Gaming in public: Swords & Wizardry and Fantasy AGE

I live 45 or so kilometers away from next decent sized town. I haven't visited it that much earlier, because I haven't needed to. But now that I have gaming buddies there, I've been there more often. Me and +Kookko Jaskinen (Jaakko) decided we should do some gaming because he has a summer vacation. So we did!

ROUND 1: Swords & Wizardry at Rax

My long time dream has been to play roleplaying games at all-what-you-can-eat pizza joint Rax, because that's what we did when we were younger gamers and it was a blast! Gaming, pizza, infinite amount of soda... that's fantastic! I wanted to run my dungeon Temple Of Greed (available HERE) and chose Swords & Wizardry so Jaakko could try out some old-school rules based on '74 Dungeons & Dragons.

We created two characters for him. Brother Colt, the Cleric and Jared, his Fighter guard. Backstory was simple. This religion of one-and-only-truth had discovered an ancient, forgotten temple. They wanted to loot it because religion is greedy. They sent Brother Colt to investigate and get all the treasures he could!

Spoilers of the temple ahead!

They got the key to the temple from their supervisors and ventured to the temple. Door opened easily, and inside they went. On the inner door there were pushable panels with letters V, R, C, A, A, E and I and plate reading:

To enter, one must know greed.

They weighted the puzzle for a good amount of time, and Brother Colt tried to push them to form a pseudo ancient word of greed. C-R-A-E... you got the point. But there were two buttons left that didn't stick to the bottom when pushed, so he ordered Jared to push them. Bad for him, as Jared pushed the last plate down, he lost two fingers to a razor sharp blade, and the buttons reseted. Oh the pain and DEX lost! But they were on a mission, so they had to try to open the door to not to return empty handed!

Here I helped a bit. The right answer is "avarice", synonym of "greed". Neither of us are native English speakers, so I asked Jaakko has he got any ideas what the answer would be and I let him roll INT checks for both of the characacters. They succeeded to solve the puzzle.

Inside was a room with two doors, one on the right wall, other to the left wall. On northern wall there was a plate:

Greed is everything. Greed is RIGHT. Greed is a DOOR to success. Greed we worship. Greed saves.

HA, this is obvious thought Brother Colt but was quite certain this was a trick of some sort. Too obvious. He ordered Jared to the right door, the obvious answer and went to the left door himself. On a "go!" they opened the doors simultaneously. Jared discovered a hallway, Borther Colt poison and death.

Jared ran to his master's corpse only to find an old skeleton next it. He took adventuring equipment from his deceased partner and looted the skeleton for some gold, a ring and golden teeth. Onwards.

The corridors behind the door joined together in the end, behind the north wall of the previous room. There was a door, from which another hallway opened - to the left, and to the right. He went right discovering a room and a dead end with a door with some plates. Jared had bad memories of plates, so he checked the room first.

Inside the room there was an empty altar room, except of the altar with a plate:

He who gives everything for the gold-lusty god of greed shall receive.

Okay, he did nothing but went to observe the door. He took a risk and started to push the door panels. When a right panel was pushed, it made a mechanical noise behind the door and stayed pushed. But if you pushed a wrong tile after it, all reseted. It took some time he took pushing the tiles and finding the right order (disclaimer: you can discover the right order... somewhere) and got into a small room with a squirrel statue and a peek hole on the other wall. The squirrel statue was holding a stone nut.

Jared took the nut, nothing happens. Put it right back, nothing happens. Tried replace it with sling stones - nothing. Tried to stick the nut into a peek hole and put stones on the squirrel's palms. Nothing. Hmmm. Then he gave the ring he looted from the skeleton for the squirrel statue, and something happened somewhere within the dungeon. Then he went back and took the other hallway.

Walking down the hallway he discovered a secret door. Inside was an altar and lots of gold pieces (1,300 in total). He made some calculations and bagged everything and dragged them back to the door that led to this hallway. He was lucky to take everything at once... He returned and continued the hallway to discover a statue. And he immediately knew what to do with it! But there was a problem. To get to the statue you had to walk down a short hallway where obviously was a wall wide pressure plate! He grinned and jumped and discovered later, that the pressure plate on the floor was a diversion. The real trap was a scythe that cut him bad when he jumped the pressure plate! He started with 1 HP, and lost it. Also he lost 25% of permanent HD. And two points of CHA for missing half of his face! Bleeding, almost dead (at 0 HP I decided he is barely alive and could only crawl and not take any kind of actions) he crawled back where he left the gold sacks he bagged earlier.

Hugging the treasure he found he fainted only hoping someone would find him before he bled to death...

If he survives he will be called Jared The Unlucky. It would be fun to run this 1 HP Fighter with Dexterity penalty and Charisma lost to charring and -25% to HD through all kinds of death trap dungeons! But for now his time was over. Temple Of Greed won, no treasure was dragged outside.

ROUND 2: FANTASY AGE AT FLGS

Belly full of pizza and one adventure done we headed to our FLGS (Porin Pelikauppa). We met there earlier before we ventured to Rax. There was only this new Star Wars RPG and four WH40k roleplaying game supplements available. No other roleplaying games and their dice variation sucked too. They are focused on video games, Warhammer, Magic: the Gathering and other tabletop and board games. Good thing is they have tables there you can use for gaming! We were lucky to get a table because there also was a X-Wing tournament starting!

When we played D&D 5E last time Jaakko showed me his copy of Fantasy AGE. It looked interesting. He had already played it but I wanted to try it too! Character creation was quite simple and quick with some fun options. I created a lizard-man Cleric (homebrew stuff) because it felt most interesting compared to your usual fighter-mage-dwarf-elf-human and so on D&D stuff. And I wanted to be an adventurer!

Gods were forgotten, and only us lizardmen had Clerics and religion. Well, there were few from other races that believed, but not that many. I was sent to find all kinds of ancient religious artifacts and other god-things to the big main continent-island. To the icy wastes my travel took me, where a tower acted weird. This tower was used to rapture style soul ascension in the old times, but now there was disturbance. The disturbance was zombies!

When traveling I found this ragged guy who led me to his camp. I discovered that the camp was actually a prison camp and he was a prisoner. The staff wanted to challenge me (enter combat rules test) and I had to fight this huge warrior! But with spells I could do it damaging him and eventually teleporting him to a cart full of zombie corpses. That'll show him!

