Chaos & Catacombs

[Conrad]

Thanks. :thumb:

[Conrad]

Threedeesix what do you think of Solinor's efforts at D&Ding? Heres a link to his file

BRP Central - Downloads - D&D/BRP D&C

Do you have character levels in your homage?

[threedeesix]

Threedeesix what do you think of Solinor's efforts at D&Ding? Heres a link to his file

I didn't even know that was there until now. A nice hybrid keeping elements of both systems that appeals to some gamers. It is something I may have used a few years ago myself.

Sword & Spell on the other hand attepts to remain Basic Role Playing as much as possible and instead capture the feel of D&D through subtle changes in terminology and modifications to exicting BRP rules, the addition of numerous monsters found in classic dungeon crawls, and about 100 new Magic spells compatable with those already found in Basic Role Playing.

This is from Chapter 1 of Sword & Spell...

What is Sword & Spell?

Sword & Spell is a return to the dawn of roleplaying, when you would gather with your friends in your parent’s basement, bashing down doors, slaying hordes of orcs and goblins, and throwing yet another +1 sword in your bag of holding. In these early days of role playing, what eight giants are doing in a 10’x10’ room was less important than what their treasure rating was, and rescuing the beautiful princess isn’t something you did because it was morally right, but because of the 1000 gold piece reward. And finally, that adventure didn’t have to be anymore detailed then, “some giants are raiding the border settlements, lets kill em”. These are the adventures you and your group still talk about to this day.

So, rip open the Cheetos and pass out the Mountain Dew. It’s time to play some Sword & Spell.

Nothing in this work can truly be claimed to be original, nor would I ever profess this to be the case. Sword & Spell is truly walking in the foot steps of many great games and their designers that have formed the inspiration of that which follows. This is an homage to the classic dungeon delve and the following games were inspirational in its design, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition, The Fantasy Trip, Tunnels & Trolls, and of course, RuneQuest 1st and 2nd edition. The following authors helped to define the way I have spent my weekends for over thirty years, Bob Bledsaw, Warren James, Steve Jackson, Steve Perrin, Ken St. Andre, Ray Turney, and of course Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Without these games and their creators having come before, Sword & Spell would be but a shadow of the game I hope it has become.

and...

Some Useful Information

This section is for those new to Basic Roleplaying and experiencing it for the first time, and those familiar with Basic Roleplaying, that may want to have an idea what the deal is with some of the changes in terminology.

From the beginning, this product was imagined as a nostalgic return (for this writer anyway) to what used to make getting together with you friends on a Saturday night and sitting around a table for eight to ten hours, fun.

So if you’re a long time player of Basic Roleplaying, I hope you’ll understand some of the liberties I’ve taken with your game, and if you’re new to Basic Roleplaying, I hope you’ll find things new and exciting, but still familiar enough to feel like home.

For additional information on some of the classic terms of fantasy role playing see page XX for A Glossary of Classic Terms.

The Realm: Sword & Spell assumes you are using your own setting or an established setting produced by some other company. There are many fantastic settings out there, and the makers of Sword & Spell would never expect you to leave the worlds you are already familiar with and have grown to love. With this in mind, Sword & Spell will refer to the game world in the generic form of, The Realm.

Charisma: In a standard Basic Roleplaying campaign, the attribute that reflects your attitude, demeanor, and appearance is appropriately called Appearance. Years ago, Chaosium called this characteristic Charisma, as did other games of the time, and many do to this day. In an attempt to capture that nostalgic feel of the earlier days of roleplaying, Sword & Spell will replace Appearance with Charisma. Because the characteristic roll for Appearance is currently called Charisma, to avoid confusion, this is now, Reaction (CHA x5). When converting anything from another Basic Roleplaying product, simply replace Appearance with Charisma.

Alignment: Basic Roleplaying uses an innovative and unique system for handling a characters moral stance called an Allegiance system, and in Sword & Spell all characters are allied to a set of moral values. Other games have used a similar system to represent this called, an Alignment system. This system was and is very riged and defined how you were supposed to roleplay you character. The difference is that in Basic Roleplaying, how you roleplay your character determines your allegiance, not the other way around. Sword & Spell will use the more intuitive and flexible allegiance system, but in the interest of nostalgia, will refer to it as Alignment.

Character Class: Under normal circumstances, Basic Roleplaying does not use character class to define a character’s role, instead using professions. The designers of Sword & Spell have instead chosen to utilize the more nostalgic term for two reasons. First, as previously mentioned, character class is a more fitting term for a game designed to pay homage to the classic dungeon delve, second all character classes in Sword & Spell possess special abilities. So rather than change the established format and give professions unique abilities within a Sword & Spell campaign, we thought it would be better to create a new term that can be used right alongside normal professions. On a final note, some players may be concerned that the term character class will mean they have lost the freedom to have their characters advance as they wish; rest assured that a character class has all the freedom of advancement given a profession, just with cool new abilities.

Monsters: To pay homage to the dungeon delve style of gaming, the designers of Sword & Spell have chosen to call Chapter 8: Monsters, when in all actuality, some of the creatures found within can be allies or even player characters. This was intentional and befitting of the genre.

