If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here.

As I was writing Surprise, I realised (although I decided to scrap) there are rules for group checks in second edition. This is something that really needs to exist, and if it did it would simplify a bunch of checks like surprise and initiative that are already checks for groups.

I want group checks to represent the party working together, so it’s not take the worst, but if it’s take the best, that feels too generous. They’re simplest, though, so I’m inclined to ask for a cost. There are only anachronistic examples I’m aware of, but Blades in the Dark pays failures with stress, and the equivalent of stress in second edition is hit points. So:

If your party is asked to make a group ability check, choose a leader. Each member of the party rolls an ability check, and for each failure, the leader spends 1d6 HP.

Can be added to the end of the ability checks paragraph.

When you attempt a task, consider whether it requires training, or whether anyone can do it. If it requires training, you need proficiency. If it anyone can do it or you have proficiency, and it is a simple task or the consequences of failure are negligible, you succeed. If it is complex or the consequences of failure are significant, perform an ability check.

To perform an ability check, roll 1d20. If the result is less than your ability score, you succeed but face a consequence. If it is not less than your ability score or the result is 20, you do not succeed and face a consequence. The game master chooses the consequence.

If you have proficiency, roll 2d20. If both dice are a success, you succeed without consequence. If you have a disadvantage, roll 2d20 and only take the lowest score.

If an item, ability or mastery grants you a numerical bonus, it is subtracted from the result of the roll. If your result is less than zero, you get greater effect than intended. You can always trade advantage for special effect or greater effect, by negotiation with the game master.

Now, I could choose to make surprise or initiative a group check, and it’s supported by the core mechanic.

The Ability Check continues to take form. This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on this approach, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

18th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here.

Surprise and ambush are simple in second edition, so general principles:

• If either anyone encounters someone else unexpectedly, they roll for surprise.
• The surprised group has disadvantage on defence.
• The unsurprised group has advantage on fleeing and attacks, and gets a free round of attacks with weapons but not spells. If they planned an ambush, they get spells too.
• Chance of being surprised is 30% and is higher if you are fleeing, in darkness or twilight, panicked, en mass or smell.
• Your opponent is more likely to be surprised if you are silenced, invisible, anticipating attack or suspicious.

The challenge now is to simplify this and utilise existing mechanics. Firstly, we need surprise to be not a d10 roll. Secondly, it’s better to have one roll for PCs, not one for each side. Thirdly, simplifying the penalties is essential.

If you might be surprised, make a group dexterity check.

If you are carrying light, fleeing, in twilight or equivalent, panicked, en mass or malodorous, or if the opposing party is carrying light, sneaking, anticipating attack, suspicious, or anticipating violence you have disadvantage. These things cancel out.

If you are cannot see or fleeing, or the opposing party is invisible or magically silenced, you are surprised. If you are invisible or magically silenced, or the other party cannot see or fleeing, they are surprised. These things cancel out.

If a member of your party has a special ability that opposes your enemies’ advantages, for example infravision, you gain +1 to your check for each advantage.

If you are surprised, the opposing party takes an free attack against you without using spells, and you have disadvantage on saving throws for that round, or can flee before you react. If they planned an ambush, they may use spells.

If you surprise them, you take a free attack against them without using spells, you have +5 to your first attack, or you can flee before you react. If you planned an ambush, you may use spells.

There, sorted, note for note. This adds something that we need to back track on for ability checks: We need group check rules! I’ll have to revise that again next. Because of the one-sided roll, this is more wordy than I’d like with too much repetition, so I’ll try to fix that.

If you might be surprised, make a single surprise check for your group. The target for a surprise check is 14.

If you are carrying light, fleeing or en mass, or if the opposing party can see you, is sneaking, or is suspicious you have disadvantage.

If you cannot see or are fleeing, or the opposing party is invisible or magically silenced, you are surprised without a roll. If you cannot see or are fleeing, or the opposing party is invisible or magically silenced, you have advantage.

If your party is surprised but a member of your party is able to head off any of your disadvantages, for example by having infravision, they make their own check individually, and may not be surprised.

The unsurprised party takes an free attack against the surprised party without using spells, and they have +5 to attacks (or the surprised have disadvantage on saving throws) that round, or they can flee before you react. If they planned an ambush, they may use spells.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on surprise, particularly if I can simplify this rule — I am certain I can! Are there glaring questions left unanswered, or have I overlooked anything important, or is all of this a waste of time!

