Starting my new 5e D&D campaign...

"I've always wanted to play D&D and never had the chance."

This phrase implies a barrier to play that I have never known. Based on what I've heard from others I was lucky that no one stopped me because I was too young or doing it wrong or whatever. I don't understand the wall that keeps someone from our silly little hobby but I am happy to cut a hole in it and wave them on through.

Last Monday was full of firsts. It was the first session for my new group. It was my first time running Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. More importantly, it was also the first time ever that my new group played an RPG.

We went with fifth because they have copies of the 5e Players Handbook and wanted to play the latest, greatest version of the world's most popular role playing game. As far as the editions go, fifth edition is probably my favourite. It has a good balance of streamlined rules and extra parts that can be used or not without breaking anything. If I have to run D&D (and for these guys I did) I'd rather run 5e than any of the older versions.

The character building system for 5e really shines with new players. It presents solid choices and each choice leads to another. I found the background section particularly useful. It allowed them to quickly flesh out their characters, giving them a grounding in the world. We ended up using the suggested bonds as inspiration, creating a shared history that bound them together.

(The Gazetteers and old adventures print up into a nice A5 booklet!)

After we got the characters all done I asked them about what they wanted out of the world. For people steeped in the genre like we are, the possibilities are virtually endless. As newcomers they were looking for a "Traditional D&D" experience. They wanted all the D&D stuff like elves, goblins, dwarves and dragons. Intrepid heroes pushing into the uncivilized wilderness to explore forgotten temples in search of adventure and treasure!

As we talked I got a feel for what they wanted and suggested we play in the "Known World" that was used as a backdrop fro the "B" and "X" D&D modules. The Grand Duchy of Karameikos was my introduction to the world of D&D so it's a joy for me to share it with them. It features pockets of civilization stretched across a vast expanse of untamed wilderness full of monsters, ancient ruins and mystery. The open nature of the original setting fits the modern style of sandbox play I prefer and it will give them control over their characters' fates. It also gives me plenty of room to place some of my favourite locations and adventures from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. To give them a balanced experience, I plan to use the better classic adventures like (B2) Keep on the Borderlands along side the best the OSR has to offer like Death Frost Doom. Other play will be stuff of my own and the things that develop out of their decisions. I'm wicked excited about this campaign! I don't know how long it's going to last, but I can keep us going for years!

The group is excited to play the Keep on the Borderlands. Our next game will start with them heading up the Duke's Road from the Barony of Kelvin. Perhaps on the way they'll come across a cornfield that is suspiciously lush for the time of year and investigate. Maybe they won't investigate and I won't get to use Tales of the Scarecrow after all. Who knows?

(Some of the stuff my players could stumble into over the course of the campaign.)

I'm looking forward to leaving trails of rumours and other breadcrumbs to all the corners of the sandbox. The classic modules already have their place in the Duchy so I just need to dust them off (or print them out) and read through them before they get there. That's settled, but the stuff I have from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, especially the older adventures that don't fit the new assumed real-world historical setting, can be placed anywhere.

Some of them are obvious choices. The town of Pembrooktonshire is crying out to be placed on the edge of the Black Peak Mountains north of Threshold. The hidden country of Voivodja (A Red & Pleasant Land) needs to be cradled in the Altan Tepes mountain range. Nestled between the Duchy, the Empire of Thyatis, the Emirate of Ylaruam and the Republic of Darokin, it is well positioned to secretly influence the many countries of the Known World. Rumours of the ruins of the great palace of the vampire lords that ruled Karameikos during the dark age point toward those mountains. There might be stories of gardens full of treasure for anyone brave enough to follow the Volaga river to its source.

Speaking of the Republic of Darokin, Vornheim needs a home. Corunglain, the northernmost city, seems a natural spot. Foreboding and dreary, next to the Broken Lands while sitting astride important trade routes. That's the locale that mixes melancholy and wealth together to produce Vornheim! The mountains that border Darokin and Rockhome is probably the best place for The Hammers of the Gods, an old LotFP adventure centred on the Dwarves. I bought it strictly to find out the big, bad secret of the dwarves. Maybe I'll get to use it and my players will find out too.

