Thundering towards the end of the year, lots of shiny links to round out 2024! 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.
Act today to get in on The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations! (Closes midnight 31/12/24)
Similarly last call to get in on Elemental Reductions RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic
Enworld hosts It's Time To Vote For 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs!
Maatlock's Tavern TTRPG Resources proposes the Hexcrawl25 Challenge
Lithyscaphe returns to the fray by Embarking on a Foolish Endeavor
A Knight at the Opera gives us Ten Years (Part 3)
Idraluna Archives shares Quick & Dirty Megadungeon Stocking
Methods & Madness gives us Create a sandbox map in 7 easy steps (or 10)
Sundered Shields and Silver Shillings shared Blog challenge: Transformative Posts
Jubal on Exilian wrote Riddles and how to use them
DMDavid shares Fifth-Edition D&D’s Original Lead Designer Calls Out the Game’s “Secret Error” That Remains Today
Grumpy Wizard gives us Brain Rot Vs. Classic Adventure Gaming
Bommyknocker Press writes Cugel-flavoured deception mechanics
30 December 2024
28 December 2024
Year in Review 2024
2024 was a great year for gaming - down from last years banner year but I do not feel in any way short-changed.
On running games
Ducal House (3.5e) - got in another 22 sessions, tailing off toward the end of year. This fifth year began with nailing down the altered ducal succession that had nominally been the campaign goal since session zero, a considerable amount of politics after a lot of time saving the realm and then further venturing forth to thwart a foe/potential allies plot. A venture onto the astral finally levelled everyone up to 11. The bard became heir apparent to the realm, unsought. The sorcerer has become fascinated with the potential of lichdom and the cleric continues to restrain them, in person or as the voice of conscience.
On running games
Ducal House (3.5e) - got in another 22 sessions, tailing off toward the end of year. This fifth year began with nailing down the altered ducal succession that had nominally been the campaign goal since session zero, a considerable amount of politics after a lot of time saving the realm and then further venturing forth to thwart a foe/potential allies plot. A venture onto the astral finally levelled everyone up to 11. The bard became heir apparent to the realm, unsought. The sorcerer has become fascinated with the potential of lichdom and the cleric continues to restrain them, in person or as the voice of conscience.
24 December 2024
State of the Blog (post #701)
Strange concidence has post 700 coming in right before the traditional 'last slot of the year' so this one will be blogging and stats, the next one will be the year in gaming.
On Traffic
The r/OSR blogroll last dead post was stripped down by the mods - after freezing the auto-update widget back in Jan 24, it finally got deleted in summer. I had stopped paying attention and missed when exactly it was finally deleted. Someone with more grit than me could go back to classic weekly reposting? It definitely drew in people that did not come in by other routes.
On Traffic
The r/OSR blogroll last dead post was stripped down by the mods - after freezing the auto-update widget back in Jan 24, it finally got deleted in summer. I had stopped paying attention and missed when exactly it was finally deleted. Someone with more grit than me could go back to classic weekly reposting? It definitely drew in people that did not come in by other routes.
23 December 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #204
Shiny links for this festive season. 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.
In case you missed it The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
Attronarch's Athenaeum gives us Block of Old School Essentials being sold off
DIY & dragons shares Vestiges of the Past - Phantom Cogs and Forsaken Easter Eggs
I Cast Light! writes YOU CAN KEEP YOUR BORDERLANDS: Adventure Suggestions for Those New to the OSR
Taldus' Tavern launches with The Teetering Pile
Leicester's Ramble gives us d66 MORE Things to Put Things Into
d4 Caltrops shares Dungeon Stocking - Expanded
Trilemma Adventures gives us The Tarot of Pips
The Library of Attnam writes Legendary Resistance-less
Mythic Mountain Musings gives us My friend's played a wargame and it wrote my setting for me
In case you missed it The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
Attronarch's Athenaeum gives us Block of Old School Essentials being sold off
DIY & dragons shares Vestiges of the Past - Phantom Cogs and Forsaken Easter Eggs
I Cast Light! writes YOU CAN KEEP YOUR BORDERLANDS: Adventure Suggestions for Those New to the OSR
Taldus' Tavern launches with The Teetering Pile
Leicester's Ramble gives us d66 MORE Things to Put Things Into
d4 Caltrops shares Dungeon Stocking - Expanded
Trilemma Adventures gives us The Tarot of Pips
The Library of Attnam writes Legendary Resistance-less
Mythic Mountain Musings gives us My friend's played a wargame and it wrote my setting for me
21 December 2024
d30 Things found in Psurlon Territories
Our shapeshifting wormlike friends the psurlons. Telepathic, carrion-eaters, worshippers of the cthonic gods of the far-realm. Friends of the mindflayers, since they want brains and the psurlons eat everything else. The below was considered as an astral/wildspace table since they are more often found there than groundside.
d20 Encounters in psurlon-space
Delightful AD&D era image by Brian Despain, found in Planescape Monstrous Compendium III
d20 Encounters in psurlon-space
18 December 2024
d100 Deep Astral Spelljamming Encounters
I have been pondering the encounter table for travel on the Astral Sea and comparing it to the old encounter tables for the phlogiston from back in the day. The 5e one is all about running into things from across the planes - a good 30% chance of running into another ship but otherwise all planar travellers or monster encounters - one single site, no weather.
The old phlogiston table had a same chance of a ship but it had 40% of non critter things - space debris, planetoids and space phenomena which I think has been dropped a little too quickly from the current table.
The old phlogiston table had a same chance of a ship but it had 40% of non critter things - space debris, planetoids and space phenomena which I think has been dropped a little too quickly from the current table.
16 December 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #203
A short set of links as I was on the road last 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.
Re-pointing to The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
Elemental Reductions is still running this months RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic
MonarchsFactory gave us Another D&D Thing to Use: Major Injury Table
Jubal wrote on Exilian An Unexpected Bestiary: The Fourth Parchment
B/X BLACKRAZOR gives us D&D Combat
AWESOME LIES shares CAREERS SERVICE
d4 Caltrops gives us d100 - Mercenary Minutiae & Sellsword Specifics
dungeon doll writes Musings on Weapon-as-Initative
Prismatic Weekly gives us Blog Roundup: Winter Slush
Oh S***, (d6) Rats! launches with Rip & Tear (Your Character Sheet)
Personable Thoughts gives us Reality Check: Songbirds 3e
Rancourts Writings compiles A Survey of Overland Travel
LootLootLore gives us Little gods and what they do for a settting.
MonarchsFactory wrote Dodgy Thieves’ Cant Flowchart to Simplify Things
Homicidally Inclined Persons Of No Fixed Address gives us The Multiple Designer Model
Adventures, planar in nature shared Roundtable 6: the sliding scale of difficulty
Cruel & Unusual Punishment gave us Rules Musings - Training and Skill Tiers
From the Sorcerer's Skull gives us Appendix M: A Weird Medieval Fantasy Reading List
Re-pointing to The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
Elemental Reductions is still running this months RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic
MonarchsFactory gave us Another D&D Thing to Use: Major Injury Table
Jubal wrote on Exilian An Unexpected Bestiary: The Fourth Parchment
B/X BLACKRAZOR gives us D&D Combat
AWESOME LIES shares CAREERS SERVICE
d4 Caltrops gives us d100 - Mercenary Minutiae & Sellsword Specifics
dungeon doll writes Musings on Weapon-as-Initative
Prismatic Weekly gives us Blog Roundup: Winter Slush
Oh S***, (d6) Rats! launches with Rip & Tear (Your Character Sheet)
Personable Thoughts gives us Reality Check: Songbirds 3e
Rancourts Writings compiles A Survey of Overland Travel
LootLootLore gives us Little gods and what they do for a settting.
MonarchsFactory wrote Dodgy Thieves’ Cant Flowchart to Simplify Things
Homicidally Inclined Persons Of No Fixed Address gives us The Multiple Designer Model
Adventures, planar in nature shared Roundtable 6: the sliding scale of difficulty
Cruel & Unusual Punishment gave us Rules Musings - Training and Skill Tiers
From the Sorcerer's Skull gives us Appendix M: A Weird Medieval Fantasy Reading List
14 December 2024
Campaign Retrospective: Brancalonia - Bay of Princes
Since a campaign finished, let us do a retrospective Against the Wicked City style as is now traditional.
What it was:
* "Welcome wagon" for friday night open table D&D - catch the newbies with a T1 table.
* Opportunity to bring books I had kickstarted to table - I backed the second one and got the books from the first as add-on
Stats for 27/30 games are here - a year of open table gaming - the last three games did not change the stats - average remained similar at 5.4 players for 4.6 hours on a Friday night. Final total was 77 individual players for 161 slots.
