Hiding your Plans

This post is an analysis of a player behaviour I've noticed: scheming behind the referee's back. I don't mean this to sound like a pejorative, but I do believe it's a net negative for the table even though I understand why it happens and have even participated.

There is a tendency for players to cook up clever plans that the referee has not foreseen and spring them at the last moment. Sometimes this is purely narrative. Sometimes this involves exploiting chains of game mechanics and in these cases the players will execute their actions one by one in the required order, letting the referee resolve them piece by piece. It's almost as if the intent is to trap the referee in the logical conclusion of their own rulings up until that point.

This is potentially problematic for two reasons. The lesser problem is that the referee isn't prepared. This is already part of being a referee anyway. The referee should expect to have to handle this from time to time, though it's slightly unfair and potentially embarrassing to put your referee on the spot on purpose.

The greater problem is that you don't afford the referee the opportunity to help you do what you are trying to do. That is the referee's job. You're not there to thwart each other. You are collaborators. If you came up with a good plan, a good referee will want your plan to succeed (or at least sensibly play out). Instead, when the referee does not know your plan, it may fall flat when something does not work as the player intended. I have had this happen in my own game, after a player refused to answer, "What are you trying to do, exactly?"

It's possible that this is a symptom of adversarial thinking, but there's another cause. This cause is a problem that I'm not sure how to solve. It persists through any amount of player-referee collaboration.

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There is a common trope that is so crucial to storytelling* of all kinds that calling it a "common trope" is frankly insulting. I'm talking about The Reveal. These are often the pivotal moments in a story, the most memorable scenes and the most impactful beats.

In a TTRPG, the players are the story. The referee is too, and the degree to which each is true depends on the campaign. But no matter the table, thanks to the structure of play (the basic procedure), only the referee ever gets to do The Reveal. The master plan, the twist, and the flashback origin story - these are all forms of The Reveal that players attempt to execute while explicitly avoiding stating their intent to the referee, and they are all things that can fall flat on their face without the referee's support. They want the referee to enjoy The Reveal as much as the players do when one is sprung on them. Unfortunately, it's often a lot of work to make these work, and that work is best worked out together.

I wonder if it subconsciously creeps in that in movies, if the audience knows the plan they know it will fail - that's where the drama comes from. Conversely, if the audience does not know the plan, everything goes according to plan - that's The Reveal. The opposite is true in TTRPGs however, where the player requires the referee to make it work. There are any number of things that the player doesn't know, but the referee could weave into the narrative if they were just given some warning. Rules may need to be bent or particular judgements made. In extreme cases, established lore and prepared events may need to be thrown out to avoid messing with the player's master plans.

In those cases, the referee is stuck with a choice: change what is established or tell the player they failed. That sucks. Better to collaborate rather than try and pull a fast one. The referee is there to make the game work for you, after all. The players actually enforce an adversarial relationship here by expecting the referee to attempt to thwart them, and preemptively thwarting them in return.

*I don't think it's correct to call TTRPGs "storytelling". However, storytelling is the piece of TTRPGs within which this problem resides.

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I don't know how to solve the problem of players not getting to do The Reveal. In a sense, everything that the players do is The Reveal to the referee. I get that feeling constantly when I run games. It's all about seeing what my players are going to do and incorporating their ideas and I am always surprised. Changing the way players think doesn't seem like a viable solution though - I can only change the way I run the game. It's something I'll be ruminating on.

The Vacuum Swamp

A while back I was talking about meaningful choices and referred to uninformed decisions as vacuum swamps, in that they are the perfect habitat for a quantum ogre. Here is that idea made manifest.

Vacuum Swamp

The vacuum swamp exists along whichever path the players choose. Their choice never mattered, you were always going to use this. You spent all that time preparing it and your players will love it.

When your players pick a path to travel or a door to enter, there is a 1% chance that it leads to the vacuum swamp instead of its natural destination. The vacuum swamp is a small demiplane consisting of an oozy swamp with a rickety wooden shack. If you entered the swamp through a door, you exit from the shack and the door is your only way back. If you entered along a path, this shack's door can lead to any other door (Judge's choice).

