Old School Charm, New School Taste

A few years back, I grabbed a copy of Castles and Crusades, a D&D-ish RPG that has the distinction of being approved of by one of the fathers of D&D, E. Gary Gygax. It's a D20-license game with some decidedly old-school flare. There are a ton of reviews around the web, so I'll gloss over almost everything. The core game system is very modern in implementation though - it's d20 vs. threshold numbers all the way down. What's different is that unlike modern D20 games, there are very few rules or "build" options. What is there is elegant and simple, and quite source-compatible with old AD&D modules and newer OSG products, like OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord.

But for some reason, I didn't go for it. I ran an adventure or two, and while the game system was perfectly workable, it didn't grab me emotionally for whatever reason. I can be fickle that way, like how I dig Pathfinder but don't like D&D 3e.

Anyhow, as is obvious from my other blog posts, my current fantasy RPG "fling" is Swords and Wizardry. It's a "restating" of pre-AD&D D&D, also called "OD&D". (Original, I guess, or is that supposed to be a zero?) OD&D had a lot of loose ends in it, and S&W tries to tie them up in a consistent and interesting way. For example, S&W takes a very strict reading of the rules on strength bonuses, and ONLY lets Fighters (not Rangers or Paladins) use the bonus, thus making Fighters a more viable class - one that truly specializes in fighting.

One of the advances in recent years (aside from ascending armor class, which fortunately S&W supports) is the idea that a first level Wizard should be more than just a young adventurer who knows "much that is hidden", and has the potential to become great some day, but an active participant in combat. In Pathfinder, these beginners have "Cantrips", or Level 0 spells which they can cast at-will to do things like detect magic or maybe cause 1d3 damage to something. 4e goes farther and gives everyone at-will powers that are useful attacks, but removes a lot of the RP specific spells, or turns them into "rituals".

I think at-will and other ideas do not fit well with my understanding of the OSG aesthetic. Wizards, in game terms, are defined almost entirely by their consumables (spells, scrolls, wands, etc.) much as Fighters and Thieves are defined by their innate abilities. (Though to be honest, I rather like the idea of rituals.)

I've considered giving Magic Users an "Arcane Insight" ability that is a very light version of Detect Magic. If an MU spends 1 turn examining an item or willing subject, performing certain minor rituals (similar to spell preparation rituals or using magic items - just things MUs know how to do, not "spells" per se) and then succeeding in a Save (+2 for magic being involved), the MU can evaluate the magic of the object. In addition, if the object is cursed, the curse only attaches if the MU failed his Arcane Insight save. Using Arcane Insight requires touching the subject.

Seems like a lot of rules, but I think in essence it should be simple enough and someone more talented as rule statement could probably explain it better.

Here's how I see it being used:

Fighter: There's a door ahead. I don't see a lock, but I can't force it open
MU: Here, let me take a look. (1 turn and a lot of gesturing later). Yep, it's magically locked. Luckily, I have a scroll that we can use....

and later...

Fighter: Hey, that's a fancy sword.
MU: Wait, don't touch it yet!
Fighter: You think it might be cursed?
MU: Could be. Guard the perimeter while I examine it. (1 turn and lots of unhappy mumbling later) Well, I'm not sure what other powers this sword has, but it's definitely cursed. I think we need to seek a Cleric....

First Swords and Wizardry Game

I got to play some S&W last night. My daughter was on a sleepover, so only my wife and son played. They rolled up two characters each, both opting for the "hard core" roll 6 sets of stats in order, then make a character from them approach. If the character had fewer 13+ stats than it did 9- stats, we discarded it and started again. With two characters each, the prospect of dying was less frightening. Both players wound up with a fighter and a caster (MU and Cleric), and all had primary stats of 13+, though in a few cases the stat was 13.) I also took a cue from Pathfinder and gave them full hit points for their class. 

