Dungeons & Despondency

(reposted from my G+ ramble)

After reading that one blog post about Negadungeons/reading about the new edit of DFD, I joked about "Dungeons & Despondency". But now I kinda want that to be a thing


Character Sheet:

Who Are You?

Greatest Sin Committed:
Worst Pain Inflicted Upon You:
An Atrocity You've Witnessed:
If the Black Crows Came for You Tonight, How Many Would Care?
What's Your Biggest Regret?
Worst Pain Inflicted On Your Person by Yourself:
Why Do you Delve Into Things Best Left Unknown?
What Have You Seen That You Should Not Have?

All attacks inflict one hit upon a target unless otherwise noted. PC's have 2 Physical and 2 Mental Hits available at first level, gaining 1new hit availability of their choice per every 2 levels. All attacks require a body location roll. All hits cause wounds and exhaustion.

To hit requires a roll of 8 or higher on 2d6. Armor has Physical Hits. 1 extra for boiled leather, 2 for chain, 3 for plate. Committing horrible actions has a possibility of producing mental instability or physical mutations depending on circumstances. That's up to the game master.

Everything around you is a "negadungeon". There is no hope. You are likely shunned from most civilized areas. However they need you and your kind to transport things across the misery filled lands and to get artifacts and such, so you are valued as much as you are reviled. They don't expect to see you again though so payment may even be a lie.

Laser Gun Damage in D&D

I've seen a whole lot of OSR-styled sci-fi supplements and rpgs and one thing always annoys me:

Laser damage

Lasers (or even regular guns) are always given around 1d8 to 2d8 damage.

Even weak pistols murdered anyone not in full plate. Wearing chain? You're gone. Let alone a damned laser.

I understand it's likely for game balance but if you're going to import LASER GUNS into a fantasy RPG setting, then you're going to really need to up the ante. Those things need to grievously wound on impact.


So let's go back and take a look at Barrier Peaks, because I'm curious what the differences in damage are.

 

 Ok so what we see here is a very weak laser pistol. Wrist mounted little blaster. Not as unusual looking as its sister the blaster pistol thankfully.

So what do we have. Weak laser at 2d8 + the target's AC. So on an average we're looking at around 8 + 5 for chainmail in 1e. That's 14 on an average situation. Not too bad for a weak pistol. But what, there's more.  ((EDITS: I've been correctly on my dice stats. 2dx average is actually x+1. Things I did not know!))

You have to make a save or you can be petrified, and each failed save has a 10% chance of hitting a body part, which on a 1 is instant death. A laser beam from this pistol will cut through 6" of steel or 1' of iron alone a 1' line. Negative AC (aka MAGIC ARMOR) reduces damage.

How powerful is this thing despite its lower damage? That's terrifying. 13 average damage and you probably lose the usage of an arm until you get it healed up. That's enough to ruin many adventurers. To be fair if you save you don't take any damage, but still.


Now let's compare it to something I recently downloaded, Technology & Trolls

The Laser Pistol listed in its booklet is a 2d6. Still better than common 1d8 listings. But it's just 2d6. No effects, no extra damage, a straight 7 damage. And you're still only shooting a shot a round.

So if the rather well known precedent of Barrier Peaks exists with its surprisingly powerful lasers, why are people still weakening these weapons so badly? If you're gonna put them in, you may as well go whole hog. I don't understand it.

If as a DM you're afraid of it being overused? That's a very obvious worry, and a fair one. Give it minimal shots remaining and no other clips. Or give it a good warhammery jam/break roll. You can do a lot, but nerfing your lasers in a setting where most people are wearing leather just seems a very weak way to add the sci- into your -fi.

(Note: this isn't a diss on Tech and Trolls specifically, it's a nice, convenient pdf. I have a good few like it but I always enjoy them all. Wizardawn makes some pretty darn nifty things.)

Welding Rules Together

I spend a lot of my days reading various role playing games, and spending money on way too many things for role playing games, so I have a lot of system pieces in my head.

Now, I had planned on running vanilla B/X but... well I think everyone knows it's nigh impossible to run vanilla anything if you spend a lot of time in this hobby. If you do, kudos.

So what do I want to pull from what?

Well on the DM end I'm pulling some ideas from Dungeon World/Apocalypse World. The moves thing is an easy way for me to keep focused as a game master, so that's nice to have.

For the players, I really enjoy the Advantage/Disadvantage system from 5e and the Backgrounds thing, so I will likely make some custom backgrounds for the setting for my players to use and alter them to fit with B/X vs. 5e.

I'm also doing everything in my power not to just turn this into FATE using...well everything from FATE cause I want to have this actually be D&D and not FATE. I feel like using FATE for fantasy is just offputting. But that's just because I've been trained to read Fantasy as needing more crunch than narrative. I'd rather use FATE for Modern/Sci-Fi anyways as a personal preference. But whatever.