The ooze is green and bubbling. The bubbles float a few feet up into the air before imploding with a loud crack. Will o' wisps and other creatures which lead travelers off the path are common here. Straying too far from the path will lead to the edge of the demiplanar boundary - whether this leads to an empty space, a magical barrier, or the astral plane depends on established cosmology and is up to the Judge's discretion. The Judge may always roll a d3 to decide: (1) vacuum, (2) magical barrier, (3) astral plane.

If the players enter a vacuum swamp, they are guaranteed to encounter a quantum ogre.

Quantum Ogre

The quantum ogre occupies any number of spaces in the world at once, becoming tangible and real the moment it is observed. Until such a time, it is impossible to determine the true state or position of the quantum ogre.

Its natural habitat is the vacuum swamp. In a vacuum swamp, quantum ogres can materialize spontaneously.

Initiative: +2;
Attack: slam +5 melee (1d6+6) or great mace +5 melee (1d8+6);
AC: 17; HD: 6d8+4 (32 HP);
Movement: 20', Action Dice: 1d20 per duplicate (see quantum superposition);
Special: quantum entanglement, quantum superposition;
Alignment: Chaotic;

Saves: Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +1;

Quantum superposition: There is one duplicate ogre for each creature the quantum ogre is fighting, all sharing the same HP pool. They make their moves on the same initiative rank in any order they choose but no two can attack the same target in the same round. If any duplicate ogre successfully lands an attack or performs some other interaction with the world, the waveform collapses and that ogre becomes real while other duplicates become unreal. The real ogre is the one that must be attacked in order for the quantum ogre to take damage.

Attacks and spells against an unreal ogre are ineffective but make it become the real ogre.

Quantum entanglement: If the quantum ogre deals damage to a creature, it can automatically deal the same amount of damage to another creature that one of its duplicates is within striking range of. This duplicate does not become the real ogre.

Balancing Spells is Futile

This post was going to be a reference sheet for spell effects in DCC. It was intended for use with Freeform Magic to make rulings about power on the fly without entirely making things up as you go, but it would also have made a useful reference when creating new spells. It would also provide the player some reasonable expectations if they wish to research and create their own spell as a Wizard.

That didn't happen, and now this post is about why I stopped instead.

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Let's start with showing, rather than telling. Here is a chart I began to develop. It's a simple chart, all it shows is the average damage of damaging spells by level and spell check result. I started here because damage is something that is straightforward to quantify and therefore easy to theoretically balance.

Result	1st level	2nd level
1st	1, 2, 3.5-35	11.5-20.5
2nd	3.5, 3.5-12.5	12.5-21.5
3rd	4.5-13.5, 3.5-12.5(x2.5)	13.5-22.5(x2)
4th	4.5-13.5(x3), 4.5-13.5(x4.5)	14.5-23.5(x3)
5th	8-17(x3), 27-36	14.5-23.5(1,600ft²)
6th	11.5-20.5(300ft²), 5.5-14.5(x6.5)	18.5-27.5(x12)+6.5(1,257ft²)
7th	11.5-20.5(600ft²), 5.5-14.5(x8)	20.5-29.5(x12)+10.5(2,827ft²)
8th	23-32(5,027ft²), 6.5-15.5(x7)	71-80, 50-59(x5), 27.5-36.5(x10), 18.5-27.5(x30), 14.5-23.5(x50), 11.5(x100), 10.5(314,159ft²)

What the hell is all that?

You might notice I only made it to second-level spells, and there aren't even many damaging spells to get through. Despite that, I ended up with a chart that looks like an excerpt from a math textbook and needed five bullet points of explanation to interpret. Even if you look at just the first result of first-level spells you find a wildly unhelpful range of numbers: 1 damage at range, 1d3 damage melee, or 1d6 damage per Caster Level with a range that also increases per CL (Force Manipulation is a bloody good spell).

