The Primordial Beasts

A recurring bit of worldbuilding that has been going on throughout my Greylands campaign have been the Primordial Beasts - large, quasi-divine animals of varying power and influence.

Unlike the Sun God (who’s religion now dominates the world), and the Wild Gods (who still have pockets of worshipers doggedly holding onto their ways), the Primordial Beasts don’t really offer much in the way of magic to those who follow them, as there simply isn't much there to give. They are barely godlings in their own way, and even then that applies only to some of them.

However that has never stopped some people (contrarians, as they are usually called) from trying anyway. And so the Beasts do occasionally get small pockets of non-animal worshipers.

This has actually caused surprisingly little friction with the Sun God’s followers. After all, while some of the Solar religions are more syncretic than others and incorporate acceptable versions of the Wild Gods, the veneration of Primordial Beasts is such a backwoods and rare occasion that most church leaders simply don’t even believe it to be true. And with how little it produces in terms of tangible effects on reality - who can blame them?

And yet, those who dedicate themselves to a Primordial Beast do get a small benefit or two from it. As such, below I will explore in some more detail the three Primordial Beasts that players have encountered so far throughout the campaign, and what (if any) potential powers aligning yourself with them can bring you. Who knows, maybe it’ll be something players are interested in doing in the campaign.

Simple Rules for Beast Worship

A character who devotes themselves to the veneration of a Primordial Beast must spend at least one downtime action per month in maintaining a shrine to the beast in question, offer sacrifices and generally refrain from harming normal animals of the appropriate type, save for ways allowed by the Primordial Beast in question.

Failing to follow these duties for 6 months or longer simply withers away the connection. Depending on what boons the devotee was granted, they may or may not still keep them anyway - the Primordial Beasts usually don’t have enough divine power to exert punishment. Faith is lost not through grand gestures, but through apathy.

Medved (Bear)

Description: The Master of the War Bears is arguably the single most potent and powerful of the Primordial Beasts currently alive. He still causes fear and respect in humanity, for those were instilled within their collective unconscious very firmly in the old and hazy past. He keeps them current too by the presence of his favored children, the War Bears.

Medved likes to travel a lot, usually setting up camp in some border territory or forgotten piece of unfinished Chaos and spends his days in leisure, merriment and laziness. He has enough personal magical power that he can change his appearance at will. When dealing with humans he often makes a point to appear as a large, hairy, bearded, and usually buck naked, man. In most other cases he appears as an impressively massive brown bear with a golden shine to his fur.

 
Cult Requirements: Being a man’s man (in every way you can imagine), Medved greatly prefers and favors male characters, however he will still accept anyone’s veneration if given.

Boons: Characters that worship Medved get +1 to reaction rolls when interacting with War Bears and +1 to the morale of War Bear hirelings. Furthermore if the character is looking for new hirelings and there are War Bears around, at least one will always be willing to consider joining them (and only them).

A devotee of Medved of level 2 or greater can also temporarily set their Strength to 18 and perform Feats of Strength (ripping off doors, hurling small boulders, bending iron bars etc) for 1d4-1 turns (the -1 is because Medved sometimes just zones out and forgets about you). They can use this power once per day.

Markings: Male, non-ursine members of the cult find themselves becoming noticeably hairy over time.

Svine (Swine)

Description: Svine is a minor Primordial Beast, really little more than a very big and ponderous swine with a faint aura of magic around her. She is quite happy with that, as humanity keeps her children well fed and taken care of, breeding more and more of them all the time. Sure, the wilder ones tend to get hunted down and killed, but that is how life goes.

Her current residence and center of power, if you can even call it that, is a small commune of Wild Gods-worshipping pagans living in the magically desiccated zone known as the Greylands. She is given veneration, offerings and worship by these people as well as physically taken care of by them.

Svine appears as a fat and quite large swine, covered in glittering fur and with shining tusks. She does not have the power (or the desire) to change her shape.

Cult Requirements: None

Boons: Svine is willing to grant some of her larger and more aggressive children to aid her followers. These War Boars have the same stats as the monster entry. A devotee may have as many war boars for followers as their character level.

War Boars do not require upkeep, still take up a follower slot, and as long as treated well will never abandon the person they follow, even if that person stops being a devotee of Svine.

Markings: Especially devoted followers sometimes find themselves granted boar heads in place of their usual faces. The effect is only ever temporary though, lasting for several months to a year at most.

Vuycho Vulk/Uncle Wolf (Wolf)

Description: Uncle Wolf was once as powerful as Medved is now, if not even more so. His presence sent humans fleeing in terror, for they knew that his arrival heralded only bloody death for them and their kin. His family to this day are feared by humans, even if not respected much and though humanity keeps trying to eradicate them, wolves are smart and also know the value of cooperation just as well as humans do.

