Forbidden Lands - Session Report

I have the tremendous luck to be playing in a Forbidden Lands campaign in the new Bitter Reach campaign setting. Forbidden Lands is the fantasy RPG put out by Free League using their Year Zero Engine rules. I played a one-shot in the main adventuring area called the Raven Lands before moving on to play in a long term campaign in the newly released Bitter Reach, a frozen wasteland north of the Raven Lands.

At first I wasn't too keen on playing a setting covered by a glacier. I live in Northern Ontario, and I did more than my fair share of winter camping so I don't find the idea of trekking across windswept snows to be romantic. I mostly think of long marches in snow shoes carrying too much gear and getting frostbite. Everyone else was excited so I decided to give it a whirl, even after they all made fun of me for having driven a dogsled team once. It would appear I am a Canadian stereotype. 

It turns out that the game also has no romance for hiking through the cold. The weather is a unpredictable foe, and travel is dangerous! It became another challenge of exploration that I found myself enjoying. 

This post is a session report, rather than a review, so I'll get to that. This report is from this week's game. Looking back, it blows my mind how much happens in a two hour session! The group I am playing with is a tonne of fun! The report itself is written from the point of view of my character. Ellodi is a student of winter elf lore who, until recently, lived on the coast of the Bitter Reach and made a living appraising winter elf artifacts to finance her magical studies. This report comes in media res, several sessions in.

Yeah, it's a lot like that.

First foray onto the glacier, Day 11

We drove our dogs hard across the glacier top, travelling straight southwest from the tower, and leaving Kastor's Edge far behind us. Avalanches, storms and snowblindness slowed our progress and we were forced to make camp before turning south.

The weather broke the next day and we made excellent time to the place we believed was the source of the strange lights in the sky.

The glacier parted before us to form a valley between the glistening cliffs of broken ice, and expose the ruins of an ancient winter elf city.

We proceeded with caution since tracks and campfires indicated we were somewhat late to the party as treasure hunters had beat us to this important find. After scouting out the closer buildings, we decided to explore the unoccupied remains of a sorcerer's tower as a place of interest and potential camp.

The contents of the tower had suffered great damage from the crushing weight of the ice and the recent melt. Only one scroll was recovered after careful work. We were able to find a few artifacts and some excellent examples of the furniture from the period. The tower doors were in excellent condition and with a little work were repaired and secured to protect us from the potential mischief of the treasure hunters who are no doubt raiding this precious archaeological site as I write this report.

Karina volunteered to remain in the tower and prepare our camp (mostly because her player didn't make this session) while we made haste to explore the other buildings we had spotted from the upper level of the tower.

We approached an important looking structure that was largely intact due to its extra thick walls. I was hoping for a library of some sort but once inside we found a structure that looked like a vault and in front of it a person that welcomed us.

This person was impossibly beautiful and charismatic. They quickly charmed the party. Lucy, the minstrel, was particularly smitten. Djhara also made advances of a romantic nature toward the person but I am uncertain if they understood since the mating rituals of the wolfkin are something of an acquired taste.

The creature claimed to be only interested in one of the many artifacts their research indicated was in the vault. They were happy to allow us to recover all the other artifacts as long as they received the medallion.

Opening the lock turned out to be child's play when comparing the stellar components to the sketch Selatula had made of the ancient star patterns in the tower we had previously explored. (The lock was actually pretty difficult and would have been impossible without that star chart. Even then, Ellodi strained to do it, and had to push a lore roll to get the job done)

Once inside the vault we found many scrolls that appeared to be documents indicating ownership. These would certainly be helpful in constructing a translation key for the winter elf language. There was also two medallions similar to the description the creature gave us. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the two medallions had the star patterns of two different areas of the ancient night sky.

We also noticed the creature could not touch the medallion. They deflected all questions about their refusal to touch either medallion. Our suspicions were aroused, but it was being cooperative and I had already marked the star-field on our sketch so it seemed harmless to let it take the artifact as agreed and potentially dangerous to go back on our agreement.

As Lucy deposited the medallion into a pouch for the charming creature I asked a question about the night sky on their medallion. The creature's charm fell before a rage that transformed it into a monstrous entity with tentacles and yellow eyes that rivaled our torches with their preternatural glow.

The demon grabbed Lucy's wrist and I felt the magic flow into her, before seeing it paralyze her mid scream. At the same time the creature roared its defiance and wrath, breaking Djhara's spirit with the horrors it held and we watched in abject terror as the great warrior, Djhara Bloodspit, folded up into a ball on the floor.

Sela reached for the second medallion, hoping to wrap it around the demon's neck. I was quicker and spoke the words to weave a spell drawing on the primal power of the fires burning in our torches to make the creature's fine clothing to burst into purifying flame. Not knowing if it might be immune to such an attack I marshaled my energy carefully, using only a portion of it. That power, increased by my frailer heritage, made the demon the centre of a pillar of terrible flame.

