A Look Back at GRIDSHOCK 20XX

In 2021, I launched a Kickstarter for GRIDSHOCK 20XX. GRIDSHOCK was a setting concept I had been writing about on Google+ until that social media site was rendered defunct. You can skim the Kickstarter page for a more detailed idea of what it's about, but the ad copy I used to sum it up works as an elevator pitch:

In 1945, superheroes saved the world.
In 1986, it ended.
In 20XX, supervillains rule what's left.
Welcome to GRIDSHOCK 20XX.

Though I had been messing around with writing a new set of rules specifically for GRIDSHOCK more or less since I first thought it up, when Kickstarter's second Zine Quest promotion rolled around, I impulsively decided "screw it" and chose to publish the concept as a set of zines for ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying, a game I like a lot. 

Since it was a snap decision, I had to scramble to get the Kickstarter funded -- which it just barely did, with a bit over 100 backers. With the invaluable help of the project's other contributors, including Steven De Waele and Grey Wizard on art duties, Anne Hunter and Trey Causey editing, and my brother Chris Vermeren's layout and graphic design, I delivered the printed zines and PDFs in 2022 as promised. Not long after that, I inked a deal with indie RPG publishing juggernaut Exalted Funeral for a second print run of the zines.

None of that is meant to sound like bragging. On the contrary, while I'm quite proud of what my collaborators and I put together, I made a lot of mistakes -- both in terms of promotion and production, as well as in how I conceptualized and then presented this GRIDSHOCK thing. I'm planning to relaunch it as a standalone roleplaying game, so I've started re-reading the GRIDSHOCK 20XX zines for the first time since they were published. In the next few posts, I'll talk about what I think works in GRIDSHOCK, what doesn't, and what will change.

Dragonbane Kin: Underworld Otter

New illustration kindly provided by Jason Sholtis

Note: The Underworld otter originally appeared in the Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide and was created by Jason Sholtis.

I've already covered the citizen lich and woolly Neanderthal, so here's the Underworld otter, the remaining new race from Operation Unfathomable, reworked for use as a player kin in Dragonbane.

As described in the Players' Guide, Underworld otters are quite literally magically uplifted, semi-humanoid otters:

"Generations ago, the magic user responsible for their creation (Zaracanth, a noted Underworld celebrity) released the otters into the Black Ooze river valley, and callously washed his hands of all responsibility for their fate. The otters quickly adapted to their environment, dwelling in shore caverns and subsisting upon various river oozes and young basking sharks native to the Black Ooze river. Otters, strict carnivores, can and do enjoy the flesh of most animals, including those creatures warped by Chaos and those in an advanced state of decomposition."

Much like the other new player races presented in Operation Unfathomable, Underworld otters do not have a large array of special abilities. They are as comfortable moving on two legs as on all fours, and have some restrictions to wearing armor and learning to use weapons based on their unusual body proportions and lack of material culture. Their main ability is a resistance to the attacks of oozes, a type of monster that is common in D&D-derived games, but much less so in Dragonbane (aside from the Giant Amoeba presented in the Bestiary supplement). As always, the goal is to adapt the spirit of the original to the rules and assumptions of Dragonbane, so here goes.

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Underworld Otter
Underworld otters are a magically created kin native to ooze-infested rivers. Comfortable moving on two legs or four, they look nearly identical to mundane river otters, save for being human-sized and having hands rather than paws. Underworld otters are a young kin who are as capable and intelligent as their older brethren, but who have not yet developed a material culture. While deadly warriors, they retain the fun-loving frivolity of their ancestors, and never miss an opportunity to propel themselves down an Underworld waterfall, douse themselves in the foulest smelling swamp sloughs, or sample the flavor of monster meats in advanced states of decay.

Ability: Slippery

Willpower Points: 1

By activating this ability, Underworld otters get a boon on a BRAWLING roll for avoiding or escaping a grapple (page 48 in the Rulebook) or other forms of physical restraint. They are immune to the corrosive and poisonous attacks of giant amoebas (page 78 of the Bestiary, no WP required), but not their bludgeoning attacks. In addition, Underworld otters cannot eat plants or fungi, but can always eat raw or even spoiled meat without falling ill (no WP required).

Ability: Webbed Feet

Willpower Points: --
This is identical to the mallard kin ability Webbed Feet (page 12 in the Rulebook).

GM Notes
As presented in the original Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide, Underworld otters can only wear armor specially designed for them at "exorbitant cost." Since they are described as strict carnivores, they can't eat plants, and therefore cannot benefit from foraging (page 103 of the Rulebook). Finally, I would automatically give an Underworld otter the Reckless weakness at the game's start (and regularly remind the player of it) to mimic their "save versus fun" habits from the original write-up.

