Basic Fantasy RPG - Play Test Part III

Welcome back to part three of my Basic Fantasy RPG play through with my party of adventurers! As before I will detail what we did and where we deviated and played house rules.

As a recap the avid party had ended the last session battered and bruised having smashed open a door.

For this session the party had a new member, a human fighter. He was introduced as the parties fighter, who had drunk himself into a stupor in the pub where they learnt of the caves. Waking up the next morning under a table he found the party had left! He hot footed it across country to catch them up!

Our adventure picks up with the Fighter running into the caves, not lighting a torch and running straight off the edge that caused the rest of the party trouble! His legs wheeled in mid air for a few seconds before he plummeted straight down and took 1 point of damage as he hit the ground.

Picking himself up the fighter worked his way along the corridor a short way; as he edges round a bend the Dwarf Cleric comes sprinting past him (having taken a run up) and smashes through a door to the fighters left revealing 3 Kobolds. After a quick brutal fight of 3 turns the adventurers had finished off the Kobolds and were ready to explore some more of the caves.

Using the map they got in the pub they headed South along the passageway to a door that was marked as having a chest inside. The door, to their surprise was not locked and turning the large round black handle the door opened into a small room with a chest on one side. Suspecting a trap ... or a mimic ... the cleric smashed the chest with his mace, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so ... which turned out to be fortuitous as a flash trap blinded all the other party members for 5 rounds (they all failed their saves except the cleric who I narrated as having closed his eyes as he hit the chest).

While the others were blind the Cleric opened the chest and examined the contents (I won't say what was there as they may read this!) and whether he told them the truth or purloined anything is a matter of party debate!

After 3 turns with the majority of the party being blind I rolled to see if any random monster would appear....... a 6! .... the Cleric spotted the face of a goblin sneaking a peek around the door frame. Thinking on his feet the Cleric pretended to be blinded like the other party members. Falling for his excellent acting the goblin sneaked into the room around the adventurers. The Cleric pulled back his mace and took a mighty swing at the back of the goblins head ... just as the goblin bent down to look what was in the chest! (A quick ad hoc roll on behalf of the goblin had him miss the swooshing noise as the mace went over head by millimetres!), the return swing by the Cleric caught the goblin soundly and felled him in one go. The rest of the party recovered their vision slowly and were a little perturbed by the goblin corpse who the Cleric assured them had come from the chest.

The party decided that after getting battered and bruised they should probably block the doorway and rest in the small room.

(As GM this was a great opportunity to roll a d6 and see if anything else might come along!)
 1 6 later ........

The party were woken by the sound of scratching at the doorway, and a knocking. The mage knocked back on the door and all went silent. After giving the mage time to cast Shield on himself the party opened the door and the Thief poked out his head for a sneaky look. The Giant Crab Spider totally failed to surprise the thief (I rolled another 6) who saw it out of the corner of his eye and retreated back into the room as it scuttled towards him.

A single round of combat was all it took for the party to dispatch the spider with the Fighter and the Thief  hitting simultaneously. The Thief pinned it to the ground with an arrow dealing 9 HP damage, as the Fighter cleaved it with a two handed sword blow for 11 HP! Suffice to say the spider was dead, and the fighter, being standard fighter type got whatever meat he could off the spiders body and cooked it.

The night was worth a second roll to see if anything random happened .... another 6 .... the party had certainly stirred up a hornets nest of random monsters!

Hearing a noise from around the bend at the north end of the corridor the Thief put a lit torch on the floor and retreated slightly. Slowly a skeleton shuffled around the bend, stopping to gaze with black empty eye sockets at the torch on the floor. It then looked up, saw the adventurers and with a dusty cough attacked. A single round of combat saw the Mage cleaved down the front by the Skeleton before the Thief could smash it with his sword causing it to explode into dust, the clothes crumpling to the ground.

Note in the first session we had decided that hitting 0 then starts a counter. -1 HP per round (more if you get hit) and if you hit -10 then you are dead. The cleric managed to stabilise the Mage and they returned to their "safe room" (It hadn't helped much so far!) to recuperate a little.

