SETTING UP AN OSR CAMPAIGN

   

Unlike my adventures in Dungeons and Dragons 5e where we cracked the original starter set, rolled up characters, I spent a day reading it and we started playing and then used the essentials kit to expand the world.  Returning to my OSR roots to reframe the game was a bit of a challenge.  I originally started playing 1^st Edition somewhere around 1978.  So I remembered it took us along time to figure out 1e correctly and picking up B/X a few years later we played with both pretty interchangeably with all the bumps you imagine that entails. In the end I want to say we were playing a B/X style game without the racial and class limitations  and whatever else we liked best from 1e. and for us it worked.  Fast forward nearly 40 years, the whole OSR movement, retro clones  from OSRIC, to Labyrinth Lord… I am a big fan of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG as well and the gonzo sword and sorcery nature that it captures so well.

Old School -My original books purchased in 78-79

Running an intro game of D&D for 12-14 years olds, I knew B/X was the way to go and I was a happy sometime last year in my You Tube feed to find people talking about Old School Essentials, while the basic game was too limiting for my tastes, the Advanced version was right up my alley as a better more concise version of the game I remember I used to run that we loved so much.

 

New Old School.......

Like any good home game I have my share of  optimal and house rules to tailor the game to my group.

We are using many optional rules, like Advanced Character Creation, Ascending Armor Class (starting kids with 5e, THACO seemed like not something I wanted to bring into the mix), Weapon Proficiency’s  and Specialization,  we separate Race and Class , 1e style.. I added bonus spell slots for higher Intelligence and Wisdom scores, knowing my kids as I do, they were not going to dig casting 1 spell without having to rest for 8 hours..So when you read about a second level wizard having 4 spells, that’s why.  To counter that I make them roll to cast everytime they fire off a spell , on “1” you miscast and I have a not too horrible miscast chart, that can kill you if you roll bad enough, a 20 gives the spell maximum effect.  We use a converted %  to d20 roll for Thieves Skills to keep it easy and lastly I softened up Death a bit , at 0 hit points you are unconscious ,  up to -10 Hp you get a Death Save…Save or Die negative modifiers may apply…beyond -10 you are just plain dead.

 House rules aside, I then choose a meat grinder of module to get started with Greg Gillespie’s  fantastic Barrowmaze,  I was a recent participant in his last Kickstarter and picked up the hardcover and PDF of the 10^th Anniversary edition.  I love his minimalist setting I knew I could make great use of it as intro before dropping them into the Barrowmaze itself.

 

I thought I was pretty smart when I realized Gillespies map of his world was taken from the old "wilderness survival" board game that was used by the TSR guys as either the inspiration for Greyhawk or Blackmoor, I dont recall.

Loving  AD&D Module T1-  the Village of Hommlet as I do but having zero desire to ever run the Temple of Elemental Evil again,  I found dropping a modified Hommlet  made an easy way to get players into the story and the style of play and was pretty simple with following changes.  The new faith vs old faith dynamic of Gillespie’s world plays perfectly into the existing story structure.

major changes to original include:

-No Terjon,  The Church of St Cuthbert  becomes the Church St Ygg, Run by Y’Dey

-No Rufus and Burne, Replaced by a Castellan assigned from the Viscount of Duchy to build a Castle     in  this border Village. The  are new faith followers of St Ygg

-The druidic old faith worship Silvanus and Herne, are  represented by Jaroo, Brother Smyth and Black Jay respectively. They represents most of the long standing Villagers.

 -The Cults of Orcus, the Necromancers of Set , and secret followers of Nergal are all represented in Hommlet as agents of the factions within the Barrowmaze and the quest for the control of the Tablet of Chaos.

 The curve ball here is my players wanted to try playing some neutral, even chaotic characters this time around,  so the following  less than savory characters from the module represent these forces in Hommlet.

 -Lareth the Beautiful (replaces Elmo) as the local character who chooses to engage the PC’s.  Lareth is really an outcast of the Temple of Orcus and wishes to overthrown his former mentor Zur the Black. Doing so will require he gain much power personally as well as powerful allies, he wishes to use the PC’s to attain this goal

 -Rannos Davl and Gremag, pose as Reeves and Hugo Grimwood,  the New Proprietors of a area know family business that spans numerous cities,  The real Grimwood brothers having been deposed by these two before their arrival, They are spies and agents of the Necromancers of Set and look to undermine nosy PC’s and anyone involved with Orcus or Nergal. They are friendly and helpful to all, leaving the dirty work of disposing of bodies to their vile henchman, Egor.

-Dirk Ironside (Zert) Worshipper of Nergal, A small but secret sect who honor the death cult of Nergal aware of the goings on of the local followers of Orcus and Set, they seek to prevent the discovery of the Tablet of Chaos.

 -The infamous Moathouse is again the focus of the 1^st level PC’s . Humanoid bandits have been plaguing local caravans and raiding the village.  Cleaning out the threat entrenched there is motivation for all factions to look for an opportunity to take control of the Moathouse themselves, far enough away from town to be covert base of operations for large group and expeditions into the Barrowmoor.

 While the Moathouse encounters remain only slightly modified from the original , In Hommlet , many of the names have been changed to not give away the intentions of the some of the NPC in case they should ever play the original again as its written,

 Moving ahead I’ll dig straight into the narrative of this campaign, we are well into it at this point .

The Hommlet portion is complete and the group is now approaching Helix where its first forays into the Barrowmaze are soon to occur. Being far enough ahead should allow me to write episodically pretty regularly re telling the games exploits as there is no need to catch up to the games real timeline .

 Keep an eye out for Chapter 1 of our Barrowmaze saga,  this week!