I was struck how "lame" the characters seemed compared to 4e or Pathfinder characters, who routinely have 17+ scores starting off. But S&W is an old-school D&D, and the idea is that players are not heroes when they start off, they have to earn that title. By coincidence, nobody has a Charisma higher than 11 or so, and most characters have at least one stat that is lower than average. Only one of the fighters has high physical stats, and the Wizard actually has a Wisdom as high as his Intelligence. None of the characters had the stats to qualify for Ranger or other more advanced classes.

None the less, they formed an effective party. the two fighters fought bravely, dishing out more than they took, the wizard was the only one who brought the fancy stuff like mapping paper, oil flasks, etc. (It helped that he was the one with the most money....) The cleric is clumsy, and even with his ring mail didn't have much of an AC. Curiously, in S&W, Clerics do not cast spells until 2nd level, though they only take 1,250xp to level up the first time. I found I liked these "average joe" heroes. Sure, each had a stat or two above average, but nobody was near the top of their range. They'll earn the right to call themselves heroes soon enough I suspect

We played the dungeon of Akban adventure. For motive, I had a local town put out a call for adventures to investigate a newly discovered staircase, believed to be the lair of some goblin bandits that had started to cause trouble in the region. The local cleric gave them two healing potions to assist them, and the mayor told them they were free to keep any loot they found, so long as they brought back evidence that they had found and removed the goblin threat.

Some well rolled Undead Turning and a timely sleep spell allowed the players to get through most of the dungeon in a little over 4 hours. (I kept very careful track of time, had one of the players draw a map, and only told them about stuff within 30 feet, the limit of their lantern.)


Even still, the two fighters almost got killed, with one needing to use a healing potion, as he had been reduced to 1hp. They made some good and bad choices, and both they and I got used to the flow of this sort of game. (We all play Pathfinder, and the various cantrips make certain things like light sources less relevant.)

I had originally thought to use some house rules, like allowing wizards to detect magic as a full-turn action, etc, but honestly things seem to be going well without such measures. I may still do 4e's "three strikes" rule for death though, unless an opponent finishes them off while they're down.

It seems our Pathfinder game is losing steam, and with two of the three players on board with S&W, I'm hoping we can switch rules for the next campaign. Honestly, none of them really understands Pathfinder. S&W is so simple, yet familiar (since it's still D&D), that I think I'll have less trouble running the game since I won't spend as much time helping the players run their own characters.


They got the goblins and discovered that there was more going on down there than just some unruly humanoids. But after 4 hours of exploring and fighting, they were in need of rest, and had treasure to redeem. The party returned to the surface to head back into town to recuperate and sell their non-coin loot. Gold pieces become XP in S&W, so after they sold whatever loot they wanted, we found the final GP total, and divided it out. More than half of their XP came from their treasure, which was novel from a Pathfinder perspective. On the other hand, they got no experience from braving various dangers, though the adventure was pretty good about placing gold in places with traps.

They decided to rest up for a week to get their hp back up to full and prepare for their next trip into the cave. I'm using the "100gp per level per month" AD&D costs, so I charged them 25gp to cover the expenses of living, partying, getting their weapons and armor repaired, etc. Even after that, they now have around 100gp each to spend. I suspect at least a few of them are going to grab some better armor. I think I'll just let them buy it rather than try to enforce some kind of "this town is too small to sell chain" type ruling.
I know my wife was enthusiastic about S&W. I'm not as sure about my son, who, as one might expect given his age, is a bit more detail oriented.

Plus I have to admit I get a (possibly perverse) pleasure out of playing S&W, with its simplified AD&D feel. With no gods, feats, skills, etc. the game feels more wide-open. Yeah, I know I can use Pathfinder or any other RPG this way, but I'm lazy, and if you give me structure, I'll use it. I look forward to some unbelievable (or maybe barely plausible) dungeon lay outs, cunning but untrustworthy goblinoids, strange oozes and molds, golden idols, lizard folk performing strange rites, lost temples,dangerous wildlife, and small keeps on the borderlands.

