Resolution Mechanic Challenge: Weird Hazards

W.F. Smith from Prismatic Wasteland suggested I should participate in the Resolution thing. I said I was considering a “second shot” at an old post to explain it better and asked if it counted. Smith said yes, so let’s go once more with feeling. First, what games inspired the mechanic (called here Weird Hazards) and why. I will list what I like and what I dislike about them for context. Every game here that uses d6s for everything has that going for them.

d12 Loadouts for Into the Odd

When I’m playing What an Odd World, I use something that I called a Loadout. It’s somewhere between the Electric Bastionland Failed Career and the background in some other adventure games. It’s got the flavor of a FC, but no need to roll in two tables or with associated stats. Equipment is already defined. If the character is eligible for an Oddity, they have it, otherwise they don’t. Before there was a more complicated rule about weapon weight in the equipment, but I got rid of it, so they became even more simple.

You can use them with my house rules, of course, or as NPCs. Or derived a proper Failed Career from them, or do an equipment pack for regular Into the Odd. Anyway, I hope it’s useful.

What an Odd World – My House Rules

There’s something I’ve been using in my solo games and that I’ve been dedicating a lot of attention too. So much attention that it briefly flirted with being a PWYW zine (with the above cover made by the wonderful CosmicOrrery), but I discovered I didn’t really care to release it in that format. I still thank Sean Smith for the generous offer of proofreading and the support from Tristyn, Caleb and Ven. I did create a bunch of tools for it that I will release here in the blog, so everyone can use it.

This is what I’ve been using for solo OSR, built on top of both Into the Odd and World of Dungeons, with inspiration from Justin Hamilton’s Primeval 2d6. Consider it my house rules for all of them.

Some Thoughts on Getting Rid of Combat Rules in OSR

Art by A. Shipwright

So I think it’s pretty well-established by now that we don’t need combat subsystems to run combat. See Justin here and here, whose posts I’m rather shamelessly ripping off. See a variety of games outside adventure ethos that don’t have them in the first place. Let’s talk about that.

Searchers of the Odd

SotU is one of my favorite ultralite D&Ds. One of my other favorite games, ItO, was influenced by it. Both recover HP fast. Hum.

Here’s some house rules for ItO combat in SotU: