"And this d8 has an A instead of a 1, do you want to know why?"

A  friendly joking facebook response made to a humorous post on gamers dice fetish. But seriously do you want to know more? 

The first eight sided die I owned came from a set of polyhedral dice my dad went into the city and bought for me when I was a kid and had begun playing D&D with the boxed set that came with chits instead of actual dice. I pillage dice from the Yahtzee set but used paper chits for the other dice sizes. So probably sometime after my 2nd or 3rd D&D game my dad just shows up late after work one day with a set of polyhedral dice. There was a d4, d8, d12 and one or two d20's numbered 0-9 twice. The d8 has this curious little A on it instead of a 1 where the 1 would normally be.

Not a huge mystery really. Turns out it was from a mold meant for a set of poker dice to get results of 2 through 8 and Aces. I immediately pondered "what about the other numbers? Wouldn't a d12 make more sense for poker dice? That way you could come closer to a full set of cards, you'd just be missing one face card?" . "They probably didn't know about 12 sided dice when they made these eight-sided ones" was my father's sensible response. I was actually a little surprised the first time I saw d8 with a "1" instead of an "A".

EDIT:   I believe the set of dice was sold by The Armory and my dad bought it as The Compleat Strategist.

Is old school play ready to move beyond 1d20?

A plain and simple question. Is old school play ready to move beyond 1d20? I'm seeing plenty of new games embracing alternate dice mechanics again while the games are otherwise very D&D adjacent. All actually old old-timers should be familiar with a few now classic competitors to the throne where we rolled 3d6 under a difficulty rating or 1d100 to get within a % chance. But they were only "slightly" D&D adjacent. Like The Fantasy Trip and Rune Quest. (please not very subtle sarcasm there) Has the corporate beast actually left the gate open to "allow" gamers to enjoy a wider range of dice mechanics in games that sell and will be played widely?

Loot...Playing with the kids.

Did I not post all of May? How'd that happen?

I've been gaming with my sons. Our last session they delved down into the second level of the actual dungeon (not knowing they would be) and bribed some gargoyles to not attack them, destroyed almost a dozen animated skeletons, chased but wisely didn't catch a necromancer, discovered a magical steppign stone leading to an orcish city of at least 6 orc chimneys, encountered and defeated some curious elves with exotic weapons and armor (moon elves but unnown to them) yiledign the best loot they've gotten in a while consisting of: 2 silver daggers, a diaphramous mesh hauberk, and an orachalcum wasp-gonne with a spare bottle of wasps.

Now my sons are arguing about keeping or selling the wasp-gonne. It's likely worth over 1,000 Golden Lions which is much more coin than they have come across yet. It'll take a run to a big city or well known noble to sell it off for that much however. As a note for the reader a Golden Lion is worth 40 Bronze Groats the common coin of the campaign and it costs a bachelor about 6 groats a week to maintain a meager standard of living out in the villages of The Hundred where they are.

I don't want to kill him and rob him after we broke into his home.

"I don't want to kill him and rob him after we broke into his home." - my younger son in our last D&D session.

So my youngest son is making life interesting for this old DM and his big brother, it seems he doesn't like kicking in folks door killing them and taking their stuff. He's totally fine with killing giant rats and laying low the undead but doesn't feel right breaking and entering and stealing from walking talking folks.

Night before last the four valiant adventurers played by my sons returned to the dungeon hiding under a nearby village and discovered a new passage that was blocked off by a recent collapse so they went back to the rat shrine they discovered before and had a desperate fight against 3 skeletal rats and later an authentic "GIANT RAT" that was quickly killed by a desperate spear charge by the feeble Strength 5 Healer in the party. The secret door they posited was there in the shrine last year was certainly there but they couldn't figure out how to open it so they did the most logical thing...they rented a pickax from the gremkins they tangled with but spared last session.

 Working away at the secret door almost got them taken out by a sleep spell from a Boggart which still caused two members of the party to doze off. Luckily they still dealt with him quickly and that's when my youngest son said the line above... preplexing my older son. They eventually decided on tying him up and questioning him after taking his lapis ring and leaving him his scroll fragments and sack of coins. After some amusing discussion he agreed to show them him his escape tunnel and way in and out if the dungeon.

The group later returned to the collapsed tunnel section and managed to get all but one of the characters badly stuck in another collapse. The remaining mobile character hired the gremkins to help him free his companions and then they all came to an agreement to work together to clear the collaspe. It was an expensive endeavor but lucky reaction rolls (known to the players) and substantial fees (for the situation at hand) paid off and the young adventurers were able to discover a connection to a slightly more distant dungeon through a magical goblin door.

--

If it wasn't for the lapis ring they'd have spent more money than they gained but they did discover two new routes in and out and earned enough experience points for the Petty Dwarf Mage Thorn to level up to level 2 with the rest of them very close behind.

