The lands of the Miradon Coast are rich and fertile, an attractive new frontier for the Empire to colonise. You are among the second wave of settlers to seek out a new life on the borderlands of the new world, seekers of wealth and fortune who have come to plunder the lands of the Fallen Kings.
What you know is limited, yet rumours of great sunken ruins filled with the treasures from a bygone age of civilisation draw you on – certainly many adventurers such as yourselves may go out into the wilds and never return, but enough come home with coin and other treasures to make the effort worthwhile. As you step off the ship, you feel the fresh breeze of opportunity wash over you and imagine a future carving out new lands like the great Imperial Governors before you, back in Mykovnia…
Having survived another year as a school teacher, one of the toughest I’ve experienced and (so colleagues of longer service tell me) with challenges not seen since the late 1980’s, a deep reflection about my hobby has descended. Adding to the challenges of my career have been the deeply emotive issues around the collapse of my Mystamyr campaign on Friday nights. Where I perhaps imagined I would be able to run a short science-fiction campaign and then return to Mystamyr, I have come to realise that I need to be realistic about my forthcoming year.
The reality is that I need to make my Friday nights easier to run and more lightly drawn. Having just enjoyed the closing sessions of my online Fantasy Grounds game (also set in Mystamyr), I realise that playing with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is basically more practicable at this time: it takes less prep; the players all know the rules; it’s more abstract as a game, but that’s still a lot of fun to play.
That said, I definitely want to tweak Dungeons & Dragons to fit my much more Old School tastes, making things less about the fighting, more about the exploration and interaction. Thus, I’ve been revisiting my House Rules for 5th Edition, drawing on sage advice from across the community.
This, then, is my proposal for a new Dungeons & Dragons game set upon the new-world shores of Mirador (yes, absolutely inspired by the art of Rodney Matthews and the music of Magnum!). Imagine explorers from the far off shores of Mykovnia arriving to colonise the lands to the west, a rich and fertile world under the spell of a long-past apocalypse. Under the snows of Miradon continent, buried ‘neath the ruins of the Fallen Kings, lie secrets from the greatest civilisation ever to rule. Wealth beyond imagination awaits those brave (or idiotic) enough to claim it. But the challenges are grievous… for no treasure or prize is ever worth anything unless it is hard-won.
House Rules
Two resources have informed my decisions around revising my House Rules more than anything else – although, many of the choices are straight out of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
The first is Dungeonesque, mentioned in my last post, but specifically the Red Box GM’s Guide – full of excellent Old School options and useful new tables!
The second is Bill Webb’s Book of Dirty Tricks, which is less sinister than it sounds! This tome contains some useful House Rules and techniques from the 30+ years of Bill’s own Lost Lands campaign which are also pertinent to my own style and desires.
In summary then, I’ll be proposing we play with the following options…
Old School Expectations
First on the list, it’s important to lay out the Social Contract that I’m offering at my gaming table. The following points from the Dungeonesque GM’s Guide (page 2) are key:
Rulings, Not Rules: Generally the rules are considered guidelines which the GM adjudicates fairly. Rather than argue about official rules during the middle of a game, if there is a question about how something should work, the GM should make a ruling about how something works. The GM has the option to revisit the rule between games and with the help of the players can adjust and revise the rule for future games.
Non-Balanced Encounters: Old-school games do not necessarily have balanced encounters. You can and will encounter creatures and enter combat that can be quite deadly. While the GM may glance at the Challenge Ratings of creatures and take some precautions to not kill the characters, ultimately it is up to the players to choose their own level of risk. Running is often the right answer to a combat encounter!
Roleplaying, Not Skill Checks: Sure, there are rules for doing Charisma checks and handling social encounters, but often the GM will have you roleplay out situations. Actually acting out a situation can be more fun than a simple skill check!
