The Mundane: Level 0 Funnels in Whitehack

Angus McBride

So you want a funnel? For those who don't know, a "funnel" is a style of adventure where you take a ton of no-level nobodies (maybe 3-4 or more per player) and just run them through a gauntlet... and if there are any survivors they become the actual campaign party becoming level 1. Simple as.

DCC is an obvious source for this but it definitely has its origins in the Original tradition (e.g., a focus on relatively weak characters, large parties, not attachment, simple setup, etc.) and even with the explicit introduction of 0-level stuff in AD&D 1e and its kin.

Whitehack is a bit of a different beast in this regard. It allows (but doesn't necessarily require since you don't have to pick right away) plenty of thought to go into how to create and define your character right out of the gates. What's more, these characters are very flexible as well. So how can we mix the two?

Whitehack Magic 101: How do Miracles work???

This is a slightly related follow-up to my previous Whitehack 101 post on monsters.

Easily the most common subject of discussions and questions on Whitehack are miracles, the game's take on characters' "arcane negotiations with powerful forces in their environment" (aka just about any magic/science/psychic nonsense you can think of in an adventure game!).

This isn't surprising as it's a sort of open system, especially compared to having a set spell list which is the baseline for most old-school adventure games. To quickly summarize how it works:

1. Characters in the Wise class can note down wordings.
2. To use them, the player says what their desired effect is and the referee suggests the cost.
3. The cost is the HP that must be paid to enact the effect.
4. This cost can potentially be lowered.
5. There are a few limitations making high HP costs dangerous or even impossible if your HP is too low.

And that's pretty much it! But it's easy to see where questions can arise with this. Common points are usually:

• Are the miracle effects determined ahead of time?
• Is each wording a set effect? Can it be used for something else after we've set a cost?
• How much should a miracle cost? What's too low or too high?
  
• How much cost debate is too much?
• What kind of damage should combat miracles do?
• What the hell is the "traditional magic" table even about?

And much much more! I can share how I've been handling them and perhaps that can make others more comfortable engaging with miracles without bringing the game to a full stop to talk about HP costs.

N.B.: A lot of this isn't prescriptive and no advice will top what you and your table decide feels right, but hopefully these examples and such help clear up some things and provide guidance!

B/X House Rules

Spectre by Erol Otus

Recently I started a 1:1 campaign of B/X with my partner. Going to be doing a 'Stonehell on the Borderlands' style setup building on the skeletal version of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos presented in the back of the Expert book. The goal is short one or two-hour sessions of good ol' vanilla fantasy with extremely minimal prep and a megadungeon focus.

We'll be using the classic 1981 Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons set by Moldvay and Cook with the following small addendums and alterations:

Armour Research & Gallery for Thinking Adventures

Most retro or adventure games tend to categorize armour as Light, Medium, and Heavy. And it's almost always leather, chain, or plate mail with a spattering of nonsense such as studded leather or banded mail or splint mail.

In the real world, armour can usually be divided based on its construction into three groups:

1. Soft armour, that is quilted fabric and leather that has not been subjected to any hardening process.
2. Mail, that is a defense of interlinked metal rings.
3. Plate, of metal, cuir-bouili (leather hardened by soaking in heated wax), whalebone, or horn. This group can be subdivided according to whether it is composed of:
1. large plates articulated only where necessary for the movement of body and limbs.
2. smaller plates riveted or sewn to fabric to produce a completely flexible defense (the so-called coat-of-plates construction).
3. small plates joined together by a complex system of lacing (the so-called lamellar construction).

What follows is an armchair look at some classic armor throughout European history. While there are a plethora of other armour types in the world to take inspiration from (which still largely conform to the above constructions), I think the following will help with the types of armor you see in the standard Vanilla Fantasy setting with knights and dragons and castles and such. 

After all, when was the last time you had a brigandine or a coat-of-plates in your game? And if you did have a brigandine did you make it worse than so-called 'chainmail' hmmmm?

Whitehack Monsters 101: Converting a Chimera

I often see folks looking for some guidelines on converting classic dragon game monsters to Whitehack. Common points are:

• Multiple attacks? Do I leave them as is?
• Abilities? Do I make them keywords? Or do I treat them as described?
• Spells? Do I make each a miracle? Do they use HP to cast them?

What do?

