Talking about ones role playing campaign is a strange thing. Even between groups that use the same system there are small tweaks or rule interpretations that change the foundation of how the group interacts. On top of that every group has a preferred game type or play style that can or cannot take advantage of the system they are using. When a group really likes a system or does not know of other systems that can accommodate their wants or needs house rules step in and fill those gaps.
I do not claim to be an OSR (old school renaissance/old school role playing game) expert but I am a student of the genre (or I like to think that I am). From my research house rules have been a part of the hobby since it's inception. Original Dungeons and Dragons was perceived as such a jumbled mess everyone played the game differently and it spawned house rules, zines and games like Tunnels and Trolls to fix the inconsistencies. Apparently Mr. Gygax was not a fan of this. So when AD&D was written it was filled with so many charts it would encompass anything that ever came up in a D&D campaign, or so he thought. House rules and third party products continued through AD&D and every other edition of the game and are now practically built in to D&D.
One of the championing arguments in favor of the OSR movement is that rules can easily be removed and house rules added. The games are so rules lite that they can be transformed without too much damage to the internal skeleton. This allows players to customize their home game and make it their own. Above when I mentioned that house rules are practically apart of D&D now I wasn't using hyperbole in defense of third party products. Wizards of the coast designed the 5th edition (the newest edition) of D&D so that dungeon masters could add or removed certain rule sets without ruining the core game. One of the more popular/distained systems in newer D&D is the feat system. At certain levels players get to pick a special ability outside of their class that further customizes them. In 3rd and 4th editions these were an intricate part of the game, in some cases building full classes around them. In 5th they are an option. Many systems, like feats, show up in the Dungeon Master guide, a book to give players tips and tricks to run a game. It is once again a tome of charts and tool boxes. Pieces we can use to flavor our game in the ways the DM and players see fit.
Even with all of the different little official systems we can plug in to our game sometimes there is still a void or something that sounds too neat to leave out. The magic weapon creation rules by James Spahn is one of those things for me (when I am not on mobile I will paste a link in). Upon reading them I knew I had to include a system that made players feel like they were creating items of legend. What I did not for see was that magic weapons might be created in a much quicker fashion that I anticipated. As per these rules whenever a player roles a critical hit, a natural 20, their weapon gains a mythic point, upon gaining three of these points the weapon is transformed in to a magic item. Three more nets another property and again until nine points total. This creates a bond between players and their mundane fictional items.
Knowing what I wrote above about the magical system, sometimes these systems interact with the base rules in ways I could have never imagined. What follows is mostly drab descriptions of statistics (some what) and rules. One of my players is a level 5 fighter, his character's name is Vicious Kip. As a fighter he chose the champion sub class at level 3. This gives him the improved critical ability, allowing him to hit things critically on a roll of 19 or 20. At level 5 he also gets to attack twice a round and on top of that he dual wields, meaning that for each attack he makes he attacks with the weapon in each of his hands, so he swings at enemies four times a round. So each turn he attacks four times with a 10% chance of rolling a critical hit. Those are pretty decent odds in his favor. Now Slopeye Battlehugs, his fellow adventurer, steps in and makes those odds even better. Slopeye's preferred fighting style is to grapple enemies and bludgeon them in to submission (death). When Slopeye reached fourth level he was able to choose a feat (the system I mentioned above), he chose grappler. Now when he grapples enemies he can attempt to make another grapple check to pin that enemy. An enemy that is pinned by him grants advantage on attacks against his target and himself. Advantage allows a player to roll two d20s and choose the higher roll of the two. So now when Mr. Battlehugs pins enemies Vicious now gets to attack an enemy four times rolling each of his attacks twice and taking the higher of the two rolls. This is how, in one five hour session, Vicious ended up wielding a +2 longsword named Vanessa and a +1 troll bane torch (yes a torch, he was beating trolls to death with a torch so they would not regenerate) named the vicious light. Now this all sounds like it was intentional, but it was not in the slightest. I love my players because they do not focus on the builds or abilities that make them powerful but the builds that sound fun. This was the unintentional by product of a game and a rule that was not apart of the base game.
When Vanessa (no one is sure why that's the world's name) became a +2 weapon while fighting the second troll of the night I first felt a little uncomfortable having the 5th level fighter wielding such a blade. But then I let it go. Some people may say "put a limit on mythic points" or "stop using the system". I will not do either. The fighter is a class of legends, most hero's from history or fiction would be classified as a fighter and they have always had legendary weapons in their mitts. But going all of the way back to the OSR, one of the pieces of a game that claims to be of the OSR is the very real threat of player death. Characters die and they can die often. This is something I now hold close to my heart and my players know that death can and will happen. They can recount the very real total party kill that happened two or so months ago. Do I kill my player's on purpose, no not at all. They do get killed for making choices that would get them killed. After Vanessa was "created" but before she was a +2 weapon the group encountered a wyvern. They were marching up a mountain side without many cares and were ambushed by the mini dragon. The wyvern randomly chose Vicious as it's target (I rolled a d4 and each player is assigned a number, whatever number it lands on is who gets attacked). In a single attack Vicious was rendered unconscious. He survived because the rest of the party left one of their horses as a meal to distract the wyvern and escaped. This was a smart move on their end. What I am getting at is I made the choice to add a system that would create things I did not know would happen. This is the same as when my players made choice that got them killed. Through our experiencs at the table we learn from the mistakes we make and we grow as players. Rather than fighting the wyvern and most likely getting killed they ran. I made a choice without looking at the system closer and have now given my players more magic items, that is my mistake. Do I regret it? He'll no, I am excited to see what weapons of lore they create. Also I am super stingy with magic items so it allows for items to be created through play rather than give out as prizes.
No comments:
Post a Comment