First gulp of a homebrew

We were not able to find time to do any gaming with my family over the pre-Christmas weekend, but I did run a game with my wife and in-laws on Boxing Day. I used the opportunity to try out my homebrew ruleset, tentatively titled 'hacKnaved' in homage to its inspirations

I took them through Skerples' excellent Tomb of the Serpent King, which I'm also currently using in my D&D 5e online campaign. I will aim to give as spoiler-free a post as I can.

As far as an evening's entertainment went, it was alright. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, judging from the laughter around the table, which satisfied my primary concern. I have a number of thoughts which if for nobody's sake but my own I feel it worth reflecting upon.

First, let me briefly sum up the players:

A - 20s, played a couple of sessions of D&D 5e before, regular board-gamer

B - 20s, plays D&D 5e online and knows the system pretty well, regular board-gamer

C - 20s, started RPG hobby playing a D&D-esque homebrew game of his own before moving onto playing 5e online

D - 30s with young children, little RPG experience but keen board-gamer, very quick grasp of rules (and probably best person I know at explaining a set of rules of any game clearly to inexperienced players)

E - 50s, little RPG experience, regular board-gamer

Now let's have a think about the game:

Ruleset

I will go into the rules that we used in more detail in a dedicated post, but it's worth a cursory look at the game itself and what could be taken into consideration in the future.

After a bit of explaining, I think most players got into the groove pretty quickly, which was reassuring. I did find myself cutting out some elements of the game as I went through the basics, chiefly for the sake of brevity, and it didn't seem to negatively impact on gameplay. There was no focus on the equivalent of Usage Dice since being a de facto one shot, tracking every resource wasn't really necessary. The Luck mechanic was downgraded to simply being a death save. I didn't even bother mentioning magic, and nobody seemed to bat an eyelid, including the regular 5e players.

E had a bit more trouble grasping the mechanics, but was thankfully next to D who, having picked up the system very quickly, was able to help indicate which dice should be rolled when. The Stamina system probably proved the most difficult aspect, and in hindsight I probably wouldn't have bothered using Stamina Dice (approximate equivalent to Hit Dice, and we just didn't need them beyond initial Character Creation.

The Character Sheet worked well enough, and A commented that she particularly liked the experience system - boxes to fill in as and when experience was earned, with the borders on milestone boxes being bolder - in comparison to players having to add lots of high numbers together. I used essentially a milestone system whereby an experience box was coloured in after characters moved down a dungeon level or took out a boss monster.

It was a highly lethal game. At the close only A had her original character - B and C were on their second, E was on his third, and D lost his third at the climax. The high body count was partly down to different player approaches - more on that later - but I wonder at the pros and cons of characters being quite so squishy in a one shot. On the one hand it meant that the loss of a character was less of a tragedy, and so players felt happier taking more risks - subsequent characters were particularly expendable. This ensured that gameplay was fast, and we pretty much got through the dungeon in two and a half hours - which I'm sure is a very speedy run through in comparison to the module's intention. However, there was less of an incentive for creativity. The players didn't seem to mind too much, but it's an issue I want to keep in mind going forward.

Character Creation was a quick affair of a couple of minutes - thankfully, considering the six extra characters we needed to conjure up - though even that disrupted the flow of the game - in future I would probably roll up a reserve of sheets for when a player's first character is killed off. The players all rolled for stats, professions and equipment, and having hit the experience milestones they rolled for advancements too. Characters were thus created and developed quickly, though at the expense of character investment for most players (apart from A, who doggedly ensured that Colin the Sailor survived to the end).

Ultimately I was happy with how the system ran, considering this was its first outing from the recesses of my head. I had a quick reference sheet for my own use, but it would really have handy for some of the players to have had something they could glance at as well, perhaps an annotated character sheet. I do feel that there is scope for a quick-start one shot version, though in all honesty it would be so similar to Knave that I might as well use that instead (and it gives starting characters more hit points!).

