The Levellers

In my last post, I mentioned the level adjustment factor in EPT; something similar was also present in original D&D, although frankly I never knew a DM who enforced it.

Just for the fun of it, here’s a comparative table… I had to do some estimating for numbers of sessions under EPT; based on personal experience, I reckon in a typical session you killed a monster of your own hit dice three times, and that monster-slaying represented about 10% of your overall experience gain.

I wanted to do this for OD&D as well, but in the Rules As Written if the PC’s level exceeds that of the dungeon or monster level, experience is multiplied by dungeon or monster level and then divided by PC level, so it just got too complex.

EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE

Level	Raw XP	Sessions	Adjusted XP	Sessions
1	0	0	0	0
2	2,000	1	2,000	1
3	4,000	3	4,000	3
4	8,000	4	8,000	4
5	16,000	7	32,000	10
6	32,000	11	64,000	18
7	64,000	18	256,000	47
8	120,000	30	480,000	92
9	240,000	50	2,400,000	292
10	250,000	68	2,500,000	478
11	260,000	86	5,200,000	824
12	270,000	102	5,400,000	1,152

We were playing these games at University, getting in at least three sessions per week, 30 weeks per year; call it 100 sessions per annum. So, if you ignored the “gearing down” effect of (e.g.) only getting half experience at 4th level, it was feasible to reach 12th level in a year’s dedicated play. If you applied the Rules As Written, after a year you’d be partway into 9th level, but then you would have finished your degree and moved on before you completed 10th level, and it would take over a decade to reach 12th. I expect most people would have followed the author’s advice and retired their PC at 9th level, starting a new one selected from his entourage of minions.

In hindsight, if I were doing it again, I’d apply the Rules As Written; but that’s just me. After playing for this long, I finally understand what the authors were trying to do, I think; the focus was on the PC’s rise to power, not the bureaucracy and intrigue that would follow – you’re Conan, Fafhrd or the Grey Mouser, not Ned Stark. Later versions of EPT moved away from the class and level approach altogether.

D&D 3.5 AND 4th EDITIONS

I intended to put comparative tables for D&D 3.5 and 4E in this post, but as I recall, levels and experience points are one of the parts of 3.5 that the OGL forbids one to publish, and there is no equivalent of the OGL for 4E to my knowledge. So let’s not.

Those two games, though, explain clearly how many encounters and sessions it takes to level up. At the 100 sessions per year of my misspent youth, one would reach the end stop very quickly; 8 months to 20th level in 3.5, and 11 months to 30th level in 4E.

At the more sedate 3 sessions per month of my current campaign, a year’s play would get one to about 12th level in 3.5, reaching 20th after about 21 months. In 4E, a year’s play at this rate would reach 13th level, and it would take two and a half years to reach 30th level.

CONCLUSIONS

It used to take me about a year to get to 12th level in the 1970s, and it still would; admittedly that is largely because sessions are less frequent now.

The “ski-jump” experience curve of the 1970s has been replaced by a more uniform slope and more rapid advancement through the levels; perhaps because of this, the number of levels in the rules has increased, leading to finer gradation between levels. (To be fair, the number of levels expanded in Basic and Expert D&D.)

And by the way, Happy Easter, everyone!

How Long Should A Campaign Last?

As long as the participants want it to, obviously; but I wondered if there were any assumptions built into games. My current face to face group is averaging about three sessions per month, or 36 per year; so how long would a campaign based on a game’s declared assumptions last?

I’ve read that WotC operates on a five-year cycle; their research tells them that gamers have bought all the products they will ever buy for a particular game in the first five years, and after that, a new edition is commercially necessary. So, my expectation going into this exercise is that it won’t be more than five years, call it 250 sessions tops.

I started with D&D 3.5, because while I wouldn’t play anything that complex at the moment, it’s more consistent mechanically than any other game I know. The underlying assumptions of D&D 3.5 are that a PC levels up after 13.33 balanced encounters, and that they pause to recuperate after four encounters. Since a session is intended to be 3-4 hours, that suggests a session will include 3-4 encounters, which feels about right from my experience. PCs can go up to level 20 in the core rulebooks, for a total of 267 encounters, or 66-90 sessions.

D&D 4E assumes one hour per encounter plus one hour easing in and out of the game, levelling up every 8-10 encounters, and a maximum PC level of 30. So a campaign taking PCs from 1st level to 30th will be about 270 encounters, or let’s say 90 sessions. 4E characters level up faster, but have further to go.

What about Savage Worlds? Well, one is encouraged to hand out two experience per session, and PCs reach Legendary rank at 80 experience or 40 sessions; there’s no upper limit to advancement, although I suppose one would eventually run out of advances to take. Looking at the plot point setting books in my possession, I see that Necropolis 2350 has 31 scenarios, Dogs of Hades 30, Savage Suzerain 40, Slipstream 27, and Solomon Kane 28. So 30 scenarios would be a good average, say 60 experience. Most of the setting books have adventure generators and assume that you will create and run your own adventures, to be fair, and there are a number of free scenarios, supplements with extra adventures and so forth. Let’s say that doubles the run, for the sake of argument, and takes you up to about 120 experience – four advances into Legendary, or the beginning of Demigod if playing Suzerain – or again about 60 sessions.

So, a baseline campaign duration for my group would be two to three years under any of those systems. In order of increasing campaign duration, the games are Savage Worlds, D&D 3.5, and D&D 4E. Looks like my off-the-cuff guess of two years in an earlier post fits right in, although an SW game where I didn’t add extra scenarios to the plot point campaign could easily be over in a year.

