B/X Tomb Robber Hack

I wrote this little B/X D&D hack recently to emulate a gritty, scummy, city style sword and sorcery experience using the classic game rules.

You can download a zine PDF of it here.

B/X TOMB ROBBER HACK

IN THE DIRTY CITY OF HOGBONE, or Tombsburk, or Sluckbucket, or whatever filthy name you give it, the tomb-robbers, treasure-hunters, and murderous criminals thrive. There are no safe shires here.

This B/X sword & sorcery hack is inspired by Conan (the barbarian), Thieves’ World, Lankhmar, The Black Company, and a bit of Ankh-Morpork.

PC RULES

1. Everyone is human. If the GM allows elves or something, they’re inhuman aliens from another dimension or space or Hell and everyone hates, fears, and/or distrusts them. Your campaign is now defined by this fact.

2. There are no clerics. High priests might be sorcerers, but they’re not healing anyone.

3. Good and evil are not linked to alignment. Alignment is related to powers of Law and Chaos. A Lawful monster might be evil as a devil. PCs are most likely neutral, but it’s up to you.

4. Every player character is a 7th level Thief because those are the skills needed to be a crypt-raider. No levels are gained or lost. Level drain drains Ability scores instead.

5. This is your stuff: 3d6 x 100 gold. Roll 2 magic items using the General Magic table (page X44). Re-roll consumable items (like potions) if you prefer.

6. You get these perks based on your highest or second highest Ability.

•Str: Additional +2 to hit, +7 HP.

•Int: +3 (or +1d6) languages, 2 (or 1d4) 1st level Magic-User spells.

•Wis: Re-roll failed initiative; glean 1 useful fact about anything (once per encounter); good ventriloquist.

•Dex: All your Thief Skills are as level 10; climb upside down.

•Con: Save as level 10 Thief, +5 HP.

•Cha: +1 Morale of retainers; 1 devoted follower per Cha score above 10 (as 3 HD bandits); good at mimicking voices.

7. Rest to regain your strength. Heal up to 7d4 HP per day, rolling up to a total of 7 dice at any intervals you prefer. Taking a breather after that alley fight? Roll a couple of d4s to get your spirits up.

8. You know fear. When faced with undead, cosmic entities, or dark sorcery, save vs. spells or be gripped with fear for 1d6 rounds, unable to do anything but run and hide or stand there wetting your pants. Only for the first encounter, per occasion.

9. Gain 1 Hit Point after every adventure.

10. Spell-casting PCs can learn more spells, but it ain’t easy. Make a hard Int check (-4 to the Ability for the check) to learn a new spell from a book or scroll. Only 1 spell can be learned from any discovery of books of magic.

11. They will tell stories of your exploits. When you’ve played enough adventures that it feels like a proper hip-pocket paperback’s worth of short stories, everyone gains +1 to attack and saving rolls. At this time, you can retire a character, making them a level 9 NPC.

GM SUGGESTIONS

1. Monsters. Make them as unique as possible and never say “it’s a goblin”. Instead, “the locals say there’s a bog beast lurking about” or “the old temple is haunted by the angry spirits of the dead” and that’s that. There are no tribes of goblins, but there might be bandit gangs in masks.

2. Make monsters weirder. You can use monsters from the book as templates, but mix them up. Take abilities from three different creatures and hammer them together. That’s not a hill giant, that’s an abomination of human flesh stitched together by sorcery and leaking poison gas… with a big club.

3. Creatures of the night. Monsters of this world hate the sun and mostly only come out at night… mostly.

4. No clerics, but the dead rise. And they are afraid of the gods. PCs using relics of the gods may force morale checks on the walking dead.

5. Nothing is free. If you can waltz into a broken ruin and find a hoard of gold… it’s almost certainly cursed. Either cursed directly and each PC now has a death warrant, or it’s sacred to some ancient guardian who is now awakened and will not relent until everyone is dead. Watch a mummy movie for ideas.

6. Get to the action. Don’t let the players waste time debating their next moves. Keep the pace up. Assume a real time clock is ticking. They’ve been discussing how to or if they should open that crypt door for five minutes straight? Angry spirits show up to run them off. Other tomb raiders ambush them. Etc.

