Converting NPC races to PC characters: First Attempt

The AFF manual includes guidelines for converting any NPC to a playable race. A few days ago, I converted Orcs. I do not have the "Out Of the Pit" suppliment, so I'm doing this based on the basic entry in the AFF Manual for Orcs and my general understanding of orcs based on fantasy literature and my experience with Role Playing Games in general.

So I began with the entry for Orc. Skill 6, Stamina 5. subtract 3 points from Skill. That is the base skill for this race. Then divide the stamina by two, and add that to the base skill. This becomes a base value for the race.

So we get Skill 3 + Stamina 2 = 5. If this total is less than 8 (and it is, obviously), note the difference and add it as points in the next phase. If the total exceeds 8, then deduct the difference from the default Luck value of 8.

The next phase I determine any racial stats that apply to Orcs. You normally get 6 points to buy talents, stat bonuses, or skills. Here is where it gets tricky. Each race should have a bonus to one characteristic or another. So thats Skill, Luck, Stamina or Magic.

I picked Stamina, because Orcs are hardy. So I spend 2 points from the (6+3=9) 9 points to give +2 to to Stamina (2 points to get +1 to a characteristic, and +1 to Stamina gives 2 points).

Combat Talents cost 4 points, non-combat cost 2.

Orcs have Darkvision in OSR games, so I gave them Darkvisions here. A 2 point Talent. I have 5 points left to spend. They're divided as follows:

Any Weapon 1
Brawling 1
Strength 1
Underground Lore 1
Any Movement 1

Language skills are not included. So I gave the Orc:

Orcish 4
Common 2

The player then has 8 Characteristic points to spend on Skill, Luck, Magic and Stamina per the standard character building rules, and 12 points to customize the character's Special Skills. Lastly, pick one additional Talent at no extra charge.

I am not entirely happy with this build, because the default starting Stamina exceeds the stamina of the NPC Orc. So I must either conclude that I should put the bonus in another stat (like Luck), or that a PC adventurer will tend to have a little more Stamina than your run-of-the-mill Orc.

So my final Orc (for now):

SK 3, LK 8, ST 7, MG 0, Darkvision, Weapon 1, Brawling 1, Strength 1, Underground Lore 1, Any Movement skill 1, Orcish 4, Common 2


After finish the Orc, I picked something a little more challenging. Here is my Ogre PC.

Ogres NPCs have SKILL 8 and STAMINA 10.

Subtract 3 from SKILL (SK = 5).

Add half of Stamina (5) to SKILL to get base value (10).

10 Exceeds default LUCK of 8 by 2 points, so LUCK is reduced to 6.

The NPC Ogre gets 2 attacks per round, and +1 to damage rolls. I see no reason to deny this to a PC Ogre. So these are two combat talents. Only 6 points are allowed at this phase, so 4 points are spent on 2-attacks and 4 points are spent on +1 to damage, resulting in a balance of -2. If you're going to give the Ogre a bonus to a Characteristic, then that's another 2 points. Let's say they get 2 extra points to stamina (2 points, Resulting in a balance of -4. If you skip buying a Characteristic bonus to SK, LK, or ST, then the balance is -2. I'm going to skip the Stamina bonus.

This negative balance is deducted from the special skill points allowed for the player to customize the Ogre. So the Ogre gets 8 (or 10) points for Special Skills instead of 12.

I'll give it language skills of:
Ogreish (if it exists) 4
Common 2

Would there even be such thing as Ogreish language skill of 4? It all depends on what AFF Ogres are supposed to be like. I imagine their tongue to be crude, so even the most eloquent speakers might be a skill of 3. But I will, for now, assume a possible fluency rating of 4.

So we're left with base Ogre PC stats of:

SK 5, LK 6, STA 10, MG 0, 2 Attacks/Round, +1 Damage rolls, 8 (or 10) build points for Special Skills

The manual gives the Ogre Light Monster Armor. I don't know if this is due to tough skin or just the scraps of animal hide that it might wear for armor. Without "Out of the Pit", I can't say whether a proper ogre should have naturally tough skin and what the cost would be.

The reason I'm unsure about the cost of Light Monster Armor, is that the sample Rhinoman has medium Monster Armor because of it's Rhinoceros skin, and the cost is 4 points for that. So would Light Monster Armor also cost 4 because it's a combat Talent? Or would it cost 3, perhaps, and Heavy Monster Armor would be 5 or 6, or even 8?

The Ogres I'm familiar with aren't especially bright or talented, so going into the player build phase with only 10 points makes sense to me. There's no generic racial special skills because it was all blown on fighting talents. I don't think they need tough skin, so I'm going to assume their armor is just leather hides or scraps of metal sewn together.

After I acquire Out Of the Pit, I look forward to creating more playable races.

AFF Armor Soak Statistics

	Average Damage Soak of Armor Types
	In Advanced Fighting Fantasy
	This data compilation is public domain
			Odds of armor
Armor	Avg 1-6	Avg 1-7	soaking any dmg X/6
Leather Cuirass	0.33	0.57	2
Leather Hauberk	0.83	1.00	5
Chain Cuirass	0.83	1.14	3
Chain Hauberk	1.50	1.71	5
Breast Plate	1.00	1.43	3
Plate Armor	2.00	2.29	6
Monster Light	0.50	0.71	3
Monster Med	1.00	1.29	4
Monster Hvy	1.83	2.14	5
Sm Shield	Special: +1 to total soak		2
Lg Shield	Special: +1 to total soak		3
Dodge 1	0.17	0.43	1
Dodge 2	0.33	0.57	2
Dodge 3	0.67	1.00	3
Dodge 4	1.00	1.29	4
Dodge 5	1.50	1.86	5
Dodge 6	2.00	2.43	5

AFF Weapon Damage Statistics

	AFF Weapon Statistics
	This Compilation of Data is public domain
Weapon	Avg Dmg 1-6	Avg Dmg 7+	Most	Weapon Notes
			Common
Great Sword	3.50	3.86	3,4	2h
Battle Axe	3.33	3.57	3	2h
Pole Arm	3.17	3.43	3	2h
Crossbow	3.00	3.29	2,3,4	2h missile
Long Bow	3.00	3.29	3	2h missile
Javelin	3.00	3.29	3	missile
Lance	3.00	3.29	3,4
Sword	3.00	3.29	3
Spear	2.83	3.14	3
Mace	2.83	3.00	3
War Hammer	2.83	3.00	3
Morning Star	2.67	3.00	2,4	-2 Attack total
Hand Axe	2.50	2.71	2,3
Quarter Staff	2.50	2.71	3	2h
Short Bow	2.33	2.57	3	2h missile
Short Sword	2.33	2.57	3
Club	2.17	2.43	2
Sling	1.83	2.14	2	missile
Dagger	1.67	1.86	2
Throwing Dagger	1.50	1.71	1,2	missile
Improvised	1.50	1.71	1,2
Unarmed Human	1.17	1.43	1
Unarmed Large	2.50	2.86	2
Bite/Claw Small	2.67	2.86	3
Bite/Class Med	3.17	3.43	3
Bite/Claw Large	4.17	4.57	3,4

Converting Dungeon World To Advanced Fighting Fantasy

This is a conversion of Dungeon World characters to Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

I use the male pronoun throughout this document for simplicity.  I use the abbreviations DW for Dungeon World, FF for Fighting Fantasy, and AFF for Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  I use shorthand SK for SKILL, LK for LUCK, MG for MAGIC and STA for STAMINA, MP for Magic Points.

