OSRPGtalk

Words from a grognard

Author: TAFL (Page 1 of 5)

On Death, Dying, and Dismemberment

May 13, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been seeing some discussion on 0 hp and death in old school systemsthe past few days, and it’s the discussions have helped me clarify my thoughts a bit. I didn’t change my mind on any element, though I did get a firmer grip on exactly what I want.

A long standing criticism levelled at D&D has been the binary condition of a combatant–at full capability with even a single hit point remaining and then dead at 0 hit points. Nothing in between, no slowing down, no requiring some recovery before launching yet more attacks, just rock ’em, sock ’em robot mode until death.

I think this is an extremely valid criticism. D&D’s abstractions tend to take something that marks an activity in reality and slips it into the system in some fashion. Combat, for example, involves lots of attacks and parries and dodging and feints and so forth, with a baseline of a single attack sequence having a chance of solidly inflicting damage on the foe. This does reflect the realities of fighting in large degree, so the abstraction is modeled around it.

Well, in reality, fighters aren’t generally going to be able to go all-out non-stop up until they die. I know that I slowed during fights as the toll of activity caught up to me–and I wasn’t taking serious damage from live weapons. I wasn’t as quick at the end of a round as at the beginning. I wasn’t as sharp after several rounds as at the beginning of the bout. It would make sense to build that sort of loss of capabilities into the combat abstraction.

I’ve long been a fan of Leading Edge Games’ Sword’s Path: Glory rules. One of the design choices that impressed me a great deal was that of damage generating so much shock and the character having to save based on that amount to stay in the fight; it also detailed broken bones and the like that could affect fighting capabilities. This made any given strike a crap shoot for the victim–will they remain conscious and in the fight, and will they still be able to continue to fight without constraint? That core idea, that one has to save vs the damage taken to maintain capacity–and that may not be full capacity–is something that I think makes for a better play experience.

So, I’m building that into my system. PCs don’t have a pool of points that dwindle until they’re out of the fight. They accumulate trauma and have to check once they take so much damage to see if they stay conscious. When the accumulated trauma surpasses designated thresholds, they lose some capacity to fight, whether slowed a bit in combat order or movement or attacking with a bit less accuracy or doing less damage. Minor penalties, individually, though they can make for real troubles when stacked together. Those penalties then make it easier for the character to get beat up and knocked down and out. (Yes, it’s a death spiral–don’t get stuck in long fights where it can happen, if you value your PC.)

A major part of the discussions I’ve been reading has involved ways to mitigate the sudden onset of death a bit. Gygax, himself, in AD&D, offered up the option of the “death’s door” rules, where a PC reduced to 0 hp (with a further option of stretching that to -3) is down and dying, though not yet dead. Others have offered up the idea that PCs can survive getting downed via saves and so on, with the caveat that the cost of the PC making it through alive is that the PC has to face the chances on a dismemberment table of some sort. Yes, Aldric, the Mighty, survived the giant’s attack at the cost of losing two fingers on his sword hand.

One can see that the approach of wounds affecting capabilities during the fight can readily lead into the idea that getting incapacitated during combat could result in long-lasting or permanent wound effects. As a player has to save to stay in the fight as the PC gets worn down, the player also has to save vs the totality of the damage inflicted to avoid losing something after being incapacitated. A gimpy leg or arm, balance slightly off, something. I don’t want it to be a major element in play, so the odds will be generous in avoiding such. I want the threat to be present, however, to help spur lots of caution over fighting with large, nasty beasties.

The two of those elements taken together provides a couple of solid reasons to deal with any fighting cautiously. A PC can get KOed early on by taking a solid shot and then have a permanent gimp of some sort thereafter. The converse is that the PC could fight on long past when they could have been expected to still be conscious and fighting in a most heroic fashion and then come out of it without any lasting effects. The story of that fight would make for a campaign legend, I think.

