tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84055543288667693292024-03-07T09:06:54.851+01:00Vorpal MaceGate to Another World.Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-64614329342871876492024-02-29T16:11:00.004+01:002024-02-29T16:18:38.401+01:00[Update] Irons in the Fire<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifc37imWT57B8oY58NaIYIPdVYDOZzvfsIOaupfk_gsAxqEXyehMTn0eB_DemHhNepHnf0b0xMIwR5sk3a4R8-Jd3-AjWvBvv_GquL8CmbwyUEklwMpe6q5pGMTHe1FPUr1sPKZYnfJO2mUIFl0Bi1V7BOdIfQteJcANFfpMogDkkA7t61N7FjfZo4mjOG/s900/simba.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifc37imWT57B8oY58NaIYIPdVYDOZzvfsIOaupfk_gsAxqEXyehMTn0eB_DemHhNepHnf0b0xMIwR5sk3a4R8-Jd3-AjWvBvv_GquL8CmbwyUEklwMpe6q5pGMTHe1FPUr1sPKZYnfJO2mUIFl0Bi1V7BOdIfQteJcANFfpMogDkkA7t61N7FjfZo4mjOG/s320/simba.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How it felt cutting the<br />umbilical cord.</td></tr></tbody></table>With the birth of my daughter and my son being in his Terrible Twos, my life is once again in turmoil. I hope we!re going to reach a point where we adapt or no longer give a crap about the current situation in a few months. In the meantime I'll spend my limited free time with the following:<br /><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Mordschlag:</b> Since we're <a href="https://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2023/12/session-fauxhammer-s03e03-daemonslayer.html">done with Death's Dark Shadow</a> and on the threshold of a new chapter, it is about time I analysed player feedback and overhauled the mechanics. One thing everyone agreed on was that they like random hit locations rolling for damage. I'm also thinking about reintroducing some of WFRP1e's lost characteristics and introducing a more freeform skill system.</li><li><b>Eremus:</b> Because I got extremely bored of running Old-School Essentials and wanted to referee something that isn't D&D, I converted the Eremus campaign to <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/191475/Mythras?234913">Mythras</a>. In-game the changes were explained by a cataclysmic event that started messing up the setting. After four sessions we decided to finish the campaign using Mythras. I had the opportunity to run the campaign's penultimate adventure again after a major overhaul on <a href="https://kalandoroktarsasaga.hu/">Kalandorok Társasága</a> using <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/347827/OpenQuest-3rd-Edition?234913">OpenQuest</a>. It was a blazing fast and endlessly amusing session.</li><li><b>Dragonbane:</b> I'm aching to give this game finally a shot. I have a lot of issues with some of its design decisions, but I fucking love this game and its community. I'm planning to run a conversion of Legendary Duck Tower as a Jaquays memorial game once I'm done with one of the above campaigns. Once have some actual experience, I'll definitely write a proper review for Dragonbane.</li></ul><div>I don't dare to plan more for this year. I'll do my best to blog about all the above though, so get ready for more house rules, conversion notes, and even less reviews.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></div><p></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-78130188222459067222024-01-10T12:23:00.003+01:002024-01-10T12:23:55.076+01:00A moment of silence<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftHp2TLuT9yHsa7ByOW8tV6UBoU5qpW6x75MhNqYbmtfYVMacidOzml9ywAFNFFxtmPvO8bWH16n1V77B1U8KtIEF5aSN2Xjns2GJD1bWvxLsezOVmcmuagl4u2jzQqD8-jLPC8znkdDD6Lmo7wlBLXFoj9o1DIj2R2mDwglVxteu9Mg1BILQ3kfjwBXf/s933/jaquays.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="598" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftHp2TLuT9yHsa7ByOW8tV6UBoU5qpW6x75MhNqYbmtfYVMacidOzml9ywAFNFFxtmPvO8bWH16n1V77B1U8KtIEF5aSN2Xjns2GJD1bWvxLsezOVmcmuagl4u2jzQqD8-jLPC8znkdDD6Lmo7wlBLXFoj9o1DIj2R2mDwglVxteu9Mg1BILQ3kfjwBXf/w410-h640/jaquays.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><p></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-519975328157567282023-12-27T15:29:00.003+01:002023-12-27T15:29:14.872+01:00[Session] Fauxhammer S03E03: Daemonslayer<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfm2_hA-DJEQ_XGmLeEgdTAK6maTbUXKgdniMwQx90VHoQOBA6mWLMHLBuT5ytkZ3uFBcCHF6TPVUCyklA6hqo8Kj_L22jS7lmb2dw7g3X18hPNJRLMTRAmlOo-vUwbR85NP0LauARz_4QiGO7VXV9sPPzdde39n9Z2AzL8DSHBkNt-snFREGljNM8k-RO/s3200/young_frankenstein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1680" data-original-width="3200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfm2_hA-DJEQ_XGmLeEgdTAK6maTbUXKgdniMwQx90VHoQOBA6mWLMHLBuT5ytkZ3uFBcCHF6TPVUCyklA6hqo8Kj_L22jS7lmb2dw7g3X18hPNJRLMTRAmlOo-vUwbR85NP0LauARz_4QiGO7VXV9sPPzdde39n9Z2AzL8DSHBkNt-snFREGljNM8k-RO/s320/young_frankenstein.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The epitome of gothic horror.</td></tr></tbody></table>The third session of our <a href="https://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/mordschlag">Mordschlag</a> campaign was on the 22nd of June, where we finished our adventures in Kreutzhofen.<br /></p><h3><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dramatis Personae</span></h3><p><b>Blitzkrieg, dwarf veteran slayer:</b> Half-deaf, naked, and in possession of a magical axe he fished out from the belly of the legendary Moby Squig. He is on his way to Altdorf to find the love of his life: the dwarf priestess Agonia.</p><p><b>Edgar, human [redacted] (cameo):</b> The former monster slayer's skin turned black & white after a short trip to the Realms of Chaos, where he saw several of his clones crucified, was granted apocalyptic visions, and obtained an ominous sword. He is also followed by the black and white horse of a former chaos warrior.</p><p><b>Paether von Sternwart, human astromancer:</b> Eager to get back to Altdorf, graduate as an archmage, and put his elven sword back into the daemon prince it was pulled out of.</p><p><b>Ruben Shultz, human mercenary captain:</b> Downtrodden sylvanian noble on his way back home from a breatonnian trip. He firmly believes there are no vampires in Sylvania.</p><p></p><h3><span style="font-weight: normal;">Session Report</span></h3><p>Following last night's events the adventurers interrogated Rudolf Fürst about what's going on. It turned out the scholar got interested in daemonology while studying in Altdorf. He summoned a daemon of Slaanesh who promised to appear at a random time in the future to kill him. Fürst went to the edge of the Empire hoping that he can run and hide from the daemon. The adventurers promised Fürst to keep an eye on him so they can catch the daemon.</p><p>The interrogation was interrupted by Bruno, the militia captain. He informed the party that there was another murder attempt, this time against one of Magnus Richthofen's farmhands. The victim is alive, but dying, and Dr. Entesang is nowhere to be found. Edgar stayed with Rudolf in the inn, while the other went to the doctor's house.</p><p>Blitzkrieg kicked in the doctor's door and entered the house with his comrades. Paether sensed a slight magic inside, so they started going through the doctor's belonging. They found spell components, books of necromancy, books of science, and a large number of bills and payment notices about various scientific devices. Many of these were for a different name, so Paether started to suspect that the doctor is in incognito here. He put some of these away as potential tools for ransom.</p><p>The investigation was disrupted by the drunk gravedigger. He wasn't too keen on talking until he got some of the doctor's finest wines. It turned out he earned some beer money by digging up fresh corpses for the doctor, who has a laboratory hidden under the Reichenbach manor. The old tale of the Reichenbach manor being burned down by bandits also turned out to be bogus: the gravedigger said it was the villagers of Kreutzhofen who lynched the Reichenbach's for being tyrannical assholes.</p><p>At the ruins of the Reichenbach manor the party found a metal pole that was time and time again hit by lightning bolts, and the door to the cellar. Despite the mess down there it was obvious that the place was occupied from the magically sealed door and runic traps. In the laboratory the doctor and his hunchback assistant were about to raise his patchwork Frankenstein's monster bye the power of weird science! As the lightning zapped it the body raised and with a bone chilling groan it said: "Just five more minutes..."</p><p>Our intrepid heroes weren't startled by the sight, which surprised the doctor. Entesang declared that he never hurt anyone and explained how on the long his research can benefit mankind. The adventurers didn't care about what's going on, they just need a doctor, right now. So Entesang and Igor left the creature in the laboratory to clean up while they visited the victim.<br /></p><p>Back in the inn Rudolf was enjoying the safety of being tied up next to a weird warrior meditating with white eyes and a black and white hellblade on his lap. Paether realized that Edgar's sword created an anti-magical area, which is what probably kept the daemon away. The party thought about pulling Rudolf out of his shelter to use him as bait for the daemon, but ended up dropping the idea. Instead they visited the scorched house to see if they can salvage anything from Rudolf's burnt notes and books.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFCAVgYfFHUfTc9ydtkm42ysRPxXMGGceTeb-TGd-WcKpxeY90er5roPw6EVXEmimvQLzu0uLvEEcz20f_X_YgtVppzwoPZ4UdNqiL2Yojlvh573d8kL1h3aVVrm10IYDDOueZqFLBs6yb_aNyP7pxIoIvRxHqFUc962NB1ovx4wKFUUtWMAr7cjqSG_Sc/s675/Daemonette_sketch.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFCAVgYfFHUfTc9ydtkm42ysRPxXMGGceTeb-TGd-WcKpxeY90er5roPw6EVXEmimvQLzu0uLvEEcz20f_X_YgtVppzwoPZ4UdNqiL2Yojlvh573d8kL1h3aVVrm10IYDDOueZqFLBs6yb_aNyP7pxIoIvRxHqFUc962NB1ovx4wKFUUtWMAr7cjqSG_Sc/s320/Daemonette_sketch.webp" width="223" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Someday - and that day may never <br />come - I'll fuck you up. But until<br />that day, accept this justice as<br /> gift on my summoning's day."</td></tr></tbody></table>Paether sensed an ominous presence within the house, but found no one inside. Instead the adventurers heard voices that tried to tempt them into treacherous acts against their comrades. They were tenacious though. Pather cast light on Ruben's sword, hoping it will reveal the daemon, to no avail. Then Blitzkrieg had a brilliant idea: if the daemon likes playing with his prey, Rudolf Fürst, then he is going to go back to the inn and kill him. That angered the daemon enough to make them manifest and attack furiously.</p><p>Ruben wanted to flee at the sight of the Herald of Slaanesh, but Paether helped him regain his cool and join the battle. Blitzkrieg held his ground against the daemon, until finally Paether - perusing the stormy weather - cast a lightning bolt that blew the herald to pieces. Rudolf was grateful for what the adventurers did for him. To cleanse himself from his sins he offered to join Ruben as a squire. Ruben promised to leave him at the first monastery if he doesn't perform well in his new role. Edgar woke up from his meditation and didn't remember jackshit. The guests at the inn were paid a few rounds to make sure they don't remember the weird shit happening around the inn tonight.</p><p>Except of course when they had to testify for Lazlo Lazlovich, who was let out of prison. Bruno also learned that Richthofen wasn't planning a revolution, but to deliver supplies to Mortensholm via his balloon. Since the recent beastman attacks and the daemon were enough reason to upkeep the state of emergency, he got what he wanted and let Richthofen recover his guns - at the cost of leaving a few of them in hands of the militia.</p><p>Lazlo said good bye to the party and continued his journey to Altdorf by boat. Richthofen took off with the adventurers to fly south first, then try his balloon at a longer trip after that, to Altdorf. Alas on the way to Mortensholm they lost control of the balloon because of some mechanical malfunction, then the balloon got punctured and started losing air as they ploughed through a huge cloud. After a bit of a panic and prayers though the balloon's passengers realised they weren't losing altitude - in fact, something was carrying them... Once they left the cloud they found out that their balloon was punctured by the nose of a dwarven zeppelin!</p><p>And that ends our adventures in Death's Dark Shadow's Kreutzhofen. After that I took some time to revisit rules and continue the <a href="https://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/eremus">Eremus campaign</a> too (using <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/191475/Mythras?234913">Mythras</a>, for the sake of variety). We'll continue sometime next year, once I recovered from our second kid's birth.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-90956446987523564272023-11-04T23:19:00.002+01:002023-11-04T23:47:12.593+01:00[Review] Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine<p>While the OGL-Gate scandal earlier this year might not have toppled the 800-pound gorilla of the tabletop industry, some publishers still benefited greatly from it. Chaosium was one of them. They held kickass sales, quickly made a bunch of out of print books available again, jumped early on the ORC bandwagon, and churned out a new edition of Basic Roleplaying in under three or four months<sup>1</sup>. Yes, we are talking about the same Chaosium, that <a href="https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/11656-brp-5th-edition/?do=findComment&comment=254844">told us last year</a> that there are no plans for BRP in the near future, released <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/brp-system-reference-document/">a lackluster OGL/SRD</a><sup>2</sup> a few years ago, and has books in the pipeline that have been delayed for years<sup>3</sup>. But I digress...</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6RD8TV1Wncz59TtGHyUlgRIsWS39gIICxFF3Q1u0DLRAJZVC4qeoeCxWZ4Eb1aLaDF0Dft_Kf-G317ycEW41dtW9JemLNYv22cJdHC_Vz9VpBODISKQQgh82JfT1DOIfxt1F7GxzPfGVcCOpFqv_33wopRnBKlyW7o_gViqdbS78-giwlo9M3gt1RWSXt/s1676/covers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1258" data-original-width="1676" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6RD8TV1Wncz59TtGHyUlgRIsWS39gIICxFF3Q1u0DLRAJZVC4qeoeCxWZ4Eb1aLaDF0Dft_Kf-G317ycEW41dtW9JemLNYv22cJdHC_Vz9VpBODISKQQgh82JfT1DOIfxt1F7GxzPfGVcCOpFqv_33wopRnBKlyW7o_gViqdbS78-giwlo9M3gt1RWSXt/w400-h300/covers.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Past and present.</td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="text-align: left;">History</h2><p>Back in the day when OD&D was released there was much rejoice, but of course it didn't satisfy everyone. There were people who thought it was a complicated mess. Enter Tunnels & Trolls. There were others who preferred sci-fi over fantasy. Thus Traveller was born. And then there were those who thought D&D is too unrealistic, including SCA founder <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Perrin">Steve Perrin</a> and his friends. They created RuneQuest, a percentile skill-based system with revolutionary features like freeform character creation, abilities improving by usage, realistic combat with opposed attack and parry rolls, point-based magic system, per hit location damage, and so on. Later they realized that their system works well for other genres too, including eldritch horror (Call of Cthulhu), dark fantasy (Stormbringer), superheroes (Superworld), science-fiction (Ringworld).</p><p>First released in 1980, the original BRP (pronounced as "burp", at least by me) condensed the core of the Chaosium system into a 16 pages long booklet. It was handed out with other games as a tutorial, packed into the Worlds of Wonder boxed set along with four genre books, released on its own, and got expanded by a stream of supplements. Fourth edition, also known as the Big Gold Book after its chunky size and iconic cover, is different beast: it is a compilation of all kinds of mechanics and content Chaosium found worthy to include in a single volume generic multi-genre rpg.</p><p>The brand new Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine is the revised edition of the BGB. If you are familiar with the BGB, you can skip the Mechanics and Content sections and jump right to What's New.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Style</h2><p>As expected from Chaosium, the production values are top notch. The Vitruvian Person montage on the front cover is both a great piece of art that emphasizes the generic nature of the ruleset and a cool homage to the BGB's cover. The interior illustrations showcase a good variety without becoming a cacophony of inconsistent art styles. With a subtle but background, a clean layout, and warm brown headers and headings the rulebook is pleasing to look at. It is also printed on a thick matte paper, has a proper sewn binding, comes with a neat ribbon bookmark, and smells good. I love it!</p><p>There is one thing that slightly bothers me, which might be a dealbreaker for some. BRP:UGE has roughly the same amount of content squeezed into its 264 pages as the BGB had on 404 pages<sup>4</sup>. This is only partly because of better editing and layout, and has more to do with tiny fonts and dense text. The charts are the worst offenders here, with their small condensed font that's straining to read even for my youthful eyes. Feels like a step back after the immensely readable Call of Cthulhu 7e Keeper Rulebook or RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Mechanics</h2><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-wpjlOwmt4VQxSu1DKk2vGBHS63QOzBuqEHNlrMMI5_NaxdjPzmzBdCZknr-MNiXD2SaX1VwwZLe6fQ54KbPlQF8dwVv98M8-UqV90gN6DkDwwkatGar18efXjKwsbeHhW1vKdcmJX4Vuh4XFOlBzjcspL2kF9o7uc7cNOP2-2pNYj6Yqn43rRsqOi2D/s1124/giant_ass_sword.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="860" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-wpjlOwmt4VQxSu1DKk2vGBHS63QOzBuqEHNlrMMI5_NaxdjPzmzBdCZknr-MNiXD2SaX1VwwZLe6fQ54KbPlQF8dwVv98M8-UqV90gN6DkDwwkatGar18efXjKwsbeHhW1vKdcmJX4Vuh4XFOlBzjcspL2kF9o7uc7cNOP2-2pNYj6Yqn43rRsqOi2D/w306-h400/giant_ass_sword.png" width="306" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice loot. I hope your GM doesn't<br />use the encumbrance rules.</td></tr></tbody></table>BRP describes characters using seven or eight characteristics (Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Charisma, and optionally Education) ranging from 3-18 for humans<sup>5</sup>, a bunch of derived characteristics (Damage Modifier, Hit points, Power points, Fatigue, Sanity, etc.), a few dozen percentile skills, powers, and personal details. How complicated, lengthy, and random the character creation process is largely depends on what checkboxes the Game Master ticks for their campaign from the many available options. By default you roll for characteristics, choose a profession, and distribute a number of skill points based on your age among your profession's skills. Professions are not like D&D's classes: they are just premade skill collections, something you can easily make on your own.<p></p><p>To resolve a test you have to roll less than or equal to a percentile success chance on d100. This is 90%+ times one of your skills. There are two edge cases though, artifacts from days of yore. If there is no proper skill for a task you might need to make a characteristic roll, where your success chance is a characteristic multiplied by an integer. If you have to compare two opposing integer values (like two characteristics), you have to check the Resistance Table to get the success chance<sup>6</sup>.</p><p>BRP differentiates five degrees of success. Besides the self-explanatory success and failure you can have a critical success when rolling under 5% of your success chance, a special success when rolling under 20% of your success chance, and a fumble when rolling in the upper 5% of your failure range. These can be a nuisance to calculate or look up on the fly, and the very rare criticals usually do the same things as special successes, but better. Stormbringer 1e-4e and Mythras has a more elegant solution, with criticals being at the 10% of the skill and fumbles happening on 99-00. You can ignore degrees for most mundane tests, but they become important for opposed tests, where the antagonist's degree of success lowers the protagonist's degree of success.</p><p>Combat is divided into 12 second rounds consisting four phases: statement of intent, activating powers, taking actions, and resolving their results. Phases are part of the game's old-school heritage (or baggage, depending on your taste). I'm curious how many actually still use these as written. Combatants act at their DEX rank, going from highest to lowest. If you move during a round your DEX rank gets reduced. If you can perform multiple actions, you can do the follow up actions at 5 DEX rank lower than the previous one. RuneQuest's fiddly strike ranks were left out.</p><p>Attacking someone requires a weapon skill test versus their weapon or dodge skill. The results are a bit more nuanced than for the usual opposed tests, but thankfully the Attack and Defense Matrix neatly sums up all the possible outcomes. If you hit someone you roll damage, subtract their armour from it, and subtract the result from their hit points. Parrying may also result in the defending or attacking weapon taking damage depending on who wins. It is completely possible to hurt someone and breaking your weapon while doing so, or to take damage while parrying because your weapon was shattered. Depending on your weapon a special success may cause a bleeding, crushing, entangling, impaling, or knockback effect<sup>7</sup>.</p><p>Following Chaosium traditions BRP has an entire chapter for various spot rules. BRP has more than 60 entries that covers a wide array of situations, from environmental hazards to combat manoeuvres. Learning all of them is pointless, looking them up on the fly can grind the game to a halt, so the best a neophyte BRP GM can do is collect the few they want to use, and make judgement calls for the rest.