tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18330683215972319102024-03-12T18:46:07.763-07:00There's more to Oz than the Yellow Brick RoadF. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.comBlogger690125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-9041421072024767312024-02-13T20:07:00.000-08:002024-02-13T20:07:13.664-08:00Making Dungeons<p> I am proceeding with my #dungeon24 plans. I completed my January level and you can <a href="https://1drv.ms/b/s!AoGRoHbQW3a0g8tP-Ldr2VIwcWEWQw">download it here</a>.</p><p>It's entirely randomly generated, and a good portion of the month went to working out my process.</p><p>My original plan was to use the random dungeon generation from OSRIC, swap in the dungeon encounter tables from the Adventures Dark & Deep Random Terrain and Encounter Generator with its lovely d1000 tables and the simply massive Adventures Dark & Deep Bestiary and be off to the races.</p><p>Then I hit a snag. Because AD&D clones like what I'm using (both OSRIC and Adventures Dark & Deep) have very large numbers in the Number Appearing entry. So for one encounter, I rolled up an army of 200 dwarves intended to populate a 20x20 foot room. <br /></p><p>So I had to add a couple of steps to my process.</p><p>Clones of older version of D&D, such as B/X clones Labyrinth Lord and Old School Essentials, tend to have different, smaller Number Appearing values. That's likely because those values were intended specifically for populating a dungeon, while the AD&D values were intended for wilderness encounters (at least according to my research).</p><p>Even then, I could wind up with maybe too many monsters. Which leads to my next step: The Lair %. While it could be read as the percentage chance that a monster is in its designated lair, I decided to read it as the portion of monsters that actually stick to their lair. So I had reduced my 200 dwarves to about 20 thanks to Labyrinth Lord numbers, but with a Lair % of 50%, that meant that only about 10 dwarves are hanging out in their lair at any given time. The rest of them could be used to generate my random encounter tables.</p><p>But the AD&D Bestiary doesn't include Lair %'s in its monster stats. That's listed in the OSRIC bestiary section.</p><p>It might be that I'm shooting myself in the foot by using Adventures Dark & Deep so centrally, since I wind up needing monsters that line up in 3 different sources for my process to work. But OSRIC and AD&D are what I've run and played the most, so I'd like to stay in my comfort zone when working on something so ambitious.</p><p>One of the other things I was doing that was part of my process from the start was making an initial reaction roll for each encounter. The idea here is to 1) create more variety of encounter by ensuring that not every encounter is a simple fight and 2) to assist with creating backstory and interest in the dungeon. A Hostile dwarf has a reason for being that way, just as a Friendly dwarf does. Unfortunately, I haven't delved deeply into that aspect, with the other issues I had to address.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-31425700728761744172024-01-09T19:46:00.000-08:002024-01-09T19:46:18.906-08:00The Golden Age?<p> Well, it has happened again. All the wits and pundits of the blogosphere have spoken and I feel like I must weight in as well.</p><p>Ben Riggs, who purports to be a historian, has made a bold claim that 2023 marked the end of the Golden Age of TTRPGs. https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/18xtxdq/the_golden_age_of_ttrpgs_is_dead/ And the reason I say "purports" is because he's missing an obvious historical parallel to the scenario that he lays out in his post: D&D 4e.<br /></p><p>The Open Gaming License was first introduced to enable the average hobbyist gamer to support Third Edition D&D back in the yesteryear of Y2K and maybe make a buck or two while doing do. And some people began making more than a buck or two and were able to do very well for themselves. Over the course of the 3,x publishing era, a number of companies sprang up that were able to sustain themselves entirely on publishing 3.x content under the OGL.</p><p>I mention those companies because that seems to be the thread that Ben isn't following, but it's really key.</p><p>When D&D 4e was announced, it was made clear that it would not be an OGL game. While players would have to buy all of their books from Wizards of the Coast from then on (which WotC didn't mind at all), this is also cut off the meal ticket for this whole ecosystem of publishers who supported 3.x over the years.</p><p>So the hunt was on for a d20 successor system, so those publishers could continue to do something very close to what they had been doing previously. Paizo and its Pathfinder system ultimately won, but let's not forget that once D&D left the OGL market, there were a number of people trying to fill that gap. True20, FantasyCraft and a host of others that I've forgotten in the interim.<br /></p><p>And now, thanks to the OGL 1.1 fiasco of a year ago, we're in a similar situation. Even though WotC has recanted and relented and begged for forgiveness, they burned a lot of trust. Enough that the OGL publishers supporting 5e decided that they needed to design for a system that either was truly, assuredly open as WotC had previously promised D&D would be, or was under their direct ownership and control.</p><p>That's what these products that are "fracturing the market" are. Publishers seeking assurance that the rug won't be pulled out from under them again. And there's every possibility that those game lines won't last long. For every Pathfinder, there are a large number of True20's. And this disruption is arguably smaller than the one that created Pathfinder, so it could happen than none of these manage to sustain much more than a niche interest.</p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-78000255162605857402024-01-02T21:04:00.000-08:002024-01-02T21:04:01.735-08:00New Year, Same Old Me<p>It's been a while since I posted here, but I've been doing pretty good.</p><p>I don't know if I mentioned, but my main New Year's resolution for 2023 was to run a campaign. And since it had been so long since I've been a stable GM, I made myself a generous definition: Run 2 (or more) sessions that share continuity. This could be a traditional campaign, or it could be an OSR open table, where I run multiple sessions in the same dungeon and keeping the progress and changes to the dungeon from one run into the next session even if the players and characters are different. It could even be a Fiasco "campaign," which would be fairly close to a film franchise with sequels and side stories, kinda like the MCU or whatever the American Pie franchise is.</p><p>But even with that generous definition, it took me a long time to manage it. I'd been meeting with my Wednesday group off and on for a while, but it was all one shots. Some Fiasco from me, Blades in the Dark if one of them wanted to run. Finally, I got to run my traditional Halloween one-shot for them, which was InSpectres.</p><p>The end of the year was drawing near and my resolution still going unfulfilled. So I suggested that we try InSpectres again. They enjoyed the first session, and so a week or so before Christmas, we were able to make it happen. They still had their character sheets and I still had my records from the session, so we had the continuity. It was a good session and I got to say that I actually kept my New Year's resolution.