The 3.5E Era

The D&D 3.5E era inspired many fantastic games. In addition to D&D's "last best" version, we have a collection from that era and are still keeping tables playing some incredible games.

The most obvious is up first, Pathfinder 1e. This is still an S-Tier game, but I have learned to appreciate the original D&D 3.5E rules. The two are the same game, but their focus is entirely different. D&D 3.5E is purely a dungeon-crawler, whereas Pathfinder 1e is a fantasy story path game. This seems like splitting hairs, but once you look at the skill list of each game, plus the GM guides, you will see the differences clearly.

D&D 3.5E is still the best version Wizards of the Coast has released. The fully supported campaign guides seal the deal for me. If I want to play in Eberron, with Eberron-specific character options, 3.5E is the only way to go. The same applies to the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and the other settings supported during this era. In comparison, 5E is a generic fantasy game. At best, it does rules-light emulation of these settings, though rules-light seems arguable these days.

I can't play the original TSR settings with Pathfinder 1e; the game feels too Golarion-focused, and the unique character setting-specific options are manual imports and unsupported in Hero Lab. I would rather play the OG settings with the OG 3.5E books.

OG Golarion, as it existed in 2010, was still awesome before the PC changes came in. However, the world has been on a downhill path ever since, becoming more steampunk, cute, and too modern for my tastes.

If there were any setting I would play, it would be D&D 3.5E Eberron. I can't get all the special classes, toys, tech, options, and flavor as the original game running the original sourcebooks.

Another game from this era is Castles & Crusades, which is still going strong. This is my 5E-style "simplified emulation" game, but it feels throwback and retro in its style and vibe. C&C feels like old-school AD&D, but it is far easier with near-zero charts to reference during play. This game can be hacked to feel like 5E or an AD&D-style game. The characters are balanced, and you must play with old-school sensibilities.

This was the last game Gary Gygax played and was involved with, so it has his approval. It makes sense, especially for older players who have little time. C&C lets you have a full dungeon-crawl and character-building experience without needing online character sheets, complex rules, action types, or books full of charts. It just "does what it says" without too much fuss.

Any game where I can run characters off 4x6 index cards is a winner. The above is my current design, and I laser print these and have hundreds in a file box, ready to go. If I wanted to emulate a classic setting, such as Forgotten Realms, Castles & Crusades would be my go-to game. The characters are d20, while the rules emphasize simplicity and pulp-action.

Why take all the scaffolding of 5E, the action types, the heavy characters, the strange resting mechanics, the invincible characters, and all these MMO-inspired rules?

C&C does all the d20 I need.

Also, Amazing Adventures is built off this game engine, and it is an entertaining pulp-style modern d20 adventure game. This game needs more attention; it could play any TSR boxed set games (Top Secret, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill) from back then and still feel like an authentic d20-type game in those genres.

AA is a new game that was published this year, too. So, the 3.5E Era games are still alive and well, and a new version of C&C is on the way, too, devoid of the OGL. AA seems like the beta test for C&C minus the OGL, and the next version looks promising.

OGL-free 3.5E Era games are incredible.

Mutants & Masterminds (3rd Edition) is another game from this era. A d20-based superhero game? This works well and is supported by an excellent line of books and Hero Lab support. M&M is the superhero game everyone forgets. Did you hear about that new Marvel game? The latest DC game? Every few years, the license for "licensed IP" heroes jumps again, and we still have Champions and M&M to use for super-powered gaming.

The superhero genre as a pop-culture phenomenon is stuck in a vast rut these days, as the IP is farmed, and 90% of what Hollywood makes for movies and TV is worthless as a source of inspiration. I suggest buying a few graphic novel collections from your favorite superhero eras, using those as your "team books," and creating the characters yourself. 

Don't look for other people's interpretations of heroes; start small. Choose street-level heroes to start, make them just starting out, pick your favorite two or three characters, choose one villain, and begin there. Also, you don't need to follow a comic story or quickly assemble an entire team. Let them pick the powers they want, and don't follow the official character guides for their builds.

Perhaps in your world, Batman and Captain America reluctantly team up, and the Justice League, Shield, the X-Men, or the Avengers will never be groups. Ban existing groups, factions, and teams, but use the characters and let them find each other, fight, team up, or never meet. Treat the characters as "players who log into a superhero MMO" and let them develop characters and form teams organically. Bad guys may not be bad guys; the books have yet to be written here.

You can write your own stories and comic books with a "new world and cold start," you will have more fun being creative with hero pairings and villains. Use your own heroes, licensed IP ones, or an entertaining mix. Drop everyone into "today's world" a few at a time, with nobody knowing what is going on, and begin the game fresh.