Idle Cartulary

17th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here.

Vision gets a lot of time in second edition:

• Visibility by size and distance in optimal conditions outdoors
• Visibility by weather condition
• Visibility while moving
• Light source radius, direction and speed of exhaustion
• Fighting with mirrors
• Light reducing chance of surprising
• Darkvision vs Infravision vs Ultravision
• Darkness’ effect on movement
• Invisibility

The main principles to be drawn from this it appears are that vision impacts actions like movement, spell casting, combat, and surprise and that vision is a resource in darkness indoors or outdoors.

If vision is a resource, there should always be a trade off. The obvious ones are inventory slots, money, spell slots and combat advantage.

• Light sources (torch, lamp, spells) are used to provide vision
• Fuel (oil or torches) is bulky to carry
• Light spells take up spell slots and space in a spell book
• Holding a light source causes a combat disadvantage and means you’ll always be seen first

I like the idea of spell books having a limited number of spells (not small but a high level wizard is likely carrying 5 spell books taking up 5 inventory slots), so part of the limitation of being a wizards is the library you’ll have to carry.

I’d like to simplify vision as well, because different distances for different light sources is challenging. But some granularity is fun.

• In daylight or equivalent, you can identify things not obscured (not hiding, behind things, etc) in your field of vision to a reasonable distance.
• In twilight or equivalent, you can see as daylight in your field of vision up to a stone’s throw away.
• In darkness or equivalent (fog, blizzard), you cannot identify anything visually.
• A light source allows you to see as twilight.

The “reasonable distance” is intentionally obscured (its 1km, right there is the PHB), to simplify the rules. A “stone’s throw” also intentionally vague (it’s 10-20m, also in the PHB), for the same reason. I don’t want a spell to provide “two stones throws” of light. I want normal rooms to be illuminated easily, vast chambers to be creepy, and chasms to be bottomless. Also “Portable Twilight” is a great magic item name.

Finally, second edition differentiates darkvision (uncomplicated variant, similar to fifth edition), infravision (heat-sensing), and ultravision. Interestingly, I think the designers preferred darkvision (“can see in the dark”), but it breaks the cardinal principle of the vision section that they set: Vision is a resource. I want to keep the simplicity but create a downside to being same to see in the dark.

• If you have infravision or ultravision, you do not have standard vision (whether this is permanently, due to your heritage, or temporarily, while under the effects of magic).
• If you have infravision, you see heat instead of light. You see in darkness as daylight and see daylight as darkness. In darkness and twilight, you can see additional features such as heat-trails and warm air currents. You are blinded by a sudden lit torch or a glance at the sun for a turn. If it is cold and you wear shaded lenses you can see as twilight during the day.
• If you have ultravision, you can see in starlight and in indirect sunlight as daylight. You see direct sunlight and darkness underground as darkness. Your eyes glow, and under your gaze white items glow as well. Magic items and spells are visible to you at a stone’s throw.

Dwarves have infravision, so are only come out in the evenings in most climates, but there are cities of dark-lensed dwarves in the frigid north. Elves have ultravision, and hence would avoid depths and stay in places – like forests – that light is filtered from. I’m not sure if I’ve hit the sweet spot here, mainly because ultravision is messy and inessential but messiness is fun (some of the ultravision stuff is from this article which is nameless and authorless).

Invisibility should work as advertised, but I love that I can make it perfect invisibility because I’ve written in a giant flaw: “Elves can see invisible people”. Mirrors should work as advertised, and honestly I’m going to let mirror-wielding heroes fight medusa without any more than the same penalty they’d get for carrying a torch. Surprise really belongs elsewhere, so I’ll have to remember this little rule when I get there.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on vision, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

16th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here.

Timekeeping basics in second edition are quite straightforward and iconic, although it’s obscured in intent compared to earlier editions.

Combat rounds of 1 minute, and dungeon turns of 10 minutes, with encounters every hour. Days measure overland travel, with encounters over six watches varying by terrain.

Rules for wilderness encounters are very detailed, but average at 3.5 rolls per day, and at 10-40% chance of an encounter depending on terrain. For dungeon encounters, one every hour, or if it’s particularly dangerous, one every turn. Interesting dungeons and wilderness are not dissimilar in terms of their dangerousness.

