Dragonbane general thread

[Von Ether]

Oh. Do you have a link to that by chance?

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

The book offers some bolt-on rulesets* and I was about to introduce the hunting and skinning rules into DB. (The W&W hunting rules make the hunt pretty much the focus of the encounter.)

I was debating between two different ways to convert:

• Use the bolt on systems as is and adding the suggest bonuses for people who trained in Bushcraft
• Put the potential outcomes into three categories of care and preparation so as to assigned a bane, straight roll, boon.

The PC I was going to use the rules for (a thief trying to become an herbalist) was our first campaign causality and thus didn't need those rules anymore.

*My personal opinion, the OSR's trend to add on bolt on rule sets that were inspired by various old D&D's mish mash of subsystems that were not originally intended as bolt rule sets is simultaneously a great reinterpretation while also wearing rose-colored glasses about gaming during the old days.

 

[overgeeked]

non-monster enemies. It's short on them.

Maybe. Sure, you could always use more, but I don’t think it’s necessarily short of them.

There’s 22 NPC stat blocks in the rulebook including orcs, skeletons, goblins, bandits, and guards.

The Adventures book has 42 more NPCs baddies and goodies, though a few are repeats from the rulebook.

The Bestiary has 24 more, though some are repeats from the rulebook.

Path of Glory has 44 more, though some are repeats from the rulebook.

Assuming ~1/4 of the non-rulebook NPCs are repeats, that’s about 100 across the line so far.

Besides, making NPCs is dead simple. Pick two skills, rate them 8, 10, 12, or 14. HP equals their highest physical skill. Move by kin. Give them apprpriate weapons and armor.

And there’s a dice drop NPC generator in the rulebook that has 1.38 million possible results.

 

[overgeeked]

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

The book offers some bolt-on rulesets* and I was about to introduce the hunting and skinning rules into DB. (The W&W hunting rules make the hunt pretty much the focus of the encounter.)

Thank you. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant a link to the spreadsheet.

 

[overgeeked]

My personal opinion, the OSR's trend to add on bolt on rule sets that were inspired by various old D&D's mish mash of subsystems that were not originally intended as bolt rule sets is simultaneously a great reinterpretation while also wearing rose-colored glasses about gaming during the old days.

Maybe it depends on where you were and who you played with. We stole liberally from every source we could and bolted rules onto AD&D without a care. Roll high, roll low. Any dice. Any genre or system. It did not matter. If it looked good, we took it and added it to AD&D.

 

[Von Ether]

Thank you. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant a link to the spreadsheet.

I am looking for the original good sheets link for it.

 

[overgeeked]

I have an unhealthy love of a good random generator spreadsheet. I created one based on the dice drop NPC generator in the rulebook, with some tweaks. I prefer things like traits and motivations to be part of the character description rather than a standalone.

As per the rulebook and solo adventure, these "minion" style NPCs have no armor, deal 2d6 damage, and have a skill level 6 in any unlisted skills.

Here's five examples of what it spit out.

Olgrid. An evasive halfling mage who’s wild eyed and wants revenge for an injustice that demands retribution. HP: 16. Healing 16. Swords 10. Beast Lore 14. Sleight of Hand 10.

Tilde. An indifferent mallard thief who’s obstinate and wants knowledge of the world. HP: 16. Acrobatics 12. Axes 16. Crafting 14. Slings 8.

Tyra. A hostile halfling hunter who’s a cultist and wants sweet, glittering gold. HP: 16. Spot Hidden 10. Evade 10. Seamanship 16. Performance 12.

Priamus. A friendly mallard mage who’s very touchy and wants knowledge of the world. HP: 14. Brawling 14. Bushcraft 10. Persuasion 10. Riding 10.

Taras. A friendly dwarf knight who’s a bit childish and wants to fulfill a lifelong oath. HP: 14. Bluffing 10. Staves 8. Bows 10. Sneaking 14.

Getting the spreadsheet to grab four random, non-repeating, skills was a pain, but eventually I got there. I prefer the randomness to help generate ideas and spark the imagination rather than be complete and whole cloth unto itself. So you might notice an NPC that doesn't have some really obvious skill choices, like an artisan who lacks the crafting skill. This is intentional. If an NPC not having an obvious skill bugs you, simply add it. Viola. Otherwise, that lack helps generate story.

Take Tilde, for example. She's a thief who has high axes and crafting. Odd choices for a thief. The cliche that comes to mind is a woodcarver or woodsman who turned to thieving.

 

[Aldarc]

My partner and I had another solo session of Dragonbane but this session was rougher than the last one. They made it to Outskirts but my partner unfortunately encountered their least favorite part of TTRPGs: social scenes!

It was definitely not easy going. There was very much a sense of "what now?" My partner is still a TTRPG noob, and I think that these are the sort of situations where it helps to play with a group or other veterans. My partner didn't seem to get that the NPCs in the inn were more than just show pieces. They were the sources of rumors and information. Some of the NPCs can be pretty liberal with rumors, though some need a bit of Persuasion. Unfortunately, my partner's characters who were skilled in Persuasion kept making bad roll after bad roll in the inn.

They were clearly not having that much fun roleplaying social scenes, so we decided to skim over a bit. They gathered three rumors for possible locations for a statuette piece, which I drew from the Adventure deck: Troll's Spire, Temple of the Purple Flame, and Riddermound. In hindsight, I would have also added the Robber Knight adventure here too, but I would need to hand that to them as a card.

