HomeBrew: Cleric Spells OD&D OED

How about some Game content?

My current OSR style homebrew is based heavily on Original Edition Delta

Dan/Delta (the author of that work) has completely eliminated the Cleric Class and spells from his game/worlds.   

While I have come around to eliminating Clerics as a separate class, I am not prepared to eliminate them from the world.  I have basically smooshed the Cleric in with the Magic User and call the class "Sorcerer" in keeping with my Sword and Sorcery styling.  In this way, the player's have full access to D&D style magic, and archetypes (Druids, witches, etc.) but the GM does not have to weigh in on issues of how the cosmos works.

The class works in the same way as the Magic User with 2 differences.

1: The Fetish: this is the thing that take the place of a Holy Symbol, Spellbook, or Material components.  It is the thing that can be taken away to prevent spellcasting.

The text I use: "A scroll of hymns, a rune carved staff, a book of formulae, a crystal, an amulet, or even a bag of odd ingredients; this is the item that allows a Sorcerer to access magical forces.  In order to cast a spell, this item must be kept at hand and wielded at the moment of casting."

2: The Spells: The class has access (mechanically) to both Magic User and Cleric spells.  The player/ GM are encourage to curate spells by a theme.

Here are my conversions of Cleric spells in Blogger compatible format.

 

 

For missing spells check out OED Games "Book of Spells".

For spells above 5th level, you will have to put the work in yourself, I cap out my games at 10th level.

You can check it out in context here: https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2019/02/cleric-spells-refined.html 

Social Distancing & Dragons

My in person D&D game ended a little over 6 months before the world went into Quarantine mode.  I had gone on a hiatus to recharge my creative energy, and just generally get through the holidays (which in my experience tend to be terrible for gaming, at least once you are out of school).  

When we were all suddenly shut in with extra time on our hands, I put out the call on social media for players.  The call was answered by a player from the recently ended group, and some High School friends with whom I had kept the barest of contact.

So already this is great, rekindled an ongoing social relationship with folks from whom I had grown apart.  the trick now was what to run and how to run it.  The what to run is covered in my previous "What am I playing right now" post.

The how, that took some thought (that probably should have happened before I made the offer).  

Roll20: We tried to use this as a stand in when one player could not make the drive to the game.  It was mixed results most time.  To be fair, most of the issues centered around us trying to have a laptop "sit" at the table with people.  The video chat was also frequently flaky.  Having the on screen dice rolling, and player controllable tokens was fun, but honestly the effort to put that together just never seemed to be worth the pay off.

Other Virtual Table Tops: Lots of them look sexy and have great tools.  But also most of them are built around existing rules sets and modules.  So if you like to roll your own, seems like you will be doing a lot of work.  Also the buy in, for what may be a pick up game, or short lived expereince seems high.

Zoom: Zoom would actually be great, but I was reluctant to use my work license for a D&D game.  The main features would have been folks joining via web, and the ability to share specific windows.

Skype: I went with Skype.  If you run Windows, Microsoft probably already installed it for you, or it is easy to get. Since we were playing a face to face game, many of the other fancy video conference features were not needed.  (They eventually added the ability to share a specific window too, so that helped immensely).

Considerations

Time: While I typically shoot for the 3-4 hour play time in person. I opted for 2 hours here.  First, based off the advice and experience given by other online DMs. Also, threading the needle between people's schedule across times zones necessitated a compression of play time.  This works well since as a DM I find running over VC much more draining, and since the activity is more focused we probably get close to the same amount of "play" in.

Dice: It would be nice if any of the chat features of these VC clients support of AOL Chat Room style die rollers, but I can see why they don't.  Honestly, I was not too worried about dice integrity. I play with friends, and if you are the type to cheat at D&D, you need more help than a dice cam can give.  So all the players have thier own dice, or online dice roller and just call out results.

Maps, Tokens, Etc: At first I started describing the dungeon, hall length, twists and turns, but after a few sessions of that, I gave up.  With the 2 hour session, spending so much time describing or clarifying the layout was a waste.  So I moved to setting up a Photoshop window with the map, using an opaque layer as "fog of war" and erasing that as they progress.  I tried to set up a battle mat with tokens that I would move along with the action, but was running into visibility problems.  It is hard to account for how folks have their screen set up.  In short, most of the game is theater of the mind.

Sound: I recommend everyone get their own dedicated mic and headphones (or at least headphones) to help with audio issues (computer too).  None of my players use them, so every so often we need to deal with feedback or bad placement.  Especially since 3 of them play at the same couch/table/computer (we make it work).

Camaraderie: There is some chit chat/how you doing when folks first start to connect, but in general once play starts, things stay focused (apart from the occasional pet visit).  Some may see this as a good or bad thing.  The "turn taking" nature of VC audio also cuts back on side characterization, and can limit the ability to get things clarified.  Just the nature of the beast.

All in all I am pretty pleased with the simplicity of the setup and how well it works, allowing us to get to the game.

The Big Bad

 I was derelict in posting, so here is a quick something to get back on track.

This week saw the premier of The Big Bad on YouTube.  The show features a set of 6 D&D groups playing in a set scenairo, competing agains another for points, much like old school tournement play.  It features a GM/Referee and another "GM" to play the Big Bad and his minions.

The first episode was great fun, and features Second Best DnD.  The show is put together by two fellows who have greatly shaped my approach to D&D over the past decade and I encourage you to give it a watch.

Terrain

 When I first started in the hobby, our DM used a sheet of clear plastic laid over a posterboard with a grid drawn on it.  He would use dry erase marker to lay out a dungeon location, and we have markers to draw in ongoing spell effect.  We would often have a player's map set out before us of the overall location (frequently provided by the module itself, this was the era of poster map inserts).  That worked for many years, figuring out how to position minis and spell areas for maximum effect was an enjoyable tactile and tactical part of the game.

When my time came to run my own games, I did not have a source for nice big sheets of plastic.  I ended up with the idea of carving the grid direct into a whiteboard.  It was tedious to set up, and there were a few stray lines bit it worked great at the table.  The downside was being a lot more difficult to transport.  

Other than the occasional bit of HeroQuest or Dark World furniture, we never really used terrain.  I had made a small diorama on a shelf as a way to display commonly used minis, but that was it.  I used to covet the Dwarven Forge adds in Dragon magazine, but dismissed it as being too much of a luxury item (never mind how mch I had spent on minis, dice, and books for the hobby).

However, when they did their first Kickstarter for the new "dwarvenite" material, I was on board.  The price was good, the piece count was good, and I was in a place financially where I could easily justify it.  The Dungeons and Caverns were perfect for at the table. They were highly modular, and you got enough bits in a base set to make what you needed.

City and Castles where a different story in my opinion.  While they were still "modular", they were designed in a way that gave you less options.  Due both to the layout options and the number of bits you got in an affordable base set. You could build one house and swap a roof or wall, and one tower, swapping a wall section.  Don't get me wrong, the price per piece offered was still reasonable, you just could not do as much with it.  There were still some good introductory sets and add ons that were useful and I invested in.

Their next set of Caverns and Dungeons were good, and had a $10 buy in so you could just get small bits, and since it was compatible, there was still use to be had.  However, now with the latest Lava and Woodlands its gotten too niche, too expensive for what you get/ I can use.  Personally I would love if they would jsut put out a dwarvenite version of their classic tudor style building tiles. 

This has turn less into a discussion of Terrain and more a referrendum on Dwarvenforge.  I still think they are a great company and am pleased with everything I have gotten from them.   Perhaps because gaming has moved all online and I just don't have much use for terrain right now.  Though I have made use of the time to craft plenty.  A topic to revisit later.