Complications to the Plan

It is May 2, and snowing in Missouri. Like, steadily with big flakes and accumulation. How about that.

Photo by Kristy Shields

So here is a chart for complicating the plan! If you are running the game, and your players find that everything is smooth just as they planned it, then you are really missing out on making your game more realistic…

1. The weather is not helping. Could cause problems.
2. An unexpected relationship comes to light.
3. A mutual enemy arrives.
4. Turns out your enemy is the other party’s friend.
5. You have to take someone with you.
6. Recent problems have tightened security and vigilance.
7. Poorly timed fallout from a past romance hits—now.
8. A key player in someone’s plan is now unavailable.
9. Spies mistake you for someone in one of their intrigues.
10. A dangerous pet got loose!

Tournament Games!

I really enjoyed what Dyson Logos and Matt Jackson were working on for tournament games in the OSR. I was inspired then, but not enough to take the steps to pin down how I’d do it in other systems. Now that I’ve got Fictive Hack to a stable place, it’s time to revisit street festivals! Here are some games and prizes.

Tournament Games for Fictive Hack

Rethinking the Wizard Tower generator.

I really like Jack Shear‘s wizard tower generator, and I used it to make the 3 wizard towers I plan to have in Assignation. However, in using it, I think I’m going to modify it to be smoother, faster, expanded, and more user-friendly. Now all you’d need are 2d10. Here’s my rough thinking.

THE WIZARD

• Name. 2D10. Break it out for 9 male, 9 female, and 1 androgynous.
• Really into: 2d10.
• Aesthetic style: 1d10.
• Approachability: 1d10.
  • 2d10 peeves. 2d10 weaknesses (things the wizard likes.) How many of each generated by approachability, if they come into play at all.
• Literary Wizard rip-off: 2d10.
• Optional: Fictive Hack, have 5+2d10 levels. (Even if you don’t flesh the levels out, you get a sense of power and scope.)

THE LAIR

• Name of building: 2D10 for adjective, 2d10 for noun.
• Foreboding Aspect: 2d10.
• Location relative to civilization: 2d10.
• Levels: 2 default elements, and 2d5 more.
  • Per element: 3d10 for type. 1d10 25% of a level area. 2d10 features.
    • Sub-tables: Igor. Haunting. Spell mishap. Mutations. Apprentice (can show up in element, generate number and then 1 roll each for main feature).
• Primary Protection: 2d10. Subtype: 1d10.
• Secondary Protection: 2d10. Subtype: 1d10.
• Famous Treasure [1d5-3]: 2d10.
  • Defense: 1d10 per treasure.

Terror, Horror, and Madness–with no charts or dice!

I converted Jack Shear’s Terror, Horror, and Madness faithfully into Old School Hack. One of the delights of my design work is to start with conversion, then move to adaptation.

So, Old School Hack shines when it focuses on rules-lite, encouraging players to be awesome, and a permissive style. How does that look for a sanity system?

Here is my answer. Terror, Horror and Madness, sans dice and chart

In a nutshell, the design principle at work here is that sane players get their Awesome Points from the other players; they are all allies. Moments of insanity, and longer-term madness, shift allegiance to the DM as a direct source of Awesome Points! If you play to amuse the DM (even if frustrating the other players) then you still get your Awesome Points. This economic shift also discourages using madness (temporary or otherwise) to derail the game and hog the spotlight; if the DM gets tired of your antics, then NOBODY gives you Awesome Points.

What do you think?

OSH Terror, Horror, and Madness

Characters encounter things face-to-face that are viscerally, intellectually, and sensually overwhelming. It is not desirable or appropriate for the player to be faced with those things, but it is also not quite appropriate for the player to decide a character can shrug off the effects of overwhelming stimulus in the game. A middle ground to manage that distance is a system for terror, horror, and madness.

I already did a sanity style system for Tentacular Hack on page 11, here, but this is a conversion of Jack Shear’s method for D&D and the World Between.

Terror, horror, madness

 

Rapid Converstion of Monsters from 3.X D&D to OSH

3.x DnD to OSH Conversion Advice

You want to run an adventure statted for 3.x, or borrow some favorite monster for it. How do you get that over to Old School Hack? Here are some guidelines to be helpful—feel free to adjust the end product. This is to get you inspired, give you some tools, and get you started.

Armor Class. Ignore Dex bonuses and shields. Subtract 5 from the remaining total.

Wounds.Grant 1 wound per Hit Die up to 3, then +1/2 for 4 Hit Die and up. For less formidable high hit die monsters, just keep the hit die.

• 1-1, 2- 2, 3-3. 4-6, 5-8, 6-9, 7-11, 8-12, 9-14, 10-15, etc.)

