What's the deal with Advanced Basic D&D?

For some reason  there seems to be a big customer base for B/X clones with elements of AD&D bolted on: Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion, B/X Advanced, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy (one of the latest attempts to cash in on this audience), and countless splats for inserting race-and-class or assassins and druids into B/X. But why is it always about piling shit onto B/X rather than trimming some fat from AD&D?

I mean, if you really want a middle ground between the two branches (Intermediate D&D, for argument's sake), it's not really that hard. Cut the races down to three or four, cut the classes down to three or four, change to three-point alignment, remove some of the weapons and armors (the LBB model of leather/chain/plate is elegant in its simplicity), and delete the subsystems you find clunky.

I've half a mind to slam something together based on this idea and sell it on drivethruRPG.

Review: Apes Victorious

I hope y'all had a nice Christmas.

Note: This posts contains affiliate links. A portion of your purchases go to the author.  

Apes Victorious is a new release by Daniel Proctor of Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future fame. It’s an unlicensed Planet of The Apes RPG with OSR rules and altered fluff. It apparently uses the same rules as Starships & Spacemen 2e. I’ll just lay it out right upfront; there’s nothing in this book that impresses me.

Classes and races use a combination of requirements and ability score adjustments. The classes are Astronaut, Bonobo Agent (spies), Chimpanzee Scholar, Gorilla Soldier, Humanoid (devolved humans), Orangutan Politician, and Underdweller (psychic mutant humans). Aside from Bonobos and Underdwellers these are all too on-the-nose for me. Race-as-class seems to be here just for the sake of race-as-class. Compare this to Terra Primate, which presents the possibilities of chimpanzee soldiers and orangutan merchants in its pastiche of Planet of The Apes.  It also generally suggests that gibbons could be an underclass above humans but below the great apes.

Mechanics-wise this is pretty close to Labyrinth Lord. Each class has a static to-hit number based on class; enemy armor imposes a penalty to the roll. For example, any 1-HD character hits if he rolls 12 or more on a 1d20 but gets -2 on the roll if his enemy is wearing kevlar. Wisdom becomes PSI which measure Psionic potential. Psionics are a simple (disappointingly so) point-based system. There aren’t wild talents or psionic combat here.

Lore-wise it does offer some decent new ideas. Bonobos as spies/thieves. Cryogenically preserved humans that escaped the nuclear holocaust of the 1970s. The biggest divergence from the source material is with the Underdwellers. They’re like a bit like Richard Sharpe Shaver’s dero; twisted but brilliant, with incredible technology such as lasers, cloth as damage-resistant as metal, and infiltrator robots with organic ape components (yes, that’s a Terminator reference).

I’ll admit that I might be a little harsh. I’m judging it against Terra Primate, a non-OSR book that tackles the same genre for only 3 cents more.  The only thing Apes Victorious has going for it is the OSR/OGL compatibility with Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future. Terra Primate by itself can do everything that Apes Victorious + Labyrinth Lord + Mutant Future can do with the exception of the high-tech Underdweller stuff, which it would need to use the compatible All Tomorrow’s Zombies for.

I’d rate Apes Victorious a 3/5 at best.

Magic Missile Random Appearance Generator

Magic Missile is an ubiquitous part of D&D and it can take many forms. To randomly generate an appearance for the Magic Missile spell, roll a d20 3 times (1 roll per column) on the table below and fill in the following sentence with the words indicated by the rolls on the table afterwards.

 “When you cast Magic Missile, a large (1) (2) appears and shoots (4) from its (3)”

1d20	(1)	(2); (3)	(4)
1	Demonic	Hand; Finger	Fire
2	Skeletal	Hand; Palm	A knife
3	Mechanical	Face; Eyes	An arrow
4	Animalistic	Face; Nostrils	A skull
5	Ooze-like	Face; Mouth	A laser
6	Fiery	Eye; Pupil	Bones
7	Icy	Mouth; Tongue	A snake
8	Rocky	Mouth; Gullet	A sword
9	Gaseous	Nose; Nostrils	Electricity
10	Crystalline	Heart; Open Arteries	Shadows
11	Glowing Green	Heart; Center	Rainbows
12	Draconic	Disc; Center	Blood
13	Brass	Disc; Edge	Strips of flesh
14	Fleshy	Cube; Corners	Flies
15	Bloody	Cube; Side	Gold coins
16	Shadowy	Crossbow; Barrel	Jewels
17	Misshapen	Sword; Tip	Flowers
18	Filth-encrusted	Sword; Edge	Needles
19	Beautiful	Foot; Toe	A rock
20	Ancient-looking	Foot; Sole	Bolas

For example, Dave rolls 3d20 to generate the Magic Missile appearance of Connor the Calamitous, his Wizard PC. He rolls 17, 18, and 12. So when Connor the Calamitous casts Magic Missile, a large misshapen sword appears and shoots blood from its edge. This effect is purely cosmetic: the Magic Missile still only does 1d4+1 (or whatever) damage.

