Table Space Gaming Guild
Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Original (BECMI/OD&D)
This is our place to help organize and log adventures in this West Marches game! The setting is a homebrew setting (My world, Endurail) and a OSR (Old School Renaissance) D&D system, with a few modifications.
Dragonslayer is the main game that we will be using, with a few additions from Dungeon Crawl Classics, ShadowDark, B/X D&D, and AD&D.
Great question! After reading and studying some of the older versions and editions of D&D I feel like the older styles of play better facilitate a West Marches style of play. With a simpler rule-set, faster combat, and more focus on adventure and emergent gameplay. Classes have a more unique feel and having a party of varying levels is actually common. The game is much less about looking at your character sheet to solve problems, but rather you as a player taking whatever advantage you can, with whatever it is that you have. It challenges you to rise to the occasion and to think like an adventurer.
Yes, that's right, we'll be using THAC0. THAC0 means To Hit Armor Class Zero. In OSR D&D a descending Armor Class is used. The lower your AC, the better. I know it sounds confusing, but don't worry it will make sense.
One of the key rules for OSR play is gold for experience points. It gives characters an easy and direct goal for gaining levels, adventuring out and exploring for gold and treasure. This makes the game less about combat and more about exploration/expeditions. The XP that you get from killing monsters is much less than you do for finding a treasure chest full of gold.
What does that mean? Every day that passes in the real world, a day passes in the game world. Each session of this game the party will begin in town and the session will end in town. I'll handle the passage of time in relation to the world and characters and such. Certain classes (Cleric & Magic-User for example) are able to create things like spell scrolls, potions, etc. These things take time and gold to do, so what better way to track that than by using 'real-time'. The creator of D&D, Gary Gygax talks in his DMG about tracking time, and back in the day, people played with this method. Healing in OSR is much different than 5th edition. 1Hp per day is the norm, so your characters will need time to rest.
One of my main focuses on this West Marches game is to make the world feel as real as possible. The adventuring area will be small to start so that I can learn and tinker, but each week I will be checking on the various factions that are in the area and I'll see what they're up to and what they're doing-regardless if players interact with them or not. Seasons will change, weather will change. Factions will move around. Friends may become enemies and enemies may become friends. And of course every action will have a reaction in some way.
In Dragonslayer, and older D&D, Races and Classes are locked behind specific stats. If you didn't roll the stats, you will not be able to play that race/class. Stat generation will be obtained by rolling 3d6, 7 times. Dropping one of the 7 rolls and placing the stats where you want that best fit the race and class you're wanting to play. Not every race will be able to play every class, and all races other than human have a limit to what levels they can achieve with the classes that they're allowed to play.
These limitations actually help to shape and inform the world. And also, rolling the appropriate stats that allow you to play a Monk or a Paladin will feel badass. Classes and levels aren't like in 5th Edition where you unlock various abilities with every level, so the disparity between levels is not noticeable.
Each player will be able to have to up 3 characters available to play with. All gear and coin will be able to be shared between them as well as other players in the West Marches group. With the 1:1 game time, this will allow you to help ensure you've got a character available to play if and when your other characters are making their way back to town, researching a spell, brewing potions or poisons, etc!