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Content</h2><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsh2NgFho1l_7p12Nqh5EPjZj8rQgUVuGwUh9xWISdWYtMv1v8WWu6KQAxgd1XYCcfNiZL1363LTqzvQy-E9GKZm-kLfRtnkFfRT2fBuGLNEmdVgkuVJUDqCC6Ch7YyUbx0NPlwsFRowbJjU5R571qolI-PkBBJ79JjqtzJdB8RQFRi_B4VHW8H50ayIR/s860/amazonas_amazon.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="629" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsh2NgFho1l_7p12Nqh5EPjZj8rQgUVuGwUh9xWISdWYtMv1v8WWu6KQAxgd1XYCcfNiZL1363LTqzvQy-E9GKZm-kLfRtnkFfRT2fBuGLNEmdVgkuVJUDqCC6Ch7YyUbx0NPlwsFRowbJjU5R571qolI-PkBBJ79JjqtzJdB8RQFRi_B4VHW8H50ayIR/w293-h400/amazonas_amazon.png" width="293" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probably not an adult constrictor<br />snake, those roll STR with 3d6+12.</td></tr></tbody></table>BRP doesn't joke about being a skill-based system. Those used to the modern trend of tight skill lists will be shocked to see the whopping 57 skills the game has to offer, many of which have specialties. Some of them are very setting specific though, so it is unlikely you will ever play a campaign that requires all of them. Each skill has its own base chance, and there are two optional rules that allow characteristics to influence skills - one simplified, and one more complicated borrowed from RQ3e. For some reason there is no option for root skills like RingWorld<sup>8</sup>.<br /><p></p><p>BRP offers five power sets right out of the gate: magic from the Worlds of Wonder boxed set, mutations from Hawkmoon, psychic abilities from ElfQuest, sorcery from Elric!, superpowers from Superworld. It only covers the essentials for them, so if you want to expand the tools you have to either homebrew new powers or borrow more from other books.</p><p>Equipment covers all tech levels from stone to space age. Prices are given in abstract value categories, which can be compared to your Wealth level and Status skill to see if you can buy something. If you want an exact system for currency, you have to borrow one from other sources - ...and a 10-Foot Pole is a good candidate, if you can get your hands on it. The equipment list is exhaustive when it comes to weapons and armour, but it is a bit lacklustre for other objects. The chapter also covers important topics like crafting, powered items, and how much damage it takes to tear down a wall.</p><p>Creatures chapter offers a small selection of animals, monsters, NPCs for various genres, along with guidelines for customizing them and using them as players. We only get one typical adult as an example for each creature, and no way to reverse engineer what their base chances were. I would have been happier with having a separate template for some races, like in RQ:RiG Bestiary. The list itself is overall decent, and because creatures work exactly the same way as player characters, it is easy to come up with stat blocks and compare them to PCs to figure out their relative strength.</p><p>Tackling such a smorgasbord of rules and content can be intimidating even for experienced GMs. BRP tries its best to help even the neophyte GM in getting a campaign started, handling players, preparing adventures, using various tools to enhance the game, et cetera. I found the Optional Rule Checklist and the premade campaign packages with recommended character types, powers, technology, adventures, and rules options especially useful. It would have been even better if they marked which rules they deem basic or advanced. Way too many campaigns recommend hit locations among its options, which can be an overwhelming option for newbies. Speaking of campaign options, there are rules for allegiances (your alignment with cosmic powers), passions (personality traits that can alter your behaviour and influence your rolls), reputation (helps others in identifying you, helps you in influencing others), and of course sanity (psychological injuries) too.</p><p>Kudos, for including a conversion guide and a bibliography of what sources were consulted while writing BRP. All that's missing is an Appendix N for various genres, but that would ramp up the page count quite a bit.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">What's New</h2><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDA0TUNbTY4VziA5D7xWXHe53ENf3Fv33rFAURVcHwggF06eoWk2a6N8Y371ZuUfSvF4VbEWu44PAQ71CiqhwA_UFzLq844MCvcQlM9Hz_ARBufZxugCYOQ9YEllbhj2uD-_socKodc8HmM7hyphenhyphenlutVupekVkZEMDZ265XngSxg-njJXP-f0q8ur9LJE5BN/s1047/highland_redhead.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1047" data-original-width="674" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDA0TUNbTY4VziA5D7xWXHe53ENf3Fv33rFAURVcHwggF06eoWk2a6N8Y371ZuUfSvF4VbEWu44PAQ71CiqhwA_UFzLq844MCvcQlM9Hz_ARBufZxugCYOQ9YEllbhj2uD-_socKodc8HmM7hyphenhyphenlutVupekVkZEMDZ265XngSxg-njJXP-f0q8ur9LJE5BN/w258-h400/highland_redhead.png" width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All female Highlander campaign?<br />Say no more fam, I'm in.</td></tr></tbody></table>The new BRP is a revision, not a complete overhaul. The goal<sup>9</sup> was to keep it compatible with the large family of previous Chaosium games, which comes with the cost of ignoring the mechanics of some newer games. Those who expected novelties from Call of Cthulhu 7e and Rivers of London like pushing, advantage and disadvantage dice, hard and extreme successes, Luck characteristic, or damage categories, will be disappointed. Except for pushing, I don't miss any of them. Some of them I consider pointless additions to the system<sup>10</sup> and some already have equivalent mechanics.<p></p><p>That doesn't mean though that BRP is stuck in the past. The new edition cuts down a lot of fat, streamlines some systems, fixes tons of errors, and of course introduces new ones. The biggest change is that weapon skills are no longer split into a separate attack and parry skill. The former insanity mechanics have been swapped out with a more generic system. There are rules for reputation and passions á la Pendragon, Mythras, and RQ:RiG.</p><p>Skill descriptions is where the book lost most of its weight. In BGB every skill had the exact results for each degree of success spelled out in a paragraph. These were most of the time pointless, but at least those with an OCD had an urge to crack the book open for every test to see if there is anything special to account for. Only a few medical and combat skills have kept these, the rest at best have an ambiguous example about how the degree may alter the result.</p><p>If you already own the BGB, you don't miss much if you don't get BRP:UGE. Your book isn't getting replaced by a shiny new editions and future BRP products will be still compatible with it. So buy it only if you want a second copy or you want to support the publisher.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Warts</h2><p>It's probably not surprising after the introduction, but the book feels a bit rushed here and there. Despite the community actively contributing in rooting them out, there are still inconsistencies, issues, mistakes. One of the new features is using the weapon skill for both attack and defence, yet there is still a Parry skill. Weapon skills now use weapon categories for specialization, but base chances are per individual weapon. While having a separate Knowledge and Science skill makes sense, there are edge cases which are not clear where they belong - in case of Natural History even the authors could not decide, because on the profession list it is a Knowledge specialization, while in the skill chapter it belongs to Science. And the list goes on...</p><p>There are also some legacy issues of the engine that are here to stay. Skill base chances are all over the place, skewed heavily toward physical skills. Social and knowledge skills have such low starting values that they become skill point sinks if they aren't your focus but you want to be at least half decent in them.</p><p>Because the main way of improving your skills is by using them, the way your character improves depends largely on what kind of adventure the GM prepared. At the end of the session there is still an improvement roll for each skill, which in case of failure means your skill does not improve jackshit. The higher your skills are, the more checkmarks you will have, and the lower chance to actually improve at anything. You can end a session with no skill improvement at all.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Increasing characteristics is even more tedious: with the exception of POW, which is increased by POW vs POW tests and is meant to fluctuate during a campaign, your only option is rigorous training<sup>12</sup>.</p><p>And then there is a good old whiff factor. I don't think it is as bad as many make you think<sup>13</sup>, but the ways to bypass it do feel lacking compared to the huge range of options Mythras has to offer.</p><p>It is worth noting, that because of the original system was written with realism in mind, BRP works better on a human scale. Epic heroes and street level supers are fine, but if you throw in late season shonen-level shit, it will break the game.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZvphGimMDYZInv7jLEZ0-L-RRjprP03Gh8TUW1TNAoay_w9DGjxnECk3e0FcrV3hz67xYsMvpqHDQU4atM-qoZ4l5SqZvjpSIxQUav96OhpzVLZYUeHA6S6-kYHWybczyZQtCsLigVYWECCJuLUacHyDGlax2TBYV_9KB5vTc9DAWmnjQYgV8uKFVqZO/s1307/hans.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="855" data-original-width="1307" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZvphGimMDYZInv7jLEZ0-L-RRjprP03Gh8TUW1TNAoay_w9DGjxnECk3e0FcrV3hz67xYsMvpqHDQU4atM-qoZ4l5SqZvjpSIxQUav96OhpzVLZYUeHA6S6-kYHWybczyZQtCsLigVYWECCJuLUacHyDGlax2TBYV_9KB5vTc9DAWmnjQYgV8uKFVqZO/w400-h261/hans.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Hans, ze Flammenwerfer is useless!"</td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="text-align: left;">Summa Summarum</h2><p>BRP is a system that stood the test of time. Its flexibility in rules complexity and power levels was proven by the large family of games using it, and thanks to the lack of major shakeups to its core the old content is still relevant and easy to use with its modern iterations. It is both an awesome toolbox to create your own game and a great supplement to enhance other members of the family. Its age shows in some of its clunkier parts. It lacks artsy, flashy, trendy mechanisms you can bedazzle players with. But it is a system that gets shit done, and will remain, even when the current Kickstarter sweetheart is long forgotten.</p>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Rules system:</strong> BRP<br /><strong>Publisher:</strong> Chaosium</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Publication date:</strong> 2023</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Format:</strong> print, pdf</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Size:</strong> letter-size<br /><strong>Pages:</strong> 266</span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Available from:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>•</b> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><a href="https://www.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying/">Chaosium</a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> (print, pdf)</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>•</b> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/431991/Basic-Roleplaying-Universal-Game-Engine?234913">DriveThruRPG</a></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/431991/Basic-Roleplaying-Universal-Game-Engine?234913"> </a>(pdf)</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">A timely facelift for one of the best<br />rpg toolboxes, though some of<br />the wrinkles still show.</span></div>
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<p><sup>1</sup> And it went to printers with a still unfinished ORC license. Yes, they were that keen on keeping the momentum.</p><p><sup>2</sup> On the other hand, their community content platforms are exceptionally lively. So much so, that Call of Cthulhu 7e is basically on autopilot nowadays.</p><p><sup>3</sup> It has become a running gag between me and my CoC7e Keeper, that whenever he complains about a CoC7e product being delayed, I complain about Mythic Iceland 2e.</p><p><sup>4</sup> Despite its relatively humble page count the book is as thick as the BGB.</p><p><sup>5</sup> At least for humans, who roll INT and SIZ by 2d6+6, and everything else by 3d6.</p><p><sup>6</sup> You can do the calculations even on the fly though, if you aren't mathematically inept. The success chance is 50% plus/minus 5% for each point of difference between the two values.</p><p><sup>7</sup> These specials and some of the combat manoeuvres explained among the spot rules are the forefathers of the special effects seen in Mythras.</p><p><sup>8</sup> Root skills in Ringworld have specializations with their own values and a root maximum, which is the sum of two characteristics. This root maximum represents your generic knowledge of the field - anything above is handled by the individual specialization's value.</p><p><sup>9</sup> Besides putting it on the shelves as soon as possible.</p><p><sup>10</sup> I like pushing, which is a fun risk vs reward mechanic. I find advantage and disadvantage dice to be unnecessary additions. The game already has modifiers and multiplication/division to handle difficulty levels, why add another mechanic for it that is less transparent than the already existing ones? Yeah, I know, rolling dice makes people feel a tingle in their tummy...</p><p><sup>11</sup> Training and research are also an option, but the former is limited to 75% and an awful Teach roll from your tutor may result in losing valuable percentiles from your skill, while research improves skills in a snail's pace.</p><p><sup>12</sup> SIZ and INT by default aren't even meant to be trained, although BRP has a more lenient wording than RuneQuest in this regard.</p><p><sup>13</sup> You can choose whether your high level combat becomes tedious because the large number of HP you have to chip down over time to kill something, or because of your blows getting parried and absorbed by armour.</p><p><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></p>
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</style>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-91277609487209809702023-08-08T20:19:00.002+02:002023-08-08T20:48:35.336+02:00[Session] Fauxhammer S03E02: Revelations<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJl8tARFUNE0SOc1WGEkdV3pNU3xc_fZ1K8FflWJTyIK7Q8uEmgM-vTcXJurskZ5OVcDxSjTF-5RUKyYEh43uMWvbu5aeU3fTH2IuR3yJyFBOkf0m6VHvxgsSCgnA4qR9-Tdy_1yCnQdlhCix5DL_9kwBFuoOBIqKCG6B9Q_VhTwzDr2YMop2warn50pSt/s807/Fiend_of_Slaanesh.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="807" data-original-width="472" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJl8tARFUNE0SOc1WGEkdV3pNU3xc_fZ1K8FflWJTyIK7Q8uEmgM-vTcXJurskZ5OVcDxSjTF-5RUKyYEh43uMWvbu5aeU3fTH2IuR3yJyFBOkf0m6VHvxgsSCgnA4qR9-Tdy_1yCnQdlhCix5DL_9kwBFuoOBIqKCG6B9Q_VhTwzDr2YMop2warn50pSt/w234-h400/Fiend_of_Slaanesh.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With that tongue they can easily<br />reach your back molars.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;">We held the second session of our <a href="https://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/mordschlag">Mordschlag</a> campaign on the 4th of April, with two players present in person, and one virtually - staring at miniatures and maps through a shitty little webcam attached to my table. That's what you get for loitering in Scotland!</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dramatis Personae</span></h3><p><b>Blitzkrieg, dwarf veteran slayer:</b> Half-deaf, naked, and in possession of a magical axe he fished out from the belly of the legendary Moby Squig. He is on his way to Altdorf to find the love of his life: the dwarf priestess Agonia.</p><p><b>Edgar, human [redacted]:</b> The former monster slayer's skin turned black & white after a short trip to the Realms of Chaos, where he saw several of his clones crucified, was granted apocalyptic visions, and obtained an ominous sword. He is also followed by the black and white horse of a former chaos warrior.</p><p><b>Paether von Sternwart, human astromancer:</b> Eager to get back to Altdorf, graduate as an archmage, and put his elven sword back into the daemon prince it was pulled out of.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Session Report</span></h3><p style="text-align: left;">After a hearty breakfast our intrepid adventurers decided that they should visit the nearby village of Weilerberg, to find an old woman who knows one of the suspects of last night's murder: the young druidess. Frau Eberhauer turned out to be a retired elementalist. She told her visitors that the druidess they are looking for is a feral child called Wanda, who appeared two years ago around the Moon Pool. She is in her teens, has some magical talents, and more than likely innocent, because she never wanders far from her territory. She is also respected by the locals, who send her baskets of food in hope of a good harvest. Frau Eberhauer told the party where do people leave their gifts, and even sent a basket of jams.</p><p style="text-align: left;">After plowing through a dark forest the party arrived to the glade they were looking for, then got ambushed by five beastmen. Paether conjured a pair of wings to fall back to a better position, while Blitzkrieg and the Edgar held the beastmen back. A combination of magical windblast, lightning bolts, and steel killed three of the beasts. One fled south along the river, the other fled west into the forest, until he was caught by animated vines. When the adventurers found him they saw it's capable of regeneration, so they dispatched him a swift and brutal manner. It was only then that the druidess showed herself.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The girl was suspicious, but thanks to their valiant efforts shown against the minions of Chaos and the jam they brought the party quickly earned her trust. Wanda lead them to a lake deep in the forest, and told them, that she too has felt that an evil presence appeared lately near Kreutzhofen, and that the waters of the pool will offer them guidance.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Paether was the first to take a bath in the pool. He saw a vision of a sick old oak with six saplings growing under it - but five of them seemed insubstantial, with birds unable to rest on their branches. Then he saw the vision of three blue faces on the sky reminding him of the daemon prince whom he pulled his sword out of a year ago. When the wizard raised said sword to the sky, the demonic faces were distorted by agony and disappeared. When Blitzkrieg took the plunge, he didn't get anything other than wet. When Edgar gave it a shot, the lake catapulted him out.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Without new leads the party returned to Kreutzhofen to investigate Magnus Richthofen, a local landowner whom Bruno, the milita captain, suspects of planning a rebellion. After presuading his two dimwit, labourers the party entered the barn, where they met the landowner. It turned out Magnus was just a selfmade scientist and engineer, who wanted to create a balloon. His plan was to use his invention to ship the guns Bruno confiscated to Mortensholm in the Border Princes, to aid the fight against the greenskins. He offered the party a ride to Altdorf, if they help him recover his guns and join him to Mortensholm.</p><p style="text-align: left;">After the deal was made the adventurers returned to Kreutzhofen to visit Rudolf Fürst, the student whose door got a penis nailed to it last night. There was a storm coming, and far away to the north they saw several lightning bolts strike around the same location. While that was suspicious, they didn't have time to take a detour, because there was another vulgar surprise on the student's door. There was a strange smell in the air and Rudolf's reactions were hostile to the knocking. Soon a Fiend of Slaanesh burst through it, while Rudolf ran up to the attic to start a fire.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Edgar came under the effect of the fiend's musky odour, trying to hold Blitzkrieg back from attacking them, but was pushed aside. Dwarven steel and magic destroyed the monster, who melted into a fragrant rainbowy puddle. By the time the locals came to check out what's going out the house was burning and a hysterical Bruno was brought down by the party. Paether knew that Bruno was trying to incinerate occult books in desperation, yet they told the locals that it was some greasy stuff that caught fire.</p><p style="text-align: left;">While the villagers were busy fighting the flames, Bruno admitted to this captors that he summoned the demon to protect himself from something more horrifying...</p><h3><span style="font-weight: normal;">Pushing Things Over the Edge</span></h3><p>One of the things we are experimenting was throwing out Luck Points, which allow you to reroll tests in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Instead, if you are really not satisfied with your roll, you can choose to push the test. This allows you to make another roll, with two caveats: the second roll is final and you gain a number of stress (which leads to insanity), or corruption (which leads to mutation), or wounds equal to half the units of your final roll. Which one you gain depends on what kind of roll you pushed - e.g. breaking down a door will likely cause some wounds because you bruise yourself, while regaining control over a spell will result in corruption.</p><p>Three sessions in this is one of the rules that will likely stay. My players like using it when things look desperate and I'm satisfied with the pace corruption and stress accumulates. I also like reminding them when things go south, and tempting them into using it. That short moment while they hesitate whether they should give in or accept failure is priceless.