Friday, May 22, 2015

Evolving a game through play, the Wall of Iron

As stated in previous posts, I have been working on my own RPG based on Swords and Wizardry. It not that I think the world needs another fantasy RPG but rather for a variety of reasons I want a rule book that combines my various rulings and techniques on top the Swords and Wizardry foundation. I plan to publish it but it will be presented as a supplement that happens to be a complete rulebook.

The Wall of Iron spell is an example of how I am doing this.

The original spell was written by +Matt Finch like this.
Wall of IronMagic-User, 5th Level
Range: 60 feet
Duration: 2 hours

The caster conjures an iron wall from thin air. The wall is 3 feet thick, 50 feet tall, and 50 feet long.
In a recent game, a certain dwarven rune-caster came up with a innovative way of combining a dimension door with the wall of iron to take out a dragon and its rider that was plaguing the party. Because of this my version of the spell now reads.

Wall of Iron
Magic-User, 5th Level, Range: 60 feet, Duration: 2 hours, Art: Hearth
This spell will create an iron wall within 60 feet of the caster. This wall is 3 feet think, 50 feet tall, and 50 feet long. At successful Thaumatology ability check of 15 or better will allow the caster to position the wall in such a way that it will fall onto a target. The slab of iron will do 30d6 damage to the target plus 1d6 per 10 feet it has fallen.

Since the original publication of the Majestic Wilderlands in 2009, I have dozens of these types of ruling and plus other tweaks to how I run things in my setting. So now is the time to combine them into a formal rulebook. Hopefully in a form that makes it easy for folks to cherry pick what they want for their campaign.

1 comment:

Andy Bartlett said...

"I want a rule book that combines my various rulings and techniques on top the Swords and Wizardry foundation. I plan to publish it but it will be presented as a supplement that happens to be a complete rulebook."

For all that people complain about 'originality' and 'innovation' in the OSR, this is kinda the point. I really 'got' the OSR when I read your Majestic Wilderlands - the way that it is fundamentally compatible with everything else that uses HD, AC, Levels etc., but that can incorporate enough distinctive elements to support a particular flavour of campaign. AND that the OSR also gives you the freedom (not just the OGL, but a community which values such things) to publish.