What are the important parts of BECMI/RC D&D that have to make the transition to feel like a proper conversion?
What parts of Savage Worlds do you feel are entirely incompatible with BECMI? (And if your answer is "skills" then what specifically is jarring?)
BECMI/RC D&D had skills. They were based on ability scores, each skill was associated with one and you roll under it to succeed.
But I think the systems are far too different. BECMI had levels going to 36, then another 36 for when you were a god. Then it had a different class for every sort of monster or race. It was exceptionally magical, with rules for flying cities, airliners, biplanes, and giant robots.
Quote from: JeremyR;1043820BECMI/RC D&D had skills. They were based on ability scores, each skill was associated with one and you roll under it to succeed.
But I think the systems are far too different. BECMI had levels going to 36, then another 36 for when you were a god. Then it had a different class for every sort of monster or race. It was exceptionally magical, with rules for flying cities, airliners, biplanes, and giant robots.
Well you could parse those 36-levels into the tiers of Savage World's system. Skills in Savage Worlds technically are based on stats - they just use Stats as a cap for experience development. Mechanically they operate the same. If you rolled for a stat, it would work the exact same as rolling for a skill. Nothing says you could do away with skills altogether and just make it a stat-check if you wanted.
Nothing you listed isn't already covered by Savage World in the main book. I think, at least off the top of my head, all you'd need is the core Savage World book and do relatively very little tweaking. The issue is - it would just be mostly vanilla Savage Worlds.
If we're talking real differences - then combat resolution is not really compatible with BECMI if you're trying to emulate those things. Abstractly you totally can simply by sticking with core Savage World rules as long as you parse those 36-level progression schema into the native Savage Worlds system. For immortal rules etc you can lift the mechanics as necessary from SW:Rifts or Supers or something.
I'm not sure what you're actually getting *getting* trying to convert the mechanics of BECMI to Savage Worlds. If you're talking about settings - that's pretty straightforward.
Quote from: tenbones;1043975I'm not sure what you're actually getting *getting* trying to convert the mechanics of BECMI to Savage Worlds. If you're talking about settings - that's pretty straightforward.
This question is meant to get at what other people find important.
I personally really dig the slot magic, magic item creation rules, the domain management, and most importantly, the rules that facilitate that traditional dungeon crawl experience.
Classes aren't even important to me, but I like RC D&D as a whole, so I was going to port them over anyways.
For levels, 1-17 covers the normal advancements from novice to legendary. I'm totally willing to have level 36 be someone with 20 legendary advancements. Now, "level 1" in Savage Worlds is pretty powerful without taking away the wild die, with how I want to handle the magic system, it seems like a decent starting point. And then Savage Worlds increases in strength with advancements far less than even basic D&D does with levels. I plan to tweak the wounds system, create a "roll for stats" version of char gen, and other things to bring in what stands out to be as "essentially BECMI".
Quote from: Rhedyn;1043994This question is meant to get at what other people find important.
Roger that. As someone that has essentially moved my D&D settings to using the Savage Worlds system, largely, I'll chime in.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1043994I personally really dig the slot magic, magic item creation rules, the domain management, and most importantly, the rules that facilitate that traditional dungeon crawl experience.
Much of this stuff already exists for Savage Worlds. If you haven't met Zadmar (http://www.godwars2.org/SavageWorlds/)- allow me (he's a great guy and good designer working with/for PEG I believe)
All you'd really need is the core book and maybe the Fantasy Companion. (But I'd go ahead and get everything else, Horror, Supers etc)
Quote from: Rhedyn;1043994Classes aren't even important to me, but I like RC D&D as a whole, so I was going to port them over anyways.
For levels, 1-17 covers the normal advancements from novice to legendary. I'm totally willing to have level 36 be someone with 20 legendary advancements. Now, "level 1" in Savage Worlds is pretty powerful without taking away the wild die, with how I want to handle the magic system, it seems like a decent starting point. And then Savage Worlds increases in strength with advancements far less than even basic D&D does with levels. I plan to tweak the wounds system, create a "roll for stats" version of char gen, and other things to bring in what stands out to be as "essentially BECMI".
Right! If you toss out classes (I agree they're their own unnecessary abstraction) then you're firmly in pure SW territory to tweak as you see fit. Most of their other games and supplements handle all of this stuff. I don't wanna tell you HOW to do it (obviously you need to flavor it to your tastes) - but all the ingredients are right there for you.
Vancian Magic for Savage Worlds
http://www.godwars2.org/SavageWorlds/SavageVancianMagic.pdf
I'd check out Shaintar and Hellfrost as well for supplementary content (but I warn you - both settings are *extremely* well done and it might suck you in)
I wouldn't, because I think that a system is better used in conjunction with a setting, rather than trying to alter a system to fit another system.
For example, I personally believe that Ravenloft is better suited a game like Dragon Warrior (at least the modern reprinting of it, I got. It was perfectly dark and gritty for it) than any version of D&D. Whereas Eberron and it's allusions to Pulp adventure is would better be used with Savage Worlds than D&D.
But that's just me.