</p><p></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-88952140338599539292023-05-31T20:26:00.006+02:002023-05-31T21:19:15.068+02:00[Homebrew] Mordschlag Hit Location and Damage<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ma1UOjroPuaKUIQDfaUOivFfTs0bf20AR9nvQRGli30oq3RrQDSjuWzObnfnVZdNa5NbvaMCRJWN-nzN-1k6ZSNuyrZEFUs4URqMeufRzEM436LhLYN4E1Bnfh-sLBsD-glhEA_2TbYtHoDwyb0yHpJdLTKnKpSrm7JsPHso4Q-cBrBfmktvnBauZQ/s1482/woundman.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1482" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ma1UOjroPuaKUIQDfaUOivFfTs0bf20AR9nvQRGli30oq3RrQDSjuWzObnfnVZdNa5NbvaMCRJWN-nzN-1k6ZSNuyrZEFUs4URqMeufRzEM436LhLYN4E1Bnfh-sLBsD-glhEA_2TbYtHoDwyb0yHpJdLTKnKpSrm7JsPHso4Q-cBrBfmktvnBauZQ/s320/woundman.jpg" width="216" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tis but a scratch!</td></tr></tbody></table>We had the second session of my <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2023/03/session-fauxhammer-s03e01-back-in-saddle.html">Fauxhammer campaign</a> sometimes in April. Session report is coming soon, but in the meanwhile, here is a glimpse into how I ruined the core system of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay! I have a rule of thumb for house rules: if the players don't forget to use it, then it's worth keeping, otherwise just throw it out. How we handle hit location and damage withstood this test, despite being poorly explained early on. Hopefully I will do a better job this time!<br /><p></p><p>I fucking love hit locations in WFRP. Swapping the tens and units to get a number you can refer on the hit location chart is elegant. Alas I had two goals that forced me to defenestrate this classic solution: less rolling when making an attack and putting a bigger emphasis on choosing hit locations. Also, the front facing hit location tables are prone to giving nonsensical results, and fixing that would require either further hit location tables, or tampering with the numbers - and I'm too lazy to do either.</p><p><b>Damage:</b> When you land a successful blow you don't roll damage die. You take the units instead, and add your damage bonuses to that. If the units die landed on 0, your damage is a 10, and you roll an additional d10. Each additional d10 also explodes in a similar way on 0. <i>For example, if you hit someone with a roll of 18 while wielding a battle axe of +7 damage, your damage total is 15. If you hit someone with a roll of 20 and your additional dice lands on a 5, your damage total is 22.</i></p><p>Yeah, there is still a 10% chance you have to roll an additional die, and 1% chance that you have to roll two of them, but I'm okay with that. Rolling maximum damage already breaks the game's momentum, because everyone stops to cheer, and rolling an additional dice actually builds anticipation in this case.</p><p><b>Hit Location:</b> Fasten your seatbelts, because we are getting dangerously close to narrative game territory here! When you make a successful test the tens of your result is your Success Level. When you fail a test your Success Level is -1 for every 10% you rolled above your success chance. Yes, we went with a blackjack method, where instead of rolling as low as possible, you have to get as close to your success chance as possible for better results. <i>For example, if your success chance is 51%, a roll of 39 is a success with SL 3, while a roll of 71 is a failure with SL -2. SL 3 usually comes with some boon, while SL -3 is where the really bad things start to happen.</i></p><p>When attacking your foe, choose a hit location you can reach! If your SL is 3 or higher, you hit the targeted location. If your SL is less than 3, you hit the location your target chooses. Normally I allow chosing a location one step away from the targeted one - e.g. if you went for the head and rolled an SL of 2 only, your target can choose to put their left arm, torso, or right arm in harm's way. This option can become critical when someone starts taking criticals, since arm and leg criticals are usually less painful, than getting your skull cracked or gutted.</p><p>That's it. So far my players actually liked these changes, though wrapping their head around the alternative SL calculation took some time. Stay tuned for a session report in the near future, where our intrepid adventurers visits an old hag, meets a young feral druid, and kills a Fiend of Slaanesh - all in a day's work!</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-84842788721407458442023-03-29T22:28:00.006+02:002024-02-29T16:05:06.344+01:00[Musings] Reminiscing About Swords & Wizardry Complete<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfZznB1N8d0xTH3zxHSSNTkHKsynh-Fj5I5lK8qtQzBcAxjKaFEhLwUfsoOYyqTvbAMrnmmqm6BWqBDeK_6oWW-ifiZXBrxf-dyRGTd8JzP27oOwTxWsVy0XcEgEpjN6njfpNm80hEr8a17YGj_-apiXb6A-kCKdBsBuzf9Yc3qldFWB4ZZ9bzcRKTg/s4000/20230329_220623.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfZznB1N8d0xTH3zxHSSNTkHKsynh-Fj5I5lK8qtQzBcAxjKaFEhLwUfsoOYyqTvbAMrnmmqm6BWqBDeK_6oWW-ifiZXBrxf-dyRGTd8JzP27oOwTxWsVy0XcEgEpjN6njfpNm80hEr8a17YGj_-apiXb6A-kCKdBsBuzf9Yc3qldFWB4ZZ9bzcRKTg/w300-h400/20230329_220623.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">True original S&WC fans have this cover.<br />The Otus titan cover is awesome too.<br />The box set is okay. Let's forget<br />about the weird uterus stag, though.</td></tr></tbody></table>It's safe to say this year's Mothership is going to be Shadowdark. While we can argue all day long how much of an OSR game it is, Shadowdark is admired by a lot in the OSR community and had a shockingly successful <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadowdarkrpg/shadowdark-rpg-old-school-gaming-modernized">Kickstarter campaign</a>. On one hand, it's nice to see the game gain such a huge popularity, even if it's not my cup of tea. On the other hand, I was afraid it is going to smother other projects that start after it - particularly the revised edition of Swords & Wizardry Complete, which <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adventuredesigntome/swords-and-wizardry-complete-revised-rulebook/posts">launched its campaign yesterday</a>. It seems I was wrong - while it is a more humble project with far weaker marketing, it had a pretty strong start.<br /><p></p><p>But why is Swords & Wizardry so important to me?</p><p>When I started GM-ing again after my high-school burnout I experimented with different games and styles, until I finally found my expectations in running sandboxes using OSR games. My first memorable sandbox campaign took place on the exotic Coconut Island and used Swords & Wizardry as its core. The party arrived into the single bastion of civilization on the island called Merchant's Port, a colony founded by the imperial Roman-like thuleans. The adventurers explored the darkest depths of the jungles, pieced together ancient maps, dug up buried treasures, traded with slaves<sup>1</sup>, saved hostages from the local tribes, murdered their shaman<sup>2</sup>, and finished the campaign by exploring a crashed spaceship.</p><p>Soon a cooperation with Frog God Games and Swords & Wizardry Complete was announced, and I immediately jumped on the bandwagon. I had a soft spot for OD&D plus its supplements, because they provided a good amount of content while still being less crunchy than AD&D1e. Wrapping your head around it was no small feat though, so a more accessible entry point was more than welcome. S&WC mostly delivered that, though it lacked some of the content I wanted to see in it. Thus I took the effort to write up some house rules that introduced percentile ability score improvement, Empire of the Petal Throne's skill system, Eldritch Wizardry's psionics rules (that was a tough one to digest), half-orcs, amazons, maybe even bards. After I was done with it, I grabbed my Ready Ref Sheets, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and Modron booklets, and started what I called the Fantastic Wilderlands campaign.</p><p>It was one of my favourite campaigns ever. It is easily in my top 3 campaigns. I still have all my session reports, which I posted on the <a href="http://lfg.hu">lfg.hu</a> forums back then. Alas they are all in Hungarian and it would take too much effort to translate them to English. Besides, this post is first and foremost about my experiences with running S&WC, not reminiscing about what happened during that fateful campaign.</p><p>Character creation is blazing fast in S&WC. Unless you have a player who likes going through every fucking thing from the equipment chapter and ask mindnumbing questions about them<sup>3</sup> it takes a few minutes only. This is a blessing first and foremost for the Referee, not he players. The players will have to roll up only a few characters during a campaign compared to the Referee, who needs an unlimited amount of NPCs, often out of the blue. After the first few sessions I stopped preparing NPC stat blocks, because I could do it in seconds on the fly. Class, level, important equipment, maybe some fitting spells, and you are good to go.</p><p>Gameplay is similarly swift, even combat encounters. After messing with the wrong people the party's henchmen were kidnapped by a local bandit chief, who delivered the torchbearer's head in a box as a warning. That warning ended up becoming a campaign of revenge. With some kobold help the party sneaked into the bandit hideot, an old manor through the cellars. There they angered the chief's pet gorilla, whom they had to murder. The scuffle alerted the entire manor. The party of 7 level 2-4 adventurers fought a mixed group of 28 bandits, dogs, altanian barbarians, halfling cooks in one of the most intense battles of my refereeing career. I felt exhausted once it was over, and surprised when I checked the time and realized, that the whole encounter took less than 30 minutes. I wasn't used to this. I just finished a D&D 4e campaign where even a 4v4 match could take up an hour.</p><p>This swift and light gameplay is combined with a surprisingly large amount of content. S&WC packs a lot of punch for its page count. It has a solid amount of character options<sup>4</sup>, monsters, magic items, spells, random encounter charts and so on. And just like the source material, it doesn't limit itself to arbitrary sweetspots in gameplay - it goes all the way up to high levels, with +5 Holy Avengers, Meteor Showers, and 30 HD Orcus! Alas the Fantastic Wilderlands campaign never reached such high levels, although my players did fight several red dragons (at once!) and some tough demons.</p><p>How good it is at being a retroclone though? S&W diverges in several ways from its progenitor. Using a single save value instead of categories is a well known, and generally liked one - even by me! The way it handles random treasure is radically different, and far more divisive - I still have issues with wrapping my head around it. The lack of some content like stat blocks for gods, some monsters, hit locations, psionics are understandable, while others morale table, reaction table, random castles, and some other minor stuff from are still baffling even today. Matt said there are legal reasons for that, but if he can revamp the treasure tables then so can he make an alternative for these. I have a hunch they weren't included becase he didn't use them - after all the game is partly meant to represent how he plays OD&D. Fortunately I had other clones and the Ready Ref Sheets to fill in these holes. Despite these differences I could use old Judges Guild products<sup>5</sup> with zero effort, which should serve as a benchmark for the OD&D compatibility.</p><p>For a long time Swords & Wizardry's three variants (Whitebox, Core, Complete) served as the definitive retroclones for the various flavours of OD&D. That's not really the case nowadays. If you want to play 3LBB OD&D, <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2021/03/review-delving-deeper-v1-boxed-set.html">Delving Deeper</a> is more faithful and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/190631/White-Box--Fantastic-Medieval-Adventure-Game?234913">WhiteBox: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game</a> is sexier than S&W Whitebox. If you want to play 3LBB+Supplement I, <a href="https://www.ironfalconrpg.com/">Iron Falcon</a> is superior to S&W Core. But S&W Complete is still the king of a niche, which while often overlooked by purists, provides a fun, fast, and substantial old-school experience. It has near-AD&D amount of content, but far less crunch. While most OSR games out there are pretty light and flexible too, they often offer a smaller scope and less stuff out of the box, and if you want to run a campaign, especially a long term sandbox, you are going to need stuff. Lots of stuff.</p><p>I don't plan to run S&W Complete in the near future, because I have enough already on my plate and if I wanted to run an OD&D campaign I would use my reprint boxed set and a few sheets of house rules instead. I'm still buying it though, because it is a game I have fond memories of, it helped me to learn and understand what makes old-school games and sandboxes tick, it might come handy when I need a quick and dirty rpg for a quick session, and also because Matt Finch proved several times that he is one of the nicest designers of the OSR scene. Tomb of the Iron God deluxe edition next, please!</p><p><br /></p><p><sup>1</sup> Needless to say they weren't really good guys, and were prone to abuse Sleep.</p><p><sup>2</sup> Killed by the fighter Rogar, who survived a lightning bolt, then threw the invisible shaman in the head with a coconut he bought on the market the day before. His descendants carried the coconut as a +1 weapon in future campaigns.</p><p><sup>3</sup> In our case that was the lawful evil grey wizard Anonymous' player, who did a great job at forging a team from a party of ne'er do wells using Sleep, Charm, and various disciplinary tools.</p><p><sup>4</sup> For race you can choose from human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, halfling. For class you have assassin, cleric, druid, fighter, magic-user, monk, paladin, ranger, thief. Yeah, rangers were not in the OD&D booklets, they are from Strategic Review.</p><p><sup>5</sup> Of course this means pre-JGU Judges Guild products. Using post-JGU products requires doing tricks like ignoring half the stats and covering the last number on each.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-48508839202521509412023-03-16T23:34:00.007+01:002023-08-08T20:07:46.471+02:00[Session] Fauxhammer S03E01: Back in the Saddle<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qh2DaHfPuvCzCwgcIuhDuQbDjx6tnirpMvrt-LraGn__pjKtE9BS6XWGN83LeyVNQYxsXFP91UZGnt9SFWO_nlj-R9hMC4MRfj0vPUR4_W8vZ2flbdqwB-GbvV-Z1Hv09xzeR54ZSRVjgrmaKK4hszeGcLYCNjLKtfUGvRKCdfM3r6uMoHaMgg31aw/s1436/dds.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1436" data-original-width="1045" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qh2DaHfPuvCzCwgcIuhDuQbDjx6tnirpMvrt-LraGn__pjKtE9BS6XWGN83LeyVNQYxsXFP91UZGnt9SFWO_nlj-R9hMC4MRfj0vPUR4_W8vZ2flbdqwB-GbvV-Z1Hv09xzeR54ZSRVjgrmaKK4hszeGcLYCNjLKtfUGvRKCdfM3r6uMoHaMgg31aw/w291-h400/dds.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another excellent module overshadowed<br />by The Enemy Within.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>On the 3rd of March I finally GMed my first session after almost two years of hiatus. While my son's arrival came in the middle of our <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/old-school%20essentials">Portals of Eremus</a> campaign, I decided to keep that game on hold, and dust off our Zweihänder campaign instead, which took a pause because of the pandemic a few years earlier. Those who have been reading this blog for a while now might remember that I had some session reports for that campaign, but eventually discontinued writing them because they took more energy than I was willing to spend on them.</p><p></p><p>We has our 18th session behind us when the virus intervened, which marked the end of what we called "season 2". During the first season the party thwarted several skaven plans, had to leave Nuln as wanted criminals, and accidentally freed a daemon prince of Tzeentch. The second season started with them trying to tie up loose ends, which resulted in blowing up an entire quarter of Altdorf, waking up on a skaven train, and ending up in Tilea, which was invaded by a greenskin horde at the time. Thus began the party's long and weird way home...</p><p>Season 3 starts with the party returning to the Empire, with a warm up adventure using bits and pieces from the excellent Death's Dark Shadow. It's not only the scenery what changed: we also left Zweihänder behind in favour of my homebrew system <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordhau_(weaponry)">Mordschlag</a><sup>1</sup>, which I jotted down during the winter to have something that's much lighter than Zweihänder or WFRP4e, and works well with WFRP1e and WFRP2e stat blocks on the fly<sup>2</sup>. I might talk about that later, but for now, onward to the session report!</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dramatis Personae</span></h3><p><b>Blitzkrieg, dwarf veteran slayer:</b> Half-deaf, naked, and in possession of a magical axe he fished out from the belly of the legendary Moby Squig. He is on his way to Altdorf to find the love of his life: the dwarf priestess Agonia.</p><p><b>Edgar, human [redacted]:</b> The former monster slayer's skin turned black & white after a short trip to the Realms of Chaos, where he saw several of his clones crucified, was granted apocalyptic visions, and obtained an ominous sword. He is also followed by the black and white horse of a former chaos warrior.</p><p><b>Paether von Sternwart, human astromancer:</b> Eager to get back to Altdorf, graduate as an archmage, and put his elven sword back into the daemon prince it was pulled out of.</p><p><b>Ruben Shultz, human mercenary captain:</b> Downtrodden sylvanian noble on his way back home from a breatonnian trip. He firmly believes there are no vampires in Sylvania. New character.</p><p><b>Brünhilde, human hedge master:</b> A huge burly woman with an addiction to mandrake. Alas she was pulled away early from the game to fulfill some motherly duties, but still deserves mention. New character.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Session Report</span></h3><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bzNKIYIMYZhmbxfyolUgiuBTxLA5ukThKKa7ksLKX4wGoLuGHd7tZ7fokFItfG1jM9TmVwqHYo1ocXzfaCRg2qBg1fz5-MFtdR-XGe4_FJA2NJWVeFvMMfi83cQutg6cfyahdXBjMCnam7aB19RAn_0eUm_MZy7XzpKndmLsZ9T9jMIzEzCu7eregA/s529/river%20troll.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="366" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bzNKIYIMYZhmbxfyolUgiuBTxLA5ukThKKa7ksLKX4wGoLuGHd7tZ7fokFItfG1jM9TmVwqHYo1ocXzfaCRg2qBg1fz5-MFtdR-XGe4_FJA2NJWVeFvMMfi83cQutg6cfyahdXBjMCnam7aB19RAn_0eUm_MZy7XzpKndmLsZ9T9jMIzEzCu7eregA/s320/river%20troll.jpg" width="221" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Let's throw a troll at them!<br />Aaand it's gone...</td></tr></tbody></table>After orcs burned down Alimento and the party made a deal with some vampiresm they were finally on their way home on a strigani bargue. While still on the underwater river leading to the Empire, they learned that Altdorf is in turmoil: there is a huge hole in the city, the green mist billowing out of it is spreading sickness, a new extremist sigmarite cult is on the rise, Emperor Karl Franz is dying, and his son is missing.<br /><p></p><p>Near the end of the journey Blitzkrieg and one of the sailors pulled up a stinky river troll along with the webs, who immediately attacked the group with a rusty anchor chained to its hand. He was one unlucky bastard... First a pot thrown at his head distracted, then Ruben threw an oil lamp in his face, then all his attacks were dodged or parried (though Ruben's sword shattered while parrying the troll's anchor), and after getting critted by the dwarf he tried to jump back into the water, only to get torn apart by attacks of opportunity. Lazlo Lazlovicz, the captain, offered to pay the party's drinks in the Helmsman Inn once they are in Kreutzhofen.</p><p>Kreutzhofen was full of tileans, bretons, and refuges. They quickly learned the city is currently under the control of the pompous militia captain Bruno Trottel, who abuses some legal fuckery to announce martial law everytime there is something suspicious, which is a day or two later is revoked by the dorfrichter Sigismund Klippel - until Bruno discovers some new threat.</p><p>After buying suppliesthe party went to the Helmsman, except for Paether, who performed some divinations on the edge of the village. After getting some baleful visions he noticed a giggling girl running away and his daemon-slaying sword pulsing at his side. He lost the tracks, then heard a commotion across the street. It turned out a tilean syndicalista was brutally murdered and mutilated at the bridge, and Lazlo Lazlovits was found looting his corpse. Needless to say the strigani captain was beaten senseless and taken in by the militia.</p><p>In the Helmsman the party gathered some gossip while drinking herbal tea and schnaps with three old crones:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The town was founded by the tyrannical Reichenbach family, whose last members burnt to death in their manor during a bandit attack many years ago. Some say the old Reichenbach lord is back as a vampire, murdering people.</li><li>Whether there is a vampire or not, graves were dug up recently, and the third victim's scarf was found in the mud near the Reichenbach manor.</li><li>The village has strong pagan ties. There have been no priests for a while now. Recently a teenage girl showed up in the nearby wilderness, whom many revere as a druidess.</li><li>The pious believe the druidess is up to no good, and someone claimed she saw the girl near the house of the theologist Rudolf Furst.</li><li>Rudolf Furst moved in recently from Altdorf and paid rent in advance for a year so he can perform his studies in peace. He is rarely seen and doesn't mingle with the locals.