Messing around with Labyrinth Lord

I'm still worrying over old school D&D. I have a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia, but every time I open it and flip through it, the rules go from pretty simple and basic to crazy 2nd edition AD&D complicated. And part of what has drawn to me to want to fool with 0e is its supposed simplicity, lack of thick volumes of rules, and "rulings, not rules" philosophy.

So I'm cracking open my printed copy of Labyrinth Lord. And I'm going to spin the wheels a little here.

Rolling some scores: 13, 12, 7, 6, 12, 12. I'll do 5 sets, and these are going to be 3d6, going straight down, by the way. 8, 7, 9, 11, 6, 14. 15, 14, 14, 9, 14, 7. 17, 7, 13, 13, 14, 11. 8, 17, 16, 8, 14, 9.

That gives us the following.

STR 13 | 8 | 15 | 17 | 8
DEX 12 | 7 | 14 | 7 | 17
CON 7 | 9 | 14 | 13 | 16
INT 6 | 11 | 9 | 13 | 8
WIS 12 | 6 | 14 | 14 | 14
CHA 12 | 14 | 7 | 11 | 9

Looks like we may be fighter-heavy. Characters are not created equal!

The first dude has a decent strength, and not terrible wisdom, charisma and dex. That makes him a fair fighter, thief, or cleric. With his terrible Con and Int, I'm going tentatively call him a Thief. Even though he won't get an XP bonus with his 12 Dex. If we set him up as a fighter, he'd get a +5% XP bonus. We'll keep that in mind. Meanwhile, meet Tim the Thief.

Dude number two has pretty terrible stats. Fighter is out, thief is out, cleric is out. His Cha isn't bad, and his Int isn't terrible. This might be our magic-user, maybe even an elf. On second though, with his low Str, he'd get an XP penalty, so we'll call him a magic-user. Mike the Magic-User.

Dude three would make a good fighter, or even a cleric or thief. Or dwarf for that matter. Looks like we've got theives and fighters taken care of, so I'm going to call him a cleric. Charlie the Cleric.

Dude four... Yeah, I'm gonna say Dwarf. That +10% XP bonus will rock. Dimili the Dwarf.

And five.. I'm thinking Halfling. His strength kinda sucks, but.... actually, I thought that halflings were thieves, but apparently they're not. They're just.. halflings. Weird. He's gonna be the thief, introducing Thomas the Thief. So that first dude, Tim, is now Frank the Fighter.

Fighter, Cleric, Magic User, Dwarf, Thief. Sounds like a damn well rounded party to me.

Money: Frank gets 90 gold, Charlie 170 gold, Dimili 150, Mark 170 and Thomas 100. (3d8x10)

Eh, I'm getting bogged down trying to buy gear for them, so I'll come back to boring details later.

How about hit points for some first level adventurers?

Frank ends up with 5 (-1 from the 6 I rolled, due to his crummy Con), Charlie rolled a 1!!! But we'll use the option rule and let him reroll on a 1 or 2. He ends up with 5, thanks in part to the +1 from his Con. Dimili also rolled a 2 and will reroll, ending up with 9 hit points, including the +1 from his Con. Mike rolls a 1d4 for his hit points, and perhaps abusing the reroll a bit, finally rolls something not a 1 or 2, and has 4 hit points. Thomas the Thief ends up with a whopping 6 hit points. Kazam!

Letsee, their saving throws and THAC0 and all that are in the book, so I've got that.

Spells. Mike can choose two 1st level spells and a 2nd level spell to have in his spellbook, so he takes Sleep (of course), Charm Person, and Phantasmal Force. Charlie does not have to choose spells, and can pray for any available to his level.

Gee. Assuming we got all of those details worked out, we're pretty much ready to play!

That's it for now, I'll be back with more later on.