A year of Old School D&D or All Hail Jabba and the Deep Ones!

Our last gaming session was the finale of an old school D&D campaign that lasted over a year. It started out with Swords & Wizardry Complete, moved to a house ruled S&W, and then switched to my take on Basic D&D Lasers & Loincloths. The game was undertaken in the spirit of old school hack and slash, focusing on dungeons and the danger that inevitably comes when players roll 3d6 in order for stats and the DM makes all the combat rolls in the open.

Eventually we grew out of the “dungeon crawl” as focus of play as the characters began to develop motivations and well, character. They became involved in the power struggle for their home city of Sanctuary, and after “saving” it took off for wider horizons. The campaign became bifurcated with one party on a Sword and Planet sci fi jaunt, and the other trying to not die in a Carcosa hex crawl. Eventually the two parties rejoined to once again save Sanctuary, this time from the unspeakable machinations of a former player character.

We played nearly every weekend for about 15 months, with brief breaks for a few other games. I estimate the campaign lasted 40 sessions.

Many great stories were made, and I think a good time was had by all. The game is now “done.” I intend to have a denouement to revisit the remaining characters just to see what they have got up to. I think perhaps the holiday of Secret Santicore might be a good time to check back in on them.

A complete chronicle of the characters, and the “plot” of the campaign are too convoluted and idiosyncratic to retell fully, (never mind that I don't remember all the details.) I do have quite a lot of data on roll20 however, so instead of recounting the complete history of the adventure how about some statistics?

Lasers & Loincloths

Number of Real Players: 12

Number of Characters Played: 31

Character Deaths: 10

Number of Characters Killed by other players: 2

Highest Ability Score: 18

Lowest Ability Score: 3

Character Race Breakdown:

Human: 20

Elf: 2

Blarka: 1

Robot: 2

Red Man of Shulim: 1 (kind of)

Bone Man of Shulim: 1

Yellow Man of Shulim: 1

Seablood: 1

Space Dwarf: 1

Alien From the Planet Kalmurga: 1

Number of Male Characters: 29

Number of Female Characters: 2

Number of Fighters: 9

Number of Clerics: 5

Number of Thieves: 3 (then 2 with Belgrators class change)

Number of Magic users: 4

Other Classes: 11

Highest Character XP total: 38, 414 (Azax)

Highest Character Level: 6

Highest Character Hit Point Total: 46 (Ibash)

Highest Level of Magic Spell Cast: 3

Highest GP total on a Record Sheet: 100000000000000000000000 gp ( La Bomba)

Highest Legitimate GP total on a Record Sheet: 5200 gp (Azax)

Character that survived the most sessions: Ibash

Character that died the quickest: Redoutable Will (died in first combat)

Number of Crits ( (a roll of 20 on a d20 followed by another roll of 20): 5

Crits on Players: 1

Crits on Monsters: 3

Number of Crits followed by a roll of 100 on the d100 Arduin Grimoire Critical Hit Chart: 1

Number of Shoggoths defeated: 1

Number of Spawn of Shub-Niggurath defeated: 2

Highest Level NPC Defeated: Level 8 Seablood (Fighter/Cleric) Jabba

Civilizations Destroyed: 2

Planets Destroyed: 1

Planets Created: at least 1

Miles Traveled: around 84 trillion

Space Ships Destroyed: 4

Space Ships Lost: 2

Number of Carcosa Hexes Traversed: 16

Dimensions Visited: 4

Magic Rituals Learned by players: 2

Magic Rituals Performed by players: 0

Number of Characters that ascended to Godhood: 1 (Bishma)

Number of Characters that married: 3

Number of Wives: 63

Number of marriage refusals: 2

Number of children fathered: 1 plus the matter created in a supernova

Number of Henchmen lost: we stopped counting at 17

With Love From the Emplacement

"Emplacement." A position made of earth or sandbags from which a machine gun is fired. It is supposed to be invisible to the enemy. They generally blow it up in the course of a couple of days, just by luck of course. 
"Tommy's Dictionary of the Trenches" by Arthur Guy Empey -1917

Gunner / Mitrailleur

Five hundred rounds a minute, a curtain of lead shadowing half a mile with death. An entire generation of young men sent to the grave with a few pulls of the trigger. You are the instrument of the future, scientific, calculated, machine oblivion. You have more firepower than an entire division of Napoleon's infantry. You can rip a man to shreds with a short burst of 8mm from the long French Chauchat or suppress an entire battalion with a well-placed field of .303 from a British Lewis gun. You are a gunner, the backbone of both the offensive and defensive strategies of your platoon. Your weapon is a heavy, complicated machine that is god awful loud and scalding hot when in use. Just like you.

