BEYOND THE WALL - THE HALFLING OUTRIDER

ok, so i agreed to give the BEYOND THE WALL RPG a spin with a few other bloggers. basically, we've all agreed to make characters at a virtual table with certain blogs being "to the right" of other blogs for the purposes of character generation. i've chosen to use the HALFLING OUTRIDER playbook.  the mastermind behind all this is rob barrett from the blog VARGOLD: THE WOLF TIME. check out the original blog post here. i'm to the right of anthony and rob is to my right. 

basically, if you use the playbooks to generate a character you begin with base set of attributes and through character generation you gain points. i'm not sure that you can lose points in anything. part of the fun of making a character this way is that you also generate your starting village during the process - certain tables allow you to add NPCs and locations to the village. this way, when everyone has made a character they have a shared history and fleshed out starting base of operations (and some adventure hooks for the GM, to boot).  it's my understanding that we'll add all that stuff after our characters are fleshed out a bit.

probably not what he looks like - but hey, this is a cool pic.

here is the intro flavor text for the HALFLING OUTRIDER (a fighter/thief, basically): "back in the halfling lands you were one of the warriors of your people. you patrolled the borders of your homeland on your trusty pony, watching for bands of barbarians, goblins, and meddling big folk. now, you have journeyed far from home on adventures of your own.

you were the strongest and most athletic of your people. your CON begins at 12, your DEX begins at 10, your STR begins at 6 and all your other stats begin at 8".

the first few tables detail how i came to the land of men, and the first table is titled WHAT DID YOUR OLD GAFFER DO?  well, i rolled a 5...so my gaffer tended the fields around my ancestral home – we grew the finest smoking leaf for miles and miles around. (+2 CON/DEX; +1 CHA)

            ADD LOCATION TO VILLAGE

the next table asks me WHY I LEFT MY COMFORTABLE HOME...a 2 reveals that i left my comfortable home with a small band of dwarves. they had pressing business far from my home and i decided to help them out. (+2 CHA; +1 CON)

ok, so next up is a table that proclaims AFTER LEAVING YOUR PEOPLE YOU HAD A DIFFICULT TIME ADJUSTING TO LIVING WITH HUMANS. THE OTHER CHARACTERS BECAME YOUR FRIENDS - WHO ELSE BECAME YOUR FRIEND?  so, i guess that after helping the dwarves with their mission i settled in a local human village and I met the other player characters.  a roll of 8 tells me that the local humans found me a fair sort, and enough of a stranger to be impartial – hence, i was elected to be their judge. yikes. i’ve seen all the villagers on their worst days. (+2 WIS; +1 INT)

            ADD NPC TO VILLAGE

now, more flavor text: "you rode far from home and left behind the life you knew. you become a level 1 warrior-rogue. you gain the class abilities weapon specialization and fortune’s favor, and the skill direction sense. the tables below will give you all your bonus skills and further define your class abilities. what have you and your pony been through?"

this table asks WHAT DID YOU LEARN BEST ON THE ROAD? i rolled a 5 and so i've learned that my long traveling with the dwarves taught me the ins and outs of hard riding and long roads.  (+3 CON; gain RIDING skill)

WHAT DO YOUR ENEMIES FEAR MOST ABOUT YOU?  a 3 tells me that they fear a silent death from a knife in the back. dang - that's pretty hardcore. that'll keep a halfling safe on the road, i suppose.  

(+2 DEX; weapon specialization – DAGGER; shift to left)

            ADD LOCATION TO VILLAGE

now we get to the part where one of my previous adventures helps out the character to my right.  the table reads: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU SINCE YOU SETTLED WITH THESE STRANGE HUMANS? THE PLAYER ON THE RIGHT WAS THERE WITH YOU.  i rolled a 2, so: not too long ago, the ghost of a long forgotten murder victim began haunting the village. i guess since i had access to various court records, some furious research and some assistance from the friend to my right (rob's dwarven adventurer) allowed me to crack the case and lure the ghost to rest in the graveyard. (+2 INT; friend to right gains +1 INT)

this is the last table. what's a halfling outrider without his trusty steed? the table asks me WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT MY PONY? my dice (with a result of 1) tell me that my pony is special because i can communicate with him as well as i can with any person. (+2 CHA; pony ally)

            ADD NPC TO VILLAGE

after that, i learn that the halfling outrider begins with the following equipment: dagger, your pony (counts as an ally), a very fine saddle, bags filled with food and rations, leather armor (+2 AC), a wooden shield (+1 AC), your favored weapon (which is a dagger, so i guess i have 2), and 4d6 silvers. i also have a +1 BAB.

my final stats are:
STR - 6
DEX - 14
CON - 18
INT - 11
WIS - 10
CHA - 13

cool! i have some ideas brewing about this guy - and i'm excited what else he's done. we'll learn that when anthony rolls up his YOUNG WOODSMAN.

B/X Character Sheet

hey dudes. a year or two ago i was perusing the internet and i stumbled across a blog that used the old DUNGEONS & DRAGONS coloring book border for something. i can't remember which blog it was or what they made with it...so that sucks. i did manage to track down this here blog which has scans of the coloring book (my original one has been lost to time) and i made a character sheet for B/X D&D. as you can see, it's mostly just a reconfiguring of the sheet that shipped with the game. it's usable for LABYRINTH LORD also if that's your thing. 

this is the sheet that we use for our B/X (supplemented by LL) game on sundays. download here and enjoy!  here's a preview...