</li></ul><p></p><p>At Rudolf Furst's house the party the dead tilean's missing genitalia at the doorstep. After pretending to be with the militia, Rudolf let them in for a drink. The theologist was absolutely clueless about what's going on. He didn't notice anything and the party didn't find anything interesting at his house - but at least Paether messed up casting Witch Sight, waking up all the animals and children in the vicinity as a side-effect<sup>3</sup>. Rudolf was eager to join the party on their way to Altdorf when they leave, because he has to do some paperwork at the university.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1c0bRIBrhqbFilUrnnImgpVHog4yLRi8DBEBJjCH6jvmbSYZm19t0wVNQeiZIVRdgO98Zyr6Dh_5akgnyym0VOY2Ttm5QJVjPGWmyubMmn3eflYJdtmbfleqEGyzgHLeJB729Y7WYW1QklqWYkL0Hs79NGBvqKzivx7p1pspt7e3gHMVrhl47KOH_zQ/s1102/bruno.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="837" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1c0bRIBrhqbFilUrnnImgpVHog4yLRi8DBEBJjCH6jvmbSYZm19t0wVNQeiZIVRdgO98Zyr6Dh_5akgnyym0VOY2Ttm5QJVjPGWmyubMmn3eflYJdtmbfleqEGyzgHLeJB729Y7WYW1QklqWYkL0Hs79NGBvqKzivx7p1pspt7e3gHMVrhl47KOH_zQ/s320/bruno.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ragtag hand of the law.</td></tr></tbody></table>At the militia house Bruno explained this was the fourth murder in four months, and he needed to arrest someone to calm the people. Lazlo was in the village during the last murder, he is known to be on bad terms with the tileans, he used to walk around with a huge machete, and he was found right next to the corpse, so he was ideal for scapegoat. Other than the wounds being too brutal to be done by human there isn't much evidence in his favour, but those have yet to be examined. The local doctor, Jakob Entesang wasn't at home when the militia knocked on his door. The party can save Lazlo by providing evidence or doing a mission for Bruno... Magnus Richthofen, a local landlord, has been working on something in his barn and ordering all kinds of weird stuff. The last cargo he received was a crate of guns and gunpowder, which Bruno confiscated and used as an excuse to proclaim martial law. He is sure Richthofen is planning to incite a rebellion to take over the village.<p></p><p>After the chitchat with the militia, the adventurers visited the doctor's house. The Herr Entesang arrived soon on his couch along with his hunchback assistant, Igor. He said he was visiting an old patient in a nearby village and will check the mutilated corpse tomorrow. The party returned to the Helmsman, discussing what should they do tomorrow.</p><p>Big thank you to Paether's player, who took and shared his session notes. Maybe I should do the same for his next Call of Cthulhu session...</p><p><sup>1</sup> Might be temporary title. I wanted to go with Mordhau, but that's <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/629760/MORDHAU/">already taken</a>.</p><p><sup>2</sup> One of my biggest mechanical issues with Zweihänder is how it handles characteristics and bonuses. Conversion isn't hard, but it takes some effort, and isn't much fun if you have dozens of stat blocks.</p><p><sup>3</sup> It's a pity he didn't roll the big brother of this effect, which makes the nearby animals and children so angry they will seek out and attack the wizard.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-12555822487550269572023-02-07T22:12:00.001+01:002023-02-07T22:18:41.592+01:00[Kickstarter] Keep Trollin'<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTV-SqqmmnPyfNTBNanJdZrd_jwbEXqDUQhDyWNExZBcjyAZlzeS4ldxTYeJeSVXRBChYuYPP7cGlDSFOZRM2HocQybggMStCSATEuj-6Z-bMkSQXpSSBkxNFOQqaVjZ1obsmD9wsmfx8Ta7cHLha8ELeKomuhOuhgTRjW6LsoDM30sn45508cqIsxTw/s910/troll.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="680" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTV-SqqmmnPyfNTBNanJdZrd_jwbEXqDUQhDyWNExZBcjyAZlzeS4ldxTYeJeSVXRBChYuYPP7cGlDSFOZRM2HocQybggMStCSATEuj-6Z-bMkSQXpSSBkxNFOQqaVjZ1obsmD9wsmfx8Ta7cHLha8ELeKomuhOuhgTRjW6LsoDM30sn45508cqIsxTw/s320/troll.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This dude was love at first sight.</td></tr></tbody></table>Last year I only managed to finish three miniatures, but that didn't keep my pile of shame from growing. I find it hard to resist well sculpted Oldhammer miniatures. I'm a sucker for tiny pieces of metal that effortlessly blend dark fantasy aesthetics with comically exaggerated features. And since I'm preparing for an Oldhammerish campaign, painting them enjoys a higher priority than before.<p></p><p>Satanic Panic Miniatures is one of the projects I gushed about before. Mark Hides does a great job at touching forgotten and unique topics, like greater gnolls, lesser goblins, or giants, and finding the right sculptors and manufactures to make them come alive. I'm bringing him up because he started a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/satanicpanic/old-school-style-28mm-scale-trolls-for-rpgs-and-wargaming/description">new Kickstarter campaign</a> just recently for 28mm scale old-school trolls. Big bulky trolls, with huge ass heads, and charming smiles. What's not to love about them? And I only have one Reaper Bones troll and one <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8VzzJeH4Cf/">Tim Prow Heartbreaker troll</a> painted! I cannot let our troll slayer, Blitzkrieg down! I'm sure he would find death by a dozen or so trolls climactic and satisfying. This is also a good opportunity to grab some of the lesser goblins and giants until the Satanic Panic Miniatures webstore is available online again.</p><p>Mark is well worth supporting, he is devoted to his hobby, has a no-bullshit attitude, and he delivered everything he promised so far. He also has some more intriguing projects in his pipeline - like steppe dwarves and orcs. If you are interested in it, I recommend following <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063750180143">his facebook page</a>.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-48761508290896247742023-01-11T12:00:00.004+01:002023-01-13T08:05:10.698+01:002023 - The Year of D100?<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBP9Z3BbYBAuABPZtolJrMOmEnVMUKp4McbDStQqp0tEsy5vfIFx4b4uQNFT1R5fDWecqBRqWPW899ra9i-Oh4wOPfrSWfDYHmDKnHLhgzV17GoM_aIksykSO8xW6UUquq-T5DcdUtVs0ut4sW72cKxdCZ7RDeclnypgLT7oLKeKBRZInrT-qzWho71g/s418/chaosium.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBP9Z3BbYBAuABPZtolJrMOmEnVMUKp4McbDStQqp0tEsy5vfIFx4b4uQNFT1R5fDWecqBRqWPW899ra9i-Oh4wOPfrSWfDYHmDKnHLhgzV17GoM_aIksykSO8xW6UUquq-T5DcdUtVs0ut4sW72cKxdCZ7RDeclnypgLT7oLKeKBRZInrT-qzWho71g/s320/chaosium.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hey kids, today we are going to learn<br />about the resistance matrix!</td></tr></tbody></table>Happy New Year Everyone!<br /><p></p><p>It has become a meme with my group that the next year will be the Year of D100, because two of us kept saying it for several years. We were hellbent on running something d100-based in the near future<sup>1</sup>;, but alas none of that come to fruition so far. Maybe this year...<sup>2</sup>; Still, nothing holds you back from turning 2023 the year of d100. If WotC being busy killing third party publishers and shooting themselves in the foot at once, large number of people migrating from D&D to other games, and the general excellence of percentile systems wasn't enough to get the ball rolling, here are some more things to turn the tide:</p><p><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/645319106/simplequest/posts/3705510">OpenQuest</a> drops the OGL and moves on to Creative Commons license. There's your publishing platform for d100! I mean Chaosium has <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/brp-system-reference-document/">its own OGL too</a>, but it was deemed so hazy, only a few bothered to use it instead of Legend or OpenQuest.</p><p>Speaking of Chaosium, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/24384/Basic-Roleplaying?234913">Basic Roleplaying</a> is $1 on DriveThruRPG at the moment. It is one of the best generic rpgs out there: it is flexible as hell, easy to grasp, and not as intimidating as GURPS or Hero System. You can get a <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying-softcover/">print copy</a> too from Chaosium, but alas it's available from the US warehouse only, which for poor European chaps like me means a horrible $55 shipping fee. Come on Chaosium, make it available print on demand!</p><p><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/191475/Mythras?234913">Mythras</a> is also on sale for $5 on DriveThruRPG. Even better, there is a print on demand option too both there and <a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/pete-nash-and-lawrence-whitaker/mythras/paperback/product-23853955.html?page=1&pageSize=4">on Lulu</a> alike. Mythras is a crunchy gem that packs a lot of punch on 300 pages, though that page count is partly achieved through the use of tiny fonts. They also have the <a href="https://thedesignmechanism.com/resources/Mythras%20Gateway%20License%20Public.pdf">Mythras Gateway license</a> by the way, which you must apply for to use, but hey, many already did so with success.</p><p>And while we are at it, here is a quick shoutout to a few neat blogs about d100 gaming that I enjoyed recently:</p><p><a href="https://samwise7rpg.blogspot.com/2022/11/brp-skyrealms-of-jorune-part-13-revised.html">Samwise Seven</a> posted a good deal about their BRP Skyrealms of Jorune campaign. The skill list on his character sheet is impressive.</p><p><a href="https://tomboftedankhamen.blogspot.com/">Tomb of Tedankhamen's</a> Stormbringer redux is an intriguing experiment. I would be happy to see it in practice.</p><p><a href="https://chrisbrann.wordpress.com/role-playing-games/diadochi-warlords-campaign/">Chris Brann's</a> Diadochi Warlords campaign is an excellent read.</p><p>Those fed up with my recent gushing about d100 games shouldn't worry, I will post about OSR and D&D too. I have to face some critical encounters and must embrace my love for hacking first.</p><p><b>Update:</b> The <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/260810/Call-of-Cthulhu-Starter-Set?234913">Call of Cthulhu</a> and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/370454/RuneQuest-Starter-Set?234913">RuneQuest</a> starter sets are also on sale for a buck.</p><p><sup>1</sup> This includes my now dead project Hecatomb, Mythras, WFRP, and Stormbringer. I did play Call of Cthulhu 7e though, which is nice.</p><p><sup>2</sup> I am tying up loose ends, so the first thing will be finishing Zweihänder, but undre something lighter. Dragonbane is a good contender too. And I will keep kicking my dear friend's ass till he runs at least one session of Kopparhavets Hjältar.</p><p><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-47733933426753835862022-12-28T14:29:00.001+01:002023-01-27T10:51:22.885+01:00[Preview] Dragonbane / Drakar och Demoner Beta<p>At the end of november <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane/posts/3677497">Dragonbane's beta version dropped</a>, which I started devouring with gusto. Three days later Free League <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane/posts/3680416">announced</a> that they are going to heed the wishes of the swedish Drakar och Demoner community, and overhaul the skill list to be more in line with previous editions. I did not expect to see the forthcoming changes before the final version, so I continued reading the rulebook, and took some time to digest the current version. Literally a few minutes after I opened Blogger's editor to write this preview a mail arrived about a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane/posts/3694054">major update</a> to the beta rules. Oh well, here I go reading Dragonbone again, cover to cover...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0zykRxiYxWoL6LJh77kWrcltZfPTfouAiT8bbExR6x60MUFW0NE5RrK69kWOtU0WbiwceBpjVFoMVbwSWlzbs84Fs96i_jqYbDc4vx0TKi1c-WD35LpGTTjQLT-7Wh-_0srg8J-HF7iKNzyxJIoq9DSM5NCW8QRigu1fgGmBjZQljHVXJr7V3nFgaVg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0zykRxiYxWoL6LJh77kWrcltZfPTfouAiT8bbExR6x60MUFW0NE5RrK69kWOtU0WbiwceBpjVFoMVbwSWlzbs84Fs96i_jqYbDc4vx0TKi1c-WD35LpGTTjQLT-7Wh-_0srg8J-HF7iKNzyxJIoq9DSM5NCW8QRigu1fgGmBjZQljHVXJr7V3nFgaVg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>Merry Christmas, everyone!</div><div><br /></div><div>So, the current beta contains the complete Rulebook, the half-finished Adventure book, initiative cards, improvised weapon cards for inns, caves, forests, a map of Misty Vale, and a map for the town of Outskirt. Each one of them is pleasing to the eye with a predominantly brown and green colour scheme, breezy layout, and stunning illustrations. I would have loved to see some Paul Bonner art too, but I guess his mythic tone would not fit the "mirth & mayhem" motto<sup>1</sup>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The <b>Rulebook</b> is 116 pages long and covers both how to play and run the game. The short page count is largely the result of terse, effective, no-bullshit writing. The latter still needs some refinement: some abilities would benefit from more clarification, some skills should have more telling names, and sometimes the text feels awkward - probably the result of English being the second language of the writer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Character creation is swift and straightforward. There are six kin (human, halfling, dwarf, elf, mallard, wolfkin), each with one or two unique abilities and a table of six names. There ten professions (artisan, bard, fighter, hunter, knight, mage, mariner, merchant, scholar, thief), each with a recommended key attribute, skills, heroic abilities<sup>2</sup>, three equipment packages, and six names<sup>3</sup>. Age category is a surprising artifact: the older your character is, the shittier the attributes are, but the more skills they start with. Once you have your kin, profession, and age, you can roll up your six attributes (Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower, Charisma) using the 4d6k3 method. After each roll you must assign it to an ability score, and can swap two scores in the end<sup>4</sup>. Now you can calculate your derived ratings (Movement, Strength Damage Bonus, Agility Damage Bonus, Hit Points, and the mouthful Willpower Points), choose your trained skills, and you are good to go. The base chance for skills is based on their relevant attributes, which is doubled for trained skills. Other than these you must also define motivation, gear, memento, appearance. Every step offers you to choose or roll on a table - whatever floats your boat.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0vehBrESLbMdNUlXWePUfd9RAkJWIEHtuTiJwudvjFhDzjxGLftaSNkRFi85ITriumFt7UaxGO8rdV7enIyn3YyGXMleciyjvhJeric6fG2fz45e9k2Vdajnw3oM1NlO99wuD9eiR-xawAdVlSsXk4jM7grWXy4ySEGfpix9QCoYX9H2TBZWyXJ2p8w/s723/wolfkin.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="723" data-original-width="490" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0vehBrESLbMdNUlXWePUfd9RAkJWIEHtuTiJwudvjFhDzjxGLftaSNkRFi85ITriumFt7UaxGO8rdV7enIyn3YyGXMleciyjvhJeric6fG2fz45e9k2Vdajnw3oM1NlO99wuD9eiR-xawAdVlSsXk4jM7grWXy4ySEGfpix9QCoYX9H2TBZWyXJ2p8w/s320/wolfkin.jpg" width="217" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, you can play as a wolfkin<br />with a catfolk fursona.</td></tr></tbody></table>Encumbrance and experience are also explained here. They follow BRP traditions with some changes. You can carry STR/2 items, but worn armour and weapons at hand don't count. Heavy objects count as multiple items, while others are so small, that you need multiple pieces to count as one item. Skills gain advancement mark for critical and fumble rolls, plus by answering a post-session questionnaire about your achievements. Once you have all your advancement marks set, you roll for each skill. If you exceed their current score, the skill improves by one point - up to 18. You can also train skills with a teacher, though there is nothing about how much they would ask for their services<sup>5</sup>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The mechanics use a d20 roll under method for attribute and skill tests alike. There is no resistance matrix like in older BRP games, they are handled by opposed tests. Instead of bonuses and penalties there are boons and banes, which are akin to D&D's advantage and disadvantage: roll twice, take the better roll if you have a boon, or the worse if you have a bane. Fumbles happen on 20 and are called demons, criticals happen on 1 and are called dragons. Failures can be pushed, meaning you can reroll at the cost of gaining a condition. There is one condition for each attribute, and while they are in effect you roll every test affected by it with a bane.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The current skill list offers 20 general skills, 10 weapon skills, and 3 magic skills. That's around twice as much as the quickstart and first beta had, and probably the most controversial change. Fans of Free League systems argued, that having more than 16 skills is too much and adds a considerable amount of crunch to the game. I disagree with them, for several reasons.</div><div><br /></div><div>First, a few more skills don't add more mechanics to the game, but they do help on defining and differentiating the common tasks one can encounter during an adventure. The previous list was uneven in this regard. Social interactions, physical activities, and education alike had only one skill (Persuasion, Athletics, Lore in this order), which made them a cheap and trivial choice for characters who want to focus on either. For other activities it was hazy, which skill one should use. Then there were tasks like performance and crafting, that got no skills, but were tied to professional heroic abilities, which is all fine and dandy for a class-based system - but Dragonbane ain't one of those.</div><div><br /></div><div>Second, this is a skill-based game (duh). Your characters are differentiated by what skills their had. Their mix and match is what gives these games the flexibility we love these games for. Too few skills, and your game is no better than a class-based game. Heck, some games reduce their skill lists to a point where they should just drop the idea of separate skills and ability scores, and just merge them<sup>6</sup>. Why write a skill-based system at all if you don't want a proper skill list?</div><div><br /></div><div>Third, this is a game with 40 years of legacy. You have to keep some degree of similarity and compatbility with older content and appeal to fans of earlier editions. People who know Drakar och Demoner want to play Drakar och Demoner, not "Forbidden Lands D20 Roll Under Edition". Dragonbane already gets way too much crap for having too many D&D-isms and Forbidden Lands-like mechanisms.</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of D&D-isms, we have feats too, called Heroic Abilities. They include passive bonuses (like improving HP and WP) and active abilities (which cost of WP) alike. You get one Heroic Ability in the beginning, and a new one after reaching 18 in a skill or performing a grand heroic deed.<sup>7</sup> It is a diverse list that has both some characterful options and some musthaves - like those that allow multiple attacks or parries, dodges.</div><div><br /></div><div>Onward to battle! The biggest difference from BRP-based games is the lack of strike ranks or DEX/INT ranks. Initiative is determined by drawing from a deck of cards marked one to ten. You can delay action by swapping cards with those coming later down the line, and there are Heroic Abilities that allow you to manipulate initiative. Your character can move and perform a single action. Parries and dodges use up your action too. Because of this brutal limitatation you must take into account the initiative order to make smart decisions. A wasted action can be the difference between life and death. If you are familiar with BRP, the rest of combat will be nothing new: attack rolls are contested by parry or dodge rolls, on a success you roll damage, subtract Armor Rating. There are rules for critical hits, fumbles, severe injuries, weapon vs armour type, and of course a bunch of spot rules for all kinds of hazards. Fear is surprisingly elaborate with is table of random effects.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwpxk3amjTd0YUt6UgiosyDmMPK9G9Grv-zqVPN2a1GUiWwLFSkhsv5-0dc-vuyRSmpJLbcDxa8FZSCcnGvefYb_Lzbpqfj7a3gKM788qFUyAIwMyiiDU6xS1QpBQkW_sx4Jdx5A4yh3aexODYLPhzz0UX8lg0HLFlNdu39_G7P0UhbUbYPJKeEIqpA/s1318/magic.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1318" data-original-width="1020" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwpxk3amjTd0YUt6UgiosyDmMPK9G9Grv-zqVPN2a1GUiWwLFSkhsv5-0dc-vuyRSmpJLbcDxa8FZSCcnGvefYb_Lzbpqfj7a3gKM788qFUyAIwMyiiDU6xS1QpBQkW_sx4Jdx5A4yh3aexODYLPhzz0UX8lg0HLFlNdu39_G7P0UhbUbYPJKeEIqpA/w310-h400/magic.jpg" width="310" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's some cool art. It would be a shame<br />if the chapter didn't have rules for demonology<br />and necromancy...</td></tr></tbody></table>Spellcasting requires WP and a successful skill test. Your character can memorize INT spells, but can also cast from a grimoire at a slower speed. Some spells have multiple power levels, which increases their effectiveness and WP cost. Once out of WP, your character can sacrifice HP for more, but it is an unpredectible process. There are bonuses for criticals, and d20 table of mishaps for fumbles. Similar to RuneQuest, iron hinders spellcasting, so you don't dress your mage in plate armour. Besides generic tricks and spells that everyone can learn there are three schools: Animism (nature and healing), Elementalism (elemental attacks and summoning), and Mentalism (psychic powers and chi). The spell lists are solid but short. Some spells even feel redundant, because they are basically the upgraded versions of other spells. There is a hidden spell tree too: advanced spells require another spell as prerequisite before you can learn them. Overall what you get is a generic spell point-based magic system. There is nothing new under the sun, but it gets shit down. Necromancy ASAP, pls!