[Toldara Tuesday] Quick Outline of the Halberd Fantasy Roleplaying (USR) Adaptation

I planned on getting to this sooner but the action at work really picked up so I was a tad bit too busy to dedicate the time to blogging; it just came down to simple priorities and the blog had to wait.  I am starting off the Toldara conversions with a look at the Halberd Fantasy Roleplaying game of the USR line of products.  I am planning on a document that can be used in tandem with the Halberd rules for play in my campaign world of Toldara.  Of course, there will be some tweaks and customization here and there because I just can not seem to leave any rules system alone.  The following is just a quick outline of subjects to cover and is - as always - subject to change.

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Cover: An illustration showing a combat scene involving a party of adventurers and a squad of orcs.

Credits: Exactly what is says – author, artist, etc.

Forward: Some thoughts on Halberd, USR, and Toldara.

Toldara at a Glance: A general overview of the campaign setting with several of the more well-known locations mentioned.

Character Creation: This section will guide the player through the process of creating a character for play in the world of Toldara.  Any restrictions or additions to the standard list of archetypes and races available in the Halberd rules will be detailed in this section.

Money: Information about the coins of Toldara.

Organizations: Information about groups that take an active role in the world of Toldara.  The PCs may encounter them, join them, or become rivals with them.

Map: a map of the world of Toldara.

Rumors & Legends: Common rumors and legends that will work as adventure seeds.

Adversaries: Several monsters and foes for encounters.

Treasures: Magical Equipment and Artifacts to be discovered. 

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In the next post, I will start crunching some numbers and give some specific details...

[Toldara Tuesday] Further Thoughts on Game Systems

I am using one more post to gather my thoughts on the various game systems I am using to play-test Toldara material. In the next post I will start presenting statistics, write ups, and information for the races in these various systems. I am not sure if I will dedicate each post to looking at a single race in all of the game systems - may split that into two posts if it is large enough - or devote each post to just a single game system with all of the Toldara races.  

Back to the Dungeon! RPG

For anyone that does not know, Back to the Dungeon! RPG is a neo-clone game that is based on familiar terms and concepts but introduces alterations and additions to the game system instead of trying to faithfully emulate a certain rules set from the past of the hobby.  This version is the most complete and up to date next to the MicroLite 20 version.  The main parts that are missing include the basic world information along with a race and class or two; some copying and pasting will fix most of the other information that needs updating.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

My original concept of Toldara actually lines up quite well with the feel and tone of the typical DCC RPG experience.  Toldara was always pictured as fantasy with a little bit of gonzo mixed in.  I have tinkered around with this rules set a little bit but I have very little practical experience using it.  I am highly intrigued by the possibilities and will at least give it an honest shot.  I may have to consult some people with much more experience with the system to assist me in completing the information.
  

Halberd Fantasy Role Playing

This is another rules-lite entry on the list.  I do not have a lot of experience with systems such as this but I am highly interested in applying the fast and loose nature of the game to Toldara.  The older I get, the more I am interested in playing than arguing about the rules so Halberd looks pretty great to me.  The write ups used in this game are easy and simple to use so it should progress pretty quickly in initial development.

MicroLite 20

This will probably be the first handbook released for the Toldara campaign for no other reason than it is the most complete.

I am really considering doing a dual-stat version with another OGL-based system. Maybe a triple-stat presentation could even work if it was done properly.  I will have to double check but I think all of them have no restrictions against using their game statistics with other game statistics statistics in the same product.  It should be relatively easy to present each new race or class with all three sets of statistics on just one page.  I will be investigating this further...    

Perilous Journeys

This version of the campaign material write up will be somewhat more challenging than the others.  Unlike the OGL-based systems, Perilous Journeys is a skill-based percentile system without classes/levels and the list of player character races is quite a bit different from the traditional fantasy offerings; I would also have to look at the races that are not available in Toldara and decide what to do about them.  It will be more work but it will be worth it to see how things convert over.

Swords & Wizardry: Complete
I started the list with an OGL-based game and I am ending the list with an OGL-based game.  Even though I have the B/X rules I really dig the Swords & Wizardry: Complete rules because it feels like a match for the complexity level of the mixed together D&D/AD&D rules we used in our youth in my old gaming group. Using these rules would also allow easier implementation of a dual-stat or triple-stat handbook.

Look for some game statistics and write ups in the next installment.  I am also going to experiment around with the dual or triple-stat format and see how it looks.  More later...