Shiny TTRPG links #179

Some links, some archive diving during this holiday period. For yet more links, 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.

lumpley games gives us In Brief, the Problem of RPG Design

Daily Adventure Prompts shares DM TIP: PUZZLING IT OUT

@prokopetz gives us rules don't matter

Torchless writes LOW OPINION: Short-Sighted Focus on Fun Ruins Long-Term Enjoyment of Tabletop Games

The Welsh Piper gave us What’s Your Genre?

Periapt Games Design Blog shares Upon training your character's replacement

Actual Test: Shadowdark adventure generator tables

I gave the the Shadowdark adventure generators a turn to create a session for my Friday night open game. Whenever folk ask about adventure generators it is one that comes up alongside Worlds Without Number and Knave 2e. The Shadowdark one is quite terrain tied with a lot of it being in the 'quest' and 'location' elements backed up by terrain-specific encounter tables.

Throwing some dice at the various tables we get:
Inciting event - runaway wagon
Quest - Spy on the ritual of the Royal Knights
Location - Necropolis of the Enchanted Depths
Opposition - Steel Drakes - known for defeating dragons
Location - Grassland, ruied town


Encounters (grasslands 1) - Beserker hunters that invite you to join them
Encounters (grasslands 2) - Wild boars
Encounters (ruins) - Ogre scrawling grafitti
Encounters (tomb) - wandering merchant trapped in coffin

I also used the settlement generation tools to come up with the destination settlement of Darkwater - those were very good giving me four districts, a handful of landmarks across all of them and enough texture to make the place interesting. Shadowdark being Shadowdark it also has dungeon generation tables but I did not delve that deep for this one-shot session.

Upcycling content - campaign vs one-shot sessions

I gave myself a challenge recently of setting one-shots for other groups in my main campaign world because in theory there are lots of locations that have been visited once where I did a bunch of set up work already and they could just be lifted and replaced, right? Well, not quite so simple but hardly impossible.

The key factors I found are:
- Motivation changes
- Incidental locations
- NPC backgrounds
- Timing

The specific situation I used was a buried but intact temple of Bane.

Shiny TTRPG links #178

More interesting links from a week on the web. For yet more links, 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.

Welcome to the Deathtrap wrote On The Spectrum of Hobbies that Use TTRPGs, and Finding Yours

Ramming the Dungeon launches with DESIGNING A COLLABORATIVE SESSION ZERO

Against The Wicked City gave us On romantic fantasy and OSR D&D

thydungeongal shared On play culture in D&D

666-Sided Dice launches with Thoughts on the Flame Lizard

Zzarchov Kowolski gives us Magical Languages

Review: Dr. Grordborts Scientific Adventure Violence

tl;dr: steampunk planetary romance 5e conversion kit, heavy on the gear, lighter on the setting details.

This was a kickstarter I backed because a) I rode in on the 90s steampunk wave back in the day - Abney Park, the Difference Engine - all that jazz and b) I seriously contemplated getting myself a Weta Workshop raygun once. When Dr. Grordbordts Scientific Adventure Violence dropped on Kickstarter I backed it more on that nostalgia kick than I was expecting something mindblowing but now that I've gotten to reading it I've been pleasantly surprised.

Cover art by Max Chow

This is a 5e conversion book; following a similar course to what I have seen elsewhere of very much running with the system as it exists and applying mods through new conditions, tags and the like. The art is fun, the production values are very good indeed and there is lots of the original Dr. Grordbort material turning up in the pages which is neat. This is a toolkit to do this type of game in 5e, a mod-pack for familiar players, rather than an entry to the hobby for new folk. I would say you would need to be fairly familiar with basic 5e D&D to get the most out of this.

Actual Test: Fictive Fantasies Adventure Generator

After trying the Oracle RPG adventure generator and finding it a bit sparse, I had more luck with Fictive Fantasies version (link to pdf).

Working through the elements in the adventure generator we get:
Quest contact - rumour overheard
Quest - prevent something - interfere, only you can stop
Something = capture/kidnap someone
Location - island: In the seas they appear randomly and many have never been properly cataloged. Undiscovered islands yield many unknown threats and unexpected surprises.
Victim - Royalty
Mcguffin - Secret: Something hidden, which somebody wants to keep hidden. Kingdoms and royalty have plenty of secrets they want nobody to find out about, and people are always willing to pay for those secrets.
Opposition: Guild or Horde: A group of people with one common belief or oath of brotherhood. Their numbers are great and their intimidation mighty.
Twist - Dodgy ally
Dramatic conflict - Truth: Ultimately the players will have to suppress some great truth, or find a way to tell everyone about some great lie. Either way they’re on the side of deception.

Good stuff to work with from OFTHEHILLPEOPLE - a few more random elements and it all feels slightly more defined and targeted for some reason.

From random rolls to adventure draft

Shiny TTRPG links #177

A more typical number of links fresh from the internet. For yet more links, 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.

Welcome to the Deathtrap gives us Making Best Use of Downtime

u/SprocketSaga wrote Use the "Improvisation Tax" rule of thumb for unexpected PC actions

sachagoat continues Re-inventing the Wilderness: Part 6 - Landmarks

Tales of the Lunar Lands gives us Legojam: Cedric the Bull and the Canton of Ochsebad

Trollsmyth writes Grimdark vs. Eucatastrophe

A Knight at the Opera compiles EVERY Initiative Method??