Savage Worlds is actually 90% a very simple game totally acceptable for kids or RPG virgins who have never chucked a twelve-sider in their lives...
Just use SW and ruthlessly strip down or throw out shit too complex or weird for your players.
...why not just play BECMI?
Quote from: RPGPundit;1044625...why not just play BECMI?
I can understand liking Savage Worlds. It's fast and fun to play.
I don't know if you really have to Savage BECMI. Savage Mystara could probably be run just using existing SW rules.
Quote from: Krimson;1044718I can understand liking Savage Worlds. It's fast and fun to play.
I don't know if you really have to Savage BECMI. Savage Mystara could probably be run just using existing SW rules.
Yes. I ran Eberron with Savage Worlds, and I didn't futz around with converting mechanics. I just used the SW Arcane Magic rules for wizards, the Weird Science rules for artificers, and the superhero rules for dragonmarked. It wasn't exact, but it worked pretty well. In fact, I will back Brady up and say that Eberron is a far better SW setting than a D&D one.
One thing to keep in mind when converting D&D things to Savage Worlds is that characters have smaller, slower power curve than D&D. That actually makes sandbox play easier as you can have high and low level NPCs populating the setting without them being automatic walk-overs or instant death for the party that encounters them.
Also, because Savage Worlds uses smaller dice, you want to be careful about magic items that give bonuses. A d20 supports more bonuses than the d4-d12 range of Savage Worlds. You want to be sparing in the level of bonuses magic items have, and probably don't want them stacking. I don't really view that as an issue as magic items that give bonuses are the dullest of all magic items. Just focus more on magic items that do something interesting.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1044625...why not just play BECMI?
My group and I really like Savage Worlds. I like the depth on combat options along with ease of use for the mechanics.
BECMI has a lot of conceptually interesting mechanics, but I'm not completely sold on the mechanical execution. Hit points and To-tables/THACO being the main issues.
For example, grappling is a really involved process in the Rules Cyclopedia mainly because monsters don't have attributes. Savage Worlds handles that example and others quickly because monsters have stats and I personally don't find Savage Worlds stat blocks to even be that much more complicated.
On the flip side, Savage Worlds tends to lack things like utility magic, magic item creation rules (as in-depth as the Rules Cyclopedia), weapon masteries, and domain management.
In addition it also lacks the dungeon crawling incentives of BECMI. I would like to run a game where people naturally want to explore dungeons to loot gold to level up, to get stronger, and be more able to survive.
That's why I'm interested in marrying the two because I like both and want to do both at the same time.
Keep in mind that BECMI is structured the way it is for a reason.
Some people nowadays just see BECMI as a weird and unnecessary extension of the slimmer and more elegant B/X to 36 levels, but the true genius of the system as it was presented at the time was to intrinsically suggest a drift of the campaign style during the course of play.
BECMI wants to be played as:
- dungeon crawl levels 1-3
- hex crawl levels 4-14
- domain management levels 15-25
- magical dimension hopping levels 26-36
and then the "I" part is a completely different game if you want to go all the way.
I'm not sure you can really duplicate that kind of structure with Savage World.
I've seen "Advanced Dungeons & Savages" over on Dragonsfoot, and it's an AD&D thing. I suspect it would be easy enough to morph that into BECMI D&D.
https://dragonsfoot.org/sw/
Somewhat like this probably:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/223242/GoldGlory-Seven-Deadly-Dungeons
Quote from: Luca;1044829Keep in mind that BECMI is structured the way it is for a reason.
Some people nowadays just see BECMI as a weird and unnecessary extension of the slimmer and more elegant B/X to 36 levels, but the true genius of the system as it was presented at the time was to intrinsically suggest a drift of the campaign style during the course of play.
BECMI wants to be played as:
- dungeon crawl levels 1-3
- hex crawl levels 4-14
- domain management levels 15-25
- magical dimension hopping levels 26-36
and then the "I" part is a completely different game if you want to go all the way.
I'm not sure you can really duplicate that kind of structure with Savage World.
I think you not only can duplicate that structure in Savage Worlds - I think out of the box SW does it better with better rules-cohesion. I fully submit that this is probably due to the age of BECMI in relation to SW.
SW Ranks *are* levels of play with more bleedover than just the conceits you've presented and have all the same conceits - but with better gameplay. You're not necessarily going to TPK as easy in SW at the low-end of the pool. I'd ballpark it like this -
Novice = levels 1-3
Seasoned = levels 4-6
Veteran = levels 7-12
Heroic = 12-15 - you'll be leveraging high-powered rules like Shaintar at this range.
Legendary = 15-God-mode Supers etc. - here you'll want to be leveraging mechanics you see in Savage Rifts/Supers/Shaintar depending on your setting.
All the other stuff - domain management, even magical dimension hopping as it relates to BECMI you can do pretty much at will in SW, it's not assumed to be cordoned off based on your Rank, just the criteria of the setting may need adjusting which isn't really an issue at all since the system scales remarkably well within itself.
