Tenkar's Tavern: Changing My View on Mortality for Tomorrow Night's Dungeon Crawl Classics Session

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Changing My View on Mortality for Tomorrow Night's Dungeon Crawl Classics Session

Not too much actual prep needed at this point except to reread the adventure. I've never run a "funnel type" adventure, and my instincts are to not indiscriminately kill PCs by the bucketful. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for "let the dice fall where they may" type of play, and if a PC dies, have a drink in their memory and move on.

I'm not a Killer DM, I'm a Let Them Be Killed if the Fates Will It DM. I've never felt joy when a PC died, and TPKs grate on my Gamer's Soul.

Tomorrow night I need to change my view on PC mortality for a bit. Not only is PC death acceptable, it is to be expected. There is a reason why folks start out with 4 PCs in DCC, as the usual death toll for the zero level peasant swarm is usually somewhere over 50% from the postings I've read. So yeah, I need to be okay with PCs dropping like flies to an electric fly swatter (damn but i love mine! ZAP! and the occasional smell of burnt fly).

I currently have 3 of the 5 PC sheets I'm expecting. Hopefully I get the last 2 before the game.

Should be fun. New set of RPG Rules. New group of players. What could go wrong? ;)

3 comments:

Purple SorcererJune 17, 2012 at 9:04 PM
I definitely fall into the 'loath to kill players' camp, but I've (and my players) have had a ball wiping out 0-level characters in my playtests. It's just a different animal at 0-level. (I did a write-up about the phenomenon on my blog called "It makes killing fun again!")

I'm reverting to my old ways as the characters have begun established, but deadly starting play is a nice change of pace.
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Erik TenkarJune 17, 2012 at 9:06 PM
@Purple Sorcerer - good to know it's fun even when it goes against my instincts ;)
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Purple SorcererJune 18, 2012 at 11:30 AM
And a good tip is to have a small pool of replacement characters sprinkled throughout the adventure as possible replacements for really unlucky players. (On the very first playtest of Perils of the Sunken City, my son wanted to kill off one of his peasants to get a crack at a Opossuman character...)
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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

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Sunday, June 17, 2012

Changing My View on Mortality for Tomorrow Night's Dungeon Crawl Classics Session

3 comments:

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