Microlite20 : the smallest thing in gaming

greywulf · Feb 4, 2007

derek_cleric said:
I added Lite20 to the Macropedia summary of lite systems. I've been away for awhile or I would have done it earlier. Hospitals suck!

Hospitals indeed do suck, hope all is better now. At least they're better than the alternative, I guess!

Thanks for the addition, much appreciated. I'm still ploughing through the Big Shiny Macropedia pdf and aim to have a *nearly* finished article by Wednesday or Thursday. Or Friday, maybe. Depends on the rest of my workload, really.

We'll see.

Pilsnerquest · Feb 5, 2007

Greywulf, has this thread ever caused you to think about geting a bunch of people together and mashing out a set of not necsserily D20 compliant rules?

Pilsnerquest

kensanata · Feb 5, 2007

Slave Riders of Rockwall

When I ran Slave Riders of Rockwall by Bert the Ogre at a Con, there were about 20 adventurers present in the hall where the baron announced the prize, and the baron’s hunter offered a little map showing the are north of the Rinau river with of the four farms and two lodges burnt. While travelling, getting lost, fighting woodland creatures, and trying to storm the castle, the other adventurers offered a convenient means of getting help & healing.

My three level 1 players (two fighters and a mage) finally found the help of another party of four including a cleric, but even with their help, fighting stick-men in the forest, dire rats, and small monstrous spiders proved to be too much. When the goblins finally fought back, throwing javelins from the walls and with a sortie on wolf-back, the party managed to shoot down a wolf rider, fight back the others, bandage the fallen goblin, and retreat back into the forest. When threatened, the goblin mentioned the drow hiding beneath the castle, and access to a large city underground.

At this point, my party had been hit too hard, and felt their doom approaching in large strides. They returned to the baron, told him what they knew, handed over the goblin, got a reward of 50gp for their pains, and gave up.

I think the straw that broke their back was the goblin cook evading all attacks and striking them with his pan while calling for help…

greywulf · Feb 5, 2007

Pilsnerquest said:
Greywulf, has this thread ever caused you to think about geting a bunch of people together and mashing out a set of not necsserily D20 compliant rules?

Yep. I'd be tempted to throw d20 compliance completely out of the window if it weren't for all those lovely resources we have at hand.

D&D is the Microsoft Windows of the role-playing world (though the OGL does give it a healthy does of Linuxness too). It's good enough to use, easy to skirt around the broken bits, generates a lot of net traffic because parts of it are badly written and hard to understand but it's everywhere.

Enough of the rpg = operating systems for one day

I'd use d6s, no character classes, stats tied to variable skills (like Microlite20), action points and some kind of schtick bonus system. Here's an example Microlite-ish character sheet:

Derek the Cleric

STR 3
DEX 2
MIND 2
CHA 3

Sub 1
Phys 3
Know 2
Comm 3

Action points: 4
Schtick: extra d6 against Undead
Schtick: extra d6 if his religion is taunted
Schtick: deduct d6 against fey. They scare him

Add the stat and skill together. That's how many d6's to roll. Use an action point to get another. If any of your Schticks come into play, add (or deduct) those too. Roll a load of dice against a DC, measure success (damage, etc) by how much you exceed by.

Simple, fast, and lots and lots of dice

Not that I've thought of this much...........

greywulf · Feb 5, 2007

Microlite20 at a Con!!! Excellent!!!

Kensanata, how was it received? Thoughts? Opinions?

You got me drooling now, I want to know everything...........

kensanata · Feb 5, 2007

greywulf said:
Microlite20 at a Con [...] how was it received?

Some people wanted Das Schwarze Auge (the D&D of the German speaking world) and gave it a pass. Other's liked the idea of a homebrew. One the D&D properties that is part of M20 made little sense to some of the players: Weak mages at low levels. Tied to that, the loosing hit-points for spells was not well received. Even the one player who knew D&D in and out felt somehow constrained by it, always wondering whether spending those hit-points was actually worth it. This same player also wondered about warriors and claimed that magic users wearing armor and fighting would be much better off. (But he played a fighter anyway.) I remained unconvinced and continue to believe that the system works well.