To the surprise of all of us, fire was the weakness of the creature and it succumbed instantly to the attack, turning to a pile of ash in a heap of burned clothing. Sela's outstretched hand dropped back to her side as her mouth fell open at the devastation of the scene. I too was taken by surprise and exclaimed, "That's not supposed to happen!"

We recovered the demon's medallion and gathered the rest of the artifacts before returning back to the tower to care for the afflictions wreaked on us by the foul creature. Lucy recovered, and in turn was able to use the power of her music to bring Djhara out of her waking nightmare.

Would that the evening had passed uneventfully, but Sela's sharp ears picked up a call for help out on the glacier. Djhara, Sela and myself went out to a crevice in the ice to effect a rescue of a wayward traveller who is even now curled up by our fire in my spare furs. She says she only wants to return to civilization after losing the rest of her party, but my companions are suspicious after the episode with the demon. Time will tell, I suppose.

Ellodi

It's such a stroke of luck the campaign area fits neatly in a rectangle like this!

"My Kid Wants D&D, What Do I Do?"

Either Wizards of the Coast have done a good job promoting the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons or Stranger Things got it into everyone's head, because a bunch of people have asked me about getting D&D for their kids this Christmas. 

"You know about this stuff, Dave. Where do I even start?"

Good question! If you've never played a tabletop Role Playing Game before, guiding your child into the hobby could feel like anything from confusing to terrifying. Luckily, I have your back!

There are actually a lot of games that give you a great RPG experience. Some of them are even specially designed for young people. Despite that, I'm going to suggest starting with the fifth and current edition of Dungeons & Dragons for a few reasons. Everyone who has contacted me has had their kids ask for "D&D" by name. They want something that says "D&D" on it. As the former kid who received a Tandy COCO II from Radio Shack instead of a Commodore 64 for Christmas like everyone else, I'm telling you it's best not to disappoint them with an almost what they asked for. (Don't worry, my parents don't read my blog. Their feelings are safe!) The other thing is D&D has always been something of a lingua franca of roleplaying. Because it is so ubiquitous in the hobby almost everyone has some experience with it and can relate what they are playing to it. It's also the most popular game so it's easy to find other people to game with. The last reason is they've went to a lot of trouble to make it easy for new players to pick up the game without someone helping them through it.

 The best place for a new player to start is The D&D Starter Set box. It has a stripped down version of the rules with a set of sample characters to play and one of the best starting adventure campaigns ever! They can open the box on Christmas, read through it, choose someone to run the game and be playing as early as that evening (although Boxing Day is probably a more reasonable expectation). Everything necessary to jump in and actually play is in the box, including the funny dice. It's carried by some book and gaming stores, but it's also available to order on Amazon and Chapter's Indigo.

Each player controls a character who is an avatar in the shared, imaginary world of the game. One person is going to need to take the role of the referee who adjudicates the rules, runs all the people in the game not played by the players, and presents the problems and situations for the players to solve with the resources of their characters and their wacky ideas. This referee is know as the Dungeon Master or DM. The series of adventures in the box helps a new DM get the hang of running all these things with a great advice and explanations.

The adventure, called The Lost Mines of Phandelver, has a series of locations that the players can interact with in any order they like as they figure out what is going on in the campaign area. This is important because it introduces the idea of player choice to everyone playing. The fact that the players can do pretty much anything they want is what makes a tabletop RPG so much better than a video game. 

Everything in the D&D Starter Set box

To continue playing after they are done with what they get in the box they will need more rules. The Basic Rules are available online for free with a guide for both the Players and the Dungeon Master. These will allow them to create new characters and adventures of their own that can keep them going for years. As much as I love how the ease this creates for entering the hobby, I think it is worth spending some more money on a hard copy of at least the Player's Handbook. Dead tree books are easier to reference at the table than tablets and you can roll dice on them without scratching a screen. 

The Player's Handbook for D&D has all the rules and offers all the possibilities needed to create characters to suite the imaginations of the players in straightforward steps. It's fairly easy to get. Most book stores carry it and you can get it on Amazon or Chapters in a couple of days.

At this point you are up to nearly $60 in stuff, but if you are sure your kid is going to love it and you want to spend money on things that fit neatly on a shelf, there are a couple more things you can look at right away.

The first is not made by the D&D people, but one of their competitors. It's compatible with D&D and has a great deal of value beyond the adventure itself. Broodmother Skyfortress is an adventure in the first half of the book with all kinds of options to tailor the adventure to their taste. It is amazing! The second half is full of advice on how to create campaigns, settings and run adventures. The advice is super useful to a DM new or experienced. The other wonderful thing is the Jack Kirby, 1960s comic book style art is a nice contrast to what you get in the D&D products and might help them think outside of the box. It's from a publisher in Finland called Lamentations of the Flame Princess but is also available in a few days on Amazon.

