Using Chainmail for Multi-Character Gaming

I ran a game using a combination of Chainmail and OD&D rules. It was a lot of fun!

The OD&D actual play by Bandit's Keep was a big inspiration, and Marcia B.'s Fantastic Medieval Campaigns was a great resource for the OD&D and Chainmail rules.

 

Points values from Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

Here's the basic gist of how I did it:

- Let each player build a band of characters with a total value of 10 points, using the points values from Chainmail. I disallowed those creatures that cost exactly 10 points.

- New characters can be recruited by paying gp equal to the points value times 100.

- Basic infantry and cavalry can be recruited in towns, but you can also try to recruit any creature you meet in the wilderness or in the dungeon, using the recruitment rules from OD&D. If your party is worth less than 10 points total, you can recruit for free in towns to get to 10 points.

- Make reaction rolls when encountering NPCs (2-5 attack, 6-8 uncertain, 9-12 friendly). If they are uncertain, roll again next round.

- Resolve combat using Chainmail's mass combat rules. Don't use the "Combat between special units" rules. For creatures that lack a defense value, use the same value as for attack. No creature is immune to normal attacks.

- Wilderness movement and encounters work as in OD&D.

- In dungeons, track movement round by round as if the dungeon crawl was a continuous combat. Roll for random encounters at the end of every round. Cavalry have to dismount before going into the dungeon!

- XP is awarded for gathering treasure (1 XP per gp) and for defeating enemies (XP equal to points value times 100). XP is divided equally among all characters.

- Characters level up using the Fighter XP progression from OD&D. Every level gained means they count as one more fighter in combat (make one more attack, survive one more hit), and also improves their morale by 1 point.

- You don't need to track or pay for basic equipment, food rations, inn rooms etc, but at the end of every month, you must pay gp equal to 1% of each character's XP total (as per the OD&D rule).

* * *

The game was set in the Land of the Winterwind, the great northern wilderness. I was going to have three players; two called in sick but me and the last player went ahead. I let him spend 30 points on his starting band. He went with 1 great orc, 2 orcs, 2 elves, 5 goblins, and 2 fairies.

Having heard a rumor of an underground ruin full of shining gems they went north. On the way they met a few ents and a werebear; fortunately they were friendly. They reached the dungeon, went inside, and the carnage began.

The party killed goblins, slime folk, and crystal beasts in the cramped tunnels, but also saw their own members fall one by one. They rescued a captured human but he got killed later. In the end only two characters were left: the great orc and a fairy. They ran into 7 archers as they were about to leave, and gave them most of the treasure they had found to not have to fight them. The orc and the fairy made it out with a few gold pieces and gems, a +1 extendible claw staff, and almost enough XP to level up.

Filthy and bloodied they made their way to a nearby dwarf hold, where they could finally relax, and try to take in what they had just experienced.

Then they recruited a couple of rookie dwarf fighters, and prepared for the next expedition.

Encounters: Highwaymen

<- Encounter index

Roll 1d10. After using an encounter, remove it and write a new one.

Wilds

• 1 rookie highwayman in need of robbery experience. Wants to apply to a highwayman company.
• 2 servants of highwaymen interview the party to determine if they are worthy of being robbed.
• 3 highwaymen and their dog on a picnic in beautiful landscape, discussing the finer points of highway robbery.
• 4 fans looking for their highwayman idol, Danil the Dagger-Demon.
• 5 highwaymen ride up to the party and congratulate them on the honor of being robbed by the Crimson Crossbows.
• 6) Insolvent noble tries highway robbery, along with 5 servants. Dislikes the uncomfortable wilderness.
• 7 dwarven highwaymen. Methodical and professional. Ask for an inventory of the party’s valuables to calculate whether they are worth stealing.
• 8) 3 highwaymen meeting 5 aspirants hoping to join their company, questioning them and testing their skills.
• 9) 5 highwaymen robbing 4 traders. One trader secretly in love with the highwayman leader.
• 10 highwaymen of the absolute elite. Will only rob royalty and high nobility. They laugh at the party’s poverty and raggedness.

 

Rural

• 1 noble was rude to a highwayman company, who took his money, his horse, his servants, and his clothes. Furious, wants revenge.
• 2 highwaymen visit the village leader to discuss buying intel on passing rich travellers.
• 3) 2 lovestruck youths compete for the affectations of a visiting highwayman.
• 4 highwaymen ride through the village with great pomp and circumstance. Villagers fascinated.
• 5 highwaymen hiding from pursuing soldiers in a friendly farmer’s barn.
• 6 highwaymen arrange a dance at the village green.
• 7 highwaymen forced to stay at cheap inn. Disgruntled.
• 8) 5 highwaymen meet 3 fences to sell stolen goods.
• 9 highwaymen crash the local economy through excessive spending of stolen wealth.
• 10) Two companies of 5 highwaymen in the street with weapons drawn, arguing about robbery rights in the local area. Villagers hide indoors.