The Grinding Gear is another old one, with its goblins and stirges, that could be used as is anywhere around Threshold. Likewise the Black Peak Mountains could hold the little cottage from Death Frost Doom. I think I'll place it near the Lost Valley of the Hutaaka and weave into that story. Still, it might be better in the Altan Tepes Mountains, near the frost giants and Castellan Keep. I have time before I spring that one on them and I can put it pretty much anywhere if I wait until play delivers us a macguffin worth the effort.

The horror-show adventure Forgive Us could fit in any town in the Duchy on a trade route (nearly all of them). The same could be said for Death Love Doom, bu if I use that one it will be on the outskirts of Specularum. That adventure would be a good impetus to get the players to leave the Duchy for a while and head south to the Thanegioth Archipelago and the Isle of Dread (X4) or the Isle of the Unknown. Perhaps they would even go as far as the southern continent to find Qelong. I was going to put Qelong on the western edge of the map, on the other side of the Malpheggi Swamp where the Atruaghin Clans are supposed to be, but I'm thinking that's a better spot for the Slumbering Ursine Dunes (by Chris Kutalik and the Hydra Cooperative).

What I'm really going to have fun with is the God that Crawls. It can be placed in any remote location but instead of St. Augustine of Cantebury as the cursed monster prowling the maze it could be Halav, the first king and saviour of Traladara. Gnoll warlocks could have captured him after their defeat and used a ritual to transform him into the crawling monster. Zirchev would have captured him and placed him in the holding place for the cursed Blackmoor artefacts for everyone's safety. Petra built the original Traladaran temple on top of the maze so Halav could be cared for. That's probably the easiest way to work the adventure into the setting. The secret would not undermine the Church of Traladara if it got out because it only increases the suffering of Halav for his people, but it would completely destroy the Cult of Halav who depend on the idea of the Duke as the reincarnation of Halav. Halav can't be the Duke and a monster at the same time. But if he can be restored he could lead the Traladar back into a golden age. That's something the Thyatian ruling class might want to keep a lid on.

(Inside foldout image from The God That Crawls by Jason Rainville)

I'm hoping to get that one in right after they are done with the Keep on the Borderlands. It would be nice to do it earlier but I'm not sure they will take the bait and head off the Duke's road to some remote village while they have a goal in mind. It will likely depend on how things go in the first encounter.

I'm excited about this hybrid setting! All this material blends well and gives me a lot to work with before we add the influence of the players who may change things as they go knocking bout the world and looking for trouble and making assumptions about how things work. There's no better source for material than the paranoid musings of the players after all.

The rush of ideas came after I printed out the old Gazetteer for the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. I wanted to read through it to give the Keep a world to have a place in. The more of these old Gazetteer PDFs I read the more I am impressed with the Known World setting. It has its own rich history and intrigues but nothing is so important that it can't be tweaked or changed to taste.

My big challenge will be adapting the experience awards in the adventures to suit 5e. I'm reading through my new DMG in the hopes that I can figure out a fair way to assign experience since the adventures I'm using where designed to use treasure as the main source of XP rather than the conflict. I'm hoping there's something in there like the old Palladium System had or the 2e optional experience system that rewarded good ideas, RP and problem solving. If not, I'll come up with something based on what I've done in the past, test it out and we'll have an exciting blog post about experience points in 5e D&D!

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in Canada we won't have another session for a week-and-a-half. You can expect a session report sometime after that. Good or bad, I'll be talking about it.

Return to Marvel Super Heroes!

My group has started playing Marvel Super Heroes for about three sessions now. Before that I don't think I'd played it since maybe 1991. I went through a phase in the 90s where I delved into increasingly complicated RPGs with crunchier and crunchier systems. I think that trend probably culminated with HERO Fantasy. Nowadays the pressures of kids, business ventures, career and other creative pursuits makes a fast, rules-light system like MSH pretty much perfect.

This is not some grognard post about how RPGs peaked in the 80s or how I don't need new games. No, what struck me about the system after returning to it after so long is how similar it is to a new RPG. People keep telling me that Fate is the best system for a supers game. Now I understand why. 

