A "more complete" White Box?

[RandallS]

I gave copies of the standard 3rd printing of S&W:WB to the people in my current Sunday game group who had never played any version of D&D before, but who wanted to give it a try since the other two players in the game talked about previous games I ran that used it. They've played TinyD6 system games for the last 5 years, so they aren't new to gaming.

I was surprised to receive comments that S&W:WB seemed very incomplete. For an exploration game, it did not seem to have much information on how to actually explore dungeons and wilderness nor did it have any information at all (other than wandering monster tables) on how to create dungeons or wilderness areas to explore. I was even more surprised to discover that they were correct. I've been playing since 1975 and don't really need this info – so I never noticed that it wasn't included – although it was a major part of the original three booklets.

So I decided to toss together a version of S&W:WB that had such information -- pulled from OGC in other games and lightly edited to fit -- for them. As S&W:WB works just fine as a game, making major changes to how WB already works was not and is not in the plan, just adding "missing" material and doing a bit of text cleanup. The one exception is adding the thief (the FMAG version) as an optional class (due to player demand) -- and I don't promise it will be in the final version. After doing all that and getting a generally positive reaction from the drafts my group saw, I decided that I might as well clean it up and make the future final version generally available to anyone interested.

The current first public draft includes these major additions:

• The optional Thief Class in Chapter 2
• Some equipment item descriptions and some optional packages of equipment to make it faster to outfit new characters in Chapter 4.
• Sections on Dungeon Exploration, Wilderness Exploration and Ocean Exploration in Chapter 5. These come from one of my Microlite74 games.
• Sections on Dungeon, Wilderness, and Settlement Design in Chapter 9. These come from several OGC sources combined. The wilderness and settlement sections probably need more work.
• A section on Strongholds and Domains (taken from OGC content)

The current draft does not include any artwork nor any layout beyond starting each chapter on a new page. the final version will have some public domain and/or creative commons art, will be in 6x9 format so the PDF can be easily used on tablets, and will be free. As it will be all open game content, an editable SRD will also be available.

A copy of the first public draft is available here. Much proofreading is needed, I know, but there is not much sense in doing a lot of proofreading until the text is closer to "final".

Constructive comments, ideas, and complaints are welcome.

[hamurai]

Thanks for sharing! I'll have a closer look when I have the time.

First thoughts:

1.) Great idea to make a more complete edition!

2.) For my personal taste, the thief skill is too weak. The whole point of having a thief in the group is that it's less risky to get the thief-stuff done, like disarming traps and picking locks. A 2-in-6 chance for the first 3 levels is too risky in my book. In fact, that's usually the chance I give other adventurers to do thief stuff (if I include the thief class).
I'd start out with 3-in-6 for levels 1 - 4, then 4-in-6 for levels 5-8, and 5-in-6 from levels 9+.
Maybe I'm used to more traps and locks than other groups, but I think at 2-in-6 for levels 1-3 a thief in our group would not even get to level 4.

3.) Concerning layout: I'd prefer the headers in bigger letters instead of caps and a grey background. I liked the layout in Microlite74, for example. Maybe a blank line before those headers would have improved my experience even more.

[RandallS]

Oct 19, 2022 23:54:59 GMT -6 hamurai said:

2.) For my personal taste, the thief skill is too weak. The whole point of having a thief in the group is that it's less risky to get the thief-stuff done, like disarming traps and picking locks. A 2-in-6 chance for the first 3 levels is too risky in my book. In fact, that's usually the chance I give other adventurers to do thief stuff (if I include the thief class).
I'd start out with 3-in-6 for levels 1 - 4, then 4-in-6 for levels 5-8, and 5-in-6 from levels 9+.
Maybe I'm used to more traps and locks than other groups, but I think at 2-in-6 for levels 1-3 a thief in our group would not even get to level 4.