I decided I need some backup to my journey to this tower and had the ragged guy, a warrior and an elf lady with me. Only because they thought I am someone else they were excepting! Well, nothing wrong with that, because I'd be long gone in frozen wastes when, and if, they discovered I am a wrong guy. We started our journey and found some zombies at a distance. I decided I want to kill them to try combat rules once more. Easy targets, eh? Thanks to my spells I could keep distance from them, but the others took some damage. Most damage suffered was that warrior I already had beaten. What a waste!

CONCLUSION

SWORDS & WIZARDRY: TEMPLE OF GREED

1. Temple Of Greed is a challenging module that can kill a campaign, because the casualties can get high. But hey, you don't have to go there. You don't have to be greedy!
2. I should use The Black Hack for one-shots. Even though I love Swords & Wizardry there was unnecessary things (attribute derived bonuses for example) that didn't improve gameplay.
3. I am looking forward to Jared The Unlucky's next adventure(s)!

FANTASY AGE

1. Quick character creation but variation in characters.
2. It felt old-schoolish even though the system uses 3d6.
3. We had a rules misunderstanding of how stunt dice trigger. I thought that the damage system was weak (roll vs ac and damage reduction. Most things did 1d6 damage and my weakling had over 20 hit points). The trick is, that even though basic damage against hit points is weak, stunts are when you hit hard and kill stuff!
4. Can't wait to check out the tower! Seriously, it's been a long time I've encountered zombies in a roleplaying game and I am currently watching Z Nation.

Forsaken Soul session 1: Faces Without Screams

Campaign idea draft and rules draft can be found HERE.

The Character

A student in a mages' school who got sick of slow pace of learning. She wanted true power, not to start with controlling some light balls. So she left to pursue eldrich knowledge on her own. Unfortunately she was killed by a wild animal during her journey. But death is not the end, and now she is forsaken...

The Mini Manor: Faces Without Screams

(You can get this adventure from RPGNow for free. I'm a lucky SOB for owning a print copy of it! +Tim Shorts is one of my favorite adventure writer and I highly recommend his stuff!

DISCLAIMER: This post will include spoilers of aforementioned adventure! I made some minor changes during the play, though.

Shackled, naked, a big guy cutting up faces of other chained persons. Nameless removes a sharp bone from severed foot waiting for the big guy to get closer. Then she attacks. She only deals one point of damage, but wins initiative attacking again again and dealing 4 more points of damage (exploding dice). Big guy misses critically and slips on bloody floor missing his next round. Nameless stabs the guy on neck killing him and taking the key. Then unshackles herself and opens the door to a corridor...

Slowly proceeding she passes the first crossing pushing forward, until she finds a dead corpse wearing a leather armor and a short sword leaning against the wall (random encounter, actuall). The corpse is rotting and bloated and in his cut wounds awful maggots roam. Nameless is considering should she take the armor and the sword, as they are on corpse slime, but decides to cover her naked body with some kind of a protection...

She passes the next opening to the right but decides to check out the following to the right. Behind a corner there is a beastly man chained on the wall; he is covered with spikes, and he growls animalisticly and madly at Nameless. Luckily the shackle restrains the spiked man-beast from making contact to Nameless, who decides to withdraw back to the main corridor.

In the end of the main corridor there is a door, barred from this side. As Nameless approaches it, she feels how air gets chilly and she can see her breath. Lifting the boards, she hears whispers behind her but no one's there. Determined she enters the room...

A desk with two candles and a chair, nothing more. She goes to the desk ready to search it, finding a parchment on it. She reads it - "Welcome" -  and the door shuts in before her. And a face appears and whispers get really loud. She ignores the face, saves versus the whispers few times (failing once and losing one point of Wisdom) and searched the room to find a new placing on the wall. She broke it with the pommer of her newly found short sword to discover a hidden Soul Dunjon. The soul dunjon is a vessel with prisoned souls. Mages use these kind of "batteries" for eldrich purposes. But undead and forsaken like Nameless could use it to power herself (edible soul experience). Away from the room and back to the corridor.

Nameless doesn't want to go back to where spiked man was so she decides to go to the corridor next to it. In the end she finds a door of hundreds of faces. As she touches it she feels pain, but bears it (save successful), and the faces start to move. Inside is an empty huge room where a corridor leads onwards.

This corridor has a metal veil preventing the spirits to venture any further. After the veil is a red carpet leading into a big room. In the middle of this big room there is a comely man wearing a dress (originally a female, but for a female player I switched gender). He invites Nameless to step further, but she dithers. Man shows off his gown made out of faces stitched together, all faces blink and open their mouths without a sound. Then man winks and hows Nameless' own face sewed on the gown! And Nameless touches her face, but there is only bone and muscles and soft tissue, not faces of her!

Man declares, that even though Nameless is interesting and all, it would not be fair to other victims of him if Nameless didn't also die. So he attacks. But Nameless initiative kick ass and she stabs her shortsword deep int the guts of the protagonist (great roll, great exploding damage worth of 15 points). In pain man blasts magic missile at Nameless, who jerks the sword deeper. Second magic missile doesn't stop her either! But neither Nameless can kill her opponent yet. Man casts hold person, keeps a speech and finally slays Nameless breaking her forsaken neck.

Next time it will be Pamphlet 1: Fields Of Forsaken (PWYW PDF and PRINT)! And maybe Nameless will get a name, too!

Notes

The rules worked extremely well! Swords & Wizardry combat action is so smooth (well damn, Dungeons & Dragons combat system) and fun and fast and quick. We used Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document saves, which in spite of my doubts worked very well. Full success, half success and failure are actually very intuative using dicepool system: Wisdom for all saves and Charisma for magic saves, attribute score determines dicepool of d6s. Roll two sixes and you success, one for half success, zero for failed save. Quite nice!

Starting a campaign with Swords & Wizardry Core + Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document 0.1 mash-up

Today my girlfriend asked if I'd like to run a campaign for her. It's been a while since she was interested in roleplaying games, so naturally I said yes! As I have been waiting for this day for over six months, I was prepared. I am going to use +Tim Shorts' The Mini Manor, and from there go to my Pamphlet 1: Fields Of Forsaken and continue to The Flayed King. From there... I don't know yet.

