Why I love rules light games when playing online

I tried Shadowdark RPG for the first time this evening and throughly enjoyed it.  I should likely preface this statement by stating the following: 

• I had to take a brief break from the ongoing OSE campaign (which ended up at 30+ sessions)
• It's in the exact same world at the same time as the OSE campaign. 
• The OSE campaign was wildly fun but also fairly serious at times.  
• Trying a new game is a great restart for everyone.
• Hanging out with all my friends is making my heart so happy.  I honestly needed a laugh with everything that has been going on latetly. 

The nice thing about playing easy to run D&D like games online is you get to the meat and potatoes of gaming.  We start laughing and roleplaying and not worrying about any tactical, min maxing silliness.  

When you only have a couple of hours to play (Which BTW I absolutely adore...more on that later) its nice to just be able to jump into a game.  I rolled up my character in all of 5 minutes.

Honestly that's all I got.  Much like whitebox or holmes, I really enjoy just jumping and going and not getting dragged down with any extra sheets on my character sheet.  

I have to say Shadowdark is the best of a lot of the great OSR ideas that have come along over the years.  There's a bit of everything in there.  Definitely try it out. 

Dark world

While I'm still working on my greyhawk saltmarsh campaign, I did have an idea the other night for a different campaign.

I recently got the fifth edition monster manual and as I was flipping through it I found the death knight entry.  That's a monster I've always wanted to use.  More so than a lich, dragon or tarasque.

I really need to create my own setting this time around.  Saltmarsh is cool and all.

During a time of troubles the world started to spin slower.  It came about because of a magical apocalyptic event.  Because of this the world gets 18 hours of darkness.

Flora and Fauna are different than they used to be.  Things grow in the dark and the muck.

The dark races came upon the land from underground as the daylight races subsided into decay and death.  The dark races did not keep to themselves but formed communities.  They are not as evil as they once were.  Unfortunately some of the vile monsters from the underworld followed them.

A long time ago there was a great war.  A Paladin was on one side, but made a deal to save his friends.  When he did he switched sides.  A castle was under siege by the Knights former battalion, which included his sister.  In the chaos he killed her and became a death knight at that instant.

The death knight has been killed and rose many times.

I'm modeling him after cobra commander and skeletor.

Because the world of men fell, there are lots of ruins to explore and magic residing in the world.

An alien race has started to inhabit the planet, they are warlike and hungry for a new world to conquer.

This is what I have so far.

Completed my collection

 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.

Working on a campaign and house rules

After my new group finishes up lmop I am going to run saltmarsh.

I've been slowly working on some house rules, a campaign overview document etc.

For the campaign the first thing I'm going to tell the players is it's going to be a slow burn.  The intention will be to retire at level 10.  Alot of newer modules are a race to level 20.  I'm not a fan.  I like getting really good at playing at second level before moving up.

I'm hoping to only use the essentials rules for character creation, leaving out all the phb options that don't belong in greyhawk.

For the actual campaign I'll start with the first adventure and then hopefully pepper in some stuff from iceapire peak and possibly witch light.

Probably going to be the first time I have a real session 0.  Which is exciting.

Today after grocery shopping and skating I have to start going thru the book and making a document for the monsters as there are no stats really in saltmarsh.

Oh and I've got idea for a magic sword, the black crazor, formerly owned by a pirate.

Ogl 1.0 disclaimer

Content on this blog that was created prior to January 9th, 2023 that included mechanics,new classes, Monster, spells and adventures for retro clones and the earlier editions of the"world's most popular roleplaying game" was written for the open game license version 1.0 in mind. 

It was also created in the spirit of fairplay and keeping a great game alive.

https://3toadstools.blogspot.com/p/ogl_17.html?m=1

In the interest of archiving, this work will remain live on the site.

Pulled it

 Hi Everyone, 

There's been a LOT of discussion regarding the new OGL and what it means for the OSR and indie creators.  I'm not getting into that discussion here.  What I am doing is explaining the reasonings behind pulling all the 3t stuff from drivethrurpg.

It's because it's time.  A lot of it is old stuff, that's not entirely relevant nowadays.   As well I know I can do better.  Part of me is done being a publisher.  I've left up 2 releases, a map one and a book of random tables.  There was a few extra random table releases that were put into that book, and were duplicated.

I'm not doing this because I fear some repercussion from the wizards.  There are a LOT of bigger fish out that than I.  I am pulling the pin, because that was part of an older version of me and I'm not as much that guy anymore.  I put a lot of internal pressure on myself to do things, be better, etc.  And its time to flip that page.  

I have to say, thank you to everyone who purchased, played, downloaded, reviewed and gave me a thumbs up over the years!  I appreciate it.

With that said, I am moving forward.  I'm not sure what I'm doing.  But something different.

Once again thank you.

Not doing dungeon23

 I decided I'm not going to participate in this.  As a friend said, it can be too big and overwhelming.

Instead what I'm going to do is world build.

First step as per advice in the comments of a previous post.

http://3toadstools.blogspot.com/2022/12/am-i-d-out.html?m=0

Read the 1e dmg.

Thank you JB 

Step 2

Go here https://watabou.itch.io/perilous-shores 

Use the small descriptions as writing prompts.

Download every iteration of the map. 

People and monster the map.

Pepper it with some adventures I want to run.

Step 3

Run it with whitebox fmag.

First however step 1.