After a little cave dwelling R&R the adventurers left the room to explore further north in the cave system to another section that seemed to indicate another chest. Entering the cavern the centre seemed to be solid stone. After searching for hidden doors the Thief managed to find the hidden door! He then said he wanted to search for traps.

As GM I did the roll for the search for traps behind the GM screen after a spectacular pass the Thief found a needle trap attached to the door. He then made his roll to try and disable the trap ... unfortunately in identifying the switch that would trigger the trap the Thief pressed it. After then failing his save spectacularly the party found they had a thief lying on the floor with a needle in his eye and turning green.

Technically failing the save vs poison would normally be death. However this is an RPG and not all poisons are deadly immediately. I allowed the party the opportunity to try and save their Thief. He dropped immediately to 0 HP and I asked what they wanted to do.

The Cleric came up with the brilliant idea of removing the needle and trying to suck out the poison from the Thiefs eyeball. Removing the needle was a simple enough task, I then had the Cleric roll to see whether he would manage to suck out the poison. Unfortunately he was a little over enthusiastic and managed to suck the thief's eyeball out into his mouth. (The Thief got dropped to -1 HP). The Cleric then executed his next idea which was to just cut the eyeball free to stop further poison spreading. He successfully cut the eyeball free (which the fighter pocketed for lord only knows what purpose!). At this point the Thief is now at -2 HP. The Cleric then made several attempts to tie off the fleshy bit that was pumping blood ... several turns later the Thief was on -4 and heading quickly towards their -10 permanent death. Finally the Mage stepped in and using their dexterous mage hands managed to tie off the flappy eye bits and stabilised the Thief.

After these shenanigans I gave the Thief a change to their attack bonus making it -1 to account for the loss in depth perception. I made this up on the spot as a reflection of the dire circumstances that had occurred.

After all this (and the party barely alive) they decide they are going to try and open the door. The parties one eyed thief picked the lock with what was a stunning display of lock picking ability, and then proceeded to temporarily blind himself by touching the chest and setting off another flash trap. The rest of the party had steadfastly shut their eyes before he got near the chest so they were all ok.

The party decided to cram into the tiny room the chest was in to rest up ... the Mage and Cleric however thought to check the door and found no obvious way to open it from the inside. Based on their luck so far they decided to err on the side of caution and retreat to the original rest up room to recover a little.

The night progressed and near morning (as near as you can tell in a cave system) the party could hear noises from the corridor ... yes I rolled ANOTHER 6 for random monster time!

Most of the party really wanted to roll over and try to go back to sleep in the hope this was all a bad dream. However the Fighter felt he hadn't hit enough things, so insisted on opening the door. The party felt they couldn't leave 1 character to go it alone so all piled out to find 4 Stirges flapping around the corridor.

As GM I had already decided if they didn't open the door the Stirges would fly off by morning. However once there was fresh blood in sight the outcome was never in any doubt and another fight ensued!

In the first turn the Mage, Fighter and Thief all had Stirges attach to them and start draining blood. The Mage missed his Stirge hitting himself in the face with his staff for 4 HP. The Fighter also managed to smash himself for damage, and the Thief managed to kill his Stirge. The Cleric took an almighty swing and nearly crushed the poor Mages head in. Several wild blows later the party had nearly killed themselves, with the Mage and Fighter both on 0 HP and quickly dying. The Cleric tried to stop the Stirges by hitting them and quickly accelerated the impending death of the Mage and Fighter putting them on -8 and -5 respectively. I rolled against the morale of the final Stirge getting higher than its morale, and narrated this as the Stirge having fed heartily and trying to flee before it died like its fellows. As it detached from the Fighter with a full belly the Cleric took a final swing and squashed it against the wall spraying blood everywhere.

The Cleric then set about trying to stem the blood on the Mage. I gave him a 50% chance which he passed first time. He then tried to help the Fighter failing on his first attempt and pushing the Fighter to -9 .... one last attempt ..... under 50% ... he just managed to stem the flow of blood and stabilise him!

