I have a direction.

I do not believe it is necessary to defend the size of my Fictive projects. They are full of good stuff. It is not bloat, it is not splat, it is not crap. Still, I got to thinking.

I will make a version of Fictive Hack that is no more than 50 pages long; that’s 2 pages short of double the original Old School Hack game. But with a LOT more stuff in it. For example, 10 templates for normal humans, then 6 more; 4 for races, and 2 for spellcasters. The additional 6 can be used as-is or used as overlay templates on the others. From 60 templates (plus, if you count World Between and other innovations since “Talents and Templates” came out) down to 16 for the one-shot version.

I will also make a longer version of Fictive Hack with all the rest of the good stuff in it; I’m tentatively naming it “Fictive Hack, Campaign Book, Official TL:DR 2013.”

That should satisfy the one-shot itch, and also have the great resources for those who want more. So maybe I can get more of an audience among those who feel that 26 pages is the perfect length for a game and the rest bloats it up.

As part of that effort, I am working up a monster-builder to include in the one-shot book. I think it will be one of the best gifts I’ve given the Old School Hack community; so I’m clearly excited about it. More to come soon.

Maptacular Monday: Tomb of the Trog Mummies

So let’s say you’re playing Old School Hack with Fictive’s Talents and Templates. Let’s say your characters have gotten to 5th level and are feeling a bit cocky, or you want to have a more dangerous evening of play and you whip up some 5-8 level characters. Need something for them to do?

I thought you might.

Tomorrow I’ll post my converter designed to cover the basics of moving 3.x D&D critters over to Old School Hack. To test it out, I went to donjon and generated a themeless 8th level dungeon level, with the intent of converting the whole thing over.

Here is the random dungeon I got. Yehlgettit Basement 08

After pondering it some, here is the adventure for Old School Hack!

OSH Tomb of the Trog Mummies

The adventure comes with a base town, rumors, lore from research or more esoteric knowledge, and lots of potential for expansion. I randomly generated much of the background, and had a lot of fun stitching it together with plausible explanations to have a scenario with a lot of flavor. A quick way to get at the summary is on the last page, with a one-page run-down of the various groups and factions and rooms and some suggestions for play. (My favorite bit is re-skinning mohrgs a bit to be trog mummies…)

The monsters listed can also be used individually or in smaller numbers against lower-level characters, so even if you don’ t want to watch your party get demolished by extraordinary dangers, you can still get some good use from the scenario.

If you run it (or even if you don’t) I’m interested in what you think of the scenario!

The Squirrel Gangs of Baffram

Timothy the Tulip, gladiator and dragon hunter, spent over a month in Baffram as he was looking for the next step to take him closer to his goal of robbing a dragon. What was he up to in the colorful port city of Baffram?

He befriended Captain Quellister, commander of the Knucklefists–dedicated guards who have primordial apes for mounts. The guards work the rooftops, so they must be slight and dextrous. They have special saddles to go on the quasi-intelligent apes, because the apes can scramble around up walls and over rooftops with ease, even with a light passenger.

Tulip recreationally wrestled with the apes, and got in climbing contests with them, earning him a rep with the Knucklefists, as well as room and board as their ally.

Their primary enemies are the Gustocarne Gangs; packs of vicious youth riding 200 pound squirrels. Some of the squirrels even have patagia, or long legs, or other modifications to make them even more terrifying.

Long ago, Fokkrin the Elder was a wizard who cultivated the Waters of Life. He was trying to develop a potion of longevity, possibly leading to immortality. However, not wanting to experiment on humans, he left the Waters out on the roof. Birds and squirrels drank from them, and became more vital and lively–then bigger and stranger. Eventually, meaner.

The city guard shot the birds down easily enough, but have never been able to get rid of the squirrels. When the urchin gangs adopted the squirrels as mounts, the two protected and advanced the causes of the other, and now the carnivorous squirrels seem to be a permanent feature in city life.

Over the course of his service, Tulip earned a handsome squirrel-skin drape from a big squirrel he killed himself. The clasp is its buck-teeth; it provides light armor and protection from cold weather.

OSH monster: Fungaloids!

Here is an adaptation of an old fan favorite, myconids!

OSH Fungaloids

In the background, I’m pulling together ideas for a mini-campaign designed to take characters from level 1 to level 4 in a multi-site adventuresome environment centered around some difficulty with fungaloids, so stay tuned for that (but don’t hold your breath, as it is not top priority.)