Damage.Lousy fighters get no weapon type. Competent fighters get a type: light, heavy, reach, very heavy, ranged.

• For every full 5 automatic hit points of damage, assign 1 additional wound for each attack.
• Creatures with multiple limbs can get multiple weapon advantages at once; an otyugh with tentacles and a maw can get the +1 AC for a reach weapon while biting as a heavy weapon if desired, for example.

(The rest is advice on a “competency bonus” and how to handle talents and saving throws. It’s in a .pdf because formatting nested points online is… not optimal. You all would rather have me spend time designing cool toys than wrassling stupid format hassles, right?)

Maptacular Monday: OSH Rapid Random Battlefields

So you are in the middle of playing and suddenly you need a battlefield. What do you do? Well, you sketch something out, that’s fine. If you are not satisfied with the result, here is a method that might help insert some creativity in an easy-to-reference and remember system.

I game with a small dry erase board–it makes this sort of thing easier, as well as tracking the combat round and so on.

Rapid Random Battlefields

OSH: Standing Watch

Standing watch is a staple of fantasy travel. Here is basic advice for doing it in Old School Hack. Giving people six hours of sleep is generally enough, and that is two of the three watches–so people can stand one watch and still get a full night’s sleep.

To stay awake during a watch requires a Brawn or Awareness test.

• First Watch. 9 p.m. to midnight. Difficulty 6.
• Second Watch. Midnight to 3 a.m. Difficulty 10.
• Third Watch. 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. Difficulty 8.

Generally horses have an Awareness/Brawn of +2, if weary characters rely on them to wake. If you are not woken for your shift, you can test at +2 difficulty to see if you wake up on your own. And if more than one person is standing a watch, and at least one stays awake, that one can keep the others awake (or let them sleep) as desired.

So the watches cover 9 hours, leaving 15 for the day. Assuming 1 hour to break camp, one hour for lunch, and an hour to make camp, plus time for breaks, and inserting the general fuzziness to the schedule in an era without watches, that assumes 10 hours for travel in a day.

Mining the Fighting Video Games for OSH Talents!

Moves you have to power up are focus actions. Sneaking in a move action can disrupt an attack action. A defend action can reduce damage. You can throw energy bolts.

As I continue looking for sources outside Dungeons and Dragons and related genre products to expand the hilarious fun available in Old School Hack, I dip into video games about combat, looking for their commonalities.

The abilities work in normal combat or in duels, and they mix with other talents–I didn’t need to make new base templates, these can be added to other character types, greatly expanding their utility.

For the restricted talents, I’ll add those to the restricted talent lists in both my modern game and the Talents and Templates book.

Here is the flavor text:

This list of restricted and exclusive talents is a collection of abilities that trainers of the Tournament of Veils teach. These mysterious trainers take on students, who then participate in duels on their home dimensions, until they are powerful enough to also participate in inter-dimensional tournaments.

 All kinds of adventurers are chosen by these strange trainers; monks, fighters, cosmic channelers, monsters, ninja, and so on. Duelists are not given a new inherent ability; they always did something else before they did this. These abilities never count as base template talents. They can be upgraded with the improved talent system.

It’s a natural fit. Playing video games with duels, you want to see and do awesome over-the-top stuff. And look! A rules-lite system that can take the tiresome math and the sore thumbs out of it; and while you can have duels, you can also take them out of the 2d scroll or 3d platforms.

Here is the draft working document of how to do video game style duels using Old School Hack!

OSH Rhythm and Distance

A delightful alternative alignment system, and random inns.

Check this out:

http://dandy-in-the-underworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/beyond-good-and-evil-charming-and.html

I think this is a great idea. I quote:

***

I was thinking about this Oscar Wilde quote the other day:

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” *

At the risk of being tedious myself, I’d like to propose the following as an RPG thought experiment. It’s not particularly profound, but it might be amusing. Strip out the “Good” and “Evil” from the standard AD&D alignment chart and replace it with “Charming” and “Tedious” — so you end up with Lawful Charming, Chaotic Tedious, and so forth. I can’t remember the number of “fictional character alignment charts” I’ve seen, sifting everyone from different iterations of Batman to the cast of Family Guy into the classic 3×3 grid, and I’m curious to see what such a chart would look like with that substitution. Take a character from real life, comics, books, TV, etc,, and drop them in. Take a character you’re currently playing, and see where they fall on the grid. Just off the top of my head, Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks would occupy one end of the spectrum at Lawful Charming, while the late Muammar Gadaffi and, say, internet trolls typify Chaotic Tedious.

*Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)

***

Also, check out his awesome chart here!

http://dandy-in-the-underworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/whats-dazzling-urbanite-like-you-doing.html