The BEST way to get spells in D&D...

There are multiple ways of getting spells in D&D. You can learn spells from ancient books, gain them from your deity, bargain with a demon, invent them yourself, and so on. Same ideas apply to various RPGs - some treat spells as powers, others see them as skills, etc.

Mechanically, there is nothing particularly special about spells when compared to other abilities a character can learn. If you require warriors to find a tutor in order to become polearm specialists, magicians might also require a teacher to learn spells. On the other hand, if fighters get stronger as they level up, there is nothing stopping you from just giving new spell away.

Of course, any given system can play with these ideas. For example, in old school D&D, some spells might be stronger than anything a warrior could ever accomplish, so it would make sense that the magic-users would get random spells from adventuring - the same way fighters would get magical weapons.

Alternatively, each class may have their own ways of learning spells. Clerics might gain them automatically, while magic-users must study, and paladins will LOSE their spells if they ever steer away from their righteous path!

D&S often separates spells between "divine" and "arcane" spells. Personally, I don't care much for this distinction. Both types of spells work almost identically, and some spells are both divine an arcane, so both clerics and magic-users can cast them.

It seems to be the best way deal with spells in order to maximize adventure possibilities is letting PCs get their spells any way they want - despite their class. And once they get it, it is theirs - for good or ill.

Paladins and clerics can pray their lawful deities for a spell top aid their efforts... But the deity may ask for a quest or proof of faith. 

Chaotic deities, on the other hand, will be more flexible - they might exchange spells for goods and services.

A paladin that falls from grace still keeps his powers - making fallen paladins the stuff of legend! What is worse, they can pledge loyalty to an evil, rival deity becoming more powerful in the process. There is always a high demand for turncloak healers in the Evil Lord's army! That is why lawful deities are so careful when choosing their clerics and paladins!

Of course, forgotten tomes of forbidden lore are also useful when studying magic. Their authors must guarde them carefully, or such secrets might be turned against them.

On the other hand, casting spells you haven't memorized should always be dangerous. Magicians can also create "trap grimoires" to fool their rivals.

And magic has a will of its own. Casting an unknown spell repeatedly will make it enter your memory whether you like it or not. While this has no apparent downsides, it occupies a chunk or your brain that might be better used for other stuff (or other spells) - which is why fighters and thieves usually shy away from such books unless they have some arcane ability themselves.

In short, this means the mechanics of spells are always similar, but they way you acquire them is different in the game world.

I have added most of these ideas to my Dark Fantasy Basic game. If you like this, you might want to check it out: 

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229046/Dark-Fantasy-Basic--Players-Guide

On the other hand, most pages of Dark Fantasy Basic are meant to be used with any OSR game; if you prefer, you can pick this single page and adapt it to your own games (more about this concept here).

How to do this in 5e? 

If you want these concepts applied to 5e, just let characters go searching for patrons, tutors or deities to give them spells (AND feats - there is no reason to exempt non-spellcasters from these hardships!). Of course, these will make the game significantly harder, so such quests should grant extra-XP by themselves and should never be mandatory. 

Doing this for every single spell might be a hassle (especially for Wizards, etc.), so the GM can choose to guard a few spells instead (spells such as Wish, for example), or let spellcasters TRADE spells for new ones - this doesn't mean they lose their spells, but they will teach the spells they know in order to learn new ones.

What's the point?

This gives the PCs lots of reason to:

- Interact with the warlock's patrons.

- Deal with powerful entities in a non-violent way.

- Follow a deity's commands (for a paladin, cleric, or just a warrior that needs to cure his wounds!).

- Go searching for a rival wizard's grimoire.

- Go through ancient catacombs in search of forgotten scrolls.

- Fear for their soul when they read an unknown book with a cover made of human skin!

Just don't let it become a nuisance to your players!

Dark Fantasy Basic, One Page Hacks, and Alignment

As you might know, I was trying to rewrite B/X one page at a time... But now it seems I rewrote the whole thing.

