Der PigDog's PigBlog

The following is a recollection of a fight from a session about a year ago, which I count as one of my worst gaming experiences. Not long after this I ended my tenure as referee in this ongoing game. It was particularly disappointing as I had had many of my best experiences in that same game in the previous three or four months. The game is Wolves Upon the Coast, a game inspired by OD&D (whatever that name means to the author of this game) with an integrated setting. In order to understand this play report, you need to know that: To attack, a character or monster rolls 1d20 and adds their attack bonus and their opponent’s armor class, both numerical values between 0 and 9, plus some kind of circumstance modifier, and tries to hit 20 or above. Characters and monsters have health points, 1d6 points per “hit dice”. Monsters get +1 to their attack bonus for every 2 hit dice Most attacks reduce a character or monster’s health by 1d6. Hits generally have no other effe...

The following is excerpted from the zine that Adam and I wrote, Reavers , about our campaign. It's necessary context for a few other posts I want to make, I'm copying it here. Progression Progression in Wolves Upon the Coast works a bit differently than in standard dnd, so I thought it'd be worth laying out how it normally works, and what effect that normal operation has, before discussing the difference wutc's progression system makes. In ordinary dnd, xp serves two purposes: it's a score, keeping track of achievement; and it's a pacing mechanic, gating mechanical benefits behind a length of gameplay.[^1] [^1]: I owe this latter insight to Simon Carryer.} In old-school dnd, we usually reward collection of treasure and (to a lesser extent) victory in combat. These activities are, to some extent, what the game is "about". If a player creates a character who only wishes to live a quiet life farming, why aren't they playing Wheat Harvest Simulator ...