SW is more cinematic in feel than BECMI is to me. And this is due to some mechanical differences like how combat plays out. Of course this is dependent on a lot of setting criteria too... so I'm speaking in general.
So possible a tangential question, but what's the difference a Dungeon Crawl and a Hex Crawl? Or maybe, more accurately, can't you have a Dungeon Crawl IN a Hex Crawl?
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045091So possible a tangential question, but what's the difference a Dungeon Crawl and a Hex Crawl? Or maybe, more accurately, can't you have a Dungeon Crawl IN a Hex Crawl?
You can have a dungeon crawl in a hex crawl.
IMO the big difference is that dungeon crawl is a fully developed game syst (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15126/roleplaying-games/game-structures)em going back to OD&D (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15140/roleplaying-games/game-structures-part-3-dungeoncrawl), whereas hexcrawl has never become a fully developed game structure - hexcrawls normally lack (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15156/roleplaying-games/game-structures-part-6-hexcrawls) the sort of systems which have made the dungeon crawl a default play mode for decades. Ben Robbins' West Marches (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/) inspired many attempts, along with our Rob Conley's efforts - I could imagine someone developing a full system based off his approach, but it hasn't really happened yet.
Quote from: S'mon;1045108You can have a dungeon crawl in a hex crawl.
OK. Fair enough, I assumed you could, but it just seemed like they were separate items. You couldn't do one without the other. Actually, lemme ask, is levels 1-3 meant to be in the SAME dungeon?
Quote from: S'mon;1045108IMO the big difference is that dungeon crawl is a fully developed game system (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15126/roleplaying-games/game-structures) going back to OD&D (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15140/roleplaying-games/game-structures-part-3-dungeoncrawl), whereas hexcrawl has never become a fully developed game structure - hexcrawls normally lack (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15156/roleplaying-games/game-structures-part-6-hexcrawls) the sort of systems which have made the dungeon crawl a default play mode for decades. Ben Robbins' West Marches (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/) inspired many attempts, along with our Rob Conley's efforts - I could imagine someone developing a full system based off his approach, but it hasn't really happened yet.
This is news to me, and I'm not being facetious or snarky, but I was always under the impression it was a fully fleshed system. Can I ask what makes a Hex Crawl hard to pin down?
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045114OK. Fair enough, I assumed you could, but it just seemed like they were separate items. You couldn't do one without the other. Actually, lemme ask, is levels 1-3 meant to be in the SAME dungeon?
This is news to me, and I'm not being facetious or snarky, but I was always under the impression it was a fully fleshed system. Can I ask what makes a Hex Crawl hard to pin down?
Same dungeon - can be; the Moldvay & Mentzer basic sets seem to indicate the DM should create a dungeon for at least 3 levels of play, and Keep on the Borderlands for instance looks designed that way. But not necessarily.
Hex crawls generally lack a clear incentive to actually crawl the hexes; mapping/exploration for its own sake isn't really sufficient (as Justin Alexander discusses). Ben Robbins' approach treated the wilderness more like a dungeon with PCs exploring (small) ruins among the wilderness in search of treasure.
The best incentives I know for hex crawls that I have used are:
1. Get from point A to point B to point C when either you
2) Find and explore points A,B and.or C in order to find something/somebody
when you
i) don't know exactly where these point are but know they are in a certain region (island, forest, swamp)
ii) must avoid the normal routes because of enemies in the region
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045114OK. Fair enough, I assumed you could, but it just seemed like they were separate items. You couldn't do one without the other. Actually, lemme ask, is levels 1-3 meant to be in the SAME dungeon?
In this context, I am suspicious of the term 'meant' (as well as 'supposed to') since the level of consistency back in the day is pretty lacking (in other words, each group did it differently). If you were in a group that used modules (and we'll never get much agreement on what percentage that is), then looking at the low level dungeons suggests a single dungeon usually could get you at least up to level 3. It certainly didn't have to, as you 1) might not get all the loot out of it, 2) might lose some xp to character death (and not in a way that the next foray into the dungeon could re-collect the same gold), 3) might have more PCs involved than dungeon expects, 4) might roll low on the treasure tables (anywhere where the treasure is not a listed amount, but instead a roll on the treasure tables), and so forth. Regardless, I think it would be easy, if not required, to make a dungeon with a few physical levels include the 25-40,000 gp (including all the copper, gems, expensive wall hangings, whathaveyou) needed to get a party of 4 up to 3rd level.
QuoteThis is news to me, and I'm not being facetious or snarky, but I was always under the impression it was a fully fleshed system. Can I ask what makes a Hex Crawl hard to pin down?
