Treasure Trove: The Index Card RPG

 Okay, I know I just did one of these but there has been a bit of talk about rules from other systems lately and it got me digging through other games for see what I've plundered over the years for the games I run, so forgive me for making two treasure trove posts in a row.

 

The Index Card RPG from Runehammer is a really simple, really good system that has a lot of pieces and parts that can be used in other games, it even expects you to borrow and steal from it's rules. I personally have never actually played it but I have read through the rulebook dozens of times and thought about how clean this game is, how much good stuff is built into it. So without any further babble, my pilfered treasures from The Index Card RPG!

 

Weapon Tags:

In the equipment section there is a small list of weapon tags. Its short but it comes across really clean. I've used this to apply directly to DCC weapons, Heroes Unlimited Weapons, and even ninjas and super-Spies. I think it is a really good table to consult to just have something ready to make some weapons feel unique without making them outright magical or even just apply across all weapons to add a little bit of nuance back into weapon choices. Some people, myself included, really liked that older editions of D&D or Pathfinder did this and had weapons with different properties and this is a great way to include them in a more rules light way than some systems.

 

The Oath:

This is a sort of Judge/GM/DM/Storyteller/Admin's code. It says some good things, and other parts I don't really agree with. 

• I will let the torrent flow basically encourages you to write down anything and everything that you think is interesting, and run with your own version of it. I love this dearly and think it is great advice.  
• I will remember everything, I have beef with. The Judge should know the rules well and be able to make calls in the moment, the DCC book says "rulings not rules" which means that the game isn't about knowing everything flawlessly, it's about knowing enough to make a ruling in the moment and keep gameplay flowing. this book would have you making bullet points, memorizing sections and sources, which I really don't click with.  
• A world from their actions covers the world building around the players and their actions. It tells you to build very little world until the PCs do something, which I love deeply. I run a setting that breathes and lives and moves on without the players but none of that is ever seen by the players unless they interact with it, which is the heart of the matter. The only stuff that really matters in the moment of play is what is around the PCs or what they interact with, which can still be far reaching, even if they cant see it.
• I will be poetic is basically saying that you will feel for the actions of the players. Your world will react appropriately to the party's actions, their failures, their successes, the crimes they commit, the deeds they complete. Love this. A world should react realistically to the players actions. If the PCs roll through every town threatening people and demanding the small folk kiss their boots, then the world should appropriately react, not everyone is going to kneel and say "yes sir". This is deeply important to the storytelling integrity, in my opinion.
• I will be energetic covers saying you need to come to the table with some fire. You are where the story flows from and everyone's energy feeds off yours. I couldn't agree more. The Judge is the source of the story's flow and the source of energy everyone at the table is looking at, the game dies if you come to the table with no energy.
• I will lift them up and vanish is an excellent section, it tells us that the story isn't about you and the things you have carefully crafted, it's about the PCs. The heroes of the story, or at least the protagonists if they aren't really heroic. You should be invested in their success, your NPCs, locations, dangers, villains, all exist as stepping stones for the PCs to tell their story, a story you very much are a part of and get to have little twists and bends in.
•  A beacon of camaraderie mentions that sitting around the table with mugs and telling a story is one of the oldest hobbies on earth and you are part of a tradition now that stretches back as far as human language. We are here for friendship, teamwork, love, and togetherness. Always remember that. I often say one of the most important parts of the game to me, isn't even the game. It is breaking bread with friends. I love that the games bring me and the people I care about together. This ties back into my feelings of disconnect from playing online but even without the act of breaking bread, we are here for each other, to tell a story, to come together.
• I will be a terror to behold is possibly my favorite part of the oath. You want the PCs to succeed, yes, but you also want them to earn it. You are rooting for them but you will lay deadly traps at their feet, scheme, and plot their downfall, hoping they will overcome and triumph. This sections tells you to be a brutal teacher but forgiving and a little sadistic at the same time. Remember though, this is about how you treat the characters, not your friends... well maybe your friends a little. At the table I like to prod and maybe influence things a little, encouraging people to maybe make questionable choices from my position as Judge to stir up a little drama in the story we're telling. Sometimes they fall for it, sometimes they see through my schemes. 

