The Gygax 75 Challenge

Matt Jackson sent me this link today.  https://rayotus.itch.io/gygax75

Which is basically a guide book based on something Gary wrote about creating your own setting.  Broken down into different tasks every week.  The guide book is written by the wonderful Ray Otus (check out his podcast here https://anchor.fm/plundergrounds )

This workbook is based on an article written by Gary Gygax in 1975, less than 12 months after D&D was released. It encapsulates his thinking at the time about how to get your own D&D campaign world started. I have taken his general advice and parsed it out into achievable, bite-sized prompts & goals for a week-by-week program. 

To print the booklet file, make sure your printer is set to no-scaling (or 100% scaling to the paper, which is intended to be US Letter), 2-sided, binding on short edge. If you don't have a long-arm or booklet stapler, square up the pages and fold them in half to get your crease. Open the booklet back up and place it face down on a few sheets of cardboard. (Anything flat and firm, but not impenetrable, will work. Like an ironing board.) Place two staples along the crease, then pull the booklet away from your surface and bend the prongs of the staples in carefully with your thumb (or use a pencil eraser). Voila!

Coincidentally I've been sorta working on a setting for awhile now.  A little while back Matt and I were discussing settings and he sent me a Shane version of what would become "The Dungeon Masters Book Of Cartography".

You can grab it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858VPC1V

One of the first suggestions in the guide book by Ray is to create a town and 1-3 level dungeon.  Another interesting turn of events! Matt just posted up another awesome map over here: http://www.msjx.org/2020/04/qa03-you-write-adventure.html

So I'm going to spend the rest of the evening reading over Ray's guide book, order myself a copy of the Cartography book and go to town.... err create a town!

Actually here's some proof of concept.

The first section of the book talks about coming up with a theme, and what has been rattling around my head is Xanth and Magic Kingdom For Sale by Terry Brooks.  Specifically a more fairy type world, rather than the typical D&D type world.  Don't get me wrong I really like bandits and old musty tombs.  But I've been thinking about a different sort of world lately.  In the Spell For A Chameleon series there is a lot of wonderful and scary vegetation out in the wilds of Xanth.  The plants can do wondrous and scary things! Which has started me down a rabbit hole of thought.  What kinda of interesting plants can I create that will have magical effects similar to BX D&D spells?  Hmm!

(Interestingly enough there was an RPG choose your own adventure book about Xanth.  Find it here https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Xanth-Crossroads-Adventure-Anthonys/dp/0812564170 )

Another thing I'd like to incorporate into my next game is different races other than the typical ones.  Once again I have nothing against Elves, Halflings and Dwarves (Not entirely a fan of Gnomes....)  I have however "been there and done that".  I've also been playing a lot of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim latetly.  Which has given rise to the idea of creating some race as a class characters like Argonians & Kahjits.  Although with my own spin on em.  *Note that the Kahjits probably came from the Rakasta in the first place!

Here's some inspiration for the Rakasta/Kahjit idea (I found it on instagram check out more here: https://www.instagram.com/mythic_legions_cabal/)

So a world that isn't quite medieval (but maybe it has guns?), has different races that the usual suspects, I"m still not quite sure about the religion, No real organized government (or maybe not...maybe it'll be like Xanth? I dunno yet), Fairy mists where the world beyond is shunned and scary, and of course the world wasn't always like this was it?

Well I think I got the first part done!

Are you going to join me in the challenge?

Sunday morning OSR hunt

I decided to spend a bit of time this morning over coffee looking at some cool new stuff OSR stuff.

Dice Roll Zine #2: It's currently available in print only here:  https://hogtowngames.bigcartel.com/product/dice-roll-zine-2  I'd hazard to guess it will be available on pdf thru drivethru shortly.  Here is the summary:

Dice Roll Zine is a 40-page, saddle-stitched, digest-sized print zine for old-school RPGs written by Steven A. Cook and illustrated by some of the best retro-inspired artists.

The second issue includes a Sorcerer class for Swords & Wizardry Complete games; 'Roll all the Dice' tables for generating fungi, plants & freaky stuff; The City-State of Kreth, a weird-fantasy city overview with history, factions, unique gear, rumors, adventure seeds, thumbnail descriptions and encounter tables for nine city districts, and more; new spells and magic items for an 'oldhammer' fantasy role-playing game; and various other cool rules options and odd things for your old-school games.  Please Note: Print buyers also get a PDF copy for free. Details are included with your print zine!

You can grab a copy of #1 here.  