Attribute: Constitution. The Gunner must have a constitution score of 13+.

Rank: The Gunner starts as a Private/ Soldat 2eme , under the command of an NCO and Officer.

Kit: Infantry Uniform, Light Machine Gun (Chauchat or Lewis Gun), Ammo

Skills

Area denial – In a combat round you can create a field of fire as large as a range band that causes any unit moving into it to test for suppression. When you do this roll 1d6, on a 5-6 you are out of ammo.  

Suppressing Fire – You can make an attack against a target and if the target is wounded the targets unit must test for suppression.

Overwatch – If you are firing from a fixed or prepared position you may add +1 to initiative. It takes at least one round to prepare a position.

Fire from the Hip- You can fire a LMG in melee range.

Machine Gun Team – At level four you are assigned an assistant. . A 1st level Tommy or Poilu with attributes scores and XP. The assistant carries extra ammo and a gun mount, allowing you to use a Heavy Machine Gun. (If you can get one from Battalion)

He's gone west mate, the body snatcher got em'

“Body Snatcher.” Tommy’s term for a sniper.

-From “Tommy’s Dictionary of the Trenches” by Arthur Guy Empey - 1917

Sniper / Fusilier

One of the most telling features of the modern battlefield is its emptiness. Entire divisions burrow beneath the ground, seeking shelter from the death that fills the air.

Seeking shelter from you.

Some say that killing a man who doesn’t see it coming is not fighting fair, that concealing your position and shooting from a distance is somehow dishonorable. They don’t get it. To them war is a game, to you it is an art.

Despite initial disdain for the practice, eventually most of the belligerents of the war had specialized schools for snipers. The German snipers in particular were feared because of their superior optics.

Attribute: Dexterity. The Sniper must have a dexterity score of 13+.

Rank: The Sniper starts the game as a Private 1st Class/ Soldat 1.eme, under the command of an NCO and Officer.

Equipment: Infantry Uniform, Rifle, Field Glass

Skills

Marksman – You are skilled at long distance shooting, able to anticipate movement, lead targets, calculate windage , drop, and control your breath. At long range rather than a penalty you get a +1 to hit with Rifles and can add your DEX bonus to damage.

Camouflage – You know how to conceal yourself on the battlefield and take positions that do not reveal your shots. You get an advantage when hiding. You know where to look for enemy snipers, you get an advantage when searching for them.

Fear – A good sniper is capable of singlehandedly suppressing an enemy unit. If you take one round to spot an enemy officer or other conspicuous target, on the next round you automatically win initiative. If your shot causes a wound then the unit the target belongs to must test for suppression.  

Observer Team – At 4th level, the sniper is assigned an observer. A 1st level Tommy or Poilu with attributes scores and XP. If the sniper has an observer with him and they study a target for a round the sniper can make a shot at an advantage. (Note: This allows the sniper team to take an extra round to make the shot for the Fear ability at an advantage.)

(fusante №1)

Continuing post about character classes from my in progress WW1 game, Lead & Steel.

Bomber / Grenadier

The British SMLE rifle has an effective range of a mile; the French Soixante-Quinze artillery can fire a 12lb High Explosive shell over five miles. The thing is, when Ftitzs is snug in a trench you can fire as much lead as you want from a mile away, and when you poke in to survey the scene guess what? They will still be waiting. It’s a funny thing this war, we can theoretically kill more efficiently from further away than ever before, but theories don’t seem to get the job done.

You do.

You are a Grenadier, part of a tradition that predates even the days of the mustachioed bomb lobbers of the Sun King. You are trained to clear a path in the blind corners of the enemy trench with your F1 Grenades or Mills Bombs, and then close the distance and finish the Hun the old fashioned way, with cold steel.

Attribute: Strength. A Bomber must have strength of 13+.

Rank: The Grenadier starts the game as a Private / Soldat 2.eme, under the command of an NCO and Officer.

Equipment: Infantry Uniform with bomber/grenadier badge, Satchel of Grenades (6), trench knife or club.

Skills

Raider – You are trained and skilled at infiltrating enemy trenches. You get an advantage when sneaking on the battlefield. If you make a melee attack against a foe while hidden multiply damage by your level.

Bomber – You are skilled at throwing grenades. +1 to Hit with thrown weapons and you can throw grenades at short range without disadvantage.  In addition, you do not fumble grenades.

Sister Steel – You are skilled at melee combat. +1 to hit with melee weapons. In a single melee round you may attack a number of 1st level foes equal to your level.

A Night in Paris – At fourth level, in recognition of your service you receive one leave pass.

