Buckle up as we’re on the road to writing our own Fantasy Heartbreaker and I’m going to kill some of D&D’s most sacred cows!
Attributes & Checks
Dungeons & Dragons ostensibly has a clear division between Attribute Checks and Saving Throws. Attribute Checks are pro-active, something that are used on the player’s initiative to take some action. Saving Throws are reactive, a response to something in the world such as a trap or an enemies attack. This is a division I happen to quite like. It makes it clear what should be rolled and when. Unfortunately not all of D&D’s mechanics actually follow this division.
Constitution
I can’t think of a single situation in the last fifteen years of running D&D, where I’ve had a player make a pro-active constitution check. Every Con roll I’ve ever requested has been as a response to poison, a trap or an enemy attack. If the standard convention of the division of pro-active vs reactive rolls is to be followed, Constitution should be made into a Saving Throw rather than an Attribute. Maybe we’ll call it something like…Fortitude.
Wisdom
Wisdom as an Attribute has never made a lot of sense to me. It makes a lot of assumptions about religion and the act of having faith making someone wise. Additionally, in modern versions of D&D Wisdom governs skill checks for things like Animal Handling, Medicine, and Survival. These skills always made so much more sense as Intelligence checks. Then there’s Perception checks…
Perception
I hate Perception checks in D&D. I’m not against them in principle, but Perception checks make so little sense as a Wisdom check and GM’s so often default to perception checks for anything involving what the player “sees”. Searching for clues? Perception check. Searching for traps? Perception check! Discovering if players notice some enemy movement? PERCEPTION CHECK!
Investigation and Research checks exist and they are governed by Intelligence, not Wisdom! So, ignoring all those use cases for Perception that really shouldn’t be under the purview of Perception in the first place… leaves Perception checks that are used as a reaction to something…Much like Constitution, Perception checks make far more sense as a Saving Throw. Let’s call it “Notice”.
Faith
So if Animal Handling, Medicine and Survival are relegated to Intelligence checks, and Perception checks are made into a Saving Throw, what remaining uses are there for Wisdom? It’s the Primary Attribute for faith casters, and Castles & Crusades’ SIEGE engine uses a character’s Wisdom Bonus as part of the formula for determining the Target Number enemies need to beat on Saving Throws when reacting to that character’s Divine Spells. When an enemy rolls to Save against a Divine spell, the target number is determine as follows: 15 + Casting Character’s Level + Casting Character’s Wisdom Bonus. That’s still critically important in my opinion, but doesn’t fall into the pro-active vs reactive divide.
Let’s create a third category of stats: Casting Abilities. In that category we’ll have two stats: Arcane and Faith. Both are rolled at character creation the same way as attributes, but they are used exclusively for modifying the Target Number of enemy Saving Throws.
Saving Throws
I know this is probably going to come as a bit of a shock, but I really truly believe that D&D 3E nailed Saving Throws. Fortitude, Reflex and Will saves cover just about everything and serve to simplify B/X’s Saving Throws rather considerably. Goodbye to Death/Poison, Wands, Paralysis/Petrify, Breath Attacks, and Spells/Rods/Staves Saving Throws!
So where does that leave us?
It leaves us with four Attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma.
It leaves us with two Casting Abilities: Arcane and Faith.
It leaves us with four Saving Throws: Fortitude, Notice, Reflex, and Will.
I couldn’t be happier. Next time, we remove Attribute Bonuses from Races/Ancestries!
Unless I’m truly going to write a system from scratch, I think it would be wise to start with one system and gradually mold it into this Fantasy Heartbreaker of mine. The primary benefit of using an already existing system to start with is that the game is, at least in theory, always in a playable and testable state.
Something to consider in a base system is compatibility with the many supplements out there in the OSR space. I intend for my Fantasy Heartbreaker to be broadly compatible with BECMI and AD&D supplements, so it makes sense to use one of these as a base.
Old School Essentials is a cleaned up version of the Basic/Expert set, which seems like an ideal place to start. It has broad compatibility with BECMI and AD&D as well as most everything else in the OSR world.
