Even though I said I wouldn't play 5e I did. I've enjoyed dming it, I've enjoyed playing basic characters. I'm currently running a game and plotting a campaign that will require a lot of homebrewing and adventures.
I bought the monster manual today, which completes my collection. I need a shelf for this stuff now.
Don't get me wrong I'm still playing osr games, got one every Tuesday.
I doubt I will purchase anything else from wotc after all the bs. But stranger things have happened.
I don't want to play the new edition they are coming out with. I'm perfectly happy with the books I have.
Next new session I run is going to be advanced fighting Fantasy.
As a good gm I'm already planning my next game. After a recent BBQ my cousins decided they want to try dnd. Here's the welcome email I sent.
Hey everyone
Introductions first. Redacted and redacted are my cousins. Redacted is my nephew. Redacted is redacteds friend.
So I hear you want to play d&d eh? Well we can definitely find a few dungeons with possible dragons!
I figured we can start with 1 game and see how it goes. Maybe get together once a month at our place as time goes on. (Sunday once a month after supper). Starting in October.
I have a few options for games and I'd like to let you guys decide.
Good starter game.
Whitebox dnd, pretty straightforward, easy to create characters and get started. Based on the original version of the game released in 1974. Fairly open ended with lots of room for interpretation. It's a good beer and pretzels game. Just 2 dice, d20 and d6
Bx dnd from 1983. My wheelhouse , best of both worlds. All the dice.
I'm not going to mention 2nd edition, wildly convuluted and crunchy. What I grew up on. Very fun.
5th edition dnd. Tactical, crunchy and it can be roleplay heavy. Lots to digest but lots of fun as well. Cool thing is you can get very in-depth in character creation. That said first few sessions would be character creation and getting started. Upside is you get very attached to character and immersed .more dice rolling.
With 5e I can provide pregenerated characters to get us up and going. However part of the game is creating characters and backstory.
***
I'm awaiting responses. If I run an old school game it would be Kotb, with in search of the unknown. Or horror on the hill which I recently acquired.
5e would be the phandelver starter set.
****
Last night after our bx game, Steve and I did our usual talk for an hour and drink beer. Mostly about dnd and old school games. During our conversation we discussed our gaming upbringing. I mentioned to Steve the first real rpg I played was advanced fighting fantasy. I think we both agreed that your first game and experience helped develop your style and likes. Much like being a musician, the first music I learned had a lasting impact (Nirvana).
Which has lead me to want to run aff again. I think irl I'd use the 2nd edition ruleset. However on roll20 I'd probably use a bastardized version of the original FF roleplay game. The one before aff, and not the game book. Somewhere I have a copy of it in text that I borrowed from a blog post.
I am probably like a lot of games masters, in that I want to infinitely tweak things. I find that I can never decide on a system, an adventure, or a world to use. When I do make a decision, it only lasts for a little while and then I either get A. Bored with it, or B. Annoyed with it.
Last night while I was trying to fall asleep I had a thought about creating a random table for myself and then just going with the results. Here's the example
The system that shane will run (Roll a d8)
1. B/X with descending AC
2. Whitebox FMAG
3. Basic 5e
4. Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2.0
5. 2nd Edition AD&D
6. BFRPG
7. Blueholme
8. LOTFP
There is literally nothing wrong with any of these games, they all run pretty decent. The problem I have is that I blur the lines between them more often than not. Which gives rise to "Hey I'll just write my own system". Example I really like FMAG, but I'd like it to be more swingey and use +/- 3 for attributes. I really like 2e but feel I'd get bogged down with all the extras that's in the book, and run it more like basic D&D with thaco and NWPs. Basic 5e is alright, but I haven't run 5e in awhile and would likely run it a lot more like an OSR game (which is fine). BFRPG is probably the one that is as close to what I'd like, BUT I really dig the single saving throw from FMAG.
Not to mention the infinite amount of hacks out there.
I like all of them, but canon gets in the way sometimes (in my head). Creating a home brew is the best option, but of course I'd steal bits from all of the above.
The problem with using a world/adventure/game is that there's always going to be something that you really like and things that you don't quite like.
What I have learned using roll20 is the easier the system the better for playing online. You get less bogged down with the minutiae. Which throws out a few of the systems above. It's too bad there isn't a FMAG character sheet (Not that anyone has used a character sheet in my games yet).
What is probably the absolutely best bet is to create a straight up dungeon crawl and use BFRPG, and just roll with it....
Those are my ramblings for the day.
Note: Thus far I have not been laid off, it appears to be biz as usual until we are told otherwise.
(Caution: As you may know dear reader, I ramble and most of my blog posts are just a stream of thoughts. I tend to not edit posts)
Recently I've been rediscovering 2e and really enjoying it. I'm feeling like a 15 year old again! I blame Steve from Hogtown games for this, I just bought the City Of Greyhawk boxed set off of him.
