Due to travel, mostly a deep dredge of 'OSR classics'. For more, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Yak-Hack gave us Table-Centric Design
The Retired Adventurer wrote Six Cultures of Play
GROGNARDIA shared The Ages of D&D
Trollsmyth wrote Shields Shall be Splintered!
Jeffs Gameblog shared Party like it's 999
Hereticwerks wrote Roofcrawling: Intro (and Links)
Rotten Pulp shared The Underworld
Delta's D&D Hotspot gave us Basic D&D: On Archery
Scantabulous! wrote Petrifying!
Mazirian's Garden wrote The Hidden Metamorphoses
Rise Up Comus shared 1937 Hobbit as a Setting
DIY & dragons wrote Landmark, Hidden, Secret
TableTobRPG gives us Building a City with His Majesty the Worm
Wombat's Gaming Den of Iniquity gave us [Got Loot?] The 3 Types of Loot
AMONG CATS AND BOOKS shared How to Set Up and Use Faction Turns: Addendum
Widdershins Wanderings asked What Makes A Good Player-Facing Pointcrawl?
From the Sorcerer's Skull wrote The Titan and the City
False Machine gives us Echoing Stars - 12 Forms of Posthuman Corporations
Middenmurk gave us On Fantasy
21 October 2024
19 October 2024
Settlement morale check (GLoGtober 5 '24)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by Phlox - "A procedure relating to a city."
Maybe useful as a mechanism to implement 'things fall apart' adventures like "Recruiters" from Well of Worlds or other siege or high tension situations.
You could use this with or linked to a chaos index or other kind of doom clock.
Proceedure
- roll morale check for the settlement
- apply any adjustments due to events
- apply consequences of morale check result
Intention is that people should be able to feel if the city is on edge and know if they spend their time causing chaos or calming things down will it likely achieve the desired effect
Initial morale score for a settlement should tie to scale - it is hard to shift the attitude of a big metropolis but easier to do it for a thorp.
Target is roll under on 2d6 - a little Thorp without anything to reassure it is going to be very jittery.
High morale just means cohesive, tending towards 'business as usual' - it does not mean nice, noble, or any other positive connotation.
Stuff getting weird imposes a morale check, nothing notable happens recently? No morale check. Sleepy thorp remains sleepy.
Where a settlement fails its morale check, cohesiveness breaks down temporarily, there may be panic, riots, looting and whatever response from authorities those warrant. Anything that requires processes or trade becomes hard as things shut and people are busy tending to their own affairs. Anything that prospers in chaos like heists, revolution or the like will go more easily.
Things that move the needle for a morale check at a settlement:
You get -1 to the roll for:
- Grand speeches or other crowd-interactions that were seen at least 10% of the population
- Nearby threats defeated of HD = 10% of population
- Recovery of treasure nearby equal to 100gp per population
- Arrival or emergence of popular public figure
You get +1 to the roll for:
- Sightings of threats of HD = 10% of population
- Death within the settlement of 5% of population
- Great magical workings, without clear benevolent intent
- Unexpected death of significant public figure (popular or notorious)
- Significant damage (e.g. fire)
You need to do a lot to shake a metropolis into chaos, conversely small settlements hang together only because nothing is threatening them - likely they will pack up and head for the hills if anything scary comes their way.
Maybe useful as a mechanism to implement 'things fall apart' adventures like "Recruiters" from Well of Worlds or other siege or high tension situations.
You could use this with or linked to a chaos index or other kind of doom clock.
Proceedure
- roll morale check for the settlement
- apply any adjustments due to events
- apply consequences of morale check result
Intention is that people should be able to feel if the city is on edge and know if they spend their time causing chaos or calming things down will it likely achieve the desired effect
Initial morale score for a settlement should tie to scale - it is hard to shift the attitude of a big metropolis but easier to do it for a thorp.
| Settlement | Pop | Morale |
|---|---|---|
| Thorp | 50 | 5 |
| Hamlet | 240 | 6 |
| Village | 650 | 7 |
| Small town | 1450 | 8 |
| Large town | 3500 | 9 |
| Small city | 8500 | 10 |
| Large city | 18500 | 11 |
| Metropolis | 25000 | 12 |
Target is roll under on 2d6 - a little Thorp without anything to reassure it is going to be very jittery.