The roster of adventures was 19 games from the Brancalonia books (8 games out of Jinx's Almanac, 6 out of the Macaronicon, 5 out of the Brancalonia core book), 6 from my 'adventure generator' tests, 2 OSR zines (Het Thamsya, Goblin Mail), 2 adventures from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel and a Dungeon23 snippet (Apocalypse Archive).
What it was:
* "Welcome wagon" for friday night open table D&D - catch the newbies with a T1 table.
* Opportunity to bring books I had kickstarted to table - I backed the second one and got the books from the first as add-on
Stats for 27/30 games are here - a year of open table gaming - the last three games did not change the stats - average remained similar at 5.4 players for 4.6 hours on a Friday night. Final total was 77 individual players for 161 slots.
The roster of adventures was 19 games from the Brancalonia books (8 games out of Jinx's Almanac, 6 out of the Macaronicon, 5 out of the Brancalonia core book), 6 from my 'adventure generator' tests, 2 OSR zines (Het Thamsya, Goblin Mail), 2 adventures from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel and a Dungeon23 snippet (Apocalypse Archive).
11 December 2024
Spellburn and spellpoints (RPG Blog Carnival)
This months blog carnival from Elemental Reductions has the topic of Beyond Vancian Magic - so I was inspired to write about Spellburn.
Key point here is that while the Vancian casting system as exists in most recent editions of D&D is fine, it it all a bit clean-cut for chucking raw magical energy around - hence you should be able to push the boundaries in extremis - get more bang for your buck with Spellburn.
I used a variant of More Risky Spellburn from Sheep & Sorcery where a caster take d6 spellburn to a stat of their choice to max out a spell effect; damage, HD turned, etc. or to cast a spell they know how to cast but cannot normally do so again before rest.
I like the general concept of a magic user doesn't 'run dry' when they run out of slots, they just run out of safety margin.
Key point here is that while the Vancian casting system as exists in most recent editions of D&D is fine, it it all a bit clean-cut for chucking raw magical energy around - hence you should be able to push the boundaries in extremis - get more bang for your buck with Spellburn.
I used a variant of More Risky Spellburn from Sheep & Sorcery where a caster take d6 spellburn to a stat of their choice to max out a spell effect; damage, HD turned, etc. or to cast a spell they know how to cast but cannot normally do so again before rest.
I like the general concept of a magic user doesn't 'run dry' when they run out of slots, they just run out of safety margin.
09 December 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #202
Yet more links from about the interweb; people got creative over last holiday weekend. 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.
Re-pointing to The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
Elemental Reductions is running this months RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic
Sign-ups for 2025 Blog Carnival topics is now open
Cavegirl & Dungeongal on roleplaying and dungeon-crawls
A Knight at the Opera looks back at 5e with Ten Years (Part 1) and Part 2.
Black Magic OSR gives us Rambling Reflections On Making My OD&D, And A Tiny Aside On Naturalistic Fantasy
Prismatic Wasteland compiles many economic inspired responses to 'Blog Friday' in Roundup of Blog Friday Posts from Across the Blogosphere
Tim Clare in The Observer writes ‘Playing games turns me into a person who makes sense’
Jubal wrote on Exilian Ritual and re-use: writing places that feel alive
Re-pointing to The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
Elemental Reductions is running this months RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic
Sign-ups for 2025 Blog Carnival topics is now open
Cavegirl & Dungeongal on roleplaying and dungeon-crawls
A Knight at the Opera looks back at 5e with Ten Years (Part 1) and Part 2.
Black Magic OSR gives us Rambling Reflections On Making My OD&D, And A Tiny Aside On Naturalistic Fantasy
Prismatic Wasteland compiles many economic inspired responses to 'Blog Friday' in Roundup of Blog Friday Posts from Across the Blogosphere
Tim Clare in The Observer writes ‘Playing games turns me into a person who makes sense’
Jubal wrote on Exilian Ritual and re-use: writing places that feel alive
07 December 2024
Powers of the Astral
So I saw a post on Reddit that was positing that there are lots of powers kicking around on the astral that are pretty much keeping their heads down and being quiet because of the dark forest theory that posits, if you start getting too loud then the terrible things out there in the dark will come and stomp you flat.
The big difference for this latest iteration of the astral is that it means travel within systems is relatively slow (even with Spelljamming speed, ditching off Toril of Realmspace out to the Astral boundary is 30 days) but travel between systems is 'DM fiat' officially, 'speed of thought' by the Lore and looking at our last dedicated astral resource (The Plane Above of 4e) travel across the Astral point to point takes d4 to 2d6 days - a range of 1-12 which is still quicker than getting in and out of most systems. For 3.5e in the Manual of the Planes these travel times were 0.5-21 days - so even then travel time between systems was typically shorter than getting out to the Astral in the first place.
Checking what is typical for some famed systems - from the last planet to the Astral in Realmspace is 32 days - but from the Toril itself, 62 days. For Greyhawk this is 40 days from the Spectre - but Oerth is a geo-centric system so you are *80 days* from the Astral boundary to actually landing a Spelljammer on Mordenkainens lawn. Krynnspace is a bit smaller - 20 days from the stellar islands to the astral boundary, 39 days to Krynn. I generated a pair of systems for my Light of Xaryxis campaign and those had 60 and *76* days from the outer planet to the Astral Boundary. With a typical Spelljammer air-capacity of 120 days that makes it a risky business in some places to do the combined crossing of two 'outer systems' in a voyage - out from your start system - crossing the astral needs no air - then in at your destination.
All this suggests connecting Astral realms is simple enough but projecting power into systems is harder; suggesting you might have Astral based realms and powers who leave systems to themselves. Treating the Astral as an ocean and the spheres of wildspace as 'landmasses' seems broadly appropriate. However, almost all the 'landmasses' you come to on the astral sea have barren coastlines with all the interesting stuff in deep interior. The big difference between our perception of 'space is the high ground' from sci-fi is that we have three bits
- the astral which is really easy to traverse, if chaotic in how long it might take
- the wildspace 'expanse' between the astral boundary and any planets
- the various planets
Astral map from Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
The big difference for this latest iteration of the astral is that it means travel within systems is relatively slow (even with Spelljamming speed, ditching off Toril of Realmspace out to the Astral boundary is 30 days) but travel between systems is 'DM fiat' officially, 'speed of thought' by the Lore and looking at our last dedicated astral resource (The Plane Above of 4e) travel across the Astral point to point takes d4 to 2d6 days - a range of 1-12 which is still quicker than getting in and out of most systems. For 3.5e in the Manual of the Planes these travel times were 0.5-21 days - so even then travel time between systems was typically shorter than getting out to the Astral in the first place.
Checking what is typical for some famed systems - from the last planet to the Astral in Realmspace is 32 days - but from the Toril itself, 62 days. For Greyhawk this is 40 days from the Spectre - but Oerth is a geo-centric system so you are *80 days* from the Astral boundary to actually landing a Spelljammer on Mordenkainens lawn. Krynnspace is a bit smaller - 20 days from the stellar islands to the astral boundary, 39 days to Krynn. I generated a pair of systems for my Light of Xaryxis campaign and those had 60 and *76* days from the outer planet to the Astral Boundary. With a typical Spelljammer air-capacity of 120 days that makes it a risky business in some places to do the combined crossing of two 'outer systems' in a voyage - out from your start system - crossing the astral needs no air - then in at your destination.
All this suggests connecting Astral realms is simple enough but projecting power into systems is harder; suggesting you might have Astral based realms and powers who leave systems to themselves. Treating the Astral as an ocean and the spheres of wildspace as 'landmasses' seems broadly appropriate. However, almost all the 'landmasses' you come to on the astral sea have barren coastlines with all the interesting stuff in deep interior. The big difference between our perception of 'space is the high ground' from sci-fi is that we have three bits
- the astral which is really easy to traverse, if chaotic in how long it might take
- the wildspace 'expanse' between the astral boundary and any planets
- the various planets
Typical random rolled star-system
04 December 2024
Revisiting 6e forecast in this age of 5.5e
Looking back at thoughts and speculations four years ago on what would be in '6e' in this the age of 5.5e and one of the first lines held true - 5e indeed had road ahead of it. There was no official fork but the work is being done to let 5e and 5.5e run at the same table.
We've seen a notch up in power for the 5.5e stuff - I'm going to take a stab and say it'll be worth maybe a half level to a level. You will be able to use a rule of thumb like for Pathfinder vs 3.5e and say that a 5.5e party could take on a 5e challenge that is on paper a level above them. Game structure wise so far it is the same thing as 5e, no significant mechanical changes like addition of social encounters or the like.
