Shiny TTRPG links #63

Bringing back last weeks broken links and new ones to boot! 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 or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.

Ghostfire Gaming on Running a Dark Fantasy Campaign – Defining the “Dark”

The Wandering Gamist finds the rich vein of Don't Split the Party and reacts with Market Availability and Diminishing Returns and Seasonal Overland Travel Times

Grumpy Wizard gives us Make EVERYTHING More Interesting?

Whose Measure God Could Not Take updates their OSE Hexcrawl Generator

Speculative evolution with the Hegemonic Cube & d8 Niche Owlbears on Leicester's Ramble

Capsule Reviews #1

In an attempt to manage the torrent of stuff that I grab off the internet on a regular basis, I am going to to cut down reviews looking at just 3 aspects - interesting crunch (things I can easily use at my table), inspiring fluff (ideas sparked or used directly) and pleasure in reading the thing in the first place.

D&D Unleashed: The Elements & Beyond. At 247 pages of planar homebrew content this is a huge amount of stuff by Benevolent Evil - split into 3 sections and a half dozen appendices. By sections we have character options, new spells and a DM section with monsters, monster customisation and magic items for 5e. Chunks are big ~ 30 pages of races, ~40 pages of subclasses, ~40 pages spells which is a lot to digest. New races has some good inspiration baked into the origins and backgrounds. Spells and monsters include variants around similar themes - I find this better for monsters as I can be inspired by 'huh - imagine all this bunch together in an environment'. As per the name, lots of tuning things for different elemental themes - earth, air, fire, water then returning to the old para-elemental ideas of earth/fire for magma, water/air for ice and so on. Design is a good standard for homebrew, art is mostly credited at the back, a few 'unknowns.'
3/5 on inspiring fluff
4/5 on useable crunch
3/5 on joy to read

Enter The Forest Pamphlet - A pamphlet from Highland Paranormal Society by Josh Hittie this setting and encounter generator is an awesome shot of 'I need a forest fast' - lots of tables for locations, encounters, things found - but also questions to pose to frame 'why is any of this happening'. No system, just inspiration.
4/5 on inspiring fluff
0/5 on useable crunch
5/5 on joy to read

Giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons - 180 pages of content to create dangerous adventures for your D&D 5e games with new rules options by Giffyglyph. I was pleasantly surprised as I leafed through this catching myself muttering 'this is some pretty clever stuff actually'. There are some very good break downs and frameworks of how to set up adventures which I think could be very useful for beginners. The ways to slot lots of these together and scale things up to make arcs are good thoughts to consider even for veterans. Layout is very clean and clear, this is a giant toolkit of modular additions for your game, offering an enormous amount of possible tweaks.
4/5 on inspiring fluff
5/5 on useable crunch
3/5 on joy to read

d6 elements of the old hoard

Suggestions to be found in the old hoard, inspired by recent personal adventures.

1.A few things the hoard owner themselves collected as precious, then surpassed - priceless antiques now but less than the treasures the owner was known for creating.
2.The hoard owners early works including many lateral things to what they are known for, some useful precursor materials. A lot is irrelevant, much of this is basic level but for those looking to unlock their later works, these are the rosetta stones.
3. A complete set of second tier treasures, good, unusual stuff, within the hoard owners expertise but not what they are known for. Valuable, prone to be doubted by those without deep expertise but even more precious to true experts who understand how rare these abandoned lines of work are.
4. Working copies of early works, damaged and worn due to hard use. May have interesting notes and marginalia from the hoard owner. Likely to be stained and stinking, some small chance they are impregnated with poisons or intoxicants.
5. The core collection - the really valuable stuff that was too heavy or awkward to move, that was left in secure storage for later recovery but, for whatever reason, was never taken. This is incredibly valuable, the signature stuff the hoard owner is known for, well-stored, well-defended and difficult to move without damaging.
6. Ancillary gifts - elements relevant to the core collection and contemporary to these works, these are gifts and trades from peers. These will have many famous names and be valuable in their own right but wildly heterogenous with the only common factor being the time they were in circulation.