The setting is inspired by Dark Souls videogames.

Image from Dark Souls 3

The rules are a mix of Swords & Wizardry Core, Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document 0.1 and some of my own house rules I've used for a while. I don't have details for the rules, but basically game play will be close to S&W, character has options from LotFP playtest rules and rest is house rules. For example the character sheet is custom made.

There are some big differences to characters. This is one-Gamemaster-one-player situation, so character is more important as an individual.

• All attributes are 3d6, arrange as you want to
• Each level get one point to put in any desired attribute to rise it
• 1000 experience (soul) points per level. You die, you loose your soul points of the moment
• Free multiclassing. You can choose any class to add when you've collected 1000 experience points. Core classes (Fighter, Thief, Magic-User, Cleric) are always usable, special and other classes must be "found" in the game world to "unlock".
• Total of your class levels is your character level
• Experience (soul points) only from killing monsters (freeing souls) or doing some deeds that are worthy. Also rewards
• Spells are not memorized, character has as many spell points as his Magic-Using level of spell category is. When all spell points are used, character can cast spells, but there is a risk of failure (table from Liberation of the Demon Slayer by +Venger Satanis).
• Death & Dismemberment table by +kirin robinson when at negative hitpoints. Death effect will result as 1 point loss of appropriate attribute
• Character starts at third level

In a nutshell, it's like that.

After character is rolled (no equipment), the player will answer three questions.

1. Who are you?

2. How did you die?

3. Why do you wake up after you have died?

Gaming report: Liberation Of The Demon Slayer

Adventure used: Liberation Of The Demon Slayer by Kort'halis Publishing, +Venger Satanis
Rules system: Swords & Wizardry Core with the following house rules:

• Death & Dismemberment table by +kirin robinson (at negative hitpoints roll 2d6 minus negative damage, smaller result is worse)
• Wild spell casting: Magic-Users and Clerics might cast any spell they know ex-tempore. Doing so they must roll d20 + modifiers (level/2 + INT/WIS (M-U/C) bonus minus spell level. Higher result is better, from catastrophe to epic success. This formula can be found in LotDS adventure house-rules section.
• Advantages and disadvantages. From 5th edition of D&D. Roll twice and keep better or worse result. As there are no skills, your character's class can give you an advantage if your class is supposed to know how to do it. Roll under attribute as skill tests.
• Basic/Expert style Attribute bonuses, from -3 to +3 instead of -1 to +1 which is in S&W.
• Exploding damage. Highest result in damage die allows you to roll damage die again and add.

Characters: Pre-generated. No class restrictions for races. Humans get +1 to every Attribute. Start at second level, max hp at first. Characters were Halfling Magic-User, Human Cleric and Dwarf Thief.

Setting: Homebrew, remote island with remote little island where this all happened.

Background story: All these characters have traveled to this adventure location, because they have had unsettling dreams of demons landing the Realm and starting havoc.

They all arrive to this remote small island, where they follow their auspice. They soon find out, that within this island is a small remote village, where this dungeon lies. They start their travel to the dungeon in carts, that head to the village. Before some rumors were gathered and local church was visited. Donation was made and one vial of holy water received.

In final part of the trip they encounter six cheerful cultists of Yogshothoth. The cultists know that the demons will soon arrive, and they have embraced the weird godcreature of chaos. "Only Yogshothoth the Chaos can save us", they celebrate. The caravaners stop.

Human Cleric of righteous god hating infidels and heathens attacks without question. A combat starts, where two cultists engage this zealot. Remaining four cultists don't want to interfere in violence. Soon Magic-Using halfling has charmed a cultists in back row to engage his comrades. And some Magic-Missiles happen, too.

The combat is fierce. One charmed cultist murders his comrade, and soon another cultists is charmed. One cultist is turned into light with very successful and high damage roll. One is captured, one escapes. The horses halfling thief let loose didn't hit the cultists, but ran away.

Halfling wanted to interview the captured cultist, but went to help the caravanists to retrieve their horses let loose. Meanwhile Cleric murdered the cultist.

Caravanists were not pleased with this violent and hazardous encounter. With three cultists dead, one escaped and two charmed (as henchmen now), they get to the village.

They meet some villagers and rent an old warehouse they turn hastily into a base. And they head to the dungeon...

Next to the village a shiny and steep rock stands. On its surface, there is a portcullis blocking the way in. Above it, there is an evil rune. Magic-User studies the rune only to find out it will devastate everyone entering (if save is not made). Outside the dungeon entrance on a rock a little girl sits.

Cleric detects evil with quick prayer and finds out the girl is not evil. But as the god favored his prayer, he did feel how the dungeon reeked evil from the depths.

The little girl wanted to make sure these are the adventurers, who would (possibly) stop the demon invasion. Only they need to do is retrieve a sword, Demon Slayer, and slay the first demon descending in meteor rain from hell. Then she opened the portcullis and let adventurers in.

SPOILERS AHEAD, SO STOP READING IF YOU THINK YOU SHOULD NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ!

Not far from the dungeon entrance there is a sprung pit trap. In the bottom some corpses lie. Lots of planning and rope tricks later, they get to the other side. Cleric took some damage to leg while climbing up, when a monster lurking the bottom of the pit bit his leg. And rope mishap killed other charmed henchman cultist. The Cleric managed to get some clear quartz loot from the bottom, though. They continue the dungeon, one man down...

Only to find another sprung trap. Careful examination tells that there were poison darts shot from the wall that killed these two adventurers. Trap is harmless now, so they continue.

(I skipped the third sprung trap, to get going on). They find a cave room, where root like material covers the ceiling and walls, expanding as roots or tentacles on the floor. In the other end there is a pedestal where a globe rest. They decide not to risk it, as they think the room is dangerous, and leave the globe there advancing.

Next room is a laboratory, where Magic-User spends some time exploring and studying it finding instructions to summon a demon. He finds out the fiend's name, but doesn't know who this demon is. Might come in handy... Cleric wants to know what he learned, but the Magic-User keeps the information for himself knowing that the Cleric probably wouldn't like demon-summoning skills.

As they continue their exploration, the path forks. There Magic-User finds a ring. He commands his charmed cultist henchman to grab it. Nothing bad happens, so the Magic-User keeps it for himself. He knows the runes are demonic and can contact a demon. He doesn't know how and what will happen, if used, though.

