Klassiskt Svenskt Rollspel – KSR

Posted on April 11, 2023 by First Age

Still bamboozled by OSR? Well, that’s alright, because you can leave that behind you and take up the standard for KSR! What is ‘Classic Swedish Roleplay’ and why does it have such a grip on me? 

Let’s start with Anders Blixt, a key author of many Swedish roleplaying games, particularly in the 80s. He outlined his take on KSR in the early pages of his new TTRPG Expert Nova.

To quote/paraphrase:

  • Skills Rule!: d100 or 1d20 equal to or less than resolution at the core of the game. Character ‘levels’ are not used.
  • Medium Powered Adventurers: characters do not power scale like D&D, and hit points tend to stay close to the initial score. Combat is deadly and needs ot be taken seriously. No nuclear magic (or tech).
  • Brains before brawn: social interactions generally pay off
  • Genre-emulating settings: The selected genre defines the setting, with open ended adventures, with plenty of problem solving. Milieus with broad vistas and flexibility for the games master.

My recent daliance with Hjältarnas tid confirms that it is placed deep in the heart of KSR. The Swedes themselves will argue on the terminology, and its applicability beyond a narrow strata of locally produced RPGs. It’s a delight to see the tensions of terminology systematisation apply to KSR as much as OSR.

I think Anders’ simple categorisation pretty much nails it. The KSR term has been described by RPG fan Whilpers. Here are some quoted sections of his presentation:

There are no rules for what constitutes KSR, but there are guidelines. Not everyone will agree on what is KSR and what isn’t, that’s natural.

KSR describes both rules and a style of play

Rules

  • The game has simple rules. Probably the whole game fits into a book of 50-100 pages.
  • It is easy to determine one’s chance of succeeding with an action, and the decision comes from dice rolls, preferably percentage rolls from BRP.
  • Pool systems and freeform are not KSR.

Play style

  • The genre is the gaming world. In order to start, the players do not need to study the game world. It is enough to get an explanation in a few words.
  • The game is played in the form of adventures, prepared stories that should resemble stories in books or movies. The game manager fights against a game system that is actually quite unsuitable for the task in order to achieve that goal.
  • The game leader is faced with the question of whether it is OK to “cheat” in order not to ruin the adventure.

KSR does not have to be Swedish

KSR doesn’t really say anything about what language the game is written in.

“Swedish” is included in the name to distinguish it from classic RPGs in general, which for the rest of the world are probably early versions of D&D. Games in that style are already referred to by the by now well established term OSR.

OSR stands for Old School Revival/Renaissance/Revolution, depending on who you ask, playing RPGs like you did when you played D&D in the late 70’s and possibly early 80’s.

Classic Swedish Roleplaying here means the own games similar to those that Áventyrsspel released in the period 1984-1990. Adventure games completely dominated the scene for a decade, so for old Swedish roleplayers, “classic” is probably their products, and not D&D.

Adventure Games also released quite a few more or less direct translations of English-language games, eg Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game (MERP), which I don’t consider KSR, based on their rules engines, not their original languages.

Depending on how purist you wish to be, then I would say that Free League’s new Dragonbane is fundamentally KSR, cleaving to a style of the 80s and 90s, albeit with a fresh sprinkling of modern design. It is Drakkar och Demoner after all.

Why do I gravitate to KSR, even after huge dollops of thoroughly enjoyable D&D 4th Edition, stuffed with rich, high fantasy, fullness? In part, it will be the heady nostalgia of the 80s and 90s, where BRP, or Stormbringer centred systems, were a deep well of fertile exploration and game development. I’m essentially a traditional roleplayer, with more than a swathe of narrativist applications. The simple simulationism of KSR appeals deeply, along with the brevity of ruleset that goes with it. Rulebooks that encompass the game at 130 pages or less? Thank you. Er, and the approachable bite size supplements that expand on the base game too. And the adventures, and…

I think my KSR allegiance runs a touch deeper than the simple and intuitive d100% roll under skill systems, though that takes me a long way. Lower powered characters, who are yet heroes, and where combat is continuously dangerous (if carefully manageable through subsystems and playstyle) due to the inherent rulesystem, rather than the ascneding ‘level bubble’ is important to me. Perhaps both approaches achieve the same thing, but KSR does it with a lot less fuss.

