New Experience in D&D Clones (Breaking the Old-School Cycle)

Alvario Tapia's art evokes the lost lands of the Bitter Reach wrapped in ice and snow!

The older versions of D&D, such as B/X and BECMI have a lot going for them and inspired countless clones and revised versions over the years since the Old School Renaissance began. My current version is Old-School Essentials.

These games were focused on exploration in the pursuit of treasure. There is a sound argument that the system of attaching character advancement to the recovery of treasure (experience points for gold) encourages creative play that is not centered on violence. If the goal is to get the treasure out of the ruins and the players receive improvements to their characters based on achieving that goal, the thought is they will focus on that goal with as little risk to their characters as possible. Because fighting comes with the risk of character death, negotiation, trickery, stealth, and imaginative (or preposterous) plans are all preferable to combat.

On the surface, this system seems great, and it does encourage creative roleplay and planning from the players. The problem comes with the way it interacts with the assumptions of the implied setting. It's often said that D&D has as many or more similarities to western fiction as it does to fantasy fiction. The assumption is the characters are on the frontier. They strike out into the wilderness from one of the villages, towns, or cities that are the points of light representing civilization and order in the dark and untamed chaos that is the frontier. The idea is the characters are exploring these spaces that are unknown to, or forgotten by, the civilized peoples of the fantasy world. The problem with the frontier of D&D is the same problem with frontier of the old west: somebody was already there.

The base of most of the older adventures is to acquire resources from the frontier until a character amasses enough power and renown to build a fortress or tower from which to tame the wilderness, settle an area, and move into domain level play.

It's safe to say my worldview changed dramatically since I started playing RPGs back in 1983. for a variety of reasons, I no longer see the colonial patterns of going somewhere different to take resources and setting it with familiar people as a fun adventure. Newer versions of D&D exchanged experience for gold with experience for winning fights and defeating monsters. The result is no better because the incentives encourage ruthless killing of every creature the characters find. 

I feel it is important to decolonize my games and make my table a better place for more people to be. I also don't want to reinforce the assumptions that led to so much harm to people here in Canada and elsewhere. My professional and personal journey of decolonization is a long, ongoing, and important one for me.

I decided to make changes to my B/X home game and follow the example of some new games when it comes to advancement, but still hold onto the flavour of the old character classes from D&D. Two of my favourite RPGs to play right now are from Free League. They both manage to move away from the colonialism of the wild west assumptions of D&D. I assume this has a lot to do with the worldview of the Swedes and their core values. These games are focused on wild adventure and exploration. They both have experience systems that reinforce their respective strengths, by having the group review their characters' performance against these assumptions with a series of questions that grant an experience point for every yes.

Johan Egerkrans bringing the mayhem!

Dragonbane takes place in a world made of the shattered remains of a draconic empire destroyed by conflict with demons. Factions, monsters, and power-mad fools raid the ruins that dot the wilderness in search of artifacts that will help them carve their own little kingdoms and empires out of what is left. These adventures tend to emulate the plots of pulp fantasy and legends, involving thwarting tyrants and pulling off feats of daring rather than pulling enough gold out of a dungeon to disrupt a nation's economy. The first adventure is a race to recover the pieces of and reassemble an artifact to stop an ancient evil from returning to plague the world. 

The experience system in Dragonbane gives points for big moments when using skills. If the player roles a critical success or failure, called dragons(1) and demons(20), during a session they put a mark beside the skill on the character sheet that allows for a chance at advancement. This means the more the characters do things, more they can improve. It favours action that is the bread and butter of this game of, "Magic and Mayhem." The characters get more marks at the end of session the players can place as they want if they are able to say yes to any of a series of five questions.

Forbidden Lands manages to incorporate a community-building element without being colonial. For the two settings I've played so far they focus on exploration in the wake of a cataclysm that kept people isolated in small communities. The disappearance of the Bloodmist in the Raven Lands and the melting glaciers in the Bitter Reach create opportunities for the people of these places to explore the world that was hidden from them for so long and rebuild new communities on the abandoned bones of the fortresses, towns, and cities of the past. The creatures that are normally disposable in D&D are playable "Kin" in Forbidden Lands, with goblins, wolfkin, and orcs travelling alongside humans, halflings, elves, and dwarves. There is still conflict between these groups, but the buffer created by the new revealed lands and bigger threats on the horizon make negotiation between them more attractive than warfare. 

