Traverse Fantasy

We have goblin (halfling) and half-devil (elf) characters in the OD&D / FMC campaign I’m running , which has led me to start thinking about how they actually ‘work’. This got me thinking that it might be worthwhile to compile the modified character rules I’m using, which take influence from Necropraxis and Swords & Wizardry . I also played a bit with experience points and levels; for example, I reduced the peak experience requirements for fighters and mages, and also reduced the mage’s peak level from 11 to 10. The goal has been to not mess with the quirky bits of OD&D , retaining the same general experience and play-style while making it more intuitive. I'm most proud of the one-roll turn undead table. Class Selection This is what I’m doing for characters to start mid-level: roll prime requisites, and apply the relative bonuses as written. Multiple your prime requisite for each class by 1,000, and that’s your starting experience in that class should you accept it....

Check me out, bitches! I said I wasn't going to, but I did! This morning I ran my first session of OD&D or, rather, my retroclone Fantastic Medieval Campaigns ( what difference does it make? ). Something I tried to do was not run it according to the principles of so-called old-school play, but rather in its original context as a war game. This meant using some mid-level characters and setting the campaign not in a dungeon, but in an overworld hex map (the one from Outdoor Survival , no less) where players can reasonably expect to run into enemies and duke it out on a big map. But this sort of raises a question for myself and the good handful of communists who signed up for the campaign (whether they played in this session or plan to participate in a later one). OD&D is undoubtedly about genocidal race war. Like, come on. Be real. Others have litigated it, deciding to treat it as an ironic experiment to get into the mind of a white settler and play Blood Meridian . But I ...