Evocatively drawn game worlds that can be explored quickly, principally through the process of adventure also appeals, leaving the spaces needed for the group to create detail when needed to provide context at the right time.

And yet, as I step back, I see some similarities of OSR and KSR, if you take some mechanical considerations out of the equation. Fast play, deadly encounters.

I’m no hostage to any codified game banner, and yet I feel most comfortable with KSR. I might throw in some push mechanics, or sit back and enjoy the freeform traits and dice swapping of Hjältarnas tid and be happy. And, whilst I am at it, I must pick up a copy of Expert Nova.

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Hjältarnas Tid (The Age of Heroes)

Posted on April 9, 2023 by First Age

My Swedish fantasies have been further extended to another light and inventive take on BRP, ‘Hjältarnas Tid‘ (The Age of Heroes). Without any translation available in English, this became my first foreign language RPG purchase. I was enamoured by the description of the BRP style game in this thread on RPG.Net.

There were a few moments, and no more, where I vascilated on the prospect of a personal translation via Google Translate. How quick would it be, how much text scraping, how comprehensible the result? Translate has a limit of 10MB and the file was likely to be larger (it was). Ah well, I would step forward and discover…

My conversion method was to open the PDF using Google Docs and then use Tools/Translate to shunt the text into English. This was a little ungainly, as I had to split the PDF to get all of this done, but in the end I had a first stab at the text, though some of it was obscured by formatting exertions in the more complex laid out pages from the source PDF. No worries, I had enough to start to look at the game itself and enjoy what I had purchased. 

I like what I have found. This revised and updated version of the game includes all the elements in the original box. At 137 pages, this was a perfect size game for me. Not too much, and indeed just enough to get to know it quickly to consider whether it will get to the table. It will. Perhaps excited by the re-emergence of Chaosium’s Big Gold Book of Basic Roleplaying, revised, reformatted and licensed for free open development for your own projects, I became, as is typical of me, sidetracked by this much earlier iteration, riven deep in the scandi tradition, with tendrils intersecting to Trudvang, Forbidden Lands and Dragonbane (at least).

Clean and charming layout and art

Hjältarnas Tid, roughly translated as ‘Age (or time) of Heroes’, has all the base core of BRP that you would expect, and as such takes me home and back to the 80s, with a core rule system that very much defined my early and formative roleplaying. The familiar d100% skills were there though with a slightly different number and lables. At 27 adventuring and 8 combat skills, we are taken to some early RPG design, with copious numbers, far higher than modernity would deem entirely wise. It’s alot less than RQ: Glorantha of course, but that’s not really saying anything.

The game may have BRP DNA, but has taken many new directions that sprice up the old faithful nicely. If you are familiar with the relatively new ‘The Troubleshooters‘ RPG then you know what this game is all about, being devloped and produced by the same designer and company. The designer feels he really got it fully right with Troubleshooters.

So, what makes this iteration of a trusted game engine so special? Here are some highlights:

  • Attributes as skills : the old 3d6 set of attributes are gone and replaced by skill percentages to be used in Challenges straight away. In fact the old attributes are just enmeshed in the skill listing.
  • Doubles and Blackjack : a success is just the usual roll equal or less than your skill. An outstanding successwill be a success bu the dice are doubles. A woeful failure is greater than skill and the dice are doubles. With opposed rolls, as many are, the higher successful skill roll wins.
  • Open and Closed Difficulties :  A standard skill roll is required in a ‘Challenging’ situation. If the circumstances allow, it might be an easier situation. In this case Open the roll, usually by one or two steps. If it were two steps, then if you roll and fail, but the digit die is a ‘1’ or ‘2’, then you succeed. If yet more difficult then you Close the roll. Again, say by two steps, then if you roll and succeed, but your digit die is a ‘1’ or ‘2’, then you actually still fail. No modifiers, just an interpretation of the digit die. Elegant.
  • Character Traits and Relationships : These narrative pieces of text can be expended during a game session to flip the die result, swapping the tens and units around. Useful!
  • Guard and Health : instead of just hit points, characters (and others) have Guard. This is a quickly replenished resource that encompasses momentum, luck, desire and fatigue. Damage is taken off Guard first, before slow replenishing  Health is touched. Oustanding success attacks will damage Health directly. Guard also fuels special abilities that come through Kin and Profession.
  • Debt : wizards struggle with the damage that they cause to the natural order when they cast their wrending spells. Each spell has a cost that accumulates Debt. A wizard’s threshold is equal to their Wyrd skill. If they ever transgress this total, then they become wraiths, locked in other dangerous realms, yearning to return.
  • Zones : 2d20 style zone areas define the battlefield, supporting a more ‘theatre of the mind’ approach to combat encounters.
  • Exploding damage : the game uses d100 and d6. Damage dice explode on a 6. I can hear the screams of exultation and despair already. Armour is rolled soak.
  • Opposed Rolls for Combat : Attack and Defense rolls are compared to see what the outcomes is. So, if you are defending then you don’t just want to succeed, you also want to roll as high as possible to improve your chances against the opponents attack roll.