7. NPCs can be based on PC classes from the monster list, such as Acolytes and Bandits. More important ones can also be 7th level of their class. Boss NPCs should be treated as 9th level or better of their class: Fighter, Magic-User, or Thief.

8. Start local, don’t lore-nuke. Do NOT let yourself get caught up in too much pre-game world-building. Make up the dirty city, some NPCs, and nearby locations as needed. Let the adventurers guide your next move. Let the world grow from this local seed into whatever it will be, even if that means the PCs never really leave town. Cities have crypts, sewers, and assassins aplenty.

9. Luck of heroes. Taking a note from the classic 1e Conan modules, PCs have Luck Points. Only you, the GM, knows how much Luck they have. Players can spend Luck to accomplish feats of adventure that would be very risky if they relied on the luck of the dice. Like leaping roof-to-roof in the rain without dropping a fragile glass egg or putting an arrow through the tiny hole in the dread warlord’s demon scale armor.

Players cannot spend Luck to affect dice rolls and Luck must be announced before actions are taken. Luck doesn’t replenish, but you can secretly give a point here and there for incredible moments of gaming or for completing a book of adventures.

Ask each player to roll 4d6. Now secretly determine which result goes with which PC. That’s their Luck… until it runs out.

Happy sword & sorcery gaming!

Artists I Like: John McKenzie

I started seeing John McKenzie's work on Facebook a while back and was immediately smitten by it. John has the perfect balance of silly cartoonery and grit. It's almost as if Basil Wolverton and Mike Mignola conspired to create a new life form and I truly love it.

My instinct is to say his work begs to be animated. It FEELS animated. But I don't want to suggest it would better if animated... It lives and breathes as is, but it would translate to animation quite easily.

Also sounds like he's making an RPG. Gotta have that for sure.

Format Doormat

This post serves two purposes. 1) To demonstrate how my broken mind works and doesn't work. 2) To talk about a little passion project eating my broken brain. Read this post only if you want to be subjected to me meandering and ranting about mostly nothing important.

Formats. Sizes to print your book. They vex me. Always have.

See, I come from the 80s-90s small press scene. In 1987 I partnered with pals to make our first comic zine Fast Lane and we did it on my friend's dad's work Xerox machine on a Saturday when nobody was there. We understood that 8.5x11 was the standard paper size, so we made our book fit 8.5x11.

It was easy. I even drew the pages of my comics on 8.5x11 typing paper, so when we made copies it was as easy as laying the original in the machine and pushing the print button. We fiddled around until we got the front and backs correct, ran off 50 copies of each, then laid them all out on the floor to collate. Then we put a couple of staples in them and BAM. Comic book magic.

Next issue we decided to go with that sexy "digest" look. All that means is we did it half the size as before and arranged the pages side by side to fit on a sheet of paper. Same process, just a little bit fiddlier. Since 4 pages were connected by a single sheet of paper, you had to be careful to get the order correct. But we did it and it was fun.

On into the 90s I generally worked alone. I made my first mini-comics, as I understood the term. If our first book was full size and our second was half size, then these minis were quarter size. You can make an 8 page mini on a single sheet of paper. There are tons and tons of tutorials about this online.

4.25 x 5 inch book

This is the fiddliest of the standard versions of the zine sizes because each sheet of paper is 8 pages of your book, so the arrangement is crucial. You can't just go 1-2-3-4, you gotta make sure 1 flips over to be 2 and so forth. Easy to get fucking confused unless you're a right genius at spacial thinking, which I am not.

Anyway... there's also the classic comic book format. In the USA, currently, that means 6.625 x 10.25 inches. If weird numbers bother you like they do me, you can just call it 7x11 or 6.5x10 and be done with it. The slight difference won't mean shit.

The reason this format matters to me is because it's what comic books look like. And I want to make comic books. I have made proper comic books... and I want to keep making them. So I fixate on this. I worry that any comic I draw that doesn't fit that format can't fit into a comic book at some nebulous point in the future.

