From one of the greatest books of our generation, the Dolmenwood Player's Guide After talking with my players at length last night, I'm exploring the idea of old school gaming again. Turns out, ACKS gets many, many things right, as far as it relates to my preferences for running these types of games. Upon further examination, we might find ways to integrate these types of things into a modern DND game (not necessarily 5e, but still). One of the reasons my players objected to Dolmenwood is a lack of an official skill system. Now, I've gone back and forth on skills in games, and recently landed on the side of liking them a lot. However, there's something to be said about games without them. I also noticed that a vast majority of the time, players tend to rely on a small set of moves during their turns in combat, and a small set of skills while exploring. That is, players always advocate for rolling the things that gives them the highest bonus and/or damage output. My ...
My son is gonna LOVE Minecraft Dungeons In old school D&D, dungeon crawling is an exercise in resource management. Those resources are: Torches Time Time is really a measurement of risk. After a certain amount of time, there is a chance of a monster appearing, which then uses up other resources: Hit Points Spell Slots There are some secondary things that might be used up if the party is injured, such as Potions of Healing, which cost gold Hit Dice (if short rests in a dungeon are allowed) Rations (if they help heal), which are really just a gold tax Spell slots used for healing Scrolls This means that, much like overland travel, players are always pushing their luck to gain treasure at the expense of the fundamental resources of HP and Spell slots. There is a secondary game of inventory management in the form of balancing torches with carried treasure, and possibly another with rations. D&D is ultimately and essentially, gambling. The game utilizes resource m...