100% Tolkien free *Whereas* Geoffrey McKinney’s Carcosa contains a replacement sorcerer class for all magic users, unique spells, and a plethora of Cthuloid monsters,
Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets
A Hamsterish Hoard of Dungeons and Dragons
Some thoughts about how to organise rpg rules
#RPG #Old School
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
Can I play?
– Adrian 2009-10-06 20:02 UTC
---
Sounds spiffy. I can vouch, as a player, for the excellence of the monsters on A Hamsterish Horde. There’s been much running and screaming on account of those critters. ;)
– Oddysey 2009-10-06 20:26 UTC
---
Your’re always welcome at my table, Adrian! 😄
@oddysey – the tweets from your and @trollsmyth have pointed me to the Hamsterish Horde again and again. It’s not such an interesting read if you already have games going in well defined settings, but I expect that to change when I’m forced to look for absolutely new stuff.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-06 21:33 UTC
---
I hope that Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets also serves you well!
– bat 2009-10-06 21:54 UTC
---
Yep. And I love the little short stories introducing the spell. I love it and it opened my eyes to the fact that spells can be mysterious and useful and fun. There was a time when I subscribed to the notion that just letting magic users combine three runes, or forces, or elements to produce magic effects, and magic points or power levels to determine area of effect, duration, and power could be good enough, but then I discovered that the magic user in our party wasn’t using them in really creative and surprising ways. Apparently a whimsical list of spells was necessary to spur the imagination. Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets absolutely delivers on that account! 👌 😄
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-06 22:07 UTC
---
I often try to blur the lines between a spell and an encounter, or a trap, for example. Not all of your magic-users will find these spells, but your entire party can spend a whole night trying to figure out what happened after one has been cast on one of them. The fun is sending these posts out there and encouraging games along. I do sincerely hope that Ancient Vaults helps out your game. As the magic is what separates fantasy from reality, I like to make all things magical a bit weird and potentially scary and dangerous, but open to a few laughs when the situation calls for it.
– bat 2009-10-07 10:50 UTC
---
It sounds like a cool trick. I must remember that!
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-07 17:28 UTC
---
Are you going to try to run M20? Or maybe a stripped down (way stripped down, if you hope to reach the “barest of rules” level), house-ruled 3.5? Or a completely different engine? Is this supposed to be a D&D game?
Just curious 😄 Last night’s discussion over beer got my game design juices flowing.
– Adrian 2009-10-19 19:24 UTC
---
I’d be using something based on Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry. I’d write new classes (various kinds of fighters and magic users), new XP tables, new spells, new monsters. Keep a d20 to hit roll, a d6 for initiative, armor classes, hit points, damage roll, levels, Vancian magic, etc.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-19 22:16 UTC
---
I want to be Doing It Your Own Freaking Way!
Doing It Your Own Freaking Way
– Alex Schroeder 2010-03-12 16:06 UTC