1988 Dungeon:  Goblin's Henchmen does it again.  This is a really fun dungeon.  It's PWYW, get it here. 

This is an 1e AD&D adventure made in 1988. It was one of the first dungeons I ever made when I was a teenager. So, it’s about as Old Skoool as it gets … not in an OSR sense, but in a “I’ve made a dungeon who wants to play” kind of way. If you’re looking for understandable/sensible dungeon ecology, themes, plot, and balanced encounters etc., then you’ve signed up for the wrong adventure! 

The Ghost Fleet - A Edge of Space Supplement
I'm going to go ahead and download Edge Of Space, looks like a fun game.  I was thinking it might be a good one to pull out after a regular session of DND, or when I only have so many players show up.  Ghost Fleet is an adventure for the system. 

During the Confederation Wars the Madeiran Union was one of the fiercest and most mysterious sides of the conflict.  Striking from uncharted space at random vectors the Madeirans never seemed to be at a loss for ships, supplies, or men.  Even now nearly thirty years after the founding of the Confederation the Madeiran Union is still talked about with an air once reserved for urban legends.

In the wreckage of the MMS Yu-Ti on a desolate, un-named ice world. The CMSC has discovered the existence of a Madeiran Ghost Fleet deep in the Levigos Nebula near the center of the Rim and behind the lines of Bug space.   Believing that the fleet lay as salvage the CMSC dispatches the Sword of Hathor to survey the Ghost Fleet in hopes that the vessels could help replenish the losses sustained in the war against the Bugs … the problem is this is a Ghost Fleet in more than just name …


Edge of Space is a simple 2d6 beer and pretzels roleplaying by Chubby Monster Games and was created by the (in)famous master of cartography Matt Jackson.  Edge of Space has a simple background to get the players and GM started:  You are Space Marines for allied human systems and must defend against the onslought of alien hordes that wish to drive you and your race to total extinction.  The game is available for $1.00 on rpgnow.com and has some support by Genius Loci Games and other publishers.

Gothridge Manor is at it again!: Tim just released this cool looking adventure:
https://www.patreon.com/gothridge
I present to you Three Adventures for the Compleat Adventure. The title is a play off the old Compleat series. I decided to return to my old ways, doing short adventures. Presenting situations to the party to explore, figure out, and possibly defeat. I’ve written three situations for three environments. Design wise the GM has the map on the left page and all the content for the map on the right page. No flipping!

First is the urban environment, Searching Ashen Alley. The party has something stolen. They see the thief head for an alley way and now need to deal with the dangerous of the city. This one is a randomly determined encounter that can introduce the party to the thieves guild. For good or bad.

The second is a traditional dungeon crawl, Tomb of the Berserker King. Nothing says adventure than plundering the tomb of some forgotten king. A nasty little crawl that might cost the characters more than they get in return. 

The third and final installment is a roleplaying situation, The Hanging Tree. I believe these type encounters can develop depth for the characters. It gives the characters a chance to help without ever drawing their weapons. The situation deals with a suicidal boy. The topic could trigger some people so please consider that. 

Matt Jackson has a bunch of great maps over on Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/msjackson/posts

Really diggin this town map that Matt drew.

 Dhul Crag:  Nine days ride to the south, but still two day's ride from The Wall sits the small village of Dhul Crag. An Outpost in the middle of a dangerous wilderness, this walled cluster of buildings serves as a welcome respite from the horrors of the surrounding Deep Wold, a well-known forest of grim portent. The sturdy oak wall has, so far, been penetrated only once (repairs are are ongoing).

Other cool things that have caught my eye, but haven't had a chance to check them out yet (that's a helluva a title!) 

*The Ubix #2:  In the realms of dream and the hitnerland wilds, The Ubix signals your path to adventure! This is an OSR zine of 4 RPG elements underscored by simple black and white artwork. Within these 14 pages you'll find bloodstained surgeons, hateful vampiric aliens, levitating thrones, and a spell that you may never awake from!

Mice with Legitimate Grievances:  A small dungeon for 1st or 0th level characters. The Mice Folk have had enough. First a man thing came into their home to start playing with dead things (yuck!), and now the man things have damaged their roof with careless farming. So help them: the next man thing they see is going to get bopped on the head with a stick!

The Screaming Swamp:  This is an expansion of my contribution to the Tenkar’s Landing G+ Community collaborative sandbox setting, Eilean Dubh (The Black Isle).  Each contribution to The Black Isle is a single 6 mile hex. There is a lot here in this lone hex. One can easily change to a 12 mile hex, making each sub-hex a mile. Even larger hexes may be used, if you need a massive swamp.  I have added more tables specific to this area and swamps in general. The text has has much more revision, correction, and additions than the version released in The Black Isle.