Early days and I may only have scratched the surface. The suggested Kin are nicely written with some very different takes in places, which is always refreshing. Once I had finished several skims through the book  was pretty sure that I wanted to run this game. It would have been nice to have had some more character options and some more magic spells, but there are always compromises when you go for an approachably sized book.

Wait though. What? There are supplements…?

Yes, at the low PDF prices I did buy them. I mean you’d be daft not to, right?  Right? 

Hjältarnas Väg is a whole slew of character options, providing more kin, professions and special abilities. There’s more guidance in this short book too. Handily, the core of the relevant text from the main game has been included and spruced up to the expectations of the supplement, putting everything in one place. There’s also a new skill: ‘Craft’. Using Relationships as a further pool of Traits is also introduced in this book.

I’ve not had a lot of time to dig into the detail here, though I noted that the translation process using Google docs only required one pass for this shorter book. I’ll use this book as the base for when I get to run the game.

I know even less about Magins Väv, except to say that with more than 80 spells and a whole host of traditions, this book will handily round out magic in the game. I shall risk garnering a surfeit of Debt to understand the blasphemous knowledge locked within.

So, this all evoked my customary game tingles. An unecessary segway from more focused application of established game lines? Well, perhaps. Nevertheless I got my heart flutterings and game excitment, which is all to the good. I would like to get this game to the table, virtual or otherwise. It wouldn’t take very much to get a Role VTT sheet up and running with a full character sheet. For the physical world, I have already put together a quick character sheet in Google Docs (using the Lato font throughout), so that I can create and type out some heroes ready for some adventure. Here’s the character sheet.
Vi ses ute i vildmarken!
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The Spinward Extents

Posted on March 30, 2023 by First Age

The Spinward Extents is a relatively new setting supplement for Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller. At 364 pages or more, it a is a big book covering two exciting sectors of space: Beyond and Vanguard Reaches. I mean, even the names sound cool! They are found on the fringes of Chartered Space, in the top left zone of the Third Imperium centred view of astrography. As such they are framed by the old great powers of Zhodane, Imperium, Aslan and Vargr, but also independent, awash with vibrant polities, corsairs, stange new worlds, aliens and danger!

I am hugely impressed with this book. Both sectors come with a full sector map, subsector maps with standard world profiles. Each sector has overview text to give history and context for what you will discover within. The subsctors are further detailed with some pull out worlds that receive text detail and the occasional flavour image. The combination of information gives you a grounding in which to run a game in any par tof the sector, whilst leaving plenty of room for your own creativity, because, you know, space is BIG.
There’s more though. Aliens, governments, corporations and starships are all given some airing and detail, which will enhance your gameplay no end. Seeing so many new sophonts detailed is such fun and further give s asense of place to the sectors. These are not just barren subsectors waiting for colonisation (though that happened), but instead places where sophonts were already living. Some have since developed further through Jump technology, others remain true to their home ecosystems. 

On skimming through the detail, I concluded that, as with any large setting tome, you really just need to find your corner. Build out from a start system and zone in on the information that applies to there. This approach will give you a start and dramatically focus the game. One subsector (or maybe two if polities transcend)a few new aliens and powers, so classic stories and you are off.

