USR Sea Encounter Mechanic

In this post I talk about how I've hacked together sea faring rules for my USR Sword & Sorcery campaign utilizing Sailing on the Seas of Fate by Chaosium and Zack S's Wavecrawl Kit.

I've modified how I roll for daily encounter in the following way; for every week of sea travel I roll seven d10's. Only events which get 2 or more results are considered and will come up in play sometime during the week. 3 to 4 matching numbers mean the event is significant and watery doom could be at hand.

The ten event categories are also further subdivided if they spurred decent ideas, but I have to say, custom tables for your game world are a lot of fun. But they take some time to lovingly craft. Fortunately the internet has all these resources available to help you out. Like the products I mentioned above, there are literary thousands of free PDF's available online which can help you make your own gaming tools.

BRP World of Xoth

If I ever run another group of PC's through a Sword & Sorcery campaign I think I'm going to go with Chaosium's Elric!. I'm sure I would modify it with mechanics from the BRP Gold Book, mostly with defining the magic system, but for the rest of it; gritty combat, incredible stunts, fearless dimension hopping, etc., I think the rules set gets the job done.

I could recycle my World of Xoth campaign material for any Heavy Metal minded troop of PC's who want to turn their sword swinging savagery up to eleven. The flexibility of Chaosium's mechanics makes it possible to craft your own brand of Sword & Sorcery. You really can conjure any world of post-apocalyptic or pre-cataclysmic savagery and super science your imagination can devise.

I don't care about no stinking hard drive crash

So yeah my desktop crashed, and all the files scribbles, memos texts downloads pics I've harvested since I found you all her in the OSR is gone. All the story threads, rewritten adventures campaign material for current and never to be played games vaporised. And I don't give a shit. Unlike every other aspect of my life where the data, the material needed is stored and handled electronically RPG's I make or purchase I have to make manifest in some printed or bound copy.

I may not have all the material I've accumulated on my hardrive because if it didn't seem relevant at the time why print it out? If a game situation makes sense for said slumbering material I'd just print out the pdf out on my printer lick-edy split. So yeah, it isn't all there.

But I have three ring binders bulging out my bookshelves of the game material I would love to run or am currently running. Once again this OSR DIY push, this open free range field of awesomeness which you all throw around for pennies, if not for free, lets me just try and run a good game after work without sweating the small stuff.

I did have to buy a new printer a couple of months ago. The laser jet from my previous business finally gave up the ghost after numerous print odd page range flip print even page range all nighters. Not ashamed to say alot of that toner burn was spent on old D&D modules but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing the point. The point being that my hasty scribblings backed by awesome content/blog/osr posters will give me more game material on a daily basis than I can shake a dead, mummified finger at.

And the best stuff has been hand skinned and drying in my book racks. Hats off to you all gents.

BRP Low Fantasy Campaign Idea cont.

Continuing the class descriptions from last post;

1.4.1.5 Gladiator; you have lived your life in a cage only to be released so as wagers can be placed on whether you will live or die in a blood soaked arena.
Common Skill Bonuses: Perform +25%
Advanced Skill Bonuses: Melee Combat +25%

1.4.1.6 Merchant; dangerous is the Bolfian Silk Road, but the riches to be had make dealing with the mysterious desert peoples draws the determined and the foolish to attempt it.
Common Skill Bonuses: Bargain +25%
Advanced Skill Bonuses: Choose either Navigate, Appraise, or Technical Skill(various) at a +25%

1.4.1.7 Thug; a hired hand, the muscle to protect life and property. Or steal it.
Common Skills: Hide +25%
Advanced Skills: Climb +25%

1.4.1.7 Ranger; a poor, mud pounding bastard who has to sleep outside.
Common Skills: Sense +25%
Advanced Skills: Track +25%

1.5 Skills

1.5.1 Choosing Skills

1.5.1.1 You are allowed to chose three additional skills at the base rating.

1.5.1.2 You may now spend skill points to increase any of the character's starting skills in the following manner; one skill receives a +75% bonus, one skill receives a +50% bonus, and one skill receives a +25% bonus.

Brainstorming a BRP Fantasy Campaign

Here is what I've sketched out so far;

Low Fantasy Adventures in the world of Rom'Myr;

1. Character Creation:

Only human characters may be chosen for race. The available human racial identities are Rom’Myr, and the Fir'Bax. Rom’Myr humans are citizens of the Blue Borderlands, the farthest province east in the realm of The Trackless Empire. Sandwiched between the Cold Heath and the Groaning Mountains the Rom'Myr of the Blue Borderlands trade for Bolfian Silk from the non-human desert nomads known as the Strangled. The land of Fir'Bax lies just north of the Blue Borderlands. Uncouth barbarians who scratch a living from the small arable land surrounding the high peaks of the Yani'Hor, the Groaning Mountains. They are extremely xenophobic and war incessintly with the Strangled. This small barbarian kingdom also resent the encroaching Rom'Myrians into their wilderness domain. 