In his day he was able to freely turn himself into multiple forms - a human warrior, a giant wolf, a large black shadow that stalked the night. He cut his way through entire kingdoms, gorging himself on their livestock, their children and everything else he wished.

That all changed once he got himself killed. Nowadays Uncle Wolf is barely venerated or worshiped at all. Oh sure, human mothers still use his name to scare their pups into obedience, but in reality he can’t do shit to anyone anymore. And yet, he still persists. Despite being dead, his aura of fear is still there, still lingering in the primal parts of the human brain.

He has mellowed out significantly since being decapitated - not having a physical body makes it hard to revel in bloodlust and carnage like he used to. Nowadays he is just happy for anyone to remember him and leave him an offering once in a while.

Cult Requirements: Vuycho Vulk still pines for the good old days and so will generally only grant boons to warriors or at a pinch, thieves. War Bears can join, because he finds it deeply amusing.

Boons: Once per day, a devotee of Uncle Wolf can channel that deep-seated fear in any targets they choose within a 20ft radius. Those targets all have to immediately make a morale check, and if failed will stop whatever they’re doing and flee in terror. This ability does not work on the undead or, for that matter, on wolves.

Markings: No overt ones, though devoted followers of Uncle Wolf just make humans around them kind of uncomfortable, even if people can’t quite place why.

Further thoughts on Experience Gain in a megadungeon campaign

 Consider this a sort of part 2 to this previous post. After reading through some articles regarding alternate experience gain methods in the context of OSR play (notably this one from Ben L.) as well as the comments under said articles, it got me thinking of a potential alternative approach.

Now, to be clear, as with the previous post, experience for treasure recovered is good, fine and works great. However, I can't help myself when it comes to tinkering of this sort, so please indulge me on this one.

First off, an important piece of context - I am thinking of this solely in relating to an open table megadungeon-focused campaign. For broader sandbox play, this might not work great (almost certainly won't in fact) and for a consistent player group it is meaningless, and you might as well use modern day milestones where you just get experience because the GM decided to give you some. So keep that in mind.

The basic setup is this: For every session in which the party has delved into the megadungeon, each character participating in that delve gets N experience points. 

Yeah yeah, xp for just participating, boo boo the man. But let us actually think about this. XP for GP is good because it presents a simple, clear and transparent framework for character advancement tied directly to playing the game. You play the game, you go in the dungeon, you find treasure, you get exp.  The function of XP for GP is to give players a direction at least initially on what to do in the campaign - go find you some treasure! You get experience for, in short, playing the game! (The game, in this case, being location-based exploration, a.k.a. dungeon crawling) 

So the thing above simply cuts out the middle man. You get experience for going into the dungeon and not dying. The amount is simply decoupled from the treasure you returned with or the enemies you defeated or the McGuffins you diddled or whatever other scheme. The more you play, and the more consistent you are in being part of the game, the more experience your character will get, while also risking more opportunities for that character to die.....oh wait, that's just what getting experience for treasure and monsters already does!

Discussing this general concept both on Discord (hello!) and with my partner also helped me crystalize some of the questions, issues and solutions this brings.

1. This is not experience for "just showing up". 

You only get experience for a session in which the party actually went adventuring into the dungeon, thus exposing themselves to the risk of character death. Sessions set during downtime or focused on the town do not give XP, just like they don't under XP for GP

2. This method flattens out the ups and downs of treasure based xp gain.

An aspect of XP for GP is that it is basically never consistent. In some sessions the party pulls nothing out of the dungeon, in others they hit a motherload and get a ton of xp in one chunk. This method flattens that out to an even number. This is not necessarily better or worse, just different. Missing a session (which should not be too punishing in an open table campaign) in which the party found a ton of treasure now doesn't seriously kneecap your character's XP growth. However you still don't get to have any of that actual money for the treasure, so there is still some consequence, just not as sever one in xp.

3. This should not invalidate gathering treasure and resource management.

Finding treasure will likely still be the focus for most of the player character. After all, you have living expenses, or maybe the characters want to make items, scrolls, research magic, build a base of operations, help the community, do any of that fabled Domain Game stuff. Well that stuff still costs money (it makes the world go round!) and the reckless endangerment to oneself for the possibility of finding more money than a peasant will ever see in their life is still present. Just that that aspect is now no longer tied directly to experience gain and level progression is all.

This means that balancing the party's finances, figuring out hiring retainers, figuring out how to haul expensive but problematic items out of the dungeon, all of that stuff is still present. It just does not affect your xp. That's all.

4. Number go up!!

Look, people like it when numbers go up. That is a fact of life and a fact of gaming. The reasons behind it are deep, numerous and way beyond my artist-level brain can comprehend fully. But people like it when number go up. Well this makes it so number goes up, while also avoiding some of the previously discussed relations to treasure. 

Pictured: Every D&D player.