I pick up any "superhero encyclopedia" and instantly get overwhelmed. I am lucky to have the pre-Disney Marvel one, the last one they did as Marvel before the sale in 2009. While these are a good source of heroes' powers, the amount of plots, groups, and stories will overwhelm you.

Another fun 3.5E-aligned game is Dungeon Crawl Classics. This game leaned more towards the B/X and zero-edition style of play, but the Fort/Ref/Will saves give this game away. This is a 3.5E derivative game and goes hard on the gonzo, unpredictable, crazy, and mind-blowing style of fantasy where nothing is familiar, the world is on its head, and characters are larger than life.

DCC feels more like classic Greyhawk than any of these other games, especially the S-series modules, in which characters navigate deadly deathtraps built by liches, a mad wizard's volcano labyrinth, or the inside of an alien spaceship. Many of today's fantasy games have gotten too stale and predictable, with characters feeling set in stone and the same old product-identity monsters occupying differently shaped rooms. Magic has become MMO DPS in 5E, which is also far too predictable and reliable.

DCC is strange; the dice are bizarre, the game is a collection of random charts, and you have no clue what comes next. Even using this to play through 3.5E modules is a fun experience, and the entire "zero to hero" path for a collection of random no-names is like nothing in gaming. No "pet characters" exist here; this is chaos and emergent storytelling.

Mutant Crawl Classics and several other sister games fill out the line and give you a bunch of settings and base characters to choose from, all compatible. You have post-apocalyptic, science fiction, combat sports, superheroes, westerns, and many other "zine games" supported by this system that gives you near-infinite options.

And there are many other 3.5E games out there, including the Conan-inspired Hyperborea, a Traveller 20 clone, and others. You don't need to leave the 3.5E era to have a fantastic library of D&D classics, Pathfinder 1e, Gonzo Fantasy, Traditional Fantasy, Pulp Adventure, Science Fiction, and many others.

The 3.5E Era, and all the games derived from it, are the heart of gaming. There is a sphere of B/X-aligned games in the OSR, but when you just look at 3.5E, there is a lifetime of fun to be had here, both with classic and new systems, all having their roots in that early 2000s era of gaming, and the last, best-supported version of D&D ever published.

Amazing Adventures

Amazing Adventures lives up to its name.

This game is closest to a d20-style system of the classic Top Secret and Gangbusters games that TSR released in the 1980s. It covers the same subjects: pulp action, spies, gangsters, or period adventurers. If I were generous, I could throw the classic Boot Hill and Star Frontiers games here, too, but the latter would need a few conversions to get it feeling right.

The game doesn't have a "spy" class since "anyone can be a spy," and having the class would be "super obvious" and also "limit spies to a small set of abilities." The original Top Secret game had three classes, assassin, investigator, and confiscator, so it was a class-based design. Assassin was the most "fun" to play for most, given our D&D background, and combat and martial arts are always fun. The AA classes feel like a better mix for spy games, and you get a gadgeteer class, which opens up more high-tech gear-based spy genres.

Top Secret was a level-based game.

The classes feel right at home for the Gangbusters game since AA is a pulp-adventure game. You have the same "spy as class" problem as you do in Top Secret since what defines a gangster can vary widely. There is a "hooligan" class in AA that would cover most thugs and "heat" in pulp-gangster games. Still, there is no reason a socialite, raider, soldier, pugilist, pirate, or other class (or class combo) could be involved in the underworld and hold a rank in the criminal hierarchy. You can even multi-class a hooligan with any other class and get ideal hitmen, safecrackers, moonshiners, and many other mixed-class bad guys. You also get Indiana Jones-style world-hopping adventure, so this does more than Gangbusters.

Gangbusters was also a level-based game.

Boot Hill is relatively easy to emulate, but you will need one of the Boot Hill reprints or any other Western game to get price lists, guns, and a few other bits of topical information to do it right. You can do a Wild West game with the AA rules; it is just some period tropes, horses, steam trains, black hats, and a few iconic guns - but if you want a more grounded game, you need more data, and Western games typically do that research well. There are also ones in the OSR that are worth checking out. You can also have a more fantastic Wild West game with the AA rules, gadgeteers and mystics causing chaos and interesting plot hooks.

Boot Hill's level system was in "number of gunfights survived" and this did improve abilities.

Star Frontiers' adoption of a level system feels all wrong. I think AA could do a fun science fiction game since White Star is a fantastic game in the same genre with levels. However, with Knight Hawks, the game essentially became a "leveled game" with the addition of starship skills being for highly experienced characters only.

The skills are leveled, but the character's stats and hit points are not, but can be increased with XP. Once you spend 30-50 XP, the game begins to emulate levels in a way.