Vancian Magic and some Old School D&D

I'm a fan of "Vancian" casting. In my rationalization for it, the wizard creates magical "constructs" that exist only in a metamagical plane. The wizard carries these around with him and essentially throws them at the enemy like a grenade. If the wizard has a focus object, that object tethers the constructs. The casting ritual is the way to bring these constructs forth from the void and into reality. Metamagic Feats (as in 3e) involve the caster deriving new "designs" for these constructs, scrolls bind the constructs to paper with special inks, etc. Cantrips are spells so simple to construct that you can make them and release them in almost a single gesture (or word). Spell limits represent the wizard's ability to "multitask" and keep track of these constructs. When you sleep, your spells can "wander off", so it's best to dismantle them. If you go unconscious, you can probably keep your spells; I have the wizard make concentration checks for each spell left.

Sorcerers in this model can perceive the metamagic realm, and therefore can make whatever constructs they understand. There is still a limit on their stamina, though I'm coming around to the idea that it's more of a personally set limit, and the sorcerer realizes that to push beyond that limit most likely means losing control.

That's all fine and dandy for 3e or Pathfinder, but what about Old School D&D versions, like AD&D or my current brainworm, Swords and Wizardry?

S&W is a relatively faithful clone of the Original D&D (OD&D), which I never played. I started with Basic and then Advanced, which were a bit more detailed. S&W, like many old school games, doesn't really lay out a lot of rules. For example, though it says a Wizard can prepare X spells "per day", it does not define how long it takes to prepare them, how long you need to rest, or what happens if you go unconscious. Given the brutality of old school games, I have little doubt that an unconscious wizard should lose their spells, but that's a DM's judgement call.

So, since it's the DM's call, here are some ideas I'm thinking about for spell preparation in S&W:

First, it takes (Spell Level) divided by (Caster Level) hours to prepare each spell, plus one turn to set up/take down your preparation materials.

Second, each hour of rest will reset one spell level of slots. One hour resets your 1st level slots, 2 hours resets 1st and 2nd level, etc.

In other words, a 1st level wizard can re-prepare his spell after a 1 hour lunch, but it will take him an extra hour to do so. A second level wizard still only takes 1 hour to reset his 1st level slots, and can prepare twice as many spells per hour.

The upshot of this is that low level wizards can often have two "15 minute work days", and high level wizards may not bother preparing low level spells, since if the need arises, they can prepare such spells in a turn or two. A smart high level wizard will leave a slot or two empty so if, for example, the party really needs that Knock spell, he can spend some time preparing it.

Of course if the wizard is high level enough, he will prepare scrolls for these contingencies.

Player Character Cost of Living

All RPGs have ways of separating players from their hard-looted (or maybe even earned) money. Of course, there are equipment expenses, which make up the majority of expenses. Then, sometimes, players need to hire specialists (sages, transportation) or bribe someone in a position of power.

But everyone needs to eat and sleep. In most games I've been in, the GM will charge for a room and meal at the inn, but since the characters rarely spend more than a few days in any one town, and nobody ever seems to buy more clothing :), the idea of a monthly cost of living usually doesn't come into play.

However, many games have rules for such expenses.

In Traveller, it's your Social Standing stat times 100Cr per month, and if you don't spend it routinely, your Social Standing suffers. Players with ships generally also have a ship payment and maintenance costs, but that is offset by their ability to earn money with their ship in many cases.

AD&D (1st ed) had a cost of 100gp per level per month, to be charged automatically by the DM. The stated goal of this rule is to make sure players burn through money, just like the Traveller rule.

Pathfinder has expenses too, but they're not by level, they're by how "high" you want to live. In practice, it means 100gp per month to "live large" - much less expensive than OD&D. Perhaps this rule has changed because of the split between gp and xp, and expected character wealth? I'm not sure, but it certainly is a shift in the way the game works.

In D&D 4e, I couldn't find any equivalent rules, but I'll admit I'm not as familiar with the rules layout and may simply have missed it. I guess it fits the more adventure-centric focus of 4e, though it's possible they just moved those rules to a "Dungeon Mastery" expansion. <shrug>

Games like Mekton, BESM and other light systems don't concern themselves too much with bean counting, preferring to abstract those ideas into the character's background.

