OD&D Solo Game with my wife - Update

We're parents who are also raising our grand-daughter. So what do we do when we have a childless 24-36 hours? We play D&D! That's just how we roll. [Insert laugh-track here]

My wife also has left some thoughts on the game herself at the end of this post.

My wife's character, Aeli, has finally left the friendly confines of the city of Westport and is now venturing out for the first time into the hills and valleys of the Vale. I felt no small sense of satisfaction as I started to plot out her movement on a hex map and describe to her what she was seeing. The wandering dice were cold this time, though, and her travel for the day was uneventful as she made it to Valetown with no problems. Apparently, the bandits weren't fooled by her disguise.

The "mayor" (Patriarch) of Valetown had been pestering the Lord of Westport to solve a problem, so the Lord sent Aeli to do the dirty work, and she was told to investigate a mysterious tower. Unfortunately, she didn't get good directions or a map, so she ended up getting lost for the better part of a day. Still, no random encounters, and she made it back to town, where she got a better description. This time, she didn't get lost and found the area.

After taking a left at a fork in the trail, they came upon a door built into a hill. Within, her party encountered zombies. One hireling went down to the relentless battering, but the zombies would not pursue the party past a certain point, which allowed her to deal with them from long range. They found some nice treasure and hints that this may be an ancient complex. The party was roughed up by the encounter and Aeli wants a posse, so they went back to Valetown. There, they learned that they may have found something in addition to the tower, which they had actually bypassed in taking the left. More for Aeli to explore.

I finally cracked open the OD&D books during the game so I could use the Lost/Encounter chart for Wilderness Adventures. For some reason, the Swords/Wizardry rules didn't include this particular bit of 0e information; that's why it's good to have the originals available. In my campaign, unless there are obvious landforms and cues to follow or a map to be had, a person has a chance of getting lost, or at least turned around enough that movement isn't a straight line. It might seem "fiddly" but that is also part of what I think the 0e experience is - you're an ordinary person tramping around in the wilds. You don't have GPS and there aren't sign posts pointing you to your destination.

I continue to worry about how much "help" is too much or not enough. I probably struggle more with this than her, as I still worry about becoming the "story teller" instead of the referee. There were a couple of times that the NPCs suggested options on how to deal with the zombies, or suggested approaches to things. She sees it as valuable information, and as long as she's having fun and feels like it's still her game, I'm good.

I am mashing together the fantastic charts for Hirelings from Knockspell #1 with Garish's 140 Henchmen to create some interesting hirelings for my wife to find. If you get a chance, pick up Knockspell, this chart alone will add very cool options to your game. For instance, Aeli almost hired a goon who would have betrayed them all and stolen from them (all this from the random charts). She ended up not doing so, but that would have added an interesting element!

And thank you to ThePrincessWife who had this to say:

So, Aeli gets to venture out of Westport to Vale in some hair brain scheme to trap and trick bandit’s that did not work. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Hey, I did get a cart and two horses out of the deal. I was not told they would have to be returned so I am going to assume they are now mine. Under the rules “I have it so there for it is now mine” (ok I made that one up.)

I really feel like the story and the game are seriously crackling with a million possibilities now and it’s all got my imagination wondering what is next.

Ok, so I’ve learned Zombies are serious business and some planning needs to be done on my part, I’m always charging in and thinking later.

And so the amazing DM (hubby) says : “I probably struggle more with this than her, as I still worry about becoming the "story teller" instead of the referee.” This is true because I really never even think of this being an issue. I think it’s super cool I get to run the story of the game. I don’t think it occurs to me his playing along is “railroading” as he calls it ?

Converting 3.0/3.5 DC checks to 1E/0E Xin6 rolls

I'm in the middle of converting a Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classic for a game as yet to be played, and I ran into this nice set of conversions of some DCCs to 1E.

