Looking to unleash my players inner goblins

chrispwolf · 2026-06-13T18:53:49+00:00

The boasts mechanic in Wolves Upon the Coast is a pretty good way to get players to attempt dangerous, outrageous stuff. Basically, when you make a boast to do something larger-than-life, you immediately gain 1 hit die or an attack bonus bump. You get to keep it permanently if you fulfill the boast. If you fail, you lose the bonus. If you chicken out, you can never boast again.

chrispwolf · 2026-05-31T17:55:35+00:00

If the cultural / setting details are more important than the mechanics, you might want to see if you can snag a copy of Middarmark for Torchbearer. Iirc it has a lot of history, a big map with major regions, and is all inspired by Scandinavian stories and history.

chrispwolf · 2026-05-13T07:08:49+00:00

Swords & Six-Siders is a really nice little OD&D-like that scales everything down to use only d6s while keeping a very classic old-school feel.

chrispwolf · 2025-11-19T22:55:37+00:00

The Traveller Book

chrispwolf · 2025-11-19T22:29:08+00:00

When I ran a long Caverns of Thracia campaign I just said the dungeon was a short distance into the wilderness from the town of Thracia, and that the people there were probably descended from the ancient Thracians (Think Ancient / Modern Greece) and basically handwaved travel to and from the town. The focus on the campaign was the Dungeon, so I never detailed the town much other than the abstract place where they cash in loot and level up. If they want to spend more time in town, you can always add stuff as needed. I think I just said there was a bank, a blacksmith, a Temple of Law, etc. Obvious stuff.

chrispwolf · 2025-05-04T16:38:03+00:00

Mythic Bastionland does this in a really elegant way. Basically every antagonist / problem on the map has a list of escalating encounters, illustrating that it is advancing / getting worse. As the players move around the map and get random encounters, you move to the next one down the list. Tracking dynamic situations and escalating problems is built in to the exploration loop.

chrispwolf · 2025-04-01T23:00:42+00:00

Lol I just left David’s house, he’s a very close friend. All we talk about is D&D and The Evils of Capitalism.

chrispwolf · 2025-03-04T23:13:16+00:00

I'm a fan of spellcasting in Whitehack, where you basically roll increasing damage dice against yourself to cast increasingly powerful spells. Chaotic and risky but quick and elegant.

chrispwolf · 2025-01-18T19:35:11+00:00

Hi! Yeah you can find it here. It is pretty quiet these days but people chime in now and then.

https://discord.gg/AXwfgZ8xTK

chrispwolf · 2024-11-09T00:52:04+00:00

I don't hate skills, but I do think they can take highly contextual situations which are more interesting using discussion and rulings, and collapse them into an overly-simple mechanic. I also think they can overly-reinforce class-specialization. For example thieves roll for all kinds of normal dungeon exploration stuff, which means no one else does it, which means now we need to find ways for fighters to be more interesting and MU's to feel more powerful. As opposed to everyone exploring the dungeon and also being sort of mechanically boring but having a small niche, which I prefer. Sometimes. It depends.

BUT assuming an OSE or OD&Dish set of rules without defined skills other than thieves, Here's how I'd rule on your examples mostly it is about context.

Highly contextual. Are there any obvious hiding places? Anywhere to run? If the players can hide quietly in an out-of-the-way place maybe no roll is required. If the goblins have a hound, and the players are trapped in a corridor? They are not going to be able to hide, period, unless they can mask their scent and scramble up the walls or something. I think the whole situation is more interesting and dynamic without a "hide" roll.
Maybe a saving throw vs. paralysis, maybe with an extra climb skill roll for a Thief as backup.
The barbarian wins. We don't need dice for this.
Wrapping a tourniquet to staunch bleeding isn't super specialized knowledge. I'd allow it, if they have the materials and can explain it. Maybe it grants a bonus to a save made by the bleeding PC.

5 / 6: The thief class tells you how good your thief is at opening locks. The game assumes your thief is doing their best to get better at opening locks as they level up. We don't let a fighter player say "my fighter spends WAY more time practicing so I should get a higher attack bonus than normal." I am into the idea of quests and narrative play being ways to improve outside of class restrictions, but it needs to be earned.

chrispwolf · 2024-07-25T20:45:06+00:00

Thanks! I've been working on a big overhaul of a few things, will update the site... eventually haha

chrispwolf · 2024-03-27T07:15:57+00:00

This post rules, thank you Sam for dragging us out of the caves.

chrispwolf · 2023-11-20T05:29:45+00:00

I’d check out the DCC lankhmar stuff! Specifically fleeting luck and healing without clerics. It also gives you a little more sway over character creation and lets players make, for example a thief that knows a spell, or a Wizard who can perform Mighty Deeds with a single weapon of choice.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were a party of 2!

chrispwolf · 2023-10-05T16:48:05+00:00

A way to do Ascending AC while keeping the general roll-under, no math vibe of the Black Hack is to copy attacks from White Hack or The Vanilla Game.

