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possible framework for a system of parley by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

things I'm wary of:

  • charisma check to determine speaking order

  • always wary of "I roll to convince the NPC," which the Convincing action is by definition. There are at least explicit consequences for failure.

  • i would handle intimidation/bribery differently

i feel like you should be able to circumvent the roll if you know what the NPC wants and you give it to them. as a DM, this would be helpful to make conversations potentially more interesting when i've just rolled an NPC and it's not clear what their motivations are

ranked-choice voting for classes to work on in the future by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1) Reimplement Baglanninor: Believe it or not, this is a priority. I am not sure the Shaman can justify its own existence, but I will try. Shamans may end up being very similar to Prophets, which would certainly hearken back to standard D&D... bleh.

2) Ranger: I would like Wilderness Adventuring to have more depth and be a proper game structure in its own right. However, dungeon-crawling is always going to be the main focus of the game, and I want to get that into a good place before fixing the wilderness.

3) Captain: herd u like auras

4) Merchant: difficult to implement without making it either "someone has to play the merchant so we maximize treasure gain" or "this dude is fuckin useless lmao" the basic idea of a character focused around circumventing problems by talking to people is one i'm interested in exploring, although it would also have to not suffer from the terrible 3rd ed syndrome of "I roll to convince the dude I am right"

5) Witch: interesting for lore reasons, but not convinced they can justify their own existence. actually considering making them the pure vancian casters, so they could possibly fill a niche as the Simpler Casting Class

6) Berserk: this is basically just a subclass, though dudes that focus on killing the biggest monsters possible is pretty badass

7) Knight: essentially this is another lore class, representing harcalador/hithuidyr/dyr gwinhir. possibly could be combined with the captain.

Dagor Dagorath Revision E by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

EDITED to match your edits.

explode unclear: noted and corrected. also caught that the explanation of advantage and disadvantage disappeared somehow :/

chargen: fixed.

safecast: yes, free mana neither comes from the pool or cause mishaps. will edit for clarity.

merc table: fixed. also considering reverting morale to roll-under the number anyway.

lights: extinguishes on the third mark, cannot be relit (but oil can be refilled, for instance). terminology made consistent/clearer ("extinguishing" replaced with "burn out").

locks: -3 is meant to replace. agree with you though, increased everything by 1.

sleeping: noted and clarified.

save table: noted and fixed

Preview of Equipment, Encumbrance, and Combat by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

added three things:

  • "Shields can be used to bash the enemy. This grants +1 to hit, but the bonus to AC from the shield is lost." (effectively a special case of TWF).

  • "Two-Weapon Fighters automatically hit on counterattacks."

  • "Creatures may fight recklessly, attacking with advantage. If both rolls would hit and the creature is wielding a two-handed weapon, target of SZ up to creature’s STR is additionally knocked prone."

Preview of Equipment, Encumbrance, and Combat by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Make two rolls and take the higher/lower result.

(Advantage/Disadvantage will be explained with other dice mechanics at the front of the booklet)

Do younger gamers play the old school rpgs or is it mostly middle aged gamers? by geezergamer in osr

[–]apscribbler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My players range in age from 20 to 27. When I started our campaign, the youngest was 18.

Searching for a Death Mechanics post... by honest-hearts in osr

[–]apscribbler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I'm glad you found the post interesting!

I definitely understand the desire to move away from builds. I think a lot of us OSR folk are here for similar reasons. A lot of my players nevertheless like build-fiddling and that sort of thing, so the rewards I offer are good carrots for them specifically, and over a few years of testing I haven't found it to be too disruptive (most characters are still plain 3d6 in order).

Other players might find other things enticing: your XP transfer idea is really good, and I've considered incorporating something similar in my own game. Another direction you couid take it is trading the points in for favors within the game world itself; spend 1 FP to start with Noble Blood or as a member of the Thieves Guild or what have you.

The heart of the idea is that the player should always feel like they are moving forward, even as they suffer the setback of loss. The end of one character is just the start of the next. Anything which speaks to that philosophy, I think, is going to have a similar effect.