1.1 Characteristics

The primary building blocks of your PC are the seven characteristics from Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing system. Roll 3d6 dice to determine the values of your character’s Characteristics; these being Strenght (STR), Constitution (CON), Size (SIZ), Intelligence (INT), Power (POW), Dexterity (DEX), and Charisma (CHA).

1.2 Attributes

These are based on your Characteristics. They are four in number; Damage Modifier (DM), Hit Points (HP), Major Wound Level (MWL), and Movement Rate (Move).

1.3 Common Skills

This is a list of skills that every PC would have a base knowledge in. They are modified by the PC’s Characteristics if applicable. Some of your Common Skills will be increased by the bonuses given by your chosen Character Class.

1.4 Character Class

Here you are able to shape your PC more to your liking. Choosing a character’s Class will give your PC some Advanced Skills, increase some of your Common Skills, and determine how much money the character has to spend on equipment before play begins.

1.4.1 Class available for selection are as follows; Acrobat, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Gladiator, Merchant, Thug, and Ranger. Class choice provides the following relevant characteristic and skill advantages;

1.4.1.1 Acrobat; an entertainer in a bleak land devoid of joy. Your physical contortions provide a more subtle interest to the paying Lords then just flaying you alive would deliver.

Common Skill Bonuses: Athletics +25%, Unarmed Combat +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Choose either Teaching or Oratory and add +25%.

1.4.1.2 Assassin; those of wealth got there by eliminating their enemies. These enemies are mostly eliminated by paying for murder from secret sects which practice this nefarious trade. You are one who was trained by one these mysterious battle cults.

Common Skill Bonuses: Stealth +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Choose either Disguise, Ranged Combat, or Tracking and add +25%.

1.4.1.3 Barbarian; you find your home in the limitless wastes and wilderness of at the edge of a decaying civilization. 

Common Skill Bonuses: Ride +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Survival +25%.

1.4.1.4 Druid; you claim understanding of the spirits and gods which walk unseen amongst man.  

Common Skill Bonuses: Insight +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Chose one of the following; Beliefs +25%, Lore +25%, or Seduction +25%.

Sample pantheon of Gods;

§  Valett, the Goddess of the Night, having the form of three-eyed warrior-maiden.

§  Hesrace, the God of Caverns and the Night, having the form of calm boy holding a hammer.

§  Baldecigail, the Goddess of and Mother of Lies, seen in dreams as hunting bear.

§  The Exalted God, having the form of fierce camel.

§  Fae, the Goddess of Travel and Woodlands, who visits in visions as abrasive woman holding a scroll.

§  Pelixa, the Goddess of Darkness and the Sextal Goddess, seen in dreams as a crone holding a knife.

§  Feliah, the Goddess of , most often depicted as howling hag.

§  Fryssa, the Unspeakable Goddess, visible to mortals only as abrasive crocodile.

§  Daliica, the Goddess of Wealth, who appears as attractive pregnant woman with the scaly skin of a crocodile.

§  Angiara, Princess of Spiders, having the form of a warrior-maiden holding an obelisk.

§  Reytan, the God of Fate and Patron of justiciars, seen in dreams as crow with horns like an auroch.

§  Suselda, the Goddess of Sin and Queen of Magic, most often depicted as fat cat with the head of a snake.

etc, more to come...

So yeah, I think fleshing out some of these traditional AD&D classes into a simple BRP scheme on top of a flinty fantasy world built from a limited world palate will give me all I need for a wildly fantastic game world. Obvious adventures available within the starting small sandbox would be Deep Cavern Observatory and the free module Sky-Stone-River-Place found over at http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/

After that gut some of the desert and mountain modules from D&D, reskin them with pulpy sensibilities, and pillage all the new content being presented on G+ sources. You should have players turning grey before their time!

I love the OSR

If it wasn't for the Old School Renaissance I don't know if I would have ever found my way back to the most creative exercise I've ever had the privilege to participate in.

Somewhere between eleven and twenty seven I had always been made to feel that playing a table top rpg was something to be ashamed of. But I kept the important books on my book shelves, in the trunk of my car, in my back pocket hitchhiking. Lined paper in rain soaked bus stops scribbled full of fantastic world, villains, connections.

And pissed off because this medium I loved so much had garbage directions for how to play the game. I didn't know this at the time. I felt there must be something wrong with me. If so many people are into this game, fuck it was a cultural phenomenon as big as skateboarding, and I can't get it... What am I doing wrong?