If you want to interpret the chart, here are those bullet points (feel free to skip):

• Results from different spells (or different options for the same spell) are separated by commas.
• Results showing a range are spells that scale with Caster Level. The range shows level 1 to level 10. These are NOT random variation; randomness is all averaged.
• Number of targets is shown in brackets rather than simply multiplied into one damage value because the difference between dealing 500 damage to one target and 5 damage to two targets is significant.
• Number of targets is also represented as an average, since some of these also use dice.
• Fire is assumed to deal its damage twice (usually equal to 7). Real numbers vary based on enemy Ref saves, among practical considerations such as length of battle and enemies putting themselves out.

With the help of those notes you might be able to make sense of the results of the chart. Don't bother. The chart's only there because otherwise I wasted all that time making it. Don't get me wrong, this was still an exercise that was worth doing; the lesson was just something other than "here's how to balance spells".

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After having tackled the most straightforwardly quantifiable type of spell and failing, I then had to face the reality that most spells are not quantifiable and not directly comparable with other spells. This was something I already knew, of course, but I thought I could categorize these things and use them to provide rough reference points. Buffs and debuffs are somewhat measurable, and incapacitating spells like Sleep and Paralysis can be compared.

First-level spells at the lowest successful spell check allow you to, among other things, create a simple visual effect, become 10% larger, read a language for 10 minutes, or temporarily fix something. The differences only get starker as spell effects become more complex and varied, through both level and check result. When the reference table for damaging spells - the ones that are literally just numbers - totally fell apart, I decided it wasn't worth it to go further. It honestly should have been clear before I started, but balancing spells in DCC is genuinely not that important. It actually does not matter. Writing the numbers down helped me to see that. The core game's spells are far from balanced and I have not seen one person complain about it.

Instead of those charts I wanted to make, I'm going to leave you with something else right out of a math textbook: Balancing spells is trivial and left as an exercise to the reader.

Different Combat Systems for Different Combats

Lately I've been on a bit of an OD&D kick, reading the original booklets that grew into the many games we have today and finding quite a lot of unexpected inspiration. Something that especially intrigued me (and actually the thing that made me decide to dig further) is its inclusion of not just one combat system but four combat systems. It has, with no exaggeration, made me rethink the way I structure combat.

Perhaps "inclusion" isn't the right word when they are literally not included and instead were part of another product you were expected to own. But the core game does tell you you're supposed to use them. Despite poring over the ancient texts for hours on end, I still have no idea how those original games were really played. Even in the middle of writing this and going over the source material, I realized I'd made a critical error in my understanding of how to use the systems in OD&D itself. Nonetheless, the idea still works: handle different types of combat differently.

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The Four Combat Systems in OD&D

Chainmail's primary system is that of mass combat. It's a game of simulating armies versus armies. It runs at a scale where a single figure represents 20 men. This is not the size of your typical RPG party, so you surely mustn't be expected to use this as-is in your typical "three-to-five dudes versus as many goblins" encounter. However, it might be useful where higher-level characters can mow down hordes of 1HD enemies. It gets complicated when you throw high level creatures into the mix - more on that later.

The Man-to-Man system provides additional rules for scaling combat down such that individual figures represent individual men and can act like a person instead of an army. This appears to be the standard mode for combat.

The Fantasy combat system provides a single table for resolving an attack between two fantastic figures, for instance a hero versus a dragon, or a wraith versus an elemental. This is pretty simple and bolts on to mass combat pretty easily, with the rest of the fantasy supplement detailing special abilities of fantastic creatures. It is weird, though, that a treant and a roc are chosen as two of only nine creatures on these tables - I suppose preempting players' desire to reenact Lord of the Rings was more important than providing some more generally applicable categories. I suppose that actually makes sense as an addition to Chainmail combat, rather than the smaller scale players-versus-monsters games that came from it. A majority of the space taken up is monster-versus-monster, although players were expected to have monstrous companions.

