Is Dragonbane Old-School?

Is Dragonbane an old-school game?

The history of the game dates back to the "Scandinavian D&D" of 1982, and it has endured multiple editions and variations to the present day. It finally went global with Dragonbane when Free League acquired the rights to the game.

The Free League presentation feels modern and slick, and the mechanics have a "new game" feeling to them. The art is fantastic, and the game still keeps its old-school sensibilities while embracing the high adventure and "high fantasy action gaming" feeling of modern games.

Dragonbane feels more modern in its play. Where in Shadowdark you are creeping around corners and prodding with a 10-foot pole, in Dragonbane, you charge into a fight, because fights are fun. The same is true about DCC, but DCC also rewards careful play. Dragonbane feels more like an action game, in the modern D&D style. Skill-based play is also strongly supported, leading to a more substantial roleplaying experience than D&D, along with a more organic levelling experience.

Dragonbane does solo play far better than most of the old-school games, which is a massive plus for those of us who don't have regular groups, or our regular group is flaky enough that they always talk about playing but never get together to play.

Sorry, group! But we already knew that, and I am partially to blame.

Dragonbane seems to exist in its own alternate universe, free from the TSR & Wizards influence of fantasy gaming that the rest of the world has had over the last 50 years. It is also free from the influence of Games Workshop and Warhammer Fantasy, yet it still retains that distinctly European feel. It is such a breath of fresh air breaking free from those influences, like you are reading a fantasy book from an author with a completely different perspective and style of world, and you feel everything is new and fresh again.

Mind Flayers, the Great Wheel, Skaven, Chaos, Beholders, the Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Drow, and all the other tropes are just gone. The monsters are strange, new, and exciting. They have bizarre, terrifying attacks and habitats. I can set aside all that I know and just explore new things, new worlds, and live in a new one.

D&D leans on its nostalgia way too hard, and it holds the game back. Yes, this is a part of the fun, but there is a point where the game is mostly nostalgia, and mostly things I have already seen.

Also, while Dragonbane is definitely Western in view, it is not too modern, one-world, and blindly political, where there are no meaningful differences between kin. While there are no ability score adjustments, there are essential differences, and different races have different abilities.

The conflicts in the game are also diverse, featuring dragons, demons, undead, night kin, giants, trolls, and other major monster types, each serving as a faction in the world's story and plots. The sides fight, and characters can get caught up in the mess. The fight between dragons and demons shapes the world.

"The hostility between dragons and demons has brought death and ruin upon their ancient civilizations. It seems almost like a fundamental law of nature – that anything created by dragons alone is corrupted by demons, and that anything born of demonic will is burned to ashes by dragonfire." - Dragonbane Rulebook, page 5.

There are no "demonic dragons" like there are with D&D, and the sides here are clearly delimited and stand in direct opposition. Demons are a corrupting force that affects all of the living, but this is not the default for some races, like it is in old-school AD&D. Orcs are not all demon worshippers by default, and they must be corrupted first, just like humans and any other living thing.

Be careful of your default "D&D assumptions" because they are mostly incorrect, and the world of Dragonbane is vastly different. You can have factions of powerful orc tribes that are a significant threat, with no demonic influences anywhere to be found. Dragons are loners, survivors of a lost age and broken world, and are not a "default force of good" like you would assume. Many have turned to selfishness and wrath. The individual motivations matter!

This can also be applied to all kin and factions in the game. Motivation and history matter. Corruption matters, but it is not gamified and remains a recurring theme in stories. What you do matters, and your choices will shape the narrative as guided by the game master. You don't need gamified systems to track story things, beyond what is contained in the rules. In that sense, it is very OSR, involving work with evil factions and committing heinous acts, and it is up to the game master to decide what the effects and consequences of that are. This story-based approach is similar to an Old School Essentials and Basic D&D model.

Your actions matter. They will have consequences, both good and bad. How good or bad it depends on what was done. This is all up to the referee. If you are playing solo, roll an oracle die.