Do you have access to B/X or 1e (or maybe one of the free retroclones have an equivalent, anyone know?)? They each have very nice sections on using random rolls on charts to create wilderness hexes. That plus random encounter tables means that there is a relatively easy way to create adventure in a random wilderness hex
if you want to. Aside from some vague wording, there's not much direction that this is an 'intended' avenue for adventure creation (I'm going to say 25-40% of the other started-as-kids gamers I met BitD just thought those charts were there to fill out maps or if someone rolls poorly on their teleport percentage and ends up 'somewhere', etc.). In other words, it doesn't do a good job of telling the DM 'you should be encouraging the players to go explore the wilderness.' Likewise, the incentive structure of the game (where xp is pinged off of treasure, which is easier to find if you are invading an opponent's dungeon home) doesn't really explain why you the Players are supposed to want to go do this (other than curiosity or boredom). Certainly by the time of BECMI and 2e (the two I started with in '83 and '89, respectively), a whole lot of this emergent play was removed from the wording of the game, and the way I knew about a portion of the game being 'go out into the wilderness and stir up some trouble'-style play was because that was the plot of the
Isle of Dread module.
Dungeon Crawls have a built-in Raison d'etre. In dungeons are treasure and things guarding treasure, or things possessing treasure, or just living in places where there's treasure.
So, if you want to level up, you go there and...
Kill things for XP
or
Loot treasure for XP
or both.
Now, the GM can overlay multiple settings reasons why you want to do this, but, strictly speaking, he doesn't have to. The WHY is built in.
In a hexcrawl, not so much. You can be exploring to see if there's a dungeon to find, but randomly doing that is not very efficient.
For hexcrawls, the GM HAS to come up with a setting or system reason for doing it.
- The local Lord is offering bounties for clearing out the frontier and and mapping it.
- The PCs are trying to find the lair of something menacing civilization.
- The PCs have a map or legends that tell them something worth going to is out there.
- The first group that successfully maps the passes through the DeathSpine Mountains gets their weight in gold.
- Exploring earns XP.
The WHY isn't clearcut or built-in at all in baseline D&D.
There is a very real temptation to throw out some rules.
For example, Alignment Languages. You share a language with creatures of your save alignment that can speak and when you change alignment you lose your old language and learn the new one.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1045163Dungeon Crawls have a built-in Raison d'etre. In dungeons are treasure and things guarding treasure, or things possessing treasure, or just living in places where there's treasure.
So, if you want to level up, you go there and...
Kill things for XP
or
Loot treasure for XP
or both.
Now, the GM can overlay multiple settings reasons why you want to do this, but, strictly speaking, he doesn't have to. The WHY is built in.
In a hexcrawl, not so much. You can be exploring to see if there's a dungeon to find, but randomly doing that is not very efficient.
For hexcrawls, the GM HAS to come up with a setting or system reason for doing it.
- The local Lord is offering bounties for clearing out the frontier and and mapping it.
- The PCs are trying to find the lair of something menacing civilization.
- The PCs have a map or legends that tell them something worth going to is out there.
- The first group that successfully maps the passes through the DeathSpine Mountains gets their weight in gold.
- Exploring earns XP.
The WHY isn't clearcut or built-in at all in baseline D&D.
I made a couple of suggestions of my own upthread about motivation for hexcrawling.
I think Mr. Bryce of 10 Foot Pole reviews makes a very good point indeed: don't just motivate the PCs, motivate the players.
A GM can ask him/herself "What would motivate my players to explore this area?"
Some players want money, some magic weapons, some spells, etc. Get all of them and put them in a few linked locations. Then let the players know that all three and/or whatever else the players want for their PC s are in that region. The rest of the fluff, like encouragement from a Duke to explore or a village that is afraid of the Valley of Badness is lovely window dressing on the essential "wherefore explore?"
I don't see *anything* about any of these descriptions about Dungeon-Crawls/Hex-Crawls and how people want to define their conceits that can't be done as a normal mode of play with Savage Worlds?
And that includes transitioning those conceits to others larger-scale affairs on the fly.
There are literally dozens of fantasy settings for SW. I have a hard copy of the Fantasy Companion and Shaintar Legends and Lankhmar and that would suffice.
Quote from: tenbones;1045188I don't see *anything* about any of these descriptions about Dungeon-Crawls/Hex-Crawls and how people want to define their conceits that can't be done as a normal mode of play with Savage Worlds?
And that includes transitioning those conceits to others larger-scale affairs on the fly.
I don't think there is.
I do, however, think Savage World would severely choke, and/or be severely anemic in handling Immortals.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1045205I don't think there is.
I do, however, think Savage World would severely choke, and/or be severely anemic in handling Immortals.
I have precisely ZERO experience in playing SW at that level. And I'm suspecting you're right.
I have all the Savage Rifts stuff - but I have yet to use it. They do make some changes to the system - but not to the mechanics of play itself. It's definitely more high-powered, I've always been a little skeptical of SW going to full God-Mode, but I think it's possible. I think it'll lose a little coherence tho.
Quote from: tenbones;1045050I think you not only can duplicate that structure in Savage Worlds - I think out of the box SW does it better with better rules-cohesion. I fully submit that this is probably due to the age of BECMI in relation to SW.
SW Ranks *are* levels of play with more bleedover than just the conceits you've presented and have all the same conceits - but with better gameplay. You're not necessarily going to TPK as easy in SW at the low-end of the pool. I'd ballpark it like this -
Novice = levels 1-3
Seasoned = levels 4-6
Veteran = levels 7-12
Heroic = 12-15 - you'll be leveraging high-powered rules like Shaintar at this range.