I am thinking that I may start a bit of series of posts regarding this topic. First up, my introduction to 2e. My "writer" biography discusses it a bit. Long story short, I started gaming with Advanced Fighting Fantasy, and had previously played a little bit of 1e with my cousin. I slowly grew out of AFF and was looking for something a bit more intense. At the same time my Mom was working at a bookstore. I should also note, that the year that D&D was originally published, was right around the time that I was conceived. So really, 2nd edition was my first edition. For Christmas in 1993 I received the PHB & the DMG. Shortly thereafter I got a copy of the Monstrous Manual. In all honesty that's all I've ever needed. I never got into the splat books, skills & powers etc. So when I run 2e it's the core three books only.
My second edition collection is as follows:
Obviously the PHB, DMG, and monstrous manual.
Menzoberranzan boxed set
Forgotten Realms Boxed set
Sword of the dales adventure
Dragon Knight adventure (dragonlance)
The Dales campaign setting
DM Screen (including one of the worst adventures ever written, which I still haven't had a chance to run yet)
Drow of the underdark splatbook (yes I have one, it was given to me by an acquaintance)
A decent collection of dungeon, dragon magazines.
Recent acquisitions are: The greyhawk boxed set, and Legends and lore.
I have to say everytime I crack one of those books, my head fills with ideas. The Ten Monster setting idea came about because I picked up my monstrous manual. Before I even had a campaign setting, I started writing ideas out, and it was the usual start with a small town, dungeon close by, etc.
I've done the rpgaday thing a few times over the past years. Once or twice it's been the daily posts, and other times I did a one shot. This is a one shot. What I've decided is to read the word and then just write whatever comes to me (whilst thinking about rpgs). My guess is that is what some people do.
So here goes nothing!
1. First
I find that whoever goes first in combat will set the pace for the rest of the melee. I tend to be over the top when playing (swooshes, dancing, twirling etc). Typically I'll do my best to make fun of the bad guys as well. When I DM and the monster gets to go first, I will usually try some kind of tactic, (throw the table over and fire ranged weapons) that sort of thing.
2. Unique
I really like Unique settings, even if they are small. There's quite a lot of vanilla fantasy out there (Don't get me wrong, I like that as well). But the idea of having a small contained off the wall setting really excites me. One of the adventure settings I wrote was based on the fact that the world was self contained within the hexes, and the borders (off the page) were the "fairy mists". Which I believe I stole directly from Terry Brooks Magic Kingdom for sale. It's an obvious cop out that the players can't get past the first area map. It does however explain why the place is magical.
3. Engage
I've mentioned this before. When I DM (especially for my long term group), I like to find out what players get excited about. My wife likes puzzles and awkward situations, my nephew likes role playing and our friend likes fights. When we are playing I tend to look around the table and see whose not looking at me. That's the person the NPC picks to talk to. So I do my best to figure out ways to keep people engaged. Part of that is knowing what your players like/dislike.
4. Share
Part of what I've done on this blog and social media is to share things that I like. That and share things that people might not know about. Specifically more obscure writers & projects. The bigger the share, the more things get out there so people can read it, play it etc. I fell in love with Blueholme when I first started this blog, and I've desperately tried to make sure that its out there so people are aware of it. Written classes, adventures etc for it. It's a solid system, and I didn't want it to go by the wayside when the next big clone arrived.
5. Space
I finally have a pseudo gaming space. In the spring I started to finally clean up the basement, and now I've got it setup so that I can have the gaming group down here, with a table for them. I need to get a few extra chairs. We do have a beer fridge though! Whatever world I end up using, I intend to stick the maps on the walls. Currently there's a bunch of D&D type posters on one wall. Also its damp and feels like a dungeon down here. Oh and I have my computer setup, which will make it very easy to DM. Now to create a play list.
6. Ancient
For my next campaign, or possibly the isle of dread campaign I intend to create an ancient artifact using the 1e DMG. There's a huge section dedicated to that. And to tell you the truth, a lot of the artifacts in there are already pretty cool.
7. Familiar
I started with 2nd Edition. That being said, I've read a pile of different older school clones, and I love every one of them. My version of D&D is the familiar one that's in my head. It's a basic set of rules that I really don't need an actual rule book for.
8. Obscure
Frick these are hard.
9. Critical
Alright that's a good one. I really dig the crit charts in the free rpg day release of DCC. At some point I want to incorporate them into my S&W game. Although I may have to rewrite the tables (If I remember correctly they are like d30 tables).
10. Focus
Focus, is basically the bane of existence for anyone with Attention deficit disorder. Something that I desperately need to work on, something that I am always fighting. Moving forward, I intend to write as far as I can with projects. If i get it near complete, great! If I get 2 pages, that's fine. But what I need to do is push as far as I can. Eventually go back and complete these things.
11. Examine
I am having a super difficult time trying to follow this hexmap. Would it not have been easier to somehow go right to left? I got nothing for examine really, other than to say I like to examine adventures, books, etc for ideas. Even if I don't outright run a module as is, or a set of rules as is, there's always some gold to use. 12. Friendship
If it wasn't for my rediscovery of ttrpgs, I would not have met some many awesome people. I love all you peeps!