The simple character creation was well received. Combat and skill checks were well received.

We had no fighter with multiple attacks or STR ≥ 17 with a two-handed weapon, so there was no discussion of lower-level fighters being overpowered.

As a DM, I think the party was too weak without any healing powers, and fighting against rats (even dire rats) and having to retreat was frustrating for players. Similarly, the party losts its bearing in the alluvial forest and I wanted to take the opportunity to have them meet stick men, angry stone-throwing trees and finally the wicker king. If played well, I thought those woodland creatures might make good allies against the goblins. But the players did not want to move to the west when the stick men tried to prevent them from moving north towards the heart of the forest. Instead, they pulled out torches and fought them with fire. Even when they later found the friendly party of four to help them out, they didn't think of finding more friends, and were thus unable to make significant progress. Unfortunately, the low-key end of the game was entirely my fault and had nothing to do with the rules used.

greywulf · Feb 6, 2007

Great feedback, thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for.

A lack of healing would be a big problem, I agree. If the players take that route, I toss a couple of healing potions into their pack. Nothing makes them wish they had a Cleric quicker than a dwindling supply of potions

I've found players in Conventions are strange beasts. Everything, but everything, it a legitimate target. Forget about allegiances, friendships or even kinship. If it's got no legs, two legs, four or more, they just want to kill it dead. Cons aren't places for politics. I think you've found that the hard way! I ran a Call of Cthulhu game at a Con once where I uttered the memorable line "My God. You've killed the librarian.........." That was my baptism by fire as to the nature of Convention play. Ouch.

On to the comments............

I'm glad that char gen, skills and combat went well. That's a huge relief! I'd hoped that M20 would work well in a Con, and it's good to see the key elements doing their stuff, especially with a crowd of non-D&D'ers.

Magic was bound to be controversial. People just don't like losing Hit Points. It hurts. That works for my game, but for others, perhaps not so well. Here's an alternate rule to toss into the pan:

As an alternative to using Hit Points to fuel spells, give Magi and Clerics a Magic Point pool equal to their maximum Hit Point total. Spells are cast using this instead of Hit Points.

The Magi or Cleric can use their own energy to power the spells; the Spell Cost is double normal and taken from Hit Points. This loss cannot be healed magically and is recovered after 8 hours rest.

Example
Max is a Magi-1. He has STR 10, 16hp and 16 Magic Points. He casts 5 Magic Missiles for a total of 15 Magic Points. In desperation, he casts another one against the foe; this costs him (3x2) = 6HP. He’s down to 10hp and 1mp. Best of luck, Max.

I've added this to the Macropedia here.

Regarding the weak mage point; that's intrinsic to D&D itself. Only an alternate magic system (of which we have many now) would solve that bugbear, methinks.

Many thanks, Kensanata!

jezter6 · Feb 6, 2007

I think that would just make the mage too powerful in comparison. I hate to go back to the fighter weak argument, but one of the 'balancing' factors about why everyone got the same HP was that magic users had to lose HP to cast. If they lose that option, you have to consider giving the fighter something.

kensanata · Feb 6, 2007

jezter6 said:
I think that would just make the mage too powerful in comparison.

I'll have to investigate how DSA balances the two.

greywulf · Feb 6, 2007

jezter6 said:
I think that would just make the mage too powerful in comparison. I hate to go back to the fighter weak argument, but one of the 'balancing' factors about why everyone got the same HP was that magic users had to lose HP to cast. If they lose that option, you have to consider giving the fighter something.

That's exactly why I like the system just as it is. But hey, it's an alternative if people think spell-casters are too weak; for Convention play, it would probably work. Toss the Fighter a magic sword to croon over and he'll be happy as well. I find Con games tend to bring out the powergamer in everyone.

I certainly don't want to start an arms-race between the classes, for that way leads to ~~D&D~~ the Dark Side