2021-04-06
In That Endlessness, Our End by Gemma Files¶ My rating: 5 of 5 stars¶ I don’t hide the fact that I’m a fan of Gemma Files’ work. Her writerly reputation is solid, and deservedly so. Take, for example, her previous novel, Experimental Film, frankly one of the best horror novels I have read in many, many years. I had read and enjoyed Files’ stories as they appeared in various publications, but felt like she had hit a new watermark with Experimental Film. I was, admittedly, amped-up to read In That E…
Categories:
- Books
- cinema
- Eerie
- Existentialism
- Horror
- Poetics
- Reading
- Small Press
- Weird
- Writing
2021-04-05
I started this post planning to examine my growing interest inthe roleplaying gameGamma World, after having only beencasuallyappreciative of it previously. However, I kept getting side-tracked makingcomparisons between theuncommonly multitudinous versions of the game. EventuallyI realized that thelong tenacious publishing historyof GWis part of it’s charm, so I’m going to fully indulge this tangentbefore getting back to the main subject later.¶ "Edition zero” for Gamma World was Metamorphosis Alp…
Categories:
- Gamma World
- Metamorphosis Alpha
- role-playing
In my latest post about armor, I 've got one comment saying: "I like it, except for negative Dex modifiers applying to plate armour. Dexterity is already the God Stat in 5e, and the last thing martials need is a nerf, however slight. SOMEONE in the world should be able to dump Dex."¶ He is definitely right.¶ Dex is already too powerful in 5e, and I've fallen into the same trap, so I am changing that part. Dex shouldn't affect you in heavy armor, even if negative, at least in the usual 5e rules.¶ Th…
Categories:
- 5e
- Brainstorming
- Combat
- D&D
- Design
- Dice
- House rules
- Multipurpose mechanics
- Rewriting
- RPG
- Weapons and Armor
I do notfind Doppelgangers that interesting. It isn’t that they’re terrible, it isthat their use is either mostly off-screen in the form of replacing NPCs and causing havoc with social connections, or they are used as a surprise source of conflict, taking the form of some familiar or new face so that they can lure a lone PC away to try and murder them. These aren’t necessarily bad encounters, but rather they’re fairly one-note. Ultimately they rely on effectively ambushing and hiding from the PC…
Categories:
- B/X
- Fifth Edition
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess
- Monster
- Old School Essentials
The word is getting out that Art of Wuxia is a very fun game. See the latest review from The Hard Boiled GMShoe’s Office. Several more review can be found at DriveThruRPG. Here is a Video Overview of Art of Wuxia from Pellam’s Wasteland. Q&A about Art of Wuxia on the Hardboiled GMShoes Office. A […]
A friend sent me this link to a 1599 fencing manual, by George Silver in which the writer SHITS all over the ITALIAN rapier. Because RAPIERS SUCK!¶ As well as going in very deep on some quite complex time-and-motion studies through entirely verbal means, and talking a lot about the complex interplay of different weapons and methods, it also contains this interesting part about the change in culture brought about by the Rapier;¶ "That the reasons used by the Italian fencers in commending the use of…
Categories:
- clearly not even about RPG's
- I read a book
- not really about anything really
- On War?
The cover to module B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands" depicts a party of adventurers battling a group of hobgoblins, with the Caves of Chaos visible in the background (see this thread at Zenopus Archives for additional discussion):¶ Cover to original version of module B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands" (1st printing, 1980). Illustration by Jim Roslof, the original color study for which sold at auction for over $10,000 in 2017.¶ The distinctive purple border and cover illustration of the original vers…
Following on from this post inputting all the d100 tables from d4 Caltrops’ OSE Encounter Activities series (and I hear work is being carried out on making a physical book version of them a thing – splendid!), I put together another file for Inspiration Pad Pro so that a GM can roll up both a … Continue reading OSE Wandering Monster and Encounter Activities generator
Categories:
- RPG
- BX D&D
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Fantasy
- Generator
- Labyrinth Lord
- Old School Essentials
- online resources
“Every Wednesday morning I wake up with a sense of dread, remembering that on top of everything else I have to do that day I somehow have to run a game in the evening. Every Wednesday afternoon I seriously consider calling the session off. But every Wednesday night I sit down and log in and everything actually goes fine.” – Failing better: a GMing retrospective, by Joseph Manola¶ Last month, Joseph wrote about the campaigns he ran and what he learned from them, and at the time I thought to myself…
'Common' language, sometimes under a different name, is a very persistent element of many imaginary worlds.¶ It has some ground in history, with various lingua franca languages, but in imaginary worlds Common usually is far more ubiquitous and widespread than any lingua francas would, up to being a default and only language of many different cultural groups, default and only language of many different political powers, default communicative language between distant and isolated locations, or used…
Still thinking about thieves a lot - mostly because I play one in my weekly B/X game.¶ A few months back, there was a healthy conversation going on in the podosphere about how gameplay should be, when done 'right'. The idea was that players should spend more time describing characters' actions and less time rolling dice.¶ So, "I enter the room and look around for anything special. Do I see anything? Want me to roll perception?" is bad, and "I carefully check behind the bookcase and under the table…
