Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Daniel36 on February 21, 2019, 09:06:31 AM
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Several folks have already expressed some interest into the ruleset that I am writing at the moment. I figured, since it is going to be free anyways, I might as well include you all in the process. Hopefully that will also spur me on some more.
These rules are heavily inspired by HeroQuest and the old Warhammer Quest. Expect absolutely NOTHING shocking, game changing or mind blowing. What you can expect is a rule system that is very simple to use so would be very suitable to play with young ones.
The rules do expect you to understand many of the basic elements of tabletop gaming, as I am trying to keep the page count to an absolute minimum.
You can help
Aside from pointing me to grlaring mistakes in my writing, I would also love to have some pictures of dungeon floor plans and whatnot, as well as some old school black and white artwork, so if you are willing and able to contribute in that sense, I would be much obliged. I will, however, be honest if it doesn't quite fit my idea of what I want to convey with these rules.
I will keep a small, updated list of what I want down here;
- Pictures of a simple dungeon plan drawn on grid paper.
- Black and white artwork of the OSR variety, preferably low fantasy.
THE RULES SO FAR
The following part fit snugly on one page with two columns.
WHAT THIS IS
You have in front of you the rules for playing an easy and fun game of fantasy exploration. In this game, you play adventurers entering the depths for fame and fortune. It harkens back to many of the old and classic “dungeon crawl” games.
WHAT YOU NEED
Aside from these rules, you need the following;
- Miniatures to play the game
- Special dice called Fudge dice
- Three six-sided dice
- Homemade dungeon tiles
While you will need no more than 8 Fudge dice to begin with, you may want to have more as your adventurers and enemies grow stronger.
BEFORE YOU PLAY
Choose a character you want to take adventuring. Each adventurer has his or her own set of statistics which are used to determine how well they fight.
HP – The amount of hits they can take.
Move – How many spaces they can move each turn.
Attack – How well they fight.
Defend – How well they can defend from an attack.
Shoot – How well they can fire ranged weapons.
SPD – How quickly they react.
Special Rules – Every adventurer has a small set of special rules that separate them from the others. Some are beneficial, some are not.
CHOOSE A QUEST
After selecting your adventurer, a Quest is chosen from the available quests. In most published adventures, you simply play them in the order in which they are presented, but you can always create your own quests for you and your friends to play.
PLAYING THE GAME
Once you are in a dungeon, players take turns moving their adventurer about, as the enemies try to defeat them.
Order of Play
The adventurers go first. The order is determined by the adventurers’ SPD score. However, an adventurer may always choose to let adventurers with a lower SPD go before them.
After the adventurers have acted, the enemies are next. If you have a Game Master acting as the enemies, he or she can choose what they do, again in order of SPD.
If no Game Master is present, the enemies simply move towards or attack the nearest adventurer not already in combat with one of their allies.
Enemies without intelligence, such as zombies, may simply attack the nearest adventurer regardless. Simply discuss beforehand how to play enemies if you are without a Game Master.
ACTIONS
Adventurers ad enemies can move around the tiles up to a maximum of their Move value. Aside from this, adventurers are entitled to one more action, which can be any of the following;
Attack – This is the most used action, in which you use your weapon to attack an enemy. Melee weapons have a range of 1 tile, either adjacent or diagonally adjacent, while ranged weapons can be used from a distance.
Cast a Spell – Spellcasters can use spells. Most spells can only be used a finite amount during each mission.
Use an Item – Adventurers can use items they bring with them on their missions.
You can move before or after you performed your action, but you cannot move out of a combat situation. Anyone can move through squares occupied by friendly units but not through squares occupied by enemy units.
EXPLORATION
Most adventures, at least for now, will be in dungeons or caverns. The layout for your adventure is either pre-determined, or randomly generated using the Exploration Table found in the mission description.
Whenever you exit your current tile, place the next. As you explore, you may eventually come across the “Objective Room”, where you will find an artifact, or fight a boss, or anything else the mission asks for.