13. Mystery
Mystery is something that is sorely lacking in the adventures I write. I have however pulled inspiration from "Assassins Knot", which is a great adventure. The original blue baron was supposed to be a who dun it. Mystery in D&D is not an easy thing to make work. Mystery in CoC is basically the name of the game.
14. Guide
Meeka is the guide I created for my isle of dread campaign, here's the gist:
Meeka is a young girl, and the welcoming party when the PCs arrive. She will know the going's on, and any possible leads for the PCs (as well as Ramses's). She will remain neutral, however if the PCS threaten the village in someway she will not hesitate to let the authorities know. Namely Gar. Meeka is also a guide, and knows a great deal about the area.
15. Door
A long time ago, there was a facebook group called FY DIY. (Fuck yeah Do it yourself). We did a few collaborative releases. One of them was "clues that a secret door is nearby". I did the layout for that one. Here's the download: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-hlnlR7qn5XNThLNkstaUQ4UU12dHNhYUJrM2ZRZkxweTFF 16. Dream
Oh so fucking many. Most of them revolve around actually creating an adventure that is completely DIY by myself. Including terrible shane art.
17. One
i suppose "one" is the bane of players existence when rolling a 20 sided dice. That being said it's also a great song by Metallica.
18. Plenty
I tend to do the monty haul type campaigns. Part of the reason I do this, is player enjoyment. It sucks bag when you fight your way thru a huge dungeon, only to come out with 3 SPs and a disease you need cured.
19. Scary
It's got to the point where I do not find Demons that scary in D&D. Maybe I just don't play them right (when I DM). What i think is going to be awesome is, when I finally run menzoberranzan. Considering all of my players hate spiders in real life. It almost makes me want to switch now.
20. Noble
The blue baron was always supposed to be this eccentric weirdo. Obviously a Noble. But in a group of another nobles he's stick out like a sore blue thumb. It's not that you fear the guy, you just have no idea how he will react.
21. Vast
Deserts are vast. (I hope I spelt that correctly..... is it desserts? no its not.... I could go for some chocolate cake however). At some point I want to run a few one shot Al Qadim adventures. Specifically this.
22. Lost
I had the original advanced fighting fantasy books. Well other than Allansia. I recently required Blacksand. I lost Dungeoneer, Out Of The Pit, Titan and Blackssand when my parents got divorced. The hunt continues for reasonably priced versions (seriously the prices are thru the roof right now).
23. Surprise
When I was a kid, I never used Surprise, Morale or Reaction checks. These days I have all the players roll 1d6, on a roll of 1-2 they are surprised.
24. Triumph
Super cool motorcycles, although I'd prefer a Royal Enfield. Obviously the whole Triumph over evil thing. I tend to run campaigns where the heroes are the good guys.
25. Calamity
I'm running out of steam here. Here's the definition: an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.
Which is basically most spells isn't it? Calamity (1st level Magic User Spell) Range 30' Duration 2 Turns When Calamity is cast, the mind of the target is taken over with thoughts of death. Explosions happen in front of them, their friends die horrible deaths, the flight or fight response kicks in. The monster must make a saving throw or flee in terror. 26. Idea
You know who is an idea's person, Matt Jackson. He comes up with the awesomist shit. Check out his patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/msjackson
27. Suspense
See my comments on mystery. This is something I need to work on. Specifically writing wise. ie I should read more books.
28. Love
My wife plays D&D with me, because "I love it". I really need to start doing things that she loves. At some point I may take a dancing class with her, or cooking. In the meantime I should probably get a game happening soon. This weekend however is our anniversary, so we will be spending the night in a hotel drinking champagne. I'm stoked
29. Evolve
This blog has evolved. It is still a LOT of rambling, but in some cases I've got better at dialling down to the thing I want to talk about. I just recently posted my 1000th post. Here's my first one.
30. Connection
I miss the connections we had on G+. That said, a lot of the connections and acquaintances, and friends that I talked to, moved over to Mewe. Come join us. 31. Last
If I had to run one last campaign, it would be a huge mega dungeon with a cast of rotating players and characters. A living thing, that changes with or without the players involvement.
I had a wonderful session last night with the "Monday Night Miserable Bastards". Lots of roleplaying, a lil exploration, a bit o' accounting. I'll write up a play report tomorrow hopefully.
What I wanted to discuss today, is the fact that I didn't sleep last night. I stayed up awhile thinking about running a game on roll20. As you all well know I'm a big fan of Advanced Fighting Fantasy (as it was the first game I ever ran). What I was thinking about was spending the time to work on the Blacksand adventure in roll20. There's lots of little nice maps in the book that could be scanned or recreated for parts of the adventure (the battle ones could be done with pyromancers).
The adventure (and most of the aff releases) were a bit of a railroad but fun nonetheless. While I like all of the implementations that were done in Version 2 of AFF, I personally feel that the original rules would be perfect for a roll20 game. It's just a bit more rules light. The only real issue is the leveling up.