Star Frontiers needs the most conversion since many iconic gear items must be present to feel authentic. The other games on this list, especially Top Secret and Gangbusters, can be "close enough" with just the AA book. A warning, some of the items in SF are built for this game, like a laser pistol being able to be set to 20d10 damage in one shot. Sometimes it is better to use the "laser pistol" designed for AA than converting ones for other games, since the balance and gameplay will be better.

Trying to be too accurate on conversions can derail your entire game and make the effort fail. Not everything done in older games is "right" or "canon" and you need to be able to change things and get the feeling right rather than the little details. Being able to have grand, sweeping space adventures is far more important than letting a laser pistol do 20d10 damage.

These games have "flat" hit points, while leveled systems scale up with level. Once you put scaling hit points in these games, you get the "veteran" survivability factor, where more experienced characters survive longer. This is a good thing since all these games are relatively deadly. High-level gangsters and cowboys surviving ambushes are more cinematic. High-level space adventurers are able to fight their way across a planet and not stop to rest, which is also very cinematic. Even James Bond survives multiple firefights, taking "damage" as near misses until that final bullet lands.

In some strange alternate universe where TSR kept one system for all its games, this is the world we would be looking back on. I like AA; it feels capable yet sticks to the tried and true. It also does a lot with a little, and the classes are iconic across several genres and periods. The Powered/Gadgeteer class can even simulate street-level superheroes, a nice little touch. You could do a 1950s and 1960s superhero game with Batman-style heroes and enemies and feel at home in this system.

Amazing Adventures covers a wide swath of history and does it cleanly. It handles the speculative and fantastic well, without much custom power design and complicated characters. It also plays like any other d20 game, so it is not hard to learn.

I like this game, I can see myself playing it.

Mail Room: Amazing Adventures (3rd Printing)

I have always been a fan of the Amazing Adventures system. This SIEGE Engine, Castles & Crusades style game covers genres from black powder to science fiction. Like C&C, it is level-based and a d20 system and uses the same "roll over AC" combat system and the SIEGE Engine for skills and saves.

The newest edition has been cleaned and revised, and the OGL has been removed. Thank you! No one can threaten the games we love, and creators get to do "new stuff" other than what is expected under the OGL and SRD. The death of the OGL is a fantastic birth of new games, indie projects, and fresh ideas - and it is long overdue.

The game is written in a pulp style and defaults to a Call of Cthulhu meets Indiana Jones setting, with a bit of the classic Gangbusters game thrown in for good measure. The classes are more "action movie archetypes," while they have pulp-style names, they can be anything you want them to be. The investigator class can be anything from a federal agent, police detective, hardboiled PI, space cop, and intelligence analyst to a newspaper reporter.

The class describes a role in a story, not a job title.

This game is in the same genre as Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulhu/Basic Roleplaying (BRP), and other pulp-action games. For C&C players, you are not changing rules systems, and you can stay in a d20 system that works well for modern adventures. Combat is deadly at low levels, and at higher levels, you get that "the last blow is fatal" thing going on when hit points drop below zero.

Why play this over Savage Worlds? This is simple, meshes well with B/X fantasy and C&C, and is a fast system. You do not need to learn as many rules concepts as you do with Savage Worlds, and it uses the familiar d20 game structure. I taught Savage Worlds to someone, and the first session was always to stop and start, explain something new, and get playing again. Savage World also uses a lot of "toys," like poker chips, cards, and other items during play, and Amazing Adventures is a more familiar d20 system. AA is much more straightforward and uncomplicated to "sell" to players who have only played D&D or B/X-style games.

Why play this over Call of Cthulhu? Well, for one, CoC has the mystique, lore, and monsters. I recommend Adventures Dark and Deep's "Swords of Cthulhu" book, which gives you a bestiary and information on magic and cults. This is an excellent book that is easily convertible to both C&C and AA. It even has d20 rules for Cthulhu cultists (and for playing them, if your players are suitably insane). Seeing how the cultists and magic of "the other side" makes for some fascinating reading and opens your mind to how the different cults would use these dark magics on characters. This take on the Cthulhu mythos is well-written and researched and would make for a fantastic combination with AA. It also gives you an entirely different view of the mythos and evil contained within.

I would play a game like this in a heartbeat.

What I love about the Amazing Adventures system is how simple the rules are. Of the 306-page book, the game's rules are about 26 pages at the end of the book, with everything being the familiar d20-style rules, roll AC or higher to-hit; ability scores control all other saves, ability checks, and skill rolls; and damage comes off hit points. Anyone who played 5E or B/X knows this game already. Characters are roll ability scores, pick a class, write down 3-4 abilities, set hit points, and describe your gear, armor, and weapons.

