Game Bastardization Thoughts

Currently our group is having a lot of fun with 5th edition D&D in vanilla form. 

As always though a person gets to looking around for some fun ways to spice things up a bit. There is just something about character creation that seems lacking and a bit too optimal in my opinion. 

So as we get near to looking for a new adventure for my Wednesday night group which is nearing the end of the Lost Mines of Phandelver module I have been giving thought to running the Tyranny of Dragons (ToD) series, Horde of the Dragon Queen (HotDQ) and Rise of Tiamat (RoT). Having read through it a bit it looks like a fun pair of modules and to be honest I kind of like the low prep, I also run a full sandbox game which is high prep.

So here is my idea for rolling up the new characters:

1. Roll for race. This can be done with 1d10, any races with a sub-race gives the player the option to roll for it as well or play the race as it sits.
2. Roll for class, I am debating this a bit and instead letting them declare class before rolling stats.
3. Stat rolling 3d6 down the line, play what you get. Have toyed with the idea of each player rolling a stat for each other.
4. Incorporating the Hackmaster flaws list with each player having to take one flaw for their character.

We tend to play pretty lighthearted games with humor throughout and I figured it would add a bit different dynamic to the game, but I kind of question if this should be done on a ToD campaign or I should save it for a custom campaign.

Going to run it by my group of course, but if anyone has any input or thoughts on the idea I would appreciate the feedback.

Savage Worlds Has My Interest

Went out and bought the Savage Worlds (SW) core manual a bit ago and have probably read through it four times now. Each time I read through it I find myself falling more and more in love with it.

Initially I bought it on a bit of a whim after hearing one of my favorite podcasts talk about it regularly +Gamerstable and how flexible it was. Admittedly I was a bit skeptical because they made it sound too easy to use for any scenario you could think of. After reading it I realized they were actually under selling the system a bit.

Core book gives you anything you may need to run a game, obviously it has character build details like just about any other core book would. What it also includes is a wide range of vehicles, monsters, magic, feats etc. It also includes clearly defined rules for creating custom items, vehicles, NPCs, monsters and so on. The way it is put together is very intuitive and logical to my mind.

Being new to DMing I wanted something that was easy for the players and myself to understand, could easily be modified for any occasion and just got everyone playing quickly, this fits those requirements.

So I am know adding and yet another game night specifically for my daughter and her friends to play a zombie scenario game that begins in the town we live in. I am going to have them build themselves with minor modifications and turn them loose on the town. This will make mapping a simple process of printing off Google maps of the area and using local landmarks, businesses and even people they recognize in order to produce moral dilemmas within the game.

Enough typing, back to planning. I just can't say enough about the system at this point and can't wait to see it in actual play.

Board Games Will Suffice

Well things have been hectic for me the last couple weeks but seem to have finally settled down. Apologies for not posting, but to be honest I didn't feel I had much to write about. Then I got to thinking about what I could talk about gaming related and realized I have been playing a lot of board type games on our very random family nights. So the next few posts will be about what games the two of us play that are not exactly RPG related but falls into the genre at the same time.


Munchkin

Everyone but me seems to have found this game years ago, apparently I have lived a sheltered life in relation to gaming.

I purchased this game on a whim since I knew little about it but what little I did know always was favorable. So one day after a Sunday breakfast we journeyed to our local game store Adventures Underground, which by the way is an awesome store with a great selection and staff (shameless plug), and after walking the game aisles for a bit trying to decide on something we decided on Munchkin.

Now allow me to explain first off that a game purchase is a pretty big deal at this point in life as money is tight and we are really looking for something that is going to entertain us for more than just an initial play. We pretty well know the standard board games like Monopoly, Risk, Life and the sort but to be honest they are games for people in old folks homes and neither myself nor my daughter are ready for the retirement center yet. /end side tangent/

With the trickeries of payment handled we leave with box in hand and decide to have a cup of coffee at the local spot and give the game a test play. This is where a game can fly or fall because you need defined rules in order to start, but too many or too complicated a rule set and you begin to get lost in the lawyering of the game instead.

Munchkin I am glad to say has none of those issues. It does have a couple pages of rules but it boils down to the following:

• Deal 4 cards from each deck
• If in your hand lay out race and class you will be playing
• On your turn kick in the door
• Fight beast on other side or run like hell
• If fight and win, collect a level and treasure 
• If fight and fail take loss in stride as indicated on monster card
• If run success, catch your breath
• If run fail, take loss indicated on monster card.
• If no monster is found on the other side of the door you may choose to fight one from your own hand.
• Make sure you only have 5 cards in hand at end of turn either by putting them in play, discarding them or donating to another player.

Or as the official rules state:

1. Kick open the door
2. Look for trouble
3. Loot the room
4. Charity

All your weapons, armor and class bonuses add up easily enough and each battle you win gains you a level unless indicated otherwise.

That is pretty much it for straight play....but just to make things interesting you are also allowed to make opponents lives more difficult or easier at your discretion. Sometimes you can throw cards that add monsters, remove items or otherwise change the field of play. You may also assist in battle either out of the kindness of your heart (yeah right!) or in trade for an item or share of treasure.

Super simple but every time you play it is a different game. If you get tired of it there are numerous expansions available which add themes like zombies, Cthulhu, wild west and so on to the decks.

This game has quickly found it's way into our hearts, with a rules light system and allowances for house rules I am sure it will continue to give us good times as a family as well as with friends for years to come.

John

Game Creation Notes

This is not really notes on game creation and how to do it, many others have that covered just fine in many other blogs of far superior quality and depth than I could hope to have here at this time. No, this post is about the process of creating my first world in DnD 3.5 and how I feel it is going.