Nils Gulliksson showing a party on the move.

The mechanics of the game are focused on exploration with all the opportunities and dangers that come with it. The combat is so dangerous that if a creature could speak we would negotiate, coming up with some creative solutions; including writing a song about a drake to feed its vanity in exchange for something it had in its lair we needed.

The experience system for Forbidden Lands also uses a series of ten questions about each character's performance with a focus on exploration and roleplay. It is a fun way to wrap up a session with the whole group talking about how each character was great. 

Ending the sessions with these positive recaps solidifies the big moments of the session and makes for some positive vibes at the end of the game too. I prefer it to milestone experience because the old-school classes advance at different rates and milestones can't account for that dynamic. That's why I decided to incorporate the experience questions at the end of my sessions as well. To keep the integrity of the B/X class progression I knocked two zeroes of the experience requirements for each level. This means the Thief needs 12 XP (or 12 yes answers) to get to level two and 24 to get to level three, but the Magic User needs 25 XP (or 25 yes answers) to get to level two and 50 to get to level three. the Thief and Magic User need at total of 1600 and 3000 XP respectively for level nine, so progression slows as they advance. 

In practice it is working well at the lower levels, but a session only renders around 10 XP so I may need to tighten the progression up as they get up there. I don't think anyone wants to take 150 sessions to advance their Magic User from level eight to level nine. The consensus online seems to be that people should be able to level their characters in five or six sessions so I'll probably fix the progression after it gets to be 50 or so XP between levels. Although, I do like the progressively slower progression in how it makes the name-level characters more rare and impressive. It also keeps the party in the fifth-to-eighth-level sweet spot that I like to play in a lot longer than normal. It's an ongoing project with my players, so I'll keep it how it is for now and see how it goes.

My Experience Questions for my home B/X game

The beauty of B/X is it is difficult to break the game with changes because the system is both simple and robust. Adapting elements of newer games to move the assumptions away from its problematic past works well in my experience and helped me reinforce creative play and heroics at my table.

If you have comments, hit me up on Bluesky where I'll be sure to post: @dave-stuff.bsky.social

Playtesting The Hardy Boys Mysteries RPG at CleriCon 2024!

The key to three days of amazing gaming with a bunch of online RPG content creators!

CleriCon2024 wrapped today! It was a wild three days full of gaming with great people and I hope we get to do it all again next year! I had many wonderful experiences over the weekend that I will talk about in another post, but for this post I want to focus on the answer to a question friend messaged me to ask over the past couple of days.

This year I stepped up my involvement by running a game on the Friday night. I took a risk and ran the playtest version of my own Hardy Boys Mysteries RPG, but it was a risk that paid off bigtime!

Something special for our top sleuth!

I ran the adventure I created for it called, "The Clue in the Missing Milk," and people loved it! I ran it once before at home so I wasn't going in unprepared, but I found playtesting at a Con stressful before we started. The lead-up was the worst, but once we got the session going we all sunk into Bayport and soon there was no room for my nerves. I was glad I ran it during the first session though, because I doubt I would enjoy any of the games I signed up to play before I was done with mine!

I had some worries about how a Powered by the Apocalypse based game would be received at an Old-School D&D focused Con, but the group that signed up for my game loved how the system helped it feel like the Hardy Boys! Everyone was there for the experience, and no one had any pre-existing notions about PbtA systems. It did what we needed it to do to immerse us in the kid-detective genre.

The first playtest confirmed the concept and got me some excellent feedback about how to deliver the information to the players, especially on the archetype playbooks/character sheets. The second playtest gave me a better idea of what tools the Editor (the person in the Master of Ceremonies/Referee type role) needs for smooth play. 

The feedback from the CleriCon game was positive and created a crazy buzz about the game that ran right through the Con! The players enjoyed it and talked about it so much I had people asking me questions about where they could get it and if I will run it next year even as I was leaving today! 