 

Town

• 1 highwayman in jail. Mob of angry fans demand their release.
• 2 concerned citizens speaking in public about the dangers of glamorizing the highwayman way of life. Townsfolk mostly disinterested.
• 3 incognito highwaymen spying on merchant company.
• 4 elven highwaymen on decade-long break from robbery, overheard talking about their hidden treasure.
• 5 highwaymen daringly rob the party in the middle of the street (after bribing the guards). It’s mostly a publicity stunt.
• 6 highwaymen hiring porters for an extravagant clothes shopping trip.
• 7 highwaymen, the Regents of the Road, have massive bounty placed on their heads by town officials.
• 8 actors making a play about legendary highwayman “Perfect Johnny” said to operate in these parts. The script writer would love to meet him.
• 9 drunken fans debating which highwayman is the best. Brawl will begin soon.
• 10 highwaymen holding a ball at the fanciest tavern in town.

Wilderlands Encounter Index

So, I'm starting a Rolemaster campaign set in the Wilderlands. Rolemaster has a nice big chart of NPC encounters (Rolemaster Classic Creatures & Treasure 10-03), but I wanted some more detail for my encounters. So I'm going to try and write encounter tables for each kind of NPC, one for each area type (Wilds, Rural, Town, and City). I'm counting all rural and town areas in the Wilderlands as "border" areas. Note, not all NPCs appear in all types of areas.

Here is an index of the NPC types. I'll add links as I write them up.

Locals, working

Locals, playing/relaxing

Locals, traveling

Locals, hauling goods

Local rowdies

Actors/minstrels

Fishermen/hunters

General travelers

Merchants

Messengers

Nobles

Pilgrims

Priests

Refugees

Assayers/tax takers

Constables

Police guards

Police patrol

Militia unit

Soldiers

Scouts/watchers

Military guards

Military patrol

Military unit

Assassins

Bandits

Beggars/cripples

Burglars

Highwaymen

Muggers

Pickpockets

Cutpurses

Raiders

Spies

Thieves

Trackers/searchers

Vigilantes/fanatics

Adventurers

Character Tokens from Plastic Caps

 

I'm going to start a Rolemaster campaign (as you may know, 2024 is the year of Rolemaster), and I figured it would be nice to have some character tokens to keep track of distance and positioning and stuff. Here's how I made them.

 

I took a sheet of paper, made it wet, and daubed it with acrylics in various colors. (Watercolors probably work even better.) After drying, I flattened it under a heavy book.

 

 

I got some plastic caps and spray painted them black. These are from yogurt packages; I eat yogurt every morning, so I can collect a lot of these over time. 

Using a template slightly smaller than the caps, I made circles on the paper and drew some funny faces. Pencil first, then ink, and black acrylic to fill in the background.

 

 

I cut the portraits out...

 

 

...and glued them inside the caps, on top of the screw ridges.

I'm satisfied with these. Sturdy, looks pretty good, and I can make a lot of them. Bigger caps can make bigger monsters!

Lego Jam entry: World of Seven Slizers

This is my entry for the Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam, based on the Slizers/ThrowBots theme. You can find it in PDF form here. Let me know if you have trouble accessing the file.

* * *

In the beginning, there was Chaos.

 

8504 Judge/Jet

 

From Chaos, the Judge arose. The Judge wished to study and understand Chaos. They judged it to be composed of seven basic elements: Ice, Water, Fire, Jungle, Rock, Energy, and City.

The Judge formed a piece of Chaos into Order, as a perfect sphere. This world they cut scores in, dividing it into seven equal slices. Next, they created seven Slizers, one out of each element. Every Slizer was given one slice of the world as their own realm. They would shape it as they saw fit, and the Judge would judge their efforts.

 

Image by Christian Faber

 

The Slizers completed their task, and the Judge saw that they had all done well. Every Slizer had filled their realm with their own element, eliminating all others. But then the Judge spotted a flaw. The City was imperfect, full of lesser beings composed of all seven elements. The Judge questioned the City Slizer, who said that these beings were humans, an essential part of the City. This presented the Judge with a conundrum. With humans in the City, the world was unbalanced, the elements not perfectly divided. Yet if they were taken away, the City would be lessened, and the world still not in balance.

Before the Judge could reach a decision, a worse calamity struck. From out of Chaos came a horde of enraged demons. They screamed that judgment of the Judge was false, that the infinite variety of Chaos could not be understood or categorized. They invaded the world to tear it apart and return it to Chaos.

The Judge and the Slizers fought the demons, and eventually drove them away. But the damage was done. While the seven realms still stood, they had all been stained by elements not their own. The flora, the fauna, and the land itself had been twisted by demonic influence.

