OD&D Conversion

We wrapped up my Astonishing Swordsman & Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign last night. Perhaps fittingly it was a TPK. A horde of undead overbore the party, and after a cleric-less battle of valorous proportions everyone was dead. Being aware it was the final session, the players decided to fight to the death (though I think they could have escaped if they wished).

After the session I asked the players their thoughts on the system. We've had a total of 14 sessions by my count, which I think is a decent amount to get a handle on a system. People were generally positive with the experience. The two phase combat has been difficult for me to get my head around (practically speaking) and I think this translated in the sessions. Also the descending armour class was different from the games we grew up on (but something I am personally very familiar with). Unsurprisingly, these were the things which were mentioned as downsides. The upsides were the deadliness of combat and the general mood. Let it be noted that the group played excellently throughout this campaign.

I am currently scheming an OD&D sandbox concept. The goal is open-ended exploration, rife with dungeons, cults, interesting wilderness spaces, odd races, spacemen, and everything else that makes a game of D&D fun. My approach is beginning with the White box. Over time I may add some details from the Greyhawk supplement, but for now I'll keep it super simple. Classes will be custom for the most part, though Fighting-Man, Cleric, and Magic-User will be defaults. Given the player feedback regarding descending armour class, I converted the Men & Magic tables to an ascending system. I haven't fully decided whether I'll keep it traditional, or use ascending armour class. Part of me thinks it may be easier (for both me and the players) to use my conversion.

If you're interested check out my downloads page or click HERE. 

Print friendly version can be found HERE.

Example Page

I've attempted to keep the representations faithful to the originals - a literal translation. You'll notice I've created a table which extrapolates the attack bonuses for each level (and class). These are not "raw" because I have had to fill in progressions between say +1 and +3, making an executive decision on how those progressions are made. If you do not like the way I have interpreted this, simply use the preceding tables. In the interest of clarity I have also added the Saving Throws in a more readable format. Hope this is helpful!

The Black Ruins

Today signifies the release of my second adventure: The Black Ruins. It is FREE to download from Lulu or can obtained from my downloads page too. 

I have created a colour print copy which is also available on Lulu for purchase via print-on-demand.

Blackened esoteric obelisks, henceforth known among most folk as ‘The Yore Standing Stones’, dot a strangely unnatural hill. The runes are inscribed with runic scripting, but it is what looms below the forlorn hill that should chill any good serf to the bone.

Maintaining compatibility with any old school fantasy role-playing game or retro-clone, this is an adventure for 4-6 players arrayed around levels 1-3. This work can be made compatible with newer editions with minimal effort.

Trilemma Adventures

A few weeks ago, by happenstance of course, I came across the Trilemma Adventures Blog (aka I'll See It When I Believe it') by Michael Prescott. Ever since I've been meaning to write about it, because not only are these mini adventures very cool, but they're also very FREE. The premise of the adventures often follow a one- or two-page format, meaning the bulk of the information is right where you need it - nothing more, nothing less.

For example, we have 'The Circle of Wolves':

Or we have the latest adventure 'In the Care of Bones':

Note: The actual adventures contain text around the images, I have opted to show the illustrations only for example's sake.

These resources present an adventure site that I find artistically pleasing, but rich with potential. I may be mistaken, but I do not believe any specific system is intended or purported to be used with these resources, meaning the DM/GM/Referee is at liberty to interpret these images and text as they see fit, modifying it to suit your purposes.

Side Rant: Someone will invariably complain that it is not 'compatible' with their edition of choice, and thus they cannot POSSIBLY run it, but really, half the fun is modifying something to work in your world. That's the point of the game - shared adventure in a world of your group's creation! Most systems are not that complex to tamper with, and if you are running a system that makes the task of conversion difficult, may I suggest switching to something simpler? I was running Pathfinder awhile back, and for the record, the unnecessary complexity drove me up the wall. We have switched systems now (thankfully my group were supportive of this). Preparing stat blocks should not be a monolithic task.