The Alternative Combat System is essentially what became the modern "roll a d20 against an AC" mechanic. What's interesting here is that this is literally the only thing provided, so OD&D still assumes you are using Chainmail for every other rule. Movement can be extrapolated, but crucial things like turn order and how missiles work are left entirely unmentioned. Hell, it's not even entirely clear which of the above systems this is supposed to be an alternative to - man-to-man or fantasy - or whether it's meant to entirely replace something, be used in conjunction with the others, or be used for specific situations.

Maybe we weren't meant to just play one of these. Most people seem to realize that standard combat and mass combat should be handled in different ways, but there are perhaps more suitable methods for handling other situations as well. The jury is still out on exactly when and why to use which parts of which systems.

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Five Systems in Harmony

Here are not three, not four, but five systems for different kinds of combats. They can all easily coexist within the same game. They need not necessarily be hugely different in mechanics (they're largely based on the same core) but they each provide a way of framing a certain scale of combat. Let's begin with the core and then we'll get to the interesting stuff.

Tactical Combat is the bog-standard combat in your game. If you're reading this, you already know it. It's Man-to-man Combat in Chainmail, it's the one where your party of 3-6 individuals face off against a similar number of similarly-powered individuals. It's the one you either play with minis on a map or just hand-wave spatial reasoning entirely. The important thing is it lets each character play a part and gives an opportunity for players to fight smart.

Mass Combat is another one you probably know, though these days you're a little less likely to actually play it out. According to some grognards out there, it's not something RPG players ever really did much of, because everyone just preferred to keep adventuring instead. It's still an important thing to have, and Errant does something very interesting with it: combines it with your standard combat, alternating turns between the players as a strike force and the larger combat happening around them. This is brilliantly cinematic and I will come back to the idea later.

Fantastic Combat is the boss battle, a showdown with a single powerful foe. You might think it's crazy to reduce that down to one single attack roll, and you'd be right. Think more cinematically. The arrow that brings down the dragon, climbing the colossus and driving your sword into its neck, the bomb into the maw of the worm - these are the final moments of a tense, one-sided battle where the underdog defies all odds. This is where I want to use Fantastic Combat. Much like the 1HP dragon, the players need to figure out how to fight the thing first, then they get their single roll to hit.

It's not so hard once you get up there. Don't screw it up.

Quick Combat is one I didn't mention before. It's actually something that's fairly well-hidden within OD&D, although it isn't a system of its own. It is rather a consequence of the Fighting-Man being able to hit multiple 1HD figures at higher levels. A party including several high-level fighters could practically mow down a small army in a single turn. This doesn't exactly translate well to the turn-by-turn, individual-focused nature of modern Tactical Combat. I want to be able to have high-level players hack-and-slashing through low-level dungeons if they so choose, rather than rolling initiative around every bend. Something like Ominosity's single roll combat is perfect for this. The players could choose to play tactically and probably take no damage from these fights, but a quick and dirty option for blasting through dozens of mobs is available.

And finally, Duels bring the scale right down. This is more man-to-man than Man-to-man Combat. It's time to shine the spotlight on exactly how much this guy wants this other guy dead, and he wants to do it himself. I made a DCC minigame for this based around Cavegirl's system. This combines perfectly with the Errant treatment of mass combat, where the bandit chieftain decides to throw down with the party's warrior in the middle of a whole-party tactical combat: alternate turns between the big picture battle and the one-on-one duel.

Duels, but not the Wizard kind

Il Fior di Battaglia (public domain)

A one-on-one showdown should be treated differently than the standard tactical group combat we see most often. Standard RPG combat often suffers the complaint that players and foes alike end up fixed in place, repeatedly chipping away at a pool of hit points until one side eventually and suddenly keels over. Now this isn't always the case, but nowhere is this more true than a single-opponent melee face-off. I mean, what are you supposed to do other than hit each other?

A duel deserves the spotlight and a closer focus. It deserves to feel like a choreographed swordfight rather than just another battle scene. In fact, as part of a combat it can be incredibly satisfying to switch between these two modes of play each turn, the duel occurring within the larger combat.

Here is a system for dueling in DCC based on spell duels and the Feint/Parry/Push system over at Cavegirl's Game Stuff. It's supposed to be pretty intense and swingy, and to snowball after a few rounds. It's also intended to be a little complex and crunchy, like spell duels.

