It’s been well over a year since I started this series. A number of new d20/OSR systems have come out since then, or are coming out soon. I’d like to run down the systems I considered, and see which ones may be better a better fit for certain ages of Eordh.
For what it’s worth my list for the Fifth Age of Eordh is still:
Honorable mentions: Nimble v2, Shadowdark
What I’m Looking For
These are my criteria for a system:
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“Old School” D&D sensibilities. There’ve been long essays written on what the original D&D rules had that the post-TSR rules lacked. Matt Finch’s “A Quick Primer on Old School Gaming” calls out four:
- “Rulings not rules”: the game has just enough rules to get players going, and trust the Referee / DM / GM to come up with on-the-spot rulings for odd situations.
- “Player skill, not character abilities”: Players use their intelligence and problem-solving skills to negotiate traps and obstacles. They don’t simply look up a number on their character sheet and roll it.
- “Heroic, not superheroic”: Player characters can still get hurt and die. They don’t have multiple death saves and a Swiss Army knife of powers to get them out of any situation.
- “Forget ‘Game Balance’”: Players don’t presume that encounters are “balanced” so that they have even or better odds of slaying every foe. They have to use their intelligence to know when they’re over their heads, and how to extricate themselves.
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Simple, modern, streamlined rules. I’m not interested in replicating the experience of playing old D&D versions, with their confusing ad hoc rules. Been there, done that. Give me the Old School experience with a simple central resolution mechanic and a minimum of exceptions to the rules.
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Compatibility with as wide a selection of D&D adventures and supplements as possible. I don’t mind doing a little conversion, but if I’m rewriting something based on an outline I’m doing too much work.
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A small set of classes, ideally the B/X roster of classes: Cleric, Fighter, Magic User, Thief (or Rogue), Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling. (Yes, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling are classes.) But any set is OK, as long as there’s less than ten and they all have well-defined niches. Something not class-based would be better, but that’s asking too much from D&D-like systems.
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As a corrolary to the previous point, an emphasis on human characters. Playing D&D 5e, I’ve grown weary of a plethora of species, each of which has sick kewl powerz starting with Darkvision. In contrast, humanity, the most populous species, invariably seems like the suboptimal choice. Instead of trying to balance other species against humanity, the “classic” Basic D&D line turned the Elf F/MU, Dwarf Fighter, and Halfling F/Thief into discrete classes. As Into the Unknown points out, this has the effect of making the nonhuman species both stereotyped and a little alien … which is actually what I want.
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An interesting take on D&D magic. I’m not sure what I mean by “interesting” – something beyond bland fire-and-forget spells – but I’ll know it when I see it.
Candidate Systems
Basic Fantasy
Admittedly I haven’t read Basic Fantasy but from a quick flip-through it looks like another OSR game with four ancestries (Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling) and four classes (Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, and Thief). I guess I’ll have to read the thing to get why there’s such affection for it in some circles, apart from it being free (as in beer and as in speech).
Cairn
Cairn uses the core mechanics of Into the Odd to strip roleplaying down to its basics. What a character can do depends on what equipment they have, including spell books (one spell per book).
In terms of Eordh, “Cairn” might fit the Zeroth Age or eras outside the Canonist sphere of influence in the First Age. Imagine the PCs as the humans who stole the secrets of magic from the Antediluvians, encapsulated in little chapbooks. (Or totems, if you don’t think these humans could read.) As an ongoing Fifth Age game, though, Cairn seems a little too minimalist.
Deathbringer
“Professor Dungeon Master’s” “Deathbringer” is a two-page RPG for those who already know D&D and similar RPGs. It’s strongly influenced by Warhammer Fantasy and other “grimdark” settings. Fighters are called “Deathbringers”. There are no clerics, only Plague Doctors and Witch Hunters. Magic Users are called “Grimscribes” and have to tattoo spells on their flesh to make them work; they’re persecuted, particularly by WItch Hunters.