In the newer version, during combat you roll to see who hits, and then how much damage and or reduction of damage happens. This is a lot of rolls per person. In the original I believe that all damage was 2, but if you tested your luck you could do 3. Which is fine. The combat is still quite deadly.
Basically AFF2.0 is a bit fiddly, although not that bad. I just think it might be a bit too fiddly for online play. Speaking from having played Basic D&D, anything more than that might be quite time consuming.
As well having the rules readily available for the players. I do have a copy of the basics of AFF version 1 that I could kinda modify for the campaign, and I may just do that.
Of course I'm thinking far too ahead, but I do like the idea of slow prep. Even if its just for giggles in front of a computer.
I suppose time will tell. I do have some other more pressing work to get on before this. Oh and I realized exactly how the next Isle of Dread session is going to go.
Finally figured out what I'm going to do when the PCs show up in Tanora. Originally I was going to have the natives on the beach with home made spears looking all concerned (but not outright aggressive) But I figured that would just start a fight. That said They haven't actually had a fight yet. So I think what I'll do is as the boat is coming ashore, they will notice the village is over run by giant lizards. This will hopefully create a bond with the villagers.
The Advanced Fighting Fantasy system was re-released as a second edition in 2011 to great acclaim and received great reviews. Although we are unable to offer a pdf version of the full rulebook, we are now able to offer the quickstart adventure to enable everyone to try this great game. Even inexperienced ropleplayers can be up and running in 10 minutes with the pregenerated Heroes included, and a classic dungeon awaits. Veteran gamers will get a taste of a very fast and adaptible system, well suited to long-term campaigns.
With the news that G+ is caputz, and that I've lost all my comments on blogger, I am a bit on the fence as to whether I'll be staying here (blogspot). I'm aware that I can export this whole thing out and import into a platform like wordpress. And I may just do that. The bugger of that is I still have to go and recreate all the extra little pages that I have on here, my blog roll that I use on a regular basis, etc.
The other thing that I'm wondering is, "do I still have some gas in the tank?"
When I first started blogging about RPGs I was genuinely REALLY excited. As of late, that has waxed a bit. At least as far as creative output is concerned. I feel like there are a few reasons why:
1. While G+ turned into a tire fire a LOT, there was a pile of creativity happening. With the break of the OSR (everyone going somewhere, not all of us together), I find I'm seeing & hearing about less things. MeWe is cool, and I'm enjoying it. Honestly though its more friends that I have on there. I think on G+ I was following like 700 people, on mewe I think I've got about 100 at the most. Sorry ranting here... even the OSR group on Mewe is a lot smaller, and it's mostly just blog posts. That said I feel like I should still keep bloggin (It's getting people to know where the hell I went is the trick).
2. Because of the break up, the audience and views has changed.
3. Because of the amount of content I was seeing, it just pushed me to keep making even more content!
4. I've been super busy as of late, and I haven't really had much time for gaming. When I do get to play in the next little while it'll be 5e and I won't have a lot to say honestly. My personal focus has been switched to Advanced fighting fantasy latetly.
5. Blogging takes away from writing. Which is fine, but with less of a distraction maybe I'll get more shit done. That said, I'm unsure how many 3 Toadstool releases are going to make their way to the light of day in the next year. My focus as of late is working on a home sandbox idea for AFF (if I ever get a better computer and some actual time during the week I'd like to run some games... that however seems like a crap shoot). I'd really like to put something out for AFF. Just a download here.
6. My company is currently moving (well almost moved), so that has been tying up a lot of my mental and physical resources for the last few months. Which has left me bagged and meloncoly when I get home. (Hence less posts, yadda).
So I'm at a loss, because I'm a bit worried that blogger is going to go away, and I'm unsure as to wether I have more to say? If that makes any sense.
Whatever the case, If I decide to pull the pin, I'll create the site. Archive this one (and import to the new one) and then leave a post here saying "FIND ME HERE!"
Hope all is well with everyone and you've been getting some games in! I've been creating some AFF characters at home, and just re-reading the rules.
I have fond memories of those old green spine books from the magical island across the sea from me. (this post was started awhile ago, and I'm finally getting back to it). These books were my first introduction into this role playing world. I remember having a shelf full of them when I was a kid. Listening to Nirvana Nevermind on a cassette and rolling dice on my lap, instead of doing homework.