The Fate Core system and its streamlined version Fate Accelerated Edition share a common language with Marvel FASERIP. There is a ladder of adjectives describing both the ability of the characters and the intensity of the action. Granted, the language of MSH is more over-the-top with words like "Incredible" and "Amazing," but it is a comic-book game. Words like "epic" and "legendary" fit Fate's assumed fantasy setting even if they seem a bit dry in comparison. The feats and stunts of both games match up well enough that it seems like no accident. Both games also lack the lethal element you find in a lot of old school RPGs.

The real kicker though, is the special Fate Dice. Marvel Super Heroes uses percentile dice and a chart. In a single roll you get your result and the degree of your success (like how much damage you do). Charts fell out of favour sometime in the 90s (probably around the same time dice pools became all the rage). The fancy fate dice offer the same variation of success in a single roll that you get with the Marvel FASERIP system without the cumbersome retro chart from the dark ages of gaming.

(cumbersome retro chart from the dark ages of gaming)

The place where the systems diverge the most is the randomness of character generation. Even though you are allowed to choose powers after rolling the categories in MSH (so you don't end up with opposing powers or silly combinations), rolling randomly for everything is the default. Fate is all about choosing all the elements of the character to build something interesting. I find I get more interesting characters by discovering them through rolls. Had I chose my character's abilities I would have made them all water-based and had a character that could transform into a mass of fresh water so I could move freely and paralyze vampires with ease. Instead I ended up with the Crimson Cricket, an armoured strongman with a sonic attack and wings. The light manipulation power I rolled turned out to be pretty useful against vampires as well. Oddly, the player in our group who min-maxes (he calls it optimizing) his characters chose a similar power group, without the light manipulation. It will be interesting to see how we differentiate ourselves on the team despite that.

Certainly there are more differences than similarities between MSH and Fate, but gameplay for the two games has a common feel. I remember a lot of gamers having trouble moving between MSH and other systems back in the day. The distinct, loose nature of the Marvel system with its one-quick-roll-and-you're-done style of play might account for that. It also might account for why the game hangs on today. There is so much love for Marvel Super Heroes on the internet it is insane. There is even a website with free downloads of all the MSH rulebooks, supplements and adventure modules called Classic Marvel Forever. The site has existed for 14 years so it's safe to say Marvel is letting it slide. The fact that such support exists for an out-of-print game from the 80s blows my mind a little.

Our group isn't exactly playing Classic Marvel Super Heroes. We're using the revised basic rules pretty much as is, but the assumed universe is not the Marvel Universe. In true comic book style we're dimension-hopping through realities with Lamentations of the Flame Princess's Alice in Wonderland inspired setting, A Red and Pleasant Land, as our ultimate goal for long term campaigning. At the moment we seem to be moving through different fictional settings. Since our GM is a Robert Heinlein fan I assume we're moving through fictions like the characters in The Number of the Beast. While they spent a good while in Oz, our characters are destined for a jacked-up Wonderland.

If you are interested in the game you can find info from the GM's perspective over at the Dorkland! blog. If you are really curious or jonesing bad for some FASERIP, you can also check out our actual play videos on Youtube.

Bad News on the Doorstep?

The New Year is rolling in fine with some fantastic RPG material landing on my office doorstep (figuratively speaking) on the 13th. I was sick as a dog and lying in bed at home when the office manager texted to let me know a box had arrived from Finland for me. Despite battling a nasty case of the flu I dragged myself in there after hours to collect my collection of madness from Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

By the time I got the thing in my hands I was feeling a lot better so I opened it up right there. As I peeled back the packaging I was greeted by the words: "YOU ARE DOOMED."

What a great start!

It sounds like bad news to the uninitiated, but in LotFP that just means the stakes in this adventure will be high.

I lifted each of my seven new treasures from the box with slow, deliberate care. Turning them over in my hands and enjoying their look and feel. I flipped through them, glancing at the pages as they spun past. Stopping here and there to take in a piece of particularly arresting art. I laid it one on the table in front of me and once I was done took the whole thing in.