Legendary = 15-God-mode Supers etc. - here you'll want to be leveraging mechanics you see in Savage Rifts/Supers/Shaintar depending on your setting.
All the other stuff - domain management, even magical dimension hopping as it relates to BECMI you can do pretty much at will in SW, it's not assumed to be cordoned off based on your Rank, just the criteria of the setting may need adjusting which isn't really an issue at all since the system scales remarkably well within itself.
SW is more cinematic in feel than BECMI is to me. And this is due to some mechanical differences like how combat plays out. Of course this is dependent on a lot of setting criteria too... so I'm speaking in general.
This, except that given the changes in BECMI once you hit the "Immortals" level...I suspect you might as well replace Savage Worlds with another system. Maybe one meant to emulate super-powered beings in a fantasy setting;).
Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045204There are literally dozens of fantasy settings for SW. I have a hard copy of the Fantasy Companion and Shaintar Legends and Lankhmar and that would suffice.
Oh I'm a big fan of those (don't forget Hellfrost) and they work for most plots at our table. I just wouldn't run a BECMI campaign with Savage Worlds and vice versa, I consider them good at different things which is why I'm trying to mash them together.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1045205I do, however, think Savage World would severely choke, and/or be severely anemic in handling Immortals.
We're running a Supers Campaign with increasing power points. We're at 40 now. Our effective power is closer to level 15+ Pathfinder non-fullcaster characters. God-like power as far as actual religions and myths go, but pretty far away from Rules Cyclopedia immortals, let alone the expanded rules in Wrath of the Immortals.
It's doable, I guess. Idk, I feel like Shaintar handles Immortal power levels better when you get very deep into legendary, but I'm just not familiar enough with it yet.
I know I wasn't particularly impressed with Wrath of the Immortals, I'd rather use the RC rules than have supper fine grain diety mechanics.
So if I understand this right, Hex Crawl is more for S&S "What's over that hill" style of gaming, in which the players go and create their own adventures, whereas a lot of people see this as aimless and less structured compared to the more common 'Adventure Coupon ' style of game that LoTR et al. brings with dungeons and dangers.
OK, I think I get it. Thank you.
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1045146Likewise, the incentive structure of the game (where xp is pinged off of treasure, which is easier to find if you are invading an opponent's dungeon home) doesn't really explain why you the Players are supposed to want to go do this (other than curiosity or boredom). Certainly by the time of BECMI and 2e (the two I started with in '83 and '89, respectively), a whole lot of this emergent play was removed from the wording of the game, and the way I knew about a portion of the game being 'go out into the wilderness and stir up some trouble'-style play was because that was the plot of the Isle of Dread module.
There's also a reason why you had a starting dungeon detailed in the Basic DM's book and X1 bundled in with the Expert box ;)
As for Savage World, I'll defer to those who know it better than me; I'll just note that the fact that domain management and dimension-hopping were level-constrained also plays a part in how BECMI unfolded.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045230So if I understand this right, Hex Crawl is more for S&S "What's over that hill" style of gaming, in which the players go and create their own adventures, whereas a lot of people see this as aimless and less structured compared to the more common 'Adventure Coupon ' style of game that LoTR et al. brings with dungeons and dangers.
OK, I think I get it. Thank you.
Well, OD&D dungeons weren't adventure-couponed, they were/are campaign settings with a strong exploration element. PCs are assumed to be self motivated explorers. But unlike hex crawls there is a lot of inbuilt structure, with the dungeon level = the threat/reward level, and a standard cadence of play where one delve into the dungeon = one play session. And unlike in many hex crawls the density of adventure! is high enough that the players can be sure of finding something interesting.
Quote from: S'mon;1045264PCs are assumed to be self motivated explorers.
Indeed, I have always found it rather annoying when this is overlooked: it got to a point when reviewers of modules and writers of articles were stubbornly inisisting that PCs were, as default, unmotivated, rather than curious fortune seekers. I remember some players demanding "What is my character's motivation?" like some drama queen diva talking to a film director.
As a consequence the "hooks" became a convoluted interweaving of the scenarios plot into half a dozen PC backstories before the noobs get a foot out of the tavern. In fact, the hooks became effectively railroads because the DM has made sure that his character is "highly motivated" to the point of being compelled to do the adventure. Ironically and bizzarely, this leads to the player being dragged around by the character's will rather than the other way around.
In order to prevent this tail wagging the dog, a good trick I learned over at Welsh Piper (https://www.welshpiper.com/hex-based-campaign-design-part-1/) is to get six modules and dot them around the starting location at various travel distances: an abandoned keep, a series of caves, a spooky forest, an ancient ruin, a village full of wierdos, a tower that glows at night, etc. The DM then writes six clues, one for each location, on six pieces of paper in a box, (a map, a key, the testimony of an eye witness, a diary, an old legend from the village elder, a dream) and each player takes one out at random. Then the first session each PC relates his or her clue/lead (with as much "roleplaying" as fits your groups play-style) and then the players/PCs discuss which lead they wish to follow first.