The Judge built a great palace at the northern pole, where the seven realms met, and retreated there with the Slizers. They would leave the shaping of the world to the humans and the other beings dwelling there. The Judge would judge their efforts.

 

The Seven Realms

 

8501 Ice/Ski

 

The Ice is composed of tundras, glaciers, snow-covered peaks, and frozen lakes. Life is tough on the Ice, but hardy communities and fierce animals still survive there. Ice tunnels and frozen caverns fill the underground - easy to slip down, difficult to escape from. And sealed in the deepest ice are those chaotic things which the Judge could not destroy, yet also refused to let lesser beings find.

 

8503 Sub/Scuba

 

The Water or the Sub-Realm reaches all the way down to the world’s core. A few tiny islands poke above the surface, but the true realm lies below. Tall peaks rise from the depths, overgrown by coral and riddled with caves. Some have air trapped inside, letting humans and other surface beings dwell there. The Sub-Realm is so vast and dark that, after the invasion, a demon lord managed to hide from the Slizers in the deepest depths. It remains there to this day, waiting, whispering to mortals, and twisting sea creatures into monstrosities.

 

8500 Fire/Torch

 

The Fire is a landscape of volcanoes, basalt plains, and rivers and seas of lava. It is a realm inimical to most forms of life, yet life persists. During the demonic invasion, the Fire and Rock Slizers worked together to create soldiers to fight against the demons. They heated rock and smelted it into strong metal, then filled it with living fire. These war-forged beings still live in the Fire, and have built many thriving civilisations.

 

8505 Jungle/Amazon

 

The Jungle is a vast forest, where every species of tree imaginable can be found at least somewhere within. Many rivers run through the Jungle, sometimes swelling into large swamps. The water, the ground and the trees teem with animals preying upon each other. The Jungle Slizer was the Slizer most reluctant to abandon her realm. Before she did, she elevated a number of animals and plants to become guardian spirits, tasking them to protect the Jungle. The spirits have done so ever since, but also compete with each other, the way all life does.

 

8506 Rock/Granite

 

The Rock consists of mountains, plateaus, badlands and canyons. Rivers are found here and there, hurtling through rapids and waterfalls. Few plants or animals survive on the barren slopes. In this realm, the underground is more hospitable. A dense network of caverns stretches to the world’s core, home to many forms of life unlike anything seen on the surface. These tunnels reach into the neighboring realms, and even further beyond.

 

8507 Energy/Electro

 

The Energy is possibly the strangest realm: An open abyss, filled with thunder clouds and twisting storms. Pieces of land float in the air, suspended by antigravitic energies and blasted by lightning strikes. But even this realm is not uninhabited. The people of the Energy traverse their realm in flying ships and skiffs, powered by lightning. Reliant on Energy itself, these flyers work poorly in other realms.

 

8502 City/Turbo

 

The City is an urban sprawl of skyscrapers, apartment blocks, malls, factories, highways and railways. Some parts are darkened by intense pollution. Below the streets are basements, sewers, subways, and underground districts. It is said that before the demonic invasion, the City was fully inhabited by humans, but today only a fraction is. Most buildings are empty and decaying, sometimes torn down for resources.

The most common animals in the City are the wheel beasts, mechanical creatures that move on two, four, or even more wheels. They charge down highways and streets at terrifying speed, running down anyone in their way. Most wheel beasts are completely wild and untameable. The exception is motorbikes, which the City-dwellers have managed to domesticate and use as steeds.

Planet: Spragg

<- Main post

Alan Hughes

Overview

A muddy planet inhabited by a few hundred people, descendants of a failed colony. Soldiers from offworld guard an underground secret.

Quick Facts

D687264-2

• Starport: D-class (poor quality, unrefined fuel)
• Gas giant and scout base in system
• Diameter: 6,000 miles / 10,000 km (smaller than Earth)
• Atmosphere: Dense
• Water coverage: 70%
• Population: 700
• Government: Captive government
• Law level: 4 (all firearms except pistols, revolvers, and shotguns prohibited)
• Tech level: 2 (wind power)
• Trade classification: Non-industrial
• Space lanes to: Vibex (jump-2), Enethy (jump-1)

Government, Law, and Diplomacy

Four years ago, the Vibex military took control of Spragg, but they have no interest in the locals or the planet itself. The native population can do as they see fit, as long as they do not interfere with the Vibex operations.

Most Spragg natives live in one of three villages, each governed by the local family elders.

Interstellar Travel

In a given week, ships with the following destinations may be present at the starport:

• Vibex - 9+ chance
• Enethy - 10+ chance

The Starport

Spragg’s starport is built and maintained by the Vibex military, and is very simple. There is always at least a courier ship of the Vibex navy there. Aside from Vibex ships, traders on their way to Enethy stop by occasionally.

