Kage Gordain - Preparation

In the weeks following the end of my Roses & Wyght story, I’ve been preparing for my next campaign. The story that I want to tell is rather ambitious and required a lot of pre-game set-up, hence the delay. The majority of the preparation dealt with character creation. I have six potential PCs, and, while not every one may go on the main quest, I needed to have them prepared anyway, as which ones I will use is unknown at this time. This first post will be a review of the game system and a general explanation of my character creation process.

GAME SYSTEM:

Kage Gordain will be played using the Tunnels & Trolls (affiliate link) rule system. There are several versions of T&T available. The only full version of the rules that I own is Version 5, which many T&T players still consider the best. In addition, I have short rules for versions 7 and Deluxe. For this game, I will rely heavily on V5, but add a few changes from the later versions that I particularly like, such as:

- Wizardry (WIZ) will be used for casting spells. ( V5 uses Strength (STR))

-Speed (SPD) will be rolled as a stat. Technically, SPD existed in V5, but it wasn’t officially considered one of the starting stats.

- Personal “adds” (points that boost your attack in combat) will be added for every point greater than 12 in the following stats: STR, DEX (dexterity), LCK (luck), and SPD.  Characters will not receive negative “adds” for stats with less than 9 points, as they did in V5.

- Talents. Each character gains one talent per level, which gives them a pre-set 1d6 bonus to saving rolls on a particular stat in appropriate situations.

- Warriors get 1 personal “add” for every level of their character.

- Other differences and homebrew rules will be indicated as they come up during play.

CHARACTER CREATION:

The story I created consists of five characters that are part of an existing team, and one new-comer. 

The new member of the team, Kristopher Milgward, was created during my playthrough of the published T&T solitaire adventure “Seven Ayes.” That adventure encourages the player to use one of their predefined characters and pre-written backstory, which I did. “Seven Ayes” presented Kristopher with a raucous night in a tavern, ending with a bar fight and Kristopher being enslaved as an oarsman about a ship belonging to Frogbeard the Pirate. The solitaire adventure offered a chance for the character to make a Luck Saving Roll and escape. I legitimately made that roll for Kris and was able to use the details of his escape to explain how he became a member of the team. When I began playing “Seven Ayes” I had no idea that the ending would lead naturally into this adventure. I just thought it would be a good way to give that character some experience while getting a chance to play some solo T&T. Things like that have seemed to happen often since I’ve begun this hobby.

The remaining five PCs were created using the following steps:

BIRTH:

I had a general idea of the make-up of the team and simply assigned a class, kin (race) and gender to each. Additionally, I wrote a general one to two sentence background for each, just to have a vague idea of their history. More details were either filled in during the remainder of character creation or left to be fleshed out as I advance the story.

STATISTICS:

T&T characters have eight stats: Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT), Luck (LCK), Constitution (CON), Speed (SPD), Wizardry (WIZ), and Charisma (CHA). I rolled up each character using the method of rolling eight numbers, then assigning them to each stat to best represent the character’s class and kin. 

T&T uses 3d6 to determine each stat. If you roll triples, you keep that number and roll again, adding the two totals together. If you roll triples again, you repeat the process. Additionally, stat rolls assume the character is human. Any non-human kin receive modifiers for some of their stats (i.e. Elves multiply INT and LCK by 2, Halflings reduce their STR by half)

A character’s level is based on their highest statistic. If a character’s highest stat is in the teens or less, they are level 1. If it is in the 20s, they are level 2. 30s, level 3 and so on.

WEAPONS AND ARMOR:

Since this group of characters is an experienced party, I didn’t make them “buy” starting armor and weapons but simply assigned them appropriate gear. Also, I felt it was plausible that some of their equipment might be magical. I allowed each character a 50/50 “yes or no” roll for each character level.  For each “yes”, I randomly chose an item and gave it +1 to either it’s attack or defense, as appropriate.

LANGUAGES:

Each character speaks their own language. In addition to their native tongue, any characters with an INT over 12 can know one additional language per point. Any characters who met this criterion had additional languages chosen at random from the Version 5 rule book Languages table. In the case of non-humans I counted Common as one of these additional languages and, for the sake of communication, I automatically gave Common to any non-humans who didn’t qualify for a second language. I did have two exceptions. One character does not speak Common at all. Another human character received a second language, even though their INT was below 12. The reason for both of these will become apparent during the story.

WEALTH:

According to T&T rules, beginning characters roll 3d6 and multiply by 10 for their starting gold. Despite being experienced, I rolled this anyway to give each some money to start off the game.

MAGIC SPELLS:

Wizards and Rogues can cast magic spells. A level 1 wizard already knows all the level 1 spells. This is considered to be a part of their standard training. As their level increases, they can learn new spells of higher levels. Unlike many other RPG’s, there is not a set number of spell wizards learn at each level. Instead, they can learn as many as they wish as long as they can find them or pay for training. In this game, I have two wizards, a level one and a level two. For the level two wizard, I rolled a d4 to determine how many level 2 spells they have learned and picked them based on what seemed appropriate.

Rogue characters begin with just one spell but can learn spells as they advance. For each of my rogues, I chose a spell that seemed appropriate for the character and their personal story or motivation.

PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Here is where character creation got fun, as well as took up a lot of time.

First, using the NPC description tables found in the D30 Sandbox Companion, I generated each character’s personal appearance, overriding the roll and using my own preferences from time to time when I already had an idea of what a character should look like.

Next, using UNE I generated 3 motivations for each character to help shape their actions. Some fit nicely with their basic backstory. Some were surprising. Others I have no idea how I will work into the tale.

Finally, since this is a group of experienced adventurers, I wanted to advance them in some way to reflect their growth. Luckily, Trollzine Magazine Issue 3 contains a “Background and Inheritance” table that accommodated this nicely. The table contains opportunities for characters to increase their stats, gain special abilities, or obtain helpful items. For each character, I rolled 1d4+1 times on the table.

And that wraps up the majority of character creation. Details about each character will be revealed in the story when appropriate.

ONE FINAL WORD:

Despite being around since the 1970s, I only discovered Tunnels & Trolls earlier this year. As can be assumed, I do not have a lot of experience playing the game and most of what I do has come from solitaire adventures. From my own experience, as well as what I’ve read, things can go south very fast and a party can wipe without warning. I say this just to warn you that this has the potential of being a rather short campaign. Of course, I hope that doesn’t happen and the characters I have created seem a bit beefy and able to handle a lot. That being said, the rules are very open to customizing combat through “stunts” and saving rolls. For instance, a character might want to attempt to topple over a statue on top of a group of attacking trolls in order to take a few out before melee even begins. In that case, a Stat and Level is determined for a saving roll (i.e. a Level 2 STR check). If the character makes the roll, then he is successful and the anticipated results occur (i.e. 1d4 trolls are pinned under the statue). If things look grim, I might play fast and loose with these types of stunts to give the characters a fighting chance and you, the reader, an interesting story.

That’s about all for preparation. I will begin the story in the next post where we will meet our characters, learn a little about them and their organization, and find out what their next campaign will be.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to getting started with actual gameplay.

(Read Chapter 1 here.)