So, any thoughts? Traveller and OD&D charge you a lot to cover the various expenses of your Social Standing or Level's equipment and entertainment requirements. Is it even reasonable to port that sort of thing into Pathfinder, or will it skew the "wealth by level" mechanism too much?

UPDATE:
I found my D&D 3.5 books, and found that their is a variant rule for cost of living (instead of bean-counting), but it's the same rule Pathfinder adopted - a fixed price for how large you want to live, with 100gp being "pretty large" and 200gp being "like a king". This is still well short of AD&D's "100gp per level" though.

What sort of player are you?

From this quiz,

You Scored as Character Player The Character Player enjoys creating in-depth characters with distinct and rich personalities. He identifies closely with his characters, feeling detached from the game if he doesn't. He takes creative pride in exploring different characters, often making each new one radically different than others he's played. The Character Player bases his decisions on his character's psychology first and foremost. He may view rules as a necessary evil at best, preferring sessions in which the dice never come out of their bags. For the Character Player, the greatest reward comes from experiencing the game from the emotional perspective of an interesting character. Character Player 70% Weekend Warrior 70% Storyteller 60% Casual Gamer 60% Specialist 50% Tactician 45% Power Gamer 25%

It came down to a tie-breaker question in the end. I have to say it seems accurate enough, though my Weekend Warrior desires to just kill some stuff do temper my Character Player tendencies.

My Top RPGs from 2012

Taking up a meme from Bravo Zulu, I'm listing my top played (and even just fooled around with) RPGs of 2012.

1. Dungeons and Dragons, 4th EditionThis is the game system we use in the in-office RPG group, and it's probably the game I play the most. While I'm not entirely enamored with the 4e system, it definitely works, and the "at-will/encounter/daily" system is easy enough to handle. The on-line character builder, though not free, is quite simple to use, and you certainly can't claim Wizards doesn't support their players. I'm on the D&DNext playtest list, and what I see is intriguing. It will be interesting to see how that develops, and if it will cause me to abandon both 4e and Pathfinder. Maybe.
2. PathfinderI use Pathfinder in my home campaign, and it's the game I probably spend the most time being involved with. Though I was never a huge fan of D&D 3e, which seemed too much like a game for professional roleplayers and not a game for just having some adventures, Pathfinder feels good to me. I realize my acceptance of Pathfinder was probably made easier by the fact that I'd been playing 4e for a while when I got it. That's an easier transition than from AD&D 2e to D&D 3e. I do have to admit though, I'm still drawn to more old-school D&Ds, like Swords and Wizardry. Maybe I'll give that game a proper shake in the future.
3. Classic TravellerI actually had the good fortune to be able to run a CT game with some friends - that's the "Death Station entries I've made here. CT holds a special place in my heart, since (alongside AD&D 1e), that's what I grew up playing. The game is brutally minimalistic in some ways (combat sequence), and equally hyper-detailed in others (weapon and armor data), but with a little preparation work (which would be helped by a decent character sheet design - hmm, a topic for another entry...) and a group willing to abandon or handwave through the more precise grid-based combat systems of D&D, you can have a fast-paced adventure that matches up pretty well with harder SciFi movies for tone.
4. Mongoose Traveller
   The first of the "RPGs I didn't play, but still spent a non-trivial amount of time playing with" in this list, MgT is very much like CT on the surface, and has the advantage of having a huge library of stuff to buy for it and easy conversions for the older material. Some of the new stuff is awesome, some not so much, but Mongoose has done a respectable job trying to make a Traveller experience for today's gamers that mirrors what we had back in the day. Not all improvements are for the better IMHO, specifically the "Level 0" skill concept. This idea looks great on paper, and matches well with how people view skills these days ("your skill list is your playbook"), but Traveller has classically been more of a "skills are what you put on your resume, but you can try anything" system. That's what the Education stat was for. But I digress.
5. Mekton II and to a lesser extent, Mekton Zeta
   I love mecha anime. I used to be a inveterate BattleTech player, and though I flirted with Heavy Gear back when it first came out, I hadn't found an RPG/Combat system that felt right to me until I recently discovered Mekton II. (I bought Zeta a few years ago, but I suppose it was a "D&D 3e" thing - it just didn't capture my attention at the time.) I watch Robotech (and Starblazers) with the kids, and when they're a little older, we'll pick up some less "America Friendly" series. Mekton is almost a direct fit for Robotech or Gundam gaming, and the Interlok game system looks like a strange fusion between D20 (with its flat probability curves) and Traveller (with its skill focus, random character "life path" and more crunchy rules), though of course it predates D20, so I don't mean that comparison literally. Mekton brings in a lot of Anime tropes. My son and I worked up many of the Robotech characters (including MinMei) with very little trouble. With the right group, this game would be a blast. I'm not sure I have the right group though.
6. Traveller D20 (T20)
   Having said all that, D20 has to my mind a better "skills" system than MgT, and T20 has done some clever things adapting D20 to a harder SciFi setting. My at-home crew is more accepting of a game that has very strong ties to the game they're already familiar with (Pathfinder), and given that I have more recent experience GM-ing D20 games, I suspect that T20 is going to get a lot more play.

