More SCRAWL

Hello all! I bet you missed me giving updates to SCRAWL. Well, I've made a big one. Having done SCRAWL, I decided to go through it and get rid of any bits that introduced complexity. The best thing I did was doubling Vitality and Will and the damage you deal in combat. That took away all those Fate rolls where you deal 1 or 2 damage. I also removed things like damage types, introduced the hardiness ability to resist poisons and disease and did some other things just to make it more streamlined.

I then completed my encounters for each terrain and put them in one big volume along with rules for generating terrain and working out the number of sites in a hex.

I also updated Orc Boss and Anatomy of a Village and made a dungeon generator for vaults.

So what is left to do?

"Dungeon" generator for forests and jungles
Random events for towns
"Dungeon" generator for towns
Dungeon generator for ruins
Dungeon generator for caves

Converting a couple of my old short adventures for SCRAWL.

Putting all of the above into one volume with contents and hyperlinks to make a DIY solo RPG in one product.

All the SCRAWL products are PWYW. You can get them here:

SCRAWL rulebook
Explore to the Core (SCRAWL terrain generator and random encounters)
It's not my Vault! (SCRAWL vault generator)
Anatomy of a Village
Dungeon of the Orc Boss

More changes to SCRAWL

Hello all. It's update time again. In my quest to simplify SCRAWL, I've made a few changes. These are in the light of playtesting and a quest to remove needless complication.

Bards get 1xp extra per monster slain, even if they are in a group (before you just got 1xp for the grou, but that was needlessly complicated and mean).

Wondrous items give 1 reroll for a test against 1 stat.

Here's the biggie: Wizard spells no longer give auto success. In fact, I've got rid of anything that gives auto success. Also, the Prowess spell only rerolls 1 melee combat or ranged combat roll. To balance it, wizard spells affect more skill rolls. All spells affect 2 types of ability tests or 1 type of ability test and have 1 other effect at least. I was thinking of balancing a wizard out by giving them more Will points, but I played Orc boss and It's not my Vault and the wizard did fine on 3 Will with the new spells. So maybe the wizard was too strong.

You can get SCRAWL and all of its products for PWYW from RPG Now. I woul be very grateful to anyone who can take the time to review it.

It's not my Vault! A dungeon generator for SCRAWL

Hello all. SCRAWL has its forst dungeon generator. This one is for vaults - dungeons where treasures lie guarded by traps and unsleeping guardians. There will be more dungeon generators. Between these and overland encounters, I;m building up a system for a single player exploration experience. I look forward to completing it.

The genterator is called It's not my Vault! and it is available for PWYW. I don't apologise for the name.

Changes to SCRAWL

 Hello all! I've been making some changes to the SCRAWL rulebook to improve your experience of it. Here are the changes.

3 Fate points for starting characters: At first, I expected fate points to be rare and only used in high consequence sitations, such as to avoid a killing blow. However, I now realise that the worst consequence of most Fate rolls is losing 1 Vitality point, which is big, but not necessarily death. Also, there are tons of fate rolls and it's no fun to not have the option of changing them if you are saving 1 Fate point. So people get more Fate points and Fate points will be easier to gain.

Tricksters don't have ranged combat, but they do have more Fate points and gain more than other people: I want to make each class have its own unique feel. Tricksters already had a few skills that other clases didn't, but I saw this as a way to make them stand out more. As a trade, I took their ranged combat away. Tricksters now seem more like Dungeon Crawl Classics thieves, who can use luck more. The idea of being better at ranged combat came from the Diablo rogue.

Luckstone replaces smoke bombs: Now that Fate points are easier to get, I made gaining one only cost 25gp. Also, I decided smoke bombs were a bit narrow, so got rid of them.

Potions of Will are now alchemical items: I wanted the cost and power level of alchemical items to be equal. Restoring 1 point of Will is worth a lot less than the other items, especially as Will seems like a dump stat for non magic users, so I put the potion of Will as an alchemical item.

You can train to get 1xp for 100gp: Since xp can be spent easily, you have a way to buy xp. I made it 100gp so that it is expensive enough to not be a first choice. I only want this to be an option for people who have way too much money.

Will increase is 12xp and Vitality increase is 24xp: I want to make these higher because there will be lots of xp flying around and I want to make these increases relatively rare. After all, the biggest monsters only have 7 Vitality.

Amulet/ring of luck can only cast bless 1/day instead of a free reroll for all Fate rolls: I realised when this was obscene when calculating the price of an art object was a separate fate roll. That means you get 2 fate rolls and pick the best. Since the price only stops when you roll a 1, you only stop when you roll 2 1s, which has a 1/36 chance. Then you make a x fate rolls for each die you rolled. That was obscene. So now it is on the same power level of an item of treasure of that level - 1 free spell per day.

I've added more monsters includin animated objects, liches and iron golems.

Dragons now have 7 Vitality: Just so they are not obscene.

You can get SCRAWL for PWYW here.

Madness in the Mountains

Yup. Just done another one. This time it's for mountains. Same procedures apply. PWYW from RPG Now. Thanks to Filip on my last post, I'll be looking to covert these to epub or mobi and then I'll put them on Lulu. I did that with Legend of the Wayfater ages ago.

Hijinks in the Hills

Hello lovely people! The terrain encounters continue - this time I look at hills.As always, it's PWYW from RPG Now.

I have a question - is 36 encounters too much when I have 12 benign ones? My long term plan is adding all of my encounters and generators to the main rulebook. Would people prefer 18 more focussed encounters per terrain? Maybe have an optional d6 table for benign encounters for all terrains to keep things interesting. I'd like to hear your thoughts. When I make a new mechanic or rule, I'm always keen to make them as simple as possible and maybe 36 encounters is too much.

In other news, Bards don't have the religion ability any more. I found myself using it to contact gods, do ceremonies and ward evil spirits. None of which I thought was very bardy.

For more SCRAWL products, visit mt RPG Now page.

Dungeon of the Orc Boss play through

Hello all! I have just a quick playthrough report of Dungeon of the Orc Boss. I decided that I would
play as Bob the fighter. Bob decided to buy a suit of light armour and a smoke bomb before setting off on his quest to kill the orc boss.

On the way across the plains, he came across a knight who offered him a challenge. Bob loses 1 Vitality point, but gets two hits in and gets 1xp.

In the first room, Bob easily slays a goblin to find a potion of curing. He then falls into a trapdoor down to level 2 into the down stairs room (decided by rolling 1 die). Bob then tries to get up to the next level to escape. He faces 2 goblins which take him down to 1 Vitality and make Bob spend a couple of xp to get rerolls to avoid death. However, he manages to get an art object worth 106 gold pieces.

In one room, he slays an orc (spending more xp) and opens a trapped chest. The chest has a poisoned dart trap which threatens to take his last point of Vitality. However, Bob quaffs his curing potion to negate that damage and opens the chest to find...a curing potion. Great. Bob also gets 1gp in coins (rubbish) and a piece of art worth 28gp.

When he returns to the village, Bob spends all his money on healing and healing salves and returns to the dungeon. He manages to slay his way through and gets to the Orc Boss. He spends a lot of xp to kill the boss and avoid the chance of losing 2 Vitality. Bob slays the Orc boss to get his 100gp and another art object. Bob returns with 199gp of treasure and a potion of curing. He gives 100gp to the villagers to get 1xp and now has a total of 6xp.

Bob has gained:

4 healing salves
74gp
3xp
A potion of curing.

Things I learnt from this play through

• With so few Vitality points, you will be doing everything possible to save them.
• Will points are a dump stat for fighters and, I suspect any class that does not cast spells. As long as you keep your Will above 0 so that Will loss does not lead to Vitality loss, you are fine. Wizards, on the other hand, will be stocking up on potions of clarity.
• Experience points are vital for saving your skin. You will spend a lot on rerolls. It is for this reason, that the bard will get 1 extra experience point every time they gain experience. This was inspired by Alexis Smolensk's blog.
• Art items will give you loads of treasure. Coins, not so much. This relates well to the idea that who is actually hoarding these coins? Where do they come from? If coins aren't so big to the economy, why are there so many underground? Also, you don't want hoards of coins to destabilise the economy.
• The most powerful magic item I found was a potion, which is how I wanted it. I want permanent magic items to be rare.
• Every roll made me think - do I spend an xp or a fate point to reroll? Do I use my treasure rerolls to get more gold or risk trying to get an item? However, I don't have to do any adding or subtracting.
• The playthrough took very little time to do. In this sense, SCRAWL is the game I wanted to play - it is simple, yet gives you lots of choices with how to spend your resources. It also allows you to play a different game each time - either due to random generation or because each class forces a different approach. I'm really happy with what I did, even if I must say so myself.

You too can play Dungeon of the Orc Boss using SCRAWL both of which for PWYW.