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I recently purchased Operation Unfathomable by Jason Sholtis and found it is really up my alley. For those of you unfamiliar with the setting, it's been described as a gonzo, subterranean sandbox adventure that's plenty deadly but is probably very different from any Tolkienesque game you have ever played. The game is written for the D&D 0E retro-clone "Swords and Wizardry", and since I've been curious about how that game plays, I'd like to give it a try.
Everyone begins at 1st level with the standard classes and races from the Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook, which is available as a "Pay What You Want" PDF. The setting below the earth (where the adventure is set) is well-described in the campaign book, but the world above as imagined by Sholtis still hasn't been published, so we'd all be making it up as we go along.
Here is the blurb describing the game:
OPERATION UNFATHOMABLE includes:
Underworld Phenomena: Novel environmental hazards to challenge explorers like Horizontal Cave Lightning, Whirlwinds of Unbidden Transportation, Sudden Seismic Events, and many more!
Fractious Factions: Enter a crossroads of Underworld civilization where combat is only one of the options (and often not always the wisest!) for dealing with its denizens. The PCs can make a temporary truce with Blind Antler Men or forge an unlikely alliance with the minions of Nul the Mindless God!
Races, Weirdos and Chaos Godlings Galore: Over two dozen new creatures, from Batwinged Dwarfs to Shaggath Ka the Worm Sultan, malevolent...and even more malevolent!
Near-Endless Adventure: Enough NPCs, encounters, and areas to explore to keep a campaign going well beyond the initial scenario.
And if you want more background about the actual adventure, here's the full player's background:
Unable to master the mystic arts and doomed to obscurity in the shadows of his nine (confirmed) siblings, the Prince dedicated himself to mastering the arts of war and became a mighty fighting-man and prominent explorer. While outfitting himself for an expedition, Eyraen discovered the Nul Rod among his father’s substantial treasure hoard and appropriated the relic for use on a suicidal errand into the unfathomable Underworld.
At some point in their delve, the Prince’s party met with a terrible fate from which only a single porter escaped. This young man, his hair prematurely white from terror, was able to offer very little in the way of coherent testimony before breaking free of his restraints and throwing himself into Stonespear River. The authorities found a rough map from the expedition in the youth’s tattered sack, along with a small golden idol depicting a little- known godling, Shaggath-Ka the Worm Sultan. Former associates of the Prince confirmed that Eyraen had long a terrible vengeance upon the Worm Sultan, to whom one of the Prince’s most ardent lovers was sacrificed in an unspeakable rite.
According to the map, Shaggath-Ka’s realm lies somewhere beneath the frontier territories to which your group has traveled in search of adventure. Just yesterday, the local captain attempted to plumb these depths with a sizable force of soldiers. A half-insane survivor, before renouncing his citizenship and disappearing into the night, reported that the war band attracted so much attention they were drawn into a series of nonstop battles. The captain and his remaining stalwarts fell in an encounter with a singular horror that the surviving man-at-arms was either unable or unwilling to describe. The agents of the Sorcerer-King hope that a smaller expedition, proceeding stealthily and choosing their battles wisely (this cannot be overemphasized), might have a better chance of success. The section of the Underworld visited by the Prince’s party was at least partially pacified, and many horrors were destroyed. Certainly, whatever wiped out the party remains at large, but with care, planning, and stealth, the Nul Rod may still be recoverable. The further opportunity to reclaim any treasures procured by the Prince before fate overtook him should not be ignored.
The entrance to the Underworld used by the Prince lies but a few hours’ travel into the nearby wilderness. But, with perpetual internecine wars raging on all fronts, most of the greatest heroes in the Sorcerer-King’s service are dead, occupied, or very far away. And so in Fort Enterprise, the modest wilderness outpost you have chosen as your base of operations, the Sorcerer-King’s regent has determined to press into service whomever he can find who might pass for bold adventurers. Your newly formed company, already planning a career in exploration, treasure hunting, and dungeon delving, will simply have to suffice.
I'm really interested in joining the play by post scene, so if you'd have a newbie I'd be keen to apply. I've just downloaded the ruleset, I'll take a look and if a concept jumps out at me I'll post it up here.
Thanks Branding Opportunity! Awesome, I love He Man, and Numenaria was my favourite place in Golarion! So does this mean you're looking at human characters only?
I thought I'd post up some stats just to see how the dice roller works. Are we assigning them in order rolled as per the rulebook, or can we put them wherever?
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This thread is not really a recruitment or character creation thread, as I'm just trying to find out if there is enough interest to play a the PbP game here. If we don't get 2-3 more players who are interested, I'm not sure this will work here.
Having said that, I'm happy to bounce ideas off of you and those are some pretty great rolls, so you should keep them! I was actually planning on doing the 4d6 and drop the lowest die, but I don't think you have to do that.
And no, any of the races mentioned in the S&W book are fine.
Ah, I see. Sorry for jumping the gun, in case you can't tell I'm just a little bit excited about this.
I'm super impressed with the rolls too, thanks for letting me keep them! I'm thinking if this gets off the ground I'll play a fighter.
I might submit something if this gets going. Any thoughts on healing options at 1st level? I never understood the reasoning behind clerics not getting spells until level 2.
I quite like the old style, having started with the Red box and AD&D 1st ed way, way back.
Consider me interested.
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Swords and Wizardry is based on 0 Ed D&D (the white box), but it is similar to 1st Edition in many ways. I've never run a game using it, but I find that playing PbP games is a great way to learn a new system as you are playing, because there's plenty of time to look something up if you don't know it off the top of your head.
I have quite a bit of experience running PbP games, however.
I also wonder if the game's simplicity will encourage good RP or not, as there are very few skills and class/background abilities to distract you. It will have to be seen.
While I have no desire to play this, I will pop in to say Branding Opportunity is fabulous.
After reading the rulebook I can see what you mean about encouraging roleplay. I never played the older editions (unless you count Baldur's Gate on PC) but there's really not a lot to track on your character sheet. I think that's really cool,back in the day when my group was playing 3.5 it sometimes felt like mathletics with all the modifiers. I feel like you could really focus on the core aspects of the game with a simple ruleset like this.
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I feel like you could really focus on the core aspects of the game with a simple ruleset like this.
We'll have to see.
As for cleric spells, I think I'll go with the cleric spell-progression table from Labyrinth Lord, which gives them a single 1st level spell at first level, plus 1 if they have a Wisdom of 15+.
I dabbled very early in my experience as a young lad in the pre-AD&D editions, and think it would be fun to see what it's like once more. Color me interested.
Seems awesome, I'd be interested.
I got impatient. Wanted to see what I might be working with.