Time between adventures is measured in real time, and assume a multi-party, multi-character campaign, but offer variations towards the more common formats we see in published adventures. Downtime occurs in real time too between adventures and at a real time rate.

Now my thoughts: As everywhere, unnecessary complexity and clear intentions. Keep turns and rounds, three watches to a day (one to travel, two to rest, eat and sleep) based on the average. Matching up encounters more closely with time period will makes things neater and easier for a GM to manage.

For the wilderness, one roll per watch. A watch is a unit of travel, and to force march you sacrifice a watch of rest. Rest watches can be tired to both rewards (healing, spells) and risks (fatigue). Rolls are consistent timing, so if you choose to vary encounter chance, change the size of the dice always keeping encounters on a 1, but the default is a d10.

For dungeons, it’s more challenging. Turns are how long it takes to do anything in a dungeon – search, bandage, pick a lock, whatever. So one option is every six actions, a roll. I could recommend a dice to increment, or even better, make it every 10 actions so that we can roll the same dice when it hits 1 — 1 on a d10. Countdowns build tension, and you could increment that count down for specific attention-gaining actions for more tension again. Or, we can make a roll every turn at a lower chance, which honestly is my preference. 1-2 on a d100 is a slightly higher chance than the original dungeon encounter chance, so we can roll that every turn. Very low chances but very regular ones build tension, which I like for a dungeon. I’m very interested in opinions regarding the stronger of the two options, because I’m honestly not sure the easier of the two.

Real time play presents a challenge with regards to cliffhangers – when a party remains in danger at the end of a session. A common solution is the “roll to return”, for which no support is found in the text. An ability or relevant proficiency check of choice, with a penalty of days and turns to travel, is a simple solution. The scale of failure would indicate treasure or hit points lost. Let’s say I rolled my Wilderness Survival proficiency of 15, and had to travel 14 days. I roll a 12, but I have to add 14 for a total of 26. I choose either to lose 11 hit points or 110gp. If i’d rolled a 2 my total is 16 and i suffer only 1 hp or 10gp. I don’t know another solution, in the context of this challenge of real time play. Again, I’d love any opinions here.

The other challenge is abstracting downtime in a pleasing way, but I think I need much more time to develop my thoughts on this topic.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on timekeeping or random encounters, if there are glaring questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything important, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

15th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here.

Second edition really believes in verisimilitude of equipment. How much can you carry, punishments if you carry more, weights in pounds and ounces, preparation and resource management. It feels like a major legacy from earlier, primarily dungeon-crawling versions of the game. What are the main principles to be found in the encumbrance?

• Carrying too much results in being encumbered
• There are different levels of encumbered
• Being encumbered affects attack, defence, movement, and ability to do certain tasks.
• Encumbrance varies by strength

Honestly, these principles present a fairly simple solution in my mind.

You have five slots for worn gear (head, hands, feet, body) and a belt pouch in which to hold 50gp or equivalent small items. If you fill only these six slots, you are unencumbered.

In addition you have equipment slots equal to your strength in your pack (or equivalent). If you fill up to six slots, you are lightly encumbered. If you fill over six slots, you are heavily encumbered.

Heavy or unwieldy items (like plate armour or a ten foot pole), take up two slots, and 50gp or equivalent small items take up one slot. It is assumed your equipment is carried in a pack or equivalent, and if you cast it off, you cease to be encumbered until you pick it up again. If you’re wearing a heavy item, you are always encumbered.

If you are lightly encumbered, any movement or combat check suffers a -3 penalty.

If you are heavily encumbered, any movement or combat check suffers a -5 penalty, and there are some actions at the GMs discretion that you cannot perform, or must attempt at disadvantage, for example run, jump, and swim.

This appears to cover most of the aspects the original covers, but without worrying about weight or too much complication. I like that it covers bulk not only weight, which is why strong folk can carry more but they are still encumbered. I’m guessing a pouch of gold is about 2kg, so if each slot is roughly equivalent you’re at 120kg of weight while still lightly encumbered which feels generous, and a supernaturally strong PC might carry 400kg which is absurd.

