Dragonbane general thread

[Von Ether]

Yeah, everyone is different but when it comes to the wandering monster/morale discussion and a GM says, "I want to be surprised!" I comprehend, but also don't understand on a certain level - especially for tables that have any sort of curve to them as they'll have an average (e.g. the most likely to happen) results.

Most of the time you're not going to be surprised.

For my internal DM sense, if it feels like the most expected outcome is going to be boring, then it's time to mix it up. Dice results can inspire, but I have not felt the need for the wandering monster/morale combo for decades.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, everyone is different but when it comes to the wandering monster/morale discussion and a GM says, "I want to be surprised!" I comprehend, but also don't understand on a certain level - especially for tables that have any sort of curve to them as they'll have an average (e.g. the most likely to happen) results.

Most of the time you're not going to be surprised.

For my internal DM sense, if it feels like the most expected outcome is going to be boring, then it's time to mix it up. Dice results can inspire, but I felt the need for the wandering monster/morale combo for decades.

I still use curves and morale. Love them both.

To me, the curve is about having the element of surprise and reinforcing theme or tone. Most results will reinforce theme or tone. The outliers provide the surprise.

This area is heavy with orcs, so the mid results are orcs. But several other monster types live here and can be encountered, so they are the extremes.

It’s the best of both.

Unless you want pure gonzo. Then list every monster on one massive chart and go.

And I always use morale. No one fights to the death without a very good reason.

 

[Von Ether]

And I always use morale. No one fights to the death without a very good reason.

Agreed, especially natural wildlife.

Though in many of my games over the year, the moment an enemy runs the PCs try to run them down. So the only difference is the fight wrapping up faster.

 

[aramis erak]

Pretty sure a goblin can one shot a 1st level 5e character. They sure could in 1e.

Given max HP at first is standard in 5th, no, it takes two shots.

 

[aramis erak]

I just wanted to point out that early Classic Traveller is skill based and rules light.

You're misremembering, or your Ref ignored half the skills chapter and most of the combat chapters. Yes, it's skill based, but no, it's not written as a light rule set. Of the wave of 77-78, it was tied with RuneQuest for crunchiness.

See, most of the skills are each a separate rule, no consistency of how things other than combat were rolled.

Those 3 little black books held a lot of crunch. A minis-based ship combat game. A character generation minigame. A combat system that, by adding Action Points and using a different grid scale, was adapted the board game, Snapshot. A ship design system that lead to high tech systems fielding carriers with dozens of fighters as the 1 turret per hundred tons displacement leaves the max 5000 tonner with over 500 unused tons, which makes for 45 fighters...

And that's ignoring that there was more crunch in Supplement 4, Books 4-8, and Adventure 5: Trillion Credit Squadron.

The irony? MegaTraveller, with its much more detailed ship construction rules, has a lighter skill system, simply by having a single mechanic for all uses. (MT makes every other part cruchier, tho'.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

As a continuing note, I went to ignoring random monster charts for decades of D&D, to new found respect for them in OSR, to loving them in DB:

• In D&D, they were just entries of what/how many wandering monsters with no clues to Mr. New GM (me) on how to use them beyond challenges to the party's resource (and famously a result of "vampire" in a dungeon was Ravenloft's origin story.) And retroactively, the answer of "But Morale rules!" doesn't impress me much.*
• With the OSR explicitly stating these random charts can be short hand for the surrounding ecology or a theme you want to reinforce in the game, I got it. (While acknowledging TSR did a mediocre job with that concept.)
• With DB, the smaller Journey tables offer adventure hooks and single encounters in the random entries, with at least one being a direct lead into the adventure in the area.

Even my players are on the edge of their seats to see what calamity comes their way next.

*An excellent example is a DB entry where you meet two skeletons still walking a patrol long after their death. The extra information prompted me to present them differently and the encounter never became a combat. Oddly enough in AD&D, it was probably would have been a guaranteed hostile encounter as it would have been just "1d6 skeletons (who never fail morale checks.)"

I wholeheartedly agree. I'll add that this is less about Dragonbane as a system of rules, and more as an approach to supporting the GM. I find it to be philosophically akin to Kelsey Dionne's aesthetic. Terse and useful.

 

[overgeeked]

I wholeheartedly agree. I'll add that this is less about Dragonbane as a system of rules, and more as an approach to supporting the GM. I find it to be philosophically akin to Kelsey Dionne's aesthetic. Terse and useful.

This approach is pervasive in the OSR and NSR scenes. Usability at the table is paramount. Finding stuff easily, two-page spreads as the default layout unit, lots of bullet points and bolded text, leaving blanks, location-based modules, etc.

 

[Aldarc]

This approach is pervasive in the OSR and NSR scenes. Usability at the table is paramount. Finding stuff easily, two-page spreads as the default layout unit, lots of bullet points and bolded text, leaving blanks, location-based modules, etc.

To be honest, I would have preferred more of that with Dragonbane. A common criticism, and one I agree with, is that the layout of the Dragonbane rules often requires a lot of flipping back and forth between relevant pages, particularly the rules in the character creation and the pertinent info elsewhere.

 

[Von Ether]

To be honest, I would have preferred more of that with Dragonbane. A common criticism, and one I agree with, is that the layout of the Dragonbane rules often requires a lot of flipping back and forth between relevant pages, particularly the rules in the character creation and the pertinent info elsewhere.

Then you haven't tried to find all the optional piercing damage rules then.

Most people don't know that cramped terrain does not give a bane to piercing damage weapons.

 

[overgeeked]

To be honest, I would have preferred more of that with Dragonbane. A common criticism, and one I agree with, is that the layout of the Dragonbane rules often requires a lot of flipping back and forth between relevant pages, particularly the rules in the character creation and the pertinent info elsewhere.

That’s fair. But that’s also due to how light Dragonbane actually is, mechanically. You can’t reasonably make a profession stretch to two pages, for example. But they do that two-page spread focus to good effect with the Bestiary and modules, where they can.