In amongst the highly playable detail and inspiration, I am reminded how unplayable Traveller starships become once they transcend a certain size. Whereas I accept that Traveller goes up to 11 with regard to starships, I think at above 10Kt they become, from a game perspective, the most impressive and unweildy pieces of narrative scenery. In practice all those batteries won’t be rolled in any space conflict, unless you’ve got a day free and a good recording system. But that’s fine, they can indeed sit there filling up your sensor scan results and glower at you. I’ve made up some simple, one dice throw, rules to deal with anything that big.
So, a great supplement, with an evocative slice of the Official Traveller Universe, away from the big powers but not free of their influence, and infused with the joys of the weird, the alien and the unknown. Inventive chancers wanted; see you out there! 
  

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An Emergent Beginning and a Triumphant Finale for D&D 4e

Posted on March 18, 2023 by First Age

 And so, after more than two years and fifty sessions of play, my Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition game has come to an end. What started as a planned short series of sessions to see how this edition played, it blossomed into an ongoing campaign full of great roleplay, exciting combat encounters, and an emerging backstory that culminated in a heroic great battle and the coronation of one of the player characters as a new king.

Our campaign has run throughout on the brilliant Role VTT

I have enjoyed playing 4th Edition so much! From well drawn characters and their emblematic powers, absorbing tactical combat, to Skill Challenges that provide freeform roleplaying with consequential mechanics, and great adventure material and sourcebooks, the game has everything I could need. Above all this I have been lucky to have a great group of players, who have been fully engaged in the play and brought the fun to the virtual table. What a lovely crew of people!

The Role VTT has been our constant facilitating platform. Focusing on webcams to help us feel connnected, but also with map and token tools, and increasingly more as the platform has developed during our two years of play, I recommend it wholeheartedly. It has become my VTT of choice.

This is the longest campaign that I have ever run. It has been tremendous fun throughout and I feel really lucky that all the ingredients came togetehrand worked so well. Once you have a great group of plays, anything can happen!

We may even return for a time lapsed Paragon game or three in the future.

Good gaming times. 

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AireCon 2023

Posted on March 15, 2023 by First Age

Thursday to Friday of last week was AireCon 2023. I was running the RPG track for the event, and  attending the convention, for the first time. Everything about my four days in Harrogate was just great, not least thanks to the brilliant crew of people running the event; what amazing people!

My travel had a whiff of adventure, as the snow had arrived, making my onward journey that little bit more uncertain. I had actually considered taking the MG up, but conditions precluded such wanton behaviour. You can see the MG in the picture, all tucked up and desperately glad not to be exposed to conditions.

As it was, the journey proved uneventful, passing by the bottom of my good friend Dom’s estate on the way through Whetherby, and into Harrogate. Parking was at the exhibitors car park, so no problems and free, which was nice to keep some things easy with all the newness going on.

Arriving at the Conference Centre brought me some team introductions, orientation, and an opportunity

to check the RPG area. Most of the work had already been done by the Convention staff, so there was just some table dragging, chair finding, and table numbers to add.  It wasn’t long before everything was ready. I wasn’t close enough to power supply, so hoped my Matebook would last the full day on a prepared full charge.

I was to be staying at The Majestic, ‘Hilton Honours’, paid by the convention, so a real treat and very grateful. To keep things affordable, we were to be sharing with another volunteer, so someone I didn’t know. I might be getting a bit old and set in my ways to cope with that, but the grand old hotel beckoned in all its elderly splendour. I was slightly alarmed when I got to my room…

A Planes Trains and Automobiles moment…

I think sharing a bed with a stranger was probably a bridge too far, but a hasty check with reception confirmed that I was to have the cavernous room to myself! The pace of events precluded me spending too much time in the room, but it was lovely to have the luxurious space. Small things, like the provision of breakfast, was also happily received, and in fact, as the breakfast was self service, it was anything but small. My experience of hotel breakfasts has not always been a happy one. The Majestic breakfast was absolutely lovely though. Even the mushrooms were big and tasty! Street food vouchers were also part of the package. A quick dash to the wagons stacked me up with hot and tasty food, with a scamper back to my desk to field the flow of enquiries throughout the day.