But I think that's the majority of what I'm going to add, rules-wise.


Now anyone who knows me (which is likely zero of my readers) is well aware I prefer A: low fantasy/Sword and Sorcery, and B: human-centric settings. While I have fantasy races around the setting (in the form of dwarves, halflings, and the giants) I really don't want my players to be anything but human. This isn't really fair I suppose as both of my players are the kind of people that like non-humans, but I'll talk to them and see how they feel. Besides it gets a bit tiring of everyone seeing in the dark without torches. Makes it no fun as a DM!


So, B/X + 5e Background concept +5e Ad/Disad system. Easy enough.

Against the Phoenix campaign details

Ok so I mentioned a new campaign setting in the works

The setting is in a valley below a mountain range, specifically below a large dormant volcano

Moving to Seattle was the best decision of my life. I get to see a fucking volcano.

The area is kept protected by an ex-adventurer (a 10th level Lady) who set up her castle and cleared the surrounding area of monstrosities, opening the way for people to set up villages. There's a good few around set up for mining, lumber, farming, fishing, and so on.

However, recently this idyllic life has been recently disrupted by hordes of beastmen that have wandered down from the mountain. These aren't pig-faced orcs we're talking about, we're talking Warhammery creatures of chaos that warp magic when you try to use it around them.




The castle at the foot of the mountain has managed to push most of them back into the mountains and an emissary has come to visit. The Lady of the Valley has been informed that a powerful phoenix is coming to claim the mountain as its home and the valley below as its own. Shortly after an enormous phoenix was seem flying over the mountain and disappearing into it.

Magic!

And that's where the situation stands as of the moment.

Why is the phoenix here? Spoilers below!

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When a phoenix dies, a new phoenix is reborn with only the knowledge that it will live for a thousand years, what its powers can do, and that without a doubt it will die. Normally a phoenix will take this thousand years to become a force of good in the world. This one, for some reason, had decided it is in no way ok with this. As such it has spent the better part of the last 900 years researching how best to live forever. Lichdom? No, no, dying means you automatically rebirth. Bathing in the blood of young elves? Fun but ineffective.

Ah, ah yes. Ascension. Becoming a demigod would be perfect. You don't have to die technically, you leave the body behind and you yourself become incredible powerful.

So the bird has come across several sources claiming an ancient artifact has been buried deep under the mountain range and the dormant volcano makes a perfect roost while its minion army (summoned from the realms of chaos) dig and hunt.

________________________________________

So what do we have? We have a large valley, a mountain range, a volcano, the inside of the volcano, and deep under the mountain range we have an underdarkesque area.

On the map I have also included an "ancient watchtower" which has a nice backstory and plot fuckery involved as well. There are also three key non-human settlements around: the giants and the dwarves on opposite sides of the mountains, and halfling territory in the hills to the south that trade with the humans now and them. These non-humans will be very important in taking the battle to the phoenix later.

I think it rounds out to a nice, potential-filled setting with plenty to do as well as an overarching plot to deal with. I'm excited!

Scrap Drake Converted for B/X

I'm planning to finally start a B/X campaign so I've been going through some PDF's I have laying around. Inside of Kobold Press' Monsters of Sin: Sloth has a good chunk of ones I like a lot, including the Scrap Drake.

However when I went to convert it I realized that I couldn't find Drakes anywhere until 3.5...so I had to grab a few books and figure out how best to do this. Here's my attempt:

SCRAP DRAKE (B/X Conversion)

Perfect photo sent to me by Zak Smith of what it should totally look like

AC 4  ||  HD 5+1*  ||  Move 30'/15'  ||  Save as Fighter 5
THAC0 14  ||  Senses: Infravision 60', Low Light  ||  Surprises on 4 out of 6

Attack: Bite 2d8, Tail Slap 2d8
Special: Improvised Breath Weapon (20' cone, damage equal to health remaining; move to load, standard to attack)
Special: Burst of Speed: Every 3 rounds the Scrap Drake can wrench its bulk from the floor and run on its legs, gaining +1 to attack rolls and -1 to AC (AC 3), as well as moving double speed for a single round.



The Scrap Drake is the bottom of the bottom of dragons, a lesser drake. Lazy to the core, a Scrap Drake lays in one spot for so long it often ends up covered in fungi and lichens and dust and rocks enough to camouflage it. As they prefer to lay about, they usually will eat whatever comes near and is not very picky. Having no breath weapon it will gather rocks and dungeon junk around it in its mouth and spew it out at unsuspecting victims. 

The Scrap Drake prefers to wriggle on its belly rather than walk on its two hind legs and grows about 10' long and can weigh around 2,000 pounds.

Start of a new RPG blog

I've been out of the online scene for role playing games for a good while now, but things have settled down enough that I have time again. I've got too many things rumbling around lately for me not to. So, welcome, and remember, let's not talk about the Tarrasque in the room.