They choose the second path and advance it, when a portcullis comes down crashing. Saves are rolled to avoid getting hit by it! Thief has an advantage because it is a trap, and he successes very well pulling Magic-User back with him. Charmed cultist makes his save and jumps back. Cleric fails, gets some damage from the falling portcullis, but luckily jumps back, too. The party is not separated.

Cleric says quick prayer trying to heal his wound with godly power, but his god didn't like this quick prayer and instead damaged him! Cleric refuses to continue before he has prayed his god (for more spells). Others refuse to wait, so they advance to the other fork leaving the Cleric to pray on his own.

Magic-User, Thief and charmed cultist henchman advance to find a skull fountain. Charmed cultist is commanded to manipulate it and blood starts to flow. Magic-User takes a sample.

Meanwhile a (random encounter) cultist walks from behind the portcullis trap and confronts the praying Cleric. "Who are you", he demands, but the praying Cleric ignores him. Waving his dagger for a short time, the cultist withdraws back to the depths of the dungeon.

Magic-User wants to go to the previous laboratory they found to study the blood. They go there grabbing the Cleric back with them. While studying the blood Cleric prays. Some rolls were made and god thought the Cleric can have his spells back (that was a long rest there... no random encounters).

At this point lots of game time was used, and we knew we had to quit at some point. Players discussed and thought, that they could never explore the dungeon in the remaining time, and would only find new rooms with new content. So they decided they (as players) want to try to figure out how to get the globe instead, and try to leave the dungeon to continue later.

Before trying to figure out how to get the globe from a room of root tentacles, they start to think how they can secure a quick escape over the sprung pit trap. Lots of planning, how to do it, with ropes, or jumping or climbing... when they use a solution: from the laboratory take desk and bookshelves and whatnot and throw those in the bottom of the pit to use as a leverage. While carrying stuff around, a (random encounter) talking lion appears. He doesn't like the noise these adventurers are making in the cave! Adventurers more or less ignore the lion apologizing, and after a while the lion leaves them alone.

After they have thought they have secured their escape making it a bit more easier and a bit safer, they start to think about getting the globe. All kinds of lassoing it suggestions are made, but finally the charmed cultist is sent in. In the halfway to the other end of the room where the pedestal is, four tentacle roots from the ground attack the cultists capturing him. He yells in pain screaming! Magic-User uses his fireball scroll, rolling 20+ points of damage (with some exploding dice). The fireball scorches the room turning everything inside it to ashes, except the globe. As the damage was so high, it backfired from the dungeon on the corridors...

The Magic-User was safe from it, as was Thief surviving a save... but the Cleric wasn't that lucky. He suffered great deal of damage, and his left leg was burned off (Death & dismemberment table). From oven hot room Magic-User retrieved the globe pouring some drinking water on it to cool it.

Both cultists now dead and their Cleric's leg burned off they decide to call it a day and escape. But the dungeon is sealed, and the little girl who let them wont let them out without the Demon Slayer sword. They are trapped in! At this point they have made an observation, that they had two dead cultists, and there were already two dead cultists when they entered it. Also other dead corpses they found were a human, a halfling and a dwarf: exactly as their party!

Magic-User uses his new summon demon skill to summon a demon, which is trapped in the summoning circle. Cleric sprinkles holy water on it only annoying it more The demon tries everything for anyone of them to break the circle and let them loose: sell your souls to my master and I will open the dungeon entrance for you, sell your friends' soul and I'll let you out. Just break this circle and I'll let you out... But they wont.

They are trapped inside... And the game ends.

If the game had continued, we discussed three possible endings:

1. They let the demon free and hope that he unseals the dungeon so they could get out. It is uncertain what the consequences would be...
2. They would continue to explore the dungeon in hope of finding the Demon Slayer, so the little girl would let them out. Then they would start fighting the demon invasion.
3. They die. Starve to death, or the dungeon or monsters within would kill them.

Thoughts of the module:

It took five hours or so, and we only explored 7 areas of total 23 or so, and I skipped the third one entirely! Sure, pre-dungeon gaming took some time. The dungeon was quite random in content. I am not sure did I like it or not. Some of it didn't make lots of sense as why this is here and that there. Some did more.

Liberation Of The Demon Slayer's first floor is an interesting place to explore, for sure, but that is what it is. A place where you check out content and try to survive while searching for the sword. What I like is that you can run only the first level, but can expand to other levels as a mini setting and campaign. There is a lot of content, and NPCs to interact, too! Some day I'd like to explore this more (well, technically watch as it is explored).

I did make some changes for the background, not using default background of the module. I also made some changes to the content.

Did I like it? Players were great and entertaining. Sami is a veteran player and gamemaster and a scene activist. I've played with him few games. One player I had played with also, and the third player was new for me. I liked them a lot!

You can read my review of the module HERE with commentary by Venger himself!

Prepping first session with new S&W group

New group. Some of them have played 10+ years ago, some of them only computer roleplaying games. Tomorrow I'll start to run Swords & Wizardry Core for them. Tonight, was prepping night. What a delightful way to spend Friday evening.

The game will start when players will kill these guys. They are in militia (they'll start telling the reason
why) and they have tracked these orcs down. These are the orcs they need to sell to quit their service.

Some handy tables for a Game Master's screen. Cannot remember where I downloaded these.
I added AC conversion Ascending/Descending. Empty surface will host XP table I think...

This is what players will see. Needs pictures!

Books I'll use the first session. S&W Core rules is obvious, RC has lots of handy material.
Where Is Margesh Blackblood is damn awesome adventure! After they have learned how to fight with orc
encounter, they'll go thru Margesh adventure.

This is my Gamemaster map created from S&W setting map.
Players have printed a map from S&W Core book, where
I added hexes to match mine. They can make their own notes.

First town they will run around doing stuff. Can't remember where I downloaded the map. There is Game Master's
notes I wrote for the map. Players have scarce information of the village what came with the map. So their
characters already know the place somehow.

In the village there is a small temple of Balor, god of death. That's player handout map. From the picture above
you can see there is a secret door. Also there's a simple random table for donations.
Presence is from James Mishler Games' Ghosts sourcebook. In the village there is a burned down (farm) house,
and that presence ghosts spooks there!

