An Abominable Fancy

Nate Treme kindly sent me copies of two of his pamphlet-dungeons, Temple of the Bat Serpent , and The Mephitic Laboratory of the Pescamancer. Both are perfect for a low-prep one-shot, which was exactly what this past weekend called for. I choose Temple of the Bat Serpent , because I didn't want to describe some of the surgical horrors of Pescamancer to kids. Prep: I read through the pamphlet, went through it again to double check some details, put about 30 seconds of effort into thinking about how the cultists would talk. The pamphlet contained all the information I needed, and it was all readily accessible. The only supplement I used was a handful of Rory's Story Cubes for when I wanted to fluff up some extra flavor. System: Bat Serpent would run as-is with anything in the OD&D/B/Xish spectrum. I used Knave, which was great. My three players quickly generated two characters each, and everyone enjoyed the scallywags that resulted. And I enjoyed letting the play

In Knaves, fancypants , I included a Death & Dismemberment table. In play, however, I haven't much liked it. So, here's what I think might be a more fun version of same: When a character reaches 0 hit points or fewer, roll 1d6 and 1d4. The d6 determines which attribute is affected. Subtract the 1d4 from the attribute affected.  If this drops the affected attribute to 10/0, you are dead. Roll a new weirdo. If not, you have an injury that takes up one Item Slot.  The player, in consultation with the referee, gets to make up what the injury is. Could be you lost a leg, or developed a phobia, or picked up the clap. Attribute points lost can be recuperated via advancement, or, if your ref is generous, through other means (you get a clever prosthetic, say, or the Ogre Pope blesses you), but you never get that Item Slot back. The old wound will weigh on you, always. If you want higher lethality, increase the d4 to a d6.  This is simpler and easily remembered. It&

I've prepared a new layout document of Ben Milton's Knaves . Knaves is a great, light rules set that has an extremely elegant core mechanic while retaining total compatibility with OSR material. It's pretty much the rpg of my dreams. This document contains the complete rules, plus a bunch of useful hacks from the community, plus a few of my invention, plus some useful resources from Ben Milton's previous effort, Maze Rats . EDIT: I've updated the layout to fix errata and make a few tweaks. Further, I've made 3 variations: KNAVES TABLET LAYOUT The Tablet Layout is meant for scrolling on screens, and contains hyperlinks. KNAVES SPREAD LAYOUT The Spread Layout is set up to print on Letter-sized paper. KNAVES A4 LAYOUT The A4 Layout is set up to print on A4 paper, and is probably the most elegant of the three versions. This is presented with generous permission from Ben Milton, and should in no way be an excuse for not purchasing a copy of Knav

I'm thinking of starting up a PbP game, running Jason Sholtis'  Operation Unfathomable using Ben Milton's Knave. Here's my interpretation of the setting's additional character options. They're all at least a smidge better than a standardly-generated Knave, but I plan on only offering these as options for replacements characters, once the party is deep in the weirdness. Cave Otter You are a black-furred, humanoid otter, adapted to subterranean waterways. You are carnivorous, and untroubled by eating decomposed carrion or creatures warped by Chaos. Oily Coat: You have natural armor worth 3/13. Against oozes, slimes, jellies, and puddings it is worth 9/19. Dexterous: When rolling your DEX score, you may choose from the two lowest dice, instead of just the lowest. However, if your WIS is over 3/13, you must swap it out with your lowest ability. Natural Weapons: Claws (1d3) or Bite (1d6). Playful: A WIS save may be required to resist the impulse to eat,