Yeah, my "one page hacks" transformed into a fully developed retro-clone. Well, not fully developed; the first "booklet" (a player's guide including spells and all rules on adventuring) is finished, but "Monsters & Treasure" and GM stuff will have to wait. 

I'm calling it "Dark Fantasy Basic"; if you like my "one page hacks", I bet you'll like it, so stay tuned; it will probably be available within a couple of months, at most (if you want to take a look and provide feedback before that, let me know through G+ or in the comments, and I'll send you the current version).

In any case, this post is about alignment.

As you know, the original D&D, heavily based on Poul Anderson's work, used alignment as teams, and "chaotic" was basically a synonym of "team evil". 

Michael Moorcock created a more nuanced (and sometime confusing) view on alignment, making agents of Law as dangerous as Chaos. Later forms of D&D added "good and evil" as a distinct axis to reflect that (Holmes D&D, interestingly, recognizes the possibility of "Lawful Evil" and "Chaotic Good", using 5 alignments). 

This is the Law! - source.

I don't think the Good-Evil axis is particularly useful, but "team good" and "team evil" is also limiting in my opinion. And I like my shades of gray, and the idea of Evil Angels of Law is just too enticing for me. Law, Chaos, and even Balance should be kept a bit beyond the characters' comprehension; they are just too big to grasp completely.

This nuanced view opens interesting possibilities of role-playing; from time to time, the PCs might find themselves fighting against the forces of Law, pitting the forces of Chaos against each other, making deals, etc. It is also a view concept that fits the polytheistic view of the world often sued in D&D; sometimes, the gods of the underworld are the ones who can guide you though the dungeon. 

"Neutral", by the way, is also not a useful concept for me, because it encompasses those who don't care, those who cannot care (animals), and those who think there should be a balance between the opposing forces of Law and Chaos, or maybe that both forces are dangerous to humankind.

Anyway, here is what I came up with. As always, the idea is that you can use it with any version of D&D.

Alignment & World View

The universe hangs in the balance of the cosmic struggle between Law, the infinite unifying principle of order and conformity, and Chaos, the unrelenting entropic force of freedom and change.

It is up to you to pick a side or remain neutral. You can choose to be Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral or Unaligned, unless the PC’s class or other features requires a certain alignment.

Alignment is not a straitjacket for character behavior, but a summary of the PC’s philosophy, world view, and sympathies.

Lawful characters believe in heavenly order. There are divine laws, legitimate rulers, and faithful prophets, although there are also false idols and usurpers. Unholy magic is better left alone, and the undead must be destroyed, along with other aberrations. Some lawful creatures, such as the Ironweb Spiders, are very dangerous, but that is because the universe has mysterious rules that the mortal mind cannot fully comprehend. To defy Law is to bring destruction upon the world.

Chaotic characters believe in freedom and chance. There are no legitimate kings or queens, no perfect doctrines, no reasonable taboos. The universe is ruled by randomness. The strong rule the weak with power and lies, as it has always has been. Magic, people and creatures are just tools for the clever. Some demons, at least, will offer you a deal – which is more that can be said of the silent Stone Angels that seem to want to turn the world into a tidily organized jail block.

Neutral characters believe in Balance. They believe both Law and Chaos are inimical to humankind, as both visions of paradise will turn this world into a living hell. The gods of Neutrality, if they exist at all, are bound by nature and want to preserve reality as it is. Life is more important than order or freedom.

Many people are agnostic to this struggle and remain unaligned, whether because they don’t fully understand it, because they feel they cannot affect it, or because they don’t care.

People don’t necessarily act in accordance to their alignment all the time, and sometimes it is often hard to distinguish one alignment from another. All alignments contain good and evil people. A Lawful character may choose to wage war against other Lawful sects for religious or mundane reasons, for example, or always choose justice over the slightest mercy. Chaotic characters may cooperate with Neutral or Lawful characters to achieve a common goal. A Neutral character can pray to the Lawful gods against the hordes of chaos in a moment of need.