I expected SW to be the first to finish; the fast, simple combat means groups chew through plot faster than in later editions of D&D. I also expected the D&D 4E campaign to be shorter than the 3.5 one, but that’s not what the numbers tell me; and I don’t argue with the numbers.

Another way to look at it is to say that if an early-adopting group finishes advancing to the maximum PC level over a five year period, they are probably playing one evening every three weeks or so. I’m curious now; how often does your group meet?

Paradigm Shift

The responses to my recent player survey suggest that some of them haven’t fully made the mental shift from D&D. I’ve played and enjoyed D&D for decades; but SW works better with a different play style. I wanted to explain the differences, and after some forum surfing, and reflection, this is what I came up with. Other insights welcome!

COMBAT

Ablative hit points vs sudden death: D&D characters are worn down gradually, over 4-5 encounters. In Savage Worlds, any blow in any fight can be lethal, and there’s no resurrection spell to bring you back.

Death spiral: D&D characters stay fully capable until they lose the last hit point. SW PCs see their capabilities degrade rapidly, wound by wound.

The GM effort per enemy to run an encounter is lower in SW than D&D, because of the simpler damage and condition rules, and because players control their allies, whether or not their characters do. This encourages bigger fights.

LEVELLING UP

D&D characters start off weak, and improve dramatically as they level up. SW characters are more capable to begin with, but don’t improve as much later; arguably, they level off at the equivalent of 6th-8th level. There is thus no need for the monsters to get bigger and more dangerous as PCs level up, because even goblins remain a viable threat at all levels. Therefore, the multi-level range of monsters in D&D is unnecessary in Savage Worlds.

Savage Worlds isn’t very sensitive to differences in level between party members. This means new or intermittent players don’t get left behind.

Savage Worlds has no niche protection. In D&D, only a wizard can do wizardly things, only a thief can do thievish things, and only a fighter can fight well. In SW, there is no reason why a wizard can’t also be a competent fighter, stealthy, and able to pick locks. This means that effective parties can be smaller than in D&D, and as the party grows, it becomes harder for each character to have its own unique role in the group.

Update: As Umberto Pignatelli points out in the comments trail for this post, SW PCs tend to grow horizontally (broadening their niche and overlapping into other niches, but not getting overpoweringly good at any one skill or trait) while D&D ones grow vertically (getting much better at what their niche does).

ENCOUNTERS

Random encounters and traps in D&D provide experience and treasure for level grinding, and act as a “hit point tax” for entering parts of a scenario. Those are neither necessary nor desirable in Savage Worlds, as SW PCs don’t get experience for killing monsters, and don’t have hit points in the traditional sense.

Statblock Size

At first I thought Savage Worlds characters would have much more compact statblocks than those in other games, but as my players start to level up their characters, I was beginning to wonder. Various minor ailments among the group meant no session this week, so I took a D&D 3.5 NPC and converted it to Savage Worlds and Castles & Crusades, just to see what would happen. I decided to use a word processor word count function to determine size, so as to avoid any bias due to layout.

D&D 3.5 (221 words)

This statblock is one of the standard NPCs from The Other Game Company’s Dungeon Bash.

Human, 11th-Level Wizard

Medium Humanoid, Challenge Rating: 11, Type: Caster

Hit Dice: 11d4+22 (51 hp), Initiative: +1, Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)

Armor Class: 15* (+1 dex, +2 bracers of armor, +1 deflection, +1 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 14

Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+4, Attack: Quarterstaff +4 melee (1d6-1) or mwk light crossbow +7 ranged (1d8/19-20), Full Attack: Quarterstaff +4 melee (1d6-1) or mwk light crossbow +7 ranged (1d8/19-20)

Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft., Special Attacks: Spells, Special Qualities: —

Saves: Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +11, Abilities: Str 8, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 17 (19), Wis 12, Cha 10

Skills: Concentration +14, Decipher Script +16, Knowledge (arcana) +16, Knowledge (the planes) +11, Spellcraft +16, Feats: Scribe scroll, *Dodge, Mobility, Combat Casting, Brew Potion, Iron Will, Improved Counterspell, Craft Wand,

Treasure: Wand of magic missile (9th), ring of protection +1, cloak of resistance +1, amulet of natural armor +1, headband of intellect +2, 2x potion of cure serious wounds, 1x scroll of fireball, 1x scroll of fear, 100 gp, Alignment: Neutral evil

Combat

Spells prepared: 0: 2x Read magic, 2x ray of frost, 1: Mage armor, 4x magic missile, 2: acid arrow, 2x bull’s strength, 2x see invisibility, 3: 2x dispel magic, fireball, 2x hold person, 4: lesser globe of invulnerability, 2x stoneskin, shout, 5: break enchantment, cone of cold, 6: Chain lightning

SAVAGE WORLDS (80 words)

Using the Pinnacle d20 Conversion Rules, I find this guy is an Heroic Wild Card with a Combat Rating of about 12.

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d12+1, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigour d8.
Skills: Fighting d6, Knowledge (Arcana) d12, Shooting d8, Spellcasting d12.
Charisma -, Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 7 (1), Power Points 30.
Edges: Arcane Background (Magic), Dodge, Improved Nerves of Steel, Power Points x 4.
Hindrances: Varies by personality.
Powers: Armour, Blast, Bolt, Boost/Lower Trait, Burst, Detect/Conceal Arcana, Dispel, Puppet, Stun.
Gear: Staff (Str+d4), crossbow (2d6), Magic Armour (+1), Scroll of Blast, Scroll of Fear, Potion of Healing, $10.

CASTLES & CRUSADES (135 words)

If I return to class and level gaming, my weapon of choice is likely to be C&C, for reasons not relevant to this post. OD&D retroclones of various stripes are likely to have similar word counts.