Posthuman and Proud

I typically don’t write about actual games of Lasers & Loincloths. The campaign has been going on too long for it to make much sense to anyone who hasn’t played in it. Too many asides, setting idiosyncrasies, and old stories.

A brief example. After making it back through the Ghooric Zone that wards the rest of the galaxy from their home planet of Abbith, the half of the characters that are in space finally reached their destination. A defunct and ancient yeti robot that now orbits their home planet in silent decay. One of the party clerics, a Samarajyan man named Bishma sought this old machine as the source of the transmission that beamed down to the planet's surface, transmissions that over the millennium a holy order had been founded on.

While inside the robot, (which of course was a dungeon thanks to Joshua Burnetts fantastic entry to the  2011 one page dungeon contest http://bernietheflumph.blogspot.com/) the party encountered a a pool of quicksilver with a dead yeti floating in it. This desiccated yeti was wired to the brain/control center and it was clear to the players that this was how the robot was controlled.

I wanted to give the players a hint that the quicksilver pool would affect anyone entering it, so I had the Wizard Azax’s flying armadillo familiar enter the pool. I rolled on the god seed table and whadda know, Chai the familiar gained superpowers.

Of course the rest of the party now wanted a dip in the god seed.

The wizard Azax went first, and out of the other side of the pool a clone of him emerged, only the clone had a goatee and arched black eyebrows and so was obviously evil. The party won initiative and wizards are squishy so “good Azax” blasted “evil Azax” with Bolt of the Vaccum. Evil Azax didn’t even live long enough to question the philosophical implications of his existence.

The intelligent bipedal she-weasel Skreek went next, her shtick is that she puts nearly everything in her mouth. And as a Blarka or weasel person she will only live to 8th level. (A re-skinned b/x halfling.) Roll on the god-seed table and she is now immortal and no longer needs to eat.

Finally Jesh, the farm boy come fighter come husband of a Djinn Princess decides to have a go. In is sci-fi exo-suit with the hilt of a cursed blade protruding from his chest he steps into the pool. 1d6 versus god seed table, and Jesh’s equipment falls to the floor as he evolves into a being of pure energy. Strangely appropriate for a man that love’s a genie spirit of fire.

The whole affair of the god seed table speaks directly to what I have referred to as the “deep universal thing” that happens in rpgs when you embrace the random number generation. Sure I chose the table, and we use our biased imaginations to make conjectures of how the results are meaningful. Conjectures that are predisposed to make logical narratives out of the “randomness” but damn, the results of letting the dice fall where they may where uncannily appropriate this time.

I dunno.

So now I have an immortal weasel to deal with who is already asking if level limits still apply. (We won't worry about that until she actually hits the limit.) I also have a 6th level fighter who became a being of pure energy. This required some extemporaneous rulings, I told him he was basically Dr Manhattan and he rolled with it reasoning that Dr Manhattan was Dr. Jon Osterman a nuclear physicist but Jesh was a farm boy and warrior so the understanding of “pure energy” would be different. He wouldn’t immediately become a post human god for instance, a feat that took Physicist Osterman some time to work up to anyway.

Kudos to Jesh’s player for the solid interpretation. I owe him some actual mechanics.

Being of Pure Energy.

"World line" by SVG version: K. Aainsqatsi at en.wikipediaOriginal PNG version: Stib at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia.(Original text : self-made). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons -

The being of pure energy will eventually evolve to transcend “mortal” interest to exist in all places at all time subject only to entropy on a cosmic scale.

They no longer accumulate experience points. Rather they subtract the experience points they would normally gain until they reach 0 xp, the null state where they simply merge with space-time.

They retain the Hit Dice, HP total , Ability Scores,To hit bonus, and Saving Throw of their previous state. Armor class is equal to 14 plus DEX bonus.

They lose any special class abilities but gain others.

Entropy - Between the experience point total they had when they evolved and zero xp The Being of Pure Energy slowly loses their mortal identity and finds it difficult to interact with mundane reality. In order to physically interact with the world they must make a saving throw. Success indicates they can interact with reality, but they do so at the cost of 1HD worth of damage per round. Failure means their particles scatter across the universe and it takes a number of rounds equal to their hit dice to reform them.

Fission - The Being of Pure Energy can project gamma rays as a missile or melee attack for damage equal to half of their hit dice. They can forgo this attack in a combat round to increase their armor class by an amount equal to their hit dice.

Nucleosynthesis - Magical and energy attacks such as from laser weapons heal the Being of Pure Energy. They still take damage from mundane physical force. When a Being of Pure energy reaches 0 HP they simply dissipate into sub atomic particles. They may reform after a number of rounds equal to their hit dice have passed.

