Using Lamentations of the Flame Princess skills system with S&W White Box + White Box Omnibus

I really like the LotFP skill system. So I'm seeing how I can use it everywhere. I want to try out +James Spahn's White Box Omnibus for some adventures, take it for a spin. So I'm bringing the LotFP skills along too.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess

LotFP uses a few skills.

­ Architecture (1 in 6)
­ Bushcraft (1 in 6)
­ Climb (1 in 6)
­ Languages (1 in 6)
­ Open Doors (1 in 6)
­ Search (1 in 6)
­ Sleight of Hand (1 in 6)
­ Sneak Attack (1 x damage)
­ Stealth (1 in 6)
­ Tinker (1 in 6)

Most classes have a 1 in 6 chance to succeed at these skills.. Specialists get 4 skill points at 1st level and 2 skill points per level after that. They can spend skill points to raise the chance of success in a skill by 1.

Dwarves have Architecture starting at 3 in 6, Elves have Search starting at 2 in 6, and Halflings have Bushcraft starting at 3 in 6 and Stealth at 5 in 6. Their skills (except Halfling Stealth) each go up as they go up in levels.

S&W White Box + White Box Omnibus

White Box Omnibus has a few skills:

Lore for Bards and Scholar Magic Users. Forestry for Druids and Rangers. Stealth for Monks. Thievery for Thieves. In S&W White Box, it describes the following skills for the demihumans: Dwarvish Keen Detection can detect traps, slanting passages, and construction underground, Elvish Keen Detection allows them find hidden doors, and Halfling Near Invisibility allows them to move silently and hide well.

The Proposal

I propose to replace the White Box Omnibus skills with LotFP skills, replace Thieves with the LotFP Specialist, and add Lore to the list of skills. Forestry becomes Bushcraft, Dwarves get Architecture, Elves get Search, and Halflings get Bushcraft and Stealth.

U-Con 2014 was a big success

Sorry this too so long to get out. My week was pretty busy.

U-Con 2014 in Ypsilanti MI was a blast. +John Till, +Howard Hendrickson, and I drove from Minneapolis and ran and played games for the Tekumel Track. Since my games were based on Empire of the Petal Throne (EPT), I also included them in the OSR Track. I was able to play in +R.J. Thompson's S&W Eruptor's Vengeance game, which was great fun. Maxim the Brash, paladin of Pelor, died, but he got better, and went on to help slay a dragon. Roy Snyder's DCC game Friday afternoon was canceled due to lack of players, but he gave an in-depth overview of the DCC rules. They sound like something I'd like.

Patrick Brady's Tekumel: A Transient Apocalypse game was fun, and we never touched dice. We were members of a remote clanhouse in the Chakan forest who received three warriors telling of an army of undead approaching the clanhouse, perhaps only a few days behind them. The players had to make decisions about what to do that would ensure the survival of the clanhouse and its members with as few of casualties as possible. Do we stay and fight, do we leave and hope they just leave without destroying the clanhouse, or something else? We asked the local Pe Choi to help us delay the army by felling trees across the only road through the thick forest. We consulted with them to find out if they would help hide the women and children for the days or weeks we were gone from the clanhouse. They would do it only if we adopted them into a defunct lineage of the clan. The clan elders (us) felt this was a reasonable cost for helping to save the local clan. The rest of the clan took rafts that we had built across the lake so our trail would be lost. It worked. We successfully saved the clan with only minor losses.

In Krista Donnelly's A Game of Hide and Seek the players were members of the Clan of the Golden Sapphire. A teenaged boy was skipping temple school and they were about to expel him. Our job was to find him and get him back in school. After much investigation, it turned out the boy had been sneaking to the market and entertaining people with juggling -- consorting with a very low status entertainers clan, and we also found the Pygmy Folk slave baby that he was trying to free, hidden in our clanhouse. The Clan of the Collar of Bronze, the slavers clan, was searching everywhere for this high-value commodity. We managed, through the expertise of the clan lawyer, admirably played by Patrick Brady, to return the Pygmy Folk to the slavers, though an altercation, the boy's bloody clothing was recovered. A furneral was held for him, while the boy was actually alive. He was now free to pursue his dream of being a juggler and not a stuffy priest. No one but his best friend knew that he was alive.

My adventure session, The Broken Tower of Gilraya Forest, was full and included a woman new to Tekumel. She dove right in and led the team to a successful exploration of this ruin. I knew the session would be good when she said she wanted to be a Dilettante, one of my classes, and I said she had to roll her Background first. She rolled Noble -- perfect. The party fought off Qol (the vile snakemen), wild animals, cheeky anthropoids, cyclopean floating jellyfish, and undead galore. This adventure is a Tekumel-ization of +Dyson Logos Dyson's Delve, plus Dreamer's Tower for the surface structure. Once I recover from the good times, I'll start massaging my notes into something postable. I used Heroic Age: Tekumel, my OSR clone inspired by EPT and B/X that I've been working on for the last year.

Krista's second game, Lend a Helping Hand, was the sequel to Hide and Seek. A Pygmy Folk notable wanted us to get the Pygmy Folk baby from the slavers clan. They had a Carte Blanche from a very high status clan -- "do what the bearer of this document needs". We managed to complete the task, while not insulting the very high status nor the slavers clans. And the best part is we retained the carte blanche. It's in the clan archives, where only the clan lawyer knows where to find it.

My second game was a miniatures/boardgame of duelling wizards, inspired by Tekumel author, M.A.R. Barker's own War of Wizards, published by TSR in the 1975. I used a simplified form of the Heroic Age rules. Four mages faced off in pairs. Several demons were summoned, as well as warriors pulled from some other reality. Spells flew and blood was spilled. Two survived. I have many notes from this game that I'll incorporate in the next few months, before the next con, Con of the North in Minneapolis. They are all written on the Mega-Mat we played on.

It's a pleasure to come to this con, because of the expertise of the con staff and the creativity of the GMs running games. Thanks to all.

After the con, John, Howard, and I went to Zingerman's Roadhouse. Great food and beverage.

The drive home was mostly uneventful.

Our S&W Campaign Honor Roll

1. Mick StoneRoller, Dwarven thief, died in Quasqueton, killed by a zombie.
2. Titus Longinus, warrior, died onboard ship, killed by Elven pirates.
3. Mordecai Magpie, Halfling burglar, died in the undercity of Senzar, killed by a shadowy beast. His self-sacrifice will never be known to the pasty thralls on the surface.
4. Hyacinth, Elvish mage, died in Quasqueton, killed by larval proto-demons.
5. Magnus Magpie, Halfling thug and Mordecai's brother, and his hench-thing, Shaa the Cold-One, died in the wizard Raven's tower, killed by giant spiders.

No one died tonight. 

Adios, Caverns of Quasqueton

My gaming group finished our delve into B1-In Search of the Unknown's Caverns of Quasqueton. We collected the minimum that we had to have before we left, then escaped before the whole place was overrun by vitae deium and larval demons. We barely touched the second level. I don't feel cheated.

I feel good, because this is the first D&D module I've ever played to completion. Yes, that's right. When D&D first came out, I played in the Palace of the Vampire Queen enough to get the hang of the concept of roleplaying, and then got calf-roped by Empire of the Petal Throne. The only other D&D I had played was 2 months of AD&D 1e, trying to get into the GM's next campaign, using The Fantasy Trip. He never used modules.

Also, since we haven't opened every door, and searched every wall, and since the module is customizable, I could enter again the Caverns, and still be surprised.