Hobbs and Friends Interview

A couple of days, I spent an evening having an interesting conversation with Jason Hobbs on Hobbs and Friends. I appreciate Jason having me on his show and you can listen to our conservation at the below link. We talk about our respective experiences gaming, my work, and of course the kickstarter and what it is about.

Rob Conley Interview on Hobbs and Friends

There is a Twitch stream as well.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Equipment, Spells, & Magic

This is the fourth in a series of posts about some of the design choices I made. In addition to explaining what the system is about, it will also help folks in deciding which elements are the most useful to them. One of the goals of this project is to support kitbashing.

Equipment
Coinage

One of the biggest difference between the Majestic Fantasy RPG and other rulesets supporting the classic edition is the use of the silver piece as the basic coin rather than the gold piece. In my early campaigns using the advanced edition, I found that the gold rapidly lost its luster. When treasure was found it gold was common enough that it no longer felt to be special. Through exposure to other settings like Columbia Game's Harn, I found that coinage based around one common type, and one valuable type to be more engaging. I adopted the silver penny as the common coin, and the gold crown which was worth 320 silver pennies as the valuable coin. I had a few other coin types for use by other cultures. For example viking cultures used the 1 1b silver mark worth 240 silver pennies. Since 1990 this system has been a mainstay of my campaigns regardless of the system I used.

Weaponry

I played various forms of live-action roleplaying and medieval reenactments for two decades. I no longer had the time to continue after my kids were born but the internet was picking up speed including Youtube. Youtube has a wealth of videos where various reenactors try out medieval weapons to see how they work. When I started using Swords & Wizardry I wanted to use some of that knowledge to make the different weapons distinctive but not at the level of detail other systems had. So I tried various things and eventually settled on the current system of describing one or two special characteristic for each weapon.

For example a battle axe is not the two bladed axe that is commonly depicted in fantasy art The battle axe has a large single blade with the bottom longer than the top. This give it the ability to be used to pin an opponent's weapon or shield. A mace is particularly effective against chainmail or gelatinous creatures. A poleaxe give the wielder a free attack when a enemy combatant first comes into range to represent its longer reach. In each case I try to keep it simple to reflect the spirit of the original editions and not to over complicate the system.

In addition to above I provide descriptions for Armor, Dungeon Equipment, Horses, Dogs, and Hirelings.

Magic
This section details common rules for magic: magical immunity, memorization, rituals, and spellbooks. There are two main differences from other classic editions rules. First I divide the magic resistance percentage by 5 and used that is a bonus to a 1d20 roll. So a creature that had 50% magic resistance would now have a +10 magical immunity. You roll 1d20 and if the modified roll is higher than a 20, the spell or effect is resisted. If you like percentages just multiply the modifier I give by 5% and use a d100.

Rituals
The other big difference are magic rituals. A ritual allows a spellcaster to cast any spell they know (spellbooks for magic users, spell list for clerics) and cast it as a ten-minute ritual as long as you have the required amount of ritual components at hand. As I mentioned before if this makes your campaign too magic rich you can omit this.

Spells
This section is perhaps the least changed from Swords & Wizardry. There are a few tweaks. Some spells I tweaked the mechanics into something that worked the same but was more playable in my judgment. For example the effect of the sleep spell is now 4d4 HD with a maximum of 4 HD creatures affected). There are some additional spells like Commmand that are not present in the Swords & Wizardry core rules. Finally there are new spells like Scryguard which protect an area from divination spells. It is a spell especially favored by Foggers, illicit magic users working for the criminal underworld of a city state.

Each spell has a note whether it is effected by magical immunity or not. Magical immunity protects characters from spells like charm person or detect thoughts which use magic to directly affect a target. While it doesn't protect from spells like fireball or magic missile which work by creating something that does the actual damage to the target.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Backgrounds & Abilities

This is the third in a series of posts about some of the design choices I made. In addition to explaining what the system is about, it will also help folks in deciding which elements are the most useful to them. One of the goals of this project is to support kitbashing.