High morale just means cohesive, tending towards 'business as usual' - it does not mean nice, noble, or any other positive connotation.
Stuff getting weird imposes a morale check, nothing notable happens recently? No morale check. Sleepy thorp remains sleepy.
Where a settlement fails its morale check, cohesiveness breaks down temporarily, there may be panic, riots, looting and whatever response from authorities those warrant. Anything that requires processes or trade becomes hard as things shut and people are busy tending to their own affairs. Anything that prospers in chaos like heists, revolution or the like will go more easily.
Things that move the needle for a morale check at a settlement:
You get -1 to the roll for:
- Grand speeches or other crowd-interactions that were seen at least 10% of the population
- Nearby threats defeated of HD = 10% of population
- Recovery of treasure nearby equal to 100gp per population
- Arrival or emergence of popular public figure
You get +1 to the roll for:
- Sightings of threats of HD = 10% of population
- Death within the settlement of 5% of population
- Great magical workings, without clear benevolent intent
- Unexpected death of significant public figure (popular or notorious)
- Significant damage (e.g. fire)
You need to do a lot to shake a metropolis into chaos, conversely small settlements hang together only because nothing is threatening them - likely they will pack up and head for the hills if anything scary comes their way.
16 October 2024
What dwells within the dwarf roads (GLoGtober 4 '24)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #4 is from a list by Shadowfray - "Infrastructure & Logistics." - with special thanks to Walfalcon for unsticking my writers block with their own post on the topic. For my contribution we return to the Dwarf Roads and the things you find down there.
Long ago, during the Membrane Wars, the dwarves retreated from the Last Star and built the under-roads in a frenzy to reconnect their scattered holdings as their previous airship-empire failed beneath the tainted light. Their alchemical-botanic mastery was turned to wringing fuels from the blood of the earth and they ground out the under-roads then fought the cult of the Last Star to a standstill in the dark.
The roads are now long abandoned, ancient defences still lurk and automata still roam but some things have made their home and some brave venturers traverse the paths once more. Few are good to meet.
Whatever else is found, there are usually dazzler walls - they make shadows leap and dance confusingly to the light of a normal flame but even unlit they are glaringly irritating to those with darkvision rapidly inducing headaches and making anything requiring vision exhausting and difficult.
Traps
1. Bulwark doors - Most renowned aspect of the Dwarf roads - known as Gnashing Doors for their fail-closed multiple redundancies
2. Darkness cascade - stinging chill showers of liquid darkness, typically matched with slopes and spiked pits
3. Lightning Arcs - discharging along dazzler walls in blinding torrents
4. Turret traps - throwing a variety of poisons, incendiaries, and caustics
5. Mellified beast release - honey-bottled monsters in arcane stasis, released. Basilisks a favourite
Hazards
6 - Maintenance golem - ever-burning elemental core heat the great rock-scrapers it has used to shore up the tunnels these past millenium
7 - Haunted train - a near intact war-borer train - too intact for the dead crew will rise to defend their charge
8 - Hypnotic archives - missing interface psychadelics might be found and information gleaned
9 - Unstable magazine - alchemical fire, night bombs, seeker swords - lethal things stored uncarefully by soldiers under pressure
10 - Breached fuel unit - dripping caustic and flamable pools, clouds of noxious gas fill the local area
Monstrous residents
11 - Weretoads - loners, often heard long before seen croaking low-wave messages along the roads
12 - Crocodile cultists - pale, trogoldyte forms, highly territorial of their glorious depths
13 - Dwarven shades - death has not released them from their dutiful defence
14 - Giant spiders - keeping the giant flies down
15 - Myconids - inheritors of the dwarves deep-botanical endowment
Intruders
16 - Humanoid raiding team - soldiers of one of the realms above, trying to outflank their foes from beneath
17 - Questing adventurers - pursuing something or someone that has fled here
18 - Blockade runners - smugglers trying to worm their way past surface hostilities and customs barriers
19 - Treasure Seekers - trying to search out some last forgotten coin
20 - Dwarven Reconquistadors - reclaiming their ancient birthright
We have visited these roads before with Small god: Lady Deephome (GLoGtober 2 '23).
