive and negative. Though that worked fine, I thought it was a bit jarring to have the Players roll one die for combat and two dice for general tests. I'm thinking of moving general tests to split dice as well. The GM will then be rolling the 'negative' die in combat and in general tests ('negative' die meaning GM rolls the opposing die and adds the result to the difficulty).

The split dice bring up an interesting element. Since the GM is now rolling all oppositions to the PCs, maybe, just maybe when the GM rolls, his roll will be the 'attack' roll against which the players defense is compared. In other words, outcome switches depending on who is the 'attacker'; the zero no longer
always goes with the hero. The tables turn from giving the heroes the constant advantage to splitting the advantage between the hero and the villain. Not sure how this will play out. Maybe the heroes will become less 'heroic' as they loose that zero goes with the hero advantage. It's a minor thought but it could change the dynamic of the game quite a bit.

Beyond that, we're still a bit stuck on keeping stuns and slams within the flow of the combat. I'm going to re-read the optional rules in the Villainomicon to get some more clarification.

Anyway, the split dice definitely moved the combat forward more quickly.

PC Resources: Physical Drains on the Character

Another interesting session last evening which I will be recapping shortly.

Max, one of the players, brought up a good question one that I've been thinking about in the back of my mind for some time but I wasn't sure how to implement it. The question was about Character stress and psychological fatigue. Now I've liked that concept and Akrasia over at Akratic Wizardry had a nice little house rule on using a character's Wisdom score as a basis for sanity. It also applies to Magic Users casting spells of Black Magic that can lead them down the path to maddness.

I've liked this idea and haven't yet implemented it into our game but after yesterday's session I think I may work this in. Not only will there be a tax on character material resources during an adventure (a very important aspect of classic style of gaming) but also their physical well-being.

With hit points being the most obvious physical toll on a character, there is a mental toll that, I believe, needs to be implemented on the characters as well. When you think about adventuring, characters are exploring dark tunnels, deep underground, with potential death around every corner. Most likely, if your characters in my game, you come crawling out of the dungeon covered in blood and gore from the battles in the Underworld.

Now, most characters will have a natural desire for explorations and the dangers encountered. That's their nature and what separates them from just settling down as a merchant or laborer. But even the most brave of heart will be affected by just too much stress due to the horrors of treasure seeking. A type of Traumatic Stress that will take it's toll on our poor characters.

So lets take the last 3 gaming days of our characters. After killing the horrific demigod demon thing, The Eater of the Dead, they high-tailed it out of one town, traveling all through the night to another, do some business, carouse all night long and then dive back into the local dungeon. In this dungeon the explore these rat tunnels where they have to crawl through a stinking maze of cramped, twisting passages to eventually end up in a room filled with giant rats, their leader the were-rat and a statue of a blasphemous rat god! After defeating this hoard another comes and fills the room and the battle continues. After that they have to crawl back out of the same rat tunnels.

Now this all would be very fatiguing just in a general sense of exploration, but throw in the rat tunnels and the rest, I don't care how brave and sturdy you are, you're going to come out of this psychology fatigued and in need of some mental rest.

So Wisdom as a sense of sanity will be another resource that the characters will need to keep track of. Now, it will be the DM's discretion as to how this works, Dwarves and Halflings may not be as affected traveling through the above rat tunnels mentioned above but characters that prefer the outdoors, ie. Rangers or Druids may be more affected by crawling through these tunnels.

So here is Akrasia's rules that I will start to use:

A character’s Wisdom score is a measurement of his/her sanity. A character with a Wisdom score of 18 has a firm grasp of the nature of reality, considerable self-discipline, and remarkable strength of will. In contrast, a character with a Wisdom score of 3 is barely lucid, easily confuses reality with fantasy, and is on the border of lapsing into madness. Characters with Wisdom scores of 2 or lower are utterly insane, and must be treated as non-player characters. (If this Wisdom loss is temporary, as explained below, the character is under the control of the Game Master until he/she regains his/her sanity.)

If a character witnesses an unspeakable horror, the Game Master may require the player to make a saving throw (versus ‘spells,’ if using a system other than S&W). The saving throw should be modified by the severity of the horror in question. If the character fails his or her saving throw, he or she loses points of temporary Wisdom. The exact amount should be determined by rolling 1d6. If a ‘6’ is rolled, the character also permanently loses one point of Wisdom (i.e., one permanent point of Wisdom and five temporary points of Wisdom). Temporarily lost points of Wisdom may be regained at a rate of one point per day of complete rest. The spell ‘Restoration’ (which I treat as a 6th level spell of ‘white magic’ in my game) will restore instantly temporarily lost Wisdom points, but will not restore any permanently lost Wisdom points.

