Running the First Session with Only One Dungeon

Yesterday, I waxed poetic about how I run the first session of a sandbox campaign. In it I posited several site-based adventures in order to facilitate player choice; however, this is not always possible. Sometimes I have only had the opportunity to work on one dungeon, or there is a serious desire to run a particular module. Player choice and the use of rumors seems to be severely limited, but it doesn’t have to be.

If I really only have one adventure that I can/want to use, I will approach player choice from the “why are we going” rather than the “where are we going” perspective. To give this meat, I will map out at least five factions that have interest in what goes on at the adventure site. I plug these factions into the Wu XIng diagram:

Each faction is given a goal and a reason why they like to work with the faction they like and why they are working against the faction that is their enemy. This quick and dirty system easily sets up a complex web of relationships that enrich the campaign.

Once this diagram is set up and understood, I make rumors to connect the players to each of the factions. Since each faction has a specific goal when it comes to the site based adventure and those goals are at odds with other factions, it gives real weight to player choice when it comes to why they are going on the adventure.

So, as an example, let’s pretend that I have to run the first session of a campaign in short order and I won’t have time to create anything elaborate in terms of adventure sites. Let’s also pretend that the one adventure I do have prepared is the one I produced in the post How I Homebrew a Dungeon.

Since I am in a pinch, I will fall back on familiar territory when it comes to my starting village: I’ll pull out my copy of T1:The Village of Hommlet and extrapolate from there. First, I will leaf through and find five significant NPCs that represent larger powers or ideas:

1. Elmo the 4th level ranger is an agent of the Viscount of Verbobonc
2. The Canon Terjon the 6th level cleric is the priest of the Church of St. Cuthbert
3. Jaroo Ashstaff the 7th level druid is an agent of the Druids of Gnarley Wood and a follower of the Old Ways
4. Burne the 8th level magic-user and Rufus the 6th level fighter the semi-retired adventurers
5. Rannos Davi the 10th level thief and his partner Grmag the 7th level assassin are agents of the Temple of Elemental Evil

Now to translate these concepts into my campaign:

• Elmo represents the political aspect of a Christian/pseudo-Christian power that is vying for influence in the area.
• Terjon represents the religious aspect of the same Christian/pseudo-Christian power that is vying for influence in the area.
• Jaroo represents the religious and possibly political aspect of the native population of the area the Christian/pseudo- Christian power is trying to influence
• Burne and Rufus represent the local interests of the village
• Rannos and Grmag represent a secret society that is interested in re-awakening an ancient power

For purposes of keeping things simple I’ll label the five with the following monikers:

The Kingdom
The Church
The Old Way
The Village
The Cult

Now to plug these into a Wu Xing Diagram to see the relationships these factions have with each other:

• The Kingdom likes to work with The Old Way in order to secure political stability, but are opposed to the Cult because it is a destabilizing force.
• The Church likes to work with the Kingdom because they share the same religious values, but opposes the Old Way because their values and religious views clash.
• The Old Way likes to work with the Cult because the enemy of my enemy is a friend, but opposes the stability of the Village because it represents the encroaching power and influence of both the Kingdom and the Church.
• The Cult likes to work with the Village because the desire for safety is easily manipulated to their cause and they oppose the Church because it is the direct antithesis of the Cult.
• The Village likes to work with the Church because of how it cares for the sick and needy (especially in a crisis), but opposes the Kingdom because it challenges the autonomy the Village has earned through years of hard work and sacrifice.

See what I mean about interesting relationships?

So what could these five factions want from the dungeon? The dungeon offers three basic motivators:

1. The Kobolds
2. The Medusa
3. Treasure

Plugging these into the five factions could look like this:

• The Kingdom wants to investigate any rumors of ancient political powers in order to destroy them (Medusa)
• The Church has been taking in a number of refugees from various raids by the kobolds. They need supplies to help them and seek an end to the trouble (Kobolds/Treasure)
• The Old Way knows the story of the Medusa because it is part of their mythology. They want to find her but are reluctant to free her. Thus, they would want to find the keys to the prison, just in case (Medusa/Treasure)
• The Cult wants to investigate the rumors of ancient political powers to see if they can awaken them (Medusa)
• The Village wants the kobolds taken care of because they have been raiding in the area (Kobolds)

All of these goals point in exactly the same direction (the dungeon), but have varying reasons why the players would choose to go adventuring there. I would introduce each of the five factions through the NPCs found in T1:Village of Hommlet and reveal everyone's goal in terms of the dungeon. It would then be up to the players to determine the “why.” Which faction(s) will they support?

Of course, this choice is consequential due to the fact that various factions will now see the PCs as allies or enemies. Due to the larger goals of each faction, this will feed into further adventures.

As a final thought, this whole exercise in creating factions is certainly not limited to sessions that only have one adventure site. I tend to use them in most, if not all, of my campaigns; however, when it comes to empowering players when I only have one adventure site on offer, the Wu Xing diagram is one of my favorite tools.

How I Run the First Session of a Sandbox

Continuing with the theme of my last couple of posts, here is my process on running the first session of a sandbox campaign:

Character Creation

I am not a stickler for a particular method of rolling up characters, as long as everybody at the table agrees on what that method is. Personally, I like seeing where the dice rolls take me, but I appreciate the fact that my particular proclivities are far from universal.

Once everybody agrees and people start rolling dice, I begin to illicit information about each character at the table, with two critical goals:

1. Figure out how the various characters know each other prior to game play. I hate wasting time on role-playing this. It always makes more sense to hash out these details at character creation because some characters are just never realistically going to meet at a tavern to go adventuring together. Plus, the given stories about these relationships can have a much deeper effect on the campaign than the whole tavern scenario. Finally, it allows the campaign to hit the ground running. Instead of wasting time trying to justify adventuring together, the players just go on an adventure together.

This can be done in a number of ways. The simplest is just ask the players how their characters know each other and suggest some possibilities if they seem stumped. In my most recent campaign, I created a random table which players can roll on to see how their character knows one other character in the party. Everybody has to choose someone different so that all these relationships intertwine.

2. Figure out what relationships the characters have to various NPCs in the campaign world. For example, clerics can be at the beck and call of a bishop and magic-users can belong to the Mage Guild. This accomplishes a couple of things for me: it grounds each character within the world and it provides a source of information to the players about the world itself with the benefit of possible patronage. The cleric from above could have a specific task that they need to accomplish for the bishop and the magic-user could be delivering a scroll to the local representative of the Guild.

The First Adventure

Once these two things have been established for each character, I provide rumors and possible missions to each player through the various relationships that their characters have. I then allow the players to decide what rumors they want to investigate or what missions they want to undertake.