With a “base” system chosen, let’s tackle a few of the problems me and my players have with old school gaming in general.
Different ways of using the same dice…
I’ve run OSE for my players for quite some time now and they still find themselves confused as to how to roll an attribute check or a saving throw. They know they need to use a d20, but they can never remember when to use roll over or roll under mechanics.
It’s something I see with other groups as well, so it doesn’t seem to be an isolated problem.
I’ve come to the conclusion that all resolution mechanics using the same die, need to function the same way. In this case that means all mechanics using a d20 need to be consistently roll under, or roll over.
Difficulty Checks and Target Numbers
Something I’ve always struggled with is coming up with target numbers for a given obstacle in a way that is consistant from day to day and session to session. In practice I’ve found that target numbers will vary with my mood, how tired I am and how well the session is going. I’ve witnessed other GM’s run into this problem as well when playing at their tables.
Castles & Crusades largely solves this problem with it’s SIEGE engine where the target number for a roll is 15 + Level of the Obstacle, (ignoring something C&C calls “Primary Attributes”).
A Core Roll
In short, we’re introducing a unified “core” roll to our Heartbreaker.
Player facing rolls are: 1d20 + Character Level + Attribute Bonus
Target numbers for Attribute Checks and Saving Throws can be unified to be 15 + NPC Level.
In circumstances where a player may have an advantage in a given situation, the player rolls twice and uses the better result.
In circumstances where a player may be at a disadvantage in a given situation, the player rolls twice and uses the worst result.
Target numbers are consistent and the d20 is used the same way, every time.
Keeping the Game Playable
Our new “core” roll currently breaks OSE’s Saving Throws. While I intend to make some fairly large changes to the Saving Throws in the system, let’s make a quick change to keep the game playable and testable while we work on it. We’ll toss out OSE’s Saving Throws entirely, and instead use Ability Checks, with each Ability governing different domains.
Strength: Paralysis, petrify and constriction
Dexterity: Breath attacks and traps
Constitution: Disease, Energy Drain & Poison
Intelligence: “Arcane” magic, (any magic that did not come from a Divine source)
Wisdom: “Divine” magic, (any magic that did not come from an Arcane source)
I think it’s a universal truth that every OSR enthusiast eventually writes their own game. Sometimes this takes the form of a title sold at a retail store, but more often it takes the form of a large packet of homebrew rules. These games are often highly derivative, taking ones favorite edition of D&D and simply adding the more intriguing or engaging rules we find in our massive pile of RPG’s we’ll never actually get to the table.
I’ve been compiling notes on the wonderful mechanics and ideas I’ve stumbled upon from blogs, reddit, google+, discord and every RPG I’ve read, run or played. It’s not a very organized compilation and it’s certainly not conducive to use at the table. It’s time to sit down and sort through it; decide what can be used cohesively with the rest and what can be cut.
In computer programming we have this wonderful approach to development called, “rubber duck” programming. While designing a feature or working through a problem, we talk about it to a rubber duck sitting on our desk, (I use a skull named Bob). The act of trying to describe the problem to someone as you work through it is often all that’s needed to spark that epiphany or highlight the glaring errors in your thought process. This blog can serve the same purpose, a means of working through this massive list of ideas and turning them into something cohesive.
It’s a large undertaking and it needs to be taken in small steps. Let’s start with the primary inspirations for this project.
This is hardly an exhaustive list, but as I sort through this pile before me, these are the systems or idea spaces that jump out at me as primary inspiration.
Castles & Crusades: AD&D 3E in all but name. I’m not a great fan of the SIEGE engine and it’s primary/secondary attributes, but I love it’s consistent and GM friendly approach to setting target numbers for rolls. Additionally, I love how it’s treasure tables are keyed to monster HD rather than the more handwavy approach that B/X has taken.
The 13th Age: Icons! The Icons! I love the idea of replacing the traditional alignment system with a positive and negative Icon relationship. This is the kind of thing that can generate adventures and campaigns.
