Castles & Crusades: Play Without the Book

Castles & Crusades is one of those genius games where I do not need to open the book to play. I tried getting back into Savage Pathfinder, and I was amazed at all the supporting rules needed to make the dicing system work. Savage Worlds works exceptionally well, but it does require a pretty substantial framework of supporting rules to keep everything working and to provide enough options to keep players happy. There are many things to keep in my mind when playing Savage Worlds, and it feels like I have to "load the operating system" and keep a ton of things in mind when I play the game.

Savage Worlds is great, but it is a lot to process and memorize, and there are a lot of "minigames" baked into the rules, which require extra toys and items scattered about the table to play. Everything in that game is terrific and works together like a well-tuned game, but at times I just want to focus on the story and characters rather than the mechanics. They are great mechanics, though, but sometimes my mind does not want to spend time working through them.

Give me a character sheet, and I can make C&C sing. I don't need to open a book to play. Everything I need is on my character's notecard. This is not "me knowing the rules"; this is more "there are no rules to reference" - the entire framework and model of the system is built into the ability scores and Siege Engine.

Castles & Crusades is very iPhone-like. A lot is hidden from you, and the best, most configurable parts are exposed to the user. The things you want to change are there. The pointless things people associate with "power users," such as charts, tables, math, and paragraphs of rules, are not.

One of the other games like this for me is Tunnels & Trolls, one of the best "beer & pretzels" RPGs where you grab a bucketful of d6 dice and roll a Saturday afternoon away. This is another game where "no book at the table" is needed, and you can play from your head without referencing rules.

I can play many B/X-style games in my head, but a few B/X games are more "rules-y" than others and require constant book reference. Swords & Sorcery, with its single saving throw, hits my sweet spot, and games like Old School Essentials are great - but at times, I feel B/X is more about your interpretations and inspiration than a well-organized reference book. B/X is not centered around organized A-B-C rules - it is a game where you and your interpretations are 50% of the game. I still love Old School Essentials as a reference guide, but games that slow down and give me a lot of flavor and inspiration call to me more these days.

Off the Shelf: Tunnels and Trolls

Tunnels and Trolls recently moved home to Kurated Korner, sort of a shopping portal and company that owns many different smaller companies and built a shopping portal around the collection of diverse parts. It isn't a dedicated game company, which would be very nice, but this is the next best thing since T&T isn't a game that needs a lot of redesign and support.

The Goodman Games Example

The closest modern game to T&T is Dungeon Crawl Classics - a large core book that never really needs to change except for unique variant covers created every year and put out on Kickstarter, plus a dedicated line of modules. Goodman Games does a great job doing the online store and module support, and the DCC & MCC modules are highly entertaining, with fantastic art, and very fun to read and play.

I would love variant covers for T&T, and I would really love new adventure modules to be created.

Goodman Games does an incredible job with community support, road crews, the sales of 3rd party books, swag, and convention support. You feel like you are a part of something huge when you play the game. That sense of fun is there, and I could wear a DCC t-shirt and instantly connect with others and that I am a great person worth getting to know, hanging out with, and playing games with.

Still Here!

But the most incredible thing with T&T is the books are still being kept in print and sold, which is keeping the game alive. Even the MSPE hardcover is here, which is a very cool thing. So while not ideal, I am happy it has a home, and the game is being kept alive.

So I had T&T on a storage shelf, and I was doing some cleaning here and found a spot for a shelf where I could put my "quirky games" on. Of course, DCC and MCC got the top shelf of that collection and became an instant shrine to quirky, silly, good fun. On the second shelf down, I put a collection of odd OSR and other games, and I put T&T on there since the game fit in.

T&T is the perfect "fistful of dice" sort of game. The game doesn't really care too much for special moves, class abilities, action surges, or a vast number of classes and archetypes. Balance is relative; you can play a fairy mage with very little strength and a lot of magic. You can play a brute who smashes everything. You can play the dead-shot elven archer.

And the more dice in your attack, the better.

Floating Scores

And the ability scores float. You can get permanent (positive and negative) ability score changes during adventures, from gear, and at any time, your stats can be modified permanently. Your level depends on your highest prime stat, and you use XP to continually increase them. You can find a ring that gives +5 luck. You could act like a fool before the King's Ball and suffer a -10 charisma. There is no master level chart; you continuously improve stats and just "go as you go."

T&T is also a great "pick up and play game." My recent experience with 5E was a 2-hour session to design a character, and I felt like I wasted my time for what I got out of the process. With T&T or even C&C, I could spend 5 minutes designing my character and get playing. This kills 5E and Pathfinder 2e these days for me; they are so complicated, with so many books and options, that you go down a rabbit hole of rules and options for dozens of minor bonuses to specific situations. You get a character who is no better off than a B/X 3d6 down the line, except you have a dozen lines of special modifiers for random things.

Computer Needed? Not a Tabletop RPG

And with 5E or Pathfinder 2e, you often need a computer to design a character. I am ready to say that no pen-and-paper game that needs a computer-assisted character generation program can call itself a tabletop RPG. Sorry, you are a computer game now with tabletop interactive elements. I don't have two hours to pour into a character anymore without automated tools, and for a minimal benefit. The options and special abilities I got were trivial, and a few minor modifiers to specific combat situations.

And my B/X character took 30 times less time to create and gave me the same gameplay. A T&T character would be the same. And in T&T, if I start with a score of 4, I can spend XP to raise that as much as I want with no real penalty or loss of advancement elsewhere. I am not "wasting my first four character levels" trying to get that to a score of 12; I just get XP and raise the ability score how I want. Your level is based on your highest prime stat. You could be level 1 forever and raise a non-prime stat to a score of 100. T&T does not care, work on your character however you want, and have fun.

Tunnels and Trolls: Solo Play

This is probably as legacy of Tunnels and Trolls' solo adventure legacy, but everything for solo play is just easier here. With combat there is no positioning, deciding which monster does what and attacks who, no special monster abilities, no special character combat options, and nothing to decide on either side of the die roll. Just what you are doing (melee, ranged, magic, saving rolls, or fleeing) and the dice matter.

With exploration, there is no "are you standing in front of the statue" positional GM traps, nothing hidden by the referee, and if you need to adjudicate a situation - finding a trap, dodging a rolling boulder, seeing if you are lucky enough for fortune to happen, sneaking past enemies, climbing a wall, knowing an arcane piece of lore, surviving poison, running away, or anything at all - the saving roll is your answer. Come up with a test, determine what happens on pass or fail, and roll.

No referee is needed, no solo play system is needed, and this is how the game is designed.

Tests and Saving Rolls

Flying Buffalo back in the day made its name on selling solo adventures by mail, and T&T was the system you used to play them. They found a niche in the early days of the hobby and went for it, and the rest is history. D&D went down a different path - they needed a dungeon master, and their entire game was designed to rely upon hidden information a dungeon master.

"Are you standing in the doorway when you pull the lever?"

"Are you searching the room?"

"Who is first in marching order?"

You get this wonderful puzzle-element going on with great dungeons, where the players are unsure of their actions. Truly great dungeons and referees key players into danger subtly, with little things here and there in descriptions that clue the attentive in on certain doom.

"There is an oily smell to the room."

"While the rest of the dungeon was dirty, this room is perfectly clean."

"You see a number of indentations in the wall ahead of you on the right side."

Wait. Stop. This could be something or it could be nothing. This could be nothing, and in our investigation we will find the real threat -something else entirely - with further questioning. I love this style of play, and it captures the intense feeling of danger and threat that a great dungeon is supposed to provide.

This is also a part of my problem when I tried running the first Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure as a solo experience. There are many traps in that which rely on character placement, so I found myself house-ruling ability score checks to "see if they know" the obvious things I knew. It is important because player eliminations depend on these gotcha-moments like a shark in the water, so I have to roll what are essentially stupidity checks for my zero-level characters. I kid, but in a way this is how I feel - they are less heroes than they are balls in a pachinko machine.