For example, I did some comics for The Merry Mushmen and Tuesday Knight Games and none of those are US format. If I reprint them on my own at some point, they won't look quite right on a floppy page.

It's a trivial thing to be bothered by. After all, Europe and Japan have entirely different comic book formats and I'm not worried about them am I? But hey, it's my nostalgia we're talking about here.

Anyway... I'm thinking of this RPG series in mini format. My idea was to do this series of books at 4.25x5.5 and roughly 16 or 24 pages each (minis have to be in increments of 8 pages*). I can do this, but it's a pain in the ass to format so someone can print it from a PDF. I'm not aware of a good way to do it so that you can read the PDF like a proper book and also print it like a mini. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying I don't know that secret sauce and it sounds like a lot of work, man.

Which leads me to the good ole workhorse of small press publishing: the digest. A sheet of paper folded in half. PDF brochure printing handles this automatically like a champ. It's a super common format, a nice pocket size, and is easy to set up. So I should probably go that route. It just makes the most sense.

But those sexy little minis... they call to me. That fiddly work you put into them can be fun. It's a bit novel to have a RPG book series that's tiny. (See how I talk myself into spirals?)

Yeah, so... that's where my brain is today. Oh, what's the game? It's just a simple micro game system for funsies. Something I can fit in 16 mini pages. Then crank out some adventures and shit for it. Just a silly idea I have. I have a lot of them.

*Well they don't HAVE to be. You can make a 4 page flat repeated twice on sheet so that you're at 4 page increments... but it means you gotta make 2 copies of the book each time. You can't just print 1 copy.

It's April

Random notes.

After having ran and played in multiple games with player-facing dice rolls, I gotta say I strongly prefer them. Having players roll all the dice frees the GM up to focus more on what's happening and what happens next and it keeps players being active contributors.

Player-facing rolls have moved up the ranks in my gaming preferences right up there with luck points and death choices.

Speaking of gaming... shit I'm behind. I playtested ZSF and I'm in a spot where I could hone it, focus in, and get the game done. But right now in this instant I do not have that fire. I'll get back to it later.

Meanwhile I've dashed out a few other game ideas. I wrote one the other day based an older idea called Dirty Dozen Death Squad. You make a unit of 4 or 5 characters, then all the players bring all their characters and you just go through a violent mission. I guess it's more of a skirmish game and RPG.

Made another one this week. No name yet, but it's got a neat little core where you roll a d20 if you've got a skill and a d12 if you don't. Each hit you take knocks you down a die step. But it's not a combat game... it's more of an explore and interact kind of thing.

Sketching is always on the table. Tons and tons of drawing and doodling and coming up with ideas. I've written many comic book scripts lately. I just can't seem to find the oomph to focus on one thing long enough to get it done.

But I'll get there.

Shotgun Game

When I got into gaming in the 80s, my other gaming friends and I used to say "shotgun game" when we got together and had no plans and decided to play some D&D. "I'll run a shotgun game" was a common phrase. It just meant you were going to run something on the fly, zero prep or low prep.

Comes from the idea of a shotgun wedding, where a guy knocks up a girl and then her father forces him to marry her, at the point of a gun. The idea, I think, is that since you are typically the DM, you're kind of forced into the arrangement when you friends wanted to game all of a sudden.

I've fished around online for this phrase and I can't find where it is in use in this context. If anyone knows otherwise, has used it themselves in the past, or understands where it came from, comment and let me know. I'm just curious about it.

Is this hyper local RPG lingo? Maybe just my gaming friends invented it. I don't know. I picked it up from them, though. I didn't originate the phrase. I believe one of my original DMs got it from some older kids who taught him how to play D&D in the early 80s. 

Game Design Hoots 1

I love old school D&D, but I don't want to tie all my work to it. The setting implied or described in Black Pudding is important to me and I want it to have its own original RPG at some point. Of course the Black Pudding Play Book will always be around, but I'm probably going to do another game at some point for the world of Pan-Gea > Yria.