Hypersurface of the Present - While in a physical state the Being of Pure Energy may fly and communicate via telepathy. They are immune to any environmental effects. When not in a physical form they may teleport to any location they can perceive.

A Child Dreams of Passchendaele

I was a strange child.

At a very young age I became deeply infatuated with military history. My favorite toy was two broom handles taped together that I pretended was a musket.

A musket.

Other kids had laser guns and transformers. My make believe was the French and Indian wars.

Aside from daydreams about pre-twentieth century gentlemen stylishly murdering each other, my young mind also thought often about the trench warfare of the First World War. Something about stalwart Tommies finding shelter and camaraderie in a muddy hole while death ripped the air above them spoke to me on an unexplainable level.

My childhood bed had a wooden headboard, and often as I lay to sleep I would imagine the headboard a trench wall. As I fell asleep German artillery would scream overhead.

Like I said, strange child.

So the Great War has always slunk around my mind. Barb wire, A Farewell to Arms, MG 08’s and Edwardian Aristocrats mixing with mundane perversions, anxieties and the general detritus of a white mans 21st century mental landscape.

I think I’ve got something with the firearm rules in A Last Pale Light. Exploding damage and constitution as hit points seems to hit the sweet spot in D&D mechanics for making a game of the lethality of the gun but still allowing a bit of staying power in combat.

So now I’m back to those summer nights of childhood. Writing a WW1 game for D&D. It will be a game about platoon level combat, and the relationships between soldiers on the Western Front. It will also just be a middle aged man exploring a childhood fantasy.

Like all good RPGs.

I am going to write a few blog post about the character classes. Characters are generated one of two ways.

Fit for Duty?

Method One: Roll 2d6+6 in order for ability scores. If you do this gain 1 XP.

Method Two: Roll 3d6 six times and assign scores to abilities as you see fit. If you have ability score penalties  totaling more than -6 you are not fit for active duty. Use method two but do not gain 1 XP.

STR adds a bonus to melee hit and damage

DEX add to missile hit and damage

CON hit points equal con plus CON bonus

INT affects how many languages you understand (very useful in a multination army fighing a culutre the speaks another language.)

WIS affects resistance to shellshock as well as other class skills

CHA affects the ability to lead and rally NPC soldiers and deal with HQ.

Players will then select or randomly determine a background.

1d6	Background	Ability Modifier	Bonus
1	Laborer	+1 STR	+1 HP
2	Industrial Worker	+1 DEX	Bond (trade union or family)
3	Farmer	+1 CON	Food
4	Student	+1 INT	Bond (sweetheart or fellow student)
5	Bourgeois	+1 WIS	Money
6	Aristocrat	+1 CHA	Leave

(Money, Food, Leave, and Bond’s all have mechanics associated with them.)

Experience is earned in a way similar to a Last Pale Light, that is the player selects a goal from a list at the beginning of the game. At the end of the game session the table discusses if they met the goal and if so they earn XP. XP rewards and  level requirements are low (it takes 3 XP to hit level 2, you get 1 XP for accomplishing a goal.)   All classes share the same XP chart and have the same “Proficiency Bonus” that is added to attack rolls, skill checks, and saving throws.

The Working Title of the game is Lead & Steel from a Siegfried Sassoon poem called "The Kiss".

So, here is the first of the classes.  

Tommy / Poilu

You are one of the millions of men in uniform. You might have volunteered in the heady late summer of ’14 or you may have been conscripted from the farm or factory. You were quickly trained in close order formation, marksmanship, and the bayonet. Lofty Generals and Politicians made speeches at you about duty and glory then dressed you in a uniform and shipped you to the front. Despite their grandiose words, you haven’t seen them since. Turns out it is you that bears the actual burden of this war, you who trudge through the mud and the blood, you who have learned to live with act of killing. If your mind doesn’t break from the terror of shells, and your flesh isn’t flensed by a Hun machine gun then with the help of your squad mates you just might survive. At the front, you have forgotten about King and Country or L'union sacrée, all that matters any more are the brothers on either side of you who share the terrible burden.

Attribute: None. Anyone who is fit for duty may be a Tommy/Poilu.

Equipment: Infantry Uniform, Rifle, Bayonet

Rank: Private / Soldat 2eme.

Skills

Tough – Life on the front either turns men into steel or it kills them. The Tommy/Poilu may add his Proficiency bonus to his hit point total.

Brothers in Arms – The shared experience of war forges a deep connection between soldiers. The Tommy/Poilu fights for the man beside him. When thye makes a bond with another player, they get 2d6 bond dice rather than 1d6.

Training –Even at the front the soldier is constantly being subjected to training. British Tommies add a +1 to Hit with the rifle; French Poilus add a +1 to hit with the bayonet.