Helping a Friend convert a setting.

So Ive recently agreed to help a friend convert their 3rd party Gonzo 5e D&D setting to Swords and Wizardry, which might be a bit of an undertaking given the 11 playable race options (mutants are my favourite i briefly played a mutant that dissolved in water during a one-shot, we started in a swamp...) dozens of monster stat blocks (probably not too hard but might be time consuming) and a bunch of weird magic items, but I have a fair amount of free time at the moment that's unsuited to running or playing games.

Oblivium as i said earlier is a Gonzo science fantasy setting set on a chaotic demi plane with a multitude of weird factions, currently available for 5e D&D from drive thru rpg: Oblivium - Avenesse | DriveThruRPG.com, it recently got a rather favourable review from possibly one of the most critical reviewers in the OSR [Review] Oblivium (5e); Sons of Satanis – Age of Dusk (wordpress.com). So this setting has quite a bit to offer and i can attest from personal experience its a lot of fun to explore.

First thing to work through will of course be character race options which work somewhat differently in S&W than 5e D&D for an idea of what's on offer the race list is as follows.

1. Apeling; self explanatory
2. Chaedran; humanoid weasels that giant insects as cattle and work animals
3. Chimera; mix between several humanoid races
4. Fallen ember; living humanoid leftovers of dead gods 
5. hollow; artificial people without souls
6. Ilmite; red skinned hairy humans that lay eggs? 
7. KoraaRa; catlike humanoids that are all heavily androgynous and skilled sailors
8. Middenian; Europeans from the Victorian age
9. Mutoid; mutants that live in a big desert self explanatory main trait is their mutations 
10. Reptilians; pretty typical pulp reptilians lots of Howard and Lovecraft inspiration here
11. Vethari; plant people with wooden bones

Im properly going to break up this list and do one or two races per post to keep things fairly slow but steady, after the races equipment will be the next thing since several of the races have access to different equipment than your standard fantasy hero, then on to the monsters and magic items that will take a fair amount of time but shouldn't be too heavy on mechanics (usually to convert 5e to OSR you simply make a monster 1 HD per CR with some fiddling per special abilitys, S&W is particularly good with explaining its power level system)

Expect future posts soon (Hopefully) 

Player behaviour: path of least resistance

Been kicking myself to post something but have generally been on a bit of a hiatus so i don't have much to write about, thought it might be worth discussing something thats quite easy to observe and talk about how it relates to adventure/dungeon design.

Simply place a normal 10ft wide corridor in front of your players next to a 5ft wide crawlspace and see which one they go for, its pretty likely that they will go for the normal 10ft wide corridor, awhile ago i had a similar situation in a dungeon i ran, part of it was accessible either through crawling through giant rat tunnels or via a locked and trapped door, unsurprisingly the players didn't choose this option and explored other areas of the dungeon even going to the second floor of the dungeon, there are obvious disadvantages to picking the harder path and no obvious benefit most players want to win after all.

This somewhat relates to a conversation i had with another DM about the dungeon design where he said that he often makes use of such path options and usually has easier encounters on the harder(in the sense of navigation) and harder encounters on the more normal path, this gives a very important risk vs reward situation, i can say that in the dungeon example i mentioned above nothing in that unexplored area was particularly difficult nor lacking in treasure.

I think if players had some hint that the harder path was just as or more profitable than the easy one it would change the way they consider such obstacles and may encourage more daring feats, an idea I've had linked to another dungeon I've been spit balling is a heavy gold idol at the bottom of a deep pit filled with water, the idol will sparkle in the torch light and have no hazards apart from its weight and the water, though not something the players might retrieve on a first delve it could encourage future delves of the same site with a clear payoff and maby even lead to additional submerged areas nearby to explore, 

This has largely been rambling but i don't want to fall too far behind on blog posting as its just going to get harder to get back into the longer i wait, i hope theres something you've found useful in this post and I'll try to write again soon 

MC

Trying my hand at some OSR Spells.

Within many old D&D and OSR rules sets there are rules implying that magic users have the ability to create new spells. To be honest in my short time in the OSR I have not yet seen this be used or even discussed much. I think it is a interesting rule that I would like to see more players take advantage of as it has the ability to allow for great levels of experimentation. It also gives magic users a unique advantage over clerics in the way they can create tools to deal with their current circumstances.