The random postcards were a fun freebie. I was impressed with all of the books. The PDFs just don't do them justice. Still, there is a reason I unpacked them on the red table. I live in a mining town in what many in Canada just refer to as "the North." There are still plenty of people living much farther north than me, just exponentially more to the south. Because of the mild remoteness of my location I have had the pleasure of reading on the internet for a few weeks now about how wonderful A Red and Pleasant Land by Zak S is. One heartless person has even teased me about it without mercy. My anticipation for this particular book had built up to a near frenzy. 

I was pleased that as thing the book lives up to the hype and more. It feels good in my hands while I read it and it feeds my eyes with vivid visuals and balanced layout. I'm taking my time with this one so I'll post proper reviews of it and some of these other books later. For now, I'll stick to first impressions and the highlights that caught me during my unboxing.

Death Frost Doom I'm saving for later. It's the adventure that launched the Lamentations brand. I didn't even open it. Crazy right?

I have a copy of the original Tower of the Stargazer and I've run it a few times so I left the new one aside for now as well. I'll compare the two side by side when I have time.

I've mentioned Zzarchov Kowalski's innovative adventure Thulian Echoes on the blog before, but I know it will eventually get a post to itself. Yannick Bouchard's cover is fantastic and Kelvin Green's interior art lets you know things are going to be weird.

What I was really waiting for from Kowalski was his Lovecraft inspired, adventure creation tool Scenic Dunnsmouth. It's full of seductive, creepy corruption and weird time anomalies. Because each adventure is freshly generated, it's possible to play it more than once with the same group and have wildly different adventures. The kicker for this one though is Jez Gordon's interior art. His signature heavy black shapes are foreboding on their own, but in this book there's a hazy coloured glow on many of the images, hinting at the corruption that could be anywhere in the adventure. I'm hoping to run it sooner, rather than later. It would work well as an intro to A Red and Pleasant Land since the featured river could serve as a way into the Land of Unreason. Regardless, I hope I get to use it sooner rather than later.

The impact of the full colour art in No Salvation for Witches surprised me. It's another one that needs an in depth review. I'd like to play it first though. I'm not sure how the time limit will play out. There's enough clues to figure everything out but they are spread out far enough there's little chance to get all the pieces of the puzzle in time to take action. In the meantime, I can tell you the production values of this book are wonderful. I am thrilled I contributed to crowdfunding project that got me NSFW.

I'm happy to get it all! There's a great collection of RPG madness here to use, inspire me, or dip into to give a lagging campaign a jolt. My LotFP shelf just keeps getting bigger and better.

We Can Only Go Down From Here: The Next Logical Step For LotFP!

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is making all kinds of waves with the new releases. I'm still waiting on mine to show up and it's making me a little crazy! I've been thinking about what I have coming and the rest of the catalogue and my wheels are spinning! I've skimmed the PDFs of my imminent arrivals and found an interesting pattern that builds on what James Raggi has done and the things he has in development.

The pattern I am talking about is a slow build toward a Hollow Earth setting. The assumed setting of the Early Modern Era was rife with legends of a world inside our own. A quick internet search will show that there are people who still believe there is another world inside ours and a secret history to go along with it. It's a weird location with almost limitless potential. Because any characters exploring the Hollow Earth would be from the historical world of the Early Modern Era there is still a "normal" experience for players to balance against the weird. The proximity to the real world also allows for some opportunities for extremely ordinary things from our world to be found in the hollow earth. All these things allow for a completely new world full of strange new things to explore while still keeping to the basic tenets of Weird Fantasy Roleplay.

The most famous Hollow Earth fiction is probably Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series. One of things that captured my imagination about Pellucidar from a gaming perspective is how the constant daylight affects the perception of time. Here in Canada it is possible to live far enough north to experience "the midnight sun" during the summer. I don't live that far north (thankfully!) but I have friends who have and other friends who currently work up there a few weeks at a time. It can mess with a person's circadian rhythms. It has even been known to drive people mad. It's not a far jump from there to Burroughs' ideas of time having no meaning in Pellucidar.

