Bat in the Attic Kickstarter, Combat, Monsters, & NPCs

This is the fifth 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.

Basic Rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG

Combat

This section is the oldest of the rules I wrote. I am 50% deaf which made refereeing a crowded table of teenagers in the early 80s challenging. One reason I used miniatures from the get go that it was far easier for me to visually see what the players wanted to do in a combat round than it was for them to describe it for me. Another technique I used was to try to stick to the rules in the book when it came to combat. It was easier for me as result of my hearing loss.

As a result I tried running the combat in ADnD 1e by the rules. Some of it was straight forward and some of it wasn't, particularly initiative and what you could do in a round. In hindsight I came close but how I handled it still bogged things down in play.

Around 1984, I made my own system. Everybody got their own initiative roll and you could do two things when it was your turn; one attack and a half move. If you wanted to do a full move that all you could do that turn.

I played this for a few years before switching over to Fantasy Hero and then GURPS. When I started playing Swords and Wizardry in 2007, I picked up where I left off with the combat rules. Started to develop them further. The system still boils down to everybody gets a initiative roll, everybody get to do two things in a round. Some of the refinements included how to handle individual initiative with a large group, and combat stunts.

Of everything in the Majestic Fantasy RPG, the combat rules have most hours behind them.

Monsters
The description reflects how I use them in my campaign. I try to keep it short and highlight the elements that turned out important in my campaign.

A minor addition is that all monster get a initiative bonus. In general it is equal to 1/2 their hit dice rounded down.

I also added a line for what you can harvest off of the monster after you kill it. You can blame Tim of Gothridge Manor for this as he sold me on the idea and showed me how fun it was to incorporate harvesting into a campaign.

Perhaps a little controversial, I use a stat block to organize the mechanics for each monster. Traditionally classic edition systems used the one line stat block to great effect. I found that works well only half the time. For the other half, you only get some of what you need from the one-line stat block. For the rest of it you have read the description and parse out the elements that are important.



In the midst of my first campaign with Swords and; Wizardry I found myself making bullets list for certain creatures so I didn't have to read through the description to reference what they can do in combat. By the second campaign, I eventually wound up with the entire list of monsters formatted this way.

In the basic rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG and future supplement, the description focus more about how the monster exists in the setting, and with the rest are detailed in the stat block. Aside from the addition of the Initiative stat, and Harvest, for most the rest is straight out of Swords and Wizardry just formatted differently.

NPCs
This section it not often found in various systems or editions. Because much of what my players do to make their mark on the world involves dealing with folks living outside of a dungeon or wilderness, I found I had a roster of common NPC types just as extensive as the list of monsters. They are formatted in a stat block similar to that of the monsters with the additions of what attribute the character has and any ability bonuses they possess.

The section on Rogues give a roster of NPCs suitable for a thieves guild, or a bandit gang.

Fighters give NPCs for any type of organized military force like a city guard or a medieval army along with knights.

Magic Users list NPCs at different levels of experience, apprentice, journeyman, and master.  I also add the typical spells they memorized.

The section on Clerics also list NPCs at different levels of experience. There are two separate lists, one for the Church of Delaquain, the goddess of honor and justice. Another list for the Church of Sarrath, the Dragon God of War and Order.

Next I detail lists of NPCs for Orcs, Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, and Lizardmen.
For example the Halfling Shadows who are gentlemen who form a club in order to protect the Halfling realms. These lists reflect some of the details I created over the years for sentient beings capable of having their own culture. Last are the Viridians, the only ones to have escaped the Abyss after the demons were imprisoned there after the Dawn War. In the introduction for each of these, I give the mechanics needed to a make a new type of character from scratch.

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.