My equipment wear and tear rules are working out okay with the low quality gear they have and limited range of choices available in the local villages motivating more travel and treasure seeking.  Want to motivate your players to have simple early goals and encourage them to think? Start them out with the equivalent of 50sp in gear as opposed to 100 GP (or more).

Delighted by past Monday night game.

Both my sons played this past Monday and it was one of the most delightful dungeon romps I've played in a long time.

Same cast of adventurers:

Gromlin Longstache, Stone dwarf Fighter

St. Pierre, Human Healer

Thorn, Petty Dwarf Mage

Cobalt, Human Burglar

 

The group wentdown to explore the rat chamber discover last session. they discoverd it was empty save for the bones of one of the big rats. After crawling about for a bit they discovered a rat tunnel was recently widen by tool-work and joined up with a proper dungeon corridor with reinforced rock walls, packed gravel floors and wooden beam supported ceilings.

 The first locked door these fellows encountered was quickly examined and unlocked by Cobalt and the room beyond was the dreaded empty room with little of note beside a more solid floor and ceiling than the tunnels had and some splinters and drag marks on the floor (a treasure chest dragged away)? My youngest son wants to make this room the groups new lair and has oddly dubbed it it "The Rat Room" and insists they should make it their new base. My other son doesn't want them to be known as the Ratroom Gang (could be too late).

Advancing down they discovered an intersection to the right and left and headed right first to find a door with occupants beyond. Thorn knocked on the door by the voices beyond were unfriendly and in no hurry to open the door to strangers. They decided to not kick in the door and attack whoever was beyond "I don't want to hurt our neighbors for no reason" and reversed their course.

Moving on they discovered a Dry Bones Skeleton decked in Simple verdin Jewelry with a rusty saber in had guarding an otherwise empty chamber, a magic missile quickly brought that threat down. The simple jewelry (2 arm bands and a chain) were claimed and the dwarves rather quickly noticed a patch of wall had been recently plastered over so they set to work breaking away the plaster to discover a decrepit old door behind it. They noted they were being watched, likely by an occupant from the room they hadn't forced their way into before but continued on without challenging the onlooker.

Breaking through the old door was barely an inconvenience, no problem at all, luckily Gromlin did not tumble into the open pit trap beyond. Screeching of hungry rats could be heard from deep in the pit and more importantly across from it was a stone idol to some rat demon with some sort of gemstone eyes. The party managed to clamber around the edge of the pit without tumbling in and despite some arguing the amber eyes in idol were pried out. The presence of a secret door aside the idol was noted but the means to open it could not be figured out by the adventurers. Eager to escape with their newfound bounty they decided returning to the surface to sell the loot was the best way to go. Hmmm... did something peek at them from the secret door as they left?

Back at the intersection the party found themselves being held up by 3 gremkins (re-skinned kobolds). One of the three could speak in broken common and was rather confident the party could be cowed (they are not an impressive bunch). Gromlin locked in a battle of verbal intimidation with the gremkins and two were looking uneasy and not to terribly dangerous when a sleep spell was used to put them all to sleep (very luckily too, the PCs are not aware while they aren't immune gremkins have a high resistance to sleep and charm spells  due to some fey blood in their ancestry). Now here my gentle reader is where things took a unique turn: The PCS trussed up the Gremkin and sorted through their belongings to find 2 keys and they dragged the Gremkins back to their presumed lair and laid them out there removing their bindings and locked them away safely in their room and shoved the key under the door edge so they could free themselves later.

On the way out the PCs determined that the second key the gremkin carried was indeed the key to the earlier discovered "rat room". 

After waiting for traveling merchants for a couple days they managed to get 90 Bronze groats for the amber eyes but could find no buyer for the verdin jewellery which the local smith appraised to be worth at least 30 silver shillings total (he's willing to trade in credit but lacks the coin to pay for it as such). They are holding onto the verdin armbands and necklace for now.

So this session over 90 zg in coin, 3 pieces of jewelry, and the key to a room in the dungeon as loot along with between 237 and 287 experience points per character.  

---

I was surprised and delighted by the decisions my sons made, The youngest is still apprehensive but was certainly getting into the game and the older is a vetaran of my last long-term campaign schooled by grizzled old murder hoboes so sparring and not even stealing much from the gremkins whom they hope to make good neighbors of was a rather unique turn of events for me. Depending on how the next session or two goes I might have to stat-up gremkins as a playable character race.

 

House Rules Ability Score Generation

Here are the ability score rules used in my current Monday Night game.

Roll 3d6 in order of STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. After that select the PCs Kin keeping in mind the ability score swaps.

Humans can swap any 2 ability scores as desired.