Does this “slot” system, which I’m imagining as a grid on the sheet, lean too board gamey? I think it does, but this board gaminess is throughout second edition: proficiencies have slots, Ravenloft and Birthright have card games, Dragonlance and Battlesystem have miniatures games. Boardgaminess is part of the DNA. It doesn’t need to be inventory tetris, though: This would fit fine as a list on the page, really.

For formatting, I think that for most equipment a single line and a tag (for example heavy, unwieldy) is sufficient, as the strengthened rule sets support these items as part of ability and proficiency checks already. Weapons and armour may need additional annotation, but I’ll have to come back to that, once I’ve looked at combat (I have thoughts, such as weapon speed and hence initiative being tied to damage dice, but haven’t developed it yet).

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on encumbrance, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

14th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here.

Experience, oh how have I been dreading you! The reason being that there are challenges, between the variable progression tables, and the varying monster experience awards, that I’m not keen to tackle.

Let’s begin with some assumptions:

• XP is in the hundreds and thousands,
• Advancement is at arbitrary numbers because different classes increase levels at different speeds.
• Classes get experience differently: Warriors for fighting, Wizards for research, Rogues for gold, Priests for big ethos goals.
• Sessions have goals like “save the princess” that grant experience. These are GM-set and more akin to Trophy Gold than Macchiato Monster Weird!
• Desperate actions, against foes greater than the PC’s level, grant experience. This one is like Blades in the Dark, but with less strict rules about what constitutes desperate.
• Early experiences are intended to be formative to your character.

If advancement doesn’t vary between classes, the progression chart is inessential. Advancement goals are tied to level and class. If you assume dungeon levels in the DMG are PC levels, about 50 at-level kills are required for a fighter to level up, which equates to 1 kill seven levels higher, which I imagine is close to impossible in a duel, although balance in second edition is questionable at best. This reflects the slow advancement model, I think.

I don’t really love combat-centric XP, and the challenge is having fighters be combat centric but not other classes. My question then is should fighters be gaining XP to fight, and the obvious answer is no, they gain XP only for a challenge. So, rather than use XP as the marker, perhaps the actual trigger for XP is barely succeeding in combat? After all, that’s how learning works.

So, all of that given, here’s my experience rule:

• PCs level up when gain a number of XP equal to their level multiplied by 1000XP.
• Fighters gain 250XP for scraping a victory back from the jaws of death single-handedly through combat. They gain a fraction of this XP if they gain victory with assistance.
• Rogues gain 1XP per gold piece returned to their stash, even if these riches are shared with their companions.
• Wizards gain 250XP for ticking a section off a research clock, either through downtime or through achieving an associated quest. The nature of the research project and the nature of the achievement for ticking the clock are for discussion between the GM and the wizard.
• Priests gain 250XP for ticking off a section off a faith clock, either through downtime or through achieving an associated quest. The nature of the work of faith and the nature of the achievement for ticking the clock are for discussion between the GM and the wizard.
• At the outset of a significant subsection of a quest or area, the GM negotiates a goal with the PCs. This goal may break the fourth wall. When the goal is achieved, the PCs gain 250XP each.
• When a PC takes desperate action, where the risk of failure is great injury, death or worse, they gain 250XP, in addition to any.

This ticks all the boxes, gives players negotiation in their advancement, and allows for some interesting opportunities to answer why we’re on the same team. Only playtesting will tell if these seem fair, however. The other big difference here is that’s it’s not hard to level up; where non-combat rewards are anaemic in second edition and combat rewards are still fifty to the level, I’ve shortened to what I’d expect to be 1 level up very 4 sessions, if a formative experience occurs. This might be too fast, but I think better than a grind, particularly for the heroes to lords arc second edition anticipates.

So, how do we use experience to advance? This is where I try to lean into formative experiences, a concept only briefly mentioned in the DMG, but an excellent one:

Formative experiences – one’s first brush with death, horror, wealth, sacrifice, or major challenge to one’s ethos – change you. When a PC has a formative experience, they change their ethos or personality, or they gain a new ethos, and they may advance as many levels as they have XP.

After 9th level, most PCs have achieved harmony, and may choose to train during downtime in order to advance instead of wait for a formative experience. When a PC advances, they can choose any one advance their class allows.

