For Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day, I present:

Blood & Battle

1^st Edition – Basic Draft

by Rob Griffin

Sneaking Orcs by Santiago Iborra

Variant rules for running a Humanoid Campaign compatible with the Swords & Wizardry game.

Using these variant rules for Swords & Wizardry, you can create characters who are orcs, bugbears, goblins, gnolls, and half-orcs. Classes available are Barbarian, Shaman, Witch Doctor, Sneak, and Warrior.

This is very much a first draft, with more to be added. Please feel free to comment. Suggestions & feedback are very welcome.

Here are the rules (20 pages):

Blood & Battle 1st Ed - Basic Draft

My next project is to create an adventure for Blood & Battle:

B&B 1 - Against the Halflings!

Also, dont forget today only there is a deal going at Frog God Games on S&W stuff:

Let me tell you how much I love this website/tool:

MEATSHIELDS! The Classic fantasy Hireling & Henchman Generator

Created by +Greg Gillespie , this is the one website I use before every gaming session.

I use it to help populate the tavern where my adventurers base their explorations of the Barrowmaze.

It's so quick and easy, and creates such delightful results.

My players are new to the idea of hirelings & henchmen, and have taken to it with gusto. The first two sessions a 0 level Man at Arms armed with a spear and a deathwish literally saved the group's bacon on multiple occasions. He had the hottest dice at the table, and was bathing himself in glory until overwhelmed by a large group of skeletons towards the end of the second night.

Having a couple of red shirts getting eaten by ghouls, pulled apart by zombies, or having their flesh ripped off by carnivorous flies really sets the tone for the night.

Plus, the (always cowardly) torch bearers running off with loot in the middle of tough fights adds to the fun.

I've got a new group of hirelings prepped for tonight's action. Which ones will survive? Perhaps if a single man-at-arms can actually make it through 2 sessions I will promote him to Fighter, 1st level.

In anticipation of the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day on April 17th, I am releasing parts of the variant rules system I am working on. Here I present the Shaman Class for humanoid characters. Let me know what you think!

Blood & Battle

1^st Edition - Basic

by Rob Griffin

Variant rules for running a Humanoid Campaign compatible with the Swords & Wizardry game.

Swords & Wizardry, S&W, and Mythmere Games are trademarks of Matthew J. Finch. Blood & Battle is not affiliated with Matthew J. Finch, Mythmere Games™, or Frog God Games.

Shaman

Prime Attribute: Wis 13+ (+5 exp bonus)

Hit Dice: d6

Armor/Shield Permitted: Leather & ringmail, shield

Weapons Permitted: Any crude melee

Race: All

Finally! Today I finished a campaign map for my Erinmoor campaign using GIMP.  

It's not perfect, but it's the best I could do in about 12 hours haah! I had never so much as opened Photoshop or GIMP before this project.

My original map was hand drawn:

Straight outa the 80's


After reading through some tutorials at the cartographersguild.com I downloaded GIMP and started trying to make a fancy fantasy map.

The tutorial I used is great, although it is a little dated and the newer versions of GIMP have some changes. The thread for it is HERE.


Now to print one up for the group tonight! Maybe crumple it up and spill some tea on it or something first...

In anticipation of the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day on April 17th, I am releasing parts of the variant rules system I am working on. Here I present the Barbarian Class for humanoid characters. Let me know what you think!

Blood & Battle

1^st Edition - Basic

by Rob Griffin

Variant rules for running a Humanoid Campaign compatible with the Swords & Wizardry game.

Swords & Wizardry, S&W, and Mythmere Games are trademarks of Matthew J. Finch. Blood & Battle is not affiliated with Matthew J. Finch, Mythmere Games™, or Frog God Games.

Barbarian

Barbarians are savage, primitive warriors. Barbarians glory in melee combat and can intimidate foes with their raging attacks.

Prime Attribute: Str 13+, Con 13+ (+5 exp bonus)

Hit Dice: d8

Armor/Shield Permitted: Leather/ring, no shields

Weapons Permitted: Any melee or thrown

Race: Bugbear, Half-orc, Orc

Barbarian Class Abilities:

Alertness: Warbands with barbarians present are only surprised on a 1 in 6 chance.

Magic Items: Barbarians can only use magical weapons, armor, potions, & rings.

Enemy of Civilization: Humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, and halflings inspire a special hatred in humanoid Barbarians, granting the Barbarian a +1 damage bonus against such foes.