Brownies must swap their lowest rolled score into STR.

Hobbarts must swap STR with DEX or CON if it is higher than either score.

Higgelwyn must swap STR with DEX or CHA if it is higher than either of those.

Petty Dwarfs must swap the lowest roll into CHA.

Stone Dwarfs must swap their highest roll into CON.

Dusk Elves must swap their lowest roll to CON. 

Modifiers are similar to the B/X -3 to +3 range differing in having Charisma have the same range of modifiers.

Keeping it simple and restrained while allowing for some perceptible differences between characters based on their kin.

-

As per my last post we created 4 characters and managed to get two Humans with Strength scores of 5 but with other scores that didn't encourage their swapping any for that STR score. So we ended up with a physically weak Healer and Burglar.

Monday night game night

 Last night I played D&D with my two boys. It was my latest Frankenstein mish-mash of rules not the Rust and Runes project I'm working on (but I am "secretly"playtesting some of the mechanics for that in this campaign).

Characters were rolled up 3d6 per stat in order with some minor score swapping based on choice of character kin. Humans may swap any two scores while Petty Dwarves are required to move their lowest score into Charisma as examples of that. 

The Characters Played Last Night

Thorn a Petty Dwarf Mage. CHA 7.

Cobalt a Human Burglar. STR 5.

Gromlin Longstache a Stone Dwarf Fighter. CON 16.

St Piere a Human Healer. STR 5.

 I found it amusing both human characters had a strength of 5. Swapping that out to another score just didn't pay-off for either player so it stayed. We are using a fairly simple slot based initiative system so both fellows were encumbered by their starting equipment. the first step of encumbrance is just no sprinting and a minor penalty to some agile tasks.

It's a rustic pastoral medievalesque dung age setting so we ware using somepicky but still fairly simple equipment wear and tear rules. Most of the characters starting equipment was less than ideal. The best armor is the party was a padded cap, padded cotte, and leather greaves with a wooden buckler. Giving a decent armor class nonetheless and 2 points of damage resistance.

We are using 1d12 round robin initiative with Weapon Speed Factors roughly in line with my previous campaign play. Highest initiative roll on a side goes first on a round. If your weapon speed factor is over your sides initiative score for the round you attack at -4.

The adventure (jokingly called Tutorial Adventure)  started straight and simple with the 4 adventurers meeting a locla miller's sun who was looking for help because beastmen had attacked his family mill. The players agreed to help his family while he ran to fetch the local lord and his men.

The party quickly made it to the mill to see a dead chicken outside and the large side panel doors flung open. The dead chicken found it's way into Gromlin's haversack. Cobalt took a quick peek  and they could see there was nobody on the ground floor of the mill but there was noise coming from upstairs.

The party krept up into the living quarters above the work area of the mill and discovered two goat bodied beastmen rooting through the families goods. Gromlin rushed to the attack and sliced one with his Basilard, Cobalt began to sneak to their flank when Thorn popped up and took down the to goatie beastmen with a  successful sleep spell. After slaying the wounded beast man the second was trussed up and interrogated allowing the party to discover the rest of the bad of beastmen had hauled of a bunch of good and the miller and his wife. The party left the trussed up beastman in a shed for the lord's men to deal with and headed off to the old barrows west of the mill.

Entering the meadows with the old barrows the party had trouble following the tracks of their quarry and stumbled across an open barrow. thorn spied something within but couldn't make it out too well so the party rushed in tot barrow to remember they hadn't brought torches luckily for them while it was shadowy there was still enough light to fight the creature within that they disturbed gnawing on the old dry corpse within a ghoul.

This encounter did not go as well and quickly as the first. The ghoul put up quite a fight locked in hand to hand combat with the dwarven fighter Gromlin for 6 rounds. Early in the fight Gromlin broke his staff striking the ghoul on the head and retreated to ready his magic missile spell. Everyone opted for daggers and basilard inside the shadowy barrow to take advantage of weapon sped and becasue of the close quarters. The ghoul raked at Gromlins armor several times but failed ot actually harm him and while he stabbed or sliced the ghoul a number of time they were having only meager impact as it grasped the burglar Cobalt and tried to haul him deeper into a dark corner of the barrow before it was finished off by a lucky blow by the doughty dwarven fighter. The mage didn't get the magic missle spell ready quickly enough for it to have a telling result.

A broken staff was the worst the party suffered in that desperate fight. Had they remembered torches they may have been able to see better and organize a group offense good enough to gain a quicker telling advantage against the ghoul. All that was found worth carrying away was a thin silver ring.

