Crypts & Things: A swords and sorcery S&W variant

[NeilFord]

Newt Newport of D101 Games has announced a new S&W based game called Crypts and Things.

Rather than repost the entire blog post, I post a link to it below.

http://sorcererundermountain.d101games. ... /#more-255

I have the privilege of having seen the draft players book and it looks great. Can't wait to see the refs book.

- Neil.

[The Red Priest]

It looks pretty good.

Pros:

Adds the Thief class. This is a more martially inclined version of the Thief, inspired by the Grey Mouser from Fritz Leiber’s Lankamar stories. I like the idea of the thief being more martial in nature.
No Elves, Dwarfs or Halflings, Orcs, Goblins etc. Its all Serpent Men, Giant Apes, Primatives, creepy eldrich horrors all the way! Gotta love serpent men and giant apes. Not going for them is like saying you don't like tits and babies.
Sanity rules. Wisdom is used as a measure of mental stability. This system is used for both taking mental damage for witnessing horror and for magicians casting Black Magic. I like the addition of Sanity rules, but I wouldn't make it nearly as important as it is in CoC. The mind of an S&S citizen should be more accepting of the WeIrD than say an early 20th century shopkeeper. Also, I wouldn't make it contingent solely on Wisdom, I'd probably make it some function of Wisdom, Constitution (healthy body = healthy mind) and Charisma (it affects confidence in oneself)

Cons:

No Turning the Undead either as a class ability or spell. Necromancers are all S&S, baby, and if they can't control undead, then who can? It doesn't have to be an innate ability, as in turn undead, but there definitely needs to be some controlling undead spells.
A simple skill system based off the Saving Throw number. Used for class skills (such as the thieves skills and barbarians abilities) and other skills that the character may have picked up along the way. Codified skill systems just are not D&D. A distinguishing feature of D&D, is that it's about spot rules. There are other games that use skill systems .. go play them.

Otherwise than just the two points I mentioned as problem areas (which could probably easily be house-ruled), this looks like it could be a solid effort.

[jasmith]

I'm certainly interested, though I would ditch the sanity rules. I really have no use for driving a character insane. It's the players, I want to freak out!

[NeilFord]

Of course, the beauty of the old school philosophy, is that you can drop the bits you don't like and tweak the bits you do.

One good point is that D101 have a good relationship with a number of UK stores, so this might even make it in to retail, which would be goos for S&W in general.

- Neil.

[NeilFord]

Having checked my draft, both the "skill" system and the sanity rules take up less than a page and can be easily ignored. They aren't key to the game, though I do like the idea of there being consequences to using black magic.

- Neil.

[The Red Priest]

Having checked my draft, both the "skill" system and the sanity rules take up less than a page and can be easily ignored. They aren't key to the game, though I do like the idea of there being consequences to using black magic.

- Neil.

Especially if the consequences are power and wealth!

[Newt]

Hi there,

Just thought I'd decloak and answer a few points. Thanks for Neil for 'outing' the project here

Sanity rules. Wisdom is used as a measure of mental stability. This system is used for both taking mental damage for witnessing horror and for magicians casting Black Magic. I like the addition of Sanity rules, but I wouldn't make it nearly as important as it is in CoC. The mind of an S&S citizen should be more accepting of the WeIrD than say an early 20th century shopkeeper. Also, I wouldn't make it contingent solely on Wisdom, I'd probably make it some function of Wisdom, Constitution (healthy body = healthy mind) and Charisma (it affects confidence in oneself)[/list]

C&T characters will definitly not be as fragile sanity wise as CoC characters, and the system is really only for those big Sanity blasting moments, where you are up against the Awful Thing that Should not BE! or firing off a blasphmous spell.

Hmmn I'll have a crack at what you suggest during playtesting, as far as being a functon of Wisdom, Con and Cha. I think the original rules that I'm baseing this off, went for simplicity.

Cons:

No Turning the Undead either as a class ability or spell. Necromancers are all S&S, baby, and if they can't control undead, then who can? It doesn't have to be an innate ability, as in turn undead, but there definitely needs to be some controlling undead spells.

Even though player characters can be morally dubious and have Black Magic spells that create and control Undead, hence fullfiling the Necromancy element of S&S stories, I didn't want the power of Turning Undead in the players hands diminishing the effectiveness of the Undead NPC Necromancers are a different story, they can control undead till the cows come home and don't need any in game rules to tell them that they can.

A simple skill system based off the Saving Throw number. Used for class skills (such as the thieves skills and barbarians abilities) and other skills that the character may have picked up along the way. Codified skill systems just are not D&D. A distinguishing feature of D&D, is that it's about spot rules. There are other games that use skill systems .. go play them.

Wait until you see the skill system until you pass judgement. It really is a simple system - that just slightly suggests you extend the logic of Theives skills to make skill rolls IF YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED THEM. Its about half a page worth of text, which you can take or leave. And as for games that have skill lists, well as the designer of OpenQuest and a long time RuneQuest fanatic yes I do play them. And as a result I have no desire whatso ever to inflict skill lists on any D&D game that I play. Even the Skill proficiencies system in Oriental Adventures/Wilderness Guide/Dungeon Guide for AD&D 1st Ed, leave me cold.

Otherwise than just the two points I mentioned as problem areas (which could probably easily be house-ruled), this looks like it could be a solid effort.

Exactly One of the things that drew me to S&W to write this game, is that its wonderfully modular. Don't like an alternative rule in C&T, either ignore it, fall back to regular S&W or house rule it. As soon as you buy it use the same DIY spirit I used to make it , to make it your own.

One good point is that D101 have a good relationship with a number of UK stores, so this might even make it in to retail, which would be goos for S&W in general.

Making no promises here, but I'm trying to get more D101 games stuff into proper distriubtion this year. Even if that means that both Pdf and Print versions are available via DTRPG.com as standard. It will also be available via Leisure Games.

[The Red Priest]

Heya, Newt. Welcome aboard.

Even though player characters can be morally dubious and have Black Magic spells that create and control Undead, hence fullfiling the Necromancy element of S&S stories, I didn't want the power of Turning Undead in the players hands diminishing the effectiveness of the Undead NPC Necromancers are a different story, they can control undead till the cows come home and don't need any in game rules to tell them that they can.

I like the idea of NPC-only classes. That's a bit of rarity these days. Good job

[Newt]

Well I've not got any NPC only classes currently, I was thinking of just having a quick rule that NPC Necromancers/Black Magicians can automatically control/command undead. However there is always the Necromancer class in White Dwarf Articles III begging to be plundered

[Mythmere]

Well I've not got any NPC only classes currently, I was thinking of just having a quick rule that NPC Necromancers/Black Magicians can automatically control/command undead. However there is always the Necromancer class in White Dwarf Articles III begging to be plundered

My view is that NPC classes are simply "monsters." Write 'em up in the monster pages, and if desired give a "default" set of abilities (spells, abilities, whatever) for each hit die, or every two hit dice, however it works for that "class." Full scale NPC classes are cumbersome and restrictive, a "rule that binds the DM." If they are really, honestly, seriously conceived purely as NPCs, then there's no reason to structure it as a class. Granted, for a wide umbrella concept like necromancers, that monster description might be fairly long. Unless you broke necromancers down into a couple of different monster entries by giving them differentiating concepts like "Vorgian Necromancer, Demonic Necromancer," and things like this. Each category would have to be quite different in concept to be a good monster, but there's lots of scope for NPCs if you're treating them completely separate from the "class" concept and more like a monster.