5. Motivation for play is not related to specific in-game activity.

This one is, again, not inherently a better or worse thing, just a different thing. People have observed in plenty of blogposts, that XP for GP being your primary way of leveling up (a thing you want to do in D&D, because that's what you do in D&D) leads logically to specific types of motivations and actions. Picaresque tales of rogues and other adventurer types, focus on hauling everything not nailed down (and prying the stuff that is) and so on. That is loads of fun, of course! 

However in this case this allows me to simply take a bit more of a meta look at the situation. The thing that I want people to do, is to play in my megadungeon campaign. The whys and hows of the motivations of their PCs then don't entirely matter to me when it comes to that goal. Your character can have whatever possible reason you can think of to venture into the dungeon - that is fine by me. What I want from you is that you go into the dungeon. This, again, cuts out the middleman and simply gets to the point. We are playing a game. Let's play that game.

6. This does not preclude other methods of earning experience.

Just because you get a steady flow of the Good Stuff for every session you shove your PC in the megadungeon, doesn't mean there can't or won't be other methods to earn XP. Specific objectives, quests, goals whatever you want to call them, that can give a higher (but one-off) experience to the party. This still keeps the relation between risk and experience gain. Every time you go in the megadungeon there is a background noise level of risk to your character, so you get an appropriate amount of experience. When you go do something particularly risky you get more experience. This still maps to how older D&D functions - more powerful enemies give more experience, because they are riskier to deal with. 

7. It makes it a bit less of a headache to figure out the campaign's pacing.

A question that always comes when making a dungeon is "how much treasure do I put in here?" Because that question ultimately is "how much experience do I want the PCs to earn from this?". And we know that that is what it means, because it is straight up stated in so many words in B/X. So again, why not simply address it directly. 

I still need to figure out how much treasure certain parts of the megadungeon should have, but now the treasure can be a lot more interesting, weird and maybe not as expensive. And I don't have to calculate it based on party numbers and levels etc. No, everyone just gets some experience for delving into the murderhole.

Of course, this still leaves the question - okay, so how much is N in that sentence up there on top? Well, I don't know. If we make it, say, 100, that means that a level 1 Fighter will need 20 sessions to get to level 2. That is probably slower than it is reasonable for most people in our day and age. However, I also don't want it to be too high and get to a point where I have been with my other campaigns, of character levels outpacing my capacity as a referee to figure out what to do with the game.

So I also had an interesting idea on how to help with the pacing. Let's use that 100 xp for our example. From level 1 to, say, level 5 your character gets 100 xp per delve. However from level 5 to, say, level 7 they now only earn 75. Or 50. progress slows down, without me needing to still shovel kingly sums of money at the party just to even get that much. So okay, you get to level 7. Well from here on out, you get 25 exp per delve. The game slows even further, it stretches out. However that is fine, as the stretching out happens in what most people consider the "sweet spot" for a lot of D&D, old or new. So getting a character to level 9 or 10 is still a challenge and an actual achievement. 

This is hardly original - Empire of the Petal Throne famous does that too. This method also means that, due to this being an open table, a brand new character joining a higher level party into the dungeon can catch up relatively fast to them, as they will simply gain more experience. 

I know the OSR has had this weird obsession with low level play (and low level play has plenty of charms in it too), and I know the reactionary contingent (or as they are better called - living shitstains) have kind of monopolized the interest in higher level play, but....it doesn't have to be that way you know? Levels 3 to ~5 or 7 is fun. Magic-Users get fireball, Fighters can still dish out damage, but can take a few more hits, Thieves become barely competent (barely), etc. Also at that point the players have usually figured out for themselves what it is they want out of the campaign and can pursue their own goals and have most of the tools to do so. 

Again, all these numbers will need a lot of tweaking. But that can happen as play happens. It is the easiest part of designing systems, and the hardest at the same time. But RPGs are much more forgiving than, say, board games or card games, when it comes to number tweaking. 

So, that is where I have this idea developed so far. The more I think about it, the more I seem to convince myself it has legs, so I might end up going with it at least initially. And if it doesn't work, or feels lame or flat? Guess what, it's my fucking campaign I can just go back to XP for GP and it won't really matter! 

Renaming Ability Scores

Whenever I have had the chance over the past couple of years I have been playing in Humza's wonderful Legacy of the Bieth game. One of the things in LotB's extensive player handbook document of house rules is a simple renaming and retooling of sorts for the standard D&D Attribute scores. Namely the game no longer has Constitution as a score and replaces Intelligence and Wisdom with Skill and Power. 

I've seen discussions online of both the general problems of having stuff like "Intelligence" (with all of its weird connotations and baggage) as a stat anyway, plus the ever-present discussion of how does one play a character more intelligent than the player themselves. 

Combining that with the approach of establishing setting through renaming the classic Saving Throw types, I have decided to do some tweaking and renaming of attributes in my own ever-shifting patchwork of house rules of B/X.  

