A note on clerics and [review] of Tomb of the Serpent Kings

This just came in the mail today! 

I remember watching a person some time ago in OSR forums, sharing this idea of an introductory dungeon: basically a dungeon designed to teach new players into the game, the same way that a tutorial stage eases you into a complex videogame. I loved the idea then and I do now. I now realize that person was surely no other than Skerples; one of the most productive authors of the OSR scene on diverse games or topics (medieval life, glog classes, etc). You can tell he puts lots of love and thought into things, or, at least, that is the impression it gives me. The text bricks in which he designs what was to be his latest, already published book (Magical Industrial Revolution) are a joy to read; surely one of the most original while gameable ideas I've seen for a setting (or have you ever seen magical preapocalyptic based game before?). Haven't read the finished book, though, but possibly will in the future.

I saw the module in the picture at a cheap price and I like to have physical books at home. You never know when you are going to need them! 

The book is 24 pages long, which is enough for a detailed 3 level dungeon and a short bestiary with the monsters who appear in there (special mention to the skeleton jelly, a T-1000 type skeleton which just cannot be destroyed by normal means and must be lured into pits or similar. Very Prince of Persia). Every dungeon room has a description alongside a small note explaining which lesson does the room want to convey. The last two pages are a full map of the dungeon itself.

The art, on the other hand, strikes me as terrible and lazy. I could have understand it if it was personal art made by the book author (as in "I will just doodle something"), but not something I would commission. Honestly I think some functional small doodles over every monster would have been better. Watching more from the artist (Scrap Princess) tells me its her style, and I guess its a matter of opinion, but nonetheless this is mine.

I dont know if I will run this straight yet. Maybe. I have some potential "new players" in my campaign, so it could be a nice way to try it as it was intended to. I must say I have a personal problem with it because I also have a personal self-made low level dungeon which is also snake themed; and I feel that running one would make redundant to run the other. Luckily, the book provides an idea at the very start that could help me:

So, now its the time for my (sort of related) note on clerics:

We dont know much about the OD&D cleric's religion, as there are some details left for the players to fill up themselves, so to suit that dungeon I mention above (which holds some clerical relics) I made up a religion that is snake themed: Snakes are the symbol of their god or goddess. Whichever. The monks are required to sever up their eyelids to imitate the snake's eyes after a certain level (fun fact: snakes have no eyelids), and most of their time they go around blindfold, to prevent eye soreness. This grants them part of their powers (abstractly representing an increase of "true vision" type powers such as know alignment). Also it gives clerics a very distinct outlook.

The fun part is that it kind of suits the classic cleric's spell list; with spells like sticks to snakes, snakecharm and neutralize poison having now a good explanation in-game. It also goes very well paired with growth of animal if you happen to have a sacred snake or speak to animals if you want to befriend one. Snake poison can also play a very interesting part on the commune if you rule it to require a time spent in trance.

For now I have never have a cleric PC to use this rules, only passing NPCs. Who knows? maybe someday.

[review] Pokéthulu; my first game as GM ever

Little by little that need of making this review grew on me. This is a 19 year old game, with 0,0 active fanbase or discussion nowadays, but that I have very fond memories of. It was the very first game I ever GMed. I remember I convinced my friends to play rpgs around 2009 or so, and when they said yes, I went home and printed it on a whim to play that very afternoon. I read the manual as I went, and used the introductory adventure hooks at the end of the book (it was 20 pages or so) to improvise a campaign. I let everyone draw their first pokemons and we started. I don't remember many details, but I remember some. 

I drew a handful of pokethulus in a few minutes. I just sketched some shits on a paper, then added lightning, horns, extra eyes, extra anythings, fire, water, wings, tails and random weirdnesses and they were perfect. I was into the mythos while my players weren't; but I made a lot of references to them anyways, with one of the toughest pokemon being straight up ripped from Hellsing's Baskerville (one of the PCs captured without combat, with a lucky roll of a pokéball throw). There was a mechanic that incorporated making up quotes for the pokethulu fictional show in exchange for ¿successes? but we did away with that completely.

deviantart: geistvirus

The game describes itself as a joke game, but it manages to accomplish a lot of things right. Common checks for humans are d12 roll under, with easier tasks giving you more dice to roll, while thulhu combat is really cool while remaining simple. Each thulhu has up to two types (decomposing, fishy, fungous, icy, luminiscent, non-euclidean, squamous, sticky), a weakness to one of those types and three stats: power, speed and hit points. You have four choices for attacks: injure, dodge, trap or frighten. Each of them has a type adequate to the thulhu  and a number from 1 to 3 d12 to roll, under power or speed. 