When I first jumped onto google plus, I think my first search term was Fighting Fantasy. Shortly after I found the OSR. Shortly after that I created a community for Advanced Fighting Fantasy. I then grabbed the NEW version of AFF by +Graham Bottley . I dubbed it AFF 2.0, I think it stuck. I love that there was a vibrant community around all things fighting fantasy. All this is possible because of the internet. I remember being a nerdy kid thinking "I wonder if other people know how cool this is?". I didn't know that it was HUGE in the UK (yonder magical island across the sea from me, where there are pubs on every corner, note I must go there). My interest in AFF & FF has been reignited latetly, as I've been reading a few of the solo books in my spare time. Crown of kings & armies of death. Which has got me thinking about either writing my own rules hack, re-buying the original dungeoneer or just running AFF 2.0. The other night I found a PILE of resources out there for AFF. The original advanced rules were broken, there was a lot of things like leveling up that just made heroes gods eventually. That being said, the simplicity of the system is JUST AWESOME. And honestly I think it would be perfect for 1 shots or even a 3-4 session type game. Part of the reason I don't know if I would run Aff2.0 as a one shot is that not everybody has the rules handy. (especially if playing online). So what I might do, is just go ahead and create a house rules document with the basics. Possibly use a few tweaks from Troika, AFF 2.0 etc. Basically something that allows a quick start type of game. (speaking of quickstarts there's one for aff 2.0). If you haven't heard about TROIKA! you should go and check it out. It's a throwback to the original set of advanced rules, however there's lots of fun little tweaks. From a brief little read, there is a world behind the rules, classes, backgrounds that all tie in. (A full review is upcoming). Here's the blurb.
Troika! is a complete role playing game, giving you everything you need to create characters and lead them through the hump-backed sky towards adventure.
The game is a response to decrepit UK RPGs. A "retro" RPG rebuilt without sentimentality, corpses of darlings litter the streets.
The game is 56 pages and includes:
Unified art direction by Jeremy Duncan.
A fully automated character creation system to represent the vagaries of fate.
36 backgrounds. You have no influence on who you were, only on who you will become.
A setting baked into the rules and resistant to untangling.
Plainly expressed rules, easily accessible and highly modifiable.
Just a few thoughts on Troika while I'm rambling here. I really like it! However the baked in setting and background isn't really my cup of tea currently. To a degree the backgrounds sort of remind me of Barbarians of Lemuria (another wonderful system that's easy to run).
So in my quest last night to find some interesting resources I found the following cool shit:
What I've always loved about the system is the simplicity. That and the idea of just being an adventurer (in the books). You start off with a backpack, a sword and a torch and your wits. Love it.
Last night I cracked open my copy of Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2.0, which I hadn't read in awhile. Just flipping thru the pages, my mind filled with a pile of adventure ideas. I think I may write an adventure (and post it here) for AFF. I just sent a message to the publisher in regards to what the legality's are of posting things. Below are a few adventures & resources.
The Crooked Cup (adventure) Welcome, brave adventurers! You are no doubt walking your way across Titan in search of fame, fortune and more than a little glory, so lend me your ears and I will tell you of a place so foul with the corruption of evil and chaos, and yet so full of the gold and renown you seek, you'll wonder if the risk is worth the rewards.
Do you dare seek out the Cup of the Crooked King, and risk eternal damnation for the chance of more riches than the King of Salamonis himself has ever seen?
Of course, I know what your answer will be.
This is The Crooked King's Cup, an Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd Edition adventure for an experienced adventuring party, although it will be easy enough to adjust the statistics of the foes and dangers to suit any level of skill. Inn Of Lost Hope (adventure)
The old Inn stands derelict and rotting. But within is rumoured to lie a great treasure, stolen from dying adventurers by an unscrupulous landlord. Dare you enter to try and find it?
This new self-contained adventure for Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd Ed describes the Inn and it's terrible denizens and can be dropped into almost any AFF Campaign with ease.
The town of Chalice is in danger from a very unexpected source: A Floating Dungeon!
This new self-contained adventure for Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd Ed sends the Heroes into this unusual dungeon to stop the rain of undead overwhelming the Allansian town. What could be up there and can the Heroes stop it?
I believe today is day 3? I'm not sure. So far so good. There's a lot of nice things about the new platform. No add's is wonderful, limited space for picture uploads isn't the best (but hey it's free right! this is how they make money, you get 8 gigs to start which is fine).
A few things I've decided on, and thoughts:
1. I'm not going to join as many communities as I did on G plus, for the simple sake of seeing less cross posts of "hey I got this new thing, check it out!".
2. When posting an update I intend to use a hashtag first, this will allow a reader to skip over if they are not interested. example: #life "something about my life you don't care about". #gaming "totally killed a dragon, here's the play report".
3. If a "advanced fighting fantasy" isn't created in the next day, I'm going to go ahead and make one. As I still care about what is happening with that game.
4. It's fairly easy to tailor your experience. And they are apparently working on things like "Circles".
5. Everyone is fairly cheery in the OSR chat, this morning there was a lot of "Good mornings".
6. Feels a bit like a community again.
7. Thus far there hasn't been a lot of political posts. Hopefully it stays that way. I haven't really seen any "alt right or left" things cropping up.
8. I feel like there is going to be a lot more blogging going on, which is good! (Let's get back to our roots).
9. I am getting a whole new friends list, which is great. On g plus I had a lot of people I was following who A. Stopped Posting B. May have been spam C. Started following, and then I realized that they were not really posting about games.
