Saturday 3 September 2011

49 Pages

These are no 49 ordinary pages.

This is a plan for 18 point text, graphic modular house-rules pages for the first three character levels of a classic d20 medieval fantasy adventure game. They are in four sections corresponding to what players and GM will be doing in a typical campaign: Characters (white); The Village (yellow); The Adventure (orange); The Town (brown). The format forces conciseness, as regular readers here will have already seen. I usually end up liking what this does to the final products.

Let's be real. Nobody's going to use it who doesn't know what a roleplaying game is. The kids have played enough computer games, and anyone our age who is getting into this stuff has at least one person in the group who knows what it's all about.

So #1 will not be the usual thing. And #49 is downright heretical, but, I think, necessary as a starting point. Especially for the people approaching from computer gaming.

I expect some pages will split, and others merge, and I'll keep it to 49. Bold pages are already completed, with links to the posts if they've been posted (but expect some revisions).

Hey, if I even complete a third of these, starting from the most interesting first, it will be worth it. So, anything obviously missing?
  1. What Is This Game?
  2. Vital Statistics (definition of stats and basic mechanics for characters and beings)
  3. Who Are You? (rolling a character and choosing a character class)
  4. The Adventuring Character (charts of character stats and skills for the first 5 levels)
  5. Adventuring Fighter Powers: Force, Finesse and Followthrough
  6. Adventuring Priest Powers: Restore HP, Faith Healing, and Abjure Evil
  7. Adventuring Rogue Powers: Ambush, Distraction and Skill Mastery
  8. Adventuring Wizard Powers: Spell Casting
  9. Spells for level 1
  10. Spells for levels 3-5
  11. Powers of the Adventuring Dwarf and Elf
  12. The Adventuring Gnome: Dabbler's Magic and Loser's Luck
  13. Going Shopping 1: Weapons
  14. Going Shopping 2: Armor
  15. Going Shopping 3: Equipment
  16. Going Shopping 4: Domestic Animals
  17. Who Else is Out There? (interactions with NPCs explained)
  18. First Meetings (morale and reaction tables)
  19. Companions (hirelings and henchmen) 
  20. Everyday Life (living costs, travel, etc.) 
  21. Adventure Environments
  22. Light and the Senses
  23. Moving Around
  24. Breaking Things
  25. Hazards: Fire, Falling, Water, Poison
  26. Traps
  27. Enemies: Animals
  28. Enemies: Humanoids
  29. Enemies: Monsters
  30. Enemies: The Weird
  31. Enemies: The Unholy
  32. Combat: The Encounter
  33. Combat: Time and Space
  34. Combat: Initiative and Actions
  35. Combat: Missiles and Powers
  36. Combat: Melee
  37. Death and Damage
  38. Critical Hits and Fumbles
  39. Recovery and Healing
  40. Treasure
  41. Magic Items I
  42. Magic Items II
  43. Experience and Advancement
  44. Travel through Civilized Lands
  45. Town Services
  46. Town Goods
  47. Carousing
  48. Town Encounters
  49. Winning The Basic Game

3 comments:

  1. I think potions probably warrant their own page, I've been working on one. Hopefully this long weekend I can tweak some of Chris Hogan's stuff and come up with one-page each for Poisons, Drugs, and Diseases.

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  2. Yep ... I have had to make some command decisions to keep it to 49. Potions ... maybe six of them will appear on Magic Items I. And in the plan, I'll be doing the ones that can stand alone as house-rule modules, more so than the ones that are just needed to fill out a complete beginner RPG (like magic items).

    So I'm looking forward to your further supplements in the one-page genre!

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  3. I'm going to love this. It's missing a few one page adventures and a one page wilderness or a one-page campaign. It would bring you to 52, which is divisible by 4.

    Dude, I'm totally in love with your blog. It really makes my designer sense tingle. Do you want help for this project? An adapted version of my one page monster manual would be a nice inclusion.

    ReplyDelete