The Continual Evolution of S&B

So, recently I have been really thinking about Sword and Backpack due to my discovery of a gaming club I discovered on campus. I have been revisiting all my research notes about how Arneson and the other Twin City Gamers' played and been brainstorming on how to make Sword and Backpack more accessible to first time players or to people who have only played other more complicated/non-narrative focus games. 

Reading through my notes, my first task was clear. I needed to change the single dice mechanic. I followed my research and decided on 2d6. Another bonus of this, is people can raid their board games for dice. During this part of my rewrite, I had a very difficult choice to make things opposed rolls like MAR Barker's Perfected or to use target numbers. I went back and forth between these two options for a long time and I finally decided on target numbers. This is because target numbers give a little more structure and makes it easier for storytellers to bump up the difficulty to show how dangerous a threat is or how difficult a task is (all without the need for additional math!).

My next task to resolve was to make sure to include just enough structure so new Storytellers have consistency for rulings for task resolutions, combat, etc. This was already done in my Breakfast club edition so it was just a matter of converting everything over to the new 2d6 resolution mechanic. 

So, after I finished the above revisions, I wanted to look at my use of Wounds or Hits. I decided rather quickly that I needed to reduce the starting hits for the adventurers (which I did). I also realized that I needed to change the terminology of wounds or hits because those words bring combat to mind and the wounds that result from such actions. I am renaming wounds/hits to Stamina. The idea of Stamina as it is a catch all for the adventurers entire well being - mental, physical, and emotional. If the fiction dictates, Stamina can be lost through fear, exhaustion, and other factors. A storyteller in theory could also give Stamina to extended tasks, very complicated situations, and even social situations like a court room. I think using Stamina really opens up many unique possibilities. 

I have been sitting on these revisions for a few weeks and been carefully rereading them and making sure I did not miss anything. While doing this, I started to listen to a live play podcast and in doing is so, a lot of inspiration hit me for Sword and Backpack and just about any other OSR style game I play or run. With this new found inspiration, I went back to the forge. I really wanted to include some of the old school soul in additional to all of the narrative goodness that is already there. I decided to add a forth job, the Cleric. This goes a long way to adding that old school flavor. 

I then toyed around with the idea of an appendix that included my rulings from my own table. To be honest, I actually added this section and sent it to some people to get their opinions. Though, after some feedback and more thought on the matter I decided to remove this section as it changed the vibe of the document and Sword and Backpack. 

I am also using the manual from Kung Fu Hustle as inspiration for the cover!