Blackout Spivs

Fall, 1940: The Nazis are bombing London! That's bad news for the country, but good news for you: it gives you a golden opportunity to commit crimes in the dark. This two-page roleplaying game is extremely rules-light, but packs a lot of action into two pages. You can get it on our Free Stuff page, or heck, let me save you a click. Get it right here. 

Encumbrance: How Heavy a Load?

One of the things I like about B/X D&D is the open acknowledgement that not every group wants to play the game in exactly the same way. In addition to the standard admonition that the rules can be changed, parts of the game are entirely optional. Encumbrance is one of them. You can keep track of what your characters are carrying, calculate the weight, and adjust their movement accordingly, or you can simply hand-wave the whole thing and get on with the adventure. But should you?

In general, I have never loved encumbrance rules in games. There are certainly good arguments against it. It adds another layer of bookkeeping to a game that already asks players to keep track of hit points, spells, equipment, treasure, and other things. Nobody wants to spend ten minutes figuring out whether a sack of coins puts them over their weight allowance (which, for the record, is 1600 gp’s worth of weight). And if the point of the game is exploring strange places, fighting monsters, and finding treasure, why get bogged down with the (admittedly light) math of carrying it all? There’s something to be said for hand-waving encumbrance, or at least just using common sense, rather than arithmetic, to decide what the party can carry. While it’s pretty easy to determine weights (it’s all one one page), and there is a huge grey area in the listing of “miscellaneous equipment” (presumably multiple items) as weighing “80,” I can still see it being a pain in someone’s ass. In B/X it’s not as much of a pain as if you were playing, say, GURPS, but it’s still a little extra math that someone might not enjoy. 

On the other hand, I think there’s a pretty good argument for keeping encumbrance in the game. Equipment and treasure ought to have some physical “reality” in the game world. A character carrying three swords, a suit of scale mail, a lantern, six weeks of provisions, and three sacks of gold should have a harder time getting around than someone carrying a dagger and a bedroll. But more importantly, encumbrance gives players meaningful decisions to make. Do we take the extra supplies? Do we have to leave some treasure behind? Do we go back to base camp and bury this stuff? Go back to the village and deposit it with the money changer? Buy a mule? Hire bearers? Do we try to storm this dungeon all at once, or make multiple trips to maximize our profit (not to mention xp)? I don’t see these as inconveniences imposed by the rules so much as problems for the players to solve. I think these kinds of questions and complications can be fun. And while I think striving for realism is ridiculous in a game about elves, dragons, wizards, and other imaginary stuff, the fantasy can hit a little harder when it’s watered and manured (to paraphrase Fritz Leiber) with reality. Encumbrance becomes part of the drama and helps shape the story. 

So I lean toward using encumbrance, at least until it proves itself onerous. Not because I particularly enjoy light arithmetic, but because I like the way it makes the equipment list matter. If carrying capacity is unlimited, there’s not much reason to think very hard about what you bring along or what you take home. A little logistical trouble can go a long way toward making an expedition feel like an expedition. Of course, you may feel differently. That's the beauty of B/X: the option is there, and you get to decide.

Erfurt Latrine Disaster

I read a lot of history, and almost everything I read inspires some game-related idea. Recently I learned about the Erfurt Latrine Disaster and thought of all those rich bastards trying to climb out of a cesspit before they drowned in human waste. If that's not the basis for a game, nothing is. For all I know, I'm not even the first person to have done it! But here is a simple one-page dice-stacking game, playable in 10 minutes or less. In this game, you roll dice and stack them in numerical order, trying to get from 1 to 6 in a sequence. But if your dice stack falls, it's back into the pit with you. The game is a free gift from me to you. It's on our Free Stuff page or you can grab it right here. 

Oddlike Games with Knacks

One of the things I love about Oddlike games is their simplicity. Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland, Cairn, and games in that family are structured so that you don't need many attributes, skills, feats, and special abilities to describe a character. A few numbers, some equipment, and a good concept are all you need. I don't want to lose that simplicity, because it’s the biggest selling point for me. But sometimes, particularly for a longer campaign or a very detailed setting, I find myself wanting a little more nuance--different ways to distinguish one character from another, to give players a guide to how their character might approach challenges, or to show something about the world these characters inhabit. So how do I add that detail without burying a simple, elegant system under a burdensome layer of rules?

The most obvious approach is to borrow from Electric Bastionland and Cairn, using backgrounds that come with particular abilities. In Electric Bastionland, failed careers help establish who a character was before becoming an adventurer, while Cairn uses backgrounds to give characters a little history and some practical skill or competence. Cairn, in particular, is a good starting point for me, because for the last few years, I have been working on a big game for a generic Medieval European setting. With inspiration from the careers of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st and 2nd editions) and the social settings of Burning Wheel, I’ve been experimenting with a list of background careers, each associated with two abilities appropriate to those backgrounds. For example, a former village healer knows something about medicine and natural philosophy; a sailor understands seamanship and rigging; a burglar knows how to break in and move quietly. These can help differentiate characters, not with game mechanics, but by suggesting the kinds of work people do, the knowledge they’ve accumulated, and the roles they play in society. A list of backgrounds can become a small piece of worldbuilding and exposition in its own right (and that’s what I’ve been working on). 