Levels: Some games have used a level system to track character progress. This is a very inflexible and restrictive system that Sword & Spell is NOT attempting to recapture. Rather than having your thief get together with his buddies and then going out and hacking through a lair of goblins so that he can get better at climbing walls, Basic Roleplaying uses a system where if you want your thief to get better at climbing walls… go climb some walls. In Basic Roleplaying, if you want to improve a skill, use a skill.

Do you have character levels in your homage?

See above.

Thanks for the interest.

Rod

Edited May 2, 2009 by threedeesix

[Agentorange]

Oh dear,

Yet another BRP book that I'm going to buy This does sound like fun !

ps it's rigid not ridged

[threedeesix]

Oh dear,

Yet another BRP book that I'm going to buy This does sound like fun !

ps it's rigid not ridged

Thanks on both points, I hope it would have been noticed in the edit, but at least I can fix it now.

Rod

[Agentorange]

Sorry about the spelling thing, it's a terrible habit of mine :innocent:

100 new spells sounds good, the BRP ruleset was a bit light on spells so it's nice to see more coming up. :thumb:

If it's not giving too much away, you say 'numerous' monsters can you give us a rough idea of how many and maybe a taster of which old faves we might see ? ( pretty please )

[threedeesix]

Sorry about the spelling thing, it's a terrible habit of mine :innocent:

100 new spells sounds good, the BRP ruleset was a bit light on spells so it's nice to see more coming up. :thumb:

If it's not giving too much away, you say 'numerous' monsters can you give us a rough idea of how many and maybe a taster of which old faves we might see ? ( pretty please )

Subject to change becouse of possible space limitations, but this is my goal of which more than half are done. This is the last chapter I have to write.

Ant, Giant

Basilisk

Bat, Large

Beetle, Giant

Boar

Bugbear

Carrion Creeper

Cave Bear

Centipede, Giant

Creeping Cube

Displacer Cat

Doppelganger

Dragon, Red

Dragon, White

Dragon, Black

Dragon, Green

Dragon, Blue

Dragon, Gold

Elf, Dark

Gargoyle

Gnoll

Giant, Hill

Giant, Fire

Giant, Stone

Giant, Cloud

Giant, Storm

Goblin

Harpy

Hobgoblin

Hyena

Kobold

Lich

Lizard, Giant

Lizard Man

Medusa

Mimic

Mind Slayer

Mold, Yellow

Nymph

Ogre

Ooze, Grey

Owlbear

Pixie

Piercer

Purple Worm

Rat, Giant

Rust Monster

Saber-tooth Tiger

Shadow

Shrieking Mushroom

Slime, Green

Snake, Giant

Spider, Giant

Stirge

Thought Devourer

Tyrant

Wererat

Wereboar

Weretiger

Werebear

Wight

Wolverine

Wolf, Dire

[Agentorange]

Makes me misty eyed with nostalgia, so it does I'm Looking forward to the release of this.

I take it some of the subtle name changes are for legal reasons ?

[threedeesix]

Makes me misty eyed with nostalgia, so it does I'm Looking forward to the release of this.

I take it some of the subtle name changes are for legal reasons ?

Thanks, yah I don't want the big mean giant of gaming to step on me. The hard part was seperating just what is D&D IP and public domain and/or mythology. For example, for the longest time I thought the bugbear was D&D so I was trying to change the name. Then there are the ones that are definetly D&D like the Owlbear, but have been used in other games such as Everquest and Warcraft Online to name a few, so I figure if they can use it so can I.

My goal was to change as few names as possible or to make such minor change as to allow the reader to know which monster it is while avoiding any legal issues.

Here is a good example of what I'm dealing with now.

The Drow from D&D worship Lolth, Demon Queen of Spiders.

I want my dark elves to worship Loth the Spider Queen.

Can I? Or do they just need to worship The Spider Queen?

If I Google Lolth I get millions of D&D hits, while Loth gets none.

It would be kinda an inside joke becouse my group has always mispronounced it Loth for almost 30 years. I could say we wernt mispronouncing it, we were ahead of out time. :cool:

Anyway, back to writing,

Rod

Edited May 3, 2009 by threedeesix

[Conrad]

I didn't even know that was there until now. A nice hybrid keeping elements of both systems that appeals to some gamers. It is something I may have used a few years ago myself.

Sword & Spell on the other hand attepts to remain Basic Role Playing as much as possible and instead capture the feel of D&D through subtle changes in terminology and modifications to exicting BRP rules, the addition of numerous monsters found in classic dungeon crawls, and about 100 new Magic spells compatable with those already found in Basic Role Playing.

I'm glad that Sword & Spell is more BRP than DnD when it comes to game system. Solinor's magnum opus is too heavy duty for my tastes and makes my brain melt when I consider the possibility of using it. No disrespect to Solinor. It is just my taste as a GM. :ohwell:

Levels: Some games have used a level system to track character progress. This is a very inflexible and restrictive system that Sword & Spell is NOT attempting to recapture. Rather than having your thief get together with his buddies and then going out and hacking through a lair of goblins so that he can get better at climbing walls, Basic Roleplaying uses a system where if you want your thief to get better at climbing walls… go climb some walls. In Basic Roleplaying, if you want to improve a skill, use a skill.