Fungaloids are part of my geomorph stocking project. It seems likely more monsters will be appearing here as I continue work on that project.

Converting Modules to Old School Hack

Today we will talk about converting all your old modules to Old School Hack! It’s easy once you get started. Here is my suggested guidance.

Step One. The “Wow” Button.

West End Games’ version of the Star Wars RPG talks about the “wow” button. Remember when the star destroyer was flying overhead? When the Millennium Falcon flew at the closing jaws of the space slug? When Vader appeared in the carbon freezing chamber on Bespin? Those punch the “wow” button.

So comb through the scenario and find a handful of “wow” moments to build the game around. Revelations, gorgeous scenery, epic clashes, and so on. These are things you want your players to talk about years later–images that will stay with them.

Don’t hit it so often it becomes the new baseline. But if you have no “wow” button moments in the scenario, you don’t have something worth adapting.

Step Two. Cinematic Backdrops.

As you work on the “movie trailer” for your adventure, what parts would make the cut? Cool battles over a dizzying drop on a slick bridge in front of a waterfall! Flanked by displacer beasts on rough stone at dusk! Combat at the foot of a giant standing stone, or better yet, giant statue! A horde of minions rushing through shattered ruins at a determined last stand!

These aren’t as big as the “wow” button moments, but they are far more plentiful. You should have at least one per scene; a moment where the director of cinematography gets nominated for an award.

Most of your adventure should have cinematic backdrops. Either go back and add them, or drop the boring parts.

If your adventure takes place in a dungeon of worked stone and 10′ by 10′ stone hallways, that’s dull. Make the mortar luminescent, stamp each stone with a sigil noting one of the carver’s ancestors, make the stones translucent, or the teeth of giants–something.

If it’s a 10′ x 10′ x 10′ room with an orc guarding a chest, then the orc might have horns and a tail and a double-bitted axe, and the chest could be a nut bound shut with iron, and the room could be luminescent with the orc-monster’s condensed breath–yeah, the orc thing breathes luminescent smoke.

Go big or go home.

Step Three: Cool (but focused) Foes.

Look at your monsters. Pick 1-3 things about each that make them cool. Attach a talent, or make up a game effect to cover it. If it is magical or unusual, give it an Awesome Point cost–the DM must feed the bowl that many Awesome Points to activate the monster’s ability.

You do not have to attach numbers to cosmetic changes. The orc in the previous example might have the normal properties of an orc, but look different and be played differently. The numbers don’t define your foes, they just try to keep up.

Don’t try to convert everything about your monsters. Just pick out what makes them cool and focus on that; you can add other stuff during the fight if you want to, after all.

Here are some sample monsters. OSH Monsters

Step Four: The Plot is a Safety Net.

Plan two things in the adventure: what the bad guys want and how they’re going after it, and some points where that plan could be in serious trouble if the characters mess with it.

Your plot is not something that you put together that the group must follow. Instead, prepare the bad guy effort (or the site and its defenses, or the journey and its hazards, etc.) and let those things react normally when the characters challenge them.

When the players do something unexpected, pull at your prep to wrap adventure around their course of action. Do not try to pull their course of action over to wrap around your plot. In that tug of war, you shouldn’t win. Not in this game.

If they don’t want to get involved in what you planned, see what elements they could tangle with independently. Improvise an adventure around that. Maybe in the next adventure, the bad guys from last time got what they were after, and now are tougher challenges for the characters to face. Or maybe they just go away.

Step Five: Give Your Players Entertainment.

If it is a mystery, liberally sprinkle clues. If it is a battle, make sure they’ve got meaningful tactical choices and weapons and support (if needed.) Still, in spite of all that preparation, sometimes your plot blows up.

As part of your safety net, consider; if things go desperately wrong, some characters die, or get hopelessly lost, what are you going to do to make sure the players still have every chance to have fun? If your plot blows up, that shouldn’t spoil their evening! (Even if they blew it up.)

Maybe that means preparing contingencies around your main plot. Or maybe that means having other plots bits on hand you can drop in and elaborate on that have little or nothing to do with the main plot.

This is enlightened self interest. If they are not having a good time, you will not be enjoying yourself nearly as much as if you are the gateway to a game that has lots of awesome moments and delighted players. That’s at the heart of Old School Hack; if you don’t like that philosophy, play a different game.

Closing Thought.