You can get Where Is Margesh Blackblood? from RPGNow. It is very good, and worth every pay-what-you-want dollar. I can highly recommend it!

I haven't read Ghosts - The Incorporeal Undead yet, but from there I found exactly what I wanted for a ghastly encounter! I've enjoyed James Mishler Games' products this far, so I bet this is good too. Go check it out yourself!

Last time I ran a game was in Otamocon last summer. The report linked is in Finnish, so you might want to use Google Translate to understand it. I'll write a report of it in this blog too, when I got time.

Wish me luck!

S&W Characters' track sheet for GMs

Preparing for a game tomorrow, I created a characters' track sheet for GMs. It's a simple table, where you can write down most essential information of your players' characters, like HP, Save, Attributes, Class, Level, and so on.

It's not fancy looking but I hope it is functional (for me atleast).

Swords & Wizardry GM's track sheet for player characters. And/or for henchmen for players.

You can open it directly in Google Drive's Sheets HERE, or you can download the pdf.

[Review] Return Of The Mad Hermit

What Is It?

This adventure is for Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox and designed for a bunch of low lever characters with total level amount of 12 by +Pete Spahn from Small Niche Games.

The pdf is 26 pages with three pages of OGL and seven pages worth of maps. Two first pages are the title and cover pages.

Layout is one column, nothing special, but easy to read on computer or mobile phone screen. Dimensions are 6x9" what makes it a nice booklet print, too.

Only illustration in this pdf is +James V West's really nice cover picture.

This adventure is part of a WhiteBox One-Shots line of short wilderness side treks, dungeon delves, and other brief encounters. Sounds perfect line of products for those days when you are out of your Gamemaster juice or not all players could arrive to game.

The Adventure

The premise is good, dimension hopping romp with dungeon crawl elements with different monsters and challenges. Setting agnostic too, so you can use this in any campaign you are currently running!

The backround story is nice, but in my opinion adventures need more what is happening now and why are they going to get involved in it than what happened in the past no one can be involved in anymore. Basically the few last sentences in the background are what matter to begin the adventure, and rest is just for Gamemasters to enjoy. I don't call this a flaw, it is just something I am not into that much. Backgrounds are important to get Gamemaster into the mood, but also might contain nice details you can use to flesh out your own campaigns. I am a guy who likes short descriptions and bullet point type ideas to harvest. Sure the adventure history is something player characters might hear, but it's still a bit longish to explain to the players as it is. A shorter version would serve my gaming style way much better. But hey, this is not super long, only two pages.

The adventure is really easy to throw in any part of your campaign involving camping. You don't need to build the beginning, it just happens. Also it is quite easy to get the player characters to the next part(s) of the adventure, unless the players try to ignore anything going on around. If the players continue to ignore the adventure altogether, there are some suggestions how to make it work anyways.

The fun part begins in the wizard's tower (yes, this is one of those adventures where everything happens because of wizard(s)), where multiple items are actually portals to other dimensions. There are several places to end to, all different from each other. These are not tricks or puzzles to solve, just ordinary items to interact with. The party cannot be separated, as all the characters are transported to the dimension based on which item was interacted with.

It might be that after exploring and getting out of one of these pocket dimensions characters don't want to explore the others. I think that's okay, but the adventure has ways to force characters to check out the rest of the dimensions too - they might even be assassinated if they don't! Well, I am okay with this, because it is up to Gamemaster and the group should they explore every bit of it or not, so this is just a hook to keep player characters involved in the adventure. It's everyone's personal decision how much they force players to the right direction, or to complete (any) adventure.

The pocket dimensions are short, only with few encounter areas. But that is good for a short adventure. Each of the dimension is different from sewers to a forest.  My favorite of these pocket dimensions is either lost world type place (because dinosaurs) or the volcanic environment, because lava is just so damn cool - and dangerous! Also the special item in the volcanic cave is lots of fun.

These pocket dimensions are not something with a story, they small palaces you visit and explore. Perfect for one-shot but lots of variety in locations. The pocket dimensions can be really atmospheric if the Gamemaster has any effort to describe the places.

I really like them all!

The ending of the adventure is a little lame. Well, this is not world-saving adventure, but a side quest, so it is understandable. The exploration of this adventure is the reward, not the conclusion in my opinion.

There are new monsters in this adventure. They are not weird or special, quite ordinary, but very, very nice. I think all monsters of this adventure could make a great lost world random encounter table entries on their own!

Implementation

This is a short-ish adventure, but there are quite a few pages so a table of contents could have been cool addition. The adventure is pretty straightforward, but still. There are trap like enviromental tricks, monsters, and treasure. Everything needed!

Things in adventure text that refer to other pages of the pdf are in bold, what makes it easier to navigate and understand the structure and what might happen next.

I like some explanations why something is like it is: because old school. Because dinosaurs.

The maps are many and simple. I do like how there are some illustration on the first map to easily visualize the location. Other maps look computer made, really simple and traditional in layout. The maps are not special nor crappy. They serve their purpose very well and are easy and clear to read.

Conclusion

For little less than two bucks you'll get one night's worth of adventuring. Because the adventure is interesting in content and has lots of neat little places to visit, I do recommend this. Re-play value for the same group is not that high, but I think this can be an adventure you keep in your OSR folder to pick up when the game for some reason is not advancing in the campaign. Great adventure to keep around - just in case!
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Buy the pdf at RPGNow, current price $1.99

S&W core campaign map hexed

I created hexed and hex maps for my upcoming Swords & Wizardry campaign using core book's default setting. Here are the results:

Original from the Core book.

Original with hexes. This will be players' map.

Numbered hexes for me to put surprises in the map.

Labeled map for reference of actual locations.

Like these? Download the maps here (ZIP).
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Colorful hex maps created with Hexographer free version.

Let's create a character for Whitehack 2nd edition (booklet version)

https://whitehackrpg.wordpress.com/

I've played Swords & Wizardry Whitebox, and really enjoyed it. I already have it as a DIY printed PDF booklet, so I decided to get Whitehack instead. I am looking for a simple D&D version for quickstarting some one-shot-sessions, but enough meat to play a campaign. I felt, that Whitebox did the trick extremely well. And it's easy to move to S&W Core from WB, if needed!

But I am always open for new retro-clone-similacrum-OSR-systems, so I bought this one.

