A Replacement for HP

Grognardia has been talking about Ability scores recently which got me thinking of the way I handled such in one of my Fantasy Heartbreakers. Anyway I thought I'd write it up here as the old Fantasy Heartbreaker is long gone. 

Damage types are already built into 5E more or less. Whatever damage the weapon does, roll and apply the damage to the corresponding Attribute.

‣ STR - Anyone reduced to 0 STR falls prone and is unable to move at all. 

‣ DEX - Anyone reduced to 0 DEX or less falls prone and is unable to move at all. 

‣ CON - Anyone reduced to 0 CON or less is Dead.

‣ INT - Anyone reduced to 0 INT or less is unconscious and will take 1 CON point a round until healed back to 1 INT. 

‣ WIS - Insanity. Anyone reduced to 0 WIS or less is catatonic. 

‣ CHA - Burn/Electrical Wound. Anyone reduced to 0 CHA or less is Dead.

All damage heals at 1 point per week.

This mechanic was created when I was in love with the Black Hack which used Ability Scores for every attribute test so dropping one caused an instant game effect. It should apply to 5e easily enough even if it works on modifiers and not upon the Ability Scores directly  (bludgeoning = blunt, Slashing = Edge, Piercing = point). I gave up the idea in the name of simplicity and compatibility but I still like the system in theory and might use it someday.

 

Battle Mage Brewing Company and Hârn

I finally cleaned out the garage enough that I was able to move the contents of my storage unit in there. Now the bulk of my old gaming stuff is ready to read and not a short drive away which is nice. While doing that I found my old map of Hârn, Ivania, Shorkyne, and Trierzon as well as a nice map of medieval England that also came from Columbia games for their Lionheart setting.

Originally I had these in nice frames with glass which was nice as you could write on the glass, but it made them heavy that you had to be careful where you mounted them. I hate molly bolts so I decided instead to mount them on foam core which was light and looked good. 

Now the maps were collecting dust and had nowhere to go. Unfortunately my local game store had been shut down for a year because of Covid or I would have brought them there. Instead of putting them in the dumpster I brought them over to Battle Mage Brewing Company. They said they didn't have much wall space and couldn't guarantee they wouldn't be put in the dumpster but I suspect they won't. I suspect if they don't have room somewhere they'll put a sticky on them saying free and someone will take them away. They are amazing maps, beautiful and useful, and I'd hate to see them trashed. Hopefully the Battle Mages found them a home.

Battle of Five Armies and RPG

In most campaigns the characters find treasure, put it on their character sheets, and continue adventuring. It is as if they could just haul off Smaug's pile of treasure from under Lonely Mountain. This attitude misses a huge opportunity I call, for obvious reasons, the battle of five armies.

If the characters are ever so lucky as to find a large horde of treasure it is very likely others would try to make claims on it as the Elves and Orcs and humans all did at the end of the Hobbit. Even if the gold wasn't as famous as the pile of the King Under the Mountain there are rumors most likely. Those same rumors that brought the characters there in the first place ensure others know about the horde. It's possibly other groups have used spies to keep an eye on the treasure hunters. Once it is found such wealth only needs to be taken.

Players may resort to burying treasure, but that might be found by others later, or you might have the pirates problem that one of the folks that knows the location might come back for it on their own. 

Another option is to hire people to haul the treasure away. It is likely such hiring will make keeping the project a secret nearly impossible. Other adventuring parties, and local warlords and kings will find out before long and they'll all want a cut.

This creates two fun elements to the end game. First, you have factions. Factions are the meat and drink of good role playing campaigns. A clever party can work one faction against the other.  Second, by wheeling and dealing or even failing that large treasure pile will be reduced in size significantly. If things work out characters might feel super-victorious just to survive with a fraction of the original treasure.

This also leads to potential future allies and more importantly enemies. And on going enemies are super-useful in a campaign.

Quotes: Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert: “What would you do, when coming up with your character you roll six rolls of three six-sided dice to come up with your character”

Joe Magliano: “There’s a new way now where you roll 4d6 and you take away the lowest.”

Stephen Colbert: “Really? That’s for children!”

Very funny. Colbert is more old school than Gygax who used 4d6 and toss the lowest in his house rules.