Modern Assumptions Gotta Go

April 29, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Some of the bits of game design that have long bugged me involve modern assumptions underlying game activities. Two that have long rubbed me wrong involve religion and buying gear. There are some quite modern assumptions underpinning how games have most often approached these, and I’m gonna boot those assumptions out of my systems.

Let’s examine religion, first. The cleric of D&D, the first example of the appearance of religiosity in RPGs, is quite obviously based on crusading knight orders–the Templars and Hospitalers and such. This binds the class to a medieval Catholic type of system, with clerics part of orders of individual deities. It involves the notion of proselytization as being part of all religion. It suggests, strongly, that faith is the important part of religious practice.

I have an issue with those thoughts. In so many pagan religious practices, none of those hold sway. Temples are often for entire pantheons to be revered. The praxis of religion is the most important part–adherents don’t even have to believe in the existence of any deities, just do for the necessary observances. And proselytization isn’t an obligation, nor usually even a thing; other peoples are allowed to have and practice their own rites and rituals as normal practice.

So, I won’t be having any of that nonsense in my systems. Temples are going to be for pantheons, in general, or at least groups of deities from the pantheon. Shrines dedicated to individual deities abound, though even those may have statuary and such for other deities. While many people will have an affinity for one or two deities, they’ll also respect the rest of the pantheon. They may even celebrate some observances of foreign pantheons when in strange lands.

Next, we can look at the acquisition of gear. What I see in all of the systems I’ve cared to look at or use, there are apparently general stores that carry everything–and have enough stock to equip entire kingdoms–in one small village. OK, a bit of hyperbole, though the general point stands. There are systems that limit how many items of a given kind are available based on community size, and I like those, as I think they’re a good start.

What I’m working on is formalizing some concepts I’ve played with over the years that seem to match more of what a generally medieval economy would support. Sure, we can have a general merchant that carries goods commonly needed in the community (note: adventuring gear is likely not commonly needed). Most stuff has to be bought from an artisan who makes the stuff. Uncommonly-needed equipment can be commissioned and will require passage of game time before the PC can take possession. Artisans to do the work may reside only in towns and cities, meaning the PC has to travel to commission the work and then to claim it (and that means off-screen activity).

This leads into handling all the loot stolen from the tombs by the PCs, too. Nobody in any general store nor any village jeweler is going to have enough funds lying around to buy the treasures from the PCs. The party will have to find agents who have contacts elsewhere and are willing to act as an intermediary to cart all that treasure to distant places and sell on the PCs’ behalf. So, the friendly general merchant in the village may know a guy in the county town who has contacts in a couple of cities who can auction off the goods to wealthy buyers. All of the steps along the way require a cut of the proceeds, of course, and what money the PCs end up with will arrive at a future date and be less than the value of the treasure as appraised. It’s a good way to keep funds tight for the PCs in the immediate present and keep funds from accumulating quickly, in addition to helping with simulation of a working world.

There’s also the training nonsense often encountered. Training time requirements are far too lax, with PCs able to rise from barely competent to reknowned expert in a quite short time, as measured in the setting. Even worse is the notion from more modern systems that a PC can “dip” into a class for a level and then move on to something else in short order. Lawdy!

One of the conceits of D&D, as mentioned by Gygax, is that PCs are trained prior to beginning play. 1st-lvl fighters, for example, are called “veterans”. MUs have gone through apprenticeships. No PC just drops his hoe and leaves his parents’ farm and the next day is a 1st-lvl PC. They’ve spent time developing skills. This needs to be reflected in character development rules. There are no community colleges on the other side of the village where one can spend a term to gain all that is desired. Indeed, as the AD&D system calls for, a PC must find a trainer.

Now, Gygax then calls for a relatively short period of training, and further even allows for self-training–as if a PC already knows everything they’d learn from a teacher. And that’s for a PC that has already finished an apprenticeship. In doing so, I think he’s subverting the whole training requirement system. Arneson had a training system that involved months of time training for new abilities and I think that’s a better approach. To change class entirely, I reckon an apprenticeship is going to take at least a year, more likely longer.