</p><p>I also got to run my All Outta Candy Canes Christmas one-shot. I've wanted to use the All Outta Bubblegum system for about 5 or 6 years, but the notion of "The Expendables save Christmas" was only 2 or 3 years old. So this was a long time in coming, but I finally got some interest at the monthly RPG Meetup in December.</p><p>For this year, I'm going slightly more ambitious for my New Year's resolutions. I'm planning on keeping my resolution regarding running a campaign. I'm not even going to revise my definition of "campaign." While I did pull it off last year, it was a near enough thing that I am not going to get cocky this year.</p><p>But what I am doing is #dungeon24. I found out about #dungeon23 on social media last year, but wasn't sure if I had my act together enough to do it. The idea is to create a megadungeon by creating 1 room per day. At the end of each month, you will have completed 1 level. At the end of the year, you will have a 12-level megadungeon.</p><p>My plan is to leverage the power of random generation. I've already got my first level mapped using the random dungeon generator from OSRIC, as well as some of the second. While I will be using that procedure to determine whether monsters and treasure are present, I'll be using random encounter tables from Adventures Dark & Deep. The Bestiary is enormous, so I'm expecting some good variety of encounter to keep things exciting. I'll also be using their rules for reaction rolls, since OSRIC doesn't really include those.</p><p>Just because everything will have a procedure for it doesn't mean that I'm not going to be creative about this. It turns out that my creativity is the kind that's really good at filling in the gaps between existing things, not really so much about making things from whole cloth. Those reaction rolls are going to help me fill in the story of the dungeon, along with every other detail that gets rolled up.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-77807013736766111372023-12-12T20:33:00.000-08:002023-12-12T20:33:39.730-08:00WIR 13th Age #5<p> Now we're in the Monsters chapter.</p><p>The rules for monsters are deliberately simple. Again, 13th Age shows its 4e heritage with small, straightforward combat oriented stat blocks. There is an image accompanying each monster stat block, but it's more iconography than illustration. Monsters have standardized hit points and damage values, and don't usually roll for either.</p><p>The stats are simple and straightforward. The main thing to note is that many special attacks and abilities trigger on a specific roll of the dice. While I've been invoking D&D 4e a few times when discussing the designers and the overall combat focus of the game, it's important to note a significant difference between this game and that: While 4e had very crunchy, tactical, map-based combat, 13th Age's combat is very loose, simple, and geared towards "theater of the mind" play. Most of the time, the GM will be making basic attack rolls, with monster special abilities being triggered by specific rolls of the dice. Rather than the complex tactical machinations of 4e, 13th Age is able to get quite a bit of mileage out of "clickety clackety, I roll to attack-ety."<br /></p><p>The monsters are very much the D&D standards. Orcs, zombies, trolls, and gelatinous cubes are all represented. Dragons and demons also use the categories that every D&D player has learned to expect.</p><p>There are also a few tables for quickly generating monster stats for your own creations. Overall, 50+ pages of exactly what you expect.</p><p>The next chapter is a description of the default 13th Age setting, The Dragon Empire. They make a point of reminding you that there's a lot of empty space on the map that you can freely fill outside of the landmarks that they've posted. On the one hand, that feels obvious. On the other hand, if you're accustomed to a very lore-heavy sort of setting where every building has several paragraphs of lore somewhere or the GM feels the need to lead you by the nose through the highlights of the setting, it can be good to have that reminder.</p><p>While there's a lot of information about each of the locations shown on the map, it's all very loose. There's an emphasis on plot hooks and things to do and see rather than hard details.</p><p>About 100 pages ago, we were promised magic items and this next chapter finally (claims to) deliver. The first topic is consumable magic items, like potions, oils and runes. Potions are for healing or energy resistance. Oils provide flat bonuses to certain combat stats but only for one battle. Runes provide pluses like oils, but also another sort of bonus or effect as well.</p><p>Then we get to the more typical sort of magic items: magic weapons, armor and other magical trinkets. The sort you expect from a D&D-alike or "fantasy heartbreaker."</p><p>They spend some time talking about how many items you can effectively use, which is basically "1 item per level, and no more than 1 item of each type." Also, each item carries a "quirk," a habit or personality detail that the wearer manifests which connects to the item's theme.</p><p>The items are listed by type, such as magic weapon, armor, and other categories. The descriptions, like most things in this book are terse and efficient, making it very easy to breeze over. There's one illustration per item type, which, like the monsters, feels more iconic than illustrative.<br /></p><p>There are no prices given for any of the magic items, on the assumption that they are all too special to have fixed prices. They even discuss the idea of keeping a magic item for the length of your career rather than constantly looking out for the next higher bonus. This is refreshing, as someone who started in Third Edition D&D, where it felt like there was a constant pressure to upgrade and make sure that you had proper gear for your level or you risked falling behind.</p><p>Our next section is an adventure, so this feels like a good time to start a new post. I've been sitting on this one for long enough.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-26867638319521265322023-11-28T21:21:00.000-08:002023-11-28T21:21:36.464-08:00The Seasons Turn<p>Week 13</p><p>This week marks the turn of the season from Spring to Summer and offers Seth Creighton the rare week off to participate in the Sunrise Celebration in High Rannoc.</p><p>In one area, a group of druids and farmers are performing a ritual to the Ash Mother. As the ash tree is associated with healing, I decide to participate. There is a ritual bath to cleanse our outside, then a cup of ash bark tea to clear the body of residual impurities. Thankfully, the actual clearing of residual impurities is not part of the ritual, as it was more comfortable to do that in the privacy of an outhouse.</p><p>Also, my golem has completed building a Garden Plot which I can use to grow a quantity of a plant ingredient. I decide on Surgeon's Sap, which should be a useful ingredient. I now set the golem to build a Fish Tank so I can keep some useful fish around. That should take him until Autumn to complete.</p><p>Week 14</p><p>The first week of summer brings with it an Intermediate Ailment, now that my Reputation has reached that point again. It turns out that an orc from Heroes Hollow has developed Adventurer's Rash, also known as the itch to adventure. It's not a complicated cure, but I will have to hurry. There's only a Timer of 4.