Last night was very interesting and very entertaining, at least from my vantage as the Referee. We were playing a game of Swords & Wizardry, one of the recently published free 0E clones of the original fantasy RPG. So, what made it interesting?
Tomb of the Iron God
Going Underground
Exploring the Story
- In the entrance hall, Hench kicking the mummified and magickally talking warning-head into the “jar” held by the massive statue of the Iron God… because he could.
- At the stagnant fountain, Jonas wading into the water and climbing the central column to see if there was anything interesting at the top… and finding nothing, deciding to dive under the dirty water to see if anyone had chucked any coins in the water.
- Near the embalming room, Hench discovering the tell-tale signs of odd-looking stonework which turned out to be an ooze lurking for the attack… and the retreating battle fought as the creature oozed forward and struck out with long tentrils in hunger.
- The party, folllowing the plan voiced by Humperdink, deciding to enter the room of total, impenetrable darkness, feeling their way along the walls whilst tied together with a rope… and encountering the “metal thing in the dark”.
- The moment when, led by Jonas, the group sneaked up to the door with sounds of creatures behind it, noticed the 12-18 pale-skinned gribblies, and decided to quietly close the door and sneak on by… avoiding any hint of having a fight.
Few, if any, of these moments would have occurred if we were playing Pathfinder or 4e. They wouldn’t have been played out at all the same way:
- “We search the room.” Ok… roll your Perception… nothing to see here…
- “Can I make an Arcane check to see if the fountain is magickal?” Roll. Oh, ok, so we’ll jump in.
- GM makes a secret Perception roll for the heroes… “There’s a grey mass on the ceiling in the archway… roll initiative…” (Our group would not have retreated)
And so on…
“A Different Kind of Challenge”
What Can We Learn?
- Want to know if your hero can achieve a risky task? We’ve a skill for that. Roll and test it.
- Want to know if your hero notices stuff in the room? The Ref’ll test your Perception so you don’t have to remember to look.
- Does it matter if you run out of lamp oil or torches? Not if we can’t be bothered to track how many hours you’ve been wandering around down here.
In our eagerness to have a super-powered punch-up each session we’ve somehow lost a large part of the charm of dungeoneering. And it’s something that the computer games emulate quite well… so we’ve surrendered this to the Xbox.
Links: S&W Core Rules (free) http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/?page_id=4
Module (not free) http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finch/tomb-of-the-iron-god/ebook/product-3727728.html
Recommend (free) http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finch/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/ebook/product-3159558.html
My own house rules of S&W (free) http://fridayroleplay.wikispaces.com/S%26W+House+Rules