Ohhh, this rule makes me want to start characters with just their heritage ethos, and not develop their class or other ethos until after their formative experiences. Multiple advancements are there because every level feels excessive for significant character change, particularly if those levels are only 4 or 5 sessions apart initially.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on experience and advancement, if there are glaring questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything important, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

13th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here.

As discussed in the Player’s Handbook Read-through, alignment is problematic in its word choices and not particularly useful as a guide for decision-making or role-playing. It’s at once too specific and too general, but second edition comes with a separate system of beliefs – ethos – that is not well fleshed out, but that is actually structured into a lot of other systems. I’m going to pull a little from the Planeswalker’s Handbook as well, as for fleshing out beliefs, Planescape is the obvious place to look.

The PHB in the Priest entry calls ethos “tenets and beliefs that guide behaviour” or in the Paladin’s Handbook “principles that structure life and regulate behaviour”. This is very roughly sketched out, but examples are given in the Druid entry, the Complete Druid’s Handbook and the Complete Priest’s Handbook:

• Protecting the wilderness
• Maintain natural cycles
• Maintain balance between good and evil
• Keep the deeds of ancestors alive
• Regard the undead as a mockery of true and noble death
• Most individuals actions will not prove significant
• Gods manipulate mortals for their own ends, and these games must be put to an end

The Complete Paladin’s Handbook provides a more concrete framework, consisting of edicts provided by the paladin’s patron that must be strictly followed. Edicts can be either:

• Expressions of Faith (prayer, rituals, proselytising, symbols/clothing, pilgrimage)
• Services (Healing the sick, deliberating children, caring for the sick, eliminating enemies of the faith)
• Behaviour (Courtesy, honour, valour, generosity, fasting, cannot touch the dead, may not fight on holy days)

Returning to the Complete Book of Humanoids from the heritage post, superstitions are either irrational fears or specific omens. I like the specific omen approach:

• Magic is suspicious and expected to have negative consequences
• Lightning and violent weather changes signify the god’s displeasure
• Nights when the stars are hidden precede days of ill fortune
• Assign personalities and divine interventions to the phases of the moon
• If a weapon breaks in battle, it is a bad omen
• Stagnant water is an ill omen

The PHB also calls law, chaos and neutrality ethos, as distinct from good and evil, but these are stated as philosophies not descriptors. Some examples:

• The relationships between people and governments exists naturally.
• Laws should be made and followed.
• Strength comes through unity of action.
• There is no preordained order.
• Individual actions account for the progression of history.

In the DMG, following ethos decreases your experience, gains priests, rangers and paladins experience, magical items are tied to ethos, and ethos affect attitudes and reactions, which while poorly implemented provides most of the support for mechanical incorporation of ethos rather than alignment (for which there is no support) into the broader system reimagining.

The Planeswalker’s Handbook provides clearer beliefs and also a system to “score” adherence and earn belief points (1 for adhered/ 2 if at a cost/ 3 if at great cost) which allow an automatic success or an intuitive leap (free information). This is similar to inspiration in fifth edition, but tied to a more concrete trigger. There is no punishment for disregarding your belief, only reward for adhering to it. The examples of beliefs are more concrete, too:

• All individuals have freedom of choice and right to do what they want
• Those in power are always in the right
• The strong should always help the weak
• Intentionally inflicting pain is wrong
• Ignore the past; only the present is important
• Knowledge is free and should never be withheld
• Taking risks is foolish and wrong
• Every individual should improve the lives of others at every available opportunity
• Comforts and pleasures serve only to weaken
• All individuals are responsible for their own well-being; reliance on others is wrong
• Lying is always wrong
• Mercy should be given to all beings
• Gods are evil and priests should not be tolerated

So, ethos need to be flexible: all characters will gain one, and some classes and most heritages who’ll have additional ones, for three or more ethos. They can be either beliefs or strictures, with beliefs consisting folkways, philosophies and superstitions, and structures consisting rituals, acts of service, and behaviours. There will have to be lists of these things, but that’s why I listed them above.

I love the idea of inspiration coming from adhering to ethos, but it’s a challenge to have ethos both be reflected in inspiration and experience, despite both being supported readings of the wider line. Can we combine them, balancing XP so that it can be spent on inspiration, that belief-fuelled characters earn experience more quickly if they adhere to their ethos, but also burn it as a class resource? Thats interesting.