The RPG zone was ready and games were all scheduled in with good attendance. It was really nice tio be a little bit further North, as I got to meet a different GMing crowd. As I didn’t know most of the GMs, I could  only go on trust, and hope that my pre-briefings would smooth out any safety issues and keep people to slot timings. A large number of people got to play RPGs and responses were almost universally full of delight and praise. A really gratifying pay off for all the organisation and work; a tribute to all the GMs who came along and ran their games.
Of course not everything went right. One GM didn’t show up at all, and was running three sizeable games. Weather effect I had wondered, and yet I still haven’t heard from them, so hope they are personally OK. If there is no communication before the next event, then they won’t be GMing at AireCon again.
We were operating mostly online and the ticketing system has some significant limitations. Or my knowledge of the system has limitations. Either way, I couldn’t undertake some basic adminstration workflow, including the management of game cancellation. I’ll be better prepared to cope with the inevitable changes that take place during the day, when I’m back next year.
Yes, I’d like to run the RPG track again next year! Throughout the event I was making notes of improvements to the organisation of the games. These are quite varied, including getting up front permission for GMs to contact players for any pre-event contact, and enabling players to contact me if they are not going to attend their booked session. I will provide ticket refunds for a GM no-show, so need to be able to do that myself on the ticketing system. Space and slot timing will both be improved, to give a break for GMs and players alike. If the convention can support it, I’ll be increasing table count to nearer twenty, including some form of games on demand and maybe a table of RPGs tailored for younger gamers. Where possible, I’ll be breaking up rooms and keeping tables as far apart as possible
I’ve had two offers of help for next year, which will make things so much easier for me. I was rather chained to the desk this time around. One of my GMs suggest an AireCon GM Discord, so I’m setting one up today, for chat and communication alongside pushed email announcements. 
Altogether a lovel extended weekend with an upped change of pace too! Creating spaces for people to enjoy RPGs is what I seem to do. Huge fun, and more of it next year!
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Heroic Fantasy 2e – Playtest and Progress

Posted on March 14, 2023 by First Age

The playtest for Heroic Fantasy 2nd Edition is now well underway, with my players exploring the Forest of Margreve in Kobold Press’ Midgard setting. I’m aiming for half a dozen or so sessions to test out the balance of the game. Conscious of how much playtesting takes place out there, I can expand this to another group (with standing invites for current players) if I feel it is needed.

So far so good, with the text developing alongside the play. Most of what we have now is tweaks to the game on version 5 of the 2nd edition text. The ordering of text into a better flow, and some embelishments to what is also there. The key changes are:

  • Continuous leaning into the dice ladder to manage escalting and ascending dice.
  • Extended and Group Tests plus ‘Aiding another’.
  • Advancement increases only four Attributes rather than all of them. Two of the advancing attributes are defined by Archetype.
  • Recoveries are going to stay as an ‘encounter power’ for now. 
  • Long Rests give a Recovery die with +2 Steps on the Dice Ladder
  • More spells added
  • Monster vulnerability and resistance added. Monster Size bonuses for Hit Points.
  • Some more Monsters added
The Heroic Fantasy Room on Role

Heroic Fantasy remains true to the earlier Black Hack core mechanics, thus remaining light and quick to play. Indeed, so much so, I felt that the whole character sheet could be successfully represented in Role. So, we are using Role completely, and I am enjoying it. I hope to sell Heroic Fantasy on Role as well as Drivethru, so it is good to get an early start over there.

To come, we have some more play with a level up to conclude this first test at 2nd level. I’d like to try a 5th level game too, to see how the numbers work out. Text will continue to improve throughout.

There is quite a lot of ‘gut’ going on with this process. I wanted to see how I felt about the game, modified as it is, after such a long gap. Would I still feel some of the love? Can I continue whilst enjoying the arrival of Free League’s Dragonbane? I am delighted to say that the answer to this is “yes”! What I wanted was incremental improvements to a quick play, rules light, heroic fantasy game, that does the ‘D&D’ but without the bloat; a game that I can run at home, at conventions and put out as a book. A game where I can take established material and convert quickly or even on the fly. I think all those boxes are ticked.

Press on. I hope to be in layout by the close of May.

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Heroic Fantasy 2e – Shaping Up

Posted on March 3, 2023 by First Age

This may prove to be first in a series of posts on the progress of the Heroic Fantasy to a 2nd edition. Based on The Black Hack, Heroic Fantasy was my bash at getting a rules light heroic fantasy game together, that included all the extra bits that I wanted, in one short book. As ever, with anything I might write, it was predominently for my own table and play. Yes, I have been playing endless amounts of D&D 4th Edition, but there are still times where I want something very light and fast to play.

