I cast magic missiles at the darkness

Hello traveler, you must be weary from your travels, come sit by the fire and tell me what strange sights have ye witnessed.


So i have been playing (mostly) fantasy themed dungeon adventures since the 90s, and after playing by ready written rule systems i i have found that with a small group of people it is incredibly entertaining to write your own homebrew rules. Like to play small battles like 20-30 models each.

Please share your cool house rules here if you wish, always searching for ways to add interesting events to games.

To get things started,

Fighting against an endless horde of skeletons or zombies, roll a d6 for each defeted unit, 5,6 means that the model spawns at the back of the undead unit.
All units killed by the undead are automatically raised as undead warriors.

Trolls, endless amount of projectiles to be thrown, regenerate 1 wound with a 5,6 (d6).

Dungeons.

Make a list of six conditions or random events. for every new room or corridor you enter throw the dice,

Example.

1. Freezing wind- The temperature drops suddenly, throw the dice to determine how many points are lost in movement.
2. Mesmerizing song- All heroes lose their turn because a ghostly entity sings a song of lost ages.
3.Toxic cloud- all heroes must throw a dice, if you roll a 1, it means one wound.
4. The wandering monster- Add a monster to the room and let the dice decide who it will go after.
5. Its a trap!- The first model entering the room or a corridor, must roll two dice, snake eyes means the hero dies instantly.
6. Ancient statue- Grants 5 hero points, can be used to move extra squares/inches or as added dice in attacking/blocking.


These battles are the most fun when all players have an equal amount of models, or at least the same amount of total wounds and ability to inflict damage, the more power you give the dice to influence the game with randomness the better.

Also on a side note, i think a core set of rules must fit on a single page, hate it when nothing happens because everyone is scrolling a brick of a book to make sure of this or that, so when all the important stuff is on one page, everything flows much better, And allows more ale to be drank.


_edit You get one extra hero point for your next quest if you have heard the phrase "i cast magic missiles at the darkness" before.

when I was DM I would secretly roll for Wandering Monsters occasionally.

when I got a 20 I would choose one from my list.

for some reason I liked Kobolds. don't even know what they are.


I also had a convenient chain of stores called 'Karvus Karm's'. they would be found randomly in dungeons, woods, etc.
they bought and sold at cutthroat prices but they had little competition in these remote areas.
all Karvus Karm's had little bespectacled mustached clerks that talked like Bugs Bunny. (it was a thing in my dorm)

(no, I had never heard 'magic missile at the dark' before.)

You used to need a target to cast Magic Missile, now unless the Darkness is a bad guy..?

Ive been playing since the early 90s, and currently running a group for the last 5 years or so(mini painting and terrain and such in my past posts) and Ive mainly used the 5 room dungeon style pattern for most nights. it keeps everything on track... not railroading at all, just keeping everything fresh without the inevitable derailing conversations and wandering into pubs or killing town guards, etc. Not really a rule per se but hey its what Im posting!

Here are the 5 rooms, not necessarily need to be in this order:

The Entrance usually a "guardian" think Bouncer OR the door to enter the Mines of Moria just a point to get the players working on getting where they need to be.
The roleplay challenge or puzzle. Ive done simple puzzles or just a teaser on how to get up a 20 foot wall or avoiding the impossible horde of zombies.
The Red Herring or trick to set them back
The Boss fight or climax
The End/reward/cliffhanger for next time.

As far as rules? Forget Encumbrance, I mean I hate having so many negatives to movement or skills checks, etc.

We have tried several types of Initiative, with the highest roll first then clockwise from there...seems to be the quickest.

So much to share on this subject! LOL

I always wanted to play, but quickly found out that it's a very huge pain in the ass to get into a game in person. It's either they're already in the middle of a campaign, they already got all the PCs they need, or whatever.

I jeep getting told to play online, but it just seems like it wouldn't be as fun, and having to deal with video and audio just takes me out of the element.

a reply to: ElGoobero

Kobolds are awesome, not sure about their appearance either, the store concept sounds interesting!

a reply to: Butterfinger

Also like to use a five room dungeon map.

Yeah, its really cool to build terrain and stuff that have a purpose in your games.

originally posted by: AutomateThis1v2
I always wanted to play, but quickly found out that it's a very huge pain in the ass to get into a game in person. It's either they're already in the middle of a campaign, they already got all the PCs they need, or whatever.

I jeep getting told to play online, but it just seems like it wouldn't be as fun, and having to deal with video and audio just takes me out of the element.

I like the idea of longer campaigns but in reality people nowadays are too busy or distracted, this is partly why i have designed my own rule systems, one of them is especially designed for people with practically zero experience in these type of games, and take about 30 minutes to play, this means that anyone can just jump in, and if you have more time you can play out a couple of different scenarios.

So basically just like any other board game.

Oh and yes, online quests dont sound like my cup of tea at all.

a reply to: XipeTotex

For the record, Kobolds used to be sort of Rat like creatures that lived in forests or mines, etc. but as of 4th edition or so they are now considered dragon-kin, and look like little Dragonborn