This week I ran the second-ever session of Sellsword, a one-page OSR ruleset. For an adventure, I used “Incident at Torn Throat Gorge”, a work-in-progress one-page adventure with an Old West flavor.
In no particular order, here are my dominant takeaways:
1. Extend the “noob” stage.
When I started playing Runescape in 2005, the most fun I ever had was playing on a free account, fishing for shrimp in Lumbridge and trying to get enough gold to buy a green cape. I was a noob. And the smallest things— like selling an inventory load of mined iron, or picking up 10 gp from a dead guard— mattered. That changed as I leveled up and gained more gold. As I leveled up, the percentage of the game that posed a challenge and offered value— that delivered joy— decreased.
How might a game designer avoid this? I’ll be reflecting on this for a while I imagine. But off the top of my head, two things come to mind...
First is Dark Souls. I’ve never played a Souls game, but my impression is that even the lowliest foes remain deadly when you’re a higher level. You never level into safety, which means that percentage of the game still holds value for you as a Player.
How to bring this experience to Sellsword? Low HP. HP increases very little as the Players advance. This means even a veteran adventurer can be eviscerated by wolves, or pin-cushioned by goblins, if they’re not careful.
Second is the accumulation of wealth. This has been explored a lot in the OSR— especially in XP for gold systems— where the adventurers accumulate so much gold that gold stops being meaningful or valuable to them. Things like carousing (spend gold to gain XP) or building a stronghold (the “endgame”) tackle this problem. But another way is to simply limit the Players buying power.
How to bring this experience to Sellsword? A ramshackle, frontier setting where goods are scarce and expensive. If you can find someone selling a suit of leather armor, it’s going to be damaged or very expensive. This means the Character “outfitting” phase is extended over multiple sessions. (Remember, they begin with only a rusty sword.) Unlike D&D, there’s no starting with a bow, sword, shield, and light armor. You have to earn that shit!
If I go with the “Debt Objective” (at least as one possible game mode) then the Players are also faced with a meaningful choice: do I spend my gold to increase my chances of survival, or to spend my gold and get out of debt as soon as I can? Right now, that choice doesn’t seem significant to them. But if I turn up the pressure— during every mission, there’s a chance your debt holder will send thugs after you, and it increases over time— this may become a more meaningful choice.
2. Two actions is rich, but not decadent.
Last post, I wrote a list of things I wanted to include in the next playtest:
- Combat with multiple foes at various distances.
- Shields, armor, heavy weapons.
- Situations where combat is not a viable method of survival. (Incentivize diplomacy, roleplaying, etc.)
- Set a starting debt (5000 coins? Thanks Electric Bastionland) and a reason for the debt. This will tie Player Characters to at least one NPC and the World at-large.
- Run a non-dungeon scenario. A settlement or wilderness region, likely. Perhaps an “escort / retrieve the NPC” mission.
This session checked many of those boxes, particularly a large-scale battle (over a dozen combatants) in a river delta at the mouth of a gorge. The battle was dynamic, tactical, and truly unpredictable (without being swingy) and at no point was it clear the PCs were going to win.
Specifically, 2 actions felt both balanced and fun. It also rewarded positioning. For example, two of the Black’s Gang with crossbows, fortified on the cliff edge, got two attacks every round (they didn’t have to move).
Is this a problem? Not seemingly, but I will need to continue to test it. The last thing I want is static combat, with a strong incentive to stand still (like D&D 4e).
3. “Fatigued” felt too punishing.
When a Character has 0 HP, they are fatigued and have disadvantage on all rolls. At least, that’s the way I originally wrote the rule. But mid-fight, that just didn’t seem fun. As a kid, I remember remarking to my dad (and DM) that one of my favorite things about D&D is that you are in the fight til you’re out of the fight. As you receive damage, your ability to deal damage is not decreased. (This is really a quality of HP, as opposed to stat reduction.)
In light of this, I modified the rule to “vulnerable”. When a PC has 0 HP, they only have disadvantage on rolls to avoid harm (Defense/Saves). Feels better, and truer to the intent.
Is this a problem? I doubt it. A Player still has an important decision to make: keep fighting, or very likely die next turn? (Even 1 damage will kill them, and they have disadvantage— bad odds.) However, time will tell if low HP will incentivize Players in exploration mode to rest and recover.
4. The economy needs to be refined.
Until now, I’ve been spitballing the cost of goods. Early on, I liked the idea that there were ~5 tiers of prices at regular increments:
- Cheap (1 coin)
- Moderate (10 coins)
- Pricey (100 coins)
- Expensive (1000 coins)
- A Fortune (10,000 coins)
But somewhere along the way I got the idea to randomize these values. I tried this first time during this session, at beginning, during the “buying gear” stage. (This stage is completely abstracted-- no shopkeepers, which is my strong preference. I just don’t enjoy those store interactions as a DM. And if the DM isn’t excited to run it, there’s a 90% chance it’s better left out.)
I used a d6*X to find the cost of different pieces of gear, but I found the d6 too swingy, especially when multiplied by larger numbers (100, for example). Leather armor can cost anywhere between 100-600 coins? Too swingy!
In my rules tweak post-game, I opted instead for a 3d6*X system. It looks like this right now:
- Cheap: 3d6*1 (10 coins)
- Reasonable: 3d6*5 (50 coins)
- Pricey: 3d6*10 (100 coins)
- Expensive: 3d6*100 (1000 coins)
- Small Fortune: 3d6*1000 (10,000 coins)
Using multiple d6s gives us a nice bell curve and 3d6 specifically gives us an average of 10. This merges my original idea (1, 10, 100, etc.) with my second idea (d6). This eliminates swinginess considerably. I also gave some thought to economics: if you can buy a cheap meal for 10 coins (~$5 USD in 2022) then it tracks you could buy armor for 1000 coins (~$500 USD). I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it feels logical enough to work.
Is this a problem? I don’t think so. My Players had no issue with the “roll to see how much you can sell your loot for”. I also like that this has a baked-in way to account for scarcity, selling contraband, or working with a favored merchant (roll advantage / disadvantage!). Also, I can always default to the average (10, 100, etc.) a la monster HP in D&D (roll HD, or take flat HP).
Wrapping Up
This got long, so I’m going to wrap it up here. Here are some things to include in the next session:
- Send debt collectors after Players.
- Build a combat scenario that encourages dynamic actions-- not just attacking with a sword.
- Create repercussions for killing innocent NPCs / leaping to violence (without imposing a hardwired “morality” in the system).
- Introduce some advantage / disadvantage when buying/selling.
- Get better at making point crawls
- Run an adventure in town (Wolf’s Jaw).
If you’d like to playtest Sellsword yourself, here’s the free PDF. Let me know how it goes!
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