After that you might want to look at the Monster Manual or Volo's Guide to Monsters for them but it's not necessary. Save them for a birthday!

Some other things you'll need right away are pads of graph paper, pencils and a stack of character sheets printed out!

To make playing easier you could look at player tokens or miniatures. Painting miniatures is a whole other part of the hobby that comes with its own costs and entry hurdles. If people ask me about that I'll do another post, but for now I'll give you some resources for paper miniatures. These can be printed out on a home printer and used as needed to help the players keep track of where everything is when they are playing. They aren't necessary, but I found with my girls that when they were younger (6-8) having miniatures helped them engage with the game.

Paper minis slid into plastic slotabases. They could have as easily been glued to some cardboard. 

One of my favourite sites for these is Eddnic's Fantasy Paper Minis. They can be printed and folded to create all kinds of monsters to help run encounters! It is possible to find these with some time spent on Google or Pinterest with a simple search for "fantasy paper miniatures" if you have the time. If you don't you can buy PDFs of different printable miniatures for a few dollars (a good use of someone's allowance maybe?) and download them from DriveThru RPG. I'm a fan of the Disposable Heroes and Trash Mob Minis. 

Click image to see more detail. 
These are the characters from the web series JourneyQuest and film The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. :)

After that they'll want more dice. To keep them for stealing all the normal dice out of your boardgames you should probably buy them a set or two at some point. This is another thing that there is no rush for. You can buy them in comic shops and order them online. I know a guy with an online dice store that can get you a great deal with free shipping (not in time for Christmas)!

If you are wondering about the benefits of RPGs as a hobby for children, it is a social game that helps develop problem-solving skills, creative thinking, imagination, vocabulary, math skills and teamwork. There are all kinds of benefits so if they want to do it there's no downside. After 35 years of gaming I have no regrets for the time spent. My involvement in RPGs has allowed me to meet some incredible people and is a part of some of my longest lasting friendships. 

Rules for Pets in the Black Hack

The longer I run David Black's stripped down old/new school D&Dish retro clone called The Black Hack, the more I find myself writing rules to suit the situations my players create and modify the game to our taste. The more I add and change the more I find myself with what looks like the beginnings of a great RPG that straddles the old school and new school well enough to function as a great little introductory fantasy RPG. That might fuel some posts for later, but for now here are the rules I created for running pets and animal companions in the Black Hack.

My players for my Keep on the Borderlands campaign went into the woods to see if they could find the dragon they heard about and only found the crazy hermit and his lion. They killed the hermit and then they tracked down the lion so they could use a Charm Monster potion on it. The warrior character treated it well and fed it more than the hermit did while they had it under control. I gave the player in control of the warrior a Charisma roll when the potion expired to befriend the lion. I figured with a 6 Charisma I was safe and the lion would just run away.

That's when they rolled a critical and the lion became their pet. Now I have rules for how pets work in the Black Hack. These are the expanded and polished version of what I sketched out during that session so they could use their lion right away. They've worked well so far. If your players force you to make up rules for pets you can use these ones!

There is a Moebius image for every blogpost!

Creature companions/pets have three attributes besides their regular DMG, HD and HP: Action, Sense and Loyalty. The ACT and SEN attributes are based on the creature’s HD. ACT is 10 + HD  to a maximum of 16 and SEN is 10 + HD + (roll 2d6 and choose the lowest one) to a maximum of 18. LOY is a usage die and depends on how well trained and well treated the pet is before bad things start happening. A faithful dog that has been with the character for a few years will have LOY of d8 or even d10. A pack animal that was recently purchased will have a LOY of d4.

ACT is used for physical tests like dodging falling rocks or combat. SEN is used to notice something, track or any test that depends on the animal’s senses. LOY is tested any time something bad happens, such as the beast is wounded, mistreated or neglected when hungry. If the LOY result is a 1 or 2 on a d4 the animal will attempt to run away.

Pets and creature companions can play different roles during combat. One option is to attack independently using their ACT attribute. If used this way they risk damage from opponents if ACT rolls are failed. Another option is for them to fight with the character that owns them and add a +1 to their effective HD for the purposes of fighting powerful or multiple opponents. Pets could also harass and distract a single opponent to create an opening and allow the character that owns the pet to get Advantage on an attack. It depends on circumstances, but creativity should be rewarded.

Pets get one action or attack, the same as the characters. Their damage based on HD already reflects the results of using all their natural weapons.

Here’s an example notation of a lion that was charmed using potions and then became a pet:

ACT 15 SEN 15 LOY d8

DMG 1d10 HD 4+1 HP 18

This way all the rolls stay player facing while they roll against the stats their pets have when they take some kind of action. The loyalty die allows whoever is running the game to keep things from getting too out of hand. If the pet is being overused they can call for more loyalty rolls.