How many Hacks are too many?

If you follow OSR news then you may have heard a thing or two about The Black Hack. It's a streamlined retroclone that incorporates some modern D&D ideas like Advantage and Disadvantage. I've only skimmed it but it looks pretty great. There's just one thing that's bothering me: All the derivatives, splats, and hacks of it that are suddenly flooding the marketplace.

There are already about two dozen products that are either made to work with it or are based off it: A Hack of Class, The Class Hack, The Race Hack, The Bikini Hack, The Cthulhu Hack, Cyber-Hacked, The Gene Hack, The Jack Hack, The Wasteland Hack, The Drac Hack, Mirrorshades, Eight of Wands, The Solo Hack, etc. Some products like Mirrorshades, The Cthulhu Hack, and The Solo Hack also cost more than TBH itself.

I'm not complaining about TBH's popularity, which I think it frankly deserves. It's just that all these products pumped out makes me wonder how much of this is from enthusiastic fans of TBH wanting to contribute and how much of this opportunistic cashgrabbing, especially in the case of standalone games that are trying to force non-OSR genres like cyberpunk, beach adventures, and Star Trek-style sci-fi into OSR rulesets. Hopefully I'm just being too cynical and the truth is much more pleasant.

Blind Homebrew: Playable Zombies for AD&D

After a grueling senior semester I have returned to bring more you more ill-advised material for role-playing games. In case you're wondering what "Blind Homebrew" means, it means that I have a very shaky and incomplete grasp of the AD&D rules but I could not results the sweet siren's song to create, and so I made this. It's basically a 3.X-style template that uses the rules from The Complete Book of Humanoids. I should also note that technically this template is for Cannibal Zombies or Ghouls (I know some grognards bristle at the notion that regular zombies eat people in D&D). I conceived this template as part of a campaign idea - huge magical cataclysm, heroes dies, decades/centuries later spontaneously rise as smart zombies, struggle to save the world while avoiding fearful mobs and looking for some of that sweet sapient flesh.

 

Zombie Player Character Template

Ability Score Adjustments. The initial ability scores are modified as follows:

• +2 Str; -2, Dex, No Con, -2 Cha

Ability Score Range

Ability	Minimum	Maximum
Strength	6	As base creature +4
Dexterity	As base creature -2	As base creature -4
Constitution	-	-
Intelligence	As base creature -2	As base creature -2
Wisdom	3	As base creature -2
Charisma	1	As base creature -4

Class Restrictions and Level Limits

Same as base creature (i.e. Human Zombies have all the normal class restrictions and level limits for Human characters, Elf Zombies have all the normal class restrictions and level limits for Elf characters, etc).

Hit Dice.

Player character Zombies receive hit dice by class. In addition they receive 1 bonus hit point at each level.

Alignment

Zombies tend to either True Neutral or Neutral Evil depending on their creators. PC zombies may be of any alignment.

Natural Armor Class

Zombie have a natural armor class of 8.

Languages

Whichever languages the base creature could speak.

Special Advantages

• Do not need to eat (but see the Monstrous Craving trait below), drink, or sleep.

• Are immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, effects that require a save vs. death, damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), fatigue/ exhaustion effects, and critical hits.

• Always pass System Shock rolls.

Special Disadvantages

• Cannot heal naturally: Negative energy and Inflict spells heal damage. At the DM’s discretion certain unholy sites or artifacts may grant the equivalent of natural healing as long as the Zombie remains in that area or near that object.

Monstrous Traits

Bestial Fear (holy symbols and/or fire), Bestial Odor*, Monstrous Appearance 3*, and Monstrous Craving (once a week, at least 10 pounds of flesh from a sapient creature).

*for a total -8 penalty to reaction checks

Superstitions

Generally none but the Zombie may select personal superstitions as outlined in Chapter 6 of The Complete Book of Humanoids.

Weapon Proficiencies:

Same as the base creature.

Nonweapon Proficiencies:

Same as the base creature.