Note: it is very important that these rumors all tie in to adventure locations I am prepared to run. Usually, it is pretty easy to weight the choices in favor of the adventure location I am most interested in, but I never dissuade players who deviate from that particular plan. If I am not prepared to follow up on a rumor or mission, I don’t offer that choice.

What all of this does is place agency squarely in the hands of the players. If the whole character creation process has gone according to plan, every player has a character that has a background tying them to both the other characters at the table and to people and organizations that exist in the campaign world. Then these relationships inform the choices the players make as to which adventure they want to go on in their first session together.

In the end, all of these things invest the player in the campaign world. They have goals, not just for themselves, but for the various people and organization around them. The game becomes more than just the characters, it becomes a world that they have the power to shape through their own choices and actions.

How I Homebrew a Dungeon

Justin Alexander has an interesting post about the decline of D&D Adventure Modules. His is a fascinating observation, and one that I am afraid I have to generally agree with. Although, as an aside, I must admit that in my experience as a Referee there are not many “good” adventures in the overall D&D library. I long for the shared experience of running particular adventures, but it is very rare that I find using a module at the table a good experience.

Since I have been thinking about how to prep a sandbox campaign with my middle child in mind, I thought it might be fun and useful to share some of my own techniques and thought processes when creating a 1st level dungeon adventure.

As another aside, I tend to use Swords & Wizardry to design adventures because its Monster Stat Blocks and treasure generation system are both nicely stripped down and simple. This saves on a lot of prep time. Also, at the table, I prefer converting from simplicity to complexity rather than the other way around.  

I tend to start with a map. I am a highly (if not extremely) visual person. Thus, “seeing” the adventure helps me visualize what I want the adventure to be about. So, I went to the archives of maps that Dyson Logos provides and chose a “good” map.

By “good” I mean something that immediately introduces choice to players and offers several different routes to various locations via “loops.” I also like maps that have evocative features. In this particular case I like the underground “lake” as well as the natural dais in one of the large caverns.

Once chosen, I labeled each encounter area with a number:

 

Strictly following the percentages of Moldvay’s “Stock the Dungeon Table” on B52 of his Basic D&D we get the following:

4 Monsters without Treasure
4 Monsters with Treasure
3 Traps
1 Trap with Treasure (technically 1.33)
4 Specials
7 Empty Rooms
1 Empty Room with Treasure (technically 1.33)

In order to get an idea of what Monsters to use, I pulled out The Tome of Adventure Design and rolled up an interesting name for the dungeon: The Dais of Imprisonment. Seems apropos, given my initial attraction to the natural dais in Room 19. It also suggests that there be some kind of monster dangerous enough to need a special prison. I also rolled up why the dungeon was abandoned: a disease wiped out the inhabitants 1000 years ago.

In his edition of Basic D&D, Holmes also has a useful table for stocking dungeons. He suggests that monsters up to “Three Levels Below Ground” can be found wandering on the First Level of a dungeon. Strictly applying the math of Holmes results in the following:

5 Level 1 Monsters
2 Level 2 Monsters
1 Level 3 Monster

My first thought when it came to a “Level 3” monster to occupy “The Dais of Imprisonment” was a mummy, due to the disease factor implied by my random roll in The Tome of Adventure Design; however, the idea really didn’t inspire me much. Then I took a look at what monsters Moldvay has on his Wandering Monster Tables. That is where I saw a Medusa(!) on his Level 3 Wandering Monster list. Now that sounds interesting!

So, Room 19 has a magically sealed coffin suspended by chains atop the natural dais. Trapped inside is a Medusa, once a beloved ruler of her people and then cursed by her own lust for power. (Something to keep in the back of my head, but not something important until the players ask: can the curse be broken and how?)

For my Level 2 Monsters, I wanted to evoke the idea of diseased undead that were once the guardians of the prison. So, I chose Leper Zombies (found in Monstrosities). These two will be in isolated areas of the dungeon: Room 4 (which can only be opened by figuring out how to use the mechanism in Room 3) and Room 23.

This leaves the northern section of the map to populate with a tribe of kobolds and their pet boars who avoid the southern part of the map because they instinctively know better. They will occupy Rooms 10-14 with the chief and guards in Room 11.

Behind a Secret Door (which has not been found by the Kobolds), Room 15 is a nice place for a Treasure guarded by a trap.

Room 5 suggests a natural Trap of a collapsing ceiling.

Given their access to the Dais of Imprisonment, Rooms 17 and 18 are also good candidates for traps.

Technically, I have already placed a “special” in Room 3 so that leaves three:

Room 8 is very suggestive, given the coffins of the former guardians of the place. It could very well be a place of visions which suggest the dungeon’s past.

Given the long standing trope of magic pools, Rooms 22 and 24 are also good candidates.

Given its simplicity, I am very much attracted to hiding some treasure in Room 2.

As an aside, Room 16 is a set of collapsed stairs which gives me room to expand this dungeon if I want to.

That’s all my monsters, traps, specials and empty rooms.

In total I have the following monsters (and S&W XP values):

42 kobolds (210 xp)
3 goblins (kobold chief and guards) (30 xp)
2 wild boars (240 xp)
2 leper zombies (120 xp)
1 medusa (800 xp)
(Total xp = 1400)

According to S&W, base treasure value is 1d3+1 times the total xp value. I am going to assume a roll of '3' for a pair of reasons. First, I want to give PCs an opportunity to level up. Second, I have a couple of "1.33" treasures according to the strict math of Moldvay's Stocking Table.

This gives me 5600gp of treasure value to play with.

500gp will be traded out for Minor Gems which result in 1100 gp in gems and jewelry.

Thus, there is a grand total of 6200 gp in treasure. Given that there are 6 Rooms with treasure, that means each room has approximately 1000gp with an extra 200gp to fill in wherever I think is cool in the moment. Note: This value can take the form of anything. For example, the treasure found with the Leper Zombie in Room 4 could take the form of 1000gp worth of burial urns and the the Kobolds could be enamored by the fact that they have a "massive" treasure of 100,000cp.

In total, there are 7800 potential xp for PCs to earn in this dungeon, or 1950 xp per PC in a party of 4 characters. With some XP bonuses, that gets us to approximately 2000 xp and a level up for Clerics, Thieves, and Fighters. Should Wandering Monsters be added to the mix, this dungeon is within spitting distance of giving everyone a good shot at leveling up.

Speaking of which:

Wandering Monster Table
1. 2d6 Kobolds
2. Wild Boar
3. 1d6 Skeletons
4. 1d6 Zombies
5. 1d6 Fire Beetles
6. 2d6 Giant Rats

Some notes:

There are two keys necessary to open the sealed coffin of the Medusa. The two Leper Zombies have one each.

Items dipped into the waters of Room 24 produce the effects of the spell Gaze Reflection for 1 day. If a magical shield should be dipped into those waters, the effect of the spell is permanent.

