Bunnies & Burrows is widely known as “Watership Down: The Roleplaying Game” (with the serial numbers filed off, of course), and that’s basically true, but it’s also a little more anthropomorphic than the original—or at least the illustrations suggest it. These rabbits wear hats, goggles, necklaces, and capes. These rabbits carry around bags to hold stuff in. (That one’s actually in the rules.) These rabbits use siege artillery and make banners for their forts. I’m pretty sure I don’t remember Bigwig and Hazel accessorizing, though I wouldn’t swear to it that General Woundwort didn’t have banners.
Anyhow, B&B was first published in 1976, and it shows. (There was a second printing a few years later, with better typesetting and extra, more professional art, but AFAICT no substantive revisions to the text. At any rate, my copy is the 1976 version, so I wouldn’t benefit from the revisions even if there were any.) There’s no overview of character generation, and the chargen rules are bundled up with the rules for ability scores and character class and so forth. But that just makes the challenge more interesting and increases the possibility that I will miss a significant character generation rule somewhere along the way. Also, my copy didn’t come with a character sheet, but I found a non-fillable PDF I can use for reference. All right, then; let’s begin.
A player character has eight primary characteristics, generated randomly on a set of 3d6 rolls. This being old-school, you roll them in order and take what the fates give you.
Strength (affects melee combat, hit points, damage, jumping): 11
Speed (affects defense, movement, stealth, swimming): 8
Smell (affects recognizing herbs and edible foods, using herbs, and tracking) : 8
Intelligence (affects using traps, language skills, finding things, making tools): 8
Wisdom (affects psychic abilities, ability to feign death): 9
Dexterity (affects carrying capacity, disguise, theft and cheating, climbing, object manipulation): 13
Constitution (affects hit points, resistances, endurance, reproductive success, empathic healing): 10
Charisma (affects persuasion, loyalty, attracting mates, storytelling): 14
Characters also have an experience level for each of these characteristics, which begins at 0 across the board. In most cases, your characteristic level seems to be more important than your rolled score.
Each characteristic also corresponds to a Profession in the rabbit world. Charisma is my highest score here, which would suggest I make my rabbit a Storyteller (who excels at persuasion and deceit). But Dexterity is not far behind, and I could make my bunny a Maverick who is gifted at disguise and cheating at gambling. But it’s my first time round with this game, so I’m going to follow the biggest number. My rabbit will be a Storyteller.
As a Storyteller, I get a 20% bonus on persuasion attempts (most things seem to work on percentile rolls), which is good because until I reach Charisma Level 1 I’ll have a 10% penalty. I’ll get the same bonus on attempts to attract a mate, I guess because everybody loves a storyteller. (Rabbit society turns out to be very, very sexist; see below.) My innate Charisma score also gives me a bonus on these things as well.
Once I reach Charisma Level 5 I’ll have a special ability to charm other animals (including non-rabbits) to make them my allies. (If my Charisma score were 15 I would get a 10% bonus on these checks, but alas, I topped out at 14.)
A rabbit’s Hit Points equal the total of its levels in Strength and Constitution, plus 4. As a rookie rabbit with no characteristic levels, I’ll have 4 HP.
Combat (and most other actions against active opposition) depends on the abilities of the character you’re opposing, so I don’t have a lot to put down on the character sheet. Similarly, a lot of skills don’t kick in until you’ve earned one or more levels in that characteristic. But where I can find a clear bonus, ability, or whatever that applies to rookie rabbits, I’ll note it and skip the rest.
With an average Strength score and no levels, all I have to note here is my Jump distance, which is equal to my characteristic score of 11 in feet.
My Speed score, which is a hair below average at 8, determines my running speed, which is 20 yards per minute. Defense Class, silent movement, and swimming are all based on levels, which I don’t have yet.
A similar Smell score puts me below the threshold where I can tell if a new type of plant is edible, but I can recognize smells of Clear clarity (which is, as you might guess, not particularly impressive). I am, however, familiar with grass, clover, and dandelions, and know lettuce by reputation. My base Tracking score is 80, which sounds high until you realize there’s a penalty for every minute passed since the scent was left. Herb lore is apparently beyond me at this point in my rabbit career.