Unlike most games, you just say what your characters start with, usually within reason. Armor is a "pulp style" based on your outfit and accessories, and while the system could be gamed for maximum AC, use your judgment and only allow what is reasonable given the situation. You can also use a more realistic armor system, and your DEX bonus works with either (up to the AC cap). Don't worry about it; make costumes fit the social situation, and don't abuse the system.

The game also has a 144-page referee's book, the Chronicle Keeper's Guide, which offers suggestions on how to run the game, modding information, new rules, and rules the referee will use often. A new OGL-free "monsters" book will be available for the game, and the older OGL monsters book is currently a free PDF download and works just fine with the game.

https://trolllord.com/product/amazing-adventures-manual-of-monsters-oop-free-pdf/

The CK Guide also has corruption rules, and the Player's Handbook has sanity rules, so you are all set if you want to play eldritch horror-style games. Sanity loss in this game is fierce, especially when reaching zero, almost like dying in B/X. Luckily, recovering is fast, and you typically begin adventures with your total sanity score. Also, you gain more sanity points as you level, so the buffer between you and complete madness improves. Corruption is based on total lifetime sanity loss, which accumulates and is irreversible (but honestly, it takes a lot of sanity damage to accumulate).

Amazing Adventures is, pardon the pun, an "amazing" game. I have not seen a game like this, and it feels like a simple, B/X-style, fresh take on the d20 Modern genre. I was surprised to get this in the mail. I have given up on this one a little and never thought I would have that much interest. I was wrong.

If you play B/X, OSR games, or C&C and want modern adventures or a fresh take on a d20 Cthulhu game (with the book mentioned), this is the game to get. Highly recommended.

Visceral Action

So I was playtesting my Amazing Adventures-powered version of a Star Frontiers-like game last night, and I discovered a few things. I call it a "-like" game now since I am diverging away from many of the broken things in the Star Frontiers system. It is becoming more of my own science-fiction game that stands on its own.

Our Star Frontiers campaign was set in that universe back then, but it diverged widely from the old canon. Our game had elements from Space Opera and Traveller, with Space Opera being the most significant influence. In the OSR, there is this mythical, almost romanticized "the way we used to play it" thing with fantasy.

We had that thing going on, but for sci-fi. We played a 30-year campaign set in a generic sci-fi universe with only a loose tie to the Star Frontiers universe, with most of the universe being ours. Star Frontiers only existed as the glue; it could have been any universe. We had a lot of space races, fully fleshed out like Saurian races, Canines, Felines, and others in our universe with home worlds and politics that created conflict and intrigue. We had more enemies than just the Sathar.

I was working on my reinterpretation of early 80s sci-fi role-playing last night, using the SIEGE Engine and AA as my base system. Then I realized how horrible Star Frontiers' personal defenses and armor were. You had to pick an attack type and defend against that with a suit, and then stack a field with a powerpack on top of that to protect against the other type of attack. Then, it was a battle of attrition as you and your enemies wore down defenses to get at the meaty insides. And you could set lasers to burn an entire power clip, so you could just alpha attack with 20d10 with a laser pistol.

We never played it that way. We assumed defenses would be good against all types of attacks and used an armor system that protects against all kinds of damage. This was when I realized diverging from my source material would give me a game that was better than a straight conversion and better fit our "way we used to play it" feeling back in the day.

So, goodbye, Star Frontiers, and the d100 system. And hello to early 1980s sci-fi role-playing, like the OSFR or Old Sci-Fi Renaissance. This has to be d20 and based on a B/X scale since maximum compatibility is a design goal. It also answers, "What if TSR kept d20 as a house system?"

Amazing Adventures is a base since it covers modern games and gunplay. It gives me the SIEGE Engine as an all-in-one, best-in-the-OSR resolution system that stays out of the way and gives me all the rules I need without all the heavy rules scaffolding to drag around like a B/X or homebrew system, and without the rules weight of a system like GURPS.

So I was balancing armor versus weapon attacks last night and shifting more towards the system presented in Star Siege, where you get an AC bonus for armor plus a DR value that reduces damage. And I got rid of the "protects against X but not Y" plague of the guessing game in sci-fi roleplaying where designers get too pedantic and create defenses for one class of weapons but not another - and this is a plague on sci-fi games. Designers get stupid and think like 21st-century people, when if I were in the future, I would say, yeah, give me some laser protection in my ballistic bodysuit, please.

The people who live in a universe like this would create armor that protected against many attacks, probably not the best of each, but enough to be useful against energy and projectile weapons. This is like people in the Renaissance trying to design a modern combat system and making armor that protected against pistols but not rifles because, you know, they were different! And let's make the shotgun vest that only protects against that type of attack.

