The Unseen Servant forums

We got to talking about this in the catch-all thread and I couldn't resist making a post.

Is there any interest in a rather slow-paced Holmes Basic game? I'm a tad over-extended already, so it would only be once every 3-4 days. Or even once weekly, if my players preferred.

If anyone wants to play and doesn't have the rules, we can use a retro-clone. There are several.

The Zenopus Archive seems to cover what players need to know in that collection of one pagers.

I would be up for this. I have the original rules and BlueHolmes. I think the Prentice rules for BlueHolmes is free but only goes to level 3.

In a recent game, we had a long fight that was only long because no one could hit. Even with us posting pretty quickly, it seemed to last overly long. How might that be handled?

Addendum: I've skimmed the base rules, but not gone into depth.

I've not decided yet what sort of game to make it. Maybe you all have opinions or preferences and we can bounce them off each other?

Probably less focused on regular combat, since it's a slower post rate.

Paladin wrote:I've not decided yet what sort of game to make it. Maybe you all have opinions or preferences and we can bounce them off each other?

Probably less focused on regular combat, since it's a slower post rate.

tibbius had some good notes for other game types, and certainly knows more than I about the subject.

On the Holmes Ref 2.0 link, there's the ability raise Str if you're a fighter. Yet the Stat chart doesn't show any advantage for strength. What am I missing?

Leitz wrote:On the Holmes Ref 2.0 link, there's the ability raise Str if you're a fighter. Yet the Stat chart doesn't show any advantage for strength. What am I missing?

Higher Str gives fighters more rapid XP gain, so their To-Hit rolls and hit points improve faster. It's a round-about benefit but does have an impact on play.

Holmes is sort of the antitheses of min/maxers. Ability scores are less important than in later editions, which for someone like me who is usually a horrible roller is a good thing. Most people consider Dex the most important stat in Holmes since it determines your initiative.

Sure, I'd be interested.

The pace of my S&W game has slowed considerably, so I may have more time to spend on this one.

We may do a classic start at the first step of a dungeon, town nearby and wilderness to explore. If there's enough interest, I'll hammer out some details next week. Been working on designing a dungeon that won't be a pain (for me) to navigate and describe via pbp.

If anyone wants to co-DM or take turns, that's fine too. Or contribute to the setting/house rules/etc. I enjoy games the most when we're all involved.

Rex wrote:Holmes is sort of the antitheses of min/maxers. Ability scores are less important than in later editions, which for someone like me who is usually a horrible roller is a good thing. Most people consider Dex the most important stat in Holmes since it determines your initiative.

It seems more like a bias, every stat except for Wisdom and Strength provides modifiers. Which seems odd, since Str is easy to show value. Wisdom has it's perks too, though it took me a long time to get one high enough to see that.

Every stat has value, its just more subtle in some cases. Obviously having an 18 in every stat makes for a more powerful character but no where near as much as later additions would.

I will say in advance...within the context of my games, the dice are not your friends and high ability scores are of limited utility. 90% of the time, a cunning action from a player bypasses any sort of ability check.

The dice are the last resort when you can't think of a "cunning plan" (cue the Baldric voice). And they are usually against you. The rule of 2 is my go-to method of resolving most things that Player-DM negotiation can't resolve. A 1 or 2 on a d6 is success. A very high ability score might modify that to 1-3 in 6. But it rarely gets better than that.

I use the ODD monster tables to stock dungeons, regardless of the edition I'm running, and they provide a greater chance of running into higher-level monsters early on, so combat is usually lethal and to be avoided if at all possible. I don't run it like a tournament DM gleefully killing characters, but it's a dangerous world and most characters won't make it to name level.

But if you do, it's pretty satisfying.

That sounds good to me.

Anyone used this before? Considering using it for a setting. It came out in '77, and I got a copy to peruse. Looks pretty fun.

No, but it looks neat.

Haven't given up on this one yet. Just a bit mentally drained at the moment. Summer is the crazy time at my job, so bear with me.

I am still here, take your time.

On second thought, I think I'd rather begin with the sample dungeon from the boxed set. I've always wanted to run it and never have had the chance. Zach Howard's blog has so much good info on the subject that it's got me wanting to try again.

If there are enough players still around who care to dive in, I'll see about getting us set up tomorrow.

I am still in, that sounds fun.