<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Gear is usually the most boring chapter of every rpg. I was pleasantly surprised, that even the blandest item got a meaningful effect neatly summed up in a single sentence. Clothes can protect you from environmental hazards, tools can assist you in tests, wearing an extravagant hat can help with persuading others, etc. Sure, there is a short armour and an exhaustive weapon list too, but here it is the rest of the equipment chapter I fell in love with.</div><div><br /></div><div>The monster list is barebones with its 15 entries and short chart of 11 common animals. You won't find imaginative weird abominations here, just tired and tested classics. Dragonbane introduces the monster mechanics from Forbidden Lands, which lead to a lot of confusion, partly because the unfortnately chosen name. There are "monsters", who act like environmental hazards with HP, and include supernatural creatures, colossal monstrosities, and swarms. They have a crapton of HP, a chart for attacks, they always hit, but some attacks can be parried, dodged, or resisted. Then there are "not-monsters", which includes NPCs, humanoids, and animals, who work just like your player character. While the monster mechanics are interesting, I would have preferred a more consistent system<sup>8</sup>. On the other hand, the attack charts have some fun moves, not just Fifty Shades of Damage, and I also dig the Ferocity value, which means how many times a monster can draw initiative<sup>9</sup>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The final chapter about running the game is a mixed bag. The rules for handling journeys, foraging, hunting are concise, yet comprehensive - I adore them. The stat blocks of typical NPCs and the random NPC generation table is servicable, though I would move them to the bestiary. There is some generic GM advice and a short guideline for writing adventures supplemented by three random tables, but beyond that you are left to your own devices. Like most modern games, the rulebook doesn't teach you how to properly design an adventure<sup>10</sup>. I don't expect an entire <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/396154/Tome-of-Adventure-Design-Revised?234913">Tome of Adventure Design</a> in the back of the book, but some more advice accompanied with exact examples would be welcome.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kudos to Free League for listening to the community and including a printer friendly character sheet in the back.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fbTfVl38cnJXZnw-pssf5ujHVPIc8gIGGU1YDVzO7GHw9aohFYAdDqKNV_s0WCpnVG5ZPdtGsMneLuLNkehByReqC-XWtUngKVCdH9BmnrvmnYEVgD4Tp-3M4YpeRfi6x_VfzvKC3HF81jaLmTqx1AhZvxqnfR3nb3yYyJ1kMJhb9O6RZNhLExQOSQ/s1855/map.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1436" data-original-width="1855" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fbTfVl38cnJXZnw-pssf5ujHVPIc8gIGGU1YDVzO7GHw9aohFYAdDqKNV_s0WCpnVG5ZPdtGsMneLuLNkehByReqC-XWtUngKVCdH9BmnrvmnYEVgD4Tp-3M4YpeRfi6x_VfzvKC3HF81jaLmTqx1AhZvxqnfR3nb3yYyJ1kMJhb9O6RZNhLExQOSQ/w400-h310/map.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All this map needs is a hex layer.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The current version of the <b>Adventure Book</b> is 54 pages long and introduces the town of Outskirt, its points of interests, its important personalities, regional random encounter tables, and three adventures: Riddermound (the one from the quickstart), Bothild's Lode, and Temple of the Purple Flame. All three adventures are shorter affairs with simple layouts, but they all have some cool encounters, interesting NPCs, and memorable gimmicks. The presentation is top-notch, with terse writing, clear layout, and effective use of highlighting, colours, and bullet points. I won't take a deeper look into the book for now though, because it's far from complete. Rest assured when the final version drops, I will return to the topic.</div><div><br /></div><div>Free League has no easy job with balancing between their in-house design principles and the legacy of Drakar och Demoner, especially with both sides having fervent advocates among the fans<sup>11</sup>. Rewriting the skill list and professions was a big decision that will get a lot of praise and booing alike on the forums. As for me, I am happy with which way then went, and how quickly they applied the changes. Dragonbane promises to be a fun game. The boxed set will be perfect for one shots and short to medium length campaigns, and with proper support I can easily imagine Dragonbane as one's primary game for years long campaigns too.</div><div><br /></div><div>Until next time!</div><div><br /></div><div><p><sup>1</sup> Boy, do I hate this slogan... The game isn't as light, goofy, and heroic as the motto suggests, thanks to its nigh-BRP level of lethality. I guess they had to justify ducks somehow...</p><p><sup>2</sup> In the previous version the beginning Heroic Abilities were set in stone for each profession. Opening them up is a welcome change.</p><p><sup>3</sup> While I dig the profession-based nicknames, the racial names table feels pretty low effort and useless. Those charts should be at least twice as big. Heck, the Creating NPCs table later has 60 names on it!</p><p><sup>4</sup> This method feels awkward. It makes more sense to me to roll first, swap two scores, and then decide about kin, profession, and age.</p><p><sup>5</sup> Baffling considering it took a half sentence to do so for the original Magic World back in the day.</p><p><sup>6</sup> RuinMasters is a good example: with four attributes and six skills based on them, what's the point of having both? That game also suffers from badly defined attributes and skills, which is partly the result of the excessive minimalization.</p><p><sup>7</sup> Originally they were awarded every fifth session. I prefer this approach.</p><p><sup>8</sup> Consistency is a key feature of BRP-based games for me. That's why BRP works well as a generic system and why it was big deal compared to D&D back in the day: everything worked the same way. Separate mechanics for monsters feels like a step back, no matter how mechanically intriguing they are.</p><p><sup>9</sup> This way monsters can have multiple attacks spread out over the combat round, instead of fucking someone up with one long attack routine once it's their turn.</p><p><sup>10</sup> While it's absolutely not my cup of tea, WFRP3e still deserves some praise for having a GM's book that actually tells you how to design adventures and build up a campaign.</p><p><sup>11</sup> And then there are the OneD&D refugees too!</p><i><div><i><br /></i></div>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></div>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-3883054922050589032022-11-28T13:56:00.006+01:002022-12-22T09:28:49.321+01:00[Kickstarter] Open for Simplicity<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQBJmQD3Eoz1nvWu1SuzJLKZ7ybhOcBpHn3XCwIESxd0jjSGUKfEqDcjo-dDB24H9vx3GhFYZ0AbL8p_kgS8CLnsFeQDf1kJLtKwDvbB8FMI2sSNkvHsF-f7otuemZKB7fRgv2B6dlhP5d7Einb9pPRW1e8H_aPTTEWEp9YrFNhEU-DdtzujF87ZkGQ/s648/SQ-june-2022-test-web.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQBJmQD3Eoz1nvWu1SuzJLKZ7ybhOcBpHn3XCwIESxd0jjSGUKfEqDcjo-dDB24H9vx3GhFYZ0AbL8p_kgS8CLnsFeQDf1kJLtKwDvbB8FMI2sSNkvHsF-f7otuemZKB7fRgv2B6dlhP5d7Einb9pPRW1e8H_aPTTEWEp9YrFNhEU-DdtzujF87ZkGQ/s320/SQ-june-2022-test-web.png" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can't have enough John<br />Hodgson covers</td></tr></tbody></table>After my gushing about <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2021/07/musings-opening-openquest.html">OpenQuest</a> (even made a <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2022/05/content-single-page-openquest-3e.html">character sheet</a> for it while practicing Affinity), I think it's no surprise, that I'm excited about Newt Newport's newest project, which is simply called SimpleQuest. The <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/645319106/simplequest">Kickstarter</a> launched just recently, and if you are quick enough, you can catch the early bird pledge, or be an early bird that catches the pledge worm, or whatever. Once again, there is an option for both dirt cheap print on demand booklet and for a quality sewn printing.<br /><p></p><p>SimpleQuest is a small format, lighter iteration of OpenQuest. The biggest difference mechanically seems to be swapping out the original three magic systems with the unified MP-less One Magic System already introduced in the <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/381632/OpenQuest-Companion?234913">OpenQuest Companion</a>, otherwise it mostly focuses on trimming down the rules, content, and stat blocks. I won't delve depper into the details about about the differences between the two games, because there is already a preview for a book and a comparison with OpenQuest on the Kickstarter page.</p><p>In several ways it seems to be closer to what OpenQuest 3e was intended to look like, before the author decided to stay truer to the roots for the anniversary. With Dragonbane and SimpleQuest in the pipeline, 2023 already promises to be a good year for fans of BRP and its derivatives.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-57185177565852098422022-10-31T23:25:00.005+01:002023-01-11T09:47:12.984+01:00[Review] Castle Drachenfels<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3u9vNEtt6CF4_QYtGrJwRtEzRihLkkMxueGIPtYHM16OdddbYIhX4uQ4GKJSjISpnKUiA6MG7ii_1I-ZfpvEkNI21zfZ6V3Kzd1XVseo_9Snoo_3cwBgG_8EC7bYZAmUvSpVpXJmcGqE1OjQIwVqKp2dZvSNX_tGKjSmV0oOMxsepaxUREMMC25xIA/s1282/drachenfels_cover.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3u9vNEtt6CF4_QYtGrJwRtEzRihLkkMxueGIPtYHM16OdddbYIhX4uQ4GKJSjISpnKUiA6MG7ii_1I-ZfpvEkNI21zfZ6V3Kzd1XVseo_9Snoo_3cwBgG_8EC7bYZAmUvSpVpXJmcGqE1OjQIwVqKp2dZvSNX_tGKjSmV0oOMxsepaxUREMMC25xIA/s320/drachenfels_cover.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm pretty sure I've seen this<br />illustration before...</td></tr></tbody></table>Let's celebrate spooky season with a horror adventure! To make things interesting, it is not one written for Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, or any other horror game: Castle Drachenfels is a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e adventure that takes you to the creepiest place the Old World has to offer.<br /><p></p><p>WFRP is one of my all time favourite tabletop rpgs thanks its career,system, visceral combat, volatile magic, and badass setting. Alas the latter suffers from a serious identity crisis. Is it an unholy lovechild of Tolkienian and Moorcockian clichés? Heavy metal dark fantasy with gritty heroes and unspeakable horrors? Grimdark low fantasy of crapmongers dying from syphilis and critical hits? Epic high fantasy with dragon riding heroes and fancy armies? It depends on which iteration you are looking at.</p><p>Jack Yeovil's<sup>1</sup> 1989 novel Drachenfels takes the murder mystery / gothic horror approach. The novel starts where most stories typically end. A group of adventurers led by the knight Oswald von Konigswald and the vampire Genevieve Dieudonné infiltrate Castle Drachenfels. Most of them ends up killed or incapacitated, but in the end Oswald fights and defeats the castle's lord: Constant Drachenfels, the vilest sorcerer of the Old World. Twentyfive years later Oswald hires the playwright Detlef Sierck to recreate the Great Enchanter's defeat on stage for the event's anniversary. The play will debut in Castle Drachenfels, and the audience will include Karl Franz and the few survivors of the original party, among others...</p><p>Drachenfels is one of the better classic Warhammer novels<sup>2</sup>, and its titular antagonist is my favourite Old World villain. He is a master necromancer and daemonologist. He is as old as mankind. He is phyisically imposing and wears a cool metal mask. He has no tragic backstory and not an ounce of humanity left. He commits crimes against humanity just for shits and giggles. He is like Doctor Doom, but without any redeeming qualities. Nagash, Malekith, Archaon can kiss his ass, they are lame.</p><p>Castle Drachenfels is a unique piece among WFRP1e modules. It has neither dark conspiracies to unveil, nor epic journey around the Old World: it is a dungeon crawl focusing on a single location, a huge ass haunted house. While there are some ideas how to insert the module into The Enemy Within, The Restless Dead, and The Doomstones campaigns, I advise against doing so. Use it as a stand alone adventure instead, with lots of backup characters, because it is a fucking deathtrap even for experienced characters. </p><p>Players won't see much of the Great Enchanter during the adventure: he is either dead or in the process of regenerating. For the latter scenario there is a ticking clock mechanism based on the number of rooms the characters explored. The longer it takes to reach him, the closer he is to recovering his ultimate form. Don't fret though, his fortess is a worthy adversary and a character on itself. It is like a living organism invaded by a virus - it will mess with the intruders and retaliate when attacked. It is also indestructible until the weather vane is removed, which will release a hellish storm and a Fiend<sup>3</sup>.</p><p>The place is chock full of memorable encounters. Some are scary, like the corridor of gargoyles, others are silly, like the insulting puppet theater, and then there are some really fucked up things that belong in a LotFP adventure, like the kitchen where the zombie servants turn into familiar people, start flaying themselves, and throw their flesh on the grill. While some sections of the dungeon have a central theme, most rooms feel like set pieces thrown next to each other without rhyme or reason. The casual use of fantastic scenery might also surprise WFRP fans - rooms leading to the Realms of Chaos, spectacular permanent magical effects, encounters with powerful creatures are not uncommon. The warp points and passageways are also worth mentioning: while these paths that bend time and space are far from the central feature of the castle, there are several of them and they can mess up mapping and exploration greatly. While there is an appendix with ideas to spice them up, even there the general advice is to not overuse them, because they are frustrating.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-35UeuA3c33-Zi6tGk68EcO-xbrgwiYrnbtpTB1SDPdLdCEyvJ03tAgWfO_rvxMsmqoIzOrZsYYWLVkYrw7fWegFMK_Ar0-QP_GlEz58w8-2qz1Pnrvsv7nVSXWoTXPQ-s3H6qpsHQaKNnshVjsOv4J04GM4b9crAZHh5TFrUd7WNKsZeaLBEkry_w/s798/gargoyle_corridor.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="798" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-35UeuA3c33-Zi6tGk68EcO-xbrgwiYrnbtpTB1SDPdLdCEyvJ03tAgWfO_rvxMsmqoIzOrZsYYWLVkYrw7fWegFMK_Ar0-QP_GlEz58w8-2qz1Pnrvsv7nVSXWoTXPQ-s3H6qpsHQaKNnshVjsOv4J04GM4b9crAZHh5TFrUd7WNKsZeaLBEkry_w/w400-h289/gargoyle_corridor.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The famous "nope" corridor of Castle Drachenfels.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>There are two gauntlets that are grossly unfair. What do you say about a trip to the fucking Realms of Chaos? How about four in a row with no turning back? The other challenge has four alignment themed rooms, with the final leading to the coffin of a powerful vampire lord and his sidebitch. The latter will feign friendship to keep you occupied so her master can wake up from his beauty sleep - then you are fucked. This scene actually rewards murderhoboing. There is a yawning dude in the coffin? Stake the bastard! Shit like this makes it hard to trust the few actually helpful or not immediately murderous NPCs.</p><p>Speaking of NPCs... This is one of the weaknesses of the adventure, and not because those present are badly written or uninteresting, but because most of them are hostile, distrusting, and loyal to Drachenfels. Interactions with them promise to be fun, but rarely rewarding. Even the few genuinely helpful ones won't be of much use. Gerd the Mutant is grateful if you wake him up from his magical sleep, but a few turns later he dies from a chestburster that was kept in stasis by his slumber. Snitlet the Snotling is more of a comedic relief than a useful companion, but at least he is an entertaining one<sup>4</sup>. Bardul the Hunchback is the only with potential long term benefits for the party, for he knows the castle well and can navigate the warp passageways. There are also spirits, but they are more like dumb tools for the GM to foreshadow, or railroad the players, or mess with them. The appendix offers further NPCs to add colour to the place, and you should absolutely use them. My favourite is a band of greenskins called Gobrot's boyz, whose leader is smart enough to ally with the PCs if they prove themselves useful, and whose "gurly" will start flirting with one of the PCs just to stir up trouble.</p><div>Rewards are plenty. Slaying the two bosses can earn the characters 3 Fate Points, though they are likely to lose just as much in the process. The XP awards look good, and there is a great deal of magic items - including some cursed ones. There are dozens of potions, the Wand of Dust, which is the bane of undead, Blackshards, which are focused negative emotions that can be exploded in someone's face, Lermontov's Grimoire, which contains the extremely useful Cure Insanity spell, or Warptorches, which help navigating the warp passages.</div><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbI68UXQT8ze_N5DpN_pByXhegfFarDdrjUVa9JX4pjlFbSsXeijVEdV3acrsw-FjybAEM9jMiLjrAlVaDhcCADBoqQEBdPcRaFEe1fj8kJ0WQjbubdI6nIzg_vn0_AnXOy1mqnPqtUzmx7UDd8d9uYH-bdKtcq-E3KRz9E7Bu08z0z0MbtxT78Alr_Q/s847/drachenfels_himself.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="847" data-original-width="582" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbI68UXQT8ze_N5DpN_pByXhegfFarDdrjUVa9JX4pjlFbSsXeijVEdV3acrsw-FjybAEM9jMiLjrAlVaDhcCADBoqQEBdPcRaFEe1fj8kJ0WQjbubdI6nIzg_vn0_AnXOy1mqnPqtUzmx7UDd8d9uYH-bdKtcq-E3KRz9E7Bu08z0z0MbtxT78Alr_Q/w275-h400/drachenfels_himself.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drachenfels himself towering over<br />some unfortunate soul.</td></tr></tbody></table>Why would anyone visit this hellhole though? The book offers a few ideas, for some reason in the back of the book. The seeds include cultist hunting, sabotaging the stronghold, recovering someone's heart literally, or stopping the resurrection of Count Drachenfels. They are more than hooks: you get a half page outlines with a beginning, complications, and an ending. Several of them introduce further NPCs, which as I mentioned above, the adventure needs badly.<br /><p></p><p>You know what else it needs even more? Good maps. Castle Drachenfels pisses me off in this regard. The overview maps only show walls, stairs, and doors. Windows? Nah. Furniture? Forget about it. There are floorplans for a few rooms, which are more detailed, but alas that's just a small fragment of them. Even worse, there is no grid. There is a scale on each map, but it is much easier to estimat distance by counting squares than pulling out the tape measure. The dungeon layout is non-linear, but would benefit greatly from some secret doors. The writing is good old-fashioned Games Workshop stuff: it is evocative and fun to read, but a bit too wordy for its own good. Adding more highlighting, bullet points, and cross referencing would also improve the usability of the text, but we are talking about an adventure from 1992. The art is top notch like in every other WFRP product of the era, though there are reused assets familiar from other books.</p><p>Due to its vulnerable player characters and being a product of the late eighties and early nineties, the typical WFRP adventure focuses more on intrigue, investigation, and characters. Despite bearing the marks of its era, Castle Drachenfels is an odd exception, being an unforgiving gonzo funhouse dungeon. It is WFRP's Tegel Manor and Tomb of Horrors in one, and despite its shortcomings, I can't help but appreciate it for that.</p><p><br /></p>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Rules system:</strong> WFRP1e<br /><strong>Publisher:</strong> Games Workshop</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Publication date:</strong> 1992</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Format:</strong> print, pdf</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Size:</strong> letter-size<br /><strong>Pages:</strong> 112</span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Available from:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>•</b> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/310789/Warhammer-Fantasy-Roleplay-First-Edition--Castle-Drachenfels?234913" style="font-family: helvetica;">DriveThruRPG</a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> (pdf)</span></div>
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<p><br /></p><p><sup>1</sup> Also known as Kim Newman.</p><p><sup>2</sup> Canonically the novel is outdated with its oddities like Karl Franz being crowned emperor in 2491, goblins working for humans, vampires mingling with men openly and living in asylums, et cetera. The Empire Drachenfels depicts is a more open-minded and chaotic country than what you can see in the modern lore. </p><p><sup>3</sup> "...a spirit of pure Evil, drawn from the Warp where all things are possible and everything exists, by Drachenfels himself." Cool shit.</p><p><sup>4</sup> Snotlings are always entertaining.</p><p><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></p>