The Cleric and Thief dragged the Fighter and Mage back to the "safe" room and wedged the door shut. The Cleric also suggested he may seriously hurt someone if they tried to open the door in the night ... or before a good long rest. The Thief thought this was a bit rich seeing as his "helping him" had resulted in the loss of an eye ... mind you he was still alive!

So there you have it. They are battered. They are bruised. They are minus an eye ... well technically the Fighter has it in his pocket but that doesn't help the Thief!

The next session is next week ... I really can't wait to see what turns up in the dungeon and whether they make it alive ... or even if they accidentally off each other!

--Edit - I was re-reading the rules and realised that random monsters appear on a d6 roll of a 1. I had however used a d6 roll of 6. Only realised that last night. They still were running on a 1 in 6 chance but wanted to point it out in-case it caused any confusion.

Basic Fantasy RPG - A PlayTest Part II

The last post on our first session seemed to be well received so I thought I would keep them coming as we have sessions, and feed back so that people can see how it runs, and where we deviate.

My original plan was to post on Friday after the next session, but the party have had to slide back a week due to previous commitments ..... drat that "real world" thing!

However to keep the posts coming I thought I would blog up some information around how we did character creation. The reasons we played it as we did and how it deviates from the base.

I'll start with the way characters are normally created in BFRPG (or my understanding of it!)

In BFRPG you have 6 basic character abilities (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma). For each ability the players roll 3d6, add up the results, and assign the number to that ability; you do each ability in turn and assign whatever value you roll to it.

Once you have a value for each ability you then write down the bonus/penalty for each ability. This is based on the number assigned to that ability with the penalties/bonuses ranging from -3 to +3.

Your next step is to choose a race and class for your character. Races and classes may have minimum and maximum levels you can have in specific abilities, so for example to be a dwarf you have to have a minimum constitution of 9.

At this point you are probably thinking ... hang on my stats really limit what I can play, and with BFRPG having a load of supplements for classes and races this will stop me playing what I want! Don't worry the rules cover options to help with this ... I'm just following the basic flow for the moment so bare with me!

So you select your race and class, and you write down the special abilities on your character sheet. If you're a magic user the GM can select your starting spell or let you choose.

Your next step is to roll the relevant hit die for your class (different classes have different hit die) and add your constitution modifier (+ or -), noting it can't be below 1.

That is a lot of the character done and you probably only took about 10 - 15 minutes so far!

We now get to the good old starting money stage! You roll 3d6 and multiple the result by 10 or as I like to say stick a 0 on the end :)

Now you purchase your equipment, remembering to check what armour and weapons you're allowed to use (all covered in the one book available in soft back for a very reasonable price!).

You now note your armour class (you get to add your dexterity modifier to this).

You're now on the home straight to having your character complete! 

Your next step is to look up your attack bonus which is based on your level and class, and note down your save throws.

Your last stage is naming your character .. and your done! 

Ok so what did we follow and when did we break from the norm?

I'll start with rolling for the abilities. I appreciate the simplicity and speed of the system as presented, and in a way it does reflect the fact that in life we have to work with what we have. However for me I find it a little restrictive. The game does offer options to work around this including swapping some scores or assigning them where the players want.

These are excellent options but I still wanted a little more flexibility. After all we wanted adventurers! So we went with the following method.

Each player rolled 3d6 6 times, totalling up their scores after each roll and noting them down. They then did this a second time giving them two separate sets of figures. They then selected one pool of stats and threw away the other. Then finally assigned them to the abilities as they wanted them.

So for example Player 1 wanted to be a Human Wizard. They rolled:

13,13,12,15,6,12

and

15,10,7,10,14,10

They decided they preferred the first set of scores so selected those and assigned them as follows:

Strength: 6

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 13

Dexterity: 12

Constitution: 13

Charisma: 12

One of the players wasn't sure between the two sets of stats they rolled. Their rolls were:

8,14,13,13,5,9

and

13,5,12,12,11,8

I noted down the modifiers these would translate to to help with the decision. The above stats translated to the following modifiers:

-1,+1,+1,+1,-2,0

and

+1,-2,0,0,0,-1

This helped them to decide to dump the second set of stats and to retain the first set.