</p><p>The Tags are Rash* and Senses*. Pixie Fur can heal the Rash, and Sea Beast Saliva can treat the Senses, but it is a very powerful ingredient. I have a small amount of time, so I'll see if I can find a substitute.<br /></p><p>I decide to head to Glimmerwood Grove for a Coffee Cap. One thing I didn't realize is that I can increase my Reputation more quickly if my treatment addresses only the Tags of the ailment. This is something that I hadn't previously been tracking. So my Sea Beast Saliva treats Blood, Nerves and Senses, but the Coffee Cap only treats Senses, so I'll get more Reputation if I use the Coffee Cap, which only treats Senses with the Pixie Fur that only treats Rash.</p><p>1. As I pass a fairy ring, the fairies encircle me with their dance. One of them playfully makes off with my basket. The joke's on them. I hadn't gathered anything yet. Once they leave, I make sure that I have an empty pocket to safely carry the Coffee Cap once I find it.</p><p>2. I find the Coffee Cap under an old oak tree. As I'm gathering, I hear a small, pained hoot. A young owl has fallen out of its nest and injured itself. I don't have anything to treat it on hand, but I do still have some time to forage and might be able to find some Surgeon's Sap to treat it.</p><p>3. The good news is that I was able to locate the Surgeon's Sap. The bad news is that it was on the edge of Weaver's Wood. The giant spiders were on constant guard to detect when their webs had been disturbed, so escaping required some delicate footwork. I won't have time to treat the owl before I have to get back to my patient in my cottage.</p><p>Returning to my cottage, I find the orc pacing nervously. I crush the Coffee Cap into a fine powder, then set it to brewing in my cauldron. While it's bubbling, I crush the Pixie Fir into dust and finally sprinkle it over the finished brew. A few delicate sips and then a hearty chug later, my orc visitor finally allows himself to sit down.</p><p>Since I treated only the Tags he had, I gain 2 Reputation from a successful cure. Also, an Intermediate Ailment earns 30 silver and the Coffee Cap gave it a bit of sweetness good for another 4 silver.<br /></p><p>As he rests up, I decide to return to the injured owl on my Downtime to treat their injury with the Surgeon's Sap. <br /></p><p>During my Downtime, I return to the injured owl with my Surgeon's Sap. As I apply the sap, the owl coughs up a pellet made almost entirely of Hair of Boar. I'm guessing that he got injured trying to fight a boar. While I hope he doesn't get injured again, that's a useful ingredient to have on hand.<br /></p><p>Reputation:13</p><p>Silver:114</p><p>Reagents: Darkwater, Fairy Dust, Gas Weed, Sea Beast Saliva, Shadow Shark, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only), Owl (Ways: Hair of Boar)<br /></p><p>Golem Helper: Make Fish Pond (Will be finished by the end of Summer)</p><p>Upgrades: Garden Plot (Surgeon's Sap) <br /></p><p>Tools: Alembic, Cauldron, Mortar and Pestle, Wand <br /></p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange, Dreamwater Depths.</p><p></p><p></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-6910031951140394192023-11-21T21:12:00.000-08:002023-11-28T20:20:27.777-08:00New Apothecaria Adventures<p> Before I get to Week 11 in Seth Creighton's career, I need resolve the penpal from The Strange. Write one question that Seth has for the demon, then answer it and ask a question about High Rannoc which Seth must answer.</p><p>What do demons of The Strange eat?</p><p>They eat souls. The Strange is between and around many realms and dimensions, so souls are always passing through. Now that the portal is open to Heroes Hollow, some adventurers are beginning to explore and embodied souls now sometimes find themselves on the menu.</p><p>What do the people of High Rannoc eat?</p><p>We eat the remains of living things once the soul has gone. More often than not, we remove the soul of the living thing so that we can eat the remains instead of simply waiting for the soul to leave.</p><p>Week 11</p><p>After a few weeks treating the monsters of Heroes Hollow, now it's time to treat one of the adventurers that pass through that dungeon. Karrigan the Wise has crawled to my door severely Wounded. I could leave this to the village doctor, but I really need a win after my last patient. Also, I have the necessary ingredients at hand.</p><p>First, I set the Shock Fish in my cauldron and boil out its electrical fluid. This is then allowed to cool and I add the Surgeon's Sap. The electrical fluid numbs the area as the Surgeon's Sap binds and heals the wound.</p><p>No major downtime projects this week, but we'll see how ready I am for the next patient. <br /></p><p>Reputation:10</p><p>Silver: 60</p><p>Reagents: Darkwater, Fairy Dust, Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Sea Beast Saliva, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)</p><p>Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)</p><p>Tools: Alembic, Cauldron, Mortar and Pestle, Wand <br /></p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange, Dreamwater Depths.</p><p> Week 12</p><p> I haven't seen a mountain ogre in some time, but it turns out that one of them is my patient this week. Granikka seems to have come down with Magnetic Thumb. I've treated this before, so it shouldn't be too difficult. The Tags are Pain* and Blood* and I've got a Timer of 6.<br /></p><p>While Sea Beast Saliva is good for either Tag, it's also a pretty powerful ingredient. Starting from scratch, I head out to the Deepwater Depths, where Bas Bata once stood guard.</p><p>1. Shock Fish are fairly common at these depths, but so are more dangerous predators. Once I grab my sample, I spy a large garfish which looks big enough to make quick work of me. Hiding among the crumbling stone of the underwater city, I lose 1 Timer, but I also lose the fish that was hunting me.</p><p>2. As I'm hunting for the Slime Shell I need to treat the Blood* Tag, I find a bit of graffiti carved into a giant seashell that once served as someone's home when this city was occupied. C R A K W Z HER . I couldn't make out all of the message, but it feels like I've seen that handwriting somewhere. Maybe in the notebooks left by the old apothecary in their cottage?</p><p>3. Outside the city, I found a spot that had clearly been cultivated by the old inhabitants. A small, balanced ecosystem of useful plants and animal specimens lives here. I easily find the Slime Shell I was looking for and even have the opportunity to collect some ink from a Shadow Shark, which might come in handy.</p><p>Once I'm home, I set the cauldron to boil out the fluid from the Shock Fish. Once that's cooled down a bit, the slime from the Slime Shell gets mixed in to make a slightly nauseating potion. But it does the trick and Granikka is pleased that she can put her sword down from when she wants to.</p><p>With her ailment cured, I gain another point of Reputation, which puts me back in the position to attempt more challenging ailments. The 10 silver will also help if there are additional tools that I might need. But that will have to wait until after the Sunrise Celebration that marks the beginning of summer.