MOI:  The mewe hex descriptions are basically done, I've got a few more to add to it (and by the sounds of it Scott had a few extra that he was working on).  Managed to cultivate a really interesting d100 table of "shit you find on the ground".  After all that is done, I think I'll crowd source a few small dungeons, possibly using paratime design's maps.  Then it'll get released into the wild.  I do have one epic conundrum, the maps are all licensed under creative commons, which is cool.  I just dunno if I can use the OGL for the mechanics within the product?  I'll mull that over in my head.  As is typical with any of my collabs, this is just for fun, and will be a download available only on this blog.  Should be complete in a week or two.  

Have a Happy Sunday! 

Black Hack "the old school" session part 2

Alright so I think I sorted lost track on how many sessions we have had.  I believe the Gonzo session with Matt was 2 - 3 sessions.  And now the more old school vibe session has been at least 2.  Unfortunately I don't completely remember everything that happened in session 1, but I'll try my best here.  More of this will be session 2 (at least the action bits).

First and foremost it was a fucking blast! It's really nice to game again, and on a regular basis.  As well the black hack is a very easy system for me to grasp (I'm not a fan of getting bogged dow with mechanics).

Colin, Alex, Steve, and Vance all joined in (and I f I missed someone I'm very sorry).  We had a good core group of classes, with basically one of each.  My silly thief Jax Whindlehen (who is a carry over from the gonzo session) is impetuses at the very least.  Unlike a typical old school thief, he likes to see what things do.  He doesn't always sneak into a room, if there's a button he will push it, if there's a door he'll open it.  It's just him.  Which of course makes for the cleric (thanks Vance!) having to save his ass on a regular basis.

So we get to the mountains and this northern village which has been under the icy thumb of a snow queen.  (cue the frozen jokes).  The feel of the game is very "north of the wall", with wildling types etc.   We basically found out that we need to stop the snow queen.  And off we go to the lair!

Once we got in the dungeon, we found a bunch of tunnels, and tombs.  I managed to find quite a bit of gold (that always makes a thief happy!).  One of the tombs had some undead, and thankfully the cleric managed to banish them fairly quickly.  I can't quite remember what his god was, but it was entertaining (I think it was a random roll in the back of the book). 

We got into this room that had a waterfall and a drain below us, which was odd.  But we kept moving.  Finally we made it to this room where there were 6 wildling types arguing.  I believe Matt expected us to straight up fight.  But in the last game, instead of negotiating when we were supposed to, we fought.  So this time I decided I'd attempt to negotiate.  I stepped into the room that had some Iron doors open and basically said "Ola me amigos!"  Which threw them for a loop.  One of them was chipping away at some ice (looks like there was something behind it). 

After a successful charisma check, they sorta seemed to be cool with us.  Although they were pushing me a little bit.  I side stepped and went down a hall way.  The rest of the hero's didn't know what was happening with me, and went into the room.  All of a sudden this huge 14 foot tall twig golem burst out of the ice and a fight ensued.  There was a pile of rubble around the room, and at one point I had to haul people over it into the tunnel.  The widlings followed.... err ran right past me! hahaha.  Prior to this one of the ladies had grabbed what appeared to be a cloak that was embedded in the ice. 

We made it down a hall way, with the monster sufficiently trapped (the hallways were too short for him to get thru!).  We get into this room that's basically a giant hockey rink of ice with these hug icebergs.  After a few successful tests we moved one of the icebergs blocking our way, only to find another.  This process kept going until a major fail happened.  Colin (Jin) and I fell thru the ice and down into the drain waterfall area.  I got knocked right out.  the other's managed to get thru. 

After a bit of time passed, I was awoken to Jin screaming at me to get up.  Damn it we have to go back and take on that golem.  A bunch of the wildlings fell down with us, and a few died.  The rest we made a deal with to fight the golem. I grabbed the magical cloak from the dead lady and moved on.  It appears to basically keep me super warm! wooo. I hazard to guess this will help us.

We go back, beat the crap outta the golem with a few successful rolls and then meet up with everyone at a rope bridge.  As we cross (I went first I believe) ghosts of peasants started filling the chamber around the bridge.  It was very much an indiana jones bridge over a huge deep dark hole.  The cleric thankfully banished enough of them to get us across the bridge without any casualties.