One of the aspects of 3E that always proves challenging to convert (for me) is the Difficulty Class. I've been learning to wing it with Xin6 chances, per Rient's Rule #1. However, in looking at 3.0/3.5 resources, it seems like almost everything has a DC. Deciding how to adjudicate these can be frustrating because I can occasionally see the utility of making a check, but not the clarity of how to go from DC to something useful in 0E/1E. One of the conversion documents discusses this and included a nice d8 chart:

SRD Difficulty Class Examples	Corresponding 1E, Basic D&D, D8 Values, roll within the range to succeed. A natural roll of 1 is always a failure. A natural roll of 8 is always a success.
Very easy 0-4	no die roll.
Easy (5-9)	2-8
Average (10-14) -	3-8
Tough (15-19)	4-8
Challenging (20-24).	5-8
Formidable (25-29),	6-8
Heroic (30-39)	7-8
Nearly impossible (40),	8

Well, this is nice and all, but I roll with the d6, so I had to modify it for d6 usage. There is absolutely no real math in this aside from an eyeballing of the differences between a d6 and d8. I didn't want to put that much time into doing an exact statistical analysis, so if you want to and you have a good correction for me, I'll edit the post and make the change.

SRD Difficulty Class Examples	D6 – 1 always fails, 6 always succeeds.
Very easy 0-4	No roll.
Easy (5-9)	2-6 (5 in 6)
Average (10-14)	3-6 (4 in 6)
Tough (15-19) or Challenging (20-24)	4-6 (3 in 6)
Formidable (25-29) or Heroic (30-39)	5-6 (2 in 6)
Nearly impossible (40)	6 (1 in 6)

Apply +1 for favorable conditions/modifiers, -1 for unfavorable conditions/modifiers

Now admittedly, I'm liable to use this only if there's a question in my head. Nine times out of ten, if it's easy or average, I'm going to just say "Yes" and move on. I usually apply DCs only when things are tough, when there's a good chance of failure and an interesting result that could happen on failure. Having this chart in my back pocket, though, allows me to get through some of the conversions quicker and use the DC/dice to retain the feel when it makes sense. Perhaps you could find it useful as well.

Credit must go to the authors of the conversion document: H.J. Martin, Barrataria, G. B. MacKenzie and Rich Franks.

(And BTW, copying/pasting tables out of Word into Blogger and then trying to edit the table is a nightmare. Blogger needs a better table editing mechanism.)

Wife from Solo Game answers your questions

A couple of weeks ago, I asked if anyone had any questions for my PrincessWife who plays in the solo game that I blog about. You did and she's answered them. Please feel free to ask follow-up questions and thank you, PrincessWife, for being a guest. :)

Who asks for a game, is it him or is it you? What's the time window you pick?

He asks but I am usually they one who gets the yay or nay veto power. My choice is Friday nights, but sometime we will play on a week night if not too tired.

I need to get my wife to game, while she is very supportive of me being active in my hobby, she has zero interest. See if your wife has any ideas. Though I imagine we would have to connect on some theme we both enjoy, and then translating that into a game... which could prove difficult!

Try and get her involved in creating her own characters and the story line, find out if any of it interests her and start there.

I'd love to hear how she felt about gaming before she started this campaign and now; and why things changed if they did. How do you feel about having all of your exploits posted here for us to kibitz over?

I hadn’t given D&D gaming much of any thought after my high school gaming days, Mostly the change was for quality time spent together with the hubby Chgowiz.

As far as my exploits kibitzed, well. He pretty much knows me well enough to understand what would really embarrass me, so far we are good. So far, LOL

[Ed. note: That's because I like sleeping in my own bed at night...]

I've read elsewhere that Chgowiz dances around and is very animated while running his D&D games. Is there any truth to this? Do you control his caffeine intake before game sessions?

Animated ? Well, depends on how evil and excited about his plot he is. As for the caffeine, no we don’t have to hide that. But the sugar…heh.

What previous experience do you have with regards to RPGs and table top gaming.

Very little experience except some weekend playing in the summer time in H.S.

Who's idea was this game, yours or your husband's?

If you mean the campaign that we are playing it was a combined effort with the story.

[Ed note: Starting the game, and then Great detail (a little too much detail) about the first session and her backstory, which she wrote all by herself.]

What game system are you using, who chose that system, and why.

Uhhh system ? Have to ask the DM that one.

[Ed note: I started the campaign with microlite74, then moved to Swords/Wizardry to move us firmly into OD&D territory.]

Could you tell us a little about your character. Start with the standard Name, Race, Level, Class and then tell us about her personality, hopes, dreams, motivations for adventuring, etc.