I've been in a few TTRPG campaigns at this point, and there's always some special feeling associated with ending a campaign that you really enjoy. It's a kind of bittersweet like finishing a beloved book series or an RPG series. Now, I'm not talking about campaigns that stop. Plenty of campaigns stop and most that stop probably aren't missed. But campaigns that end require a certain special something. They need closure.¶ Now, this isn't a talk about how to narratively climax your campaign, or eve…
The recording of my vocals failed to capture me (though it recorded the players just fine) today so I will do a written session report to keep up with the game. I have some of the audio because the two players, who have never played together before, used today’s second session to expand on their roleplaying and crafting this new superhero relationship in our Neo-Gotham, Capitol City! I will
Categories:
- MEGS
- superhero role playing
Part II¶ After the end of the last post, the world of magic is dominated by clerics, religion, and divine magic. With the exception of the Elves and their allied culture where a tradition of arcane wizardry was developed along divine magic.¶ As world rediscovered bronze and later iron technology. Arcane magic remained in the background. Cultures and religion proved to be a barrier but not an impenetrable wall. Independent discoveries and trade with the elves slowly spread arcane knowledge, spells,…
Categories:
- Advice
- managing sandbox campaigns
- sandbox fantasy
Part I¶ In my previous post I discussed the status of magic at the beginning of history within my setting, the Majestic Fantasy Realms. Here I will discuss the aftermath of the Dawn War and how it gave rise to the first great era of magic.¶ Prior to the Dawn War all magic was arcane and ritual based. The gods were known as the Lords of Creation and functioned as guides, teachers and coaches rather than as a source of divine mystery. Their roles were to prepare the two races, humans and elves, for …
Categories:
- Advice
- managing sandbox campaigns
- sandbox fantasy
Given how many fantasy worlds are dominated by uninhabited wilderness, and how much the generic image of fantasy is based around forests, it’s pretty surprising to see how little ink has actually been spilled on this aspect of fantasy worlds. If you look around the internet for information about forests in RPGs, there’s basically nothing. … Continue reading "Can’t see the forest for the trees"
1. Behold the Weird Wood.¶ The weird wood resides at place isolated from the world- or perhaps, outside of normal time and space altogether. It is an impossible place with a strange secret at its very foundations.
In this episode we’re talking about Save or Die mechanics, the positives, the negatives and how we us them (or not) in our games. This episode was inspired by a DBJ live-stream I watched today, check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IH5PqtAm7E Title Music: Fireworks by Alexander Nakarada (Public Domain) : https://freepd.com/electronic.php Want to get involved in the conversation? You can leave us … Continue reading "Save or Die"
Categories:
- OSR
- Tabletop RPG Ramblings
- Buzzsprout
- Podcast
Here is a short solo demo of the current state of desert (https://iam-scire.itch.io/desert)¶ The game begins with a cyberattack on a city block. The single held character/killdoll lives in a building there. So prep has to start with that block. With multiple players, it would likely be more than one.¶ THE DISTRICT¶ The targeted block is located in a tech level ⚄ district. Its six impressions are randomly determined to be...¶ (chaotic + people) = undersized bars and clubs spill glittering crowds.¶ (lo…
THE FACTIONS¶ desert¶ Hopes to leverage the killdolls for blackmail. The cyberattack demonstrates that desert is in the know.¶ Goal: ⚀ profit.¶ Resources: Killdolls’ identities, pts of computing power needed to jam the initial blocks, ⚂ personnel per player, ⚃ crates of molotov cocktails.¶ Shutting down the Killdoll's city block requires 7 points of computing power. 6 for the sensor systems plus 1 for communications. Below is the infrastructure desert has taken over for this attack.¶ (1) An office tow…
Go to Part 1 In general, an expedition can navigate through the wilderness by landmark or they can navigate by compass direction. NAVIGATING BY LANDMARK Generally speaking, it’s trivial to follow a road, river, or other natural feature of the terrain. It’s similarly easy to head towards any visible landmark. The landmark or terrain feature […]
Categories:
- Roleplaying Games
- d&d
- hexcrawl
There does not appear to be a means to find it with a book search at Lulu, so I am providing the direct link to the product here in this post. The link will be also posted on the products page of this blog. The book looks really sharp! I was surprised at how good it looks in its designed size, A4 I think? The PDF is serviceable and gives all the goods, But in book format it makes a nice
I am SO glad I watched Dragonslayer over the weekend because it really puts me in the mood for today's monster.¶ Dragons are a huge part of the games we play at home. My oldest son LOVES dragons and has, well, I have no idea how many, scattered all over the place. His games are filled with dragons. So when I want to add new dragons to my games or books, I first turn to him. Especially if I want a fresh take.¶ I remember the Purple, Yellow, and Orange dragons from Dragon Magazine 65 and then update…
Categories:
- A to Z Challenge
- dragon
- Monstrous Mondays
Pressing seeds into Loamy soil as sky portends Coming thunderstorm
By James Hanna, Brett Sullivan, Isaac Warren Fey Light Studio 5e Levels 2-4 The towns of Bassu and Inloc are at each other’s throats. But behind their mutual loathing lies a threat greater than either knows. A fiend in the … Continue reading →
Categories:
- 5e
- Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review
- Reviews
Polyhedral Pantheons and Divine Trappings both depend on having a broad selection of domains. That need seems to be met pretty handily. Paizo Domains, Third-Party Domains, and Druid Domains I see three distinct sets of domains (plus a fourth that exists only on this blog, that I’ll be writing more …