It is a lot less fun than poking and prodding around in the Tomb of Horrors against a live referee, so I can see why in solo T&T adventures they either trip the trap on you and roll to avoid, give you a chance to detect (and have it be a directional stop), make a luck roll to completely avoid, or just deal with the trap up front without hiding anything. The next challenge is an atomic pass/fail event, and it never is something unknown.

The saving roll mechanic in T&T does this well, and it supports every ability score so you can roll heavy boulders out of the way with strength, avoid jets of flame with speed, figure out ancient runes with IQ, survive poison mushroom spores with constitution, walk right through a minefield with luck, or charm a cranky old wizard with charisma. And the ability rolls scale with level, have a chance of always failing, and cover every out-of-combat situation elegantly.

Luck is the Referee

Having a luck score helps too, it is a catch-all for solo play for so many answers. This was the case in Gangbusters too where they had a luck score, and a detective character could roll luck to see if a criminal left a clue in a room, or someone who knew the suspect was in a speakeasy at the same time the investigator started poking around there. Did a character survive certain death, like those car crash scenes at the end of 1930's black and white serials? Is there a land-line phone nearby in a world without cell phones? Is there a taxi waiting on the curb to, "follow that car?" Did the killer leave a matchbook with the name of a bar on it? Luck was the X factor in a modern urban environment, and let you trip your "Film Noir Tropes" with style and ease.

Coming out of D&D it helped us a lot to have luck answer questions, and it took a lot of pain away from the referee. Take the taxi and "follow that car!" If this was a luck roll, things were fair. If a referee denied this because he or she felt there were no taxis present, the player could feel the referee were being punitive, or there was some sort of other railroaded answer around there the players had to take.

Luck enables creativity in solving problems by enabling the player's approach with a random roll.

Same thing in T&T, this score answers a lot of the questions a referee would have to answer. Is a needed item available at a shop? Did making that noise awake a sleeping dragon? Is there a change of shifts with the tower guards happening right now? Did the rope break? Is there anything in that box? Did the key you pilfered fit the lock? Did you happen to bump into the right person at the right time? Did you walk right by that arrow trap without setting it off? Is there a ship at the port waiting for passengers to take you where you need to go? Did the thief you are chasing get stopped by the guards? Is the weather for the mountain trek good or bad? While traveling did we bump into someone helpful, find berries along the side of the road, or somehow gain an important resource?

A luck score does a lot of the work that a referee would have done, and gives a solo player quick and easy answers to all sorts of in-play questions as a "missing referee ability score."

When in doubt, roll luck and get an answer.

Solo Design

The notion of always having a referee finds its way into many of the rules of B/X, even in obscure and roundabout ways. This is sort of like operating system design, where personal computers have the notion of needing a "system administrator" account to manage the machine, versus a phone where there is an "owner" but no notion of an "administrator" in the personal computer sense. Thus when you are to install a program, bang, admin rights needed, and then on a phone or tablet - it just installs.

Because T&T had to support no-referee play, every rule has to support that concept. Though you can play it with a referee, I get the feeling the game's primary mode of play, and its primary design goal is as a solo play game.

There are a lot of hidden places in many pen-and-paper games where the rules assume, "The referee with handle this part." You will be reading through a spell and, "the referee will determine..." You go to a shop and, "the referee will determine prices and selection." You are in combat and, "the referee controls the monsters..." I love B/X, but the amount of times I have to stop and roll for "phantom referee interaction" gets tiring and slows the game down. Add to that rolling for stupidity for my characters and while yes I am playing B/X, I begin to miss a referee and wonder if the mechanics alone are enough to keep me.

Coming Home

So I keep coming back to T&T for my solo play sessions and enjoying the elegant simplicity of letting the dice handle all the referee-required wargaming and rulings in combat. Does it devolve into "a bucket of dice versus another?" Well, the same could be said about B/X, it would just mean there are more types of dice and a slower bucket procedure with all sorts of rules interspersed.

Could a B/X solo-focused game be designed? Most likely and I have not found one yet, because applying the solo-play design theory to a game is a complete rework of the rules - and a lot of B/X assumptions and structures have the DNA of a referee built into them. I feel you would be slaughtering a lot of sacred cows if you attempted such a thing, and rethinking huge systems.

So with T&T and even MSPE, I have a lot of my solo-play options covered for both fantasy and modern games. I still like B/X and my other collection of strange and unique systems, but for everyday play where I sit down to have fun, there work very well and I have a fond remembrance for them as a part of my gaming history. There was a point in time that we ran this seriously for years, and I was the referee, so I am used to the system and how it works. It does a good job and I love the game, which checks my boxes and gets me playing.

T&T: Trollworld

Trollworld is an interesting setting, and one I feel is highly underrated. This setting has been the home for all the Tunnels and Trolls solo adventures and has spanned the entire history of the game.

Now, as a preface, this is how I see the world. You may see it differently. You may have not considered the setting in depth, or you may have played there for years and done something entirely different. One of the beautiful things about pen-and-paper gaming is how we see the world, or a world, begins a great epic inside our minds and those of others into creating a unique setting and experience. We may all start in the same place, but where we end up is a beautiful journey.

Part of my change in thinking about this world involved the following concepts:

Dark Humor

This is very much a setting that hits pop-culture references from the 1900s to the 2000s is a dark humor sort of way. One could say this makes the world a more lightweight comedic affair, but I see this differently. The Warcraft universe does a lot of pop-culture references and no one bats an eye. You can see them too in the Warhammer universe, and people are like, fine.

In my view, pop-culture references have been in this world for tens of thousands of years because wizards have been visiting Earth (and many other worlds) for all of that time. Not just one Earth, but tens of thousands of alternate Earths and realities - over and over again. They may have destroyed hundreds of these Earths, enslaved some of them, and half-destroyed hundreds more and then forgot about them. Wizards visiting them may have left for them or gotten killed and nobody knew better.

Not just Earth, but potentially tens of thousands of different worlds, timelines, and realities - even on alien worlds. Expand your idea of 'pop culture' to include a million different realities and worlds, and get outside of the televised group of realities. Include fiction too, since this is magic and magic makes the impossible happen. A wizard could find Alice in Wonderland and zap a deadly version of it into reality. Then forget it ever existed for a thousand years as the place is overrun by monsters, twists into a frightening new form of nightmares, and comes back and consumes its creator.

Also, Trollworld is the home of monsters. And monsters are known on many worlds. Thus, the connection will never go away and it influenced the world as monsters have influenced Earth. Say a new monster is imagined on Earth, then that could be created here. The rulebook says:

Arrange a pirating raid against a settlement of Vartae, or have an evil wizard cast the characters into the future of the Wild West, or further yet into the space-faring world of Buck Rogers or Captain Kirk where technology works and magic doesn’t—or perhaps it does anyway!

Any scenario, any piece of fiction or nonfiction can be mined for inspiration, from Sherlock Holmes to Kipling’s Mowgli, from classical Greece to the African veldt. Anything can be adapted with a little work and imagination on your part. Don’t stop at the tunnels! There are countless worlds beyond the dungeon.

The door has been opened, but realize this...

Countless doors to countless worlds into countless futures and pasts have been opened for the last 60,000 years. This is not a setting that is damaged by cultural references to Earth (and likely many other worlds), that stuff has been floating around as a part of this world's history.

Some Earth figures from history might just be walking around here...

Not Human Centric

So many fantasy worlds are written to mirror Earth's history, you know, the one where humans were the only intelligent life on a world. Or the game's creators write the world's history as if the inhabitants on it were humans and act the same. On Trollworld, humans are not the dominant species. They may have came here 45,000 years ago and built great cities and civilizations in the past, they are not the dominant force in the world anymore. 

After all, the trolls were here first, and after that elves and dragons. Trollworld, these days, belongs to the monsters. Check your human bias and privilege at the door, lunch-meat.

