An OSR experiment - The rose petaled road with a small but vicious smiling dog [2]

“Where all is pink, we shall meet. When skies be blue and [only] willows weep”.

Ol’d6 – playing white box D&D using d6 and wargaming ideas

Here is an idea for using only d6s in white box D&D (and other similar OSRs)

The Hunter from Bloodborne: new class for Old School D&D

So, there is a new souls game. Except that now, it is not about souls.
It is about blood.

Mad Max 4: Fury Road, Old School Stats for Imperator Furiosa and Max

Dark Souls OSR Tabletop rpg (3) – Combat Mechanics: Defense rolls

Dark Souls OSR project: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Today we talk about one of the most important aspects of Dark Souls – Combat. Maybe the hardest aspect to translate from the electronic game to a tabletop rpg, the combat in Dark souls is skill based. The better the player, the better the chances of the character surviving. So much in fact that there are players able to finish Dark Souls almost without leveling up their characters stats or equipment. But an rpg is made – normally – with random numbers and, if your character stats are bad, no matter how 'good' you understand one system, you will probably still die.

Although it is possible to try emulating skill through a game (for example, Chess is a game based entirely on a person's skill), the main objective here will be trying to translate the 'feel' of Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, you always feel like your way of playing and reacting affect the game – how could we do something similar in a tabletop rpg?

Thus I introduce the 'Defense Rolls'. There are 6 types of defense rolls, one for each main attribute:

. Strength defense: Pushing, Trampling, Smashing.

. Dexterity defense: Dodging, rolling, evading.

. Constitution defense: Resisting, interposing, absorbing attacks.

. Inteligence defense: Foretelling, Feinting, fe

. Wisdom defense: Perceiving, acting on instincts.

. Charisma defense: Intimidating, Luck.

Besides the Saving Throws values, a character would have also Defense values. If you are playing with a classic OSR class, every one of their defense rolls will start at 15 at first level and receive +1 after each even level (so, +1 at level 2, +2 at level 4 etc), and will also receive +1 if the attribute is 13-15, +2 if it is 16 or 17, and +3 if 18. If you are playing with the 'Chosen Undead' special class, then your Defense starts at 20+ and depends entirely on your improved attribute modifiers.

In a manner similar to Saving Throws, defense rolls are defensive maneuvers a character may use wherever it seems plausible for him do to so. Wherever a player receives damage, he may narrate how he would defend from it and roll against the appropriate defense value. If successful, the damage is halved and; if it is a failure, the damage received is doubled. If the damage source already needed a saving throw, then either it is not possible to make a defense roll, or the damage will be nullified if both actions are successful – the GM must decide.

For example, let's suppose your 2 nd level fighter is attacked by a giant rat that hits for 20 damage – enough to kill him at that moment. You then say that the fighter will push the rat back using strength in order to defend from it, but the GM that is not possible – the rat is too big for that. So, instead, the player says that he will try absorbing the attack and Defense roll with constitution. He has Con 14, which gives him a Constitution Defense of 13 (+1 being level 2, +1 constitution modifier). He rolls a 11 – a failure – so the damage is doubled and the character dies, reviving later in the bonfire.

In another time, the same fighter is attacked by a pyromancer's fireball, receiving 30 damage. The attack naturally allows for a saving throw, which the character succeeds, halving the damage to 15. However, he wants to negate the damage – so, he tries rolling. Sadly, the fighter fails and the damage goes back to 30 – killing him again.

And that is the idea with Defense Rolls: the characters are able to narrate how they would defend against an attack and may have some control over what happen to their character. And many different monsters will have different modifiers for each kind of defense, which will give some tactical density for the players to know what kind of monsters they are attacking. But I will explain that in future parts.

Until then,

Valete!

If you liked this post, you may help me improve by sharing it in your social networks. Also, if you are curious, give it a look at my others works and consider becoming my patreon.

Dark Souls rpg OSR (2) – Classes and 'The Chosen Undead' class

In my last post, I discussed the basics of what makes Dark Souls: Souls, Humanity and Death. Now, I'll talk about another fundamental aspect necessary for the game - the classes. I will also talk about a new class for OSR: 'The Chosen undead.