Either way, we’ll hold experience and inspiration in our hand as potential rewards for adhering to ethos, abnegate mechanical punishments for not adhering to ethos (heavens forbid a fellow paladin or stellinari elf catch you though), and move onwards, having cut alignment from the rules in favour of the other belief system in second edition. When we get to magical items, attitudes and reactions, and experience, we’ll have to come back to this.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on alignment and ethos, if there are glaring questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

12th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here.

The main subsystem I didn’t interacted with in the last post on Heritage is ageing, which in second edition is poorly designed and weirdly ageist. It wasn’t my plan. I’m going to detour here, as I’m not sure it’s a value add, but I want to think it through.

There are two sides to the ageing subsystem in second edition: Creatures and effects which age people, which is usually completely negative, physical ageing, and playing a youth, an adult or an ageing adventurer.

“Age damage” works better in my opinion as flavour applied to another sort of damage: ability score or experience damage works well. Second edition spends time on level damage, but book keeping is not something I want to threaten players with. I’m not sure if these will work in the larger framework, but this is something that will be easy to implement disconnected from an “adventuring age”.

Starting characters at different “adventuring age” adds a lot of interest, if there interesting choices involved. Second edition does not have those, but it clearly considers age important enough to spend time on. An ageing adventurer is less likely to survive a hit, but will definitely know more, and probably had assets when they arrive. A young adventurer has more to learn, but will learn quickly and survive more serious injury. An adult adventure is somewhere in between: Not weakened by age, has learnt some, but likely not rolling in assets.

The key questions are: What are interesting assets to be gained with ageing? How do we express learning associated with previous careers? How do we manifest physical age-related changes without it feeling like a too-severe punishment? Lets break them down.

What are assets gained with ageing? This is intuitive to me: Reputation, Relationships, Riches, Land. Which of these are interesting? Relationships, only, I think. The others are only interesting as functions of relationships: My old business serves as a base of operations for the party; I am being pursued by debt collectors or petty inheritors; I am feared in this town or scorned in that city. This is fun, but it’s supposed to be a reward for ageing, so potentially we should focus on: We gain a portable asset (a companion or follower) or a fixed asset (a business and employees, or a connection in a place like a mayoral).

How do we express learning associated with previous careers? In this system, that’s easy, and even further it can be folded directly into the character creation system, because this is what proficiency is. So, we can simply say that an adult adventurer gains a proficiency at first level, a youth adventurer does not, and an ageing adventurer gains mastery. The specifics of this might be worth exploring, as it feels stingy and perhaps mastery as an adult and a second mastery as an ageing adventurer is a better place to start. It makes proficiencies become more important as choices of advancement at all levels. To a degree, we get to make a small life-path choice, which is neat (referencing Traveller). Easy, clean, and supports other systems.

How do we manifest physical age-related changes without it feeling like a too-severe punishment? This is interesting to me, because I work in geriatrics and I think people read ageing wrong: Ageing adventurers aren’t weaker or more vulnerable inherently, but they find it harder to get back up again. We just have to figure out how we want to show it. So, look at different levels: Hit point recovery speed could be affected, but this is easily substituted for by magic so I find it a dissatisfying solution. Saving throws are a defence, so I don’t feel like that’s the right solution either. Perhaps the right place for this is at the point of death. “Hovering on deaths door” is an optional rule; if age affected the amount of time you spent hovering on death’s door, or how likely you’d be to survive it, we might have an interesting way to add drama and tension without constant limitations affecting play. You’re still a heroic adventurer, after all.

This is workable and fun in my opinion, although there are flow-on effects in character creation, proficiencies and in injury and death.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Honestly, it’s getting complicated to be doing this in blog format, but it’s actually a valuable process, I hope for you all too! Let me know your thoughts on this ageing, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

11th April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here.

There is nothing in second edition’s conception or implementation of race that isn’t grounded in systemic racism and heavily loaded. But, race in second edition more broadly and especially as they developed in subsequent editions is fertile ground for self-expression. This is a challenging subject that I feel ill-equipped to address.

