Do you want to have Amazing Adventures? well, is it Old School?

Amazing adventurers incredible exploits!

Lets talk about it.

But lets back up a bit, I'm still working on “Shards of Thimbral” but to be completely honest, unless I am playing that game, I can't really move forward any further. Schedules and some of the worst weather I have seen in the Hudson Valley In the past few years, have conspired to keep our group away from the table.

In the meantime I started screwing around with a game that I quickly titled “Amazing adventurers incredible exploits!” What started out as a personal joke, got played and enjoyed.

(see this post)

Now it's over 100 pages of PDF and still growing a bit at a time. I'm thinking when it is done, if anything is ever really done, I might just give away the PDF to anyone who is interested. I'm not sure exactly how I would do that but that's where my head is at this morning.

So here is a quick description of what the game is about.

Your character is a baker, a guard, a candlestick maker, a wizards test subject, a “whatever” that has decided that going out and finding just one of those treasure buried under an old tomb someplace would be a faster way to pay the bills than whatever they are doing at the moment.

The characters are rolled in ten steps 100% randomly and can range from capable to horridly frail depending on the players luck.

After that the game is a standard RPG with a Gm setting the scene and the players playing in those scenes.

Some charts and tools will be written in for GM's to add more random elements, like monsters and magic items if they feel the need.

Some other points:

I think there is a bit of the D.C.C. Character funnel in the game, in that if a player's character makes it through the first game, I would hope that the player would get attached to the plucky little bastard. The idea that the game is driven by random dungeon crawls, the characters can be wildly flawed, and the limited abilities of the characters, survival alone is bound to breed some good stories.

Is this game part of the OSR?

Loaded question right? The answer is yes and no.

I am in my heart a namby-pammby, lily liver story gamer, sorry it's true. Story FIRST! And all that crap. This game is however not that. The game has a D20 die mechanic, all be it a tweaked one, crunchy characters and more it's a most wholly about smacking the shit out of monsters, taking their stuff, and joking about it in a random world based on charts and cruel, blind luck. So yes it has some old school elements. There are also some sneaky elements. Players narrate their successful attacks, Wizards roll random spells whose effects must be discussed and defined with the GM, The combat is all “theater of the mind” style (I hate that term,)  character advancement rules based on what your character does, and there are character personality kickers to get the players juices flowing concerning who their random creations are beyond the stat block. You get a bit of both worlds with this game.

In my view within the sphere of role playing games this whole Old school vs new school thing is bull-shit. At the end of the day we are all just a group of friends sitting around a table having some laughs, so don't worry about it relax and learn to love the d20 or 3d20 as the case may be. Punch a slug-goblin in the face, take it's stuff.

Any questions comments or thoughts?

Let fly in the comments section!

Meanwhile here is a character I rolled up just for the fun of it. (using Neal's Generator to save time)

Name: Finn Honeyfoot
Age: Young
Race: Halfling
Class: Priest

Brawn: 1
Athleticism: 5
Resolve: 2
Academics: 2
Knowledge: 4
Focus: 5
Leadership: 1
Attractiveness: 4
Mysticism: 2

Resolve Pool: 15/15
Focus Pool: 35/35
Mysticism Pool: 10/10

Armor type: Leather armor
Armor score: 10

Diety
You worship Otrina, The Summoner of the Void

Careers
Apiarist (beekeeper)
Skills
Animal lore

Connection Types
None
Connection
None

Weapon Skills
None
Weapons
Large dead fish

Personality quirks
You have seen a friend die so you live in fear
Ability:

Smite: You ask your god to bless your weapon with holy power. Sometimes times the gods get carried away

Attribute: Knowledge Difficulty 15 Costs: 1d6 myst pool Common: add +1d6 damage to your next successful weapon attack. Perk 1: stun perk added to next successful attack Perk 2: -2 difficulty on next successful attack Perk 3: +1d6 damage to the next two successful attacks Critical: Earn 1 wild card die for the next attack Fumble: You annoy your god with all these requests. Holy energy feeds back from your weapon you take 1d6 damage.