The Village of Orlane

An online game running through Against the Cult of the Reptile God fizzled out fairly quickly, but not before I'd invested some prep time into it.

I didn't like the perpendicularity of the village of Orlane in the original module's map, so I scribbled my own unkeyed version for use. Hopefully I can run through the module again some time with another group.

Until then, here it the map of the village, should anyone wish to use it. I hope to get some use out of it some time in the future.

Die-based followers

Note: there are two variants presented here - one for Wretches & Riches and one for a more standard d20-based system like Knave. 

W M Goodes

The Objective

One of the elements in Wretches & Riches which in particular strays from traditional D&D-based rules is how the party's NPCs are handled. Since W&R makes it harder for PCs to carry around an armoury for the duration of an adventure, I especially wanted a system which which encouraged them to use followers to help bear the load. Such a system would need to make followers capable enough to be worth having, but not add too much extra information for players to manage so that combat in particular doesn't get bogged down. If possible, I wanted to carry forward the challenge facing PCs - the more hurt you are, the less effective you become.

W M Goodes

I'm a tactile-inclined person, and even when GMing theatre of the mind gameplay I will usually have coins, tokens and dice on a sheet of paper to help me picture how everyone is positioned in a room. Often this doesn't get shown to players - it's behind my (physical or virtual) screen. Over time (especially when either Roll20 or my internet connection were dragging their heels) I started using these physical avatars to represent hit points. Most minion creatures would get a number of tokens or coins stacked on top of each other, to be removed as appropriate, and tougher beasts would get a gradually reducing d20 face.

Taking a leaf out of The Black Hack's book of reducing a basic monster to a single HD figure from which you can extrapolate pretty much everything else you might need, I wanted to do the same with followers. At this point W&R had accrued die-based resources (though still with modifiers for attributes) so it wasn't an enormous leap to abstract most of a follower to a solitary die. Now I have my tokens showing me with a quick glance what die needs to be rolled.

These rules use the following die chain:

Followers in Wretches & Riches 

All followers are represented by a die size, and some skilled followers may have a list of strengths.

Any time the follower needs to make a roll, use their die - including challenging tasks, combat and morale. If the roll would fall under one of the follower's strengths, use the next die size up.

A follower is assumed to provide their own equipment relating to their strengths. For any other items, they may carry up to their max die size in slots.

If there's cause for a follower to question a PC's leadership, such as a disastrous fight or being asked to do something unusually dangerous, roll a morale check with their die. On a 1-3 they reject the PC's authority. The referee should decide if this means a simple refusal, or even potentially the follower quitting and fleeing the whole adventure.

If a follower is wounded at all, reduce their die size one step. If a d4 follower is wounded, they have been killed.

If unsure, a follower usually costs their die size in coin per day.

Followers in Knave

All followers are represented by a die size, and some skilled followers may have a list of strengths.

Any time the follower needs to make a save - including challenging tasks, combat and morale - roll a d20 and their die together, and add the result. Their die size acts as their attribute modifier. If the save would fall under one of the follower's strengths, use the next die size up.

Single roll combat variant: the follower's die is also the damage they cause in combat. If an attack of theirs hits, for damage caused use whatever their die rolled when rolling to hit.

A follower is assumed to provide their own equipment relating to their strengths. For any other items, they may carry up to their max die size in slots.

If there's cause for a follower to question a PC's leadership, such as a disastrous fight or being asked to do something unusually dangerous, roll a morale save. On a failure they reject the PC's authority. The referee should decide if this means a simple refusal, or even potentially the follower quitting and fleeing the whole adventure.

If a follower is wounded at all, reduce their die size one step. If a d4 follower is wounded, they have been killed.

If unsure, a follower usually costs their die size in coin per day.

Bookkeeping

Here is a blank follower 'sheet', and a filled out example:

Wretches & Riches discussion

Jojiro of Dungeon Antology made some comments about Wretches & Riches on the RPG Talk server, and I felt they were worth saving from the transient Discord stream. I always appreciate someone's thoughtful comments, and if that feedback can be documented then so much the better. They will be valuable to looking back on when problem-solving.

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17th Nov 2019 - Jojiro

1. One of my biggest issues with systems like ItO and Knave is that your life has no context in the bigger picture. I feel pressure to make a class system or at least some form of background system for them. That's covered in yours, albeit only with inventory and a cheeky question to the GM regarding dice checks. I like that sort of thing in general. It's also why I'm excited for Electric Bastionland.