I encourage you to think for yourself and disregard anything that doesn't suit your tastes.

The purpose of this document is to convert existing DW characters to AFF.  Once that characters die or retire, build characters according to the basic AFF rules.  I created this document in case anyone else felt like changing game systems while retaining their characters.  I've never heard of anyone quitting Dungeon World for Fighting Fantasy.  I suspect I'm the only one.  In any case, I hope you find this document interesting, even if it is not useful to you.

A bit on dice probability (for the uninitiated):  Rolling 2d6 results in a bell curve of results.  7 being the most common, then 6 and 8 together, then 5 and 9 together, 4 and 10, 3 and 11, 2 and 12.  In the game Dungeon World, success is achieved on a 2d6 roll by rolling 7 or higher (58% probability).  This means most attempts by the characters to do anything tend to succeed.  I tried to emulate that as much as possible here.

In Dungeon World, there are 6 stats that affected the ability to do any task.  The pregenerated stats gave a +2, two +1's, two Zeroes, and one -1 assigned to Strength, Dexterity, Consitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.  Many (but not all) players would put the +2 in the stat that affects the character's primary function.  For example, a fighter would put +2 in Strength because it affects Melee and Bend Bars/Lift Gates.  Thus a fighter with +2 to strenth, rolling a 5, would get a 7, a success.

Keeping with the spirit of that game, I did my best to ensure that each class below has the same probability of success with that class's primary function.  so the Fighter has a SKILL of 7 and two points in Weapon and Strength.  The Wizard has MAGIC 7 and 2 points in Magic-Wizardry.  The odds of success parallel that of Dungeon World.  A dice roll of 9 occurs as often as a 5, and so the odds of success with the two point bonus are the same. The only difference is that DW is a roll-over system and Fighting Fantasy is a roll-under system.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of character building in AFF, the Wizard will have low SKILL, so playing an eccentric Wizard that likes to fight and do physical stunts is less practical.  With 2 points added to a few chosen skills, his total SKILL + special skills would be a 6, which isn't horrible.

Deviating from normal starting AFF characters, I gave each converted class multiple starting Talents to further emphasize their specialization.

On Hitpoints:  In Dungeon World, hitpoints varied based on class and the Constitution Score.  Generally speaking, the Fighter and Paladin usually had the highest; followed by Ranger; then Druid, Cleric, Bard and Thief; and lastly the Wizard.  If we translate that hierarchy to this game.  The Wizard would have 8 or 10.  Druid, Cleric, Bard and Thief 10 or 12, Ranger 12 or 14, and Fighter and Paladin 14 or 16.

The only characters I broke the special skill point cap for are the Fighter and Paladin so they can wear any armor without penality as in Dungeon World.

*Fighter*

SK 7, LK 9, MG 0, STA 16
Talents:
 Armor Training
 Weapon Master
 StrongArm

Skills:
 Primary Weapon: 2
 Armor: 4
 Strength: 2
 4 points left for any other skills

Other:
 Starts with a Magic Weapon giving +1 to Attack, Damage, or Other special effect.

Comments:
 Armor maxed out to give full flexibility in choosing armor as in DW.

*Paladin*

SK 7, LK 8, MG 2, ST 14
Talents:
 Armor Training
 Strongarm
 Holy or Blessed

Deity: Any. I Suggest Libra, Goddess of Justice and Truth

Skills:
 Armor: 4
 Primary Weapon: 2
 Magic, Priestly: 2
 Healing: 1
 Law: 1
 2 points left

Other:
 None.

Comments:
 Basically a fighter with a deity.  Very customizable.
 Armor maxed out to give full flexiblity in choosing armor as in DW.
 Suggest two points for Etiquette or Con to use the "I Am the Law" skill from Dungeon World or just role-play the moral and political influence of the Paladin.  In my game, the player character is part of a ruthless Paladin order that is either feared, or hated, and only occasionally appreciated.  So the role-play option will work well.  On a successful roll, anyone that recognizes his Order will attack, flee, or submit.

*Cleric*

SK 7 LK 8 MG 4 STA 10
Talents:
 Holy
 Blessed
 Natural Physician

Any Deity, but only Usrel has the Banish spell.

Skills:
 Magic, Priestly: 2
 10 points left

Other:
 none.

Comments:
 I suggest putting 2 points into healing special skill if you want your cleric to be a medic.  Most deities give a Heal spell, but it's usable only 2x per day with the Blessed talent or 3x if you want to burn a luck point.

 To Turn Undead, you either need to choose Usrel as this Cleric's deity to get the Banish spell, or create a new deity that has Heal, Banish, and any two other priest spells that are similar to Dungeon World cleric spells.

 The DW Cleric has cantrips, so I also suggest putting points into Minor Magic to give the priest some cantrips such as Ripen or Glimmer, and treat them as priest spells usable once per day.

*Bard*

SK 7 LK 8 MG 4 STA 10 MP 12

Talents:
 Focus (see comments)
 Silvertongued
 Natural Linguist

Skills:
 Magic, Wizardry: 2
 Magic, Minor: 1
 Etiquette: 2
 Weapon of choice: 1
 World Lore: 2
 4 points remaining
Other:
 Cantrips: Entertain, Noise, any other (perhaps Weather Protection or Pied Piper)
 Spells: Whatever you want.
Comments:

 The Focus talent is meant for his instrument.  You can just role play the fact that the Bard sings his spells.  The fact that his MAGIC score is lower than your typical Wizard means his songs can serve (in role playing terms) as Spell Prep and give +1 per round of prep per the standard spell prep rules.


*Wizard*

SK 4 LK 9 MG 7 ST 8

Talents:
 Natural Mage
 Learned
 Arcane

Skills:
 Magic, Wizardry: 2
 Magic, Minor: 1
 *Magic, Arcane: 1 or 2
 7 to 9 points left

Other:

Comments:
 I suggest putting skill points into knowledge skills as the DW Wizard would often use his superior Intelligence to "Spout Lore" on the world about him to help the party.  However there's nothing that says you can't put some points into weapons if you really want to be a fighting wizard.
 The DW Wizard has three cantrips, so I suggest picking at least three cantrips.

 *There are rules for ritual magic in AFF but they're for very high level casters.  To make rituals available to lower level characters,  I suggest allowing the character to buy the Magic-Arcane special skill at any time.

*Druid*
SK 7, LK 8, MG 4, STA 10
Talents:
 Survivor
 Animalfriend
 Blessed

Beast Lords deity, with associated priest spells

Skills:
 Magic, Priestly: 2
 Animal Lore: 2
 Wilderness Lore (choose forest, mountain, swamp, etc):2
 Secret Signs, Ranger: 1
 Awareness: 2
 3 points left

Other:
 none

 His special priest power is to talk freely to creatures of the type he serves (akin to DW Spirit Tongue).

 The DW Trait "Born of the Soil" has no equivalent in AFF.  Just roleplay that the druid has to bear a physical mark of the land he's attuned to (antlers, leopard spots, cat whiskers, leafy hair, etc)

 The only priest spell for this class affected by the MAGIC stat is Heal.  If you don't want a healing druid, reduce MAGIC to 1, and put the points into SKILL, LUCK and STAMINA.  Then reduce the special skill Magic-Priestly to 1.  So your final base build could be SK 7, LK 10, MG 1, STA 12.  Your Heal will be worth 2, but you'll have more flexibility in doing other things.  Don't overlook the possible benefits however of healing a wounded animal in distress.

 This druid is more limited in shape shifting than the Dungeon World druid: only 2x per day without burning luck.  However, there's no time limit for shifting back.