This is the eleventh weekly round up of interesting TTRPG things found on the internet, this week there is quite a lot. Previous one found here. Inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.¶ A take on how to run XP at your table that may be of interest - far too detailed for me but a good breakdown of factors to consider.¶ Aboleth Overlords has a great entry to the FKR world challenge - Ghost Town Slow Crawl - that doubles as an awesome quick town generator for any system.¶ Hopes and Highlights …
Big dudes wearing plate are the stock in trade of epic fantasy tabletop Role Playing Games.¶ Mangu Timur - Bobby Jackson (SKU 77148)¶ Mangu's got a big shield which gave me the opportunity to paint some planks. He's also wearing some weird elven looking decorative hip guard over the top of his faulds (the little skirt which does all the hip and butt protecting). I painted this antique gold but then felt that the viewers eye was drawn to the crotch area so gilded his pauldrons as well.¶ Mangu Timur …
Categories:
- Bones
- Fantasy
- mini
- Miniatures
- Painting
- Reaper
Met twee spelers die niet mee konden doen, speelden we dit keer met alleen Ridder Benno en Vrouwe Edna. Zonder de rustgevende invloed van een Ridder uit Broughton ben ik bang, dat dit alleen maar tot chaos in de campagne kan leiden.¶ Pendragon pagina¶ Geschiedenis van Logres¶ Benno van Steeple Langford¶ Brent van Dinton¶ Edna van Burcombe¶ Romulus Livius van Broughton¶ Herfst 546, Het GraalkasteelVrouwe Edna is voor het eerst in het Graalkasteel en maakt daar een Graal ceremonie mee (net als Benno dat …
Dralasite for Cepheus Quantum¶ They are short, rubbery aliens that have no bones or hard body parts. Their skin is a flexible membrane that is very tough and scratchy. It generally is dull gray and lined with dark veins that meet at the dralasite's two eyespots. The internal structure of a dralasite is very different from the other races. The dralasite's central nerve bundle (brain), numerous small hearts, and other internal organs float in a pudding-like mixture of protein and organic fluids. Dr…
Categories:
- Cepheus Quantum
- OSR
- Races
- Star Frontiers
Today marks the 91st anniversary of the birth of J. Eric Holmes in 1930. Above is a picture that Chris Holmes sent me a while back for the J. Eric Holmes Photo Gallery, which I will be adding to it shortly. Chris doesn't have a specific date but thinks it is from the late '50s or early '60s.¶ Some "Holmesian Highlights" of the past year for me, in roughly chronological order:¶ On Leap Day, just before the pandemic hit, helping the Scrum Club put on its second Scrum Con, including running a session…
Categories:
- Boinger and Zereth
- Chris Holmes
- DMsGuild
- Holmes Ref
- Legacy
- RTOZ
- Scrum Con
The players begin to explore the tower of the wizard Thalifax. Click here to read the session notes.
Idea 1: Storms are fun in hexcrawls.¶ See this system of tiered weather tables¶ or this Weather Hex Flower¶ Idea 2: Giant Monsters are fun. Yes? Yes.¶ I trust you see where I am going with this.¶ RulesIn addition to the normal features of a hex, the presence of one of these Titans adds some sort of environmental effect and additional things to encounter to the hex it's in.¶ The Titan should move about the map, but not nearly as quickly as PCs. It's a mountainous lumbering beast. Untested suggestion: N…
Categories:
- creatures
- elements
- hexcrawl
- rules
- titans
- worldbuilding
Too often players and DM come to the game table imagining some solitary friendless hero who charges off by themselves. Should the DM not be soft, weak and useless and fudge the dice to save them from their foolhardiness, this would-be Rambo typically perishes horribly sooner rather than later. The wise player realises that they are part of a party, a team of adventurers who work together to accomplish their goals of gold and glory. As the dwarves in The Hobbit put it,¶ Far over the Misty Mountain…
Categories:
- AD&D1e
- playstyle
- viking hat
- Viking Hat GM
2021-04-04
Everything leaves a trace. That's been my guiding principle researching the history of early wargames and role-playing games: any commercial product that survives, no matter how obscure, had to be available somewhere and somehow, and that means a paper trail. All too often the products themselves give us little indication of when they were made, as was the case with today's subject, Monsters! Monsters! Monsters! Galore. But with the help of distributor catalogs, we can show how it became availab…
There are good guidelines on Old School Essentials regarding the generation of rival adventuring parties (SRD here). And even a handy online generator to quickly have a new party created!¶ But as useful as that is, I want to shake things up a bit...¶ Generate a rival adventuring party with a dice drop, taking each of a kind from the full array (d4, d6, d8, d10, d%10, d12, d20) and reading all results at once from tables below. Let's assume the following example is for your favorite flavor of B/X, …
If, like me, you’re an Assassin’s Creed fan, it’s likely you’ve been spending at least some time interfering in Mercia’s fortunes in AC: Valhalla over the past few months. With this in mind, and playing in a Pendragon campaign run by @the_smart_party, I’ve been hankering for some down-and-dirty low fantasy, with rare, dangerous magic that’s […]
The Nymph has been the hardest class for me to put together for Gorgon Crawl Classics. It started off as a simple reskin of the Elf, a kinda-fighty spellcaster. I quickly realized that the Cleric spell list fit the “semi-divine nature spirit” concept better than the Wizard spells did, so it changed into an Elf with Cleric spells. But the Cleric spells, on average, lack the “oomph” of Wizard
Categories:
- class
- dcc
- dungeon crawl classics
- gorgon crawl classics
Fourteen deer cross field Finding days refuge as blue Heron seeks cold creek
The kids will be on Easter vacation (what the secular types calls "spring break") for the next week, so I will probably be too busy to write much. On the other hand, Lent is over and so I might just go back on the caffeine...which would result in folks seeing the occasional early morning missive from Yours Truly.¶ Anyway, have a good one. Blessings on your families and prayers for a springtime renewal of hope and peace. God and love be with you all!¶ [now I've got to go buy a ham...]¶ Yes, back on …