There is not enough developed for me to release yet, and plenty of work to do before that happens. The confirmation that the core of the game is fun to play and emulates those early, public domain, Hardy Boys books is wonderful, but far from the end of testing.

My amazing partner Mel helped create a clue for the CleriCon game with her Cricut!

I ran for a group of four. Two young people in their early 20s who had a familiarity with the Hardy Boys and two older players who grew up with the books and were thrilled to step back into something like the stories they loved so much. All four found solving the mystery a fun, satisfying experience. The one player they voted the Sleuth who contributed the most received a copy of The House on the Cliff, the second Hardy Boys story, in the tan hard-cover with the yellow-spined slip cover. Watching the look on his face while he untied the twine holding the wrapping closed and took out the book was a pleasure. He shared he had a subscription as a boy and received one of the blue-spined picture-cover books every month, and was amazed to have an older version. I apologize to the people in his life if you get dragged through bookstores, antique barns, and thrift shops as he rebuilds that collection.

I had provided pairs of dice and note pads for all the Sleuths but everyone gave those back for the next playtest. I took it as a good sign that they all kept their character playbooks and took their pages of notes out of the pads as mementos of the experience.

There was room for improvement and as I review the game I expect I will find more. I noticed spots that could be tweaked and that more needs to be done to get the pacing of the adventure more in line with the original stories. Maybe it's the nature of Con play, but the players focused on solving the mystery and foiling the criminal plot as fast as possible. They did not do much to engage with the character's regular lives. In the original stories the Hardy Boys and their friends still had school, homework, chores, and regular fun pursuits that came before investigating the mysteries. There's still some work to do to support that balance.

I also noted some difficulties in terms of organization for the Editor that could be solved by handling the clues better. I already have some ideas about how to make that flow better, but it will all need to be tested.

Write, test, rewrite... I'll be on that treadmill for while.

The positive feedback and absolute joy we had playing the game filled my tank with all the motivation I need to push on to the next steps. Once I have the game running the way I want it to run I'll need to try it out with someone else running it. Seeing how they use the material will let me know if I need to give groups more tools or guidelines to help them get to where we got on Friday. I'll let you all know when I get there.

I'm still feeling the high! I know I have something special, but I'm not fooling myself about how much work there is left. I'll keep folks updated here on the blog and see what else I can use to keep people connected to the wild ride this journey might turn out to be. 

I am grateful to the play-testers who took a chance on The Hardy Boys Mysteries RPG so far and everyone else expressing excitement for the project! 

Thank you all so much! 

The Hardy Boys Mysteries RPG at CleriCon!

I mentioned in my last post, my main project right now is The Hardy Boys Mysteries Role Playing Game. What I didn't mention is my first public playtest is happening at CleriCon tonight!

Look! A CLUE!

We'll be playing: "The Clue in the Missing Milk." It's an adventure I ran before to positive feedback so I'm hoping it works well again tonight! I only have a five-hour drive to Glen Williams, Ontario to second-guess myself.

CleriCon is an old-school RPG Convention with a focus on B/X and BECMI D&D. There are newer games running, like Mork Borg, but I'm fairly certain I'll be running the only RPG Powered by the Apocalypse. I tried a few systems, including a few of my own creation, but they didn't fit those original Hardy Boys stories the way a custom PbtA system did.

The Hardy Boys are adventures full of silly, campy fun where the characters stumble into clues and coincidences until they can't help but solve the mystery. Mysteries are usually difficult to run well in RPGs, but The Hardy Boys are more like adventures with a mystery as a plot device. The stories are full of outrageous coincidences and the action delivers clues to the characters with more efficiency than Amazon. That's how I ended up with PbtA. The Move structure is perfect for bludgeoning the players with clues as they move through the story until they have everything they need to solve the mystery and thwart the plans of the bad guys! 

The Clue in the Missing Milk follows the Hardy Boys formula, starting with an inciting incident to bring the Sleuths into the action and connect them to the mystery. After that there is a timeline for a few things that will happen with or without their involvement, and a huge collection of clues they can uncover as they move around Bayport.

Some goodies for my players at CleriCon, including one of the
first six Hardy Boys Books, WITH a yellow-spined slipcover. 
It's all wrapped up and ready for the top Sleuth!