<br /></p><p>Reputation:11</p><p>Silver: 80</p><p>Reagents: Darkwater, Fairy Dust, Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Sea Beast Saliva, Shadow Shark, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)</p><p>Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)</p><p>Tools: Alembic, Cauldron, Mortar and Pestle, Wand <br /></p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange, Dreamwater Depths.</p><p></p><p></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-488305706720083312023-11-14T21:32:00.000-08:002023-11-14T21:32:02.768-08:00<p> Week 9</p><p>Seth Creighton's apothecary practice is doing fairly well. In fact, his reputation among the monsters of Hero's Hollow has brought another patient to his door. A vampire named Frederick has come down with a terrible case of Cludgie Mouth and it's now his job to help.</p><p>This ailment has the tags Curse* and Infection*. My Dentist Crab Claw Gel can be used for the Infection component, so I just need to forage for something to clear the Curse component. Looking over my options, it looks like Fairy Dust is my best bet, so I head out to Glimmerwood Grove.</p><p>1. As I'm gathering Fairy Dust that is clinging to a spider web, I see a unicorn in the trail up ahead. It seems to sense that I'm staring at it and dashes off. One day...</p><p>The simple errand seemingly taken care of, I return home and begin preparing my cure. Distilling the essence of the Claw Gel, I add it directly to the Fairy Dust, causing it to condense into a piece of rock candy. My vampire patient places it in his mouth and begins sucking. The candy dissolves fairly quickly, along with his bad breath.</p><p>I accept my patient's fee of 20 silver and bring my Reputation up to 11.</p><p>Since I don't have a big project anymore, I think I'll be skipping downtime for this week.</p><p>Reputation:11</p><p>Silver: 140</p><p>Reagents: Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Sea Beast Saliva, Shock Fish, Surgeon's Sap, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)</p><p>Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)</p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange, Dreamwater Depths.</p><p><br /></p><p>Week 10</p><p>I did not expect to see Flossie again after curing her Toad Nose nearly 2 months ago, but this time she's back with a case of Ventriloquist's Cough. It sounds terrible, but since it's someone else's cough, she shows no sign of other illness.</p><p>Now that I've developed my Reputation, the people of High Rannoc now trust me with slightly more complicated ailments. Ventriloquist's Cough has the Tags Magic* and Cough** along with a fairly short Timer of only 4.</p><p>This is a tricky one. None of my current ingredients are much good. Magic is easy enough. Fairy Dust is easy for me to find in Glimmerwood Grove. But the only ingredient powerful enough to address the Cough** is in Hero's Hollow and has a side effect of Sleep that will have to be counteracted. And the only way to do that with the tools I have is in Meltwater Loch. It will take a lot of luck, but I'll do my best.</p><p>1: It's time for me to enter the mysterious portal in Hero's Hollow and enter The Strange. I find a font of Darkwater and fill my vial. As I'm screwing on the cap, a friendly demon with a fanged smile approaches me. She notices that I'm not a demon and asks where I'm from. I tell her a little about High Rannoc which intrigues her. Since I'm in a bit of a hurry, I suggest that she writes me a letter telling me about The Strange and I'll write back telling her more about High Rannoc.</p><p>2: I spend 1 Timer traveling between The Strange and Glimmerwood Grove. My only chance of pulling this off is hoping a friendly soul can get me to my third destination with haste. Unfortunately, just as I found a mushroom heaped with Fairy Dust, I hear a roar nearby. A mother bear emerged from her den and roared again while staring me in the eye. Discretion being the better part of valor, I ran away.</p><p>With no hope of gathering the final ingredient in time, I return home in defeat. Not long after, Flossie cough is gone, as whoever was throwing it to her has recovered from their cold. I make no money this week and lose 2 points of Reputation. It looks like I'm down to treating Novice Ailments again.</p><p>Downtime</p><p>While I don't have any major projects, I do still have some things to do. I promised a demon that I would write her a letter. (This is the end of my day, so I'll come at that next time) Also, I need to buy a Wand which will allow me to collect certain magical ingredients. That will cost me 100 silver, but would have allowed me to finish the potion for this week's ailment if I'd had it before.</p><p>Reputation: 9</p><p>Silver: 40</p><p>Reagents: Darkwater, Fairy Dust, Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Sea Beast Saliva, Shock Fish, Surgeon's Sap, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)</p><p>Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)</p><p>Tools: Alembic, Cauldron, Mortar and Pestle, Wand <br /></p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange, Dreamwater Depths.</p><p></p><p></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-24257132476244160912023-11-07T21:38:00.003-08:002023-11-07T21:38:58.888-08:00Another Run at Apothecaria<p> Let me start off by saying that I had a lovely Halloween. I went to a good friend's Halloween party over the weekend and on Halloween night, I gave out a lot of candy. Not just candy. I also got a stash of small toys and whatsits for kids who may not have been into candy.</p><p> A friend of mine from my hometown shared an article on Facebook about some new pumpkin color being promoted. While I'm not going to make kids single themselves out in order to get treats from me, it did get me thinking about what sorts of treats I'm offering. Some neurodivergent kids might not get the same joy from candy that others do, so something that's not strictly candy would mean a treat that they might actually be able to appreciate. So toys and stickers made it into my treat planning. They were in a bowl right next to the candy bowl.</p><p>It actually went over fairly well. I got a lot of candy, so I encouraged kids to take as much as they wanted. And some kids grabbed from the candy bowl as well as the toy bowl. Definitely something that I'll be doing next year.<br /></p><p>I do still have the 13th Age review in progress, but I thought I would revisit my Apothecaria playthrough that I did last November and pick up where I left off. I may never do NaNoWriMo or anything of that scale, but I can definitely have fun writing during November.<br /></p><p>When last we left Seth Creighton, the rookie apothecary of High Rannoc, he was a mere 7 weeks into his career. He had cured most, but not all of his patients and was in the process of his most potent cure yet: Treating the shattered tooth of the sea serpent Bas Bata, who lived in Meltwater Loch.</p><p>Combining Slime Shell, Liquid Fire, Shield Cap, and Vampire Venom, adding it to the cauldron of boiling Sea Beast Saliva along with the distilled essence of Giant Spider Venom, the poultice is complete.</p><p>Before Seth takes on his next patient, he takes stock of what he has accomplished in his short time as an apothecary.