Why OD&D is my (sometimes) favorite RPG.

I've seriously played Original D&D, the Little Brown Books, twice in my life.  Long ago, in my early 20's, when I still had the white box and now, last year or so.

Many years earlier when my dad had bought whitebox for me, I looked at the goofy art and put them aside cause at the time I already had *Advanced* D&D. Why regress to something "inferior". At some later point, exhausted with the weight and complexity ("realistic" weather, economy, ecology, etc. etc.) of my own campaign world and especially with the endless splatbooks and crappy products being written by novel authors instead of game designers being churned out in 2ed area. Digging through all my junk found that white box, sat down and actually read them for first time. It hit me, that feeling, the same one wargamers in 1974 must have got. Awe, newness, excitement, wonderment that anything was possible, it would be easy, and fun!  Right there, I rolled up some characters (on plain ruled paper, no special character sheet) and started hexcrawling a random wilderness.

I play / played many RPGs, and try all editions of D&D. But always end up gravitating towards rules lite systems. First FUDGE, then Labyrinth Lord, more recently Swords & Wizardry (which is my 1st choice now). In Austin, TX there is large group of DMs and players using OD&D with shared set of house rules and campaign world, called Planet Eris. In between other campaigns I've been playing with them on/off for a couple years and will be starting my first OD&D Planet Eris campaign next Fri.

The appeal of OD&D (for me anyways) dawned on me while writing this somewhat tongue and cheek response to DM adding ranger class on roll20 (which I don't think you have access to so reproduced below)

BLASPHEMY! Damn you and your rules bloat.Where will it end? Subraces of hobbits? Comeliness attribute? Madness! Our forefathers succumbed to the seduction of splatbooks. Has their sad history taught us nothing! We play the original rules, not because they are old, but because they are NOT NEW! 

Sir, I reject your wanton modernity. And if my fighting trousers weren't in the laundry, I might have been tempted to call you out.

That line, "not new"... OD&D is simple and **simplistic**. There are almost no rules. Which forces everyone to be more creative, to use more of their imagination. Also, nothing new to learn, no new class/rule breaking game, almost nothing to rules lawyer, min-max, or argue over. Even the basis of the game is simple. While you could play massive RP/court intrigue, ODD doesn't lend itself to that. It's heavy on *game*. And a specific, simplistic type at that, the crawl game. Dungeoncrawl, Hexcrawl, Citycrawl. Explore, do stuff with things you've found, explore some more.

It's all so refreshing and easy. Even more so than S&W which has variable damage, more complex monsters, other stuff. Sometimes I feel like gourmet almond crusted chicken with some freaky berry sauce arranged artistically and accompanied by nice wine. Other times I just want a hunk of meat juicily roasted with fire.

Those times I crave OD&D.

Dark Sun

Illustration credit: Don Dixon Cosmographia

Thinking about new campaigns for the new house and new year. I'm drawn to DarkSun. A setting I've never run or played in. But, I have and/or read most the books. I started adapting Pathfinder but got quickly fed up. Now I'm working on an Old-School Burnt World I'm calling Bone & Blood.

So what is Dark Sun? Opinions vary. I've looked over web resources and severalblogs. Most the old schoolers want to ditch psionics and subsume gladiators into fighter class. Both "iconic" Dark Sun for me. Here is my seven +/- two list in no particular order.

Death is Easy and Life is Cheap

Slavery, bloodsports, sentient sacrifice, literacy is illegal, oppression by despotic tyrants. All morals are relative and situational i.e. NO alignments.

Survival is a struggle. Outside of cites and major trade routes water and food will be issues. How much one can carry and how fast they can carry it overland are issues.

Gladiators and Templars Dammit!

Gladiators are distinct from Fighter. Templars are the (anti)paladin servants of the Defiler Tyrants. Befitting a world were might makes right and were one must fight to survive there are a preponderance of martial classes. Fighter, Gladiator, Hunter(ranger), Templar. Along with Preserver(elemental cleric), Psychic Sorcerer, Rogue(thief).