In the end this gave us fairly balanced characters and by using the optional rule of the full shuffle they assigned them to ensure they met the minimum requirements of the race and class they wanted.

Interestingly of the 3 players 2 of them didn't drop their lowest score on Charisma. One put their lowest on strength and the other constitution. I genuinely feel that all the players placed their stats in a way that reflected the personalities of their characters, so the only one with their lowest score on Charisma really is the grumpy character of the party as that was how the player wanted to play them.

The only other deviation we did on character creation was as GM I allowed them each to select the max hit points value they could get, so if their hit dice was a d4 I gave them 4+constitution modifier.

Now you may wonder why we did this. All I can say is that after 3 Kobolds and a few wolves the party is looking pretty ragged and they may be close to a TPK!

Finally before starting the adventure we agreed the ground rules on player death. Everyone agreed that player death had to be a possibility. However we have gone for a modified version. So at 0 HP the character becomes unconscious. Each turn thereafter they will lose 1 HP till they hit -10 at which stage they have died. If the other players can finish the fight and stabilise them before this happens they can be saved.

So that's my more detailed information on player creation. This was the first time we ever did this and it was all done in about 30 minutes. It really is very simple .. oh and to help we also had 2 copies of the softback book so 2 players could consult tables of equipment etc. at the same time!

If you made it this far thank you for reading and I'll be back soon with an update on our first adventure!

Basic Fantasy RPG - a playtest

So. The other week I was on holiday. For some reason I got myself all excited over the 3rd edition Basic Fantasy RPG. A few texts later (as I was away) my friend had ordered it to be delivered to my house a day after my return.

Now often these things happen, you get them and they gather dust or look good on a shelf. However I was so enthused when I read it I managed to pass that enthusiasm on to friends. One who ordered all the books based purely on my enthusiasm.

A week on and we had session 1 booked in.

The plan.
Create characters.
Go into a cavern.
Kill some monsters.

Nice and simple to get a feel for the rules.

The big night arrived. I had got so excited I bought a set of dice for each player to use as well as 30 pencils....no time wasting on a broken tip...grab another!

Player generation went really smoothly. I used the book as reference and before the first hour was out all three characters were rolled and kitted up.

We have:
A human mage
A dwarf cleric
A elf thief

I had the players roll two sets of stat numbers and pick the ones they wanted to keep. Then assign them as they wanted.

So character creation was as easy and painless as the book felt like it would be. We didn't worry about encumbrance as they couldn't afford much!

The party started in a tavern where an old man was retelling his story of being attacked by a monster. After buying him a drink he offers them a map for a cut of the profits. The dwarf held him to 3 percent...better than nothing the man thinks and they shook on it.

Map in hand they set off the next morning on a three day hike to the cave entrance.

Remembering they had no food when they settled in for the first night they went hunting. As luck would have it they found a solitary boar. After slaying it they gutted it and sent back to feast.

During the night an ogre wandered close to camp but after rolling he was feeling friendly he just sniffed the air obviously smelling the guts off in the distance and wandered off.

The final day a hungry pack of wolves tracked the party. A wolf padded out to block the road. Realising there had been multiple howls the wizard thought to look behind them and spotted the other 3 sneaking up behind them. There was a brief scuffle that involved distracting 1 wolf with what was left of their boar jerky (I rolled he was chowing down on that for 5 rounds). They killed 2 wolves and seriously wounded the third. At this point the wounded wolf and the one who had fed on boar fled.

The party continued on to find the entrance to the caves. They entered and just as their map suggested a few feet inside was a 10ft ledge down with a rickety wooden ladder. The thief hopped on feet either side and slid down. The mage went next with a. Dex check and also nimbly climbed down. The dwarf was the final party member to confront....the ladder....