I know my rolls did not produce a magic item, but to give players a chance at taking advantage of the waters in Room 24 I will place a +1 shield in the hands of the Leper Zombie in Room 4.

Despite all these opportunities to get an amazing weapon against the medusa, my dark sense of humor is tempting me to make the Medusa blind after being imprisoned for 1000 years in the dark. While robbing players of an easy kill (given that they have a mirror or the Gaze Reflection effect), it also means that the medusa is going to be at -4 on all her to-hit rolls.

The Skeletons and Zombies on the wandering monster table indicate that any dead who are left inside this dungeon are affected by the events of 1000 years ago and rise as undead.

Kobolds encountered outside of their lair are those that got too curious for their own good.

The Fire Beetles and Giant Rats are standard dungeon vermin.

I might make some simple notes about what various things are on the map (like maybe some crumbling mosaics on the columns in Room 1)

The rest, I'd improvise at the table using visual cues from the map and the basic background information I've determined so far.

Done.

Given my own experience at the table, this sparse little document will result in a much more dynamic and fun experience than virtually any published module out there. Rather than having to wade through walls of text, I just have to describe what my imagination comes up with in the moment. An emergent story will be enhanced by player choice, action, and questions. In the end, I will have a mythology based purely on play that will go on to inform whatever campaign this exists in and possibly many others as well (depending on how cool that story becomes).

Resources for Making a Sandbox from Scratch

So, with school officially ending and with no summer programs in sight, I decided to challenge my middle child with the task of creating a sandbox campaign. Although well-versed in the video gaming scene, he has only played in a few D&D campaigns, all run by yours truly. As a consequence, he really had no idea where to start. This got me to deal with the practical reality of how to make a sandbox campaign from scratch: what resources did I actually recommend and what actually worked?

1. An Atlas

Rather than trying to explain the realities of geography, weather, etc in order to make a plausible world, I just turned an atlas upside down and said, pick a page that looks cool. Not only did this make the mapmaking step of the process easy, it follows in the footsteps of giants:

The basic campaign area reproduced on a large mapsheet outside this book, was originally drawn from some old Dutch maps. — Dave Arneson, "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977).

2. Kilgore’s Sub-Hex Quad and Master Sheet for Hex Quads Maps

Having chosen the upside-down Aegean Sea as a starting point, I had him transfer the map as best he could to Kilgor’s Master Sheet for Hex Quads. Having done that, I asked him where Civilization was and where the Wilderness was. Once that was determined, I had him pick one Quad in the Wilderness to focus on for the campaign. This was then transferred to one of Kilgor’s Sub Hex Quad sheets.

3. The Wilderness Encounter Tables in Swords & Wizardry

These are simple, organized by terrain type and produce some pretty bog-standard results that won’t challenge a new Referee too much. I had him roll a d10 for every hex on his map. Every ‘1’ resulted in a creature from the encounter table living there. Frost Giants, Lycanthropes and Berserkers dominated the landscape. Oh, and a Purple Worm right next to some old ruins.

4. My own Interpretation of Holmes on Cultures

Based on the monsters that lived in the Wilderness, he decided that the Ancient Culture were the Giants that “dug too deep” and were destroyed by Purple Worms, the Old Culture was a human culture roughly based on Russia that succumbed to madness and Lycanthropy. Then he decided that there were two competing Present Cultures. One is based roughly on the Incan Empire (with virtually no magical tradition) and the other roughly on the Republic of Texas (which is heavily magical). My eldest was thrilled at the idea of playing a magic-wielding cowboy (which eventually morphed into a society where the rite of passage to adulthood involves getting a tattoo that allows the recipient the ability to cast one first level spell a day).

5. Dave’s Mapper

This quickly produced a tent-pole megadungeon sideview and first level that “looked cool” and was thus inspiring. What more can you ask from a map?

6. The Tome of Adventure Design

I have said it before, and I will say it again: this may be the best RPG product I have ever purchased. It is chuck full of inspiration and ideas. I first had him roll up names for each of the level of the megadungeon. Then, it was used to create the various “Traps” and “Specials” that resulted from using the next resource.

7. Moldvay’s Basic D&D “Stock the Dungeon Table”

Found on page B52, this has been my go-to stocking tool for decades. While it doesn’t produce perfect results, it gets you in the ballpark as long as you understand that the results are there to inspire and not be set in stone. As long as you understand why things exist in your dungeon and it makes sense to you, it will make sense to the players.

8. Monstrosities and Swords & Wizardry

Despite voicing a desire to play 1e AD&D, I decided on Monstrosities and Swords & Wizardry for a resource on monsters to stock a dungeon because of the guidelines S&W gives for the Challenge Level of dungeon encounters. I have been quite satisfied with how well this works in game play. As a consequence, it provides a great starting point on understanding how difficult a particular dungeon area/encounter is going to be. Monstrosities also provides an example encounter for every monster in the book. So, it is also instructive about what those encounter and dungeon areas can look like.

Finally, generating treasure using S&W is dead simple and flexible. Whatever gets rolled indicates total value, not a specific coin count. So, a treasure could very well be in barrels of whisky, rolls of silk, or whatever tickles your fancy.

9. The Question “Why?”

Why do think the goblins are there? Why are they on the same level as those spiders? Why are they risking their lives to be there?

Again, if your dungeon makes sense to you, that confidence and knowledge will be communicated to the players and it will make for a better game.

10. Dyson’s Maps

Once the first level of the megadungeon was squared away, I had him choose three maps from Dyson’s collection to represent various lairs in the vicinity of the starting village. I had him repeat the various steps he used to do the first level of the megadungeon.

In the end, I had to cut him short when he told me he had an idea for his various dungeons. “Just write it down” became a mantra. It goes to show, however, how useful all of these resources are: they inspired a newbie to create a world where things make sense to him and enough choices for his players that he won’t be having to improvise that much any time time soon.

In other words, he’s confident he can do this.

Half-Lung Fighter

No. Enc.: 1d6
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 3
Attacks: 1 weapon + special
Damage: by weapon type (1d6)
Save: F4
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: XXI
XP: 95
The unusual name of this undead comes from the story of a lord who went mad when his wife drowned while at sea. He convinced himself that if he had enough potions that would allow him to breath water, he could go beneath the sea to be where his wife had gone to live. According to this self-delusion, each potion needed the lower half of a fighter’s lung. He would lure his own soldiers into the make-shift lab he constructed in the bowels of his tower. He would then extract the lungs while his victims were still alive. He would then dispose of the bodies by throwing them into the sea. Eventually, the soldiers returned as undead to exact their revenge.