<br /></p><p>Reputation: 9</p><p>Silver: 104</p><p>Reagents: Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Surgeon's Sap, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)</p><p>Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)</p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange</p><p> </p><p>Week 8</p><p>After the impression that I made with the Dark Ruler of the Underlands, I seem to be drawing some patients from their domain. This time, an orc seems to have acquired phodothropy, which is the curse of turning into a hamster under the full moon. I've treated this before, but I don't have the ingredients that I did last time. It looks like I'll have to visit two separate regions to get the ingredients, which will take extra time. </p><p>1: My first stop is in Meltwater Loch to get some Mermaid's Gift, a type of seaweed that helps with the Hair Tag. I finally manage to find some in a pool where a siren is practicing her alluring song. When she sees that I am drawn to her, she stops singing and apologizes. She explains that she is simply practicing and she is not yet hungry enough to eat me alive, but she suggests that next time might be different. (or perhaps to fatten me up for our next encounter), she gives me a Shock Fish and sends me on my way.</p><p>2: Now it's off to Hero's Hollow for some Ghost Goo to deal with the Curse Tag. As luck would have it, as I started making my way through the twisting tunnels of the Hollow, I triggered a trap door that dropped me into a cell.The barred door was held shut by a quantity of Ghost Goo, which allowed me to escape easily and gather the needed ingredient at the same time.</p><p>I return home in plenty of time to treat my orcish patient. I put the Ghost Goo and Mermaid's Gift in my cauldron to boil until it forms a thick soup, which I serve to her. Even her orcish taste buds rebel at the toxicity of the Mermaid's Gift, so I don't make all the money I could, but my reputation continues to improve. I gain 16 silver and 1 point of reputation.</p><p>Now that I've got the cure for Bas Bata, I'll take my downtime actions this week exploring Meltwater Loch to see if I can encounter it again. Even if I don't, I'll try to gather some Sea Beast Saliva, since that's a useful ingredient.</p><p>1: No Sea Beast Saliva, but I do find Grobeck the Dwarf in his fishing boat. We chat for a while and he tells me about a Dentist Crab he saw not far from his fishing spot. Once we finish our conversation, I easily find the Dentist Crab and collect some of it s Claw Gel.</p><p>2: Searching a boat that had been wrecked by a sea beast long ago, I discovered a skeleton of one of the beast's victims, huddled over a barnacle-encrusted chest. It's unlikely to be plunder or it would have been looted long ago. Since I'm on my own mission right now, I decide to leave this poor soul to guard their treasure.</p><p>3: At long last, the greatest achievement of my short career has come to pass! As I wandered through the swamps of Meltwater Loch, I heard a familiar roar. The same rage and the same pain I had heard weeks before. Its long neck comes into view first as it unleashes another roar. Then it sees me. I don't move. I am terrified, but also I don't want to miss this chance. It comes closer, extending its neck to glare at me with its pitch black eyes. A low growl echoes in its throat.</p><p>I take out my sea monster-sized poultice and hold it in front of me. It sniffs the package cautiously. I don't expect the Giant Spider Venom to make things very appetizing. As it opens its mouth for another roar, I throw the poultice into the monster's mouth. It snapped its jaws shut at the surprise of the impact, then closed its eyes as the acrid taste of the Giant Spider Venom hit its tongue. But even with that, I was sure I could see the pain it carried lessen.</p><p>Reputation:10</p><p>Silver: 120</p><p>Reagents: Dentist Crab, Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Shock Fish, Surgeon's Sap, Wild Rose<br /></p><p>Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)</p><p>Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)</p><p>Zones: Glimmerwood Grove, Meltwater Loch, Moonbreaker Mountain, Hero's Hollow, The Strange, Dreamwater Depths.<br /></p><p></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-84656053715712438232023-09-12T19:59:00.003-07:002023-09-12T19:59:58.458-07:00WIR 13th Age #4<p>Though I forgot about this, did you? It's just that a lot of my writing time was taken up by RGPaDay. And now I'm back to this. <br /></p><p>Now that all of the character details have been described, it's time for the combat rules.</p><p>Like a lot of other things in 13th Age, there's not a lot of detail, but for the most part, that's fine. It's supposed to be the "good parts" version of D&D, and obsessiveness about tactical detail is "unfun."</p><p>A couple of things that I didn't mention in the characters section do become relevant and discussed in more depth here. First of all, weapons do their damage die per level, so as you advance, even the fighter needs to worry about rolling buckets o' dice. That longsword does 1d8 damage at first level, but 5d8 once you make to 5th. Once you get to 10th level, you could be rolling 10d8 for a successful attack with an ordinary longsword. So this is where the book offers tips to manage large amounts of dice.</p><p>Also, characters have different Defenses instead of saving throws. Whoever makes the attack, whether it's a strike for damage or a mind affecting spell, rolls the dice instead of the subject of the effect rolling to resist it. I think this was a 4e innovation to make everything consistent, but 5e got overtaken by nostalgia from earlier editions and saving throws came back.</p><p>Then we get to the next big innovation of 13th Age: The escalation die. It doesn't have to be a die, just a way to track a value from 1-6. Basically, it goes up every round of combat until 6, where it stays if the bad guys aren't dead yet. The number on this escalation die is added as a bonus to PCs attack rolls, giving them a little boost even if their dice aren't on their side. There are also character and monster powers that engage when the escalation die reaches a certain point.</p><p>The GM chapter opens with advice on using the Icon relationships, which more or less demonstrates that the whole idea is really neat, but not fully baked. They suggest that GMs can use Icon relationships to add in plot twists, or allow players to add plot twists (more as a "get out of jail free" card), or even just have them manifest as cool stuff that the Icon connection gives the character access to. They then take this lack of clarity even further by openly suggesting "Once we publish this, people will figure out their own way to make this mess sort of work! Check the internet!"<br /></p><p>We spend spend the smallest amount of time possible on some topics that the designers don't care about, dealing with skill checks and traps/ Then something that the designers care about: building battles. D&D has had encounter building rules in several editions intended to create a sense of balance or fairness into the proceedings, and this is no different. Though they do follow up their "fair fight" rules with suggestions to make things "unfair" and therefore more interesting.</p><p>Now we get to the rules for leveling up and one of the things that kinda kills my interest in this. And that is the fact that there is no XP. I understand the reasons behind this. It reduces the bean-counting in the game and the longstanding convention of XP for monster kills is not conducive to productive play. which has been known and understood pretty much since it was first implemented.