Create Effigy: Level 2, duration 1 week per caster level, cast time 1 turn, taking the hair, nails or blood of another creature, this effigy is linked to their life force until the spell ends or the effigy is destroyed, if the effigy is repaired using silver thread (worth 20gp per use) heals the target by d4+1 hit points, and inflicting damage on the Effigy transfers d6+1 damage to the target. Burning the Effigy destroys it and deals d6 damage each round for d6+1 rounds to the target. having the Effigy on your person while being targeted by a breath attack also deals damage to the target (meaning that if you have an effigy of yourself all breath weapon attacks deal double damage).

Conceal Stash: Level 1, duration 1 month per caster level, cast time 1 turn, this spell magically hides some kind of container, this prevents it being found through mundane means though is easily detected with detect magic.

Grow Bow: Level 1, duration instantaneous, cast time 1 turn, the caster touches a nearby tree that immediately sprouts a longbow/short bow and 12 arrows or 24 arrows if the caster chooses not to grow a bow.

Blood Rage: Level 2, duration d6 + (caster level over 3) rounds, cause a single creature to go into a mindless battle rage, the creature gains +2 to attack, damage and Ac, but must attack the closest creature each round until the spell ends, unwilling creatures make a saving throw.

Let me know what you think of these spells and if any are particularly unbalanced.

M.C.

The Wizards Cave: A mini setting/Planer travel

Travel between one setting to another has been a longstanding trope of D&D and much of the literature that inspired it. Throughout the editions of D&D there have been many methods, from portals or gateways to magical sailing ships. However it seems that many people associate Planer travel with high level play or expressly high magic settings, after reading through some Swords and Sorcery stories on the Appendix N list I have come see this as untrue. In fact I would argue that Planer travel is a style of play that can offer a large amount of variety both for players and DM's.

But how would low level PC's travel from one world to another? they don't have access yet to casting higher level magics that allow for such travel, this limits them largely to natural gateways or those made by higher level casters. The Wizards Caves are one such creation, inspired by the cave of Ningauble of the seven eyes from the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series, it is a labyrinthine cave system that can be accessed and provide access to multiple worlds throughout the multiverse. This provides an excuse for players to change settings from adventure to adventure or stay in one for awhile if they are invested, the Wizard himself may act as a patron of the party sending them to strange and outlandish worlds to acquire certain artefacts or complete special tasks for him.

So that's the what out the way now we must more to the how. What sort of system could simulate travel through this cave system? well there could be a dungeon crawl if the caves contain dangers though this encourages mapping and layout of an area that may not be consistent, so we need somthing a bit more abstract. Though i think it shouldn't entirely be random some manor of semi random generation may be necessary for such a level of abstraction, repurposing some of the overland travel rules such as chance to get lost or navigation may be a solid idea, the chance being lower or non existent on common pathways through the wizards domain much in the same way a road would work in overland travel.

So lets say they have a 30% chance to get lost as a base, this can be increased based on the players actions such as choosing an unlit and path +10%(+20% if they themselves don't have a light source), choosing a more natural looking cavern +30% etc. upon getting lost roll on a table to determine what sort of room they encounter:

Here is an example table with some ideas. d6

1. the players find themselves in on a clear path again and the chance to get lost is reset to 30%,

2. servants quarters, filled with what ever imps, homunculi or masked henchmen the wizard employs.

3. the players enter one of the Cavens inner sanctum (cumulative 15% chance to encounter the Wizard, the 7th time is guaranteed to encounter him) the cavern is filled with cryptic scrolls, alchemical fungi, piles of rusted armour, torn banners or other esoteric miscellanea 

4. natural cavern filled with cave vermin like cave crickets or bats etc

5. dead end, return to last cross roads and reroll lost chance

6. A exit, possibly to another plane of existence, has a 10% chance for it to be the exit originally searched for by the players (if any)

This obviously needs more work and mechanical design, but i think functions as a basic concept.

let me know what you think, I will try to revisit this at some point with another post to expand this idea more but this post has been sat on my desk for about a week and I need to post somthing to get back in the habit so sorry if this isn't enough for you.

