Ladyhawke’s Conclusion, and the Combat Round in OSH

DM: So it looks like she broke the evil cleric’s curse.

Rutger: Awesome. ::gives Michelle an Awesome Point:: I’m gonna pray with my sword.

Michelle: That’s cool. Hey honey, let’s blow this joint.

DM: Oh no! The bishop rises up with his staff–it has a blade, it’s a reach weapon! You are in a combat round! He’s gonna stab Isabeau in the back!

Rutger: Okay, I”m going with defend.

Michelle: Uh, if you do that, and if I know my bad guy playbook, he’s gonna rabbit. And we’ll have to go after him.

Rutger: Good point. But I don’t want to be in the same round and risk losing initiative. I mean, you’re a freakin minion, you’ve got one wound. This could be all over.

Michelle: I’m going to move–then I’ll go before he does and be out of harm’s way.

DM: ::feeds the Bowl a handful of Awesome Points:: You don’t realize the bishop is targeting you!

Michelle: Well at least give me an Awareness test.

DM: Roll it. Difficulty 10.

Michelle: ::rolls:: Wow. A 1.

Rutger: Good quick thinking, asking for a roll. ::gives Awesome Point::

Michelle: Yeah, that’s not gonna do it…

Rutger: You know what, don’t worry about it. I’m gonna throw my heavy weapon at him. At the bishop. Right in his stupid face. He’s not a character, right? I mean, he’s a desk jockey. Probably no more than 2 Wounds.

DM: Huh. That will take an Awesome Point, since it’s not a range weapon but he’s in the same arena.

Rutger: ::hands an Awesome Point over:: Okay, so since range goes before combat, let’s do this thing. ::rolls to hit:: Yeah. That’s 14. That should pin his un-armored ass to something.

DM: The altar, actually.

Rutger: Cool. Suck it, evil bishop. Hey baby. Let’s roll.

Old School Hack Hacked Into Fictive Hack: the Simple Book!

I am taking this:

And I am hacking it into this:

fictive hack of osh 8.12

Let us celebrate a year since I first discovered Old School Hack! My first post referring to Old School Hack was on August 12, 2011. The following week, I got started with working to support the game, and as my experience and design evolved, eventually hacking out a whole new version of it.

This is not the Basic Player’s Book that’s drafted that I’m working on–no, this one is 27 pages, one longer than the original. If you want to play something very like Old School Hack but developed in a different direction, this game may be what you’re after. If you find my work interesting, but also TL:DR, check this out.

Similarities:

• Most of the rules are in one page increments.
• The same 7 templates are here.
• Still have an awesome point economy, arenas, attribute checks, fast and loose improvisational style, and sharing of talents.
• The game is a hell of a lot of fun.

Differences:

• Armor class is a mix of damage reduction and difficulty to hit.
• Players can make characters with one OR two templates to start; you can do race-as-class OR race-and-class at the same table! Also combine multiple templates for humans, for wizard-thief, fighter-cleric, etc.
• Different way of explaining the Awesome Point economy.
• Downgraded meta-plot player control through Awesome Points.
• Consolidation and simplification of some sub-systems in the combat round, like how to manage pushing/throwing, what attributes to use for different actions, etc.
• There are three classifications of talents: open, restricted, and exclusive. All talents are not shared equally.
• No explicit niche protection.
• Talents can be upgraded and improved.
• Any character can buy more Wounds.
• System included for learning musical instruments and languages.
• Tightened up gear load-out at generation; less gear on templates.
• Differentiation between thrown-only ranged weapons, and thrown-or-light weapons, and encumbrance consequence.
• A little more encumbrance detail.
• All 7 templates have been completely redone.
• No level titles or limits. In fact, you can level up to the teens easily.
• No more d12; everything is d10.
• For monsters, added a “swarm” category and changed the name of “guards” to “toughs” as well as rules for spreading damage among weak foes.
• Some less whimsical guidance for magic objects.
• Shift in design style: bigger darker text, fewer fonts, portrait orientation, no pictures.
• Shift in tone: still based on “awesome” but less breezy and informal.
• Addition of “Medium” armor classification.
• Lots more.

Differences between this Fictive Hack and the Fictive Hack Basic Player’s Book (not yet done):

• This simpler version does not allow transitioning from one base template to another.
• Black powder is left out altogether; no cannons, gun, or bombs.
• Only 7 templates.
• Nothing on mounts, beasts of burden, or vehicles.
• Vastly simplified magic object guidance.
• No poisons or diseases.
• No canticles or pantheon.
• No grimores, scrolls, or potions.
• No familiars or witches.
• No curses or fortunetelling.
• No crippling.
• Very basic ranged weaponry; no accounting for longbows, heavy crossbows, etc.
• Lots more.