Playstyles

That said, character longevity had very much to do with the various approaches each player had to the game. My online games have all had players cut from a similar cloth, so I wasn't perhaps as prepared as I should have been for the three distinct styles encountered, which I feel can be summed up with reference to certain television series:

Taskmaster - A took the premise of a character dungeon crawling to pay off a large debt to heart, whatever happened to anyone else! She focused on getting past the traps in one piece first and foremost, and after that on gold accumulation. Comedy and larks were welcome, but ultimately she was competitive, and she was going to beat the system. Her preference was for problem solving and creativity.

Fargo - B & C, the two regular 5e players, stayed in character as trader and servant, and then miller and trapper brothers after the first pair's demise. They developed their characters, in so far as they could with the evening's premise of debt-ridden average 'adventurers', but accepted that life was cheap and the story could go on. Their main interest was in the plot.

Monty Python - D & E, the two players with the least RPG experience, cheerfully had their characters charge into rooms and at creatures, playing for laughs and largely unconcerned if their imaginary avatars got squashed, stabbed or electrocuted. Their primary concern was humour. To give an idea of their approach, D's character names were, in chronological order, Twinty, Nonteen and Octeen.

For an evening's entertainment, these three styles coexisted comfortably enough for everyone to have a good time. The Taskmaster approach was the one I was more mentally prepared for, and which I think works best in Tomb of the Serpent Kings, but had all the players been of the same mind we would not have got through much of the dungeon by the close of play. That would not have mattered for a few linked sessions over a couple of evenings, but may not have given the same level of satisfaction for a one shot.

Timing

Mileage will vary considerably on this point, but with this group of players I would try and play RPG sessions a little bit earlier in the evening. Several of us were flagging after two and a half hours due to a combination of age, hearty seasonal meals and young children. Even an hour or half an hour earlier might have given enough of a boost to get to the end before eyelids drooped.

As it was, we sped through the adventure. I cut out about a quarter of the map to ensure that there might be some sort of climax which I felt would end the session on a high note (essentially turning one of the more significant challenges into a treasure guardian). Considering the time limit, I might have done better to choose a different module - as fun as the Tomb of the Serpent King was, I don't think it is best done in a hurry.

Playing around the table

This was only the second time I've properly GMed a game with the players being in the same room, and there is much room for improvement. For one thing, I need to put together some resources I can use at the table. The first time I GMed in person a tried using a laptop as my GM 'screen' since it had an excel file with all my random tables. I didn't like how my scrolling around on it slowed down gameplay (partly due to a very old laptop) so tried to make do without it this time round. I have become very dependent on Roll20 to track my NPCs in combat. I tried just coping with a notepad but everything was getting too messy and unintelligible by the end. Perhaps some basic NPC sheets for future occasions. The module's OSR-friendly stat blocks did convert nice and quickly, though, so a definite plus there.

This was also my first attempt going full theatre of the mind - again, pros and cons. Any fights that happened were nice and cinematic, though I don't think I gave the environment enough furnishing to get the players' imaginations working as much as they could have. I did struggle with describing progress through the tunnel system, so I will probably revert to what I have occasionally done on Roll20 - I have redrawn the Tomb of the Serpent Kings map for player use, and since I messed up the scan a bit the map is now gridless. It's not quite as freeflowing as theatre of the mind, but image is so abstract that it pretty much forces a player to imagine in the scenery.

Anyhow, all food for thought. I must get back to walking off and sleeping off the Christmas calories.

Attributes & Bonuses

I'm taking the plunge and going with three attributes: Might for all things based on physical prowess and melee; Finesse for all things delicate and ranged; Wits for all things mental and magical.

Having (barely) taught English in university and school classes, my aim is avoid some of the struggles I encountered. I  wish to be able to explain the rules in the English language and yet keep it as far from the structure of the English language as possible. I don't want to describe rules and then explain why those rules don't apply in this or that situation.

And so as much as I like the simplicity of the roll-under-attribute system of The Black Hack, I hope to keep the theme running throughout the ruleset that 'Higher Is Better', which allows for the 1-2 = failure, 3+ = success mechanics of Usage Dice. If it is possible to avoid have a natural 1 on a d20 be a critical success but a failure on a d12, then I will do so.

So I will be sticking to adding a modifier to a d20 with a target number to beat, as is the case with most D&D-esque games. Hopefully that will also make converting a lot of old material relatively straightforward.