It’s tingle time for me, as I put finishing touches to a pre-playtest version of the game. The second edition will preserve and extend the flexible options for kin (‘races’) and archetypes (‘classes’). The core game remains close to the first edition of The Black Hack, so the fundamental play experience isn’t going to change. However, under the hood, there are quite a substantial number of changes that I hope will bring some more fun to the game:

  • An option for Attributes to be generated in a more controlled manner from a pool of points. 
  • The Dice Ladder is now embedded throughout the game, so that a range of Kin, Arechetype and in play circumstances increases damage up (and occasionally down) the ladder. Warrior archetypes, for example, gain +1 Step in weapon damage every level.
  • Hit Points are now based on a die roll taken from the higher of the character’s Kin and Archetype dice.
  • Weapon damage is now based on the type of weapon and then modified by Archetype. (I waver a little on this one.)
  • Short and Long Rest Recoveries are now possible, so that hit points can come back during an adventuring day.
  • Complex tasks (skill challenges).
  • A range of new Kin to play.
  • Addition of the Druid Archetype.
  • Armour now provides damage reduction.
  • Cantrips introduce some low powered and flavoursome magic.
  • More formalised ‘Conditions’, inflicted by monsters, magic and other situations. This includes ‘Wounded’ when a protagonist loses half their hit points.
  • New terms to describe some elements in the game. This was prompted by the OGL fiasco. Many have reverted back, thanks to the Creative Commons move, but a few have stuck.
  • Some errata and tidying up.

Of course, at this stage, I am still ruminating on a number of elements to the game.

  • On level up, instead of rolling to increase every attribute (with some archetype extras), limit this to rolling for 4, with two defined by Archetype and two free picks. Or, one defined by Kin and one defined by Archetype. This will slow attribute progression, which is something I wanted to see. A playtest is unlikely to fully tease this out, so I might just have to make a call.
  • Get rid of encumbrance? Maybe.
  • Include some travel rules? These of course could be Complex Tests, but I need to decide how much I want to track, through usage dice, food and water?
  • The power level balance between hit points and damage needs to be tested. It feels about right, but at lower levels, with armour damage absorbtion, I’d need to see what it plays like. Fighting archetypes do quite well with ladder increases, Rogues are quick and win the multi-attack race, and magic has plenty of blam. The dials are all there, I just need to set them to the right levels. As characters start with Constitution for HP (plus some dice), I am considering giving Monsters a HP starter boost for their size.

More will come out of the playtesting woodwork.

All of this has maturely emerged at the same time as Free League’s Dragonbane Beta. I’ve blithered on about how much I like this game, and enjoyed running it. They have a third party licence coming, through which I may publish some adventures. And here is my pickling. Dragonbane covers very similar ground to Heroic Fantasy. I will admit to having a wobble about progressing my own game in a crowded market of sword and magic swooshing. Yet, my endeavours bring me joy, and a game from the D&D side of the tracks that I rather like. It has just the right blend for me (and hopefuly some others). The real proof will be in me running it. A game has been submitted to UK Games Expo, by which time I hope to be in layout.

So, press on. I’m not in a hurry, but it would be nice to have this published and available later this year. As it stands, I see no reason why not. Some adventures should follow, that will showcase the game but usable with anything.

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The Skill Challenge

Posted on March 2, 2023 by First Age

I thought I’d set out some more thoughts on how I have approached the Skill Challenges to round off the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition campaign. Skill Challenges, or linked Clocks as the Forged cool kids like to say, are great tools to progress and compress significant free flowing roleplay action with a mechanical underpinning.

The guidance for Skill Challenges in 4e developed a little over the lifetime of the books, though their essential nature and usefulness remained the same. I tend to gravitate to the Essentials Rules Compendium as my default reference, so I took the base structure from there.

To quote:

To deal with a typical skill challenge, a group of adventurers makes a series of skill checks, sometimes taking a few rounds and sometimes spread over days of game time. The DM either informs the players when the challenge begins or lets it begin quietly, when an adventurer makes a skill check that the DM counts as the first check of the challenge. As the challenge proceeds, the DM might prompt the players to make checks, let them choose when to make checks, or both. The DM can have the adventurers act in initiative order or in some other order of his or her choice. The DM might tell the players which skills to use, let them improvise which ones they use, or both.

The skill challenge is completed either when a specified number of successful skill checks is achieved or when three failures are reached.