As can be expected, my bespoke systems are going to have stiffer training regimens. The challenge, as with most things, is to keep character development interesting at every step, and training time is only a part of that. All the parts working together will have to be interesting.

Building an Action (Combat) Module

April 26, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Action Procedure Alternative for OSE/OSRIC

The combat system detailed here involves using side initiative rolls coupled with speed adjustments per character based on weapons and activities. Weapon Speed Factors, Spell Casting Times, and Movement all affect the order of resolution of actions by PCs, NPCs, and creatures in an action encounter.

Action Rounds

Each round in this system is considered to be about twenty seconds in length. These rounds are shorter in duration than AD&D combat rounds and longer than OSE combat rounds. Considering them to be a bit shorter or longer really isn’t likely to break anything in play, just alter the feel a bit. (I find the abstraction of all the fighting into 10-second rounds fails for me, especially with spell casting considered. If I have to consider finer points of timing during play, that short round puts me right out of the fantasy. On the other end, minute-long rounds also often put me out, too.)

Each participant is assumed to be involved in doing all the things that being involved in a fight can be expected: dodge, parry, shift, duck, feint, slash, stab, suck air, and so on. An attack is thus not a single attempt at striking an opponent. A loss of hit points is also not necessarily a measure of bodily damage, more a measure of loss of overall capacity to continue fighting. Movement is not necessarily an unbroken dash from one point to another. Action rounds are a bit chaotic and sloppy.

Initiating Action

Fighting sequences begin with a First Actor—the first being to take an action in a fight. The first action taken by the First Actor is what begins the ordering count by segment in the round. This first action can be completely unexpected by the other side, which may result in surprise, or the culmination of a face off that finally erupts into action. In any case, this is what puts everything into action.

Declaration of Intent

All of the parties involved in the scene declare what their intentions are for the round. The GM will decide what all of the non-player actors want to do. The players will declare what they want their PCs, and any allies the players control, to do. 

These intentions guide what the character is doing and the speed at which they happen is based on executing them without hesitation. Should a player decide to change a character’s course of action after the action commences, there may be a delay in the segment of action for the character because of the delay involved in changing intentions.

Each action selected for a character takes a bit of time to execute. The amount of time is measured in segments, with roughly ten segments each round. The length of a segment is not a discrete unit of time, however, as much as it’s a measure of activity that corresponds to time only roughly. The segment count for some rounds may exceed ten segments by a couple; some actions may end up happening in the following round if the first would be extended too far. 

[Hmm. Make any extension of action automatically bleed over into next round? Could streamline things. Only seems reasonable to extend a round count if no more than two segments needed in extension.]

A List of Actions

There are a great many choices which can be made for any random round of fighting, not all of which necessarily have to involve attempting to hurt a foe. The list of possible actions that follows includes the most common choices, though players may offer up unusual choices for the GM to adjudicate. 

Delays

A character may try to delay further action after the First Act, putting the continuation of activity on hold, so to speak. 

Parley: The character may try to shout over the burgeoning activity to get everybody’s attention and start, or continue, parleying between the parties. This can delay hostilities, with the segment count resuming only after the delay has played out.

Spectacle: The character may create a spectacle that interrupts the action by distracting most, or all, of the beings involved. A spectacle requires something that all involved can readily apprehend. It may be something they each believe to be a threat of some sort. It may be something that is disorienting. 

Bait: The character may toss food or other items out before the foes to draw their attention away from the PCs or allies. Such baiting may provide a segment or two for taking flight, imbibing a potion, readying a weapon, or other quick activity.

Movement

Any character that plans on moving during the round has to declare the intent to move, to include the direction of movement.

Charge: Any intended charge attacks. The target of the intended charge must be within charging distance. A Counter-Charge against an announced Charge must also be announced. Note that charging distance can extend to a distance of both a Charge and Counter-Charge together.

