Hey, for everyone checking out the game, what do you think of it? Do you have any doubts? Are there any sneaky typos we missed?
We'd love to hear your opinions!
A Mark of the Odd Sword & Sorcery Dungeon Crawling RPG · By
This is a tricky one to answer with a direct conversion. The values are generally lower, for example Plate Mail costs about 80% less coins in SaB than in OSE. However rations are over four times pricier in SaB (that is to further increase the focus on survival).
So the best answer is for you to get a feel for the economy and what gear is worth, and think how much impact that treasure is going to have. But as you get used to that, a good rule of thumb is to reduce it on a 4:1 ratio. (1000 gold treasure in OSE becomes 250 GP in SaB).
The cost of plate is the same in OSE as in SAB - 60 gp fyi. https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Weapons_And_Armour
A moderate hiking pace is 1.5-2 miles per hour. That's 9-12 miles per watch. That matches my experience backpacking in the Scouts. Adjust for terrain.
I can answer my own question about the distributing to my players for free part - I missed the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license at first, so I guess I'm good to just give my players a copy of the PDF.
Correct, It's $5 for a PDF you can share between the table. At worse, there's community copies made available regularly, your players can snag one :D
The Plate Armor impairing your movement is one case, but also, some pieces of armor can be useful in other ways than just the numeric value.
For example, a helmet might protect you from a Giant Mantis trying to bite your head off.
Even thou additional rules for armor types aren't explicitly written, you'll always fallback to the Fictional Positioning: maybe you can say it is Impossible to be stealth with a heavy armor, or flee from an unarmored foe.
The Disadvantage case is also covered, as you just need to consider the PC as poorly equipped.
In these examples, I think it is all the GM's preference, so no futher rules are needed imo.
One last example you'd want extra pieces of armor is with the Scrap Fighter ability :P
You're going to notice a couple of similar cases in the game. For example, the Fighter also starts with a Shortbow that isn't bulky. The concept here is that these archetypes start with specialized equipment, the kind that you can't obtain normally, and will need some good searching to find someone who can make and will sell it to you.
Yaaaay, thank you for the support! I'd love to hear how it goes with your kid. I plan to run it with my nephew next year too, thou I might soften the corruptions :P
We started proof reading the first draft of the GM's Handbook, soon we'll have news, but I'm sure it will be a cool resource for people interested in GMing our game.
Thanks again, and don't forget to rate the game, this will free another copy to someone else to grab it ;)
I'm brewing something with python and django :)
Just a small webapp to help me run the game.
It's not deployed yet.
Wow, this is a nice helper! Let me know if you ever deploy it :)
I was toying with a webapp for the character sheets early this year, before we decided to publish the game. It is something I want to get back to when I get the time.
A first version of my web helper is live here : https://spellburnandbattlescars.pythonanywhere.com/
I'm pretty bad at web design, so the character sheet is much more rough than yours.
Features :
- roll and keep characters (with optional random names depending on archetype, from DCC)
- roll a spell and get results and mishap
- consult gear, scars, spells and mishaps tables
- bestiary (I need to fill in the database though, WIP)
This is unbelievable fast!! Already created my account there.
If you want any help, you can add me on Discord (Beorhol#7933), maybe I could do some things related to the web design. I don't use bootstrap much, but I could ajust a few things if you wish.
Regardless, great job :)
Sure you can, I just hope my free hosting solution is going to handle it well enough :)
My socials are phil@dice.camp in English and phil@ludosphere.fr in French (both are mastodon / fediverse accounts).
Hey, glad you liked it!
To be honest, I have no idea how to do a printer-friendly version, guess it is a good time to learn it. I'll try to check it out this weekend, as I also need to export an only text version of the game that I promised to another buyer.
If I'm able to do these two things, we'll pusblish them alongside the 1.3 version of the Player's Guide :)
Thank you for considering it! Honestly, it's pretty printer-friendly to begin with. I'm just afraid that the large bodies of black on the front and back covers is going to eat up a ton of ink.
Hey, I did play a little with the cover, gonna share with you before having it official: link to the cover.
Tell me if works!
Blood aids great sorcery.
Indeed we don't have a specific rule for Spellburn and we did so because of the philosophy we're following to use mechanics and technical terminology as little as possible.
In DCC, the Spellburn uses could be resumed (not strict) to the following:
As all characters can cast spells, we added those features to the Magic-User in their special abilities.
Blood Sacrifice: Covers item 1 and 3. Thou you can't use it more than once, as a MU gets more HP they will be able to do this more often without risk (they are the only Archetype that can break a spell's power limit of 5). The tax of sacrificing vital energy is represented here by the HP. Using this ability with a low HP value can cause critical damage to the spellcaster.
Dangerous Magic: Sort of covers item 2, you're still relying on the new outcome.