A Quick Look At The DarkSouls TTRPG,

So a week or two ago i received my pre-order copy of the Darksouls TTRPG, a purchase  made mainly out of morbid curiosity. Since then I've given it a few flip throughs and reflected a bit on what I've read (also has anyone actually seen anyone else review this yet? i know review copy's have been out for at least 2 months)

So first off this system is based off 5e, this means it uses the core mechanics and procedures for attack, skills, saving throws and many abilities. This is a mixed blessing, Steam forged games have not been afraid of completely gutting certain things like the magic system, subclasses and races. Some systems however like the exploration mechanics could have used a new system instead of being pasted across.

First actual mechanic the book displays is the Backstory, Memories and Drives, each of these give advantage on a roll once a rest if you invoke this aspect of your character. Origins are what gives you your hit dice size, stat array and a bloodied ability (somthing that activates when you reach half HP) this is an odd mechanic that doesn't really have a base in either D&D or Darksouls. Generally your going to want one that complements your class but i guess in the case of the deprived class this flexibility helps.

Classes generally mirror one of the D&D classes in some way, though there are those that are some form of mix of different ideas. Each of class has their own features some borrowed from the 5e D&D SRD and other completely original, Knight is your standard fighter and gets fighting styles, Mercenaries get the rangers favoured enemy, Assassins get the rouges sneak attack, Warrior gets the barbarians rage, thief's get a range attack limited version of sneak attack and Heralds get the divine sense of Paladins. The Caster classes gain their spell casting feature as their primary ability. It would take a long time to categorise and compare the different abilities of these classes, what I will say is I've noticed that a lot of the pseudo resources of 5e like Ki, Sorcery points and Martial dice have mostly been replaced with position costs which is somthing I quite like.

So what is position? its the games version of HP, it scales much in the same way that HP does in 5e, except that you roll the dice each combat???? this is bizarre to be honest and means that unless this rolled temp hp is whittled down and damage is done to your base hp fight could not have consequence, its also worth noting that you only roll this hp in combat traps attack your much lower base hp directly making them VERY deadly, if you are running this system MAKE USE OF TRAPS. Some abilities allow you to spend Position to trigger them and high level spells require you to spend Position to cast, this is usually quite small amounts you are spending at any one time so i wonder how much this would change combat from 5e's default.

So spells, this game has a ton of spells from across the darksouls series, a good mix of DS 1,2 and 3 spells provide a good amount of verity however there is a lack of utility spells due to all the spells coming from Darksouls. Most spells require a position cost to cast though utility and low level healing/ damage spells tend not to, each spell also has a minimum character level needed to cast it, a number of attunement slots it takes up to have it prepared and a number of casts. Apart from that they work similar to D&D 5e spells do.

Equipment is an interesting section, firstly it has the rules for a slot based encumbrance system which splits between active slots(what your wearing/Holding) and Equipment slots(other stuff your carrying around). the weight of armour or weapons you can use depends on your strength score, to use the heavy weapons for instance you need a minimum of 13 str and to wear the heaviest armour you need a minimum of 18 strength. The mundane equipment are a mix of standard equipment from the 5e PHB and Some darksouls inspired items such as an Estus flask or pine resins etc, this works well in the systems favour as unlike the spell selection you have access to standard adventuring equipment. 

Armour, weapons and shields all have special abilities tied to them which range in effects and usefulness, im a fan of this idea it helps capture some of the fun equipment options of darksouls while not being too overcomplex, some of the options do fall flat for instance some of the boss weapons are stupidly underpowered compared to more common equipment such as the (Moonlight Great sword only dealing 1d6 dmg while being 2 handed and requiring 15 strength to use) and some abilities like most of the Katanas just don't work " Spend 2 position after suffering damage to reduce that damage by -2" but position is hp??? so your spending 2 hp to reduce the damage by 2 hp?? how did noone pick this up when designing this?. There is defiantly somthing cool here which i would love to steal and adapt but as presented it needs some work, too many typos and bad design if you pick up this game bear in mind that you may have to adjust weapon power to your tastes.