A Half-Lung Fighter appears as a bloated soldier that can barely squeeze into what little armor they wear. They are armed with the weapons they used in life, usually a spear. They are immune to blunt damage and take half-damage from piercing weapons. The first time they take damage from a slashing weapon, the noxious liquid that fills what is left of their desiccated body cavity bursts out. Everyone within 10 feet takes 3d6 damage unless they make a Save vs. Breath Attacks. Those who make their save only take half-damage. This attack may happen once per encounter. Damage taken from this attack cannot be magically healed until a Remove Curse or Cure Disease spell is cast on the victim.

I told you it needed to be a thing...

Halfling as Half-Dwarf Race-as-Class

Halflings (Half-Dwarves)

Requirements: DEX 9, CON 9
Prime Requisite: STR and DEX
Hit Dice: d6
Maximum Level: 12

Hill Dwarves (sometimes known as Gnomes) have a reputation for being reclusive, but are in many ways more gregarious than their Mountain-dwelling cousins. This, in combination with their relative proximity with Humans, has resulted in not a few unions between Hill Dwarves and Humans of smaller stature. The result of these pairings is a Half-Dwarf, more commonly known as a Halfling.

Like their Human progenitors, Halflings have a wide range of appearances, though they are rarely able to grow a beard of any significant length. They usually average from about 3 to 4 feet and weigh in at 60 to 100 pounds. Due to this short height, Halflings cannot use two-handed weapons or longbows. However, they can use any other weapon or armor. They must have at least 13 in one or the other prime requisite in order to get the +5% to experience. They must also have a STR and DEX of 13 to get the +10% bonus.

Due to their unusual background, they are used to existing on the fringes of both human and dwarven society. At character creation, a player chooses three Thief abilities that the Halfling character can use. Additionally, Halflings have an uncanny ability to disappear into their surroundings. Using any kind of cover, they hide on a 1-4 on a d6. They also have keen coordination which gives them a +1 to hit with missile weapons.

Halflings use the same saving throws as Dwarves, sharing the hardiness of that side of their ancestry. They also fight as a Dwarf. Further, a Halfling character will speak the common tongue, dwarvish, halfling, gnomish, goblin, and kobold.

Reaching 9th Level: When a Halfling reaches level 9, he has the option of creating a stronghold, which can be either above or below ground. The stronghold will attract Dwarves and Halflings from far and wide. A Halfling ruler is able to hire Dwarven and Halfling soldiers or mercenaries, but may only hire members of other races for other tasks, such as human alchemists or elves for spell casting.

Level Progression
1…0
2…1900
3…3800
4…7600
5…15,200
6…30,400
7…60,000
8…120,000
9…250,000
10…380,000
11…510,000
12…640,000

On Gnomes and Halflings

So, over at B/X Blackrazor, JB has an excellent post on Gnomes, doing an historical dive into the origins of the race in search of why they can be illusionists. I, ironically, I have been doing a very similar deep dive into rulesets about gnomes, but for a radically different reason. Whereas JB is working on revamping the Illusionist class using the various iterations from the pre-1ePHB era of the game, I was doing my deep dive because of a curious mention of halflings in Advanced Labyrinth Lord.

For a bit of background, as a joke, I challenged by eldest to run a game of D&D where all the PCs were gnomes. The joke became somewhat serious when she demanded that I provide her with an edition of the game to use to create the campaign. When she settled on Advance Labyrinth Lord, I was forced to read to those rules to create a character.

Therein, I found this quote:

Their habitations often overlap with halflings, and these two races are typically very friendly, if not familial, to each other.

I don’t ever remember that word “familial” being used to describe the relationship between halflings and gnomes, so I started digging.

Lately, I have been finding myself actually trying to play Holmes Basic D&D (putting into practice all of the stuff I wrote about Holmes over the years). I have to admit, having never actually played the game in my youth, I am finding it to be quite a pleasure to use as I get older. One of the conclusions I made about gnomes, given the way Holmes treats them, is that they are (as JB concludes) a variation (or twisting) of dwarves — specifically, a Chaotic Good version.

Given this Holmesian background where I conclude that the languages of Gnomes, Kobolds, and Goblins are all dialects of Dwarvish, I find it fascinating that Gnomes in the MM1 and Gnome PCs in the 1ePHB are able to speak the language of halflings. It should also be noted that in the Racial Preference Table from the 1ePHB Gnomes have goodwill toward Halflings. The only other race to get such treatment are dwarves.

Thus, while Advanced Labyrinth Lord’s use of the word “familial” is not found in the original material, it is, nonetheless, not unwarranted. It also has my brain going in (what I consider to be ) a really exciting direction.

I must note that despite my use of Bilbo Baggins as a literary inspiration for my understanding of Thieves, and my love for Jeff Dee’s cover of T1: The Village of Hommlet, I am not a fan of Tolkien, Hobbits, or halflings.

Conceptually (as a race inspired by Hobbits), halflings just don’t fit in D&D except as a curiosity or a group if interesting NPCs. However, this word “familial” has me re-thinking the halfling’s place among the PC races.

What if “familial” implied the “half” part of the name “halfling” didn’t refer to their size, but rather to their parentage? In a game world where half-elves and half-orcs make regular appearances, why are there no half-dwarves? Unless, of course, they have always been there in the form of the halfling (which sounds better than “half-dwarf” and is something the dwarf kin probably would use anyway).

If one begins with the assumptions that gnomes are smaller, skinnier dwarves and that gnomes live closer to humans and other races than regular dwarves do, and that halflings have similar saving throw bonuses to dwarves, it is not a huge leap to imagine that halflings are to result of some relationships between the odd gnome and human here and there.

Such an understanding of a halfling makes much more sense to me, and explains that cover of T1 a whole lot better than Tolkien ever did.

Christ is Risen!

Resurrection Day! O peoples, let us brilliantly shine! Pascha, the Lord's Pascha! For Christ our God has out of death passed us over into life, and likewise from earth to heaven, as we now sing unto Him a triumphal hymn. — Ode I of the Katavasias of Pascha


BTW: This whole COVID-19 situation has made my life a whole lot busier, which is why there has been a dearth of posts of late. Me and mine are doing well, I still make time to game...I just haven't been able to make time to do this. Hopefully that will change soon. God willing.

World Building and Clerics

Earlier this year, Circas K meditated about rethinking clerics and religion on his Sword of Mass Destruction blog. He and I are of one mind when it comes to the way later iterations of D&D model the cleric class: the game uses a pseudo-christian monotheistic foundation upon which is built a polytheistic structure. As a consequence, later editions of D&D don't do either monotheism or polytheism justice. For those of you who are interested in the latter, you can go and see how Circas K suggests building a polytheistic foundation. Of course, if you are a long time reader of this blog, I have spilled a lot of digital ink explaining how older editions of D&D actually do a really good job of emulating a Christian fantasy world with little to no modification.