In a word I would say "slowly" but that is to be expected.

Currently I am working on building a town map, with buildings, a marketplace and all the associated items to go with it including populating it with NPCs. Seems simple enough right? "X-town" has about 400 citizens, they are a lawful society and have light to medium military presence...sweet, I am done.

Not really because now I need to map out what my town of 400 people looks like. I need to have buildings of note, a variety of districts, is it in a mountain/river/desert/seaside, are there sewers and an underground that is either known or unknown, if so is it a bunch of ragtag beggars or further down is it a society living within the caverns below, are they good or bad in relation to the rest of the world, what is their culture based on financially and do they produce anything to trade with the world above?

This is honestly how my mind works, and it does this all at once like a massive power dump of questions that shoot holes in other questions and raises even more in asking them. 

So I have decided I am going to tackle this the only way I know how, one piece at a time. I will begin with the gates to the town/city (see it has grown already). Are there walls around it? What material makes up the walls if so? Who guards the walls, how trained and how vigilant are they?

Yeah that looks like a good plan right there. This will allow me to create a border of sorts around the area of the city, it gives me a beginning to the number of NPCs and a couple of varieties within a single class. I figure if I draw up a command class guard, a watch guard (lower ranking) and then a battle guard and mix them up a bit I should be good. The command class would be a bit more detailed than the rest and I would name a few of them since they will be most likely to have interactions at some point.

Once that is done I will tackle the first district as you walk into the city. What class makes up this area, what buildings do you see and how many are able to be entered and what shops or market types are available?

Again should work out with a few simple designs of buildings mixed and matched into the scene, a few NPCs of various importance and population density in the area can be decided a bit later.

Man this town building thing sounds easy when put that way, but what about story line? This is the difficult one for me and I don't know why. I get the idea and it is a simple idea really basically all you need is a mission goal(s), a protagonist, a bad guy and a reward for a job well done or penalties for a job poorly done.

Being we are starting with level 1 characters this shouldn't be difficult really, I mean something as simple as, "Geldar has asked you to deliver a letter to his daughter who lives the next town over but is a 3 day journey on foot. Upon delivery you will receive x gold or item." As the characters grow in levels and abilities the adventures grow as well because I too am growing as a GM and sorting out the handling of the game...hey this really isn't going to be as bad as I thought.

Oh crap! Now I have to create a second town...maybe I will make it a small village instead that should be easier, right? Are they farmers, loggers, maybe crafstmen or maybe an evil town filled with dark wizards who have possessed the bodies of the townsfolk...see? here we go again.

Well I gotta go get working on this while I have some ideas in my head. In the meantime comment below regarding your preferred methodology in creating towns/cities and adventures to go with them.

Thanks for reading and happy adventuring,

~John~

...but you're dead Billy!!

Character deaths are more an inconvenience than anything else in a majority of games I have played, granted I have a short history in the RPG tabletop gaming area (about a year now) but aside from having to roll a new character there was no incentive to not play my characters a bit haphazardly, so I have decided on a couple ways to make it more interesting for both the players and the DM.

What could possibly make death more interesting you ask?

Good question, allow me to explain a bit of back story. I am currently putting together plans to run my first game as a DM, I have been reading books, listening to podcasts, building characters, scribbling outlines of basic concepts and generally over thinking the whole process as I do. It all kind of fell apart when it came to how I am going to handle character deaths (actually just one of many spots) and after some thinking I came to the conclusion that an adventurer needed a proper burial once the battle dies down and it must be in accordance to their religion of choice or they must carry the body out if a funeral cannot be carried out. I mean deep in the darkness of a dungeon is not a proper place for an Elf to be buried after all.

If this is not done there needs to be a penalty right? But of course I want it to be fun for everyone and the dead guy isn't having much fun sitting there watching his corpse rot is he? So if a proper burial is not performed and everyone goes about robbing the body (we all do it right?) of all the useful stuff. After a time (to be determined) the dead character rises to play as a zombie with goals and some skills remaining.

My thought on this was they get basically half skills, no magic abilities and can only use basic weapons or surrounding objects as weapons if their weapons have been stolen. Movement speed becomes halved and intelligence is dropped to that of just above a zombie so they still have some tactical knowledge and no speech skills to explain their intentions. Again this isn't completely worked out but the idea being that they have to retrieve all items taken from them by the players and if this goal is accomplished (not likely) the character is returned to life with penalties placed until such a time as they can be healed properly through ritual, if they fail and the players kill the zombie character then that character is dead and must roll a new one.

Wow John, that sounds like a lot to worry about when all I want to do is move on with the game.

Is it really? In real life there is a grieving process and a funeral for a person who has passed. So how do I handle this in a more detailed form? Well having not yet implemented it and this post being part of my fleshing out process, I have decided that all characters take penalties to a variety of skills for a period of time (not yet determined). The idea behind this is again they are grieving for their friend so things like concentration for spells, called shots etc. would be skewed.

I have not set in stone what the penalties would be for the various issues and will be working on this a bit further to hopefully create some kind of a table based on character class and skill levels. It is a slow process for me as I am still learning a lot but wanted to toss the idea out into the wild with the intention of getting a bit of feedback from others on it and it's implementation.

Have you done something similar to this to make death either more realistic or more traumatizing to the party?

If so how or what did you do?

Leave comments and feedback below, all is appreciated and more thoughts on this and other oddball ideas to come in future posts.

~John~

*edit*
After posting this I realized I had not given proper credit to +Gamerstable and their podcast for inspiring this idea after listening to their podcast relating to character death.