2. Unified pass-fail mechanics. I don't actually like your particular implementation of variable dice for each stat necessarily, but I really enjoy when you know if you succeeded or failed the moment you roll, rather than needing the GM to compare it to a hidden AC or DC to be like "uhhh...gimme a sec...you hit". Having 4+ makes the game flow more smoothly. The reason I don't like your implementation necessarily is cuz it doesn't allow for granular difficulty adjustment. My favorite for that remains dice pool systems.

3. I'm a fan of lowering the amount of ability scores/attributes to under classic 6, because I find the 6 existing ones redundant, even for compatibility purposes. So any reformulation of that, I'm a fan of.

4. For similar reasons to #1, I really like the archetypal abilities, though I will say that the 10-week time seems a tad long and unrealistic, even for something like a journeyman-level apprenticeship, much less just learning to pack things more tightly.

5. I'm a big fan of word magic systems. I've yet to find one I like enough to steal from, but each time I see one with recombined words I'm like "this is neatly modular and I feel like eventually I'll find one I want to steal". The big thing stopping me is usually the desire to have magic be simultaneously a "predictable toolbox" and also "succinct and concise" and also "intensely flavorful". And those 3 priorities clash hugely.

6. This is the thing I'm the biggest fan of: single die hirelings. In fact, this idea is only doable because you do variable dice, and have defined checks and tests the way you have. It's not quite possible in most of the systems I've hacked or made, but I really really am looking for ways to steal this precise mechanic, because it's so elegant, and makes hirelings so much easier to handle. I'd go so far as to say that looking at this, I almost felt as if the system was geared around making hirelings convenient, because I really do find this brilliant.
Like, the whole hireling, from health to morale to skills to attacks, is defined by a single die. That's just brilliant to me.

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My reponse:

Thanks for the thoughts, and I too am keenly anticipating Electric Bastionland!

I did until this current iteration try to keep the d20 in, but in the end it just felt out of place. Since that observation came from diehard 5e fans, I took it to heart. Otherwise I was thinking of having a d20 + modifer opposed rolls, which is pretty much what 5e does except for declaring that one side has passively rolled a 10.

I did consider multiple dice for attributes but decided against in the end for the sake of simplicity. Pulp Alley - a miniatures 'war'game (more of an action game) - does do that though, keeping the 4+ rule and going by numbers of successes to overcome challenges. I recommend checking it out - there's a free quickstart PDF, and the author has a large number of Youtube actual plays and tutorials.

The moment when it clicked that I could have four symmetrical attributes all with an 'i' as the second letter was a truly joyous occasion, and now I can barely look at a retroclone without thinking about using this handy quad which nicely embody the four base classes of most clones (DIS-cleric, MIG-fighter, NIM-thief, WIT-magic user).

Yeah, timing-wise I suspect levelling requirements will change, and that's one of the main things I'm looking at in current playtests. I do like the idea that a DIS check might allow the studious to learn faster than their peers, since I think it's probably the 'weaker' of the attributes at the moment, but it's up in the air. I am keen to keep the mentor side of it in though and some time invested to build up plot hooks in the world. My biggest gripe with many OSR rulesets is probably the Vancian magic system. I love any alternative take. My aim with this one is flexibility while keeping a somewhat Pratchett-esque tone. One of my favourite Discworld quotes is this:

Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards – not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you know how easy it is. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.

If I didn't want to try and fit this game into an A5 booklet, each spread would start with a Pratchett quote.

I never got round to playtesting this, but one possibility I thought about for hirelings as die-based characters was rolling both their die and a d20, adding them together. It would essentially mirror 5e's proficiency die alternative in the DMG, and whatever the hireling die rolled could be used as a damage die in a combat scenario, thus keeping their attacks to a single roll.

Wretches & Riches - version 0.41

This is the homebrew game I've been putting friends and family through. It started off as a GLOG hack with gradually more and more Knave and Black Hack elements introduced, then cut out, then sewn back in again. Then Into The Odd reared its head, and apparently it's taken on some Savage Worlds developments too. I've never read Savage Worlds, so others will be in a better position to compare them.

I've never found reading rulebooks easy. The information just doesn't get absorbed efficiently, and I really struggle to translate what I read to what the process might look like in action at the (physical or virtual) table. I wanted to a game which might be a bit kinder to those of us less academically-inclined folks. Pictures, diagrams and examples aplenty. Minimal modifiers.