Next gets into the DM section of the book, starting with a breath table indicating the value of different souls you may find throughout the world, there is  table later on that refers back to this one when talking about balancing loot to level. there is a brief section of general GMing and adjusting the difficulty of the game to your own tastes or your tables, and a brief section on the systems stance towards official DS lore, to put it simply they shied away from adding anything to the lore or removing any ambiguity to preserve the feel of darksouls and allow GMs to adjust it to their own lore preference. There are some short tables for generating darksouls themed locations, plots and themes, they are good but i feel could be made longer since the d10 tables are across a whole page each and could easily be expanded to a d20, these should give a good starting point but i imagine for anyone familiar with the darksouls franchise making your own shouldn't be too hard, the quests are all active (go here and do that, or find this) so should give clear objectives for you players to follow without too much confusion, thinking about how to tie these in to a greater adventure will be useful as alot of these seem to be fairly simple or short tasks.

There is short encounter table and boss table with some of the monsters listed in the later bestiary (except the Ghru, which is listed on this table but doesn't have a stat block) later on there are more encounter tables tied to specific locations. There is then a section on NPCs which discusses a few approaches to handling NPCs and a name generation table for NPCs, personally i would recommend this table https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dark-souls-names.php as an option for more varied results, there is a small table with Npc Quirks, side quests and gifts the NPC may give. There is a section discussing campaigns and motivating players advising to have a limited and more focused campaign. Estus flasks and bonfires are discussed in relation to managing difficulty, the easier you want a section the more bonfires and the harder you want it the less, this is interesting to consider with the 6 encounter assumption that 5e has as bonfires directly influence when and where players can long rest and recharge their abilities, though i imagine much of the monsters provided in the book are more deadly than most standard 5e monsters. 

There is then a overview on the world of Darksouls, focusing on the Darksouls 3 world of Lothric, each section is quite brief having an over view of the location, relevant encounters, Npcs and Bosses. No maps are provided in this section there is even a note encouraging the GM to make their own sections rather than copy locations layout directly from the games, i think this is the right approach, a lot of things that work for video games wont work as well for ttrpg game, for instance the ability to climb and traverse the environment is more limited in a video game, where as the ttrpg contains climbing equipment and rope you can freely use to explore.

The Bestiary section, now this is an interesting selection of monsters from Darksouls 1 2 and 3, I like the inclusion of some of the more obscure or interesting monsters rather than having a dozen different types of hollow soldier, Though did they need 4 different types or rat? I didn't even know there was that many rat types in Darksouls i think half of these are from DS 2(also anyone know the difference between a dog rat and rat hound? i think dog rats might just be the DS 2 version of rats which look identical to DS 1&3 rats). Also there are stats for the Forlorn which is pretty cool CR 20!!!. Power level is a bit odd (Silver knights and Corvids are both CR 3?) so to compare lets take the staving hound, Giant  and Guardian Dragon with 5e equivalents to see the difference

Starving hound CR1/4 Vs Wold CR 1/4 (was going to do Mastiff but decided to get one of the same CR) 

firstly AC Staving hound has 1 less AC than the wolf, 

HP, Staving hound has +2 hp than Wolf

both have the same Keen sense and pack tactics that are the same.

however once we look at the attacks each have there is a bit of difference, the Staving dog has Multi attack  meaning it has two attacks dealing 1d6+2 with a ride on effect similar to the 5e wolf.

so at this stage not too much different, Next the Giant;

Giant CR9 Vs Fire giant CR9

AC; Giant has -2 ac compared to Fire Giant,

HP, Giant and fire giant have the same hp (and Saving throws, I'm starting to suspect a lot of these are more direct ports than i would have initially) it does have more damage immunities and resistances though.

Now the Giant does have a bloodied effect at half hp where it makes an immediate stomp attack. and in general has more options for attacks, its multi attack option (its fists) does the same dmg as the fire giants great sword attacks (those are some dangerous fists) at 6d6+7, stomp is a attack that hits all in a 20ft radius with a pretty high dex save to get half damage, it deals 12d8dmg!!!! now that's an incentive not to pile on and to instead keep your distance. Ground Swipe is a 15ft cone attack that has the same high dex save or dealing 6d10+7 dmg, Charge allows it to move 20ft(i guess this is like a dash? but worse?) and finally the rock throw which is the same as the fire giant.