Shift: The character may shift opponents, if not actively engaged.

Split-Move Attack: A split-move attack sequence involves a short move, an attack, followed by movement after the attack. The attack may be launched or hurled weapon attack or a quick melee attack.

Half-Move: 

Withdrawal or Retreat: 

Morale Check Due to Charge: If Charged by a dragon or other giant creature, all characters with fewer than 4HD must make a morale check immediately. The effects are applied immediately.

Missiles, Hurled or Launched

Pass-Through Fire: 

First Fire: For multiple attack routines

Split-Move Fire: 

Artillery Fire:

Missile effects applied at end of segment.

Magic (To include magical items)

Spells Cast: 

Artillery Effect: 

All spell and artillery effects applied at end of segment.

Melee

Weapon Attack:

Unarmed/Body Attack: 

Stunt Execution: 

Exploit After Stunt: 

All melee damage and special effects applied immediately. The other side’s damage and special effects are applied after their turn in the segment.

Morale Checks

All morale checks induced by reasons other than Charges are made and effects applied at the end of the segment.

Ordering Action

The Initiative Check

One D6 will be rolled for each side involved in the action. The highest roll among the D6s wins initiative for that side; a tie in rolls means all actions are simultaneous in each segment.

The Segment Count

The GM will count through the segments, beginning with segment 0 and continuing until segment 10. 

The side that won initiative acts on the segments indicated by action speed.

The side that lost initiative acts on action speed +2 for the round.

Action Speed

The action speed for a character relies on what the character is doing during the round and how they are doing it.

A weapon attack uses the Weapon Speed rating as Action Speed, along with any modifiers accrued.

A spell casting used the Casting Time as Action Speed, along with any accrued modifiers.

A move during the round adds segments to any other actions the character attempts.

Charge Adds +2

Split-Move Adds +2

Half Move adds +4

Note: A full move is two Half-Moves played out individually.

Within a segment, the actions play out in the phase order in which they’re presented above, even though the effects may all be applied at the end of the segment. [Review necessity]

This is obviously very much a work in progress. I’m open to input about things that are missing that might prove really interesting, in particular.

This has the phases broken out because I started with an outline of a sub-system I’m working on that uses distinct phases. I’m thinking, at this point, that keeping the phases listed for resolution order in a segment may still be useful.

A Modularity Project

April 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

As many, many GMs in OSR/NSR circles report swapping out bits from one system to use with another, I think it only reasonable that there are lots of folks who would love a compendium or compendiums that provide multiple alternatives for specific sub-systems.

I’m certainly not the first person to think such would be useful. I think my little useful bit to add to the idea is that such a compendium would be most useful if it provided a Creative Commons that allows for copypasta usage for any purpose. As in “You like this? Copy these word straight into your manuscript” as an expected usage. Shoot, provide text downloads, even (though some pricing to help with hosting and bandwidth costs).

As I find myself sketching out such alternative sub-systems regularly, I think I could certainly contribute to such a project. I’m currently hashing out an alternative combat approach for OSE/OSRIC that involves a tick system using weapon speeds and casting times. I don’t really expect to use it in any of my systems–at least, any time soon–and would be happy to see it used by others. My overflow of usable ideas isn’t constrained to combat systems, either, so I’d be happy to contribute to collections of other sub-systems, too.

If I can find a couple of other people interested in such collections, I might start on a layout bible so they all appear consistently. I enjoy making master pages in Affinity Publisher, and I’m happy to share those, too. Let’s get more people creating their best systems using ideas from wherever they can find them.

PCs Helping PCs

April 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’ve never been enamored of the rules offered up for when one PC is attempting something and other PCs want to help with it.The first PC getting a general bonus from the added body (or bodies) just because has always thrown me out of the fantasy because it strains credulity. This feels odd because I’m all for players trying to figure out ways to make actions easier to succeed with.