I tested the adventure earlier this week with a mixed group of mostly strangers with all levels of experience with RPGs from none to decades of play. The laughter did not stop and it was the most fun I had running a game in a long time! When I first conceived the idea to start this project I could not have hoped for more.

So now it is fingers crossed for tonight to see how it tests in the craziness of Con play. 

Wish me luck!

I'm back!

After a few years of quietly playing, running, and (as always) tinkering with games, I have something to add to the conversation again. Instead of focusing on tweaks to existing games, I find myself diving deep into design. Like many people involved in the RPG community I'm always messing around with some idea for a game, adventure, or scenario, but this time it feels different.

No limits! Yeah!

I have a few design projects on the go. Some of it grew out of regular play and some addresses problems I see. I still favour the rules-light systems based in the old school tradition, but love how games have grown and changed. There are so many options and tools we have now to mix and match and get exactly what we want out of the experience at our table or online game-space! I also find my professional life crossing over into RPGs as new game-based therapies develop. It's all exciting!

Most of the RPGs I'm working on are somewhere in the middle of the write, test, rewrite cycle. I tend to follow the muse as it jumps around so they all move forward at a glacial pace. I'll talk about each as they come up but the project that caught fire for me right now is my take on the Hardy Boys adventures. Originally the Mid Century Mysteries, the core of the game was in the works long before I decided to take advantage of the original Hardy Boys Books entering the public domain. My connection to this material is strange and deserves its own post, so I'll expand on that later.

Source material for the Hardy Boys Adventure RPG!

With my brain hyper-focused on the Hardy Boys Adventures RPG, everything else is still taking up space in my brain, but more in the background. There will be more about them in the future, but it may be a while.

My home game that grew out of playing the original Black Hack continues to develop. It was something all its own by the time the second edition of the Black Hack came out. I'll get it all in order at some point. It would be nice to put a book together for my own use and to have a better reference for my players. The reactions to the bits of it I posted before also make me think there's room for it as an option in the RPG market. Based on my experience, it could be a good game to use to introduce new folks to the RPG hobby in a way that is more accessible. For it to be accessible, it needs to be more than a pile of Google documents and hand-written notes. I want people to have a great experience then have something they could take away to try out on their own. There's more to it than that, but I can expand on the story of that game later. My big lesson from that one is kids can be the best playtesters! 

I'm working on a sci-fi game that came out of play-testing an original system I had planned to use for sword and sorcery. At that stage of the testing I wasn't certain what I would do with magic, so I ran the test using the system for a sci-fi scenario so I could have fantastic elements without magic. The system performed well, and turned out to be adaptable. After using it for sci-fi though, I realised the system supported one of the best science fiction RPG experiences I ever had. I tossed out the whole sword and sorcery thing and dove into creating a sci-fi game that made use of the core game mechanics. Then there was a lot more work to do! I'll go into the details, hopes, and motivations for that one in a later post too. 

Obligatory dice photo! These dice come from the Threshold Diceworks Holmes Retro Collection

The other project comes from people asking me to run "D&D" for them and while I doubt I'll ever publish it, organizing all the changes into a handbook would make my life easier when I run it. I used to run fifth edition D&D for a few years after it first came out, as scrolling back on the blog will show, and I enjoyed it. I find D&D's grown into a monster of supplemental rules, new options, and there is too much to keep track of when running. I still like to play it, but I don't run it anymore.  The same bloat eventually weighed down second edition D&D so much the game almost disappeared! The bloat brought me back to B/X D&D and Old School Essentials. As much fun as I have with it, I started smoothing things out. I mixed in some new approaches while keeping the core rules, benefits, and play style of B/X. I know there are people who think B/X D&D is some kind of sacred text that is eternal. I have no problems with that view, and enjoy playing at their tables. After speaking with folks that look to the old school for a set of rules that can be modified without breaking, I know there people who would like to take a look at the changes I made as inspiration for their own changes. I'll post pieces of that as it comes together as well. The last time I ran it was a great experience!

I'm not sure writing a post about posts I will write later is a good idea, but I'm back, and I'm doing different things these days. We'll see how it goes.