Each game has its strengths and weaknesses. Imagine the OSR games are like journal entries, 3E is like a novel, 4E is like a video game–Old School Hack is like a gonzo summer blockbuster movie.

Your special effects budget is limited by your imagination and description. What happens at the table is your Director’s Cut. Like any director, you want to coax the best performance from your ensemble of actors. They will give their best if they feel like they are part of what’s going on, they care about the outcome, and they think they have awesome characters.

OSH Bestiary 1

I like the basic structure of the Old School Hack monster arrangement. Still, it doesn’t give the new (or experienced) DM a whole lot to work with, or the players much idea what to expect.

Here is a three page bestiary. It was fueled by whim, including various famous monsters. It is not final, but it gives me personally a base to draw from as I consider improvising battles for my player characters.

Old School Hack Monsters 1

Beardleeches

These monsters are simple and horrible. Necrodwarves create them by feeding regular leeches on the undead remains they have animated. After a few generations, the “beardleeches” are ready for service.

A beardleech can drain 1 hit point a minute from a living, sentient target—anything that would serve as a sacrifice for the necrodwarf. The beardleech can hold up to 4 hit points, growing from something the size of a pinky finger to something the size of a banana.

A necrodwarf can devour a beardleech in 1 round. (The details of how this looks, sounds, smells, etc.—that’s up to the DM…) The necrodwarf gains 1 hit point per hit point stored in the beardleech.

Beardleeches are so named because some necrodwarves will hang them from armor behind the protection of the beard, out of sight and ready for quick consumption.

Even necrodwarves have limits to what they can bear. A necrodwarf can only consume 1 beardleech per hit die/level in a day.

Trying to eat a beardleech does not help a character or monster who has not been printed with runic necromancy.

What, you'd rather have pictures of leeches? Sicko.

Fund of Secrets

"Its soul...I flavor it! I flavor it!"

Legend speaks of large ravens that hate all life. They disdain the world, and their nests are between the stars—they never sleep when they are in this dimension.

They look like regular large ravens, with an 18 inch body and a 4 foot wingspan.

·        Upon closer inspection, their eyes are pure white, yellowing around the edges, the precise shade of aging bone.

·        Their iridescent black wings are finely printed with blasphemous runic patterns in the shimmer of darkness, resembling more advanced runes in the same family as runic necromancy.

·        Their beaks and talons resemble bone, and what at first appear to be scratches seem to form patterns; maps between stars? The etchings on the Gates of the Dead? Spells in a dead language? No one knows.

Collectively, these ravens are called the Fund of Secrets. Individually, each is a deposit. The only living things they choose to consort with are the necromantic dwarves bound through sorcery and blood to the Empty Rune, which is possibly a depiction of their home.

Deposits have a number of special traits.

·        AC: 6. HD: 2 hit points. Move: 9’ (3’), fly, 150’ (40’). 1 attack for 0-1 hit point. Save as Halfling 1. Morale 10. Treasure: Nil. Alignment: Chaotic.

·        Clever. They have the equivalent of a 10 Intelligence.

·        Whispering. They can whisper a croaking corruption of dwarven, heavily accented but understandable to those who speak dwarven.

·        Whisper to the Dead. They are able to speak to the recently dead as though they had the lesser rune “Question the Dead.”

·        Whisper Hideous Secrets. If a sentient foe is hovering between life and death, deposits take great pleasure in whispering to them so only they can hear. After 1d4 rounds, the victim contorts, horror and madness twisting its features, and dies painfully with broken sanity as something looms up in death and claims the victim. The deposit then perches on the corpse, very self-satisfied, and plucks out the corpse’s eyes as though they had some unique and pleasing flavor. (These corpses cannot be resurrected, but can be used as undead.)

When a necrodwarf is undertaking a task important to the God of Death, often a deposit will arrive to assist. Also, a deposit is a sign of favor from the God of Death, adding prestige among the necrodwarves. If a lucky necrodwarf gains a deposit as a long-term ally, that deposit counts as 1 hit die undead against the necrodwarf’s undead retainer total (even though it is not itself undead.)

More than just a symbol, the deposit is helpful. It is eager to assist in the corrupting of the world, and to that end it will eavesdrop, whisper unhelpful secrets in the dark to those desperate to hear them, question corpses, carry messages, intimidate the weak-minded, and anything else that the deposit and the necrodwarf can agree will be useful.