From time to time, I've criticized the OSR for losing sight of its raison d'être—keeping old D&D alive—when it goes off the rails and veers into creating games that aren't even the least little bit compatible with D&D. Can you really call a game "OSR" if it's functionally indistinguishable from any other "indie" RPG? I don't think so. But I only get significant pushback for this opinion on the r/osr sub-reddit, where I'm apt to be slapped with a familiar and oft-repeated refrain: "What good are …
I've been neglecting my blog again… which is always a sure sign that I'm in a creative slump. If I'm not writing blog-posts, I'm also not working on other projects. Which annoys me. Because I always have stuff that I want to be doing, and if I can't kick myself in the backside and make it happen, I get grumpy.¶ There's a bunch of stuff I want to do right here on this blog apart from my work on game publications. I want to get back to writing a series that details my campaign-creation process, som…
This is more of an idle thought than a fully-developed idea, but it occurred to me a while back that the changes undergone by the various editions of D&D and AD&D look quite drastic in the absence of the "connective tissue" between the editions—the supplements and splatbooks and so forth—that shows just how incremental they really are. The transition from OAD&D to AD&D 2e is a good case in point.¶ While I'm sure there are many grognards who consider the dividing line between "old-school" and "mod…
Close to two months ago now, I wrote a post explaining how the variety of OSR games has made it possible for a devoted player of TSR D&D to run campaigns in practically any genre—in much the same way that a 3e/d20 System player can, thanks to the OGL and the early 2000s d20 System boom.¶ While I don't have anything to do with the OSR scene these days, and most OSR content isn't terribly useful to me—I write my own adventures, and I have no need for mini-games or indie games or artbooks or shock s…
The Manse is one of the most prolific posters in the blogosphere. They churn out content at a pace that leaves me in gap-mouthed awe. I wish I could be half as generative.¶ Recently, they posted about the expectations of Generic Fantasy Settings. Dan from Throne of Salt took the words out of my mouth and said that he wanted a Mad Libs version.¶ So here it is. Use it to further your Goal for Gonzo Principle (GfG Principle).¶ The Manse's Generic Fantasy Mad LibsThe world is based on the cosmic strugg…
I don't know why Treacle was given its name. It's just what's on the label... But the town has a dock, and smattering of buildings, and a few other structures of note.¶ What I envisioned is a small "port" recently expanded and now under the eye of a magistrate or similar assigned by the regional authorities. Much to the disdain of locals, who enjoyed their quiet, unregulated dock...¶ Like Dawold, Treacle may be a good disembarkation point for adventures and explorations to points beyond. It has a …
Categories:
- gods
- inspiration
- Jackson
- maps
- NPCs
- towns
I've been running an online game for about 2 months now, stemming from this idea I tweeted about "Hrmm what about a miniature skirmish game with three players. One player is the referee and it's pretty much free kriegsspiel rules. And by that I mean the referee just adjudicates things as they come up". It's not been a game featuring any miniatures, but it has been a lot of fun. 6 player warbands tromping around the following hexcrawl: http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/grab-bag/wastes/ Exploring, …
4-2-21 Today the players get their first glimpse of Eggleston, town of Sir Ingram. You can read the full account of the party’s adventures by clicking here.
Previously in this train of thought:¶ Never Show Them The Map (2016): Showing your players the ground-truth hex map ruins the joy of exploration. Dungeoneering gameplay gets this right by making them map for themselves.¶ Applied Wilderness Theory (2017): Trying to build a microsandbox borrowing some elements from dungeon play; thinking about days as like turns, and dividing monsters into beasts, sentients, and scary monsters, with the same ratios that those appear in dungeons.¶ Further Thoughts (20…
Continuing this intellectually-mindthrobbing series.¶ Dallas: the Television RPG: I snagged this by way of piracy out of pure curiosity. I needed to understand. I was largely underwhelmed by it but hey... what did I expect? An incredible storytelling revolutionary RPG that somehow nobody is talking about? Nah.¶ The game is bland as all hell, like many or most early RPGs. This came to us in 1980, a mere 6 years after the publication of D&D. So at this time a person with a little bit of pocket money…
Categories:
- Hill Cantons
- Jez Gordon
- non-review
- RPG Folder
In my campaigns, I use a few house rules designed to create a certain playstyle. I'll talk about each of them in detail in later posts, this is the summary.¶ Open game table - anyone may come or go at any time¶ Bring snacks¶ Character generation: roll 3d6 down the line, choose from fighter, magic-user, cleric or thief. Regardless of rolls, characters may be of any of fighter, magic-user, cleric or thief, but will suffer a 10% malus to XP if they lack a prerequisite attribute. You character may not …
Categories:
- AD&D1e
- playstyle
- viking hat
Layout magic: No fucks given¶ Fire in the Hole (2021)¶ by Derek Jones¶ Self-published¶ Levels 4–6¶ This adventure is one of a rare breed: a Castles & Crusades scenario. While much of the modern “OSR” owes its existence to an ancient flame war among C&C’s playtesters, the game itself does not seem often discussed, and the official adventures have not really ignited the public imagination. However, Fire in the Hole – an amateur module available for the cost of ONE Dollar Americain – is not only a recen…