</p><p>Maybe I'm spoiled on storygames, but even more traditional games will offer up some sort of Drama/Fate/Cool Point for leaning into the genre, doing cool stuff, or just making the GM laugh. While Icon Relationships can kinda sorta be that, it's also kinda sorta a lot of other things too.</p><p>Earlier in the book, it mentions that it uses alignments throughout the book as a way to define characters, but you don't have to. In fact, you can borrow the character description tools from other RPGs if you want. They mention Burning Wheel's Beliefs and Instincts, but you could also do things like character Aspects from Fate. And that's a problem, because those aren't just methods of describing your character's personality, but are also backed by those sorts of Drama Point mechanics.</p><p>It's just another point in the "Did they really think about this before writing it down?" column, really.</p><p>So the lack of XP sets up two issues for me.</p><p>1) The lack of mechanical incentives reduces player engagement/agency. While there are many ways to reward characters and get them involved in the action of the campaign, 13th Age leaves that largely in the hands of the GM rather than the rules. Not that this is necessarily bad, but it puts an extra burden on the GM, in my opinion.<br /></p><p>2) If advancement isn't about rewarding players, it instead acts as a pacing mechanism, setting up how quickly the campaign escalates. Making the call on how quickly to advance with only 10 possible steps can be a challenge for the less experienced GM.<br /></p><p>They do address some of this by providing for incremental advancement, breaking each level into 5 or so stages, so there are 50+ breakpoints instead of 10. They also discuss the idea of the 10-session campaign, where the party advances after each session. </p><p>Now they get talking about treasure acquisition. And again, because it's a major source of bean-counting, they do their best to avoid it. You can get minor loot from various things, but magic items are serious business. They're not detailed here, but we are assured that they are.</p><p>Then there's a small discussion about rituals, which are basically spells that are cast out of combat. Some of the designers here worked on D&D 4e, so having the game focus on cool combats and kind of shoving everything else off to the side feels about right. So spellcasters have their combat capabilities well structured, but ritual casting is much more loosey goosey.</p><p>There are also small sections discussing the Icons and the gods of the setting. Icons are big, but also kinda vague. You can also make up your own Icons if you want, but the ones that are there make a pretty good set. The gods are just sorta there. They need to exist for the cleric and paladin classes to work, but most of their role in the setting is taken up by the Icons. If you want to use them in a story, you can.</p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-12615071871369869632023-08-31T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-31T00:00:00.127-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #31 FAVOURITE RPG of all time<p>I'm going to go ahead and say OSRIC and the OSR.</p><p>While I haven't done a lot of dedicated gaming over the last several years, as I've been thinking and planning about campaigns that I could be running, this is what I keep coming back to.</p><p>Part of it is the feeling of accessibility. You're more likely to get players if you say you're running some flavor of D&D, and it's a flavor of D&D that I've become familiar with.</p><p>Secondly, there are the storygame elements. It's a game about killing monsters and taking their stuff and that's supported by the mechanics. It can feel janky and limited if you try to treat it as a generic game, but let it exist in its element and it can sing.</p><p>Third, there's the wealth of resources. Not only could I run entire campaigns of published modules from nearly every decade, but there are also setting creation and random generator tools for every need.<br /></p><p>There are other games that I enjoy playing and other games that I'm eager to try. But in terms of that go-to, pick up like you never left game, for me that's OSRIC.</p><p>Fiasco also hits a lot of those points, being easy to pick up and amazing at doing what it does. I think the only reason OSRIC is edging it out right now is that I've played Fiasco more recently, and it's not terribly easy to do a Fiasco campaign.</p><p>I have yet to run a campaign this year, in spite of it being one of my New Year's Resolutions.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-16028150693570352932023-08-30T00:00:00.003-07:002023-08-30T00:00:00.148-07:00RPGaDay #30 OBSCURE RPG you've played<p>I've mentioned The Great Ork Gods, which is probably the most obscure game I can think of. When other events brought it to mind, I had to use the Wayback Machine to track it down.</p><p>I did also manage to play in a game using the Arduin system, which was notable in its heyday, but has faded into obscurity. It was run by Mark Schynert, who was a major organizer at DunDraCon and responsible for the assembly of The Compleat Arduin, which has been on my shelf for some time. We didn't use the Arduin fantasy setting, but engaged in a bit of meta fun as we played fictional characters who were pulled from our books. I played a Wonder Woman-esque Amazon (because I am secure in my masculinity and am not threatened by taking on other gender roles), while my wife (who was also in the session) played a romance novel heroine with Mary Sue powers.</p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-83148770898041218822023-08-29T21:00:00.001-07:002023-08-29T21:00:00.143-07:00RPGaDay #28 SCARIEST game you've played<p>Posting a little out of order because this was a tough one to write. <br /></p><p>I'm not a big horror fan, so I haven't done any real horror gaming. As much as it's a nerd staple, I've never played Call of Cthulhu.</p><p>I did have a con-friend at DunDraCon who ran "CthulhuTrek" a Star Trek/Lovecraft mashup, though he wasn't particularly looking to scare anyone, Just enjoying geeking out about his two favorite things at the same time.</p><p>Another time, I was honored to play in a one-shot of Vampire: The Masquerade run by Kris Newton that was set in our (at the time) home turf of Humboldt County. My character was the shadow owner of the Eureka Inn and our adventure took us out to an illegal marijuana grow. At the end, my character got cocky and careless and lost his daughter (and human agent) to the machinations of a big city vampire muscling in on our rural turf.</p><p>Again, not scary. It was however, a good dramatic time. It set the bar for what I want a Vampire/World of Darkness game to be like.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-76264431496248538812023-08-29T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-29T00:00:00.146-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #29 Most memorable ENCOUNTER<p>It might not really be accurate to say Tina, but I'm going to say Tina. While our initial encounter with her was only fairly memorable, the main thing was that she became an information resource as we explored Kris' megadungeon.