“Deathbringer” inspired the Fourth Age history, and maybe if I were using that era I’d take a chance on it. The current iteration, though, is very thin, with a lot of DM interpretation. PDM a.k.a. Dan Masters has talked about turning it into a full RPG, but all we have so far is the 2-pager on DTRPG and a couple dozen pages available on his Patreon.
Dungeon Crawl Classics
Dungeon Crawl Classics is the frontrunner for the system under which I’d run the setting of Eordh. It hits all my criteria: an old school sensibility with modern rules, the B/X set of classes without the clunkiness of the actual B/X, and a gonzo magic system where every spell has a table of effects based on how well (or poorly) the player rolled on their spellcasting die. The tables for each spell, and the plethora of funky dice, gave me pause, but anecdotal evidence suggests it’s less of a problem in practice that it appears on a read-through. (Plus I’d probably play over Discord, so having the weird Zocchi dice isn’t really an issue.)
D&D 5e
Really, I’m so sick of 5e. I’d like to “mess it up” by running a campaign with no PC magic or rebuilding it as OSR or something. Anything but all the classes which can potentially cast spells (even Fighter and Rogue), all the ancestries that have Darkvision (everybody but humans), and all the rules I want to repeal.
So no, I won’t run Eordh using D&D 5e, 2014 or 2024 edition. I want a simple ruleset with few exceptions, not a sprawling morass of exceptions with a simple core buried deep within.
D&D Rules Cyclopedia
The D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 1991 is the final expression of TSR’s “Basic D&D” line before they shut it down. Classes are the standard B/X set and the optional classes of Druid and Mystic (Monk). It’s a large tome, which takes players up to level 36(?!?) before they become Immortals (gods).
Apart from having the hardcover, and the cachet of it being Original School and not just Old School, I’m not sure what the appeal is. Then again, I’ve only read parts of it, and that a long time ago.
Godbound
The Fourth Age also features godlings running around the less conservative parts of the Continent, and that’s where Kevin Crawford’s Godbound might come in. Godbound concerns newly ascended gods running around ruined fragments of the cosmos after the Supreme Deity abdicated, but I figure you could used the system with any setting.
That said, all the classes and species of the regular settings might as well be ants to the Godbound (or Wordbound as I called them). Conveying the flavor of Fourth Age Eordh, such as it is, and providing enough challenges for literal gods (besides each other) might be difficult.
Into The Unknown
Into the Unknown takes the core of D&D 5e and imposes the standard B/X classes on it. I thought it would be a nice bridge for 5e players adapting to the Old School mindset. It might be, but it might be a bridge too far. A fresh start with DCC might be preferable.
Knave
Knave (first edition) is a very simple system with which to play through Old School and vintage D&D modules. Each player (including solo players) has both combat and magical abilities, much like “Cairn”.
This game, like “Cairn”, might represent the Zeroth Age better, when humans first stole the secrets of magic and humans were barbarians poking around the ruins of the dying Antediluvians.
Low Fantasy Gaming
Tales of Argosa iterated upon an earlier rule set, Low Fantasy Gaming. It had more or less the same classes, but with five “races”: humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and half-skorn (essentially half-orcs). I think the one thing that bothered me about it was that attribute checks were roll low (under the attribute score) rather than roll high (die roll + attribute-based bonus vs. Difficulty). There’s an easy fix for that, but I think I let that little inconsistency bug me a little too much. ToA has the same flaw.
Otherwise it’s a perfectly good rule set. I lean toward ToA, though, because sword & sorcery is my jam.
Nimble v2
Nimble started as house rules to make D&D 5e faster. The author, Evan Diaz, decided to turn these house rules into a complete system, with fresh takes on standard 5e classes and the whole Ancestry thing.
So far Diaz has released no complete draft of the Nimble v2 rules, only some “preview rules” as part of the Kickstarter. I’m a little put off by his renaming of all the character classes, and I just don’t grok them yet. I did spring for the softcover version of the books, though, so I’ll have to read them sooner or later. (Theoretically.) I like most of the Nimble v1 changes; it remains to be seen whether Nimble v2 continues the simplification and streamlining trend, or whether it succumbs to Second System Effect.
Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy
Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy includes the “classic” classes and a cleaned up and well laid out version of Moldvay’s 1981 B/X rules. As such, it seems, well, conservative compared to something like DCC. A Referee can put the work into their world and house rules to make OSE:CF more gonzo but that takes, well, work. I’d like to try it .., but it’s not that high on my list of alternatives to DCC. Maybe if I were setting my game in the First Age, i.e. the dawn of Canonism and Clerics.
Shadowdark
Shadowdark came out last year and swept the Ennie Awards this year. It blends OSR sensibilities – only four classes – with 5e mechanics and ephemera – many ancestries with One Neat Trick, Advantage/Disadvantage dice, consistent d20 mechanics, etc. Its other claim to fame is that no PCs can see in the dark, all monsters can see in the dark, and torches are a finite resource that lasts an hour of play (not in-world time).
To be honest, again, I’ve only flipped through the free quickstart PDFs. Obviously the system can handle more than dungeon crawls (I hope), but the dungeon crawl is its bread and butter. I’m hoping to do more than dungeon crawls, hex crawls, point crawls, and other stumbling around in dark places, so Shadowdark ranks fairly low on the list.
Swords & Wizardry
The original 2009-2011 “core rules” of Swords & Wizardry have the same B/X classes as most of the others in this list. It’s also a fairly simple and flexible system, forming the core of Crypts & Things and other OSR derivatives. C&T also incorporated Akrasia’s house rules that among other things replace Clerics and Magic Users with a single Sorcerer class. That may be good for representing the Second Age Magi and Witches, but I see no advantage in using it for a game in the Fifth Age. S&W is in the top five, but not that high.
Swords & Wizardry Revised
Swords & Wizardry Revised, released last year, shifts from the B/X classes to the AD&D classes – Assassin, Druid, Ranger, Paladin, etc. in addition to the B/X set – and handles ancestry separate from class. I think my problems with AD&D stem from the High Gygaxian of the prose rather than the expanded choice of class and ancestry options, but already I know I may want to trim some of those options depending on the particular setting.
In any case, S&WR might be better suited to a game set in the Eastlands in the Second Age or Fourth Age, especially if I add Akrasia’s house rules to represent the Magi before they faded away.
Tales of Argosa
Tales of Argosa kickstarted this year, and the PDF version is nearly ready. All characters are human, belonging to nine classes: Artificer, Barbarian, Bard, Cultist, Fighter, Magic User, Monk, Ranger, and Rogue. Only the Magic User and the Cultist (a sort of proto-Cleric) actually use magic, and in ToA magic is “Dark and Dangerous”. (Really. That’s how they bill their magic system.) Artificers make useful but non-magical things.
Still, ToA might better represent the Zeroth Age or the non-Canonist First Age than the more “civilized” Fifth Age.
Required Homebrewing
Antediluvian
In a sense Antediluvians reskin the Elf race-class: they have spells and combat powers. Something called the Fog of Years keeps them from becoming demigods with centuries or millennia of experience. (Is it a curse? The limits of humanoid memory?)
However, I kind of wish I could port the Dendrelyssi of Crimson Blades to DCC. Their magic involves not just casting spells but summoning and binding demons and elementals, in a clear homage to the Elric books. I’m not sure how that would mesh with the DCC magic system, though.
Disciples of Balance
Not every rule set listed above has a “Monk” class or the equivalent. I homebrewed my own for DCC, but I’ve yet to test it. The three-way struggle between Law, Chaos, and Balance forms the foundation of my world, and I wanted a class that represented Balance differently from the Clerics of Law and Chaos (and the Unaligned gods). (I almost want separate spell lists for Law, Chaos, and Unaligned/Pagan gods, but that’s too much to ask both of DCC and of me.)