Burroughs took it a step father though. In his stories the perception of time is a necessary part of its working. Because the characters could not perceive time passing they could not be affected by it in the same way as a person living on the outer surface would be. This means PCs taking a "night's rest" need to set a watch or they might sleep for the equivalent of a hundred years. It also means they consume resources such as food and water at irregular rates. Going inside a space where time is important in terms of how long a torch lasts might be shocking after they get used to unfettered time in a wilderness crawl. The short and long rest mechanic from 5e D&D could fit well into the fluid time of Pellucidar. Let's hope WotC gets on with their update to the OGL so it can be ported in.

The mutability of time makes things a bit difficult for a GM who is tracking the actions of other factions operating concurrently to the PCs. Things like distance and resources will have to determine what can happen in the background while the PCs act but with time the way it is pretty much anything can happen. The beauty of LotFP is there is already a blueprint for dealing with these kinds of issues in The Monolith From Beyond Space and Time.  Time in that adventure moves at different rates for different characters. Distances are relative and it takes quite a lot for the players to wrap their heads around what is happening. So much of the groundwork for Pellucidar's strange time is done for LotFP.

Another thing I love about Pellucidar is that the inner earth is protected from the trauma experienced by the outer world. That means there are still dinosaurs! Besides the fantastic that could exist hidden from our view in the hollow earth there are all the creatures from every era of earth's history down there. All the creatures of legend that seem to appear and disappear like Sasquatch/yeti, the slender man and the moth-man could all be residents of the hollow earth that somehow made their way to the surface as well. Again, the possibilites are endless. The hollow earth with its disconnected time and entrances through the ground could explain the legends of faerie mounds where people entered the land of the fey only to return to a time hundreds of years after the one they left.

When it comes to dinosaurs though, LotFP has it covered! The infamous adventure setting Carcosa has dinosaurs but it's the still-under-development World of the Lost that I think is being written by Rafael Chandler that leads me to believe a hollow earth full of dinosaur shenanigans is on the way. It's clearly inspired by Conan Doyle's Lost World and is a mere step away from Pellucidar.

Getting back to Carcosa, the depravity of the snakemen of that product matches up well with some of the terrible creatures of Pellucidar. The low placement of humanity on the Carcosan food chain also fits in well with the character of most hollow earth stories and is just as ripe to be upset by enterprising PCs as it was in the original stories set in Pellucidar. The Judges Guild style hexcrawl format used in Carcosa also would serve well to cover a section of the hollow earth in detail.

A Red and Pleasant Land by Zak S. deserves mention in this progression toward a hollow earth setting as well. Its Land of Unreason is a world apart with its own rules and is difficult to access. It's not much of a reach for players to adventure in the hollow earth after their characters survive (or don't survive) A Red and Pleasant Land.

Besides all this conjecture and guessing on my part there is the Thulian Echoes adventure! In that one by Zzarchov Kowolski there is an explicit stairway to the hollow world. The adventure gives no clues as to what the hollow earth itself is like but the journey is described as a long one and there are random encounters that include the corpse of a Triceratops! In Thulian Echoes there are creatures down in the earth's crust inspired from other works such as the Vril from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Vril, the Power of the Coming Race (originally published as The Coming Race in 1871). There are also devolved versions of the elder creatures from H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

Excerpt from Thulian Echoes page 16 - image by Kelvin Green

I like the inclusion of the creatures from At the Mountains of Madness. It could mean that the cyclopean city set in Antarctica was an outpost of a grand subterranean civilization that still exists in the hollow earth. With time as mutable as it is, little time could have passed for that civilization and they might be still wondering what happened to their city they only recently lost contact with.

Image by Kelvin Green

The disconnect with the progression of time between the out and inner surfaces of the world means characters could encounter lost legionnaires from Rome, people of Egypt or any era of history. A GM could even mess with players by having their characters encounter explorers from an era a hundred or more years after their own to show how they've lost time on the inner surface.

The time thing gives me an idea for an interesting location. A mad old wizard's tower where the incredibly ancient man wears the ravages of time on his wrinkled skin as he tends to water clocks and endlessly winds the clockwork of the tower itself in an effort to bring time to the hollow earth. It could create strange time effects near the tower and give rise to a host of magic spells based on controlling time in the tower's library.

I like the idea of a hollow earth or Land of the Inner Sun campaign setting. In fact, if James Raggi of Lamentations of the Flame Princess doesn't get the ball rolling on this thing in some official way I might have to go ahead and do this one myself.