Every time you enter or re-enter a tile, you must roll a die and consult the Encounter Table. This tells you what you will find in or on the tile you just entered. Objective Rooms are often an exception, as they have their own Encounter.
Once you finished the Objective Room, either the mission is successful, or you may want to first retrace your steps back to the entrance for some added tension.
COMBAT
As you enter a tile adjacent or diagonally adjacent to an enemy, you enter into combat. The basics of combat are as follows;
Look at your adventurer’s Attack value. This is the amount of Fudge Dice you throw. Check how many of your dice come up with [ + ].However, for every [ - ] result, one [ + ] is cancelled out. The amount of [ + ] left over is the potential amount of damage you cause.
The enemy can still defend against your attack. They check their Defend value. This is the amount of Fudge dice they throw. Any [ + ] that isn’t cancelled out by a [ - ] is a successful defence and cancels out one of the attacker’s [ + ] results.
Any [ + ] result that is left after this, is the amount of damage you cause. If this amount equals or exceeds the enemy’s HP, the enemy is dead.
This also works the other way around. If your adventurer ever reaches 0 HP, he or she is dead.
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That was page 1.
Next up, page 2;
CAMPAIGNS
When you play your character for more than just one quest, you can become stronger. After your adventurer has successfully finished a quest, roll one Fudge die. If it comes up a [ + ], you gain 1 HP.
Some quests, such as Slaying Goblins, can be done as many times as you wish. If your adventurer has done this mission before and you already rolled a [ + ] for it, you cannot level up more by doing this mission more often.
Any treasure you found is yours to keep, but before you head out for another quest, you must pay 10 gc. in upkeep. This is your adventurer paying for things such as lodging as well as repairs to his or her equipment. If you can’t pay, you will have to remove one treasure as payment.
If not even that is a possibility, your adventurer probably found some other way to make payment.
Choosing a Quest
The Quest Book has quests you can partake in. Some will have randomly generated dungeons, others will have a pre-determined dungeon. These may be more fun when you have a game master to lead you, but can be played without. Some will be one-shot adventures, while others are linked and have to be played consecutively. Some can be played more than once, others are one time only.
Each and every one of the quests will be awesome.
MAKING YOUR DUNGEON TILES
Dungeon tiles are divided into a certain amount of squares. A straight corridor for example is 3 x 6 squares. Each square is 1 by 1 inch (or 2,5 by 2,5 cm).
You are free to create your dungeon tiles any way you like, from printing them on paper to building elaborate 3D tiles.
A picture of Keeping it 2D is a great way to create huge dungeons in a short amount of time
The tiles as presented are suggested sizes. If you happen to have some corridors already finished, but you have built them 2 x 6 instead, don’t let that stop you from using them.
In fact, most of the quests can be adapted to fit into any setting you like. There is nothing stopping you from using these rules and adapting them to better fit your needs.
Picture of A full 3D dungeon piece, 2 squares wide, with some room on the sides for any models sticking out
What you need
When starting out, you need at least the following tiles for comfortable play;
6 Straight Corridors 3x6
4 Corners 3x4
2 T-junctions 3x6x4
2 Crossroad Junctions 3x6
4 Rooms 5x5
1 Objective Room 5x8
Obviously, you can make your own changes, add flavor and theme to your tiles, create a variety of Objective Rooms, but these are the basics.
Caverns
Instead of dungeons you can also create caverns. These are more free-form, so some parts may only be 2 squares wide wile others are 4.
If you dislike the idea of painting in actual squares in your cavern, you can simply use the Move value as inches instead of squares.
Picture of A full 3D gridless cavern piece
This gives the game a more tabletop skirmish feel but doesn’t change the fundamentals.
Expanding your Tile Collection
At one point, you may find a scenario asking for a new kind of tile.
The tiles you need to start really are the basics, but most new tiles presented will still be relatively simple to make.
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Let me know what you think. It's not much yet, but I feel I have the right vibe going for it.