This is not a review. I have not read the book yet (except checking how core mechanics work to get some idea what I want from character). Let's see how easy and fast it is to create a character without reading character creation rules beforehand!


If you are in a hurry, just transfer a pregenerated character to a copy of the character sheet. Well that was fast! Now let's try to create a character ourselves! I didn't print a character sheet, so I have to draw one myself. Luckily the character sheet is simple (but damn awesome). Picture somewhere below.

This is a cool and so simple!
For 1st edition.

The Attribute Scores. 3d6 for each attribute. It doesn't say in order, so I decide to roll a series of attributes, and then put 'em where I want to! Here they are:

STR: 10; DEX: 14; CON: 10; INT: 12; WIS: 16; CHA 13

I want to make a magic-user-guy! That's why I put high WIS, because it affects not only perception and insight but also magical abilities. Whitehack magic is different without spell list, so I'd want to try it out!

Attribute scores affect different bonuses, but most of them are not listed yet. But from attribute descriptions I get:

+1 to initiative from DEX, two extra languages from INT

Character Classes. There are three classes, or archtypes. If you are familiar with True20 (Bluerose has one), this is similar. Deft are skilled,  Strong are fighters, and Wise are magicians, alchemist, scholars, priests etc. I am going to be Wise.

Magic I get I write a description myself. There is no spell list. Cool! Also spell casting is not Vancian memorize-and-forget, but you loose HP when you use spells. You've got twice spells than your slots. Slots are your spells that are ready to be cast. You must "memorize" spells to slots to use them. Nice! What I write down as a fresh, first level Wise, is:

HD: 6 (1d6+1); AV (attack value): 10; ST (Saving Throw): 6; Slots (for miracles) 1: Groups (for mechanical benefices): 2; Raises (which level attributes +): 0

My healing rate is doubled, but I cannot be healed with spells, medicine or skilled treatment. Shields and heavier than leather armor make me pay double HP for miracles. I also get -2 AV (to-hit) for two-handed weapons, except ye wizard weapons (like staff). +2 to save versus magic and mind tricks.

Class advantages and restrictions sound extremely reasonable and are totally fine with me. Great! I imagine that double healing rate but unable to boost healing means, that you basically automatically treat yourself all the times.

Groups. Broad definition of skills. Groups are attached to an attribute, so the group can give benefices to an attribute roll. My groups are:

Preacher, to CHA
Duelist, to DEX

Preaching duelist? Up yours D&D and sharp weapons restrictions for Clerics!

Now there are pregens, and names in a weird place cutting chapter in half. Not confusing, just weird layout.

Species. Now it tells me that my first group must be species! Damned. Wait, I fix previous groups I already decided. I think that species should be earlier in any character creation rules. Here's a great example why ;)  Oh wait a sec!

Groups section says I don't have to choose all groups right away, but can choose two (I did above). Broad definition of skills... bla bla. Write next to an atrribute, check. How to use, two per attribute max etc. Gotcha! Species section right after says that the first type of group is the character's species. It must be chosen at a character creation bla bla. I can note them after two attribute, but if I am half-demihuman I only write it down one attribute. Second is my vocation (but if I am full-dwarf I already used my two groups to be dwarf-dwarf so I can't get a vocation). Vocation is barbarian, or wizard or something. Like your class description (I am a Wise, so barbarian vocation would be interesting concept). If I don't use Groups for species, I am a human.

SO if I want to be human wise-preacher-duelist I don't have to use my slots for races. These two chapters, groups and species, could have been written 100 times better! They suck the first time. Booo. Oh wait, what! Species, vocations, affiliations, are all under GROUPS. So I sucked at reading.

Affiliations are guilds, societies and what-not.

So you can use your two group slots for species, vocations, and affiliations. I am going with what I already got, even though they are not beforementioned. I need to go on, I've been stuck with this too long already!

Gold & Equipment. 3d6 x 10 gold, I've got 60. I am poor. Leather armor costs 15 and gives AC 2. Quarterstaff with damage 1d6-1 costs 1. Shortsword with 1d6-1 damage costs 8. Total cost is 24. Rest of the money I use to buy trinkets. I hate buying starting equipment, so I skip this. Calculating equipment weight is also as boring as it gets!

Calculating Armor Class. Unarmored 0 + Leather armor = 2. Yay! If they want to hit me, they need to roll between 2 and their attack value. My AV is 10, so I need to roll 2-10 with d20 to hit myself.

Languages. From the campaign world, which is unknown for me. I speak my own language and something extra. Maybe divine, because I am a preacher.
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CONCLUSION

Character creation is quick, if you know what you are doing. I didn't read it beforehand, so I had a hiccup there with Groups. I think that the character creation is a bit wordy, and all things could be explained so much easier for even quicker results. There should be a fast character creation check list or something to get through with it.

But if you know what you are doing, this is good. Enough similarities to know what you are doing, but enough simple variations to make your character stand out really easy.

I need to try this with beginner group to check out how well they grab the Groups concept. In my experience beginners can think out of the box, when grognards only think Fighting Men, Magic-Users and Elves.

Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox character sheet

Two of these fit on one sheet!

[LotFP/LL/S&W/OSR] Knife fighting

Pic from: http://www.gutterfighting.org/

Introduction

In The Brotherhood Of Rose novel by David Morell there was a knife fighting scene between two agents. They used knife hand to attack and off-hand to parry opponent's attack. That is an inspiration for this post. I decided to use LotFP as a default for writing this, but this is easy to adapt to other OSR games like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord, as long as you remember that Armor Class values are a bit different in those. LotFP unarmored default is 12, in S&W it is 10. Both of those are ascending. In Labyrinth Lord default unarmored AC is 9 and it is descending.

Mechanics

In this example I use a character with leather armor which is 2 better than unarmored in every edition. In addition the example character has +1 modifier (-1 in descending) to AC from his Dexterity Score.

This is how his AC looks:
Unarmored--with Dexterity--With leather armor--TOTAL
------12------------13--------------------15-----------------15

When using a fighting technique, where you use your main hand to attack with knife AND your off-hand to parry opponents knife strikes, add 2 to armor class. The AC would consist of the following:

Unarmored--Dex--Leather--Technique--TOTAL
------12--------13------15----------17----------17

So, to hit the character and inflict knife's d4 damage to HP opponent needs to roll 17 or higher. Just like by-the-book. But parrying with your hand hurts, am I right?