My new OSFR system has become much cleaner, and the combat is faster. Equipping characters became as easy as a B/X game. Why wear light armor? Well, my undercover space cops need to look like they are dressing normally so they take the best civilian protection they can get without looking suspicious. If they need heavier, they can break out the tactical vests in the trunk of their hovercar. Otherwise, you fight with what you got and hope your DEX modifier to AC makes a difference - and take cover when you can!

Since I am also binge-watching Miami Vice, the idea of star cops fighting evil alien infiltrators and their plans to overthrow society from within appeals to me, especially with that 1980s influence. My star cops will mostly have civilian protection and smaller handguns and go undercover to bust the subversive alien bad guys and their nefarious plots.

But what I came away with during my gunfight testing was a sense of visceral action in an OSR game that I did not know it had or I assumed it didn't. AA has a critical hit and recoil system that reminds me of the original Top Secret game. For every shot (with specific weapons), you accumulate a recoil penalty that adds to your target's AC. I had a thug with a handgun (like your typical 9mm, ROF 3, recoil 3) fighting a space cop with a laser pistol (ROF 2, no recoil). Now, that recoil penalty rolls over to the next turn unless you spend a turn pausing fire and resetting your aim. The rules say cumulative penalty, but I rule it rolls over like the original Top Secret game.

Critical hits in AA explode, which means you get an extra exploding d6 die of damage to every critical hit, and every critical hit automatically hits—regardless of armor. So I had the thug blasting away at my star cop, and both sides to cover, which meant their ACs were up in the 16 to 18 range, and the thug's recoil meant he was spraying shots and hoping for crits. Sometimes, he would reset his recoil or take his chances and aim - firing at the end of the turn at a +2. He did get hits in, and both of them were wearing light protective civilian armor, so his d10 damage would put some hurt in on my agent. Considering my agent had 10 hp, and the thug was 6, the agent won most of the time.

But there was a moment there. One turn, my agent rolled a crit, blowing the thug away with a 15-damage shot. I rolled a hit location on one of my hit location dice and got a right arm. B/X and OSR rules typically don't have hit locations or critical effect charts (Rolemaster being the best known). So I was sitting there with an overwhelming result of overkill damage. What do I do with that?

This is where the OSR shines.

The referee decides what happens - not a chart, hit location result, or detailed set of rules for overkill. You don't need any of it. Your mind is much more imaginative than any "overly detailed set of rules" could ever provide you.

Just trust it.

Make up what happens.

Even a hit that takes away a few hit points could force a save to drop a weapon or knock someone from cover. A lot can happen in combat, and a game master's ability to "make -ish up" when damage occurs is the art of being a great game master. Hit point damage is not just hit point damage. A near miss can spray bits of concrete in your face, forcing you to deal with a turn of blindness. A non-lethal hit to the leg could knock you off balance. Hit point damage "opens the door" to many referee-inspired rulings.

This is the art of game mastering.

If you refuse to embrace it and just be like a DVD player for your group, you suck as a game master, you are not playing the game, and the players don't need you - they could handle all this themselves. They frankly don't need you. This is sort of the feeling that 5E pushes the "DM as a DVD player," and it sucks the life out of the game.

5E denies the role of the game master and forces him "not" to play. A 5E DM is the referee in a Magic The Gathering tournament, making rulings on cards and situations with the official rulebook. They do not get to play. And it sucks. The most significant difference between the OSR and 5E is the role of the referee during play, and this situation with my test combats perfectly highlights it.

The thug's arm was vaporized, flew apart into many chunks of flaming meat and bone, and was set on fire. He ran screaming into the street behind the planter he was behind and collapsed. A game like GURPS or Rolemaster does not have that result for an overkill damage roll, but I made it up.

And the ruling stands.

That is what happened.

I am the referee, and this is how I get to play, too.

He took 15 points of damage and only had 6 hit points. And I know in AA, death immediately happens at -10, and he was technically at -9 - so he could be alive for one turn until the fire damage gets him. It is a minor point that a quick-thinking player could take advantage of. They could save him if they put him out and stabilize him. If he recovers, he will have a cyber arm and scars all over his body, but that is the breaks of fighting star cops armed with laser pistols.

Like in Miami Vice, he may show up in a later season looking for revenge, with those cool scars, cyber arm, and a dozen levels under his belt as he worked hard to become the campaign's next major villain hiding in the shadows.

As a referee, I get to do that too.

That doesn't happen in 5E, GURPS, Rolemaster, or many other games. You are either constrained by the referee's role or by the overly detailed rules that limit your imagination.

And this certainly doesn't happen in Star Frontiers, Traveller, or Space Opera unless the referee has this old-school mindset. Today's players are too limited by the rules, and they can "see" what I am describing. They play classic games like they would play 5E and wonder what the big deal is. The referee, being trained in 5E, shrugs and says at least 5E has more rules to adjudicate. The entire point of the game is missed because the training and art of playing the game are entirely wrong.

