Tailoring a Campaign: My Player Resource for Running Hot Springs Island

I am in the process of setting up for my Summer game of Hot Springs Island. One of the first things I wanted to do aside from sending out the pitch document that I shared with you last week, was to write a guide for the players. This guide had to tackle some basic tasks:

1. Cover how to make a character
2. Reiterate at least some of the house rules in the pitch document.
3. Expand on the information in the pitch for players who have bought in.
4. Add in any new content relevant to the players.

So I started by reiterating my character generation process. I added in firearm rules cribbed from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and a gear list that brings the characters into the 17th century, including some era-appropriate armour and equipment.

As a quality-of-life improvement I also added in a bunch of gear kits for my players to let them build a little faster... because. let's face it, unless you are playing a magic-user, shopping for gear is the most time-consuming part of making a PC for Swords & Wizardry.

I also decided that I wanted to import an handful of favourite magic user spells from other versions of Dungeons & Dragons that either appeared in places in the campaign (or, at least were implied), or that I love and would be really helpful to PCs as the campaign progressed.

Finally, I wrote a two-page list of common things that PCs would know about the specific setting so that I don't have to cover it for my players during game time, thus cutting out repetition.

Now, Hot Springs Island has a lot of elemental beings, elemental-themed factions, and elemental NPC magicians in the setting. I thought it might be fun to create an extra Elementalist class that worked like a themed magic-user hybridized with a druid. I feel it captures some of the vibes of HSI really well. And it required me to import yet a few more magic spells from other editions of D&D.

So, new class, a few dozen spells, firearm rules... it turned out to be a pretty decent little supplement. I wanted to share it here in case the content is interesting to you, whether or not you are interested in running Hot Springs Island.

Check it out here.