Old School Compatibility

I wanted to keep it compatible with all the D&D modules out there so it couldn't stray too far from that framework, but it certainly pushes the boundaries. It's various versions have been through the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, the Stygian Library, Fever Swamp and various Trilemma adventures, and its currently running through Against the Cult of the Reptile God. From a GM's perspective, I'd say it has been simple enough to convert things, particularly monsters, on the fly.

Key points:

• Attributes are dice, not modifiers - ranging from d4 to a max of d12. Roll 3+ to succeed a check. Don't roll if it's too easy or impossible. Roll with advantage or disadvantage if there needs to be an adjustment made for difficulty. Opposed rolls if another party is involved (traps and the like can be interpreted to be another party).
  
  This means there's a tactile element to go with a character's attribute improvement.
   
• Four attributes rather than six: Might, Nimbleness, Discipline and Wits. Two physical and two mental. No charisma stat - if a player wants to roll during a conversation, the attribute is determined by the character's approach to the conversation (Might for intimidating, Wits to be charming, etc).
   
• Luck which is also a die - the player can choose to roll it with any other attribute die. Essentially players can choose to roll with Advantage, but if the Luck die rolls 1-3, it drops down a size.
   
• Inventory as HP - the more you get hit, the less you can carry and the less effective you are. Characters have twice as many burden slots as their highest attribute die, and these are used for noting equipment, spells and archetypal abilities. Each point of damage taken fills up a slot with an Encumbrance - any contents must be dropped or rendered unusable. If all slots are filled with Encumbrances, the character rolls on the Death / Reprieve table.
   
• Opposed combat rolls with both participants rolling a single die depending on their weapon. Highest roll inflicts the difference in damage (except in ranged combat - if the defender wins, they've just avoided damage). Armour reduces this damage to a minimum of 1. Shields don't reduce damage, but reduce the size of the opponent's die. If a character uses a weapon die higher than their Might die, then they roll at disadvantage. Allies can roll their dice together and take the sum for their side.
   
• Powerful but dangerous and unreliable magic where the player chooses how many magic dice to roll (equal size to the character's Wits die), and the number that roll 4+ is the level at which the spell is cast. Doubles reduce the Wits die and trebles cause a magical mishap which permanently takes up a burden slot (until the character performs a quest for a wizard or something like that).
  
  I like the idea that a character could decide to go out with a bang and cast at a level which, while dooming themselves, might well eliminate an army of opponents.
   
• Die-based hirelings for simple book keeping - just need to record their die, inventory (equal to die size) and what they're good at. If they need to do anything, roll their die as the appropriate attribute. If it's an area of expertise, roll the next die size up (if they need to roll at all). Getting injured drops their die size down. Use their die for any morale rolls.

Format-wise, it prints nicely as an A5 booklet. The first half accounts for character creation, and the second half encompasses the basic rules. Open up the middle page spread and that's the start of the rules, covering the main points of controlling a character.

Art from W M Goodes' work in the public domain, taken from A Comic Guide to the English and A Comic Guide to the Greeks. It captures the sort of tone I like in my games, and there's a load of good stuff. Any spare white space in further Wretches & Riches work is definitely going to get filled.

PDF of the game book is available here.
Google Sheets version of the character sheet is available here.

Boiling tar-exuding rubber monster

Needed a summoned monster for a magic-using sect doing their evil business underneath a tavern. I wanted to foreshadow its presence and nature, and as that is something in which I have little practice it needed to be about as subtle as a custard pie. As I sat with my notebook to hand, the well-travelled nearby roundabout entertained a young driver wishing to show off their manliness with a display of the squealies. I had my smell.

I had a Dyson map set up on Roll20 so I knew a token would be handy. In a attempt to shift away from the cartoony style used up to this point, and to fit in a bit better with the Dyson house style, I quickly scribbled down a few generic monster images. Turns out my default setting is to do a human or lizard with slightly exaggerated features. Will have to work on that.

I resolved to not get too drawn in to sketching out the whole thing. Sometimes less is more - too definitive a portrayal removes the mystique from an encounter, and it would allow for a bit more flexibility when describing the thing at the table.

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Name: Monster 006 (boiling tar-exuding rubbed monster)

HD: 8

AC: As plate

Att: Bludgeon x2, +8, 2d8+4
or
Spew boiling tar, up to three targets in front must pass DEX save or suffer 4d8 damage (1/day), and d6 damage from anyone standing on it at the start of their turn.

