Wizard Lizard's Game from Ten Years Ago
I recently turned twenty-two, which made me think about my early games.
When I was twelve, I had all the time and more to focus on extensive world-building. Nowadays, my attention span is much more limited when it comes to these kind of things: most things D&D-related that aren't playing the game (from either side of the screen) feel like work.
So here's a set of house rules and other bits of lore from me ten years ago. I'm a sucker for OD&D's presentation so I'll use the 3LBB format to organize things.
Any rule-stuff left unspecified means you just follow your usual rule for it. I ran AD&D 2e back then (without having read the rules, I only knew the mechanics that I saw in-play from being a PC in other peoples' games), now I run OD&D.
Character Types
FightersAt 2nd level and higher, kill as many 1-1HD foes (goblins) as your level in a round.
That's replacing the usual multiple attack rules for Fighters and counts as the round's attack.
Paladins
As Fighters and you also get to heal your level worth of HP each day, and you get Cleric spells as if you were a 1st level Cleric once you reach 7th level. No alignment or special stat required, but a Paladin must be chosen by Fate and the Gods - what they then do with their powers is for them to decide.
Clerics
As usual. Clerics of Aëdamphia follow the Path of Harmony and its nine virtues. Clerics of Shaq'Tar are called Imams, follow the One God and have no weapon restrictions. Clerics of the Empire are direct servitors of the Emperor, who channels God (not the same as the One God, but not the Judeo-Christian one either).
Rationalists
In the Godless City, over the Edge of the World, there are no Gods: the High Council of Philosophers know of the Gods' real nature and so outlawed belief in them in an attempt to reduce their power and hold over the race of men. Rationalists are warriors trained to resist magic (10% per level), track down Clerics and Cultists of all kind, and kill them.
Wizards
As usual, but making your own spells is encouraged. Any 1st level Wizard can create new spells with time and some chance (percentile chance to create a spell established based on the spell's power and efforts involved in creating it).
Witches
Part of a secret and ancient order dedicated to murdering the Immortals who control and drive humanity by taking the shape of their "Gods", they are an all-women, all-Wizards group with fabulous power but a very short lifespan (about twenty years). Almost all hunted to extermination by the Emperor (one of the Immortals whose stance on humanity is that it is too foolish to be left to its own devices).
Thieves
I'd use the Delving Deeper v4 Thief.
Origins & Race
For humans, pick an Origin: Empire, Aedamphia, Western Kingdoms, Shaq'Tar, or the Edge.
You can also be an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit (all as usual),
Gnome (they're made of salt so they die from exposure to water, otherwise treat as dwarves that are very tech-savvy, practice slavery, and hate dwarves),
Troll (they're huge furry beasts with long tusks. They are non-violent pacifists and live in tribal societies),
Faeries (hand-sized little boys and girls with bat and insect wings that were manufactured a long time ago by some creator - disposition towards their presumed originator is a sort of political stance for them. They have innate magic and all get one at-will spell (completely random) but they die if their wings are cut or if kept in captivity for more than a day and a night).
Or a Khajit from Shaq'Tar and yes these are the Elder Scrolls cat-people. Again, I was 12.
Free Men were strange, willingly insane men and women from the desert in the Edge of the World, who believed that to be truly free, they needed to abandon all and any structure, including the common trappings of society and humanity such as law, morals or even their survival instinct. In a world where belief becomes metaphysical law (which is what granted the Immortals their powers over men - centuries of "teachings" to keep their place as the rightful leaders and gods of the world), an absolute lack of any code made the Free Men into somewhat of a bug. They would not age or die, for they truly did not believe in these concepts, not that it did them a whole lot of good. Player-Characters from this "race" had left because they couldn't completely abandon their humanity, and were entirely motivated by one obsessive and strange drive which altered reality around them. I remember two PC Free Men: one was convinced that the ground was another shackle, and slowly changed into a bird-person over time, and was driven to free all from slavery in any form. The other was absolutely terrified of the ground but only cared to not touch it directly, and didn't see it as an attack on his freedom. He also had some weird psychic powers but I don't remember the details.
Character Alignment
Back then, I used AD&D 2e nine-alignments but the definitions felt too manichean for me, so I established that these definitions were the subjective ones people within the setting used - there were no empirical good or evil, because I thought that would destroy any chance of having meaningful moral and ethical dilemmas in the game. No alignment languages, either.
Languages
One for each region (Aedamphia, Empire, Western Kingdoms, Shaq'Tar, the Edge), plus a trade language that hailed from the City on the Crossroad, Laëlith.