Well, your empires are gone and human cities are few and far-between. There are many places where humans are hunted, and only a few where they walk among monsters freely (but watch your back). You are not going to be a softie, civilized cosmopolitan type in a royal carriage with a poofy hat and pantaloons looking down your nose and pooh-poohing those wretched creatures as you trade with them. You are going to be a barbarian king type saying take my trade deal or I will sign it myself with your blood. In fantasy gaming, it is too easy to fall into the Arthurian tropes of chivalry and proper social behavior. This world is much more savage and brutal than that.

Human kingdoms might take land nobody else wants, and fight tooth and nail to scratch out an existence between the borders of large monster kingdoms. Approaches to human cities may be channeled up narrow gorges and chasms with thousands of ambush points and fortifications before one reaches the massive city gates. The city itself may be cut out of the canyon walls, or the ancient ruins of an old serpent empire among the cliffs with old temples and halls repurposed for human inhabitation.

T&T cities aren't reflections of modern times; nor are they clean, ordered, and boring analogies of today's metropolis centers. They are a savage reflection of a world inhabited by monsters, broken, twisted, shattered, and rebuilt a thousand times by the next group of inhabitants. And they are definitely not entirely human, as humans are transplants to this world.

This is why the contents look like monsters. Some may say this is silly, but to the monsters, this is a brutal reflection of vanity and their disregard for those who live here. The world is supposed to feel alien to humankind.

Legends

Power means using it. There is a reason characters in this world have ability scores above 100.

They need to be able to walk up to a dragon and punch it in the nose - and have it stay down. This is why characters start as D&D first level nothings and end up with ability scores way above 100. Just like in the Epic of Gilgamesh you will be able to throw a bull for a mile, cut down many trees with one swipe of an axe, or reject the advances of the gods themselves because you are so damn good looking. This is one of the key advantages of the game, D&D ability scores, for the most part, never change (or change very slightly), all the way up to maximum level. T&T ability scores ARE your character level. Yes, you are supposed to be that strong and that smart. You are a legend.

Also, this is an 7th and 8th Edition rule where your highest prime attribute divided by 10 is your character level. Earlier editions got into XP charts and other methods, and I prefer this new way of determining level since it gives the player the freedom to decide when they level up, and gets rid of the level chart entirely.

A Savage World

I don't really want to say "this is Conan" because it is not. That is too easy, and it is also too limiting. The savage barbarian king trope completely applies here, the world feels like that and that model of character can be played with great ease here. Some of what the Conan style brings to the table applies, but the world is much more than that.

We don't want to limit ourselves to just humans and the human experience in fantasy. Think if a monster, say a troll, wrote the Conan novels from a troll perspective, and your mind will start to wander down the correct pathways. My son was born, so I started a war against all the other troll tribes we were at peace with so my son could see what victory looked like! My son rode on my shoulders as he watched me slay a thousand trolls! 

It makes no sense. This is not how a human world works. It feels alien to our experience.

Similarly, magic. Yes, a human may have been the most powerful wizard in the world, but there are equally powerful non-human wizards, such as elves, fairies, monsters, and many other races all practicing the greatest magics. This is why the spell names are so simplified, such as "take that you fiend!" The real spell names are probably unpronounceable grunts, growls, clicks, scratches, and other sounds from beyond the nether.

We tend to think of magic in the D&D sense. You have wizards colleges, magic shops, mage towers, men with long white beards and pointy hats, gaggles of magic students, democratized magic, and this notion of magic being a cosmopolitan force that betters humanity. There are acceptable uses for magic, and others that are frowned upon. Oh no! Do not upset my pseudo-Victorian moralities, nor violate my the limits of our game's precious balance!

I half-joke, but you get the point here. A lot of fiction and gaming tends to use magic as a metaphor for the Internet, technology, communication, or progress. It almost always leaves the world a better place. It is a force aligned with good, change, and exciting gameplay options. Magic is a part of our character builds, and explains all the fantastical powers and options at our disposal! Also, magic is balanced, part of every class feature, and doesn't break our game.

Magic is a convenience of the modern age.

T&T's magic comes from an earlier time. It will break those chains holding you back or seriously mess up your day. It will flood a valley full of innocent villages, summon a demon, crack the earth in half, set a town on fire, or blast a 20-foot tall troll in half with a blast of lightning. Magic is power. Just like our barbarian can cleave a boulder in two clean halves with his great-sword my mage and point a finger at it and vaporize the stone into dust.

Magic is savage, brutal, unbalanced, world-changing, game-breaking, and a force to be feared and reckoned with. You do not want it used against you, and you certainly want to use it against those you don't like. It is also non-human, alien, and something even those who mastered it don't fully understand.

The Rules Make the World

I am a big fan of letting the rules make the world. If a game reflects a certain reality, then I run with it. Yes, you can use T&T to simulated a King Arthur game or Robin Hood - and it works well. However, if I have a goal in mind to simulate the savage, unhinged, brutal and dangerous settings found in some of the solo adventures - and mesh that with what I read in the Trollworld atlas - I let the rules guide my creativity and let the game help forge the world.

Magic is alien, wild, powerful, and unpredictable. A 110-pound STR 5 weakling serf can become a muscle-bound barbarian king. Rogues can vanish into thin air and balance on the head of a pin. The world is not entirely human. This place has been lived in by multiple civilizations before ours, and the move-outs left a mess. We don't belong here. The non-human perspective is the dominant one. Monsters rule this world. Gates to other realties have been opened throughout our history. Not everyone here...comes from here.

You take those statements and start world-building.

You start thinking.

And what seemed like a simple setting in the back of the book becomes something much more compelling and interesting. This is not like any of the other "fantasy theme park" settings that are typically out there.

It is a place in our imaginations called Trollworld, and it is what we make of it.

Wargaming Roots: Wargame Complexity

A fun little snip on the design of the Tunnels and Trolls Adventures mobile game's "about" page strikes an interesting point here about the development of pen-and-paper games and the hobby's wargaming roots:

In 1975, as role-playing games were beginning their rise to popularity among the gaming community, Ken St. Andre found himself dissatisfied by the complexity and inaccessibility which rules systems of other games presented newcomers to the genre. Seeking a game with which to introduce his friends to the world of interactive storytelling, Ken set out to create a lighter and more flexible rules system which would provide players with greater latitude for heroic feats. He did away with the often times dauntingly complex stat sheets and tables found in the wargames from which the first RPG was descended, and created a game more inspired by the deeds of comic book superheroes. Ultimately, Ken named his game Tunnels & Trolls.

We have come a long way from the Chainmail "wargame" style rules to a more player-focused and I feel accessible B/X style, and then from there I feel we went deep into the wargaming side of the hobby again with D&D 3rd and 3.5 Edition, Pathfinder, D&D 4, and then D&D 5. Our wargame roots are clearly on display and this has spawned an entire group of games these days that are more accessibility focused than complex wargame focused.

More Complex These Days?

In some ways, I feel we are way beyond the complexity of the 1970's wargame-roots games, especially with Pathfinder, D&D 4, and software like Hero Lab. D&D 5 I feel took a step back from the abyss, but I still feel the older B/X games and their clones do a better job at controlling complexity and focusing the action more on the adventure rather than the character.

Some products make me smile, like the Pathfinder Strategy Guide, a great book that tries to tamp down the complexity of the base game, explain things to beginners, and make a complex system easy to use. But really, when I think about it, I get this feeling if the effort were put into making the system easier and not needing a book like this would be a more laudable goal. Games that are simple and accessible to beginners do not need how-to books.

Part of me likes the complicated game though, and there are fans of this hyper-detailed genre of gaming, again, hearkening back to our wargaming roots and having detailed World War II wargmaes with rules for jammed turret rings, smoke capacity, the ammunition capacity and depression limits of of bow-mounted tank machineguns. I have played wargames like those, and while the one or two times that level of detail comes up in a 6-hour game you may be happy to have these rules, more often than not I find rules like this slow the game down more than they do add value.