These moments only happen in an OSR game.

With an OSR mindset.

And it happens because the referee is allowed to play.

Amazing Adventures (TSR Box Games)

First, there is an Indiegogo for a new edition of Amazing Adventures. There are no new rules, but it has been cleaned up and reorganized in a much more usable format. There have been a few delays, but they said the print layout was done, and they are getting it to the printers soon. I have been waiting for this one for a while, and they are stripping out OGL references, so this will be a better game.

The Companion is a must-have book for the modern era. Grenades? You need to look for these in the C&C Castle Keeper's Guide. They are an odd omission but easily added in.

If you are buying in the current version, get this bundle:

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/123061/amazing-adventures-bundle

And if you do sci-fi, this book for Star Siege is helpful, too:

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/358363/amazing-adventures-starsiege

I am amazed at how well the AA system works for modern-day and sci-fi games. It is an OSR throwback; what if TSR made Top Secret, Gamma World, Gangbusters, and Star Frontiers (the classic box games) with a straight B/X system. This uses the Castles & Crusades SIEGE Engine, so messy things like saving throws and class skills are gone, though they do have the concept of backgrounds, traits, and knowledge skills. All of the classes are hackable, and their abilities swappable, so you can have an explorer medic or a soldier medic if you want, and just swap out one of the class abilities for the generic "Medical" class ability.

The game is 100% set in the Gangbusters era, so converting to this is no effort. You could stick to a straight cops-and-robbers theme, play a private detective, or play a gangster. AA also has rules for magic, gadgets, and psionics, so you could go to more "radio shows" like The Shadow, Chandu the Magician, or Radar Men from the Moon.

And yes, I know about B/X Gangbusters, which is excellent too.

The classes in AA have pulp names, but they are all generic archetypes you can reskin and rename as you please. The Gumshoe can be a Vice Cop in the modern era, a Star Cop in sci-fi, or even a Town sheriff in a Gamma World setting.

Also, you can multiclass anything with anything and even pull in Castles & Crusades classes, so your variety of character types is impressive. You can simply reskin the C&C barbarian as a primitive warrior in Gamma World and even use them as a class for characters.

I could remake all the TSR boxed games with this system, port in a few equipment items here and there, and have a classic, OSR-style experience for each one. If I did a Gamma World, I would use hit points like Gamma World (1d6 per point of CON) and keep the damages the same if I kept the original system's monsters and weapons. Gamma World will be the most difficult since the AC system was out of whack in the early editions, and classes won't work that well.

If I did a total conversion, I would rebuild everything for an average level progression and eliminate the 1d6 per CON hit point starting range. Monsters would get rebuilt and hit dice, like normal B/X monsters. Weapons would be reduced in damage to Star Siege levels and kept on the B/X scale. This is how you do it right and stay in class-level progression so your C&C classes port in seamlessly.

Gamma World would be the most work.

I am working on Star Frontiers, and the conversion is fantastic. Having a level one Star Law officer may seem strange, but it works well. My rookie will level up, go on cases to find Sathar agents and gain abilities as they level. Monsters can port in from any OSR source or even the Castles & Crusades monster book. This sort of d20 sci-fi works well in a game like White Star, so it will work well here, too; only the engine powering the system here is the SIEGE Engine. All of White Star's monsters, gear, and adventures port in easily since they are OSR.

Of all the conversions, I am most looking forward to this one. Having space heroes level up and go on dangerous space dungeon crawls seems fantastic.

This is a medium level of work, but well worth it as I convert things in.

Ship combat will be handled by Knight Hawks, with skill and attack rolls being based on a character's attack bonus a d20 roll, and maybe a -1 to-hit per hex penalty for attacks. Damage, the ship hits, critical damage, and everything else will be handled by Knight Hawks.

The AA gadgeteer will be very useful in a Top Secret-style d20 OSR game, and I will probably want to build custom classes for the investigator, confiscator, and assassin. I will base them off the closest class (gumshoe for investigator), but align their class abilities better to the original game. The AA socialite class may also be a great "face" style character with a few tweaks adding a disguise ability, so adding this and gadgeteer increases the character types in Top Secret by quite a few useful ones. I would also keep this game for fun in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

AA can easily do all the TSR box games and rebuild them in a familiar d20 format, with the B/X rules providing the base. The conversions, if necessary, are decent. The above is from my notes for the iconic SF laser pistol. I limited the maximum SEU to three to keep the balance in check (the rifle is six). Some of the melee weapons have been toned down, and their damages have been aligned with more of the Star Siege ones.