 

Ending a Session, The Tribunal:

The end of a session is something near and dear to my heart. I am used to games in person, where we would hang out for another maybe hour or two after the game had ended to just talk, catch up on things, discuss our other hobbies, and talk about what just happened in the game. I have a very important post game ritual that signals the end of a the night and something similar to what they talk about in this book. It is important to me to hang around after the session and shoot the shit. This is one of those things that I feel is a little lost in this era of games played online, the session ends and people dip quickly. Maybe I'm just struggling to keep up with the times but I wish with all my heart that I could run games in person again.

Honorable mention in this section: Improv details, plan big stuff. I really run by this and think it is super important, have your big city with its named sections but don't bring it to life until the players interact with it and improv in the moment for that.

 

Dynamic Dice:

I'll admit this one is a little harder to implement in a digital format, my partner has had some ideas about this I'm going to bring into the next game I run. The idea behind this one is great and what I love about it is that, really it only matters at lower levels, so it helps mitigate some of that lower level time spent doing nothing on your turn. It introduces Battle Fury, Spellburn (which i call Arcane Feedback), & Dogpile. The idea behind these is that you place a die in front of you with the 1 up. each round, based on what your die represents, you gain a benefit. Battle Fury sees you placing a d6 in front of your character sheet. each time you miss you move the die up one facing and add that to your attack and damage rolls. Love this because there is nothing more boring than showing up to play and doing nothing all night because you can only miss. Magical Feedback I don't run as the book says at all. Instead I have a caster place a d4 in front of them with the 1 up. they add that to their spell checks. each time they succeed in casting a spell, increase it by 1. when it reaches 4, they have to make a roll under check on their spellcasting ability score or lose access to spellcasting for 1d4 rounds. Dogpile I run as Second Wind, Allowing a character in melee to regain some hitpoints over rounds of combat when their d4 reaches a 4, increased each round they take some damage.

 

Timers, Threats, and Treats:

To me, this section is just good Judge philosophy. Timers talks about the use of dangers as a timer, things like rising lava, goblins arriving in X rounds, or similar dangers to put the pressure on. Threats talks about the danger that they face in a given moment, the trap, the monster, the puzzle. Treats isn't about treasure but talks instead about solutions to challenges, things like a dragon missing a single scale, a boulder that makes for a devastating hazard the players could push down on an enemy, things of this nature. Together you have a really good guide for encounter and dungeon design that is laid out in an easy to understand way and really will improve how encounters feel to you and your players.

 

 

Tables:

If you have been here a while you know I love a good table to reference or roll on. The back of this book collects many of the tables in the book to one convenient place for your use but also has some that aren't present elsewhere in the book. It makes for a good section to open to and roll things quickly. Locations & Goals are great little tables for pulling something up as a quest for it moment. Monster Roller is a collection of tables that will give you something you can work with to make a monster and have its general attitude. I have things I prefer for actually making a monster but I really like this table for on the fly. Loot is a collection of tables divided into Ancient, Shabby, Cursed, Sci-Fi, Epic, & Bizarre. I find this section is good for on the fly loot the rules for items are in Index Card RPG terms but it is such a rules light system it is easy enough to convert on the fly with only minimal understanding of what the rules are.

 

    I want to close this one out by saying that I really love the ICRPG. In my hands it is a toolkit to bring to other games. But realistically that is every game to me, I am always saying on this blog to try other games and find pieces to take away. The system of ICRPG itself is really simple, really clean, and honestly looks like a lot of fun. I've seen people playing it in one of the game stores I used to frequent. It lends itself well to storytelling over crunch while still keeping good stakes. If you are interested to see what else this book might have for you, i encourage you to check them out. They even have a quick start rules for free on their website!

 

As always, thank you for reading my stuff. I'm always hoping to hear back from people and hear about their experiences and ideas. I really appreciate those of you who swing by for any reason. Hopefully next week we will be back with another monster, magic item, short story, or more of our regular content. 

