Honor + Intrigue: Barbie, Daughter of D'Artagnan?!?

Stop laughing, I'm serious! In 2009, Artisan Home Entertainment released the animated adventure Barbie and the Three Musketeers on DVD. As the nerd father of a young girl, I thought the movie would be a good Trojan Horse where cultivating a taste for action-adventure and swashbucklers was concerned. The movie is better than it has any right to be—which is lucky, considering the dozens of times I've had to watch it in the last three years.

In the film, Barbie plays Corinne, daughter of D'Artagnan (who is apparently dead). She leaves her mother and her Gascon home to head north to Paris; she plans to present Monsieur Treville with a letter with a letter from her mother encouraging Treville to make Corinne a Musketeer. Hijinks ensue as Corinne and her three serving maid friends struggle to defeat would-be usurper Philippe (played by Tim Curry) and the marshaled forces of oppressive patriarchy.

Needless to say, Corinne's Honor + Intrigue stats follow below.

Corinne, Daughter of D'Artagnan

Motivation
Ambition (to become a Musketeer like her father)

Qualities
Might 0
Daring 2
Savvy 1
Flair 1

Combat
Brawl 0
Melee 2
Ranged 0
Defense 2

Careers
Farmgirl 1
Acrobat 2
Duelist 1
Servant 0

Resources
Lifeblood 10
Fortune 4

Boons
Attractive (Bonus die in situations where looks matter—this is Barbie, after all)
Beast-Friend (Bonus die when dealing with animals; has animal companions—see below)
Born Athlete (Bonus die when performing athletic activities other than fighting)

Flaws
Country Bumpkin (Penalty die in situations where street smarts matter)
Hot-Headed (Penalty die when attempting to suppress anger)

Equipment
Epee (1d6 damage, +1 Parry)
Miette (Corinne's kitten . . . who apparently duels as well—don't ask!)
Alexander (Corinne's elderly horse, inherited from her father)

Honor + Intrigue: Robin Hood Redux

Honor + Intrigue is now available in PDF form (with print copies to follow). After a quick read-through, I'm incredibly impressed with what Chris Rutkowski has achieved here. My favorite rule so far is the maneuver "Return Weapon": if your hero uses his minor action to return his disarmed opponent's weapon (as is so often the case in swashbuckler duels), he receives a reward of 1 Advantage over his foe as well as 1 point of Fortune.

Now that I have the rules I can update my character sheet for Errol Flynn's Robin of Locksley as follows:


Attributes

Might 0

Daring 2

Savvy 1

Flair 1

[No changes here.]

Combat

Brawl 1

Melee 1

Ranged 2

Defense 0

[No changes here.]

Careers

Noble 1

Warrior 1

Woodsman 2

Highwayman 0

[Again, no changes needed.]

Resources

Lifeblood 10

Fortune 6

Composure 3

Advancement 0

[Scores calculated now that I have the formulae for doing so.]

Equipment

Longbow (1d6+2 damage, range increments of 110')

Sparkly Lincoln green tunic and tights

Sword (1d6 damage, +1 Parry)

[The weapons listed in Honor + Intrigue are seventeenth-century weapons, so I've had to improvise here. Robin's sword in the film is closest to the game's epee, and I've therefore given his blade the epee's stats.]

Boons

Crack Shot: Longbow (Bonus die on all damage rolls w/bows, range increments increased by 10', more Fortune points required to reduce effect of Robin's successful shots)

Favored by Fortune (permanent +2 increase to Fortune)

Laugh in the Face of Danger (Bonus die to Daring rolls to resist fear/intimidation, Social Combat/Repartee rolls against Daring have a Penalty die)

[A big change here: I dropped "Knighted" since the description of the Boon describes it as more of a reward for services rendered, and Robin is a baron and knight by birth in the film. Hard choices followed, though. The other boons that were the most logical choices for Robin—Attractive, Daredevil, and Favored by Fortune—are all Beginning Boons and can only be purchased during character creation. I decided that an early Fortune boost made the most sense for Robin at this stage of his career: he's often luckier than he should be, and that gets him out of jams. 

Flaws

Hot-Headed (Penalty die when trying to suppress anger; whenever anger gets Robin into trouble, he gains 1 Fortune point)

Hunted (whenever Robin faces off with the followers of Prince John, Guy of Gisborne, or the Sheriff of Nottingham, he gains 1 Fortune point)

[Another change here: "Obligation" is more of a specific debt or responsibility than a generic devotion to Saxon welfare. (Robin is also free of anti-Norman bigotry even as he opposes Norman tyranny: his battle for justice reflects a devotion to the virtue in general rather than to a specific ethnicity.) I therefore decided that Robin's in-play story begins after he escapes from Nottingham Castle and flees to Sherwood Forest; this gives him "Hunted."]

Vargold Turns Two

OK, the venomous pao's Strange Stones was two years old on Friday, February 3rd, and now it's Vargold's turn to be the birthday blog. What was going on back in May 2009 to give birth to these blogs in February 2010?

(Seriously, though, thanks to everyone who's followed the blog, commented on it, and/or added it to their blog roll—I appreciate it very much!)

Honor + Intrigue: Robin of Locksley

Basic Action Games is getting close to a release date for its swashbuckling RPG Honor + Intrigue. While the game will have rules for those who wish to mix some magic in with their derring-do, it's largely a historical RPG. Nonetheless, it has a place on this blog if only for its clever use of Simon Washbourne's Barbarians of Lemuria ruleset (one of my favorites and a mainstay of Vargold posts).

