Open Table Classic Fantasy

Regular readers know that my favourite fantasy roleplaying game is Mythras Classic Fantasy. You’ll also be aware that I’ve not played much Classic Fantasy for the best part of a year – one short-lived foray with the school club, if memory serves.

With the advent of the Open Table, I’ve been musing over how to bring my favourite game back into play.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that this is not possible: Mythras is a detailed roleplaying game with a robust set of rules that, in the past, has played very well but not very quickly. On top of that, Mythras is a game that encourages detailed character creation that will not fit with what an Open Table needs: a character inside 15-20 minutes. Conventional wisdom is, however, not very imaginative.

In this series, I aim to develop and share a series of ideas focused on how to bring Mythras Classic Fantasy to the Open Table. I’m going to share my work as it develops and report on the testing that it’ll require. I hope that I can encourage others to find creative ways to bring their favourite roleplaying games to an Open Table.

Opening Classic Fantasy

The Open Table Manifesto declares that such a game needs several things:

1. Quick Character Creation
2. Easy Access Systems
3. Open Group Formation
4. Default Goal
5. Default Action
6. Regenerative / Extensible Content

How do I plan to open up Mythras Classic Fantasy? Honestly, this is going to be a voyage of discovery. That said, I have some initial ideas that I think I can develop over time.

First, I am going to deal with the latter four needs because I don’t believe they are dependent on the game system. Because Classic Fantasy is modelling Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1e/2e), it’s easy to import the elements we need from the classic game:

3) Open Group Formation will come from the expedition format, using the dungeon-crawl and hex-crawl game structures taken from OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D.

4) The Default Goal will be exploration motivated by treasure.

5) The Default Action will be to find all the treasure.

6) Regenerative / Extensible Content will come from using the tools that already exist, both in Classic Fantasy itself and those that can be taken from OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D.

The real challenge is in dealing with the first two Open Table needs. These are a little more complex and definitely require some tweaking and streamlining to make them work.

Experience tells me that Mythras is pretty easy to access as a system. It just appears to be a lot more complex than it actually is at the table. The things that make Mythras so awesome include (but are not limited to) the skill system, the hit locations, and the special effects in combat. My goal will be to strip away the things that obscure the core game system so that newbies can pick it up in minutes.

Along with this, the cool thing about Mythras Classic Fantasy is the blending of the classic d100 skill-based game with the structure that is level-and-class fantasy. In other words, Classic Fantasy already channels character creation into some strong archetypes while making use of the flexibility of the “you can learn anything” skill system. My job will be to streamline and present the character making process in the simplest way possible – remember, you get 15-20 minutes to build a character.

Learning From The B/X Open Table

To help me with the process, I am going to draw inspiration from the experiences I have at the school club with my Open Table using the classic 1981 Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons (B/X) game. This harps back to my thoughts around building a Basic Set for Classic Fantasy.

Initially, I aim to build incrementally: select from the core game the elements that would create a minimal Classic Fantasy experience. That probably means choosing the classic classes and races; it also means beginning with the dungeon-crawl game structure. I’m going to learn by converting and running “The Caverns of Thracia” (1979) by Jennell Jaquays (which I am also running at school with B/X).

This leads on to my final design goal, that of making sure the objective of the game is exploring the dungeon and finding all the treasure. In the past, my Classic Fantasy games have suffered from an over-emphasis on combat. With the more detailed Mythras game system, that has bogged games down with meaningless fights and transformed player characters into mindless psychopaths. Instead of “clear the dungeon” as the default goal, I want to make it clear and obvious that the dungeon-crawl is about “finding all the treasure” first and foremost.

If this sounds like it might be an interesting journey, join me in the next installment when I tackle the question of how to build Classic Fantasy characters in under 20 minutes.

Game on!