Beyond that the only thing I have seen as a change is that more folk are turning up to our open table games with characters on D&D Beyond on their phones. Which is a thing, because the network sucks and we have no wifi at either of our locations we use but we have figured out the workaround is load everything outside then come in and it will run on your phone throughout.
Appetite for digital games is not coming across on our forum - admitedly we are dedicated to running in-person games but we do not even see people coming in *asking* after digital sessions which I find telling. Most of the DMs are running a pretty analogue operation - they might have a laptop or tablet with digital books on it or D&D Beyond but I am not seeing anything like virtual tabletops or any of that. I will be intrigued to see how/if that evolves as new fancy tools come available.
This time last year myself and my old gaming table were talking about what might be in the new DMG - optional rules tied to settings was our big speculative guess if the pitch was to experienced DMs or better tools to teach new DMs was another if the direction was that way.
From what I have read the view seems to be that the new DMG has a better go than the 5e DMG at teaching cold-start DMs how to do the job. I still think a few more starter packs could be a money-tree for WotC if they wanted - tutorial adventurers for different types of things would be snatched from the shelves by new DMs. Even 'add on' guides for say the lowest level games of an anthology - the first heist of Golden Vault having a seperate 'how to' guide for beginning DMs on sale for $10 on Roll20 seems like it would be welcomed.
One thing that is apparent is that behemoth has shrugged off the pretenders to the throne - all the many post-OGL D&D killers have failed to slay it, even where they may have found some modicum of success. Critical Role is having a go pushing their own systems and maybe they will jump off D&D to something else but the window for that to have an impact has passed in my opinion. The 5.5e launch is 2/3 of the way done and it looks like the switch over is happening. They played it safe and they've consolidated what they hold.
All bets are off if Elon snaffles up Hasbro and feeds it to his AI games-corp but short of that happening, as today, so tomorrow.
We've seen a notch up in power for the 5.5e stuff - I'm going to take a stab and say it'll be worth maybe a half level to a level. You will be able to use a rule of thumb like for Pathfinder vs 3.5e and say that a 5.5e party could take on a 5e challenge that is on paper a level above them. Game structure wise so far it is the same thing as 5e, no significant mechanical changes like addition of social encounters or the like.
Beyond that the only thing I have seen as a change is that more folk are turning up to our open table games with characters on D&D Beyond on their phones. Which is a thing, because the network sucks and we have no wifi at either of our locations we use but we have figured out the workaround is load everything outside then come in and it will run on your phone throughout.
Appetite for digital games is not coming across on our forum - admitedly we are dedicated to running in-person games but we do not even see people coming in *asking* after digital sessions which I find telling. Most of the DMs are running a pretty analogue operation - they might have a laptop or tablet with digital books on it or D&D Beyond but I am not seeing anything like virtual tabletops or any of that. I will be intrigued to see how/if that evolves as new fancy tools come available.
This time last year myself and my old gaming table were talking about what might be in the new DMG - optional rules tied to settings was our big speculative guess if the pitch was to experienced DMs or better tools to teach new DMs was another if the direction was that way.
From what I have read the view seems to be that the new DMG has a better go than the 5e DMG at teaching cold-start DMs how to do the job. I still think a few more starter packs could be a money-tree for WotC if they wanted - tutorial adventurers for different types of things would be snatched from the shelves by new DMs. Even 'add on' guides for say the lowest level games of an anthology - the first heist of Golden Vault having a seperate 'how to' guide for beginning DMs on sale for $10 on Roll20 seems like it would be welcomed.
One thing that is apparent is that behemoth has shrugged off the pretenders to the throne - all the many post-OGL D&D killers have failed to slay it, even where they may have found some modicum of success. Critical Role is having a go pushing their own systems and maybe they will jump off D&D to something else but the window for that to have an impact has passed in my opinion. The 5.5e launch is 2/3 of the way done and it looks like the switch over is happening. They played it safe and they've consolidated what they hold.
All bets are off if Elon snaffles up Hasbro and feeds it to his AI games-corp but short of that happening, as today, so tomorrow.
02 December 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #201
At this tail end of black-friday-sales, we link some OSR staples. 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.
The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
We have a discount code for Lulu - 30% off with HOLIDAY30
Semper Initiativus Unum recommends OSR Products on Lulu
New School Revolution has more Lulu Recommendations
dieheart also has Lulu Recommendations
Yore gives us Gaming books on Lulu.com that I enjoy
Old Skulling recommends RPG Books on Lulu
Attronarch's Athenaeum points to DrivethruRPG for Black Friday 2024: Select OSR Publications
Le Chaudron Chromatique gives us A Feast For A Sphinx rewrite + print edition!
Nickoten on Bluesky highlighting why Jennell Jacquays made the dungeon a master environment of storytelling
The Nothic's Eye gives us Six Dungeon Gods
dungeon doll gives us Dungeon Gods
The BLOGGIES 2024: Call for Nominations!
We have a discount code for Lulu - 30% off with HOLIDAY30
Semper Initiativus Unum recommends OSR Products on Lulu
New School Revolution has more Lulu Recommendations
dieheart also has Lulu Recommendations
Yore gives us Gaming books on Lulu.com that I enjoy
Old Skulling recommends RPG Books on Lulu
Attronarch's Athenaeum points to DrivethruRPG for Black Friday 2024: Select OSR Publications
Le Chaudron Chromatique gives us A Feast For A Sphinx rewrite + print edition!
Nickoten on Bluesky highlighting why Jennell Jacquays made the dungeon a master environment of storytelling
The Nothic's Eye gives us Six Dungeon Gods
dungeon doll gives us Dungeon Gods
30 November 2024
Review: Journeys Through The Radiant Citadel
tl;dr: some pretty good adventures, standard 5e structures better for a tour-the-world than plane-hopping.
I got to put a handful of these adventures to the test so I feel fit to review this one now. Originally picked up with some keeness in anticipation of a planar adventure anthology - something that was going to deliver adventures in places that felt different. The premise was we get a bunch of adventures that happen in different cultures. In-world these are different realms that are connected to the central Radiant Citadel but the adventures and their settings could be accessed in other ways.
I like that this anthology gave us some interesting new options - both places and stand alone adventures that can be dropped into a planehopping campaign. I like the potential in the book for these adventures to break up other adventure arcs or to offer settings to arrive in that feel a bit different. General reception from among the games group I play at has been positive enough; it does not have the gold star reputation of Candlekeep but there are good adventures in here.
We get good variety of different places that could be encountered in one book - the next nearest alternative that I can think of would be to scour a whole bunch of different settings and pull an adventure out for them. If your players are embarking on an old school Sliders-style world-a-week campaign then this is a great resource to meet that 'what is different about this place' demand without killing yourself assimilating setting books.
I grabbed it when it came out because I was really pepped for cool, transplanar travel to places that are genuinely different and a breath of fresh air. I liked the pitch WotC gave of "we've tapped a bunch of people who are coming from different cultural backgrounds, to give you something different" - I thought, cool something unusual, I'm here for that.
I got to put a handful of these adventures to the test so I feel fit to review this one now. Originally picked up with some keeness in anticipation of a planar adventure anthology - something that was going to deliver adventures in places that felt different. The premise was we get a bunch of adventures that happen in different cultures. In-world these are different realms that are connected to the central Radiant Citadel but the adventures and their settings could be accessed in other ways.
I like that this anthology gave us some interesting new options - both places and stand alone adventures that can be dropped into a planehopping campaign. I like the potential in the book for these adventures to break up other adventure arcs or to offer settings to arrive in that feel a bit different. General reception from among the games group I play at has been positive enough; it does not have the gold star reputation of Candlekeep but there are good adventures in here.
We get good variety of different places that could be encountered in one book - the next nearest alternative that I can think of would be to scour a whole bunch of different settings and pull an adventure out for them. If your players are embarking on an old school Sliders-style world-a-week campaign then this is a great resource to meet that 'what is different about this place' demand without killing yourself assimilating setting books.
I grabbed it when it came out because I was really pepped for cool, transplanar travel to places that are genuinely different and a breath of fresh air. I liked the pitch WotC gave of "we've tapped a bunch of people who are coming from different cultural backgrounds, to give you something different" - I thought, cool something unusual, I'm here for that.
27 November 2024
Draconic ancestries and noble lines (RPG Blog Carnival)
This months blog carnival from Forsaken Garden has the topic of Haves & Have Nots - so I was inspired to write about the dragonblooded noble houses of my home campaign - inspired by Dragon Kings of Atlas Games 2004 "Seven Civilizations".
My home campaign has 'dragonbloods' the long descended, much diluted ancestors of dragons as a significant chunk of the nobility - PC's included. Dropping 'dragons' in on top of the usual human noble house too-ing and fro-ing has lead to some interesting effects. 'Rule by sword-right' is pretty close to the surface at the edges - this interacts with long-life because dragonbloods live for a long time and in folk memory (grandpa's stories to people alive today) there have been significant turnover in lands and titles because folk memory is centuries long.