Guardian Dragon CR 16 Vs Adult Blue Dragon CR 16

so off the bat, AC and HP for both dragons are identical, as are saving throws and number of dmg immunities. (interestingly too the Guardian dragon has the same burrowing speed despite DS never indicating that this is something they are capable of)

Both have legendary resistance and Legendary actions, one difference is that a Guardian dragon needs to spend position(HP) to use its legendary abilities. ledgendary actions are the same apart from the Guardien dragons wing attack being slightly stronger (2d10+7 as opposed to 2d6+7)

Attacks are similar with them both having the same multi attacks, Frightful Presence plus 3 attacks 1 bite and 2 claw (though when the guardien dragon is bloodied it gains 2 more bite attacks and a stomp attack(wait it doesn't have a stomp attack? must be a typo i imagine its a claw attack), the bite and claw attacks are identical, the tail attack is also the same as the blue dragon, as is frightful presence (with the change that saving doesn't make you immune for 24 hours but instead only for that round, pretty good change imo) the breath attack costs 3 position but does the same dmg (though it also ignites the player brutal).

so looking at these comparison, the DS monsters are a bit tougher than their 5e counter parts, but not the massive jump in power i expected, this of course means you can use any of your favourite 5e monsters with minimal tweaks with this system, considering the amount of Monsters that gives you access to you that's not too bad of a deal.

Bosses get their own section though some boss monsters are in the previous section (like the Iron Golam, Guardian Dragon and most demon bosses) these are mostly defined by their high hp pool, long list of actions, bloodied effects and position abilities. Most of these are bosses from Darksouls 3 but there are some notable additions such as Artorias, Sif the great grey wolf, Black Dragon Kalameet and the gaping dragon, surprisingly the Abyss walkers where not included, which makes them the only lord of cinder not included.  and the big Capstone of these bosses the Soul of Cinder, a boss who's average hp is 900( wow)

And with that the book ends on a Glossary that explains some of the terminology in the book (not the most flashy of ends but a nice inclusion) this system is heavily focused on combat and making a deadly and challenging game, i don't think its all there but it would be easy enough to tweak. I feel this game would have benefited from more dungeon crawling rules and options but its clear this was not the focus of the design team (which is understandable considering the scope of what they have created) compared to 5e there is less player options which may be a issue for some people, mechanical variation between two warriors of the same origin would be non existent. I will have to look in more detail before making any definitive statement on the system but i like the ideas it has and think that in some aspects cleans up the base system a bit (like not having to use the convoluted key word system as much as 5e does, i don't think size category is referenced outside of grappling)

Any way i hope this gives you some idea of what the system offers, and how it compares to 5e D&D the system its based off. 

M.C.

Pitching The Osr

I've been busy the last few days setting up various OSR servers one on Discord and another on Guilded in the hopes of creating a community of like minded gamers interested in playing and discussing Various OSR systems.

While doing this I had a question pop up in my head that I thought would be good to make a quick blog post about, and that is "How would you pitch the OSR to someone unfamiliar with it?" this I feel is an important question, because OSR systems are so wrapped up in certain play philosophies and jargon that it can be hard to properly explain their appeal.

I've talked about in a past article about how I enjoy many OSR systems focus on exploration (found Here: https://mazecaretaker.blogspot.com/2022/01/why-i-love-osr-exploration-is-king.html) And exploration is definitely one aspect these systems understand and do well in my opinion. 

But outside of that there is an immersive quality found in old editions of D&D and OSR systems, when you are exploring a dungeon or traversing the wilderness you do so through describing actions or making choices presented to you, a skill check isn't needed for such interaction, this sort of freeform interaction with an imaginary environment can be incredibly satisfying if done well and encourages a more active play style than a reactive skill roll would make. 

The term tactical combat is one I have heard in the TTRPG community since I joined a few years back. Usually it means a system that encourages different actions based on the context of the encounter or discourages the same repetitive action or routines. Within the context of the OSR though I feel the more free form and naturalistic playstyle results in a different kind of tactical combat, one where most of the actions aren't strictly defined and largely dependent on a players imagination and a DMs interpretation.

One thing widely talked about when comparing OSR systems to other systems is the deadliness of OSR systems. This is largely over stated, unless you are playing a direct B/X clone its unlikely that the system is a strict death a 0 affair and many DMs may have additional house rules to increase survivability, its rather easy to make a deadly system less deadly while retaining its inbuilt challenge. 