Oh, ok. Let’s see.

Aeli Therron, human fighter level 3. Her favorite weapon is her long bow. Although she’s a little smitten (obsessed) with her enchanted fancy sword right now.

She’s a noblemen’s daughter who is on a quest to find the evil mage that killed her family.

What are some notable events which have occurred in the game so far?

One of the coolest things so far was Aeli running up the stairs of the tower, flinging open the trap door at the top, long bow ready, rolling a 20 to hit the magic user, heh.

What is something that has happened so far that you thought was awesome, or just great.

See above

What is something that has happened so far that was horrible, or not good?

Not horrible, but frustrating was when I was standing in a grain pile and could kill a bunch of giant rats because of footing. I was all grr.

If you were forced to choose how would you have your character die.

Big, big battle with her long bow, hopefully not when she finally finds the evil mage. I hope I don't get all the way to the end and die when I meet the mage.

Who is your character's most hated enemy? Why?

The mage that killed my family.

Who is your character's closest friend? Why?

Probably Terronell [Ed note: An NPC] despite herself because he is a magic user. I do have two henchmen I’m pretty fond of. I take care of them a lot and they are super loyal.

Being a DM's wife myself, I gotta ask... Do you ever think the two of you will ever turn the proverbial tables so that YOU are the one running the game?

Nope, no interest at all about DM’ing. I love the adventures because Mr Chgowiz has an amazing imagination. It’s better than reading a fantasy adventure.

Do you ever completely out of the context of a game session start asking him questions about the game..or worse yet, break into character and start talking about what's happening in game?

I constantly try to make him spill the beans. He never ever does, Grrr...

And finally, IF some Hollywood producer got the notion to turn your solo adventure into a swords-and-sorcery movie, who (if anybody besides yourself) would play your character?

Good one, probably Helen Hunt, LOLOL. Don’t ask.

Just what kind of "role-playing" earns the real XP in this game, anyways? (Wah wah wahhhhh! Sorry, can't think of anything serious to ask at the moment)

Sadly the DM cannot be bribed with my womanly ways for XP , hee

Since you're in a relationship with your DM other than the the DM-player, how do you keep one from affecting the other? Are you ever tempted to make threats like, "I better level this session, or you're getting burnt toast for breakfast for the next week?" Or just get mad at him for things not going your way in the game and burning his toast anyway?

Well, women are women, and to let the (womanly) secret out we will pout to try and get our ways. But no, I have never threatened him with burnt toast. Me personally I am extremely, and I do mean extremely competitive in nature. If he let me win I will be really PO’ed. Now if my character died I would probably pout for a while and want to come back and kick some major butt.

Thank you PrincessWife - if you guys have followup questions, I'll see if she'll answer them in the comments. Now I have to go paint her miniature...

My Co-Guest-DM for my wife's solo game on Friday...

Bear says "Play Swords & Wizardry! Woof!" Yes, he's that big that he can rest his head on the table. He hasn't eaten any dice or miniatures yet.

OD&D Solo Game with my wife

The Princess Wife and I sat down for a quick session of her Vale campaign on Friday night. I introduced her completely to the concept I've shamelessly stolen from Alexis/Tao of D&D in that there is no "Ye Olde WalleyMarte" - she had to visit a furniture maker for sturdy chests and a locksmith for a decent lock, now that she has more coins than she can conceivably carry around on her. She's also been awarded a lease to a small apartment, which the NPC mage and her two followers are now all squeezed into.

So while all this "setup" role playing is going on, she decides to investigate what is going on with the bandits. She decides to visit a more rough Inn to seek information, upon which I award 3in6 chances of there being a bar fight. I roll a 3. Cue the big, burly drunk idiot who wants to make my wife's character his girl friend of the evening. Cue one of her henchmen who takes great offense. Cue the jumping on tables, smashing of chairs, butting of heads with the ends of sword hilts and the tavern owner growling that "losers pay..." as Aeli and retinue sheepishly look at the 5 thugs laying in various states of subdued glory. The epilogue is that my wife finally just takes 3 days of healing from HP damage.

The funny part is that right after I rolled and mentioned the drunk guy, she looked at me and deadpanned "We're going to have a barfight, aren't we?" Hehehe, yes we are.