Backgrounds
Due to page count constraints, I focus only on racial backgrounds in the basic rules. I give a brief sketch of Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half-Elves, and Humans. The few social details are a composite from the cultures that are part of the setting I use for my campaigns.

In later supplements I will be fleshing out this section by focusing on various cultures and subcultures within the different races. To be consistent with that I labeled this section Backgrounds.

by Rick Hershey/Fat Goblin Games

Abilities
This section details how to adjudicate things that the character can do that doesn't involve combat or spellcasting. It also provides a system to allow characters to be better at things outside of combat spellcasting than other characters. Either through an attribute bonus representing raw talent, or an ability bonus gain from the character's class that represents training and experience.

The base mechanic is simple, in combat or when the consequence of failure is significant roll 1d20 if the players rolls a 15 or better (30%) they succeed at the attempt.  To this roll you can add the relevant attribute bonus (-3 to +3) and the relevant ability bonus. Abilities include Athletics, Climbing, Eavesdrop, Haggling, Herblore, History, Intimidation, Legerdemain, Locution, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Perception. Physician, Professional, Research, Stealth, Survival, Strategy, and Thaumatology.

Over the past decade this system has held up well. In general, I require that players to describe what they are doing as their character first then have them roll second. I explain more about this process in the section about rulings.

This system didn’t remain static. I used to have Accounting to represent knowledge about and negotiating large scale trade deals if the character was a merchant type. Then I used Locution for negotiating prices. Feedback from my players made me reconsider this and I folded accounting and that aspect of locution into a haggling ability. Another benefit is that the name fits better with the fantasy theme of the rules.

Another change was to how I granted modifiers. From reading the original rules, I figured the hardest thing that one could do is hit an invisible opponent. The traditional modifier for this was a -4 to your to-hit roll. If circumstance were very unfavorable to what the player wanted to do I would impose a -4 penalty. Conversely if the circumstances were very favorable, I would grant a +4 bonus. For slightly favorable and unfavorable circumstances I would give a +2 or -2.

Then came along Fifth Edition with the advantage and disadvantage mechanics. When you have an advantage, you roll two d20s and take the highest. When you have disadvantage, you roll two d20s and take the lowest. I some session using the fifth edition rules, and the players “got” advantage and disadvantage in a way I never seen with any other the system I used over the last forty years. I adopted this in lieu of the -4, -2, +2, +4 system I was using before. It has worked exceptionally well in the last few campaigns I ran.

The ability system forms a major part of how the Rogue classes work. For the remaining classes, the system is limited to handling things outside of combat and spellcasting. If you choose not to use this then replace the burglar with the classic edition thief and drop the notes on ability bonuses from the other classes.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

Two old friends get interviewed

My friend Tim Shorts and I have been gaming together for a long time starting around 1984 or so. Since then both of us have published works, me with Bat in the Attic Games, and Tim with Gothridge Manor. Because of Roll20 and on-line tabletop gaming, Tim and I have played with a lot of folks around the hobby and invariably they hear stories about what we did from Tim or myself.

Joethelawyer is a long time blogger and podcaster as well as playing in some of Tim's campaign. A while ago he wanted me and Tim to appear together on his Not So Wondrous Imagining podcast. It finally happened on Sunday.

We talked about our project, about our campaigns, and about we did as players along with some stories about our mutual friends. It was a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy it as much as Joe, Tim, and I did.

You can hear the podcast at Not So Wondrous Imagining

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Classes in the Basic Rules

This is the second in a series of posts about some of the design choices I made. In addition to explaining what the system is about, it will also help folks in deciding which elements are the most useful to them as one of my overall goals is to support kitbashing.

Classes
The basic rules are meant to be a complete system supporting players and referees. But given the page count (140 to 160 pages) I had to pick and choose what elements to include from the larger system. For classes this meant sticking to the traditional four: Burglar, Cleric, Fighter, and Magic User and detailing levels 1 to 5.