My partner decided on Riddermound. Once they got inside, they cleared the first room of vampire bats pretty easily since Aodhan used a fireball, Krisanna used an improvised torch for fire damage, and Makander somehow hit with pretty massive damage on a non-critical as a result of what followed. The bats got an incredible fear roll. Krisanna failed her WIL roll and became Disheartened, also losing 3 WP. Makander failed his WIL roll, but when he rolled on the fear chart, his FEAR turned to RAGE, compelling him to do what he would normally do: get angry and attack in melee. (See the massive damage from before.) The bats sadly rolled only 1 on draining blood, which was not enough to survive Krisanna dispersing them with the torch.

That is where we stopped since we had other things we needed to get done that evening. But I know what is coming. My partner is running three pre-gen characters: the thief, the knight, and the mage. This is actually my first time running Riddermound. Any advice on running or adjusting Riddermound? I know the ghost and wight can be BRUTAL. I know some people lower the armor of the Wight. Even in the Quickstart version of Riddermound, the Wight's armor is 6 as opposed to 8 in the core set. Only one character has access to fire and/or magic: Aodhan the Mage. I don't think that Grub will make the difference. I am considering planting a magic weapon in one of the rooms before they reach either just to give them a little more of a fighting chance.

 

[Staffan]

I think the more ‘sword & sorcery’ vibe of Dragonbane means it’s totally cool to have fewer but more unique and dangerous monsters.

I haven't gotten Dragonbane, but I do have a number of its predecessors. One of the advantages of a flatter system is that monsters remain challenging.

In D&D, you have a progression where you start fighting orcs, and then move on to fighting ogres, ettins, and hill giants. So any given monster stat block is only going to be useful for a section of your campaign. You can extend things a bit by using monster variants (like the Ogres of War from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), but in most cases those variants work better as individual paragons rather than whole groups (it'd be weird to have the party fight a group of four Orc Warchiefs, unless they're crashing a "meeting of the tribes" or something like that). 5e gave low-level monsters a bit more longevity via the bounded accuracy concept, but that requires monsters in large numbers which isn't always appropriate.

But in Dragonbane, or at least its predecessors, an ogre is a fundamentally much stronger opponent than an orc. An ogre hitting you for 2d8+1d10 has a good chance of turning the doughtiest hero into red paste unless heavily armored. So whatever monsters there are are basically useful throughout a whole campaign, so you don't need as many monsters for the game as a whole.

 

[Shardstone]

My partner and I had another solo session of Dragonbane but this session was rougher than the last one. They made it to Outskirts but my partner unfortunately encountered their least favorite part of TTRPGs: social scenes!

It was definitely not easy going. There was very much a sense of "what now?" My partner is still a TTRPG noob, and I think that these are the sort of situations where it helps to play with a group or other veterans. My partner didn't seem to get that the NPCs in the inn were more than just show pieces. They were the sources of rumors and information. Some of the NPCs can be pretty liberal with rumors, though some need a bit of Persuasion. Unfortunately, my partner's characters who were skilled in Persuasion kept making bad roll after bad roll in the inn.

They were clearly not having that much fun roleplaying social scenes, so we decided to skim over a bit. They gathered three rumors for possible locations for a statuette piece, which I drew from the Adventure deck: Troll's Spire, Temple of the Purple Flame, and Riddermound. In hindsight, I would have also added the Robber Knight adventure here too, but I would need to hand that to them as a card.

My partner decided on Riddermound. Once they got inside, they cleared the first room of vampire bats pretty easily since Aodhan used a fireball, Krisanna used an improvised torch for fire damage, and Makander somehow hit with pretty massive damage on a non-critical as a result of what followed. The bats got an incredible fear roll. Krisanna failed her WIL roll and became Disheartened, also losing 3 WP. Makander failed his WIL roll, but when he rolled on the fear chart, his FEAR turned to RAGE, compelling him to do what he would normally do: get angry and attack in melee. (See the massive damage from before.) The bats sadly rolled only 1 on draining blood, which was not enough to survive Krisanna dispersing them with the torch.

That is where we stopped since we had other things we needed to get done that evening. But I know what is coming. My partner is running three pre-gen characters: the thief, the knight, and the mage. This is actually my first time running Riddermound. Any advice on running or adjusting Riddermound? I know the ghost and wight can be BRUTAL. I know some people lower the armor of the Wight. Even in the Quickstart version of Riddermound, the Wight's armor is 6 as opposed to 8 in the core set. Only one character has access to fire and/or magic: Aodhan the Mage. I don't think that Grub will make the difference. I am considering planting a magic weapon in one of the rooms before they reach either just to give them a little more of a fighting chance.

I think it would behoove you to create some obvious ways for the players to avoid or weaken encounters first, to teach them that such is possible and how to do it. I think sincethis seems to be their second session and their first dungeon you have two choices:

• Let them take it as is with some buffs, but still make it a pretty difficult time that teaches them to "fear" dungeons.
• Show them how they can manipulate the environment to their advantage, and then go through Riddermound on your own and lay down some "sign posts" indicating where your partner can do this.

The first option is how most people learn OSR-style games IMO, which is basically negative reinforcement. It works, but it filters people, and it isn't as fun IMO.

The second option is using positive reinforcement. It'll still be hard, but remember, your partner is a noob so she won't think she's in "no danger." In other words, by making Riddermound into a tutorial, you can boost your partner's confidence and game ability for the future.

I hope this helps! Love that you are doing these write-ups. Please do. They are invaluable

 

[overgeeked]

My partner didn't seem to get that the NPCs in the inn were more than just show pieces. They were the sources of rumors and information. Some of the NPCs can be pretty liberal with rumors, though some need a bit of Persuasion. Unfortunately, my partner's characters who were skilled in Persuasion kept making bad roll after bad roll in the inn.

It’s an old problem. The best bit of advice on this is: don’t lock the adventure behind a die roll. Just give them the rumors.