Other references:
The Last Star - Bearded Devil
Jungle Dwarves of Forgotten Gorzu - Lizardman Diaries
Long ago, during the Membrane Wars, the dwarves retreated from the Last Star and built the under-roads in a frenzy to reconnect their scattered holdings as their previous airship-empire failed beneath the tainted light. Their alchemical-botanic mastery was turned to wringing fuels from the blood of the earth and they ground out the under-roads then fought the cult of the Last Star to a standstill in the dark.
The roads are now long abandoned, ancient defences still lurk and automata still roam but some things have made their home and some brave venturers traverse the paths once more. Few are good to meet.
Whatever else is found, there are usually dazzler walls - they make shadows leap and dance confusingly to the light of a normal flame but even unlit they are glaringly irritating to those with darkvision rapidly inducing headaches and making anything requiring vision exhausting and difficult.
Traps
1. Bulwark doors - Most renowned aspect of the Dwarf roads - known as Gnashing Doors for their fail-closed multiple redundancies
2. Darkness cascade - stinging chill showers of liquid darkness, typically matched with slopes and spiked pits
3. Lightning Arcs - discharging along dazzler walls in blinding torrents
4. Turret traps - throwing a variety of poisons, incendiaries, and caustics
5. Mellified beast release - honey-bottled monsters in arcane stasis, released. Basilisks a favourite
Hazards
6 - Maintenance golem - ever-burning elemental core heat the great rock-scrapers it has used to shore up the tunnels these past millenium
7 - Haunted train - a near intact war-borer train - too intact for the dead crew will rise to defend their charge
8 - Hypnotic archives - missing interface psychadelics might be found and information gleaned
9 - Unstable magazine - alchemical fire, night bombs, seeker swords - lethal things stored uncarefully by soldiers under pressure
10 - Breached fuel unit - dripping caustic and flamable pools, clouds of noxious gas fill the local area
Monstrous residents
11 - Weretoads - loners, often heard long before seen croaking low-wave messages along the roads
12 - Crocodile cultists - pale, trogoldyte forms, highly territorial of their glorious depths
13 - Dwarven shades - death has not released them from their dutiful defence
14 - Giant spiders - keeping the giant flies down
15 - Myconids - inheritors of the dwarves deep-botanical endowment
Intruders
16 - Humanoid raiding team - soldiers of one of the realms above, trying to outflank their foes from beneath
17 - Questing adventurers - pursuing something or someone that has fled here
18 - Blockade runners - smugglers trying to worm their way past surface hostilities and customs barriers
19 - Treasure Seekers - trying to search out some last forgotten coin
20 - Dwarven Reconquistadors - reclaiming their ancient birthright
We have visited these roads before with Small god: Lady Deephome (GLoGtober 2 '23).
Other references:
The Last Star - Bearded Devil
Jungle Dwarves of Forgotten Gorzu - Lizardman Diaries
14 October 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #194
Short list as ill this week. For more, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Trilemma Adventures gave us An Era of Standard RPG Terminology
Tower of the Lonely GM shares Knockback rules from TOR 1st to d20 games
Slight Adjustments shared FIGHT / DEMONS
levikornelsen gives us Post-Politicized Procedure
thydungeongal hosts a discussion on tumblr on D&D is easy to learn
Kill It With Fire! gave us Check-off boxes, not HP
ars ludi writes West Marches: Finding the Dungeons
Dice Goblin gives us The Two-Tiered Reaction Roll
Widdershins Wanderings shares The Magic Tree House Spectrum of OSR Player Behavior
Personable Thoughts gives us A method for condensed worldbuilding
Don't Split the Party wrote If Your Torches Burn for only One Hour your NPCs will be More Important
Torchless gives us LOW OPINION: System Matters
Hive Kratos launches with Introduction
Trilemma Adventures gave us An Era of Standard RPG Terminology
Tower of the Lonely GM shares Knockback rules from TOR 1st to d20 games
Slight Adjustments shared FIGHT / DEMONS
levikornelsen gives us Post-Politicized Procedure
thydungeongal hosts a discussion on tumblr on D&D is easy to learn
Kill It With Fire! gave us Check-off boxes, not HP
ars ludi writes West Marches: Finding the Dungeons
Dice Goblin gives us The Two-Tiered Reaction Roll
Widdershins Wanderings shares The Magic Tree House Spectrum of OSR Player Behavior
Personable Thoughts gives us A method for condensed worldbuilding
Don't Split the Party wrote If Your Torches Burn for only One Hour your NPCs will be More Important
Torchless gives us LOW OPINION: System Matters
Hive Kratos launches with Introduction
12 October 2024
Death by a Thousand Claws (RPG Blog Carnival)
This months blog carnival from The Other Side has the topic of Horror and Fantasy - so I was inspired to write about implementing the dread of the onrushing doom.
Thinking through what is dreadful and horrifying to a group of typically well armed and cunning adventurers, I had a few thoughts - most of which stem from lack of knowledge.
Menace for highly experienced players are signs that point to multiple dangerous options, signs not clear enough to allow countermeasures to be chosen. Menace to newbies is anything, with the caveat that they will not recognise the threat signs more experienced players would nor understand the scale of thing they might face in some cases. The weird monster is a traditional approach - like critters from Fire on the Velvet Horizon - things operating out of a non-standard game-space where the players do not know the rules this monster is operating.
Tricks to pull this off are
- reskin monsters - the familar becomes unrecognisable
- tweak abilities - the element of an attack or the stat that is attacked
These root in the horror of doom, which requires finesse to avoid tipping into despair - you want the grim, tense silence of the narrow margin fight around the table not the glum resignation of the lost battle.
ONe thought on making this work - you want a monster which is difficult to pick off at range or en masse - very few hit points, comes in groups, glass-hammers some stat-drain then dies.
Our concept here would be the horde of little things of which any individual one is not hard to deal with, and you're unlikely to get hit by any given one, but should they manage to lay a hand on you, that is damage.
Darkling Wisp (B/X)
AC 6, HD 1-1, #AT 1, D 1+special, MV (30’), Save F 2, ML 12, No. Appearing 1d6
If a darkling wisp scores a hit, it drains a point of Constitution in addition to normal damage. This lasts for 24 hours.
In pitch darkness it has a faint violet flickering outline, somewhat ball-like with a suggestion of mephit-like wings and spindly limbs. In light it appears as a scintillating shadow of the same. They pop into existence in hordes at places where the veil between the Feywild or Shadowfell is changing, typically dawn or dusk, lunar cycles or seasons turnings. They rush in hordes for a time, snatching vitality from whatever they encounter, before flickering out of existence. Prolonged exposure to these things cause the lands where the veil is thin to have their ephemeral aspect.
Darkling Wisp (5e) Small fey, chaotic evil
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 4 (1d6)
Speed 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
6 (-2) 14 (+2) 10 (0) 6 (-2) 10 (+0) 8 (-1)
Skills Stealth +4
Damage Vulnerabilities radiant
Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages –
Challenge 1/4 (50 XP)
Darkling Touch: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 1pt necrotic damage and the target’s Constitution score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Constitution to 0. The target can recover their level worth of Constitution points when they finish a long rest.
Thinking through what is dreadful and horrifying to a group of typically well armed and cunning adventurers, I had a few thoughts - most of which stem from lack of knowledge.