When I started blogging, I stated the following:

To me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

With my Majestic Wilderlands supplement and later with these rules, I started with Swords & Wizardy, Core that uses the 3 Little Brown Books (LBBs) of the original edition plus selected element from later supplements as a foundation. I didn't stop there. I tweaked, and altered things to better suit the campaigns I was running. Still I wanted to easily use to all the great material the OSR was producing so that acted as a limit as to how far I would change things. Among the things that got modified and altered were the basic four classes. The reason I altered these classes was to reflect some of the specific details that were present in previous campaigns.

Balance
It is possible as a author to design a system in a way that at certain points the character have a 50-50 chance of defeating certain opponent and overcoming specific challenge. This is not what I do. Instead I define how the setting works  first and then see to the rules. While I switched away from the advanced system in the mid 1980s, I still keep the basic idea that there were fighters, priests, mages, and thieves. Then fleshed out from there. So when I returned to using the original edition in the form of Swords & Wizardry, I was able to use the existing classes as a starting point but made changes due how these different character types developed in the intervening years  As a result the "balance' within these rules reflect the settings I used rather than strictly sticking to the original edition.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

Tehuatl a Lost Lands Setting by Tom Knauss

Tehuatl is a Lost Land setting by Tom Knauss. The Lost Land setting is published by Frog God Games and they opened it up to other authors to play around with.

Tom draws on Mesoamerican mythology to create an exciting setting to explore and adventure in. Along with Tom, several other authors are contributing adventures. In addition Frog God Games is assembling an international team of artists to illustrate the product.

You can check it out for yourself on kickstarter at this link. 5th edition, Pathfinder 1st, and Swords & Wizardry are supported.

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Attributes in the Basic Rules

In this series of posts I will be talking about some of the design choices I made. In addition to explaining what the system is about, it will also help folks in deciding which elements are the most useful to them as one of my overall goals is to support kitbashing.

Attributes
The goal is to remain compatible with the various classic editions. When I needed to make a specific choice I opted for supporting the Swords and Wizardry RPG. Thus I use the  same six attributes found in most systems based on the classic editions: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. In the this section I also discuss several other secondary attribute that most classic edition characters possess like armor class, and hit points.

Attribute modifiers
I put a lot of thought into this. Historically the various editions had several scales of different modifiers. The original edition along with Swords & Wizardry generally gives just a -1 or +1 bonus. The advanced editions generally ranged from -4 to +4. The newest editions opted to give a modifiers every other attribute points for example a 16 score would give a +3 bonus.

I felt that just having a -1 or +1 bonus was too narrow to reflect how attribute impact the things that players try as their characters. Likewise from experence I felt that the -4 to +4 range of the advanced edition, the D20 SRD, and the 5e SRD, was too generous. So I opted for a scale where a character gets a modifier for every three attribute points. With a +1 kicking in at 12, and an 18 granting a +3. This worked out in the campaigns I ran and continues to remain the bonus scale I use.

As far as incorporating different scale, the Majestic Fantasy rules will shift in feel slightly. Adopting the original edition scaled of -1 to +1 will make class and level count for more in what the character can do. Adopting the -4 to +4 scale of the advanced edition will allow characters to tackle greater challenges slightly earlier in the campaign. It start to make a noticeable difference after the middle levels of 6th to 8th levels when the party acquires more than one or two magic items.

The Other Attributes.
I write about how I interpret the various the secondary attributes classic edition character have like Armor Class, Hit Points, Movement, and Saving Throws. One of my goals when I started writing material for Swords and Wizardry is to stick closely to the original mechanics. What helped this was all the new research about the origins of the hobby and the system behind the original edition that started to be released ten years ago. One thing that was clear that the hobbyists of the time were experimenting all the time with different ideas and systems. So as old newsletters were unearthed and anecdotes recounted, I saw some of the thinking that went behind the abstract concepts of mechanics like armor class, hit points, and saving throws.