The village of Mosfell is located near the starport.

Geography

Spragg is a geologically inactive world, reflected in its mostly flat surface. The highest peaks and the deepest depths do not reach more than couple hundred meters above or below sea level. There are twenty-seven major continents or landmasses spread across the ocean, all rather small.

The planet’s moon gives rise to tides, which become quite drastic on such a flat world. The coast of every continent consists of mud flats that stretch for dozens of kilometres, submerged when the tide comes in. Indeed, nine of the continents are all mud - disappearing completely at high tide.

Spragg’s bedrock is quite porous, with many cave systems.

Ecology

The stable parts of the land hold a thriving biosphere, with plants, trees, and animals, but none of them grow very large. Animals are mostly fliers who hunt in the mud flats after the tide goes out.

The mud flats are full of life. Animals hunt and are hunted by each other, ocean creatures left behind by the tide, and fliers from the land. The species most dangerous to humans are the stranglers, animals resembling large centipedes that grab land creatures and pull them down into the mud, where they suffocate. Humans are bigger than the strangler’s usual prey, but even if a strangler fails to pull human down, their grip is very hard to break. A person can get stuck and drown when the tide comes in.

There is almost no plant life in the mud flats, except for a hardy bamboo-like plant called salt stem. It grows in large thickets, usually a few kilometres out from stable land.

The Villages

There are three villages on Spragg, all located near the southern shore of one of the largest continents, with a distance of half a day’s travel on foot between them. They are called Clermick, Arkult, and Mosfell.

The three villages are quite similar, each with a population of around 200 people. The people subsist on farming, supported by hunting in forests and in the mud flats. The small trees of the land are useless for building. Instead, salt stems are cut in the mud flats and brought ashore. Stem cutters become adept at walking the mud, avoiding sinking mud and lurking stranglers.

Offworld visitors are allowed to stay and eat in the villages for free, as long as they behave themselves and help out with work if needed. Trade is done through bartering. The locals do not use credits or any other type of money.

At midsummer and midwinter, all three villages hold a festival where people make offerings to the sea - food, art objects, and items received from offworld visitors. They are left in the mud flats and taken by the tide.

Death’s Village

About three days’ journey west from Clermick, the westernmost village, is a place called Death’s Village. It is believed to be the place where people go after they die. It’s not good for living people to go there; they might be unable to leave or bring dead people back with them.

Death’s Village is the ruins of the initial colony on Spragg, founded about 600 years ago. It was built on solid land, but the ground was destabilized by the construction. During a storm in high tide, the land gave way and sank into the sea, along with the colony. The area was turned into mud flats, the buildings partly or wholly sunken into the mud. Spragg’s inhabitants are descendants of the survivors.

There are still recoverable goods inside the ruins, including ten tons of steel, two tons of copper, two tons of aluminium, one ton of tin, and one ton of special alloys. Extracting the goods from the ruins and mud will be a challenge, though.

The Vibex Military

The soldiers from Vibex have set up two bases: one at the starport near Mosfell village, and one at a wide hill half a day’s travel inland. Each base is manned by about 30 soldiers. Travellers are not allowed to stay at or enter the bases; they are told to seek hospitality from the locals instead.

The inland base holds the secret reason for the Vibex presence.

About fifty years ago, an Enethyan visited the Spragg system in its asteroid-ship. Carelessly entering the planet’s atmosphere, the Enethyan and its ship burned up. Locals saw it as a shooting star. Some of the Enethyan’s cells survived the disaster, falling down to the planet. A few settled in a cave, where they found silicon and other minerals necessary to survive. A new Enethyan started growing.

Four years ago, a spelunking tourist from Vibex found the young Enethyan deep in the cave system. Shocked, he reported it to Vibex government. The government forbade him from speaking of his discovery, and sent the military to Spragg.

The government of Vibex had long feared what would happen if the Enethyans decided to start expanding out of of their home system. This was the first known instance of Enethyan “colonization” of another world. The military’s mission is to quarantine the young Enethyan, study its biology, and keep it secret - especially from Enethyan society.

The young Enethyan is malnourished, as the bedrock of Spragg has a different composition from the asteroids of Enethy. The Vibex soldiers keep it sedated using intense radio frequencies.

Scenarios

- Death’s Village becomes a sensation among the upper class on Vibex. Rich tourists flock to Spragg to visit it. The people of Spragg are less than amused.

- If the Enethyans were to find out about the young one trapped on Spragg, they would discuss the matter and decide to rescue it, following their internal Treaty Regarding Education and Care of the Newly Formed. They would enquire about or estimate the number of humans on Spragg, then send a number of ships higher than that number to the system. (This would be a fleet a couple orders of magnitudes bigger than any human navy in the subsector.) Of course, since the Enethyan ships can’t land on Spragg, they would need assistance in extracting the young one.