Here's a system I'm mucking around with right now. It's from 1998 or so, before I even got online. It's very basic, which is what appeals to me. I ran it many times back then and it was mostly GM rulings because there was almost no rules written down for it other than this:

Spend 20 points on any kind of traits you like. Roll 1d20 + Trait vs. a target number or an opposing roll. Each adventure you earn 1-3 points and you can spend them to add or improve Traits.

In recent times I've developed the idea further to give it more tooth and grit. I like it.

Of course it's also very possible that the game will use GOZR rules. Right now I'm torn between these two darlings of mine. Story of my life.

But both feature rolling 1d20 + mods vs. a target number so you can call me a basic bitch all you want. It's fine. I own that shit.

Comic Grabs

I picked up a few comics this weekend. Here they are.

I got this Toxic Avengers book because the cover looked fun. I figured why not? I do like the interior art by Tristan Wright.

Eventually I'll read it.

I will never pay money for any of these Ultraverse comics... unless they have a Dan Brereton cover. Putting his art on your cover is like reaching into my pocket and taking my money.

But the interiors... I mean, no shade the creators and all that... but this shit is shite.

I tried to read a few pages but it was difficult. I know this is like mid-story. It's just irritating to be thrown into an epic and expected to buy a whole line of comics and respect all these characters you've never seen before as if they were classic icons of superheroes. Spoiler alert: it did not work out for Malibu.

This Thundarr #1 just sang to me. I love that cover art by Michael Cho (one of MANY ALTERNATE COVERS... but that's a whole other rant).

The real treasures I found! I got that fat Nexus book for $2 and that complete Eternals for $5. Amazing. This is what flea markets and vendor malls are for. I'm actually excited to read these! I might never read any of the comics I mentioned before this, but I'll probably read Eternals (I've never read it before).

So yeah, that's my little haul. Got me in a comics mood.

GOZR Scraps and Bits

In the process of creating GOZR, I left a bunch of stuff on the cutting room floor and changed a lot of it as I went along. Just the process of editing and what-not. Here's the original GOZR map vs. the final version.

Really happy I went this direction. The original map is fine, and I think if I had finished it up it would still look pretty good. But the final version feels more intuitive to me. The north-south direction of the river is a line that grounds the whole thing and helps place all the elements where they are supposed to be. To the east you have endless dunes and to the west you have endless badlands. Down south you got endless bogs and forests and up north... endless mountains. And there's the city right in the middle.

 

More About Gooz Love

In this post I pose the question "how do we get gooz babies?". Spoiler... I don't answer that question. I present possibilities. But the mystery stands. And even if I answer this question at some point in an RPG book or a comic, that doesn't mean it's true for your GOZR game. You know the drill... the game book isn't the game you play, the game you play is the game you play*.

So here's another question. If one of the possible answers is that gooz are created by some super-science machine, then why do gooz have genders at all and why do they display sexual traits? There are images of gooz in the book who clearly have mammalian breasts of the kind suitable for feeding little goozlings. Sure, you can say that they come out as wee babies, as the text implies, but then you need milkers to milk feed them.

But hell's bells... it's super-science. Surely the Pretty Ones are capable of engineering a method of feeding baby gooz that doesn't involve gooz boobs, right? Maybe. Maybe with them gone, that system is defunct. How you gonna feed these goozlings? It's complicated, right?

Look here... the gooz are clearly imperfect creatures. Some have three arms, for pete's sake. They have varying numbers of fingers. They come in all shapes and colors. The Pretty Ones, as advanced and magical as they were, weren't gods. They were fumbling around with arcane science and they created these dinky degenerate servants.

Gooz are DNA hot messes with Pretty Ones and many other creatures' genetic material in their bodies. We all know that nature is not neat and clean. Gooz are natural, right? They are messy. They have sex traits. Hell, even if they are born from machines, they probably also have sex now and then.

I think what seems clear, to me anyway, is that they don't have sex baggage. They aren't highly sexualized. They lean pretty hard in the "meh" direction with regards to sex and gender. "Whatever, pal." would be their response to these questions.

For myself, as an observer and chronicler of the ugly ones, this question is fascinating and I hope to explore it more in the future.