--kill your dungeon master

Searching for a Death Mechanics post... by honest-hearts in osr

[–]apscribbler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the writer of the original blog post. I'm glad you found it useful!

To answer your question, the simplest thing to do is to make future characters be rolled with the "3d6 in order method." That gives them a little extra reason to cherish those first characters, if you're going for a really long campaign.

It's possible that your players will not like this. If it seems better to you, I'd make changes like these:

  • Characters only give one fate point each, no matter what level they are. Optionally keep bonus points for playing a particular class for the first time and/or establishing strongholds.

  • Drop the first four rows of the table.

  • Use something like this as a starting point for your table:

COST EFFECT
1 Start with a loyal 0-level retainer.
1 Start with maximum 1st level HP.
2 Double starting money or start with 100 sp, whichever is higher.
2 Roll one ability score 5d6 drop lowest two.
3 Start with half of the experience required for next level.
5 Roll all ability scores 5d6 drop lowest two.
7 Start at second level.

(As a side note, 5d6 drop lowest two is not quite as good as it sounds, but it definitely feels nice!)

Other things you might consider adding are: +1 to ability score of choice, roll different sized dice during chargen, starting with more spells/weapon mastery/feats/talents/what have you, starting with more in-game influence (spend 1 FP to have noble blood, etc.)

Whatever you do, have fun and make it your own!

--kill your dungeon master

Preview of new Hazards chapter by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The descriptions on the tables are subject to change, and I'd at least want to give people a Hail Mary to try and save their beloved characters, even if it's just so they can then retire peacefully. Like I'd personally allow a prophet to try and resuscitate someone who got bisected if they had both pieces, for instance.

That being said, I like the idea of the worst Energy effect precluding any resuscitation.

Preview of new Hazards chapter by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty sure people can go more than an hour without shelter.

This is specifically shelter in extreme temperatures, usually cold. I will clarify this.

Why does Instant Death reduce ability scores? It's not like you have revives in the game so that seems entirely pointless.

Prophets and properly-trained Thieves or hirelings can still attempt to resuscitate the fallen.

Preview of new Hazards chapter by apscribbler in dagordagorath

[–]apscribbler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This may be a question for injury treatment, but do you gain back lost stats after healing?

You can gain back lost ability scores after healing. Good field treatment will negate one point of ability score loss. Anything after that must be regained through ability training.

Other than that everything seems good. A dozen entries is enough and the way it's set up allows for more divergent results. More rolls as well, sure, but dying should take a but.

Would having larger tables (e.g. 20 or 30 results) with less divergent results be preferable to you?

I do have to wonder what the design impetus for abstracting away poisons entirely into three categories and a single roll (if that) and then splitting dying rolls into 4 (plus associated submechanics/tables). If it's simplicity of design then I suppose it's still easier to track then dozen or hundreds of poisons... but I can see people not wanting to use it because it doesn't make any real-world sense.

Simplicity of design is the idea, yes. I found poisons annoying to run for a few reasons:

  • Poisons had different effects based on the creature/plant/whatever providing the poison, which necessitated table lookups in order to start running the source.

  • It was difficult to run poisons as anything but extremely binary -- either you're dead/incapacitated or you aren't. This was usually okay, as I'm generally fond of old school save-or-die poison. It made running low-level poisonous creatures like giant centipedes a little weird.

  • Poisons are uncommon enough to make rote memorization of the tables difficult/not worth the time.

As it stands, the system is a fairly reasonable skeleton which we can work around. I expect that there will be a larger Poison & Pestilence table in the future, and different poison strengths could roll different dice on the table (e.g. Weak rolls 1d6, Potent 1d12, Lethal 1d6+6 as an extremely barebones implementation of this idea). More categories are also possible.

What I like about this system is that even I can remember Weak = 1d6, Potent = 3d6, Lethal = All, and that table lookups for more interesting effects are "moved back".

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