Play To See What Happens: Although the GM may use prepared adventures, the best GM’s allow wiggle room for players to ignore and change storylines. Few planned roleplaying adventures survive contact with the players. Generally, gamemasters should prepare situations, not solutions. Players are amazingly creative. Play to see what happens and let stories emerge collaboratively at the table.
Old School Rules
Drawing on both Dungeonesque and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, I propose to use the following House Rules to evoke some Old School spirit:
Healer’s Kit Dependency: A character can’t spend any Hit Dice after finishing a short rest until someone expends one use of a healer’s kit to bandage and treat the character’s wounds (DMG, page 266)
Slow Natural Healing: Characters don’t regain hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, a character can expend Hit Dice to heal at the end of a long rest, just as with a short rest (DMG, page 267). In my campaign, I’d add that each character regains spent Hit Dice equal to half their total Hit Dice at the beginning of a long rest. Sometimes, the DM might award a full Hit Point recovery after a long rest – for example, after staying in a completely safe and comfy inn instead of resting on the road.
Morale: Intelligent monsters and henchmen both use morale rules. If a leader dies, half their group is incapacitated, or they personally fall below half of their maximum HP, the creatures will try to retreat or surrender if the creature or group leader fails a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. This saving throw is called a Morale Check (DGM’s Guide, page 3).
Initiative Score plus Side Initiative: Each creature has an Initiative score which is a passive Dexterity check: 10 + Dexterity modifier. Combatants are arranged in order from highest Initiative to lowest. To speed up combat, the players roll a d20 for their initiative as a group, or side. The DM also rolls a d20. Neither roll receives any modifiers. Whoever rolls the highest wins initiative, with ties re-rolling. Creatures act when their side acts, in order of Initiative score (DMG, page 270).
Lasting Injury: Whenever you drop to 0 HP, roll on the injury location table (see DGM’s Guide, page 12). With GM approval, use the location to determine a permanent wound such as a lost eye, a chest scar, or broken teeth (DGM’s Guide, page 3).
Destiny Dice: The GM may choose to determine ad hoc story elements by the roll of a die. For example, to determine which character a creature will attack, the GM may roll a die (DGM’s Guide, page 3).
Table Dice Rolls: One simple rule — no cheating. To easily enforce this without incident, I require all, including myself, to roll dice only when it is their turn (or when asked), and to roll all dice that do not require secrecy (things that players cannot know the success or failure of, like disarming a trap or finding a secret door) on the table in front of everyone. The benefit of this is that it builds team spirit as players cheer one another to “Roll that 20!” and even complex combats retain order (Bill’s Book, page 13).
Bill’s Experience Points (see Bill Webb’s Book of Dirty Tricks, pages 9-10)
You can read the whole article in Bill’s book, but in short two things change. First, combat yields experience awards of 1 XP per monster hit point x its CR rating. Secondly, gold pieces are worth 1 XP each when taken from monsters or gained in treasure from the completion of some quest or objective; 1 gold = 1 XP. However, characters only gain experience points for “gold spent on things that each character class would, if living in a Howard-esque world, spend it on”:
- Fighters get it for “wine, women, and song” expenditures;
- Wizards for magical research and similar;
- Clerics for donating to the Church;
- Thieves for stealing or “wine, women, and song”
Experience Points will be awarded on return to a civilised town or village. Characters are limited to gaining one level of experience from such expenditures after each expedition.
New Characters
Finally, players should expect to create Level-0 human characters using the rules from the Dungeonesque Player’s Guide, page 9. While I’m happy to allow the broad range of character classes and options from the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, Mirador is (at least initially) a land being invaded by peasant colonials from Mykovnia. Thus, characters will begin with little ability and not much except their former career – although, I’ll happily consider Backgrounds from wider sources than just Dungeonesque.
Building the Realm…
Assuming anyone wants to come and play in my game, I’m going to start building the realm of Mirador using a combination of modules, my own ideas, and inspiration from the sources already mentioned… and one or two others as well.
Here’s hoping for a game I can manage alongside a busy career.
Game on!