d100 - Fighter Features for Variegated Veterans

It is often said in circles that discuss these older presentations, that two Characters that choose the Fighter Class often lack distinction from each other outside of their Scores, Equipment/Gear, and perhaps how generous that Hit Point roll was during Character Generation. In order to set them apart somewhat, I’ve created this table of One Hundred Traits that augment those Warriors ever-so-slightly, creating a little more distinction between them. Some of these might inform a Character’s Background a bit: Speaking of past exploits or professions (q.v. Prior Vocations for more of this nature) whilst others might just be intrinsic knacks or specialized training they’ve picked up prior to Play.

Some of these Abilities could even serve as inspiration for new knowledges or capabilities that could be earned in Play. While I’m not a fervent fan of “Feats” gained through just XP Advancement, I suppose they could serve that purpose as well with a new one being dribbled out every few levels. They seem a bit more interesting to me if they’re acquired as the result of intentional choices, or as Rewards for tasks, trials, or training undertaken at the Table, perhaps like a bit more mundane version of my Benevolent Blessings & Gainful Growth. One could even repurpose those Magical Research Rules or something similar to have this occupy some Downtime.

Fighters do already possess a Super Secret Special Ability in B/X that’s often overlooked: The ability to create Strongholds that influence the Surrounding Lands at any level. While sadly, this seldom shows up in Contemporary Play, it’s a very important Feature when you contrast this with how this is handled by the other Classes. I often find myself bringing this up when I hear other Referees lamenting the lack of Domain Play these days (you don’t have to wait until Name after all!), or when there’s a bit of grousing about how Fighters don’t feel very powerful or interesting. Hopefully a few of these ideas might prove useful or fun for the Fighters at your Tables!

TROIKA! Backgrounds for Gorgon Trail

Psst...I’ve started whipping up 36 Gorgon Trail Backgrounds for TROIKA!

This is a living document, that I’ll be adding to as I get some free time, so check back for updates!

Tex-Crawl/Gorgon Trail Backgrounds & Vocations

One of the first things I like to do these days when I’m contemplating Settings is to start with player facing materials.

For the Tex-Crawl project, Gorgon Trail (a Mystara-sytle Gazetteer for fantasy Texas) I went ahead and created an updated “Backgrounds & Vocations” list that tries to do some of the heavy lifting to communicate setting during Character Generation:

Ideally, as with the previous Backgrounds, these should create more questions than they answer and telegraph more of the entire world more quickly than a huge setting dump. It is also interesting to see which Backgrounds/Vocations are broadly applicable despite the setting, and how a simple tweak can completely change the tone.

The actual Gazetteer is going on 36 pages so far, and the sections on some of the really intriguing things (like how Clerics are handled, Rune-Branding, Barbed-Wire Wizards, and Hooch Magic) have been completed in their draft forms. It’s all very tongue and cheek, and the authorial voice/heavy use of idiomatic expressions is having the strange side-effect of my latent accent creep out in conversation :). I’m having to resist the urge to just go full on TROIKA! with these Backgrounds instead of something broadly compatible with B/X.

Character Backgrounds & Prior Vocations

Some recent discussion on Reddit got me blathering on about Backgrounds. One of the things that draws me to skill-less systems is the freedom they provide to the players. A set-in-stone Skill List informs play and can narrow the scope of player actions as they look in askance at the Character Sheet for options and tactics, and a tendency develops to view Skills as “this is everything you can do.” They also discourage attempts by telegraphing odds directly (a Player whose sheet constantly informs them that they are terrible at Sneaking About will probably never try).

I really enjoy systems like WHITEHACK that bundle these potential activities into Vocations (or Backgrounds). All of the “Skills/Competencies/Familiarities” that come attached to a single Vocation will usually encompass more individual abilities that can fit on a character's sheet anyway, and best of all: it encourages the player to think of creative ways that their character could potentially interact with a situation based on their imagined history. The only challenge with more free-form systems like this tends to be the occasionally creative paralysis when a player is lightly pressed with “You can be anything, tell me about your character” without any kind of concept in mind. Mind you, I’m not a big proponent of preconceived character concepts and would much rather let the oracular dice do this work for me, but every tablemate is different.

So here’s a table of 100 Character Backgrounds & Prior Vocations to help inspire players that might find themselves in this rut, or simply enjoy the challenge of trying something new and breaking out of the classic class stereotypes. I like “Roll or Choose” for tables like these because they provide some agency, but this list should by no means considered exhaustive. I always recommend trying to accommodate any character you can, most settings can cope surprisingly well (it’s fantasy after all, and stories shared are best):

Remember that long-lists of Backgrounds like this can perform double-duty. They can help significantly with the legwork to communicate and develop an Implied Setting (TROIKA!’s Backgrounds are phenomenal at this). Don't simply stop with selection however: Always try to ask a few Leading Questions to flesh things out. In the Backgrounds Above for instance, a glance may pique some curiosity and some questions about the world we're playing in may spring to mind: Why is Magic so apparently dangerous? What’s an Ooze Wrangler or an Ex-Wood-Spouse? It sure seems like some of the Cleric Backgrounds suggest that not all is on the up-and-up, etc. I try to leave these mostly as an exercise to the player (only putting on the DM hat when a drastic misalignment in vision/fiction can’t be resolved through compromise or might not be fun or fair for everyone).

As always, I’d love to hear about how this works out for your group if you give it a spin.

Background Questions for TROIKA!

My beautiful physical copies of the Troika! Numinous Editions arrived the other day and I've really enjoyed reading through them.

I grew up with the Fighting Fantasy series (I still have a particular fondness for the Sorcery! line), so mechanically the system was comfortingly nostalgic, but what struck me most about TROIKA! was the implicit shared world-building of the 36 default backgrounds. They are intriguingly terse and absolutely wonderful in their own right, but they almost taunt the reader/roller (in a good way) with unanswered questions due to the intentionally light touch.

So I had an adjunct idea to append on to the admittedly very quick TROIKA! Character Generation process: Have the player answer a few leading questions based on the Background rolled.

Here's what I came up with:

Special thanks to David Schirduan for saving me some typing by making the full list available on his super awesome Mobile-Friendly Character Generator/Initiative Tracker.

If you haven't had the chance to check out TROIKA! yet, there's a name-your-price artless version available here, but I highly recommend the second edition with all the astounding artwork.