Ye Olde Character Sheet #5: Character Identity Panic

Once I moved on from high school to college - or university, as the European system is a bit different - I also expanded my playing group. Or actually, a best friend did by posting adverts. And the new players who reacted brought in their own new brand of hero.

One of them, one who also became a very best friend, had a very special taste. His heroes had to be... different. They had to combine different powers and identities of several heroes. One of his favorites combined werewolf Navarre from Ladyhawke, immortal Highlander McLeod, and Timothy Dalton's version of James Bond. Granted, the last one was not his idea, but that of a fellow player who played his character's lover. But I can assure you that combining the roles of immortal and werewolf is difficult enough. Even if you are the game master playing the hero as an NPC. Hero Cyrion was both lovable and his schizophrenic antics also drove us players mad.

The first hero he introduced however, was above character sheet's "Nature Master". He also thought up a whole class for this one. With a gemstone grafted in the forehead to give both magickal properties - controlling animals -, and to give some telepathic motivation and identity changes if necessary. The gemstone was probably meant as a way to balance the character and give the game master some control. To confuse matters further, he used an eightsided sword with multiple purpose poisoned darts shooting out. A sword which he technically should not use as his vows forebade him to maim or kill, usually. Or at least that's how I remember it.

In hindsight the character was way overpowered. But I guess I let it be played because the player was so enthused about his own design, provided with complex technical drawings. And he soon found out the character was pretty hard to play anyway. There was no real clear hero purpose or identity I could handle as a GM, and the character fit in the fantasy world as... well, as a druid in a concrete city.

The above sheet was not the first, I think, as we were in a system change during this time again. Another one of my home brews, which diverted further and further from mainstream AD&D. Soon my Nature Master friend branded the new system the "Jaap"-system (which is my name). And to my surprise he started to propagate it everywhere. Eventually, years later, we teamed up to do a rewrite of this "Jaap"-system, which became the first edition of Dark Dungeon.

Today is Nature Master friend's birthday. Happy Birthday, Rinze!

Ye Olde Character Sheet #4: System Panic

Somewhere in the late eighties - or was it in the early nineties? - we couldn't decide on which system to play. Yes, we tried D&D. We loved and hated AD&D. We did many homebrews. I think my own systems were in their seventh incarnation. We loved to game, but we just couldn't agree on the rules.

It's much like today's high finance. But that's for another blog, I guess.

So, if fantasy gaming was an issue, Sci Fi adventuring was even worse. We tried and forgot about Traveller, mostly because of MegaTraveller. RoleMaster was hard to get, and no one would have gotten through it anyway. TSR's attempt at SF was a laugh - or at least that's what we thought then. So where to go?

One of my fellow players (you know who you are, JLC) was so desperate to play, he wrote up his favorite addicted female rogue in all systems he could think of. As this sheet testifies.

What I find intriguing is how much the stats differ. You might not guess it's all the same character we're talking about, even if you can decipher all of them. See how short the Traveller code is? Or how seemingly low the strength in Judge Dredd? Probably, the gaming experience would also be different for each rule set.

But then again, the crazy computer in Paranoia is also a very different adversary (euhr, "Friend") than is Darth Vader in Star Wars. And any game surely differs more with the Game Master than with its system.

Sylvia eventually was played in a version of Dark Dungeon adjusted for Space Travel and Sci Fi. I'm not sure if any of the above stats were ever tried.

A request... proofreader wanted

Dear fellow bloggers. I just finished a DD2 / OSR adventure kit for publication, and I'm looking for a native english speaking proofreader. And possibly playtester, if you like it. In exchange for your effort, you'll get my eternal gratitude, honorable mention and the module for free :-)

The module is a tribute to late Moldvay's classic adventure, but with all new artworks, background, storyline, and even some background and encounters for a local town.

Update: two people just offered their kind services! So the email address has been removed.

Ye Olde Character Sheet #3: Gwarwain

Gwarwain was a Gnome. Sort of.

He was one of the faerie creature player characters of player Peter, who reveled in faeries. And in drawing all sorts of things. Instead of doing illustrations he went on to study Art History in Essex (as a Dutchman), which is still a loss to those who love pictures. Maybe he now illustrates books on the side, I don't know. Hey Peter, are you out there somewhere? Lost your address ;-)

Peters characters had one typical weird thing. They always seemed to have to die, or nearly die by fire. The same went for Gwarwain, the little illusionist. I believe he jumped burning off a pirate ship, just fireballed by an enemy. Or something like it.