One of the assumptions made in gaming where any form of religion is involved is that monotheism is a later development. Animism and Ancestor worship develop into polytheism which then develops into monotheism. A great example of this is Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization, where Monotheism is one of the most expensive Civilization Cards in the game. Thus, in context of a pre-historical fantasy age like that found in REH's Conan stories, it seems to make sense to default to a polytheistic world-building foundation.

This, of course, is not what is found in the Biblical narrative. Scripture suggests that the most ancient peoples were actually monotheists. Polytheism arrises later as civilizations grow and develop. Despite the apparent uniqueness of the Hebrews, this pattern even develops within the nation of Israel. The prophets are constantly warning the People of God to stay true to the ancient ways of monotheism instead of adopting the polytheism of the nations around them.

Recently, I came upon this video done by Inspiring Philosophy:

I realize it is 55 minutes long, but given the fact that most of us are isolated at home why not take the time?

It takes us through a bunch of evidence that suggests that the general shape of the Biblical Narrative is actually far closer to historic reality than what is assumed by the games we play. Again and again we find that primitive, nomadic cultures tend toward monotheism. Some even have strikingly similar stories and concepts found within the OT. Thus, the whole hypothesis that monotheism is a later development than polytheism is neither tenable nor realistic.

Thus, for the purposes of world-building a fantasy world inspired by Swords & Sorcery pulp stories about a Pangean/Hyperborean age it is actually quite realistic to use a monotheistic belief in a Creator god who spoke the world into being. This god might go by many names, but the fundamentals are pretty much the same across cultures.

If one wanted to add some polytheistic pantheons, these would be features of decadent city-states and urban areas rather than the more "primitive" areas outside the cities.

This creates an interesting inversion of my own classic campaign structure of Christian Civilization  (Law) vs. the Demonic Wilderness (Chaos). Indeed, a campaign could be centered around retrieving objects and treasure hidden inside the City rather than the Dungeon and the classic fantasy and D&D trope of raiding a Temple could be a central activity.

In this context, I do find it quite ironic that the D&D ruleset itself mimics this historic development of religion. The farther back one goes, the easier it is to see the roots of a monotheistic influence on the game; however, as time goes on the game becomes more and more polytheistic not just in its assumptions, but in the rules themselves.

The real irony, though, is that the assumption made by both myself and Circas K that those later editions of D&D do a bad job of portraying clerics (whether you prefer monotheism or polytheism) may be less true than I ever thought.

Conceptually, Picard is the Best Star Trek Ever

Long time readers of this blog know that I am no real fan of Star Trek. So, it might surprise people to know that I think that Picard, the most recent entry into this long franchise, may conceptually be the best that has ever hit the screen.

Since its premiere, I have listened to fans of all stripes whinging about various aspects of the show. The two most prominent are the overt criticisms of Trump and Brexit (confirmed by actor Patrick Stewart) and the abandonment of Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic, utopian vision of humanity’s future. Ironically, I think both of these are actually the strengths of the show (although both are probably unintentional). This is why I hedge my praise of the show with the word “conceptually.”

Let me explain. Star Trek was always a humanist propaganda tool. It posited that if we could just adopt the right world view, humanity could overcome all of the basest instincts of human nature and stick a fork in the ideas and conflicts that have plagued humanity since we were self-aware. The problem I have with this is that it is wildly unrealistic. It fails to understand that those base instincts are baked in and that they will destroy every single human endeavor regardless of how noble it may be.

The Mosaic Law proved this reality long before humanism ever became a thing. The Law has no salvific value. Rather, it demonstrates that we are incapable of saving ourselves by strictly following any kind of law or order. We will always fall short and fail. The only hope we have of overcoming evil and sin is God.

So, when Picard tried going after Trump by painting the Federation as a xenophobic fascist state I actually was intrigued. While I think criticisms of Trump as a racist and a tyrant are misplaced, lazy, and get in the way of more constructive criticisms of the man and his policies, I don’t think they are misplaced when it comes to the realities of what the Federation would probably have to look like.

Humanity has tried imposing utopias before. They have always devolved into authoritarianism. As the OT points out, we are incapable of living up to any lofty standard demanded by a utopia. Thus, it requires an iron fist to make people toe the line even in the face of a reality that proves the absurdity of the utopia.

Thus, Picard, rather than being a criticism of current political events, becomes an internal criticism of Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision. It transforms the entire canon from a naive but hopeful humanist vision of the future into propaganda films shoved down our throat from an authoritarian regime that wants us to buy the lie that it isn’t a xenophobic dictatorship.

Thus, all of the various inconsistencies with canon that cause cognitive dissonance within the mind of those used to the propaganda are fair game. For example: Romulus was never the massive empire we were led to believe. If it were, they would have had the technology and resources to save themselves without the intervention of the Federation. So Picard’s rescue mission reveals the lie.

I don’t know if this concept will hold true for the rest of the show, but conceptually I think this is the best thing to happen to Star Trek since it got a second pilot.

Gamer ADD: Adventures in Middle-Earth 5e

I have long been tempted by the call of Adventures in Middle-Earth 5e. I have read good things, it uses D&D as a chassis, and I have been extremely curious as to how these guys mechanically expressed the breadth and depth of Tolkien's world. Unfortunately, I have never been a big fan of Tolkien's works. I slogged through the Lord of the Rings because I felt I needed to, but it took me years and several aborted attempts. Thus, the price tag was always too high for something that emulates books I was never in love with in the first place.

That all changed when Cubicle 7 offered up their Middle-Earth 5e library on Humble Bundle. I grabbed it and have been reading through the Players Guide. It is as good as advertised and I am very impressed. In order to explain why I love this so much (especially given my own dislike of Tolkien's books), I have to explain my relationship to baseball.

I do not like baseball. It is boring. The season is way too long and no one game seems to matter all that much, even in post season. I have tried to like it for both family and friends. Back in the day, I would try to watch Atlanta Braves games on TBS and Chicago Cubs games on WGN. I even went to a couple of live MLB games. I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Here's the thing though: I completely understand and appreciate why baseball fans love this game. I have always wished I could do the same because I love watching people who love baseball talk about baseball. Of all the 30 for 30 documentaries ESPN has produced over the years, my favorite is still the one about how the Boston Red Sox came back from three games down in the ALCS against the Yankees. It is one giant homage to Boston Red Sox fans and their love for their team. I love it because it is about everything I love about people who love baseball.

I have a similar relationship to Tolkien as I have to baseball. I don't like reading his books and I have no intention of reading them ever again, but I love to hear people talk about them and why they love them. This is why I actually slogged through the Lord of the Rings — I wanted to be part of that conversation. I wanted to love and talk about Tolkien that same way people who love the books do.

What I am trying to get at here is that what makes Adventures in Middle-Earth 5e so good isn't that it is Middle-Earth or Tolkien. What makes it great is that they get what people love about Tolkien: the themes, the ideas, the archetypes, the literary forms, the values, the world-view. Everything that I love hearing people who love Tolkien get excited about is in this game. It allows me to participate in that love in a way I could never have imagined myself doing.

