Races of Outland (updated)

I've been silently working on a project that is an OD&D supplement that includes all my Outland stuff in it. I normally don't like to talk about things I'm working on until they're done, because of the very real (and likely) possibility that I'll never finish. My hard drive is littered with half-baked ideas and unfinished projects. Further, Outland steals from is inspired by so many other sources, I often have doubts about whether sharing such a document would be a good idea to begin with.

Anyways, I figured it would be a nice thing to use in my game and sort of a cool souvenir for my game store players. I really enjoy reading other people's homemade game supplements, and I can appreciate the time and effort that is required to document one's lifted material ideas in a way that can be used by others.

Anyways, to make a long story boring, I at least have the Races part done, so I figured I'd at least share that much, in case I never get any further. It can be found on the "Outland OD&D Game" menu item above, or just get it HERE.

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Stupid Dice Tricks - Thief Skills

The other day I was giving some thought to how I could make thief skills a tad more fun. Rolling percentages can be boring. Rolling a d20 is kind of boring. So I thought about rolling two dice - one to set the target number and the other to test for success/failure (hereafter referred to as the skill die).

The first application of this will be thief skills. The target die will always be a d6. The skill die begins life as a d3, and progresses from there according to the following:

d3 -> d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12 -> d14 -> d16 -> d20 -> d24 -> d30

Success = skill die comes up equal or greater than the number showing on the target die
Failure = skill die comes up less than the number showing on the target die
Super-Fail = skill die does not exceed half the number on the target die

In the tradition of JimFirePrincess, all characters may attempt to use the thief skills, testing a d3 against the target number rolled on the d6, but only the thief may improve and use better dice. The thief gets 4 points at each level (including first), and each point may be spent to increase the die for a particular skill by one step in the dice progression listed above.

Here are the skills, which are more or less standard fare...

Acrobatics: Used for crazy stuff like walking a tightrope. Also used to move past enemies or escape from them without allowing them a parting shot.

Stealth: Move your speed while undetected by your enemies. This is used to move into position for a backstab.

Backstab: This skill is not rolled against the target die. Whatever die type you have for backstab is added to your normal damage die whenever you make a successful attack from behind against an enemy that is unaware of your presence. Thieves attack at +4, while other characters only get the normal +2 for attacking from behind.

Sleight of Hand: Used for picking pockets, cheating at card games, and so forth. If your test die doesn't get at least half the number on the target die, your attempt is noticed.

Locks & Traps: Used for picking locks, disarming mechanical traps, sabotaging equipment, etc. Requires thief tools.

Poison Use: Die type is rolled and added to the d20 roll when making a saving throw vs. poison while attempting to extract poisons/venoms from defeated monsters. Requires thief tools to get the extra die.

Spider Climb: Allows you to move your speed up or down sheer surfaces. Requires leather or lighter armor. Works great with your favorite falling rules!

Scroll Use: Allows the casting of magic-user scrolls, provided an actual magic-user of equal level would be able to memorize a spell of that level. Failure generally results in horrible mishaps.

For your convenience, I have listed the percentage odds of success for each of the die types against a random target number rolled on a d6 in order to help you determine if this system is one you might want to use, or what adjustments you might like to make. However, these percentages shouldn't be shared with players, as they run a high risk of having people game the system. If a player wants to do that, fine, but at least make them do the math themselves!

Skill level 0 [d3]: 33.3%
Skill level 1 [d4]: 41.7%
Skill level 2 [d6]: 58.3%
Skill level 3 [d8]: 68.8%
Skill level 4 [d10]: 75%
Skill level 5 [d12]: 79.2%
Skill level 6 [d14]: 82.1%
Skill level 7 [d16]: 84.4%
Skill level 8 [d20]: 87.5%
Skill level 9 [d24]: 89.6%
Skill level 10 [d30]: 91.7%

Other thoughts:

• This is totally untested, but I hope to present it to the party thief next time we get together and have him try it out.
• I use the cleric tables from Men & Magic for thief experience/level progression, hit dice, saving throws, and fighting capability. If you use the tables from Greyhawk or Basic D&D, the thief will gain levels (and therefore skill points) at a slightly faster rate. Probably negligible, but there you have it.
• Other stuff I considered but didn't include either for simplicity's sake, or to keep the scope of this post narrow: starting thieves with a d4 in each skill, while all other PCs begin (and remain) at d3; upping the skill points to 4 per level; having abilities affect skills - for example, a DEX of 15+ could allow some skills to start one die higher; item-based skill improvements - e.g. masterwork thief tools could give a +1 or increase the die for Locks & Traps, etc.

EDIT: changed to give thieves 4 skill points per level, added acrobatics, and added rule that skill rank cannot exceed twice the thief's level.

What's Not to Love?