Notes:
- Will inflate its body like bullfrog before exhaling a boiling tarry substance.
- Anyone striking it with a slashing or piercing melee weapon takes d6 damage as they get splashed.
- Stinks of burned rubber, can inflate itself to fill a confined space. Stretchable limbs give it extended reach.

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I deliberately avoided naming it anything specific. I'd made the mistake of referring to a wine golem by its name earlier in the dungeon, and even in an online game I could sense the shift in player's approach to what had been a weird creature punching its way out of a storeroom barrel. Suddenly it was a quantifiable thing.

This thing, instead, remains labelled in a Roll20 folder as Monster 006.

Using OSR monsters in 5e, and simplifying 5e stat blocks

I typed out a pretty hot-aired response to someone on reddit, and it formalised a mental process I've been using which I'd like to get down on virtual paper. It's all very loosey-goosey, but it helps clarify my thinking.

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Original Question:

Anyone have experience or tips for simplifying 5e monsters into a more OSR style? What are your favorite tips and tricks?

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My First Response:

Alas, for I have forked out for the 5e Monster Manual, but I think it's probably easier just working from the older edition stat blocks - they're a heck of a lot easier to improv too.

I focus on working out a rough HD for the monster, from which I can get most of the important numbers.

AC = 10 + HD, unless you have a simple armour system, in which case use that.

Attack bonus = +HD
Attack damage for humanoids = nearest die to HD + 4 rounded down. Use the next highest die if the NPC is skilled at fighting.
Attack damage for monsters = [1/2 HD]d[HD] damage, can be split

# of hits until death = HD. If a damage roll is more than 10, count it as 2 hits. Ignore hits of less than 5 damage.

Target number for strong stat = 10 + HD
Target number for average stat = 10 + 1/2 HD
Target number for weak stat = 10

So a monster I used yesterday for four lvl 3 5e characters was a summoned rubbery monster. My entire notes for it, scrawled down a few minutes before the session, were:


Rubber/tar-demon - HD8

- Bludgeon x2 - +8, 2d8

- Spew boiling tar - Dex save or 4d8 damage

- For every slashing or piercing strike against it in melee, attacker takes d6 damage from spraying tar

- burnt rubber smell, gaping mouth, stretchy limbs & stomach expanding like a balloon before spewing


Kept the PCs going for a few rounds, bringing even the ridiculous AC20 raging half-damage-suffering Barbarian down to 5HP.

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Original Poster's Response:

This is pretty great and I am stealing that monster; But I should have clarified that I meant how can I take an existing monsters stat block from the MM and boil it down into something like this. But it gives me some good insight on how to create my own monsters and I am sure it would be easy enough to adapt.

A few questions;

• How do you determine which die size to use for HD? Is it just arbitrary?
• I am terrible at math and don't understand this formula haha [1/2 HD]d[HD] ; can you clarify?
• I like the idea of number of hits before death, and that's a good formula and a way to let the players still roll damage, which is fun. I think I will adapt that but have you ever just used straight hp? Easy enough to roll up.
• Can you explain the target numbers for stats? Do you mean that if the monsters Strong Stat is it Strength, and it has an ability that requires a strength save from the player, the save is 10+HD?
• Do you bother with monsters having their own bonuses to Saving throws or Stats? Seems like no, and I agree really. You could follow the same formula from Strong/Average/Weak stat easy enough and even on the fly.
• Do you make your boss monsters the same way? Or make them more complicated?

Thanks for this! I am planning a werewolf encounter for tomorrow and I want to keep it fast and dramatic. It will write up my own stats based on this formula and the block from the MM.

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My Incredibly Long-Winded Second Response:

Steal away!

• How do you determine which die size to use for HD? Is it just arbitrary?

I generally assume d8 as it averages out the big and small, but most of the time I don't actually used Hit Dice as dice at all. Especially so with 5e monsters, since they use so many more than the older editions.

• I am terrible at math and don't understand this formula haha [1/2 HD]d[HD] ; can you clarify?

I am certainly no mathematician either. I still have to stop and remember which way round > goes!

It simply means take the HD and halve it, and that's how many dice worth of damage the monster can do in a turn. The size of the damage die is roughly equivalent to whatever their HD is (so an HD8 monster would use d8, an HD11 monster would use d10 or d12 - usually d12 because 5e PCs are tough.)