Anyway, before my tangent I was saying these mini adventures are awesome. In a heartbeat I would grab the illustrations and make something cool with them if the actual adventure wasn't to my liking. Thankfully though the writing is clear, to the point, and generally well written. One of these mini adventures could easily provide a night's worth of fun, and may just prove to be that perfect side-quest to break the routine of a larger campaign. For the new DM/GM/Ref these adventures are a great starting point for getting your feet wet. If your DM is getting burnt out, offer to run one of these adventures as a one-shot. Put your hand towards changing a few things around, or fleshing out an NPC, or providing an agenda for them. Invent a monster, or do something as simple as change the colour of the monster's skin. These adventures make said experiments easy.

Dig in, and as always, have fun!


P.S If anyone has run one of these adventures I'd love to hear some stories.

Hill Cantons Compendium II - Review

Hill Cantons Compendium II - Review

Author/s: Chris Kutalik & Mike Davison (Hydra Collective LLC)
Price: $0 - Pay what you want
Format: PDF
Page count: 21
System: OSR (0e/1e/insert retroclone here)
Year: 2015

Procrastination is a funny thing - you often end up places you would not expect to. Today was no exception, as I stumbled upon the Hill Cantons Compendium II. The PDF is free to download, and for anyone running a 0e-styled game (or AD&D or Labyrinth Lord or whatever) I recommend checking it out. Actually, you know what? Check it out even if you're not running any of those systems.

You may be asking why. Well, for starters it's free. If that isn't appealing enough, then how about the fact it includes a very brief setting overview, a bunch of new classes, and a whole swathe of random tables?

The Good.
Right off the bat I'm going to say it: I like this. When I began reading I thought okay, another home-brew setting where I don't understand the in-joke references, but between that thought and finishing my read-through, something clicked. I like how sparsely defined the setting is, and while I would never use it (because I have my own imagination, and thrive on designing my own settings), it had some interesting bits that I would certainly steal - like the idea that there is a rather 'normal', seemingly magic-less hub of civilisation, whereupon the further one ventures out things get weirder and weirder. It describes in loose terms the socio-political setup, and the idea of 'hostels' - multi-storied buildings of (usually) ascending swankiness. The world seems to be an amalgam of weird fiction, sci-fi and swords & sorcery, with some more traditional fantasy tropes, but due to the brevity of the work it's a little difficult to be certain.

Then it gets really fun. The Compendium adds some new classes like the Black Hobbit - chaotic and black-hearted halflings; Chaos Monk - think bad 80s kung-fu movie characters made into a class; Feral Dwarf - crude, cave-men dwarves; Half-Ogre - mank, stinky, disgusting beings; Mountebank - illusory trickster; Pantless Barbarian - the name really says it all; Robo-Dwarves, War Bear and White Wizard - magic-user/cleric/druid combo. My personal favourites were the Black Hobbits (the little bastards), the Pantless Barbarians (because LOL), White Wizard (I've long thought the cleric class should be ditched and replaced with a magic-user class who can cast cleric spells too), and the Mountebank (cos I love all things thief). I found myself knee-deep in half-ogre faeces, chuckling to myself at a few things written therein. It's quite tongue-in-cheek, and very self-conscious.

The tables too, make a great addition to this compendium, and I can see myself using them just for NPCs: "Bob looks at you with..." *rolls dice* "...sad eyes - 'my parents didn't love me', he finishes".

The compendium is funny, useful and even rather innovative (if I may use that word, despite the fact EVERYTHING under the sun has been done already).

The Bad.
When something is free, one shouldn't really complain. However, I'm still of the opinion if you're going to bother with something do it right. My only complaint, if it even is a complaint, is at times I felt a little excluded from the text, almost as if this was used in a campaign, but then wasn't properly or extensively explained to the intended audience. Then again, I've been doing this hobby long enough that I actually don't care. I'm an adult, I don't need to be spoon-fed by a gaming company, and I can sift through the ideas to find the gems; which in this case is very easy to do. I noticed a few proofreading errors here and there, though honestly no more (or less) than my Adventures in Highwold supplement. The description for Isle of Tolmin and the House of the Axe was completely omitted. Is that a big deal? No. I didn't pay for it. Too, given my own experiences with writing and self-publishing, once something is 'complete' and published, it's only then that you notice the mistakes, but by that time you really can't be assed to correct it.

Conclusion.
You still haven't downloaded it??!

But seriously.