Wasteland Races

Bio-engineered slave races; human-dwarve hybrids called dwim (instead of mul to keep the IP lawyers at bay) and Half-giant. Not sure if big guys should be called hulks or mesh. Raider/trader running wasteland elves, the jdar. Dwarves, just cause. Halflings are wasteland savages. They are the enemy. Probably reskin them as jawa/tusken/fremen. I always thought three-keen were stupid, powergamer munchkin bait. Might have them as the enemy, might just ignore them completely.

Defiler Magic

Magic is evil, m'kay? Wizards are the enemy. Defiler magic's easy power is seductive and is a temptation for everyone. But there are no player wizards or defilers (well maybe the templars).

Psychic Sorcery

Bitchin psionics and Psychic Sorcerer class from "Under the Dying Sun".

Burt World

The expected sand dunes, wastelands, silt sea, boulder fields. All of it is deadly. No forests, jungles, lakes or rivers. The Seven Cities ruled by evil, despotic, Defiler Tyrants. These city-states are the only "safe" places to live. Escaped slaves, isolated Dwarven mountain villages and the nomadic wasteland elves life outside of the city-states but their existence is precarious. No free Tyr! There is no hope or happy place. Trade & Commerce (mining, manufacturing). Each city-state has unique resource or "thing" they produce.

Breaking Weapons, Shattering Armor!

Lack of metal. Wood is rare and valuable. Bone, chitin, stone(flint/obsidian) common. Which are all fluff for the mechanics of armor and weapon wearing out or breaking. This ties into survival as one of the major challenges

25% off Swords & Wizardry

Frog God Games has discounted their entire line of Swords & Wizardry products for 1 day only in celebration of Swords & Wizardry appreciation day (April 17th 2013). The discount is good for 25% off S&W Products but you must use coupon* code SWApprDay on April 17th 2013 at check out.

http://www.talesofthefroggod.com/sword-wizardry.html

*The coupon excludes items less than $1, S&W Cards, Pre-Orders, and Subscriptions

Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day

I am running a Swords & Wizardry game this very day at my local FLGS, Whose Turn is It? Austin, TX. 

Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day. Represent!

One of the attractions of Swords and Wizardry for me is its shallow power curve. Which means less math, a much broader range of levels that can adventure together and increased serendipity (with a little luck and planning a gang can defeat an opponent well beyond their level). The following house rules attempt to carry on that tradition.

Combat Effects

[Really need a better name.] 

After rolling damage an attacker may offer the defender an option to take a "Combat Effect" in place of damage.  Combat Effects are whatever the player can come up with (and referee agrees to). Some ideas; disarm, entangle, keep away, push back, knock down, block, bypass, stun, cut suspenders/belt.

I visualize this as the defender can stand their ground, fight back and suffer the consequences (damage).  Or, they can give ground, let go of weapon when pressed, etc. It nicely and naturally incorporates attack success. Score a weak 1 point of damage, defender will take that 1pt of damage rather than be knocked down. Scoring 5, a very good hit, you are more likely to impose your will on opponent.

Some targets may get save or be immune to some effects.  E.g. everything probably gets save vs "stun" and you're not gonna be "knocking down" the 30' dragon.

Example time: Borg the Barbarian hits a cultist for 4 points and wanting to get past this fodder so he can stop the EHP from sacrificing the damsel, Borg offers "Knock Down or 4 points of damage".  Referee considers morale of cultist; just a bored farm kid? a blood boiling fanatic? will 4pts kill him? Cultist decides to "fall down" and play dead.  Next round Borg charges the EHP!

This goes two ways, of course.  Referee can use for capturing, pushing around, and causing complications for players with more "color" than binary "You die or We die" that most confrontations devolve into.  Possibly neutrals who just want to force their way past party. Local crime lord's minions sent to "beat up" characters (and not earn a murder rap). Town guards trying to capture rambunctious adventurers.  Most "lawful" types should be offering disarm/knock down rather than murdering outright.

A whole range of tactics that a more structured (and restrictive) rule set would spend gobs of pages on, we've codified with a few sentences and no additional dice rolls.  It This to me is essence of "good" S&W house rule. Concise and quick (no/few dice rolls, no/few modifiers, no/few exceptions). Provides choices / trade-offs, and does not escalate power.

