A few days ago, I showed my "professionally" printed version of the rules, and talked about my disappointment in how it turned out. I decided that I want to revise the document from landscape to portrait and print it out (on a printer, not sent to some crappy Chinese printing service) and just put it in a report cover with a sliding bar like you can buy for a couple of bucks at Wal-mart or Staples or whatever. While I was at it, I might as well revise a few things in the rules anyway. I did this over the first couple of days of the holiday, but I also made some small revisions since doing so, bumping me from version 1.2, which was printed, to 1.3.1. However, I'm not going to upload or print the documents just yet, because I put a 2023 copyright on them. Plus, just in case I decide to make another minor update before going official. But let's talk briefly about what I did that was new or changed.
First, I changed the Hardcore Mode to Nightmare Mode. This is a minor cosmetic change, but since Hardcore Mode is the name of an actual product that modifies 5e, I thought a more generic Nightmare Mode, which sounds like the highest difficulty setting on any number of video games, would work better.
I'm actually not quite sure why I included this option at all. No doubt, I got caught up in listening to podcasts from OSR-adjacent people, like Professor Dungeon Master, or some of the others of his ilk, and thought it would be fun to include an option for the truly hardcore version of the rules that feels more like B/X or even OD&D. On the other hand, it's not like I actually have any interest at all in playing with that option. What can I say? I guess even I'm not immune to getting swept up in zeitgeists, even when it's not really my jam. That said, now that the options exist, I don't see any reason in removing them, even if I'll never use them.
Secondly, I included a new bunch of little sections of alternate rules. These are neither more nor less difficult; they're just different, and in some cases, I might even almost prefer them to my original rules, so they have much more currency with me as the designer and owner of the game—I could totally see using these rules. Let's go through them a little, shall we?
• For people who are anxious about rolling stats, I included a default array. Given that there's only three stats in m20 games, I went with -1, +1 and +3. Not a bad option, actually. I don't know what the odds are of rolling that or better, but I'd propose that the default array is probably on the high side of average.
• The class customization was officially turned into a alternative rule rather than a default one.
• Swashbuckling armor class alternative was introduced; for this rule, your starting gold is reduced, and you don't really have armor or shields on the equipment list. Rather, you apply your To Hit Melee score as a bonus to 10 to calculate your armor class. This is arguably better than the armor version, in terms of what the AC score is, and how it progresses, but game balance isn't going to be thrown off because of it, because the game isn't balanced to a razor's edge anyway; it's pretty forgiving, as any game based on rulings instead of tight rules is inevitably going to be.
• Three different new alternate initiative systems are spelled out. The default initiative is similar to initiative in OD&D and B/X; each side rolls a d6 for it each round. I've also introduced the concept of having no initiative at all, of the 3e and 5e style initiative, and simply doing initiative by DEX score. To be honest, I'm kind of indifferent to all but the 3e and 5e style initiative. Even though I've used that extensively over the last two decades, I think it's too complicated and takes too long, and I no longer prefer it to simpler alternatives. But in situations where I have a really small group of only 1-3 players, it would probably still work fine.
• An entirely new spellcasting resolution system is described, in which you make a spellcasting check (Magic To Hit roll vs a DC of 10 + (2 x spell level)). In this alternative system, there's no hit point damage representing the spell tiring you out or draining your energy; you can cast them much more often and frequently. There's also no sanity check unless the spell fails (in the default system, the sanity check is separate from the spellcasting phase, and even successfully cast spells could have a sanity cost to the spellcaster.) However, critical failures (natural 1) on this check are significantly more dramatic, including a sanity check at disadvantage, and the spell will either 1) backfire on the caster, and his party if it's an area effect, 2) bring extradimensional monsters in to attack the spellcaster and anyone who attempts to defend him, or 3) a totally different spell will go off (maybe even one the spellcaster doesn't know) and may well effect a different target. It's up to the GM to make sure that this is just as inconvenient an option as the first two. In other words, spellcasting becomes less costly when it works fine, but it also becomes like a game of Russian Roulette every time a spell is cast, and the spellcaster himself (or his party) will self-regulate the use of magic to real emergencies, because of the inherent risk. A natural 1 may not seem like that bad of a risk, but it will happen, on average, once every twenty spells cast. That's quite a bit, and because the results are so much worse than in the default rules, spellcasters are highly incentivized to be cautious in the use of their magic.
• The extended minion concept discussed a few posts ago was edited and introduced as a regular alternative rule in the Monsters and Other Foes section. Now, any combat can be simplified by changing hit points to hits by dividing hit points by 10, rounding, and manually adjusting as needed one or two in either direction. All critical hits and any damage rolls that are in in the top two digits of the damage range count as double hits. This is explicitly spelled out as a shortcut to make combats easier and faster to run, however, not as a full-time replacement system. I also believe, although I didn't really say this, that when using this shortcut, it's a good idea to just do it as the GM as a shortcut and not necessarily tell your PCs when you're using it or when you're not. They don't need to see the sausage being made, and in theory, it only makes it easier on the GM without actually having any noticeable impact on the actual combat.
Thirdly, I made a few minor updates to a number of monster entries. I also added some brief text highlighting how difficult and scary many of the monsters would be even to relatively high level PCs, and suggested that they be used more as module-capping set pieces rather than run of the mill foes, for the most part. By this I mean the actual monsters in the list, of course. An entry like HUMAN, BANDIT wouldn't count as a monster for purposes of this discussion. In fact, I specifically recommended using a lot more human (and demihuman) and wild animal foes for most combats.
I also generated a bunch of AI artwork files to use as cover art. Most of them weren't really good enough to qualify, but I got about half a dozen that are decent and barring me spending real money to commission some real art, they'll do the trick.
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| This is the one I used, but the next one is a close second. |
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