This 11th level wizard’s vital stats are HP 51, AC 15. His primary attributes are dexterity, constitution and intelligence. His significant attributes are strength 8, dexterity 13, constitution 14, and intelligence 17. He wears an amulet of natural armour +1 and a ring of protection +1 in battle. He carries a quarterstaff, a +1 crossbow, a potion of cure serious wounds, a scroll of fireball, a scroll of fear, and 100 gp. His spells are as follows: 0th level – ?. 1st level – 4 x Magic Missile, Read Magic, Shield. 2nd level – 3 x Acid Arrow, 2 x See Invisibility. 3rd level – Dispel Magic, Fireball, 2 x Hold Person. 4th level – 2 x Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Shout. 5th level – 2 x Cone of Cold. 6th level – Chain Lightning.

CONCLUSIONS

Savage Worlds statblocks really are smaller, even at higher ranks. I suspect this is because there are fewer stats, skills and powers required in SW to achieve the same game results.

You Have WHAT in the Party?

On reflection, I wonder how much of my attitude to PCs – and my thinking that settings are for the GM – derives from my early D&D experiences.

I started playing D&D in 1976. The group had a large dungeon, six levels of 22” x 34” graph paper filled with a maze of rooms and corridors randomly generated from the article on how to do that in The  Strategic Review. Monsters and treasure were equally random. Three or four people took it in turns to be the GM. There was no city and no wilderness. Parties were whatever the GMs would allow, and they were a very laissez-faire bunch.

The party in which my wizard first reached name level consisted of:

• Me – a human magic-user.
• A hobbit thief with another hobbit thief in his backpack (“Stuart died again, get the emergency backup hobbit out of his backpack.”)
• Two assassins disguised as a mule (which had plate barding and was mounted on skateboards, but that’s another story).
• A baby beholder, whose rays increased in power as it levelled up.
• A baby genie, likewise. One of the other characters carried its lamp and controlled when it could join play.
• An “iscan druid”, a homebrew class which had access to both magical and clerical spell lists but greatly increased experience point requirements to level up.

(I played in three other games, one of which was similar except there was a city as well as a dungeon – although all we actually knew about it was that it was a seaport – and two of which were explicitly set in Middle Earth, with us exploring Moria. My own fledgling campaign was a heady mix of Larry Niven, John Norman and Michael Moorcock.)

So as you can see, from the time I started playing, I was used to weird adventuring parties, and the idea that the NPCs in the setting would pretty much leave them to get on with it. Maybe that is where my approach comes from.

Review: An Echo Resounding

I see Kevin Crawford has written a book for domain-level play in Labyrinth Lord, and given that I’ve liked everything else he has released, it was a no-brainer to buy that as well.

This is Sine Nomine Publishing’s take on the presumed end game of OD&D, namely PCs in charge of their own fiefs.

Summary: 111 page Labyrinth Lord supplement covering the creation and operation of domains. Labyrinth Lord or some other D&D style game required; SNP’s Red Tide useful, but not essential.

INTRODUCTION (1 page)

This explains the contents and aims of the book. Key goals are that ruling a domain is optional for PCs, and that domains should serve as a source of adventures and consistent background for the GM whether any, all, or none of the PCs want to be a feudal lord.

DOMAIN PLAY IN A CAMPAIGN (4 pages)

This expands on the key goals, and recommends embedding domain-level play structures in a campaign from the beginning, emphasising the value of a clear political landscape. While traditionally OD&D assumes that everyone becomes a landholder at about 9th level, this book assumes that some will, some won’t; those who do will take up control at different levels; and those who don’t are still useful henchmen for NPC lords. More on how that works later.

Meanwhile, the book acknowledges that some players just want to stay freebooters their whole careers, and offers advice on handling their concerns – will they be forced into running a fief, will their PCs be edged out of the limelight by those who do? No, because adventures can be structured to retain their involvment.

It’s also notable that the recommended campaign focus is smaller for An Echo Resounding than for Adventurer-Conqueror-King, recently reviewed on this very blog. While ACK looks to the level of kingdoms and empires, AER focuses on a small border region of a few towns and maybe one city. (If you want to grow beyond that, the Domain Management chapter has ideas for it.)

CREATING CAMPAIGN REGIONS (30 pages)

This is the heart of the book; how to set up your campaign so that it will grow easily and naturally into domain-level play. As with all SNP rules, the GM is warned against burnout from overdoing the setting creation process. The design goal for this chapter is that you should be able to create a borderland region and its political structure in a single afternoon, elaborating on it later as play dictates.

The region is up to 300 miles on a side, and contains a number of locations, each of which is just a place the PCs might be interested in; locations are rated for Military, Wealth and Social values, and also have traits – similar to the tags in other SNP products – and obstacles. Traits are capsule descriptions of things that make the location unique, while obstacles are problems it must overcome, usually by hiring adventurers to deal with them. Finally, locations have assets, used in the Domain Management and Mass Combat rules later.

Region setup is simple. Start with a map, either a hexmap or a free-form sketch; the book notes in passing that a map isn’t really necessary, but by this point I already have one in mind.

On the map, the GM places one city of 10-15 thousand people, four towns of one or two thousand inhabitants, and five ruins or places of mystery for the PCs to investigate. For each town, place a Resource location – a source of some valuable commodity such as food, lumber, gems or whatever – a little way from towns or cities; this makes it easier for conflicts over them to develop.

Next, mark likely routes between cities and towns on the map. Halfway along each route is a monster lair, preying on the traffic; disposing of these is what adventurers do.