The continent most of the adventures are set on was once conquered by elves with their own notions of what makes a suitable elf until they left and everyone else got to pick up the pieces. This institutional overhang of 'elven civilization', even if only in the warped memory of most, has lead to a strong affinity for elven-court like behaviours in public, even when these are a badly-fitting mask over red-clawed conquest.
My home campaign has 'dragonbloods' the long descended, much diluted ancestors of dragons as a significant chunk of the nobility - PC's included. Dropping 'dragons' in on top of the usual human noble house too-ing and fro-ing has lead to some interesting effects. 'Rule by sword-right' is pretty close to the surface at the edges - this interacts with long-life because dragonbloods live for a long time and in folk memory (grandpa's stories to people alive today) there have been significant turnover in lands and titles because folk memory is centuries long.
The continent most of the adventures are set on was once conquered by elves with their own notions of what makes a suitable elf until they left and everyone else got to pick up the pieces. This institutional overhang of 'elven civilization', even if only in the warped memory of most, has lead to a strong affinity for elven-court like behaviours in public, even when these are a badly-fitting mask over red-clawed conquest.
24 November 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #200
A notable milestone in these compilations of links from about the interwebs! 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.
Goblin Punch goes on a tear with Monster Checklist, The Monstrome, Angelmen (+ Monstrome v2), Tower in the Wasteland v2, Pennetra (New Combat System),
Break!! gives us Setting: Outer World Holidays
The Graverobber's Guide shares Rough Terrain Cards
Rise Up Comus gives us Running a Tolkien Game that Does Not Exist
Necromolds shares Mold, Squish, and Roll Initiative: Necromolds Brings its Playful Dough Minis to D&D 5e
Runehammer gives us Runehammer D&D 5.5 rules mods
The Geekerati Newsletter writes on The Beauty of the "Non-House" Role Playing Game Magazine
I Cast Light! gives us PRACTICAL MAGIC: Or what to do now that your 1st level Magic-User has cast their one spell
Goblin Punch goes on a tear with Monster Checklist, The Monstrome, Angelmen (+ Monstrome v2), Tower in the Wasteland v2, Pennetra (New Combat System),
Break!! gives us Setting: Outer World Holidays
The Graverobber's Guide shares Rough Terrain Cards
Rise Up Comus gives us Running a Tolkien Game that Does Not Exist
Necromolds shares Mold, Squish, and Roll Initiative: Necromolds Brings its Playful Dough Minis to D&D 5e
Runehammer gives us Runehammer D&D 5.5 rules mods
The Geekerati Newsletter writes on The Beauty of the "Non-House" Role Playing Game Magazine
I Cast Light! gives us PRACTICAL MAGIC: Or what to do now that your 1st level Magic-User has cast their one spell
23 November 2024
The Githyanki Main
Given the fore-grounding of the githyanki presence on the Astral over the past couple of editions and in Baldurs Gate 3 - and given the new structure of the multiverse with all material plane systems floating as bubbles in the Astral, this makes them the 'universal' power - omnipresent but not omnipotent.
Going with 'Activities on the Astral' from 2e 'A Guide to the Astral Plane' we have explorers kicking about and hunting expeditions, essence mining on some select few dead gods and lots of attention to military patrols and campaigns. The primary foes for all this military activity are the githzerai and the illithids.
I thought a good model for this would be the Spanish in the Age of Piracy, an empire where reach has exceeded grasp - claiming all the astral but being a finite, if mighty, power. For inspiration, see the Spanish as portrayed in Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. They seem like a decent model - relatively competent, fanatical, directed on religious grounds by a distant leader acting through devoted agents, lots of resources where they bring them to bear - a fearsome enough threat.
If we run with this analogy - mostly to get a sense of what the 'pulse' of the Empire is when things are just ticking along then we have a few parallels and a few differences.
Parallels
Treasure galleons - with Vlaakith on her throne serving as the draw for essence from scattered dead gods or booty from raids and conquests by her faithful - use all your treasure fleet tropes - incredibly valuable, very well guarded
Lost treasures - psychic storms, astral dreadnaughts, all these are hazards that could wreck an astral skiff and then roaming colour pools could see it cast somewhere odd on the planes
Treasure maps - grizzled githyanki survivors clawing their way back from being stranded on some Vlaakith-forsaken prime with a map of where their ship went down
A few big hammers - become enough of a nuisance and you will have nightmarish resources sent after you but conversely power is highly centralised and there are mostly bigger fish to fry
Not enough hands - For my own Spelljammer campaign I had my party set up with Letters of Marque to patrol/investigate various doings in the far flung reaches of the astral - from the Githyanki point of view they have regions of the astral that are not of critical interest to Vlaakith and so lightly held, where the local commanders need to draw on mercenary crews or wandering adventurers to keep tabs on things.
Hot and cold politics - depending on whether an envoy from the crown is present, those present in whatever far-flung outpost will indulge in less back stabbing for personal gain, plenty of 'more righteous than thou' front stabbing perceived weakness in the face of Vlaakiths will. Should an envoy with direct instructions from the lich queen arrive, people will fall in line
Differences
Hunting (astral-whaling) - long haul hunting voyages are a couple of centuries later strictly, but they are still age of sail so they work
Conquest of the locals - most sources talking about the githyanki make no mention of non-githyanki; implying they wipe out or drive off anyone they run into when they take new territories
Going with 'Activities on the Astral' from 2e 'A Guide to the Astral Plane' we have explorers kicking about and hunting expeditions, essence mining on some select few dead gods and lots of attention to military patrols and campaigns. The primary foes for all this military activity are the githzerai and the illithids.
I thought a good model for this would be the Spanish in the Age of Piracy, an empire where reach has exceeded grasp - claiming all the astral but being a finite, if mighty, power. For inspiration, see the Spanish as portrayed in Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. They seem like a decent model - relatively competent, fanatical, directed on religious grounds by a distant leader acting through devoted agents, lots of resources where they bring them to bear - a fearsome enough threat.
If we run with this analogy - mostly to get a sense of what the 'pulse' of the Empire is when things are just ticking along then we have a few parallels and a few differences.
Parallels
Treasure galleons - with Vlaakith on her throne serving as the draw for essence from scattered dead gods or booty from raids and conquests by her faithful - use all your treasure fleet tropes - incredibly valuable, very well guarded
Lost treasures - psychic storms, astral dreadnaughts, all these are hazards that could wreck an astral skiff and then roaming colour pools could see it cast somewhere odd on the planes
Treasure maps - grizzled githyanki survivors clawing their way back from being stranded on some Vlaakith-forsaken prime with a map of where their ship went down
A few big hammers - become enough of a nuisance and you will have nightmarish resources sent after you but conversely power is highly centralised and there are mostly bigger fish to fry
Not enough hands - For my own Spelljammer campaign I had my party set up with Letters of Marque to patrol/investigate various doings in the far flung reaches of the astral - from the Githyanki point of view they have regions of the astral that are not of critical interest to Vlaakith and so lightly held, where the local commanders need to draw on mercenary crews or wandering adventurers to keep tabs on things.
Hot and cold politics - depending on whether an envoy from the crown is present, those present in whatever far-flung outpost will indulge in less back stabbing for personal gain, plenty of 'more righteous than thou' front stabbing perceived weakness in the face of Vlaakiths will. Should an envoy with direct instructions from the lich queen arrive, people will fall in line
Differences
Hunting (astral-whaling) - long haul hunting voyages are a couple of centuries later strictly, but they are still age of sail so they work
Conquest of the locals - most sources talking about the githyanki make no mention of non-githyanki; implying they wipe out or drive off anyone they run into when they take new territories
20 November 2024
The Lords Funeral (RPG Blog Carnival)
This months blog carnival from Forsaken Garden has the topic of Haves & Have Nots - so I was inspired to write about an old lords funeral some family witnessed not so long ago. This is offered up in the spirit of being closer to the kind of country customs most of our adventurers might encounter as opposed to the high pomp and ceremony of British Royal funerals which would the most obvious point of reference otherwise.
The local grand old landholder died recently and his funeral was well attended; a relatively rare glimpse into that old world. Use this for the more traditional, smaller scale events than the grand paegantry we all witnessed for Elizabeth II.
Groups in attendance, in order of social standing, were:
The Family - including the new lord, potentially also including others of the blood family returned from far afield.
The County - the old lords peers, the local nobility and other major land-holders.
Our Friends - the non-noble members of the lairds community, be that co-religionists, or in something more fantasy could be same-species or other affinity group.