The party exited the barrow and found the goat men on the other side of the meadow where they discovered two deep into a barrel of ale and the three more teasing and harassing the miller and his wife behind a pile of flour sacks. Thorn with Gromlin at his side able to sneak u close enough to the three to lay them low with another sleep spell. The two large goat headed beastmen took notice of course and one rushed the adventurers but his charge was checked by the spear of the healer St Pierre and it was quickly dispatched. The largest beastman had held back and suffered an arrow shot and a magic missile before fleeing for parts unkown while a failed magic missile was cast and two more arrow wasted.

The sleeping beastmen were  dispatched and the miller and his wife untied and healed with a pair of Cure Light wound spells. The miller and his wife rewarded the party with the remainder of the ale an a bif sack of flour before they all began hauling the goods and beastmen's weapons back to the mill to meet the Lord and his men mounting a rescue.

In the next morning the beastman who had been left in the shed was hung by the lord and the party was also granted a reward of 50 bronze groats for their prompt and timely efforts. Not a huge reward but a successful adventure.

--

I was happy the players quickly figure out how to deal with the initiative system (my older son had played with one very similar in the past) and the equipment wear and tear was considered worth it for the tiny bit of book keeping because of the drama it set in for the players in deciding what equipment to risk when, it also gives them a very obvious short term goal of better weapons and gear. the players did discover the beast men were more properly known as Hammer Goats and fear they may have made a enemy. The frequency of spell use for 1st level characters was possible becasue I'm using a variant spell point system that requires a casting roll and management of readied and cast spells that favors lower level spell use without an otherwise endless stream of zap cantrips.

I knew the damage resistance on the padded armor would prove useful but not as useful as it was as the ghoul wasn't able to rip through it and into the dwarf that suffered the bulk of it's assaults. Throughout the session I believe there were 14 rounds of combat split among the 3 encounters  but not an HP of damage was suffered by any of the PCs. they consider themselves lucky not invulnerable.

Thanks to the 50 bronze groats reward, the sack of flour, and 5 hammers liberated from the Hammer Goats the party will be able to scrape by for another couple weeks with little effort (6 groats will house and feed a man out in the villages in meager fashion for a week) but are definitely in need of more lucrative pursuits. 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Great Campaign?

The past several weeks has been a real humdinger that reminded me again and again of human frailty.  It left me with this notion: Now that I and my family, friends, and gaming buddies are aging how many more campaigns do we have in us? Family and work can prove to make gaming tricky for the mature gamer but health and mortality oh they are much more decisive factors.

 GM's are famous for working on the next great campaign while running one or two other campaigns but do we ever plan on one being our last great campaign? We only have so many years left where our eyes, ears, hands, and even our minds will support our playing RPGs. Should we plan each campaign as if it is our last? How should The Last Great Campaign be structured? Should the Last Great Campaign be structured to end in a bang or should it be set up to to last until the bitter end?

My best campaigns have run from 4 to 8 years in length. They did so by adapting to my gadfly choices and the slowly revolving group of players. While I never really planned for any of those campaigns to run for so long they just did. Now as I age and some of my friends and fellow players have died or been limited by illness so much they can't play I have to wonder is there ever going to be another long campaign and is there going to be more than one?

Is it my duty to prepare for the Last Great Campaign? Should it be structured as a place to walk off into the twilight from, to swim in seas of nostalgia, or maybe just maybe it could be a shinning example to pass on to a future generation?

Heavy stuff. Lot's of questions and no answers just yet.

Gaming with Son!

This past Friday my youngest and I engaged in a fierce and brutal conflict on the hard wooden floor with the classic game Battle Masters. It was his first time playing the game and likely not to be the last.

Picked up Battle Masters about 24 years ago...  that's 3 years before my first son came into the world.

The battle shortly into the fray. My son is advancing his foul forces of chaos against my righteous defenders of the empire.

In the heat of battle, my son asked "why do you have to take a picture while I'm dying" as he placed a skull token on the base of a unit of wolf riders after they were peppered with arrows by my archers atop the tower. My imperial knights are smashing into the center of the chaos horde while his chaos warriors march down the river towards my cannon (this will be their doom in a few turns).

The battle is drawing to a close as the forces of chaos have but a few bands on the field having been swept aside by the might imperial knights; across the river the mighty cannon has broken the will of the chaos warriors as well (not pictured) despite losing the archers screening it against assault.  Dad and the Imperial Army were victorious.

---
We played with a bit of house rules to keep my son from getting lost in details and having to deal with me using more than luck. The only terrain we paid attention to was the river and it's fords along with the castle. We kept the ogre simpler than it is even in the rulebook, but the big fella didn't get much use. We also split the main deck into halves one for the empire and one for chaos and we alternated turns as I've learned years ago it can be both frustrating and boring waiting to take a maneuver your forces under the regular rules, I like the card based move this unit now but it works better alternating card draw of a deck for each army.