Chop 'em Down: Upon landing the killing blow, a Barbarian may make an additional attack against an enemy within 10'.

Shock & Awe: At 3^rd level, and upon completing a successful Chop 'em Down, Barbarians can put the fear of death into lesser opponents. Creatures of equal or lesser Hit Die to the Barbarian who witness a successful Chop 'em Down attack will fight at -1 to hit and damage for 2 rounds. In addition, if the odds of the fight are turning against the Barbarian's opponents, they must make a morale check or flee from the Barbarian until out of combat range.

Berserker: At 5^th level Barbarians may enter a berserker state once per day. While berserk, the Barbarian receives a +2 damage bonus, at a penalty of 2 to his AC. While berserk, the Barbarian is immune to fear. Berserkers cannot flee from combat, never fail morale checks, and fight until combat ends or they die. Berserkers must rest for one hour after the end of combat, or receive a penalty of 2 on all rolls and move at ½ speed until rested. It takes one combat round for a Barbarian to go berserk, during which time he may be engaged in combat. This effect stacks with Enemy of Civilization.

My D&D & OSR experience so far.

Two things happened today which caused me to reflect on the old school renaissance, D&D, and my history with the game.

First, I received from Ebay an original Moldvay Basic Set! For the price of a pizza dinner, I now have the box that started it all for me, 30 years ago. Also arriving was a long-looked-for copy of Gygax Magazine.

Then I read an excellent post on the blog RetroRoleplaying: The Blog that WOTC Discovers Typical D&D Players Like Short Combats!

That was a hoot to read, for so many reasons. I really, really hope they knock it out of the park with D&D Next. It's kind of like when your favorite sports team with a rich history gets bought by an idiot nouveau-riche owner who cant figure out what went wrong after he got it. I really hope Next is a smashing success, and that it is a return to old school play elements that makes it so.

This got me thinking about my D&D experience, and wanting to share it with you.

In anticipation of the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day on April 17th, I am releasing parts of the variant rules system I am working on and hope to complete by the 17th. Starting with the Title Page & Introduction. Let me know what you think!

Blood & Battle

1^st Edition - Basic

by Rob Griffin

Variant rules for running a Humanoid Campaign compatible with the Swords & Wizardry game.

Swords & Wizardry, S&W, and Mythmere Games are trademarks of Matthew J. Finch. Blood & Battle is not affiliated with Matthew J. Finch, Mythmere Games™, or Frog God Games:

Introduction

For over forty years, adventurers have penetrated into the wildlands, dungeons, and caverns of thousands of campaign worlds. In many cases, their first adversaries in these adventures have been the savage humanoid races. Treated as little more than walking loot bags, these creatures have been slaughtered by the thousands in nearly every 1st to 4th level adventure ever published. But who are these creatures, these twisted cousins of the civilized human and demi-human races?

Born in the harshest environments, raised among brutality unimagined in the cities and shires of civilization, these creatures manage to survive and even thrive under the most difficult circumstances. Outside the borders of civilization, among the vast wildlands and deep underground worlds, the humanoid races hold sway against both the forces of civilization and innumerable monsters & terrors. Within their tribes and nations, the humanoids forge their own societies, conquer vast territories both above and beyond ground, and challenge the forces of human and demi-human civilization for mastery of the world.

Far from being the ignorant savages they are often portrayed as, the humanoid races are members of complex societies with their own histories, traditions, and heroes. Among these societies, individuals often rise far above their kin, accomplishing acts of heroic bravery and ruthless cunning-gaining power, prestige, and wealth along the way.

As a player in Blood & Battle, you will have the opportunity to play humanoid characters, pitting them against both the civilized races and the monsters and terrors of the wildlands. As a referee, you will be able to create a campaign world which begins outside of the borders of the civilized lands on your map. These vast areas are populated with the humanoid races, and they await only your imagination to make them come alive.

Blood & Battle 1st Edition - Basic is a variant rules system based on the Swords & Wizardry Complete Rules set. It is designed to take characters from 1st-5th level. Within these rules you will find the tools needed to create unique humanoid characters and the campaign worlds in which to play them. Blood and Battle is compatible with the Swords & Wizardry rules set (available as a download from http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/?page_id=18 and online at http://www.d20swsrd.com/ ) as well as other rules sets based on the original version of the worlds most famous fantasy roleplaying game.