Here is one of the highest praises I think I can give any game: I want to play this. Badly. Interestingly, I don't want to be the Loremaster/GM/DM/Referee whatever you want to call it like I do with most RPGs. I want to be a Player. I want to create a character and play.

To that end (and because I feel I have to whinge about something), I created this Character Sheet to replace the awful, boring, uninspired CS that comes with the game:

You can download it here.

One last thought. From a mechanical POV, I really appreciate what Adventures in Middle-Earth does with 5e. They push the concepts of Race, Class, and Background in the kind of experimental ways that I tried to with ba5ic. It has got me thinking of new ways to frame ba5ic — specifically in a Lovecraftian direction. Hopefully, these ideas will see the light of day prior to next New Years.

BTW I hope 2020 brings many blessings to us all.

Merry Christmas

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men! — Luke 2:14

As a kind reminder (especially to myself) the peace offered today is not man's peace. It is not the peace we make by signing treaties or settling old feuds. The peace offered today is God's peace.

We all make war on God every day. We are the ones who opened fire. We are the ones who created the dividing wall between ourselves and God. We are the ones who chose darkness over the light.

Christ is born today in order to eradicate all of that. Sin has been forgiven. Death no longer has its sting. Only love and forgiveness remain, despite everything we are and everything we have done.

Today, Christ reminds us of everything He was willing to do in order to give us a path to His loving embrace.

Merry Christmas.

Meditating on The Witcher

Let’s talk about the new Netflix show The Witcher. Note: I do not play a lot of computer games, so I have absolutely no knowledge of the game other than it exists. Therefore, I am coming at this purely as a sci-fi/fantasy fan.

Also, Spoiler Alert.

I really wanted to like this. I really did. It has all the fundamental building blocks to be a great show, but the folks who wrote/produced/edited this thing didn’t trust the material, leaned on a bunch of unnecessary crutches and ruined what could have been great TV, let alone great fantasy.

Let me start with the good stuff. From the perspective of lore, world-building, and ideas I can steal to include in my fantasy RPGs there is a lot here to like:

1) The magic system is really fascinating. Spell casters take pure Chaos and shape into into spells, but there is always a cost — a balance. For the most powerful, this involves becoming mutated and becoming sterile. Some have a choice in this transformation, others (the Witchers) do not. Regardless, this sacrifice yields a much longer life than that of a non-spell caster. This reality was a central theme of the show — the choice between the creative power of parenthood vs. the political and physical power that magic brings. Unfortunately, this theme was grossly under developed.

2) The politics of magic is really interesting, as well. There are a couple of institutions that represent magic-use in the Witcher world. One was destroyed (the source of the Witchers) and one is what amounts to a Wizard’s Guild. They find and train all the sorcerers in the world, give them access to their power, give them a family and a home, and then send them out as advisors to various political posts around the continent. Thus, they maintain their own power by influencing the politics. At the same time, they are in a position to mitigate the destructive force of war. Thus, there is a lot of room for good, evil, chaotic and lawful sorcerers to rub shoulders, be friends, allies and political adversaries without the need to kill each other. Fascinating stuff.

3) The Witcher plays with a newer fantasy trope of elves and humans being enemies because the humans learned/stole elven magic and then drove them out of their traditional lands. There is an interesting twist hidden in the lore, however. The humans, being the creative and adaptive beings that they are, learned to use magic better than the elves. This actually helps explain elven level limits in older rulesets of D&D. Humans just do this stuff better. There is also this dark undertow with magic (as represented by some interesting set designs) that all of humanity’s power is built upon the skulls of elves.

4) For those following JB’s meditations on the 1e Ranger class over at BX Blackrazor, the Witcher is a fascinating archetype for the Supernatural Ranger.

5) The Law of Surprise is a really interesting cultural quirk that becomes potentially deadly when backed up by the threat of Destiny, where Destiny is a force that one can follow or resist, but the latter comes with a cost. The Law of Surprise is a favor given to someone who does another a great favor (such as saving a life). The one who invokes the Law of Surprise is owed whatever unexpected windfall next appears in the life of the one owing a favor. This includes children (which is a major plot point).

Unfortunately, all of this fertile soil was left fallow by the creators of this show. Maybe it was fear of the computer game to TV/Movie curse, but they leaned heavily on a bunch of crutches that just ruined the show:

1) Gratuitous violence, nudity, and sex. None of this was necessary. It drove no plot. No narrative point hinged on any of these scenes. It was all done because they could. The problem is two-fold. First, we live in a post-Weinstein and #metoo world. This stuff no longer is titillating, it is down-right uncomfortable. Secondly, it undercut a lot of the themes that are present in the story. Witchers are not supposed to have emotions, so why does Geralt seek out so much sex?

Yennefer wants to be loved and not treated as an object to be sold for a mere 4 crowns. So, why does she so freely sleep around? It cheapened her character to the point of making what should have been one of the most sympathetic characters into one of the most unlikable. This was especially true when later in the show, she was seeking a way to become fertile again so she could have kids. Geralt rightly mocks her because she would make a horrible mother. If, however, all that nudity and sex had been absent and had she been rejected despite the beauty she obtained through becoming a sorcerer, then her quest to be accepted and loved by her own child would have not only been understandable, but relatable and tragic. Geralt’s words would have stung rather than just being the truth.

I daresay, that if the creators of this show had given themselves the challenge to make this G-rated, this show would have been far, far better. The necessary plot points, the violence off-screen, and the creativity required to pull all that off would have had the potential to make this show great.

2) The flashback. I DESPISE the trope of using the first 5 to 15 minutes of a show to set-up an exciting, in-your-face moment to grab an audience’s attention and then spoil everything by doing a flashback to “PICK YOUR TIME FRAME HERE earlier.” I will grant that in the right hands it can work really well, but 9 out of 10 times in just robs all dramatic tension from the rest of the show because we all already know what is going to happen, because we just saw it.

Credit where credit is due, The Witcher tries to play with this trope by neglecting to tell its audience that there is a flashback. Thus, they avoid immediately robbing the audience of dramatic tension. The problem is, telling three tales simultaneously that are 30+ years apart just ends up being confusing. There were several moments when I was completely taken out of a scene because I was trying to figure out if these were the same people I saw die several episodes ago. This feeling was only made worse by introducing a doppelgänger into the “future” timeline.

This show would have been much, much better had they trusted their material and made one of two decisions. The one more easily done with the material they shot for the show would have been to tell parallel stories of Yennefer and Geralt playing on the themes of choice and the desire/lack of desire for love and children. Yennefer wants to be loved and wants children. Geralt largely does not. Yet, it is Geralt who falls in love with Yennefer only to be rejected because Geralt is destined to Ciri because of the Law of Surprise. That would have been awesome. The harder option would have been go chronologically from the opening sequence (which, I assume is going to be the story told in Season 2 coming in 2021).