Those ways to increase success, though, have to fit diagetically for me to enjoy their use. It’s not just somebody saying “Oh, I’ll help” and an instant bonus appears. There has to be an explanation that shows the helper can, you know, actually help.

I’m also not sold on such help providing a bonus to success. I think in many instances, help can only happen in such ways that would speed an effort, not necessarily make it more likely to succeed. Or perhaps it would help in generating extra effect, such as in a larger pile of material moved/made/whatever in the effort.

I reckon it would behoove designers to lay out standards for PCs assiting each other that require diagetic description of the aid and how that actually works in effect, whether as a bonus to success odds or time required or so on. There’s likely a concise way to discuss all this, and when I figure it out, I’ll revisit this post.

What Makes Up the Old School?

April 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A post on Reddit sparked a bit of thought. One of the folks commenting–could have been the OP, perhaps not, I don’t recall–offered up three things they thought underpinned the OSR. Now, I’m not exactly an OSR gamer. I hang out in the OSR because that’s the closest organized (!?) community to my preference for old school, classic style play.My thoughts, then, wandered off in the direction of what the fundamentals of old school play are that I observe as properly old school.

The first point offered they offered up was about the rules. I agree that the rules for a system are important in providing an old school feel. One distinction I recall discussing decades ago was the difference between task resolution and conflict resolution in mechanics, for example.

The OG approach was to focus on resolving tasks without regard to any narrative concerns about conflict or storyline. One example of the difference involved the PCs cracking open a safe or treasure chest in one location looking for a unique item. An old school approach would have the presence or absence of the item completely divorced from the task of opening the cache. That was contrasted to the conflict- or narrative-resolution system where the success of the PCs in opening the cache meant that the item was there, because the nature of the check was about that specific item instead of just opening a complex lock.

Old school rules present a fundamental simulation of a world/setting. At their core, the rules all work to provide a sense of a consistent setting, with changes in expectations–magic, anyone?–made explicit and players assumed to be using their understanding of real world cause & effect for anything not explicitly laid out as violating those expectations. In a real world scenario, players could only expect the McGuffin to be in the cache if they knew for certain it was there; if they only suspected it could be there, they understood it might not be if they succeeded in opening it.

The rules work to ground the characters and everything they do in a consistent world, with boundaries around capabilities. The system explains what PCs can do with relative certainty so the players can understand what thier PCs can reasonably do and what they reasonably can’t. Descriptions of skills and abilities are thus as important for settings limits as for describing abilities. Rules that offer no such structure to abilities offer no reliable simulation of any game reality for the players to rely on, as one can never understand what a PC can reasonably do while using an ability.

Old school rules also work to ground PCs in specific roles in the setting. Fighters in D&D, while able to present in many different fashions, all share a world-based role as soldiers, guards, and warriors who serve nobles or civic authorities or wealthy employers. The further rules systems get away from reasonable roles for characters, the less of the old school flavor those rules have. The more specialized a fighting character gets and the more non-fighting ability gets added, the less credibility it has as part of a reasonable world. As classes of character are reflective of archetypes, the further from the base of an archetype one wanders, the less compelling the character.

An old school approach also works to keep the types of characters involved in play credible. I’ve seen several products for sale online recently that offer up new PC classes for games that just don’t reflect old school sensibilities for supposed old school-styled systems. Classes that certainly aren’t of archetypes one would associate with fantasy settings and classes that, even if they would fit into expectations for fantasy settings, aren’t of a sort to adventure, diagetically.

Now, old school systems have added gonzo elements in many ways over the years. I’ll offer that the inclusion of such doesn’t make those elements automatically old school in approach, simply because they don’t reflect the fundamental approach to such things. A class of demon barbers in a fantasy system wanders far afield from fantasy genre elements and tropes and afield from old school expectations.

