Claim OwnershipAlex Schroeder: Halberds & Helmets
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The Halberds & Helmets podcast by Alex Schroeder.
57 Episodes
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Talking about why we want to write our homebrew games and what old school D&D means to me.
Talking about the six standard ability scores and wishing I could just rename Intelligence and Wisdom to Education and Yoga. But my players didn't pick it up.
Race as class, elves and dwarves in particular. Talking about the gender of elves and dwarves. Talking about the questions Judd proposed for classes, a long time ago.
Fighters and magic users. Using descending armour class, to-hit tables, all weapons do 1d6 damage, adding explosions and rays to the saving throws, not having unified advancement tables
Thieves and normal humans. How do skill checks work, thieves have better skills, how does surprise work, substituting a d30 for a d20 once a day, max damage, +4 to hit, two handed swords, again; and torch bearers and porters, and magic users wielding weapons, or thieves and magic users wearing armour fight like normal humans
Elves are basically fighters and magic users. Halflings and dwarves have better saves and some abilities here and there. Limits on the weapons you can wield. What about armour size? I don't care about level limits since all my games end before we get to level 10.
Rolling starting gold and thinking of your parent's background. Social standing? How to buy equipment. The benefits of a character generator, again. The weapons. Fighting from the second rank, again.
Items to fight monsters and oil in particular. How do we use flaming oil? How much can you carry? Encumbrance and the rule of cool. Also: why is plate armour so cheap?
Buildings are a great way to spend money for XP and to let players add to the world. And buildings require servants and guards, and these require wages. And when you take mercenaries along on an adventure, then that also costs money.
A little something about demon lords: why do their priests survive? They must useful to somebody! I like the ambiguity of the old gods. They are not all good or all evil. And I like the old threefold alignment: Law, Neutrality, and Chaos.
Basic terms: player, player character, experience points, level, hit points, saving throw, circle, reaction roll and morale check.
Retainers: make sure you agree on how many characters you all bring along. As always, just use pregens. When to make the loyalty check.
Skills: class abilities, the roll to open doors and bend bars, the lucky die of fate, and thieves' skills, they can all be mapped to a 1d6 roll.
Combat: surprise, initiative, d30 rule, not using variable weapon damage, shields shall be splintered, formations, protection, targeting, retreating, fleeing.
Chasing, injury, and death.
Movement and reputation, two systems I'd like to use but actually I don't.
Spells and your repertoire: not being able to copy spells from scrolls and spellbooks and requiring a teacher instead, and not being able to learn more spells than you can cast per day. Also, no research and no crafting.
No clerics. Healing magic makes fights and delves longer. Undead turning makes fights with undeads easier. None of this makes the game better, but instead the Old Testament references break my immersion.
No skills. Fewer classes. Quick and random character generation. Smaller bonuses, little damage, few hit points. Rare healing. Simple combat. Treasure is XP. No magic shops. Random encounters.
Keep prep short. Use every idea right away. Be impartial and be adversarial. Let them struggle.
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