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Reserved - just in case
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Reserved - just in case
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I’d be happy to help where I can with what ever.
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Sweet! Welcome to the forum, first of all. What would you like to help with?
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How much artwork would be needed?
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I can help! I can draw a bit. I have created lots of 2D tiles for 10mm as well that might fit into your ideas. I like to draw 2D tile dungeons.
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How much artwork would be needed?
Just enough to set the tone a little bit.
I was looking online at art that I like, and I found out that I am very partial to Gary Chalk's black and white art, especially from the Lone Wolf adventure book series. They really capture the kind of vibe I am going for, I think. If you have pictures that look like that to spare, then that would be awesome.
I am very anal about what I want to see though, I will warn you about that. I will be honest if something doesn't fit my ideas. For example, I absolutely loathe the Games Workshop rendition of Goblins. They are just too cartoony for my tastes. I much prefer the Lord of the Rings movie look of them.
If I could make a request now, a small picture of adventurers gathering in the adventurer's guild or a tavern would be epic!
Something like this: https://lesjeuxdekahlong.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/ill12.gif
I can help! I can draw a bit. I have created lots of 2D tiles for 10mm as well that might fit into your ideas. I like to draw 2D tile dungeons.
Thank you! I am actually not really looking for printable tiles, if that is what you mean, as you can pretty much use whatever you feel like using, but I wouldn't mind putting them in as resources for those people who really don't feel like making their own.
So yeah! The basics of what is needed is on page two, which I placed here. Definitely feel free to create something simple, and it would be cool if you could make a couple of Objective rooms. For inspiration look no further than the Objective Rooms from Warhammer Quest, I suppose.
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Just enough to set the tone a little bit.
I was looking online at art that I like, and I found out that I am very partial to Gary Chalk's black and white art, especially from the Lone Wolf adventure book series. They really capture the kind of vibe I am going for, I think. If you have pictures that look like that to spare, then that would be awesome.
I am very anal about what I want to see though, I will warn you about that. I will be honest if something doesn't fit my ideas. For example, I absolutely loathe the Games Workshop rendition of Goblins. They are just too cartoony for my tastes. I much prefer the Lord of the Rings movie look of them.
If I could make a request now, a small picture of adventurers gathering in the adventurer's guild or a tavern would be epic!
Something like this: https://lesjeuxdekahlong.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/ill12.gif
The artwork I've done that's the closest to Gary Chalk's (and John Blanche's) style was for a 40k roleplaying campaign, so I can't pick from that.
(https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/Jakar_Nilson/sf040.jpg)
The funny thing was that I was thinking of the Tim Kirk goblins yesterday.
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I like it! Maye still a bit on the cartoony side but I am sure that you could tone it down just a tad, no? If you could do something generic low fantasy-esque in that vein, that would be nice. But no pressure, I am not in any hurry.
As for playtesting, I am about to start work on the adventurer sheets. This will take me a couple of days to get right, in between real life responsibilities. Then I will write a first scenario, which will basically be the framework for all other scenarios.
So, give me a few days to do so. If anything I am grateful for everyone willing to playtest.
If you want to playtest, what you are going to need is:
6 Straight Corridors 3x6
4 Corners 3x4
2 T-junctions 3x6x4
2 Crossroad Junctions 3x6
4 Rooms 5x5
1 Objective Room 5x8
And then a fighter model, cleric model, sage (wizard) model and a rogue model, I suppose. Those will be the first adventurers to start with.
Also, goblins. Some with bows, some with swords, some with spears, a boss goblin and... well... I guess that would do it for now.
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Sweet! Welcome to the forum, first of all. What would you like to help with?
I'm happy to help with grid plans and artwork.
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Come guy! who needs to sleep? release some creatures and warrior stats to test the combat!
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I am seeming to be acting a little vague but now that I am more adept with the system, I am happy to playtest the game, I think it will go down a treat with a couple of my friends. I'm up for making grid layouts and I wouldn't mind doing some middle east/ottoman inspired artwork also satyr (or thorn depending on your mythology) artwork.