From here on out, instead of Intelligence characters have a Knowledge attribute, whereas Wisdom (an even harder to define concept) is now Power. Magic-users will now rely on both of those, with Knowledge helping them with starting spells, and both Knowledge and Power both being used when performing magical research, using an Arcane Research toolkit or doing similar stuff. 

This way Power still affects your ability to withstand magic by modifying your Saving Throws, but also lets all characters, not just magical types, interact with various devices and things by making checks against it. Meanwhile Knowledge is a bit more straightforward in indicating how much stuff your character knows (with low Knowledge not meaning the character is stupid or incompetent, but simply has a very narrow field of what they know). 

That's about it. Not much else to this post, but I wanted to establish this as I plan on posting more ideas for house rules, class changes (or even new classes entirely) and this would be helpful so people aren't utterly confused.

Toolkits as an alternative to skills

There has been so much written regarding skills systems and their place in OSR gameplay already, that I am not going to rehash it here. My position is that I generally don’t like them, but I don’t outright hate them as others do. So I have been thinking about tools instead.

Reading through Gus L.’s excellent house rules document for his Crystal Frontier campaign, among the various neat ideas there was one that really stuck with me, and it was the note on toolkits and their relation to skills:

So it got me thinking about my own campaign and whether or not I want to deal with skills in it - currently the Greylands thief doesn’t even have separate d6 skills, instead just using a single Thievery score similarly to White Box FMAG’s version of it (and I am sure others too).

But what if I simply take the toolkit idea and dispense with the skills concept? I am planning on trying it out and seeing if it works. Plus some of these would allow me to provide players with actions they seem to desire in the game, such as a way to actually identify magical items.

The right tool for the job

Sticking with Gus’s idea above, a toolkit is a single bundled “item” that you can buy or potentially even assemble if given enough time, money and negotiation with the referee. Toolkits can be used by anyone, but certain classes would be better at using certain tools compared to others.

Improvised tools. Lockpicks made out of paperclips.

A toolkit can also have 3 specific items in it defined by the player during the course of play, or alternatively special items found throughout the course of play can be added to a toolkit to improve it in some way. That is definitely the element in Gus’s write up above that I like the most.

Toolkits can allow characters to attempt certain actions, either rolled as an X-in-6 chance or as a number of d6s under a relevant attribute. Especially good toolkits, higher levels or specific circumstances within the game can allow for bonuses to those, either permanent or temporary ones.

Possible toolkits (a non-exhaustive list)

Thieves tools

You know what they do. You need them to do Thief stuff. Thieves can use these with their thievery skill to pick locks, disable delicate traps and so on. Non-Thief classes can attempt to do this with a roll under their Dexterity on a number of d6s, depending on how bullshit I think the attempt is.

Arcane Research toolkit

Used by magicians, elves and other similar classes, to try and discern various arcane secrets. This toolkit can replace spells like Detect Magic, Read Magic, Identify and similar effects.

Trying to detect if something or someone is magical while in the dungeon requires a full uninterrupted turn and an Intelligence check, while trying to identify the properties of a magical item or figure out what kind of spells are on a scroll or spellbook requires an entire downtime action, an Intelligence or Wisdom check and potentially some amount of costly reagents and consumable materials (Let’s say 1d6x10 coins).

Of course, if the magician in question simply has the spells that do those things, then…well they can just use the spell and move on with their lives, but not everyone does.

The toolkit is also required in order to perform broader magical research activities like creating scrolls, copying spells, researching new spells and so on, however that still has the attached sum of materials and reagents involved in those activities as per your favorite B/X Downtime rules.

Shot Making toolkit

Detailed in my previous post on firearms. Allows Fighters and similar military-adjacent classes to create firearms ammunition with a downtime action and a roll either under Intelligence or Dexterity. Non-fighters can also do this, but will likely have to roll more dice for the check.

Alchemical Research toolkit

Similar to the above two, this one is used to manufacture stuff during downtime actions. In this case - potions. Magic-user types can spend downtime actions, money and a roll under Intelligence or Wisdom to try and copy or recreate a potion. Having the potion at hand can help, knowing what the potion actually is supposed to do helps further.

This toolkit is not really portable, instead requiring a dedicated space where it can be set up.

I don’t plan on having super detailed potion making rules, and finding an NPC who can do this would almost always be a better investment in terms of time and potentially money.

As is it says above, this list is not exhaustive - think of any kind of toolkit, mundane or fantastical, and this would cover it too. Want to build and run a printing press? Do wood carving? Metalworking? Dog training? It requires a toolkit. That might be something you can just carry around in your backpack or satchel, it can be something that takes up an entire room or building.