3) The Serendipity Syndrome. This is a name I have for the romantic comedy trope where two people are shown to be destined to get together, but don’t actually end up together until the last minute of the story. This is exemplified by the 2001 movie Serendipity. Rather than being satisfying and fun, this trope is excruciatingly frustrating. It is easy to keep a destined couple apart. It is much more difficult to write a relationship well. Therefore, this whole trope is more of a cop-out than trope. Geralt and Ciri do not actually meet until the last 30 seconds of 8 hour-long episodes. By the time I got half-way through the series, I was fast-forwarding through a lot of scenes because I just didn’t care and I was increasingly aware that this trope was most likely going to rear its ugly head. If this were a book, I would have thrown it in the trash to save someone the frustration of having to read the thing.

4) Anachronism. Finally, we come to the character of Jaskier the Bard whose introduction is a blues riff being played on a lute. This stuff just completely ruins the suspension of disbelief and every time he showed up on the screen I was taken out of the show. If you are going to have a bard character, take the time to place that character inside the world, instead of ours. This character was not only awful, but succeeded in getting me to hate the bard class even more than I already do.

That’s my take on the show. I can’t bring myself to recommend it, despite being a fount for a lot of good FRPG ideas and inspiration. My guess is that you would be better served just playing the computer game or spending some time looking through a Wiki.

The Bugbear

I have created a title for the purpose of publishing variant rules for ba5ic and 5e. I call it The Bugbear. The first two have gone live on DriveThru. You can check them out here.

Enjoy.

Life Update

I am acutely aware that my presence here on the blog and any activity in regards to ba5ic has been nil over the last few months. My youngest ended up in the hospital, had a major surgery, and I have been doing the back-and-forth of going to the hospital, labs, etc. that always accompany the post-op reality of pediatric surgery. Thus, blogging dropped off of my priority list.

The surgery went well, the post-op madness has gone well, and we are all adjusting to the new realities of the post-op life. Nothing we haven't done before, but it is never easy.

I haven't not been thinking and doing things in terms of gaming, when my free time allows it, I just have spent more time writing off-line than on. I want to update everyone and also to put a fire under my own self by announcing a couple of projects which are in the pipeline:

1. An urban hex-crawl ostensibly for use with ba5ic/5e but can easily be adapted to any system.
2. A series of short publications where I play with re-skinning the mechanics of 5e to hopefully give players more freedom in the way they play the game.

I pray these will see the light of day sooner rather than later.

Ba5ic is Now Live

Ba5ic is now available as a POD on DriveThruRPG. The link is here. Enjoy.

Life is a bit crazy at the moment, but I plan to upload a .pdf of a Character Sheet as soon as I can. In the meantime, you can use this:

Alignment Languages, the Scarlet Brotherhood, and Flutes

JB of B/X Blackrazor has been meditating how to go “Advanced” from his usual B/X D&Ding. As seems always necessary in such endeavors is the long, hard struggle with Alignment.

I myself have waxed poetic about the subject many, many times.

The thing that interested me about JB’s post has almost nothing to do with JB’s near abandonment of the system. D&D has several mechanics that depend upon Alignment and therefore one must deal with those mechanics on some level if any major changes are to be made with Alignment (like getting rid of it entirely). One such mechanic in AD&D is the much maligned Alignment Languages.

Back when I got into blogging, one of the bigger blogs was James Maliszewski’s Grognardia. At the time he was trying to wrestle with OD&D as written using the axiom that the rules were always right and therefore he needed to find a way to make them work. The results were often surprising and fun. It is a principle that I enjoy applying to various editions of the game for that very reason — I often come up with ideas that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

With that in mind, here is what Gygax has to say about Alignment Languages on pg. 24 of the DMG:

Alignment language is a handy game tool which is not unjustifiable in real terms. Thieves did employ a special cant. Secret organizations and societies did and do have certain recognition signs, signals, and recognition phrases — possibly special languages (of limited extent) as well. Consider also the medieval Catholic Church which used Latin as a common recognition and communication base to cut across national boundaries. In AD&D. alignment languages are the special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos. Alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public. They are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed. Furthermore, alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues.

This largely harkens back to the 0e version of Alignment, where it was about which side of the larger conflict are you willing to fight with rather than a code of behavior. It also introduces the idea of secret(ive) societies that use various means of communication that those outside their clique cannot understand.

Which brings me to my favorite love/hate political entity within the Greyhawk campaign world. I love the idea of a bunch of racist monks working in secret to further their political agenda, but I hated the idea of there being a country on the map called The Scarlet Brotherhood. I always wished that they were a secretive society that were the real power behind several different throwns and were always looking out for a way to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of the rich and powerful.

Here is an organization that would definitely have something akin to an Alignment Language as Gygax describes. There is even an historical template on which to build this vision of both the Scarlet Brotherhood and Alignment Languages: the Fuke monks.

As I noted in my last post, many Shoguns took advantage of the Fuke monk’s anonymity and mobility to create spy networks. One simple way to identify oneself, in an Alignment Language kinda way, would be the music a monk would play on their flute.

This also suggests why characters lose the use of an Alignment Language once their alignment changes. Secret symbols and signs are in constant flux in order to keep them secret. Think about pitching symbols in baseball or sideline play signals in football. The form is almost always the same, but their meaning is in constant flux because other teams are constantly trying to steal signals. Once a character leaves and organization, they lose the ability to update the current meaning of the signals being given or to recognize if a signal is being given at all.

The exciting thing about the idea of Alignment Languages is the world-building implications: secret societies abound in a political climate that is cutthroat and in constant flux. That sounds like a really fun atmosphere to throw a bunch of Player Characters at.

Death by Flute

I just ran across the story of the Fuke sect of Buddhism in Japan. The sect showed up during the Shogunate period. They were characterized by baskets that covered their faces and bamboo flutes called shakuhachi. The flutes were used to practice breathing meditation and to gain attention as they begged for food.

While the image of a flute-playing monk with a basket over his head is interesting enough, the story gets better. Travel in Shogunate Japan was illegal. In order to gain permission to travel from place to place, they forged a bunch of documents demonstrating a long provenance of master flute players. Despite the fiction, the forgeries were accepted as authentic and the Fuke monks had official permission to wander the entire country.

The real reason that the forgeries were accepted, however, probably had more to do with spy craft than with how authentic the tales of great flautists seemed. No one questions a monk who covers their face with a basket because it was an earnest attempt to erase the individuality of the monk — a necessary step on the way to Nirvana. No one questions a shakuhachi with a larger than normal end on it because these had, again, religious significance and use.