Lawful and Neutral beliefs are more common amongst humankind, although Chaos is often worshiped simultaneously (or secretly).

There are plenty of nonhuman creatures that identify themselves as forces of Law, Chaos or Neutrality. It is often hard to say if they’re telling the true. As a general rule, Lawful creatures are a bit more predictable since they are always seem to be following one some kind of rules, although those rules will often contradict one another.

UPDATE: Dark Fantasy Basic is now available!

Fixing the Charisma problem

Charisma as a dump stat? No way! I'm talking old school D&D here - Charisma is TOO powerful, if anything.

But let's start from the beginning...

Yes, I'm still rewriting Moldvay Basic, one page at a time (and I hope you like that because there will be a few extra posts in the same vein before I finish...).

One things that retro-clones often do when rewriting Moldvay is "unifying" the Charisma 18 to +3 instead of +2 to get it in line with Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, etc. 

This is usually a bad idea, because Charisma is too important in Basic.

If you have a +3 bonus to add to reaction tables, you will seldom, if ever, encounter a hostile monster (less than 3% chance), and almost ALL your offers will be accepted by hirelings (well, you can always offer them LESS money to get a chance of failure, which is a good idea). But, basically, a +3 bonus wrecks the typical 2d6 table (below). In fact, even a +1 bonus to a 2d6 table can often destroy some interesting possibilites. Immediate attack can be fun from time to time!

	Roll	Result
	2	Immediate attack
	3-5	Hostile
	6-8	Uncertain, confused
	9-11	No attack, monster leaves
	12	Enthusiastic friendship

Not to mention retainers, or the fact that while some abilities may seem useless for some classes, Charisma can be useful for everybody. Always nice to have a few more fighters by your side!

But I kinda like "unified" stuff lately, and even big ability bonuses - as long as it works. How to fix this?

My current solution to this is that PC modifiers apply ONLY to d20 stuff (with the exception of weapon damage): attacks, AC, saving throws, etc. This allows me to use bigger modifiers (up to +5 for Strength 20, for example) while still leaving chance for failure (I'm currently using d20 skills).

2d6 tables are DM's tools: they define NPC reaction, weather, etc., but suffer no influence from PCs' stats.

What PCs can do is use their own actions (roleplaying) and (d20) skills to improve the results of the DM's roll. Thus, a Paladin with Charisma 18 (+3) and Persuasion +5 rolls 1d20, with a +8 bonus and a DC of 15 (for example), to turn a hostile creature uncertain, or to make and uncertain retainer accept an offer.

A similar check allows a warlord to rally the troops after they fail a morale check (I make retainers check morale once per combat, unlike Moldvay).

This is a nice way to use 2d6 tables in 5e without changing the system; use them as DM's tools.

Languages, alignment or otherwise

Still analyzing and rewriting Moldvay basic. No new page today, sorry. Just some random thoughts about language in Basic D&D.

B13 has a list of languages that is not specially interesting - you've got languages for elves, dwarves, lizard men, etc. It makes sense that every creature would have their own language; in fact, if D&D-world is anything like the real world, each species might have thousands of languages that are mostly incomprehensible to speakers of other languages. This is not particularly useful when running a game. so we get a "common" language that 20% of people speak, thus avoiding to deal with language barriers all the time (still too often, probably), while at the same time having a few extra languages that can give you an edge in one interaction or another.

Works fine, I guess, but I haven't got much to contribute, so there is no point in writing my version of this part of  B13. Unless I use it as a world-building tool - if lizard people speak "Low Snake-speech" instead of "lizard men language", or if dwarves and elves share a common language,  it tells you something about the history of the world.

Modern D&D does something like that, while reducing the number of languages and alphabets to more manageable levels - maybe goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears all speak the same language, for example. Again, works well, but feels a bit artificial and it's not something I feel particularly interested in.