I feel the same with detailed character generation systems. Our tendency as designers is to add more, to make options for every possible character type and background, and through universal inclusivity we weigh the system down so much we end up needing multiple pages for one character. Genesys requires three sides of paper for each character, and that has hurt our desire to play what should have been a simple storytelling game. Pathfinder, the king of complexity, requires Hero Lab these days, and it is not uncommon for us to be printing out six to twelve sides of paper for each character.

Less is More

And I look at the single-sided one-page character sheets of Labyrinth Lord and other B/X games and I see a lot of wasted space, and that is a good thing. I could do a B/X character on a quarter sheet of paper and put four to a side and still have plenty of room. Back in old-school Traveller we put one character on two lines of a sheet of notebook paper.

We still had fun with those games because we ran fun adventures and we didn't need detailed character essays for each player to pour over. I get this strange feeling at times that games use complexity to drive interest these days, that somehow a detailed character generation system makes up for a lack of compelling adventures and stories. That is really an unfair statement for many games, but I see so many games that are 90% character creation systems and then assume everything else, story, adventure, and how to have fun comes for free.

I would rather play a game that was 10% character creation and 90% story and background. Call of Cthulhu and Dragon Age are good examples of modern pen-and-paper games that minimize the game rules while maximizing story content and background information. I would put T&T in this category as well, especially with the incredible world-book in the Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe Edition in the latest version of the rules.

B/X and Labyrinth Lord? These are more giant toyboxes with 10% character design and the rest of the 90% are monster, spell, and magic item lists. That toybox content is the story and background. There are times when I like this, since I make my own stories and worlds anyways, and other times when I miss having that world and story to play through (and save me the work).

How far off are the more modern games from the toybox model? It is a bit tougher to judge I feel, since you have a good portion of these games tied up in character design and it grows in size the more books you add to the system. My generic rule is: if a computer program makes character creation easy and error free, the character design system is heavy. If it takes me more than 5 minutes and a sheet of paper to design a character that is too long.

If you need to pass a book around the table for players to design characters you have dependencies in there that should be streamlined onto the character sheet (or eliminated from the game). If I play Pathfinder with a group again I would love to have class-specific character sheets, one for paladins, one for rogues, and so on...

Everything to Everybody?

It brings to mind the question, "How much character design do you need to tell a story?" There is a point where there is too much, where you are making a feat to cover a bonus to every possible action and interaction, such as a feat that allows you to call a truce during combat. These sorts of feats rub me the wrong way in two ways: this is codifying roleplaying and creativity, and you are adding unneeded complexity to the character design system. Without this feat...you can't roleplay this? When I am refereeing the game it becomes another added "thing I have to remember" in order to play when the one character in a thousand's player actually bought this feat and expects it to come into play.

In T&T or B/X? Hell, make a CHR saving roll or roll under Charisma at a minus whatever and we are done. In most every other game it is an ability score roll, the current situation, and referee judgment. Done.

In the 1970's wargames there was this tendency to start simple, and then balloon complexity with each new expansion and revision. Track performance in taiga and mud for armored vehicles. Fuel performance and ambient temperature. Snowshoe size versus snow type. Curvature of the Earth and muzzle velocity of off-board artillery. Most of the rules had some historical event behind them and they probably affected the outcome of some real-world battle somewhere...but there is a point where enough is enough.

If I equip my desert soldiers with snowshoes does that give them a movement bonus? If my winter partisans carry large desert water packs at what point do those freeze? Do I need a table for that?

And the more complicated wargame goes in the closet and the new game that was designed for fast and fun play goes on the table. That is where I am with Pathfinder. Completely bought in with both books and Hero Lab and we never play it really all that much. Great customers and lousy players.

Simple Games are More Fun for Me

So I come back to the old versions of games, the retro-clones, and some of the classics made back in the day where they saw this problem and designed against it. Labyrinth Lord and B/X. Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe Edition. Other classics. There are some new games, such as Savage Worlds and FATE, that attack complexity of character design versus story and those are worth mentioning too.

I see a collection of huge books for a gaming system and my reaction is, "I don't have enough time for these anymore." Instead of feeling bad I switch games that I do have the time for. I am sensing another round of boxing games up coming here soon. It is a sad thing but also a good thing, since it lets me focus on games I want to play (and it frees up space for more games, like Traveller's new edition).

My thing is, play what you love - and some people love the complexity. I have moods when I love all the detail and choices. Be happy if you can find people who love what you do and play with them. As my players dwindle and I find myself more and more alone, my tastes and needs change. I want less record keeping and design. I want solo play. I want smaller rules and tighter designs. I want more story and world, and less rules. I want attribute systems that handle many things, and less flipping through books to find a rule that handles a special case.

My tastes are changing more towards the retro-clones and classic games that I started the hobby with because those are what I love and where I find the most comfort.

Solo Play with Tunnels and Trolls, part #1a

...very cool stuff, the old solo adventures coming back as mobile games. You can create and level up characters, and reply adventures? I need to check this out. Plus they are working on an adventure creator for user-created content? Way cool.

Minus points, a lot of the adventures are in-app purchases, but you know...converting these over probably takes a lot of work and they have to get paid for their time and effort. Plus they are enhanced with art, sound, and music and those cost money. I can support buying them as they come out because I believe hard work and good products should be rewarded. As long as it isn't too much money, but I get it.

I would love to have something like this for the old D&D modules, like the A-series, Keep of the Borderlands, or S1. They beat you to it, Wizards!

Solo Play with Tunnels and Trolls, part #1

A sad topic, but one nonetheless I think about. One of my steady and long-time players is struggling to attend playing sessions. Our main group has been MIA for a while and it has been just me and him for a little while as we regroup, and he often doesn't want to participate due to several issues in his life. What if he goes his own way and I am a game-master without players?

Box everything up? Find new players? Hope for the best?

I blog and that helps, I have been at this too long to just give up, but I am coming to the realization changes are needed to keep my tabletop gaming mojo going.

Going Solo

The thought occurs to me to go solo for a while until I find a group. This is possible, and I would probably change my game to something more solo friendly and also find a way to share what I did with others, like here on the SBRPG blog. Something like Labyrinth Lord or Tunnels and Trolls 8.0, where I could just keep a character sheet by my computer, knock off a few encounters, and write them up for the blog every so often. T&T is the more solo-friendly option, as with B/X games they typically need a party to have the most fun (and many adventures are party focused).

I un-boxed my T&T 8.0 book last night, why I boxed this up is beyond me, and managed to knock over half of everything in my closet. Everything is fine save for a fluorescent light now that doesn't work, but that was old and was on its last flicker of life anyways so it was overdue for a replacement. Such is life and the constant replacement and maintenance of the things around us, it never ends and one should take it as part of the normal flow of things. Plus, that may be a sign from above - go forth and adventure to find the (replacement) light! A quest hath been discovered!

T&T was always a game that worked well with a single person or a small party of up to three (and run by one person). While some don't appreciate the abstract nature of the combats, I like them a whole lot and feel they are closer to fictional writer-ly combat where there is this unseen "tide of battle" determines who gets that last, critical blow in. The system also does a good job at simulating the wearing down of the losing side well, both in gear durability and in damage ability of the participants. In a lot of games a fighter or monster on turn one still has the same damage ability as on the last turn of battle, and that doesn't happen here since during combat monsters wear down and characters can wear down in both armor, weapons, characteristics, and health.

T&T is also simple, and I can "sim" any sort of dime-store paperback pulp fantasy setting easily with the rules, from Conan-style pulp fantasy to two-fisted Indiana Jones style adventure (just pick up the T&T compatible and excellent Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes game for seven dollars over on RPGNow for all you would ever need in a modern weapon and talent list). I can even play Buck Rogers style science fantasy with this rules set if I wanted, it isn't too hard to adjust the talent list to include piloting and a few other sci-fi skills, pick some damages for ray guns, and blast off to adventure using the three base classes and MR ratings for all of the space-bound foes. I need to do a conversion guide from MS&PE to T&T 8.0 later on here on the blog, and that sounds like a fun project to do. More on that later.