A parties teamwork and tactics are largely accountable for its survival in OSR systems, some members of the party have significantly less hit points than others while also having skills or spells that are incredibly useful to the party as a whole, for an example of this lets say you have a lvl 1 magic user with average hit points (so 2hp) and the sleep spell, in your standard party, casting the sleep spell can be an instant win against most low level monsters but in many OSR systems that borrow heavily from B/X a spell is declared at the start of a combat round and goes off at the end, in this time the magic user taking damage will result in the spell fizzling, to prevent this the rest of the party can form a protective formation around the magic user to prevent monsters for attacking them in melee as well as charging monsters to prevent them using ranged attacks, after the round the sleep spell goes off and all the surviving monsters are put to sleep and can be killed easily by slitting their throats.

In terms of character customization, your characters will be defined more by their equipment or behaviour than their abilities. In many ways the difference between a knight and a bezerker is what weapons and armour they use and how they fight. On top of that the simple mechanics most OSR systems use means modifying and creating different options for characters. Most systems also stick to the core 4 classes (Fighter, Thief, Magic User and Cleric) with a bit of tweaking of mechanics I would argue that most character concepts could fit into one of these 4 archetypes. Races are usually kept to Humans Halflings Elves and Dwarves, this should by no means be seen as a hard limit though as creating new races for an OSR system is usually quite easy.

I suppose then the common theme in the OSR is: doing more with less, allowing your imagination and common sense to inform you on how to handle any one situation or in creating content, these systems where made incomplete on purpose its part of their design. This also means that a DM holds more important in such systems, they have to fill in the gaps in the system using their common sense, it is important to be fair as a DM because of this your players may sour to you if they think you are too flippant or cruel in your rulings. A DM should be open to the players desires and be willing to create content for them if it is missing.

To the players I would say that like any TTRPG usually get out what you put in, I think most players start playing TTRPG the right way with using their imagination to interact with the imaginary environment, over time we naturally pick up habits based on the systems and groups we play with. OSR systems are a chance to return to this style of play which is quite an enjoyable experience when done well. There are certain ways to prompt you DM, asking more details about an object or location, searching areas enthusiastically and asking a few questions about how they would handle certain in game procedures before playing with them.

Anyway here are the Servers I've been working on as well, feel free to jump on one and say hi;

Discord Server: https://discord.gg/9rx886nc

Guilded Server: https://www.guilded.gg/i/2OOA5qZ2

I am also working on a project at the moment with some other people, ill let you know about it when its ready :)

M.C.

Dungeons Part 6: Layout Plans

Step on in this Mega dungeon project is going to be some general planning. Firstly I'm going to make a plan of the themes and content of each dungeon level, this is just going to be something rough in Ms paint to help me organise my ideas a bit.

Starting with this as my base.

Starting from the top, the Surface level will either be a smaller dungeon of itself or just a general description of the surroundings and the dungeon entrance, I'm going to leave this unplanned for now until I have a good idea of what's in the first level. Thinking about what sort of transitions from level to level and how the levels interact with one another helps tie the dungeon together as a coherent whole, my plan is to have each level have access to different resources each controlled by a different faction. The faction are weary of an all out war for fear of loosing access to a vital resource required for their survival.

After a bit of thinking I ended up with this.

So the different factions I have thought up so far are; The slavers lead by a flesh warping vivimancer, The leather skins lead by a dazzling illusionist, the pickers lead by a cruel necromancer and to round out the factions a slave rebellion lead by a scarred miner.

Though each of the faction leaders will have a lair on a different level to one another, their agents should be found on all levels in some way as well as being on each levels random encounter table. Though the factions are stuck in a cold war skirmishes and sabotage between factions should be common. Wearing the clothes  and symbols of a faction will be enough to pass by their guards and most workers, some orderlies will spot a slave or guard out of place though.

The first level of the dungeon will have a central market surrounded by other areas serving different functions.

My current mock up of the lvl 1 layout

Each of the areas shown on the mock up can be expanded to be around 2-4 rooms each, which will quickly fill out into an expansive complex. to traverse from one area to another there will be a network of corridors, aqueducts and ventilation shafts.

Most corridors and rooms in this dungeon will be unlit except for those that see frequent use, those lit will be illuminated by oil lanterns or candles produced elsewhere in the dungeon. I'm planning on having some fire beetles or oil beetles on the second level.

Let me know what you think of the plans so far, i will begin work on mapping and stocking the first level fairly soon so should have something to show by the end of the week.

M.C.