New Game: SEVEN VOYAGES of ZYLARTHEN

[Merias]

Sept 21, 2014 5:09:36 GMT -6 Mike said:

Running my first game this Tuesday.

Any advice appreciated.

Does anyone have a character sheet?

I have not played yet, either - but I did whip up a character sheet. I found a lookalike template a few years back of the old B/X sheet and modify it depending on the game. If you print it two-sided you can make digest-sized sheets by cutting down the middle.

osr.smolderingwizard.com/downloads/SVoZ_charsheet.pdf

[oakesspalding]

Those look fine.

I made these up a few months ago. They are not as good-looking and are probably too busy, but they include 'Samples' that might be illustrative:

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86329961/Zylarthen%20Character%20Sheet%20%28Spalding%29.docx

or

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86329961/Zylarthen%20Character%20Sheet%20%28Spalding%29.pdf

Any suggestions, especially based on actual utility during play, would be appreciated.

By the way, I'm a luddite on some things. Any suggestions for download options for my website? Any disadvantages of Dropbox? Is it safe?

(AngelicDoctor: I edited these to reflect the updated encumbrance rules and values.)

[Merias]

I updated the sheet based on what you have in the weapons section, I think it is much more useful the way you have it:

osr.smolderingwizard.com/downloads/SVoZ_charsheet_v2.pdf

Dropbox or Google drive both work fine for files like this. Google Drive allows you to embed document previews in blog posts, I've used it for that, but I'm not so sure if that works with Dropbox. However, a simple link in a post works too. Both provide safe, read-only access to documents.

[Mike]

Thanks for the sheets folks.

I'll let you know how it goes.

[oakesspalding]

I just made a blog post with the links here.

[Mike]

Thanks for the link Oakes. I took a look at The Smoldering Wizards site and I'm glad I did, excellent stuff. Our game is postponed due to the host (not the ref) coming down with a nasty bout of the flu.

[angelicdoctor]

Sept 20, 2014 17:31:03 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

Well, yeah, me too. Though, for obvious reasons, I wasn't sure it was my place to say it.

As you may know I'm a pretty serious cigar smoker. I keep dice, figures, dominoes and coins (as well as much else) in cigar boxes. Before I publicly released the game, I made up a few sets of Zylarthen to send to friends. I was sure I could find a cigar box (or something similar at a craft store) that would fit just right. But it was annoying to find that nothing was really suitable. (And I looked pretty hard for a week.) If and when I make the step up from print-on-demand I would love to offer the booklets in an actual wooden box (as opposed to simply a wood-grain colored box). Though it sounds like what you have in mind would be pretty skill-intensive (on your part) and difficult to duplicate.

Which is why I hesitated to ask in the first place.

Excellent.  In addition to brewing that holiday ale, it appears that I have another wonderful fall project to work on.

[dizzysaxophone]

My copies came in today. oakesspalding I love how similar your layout, text, is to the lbbs. Sometimes when I'm reading I think to myself, "why have I never caught this rule before?" and then I remember I'm not actually looking at one of the lbbs. I'm curious what made you decide to go with Weapon vs. AC, and to have the attack bonus/level a little hidden (although the fact that I missed it at first really makes me think of the lbbs ). Great work all around! I'm enjoying reading through and am feeling inspired.

I'm kicking myself, because I had kind of fallen out of gaming for around a year, but I remember seeing this come out while out, and I passed it up at the time because I hadn't been gaming, was last playing OD&D without feeling the need of any clones, and had felt clone wise it had all been done by S&W:WB and DD. Definitely proved me wrong.

[oakesspalding]

Oct 3, 2014 16:59:57 GMT -6 dizzysaxophone said:

I'm curious what made you decide to go with Weapon vs. AC, and to have the attack bonus/level a little hidden...

Thanks, dizzysaxophone! At least two reasons I guess:

1. I didn't want to plagiarize the original tables or quasi-plagiarize them by simply making a few twiddles (as all the clones, including my own, do in some places), so I thought I would sort of turn them inside out or sideways, as it were.

2. More importantly, I've always thought that variable weapon performance against armor was a great idea that had never been done very well. Among other things it always just seemed too complicated and fussy. You might try it for a while and then discard it because it was a pain. So I wanted to try my hand at solving the problem. We'll see whether I succeeded.

The bonus of it is that if you do it right, it also gives you a more robust practical diversity in weapon choices--again something you would think you could do but which none of the originals and (with respect) none of the clones really succeeded at doing or doing well, at least in my view. Many of them of course didn't really try, which is fine. We'll also see whether I succeeded here.

The difference in to hit numbers for the weapons are different enough that they influence weapon choice, but not as different as one might think. Compare, for example, a dagger vs. a long sword against plate armor. Not only is this more 'realistic' in my view but it also gives more importance to other factors such as weapon length, damage vs. big creatures and weapon durability. Again, it's a tough balancing act to do that without getting too complicated. I don't think I got too complicated, but of course the jury's out there as well.