 

 

 

Old School Treasure Troves: 1st edition PHB

 It has been a while since I did one of these. I'm trying to get back into a rhythm of regular posts and I figured this would be a good series to continue.

Original printing cover 

 

    So lets talk about the book in question, The 1st edition players handbook. Okay I know that technically this isn't the first edition, and that this is AD&D, and it is not exactly the actual first edition, but for the sake of this post, I'm just going to use 1st edition as short hand.

    The book itself is kinda hard to get these day but there was a re-print that might be easier to get. As with the last book I discussed there are free versions out there, stripped of formatting and pure text that you can find. This books is full of tables and other useful things to pull out on the fly or have as a reference no matter what edition or system you're playing. I wanted to highlight some useful things I really like about this book. I want to mention that this book was written a while ago, it has some dated takes and it is worth remembering how old this book is and the time it was written in. I just wanted to mention that because even something written a long time ago will have something you can take away and use at your table. I say this all the time here and to anyone who talks to me about games, it is always worth reading or playing other games because even if you hate it, you'll find something to take away. So lets hop into it!

 

Reprint cover

 The monk: starting on page 30 of the original printing, The monk from this edition has heavily influenced how I think of monks. They have such an interesting spread of abilities that includes some healing, thief skills, and are pretty good in combat. What I have always deeply loved about this monk is that their late level progression is tied to their ability to overcome other monks of higher level in honorable duels in order to claim their title and gain new mystic powers. I've always loved that and the version of the DCC monk I love the most has all these elements.

 

 Equipment section: Starting on page 35 of the original printing we have a smallish equipment section that covers kind of a lot of things that the DCC book doesn't. Things like cost of clothing, provisions, transport, and livestock. I still find myself referencing this often as I need costs for odds and ends that are not part of the usual equipment list I keep on hand.

 

The Adventure: a small section on page 101 of the original print, it talks about adventure in towns, underground, and in the wilderness. It is a short section with a short article on each of these. Talking about things that help with running in those environments, things to prep for, and how to run those types of adventures.

 

Psionics: this section starts on 110 of the original print. It lays out how you get psionic powers, the odds of having them, what powers you get. It is a little clunky, and these powers are rare, as they should be. It takes an act of god to end up with them and even then, you might not have much going on. I love psionics, one of my favorite supplements for DCC that I've never gotten to use is Mind Games. This section could, with some small effort, get rolled into the DCC rules at your table. I've thought about it many times but never really gotten to it, maybe in a future blog post.

 

Planes: This section starts on page 120 of the original print. I'll admit, I don't think this is immediately gameable but I've always loved this map of the planes.  It is simple but easy to take in. I just really wanted to talk about how much I like this section which gives a quick explanation of the planes.

 

Division of treasure: Starting on page 120, right after the planes, we have division of treasure. I really appreciate this section as a way of covering something that isn't often talked about at the table. Realistically, this is a non-issue, most people don't really need this. Most tables just talk to each other and distribute treasure however makes the most sense. However, this section does cover hirelings and henchmen who might want a cut of the treasure too.

 

This book, overall has some things I've always really liked. It has always been a reference tool I used in other games I ran, certainly through my 3.5 era and my time running 5e. I still use it as I run DCC these days and really do think that this book is a great example of an older book that still has useful in some way. As always, every book and system out there has something you can use, I hope that future posts in this series can share more books I've pulled things from over the years. I think in the future I will take the "Old School" title off this and open it up to other things I've found to be super useful like the Index Card RPG. Maybe that will be our next treasure trove we cover.

 

As always, thank you for reading I really appreciate that people want to read my stuff and see what I'm cooking up. I'm always eager to hear from you guys and know what you guys wanna see more of. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Class: Pit Fighter

I always liked the idea of an armored pugilist character. Someone who wears heavy, maybe spiked, gauntlets to deliver punishing blows while letting the armor take the brunt of the hit for them. It was always a cool visual for me and I'm sure if I looked hard enough at the movies and books I was into as a kid I could tell you exactly what scene or chapter cemented this in my heart as a cool thing. Unfortunately this time I really don't know off the dome and haven't looked back that hard. Instead I recently linked this class and realized I never made a post about it!