Firearms rules for the Greylands Campaign

The world (still unnamed come to think of it) in which the Greylands is set, being a loose distortion of our own world during its Renaissance and Early Modern period, makes fairly widespread use of black powder firearms.

While most of those are still found primarily within the ranks of mercenary companies and the occasional standing army unit, their proliferation among the semi-criminal class of people with mercurial loyalties (ya know, adventurers) is also notable, since their unreliability at long range, but comparative deadliness in close quarters is excellent for the type of people who regularly fight in small underground corridors and rooms.

On a more meta level, I feel like firearms being present is an important element in anything drawing inspiration from our real world history and set after the mid 1400s (and sometimes, earlier). I am not the only one too, as how to handle firearms has had almost as many takes as what to do with the Thief.

Below is my current idea on how to approach them, though whether this will survive contact with the campaign, I would not hazard a guess. I can be quite fickle that way.

Firearms General Rules

Easy to Use: Unless otherwise noted, any class can use firearms, although more diminutive folk like gnomes or halflings might struggle with the heavy musket.

Slow Reload: All firearms require a full round to reload, similar to a crossbow.

Unreliable: An attack roll with a firearm that rolls a natural 1 to 5 not only misses, but causes the gun to misfire, clogging it up and requiring a full exploration turn to clean out and reload.

Susceptible to Chaos: Guns really do not appreciate being around the unstable energies of Chaos. When in an area of particularly high levels of Chaos, an attack roll of 1 does not just misfire, but instead the firearm explodes, dealing 2d6 for pistols or 3d6 for arquebuses and muskets to everyone within a 10 ft range.

Inaccurate: Greylands firearms are not the tool of choice for marksmen. They get the usual +1 to attack rolls when in short range, but get -1 at medium and -2 at long. 

Penetrative: If maximum damage is rolled when someone attacks using a firearm, the dice explode, meaning you roll another damage die of the same type. If that one also rolls max damage, keep going until it doesn’t. This ability does not function against enemies wearing Plate armor (be it a full suit of plate or just partial one) or monsters with equivalent resilience and toughness (up to the Referee's discretion). 

Specific Firearms, Ammunition and Others

Pistol (wheellock)

Missile Weapon, one-handed.

Cost: 30 gold 

Range: 5'-25'/26'-50'/51'-90'

Damage: 1d8

A rare and hard to find weapon from the top engineers of the Blessed Empire's corelands, reserved for important members of the military or rich mercenaries. The current height of firearms tech, does not require one to light a wick in order to shoot! Due to their rarity out among the border territories this can be very hard to find and requires payment in gold coinage, rather than the standard silver. 

Biggest upside? Can be used one-handed and can be fired even when you are engaged in melee.

Arquebus (matchlock)

Missile Weapon, two-handed.

Cost: 60 silver

Range: 5'-50'/51'-100'/101'-140'

Damage: 1d10

The standard firearm that most people in the setting would have at least heard of if not had the misfortune of interacting with. Big and bulky guns, hard to aim and hardly precise, but capable of devastation above what most bows or crossbows are capable of, and very easy to train someone on how to shoot it. 

Musket (matchlock)

Missile Weapon, two-handed.

Cost: 120 silver

Range: 5'-70'/71'-140'/141'-210'

Damage: 1d12

The heavy arquebus, most commonly known as the musket, is quickly becoming the primary weapon of choice for the more well-off mercenary companies fighting the wars between the Blessed Empire and its neighbors of the Southern Kingdoms. Bigger, heavier and deadlier than the arquebus, the musket might frankly be overkill in a dungeon, but sometimes you just want the biggest boomstick around.

Due to its size, bulk and length the musket automatically makes the wielder one step more encumbered.

Ammunition Pouch, Lead

Ammunition

Cost: 10 silver for 20 shots 

This contains enough black powder, lead projectiles and other stuff necessary for 20 shots of any firearm. Usually carried in an oiled pouch or a horn to keep it dry, as any moisture making contact with the black powder renders it useless until dried.

Ammunition Pouch, Silver

Ammunition

Cost: 30 silver for 20 shots 

A specialty item used almost exclusively by adventurers. Similar to regular ammo pouches, but the projectiles are made out of lumps of silver rather than lead. Useful for shooting at...well anything that requires a silvered weapon. The high price is due to scarcity and inability to make the silver ammo using a home shot making kit.

Shot Making kit

Toolkit

Cost: 60 silver

A kit composed of the tools required to melt and shape lead shots by yourself out of whatever scrap lead you can find (say, by digging it out of the person you just shot). Requires downtime and access to a fire to be useable, but can save you a lot on buying ammo (though you still need to buy the black powder). 

Why isn't everyone using this? Well, these are quite rare to find outside of armies or mercenary companies, and not everyone knows how to make the tools necessary. Plus local authorities tend to look down on people being able to make their own ammunition.  

Brainstorming - Experience Gain in a megadungeon campaign.

