Three and a half years ago I began a Rules as Written LotFP game set on post apocalyptic Mars, and called it “On a Red World Alone.” Bit by bit each rule was tinkered with. Today ORWA is a game unto itself, and if you’re interested in what that game looks like I’ve linked the current rules document below.
This revision, the 8th, is a complete ground-up rewrite, and the first I’ve ever shared publicly. The version of the document linked below also includes all the tables and encounters I use to run the game. The stuff my players never get to see.
Speaking of, if you play in ORWA, or if you’re interested in doing so, you should not read this document. It contains information which would be deleterious to your enjoyment of the game.
ORWA Version 8.
Don’t click if you play in the game!
I hope this will be interesting to folks who have followed the evolution of my process. In here you’ll see the most up-to-date versions of how I run Haven Turns, or how I structure encounter tables. That said, what you won’t see is much explanatory text at all. These are notes written either for myself, or for my players, so it may not always be clear to someone outside that fairly limited circle. If anyone has questions, I’ll be happy to answer them in the comments.
Thanks for “popping the hood” like this. I’m especially interested, lately, to see how different people handle their “haven turn” (or whatever you want to call it). I know Kevin Crawford has some complex rules for them in all his books, but I also like seeing the less formal approaches people take at their own tables.
Heya, sorry for the necromantic ritual on this post, but I really like ORWA a lot, and it’s been really helpful as a thing to ponder and borrow from for the rules I use for my home game.
I’ve always had one question though: do you allow multi-classing? It seems like it would be very simple to allow characters to dip into expert for a level to get some skill points. There’s a part where it says something along the lines of “characters can gain skills during downtime or by leveling as an expert” which always felt like an implication that a character at any point could decide to start gaining levels in expert if they wanted to.
In my own interpretation, I did try to limit this a little by making the fighter’s “divide attack bonus” and expert’s backstab features that only characters starting in the class got. (characters that multi-classed could still use downtime to learn these eventually).
One final, smaller question: is the only benefit of taking the magic user class the ability to cast spells, and the 3 spell words it grants at first level? Obviously that’s a big benefit, I just saw that a possible counter to my interpretation that you could multi-class, since it would encourage taking level 1 as an M-U and then immediately going to something else since you only learn more spells via finding them in game.
Sorry, I feel like these are very fiddly questions about “balance” that sort of get away from the spirit of the thing we’re trying to do, but over the years whenever I’ve been working on my own games, and opened up ORWA for inspiration, the questions always come back to me!
If you got this far, thank you for reading, and I hope you are having a nice day.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment. It’s lovely to know ORWA has been so useful to you!
As it happens, I don’t recall multiclassing ever coming up with my players, so I don’t know if I ever made a ruling on it. I do know I didn’t *want* characters to multiclass. When I wrote “Characters may improve their chance to succeed at any specified task by developing their aptitude for it through training or leveling as a specialist.” my intent was only to highlight that skill improvement was available to non-specialists, not to imply that these were both character building options. That all being said, I AM a big softy. If my players had asked me for multiclassing, I think I’d allow them to change classes a single time each.
And I think you’re correct, the only benefit of the magic user class is the ability to cast spells. I don’t think there’s anything associated specifically with your magic user level that improves your spellcasting ability. That would definitely be an issue I needed to address if any multiclassing occurred—though as it happens I didn’t actually use Magic in the Moment for very long. It ended up being too cumbersome at the table, and wasn’t really giving me the results I wanted.
No need to apologize for the fiddliness of your questions! My games are often prone to wonky character build options. It’s something that’s mitigated by the culture of my own table, but is notoriously difficult to communicate in a setting document.