So I gave it up. In 1998 on Lower Hurrican Gulch at an off the grid cabin where I live in the
Elk Mountain range I torched the whole collection. I was getting "real".

I've made many foolish mistakes in my life, and I'm not done yet, but that was by far the worst. I would have limped through life three times less the person I am if I did not resent this act.  Not that my creative endeavors lapsed because I remove rpg's from my daily scribbling, reading life, just that they kept swirling around undirected.

Fast forward to Gary Gygax's death and I'm googling D&D and I stumble upon an essay about some guy traveling across country and showing up at Gary's house and playing. I haven't been able to trace this article down again, but yeah, the author of the essay was saying it was amazing to just drive up to Gary'ss house and there were people hanging out and you could just start playing D&D at the picnic table with the guy who created this game. I am so stupid. Instead of laying carpet in Daytona Beach I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of surfing and doing drugs in Tijuana I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of climbing fourteeners and big mountain skiing down into potential avalanche chutes I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of .... Yada yada yada.

Long story short, the OSR has given back what I thought I lost, and I love you all for it, roll d10 tell me what you get;

1- You are a weepy tart aren't you.
2- My half orc father would suck the juice out of your finger bones,
3- I'm surprised they gave you clothes milk sop.
4- Clean the latrine and we won't kill you, yet.
5- Got any coin?
6- There is room for sycophants such as yourself.
7- I believe your private parts may fetch a fair price on the open market.
8- Rumor is...
9- A breath of fresh air in a cloistered belfry, give this man a fresh towel.
10- Have you tried the sorbet?

Sailing Vessels for USR

For sailing vessels commonly found during the age of Sword & Sorcery pulp fiction adventures I have turned to Elric!'s Sailing on the Seas of Fate supplement from Chaosium for basic seafaring statistics.


There is a nice spread of different types of sailing vessels to be found in its pages; from simple canoe to two-masted brigs and war galleys. It also provides a nice guide of terminology you will find when describing characteristics of sailing vessels.

Having a ready made terminology for adjudicating sea adventures I find immensely useful when I'm trying to provide a nautical setting, and Chaosium does provide enough of this bedrock information.

The book is also useful for providing basic answers to everyday mechanical questions one would encounter plying your fantasy seas regardless of the game system to be used. The most important of these being movement speeds.

One topic the book does not cover are costs of purchasing and maintaining a sailing vessel ins a fantasy world. A sailing vessel naturally occurs as a likely resource sink for adventurers who have looted their fair share of moldering crypts. That and land holdings, estates would likely come up as possible uses for the PC's ill-gotten gains. Mercenary forces too. With enough gold any barbarian dog can put together a band of desperate sell swords, but how much gold is that really? How do you come up with a sensible economic scale for these above mentioned enterprises?

I'm not saying the Elric! supplement should have addressed all these topics, but if you have costs on ships and what it takes in men and material to maintain them on a monthly basis you should be able to extrapolate out all these other concerns for your campaign world.

In the spirit of the USR rules set I have had to approach the Chaosium BRP system with an eye towards stripping game elements and mechanics to a minimum. Seaworthiness, Hull Quality, Structure Points, these all become your USR Hits, Armor, Stats... Specialisms can be used to detail characteristics to differentiate say a war ship from a merchant cog. For example;

The Moebius; a Ghazorian merchant cog, 15 crew members.
Hull Quality: 4         Length: 70'   Beam: 18'  Draft: 7'
Seaworthiness: 22

The Sailing on the Seas of Fate descriptions and uses of the few game statistics for the boat are easily understood, and can be taken out and used on their own in most fantasy settings. The Sailing on the Seas of Fate ship record sheet provides a great compass heading for "stat'ing" up a sailing vessel in USR game terms and can be adequately shoehorned into USR's simple format.

From my experience with D&D, Champions, GURPS, BRP, etc. vehicles in general become overly complex character sheets and their utility gets buried under the time heavy bookkeeping and cost calculating. For both the player and the GM. And vehicles in a campaign world, at some level become a commodity and therefore must be able to generated in large numbers.Through USR I am trying to reduce the paperwork so everyone can spend more time courting adventurous death. Unless your players want a crunchy sea battle. I think these rules can be used with battle maps and detailed turn sequences if everyone wants to game out a tactical simulation.

I found Zach S.'s Wavecrawl Kit a useful tool as well for random encounters at sea. Combined with the Sailing on the Seas of Fate event tables I have plenty of material to game out fantastic Sword & Sorcery sailing adventures. If the supplementary rules I'm hacking into my Sword & Sorcery game are lacking in any area I would say I don't have rules for flying creatures and vehicles. At some point I will search the web for useful rules to hack and add them in.