Let me know what you think in the comments. Especially if your try them out too! 

#RPGaDAY 2017 - Day Nine

A good RPG for about 10 sessions is the Black Hack by David Black. It's a 20 page fantasy RPG with streamlined rules and a surprisingly robust system. I reviewed it in detail way back when, but here I'm going to focus on why it's good for 10 sessions.

While the system can handle any situation with a quick judgement the rules as written appear to break down in long term play. This isn't hard to change, and the Black Hack begs to bent to the whim of the table, but I figure for this question I should stick to the rules as written.

Part of the reason it's so good for a short campaign is character generation. Characters can easily be created in five to fifteen minutes so there is no reason you can't get right into the action in the first session. With time limited in the campaign you don't want to waste too much rolling characters.

Another point in its favour is the speed of the system. At 20 pages it's about as rules-light as you can go with D20 game. There is no time lost looking up rules, and there are no fiddly bits to slow down the players. They declare and action and test against a stat for success. That's it. This allows the group to cover a lot of ground in whatever adventure they are playing.

The advancement system is loose and can be as fast as one level per session. That means the characters end the campaign at level 10, the old name level from the original fantasy RPG. This means in only 10 sessions the PCs can develop all the way from zero to hero. That short development is something you aren't going to get with another traditional RPG rules as written.

The system is adaptable. You can use it with the list of monsters in the back to put together your own adventure or adapt on the fly anything made for the D&D family of systems. What it comes down to is the Black Hack is an easy choice for a short campaign, whatever your goal.

Character Generation: How Much is Too Much?

Here's a look at my game development woes. Complications like these are part of what makes adapting something simple like Swords and Wizardry or the Black Hack to a unique setting so appealing!

While the playtesting for my 3D System is going well, I have run into what might be a snag with the character generation section. The graduated success mechanic using 3D6 that relies on the interaction of six attributes and 12 skills has turned out to be intuitive and robust in play, but the system I created to generate those attributes and skills has me worried.

For a variety of reasons, I integrated the character generation with the setting. It worked well with the small playtest setting for the Archipelago in Island Crashers. Going through the process delivered the assumptions of the setting to new players without spamming them with text they didn't want to read. It took ten minutes to create a character rolling randomly and about twenty minutes to use the generation tables like a flow chart and choose everything.

For the Island Crashers playtest character generation takes up ten pages of a google document and 35 small tables on spreadsheets. The process of moving through them is intuitive and easy. Brand new players are having no trouble with it even though no one has taken the time to read the rules first. Each area of origin has its own background that informs the basics of the character. These areas also have unique tables with some starting careers more likely than others. The tables themselves tell the player a bit about where their character is from.

Good thing character generation only takes ten minutes!

I'll use a more familiar setting to make the idea clear. Say you were using this system to play in Robert E Howard's "Conan the Barbarian" setting of Hyboria. Characters from Conan's homeland of Cimmeria would have basic survival skills they learned growing up in an uncivilised area. They also would get a boost to their physical attributes because their life makes them harder than the civilised peoples. The possible starting careers for characters from Cimmeria would include things like blacksmiths, barbarians, hunters, bandits, leather-workers and maybe druids. The kingdom Conan eventually conquered, Aquilonia, would have a table of starting careers that includes nobles, merchants, soldiers, courtiers, servants, thieves, priests and wizards. A place of ancient corruption like Stygia would have a table of starting careers filled with sorcerers, priests, sages, slavers, thieves and slaves. The flavour of each of these lands is evident in the choices provided.

That's what I'm doing with my setting for the larger game that is using the working title of: "The Last World." The problem is the Archipelago is a small cluster of islands. Even Hyboria is only an area the size of Europe and the Mediterranean! The Last World is huge in comparison, with all kinds of different areas! These areas aren't heavily defined, with the implied setting leaving room to develop them through game play, but each country and some major cities have their own tables. I'm only about a third of the way through the character generation section for the places of origin and I already have 26 pages of briefs and tables in my document. The descriptions of the playable creatures document is another 9 pages long! I haven't even started on the tables of general career progressions. I'm worried about it being unwieldy, but I want players to be able to start as nearly any creature or culture they could encounter in the Last World and move through a plausible list of careers to create a viable character with a developed past and a list of useful equipment.

Shopping for equipment is the time-killer!

The point is to create characters similar in power to what you'd find in levels five through seven in OSR-type games. Like Traveller's character generation, the process creates a competent character with a background story that makes sense. I find the most fun in old school campaigns happens around those levels, but the early levels help define the character's development and flesh out their personality. That's another reason I make a ten minute game out of character generation. It delivers setting information to new players and creates a backstory for the character that will help a player choose how to play in a way that makes sense. It also anchors them to the world with their past.