Enjoy!

- Rob Griffin

A Review of Swords & Wizardry Monstrosities

Happy day! I got my physical copy of Monstrosities in the mail today, along with issues #2 & 3 of Knockspell Magazine.

My thoughts, in no real order:

This book is THIIIIICK! And while it feels solid, it isn't terribly heavy. You could definitely break someone's face with it though.

A Dungeon Master's Guilt.

Since our last gaming session on Saturday (Swords & Wizardry), I have been haunted by a feeling of guilt at the way I handled the evening's penultimate encounter.

The party of (6) 1st level adventurers had pushed far into the Barrowmaze. They had lost one member already, the thief, in a zombie infested pit trap. They (conveniently) found another a few rooms later, hiding in a corner alcove, the last survivor of a group of tomb robbers.

They were farther in than they probably should have been, and had battled 8 groups of undead, mongrels, and centipedes, with almost no loot found. They kept saying "1 more room, just 1 more".

Swords & Wizardry Session#1 : Into the Barrowmaze!

Our first session of Swords & Wizardry found the characters assembling in Mucktown,  in The Barony of Erinmoor. After rolling characters and randomly generating PC relationships, the party was made up of:

-Lurellar Umrani, elf magic-user and bounty hunter partnered with Tuisasopo (below)
-Slashinus Flay, elf warrior, and adopted sibling of Lurellar
-(Matt's thief- since deceased, name forgotten), half-elf thief and business associate of Slashinus
-Brother Corm, human cleric, caught Matt's thief in act and compelled him to help in quest to determine source of evil in Barrowmaze
- Brother Uriel, human cleric, on a pilgrimage with Corm to root out new source of evil in Barrowmaze
- Tuisasopo, human Skald (bard), fought in a war with Brother Uriel

The group recruited four hirelings before setting off: a elderly guide, a dirt poor teenage torchbearer/porter, a man at arms with a spear and a death wish, and his war dog Willow.

Below is a recap of the evening written written by one of the players, and from the viewpoint of Lurellar, the haughty, bigoted elf magic user who fashions himself the brains and leader of the group:

Anonymous Elvish Journal entry - Dirtville Day 1

Yay another S & W Character Sheet!

Finding the right character sheet for my Swords & Wizardry home game has been something of a scavenger hunt.

Some sheets available online have great artwork, but not the fields I want. Some have the fields, but are designed for White Box, or Core Rules, or Labyrinth Lord, or OD&D (I'm using Complete Rules).

My graphics skills are laughable, and basically limited to what can be done in Google Docs.

I was making due with a very good sheet found on the downloads page at Swords & Wizardry SRD 

Until, that is,  I saw this awesome piece of engineering & imagination at Matt Rundle's Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker

After seeing that sheet and learning how it works at Rotten Pulp,  I knew I had to incorporate it into a character sheet some how, some way.

Well, after pecking and clawing and printing draft after draft, here's my attempt at a 

Swords & Wizardry Character Sheet

I print them out on card stock. I hope my players like them.

Tomb robbers are in your dungeon!

This post is inspired by Ivan Sorensen at  http://dailyosr.blogspot.com/ I love his posts and have started using his ideas in my home game.

As the mists part, you see looming ahead the object of your long journey. The Great Barrow, ringed with ancient standing stones, rises from the soft turf. Your relief soon turns to apprehension however, as you spy a group of rough looking men with a train of pack mules surrounding the shattered stone doorway.

Seeing your party emerging from the mists, the group hastily draw swords and nock arrows, while the best armed of the group spits into the ground and snarls at you in heavily accented common “Well what do we have here?”

Meeting groups of NPC’s in a dungeon or adventuring area can be a great source of tension, conflict, treasure, or even allies. Whether they are adventuring parties or simple tomb robbers, potentially adversarial groups of humans & demi-humans make for exciting, complex, and dangerous encounters.

Using a “roll all the dice method” you can use the tables below to generate a group of adventurers or treasure seekers in moments.

Hello all,

My obsession with my new Swords & Wizardry campaign has inspired me to create this blog. Well, that and all the great ideas and inspiration I have been getting from blogs and Google+ lately concerning Dungeons & Dragons, OSR gaming, and Swords & Wizardry.

I have never blogged, and don't know how long this one is going to last, but I'm looking forward to it while it does!