So apparently Google Plus is shutting down. Which sucks. It seems that a lot of people have decided to adopt MEWE
A google plus community called "G+ RPG Escape Rocket" is organizing where everyone is going.
One pretty cool thing that has come about because of this "running for the hills" is that everyone is putting up their contact information (links to where they are). I know have a HUGE blog list that I'll be adding to my random acts of roleplaying. (all new stuff that I wasn't following before).
THOUGHTS
I have a few thoughts on the mass move. First on mewe, I'm not intending on joining a lot of communities. For the simple sake that the echo chamber of "hey check out my new thing!" will be cross pollinated in the communities. As it stands I joined the OSR and OSR Anchorites pages. I am hoping that someone creates a "Advanced Fighting Fantasy" page, as I'm still interested in the going's on there. As well, hopefully someone creates a DIY/RPG page.
I have to admit that I think I will probably spend a LOT more time blogging/podcasting and focus less on the social media part of the RPG community. That said mewe seems pretty cool so far. As far as facebook is concerned, I've often considered dialing it back a bit (as it's giant tire fire, time waster). The one super cool thing on fb is the "Table top one shot group", a lot of games are organized thru it.
I think if I pull back a bit on the social media part of the RPG community it will allow me to get shit done. I tend to do a lot of "comparing myself to others" (which social media doesn't help with).
Long story short, I'm going to miss google plus, and I am very thankful for all the friends I've met on it and the resignation of playing RPGs that it provided me. The best way to contact me is the above at this point, specifically mewe. I may tweet more often, but I always found it rather clunky.
Publisher Blurb: A System Neutral Collection of 22 Magic items Hopefully most of the items are fairly original and are often accompanied by a quirk or two!
A grabbed a copy of "The Master's Hoard" a little while ago, but hadn't had a chance to read it until now. The author Goblin's Henchmen I've done a lot of work with over the last few years, he's contributed rooms to the blue baron series, and he made a very cool version of "Dusty Door" using an excel spreadsheet. (see video and channel here). While you are at it watch a bunch more of the modules he's been working on! Super handy stuff. The book is 26 pages including the OGL. It is however a slightly weird size 8.27 x 11.69 (I chalk this up to Mac software, it seems to do weird shit like this, and sometimes I have trouble printing it)
Alright, onto the review. First things first, I gotta write up a better blurb for him. The pdf contains 22 system neutral magic items (although I would refer to them as artifacts I think, because they seem to me more of a one of a kind type of thing). The premise of the book is that the author has been given each one of these items to detail for his master, thru working with the items he/she has discovered the powers that they can wield. I should note that while this is system neutral it is decidedly OSR D&D feel to some of the mechanics. That being said some simple conversions to other systems would be fairly straight forward (mentions of dice mechanics & damage as an example). example the "troll jawbone axe" does d8+4 damage, however if you were running say Advanced Fighting Fantasy you could treat it as a large weapon/monster damage. Alternatively if playing Holmes or S&W you could just rule it as 2d6 damage. Once again, not that big of a deal.
One of the super cool things about this supplement is that its setup up so that each magic item is on an individual page, which allows a GM to make hand outs for players. Provided you play a game that the PCs are allowed to know what a magic items does (in some cases GMs like to not let people know outright what a magical item does, but only thru trial and error find out).
Each magic item has a wonderful digitally drawn image, done in Goblin Henchmens awesome style.
Further I really enjoy a lot of the names of these items "hosiery of ten steps", "Globe of Futures Forestalled", "bottle of misadventure". Good stuff, beats the crap out of "+2 magical potion of giant strength" doesn't it!
I would be very curious to see exactly where this Master's hideout is, and besides these wonderful magical items, what exactly would be in store for the PCs if they dared to enter it!
I really dig a lot of these items, and would probably use more than a few of them in a campaign. A lot of the items have interesting mechanical things associated with them. example "Blade of blinking" allows a user to blink (teleport) when an adversary is hit. Mechanic: The 'blink location' is indexed to the weapon damage roll (see below). Where multiple dice are used for weapon damage (e.g. 3D6), then only the lowest die roll of the set is used to determine the 'blink location':
• 1 Rolled - user blinks, but ends up front and center of the target (no advantage gained by the user or target); • 2 or 3 Rolled - user blinks to the side/flank of the target (next attack is: +1 to hit target; and -1 for the target to hit user); Note: I purposely left out +4 so you have to go and read the rest of the cool magic items. The Master's Hoard is FREE. Get it here.
What would happen to Port Blacksand without the venerable Lord Azzur?
Everyone knows that he leaves the port once in awhile to go off pirating. But what if he died? From doing a bit of brief reading on Lord Azzur it seems he may have made a pact with a devil to stay alive. That in itself could be a interesting adventure. How do you take out Azzur? It seems that he swore allegiance to the Night Prince Zanbar Bone , who is not a villain that you can just fight straight up. Fighting him is a matter of choices and decisions. (as per the lore).
So to take out Lord Azzur, one must destroy Zanbar Bone first. Of course Azzur would probably be aware of the death of the demon and make some precautions.