After a spectacular dex roll he panicked pushed the cliff and ended up balancing on the ladder as stilts. A second check saw him slowly begin to overbalance back. The mage decided to pitch in with a strength check. Unfortunately all he managed was to shove the bottom of the ladder causing the dwarf to fall ontop of him. 1 damage to the dwarf and 2 to the mage.

The party made camp and rested up after the traumatic start!

After a good night's rest they set off with lanterns lit. Having the map they could see all the hidey holes and an int check from the wizard had him spot what he thought was movement in a hidden part of the cave wall ahead. Pre warned the party leapt in front of the spot surprising the kobold hiding there.
They spent their free turn wagging their respective weapons in the air and looking impressive. The fight that then ensued was not pretty for the kobold.

Proceeding on and another int check from the wizard and be realises the cavern ahead has a ledge that could be a good ambush point....and kobolds love a good ambush. The wizard then decided to throw....yes throw....a candle onto the ledge...as it flies through the air it goes out, however I gave it a 5 in 20 chance..and rolled a 5...there was a grunt as the candle hit something...someone...

The dwarf being a stoic sort charges into the room to the far end where he can then run up the slope ontop of the ledge.

...ok I think the kobolds (that's what they were) are surprised, but they are ready to throw rocks at people so I'll give them a modified chance to hit the dwarf as he runs in front of them....natural 20...ok that's 1 point of damage from a rock to the head!

The dwarf charges on and summarily smashes a kobold with his mace so hard he separated the torso from the legs. His friend is a little unnerved and is summarily dispatched by the dwarf the next round.

The party re group and using the map head for a tunnel with a door. The thief has a shot at picking then locked but Ignis a type he hasn't seen before and isn't successful. The dwarf takes a run up and smashes it open only to be facing...kobolds (no one listened at the door)...

That was where session 1 ended...

We liked it so much session 2 is next week.

So we probably played a little fast and loose with the rules but on the whole we played it as they are written. The game flows well and as an RPG is great fun. I can't wait to see how the characters progress!

If you haven't tried it the rules can be downloaded in pdf for free. Grab it and have a look. If you like it the softback book cost me something like £4.22. That has rules spells monsters 4 races and 4 classes. There are more available free on the website.

Right. Next time I'm hoping will be more carnival of dreams updates!

Adventure Update - Nearly there!

So, after watching the exciting and successful Midderlands kickstarter it is back to my stand alone one night adventure the Carnival of Dreams!

I have finally finished the first draft and sent a copy for play testing and a copy to a friend for some feedback. At the moment I know I need to clean up some of the PDF as some of the layout needs work, and also I need to re-check to make sure it all makes sense and remove typos etc. I'm also missing maps but I am so close I can feel it!

I am in discussions for cover art and then I just need to sort the feedback and maps and I'm all good to publish!

Well from the very first blog post to now I have been on quite a journey. I have learnt a lot, and when I am finally finished I will try and sum up what I have learnt along the way.

On a related note I read how to write adventures like a fucking boss. I took a lot of that on board, and amongst the gems that are in there one of the things that I think everyone should pay attention to is that everyone will have their own style. There is no right, or wrong, find your style and make it work for you.

I'm also prepared for lots of outcomes when I finally get this one out there and start work on my next piece to publish. I am expecting anything from no-one even noticing that it is out there to criticism. I just need to use it and learn.

For the moment, while I wait on some feedback and sort the images and work out what I want to do with the maps I'm going to work on an adventure for a competition. If you haven't seen it Venger Satanis is running a competition. If you haven't seen it I would recommend having a look.

On that slightly optimistic note I'm off to write more notes.

Midderlands

So, you may not have noticed but I was a big follower of MonkeyBlood Designs Kickstarter the Midderlands.

After a fast start a slower middle and an amazing ending the Kickstarter funded. I for one can't wait to hold that book in my hands and see it complete.

I'm also hoping there will be more Midderlands content coming out. But I'm sure we will hear more about it in the coming weeks and months.

Now back to writing!