Double Die System Proof of Concept: 0e Fantasy
Sorry I’ve been absent so much, as I’ve been busy with school. I don’t have anything together for Little Folk today, but I’ve been reading through Maze of the Blue Medusa (an excellent module, look it up). As a result, I’ve become interested in doing OSR style dungeon crawls in Double Die. Here is a quick one I came up with:
For Stats and Skills, we are trying to emphasize player skill over character skill, and lower the overall power level. In addition, for this format, species and archetype are one and the same. Thus, when we put together the stats and skills; we have this:
Strength (Str)
Endurance: For surviving attacks to the body. Also decides base health.
Brawl: Competence in melee combat.
Brawn: Feats of brute strength.
Armor Training: Size of armor one can wear.
Agility (Agi)
Dodge: Measure of reflexes. Allows for the dodging of most attacks.
Ranged: Competence in ranged combat.
Sneaking: Ability to move undetected.
Acrobatics: Feats of raw agility.
Spirit (Spi)
Willpower: For surpassing tests of will and attacks to the mind and soul. Also decides base health.
Magic: Ability to cast magic.
Luck: How much one is favored by luck. Relates to loot and gambling.
Notice: Ability to perceive your environment. Used only when talking it through won’t do.
Intelligence (Int)
Religion: Knowledge of Religion
Obscura: Knowledge of Obscure Lore
Nature: Knowledge of Natural Lore
Engineering: Ability to use, manipulate, and understand complex devices and constructs, whether mechanical or otherwise.
Legend Points, or LP, work like other Double Die settings: you can spend 1 LP whenever you want to add +2 to a roll, 2 LP to add +3 and 3 LP to add +4; this is in addition to any other bonuses.
However, there is another use for LP: activating abilities from your Archetype also cost Legend Points. You do not come up with spells on the fly as you do in other Double Die settings; instead, you learn them by finding scrolls in treasure hoards, or by selecting a number of spells from a pool determined by your level (i.e a level 2 character can access level 2 spells and below). You can learn one spell per level; therefore it is impossible to learn all of the spells available at a given level. When you want to use magic, you roll your magic vs. a difficulty assigned by the GM. If you succeed the spell is cast, and if you fail the spell fizzles, causing a bad thing to happen to you and preventing you from casting magic for the rest of the scene. For opposed spells like a magic missile (magic vs. dodge), you subtract a certain amount from your roll (ranging from -0 to -6) to simulate the difficulty of the cast. Notice that the -1, -5 and -6 break the “only 2 through 4 rule” of modifiers mentioned in the first article, but it’s important to do this for really weak or really strong spells.
Stats are rolled one by one, down the line. You do this by rolling a d4 for each, with 1 being a d4, 2 a d6, 3 a d8 and 4 a d10. Then you choose your Archetype, either randomly from a table or by choice. Finally, you distribute skills. You do this by taking your die size (e.g. 2 for a d6) for each stat. That is how many dice upgrades you have to distribute amongst your skills in that stat, up to d10 in a single skill. For example, if I had a a d10 in Strength, I would have 4 dice upgrades available. I could upgrade my Brawl to a d8 (2 upgrades), and Brawn and Endurance to a d6 (1 upgrade each). Keep in mind that each skill starts at d4 except for Magic. Magic is a d0 and thus cannot be used unless your Archetype says you can use it, giving it a bump to a d4.
Going back to Archetypes; they determine a few things: your base health, (which is Archetype health + number of dice upgrades past d0 for Endurance and Willpower), when you gain max health, when and what type of stat and skill increases you get as you level, and when you gain new abilities and spells.
I’ll probably be rolling out some material for this version of 0e Fantasy, along with more Little Folk stuff. Until then, have a happy October!
Mythossanta/Benjamin S. Paulson