     This came to me back in 2022, when I was running the first campaign in the setting I made using wasteland all those years ago. I got to a point in the game where I had a session scheduled but almost half the players couldn't make it. So I asked a bunch of people last minute if they wanted to play a one shot in DCC and mingled them with my players who could make it. I made the game an interlude related to the current game, I called it "druid genocide one shot". Players took on the role of mercenaries who were tasked with killing the druids that the main game were trying to protect and help. I planned on using it for making a group of villains that the players in the regular game might come up against. But I needed something to run with for the one shot. 

So I, at 3 in the morning, spat out extremely basic versions of two classes, The Pit Fighter who we're talking about today and was at the time known as the brawler, and the musketeer. I also used the Dervish from Gongfarmers (2015), and the human version of the elf and dwarf featured in GLOSS. I rolled up 3 of each of these and had the players randomly roll to see which ones they got, each player getting 3 characters and expecting to lose at least one. They each had a few alchemical items,  some had a randomly generated magic item like a potion or a scroll. This game created some awesome villains that I kept and used later, players who tried out my down and dirty proto classes really liked them and I ended up making a proper write-up of the Pitfighter... Then Nick Baran released the Bruiser, or I became aware of it, I really don't know the timeline of when it came out and it was SO close to what I wanted from my class that I just used that instead. Eventually a player asked to use the original one I wrote and it ended up back in the rotation, leading us here. If you read all that, thanks for coming out and reading my long story, Enjoy the class! 

 

The Pit Fighter 

Worldbuilding with Magic the Gathering

    It has been a little while since I've posted life has been catching up to me in a rough way and I've really fallen off on keeping up with two posts a week. A few people have checked in with me and I really gotta say, I appreciate you guys, it means a lot that some people in the community reached out to check in. Today I'm making this post in part to let people know I'm still kicking around and also to just get something out onto a page. We probably aren't back to our regularly scheduled program just yet but we're working on it!

 

Sometimes when I am in a creative rut and cant come up with something to make a post about or find the energy to make something for the campaign I head on over to Scryfall and hit random card. The goal is to take the card I'm shown and make something to use in the games. This usually falls into the category of a monster, NPC, location, magic item, or magic power that an NPC or PC might gain. The last one is a little stolen from 5E's boons and banes section where they talk about alternative rewards to treasure (it's a very good book and we might talk about it and the tools it presents as its own post some day).

    I give myself 30 seconds with the card shown to me. I read the card over and take into account it's name, cost, flavor text, rules text, power, toughness, and card type. I want to take into account all these things when I use it as a reference.  If after 30 seconds with the card I really can't come up with the faintest idea then I hit random again. I'll keep at this until I have something on my personal document for my setting or something setting neutral that I can slip in to later games. 

     In truth I really don't use these in the games that much, I keep them in my back pocket when I have nothing else in the moment and have used them maybe a few times. If you give this a shot, remember that the goal isn't to recreate the card exactly in your setting or rule set, it's to make something inspired by that card. I'll sign off with a few examples of cards I've used and the resulting writing.

 

Mazus La Croix (Fleshgrafter)

Mazus was an artificer in the old empire of man, how he has lived long enough to see the sun rise on the new world is a mystery but the steel grafts in his body certainly give hints. In his time in the empire he was considered extreme, even by the empire’s standards. He would get his hands on magical trinkets and artifacts, and graft them into the flesh of others, tying the powers of the magical items to the recipient’s soul. This drove nearly all of his victims insane but those who survived were exceptionally dangerous. In the empire’s twilight, lacking fresh sources to experiment on, he began to graft magic and steel into himself. What lives in that cavern, the ancient workshop, is no longer recognizably human. Perhaps you may find power in becoming one of his test subjects… or perhaps you will lose yourself to madness and become a danger until some group of adventures comes along and puts you down. 

