Labyrinth Lord Character Creation House Rulings

Aside from how it is played, much of what affects a character’s success is determined at creation. With this in mind, I have created a couple house-rulings for the character creation process.

• Stat Rolling: I use the tried-and-true roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die method.
• Starting Hit Points: At first level, characters get maximum hit points. It is like like they rolled the highest hit point die result and added any constitution modifier applicable.
• Beginners’ Luck: At second level, characters get to re-roll a hit die roll that results in a 1 or a 2 until they get something better than 2.

Given these tweaks, the survivability rate increases.

Labyrinth Lord

Currently, I serve as the game moderator for two gaming groups. In both groups, we play Labyrinth Lord. The choice belongs to me. I chose Labyrinth Lord for a few reasons, which I will enumerate here.

1. It costs nothing. I like to use free systems when I introduce, or re-introduce, people to gaming.
2. It possesses an old-school feel. Call it nostalgia. Call it an aesthetic. I like it.
3. The rules work … simply.
4. One book! Most games I like come complete in one book. I observed this throughout my years of gaming. This was not decided by way of some philosophy.
   

Like many GMs, or LLs, I like to tinker and develop house-rulings. I will present a few here. The people I play with have a more narrative flair, which I welcome and encourage. This means that they want to develop characters that they can play and get into. Labyrinth Lord tends to have high mortality rate. To combat this, I have developed a few tweaks. I will post them separately.