 The Survivor talent is close enough never having to eat, which I thought was a a bit ridiculous in DW anyways.

*Thief*

SK 7 LK 11 MG 0 STA 12
Talents:
 Trapmaster
 Lucky
 Light Sleeper or Ambidextrous

Skills:
 12 points remaining (see comments)

Other:
 none

Comments:
 The Ambidextrous talent would be useful for ambush/backstab attacks.  As for special skills, Put 2 points each into your favorite thief skills and go from there.
 Suggested rules for new skill "Crafting-Poison":  A poisoner can craft a dose of any poison he's familiar with, provided he has the materials and equipment.  Time depends on the nature of the poison.  Simple poisons that do not kill outright, such as sleepiness, clumsiness, minor damage, minor hallucinations, etc: One dose per one hour of work.  Instant death: 12 hours per dose.  A skill check failure ruins the dose of poison.  A critical success creates two doses, a twice potent dose, or half the creation time.

*Ranger*

SK 7 LK 9 MG 0 STA 14

Talents:
 Familiar
 Survivor
 Crack Shot

Skills:
Bows: 2
Forest Lore: 2
Animal Lore: 2
Awareness: 2
4 points remaining

Other:
 none

Comments:
 There are many ways to build this one.  I don't know whether Awareness or Hunting is the appropriate skill for tracking.
 You could also lower STAMINA and boost LUCK, if you wanted to.  What really defines the Ranger is the Tracking, Archery, and the Familiar.
 To do a Called Shot on an unaware target, test SKILL + Bows.

Review of Advanced Fighting Fantasy The Role Playing Game

Bibliography
I'll cite pages and quote passages in part of review.  This review is for the 2011 edition of the game: "Advanced Fighting Fantasy The Role Playing Game.  Copyright 2011 Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone."

I acquired a copy of Advanced Fighting Fantasy last week and have been soaking up the manual as best as I can.  My purpose in buying it was hopefully to expand the Fighting Fantasy game I'm playing with my wife with a skill and magic system that's easy to handle.  Also, I'd like to convert my current Dungeon World game to Fighting Fantasy as I prefer the FF system.

This game system expands on the basic features of Fighting Fantasy by adding a skill based character build, as well as more detailed combat rules, three magic systems, a small beastiary and campaign setting, and a GM guide.

To summarize Fighting Fantasy for the uninitiated, I suggest this review here: http://rpggeek.com/thread/579545/the-3-characteristic-introductory-rpg

BUILDING CHARACTERS

There characters have the basic stats of Skill, Luck, Stamina and Magic.  Instead of rolling 6+d6 for Skill and Luck and 2d6+6 for Stamina (as in the original FF), you get a base character of 4 Skill, 8 Stamina, 8 Luck, 0 Magic.  You get 8 points to allocate to these stats.  There are limits.  For example, you can only allocate 3 to skill and luck, 7 to magic, 4 to Stamina (giving 2 times the points given in Stamina).  If you want higher powered characters you can give more points for the characters.

Characters then get points to allocate to special skills, and pick a talent.

Special skills are just specializations that add to your base Skill when you attempt that task.  So if you put a point into Lock Picking, you add 1 to your Skill before doing a Skill test.  There are special skills that cover a wide variety of adventuring skills such as weapons, armor, climbing, swimming, thief skills, magical skills, knowledge skills, etc.  So specializing in something lets you become an expert in minimal time, while increasing the base Skill score makes you better at everything, just at a slower pace.  Characters with a higher Magic than Skill can do all knowledge tests with their Magic score.

Your character gets to pick one Talent as well that helps distinguish him.  He might be able to cast low level spells with ease, befriend animals, shoot a bow with extra accuracy, heal more quickly, etc.  Elves and Dwarfs also get Dark Vision in addition to anything else picked for the character.

COMBAT

The combat system uses the same method as FF, adding your skill plus 2d6 and the highest total wins.  You also add any special skill in the weapon you're using.  So if you wield a club with club skill 2, then you add 2 to your combat total.

The weapons also do variable damage, and armor soaks damage at a variable rate as well.

The weapon damage is interesting because it's not just a die roll (d4, d6, d8, etc) for damage total, but rather each weapon has a small chart for a D6 roll that indicates the damage done and this data has a space on the character sheets.  A dagger will do 1 to 2 points of damage, and occasionally 3.  Whereas a Great Sword will do 2 to 5 points of damage, and occasionally 6.  AFF is not a high damage system.  Most weapons average 2 to 3 points of damage, so it's more important to have the highest Skill + modifiers + 2d6 than to do a lot of damage.

For armor, a Cuirass (basically a shirt of Leather, Chain or Plate) will soak damage 50% of the time.  A leather or chain hauberk will soak damage 5/6 of the time and full plate armor will always soak some damage.  The best defense is to have the higher combat total.

There's plenty of situation modifiers for battles.  Fighting in darkness, up stairs, down stairs, swimming, larger than opponent, smaller than opponent  ganging up on a single target, attacking from behind, etc.  The list was intimidating for me at first.  Then I realized that combat Skill totals are important, so it's good to give the players as many options as possible to fight tactically.

A nice part of the battle system is you can throw 3 dice, and the third die will either give you the damage done if you won the round, or the armor soak if you lost the round.  All you need to do is color the third die or otherwise indicate it as different.

The magic systems are Wizardry, Sorcery, Priest, and Minor magic.  Wizardry and Sorcery spells are cast via a 2d6 roll under check, just as with Skill or Luck.  The target number is Magic + Wizardry or Magic + Sorcery.   The Wizardry is powered by spell points derived from your Magic Skill plus your Wizardry special skill.  Magic points are restored with a night's rest.  Sorcery is very similar to the Sorcery! series of books and the "Sorcery! Spell book", and is powered by Stamina rather than magic points.  Many of the spells require components to function.  So there's a spell to listen to an unknown language, but requires that the caster wear a green wig, whereas a spell to make a target dance requires a bamboo flute.

The priest spells come from a deity and each priest gets only 4.  There's a common pool of priest spells that many deities share, and there's a special spell for each deity.  For example, Telak the God of Courage and Combat gives a spell to let the priest boost his Skill and Damage for one encounter.  Each spell can be used once a day, and a single spell can be used twice a day for the cost of a Luck point.  While most deities give a healing spell, the limit to once or twice a day makes the Priest less of a medic than in other RPGs.  The priest also has one final spell called "Salvation" that he can cast once in his lifetime to rescue himself and his party from danger.  The nature of the rescue narrated by the GM.

The priest need not roll to cast his spells, they happen automatically.  The intensity of a spell, such as the amount of Stamina restored by Heal, or the number of meals made by Create Food, is determined by the Magic skill + Priest magic special skill.

Lastly there's Minor Magic, which are known as cantrips.  They are very basic spells that perform simple utility such as drying a soaked object, making somebody drunk, freshening food, minor illusions, causing mischief, etc.  The spells are powered by magic points, and only if the spell fails.  It's not clear to me whether priests and sorcerers are allowed to take this skill as they don't use magic points for their spells.  Perhaps the sorcerer could power cantrips with stamina and the Priest gets them as daily freebies like his other spells.

WORLD SYSTEM

The campaign setting is the world of Titan and the book gives a map of the world plus descriptions of the cultures and peoples of the various regions and cities.  There's small a bestiary of common monsters.  If you want more you can get the Out of the Pit supplement  import beasts from other game systems, or create your own.  There are even guidelines to walk you through creature creation.

