The gold hebdomadariversary of these weekly links! More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR.
Continuing to point to the D&D Research Wizards Tabletop RPG 2021-2022 Survey which is open to the end of January.
Hex Junkie writes On the contradiction in player agency between OSR and 5E D&D which makes a good points - if there is only one reasonable action, do you have much choice to hand?
The Orc Rehabilitation Commission writes [OSR General] AI-Generated Monsters.
Deathtrap Dungeons gives us the Simple Adventure Builder - a really neat generator to get the creative juices flowing.
Monsters and Manuals are "Now Accepting Submissions: Volume 1, In the Hall of the Third Blue Wizard" - a new magazine which publishes hexmaps, dungeons and adventure sites for ‘old school’ fantasy games; art; and fantasy fiction.
10 January 2022
08 January 2022
Review: A Practical Guide to Medieval Warfare: Exploring History through Wargaming
tl:dr; a great source of detail for medieval warfare that can enrich your TTRPG games.
"A Practical Guide to Medieval Warfare: Exploring History through Wargaming" by Richard Brooks and John Curry was something I stumbled ontotrotting about on the web at Weaver.skepti.ch and was seized by an excerpt that tried to reality check behaviour on medieval battlefields using modern analogues as well as original sources. This is both an interesting read and a great source for anyone describing melee combat in TTRPGs. I am reviewing with my table-top GM hat firmly in place, war-gamers will probably get a lot more out of this. I thought it was great even when I was not the target audience.
The kindle version I got has some proofing issues, nothing that made it unreadable but there is an editing pass missing. With that out of the way, this is exactly what it says on the tin - a practical guide. Deeper books of scholarship are certainly out there but to get you up the curve from 'I know nothing' to 'I won't make ridiculous errors' this is great bang for buck.
"A Practical Guide to Medieval Warfare: Exploring History through Wargaming" by Richard Brooks and John Curry was something I stumbled onto
The kindle version I got has some proofing issues, nothing that made it unreadable but there is an editing pass missing. With that out of the way, this is exactly what it says on the tin - a practical guide. Deeper books of scholarship are certainly out there but to get you up the curve from 'I know nothing' to 'I won't make ridiculous errors' this is great bang for buck.
05 January 2022
Player Stats for AideDD Character Builder 2020-2021
AideDD published their Character Builder stats and there are some really interesting trends in those 27k users. I recorded the same data reported in 2020 so let us look at what happened in the past year.
Overall it looks broadly similar to what they had in 2020, consistency in classes choice is coherent with what we have seen elsewhere - general player population is not bouncing around between classes. We have more artificers since that was added later.
Checking against the patterns for apps or forums, we see it maps solidly onto the Apps archetype - favouring fighters and rogues. This is the same pattern seen on D&D Beyond and the OGANM character builder tool. It repeats the pattern we see of character building tools with large user bases showing a different preference for classes than forum surveys. I read this as another point confirming that the general player base (as seen on this tool) has different preferences to those who frequent online forums.
Overall it looks broadly similar to what they had in 2020, consistency in classes choice is coherent with what we have seen elsewhere - general player population is not bouncing around between classes. We have more artificers since that was added later.
Checking against the patterns for apps or forums, we see it maps solidly onto the Apps archetype - favouring fighters and rogues. This is the same pattern seen on D&D Beyond and the OGANM character builder tool. It repeats the pattern we see of character building tools with large user bases showing a different preference for classes than forum surveys. I read this as another point confirming that the general player base (as seen on this tool) has different preferences to those who frequent online forums.
03 January 2022
Shiny TTRPG links #49
First links of 2022! More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR.
Continuing to point to the D&D Research Wizards Tabletop RPG 2021-2022 Survey which is still open. This years topics include: Covid-19's impact on TTRPGs, Education and TTRPGs, Online Play Behavior and Future Tech and TTRPGs. The latest from the survey so far can be seen in their newsletter.
I Cast Light has a good frame in Inside The OSR There Are Two Wolves: OSR-V the Revival (Preservation) vs. OSR-N the Renaissance (Principles).
Some unusual hybrids on D&D Homebrew 5e such as aasimar/dragonborn and fey/celestial.
Hack & Slash has "How to Make 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons more Old School"
Spriggans Den has Shattered Empire D&D 5th edition modifications based on lessons learned from their last campaign.
Simple but cunning - Analogue ‘Fog of War’ hack … | Jigsaw over map by Goblins Henchman
Rise up Comus seeks "to invert the paradigm of "complicated wizard, easy fighter" in Crunchify Me, Captain!
