Gladiatorial Rules

[jodown]

I’ve got my dice rolling friends, but they’re too invested in Pathfinder to be brought over to the DCC side. These friends say that DCC is great, but they’ve spent so much money on Pathfinder products that they do not want to convert. Then I’ve got my friends that play things like Magic the Gathering and Warcraft. These friends thought that roleplaying is lame and that they could never have fun doing it. Some of these friends wanted only to battle each other. They thought the cooperative play of DCC did not involve enough competition to be fun. Others of these friends thought that it was silly for the judge to just make up stories on their own. Only published adventures seemed legitimate enough for them to lend their time to enjoy.
Below is what I came up with to get those friends into DCC. I thought I’d share it in case anyone else is in a similar situation...

Players can make a gladiator team of up to 4 characters. When any character gets to 10 XP, the player has two choices. He can ditch the character and roll up a new level 0 character (with 0 XP), or he can level that character up to level 1. When any character reaches 50 XP, the player again has two choices. He can ditch the character and roll up a new level 1 character (with 10 XP), or he can level that character up to level 2. This trend continues at each new level. When a character reaches enough XP to achieve a new level, he can either level up or be tossed aside for a new character starting at the beginning of the level just completed by him.
Characters do not die in gladiatorial matches. They are always nursed back to full health and abilities before each new match.
Before each match 1d3 is rolled. On a result of a 1 the players face off against each other with their 4 man teams. In this mode any character still standing at the end of the match receives 2 XP. All characters that have fallen in battle receive only 1 XP.
Level__XP Required
0_____0
1_____10
2_____50
3_____110
4_____190
5_____290
6_____410
7_____550
8_____710
9_____890
10____1090
On a result of 2 or 3 the players face a monster or monsters. The characters’ average level should determine from which of the following tables the monster(s) should derive…
0 or 1 – Roll a d14 on Level 1 table on page 17 of Crawl!, Issue V
2 – Roll a d20 on Level 2 table on page 17 of Crawl!, Issue V
3 – Roll a d16 on Level 3 table on page 19 of Crawl!, Issue V
4 – Roll a d10 on Level 4 table on page 19 of Crawl!, Issue V
5 – Roll a d16 on Level 5 table on page 19 of Crawl!, Issue V
In this mode characters receive gold equal to how much damage that they have dealt in the battle, instead of receiving XP. When succeeding against a monster with a spell that does not do damage, spellcasters receive gold equal to twice the difference between their spellcheck and the monster’s saving throw result (this is compounded if a spell affects multiple creatures).
Gladiators can use this gold to buy any equipment in the core rulebook. They cannot purchase magic spells or magic items of any sort. However, these purchased mundane items may opportunely end up being lucky or magical items. For each purchased item use the tables starting on page 9 of Crawl!, Issue #2 to determine if it may be a lucky or magical item.

They can also use gold to hire adventurers to go out and find them some magical items…
Cost of Hiring Adventurers
Level__Cost
0_____50gp
1_____100gp
2_____500gp
3_____1,000gp
4_____5,000gp
5_____10,000gp

These adventurers can be sent north to Zelkor’s Ferry to try their hand at finding treasures outside and inside of Rappan Athuk. No more than 6 such adventurers can be sent at a time.
These adventurers can be slain! Unlike the gladiators who are tended to by skilled physicians and clerics after every match, these adventurers are on their own. Slain hirelings must be replaced in the same way the original hirelings were.
Players that have become attached to their hirelings can feel free to continue to play them in and around Rappan Athuk, instead of playing their gladiatorial characters. They can use their own gold to hire replacement hirelings at the same cost offered to the gladiators. Players can return to playing their gladiators at any time.
Conversely, the players may at some point want to send some of their gladiators out into Rappan Athuk. This is fine, and the judge and players should roleplay their escape. Players should be warned that should their gladiators die outside the gladiator arena they are no longer watched over by their guardian angels. They may very well end up entirely dead.

The rules are entirely arbitrary and have not been tested for balance or anything like that, though things are going pretty smoothly. I just used it as a way to get people into playing, and it worked out well. The players are constantly roleplaying now, and it's like they don't even realize it!

[dark cauliflower]

is this like yer version of the funnel? It reads a little that way to me. Though I guess it can't be the funnel if the 0 levelers don't die.

[jodown]

Yeah, sort of the opposite of a funnel. Another thing that these kids disliked about the idea of rpg's was the way you can die forever. So, I made it so that they could have some guys, their special guys, that they fight each other with that do not die.
Naturally, they are having more fun going out looking for magic stuff around Rappan Athuk. They did not think that they'd end up liking roleplaying, but it's a slippery slope...