A few more randomly generated Traveller characters

These are Classic Traveller characters. Again, sorry for the inconsistent write-up style. I don't have a good system for doing this yet, so it's more or less catch-as-catch-can.

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Army Major Eli Khabr  778B86  Age 30 
Skills: SMG-2, Tactics-2, ATV-1, Rifle-1, Mechanical-1, Blade Cbt-1
Possessions: High Passage, SMG
Finances: 12,000 CrImp

Eli was very bright but poor farmer from a Low Tech Agricultural world who dreamed of finding a way to "the capital" to learn about technology and machinery.  He applied to the Army, as it was known locally that a career in the Army was a good way to learn a lot of good skills.

His first term, his obvious intelligence and enthusiasm gained him a commission and a minor field command, where he learned a lot about fighting.  He also found himself assigned to a mechanized brigade, where he learned basic vehicle maintenance.
[Term 1: Lieutenant, Rifle-1, SMG-1, Blade Cbt-1, Tactics-1, Mechanical-1]

In his second term, he was promoted to captain and put in command of one of his brigade's recon platoons. His officer training gave him additional education in subjects his farm-hand upbringing had neglected as he learned the ins and outs of AFV operation in the field.
[Term 2: Captain, ATV-1, Edu+1]

His third term saw him promoted to Major, where he learned more tactics and, due to some border disputes, gained additional skill with his SMG.
[Term 3: Major, Tactics, Gun Cbt(SMG)]

Eli's superiors were shocked when, at what looked like the height of his career, he decided not to re-enlist. What they did not know is that Eli had been forced to cross a line during his last assignment, and he could no longer serve his government as a soldier in good conscience. Disillusioned and unsure what his future had in store for a man with his talents, Eli took to the stars, hoping to find a new life on any planet but his homeworld.

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Army Lieutenant, Merchant 3rd Officer Rezik Farjani A69AB6 Age 26
Skills: SMG-2, Mechanical-2, Rifle-1, Leader-1, Computer-1, Admin-1, Streetwise-1, Vacc Suit-1
Possessions: Gun (SMG)
Finances: 50,000 Cr

Rezik was a strong, clever and well educated kid from a backwater world out on the frontier.  Seeing no future in his local scene, he joined the Army, a move that proved to be very beneficial to him.  His superiors quickly noticed his abilities, granting him both a commission and a promotion in his first term of duty.  While his personal interest was in weapons qualifications, his post taught him much about leadership and computer operations.

However, his brilliant career was cut short after only one term by a classic Army SNAFU, and he wound up joining a Tukera Lines merchant ship's crew as an officer. As a 3rd Officer, Rezik learned much about Admin and Streetwise, as well as how to operate a vacc suit. But the life of a Merchant was not for him, and at the age of 26, he set out into the stars to seek his fortune, where ever that may be.

[Rezig has a Psy potential of 7 at this point, and would probably benefit from seeking some training]