Gunplay at low levels will be lethal, but we have gear like the albedo suit that halves laser damage in the game, so survivability should go up. The damage conversion is 1d6 AA to 1d10 SF, so the suit will absorb up to 60 hp of laser damage (instead of 100 in SF) reflected before becoming useless. We allowed our skiensuit-wearing characters to wear an albedo vest, halved damage but absorbed half the maximum hits (30 hp).

I will eventually make better versions of everything as I complete the conversions. My laser pistol is far enough from SF to be my own creation once I eliminate SEU as a term. We had gear from Space Opera in our game, like armored vests and other gear, so that may be ported in too, depending on how successful my game in.

The conversions are dirt simple, and the chance of having the classic TSR boxed games back with a classic B/X system is too good of a feeling for me.

Indiegogo: Amazing Adventures RPG Last 72 Hours!

 Last 72 hours on the Amazing Adventures RPG!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/amazing-adventures-multi-genre-rpg/x/28722967#/

Time to hop on board if you love Castles & Crusades and want a modern to sci-fi era game to go alongside that!

Indiegogo: Amazing Adventures - New Printing!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/amazing-adventures-multi-genre-rpg/x/28722967#/

Very nice, a 3-book set for the Amazing Adventures game? And they are making this more "multi-genre" than "pulp" themed? They are doing new artwork and reorganization, folding in all of the options from expansions, and creating three traditional books (player book, GM book, monster book) for the game.

Since I love Castles & Crusades, I am all-in on this one.

More soon and this is a definite look forward to release!

Amazing Adventures: Character Creation

Wait, hold up, what's next?

If there is one thing peculiar about some of the early versions of some of the Troll Lord Games is the patchy and out-of-order methods of character creation in some of the games. Some of the earlier Castles & Crusades versions had the lists of character races after the class section, and this was always a little confusing to me. It is a great system and my favorite fantasy system of all time, but I am a fan of the step-by-step character creation process where everything is laid out clearly.

Amazing Adventures has a few issues in this regard as well. For the most part, creation is the beautiful 3d6 pick-a-class sort of style game, but there are a few points that made me do a double-take and stumbled when I hit them. Now, all of these are listed in the "advanced action heroes" section of the book, so they are optional rules, so use this if this is how you play.

Generic Class Abilities

Pages 57-62 list a number of generic class abilities that you can swap any class ability with. Want to be an ace pilot? Find a class ability you don't want and swap it out. This is a cool rule and allows a good deal of class customization, so it is not that hard to figure out.

Now, these are strange when mixed with the SIEGE Engine, since if you were to swap out a class ability for the medicine generic class ability; medicine is now a class ability for your character, and you get to add your level to SIEGE checks when performing medicine. Even though your class may be a gumshoe, perhaps you are a medical investigator who can also be a doctor. That medicine skill can be used with all SIEGE ability checks (INT, WIS, DEX, etc), and your level adds a bonus to the roll.

This is very different than the base C&C game and adds some fluidity with skill checks with the SIEGE engine that is not as cut-and-dried as the base C&C game, so it is worth taking note of.

BYO Classes?

Given Generic Class Abilities, above, would I allow a player to swap any class' ability into another class? Wow, um, possibly. Talk to me and give a good reason, and we can do a custom class easily. Classes in AA feel more fluid than their C&C counterparts

Bonus Languages are Knowledge Skill Picks?

The book does not tell you half of your bonus languages (2x your INT bonus) can be swapped for knowledge skills. So do not pick 6 languages right off!

In addition, every class gets a free knowledge skill in their class. These are not your traditional "active skills" like perception, but knowledge only - useful for recalling information or knowing facts, and give a +3 to the roll if they can be used. These also improve +1 per four levels, so at level 4 the bonus is a +4, a +5 at level 8, and so on.

Knowledge skills are funny since if your gadgeteer were trying to repair something, that is a class ability and not a knowledge skill use. Knowing what a piece of junk was? Yes, knowledge skill check. The same thing with the medicine knowledge skill, you could identify procedures and possible ailments, but not treat them.

With knowledge skills, this only applies to situations where a player asks, "does my character know something?"

Knowledge skills never apply to, "My character does something."

Backgrounds

Backgrounds represent the character's pre-history and interests before becoming an adventurer, give a +2 on the roll, and improve by +1 every 5 levels. These can be applied to any skill roll they could assist, such as a law enforcement background applied to a search roll. They can also be used as a knowledge skill too and provide information. There can be special cases where knowledge skills and backgrounds overlap and provide a bonus for each, but that usually isn't the case.

I would require roleplaying to use these and gain the bonus on the roll. If a character had a law enforcement background that is not a blanket +2 to hit with ranged weapons, search rolls, interrogations, or any activity where this could apply. If the character was trying to get a hostage taker to surrender, and the player roleplayed this like a police negotiator, then the bonus clearly applies. If they don't roleplay, then no bonus.