Our Betters - important members of local society - non-landed nobility, significant clergy of other religions, community leaders, and so on.
The Neighbours - local farmers and landholders, including the tenants of the laird and other commonfolk who had some sort of connection to the laird through their activities - i.e. they would have been recognised by the laird.
The sixth, unnamed group, are everyone else who has come along, the local peasantry, tradesfolk, passing travellers, others who wish to pay respects. This group will probably be similar in numbers to all the others if not more.
Boiling that down into a table, because after all this is a gaming blog: d100 - who are you meeting at this local nobles funeral
1-2 Family - children, cousins, aged siblings or cousins
3-8 Peers - other local noblility; could be the nobles themselves could be various representatives, minor family members and so on
9-22 Faithful - people who shared some notable commonality with the deceased; in our fantasy games that could be religion, it could be plane of origin, it could be species.
23-43 Respectables - regional notables, not quite nobles, nor sharing the notable trait of the deceased, but the 'leaders of the community' who would need to be seen attending
44-50 Known Commoners - local dwellers, could be tenant farmers, old hirelings, homunculi, craftsfolk - those who would have actually worked with and for the deceased - the most likely to both know useful things and share them with strangers come to town (such as adventurers)
51-100 Masses - everyone else; while plenty happy to talk about the deceased, "facts" discussed may be wildly unreliable.
While the demographic split above is reasonable, attitudes and atmosphere can vary wildly, from the tension of an heirless throne to the fond celebration of life for a respected and long-lived lord. Tensions between those of the 'notable trait' and everyone else can also be played upon - appearing in particular between the Peers and the Respectables, the Faithful and the Massses. Depending on what exactly the old lord liked to do with his time, the Family may or may not be happy to see the Known Commoners present and/or to see them talk with outsiders.
Lots of social potential to be had at a funeral, in particular because lots of folk who would normally quarrel, possibly violently, will hold themselves in check for this occassion only out of respect.
The local grand old landholder died recently and his funeral was well attended; a relatively rare glimpse into that old world. Use this for the more traditional, smaller scale events than the grand paegantry we all witnessed for Elizabeth II.
Groups in attendance, in order of social standing, were:
The Family - including the new lord, potentially also including others of the blood family returned from far afield.
The County - the old lords peers, the local nobility and other major land-holders.
Our Friends - the non-noble members of the lairds community, be that co-religionists, or in something more fantasy could be same-species or other affinity group.
Our Betters - important members of local society - non-landed nobility, significant clergy of other religions, community leaders, and so on.
The Neighbours - local farmers and landholders, including the tenants of the laird and other commonfolk who had some sort of connection to the laird through their activities - i.e. they would have been recognised by the laird.
The sixth, unnamed group, are everyone else who has come along, the local peasantry, tradesfolk, passing travellers, others who wish to pay respects. This group will probably be similar in numbers to all the others if not more.
Boiling that down into a table, because after all this is a gaming blog: d100 - who are you meeting at this local nobles funeral
1-2 Family - children, cousins, aged siblings or cousins
3-8 Peers - other local noblility; could be the nobles themselves could be various representatives, minor family members and so on
9-22 Faithful - people who shared some notable commonality with the deceased; in our fantasy games that could be religion, it could be plane of origin, it could be species.
23-43 Respectables - regional notables, not quite nobles, nor sharing the notable trait of the deceased, but the 'leaders of the community' who would need to be seen attending
44-50 Known Commoners - local dwellers, could be tenant farmers, old hirelings, homunculi, craftsfolk - those who would have actually worked with and for the deceased - the most likely to both know useful things and share them with strangers come to town (such as adventurers)
51-100 Masses - everyone else; while plenty happy to talk about the deceased, "facts" discussed may be wildly unreliable.
While the demographic split above is reasonable, attitudes and atmosphere can vary wildly, from the tension of an heirless throne to the fond celebration of life for a respected and long-lived lord. Tensions between those of the 'notable trait' and everyone else can also be played upon - appearing in particular between the Peers and the Respectables, the Faithful and the Massses. Depending on what exactly the old lord liked to do with his time, the Family may or may not be happy to see the Known Commoners present and/or to see them talk with outsiders.
Lots of social potential to be had at a funeral, in particular because lots of folk who would normally quarrel, possibly violently, will hold themselves in check for this occassion only out of respect.
18 November 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #199
Links from about the interwebs - feeds, sidebars and discord conversations mostly. 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.
Prismatic Weekly gives us They’re Eating the Blogs
Gorgon Bones shares Roleplaying Games are Wargames
Evan Torner on Rascal writes Combat in Dungeons & Dragons
Grumpy Wizard gives us How I Use Published Adventures In A Homebrew Sandbox
Seth Louis Game development writes How I Started a Cairn Open Table
Daily Illuminator shares The Reality Of Tariffs In Tabletop Gaming
House of the New Zodiac asks Are popular bloggers actually good DMs?
Save vs Total Party Kill gives us Negative Space Reprise
Fae Errant gives us In Defence of Mediocre Content
Prismatic Weekly gives us They’re Eating the Blogs
Gorgon Bones shares Roleplaying Games are Wargames
Evan Torner on Rascal writes Combat in Dungeons & Dragons
Grumpy Wizard gives us How I Use Published Adventures In A Homebrew Sandbox
Seth Louis Game development writes How I Started a Cairn Open Table
Daily Illuminator shares The Reality Of Tariffs In Tabletop Gaming
House of the New Zodiac asks Are popular bloggers actually good DMs?
Save vs Total Party Kill gives us Negative Space Reprise
Fae Errant gives us In Defence of Mediocre Content
16 November 2024
Deep Time Monster Groups - Adversary design notes from Hexcrawloween
Background to the hexcrawloween region that I cooked up was twists on classic monsters - taking the 'niche' of certain monsters and imagining their equivalents for other species and times.
I had a notion of what this patch of the world was - Land of the Dead, ruled by Theocracy of Kirianshalee, currently being invaded by dragon-blooded orcs from the north. After using the Wilderness Generator from Izirions Enchirdion of the West Marches to put some finer texture over that I got a patch of reality where clearly the veil had worn thin - lots of planar, fey and afterlife bleed through - souls not going where they ought to one way or another.
All this following on from the 'epochs' reading I had been doing for GLoGtober got me thinking of how this is the age of humans - or human-like things - but certainly there have been other ages dominated by other beings - and thus there must have been an ecosystem of predators, mimics and suchlike for those other times.
I had a notion of what this patch of the world was - Land of the Dead, ruled by Theocracy of Kirianshalee, currently being invaded by dragon-blooded orcs from the north. After using the Wilderness Generator from Izirions Enchirdion of the West Marches to put some finer texture over that I got a patch of reality where clearly the veil had worn thin - lots of planar, fey and afterlife bleed through - souls not going where they ought to one way or another.
All this following on from the 'epochs' reading I had been doing for GLoGtober got me thinking of how this is the age of humans - or human-like things - but certainly there have been other ages dominated by other beings - and thus there must have been an ecosystem of predators, mimics and suchlike for those other times.
13 November 2024
Review: Starlight Arcana
tl:dr; chunky, gorgeous book - great ideas, somewhat heavy to prep but has made it to my table where lots of other stuff has not
I spotted this on Kickstarter and tagged it as a kind of Spelljammer substitute - it was marketed as Voyage Across the Astral, Adventures Across the Starlight Arcana Astral Plane - I read that as something in the "Planejammer" space and was definitely on board for what I didn't get from Spelljammer - ship combat and actual planets to go to. With this coming out of Krakow, Poland I was also happy to support my local game developers.
It is a gorgeous book, the artwork and production values throughout are very very nice. This is a beautiful piece of kit with some great work in here. There is a tarot-themed sorcerer and there was a whole tarot deck with campaign appropriate art as part of the kickstarter. The tarot is also used for a tarot-driven divining of the fates and implementation of game effects while adventuring across planets in the sandbox part of the campaign. I like the idea but my shelves groan with tarot decks so I could not justify getting this one, even if beautiful.
I spotted this on Kickstarter and tagged it as a kind of Spelljammer substitute - it was marketed as Voyage Across the Astral, Adventures Across the Starlight Arcana Astral Plane - I read that as something in the "Planejammer" space and was definitely on board for what I didn't get from Spelljammer - ship combat and actual planets to go to. With this coming out of Krakow, Poland I was also happy to support my local game developers.