Thanks for the interest.

Rod

Levels work fine for me playing in a DnD game, but I am not keen on the concept in a BRP based dungeon bash. I'm glad to read that you haven't adapted this for Sword & Spell.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Conrad

[Agentorange]

Mmmm.... the whole copyright thing is a tricksy business and no mistake. As regards the owlbear I'm not sure that saying " hey, I nicked it off of Everquest" puts you in the clear as :

1] Everquest might then go "Oi..thats ours that is "

2] Everquest might have it under license from WOTC in the first place

Bugbear is pretty safe as it's an old English legendry term

Thing is though, you have to ask have WOTC respected everybody's copyright ? Consider the humble Orc. Now in modern day RPGing Orc is shorthand for ' nasty, brutal, tribal thingy used as sword fodder for steely eyed heroes '. And that is pretty much straight out of Tolkien. Let's face it Tolkien more or less gave the term Orc to the modern world ( it was an archaic, forgotten English term before that ) So did TSR back in the 70's and later WOTC get permission from the Tolkien estate to use the term in such a fashion ? If not where does that leave them if they pick up someone for using some of their stuff ?

Murky waters Watson, murky waters indeed.

[Conrad]

Subject to change becouse of possible space limitations, but this is my goal of which more than half are done. This is the last chapter I have to write.

Elf, Dark

...........

Gargoyle

And where's the flumph then? :eek:I'm gutted that you could ignore such an important DnD monster!;-(

[threedeesix]

And where's the flumph then? :eek:I'm gutted that you could ignore such an important DnD monster!;-(

Who said it was missed? Maybe its a player character race. Then again, maybe not.

[Agentorange]

I must admit I'm keen to see what the Lich and the Wight look like in the flesh ( or the un flesh as it were )

[threedeesix]

I must admit I'm keen to see what the Lich and the Wight look like in the flesh ( or the un flesh as it were )

Hmm, should I? But where would the mystery be? :cool:

[Mechashef]

Thing is though, you have to ask have WOTC respected everybody's copyright ? Consider the humble Orc. ... So did TSR back in the 70's and later WOTC get permission from the Tolkien estate to use the term in such a fashion ? If not where does that leave them if they pick up someone for using some of their stuff ?

I think the important thing is not who is legally correct, but who has the money and interest to fight for their rights.

Didn't the first edition of the AD&D god book (Dieties & Demigods?) contain Cthulhu but later verions ommitted it because of complaints (by Lovecraft's estate, or whoever owned the rights to his works)?

I suppose, though Tolkein really brought the word Orc to public awareness, he couldn't claim to have created it.

[threedeesix]

I think the important thing is not who is legally correct, but who has the money and interest to fight for their rights.

Didn't the first edition of the AD&D god book (Dieties & Demigods?) contain Cthulhu but later verions ommitted it because of complaints (by Lovecraft's estate, or whoever owned the rights to his works)?

I suppose, though Tolkein really brought the word Orc to public awareness, he couldn't claim to have created it.

The end result is that I have no intention on using any name that is copyright WOTC. The big question I have is just what that is and isnt. I have changed names on any critters that I felt may need it and will continue to do so.

Now, what should I call my owl bears?

Rod

[Mechashef]

Now, what should I call my owl bears?

Hawk Pandas

[Sunwolfe]

...Hootgrrz.

And then, you can open this supposedly family-friendly restaurant where the owlbears wait on customers dressed in tight tops and..:party:

:innocent:

Sunwolfe

[threedeesix]

Now, what should I call my owl bears?

Rod

Actually, I think I got it.

Tyto ursine

Think WOTC is smart enough to figure it out? :cool:

Rod

Edited May 4, 2009 by threedeesix

[ORtrail]

Birdbears, or maybe BearOwls?

[threedeesix]

Birdbears, or maybe BearOwls?

I may go with Birdbear. Doesnt sound any sillier than owlbear.

[Agentorange]

I

Didn't the first edition of the AD&D god book (Dieties & Demigods?) contain Cthulhu but later verions ommitted it because of complaints (by Lovecraft's estate, or whoever owned the rights to his works)?

I think it was , um, er, Chaosium

[Agentorange]

Hmm, should I? But where would the mystery be? :cool:

No, no don't show us now ! As you say where would the mystery be ? I'm just saying I like the sound of a BRP Lich/Wight

[frogspawner]

Didn't the first edition of the AD&D god book (Dieties & Demigods?) contain Cthulhu but later verions ommitted it because of complaints (by Lovecraft's estate, or whoever owned the rights to his works)?

Yup. And Melnibonean.

I think it was , um, er, Chaosium

Yup again. Latest I heard, they just wanted a "By kind permission of Chaosium" statement - and got it in the next printing. But then a later editor didn't want to give a credit to a rival company, so took them out. But forgot to take out the credit statement!

And may I suggest "Ocular Tyrant" instead of just plain Tyrant? (Assuming it is "That Thing With The Eyes" TM, Order of the Stick...)