This does mean the DM finding/writing six modules all at once instead of one after the other, but they don't have to be huge modues, either. In fact small, one-session long mdules work well. Moreover, there are enough free modules these days on Basic Fantasy and OBS for a few bucks, PWYW or Free that it does not take a lot. At the end of the day, the PCs will get around to them and if they don't you can use that in the next campaign.
An even better way to do this is to buy the wonderful
Further Afield by Flatland Games (part of the
Beyond the Wall series) and try out the "collaborative sandbox".
We are on our third collaborative campaign and I can honestly say that it has been the one of the most most exciting things for me in an RPG for as long as I can remember.
Quote from: S'mon;1045264Well, OD&D dungeons weren't adventure-couponed, they were/are campaign settings with a strong exploration element. PCs are assumed to be self motivated explorers. But unlike hex crawls there is a lot of inbuilt structure, with the dungeon level = the threat/reward level, and a standard cadence of play where one delve into the dungeon = one play session. And unlike in many hex crawls the density of adventure! is high enough that the players can be sure of finding something interesting.
Agreed, and to make things worse, early wilderness exploration campaigns were unbalanced on purpose. Look at the OD&D rulebooks and you'll note that an encounter with orcs (for example) is 30-300 of them, or in other words you might encounter a warband or an army. This was to encourage folks to play such that the path to the dungeon might be somewhat "safe" but the main wilderness areas were certainly not, so enter at your own peril. :)
The first non-dungeon fatality I had was when a character and his henchmen wandered into the "Pass of the Knife" and got totally overrun by orcs. Taught me that you don't go out alone into the wilderness. ;)
Quote from: Luca;1045231There's also a reason why you had a starting dungeon detailed in the Basic DM's book and X1 bundled in with the Expert box ;)
I'm not clear how you are using the smiley, but you are in fact 100% correct. The dungeon and then X1 helped us understand the assumed 'what you do with this game' that the wording of the game rules no longer well explained.
Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045316An even better way to do this is to buy the wonderful Further Afield by Flatland Games (part of the Beyond the Wall series) and try out the "collaborative sandbox".
We are on our third collaborative campaign and I can honestly say that it has been the one of the most most exciting things for me in an RPG for as long as I can remember.
Could not agree more. BtW has been a godsend. Turned my group of teen players into dedicated sandboxers in a way I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to do if we were playing with the RC.
So what makes Dungeons Crawl different than a Hex Crawl? Is it that a Hex crawl is so much more open, less focused? A dungeon is close by, with a sign saying 'I've GOT TREASURE! AND DANGER!', but a Hex Crawl may be a little meandering, because the Hex itself doesn't have any loot, but it has places IN IT that do. It's finding those places that make it less interesting, as opposed to having an easy to reach location like a Dungeon.
Am I making sense?
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045440So what makes Dungeons Crawl different than a Hex Crawl? Is it that a Hex crawl is so much more open, less focused? A dungeon is close by, with a sign saying 'I've GOT TREASURE! AND DANGER!', but a Hex Crawl may be a little meandering, because the Hex itself doesn't have any loot, but it has places IN IT that do. It's finding those places that make it less interesting, as opposed to having an easy to reach location like a Dungeon.
Am I making sense?
Yes, that's my feeling.
I think the "above ground dungeon" approach works better than hexes, where tracks & paths replace corridors, clearings replace dungeon rooms - like the start of Horror on the Hill, or some Fighting Fantasy gamebooks like Forest of Doom. But of course you only get one level, the surface, where a dungeon stacks lots and lots descending indefinitely.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045440So what makes Dungeons Crawl different than a Hex Crawl? Is it that a Hex crawl is so much more open, less focused? A dungeon is close by, with a sign saying 'I've GOT TREASURE! AND DANGER!', but a Hex Crawl may be a little meandering, because the Hex itself doesn't have any loot, but it has places IN IT that do. It's finding those places that make it less interesting, as opposed to having an easy to reach location like a Dungeon.
Am I making sense?
Yes, I think that's a pretty accurate picture.
Quote from: S'mon;1045460I think the "above ground dungeon" approach works better than hexes, where tracks & paths replace corridors, clearings replace dungeon rooms - like the start of Horror on the Hill, or some Fighting Fantasy gamebooks like Forest of Doom. But of course you only get one level, the surface, where a dungeon stacks lots and lots descending indefinitely.
I'm fond of the difference that having no walls does to the experience. The monsters (or PCs, or NPCs, etc.) can literally just go...elsewhere... if they want. Therefore it has to be desire for the things in your above-ground dungeon (the trails, the people, the resources, control of the trails) that the want that keeps them there. It's a different dynamic.
As I ran a variety of SW games for teens for my library RPG program (https://libraryroleplay.wordpress.com/), about the ONLY BECMI feature I would adapt for SW isn't really a BECMI feature. It's a PbtA feature. Playbooks (http://dungeon-world.com/downloads/Dungeon_World_Play_Sheets.pdf). I would design playbooks for my game.