Equipment
Use the AD&D equipment charts. Everything needs to be purchased, including clothes.
When I was twelve, I had all the time and more to focus on extensive world-building. Nowadays, my attention span is much more limited when it comes to these kind of things: most things D&D-related that aren't playing the game (from either side of the screen) feel like work.
So here's a set of house rules and other bits of lore from me ten years ago. I'm a sucker for OD&D's presentation so I'll use the 3LBB format to organize things.
Any rule-stuff left unspecified means you just follow your usual rule for it. I ran AD&D 2e back then (without having read the rules, I only knew the mechanics that I saw in-play from being a PC in other peoples' games), now I run OD&D.
Character Types
FightersAt 2nd level and higher, kill as many 1-1HD foes (goblins) as your level in a round.
That's replacing the usual multiple attack rules for Fighters and counts as the round's attack.
Paladins
As Fighters and you also get to heal your level worth of HP each day, and you get Cleric spells as if you were a 1st level Cleric once you reach 7th level. No alignment or special stat required, but a Paladin must be chosen by Fate and the Gods - what they then do with their powers is for them to decide.
Clerics
As usual. Clerics of Aëdamphia follow the Path of Harmony and its nine virtues. Clerics of Shaq'Tar are called Imams, follow the One God and have no weapon restrictions. Clerics of the Empire are direct servitors of the Emperor, who channels God (not the same as the One God, but not the Judeo-Christian one either).
Rationalists
In the Godless City, over the Edge of the World, there are no Gods: the High Council of Philosophers know of the Gods' real nature and so outlawed belief in them in an attempt to reduce their power and hold over the race of men. Rationalists are warriors trained to resist magic (10% per level), track down Clerics and Cultists of all kind, and kill them.
Wizards
As usual, but making your own spells is encouraged. Any 1st level Wizard can create new spells with time and some chance (percentile chance to create a spell established based on the spell's power and efforts involved in creating it).
Witches
Part of a secret and ancient order dedicated to murdering the Immortals who control and drive humanity by taking the shape of their "Gods", they are an all-women, all-Wizards group with fabulous power but a very short lifespan (about twenty years). Almost all hunted to extermination by the Emperor (one of the Immortals whose stance on humanity is that it is too foolish to be left to its own devices).
Thieves
I'd use the Delving Deeper v4 Thief.
Origins & Race
For humans, pick an Origin: Empire, Aedamphia, Western Kingdoms, Shaq'Tar, or the Edge.
You can also be an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit (all as usual),
Gnome (they're made of salt so they die from exposure to water, otherwise treat as dwarves that are very tech-savvy, practice slavery, and hate dwarves),
Troll (they're huge furry beasts with long tusks. They are non-violent pacifists and live in tribal societies),
Faeries (hand-sized little boys and girls with bat and insect wings that were manufactured a long time ago by some creator - disposition towards their presumed originator is a sort of political stance for them. They have innate magic and all get one at-will spell (completely random) but they die if their wings are cut or if kept in captivity for more than a day and a night).
Or a Khajit from Shaq'Tar and yes these are the Elder Scrolls cat-people. Again, I was 12.
Free Men were strange, willingly insane men and women from the desert in the Edge of the World, who believed that to be truly free, they needed to abandon all and any structure, including the common trappings of society and humanity such as law, morals or even their survival instinct. In a world where belief becomes metaphysical law (which is what granted the Immortals their powers over men - centuries of "teachings" to keep their place as the rightful leaders and gods of the world), an absolute lack of any code made the Free Men into somewhat of a bug. They would not age or die, for they truly did not believe in these concepts, not that it did them a whole lot of good. Player-Characters from this "race" had left because they couldn't completely abandon their humanity, and were entirely motivated by one obsessive and strange drive which altered reality around them. I remember two PC Free Men: one was convinced that the ground was another shackle, and slowly changed into a bird-person over time, and was driven to free all from slavery in any form. The other was absolutely terrified of the ground but only cared to not touch it directly, and didn't see it as an attack on his freedom. He also had some weird psychic powers but I don't remember the details.
Character Alignment
Back then, I used AD&D 2e nine-alignments but the definitions felt too manichean for me, so I established that these definitions were the subjective ones people within the setting used - there were no empirical good or evil, because I thought that would destroy any chance of having meaningful moral and ethical dilemmas in the game. No alignment languages, either.
Languages
One for each region (Aedamphia, Empire, Western Kingdoms, Shaq'Tar, the Edge), plus a trade language that hailed from the City on the Crossroad, Laëlith.
Equipment
Use the AD&D equipment charts. Everything needs to be purchased, including clothes.
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