In playtest it's worked well so far, but I'm worried all the flipping back and forth thought the tables in the larger setting will kill it. A PDF could be cross-linked/bookmarked, but using a book might become unwieldy. I was hoping to get this all into an A5 (digest size) hardcover!

So how much is too much? Does it matter that there are pile of pages to flip through as long as character generation stays around ten to fifteen minutes? Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in any event? I feel like the only way to find out is to finish it all and play using the full setting.



If any of this stuff intrigues you and you want to be part of the larger playtest for the #3DSystem , let me know!

Black Hack Class Hack: Sorcery!

I reviewed The Black Hack in my last post. I mentioned that I felt like I had a few Hacks of my own to add to the growing number of genre specific clones of David Black's Modern OSR fantasy RPG.

I think an Early Modern Era, historical, weird-fantasy hack would be a lot of fun to play. For such a game I like my magic dangerous and unpredictable. It's something I've talked about before. Mike Evans came up with a good system to make sorcerers' casting flexible with an element of unpredictability with the usage die mechanic, but it lacks the danger I think is needed in RPG magic.

The usage die mechanic (from page 8 of the Black Hack) assigns a usage die to any resource ranging from 1d4 to 1d20 to roll when it is used. A roll of 1 or 2 brings the die to the next lowest value for subsequent rolls. Rolling 1 or 2 on the 1d4 means the resource (in this case magic) is exhausted until that resource can be replenished. The sorcerer can gain back one die for six hours of uninterrupted rest.

For my take on magic cast with the usage die I took a lot more inspiration from Barbarians of Lemuria, then mixed in a little Dungeon Crawl Classics and the spirit of weird fantasy.

Any time a sorcerer casts a spell the player rolls a number of usage dice matching the magic level of the spell. The spells are divided into three levels of sorcery: 1 - the Forbidden, 2 - the Infernal, and 3 - the Inscrutable (I'm still not entirely happy with the name of level 3).

The first level of sorcery consists of forbidden formulae and ancient rituals that allow the caster to bend reality enough to do anything a fully trained and equipped person could do, only with more ease. For example: a warrior with a sword can do 1d8 damage to a foe by attacking them. A sorcerer would utter a spell of forbidden magic and merely point at the foe to tear away their flesh for 1d6 + caster level in damage. A sorcerer can use this magic to create a light source, open a lock or climb a wall in a moment because a person could do so with a few minutes and the right equipment. It matches up in power roughly to the first and second levels of spells found in the Black Hack.

The second level of sorcery is more dangerous because it exposes the caster and everyone around them to infernal corruption. The player rolls two usage dice and takes the lower result because these spells are more taxing for the sorcerer to cast. The danger comes into play if the player rolls doubles on the usage dice. Doubles result in a casting mishap. Since it is more likely to roll doubles on D4s than D6s or D8s, it is more dangerous for low-level casters or exhausted high-level casters to use this level of magic.

Infernal magic calls upon the dread powers of chaos to reshape reality in larger ways for the caster's benefit. These spells allow the sorcerer to do things normally impossible for one person. A sorcerer can use this level of magic to fly, to transform something or knock a hole in a stone wall. Infernal magic could be used to create a poisonous fog that does 1d6 + caster level in damage to all nearby foes, or allow a sorcerer to vomit a swarm of demonic insects onto an opponent to eat their flesh for 1d6 damage per caster level. With so much possible in a moment with a whisper and a series of gestures this corrupt magic is tempting to use. It matches up in power level to many of the third, fourth and some fifth level spells in the Black Hack.

The Inscrutable level of magic comes from the recorded whispers of malignant intelligences in alien dimensions. Their motivations are as unknowable as their form.

This third level of magic is difficult, requiring special components such as time, place, specific alignment of astronomical bodies, assistants to help perform the ritual, and a specific tome or artifact. The more powerful the spell the more conditions the GM should apply to its casting.

These are spells of tremendous power that come at a terrible risk to the caster and their world. With this magic the sorcerer could create an earthquake that could level a city or create a magic plague that could bring an empire to its knees.

It can also be used to undo lower magical effects such as restoring a character turned to stone. It could be used to create a magical item. It could create a passage through chaos itself to allow a caster and their level in companions to travel anywhere in the world in an instant. It matches up in power to some of the higher level spells available in The Black Hack.

When a sorcerer casts an inscrutable spell they are flirting with disaster and draining their power. The player rolls three usage dice and reduces their magical power by one usage die for every 1 or 2 rolled. Doubles result in a casting mishap. Triples result in a casting catastrophe. There is no table for this result, match the effect to the scale of the spell, but tearing holes in time and space that allow extra-dimensional invaders to pour through is one way to go. Accidentally transporting the whole party to Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa is another.