If the adventurers complete the challenge through achieving a target number of successes, they succeed at the challenge. Otherwise, they fail the challenge.

Whether the adventurers succeed or fail, they complete the challenge, face its consequences, and receive experience points for it.

In my penultimate challenge the overall  goal was to recruit neutral factions to your side for the Great Battle to come. In general, I kept to the advice in the Compendium in all but one regard. My approach was to keep it loose and directed by the players. 

I had in mind a series of key scenes, with some additions due to the actions of the players. Each key scene had a base DC (in this example it was often ‘Recruit Faction X’). Then we play, with the skills and actions coming out through play. As such, and my slight deviation from the guidance, I allowed the players to define the skills they would use and why (Forged in the Dark style). The DCs were modified up and down depending on their approach to each scene (analagous to FitD Effect).

So, the Skill Challenge was there, provided structure, but only lightly intruded the flow of play and action. That’s as they were designed. This ‘Skill Challenge with soft hands’ provides an optimal blend of play with consequence, driven by player agency and inventiveness. The scenes and DCs could be a little flexible over time. Clever play and good dice rolls would also reverse failures to keep goal success viable. I was a little loose on this too. I telegraphed when a skill roll was coming, though the players were not sure of DCs, so the hint of success came through the way the scene played out.  I also included Group Rolls for at least one of the Challenge rolls, so that all involved had a chance to influence the outcome. In this particular example In this example, I also moved Faction tokens onto one side or another on a shared view in Role VTT. 

Perhaps the key advantage to this approach is that the Skill Challenge is much simpler to set up. List out some pivotal scenes. Consider an overall DC for each scene’s success, using the difficulty levels suggested in the rules as a guide. That’s about it. The rest emerges organically in play, with the Success and Failure tally being ticked off as play progresses.

This example was a large and ‘complex’ skill challenge, but very quick to setup. Creaing the faction tokens and shared display took  most of my time. I’m looking forward to using these techniques a lot more. I might like to try openly shared clock views of progress, to get everything out in view.

Good fun, and a welcome variation in style and pace from the rich combat encounters. 4e really does have tremendous breadth and depth to gameplay.

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The Threads are Woven – A last campfire before the Great Battle

Posted on February 26, 2023 by First Age

We are reaching the second season conclusion of our D&D 4th Edition campaign, and it will be a tumultuous finale! The allies and foes that have been encountered over two real-time years of roleplay are now marshelling onto the battlefield for a climactic battle that will seal the fate of Nentir Vale, with repercussions across all of the old lands of the lost Empire of Nareth.

One of ‘Sturm und Drang’, our adventuring company, has been revealed as of the line of the old emperors, thought lost in the wars that dismantled Nerath in blood and fire. The line, it seems is unbroken, the Sword Of Nerath has returned. Allies, bound by pacts and covenants of old, are assembling to the old banner.

  • Emperor Aldoran (d -183)
  • Uhon Nerika last of the Ghost Blades took the emperors daughter far from the conflict – Adala daughter to the last emperor (d -123)
  • Seela daughter (b -153 d -90)
  • Dalorad (b -123 d -73)
  • Edrun (b -100 d -50)
  • Ygrath (b -70 d -20)
  • Haldin (b -45 d -0)
  • Marc – of the line of Nerath
Nothing is as straightforward as that may seem. Old allies have their own agendas, and an alliance is brokered as much on what is at risk and at stake, as to promises of old. The fireside tales of the old Nerath are mixed, with a rose tinged look back to a time of plenty and relative safety, but also to the sacrifices and tyrannies that ensued. This has been heightened by the return of the first emperor of Nerath, the lich, Magroth the Mad. As a representation of all that is bad about the old times, it has cast the news of a return of the true line in a more favourable light. If the battle is won, there will be a peace to keep.
On a more personal note, this will resolve or unravel a series of personal stories. Some more surprises are yet to come. Sturm und Drang may well continue, but unlikely the same.
The forces in play

I have been delighted to run ‘The Control of Nentir Vale’ as a complex Skill Challenge. Free flowing roleplay, as Sturm und Drang recruit allies (or not), and prepare for an impending battle. Arcane forces are also at play, with linked portals between sites and a growing school of magic that echoes the great places of learning of the past. Interspersed with key scenes have been skill rolls to determine progress with varying Difficulty Classes, influenced by the relationships forged in the game, and the nature and desires of the faction in question.
Over two sessions we have been able to compress a huge amount of action, and reached a satisfying setup through a blend of planning, in character roleplaying, and some engaging out of character chat. The Skill Challenge has simply provided a structure to track progress, sitting close to the surface of play, without intruding too much. The outcome achieved feels properly earned.
I have switched to a milestone award for these sessions, with Sturm und Drang ascending to 9th level. Next time there will be a battle that will decide not only their fate, but also that of the Vale and the lands of old Nerath. I can’t wait to find out what happens!