When the attack roll hits the range of the "technique", which in above example would be 16 and 17 of AC, one point of damage is suffered. Why?

0-12 is the default how hard anything human sized is to hit. 12-13 is how much the guy with DEX bonus dodges and moves around. 14-15 is where the actual armor comes in play. 16 and 17 are your hand blocking the knife's sharp blade, so naturally roll results of 16 and 17, which in AC scale represent your hand result damage.

In A Nut Shell:

Fighting with a knife using off-hand to parry gives +2 to AC, but the AC values in that +2 ranges when rolled with to-hit (with attack bonuses) deal 1 HP damage.

Ran Temple Of Greed for my girlfriend

Needless to say, there be spoilers of this adventure I wrote.

Available here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/146415/Temple-Of-Greed

Preparation

I decided to use Swords & Wizardry Core. My girlfriend was playing alone, so she created four characters for herself. This took less than an hour, and she had:
Seppo, human Cleric
Teppo, dwarf Fighter
Nen, halfling Thief
Keppo, elf M-U/Fighter

Here's the character sheet I made for this occasion. Two charactersheets fit one paper.

Disclaimer Of Player's Style

My girlfriend does play roleplaying games, but she is more interested in stories, characters and that sort of thing than adventures and action. Sure she handles action and combat, but meta-level dungeoneering what needs player skills is unknown to her. She doesn't search for traps all the time, but randomly chooses when to do so. This door she might search, but weird altar nope. Also she's not too gold-lusty, so many potential treasures are left behind.

This Is What Happened (Did I Already Say SPOILERS? Yes I Did!)

I won't write everything what happened, just the highlights.

• The word puzzle on a door where you need to push letter buttons went well. No one lost fingers.
• Second puzzle was quite obvious, especially when she searched for traps. No one got gassed.
• They found the skeleton, but didn't loot it.
• Elf senses tingled and the gold at altar room was found out to be cursed. Despise of that Halfling took one cursing himself with greed, negative experience point and unable to gain experience if he's not greedy enough. Others kicked Halfling's ass for this.
• Halfing decided to check out the diamonds of the scythe trap. Failed save and scythe cut piece of his nose, left cheek and ear off! Lost 25% permanent HP and 2 points of CHA. Others think that Halfling isn't very good Thief at all!
• First statue, they raised wrong hand in purpose because were too suspicious and scared to raise the right one. No one checked for traps though. In the end they had to come back and raise the right hand.
• They figured out that if you put all your gold on the altar you get that much exp! But the gold turned into liquid and was lost! Halfing tried this but he's cursed so no experience gain for him from the gold he lost! Others kick Halfling's ass again.
• Door with plate mechanism, my girlfriend knew this from when I wrote this adventure. She knew that she needs to peek somewhere, found that place and solved the puzzle.
• Was delighted of the big diamond, but lost it for the second statue. Somehow it was Halfling's fault.
• Third statue was easy, no problem. But at this point first statue was aligned wrong so nothing happened. Back there, fix it, and a secret door opens!
• Three fail save and want to move gilded altar away from the room. Elf thinks they are stupid. Altar leaves room, illusion breaks, door opens.
• Long corridor. Slot for gold coins and engraving hinting of the amount how much money should be put in. They ignored it and proceeded, no trap-searching. Save, and dwarf jumps back when trapdoor opens on the floor and the rest fall in. 10 feet drop into liquid gold and the trapdoor closes! Dwarf tries to tinker with it a little, but the door doesn't stay open long enough so rope was useful.
• Dwarf thought, he'll proceed and figure out later how to get friends out. In the liquid gold pit Elf and Cleric blame Halfling for this and are plotting to murder him. Halfling is too short so his head is below the surface, so Elf and Cleric need to take turns to carry him!
• Dwarf finds a door and a diamond and a slot on the door the diamond fits. Dwarf didn't check the door and puts the diamond in. The door opens and Dwarf saves and doesn't die.
• Inside is tons of gold coins (10,000) and the door closes shut behind him (I decided this door instead of the front door to keep the guys near each other). Dwarf tries to figure out what's going on searching hints, but finds nothing how to escape.
• Dwarf in turns is happy for the huge treasure and sad because he's stuck in that room. Later he gets hungry and eats gold pieces. Not a good idea, he found out. DWARF DIES... later...
• Elf and Cleric start to figure out that Dwarf is not getting them out. They get tired of holding Halfling up. Halfling is first to drown in liquid gold. Elf and Cleric blame Halfling for this. They die later drowning in liquid gold.

Total loot: Well, they didn't get anything into the town, but what they kinda got was:

1. 1 cursed gp for the Halfling
2. 10,000 gp for the Dwarf
3. 1,000,000 worth of liquid gold for Halfling, Cleric and Elf

Review: The Flayed King

Tim Shorts published this short adventure small in physical format for Swords & Wizardry appreciation day 2015. The hand crafted DIY print run was 50 copies and I was lucky and happy to receive one! The pdf is available for free at RPGNow.


Like the previous GM Games' S&W appreciation day product, The Mini Manor, The Flayed King is very dark adventure.


The whole packet from the map to the content is straight forward. You experience the content of the room whether it tries to kill you or is a light puzzle. This is not a problem, as the booklet is tiny. This is easy to throw in the middle of a campaign and leave it behind. Great for "hey I wanna run and check this out" gaming.


The rooms are interesting, magic items good, no christmas calendar random monsters, and The Flayed King is horrible, weird and brilliant! Well thought... thing.


Only thing I was missing from the beginning was the catch. First sentence(s) should give some idea(s) why and how adventurers start this dungeon. You can pick easy catch from The Flayed King himself and few other if you try, but I always appreciate when authors include their own ideas in their products. This tiniest flaw doesn't make the product any worse, though.


If you like horror and a little gore, this is great! If you don't like graphical content, this might not be for you. Gore is in good taste, though and Tim does great stuff so you might concider.

And the illustration by Jim Magnusson is very good!


Still reading? Now go to appreciate some good Swords & Wizardry content by always awesome Tim Shorts!