My son was impressed by how much stuff there is in the game, wait till he gets a chance to use all the rules and maybe even "campaign" play.

The Eye of Bim.

This is my recollection of a character known for part of his adventuring career as “The eye of Bim”. Many years ago during one of my longest running D&D campaigns one of my players wanted to play when none of the other players were around but with one of his normal characters (everyone had 2, 3 even 4 characters in the campaign). After decide he wanted to use his elven Mu/Thief (mostly a thief) Crisium I said, sure I’ll work some stuff up. The first solo-session he chose to raid the tower of a plane-hopping wizard where he acquired a magical gem. It took him some time to figure out what the gem was for (it was a focus for plane hopping) and after a few more mundane thiefly exploits he managed to get the gem to function and it swept him to an alien land.

This alien land could have had a name, but it’s lost to the sands of time (this would have been 88-90 in the real world) but it’s name would likely not have stood out the most what was strange was it’s organic nature, the planet (the whole plane?) was a living thing. The grounds was skin covered in here and there in fungus, hair, and festering sores, there were deserts covered in dry cracked skin and while water (outside the deserts) fell from the sky the general fleshy damp nature of a living world resulted in lakes and ponds of all sorts of unusual fluids.  There were occupants of the worlds and they were strange indeed mostly one eyed things which hope don a single leg or growled about as centipedes.

Crisium sighted some mountains of exotic aspect far in the distance of his point of arrival and headed out for them not aware that he was a hunted elf. He was unaware that the gem he stole had been stolen from what might have been the mightiest sorcerer on this plane and soon fell into the clutches of Bim. (I actually forget the description of Bim itself aside from begin a powerful one-eyed alien sorcerer with spells that focused on shaping and conjuring.)

Following his capture Crisium was awarded a new role in life and a new gem placed in the center of his forehead that appeared as an unusual third eye, this gift (punishment) was used by the sorcerer to call the character Crisium from his home plane back to the the realm of Bim where the demonic aspects and thinly skills of an elven mu/t in this world was fairly useful and he served as “The Eye of Bim”.

There were solo-adventures over the following year or two on Bim’s home plane and elsewhere in the cosmos, we even had one session of the main campaign where a number of the PCs tried to make a raid on Bim to break the bond he had on Crisium no one was slain but it was a disaster. As a DM I was fortunate to have a player that was eager to play and absolutely went wild over truly weird fantasy.

I bring this up these memories now because this is a recollection of gaming past and the postings on Xor brought it to the surface. I’ve always enjoyed odd and bizarre settings even if for occasional diversions (maybe they are best as that), to have expectations challenged and just thrown away entirely by changing ones relationship to the terrain itself can have significant and entertaining impact on a campaign.

Oh what happened to Eye of Bim himself? With the help of another PC he learned how to minimize the ability of Bim to summon him so he got called less often and as many of the characters in that campaign did he became a victim of the the great TPK (that itself was a baffling wonder as the players had multiple characters all over the campaign world, on other planes, and in other times and still managed to get together 90% or more of the PCs in one place and screw up really badly).

What's a PC got to do to earn a few experience points around here?

In my current campaign I'm presenting the players with multiple ways to earn their characters some experience points (which I'll being calling exp hereafter).

up to 100 exp per Level or HitDice of foes defeated (not necessarily slain)
200 exp per level rating for a missions/quest successfully completed.

PCs may spend funds to gain experience by various means:
1. Training: Each week of downtime the PC may spend  1 groat per exp up to 100 x level.
2. Carousing: Each week of downtime spent carousing will earn 1 exp per groat spent and possibly more but there are hazards to carousing requiring a weekly check to endure.
3. Magical Dabbling: Each week instead of simple training a magic-user can spend resources and time on bizarre endeavors at up to 200 groats per level per week. Training uses up time that could be spent on dabbling.
4. Sacrifice: Each week sacrifices may be made to the appropriate deities. A week with carousing generally doesn’t allow one to also make sacrifices. up to 300 groats per level per week may be spent on sacrificing but the sacrifice is only rewarded on a successful piety check.
5. Greasing Palms: Thieves may spend money on bribes and fostering connections at up to 200 groats per level per week for exp.
6. Tribute:  Fighters may send tribute to sworn overlords at unto 500 exp per level a week. No time for carousing when this is done. If the gift is not well received the groats are lost and no exp are gained.