I could search for other examples to give. The thing is that we were trying to translate the DCC feel, not necessary an exact conversion into rules. E.g., I love spell duels, but it doesn't fit in this game's view. So for us, the Spellburn in the name is purely a homage.
Maybe Matt has something to say about it later, but I hope this helps.
Also, let us know if you try to run it with attribute sacrifice to add power to spellcasting. We might be missing on a big deal!
ps: This is also my current favorite ITO fantasy hack :P
I'm curious as to how it fares! I'm not really a solo-play person, so I don't know what goes well and what doesn't.
It worked great. Translating from the very non-denominational OSR (enemies were described with one-sentence description, HD, AC, and ATT) sandbox was simple. Cleared a 7-room dungeon in 2-2.5 hours (I didn't keep close track). I love having Luck. My next system will have Luck for sure.
Hey! Yes, it was the intended design that most casters wouldn't risk much going beyond 1~2 [DICE]. We talk about it on Spellcasters NPC's in the GMH:
"Truly legendary Spellcasters might go above that or even have an unlimited Power Budget. Be mindful that they are still susceptible to Mishaps, so even careless NPCs will keep most castings to 1 or 2 Power, only going above if truly in need."
The deal with 3 to 5 Power was to emulate Spellburn in DCC, when the caster needs guarantee higher effects in a life-or-death situation. But I don't like to take it lightly as in DCC where Spellburn could have no effects so ever. You're breaking the laws of nature, deal with it.
Spells are the only way to break the max 12 Damage a target can receive per Round, I used it a few times like this, obviously taking a Mishap.
So yes, 1 Power should be the common ground, 2 kinda risky and beyond that you're on your luck.
If you want to allow higher Power in your games, I would count only double 6s or remove Mishaps completely and have the caster receive [SUM] Damage when they get the same number in two or more [DICE].
Go for it! It definitely doesn't overlap with anything planned, and I would love to see your creations anyways!
I have an untested version outlined in a notebook. Thanks for the nudge to revisit it, I’ll see if I can get it typed up and posted somewhere.
Here you go: https://planetgnome.itch.io/witchs-brew
It hasn’t been play-tested and I plan on redoing the art.
Oh, wow. I'm so glad you loved it so much. This was a "make something for your own table" kind of project, and it's fantastic that it's also perfect for someone else.
On the matter of content, the next project I was working on was basically a content supplement for the game, a bunch of spells, items, patrons, and everything else. Unfortunately, life got in the way so heavily and now it's very far from the light of day.
Welp, somehow this game became my main fantasy system for both GMing and solo-play during this time lmfao. I actually started making a hack/expansion for it. I’ll probably upload it to itch once it’s done, if you guys are ok with it. Here’s an early draft I made if you want to check it out. It includes like a bazillion new spells and a couple new archetypes and variant rules I use. Obviously, some things are way more cooked than others, the completed new Archetypes and the Spell list i.e. have seen table play already haha. The skills thing and the wealth system need WAY more work tho.
I’m also planning on running a Dungeon Meshi (ish) campaign with this, so expect things like cooking mechanics too :p
ALSO, I wanted to ask how do you guys feel about a fan translation to spanish? I’ve already translated some things for table play (I have non-english speaking players) so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to finish the whole player’s guide at least in markdown format.
Tysm again for this game and the GM guide. I’ve been jumping around different NuSR systems a lot for the last couple of years but I feel this one is going to be my home for now :)
Hey, once again I'm glad the game fits your play so perfectly.
I'm quite intrigued by your expansions, they make the game look quite different, almost brand new.
About the translation, all the text is cc-by-sa for that exact reason, so feel free to do it :D
I'm in the same situation, loved the game and changed the rules of our campaing of Forbidden Land to this incredible game, it's so deep in it's simplicity making our games more narrative.
Can't wait to read your finished rules Nimlouth you have great ideas there like the wealth system, great job! I will play with some of it.
Nimlouth ¿hay alguna manera de contactar contigo? Me gustaría intercambiar impresiones e ideas sobre el juego.
Yep, you can hit me up on discord! I’m on The NSR Cauldron and the Carin RPG servers! “nimlouth” is my username too! I stopped working on alternate rules for a while because year-end student grind got super crazy. Hopefully I’ll come back to RPGs after the holidays and see if I can make the “projects” rules for long play and re-think the wealth system so it’s easier to teach to newbies.
Hey, no we don't have a discord or original adventures (yet), as for the converted ones, I started a new thread here. I'll be organising my notes on adventures I converted and post there from time to time, it might help those interested.
I see that you reference convert DCC modules. I was thinking along those lines as a fitting scene and as you've stated it's a system that's part the inspiration. I need to try this system in action yet as it's much more to what I am looking for. I love the idea of Cairn, but my more mechanical brain gets stuck in the simplicity (silly I know) but this has a little more to it than that, which is more up my alley.