Dragonbane Kin: Woolly Neanderthal

Note: The woolly Neanderthal originally appeared in the Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide and was created by Jason Sholtis.

Last week, I made an attempt to convert a player race from Operation Unfathomable, designed for use with Swords & Wizardry, to a Dragonbane player kin. This week I will give another of its unusual player options, the woolly Neanderthal, a try.

In the original publication, woolly Neanderthals are described as follows:

"Native to the chilly northern lands of Mastodonia, the woolly Neanderthals abide in small, physically isolated clans, often making their homes in and among great piles of huge glacially deposited stones. They subsist upon a variety of mastodon meats and have refined the arts of drying, smoking, curing, and barbecuing this sole source of nutrition to a high level of sophistication. Gourmands from civilization have been known to risk travel through the savage provinces to feast among the Woollies. Their material culture remains at a Stone Age level, despite (generally unwanted) contact with humans and other cultures."

Again, there is a bit more description than that, but this gets the gist across. Woollies don't have much in the way of special abilities. Instead, they are more likely to have high Strength and Constitution scores. They do have a natural armor class of 6 in the original rules, but no kin in Dragonbane have innate armor, so I will skip that. Still, by looking at some of the other kin in Dragonbane and its Bestiary, one can make something that feels roughly appropriate.

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Woolly Neanderthal
Woolly Neanderthals are large, hairy, and sturdily built people who dwell among the rocks of the northern realms. They are hardy folk who live hard lives. Lacking the knowledge of metallurgy, theirs is a rustic culture that revolves exclusively around the hunting and preparation of giant mastodons. A reclusive, even shy folk, woollies tend to avoid the company of other kin, but a few are known to form strong bonds with outsiders. They often possess great natural cunning, but their tendency to use few words means that other kin may underestimate their intelligence.

Ability: Rugged

Willpower Points: 1

By activating this ability, woolly Neanderthals get a boon on a CON roll for resisting cold (page 54 in the Rulebook), a boon on a HUNTING & FISHING roll, or can make camp without rolling BUSHCRAFT (page 103 in the Rulebook). In addition, woollies can always eat raw food without falling ill (no WP required).

GM Notes
As presented in the original Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide, woolly Neanderthals must pay 50% more for weapons and armor "due to their exceptional size." (Personally, I would skip this, especially since I haven't given them their innate armor from the original.) As they are described as averaging 6 and 1/2 feet in height, they are not considered Large creatures in Dragonbane. I suggest automatically giving them the Child of the Wild weakness at the game's start.

Dragonbane Kin: Citizen Lich

Note: The citizen lich originally appeared in the Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide and was created by Jason Sholtis.

I am an avowed fan of the "internally consistent gonzo fun house module" Operation Unfathomable (as well as the companion volume, Odious Uplands). I have threatened to run it ever since it was released in 2018, but have never actually done so -- and still haven't, in fact. Part of the hang-up for me is that it's designed for use with Swords & Wizardry, a more-or-less retroclone of the original edition of D&D. While I still have some appreciation for ye olde school, I found that I am not a big fan of running D&D regardless of edition. (There's also a version for Dungeon Crawl Classics, which I appreciate the aesthetics of, but otherwise isn't my cup of tea, either. If you enjoy it, cool!)

Anyway, considering its emphasis on "mirth and mayhem," I feel like I might be able to do Operation Unfathomable justice and have fun running it with Dragonbane. To do that, there are a few things I'd want to convert over, including some of the character options that are unique to Jason Sholtis' whacked-out, 70s sword & sorcery-comic-influenced setting. One of which is the citizen lich. Operation Unfathomable designer Jason Sholtis introduces them as follows:

"In civilized areas of Planet Uluros, where magocracy remains the predominant form of government, magic-users frequently attempt to extend their lives by making a transition to an undead condition. These attempts succeed often enough, but more commonly end in the magic-user’s destruction, or, more rarely, in a transformation to a lesser form of lich called a citizen lich. As the name implies, citizen liches are recognized members of their communities (though true liches regard them as second class)."

There are further details, but I really enjoy the idea of having a semi-undead character in an adventuring party. Dragonbane kin don't have as many special abilities as a D&D race usually would, but luckily for me, citizen liches don't really have a ton of them. They lack the usual suite of undead immunities; their main ability is that they have "limited immortality" in the form of being hard to kill permanently. In fact, that's literally what the ability is called in the Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide. So, I will give it a go. I haven't had a chance to try this out at the table, so incorporate the citizen lich into your game with caution.
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Citizen Lich
Citizen liches are semi-undead beings created when a powerful mage's attempt to achieve immortality via arcane ritual is not fully successful. As a result, they retain only a small fraction of the sorcerous power they possessed prior to undeath. While not necessarily malevolent, when traveling in lands less cultured than the magocratic cities from which they hail, citizen liches usually conceal their shriveled, skeletal features from others. They tend to be grandiose in their behavior, driven by a desire to restore their lost wizardry.