((Edit: You can find a sort of Part 2 to this here.))

This is going to be a much much looser post than I usually do, as I am going to use this to go through a brainstorming process regarding, well, experience gain in the context of a megadungeon-focused campaign.

I am planning on my next in-person game that I organize to be in my Greylands world, and focus on megadungeon exploration. My goal is to not use a published one, but actually work on creating the tools and procedures to create, stock, restock and run my own megadungeon. 

As part of this process I am also going to be doing a whole bunch of rewrites of the OSE house rules I used for my previous and current Greylands games. Stuff like how encumbrance works, tweaks to armor and armor class, maybe use a different magic system than the standard B/X spell list (but also not just use W&W again, I tried that already), the list goes on. 

One of the things on my mind in that vein is experience gain. I am definitely not the first( nor will I be the last) person to observe that with the amounts required to level up in B/X and with the consideration that 75 to 90% of that experience comes from recovering treasure, the amount of money the party builds up after 1-2 levels is just absurd to the point of rendering it meaningless. Things like carousing, training and conspicuous consumption are ways the OSR has dealt with this conundrum.

My thought was to keep the 1 moneys worth of treasure = 1 experience point (probably not gp, I want to move to silver in the Greylands setting, with gold coins essentially being an alternate resource you need for certain services or items),  but slash all the numbers involved by 10. So a Fighter now needs 200 experience points to get to level 2, but also the treasure is slashed by 10 as well. This way money does not become as useless as fast. 

But I have also had another thought - is money for exp actually the way I want to handle experience gain and advancement in this game? After all, there are many other ways to gain levels in an OSR game. While I have been sticking to money for exp so far in my campaigns, I have been thinking what else could I do.

First off, I want to make sure I stick to goal-focused experience gain. What does and what doesn't give experience needs to be clearly defined and written out so that players at any point know exactly what action will or will not garner them experience, and how much if it does. To me this is a non-negotiable aspect of the process. 

However, as you can see from the links above, there are plenty of other goals. I also did some of that in my BSSS campaign when the players stormed the gatehouse. That worked fine for a single very focused mission, but for a megadungeon? A location you are supposed to revisit again and again and again during a campaign? I dunno.

Money and treasure are still going to be important - after all resources get expended and need replacing, hirelings need to be paid, food and shelter must be secured and so on. 

Another option I have considered is one I've heard of or seen mentioned in passing used in other games - experience for exploration. Be it every hex or point on a map, or perhaps every room or floor or section of a megadungeon? That could work! This provides a good and clear goal, however it is a tad wishy washy. After all, what counts as "exploring" a room? If a room has a secret door and a treasure, do the players get experience for finding either or only if they find both? If the latter, wouldn't that just lead to overly slow and boring gameplay? Methodical exploration is cool and all, but it still needs to be enjoyable, this is a game after all.

I have had it suggested to me (on discord, I think?) that maybe instead the party gets experience for each room they visit, but it starts low and grows from there. So the first, say, 2 rooms give nothing. The third gives 10 exp. The fourth 20, the fifth 30, the sixth 40, etc. But once the party leave the dungeon, the count is reset. This in turn I think would incentivize riskier delves into the dungeon, trying to cover as much ground as possible, but it might lead to ignoring a lot of the actual dungeon that's around. It does provide a clearer goal than the previous exploration method though!

Yet another option - zones cleared and secured. The megadungeon in my game is (at least as of time of writing) going to be of the supernatural incursion type. A common trope, sure, but one that I enjoy, the dungeon as an alien thing intruding upon reality.  I hope to have thematic sections in my megadungeon, since those are always fun, and I figure each section would be between 5 and maybe 10-12 rooms each, and so securing that section, clearing it of monsters and making sure they can't really reestablish a foothold in it can provide a big and solid chunk towards leveling. 

That works, but...again - the goal is vague and ultimately depends on my fiat as a referee to declare when a section is or is "cleared". I don't like that. Plus, this means that I can't simply restock and refill and rearrange things in the megadungeon, as that would negate the progress of the PCs. 

A separate question to ponder - experience for killing enemies. A possibility, though one I don't really plan on entertaining too much. It turns a lot of gameplay into a near constant combat, and I have written a few words about my opinion on combat in dungeon crawling games.

What else then...perhaps each level of the dungeon has a certain number of special elements - idols, objects, altars, weird alien dungeon organs, winged monkeys whatever, that if destroyed will both help weaken that level (or sector?) of the dungeon and provide experience, and most importantly - will not return even during restocking. A bit better in terms of goals, as it provides a clear and non-ambiguous object and interaction with that object (loot, destroy, desecrate, whatever).

These can also be different - perhaps the underground garden's experience can be gained only if you find and cut out the central root core of the trees in it. But in order to get the experience for the halls of marbled salt you need to destroy the crystal that spawns the salt golems? That could be interesting and provide me with potential ways to make the dungeon fresh for the players.