Well, what better way to try things out than a Chimera? The Monster Manual of old gives us this:

Chimera from the 1e Monser Manual

Whitehack 3e House Rules

Jun Suemi

Here's a collection of some current house rules and bits that have come up in Whitehack so far this year. Some are pilfered from various sources but none are set in stone. Anything can change during play. 

Maybe I will keep this updated! In the meantime, I've also made a 3e Rule Summary, a Community Compendium, and Character Record sheets.

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Saiki and Surrounds

Takato Yamamoto

Saiki

Saiki, a soon-to-be castle town on the coastal delta of the Banjo River in southern Bungo. It is the seat of a fief of 20,000 koku. The great forested hill is crested by a fort and the beginnings of castle foundations and constructions. Its trails overlook a small but growing town, crossed by a minor canal and outlined by broad flooded fields.

Governed by the Gohda clan, senior retainers of the Otomo clan, from their manor and fort. The late Elder Lord Gohda has recently passed, leaving the clan and the fief of Saiki to his son, the Young Lord Matsunoshin.

The Saiki domain is rich in undulations, has little cultivated land, and has little income from agriculture. Since the coast is a rias coast there are many uras, and it is used as a port for fishing and marine transportation bases. Forestry is also one of the sources of income that supports the clan's finances. The weather is humid with hot summers and cold winters. It often rains throughout the year.

20 horsemen, 40 musket men, 20 archers, and 100 spearmen.

Saiki Surrounds

To the northeast, the island of Onyujima sits right off the coast. Its thickly forested hills are home to Ishima Village and several remote shrines.

Directly to the north is the village of Usutsubo. Beyond it lie great hills, covered by woods. In these mountainous forest hills, the Azuma clan ninja train their art.

Folks trade with the large village of Yayoi, east upriver along the Banjo. Regular river traffic makes its way back and forth, a common stopping point for traveling further inland.

Across the Banjo Delta to the south lies the Kitachi River Valley. Along it lies some minor villages and the fallen Shojuji Temple. This is considered a destitute place that never really recovered from the Kyushu Campaign 13 years ago.

South of these lands lies the province of Hyuga. The northern fief of this province is ruled by Takahashi Mototane, a Shimazu clan retainer appointed by Hideyoshi himself. Within the last two years, he has completed his ruin of the Mitai clan and has gained control of the 48 Forts of Takachiho, various fortifications in the steep mountains, valleys, rivers, and plateaus of the region.

A bird with one body but many heads pecking itself to death

Tokugawa Ieyasu with help from the Jodo monks of the Daijuji temple in Okizaki, defeats the Ikkō-ikki at the battle of Azukizaka, 1564 by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

A bird with

One body but

Many heads

Pecking itself

To death.  

- An unknown poet 

Japan. The late 16th-century. In this darkest and most violent age, endless war has left a country divided. A country, once ruled by a unified government, that has split into many warring clans. Legendary warlords strive for supremacy as conspiracies and conflicts wither the empire. 

Musings on the ideal of the "individual scale wargame"

Following up on my previous takes on OD&D and wargaming.

Last year I started a new campaign of OD&D, but with one small catch. Rather than approaching it as I would with a B/X campaign or any other "typical" setup, I've been using it as a supplement of Chainmail. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that I've been running a Chainmail campaign using the fantastic medieval supplement called Original Dungeon & Dragons.

What does this mean? Well, it means that we are using Chainmail as the base of our rules for things such as weapons, procedure, morale, weather, dueling, sieges, and more. And then we're looking to things such as classes and dungeons and wilderness an addition rather than the other way around. I find that it makes quite an interesting mix-up compared to, say, playing OD&D as a straight adventure game. Perhaps it is a similar destination, but the journey has been quite fun.

"Individual scale wargame" is a good term for the type of play that we go on about!

Credit to Melancholies and Mirth for planting that term in my mind!

It's really got me thinking about how elegant of a setup it all is. Here's you have a wargame so distanced from the concerns of any individual character, more concerned with the routing of armies and battlefield tactics. Only great heroes or monsters are singled out. Now add in some slight nuance such as experience (and therefore personal advancement), hit points (rather than hits), and concerning yourself with the fate of a singular character (rather than scores of 1:20 figures). We have some additional stats for them that tell us a bit more about the nature of these individuals (and may have a small mechanical impact here and there). Classes let us have some mechanical guidelines for some classic character genres and we are off to the races here.