Here's why. I found new players could grasp the basic mechanics for SW very easily. What I found they were terrible at was advancement. The number of choices just led to full on choice paralysis and most of the kids tended to go for the low hanging fruit – raising Attributes or skills. Some didn't even bother with XP.
The benefit to the class structure here is obvious: advancement is hardwired into the game. When you hit an EXP milestone, your class tells you what new features you get. There is no guesswork, no dead-ends, no bad choices. You just tick them off and get back to the game.
I think Playbooks straddle the line between BECMI's classes and SW's open advancement perfectly by giving the player a limited number of choices that are tightly focused on the character concept. So the new player doesn't have to worry about choice paralysis, or making the wrong choice. And instead of having to choose from 25+ Edges, they might only be looking at a handful over the course of the game. Yes, it doesn't provide for the dynamic open range character development, but for NEW players, I think they would make a fantastic learning tool and greatly reduce the amount of indecision I saw in my tables.
Beyond that, I don't think you really need to convert anything! Just grab the Fantasy Companion and you are good to go. I've looked at Hellfrost, Winterwier and Shaintar and honestly I don't think any of them add anything to the game unless you plan to play in THAT setting.
Tom
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045230So if I understand this right, Hex Crawl is more for S&S "What's over that hill" style of gaming, in which the players go and create their own adventures, whereas a lot of people see this as aimless and less structured compared to the more common 'Adventure Coupon ' style of game that LoTR et al. brings with dungeons and dangers.
I see hex crawl as more of technique than than the overall campaign type. You use LotR as the opposite of hex crawl, but you can have a quest played out as a hex crawl. In fact, it's easy to see LotR as a hex crawl with the PCs moving across the map between various site, making choices about the route to take, and having random encounters that throw the game in new directions. The obsession with the fine details of travel and landscape make LotR a great influence for hex crawls.
Even a structured adventure path can have an adventure that consists of a hex map where the players can freely wander for a time.
The Enemy Within does this with
Death on the Reik. The overall campaign is episodic, mostly investigative adventures, but in
Death on the Reik, the players are set loose to wander a hex map of the Reik Valley. Afterwards, the model shifts back to investigative play with
Power Behind the Throne, and
Something Rotten in Kislev uses a mission-based structure.
Quote from: Blusponge;1045604Just grab the Fantasy Companion and you are good to go. I've looked at Hellfrost, Winterwier and Shaintar and honestly I don't think any of them add anything to the game unless you plan to play in THAT setting.
I agree up to a point. A magic user in BECMI begins to move away from spells which are useful just in the field and on to magic which can shape the world, while SW has magic that lasts a few rounds and has effective range of a few hundered meters: Teleport in D&D and SW are two totall different things, in fact teleport in SW is basicall a blink spell. Even Charm Person in BECMI lasts for months, while Puppet in SW lasts rounds. Heck, the Fly spell in D&D means a couple of hours flying at high speed needing no concentration you can can cover some serious ground. A Fly power in lasts a few rounds and that's it.
Now there ARE ways around this in supplements, like Shaintar and Lankhmar, but let's not kid ourselves: it's a very different mage that you are playing.
Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045612let's not kid ourselves: it's a very different mage that you are playing.
Oh, no doubt. SW is firmly built on a wargame foundation and lacks a lot in terms of "utility" spells common in D&D. And you can tinker around the edges and add that sort of utility back into the game, either by houseruling or borrowing rules from other settings. However, the game plays well as is. It is different. If you are trying to play D&D with Savage Worlds, you are going to have some disappointing moments. But you can play almost any D&D setting with Savage Worlds just fine. They are different games. They do different things. They feel different. That's a feature, not a bug.
BTW, both the SW core rules and the Fantasy Companion are due for updates in the next 12 months. So it might be worthwhile to wait and see what sort of updates are going to be made before you jump into this.
Tom
Quote from: Blusponge;1045613They are different games. They do different things. They feel different. That's a feature, not a bug.
Oh I agree absolutely. The other side of the coin would be a SW player used to his Arcane Powers regularly then finding out he starts with ONE SPELL a day.
Anyway, that news about a SW update looks interesting.
Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045614Anyway, that news about a SW update looks interesting.
It's looking like there will be major updates to the chase rules and mass combat. (Per interviews with Shane)
Based on the new Flash Gordon book, we suspect some updates with power trappings and maybe a new modifier mechanic as something separate from trappings. We also suspect some skill changes.
The fantasy book promises to be the biggest overhaul since it's really old and much of it is in the core rule book now. It's biggest use for my group has been the magic item rules.
As for utility magic, I think the no power point versions of Savage Worlds have the best utility magic since you don't have to spend points to keep a power going so they can last a long time. Things like Fly, Invisibility, out shapechange start having a lot of Utility.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1045616As for utility magic, I think the no power point versions of Savage Worlds have the best utility magic since you don't have to spend points to keep a power going so they can last a long time. Things like Fly, Invisibility, out shapechange start having a lot of Utility.
You make an excellent point. I read p98 of Deluxe SW and was very very happy to see you are 100% correct!