The cool part is that you get to name/invent the nature of the attack, depending on the attack and its type. For example, the game lists Shub-Polywrath having a Non-Euclidean, frighten attack of 3d12. It is called Chest Swirl Display of Infinity. Mechanically it doesnt matter much: you'd roll 1d12 extra against targets who are weak to Non-Euclidean. But it is cool to know that if you choose to use your pet monster to frighten a clerk on some shop and succeed, the clerk is going to freak out gazing at infinity in the thulhu's spiral. There is a mechanical part which carries the rules, but is an analog, player made name which creates the effect. This is something that inspired me a lot and made the game very very easy to run. (The 3rd edition has an "official" pokethulu list, but when I downloaded it first there wasnt any, only a few examples)

I went as far as to implement Mythos-type magic when a PC found a forbidden book at the evil guy's lair. I gave his character a page with three spells that he could cast at anytime, each one once. I remember one of the spells "just" summoned a rain of blood. It was the kind of game that doesn't break for things like that. You can even play with the existing codes and give objects, places, people, etc types and weaknesses, such an squamous necklace or a fungous-averse library. But am digressing.

It is astonishing how well both of the settings mixed (pokemon and the mythos) answered the questions opened by the other. I have talked before on how Lovecraft's mythos are a great setting but hardly playable in my opinion in in a serious campaign. This joke game allowed me to play with them in a way that Call of the Chtulhu could not offer to me. In CoC, the King in Yellow is a book you read and makes you lose sanity, but you cannot really bring more info to your players about the city of Carcosa, the lake Hali or the King itself, as they are not described even in the books. You can only roleplay how your character goes slightly mad little by little. In pokethulu, you can rule that the King in Yellow is a book that allows passage to tattered Carcosa, where you can meet amd challenge the King into combat, steal some eldritch items and maybe capture some horrible fish type critters at the lake Hali.

On the other hand, it takes Pokèmon to its logical conclusions: What happens when pokemon turn against man? they eat their souls and marrow. Why kids get pokemon? because the world is hard and its always cool to have a friend with the destructive power of a nuke. Why only kids? Because you need a high sanity score to deal with thulhu and most adults (exception being some cultists) have a sanity score of 1. 

The implications of a world where the kids hold a power like that while adults cannot handle this madness and pretend that all this pokethulu thing doesnt exist is really really poetical, almost sublime. It fixes all the problems that modern-based fantasy settings have on a single strike, and I want to go back to this on further entries. 

suddently, all my art folder looks like pokethulhus

On the bad side, it is true that the rules gave some trouble eventually. I don't remember exactly what happened, but we found a way to break the game easily; maxing out speed + trap or speed + dodge or something like that. I think it wasn't hard to fix. I am re-reading the rules right now, after all this years and having discovered the old school D&D, and I cannot help thinking on how I would change this or that rule; lots of great ideas. 

* Stats for humans being rolled (1d12 with 9-12 defaulting to 4 instead of point buy). Buying stats at 11 or 12 made the characters auto succeed at everything from the start.

* human attacks (and other checks) being 1 dice only, lucky ability allowing 1 extra die + 1 extra if the task is easy or using an appropiate weapon or something, or taking advantage of somebody's weakness.

* Implementing hex travel, rations and pokethulu's travelling speed

* Statting pokethulhus a little lower; having 6d12 among attacks at the start for the some of the first owned pokemons is totally enough. We did it like this if I remember well.

I ram him with the bowsprit! you throw the pokeball!

I must say that the game has always been free to download, but the official web seems down, who knows since when. You can get it HERE, and there is also a web with resources in HERE. Nobody seems to know or have played this game, but from my humble blog I'd like to reccomend it to you all.

Edit: Some related link about somebody wanting to make a pokemon campaign focused on exploration.

sometimes, the line between what counts as a 

pokethulhu or a trainer is very thin. I could 

make this guy into both sides with little effort.

[illustration] SidSothoth; H.P. Lovecraft pixel art

 These are all from @SidSothoth at twitter. I found them when searching for images for an upcoming, lovecraft-related post, and could not resist saving them all. I love that aesthetics! Good art must be spread so everyone can enjoy it, and here it is! I think I am going to make a "tradition" of dumping works of inspiring artists from time to time. 

Greatest Hits

I want to dump into this entry some nice things that I have found on the interwebs along the years. I intend to edit it periodically, as I stumble with shit, old and new. Everything you see here is something I want to have in handy, or has inspired me greatly. 