Art by Joanna 'Dusky Cat' Trzesniewska
First impression of Starlight Arcana is that it is a huge chonky book. About an eighth is the setting crunch, another eighth are the campaign mechanics, a third is the three acts of the campaign and then the back half-ish is the bestiary. It should probably be best conceptualised as a campaign book that comes with its own setting, bespoke mechanics and companion bestiary.It is a gorgeous book, the artwork and production values throughout are very very nice. This is a beautiful piece of kit with some great work in here. There is a tarot-themed sorcerer and there was a whole tarot deck with campaign appropriate art as part of the kickstarter. The tarot is also used for a tarot-driven divining of the fates and implementation of game effects while adventuring across planets in the sandbox part of the campaign. I like the idea but my shelves groan with tarot decks so I could not justify getting this one, even if beautiful.
Reference d20 for scale
There is a lot of content in here, that maybe could have benefited from a grizzled editor snarling 'kill your darlings' at the writers. The layout is two columns per page for most of the first half of the book, the bestiary varies from two column/two monster to single monster/stat block per page. Comparing it to something else recent - 5e Spelljammer - you get more for your page count - smaller margins, smaller font, more words on a two page spread. I spotted a couple of typos but overall for a first publication out of a new outfit, pretty damn good. I might have liked things boiled down more in OSR style but stylistically it cleaves to 5e house style.11 November 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #198
Links from about the interwebs, slightly late as I spent my day out in the fog. 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.
All Dead Generations shares GYGAX'S FORTRESS
Occultronics writes OSR Social Resolution Procedures
Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet gives us Animism and dungeons
Weird & Wonderful Worlds gives us Dynamic Reality Gaming
Throne of Salt shares Positively Unhinged Elden Ring Theoryposting: Part 2
Idraluna Archives shares Public Domain Illustrations on Project Gutenberg
cryptickeyway shares Make Ancestries Distinct By Giving Them Mastery of Their Domain
Personable Thoughts gives us Kickstarter FOMO and the Content Firehose
All Dead Generations shares GYGAX'S FORTRESS
Occultronics writes OSR Social Resolution Procedures
Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet gives us Animism and dungeons
Weird & Wonderful Worlds gives us Dynamic Reality Gaming
Throne of Salt shares Positively Unhinged Elden Ring Theoryposting: Part 2
Idraluna Archives shares Public Domain Illustrations on Project Gutenberg
cryptickeyway shares Make Ancestries Distinct By Giving Them Mastery of Their Domain
Personable Thoughts gives us Kickstarter FOMO and the Content Firehose
09 November 2024
Review: Macaronicon
tl;dr: adds cool species for the players, great adventures for the DMs, a solid expansion for Brancalonia.
So, here we have the Macaronicon. It is basically a collection of all the stretch goals from the initial Brancalonia crowdfunding campaign - which is where I got it originally. This was bonus content for me and I have gotten a ton of use out of it. Brancalonia is a "spaghetti fantasy" campaign setting for D&D 5e "based on Italian tradition, folklore, history, landscapes, literature and pop culture" that lets you be a band of roistering Knaves and ne'er do wells out for their latest job. I have reviewed the Brancalonia Core book and Jinx's Almanac before - both great books and the Macaronicon is a close third.
It begs comparison to Jinx's Almanac which are both books of mixed lore, adventures and mechanics. Macaronicon is the more expansive and free-roaming of the pair, coming earlier and being that collection of stretch goals. There is some good stuff in here and plenty of inspiration for DMs thought it has not yet gotten that extra polish to the adventures which comes in Jinx's Almanac, the later book. Not to say that this is not very worthwhile.
As with all the books in the range, the art is great and the book has an aesthetic of old paper ill-used. Pretty like the rest of the range, with great, consistent, evocative art and good clear lay-out.
So, here we have the Macaronicon. It is basically a collection of all the stretch goals from the initial Brancalonia crowdfunding campaign - which is where I got it originally. This was bonus content for me and I have gotten a ton of use out of it. Brancalonia is a "spaghetti fantasy" campaign setting for D&D 5e "based on Italian tradition, folklore, history, landscapes, literature and pop culture" that lets you be a band of roistering Knaves and ne'er do wells out for their latest job. I have reviewed the Brancalonia Core book and Jinx's Almanac before - both great books and the Macaronicon is a close third.
It begs comparison to Jinx's Almanac which are both books of mixed lore, adventures and mechanics. Macaronicon is the more expansive and free-roaming of the pair, coming earlier and being that collection of stretch goals. There is some good stuff in here and plenty of inspiration for DMs thought it has not yet gotten that extra polish to the adventures which comes in Jinx's Almanac, the later book. Not to say that this is not very worthwhile.
As with all the books in the range, the art is great and the book has an aesthetic of old paper ill-used. Pretty like the rest of the range, with great, consistent, evocative art and good clear lay-out.
06 November 2024
The Great Tabletop Roleplaying Survey - Initial Data Comb
All praise to The Scholomance who just released a delightful anonymised dataset of a big survey they ran at the turn of the year. Their initial write up is here.
They got a solid 1902 results and you can see a few direct results on the initial write up which I will not rehash here:
How many tabletop groups are you involved in that regularly play game sessions?
How do you usually play your sessions?
How often do you play tabletop roleplaying games?
How long do your sessions typically last?
What was your first tabletop roleplaying system?
Select your current main system.
How would you rate the importance of a system?
How would you rate the complexity of your current main system?
The huge value in this type of big survey is in the cross-referencing, not the raw numbers. You can test out hypotheses like 'people who meet less often will probably game for longer' - and you've got the frequency of meeting up and duration of gaming to check that.
On a first look, it appears that for folk with monthly or more frequent games, that broadly holds true - more 3-5 hour games among the monthly gamers and more 1-3 hour games for the multiple-times-a-week folk. Folk playing less than once a month flip back to more shorter sessions - makes me suspect that if you do not have a regular monthly game carved out, you are taking whatever opportunitites you have, however long they might be.
There is another neat pair of 'what did you start as' and 'what are you now' for player/DM roles - as might be expected the player-to-DM channel is a one-way ratchet. A fair block of players become DMs, maybe half the DM's get to play sometimes but... ain't no going back to 'just player' for those who started as DMs...
Another one I checked was favourite genre against what people are currently playing - and it looks like a decent chunk are getting to play their favourite games - especially Sci-fi and Pulp games - and Fantasy but that is hardly surprising. Green in each bar below is the fraction of people currently playing in their favourite genre for each of those genres. For 'multiple genres across multiple games' the 'mixed genre' people are getting a partial nod.
Anyway - some quick cuts since the data got released - there is a ton of stuff in here that will merit more careful read through - perhaps using 'first game edition' to try and unpick the elder gamers into finer boxes, pull together a list of what games played and there are tons and tons of comments that will merit reading through in their own right. Lots to chew on, I will return to this.
They got a solid 1902 results and you can see a few direct results on the initial write up which I will not rehash here:
How many tabletop groups are you involved in that regularly play game sessions?
How do you usually play your sessions?
How often do you play tabletop roleplaying games?
How long do your sessions typically last?
What was your first tabletop roleplaying system?
Select your current main system.
How would you rate the importance of a system?
How would you rate the complexity of your current main system?
The huge value in this type of big survey is in the cross-referencing, not the raw numbers. You can test out hypotheses like 'people who meet less often will probably game for longer' - and you've got the frequency of meeting up and duration of gaming to check that.
There is another neat pair of 'what did you start as' and 'what are you now' for player/DM roles - as might be expected the player-to-DM channel is a one-way ratchet. A fair block of players become DMs, maybe half the DM's get to play sometimes but... ain't no going back to 'just player' for those who started as DMs...
Another one I checked was favourite genre against what people are currently playing - and it looks like a decent chunk are getting to play their favourite games - especially Sci-fi and Pulp games - and Fantasy but that is hardly surprising. Green in each bar below is the fraction of people currently playing in their favourite genre for each of those genres. For 'multiple genres across multiple games' the 'mixed genre' people are getting a partial nod.
Anyway - some quick cuts since the data got released - there is a ton of stuff in here that will merit more careful read through - perhaps using 'first game edition' to try and unpick the elder gamers into finer boxes, pull together a list of what games played and there are tons and tons of comments that will merit reading through in their own right. Lots to chew on, I will return to this.
04 November 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #197
Links from about the interwebs, fresh and time-seasoned. 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.
Forsaken Garden launches the Haves & Have Nots RPG Blog Carnival
RPGFeed swears by this Super Simple Solo Oracle
Creative Wronging wrote Useful NPC, The Urbanite, Week 2: The Socialite
Of Gods and Gamemasters shared The Third Space
DIY & dragons gave us 5e - Alternatives to Darkvision
Forsaken Garden launches the Haves & Have Nots RPG Blog Carnival
RPGFeed swears by this Super Simple Solo Oracle
Creative Wronging wrote Useful NPC, The Urbanite, Week 2: The Socialite
Of Gods and Gamemasters shared The Third Space
DIY & dragons gave us 5e - Alternatives to Darkvision
02 November 2024
Notes on D&D Meetup Group Experiment
Meetup jacked up its subscription costs (174%!) so I cancelled my own sub, our game group as a whole sees no value in paying for one and the thing apparently drifted from my hands this past midnight. This seems like a good point to do a post-mortem - for all that it may stagger on another month as it auto-pings all the members looking for someone else willing to stump up to take the group over.