Menace for highly experienced players are signs that point to multiple dangerous options, signs not clear enough to allow countermeasures to be chosen. Menace to newbies is anything, with the caveat that they will not recognise the threat signs more experienced players would nor understand the scale of thing they might face in some cases. The weird monster is a traditional approach - like critters from Fire on the Velvet Horizon - things operating out of a non-standard game-space where the players do not know the rules this monster is operating.
Tricks to pull this off are
- reskin monsters - the familar becomes unrecognisable
- tweak abilities - the element of an attack or the stat that is attacked
These root in the horror of doom, which requires finesse to avoid tipping into despair - you want the grim, tense silence of the narrow margin fight around the table not the glum resignation of the lost battle.
ONe thought on making this work - you want a monster which is difficult to pick off at range or en masse - very few hit points, comes in groups, glass-hammers some stat-drain then dies.
Our concept here would be the horde of little things of which any individual one is not hard to deal with, and you're unlikely to get hit by any given one, but should they manage to lay a hand on you, that is damage.
Darkling Wisp (B/X)
AC 6, HD 1-1, #AT 1, D 1+special, MV (30’), Save F 2, ML 12, No. Appearing 1d6
If a darkling wisp scores a hit, it drains a point of Constitution in addition to normal damage. This lasts for 24 hours.
In pitch darkness it has a faint violet flickering outline, somewhat ball-like with a suggestion of mephit-like wings and spindly limbs. In light it appears as a scintillating shadow of the same. They pop into existence in hordes at places where the veil between the Feywild or Shadowfell is changing, typically dawn or dusk, lunar cycles or seasons turnings. They rush in hordes for a time, snatching vitality from whatever they encounter, before flickering out of existence. Prolonged exposure to these things cause the lands where the veil is thin to have their ephemeral aspect.
Darkling Wisp (5e) Small fey, chaotic evil
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 4 (1d6)
Speed 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
6 (-2) 14 (+2) 10 (0) 6 (-2) 10 (+0) 8 (-1)
Skills Stealth +4
Damage Vulnerabilities radiant
Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages –
Challenge 1/4 (50 XP)
Darkling Touch: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 1pt necrotic damage and the target’s Constitution score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Constitution to 0. The target can recover their level worth of Constitution points when they finish a long rest.
09 October 2024
Hidden depth of domain encounters (GLoGtober 3 '24)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by Vivanter - "An encounter table for domain-level play."
So for this I thought of the many things that would crop up in domain play and thought I would have another go at a universal chart. For a domain level game, the problems scale up but the boons also change. For me domain level means 'so big, the king needs to send ...' either the cavalry or the tax wagons because it makes a difference on the scale of hundreds to thousands of people. The problems, if left unattended would threaten the viability of the realm itself. The type of stuff even high level adventurers would get out of bed for.
I blocked things out into a couple of groups
Catastrophes - big, rare things going very wrong in the deep wilds
Bad Times - things that hit 'civilization'
Critters - all the usual sorts of monsters but more of them or bigger.
Pesky Humans - people, either the neighbours or outlaws, being the nuisance
Civil Matters - things happening in the towns and cities
Stars Align - other peoples magical fantasy nonsense happening to you and your realm
Then blocked out a hidden depths table with the first four blocks and filled it out to a potential d30 roll with the last group.
You could run this as a chaos clock - switching 6d4 > 4d6 > 3d8 > 2d12 > d24 > d30 as things get weirder.
So for this I thought of the many things that would crop up in domain play and thought I would have another go at a universal chart. For a domain level game, the problems scale up but the boons also change. For me domain level means 'so big, the king needs to send ...' either the cavalry or the tax wagons because it makes a difference on the scale of hundreds to thousands of people. The problems, if left unattended would threaten the viability of the realm itself. The type of stuff even high level adventurers would get out of bed for.
I blocked things out into a couple of groups
Catastrophes - big, rare things going very wrong in the deep wilds
Bad Times - things that hit 'civilization'
Critters - all the usual sorts of monsters but more of them or bigger.