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2300AD Comae Engine – conversion thoughts

Posted on February 20, 2023 by First Age

North Star SF TTRPG ,convention is coming in May. With that in mind, I have returned to the possibility of using the Comae Engine to power my ‘old’ GDW 2300AD game. A light and quick application of the Comae Engine on top of GDW’s skill structure has given me something to work with. The 2300AD skills have become Focus, grouped under the main Comae skills. You could, of course, simplify it further, by just sticking with the core skills, but I wanted to bring in the big list in a  manageable way, and this seemed the most elegant way of doing it.

I expect that the 2300AD Career Paths, will provide recommendations for Core Skills and a number of Focus equal to Terms in service (or some such). Body Type will also affect Resource pools and maybe starting skill levels with core skills. I’ll work that out when I get to create the player characters.

Here’s the skill list.

Awareness. Sight, hearing, scent, taste – anything related to our senses are collected under this skill, as well as tracking.

Forward Observer, Reconnaisance, Sensors, Tracking

Combat. The Combat skill is used for any situations featuring physical violence: swashbuckling, bar brawls, demolitions or firing a gun.

Combat Rifleman, Demolitions, Gunner, Heavy Weapons, Melee, Sidearm, Thrown Weapon

Deception. Covers sneaking and hiding, but also typical thievery crafts, like lockpicking, pick pocketing, forgery and sleight of hand.

Disguise, Forgery, Hunting, Security Systems, Stealth, Streetwise

Knowledge. This broad skill covers various knowledge-based proficiencies, like languages, research and bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy, Computer, First Aid, History, Information Gathering, Linguistics, Tactics

Move. This skill covers all physical skills, like climbing, jumping, running, swimming and dancing.

Riding, P-Suit

Science. Science, like Knowledge, is a broad skill, covering all natural sciences, including Medicine.

Anthropology, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, Medical, Physics, Psychology, Ship Drive Engineering, Theoretical Sciences

Social. All social activities are collected here. If you need to tell a convincing lie or entertain at a cocktail party, this is the skill to use. Also, bribery, acting and oratory fall under Social.

Appraisal, Bargain, Leader, Trader 

Tech. The character understands how mechanical and electronic objects work and knows how to hot-wire, repair and build them. Also covers the handling of vehicles.

Aircraft Pilot, Combat Walker, Electronic, Ground Vehicle, Hover Vehicle, LTA Vehicle, Mechanical, Pilot, Prospecting, Remote Pilot, Sea Vehicle

Willpower. Any time your grit and mental resilience comes into play, Willpower is used. Examples include resisting the influence of a charismatic speaker or stay cool in frightening situations.

Coolness Under Fire, Survival

I had wondered about giving each Focus a level of 1-4, with each level proivding a cumulative +10%, but that’s further elaborating, so I kept my Coolness Under Fire.

Without much worry of playtest(!) I will probably just go with some guts on simple conversions.

Guns

Sidearms 1d, Rifles 2d, Heavy weapons 3d

Close range +1d Far away -1d

Heart hits +1d6 to any damage caused.

Area Fire Value (In range 1-5) wil give additional targets that can be endangered with area fire. Each burst a cumulative -10% to hit (or perhaps a flat -20%).

Armour Piercing (n) = number of armour ignored at Close Range.

Armour will absorb in standard BRP fashion.

Here’s a simple Google Doc character sheet.

If one of my slots is to be a Comae 2300, then the conversion will be light touch. I’m not looking to rebuild vehicle and starship combat for a convention one shot. Instead, the Comae Engine can sit on top of GDW’s Task System in the game and the fire outcomes can use 2300AD values. Unless, of course, I get carried away.
This is probably enough to make this a North Star convention contender.
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