BASHIN EM

In my dreams last night, I became omniscient. I don't know if it's really possible to describe how it feels to be omniscient, so my personal recommendation is to do so yourself, and then come back over here.

Bash 'Em Lads is actually nearly done, I just need to make a cover image and then get somebody to play with me. I don't think any of my friends are interested in that sort of thing, so I was thinking about printing out some paper minis and playing with the wife. Although we do have plenty of orcs and goblins and stuff, so maybe we'd just use those.

The thing I really like about the ruleset is how easy it is, and how simple. You have one or two heroes, three or four units, then you have the heroes command your units to do stuff, and the units kind of follow along. It's beautiful and simple. It still requires you have a couple small blocks of infantry, but then again, what doesn't?

Anyways I'll put the rules up here. They also serve as a not-hideous version of the original ruleset if you don't like what I've done- I've tried to make them as separate as possible, and have clearly framed any of my additions as "optional rules." I think it turned out ok.

Oh, also: Here it is. One-page version's here.

This one is just literally the one-page version of the original rules, I'll put what I've done in separate one-page additions, because that's the kind of person I am. I know that anything I come up with isn't going to be as good as what ol' Jim came up with, so why mix them together?

Also I realized I never actually wrote anything for Oni Puncher, and I never finished that card game based tabletop thing. I might get on that, eventually.

Actually Playing

Playing Swords and Wizardry with some buddies has been a great time. It's a big change of pace from writing abstractly about game theory and systems that look like they'd read great to actually playing them.

As a good example, the way things work in Swords and Wizardry. You read through the tiny class section and the things each class gets and you wonder if there shouldn't be more crunch or complexity. You get ideas where the classes could be more different, or maybe you put an extra class in there that's sort of a mix of things. And the spells! You don't even get any combat magic at first level! The cleric doesn't get a spell until second level! And there's no skill system or anything!

But in actual play, all of that disappears. When the players went to the tavern (where the Fighter decided he worked), they didn't roll to charm anybody or anything. In this specific case, there was a large drunk man who was more than happy to dish out some juicy rumors for the price of a couple of pints. And they talked to him. When they were looking for the lucky man, they used their wits to find him. When they found him, they tried to convince the guy to come out so they could help him get his so-called fortune. When he didn't, they smacked his kneecaps in.

It feels that (besides the tiny combat where the beggar attempted to bash the fighter's head with an enormous stone) we rolled dice maybe six times, and even when we got further in the adventure (spoiler: the map leads to an old wizard-king's cursed burrow) everything was going great. Everybody's got firm ideas of who they are, they're cooperating (and squabbling) plenty based on their backgrounds and real-life personalities, and it's almost too fun.

The really interesting thing is playing with somebody new, but that's a post for another day. For now, it's enough to have this, to celebrate kind of getting back into the swing of things. Expect some Swords and Wizardry stuff based on our campaign, and some stuff based on the material that never quite made it.

Until next time!