Lets get organized:

/////Hard theory:

Breaking Out of Scientific Magic Systems (John H. Kim)

Philotomy's Musings (Philotomy)

Reckless Dweomer: Non-competitive classes, and why balance is a false guide

Soft D&D by False machine

Blorb Principles: I want to highlight the 3 Tiers Of Truth and the Wallpaper Salience 

The Power of Bluntness: on binary Y/N rules, and an axis of complexity/ubiquity

/////Combat: 

Auto-Hits and Explaining D6 Damage (BX Blackrazor), both of them have sent me on uncountable hours of tormentous thought

Homebrew Homunculus posts on removing on damage rolls and rolled hit points.

Alex Schroeder series on map-less battle: Combat using 2 rows per side, no battlemap, theater of the mind, the blocking attacks rule and the 2 handed sword whirlwind.

Bastionland on combat that rolls ONLY initiative

Traverse Fantasy's calculations of Variable Damage versus Damage Reduction armor, very useful for any of those wanting to hack Into The Odd or similar games.

Combat progression as hit dice in OD&D

Hard ranged combat: -10 at medium range and -20 at far range, on Delta's D&D Hotspot

Hit Dice for monster parts, but monsters have an amount of combined HD at which they are defeated

/////Domain & Downtime:

 The quieter moments. "The intent is to hint at a wider and older world"

Dealing with the council 

Great list of options for your haven turn, with a fun table for crafting.

/////Magic:

Middle earth magic

The great mage nerf: 1 spell recovery per day

How to Find Familiars in OD&D, a random table to roll them and a spell to release them. 

/////Skills:

Methods & Madness: Target 18 for a correspondence from X in 6 Skills to a target 18 table

Correspondence between advantage and flat modifiers, a chart

Daimon games compilation 1 and compilation 2 of skill-related articles

90&30kingdoms on eliminating ability checks

Dice pool skill checks (xd6 under ability score)

The secret list of skills hidden in B/X

/////Classes:

Coins and Scrolls: OSR: Class: Knights

/////Tables/generators/aids:

A Character Background and Swag Generator for the Weird Dark Ages (gamepieces)

Random encounters for a night at the Inn, that also works for crowds. There is also another for city travel and another for rural areas (Chaudron Chromatique)

Bastionland on a way to create Planets or Hexes quickly or even Boroughs

/////Travel:

Pathcrawls

Preparing a Hexcrawl by Vile Cult of Shapes

Roll to move, by Alone in the Labyrinth 

Dividing terrain types into three: Impassable, hard and easy, with or without path. 

Landmark, hidden and secret

Dayagons, Hexcrawl Procedure and Solipsistic Hexes are about 1 hex = 1 day of travel

/////XP and advancement:

Dreamingdragonslayer on Diegetic Advancement Triggers and Diegetic genre emulation

Delta's apology of OD&D's XP for monster kill

/////Settings/scenarios:

The Pernicious Albion entries (Gloomtrain/Hexculture)

Elven Firefighters campaign (Evlyn Moreau)

NWO aliens (Foreign Planets)

Grues and Grue coins

Hopefishers (tabletop curiosity cabinet) It is intended to be a background class but its a whole village with customs, background and magic items.

Playing cute (hexculture/gloomtrain), interesting ideas about PCs improving their homebase while adventuring.

Usurped Kingdom Setup for any sandbox. Also there are versions of Thief Power Struggle, War or City Conspiracy which in the end are very similar lol. See also this procedure to make NPCS give missions (Evlyn Moreau)

The city of a thousand bath houses (lots of Ranma vibes here) also by Evlyn Moreau

/////About horses:

How to swim horses and cattle across a river

PDF on horsebreeds

Some ideas on dog and horse quirks

/////The adventure:

Descriptive tracks by type of monster

Using the quieter moments to make the world feel large and old.

/////Rulesets/big houserulings:

2d6 fantasy game (Necropraxis)

JRPG basic (Necropraxis)

Swiss Style Referee (Alex Schröeder) "Every settlement has two or three interesting, named people. These are the people of authority the characters are likely to talk to. Every settlement should have a building or two where you can find said named people, and an inn, or an explanation for the missing inn. Don’t bother with a map for the settlement"

Simple Tabletop Skirmish 2d6 rules (What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse)

Searchers of the Unknown collection (Nicolas Dessaux & various authors)

Searchers of the Unknown Omnibus (DM Wilson's take on the above)

Tiny Goons (Evlyn Moreau)

Emp Dyn RPG | The Lizard Man Diaries. I'm particularly interested on its view making all attributes and skills "example attributes" and "example skills". What if all skills, stats, equipment, etc on an rpg book were just examples? and you could add more of them as soon as you needed them? In which direction would attribute lists evolve?