Hope I can help.
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Haha, sorry guys! It's not that I need sleep, it's just that I need to get much done, not just this.
I promise I will sacrifice some hours at work doing this instead of actual work. :D
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One week after.... how goes the project?
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Still swamped with other stuff. Sorry. I may be able to get some stuff done this week, but not right now.
That said, the stats shouldn't be too big of a deal to make.
If we would start with the "Warrior of the North" (aka Barbarian), this character would look something like this:
(Subject to change - playtesting required)
HP – 7
Move – 4
Attack – 4
Defend – 2
Shoot – 2
SPD – 4
Special - Charge: If you moved 2 or more squares this turn, you gain +1 on your Attack
"Adventurer" a.k.a. catch-all Fighter type
HP – 7
Move – 4
Attack – 3
Defend – 3
Shoot – 3
SPD – 3
"Cleric"
HP – 6
Move – 4
Attack – 3
Defend – 2
Shoot – 1
SPD – 3
Special - Heal: Once every adventurer, the Cleric can heal each party member to full health if no enemies are nearby.
And your average Goblin would be
HP – 2
Move – 4
Attack – 1
Defend – 1
Shoot – 1
SPD – n.a.
Mayhaps we need a rule for ganging up on a character... One idea can be that you can only defend once, or maybe Defend -1 for each subsequent attack endured each turn, but I don't want to create too many rules. It should remain relatively simple.
Anyways, these are just numbers. Perhaps everything needs to go up or down a notch, since these are obviusly not yet well balanced against any enemies besides the humble goblin, but it at least gives something of an idea of what I am after.
Let me know what you think.
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Aside from these "Crawl" stats, I am trying to decide whether or not to add some rudimentary "role play" stats.
These would be optional, as you can easily play the game as a straight up dungeon crawl, but could still be used for people who like to envision their characters mucking about in the township.
However, I am unsure as of yet how to go about it. It should probably need the Fudge Dice as those will also be used within the crawl rules, and I don't want to create too much confusion.
Mayhaps someone has some good ideas on the subject? I do have some thoughts written down from ages ago, but they are at home and I am at work at the moment, and I can'r remember exactly what it was. I will add those ideas later.
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I personally was going to add in a basic roleplay idea in any way. Just to add a bit of flavour to the game with the occasional trapt peasant etc. I generally was going to work it out on a d6 with 1 & 2 being failures 3,4 & 5 being a success and then 6 six being a great success where a bonus is added of some description. I also thought a basic gold system might be fun to upgrade weapons and characters but these are just my personal ideas. I might be able to do a playtest of the game relatively soon, if that would help.
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Well of course playtesting will help! So by all means do! Thank you!
I previously worked on a role playing system that never took off where I had a really nice resolution mechanic for things, which was basically a simplified version of the skill checks in D&D 3.5.
Since I want to try and keep to Fudge dice, it will need some work, and I am digging through my brain trying to remember which skills I ended up using, but in essence it was the following;
Characters would have "ranks" in the following catch-all skills:
Running and Jumping
Hiding and Moving Silently
Swimming
Lockpicking and Disabling Traps
and I am pretty sure I had at least one more skill, but I have the files on a different hard drive...
Anyways, each character would have a rank, which were;
4+
6+
8+
10+
on a 2D6 roll, where 4+ was the highest rank and 10+ the lowest.
Now, if I am going to use Fudge dice, this obviously won't work, so I am currently contemplating what to do with it.
Note: Shamefully, the blog and forum for that previous RPG still exist... Last update was 2015 or something... >_< Maybe I should close the forum and revive the blog for this.
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Which forum?
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For my previous attempt at writing a tabletop skirmish RPG. I kept a blog for it and opened a forum for discussing the rules. I might use the name, which was simply "Chronicles" for this here attempt.
There's little to find there though. The forum has like 4 members and 0 posts. The blog is just depressing in its current dead state.
I did have some really good ideas though! Really good!! :D