Cavegirl creates a far future Vampire setting with "After Gehenna - A concept for a VtM chronicle"
Continuing to point to the D&D Research Wizards Tabletop RPG 2021-2022 Survey which is still open. This years topics include: Covid-19's impact on TTRPGs, Education and TTRPGs, Online Play Behavior and Future Tech and TTRPGs. The latest from the survey so far can be seen in their newsletter.
I Cast Light has a good frame in Inside The OSR There Are Two Wolves: OSR-V the Revival (Preservation) vs. OSR-N the Renaissance (Principles).
Some unusual hybrids on D&D Homebrew 5e such as aasimar/dragonborn and fey/celestial.
Hack & Slash has "How to Make 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons more Old School"
Spriggans Den has Shattered Empire D&D 5th edition modifications based on lessons learned from their last campaign.
Simple but cunning - Analogue ‘Fog of War’ hack … | Jigsaw over map by Goblins Henchman
Rise up Comus seeks "to invert the paradigm of "complicated wizard, easy fighter" in Crunchify Me, Captain!
Cavegirl creates a far future Vampire setting with "After Gehenna - A concept for a VtM chronicle"
01 January 2022
How to get started in D&D
Rewritten and expanded from a response I wrote to someone asking 'how do you start in D&D' after a buddy of mine pointed them my way.
Starting from the baseline of 'I've heard about this thing, where do I start?' - I would say there are two paths.
First - the long route, which is pretty labour intensive - buy the books, figure out the game, round up a bunch of players yourself and throw dice. It worked for me but it takes a while and you are making a chunky time commitment before you ever get rolling. Lots of fun to be had world building, prepping and so on and when it works, it is magical but this is the high risk, high reward path.
Today, I would suggest the best way to start is to get stuck in; find a new joiners table and say 'I am new' - people are usually welcoming. You may need to hop about a bit to find the people you really gel well with but this is like finding a favourite pub, try it and see. Make contact with folk on forums or wherever and say you are interested - they will point you to the easiest way to get involved. As mentioned on this Adventuring Party episode, there is a ton of free stuff out there because people want to get you playing, this is a social game after all.
Starting from the baseline of 'I've heard about this thing, where do I start?' - I would say there are two paths.
First - the long route, which is pretty labour intensive - buy the books, figure out the game, round up a bunch of players yourself and throw dice. It worked for me but it takes a while and you are making a chunky time commitment before you ever get rolling. Lots of fun to be had world building, prepping and so on and when it works, it is magical but this is the high risk, high reward path.
Today, I would suggest the best way to start is to get stuck in; find a new joiners table and say 'I am new' - people are usually welcoming. You may need to hop about a bit to find the people you really gel well with but this is like finding a favourite pub, try it and see. Make contact with folk on forums or wherever and say you are interested - they will point you to the easiest way to get involved. As mentioned on this Adventuring Party episode, there is a ton of free stuff out there because people want to get you playing, this is a social game after all.
29 December 2021
Year In Review 2021
So 2021 has been a year with a bunch of milestones in it.
I turned 40, got this very neat sketch to commemorate the occasion by the bard in my home campaign.
I turned 40, got this very neat sketch to commemorate the occasion by the bard in my home campaign.
27 December 2021
Shiny TTRPG links #48
Links for the last week of 2021! More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR.
5 More Stupid yet Robust Games for Video Calls on Coins and Scrolls
d4 Caltrops has a great d100 Random Rules & Rulings
A thousand gods by Odd Skull.
'Write Adventures to fit their Worlds': Setting specific adventure writing by Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet
Where the Chaos Thing Fell by From the Sorcerers Skull - demonic whalefall, a great planar site.
Bayeaux Tapestry meme generator - lots of potential here!
Whose Measure God Could Not Take gives us The Holiday One-Shot
OSR News Roundup for 12.20.21 - by Third Kingdom Games - everything that is not blogs in the scene.
Who's the New Guy Anyway? d20 Answers for OSR Games by Axian Spice - when you need to add another body to the party.
Knight at the Opera considers the Underdark in Subterranean Thoughts
5 More Stupid yet Robust Games for Video Calls on Coins and Scrolls
d4 Caltrops has a great d100 Random Rules & Rulings
A thousand gods by Odd Skull.
'Write Adventures to fit their Worlds': Setting specific adventure writing by Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet
Where the Chaos Thing Fell by From the Sorcerers Skull - demonic whalefall, a great planar site.
Bayeaux Tapestry meme generator - lots of potential here!
Whose Measure God Could Not Take gives us The Holiday One-Shot
OSR News Roundup for 12.20.21 - by Third Kingdom Games - everything that is not blogs in the scene.
Who's the New Guy Anyway? d20 Answers for OSR Games by Axian Spice - when you need to add another body to the party.
Knight at the Opera considers the Underdark in Subterranean Thoughts
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