I'm not a real fan of this version of the thief class. However, I'm trying to avoid changing much of the basic rules. This is the version of the thief that the FMAG version of White Box uses and that seems to be the currently most popular set of WB rules with a thief, so I used its version. My dislike of it is one of the reasons I'm not sure I even need to have the thief class in the rules. If I leave it in, I'm thinking of adding an "alternate rule" for it where non-thief adventurers explicitly need a 1 or a 2 (modified by an appropriate attribute bonus at the referee's option. Thieves have need the same roll for success but get to roll multiple dice based on their level -- the number in the table. With only one die, there's a 33% of rolling a 1 or a 2. With 2 dice, there's a 56% chance of rolling a 1 or a 2 on at least one of the dice. With three dice, 70%. With four dice, 80%. Five dice, 87%. Probably not the best solution, however.

3.) Concerning layout: I'd prefer the headers in bigger letters instead of caps and a grey background. I liked the layout in Microlite74, for example. Maybe a blank line before those headers would have improved my experience even more.

Don't worry, the current awful headers will not be used in the final version. I'm not quite sure how I ended up with these. They started worse. They were light blue.

[Finarvyn]

I'm always glad to see what uses folks have for WB and what they do with it. Honestly, if I was to do it all over again it would probably look a bit different. The intent of the rules was always to provide something for folks to use to publish their own adventures, and never really to be its own thing as a "complete" rules set. As such, a lot of the stuff I put in there matched my philosophy but not always the text of my own rules. For example, the thief has been a base class in my campaigns as long as I can remember, but the steering committee for the S&W project wanted "white box only" content so it wasn't a part of my rules set.

Anyway, I like what you're doing with the rules!

[RandallS]

Oct 20, 2022 12:45:34 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

For example, the thief has been a base class in my campaigns as long as I can remember, but the steering committee for the S&W project wanted "white box only" content so it wasn't a part of my rules set.

The players at my table today were unanimously in favor of including some version of the thief as an optional class in the main DD:WB rules. I'll include it, but I've decided to just create my own as I don't really like the FMAG version I was including. It should be in the second public draft. With luck that will be later this week, but given this week's real life schedule, it may slip to next week.

[jeffb]

FWIw- early issues of Knockspell are worth picking up for interpretations of a white box Thief*



*They are worth picking up period- excellent resource for S&W.

[RandallS]

Oct 24, 2022 10:24:24 GMT -6 jeffb said:

FWIw- early issues of Knockspell are worth picking up for interpretations of a white box Thief*

Thanks for reminding me of Knockspell. I've now looked through my six issues with special attention to #2 with all the thief articles. The thief has now been completely revised.

Public Draft 2 is now available. There are lots of minor changes, but the major additions/changes are:

• As mentioned, the optional Thief class has been completely revised and tied into the chances of normal non-thief characters on common "thief" tasks.
• A large selection of animals have been added to the monsters in chapter 7. While not in the original M&T booklet, they are a useful addition -- especially for low level games. Humans (individuals and groups) have also been added.
• A section on aerial exploration was added to chapter 5. Also added a section for new players entitled "Adventuring: An Introduction for New Players" taken mainly from an OGL source.
• Draft 1's Chapter Nine has been split into two chapters, one of creating campaigns/adventures and the other with advice on running the game. I added section on quickly creating a starting area with a village, a dungeon, and "megahex" of wilderness to hold them.

You can download a PDF of Public Draft 2 here.

No real proofreading done yet as it's still a WIP. Horrid headers have been replaced by less horrid ones, however. Constructive comments, ideas, and complaints are welcome.

[hamurai]

Thank you! Looking pretty good already!

[RandallS]

Public Draft 3 is now available. Unless I've missed something, this should be the final draft with new additions/expansions to the text. Future drafts should just include corrections from proofreading, possible rearrangement of text for better organization, etc. Of course, now that I've said this, I've probably jinxed it.


You can download a PDF of Public Draft 3 here.