</p><p>Tina was a pixie, which meant that she could cause amnesia with one of her magic arrows. And that's how we encountered her. She hit our party rogue with an amnesia effect, then immediately rushed to his side and begged him to defend her from the rest of the party since she was his wife. It was a tense moment that almost went badly, but thankfully, the sorcerer reminded him of all the times that we made money together. Even if he didn't remember us, he knew that he liked making money and if we knew that too, we were clearly friends.</p><p>She escaped, since pixies also have invisibility powers. But whenever we needed some information about what's going on inside the megadungeon, we sought her out.</p><p>This amused Kris, because apparently, this fixture of the campaign was something that had started as a roll on a random encounter table.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-88534228940742575132023-08-27T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-27T00:00:00.142-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #27 Game you'd like a new EDITION of...<p> D20 Modern. There have been imitators, but none of them really hit the same spot. Even the most recent successor, which claims some of the same designers isn't really what I'm after. Everyday Heroes, I think it was called.<br /></p><p>I had heard about it while it was on Kickstarter and could have backed it, but there were a couple of things that just made me turn away.</p><p>Strongly Archetypal Character Options: One of the strengths of D20 Modern was the ability to built the sort of character that you want to (within certain limits) by multiclassing into various broadly themed classes and maybe aiming yourself towards one of the advanced classes as you leveled up. But Everyday Heroes disapproves of multiclassing, setting your character on a path from the beginning. And it's not such a long path either. The classes in D20 Modern only went to 10 levels because it was assumed you would be mixing and matching to potentially make it all the way to 20th level. Everyday Heroes classes have 10 levels and that's the top of your progression.</p><p>In it's day, it was a slightly crunchier alternative to something like Savage Worlds, but not as heavy as something like GURPS.<br /></p><p>Lack of Cross Compatibility: While Everyday Heroes borrows the chassis from D&D 5e, it does not claim compatibility. One of the perks of D20 Modern is that it was compatible with the then-current edition of D&D, so I could potentially throw my modern day, real world heroes up against a beholder or displacer beast or sewer kobolds.</p><p>If they were to do a new version that was wholly compatible with 5e, or just gave the old game a quality of life upgrade, I think I would buy that in a heartbeat.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-9819552257422274152023-08-26T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-26T00:00:00.154-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #26 Favourite CHARACTER SHEET<p>It's been a long time since I ran Savage Worlds and swore "Never Again!" But one of the things that appealed to me as I was getting started with it was the character sheet.</p><p>There were a couple of things that needed to be tracked in the game, like Wounds levels, Fatigue levels and Power Points for characters with powers, and rather than go the conventional thing and expect players to scratch them out and write in a new value several times a session, they printed those things on the edges of the character sheet. This allowed the player to clip a paperclip to the side of the page and slide it up and down to track Wound levels.</p><p>My view of Savage Worlds might be softening, so it might happen that I get to use that character sheet in another game.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-40925636035679034622023-08-25T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-25T00:00:00.155-07:00RPGaDay #25 UNPLAYED RPG you own<p>Quite a lot of them, actually.</p><p>Though I will say that the most egregiously unplayed game that I own is Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius. I've been a Trekkie for the majority of my life and once I got into RPGs, I've managed to collect all the Star Trek RPGs. But I haven't run a Star Trek campaign in quite some time. That would have been GURPS Prime Directive back when my friend Jorden was a young impressionable lad.</p><p>As much as I bemoan the size of my physical collection (at least what I have access to), I do have the Star Trek Adventures corebook at just about eye level on my shelf as I write this. And I have never played it.</p><p>Is it my white whale or an albatross hanging from my neck?<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-32670553192721973692023-08-24T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-24T00:00:00.163-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #24 COMPLEX / SIMPLE RPG you play<p>A lot of what I've been playing for the last few years have been simple games.</p><p>Without access to much of my physical collection, I haven't been able to bring whatever big thick book to a session and say "This is what we're doing. Read up!" like I used to. Or at very least be the person who brings the rulebook to the game that I'll be running. And while I do have a number of games in PDF, it can feel like a thin line between sharing the rulebook and data piracy.</p><p>So most of what I've been doing has been fairly simple games that I can easily teach with only the PDF in my phone/tablet. InSpectres and Fiasco have been great fun, but the one that I've most recently gotten a handle on is Fate Accelerated using the "It's Not My Fault!" scenario starter cards.</p><p>Fate Accelerated has the advantage of not only being a simple game, but one with very inexpensive rulebooks. Well, the PDF is free, but even the printed rulebook is only $5. On at least one occasion, I have ended a Fate Accelerated session by gifting the rulebooks we were using to the players.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-68604449007812347572023-08-23T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-23T00:00:00.148-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #23 COOLEST looking RPG product / book<p> If I had been doing more planning of these entries, I might have held back the Dresden Files specifically for this one.</p><p>Castle Falkenstein is certainly a book full of beautiful illustrations. White Wolf and the various World/Chronicles of Darkness games devote significant space to highlighting their settings with introductory sections presented as in-world media. But only the Dresden Files RPG commits so fully to the bit.</p><p>The entire book is presented as an in-world artifact. The text is presented as a way for the novel characters to spread knowledge of the supernatural world in a sort of plausibly deniable way, so every word is potentially written from an in-universe perspective. The characters comment on Post-It notes or scribble in the margins. Some pages appear to have coffee stains and other indignities. Illustrations are seemingly included with paperclips.</p><p>It can appear busy and messy, but that's the point.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-52571705308475084522023-08-22T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-22T00:00:00.148-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #22 Best SECONDHAND RPG purchase<p>I consider myself very fortunate to have located a copy of the original Deities and Demigods from a used bookstore. It was only $10, so you know I had to buy it.