How to Start

There are so many solo adventures (some free, some very inexpensive) over on RPGNow as well for Tunnels and Trolls, and it really isn't much effort to play them with any version of the game. I could probably buy one of these (and I love supporting the authors and creators in the community, it is cool), and go through it a couple times to enjoy the creativity and fun they put into these adventures. I am probably done, and there is no real reason to think any further beyond that.

But I like coming up with silly ideas, and I would love a random adventure generator to have fun with for solo adventures. I will add this as another TODO item on my list since it would be fun to have an adventure creator to just kick around with as my character goes on dangerous expeditions, levels up, and possibly fails in his or her grand epic quest of randomness.

So Random! So What?

With published solo adventures, there is very little "so what" factor. You are playing through like a golf course, and you are seeing all the cool choices and entries that the author came up with. With a purely random game you get this "so what" feeling after a while that I get when I play a purely mathematical game - sort of like a rouge-like where it is just more a spreadsheet of numbers fighting each other with no real purpose or goal.

It is like spinning up a character and then fighting a numeric list of monster ratings without a story, monsters, encounters, or rhyme or reason - I mean, why? You can fight numbers and roll dice, hooray! That is what I want to avoid in a random adventure system. Some dungeon games I get off Steam are like this, I go into some hole in the ground, fight a couple rooms, and then eventually give up because it is more about making numbers fight numbers and there isn't any real sense of progressing a story or making an accomplishment.

I like getting treasure, upgrading my character, getting better weapons and armor, leveling up, combat, and succeeding against all odds - you know, the mechanical stuff. T&T's treasure tables don't seem well suited for random adventures, there is a lack of magic items, potions, and other cool loot that I may want to make my own tables to raise the level of game in this area. I like finding traps, parlay, puzzles, and jumping pits, so there has to be some interaction more than just combat in a system like this.

A really good random solo play system is a very hard thing to design, so maybe my wants here are going to outstrip what I should do is focus in on finding a great single-player adventure and playing through it solo. Or just finding some silly way of generating random adventures and go with the flow. There is a point where you have so much structure to random generation that you lose all the fun.

Challenge Level

Remember this?

http://sbrpg20.blogspot.com/2016/07/tunnels-and-trolls-what-is-average.html

50-50 challenge MR = (average party damage - 3.5) x 1.174

That formula is going to work nicely with creating Monster Ratings for my random system. I want to figure out the "starting damage" before the run (and not adjust up during play so upgrades found during the adventure are not minimized). And then use some sort of chart like this to determine MR for the fight:

1. -20% MR
2. -10% MR
3. Average MR
4. +10% MR
5. +20% MR
6. +30% MR

I wanted to bias towards tougher fights because upgrades will be found, smart tactics will be used, and I like putting a little fear into encounters. Half the chart is average or below, so these fights should be winnable. The other half of the encounter table should be the home of nightmares and lucky rolls. Also, avoiding a fight, parlay, and using sneaky tactics to gain an advantage should always be an option.

It needs to be tested, I really don't know, and in a long dungeon an "even" fight may be too hard after a series of them, so there is that to consider. This is one of those things where you really have no idea until you get in and watch the pain happen after five or six of these, and then test again because your first test may have been a fluke. And then test again because you need more data, and the first two runs could have been flukes.

That said, figuring out the MR of a fight is really the easiest part of the random solo adventure problem, and it is really just the beginning. This problem is not 5% solved yet, and there needs to be something more to this - even a off-the-cuff system needs some risk, reward, and failure system worked out that says "pass the check, something good happens; fail the check and something bad happens." Also, how does one determine the end or goal of a random adventure?

In part two, I will continue my ideas on this...or I may just try something and see how that works. You never know since you want to keep iterating when you do game development like this.

Mail Room: Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes

The other Top Secret and James Bond 007 role-playing game we played back in the day was the T&T compatible Mercenaries, Spies  & Private Eyes boxed set from back in the day. The rules are the same at (as I recall) the 5th Edition of T&T, and it worked well for what we used it for. This always felt like a game that did "movies other than James Bond" and we got a kick out of all of the realistic toned characters and adventures in this game, compared to T&T.

You can still pick a PDF of this up over at RPGNow for less than ten dollars, and for that it gives you a complete gear and item list mostly compatible with any version of T&T out there, including today's Deluxe T&T edition.

Realism Strikes!

But a part of me wishes this said "to heck with realism" and used the straight T&T ability score range. The game was limited to 20 levels, and you got two attribute points per level, and that all but made the higher level saving throws for most checks out of reach for most characters. We were lucky to have characters make level one or two SRs for anything, and as a result, the fun of high level saving rolls never really happened for us and the game, even at higher levels 6-12, felt like a low level game.

It was both a good thing and a bad thing for us. Yes, it was more realistic. The high-level weapons still were incredibly powerful and characters could never really 'toughen up' to face such firepower. Thinking back with hindsight, I like how T&T Deluxe handles missile weapons these days, even though I didn't see the wisdom in that adds-on-miss ruling when I first read it and wrote about it.

Today? Deluxe Plus Guns!

If I were to play this today I would just spin up T&T Deluxe Edition characters and give them guns. Warriors are soldiers and rogues are spies and leave it at that. I would use the normal T&T attribute raising rules and have characters with ability scores of 50, 100, or more. Ever see Sin City, Sucker Punch, or any of those Zack Snyder movies where normal humans turn into muscle-bound freaks or lithe angels of death who can wade through bursts of auto-fire untouched?

That. I want that.

So your brute enforcer literally has enough hits to take a shotgun to the face and it only leaves a couple scratches as he bends the barrel into a pretzel and proceeds to pummel the bar full of enemies through pulp, throwing some through solid walls, and flipping a car on its side as easy as a professional wrestler would with one hand (and a hidden cable winch). With "normal" T&T stat-flation and super-characters, I get that.

Yes, eventually guns cease to become as effective, but who cares? This is fun, and pretty soon it all breaks down into some testosterone-filled fist or sword fight with grunting brutes and endless vast broken fields of CGI rubble, just like the Zack Snyder movie feeling I want.

I would still use this book as a resource though. There are some skills easily usable as talents, and plenty of gear to ogle over and blast each other with. I know some would flip out over this, because a big part of the appeal was this game's more normal power curve and streamlined feel (and part of me agrees with that), but another part of me loves T&T's zany power level and I just need to try this "mod" and learn my lesson. Or have a lot of silly fun. Or both.

With how powerful the MS&PE weapons are rated, you are going to need every one of those points of super-powered ability scores just to survive. It makes me think the ability scores in the 50''s and 60's for a game like this aren't so overpowered as one would think. First level characters? Like extras in a movie. Eighth through tenth-level characters? The stars of that movie. So what they are high-powered and a bit super? Give them enemies that can roll just as many combat dice and T&T will balance that out, just as it does in fantasy.

I think I will coin the term 'modern fantasy' for these sorts of every-person super-hero type movies and games, where yeah, that looks like a normal person, but ones the slow motion hits and the rock music starts playing like something out of a John Wick movie, you are in the realm of fantasy power levels.

Compared to the Games of the Day

We mostly played TSR's Top Secret, but we did have the James Bond 007 game as well - but we didn't play that as much. We did play a lot of T&T and we liked the modern gear and guns, but we never really ran a dedicated MS&PE campaign - which I wish we would have. I would have loved these rules for a Gangbusters Noir-style PI and gangsters campaign, just because of the flavor here and focus more on mysteries and story than combat.

MS&PE using T&T Deluxe's rules? Yeah, Phillip Marlowe meets John Wu. Not so subtle, but it sure sounds fun. More on this later, but this is a fun find and a great resource for my upcoming T&T fueled mayhem. Or mistake. Or both.