As always, constructive comments, ideas, and complaints are welcome. Proofreading for spelling errors/awful grammar/typos is now really welcome. I'm horrible at proofreading because I know what it is supposed to say, so pointing out any such problems you happen to notice will be a huge help!

[Bastet1002]

This looks like a great book! I would add - and I'll probably get shot for making a suggestion which is to add as an optional rule - Spahn's rule of no level caps for demi-humans from Swords and Wizardry Complete. The rule makes them receive, I think it was, a 50% penalty for each level they advance beyond their normal usual limits. Basic Fantasy I think makes all demi-humans advance 10% slower than humans. This will of course mean humans are highly adaptable and innovative compared to demi-humans in spite of their short life span.

Other rules I saw, I think in the Advanced options of OSE had an optional rule for humans to receive +1 on Chr. and +1 on Str. rolls at character generation and receive some extra leadership ability (can't remember what it was off-hand). While level capping for demi-humans follows the original 0e rules, I was never sold on the argument that this was a way to balance overpowered demi-humans or the argument that this was a way to keep the human population high in a human dominated world. For me back in the day, I began with BX and later AD&D 1e, and all games I played in with friends ignored level limits and our DM never imposed a penalty on demi-humans either.

One more idea, I think from WB:FMAG, is when there is no saving roll to adjudicate an action or event and the DM feels a roll needs to be made, have characters roll equal to or under the most appropriate of the 6 ability scores to determine a success. (Did you get this rule in this rule set? Sorry if I missed it.)

Anyways, those are my two cents worth. Excellent job on the thief by the way mixing a single d6 roll for success and adding a 2d6 roll at higher levels in certain skills. Always hated percentile dice rolls for success.

(By the way I have enjoyed your Dungeon Delving and Tarnheim book, so this more White Box take on O&D is an interesting project!)

[barbaribunny]

I've just had a look through the very start of the book, and that looks like one of the best fixes for the thief class I've seen.

It's a simple thing, but I think integrating how thieves and non-thieves perform the skills should resolve a lot of problems, especially because you've kept the effect of ability scores fairly marginal. Starting at roughly 50% chance of success at level 1 and progressing fairly slowly from there feels about right too.

It might be worth putting the increasing backstab damage on the table too at some point, just so people don't forget it.

[asaki]

Nov 29, 2022 7:37:21 GMT -6 Bastet1002 said:

Excellent job on the thief by the way mixing a single d6 roll for success and adding a 2d6 roll at higher levels in certain skills. Always hated percentile dice rolls for success.

In S&W and OD&D, all of the Thief skills (except Climbing and Hear Noise) are percentages in increments of 5%, so you can easily roll them with a d20 instead.

And then for non-human races, you would just say, for instance, Elves get a +3 bonus to Hide in Shadows.

[RandallS]

Sorry that I've disappeared for the last couple of months. Between the holidays, all of my wife's annual doctor visits (and a few days in the hospital for her), I haven't had the time -- or, thanks to all the WOTC OGL nonsense, the interest -- to work on this project. However, I am now having more time and my interest is returning so I will be getting back to work on it. I appreciate the comments on the last draft.

As suggested above, I will be adding some optional method for removing non-human level caps. Although with only ten levels of advancement in WB they have never seemed too limiting to me, I realize some people hate them with a passion.

[hamurai]

Welcome back, then!

[chicagowiz]

Feb 12, 2023 9:10:28 GMT -6 RandallS said:

Sorry that I've disappeared for the last couple of months. Between the holidays, all of my wife's annual doctor visits (and a few days in the hospital for her), I haven't had the time -- or, thanks to all the WOTC OGL nonsense, the interest -- to work on this project. However, I am now having more time and my interest is returning so I will be getting back to work on it. I appreciate the comments on the last draft.

As suggested above, I will be adding some optional method for removing non-human level caps. Although with only ten levels of advancement in WB they have never seemed too limiting to me, I realize some people hate them with a passion.

Good to see you're still kickin' around!

[Bastet1002]

I hope to see this project continue. Any updates?