Game Viet Nam

Two things I like about the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG are its good supply of neat monsters and its radical devotion to random die charts.  Two things I don't like are its lack of wandering monster charts and the absence of an index.  Well, maybe there are some wandering monster charts somewhere in the book, but without an index, how the heck am I going to find them?  So I made some.  These creeps are sorted mainly by hit dice and most of the die ranges are my guesswork.

Level 1 (d14)

1. 2d4 Acolytes
2. d6 Bandits
3. d6 Deep Ones or Subhumans
4. Demon, Type I
5. 2d4 Dimensional Sailors
6. d6 Giant Ants (workers) or Giant Rats
7. d12 Goblins or Kobolds
8. d6 Hobgoblins or Gnolls
9. d6 Lizardmen or Troglodytes
10. d6 Orcs
11. d20 Peasants
12. Primeval Slime, 1 hd
13. Serpent Man with d6 Subhuman servants
14. d12 Skeletons

Here's how I know that:

The Known Rule
NGR contains a large number of rules, and in the end it is not likely someone will have them all memorized.  The rules of this game are only applicable if someone involved actually knows the rule (or claims to).  If no party involved knows the rule then they obviously did not choose their course of action based on the mechanics.  In such a case, the GM should issue a ruling and move on.  You should never be looking up rules during play.  Doing so results in -1 awesomeness for a player or +1 awesomeness to all players if the GM looks up a rule (per occurrence).

--Neoclassical Geek Revival, page 4.

I don't know what the awesomeness mechanics are yet, but it doesn't really matter.  Whatever they are, that's a rock solid approach to D&D type gaming.

I've been remiss in not reporting this item sooner.  Starships & Spacemen second edition is a project from Goblinoid Games that takes a musty old sci-fi rpg and updates it to full compatibility with Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future.

In case you're new here: Labyrinth Lord is the retroclone closest to Basic/Expert D&D and if add in the Advanced Edition Companion it also emulates they way AD&D played when I was a stupid kid who didn't know you "couldn't" mix AD&D and BX.  Mutant Future is an almost-clone of Gamma World that more compatible with LL than Gamma World was with BX/AD&D.

Adding a full-blown sci-fi option to this scheme is pretty much my definition of rock solid awesomeness.

This project is already fully funded, so if you kick in five buck now you will be getting a PDF of this game.

So last night at the Armored Gopher we were playing a third session of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.  The party was descending this big spiral staircase somewhere under the Tower of Zenopus when some stirges flew down and started harassing them.  Eustace the Bold uses a Mighty Deed of Arm (which I use as an ad lib stunt system, ignoring the details in the GM section) to swat one to the ground with his shield.  The beggar-thief and the cleric of Cthulhu try stomping on its head, but both roll miserably, bumping into each other in their haste to kill the prone bird-bat-mosquito thing.  On the next round the stirge gets up and attacks the cleric, rolling a crit.   I don't know if it was my idea or not, but I will totally take the blame for this next part: the cleric now has a stirge jammed in his crotch, sucking out his, and I quote, "dick blood".  The stirge in question is killed on the next round and gingerly removed from the area in question.

The proboscis-to-jimmy attack ended up only doing a single measly point of damage, but I doubt I'll ever forget that particular one point.  That cleric won't either, I reckon.

Jennifer Steen interviewed me for one of her Jennisodes podcasts.  She was a lot of fun to talk to.  You can check the interview out here.

Rolling dice to cast a spell goes back to Chainmail.  Here's the basic 2d6 chart:

2-5 Fail
6-7 Delay
8-12 Success

-1 for a first level spell, -2 for a second level spell, etc.

+1 caster level 1-2
+2 caster level 3-6
+3 caster level 7-8
+4 caster level 9-10
+5 caster level 11+

I may have that level chart slightly buggered up, as I'm doing it from memory.  A bunch of my gaming stuff is packed at the moment.  Also, note that the Delay category refers to the spell going off one Chainmail turn after the casting.  In my games I'd probably rule that the spell goes off the following round, provided nobody disrupts the casting in the meantime.

Anyway, even if you are a pretty strict Vancian adherent there's still lots of uses for a chart like this.  A moth eaten scroll with an incomplete spell.  Some joker with read magic trying to cast a high level spell directly out of a spell book.  Someone attempting to cast an Arduin spell that's rated a spell level beyond the scope of the rules you normally use.  Basically, any situation where the casting is less certain than normal conditions.

For DCC-style "you must roll for every spell" shenanigans, just add a "1 or less" category that sets off a spell fumble and an "oversuccess" result on a 13+.  While I don't mind making up spell fumbles and oversuccesses on the fly, a couple good rules of thumb for the latter might be in order.  Something like this:

• Any spell with a variable based on caster level gains +1d6 levels.
• Spells with no such variable double range, duration, etc as appropriate.
• Magic Missile gains one bonus missile for each point over 12 rolled.

If you want caster Intelligence to figure into the roll, here's a chart for that:

Int 3: -2
Int 4-8: -1
Int 9-12: no modifier
Int 13-17: +1
Int 18: +2

These are the standard stat mods for BX D&D when applying a modifier to a d6 or 2d6 roll.  See Initiative Adjustment for Dex or Adjustment to Reaction for Charisma.

Nine days left in the fundraising period for my adventure.