But what modifier? It has never seemed satisfactory to derive a modifier from a larger number representing an attribute - it seems an unnecessary bit of mental arithmetic to ask of a player (not usually too complicated on its own, but all these little references to different values and subsequent calculations - as well as double checking with the GM to make sure everything's being done correctly soon add up), and it renders the original attributes as awkward bits of decoration taking up valuable room and attention on a character sheet.

Knave makes the attribute itself be the modifier, so you just add the value of the attribute to the d20 roll. I would like to follow suit. In terms of impact this might have on the game itself, I suspect the characters might advance a little quicker than other systems which do use modifiers, since an increased attribute will have bigger impact on resolving challenges instead of contributing to an eventual increase in modifier. This means starting off with much lower stats than a D&D-esque player might be used to, but will make much more sense to a newcomer to the hobby. 

No more explaining why you need to roll these higher numbers because they lead to higher lower numbers.

What range of numbers are we looking at, then? If they start at 1 (or perhaps 0), what is the cap?

D&D 5e has Attribute Modifiers going up to +5, with an additional proficiency bonus up to +6. That's a bit too high for my liking. I have no wish to accommodate superheroes with these rules - I want to aim for ordinary people doing extraordinary things, with those ordinary people eventually getting a little less ordinary at doing those extraordinary things. If one were to follow the old D&D houserule of capping levels at level 6, and apply it to 5e, the max modifier a character could get would be +8. An top attribute of 8 seems fair at this point, accounting for the fact that there won't be a list of skills in this system to which one could apply additional modifiers.

I rather like The Black Hack's character leveling system where you have to roll a d20 for each attribute and increase it by 1 if you roll higher. It's another instance of rolling higher is better in some instances but not in others (like challenge resolution), but in a system where Higher Is Better it fits in nicely. It will balance out characters who start off with worse stats than others and yet keep some of the randomness of character creation going. An attribute range of 0 to 8 allows a player to just roll one die to try this, and encourages an impression of a character making reasonable strides in ability (going from 5 to 6 seems a greater leap than from 15 to 16).

Alright, so now I have a spine of a system which hopefully still accommodates smooth converting of OSR and D&D material. Now to ponder the ribs...

Attributing Correctly

At the moment my biggest conundrum in collaging an RPG is what Attributes should be represented in it.

All the D&D retroclones keep to the D&D array (henceforth referred to as the Standard Six) - Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma - and those are the ones I am most familiar with, as would probably be anyone who has played a computer game requiring you to allocate stat points. And had I not read quite so many different RPGs recently, I daresay I would have thought nothing of continuing the tradition.

But I have come across game authors proposing alternatives, ranging from a pared-down trio of attributes up to eight or so. Thus I am open to the possibility of a different attribute line up.

With the desire to provide less complexity to new players, I will put aside the possibility of splitting up some of the Standard Six.

Reducing the attributes, however, is tempting. 

My favourite tabletop miniatures game for the last few years has been Pulp Alley, which runs with six attributes of its own: Brawl, Shoot and Dodge for combat-related challenges, and Might, Finesse and Cunning for non-combat. Wanting to lean away from giving combat too much rule space, I will not give it its own attributes, but the latter three provide a good coverage of most of the potential challenges a party might face. Players could use those to create pretty well-rounded adventurers, or specialise in one to make an archetypal Fighter, Rogue or Wizard. I might change Cunning to Wits which I feel would broaden the scope of the attribute a bit more to include information recall, as well as complementing the other two to create a consistent shorthand: Mi, Fi and Wi.

I have toyed with the idea of adding a fourth attribute - not one that I would be able to easily tie in with that shorthand - for that other important aspect of RPGs: social interaction and challenges. Charisma would hopefully underline the importance of diplomacy to reduce the number of character deaths from unnecessarily violent encounters.

However, if I were to move away from the Standard Six, I would be quite keen to leave behind the occasions which I see in 5e whereby a character tells a not-very-good lie and aces their deception roll. Every once in a while is alright, but Charisma almost works as a skill in its own right with players tending to rely upon it and its roll bonus rather than playing the role. It could be used largely to determine how many followers a character might be able to manage, and give bonuses to random encounter reaction rolls, but I feel that it wouldn't be of all that much use in the dungeon (or general adventuring areas) compared to the others, and I would be encouraging people to avoid using it in social scenarios.