Now, alignment language. It certainly has its fans, but it has plenty of haters and has been mostly abandoned in modern D&D, as it makes little sense unless you see alignment as factions. The main inspiration for the concept is probably Black Speech.

Another problem with alignment languages is that, in theory, it could be used to identify anyone's alignment in seconds, making some interesting interactions impossible.

It is not hard to make SOME sense of alignment language; it might be like Latin for the catholic church, a secret language shared among members of the same team, a gift from the gods to their followers (which fits the idea that you forget it if you change alignment), body language that reveals a character's true attitude, etc. But any people prefer to avoid the concept altogether.

My attempt to make languages interesting include giving each language a special "power" or twist, without going too far into etymology, culture and world-building, and avoiding the most obvious pitfalls. Here are some examples:

Darkspeak: the spoken/written language of demons and the mightiest inhabitants of the Abyss. Only chaotic characters can learn it without a significant risk of going mad, and even them will avoid using it unless they are also demons.

Bastard tongue: the gutural, often unpleasant spoken language of goblins, orcs, minor demons and beings that associate with chaos.

Devani: the spoken/written language of Elysium. Learning this language for any character that isn't lawful is like looking directly into the sun, and many will not survive the experience. Every mortal uses this language with reverence and awe and avoid speaking it out loud - even if they can understand it when it comes form the mouth of an angel.

Prisca: the spoken/written language of the fallen Empire, specially common in religious (lawful) texts and legal documents.

Fae: the spoken (sung) language of fairies and the spirits of the wild. Anyone can learn it, but characters that are not Neutral are suffer greater risk of being charmed by sylvan spirits if they understand their words.

Vulgi: the widespread spoken/written language used by different peoples of the realm, specially travelers and merchants, that allow people from different places to talk to each other.

Thieves’ Cant: the secret language spoken by many criminals and beggars. It can be discretely inserted in regular conversation to pass hidden messages along.

Rún: the written language of magic-user’s spells. Anyone can learn to read it phonetically, but speaking the words out loud is very dangerous for people that are not versed in magic.

Trail signs: the symbolic language of rangers, druids and wilderness explorers marked on trees and stones to identify dangers, pathways, etc. People from different backgrounds often use similar signs, but even when they don't the variations are quickly memorized by the ones that are familiar with the language.

Dialect: each people, tribe, region, etc. has its own dialect. There are thousands of them, but there is a good chance that nearby dialects are similar enough to allow free communication. The more the distance, the smaller the chance of being understood.

One Page Hacks: Equipment (B12)

Still rewriting Moldvay Basic, one page at a time.

Okay, that was harder than I expected. Moldvay's page B12 is a succinct table of equipment prices. It should be easy to streamline this. But I wanted to have all information in the same page: damage, price, weight, etc. I also added some house rules for weapons.

Not all the original weapons are included, but I've added a few of my own.

I used the silver standard instead of the traditional gold.

Click HERE for the PDF.

I really like the final result, but it is not much simpler than Moldvay's. It includes a lot more information (some of it essential, such as a distinction between fresh food and preserved food - which isn't clear in the original text), and it uses my simplified "rule of three" encumbrance system (check the link above).

My favorite part is "unifying" the price and weight of most items under "light tools". It might seem strange that all costs and weight the same, but you'll see none of the examples are really absurd. I will probably use this section in my 5e games from now on, too. I'm not a fan of tracking money except for the expensive stuff, and I certainly dislike browsing through a book to find the price (or weight) of a certain item.

In any case, let me here your opinion after you check the PDF (click the link above).

UPDATE: ultimately, my "one page rules" effort led me to publishing Dark Fantasy Basic my own homage to B/X. Check it out!

One Page Hacks: Character classes and skills (B8)

I'm still trying to rewrite Moldvay Basic, page by page.

Rewriting page B8 was a lot more challenging than I thought. I wanted to add a functional skill system, to B/X, and thought "streamlining" all skills would make it short. Well, not quite.