Dolmenwood: This is what I’m currently running for my weekly group. While there are plenty of mechanics and ideas I want to steal here, my biggest takeaway is how player facing options need to be married to the setting and just how hard it is to make a “generic” system that handles multiple settings. I feel that TTRPG’s in the OSR space would benefit from moving player facing options to a “Setting” section of the PHB, while also including the data necessary to create custom Races, Classes and Spells as part of a DM section.
Savage Worlds: This is probably my favorite system, but it’s not the only system I love to run. The biggest inspiration for me here is the player facing Hindrances. I’ve found my players really love to lean into them for roleplay purposes. They’ve mentioned it really helps them to sort of discover their characters.
B/X, OSE, The Rules Cyclopedia: It all starts here for me. If it weren’t for B/X and it’s derivatives in the OSR space, I probably wouldn’t be playing any form of D&D today. What’s the inspiration here? All of it.
Mythic Odysseys of Theros: You don’t need to like Magic the Gathering at all to fall in love with this setting. Most importantly, I have never seen a more GM friendly setting book. This setting should be the standard going forward for all setting books. Bigger than life characters for the GM to use along with motives, goals and ideas aplenty on how they might be used for good or evil. Campaign and adventure generators, NPC generators, item generators, plot generators and so much more.
D&D 4th Edition: I know I’m probably going to get some flack for this, but I actually consider 4th Edition to be an amazing game. As a player, it may actually be my favorite edition. As a GM however, I’ve found I prefer to lean towards less complex and easier to improvise systems. If I were a more prep-heavy GM, I’d probably just use 4E and never look back. My big inspiration from 4E, however, is it’s language. D&D is plagued with a curse known as “ancient Gygaxian”. Many players and GM’s love this, but I prefer a more codified system. Mechanics should be short, explicit and codified with keywords that are well defined. Save the ancient Gygaxian for flavor text.
Five Leagues from the Borderlands: This is a solo-oriented tabletop wargame/skirmish game. Honestly, I probably need to sit down with this one and give a full and detailed review as I’d love to do it justice. It’s an amazing game and I look forward to gushing about it. One of the most interesting things about this game is it’s procedures for campaign generation. With a few changes, the ideas behind this could be used to generate campaigns for just about any TTRPG. I think this could be huge.
There are plenty of other systems I have every intention of stealing ideas and mechanics from, but these seem to be the ones that have really taken root in my brain.
A final note for today…
While I intend to discuss and detail my process in building this Fantasy Heartbreaker, I cannot in good conscience actually release such a thing into the wild. I’m blatantly stealing ideas from some amazing systems and authors and I do not feel that I personally would be contributing enough of my own content to be meaningfully different from the source material.
It’s not an issue of legality, but an issue of morals and ethics on my part. My opinion and position might change as I write this and discover how much these ideas have changed from their initial inspirations, but for now it feels clear it’s strictly derivative.
Providing exposition for the worlds we create is something I think we all struggle with. In our own heads, these worlds are exciting and wondrous, dark and dangerous. They’re worlds that we can’t wait to explore with our players. The problem is, these worlds feel that way to us because we already know what about those worlds excites us. Somehow we have to convey that to our players in a way that doesn’t bore them.
A friend was having trouble with this in one of her games and we had discussed it earlier this week. It got me thinking, how can I improve the way I provide exposition in my games? Here are my thoughts!
I’ve been wanting to follow up on my last video on Low Fantasy Gaming for far too long. So much of this system has cropped up in just about any D&D based game I run that it’s hard to understate just how influential this game has been on me as a GM and a player. This game has really allowed my players to just dive into their characters and simply stop caring about what the “optimal” play is in combat, and it’s enabled some of the most cinematic play I’ve seen in gaming.
Low Fantasy Gaming is a return to an age of Sword & Sorcery, where strength and cunning were everything and magic was mysterious and dangerous. A lot of D&D based games have attempted this over the years to varying levels of success. I’ve found Low Fantasy Gaming to come closer than most to that ideal and it manages to do so without bogging the game down with too much complexity. There’s a great attempt here at making a game that’s both easy to learn and fast to play.