From here, it's all the usual action and reaction, coming back to this rule baseline when a conversation is insufficient or the need arises. It lets one flow rather fluidly in terms of setting stakes from chases in the shadowed depths of the underworld, to great raids on rival bands, to grand sieges on the ramparts of some forgotten fortress. And just as easily one can handle matters of exploration and intrigue that are so staple in the genre of adventure without being weighed down by overly mechanical concerns.

In terms of thinking, this feels a far cry from beginning at the usual starting point of adventure game and thinking of how to scale up to "domain play" or handle "mass combat" at the table. I find it quite interesting that so often later editions or other modern ttrpgs revisit wargames to "restore" some semblance of the above aspects but they don't quite hit the same marks in my opinion.

"Mass Combat Fantasy Roleplaying" eh?

Cooking up a Recipe

With this setup in mind, I've of course been starting to think on some other games that have given me this impression before. Things like the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles (yes, before Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e) or the good ol' Rogue Trader. Games where the divide between rpg and wargame was explicitly blurred and expected to be crossed when creating interesting scenarios to play in. Where it wasn't just a match of two armies with 500 points, but an overall style not entirely dissimilar from what you'd expect from playing an rpg with a referee.

Perhaps by looking at how OD&D was mapped to Chainmail and applying the concept to some other wargames I enjoy, something neat can come about: a change in perspective that, while perhaps minor in the grand scheme of things, has resulted in some very fun times at the table.

Let's look at what defines a single figure in Chainmail.

A figure of heavy foot has some statistics on movement, morale, an entry on the combat table to show how they perform against various categories of foes, and some special rules they are eligible to take advantage of (e.g. gaining an impetus die on the charge). Oh and a point value of course.

Relatively simple! On the scale of 1:20 that gives me a good idea of what my 100 strong group of mailed warriors could do.

This continues for the fantasy supplement as well with figures such as orcs and the like. The main area of expansion comes with special rules for figures, with fantasy figures building on the base categories of units with special abilities, capabilities vs other fantastic foes, drawbacks, and options such as magical spells.

But even still they remain relatively simple to sum up. Take a fearsome giant for example:

GIANT
POINT VALUE: 50
ALIGN: NEUTRAL/CHAOS
NOTE:
	- REQUIRE 12 CUMULATIVE HITS TO KILL.
	- ACT AS SMALL CATAPULTS.
		- 20" RANGE.
		- NO MIN RANGE.
		- CAN MOVE ON TURN IF NOT THROWING.
	- NEVER CHECK MORALE.
ATTACK AS: 12 HEAVY FOOT
DEFEND AS: 12 HEAVY FOOT
FANTASY COMBAT TABLE: AS GIANT
MOVE: 12" CHARGE: 18"

Squint and you can practically see the information for 12 HD giants so common in old school bestiaries (although the terminology is a bit more Chainmail-esque).

So the OD&D translation simply goes:

• Hits to Hit Dice (and the more discrete Hit Points so hits aren't always death)
• Attack values changed from "men" to table entry based on level or HD.
• Defense values are taken as a type of Armour Class and separated from # of men.
• Movement kept the same (no mention of charging).
• Addition of numbers encountered, lairs, and treasure.
• Special abilities simply refer to Chainmail and/or are expanded and altered in the text.

This holds true on the end of player characters, with the important addition of advancement and stats.

• Player figures can improve and actively gain more abilities. An interesting thing to keep in mind when the LBBs encourage you to play as pretty much anything; starting weak and becoming strong.

• Players have stats that are largely exclusive to them. The classic six attributes help describe your character, set them apart from other 1st level folks, and give some minor bonuses or penalties. They don't really come up in regards for monsters in the like. No real point in trying to pin down the strength score of a dragon or something.

What to do with this?

My goal would be to have a very open and flowing game using some of my favorite wargames to engage in interesting play in a refreshing and free manner. Experiences more in the vein of the thinking adventures I've run using OD&D and Chainmail, and less in the vein of matched wargame play or the usual ttrpg. Something that is satisfying in this wonderful manner. Something that feels distinct from the industry's efforts to turn such things into modern ttrpgs and embraces the openness of the traditional wargame mindset. 

I'll need to take what I've gleaned with this campaign and revisit some of the ideas I've had in the past such as HammerHack, Outlaw Merchant, and others.

In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions for neat games that have come out in this vein. Space Weirdos or Forbbiden Psalm come to mind but that's just based on vibes.