From Volume III - The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures:

Outland OD&D Character Sheet

Here is the "official" Outland OD&D character sheet (at least until I decide to change it).
Click HERE for the PDF.

Come Have Some Adventures in Outland

So I finally got up off my butt and I have most of the pieces in place. The official start of this campaign will be Monday night, December 19th, 6:00pm to 9:00pm CST.

System: OD&D+Chainmail (hacked and bastardized, of course)
Setting: Outland - Newly discovered region of your stereotypical D&D planet. You can play as orcs and goblins and go fight things that aren't orcs or goblins.

There are two components to this new "campaign".

The Game Store Game
Beginning December 19th, and every other Monday thereafter, the game will be run at Unique Gifts & Games in Grayslake, IL from 6:00pm to 9:00pm CST. I am willing to handle up to 10 players. Sign-ups are encouraged, but not required, as long as there are less than 10 players.

Upcoming Dates for the Game Store Games
12/19/2011
01/02/2012
01/16/2012
01/30/2012

The Google+/ConstantCon/FLAILSNAILS Game
Beginning December 26th, and every other Monday thereafter, the game will be run online via Google+ hangouts from 10:00pm to 12:00am CST (Tuesday 4:00am to 6:00am GMT). To get added to the list of players that will be randomly selected each week, just shoot me an email at aplus/86erz/org with your FLAILSNAILS PC's class, level, and system he/she was created under. I will do the player selections on Tuesdays. Currently, PCs from any D&Dish systems will be accepted, but I will attempt to have the PCs near each other in level. If we happen get a group that is interested in it, we can do zero-level play, which is a ton of fun in it's own right.

Upcoming Dates for the Google+ Games
12/26/2011
01/09/2012
01/23/2012
02/06/2012

I've made a sad attempt at documenting my house rules and that sort of thing, or at least all the info you'd need to create a new zero-level PCs and advance them to actual 1st-level PCs with classes. It's basically LBBs with a touch of Greyhawk, ascending AC, Chainmail combat (I will switch combat systems from fight to fight depending on my mood because I'm like that), and a few other oddities thrown in for good measure. You can click on the "Outland OD&D Game" link at the top of the page if you are interested in that sort of thing, but it certainly isn't necessary. I'll address anything important as needed before or during play.

Hope to see you there, and please let me know if I've forgotten anything...

Caught the ConstantCon Bug...

Warning: This is a stream-of-consciousness post, and may be incoherent or hard to follow at times. I got up 4 hours earlier than normal, so bear with me...

Having played in Jeff's game the past two weeks, and playing in Evan's game tomorrow, I've pretty much decided it's time for me to run a ConstantCon game myself.

On a side note, Jeff is awesome because he always positions himself in front of the camera with his eyes peeking over the bottom edge like Kilroy, just as if he were looking over a DM screen.

So then the only question becomes what to run?

My latest fetish has been with OD&D+Chainmail. I can't explain it, but I've just been finding rolling the handfuls of d6s very rewarding and more fun the the old single d20 roll.

I think I could make this work, although it might be weird to people at first if they've never done it before.

The setting I really want to run is a big, weird city with lots of dungeons underneath it. Let's say six dungeons of six levels each to start with. Of course if you are in one part of the city, and the dungeon you want to go into is on the opposite end, it will probably take a good bit of work just getting across the city. This will probably leave out wilderness adventures for the most part, but between the potential city and dungeon adventures, there should be plenty to keep people occupied.

This will have the added benefit of allowing me to play with my friend that moved to Atlanta last year.

Here are some more random thoughts about this game, which is still a zygote at this point:

• The city is tentatively called Licentia, the City of Six Sides (it is hexagonal in shape). It is loosely based on a published product that probably no one reading this would be familiar with. Even if they were, it wouldn't really matter because there isn't a great deal my version shares with the original beyond shape and general feel.
• The city is divided into six "districts". Here are the ones I whipped up, subject to change and/or better names - Dreams, Devils, Portals, Golems, (need a few more as well). ConstantCon needs a Multiversal Bazaar, so might as well have it here.
• Shit, we got a Portals district, so we can do anything, really! Carcosa and Cykranosh are definitely fair game. Maybe a portal to the Land of the Lost and New Jersey as well.
• I like funky classes. The Land of Nod magazine always has some cool classes in there, so consider those fair game in my game.
• If you have a FLAILSNAILS character you really like, you should think about it long and hard before you come here. I give out lots of treasure, but I also have no problem killing/maiming/mutating characters.
• I'll could potentially fuck up other DMs' games depending on their disposition. Check with your DM before you come back from my city with a lightsaber or pet otyugh. They might not dig that.

If this is something you might be interested in, I'd love to hear what you think. Am I getting in over my head?

P.S. - So far it looks like Monday nights 10:00PM - 12:00AM CST. Probably every other week.

cliffside view

what lies below