I'll have to give it a bit more thought on how to apply it to our trusty Magic-Users but for now, be warned O' my players! Adventuring will take it's toll on your sanity!

House Rules Or Just A New Rule-set?

We've been playing our Swords & Wizardry campaign for about 7 months now. Prior to making my decision on which rule-set to use I did a lot of investigation as to what I wanted out of my game, what I enjoyed about D&D in the first place - pretty much what we've all been discussing over the past couple of years.

I've read through all the retro-clone rules (BFRPG, LL, S&W Core and WB, even Microlite), re-read Holmes and Modvay and skimmed through 1st ed. AD&D. I even read through the OD&D books. All of these rule-sets are great in their own way and each, even the newer reiterations, brings something new to the table, so to speak. So I did my homework. I ended up with S&W mostly because of the rules-lite mechanics and the room for customization.

I then scoured the forums and blogs to pull those customizations together and mix my homebrew stew. It was a fun process and I got to know my game really well.

As we have played, the house-rules have evolved based on suggestions and our collective gaming experience to make, I hope, our play better. I mean, you never know how a rule or concept might work until you play-test it a bit. So modifications have been made.

Now, Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition has come out, chuck-full of 'advanced' style rules and tweaks and chunkyness. I am sure I'll be adapting some of these elements to our game. Some may be optional rules and some not. But at what point am I doing too much work? Why not just adapt to another system that is closer to where the houserules seem to be evolving? I mean, my house-rules are not that unique or anything, just little tweaks here and there. Even if I were to switch to LL, I would most likely pull things out to make it more grittier which is why I choose the S&W Core + Houserules in the first place.

I feel like I'm hitting that middle point between the two extremes. For me, I think it may be easier to build up than to tear down so I think I'm fine sticking with where I'm at for the time being. We'll see where things evolve. As long as we're all still having fun, and I think that we are, then we'll keep on rolling down that same ol' road.

Level Titles

One thing that I've always enjoyed quite a bit in everyone's favorite classic fantasy game but is sadly missing in the many iterations of the Retro-Clone Rules are Level Titles. I've always felt that Level Titles added just a bit of color to characters and the game. I mean, what sounds better:

"Greetings, I am Kal'Thak a, 3rd level fighter."

or

"Greetings, I am Kal'Thak the Swordsman!"

It's a very minor element but I think it fleshes out the game. It's one of the things that pulls the game away from just numbers and stats. Whether the players use it or not, I enjoy having it present in my games.

So, to keep Level Titles alive for the character classes in my campaign, we have some of the more familiar titles and a couple of others:

Fighter
1: Veteran
2: Warrior
3: Swordsman
4: Hero
5: Swashbuckler
6: Myrmidon
7: Champion
8: Superhero
9: Lord
10: Lord (10th Level)
11: Lord (11th Level)

Dwarven Warrior
1: Dwarven Veteran
2: Dwarven Warrior
3: Axebearer
4: Vanquisher
5: Guardian
6: Dwarven Hero
7: Dwarven Champion
8: Commander
9: Dwarven Lord
10: Mountain Lord (10th Level)
11: Mountain Lord (11th Level)

Magic-User
1: Medium
2: Evoker
3: Conjurer
4: Theurgist
5: Thaumaturgist
6: Magicician
7: Enchanter
8: Warlock
9: Sorcerer
10: Necromancer
11: Wizard
12: Wizard (12th level)

Viking
1: Nomad
2: Savage
3: Barbarian
4: Berserker
5: Buccaneer
6: Corsair
7: Vindicator
8: Dane
9: Thane
10: Thane Warlord

Cleric
1: Acolyte
2: Adept
3: Priest
4: Curate
5: Perfect
6: Canon
7: Lama
8: Patriarch
9: High Priest
10: High Priest (10th level)
11: High Priest (11th level)

Thieves
1: Rogue (Apprentice)
2: Footpad
3: Cutpurse
4: Robber
5: Burglar
6: Filcher
7: Sharper
8: Magsman
9: Thief
10: Master Thief
11: Master Thief (11th level)

Druid
1: Aspirant
2: Ovate
3: Initiate of the 1st Circle
4: Initiate of the 2nd Circle
5: Initiate of the 3rd Circle
6: Initiate of the 4th Circle
7: Initiate of the 5th Circle
8: Initiate of the 6th Circle
9: Initiate of the 7th Circle
10: Initiate of the 8th Circle
11: Initiate of the 9th Circle
12: Druid
13: Archdruid
14: The Great Druid

Ranger
1: Runner
2: Strider
3: Scout
4: Courser
5: Tracker
6: Guide
7: Pathfinder
8: Ranger
9: Ranger Knight
10: Ranger Lord
11: Ranger Lord (11th level)
12: Ranger Lord (12th level)

Magic User House Rules...so far

(Reader's Note: Sorry about the revisions to this post. I was trying to get the table to work properly. I'm still figuring out this google blog thingy.)