In that regard, I reckon old school is somewhat conservative in added elements. Even mixing sub-genres within a system works well as old school if the fundamentals for each of the sub-genres are upheld. I’m at a bit of a loss at the moment for examples of how this can work and how it doesn’t, so i’m likely to revisit this post in the future when I work out a better explanation.

Moving on, the discussion on Reddit then included that the playstyle assumed by the system is part of it being old school or not. I fully understand that there are multiple playstyles that can appear at tables using old school systems. I also understand that some of those aren’t supported by the systems being used.

To wit, in the Long Ago, there were tables where expansive PC backstories were a normal part of their play. At no point, however, were such backstories mentioned in the rulebooks. Character sheets had no space dedicated to long backstories. The stories were wholly unsupported by the rules. So, those tables that used them weren’t doing so by the rules in any fashion, so it’s safe to say that such were not typical of expected play of the system.

With that in mind, the rules do support some basic expectations of play. Exploration was an expectation, with dungeon exploration procedures, mechanics and rule discussions surrounding supplies and resource management, navigation and so on. While the early rulesets didn’t necessarily explain all of that well, the materials provided were in support of it.

Characters weren’t described in terms of personality or story arc or any sort of narrative storytelling terms. They were described in terms of mechanical resolution of abilities and sets of abilities that determined how the character interacted with the game setting in game terms. They weren’t offered up as specifically protagonists in specific stories, they were imaginary people in imaginary worlds and whether there was any cohesive story of any length wasn’t mentioned; if one arose, cool, if not, also coll, as specific stories weren’t the intent of play.

And that further separates the truly old school from traditional playstyles. The appearance of specific storylines intended for play–popularized by the Dragonlance series–is a watershed moment in dividing streams of play into classical and traditional. The ironic part, I think, is that it involved shoehorning AD&D into specific stories for campaigns, something which AD&D was never designed to do. It also means that some approaches to playing AD&D (1e or 2e) are old school, in classic styles, and others aren’t, with play in traditional styles.

[Note: Yes, I fully aware that many TSR adventures were very much railroads with specific storylines expected. I also am aware that those were designed with tournament play in mind and the railroads served the end of figuring out which groups outperformed other groups to advance to the next round. Many of the non-tournament modules used the same approach because they were designed to the same standard, not because the rules demanded it or even offered support for it.]

The third underpinning offered is that of DIY sensibilities. I can see this to an extent, though only because of practical concerns. Most GMs had to DIY materials simply because there weren’t many published materials widely available to provide for everything needed. TSR and Judges Guild and other publishers could only publish so much. The demand was far greater than what those companies could reasonably produce. Any campaign of any substantive length required more adventure material than could be readily acquired from publishers, so GMs had to provide for themselves.

I can fully endorse the notion of DIY being old school in that regard and in the context of GMs tweaking system rules to bring a personalized game to the table. That, I think, is the bedrock of DIY in old school games–the understanding that a system is simply the foundation a GM builds a personal game on that they bring to the table to share with players. What tools from the system they use, how they use them, how much they emphasize or de-emphasize any procedural area, and so forth are personal to each GM. GMs use systems to build games to bring to the table.

I think there’s definitely something of substance to the notion that old school systems share hallmarks.

Off-Screen Adventures

April 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

This is a topic about which I’m still very much unsettled. It’s the idea that PCs engage in activities which very much involve adventuring, yet it all happens off-screen. How best to approach this, if it’s going to happen?

This is actually present in the early system rules.In 1e, Gygax speaks of spying missions, complete with tables to help adjudicate them. He speaks of assassinations, also including tables. Those tables generate the results of the activities, though, as the activities aren’t played out at the gaming table.

Granted, one could always just use those tables for use with NPCs assigned to spy or assassinate a foe as part of high-level play, without a PC getting involved. there’s no written instructions as to that being the intention, though, which leaves the door open for it including PC activity. When one also considers that Gygax described PCs being out of play off-screen while journeying to consult an oracle, it’s easy to see that off-screen play was part of how things were done. Ergo, we should expect off-screen activity as part of play; the only question is what activities should reside off-screen.