Best of the Web - Taverns

 First up Signs in the Wild has a wonderful post called Tavern generator that provides names and features for taverns. It's a wonderful bit of work. And coincidentally around the same time Konsumterra at Elfmaids & Octopi came up with post called d100 Tavernkeepers Adventure Tips which provides one hundred interesting tips that can be used in that newly created tavern.

The Wandering Gamist has a post called Rival Adventuring Parties and Dungeon Maps as Treasure which has one of those ideas that made me hit my forehead that it never occurred to me. Rival Adventuring parties should also have maps. The Gamist talks about stealing their map but the post got me thinking (which is common with most posts that end up in my Best of the Web posts). 

I think if parties don't straight up fight they might compare maps. If they came in the same way they may straighten out some mapping issues, if they came in from different entrances they may help double the mapped areas of the dungeon while also providing a rational for why an area has more empty rooms than normal. 

I also like the idea of certain rooms that delvers draw maps and warnings and notes on the walls to help others giving the area a Landmark feel to part of a dungeon. Perhaps a wall is dedicated to the names of delvers that died in the dungeon and how they died. Such a room might be where folks drop off their extra iron rations and bronze coins that delvers decided weren't worth the effort to lug out of the dungeon. It might be wear henchman wait for their employers to return and as such might have a growing pile of firewood. It would likely have stout doors to act as a place for a long rest, and it might have a lock or two on each door so that only one with a key or a decent lockpicker could gain entrance (hoping to keep wandering beasts out). I like this idea, I believe cavers do something along those lines. 

Crazy Thoughts - Modules designed for six to nine player...

 Every modules does it. They are designed for a large group of PC. Keep on the Borderlands was for six to nine player characters of 1st level. Tales of the Yawning Portal's first adventure (the only one that lists the number of players) says it is for a party of four to five 1st level characters. I'm not sure what the average group of players is but 4-5 sounds more likely than 6-9. 

But what if they wrote modules for 2-4 players. Instead of adding a bunch of hirelings and NPC to minimal player sessions you'd be ready to go, and if you had a slightly larger group the GM just doubles the numbers in each encounter. 

Or, since 5E punts the statblocks to another book you could write them all up to include a small/med/large party with minimal effort. That way you could make one super-boss monster instead of have two or three different ones because you doubled the numbers as suggested in the last paragraph.

It would sure be easier writing encounters for a small number of adventurers and the process of scaling up would mostly be easy.

Anyway its just a crazy thought, not fully formed yet. I just remember GMing one-on-one and two-on-one back in the day and setting up adventures was super-easy.

Initial post on the new blog

I had a blog called Grindstonë Games in which I mostly cleaned up and posted stuff that had been sitting in an RPG folder on my laptop for some time. Stuff that was on my old Macintosh Classic and copied over again and again. Some of it was good, some was terrible, the blog helped me organize my thoughts on different RPG matters but it was nothing serious. 

When I created it I didn't see any other Grindstone's out there, then two years later I found a bunch of them. I don't know if my first search was badly executed or if they all sprung up in the mean time but the fact was they were out there and I didn't like sharing the name because that could mean potential confusion, which sucks so I went with Ruprecht's RPG Blog. Searching for Ruprecht mostly comes up with that weird Krampus or Knecht Ruprecht which is far enough removed I don't see a problem.

Since Blogger allows you to change the name of your Header but not the URL I felt the best course was to junk the old blog and start a new one and transfer the content. I'll clean up some of the stuff and repost it as pdfs, and delete some of the stuff, but basically its the same guy doing the same thing as before, except a little differently. 

Back on that other blog I tried to post something every weekday. I don't think I'll even try to do that. I had posts ready to go weeks ahead to time at some point but trying to keep up with deadlines creates stress, even on an amateur RPG blog, so I won't even set that goal.

I'm a big fan of Sergio Aragonés artwork and especially Groo the Wanderer. I've used Groo as my avatar for years when I post online and now I've put him on the masthead. I make no claims to the art and will replace it once I've gotten to drawing my own stuff. Photoshop has managed to really cripple my drawing skills over the years but I think it can all be reclaimed if I put the effort out. I'll post art here if I finish any.

So that's the story of the new blog. Stick around, I hope you like it.