CHEVALIER of The Obscure RPG Day

Today I will review Chevalier to celebrate "The Obscure RPG Day".

Chevalier was printed in 40 copies in 1976, it was a 131 page book of rules to be used with the original D&DGame (the 3 booklets abd Greyhawk). Luckly I'am the proud owner of one copy of the "1999 limited editionreprint" signed by both Ed Simbalist and Wilf Backhaus.

The authors where clearly in love with the potentiality of D&D, with feudal history and with fantasy (in particularwith Professor Tolkien works), and they wanted more from their game that killing monster in a vacuum.

Since the game grow out of the original game and a lot of thought went into it, by honor of arms should be intothe library of every OSR affectionate, at least as a milestone for some less trodden road.

So whats sets Chevalier apart from other D&D Supplements?

To sum it up: attention to detail and some innovative ideas, it could help to think of it as the Advanced D&Dthat never was.

Most of the details and innovation went into tying characters to the setting by making them part of the feudalsociety, this was partly done by creating a system of honor and favors more binding than alignament,experience or money. Indeed there are some pages dedicated to a "influence" system used to ask favor andkeep track of honor debt, other pages explain "Courtly love" and it's advantage and pitfalls.

Characters as usual are characterized by race, and as usual most characters will be humans unless you canscore some very good rolls and become an Elf (and in no D&D, or derivative game, you will find a moreTolkienesque Elf), an Hobbit, a Dwarf or a Monster. But more than by race characters are characterized andstrongly flavored by their social status as is befit to a feudal character, and with details on the number ofsiblings, your father trade and how good is your standing to the family your character will soon discover that heis far from the XXI century.

And speaking of innovations there was a reinterpretation of the classic characteristics (constitution, strength,dexterity, intelligence, wisdom and charisma) with different bonus and specific advantages, the addition of 2 newcharacteristics (poetic and comeliness). Also alignament become a sort of 3-18 characteristic going from 3Saintly (Law) to 18 Diabolic (Chaos).

Then we had the differentiation between Body (real damage) and Fatigue (the usual hp), and the introduction ofcriticals.

A brief introduction to heraldry, chivalric orders and the role of the Knights could not be missing (and an usefulread for people not in tune with this kind of topics).

Another complete innovation was magick and divine miracles, for the authors magick had to be complex andmages more in search of knowledge than way to blow up dungeons. So magick was based on long procedure ofenchanting, on research and different order of mages, indeed we don't have simply wizard and cleric, we have aplethora of different magic-user (or to say it better a plethora of modes of magick: alchemy, astrology,divination, hex masters, artificiers, necromancy, conjuration, enchanters, thaumaturgy, power word, cabalaism,magick square, natural talent, drug trance, dance chant, shaman, medium) and miracle workers (clergy, templar,hospitalar, teutonic knights, hermits, friars, mendicants). Another innovation was the different way miraclesworked from magick.

The way time was represented (more adventure in the summer and book-keeping in winter) so to have 1campaign year go by in about 10 games, this would make possibles wars, sieges, the fall of kingdoms andextended campaigning. So there were rules on war, jousting and sieges, new spell and variations of old spells.

And maybe I am forgetting more than I am showing you....

In Chevalier there were all the ideas that made Chivalry & Sorcery such a great game, but at the same time theconnection with D&D are very very strong making it an ideal book to plunder for every clone out there (Swords& Wizardry, Adventurer Conqueror King System, Basic Fantasy RPG).

In closing I must thank Catacomb Librarian for wonderful Obscure RPG Day!

Pubblicato da Fabio Milito Pagliara a 00:40 Nessun commento: