Friday, February 24, 2012

20 Untimate Questions: OSR Dating Service

Following Rients's lead, I've filled out Brendan's survey to determine Olde Schuul Gamery Suitability.  Fortunately, no photo is required. 
  1.  Ability scores generation method? 3d6 in order, various abilities can be swapped depending on race
  2. How are death and dying handled? save vs death at 0 HP or lower, fail and you're dead; succeed and you're still probably dead but there's some potential for a Michael-Myers-type  "He's not dead yet?!" situation.
  3. What about raising the dead?  Did I mention that there are no clerics in my game?
  4. How are replacement PCs handled?  Roll 'em up and cram 'em in like they always belonged. 
  5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else? Group, with some individual action in special cases
  6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?  If you roll a 1 or 20 you roll a 12 sider to determine the extent of the hilarity or badassedness. 
  7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet? Stuff that falls on your head doesn't hurt so much
  8. Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?  Everyone knows that it is impossible to hurt your friends unless you blow off their birthday parties or make fun of their hair.
  9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?  Run from some, make friends with others, or you'll be the ones getting killed
  10. Level-draining monsters: yes or no?  They do exist, I suppose. Is that a big deal?
  11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?  This is D&D not T-ball.
  12. How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?  As long as everything seems reasonable I don't really bother too much.
  13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time? You have to wait for enough down time for me to assess XPs, but training is only required once every 3 levels to meet OSHA requirements.  New spells have to be found/learned/bought/what have you.   
  14. What do I get experience for? experience is doled out based on acreage of graph paper explored modified by things like encounter toughness, cool ideas, and re-enactments of  A-team "plan coming together" montages.
  15. How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?  My players don't bother looking too often so...
  16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?  They're highly encouraged but no one seems to take me up on it.  Morale is handled at my whim.
  17. How do I identify magic items?  What makes you think there will be magic items?  Just kidding.  I usually just tell the players what neighborhood the items are in and they figure out the rest from there, though I might poach Rients's idea of using read magic.
  18. Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?  Sure, if you're in a big city.  But imitations and worthless nostrums are prevalent so buyer beware.
  19. Can I create magic items? When and how?  MUs can make scrolls and potions whenever they have free time and spare cash to burn.
  20. What about splitting the party?  Against each other?  that might be fun.

2 comments:

  1. LOL @ OSR dating service:

    wat? no save-or-die? it's over! we're clearly not compatible

    ReplyDelete
  2. "wat? no save-or-die? it's over! we're clearly not compatible"

    Ha! I've already taken my kid out of your insanely cutthroat t-ball league.

    ReplyDelete