Pesky Humans - people, either the neighbours or outlaws, being the nuisance
Civil Matters - things happening in the towns and cities
Stars Align - other peoples magical fantasy nonsense happening to you and your realm
Then blocked out a hidden depths table with the first four blocks and filled it out to a potential d30 roll with the last group.
You could run this as a chaos clock - switching 6d4 > 4d6 > 3d8 > 2d12 > d24 > d30 as things get weirder.
| Score | Roll | Group | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | d4d20 | Stars Align | Treasure hoard uncovered |
| 2 | d4d20 | Catastrophe | Major volcano |
| 3 | d4d20 | Catastrophe | Fey incursion |
| 4 | d4d20 | Catastrophe | Plague |
| 5 | 2d12 | Bad Times | Terrible Weather - |
| 6 | 2d12 | Bad Times | Crop Failures - peasants on the move |
| 7 | 3d8 | Critters | Minor monster tribe |
| 8 | 3d8 | Critters | Beast herds |
| 9 | 3d8 | Critters | Bountiful harvest |
| 10 | 3d8 | Critters | Insect swarms |
| 11 | 4d6 | Pesky Humans | Cult outbreak |
| 12 | 4d6 | Pesky Humans | Banditry |
| 13 | 4d6 | Pesky Humans | Herdbeast rustling |
| 14 | 6d4 | Civil Matters | Festival |
| 15 | 6d4 | Civil Matters | New construction |
| 16 | 6d4 | Civil Matters | Trade fair |
| 17 | 6d4 | Civil Matters | Crimewave |
| 18 | 6d4 | Civil Matters | Riots |
| 19 | 4d6 | Pesky Humans | Raiders |
| 20 | 4d6 | Pesky Humans | Siege |
| 21 | 3d8 | Critters | Big Scary Individual Monster |
| 22 | 2d12 | Bad Times | General Revolt |
| 23 | 2d12 | Bad Times | Plague |
| 24 | d4d20 | Catastrophe | Divine incursion |
| 25 | d30 | Stars Align | Lost secrets unearthed |
| 26 | d30 | Stars Align | A mighty warrior arises |
| 27 | d30 | Stars Align | Blood War Incursion |
| 28 | d30 | Stars Align | A craft falls to earth |
| 29 | d30 | Stars Align | Titans War breaks out (giants, dragons, etc) |
| 30 | d30 | Stars Align | An archmage takes up a new goal |
07 October 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #193
Links from about the interwebs, both new and time-tested. For even more, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
The Other Side blog writes ITS OCTOBER 2024!! RPG Blog Carnival and Horror Movie Marathon
Attronarch's Athenaeum compiles RPG Blog Carnival: Wondrous Weapons and Damning Dweomers Round-Up Post
Warhammer Conference has proceedings on their Youtube channel
Direct Sun Games gives us With the Cult of Crimson Revelers
Play Material gives us Putting together the Scene Kit and boiling it waaaaay down
Trilemma Adventures shared Some Thoughts on Intrigue
Sword of Mass Destruction gave us Rethinking clerics and religion, part 1 and part 2
Personable Thoughts gives us The Freedom of Constraints: Game Jam Writing
Play Material writes Doing a TTRPG game jam changed my life
The Other Side blog writes ITS OCTOBER 2024!! RPG Blog Carnival and Horror Movie Marathon
Attronarch's Athenaeum compiles RPG Blog Carnival: Wondrous Weapons and Damning Dweomers Round-Up Post
Warhammer Conference has proceedings on their Youtube channel
Direct Sun Games gives us With the Cult of Crimson Revelers
Play Material gives us Putting together the Scene Kit and boiling it waaaaay down
Trilemma Adventures shared Some Thoughts on Intrigue
Sword of Mass Destruction gave us Rethinking clerics and religion, part 1 and part 2
Personable Thoughts gives us The Freedom of Constraints: Game Jam Writing
Play Material writes Doing a TTRPG game jam changed my life
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