B8 has a LOT of good ideas in a single page (as it often happens in this book) - specially considering it has a lot of white space.

For example:

A simple rule about trying again, under "open locks" (here are some thought on the matter).

Rules for critical failures, under "pick pockets" (here are some thought on the matter).

Rules for allowing the GM to roll in secret, under "move silently" and "hide in shadows". Not my cup of tea but might be useful, so I've included it.

From these simple rules, it is possible to extrapolate a complete system, including all the stuff that is NOT on Basic but I still use in my games.

Everything is a skill now, including Combat, Turn Undead, Backstabbing, Spell-casting... Each class has its own special skill. No races here; I'll add them somewhere else.

I've had a hard time with the Thief, because it seemed he should have stealth, athletics, back-stab, perception... Ultimately I just used Thievery for everything and removed Athletics from his "mandatory" skills (he'll have Perception and Combat as secondary skills), so the only way you can have a thief-acrobat or mountebank is through some kind of feat or background.

Skills are d20+ability+skill versus DC (usually 15). I.e., it uses the same difficulty as 5e.

The coolest thing? The numbers make sense! They are not exactly like Basic, of course, but I've decide to give the thief a boost, which I think is adequate. But the percentages and progression are not that far from the original.

And you can still use one of my five or six skill systems for B/X if you don't like this one... I have posts for 1d6, 2d6, xd6, 1d20 and 1d30 skills, just look around.

Fighters, on the other hand, have nothing but combat as a mandatory skill (notice his BAB is way stronger than in Basic), so you can create rangers, thugs and paladins through skills and feats.

The XP table is unified.

Anyway, here is my version of B8.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Encumbrance, Movement and the rule of four

As you might know, I've been trying to create a clone/hack of D&D that you can manipulate on the page-by-page level, i.e., add, remove and replace each page without destroying the game, and thus create your own, customized, frankenstein version of a game with the best advice from multiple bloggers.

I've been thinking of adding structure and deadlines to the project, to encourage other bloggers to participate; for now, I'll just say "similar to Moldvay" and "not before the one page dungeon deadline" for this two questions, but I'll add more details soon.

Today, I want to tackle another page of Moldvay: encumbrance and movement. That is, page B20 in the original, if you're keeping track.

Nobody seems to care much for "coin" weights, so a number of alternate systems have emerged. Delta's stone encumbrance is a favorite and an inspiration for this one.

I favor rules that are easy for me to remember. For example, I used another "rule of three" as a mnemonic device in last week's page.

For encumbrance, a "rule of four" might work quite well to help you remember that a regular character can carry 40 pounds without adverse effects, and up to four times time much, but with one fourth of their speed (if you carry more than STRx3). Combat movement is 40' per round.

I wanted STR to be relevant to encumbrance, so let us say that you can carry a number of 4-pound items equal to you STR. Four pounds is a good weight for a sword, mace, etc, with a scabbard. Two-handed weapons, or shields, counts as two items. Armor is a bit trickier; to keep it easy and quite close to Moldvay, I would make it count as 5/10/15 for leather/chain/plate, or 5 items per +2 AC (or just keep things "rule of four" and use 4/8/12 instead).

Without further ado, here is my one-page replacement for B20.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8yC9untvl8NYjNDaHVhMk41ZHc

Take this as an example of what you could do with this one page hacks; maybe you could use a rule of three pounds to make things a little bit more realistic, or just change the weights around.

Do you want to make your own page on the subject?

Here are some links for research:

http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com.br/2007/04/encumbrance.html
http://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com.br/2016/03/dnd-osr-encumbrance-made-easy.html

http://rolesrules.blogspot.com.br/2012/09/putting-two-great-encumbrance-ideas.html

http://www.paperspencils.com/2012/03/18/making-encumbrance-work/

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2015/06/the-utility-belt-rule-to-fix-cost-and.html

And the art in this post is public domain in the US (I think; find the sources if you're worried), so you can use it as you like.

Good luck!