On the Proper Deployment of Ghouls

Hey all,

Still sick, doctor's appointment Wednesday. Whatever happens with that will probably effect posting this week, but until then: I said the 26th, so we'll see what my brain's making at the moment.

OSRIC stands for Old School Reference and Index Compilation. It's partly an AD&D retroclone, and partly a slicing down of the original rules to an open license core of the system. It's a resource for players seeking to use the OGL, or "open game license", which makes certain aspects of the original mechanics legally usable by third parties. This license allowed for the creation of many derivative works, including, most famously, Pathfinder.

When I last ran an OSRIC game, some good came of it. That was, unfortunately, also the campaign that turned into a rolling dumpster fire of relationship drama before the end. Still, the system itself is pretty fun, and includes a much more robust bestiary than a player would expect from a pure OGL resource.

One of my favorite enemies I got to use were Ghouls. I only got to throw them at the party twice, but they had an impact. The first thing that I think gave them that impact was using them sparingly. This was a campaign that ran slightly over a year, I think, and usually once to twice a month. They faced a trio of them early on, and then, months later, straight "noped" their way out of an infested mortuary. Two steps in, torches reveal Ghouls, two steps back and locked the door behind them.

One great thing with Ghouls in the OSRIC book is their paralysis attack. With no warning to a party of newer players, that paralysis is a frightening thing. Imagine their reaction to hearing "two damage, and roll against paralysis". This stat had never been called for before when they first encountered these enemies, and it gave a thrill of the unknown.

Another thing that made the Ghouls a seriously scary enemy was that I was getting into a school of thought on GMing at the time that involved replacing "cannon fodder" NPCs with NPCs with motives. That is, mercenaries will probably flee before fighting to the last man. For Ghouls, that meant feeding. As soon as the first character went down with paralysis, the Ghoul she was fighting took her character by the shoulders and began crabwalking backwards towards and up the pillars they'd descended from. Paralysis is bad enough, but undead monstrosities attempting to cart away players' paralyzed bodies adds a time component to the fight as well as a new thrill of fear of the unknown.

So, that's my experience with Ghouls. I say, give 'em a go, these old school foes can present quite the frightening encounter for a low level party of adventurers. Happy gaming, all.