Platonic Solid

A big part of why I like Swords & Wizardry so much is that it's a great baseline for hacking, for making it my own. On the other hand, I find approaches like the Siege Engine in Castles & Crusades pretty nifty. So, we set out to put together a check system using the venerable D6 in sync with the spirit of S&W itself. The mini-project has been dubbed "Roll A D6." The default assumption is that the GM leans on RAD6 when it looks like a situation could go either way, 1D6 with a 4+ target. But how in the world does that scale? Here's how... Assign a level to the challenge at hand. The guideline is, at what character level is a 50/50 chance appropriate? Subtract the active character's level from the challenge level and you get the challenge's target number modifier. Add this modifier, plus or negative, to 4. Here's the formula: Modifier = Challenge Level - Character Level TN = 4 + Modifier How about an example? Dresan, a 1st level fi...

When I first ran into this thread over at the Troll Lord's forum about Castles & Crusades being incomplete, I thought the original poster was a bit off his rocker. But I began to think about the subject a bit. I went back and looked at the 4th printing of the players handbook (I own 3 copies of various printings) and noticed something. I've been a fan of C&C for a while now but, other classic fantasy games, Swords & Wizardry in particular, have tugged at my sleeve. Was it because they seemed simpler? I don't think so. Because they were newer than Castles & Crusades? No, though that might explain why I checked them out in the first place - continued discovery. Was it because they seemed to better encapsulate the old school D&D experience? Yes. Wait a minute. Castles & Crusades covers all of the bases of my early gaming experience; all of the classes, experience points, combat and hit points, and saving throws. So how can this be? One of m...