There is an interesting view on Deathtrap Games on how "The Critters are the Future of D&D" - I think there is some meat here, worth looking into but if you want to skip the salty wrapper, start 5 paragraphs down.
First off, let us look at what is being discussed - a stream-lined, less lethal ruleset, with more super-heroic characters and a large penumbra of character-focused merch and services. I think as a whole it is a reasonable extrapolation of current trends and is a scenario worth teasing out a bit. I agree that a) it is unlikely to happen soon, that 5e has road ahead of it b) that should it happen it may occur as part of a fork to both keep the existing play base and cater to the new and c) if it happens, it will be after the stickiness of the new generation of gamers has been proven for a little longer.
But imagine this all comes off and we are in the bold new Deathtrap-6e space; what do we see? Short answer:
- a more character centric game, including portability to tie-in media
- a streamlined system
- lots and lots of merch
- adventures focussed on roleplay and guides how to run them
20 December 2020
19 December 2020
Review: NOD Magazine #11 - Hell Crawl I
tl:dr; review of a hell-crawl and finding lots to use in place or inspire other campaigns.
A batch of NOD magazines came fresh from Lulu.com (praise be the discount code) including the first of the Hell Crawl issues that I have been pondering for a while. In the theme with my looking at various planar supplements, I wanted to see what it was like and I must say I have been pleased.
A batch of NOD magazines came fresh from Lulu.com (praise be the discount code) including the first of the Hell Crawl issues that I have been pondering for a while. In the theme with my looking at various planar supplements, I wanted to see what it was like and I must say I have been pleased.
18 December 2020
Review: Ultraviolet Grasslands by Luka Rejec
tl:dr; UVG is great; run it as it is, steal its concepts for the betterment of other games, use it to get those odd books to the table. Tabletop duct tape.
Some time back I backed the UVG kickstarter and lo what loot turned up!
Snazzy dice! A stylish T-shirt!
Some time back I backed the UVG kickstarter and lo what loot turned up!
Snazzy dice! A stylish T-shirt!
17 December 2020
Campaign inspiration and spinning up settings
Continuing on the vein of 'what do I actually use at my table' I want to go through what seeds grew into the last three campaigns I ran - Hikuru (May-07 to Mar-09), Lizard Kingdoms (Nov-18 - Nov-19, on hiatus) and Ducal House also appearing here in tags as menagerie world (Mar-20, ongoing).
Each came of a different set of drivers, using a different world-building approach and a refinement towards better bang-for-buck in terms of DM effort. These were also the first 'blank slate' worlds I built after running a series of 'kitchen sink' campaigns since early teens which morphed and expanded as Dragon Magazines came in the door or Planescape products were acquired.
Today I will just talk about the first, Hikuru, which was driven by a mash-up impulse - coming after 3e Oriental Adventures and a couple of years of L5R I wanted to do something slightly different. I had played in a Birthright variant with an empire of elven, practically immortal, samurai. I needed something to replicate that and loved Brian Snoddys illustration of a Wang Liang. They had an Empire back in the day according to the bestiary - so this would be set in that day. Extremely long-lived giants with always-on telepathy seemed like a good building block for a globe spanning empire.
Each came of a different set of drivers, using a different world-building approach and a refinement towards better bang-for-buck in terms of DM effort. These were also the first 'blank slate' worlds I built after running a series of 'kitchen sink' campaigns since early teens which morphed and expanded as Dragon Magazines came in the door or Planescape products were acquired.
Today I will just talk about the first, Hikuru, which was driven by a mash-up impulse - coming after 3e Oriental Adventures and a couple of years of L5R I wanted to do something slightly different. I had played in a Birthright variant with an empire of elven, practically immortal, samurai. I needed something to replicate that and loved Brian Snoddys illustration of a Wang Liang. They had an Empire back in the day according to the bestiary - so this would be set in that day. Extremely long-lived giants with always-on telepathy seemed like a good building block for a globe spanning empire.
16 December 2020
Class, background preference link to player personality
After connecting with the team at Quickphix.ch who ran this TTRPH personality survey earlier this year I had a look at some of the outputs.
tl;dr: survey results comparing Big Five Personality Inventory with class and background preferences gives some hints on who likes to play what.
Reasons for coming to the table are pretty clear among the (N = 53) group of respondents: socialising, getting immersed in the world and being creative. A second 'tier' of drivers include system mastery and the thrill of risk.
tl;dr: survey results comparing Big Five Personality Inventory with class and background preferences gives some hints on who likes to play what.
Reasons for coming to the table are pretty clear among the (N = 53) group of respondents: socialising, getting immersed in the world and being creative. A second 'tier' of drivers include system mastery and the thrill of risk.
15 December 2020
Actual play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part II - adventures in paintings
Following up on the previous post about playing the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine.
Our party - children of the rulers of the realm - found the Kobolds in the sealed up basements of their family palace as the dying Duke tasked them with reopening things. After a first encounter where the party reopened and defeated the guardians before a masterpiece, the party returns with the Lady of the House while price negotiations for the masterpiece happens. As the Curator and the Lady of the House negotiate the party is pulled aside by one of the junior kobolds. In pidgin draconic they convey that there are kobolds lost in a painting that they need help to recover and the party agrees to help.
Our party - children of the rulers of the realm - found the Kobolds in the sealed up basements of their family palace as the dying Duke tasked them with reopening things. After a first encounter where the party reopened and defeated the guardians before a masterpiece, the party returns with the Lady of the House while price negotiations for the masterpiece happens. As the Curator and the Lady of the House negotiate the party is pulled aside by one of the junior kobolds. In pidgin draconic they convey that there are kobolds lost in a painting that they need help to recover and the party agrees to help.
13 December 2020
Review: Wormskin zines 1-8
Given the upcoming Dolmenwood kickstarter and the neat thematic fit with my menagerie world campaign I thought it would make sense to talk about the Wormskin zines.
tl:dr; these zines are the pieces to either run the setting or pull out selected cool sub-pieces to enhance your own home-brew or tailore the flavour of other settings. If you want to inject a little fae forest into your game - whether whimsical or fierce, the Wormskin zines are both tool-kit and toybox.
tl:dr; these zines are the pieces to either run the setting or pull out selected cool sub-pieces to enhance your own home-brew or tailore the flavour of other settings. If you want to inject a little fae forest into your game - whether whimsical or fierce, the Wormskin zines are both tool-kit and toybox.
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