This help me build a foundation for these mechanics for when I had to make rulings. To answer questions like whether a blow completely missed or was it resisted by armor? Was kind of injury does damage represent? How does a character avoid getting a chalice of power knocked out of their hands? Players can imagine these things happening. It not always relevant but when it is it help to have something on which construct a ruling.

In the basic rules this section is an overview. Later in the rulebook in the chapter on rulings, I get into the nuts and bolts of how make rulings based on these secondary attributes.

Next I will be talking about classes.

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Character Sheet

Three items today.

First is version 4 of the character sheet I been using since I started running campaign with Swords and Wizardry and my Majestic Wilderlands supplement.

Majestic Fantasy RPG, Character Sheet

My idea with this character  sheet is to make it a booklet of its own. You print it off and fold it in half. The interior remains blank in order to record whatever notes you need and the front and back are filled out.

My players seem to like them and more than a few have the interior packed with notes, reminders and lists.

The second item is that I sat down with Erik Tenkar of Tenkar's Tavern for one of his Fireside Chats. It is packed with details on the Majestic Fantasy RPG.

Although I have to warn you that the first couple of minutes are more of advertisement for Necrotic's Gnomes current Old School Essential Advanced Fantasy kickstarter. Congratulations to Greg Norman and his team for storming out of the gate with their kickstarter as they continued to expand Old School Essentials.

A Fireside Chat with Rob Conley of Bat in the Attic Games.

Last but not least, I have reached over 170 backers and $2,000 pledged. I am humbled and pleased at the support shown. I thank everybody who came on board. This supplement is the first in a series so anything extra will mean that I am that much further ahead lining up what I need for the next supplement.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

Blackmarsh in Spanish!

When I released Blackmarsh I made the entire text and map open content under the open game license. When fans of systems like GURPS, Hero System, etc pointed that made it difficult for them to use in conjunction with the permission SJ Games and other companies gave, I added a creative commons license as well. Meaning that you can release Blackmarsh material using the OGL or the Creative Commons license.

The Blackmarsh SRD

I did this because Blackmarsh was meant as a easy to use introduction to a hexcrawl formatted setting like the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. At the time I wrote Blackmarsh, the WoHF Boxed Set was $70 which was a pretty big ask for a hobbyist not familiar with a setting formatted as a hexcrawl.

My use of open license had a benefit that I didn't foresee, namely a giving a pathway for hobbyists in other countries to translate Blackmarsh into another language. A few years back a group translated the setting into Hungarian.

Now the company La Marca del Este has adapted Blackmarsh for their Marca del Este (Eastmark) setting and translated it into Spanish.

They gave me a PDF link to share.
Marjalnegro

They also had their cartographer do their own version of my maps which looks great. Note they stated with my expanded map which incorporated Wildlands from Points of Light.

Black and White Map

Color Map

Finally a color version of the above incorporating Blackmarsh into their Eastmark setting. Lots of added details. I particularly like how they added in coral reefs.

Map of Blackmarsh in Eastmark

A job well done to Pedro Gil and the rest of the La Marca del Este team.

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Meet the Editor

I was introduced to Douglas Cole of Gaming Ballistic when he joined one of my campaigns as a player. At that point he was already published having written several articles and products for SJ Game. After my campaign, he branched out into independent publishing as Gaming Ballistic including the use of Kickstarter. We kept in touch and his insights into his experience with kickstarter helped me with my setting up my own project. One of the things I asked was who he used as an editor. Since his  projects have a fair amount of detail that has to be looked at. He highly recommended Emily Blain.

Emily has done several editing projects already and maintains a website, Revised By Emily. I contacted her and she agreed to take on editing the Basic Rules this fall. She did an outstanding job with the Gaming Ballistic projects and I am looking forward to her feedback and input for my own work.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Meet the Artist

I am a long time fan of the Harn fantasy setting from both Columbia Games and Kelestia. One the things that made Harn great was the art. First by Eric Hotz in the 80s and early 90s. And now Richard Luschek since the late 90s.

He has a strong b/w style as well as doing excellent color illustrations. I am pleased to announce that he agreed to do four pieces for the cover for the Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Kickstarter

He also has a blog where he talks about how he draws and his techniques. One interesting aspect is that he uses the 3D CAD Sketch Up to build up buildings on the local area Harn maps to use as a model for landscape illustrations in various harn products. You can see this in his post on drawing some the illustrations for Lorkin Castle.

The Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Cover

I use a stylized cover where the front has three hexes and the back has a single larger image. I like to use this arrangement to tell a small story related to the content of the product. For the basic rules this story will be focusing on adventuring.

This starts with two individual adventurers dealing with the dungeon while focused on the treasure to the right. The back image showing the entire group working together to win the treasure.

I am pleased to have Richard on board for this project and hope you enjoy his work as much as I do.

Bat in the Attic Kickstarter Launches

Today I am launching a kickstarter for my latest project, the Majestic Fantasy RPG, Basic Rules.

Kickstarter for the Majestic Fantasy RPG Basic Rules

Preview for the Table of Contents

In 2009, I released a platinum selling supplement that explained the details of the setting I used for my fantasy campaign for nearly forty years. Along with providing details, the supplement contains rules for adapting the material to the Swords and Wizardry RPG and other classic editions of the original roleplaying game.

Since then, I have continued to run campaigns and now have enough material and rules to release a new series of supplements. The supplements together will function as their own system, useful as a tool for running many different types of fantasy campaigns. They will also function as individual supplements to the Swords and Wizardry RPG and other RPGs based on the classic editions.

This reflects the reality that most fantasy campaigns based on the classic editions are a kitbash of different elements that the referee finds useful. So rather than try to compete with the large number of excellent RPGs targeting the classic editions, I decided to format my take in a way that supports kitbashing. While I hope people will enjoy the system I created as a whole, I expect most will pick out just the parts they are interested in, whether it is classes, monsters, or magic items.

However, there needs to be something that ties these different elements together. A supplement that explains and illustrates how these rules work together as a complete system. To this end, I wrote The Basic Rules For The Majestic Fantasy RPG. It covers the traditional four classes of burglar, cleric, fighter, and magic user from levels 1 to 5 along with details on spells, equipment, and combat rules. It also supports the referee by including a list of monsters, NPCs, and magic items for a fantasy campaign. It ends with two sections of referee advice on how I use the elements of the classic editions to construct the rules and to make new rulings to cover the fantastic and unexpected things that players will attempt as their characters. Then it explains how to use the included material to bring the world outside the dungeon to life.

Cover has placeolder art

This is one part of this Kickstarter. The other part is a series of printed (or PDF) aids that I use to allow people to quickly generate characters using these rules. This aid is in the form of printed cards or tiles. There is an initial card that you hand the player that outlines how the character generation process works. From there, the players pick a class, a background, and buy equipment using the individual cards as a reference to fill out their character sheet. I have refined this over the past decade while running convention and game store sessions and found that it will allow a player to completely generate a character within 15 to 20 minutes. 

I hope this interests you and that you will support me on kickstarter. 

Upcoming Bat in the Attic Kickstarter

On Sunday August 9th I will be launching a kickstarter for my latest project, the Majestic Fantasy RPG, Basic Rules.

Preview

Since 2009, I have continued to run campaigns and now have enough material and rules to release a new series of supplements. Because of the reality that most classic edition fantasy campaigns are a kitbash of different elements I am presenting these supplements for the Swords and Wizardry RPG and as part my own Majestic Fantasy RPG.

However, there needs to be something that ties these different elements together. A supplement that explains and illustrates how these rules work together as a complete system. To this end, I wrote The Basic Rules For The Majestic Fantasy RPG.

Cover has placeholder art

This is one part of this Kickstarter. The other part is a series of printed aids that I use to allow people to quickly generate characters using these rules. These aids are in the form of cards. I have refined this over the past decade while running convention and game store sessions and found that it will allow a player to completely generate a classic edition character from 1st to 5th level within 15 to 20 minutes. 

I hope this interests you and that you will support me starting on August 9th!