The answer to the question is yes, Dragonbane is an old-school game at its heart. There are a few new-school concepts and mechanics in the game, but for the most part, the sensibilities and design are very old-school.

Welcome aboard!

DCC: Advanced Labyrinth Lord as the +1 Game

Dungeon Crawl Classics always needs an "extra game" to pull from, which I call my "+1 Game." Why do we need a +1 Game for DCC? Well, DCC leaves a lot up to you, such as:

• Equipment Lists
• Vehicles
• Horses
• Wagons
• Boats & Ships
• Wilderness Rules
• Monsters
• Retainers
• Specialists
• Treasure
• Treasure Tables
• Magic Items
• Stronghold Construction

Advanced Labyrinth Lord has it all, even ship combat rules. Since Mutant Future is my +1 game for Mutant Crawl Classics, these two books complement the MCC and DCC rules nicely. And I am not using these books for an active game, so if I use them as reference books, that is fine.

You will not use the spells, which is a large portion of the book, but that isn't a problem. You will also use the DCC armor AC values and weapon damage.

AC is descending from 9, so DCC AC = 19 - LL AC. An unarmored AC of 9 in LL would be 10 in DCC. An AC of 2 in LL would be 17 in DCC.

Hit dice need to be increased by 1/3 or 33% from LL to DCC, using the giant types as a baseline. Also, use the larger hit die sizes like DCC does for larger creatures. Damage is about the same. Mostly, the monsters work well as-is, and you can throw a few special or extra attacks in as needed.

The magic item selection is excellent, and you can customize these with as many special and different properties as you like. Remember, in a DCC world, every magic item is unique! You could always tag a random LL spell (and the spell lists are numbered like random charts) to every magic weapon and armor, and give it one to three uses per day, and be fine. This way, the spells get used and are not rolling on the DCC charts; they are just spells for item properties.

If you have LL and are not using it, place it with your DCC collection and use it as your monster, gear, and treasure book. This book has it all, is easy to use, and works very well as an expansion to the game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

It is hip to trash DCC these days, but I still love this game. A lot has been made about a controversial Kickstarter project. Still, assurances were given that this was only to complete the project, preserve history, and repay those who backed the original project. 

Goodman dropped the ball a few times. A huge mistake was made when the campaign started, as it failed to communicate these goals and what was happening, so everyone assumed the worst. They also ended up apologizing ad nauseam, and one would have been enough.

A few newsletters acted horribly, resorting to full clickbait tactics to elicit anger. I won't be dealing with them anymore, or the games they publish. Similarly, a few YouTube channels have also done this, and they are being unsubscribed from.

I hate the gaming market and content creation space these days, which is why I stick to writing.

A lot can be learned from this, but I don't have much hope, as the industry is in a downturn, content creator channels are not being recommended by YouTube, and everyone is struggling for attention in a rapidly declining tabletop gaming market. The entire landscape of gaming has turned cutthroat, so whenever a mistake is made or bad news comes out, expect everyone to jump on it and look for blood.

Those who act with ethics and in the best interest of the community, while staying positive and not getting into fights, shall earn my support.

A few have lost my support over this.

Goodman Games still has it.

Adventures Dark and Deep

Adventures Dark and Deep (ADAD) is an excellent game. If you want an authentic AD&D-like experience, but with a few more character options, this is the way to go. The presentation is fantastic, the new stuff is excellent, and it feels like a strange, alternate-universe version of AD&D 1st Edition, but taken into the future.

It is like the Satanic Panic never happened.

AD&D 2nd Edition and its censorship never happened.

The game never evolved into support material for the 1990s fantasy novels and their insufferable collection of GMNPCs and author Mary Sues.

We stayed with everything that made the original modules great, kept the dark and deadly nature of the game, and celebrated the baseball-stat-like character sheet you needed to understand to run a character. It is complicated, but every secondary value has a use. Things are not overly streamlined into a universal game mechanic. We did not unify the core rules or bring in expert designers to ruin everything.