Statistics:

Init +0; Atk graft drills +6 melee (2d5+1d3 bleed), darklight lance +7 ranged (4d4+weakness); AC 16 (grafted steel plates); HD 8d10(40); MV 60’; Act 1d20+1d16; SV Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +4; AL C; SP: Graft drills cause bleed on the target if hit, stops if spending 1 round bandaging or healed. Weakness: the darklight lance mounted on Mazus’ shoulder swivels and targets freely in any direction. Anyone struck by it must make a DC 15 fortitude save or suffer 1d4 strength, agility, or stamina damage.

Grafter: Mazus is able to form a permanent connection between an individual and any of their magic items or mundane gear. The process of this is extremely painful, anyone undergoing it must make a DC 20 will save or suffer madness so deep that they are unable to function without attacking everyone and everything around them, other than Mazus of course. Failing this check should result in the loss of a character and should not be undertaken lightly as this obviously evil madman makes no promises of it working. Anyone who makes the save will find that they are bonded to the item, armor replaces much of their skin, weapons replace limbs, trinkets are attached in useful places. Removing these magic items will kill the character, they may only be brought back by divine intervention or a subject of a quest.

 

Chant of order (Orim’s Chant):

This is a power usually associated with angels and other beings of order. It is rarely taught to mortals and for good reason, the chant was never meant to be uttered by mortals and causes them great pain and harm. Should a mortal prove themselves to be worthy, through deed or act a being from a higher plane might teach a mortal this chant.

A character possessing this ability may spend their round of combat cantering in the tongue of higher beings of order, this act causes one point of damage to the user’s personality and stamina. However, any spellcaster who’s magic comes from chaos, such as wizards and chaotic clerics, will find that their magic is blocked for the entire round until the chanters next turn. Additionally the chanter may burn 1 point of a physical ability score, should they do this enemies must make a DC 15 will save in order to attack them. Failing this save means the attacker wastes their attack this round struggling against the chanter.

 

Practiced Teamwork (coordinated assault):

This boon is often taught by seasoned militia captains, battle-hardened mercenaries, or warriors who understand the value of tight unit cohesion. Seeing the chaotic scrapping of most adventuring parties, they may offer this training to those they deem worthy, both as a reward and a correction.

Effect:

At the start of combat, the character may designate one ally as their fighting partner.

As long as the two fight adjacent to one another, each may use the higher of their two attack bonuses and initiative modifiers for the duration of the battle*.

*If separated, each reverts to their normal values until adjacency is regained.

 

Blackwater Anchorage (Restless Reef):

This cave was once a pirate hideout, the reef surrounding it made it impassable to the large warships of the empire but a safe place to hide for the lightweight pirate ships. Unfortunately this massive ocean cave eventually fell when the empire sent a necromancer named Vexilar Doomhand. He brought a single row boat and a re-animated prehistoric monster with him which he set to guard the sea cave and sink any ship that attempted to leave. The pirates in the cave lost their ships before they decided to hide out in the dwellings they had carved out and ramchackled together. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t wait out the undead. Eventually they starved or died as they attempted to flee, leaving behind much of their treasure.

Now, with Vexilar’s death, the undead monster in the waters is dormant but not gone. The massive prehistoric shark in the waters of the cave will animate again if it senses enough life in the cave or a strong enough source of magic, such as a high level magic user, enters the reef.

Prehistoric Undead Shark

The Guardian of Restless Reef

Init +4; Atk bite +12 melee (2d20 damage, see below), tail sweep +8 melee (1d14, knockback 20’);  AC 20 (bone plating & undead resilience); HD 18d12 (108 hp); MV swim 100’; Act 2d20; SV Fort +12, Ref +6, Will +10; AL Chaotic

• Massive Bite: On a successful bite attack, the shark automatically grapples its target in its jaws. Grappled creatures take 2d12 automatic damage each round until freed (DC 20 Strength or Agility check). If reduced to 0 hp, the victim is instantly swallowed whole (see below).

• Swallow Whole: The undead shark no longer digests food and anyone swallowed can be cut out and rolled over, if the shark can be defeated

• Shipbreaker: Against watercraft, the bite deals quadruple damage. A small boat is destroyed in 1-2 bites; a large vessel in 3-4 

• Breaching Charge: The shark may leap from the water up to 30’ horizontally to attack creatures on docks, ledges, or the cave mouth. Targets must succeed on a DC 18 Ref save or be knocked prone and dragged into the water.

