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Adventurer: CT and OD&D. What if ?

Blatant Traveller adaptations

Some species for Adventurer
​

Non-Humans.

​
A sword and sorcery world can be human centric, and indeed, the classic ones follow this path. However, there are quite a few examples of worlds that present with numerous fantastic species. These can take a wild variety of forms, easily the equal of any Traveller style SF aliens. Indeed, many of the examples below are blatantly adapted from Traveller or various earthly mythologies.

Vargnolls
Vargnolls area race created by powerful sorcery rather than the gods. Vargs are generally a bit smaller than the typical humans of the world, and resemble upright wolves with four fingered hands (one of which is opposable) on their upper limbs. Some are furred, some are not, but while all are warm-blooded, the females, once fertilized, lay a clutch of soft shelled egg like sacks in which the young mature in about six months.

Leonids
Leonids are a deity created race, using a variety of predatory cats, spirits and humans as raw material. Unlike standard traveler, Leonids are explicitly lion-like, although a variety of subspecies exist, with similarity to various cat species. It is conjectured that they were originally normal large felines used to embody particular servants of the god or gods in some prediluvian conflict..

Crinoids
Crinoids are strange creatures from ages past, some of whom survived to the present. They are either evolved from very early sea life or are an alien species stranded on the current world. They are highly intelligent and have access to fantastic technology and magic, and have across the ages, blended biology, technology and magic to create their tools and servants.
 
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For the traditionalists

Fey
The fey are typified as long-lived, highly intelligent, magically proficient humanoids, often more slender and sometimes taller or shorter than mundane men. While it may be simply Fey propaganda, they are usually more intelligent graceful and beautiful than mundane man, often having much higher technology (or magic) than is available to mankind. They tend to be aggressively secretive, dwelling in magically hidden refuges from the grubby, human infested world.

Svartalfar
Also known as Gnomes, Dwarves, or Kobolds, Svartalfar are the descendents of earth spirits that have traded much of their power for the ability to remain free-willed and active on the material plane. They have retained some of their ancestors’ resilience and endurance, and all, if not more, of their lust for wealth and craftsmanship. They are still attuned to the deep earth in ways that are mystical and amazing, and are always more comfortable living underground as did their forefathers.


More to come !
 
More blatant adaptation

Kentaurii
Kentaurii are intelligent creatures that combine the body of a horse (or Pony) and the torso and upper parts of a human. Kentaur is both a generic name, and the name of one of the two branches of the species: these are civilized and agricultural Kentaurs and the barbaric and nomadic Lapyths, whom humans usually believe to be wild animals of a different species.

All are of the same species, are biologically unable to eat any form of flesh, are very vulnerable to the effect of intoxicating beverages, and extremely phobic of predators, and made nervous by any creature that eats meat. Settled kentaurs tend to obsessively “harmonize’ their lands, actively exterminating all predatory species and pests, and manicuring the land; wheras a typical Lapyth response to a human hunter accidentally shooting a young Lapyth is a stampede of drunken, enraged relatives and related clans destroying all local human settlements.
 

​


Humans , near-humans and Subhumans.
​

In many, S&S stories, humans and human variants are the the main inhabitants, allies, heores and villains. While the various human varieties are often distinguished by skin color (generally very bright primary ones: Green, Blood red, chrome yellow, dead white, midnight black) ; despite this, most of their differences are clearly societal. Nonetheless these societies are invariably described as races, despite the vagueness and unscientific nature of the term (yes, even then), so who are we to argue ! Thus, Most sword and Sorcery humans can be easily defined by their race along three axes: Culture, technology and society.

Culture is defined as Barbarian, Civilized or Decadent; Technology as Physical, Intellectual or Magical, and society as tribal, Urban or Solitary.

Thus, Cimmerians would be Barbarian/Physical/Tribal, Aquilonians as Civilized/Physical/Urban, Modern man as Civilized/Intellectual/urban, and Melniboneans as Decadent/Magical/Solitary.