GM Guide

There's a chapter devoted to creating new adventures with advice on plot hooks and adventure settings.

There's also nice random dungeon generator for creating quick adventures on the fly or even long adventures.  Toss a number of dice onto the table for the number of rooms.  The landing places of the dice give clues to where the rooms go, and the number on the die indicate how many exits.  Then you draw the map, stock it with monsters, traps and treasure, and you're ready to go.  You can theme the dungeon or just make it eclectic like The Wishing Well adventure.  The generator is not exhaustive, but you can easily modify it to suit your needs.  The same concept can be applied to above ground adventures, generating cities with different districts, rooms in a castle, etc.  I'm psyched about this because I personally love old school dungeon crawls and it's nice to have a tool to get things rolling when my creative juices aren't flowing.

PROOF READING

My one complaint is some proof reading errors that confused me.  I struggle with proof reading (my own recent Dungeon World session had a few errors), so I'm not being condescending.  Three examples:  A sample boss monster character sheet has skill of 31 in Leadership (Page 121).  Later in the text it's actually described it as 3, not 31.

The sample character Manath the Rogue (P.21) has a dagger skill and a brawling skill, but there is no dagger skill in the list of combat skills.  Rather, there is a brawling skill that is for fist fighting as well as small weapons, including daggers.  Does the rogue apply both when using the dagger?  Was there even supposed to be a dagger skill?

The last example involves the use of luck in combat.  The text mentions a first and second method, and then refers to a third but not describing it:  The first option is to reduce the damage done by the enemy with a Luck test.  If successful, the enemy does minimum damage.  "...Secondly, LUCK can also be used to increase the damage caused by a successful attack.  This option may not be chosen if LUCK was used to win the combat round." (Page 59) The rules for using Luck to win the combat round were either accidentally omitted, or maybe the author meant to delete them but failed to delete all references to that method.  I'm going to guess that the player can test Luck to win a round of combat.  Faced with a Skill 18 Earth Elemental, I'd say burning your Luck to hurt the thing is a fair trade.  If your luck runs out it'll smash you to pudding.

All in all I look forward to giving Advanced Fighting Fantasy a try.  It's a good all-in-one fantasy role playing game with simple rules, a fantasy world ready to run, and a decent GM guide to creating adventures.  If you like to create custom characters, or if you were a fan of the Fighting Fantasy game books, then this game or the original Fighting Fantasy are for you.

I shall attempt to convert the basic Dungeon World classes to this system.  I'll post a message at a later date with the results of that experiment.

Commentary on my first game of Dungeon World

The Commentary On my First Dungeon World Game

The commentary is on this game linked to here

Some of this is disconnected craziness that bounces around.  Bear with me as I get negative and cranky, positive, then negative.

Two of six expected guests came to the game.  The players of the Paladin Cassius and the Artificer Thrawn.  Together with my wife playing Tana the Ranger, they formed the party of player characters.  We snacked on vegetables and tea biscuits while building the characters. Character creation was difficult as my wife who was overwhelmed by the Dungeonworld character sheet.  So I filled out her stats, asked her what her pet's name was and what it was, picked her gear, and told her not to worry about the sheet or the rules until I thought they applied.  Just to know that she's a friend of animals, can track, and is good with a bow.

The other two were familiar with RPGs generally and had a fairly easy time with creation.  They both had backstories pre-written to give some flavor to their chracters.  The Paladin had a huge hammer instead of a halbard.  I gave him a specially crafted plate armor, rather than scale, as with such a small party they'd want a tank.  Plus his drawing of the Paladin was fantastic and depicted him in a full suit of armor.  Very bad-ass.  The Dwarven Artificer was a priest of his technology religion with magical  gadgets.

I narrated how the other player characters wandered off:  The wizard had academic work to attend to.  His friend the bard joined him.  The Barbarian had to work on his tent.  His friend, a warrior maiden, decided to stay with him.  The druid had to dance the hoe-down at a forest folk music festival.  The thief had pregnancy related fatigue and decided a rough adventure was not right for her at this time.  That made the beginning of the story humorous and light-hearted.  It was easy to do after a couple shots of whiskey.

Now to put myself down, feel miserable, and try to learn from it:

Lacking a hard copy of the rule book, I had to improvise some of the rules of the game. For example, The Artificer used some bandages to bind up the Paladin, so I called it 1d4+1 healing.  The Paladin later pulled a healing potion from his Adventuring Gear and I called it 1d6+1 healing.  The Ranger wanted to pick a door lock with metal bits found in a crate.  So improvising, I said she could do it but with no Dex bonus.  Turns out she got a partial success so I had steam shoot out of the lock hole.  Lucky for her, I rolled a 2 on a 1d6 and with her leather armor it was reduced to one point.

If I could redo those decisions, I would.  I definitely want to be consistent with making calls on that kind of stuff.  I was afraid to let the Ranger pick the lock, but with no thief present, why not?  DW is about saying yes, so I must conclude that anyone can try to pick a lock but the Thief can do it better.  The early editions of D&D had no thief class and folks just said whether they're picking a lock or a pocket and a call was made.  I'm a fan of that.  I also noted, that if not for the presence of the artificer, this adventure would not have happened.  If there was no artificer, there would have been no airship story and thus no lock for the ranger to pick.  I allowed the artificer (an optional class), so therefore I must also allow the ranger to pick a lock.

I've read that it takes practice to get the Discern Realities and Spout Lore moves done correctly.  I need to work on that if we play this again.  They're not bad moves, I just fumbled them a bit.

I also need to work on more dynamic NPC behavior.  The goblins swarmed the Paladin in front of the door but he splatted them.  That's not a bad thing.  Read on.  The Paladin did not fail a single roll the entire game.  I didn't inflict sufficient consequences aside from damage rolls when he had partial success.  The goblins are supposed to swarm, jump on your shoulders, grab your weapon, bite you on the ear, pour past you like a flood.  I'll do better next time.  I allowed the Paladin to kill multiple goblins by dividing their HP into his damage roll.  That made for a great scene.  But I didn't do that for the Ranger who wanted to fire multiple arrows.  Bad choice.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.  If ever faced with a similar situation of huge mobs of disposable creatures, the ranger can fire multiple arrows at multiple clustered targets.  After all, a partial success on Volley can result in multiple shots, so why not just do it?

As far as dynamic action, I tried to "pan the camera" to different players, but I found it difficult to get a decent and satisfying flow going and including everyone in the story.  After failing at this, I went around to each player and asked them what they're doing in turn, and narrated the results.  This was actually worked well for us.  Maybe I need more practice, but I prefer a turn based structure to encounters.  

As far as mapping goes, I also somehow connected the aft of the middle deck to the bow of the top deck of the ship.  Nobody said anything about it.  In retrospect I feel kind of silly for doing that.

What did I do right?

I made a wet-erase board by laminating an old flat board with cold peel lamination sheets that I had lying around for years.  I drew a nice scene of the road going along the mountains, river crossing it, a bit of terrain.  I cut up some thick cardboard and made an airship prop as well as rectangles for the caravan.  I cut some rectangles for the players and put their character names on them.  I used Mancala stones for foes.  When they boarded the ship, I erased the board and drew each level of the ship as they explored it.

The Dungeon World rules say for the GM to leave blanks, so I left blanks in the map.  I had to pull the kitchen and the room across from it out of thin air. I also left blanks for the engine room.  I knew it was an engine room, but not everything that was there.  I honestly had forgotten to place the switch for the door on the other side of the ship, so I'm glad I didn't pre-plan the whole ship.  I had kicked around an idea for The Dentist when first creating the starting adventure, and discarded it.  I included the Dentist when a goblin was interrogated.  However, by that time I was really tired for lack of sleep and was getting a headache from the whiskey I drank at the start of the game, so the Dentist wasn't the kind of challenge I hoped he would be.