This alone could be a very interesting adventure.
But what if all of that already happened? What would happen to the "city of thieves"?
I think it would be an all out turf war. Not akin to a excellent mafia movie. Intrigue and death. It seems that most of the thieves guild is organized into one main version, which is probably ruled indirectly by Lord Azzur in some form. Obviously like in any criminal enterprise there are people who want to move up the ladder. The death of Azzur would probably cause the entire guild to fold, and create mass chaos in Blacksand (not that there isn't already).
The "heroes" could be out in the trenches fighting with rebel faction of the broken thieves guild. Assassinations would be even more common place than they already are.
At some point, there would be a break in to the palace. Maybe the heroes would be met with Zanbar, or the lich version of Azzur? I'm sure there would be more than one group of thieves wanting to get into the palace.
Who would be the important figures left over in the ashes of the thieves guild to rise up and start their own versions?
Would the pirates just skip town? Would they join in.
The whole idea would be super interesting. A already chaotic city thrown completely into the void.
I hate to quote star wars but blacksand is Mos Eisley! "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." "You don't need to see his identification." The fall of thieves guild quest ideas: 1. Meet with a former higher up in the original guild to discuss plans for a take over of the city. 2. Return the body of Lord Azzur to Fire Island, meet with the shade of Zanbar to bring him back from the dead. Then take the city back! 3. Assassinate all rival leaders and factions. 4. Spend time in the streets recruiting thieves to your own guild. 5. Infiltrate the palace 6. Steal Lord Azzur's boat. I'm sure I will come up with a few more twists and tables.
In the original adventure for AFF, there are plans to try and take back the city. Source Port Blacksand is at the centre of the plot of the role-playing game Advanced Fighting Fantasy set on the world of Titan. There, the evil wizard Xortan Throg, a descendant of the rulers of Carsepolis, strives to regain the domain of his ancestors by overthrowing Lord Azzur and taking over Port Blacksand (which "replaced" Carsepolis). He stroke and alliance with the corrupt prince of the city-state of Chalice to gain enough military strength to invade the City of Thieves, but was thwarted by a group of adventurers. However, this defeat was just a setback for Xortan Throg, who was in fact based in the ruins of Carsepolis (the sewers of Port Blacksand) and preparing his attack from within. Throg was building an army of the local Fish Men and the dead city guards, which he raised from the grave, and stroke deals with pirates under Lord Azzur's nose. But the adventurers did not give up on defeating the wizard. They ventured in Port Blacksand and, with help from Arakor Nicodemus, pursued him into the ruins of Carsepolis. They then stroke a deal with the ghost of the evil priest Sargon and following his advices, they obtained on a Crystal of Power in the sunken temple of the Ocean God Hydana. Xortan Throg confronted the adventurers and cast a Death Spell at them, only for the Crystal of Power to reflect it back at him and put an end to his ambitions. I found a few links on Azzur, some of them cover the same material, but its worth a read if you are interested. http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_Varek_Azzur http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Varek_Azzur
1. How did you get your start roleplaying? What system did you use?
Well, I don't know if that counts, but I believe my initiation was with Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, and then with the Dungeoneer RPG (which is an Advanced Fighting Fantasy version). I played many of their first gamebooks and then started to try make something similar with Dungeoneer. It was only with Tagmar (a Brazilian Fantasy RPG that functioned similar to the TSR Conan RPG) that I really started to understand the differences between gaming books and proper Role Playing Games.
2. How and when did you discover the OSR?
I think it was around 2010 or something. I had just got back to playing RPGs, and bought a bunch of 4th edition D&D books. I tried to play a campaign with them for about an year, but in the whole time, we didn't finish even 3 adventures. It wasn't like the D&D I remembered. Then I started looking around the internet to see what people were playing and I found about this whole "let's take a look into the origins of our hobby" thing and discovered Labyrinth Lord. I immediately wanted to try it out and it worked so fine (in a 3 hour session we did things we took months to accomplish in the 4th edition campaign), I became like an OSR fanatic, hunting everything I could find about the older editions and the things they were inspired now.
3. Tell me about Old Skull publishing, how did it start?
One of the things that I found really fascinating about the OSR was how everyone had their own vision of how the game was, and how it could be, and even shared these visions with the community, publishing games of their own. It was really refreshing. I realised we didn't really need a big company dictating what game we should play, how the setting was, what story we should be telling now. We could do our own thing. The game was really ours, and we could do anything with it. So over the years I played many many OSR games and each one there was something I really liked, but didn't have something another game had. So, the logical step was to make a game myself that would combine what I wanted to have, stealing bits and parts from a bunch of other games and put it out there, and see how it goes.