Some activities and behaviors can also offer exp awards or modify other ones earned:
1. Leave your mark on the Walls of Fomorgard, The White Way, and The Mud Run: 150 exp each.
2. Traveling over, under to through the HedgeWall : 100 exp each up to 5 times until level 4. (no zigzags, must be true trips)
3. A Fighter who slays in single combat another warrior of monster of 4HD or more the first time earns a bonus of 50% the exp.
4. A Fighter that survives in 3 charges in a major battle earns 500 exp
5. A Fighter who trains with or survives a challenge with 3 different Weaponmasters earns 1,000 exp
6. A fighter who challenges and survives against all worthy foes on a road, at a crossing, or a dungeon stair for a week earns three times the normal EXP amount for each foe defeated during this time. May be done no more in their lifetime then a character has CHA points.
7. Building a castle or taking an occupied castle earns the master of the Castle 1% of the value of the place in EXP.
8. Shaking the hand of the Mayor of Toadtown (or picking his pockets) earns a thief 500 exp (first time only)
9.    Slaying a traitor earns a thief x5 exp the first time they do so
10.    A thief establishing a gang of 12 or more thieves earns 2,000 exp
11.    A thief may stealing a single gem worth 10,000 groats or more from the trove of a dragon, the vault of a king, or the lair of a giant earns the thief the full exp value in groats without having to spend the wealth but only if that is the only item stolen this mission and the thief leaves a calling-card/message.
12.    Mixing 2 different potions in your stomach earns a Magic-User 300 exp, may only be done as many times as the MU has points of CON
13.    Learning or Stealing spells from 8 hostile Magic-Users earns a MU 4,000 exp
14.    Visiting 6 power points will earn a MU 5,000 exp. (only the first 6 count)
15.    Binding a powerful supernatural creature into a place or in an item earns twice as many EXP as defeating the creature otherwise would.
16.    Defeating, with magic alone, 3 supernatural foes of 10 HD or more earns a one time reward of 5,000 exp
17.    Securing or Manufacturing 3 Artifacts earns a Magic-user 50,000 exp.
18.    Earn a key to the The Visitors Ward of Gnomeville and earn 500 exp
19.    Win an Audience with the Oat King and earn 500 exp (for first 3 visits)
20.    Kiss the hand of the Ice Queen and survive  to earn 600 exp (for first 3 such kisses)
21.    Navigate 30+ miles of the lost river  and earn 500 exp

The 21 activities above and the 6 methods to convert cash into exp are to answer "So, what does my character do?" some are class oriented and can't help everyone and a few are really only attainable by one class but others can give it a shot.

Some of the ideas were inspired form this post at Sham's grog and blog but the nature of my campaign and rules differ just enough I ended up assigning exp awards for various tasks instead of otherwise going with the pretty interesting set of ideas there.

I hope to have 3 weeks down time between sessions now and again if not regularly so players can assign downtime activities to the PCs, but the action got paused in the middle of a spot in the dungeon where I couldn't pull off- "and 3 weeks later".

Franken-game go !

Yesterday played the first session of a hopefully monthly "D&D" campaign. I initially wanted to be purist to some extent and use just one set of rules fro the campaign but couldn't settle on which one so I ended up hacking together a Franken-game using Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (authors blog here), Basic Fantasy RPG , Swords and Wizardy, Lamentations of the Flame Princess and liberal samplings from the blog-o-sphere using bits from Trollsmyth, Dungeon of Signs, Goblinpunch, Middenmurk, Elfmaids and Octopi, Sham's Grog and Blog and of course this here blog itself and houserules I've used in recent campaigns.

I've got a simple skill system that uses the "Hidden" Universal non-binary resolution system of D&D. There are about 18 skills including Weapon Mastery that can be applied to a general types of weapons (so there is no exact count really). There are but two races to select from at the start Humans and Brownies and one of three classes from among Fighter, Magic-User, and Thief. The spell list is straight out of seven voyages with a few minor tweaks to individual spells to better fit the franken system. Players got to roll 3d6 seven times and were allowed to assign the scores where they wished with the one exception that a brownie had to have the worst roll assigned to strength. Of the four players we ended up with 2 human Fighters, a Human Magic-user and a Brownie Thief .

The Rabble Weapons from Tom Fitzgerald's  posting on Terrible Weapons and the groat based economy have worked great so far it's made it very clear that the fledgling adventurers are adventuring to better themselves with short term goals being weapons that aren't awful and a good pair of shoes. One player ended up assigning a 13 to Charisma so he could start play with a free militia rank weapon (a perk for starting fighters). The players also avoided fights I would have seen folks attempt in the past. They spent most of the time sneaking and scrounging having "borrowed" a boat someone carelessly left unsecured near a shabby alehouse and a "firefly" lamp left just hanging by the docks at the edge of Gnomeville. The players avoided trouble with a second rate patrol of Harris-men (soldiers of the local Earl Harris)by coughing up a 3 groat per head toll (one PC couldn't' afford it but one of the other party members could). Simply did not engage the patrons in the alehouse figuring it was easier to steal the boat by stealth (one PC had considered trying to win it gambling or in a drinking contest but the other players wisely pointed out they had nothing to gamble with). The party almost ran into disaster when they discovered they had but one torch but they used most of their remaining cash to but 4 more, which still left them woefully short so that gnome "firefly" lamp was just too good to pass up.