All of these numbers can be scaled up proportionally for bigger or more well-developed areas, or just because you feel like it; but I think this would give me enough to be going on with.

Each location (by now you have a couple of dozen) is fleshed out with traits from a table for that type of location. Each city, town or resource location gets an obstacle – initially, the obstacle is what has prevented a larger polity from seizing effective control of it. If you’re using Red Tide as well, this is where you roll up the site tags for those locations.

(PCs may well establish their own locations, even if they don’t control them; remember that a location is something that interests PCs, so expect to find more and mark them on the map as play progresses.)

Now the actual Domains appear; these are the towns, cities or other areas which are the movers and shakers in the campaign. Many of the towns and cities have neither the capability nor the desire to play a role on the regional stage, but you need some that are. Domains in AER consist of 2-3 locations which act together and are controlled by one leadership. Those leaders have somehow come to terms with the local obstacles, but anyone else wanting to take over will need to make their own arrangements.

Next, the Hall of Infamy. These are the regional-level Big Bads who are foreshadowed in early adventures, and may eventually be taken down by the PCs. They consist of the Prime Evil, a challenge worthy of the maximum level you expect PCs to reach in the campaign; two lesser threats, a match for 9th level PCs; and four villains who will give mid-level parties a run for their money, each of whom probably occupies one of the lairs placed earlier. Lesser enemies are bit parts, with no ongoing role in the campaign story.

Again, this approach can be scaled to give more foes if you wish.

Two special cases are considered; venturing afar, i.e. adventures which go a long way off-map, and retrofitting the system to an existing map.

If the party ventures afar on a specific quest, then all you need are a few locations they will pass through on their way. If they’re moving in for the long term, you need another region.

Retrofitting is for a GM with an existing campaign. Take your map, pick a region, and pick which towns and cities matter. The others continue to exist, but for whatever reason are not strategically valuable to Domains. The purpose of this is to focus the GM’s effort on a manageable number of locations. From this point on, proceed as if generating a new region. If you have existing power structures, they become Domains. In name, they might all be part of the same empire, but this just drives conflict underground.

ACK bases its domain generation on demographics; AER does not, but provides a page of instructions on reverse-engineering the demographics from the domain should you wish.

Next, a series of tables to flesh out locations; each outcome influences the owning domain’s Military, Wealth and/or Social ratings, usually by adding +2 to one of them. The city and town tables cover origin (why were they built?); activities (why are they still here?); and obstacles (what’s in their way?). The ruins tables cover its nature (what was it before?), its traits (why would you want to control it?); and obstacles (why don’t you?). The resources tables show the type of resource, and obstacles to obtaining it. Lair tables determine the lair’s nature.

Remember those pesky obstacles? As a Domain ruler, you have two ways of dealing with them – either commission a party of adventurers to rid you of them, or take us a Solve an Obstacle action and the correct unit type to have a crack at them. Until you have dealt with the obstacle, it reduces your Military, Social and Wealth ratings. This would have made more sense to me as part of the next chapter, but that’s not an enormous problem as it is the last section in this one.

DOMAIN MANAGEMENT (12 pages)

Domains are, in a way, a different type of character. Consider its Military, Wealth and Social scores as its attributes, and its assets as equipment. It has saving throws, used in overcoming obstacles. Domains are managed in domain turns, each lasting roughly one month of game time and intended to be handled in 10-15 minutes of effort at the end of each session. PC-controlled domains get two actions per turn, NPC-controlled domains only one.

Actions include making or destroying assets or locations, moving or repairing an asset, accumulating wealth, attacking a location, resolving an obstacle, punish a scapegoat for your atrocity, and so forth. Note that siphoning off funds for personal use is also an action.

Assets include shrines, military units, charity, friendship with demihumans, slaves, and many more. Each affects the domain’s Military, Wealth and/or Social ratings. Assets cost Wealth to maintain, which places an upper limit on how much power a domain can project. Assets are assigned by the GM based on the location’s role in the game.

Domains require at least one location as the seat of their power, and most wish to expand. They do this by resolving the obstacle at a new location, then persuading the locals to accept their rule. Multiple competing domains may be interested in the same location at the same time. Conquering a location by force destroys its assets, and it must then be rebuilt; if you use diplomacy, the location might give up some assets willingly.

If the obstacle can be resolved by simply throwing money, arrows or spells at it, then resolution is probably a domain action. Otherwise, it’s an adventure for the PCs.

Meanwhile, at home, it’s tempting for the ruler to hurry up domain actions by executing dissidents and committing atrocities. These give bonuses on the saving throw for the current problem, but penalties on Military, Wealth and Social ratings until the ruler dies or pins the blame on a scapegoat. (Is that a scenario I hear, offstage?) More gentle management, however, means any rebels who do arise are better equipped.

It’s good to be the king. The domain ruler (or rulers) get a cash income from their domain, and can call on its assets (temples, troop units, magical schools) to do things for him. Rulers can appoint viziers to do the boring parts for them.

Vast domains are handled by scaling things up. The city becomes an urbanised section of a province, the troop unit becomes a thousand archers instead of the usual hundred, the map gets bigger.

This chapter concludes with an example of domain-level play.

MASS COMBAT (14 pages)

Disputes between domains are often military in nature, and thus a simple mass combat system is needed. This chapter provides it; it has a turn sequence much like that for personal combat, and units representing about 100 humanoids, a lair’s-worth of other creatures, or individual champions such as the PCs, moving about on a rough map of the battlefield.

In effect, these rules use the personal combat rules, with each figure representing a unit. Heroes can fight alone, or join a unit to give it bonuses. Some spells can be used only against heroes, others can also be targeted at troop units.

