An Abominable Fancy

On the one hand, one doesn't want to fall down the rabbit hole of historical simulationsim. On the other hand, it's nice to not be talking entirely out of one's ass. from Matthäus Schwarz's Klaidungsbüchlein   After posting some thoughts/assumptions on plate armor , I was shown this video of a guy in a swimming pool wearing plate armor . He's no porpoise, but perhaps my Kelly Gang comparisons were not as illuminating as I thought. So, a minimal bit of googling yielded this page from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Arms and Armor—Common Misconceptions and Frequently Asked Questions . Here's a choice bit: When early scholars of armor looked at medieval artworks, they noticed what they thought to be depictions of many different forms of armor: rings, chains, bands of rings, scales, small plates, etc. With poetic license, all early armor was referred to as "mail," distinguished only by its appearance, hence the terms "ring-mail,"...

Continuing my thoughts from this post , here's a second take on Innocents Abroad . The goal is to create the sort of talented-but-inexperienced adventurer who is the protagonist of pretty much every fantasy novel and fairy tale. Several people have directed me to Zack S.'s The Alice . This is a wonderful character concept, but a little more specific than what I'm going for here. I did steal (and water-down) one of her abilities. And if you have a better idea for what to call this class, I'd be eager to hear it. Catskin by Arthur Rackham The Youngest Son/Daughter: An Untrained Adventurer Almost always the youngest of three siblings, unless they are an orphan. They might be a Princess or a Woodchopper’s Son, but they have no formal training in adventuring skills.  Requirements: CHR 9 Prime Requisite: WIS Hit Points: 1d4 Save: as Thief Weapons: Any Armor: Shields; Any armor except Plate Mail 1       ...

There seemed to be some interest in my notion of restricting plate mail to Fighters . First thing: I know. I know. Plate mail is not plate armor. But danged if I don’t still picture the full suit of hinged knightwear whenever I read about plate mail, and also-danged if illustrators haven’t populated rule books with image after image of adventurers running around in plate armor. I'm not a nitty-gritty combat simulationist. I like nice, broad, simple categories of armor: Light/Flexible: Leather; Hide; Studded; or, I dunno, how thick is that wool peacoat? Medium/Semi-Rigid: Pretty much everything else. Heavy/Rigid: Plate Armor; anything that would make the Kelly Gang sit up and take notice. The Story of the Kelly Gang, 1906 (motion picture) Heavy/Rigid armor:  Requires help getting into or out of. Prevents you from doing pretty much anything except walking, sitting on a horse once you've been placed on it, and swinging weapons. Wil...

In my previous post of the Innocent Abroad Character Class , I think I was trying to do a few too many things at once. I'd like to break the idea down a little further: What does the baseline human adventurer look like? What would a playable untrained adventurer class look like? What would a playable all-purpose adventurer look like? I think I'll ramble on the first point, tonight. The Baseline Human Adventurer, stripped of any class benefits, looks like this: Requirements: None Hit Die: 1d4 Save as Thief Weapons: any type Armor: Any armor, any shield Would probably level at around 800 XP, like what I had for the Innocents. Pretty simple. If well-equipped, a little better in a fight than a spell-depleted MU or a Thief caught out in the open, and much better than a Normal Human. Not very useful to play, but good for evaluating other classes. The point of interest for me is the 1d4 hit die. I tend to think of 1d6 as the default hit dice, becaus...

The Squire from The Canterbury Tales The character who appears in every fantasy novel ever, and yet isn't modeled in B/X D&D is the wide-eyed innocent: the assistant pig-keeper who dreams of glory, or the merchant's daughter who gets swept up in adventure. Characters like this often get framed as fighters, as if fighters were just the default human adventurer. This dilutes the concept of the fighter as a trained specialist in arms and armament.  You could also play the character as level 0. This works if everyone else is also staring at level 0 and your walking into a funnel. But the level 0 characters are supposed to be what B/X calls Normal Humans. Normal Humans are explicitly not adventuring types. And the assistant pig-keepers of the world may be naive and unskilled, but they are still definitely adventurers. Let's take a look at the Normal Human. Normal Human Hit Points: 1-4 Save: Death Ray 14; Wands 15; Paralysis 16; Breath 17; Spells 1...

You probably already know this. I probably know this. For those of us with a proclivity for the Great Clomping Foot of Nerdism, but who, in our moments of clarity recognize that over-world-building is a barrier between the GM and the players, a tenet: Don't GM like Tolkein. GM like Chandler. Raymond Chandler famously resisted plotting out his books, figuring that the only way to keep it surprising was if he himself was surprised. Instead, he concentrated on writing one 800-word segment at a time, and making sure that segment had something juicy in it. If you gave me the best plot in the world all worked out I could not write it. It would be dead for me. Of course, if you look back over Chandlers plots, they don't always make sense. But that doesn't matter much, because they were still fun to read. The ideal mystery was one you would read if the end was missing.

Some assumptions: Magic systems should be fun. Magic systems should offer a lot of variety. The classic D&D spells are the lingua franca of rpg magic. It is good when magic is mysterious and wonder-producing. It is convenient and practical when magic is mechanical and predictable. Perhaps the thing to do is to use the established spell lists as a catalog of effects for the GM's benefit, not as a menu for player's to pick from.  You get the ease of established mechanics and spell effects that are compatible with other products, while keeping things murky enough that magic never loses its wonder. Talking to Spirits Here's a great magic system that does exactly this: Spirit Magic by Brett Slocum . Instead of casting spells, it is a system for negotiating with spirits, who create spell effects for you. But the players never really know what they're going to get. The results could be better, worse, or completely different from what they had in mind. And t...