The Fantasy Game

You might have heard this question once or twice (or countless times): do we have too many sets of old school rules being produced? My own head swings indecisively back in forth between “yes, please by all that's unholy stop the madness” and “let a hundred flowers bloom” positions.

Sifting through the massed ranks of posts from the cutting room floor (discussed yesterday), it surprised me--given that ambivalence--to remember that six months back I was thinking of synthesizing a number of the subsystems I had been jacking around with on this blog into an unholy beast of my own.

Like the Domain Game, the Fantasy Game (yes, as Jim the Wampus noticed yesterday the tongue-in-cheek working title was based on the likely apocryphal story about D&D's own working title) was supposed to be less about being a complete system—that likely no one would ever play—but a collection of variant sections that could be plopped piece by piece into someone's campaign.

After yesterday's round of input, I had thought I would clean it up and post as something fully digestable. Memory, though, is a funny thing. Not only do I not remember where some of the ideas were going, truth be told, I didn't even remember typing this out when I rediscovered yesterday.

So instead of a bang-you-over-the-head complete vision, here's a gamble and experiment on my part that can be taken in two ways by a reader: 1. a window into how game design ideas can develop in different tracks over time on a blog (you'll see my bracketed comments from this morning interspersed); or 2. an “open source” outline of a project which you can feel free to add, subtract, modify, riff, comment, or (more likely) ignore completely.

Alternative character generation system

1. Quasi-Traveller, background and event-oriented though, not adult career. Childhood and young adulthood events determine dice pool for attributes. [This system was realized here]
2. Players have choice of background (urban, rural, barbarian, demi-human, exotic) [Brad of Skull Crushing for Justice has been developing something along these lines.]
3. Random equipment table option [modified from my LotFP one]
4. All characters with INT 15 or over start with one cantrip (0-level Magic-User spell)
5. All characters with WIS 15 or over start with one orison (0-level Cleric spell) [I had helped develop some old school-feeling 0-level spells for Basic Fantasy RPG around this time.]

Alternative class advancement

1. Characters start at 0-level. Neutral alignment, chain armor max, only weapons that do d6 max, d6 hit points.
2. First level obtained at 200 experience points. In consultation with GM (based on performance), player picks class and alignment.
3. First level characters can only be picked from the standard Basic or OD&D classes.
4. At 4^th level player can choose to continue in standard class or pick a new sub-class that the PC qualifies for [Thinking on split classes progressed here.]
5. At 5^th level the PC can choose to start a career in a “leader set” class.

Sub-classes

Each sub-class would add a certain amount of exp to level advancement. Maybe same for all classes or each parent class. Each subclass would have new abilities and some restrictions.

Fighter

Hunter

Archer

Beserker

Champion/Noble Warrior

Beast Master

Cleric

Druid

Monk

Rune Caster

Mystic

Witch Hunter

Magic User

Elemental College (Fire, Earth, Water, or Air)

Witch

White mage 

Black mage

Necromancer

Illusionist

Sage

Alchemist

Psionicist

Thief

Assassin

Mountebank 

Scout

Bard/Skald

Delver/Dungeoneer

Leader Set Class

War Lord

Noble

Spy Master

High Priest

Merchant Prince

Guild Master

Court Mage

Optional game play mode in which campaign can be played between two different sets of PCs in alternating sessions.

Typical adventurer set. Played as normal D&D. Footloose characters who will occasionally work for the second set

Leader set. PCs start as leader level class: military, noble, religious, wizard, guildmaster, gang leader, merchant prince, barbarian leader etc. PCs create missions and design/build locales that the other set can play in. Gameplay more similar to Birthright, but with less abstraction [Domain Game grew up out of this germinal].

“Pendragon D&D” epic campaign time 

1. Adventures limited to one season per year.
2. Charts or mini-games for: Matters of the Heart, Wee Ones and Family Relations, Business Investments, Research and Training, Religious and Arcane Affairs.