The Wandering Moon Fixer (for S&W and other OSR)

THE WANDERING MOON FIXER (for Swords & Wizardry and other old-school roleplaying games)
HD: 17
AC: 7 [12]
Attacks: none
Saving Throw: 3
Special: See below
Move: 12
Alignment: Neutral
Challenge Level/XP: 1/3500

Standing 100 feet tall this faceless man wanders the shores knee deep in the water. He wails deeply and eerily trying to collect moon reflection from the water, reaching high. But he never can put moon reflections back above.

He is forever sad disappearing in deep sea following the settling moon.

[Review] Where Is Margesh Blackblood?

Also available as tiny booklet.

Margesh and his bandits have been terrorising the countryside. There's a price for his head. But where is Margesh?

In 10 (total 12 pages plus covers) pages of adventure text and maps there's lots of fun. The maps are good and locations vary from each other for an interesting location based hide and seek.

There is replay value even for GMs because in the beginning of the adventure Margesh's location is randomly determined from the four hideouts.

I had fun running this, and my player had fun playing this.

I can highly recommend this for one nights fun or a filler.

In My Game

Margesh was a female. I don't know why, but from the beginning before I started to read this I got that idea from the title. Really Margesh is a guy in this adventure. But isn't female brigandine more... appealing?

For the rest of the campaign (I used Labyrinth Lord), Margesh was NPC ally of the character who decided to save her life.
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This adventure is designed for Swords & Wizardry rules but is easily all-OSR-compatible.

GM Games is one of my favorite publishers. Available at DriveThru, pay-what-you-want.

[Review] The Mini Manor by GM Games

Swords & Sorcery (Appreciation Day) compatible tiny dungeon crawl adventure with weird and gore.

"You're naked.

Cut up.

Shackled to a dead guy.

On the other side of the room is a guy cutting the face off a corpse.

Your foot bumps a severed arm.

Go!"

Sounds fun, doesn't it? This gruesome little adventure is designed for one third level character. A nice map with eight room descriptions and a random encounter table should be good for one shorter evening. The adventure might go quite well (I mean not dying) or it can be pretty tough. Some encounters are tougher than others but if there's space for roleplaying and not only rolling dice I think a clever player can get out - alive.

This reminds me a little of Saw movies and Planescape: Torment computer game beginning. I think this could be very neat start for a solo campaign in weird fantasy world, maybe Carcosa even. Or some other pretty dark place.

What I like is that there's this situation presented, go explore and try to survive it. No explanations why, or what next. Usually I'd like to read some thoughts from the author about the background of the adventure and possible future premises after the adventure (my choice should I use those, but its fun to read other's thoughts) but The Mini Manor is so damn inspiring for me in its little form that I didn't long for additional explanations or inspiration. Some of the encounters in this adventure seemed a little random, but I accept it as part of the "weird".

In 21 pages there's a neat little dungeon survival adventure, encounter table, new race, new spell and a spread of new magic items. The new race is pretty cool! Would be neat one-player campaign start to begin exploring weird and horrible world after this dungeon, as a Faceless race.

You should check this out because:

• GM Games and +Tim Shorts do good stuff
• It is free
• Quick, small, new cool race

Avoid, if:

• You don't like horror and gore or get offended by this kind of material

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The Mini Manor by GM Games' +Tim Shorts is a small booklet format adventure available for free at RPGNow.

Is this the holy trinity of OSR?

Swords & Wizardry is for original D&D, the three little booklets. Additional material from supplements depends on the version of S&W. There are White box, Core and Complete.

OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) is the ultimate clone of 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Originally meant to be a tool for publishers to publish 1e compatible material. OSRIC webpage has tons of stuff.

Labyrinth Lord emulates basic and expert editions of Dungeons & Dragons in one book. Goblinoid Games has done a great job with LL. And with Original Edition Characters and Advanced Edition Companion supplements you can turn Labyrinth Lord into older-old-school version of D&D and in lite 1e version of D&D.
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Best thing is, you can get all three of these for free. And all of these are in print!

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Do you think these three old-school-rules are the holy trinity of D&D emulation of 70's and early 80's? Or do you have a better combination in mind?

[Review] No Country For Weak Men

The cover alone is extremely cool. I printed this PDF to booklet format using watercolor paper for colors for nice texture and "feel". In real life it looks awesome! You have to believe me in this.

No Country For Weak Men is an adventure written for Swords & Wizardry rules (very OSR compatible) using some house-rules provided with links within the PDF.

I get strong Death Frost Doom and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (as setting, not as video game) influences and themes here, which is cool. Cool as northern wind and snow. The adventure is written by +Anders Hedenbjörk Lager

The look is top notch. Layout is great and illustration is... great. Easy and enjoyable to read. For a free product (yes, this is free) the appearance is grade 10.

The dungeon where the adventure happens is 15 areas long. The dungeon map is great and well thought. There are some puzzles what remind a little of video game puzzles but I think they play well in roleplaying game too. The area descriptions are inspiring and there is enough variety in dungeon rooms to keep the adventure rolling and interesting.

I like how the dungeon is not "you're-screwed-after-you-play-this" (like LotFP and DFD what I get some vibes from) but it can be very tricky, and could end into a death trap... unless you are clever. And if you survive the dungeon, you still might be in trouble because of the setting location (C-O-L-D).

I like this because of DFD and Skyrim like feel and because this dungeon is not just delving to get some loot. This is a location, what you need to explore to find its secrets. I also like the cold wintery theme. You don't see that every day in adventures, do you!

Also the future premise is promising. You get an area map with different locations not covered in this adventure. Those are future premises, that the adventure in cold and harsh environment doesn't end here... it just begun (I hope Anders Hedenbjörk Lager doesn't stop here but finishes what his plans are with the area map!).

You should get this because:

1. It is free. And not only because it is free but because it is commercial quality. I would pay for this, that's how good free product this is!
2. You like Death Frost Doom* by Lamentations Of The Flame Princess and the setting of Skyrim.
3. You like dungeons that are not just rooms to host treasure for players to find to get richer and more powerful.

And you can get this from here: http://nerdomancerofdork.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/new-adventure-no-country-for-weak-men/

And now, seriously, go get it!

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* I only got the original DFD. This link goes to new fancy DFD. At this moment writing the blog there's PDF available (LINK), but soon there will be prints available also... Follow LotFP and +James Raggi to keep up to date with new DFD!