Sieges are handled in an abstract manner. Assets can be destroyed, and may have to be rebuilt; troops can gain experience, which increases their unit’s attack rolls, morale, hit dice, AC and/or special qualities. Not very far, and not very fast, but it does.

HEROES (6 pages)

Once PCs reach a certain level, they begin to gain parallel levels as a Champion. Each time they gain a Champion level, they may choose an appropriate special ability or “gift” from a list of several dozen, which makes them valuable to a domain. (NPCs don’t get these abilities as a rule, to make them simpler for the GM to adjudicate.) In addition, they get one gift based on their race and class.

Gifts will bring you followers, give a troop unit you attach yourself to combat bonuses, or modify your domain’s MSW ratings.

The bonuses from gifts don’t stack, so there’s no point two PCs taking the same one, or one PC taking the same one twice.

I can immediately see assassination scenarios springing from this. (“Ragnar’s Martial Glory grants his Domain +4 Military, I want you lot to kill him so they become conquerable.”)

THE WESTMARK (38 pages)

This is a detailed example of the rules above, in the form of one of the regions in Red Tide, with a colour hex-map for the GM, a much less detailed black and white one for the players (or as a basis for a different region entirely) and 40 locations fleshed out with game statistics and plot hooks.  As well as being a how-to guide, it is usable as an “instant” region, or can be mined for locations etc. to insert into your own game.

The book closes with an index and the OGL. No forms for the GM this time; none are really necessary. Hex paper is optional, and you probably have a source of that already. If not, try Dragonsfoot.

CONCLUSIONS

The obvious comparisons for me are with OD&D and Adventurer-Conqueror-King.

Even re-reading OD&D with 35 years’ gaming experience, I can see that my PC could use his money to build a castle and clear a domain, but then what? It’s unclear. Yes, I could work it out for myself, but the 30-40 hours per week I put into RPGs in my twenties are no longer viable for me, and dropping another $10 or so to get much of the work done for me is a very fair trade.

Reading ACK left me with the feeling that I’d love to use it, but wouldn’t have the time or (frankly) determination to see it through.

Reading An Echo Resounding left me keen to start using it, right away, confident that it could grow organically in whatever time I gave it.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5.

Review: Adventurer–Conqueror-King

Here’s a review of the Adventurer-Conqueror-King System core rules from Autarch; 274 page PDF, hard copy also available, $10 at time of review.

Summary: OD&D retroclone expanded to cover strongholds and other things for high-level PCs to do.

There are a foreword, 10 chapters, and some reference sheets and forms. I’ll be brief in reviewing much of the book, as chapters 2-6 can be thought of as a retroclone of B/X D&D – the artistic style of the numerous black and white internal illustrations is very 1980s D&D.

PCs can safely read up to the end of Chapter 7 without compromising any GM secrets. Chapters 8-10 are for the GM’s eyes only.

FOREWORD (4 pages) and CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION (6 pages)

This is part fiction, part overview of the product and its purpose. The fiction is a character’s-eye view of the sort of thing a high level character in this game gets up to. The purpose of the game is to follow the careers of adventurers as they grow in power, until they command guilds, domains, kingdoms or even empires of their own. It’s all very Conanesque.

There is also the usual "What is an RPG?" stuff – what is the game about, how do you win, what are all those funny-shaped dice and so on.

CHAPTER 2: CHARACTERS (23 pages)

Character creation is Old School; roll 3d6 and add them together for each of the six attributes – no point-buy, no swapping them around, yer takes what yer gits. You also start with 3d6x10 to buy gear. You have to choose a race, a class, an alignment (law-neutrality-chaos) and some proficiencies (a rare break-out into AD&D here), roll your hit points and record attack and saving throws.

Classes depend on race. Humans can be fighters, clerics, magi or thieves; there are four extra classes provided as examples of how to customise the base classes for a specific campaign; assassin, bard, bladedancer (fighter-cleric) and explorer (ranger). Dwarves can be vaultguards (fighters) or craftpriests (clerics); elves can be spellswords (fighter-magic users) or nightblades (fighter-magic user-assassin). There are no hobbits – errm, sorry, halflings – half-anythings, gnomes, or what have you.

Each class has a template for an initial character, listing his proficiencies and gear, to speed up generation.

It would be easy enough to add other races and classes from any of the other retroclones such as Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry. The game assumes that characters go no higher than 14th level.

CHAPTER 3: GEAR (17 pages)

This chapter has the usual list of armour, weapons, mundane gear and hirelings for a fantasy world, and the encumbrance rules. The game’s economic focus starts to show through here, as habitations are each assigned a "Market Class" which determines the chances of buying any particular type of equipment based on its cost, or hiring a particular henchman based on his or her profession, or getting someone to cast a spell for you based on its level.

A nice addition is the table of monthly living costs for various social classes, adventurer levels, and professions.

CHAPTER 4: PROFICIENCIES (10 pages)

These are the game’s equivalent of skills and advantages/edges/feats. A character starts with three proficiencies, one of which must be Adventuring, and by the time he reaches 14th level will have 9-10 of them; some are available to all characters, and some only to specific character classes.

Proficiencies either allow a character to do something, generally if he rolls 11+ or 18+ on 1d20; or give him bonuses when he tries, typically +2 or +4. Some proficiencies can be taken multiple times for extra bonuses, or to allow specialisation in several related fields (types of performance art, for example).

CHAPTER 5: SPELLS (26 pages)

While spells are rated in terms of level and magical vs clerical as per standard D&D, the model isn’t strictly Vancian magic – characters choose what spell to cast at the time of casting, so long as they have a spell slot of the right level left. There’s quite a bit of good explanation of why spellcasters only know so many spells, what they do to learn new ones, what they do when they lose their spellbooks, and so on.