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Dueling Basics

A duel begins when two combatants agree to one-on-one combat. At the beginning of the duel, each duelist places down a d20 with the 10 face-up. This is the momentum tracker.

In each Round of combat while a duel is active, both duelists act simultaneously on whichever of their initiatives is first. At the beginning of the Round, they each secretly decide and write down (or use a face down card, or some other secret method) whether their tactic for the turn will be Aggressive, Defensive, or Deceptive. These are revealed and compared in a rock-paper-scissors style triangle.

Aggressive > Defensive > Deceptive > Aggressive

If you chose the winning tactic, you gain the following listed bonus and your momentum increases by 1. If you both chose the same tactic, you both gain the bonus and both lose 1 momentum.

• Aggressive grants +1d6 to damage (or just +1d3 for unarmed or improvised attacks)
• Defensive grants +3 to AC.
• Deceptive grants +1d to your attack roll.

Both duelists now attack and deal damage simultaneously, the difference between their momenta modifying each attack roll. It is entirely possible for them both to kill each other if they both strike.

Striking the opponent increases your momentum by 1. Being struck decreases your momentum by 1. 

The duel ends when one duelist accepts the other's yield, a duelist is incapacitated, or the duel is interrupted.

Movement

The combatants are locked within melee range of each other. Whichever combatant wins the first tactic has positional advantage during the round and may move both themselves and their interlocutor up to half of their movement speeds. This may be used to move and rotate the duel at will. Being forced into direct danger can be prevented with a Reflex save, DC equal to the first attack roll.

Multiple Attacks

Skilled combatants are capable of much more tactical complexity. Each attack during a Round is also a chance to change tactic, performing more complex maneuvers such as a deceptive strike followed by an aggressive attack to the opening. Each successful tactic's bonus remains until the end of the Round, applying to all remaining attacks. Bonuses stack.

The pace is set by the character with the most actions, so the slower character must decide (at Round start) which of those attacks to respond to with their own attacks. For instance, in a duel between characters with 3 and 2 attacks respectively, the duelist with 2 attacks must choose which two "sub-Rounds" they make their attacks/tactical changes on. The first tactic always applies from the beginning of the Round.

Clashing

If two duelists roll the exact same result on a simultaneous attack, they Clash. Both attacks miss (unless otherwise specified), but an additional effect occurs. Roll 1d6.

1. Weapons shatter. If one weapon is of a clearly weaker material than the other, it is sundered and the attack passes through it, hitting. If the two weapons are of comparable material, they are both shattered in the hands of the duelists. If a weapon is magic, instead of shattering, a burst of magical energy emanates from it dealing 1d6 damage to anyone within 5' (including both duelists). This may have special effects based on the nature of the magic weapon.
2. Bind. The duelists' weapons interlock and the combatants are forced into a contest, each attempting to manipulate the other's weapons with their own. Roll a contested check, with the ability used depending on the tactic (Aggressive:Strength, Defensive:Stamina, Deceptive:Agility). The winner of the contest rolls 1d3: (1) strike opponent, (2) disarm opponent, (3) knock opponent prone.
3. CLANG. A resonant sound echoes from your weapons as an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. All creatures within 60' must make a DC 15 Will save or be distracted, startled, or awestruck, taking a -1d penalty to any checks for the rest of the Round and having a 50% chance of dropping their weapon. It does not matter what the weapons are made of - even bare fists colliding produces a supernatural sonic blast.
4. Overbalanced and entangled. The combatants collide, both becoming prone and getting stuck in a grapple with each other. A Strength contest determines who has hold of the other.
5. Collateral damage. The momentum of battle forces the combatants to move up to half movement speed, into melee range of a nearby target. One of you hits them. Decide randomly who hits (and who gets hit, if applicable).
6. Swords dance. Your weapons bounce and both parties attempt to take advantage of the opening. In the adrenaline and intense focus of the battle, both combatants get 1d4 (roll once, both use same result) additional dueling attacks.

