Running S&B

I have talked about Sword and Backpack in depth here. As I mentioned in that post, when I first discovered it I had some difficulty grokking it due to the fact that I have never played a game like that or even been exposed to that type of story focused game. Since my writing of my own Sword and Backpack Hack, I have had a lot of experience running it and been exposed to game designers and other games that have helped me how to run Sword and Backpack more effectively. I also know some of the language may be unclear in the original game and my Breakfast Club hack so I will try to expand on things here. 

Difficulty Rating: Difficulty ratings are discussed as ranging from 1-20 (because of the d20 used). It is important to keep in mind that when an action falls into the class ability the player will get a +5 on the roll. I know from my experience it can be distracting trying to figure out Difficulty Ratings for each monster or task. There are two techniques that can be used (or mixed and matched) to make the experience run a lot more smoothly. 

1. Set the standard difficulty rating at 12. Then, if a task (or monster) is easy then subject three for a new difficulty rating of 9. If the task (or monster) is hard then add three for a new difficulty rating of 15. These numbers work well with the class bonuses and without them.
2. Designate areas of the town/map/rooms of the dungeon/etc with set Difficulty Ratings. Then everything within these areas have the same difficulty rating. This includes monsters and any other tasks that require a roll. 

Monsters: Especially coming from the classic Dungeons and Dragons experience, it is easy (and a go to) to make monsters more difficult by increasing their HP or damage output. This strategy does not work very well with Sword and Backpack. This is because increasing the Wounds can create a combat slag and increasing damage can be very deadly for the player characters. The more effective way to increase difficulty of a monster is to increase its difficulty rating. In my Breakfast Club hack there is listed suggestions for Wounds, etc.

The Wizard's Magic: I would highly suggest (it also makes it more fun and interactive. Plus it helps with immersion) for the wizards to create their own spell books and write their spells with whatever verbal and manual component they want. Then, when the wizard casts a spell the player would make the physical movements and say the magical words to enact the manual movements. Great examples of this can be found here.

Spells that deal damage should be limited to one wound and spells that hinder foes, assist the caster (or their allies), or have multiple targets should last 3-4 rounds/targets. Spells outside of combat should have a duration that makes sense for the fiction. 

Tactical Combat: Due to class bonuses, I would avoid giving out modifiers in actions except for the -3/+3 that I mentioned under Difficulty Rating in this post. During combat, I think it is import to award players for creative and smart decisions. This could be a well laid trap, having the high ground, possessing the monsters weakness or bane, etc. 

Magic Items: Once again, due to the class bonuses it is important to avoid any type of magical items that provide numerical bonuses. Plus, those types of magic items are boring. It is important to keep magic items exciting, mysterious, weird, and wondrous. An example would be a ring that allows the user to turn into a mouse or a cat. A post found at the Trollish Delver blog explains this idea really well.