Up to 9th level, characters have guilds or masters who teach them new spells when they level up. Beyond that, they must research spells themselves, or recover them from lost tomes and scrolls.

The list of spells themselves will be familiar to anyone who has played any version of D&D.

CHAPTER 6: ADVENTURES (25 pages)

Here are the game systems; types of adventures, encounters, trap detection, combat, damage, travel, gaining experience, evasion and pursuit, saving throws. All of this follows standard OD&D / d20 conventions, and if you’re reading an RPG blog at all, it’s a safe bet you’re familiar with those, so ’nuff said.

The main things that stand out to me as different are the tables for mortal wounds, and tampering with them. Once your character reaches zero hit points, you roll 1d20 + 1d6 on the Mortal Wounds table. The results range from "just dazed" to "instant death", with a variety of gruesome permanent wounds and scars available between those two extremes. Attempts to Restore Life and Limb (5th level divine spell, seems to have replaced Raise Dead) require a like roll on the Tampering With Mortality table, with results ranging from instant and full recovery to permanently dead, through a list of possible side effects such as becoming vegetarian, losing confidence (experience point penalties) or going blind.

Also worthy of note is that a high level of PC mortality is to be expected. This is partly addressed by allowing players to "bank" treasure and convert it into experience points for the next character. However, frequent death is one of the features of Old School campaigns, and is one reason why character generation must stay simple – players need to be able to create a new PC on the fly.

CHAPTER 7: CAMPAIGNS (32 pages)

This is where the real difference between ACKS and other retroclones becomes evident, in that it explains what high-level (i.e., 9th level and above) characters do all day, once clearing out dungeons is less attractive to them. ACKS speaks of domains, which are specific areas of land, and realms, which are groups of one or more domains.

Campaign activities generate money and experience points for the PC, and story hooks for the GM. Losing one’s stronghold, however, also loses the experience gained in creating it, which may cost the PC an experience level, encouraging him to protect his investment.

General

Any such character can build a stronghold as the core of his realm, which gives him a base of operations and attracts lower-level followers and peasant families, who establish a revenue base. Strongholds may be in wilderness, border, or civilised areas, and can be advanced from one state to another by investing money and time in the welfare of the inhabitants. The more civilised they are, the more revenue the ruler gets. The more expensive the stronghold he builds, the more followers it can house and the better the facilities it has, but the more expensive it is to maintain. Rulers must carefully balance the revenue from their domain against the upkeep of its facilities; one way to leverage this is by subinfeudination, granting one’s henchmen vassal domains which they control on one’s behalf, paying their overlord a portion of the revenue in exchange for the grant of land.

Vassals can be asked to carry out duties, and may be persuaded to do them by means of offering favours. Asking too much of a vassal triggers a loyalty check, and possible unpleasantness. Most of this is left in the hands of the GM, other than mentioning the possibilities. The PC is himself most likely a vassal of a superior lord, who may in turn ask duties of him – there is a table for randomly generating these.

The PC’s noble title, if any, depends on the size of his realm. The realm’s morale depends on the PC’s Charisma and how he treats it; festivals, large garrisons, and low taxes improve morale, while small garrisons, high taxes and so on decrease it. If morale gets low enough, heroes emerge to challenge the despotic ruler; at the upper end of the range, thieves and spies find it harder to operate, and revenue increases.

The realm’s population will eventually reach the maximum the land can support, at which point the ruler can choose to get more land, or build a village, which he can then grow into a town or city.

If ruling a realm doesn’t appeal, the PC can turn his hand to trade, seeking out products and markets, and transporting one to the other. A range of commodities and price adjustments by market are listed, along with rules for buying and selling cargo and transporting passengers by caravan or ship.

Character Class Specific

Magic-Users research spells, and create golems, undead, and new types of monsters. To do this they need huge quantities of treasure (which they probably have by this time) and the body parts of heroes and/or monsters, depending on their alignment. Their strongholds need libraries and workshops, and the more expensive these are, the better the chances of success. Rather then mount expeditions to get (say) hell-hound fangs, serious makers of artefacts create dungeons and lace them with treasure to attract monsters, which can then be harvested at leisure. I really like that idea.

Clerics can do similar things, but they can call on divine aid to assist them. They do this by creating and maintaining congregations of the faithful, which requires them to build a temple or gain control of a domain, when they can make worship of their deity the state religion. Chaotic clerics may also conduct blood sacrifices to gain bonuses.

Spellcasters of 11th level and above can learn magical spells of 7th-9th level, or divine ones of 6th-7th level, according to character class. These are cast as rituals, which must first be researched, and then require the creation of one-use magic items for each casting.

Assassins and thieves build a hideout, and can then despatch their minions on "hijinks" or missions to acquire loot. The maximum size of the hideout, and thus the number of henchmen it holds, depends on the size of the nearest town – so the larger thieves’ guilds occur in the larger cities. "Hijinks" include assassination, smuggling, gathering rumours, stealing, and finding treasure maps; they are essentially a means of introducing rumours and secrets on which the PC may act, as well as a source of revenue. Henchmen must make a proficiency check to succeed, and if they fail badly enough, are arrested; punishment ranges from a small fine up to death by excruciating torture, depending on what they were caught doing, what their previous record is, and how much help the PC boss gives them.

Henchmen who reach 9th level can be used to start subordinate guilds, a kind of feudal structure emerging as this happens. PCs may take over an established guild by disposing of the current crime boss, but this triggers reaction tests for the other members.