My wife is about to venture on an overload trip to find some bandits and help a particular Patriarch in Vale about a Tower. Who knows what lies in store for her...

A couple of lessons learned - the Swords/Wizardy rules for subdual/unarmed combat were easy to roll with - I had to come up with an on-the-spot concept for her to run, jump on a table, jump off the table onto a guy and grapple him (Dex check and Str check). She passed the Dex check but failed the strength test to fully grab him - which meant she's on top of this guy, tussling with him as the other henchmen start to pummel... them both. I probably would have given her one or the other, but with the exploding chairs, bottles and plates flying all over the place, I wanted to inject some randomness into it ... and the chance was high she'd end up flying off the table and have to do something else...

Second lesson was to make sure I've got the right stuff printed out for my campaign in my binder! I thought I had my special shopping guides for Vale, but they're not there... argh! I really need a decent working printer at home... nothing I hate more than having the dumb look on my face while thumbing through the other campaign binder to find the shopping guide.

Ask My Wife About the Solo Game

A comment on my most recent solo game recap asked if my wife would be willing to write as a guest blogger about the campaign. I really, really liked this idea so after discussion with her, she's agreed to answer questions that you readers might ask, that would be a more comfortable format for her.

So... if you're curious about the solo game from her POV, please ask away! She'll write up the answers in the next few days and I'll post them as soon as she's done, probably in the next 10 days or so.

Thank you, Princess Wife. :)

OD&D Solo Game with my wife - continued

After too long of a hiatus, my wife and I continued her adventures in the Vale Campaign. She had just reached a wonderful pinnacle in D&D play - third level. She had just earned the attention (and possible gratitude) of a local lord and she once again sacrificed treasure to help take care of a wounded (and infected by lycanthropy) henchmen.

Last night was a great deal of RP'ing, and the only rolls I performed were to see if an extremely forgetful innkeeper would remember something (1 in 20, 5% chance... failed both times) as she was questioning him.

There are times in some stories where it seems like a flood of information is revealed. I'm sure there's a literary term for it, but I'm not learned enough to know that term. That is what happened last night. My wife's character learned a great deal about the campaign world that she's in, about the possibilities of the situation she finds herself in and some more about her family's history - a history that includes participation in a rebellion and an ancient mage ancestor. She's suddenly gotten the impression that there is a little bit more to the world and that she is starting to see her backstory is indeed involved, even though she's been going through dungeons and tunnels that have nothing to do with finding her family's murderer and gaining revenge.

I like moments like that though - where you get a peek through the curtain and it gives you something to motivate yourself. I think I'm just as excited that she's hit this point as she is.

A couple of other interesting tidbits. I was prepared to have the Lord name her as a "Champion of Westport", but after discussing her situation, they agreed it would probably draw too much attention to her. However, she's been given a lease to an apartment and has been offered to have his continued support if she will indeed act as his champion, albiet a bit more quietly. I hooked this award on the things she's done for the city. I think she liked it.

My NPC mage just lost *all* of his magical loot/items as well, which takes him back to the beginning. It was a harsh development, because those items could have indirectly helped my wife. Although this is a "sandbox", the events my wife set into motion with her backstory will continue to develop around her. I find that is different from the West Marches sandbox I'm running. Here, my wife can do as she likes, she has many different things she can get involved in, but there are events in motion that she can/will affect, or she won't, and they'll continue. In Dark Ages, the players are the story. So it's a bit different. Neither is a railroad, but both are geared towards specific things.

I think the approach I've taken with my wife's game is a good one for solo type games. Since she is the complete story, events are rather central and events will happen without her direct input. Is it a metaplot? I don't know... I know it's not a railroad, but this is a living, breathing world and things will happen around her. I've used more of her backstory to initiate events, versus what I'm doing in Dark Ages, which keeps the game focused on her more. She is, however, free to ignore them or do as she pleases, which sustains a sandbox approach.

(This part coming up is a spoiler... and if you're reading, PrincessWife, you should skip this part.)



She's learning that this wonderful sword of hers has some really odd effects. It's a very fancy sword, it seems to have served her well, but she's finding that at various times, she has to exert her will to do things with it. At odd times, she'll find herself obsessively sharpening it and cleaning it. Last night, while attemping to dig through some still burning embers in burnt Inn rooms, she had to make a charisma roll to use it as a temporary shovel.