Considering all the basic and specialized classes of OSR (Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Thief, Paladin, Druid, Ranger etc), I believe all of them can be used without much changing. However, the GM must adapt them to the Dark Souls lore, although much of Dark Souls is still a mistery. Most of the game passes only in a small area of the world, and that leaves a lot of space for the GM to create new things - so, adapting the classes lore should not be a problem and the GM should not be afraid of inventing.

However, there is a very important and specific Dark Souls 'class': The Chosen Undead, the character that the players of the electronic game plays. Although it is possible to choose amongst many different 'jobs' at the start of character creation, those are, in the end, not very much different from one another - all depends on how you are going to level up your character and what equipment you will use. So, basically, there is only one 'class' in Dark Souls, and I would like to propose an adaptation of it to tabletop rpg:

First things to say is that class would be very special and with particular rules, escaping from the OSR normal pattern. All its characteristics would come from attributes improvements and from its level system. Different from other classes, the Chosen Undead would follow the Dark Souls table of progression, which you can see in this link. Every time the Chosen Undead collects enough souls to level up, it may go to the nearest sacred bonfire and spend the necessary souls. With each level, The Chosen Undead gains +1 improvement to add to an attribute (it is interesting that the player notes the main basic value of an attribute and the improved one in sepparate). Different from all other player characters, The Chosen Undead receives a +1 modifier for every 2 points of improvement beyond 10 - similar to d20 system. So, Strength 23 would give +6 modiffier, for example. The maximum you may have at one improved attribute is 50 (a +20 modiffier).

It is important to note, however, that the Improved attributes are not 'absolutes' in the fictional world. What I mean is that, if you have a giant with Strength 19 agains a Chosen Undead with 38 Improved Strength, but only 14 natural strength, the Giant will be stronger. The Chosen Undead is only able to compare against creatures of relative size - so, a warrior with 17 Stength against a Chosen Undead with 19 improved strength, the Chosen Undead would be stronger. 

Besides the different level progression and attributes, the Chosen Undead does not have Hit Dice. Instead, they have HP equal to their improved Constitution value, and receive +1 hp every 10 levels. So, a Chosen Undead level 94 and with 38 Con would have 47 hit points. If it is needed to know how many HD would the Chosen Undead have, divide its level by 20 (divide by 10, then divide by 2). So, a level 380 Chosen Undead would be equivalent to a 16 HD creature.

In resume:

Chosen Undead

HD: None.  Hps = Constitution +1 / 10 levels; equivalent HD equal to level/ 20.

Attack bonus: None, although with Strength improvement it can go as high as +20 in melee attacks and with Dexterity improvement it can go as +20 in ranged attacks.
Weapons and Armor: Any.

Saving Throws: Começam em 20+, e usam os modificadores dos atributos. They start at a 20+ saving throws, but all its saving throws are modified by attributes. I will talk more of that in the next post.

XP progression: Equal to Dark Souls I, being able to reach very high levels (500, 600th etc).

I hope you folks liked it. Next post will be about Mechanics: Saving Throws and Combat Maneuvres, where I will try explainning how to emulate Dark Souls mechanically in a tabletop rpg.

Until then,
Valete!

Image: I did not make it; I only added a little bit of text.

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Dark Souls rpg OSR (1) – The Basics: Souls, Humanity and Death

Last time, I discussed what makes Dark Souls simliar to Old School rpg, and presente my idea of a Dark souls rpg project. So now, let's get started with it.

Adapting Dark Souls to a tabletop rpg is no easy endeavour, 'cause most of the game's experience comes from personal discovery and experimentation of each player, be it understanding the complex game mechanics, interpreting the game's story or dealing with bosses adn whatnots. Such individual experiences are not possible to be reproduced fully within a tabletop rpg, which is by design a social game. However, by the same token, there are experiences that the electronic game cannot simulate either, right?

With that said, I'd like to point first and foremost that the objective here is translating the 'feel' of Dark Souls to the tabletop, together with the idea of its mechanics, like the engaging combat and mistifying story. So, with that out of the way, let's dive into the very basics of Dark Souls -> Souls, Humanity and Death.

