First Game After Action Review

#1

Ran my first ICRPG game for 3 players. I used Roll20 as we all live in different states. The first dungeon I ever DMed was the intro dungeon in the red box D&D Basic Set in 1983. I decided it was time to run it again and converted it to ICRPG, which was super easy. I made sure to include timers, effort items and as many features as possible.

The players pointed out what the game was missing a few times, and I can’t blame them. I dismissed ICRPG after I read through it the first time since it seemed unfinished. It was only after I thought about those ideas and watched some YouTube videos did I see the light.

I did want money in my game, just not the hassle of loose change. Following some ideas I found in this forum I went with “bags of gold”. Each bag is worth about 100gp. You might find half a bag or some other fraction, but we are not keeping track of coins. I pointed out the first time they killed some giant rats that they found 10 silver and 100 copper asked if someone wants to pick it up and keep track of it, or just skip all that and get a bag of coins later on? Nobody wanted to keep track of the silver. A rust monster ate the priest’s mace so he needed another one. He had 2 bags of gold at the end and maces cost 5 gold coins. By this time the players were on board so the priest getting a mace was a quick side comment and no math was needed.

The players pointed out other items “missing” from the game as we played. My character has no languages! When do I get skills? After talking we agreed there was no point in writing down the obvious things. If it is not obvious it is an ability, so put your obscure language or special skill there.

Some of the players were also not fans of one target number for everything at first but during play it seemed to work well. By making things Easy or Hard the rolls did not all feel the same. If we look at the original D&D stats the To Hit needed for the rats, skeletons, goblins and rust monster are 10, 10, 11 and 15. So having a target of 10 and making the rust monster Hard to hit gives just about the same result with less stuff to keep track of and look up. I am not sure the players appreciated how nice that was but as the GM I really did. I have dyscalculia (hard to keep numbers in my brain) so I rely heavily on notes and refer to them constantly. Having less numbers to worry about let me spend more time describing the scene and interacting with the players.

I did have one issue when converting HP to Hearts. In the adventure as written the sample fighter had 8 HP, rats 2 HP, skeletons 4 HP and goblins 5 HP. I gave the rats 1 HP. I pulled the Skeletons from the ICRPG Manual so they have 1 Heart. I used the Gerblin Traitors stats for the Goblins, giving 1 Heart each. The players defeated them but it was more of a struggle than I had expected forcing us to use the Death rules a few times. If I run it again I will give the skeletons and goblins each a Half-Heart, so 5 HP. It seems like a big jump from 1 HP to 1 Heart and I really feel we need something in between.

Overall the players liked the ruleset. As the GM I really liked the ruleset and look forward to the rest of the campaign. There will be one more simple dungeon so we can work the bugs out of the system and characters and then I will unleash the Heckoon Carapace.

#2

Awesome table story! And it sounds like you did a good job making the conversions!

I definitely give some enemies one or two or three or five HP to make a “minion” type enemy. Generally I think in Hearts but sometimes giving an enemy two or three hit points means it survives a slight hit and keeps going, which can also be interesting. That’s not exactly a rule as written though. I think also spot on instincts there.

#3

Thanks for sharing your session report, it’s super cool that you ran the intro dungeon from the old red box D&D set. I’m glad to hear that your players were able to accept the positive changes that ICRPG made for the gameplay, with more plays I’m sure they will truly come to love it.

The money in D&D is terrible, I’m glad you found a good solution for it in your game!

It’s interesting that your players brought up skills as they are not even present in Basic D&D. However, it looks like you settled that well enough.

The single TN and EASY / HARD is elegant and streamlined, it makes things simple for players and the GM. Yes, it’s not going to feel the same as D&D because, well…it’s not D&D. :joy:

In addition to HEARTS I run 1 HP for mooks and 5 HP for underlings, I find that gives me a good mix without making to much work for myself.

Good luck on the rest of the campaign!

#4

The monsters have recommended hp if skeletons need 2 hp to feel good go with what feels right. You control the world , your story was a good one. I’m doing a different conversation so hearing this makes me feel good about how well it should turn out

#5

Another thing you can do, is skip currency altogether.
Any deal with a shop you want to make is a trade, loot for loot, roll a dice to see how much items they need to trade. They can barter to change the dice rolled from d6 to a d4, but a failed check can also up the dice to a d8, or they can use a hero coin to reroll etc.

#6

Thanks for all the feedback. As per tradition half my party had to cancel just before the first game so I will run them through it later and make some of the changes discussed and expect it will go better. I stopped adjusting games around players when we all became adults. The gods of chaos are powerful and people appear and disappear seemingly at random no matter where the PCs are and as far as the characters know, it has always been this way.

For a group of old D&D players finding and spending gold feels very natural. It also makes converting old D&D adventures easier. Following the ICRPG theme I did want to take what worked and simplify it rather then just move the system over entirely so I came here for ideas. You open the chest and find a bag of gold. You need a horse, a simple riding horse is 1 bag of gold, a well trained warhorse is 3 bags. A mace is cheap enough you can just take it. It is assumed you picked up some coins along the way and paid for the weapon with them, we don’t need to spend game time on the picking up or putting down of those coins. I exported the equipment section of the D&D5e rules and saved it as it’s own PDF and am using it as the ICRPG Equipment Book. I don’t recall where I read the suggestion to get rid of individual coins and make bags the base unit but a big thank you to them!