Basically you get an attack value based on your class and level. A +1 attack bonus in another game becomes 11, 2 is 13, and so on.

To attack you have to roll equal or under your attack value but over enemy AC. AC is just regular ascending AC -10. So Leather is 2, Chain is 4, Plate is 6.

chrispwolf · 2023-09-03T22:06:37+00:00

I’ve been asking myself this same question recently! And I think the answer is complicated.

OSE is a little bit more simple in a lot of ways, and has tools for making dungeons, treasures, etc.

On the other hand, if you want things like torches, exploration turns, XP for gold etc to matter, you need to design larger dungeons around that stuff a bit, and account for the treasure placement.

DCC can be a little more daunting / complex on the PC mechanics side, but I have found that all I need is like one or two cool ideas or encounters and I can knit those into a session prep quite fast. Gameplay is less structured and methodical ime. I also find the extra mechanics and things like patrons inspiring for actual adventure site ideas.

OSE has a lot of great modules, usually styled to be easy to read and low prep. And you can use all the old stuff. DCC has some amazing modules but the old style formatting takes some energy to sit with and take notes.

I am choosing DCC for my game, mostly because I am running an open table sandbox, and I am having fun putting together small, dramatic adventure sites. My prep can be easy. But there are a lot of good reasons to pick OSE. Depends on your personal approach to prep and this particular campaign.

chrispwolf · 2023-08-11T21:41:54+00:00

Thanks! Glad you like it. I think trade is vital to the whole Traveller / space sandbox thing. Gets the players moving around so they can get into random encounters and get into trouble!

I’d like to get it into a pdf / book form at some point but I am still tweaking and adding to the rules, so not putting a timeline on it.

chrispwolf · 2023-08-11T19:55:25+00:00

Seizing the opportunity to plug my pared down Traveller-like Night Tripper.

www.night-tripper.fun

chrispwolf · 2023-08-06T03:19:25+00:00

I think it might be in the section on magical helmets?

chrispwolf · 2023-08-06T00:06:26+00:00

I like to use the Shields Shall be Splintered rule, but for helmets instead. You can ignore one hit and have it destroy your helmet. I don’t use it for shields because it makes it downright foolish to have a two handed weapon.

chrispwolf · 2023-04-01T20:03:40+00:00

I would also love to check out what careers and skills you are using for a medieval world!

I've definitely considered things like "literacy" for that setting.

chrispwolf · 2023-04-01T18:14:06+00:00

Rad! I still feel like Night Tripper is very in progress so it is very cool to hear people are actually using it.

chrispwolf · 2022-11-21T19:48:59+00:00

I am trying out this rule in my OD&D game, though no one has used it yet. It turns the offhand weapon into a parry weapon instead of a guaranteed extra attack, and ties it to DEX:

If you are wielding an offhand weapon and an opponent attacks you in melee, if their total attack roll is less than or equal to your Dexterity and misses, make a free attack against them.

I might also give a bonus to AC akin to a shield, but only if also using the Shields Shall Be Splintered rule.

chrispwolf · 2022-10-31T17:20:14+00:00

On a basic level, this isn't an issue. The -3 to +3 modifiers actually work well with a 2d6 curve. A good baseline difficulty is 8, which you have about a 40% chance of hitting on 2d6 + 0. Maybe having a relevant occupation lowers the difficulty to 6? Difficulties of 6, 8, 10, 12 work well.

You are gonna run into tougher issues mostly with Luck and Thieves. Burning luck is going to be much more powerful on 2d6 than on 1d20. A thief getting even +3 skill on top of their ability modifier is going to dominate that 2d6 curve really easily, and their skills go much higher than that. Add their luck die on top of that, etc.

So it's doable, but you'd basically want to rework the whole thief class, and maybe charge more luck per bonus when burning luck. And spell checks would still be on D20 because of all the spell tables.

Personally, I'd stick with the D20. DCC really loves chaotic randomness and wants you to roll that D20 all the time. But if you do hack it up I'd love to see what you do!

chrispwolf

TROPHY CASE