Just riffing on what Gygax has describe, I reckon information-gathering of many sorts would be good options. Consulting with oracles, scouting wilderness areas for basic information on what resides there, spy missions into foreign towns and cities to get the lay of the land before arriving, and so on. Put specialist PCs to work doing their specialist things: send thieves to scout out that city, a hunter or scout to get a general sense of the land beyond that mountain pass, a wizard scrying the area where a transfer portal opens on another plane, and so forth.

This is all stuff GMs can certainly do on their own. I think it would behoove designers to provide guidance and support for it, though, as what the system expressly supports typically appears in higher quality than if it’s just something mentioned as being possible in passing. I know that I’ve very rarely had a player ask for such an off-screen jaunt. I don’t recall any happening at the tables I’ve played at. I suspect it’s not something that is regarded as a normal part of play, in a wider sense.

PC Development to Set Up the Late Game

April 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

As part of my thinking on classes and class development, I’ll offer up this tidbit. I think PC development in the lower levels should set up play at higher levels. As it stands in the extant rules tomes of the early D&D lineages, PCs, upon reaching name level, can build or buy or take over a base of some sort, suddenly being possessed of administrative and leadership abilities that haven’t been expressly developed anywhere along the line. Having a few henchmen regularly accompanying the PC doesn’t impart such abilities, nor does anything else along the way.

So, we should reset our classes to do exactly that. Here are a few things I think would help:

Recast generic henchmen as Apprentices or Protoges or some such. A fighter acquires a squad of fighting men as henchmen. These are the NPCs who will become, should the fighter live to raise a stronghold, his officers and advisers. Magic Users will have apprentices who will join them in their future towers. Thieves will have protoges and students who will provide the core of a future guild.

I think the class descriptions should also formalize finding and maintaining contacts among the movers and shakers in the classes’ areas of operation. Fighters will develop contacts with military leaders in the service of surrounding nobility or other authorities. Thieves will earn allies of a sort with underworld figures. MUs will develop a network of allied casters.

The flip side is that it could also be a very good thing to develop some animosities with notable NPCs. That, though, may be best a purely diagetic issue within the purview of the GM.

A PC should also develop some abilities that will be necessary or useful at higher levels of play. Wizards develop not only knowledge of, but also some abilities surrounding travel to and existence on other planes of existence, for example. Thieves develop spying abilities beyond simple stealth skills so they can perform spying missions on behalf of friendly authorities and allies. Fighters develop leadership skills in keeping with the need to defend stronghold lands and the peasants who move there.

Keeping an eye on the prize, so to speak, of high level play is something to do throughout the early and middle levels of a PC’s advancement. The PCs should always be preparing for what’s next in their advancement.

Classes, Sub-Classes, and Kits–Oh, My!

April 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Continuing on with discussion of character classes, I’m offering some thoughts on classes as I’m now crafting them. This approach could, of course, change as the voices in my head demand, though the chorus seems to have settled on this approach. ; )

Keeping with the thought that a Class is a broad, general archetype that can appear in many guises, structuring the many guises seems to be where the primary challenge of Class design can be found. The approach I’m taking involves Sub-Classes that provide specialization within the broader Class archetype, and then Kits that dress the character diagetically for play. there’s nothing really new to all this; I find that keeping it firmly in mind helps a good deal when drilling into the details of abilities, though, as shaping and reshaping classes can get messy.

The broad archetype of a Fighting Man, for example, covers a good deal of ground in possibility. Think of the many ways such a character could appear: a soldier practiced in fighting in tight formation as part of a unit; a skirmisher who engages in freewheeling melees without tight formations; troopers fighting from horseback; specialized hunters who seek out undead (or demons or other specialized foes) and eliminate them; warriors who range far and wide, running great distances, engaging in quick raids and retiring into the wilds to appear elsewhere before the enemy can fully respond; individuals fighting for spectacle and glory in front of crowds to earn coin…many ways to specialize in fighting.