One session in, no fighting yet and the 4 players had fun. We have another session scheduled next month. My daughter is still interested in having some of her friends come over and play so i might squeeze in a game with another adventuring party before next month.

Here's a copy of the current character sheet, It's got an embarrassing typo and a silly omission that will need updating but here's what the players had to use:

OSR, Retroclones.... what are they ?

A nice couple visited my wife and I yesterday with their two kids (each a year on each side of my youngest child so the kids entertained each other most of the time). We had fun chatting and the couple were both RPG gamers keen to start a new game and while they enjoyed games like 7-Seas they are both interested in playing D&D, anything before 3.5, 4th or 5th edition.  I started knocking about editions and games and mentioned Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy Role-playing ,and Seven Voyages of Zylarthen as possible options and they had no idea what I was talking about. I mentioned yeah they are "retro-clones" or oldschool games enabled by the SRD and OGL part of the whole OSR thing".  They commented "OSR? Retro-clones? What are they?".
My wife fetched a print copy of BFRPG and showed it to them while I talked, they were both interested but had no clue such things existed. Specific rule set choice and house rules are up to me as long as it is old-school D&D, and first game is scheduled for Jan 10th.

As I have mentioned before and elsewhere: There is a large number of RPG players out there that have no clue the OSR or Retroclones even exist and plenty of people willing to play D&D in general that have no clue at all about editions wars and the drama hardcore fanboys enjoy.

Having trouble finding players for your RPG campaigns? Talk about your games and they will come.

Old House Rule

Here's an old house rule I used years back but seem to have stopped using in recent years for no good reason.

The Risk of Breaking Down Doors, Bending Bars, and Other Feats of Strength

 PCs can try again an again to break open doors, bend bars, or other related fits of strength but not with impunity. The first roll has no risk, the second and further tries by an individual are  risky becasue there's a 1 in 6 (non-cumulative) chance of suffering a hernia which limits one to half speed and -2 to hit rolls and saves that require moving, it takes 3 days of travel free rest to recover from this condition. 
If three attempts have already been made on a specific feat of strenght for the day and it's still your first turn you run the risk of attempting what others have failed at, but you do get a save to avoid the hernia on your 1st try (if 3 other previous rolls failed).

Table Of Woe

When anyone but fighters is knocked to 0 or less hp they must roll on the Table of Woe.

Fighters need not roll on table of woe unless reduced to negative hp.

Table Of Woe
1d20 Survival Roll	Melee Attack
	1-4: Head	5-6: Torso	7-9: Arm	10: Leg
	Ranged Attack
	1-2: Head	3-6: Torso	7-8: Arm	9-10: Leg
0 or less	DEAD
1-2	Helm save for Coma or Death.	DEAD	Gonna Die
3-4	Helm save for Coma or Death	Gonna Die
5-6	Helm save for Grievous Wound or Coma	Grievous Wound	Grievous Wound	Grievous Wound
7-8	Helm  save for knocked out or Grievous wound	Grievous Wound	Crippling Wound	Crippling Wound
9-10	Helm save for stunned or Serious wound	Serious Wound
11-15	Helm Save or Knocked Out	Shield Save or Serious Wound	Shield Save or Serious Wound	Serious Wound
16-20	Helm Save or Stunned	Knocked Down And Stunned	Shield save or Drop Item and Stunned	Knocked Down and Stunned
21 or more	Helm Save or lose Helm	Knocked Down	Shield Save or Drop Item	Knocked Down

The D20 Survival Roll is 1d20 + toughness bonus (in my campaign it’s like a fortitude save)

If HP score is greater then the negative of character level, apply that as modifier to roll. (i.e. 3^rd level character gets normal save chance at 0 to 3 hp, if knocked to -4 subtract 4 from the survival roll.)

Knocked Down: Adjacent foes may get a free attack. Takes a whole round to get up, anything carried was dropped.

Stunned: incapacitated until a save is made, check at end of each following round.

Knocked Out: will not revive for 2-7 turns.(20-70 rounds)

Serious Wound: Healing spells under 3^rd level will not restore HP loss from this wound. Stunned until end of next round.

Crippling Wound: Lose limb and 1d4 ability points.

Grievous Wound: Incapacitated. Lose 1 ability point and helpless for  2-12 weeks, a serious wound. If an arm or Leg hit make another save or lose the limb in not treated within duration of recovery( Lose 1 Ability point if limb lost to this wound).