Back on negative:

I was quite fatigued near the end, so got a bit ridiculous with the surrender of the mad dwarf taking off all his things and standing in his boxers and shirt.  I should have skipped that.

The players had fun.  That's a positive.

There's nothing wrong with Dungeon World.  I'm not sure if it's right for me, however.

What bugs me: The character sheets are really busy and wordy. My wife was overwhelmed by hers.  I like to play games simple enough for my wife to enjoy them.  I like to play with my wife, so I prefer games she can easily grasp.  That means my RPGs and my Board Games and my Video Games.  Gaming is one of the few things I'm interested in so I want to make the time I spend with her count.  She enjoyed Fighting Fantasy, but we also finished that in two hours.  So I'm thinking we may need to simplify the sheets or play with different rules, and stick to the time limit.  The "prequal" World Of Dungeons has a simpler ruleset but with the basic 2d6 fail/partial/success mechanic.  Success and Partial success are not wordy paragraphs.  I think we could cut out the verbiage and just let the GM make the calls.

I also found a game called "Dungeon Teller" that uses a dice pool mechanic that seems simple as well.  Roll dice for your skill, 5's and 6's are successes.  So a warrior say rolls 5 dices for his sword but a weak wizard rolls only 1 or 2.  Each 5 or 6 is a hit.  Ta da.  Competing actions are simply a comparing of successes rolled.  Tug of war, we both roll muscle, greatest number of successes wins.  Anyone might pick a lock with their Stealth trait but the thief gets extra dice for it.  And so on, and so forth.  I think just about everything in Dungeon World might be directly convertible to this system and less complicated.  Hell I can even get blank dice and paint smileys on them, or some other positive looking symbol, or just a dot even, and those are successes.  Skip the number crap altogether.  I'm not against maths (as my distant English cousins call it), I just prefer simplicity while retaining enough depth to stay interesting.

I found the Artificer sheet confusing.   I think the player used only the basic functions of his tools and not any of his character abilities such as Field Test or Jury Rig.  I allowed him a cleric spell "Words of the Unspeaking" but allows him to only talk to Machinery.  But examining the sheet, I notice he has a similar ability already called "Let me see that."  The rules governing "Charge" are confusing.  It's the power supply/ammo of his gadgets.  He can Volly or Melee with his INT bonus rather than STR or DEX, but it depletes a charge regardless of a hit.  Then I ask, can he strike with his axe if it's out of charge?  I assume it is, just no electrocution power.

While a lot of my difficulty and mistakes are of course the bumps and bruises of trying something new, I can't help but think there's a way go about making this sort of game simpler.

I still prefer Fighting Fantasy to this.  If I could somehow convert the classes of D&D/Dungeon World to Fighting Fantasy, or perhaps Dungeon Teller, then I'd play with those rules.

My First Game of Dungeon World

This is a narrative of my first game of Dungeon World.  Commentary on the game and how it went in my next post.  Reposted after correcting some spelling, punctuation and sentence structure errors.

The Airship

A large party assembled at the coastal town of Fishbasket to escort a trade caravan to Academ about two days north.  Of the nine who initially showed interest in the mission, only 3 remained to escort three wagons.  The Ranger Tana and her pet hawk, Airwolf.  The Paladin "Gabriel Cassius" of the (now declining) Black Templar order, sworn to destroy witches wherever they may be found, armed with his engraved maul.  And lastly but not leastly the Dwarven Artificer named Thrawn Blastmaker, a priest of a dwarven technology cult.

One wagon contained a load of silks and linens, the second driven by Adrik, a wizened elderly trader carried magical powders and artifacts bound for the academy of wizardry in Academ, and another of ocean based goods.  Of particular interest to Thrawn was a large cube carried in Adrik's wagon embedded with brownish gems on each face.

The After about a day's journey, on a cloudy, cool day, the caravan was travelling the road through rough terrain next to a mountain range when they heard loud squealing sounds on the other side of a hill.  Thrawn activated his invisibility device and scouted forward, to find 6 Pig Men flailing about at a river crossing.  They could have been fishing or just wrestling. Cassius also came forward and Tana worked her way eastward across the rough to cover with her bow.  Thrawn returns to warn the caravan not to proceed until they deal with the pig men.

Cassius meanwhile steps forward to challenge them.  The pig men are large and tough looking, but timid.  Shaking their spears and squealing challenges.  Two come forth to fight Cassius.  Cassius Crushes one with his Maul while the other approaches with his spear.  Thrawn blasts another with his energy bolt thrower device.  Just then the party hears a loud hissing sound and a giant airship (held aloft by a large blimp baloon) comes down from the clouds over the mountain and turns heading to the bridge where the pig men stood. Tana sends Airwolf to investigate while Cassius stands his ground.

Before long the Airship approaches the bridge and there's a loud blast and the pig men, save one, are blown to bacon bits.  A second blast sounds and the bridge itself is destroyed, the airship turning and landing where there bridge once stood.  Cassius finishes off the last pig man.

Thrawn urges the caravan to turn around but the drivers panic and two wagons get stuck in ditches off the road.

A large door opens in the side of the ship and a swarm of goblins pours out.  On the deck of the ship can be seen a crazy looking dwarf with an eye patch and gems for teeth laughing maniacally.  Thrawn studies the airship's balloon and sees blue gems embedded into it.  Passing a Spout Lore, and being a magical technologist, he recognizes the device as a container for an elemental spirit, and the key to the container are the gems in it.

Cassius splatters multiple goblins in a single swing while Thrawn shoots his weapon at the gem, beginning to dislodge it.  Tana fires arrows at the gem and dislodges it, and the air elemental spirit begins to hiss out of the now unsecure balloon.

Thrawn joins Cassius and Tana maintains her distance, firing arrows at the swarm of goblins.  Airwolf flies to the deck of the ship, and amid much commotion and flying darts, emerges again with the gem in its claws, returning to his mistress.  She orders it to attack a goblin while she fires arrows.  The goblin goes down and Airwolf rips its jawbone off and returns with it as a prize.

Cassius engages in a gory splattefest with his maul, pooping goblins two at a time  while Thrawn swings his electric axe, missing, and some goblins evade them and begin bolting for the caravan over the hill.  Thrawn shoots one but only partially damages it and it trips and falls.  Two goblins charge Tana and she shoots one while the other knocks her to the ground.  She grabs her spear and skerwers him groin to skull.

The remaining goblins still in the ship retreat while Cassius sprints after the two, now split up, heading for the caravan.  One reaches the foremost wagon and leaps on while the drivers, panicked, try to drive off.  Cassius runs alongside and swipes the goblin with his maul, it flies off and splits it skull on a rock.  He begins to question Adrik about what the pirate might want, and Adrick admits they're after his Earth Elemental trapped in the cube.  He chose to transport it in a small caravan so as not to attract the attention of thieves and pirates.  Just then the last goblin (who was shot previously) is seen by Adrick running up behind Cassius.  And Adrik fells it with a spell that burns it to a crisp.

