The Marches Campaign

Scott · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:20 pm Post subject: Pre-campaign discussion

This thread is for discussion of the upcoming OD&D campaign.

The ruleset for the campaign is the original "Three Little Books" (3LB) from the first Dungeons and Dragons set -- "Volume I: Men & Magic"; "Volume II: Monsters & Treasure"; and "Volume III: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures."

Some gaps are filled using other rules. A couple of non-human abilities are adapted from Chainmail, as referenced in their descriptions in OD&D Vol. I. I'm using the initiative, surprise, movement, combat sequence, and some notes on spell memorization from the Moldvay edition of Basic D&D.

That's it. I'm not using any other material from Chainmail, B/X, AD&D, or any other edition. I'm also not using material from the OD&D Supplements Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods Demigods & Heroes, or Swords & Spells; or from The Strategic Review. That means we have a very small, sparse system of rules.

I'm working on the Player's Handbook for the campaign now. For the most part, it's just OD&D Vol. I with better editing, organization, and illustrations. I'm inserting "boxed text" interpretations, clarifications, house rules, and setting notes, e.g.:

"Note: There is no uniform appearance for non-human characters in The Marches Campaign. Elves may be tall shining knights or short gnarled cutthroats. Dwarves might have beards or handlebar mustaches or ludicrous sideburns. A Halfling may be a Hobbit, or may have rat teeth, donkey ears, and big black buckle-boots. These matters are at the discretion of the player."

A lot of the now-central assumptions of D&D didn't come about until later supplements and editions. D&D in its original 1974 form was very bare-bones, so you'll almost certainly be unlearning some things as we play. I'm still doing the same thing.

There's no description of non-human characters' physical appearance or culture. There's no thief class. Elves can switch classes between adventures. Halflings suck. Hit points get rerolled at every level. Kobolds, goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins seem to form a rough hierarchy of the same creature family. Gnolls may be hybrids of gnomes and trolls. Spells are vaguely defined, their effects subject to interpretation. Magic swords are intelligent. +1 is a big deal.

Uniformity and standardization were later "improvements" -- with the 3LB, the "Referee" is presented with a lot of blank space. I now look at this as a feature, not a bug. I'd rather make that stuff up myself. Each individual OD&D campaign and ruleset goes its own direction by necessity, and may or may not come to resemble any later edition of D&D.

Now, on to setting. The Avalon Hill boardgame Outdoor Survival is among the "Recommended Equipment" listed in OD&D. OD&D Vol. 3 provides guidelines for turning the Outdoor Survival game map into the wilderness setting for a D&D campaign. I'm using these guidelines, along with the OS map, as the geography of the initial campaign setting.

An intrepid gamer has transcribed the OS map onto one of the Judges Guild numbered hex maps. As I have several of those exact same blank numbered maps, I'm using this invaluable aid in making my own hand-drawn map.

The campaign takes place in the Marches outlying the Great Kingdom. The world beyond the Marches will be very vaguely defined to begin with, consisting of the Great Kingdom; its capital, known in the Marches as The City Afar; and its state religion, the Great Church.

I'm using several old Judges Guild products for this campaign, and their backstories, inhabitants, treasures, and so on will be integrated into the campaign background.

I will be able to post almost every day, generally in the early morning and/or early evening. Players should be able to post *something* almost every day.

There will be times when someone, including me, needs a few days or a week off. These times should be infrequent. If you regularly lag behind the group to the detriment of the game, I'll politely remove you from the group, hopefully with no hard feelings. Long pauses are the death of PBP campaigns, as you've no doubt noted.

Scott · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject:

My timetable for beginning play is either Sunday, April 6th or Sunday, April 13th, depending on how things go.

WyzardWhately · (Lars) Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 260

Looks like I'm in. What are the PCs going to look like?

Scott · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject:

3d6 in order, adjust if you like according to the "raising and lowering" rules, and maybe either 2nd or 3rd level, although to be honest I'm leaning towards 1st. You gain the early levels pretty fast using the original xp rules (100 xp per monster HD *and* 1 xp per gold piece), and most monsters only do 1d6 damage, even things like trolls. If we're going to do a 1974 game, it'd be cool to do it from the beginning.

I wouldn't do more than a sentence or two of background until you're 4th level or so. If you do more than that, I'll steal it for the setting if it fits, and "you came through a gate" if it doesn't.

WyzardWhately · (Lars) Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 260

Cool. I look forward to seeing our rolls get thrown up on here. You might also want to detail how raising and lowering works once we get that far.

Scott · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:26 pm Post subject:

Scott · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:30 am Post subject:

I'm not making extensive use of illustrations in the rules/setting doc, but I am adding a cover and probably section break illustrations from a variety of old school sources.

I will probably *not* use Otus, Trampier, or several of my other favorites because of their strong associations with other versions of D&D. I'd like to keep an OD&D vibe, albeit without the "stroke patient painting a van" quality of the original rulebooks' illustrations.

This is the front cover I'm using right now:

Below is one of my favorite illustrations, but since I'm not using Eldritch Wizardry, I'm probably not using Orcus. Also, I didn't want to waste people's toner on all that black space.

The document should come in at right around 20 total pages, counting cover, and will be in .pdf format.

I'll probably also do a forum banner shortly.

WyzardWhately · (Lars) Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 260

Orcus is a fucking pimp, yo.

Nick · (Sinlocah) Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 121

WyzardWhately · (Lars) Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 260

Pretty damned interesting article. I wonder if that diamond DNA thing will take off.

John Thompson · (Ymmas Ragah) Joined: 25 Mar 2008 Posts: 116

Hi. I'm John.

Ten years ago, I played a troubadour/damage augmentation switch in an Earthdawn campaign of Scott's. Back to the scene of the crime.

Scott · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject:

By way of brief explanation, an Earthdawn supplement gave troubadours a talent called "Songs of Blood" or something similar, by which they could take damage to themselves, which would confer a directly proportional bonus to actions taken by all of their allies.

So about once a combat, John's troubadour would play the Kill Riff, blood would squirt out of his ears, his tongue would explode, and everyone else in the party would go Epic Level Batshit on the hapless villains. Like many mechanics in Earthdawn 1e, it was terribly degenerate without really meaning to be (as opposed to, say, Exalted).

Nick · (Sinlocah) Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 121

Right after John used his ability (STRUM), blood would squirt out of Scott's ears and nose as he attempted to control his annoyance at another encounter gone down the shitter.

Scott · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject:

There was also a beastmaster ability, "Claw Frenzy," that allowed the beastmaster to blow a large amount of Karma Points (essentially, "do cool things" points) at once, on one attack, essentially making a mid-level beastmaster into a one-shot low-yield subtactical nuclear warhead.

Encounters devolved to this:

Beastmaster: IMMA CHARGIN MY LAZOR!
Troubadour: *strum*
Beastmaster: RAHHHH!
Other Party Members: WE ATTACK, ON FIRE WITH THE GLORY OF ROCK!
GM: *facepalm*
Unspeakable Horror: AHHHHHHHH YA BEAT MEH

Scott · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:58 pm Post subject:

I may institute a rule that if you keep an updated scan of your character sheet, HANDWRITTEN ON NOTEBOOK PAPER, uploaded to the forum, you get to reroll one of your Hit Dice at each level, keeping the higher total.

The other acceptable medium is the back of a spiral notebook under a hand-drawn Van Halen symbol or set of Led Zeppelin runes.