Gonna Die: You are going to die unless someone bandages you up.  Lose 1d4 Ability points. Dead in 2-12 rounds.  If an arm or Leg hit  lose the limb unless healing magic of 3^rd level or higher restores all hp lost to this wound before rounds are done. Make save to remain conscious during your grim death any actions you take while dying are at-4.

Coma: Knocked out really badly. Immediately lose 1 ability point. Make a save after each week to recover. For each week in Coma lose 1 Ability point. Only exceptional healing that restores all HP loss to wound on one roll will relieve coma.

Death: dead right away.

Helm save X or Y: make a helmet save if you have one on,  suffer X on successful save or Y on failed save.

Shield save X or Y: make a shield save if you have one on, suffer X on successful save or Y on failed save. Shield save only allowed if attack from shielded side.

Ability Point Loss is permanent unless restored by powerful magic or super-science.

Arm or Leg wound ability loss is STR or DEX 50/50 either

Torso wound ability score loss is STR or CON 50/50 of either

Head wound ability score loss is INT or WIS 50/50 of either. Except for coma.

Ability score loss while in coma can come off any ability score randomly chosen. 1- STR, 2- INT,3-WIS,4-DEX,5-CON, 6-CHA.

Helpless characters may moan and weakly communicate, they may not take action, or cast spells. Any saves they are forced to make against attacks in this condition are made with 1d10 rolls instead of d20’s.

Table adapted from one at Built by Gods Long Forgotten.

Morlocks in the Ghoul Halls

In my MOG campaign things have been going well for the PCs the past few sessions. they have been focusing the majority of their exploits on raiding the Ghoul Halls and have developed effective tactics (shield walls being popular) and acquired plenty of silver arms to deal with the ghouls (the ghouls of MOG take extra damage from silver arms). The apparent master of the ghouls was dispatched last week and his chambers thoroughly looted thanks to bravery, and luck.

Last-night's raid and sweep of the Ghoul Halls wasn't very profitable but it has opened opportunities for future expeditions. While entering the Ghoul Halls the party passed the "morlock well" and discovered it was uncapped again, they resealed it as best they could and carried on with their assault on the ghouls. A few paltry remnant of the ghouls was battled a number of times but the small numbers of ghouls offered little resistance as they lacked the numbers to draw together in a large mob as they had in the past. More troublesome was repeated encounters with pink-skinned humanoids with shaggy white hair and glowing eyes, the players didn't seem to be able to identify what the brutes were. A small number of mechanical gadgets and tools were gained from the odd shaggy humanoids (including what was later identified as a clockwork nail-gun).

One of the more aggressive encounters with a band of shaggy humanoids was a small distance from a large set of metal doors in a far corner of the Ghoul Halls. The door was decorated with odd menacing sphinx and an odd hum could be heard coming from the other side of the door. Luckily for Nervan the Pygmy Assassin he noted the hum while reaching for a door-handle and only suffered minor burns as he leaped back before suffering a severe shock. The Sphinx doors were marked for a future raid (and possible demolition with a sizable portion of blakc-powder).

 the party finished their sweep of the Ghouls Halls discovering the grisly and foul ghoul larder where corpses still hung from chains and hooks which they only made a cursory search before heading back to the surface confident they had cleared the majority of the sub-level of any threats and rewards. A small number of desperate ghouls were caught and dispatched wandering far from the Ghoul Halls as the party returned to the surface (some have begun to wander wider since their master was dispatched).

Three of the six PCs in the party this session rose a level from their endeavors and the campaign now has it's first 4th level character and two more 3rd level characters. The players now know of three ways down from the Ghoul Halls (two freshly discovered) and are keen on exploring one next session.

MOG Headcount

A roster of Dead PCs and Monsters in my MOG campaign.

Foes Slain:

Giant Albino Rats-14

Glowing Green Skeletons- 10

Bogloids- 52

Ghouls- 132

Trolde- 2

Vampire- 1

Medusa- 1

Giant Forest Sloths- 4

Red Shark-toothed Amazons- 12

Bog Bears- 2

Sword Wight- 1

Bandits-6

Ruffians-8

Granga  (B-movie Alosaurus) – 1

Saucer-men - 2

Sting bats- 13

Black Moss- 2

Shambling Fungus- 1

Over 40,000 exp for monsters slain in 20-24 sessions (I've lost exact count)

5 PC Deaths and unresolved abductions:

Beck killed by Vampire in it's death throes

Slendara Posioned by A Dungeon-gang Sub-Leader

Triborn abducted by Saucer-Men

McDowell Hatfield and Greg the Assassin- killed by Ghouls

All surviving PCs are 2-3rd level as of this writing. 30%  of characters die after creation so far.

We've had sessions with 4-14 PCs+Henchmen. Having 2 PCs per character and a dungeon just outside civilization has worked out well it's motivated the players to show up even when a few are missing.