• Undead Resilience: Immune to poison, charm, disease, paralysis, and sleep. Takes half damage from non-magical weapons unless silvered or mithril

• Blood Frenzy: If any creature within 60’ takes damage, the shark gains +2 to attack rolls until the end of its next turn

• Lair Sense: Can detect any creature entering the reef, even if invisible or magically concealed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Class: Martial Artist

     The martial arts superhero is a staple of the genre, it feels criminal that neither of the DCC superhero hacks had a good way to emulate characters like Iron Fist or Bronze Tiger, especially when there is so much good groundwork laid out by the 5+ different monk classes out there! I wanted this class to fit in alongside the other superhero classes for this project and feel mystical, getting abilities that no one else really has.

    I've really been enjoying working on this project. I'm hoping to have this completed some time next year to make a proper rule book for what I think superheroes should look like in a DCC hack. But enough about that, here is the class' first draft, for your enjoyment:

 

The Martial Artist 

Champions of Tibault: Vol 9

 Something I adore is when a PC makes a connection or helps someone and it has a chance to come back around. I think it's good storytelling. This time, the people of Sweet Water got to deliver on the aid they had been given. The party ended up with some not quite magical but still unusual variations of the standard equipment. Leather armor that granted a claw attack, rawhide shields that granted more AC than a standard shield, a staff made from one of the massive bones, and other treasures from Sweet Water.

    Additionally, I LOVE patron stuff. I love to see it come back around. I love to see a player remember they have a patron. I love to see a player remember that the relationship with patrons is transactional. Talshu was always pretty good about that stuff. The player continues to be good about that kind of thing as they continue to play in other campaigns. 

 

Session 9:

The village of sweetwater delivered! They brought leather armors and a rawhide shield made of this “primal” leather, granting additional benefit. With their reward in hand the party decided to mess with wounded animal further, hoping to find something condemning on the featherfolk slaver and arena master. While Talshu broke into his home she released a demon from an iron cage who offered her a wish. She suspected that he would twist the wish and the demon shrugged and more or less confirmed that he was a bastard. She wished for a book detailing all the accounts and information of the old empire, everything possible, no matter how frivolous. The demon gave her a book which she quickly got out from under before it smashed through the floor of the wagon that wounded animal called home. Unable to move the book Talshu called out to her patron, the architect, offering him the book as part of her continued service and possible future reward. He immediately rewarded her with a patron spell, dimensional sundering while he took her to his pocket dimension, The House of Legacy, where she met a strange group of adventurers, Spingsinger, Brother Gavin, Saldru, and Squire, all of them seeming like larger than life heroic figures, he said they were visitors to the house of legacy from “another system” some distant place he called “five-e”. He briefly explains something called an Eternal Champion and says that sometimes he’s not addressing her but the eternal champion before returning Talshu home to scramble away from the wreckage of wounded animal’s wagon.

Talshu unfortunately didn’t get away with no witnesses and as a result Wounded animal demanded justice, Talshu had been summoned to the Arena to fight and prove her innocence. Witherbone and Egrat battle in her stead, against a 4 armed gorilla monster who almost kills Egrat. Fortunately Witherbone is able to put the beast down and a Mountainborn in the crowd with a talent for healing is able to bring Egrat back from the brink.

 

Magic Items: 5 potions

     You know what I love about DCC? Magic items. The rules give scarcely little information about them in the games. They encourage you to give them a story, to make each one unique in it's own way. No sword is "a +1 sword". You know the rest. I talked a little bit about Scrolls not too long ago and how those should also be unique, which the book gives us a great start for. The other "common" disposable magic item is a potion. I think those should be just as unique and storied! Maybe not as much as say, a sword or a wizard's staff, but certainly some kind of history. So in the spirit of that, I've been playing with potion tables and rolled up 5 potions with little stories, descriptions, and in some cases, side effects, to make them feel a little more special when someone finds them.

 

5 Potions