Citizen liches are automatically considered Old, with the attendant skill and attribute modifiers for that age category. They are affected by spells or items that work against the undead.

Ability: Hard to Kill (Permanently)

Willpower Points: 3

When reduced to 0 hit points, you can activate this ability to stop making death rolls and immediately regain D6 hit points. You can also activate this ability to ignore additional damage when at 0 hit points. This ability does not prevent severe injuries.

GM Notes
As presented in the original Operation Unfathomable Players' Guide, all citizen liches are effectively magic-users. Given their background, if you wish, you may limit a citizen lich's profession options to mage. Alternately, you may give the player the option to replace their profession's usual heroic ability with Magic Talent and allow them to slowly learn spells as described under that heroic ability.

Lastly, in the original description, citizen liches were once human magic-users, but if one wanted to adapt them to a different setting using the Dragonbane rules, I would probably allow them to have been mages of any kin before becoming a citizen lich. In that case, whatever their kin ability was in life would be replaced with Hard to Kill (Permanently). Alternately, one could use the Hard to Kill (Permanently) ability for a different quasi-undead kin concept.

Two Modest House Rule Proposals for Dragonbane

"You sure about that?"

Hey, I'm not dead! Though I guess Dungeonskull Mountain basically has been for a while now. Let's fix that.

I've been playing Free League's Dragonbane since the early backer PDF of the game came out, and am about to start running it for a nice group of folks next week. It's pretty good! Probably my favorite dungeon fantasy game on the market right now. In terms of its rules, it does most of the stuff I want one of those games to do, with few of the things I don't. Still, I guess I can't leave enough alone, because I do find some rules here and there that I think could be improved:

Opposed Rolls
For one, the way opposed rolls work feels off to me (and I'm not alone, as other people pointed this out during playtesting). As written, opposed rolls are pretty simple: both characters roll against their attribute or skill on a d20 as always, and if both succeed at the roll, whoever rolls lower wins. Since Dragonbane is a roll-under system, I can understand why the designers didn't want opposed rolls to be an exception to that. They also probably feel that they don't come up often enough for it to be a big deal. 

However, things get weird when the two characters who are making the opposed roll have different skill (or attribute) levels. As written, it makes no difference if one of them has a skill of 15 and the other one has a 5, which I think is somewhat unsatisfying. It's an easy fix: just say that when making an opposed roll, if both characters succeed, the one who rolls higher wins. Yes, it's not as elegant as the general "you always want to roll low for skills and attributes" Dragonbane mechanic, but it makes much more sense. I'm okay with the rule being very slightly clunkier for this one, relatively uncommon type of roll.

Free Monster Attacks
Another thing I've been thinking about is the concept of free attacks, particularly when monsters get to make them. See, in Dragonbane (and many other Free League games), each monster has a random table of attacks that the GM rolls on the monster's turn. These attacks are usually quite nasty and are assumed to hit, unless the targeted characters make a dodge roll (which costs them their own turn).

Now, in melee combat, if you're fighting an enemy and want to move away, you have to roll the EVADE skill to avoid leaving yourself open to attack from that enemy. If that enemy is an NPC -- which in Dragonbane could be something that another game might consider a "monster," like a bandit or a hobgoblin -- they just roll to attack as normal. But if it's a monster, the GM is told to roll a random monster attack (as one always does with a monster). Often, that means that the free attack could be something like a "Sweeping Blow!" that hits every character around it, or "Spike Rain!" that poisons everyone within 10 meters. When you add in the fact that monsters already have a Ferocity rating that allows them to act more than once on their turn -- something characters are almost never capable of -- this means that monsters are extremely dangerous in Dragonbane.

Which is cool with me, honestly! I think that having to run away is a desirable outcome in a game like this. Still, if one wanted to make it a little bit easier to run away from these terrifyingly deadly monsters without being murdered in the attempt, I would suggest having it so the free attacks a monster gets when a character fails their EVADE roll when breaking away from combat with it simply inflict damage equal to their least powerful attack, with none of the attack's extra effects. Now, Dragonbane bills itself as "mirth and mayhem roleplaying," so I'll admit that pulling this particular punch may detract from the mayhem (and perhaps even the mirth) a little bit. It could also slow combat down very slightly, so I could understand if a GM would rather just let the dice fall where they may. I will test this idea out and report back on it.