Goblins y Grutas (Esteban Juan Garcia de la Cruz) a really old school spanish game. Great musings about how rules light games worked better on the design notes, greatly ahead of their time.

Thieves can too, Motherfucker! (Johnstone Metzger)

World of dungeons (John Harper) and its resources tome. Also this megapost on Roll to Doubt's houserules.

Dark Ages and Freeboting Venus part 1 and part 2 (Vincent Baker). Both are unfinished playtest versions but have interestingly unique visions on some things, IMO succeeding to create two oddly specific worlds and moods, at least on the reader.

How to be an adventurer (WWCD)

This list is meant to be a personal collection, but feel free to anchor down in the comments any OSR/RPG links you want to keep 

Current Houserules (november 2021)

This is the current ruleset I am using. The arguments for some of these points are already listed somewhere on the blog, others are mostly consequences of applying them. For monsters, equipment, procedures not listed, etc I use BX. The rest is heavily modified:

* Hit die are hits. Damage rolls and hit points do not exist. Instead, a succesful hit takes away one hit dice, which are the equivalent of health points. This would effectivelly equate wizard's and fighter's health as there are no different HD sizes, but fighter types tend to have more HD (see next point)

* Classless. Roll 3d6 in order, then what normally would be your class feats are instead derived from attributes in this basis:

STRENGTH

9 or less: -1 HD (you have always a minimum of 1)

12-13: +1 HD, you can wear plate

14: +1 melee attack bonus, +1 open doors

15: +1 HD, +1 critical range in blunt or 2 handed weapons

16: +2 melee attack bonus, +1 open doors

17: +1 HD

18: +2 melee attack bonus, +1 open doors

strength is also equal to the inventory slots you have before you go encumbered, then you can carry +3 more.

DEXTERITY

9 or less: -1 to thief skills

12-13: +1 to thief skills (1+X chance in 6 to perform Move silently, hide in shadows, pickpocket, etc. Also against saves requiring reflexes you can roll this if its higher than your chance per level)

14: +1 AC

15: +1 HD, +1 critical range with swords or ranged weapons

16: +1 to thief skills

17: +1 to thief skills, you are peak thief by then

18: +1 AC

dexterity measures how much a thief you are. That is why it doesnt get much into missile fire, just a little.

INTELLIGENCE

9 or less: as in 10, but without any bonus. Might be useful for narrative purposes somehow.

10: You have a starting background skill, choose that skill during the game at any moment. It cannot be stealth or combat related. You have a +1 when using that skill or knowledge in any way)

12-13: +2 to any background skill

14: You have an X in 6 chance to produce an item related to your background. On a fail, exhaust this gift until downtime.

15: +2 to a skill

16: +2 to a skill

17: +1  to a skill. You have a second quantum item, see above

18: +2 to a skill

intelligence represents the "technical" part of thieves, more in the specialists LOTFP version. There are some setting established background skills already, like healing, alchemy, bushcraft or trap/lockpicks

WISDOM

9 or less: haven't thought of an appropiate penalty. Maybe there is none.

12-13: +1 to magic skill. It is used to perceive magical auras around, using magical items and casting spells. To do so, fire the spell and roll your skill or under: a success fires the spell instantly (even prior to an incoming attack) and the spell is not lost. On a failure the spell is lost after casting, and it comes off at the end of the round. Being attacked or disturbed impedes you from casting this turn.

14: +1 magic skill, +1 spell. Your first spell! it takes a big roll here to have a character start with spells (16'20% of the characters will)

15: +2 spells

16: +1 magic skill, +1 spell 

17: +1 magic skill, +2 spells

18: +2 spells

the spell list is also condensed so there are fewer spells, with some of them being merged into one, and many of them scaling with charisma. For now I am making it on the fly, but will edit to post the final list. As many other things on my houserules, you can start with a non-specified spell and say which one it is during the mid game, but you keep them once you choose them. Personally I think it its fairer for players to choose spells once they are immersed on the context of the game, even if it can be seen as "cheating". It also makes char gen much faster.

CHARISMA

9 or less: -1 reaction

12-13: +1 HD

14: +1 reaction

15: You or your party can re-roll one save per day

16: +1 reaction

17: +1 HD

18: +1 reaction

Charismatic characters with no other abilities have some HD and survival resources on their own to represent their "chosen one" aura. For now I am winging it with the number of hirelings, they never reach high numbers anyways. Some spells increase in effect (duration, effect, etc) based on the reaction bonus, so its a good choice for wizards to have as a secondary attribute.