Magic items have strange effects. The magic in my world is a quirky thing. Not all cursed items have a negative to damage/hit rolls - and not all good magic items are as beneficial as just plusses and abilities. She hasn't said much about it, or done much in character about this sword, but that's OK, I'm patient and this will all add up after awhile. (Or the next game after she reads this! LOL...) I don't want to give too much more away, but I should note that this item has a 3x5 card in my Campaign folder.

The line (a rant on the "fad" of old school)

"The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!" - Capt. Picard, Star Trek: First Contact

A bit dramatic, but then, Patrick Stewart can deliver a dramatic line like few others in acting today. And that is exactly how I feel today - a bit angsty, a bit ranty and a bit like "Just call your spade a spade and get off my lawn!" Not exactly the most friendliest of beginnings, but there you have it. And yes, I have my coffee.

So what has brought this all about? It started earlier this week with an announcement by Necromancer Games about "4E Classic", an attempt to recreate the 4E rules to "old school", for whatever that means. I was curious. I've long said that 4E is not the game for me, but I do appreciate the time, effort and thought that went into making an RPG that is clearly selling like hotcakes. I was curious what a published RPG designer might make of it in an attempt to make it more "old school".

What did I see? Mechanics, mechanics and more mechanics. How to justify/make healing surges work, how to make the classes work in a 3E fashion, how to do this and that with yet more mechanics. I left saddened. I don't think they understand.

Later this week, Monte Cook announced he's going for an "old school feel" for his Dungeon-A-Day subscription service. Obviously Monte Cook commands a lot of attention and respect for his previous RPG work, so this annoucement has sent shockwaves throughout the RPG community. Yet, in reading Monte's announcements, I get a similar empty feeling. I don't think he understands.

They don't understand because they are across the line. It's not a line of mechanics or tables or dice rolls or having a formula that makes a game 'old school', it's having a feel and philosophy and an approach to gaming and the rules. I commented as much on the Necromancer boards, to a resounding, disappointing silence.

I don't know Clark Peterson personally, so I don't know if this is true, but his words leave me to think that he's missing the boat. You can't bolt on chrome and fuzzy dice and whitewalls onto a Scion and call it an old-school car. It may "look" retro, but it's not - the new Camaro (which is an epic of a fail as any auto maker has done) is proof of that. The mechanics and the fiddly bits aren't going to make 4E anymore "classic" than a good set of houserules. Publishing a dungeon and setting aren't going to make you anymore "old school" than the many "dungeon delves" that were published for 3E.

What distresses me most is that all these new shiny things that scream "I'M OLD SCHOOL!" are distracting. In some cases, they might be catalysts - the Monte Cook announcement had the old schoolers saying "Why didn't we think of that? We'll do it better!" and starting to talk amongst themselves about how to make something similar work. I fear, however, that all we're doing is getting distracted from some really good things - Fight On and Knockspell fanzines, new versions of Swords & Wizardry and OSRIC, continuing publishing of good adventures and good supplements and all of the independent individual creations that have really brought a bunch of us to life.

I don't think you can put lipstick on a pig and I don't think you can make 4E 'old school' until you go back to what old-school means to you and your audience and start from there. Most of the guys that blog about "old school" are the same guys who publish to the fanzines and OD&D boards and I think they could do it, if they wanted - they could truly create a 4E "Classic" - but then, I don't think it would be 4E - it would be OSRIC and S&W and we've already DONE THAT! I think we could put together a "subscription service" similar to Monte Cook's proposal, but with the fanzines and our articles, we've already DONE THAT! Yes, I'll help with my friends with this subscription idea, but that's because I respect them and I want to learn and share in experiences with them, but I don't want us to do this just because we're going "Why didn't we think of that?"

I know it's the neat, new shiny thing, but to quote yet another sci-fi classic, "Stay on Target!" We have a good thing going with what we've been doing. Yes, "old school" is the new fad of the day. There's now a lot of excitement and buzz and with that comes those who want to glom onto what we're doing. We have our line. We've got good things on our side. Let's keep focus on those things and keep on Fighting On.