So, for a very simple version, this will do! I’ll keep working on the deeper, wider, more embroidered version for those who are interested, and for those who want rules-lite bare-bones–I give you this book.

Adventure Generator by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE

Here is a great adventure generator by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE, who hangs out on the OSH forum and swings by my blog from time to time. He needed a place to hang it up, and I put it with the resources on the Old School Hack page because it is a great resource. Grab your d12 and generate as much plot as you need!

Random Adventure Generator

Here’s an example generated by 10d12.

A princess approaches the party to transport the deed to a very important property from her fortress to the mansion of a local hero who works for a duke whose support is crucial for the king. She knows a band of mercenaries bars the way, trying to keep the transfer of title from occurring. She believes they were hired by a local cult that has designs on that property.

She sends a representative with them. What she doesn’t know is that her representative works for a crime lord, and his instructions are to kill the party (if necessary) and steal the document (he has an ambush set up with confederates to help, and a supply of poison; he’ll cook!). The crime lord has similar agents planted among the mercenaries. Turns out the crime lord has deeper pockets than the temple, and better intel. The mercenaries and the party may be well served fighting their way out of the trap together.

The property deed is for territory currently held by squatting bandits. It has a secret diamond mine on it that’s part of the political maneuvering of the kingdom. Whoever holds the deed will be able to be fabulously rich; the crime lord, the temple, or the duke that supports the king. The characters may choose to support one of these factions, and that could make a huge difference; whoever they support, they must be very careful about it, or their patrons may arrange for their disappearance. No way they walk out without any enemies. And if they try to keep it? Well, all 3 factions are furious with them and will act.

They probably won’t find out about the diamond mine; the princess knows, and the duke, and the crime lord, but not the cult. Nobody tells their agents such a juicy fact…

You combine this with a random name generator and the random battlefield generator for when it hits the fan, maybe build the local cult using the church builder in the Portable Pantheon, (or a church from here),  and you’re set.

If you have time and interest, you can make the characters involved (crime lord, an agent or two, leader of the cultists) all 1d5 levels each (maybe +2 for the local hero, if you bother to stat him up–he could be cavalry, maybe.)  Randomize their classes and talents from Fictive’s Talents and Templates.  The rest is minions and guards.

For extra pizazz, you could generate the town with the princesses fortress, and the town they’re headed to, using this. You can also generate a legendary monster that could show up to help or harm their efforts, a random encounter in the dangerous terrain they’ll be crossing.

What kind of terrain? Well, you could always go here. You can even get hex descriptions.

Weaving random results together into a cohesive adventure is pure fun for me. I imagine the process appeals to Old School Hack fans too. Using these tools means you can make up an adventure you wouldn’t have come up with on your own, but it’s still super-fast and delightful. This kind of adventure planning nails the “sweet spot” I’m aiming for: 10 minutes of prep per hour of game. Want a 3 hour game? Spend 30 minutes with these tools and you’re ready.

Thanks to OFTHEHILLPEOPLE for adding another tool to the toolbox.

Compare and Contrast with Old School Hack

Here are some comparisons to help see what changes I made in the move between Old School Hack and Fictive Hack.

• Advancement is expected to get to the teens before you need more than the basic game.
  • You can improve your talents, so if you get all 5 of your base talents and improve on average each one once, that’s 10 slots available for talents from other templates; 20th level before you hit a talent max.
    • Of course, you don’t want every upgrade on every talent, so that’s where we’re likely to need the Campaign book for really successful long-running games.
  • You can spend Attribute points on lots of stuff instead of Attributes, so that won’t prove to be a ceiling.
  • Let’s say you hit that ceiling. You can spend a level’s worth of advancement on buying a new health level. So, that’s about level 28 before you run out of room to advance; if you get talents with lots of expansion potential, higher.
  • Conclusion: Basic is all you need. The Campaign book just adds more fun. Much like Basic D&D and Advanced D&D, instead of Basic and Expert D&D.

