Beyond the Wall and OSE: Playbooks

[Cruentus]

So, coming from the Gavin Norman interview thread, we got into talking about OSE as it pertained to Dolmenwood, and I mentioned my blending of OSE and Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures by Flatland Games, while also incorporating Dolmenwood subsystems into my campaign.

@schneeland asked if I could create a thread about some draft Playbooks (a Beyond the Wall character generation method) that I had worked up (read: copied liberally) from Beyond the Wall (BtW).

So, I will attempt to attach a sample, as these were created for my OSE game (personal use and all, and not intended to be sold, etc.), and as mentioned, borrow liberally and in most cases completely from BtW.

So, please take a look at the Fighter Playbook for OSE, along with the Elf addition, which can be used to replace one of the Fighter tables if you wanted your elf to be from a different location than the starting village - for those who don't know, BtW, using the Playbooks for chargen, assumes the party will all be from the same village, and so will have existing relationships, connections with other party members, and minor events or adventures that another party member helped you with. This helps to establish place and grounding in your starting village. Without getting too deep, the rules also encourage the players to also add locations and NPCs to the village either based on their playbook result, or just by adding what they'd like, when indicated in chargen.

I'm happy for feedback, conversation, ideas, suggestions, etc. If folks like this, I can also add the other classes that I worked up, all based on OSE Advanced classes I was using in my Greyhawk campaign.

 

[schneeland]

I think I will only be able to provide meaningful feedback once I have the PDFs from the DW Kickstarter, but thanks a lot already!

 

[Cruentus]

No problem. This is modified from the BtW playbooks, but I removed things like skills and spells that are assigned at chargen, because OSE doesn't have skills, and magic works differently. One section does have weapon proficiency because I was using the optional weapon proficiencies rules from OSE Advanced. So, nothing from DW is included in this playbook. And with a handful of rolls, could create a human fighter for OSE (stats + some background and a little flavor).

Free BtW playbooks are available on Drivethru: Beyond the Wall - Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings - Flatland Games | Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures | DriveThruRPG.com

Which would give a point of comparison. BtW does a nice job of combining three core classes (fighter, mage, thief) into all kinds of archetypes for play, while retaining an OSE feel.

 

[Malequio]

Wow, this is amazing, did you use all the playbooks? or you just selected some of them? Did you use playbooks with less atachment to a class like "the forgotten son" or "the last of a fallen house"? Please show us more

 

[Cruentus]

Wow, this is amazing, did you use all the playbooks? or you just selected some of them? Did you use playbooks with less atachment to a class like "the forgotten son" or "the last of a fallen house"? Please show us more

Thanks! What I did was I pulled what I considered the relevant playbooks from BtW, and then modified and applied it to an OSE Advanced Class. So, iirc, the “Would-be Knight” gets modified to apply to the Knight in OSE. The “Novice Templar” becomes the Paladin, etc.

I’m happy to share and discuss more of the conversion work I did.

I didn’t really try to work on adapting Beyond classes that were essentially multi-classed. What I am now doing is using the Beyond classes as is, Chargen, Skills, and Spells in my Greyhawk campaign using an OSE rules chassis. It’s been working well so far.

 

[Malequio]

Thanks! What I did was I pulled what I considered the relevant playbooks from BtW, and then modified and applied it to an OSE Advanced Class. So, iirc, the “Would-be Knight” gets modified to apply to the Knight in OSE. The “Novice Templar” becomes the Paladin, etc.

I’m happy to share and discuss more of the conversion work I did.

I didn’t really try to work on adapting Beyond classes that were essentially multi-classed. What I am now doing is using the Beyond classes as is, Chargen, Skills, and Spells in my Greyhawk campaign using an OSE rules chassis. It’s been working well so far.

Great, I'm actually tempted to use the playbooks as a kind of background, and then choose a class. It might make character creation slower, but it could generate things like a mage apprentice who becomes a thief (like the grey mouser) or things like that, I don't know. I'll have to give it a try.

 

[Cruentus]

Great, I'm actually tempted to use the playbooks as a kind of background, and then choose a class. It might make character creation slower, but it could generate things like a mage apprentice who becomes a thief (like the grey mouser) or things like that, I don't know. I'll have to give it a try.

That would absolutely work. You could roll on the Beyond playbooks without applying the stat elements, skills, etc. I found that either going with the OSE style classes directly, or using the Beyond classes fully made things easier. Trying to fit multiclassing into OSE didn’t feel as organic
as it was implemented in Beyond, even though there are examples like Halfling or Elf Classes.

I’d be interested in how you develop this out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Playbooks are the best. I wish more games used them.

 

[Cruentus]

Playbooks are the best. I wish more games used them.

Agree. I've just sat and rolled up small parties and individual characters, and it always gives me interesting backstory and roleplay ideas, without being onerous or too long. I especially like the way Beyond bakes in the connections to each other party member and the village.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Agree. I've just sat and rolled up small parties and individual characters, and it always gives me interesting backstory and roleplay ideas, without being onerous or too long. I especially like the way Beyond bakes in the connections to each other party member and the village.

Have you see the playbooks in their other games, Grizzled Adventurers and Through Sunken Lands? They do a great job of tuning the experience.

In Grizzled Adventurers, there's just one main playbook, but it creates a curmudgeon adventurer with old grudges and debts connecting them to the rest of the party.