Returning to the ship, Tana (with her spear now recovered and her Hawk on her shoulder), Cassius and Thrawn enter the ship. The lower deck of the ship appears to be a cargo bay, dimly lit with hanging lamps.  Thrawn uses his electric axe to give some illumination.  There's barrels and crates.  Tana pulls out a crowbar and begins popping the lids of the barrels, finding mostly stinky goblin food and some machine parts.  There's talk of finding a switch to open another door on the other side of the cargo bay.  Thrawn turns his attention to a door in the aft of the ship while Cassius goes toward the bow, where there's a ladder.  Several goblin faces can be seen and they hurl darts at the brave Paladin, then retreating.  Cassius decides to follow them up the ladder.

Tana checks out a door in the bow, finding a latrine.  She returns to popping crates, finding one filled with small brass statues of various animals.  The first real loot of the adventure.  She takes one and puts it in her pack.

Thrawn tries to pick the lock with the screwdriver end of his electric axe, but to no avail.

Upstairs, Cassius finds the gunnery room in the bow.  Two large steel tubes encrusted with blue gems akin to those on the now deflated balloon. On the walls are racks with very large stones (the obvious projectiles). He tries to smash the tubes, but only leaves dents.  He opens the door leading aftward, seeing a sleeping quarters strung with hammocks and is confronted by six goblins and a large, great dane with filed teeth.  Those teeth being various colors of gems.   A melee begins, Thrawn dashes up the ladder to help his friend.

The dog lunges at Cassius, knocking him down.  Cassius throws off the dog and it is stunned as it hits a support beam.  Thrawn picks up Cassius and Tana enters the gunnery room.  "Get out of the way" she says, an arrow knocked and ready to fire.  Thrawn enters the room, and Tana lets fly, hitting a goblin while Airwolf dashes in, ripping out its eyeballs and returning.  Airwolf eats an eyeball and gives one to his mum as a prize (eww).

The three finish off the goblins and the dog, taking it's gemmed teeth as a prize.  The last goblin is questioned, and under duress, says the captain is working for someone called "The Dentist" who can be in two places at once.  He is the executed. It is quiet for a while.  They explore aftward, finding a small kitchen with pots of goblin crud still on the boil.  Opposite is a door to an unknown room.  Trying the door, Thrawn's hand becomes stuck to the knob.  A pair of 2 dimensional eyes open on the door and a long, almost psuedopod of a fist reaches out to punch him.  He gets clocked and takes a bruise.  Tana takes her crowbar and jams it in the eye of this creature-door.  One eye goes dark, and it absorbs the crowbar, which now floats in a goo of it's translucent body.  Thrawn gets flung backwards into the kitchen, banging into pots and spilling goblin crud all overhimself as the creature now assumes humanoid form and goes to attack the rest of the team.  Tana figures burning it with the oil from one of the hanging lamps might work, but before she can do it, Cassius lays into the beast with his maul and it splatters into dozens of jello fragments, landing especially on Thrawn.

Thrawn tries to keep his dignity, and they open the door to the cabin.  Tana returns to the lower deck to try to find the switch to open the other door.  Meanwhile Cassius, in a rush to go lay down so justice, ascends to the deck to mop up the remnants of the goblins.  Before Thrawn can open a chest, he hears the sounds of battle upstairs. He rushes to help his friend.

Tana takes bits and pieces of wire and machinery and uses them as improvised lock picks, trying to pick the door lock in the aft of the cargo bay. She succeeds, but a blast of steam comes out of the lock, scalding her slightly but otherwise not hurting her.  She enters and finds the engine room: two cubes connected by pipes that lead to an exhaust pipe out the back of the ship.  One has red gems and the other has clear ones.  There's doors on the the starboard and larboad sides of the room.

Up on the deck, A hail of darts from the poop deck suppress Thrawn as he takes cover behind slightly elevated quarterdeck.   The mad dwarf can be heard shouting curses and urging his goblins to attack.  Cassius dodges incoming darts and kills one goblin, the rest fleeing up to their comrades.  After a short fight, the two ascend the poop to confront dwarf Bolgur and his two remaining goblins.  They find Bolgur in a small basket and balloon and the two goblins rapidly pumping some kind of apparattus to inflate the balloon attached to the basket.

Thrawn uses his last shot to blow a hole in the balloon.  The three enemies then surrender.  Cassius delivers swift justice to the goblins but Thrawn stops him before Bolgur is finished.  They order Bolgur to disarm.  He tosses down his cutlass, his eye patch (revealing a perfectly healthy eye underneath), and knives from every sleeve, pantleg, and from under his hat.  He tosses his trousers, standing in just his shorts and shirt, surrenders.  They question him.  He whines, begs for mercy.  "*I* won't kill you" says Thrawn.  Cassius delivers justice, black templar style.

Meanwhile Tana returns to the deck, informing her comrades that she found the switch.  With just one foe remaining, and two doors to the poop cabin, they pair off.  Cassius to the right, Thrawn and Tana to the left.  Cassius bangs on the door with his hammer.  "Open in the name of the black templar."  The door explodes, Cassius is flung back, wacking his head on a raised platform.  The room appears full of smoke.  Thrawn begins chopping at the door with his axe.  Tana gives the weakened door a kick and it falls open.  Inside there's an gaunt, creepy looking elf staring at them calmly.  It doesn't respond to any words.  Thrawn goes to poke it with his axe, but his axe goes through the image.

Now Cassius recovers and charges the now open cabin, where The Dentist awaits him.  He dodges a magical blast of energy and shatters the right arm of his foe.  He then breaks the elf's legs.  The Dentist passes out.

The tie him to the bed in the other room, and the Paladin lays on hands to heal him.  In his rage, he absorbs the injury rather than just healing it.  The Paladin feels sick and weak.  Thrawn goes to question him, but Cassius says "let me do my thing."

He slaps the elf.  "Who are you working for?"

The elf denies working for anyone.  Another slap.  The same question.  Another denial.  He's just a dentist, that's all.  The Paladin says "By the law of the Black Templar I order you answer our questions!"

The elf talks.  He wanted to seize the earth elemental for his ship.  Once imbued into the hull of the ship, it would be nearly invulnerable.  There are warrants for his arrest in seven cities.  He really is a dentist.  He works for himself.  He employs goblins because they're cheap as as long as you feed them, they'll fight for you.

Cassius does his thing again with his maul.

They loot the chest in room and find 1700 coin worth of gems and gold.  Aside from dental tools, nothing else of particular value was found.

The three return to the engine room.  The engine runs on steam generated by the interactions of a trapped fire elemental and trapped a water elemental.

They open the door on the other side of the cargo bay, and the caravan drives through.  They make it to Academ and get their pay.  The academy plans to send a team to remove the ship and build a new bridge.  The heroes stay at an inn.

"The Riddling Reaver" and modifications

I just received the Riddling Reaver book from Amazon.  It contains a four part adventure for Fighting Fantasy.  It also contains alternative rules for battle damage, weapons, and magic.

Damage is rather simple.  When reduced to zero stamina, the character is unconscious.  -1 is a life threatening wound, -2 is dead.  Not a bad rule.   In fights, roll a natural 12 and the character slays his enemy outright.  Not sure if I want to use this.  I may, however, allow an extra wound for this.  See below.

The book contains a chart for weapon damage.  On a successful hit, you roll d6 and consult the chart for your weapon damage.  Two handed swords do 2 or 3 damage, daggers do 1 or 2.  Others a range from 1 to 3, weighted at the lighter, middle, or heavier end.  My understanding is that Advanced Fighting Fantasy uses this system for weapon damage.  I'm not hostile to variable damage.  However, I do like 2 points of damage being a standard wound.  After reading up on Old School Hack, which uses a wounds based system, I'm going to keep the damage rather simple for FF: A successful hit is 2 points of damage.  Test luck to double it.

