Barbarians of Greyhawk

Over on Beyond the Black Gate are a great series of posts about re-imagining Greyhawk as a sword & sorcery setting.

This has got me thinking about running a short Greyhawk campaign using Barbarians of Lemuria, which has become one of my favourite sword & sorcery rule sets.

The Sword & Sorcery Vibe

I have had the sword & sorcery vibe going the last while.

Honestly, if I were to run a S&S inspired game I probably wouldn't use D&D - even though I think B/X, with a few very minor tweaks, could do S&S very well (just look at the monster roster in B/X). But I might still post some thoughts here about a S&S B/X game.

Instead, assuming I could find players, I would likely use either Tunnels & Trolls or Barbarians of Lemuria.

I think that the mechanics of T&T would do a great job for a pulpy S&S game. Some might be put off by the humour in the spell names but those are easily changed. Remove the kindreds and allow only human characters and you are on your way.




I haven't heard much about Barbarians of Lemuria the last while but it is suppose to be republished by Cubicle 7 in the next while. The fast and furious mechanics are perfect for the genre (it uses a simple 2d6 vs target number mechanic). The Careers and Trait & Flaws takes the simple mechanic and makes it very flavourful. If you haven't you should check it out.

A Tunnels & Trolls idea

A little out of left field...

I have read Barbarians of Lemuria a number of times over the past month. I may do a bit of a review here at some point.

This weekend I took my kids camping. I took along the 5.5E of Tunnels & Trolls and also the 6th edition. I have had a hankering for some T&T the last while.

Then I had a thought. One of the things I really like about Barbarians of Lemuria is its Traits (or Boons) and Flaws system. The core mechanic of BoL is 2d6 vs a target number. If you have a Boon that applies the roll becomes a 3d6 keep the high 2d6. For a Flaw you keep the low 2d6.

What if you took the same system and applied it to Tunnels & Trolls for Saving Rolls? For example, Ungar the Umbrageous, the level 1 rogue, has a Boon of "Sneaky". If Ungar had to make a saving roll for a situation where stealth was important he could roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 and keep whichever two dice he wanted - thus still being able to DARO (Doubles add and roll over).

The Colour of Money

Looking back at B/X and OD&D and reading 3.5 and 4E the role of treasure has changed over the years. I believe that the change really came about in 2E when the Experience Point system was changed away from the simple and straight forward GP=XP system.

Arranging the uses for treasure in a spectrum from "old-school" to "new-school" I get something that looks like:

Experience Points
|
Stronghold
|
Hirelings
|
Information
|
Better Equipment
|
Spell Research
|
Magic Item Creation
|
Purchasing Magic Items


Not to say that magic item creation is not present in B/X (see page X51) or OD&D (see page 6&7 or Men & Magic) but (at least in my games) the focus has been skewed more towards the uses higher on the spectrum.

One interesting thing that Barbarians of Lemuria has done is make the spending of treasure mandatory. All treasure must be spent before Advancement Points (XP) are awarded. The player gets to describe how the money is spent and the GM is encouraged to use this to develop hooks for future adventures.