First edition feels like a well-lived-in house where everything is the way you want it. And then Wizards comes in and hires a Feng Shui expert for their versions of the game to mess up your entire way of life, the whole house is different and too streamlined, and now you can't find anything. You are perpetually unhappy, having your "it just works best this way" routine disrupted.

I can play an authentic Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms campaign in these rules and still have the game feel deadly and serious. This is before everyone became Marvel Superheroes in today's games, and a 10th-level wizard that took months to get there could fail a death save and system shock roll, and it was game over. Roll up a new character.

The first edition had built-in GMNPC and Mary Sue protection just due to the natural character kill rate.

And the game is very "survival oriented" since the wilderness is a hugely dangerous place, you need to spend gold to hire retainers, and that gold needs to go into a stronghold to hold the rest of the gold you will be getting your hands on. There are no banks or lines of credit here. Grab 100,000 gold from a dragon's hoard, and good luck keeping that in an inn room back at town.

And yes, you are doing a lot of bookkeeping and referencing charts and strange modifiers to specific actions, so write those down! A character should have a bit of arcane "rules crunch" to them to help them feel authentic.

All this thinking can be applied to the OSRIC game, too, which is a worthy first-edition option as well. It is the same game as ADAD, except with fewer options and fewer rule expansions.

Want a still authentic-feeling but easier version of this game? Then play Swords & Wizardry. You keep the deadly and old-school feeling while losing the complex character sheets and table references. You get ascending AC. The game is smaller and much faster. This is a mix of first- and zero-edition gaming, such as the missing 0.5E we never saw.

Want a more modern version of the first edition, like the 2.5E that was never created? Play Castles & Crusades, and enjoy a more modern unified core system. C&C is the best modern implementation of the old-school game, and it feels like the first edition while modernizing the mechanics. C&C is also highly hackable, and you can play anything from deadly first edition play to 5E-style superheroes.

ADAD replaces Dungeon Crawl Classics for me, since instead of a game that emulates the old-school experience, this is the old-school experience. Yes, you are missing the Appendix N-inspired rules zaniness, but this is the real thing. DCC is an excellent "tribute band" to the original works, but for those of us who were there, having the original rules again, and the experience they deliver, can not be replaced or emulated.

I still like and play DCC, it has a charm of its own. This is a game that has survived being put in storage many times, and each time I missed it and retrieved it. It is impossible to quit this game, as it captures the elements of fun, absurdity, and dark humor that many OSR games often overlook. Where games like Shadowdark tend to be overly deadly and grim, and even Daggerheart can be high drama, what game appreciates fun and humor?

The original Forgotten Realms was a first-edition world. The world was not like the video game, with science fiction starships flying all over, and too many fantastical NPCs wandering about like some MMO hub city full of 101 silly Unreal Engine player models out of Fortnite. There was no "adventurer class" of people. This was an everyday fantasy world, primarily human, low magic, and fearful of the gods. Towns were suspicious of outsiders. People worked and toiled hard to make a living in this dangerous world, and kingdoms raised armies to protect their people from the monsters. Magic was mainly strange and unknown, along with most of the lands outside cities, which were full of lost empires, ruins, and mysteries from ancient times. Evil gods and demons slowly corrupted the land and took souls, laughing as civilizations fell to their wickedness.

Forgetting water and rations could kill you as easily as wandering out of the town gate and getting hit by a goblin arrow. You could get lost in the wilderness and die. A random wilderness encounter could be far too deadly for you to fight, and you will be avoiding or running away - if you can. If you can't get away, you will die. Dungeons are nasty places full of deadly wandering monsters, traps, and tricks designed to keep you down there forever so the dungeon can finish you off. The corpses of "previous adventuring parties" will be found everywhere, and some of them will have been raised into undead protectors of these tombs and crypts.

The first edition captures that feeling.

