Author: Daniel

Religious Conflict Flowchart for T1

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Here’s a flowchart I made for making the simmering religious conflict that Gary talks about in T1: The Village of Hommlet come alive. And, by “alive,” I mean “escalate until one side is dead.”

You can think of this like an encounter that happens every time the players return from adventure; or you can think of it like a Front from Apocalypse World.

The point of using this procedure is to make the game world more compelling. It is independent of the players. They can choose to ignore the conflict as they wish; you, as the DM, will ensure they witness what’s going on by having these events occur in their presence.

If the players intervene, you may have to modify the events. Many or most might not happen, or different NPCs may need to be involved (say, if the players kill Jaroo, Calmert, or Terjon).

Similarly, you could use this for any generic religious conflict, not just for the one Uncle Gary gave us. Something happens, and one side esca-retaliates, and then the otherside does the same until there’s nothing like to retaliate on. That is, unless the players intervene and change the course of fictional history-in-the-making.

Funny story…

/ Daniel / Leave a comment

Apologies for the delay in getting episode 59 out.

It’s really a funny story, a captivating drama of miscommunication and human frailty.

We have, for instance, a freshly and inadvertently remastered version of episode 57, instead of an episode 59.

But, uh, check back Monday.

For real this time.

Blood & Bronze Mechanics

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crossposted from Detect Magic, Daniel’s RPG blog that hasn’t been updated in a thousand years but has tons of mostly useless stuff on it

Someone on G+ was asking about Blood & Bronze, a newish fantasy adventure D&Dish game set in the Ancient Near East.

TL;DR: if you like the historical setting, worth a buy. If you like Apocalypse World / D&D mashups, probably also worth a buy. Mechanical callouts in bullet points below.

The ANE is my jam; so of course I’d already purchased the book. (Note that links to drivethrurpg are affiliate links for my podcast, gg no re.)

You can get it here: Blood & Bronze @ drivethrurpg. Here’s the website for the game: https://bloodandbronze.com/. Proper review by Swords & Stitchery here: http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2016/02/review-and-commentary-on-blood-bronze.html.

For D&D remixes like this, I usually buy if they have some sort of interesting simplification of the typical mechanics or if they mash up the old school formula with new tech. B&B does both, but not really in a way that I care to adopt.

  • Stats: 2d6  to generate ability scores, from which you consult a table for a rating from 1-6. Scores are for checks and saves (roll under); ratings are for skills. Fighting uses skills.
  • Skills: use your ability ratings to determine how many d6 to roll. You need at least 1 die to have a 5-6. The effects are Apocalypse World style, with bad stuff happening on misses. There’s quite a few, and you gain more by leveling.
  • HP: set by your class. Used both as trad hp and as a stat that other mechanics interact with.
  • Character generation: AW style character gen (hard eyes, young eyes, etc.), with rolled stats as Gygax would have wanted, starting gear, and a selection of skills (AW-style moves) per class.
  • Encumbrance: endurance/hp stat is softcap. For each 3 items past your endurance (round up), +1 point fatigue.
    • Fatigue: temporarily reduces all stats 1:1. When a stat hits zero, you’re weary.
    • Weariness: If you’re hit when you’re weary, you’re out.

Very barebones though written apparently for beginners (lots of talk about having paper, dice, how to roll and calculate things). However, not enough procedural stuff and thorough examples to really be suited for beginners. Organization unintuitive to me.

Nevertheless, the game has a ziggurat on the cover; so I love it.

How to Prep for running Deep Carbon Observatory

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how i prepped for deep carbon observatory

behold

Deep Carbon Observatory is a great module, but it’s missing an important component. The content is fresh and interesting and not the same “there’s a cult and you have to stop it” thing you always see in WotC’s stuff. It’s got it’s own thing going. It treats you like an adult.

20170711 Update: added pictures of minimaps and annotations. Linked to Claytonian’s version of the dungeon map.

HOWEVER

The UX needs work. (But, really, that’s unremarkable. Most modules suffer from the same flaw and require the same work to deal with.)

I’m going to talk about how I prepped for running DCO, but this should be applicable to running pretty much any other module that’s not engineered to be run on the first read. Continue reading →