My family look somewhat alike, but mainly we all speak too loudly, know how to cook pastizzi, can sew and can wayfind; a combination of where we live, where we come from, and how we spend our time. We don’t have genetic predilections for pastizzi and tailoring, but it is still part of who we are. In a fantasy world, is it crazy to imagine we might instead sense direction, intuitively control simple flames, or be insensate or hyperalgesic to cold? Let’s call this potentially magical culture and family together heritage.

The second edition PHB lists these heritable traits: Sense Slope, Direction, Depth, Tunnel Safety, Sense Secret Doors, Infravision, Resistance to Sleep and Charm, Bonus to Surprise, Weapon Training, Favoured Enemy, Physical Fortitude (Poison Save), Magical Defence (Wands Save), Generally Lucky (Spell Save), Cause Magical Items to Malfunction, Free Language, and Speak to Animals.

I’ve just realised that Save vs Spells is actually a luck save – a generic save for the things that don’t have their own save, whose only bonus goes to halflings. I missed that on the initial read-through, and will need to remember when I get to saving throws later.

Looking further afield at heritable traits in second edition (I looked at the Planeswalker’s Guide, Drow of the Underdark, Dragonlance Adventures, and Complete Book of Humanoids): Magic resistance, daily spells (like blur, charm, chill touch, detect lie, light, darkness, detect evil, levitate, pass without trace, affect fires, create water – mostly level 1 or 2 spells), elemental resistance or damage reduction, alien reaction, natural armour, thematic spell immunity (to all charm, or all fear, for example). Interestingly, a lot of these sources don’t have any special heritable traits at all, just cultural ones, particularly Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms sources. We have more flavourful, thematic, and culturally specific options developing in the broader second edition line.

The Complete Book of Humanoids is comparatively off the wall, though. Flight, double javelin charge, summon air elementals, giant fists, hide in forests, chameleon, hop attack, must stay wet, swat away weapons, harmed by bright light, polymorph self, unlikely to be attacked, hold breath, track by scent, mimic sounds, invisibility, head butt, claw attack, whip tail, bite attacks, prone to gas and scent, powerful leap, immunity to weapons (in certain forms). This gives us a lot more interesting options for downsides or foibles, as well as clearly being the source for later editions more flavourful traits.

More interestingly, the Complete Book of Humanoids talks in detail about culture and superstition, and whilst the tone in which it speaks is undeniably colonial, there’s some precedent for incorporating less tone-deaf rituals, beliefs, folkways and mores as heritable traits.

So, pulling it together, and adopting a structure that mirrors classes, perhaps this?

• Pick two heritable traits and a heritable foible
• Pick an ethos and a ritual, more or folkway
• Name your heritage

Which together allow a simple but expressive heritage, covering all bases the original does in terms of character, utility and combat potential, ties into experience, and is likely to conflict with other ethos from classes or alignments. I think this is neat!

I’m not sure I want to nut out the heritage details until I’m sure this sketch makes sense in the entire framework, and I think it will take more digging and work to develop out rituals, folkways and mores. So, I think next I’l look at alignment and ethos, which I’ve edged into in both this and the previous post.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on this approach, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

10th April 2022

I’ve been writing down everything that has influenced my thoughts in the development of Advanced Fantasy Dungeons as I went so as to avoid missing anything.

These are the things within the Dungeons and Dragons line I’ve referred to and been inspired by, most able to be bought on the DM’s Guild if you’re so inclined (I wouldn’t encourage you to):

• Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (2nd Edition) Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Dragonlance modules DL1 through DL14
• Birthright Campaign Setting
• Planescape Campaign Setting
• Planeswalker’s Guide
• The Complete Bards, Paladins, Priests, Rangers and Humanoids Handbooks
• The Castle Guide
• Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide
• Creative Campaigning
• Rules Cyclopedia
• Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1st Edition) Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide

Here’s the TSR products I’ve momentarily looked at, across the entire line:

• Blades in the Dark by John Harper
• Mazirian’s Garden by Ben Laurence
• Oh Injury by Sandra Snan
• Overloading the Encounter Die by Necropraxis
• Gygax ‘75 Challenge by Ray Otus
• Dying Earth by Jack Vance
• Dungeon Crawl Classics by Joseph Goodman
• Risk: Legacy by Rob Daviau
• Gygaxian Naturalism by James Maliszewski
• Philotomy’s Musings by Jason Cone

Idle Cartulary

9th April 2022