Intelligence is also 8, and that raw score affects my ability to detect clues that man-made traps are nearby; everything else is dependent on the characteristic level. With an 8 Intelligence I can spot a clue 33% of the time. (That’s not a very good chance.)
All rabbits start out with two languages, that of their biological order (Common Lagomorph) and family (Lapine). I can know up to 8 (because of my Intelligence score) and can learn a new language each time I gain a level in Intelligence (up to that maximum).
Wisdom governs the psychic abilities that all rabbits have the capacity to use as well as those reserved for the Seer profession. Rabbits have the ability to a) see into the future, b) instill fear in others, and c) feign death. Usually these require spending Trance Points, which you don’t get at Wisdom level 0, but rookie rabbits have a chance to pull these feats off based on their Wisdom scores. With a 9, I have a 20% chance to succeed. That 9 score also means that my future visions will be 100% misleading and my death-faking will be only 80% likely to fool observers, so I have that to look forward to.
Now for Dexterity. Hopefully that 13 will bring me some goodies here. Carrying items is a function of Dexterity level, and I start at a base of 1 item. But using a carry-bag is directly related to score, and 13 allows me to carry one bag that can hold ten small items or two apples. (The rules do not tell me how I can obtain such a bag, however.)
Disguise and deceit are functions of Dexterity level, as are cheating and stealing. At level 0, I’ve got a 10% chance of fooling a lower-level rabbit or an animal of another species with a disguise, but no chance of successfully cheating or stealing things. You need a 10 score to climb at all, but level determines how high you can climb, starting at 4 feet for level 0. Finally, 13 is the minimum dexterity score for using human artifacts in something like the appropriate fashion, so I do have that capacity.
Constitution combines with Strength to determine hit points, which we covered earlier. That’s based on levels, as is Energy Reserve, which starts at 2 and goes up as you gain Constitution levels. (Strenuous activity like fighting or running burns Energy, which must be replaced by eating.) The raw score helps determine the number of baby rabbits you and your mate procreate when you couple (it’s a percentage of the buck’s and doe’s combined scores). Chance of going into shock when badly frightened starts at 25% and goes down as you earn Constitution levels. Empathic healing is also dependent on Constitution, but it only applies to the Healer profession.
Last on the list is Charisma, the Storyteller’s key characteristic. Both the raw score and the level affect Persuasion checks. A 14 score gives me a +10 bonus, but a level of 0 means a -10 penalty, and those wash out. (As a Storyteller I also get a 20% bonus, fortunately.) Charisma level affects the loyalty of followers, as well as the ability to attract mates. (Rabbit society in this game is patriarchal and polygynous, and the game apparently assumes that all PCs are bucks. The writers were biologists, and this is one of those places where they seem to have relied on real-life rabbit behavior, or at least a mid-‘70s interpretation thereof, to shape the game world.)
Charisma levels also determine a Storyteller’s ability to enthrall or charm an audience, making them his allies. But that doesn’t kick in until Charisma Level 5, so we can pass over it.
There doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to get starting gear, so I’m going to assume that everything has to be obtained during play. And now all we need is a name. We shall call this rabbit Burrberry.
Player: KAM
Name: Burrberry
Profession: Storyteller
Characteristics: Associated abilities:
Strength: 11/L0 Jump 11’
Speed: 08/L0 Speed 20 yd., Defense 0
Smell: 08/L0 Recognizes Clear smells, base tracking 80%
Intelligence: 08/L0 Clue detection 33%
Wisdom: 09/L0 20% future/frighten/feign death
Dexterity: 13/L0 4’ climb, can manipulate artifacts
Constitution: 10/L0 Energy Reserve 2, 25% shock
Charisma: 14/L0 +10% persuasion, mating
Hit Points: 4
Shock Probability: 25%
Defense Class: 0
Running Speed: 20 yards/min
Persuasion Ability: 20%
Energy Reserve: max 2
Foods Available: Grass, Clover, Dandelions
Herbs Available: not known
Languages Known: Common Lagomorph, Lapine
Burrberry! That's a great name. I hope Burrberry gets a tartan bag.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I'm relieved that mates are attracted by charisma, not brute strength. It's still not optimal, but it's a bit less depressing.