My home brew system had evolved even further away from Dungeons & Dragons once Gwarwain was made. Wisdom as an ability was ditched at the time. Hit locations were added - about twenty of them, as you may see in the right hand corner of the sheet. 18 was neck, 19 face, 20 head. Each location could have its own armour. Which you could list on the sheet.

And if you could draw, like Pete, you could make your sheet shine with a dressed miniature of your hero. There were a kind of proficiencies, spell points (called "Mana"), and most of the specifics of my system at that time has slipped my mind. Can't be helped.

Anyway, still treasure this one. Another age gone bye.

Images are still copyright Peter van der Meijden, about 1986.

Update: just found him on LinkedIn!

Ye Olde Character Sheet #2: Ben de Blop

Ben is a man's name. But Ben de Blop (Ben “the Blob”), was a woman, played by player Benjamin. She started out as a he, but a magickal cubicle caused a sex change, and the player left it at that. He even seemed to enjoy the idea. His character was mostly silly anyway. And peskering his fellow player character Pirliwi the Leprechaun was just as possible as a female as a male.

Ben was a magic user, with new magic user rules. As a game master I was fed up with endless spell lists to be memorized. And I wanted to give players more freedom. So I introduced a spell point system. Mages had as many spell points as their intelligence score, and intelligence could be raised a point for every experience level. Every spell cost double its spell level in points. And points could be regained by meditation and sleep.

The makeshift system worked fairly well, and held out for a long years campaign. It sure gave more freedom and more creative spell use. Minor annoyance was that Ben de Blop regularly went to sleep in the middle of an adventure to regain points, which was a bit silly at times. Especially as Ben used up many points for show-off cantrips (1 spell point each).

Another thing I then introduced in my home brew was the fumble (roll a 1 on d20). And having to roll for the success of spell effects too. Ben utterly demonstrated these rules by fumbling six times successively, and killing herself by teleporting completely into the ground to negotiate a mere six foot chasm.

That was utterly weird.

Ye Olde Character Sheet #1: Yon Hyo

In this new series I'll talk a bit about old character sheets I kept hidden in a box somewhere. They may be old characters of my own, or of one of my players, or they may have come in my possession through other means. Anyway.

This one is about Yon Hyo. He was an AD&D first edition monk, played by my best friend from primary school. Together with him I discovered role playing, and together with him I bought my first set of Basic D&D. The Moldvay booklet. Yon Hyo was my friends major hero, which he played through the last years of high school, and the first year of University (or College, if you will). He built his own stronghold, named “the beach boy castle”, and he slew dragons and rescued fair maidens. He even married a fair maiden he rescued, and that was that – we hardly role played beyond that, because hey, we were just teenage guys!

Yon Hyo was cool. I suppose that was what my friend wanted him to be, and I helped him out as a DM. That's why he was a monk – like Bruce Lee – because that was probably the coolest class available in AD&D. Open hand attacks, thief like skills, falling great distances unharmed, calming animals, fake death, and so on. With glee my friend examined the rulebook which new powers he would gain on the next level. Looking back he was a real power player. At that time, I thought – we thought – that was the way the game was to be played.

I cannot remember if the 18 strength and 18 dexterity were rolled up with 3d6. I don't think so. I think it was one of a long series of characters made with 4d6 rolls, drop the lowest die, and rearrange the scores at will. I couldn't explain the constitution score of 11 otherwise.

Charisma was fairly much a dump stat, and so was alignment. Sure, Yon Hyo lists Lawful Good. But he was Lawful Neutral at best, more like True Neutral, or even Neutral Evil at times. Strangely enough I think my friend eventually cared more about Yon Hyo strictly following alignment than I did as a game master. So in the end he did become more and more lawful good, and he also fought less and less. He went pacifist.

We loved D&D, we tried to fathom AD&D (and failed), and we made up the rules if we didn't understand the rulebooks. Yon Hyo reached somewhere around 10^th level, at which time he renamed himself Tien Lung (heavenly dragon). That was after this character sheet. And then he lost a few levels in a vampire attack, or something alike. I think that kind of killed my friends joy in playing. Interest waned, and while my friend went on to real life – or was it? - and dating, I went on to other campaigns and game systems. Including my own.

The sheet by the way was designed by me, redesigned by another friend and copied in Rome, Italy – on a school outing – while we lived in the Netherlands. Photocopying in Rome at that time proved to be fairly cheap – 10 cents a copy in 1983 or so.