4. Tell me about "Sharp Swords & Sinister spells".
Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is a game I made for myself. It's a light sword and sorcery RPG with strong Old School influences. It's not so light that you can't have significant mechanical bits and the rules almost don't matter. They do, and they have an important impact on it, but are easily manageable. If you need to create a character, you can do it in a few minutes. Need a monster? It's even quicker. It is inspired mainly by the stories of Robert E. Howard's Conan and Fritz Leiber Lankhmar series, although there are influences of other authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock. And the actual system is a mixture and reimagination of various bits of different systems (it has parts inspired by Black Hack, White Hack, DCC RPG, Beyond the Wall, Call of Cthulhu, Edge of the Empire, Fiasco, and a bunch more), most of them from the OSR, but there is a thing or two outside of this realm of influence. I wanted to combine everything I liked in other games into my own, and the result it something unique, but that seems familiar too.
So, in the end, SS&SS is a simple yet robust system, that let me create things for it quite easily, without requiring too much work from me, while also giving me the elements a want to work with for the style of sword and sorcery adventures I like.
5. What are you currently playing?
I am currently playing Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I am beginning a SS&SS urban crawl kind of campaign, inspired by the Lankhmar stories, with a bunch of generators to create gaming elements, hooks, places, NPCs, conflicts and other stuff (and I plan to publish the setting and city tool kit for the game later). For DCC RPG, I basically play a bunch of one-shots of the modules.
6. If you could campaign in any world which would it be?
That's a tough question. I love playing The One Ring, which takes place in Middle Earth, Star Wars RPGs, that happen in that universe... But I think one of the settings that really fascinates me is Edgar R. Burroughs' Barsoom. It is futuristic but medieval at the same time. The ruins, the mysteries, the different civilizations that live and lived there, the legends and superstitions. I guess I really want a good Barsoomian campaign someday!
7. Tell me about the SS&SS Addendum, and spell books.
Well, when I published SS&SS core book, I wanted it to be compact, having everything you really need to play a sword and sorcery RPG, with some tools. But the Addendum is that little extra, that spice you can put on your food to make it more tasty. The Addendum brings some optional rules inspired by the sword and sorcery genre, like a Luck boost drunk people receive, a rule for a strong bond with your adventuring companion (like Fafhrd and Grey Mouser have), carousing, the use of true names and things like that. Not to mention a whole lot of tables and generators to help players and referees come up with stuff during play, or during prep time.
8. Who is your favourite artist and or author?
Well, art wise, the name that always comes to my mind is Peter Mullan. I don't know what it is, but his art really leaves me amazed. I can stare at it for hours. He has something of Erol Otus in the early days but with something more. The details, the scenes, the weirdness of it. They are really something to be studied, and I do try to do that with my own art.
In terms of RPG authors, that's a tougher one. I really enjoy Harley Stroh adventures. They are so pulpy, so exciting and have a fell of sword and sorcery shenanigans that's right up my alley. As for proper game rules author, I really like the style of how DCC RPG was written. It's really inspiring, and is not just a gaming manual but a style and inspirational book. So, I guess Joseph Goodman.
But it just know occurred to me you might be talking about literature authors. Well, as of right now, I really like Fritz Leiber. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories are exciting, sometimes dark, but they always have a light side to it too, some funny bits that makes you smile now and them.
9. What is one of your favorite adventures other than something that you’ve released (or worked on)?
Hummm... Let me think. As I said, Harley Stroh stuff is really right up my alley. I love Tower of the Black pearl, even though it is pretty straight forward. But it mixture rumors of legendary places, pirates, mysterious wizards, a tower that comes out of the ocean. In game play, it has a time limit that pressures the players. There are puzzles and problems they need to figure out themselves, without rolling dice. There is opportunity for roleplay and epic combat. There is everything in there.
10. When you get a chance to play a character, what type of PC do you like to play?
I don't get to play as much as I'd like, but when I do, I usually like to play the seedy scoundrel type of guy. Like Grey Mouser or Han Solo. The type that can handle themselves in combat, but prefer to solve problems with a bit of wit and subterfuge.
11. What are you most excited about in the RPG scene currently?
Setting toolkits, that generate stuff for you to play and use on the table, instead of just reading it to memorize details. Like Yoon-Suin, Hubris, Vornheim and things like that. Setting that are tools for you to play them and create content for the actual game, instead of just boring descriptions of every single detail you will never actually use in play. I really want to prepare the SS&SS setting like that!
12. Would you rather be a spell slinger or a beefy warrior?
Well, considering I am all about sword and sorcery, and that sorcery corrupts and deforms you in this type of fantasy, I will stick with the beefy warrior. I want to find ancient gold and spend with mundane pleasures!
13. What are your plans for Old Skull Publishing this year?
Wow, so many! But I need to focus at one at a time to finish them! I am currently writing a few short adventures to release for SS&SS and at the same time writing Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, which will be Science Fantasy version of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. It will be literally sword and sorcery in space. Barbarians side by side with robots, aliens, sorcerers, psionics, mechanics and everything. It's going to be like Dark Sun meets Star Wars meets Hyborea or something. After that, back to SS&SS with it's setting!
14. Sushi or Dim Sum?
I don't know if there is a secret meaning behind this, but I love sushi. I do enjoy a Yakisoba though!