The Alice Character Class for 5e D&D or Dude, Where's My Turtle?

Zak S's A Red and Pleasant Land, published by the always innovative Lamentations of the Flame Princess, is flying off the shelves. In less than two days, as I start to write this post, there are 625 hard copies ordered. Since we all have the PDF we might as well get started on the time-honoured tradition of ripping it up and changing things.

Earlier this morning on G+, A. Miles Davis made a request for a 5e D&D version of the Alice Class. Zak offered an "invisible intangible imaginary turtle" to the first person to come up with a 5e class, so the race is on! If I make it, I have every intention of painting my turtle's shell with intangible, imaginary glitter to solve the whole problem of finding it.

[The Alice from A Red and Pleasant Land by Zak S.]

The Alice

The Alice class is based on the archetypical "fool" commonly found in stories of all kinds.  That character that seems to wander through a story through luck, cunning and stubbornness. The chosen of the gods, fate, or worse that trouble just seems to find. The one that seems to see things more clearly than the other characters and sometimes penetrates the fourth wall. 

[excerpt from A Red and Pleasant Land, page 30]

The class as it is written in the book is full of randomness and possibility. No two Alices would be alike. While this random advancement works well with the flavour of the class and the LotFP system that the book was published to be most compatible with, I'm going to embrace the structures that exist in 5e and go with a more structured class that splits after 3rd level into two separate Narratives. 

Class Features:

Hit Points are pretty much the same as the Alice as written: hit points as magic user or in this case the Wizard class.

Hit Points: 1d6 per Alice level

Hit Points at 1st Level: 6 + constitution modifier

Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d6 (or 4) + constitution modifier per Alice level after 1st

The Alice class is supposed to fight as a Thief/Rogue/Specialist so most of the proficiency choices can be taken from the equivalent to those. Alice's tend to be taken from a life of leisure and the tool proficiencies reflect that.

Proficiencies:

Armour: Light Armour

Weapons: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, shortswords, rapiers and pistols (if firearms are available in your campaign)

Tools: Choose one Gaming Set or Musical Instrument

The Alice Saving throws are based on their force of personality and luck.

Saving Throws: Charisma, Dexterity

A classic education and the decadence of the Alice's early life, full of drawing room intrigue and listening at keyholes, also influences their skill choices.

Skills: Choose three from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand and Stealth

The Alice is woefully unprepared for adventure at 1st level, usually falling into it and inexplicably finding a handful of useful items at the beginning of their first adventure.

Equipment:

The Alice starts with the following equipment in addition to the equipment provided by the character's background.

• (a) a rapier or (b) a hand crossbow and 20 bolts or (c) a pistol and bandolier with 24 pre-measured shots (if available in your campaign)
• (a) 2 daggers or (b) 6 darts
• (a) a Diplomat's Pack or (b) an Entertainer's Pack

Instead of the wild and fun random table for advancement the 5e Alice progresses with more structure.

Exasperation:

Beginning at first level all Alices can become Exasperated in times of great stress. By thinking or uttering a statement of exasperation such as, "Oh I can't conceive how I ever fell into this deplorable circumstance," or "We are indeed doomed and now birds will gnaw our eyes," the Alice calls the attention of the powers that put them on the road to adventure in the first place. Times of great stress are of more interest to the gods, fates or dark powers so that is the time when this ability will work. 

The Alice may express Exasperation once per hour of real playing time. When the Alice uses the Exasperation ability the DM rolls on the Exasperation Table:

[Exasperation Table from A Red and Pleasant Land]

Alice liked pies, although sometimes people did not want her to have them:

Starting at 1st level the character adds her/his proficiency bonus to find foodstuffs of any kind. This bonus stacks with any others if the character is already using a skill such as Investigation or Perception to find the foodstuffs.

It was very shiny and stuck out like a soup spoon:

As early as 2nd level the Alice can begin to take advantage of her/his unpredictable nature. On a successful melee attack the Alice can make a Sleight of Hand roll to grab an item other than the opponent's weapon from him or her. This will only work once per combat and combatant on any opponents with greater than zombie intelligence.

