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. 

Mini Review: 18 "Unusual Dice Set" Impact Miniatures

For a long, long, long, long time (as in a month max), I had determined to pick up a set of eclectic dice. I was considering buying the Goodman Games DCC dice, but ended up purchasing the "Unusual Dice Set" by Impact Miniatures. They were available from Amazon for $26 USD. Shipping rates were more affordable for those of us residing at the bottom of the world too. 

The included dice are d3, d4, d5, d6, d7, d8, d10, d%, d11, d12, d14, d16, d18, d20, d24, and d30. Quite the variety. They came very speedily (a week?). Impressive service.

Overall Thoughts:
I'm happy with my purchase, although straight out of the bag I did notice the d5 and d20 in particular had blurred/running ink marks on them. The quality is equitable or slightly inferior to Chessex and definitely not up to par with Game Science. I have a sneaky intuition the d5 favours the 5 a little too much, though without rigorous testing, my predilection will remain indefinitely in the realms of suspicion. In sum, it meets my needs: a big faakking range of dice.

If you need a set of "unusual" dice, go ahead and grab one. I'm looking forward to my next game just so I can have an excuse to roll something weird. I can see why everyone is making d30 tables.