CHAPTER 8: MONSTERS (56 pages) and CHAPTER 9: TREASURE (24 pages)

The usual selection of OGL monsters and treasure; the layout and sequence reminded me more of AD&D 1st Edition than anything. Again, if you know any version of D&D, you’ll be right at home here.

Halflings and gnomes are mentioned as monsters, where they are said to be dwarf-human and dwarf-elven hybrids, respectively.

Interesting twists on treasure are the adjustment of hoard types based on the type of monster (hoarder, raider, or accidental gatherer), and the tables to replace coinage with other goods ("you defeat the monster and find six barrels of salt fish, and two pouches of saffron").

CHAPTER 10: SECRETS (27 pages)

Where the Campaigns chapter focusses on aspects of creating and running a realm that a PC can safely know, this one is aimed at the GM constructing the campaign setting initially, using a sandbox approach. While tools for creating a setting from scratch are presented, one could easily use them in an existing setting, or use Autarch’s own setting when it becomes available. For purposes of this review, I’ll assume the GM is creating her own setting.

This begins with two maps, each 30 x 40 hexes; a campaign map at 24 miles per hex, and a regional map at 6 miles per hex. There is not much guidance on how to do this in the book, but it’s a topic widely discussed on the internet by gamers and fantasy authors.

Step two is to assign areas of the map to various realms. There are tables showing sample realms from baronies to empires, so that you can quickly work out how many hexes each occupies, what the population and revenue are, and so on. Your campaign map is about the size of the Mediterranean and will hold an empire or several kingdoms, while your regional map is roughly as big as Greece and covers a principality or a fistful of duchies.

Further tables now show the largest urban settlement and its market class by realm population, and the GM should next generate the demand modifiers for each commodity in each market; the point of this is to allow him to place trade routes between settlements, based on their market classes and the distance between them.

The fourth activity is to assign NPC rulers. For each realm size, demographic tables show how many characters of each level there are, and what level the best one is. There’s a tacit assumption that the highest-level NPC in a realm controls it, which I’m not sure necessarily follows; it implies a level of meritocracy that I don’t think often existed in reality.

Now, the GM places about 45 points of interest on the regional map, and writes a paragraph of description for each. The rules at this point give guidelines for how many points of interest are settlements, how many are dungeons, and how big each dungeon should be. The rest of the map is filled during play with randomly-encountered lairs; these are created in advance, but not placed on the map until they are discovered by the PCs. This has the result of growing the map organically, with the most interesting things wherever the PCs have decided to go.

The GM is encouraged to make the regional map a borderland, with about half the map safe and settled, and the rest of it dotted with sites whose danger increases the further from the border you go. (If I did this, I think I would make this an encroachment by a successor state into the territory of a fallen empire.)

Step six is to pick one of the settlements and flesh it out as the PCs’ base town. Tables are provided to show the base town’s size, likely ruler level, and the number of NPCs with classes and levels by class, as well as the size and wealth of the local criminal guilds. Other cities are fleshed out later as the need arises.

Step seven is to create the dungeons. The GM is encouraged to make free use of published or downloadable dungeons to minimise his time investment, and focus his effort on a few signature dungeons. There’s advice and tables to stock a dungeon, but nothing to help in the way of mapping them. (That’s not a criticism, just an attempt to make sure you know what you’re buying.) The game assumes that dungeons will not be much deeper than 6 levels, and that dungeon delving PCs won’t be much more than 10th level.

The rules now segue into random encounters, both dungeon and wilderness, including NPC parties.

Finally, a set of miscellaneous rules; aging, poisons, slaves, sinkholes of evil that develop around chaotic altars, handling PCs who get transformed into intelligent monsters, and starting play at higher levels so that you can get straight into running a realm.

REFERENCE SHEETS AND FORMS

OGL licence; combat round summary; tables for mortal wounds and trying to fix them; character sheets for PCs, henchmen, specialists; record sheets for domains and spells; alphabetical index, plus separate indices for spells, equipment, proficiencies, monsters and tables.

CONCLUSIONS

The Old School Revival movement over the last couple of years has been debating the presumed endgame of OD&D; the consensus seems to be that characters were intended to build and operate their own strongholds, bridging into the tabletop wargaming that the original authors also enjoyed. However, most players don’t go there, and this aspect of the hobby has atrophied. ACKS is an attempt to re-invigorate it by providing rules for it, albeit light ones in line with the complexity level of other parts of the game.

It also tries to use these as a basis for developing a sandbox campaign, intimately affected and driven by the actions of high-level PCs and NPCs. I could see this working, even up to generating wars between states caused by population pressure, but it demands a high initial level of effort from the GM. Autarch promises a setting book later, and that will be interesting to see. NB: One could read the blurb to mean that this book includes some high level details of that setting, but it really doesn’t. I’m not bothered by that, but if you would be, now you know.

I like the tables for Mortal Wounds and tampering with them. I like the way that the Campaigns chapter rewards high-level characters for doing what they ought to be doing, and penalises them for not doing it well. (Of course, if they don’t want to, they can just carry on as wandering adventurers.) I like the demographic-driven approach to constructing campaign and regional maps in the Secrets chapter. These make me want to run the game.

I don’t like the amount of effort it would take me to set up an ACKS campaign. This puts me off running the game, but as per The Manifesto (see tab above) I tend towards pulp action-adventure more than immersive simulation.

So this will probably join the pile of games that I read occasionally for inspiration, and daydream about being able to run someday, but never actually do.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5.

Review: Unbound Adventures

Unbound Adventures is no. 11 in the series of One on One Adventures from Expeditious Retreat Press, . Its objective is to provide rules for play without a GM at all levels; it’s aimed at getting into the dungeon sharpish, killing things and taking their stuff. If you’re looking for a detailed backstory, lovingly-crafted NPCs and a tortuous plot, you’re in the wrong place.