The group was conceived in a moment of seeking to get the word out and test whether we could pull of a significant expansion, sufficient to justify the running costs of the formal club structure here in Austria - bank accounts, chairfolk, book-keeping, all that jazz. We figured we needed to bump our regular attendees from ~25 to ~120 to bear the kinds of costs associated with having our own venue and all that. At that point we had not done anything, just had our forum and welcomed anyone who found us. This was an experiment in getting the word out to see what might happen.
We were blessed with two tailwinds, one foreseen, one not - the D&D movie and Baldurs Gate 3. We figured there would be a bunch of folk looking to try D&D following those so we initially set up the 'Night of the Rolling Dice' for after the movie - a ten table session for beginners - and created the meetup group. As you can see below, numbers went up like a rocket. We got 60 sign-ups, 45 of whom showed up, a good time was had. Then we did it twice more - once to capitalise on Baldurs Gate 3 and a last the following February to see if we had the process down to a low-friction playbook.
Each time we launched and event, typically ~ 60 days beforehand, we got a kick of new members into the Meetup group.
The folk who came to the Nights of the Rolling Dice occassionally showed up at our regular nights - 2-3 out of each batch of 45. Our open nights were what we were really trying to grow, getting those weekly Friday night open table games up. After the second one we started to slam the capacity of our venue and fished around a bit for another site. With two sites we could continue to grow and from there ramped up to... almost double our size. Almost.
I took over stewardship of the meetup group after the second event and started to block in our regular Friday night sessions into the Meetup group so people could see there would be a game a few weeks out rather than just ~4 days beforehand. We know people came in through these Meetups because we had regular deconfliction problems between both folk who signed up on the Meetup and no-showed and folk who rocked up to the events without mentioning on the sign-up thread that they were coming. Again, a fair few people said they found us through Meetup but only a handful on any given week.
Even once we restricted attendance, the 'out weeks' were not filling up with lots of folk - no indication that telegraphing that these were regular games that happened every Friday was making any difference to folk beyond an isolated case or two.
Overall the Meetup group probably funneled folk towards us but when I queried the webmaster of our forum, the actual core organising venue for our group, they said that it was mere tens of click-throughs from Meetup versus high hundreds coming off Google.
So all told, the group seemed to attract numbers and where we had big events we could fill them - neither of these converted into people turning up regularly for whatever reasons. Engagement was practically nil from folk who signed up to any mail shots or via the on-site tools beyond a few isolated requests for what was needed for a first timer.
You can probably barely see at the tail end of the top graph, the curve flattens out. This matches to when I stopped booking in events on the calendar, about a month ago when I decided to cancel the sub - having events on the calendar does bring people into the group, but having them in the group does not seem to do much for you.
All told, I am sure we got a few people into our group through Meetup because I have heard people say it - all of the metrics otherwise say it was a waste of time and certainly not worth ponying up extra cash. When I pulled the plug on it, the immediate response from Meetup was 'we have made it easier to charge your members dues!' which is just mean passing the corporate screw-over down the line. The main thing that changed that I can see between this year and last is they slapped on a bunch of AI tools for auto-generating events which is a completely unhelpful - you don't need randomly generated events, you need to just get the details right and up there. That and getting taken over by 'Bending Spoons' who also took over Evernote and also jacked up the prices there by a giant amount.
So, for us, nothing useful was added to a service that was not core to our operations, I had taken a punt laying down a subscription in the first place to see if it unlocked some large untapped pool of potential players - so all the above and near double the price was not worth it. We already have our venue charge, small and reasonable. The idea of layering on charges to pay off some corporations random price hikes? Not happening, not rewarding corporate bad behaviour like that.
All told, we tested the potential for fast growth and managed to get to double on a good day - I think proving up there was some growth potential for us but not massive x6 amounts. I am intrigued as to whether we will continue to get new folk wandering in once the Meetup evaporates; I reckon yes but let us see.
The group was conceived in a moment of seeking to get the word out and test whether we could pull of a significant expansion, sufficient to justify the running costs of the formal club structure here in Austria - bank accounts, chairfolk, book-keeping, all that jazz. We figured we needed to bump our regular attendees from ~25 to ~120 to bear the kinds of costs associated with having our own venue and all that. At that point we had not done anything, just had our forum and welcomed anyone who found us. This was an experiment in getting the word out to see what might happen.
We were blessed with two tailwinds, one foreseen, one not - the D&D movie and Baldurs Gate 3. We figured there would be a bunch of folk looking to try D&D following those so we initially set up the 'Night of the Rolling Dice' for after the movie - a ten table session for beginners - and created the meetup group. As you can see below, numbers went up like a rocket. We got 60 sign-ups, 45 of whom showed up, a good time was had. Then we did it twice more - once to capitalise on Baldurs Gate 3 and a last the following February to see if we had the process down to a low-friction playbook.
Each time we launched and event, typically ~ 60 days beforehand, we got a kick of new members into the Meetup group.
The folk who came to the Nights of the Rolling Dice occassionally showed up at our regular nights - 2-3 out of each batch of 45. Our open nights were what we were really trying to grow, getting those weekly Friday night open table games up. After the second one we started to slam the capacity of our venue and fished around a bit for another site. With two sites we could continue to grow and from there ramped up to... almost double our size. Almost.
I took over stewardship of the meetup group after the second event and started to block in our regular Friday night sessions into the Meetup group so people could see there would be a game a few weeks out rather than just ~4 days beforehand. We know people came in through these Meetups because we had regular deconfliction problems between both folk who signed up on the Meetup and no-showed and folk who rocked up to the events without mentioning on the sign-up thread that they were coming. Again, a fair few people said they found us through Meetup but only a handful on any given week.
Even once we restricted attendance, the 'out weeks' were not filling up with lots of folk - no indication that telegraphing that these were regular games that happened every Friday was making any difference to folk beyond an isolated case or two.
Overall the Meetup group probably funneled folk towards us but when I queried the webmaster of our forum, the actual core organising venue for our group, they said that it was mere tens of click-throughs from Meetup versus high hundreds coming off Google.
So all told, the group seemed to attract numbers and where we had big events we could fill them - neither of these converted into people turning up regularly for whatever reasons. Engagement was practically nil from folk who signed up to any mail shots or via the on-site tools beyond a few isolated requests for what was needed for a first timer.
You can probably barely see at the tail end of the top graph, the curve flattens out. This matches to when I stopped booking in events on the calendar, about a month ago when I decided to cancel the sub - having events on the calendar does bring people into the group, but having them in the group does not seem to do much for you.
All told, I am sure we got a few people into our group through Meetup because I have heard people say it - all of the metrics otherwise say it was a waste of time and certainly not worth ponying up extra cash. When I pulled the plug on it, the immediate response from Meetup was 'we have made it easier to charge your members dues!' which is just mean passing the corporate screw-over down the line. The main thing that changed that I can see between this year and last is they slapped on a bunch of AI tools for auto-generating events which is a completely unhelpful - you don't need randomly generated events, you need to just get the details right and up there. That and getting taken over by 'Bending Spoons' who also took over Evernote and also jacked up the prices there by a giant amount.
So, for us, nothing useful was added to a service that was not core to our operations, I had taken a punt laying down a subscription in the first place to see if it unlocked some large untapped pool of potential players - so all the above and near double the price was not worth it. We already have our venue charge, small and reasonable. The idea of layering on charges to pay off some corporations random price hikes? Not happening, not rewarding corporate bad behaviour like that.
All told, we tested the potential for fast growth and managed to get to double on a good day - I think proving up there was some growth potential for us but not massive x6 amounts. I am intrigued as to whether we will continue to get new folk wandering in once the Meetup evaporates; I reckon yes but let us see.
30 October 2024
Invasion of the Land of the Dead - Hexcrawloween Jam 2024
The rules or Hexcrawloween - create a system-agnostic hexcrawl that has:
20 keyed hexes
Settlement w/ NPCs
Dungeon A (6-room)
Dungeon B (6-room)
Dungeon C (6-room)
Dungeon D (24-room)
Dungeon E (12-room)
Bestiary 9 original monsters (3 uniques)
An encounter list with at least 1d20 entries
Hand-drawn maps
Best effort before I ran out of time below; first our Hexes.