"It really was curious," she thought- "How many times could this kind of thing happen?"

At 3rd level the Alice gains the ability to cheat death or escape some other calamity a total of one time. The Alice must play dead for one round to build the suspense before jumping up fully ready and unscathed.

She was not such a mouse as she used to be:

At 4th level and then again at 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th and 19th level the Alice gains an ability score improvement. In each instance the character can improve one ability score by 2 points or two scores by one point each. No ability can be improved above 20.

They began to throw stones, and Alice began to avoid them:

At 5th level the Alice's script immunity improves and s/he gains an Unarmoured Defence ability. The character adds both Dexterity and Charisma bonuses to Armour Class when not wearing armour.

The blue one certainly did make Alice taller, of that Alice was certain:

As of 6th level, the Alice adds proficiency bonus on all rolls to identify drugs and plants with drug-like properties.

They kept talking as Alice was a rhododendron in a pot:

At 7th level the Alice gains advantage on all Stealth rolls.

She really could be very charming when she needed to be:

At 9th level the Alice gains advantage to Deception checks.

She knew from school what the word meant, but did not know if it was rude or not:

At 11th level the Alice learns to speak, read and write a new language of the player's choice.

It was so lovely, and - according to the book- it was right there:

Gained at 13th level, this one can be taken directly from the table. The only exception is if the Alice can't get it by the fourth session s/he can choose to continue or give up and replace this ability with another use of "It really was curious," she thought- "How many times could this kind of thing happen?"

Expertise:

Alice is always learning. By the time s/he hits 14th level she's become an expert in one of her proficiencies and applies double the normal proficiency bonus to all rolls with that skill.

She began to feel somewhat neglected:

By 15th level the Alice is becoming quite unpredictable. If the Alice is attacked in a round where s/he only dodges and the attacker misses, the attacker will fumble and miss its next turn. If the attacker has multiple attacks it loses a number of attacks equal to the Alice's proficiency bonus. This only works once on any creature who has seen it and has intelligence greater than that of a zombie.

Alice had seen so many unusual things lately, it had become usual:

At 17th level the Alice becomes unshakable. S/he is immune to insanity or confusion in any form. Even sudden appearance of an inscrutable elder god from beyond the cosmos is not particularly noteworthy. The Alice can still fear. Fear is likely part of how s/he managed to get to 17th level in the first place.

She had not known her mother's cousin very well, but decided it was a bad thing that she had died:

Sometime early in the Alice's 18th level s/he is willed a parcel of land with a house, manor or small castle on it. The location, current state of the property and how the occupants regard the Alice showing up with a deed is up to the DM.

"It really was curious," she thought- "How many times could this kind of thing happen?"

At 20th level the Alice has pleased whatever forces placed the character on the path to adventure and once again s/he gains the ability to cheat death or escape some other calamity a total of one time. The Alice must play dead for one round to build the suspense before jumping up fully ready and unscathed.

Narrative Paths

At third level the Alice embraces a particular Narrative on the character's path to greater adventure. These three Narratives are the Plucky, Clever and From Good Stock Alices.

Plucky:

The Plucky Alice has embraced the rough and tumble nature of her/his existence and become adept a fisticuffs and other shenanigans. At 3rd level the Plucky Alice gains proficiency in Medium Armour and Longsword. 

Oh I do so apologize:

Beginning at 3rd level, the Alice can take advantage of distraction and trip any person or creature that is otherwise engaged with a successful Dexterity Check. It only works once per combat unless the opponents are mindless creatures like zombies or can't see the trick the first time. At 5th level the trip does 1d4 damage. This damage increases by a die type to 1d6 at 8th level, 1d8 at 10th level, 1d10 at 12th level, 1d12 at 16th level, and 1d20 at 19th level.

It seemed nearly everything was dangerous if handled improperly:

By 5th level the Alice has become skilled with improvised weapons. All weapons do one die type better than normal (eg 1d4 becomes 1d6). Improvised effects automatically succeed, such as a bag of marbles automatically tripping or caltrops automatically damaging medium humanoids with no save.