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</style>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-53836660208744111172022-08-31T22:02:00.005+02:002022-09-01T09:00:39.416+02:00[Kickstarter] ...of Dragons and Demons<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuzvWT-iZnTWXDyO9lRC3HxnVMJYHMNTLHwwL2vbzBmhwhN_EyFcPG-1H2Yg4b-witttmpQ2n4Lb2BeMfS5_5OeE83MwPLawR1lCEJRG3U3m-OxlIGkH6oV0gEr5kC8uUHT8rm-E6qwUvCRZqEi5pA_cbr8bwLPXPSAgWLgKkeKT_DvQS-oCCANTRCA/s2048/dragonbance_quickstart.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1587" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuzvWT-iZnTWXDyO9lRC3HxnVMJYHMNTLHwwL2vbzBmhwhN_EyFcPG-1H2Yg4b-witttmpQ2n4Lb2BeMfS5_5OeE83MwPLawR1lCEJRG3U3m-OxlIGkH6oV0gEr5kC8uUHT8rm-E6qwUvCRZqEi5pA_cbr8bwLPXPSAgWLgKkeKT_DvQS-oCCANTRCA/s320/dragonbance_quickstart.png" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cover has once again Elric<br />and a dragon on it, but on less<br />amicable terms.</td></tr></tbody></table>A while back I had an urge to homebrew a d100 game based on Basic Roleplaying called <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2020/12/homebrew-project-hecatomb.html">Hecatomb</a>. - which I eventually abandoned due to work and my offspring eating up my free time. Back then I mentioned that my sweetspot would be something akin to Drakar och Demoner, the legendary swedish rpg, which RiotMinds failed to deliver to their non-viking audience<sup>1</sup>. Times have changed since then: Free League grasped the rights from RiotMinds, teased us with posts about a new edition for months<sup>2</sup>, until finally announcing that a new edition of DoD is coming to Kickstarter on the 30th of August. Oh, and it will be available in English under the title Dragonbane.<p></p><p>It seems people got a raging dragonboner for Dragonbane, because <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane">the campaign</a> funded in four minutes, and it keeps chewing through stretch goals like there is no tomorrow. It's no wonder though, Free League has a solid reputation, the cool art is already enough to whet one's appetite for the game, and they even included a 44 pages long <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/0m7zabjz8jvvynn/DB_Quickstart_220829.pdf?dl=0">quickstart</a> so you don't have to buy into the game blindly. That's how you do a fucking Kickstarter.</p><p>Based on the quickstart Dragonbane looks like a lightweight and lighthearted mix of old-school BRP mechanics and Free League's signature game design elements. On one hand you have six characteristics and sixteen skills (plus a few more for magic) that you have to roll under with d20 to succeed<sup>3</sup>, attack rolls versus parry rolls, criticals that can pierce through armour, simple rules for weapon breakage, spells fueled by magic points, and so on. On the other hand you have the utterly simple and brilliant condition system seen in other Free League games, drawing cards for initiative, advantage and disadvantage, pushing failed tests, and monstrous monsters that act like a natural hazard with hit points and a random table for attacks rather than as a creature. And instead of becoming a hodgepodge of conflicting ideas, the whole blend feels smooth and natural, like they always belonged together. And whenever I find something I miss or dislike, my mind immediately goes "oh I can borrow that from RuneQuest/Stormbringer/OpenQuest" or "there is a rule for that from Forbidden Lands I can convert".</p><p>My expectations were high, and I was still surprised and amazed. I don't even want to criticize those design decisions I don't fully agree with, because they don't bother me, they aren't bad at all. I only have two issues with the quickstart: some of the weapon qualities from the character sheets are not explained anywhere, and the module is pretty meh and overuses the monster system (though the constantly reviving undead lady and lord are a pretty damn good idea).</p><p>Dragonbane is a promising rpg and the only one in the near future I am genuinely excited about<sup>4</sup>. It has tons of potential, especially if third party support can gain some momentum at release. The d100 game I wanted is here, ironically using a d20 for resolution. Now it's time for <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/helmgast/kopparhavets-hjaltar">Kopperhavets Hjältar</a> to follow suite.</p><p><sup>1</sup> We got the overcomplicated mess of Trudvang Chronicles and the half-assed RuinMasters instead.</p><p><sup>2</sup> Usually in swedish, so I had to get it translated to learn, that it contained no meaningful information about the game.</p><p><sup>3</sup> Originally DoD used d100 roll under for tests like traditional BRP games, but the DoD: Expert expansion for 3rd edition moved on to using a d20 roll under system like Pendragon. It works the same way, it's simply just less granular. Considering how a lot of people have problems with reading d100, that might not be a bad idea at all.</p><p><sup>4</sup> Except for HackMaster 5.5, but that has yet to be announced officially, and if it finally reaches the Kickstarter I will be drunk for days and won't shut the fuck about how awesome bears are in the game.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-45177232883358679262022-07-13T22:49:00.002+02:002022-07-14T06:59:35.070+02:00[Review] DIE! DIE DIE! PIG ORC!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_f5gUkTWv9bHUSVfJKn6yDzmglWsc1uS5sPf5xt-os_mAqTwrVDRhbQOUE4HEsDRJWj6BTbcdY3U08e_A8z26p6Nm5jml4m-iOyi4FECa2-UmDF_qHqqRKxxk7uQfoSWtD_tpuIoBPhbL-MKRump6um94yfVj6S8Mduw72PP7UgVdvig4KT96imheqA/s808/cover.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="592" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_f5gUkTWv9bHUSVfJKn6yDzmglWsc1uS5sPf5xt-os_mAqTwrVDRhbQOUE4HEsDRJWj6BTbcdY3U08e_A8z26p6Nm5jml4m-iOyi4FECa2-UmDF_qHqqRKxxk7uQfoSWtD_tpuIoBPhbL-MKRump6um94yfVj6S8Mduw72PP7UgVdvig4KT96imheqA/s320/cover.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oink oink, motherfucker!</td></tr></tbody></table>Eldrad Wolfsbane of <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20meat%20grinder">Meat Grinder</a> fame is back and does exactly what you expect from him: unleashing his inner twelve year old to create cool modules for old-school D&D with shitty art<sup>1</sup>, monospace fonts, and lots of exclamation marks! If the title of DIE! DIE DIE! PIG ORC! was not enough to get you in the mood of slaughtering humanoids, then absorb the introduction too:<br /><br /><div><i>The kingdoms of the Northwestern Lands have fallen and the wars have been lost! MAN, ELF, DWARF and HALFLING are on the run or are waiting for THEIR DOOM!</i></div><i>Gnolls from the northeast!<br />Piece of SHIT Gnolls!<br />Fuck Gnolls!<br />Goblin's, Hobgoblins and Bugbears from the East!<br />Killing! Snorting! Raping!<br />Goblinoid FUCKS! We hate them!</i><div><div><i>Fleasheaters! They kill and eat the women and children!</i></div><div><i>They even eat the babies!</i></div><div><i>The ROTTEN Undead from the Southeast!</i></div><div><i>That ROTTEN Undead! That SMELL!</i></div><div><i>In the Kingdoms of the East, Mankind is being wiped out!</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Do you feel the raw energy, the unbridled passion, the sense of imminent doom immediately? It makes the blood boiling! Yes, fuck those humanoids indeed! And this goes on as the author introduces the land from the point of view of desparate refugees who cannot find peace until finally reaching HIGHHILL town. The port town has a handdrawn map, some rumours, a paragraph for each quarter, and of course random encounter tables! Day encounters are your run of the mill port town encounters, with the sole exception of some rakshasas<sup>2</sup> serving as a middle finger to player characters. Night encounters have a better chance of ending up nasty, with the table including a wight, a vampire, or the specter of Old Mr. Gunderson the old dead Werewolf Hunter. That's what I call local colour!</div></div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wInplIjBQ49Rx_R00FaWFkjSjhlkou1EedNgnRXApcuG3TxR3JtPEitXshVHxHt9uQMLj9xGteayM_i-XbJbmL4dk6DUHSlj6MwqSoCSB9xz8khM9BB-gzhtnQSFePKe-Y8uJ0I12fo3JWQwOyF22J0K5oPbEB3FBb-YVLAvKUqDwfDZjxO9caXv1w/s837/mercenary.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wInplIjBQ49Rx_R00FaWFkjSjhlkou1EedNgnRXApcuG3TxR3JtPEitXshVHxHt9uQMLj9xGteayM_i-XbJbmL4dk6DUHSlj6MwqSoCSB9xz8khM9BB-gzhtnQSFePKe-Y8uJ0I12fo3JWQwOyF22J0K5oPbEB3FBb-YVLAvKUqDwfDZjxO9caXv1w/s320/mercenary.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well hello Mr. Fancy Pants!</td></tr></tbody></table>Highhill is followed by The High Forest Wildecrawl. We get eleven local encounters, including pompous mercenary douchebags waiting to take advantage of the local conflict, a haunting nightmare, a pack of hell hounds, a huge ass necropolis, and a sprawling swamp ruled by morlocks, among others. I love the NPC names. DEATH MONGER, Groggy Monley, Big Stinky Betty, Chopper the Ogre - even without description they immediately evoke an image about their owners. Beside names most encounters have some detail that make them memorable. One that really stood out to me is the Lone Troglodyte:</div><div><br /></div><div><div><i>A Lone Troglodyte lurks here. He wears ornate Plate Male and Shield and carries a grand sword. He has a backpack full of supplies. He appears to be looking at a map and is strangely far more intelligent than an average Troglodyte. He plans to find the treasure on the map and quietly retire. He had an entire party of fellow Troglodytes but they had all slowly been killed off and he is the LAST ONE!</i></div></div><div><br /></div><div>That's a surprising amount of background for a surprisingly unorthodox NPC. He has the potential to be remembered and talked about years later by your players. Cool wilderness encounters earns +10% for the final score. There are no hexes on the handdrawn wilderness maps though, which earns -10%.</div><div><br /></div><div>The final section is about the Old Holy Fort, a 21 room dungeon invaded by those goddamn pig orcs! The map is disappointingly linear. It has some branches, but there are no loops, there are barely any secret doors. It needs some heavy Jacquaysing, right now! The party will face all the orcs right in the very first room, and if they are laser focused on killing them they will quickly finish their mission - or die trying. There is more to the dungeon though than orc barracks and shitting rooms! Beyond their quarters lie a path to the underworld, rooms of critters, crypts with lurking undead, and a mysterious underground area hidden behind an altar where morlock priests breed humans as livestock. The latter was unexpected and got close to Lamentations of the Flame Princess territory, but the author stopped at barrels of pickled humans and generational slaves.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><i>21. Past the secret door is actually where the Key of Deadmoore is held. In an untrapped display case. A </i><i>mysterious laughter erupts for a few seconds when a PC gets the key. END</i></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Awesome! That's how you end an adventure! Don't tell me you wouldn't be hyped after such ending to see what's coming next!</div><div><br /></div><div>DIE! DIE DIE! PIG ORC! is deliberately amateurish, juvenile, minimalistic, but does not feel artifical like <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/211137/50-ShaDes-Of-vOrpal-ALPHa?234913">50 ShaDes Of vOrpal</a><sup>3</sup> and is actually playable. Behind the rampant ramblings of a youngster lies an adventure with terse, evocative, and fun encounters. It ain't no Meat Grinder, but hey, you cannot churn out a cult classic everytime!</div><div><br /></div><p></p>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Rules system:</strong> B/X<br /><strong>Publisher:</strong> Eldrad Wolfsbane</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Publication date:</strong> 2022</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Format:</strong> pdf</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Size:</strong> letter-size<br /><strong>Pages:</strong> 24</span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Available from:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>•</b> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/395361/DIE-DIE-DIE-PIG-ORC?234913" style="font-family: helvetica;">DriveThruRPG</a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> (pdf)</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 48px; font-weight: bold;">75%</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">It definitely has pig orcs<br />who should die - and more!</span></div>
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<p>A charming quickstart for T&T that can keep you occupied for a few sessions.</p>
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<div><br /></div><div><div><sup>1</sup> Except for the occasional public domain images of course.</div><div><br /></div><div><sup>2</sup> I had flashbacks of City State of the Invincible Overlord, where your daily stroll to the grocery store can easily become a deadly encounter with a high level monster.</div><div><br /></div><div><sup>3</sup> 50 ShaDes Of vOrpal does deserve a praise for its art, because that feels totally authentic. When I was twelve those who were "good at drawing" drew exactly in the same style as seen there.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></div>
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Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-44399914314282643732022-05-31T21:14:00.004+02:002022-06-06T21:44:36.091+02:00[Content] Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhjfbFC5prysB33D2I2FIugGPW9KKw8nVjs2U_HVzcp5WRC-YrcNDvzq290SWEoinoN1hLWBrPNilmrHnbdHAhGvqmtOZFaWC7aWHswKm0LWkPw-L5dlE_jX0-yoyOblRnYmEJYnUxF95K31aPAasfhu0SSYXXo-OTiFY1zpjFQFM-YpeZukZiwgoqA/s505/ltb-spezial-040.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="337" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhjfbFC5prysB33D2I2FIugGPW9KKw8nVjs2U_HVzcp5WRC-YrcNDvzq290SWEoinoN1hLWBrPNilmrHnbdHAhGvqmtOZFaWC7aWHswKm0LWkPw-L5dlE_jX0-yoyOblRnYmEJYnUxF95K31aPAasfhu0SSYXXo-OTiFY1zpjFQFM-YpeZukZiwgoqA/s320/ltb-spezial-040.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what the platonic<br />OpenQuest campaign looks like.</td></tr></tbody></table>Those who have follow this blog probably know that I like tinkering with character sheets. If you like fancy and decorative sheets, then these aren't the ones you are looking for - I prefer a minimalistic and printer friendly design and cramming as much useful information needed on the sheet as possible. For a long time I have been using <a href="https://inkscape.org/">Inkscape</a> to make character sheets, but its a vector graphics editor first and foremost, and its limitations slowly started to become annoying.<br /><p></p><p>Last year I bought the desktop publishing application <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/">Affinity Publisher</a> on a sale, and never looked back. Its dirt cheap compared to InDesign and other professional applications, it is far user friendlier than Scribus, and you have to buy it only once. I learned its basics while tinkering with Hecatomb's layout, so even if that projects remains abandoned, at least the time spent on it didn't go to waste.</p><p>While re-reading <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2021/07/musings-opening-openquest.html">OpenQuest 3e</a> recently I felt an urge to fuck around a bit again with Affinity Publisher, and I ended up retooling one of my character sheets for the game. Newt gave his blessing, so here you are, download and have fun! C&C welcome. Stay tuned for more, as form-fillable versions are coming soon.</p><p>Update #1: I added the Affinity Publisher templates to the links.</p><p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yT8xdD2YCY9VUoPwqgibnLqWLYckJT6g/view?usp=sharing">Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet (A4)</a><br /><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xsuGQM-QttPpT-443szHwM63hiTiYyQV&authuser=corvus870906%40gmail.com&usp=drive_fs">Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet (US Letter)</a></p><p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Dv9FLlDaosT6LpBclkaYKqxCjRjvWUX/view?usp=sharing">Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet Affinity Publisher template (A4)</a><br /><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-EtdV0ai9tNchy8fiEgPC10_r4iWItjC/view?usp=sharing">Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet Affinity Publisher template (US Letter)</a></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-76288740959659987892022-05-30T20:31:00.018+02:002022-05-31T20:34:56.122+02:00[Loot] Opening Call of Cthulhu Classic<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6qQwJb3CoqFvDbUiw3p5KsDbCt5pgNxvOyORjKxqUQviuOnzs8IK0Cew0qZoywvMCZ6dv4aUuwPRBJGyZoXJXgK3mGWv3U2UTrQEpB_CV3Ij-KWu9RugWtz33P2KtcpKpsvYfFf9iIacXfm5zIUTojJMG5NUqr4SKUJMYQSsAkGCbWR6TNPDjpQEvA/s4000/20220530_130525.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6qQwJb3CoqFvDbUiw3p5KsDbCt5pgNxvOyORjKxqUQviuOnzs8IK0Cew0qZoywvMCZ6dv4aUuwPRBJGyZoXJXgK3mGWv3U2UTrQEpB_CV3Ij-KWu9RugWtz33P2KtcpKpsvYfFf9iIacXfm5zIUTojJMG5NUqr4SKUJMYQSsAkGCbWR6TNPDjpQEvA/s320/20220530_130525.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"That thing was too big to be called<br />a box. Too big, too thick, too heavy,<br />and too rough. It was more like a<br />large hunk of paper."</td></tr></tbody></table>I have been in the mood of rolling some percentile dice for a few years now. Unfortunately I did not have any chance to run any game from my small but vicious collection of Chaosium games and their relatives, and Hecatomb<sup>1</sup> had to be put on hold due to lack of time and brain capacity. At least I was lucky enough to play a few one shots of Call of Cthulhu 7e as a fat and fast-talking archeologist professor Jacob Smith.<sup>2</sup><p></p><p>Just like Dungeons & Dragons, Chaosium's games are also having a renaissance. Unlike Wizards of the Coast, Chaosium has been putting some serious effort in keeping even their classics alive. Their RuneQuest Classic is one of the most cherished books on my shelf, so it was a no-brainer for me when their <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chaosium/call-of-cthulhu-classic/">Call of Cthulhu Classic boxed set's Kickstarter</a> was announced, that I will dish out some serious cash on that. Originally I wanted to get the classic one inch box, considering my firstborn was on the way, but then I changed my mind when I imagined him looking in my eyes a decade or two later and calling me an idiot for not buying the majestic $100 set that will probably worth a small fortune when I perish.</p><p>It was a long and slightly bumpy ride, my patience growing thin as the boxed set kept getting delayed due to various global crises. Today though the wait has come to an end when I found a thick and heavy box from Poland lying on my office desk. With eyes gleaming from excitement I borrowed my collegue's kampfmesser to tear it open. When I finally shoved away some of the packaging material I hesitated, but in the end gave up on sacrificing said collegue to the Old Ones - though the urge was hard to resist.</p><p>The two inch boxed set contains enough material to play Call of Cthulhu for a lifetime. Its contents include:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A paper detailing the contents of the box. Yay!</li><li>The second edition Call of Cthulhu rulebook, with errata included.</li><li>A Sourcebook for the 1920s, which has some additional trivia and content for the era.</li><li>A few character sheets that you will likely never use in the age of pdfs and cheap printing.</li><li>A poster map featuring the 1920s world map on one side, and a map of Arkham on the other.</li><li>A size comparison poster featuring the various lovecraftian monstrosities from the rulebook.</li><li>Silhouttes featuring characters, monsters, and monsters not included in the original set. Naturally you will never cut them out, afraid of ruining the integrity of your boxed set. Still, they are neat, and since you get a pdf with the package, you can print them out yourself on sturdier paper.</li><li>Shadows of Yog-Sothot, "a global campaign to save mankind" according to Chaosium. We know though, that unless the Keeper is fudging or light hearted, that will never happen.</li><li>Trail of Tsathogguah, another world spanning campaign. I have a hunch Chaosium is either not familiar with their games or trolling us.</li><li>The Asylum & Other tales, a collection of seven scenarios, including one from the late Dave Hargrave of Arduin fame.</li><li>Cthulhu Companion, a sourcebook containing four more scenarios and some additional rules.</li><li>Fragments of Fear, another companion with a bunch of stuff and a scenario.</li><li>A Keeper's Screen, which has some handy tables, but is not cardstock.</li><li>A crapton of handouts on thin paper.</li><li>A set of dice.</li></ul><p></p><p></p><div>I would have been happier if some of the handouts and the GM screen were printed on sturdier paper, but I'm also pretty fucking satisfied with the quality of the poster maps. It's a pity though, that the 1981 Chaosium Games Catalog and the original Basic Role-Playing rulebook were only included as pdfs. The rulebooks and modules are softcover, saddle-stitched, just like in days of yore, though they probably have more hit points than the originals. Overall I'm very satisfied with the contents. All it is missing is Masks of Nyarlathotep, and it would be perfect. Dear Chaosium, please do an expanded QuestWorld boxed set next!</div><div><br /></div><div>To finish this blogpost off, some shitty pictures of the contents hastily made on my desk follow... If you need more pictures of anything specific, feel free to ask, and I will do my best to take a photo of it.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh62d7iQnOOfxPuvhd81KzoSo-1b7xRi5KF8UaCbyuDFUHWl42IBCP4h87jHM0p5v0newpRHRQPwjw2jK7wbUdB3igOPiHtwuQvXoUNL9OrSMxwbTxc8bKPLPO6MsnNQNgTjarrKEnGIQXOkxZIbiAQ9l0FYva0AOh1XPVz-EPZB-aq5HnmLyasPRgAoQ/s4000/20220530_190346.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh62d7iQnOOfxPuvhd81KzoSo-1b7xRi5KF8UaCbyuDFUHWl42IBCP4h87jHM0p5v0newpRHRQPwjw2jK7wbUdB3igOPiHtwuQvXoUNL9OrSMxwbTxc8bKPLPO6MsnNQNgTjarrKEnGIQXOkxZIbiAQ9l0FYva0AOh1XPVz-EPZB-aq5HnmLyasPRgAoQ/s320/20220530_190346.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRlBxPCEMj5KGjqj5XkQNZa6-aZWzK-32-8g9P_KT5BBkkal8j_jUB_tKtB0QQ0_r_NckamGukBWsorBisTp4vNPYixTK34y10sNwoP-iRMXULd5rtnjz5ROqThtvl8hYeZRQKHoQQpz66kez7reAkS0fM2_gHVWmW5TrFw5smIAGmAIPD9_EBwT1S_g/s4000/20220530_190300.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRlBxPCEMj5KGjqj5XkQNZa6-aZWzK-32-8g9P_KT5BBkkal8j_jUB_tKtB0QQ0_r_NckamGukBWsorBisTp4vNPYixTK34y10sNwoP-iRMXULd5rtnjz5ROqThtvl8hYeZRQKHoQQpz66kez7reAkS0fM2_gHVWmW5TrFw5smIAGmAIPD9_EBwT1S_g/s320/20220530_190300.