Em Dark Souls, as criaturas têm almas – que, no jogo, é uma substância concreta e coletável a qual seria realmente o 'âmago' de um ser. Existem muitos tipos de almas no jogo, e parece que elas se arrumam em grandes grupos (almas de gigantes, almas de heróis renomados, almas de heróis desconhecidos etc.). No jogo, as almas são, ao mesmo tempo, tanto o 'gold' quanto o 'xp' do jogador – você as usa para aumentar de nível (melhorar seus atributos) e para comprar e aprimorar itens.

In Dark Souls, every creature (and even some unliving things too) have souls - which in the game is not only the 'heart' of a beings existance, but also a collectable, something that can be contained and used. In fact, souls are the main source of power - used to level up the stats of a character - but also the main currency there! We could believe that people use other kinds of trading resources in the world of Dark Souls but, in the game, we may only use souls.

The curious with that mechanic of 'Gold as Xp' is very similar to the old D&D editions, where characters would gain 1xp for each gold piece they would hoard. Thus, that is completely appliable to the Dark Souls OSR I'm proposing - each XP a character gain may be used to level up or to 'buy' stuff. The character can store the souls inside him and just subtract them when needing to lvl up or buy an item. The thing is that the player will have to note on his sheet the 'XP total spent' in his character and the 'XP not used yet'. Also, the GM may accept other kinds of currencies in the game besides Souls - since the tabletop rpg may have some liberties beyond the electronic game.

Now, talking about Humanity, in Dark Souls there are a group of special souls: The Lord Souls, the souls which were taken by the Lords (or gods) to defeat the Ancient Dragons and create the Age of Fire. One of those Lords was, supposedly, the Pigmy - an ancestral of mankind - who would have shared his soul with all humanity. Therefore, the 'dark soul' would be the fragment the Pigmy gave to each human, and that is the Humanity score we see in Dark Souls.

In the tabletop rpg, Humanity would be a 7th atribute that the players would have to roll during character creation which would control a character's sanity and also the be amount of dark soul he has gathered. A Humanity score of 13-15 would give +5% XP by the end of the gaming session, 16-17 would give 10 and 18+ would give 15%. However, having high humanity is a risk, for many creatures lust to devour those souls. Therefore, the same bonus should be applied to the random encounter chance of the adventurer party, making it easir for monsters to attack them (e that percentage is cummulative with each and every member! The Dark Souls world is indeed a dangerous one!).

Humanity is crucial because of its connection with Death. In Dark Souls, all characters are Undead, people cursed with never dieing. When an Undead is killed, his body disintegrates, together with his items, and he will be reborn in 1d4 hours at the last bonfire that he've been. In the game it is said that, with each passing hour and with each extra death, an Undead has its humanity lost and, together with it, also its memmories, reason and emotions. Thus, every time a character is killed, he loses 1d6 Humanity. The lower his humanity goes, the more zombified and irrational he becomes. With 8 Humanity, his senses are blurring and he oft loses his train of though. With Humanity 3, he is ravening maniac, but still has a grasp with reality. If a character goes to Humanity 0, or dies without his soul ever being connected to any bonfire, he becomes a Hollow. He is reborn at the same place he died as a complete ferocious and animalike zombie. If he is killed at this state, his equipment may be stolen before disintegrated and will not go back to him.

In order for a character to gain Humanity, he may find it in soul fragments found in monsters, which is a very rare occurrence. With every encounter with monsters, the Gm may roll a 1d100. If it is 100, there was 1 humanity and the GM may roll again, and, for every 100 rolled, there was another 1 humanity. The best way to gain humanity is killing humans with high Humanity. Someone with 13 to 15 humanity gives 1 humanity, 16-17 gives 2 and 18+ gives 3 to their killer.

And thus we end the first part of this fan project for Dark Souls old school tabletop rpg. Next time I will talk about the character classes that can be used and I will introduce a new one with very special mechanics - The Chosen Undead class.

Until then,
Valete!

If you liked this post, you may help me improve by sharing it in your social networks. Also, if you are curious, give it a look at my others works and consider becoming my patreon.