Thanks to the Nameless Jedi for inspiring this post. Let's begin with a simple thought exercise.¶ Allow me to intriduce you to Orlando the Ogre. Formally, he's Orlando Pedgewick Ogremoore the Third, of the Crystalmist Mountain Ogremoores. He's a middle manager in the Crystalmist division of ChaosCorp and a junior officer at his country club. Orlando the Ogre wants to be your friend.¶ Now, before you click to read the rest of the post, imagine the color scheme you would use to turn my black-and-whi…
My weekly roundup of news and what I found on the internet.¶ The King is BackGodzilla vs Kong hit streaming services this week and I have to say I was impressed. It's another installment in the Legendary Pictures franchise comprising of Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.¶ Godzilla vs Kong - The long awaited match up¶ It doesn't dissapoint.¶ The CGI is top notch and the story line pretty bonkers, but what you really came to see this movie for is a straight up duel betwe…
I want to try out some quick FKR Skirmish battles (http://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2021/03/methods-for-fkr-skirmish-game.html), so I decided to convert some of the warhammer factions to be used in an FKR type game. I'm calling it Krieghammer! I've listed a cost to make it easier for people to put together a comparable warband to fight others with.¶ (Also, join the Krieghammer Discord if you are interested: https://discord.gg/FAGRQjfeHs )¶ Here's the Beastmen (I made the unit names more generi…
I want to try out some quick FKR Skirmish battles (http://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2021/03/methods-for-fkr-skirmish-game.html), so I decided to convert some of the warhammer factions to be used in an FKR type game. I'm calling it Krieghammer! I've listed a cost to make it easier for people to put together a comparable warband to fight others with.¶ (I've also converted Beastmen: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2021/04/krieghammer-factions-beastmen.html )¶ (Also, join the Krieghammer Dis…
0728 ELVEN OBSERVATORY: Atop a small mountain overlooking the spring that births the River Elvenstar can be found the ruin of an ancient elven observatory. This 150’ tall wind- and rain-worn tower has a steep, winding 5’ wide stair winding all the way to the top around the outside. As the thin stone rail has long since fallen away, it is very dangerous to climb, but that has not stopped many in the past, as it is the best place to hide from the nearby cave bears when they are angered – the bears…
Categories:
- Darkling Wood
- Hex 010728
- Hex 010820
- Ravaged Ruins
- Ravaged Ruins of the Roglaras
- Region 01
- River Elvenstar
- Roglaras
B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands" by Gary Gygax replaced B1 "In Search of the Unknown" in the original Basic Set and was also sold separately. A revised version was included in the 1981 Basic Set, edited by Tom Moldvay.¶ Illustration by Erol Otus from the back cover to module B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands" (1980) depicting a group of adventurers on their way to the Keep, its ramparts lit by the rising sun.¶ There has been more discussion online concerning module B2 than for module B1 (see the Dra…
Death and dying happens in old-school D&D, a lot. In the three articles preceding this one, I laid out some rules for the afterlife, raising the dead, and replacing dead characters. This installment is going to go over an oft-discussed aspect of D&D’s combat system: Dying. On the surface this seems like a fairly simple topic, when a PC/NPC/Foe is reduced to 0 HP, they die. Dungeons and Dragons is undoubtedly more on the simulationist side of table-top role-playing. Hit points are at best an abst…
Categories:
- B/X
- House Rules
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess
- Old School Essentials
Since April is Monster Month here I thought it might be fun to check some monster-themed Sword & Sorcery & Cinema movies. Up first is a classic and premiered at the height of the 80s fantasy craze. Here is 1981's Dragonslayer from both Paramount and Disney.¶ We are introduced to one of the most famous dragons outside of Westeros or Erebor, Vermithrax Pejorative. Though he is mentioned among the dragons in Game of Throne's first season.¶ The movie is a little slow, but on par with what was normal a…
Categories:
- 80s
- dragon
- movies
- Sword & Sorcery & Cinema
2021-04-03
I've been feeling bad about not making (well, releasing) stuff, so today I made a game about (not) making stuff. It's unbalanced and untested, but I'm releasing it to remind myself that it's something I can do.¶ Inspiral
"Eow" for "End Of Week". Links I gathered during the week. This is iteration 14. For more weekly links, head to The Seed of Worlds Shiny TTRPG link collection. Most of the links below are found via the RPG Planet that Alex Schroeder built and maintains. If you have a RPG blog, please consider joining the conversation. An even longer list than last week, let's see how it works. Der Totale Widerstand Game design: life experiences This leads to a very different training approach. But it also leads …
In considering the possibilities for a cover illustration to module B1 "In Search of the Unknown", author Mike Carr requested a depiction of the garden room:¶ Once the showplace of the entire stronghold, the garden has, over the passage of time, become a botanical nightmare. With no one to tend the gardens, the molds and fungi have grown out of control.¶ from module B1 "In Search of the Unknown"¶ The resulting scene, a rare collaboration between David Sutherland and Dave Trampier, is filled with my…
Woof! Now that's what I call a hiatus. Rest assured, I've been active gaming (in particular, learning a new system) and don't intend to stop writing for the blog. Just need to work my way back in with a few short posts before diving into any systems or writing longform.¶ I find true the maxim that if you need something done, ask a busy person to do it. Around last month I very suddenly became less busy, and my drive to write fell substantially as a result. So here's a story of what I did(n't get …
“Where’s Carlos?” “Who?” “Your hireling.” “Oh. Crap. Right… uhh…. He’s been here the whole time.” “Really? Even when that dragon attacked us?” “I guess so?” Never let this happen to you again. Subscribe Now!