Another issue entirely is that of numbers. Even if I just stick with money for exp, how much treasure do I put in the dungeon? That's a huge question and one who's answer can have major repercussions about the campaign. To a smaller extent this also goes for the exploration EXP - how much do you earn for that?

Obviously this doesn't have to be a single form of advancement. I will probably combine some of these, giving 2 or even 3 different sources of advancement (though I'll probably just stick to experience points for the time being), but as you can tell from the text you read - I am not sure where to go with it. 

So, if you have any experience (hah!) with alternate experience methods, please tell me about it and about how it's worked out in your own game. I don't care if it's in a comment here, on discord, email, a postcard...whatever. I am curious as to how you've tackled this if you have. 

Because for me there is no right answer in this, there simply is an answer and the implications it brings with it.

Using Errant Warbands in OD&D

 I've been wanting to have a way to streamline some of the combat in my OD&D campaign, namely reduce the number of rolls involved in the close quarters combat phase, where you have say 2 PCs and 3 mercenaries facing off against a group of 6 enemies and then just a whole bunch of dice rolls need to be made. 

My first thought was to try and adapt the concept of Warbands from Ava Islam's Errant. What you see below is where I got that to. I have run one playtest of this system during my game, which you can read a bit more about in this session report. 

The long and short of it is that I am not super happy with how this worked and it brought on a lot of questions regarding practicalities of it's use. 

However, just because something failed to meet it's goals, doesn't mean I shouldn't just share it anyway, so here we go. Maybe some of you can make better use of this. Keep in mind that this is written specifically for my own campaign's house rules, but I am sure you can easily just adapt elements to your own OD&D game without too many issues.

Warbands Rules

Mercs do not fight individually in combat, but instead augment the combat prowess of their leader (usually a PC).

Warbands come in Small, Medium and Large sizes, depending on the number of people in them, not counting the leader.

Small Warbands are from 1 to 5 people.

Medium Warbands are from 6 to 10 people.

Large Warbands are from 11 to 20 people.

Warbands have HP based on how many people are in it (again, not counting the leader)..A warband’s HP is based on the hit dice of its members, with every 1 HD member adding 2 HP, 2-3 HD adding 3 HP and 4+HD adding 4 HP to the warband total. For ease of keeping track of casualties, warbands are always composed of members with the same Hit Dice, maybe having 1 singular member who acts as leader (in which case they are not counted and instead have their own individual HP pool).

Damage is always dealt first to the Warband before it is dealt to the Leader. As a Warband loses HP it might fall from one category to another.

Attacks by individuals against a Warband are impaired, unless that individual has a means of hitting everyone in an area (a Fighter or Monster’s sweeping attack, a Mage’s AOE spell, etc). From there each step in size difference (individual, small warband, medium warband, large warband) incurs either an impairment (when a smaller group attacks a bigger one) or an enhancement (when a bigger group attacks a smaller one).

1 Level of Enhancement/Impairment gives +/-2 to attack rolls and +/-1 to damage rolls.

2 Levels of Enhancement/Impairment give +/-4 to attack rolls and +/-2 to damage rolls.

3 Levels of Enhancement/Impairment give +/-8 to attack rolls and +/-3 to damage rolls.

Here's how that looks, laid out in a table.

Additional Notes

Fighters that have a sweep attack add the bonuses/penalties to each attack roll they make. When using a sweep attack against a warband Fighters ignore the impairment from attacking a larger group, if they can hit all members of it.

A Sorcerer casting Maleficence on a Warband still does 2d6 hits to it!

For every 2 (or 3 or 4 depending on armor) HP that the warband loses, a mercenary is killed.

A warband’s AC is based on the AC of the Leader.

[I would have included some example combats here, but blogger is insisting on completely fucking up their formatting so I just gave up after the third try.]

Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel - Player's Handbook

 

Artwork by the wonderful Ellie! 

I figured it would be nice to have this uploaded here. I made a Player's Handbook sort of document for my campaign containing the various house rules, inventory system, weapons, armor and item lists and other such useful information. 

You can get it by clicking >>>OVER HERE<<< to see the pdf! 

Magical Corruption

Since Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel will be using Wonder & Wickedness for its magic system I had to address the question of Catastrophes. Now, I do think the Catastrophes in the book are cool, but they are uh...a bit dramatic, let's say? And while my plan initially was to just leave them like that and see where things go, I got cold feet and instead decided to scale things back down.

So instead of Catastrophes, I decided to go for the DCC approach and have Corruption. This way there are still consequences to unrestrained magic use, but they are mostly tied to the sorcerer performing the magic, rather than everyone else. Below is an excerpt from my Player's Handbook document for that campaign, specifically on how to handle Corruption, reposted here for potential and dubious use to other people.