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mUjqI387rqXAfgOCouhYJ8LdXLvp0dNp9hmUD7UUOHJTc3dRRVSVTMolwMBWyaA2g96w3Rw2g8isu9UrHFECbyO46pLNU-VyDyXqiNjbP_oEyBGtZUiEpB2AgcszTR4Hcf7fgQdGQ7uq_5_hPh0_ylH-KBAOpTdzwdW4XuRNe0k7q1xkAMzfa4ElFg/s4000/20220530_190656.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mUjqI387rqXAfgOCouhYJ8LdXLvp0dNp9hmUD7UUOHJTc3dRRVSVTMolwMBWyaA2g96w3Rw2g8isu9UrHFECbyO46pLNU-VyDyXqiNjbP_oEyBGtZUiEpB2AgcszTR4Hcf7fgQdGQ7uq_5_hPh0_ylH-KBAOpTdzwdW4XuRNe0k7q1xkAMzfa4ElFg/s320/20220530_190656.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><sup>1 </sup>By the end of summer I had a pretty neat player's rulebook of some 30 pages, but endless rules revisions, my firstborn, and work interfered and I lost my will to continue with it. Plus there are a crapton of percentile games out there already, so I might end up just house ruling one of them and using the setting when I finally rise from my ashes as a Referee.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><sup>2 </sup>He looks basically like <a href="https://jumanji.fandom.com/wiki/Shelly_Oberon">Jack Black's character</a> from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. He kinda acts like that too until there is some action, when he kicks ass. Not the most original character, but I enjoy playing him.</div>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-44475808481507336832022-01-02T08:53:00.003+01:002022-01-02T08:57:17.542+01:00[Review] The Heroic Legendarium<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWk6zGaNollBUjwNZ1LEQLHBfpHSqAnPKDwUtN8dJAlsWdSVwC2UEU9wdjiPMLdF4xR1f15tehtPA9Pe3TwZOArr__yR3c5ego06ZFDDUdzr028qIhIqwx8qt9TzYJN5UsxcAceVI_olw7a05j0yzV_aR-R9usLf2MDQ2luKFnPrIv3jv_gveKcoaC9g=s808" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWk6zGaNollBUjwNZ1LEQLHBfpHSqAnPKDwUtN8dJAlsWdSVwC2UEU9wdjiPMLdF4xR1f15tehtPA9Pe3TwZOArr__yR3c5ego06ZFDDUdzr028qIhIqwx8qt9TzYJN5UsxcAceVI_olw7a05j0yzV_aR-R9usLf2MDQ2luKFnPrIv3jv_gveKcoaC9g=s320" width="242" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you thought Traveller's cover<br />was minimalistic...</td></tr></tbody></table>Now that 2021 is behind us the time has come to talk about my favourite OSR product of the year. There were some damn fine canditates, but in the end it was a seemingly unremarkable book that stole my heart. The Heroic Legendarium looks like a university textbook: it has no kickass cover, no interior illustrations, no super functional modern layout, not even bookmarks. What's inside though shows years of hard work and an unparalelled understanding of one of the hardest nuts of old-school gaming: post-Unearthed Arcana AD&D 1st edition.<br /><p></p><p>Whether because of the disillusion with modern D&D's bloat, the lack of free time, or taking the first zen moment of old school gaming<sup>1</sup> too seriously, the majority in the OSR community seems to gravitate towards the various B/X clones and lightweight games. On the fringes though there are still people who love a good deal of complexity, and enjoy stuff like Arduin, HackMaster, RoleMaster, RuneQuest, or AD&D. The latter is a pretty controversial case, because a lot of people are fond of its content, but few appreciate its many nuanced rules. Trent Foster Smith is one of these rare connoisseurs. He is the author of <a href="https://mystical-trash-heap.blogspot.com/">The Mystical Trash Heap</a> blog and the legendary AD&D Companion, which was a collection of AD&D material by Gygax and original ideas inspired by his work. Including Dragon magazine articles and alike can be a legally risky endeavour though, and eventually the AD&D Companion was scrapped to be revamped as The Heroic Legendarium. </p><p><i>"Rules Modifications and Expansions for use with OSRIC™ and Other Compatible Advanced Adventure Games"</i> - says the description, with a wink. Once you open the book you will realize that this is a white lie: THL is an AD&D supplement through and through. It uses or touches upon almost every obscure bit of AD&D, including all the things most of us never dared to use or gave up even trying to understand<sup>2</sup>. Like Unearthed Arcana the book is split in two, the first half containing all the new player-side content and the second half focusing on game mastery.</p><p>The Players' Section is a grabbag of errata, revisions, and new options. New races include the cat-blooded (non-furry catfolk), dhampirs (non-edgy half-vampires), dragon-blooded (non-scaly half-dragons), and half-ogres (the classic loveable big oafs). Each has its own uniques advantages, disadvantages, restrictions, and even such details are covered as character age and racial preferences. Unlike tabaxi, dragonborn, or tieflings these new races can be easily integrated into more grounded campaigns, because they don't stick out like a sore thumb from the average sword & sorcery city crowd.</p><p>The part about classes starts with fixes for druids, cavaliers, barbarians, thief-acrobats, monks, before moving on to the new classes. And what fine classes they are! Mystics are a mix of spiritualists and diviners who always possess psychic abilities<sup>3</sup>, have a second sight, know astrology, herbalism, and alchemy. Hunters are primitive fighters with a bunch of survival skills. They feel like a mix of rangers and barbarians. Savants are magic-users with sage-like abilities. Their spells largely depend on their chosen fields of expertise - thus they are not unlike specialist wizards from later editions, but with thematic instead of school-based specializations. Mountebanks are charlatans with a strong focus on verbal flimflam and swindling over thievery. They can also cast some degree of magic and brew potions. Bards get a massive overhaul to work as a standalone class available at level 1, though its advancement scheme shows elements of the original AD&D1e bard. The bard also gets the beloved jester as a sub-class, who has a mix of thief, acrobat, mountebank abilities supplemented by pranks and a hint of illusionist magic. None of these classes are original or particularly new. We have seen them in Dragon magazine, Realms of Adventure magazine, or were promised by Gygax for AD&D 2nd edition, and also appear in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/111944/Adventures-Dark-and-Deep-Players-Manual?234913">Adventures Dark and Deep</a>. Nevertheless, these are just as good and valid iterations as the others.</p><p>Character creation does not end with choosing race and class though. There are rules for Socio Economic Class (modifies starting money and reaction), Birth Order (only interesting for seventh children), Appearance (a new ability score that replaces Comeliness and alters reactions), Joss Factor (kinda like luck points), Knacks and Quirks (akin to HackMaster's Quirks & Flaws, but far more vague). There is a secondary skills table too with random results for each race. Equipment also gets expanded with more coin types, common items, and weapons - including oriental weapons, boomerang, pole axe, epee, and rapier<sup>4</sup>. Surprisingly there is no new armour, but I can live with that.</p><p>The largest chunk of the Players' Section is of course spells. Mystics, Savants, Mountebanks, and Bards all have their own unique spell lists. Sometimes even spells from the earlier rulebooks are altered slightly to fit the new class thematically better. For example Mystics have Speak With Dead like clerics, but since they are mediums they need a cat's eye agate talisman to cast it instead of a holy symbol. The highlight of the spell list are the bardic songs. While many of them overlap in functionality with older spells, they behave differently because they are songs now with fitting names. For example, bards don't cast Sleep, they sing the Drowsiness Lullaby.</p><p></p><p>Psychic talents also get some much needed revision and clarification, followed by Focused Energy Activation Teachniques<sup>5</sup> - a grabbag of wushu and cinematic moves that must be learned through special training<sup>6</sup> and can be used only by spending Joss Factor on them. There are multiple levels of FEATs, from minor techniques like Blind Fighting, through moderate techniques like Weapon-breaking Strike, to major techniques like Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUf07wKJDv1xoBpTz1LyCPpcK-m5z0wboyZEOKgptxvV0ldgMMQZ-8oHoRLczry3MbkfxfJCcshiWIFglZXO0d0_U9t1ONYcWfPevN_ZBkXg_8ag9xr6KoLJvBh2FRJ_90Y_S6YsaI2p7d4Ize5ZF_FR2zKzYxsBU6n2q-U-J6LbS3wCKOJkOeOG_9kw=s1440" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1440" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUf07wKJDv1xoBpTz1LyCPpcK-m5z0wboyZEOKgptxvV0ldgMMQZ-8oHoRLczry3MbkfxfJCcshiWIFglZXO0d0_U9t1ONYcWfPevN_ZBkXg_8ag9xr6KoLJvBh2FRJ_90Y_S6YsaI2p7d4Ize5ZF_FR2zKzYxsBU6n2q-U-J6LbS3wCKOJkOeOG_9kw=w400-h250" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's for OSRIC. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>The Players' Section ends with an essay titled Habits of Highly Effective Players, an expansion to Successful Players from the original Player's Handbook. It is broken up into six parts and covers such important topics like thinking outside the rules, the importance of taking smart action over being overly cautious, and setting your own goals. It is well worth reading even if its advice feels trivial after years of gaming.</p><p>The Game Master's Section is fucking dense. It starts with a thorough explanation of handling wilderness exploration and planar adventures. Combat gets some love too, first in form of some additional rules for certain situations (reach advantage, speed factor of natural weapons, using shields against missiles, etc.), followed by a clarified and simplified overview of the initiative system. Yes, with fucking segments and speed factors. I still prefer HackMaster's system over this one, but damn, it actually feels playable!</p><p>After all the crunchy rules THL delivers a hefty chapter of GM advice. Honestly, after all the crunch it was kind of a relief reading these. Even if they don't say anything new or ground breaking after a couple of years of running games, they are well worth reading, for they cover a wide variety of topics from world building, through rational dungeon design, to common establishments in medieval settlements. Speaking of settlements, the book does not get bogged down with your usual dungeon, hex, and city crawling, but turns things up to eleven by devoting an entire mini game to domain management! And it isn't just building shit and conquering hexes - there are guidelines for marriage, siring offsprings, diplomatic relations, handling indigineous people, and so on. It is pretty vague, leaving the fine details usually in the DM's hand, which can be seen both as an issue, or a feature. Finally, just like there was advice for successful players, DM's get some best practices too, plus a bit about handling inter-party conflicts.</p><p>The section ends with treasures and monsters, as expected. There are new treasure tables for dungeon levels, and some sweet magic items, like a magical dreamcatcher, a knife that can tear a portal between prime material planes, the puzzle box from Hellraiser, or a rather powerful clock that can mess with time. Good stuff. Monsters start with revision of AC, damage, hit points, psychic abilities, etc. before moving on to the interesting part, the new creatures. I might have been tired at this point, or it might be because I have read a metric shitton of bestiaries already, but this was the least interesting part of the book for me. It's a grabbag of all kinds of creatures, and I can't recall any that I haven't seen before in some form or another. There are oriental monsters, more demons, fantasy gypsies, semi-elementals, thouls, and so on. It's not a bad collection by all means, it just felt haphazard.</p><p>Surprisingly there is only one appendix, which is a new list of inspirational reading. I expected to see a collection of the various charts, short monster stats, and maybe some new random encounter tables.</p><p>Reading THL was joy, mostly because how closely it felt to reading my original AD&D books. The writing has a gygaxian baroque flair. It feels natural and is entertaining, though sometimes hard to grasp. It is an immensely inspiring supplement. It got me in the mood of running AD&D again, it made me want to use some of its content, and motivated me to take off my AD&D books from the shelves to read them again cover to cover. And that was enough to be forgiving about layout and design when scoring the product<sup>7</sup>. The AD&D Companion is dead, long live The Heroic Legendarium!</p><p><br /></p>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Rules system: </strong>AD&D1e / OSRIC,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Publisher:</strong> Storm Fetish Productions</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Publication date:</strong> 2021</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Format:</strong> pdf, hardcover</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><strong>Size:</strong> letter-size<br /><strong>Pages:</strong> 156</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Available from:</b></span></div>
<div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">•</b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/357539/The-Heroic-Legendarium-A-First-Edition-Adventure-Gaming-Companion?affiliate_id=234913" style="font-family: helvetica;">DriveThruRPG</a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> (pdf, print on demand)</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 48px; font-weight: bold;">89%</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The minimalistic design hides<br />unadulterated first edition feel.</span></div>
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<p><sup>1</sup> See "Rulings, Not Rules" in Matt Finch's A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.</p><p><sup>2</sup> Thinking of reading ADDICT again alone makes my head hurt.</p><p><sup>3</sup> "Note that the term “Psychic” is used in place of “Psionic” throughout this work, as the use of the latter in Original Edition games is actually a misnomer and that term is properly applied only to the combination of psychic talents or phenomena with electronic devices, such as a machine powered by psychic energy." - The Heroic Legendarium, pg. 76.</p><p><sup>4</sup> I'm still baffled why AD&D1e had such a short and simplified list for swords while having an abundance of polearms. If there is an article about it I missed, please drop me a link in the comment section below.</p><p><sup>5</sup> It is only during the writing of this blogpost I realized that the abbreviation for it is FEAT. Smooth.</p><p><sup>6</sup> Which is eerily similar to DCC RPG's "Quest For It!" mantra that I keep parroting in my old-school campaigns too ever since I fell in love with the game.</p><p><sup>7</sup> If it gets a revision with art, I will definitely get back to it and update the score.</p><p><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></p>
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</style>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-42835932179168122382021-12-10T09:32:00.002+01:002021-12-10T09:32:16.611+01:00[News] No Artpunk, Vol 1<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtyjiqUHL_9fAeVxBqtvOH7_P_ke9JsEaom-UTc4NygjAyKfWBTvVjiLlTxZ4ejrTE9dUA7iLcfbfpZFPX8-Oc03qWLKhJy_xhOWa37iQHE8h4zuXdT8bfR9OApBbyYCVRirWCU-hL75fmewuxLPTlRSpbT0WbjSsH0zqJJDw5oFUQKQwSeyH-WcXCzA=s2048" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtyjiqUHL_9fAeVxBqtvOH7_P_ke9JsEaom-UTc4NygjAyKfWBTvVjiLlTxZ4ejrTE9dUA7iLcfbfpZFPX8-Oc03qWLKhJy_xhOWa37iQHE8h4zuXdT8bfR9OApBbyYCVRirWCU-hL75fmewuxLPTlRSpbT0WbjSsH0zqJJDw5oFUQKQwSeyH-WcXCzA=s320" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The First No Artpunk Contest,<br />as depicted by Rubens.</td></tr></tbody></table>We are living at a time when the OSR is dominated by two cosmic forces. One one side the agents of Law worship functional, clean, elegant presentation. On the other end of the spectrum the followers of Chaos subjugate everything to their avantgarde visuals and weirdness. While none of them seem to have the upper hand yet, the Grey Lords of Cosmic Balance decided that the latter is the more harmful power overall, and have sent their Champion Eternal Prince of Nothing to diminish its influence. Under his banner a number of companions gathered to show everyone, that the old guard still alive and can pack a serious punch. Their valaint crusade was known as the <a href="https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/tag/no-artpunk-contest/">First No Artpunk Contest</a>. Their deeds are immortalized on the pages of the almanac known as <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/379533/no-artpunk-vol-1">No Artpunk, Vol 1</a>.<br /></p><p>Jokes aside... Congratulations to everyone who participated! It was an exhilirating ride, even if keeping up with the reviews was a bit exhausting by the end. I'm particularly proud of my dear friend/player/referee Chomy, whose victory furthered our little country's efforts towards becoming a major power in the OSR scene.</p><p>The No Artpunk, Vol 1. compilation will be Pay What You Want in its first three months, with every ounce of income donated to the Autism Research Institute. While you can get it for free, please consider paying for it to support a good cause.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-59503208330293556992021-11-08T22:00:00.001+01:002021-11-08T22:09:01.826+01:00[Update] You Shall Now Pass!<p>Lately I received a surprisingly large number of requests to access my character sheets<sup>1</sup>. While they were available to the public before, the September Google Drive security update messed up the links making them unavailable to those without permission. The links have been updated, so there is no need to knock on my doors anymore. Sorry for not addressing the issue sooner. Also, thank you very much for all your requests - I appreciate your interest!<br /></p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNf4nighaSWRoibFXjz1BqJ0F05XYzeeIFrV-bD2Wvq8MCaxPxR-R9ljLBBvLxUmNhl0YRjAVQ0Zxob5nCZsGL9JHxkiMu9cnt-zfLVfdtBytz9vUOUF28Dcv97y9ltLQLiDaQe-e4P7_e/s1024/balrog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNf4nighaSWRoibFXjz1BqJ0F05XYzeeIFrV-bD2Wvq8MCaxPxR-R9ljLBBvLxUmNhl0YRjAVQ0Zxob5nCZsGL9JHxkiMu9cnt-zfLVfdtBytz9vUOUF28Dcv97y9ltLQLiDaQe-e4P7_e/w400-h300/balrog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photo of Google Drive holding its ground against hordes of <br />DCC RPG and Zweihänder players (2021, coloured).</td></tr></tbody></table>Speaking of sheets, since I started working on <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/hecatomb">Hecatomb</a> (which is almost the only projact I can actually progress with in my spare time nowadays) I bought <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/">Affinity Publisher</a> during their COVID sale and picked up some bits about layouts and typography. Needless to say, looking at these old sheets with fresh eyes is amusing<sup>2</sup>. I would love to revamp some of them eventually, still following my usual KISS principle, but with better flow and more effective use of whitespace.</p><p>I will nont promise anything though. Heck, in the current state I would be happy if I could finish my review of what I consider the OSR product of the year...</p>
<p><sup>1</sup> See the "My Own Creations" sidebar if you are unfamiliar with them.</p>