Race Effects:

Barbarian -1 Soc, +1 End, Survival
Civilized +1 edu -1 End Admin
Decadent +1 Soc -1 End, Courtly Graces
Physical +1 Str -1 Edu Trade or farming
Intellectual -1 Str +1 Edu Any one non combat and non magic skill ????
Mystical -1 Str +1 Int One Cantrip spell
Tribal +1 Str -1 Edu One weapon skill
Urban -1 Str +1 End Streetwise
Solitary -1 Soc +1 Edu One mystery spell



Non-humans generally will not have these modifiers.
These give a quick sketch of the basic skills and attribute differences that the different human cultures have on non players. Typically, on-player characters will have all the modifications and some of the three skills:
Roll Skills​
1-3 1​
4-5 2​
6 3​


This is optional for player characters !
If allowed by the gamemaster, beginning characters or non-players have the cumulative modifiers listed, and one of the skills noted for their type.
Players from the baseline culture will have no modifiers, but do gain one of the skills and a free roll on the cash table when mustering out.




Examples in play:

Blue Thoobians: Blue-skinned pale haired nomadic philosophers of the Ice flows, Thoobians are Barbarian/Mystical/Tribal. They are fiercely philosophical, turning to violence to solve unresolved discussions. In addition to cool skin and hair colors, they have -1 Soc, +1 End, -1 Edu and +1 Int. They may choose one of : Weapon skill, one cantrip spell or survival.

The Cloaked Ones:, Mysterious remnant of a once world ruling race of mages, dwelling in ruined cities in deep underground caves. Cloaked once spurn the outside world, but occasionally will trade inhuman knowledge for some vital item or book. Cloaked ones are Civilized/Mystical/Solitary. In addition to Emoesque cloaks and capes, they have -1 Str, -1 Soc, +1 Int +1 Edu.
They may choose one of: Courtly graces, one cantrip spell or one mystery spell.


The Mind Masters: dwelling in a single city at the pole , the mind masters are the paragons of superscience, but complete dependence on their machines has allowed them to fall into simulated technological utopia created in their minds; few are awake at one time, chosen by lot to make repairs and monitor the cities defences. Mind Masters have huge bulging craniums, and spindly, weak bodies, and are Decadent,/Intellectual/Urban with +1 SOC -1 END, +1 EDU, and -2 STR. They may choose from Courtly graces, streetwise or any one non magic / non weapon skill.

More to come !
 
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Finarvyn said:
An interesting read. I love your overall concept of "what if Traveller was the first RPG." :D
Click to expand...


Well, thank you very much !

You are, I presume the Finarvyn of the S&W Whitebox ? If so, Thanks for that, too ! It really sparked me to getting back to the feel of my own 1975 D&D roots -I have (not counting the freebie copies) three copies -harback, and 2 whitebox -the extra WB was for my Son's 10th birthday - he loved it !

Any suggestions comments or whatnot greatfully accepted, here or at the blog !

Cap.
 
I dunno if you've ever been to the Pen and Paper Games forum, but they have a Traveller forum. It'd be interesting to see what they'd think of it.
 
Jame said:
I dunno if you've ever been to the Pen and Paper Games forum, but they have a Traveller forum. It'd be interesting to see what they'd think of it.
Click to expand...


Interesting idea. I'll check em out -the last dip into bigger (or at least more focused on FRP) gaming forums (dragonsfoot) was a bit overwhelmingly effective once it got reviewed by some core OSR blogs.....
 
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captainjack said:
You are, I presume the Finarvyn of the S&W Whitebox ? If so, Thanks for that, too ! It really sparked me to getting back to the feel of my own 1975 D&D roots -I have (not counting the freebie copies) three copies -harback, and 2 whitebox -the extra WB was for my Son's 10th birthday - he loved it !
Click to expand...
Hey, Cap -

Yup, I'm that Finarvyn, and I'm glad that you have had so much enjoyment with my WB.

I also run the OD&D Discussion forum and I'm going to post a link there to your Adventurer PDF, if that's okay with you!

- Marv (Finarvyn)
 
Finarvyn said:
Hey, Cap -

Yup, I'm that Finarvyn, and I'm glad that you have had so much enjoyment with my WB.

I also run the OD&D Discussion forum and I'm going to post a link there to your Adventurer PDF, if that's okay with you!

- Marv (Finarvyn)
Click to expand...

Ab-solutely ! I wasn't sure if it was too far OT.

I really should register over there. It's a nice site.
 
In case anyone is interested, I've got some more of the missing details from Adventurer posted on my blog - starting here:

http://docgrognard.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-version-of-character-rules.html

revisions and tweaks for the chargen mainly for adding Reputration and some spells I hadn't developed for the Beta editions.

I'd appreciate any and all comments, and esopecially would appreciate hearing of anyone actually playing it. In house (me and my buds) playtesting is fun, but.....
 
