A few days ago I streamed a session of my Castle Blackmoor open table on Twitch. During that session, my players and I were frequently referring to the player’s reference pamphlet I had assembled for the campaign. The viewers on Twitch were intrigued and one of my patrons requested that this pamphlet be shared, which I’m now doing.
As I described in Reactions to OD&D years ago, when I first started running an open table using the original 1974 rules of D&D, the various groups I played with would frequently start each session by examining the strange gaps and contradictions in the original text and discuss how we wanted to resolve them. This often meant we were playing with different rules from one session to the next! However, after a half dozen or so sessions we came to sort of a collective agreement on what the “right” answers were (at least for us) and these were codified into house rules. Other house rules have slowly accumulated over the years.
Designed to be printed as a booklet at the same size as the original 1974 D&D rulebooks, this pamphlet collects all of these house rules into a convenience reference document. I’ll usually have multiple copies of both Volume 1: Men & Magic and this pamphlet on the table so that my players can easily flip through either one.
This particular version of the pamphlet has been customized for my Castle Blackmoor campaign. It includes:
- Encumbrance By Stone: An alternative encumbrance system which makes tracking encumbrance as easy as writing down your equipment list.
- OD&D House Rulings: The modern version of what was first described in Justin’s House Rules for OD&D. (Also check out Gary Gygax’s House Rules for OD&D, which are not used here.)
- Special Interest Experience: As described earlier in this series.
- Referee Reference: Which include my personal interpolations for both Hirelings and Morale; the Encounter Die (rolled each turn); and the original Underworld & Flight/Pursuit rolls from OD&D. This material has not previously appeared on the Alexandrian.
- Blackmoor Village Map: Also from earlier in this series.
Thank you for sharing these rules. I can stop setting the video on twitch in slow motion and pausing it to read the rules now.
I’d like to mention that the cleric’s name “Merdas” means “poop” in portuguese, my first language, and it was very funny to hear that name being said seriously.
Terrific – I’m looking forward to watching. Justin, something you may want to consider regarding encounter rolls is to forego separate wandering monster rolls and simply have a wandering monster (or some kind of event) trigger any time a 6 is rolled on a player d6 roll, such as an open door, search, and listen rolls. I find this works much better and makes players realize that endless search rolls, etc. are dangerous. Six becomes a critical fail number in a sense and OD&D is uniquely suited to work this way.
N.B.: You have your URL as “alexandrain.com” on the cover page.
@Charles: Sigh. Fixed.
@Kaique: The Gilded Poop. Truly an acclaimed name. 😉
Ooh, very nice.
Very nice, thanks for this. Typo: pp. 11 & 12 are the same.
I’m happy to inform that in Polish, “merdas” would mean something along the lines of “the one who wiggles”, “the one who wags”. A name that keeps on giving!
More to the point: thanks for the booklet. I’ve read it with great interest. I really like some of these rules, especially the part where characters’ spending habits the local economy.
The shield rules are very evocative. Those characters must go through those wooden shields like crazy! I imagines a group of adventurers scavenging a hen house door to use as a shield – and who know, maybe the whole hen house?
Question: Can a magic shield enchantment be sacrificed to pass a save test against really ANY kind of magic – or just the spells that create missiles etc?
@TRay: I’d forgotten I’d done that! (Fast fix to make it print in booklet format correctly.)
I’ve revised the PDF to include the equipment that has been added to the Blackmoor campaign through play. (Either due to questions about stuff that should logically exist. Or, quite commonly, as a result of PCs creating new equipment through their Special Interest activities.)
The new v4 PDF is what you want to snag from the revised links above.
Merdas! O_O oh, I’m sooo stealing that name, my players will love it (another Pole here)!
One thing that has always gotten me is what counts as “treasure” for purposes of deterring pursuit? (“Edibles” is probably best expressed in rations.) What do you use?