For now, I'm calling these abilities Knacks, although I'm not married to the name (I’ll have to spend some time with the trusty old thesaurus). A Knack isn't a skill that automatically adds a bonus to a roll--that’s not in the spirit of an Oddlike game. It doesn’t allow a character to do something no one else can do--in Oddlike games, anyone can try anything. In my view, a Knack tells what a character with a particular background can reasonably be expected to do, know, or accomplish, in a “better than average” sense. A herbalist searching for medicinal plants might identify a useful remedy without a roll; a burglar might not need to roll to bypass an ordinary lock, while a character without that experience would have to; a sailor or a farmer might recognize a dangerous change in the weather before the rest of the party does. Sometimes a Knack could make an otherwise impossible action possible. Sometimes it could provide information, establish a useful contact, or give a specific advantage in a dangerous situation. And sometimes it could simply mean there’s no need to roll dice at all. The point is to provide a guide for the player and GM about what is special about that character because of their background, rather than add modifiers or special rules.

Here are some examples of the backgrounds with Knacks and starting equipment, from what is becoming a rather lengthy list: 

Village Healer

A practical local healer who treats everyday injuries and illnesses using experience, traditional remedies, and whatever supplies are available.

Physician. During a Long Rest, you can provide competent basic medical care, treating everything from disease to broken bones to ability score loss.

Natural Philosopher. You can identify unfamiliar plants, animals, minerals, and natural phenomena when they occur in familiar climate/terrain; the GM may give you one useful fact.

Starting equipment: Small medicine chest, bandages, needle and thread, knife, mortar and pestle, and a few jars of salves or dried remedies.

Military Engineer

A specialist who builds or dismantles fortifications, plans defensive works, prepares siege approaches, and solves practical problems involving terrain and structures.

Architect. You understand how buildings are constructed, where they are strongest, and where they are likely to fail.

Carpenter. Given timber and tools, quickly construct sturdy wooden furniture and structures and make ordinary repairs.

Starting equipment: Measuring cord, compass or simple surveying instrument, mallet, chisel, notebook of sketches, and other small tools.

Friar

A member of a mendicant religious order who travels or lives among ordinary people, preaching, teaching, seeking alms, and serving the poor.

Performer. Given an audience, you can earn a meal and a place to sleep through performance, if the audience has the means to offer them.

Forager. Where edible plants or game genuinely exist, you can find enough to supplement your group’s food without a roll, given time and suitable conditions.

Starting equipment: Psalter or other religious text, walking staff, begging bowl, pouch, sturdy sandals or shoes, and a weatherproof cloak.

So at this point, particularly for my long-planned Medieval game, this is my best idea for “complicating” Oddlike games: add detail to characters, but resist the temptation to turn every detail into a mechanic. My goal is to start with a simple Oddlike system and introduce backgrounds and Knacks to make characters feel more individual, so that their previous lives matter, and to help the game’s setting to emerge from the rules themselves without paragraph-style exposition or history lessons. The goal isn't to make an Oddlike game more complicated, but to give its simplicity a little more texture. Time will tell how well this succeeds.

The Sack: Rome, 1527

Rome is burning, the Pope is hiding, and you're owed six months back pay. It seems like a good time to go shopping. 

I’ve finished a little solo game called The Sack: Rome, 1527, inspired by the infamous sack of Rome by the armies of Charles V. The Imperial army included thousands of German Landsknecht mercenaries, many of whom hadn't been paid in months. When the army descended upon Rome, discipline collapsed, and the soldiers turned to looting one of the wealthiest cities in the world. You’ll take the role of a squad of these opportunistic soldiers, wandering the streets in search of treasure while the city burns around you. Your objective is simple: collect 20 Loot and get out of Rome alive. What could possibly go wrong?

The game is deliberately rules-lite, but it has a fairly strict turn sequence. You’ll explore a randomly determined series of locations--churches, palaces, taverns, countinghouses, and the occasional burning tenement--and spend precious turns trying to get your hands on whatever hasn’t already been stolen. Meanwhile, Swiss Guards, angry citizens, fires, barricades, and other Landsknecht will complicate your plans. It’s a little exercise in solo gaming, resource management, and historical misbehavior. I hope it’s short, simple, and entertaining. You can find it on our Free Stuff page, or right here.

Descending AC to Ascending AC: 19 or 20?