Tunnels and Trolls: Missile Weapon Rules Revisited

I was rethinking my stance on the whole T&T 8.0 rules on missile weapon combat changes. What bothered me about the rule change was this, and here is the section of the rule-book covering the rule in question:

If the character aims for a particular target and makes the saving roll, then that damage will automatically take effect against the target when damage is assessed at the end of that combat round (even if the party loses the round). 

If your character misses the saving roll to hit, you still count the weapon damage toward the party’s overall HPT regardless of whether the PC party wins or loses overall. You were in the fight, and that number counts as part of the overall chaos of combat. However, the missile damage is simply rolled into the bigger number and does not automatically take effect if the character’s side loses the combat round. (If the party wins, the missile isn’t counted separately either.)

So if you miss, you still hit and do damage. I can see why they did this, because the spirit of the game is based in "the chaos of combat" and we don't need to-hit rolls for melee attacks, so why should we with missiles? Just total up the sides and fight. An arrow shot into a melee counts just as much as a sword.

But a "hit"? Guaranteed damage at the end of the round, even if you lose the round. This is critical, especially in fights where your party is outclassed. It allows your ranged attackers to do ANY damage in a fight where your party is outclassed, and hopefully your front ranks can absorb enough damage (and your healers can heal) and the monster's adds drop to a point where your party can start pushing things over the top.

A Kill on a Miss?

Looking back, this is a smart rule...but with one problem. One archer, one goblin, and a miss that "kills" the goblin. Let's not say kills, but defeats, and a thought I had recently may have a solution to this problem. Let's say the shot does "miss" and impacts the ground next to the goblin, but the goblin is still defeated in some way.

Let's say defeated means...gives up? This is actually a cool kind of ruling and one I may use in the future. The arrow could impact the ground right in front of the beast and it simply surrenders. If it was unintelligent or low intelligence, such as a wolf, the wolf could get scared and run away. This is still a "miss" but it better explains what is going on without breaking the dis-logic of fantasy reality and the rules.

You could easily combine this with another ruling, if the creature gives up or runs, there is no need to roll for the coup-de-grace with a second arrow that does the job and defeats the monster. It stands there or turns its back to bolt, and that is the opening you need to finish it off - still defeated, but another arrow is needed. But it is your choice, and the break in reality of the "kill on a miss" becomes kind of a cool house ruling that adds a lot of  flavor to the end of an encounter, and it is kind of like a "stunning damage" ruling.

Don't want it getting away? Well, you did miss, so you will need to use another round of ammo to finish the monster off. Hit better next time to save on ammo, but the choice is yours. If you have a one shot weapon, this was your last round of ammo, or you just want to walk up and clock the goblin that would be cool too, so the final blow could be a melee weapon if desired (and the referee doesn't rule a complete bolt). This feels good enough to add another cool house rule to our collection:

Missile Weapon "Miss but Kill"

On a missed missile weapon shot that still defeats a monster due to end-of-turn HPT, the character firing the shot has two choices:

1. Let the monster surrender or escape as-is, before the damage is assessed.
2. Finish off the monster in a coup-de-grace, but using another round of ammunition.

If no ammo is available or a shot is not taken and the referee rules the creature does not run, the final blow can be with a melee weapon or fist. Stunning damage is allowed in case a prisoner needs to be taken.

This is a cool rule because it does not change rules as written that much, explains away a hole in logic, and adds a really fun thematic story choice to whenever this occurs that I as a player, would look forward to. There is a cost too, in both the second round of ammo used or this being your last shot and the creature runs for it and gets away. You pay the price for missing either way.

Use freely and happy gaming!

9,999 hp

Games that do "big numbers" have really fallen on hard times. You know, the games where numbers are big, low level creatures have no chance of hitting higher-level characters, and hit points rise into the thousands.

D&D 4 was the last game that went big on numbers, adopting a hit point scale about five times old D&D and a to-hit system that all but made hitting something four levels higher than you futile. D&D 5 went back down to a double hit point scale factor and adopted "bounded accuracy" which is really saying "we made sure the to-hits didn't get too out of whack this time." Even D&D 3 and Pathfinder, while keeping the old D&D 1X hit point range (where an orc can have 4hp), puts a premium on to-hits, and AC is king. If they can't hit you, they can't damage you.

D&D 5 shifted defenses to hit-points and evened the AC and to-hit game to a flatter system where everyone can hit you - so hit points primarily determines defense. Pathfinder keeps the original game's lower hit point range but keeps the steeper AC and to-hit game - so AC primarily determines defense. Note this is in a broader sense of "primarily" as the greatest contributing factor of defense. In D&D 5 you are taking damage frequently (your AC works less and your hit points more); where in Pathfinder if you get hit it matters more (you have half the hit points but your AC works harder). Lots of things play into offense and defense, but in a general sense this is how I feel things work in both games as a design goal. This is not to say one is better - this is how things work under the hood of the car, since they both get you down the road.

A lot of today's games live on a flatter power curve, and Pathfinder and D&D 4 are the last two holdouts of the "big numbers" generation of gaming. In both these games the difference between low level power and high level is great, and if you are a low level scrub forget about taking on a high-level foe. In D&D 5, you can get away with being a low level PC versus a foe 4-6 levels higher than you, it is not easy, but it is very possible. D&D 5 shares a lot of power curve similarities to games like Savage Worlds, where the play is all tightly contained within one power envelope.

One of the original "big number" games from the 1970's was Tunnels and Trolls. This is a really harsh "I roll a 10d6+14 total against your 8d6+16 total" type of game, and the difference between the attack totals is the damage the loser takes. It is simple stuff and works well. At low levels it is a fun and tight battle, but at high levels, watch out, you are this freakish Conan type who can slay everything just by shining your sword's reflection onto enemies. T&T to me feels the most like Japanese console RPGs, where a level 12 hero can laugh off level 1 critters with ease, and only the most epic of high-level bad guys are a threat.

It is odd because Tunnels and Trolls is not anime at all and feels so retro and old-school, but it hits the higher-level "godlike" feeling of Japanese console RPGs so well. What is strange about the game is how it embraces that god-like power level and doesn't apologize for it or attempt to balance it out in any way. It is almost strangely refreshing in a way, and it puts the difference between the low level and high level into an abundantly clear focus. In a way it is like a superhero game, but not really since simulating balance between heroes and parity is not an issue. This is a game about raw power and what you lay that hurt down upon, and how things bigger than you can crush you under an even more massive force.

But this power level difference describes console RPGs so well. Walk into the next patch of woods and meet some palette-shifted "forest trolls" that smash your face in just by sneezing on you? No problem, just grind some levels, upgrade your weapons, buy some spells, and get powerful enough that a flick of your pinkie will send them packing. Go into the next area and get your face smashed in again by a red-shifted zombie. T&T can get wildly out of balance, but the overall experience (and yes, even the imbalance of it all at times) is fun.

A lot of game-oriented games try for play-balance. Simulation games try to simulate reality (and make every action hard). Some out there do not care about one-on-one combat balance, and try to emulate a heroic and wildly dangerous experience.

But understanding power level helps you pick the games you like to play, so it is worth talking about. Some people like flatter games, where things feel more realistic and the difference between a dragon and the common man isn't that great. Some people like that dragon to be an epic and powerful force and able to crush the average peasant mercilessly. What happens next is players forge heroes who are more powerful than that dragon by a hundred times. And then face the next terrible force which is unleashed upon the world, and the heroes rise again. Some like it somewhere in the middle.

No Clerics? No Problem?

What do the above two games have in common?

No divine magical power sources or cleric classes. They keep to a holy-less trinity of fighter-rogue-mage where the only source of otherworldly power is the mage. No clerics, no gods, no paladins, no praying for power, and no second column of magical power exists in these worlds - it is just the mage.

