Discussing House Rules for My First OSR Campaign

With the release of Dolmenwood, I've finally decided to dive head first into the OSR!

I've been interested in old-school style play for several years now, but never had the chance to try it out as a player aside from a singular one-shot. But now that I've gotten my feet wet as a GM and found the role to my liking, I have a much greater ability to pick and choose which systems and styles I bring to the table.

This blog is intended to function as a journal for my forays into Game Mastering, the OSR, maybe some solo gaming, and perhaps other systems if and when I bring them to the table. (I'd love get more experience with Call of Cthulhu and Traveler for instance.)

For now though, the main focus is going to be on the Dolmenwood sandbox campaign that I'm putting together for my pair of players. We're set to start at the beginning of October, so thankfully I've got ample time to figure things out and find my footing.

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With that introduction out of the way, let's get to the meat and potatoes of what I've been working on the last few days: House Rules!

Now, I understand the common advice is to play a system rules-as-written for your first experience. However, I'd like to soften my players' landing into old-school play a bit since we're coming from DnD5e. Furthermore, I'm having too much fun shopping around and reading everyone else's house rules for their table to stop now. As such, the majority of the house rules I'm going to discuss here will be ones I've nicked from others (and in some cases modified slightly to better fit my tastes).

I'll also be detailing a bit of my thought process behind why I'm choosing these specific rules. I'd love some feedback from y'all about potential pitfalls or preferable variants to the house rules I've chosen. Here we go:

Starting Hit Points

First level characters start with maximum HP according to their class' Hit Dice. HP is rolled normally from Level 2 onward.

I understand that death is a fact of life in old-school style games, but since we're transitioning from DnD5e where PCs are heroes from the start, I'd like to give my players a tiny bit more room to make a mistake or two during their first adventure.

Weaponry

All Classes can wield all weapons. Small Kindred cannot wield longbows or two-handed swords.

I've never really liked the idea of certain classes being so heavily limited in the weaponry they can wield (i.e. Magic-Users and Clerics). The first image that comes to mind when I think of a Magic-User is that of Gandalf who - while traveling with a staff most of the time - was still capable of wielding a sword. If a Level 1 Magician or Friar wishes to wade into battle or defend themselves with their piddly 4 HP and complete lack of armor, I say more power to them. Luckily, Clerics in Dolmenwood aren't limited to blunt weapons, so that bugaboo has already been slain for me.

Two Weapon Fighting

Attacking with two applicable weapons grants a single attack with Advantage.

In Dolmenwood, Characters with Dexterity or Strength as their Primary Ability may already choose to wield two one-handed weapons as long as the off-hand weapon is a dagger or hand-axe. However, I've decided to forgo the associated negative modifiers and extra attack in favor of single attack with advantage. This will hopefully be more straight forward and slightly quicker in combat. I snagged this idea from 3d6 Down the Line's house rules.

Splintering Shields

A shield grants a +1 bonus to AC, and can absorb the damage from a single blow, but then is rendered useless. Magical shields can absorb a number of blows equal to their enchantment bonus.

 

Sundering Helmets 

A helmet does not provide a bonus to AC. It can absorb the damage from a single critical hit, but then is rendered useless.

These two seem pretty popular from what I've seen, and I can see why. I like the idea that shields provide more utility than just being some bonus stats. Being able to sacrifice a shield or helmet to avoid damage (and potentially death) provides opportunity for interesting decisions in regards to resource management during a trek or delve where replacements may not be readily available.

Dueling

Two combatants may agree to one-on-one combat and once the duel has begun, at the start of each round of combat both sides must choose to either Push, Parry, or Feint. Each chooses secretly and reveals simultaneously. Depending on the outcome, one or both sides gain an associated modifier (+3 AC, +3 damage, +3 to hit). Then, the combat round is resolved normally, with both sides rolling to hit on their action.

There is a more in-depth and full explanation of these rules in Knock! #1, but hopefully you can get the gist. It's essentially rock-paper-scissors that takes place at the start of each combat round. Duels are a very fascinating and exciting prospect in fantasy fiction and I think they fit perfectly into the setting of Dolmenwood. If my PCs ever slight a noble or knight, perhaps they'll be challenged to a duel and I'll have these rules in my back pocket. They'll hopefully add a bit more texture to the battle than simply rolling for hit and damage repeatedly.