Then again, the OSR ethos is generally to resort to attribute checks only if you have to, so would that same encouragement apply to the other three?

All that said, the Standard Six would be more familiar to those who have played popular RPGs before, and would allow for a fairly straightforward conversion of other OSR material for quick use at the table. People would also feel that their characters were more distinct from each other, but is a reliance on one's stats to determine character really something I want to encourage?

Ideally I'd like to be able to tailor it to the group's needs, depending on their comfort and experience. If it were only a case of having two different character sheets, that would be fine. Alas, not really feasible, particularly since I want to link HD or an equivalent more closely to an attribute than is currently the case.

Ack, perhaps more discussions to bring to the Discord channel and G+ communities. They have been very helpful and understanding so far.

Cobbling together an RPG

I want to put together an RPG system.

At the moment, it's purely an academic exercise. Gainful employment and such petty life commitments mean that I only have one evening a week for regular RPGing, and that's dedicated to a D&D 5e campaign at the moment. However, Christmas approaches - and so do a few days with the in-laws, among which are two D&D players and a few others who appeared to enjoy the one taster session I ran with them one family holiday. 

Particularly thinking of this latter group, I remember how much time we spent talking through various rules, and how long it took beforehand to come up with characters (having foolishly forgotten to bring any premade characters), and want to try and provide a game which will be a lot simpler for the non-gamers to pick up. Heck, if it's simple enough, I might even be able to run through it with my own family.

Now, my first instinct is to go with The Black Hack - and may well do so, if I run out of time - because I enjoy so many of its mechanics. For one thing, it requires players to roll under the attributes for skill rolls so that the attribute values actually matter, which will save some time on rolling attributes with players and then telling them to forget all that and focus on the bonus. 

That said, I wonder it might be a bit too big a shock to the system for the more experience D&D players to treats natural 1s as critical successes and natural 20s as failures - it flies in the face of quite ingrained instincts, and even my wife with her four D&D sessions found the idea a bit odd. It makes sense, but just doesn't feel right.

I'm also not quite sold on the idea of explaining that rolling low is good in some cases - skill checks and combat - but rolling high is good in others - usage dice, fixing armour and HD. Again, it makes sense, but is it intuitive? One thing I do appreciate in 5e is how everything is worked around the concept of highest is best.

Knave, on the other hand, does both keep rolling high as the default throughout its system, and in fact on the whole is simple enough to run as is with newcomers to RPGs. I do wonder, though, if its classlessness might prove to be too big a psychological obstacle for the D&Ders. Someone on Discord the other day opined that a system's character creation system is perhaps its most defining feature, which seems a very fair comment and I would probably extend that to include character development.

I like the idea of a classless game, particularly since the new players don't have a gaming background and therefore no attachment to the ubiquitous four classes ('Cleric? What's a vicar doing here?'), nor do they have any guidance with how certain classes are supposed to play. But perhaps a little bit of customisation and a more substantive character development system could work as a compromise.

So I need to work through what I'm looking for in a beginner-and-pro-friendly ruleset, and hopefully the next few blog posts will help me clarify ideas and set a direction.

Based on the above, here are things I reckon I want to include at the time of writing:

- Few different mechanics

- Attribute-relevant rolls

- Rolling high as a consistent aim

- Classless characters, but with customisation and development available to those who might appreciate it

And some things to consider for the future:

- Purely semantic, but call all monsters and humanoids 'NPCs' or some other all-encompassing label to avoid - for myself if nothing else - mentally pre-judging encounters to be 'peaceful' or 'violent' occasions.

- Which Attributes to go with - standard six, or pared down?

- Specified skills or bonuses from backgrounds or vocations?

- A fun but simple magic system.

- Avoiding too great a leap from level to level to avoid level 2 NPCs from becoming completely unthreatening to level 4 players and above.

- Another point raised on Discord - how to give a thoughtful newcomer an equal footing to a player who knows the system?

- Lethality - high if players are careless, so a quick character generation system might be best, too.