Shiny TTRPG links #62

Again a rich week but only a few given here as I travel. 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 or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.

Update: THREE WORD SWORD Generator from Whose Measure God Could Not Take

World Building and Woolgathering writes The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Names, Planes and Alternate Realms.

Hexmapping in real life - a Hexagonal Map of London.

The Brave Art of Running Away on Semper Initiativus Unum.

Utopia of Rules - a review by weaver.skepti.ch

13 Superstitions for Sci-Fi Space-Farers
~ from Haruspex's Hovel

Parrot-Fiends of House Manati (and the Unceasingly Useful Dermestid Box) from Save vs. Worm

Leicester's Ramble writes mapping method in Exploring Marwater Cavern

A planar compilation

Since we are about to receive a new planar nexus in June, this is a round-up of various variant takes on the planes I have found over time (plus resources for Planescape itself at the bottom).

A pair of magnificent planar cosmology variations for your sages to argue over - Hexian cosmologies by Bearded Devil and Planescape variations by Locheil.

Scrap Princess did an extended take on the planes in 'Planescrap' with a lot of great stuff in there including a generator for Sigil in "Planes scape some tables for Sigil (Scrawled over mix)".

This post on settings that deal with the underworld, Hell, or the afterlife to some degree by Ynas Midgard.

Mystara's Plane of Fire with Map on the Piazza.org.

u/Insanely_Lucid has worked up a fantastic map of the elemental plane of fire in Inkarnate

Actual Play - Splinters of Hope: Mechanus

First of what I hope will be a couple of one-shots visiting the planes (see Great Planar Scavenger Hunt) I also took this as a personal project to get better at running one-shots. My natural home is long run campaigns so there were a couple of learnings for me in this.

The pre-game brief was: "elves are dying, you are one who has answered a call for aid by the local temples trying to do something about it - whether for coin, glory or favours I leave to you. Only steer I would give at this point is
- build someone who can work as part of an adventuring band - no lone wolves
- you will be venturing out onto the planes so will be far from your networks - a character who's whole schtick is their networks will likely be cut off from those
Build classic adventurers of whatever stripe, going to run 5e, start at level 3. This is going to be more puzzles and exploration than high crunch combat."

The puzzle, that they needed to figure out was that the thing, a long forgotten remnant from a lost elf world, was going to be crushed in the turning of the gears of Mechanus. The players would get a 128 cog 'local atlas' list and then eliminate various places the thing could not be and arrive with a singular location. I hoped that the process of elimination would allow exploration of the nature of Mechanus and flex the unique conditions of the plane.

I built this as a hex-crawl to give lots of freedom to discover new things. The players got an opening clue, an oracular vision that the thing they sought was going to be lost in 30 days.

Some sample clues I thought up:
Clue 1: access is lost abruptly, which eliminates all the slow turning cogs (target cog must be one within an escapement group, moving suddenly at intervals).
Clue 2: the thing is still here, so is on a cog which has a long turning cycle - eliminating any cogs that have cycled within the time frame since the item was lost.
Clue 3: it is on a cog unoccupied by locals - modrons, formians and inevitables all fully adapt the cogs the occupy, consume or use everything they find.
Clue 4: the thing is still accessible today and therefore is not on a cog with a climate that would prevent decay - either hot/dry or very cold or bare metal.

Mindful of the three-clue rule, I tried to make sure that there were multiple routes to get to the same answers.
- players thinking it through themselves
- interviewing locals for how things work around here
- accessing local observatories or archives to do some research
- doing observations of the cogs

** What worked well:
- Captured the flavour of Mechanus, the gears, the strange terrain, the 'not in Kansas any more' side. I think those that participated really felt they got a jaunt to elsewhere. The instant nightfall, instant dawn shift was a good part of that.
- The few mechanics I threw in to make the place feel different worked well - checks to cross the between gears and average damage in combat.
- The mission / central puzzle was interesting enough that it kept folk engaged and let them explore the environment.
- Great fun role-playing was had; two completely different flavours from the pair of core groups that went through.
- Feedback on the NPCs was good, interesting and reflected the locale well.
- The different groups founds lots of different ways to eventually get to the answer which showed it did not bottleneck too badly anywhere.