Every other edition fails.

Swords & Wizardry

Swords & Wizardry is becoming one of my favorite gonzo old-school games. It hits many correct notes, and it is careful about doling out ability score modifiers to everyone. Only fighters get the STR damage and to-hit bonuses! The DEX bonus also stacks with the STR bonus for fighters and missile weapon to-hits, making fighters highly desirable and valuable as both melee and ranged weapon damage dealers.

S&W is also a small game that borders on rules-light compared to many other games. Still, it delivers a complete experience with many classic elements. The game is comparable to an AD&D-type experience, but with far fewer rules and much more room to modify and adapt it to your liking.

Bards, barbarians, warlocks, necromancers, and many other classes exist in the Swords & Wizardry Book of Options, putting the more modern character classes into the game. This book elevates the experience to a higher level and puts the entire system on par with the options found in 5E and other games.

As a "quick system" for fantasy, S&W is becoming my number one option. This pushed Dungeon Crawl Classics out of my top spot just because S&W has a few books that do everything, plus more, than DCC does in a massive tome. I get more monsters, a larger selection of magic items, more classes, more spells, and more of everything that matters to me in fewer pages. S&W does not have all the random charts, corruption system, or other DCC "features," but if I want those, I can use my imagination and open the game up to ability score checks for stunting during combat and spellcasting.

And "stunting," skill, or ability score checks are easy in S&W. They are just a saving throw. Or you can do a roll equal to or under on a d20 to the ability score.

Castles & Crusades is the only game competing with S&W for the top spot, with Old School Essentials a substantial third. DCC has fallen off my radar substantially because the system is heavier than it needs to be for my liking. I still like the system, but not enough to make it my go-to game for fantasy.

Adventures Dark and Deep is also up there as my number-one first edition retro-clone. This is not a rules-light game, but it does amazing, incredible things while staying true to the original and best role-playing game ever written.

Mutant Crawl Classics: The +1 Game

There are few +1 games for Mutant Crawl Classics since the post-apoc OGL genre is small. However, finding a game to accompany MMC is possible.

My number-one pick is Goblinoid Games's excellent Mutant Future (MF). This one has been around a while, but it does not lessen the fantastic content you get here. Nearly everything is directly compatible, from low-tech gear to high-tech gear, monsters, rules for boats, robots, androids, and many more things packed into this book.

You need to do a descending AC conversion for all the monsters and gear, but it is 19 - MFAC = MCC AC.

The mutations in this game are perfect for monsters or other creatures, where you just want an "attack ability" and nothing for which you want to roll on a mutation chart. For example, an energy ray mutation here does a 4d6 beam of energy (roll or pick type) to 50' every three rounds. This is perfect for many monsters and works well with MCC as a creature power.

MF is a worthy game to play on its own, and if you want more for this game, pick up a copy of the old OSR standby Labyrinth Lord (LL). Use most everything out of here (except magic), rename the monsters, and give them a few random mutations, and you are all set. MF plus LL is a one-two punch of extra stuff for MCC and considerably expands your game while staying in the OSR.

The MF+LL combo is also a good "fantasy baseline" for MCC games, as Mutant Future assumes a Middle Ages level of technology in future societies. War is still made with siege engines and sword fighters, cities have walls, and the general level of technology is deficient, with most ancient artifacts forgotten or useless. Travel is done with carts pulled by mutant animals or boats on a river. There are no "Mad Max" cars here, and the knowledge of the ancients is more removed from everyday life.

There are rules for gunpowder firearms and cars in MF (the cars lack AC values, but that is easy enough to guess using the armor types), and the guns are an excellent addition, so you could hack in a "Mad Max" style game here.

There is also another option for a +1 game, the PoD versions of the original Gamma World, but only the 1st, 2nd, and 4th editions. I recommend 1st or 2nd. Note that the second edition has many more fantasy inspirations, and the layout and organization are terrible, but it has a complete set of monster art and lots of "stuff" to use. The fourth edition is like a cleaned-up second edition (with much more stuff), but they introduce many more rules incompatible with B/X, and the writing in the book is very long-winded.