Actually, I missed out extra damage on the formula - add half the HD in damage onto the roll, essentially accounting for the attribute bonus.

Split the dice as you wish, if you think the monster would have multiattack.

Another example: an HD6 monster would do 3d6 + 3 damage. This could be one attack using three dice, three attacks using one die, or two attacks using two dice in one and one die in the other.

• I like the idea of number of hits before death, and that's a good formula and a way to let the players still roll damage, which is fun. I think I will adapt that but have you ever just used straight hp? Easy enough to roll up.

I have done, and it probably works well enough with one or two monsters, but it can quickly get tricky keeping track of it all. Not difficult, necessarily, but you'll be scrawling down a lot of numbers which can make it harder to remember how well the monsters are each doing.

Using HD as number of hits, it meant that the session before I (as I say, not a mathematician and not great with numbers) felt pretty comfortable running a mass combat of four PCs and four of their NPC allies against some fifteen unique human foes each with a different spell. It just meant I used tallies rather than addition, which sped things up no end!

• Can you explain the target numbers for stats? Do you mean that if the monsters Strong Stat is it Strength, and it has an ability that requires a strength save from the player, the save is 10+HD?
• Do you bother with monsters having their own bonuses to Saving throws or Stats? Seems like no, and I agree really. You could follow the same formula from Strong/Average/Weak stat easy enough and even on the fly.

I don't sweat too much about all the different saves and treat most of them as strong - reasoning that HD is good stand in for 'how difficult is this monster?'. If the monster is forcing the PC to make a save, chances are it's using a 'strong' stat. So yeah, it's the Save DC, essentially.

I also find players don't worry so much about what a monster is weak at compared to what the PC is strong at. If they force the monster to make a save, it's d20 + HD. Mathematically it's the same (like Perception and Passive Perception).

If there is something obvious though, like a Wisdom save for an ogre, then I essentially roll with no modifier.

• Do you make your boss monsters the same way? Or make them more complicated?

Actually, that was the boss monster of sorts, albeit with a lot of those human enemies around. I probably would have put some more thought into it and its special abilities had it been alone, but the core numbers would have remained the same. Essentially, this HD system means I have a core base for monster onto which I can stick any special ability I like, which is what players actually remember from a fight.

• But I should have clarified that I meant how can I take an existing monsters stat block from the MM and boil it down into something like this. But it gives me some good insight on how to create my own monsters and I am sure it would be easy enough to adapt.

This has already become rather long-winded, and I might have to come back to it, but I'm pretty sure you could condense most of the monster stat blocks to something like the above. As I say, it's the special abilities which really make the monster, so take those and adjust things like DCs (and probably just summarise them - 5e is full of generally unnecessary legal-like clauses).

For a number to base the monsters around, I'd take the CR rating instead of HD, and just round up the fraction CRs to 1.

Let's try it. I've just leaned across, grabbed my monster manual and opened to a random page.

Barbed Devil - CR5

Okay, so let's work with that CR.

AC15

Attack bonus: +5

Damage: 2d6+3

Strong stat / DC: +5 / 15

Average stat / DC: +3 / 13

Weak stat / DC: +0 / 10

Not too far off the actual numbers. It doesn't do as much damage in the monster manual, but it's better against save effects.

Its special rules - Barbed Hide, Devils' Sight and Magic Resistance - can stay as they are. In fact so can the attacks.

So if I were to try and condense the stat block, I'd probably go for:

Barbed Devil - CR5

Attacks, either:

- claws and tail - 2 x +6, 1d6+3 ; 1 x +6, 2d6+3

or

- hurling flame - 2 x +5, 3d6 fire

Resistant to cold & mundane physical; immune to poison & fire; advantage against spells & magic

Barbed hide causes 1d10 damage to grapplers

Sees through the dark and magic dark (120ft)

To be honest, if you're looking to condense stat blocks down, just take the CR to guide you on stat DCs and the like, note down attacks and any abilities and resistances that differ from what you could work out in your head (for instance, do you need to write down that skeleton is immune to being poisoned and exhausted?). They won't perfectly match what's in the MM, but they'll be usable at the table.

It must be doable. A chap on the OSR subreddit condensed a whole load of Pathfinder monsters, and brilliantly so. His two-sentence summaries are excellent.

Sorry, quite a lot of hot air.