"OSR" Stuff: Morale, Random Encounters, Reaction Checks
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 10:30 pm
The "OSR" concepts in the title have been on my mind after playing a few rounds of an Earthdawn/Greyhawk mash-up I GMed. I wrote a set of mass-combat Unit rules to quickly convert the gygaxian map-keys into something ED3-compatible, which I could run with double digit combatant numbers.
Researching OSR blogs at the time, I really started to want random procedural methods for ED3 to determine things like unit and personal Morale, building an encounter from a Random Encounter chart, or throwing a set of dice to determine a surprise encounter's tone from friendly to hostile...(Reaction Check).
A word on Random Encounters... these invariably come in 2 types in the old-school material. There are REs in dungeon exploration mode and REs while wilderness exploring. It is important to understand that these rolls do NOT serve the same function. REs in dungeons introduce an encounter very close to the party, and refer to the RE chart that goes with the dungeon key. The dungeon Random Encounter charts use much fewer quantities than Random Encounters in the wilderness exploration mode, which reference the Monster Manual for quantities. This makes sense because the REs are checked at different time scales. Dungeon checks are once an hour (or less if the pressure's on), wilderness checks once a day (usually).
I like to think of the wilderness scale checks as Plot Hooks. If I rolled up 150 human bandits, I don't just spring them all on the PCs at once. No, it means the next Hex has a Bandit Lair somewhere, and the surrounding terrain is raided. In ED I'd figure out if an Adept or something else were leading the bandits, etc. I would introduce them to the party depending on how the story goes. If the PCs fail their wilderness check, maybe they stumble into a checkpoint and have to dear with wary thieves.
I used dungeon random encounters ("wandering monsters") when I ran a few Adepts through the Moathouse from T-1-4, Temple of Elemental Evil. But, I rolled them ahead of time, so I had a list of d6 results that I could check off as the PCs made their way through the upper part of the ruined castle. This worked brilliantly, as I didn't have to roll-consult-narrate all at once. I rolled them all before the session (about 20 rolls), then noted the NPC encounters vs "color" like the wind howling, or scrabbling under the floor. I got the idea because I playtested rolling NPC initiative before hand and then crossing each off as I used it, which worked fairly well (you have to really track modifiers tho).
Anyway. I've got Reaction rolls half figured out, too. Reaction Rolls are KEY to understanding Random Encounters, because they randomly make a number of the encounters NOT ABOUT COMBAT. If you run into an unfriendly bear, or a friendly monkey, you don't have to run a combat encounter. You do have a great RP opportunity, tho.
There are 7 NPC Attitudes in ED3, from Enemy through Awestruck. The ED rules pretty much assume that the GM will assign an Attitude for each NPC, and then the players may adjust that with a Making an Impression test (GMG p95), and other Talents. I wanted a simple way to randomly generate a starting Attitude if I needed. Pretty easy, really.....
The initial Reaction Roll of any randomly generated encounter will be a PC Charisma Test vs target (or target leader's) Soc Defense, +1 for any additional member of the target group. [This lines up with existing rules.] This roll will assign any of the middle 5 Attitudes based on Result:
Hostile (Pathetic), Unfriendly (Poor), Neutral (Average), Friendly(Good), Loyal(Excellent).
This is a raw Charisma Test (no talents, etc). I'm considering modifying this by the Legendary Status of the players. There may be other rules to apply here as well, as playtesting it will show.
Morale... well, I'm thinking it's Willpower based, as that's used to resist Fear and related effects. Oddly, the rules keep saying to use it to resist Intimidation social tests, but the Intimidation rules don't mention that anywhere (this bug goes back to 1st edition). I think I'm going to read up on the Leadership Talent/Skill and see how that will fit in here before nailing down Morale rules.
Would any of this be useful? I'm making these house rules so I can run classic adventure modules using ED3 mechanics.
Thanks for any input.
Researching OSR blogs at the time, I really started to want random procedural methods for ED3 to determine things like unit and personal Morale, building an encounter from a Random Encounter chart, or throwing a set of dice to determine a surprise encounter's tone from friendly to hostile...(Reaction Check).
A word on Random Encounters... these invariably come in 2 types in the old-school material. There are REs in dungeon exploration mode and REs while wilderness exploring. It is important to understand that these rolls do NOT serve the same function. REs in dungeons introduce an encounter very close to the party, and refer to the RE chart that goes with the dungeon key. The dungeon Random Encounter charts use much fewer quantities than Random Encounters in the wilderness exploration mode, which reference the Monster Manual for quantities. This makes sense because the REs are checked at different time scales. Dungeon checks are once an hour (or less if the pressure's on), wilderness checks once a day (usually).
I like to think of the wilderness scale checks as Plot Hooks. If I rolled up 150 human bandits, I don't just spring them all on the PCs at once. No, it means the next Hex has a Bandit Lair somewhere, and the surrounding terrain is raided. In ED I'd figure out if an Adept or something else were leading the bandits, etc. I would introduce them to the party depending on how the story goes. If the PCs fail their wilderness check, maybe they stumble into a checkpoint and have to dear with wary thieves.
I used dungeon random encounters ("wandering monsters") when I ran a few Adepts through the Moathouse from T-1-4, Temple of Elemental Evil. But, I rolled them ahead of time, so I had a list of d6 results that I could check off as the PCs made their way through the upper part of the ruined castle. This worked brilliantly, as I didn't have to roll-consult-narrate all at once. I rolled them all before the session (about 20 rolls), then noted the NPC encounters vs "color" like the wind howling, or scrabbling under the floor. I got the idea because I playtested rolling NPC initiative before hand and then crossing each off as I used it, which worked fairly well (you have to really track modifiers tho).
Anyway. I've got Reaction rolls half figured out, too. Reaction Rolls are KEY to understanding Random Encounters, because they randomly make a number of the encounters NOT ABOUT COMBAT. If you run into an unfriendly bear, or a friendly monkey, you don't have to run a combat encounter. You do have a great RP opportunity, tho.
There are 7 NPC Attitudes in ED3, from Enemy through Awestruck. The ED rules pretty much assume that the GM will assign an Attitude for each NPC, and then the players may adjust that with a Making an Impression test (GMG p95), and other Talents. I wanted a simple way to randomly generate a starting Attitude if I needed. Pretty easy, really.....
The initial Reaction Roll of any randomly generated encounter will be a PC Charisma Test vs target (or target leader's) Soc Defense, +1 for any additional member of the target group. [This lines up with existing rules.] This roll will assign any of the middle 5 Attitudes based on Result:
Hostile (Pathetic), Unfriendly (Poor), Neutral (Average), Friendly(Good), Loyal(Excellent).
This is a raw Charisma Test (no talents, etc). I'm considering modifying this by the Legendary Status of the players. There may be other rules to apply here as well, as playtesting it will show.
Morale... well, I'm thinking it's Willpower based, as that's used to resist Fear and related effects. Oddly, the rules keep saying to use it to resist Intimidation social tests, but the Intimidation rules don't mention that anywhere (this bug goes back to 1st edition). I think I'm going to read up on the Leadership Talent/Skill and see how that will fit in here before nailing down Morale rules.
Would any of this be useful? I'm making these house rules so I can run classic adventure modules using ED3 mechanics.
Thanks for any input.
