I've been thinking about the many, many ways I've hacked B/X to make it play closer to my ideal way. This is no more evident than in all the different posts I've made about fixing the broken Thief class.
I've been working on various ways to alter the standard rules for my upcoming Doomslakers B/X project. I have wrestled with lots of ideas and found them all too fiddly, too trivial, or just too much.
Lately I've hit upon an idea that seems promising, though. It's a simple one, nothing rocket-science about it.
Instead of hacking the rules, maybe I'll just present my "meta rules" as an option, then keep the rest of the content more-or-less defaulting to the standard rules. For my own games, I use the meta rules, But you don't have to.
Most obvious example is luck. I always include some kind of luck mechanic in my games because I feel like without some degree of direct player-facing mechanic other than mechanics tied explicitly to character action, players often feel frustrated by game play. I know I do, and this is why I include such mechanics.
But luck doesn't modify existing rules, it just goes on top of them like a nice paint job.
What other kinds of rules could function in this way?
Well, Death or Debasement is definitely going to be part of the project. This comes from GOZR. It basically says when your PC dies, you get to decide if they are actually dead or not. I mean, why not? It's your character, after all.
Choosing Debasement means your PC is miraculously alive, has 1 hit point, and will be down for 1d6 rounds (probably out of the fight). Alternatively, perhaps they need to pass a Death save to recover and act.
Choosing Death means they are dead and you get some minor perk for your next PC, such as a bonus to an ability score or something.
Meaningful choices. More interesting that flat out death at zero hp.
EDIT: Choosing Debasement also means you randomly roll (or maybe choose) one permanent effect, such as losing some HP, dropping in an ability score, or something more in-world, such as losing a hand or whatever. Surviving death isn't free.
Another meta rule concept isn't so much a meta rule as a setting rule. Not unlike the old AD&D 2e "kits", the setting itself will modify character classes and PCs with choices the player can make, such as rolling on random character traits tables.
Here's where the Thief gets a lot of love, too. Because in Yria, the world of Doomslakers and Black Pudding, all Thieves are trained by a guild and there are five guilds, one for each city. And each guild's training impacts a Thief's skills and abilities in specific ways. The player who chooses Darkmirth as their guild (and perhaps home city) will be much better at stealth while the Thief of Kanebok may be more acrobatic and better at stunts. For example.
The net result of all this is that to play games set in Yria or to just mine Yria for ideas and adventures you don't have to adopt any of the meta rules if you don't wanna. It's fine. My feelings will be hurt but that's ok.
I'll ramble more later.
I come around to this same place in a lot of my own hack ruminations. Is it better to (re)build from the bottom up or to overlay the differences. The answer is probably related to the quantity of, and interconnectedness of, your hacks. But my gut agrees with you. Give me your rules as a combination of Additions, Replacements, and Twists or some such. It would probably sell better, not that you are motivated by money.
ReplyDeleteI'm not the kind of guy who would ever say there are too many games. But I am willing to say there seems to be plenty of basic OSR hacks out there and endeavoring to create a whole new one isn't as sexy to me as it used to be. This is mainly why I'm leaning hard in the direction of keeping the mechanics, such as they are, fairly standard and just layering on some meta rules you can use to bring out the full flavor of the setting. I do think it would have more broad appeal, which is important to me on some level.
DeleteI can't think of a strong argument for limiting the potential scope of interested gamers just because I have some house rule ideas. Especially when nearly all of my ideas for an elfgame world can work as a layer on top rather than a new foundation.
I have adopted giving the player the opportunity to only be knocked unconscious instead of killed when their adversary is a sentient being. Adversaries generally want to capture PCs then kill them outright. The PC gets the choice because some people don't like playing someone locked up needing to be sprung from prison.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think that's a great way to do it. I'm not sure I understand some folks' hardcore stance on character death. They treat it like giving the player options is akin to "letting them off easy". As if gaming was some sort of boot camp.
DeleteInstead of death at zero we do pass out or KO. Revive on a con check, advantage if someone is 'helping you' by slapping you to snap out of it, pouring water on you, etc...it's like an old cowboy movie, cinematic. If you don't revive and are left behind or something, you get captured. It's fun.
ReplyDeleteI've been messing with an injury table that gives you disadvantage on certain rolls until healed or fully rested. To give a longer term effect to being at zero HP.
We've been doing lots of roll v. attribute, so with thieves we do a dex check with advantage. And you can improve ability scores by level.
We were just adding a bonus equal to level by background, but with everything being an attribute check, to take out the math, we started adjusting stats a bit by level. +1 to 2 stats, maybe 3. Still testing.
My housegame isn't so heavily classed, kinda like Knave, it's more of a background that gives you advantage on rolls that fit your background.
Yes, my game is so Calvin Balled by this point it's not that close to DnD. My players don't read the books or anything, so it's all fine. We are consistent and simple, so that's what matters. To me, anyway. :-)
Nice. I like the pass out rule.
DeleteThanks. I stole it from Dead Simple Fantasy RPG. Lol.
Delete