She noticed the Red Knight always feinted to his left - she was a very perceptive girl:

At 9th level the Alice can spend time observing a combatant to gain a +1d4 to hit and/or +1d4 on an ability check to trip or grapple for each round of observation when s/he finally does attack. This ability can only be used once per combat.

Alice then did something quite astonishing...

The Alice is unpredictable. As of 13th level s/he adds her/his Charisma bonus to hit and damage to the first attack in a combat with an improvised weapon against any intelligent opponent ("who knew Alice could do that with a gingerbread man?"). This trick only works once per combat and only once on any particular opponent.

She did seem to offend people (and animals) wherever she went:

Expereicne with terrible people (and creatures) has made the Alice adept at duelling. At 17th level the Alice can stack the character's Charisma bonus with her/his Dexterity bonus when attacking with a finesse or duelling weapon such as a foil, rapier or pistol.

Clever:

The Clever Alice get's through adventures by knowing secrets and applying knowledge to her situation. 

She closed her eyes and said the words just as she'd been taught:

At third level s/he learns to cast Wizard Spells the same as an Arcane Trickster Rogue from page 98 of the 5e PHB.

Alice quite liked drawing and had an impressive box of crayons at home:

At 5th level the Alice gains proficiency with the Forgery Kit and can add the character's proficiency bonus to forgeries.

All that hiding in the dumbwaiter finally paid off:

The Alice knows secrets. As of 9th level, once per session the Alice can recall or pull a piece of paper with important and relevant lore on it out of a pocket. It can be one of two types of secret. Either a piece of useful information about a legendary treasure or magic item or and embarrassing fact about a notable NPC.

She thought it might be a saltcellar, or at least that seemed like a good word:

At 13th level: "The Alice can appraise treasure to a non-trivial degree: the value of non-magical things can be estimated flawlessly and if a piece of treasure is not what it seems on any level the Alice will get an inkling. As in, if the Alice goes "Is this not what it seems?" and the Referee will go "Yeah, you've seen a lot of jade urns in your day and this is not what it seems somehow- you're not sure how." If a treasure has some unusual of hidden feature of a mechanical or physical nature, the Alice will sense that it is there on a successful intelligence roll. The Alice won't know it is, but the Alice'll sense that it is there." 

Investigation or Perception proficiency will apply to the Intelligence roll at the DM's discretion.

From Good Stock

The Alices From Good Stock rely on good breeding (or the appearance thereof) to bully their way through their adventures. At 3rd level this Alice chooses two proficiencies from Animal Handling, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Performance and Persuasion.

Her sister had mentioned they were dreadful people:

Beginning at 3rd level the Alice stacks Charisma and Intelligence bonuses to History checks to recognize the faction and function of of any aristocrat in any land.

She knew to curtsey in situations like this, and so she did:

Despite travelling with common company, by the time s/he reaches third level, the Alice's polished manners always show. Members of the upper classes instinctively recognize the Alice as one of their own (even if she isn't). The Alice gains advantage to all Charisma-based rolls when dealing with such people.

She tried to remember what she knew about stoats:

Beginning at 5th level animals like the Alice. The character has advantage on all Charisma-based rolls when interacting with normal animals and speaking-but-otherwise-normal animals.

Expertise:

By 9th level the Alice From Good Stock has gained expertise in another one of her/his proficiencies and can roll double the proficiency bonus.

She thought it might be a saltcellar, or at least that seemed like a good word:

At 13th level: "The Alice can appraise treasure to a non-trivial degree: the value of non-magical things can be estimated flawlessly and if a piece of treasure is not what it seems on any level the Alice will get an inkling. As in, if the Alice goes "Is this not what it seems?" and the Referee will go "Yeah, you've seen a lot of jade urns in your day and this is not what it seems somehow- you're not sure how." If a treasure has some unusual of hidden feature of a mechanical or physical nature, the Alice will sense that it is there on a successful intelligence roll. The Alice won't know it is, but the Alice'll sense that it is there." 

Investigation or Perception proficiency will apply to the Intelligence roll at the DM's discretion.

They all listened attentively as Alice told her tale:

At 17th level the Alice receives a +2 bonus to her/his Charisma score. This bonus cannot bring the score above 20. Any excess can be applied to Intelligence or Wisdom.