 I will borrow from Tunnels and Trolls the "spite damage" concept.  In T&T, if you roll doubles in battle, you do one point of damage.  In that game you're potentially tossing a bucket load of dice, so there's potential for a bit of spite damage.  In FF, I want to give the weaker fighters a chance to damage their enemies.  So on doubles, you'll do one extra point of damage, even if your attack roll is lower.

Magic.  In the Riddling Reaver, one player may become a wizard.  His Skill score is 4 + d6 rather than 6+d6.  His Magic score is 6 + 2d6.  The total magic score acts as a vancian spell list:  The character can memorize as many spells as his magic score. He can take multiple copies of a spell.  There's only a handful of spells in the book.  To cast a spell, he must roll 3d6 < Magic score to succeed.

Maybe I'm too obessive, but I don't like it.  Why do 6+2d6 for magic when it's 6+d6 for Stamina and Luck?  For a wider range of stats, 6+2d6 for all stats wouldn't be so bad.  Mathematically, 6+2d6 averages out to just above the average 3d6 roll.  So odds are your character would be slightly above average.  So the real choice is to bump everything up to 3d6, but then any adventure supplements and monster manuals have to be converted.  And that's more work.  Ugh.

 Like a poop sandwich, I don't need to try it to see if I like it.  If I play this campaign, it will be 6 + d6 magic.  Roll 2d6 < Magic to cast.  And I prefer the system that depletes Stamina to cast.  I'm not hostile to Vancian spell memorization.  So either Stamina or Vancian will fuel the spells.  I may ditch the Magic stat altogether, just to keep it simple.

I'm going to change how Luck works.  Luck will only be depleted if your Luck check is favorable.  There's already in game penalties for being unlucky.  I see no point in both harming the character with both the bad luck consequences and making Luck less useful than before.

First Run of Fighting Fantasy "The Well" with Spouse

There are spoilers in this session report for the adventure "The Well."  Please skip if you want it to remain a secret to discover for yourself.

I made some changes to rules governing the zombies, the spell book, and the Spider's web trap, noted by asterisks.

After recently acquiring Fighting Fantasy and the Sorcery Spell Book through separate second hand distributors, I was eager to run “The Well” with my wife for two reasons.  The first reason was to practice GMing role playing games.  The second reason was to allow my wife a chance to play an rpg before our big Dungeon World game a month from now.

So entering The Well on this quest was my wife's character Tana with her pet monkey.  Also accompanying them was an NPC best friend named Troy.  Tana rolled decent stats of  9 Skill, 11 Luck, and 19 Stamina.  Troy was a power-hitter with 12 Skill, 10 Luck, but only 16 Stamina.   The monkey could follow simple commands and would answer yes or no questions.

Tana put her monkey in the bucket with the lantern and lowered it down, down, down some 30-40 feet to the bottom of the well.  Seeing all was safe, Tana and Troy descended down the rope.

Traveling north, they came to the first door.  Tana hesitated upon finding it locked, and tried to dig under the door.  Scraping away with their swords, they only moved a bit of dirt and mud, and the monkey could only just get his hands under.  On the other side they heard the chittering of some animal.

Troy suggest bashing the door down.  Tana wanted to hack or pry with the swords.  Not wanting them to break or dull their swords so early in the game, I spoke for Troy: “Let's give it a good shoulder butt and see if it opens.”  So Troy tries once, and gets the creepy mysterious warning.  Then on the second attempt he stumbles into the next room, does a somersault, and whacks his noggin.

In the next room they found a dwarf with a huge beard full of nesting birds.  My wife loved my play acting of Thrushbeard and his birds.  Their interaction was peaceful and fortunately no nuts were spoiled.  I acted out the monkey eating nuts as well.  Taking leave of their new friend, the party tried the east door, ended up in warrior's trophy room.  Seeing the eyes moving in the painting on the wall, Tana was very cautious, saying “lets not touch anything!”  But wanting to get the missus used to trouble, I had Troy go up and handle the painting, trying to look beneath it for the spy holes that he suspected were in the walls.  The alarm sounded.  In a panic, Tana led the team northward.

Upon encountering the mummy, Tana tried to greet it.  It groaned and went to punch her.  She dodged, and they quickly inflicted several wounds on the mummy.  Troy covered Tana while she looted his sarcophagus.  Tana being disinclined to fight, they tried to evade the mummy, heading to a dead end. Then they went around the mummy and ended up running into Nandras's library. Just as they greeted him, they could hear the mummy pounding on the door in the hallway.  Nandras was quick to ask them to deal with that annoying mummy.

Our heroes returned to the trophy room to confront the mummy, and quickly dispatched him.  Tana suggested decapitating the mummy to make sure it died, so they did, and brought the head to Nandras.  They burned it in his fireplace, but Nandras demanded the whole body.  So they dragged the mummy's body in  and burned that too, winning the crystal key as a reward.

Stopping by Thrushbeard for some more nuts, they proceeded on their adventure finding the room of skeletons and chests.  They were all locked but one, which contained some coins and a mouse.  Troy put the mouse in his breast pocket.  They kicked open another chest and a ghost came out.  I play acted the angry spirit, growling and shouting threats.

So they fled the room, only to wake a two-headed lizard from it's slumber.  It threatened, it growled and reached under the bed for a sword. The heroes they quickly fled north to a cave with many holes.  They avoided messing with a spider web, and found a door leading to blackness, save for a pair of glowing eyes that growled.  They shut the door, and instead opened the door to the Spider King.

After a short chit-chat with the king, they grew afraid and attempted to leave.  A golden sticky web fell on them.*  Troy burned it with his lantern, and they fled before the spider could attack, slamming the door behind them.

Returning to the bedroom of the lizard, who was very angry at having been woken a second time, they began to fight.  They traded blows with the lizard, and then Tana offered it the emerald they took from the Mummy, and it  accepted the bribe.  So they left through another door.  Troy was angry that Tana gave away some of their loot.  If they're not here to get rich, then why bother being here?   After finding a pit with retracting bridges, they returned again to the lizard's bedroom, finding it examining the emerald at it's desk.  The monkey grabbed the mouse from Troy's pocket and dived under the bed while the two humans fought the lizard.  After a quick fight, it died.  Getting into the spirit of the game, Tana searched the room, finding the lizard's loot and a throwing dagger behind a painting.

Troy said if they're going to get rich, they probably have to kill the spider.  After all, kings have money.  So they returned.  Giving the dagger to the monkey, the two humans fought with the spider king.  They managed to avoid most of it's strikes and fortunately were not poisoned.  Much spider goo began to run from its wounds.  As the spider tired, Tana ordered the monkey to throw the dagger, going right into the spider's face.   In anger the spider went to bite the monkey, but it managed to avoid the spider and run through it's legs.  As it did so, the heroes plunged their swords into the spider's hide (both passing a luck checks), and causing massive wounds, and the beast expired.

They took it's treasure and a note describing where to find a magic spell to open the treasure room, and returned to the cave.  Before tackling the hell hound, Tana wanted to search all round the cave for anything useful, perhaps to eat, as she was out of provisions.  They found the Nandi-bear hiding in the dark corner, and it chased them back to the Spider's lair.  They evaded the bear, slamming the door behind them.  Being distracted by the massive spider lunch, it ceased to pursue them.

The two heroes quickly made short work of the hell hound from the black room.  Claiming the magic sword and the gold from the body it guarded.