Adventurer: a request for comments to downloaders and readers





So, this weekend, i gave myself a birthday present, and worked on Adventurer without distraction (well, much distraction. See, I like my family.;) ), and two things came up.
1. The price list is done, and utterly self indulgent.
2. I would appreciate some input on a few topics.
Is the magic system too big ?
Is the section on flying ships and the associated fluff overkill ? How bout the superscience section ? If so, I'd make it a seperate document, aimed at barsoomian style S&S.
Does some kind of default campaign need to be included ? If so, how gonzo or generic.
Would art help the flavor ?
Is the combat too detailed for what this is ? (emulating a what-if D&D)
Is an actual monster manual type section needed or wanted (creatures other than intelligent races, I mean) this is one of the big traveller D&D departure points. Traveller gives construction tools and a few examples, D&D gives enumerated lists.

Answer any or none, particulalry if you have downloaded it. I'm about 1/2 done with beta version 2.
 
Sandals, swords and sestercii, The lists !

Yes, the long avoided, over emphasised, self-indulgent classically derived* equipment lists for adventurer !

http://www.box.net/shared/u91e9vx9xi

Below is the rule text. The link above includes the actual equiptment list which doesn't fit here and is formatted to boot.

read, enjoy, comment.

* as in, not medieval.

Campaign Economics​
Money and Equipment
Even a short perusal of the actual historical literature on item costs will show that it is extremely hard to know what items cost in ancient societies, let alone what their value was. Also, one finds a plethora of coinage systems, differing from realm to realm, and often city to city. In order to make such a mess somewhat playable, much has been abstracted, and some has been invented.
That said, I tried to keep a few constants in setting prices. First is that ratios were more informative than any statement of coinage value, especially given that it is not always able to clear about what coinage is referred to. The second is that what items are available is sharply defined by social class as much as location. In general, each of the main social classes had their own level of currency, with some overlap, and luckily enough they correspond somewhat to the types of money used.
Finally, I decided to adopt a standard similar to that of Augustan Rome, both for flavor reasons and documentation, which was a mix of official documents and private documents (often graffiti), which provides both a theoretical/official viewpoint of what things should cost, and what things cost to the actual consumers.

Coinage
In adventurer, it is assumed that while all realms and many cities have their own coinage, that basic market forces will allow us to define a common set of coins which can be spent to buy stuff. For Adventurer, there are four basic coin types: Copper, Bronze, Silver and Gold.
The poor and the peasant tend to use copper, the laborers and common workers bronze; merchants and professionals silver, and the wealthy and the governments, Gold. For flavor reasons I’ve named them as follows

Copper Aes,​
Bronze Sesterces,​
Silver Denarius, and​
Gold Solidus.​


Their relative values are as follows:

1 Solidus = 25 Denarii =100 Setercii, = 400 As.


Partial and multiple value coins of all the denominations exist, especially at the lower end of the scale. To give some context, an As is about the price of a 1lb loaf of bread, a sesterces is a half days pay for the lowest paid workers, or a sit down common meal, 1 Denarius is a days pay for a semi-skilled laborer or low grade soldier, 2-4 denarius is a days wage for skilled worker (stonemason, carpenter) or skilled soldier (Legionary); a Solidus is a good draft animal such as an Ox, or an acre of unremarkable farmland.
Items are assigned to lists based on coinage type more than function; thus, some have a fairly large value in one list, and this indicates that while they could be bought with a higher grade currency, that they are more appropriate to the social class that uses that list. Conversely, they are less likely to be used by other social classes that use other lists. This mainly works in the upward direction: a peasant is unlikely to want (or need) to buy armor (generally on the Solidii list), whereas a rich man may well buy a 1lb loaf of bread; the difference is that the rich man can also buy 1lb of stuffed hummingbirds for lots more than 1 As if he wants.

Availability:
Given the above concepts, a limitation on availability is how many of the given social class exist in a given city, and access to sufficient coinage of the proper type. . In general, an entire list will be available or not, largely for simplicity. The simplest determination is to look at the lower of wealth or population rating on the below table. Any given city has that list and all lower.
Item List Minimum​
As 1
Sestercii 3
Denarii : 5
Solidii 7
​

Generally a list can be assumed to be available for barter at one level lower. (Thus, Denarii items can be traded for at a city with a population or wealth rating of 4)

One could add a list of modifiers for location and situation, but as this is a game of heroic adventure, not ripping accountancy that is left to the GM to decide.

f

​
 
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