Categories:
- Roleplaying Games
- Videos
- advanced gamemastery
Talking about giant beetles and how I used them: pack animals for the underworld, war elephants for goblins and the like, or car sized monsters in dungeon corridors.¶ https://alexschroeder.ch/podcast/35-halberds-and-helmets.mp3¶ Links:¶ 2016-10-13 Giant Beetle: “When I ran Castle of the Mad Archmage, we encountered several rooms full of giant bombardier beetles and we fought them all using everything we had. It was a hell hole of flaming oil, charred corpses and madness, because somehow one of the …
Categories:
- RPG
- Old School
- Halberds and Helmets Podcast
Hey-o! There’s a new video up on the channel, where I continue my read-through of the World of Greyhawk Glossography. In this edition, I discuss the adventure hooks, random birthplace tables, and quasi-deities. Enjoy!
Categories:
- Uncategorized
- RPG
- Video
- World of Greyhawk
- YouTube
First of all, I think the prefix "mega" is unnecessary and has done harm to the artform of what I'll call instead a tentpole dungeon. It conjures images of 600 page tomes with long room keys that are off-putting to read and play. What we call megadungeons used to just simply be referred to as "dungeons", a setting for a campaign which, due to its ever-changing and expanding nature, holds capacity for infinite play.¶ Making one of these is much easier than it sounds, and is not too distinct from t…
Another creature in the guise of an animal and we do not go too far astray from the homes of the barghest. This time the animal is a cat and creature is a Cat-sìth.¶ Cat-sìth¶ aka Cait Sídhe¶ Medium Fey¶ Frequency: Rare¶ Number Appearing: 1 (1d8)¶ Alignment: Neutral [Chaotic Neutral]¶ Movement: 180' (60') [18"]¶ Armor Class: 3 [16]¶ Hit Dice: 4d8+4* (22 hp)¶ THAC0: 15 (+4)¶ Attacks: 2 claws, 1 bite, + special¶ Damage: 1d4+1 x2, 1d6+1¶ Special: Bad luck, fear, low-light vision (120’), scent, speech¶ Save: Mons…
Categories:
- AtoZChallenge
- celtic
- monster
The Travellers are on New Colchis, and head to the island of Bermuda to hunt down evidence of an ancient Aslan colony.
Categories:
- Gaming
- GM Notes
- IslandsInTheRift
- Roll20
- RPG
- Traveller
Vobliv of the Balance The adventurers, weary of travel, were looking for a place to set up camp for the night when one of them spotted the thing up in the tree. A cry rang out and the four looked … Continue reading →
Categories:
- Encounters
- Monsters
- Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
- BD&D
- BFRPG
- blueholme
- Iron Falcon
- Labyrinth Lord
- OD&D
- OS Essentials
- OSRIC
- roleplaying
- rpg
- Swords & Sorcery
- Swords & Wizardry
I turn an old piece of Battlestar Galactic concept art into an album cover.¶ Edit to add:
Framing Expectations of Genre and System A part of my Let's Read "Worlds without Number" series. Worlds without Number (WWN 📖) and join in. I’ll be reading through the paid version; however Worlds without Number: Free Edition contains many of the same chapters. In this chapter, Kevin Crawford frames Worlds without Number; building from the Dying Earth genre. I highly recommend Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun series and Jack Vance’s Dying Earth Saga. Both are exemplars in the Dying Earth gen…
Categories:
- dying-earth
- lets-read
- osr
- rpg
- swn
- wwn
By FEI Games FEI Games Inc OSR Levels 1-3 one-off 1st-3rd level OSR hack-n-slash mini-adventure. Includes the new monster “Guardian Statue” … Your party is traveling from one place to another when you spot a rotting backpack that is still … Continue reading →
Categories:
- Do Not Buy Ever
- Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review
- Reviews
tl;dr: home-making physical props takes time, some hints to making them useable so your time is not wasted¶ Maybe I just like mucking about with tea but I find distressing documents and creating tangible clues to hand to players to be one of the most fun and long-lasting additions you can make to games you run. Things, things you can hold, people like that and if it has extra things they can figure out, so much the better.¶ I have run a game with a big set of props and clues and played a con scena…
Categories:
- lessons learned
- planescape
- worldbuilding
Sector 55 Blues is a Judge Dredd Campaign using the Savage Dredd unofficial Savage Worlds Expansion. This is an online only game with members of my Roleplay Club Dragons Keep.¶ Judges Cully, Hammer, Teal and Uhtred gun their bikes North and the Lawmasters quickly outpace the scavengers. about 30 minutes later they find a wide ramp on the East side of the canyon leading up and out.¶ Is that a Ship I See Before Me?¶ As the Judges make it out of the canyon and turn to the South they see a large vehicl…
Categories:
- Judge Dredd
- Savage Worlds
- Sector 55 Blues
- Session Report
Sector 55 Blues is a Judge Dredd Campaign using the Savage Dredd unofficial Savage Worlds Expansion. This is an online only game with members of my Roleplay Club Dragons Keep.¶ Aftermath at The Two Ways Public House¶ Judge Teal calls it in.¶ "We've got a dead Judge and five dead perps at The Two Ways in Benny Hill Block. I need a meat wagon stat."¶ "Who's the dead Judge" replies control "Going to need to inform the Watch Commander".¶ "It is the Watch Commander... Judge Govan is dead"¶ A full complemen…
Categories:
- Judge Dredd
- Savage Worlds
- Sector 55 Blues
- Session Report
Goozer City has laws handed down by the Magistrates and the Enforcers police the people and beat the shit out of them to enforce those laws. It's fair, right?¶ Check this post for details about the GOZR stat block.
