It’s hard to deny the impact that Mörk Borg and its cousins have had on the game space. With a punk aesthetic and layout just this side of legible, the quick-and-dirty system and open license has encouraged lots of related games. And the system is solid – a really good basis for relatively rules-light action-oriented OSRy gaming. We’ve got a few of them up on Unconventional GMs – check out Ronin and Pirate Borg, and there’s more to come. You’ll notice these hacks aren’t used for these games – these are how I’ve developed it since then.

However, based on my own preferences for gaming, I like to hack the system a bit when I run these games – largely to give the PCs a few more options, and to reduce the chances of meaningless character death. So, here are the ways I hack #Borg games, when I’m prepping for one-shots:

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Start with Some Advances

2 or 3 advances from the basic starting characters gives you slightly more resilience at the cost of no extra complexity. You’ll hit and avoid damage a little more often, and your hit points mean your PCs aren’t completely tied to the whims of fate. Alongside this, I’ll often reroll weapons and/or armour if they’ve started with something terrible – it’s no fun to be rolling 1d4 for damage when another player is rolling 1d10.

No Armour for Enemies

The armour system works well for PCs – to reduce damage from incoming attacks by a random amount – but in my experience it just causes frustration for players if enemies have it. It’s also another dice roll that doesn’t add much fun to the game. Keep the armour dice for players, ditch it for enemies. If you’re worried they won’t be enough of a challenge, increase enemy HP for those with -1d4 or -1d6 armour by up to 50% – but I’d only do this for big, challenging enemies – let mooks just drop, or add a few more in if you must. But you know how you don’t balance fights in OSR games? That cuts both ways, too – feel free to not adjust enemies and just give PCs that bit of a boost.

No Classless PCs, or All Classless PCs

The balancing between classed PCs and classless is a bit off to start with, and when you level up and abilities increase anyway gets thrown way off. Either have all your pregens with a class, or none of them if you want to keep it simple. But bear in mind that the classes give a significant part of the flavour of the game – so consider carefully before going classless, as you’ll make it a little simpler and a lot less interesting.

Give PCs more Options

Start each PC with the maximum Omens (or whatever your game calls them) – this is probably 2. Give each PC an additional class ability, or an additional scroll, or both. You’ll just increase the options for players, which helps reduce the chance of it turning into a dice rolling contest to hit and miss their enemies. These also add loads of flavour, and give some options outside of combat too.

So, that’s how I like my #Borg games when I run one-shots – how about you? Have you any tips and tricks for making Borg sing?