OD&D + 0-Level Characters

A present to myself arrived on the doorstep today: the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I will probably do a review of it at some point (what I've read so far is awesome), but one aspect that inspired me is the handling of 0-level characters. I like the idea of a dozen or so peasant mates banding together to explore a dungeon: 

*Hiccup!* "Barry, ai heard therz sum treshurez in this here dungin!" 

A few hours/days/weeks later most are dead. Shit, that escalated quickly.

Anyway, my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers mini-campaign is winding down. I'm running a published adventure at the moment, and my Xamboola adventure has been successfully playtested. I'm kind of itching for something different. Earlier this year I ran an OD&D one-shot which turned into The Black Ruins. I'm a huge fan of OD&D. Although I was born over a decade after its release, I adore the ruleset. It's simple, malleable, and includes all the bits of D&D that I like. The other day I drew a map of an imagined city called Styro which is basically...I don't know...it's weird. But the idea of a classless game - or at least a looser definition of class - has been sitting with me recently, and DCC's 0-level characters has got the juices going a bit further. I've been considering running an OD&D hexcrawl/megadungeon game, where characters start off as worthless peons, and through adventure begin to hone their skills further. Each character would begin at 0 level, and...

• I'd probably use my Sandboxing tables to generate a prior profession, or use the DCC tables for ideas.
• Begin with1d3 hit points. 
• Gain a level at the conclusion of the first adventure and choose a class. Classes will be assumed to be fighting-man, cleric, or magic-user (probably human only). Additional class options are my OD&D Thief and Berserker (see my downloads section). Also, players can describe what sort of character they want, and I can create a template from that (I'm working on a Mentalist at the moment).
• Instead of gaining another hit die, 1st level characters would then roll 1d6 for hit points. If the total exceeded their 0-level total, they keep the higher. Otherwise they gain 1 extra hit point. Thus, a 1st level character could have anywhere between 2-6 hit points.

Oh, and I'd get players to roll at least 2-4 characters. I've been mapping out the first level of the Styro underworld too. I'm kind of excited for where this eventuates. More to come. 

How to Hexcrawl: A Practical Guide to Wilderness Adventures - Review

Author: Joe Johnston (Taskboy Games)
Price: Pay what you want
Format: PDF
Page count: 27
System: Labyrinth Lord (or any OSR/Old School FRP). 
Year: 2015

The context of this supplement assumes the reader will be using a Labyrinth Lord or Dungeons & Dragons B/X rule-set for their gaming (Basic & Expert), referencing both within this work. 

The Good
Very clear presentation. It was easy to read, only taking me about five minutes or so to get through it. For the complete newcomer to this style of gaming (the hexcrawl) it inevitably provides some very solid advice, and in many ways is a how-to in a step-by-step format. This aspect of it was very useful. Additionally it provided a few options for cases where rules may be slightly ambiguous or open to interpretation. All manner of considerations are covered in this short albeit substantial tome - wilderness travel, weather, mounts and equipment, fatigue, getting lost, resting, rates of travel, hunting, and foraging. The end section of this manual provides a page of resources for those interested in finding additional hexcrawl material online. It is a particularly practical supplement, and accompanied with a very simple FRPG rule-set, one could almost run a complete game with this. I have always found the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide to be far too dense in its explanation of wilderness travel, and this supplement really distilled the whole concept/style into a digestible format. 

The Bad
In terms of content an impressive brevity of words has been achieved, minimising superfluous description. This is the real merit of this work in my opinion. Its content I cannot critique. Layout is generally presentable, however I would like to see a revised edition at some stage with commissioned artwork and layout. It felt very 'home job' to me (which it no doubt was). It was almost exclusively public domain artwork which isn't an issue, but I would have preferred some self-drawn maps (matching the hex map at the bottom of each page), along with some illustrations that mirrored that style. This would have provided a more consistent vibe and aesthetic overall. As I've said before, when something is free you can't really complain, but I guess I am a little!

Final Thoughts
This work undoubtedly clarified some of my own ambiguities surrounding the hexcrawl-style game. I tend to run things fairly differently than the way Johnston presents, preferring to 'fast forward' certain bits, resulting in a less hexy game overall. It did inspire me somewhat to run an entirely hex-based campaign, with various points of interest though, and I can see why this style of gaming is favoured by some. As a free download it's certainly worth checking out at least, and I'm certain you'll glean something useful from it, whether you are a master-hexer or a complete novice. The only real let-down, in my opinion, was the artwork.