Finally they found the spell book.  A zombie appeared as Tana took the book, and Troy stepped in to deal with it.  They retreated to the cave, where Troy held off a slow parade zombies hell bent on eating Tana, while Tana searched the book for the spell.  After some time, she found an index page*, and turned promptly to the proper spell.  Reciting it perfectly, she opened the door to the treasure room.  Another zombie appeared, and Troy fought them while Tana filled her pockets with the loot from the treasure room.  They fled as best they could back toward the entrance, slamming every door behind them.  Pursing zombies were slowed by the doors, but new zombies materialized wherever Tana went.

Upon returning to Thrushbread's room, he was shocked to find a zombie materializing in his home.  “Did you take that accursed book?!”* said Thrushbeard as drew a small ax and approached the zombie.  “Get rid of it!  Get rid of it!”  Thrushbeard and Troy fought the zombie, with birds diving down to peck at it as well.  Tana tossed the book down a hallway, shutting the door afterward.  The zombie in the room was destroyed, disappearing into a puff of ethereal smoke. Tana could hear shuffling about in the hallway where the book was thrown, but it did not come into Thrushbeard's room.  Perhaps the zombies found the spell book and were taking it back where it belonged.

The heroes thanked Thrushbeard for his help and climbed out of the well, returning home with their newfound wealth.

The haul for this adventure:

80 gold pieces, 1 emerald, 4 rubies, magic sword +1, lucky charm +1

Planning to Hack Fighting Fantasy

The one trait, "Skill" is nearly all-encompassing for almost any activity in the game.  Feats of Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc all covered by one stat.  Swinging a sword in battle is obviously an exercise in Strength and Agility (and often intelligence).  Picking a lock can require dexterity and intelligence. In my experience, lock picking requires luck.

For adventurers, this isn't entirely inappropriate.  If you're a skilled adventurer, you're bringing everything you got, your strength, your agility, your wisdom, your intelligence, your life experience, etc to bear.  The balance of all of that is your Skill.

How does one, then, create character classes for this game?

My first thought is to let a Thief burn luck (ala Dungeon Crawl Classics) without rolling to do any kind of thiefly activity.  Likewise a warrior can burn it to do damage or to hit in battle.  Luck testing could remain for involuntary tests like natural hazards, surprise attacks, etc.  

Or perhaps a better approach is to take the USR approach, disregard classes and have the player pick a few skills for his character, and give a bonus to the Skill stat for those activities.  I understand that Advanced Fighting Fantasy takes this approach.  The only drawback to that would be pushing a skill over 12.  How does one test that?  If you roll 12 on two dice, then roll one more die.  If the total is < or = to the skill, you succeed.  For example, you have total skill of 14 in picking locks.  You roll double 6's on the test, so you roll d6 <=2 to succeed. 

Perhaps you can cap Skill at 10, and allow bonuses to bring it to 12, and then require Roll Under (not equal to) to succeed.  

I've yet to receive the "Sorcery! Spell Book".  I don't know how to work magic into the game.  I considered creating a "Magic" stat and just roll 6+d6 for magic skill.  The other option is to create a points based system and let the player build the character.  

Here I am, a self described minimalist, considering all kinds of options.

Updated post.  If I convert skill checks into 2d6+skill vs a target number, then skills could exceed 12 without any problem.  In doing so, Fighting Fantasy becomes "Tunnels and Trolls" with fewer stats and less dice.  Throw in a little Old School Hack, and make the target number 2d6 + Difficulty. Say the standard difficulty being 7.  So 2d6 + skill > 2d6 + Difficulty = Success.

Returning to RPGs after 16 years

I haven't played any tabletop RPGs since high school.  The very last game I played was D&D 2nd edition at my childhood residence. My friend was DM, four or five players, and a dice rolling program I whipped up in QBASIC on an old 386 machine.

Time passed.  I had a career.  My hair fell out.  I got married.  

I began delving into the world of RPGs about two months ago, and have read the rules to at least a dozen gaming systems.  In my childhood, I played with many game systems, including D&D, MERP. LOTR Adventure Game, Rolemaster.  The only ones I ever got to play with others were D&D and MERP (one time).

Thinking back to my childhood, I wanted to get into a simple RPG that was relatively accessible to new players.   It also had to be affordable.  Preferably free.   My goal was to learn a game system and invite my small group of friends over to play.  Maybe it would evolve into a new tradition, coming over every month or two to play. 

I read the rules to many free RPGs such as USR, 2d6, Drawbridge, Zombie D6-Lite, just to name a few.  Most of them quite lovely.   This fellow has written an exciting blog on his use of USR.

I investigated many games in the OSR school of gaming: Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Microlite20, just to name a few.  Each of those lovely, just a little too complicated for me and for my group.  I also spent a week of my free time  researching Tunnels and Trolls.  Lastly, I explored newer games with modern mechanics but an old school feel such as Old School Hack and Dungeon World.

The unified task resolution system of Dungeon World, as well as the emphasis on story over mechanics, appealed to me enough to buy a pdf.  I read it.  I read the players guide.  I studied the character sheets.  I read session reports and play-by-forum posts.

Turning to my friends, I invited them all for a game of Dungeon World.  I have presently 8 people coming, and now I am afraid.

Let me back up a bit.  I'll explain my fear.  Three points relate to this:

1) The title of this blog is Minimalist Role Playing Gamer.  I tend toward minimalism in gaming.  That includes board games, video games, and rpgs.  I tend to prefer simple mechanics with any complexity emerging from those mechanics.  My reasons being a) it's easier to get my non-gamer friends to play and b) my wife is more likely to play and c) I tend to minimalism in many things.   RPGGeek has a geeklist of minimalist RPGs.  That's just a few of them.  

2) I try to be nice to people and be accommodating.  Unfortunately that often leads to a person wanting a foot after you've given him an inch.  Big mistake.  On the other hand, Dungeon World encourages the GM to "say yes."  I hoped that if I let the players customize their characters a bit, then they'd be more inclined to play.  I opened up a can of worms with that one.  I will have to practice my "no's".

3) While under the influence of some kind of tropical, fruity rum beverage, I spoke enthusiastically at a wedding reception to folks about the game.  So now I have a large group coming.

In attempting #2, I neglected #1.  To accommodate the desires of the players to play certain kinds of characters, I downloaded some unofficial variant classes for the game and offered one from the list to my friend.  Well the others got to look at the list and asked to play some other characters.  Before I knew it, my simple selection of characters became quite a hodge-podge and I became overwhelmed.  I'm going to have to memorize more characters than I planned, and try to find a way to let each of them shine at least once during the adventure.   

Lesson learned:  Say "no, pick from what's available."  I also learned that there are simpler game systems than Dungeon World, and should have picked something simpler.

As for #3, with eight players, I don't know how I'm going to making this adventure any fun at all.  Have you ever had an 9 way conversation about anything of depth?   I don't think it can happen.   I have no doubt that someone, or a few someones, will play a minor role, or no role at all in the game.  The Dungeon World system allows me to change the camera spotlight to ask specific players "while that's going on, what do you do?"  

Lesson learned: don't make invitations when you're buzzed on rum swizzles.  And without apology, limit the number of players.

I'm going to follow through on this game.  I don't know if I'm going to play it again in the future with a large number of people.

In the meantime, I've ordered copies of Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery!.  When it comes to rules, as far as I can tell, it doesn't get much simpler than Fighting Fantasy.  3 stats, GM improvisation, simple combat.  This is a game that looks easy to get into and to play on-the-fly if looking for something to do. Plus the sample adventures are cute.