Critical Hits

Any damage roll that is the maximum possible for that die (e.g. '6' with a d6) is a critical. In addition a natural '20' attack roll is a critical and automatically does maximum damage.

A critical hit enables an attacker to force defender to take a "combat effect" in place of the damage.  The defender no longer has the choice.  Giving up a maximum damage is big sacrifice but sometimes is game changer (pun, ugh).

Borg the Barbarian has been swinging and occasionally hitting the EHP offering to sunder the "McGuffin of Summing Thing the Players Would Rather not have Summoned" that the EHP is holding.  But the EHP is rather determined to use said McGuffin and has plenty of hit points.  The round before summoning is complete Borg scores a critical hit, Booyah! Summing foiled, TPK avoided, EHP flees, and victory seized.

Weapon Damage

I use the above two rules in my weekly game with a slight variation on "all weapons do d6 damage".  I'm unsure how well critical hit on max damage roll would work with variable damage.  It could be easily dropped. I simply wanted "forced" Combat Effects more common.

Normal weapons roll d6 for damage.  Two-handed weapons roll 2d6 taking the highest single die for damage.  This means those big axes, long spears, and huge claymores are more likely to get a "critical" and thus be able to force a Combat Effect on defender.  Besides feeling right it gives small advantage to two-handed weapons to compensate for loosing use of shield.

Monstrosities

Swords & Wizardry's Frog God Games published monster book, Monstrosities, is keen. Here is my copy got from Swords & Wizardry Kickstarter.

And here are some players, at Whose Turn is It? Games, Austin, TX. cheering that their characters survived an encounter with some of Monstrocities within.

Monstrosities: A huge 555 pages (almost as big as the Tome of Horrors monster of a monster book (which they should have trimmed something just so it was 666 pages.)) collection of every standard monsters one would expect (except Beholder (or its misnamed analog) apparently) . Along with a great many new and unique creations.  Most on a single page.  All with picture, All with a mini-adventure. It is useful. Essential. The only non-module, non-self created book I lug around to games.

Couple weeks ago my OSRIC Temple of Elemental Evil campaign ended in partial defeat for to forces of "Rather not get turned into a fungoid slave of the demoness Zuggamonty, thank you very much".  [The party could have continued But, 1) DM was a bit burned out on the complexities, fiddly bits, and inconsistencies of AD&D, 2) DM plays hard and gives the players the story they create. In this case it would be one of disease, melting body parts, and being outmatched by a 80% freed demon queen.]

All is not lost, I now, yay,  have time to (re)start Gold and Glory campaign, using Swords and Wizardry.


Here's the blurb:

Gold & Glory Science Fantasy Meetup

Seek plunder and fame under the broken moon of a fantastic world where the demons cower from elder, unfathomable things from out of space. Where just beyond the horizon mutants and robot worshiping orcmen wield the fire lances of the ancients. Where the grey "Valkyrie" riding circular, silver sky-chariots transport the most glorious warriors to "Valhalla". Where Morlocs brandishing black powder boom sticks are a playable class.

In other words an almost anything goes post-apocalyptic, fantasy, cthulhu romp 'round the sandbox of our imaginations.

Swords & Wizardry and this campaign make it easy for players to come and go, join in the middle, etc. Rules are simple and characters are quick to roll up. New players welcome. The rules are free to download. All you need are dice (and you can borrow some of those until you get your own).

S&W Kickstarter

Speaking of Kickstarter...

You have until Tuesday Sep 4, 5:00pm CDT to get in on the Swords and Wizardry Kickstarter being run by Frog God Games.

I'm in at (of course) the TROLL level!  I kind of don't even know why, already owning several copies of various versions of S&W.  I guess "it is going to be in brick and mortar game stores" tickles my fancy and augments my purely selfish desire to have more people to RPG with.  And Erol Otus art, Also, must have custom dice!

Check out the totally bad ass patch included at >= $30

4x nerd power while wearing this patch!