CONSTITUTION COMBAT

9 or less: You are a non-combatant. -2 to attack

12-13: +1 HD, +1 to attack with your favored weapon (choose a type at anytime, but stick with it afterwards)

14: +1HD, +1 to attack (all weapons). Your critical hits deal triple damage instead of double.

15: +1HD, +1 to attack (all weapons)

16: +1HD, +1 to attack (all weapons)

17: +1HD, +1 to attack (all weapons)

18: +1HD, +1 to attack (all weapons)

Basically your fighter level. At 18 you stack a +6 combat bonus, which is one less than what a level 10 fighter has. For now this is fine for me.

* Weapon differentiation:

Martial weapons deal a critical on a 20 (x2 hits). 

2 handed weapons deal it on a 19-20. 

Swords/bows and blunt/2handed weapons increase this range by one based on dexterity/strenght respectivelly.

Daggers have -2 to hit. It is widelly accepted that a range of +2 to hit equates to +1 damage in the common rules, so having one die step less in damage can be translated in the big picture by reducing their to-hit.

Bows have also -2 to hit, to separate them from crossbows which need to be reloaded every other turn. Also crossbows only receive half of your attack bonus.

Hand to hand combat is also at -2, and only deals damage on a succesful "open doors" check

Combat stunts like disarming, etc can be attempted by taking a -2 to the roll. Target might get a save or an "open doors" check to prevent it (whichever is higher)

Armor uses the rules already explained on a recent post (leather +2 mail +3 plate +4, shield +1, helmet +1, being a hero level warrior [combat 14 or over] +1 )

Dual wielding: One re-roll per combat, using the off hand weapon numbers. If the secondary weapon can be used to parry, you can choose an enemy roll landed against you to be re-rolled, keep the best result in both cases.

Using a katana/bastard sword with 2 hands instead of one grants you an extra attack per combat. Once is expended, its out until the "combat music" ends. This is a weird rule I introduced because the main fighter race in the setting is modelled after korean samurais which usually used a single katana and I didn't want them to be mechanically gimped in game for no reason.

* Initiative: 

The side with the single combatant of highest HD goes first, they chose which character starts. After every combatant, a member of the opposing side that hasn't acted yet takes its turn, until everyone has done their actions.

Ranged weapons that are readied can be shot reactivelly. Spells can also be cast reactivelly if a roll is passed (see wisdom, above)

* No clerics. Anyone can learn all spells. Turning undead works by forcing a reaction roll, when prompted by any display of holiness (holy symbols, bless/light spells)

* Leveling up looks like table below for everyone, with numbers based on the fighter chart. Im considering lowering them 5% for everyone, as if every character was a fighter with some strength as prime requisite. Saving throws are unified, with situational penalties as I see fit, and they are all done with a d6. I have grown fond of this method and bonuses-penalities feel significantly stronger. In addition save + hd, PCs who level up roll 2d20 and choose two attributes: if they roll over, that attributes increase by +1

XP to level one? or lowering the bar to level 2?

When playing old D&D (bx, od&d, etc )ou might have noticed that the XP needed to get from level 1 to 2  is the same that one would require to get from level 2 to 3. It contrasts with the further progression that doubles the XP required each level, up to level 9-10. 

This might be a bug or a feat, who knows? It makes no major problem, though I've been tempted to change it sometimes .For example: fighters and halflings get level 2 at 1500 XP instead of 2000, then they have 2500 more to reach level 2 at 4000. It makes the progress more gradual and lowers the bar a little, so the characters can get the first level up (which is the most decisive for dungeon survival) earlier. Magic users can take it at 2000, while thieves level up at 1000, to go for the round numbers.

There is another approach, pointed up by an anonymous person I met on the internet. Which is to have each class start at level 1 with half of the XP they need to reach level 2, so the "double each level requirement" math is fixed. I loved this idea because it makes me think that level 1 characters have a "past" that gave them some XP and made them into the class they have now. This would explain why some NPCs have no class, and the ones they have it its because they bought it with some XP

Curiously, as each class has its own XP requirements, it can be interpreted on some ways. Thieves require less XP and magic users require more, so its a good reason in-game for why there are much more thieves than wizards in the world.

To put it in another way, you can have a 0 level character with no XP and no class. Then, when he gets the XP required to buy the first level of the class that he wants to become (1000 for a fighter, 600 for a thief, 1250 for a magic user), he can "buy" it. If you are not into 0 level play, you can just have the PC start with said XP amount straight away.

Note that they will need double that amount to get into level 2, so we are running into "levels with same requirements" again. What a mess haha. Well, we can fix it rounding them down a little: 700 for the fighter, 500 for the thief and 1000 for the magic user. 

when you become a level 1 fighter and your level 0 pals get jealous