The Rules of Play

In honor of my first ever Red Box D&D character, Darkberry, I was trying for a Hobbit thief. Did you know that Tunnels and Trolls 5^th Ed doesn’t have a Thief class? It does have a ‘Rogue’ and while supposedly modeled on the Grey Mouser; is in fact in a weird mix of Warrior and Wizard without the benefits of either and no real bonuses on its own.

Still, I put ‘Rogue’ down on the Character sheet so Rogue it is. Unfortunately, reading up in the rules, I learned that since I had rolled a 6 for his STR he won’t be able to cast spells yet (need at least a STR 10 to cast). Then I rolled on the Height/Weight tables and came up with 2’6” and 100lbs; chubby little midget! I have a certain fondness for young Master Kheebler Darkberry, but methinks he won’t be around long.While I am committed to the idea of playing the game straight there are a few things I will have to GMinize. Figuring out the vagaries of Magic can wait until Kheebler gets up to 10 STR or I roll up a Wizard (whichever comes first), but what I really need are some Rules and a Setting.

The Rules of Play
-Play by the Rules. All of them.
-Random is good! Obey the dice.
-Character death is character death. However, this is a continuous story so if a character dies in the dungeon, there is a chance that any loot they collected will be there if the next character can find the body. I’m going to say that, provided the character did not die in a manner that destroys the body and all equipment (the gullet of a dragon, fall into a lava pit, for example), there is a 2 in 6 chance that they body is still there (and not dragged away and eaten or rotted away or become undead etc).
-I’m sure I’ll be adding more. My next Excel projects are to create a random Treasure Generator and a Wandering Monster generator. May even try for a map at some point.