</p><p>For those not in the know, the original AD&D supplement Deities and Demigods included gods from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos as well as the gods from Micheal Moorcock's Melnibone. Later printings removed these pantheons due to the complexities of licensing.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-56480891794532286952023-08-21T00:00:00.000-07:002023-08-21T00:00:00.147-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #21 Favourite LICENSED RPG<p>While I am duly proud of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, it is not properly licensed. It's based on public domain works, so I didn't need one. <br /></p><p> One thing that impressed me about the Smallville RPG is how it tried to balance its characters. While much ink has been spilled about balancing Superman with Batman, the Smallville RPG was forced to something rather different: They had to balance Superman with Lois Lane. And they did a pretty good job of it.<br /></p><p>I also though that the Dresden Files RPG was a good effort. The novels are all written in the first person, from the perspective of Harry Dresden, the only Wizard in the Chicago phone book. To leave Harry out of the game would be missing some of the essential flavor of the novels, but to make a good RPG, you need to have some room for the GM and players to make it their own. Scattering notes and comments from the novel characters throughout the book squared that circle for me, though I am aware that some people disagree with me on that.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-37050899294480199582023-08-20T20:07:00.001-07:002023-08-20T20:07:00.133-07:00RPGaDay 2023 # 20 Will still play in TWENTY years time<p>Give me a good game and I'll be happy to play it. Doesn't matter how new or old. <br /></p><p> One of the things that appeals to me about the OSR is that it feels like I could run a campaign for 20 years. It feels less daunting and more easily manageable to manage a setting for 20 years than to keep writing plot and backstory for an ongoing campaign of just about anything else.</p><p>I'm sure I could find or devise tools for other games and genres. Traveler probably comes close for science fiction, and Since Nomine keeps coming out with sandbox toolkits for the genres that they cover. Maybe I'll be able to give one of those a try.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-37420317699308715342023-08-19T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-19T00:00:00.143-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #19 Favourite PUBLISHED adventure<p>I'm going to go ahead and shill Castle of the Mad Archmage for this one. Even though I started on the original version, before it was professionally published, I did snap up the new version as soon as it was available. It didn't hurt that it was very affordably priced.</p><p>While designed for it's companion retroclone, Adventures Dark & Deep, it can be used with any OSR game, or the original game.</p><p>It let to the longest RPG campaign I've ever run under any system at nearly 5 years of regular play and we didn't quite make it halfway through.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-78469656325385924832023-08-18T00:00:00.001-07:002023-08-18T00:00:00.142-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #18 Favourite game SYSTEM<p>I do still have a lot of affection for GURPS and would like to get back to it at some point.</p><p>I've been pretty deep in the OSR for a while and the idea of managing a sandbox campaign instead of structuring adventures and scenarios has an appeal.</p><p>But I think for right now, I'm going to say Fate. My Wednesday group sort of formed around a Fate game and if I were to clear whatever is blocking me, I think I would do something with Fate. Probably sci-fi. I've been impressed with Diaspora ever since I bought it, though it is pre-Core Fate and might want an adjustment or two.</p><p>We'll see.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-39442782823143163712023-08-17T00:00:00.000-07:002023-08-17T00:00:00.154-07:00RPGaDay 2023 # 17 FUNNIEST game you've played<p>Fiasco is a game that has a lot of comedy potential. Most of it is dark comedy, but one group I played it with went straight for the guffaws. My friend Jorden usually ran a variety of games using GURPS (which makes sense, since it was what I used a lot when I taught him how to game all those years ago). But after we lost touch and then reconnected, I was a slightly different person who liked to play games like Fiasco.</p><p>And one time, he let me break out Fiasco with his regular group. They had a blast, mostly because they treated it as an excuse to freeform roleplay. Which is fine. But Fiasco is something of a winnable game, with your performance over the course of play determining the final fate of your character in the Aftermath phase, which can be good or it can be absolutely horrible.</p><p>Then I invited my friend Alex to play and I finally met someone who plays Fiasco to win. On the one hand, this was pretty easy because everyone else was goofing off. On the other hand, it still requires the other players to buy into the BS that you're laying out. I think I only picked up on it because I've played Fiasco before in other contexts.</p><p>It did result in some gut-busting comedy such as a plan to put someone's "nethers to flame!" But there was also something of a secret joke between the two of us who understood the game.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1833068321597231910.post-64885259042981081562023-08-16T00:00:00.000-07:002023-08-16T00:00:00.133-07:00RPGaDay 2023 #16 Game you WISH you owned<p> Most of the items on my gaming wishlist have ultimately found their way to me, wither by hook, by crook, or by Bundle of Holding.</p><p>I think the main thing missing from my collection at this point would GURPS 4e Prime Directive.</p><p>I am a big fan of Star Trek, so I try to pick up all fo the Star Trek RPGs, including the AU/spinoff Prime Directive. I am also a long time GURPS guy, so GURPS Prime Directive was an instant buy for me. The only issue was that it came out not long before the Fourth Edition of GURPS came out.</p><p>They did respond with a 4e conversion, but it was still early days and therefore less than great. The main thing that suffered was starship combat. They had put a lot of work into meshing their Star Fleet Universe assumptions with the GURPS 3e starship combat system, but that all went away when GURPS 4e came out without the depth that 3e had developed over the years. There were cursory vehicle rules in the main 4e books, and it would be a while until 4e got that developed, so they sorta limped along with one of their main draws (big ships like the Enterprise) sadly missing.</p><p>In the intervening years, it looks like they have found some degree of their footing. There's a new core book for GURPS Prime Directive 4e that's a two volume set. There are more mature starship rules for core GURPS 4e, and it looks like they have made their way into the Prime Directive Universe/</p><p>Now I just need to develop the disposable cash to pay for it,. And then maybe get a group to play it.<br /></p>F. Douglas Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06497140550892192807noreply@blogger.com0