D&D NEXT and the "maths" (ugh).

so, i've sort of been keeping an eye on the development of D&D NEXT. i know it's probably going to suck, but i can't help myself.  my friend chris has really been keeping an eye on it, however. this has led us to exchange emails every monday or tuesday after mearls updates his LEGENDS & LORE column.

today, this was in an email he sent me: "it seems to me that they're looking at D&D as a big math equation and not a role-playing game".

boom. dead on.   

so yeah, my hopes for NEXT aren't all that high. chris runs a D&D club at his school twice a week. the kids have abandoned 4E for 1E and LABYRINTH LORD. they also just voted to give up on the NEXT playtest that chris had been running for them.

what does all this tell you?

BEYOND THE WALL - more coolness

so, i had to give a presentation to the school board in my district on S&W AD...i'm only now beginning to wade into all the awesome that was created. i'll post up some links later in the weekend as i begin to explore stuff. 

anyway, i had mentioned the BEYOND THE WALL RPG the other day. they have some FREE playbooks posted up on drive-thru (they're the ones i mentioned i grabbed during the playtest, but now they're all laid out and stuff.). take a look at them here and see if you want to use them in your game - you'll get a sense as to how the village generator and all that jazz works.  i figure that's better than paying 8 bucks for something you won't use.

SWORDS AND WIZARDRY APPRECIATION!!!

so, today is SWORDS AND WIZARDRY APPRECIATION DAY.  i'm posting this now (at midnight) because i have a long day of work tomorrow and i'm not sure how often i'll be able to get online. so, rather than wait until tomorrow night to post all this stuff i figure i'll just do it now. better early than late, i suppose. anyway, i've created a few things in honor of today...

first up is a CHARACTER SHEET for SWORDS AND WIZARDRY COMPLETE. it's based off the sheet in the back of the new COMPLETE book.  now that i'm almost done with DUNGEON STRIKE i had ton of stock artwork laying around - so i applied it to the sheet. here's the result:

 if you like it you can grab a pdf right here!  now, as much as i like the COMPLETE rules, i've always been sort of partial to the ol' WHITE BOX.  if you read this blog at all, you know my love for the X-PLORERS RPG. the rules for that game were greatly inspired by the original SWORDS AND WIZARDRY WHITE BOX, and as i have recently gotten my hands on one of the og BRAVE HALFLING boxed sets, my GM juices have been flowing. partly inspired by the BEYOND THE WALL RPG i mentioned the other day and partly inspired by the HOLMES basic set (where he mentions parties comprised of dragons, werebears, humans, centaurs and elves) - i've begun work on a little homebrew for my players.  i have 2 things for you to check out - 1 is the house-ruled THIEF class. no matter what edition my friends and i play we always wind up tweaking the thief slightly. WHITE BOX doesn't include the thief at all...so, based on the thief in the COMPLETE rules, i give you our houseruled SWORDS AND WIZARDRY THIEF. the class features a simplified skill system based on X-PLORERS. i also  folded a few skills into "delicate tasks".  check it out:

you can grab the pdf here. print on both sides and cut down the middle and you'll have 2 copies - one for your players and one for your WHITE BOX.

last but not least...i made a werebear. some of you older folk may remember the werebear class that was presented in WHITE DWARF #17 (along with the stone giant, lammasu, and blink dog pack!).  the pdfs of all those old magazines are floating around the interwebz, so if your google-fu is sharp you should be able to find 'em. anyway, based on that old article i created a werebear class (and i borrowed a pic from the article/1e MM) for my upcoming campaign:

the pdf for this is available right here.  and that's it, folks! i may remake some of the other classes in the WHITE DWARF article. if i do i'll post them here. i'm also working on a dragon PC. yeah. we'll see how that goes.  enjoy!

Beyond The Wall (and other adventures) RPG

have you guys discovered this little nugget of an rpg? no? well, it's available here for only 8 bucks! i don't really know much about the creators - but they have created a nice little OSR game here.  it's a le guin/alexander inspired version of D&D and it is currently tickling my fancy.  i fully intend on pillaging some of it for my upcoming SWORDS & WIZARDRY WHITEBOX campaign. the stuff in here can also be used with minimum effort for basically any OSR game.

so what has me so excited? why should you really care about yet another clone-esque OSR offering? well, for one - the playbooks.

i plan on ignoring the stat bonuses.

the classes have a few playbooks each; think of them as templates or background generators for each character.  included with the core bundle we have: the untested thief, the young woodsman, the would-be knight, the self-taught mage, the village hero, and the witch's apprentice. each playbook has a bunch of random background tables that players can roll on after they make their characters. these background tables help you create the town/village the PCs come from, they help explain how all the PCs know each other, and they drop in a bunch of adventure hooks for the GM.

A few weeks ago i snagged a ton of the playtest drafts off their website(click here for the site), and there were a ton of other playbooks - the halfling vagabond, elven highborn, and a bunch of noble-born human types.  all the playtest drafts are down now, but supposedly once those playbooks are laid out and the whatnot they'll be posted as freebies.  

the game bills itself as being "low prep"; just pick up the books, roll on a few tables and you should have a fully fleshed out base of operations, a few sandboxy hooks, and an overall mission.

i'll be keeping an eye on this game. i'd also love to have some of these playbooks in dead tree form. maybe soon? who knows.  

Random Robot Characters for X-PLORERS!

after all the positive feedback i received for my random alien class generator for the X-PLORERS rpg, i decided to sit down and try my hand at another class for the game.  so, i took aim at robots.

robot characters are a staple of the old sci fi/pulp stories that influenced X-PLORERS. i figured it would only be fair to let my players control one. obviously, these robot characters are NOT subject to the FIRST DIRECTIVE (for the good or ill of all involved). the robot abilities are basically re-skinned spells from the SWORDS AND WIZARDRY WB and the LABYRINTH LORD core book.  have a look at the rough draft and let me know what you think - you can download the pdf here.