As regular readers will know, I’m a sucker for solitaire dungeons and random dungeon mappers, so I couldn’t resist.

One thing that wasn’t clear to me until after I’d downloaded it was that it assumes you have access to the D&D v3.5 Players’ Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide. I do, so that is not an issue for me, but if you don’t and it would be an issue for you, be aware.

HOW IT WORKS

Player Characters begin together in a randomly-generated settlement. Each day they stay there, they have a chance of a random encounter. When they choose, they set out to a dungeon and explore it to achieve one of half-a-dozen different goals, after which they can return to the same settlement or travel to a new one.

If they successfully complete a series of expeditions (one of each type) while based in the same settlement, the inhabitants hold a feast in their honour and grant them a title such as the Defenders of Wyvelrod*. These expeditions can be in the same dungeon, or different ones.

Travelling to and from the dungeon might involve wilderness encounters. The dungeon layout is generated from a set of random tables, using the D&D v3.5 for monsters, traps, and treasure – except for single-character parties, which need lower-level challenges than the Rules As Written provide; for these, Unbound Adventures offers suitable monster and trap tables.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE D&D v3.5

You will need some means of randomly generating:

• Towns and town encounters.
• Monster encounters, both in dungeons and the wilderness.
• Traps.
• Treasure hoards and magic items.

CONCLUSION

Basically, this is a means of generating a random dungeon map, reminiscent to me of Advanced Heroquest in scope and approach. It’s serviceable for that purpose, but a little expensive considering how much else you need to provide, and the price point of competing products.

If you’re considering this, I’d recommend you look at The Other Game Company’s Dungeon Bash, which does a lot more of the heavy lifting for you.

 

* Wyvelrod is an actual village near which I used to work at one time. I really have to use that name at some point.

Zones of Control

Original D&D used the board of Avalon Hill’s Outdoor Survival for impromptu wilderness hexcrawls, at a scale of 5 miles per hex, treating the buildings as towns and ponds as castles.

It also states that building a stronghold clears out all monsters in a 20 mile radius.

In an idle moment, I took a red pen to a copy of the map and filled in all those 20 mile radius zones of control, like so:

My instinctive reaction is that overlapping zones of control indicate some form of larger state; an alternative would be to assume that overlaps indicate border tensions.

State Hypothesis

• Most of the towns and castles have overlapping zones of control, forming a large state aligned diagonally across the centre of the map from the northwest.
• There is a smaller state of two isolated castles in the southwest, controlling the western swamp, and one consisting of a town and two castles in the north.
• There are two partial zones of control, one centred on a castle in the northeast, and one on a town in the west. These may be independent, or they may be extensions of states off the edges of the map.
• Monsters are boxed into the northwest and southeast corners of the map, although there is a crescent of unclaimed territory in the northeast, and neither desert is fully controlled.
• The only place adventurers can build a new stronghold without muscling in on someone else’s territory is the northwest corner.

Border Tension Hypothesis

• Most towns and castles have ongoing disputes with at least two others, and sometimes half-a-dozen.
• I would interpret strongholds in each other’s ZOCs as some sort of dispute over who is the rightful ruler, with each town or castle claiming that it should be in charge of the others.
• ZOCs that overlap without including the opposing town or castle are more likely to be about control of useful resources.

Of course, in a feudal society, there is no reason why both hypotheses could not be true simultaneously. Sadly, either geographically or politically, the original hexcrawl setting makes little sense. Not that we cared about such things in the 1970s, and to be honest we had just as much fun then without worrying about verisimilitude.

D&D Character Classes – Savaged

After experimenting for some time, I’ve decided that the key to emulating D&D character classes in Savage Worlds is background and professional edges.

You might not want to do that; but the thing all my players have in common is exposure to D&D, so it’s a lingua franca for discussing game-related matters. They might not understand SW, but they can tell me "I wanna play a ranger," and then I can say "OK, you need this edge and these skills."

Here’s the list I wound up with.

• Barbarian: Take the Berserker edge. Consider Bloodthirsty and Outsider as hindrances. Don’t expect many friends, you’ll be at -6 Charisma before you know it.
• Bard: There’s no easy way to do this with Explorer’s Edition; you need the Troubadour edge from the Wizards & Warriors web supplement.
• Cleric/Paladin: Take Arcane Background (Miracles), Champion, and Holy Warrior. Consider Vows as hindrances to reflect your creed and any weapon limitations. The difference between clerics and paladins is that as they advance, clerics focus on learning more powers, and paladins focus on improving their martial skills.
• Druid: Take Arcane Background (Miracles); consider Vows as hindrances to reflect your creed and weapon limitations. Also consider Beast Master to gain an animal companion, and Beast Bond to buff it.
• Fighter: Consider the Brawny edge, for the Toughness bonus and extra carrying capacity.
• Monk: Again, it’s hard to do this using baseline SW; you need the Adept edge from the Wizards & Warriors supplement.
• Ranger: This requires the Woodsman edge. Consider the Outsider hindrance, and Arcane Background (Miracles) if you think rangers should cast spells.
• Rogue/Thief: Take the Thief edge.
• Sorceror: You need Arcane Background (Magic). This means that on average, your attributes are slightly better than a wizard’s.
• Wizard/Illusionist: Take Arcane Background (Magic), and Wizard (to reflect formal study of the art). This means that on average, you spend slightly fewer power points during an adventure than a sorceror.

Standard SWEE doesn’t have demi-human races in it, either, but again these are in the free W&W supplement.