"Bruno takes 2 points of damage. Not enough to kill him, but the spider's bite is poison. Bruno rolls his saving throw against poison, fails to make it, and dies a horrible death." -Dr. Eric Holmes, "The Blue Book" (D&D 1978)

Saturday, May 5, 2012

[Kids] Pics from a wild campaign

Pics from a free-for-all ongoing campaign, played mostly by my 5 year old and myself...



Take my word for it, that party (my PCs and hirelings) in the middle of town may be large, but they're in for a world of trouble.  If you don't think that giant is scary, you have no idea what you're talking about :).  Tough DM -- she is DM, I am GM and player.  She runs the monsters and has final say in the collectively developed narrative flow.  I take care of mechanical things.

The ultra-lite combat system:
Each side rolls 1d6 for initiative.  The side rolling the higher number goes first.  Tied rolls mean simultaneous actions.  A roll to hit is made with a d20.  The GM determines the number needed to hit (most often between 10 and 15), based on capability of the attacker and armor/capabilities of defender.  Rolling this number or higher results in a hit.  When a successful hit is made, the target is entitled to a saving throw to escape defeat (no hp used).  The GM determines a number between 1 and 5 based on the toughness of the defender.  This number or less must be rolled on a d6 by the defender in order to avoid defeat.  A defeated combatant is not killed.   Usually they are captured and teleported to a jail somewhere in a dungeon, from which they may be recovered later.  No using any books or writing anything down (disrupts immersion).

Waaaayyy more role playing than roll playing, believe me. And it's mostly not about combat, but parleying, planning, plotting, sneaking, magic, discussing, story-telling, interacting, acting, and so forth.

Unburdened by thoughts of rules systems and this and that, some of the things she comes up with are just great.  Pure imagination.  Reminders to me of some the best things about rpging, especially the boundlessness.

5 comments:

  1. Sounds awesome! Looking at the pictures: Zanzer's Dungeon, the Dungeon! gameboard--and is that a Boot Hill map?

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    1. Yep, Boot Hill. All this started with playing Dungeon!, modifying it more and more. It really took off when we added all those maps and boards (I think that was was her idea). Then we had it all, underworld (Dungeon! and Zanzer), wilderness (Outdoor Survival), and town (Boot Hill). The board she draws on and some of the minis are from the Pathfinder Beginner Box, so a mix of old and new.

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    2. Awesome. I *love* the mix-and-match boards.

      I'm totally going to steal this idea in the future. I have most of those boards. Why did I sell my Boot Hill set with the map? I should've realized it would be a good D&D town map!

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    3. Yeah, the Boot Hill town is good for D&D. I have fond memories of BH, but absolutely zero interest in the old west setting these days.

      Funny story, when we first started playing Dungeon!, I wondered why my daughter was standing up and rolling the dice on the card table near where we were playing on the floor, then I realized, I was saying, "roll on the table..." lol

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  2. Oh, and Outdoor Survival for some old-school cred.

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