The duality of mage vs. cleric seems like a staple in fantasy, right? Well, Tolkien's well-known world of Middle Earth just had wizards as the "magic users" as well, and the beings that could be considered "gods" weren't your typical D&D high-fantasy style gods who gave everyone who prayed to them cure light wounds. The holy-less trinity defines these stories as well, as magic was practiced by mages.

And speaking of no-clerics, then there is Game of Thrones as well...

D&D has always had this injection of spiritualism, even in the original 1974 edition of the game had fighter, mage, and cleric as the trinity classes (thieves/rogues being added later in the first Greyhawk supplement). MMOs are rife with divine power sources, like World of Warcraft and other games. There is always this "occult versus the divine" conflict going on in the more D&D style of fantasy, feeling like Westernized religious values being placed on top of Tolkien-style fantasy to create a conflict of power sources.

And D&D's history with divine beings has been notoriously messy, at least in our experience. The old Deities and Demigods book made gods monsters out of the Monster Manual. They were superheroes and super-characters in D&D 3.5, and finally MMO horrendously under-powered end-game raid bosses in D&D 4. Thankfully Pathfinder and D&D 5 (and games like Basic Fantasy or Labyrinth Lord) leave the monster stat blocks for gods at home and makes the gods stat-less beings, making them something like "Q" in the old Star Trek: The Next Generation lore - there to affect outcomes and make snarky remarks, but as monsters or characters on the tabletop? No way, and no thank you.

Seriously, the injection of "gods as monsters" thing has messed up so many of our campaigns that it leaves a bad taste in our mouths when we play these versions of the game. Whenever the "gods got involved" in our past games the players rolled their eyes, wondered when it was going to end, and wished for the times of searching a dresser drawer full of silver pieces and a giant spider guarding the horde. When a game goes "big divine" it becomes "all about the gods" and the focus shifts away from the heroes and onto a divine soap opera worthy of Greek tragedy. For us, at least, and we prefer the heroes to be the focus of the game, and leave the divine super-characters to the background.

If the Forgotten Realms had that supposed problem of high-level NPCs "messing up" adventures, in our experience and our games it was "super-character gods." Give us a high-level NPC any day, because at least those can be ignored, walked away from, or made enemies of and smacked upside the head every once and a while to keep them in line. Making Elminster a recurring enemy to insult and mess with is fun, while having various gods show up again to stop the party in the real world is not.

But removing the cleric and divine power source entirely? It feels like heresy in high fantasy RPGs nowadays, but there is a simplicity and elegance in the world structure once you remove the "power for worship" access to magic. Power is not gained through faith, but in the three historical forces of humankind: might, deception, or knowledge. Removing faith from that mix creates a darker world, where access to magic is controlled by the mage, and there is no "faith versus knowledge" conflict.

"Faith versus knowledge" can also be summarized as "religion versus science" and you can see why this conflict feels natural to us, but in high fantasy this conflict is typically hand-waved off because we need the magic user to be able to adventure with the cleric and the band of merry men. In many high fantasy game worlds and MMOs you will see the "holy church of X" sitting right beside the "mage college of Y" and no problems whatsoever between them. Does it bother the church that those faithless mages have power equal to their followers? Does the mage college feel threatened by the mass of worshipers who only need to pray for power and not need knowledge?

You take that conflict out and the world feels a little strange, but then again we can't have the cleric and the mage fighting in the dungeon because it would slow up play and start real-world fights when the mage doesn't get a heal, right? Ah, dungeon crawling and the sacrifices we make for party-based play.

Take out clerics and divine power sources, and the problem is removed. Hand-wave the divine-arcane conflict off and it is gone as well, but something feels interesting when mages are the only ones who hold the keys to power. It does feel more Tolkien, and magic feels more arcane and special.

What is the lesson here? I guess it is "know your game" and understand the basic assumptions a game makes changes the world. Don't always be so beholden to the typical tropes of high-fantasy and MMO gaming, and games where divine magic is removed create interesting world models of power and how people acquire the same. What you play is your preference, but be open to games which may take you out of your comfort zone and experience "the power of magic" in a new light.

Great Video: "Low Budget" Review of Tunnels and Trolls

Check this cool video out if you are interested in Tunnels and Trolls, and there is a free rulebook available over on Drive Thru RPG here:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/54407/Tunnels--Trolls-Free-Rulebook

And also the current version of the deluxe rulebook (at this time on sale for $20):

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/152613/Deluxe-Tunnels--Trolls

And you can get a hard or soft cover here:

This version came about as a Kickstarted project (here), and this is essentially the best and most complete version on the shelf today.

The one thing I love about this video is how he points out Tunnels and Trolls has been developed by the same creative team for over 41 years, and it is the second roleplaying game ever developed. He knows his history, and even though the video is a bit 'low budget' the love and appreciation for the game shows through - and he has great information to share in this review. It is not a slick production, but it is from the heart, and that is what matters more.

More on this game soon, and this has been one we have been playing for a long time - and it is great to see it back.

Tunnels and Trolls: Magic Weapons

Magic weapons in Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe don't typically add more than a couple adds to the weapon, you could have a longsword forged by a master swordsmith and get +2 adds to 5d6. High quality steel would add another +1. Balancing it would add another +1, and forging it in a volcano would add another +1.

5d6 + 5 is what you would end up with should you make a 'great' weapon such as that, about 16% more powerful than a normal longsword, or in D&D terms, on the same power level of a +1 sword. It doesn't go much higher than that, really, you could probably get this up to +10 with a heavier weapon, elven steel, a super-master smith, and all sorts of other incredibly rare materials and forging, which comes out to a +2 weapon in D&D terms of power level.

Consider warriors add +1d6 per level to their combat adds (+4 per level by our own house-rule), and you will quickly find levels are vastly more important than weapon quality.

The 10d6 Longsword? Doesn't Exist

There are no rules (I have found) for artificially amping-up a weapon's dice with extra damage, like a longsword that does 10d6 damage. I am sure possibly weapons like this may exist in modules as one-offs or house-ruled weapons, possibly, but by the base rules the "+damage dice" magic weapons aren't in there.

So let's say "this is cannon" and go with the idea there are no MMO-style 300dps damage artificially elevated to that of a tank gun weapons in this world. You know them, they are the ones you find in MMOs like World of Warcraft where a paper cut  from the epic Thunderfury sword would blow a level one peasant's arm off.

Warning: EPIC LEVEL WEAPONS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO EVERYONE ELSE'S HEALTH.

No, you may not clean my sword, and I will be more careful next time I brush by someone with my magic quarterstaff. I will pay to clean up the inn, and I didn't realize there was a crowd there tonight.

But seriously, let's say there are no "juiced" magic weapons in this world, and the great weapons are only a couple adds here and there. Where does that leave us?

The Innate Power of the Warrior

Here's where we go all Conan on everybody. With warriors, it doesn't really matter what weapon they use, you could pick up a spoon and maul a crowd of evil snake cultists with the utensil. A two-handed sword would help, but the spoon will do until I defeat someone with a better weapon.

Or maybe I will stay "metal" and keep using the spoon in spite.

You kick butt with ordinary weapons. You don't really need to be dolled-up with a load of specialized gear, like pretty magic armor, entitlement weapons, and all sorts of gear meant to keep you grinding away for something incrementally better. There is no gear game, and your warrior's power is not directly gear dependent. You need some armor and some weapon, but putting your gear on some progression track that has you going from level 1 gray items to level 105 orange items doesn't happen.

Your warrior's innate power is what makes them kick butt. It is a situation much like the wizard, with a wizard, you may want a wand, but a whole lot of magic gear, mana storing robes, and other magical trinketry and paper-doll items are not needed to make your wizard a butt kicker. Your wizard's innate power makes them who they are.

