Kicking the hornet's nest...
Feb 23, 2013 23:31:04 GMT -8
Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2013 23:31:04 GMT -8
Howdy all,
Hadn't updated my account in a long, long time, so had reason to post on s09e12 and decided I had some time on my hands.
While (still!) waiting for my bundle of goodies from the Swords & Wizardry kickstarter for the new hardback <insert Stu's grumbles over Kickstarter...and I begin to agree with him>, but while waiting I've begun digging back into S&W. Got into a couple years back, got sidetracked by the wonders of the new Hackmaster (it's what AD&D should have become -- WotC should've farmed building D&D4 to Kenzerco), now I want to get back to something I can tweak more to my liking (sword & sorcery; low magic; few, if any, demi-humans, a touch of camp, but lots of sanity-blasting horrors and swashing-of-buckles).
Two of my favorite house rule sets, Fitz <mojobob.com/roleplay/swordsandwizardry/index.html> and Akratic Wizardry <akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2009/07/swords-sorcery-house-rules-index.html>, have some really creative solutions to things I'd like to play with. However, in addition to making Theives' abilities easier (no d% AND d6!) I love the idea of having just a generic magic-using class (like Akratic's "Magician" class) and an "adventurer" class to cover everything else. There's also some interesting stuff in various Microlite20 <www.retroroleplaying.com/> versions I want to look over, but Xd6 curves scratch my itch for fair and balanced play.
The magician can be tweaked to be anything from a herblist-using witch in the middle of the woods to a power-hungry arch-mage at the heart of the largest city in the realms. The adventurer can be a man-at-arms city watch mook to a holy warrior cleric/paladin or nature-loving protector druid/ranger, even a fighter-thief (a la "Grey Mouser"), to the bog standard "old-school" thief. Openness of the system should allow for all the other combinations: fighter-magic-user, magic-user-thief, etc.
I want to get back to a simpler setup with enough crunch to make it stick together. Hacking together the two above into a unified whole with my own twists (penetrating/exploding die seem very S&S; 3d6/d% abilites to handle advancement and other Hackmaster innovations), which I'll post up as soon as I get it into shape.
Most of what I want comes from design decisions made in my favorite sword & sorcery RPG, "Barbarians of Lemuria", which uses 2d6 for most things and a very innovative backgrounds system as a nice alternative to rules-heavy skill systems trying to cover every possible situation. So, in the end, I may be reinventing a wheel I already like, but it's something to do.
Having rambled myself into a corner, guess I'm asking if anyone has any advice on homebrewing B/X-level stuff or any personal house rules for same they'd like to share.
-Kingstrum "an old-school gamer with new-wave sensibilities"
Hadn't updated my account in a long, long time, so had reason to post on s09e12 and decided I had some time on my hands.
While (still!) waiting for my bundle of goodies from the Swords & Wizardry kickstarter for the new hardback <insert Stu's grumbles over Kickstarter...and I begin to agree with him>, but while waiting I've begun digging back into S&W. Got into a couple years back, got sidetracked by the wonders of the new Hackmaster (it's what AD&D should have become -- WotC should've farmed building D&D4 to Kenzerco), now I want to get back to something I can tweak more to my liking (sword & sorcery; low magic; few, if any, demi-humans, a touch of camp, but lots of sanity-blasting horrors and swashing-of-buckles).
Two of my favorite house rule sets, Fitz <mojobob.com/roleplay/swordsandwizardry/index.html> and Akratic Wizardry <akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2009/07/swords-sorcery-house-rules-index.html>, have some really creative solutions to things I'd like to play with. However, in addition to making Theives' abilities easier (no d% AND d6!) I love the idea of having just a generic magic-using class (like Akratic's "Magician" class) and an "adventurer" class to cover everything else. There's also some interesting stuff in various Microlite20 <www.retroroleplaying.com/> versions I want to look over, but Xd6 curves scratch my itch for fair and balanced play.
The magician can be tweaked to be anything from a herblist-using witch in the middle of the woods to a power-hungry arch-mage at the heart of the largest city in the realms. The adventurer can be a man-at-arms city watch mook to a holy warrior cleric/paladin or nature-loving protector druid/ranger, even a fighter-thief (a la "Grey Mouser"), to the bog standard "old-school" thief. Openness of the system should allow for all the other combinations: fighter-magic-user, magic-user-thief, etc.
I want to get back to a simpler setup with enough crunch to make it stick together. Hacking together the two above into a unified whole with my own twists (penetrating/exploding die seem very S&S; 3d6/d% abilites to handle advancement and other Hackmaster innovations), which I'll post up as soon as I get it into shape.
Most of what I want comes from design decisions made in my favorite sword & sorcery RPG, "Barbarians of Lemuria", which uses 2d6 for most things and a very innovative backgrounds system as a nice alternative to rules-heavy skill systems trying to cover every possible situation. So, in the end, I may be reinventing a wheel I already like, but it's something to do.
Having rambled myself into a corner, guess I'm asking if anyone has any advice on homebrewing B/X-level stuff or any personal house rules for same they'd like to share.
-Kingstrum "an old-school gamer with new-wave sensibilities"