d24: Things happening at night in the magical academy

This was another 'rapid encounter table generation' exercise. Prompt was a post on Reddit requesting random encounters inside the academy. Another good opportunity to test the Bellard tool for quickly boosting tables.

Review: 2 Worm 2 Furious

tl:rd: a squirmy art explosion of a 0-level funnel with a great tension ratchet to have the players running to forestall the Age of the Doombringer Moth

I backed the Kickstarter for 2 Worm 2 Furious and it turned up.

As described in the Kickstarter it is a "deadly funnel that revolves around an ever mutating and evolving moth grub. You’ll want 4-6 players, 15-20 level 0 characters, as it’s a funnel, but it works for levels 1+" - but what turns up is an art explosion. The design and production are gorgeous with lots of strange and interesting art.

Coping with book-goblinism (Pathfinder Humble Bundles)

tl:dr; RPGGeek helps to figure out what to look at first when dealing with massive humble bundles - wisdom of crowds says Paizo's best work is in there

At time of writing Humble Bundle has another Pathfinder 1e bundle this time on Monster Lore which will make the third Pathfinder bundle I have sprung for. This is pure book goblinism; I now have a digital drive at Paizo stuffed with unread Pathfinder PDFs and the challenge of figuring out what I even have.

Review: Dark Roads & Golden Hells plus Shadow Planes & Pocket Worlds

tl:dr; a solid planar guide in two parts, clear and readable with some good bits even for old planar hands.

I found out about this "sourcebook of planar adventure for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game" only recently and even more recently managed to get it printed along with Shadow Planes & Pocket Worlds, a 25 page supplement.

(screen-grab of PDF covers)

On D&D 6e the evolution of the game

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

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.

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!