2023 Day 9: The Wick Hack
The use of roleplaying as a learning tool and as a therapy tool is a growing trend, and a positive one in my eyes. This was written by John Wick for the latter. Is it D&D? Just about. It’s high fantasy but I would suggest it's mostly only D&D in as much as it’s a useful peg for John to lay his coat.
It is 22 pages long. It’s tiny. And, as John is want to do, includes the rough thought processes that led to the final game. The game starts on page 6.
A mentor and his student: two warriors being attacked by goblins. Used under Creative Commons. https://liberart.online/?p=218
You take one of six races (or mix of two), one of nine classes and allocate 9 points between the 6 D&D Attributes. Your race and class give you attribute bonuses, 2-3 starting abilities and some roleplaying traits. There’s no money. There’s no hit points, but there are 8 conditions you can be afflicted by (the worst of which is “Helpless”): you can only die if you decide you die.
Failure generates you Inspiration, which you can use as bennies for extra dice. And you spend them to cast spells.
There are four actions on camping: threats, and things to do whilst camping.
And remember those roleplaying traits I mentioned? Those are what give you XP. Stubborn Dwarves and Indiscreet Halflings level up quicker.
This game was written for a purpose, but as a rough and ready high fantasy game it’s pretty darn nifty. It doesn’t give you a world, but it tells you about the world in what the races and classes care about and in the 20% of the book about what happens in camp. You are heroes and it gives you the tools to be heroes. This game is not a puzzle, it’s just the opportunity to do swords and sorcery without the stress.
That said, it has some flaws. It has some basic omissions and typos. There is no art (but nice fonts). And, critically, it assumes that you (or at least the ST) know enough about high fantasy to flesh out the rest of the world. Similarly, it assumes the person running the game knows enough other games to do something with the rules here. The rules say: if you attack successfully you mark one of three wound conditions: what if someone wants to trap them in a net? You have to work it out. And in the right hands and in context that’s fine: you will likely ask “How do you think it should work?”. But it doesn’t make it a complete game.
But it’s fine for me and it’s tempting to run it as a microgame at some point.
Ugly Shortstump is a Half-Ork, Half-Halfling bard. Why? Because I can!
He doesn’t intend to be a hero, but his coping mechanism for being the butt of every joke was to just be happy in the world. And if that means sometimes being a hero, so be it.
Heritage traits: Indiscreet, Brave
Attributes: CHA 5, STR 4, DEX 3, CON 1, INT and WIS 0
Abilities: Skalding (essentially putting a character in their place), Knowledge (gain Advantage about Knowing Things), Spellcasting: Can cast INT spells (I pick Enlarge).
Ugly Shortstump is definitely not a maximally effective build, although he is a solid second-tier fighter, but I think he would be really fun to play. And I think this Hack is good for that. (Plus everything he fails at generates XP Inspiration.)
Game was made available via John’s Patreon, https://www.patreon.com/thejohnwick/