** What needed improvement
- I tightened up the launch significantly, the first run burned a chunk of time getting to 'boots on the ground' which was my fault. They got background briefing and 'why this matters' flavour which is good for long-form campaigns, needs to be skipped for one-shots. Start in media res - "you step out of the gate. The reason you are here is..."
- Need to clear more time so be ruthless with interactions. The flip-side of having fun with NPCs is recognising when the interaction is no longer giving them fresh info or moving things along. At that point zoom back out and wrap it up, otherwise it can be a time burn that leaves you squeezed later on.
- Kill random encounter tables - they were good sources of flavour, great for multi-session crawls, great for me getting my head around the setting, not good for one-shot format. You can see the Mechanus Encounters table I created here.
- Better clue hand-outs to really highlight critical information.
- Inject energy with combat, hazards as needed. Particularly with a puzzler, if the players get stumped you can either feed them the answer which doesn't feel great or kick them into a different activity which ramps up the energy but also sets their minds working on something else. When they return to 'what were we doing?' after the combat then someones subconscious will likely have some fresh thoughts to get them going

Group 1 - In House Testing Team: Ran the theory with a stats generated average group of nameless adventurers led by a Cleric of Kord

Group 2 - Scholars and seekers
Quogon - tortle cleric of twilight
Nar Norsa - firbolg druid
Jan - dwarf ranger
Lykoe Errie - high elf Warlock
Ivy - eladrin Oath of the Ancient Paladin

Group 3 - Planars
Parvina Loren - Human Barbarian
Kayleigh Evendur - Valkerie Paladin from Ysgard
Dak'hal - Githzerai Monk from Limbo
Leddwi - Gnome Warlock (Celestrial patron)
Zanna "Muffins" Tusen d'Sivis - Gnome Druid

** Most favoured moments:
- The Scholars, independently came up with a pair of wise old scholars, a scout for hire and a pair of lore-hunting elves - when these seekers of knowledge ran into some of the sages that dwelled in Mechanus there was a wonderful meeting of minds and deep discussions
- When the Scholars stepped out and caught sight of the skyful of gears for the first time, there was a beautiful OC table-wide in-draw of breath and an IC flask of hard liquor was handed around
- When the planars figured out that their attacks were doing average damage every time - "I hate it but I love it"
- The Planars, unaware the mission would be Mechanus, cooked up the most chaotic bunch possible, hailing from Limbo, Ysgard and other points on the opposite side of the Great Ring. The table masterfully played them *hating* the place, with laser-tight mission focus so they could get the hell out and go home.
- Both groups like the sites they ran into - these are written up in the Hinter-Cog sites post.
- The Guvnors gravity clipper: every party, given the choice between trekking out to the cog once it was identified or taking the scary short cut of a ride on the Guvnor experimental gravity clipper took the ride. This was fun, recognising that a gravity sling-shot around the flat, double-sided gravity of the cogs that are sometimes at angles to one another would be a both something fanatical mathematicians would try to master and would be nerve wracking to put in practice.
- I was pleased the players came up with an in-hindsight obvious question of 'which cogs will complete a turn soon' (compared to my thought of which ones have not completed a turn yet. This let them narrow down a shortlist and skip another filter.

So, despite some squeaky moments and sessions ending in a rushed montage once the objective had been found, I count these as success - people got to see Mechanus and it was fun.

Shiny TTRPG links #61

A significant haul of interesting links this week. 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 or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.

The Man With A Hammer writes Languages and Common as Trade Common.

OSE Hexcrawl Generator on Whose Measure God Could Not Take.

Dynamic Timelines in OSR Play by Doof's Goofs.

The Mystical Trash Heap gives us Abyss Info Dump.

I Cast Light! gets to week 4 in a Gygax 75 challenge!