One thing I like from both BoL and 5e D&D is the cantrip magic. Cantrips as minor feats of magic that can be cast with little danger of exhausting a sorcerer's magic sounds like a fun addition to the game. Little things like moving small objects, changing the apparent value of a coin for a few moments, creating a brief wind to blow a door shut, removing a stain, lighting a torch, creating small sounds as a distraction, detecting magic, etc. For these simple spells the sorcerer could test Int for success. A natural 20 would reduce their usage die for magic.

The usage die available to sorcerers would depend on their level:

• Level 1-2 would have a D4 usage die
• Level 3-4 would have a D6 usage die
• Level 5-7 would have a D8 usage die
• Level 8-11 would have a D10 usage die
• Level 12+ would have a D12 usage die

Image by Doug Kovacs for Dungeon Crawl Classics

I also roughed out a 3D6 table for casting mishaps:

3. 1d6 random people/creatures present become hybrids with another random creature

4. Earthquake for 1d6 moments

5. Random extra-dimensional invader/demon summoned (usage die in HD) and attacks caster

6. The minds of all nearby people randomly switch bodies

7. Random caster's relative teleported to close range with caster

8. All nearby gold turns to lead

9. Random caster's possession disappears

10. Roll on corruption table for sorcerer *

11. Roll on corruption table for sorcerer *

12. All nearby wood turns to glass

13. All nearby drawn weapons turn into something random (flowers, butterflies, etc)

14. All nearby metal super-heats for 1d6 moments (1 damage for small items, 1d6 + caster level for metal armour)

15. 3D6 HD of creatures put to sleep, centred on but not including caster

16. Random extra-dimensional invader/demon summoned (usage die in HD) - roll on reaction table from (page 8 of the Black Hack)

17. gravity reversed for 1d6 moments

18. Roll on corruption table for 1d6 of sorcerer's random allies

*There are plenty of these all over the blogosphere, I'll simply pick one while I playtest. This result is by far the most likely, so the greatest risk is always to the sorcerers themselves.

The Sorcerer as a character class is basically the same as the Conjurer outside of casting. I'll be trying this one out as soon as I get a group together to play The Black Hack. I think any player of a sorcerer that pushes their luck too far or over-reaches their level will likely end up in deep trouble.

Review: The Black Hack

To say that I'm late to the party with this review is a bit of an understatement. When The Black Hack Kickstarter funded back in February is was a mere blip on my social-media radar. I looked at it briefly, thought, "Ugh, a roll-under mechanic," and "Do I really need another retro clone?" then moved on. What I can say now with no reservation is it deserved a closer look.

As the year progressed multiple genre-Hacks using David Black's "The Black Hack" as a base cropped up. It wasn't until I saw what Mike Evans over at DIY RPG Productions was doing with his own sword, sorcery and super-science genre hack called Barbarians of the Ruined Earth that I decided I had to pay the Two US Dollars to get the PDF and find out what all the fuss was about.

I get it now! I understand not only why people love this version of tabletop fantasy role-playing, but also why it has spawned so many of its own hacks!

It is described as: "The most straightforward modern OSR compatible clone available."

It's a bold claim, but it has merit. The game fits comfortably into twenty A5 (half-letter-sized) pages, including the cover, acknowledgements page, Open Game Licence and character sheet. That means the game only uses sixteen pages to explain how to play.

With a core mechanic based on rolling under character statistics, the rules are clear and for the most part easy to understand. The writing is straightforward and economical. As a former journalist and a parent with little time to read rulebooks, I appreciate David Black's tight writing.

There is no art beyond the cover, but the layout and design is clean, with good use of white space and easy-to-use tables. It has two columns per page for most of the book. The typeface used for the body text is a standard serif font, offering no distractions or obstructions to reading. The headings and titles all use the distressed sans serif typeface you see on the cover. I like this particular choice as it embraces the "quick and dirty" nature of the rule system. The effective headings, bolded text and good use of white space makes it easy to reference the book for specific information despite the lack of page numbers.

The best use of white space is on the four pages of character class descriptions where each class gets its own page with a single column running down the middle of the page. This gives a special emphasis to these pages and leaves room to make notes around the text in the huge margins. It also allowed me to print out a few character sheets with the rules for each class on the back.

The rules themselves surprised me in their simplicity and flexibility. The core mechanic involves rolling under the relevant stat for any given action on a twenty-sided die (D20). Since stats are rolled on three, six-sided dice (3D6) player characters all start with a good level of competency. The balance of power from the difference between the levels of the player characters and the Hit Dice of their opponents (monsters) creates bonuses and penalties to combat rolls. The advantage/disadvantage mechanic that is a big part of the success of 5th edition D&D is also used to maintain the power balance and protect the specialisation of the different classes.