Clerics as Wizards

Ah, it's been a while since I argued we don't need X or Y class. I've defended the Cleric before and while I stand by what I said about Clerics being a distinct and important class unto their own, today I look at it from a different angle. While I personally like the Cleric in DCC, I'm also a big supporter of having as many different ways to run the game as there are people to play the game. Don't think of this as me pooh-poohing the Cleric, but rather exploring different ways to run them.

In the post linked above, I mention having seen other Judges' discussion of Clerics being replaced by Wizards, but never have I seen a proper how-to. So here's how to do it. Each heading below provides both the Cleric concept being converted and the Wizard concept it maps to. The resulting Cleric is one that is more of a pure caster than the hybrid fighter-caster we usually see - more suitable for a priest than a paladin.

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Conventions for Clerics as Wizards

The Cleric class is no longer a distinct class of its own. Instead, the Wizard has broader access to spells and patrons which allow for the flavouring of a Wizard as a servant of a divine power. Many of the features given to Clerics have a lot of functional crossover with those of Wizards even if they do not use the exact same mechanics, so much of the conversion here is fairly direct.

Deities / Patrons

Bobugbubilz and Azi Dahaka are already offered as both Cleric deities and Wizard patrons, both of whom seem more like a powerful entity within the universe than a deific entity from beyond. Incidentally, they are also both demonic (hardly relevant, just interesting). A world with Clerics of slightly more grounded powers than literal Gods might make more sense with patron relationships such as these instead of strictly faithful worship.

The rule here is simple: A Cleric is a Wizard who has taken a godly figure as a patron. All godly figures are now potential patrons. If a player plays their Wizard character as a worshiper of a deity in the world, the Judge should allow an opportunity to gain patronage and treat their power as if it comes from that deity (or through faith itself).

Canticles / Patron Spells

The DCC Annual already gets bloody close to patron spells with the inclusion of canticles for deities. If your Cleric-Wizard chooses a deity from this list, most of the work is already done (although higher level spell checks may need to be written, as many canticles are basic single-level effects). Beyond that, it's no harder for the Judge to create these than it is to create regular patron spells.

A godly patron's patron spells should follow the usual format for patron spells and effectively replace any canticles.

Divine Aid / Invoke Patron

Divine Aid is effectively replaced by Invoke Patron. This doesn't really do the same thing, but it is the result of you calling upon your patron for help in a time of need. An Invoke Patron spell can be written that works thematically for divine aid from a particular god. Spellburn can replace the disapproval as a downside.

Disapproval / Patron Taint

Disapproval tables will need to be shrunk down to create a patron taint table and the more permanent options are the ones that should be retained to achieve the patron taint style. Don't keep the one where you have to pray for 10 minutes, do keep the one where Pelagia gives the character bulbous fishy eyes.

Lay on Hands and Turn Unholy / Spells

Treat these two abilities as spells on the spell list. They essentially already have a spell effect table with simpler formatting. And on the note of accessible spells...

Cleric Spells / Wizard Spells

There is no longer any delineation between Cleric and Wizard spells. Any and all spells of the appropriate levels can be selected from in the usual ways (randomly on advancement, discovered through adventuring, granted by a patron, research).

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And that's it. You know, I didn't expect it to be quite that simple. It's fairly easy to make the argument against Clerics after having written down how each of their mechanics map to each other, one-to-one. Clerics start to feel like alt-Wizards, and it's entirely possible using the conventions above to run them as exactly that.

I'll Run It One Day - [blog100] pt. 9, q. 82

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled an 82.

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82. What Idea or Concept are you "Saving" for a Future Game/Campaign?

It's common advice to use your ideas now rather than saving them for later. Here's the problem: I have more ideas than time to play. I think many of us do. I can't use them all, some things are going to have to wait. Some will be saved for later and some will be saved for never. It's just how it is.

Furthermore, not all things fit into the campaign I'm currently running. This blog is 90% about DCC because that's the campaign I actually do run, but there are a lot of other games I want to run too. Here are three campaigns I want to run that don't gel with my current campaign world, each one totally different.

