OSR Campaign Planning – House Rules

One of the big takeaways from OSR games is how easy they are to homebrew things. Sure balance isn’t much of a consideration but also from a mechanics standpoint. As I start the actual planning of a campaign I started looking at what house rules and/or homebrew things to include and so far I’ve got a few things.

Max HP at 1st level

I’m playing with people who are very character story driven. While that may seem at odds with the danger and lethality of an OSR game that doesn’t mean we don’t want the characters to have a fighting chance. Max hit points at first level isn’t a huge boost but it does stop the trope of the magic user with 1 hit point and 1 spell.

Hit Points Beyond First Level

I’m debating a minimum threshold for hit point rolls as characters advance. Basically any roll below 50% (rounded down) before Con modifiers is considered to be 50% (rounded down). On the surface while this does push characters towards more heroic stature it doesn’t appear as though it would lead to HP bloat. Between the generally smaller hit dice (compared to 5e) and the fact that you only roll up to level 9 it should work out fine.

Death Timer

I like the idea of some sort of safety net at 0 hit points. This is an optional rule in BECMI and the Rules Cyclopedia, where the character makes a Saving Throw vs. Death Ray when they drop and then every turn thereafter. I’ve lost too many characters to death saves over the years so instead I’m going to use the Death Timer from Shadowdark – a character drops and the GM rolls 1d4. That’s how many rounds until the character is definitely dead.

Weapon Mastery

One of the issues I have, as someone who plays a lot of martial characters, is the lack of flavour to the Fighter. Weapon Mastery from the D&D Master Rules bring that in though not without some issues. So with some light re-tweaking, basically not having Primary and Secondary target types, this is definitely going in. By restricting it to martial type characters and also letting only fighters achieve Grand Master status that gives me what I’m looking for.

Alternate XP Awards

One of the things about games is that the bests ones reward the behaviour they want to encourage. Old School games are about getting loot more than killing monsters, newer games are about story progression etc. and the XP rewards should reward that.

In an effort to balance things for my players, who I know will be roleplaying and pushing forward their narrative, I’m going to be doing both using a system that not entirely by chance spells out GAME.

  • Gold: XP for gold is a standard OSR thing and one I’m not doing away with.
  • Achievements: Making significant progress on a story thread (personal or not), making alliances, researching a spell, making an enemy who survives to be a thorn in their side etc.
  • Monsters: I mean would it be D&D if there weren’t monsters to fight?
  • Exploration: Exploring an unknown and dangerous area is encouraged.

Gold and Monster XP is by the book but for achievements and exploration I’m looking at a percentage based system as opposed to a flat amount. The XP needed to hit a higher level is steep and 100xp for doing a thing is basically pocket change at a certain point. Something like 5 or 10% of the XP needed to hit the next level though? That’s the gift that keeps on giving. This is also something that is actually in original D&D that a lot of folks overlook.

Class Changes

This is the big one and will be its own post but ultimately I dislike the d100 chance for some skills, X-in-6 chance for others and roll under ability score for General Skills. I also want a way for each class to have some core competencies both intrinsic to the class and some that the players can customize to some extent as they level up. Much like Shadowdark classes have Talent charts they roll on as they level up I want something that makes each class distinct but with a uniformity across the design.

So I’m redoing all the classes so that each has a Core Ability that does three specific things and then four Areas of Expertise that function on an X-in-6 chance. The players will have points they can use to increase the X-in-6 abilities as they see fit. Maybe one Ranger is very good at navigation but less good at foraging etc. The actual details of those will be next time though.


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