Quote from: Rhedyn;1043814What are the important parts of BECMI/RC D&D that have to make the transition to feel like a proper conversion?
What parts of Savage Worlds do you feel are entirely incompatible with BECMI? (And if your answer is "skills" then what specifically is jarring?)
Honestly I wouldn't convert BECMI to SW. They're too different.
I think you could have a blast using the setting The Minrothad Guilds or The Republic of Darokin for Savage Worlds, though I'd be tempted to have a look at Fifty Fathoms or Freeport for a few ideas for the former and I know for sure that I would borrow from Lankhmar SW for the latter.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045091So possible a tangential question, but what's the difference a Dungeon Crawl and a Hex Crawl? Or maybe, more accurately, can't you have a Dungeon Crawl IN a Hex Crawl?
The format of the setting. One is a maze of one or more levels with numbered rooms. The other is a piece of geography with a numbered hex grid overlaid.
Since TSR published so many popular products with the maze with numbered rooms format it grew to one of the default presentations for an adventure. In contrast, numbered hex grid languished compared to the World of Greyhawk travelogue format as a way of presenting information about a setting.
Both are formats that could be used to present information about an adventure or setting for a tabletop roleplaying campaign. Neither prescribe a particular kind of campaign. That determined by the kind of setting you use the respective formats to write about.
Create enough rooms, mazes, and levels you can set an entire campaign in a single dungeon as it functions as a setting in of itself.
The hexcrawl format can present information about a setting in a compact form down at the local level of detail. So is particularly useful for sandbox campaigns where it is the players driving the overall direction of what is happening.
For the point of this thread, the maze with numbered rooms filled with monsters, traps, and treasures has the virtue of being very straightforward to describe to a novice in order to teach them how to create an adventure that is fun to run. So a Savage Worlds version of BECMI would do well to spend it limited page count on teaching it reader how to create a dungeon.
The hexcrawl likewise has similar virtues but it not quite so easy to as drawing a maze with room is a little easier than drawing fictional geography.
As for having a Dungeon Crawl in a Hex Crawl sure, and the vice versa. Typically the Hexcrawl format is used to describe a region tens of miles wide and high. A dungeon is a specific location within that area that is described using a numbered list keyed to a maze with rooms. Conversely, one of the rooms in a maze could be so large that the hexcrawl format would be useful to describe what in there. Think D3 Vault of the Drow.
Quote from: estar;1045791The format of the setting. One is a maze of one or more levels with numbered rooms. The other is a piece of geography with a numbered hex grid overlaid... /clip.
Good summary! Yeah this is my views as well.
I think the Vault of the Drow in particular was where a LOT of my fellow players cut their teeth on Hex-Crawling. It still, to this day, is an in-joke of ours on how it was something of a mark of accomplishment in learning to run well.
Vault the corollary benefit of introducing a whole lot of players and would-be GM's of gaining a much larger perspective in the act of transversing between just doing dungeons and expansive campaigning - by going to Hex-crawling (and back and forth as necessary).
I know personally that's how I started spiraling out to full on sandbox play where by default all my games are de-facto hex-crawls even when my players are not looking at an actual hex-map, as a GM - I'm treating all my overland travel, city-adventures, dungeon-spelunking as essentially Dungeon/Hex-Crawls with a lot of flexible nuance.
Quote from: Jame Rowe on June 24, 2018, 04:49:01 PM
Quote from: Rhedyn;1043814What are the important parts of BECMI/RC D&D that have to make the transition to feel like a proper conversion?
What parts of Savage Worlds do you feel are entirely incompatible with BECMI? (And if your answer is "skills" then what specifically is jarring?)
Honestly I wouldn't convert BECMI to SW. They're too different.
3 years later, I got the Print on Demand Rise of the Emperors and Grand Duchy books and have changed my mind.
It would take a bit of work though.
3 years later...
I've run Savage Rifts - and I'm more than sure that it can handle "Immortal Levels" of play **WITH EASE**.
Also - you'll have Savage Pathfinder soon, so your conversion needs will be a lot easier. With the caveat that Savage Pathfinder is not a conversion of Pathfinder to Savage Worlds, its more of "this is the Pathfinder (i.e. D&D) as an aesthetic flavor - using Savage Worlds rules."
BECMI? No. But I'm not sure what is specific about BECMI that needs to expressly be translated as much as just framed by "tiers of play" - which Savage Worlds does natively.
Quote from: tenbones on March 01, 2021, 03:55:38 PM
3 years later...
I've run Savage Rifts - and I'm more than sure that it can handle "Immortal Levels" of play **WITH EASE**.
Also - you'll have Savage Pathfinder soon, so your conversion needs will be a lot easier. With the caveat that Savage Pathfinder is not a conversion of Pathfinder to Savage Worlds, its more of "this is the Pathfinder (i.e. D&D) as an aesthetic flavor - using Savage Worlds rules."
BECMI? No. But I'm not sure what is specific about BECMI that needs to expressly be translated as much as just framed by "tiers of play" - which Savage Worlds does natively.
My thoughts exactly. :D