One of the little puzzles that comes up when you’re playing old-school D&D with a modern approach is the question of ascending Armor Class. Although I grew up with descending AC, I am used to the newer convention where a higher AC is better, and I prefer it. Most so-called retroclones try to be as much like the old game as possible, but, with a few exceptions, have nevertheless adopted ascending AC, or at least offer it as an optional rule (which tells me something). But in the original game, lower was better. So how do you convert one to the other? 

I’ve seen people recommend subtracting descending AC from 19, and I have repeated this advice with great confidence. Then I saw some other charts that use 20. Which is right? The answer appears to be that both formulas are correct, depending on the rules you’re converting from. In the world of “old D&D”, B/X and AD&D are often used interchangeably. Back in the day, our standard approach was to play B/X but filter in cool stuff from AD&D, so the two are not clearly separate in my adult mind. So it’s important to remember that B/X and AD&D are two different beasts. 

In the B/X rules, unarmored characters have an AC of 9. The conversion is Ascending AC = 19 − Descending AC. So (for example) AC 9 becomes AC 10, AC 5 becomes AC 14, AC 2 becomes AC 17, AC 0 becomes AC 19, AC −2 becomes AC 21 (because, in case you need a reminder of 5th grade math like I did, subtracting a negative number means adding it). And so on.

AD&D, on the other hand, uses AC 10 as its unarmored baseline. That's why you'll often see the formula expressed as 20 minus descending AC instead. So, in the above example, all those ascending AC values would be one higher. This confused me at first. You’d think, since I’ve been playing these sorts of games since 1983, I’d know that already. But there’s a lot I don’t know about the hobby I grew up with. For example, it wasn’t until my friend Joe busted out his sister’s Mentzner Red Box that I was even fully aware of the differences between B/X and BECMI. I am clearly not up on my nerd acronyms. 

So, if you’re mixing B/X and AD&D (using monsters or modules from one in the other),  I guess the important thing is to be mindful of that one-point AC difference. In our Back to Basics B/X campaign, we’ll use the 19-based formula. But if I’m borrowing material from another edition (and I will, because we’re starting with The Village of Hommlet, written for AD&D), I should be using the 20-based formula with that material.

It’s a small distinction, but these little details will matter while I’m trying to keep the game running smoothly. Luckily, all these conversions are easy enough to do in your head on the fly, but to make it even simpler I intend to go through the module and convert everything in advance. It’s easy math, it doesn’t take long, and in the heat of the moment at the table, I’ll be glad I took the time.  

Rolling Up Characters Together

As part of our Back to Basics B/X campaign, we’re thinking about getting together in person to roll up characters rather than having everyone do it individually ahead of time. Typically, we create our characters separately, but I think there’s something to be said for doing it in person. In Basic/Expert D&D, character creation is typically pretty quick. Roll your ability scores, choose a class, buy your equipment, and you’re pretty much ready to go. We won’t spend a session zero working through elaborate character-building options (there aren’t any) or generating backstory before we ever sit down to play. The dice will give us what they give us, and we’ll get on with the game. I hope that approach will be refreshing. In crunchier games, there are so many different character options and “builds” that a lot of study is required and careful choices must be made. You need to know how the rules work before you can make meaningful character creation choices. Such games may well require a session zero, or time spent individually in research. But B/X isn’t one of them. 

Of course, newer games are not wrong to take a different approach. Some systems cleverly build world-building, character relationships, and backstory development right into character creation. And I love the idea of a Fiasco-type setup that establishes webs of relationships between characters. However, I have occasionally met the idea of a session zero with less than total enthusiasm, mostly because our game time is limited (we play twice a month) and I don’t want to spend time talking about the game, I want to start playing. However, I can see the value in a session zero. It can be a fun and interesting way to start a campaign and I have nothing against it, but it’s not what we’re after in this case. I think it could be just as fun (if not more so) to discover who our characters are through play, rather than working it all out beforehand. We can compare our rolls, joke about terrible ability scores, talk about who’s going to play what, and start imagining how this unlikely collection of adventurers might work together. Just as importantly, we get to spend time together as friends. There’s conversation, laughter, and the kind of spontaneous creative interplay that can be hard to manufacture when everyone creates their character alone at home. Character creation doesn’t have to be about preparing to play. It can be part of the game itself. 

For me, that’s what Back to Basics is really about. After years of playing online, I want to get back to sitting around a table with my friends, rolling real dice, sharing refreshments, celebrating each other’s good luck or laughing at our bad luck, and enjoying the pleasure of being in the same room. I don't think we need a system to help us create (or learn about) the game world before we get going. We’ve already got a world of our own: the friendships we’ve built over the years and the memories we’ve made. We’ll have plenty of time to discover who our characters are, how they relate to each other, and what the setting is like once the adventure begins. For now, I say let’s get together, roll some dice, and see what characters show up.