At some point I might implement a mechanic in line with Hard Alignment wherein a Disciple who starts losing their Balance and slides too far toward Law or Chaos starts losing their power. (Much like old school Paladins lost their powers if they stopped being Lawful.) The same would apply to Clerics, of course. Unlike Clerics, though, Disciples have two directions in which to fall.
Magus
A Magus mixes Cleric and Wizard: masters of both “holy” magic and “arcane” magic, but the darker the magic the more it costs them. They’re the inverse of the usual sword & sorcery sorcerer: they stay on the straight and narrow, or else.
Akrasia’s house rules, in particular classifying every spell as White, Grey, or Black with consequences attached, inspired this idea of the Magus. “Magus”/“Magi” give us the word “magic”, so I wanted them to be primarily magicians, but with a moral dimension. (The anime Magi, in which the eponymous Magi risk dire consequences if they oppose Fate, was another influence.) In a way so were the “sorcerers” of Glorantha, who believe in an abstract creator-god but whose magic is fundamentally amoral … until the sorcerers collectively push the supernatural world too far.
Theurge
Theurges aren’t Clerics. They’re not Wizards. If anything, they’re summoners who command not demons but divine spirits.
In my notes I have rough rules of how they work: they have a pool of “Numen” points that they can allocate to initiate and sustain certain effects. Think of it as their guardian spirits having only so many ethereal hands. Stronger Theurges have more “Numen”, more approval from the Powers That Be. Theurges don’t learn “spells”; rather, they learn a Covenant that tells them what their guardian spirits will and won’t do for them. Parsing that into specific game effect was the hard part of that design.
In any case, I like the idea of a vanished specialty of magic, in part because it excuses me from having to actually design the system for it. Also, though, a tenet of DCC and other “post apocalyptic low fantasy” is that the magic that exists now merely scratches the surface of what magic could do in a golden age. (In Eordh, that golden age is the Third Age, which is why I’ll never run a game during that time period.)
“Ritualist”
In my notes I marked a lot of NPC types (and some PC classes) as “ritualists”. Insteady of casting quick spells, they make magic (or magic items) through procedures that last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, … This includes the Alchemists of the Second Age, the Artificers of the Third Age, Plague Doctors of the Fourth Age, and the Priests of every age.
Priests, unlike Clerics, have no divine blessing. (I.e. no spells.) They know if they perform certain rituals in a temple and pray to their god, the ritual sometimes has the effect of a Cleric spell … and then again, sometimes not.
At one point I started developing a systemless ritual magic system, but it remains unfinished. NPCs can simply do things by Referee fiat, but PCs need rules and guidelines: how much time, how strong, what chance failure, etc. The Artificers disappear from history for the same reason the Theurges: I liked them being in the lore, but I didn’t want to design them.
Witch
Witches are my white whale, my Holy Grail. I want my witches to be equal parts Terry Pratchett witches, Carrie, Scarlet Witch, and Willow Rosenberg. At low levels they’re no better than any Ritualist, but as they gain control of their power – or lose restraint of their power – they can become destructive forces of nature.
My first thought was to give them the same White/Black/Gray system as the Magi, to represent both their blending of Arcane and Divine and the consequences of gravitating toward one extreme or the other. (Light Witches lose their battle instincts, but Dark Witches become remorseless engines of chaos and vengeance.) But I also want to add in the lore about young witches trying to control powers that begin at puberty, and Arthurian enchantresses also becoming priestesses of a nature goddess, and Pratchett’s witches depending less on magic than on knowledge, lore, and “headology”. Which is a heady brew.
So I tried to extend the undeveloped Ritual Magic System to encompass “fast casting” (a la the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ghosts of Albion RPGs) and/or “immediate rituals” (ditto). But without a complete system in place I wasn’t sure how to determine what can be fast cast.
It’s a good thing nearly all the Witches died out in the Fourth Age, otherwise I’d have to develop a system for them. Modern witches are either Hedge Witches who know bits of lore and ritual magic, the rare True Witch from the North who hides her arcane/divine/psychic power, and the even rarer Dark Witch who’s more like a legendary monster than a Wizard or Cleric.