By no small coincidence, I’ll be leaning on Mongoose Publishing’s Classic Play: Book of Immortals while developing Divine Trappings. The entire book is about how to play aspiring deities, and there’s a fair bit of material I’ll be able to repurpose. In particular, I’ll be looking to covenants for guidance …
Yet-again, I had a wonderful time at GaryCon this year. Here's the first part of my post-convention recap, working off of my schedule for GaryCon XIII!¶ Wednesday, 24 MarchIn our usual fashion, members of the Legio V gathered on Wedsnesday night for our pre-con get-together, which was a fun time as always. We didn't game this year, just hung out and caught up on life, the universe, and everything.¶ If you're not familiar with the Legio V, here's some info:¶ The Lake Geneva Legio V began as a handfu…
Categories:
- carlos lising
- escape from level 14
- four-way hub level
- garycon
- grodog's castle greyhawk
- henry grohe
- legio v
- lost temple of set
- rich franks
- the fortress of alexander
- the nine
- world of greyhawk
- zine
Hey all,¶ I am currently working on setting up a 5E Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in the Wilderlands of High Adventure, my home version of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, so I am posting stuff on my Hanging Out in the City State blog. I'm not going to bother cross-posting, so check me out there for now...
Categories:
- Campaign
- Dungeons and Dragons 5E
- Hanging Out in the City State
- Wilderlands of High Adventure
- Wilderlands of High Fantasy
Since I am extremely boring, I absolutely love easy-to-run dungeoncrawling games. Throw together a Suspicious Location, drop a few people into it, and go. Sewer Rats is one, Sunless Horizon was originally one before it got way out of hand, and this is (sort of) another one.¶ What is the setting? It doesn't matter. Perhaps the Company rules this section of space, or the Empire has just rolled through, leaving only ruin in their wake. The only solid fact is that there are ruined starships, whether …
2021-04-02
Once upon a time in times of G+ I used to do annual giveaway of maps and amateur-bond sketchbooks.¶ On this anniversary of G+ shutdown, I still have a few maps to give away, even if the collision with Easter this year left much less time to do all I wanted to do.¶ 1. Maps will be shipped for no cost to you; on a downside this shipping will be a plain letter and won't have tracking. Delays in delivery are possible.¶ Currently delivery is not possible to: Anguilla, Bolivia, Bouvet Island, British Ind…
(A quick note: Tiago Rolim, an OSR designer, is ill and needs our help. Please check this out. And you get a lot of cool-looking games for US$10. I don't know Tiago or anyone involved in this bundle, just want to help).¶ Continued from last post.¶ This drives me crazy:¶ I think we could come up with something better and simpler:¶ Armor types have no names anymore. Instead, you get to describe your own armor by choosing from the table above and fitting it into of the three categories below. As I've s…
Categories:
- 5e
- Brainstorming
- Combat
- creativity
- D&D
- Design
- House rules
- RPG
- Weapons and Armor
Down highway 93 they roared, full throttle, hoping to escape whatever it was that had woken up inside the gigantic Mind Shield surrounding the Black Wind V facility. They had to leave LexiB, their trusty Android with the experimental Positronic Brain behind. No choice. They fled.The desert was just starting to illuminate by the light of dawn as they rounded Ferguson Mountain. The great energy
Today on approachable theory we're talking about meta accessibility tools, and we're going to start by breaking down what I mean by that term. Read more!