Basic Action Games owner and designer Chris Rutkowski has put copies of both a character sheet and a quick reference sheet on the company's Facebook page and challenged fans to start creating characters for the game. (The reference sheet includes a list of all Honor + Intrigue careers, boons, and flaws.) I obliged him by putting together this version of Errol Flynn's Robin Hood (from the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood). Once I get my copy of the actual rules, I may have to emend some of my choices (and finish stats I don't yet know how to calculate), but I think these stats do a good job of representing Robin of Locksley as he appears in his first scene in the film.

Attributes

Might 0

Daring 2

Savvy 1

Flair 1

Combat

Brawl 1

Melee 1

Ranged 2

Defense 0

Careers

Noble 1

Warrior 1

Woodsman 2

Highwayman 0

Resources

Lifeblood

Fortune

Composure

Advancement

Equipment

Longbow

Longsword

Dagger

Sparkly Lincoln green tunic and tights

Boons

Crack Shot, Knighted, Laugh in the Face of Danger

Flaws

Hot-Headed

Obligation (to protect all Saxons, high or low)

BFRPG: Starting at Third Level

Although I've played D&D on and off since 1980, I have never been a fan of the "harsh reality" approach to first-level characters. None of my groups pre-Fourth Edition ever rolled 3d6 six times in a row for attributes, nor did they go by the rules-as-written when rolling hit points. Returning to Old School D&D with BFRPG has meant that I'm confronting these issues again. What I have in mind for the kids' first characters is the following:

1. For attributes, roll 4d6 six times, dropping the lowest die in each roll. Then assign the totals to attributes in whatever order is desired.

2. At first level, hit points equal the maximum result possible for the character's class hit die. CON bonuses still apply.

I'm also considering starting the characters off at 5000 xp, the minimum amount for a Magic-User to hit third level. I wanted any boys playing Magic-Users to have multiple spells to cast per day instead of being reduced to throwing daggers after using up their one first-level spell in the initial encounter. Third level gives any Magic-User a pair of first-level spells as well as a second-level spell.

5000 xp means that any Thieves will begin the game at fourth level, no problem since that starting point doesn't make using their thieving skills a cake-walk. Clerics will be 1000 xp shy of fourth level (and will have two first-level spells), while Fighters will be 3000 xp shy of fourth level as well. Elf Fighter/Magic-Users will begin the game as second-level Fighters with 500 extra xp and as newly-minted second-level Magic Users.

There won't be any "in-game" rationale for a third-level start. I.e., the characters will be fresh off the farm.  The two extra levels (three in the case of any Thieves) are essentially a narrative convention granting the PCs protagonist status (and decreasing the likelihood of an early TPK).

Two additional house rules follow from these decisions:

1. When rolling hit points for second and third level, all results of 1 will be rerolled. Once play begins, though, hit points gained through level advancement will be generated by the rules (and thus results of 1 will be possible). Enhanced survivability remains the guiding principle here.

2. Should a player's character expire, his new character will enter play at third level as well. None of my old groups were ever great fans of the "return to play at first level, even if the rest of the party is eighth level" approach to the game. We always felt that it was strange for experienced heroes to suddenly adopt a neophyte in the midst of their travails. At the same time, I want to use the differentiated experience tables of BFRPG, so a Fourth Edition approach would be cumbersome. (I assume that averaging party levels would be the likely option here, but I'll pass on it.)

Have others made similar decisions when starting campaigns at third level? Also: what are good "first modules" for third level characters, preferably adventures that wouldn't require much work to fit into a forest setting?

This Week on a Very Special D&Dawson's Creek . . .

Last night at D&D Encounters, my satyr bard taunted a fae giant by calling him "James Van Verbeeg." That is all.

My Character Got Stoned Last Night

The last few sessions have not gone well for my Fourth Edition mage Enric Crocker ("the Apprentice Who Lived"). Two weeks ago, he was down to his last death save courtesy of this recurring villain:

Yes, that's Loomis the Rat King, crazed rodent lord and plague of the Duchy of Boswin. He hit Enric with his "ratapult" (a slingshot that shoots rodents), knocking him down to -9 hit points. The timely arrival of reinforcements allowed the party's druid to stabilize Enric.

This week, the threat of death, while less embarrassing, was equally puissant. After tracking down a crazed peasant sculptor with a perhaps too uncanny skill at statuary, Enric was left alone by his compatriots to face this beast:

Alpha-striking with various dazing powers and action points was not enough to keep Enric from being bitten by Alis the Cockatrice. Even worse were his pitiful saving throws. In spite of a potential +2 bonus from his Delver's Leather Armor +1, Enric could not manage to roll higher than a 5. So "slowed" became "immobilized," and then, in a final indignity, a natural 1 meant "petrified." Dave the DM tried to console me with the information that Enric was now Resist 20 Damage and immortal, but I rejected his false sympathy—he's been trying to kill one of the party for weeks. Again the party druid saved the day, making his Nature roll with massive overkill to remember the bit of lore explaining how to cure cockatrice petrification. Unfortunately, the party now has a wagon-full of villagers in need of a Restoration ritual from Boswin's head cleric.

In the meantime, Enric has decided to hire a meatshield, er, henchman to guard his flank.