Feats of Exploration

A supplemental reward system that provides calculated chunks of XP for specific exploration activities:

• Completing Quests
• Overcoming Traps
• Applying Lore
  
• Clever Use of Equipment
• Manipulating Factions
• Finding Secret Doors
  
• Etc.

I'm swiping this from 3d6 Down the Line as well. While XP for treasure and slain monsters are good motivators for exploration on their own, I think having rewards for leaning more into the old-school style of play will help my players catch on to it more quickly. Furthermore, since the XP rewards from Feats of Exploration are party-wide and scale based on how much total XP the party needs to gain a new level, this should function as a good catch-up mechanic. Again, since we're coming from DnD5e - and will be new to having party members of varying levels - I'd like to make the process of leveling a replacement character a bit less intimidating.

If it begins to feel like the PCs are leveling a bit too quickly, I can always adjust the values a bit or adjust which Feats provide XP rewards. With only two players, I don't think it'll be too much of a problem.

Retirement 

A player may choose to retire their PC from the adventuring life at any time. When they do, they must declare the amount of wealth they are retiring with. The selected wealth is then multiplied by the PC's level to determine the number of Retirement Points (RP). The player then purchases their desired form of retirement from the list of Retirement Plans using the previously calculated RP. Retired PCs become friendly NPCs instead. If they retire with enough wealth, they may become an NPC of influence. 

I found this on Goblin Punch while searching for Death & Dismemberment rules (which I've decided to forgo for now). I'll be using Dolmenwood's 'Death's Door' rule, which permanently reduces a random Ability Score by 1 whenever a character is brought back from the brink of death. As such, I'd like to incentivize players retiring their PCs when they've become too ravaged by a life of adventure as opposed to just running them into the grave. Not only will retirement provide a nice bit of flavor for the world as PCs become NPCs, it may provide the party with an important ally who can pull a couple strings for them in the future if they invest enough wealth into a character's retirement. I'm also hoping this will further acclimatize my players to the idea of having PCs come and go as the campaign progresses, since retirement stings much less than untimely character death.

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And those are the house rules I've decided to use for my first OSR campaign. 

There are a couple additions I've been keeping an eye out for, namely a suitable set of rules for Death & Dismemberment and Downtime & Carousing. 

I had initially intended to use Goblin Punch's older rules for Death & Dismemberment, but decided they were a bit too complicated and the consequences too long-lasting for my campaign. Then, I gravitated toward _Elusiv3_'s Lite rules, but after some fiddling found they weren't exactly what I wanted either. If the Dolmenwood 'Death's Door' rules end up feeling a bit too harsh (2-in-6 chance of death every round below 1hp, -1 random Ability Score when healed back to 1hp) for my group, then I'll try and cobble together a suitable set of my own. Those would probably be a pared down version of Goblin Punch's set with my own version of Interesting Scars from the set here on Coins and Scrolls.

In terms of Downtime and Carousing, I'm not sure exactly what I want. 

I'd like to incentivize the players to spend their amassed wealth and interact with the world and its denizens in interesting ways, but that might just be covered in normal play alongside hiring Specialists, Magical Research, and Construction. Additionally, since they'll already be earning extra XP from Feats of Exploration, XP from Carousing might prove to be a straw that breaks the camel's back. For now, I'll probably just wait until we start playing to get a feel for any extra bits and bobs my players might be interested in between adventures. Besides, unless I create some Death & Dismemberment rules which require periods of rest during downtime, I don't expect there will be much of it unless they explicitly ask for some time in town.

Finally, by default Dolmenwood separates Class and Kindred, relegating the typical BX Race-as-Class to an optional feature. Coming from a DnD5e background, I'm partial to this change. However, I'm considering limiting the initial Kindred choices to the more mundane Human, Breggle (goat people), and perhaps Mossling (plant people). Players would then unlock the other Kindred as options during character creation if/when they encountered them (and perhaps located one of their population centers or completed some sort of task for one of them). This way, the demi-fey and fairy Kindred would maintain a bit more of their alien nature at the beginning of the campaign.

I'm not fully sold on that idea however and I'm admittedly slightly averse to limiting player options in terms of character creation. I'll definitely be speaking with my players about this (and the other House Rules) as we get closer to our Session 0 to gauge their interest.

Anyways, thanks for reading this long post and if you've got any feedback (or tips for a newbie OSR Referee) I'd love to hear from you!