Categories:
- Uncategorized
- accessibility
- accommodation
- approachable theory
- board games
- briebeau leads
- briebeau on design
- briebeau original
- content control
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- daedalum ap
- disabilities
- disability
- diversity
- education
- empathy
- etiquette
- facilitating
- game design
- games
- gaming
- itch.io
- leadership
- leading with class
- mental health
- players
- RPG
- RPGs
- safety tools
- script change
- social justice
- storytelling
- table tools
- tabletop games
- tabletop gaming
- tabletop rpgs
- text rp
- therapeutic
- trigger warnings
Join me as I continue my descent into the anime hidden deep within the Amazon Prime recommendation algorithm.¶ Parts One and Two.¶ THE GREAT PASSAGE¶ A quiet group of people try to make a book! Will they succeed???¶ Presumably there is a Japanese subgenre about groups of people attempting some kind of creative pursuit. This is one of those. Except in this case its the story of a bunch of underpaid and ignored nerds fighting (against the odds) to make a dictionary for a country that already has a bun…
Categories:
- anime
- I saw a thing
- Reviews
- weebery
Here is an old favorite of mine that I have done a couple of different versions of in various postings and books. Is this the final version? No idea! But it is getting close.¶ This one is a nasty little beastie from English lore.¶ Barghest¶ Large Beast (Demonic)¶ Frequency: Very Rare¶ Number Appearing: 1d6 (1 or 1d4)¶ Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]¶ Movement: 180' (60') [18"]¶ Humanoid: 120' (40') [12"]¶ Hybrid: 150' (50') [15"]¶ Armor Class: 3 [16]¶ Hit Dice: 6d8+12** (39 hp)¶ Large 6d10+12** (45 hp)¶ TH…
Categories:
- AtoZChallenge
- blogfest
- monster
Beings in the Shadowend are composed of three parts: body, or corpus; mind, or spirit, called the essae; and soul, or vitae. The body, the physical aspect of a person, is exactly as one would expect. The mind, or essae is not just the conscious thoughts of a person but their essence; the "themness" of them. The soul, or vitae, is the animating force, the "aliveness".¶ Death is a discarding of the body and a migration of the soul and the spirit. Unless interrupted, these travel by various means an…
URSULATH (NPC)¶ Court clothing (dress), Gyrios’ old painted-over metal shield, kitchen knife.¶ UMURA¶ Leather boots, layered tunic and leggings, goblin belt pouch (empty) waterskin, silver dagger, shoulderbag (quill, inkpot, hooded lantern, tinderbox, 3 flasks oil, ‘angel’ recipe notes, snakeskin book, goblin language book, Dermund’s spellbook, her spellbook), 6xFirebeetle Glands, Silver necklace with sapphire worth 500gp. A spool of strong thread with both a needle and a fish hook. Owl of Thressen…
Theme Evan King - Enchiridion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NkG3bhIxU¶ Welcome 148 Barovian Castle https://tabletopaudio.com/¶ Previously On Scott Buckley - Legionnaire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwW0vFUCzEM¶ “Day 28” 'It's In The Fog' by Darren Curtis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oF5lS0sajs¶ Part 2 Tense Cinematic Instrumental Ambient Music by Argsound¶ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTz6Qp7QE_c¶ Combat RPG SOUNDS “The Boss is Here”¶ Post Combat Hiraeth - Scott Buckley https://www.youtub…
This is not an April Fool's post.¶ The abundance of sexy male drow concubines in my Tidelock campaign has necessitated a table. For shorthand, a sexy male drow concubine is known as a Tom. (e.g. "House Xynyx's lounge presently has four Toms.")¶ This is the vibe right here.¶ SEXY DROW CONCUBINE TABLE¶ d10¶ Name¶ Body Type¶ Accessory #1¶ Accessory #2¶ Secret Power¶ 1¶ Nail¶ Windy willow branch¶ Live spider earrings¶ Luminescent body oil¶ Stringed instrument which resonates with the hearts of the infatuated¶ 2¶ Xyl…
Categories:
- Absolutely Necessary
- Drow
- Tidal Lock
I was considering doing the A to Z challenge this year, but just don't have the gumption. I do, however, want to continue work on a series I've been toying with on and off for the last 20 years -- the Ravaged Ruins of the Roglaras. The original listings for Region 01 never included a Ravaged Ruins entry, so I long ago set out to fix that error. Hopefully, I will finally complete the list this month. And even if I don't, meh, here's a bunch of stuff for you all to try out on your players...¶ 0103 …
Categories:
- Ravaged Ruins
- Ravaged Ruins of the Roglaras
- Region 01
- Roglaras
- Temple of the Toad
I bought quite a few LARGE gaming books in the last year or so, but they take some time to read thoroughly. When this landed on my desk, it immediately moved to the top of the list - but it took me a while since I've been so busy actually playing lately!¶ *****¶ On Downtime & Demesnes (Basic D&D version)¶ by Courtney Campbell¶ Hack & Slash publishing¶ print and PDF here¶ Once in a rare while, an RPG supplement comes out that doesn't need doctoring around with, adaptation or fiddle-fucking - it just wo…
Categories:
- classic metal
- hack and slash
- OD&D
- reviews
- the best
“…he who knows when he can fight and when he cannot,¶ will be victorious.”¶ ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War¶ His Grace Xavener's Coronation¶ Though the War had ebbed, its legacy of destruction lingered. The Scarlet Brotherhood, mayhap the true victor of the War, found its gains in decline. Onnwal was all but lost, the Hold of the Sea Princes hardly worth the effort of holding.¶ Indeed, most nations were left battered and bruised, still gasping from their efforts.¶ The time had come to smooth relations, if n…
Categories:
- Barbarians
- Iron League
- Iuz
- Nyrond
- Rel Astra
- Reydrich
- Scarlet Brotherhood
- Sea Barons
- Sea Princes
- South Province
- Sunndi
- Xavener
Fluttering sparrows Your wings beat vernal rhythms Heralding new life
In the last post, I was probing for the earliest use of d66 (where the first die counts as the tens place and the second counts as the ones, but numerals go only from 1 to 6). With help from friendly visitors, I was sent looking for the first edition of Traveller, from 1977.They were right! Traveller, Book 3, used a primitive version of d66.There I found this chart, shown below, which may be the
I think this might finally be enough maps for now. I really am quite happy with how this one turned out. A few places still need names, and I’ll have to draw in the rivers by hand in Krita (that‘s what Inkarnate decides to exclude from the free version?!) But otherwise this is a really … Continue reading "More More Maps"
Categories:
- worldbuilding
- maps
- Planet Kaendor
Last time, I wrote about the beginnings of slot-based encumbrance, keeping track of your character's equipment in terms of "items carried" rather than calculating weight and adding it up.It turns out I was close but not close enough. JC's useful comments pointed out that the beginning of slot-based encumbrance was in the second edition of RuneQuest, from 1979.This time I'm probing for the origins