Tomb of Horrors, page 13-14, has a complete character matrix. The table has basic stats for 20 characters, with each character having from 6 to 14 levels in one or more classes. It is suggested in the module that players can run two characters each, up to 6 players. Only one character each should be run by each player if the number of players is greater than 6. If players use their own characters, the levels should be similar to that in the table on page 13. Make lots of characters, because the mortality rate will absolutely be high in this dungeon.

White Plume Mountain is designed for character levels 5-10, with the party being composed of 4-10 characters. Suggested ratio is 40% fighters, 30% magic users, 2)% clerics, 10% thieves. Beyond that, anything goes!

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is insane, and most of the characters in the party will probably be blown up trying to figure out the high-tech devices. There is a Character Roster on page 84, much as Tomb of Horrors, with 15 character stat sets, mostly with single character classes, that range from levels 4-13. Suggested range is 10-15 characters, mostly with levels between 5th and 10th.

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is intended for character levels 6-10. There’s an extensive overland adventure before reaching the caverns. The module indicates that the original tournament had a mix of characters as follows: Half-elven fighter4/magic-user 5/thief5, Elven fighter4/magic-user 9, Halfling thief 9, Human fighter 8, Human cleric 7, Dwarf fighter 6. Flexibility is good for this module. There’s a warning to expect extremely high casualties, so make lots of characters and get really good at playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons before even attempting it!

Have you ever looked at the old Swords and Spells rules put out for OD&D?

There is a bit of confusion in the rules on the facebook page though. They don’t really seem to specify exactly how to submit your entries. I tried guessing for myself and sent my .jpgs of my character sheet pages to them by clicking on the facebook name of the page and sending them a private message with attached files.

Have you heard if there is a different way that we are supposed to do it? I asked them on the facebook page, but haven’t heard back yet.

When Kindle does formatting for their books, it kind of just takes the text and slaps it on there. If you own a Kindle Fire or Paperwhite, it will be really hard to move through the essay and it puts the titles wherever it wants. Now this isn’t the Publisher’s Fault, as Amazon does it’s own thing. But it just makes searching harder. Those who have just straight reader Kindles, will find it just fine, because it goes into plain text, and so it auto keeps the chapter and format breaks better. Again, not Kobold Quarterly’s fault, which is why I don’t ding them too hard about it.

Major changes to how the Modern Hero class and its archetypes advance. Archetypes are now more in line with standard archetypes.

Weapon damage has change to reflect the old MSRD damage.

Added the “Shadow Heroes” sample campaign setting. Shadow Heroes is a few optional rules for supernatural type characters.

Added the “Classic Heroes” sample campaign setting. Classic Heroes are the old MSRD classes created into archetypes for the fantasy classes.

It’s a trap I was stuck in with my designs for Killshot as equipment (particular weapons) are an essential element to the game and assassins’ abilities to get jobs done. Combined with the fact professional assassins need to get paid for their work (the definition of professional), using money was pretty much an unwanted and necessary demand.

In Psi-punk I tried hard to figure out how to replace wealth, but instead what I got was sort of a simplified version of d20 MOdern’s system (without the need to roll vs. a modifier to determine whether or not you can purchase a can of hairspray).

Basically, I tried to whittle it down to the essentials: mundane and common equipment simply doesn’t cost anything, nor does it have any real game statistics. Characters and GMs work together to decide whether or not something they need/want is reasonable for them to have at the present time.

It’s really hard to justify letting people have their way with guns, armor, cyberware, vehicles, and so forth though. Those oten have their own game mechanics and need some sort of balance. I wound up with an abstract wealth system that applied simple, FUDGE-based values to everything and some general guidelines for GMs on how to price non-mundane items. Then removed the need to roll dice for acquisitions.

It’s probably not perfect, but I think I did a good job of getting rid of money as a constant, tedious, management sub-game.

In Psi-punk, I explicitly mention that there are no encumbrance rules and I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that players don’t have to keep track of mundane items. Furthermore, I spent a lot of time working out a new wealth system that didn’t require things to have an actual dollar value and players don’t have to keep track of all their pennies.

It’s liberating to not have to deal with all of that loot all the time.