A covered face and a bamboo instrument that can double as a mace makes for a perfect cover for a spy. So much so, that in the repertoire of shakuhachi music are things called Test Pieces. They were extremely difficult songs that various entities used to test whether or not a Fuke monk was a spy or not. If you can’t play the piece, you are probably a spy. Additionally, both the sect and the instrument were banned by the Meiji Restoration for fear that the remnants of the Shogunate could spy their way back into power.

Not only is this fascinating stuff, but it makes me want to actually play two of my least favorite classes: the bard and the assassin just so I can have a character sketch like this:

...and the satisfaction of taking out monsters with a flute.

Towards a Supers RPG

One of the most challenging things about doing a superhero game within the mechanical structure of D&D is the radically different assumptions about combat. Where D&D grew out of a medieval war game where the consequence of combat is death, the superhero genre rarely deals out death, just incapacitation.

5e spells suggest a way to mechanically differentiate what Champions calls Killing Attacks from Normal Attacks. The 5e spell Sacred Flame auto-hits but allows the target a saving throw to avoid damage. Fire Bolt requires a to-hit roll that determines whether or not the target takes damage. Since the latter is the normal D&D mechanic for determining death of a target, that will model the Killing Attack, and the auto-hit/saving throw will emulate the normal superhero combat mechanic.

This allows for an interesting mechanical smorgasbord in terms of attack and defense. Each attack power gets to specify which attribute is used for a saving throw:

• Strength
• Dexterity
• Constitution
• Intelligence
• Wisdom
• Charisma

It also gets to designated what type of damage it does:

• Acid
• Bludgeoning
• Cold
• Fire
• Force
• Lightning
• Necrotic
• Piercing
• Poison
• Psychic
• Radiant
• Slashing
• Thunder

Defense would include Resistance to the various types of damage, Damage Reduction for various types of damage, and the good ‘ol Armor Class.

This leaves a huge (maybe even too big?) amount of space for players to come up with all kinds of weird ways to explain why a Lightning attack targets Charisma.

Alternatively, the type of damage could pre-determine what kind of saving throw is required:

Strength: Cold, Fire
Dexterity: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing
Constitution: Acid, Poison
Intelligence: Lightning, Thunder
Wisdom: Force, Psychic
Charisma: Necrotic, Radiant

Note how the latter limits choices on how special effects function and how arguments can be made why one type of damage also belongs with another type of saving throw...which is why I hesitate even though it would make things "easier" mechanically.

RPG Dreamin': Re-thinking 5e Skills

Have you ever had a dream where you are in a game shop and you find a really interesting game that you want to buy but then wake up and realize that the game actually doesn’t exist? I have.

Recently, I had this very vivd dream of seeing a stack of RPG supplements in the form of cheap comic books printed on newspaper quality stock. Each supplement promised invaluable information on how to add various cheesy 80s cartoon characters and worlds to the RPG experience: He-Man, Space Ghost, Thunder the Barbarian, etc. They cost two bucks each and I was really interested. When I found the actual ruleset, it was also a comic book, also two dollars, but someone had ripped pages out of it. Then I woke up.

In my half-awake haze of coming out of a dream state, it occurred to me that what I had dreamt about was not something all that new: Basic Roleplaying, Fudge, and GURPS have gone down this path for decades now. The big difference is that while the main rule-books of these three games are tomes of hundreds of pages, my dream envisioned a comic-book sized rulebook of maybe 32-64 pages. While I don’t think this is practical or even possible, I can’t help but think someone could get close.

Then my hazy brain started to have a conversation with itself that went along these lines:

You know, I just finished up a pretty good game that is under 64 pages…

Yeah, but that’s a fantasy RPG what about modern stuff like guns? Or superhero stuff?

Yeah, a lot of those 80s cartoons were riffs off of superhero concepts.

So, if this comic-book sized game could do superheroes, it could do exactly what you wanted in your dream, right?

Yeah…

So let’s see if the 5e SRD could do superheroes!

Yeah! This could work!

Back when I was playing RPGs with my high school buddies, those words, “This could work” were dreaded words. It meant that our party was about to push the limits of both our characters and the DMs ability to accommodate whatever outlandish idea we had come up with. It either broke the campaign or it was awesome.

So, in order to test these dangerous waters, I decided to start with my least favorite part of any universal system: skills. I dislike them because they are rules-heavy and tend to tell players what they cannot do rather than what they can. Unfortunately, they come with the territory with RPG settings like cyber-punk, space, and even superheroes.

Since I have had the idea of stripping down the SRD to its mechanical core, I remembered something rather interesting about Champions: it has a bunch of skills that are not tied to any ability. In other words, it doesn’t matter how smart, dumb, strong or weak you are, this skill is going to work or not work because of skill. While interesting, this still informs players that they can’t do stuff unless they have that skill on their character sheet. So, what if I took the spirit of this idea — skills are not tied to a specific ability score — and went the opposite direction. What if a player could use any ability score with a skill?

Here is the basic premise: Skills should be cinematic rather than mechanical. In other words, rather than having dice rolling being the primary reason why a character succeeds or not, have the player’s creativity be the primary mover in any given situation. Let me illustrate by taking a few skills from the SRD and applying non-traditional ability scores to them:

Stealth

Strength: Use the angles of the ceiling to hang from an otherwise impossible place where no one would think to look.

Constitution: Hold really still in a small place until no one is looking.

Intelligence: Analyze the position of the surveillance cameras and/or guards to determine where all the blindspots are.

Wisdom: Read the guards and determine what kind of distraction would create the most confusion.

Charisma: Walk through like I’m supposed to be there.

History

Strength: Intimidate the librarian until she tells you the information you need.

Constitution: Find a place where people talk and hold-out until I overhear something important.

Dexterity: Climb that tree/lamp post/building that will get me the vantage point to figure out who is in that painting.

Wisdom: Who is the most likely person to know the information I need?

Charisma: Charm the information out of the professor over a coffee.

Not every situation is going to allow for every ability score to be used. I can’t think of a way Wisdom or Charisma could help to climb a sheer wall when running away from some monsters, for example. What I love about this idea, though, is that it gives players the freedom to try. What I also love about this idea is that it frees up the Referee to simply allow the PCs to succeed when they come up with good cinematic ways to use skills, or to levy what they see as reasonable DCs for ideas that are just outside the box.

I will also grant that some of the above descriptions better fit other skills; however, that is an exercise in telling players what they can't do, and that is exactly what I don't want a skill system to do.

Proficiency then, rather than being simply a bonus to a roll, is permission to be truly heroic in the ways that that skill gets used. Think Jeff Goldblum’s character in Independence Day. There is no way anyone should be able to write a virus that crashes the alien’s computer system. Yet, he does and we go along for the ride because it is so much fun.