Therein lies the heart of the Sub-Class. The basic abilities of a fighter, for instance, are expanded in terms that highlight abilities for a refined purpose. The troopers on horseback and the infantry on foot each fight, though the infantry would be lost on horseback and the troopers out of place on the ground. I view is as additive to the Class description–a Sub-Class adds capabilities to the general Class abilities. Where the Class provides some general fighting abilities, each Sub-Class then adds more specific fighting abilities plus any non-combat abilities that support its role in the setting and/or party. Craft all those abilities with an eye on how the class develops and the roles it expresses in play (per my previous post) and a well-rounded type of character emerges from the seas of possibility.

Kits, on the other hand, place characters in the setting by providing a background from whence they originate. A kit involves a base cultural foundation–say, a semi-nomadic, tribal culture–and then builds a setting-based description around that. The clothes commonly worn in that culture, the types of weapons traditionally used, what virtues are touted, how wealth is treated, and so much more can be expressed in a Kit.

While I’ve no interest in character backstories, I find that character backgrounds of this sort are quite useful and contribute a lot to play. Thus, any chargen subsystem I use will likely involve selecting a background Kit as part of the process in preparing a PC for play. Attaching a distinct meaning to being from the lands of the Sea Kings or some such helps a good deal with characterization and making PCs distinct.

On Designing Classes

April 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’ve always come back to character classes when noodling around with game system design. I appreciate the variants on class construction–templates, packages, focuses–yet mostly am content with building characters using character classes. Now that I’m again working on a bespoke system (and a supplement offering alternate takes on an existing system), I’m again looking at character classes and what I want from them.

The ways I evaluate classes these days involves a handful of questions. I interrogate the class, so to speak.I interview it to gauge how well it’s going to fit. Including a class simply because it’s a cool idea just doesn’t cut it as good design–it has to actually work well in more than one fashion.

How does it fit thematically? Every class idea has to be evaluated for how well it fits the theme(s) of the game. “Well, it’s a fantasy game and this is a fantasy character class” isn’t enough justification. How well does that class serve the themes your design explores? For example, does an Asian-flavored monk class really serve well when all else in the system is very much European-flavored medieval fantasy? If the system demands self-sacrifice to succeed, does a class predicated on self-indulgence at every turn really fit?

Then, what purpose does it serve? What purpose in the types of setting the system supports? What purpose in a typical group of PCs? What does the class provide that helps the efforts of a group in meeting the challenges expected and demanded by the system?

This is a question that moves beyond the collection of discrete abilities possessed by class members. It reaches to what those abilities provide during play. For example, my previous post about thieves touched on what thieves can add to play–access to otherwise blocked areas, access to areas the party wouldn’t know even existed, information from shady underworld contacts, influence among the same, and so on. The measure of the class goes beyond the simple capabilities of picking locks and neutralizing traps.

What campaign types does the class fit? Assuming that the system is intended to support multiple types of campaigns, how well does the class fit with each of those campaigns envisioned? In a fantasy system that is intended to support undead-hunting PC groups or mercenary, A-Team style operations or rooting out Fae plots on the stability of the mundane lands or groups helping support a beleaguered barony during an invasion–how does it work in each of these?

How does the class develop over the expected course of play? If the game uses experience levels to guage development, how does it actually develop over those levels? How do its capabilities expand and change? What can it do at high levels that it couldn’t prior? As the campaign unfolds, how does it adjust to what’s going on?

A character class can only be judged worth adding (or not) after being evaluated from several points of view, I reckon. I know that I’ve had to redesign classes I’ve been evaluating; I’ve even discarded some ideas as not fitting due to concerns in one of the areas I mentioned above. It’s been entertaining to consider all the classes from multiple points of view and I expect it to help the final class roster work much better in all the games using the system.

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