<p><sup>2</sup> It also makes looking at plenty of professionally produced rulebooks disheartening, but that is a story for another time.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-46995921631835391992021-07-09T22:00:00.002+02:002022-05-31T20:35:10.363+02:00[Loot] Opening OpenQuest<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheInMQ9zCPgci_UN7Ig7NNIfwlKxF0ajZfOCTkoRbJZun7Tnj_Xg0WXFzrO8WjtLGsExp7zwNObO_QK-RDLCgJvOIsXQPsiAWUO2Acrac0JcqIoP-Q3qAdsdLLovGr584r-S7NS3RYOwkW/s4000/20210709_201341.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheInMQ9zCPgci_UN7Ig7NNIfwlKxF0ajZfOCTkoRbJZun7Tnj_Xg0WXFzrO8WjtLGsExp7zwNObO_QK-RDLCgJvOIsXQPsiAWUO2Acrac0JcqIoP-Q3qAdsdLLovGr584r-S7NS3RYOwkW/w240-h320/20210709_201341.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new edition of Ducks & Dragons.</td></tr></tbody></table>OpenQuest is belongs to the huge family of games based on Chaosium's percentile system. It promises a similar gameplay and experience as RuneQuest or Mythras, but in a more streamlined fashion. It is crunchier than early editions of Call of Cthulhu, but not as complicated as RuneQuest - it strikes a solid middle ground with its mechanics like Stormbringer and Elric! did. It is by no means my sweet spot when it comes to percentile games (otherwise I wouldn't be <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/hecatomb">hacking my own</a>), yet it is still a game I adore and keep recommending to people who are fed up with D&D, leveling, hit dice, and stuff like that. But this post isn't a going to be a review. Maybe next time. This is just plain gushing about production values.</p><p>OSR games are all over the place when it comes to quality. You can find utterly amateurish stuff like <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-meat-grinder.html">The Meat Grinder</a>, deluxe books like the <a href="https://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.php?cPath=25_94&products_id=751">Hacklopedia of Beasts</a>, cool boxed sets like <a href="https://necroticgnome.com/">Old-School Essentials</a>, artpunk experiments like <a href="https://morkborg.com/">Mjölk Bork</a> alike among them. While each style has its charm, my heart belongs to simple, sturdy, black & white books. <a href="https://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/">Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG</a> has been the gold standard for me in this regard: a massive tome lavishly illustrated with characterful black & white art that often blends into the layout. <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2017/09/christmas-in-september.html">Zweihänder </a>is also worth mentioning. <a href="https://openquestrpg.com/">OpenQuest</a> 3rd edition is the latest that made me smile. When OpenQuest 3rd edition's <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/645319106/openquest-3rd-edition/description">Kickstarter campaign</a> started Newt wanted a print on demand print run. Eventually the Signed & Sent tier was introduced, with a more expensive, proper printing, and some neat extras. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhul4yQt3bMC6f18JQ6XEDZTm8silMPS0QvdLb6TXc7pUO03ciQd-qRaq8IQvJrkUBl53BHk42uB0xEOwoJVS-LFpwrnqms1LHv-TvNlOLQmuAYqrubnl2w07M5Z-YlyyvyQtkwRX80gMdQ/s4000/20210709_201653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2843" data-original-width="4000" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhul4yQt3bMC6f18JQ6XEDZTm8silMPS0QvdLb6TXc7pUO03ciQd-qRaq8IQvJrkUBl53BHk42uB0xEOwoJVS-LFpwrnqms1LHv-TvNlOLQmuAYqrubnl2w07M5Z-YlyyvyQtkwRX80gMdQ/w400-h284/20210709_201653.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's how a rulebook should look like.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>While OpenQuest 3e Signed & Sent might not be the absolute fucking unit my first printing DCC RPG rulebook is, it still ticks all the right boxes and kicks a lot of ass. Both versions will get you a cool Jon Hodgson cover and a cleanly laid out, neatly illustrated black & white interior, but the sown binding, sturdy paper, red bookmark, endpapers, and colour plates of the Signed & Sent tier elevate the product to a next level. Introducing that tier was the right decision on Newt's part. Coughing up the extra cash for it was the right decision on my part. It is a rulebook that looks damn good while also feeling like a rules reference instead of a coffee table book. It also oddly feels like a mix between the RuneQuest Classic reprints and the Games Workshop RuneQuest 3e rulebooks. Well done.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRvh7b7WmbfXiV5ApZOoCa0cqgSuWN1K3nZEqusZOGaDRJY6AlrI88Ds6vYtGh0NxNDSAwLqwIz6T296Ko9S34UbjTBtNWoXXbX9g1Wta831AGItRVIIFPwI5fNgB8Ey1hdXDRLvSIZF6p/s4000/20210709_201534.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2808" data-original-width="4000" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRvh7b7WmbfXiV5ApZOoCa0cqgSuWN1K3nZEqusZOGaDRJY6AlrI88Ds6vYtGh0NxNDSAwLqwIz6T296Ko9S34UbjTBtNWoXXbX9g1Wta831AGItRVIIFPwI5fNgB8Ey1hdXDRLvSIZF6p/w400-h281/20210709_201534.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Did I mention it has colour plates?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-35925920161399724052021-07-07T22:18:00.004+02:002021-07-07T22:18:38.609+02:00[Homebrew] A Quick Primer for Terminus<p>As promised, I dug up the players' primer for my Terminus DCC RPG. The document was last edited in 2013, and even then it was unfinished: we started the campaign quickly, and I didn't have the time to include elite promotions, descriptions for other towns, or a fucking map. Truth to be told, the campaign had a pretty swift pace compared to what I was used to at that time, and despite planning it to be a sandbox it ended up becoming an almost entirely urban campaign, with a detour to a carnival in Hell, a wintry island ruled by two vampire lords, an ancient moon base, and the body of the space-faring Hungerer.</p><p>I still have the folder of dead characters in my desk, with notes on them like "decapitated by giant beetle while vomiting from poisoned mushroom", "torn apart when a small troll crawled out of her stomach", or the twice-resurrected zombie amazon priestess of Cthulhu whose sheet says "<strike>stabbed in the chest by a ratling ninja</strike>, <strike>crushed by a rollercoaster cart</strike>, torn to pieces by zombies on the ghost train". The living weren't much better either: the party's leader was a goblin thief, whose drug addiction made his Stamina drop to 4 over time, and grew a brain tumour after eating the corpse of the slime god to gain psionic powers. He was also the worshipper of the orc barbarian from the previous Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaign. Good times!<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBlo2Pi299NFL4Nb2dgBog8HZ7XQi89q0PKhxqLGI4DCT7DbGg7raX2SXbHBaaJ06E5riq-f8XAa2c1-Sxx1VH2CjXi7AVZwJLPSbolT1n_tU5VV1c422g1213V7hISasLOEUl1-hGlgc/s1282/races_ww.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="1282" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBlo2Pi299NFL4Nb2dgBog8HZ7XQi89q0PKhxqLGI4DCT7DbGg7raX2SXbHBaaJ06E5riq-f8XAa2c1-Sxx1VH2CjXi7AVZwJLPSbolT1n_tU5VV1c422g1213V7hISasLOEUl1-hGlgc/w400-h300/races_ww.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's probably the "bad" influence of video games that I like<br />my campaigns with tons of races.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>The influence of Arduin and The Wilderlands of High Fantasy is obvious, among many other sources. I kept returning to the same kitchen sink approach with all my DCC RPG games - and also with the current <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/search/label/eremus">Eremus</a> campaign. In fact, plenty of the homebrew content and rules I used here were later adapted and converted to other games, and I have even revised them from the ground up for DCC RPG too for a campaign that never got going. A pity, because the revisions were much better than the originals.</p><p>While dusting off I did fix a few errors, improved the layout a bit, and cut out placeholders for content that never got into the booklet. That's all I changed though, so expect a good deal of shitty writing, swarms of typos, and clichés. Have fun!</p><p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HohLxDrqv0cdz0o5mXUPi2-Z7lcTKiL9/view?usp=sharing">A Quick Primer for Terminus</a></p><p>Bonus: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iGLt7JY7_MZez6bU7-FvPchaf-a1t-cW/view?usp=sharing">stat blocks for Thieves Guild NPCs and ratling ninjas</a></p><p>There is a lot more, but alas mostly in Hungarian. Still, I'll dig up some more in the near-future (like the elite classes).</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-39297951007921525452021-06-27T18:16:00.002+02:002021-06-27T18:16:23.621+02:00[Musings] Back in Black<p>Welcome to a different, darker shade of the Simple Blogger theme. It's probably the most overused theme, but I guarantee it will be better for your eyes when you open up the Vorpal Mace blog from your phone in the middle of the night.<br /></p><p>Summer is on the loose, and it got pretty serious here this year. I already got a T-shirt tan just from walking to work, and the temperature within the flat goes easily above 30 °C if we aren't careful. Summers is also expensive. Even if we don't travel anywhere with the kid arriving in two weeks, there are some Kickstarters and new releases to drain your funds.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmV4d5gh-QyOJXblakxf5Ke4ww4fWNFIXNoZOG-FwY4eApmOm6naYPqos5S8OU4ZS6a7pI7C3Snu7OedQ63997qwxLhkdUnxOAL28qOW2qxcoD5ugnvniD2tsQKMYNwnlDVj0LqZUWVn1/s1588/familiars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="1588" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmV4d5gh-QyOJXblakxf5Ke4ww4fWNFIXNoZOG-FwY4eApmOm6naYPqos5S8OU4ZS6a7pI7C3Snu7OedQ63997qwxLhkdUnxOAL28qOW2qxcoD5ugnvniD2tsQKMYNwnlDVj0LqZUWVn1/w400-h300/familiars.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A few familiars from the first Rise of the Minons Kickstarter.<br />Don't hang out with wizards who have friends like these.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Even if I had to put my Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay preparations on hold, I can't say no to the next Dunkeldorf Kickstarter campaign: <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kinggames/the-kingpin-of-dunkeldorf">The Kingpin of Dunkeldorf</a>. I'm not here for the thugs though (except for Lenny, he is a musthave), but for the witch hunters and mutants. While there are some great witch hunter and mutant minis available from other Oldhammer manufacturers, their numbers are still dwarfed compared to the variety in greenskin and dwarves.</p><p>Paul Smith of Creative Sculpt Studio has barely finished his <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/the-hordes-of-chaos/random-dungeon-encounters">Random Dungeon Encounters!</a> campaign, he is already pushing another project forward, called <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/the-hordes-of-chaos/rise-of-the-minions-2">Rise of the Minions 2!</a> I have the entire lineup from the first batch, and they are some absolutely characterful little buggers that are a joy to paint. This is also a good opportunity to get some of his earlier sculpts. I was thinking about sitting this one out, because Paul said he has plans for champions of Order (a true niche among Oldhammer manufacturers), but that modron, mini-Cthulhu, and demon fish are hard to resist. Also, another Moonfaced Horror! You can't have enough Moonfaced Horrors!</p><p>Goodman Games also started their long-awaited <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/devillich/dcc-dying-earth">DCC Dying Earth</a> Kickstarter campaign. While I absolutely adore Vance's work and have high hopes that Goodman Games will do justice to the source material (just look at the contents of The Primer of Practical Magic: curses, manse-building, magical associations!), $50 with shipping will be a bit much for now. I'll be the first in line when it comes out next September, though.</p><p>And as usual, Venger is back again, with <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vengersatanis/chaalt-after-dark">Cha'alt After Dark</a>, going full R-rated with the sleazy stuff. What's more interesting for me though is that he got his hands on <a href="https://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2021/06/encounter-critical-of-kortthalis.html">Encounter Critical</a>, the best garage-made science-fiction fantasy rpg from 1979 (published in 2006). Cha'alt conversion with cheap black & white illustrations and typewriter text when?</p><p>The most important OSR news (probably of the year) has absolutely nothing to do with Kickstarters though. In fact, one of the best thing about it is that you don't have to risk your money on a Kickstarter campaign, and wait months or years to get the final product. <a href="https://beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/2021/06/news-helveczia-picaresque-fantasy-rpg.html">Helvéczia</a> - Melan's picaresque fantasy RPG - is available, right now. You can get it as a hefty boxed set, or a single rulebook. </p><p>That's all for now. Some unknown guy called Unknown asked for some DCC RPG resources in the comment section of my <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2021/05/musings-excuses-and-expectations.html">last post</a>, which were lost when I <a href="http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2016/02/">rebooted the blog</a> in 2016. Expect some of those soonish.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-67065712422883725412021-05-31T20:59:00.003+02:002021-06-01T12:00:12.078+02:00[Musings] Excuses and Expectations<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QzY_jHzoYCWyg_Ddvj7IzH-WB0cFgtCyK4sLoasoIshQpIG8Lwiq4w0AykWIMk56WkYjJAopiAr5-gXnngeyrTVPE_53Cf7B7umn6o5jOS-yp4uKjvxxdaMxb3wmChlqP8O-U3kpxaOv/s960/ahriman.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="556" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QzY_jHzoYCWyg_Ddvj7IzH-WB0cFgtCyK4sLoasoIshQpIG8Lwiq4w0AykWIMk56WkYjJAopiAr5-gXnngeyrTVPE_53Cf7B7umn6o5jOS-yp4uKjvxxdaMxb3wmChlqP8O-U3kpxaOv/w231-h400/ahriman.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unintendedly the cycoyles ended<br />up looking like the Ahrimans<br />of the Final Fantasy series.</td></tr></tbody></table>May went by so fast I didn't even notice there was one. Yesterday I sat down to write a review, but after an hour or two I scrapped it entirely, because it felt like doing homework. Hobbies should be fun, and if something feels like a chore, you should give it a rest. Thus instead of a review, house rules, or whatever, I will give a little status update about what I actually did in the last month, and what I'm going to do in the near future.<p></p><p>Hecatomb is crawling forward nicely. I'm at 24 breezy pages that cover character creation, game system, spells, equipment, basically everything players would need, though spells are currently undergoing major revision. While my original intent was a homage to the original Basic Role-Playing and Magic World, my manuscript inevitably began to divert more and more from its roots. As the rules began to take shape, so did a sword & sorcery setting, which over time began to affect the rules it has grown out of. I will write a more detailed retrospective around the 6th month milestone.</p><p>Despite dropping or pausing some campaigns during the quarantine I still have two of them running. One is my old D&D5 Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaign's B party, which will end soon - though I've been telling this my players for a year or two by now. The party finally found what they have been looking for at the bottom of Fortress Badabaskor, just destroyed Blackrazor using Whelm, and are now enjoying an otherworldly landscape on a demonic plane. Will they defeat the demon that inhabited the sword on home ground? Will they return to the Wilderlands and take over Fortress Badabaskor? Will the half-orc barbarian who was turned into an antagonist by the sword survive and recover his player character status? We'll see on Thursday. <br /></p><p>The other is the usual OSE Eremus campaign. After murdering some sirens and scalping them to get new strings for a dark elf vampire's lyre the party did a hexcrawl back to the ruined baths hiding the entrance to the Underworld. Their journey was mostly uneventful until they ran into a ruined tower infested with cycoyles, who they awakened and almost died fighting. Now they are back in the Underworld, trying to commit genocide against a spider-worshipping kobold tribe. That will be Wedn<span style="font-family: inherit;">esday's entertainment. "That's all nice and dandy, but what the hell is a cycoyle?" I'm glad you asked! It's just a slightly reskinned gargoyle, but it was altered enough that my players had no clue what they were fighting. Still, here is your stat block:</span></p>
<b>Cycoyles</b> look like stone eggs with bow legs, gangly arms, small wings, and a crooked horn. From the middle of their rotund body a huge red eye is glaring evilly. They disguise themselves as grotesque statues near ruins and prey on weary wanderers who take a rest among the rubble.<div>
<hr />
<div><b>AC</b> 5 [14], <b>HD</b> 4 (18hp), <b>Att </b>2 × claw (1d3), 1 × bite (1d6), 1 × horn (1d4) <i>or</i> cursing eye beam, <b>THAC0 </b>16 [+3], <b>MV </b>90’ (30’) / 150’ (50’) flying, <b>SV </b>D8 W9 P10 B10 S12 (8), <b>ML </b>11, <b>AL </b>Chaotic, <b>XP </b>125, <b>NA </b>1d6 (2d4), <b>TT </b>C</div><div><hr /></div><div>▶ <b>Ambushers:</b> They wait for the prey to fall asleep.<br /><b>▶ Blend in with stone:</b> May be overlooked or mistaken for inanimate statues.<br /><b>▶ Eggs:</b> 50% chance for a pair to have a rocky egg worth 100 gp.<br /><b>▶ Mundane damage immunity:</b> Can only be harmed by magical attacks.<br /><b>▶ Spell immunity:</b> Unaffected by sleep or charm spells.<br /><b>▶ Cursing eye beam:</b> Can place a curse on a character once a week with a shimmering red eye beam. Save versus spells or be afflicted by a curse of the referee’s choosing. (Maximum possible effects: –2 penalty to saves, –4 penalty to hit, an ability score reduced by 50%.)<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjahgwIzuF4p6mGN-keeN3MPsXS26-duTKe_oCzcbY7X8NmeVNBsgO6x_rcU3bZze3LmoRRRetqKjH-kDXF8mrcFp41DWW-s1dcEYNEjEXnPCmsu-mkZhvXm5fb7yq45CQv9O__n8qswUKE/s872/gobboes.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="870" data-original-width="872" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjahgwIzuF4p6mGN-keeN3MPsXS26-duTKe_oCzcbY7X8NmeVNBsgO6x_rcU3bZze3LmoRRRetqKjH-kDXF8mrcFp41DWW-s1dcEYNEjEXnPCmsu-mkZhvXm5fb7yq45CQv9O__n8qswUKE/s320/gobboes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probably the last goblins I painted for a while.</td></tr></tbody></table>After some pause I did a surprising amount of miniature painting, preparing for a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e campaign that I ended up putting on hold. Now all those primed beastmen, greenskin, skaven, and renaissance townspeople were pushed to the bottom of my backlog, and instead of them I started working on some ancient miniatures, hoping I can use them for Hecatomb. I just received a package from <a href="https://www.lucideyepublications.com/">Lucid Eye Publications</a> today, containing some amazing miniatures from their Ziggurat line, a bunch of Death Dealers for a friend, and a Conann of the Fianna figure from their Jim Fitzpatrick line for my better half, which is both surprisingly big and amazingly detailed.<br /><p></p><p>Speaking of other halves, our first child is expected to arrive early July. It's a wonderful new adventure into the unknown, one that's both exciting like nothing else before, and because of that, also slightly terrifying. Fingers crossed my experience with "winging it" and "herding cats" will come handy on our journey. This also means I will probably have even less free time, so don't be surprised if I'm gone for a month or two without posting anything.</p><p>Before that would happen I have two things I would like to cross out on my bucket list. One morning while it was still dark I opened my blog on my phone and was blinded by the light. Thus I will move to a dark theme, though that will require some minimal tinkering with the CSS for the info boxes. The other is a review. <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4661/Emperors-Choice?affiliate_id=234913">Emperors Choice's storefront</a> unexpectedly resurfaced a few weeks ago on DriveThruRPG, which is the perfect occasion to finally write a review about their Arduin Grimoire Trilogy. It won't be an easy task though, for I will have to find a fine balance between being grateful and pissed off.</p><p>That's all for now. Fight On!</p><p><i>Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.</i></p></div></div>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8405554328866769329.post-79889558966268884202021-04-26T09:58:00.001+02:002021-05-03T10:58:05.267+02:00[Homebrew] Getting Shitfaced<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3W7s8fzpQc60TMdG0d0Z5T4z1cGUTauhiTflG_42-QBg8fxygGiemTgwkq1R1aEJoWrRkm9VLI8rEivywc8O_t-1MhApn5wO-VZf1PXBA7rCWA_eeWs2o4y_IZDGxtdvDu12Dx0My5Be/s888/conan_drunk.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="888" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3W7s8fzpQc60TMdG0d0Z5T4z1cGUTauhiTflG_42-QBg8fxygGiemTgwkq1R1aEJoWrRkm9VLI8rEivywc8O_t-1MhApn5wO-VZf1PXBA7rCWA_eeWs2o4y_IZDGxtdvDu12Dx0My5Be/s320/conan_drunk.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Advanced Taverns & Tankards</td></tr></tbody></table>While browsing through my Google Drive folders, I found a bunch of house rules from the past - some for campaigns we actually played, some for campaigns that never launched. One of the recurring unused homebrews was a bunch of rules for drinking yourself under the table, which were originally written for Delving Deeper<sup>1</sup>, then revamped for Swords & Wizardry, before finally getting lost for years. Now the time has come to convert it to Old-School Essentials so we can finally give it a proper shot on Sunday's session.<br /><p></p><p>The character's <b>Drink Threshold</b> is equal to <b>1 + CON modifier</b> (minimum 0). It shows how many servings of alcohol the character can drink within an hour before its effects start to kick in. One serving equals a mug of ale, or a glass of wine, or a shot of spirits. After reaching the threshold the character must make a Save vs Poison for every further drink, with no penalty for the first one, but a cumulative -2 for each drink after that.</p><p>After the first failure the character becomes <b>tipsy</b>, receiving a small penalty (-1 on d20 rolls, -5% on percentile rolls) for every action. After 1-2 hours of rest he becomes sober again.</p><p>After the second failure the character becomes <b>slightly drunk</b>, receiving a medium penalty (-2 on d20 rolls, -10% on percentile rolls) for every action. He is also braver and more tolerant to pain, resulting in +1 hit point for every hit dice. After 1-2 hours of rest he becomes tipsy again.</p><p>After the third failure the character becomes <b>drunk</b>. He is incapable to do anything effectively (-4 on d20 rolls, -20% on percentile rolls), but is always eager to prove the opposite. He is fearless and shrugs of pain easily, resulting in +2 hit points for every hit dice. After 1-2 hours of rest he becomes slighty drunk again.</p><p>After the fourth failure the character <b>passes out</b>, usually after saying good bye to his lunch. He is incapacitated and totally unaware of his surroundings. He will sleep for 4-8 hours before becoming sober again and he must make a System Shock roll to avoid losing one point of a random characteristic permanently.</p><p>If the character reaches at least the slighty drunk stage, he will have a <b>hangover </b>the next day. The length of the hangover depends on how drunk he was. For slightly drunk it lasts for an hour, for drunk it lasts for a day, for passed out it may last for 1-3 days. During hangover the character is fatigued and sick, acting as if he had lost half his levels. Druids and alchemists might know cures that can shorten the length of hangover. The Remove Disease spell cures hangover, while Remove Poison nullifies the effects of alcohol.</p><p>We'll see how they work out in practice. They seem a bit lenient, but this is for an age of hardy people and less refined alcoholic drinks. Cheers!</p><p><sup>1</sup> I have absolutely no clue if it was written from scratch, or was based on already existing rules. The levels do remind me of HackMaster 5e, but it's been a while since I've read those and my books weren't available when writing this post. If anyone finds any similarity to other drinking rules, please let me know.</p>Tamás Illéshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11415717108941674663noreply@blogger.com0