Also, maybe next time I can talk about actual gooz "love". Not just this sex stuff. Do gooz fall in love? Do they have life mates? I think you know that the answer is going to be "some do, some don't".

*A good friend ran a robust playtest adventure of GOZR before it was published and he completely ignored the entire setting. His adventure was in "Gooz York"... a kind of far future post-apoc New York. It was a hoot. 

DCC RPG and TQB

Recently, Ben Milton of The Questing Beast made a video with this spicy thumbnail right here. There's usually a tagline like "we need to talk about Goodman Games" or something.

Ben looks like he tried to read a stereo manual from 1984.

I had to watch it. I love DCC! I ran several excellent campaigns years ago and have always found that game to be supremely entertaining, massively charming, and just a heller good time.

TL:DR: Ben feels DCC is too wordy, not useful at the table, and is stuck in the past. There's more to it, and Ben isn't entirely negative. Watch it yourself. Here's Ben responding to some of the criticisms.

EDIT: Ben frames his video in terms of the OSR. My diatribe below seems to ignore this fact. I don't think Ben is talking about all TTRPGs. But even within the OSR sphere only, I stand by these words.

 

Plenty of folks have responded to this video. Many have said things similar to what I'm about to say. But I wanted lay down my own take because Ben touches on some points that are pet peeves of mine, and I feel like there are some blind spots in his treatment.

1. THE TABLE ISN'T NECESSARILY THE ONLY PLAY SPACE

Ben's laser-focus has always been on an emergent, on-the-fly gaming style. I like this a lot. Many of my own game ideas are in this vein because I'm also an adult with other responsibilities and if I get a chance to run a game it's very nice to have something easy to just pull off the shelf and run with zero prep.

But zero prep is not the only way to play. And the prep phase of a game is still part of the game. Call it a pre-game if you want. It's not only a valid approach to game design, but one that many players strongly prefer.

If you have ever been a GM, then you remember what it felt like reading your first adventure module or scenario, understanding what the story was about, and then making plans for how to run it. For some, this is a chore they no longer savor. They want the bullet-point style. "Just give me the room contents in a list and shut up". I get it.

But for others... no. They want to read the adventure, then they want to sit with it, make notes, change some things, add new things... do the prep work. This, for them, is a fun part of playing the game.

2. THE LATEST WAY ISN'T THE BEST FOR EVERYONE

Ben assumes his gaming preference is - by default - the latest and greatest advancement in RPGs and older approaches are somehow outdated. I think it is because he is an educator and he absolutely loves emergent game play, not game prep. I really do understand this, and I enjoy that style too. But man I hate the attitude and the concept.

This isn't aimed at Ben... I enjoy his videos. They are super helpful and fun. He was very positive about my Black Pudding Heavy Helping and GOZR books, which was a big confidence boost for me.

No, this is aimed at the idea that old is badder and new is gooder that many in the RPG spaces seem to assume. I'm here to put into the public record that newer does not equal better. Innovation is super important, and new modes of play keep the fires burning. But unlike computer software, games from 1979 are still very playable, just as they always were. You might not enjoy them, but someone else damn sure does and they probably don't want you to bullet-point them.

Some GMs love to savor a meaty game text. Read it, understand it, then prepare to run it... that is fun for them.

If you don't enjoy prep work or reading wordier adventures... don't. It's fine. But if you do... then the advice that games should always embrace the bullet-point style is bad advice, isn't it?

3. THE SUGGESTED CHANGE COULD DESTROY DCC

Finally, I wanted to say that DCC RPG has a robust and rabid community of fans. If Goodman Games switched their approach to bullet-point adventures, I suspect no new players would give a shit and all the old fans would be turned off by it. Because that's not what DCC adventures are.

We have this baseline assumption that everything must evolve or die. I don't entirely agree. Change can be good, and necessary. But we're talking about hobby games here. This is comfort food for the soul for many, many people, myself included. I'm not into RPGs because I want to be on the cutting edge. I'm into them because they are part of my soul. And sometimes my soul wants to read flavor text and chunky adventures. DCC's style feeds that need. Sometimes I want something fast and emergent to run. OSE's style feeds that need, for example. We want both and all things in between.