The rules are a solid blend of old school simplicity with modern improvements. The system simplifies resource tracking with the usage dice that also creates an unpredictable element to resource management. There is a six-item death-and-dismemberment style table for characters who are knocked "Out of Action." The sundered shield option to sacrifice a shield to escape damage is included as well. Encumbrance is streamlined with obvious penalties.

One interesting mechanic is how the players do almost all of the rolling, similar to Monte Cook's Cypher System. The player rolls under their relevant stat to attack and again to avoid attack. Because of this change, armour provides extra hit points instead of making it more difficult to be hit.

I didn't like it the first time I came across the idea of class-based weapon damage, but here it serves to eliminate the pages of weapon lists that you see in other clones while still having some variability in damage. I like how it assumes that fighters are more dangerous with weapons than other classes. It certainly makes sense when you look at fantasy fiction. Conan is just a deadly with whatever weapon he picks up and Fahfrd names all his swords "Greywand" because they do the same thing. The addition of the unarmed/improvised damage by class is smart. It means a balanced weapon of war like a spear or sword is going to be more effective than a chair leg or shield bash.

Spells are handled in a way I think will see more use of utility spells at lower levels. The player starts with the spell slots you see in most OSR clones, but the slot only expires during casting if the player fails an Intelligence roll. The total of spells memorised is restricted by level so players need to decide what they want to have prepared for fast casting and what they'll be pulling out their spellbooks for. It feels like the ritual casting option in 5e D&D without being so finicky. Also, this design choice creates uncertainty in the resource management of spells. If anything should be uncertain, it's magic!

The spell lists themselves are short, with single line descriptions filling one page each for divine and arcane spells. This is another good choice. Reading the spells I find the shorter descriptions far harder to misinterpret and stretch to irrelevant purposes than the longer ones of other clones and editions of D&D.

The monster entries are also almost always one-line per creature. Since they only roll damage, that, their hit dice and any special attack or defence is all you need. The list is two pages long and has creatures from one hit die up to twelve. With these examples, conversion of any other monsters should be no problem.

Player character progression by level is a nice innovation that works with the core mechanic. The player rolls a D20 for each stat and raises any stat they roll over by one. Each class has at least one stat which they roll twice for. Besides that each class also has a hit die that they roll for more hit points.

The game only has four classes including Warrior, Thief, Cleric and Conjurer. These four cover the basics and leave plenty of room for meaningful differences between party members. There are no rules for different fantasy races, but if you need them in your game it's not difficult to add them. With such a simple system, bolting on extras will be half of the fun!

That is why we see so many genre-based hacks of this system out there. The system is so straightforward and simple it would take some serious effort to break it. While reading the rules I came up with three genre hacks I'd like to do with it myself!

The example of play is one of the better ones I've seen. A player could read that one page and grasp almost the entire system.

I'm not surprised the game is picking up momentum. The Kickstarter had 604 backers. I don't know how many PDFs have sold since then, but The Black Hack community on Google Plus has 810 members as I write this review, implying it is only gathering more fans.

Still, the game is not quite perfect. I would change a few things that I don't like.

The cleric has a spellbook. This choice is not terrible mechanically, but for the sake of flavour I would call it a prayer book and refer to casting divine spells as performing miracles. It would create better separation between the cleric and conjurer.

The conjurer spells have "read languages/magic" as a third level spell. I'd put that back into the first level list and add "fly" to the third level list. Before I run this system I might come up with a streamlined version of the "summon" spell from Lamentations of the Flame Princess as well. If I can get it down to two A5 pages I think I'll slip it into my copy.

Armour points are used up during combat, but return after a short rest. Shields are included in this rule. I think shields should be persistent in their effect. I would give a character a bonus to their level for the purpose of defending against attacks from monsters of plus one for a small shield and plus two for a large shield. That way a first level character attacked by three hit dice monster could roll without any penalty to avoid getting hit instead of the plus two penalty for fighting a more powerful monster. The persistence would make shields particularly useful and would make the choice to "sunder a shield" to avoid damage a harder one to make.

Fighters get one attack per level every round. That is way too much rolling in combat for my taste. I like the speed provided by this system and after third level the fighter player would grind every round to a halt during his or her turn while rolling hits and damage. I'd replace this ability with the ability to use shields offensively against more powerful monsters so they get the bonus levels when attacking as well. I'd also allow fighters to roll to hit with two-handed weapons without the plus-two penalty. Those two changes should protect them as the most effective characters in any combat without putting the rest of the party to sleep every round.

Overall, these are small things and likely have as much to do with my gaming taste as anything else.

For two bucks this game is a steal! I printed my PDF out as a booklet on five sheets of paper. This thing will go into my bag for every face-to-face game I play. I'll probably put a small notebook in with it with some quick adventure generation tables and class-based equipment lists so I can use this game as a quick replacement if some players cancel at the last minute.