• No more d12. Why not? I’m thinking of someone new to gaming sitting down at the table, and getting confused about which die to roll. (It happened in a couple of our sessions.) The game is simpler with just 1 kind of die, and I don’t think the loss of diversity outweighs the convenience.
• Armor reduces damage. I also added “Medium” armor.
• There are three kinds of talents; open, restricted, and exclusive. All talents are not created equal.
• Toned down player narrative control. Instead of spending Awesome Points to generate items and NPCs as a protected player power, now the player has to negotiate with the DM. It can still be done, but only through the DM, instead of around the DM.
• Revamped base templates. The original 7 are represented in the 15 templates in Fictive Hack, but they’ve all been heavily adapted to fit my play style better.
• Expanded range of templates. An additional 8 templates increase the options players have, without being too overwhelming in the basic game.
• Firearms. Blackpowder guns are available. And explosives!
• Some flexibility in combat has shifted around. For example, characters can spend 2 Awesome Points to strike fleeing foes, and 1 Awesome Point to change their action in the round. However, I toned down some of the more ambiguous stuff in the talents, like Exploit Weakness and the elf’s nancy “cool move” talent. I got rid of “Throw” as it was “Push” against a single target, and also opened up several combat moves to use more attributes and let the player choose which one to use. This simplifies it; “I use my [favorite attribute that applies] for impeding and pushing.”
• The original is landscape instead of portrait, with teensy tiny type (I’m guessing 6 point in some places.) And on top of that, sometimes it’s gray, so it is even harder to read. Mine is 11 point except in some tables where it drops to 10.
• System for intimidation. Because it comes up all the time.
• Changed the name of “guards” to “toughs” because that’s more accurate. Most actual guards are minions, right? It’s confusing.
• Suggested difficulty levels for tasks, instead of random difficulties.
• Characters can level individually, or if they choose to level as a table, they all pay into a pool to level instead of each character having to chip in their share.
• Overlay templates allow a character to start with two templates; so you can have a race-as-class, or race-and-class, in the same game with no conflict. Also, spellcasters can have other templates too; you can have a wizard thief, or a wizard inventor, or a wizard noble, or a wizard fighter; and this is fun for the cleric too! Cleric knight, cleric hunter, cleric musketeer, cleric scholar, cleric zealot…
• Crippling! Characters can be permanently injured by severe wounds. Perverse as this is, in my experience, it adds awesome to the game when that danger is in the background.
• Different tone. I fell in love with Old School Hack with its breezy enthusiasm. However, that’s not where I live. I bring a different tone and style, but I think my approach is also fun and awesome–just different. For a sample, check out the description of the game and what makes it distinctive and cool. Then read his version. Both valid, both awesome, very different tone.
• I drop names for levels and character concepts. Text replaces pictures for talent descriptions.
• I have an expanded concept of how to use the adventuring motives, and attach an optional Awesome Point economy to it.
• No niche protection. You could have 3 people playing clerics, and end up with 3 very different clerics. If you need niche protection, add it at the table; it should not be hard-wired in the system.
• Added “swarm” as a monster category.
• Changed the root concept with magic items.
• Greatly expanded ways the DM is counseled to put Awesome Points in the bowl.
• Expanded usefulness for shields.
• Trim, tidy, fun rules for a parrying weapon.

Anyway, that’s enough of a contrast for now. What compares? The Awesome Point economy, order and use of the combat round, attributes and their basic function, arenas and weapons, advancing in levels through spending Awesome Points. I think the games are still very near each other in many ways. I just need a different flavor for some key elements.

My thanks continues to go out to Kirin Robinson; he’s a great guy, he’s encouraged me to continue working on this, and he’s even given me permission to release hard copies of this book (as well as the free .pdfs) when it’s done. None of this madness would be possible on my end without the inspiration and chassis he built, and it is my pleasure to continue to build on it.

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.

OSH Templates for the World Between: Berserkers

Here is another Old School Hack: the Fictive Way template: the berserker.

The Berserker

Jack Shear mentions this class here as a barbarian. He also notes my creation of this template in a post here, though I’ve just now gotten to putting it up as a post. I changed the class from barbarian to berserker because of this bit of text put up by Jack:

“Reflavoring: Of course, a barbarian character doesn’t necessarily have to hail from a barbaric culture. A barbarian might be a normal soldier who falls into a murderous rage in the heat of battle. Or perhaps a barbarian might be a normal man or woman who is sometimes possessed by the bloodthirsty spirit of a deceased maniac or murderer. “

If the most important thing is being crazy and killing stuff, then let’s focus on that instead of the cultural or geographic trappings. Hence, the template I present to you now.

OSH Armor Reconfigured

I’ve been wrestling with how I want to handle Armor Class. I don’t like the all or nothing hit, because the point of armor is not to dodge but to deflect injury. I also don’t like the idea that even a little armor can protect you from most attacks. Still, armor is worthwhile, so I didn’t want to nerf it unduly.