So with backgrounds, roleplaying is required to get a bonus on any action. It is a small requirement, but I feel that +2 is a huge bonus and it should not universally apply for free.

And these can be used for both knowing and doing.

Fate Points

All characters start with 10 fate points, easy, but this is not like C&C at all since we are in a pulp game. These go up by every level by half the new level number, with optional GM awards for heroism or dramatic play. You can cheat death once per level for 3 fate points, so these are pretty powerful resources, but limited. Given you are in a modern world, with a B/X hit point scale and guns, I can see these being used a lot.

Mana Energy Points

AA uses a mana-point system in addition to the normal spells per day, equal to d4 + CON bonus + primary spell casting attribute bonus, plus 1d10 a level. I would probably skip this rule since "spells per day" covers spellcasting nicely and aligns better with C&C. I would use this as an optional rule for worlds with "exhausting magic" only, such as a Cthulhu-style game world.

Traits

The game has a system of optional traits which are trading a +1 and -1 of two sets of actions, like the abrasive trait giving a +1 CHR bonus to intimidate and a -1 CHR penalty to being diplomatic. The -1 seems like a very minor bonus and I feel a +2/-2 is a better feeling modifier.

A Great Pulp Game

If a pulp game is taking attention off Savage Worlds for me it is a great game. Amazing Adventures hits a sweet spot of D&D-style progression and challenge levels, the classic low-to-high level play, and it uses basic B/X style stats and dicing. The characters and character sheets are half as complicated as Savage Worlds, there aren't as many "tricks" to the system, and it plays like straight B/X with fate points, and it works well from the classic pulp era, to modern, to sci-fi.

I still love Savage Worlds, but if I want that classic B/X and OSR feel and gameplay in a pulp game, this is hard to beat. Again, the C&C style rules simplify everything down to a few ability scores, eliminates complicated skill systems

And remember, referee rulings are still the gold standard rule here, so if a player is saying, "I have 30 hit points, there is no way a gun to my head would hurt me!" They are likely wrong, and this - for any PC or NPC - could be ruled lethal. This way of thinking is purely created by more modern rules systems where you start needing rules for everything and the book gets to be a 600-page monster.

If something feels like it is not survivable in the game world, then it probably is not.

If you have fate points left, you can "wake up later" or miraculously survive, but then again, this is also dependent on the lethality of the world and referee ruling.

First Look: Amazing Adventures

Here is a fun one I am looking at, the Siege Engine (Castles & Crusades) pulp 1920s-1950s game Amazing Adventures. I like Castles & Crusades so this interested me as a sort of "also" game that went along with those rules.

I also like the pulp genre a lot, from the original TSR Gangbusters, B/X Gangbusters, Mercenaries Spies & Private Eyes, and other games that do the era justice. This one was interesting as a B/X style of gangster game but using the C&C rules, so I picked it up to read.

A Fading Era?

I always get this feeling that interest in the pulp era is fading year after year. We get farther and farther away from the time, and the relevance of this era seems to wane to a modern audience. I hope not, since there is a lot of great and amazing stories to tell in the pulp era, and a lot of our adventure fiction is based on this genre as the genesis of the heroes and action for what we even see in movies today.

As time goes by this era becomes more and more fantasy-like, with the strange level of technology seeming far removed from the present day. No cell phones or computers? No direct dial long distance? No television (towards the end of the era but still, mostly radio)? No jet aircraft? Ocean liners for cross sea travel? No interstate highways? Strange rules for law enforcement where a county or state line could stop pursuit? A world that was still mostly distant and unknown?

This was a different world.

Strangely Rules Heavy

From my first read through I found more rules and a larger book that I would have expected. A lot of these are classes, options, and magic - but the game still felt substantial and complete compared to other games in the genre. I wanted a few more weapons and vehicles, regardless, for a book this size and this much depth in the rules. There seems to be more weight here around characters, powers, and builds than lots of "stuff" but it does not feel like an issue that is a deal breaker. I have a lot of reference material, so I don't see the lack of gear and vehicles as a drawback, just a "want more" thing that could easily be fixed by myself or "gear and gadgets" book.

Gangsters, Serials, Sci-Fi, or Cthulhu

The game has the tools needed to do a lot of genres from horror, gangsters, crime fighting, action serials, treasure hunting, to campy sci-fi action. I like the options here and the game feels like a complete playset to do a lot with. One one hand, it isn't as focused as other games are. On another, this game is a sandbox playset with many uses.

Looks Like Fun

I want to get my Castles & Crusades game running pretty soon here, but I like options like this to explore and have fun with. More soon as I read through this and get more of this read.