Rejecting the MMO Item Game

So then, what incentive is there to go out and get treasure? There aren't a plethora of magic items scattered out there in the world, but there is always the lure of wealth and a better life. There isn't a "gear game" so adventuring life in T&T is a bit different. You adventure to increase your own personal power. You get money to live better and maybe fix your gear and sleep in a better bed tonight. It makes me want to play the cash-finding game in T&T a little tighter, since naturally if money is the biggest 'loot game' in town, then referees will want to be careful about handing out piles of coins.

You aren't going out to find green bracers that give you +1 STA and +1 STR, or a ring that increases your fire resistance by 2%. While those are very cool things to find in an MMO, and finding them gives you a certain sort of fun, that's not this game.

In this game, money should be a little tighter and harder to come by. The world should be a little darker. Power is gained from increasing your stats and growing in personal power. You are not going to buy your way to success, or "doll up" with magic items to make up for personal power you don't have. Who you are and how you build yourself up matters more than trinkets and gear.

Itemization: Videogames vs. Pen-and-Paper

I still like the videogame-style item games, like Diablo and other games where finding loot and upgrading is a part of the game. I feel videogames do this better though, as we haven't really found a pen-and-paper game that does itemization as well as MMOs or rogue-like games. In D&D, there are a lot of cool items, but wizards outrank fighters in fun and character power by a long-shot, so the fighter gear game (at least for us) is moot. It's tough to say (because we love D&D), but for us, video games (with balanced classes and gear choices) do itemization better for fantasy gaming.

You a Better Hero Because of You

But having a game without the 'gear game' is interesting, and focusing purely on your stats and having the world limited to normal weapons and armor only is a fascinating take on fantasy gaming. T&T is different in this way, and it keeps to the 'savage barbarian' model of play where the difference between the defeated and the victors comes down to how much of a bad ass you are. There is no magic sword that can make up for a personal power deficit or trinkets to collect because you need the stat bonuses, it is just all you.

Nothing else is between you and being a hero, and you can't buy your way to greater power. What everyone else uses is what you use, and the big difference is you are the hero.

The MMO Magic Item Economy and Mjölnir

The MMO-style magic-item economy has all but ruined fantasy gaming for us. D&D 4 was this high point of this insanity, where if you did not keep up with the natural 'progression' of magic items your character could not fight monsters rated at their level effectively.

Add to the fact random magic items were mostly useless for most builds, which required specific items and combinations to play effectively 'at level.'

It got so bad the game's designers suggested - in the rules - players come up with a list of magic items their characters wanted to find, and the referee should use that to award magic items from.

This was a fantasy game living in a fantasy land of insanity.

In the old days, if you found that +1 magic sword, you were set for life. It hit the check-boxes:

• Gave you a +1 to-hit and damage, check
• Could hit 'creatures only hit by silver or magic weapons', check
• Was cool, check

The invention of the +2 sword started the insanity to +3, +4, the theoretical +5 maximum best sword, and then in the 3.5-era Epic Level Handbook, went all  the way up to +20.

Well, since they have +2 swords, we need +2 armors! And the lists of magic items blew up. The game was never the same, and AD&D made a mess of the magic item charts with percentage charts of incremental and really worthless upgrades, sure a +2 sword was "even better" but it really only gave a 5% to-hit chance bonus over a +1 sword and 12% or-so extra damage given a d8 damage.

Mjölnir is not a +5 Hammer

+2 swords were epic-sounding, but they weren't superhero-level gear like Mjölnir. Even a +5 hammer didn't come close to the Mjölnir we saw in Marvel Super Heroes, and we sat there feeling D&D characters lived in a world with really weak magic weapons that really at most with +5 had a +25% chance to hit and did 50% more damage than a normal melee weapon. Big deal, but that was the best you could do in D&D.

Mjölnir in Marvel Super Heroes could take out a truck or the Hulk, your choice. Or both.

Mjölnir in an MMO is this insanely damaging 300 DPS weapon that still feels like that gray weapon you started the game with because the world scales with you and you will never truly feel epic. You can splat a level-1 with it, but really, every day you spend out there grinding it doesn't really feel epic because the game assumes you need it to keep up with the content. Sounds like D&D 4 to us, and that's what they did with every item in the game, with forced upgrades in every equipment slot. Though in D&D 4, things maxed out to a +6, and it still didn't feel like the Mjölnir we know and love.

You will find a lot of high-level magic weapons in D&D with extra powers, like lightning bolts or other spells because the plus-damage thing really doesn't make them into the weapons we expect them to be on the silver screen.

Fixed Damage Modifiers are King

But there was a reason for that +2 sword after all, despite the minor 5 to 10% upgrade. The fixed damage modifier.

In D&D 3.5 the fighter's multi-attack leveled the playing field, and the concept of multiplying stacks of fixed-damage bonuses across multi-attacks created the MMO "damage per turn" thing we have going on today in Pathfinder and D&D 5 (done in different ways). The base damage die of your weapon in D&D matters a lot less than the amount of fixed +damage modifiers you can get - because those multiply and stack up fast.

I would rather have a +2 dagger that does a d4 than a +1 swortsword that does a d6. The average damage for the dagger is 2.5 + 2 or 5 points of damage, and the sword does 3.5 + 1 or 5 points of damage. Sure I could roll higher with the sword, but that +2 is guaranteed damage every turn, multiplied across multiple attacks. With five attacks, that +2 is 10 guaranteed points of damage versus the "higher damaging" but less enchanted shortsword with 5 points of guaranteed damage - across five attacks.

You see this on five attacks per turn or five attacks across five turns. Guaranteed damage is king.

This adds up when you stack strength-enhancing magic items and high ability scores for greater fixed-damage adders, and all of a sudden you are adding +5 for STR, +3 for a weapon and you have 8 points of guaranteed damage in an attack. Always go for the higher "plus" and the dice is secondary, especially if you consider multiple attacks per turn (or multiple turns of attacks). Eight points of guaranteed damage across five turns or attacks is 40 points of damage. It adds up.

We are back in the Farmville-style world of spreadsheet games and MMO "dps" numbers, and never feeling like we have a Mjölnir and could smack some sense into the Hulk (or a truck) with our weapon. We still have a problem with the D&D and Pathfinder concept of magic weapons and the implementation of them feels more like a numbers game than it does something living up to our idea of epic fantasy.

The Rules Do Not Allow Epic Greatness

Throw Thor in there, and the gamer in me feels like it breaks down and GM-fiat is needed to say, "well, Thor's +5 hammer can bust right through that 10-foot thick castle wall!" And the player with their +4 spear can't even poke through a locked heavy wooden door. If this was a comic book, the player with that +4 spear could hold it in front of them and run straight through several doors leaving a trail of splinters and kindling in their wake.

No, not working. The rules do not allow for what we expect to happen, especially for epic weapons and the superheroes we want to be (and expect the rules to handle).

Low-Powered High Fantasy

Warriors in the D&D games have always felt less than epic to us, like they were the classes meant to play the spreadsheet part of the game with numbers and modifiers.

Or just...play a wizard in D&D. That is where you will get that superhero experience of larger-than-life powers. This has always been a problem for us, and spells feel like their movie counterparts where the weapons and armor of warriors do not.

One exception is Tunnels and Trolls, where the damage from warriors is so high you could say "you do 200 points of damage in this turn with your spear, and since I said each door had 20 hits, you can slice through 10 doors as you move this turn. Enjoy yourself and try not to destroy the furniture." It's one damage roll for the turn, use it any way you want. 

You could do that in D&D too, but the game goes all simulation-ist with object strength and AC values - so pure mayhem in D&D is discouraged under a wet blanket of simulation. If you are fighting a truck, I am going to need rules for trucks now. In T&T, I say the truck has 100 hits, and you flatten it in one blow. Even with a normal hammer because T&T discourages the MMO magic item economy and you fight with mostly normal weapons. So yes, you could be awesome enough in T&T to take a ball-peen hammer and flatten a truck to a pile of crushed debris in one blow.

Or two trucks.

Just don't damage the furniture.