[dizzysaxophone]

oakesspalding, thanks for the quick response! I have to agree with you that I never felt like Weapon vs. AC had been well done in D&D before. I do like that your table doesn't have large gaps in changes, and it does make sense. I believe this brings it a little closer to the Chainmail Man-to-Man system (I think that was basically Weapon vs. AC, but I could be misremembering), which I've wanted to try in a game for a long time. I completely understand your reason for doing it, and have to admit I think it's the best done that I've seen yet. I won't knock it until I try it (and I do intend to try it)!

Great work!

[dizzysaxophone]

I've just recently started a campaign (although sadly not using 7VoZ) using the outdoor survival map. I've been cross-referencing my lbb's and book 4 for ZVoZ for hex encounters. I was reading through the campaign world creation in this book and was really impressed with how detailed and easy you made it oakesspalding! I will absolutely be trying your advice soon to see how it works out.

[Mike]

We played our first game on Tuesday and I can tell you that Weapon versus Armour is definitely the way to go. And it supports the one-die weapon damage philosophy.

A very enjoyable game was had; one player's character had an intelligence and wisdom of 4 and 5 respectively. On the plus side he had 18 in strength and constitution.

Hey, dixysaxaphone, I'd love to hear your verdict on the print copies. I really want them but I'm worried that as thing perfect-bound books, they'll fall apart pretty quickly.

[dizzysaxophone]

Hey @mike, thanks for your info on how the weapons vs Armor went for you! I'm definitely keen to try it, and am thinking the next campaign I run I'm going to do with 7VoZ. I'm very keen to see how it plays with the cleric being removed and magic-users having cleric spells.

The print copies I'm not sure about yet. The binding is holding up on mine well (and I've been flipping through them quite regularly), but the first page on each of my copies is kind of janky. Basically there is some scrunching up on the first page where it is glued to the cover and binding. It hasn't caused any issues, but just looks a bit ugly when I look at the top or bottom of the book. I live in Texas, so if you don't live near me, you may very well have a different printer making your copies that may or may not have those same issues. I do feel pretty confident in the binding staying together so far though.

[oakesspalding]

Oct 12, 2014 1:19:02 GMT -6 Mike said:

We played our first game on Tuesday and I can tell you that Weapon versus Armour is definitely the way to go. And it supports the one-die weapon damage philosophy.

That's great!

So, I have a few perhaps annoyingly wonkish questions for you if you don't mind me asking. I'm like the too-interested father asking about his son at boarding school. Don't answer or take your time if you feel like you're getting a barrage.

1. Part of the goal of the weapons vs. armor rules was to encourage fun choices that in practice created more of a diversity of weapons without encouraging too much at start dithering. Do you think that goal was met? Did your people come up with interesting or unexpected weapon choices or strategies?

2. If you look through the Monster book, by far the most common AC is 6. I haven't tallied this, but I'm pretty sure it's true. That's because I assumed Leather & Shield to be equivalent to tough skin and/or hide coupled with some sort of blocking or parrying ability. So one strategy is to choose one's primary weapon on this basis (although even here there is more than one option) and then keep a mace or hammer for AC 2 emergencies. Did anyone settle on this?

3. Was the two-handed sword or spear option enticing to anyone?

4. Did anyone consider the off-hand weapon option? I went back and forth about how attractive to make it. And of course it's related to 5.

5. Did everyone understand that long weapons were good on the first round but bad on the second and subsequent rounds (and vise versa for short weapons)? That section was written very confusingly and is biggest thing on the list for revision when the all-in-one e-version comes out.

6. I also went back and forth on weapon breaks. Did any happen, or were they perceived as likely enough to happen so that that influenced weapon choices? On the one hand I wanted breaks to be a much more of a factor than the rare critical-miss sort of status they have in most house rules (if they even have that). But I didn't want to go too far in the other direction either.

7. Did people take advantage of the trade multiples of -5 to hit for extra damage rule?

Thanks again for your comments and I too am interested in how the books hold up. I don't think I've seen the "scrunch" effect, but I'm sorry about it. The big issue I had with my first preview copies was that the top and bottom margins were misaligned (in the printing, not the PDF). But no one else has mentioned that.

Oakes

General P.S. I like how Proboards wants to rewrite "wonkish" as "monkish".

[dizzysaxophone]

oakesspalding, the crunch effect must be from my printer. I had a perfect bound copy of Full Metal Platemail come at the same time with the exact same issue.

[chiisu81]

At around 50-60 pages a piece would saddle-stitch work better?

Or more ideal, a single-volume hardcover

[oakesspalding]

It was originally in saddle-stitch, but they switched printers and the new saddle-stitch looked horrible as well as costing twice as much.

Don't know about the hardcover. People seem to want it, but I'm skeptical. I will put together a one volume PDF version--which won't be free.