How do I get to a place where armor doesn’t make you invulnerable, but does help? I think I finally cracked it as I lay in bed awake one night last week! This one is easier to display on a chart than explain.

So, in effect, the better you roll to hit the more of your target’s armor you ignore. If you just barely get a high enough roll to hit, then you’re trying to hurt them through their armor. If you get a great shot in, you avoid most or all of the armor. The damage reduction scales with the skill of the hit, but it’s a small chart that will easily fit on a reference card or a 2 page rules reference.

I think this can work for swords and sandals, medieval fantasy, survival horror, modern games, and science fiction. (Here is my clunkier previous effort.)

Western Hack: Guns

So, here you go. Western firearms for Old School Hack.

Western Hack Guns

I enjoyed looking over Stuart Robertson’s Weird West game, but I don’t think I could play it. I toyed with the idea of revisiting my old Western setting in a rules-lite way, or making a new one that is weirder and whipping up a rule set, or converting Old School Hack to a Western style setting that is totally fictional.

Like I need another conversion project.

So I decided to get it out of my system with a document adding guns to Old School Hack (much of which will still work with little or no modification for a Western style game.) I suspect I’ll be back to this with templates.

Have you noticed I like making templates for Old School Hack?

The Scavenger Masters Grimore (remix)

The Masters of the Scavenger Lands include Gartheon Nack, Yelkar Truth, and Larmak Fermain. These mysterious robed figures meted justice out among the Vistani and Wastelanders, battling or unleashing monsters as they learned to manipulate the horrific energies gushing out of the Ruinous Scar. The greatest honor was survival; their magic tends to grow more potent as its wielder continues on unkilled.

This magic is most often learned from strange wandering masters, or from hermits deep in the Scavenger Lands, or from scarred mercenary spellcasters who spook the armies they serve.

The Scavenger Masters Grimore

Jack posted on elemental magic of the Scavenger Lands here. More on grimores is here.

Quest to Slay the Widow Dragon: Update

Saturday we had another foray into the Black Mire, continuing Timothy the Tulip’s quest to slay the Widow Dragon, Grizelle. The road so far:

• First. He meets up with someone who knows a wizard who is looking for a dragon’s lair, and gets involved.
• Second. He joins an expedition to get into a long-dead hero’s trophy room to learn the location of the dragon’s lair.
• Third. Traveling towards a port where he can get passage closer to the dragon’s lair, he is sidetracked into a dungeon crawl to earn some cash.
• Fourth. He travels the dangerous last leg of the road to the port city.
• Fifth. He rescues a scholar who is familiar with the dragon’s lair, breaking him out of a prison, and acquires a pirate ship to work out transporting treasure.
• Sixth. He gets to the island with the lair on it, and begins searching for a way in through the magically sealed back door of the lair. He meets a frog god that assures him if he collects 4 pieces of magic amber, a big iron rose, and a big stone basket, the frog god will give him the key to the back door.
• Seventh. Tulip and his crew make it to Mire Port, then back out into the Black Mire, finding the amber.
• Eighth. Tulip and Vayu go out into the Black Mire again, and this time defeat a necromancer and get the rose, turning it in with the frog god (as well as exploring.)
• Ninth. Tulip puts together a bigger crew, gets banished from Mire Port, and collects the basket, waking a dark cosmic power in the process.

So now they need to get the basket to the frog god, get the key, make it to the back door of the dragon lair, get in, defeat any defenses, gank the dragon, pack up the loot, and live happily ever after.

If you are not one of my players, you might get a kick out of comparing the adventure reports with my source material, Dyson Logos’s contest-winning Challenge of the Frog Idol.

Most of the characters are 7th level. We have a new one at 1st, one at 5th, and I think Tulip is up to 13th. We have had people cycling through characters: Simon found one he likes as the third, Niki is on her 2nd and may be still looking, Mark is looking to trade out but might stick it out with his guy, Shaun struck gold with his 2nd, etc. The only consistent character through this whole set of adventures is Tulip, which is the main reason that this arc has settled as being his story (also he has adopted this quest as his objective).

When I go through the rules again, it will be impossible to duplicate Tulip, as there are some unbalanced things I’ll rebalance. Also, I’m shifting how the armor class system works, so that will change a few things. The new system is more complex, but when adding complexity the question is whether the resulting depth is worth it. As of the first adventure playtest, I think it is.

The great thing about having documentation on a quest like this is that I know it will be fun for the players to go back later, years later, and read the reports. Not in blow-by-blow detail, but there is enough there to remember the good times. And being sullied by the fey.