Guild of Dragonologists (5e)

That's right, a 5e game. I'm not a big 5e fan and I've made that no secret, but it's good at one thing: being the current standard for high-fantasy. You want to run a world that has every fantastical thing you can think of splattered everywhere you can look? 5e can handle it perfectly. I'm talking about wizard high-school shit. Nary a human to be found in the nearest tavern and nobody bats an eye at people casting spells and flying past on broomsticks.

The original concept came from a joke among friends that rarely in D&D do we ever go into dungeons, let alone encounter dragons. I thought I'd lean right into that and make it all about dragons from the very first level. Enter, The Guild of Dragonologists.

The Guild is, as it says right in the name, dedicated to the study of dragons, which in 5e are very categorized and classified. They're territorial and the chromatics are at odds with the metallics. The Guild began early on as cartographers, mapping the territories of the dragons. They found that if one overlays a map of chromatic territories on a map of metallic territories, the lands of 4 chromatic and 4 metallic dragons converge at a single point. This is where the Guildhall was built, with immediate access to 8 common varieties to study, and plenty of chromatic/metallic crossover to observe.

The players play as new recruits who've joined the Guild as Hunters - think Monster Hunter style, where the Hunters are sent on missions to "control the population" for conservation efforts or whatever. You're not there to eradicate dragonkind, just keep them in check and protect the Guild. There's also some mystery going on with the convergence of territories and probably the Platinum Dragon.

As It Was Written (OD&D with Chainmail)

I've been diving into the Little Brown Books recently and I'm finding myself fascinated. There is so much in here that appears bizarre and arcane from a modern perspective but actually makes a lot of sense when you consider what they were doing and what they were trying to do. I've found myself wanting to give OD&D a go on its own terms, right down as close to RAW as I can do.

Those of you who are familiar with the original edition know that this isn't exactly a straightforward task - I've found myself comparing and rewriting parts of the various books to organize it in a way that works better for me. There are rewrites out there, but none of them do it my way while simultaneously remaining purely vanilla (which, to be fair, is a big ask).

What's become even more fascinating to me is the implied setting of OD&D. Reading through the encounter tables alone I noticed that the world it expects you to play in is absolute bizarre - by standards both modern and contemporary. It is a pseudo-Arthurian post-civilization frontier centered upon a megadungeon that defies the laws of physics simply to spite the adventurers who are propping up the economy around it. This frontier is horribly infested with lycanthropes (for some reason) and peppered with lost-world swamps and alien deserts (the little green man kind of alien - seriously!).

On top of that, the use of Chainmail's multiple combat systems (rather than the "alternate" that became the default) to resolve different kinds of battles with varying tactical depth is very cool and a topic I'll be revisiting.

I don't know what it was like to play in Gygax's games but it sure as hell sounds like a blast to try and recreate it from his writings. What'll be hard is stopping myself from houseruling!

Paleolithic Campaign (DCC Homebrew)

And we're back to DCC - kind of. This one is a Dinosaur Crawl Classics inspired stone-age campaign featuring low tech, less magic, and prehistoric monsters. Thieves, Wizards and Clerics won't be present, at least in the same form - magic will be the domain of an animist Shaman class with ancestral patrons. Hunters might take a combined warrior-thief role for a third class. All classes will get wilderness skills, hailing from tribal communities that live off the land.

The tricky part here is figuring out any kind of long-term story. This is one setting where I don't want to have advanced tech showing up from aliens or ancient civilizations. From a stone age perspective, even a castle is advanced. Dungeons will probably be lairs rather than old human structures (a perfect excuse to use another thing I've been saving - a humanoid ant race in an ant-mound dungeon). I can only take a campaign so far with a big bad being a particularly disruptive T-Rex.

A possible theme to wrestle with in this campaign is the discovery of agriculture, with a nearby developing civilization threatening to permanently disrupt the PCs' way of life. But again, I can only take that arc so far before it simply runs its course and there is no more story left to tell. I'd still like to give this setting a go for a short campaign run at least.

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