 

Unlocking Classes

 Here's my very messy process on how I handled unlocking new classes in my Greylands game. I've talked about it with other people on the OSR Discord server and there's a few others who also do similar things in their games, though their actual process seems to be slightly different than what I settled on. 

Why bother unlocking classes?

In my specific case, I decided to go down this route after sitting down to do my initial class list for what I was going to have in my campaign. After doing that, I quickly realized that those were probably a bit too many. I know anyone coming from 5E or Pathfinder or any similar game would probably laugh at that notion, but for me the list felt bloated, so I started to trim some classes off.

However, I still wanted those classes to be around. One of the removed classes was the Hill Cantons War Bear, and there was no way in hell I was not shoving war bears into this campaign one way or another! So I made them a possible class that can be unlocked through the course of play. 

Another reason is that letting the players unlock access to new classes through their actions in the campaign just brings a sense of progression not tied to individual character levels or items. They, as a group, have now changed both the campaign and their own options as players through interaction with the game's fiction. 

Class unlock procedure

• Players become aware of a distinct group or faction that I inform them might be unlocked as a playable class.
• They have a positive initial interaction with the group which sets the stage for further relations.
• The players complete 3 distinct actions that help solidify their standing with the group. These vary from group to group and in how difficult or easy they may be.
• Once all 3 actions have been performed that particular class is now unlocked and any future characters may be members of it.

The steps in the procedure don't quite have to happen in order, but I came up with this whole system more or less on the fly and initially they needed 4 distinct actions in order to unlock a class, but those felt too many and kind of cumbersome so I paired it down to 3.

Let's see how this actually worked in the campaign. I'll use as an example the two classes that the group managed to unlock.

Unlocking the Cleric:

1. The party found that the former temple to the Sun Lord in Greytown was little more than 4 ruined walls and no roof. (Party becomes aware of the group, or in this case lack of it)

2. The Acolyte in the party started to gather the locals and any adventurers willing to listen as he tells them tales of the Sun Lord. (A positive interaction regarding the faction/class, and also the first action to unlock the class - restore the interest in having an actual temple with clerics in it in town.)

3. The party gathers and donates 1000 GP in order to have the temple restored and rebuilt. The process takes 1d4 weeks to complete. (Second action to unlock the class - get the actual temple fixed up so that Clerics would even have anywhere to stay.)

4. The party pays to send a messenger out to inform the nearest church to the lack of priesthood and have them send over people. As the nearest town is barely an oversized village and is also 4 days away, it takes 1d4 weeks for anyone to actually arrive in Greytown. (Third action to unlock the class - get some actual clerics!) 

5. The Clerics arrive and start up regular services in the restored Sun Lord temple, unlocking the class for any future characters. 

Fairly straightforward stuff this. I also generally made a point to inform players for what would be the next step in unlocking a class, if the step was obvious enough. 

Let's look at another example, unlocking the War Bear:

1. The party, as they explore the Greylands, runs into a clearing in the nearby forest. The clearing is full of bears armed with polearms, spears and pikes, walking around on two legs and chatting with each other. In the middle there is a large wooden statue of a bear with a crown of leaves, and treasure piled at it's feet. The party is polite and shows interest in what is going on. (The party becomes aware of the faction or class and has a positive interaction with it, also fulfilling the first step towards unlocking the class.)

2. The bears tell the party that their Master will be showing up soon, and the characters should come meet him and bring a tribute to him. The characters agree, and after they find a suitably impressive piece of treasure they bring it to the clearing, where they meet Medved. They are reverent and polite and offer him tribute. (Second action - they show loyalty to the bears and their leader. As a consequences they can now hire 1st level War Bears as retainers, in addition to the human ones they could find back in town).

3.After further visits and talks with Medved and his bears they learn about the strange activities in the forest by odd looking (and clearly evil) elves. Since the war bears are not exactly subtle or sneaky, the party is asked to provide some intel and information on what is going on, which they do after managing to capture an elven prisoner and bring him in for interrogation. (Third and last action - do a service to the War Bears and gain their trust.)

4. Some War Bears decide to settle in Greytown and take on adventuring as an activity, impressed by the deeds of the characters, unlocking the class for any new characters made in the future.

Another opposite example would be the Goblins that reside underneath the ruins of the manor of the local boyar. They were, in fact, going to be a potential unlockable class, however the party not only didn't have a friendly interaction with them, they in fact would use excessive violence (hurling flaming oil all over the place, taking prisoners and then murdering them after they have surrendered, etc) which immediately closed off any possibility of the goblins becoming playable. 

All in all, for something I cobbled together while playing, I'd say it works well enough. My plan for a future campaign is to actually make class selection very restrictive and limited, so I don't know when I'll use it again, but I suppose this could work for getting access to new types of hirelings, or just a new race for characters, if you use separate race and class in your game.