The concept of 'game balance' these days is a bit foreign to me. I have always pictured campaigns as being open ended, a bit deadly and characters of all skill levels running around. A low level character stumbling into an encounter too challenging for them just made the game more 'realistic' for me.

When I was younger (like around 10 years old) and first introduced to the game, Magic-Users were always a bit tricky to figure out. They tended to play a very, very minor roll in my childhood games. Now days, I'm a bit more fascinated by them and their powerful magic.

Wizards, who start out incredibly weak at first, evolve into the mighty arcane casters we are familiar with. So in working magic-users into my campaign I wanted to keep that characteristic in place also, I've always liked the spell book for wizards; thick old tomes filled with mystic runes and characters, so that was, for sure, staying.

My house-rule magic-users are nothing ground-breaking, but I kinda like the general sketch of them. I may evolve things over time but this is where I'm at now. I've added some of the Holmes' elements to it as well.

The Magic-user begins his trade as a graduated apprentice and a number of spells that he has knowledge of from his studies. Additional spells can be studied or discovered through adventure. A Magic-user's spells are recorded in a large heavy tome . Any new spell that a magic-user wants to know has a chance of being knowable or unknowable. Any spell that is unknowable cannot be added to the Magic-users spell book.

Intelligence of MU	% Chance to know any given spell	Minimum number of initial spells known	Maximum spells known per level.
3-4	20%	2	3
5-7	30%	2	4
8-9	40%	3	5
10-12	50%	4	6
13-14	65%	5	8
15-16	75%	6	10
17	85%	7	All
18	95%	8	All

The apprentice magic-user 'graduates' with his minimum number of spells as per the rule, with one having to be Read Magic. The player can choose what those spells he/she wants (or random roll) from the first level spell list to complete the minimum. Thus, a higher intelligence apprentice graduates his education with with a larger repertoire. Of course, the apprentice can still only can memorize but a single spell per day. After he graduates, he is on his own. Only adventure and self-study will gain him additional spells.

These rules place some limitation on the magic-user's power, but there are ways to partially overcome them. One way is to have the spell written on on a magic scroll. Magic-users may make a scroll of a spell they already 'know' (have in their spellbook) at a cost of 100 gp and 1 week's work for each spell level.

The gold spent in this process counts towards experience (I'll be talking more about experience a future post).

Copying other spells from another spellbook or scroll into your spellbook: First you must cast Read Magic to be able to decipher the magical writing. Then you must spend a day studying the spell. Then at the end of the day you must make your know spell percentage roll. If you succeed, then you understand the spell and can copy it into your spellbook. The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.

If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. He/she cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until another level is gained. A spell that was being copied from a scroll does not vanish from the scroll.

It is recommended that a Magic-user not bring his spellbook with him on his adventures. The book is quite heavy and very costly to replace. but it is up to the MU to decide if he would risk it being stolen or ruined. Now, if he wants to make a copy of his book that he can carry with him, he can, but it will cost him in terms of gold and time. 1000gp and 1 weeks work for each spell/level. If the spellbook is lost or destroyed the magic-user can try to recreate his original spells as per the creation spell rule below but has an additional 5% chance of success per character level.

My other addition would be that if a MU never runs across a spell he would like to have, he can research or create a new spell. The first attempt would cost the 2000gp per spell level and 1 week. After that week, we see if he can know the spell, if so, he has a 20% chance of success. If not, time and money lost. If he can know the spell but failed his success, he can try again with an additional cumulative 10% on each attempt.

I may evolve this a bit as time goes on but this is the foundation that I'm working from. I saw a really good article in Knockspell #2 by Brendan Falconer called Spell Complexity which gives the MU character odds of keeping the spell in his mind after casting. I like that as well but haven't applied it to the game yet.

On Death and Dying

Player Characters hitting zero hit points and dying is a very grim possibility for all those beloved 1st level characters. We've all been through it and when it happened, we simply rolled up a new character and rolled on.

Everybody has their own opinions and house-rules for death and dying and these are the ones that I'm currently using in my Swords & Wizardry campaign.

How I work character death is 0 hp is unconscious. The character bleeds out per round until they hit a negative number equal to their level + CON bonus (if any) to a maximum of -10. Then they're dead. It gives the PCs a little bit more of a chance while still leaving death as a possibility. That's how I'm playing it now, we'll see how it goes.