Overall, Mutant Future is easier to use as a quick +1 game for MCC, but Gamma World is iconic in many ways. There is a massive tone shift in Gamma World, where GW 1st is more like Mutant Future, and GW 2nd is more like MF+LL with many converted-in-fantasy elements. The fourth edition of GW feels more like the early Fallout games.

As the editions were published, Gamma World generally got worse as it got farther away from its B/X roots, and they tried to make it a superhero or sci-fi game. The first edition has the best tone and setting, the second introduces iconic monsters, and from there on, they just keep adding tech and superpowers. Later editions of the game also got unwieldy in the lists of stuff they provided, and the organization could have been better.

The fourth edition was based on AD&D 2nd, but the game developed new rules and subsystems it did not need. This edition also needs to be revised. Instead of keeping something like mental attacks simple, they spend two paragraphs laying out rules about plants being only able to mentally attack plants and how robots and AI are not affected by mental effects. Instead of keeping it simple (plants, humans, mutants, cyborgs, and animals have brains and can be affected; computers and robots cannot), they spend two paragraphs laying out rules about how plants can only mentally attack plants, how mental attacks on machines fail, and so many other nuances I wish an editor with a laser-chainsaw would have spent more time here.

Many of them followed the desktop publishing fads of the day, overusing two-letter abbreviations to the point of nonsensical notation. They tried to look "cute" over having a readable book.

Mutant Future is a "reset" on the genre and gives you the best Middle Ages setting to use as a baseline society. I like basing tech and knowledge on a fantasy baseline since this lines up with 1970s fantasy inspirations the best. Once you enter the 1980s and 1990s, the games start copying Mad Max, Fallout, and other "pop culture sensation of the week" sources.

One problem with the 2nd edition Gamma World was the monsters; they have fae-like "Lil" and a massive list of powers in the setting. In our games, these became the only fae, when in the original spirit of the game, taking a fae as a baseline and applying a set of random mutations to it to create a unique species of fae is a much better option and keeps the game fresh.

Perhaps there are "glow fae" that have radiation powers and live around ancient reactors since they are immune to the energy and feed off it. This system is more like the MF+LL combo, where you pick a baseline fantasy monster, roll random mutations, and see what you can imagine.

The GW 2nd monsters can become far too iconic and take over the game like licensed IP, and it gets predictable and boring. I love the 2nd edition monsters, but in my version of the world, every monster or local species should be unique and different. You don't know if that mutated carp will shoot radiation beams, freeze the water, or try to take over your mind.

The world is much more unpredictable when you see something and have no idea what it can do, rather than repeatedly seeing the same old "rad fish."

All that said, using Gamma World as a +1 game for MCC is only for advanced referees with knowledge of the editions, the problems they introduce, and a love of the source material. The Mutant Future game is much more straightforward and easy. If you want the fantasy elements, MF+LL is far easier than GW 2nd and gives you infinitely more flexibility.

Also, the LL+MF combo is worth as playing as its own game, too. Even without DCC, this is a highly compelling combo that gives you the best of both worlds.

Also of note, Kevin Crawford is developing Ashes Without Number, an update of his old Other Dust game, and a game in the same genre as Gamma World, MCC, and Mutant Future. Any of the ...Without Number games are excellent, top-quality toolkits, and it is worth keeping an eye out for this one.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Feat Systems

Just because you could do it doesn't mean you should.

In my optional rules booklet, I was thinking about an optional DCC feat system, something like 3.5E-style feats that can be chosen and added to the characters like my simplified skill system. The skill system is nice. It gives characters additional areas of training based on their choices and gives them a way to specialize and customize their characters.

The skill system I developed doesn't take anything away; it adds to the characters. Having a few more training areas across skills and allowing specializations doesn't limit anyone.