This whole region are the foothills of mountains where a wicked god was slain; the veil between planes warped and wounded, souls trapped one place, things from beyond easily entering another. Across all this, conflict rages - the clerics of Kirianshalee driven back by invading dragon-blooded orcs. Once vassal fey-folk now rise in insurrection and simultaneously ancient horrors bottled up by the church of Kirianshalee seize their moment to break out.
20 keyed hexes
Settlement w/ NPCs
Dungeon A (6-room)
Dungeon B (6-room)
Dungeon C (6-room)
Dungeon D (24-room)
Dungeon E (12-room)
Bestiary 9 original monsters (3 uniques)
An encounter list with at least 1d20 entries
Hand-drawn maps
Best effort before I ran out of time below; first our Hexes.
This whole region are the foothills of mountains where a wicked god was slain; the veil between planes warped and wounded, souls trapped one place, things from beyond easily entering another. Across all this, conflict rages - the clerics of Kirianshalee driven back by invading dragon-blooded orcs. Once vassal fey-folk now rise in insurrection and simultaneously ancient horrors bottled up by the church of Kirianshalee seize their moment to break out.
28 October 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #196
Links from about the interwebs, fresh and time-seasoned. 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.
Elfmaids & Octopi gives us Dungeons in Decline, seige conditions and desertion
Alone in the Labyrinth shares THEMATIC SAVING THROWS
Playful Void writes Juicy Worms, Local Knowledge and Player Engagement
Kontent Punch gives us Obstacles are the Fun
What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse... shares Hirelings: Making the Players Care
A Knight at the Opera gave us How to Make Problems for Your Players
Setting First wrote The Jumbo Shrimp Rule
INHERENT DICE gives us Why Aren't More People Playing TTRPGs? (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Move On From D&D) - Perspectives From a Beginner
Elfmaids & Octopi gives us Dungeons in Decline, seige conditions and desertion
Alone in the Labyrinth shares THEMATIC SAVING THROWS
Playful Void writes Juicy Worms, Local Knowledge and Player Engagement
Kontent Punch gives us Obstacles are the Fun
What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse... shares Hirelings: Making the Players Care
A Knight at the Opera gave us How to Make Problems for Your Players
Setting First wrote The Jumbo Shrimp Rule
INHERENT DICE gives us Why Aren't More People Playing TTRPGs? (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Move On From D&D) - Perspectives From a Beginner
26 October 2024
Meeples for the Win (GLoGtober 7 '24)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by TheFirstGokun - "Physical Game Pieces."
I do quite a lot of cafe gaming and my big space saver has been using meeples for combats - does not quite give the square-by-square tactical detail of standard grid combat but 4/5 times it does everything you need - where are the clusters of bad guys, who is on what bit of terrain, who is near who.
I got these four bags from the In-House Testing Team one winter and they have proved remarkably useful. I have settled in on the stars and little circular things (right side) as the usual NPCs/monsters, the middle-right bag of meeples and houses as PCs and allies, and the mid-left bag tended to be the ships for Spelljammer combat.
Given that these are smaller than most dice they work really well by letting you have a whole battle-space on a single sheet of A4 - which in turn means you can use a piece of stiff card in a plastic-pocket plus dry-erase markers as an easily portable reusable battlemat.
All of which then fits neatly into a bag.
This does not support people bringing their Heroforge 28mm minis to table and I fully recognise that there is a chunky wow-factor to being able to haul out your custom 3D-printed bad guys and have your players squinting trying to figure out is that a standard beholder or some sort of other tentacly horror. The wear and tear on my shoulder and pocket book implied by aquiring and hauling around such a collection is a sufficiently high threshold that I am going to stick with my faithful meeples.
Hardbitten veterans, every one of those little blocks, earned their place in Valhalla multiple times over by now.
I do quite a lot of cafe gaming and my big space saver has been using meeples for combats - does not quite give the square-by-square tactical detail of standard grid combat but 4/5 times it does everything you need - where are the clusters of bad guys, who is on what bit of terrain, who is near who.
I got these four bags from the In-House Testing Team one winter and they have proved remarkably useful. I have settled in on the stars and little circular things (right side) as the usual NPCs/monsters, the middle-right bag of meeples and houses as PCs and allies, and the mid-left bag tended to be the ships for Spelljammer combat.
Given that these are smaller than most dice they work really well by letting you have a whole battle-space on a single sheet of A4 - which in turn means you can use a piece of stiff card in a plastic-pocket plus dry-erase markers as an easily portable reusable battlemat.
All of which then fits neatly into a bag.
This does not support people bringing their Heroforge 28mm minis to table and I fully recognise that there is a chunky wow-factor to being able to haul out your custom 3D-printed bad guys and have your players squinting trying to figure out is that a standard beholder or some sort of other tentacly horror. The wear and tear on my shoulder and pocket book implied by aquiring and hauling around such a collection is a sufficiently high threshold that I am going to stick with my faithful meeples.
Hardbitten veterans, every one of those little blocks, earned their place in Valhalla multiple times over by now.
23 October 2024
Strange Stones from Weird Aeons (GLoGtober 6 '24)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #6 is from my own list - "Secrets of the Stones."
Inspired by Onion Souls idea of Magical accretion and the multiple OSR weird time epochs collected on Coins and Scrolls I was thinking about what kind of strange geology is lying around in the gameworld.
Things are plenty strange already in the real world - I have seen this burning earth with my own eyes.
So these strange deep time periods are all well and good but what actual remnants and extrusions from those times can be stumbled upon?
d10 strange rock formations from weird aeons
1. Shock planes - remnants of particularly outrageous continental drifting during the Turbozoic era, these incredibly hard, thin sheets rise high above the landscape and are extremely damage resistant
2. Fossil supercomputer - intricate circuitry from sublimbed organic supercomputers of the Svahbavan Glaciation - carefully transmutation spellwork might get you a tiny fragment of a once-godlike entity
3. Compacted stars - remnants of sloppy creationeering, discarded stars look like big geodes until they crack and suddenly you have a sun at your feet with all the problems that implies
4. Cathedral channels - remnants of holy mounds, allowing wind to blow through them will randomly cast a divine spell on a random valid target near by
5. Purging Sprite soot - a thin layer, scraped up can be blown or pasted onto things to shatter magical effects
6. Astrogenocene coal - coal-analogue from high energy biosphere - igniting, striking or otherwise disturbing in this lower-energy world causes it to chill, rust, rot and otherwise soak the energy from surrounds
7. World-eater seacucumber - looks like a fossil, is just biding its time, do not get it wet.
8. Serpentis Iradium layer - traces of the sorcerous war that made the God Serpent never have been. Exposure sickens lizard folk or other scaly-kind.
9. First necro-layer - limestone-like crushed bones of the first total victory by necromancers. Anyone foolish enough to carve or cast this into some mobile form will find they are still active
10. Rogue colours - a trapped pocket of colors from the early Great Funkadelican era, releasing long-gone hues on the world once more
Inspired by Onion Souls idea of Magical accretion and the multiple OSR weird time epochs collected on Coins and Scrolls I was thinking about what kind of strange geology is lying around in the gameworld.
Things are plenty strange already in the real world - I have seen this burning earth with my own eyes.
So these strange deep time periods are all well and good but what actual remnants and extrusions from those times can be stumbled upon?
d10 strange rock formations from weird aeons
1. Shock planes - remnants of particularly outrageous continental drifting during the Turbozoic era, these incredibly hard, thin sheets rise high above the landscape and are extremely damage resistant
2. Fossil supercomputer - intricate circuitry from sublimbed organic supercomputers of the Svahbavan Glaciation - carefully transmutation spellwork might get you a tiny fragment of a once-godlike entity
3. Compacted stars - remnants of sloppy creationeering, discarded stars look like big geodes until they crack and suddenly you have a sun at your feet with all the problems that implies
4. Cathedral channels - remnants of holy mounds, allowing wind to blow through them will randomly cast a divine spell on a random valid target near by
5. Purging Sprite soot - a thin layer, scraped up can be blown or pasted onto things to shatter magical effects
6. Astrogenocene coal - coal-analogue from high energy biosphere - igniting, striking or otherwise disturbing in this lower-energy world causes it to chill, rust, rot and otherwise soak the energy from surrounds
7. World-eater seacucumber - looks like a fossil, is just biding its time, do not get it wet.
8. Serpentis Iradium layer - traces of the sorcerous war that made the God Serpent never have been. Exposure sickens lizard folk or other scaly-kind.
9. First necro-layer - limestone-like crushed bones of the first total victory by necromancers. Anyone foolish enough to carve or cast this into some mobile form will find they are still active
10. Rogue colours - a trapped pocket of colors from the early Great Funkadelican era, releasing long-gone hues on the world once more
21 October 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #195
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
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
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.
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