I think the best use of The Black Hack is probably introducing new people to fantasy RPGs. Its blend of old-school flavour with modern mechanics is a great doorway into the possibilities of tabletop role-playing. Its simplicity means no one is left behind and there's way less of the, "What am I rolling now?" and more, "I do X!"

Well done David Black!

Dangerous Magic in Fantasy Gaming

I started reading the Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock just before Christmas. The magic in the stories and some other things that have come up while gaming has me re-evaluating magic in fantasy RPGs.

Back in the days of 1e and 2e D&D, when I played a magic user I would bend spells until they broke. I found ways to use spells that had little to do with their original intent but worked within their description. I drove GMs nuts with my descriptions of how my characters were using the spells because they'd would constantly need to make a ruling on whether it would work out the way I wanted or not. Things like casting an Enlarge spell on a wooden door in a stone frame so it would shatter as it grew too big for the space it was in, or casting a Knock spell to unlatch all the buckles on the enemy's platemail.

The newer games have either nerfed the spells or created far more explicit descriptions that don't allow for these interpretations of effects. That's progress I suppose.

I recently found myself exercising those old creative muscles again in a Fifth Edition game I'm playing. We're well into our second year of play and my Warlock hit 9th level. That means she can summon Elementals now. When I saw that ability as one of many on the menu to choose from at 9th level I thought about the Elric stories and all the things I could get an Elemental to do during the one-hour duration.

Now I look at the abilities of the different elementals and figure out what kind of things I can do with them. The reaction of horror from the other players when my character commanded an Earth Elemental to drag an opponent into the ground and leave him there was something of a surprise. I figure a Warlock has the moral flexibility necessary to bury imaginary bad guys alive.

Between the four kinds of elementals my character can solve a lot of problems. Combat and movement are two common ones. For instance, Air Elementals can carry your character through the air and blast your enemies. So much more fun than a regular Fly spell!

I've mentioned before that I'm working on my own fantasy game system and one of the priorities I have is to make the magic system more open. To design it to reward creativity and unconventional thinking. As wonderful as that is, it's taking a long time for me to test everything and make certain the game does all the things I want it to do (like be fun to play). Not to mention that a lot of people don't want to change their game even though they might like to bring what I'm talking about to their table.

The pulps that influenced the creation of the first RPGs leave their marks on the magic systems we take for granted now but the structure keeps magic safe and largely predictable. Magic was always a bit scary in those old stories. A good example of something that they brought into the structure is the creature from Robert Howard's first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword," inspiring the Invisible Stalker spell. When you read Michael Moorcock's Elric stories though, they summon water elementals to create a fog to hide their navy or fire elementals to set fire to a town when attacking. They summon terrible creatures of chaos to get secret knowledge or help navigating the different dimensions. These creatures have their own agendas and goals. Sometimes negotiation is necessary and sometimes they simply oblige.

I know that Stormbringer has a magic system that works like this, but I don't play Stormbringer nor do I know anyone that does. What I think I need is an OSR/5e D&D compatible character class that uses magic from other creatures and does no magic other than summoning and binding them to the caster's will.

Using the Magic User/Wizard class as a base, we could get there pretty quickly. For whatever system you are playing in simply adopt all the hit dice, skills, weapon and armour restrictions, etc of the Magic User/Wizard class and swap out the spellcasting for summoning and binding magic that can be used any time.

"Summoner"
This piece is actually my own attempt at drawing. I'm hugely jealous of people who can illustrate their own blogs so I'm going to try to learn to do this. If you are interested in my journey in that department or you want to see the links to the reference model you can see it at DeviantArt

This makes it easy to drop the class into whatever game you are playing without disrupting the game balance as it exists. If you are playing LotFP you get a character that can use any weapons and armour, like the rest of them but the lower hit points and lack of martial manoeuvres balances out the magic abilities. In 5e, the proficiencies and characteristics fit the flavour created by that system and its assumptions about setting.

Although for 5e, it might make more sense to use the warlock as a base for a summoner class. Once I've tested it out it would be nice to see if it would work for an Eldritch Knight. Elric was a warrior first. He only summoned elementals for large scale effects or to save him from drowning. He fought for himself.

The magic of summoning should be accessible but dangerous. Since the entities often want to get to our world for whatever reason summoning them should be easy while the real challenge comes when trying to control the creature. I also like the idea that it gets more difficult to control new entities throughout a single day. That way there's a good reason to conserve the magic and use it only when it's needed. That escalating danger is a good reason for characters using this kind of magic to be universally feared by ally and foe alike.

I already have summoning magic baked into my own game and tests are going well so far. I'll be putting together an OSR Class for summoning soon, but since I'm playing mostly 5e and playtesting my original game I'll probably do one for 5e D&D first. If you beat me to it, send me a link!