The 3.5E-style feat system, as it is done in games with them? It takes away more than it gives. Like power attack, cleave, and other feats that give fighters special attack options? DCC has the mighty deeds of arms system and the "deed die" - which covers all those feats and more.

In DCC, you do not need "fighter feats" at all since the deed die covers it.

Similarly, spell-burn, thief luck, and many other DCC systems have you covered in terms of special abilities. You don't need a lot of feats giving you "extra stuff to do" since you are assumed to "get a lot of stuff to do." This is also how skills work in the base game, trained or untrained, roll against a DC with a modifier.

The 3.5E-style feat system, as it is traditionally implemented, is a "takeaway" system. A character can't do anything but "basic actions," players need to sort through a few thousand feats to find all the unique things that characters can do. This is a horribly regressive system, forcing every player to know hundreds of feats, what they do, and if a special attack or action type is already covered under a feat - and thus, disallowed as a character action during a turn.

Feat systems justify "taking away cool stuff" to add it to the feat system.

Let's add "jump attack" as a feat! That sounds cool! Suddenly, players trying "jump attacks" can't do that because that would disadvantage players who took that feat for their characters. And as a mighty deed of arms, you can't do jump attacks. That's a feat! And if you buy a book with 100 new feats, that is 100 more things you can't do.

Other feats in 3.5E are boring "straight bonuses" like "+2 to poison saves" that are better added to characters as a part of the story. DCC does a lot of "quick add" to character sheets based on what happens during the adventure, especially magical corruption and mutations. If a character saves a unicorn, and one of the "random boons" the unicorn bestows is a "+2 on poison saves," - you just add that straight on the character sheet; no feat is required. The character has that forever.

Just write it down. No special rules are required.

This is DCC; characters rarely live long enough for a permanent unique bonus to unbalance the game that much. Even if a level 1 DCC character finds a laser rifle that does 6d6, an attack isn't terribly unbalancing in the scheme of things, especially if it blows up on a fumble.

Another class of feats is "class requirements," which you want to avoid. Like the cleave, combat casting, improved initiative, or power attack feats in 3.5E, some of these were "must haves" for many character builds. These aren't even choices, so they need to be tossed out. It is like having an "improved spell-burn" feat in DCC that doubles the value contributed to those dice rolls. This is so good it is a must-have for all casters. Is it cool, and does it make sense? Yes. But it breaks the game so hard and gives such an advantage that the feat becomes a requirement for all casters.

Other feats let you break specific game rules or grant you exemptions. These are a bit more interesting, but they also have a high possibility of breaking the game and becoming "must-haves."

Just because another game "does something" does not mean "you should do it, too." A lot of the rules introduced by Wizards of the Coast, even back in 3.5E, were anti-player and anti-referee rules that put more control of the game in the hands of the company. They seemed great then, but they eventually shifted most of the freedom of building characters into purchased books and took away so much of what made the old-school games fun in favor of book sales.

If I developed a feat system, it would have a hard requirement of "adding to characters" without "taking things away from others." DCC has a default assumption that "characters are awesome" and that they can make up a lot of stuff to do on the fly. You must avoid adding a feat system that chips away at player freedom. I would likely not even call it feats since that system has a "game-breaking" expectation that removes player options.

I remember how the Low Fantasy Gaming game had a feat system; players could invent a unique ability at every few levels. They gave you a few samples, but the game also lets players come up with anything, given referee approval. This requires an experienced group and referee to do well and have excellent knowledge of the rules. This is more in the spirit of DCC, but honestly, the game does a lot without a feat system like this, and you may be creating feats to limit yourself (or others).

Maintaining the "freedom of action" that players have is paramount.

Also, keeping that spirit of "just write it down" is essential.

You can't add a system that relies on limiting options by default for everyone else.

Given DCC's two design features, adding a feat system is a very difficult task and possibly not worth pursuing since the design goals of a 3.5E-style feat system run counter to the spirit of DCC.