And that my friends is where we left off.  Not too bad for 3 hours of play.

Can't wait for the next game.

Inaugural issue of Tenfoot Zine released! - Matt Jackson

I had the pleasure of playing in some black hack games with Matt Jackson (and a bunch of other awesome peeps).  Matt just released the gonzo adventure he ran for us in zine format.  It is available on his patreon account:  https://www.patreon.com/msjackson

Tenfoot Zine 01
GREETINGS, Welcome to the first issue of hopefully (yet another) new zine from yours truly. The plan is for these to be generally about gaming and covering different systems I like, short adventures, maps, tips for game masters, crazy ideas, magic items, house rules, and whatever floats my boat at the moment. We will see how this goes and probably correct course as we go.

This silly little adventure I wrote for use with The Black Hack. I had been wanting to try my hand at running TBH for a while. When given the chance I used the random tables and my imagination to come up with the insanity herein. This is also the adventure that I learned as I ran the game for the first time, so there are possibly mistakes. I am not sure if this bodes well for TBH, but here you go.
Hopefully, you enjoy this.

Random friday

A bunch of things on my mind today.

First things first, our favourite anchorcaster Colin "Spikepit" Green released his 100th episode! and it's absolutely fantastic.  No spoilers here, just go and listen to it:  https://anchor.fm/spikepit/episodes/100-Century-of-Spikepit-e359uu  

Matt Random is back on Anchor and he's got a good episode about "the black hack".  Check it out here: https://anchor.fm/mattrando/episodes/Ep-5---The-Black-Hack--initial-thoughts-e37apr

A really good article I read last night about writing, and something that I'm going to take to heart: http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/02/just-do-it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MonstersAndManuals+%28Monsters+and+Manuals%29

I posted the article on mewe which brought up a interesting discussion about the "10,000 hour rule", the gist of which is "in order to get good at anything you need to put 10,000 hours in".  I don't think I'm quite there with mapping and writing, definitely layout stuff (I think rotbb I put over 10K in hahaha).  I have to say, I put more than 10K in learning how to make records.  It's almost second nature to me now.  That all being said, I intend to try and write everyday (starting today).  I have about 6 random projects on the go.  Even if I get a paragraph for each one a day, that's something! Although I think I'd like to get a bit more.

Here's an idea I was working on the other day.  Basically I like the idea of random character creation and I've been revisiting my mutant hack.  World building wise, it's mutants in the north.  I'm dubbing it "Mutant Murderhobos Of The Frozen North (tm)"

Creature Race

All characters are a mutated version of a human and some kind of animal,
unless otherwise stated (android).  Where noted, increase ability scores.
Note: Any mutation that increases damage, is only in effect when attacking with the mutation.  
Ex Moose Antlers do an extra +2 damage on a successful hit.

Roll D20	Animal Type	Bonus	Mutation
1	Polar Bear	+1 CON	Endure Extreme Cold
2	Bald Eagle	+1 INT	Fly
3	Garter Snake	+1 DEX	Move Silently
4	Beaver	+1 WIS	Large Teeth (D6+2 DMG)
5	Canada Goose	+1 CHA	Fly
6	Moose	+1 CON	Antlers (D6+2 DMG)
7	Grizzly Bear	+1 STR	Paws (D6+2 DMG)
8	Elk	+1 CON	Antlers (D6+2 DMG)
9	Cougar	+1 DEX	Move Silently
10	Gray Wolf	+1 DEX	Move Silently
11	Wolverine	+1 CON	Claws (D6+2 DMG)
12	Bison	+1 WIS	Thick hide +1 to AC
13	Squirrel	+1 INT	+2 Starting Hit Points
14	Rabbit	+1 CHA	Able to hop 4 metres
15
16
17
18
19
20

Essentially there are going to be random tables for starting weapons, equipment, mutations etc.

Alright that's enough for me today.  Hope you have a good weekend! I'm going out for Pizza tonight at a place called "little pizza heaven".  Excellent marketing!

Note: Sailors on the starless seas is currently on sale.  Excellent adventure.  $4.68 CAD.

An introductory adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, Sailors on the Starless Sea pits a mob of 0-level adventurers against the legacy of the Chaos Lords and their corrupted hordes. Delving beneath the crumbling ruins, the characters discover ancient crypts, a starless sea, and an ancient ziggurat, where death and treasure await in equal measure!

Tried some black hack last night

Chatting with Matt last night on mewe, and he had mentioned that him and his friend were creating characters for "The Black Hack".  I didn't realize that they were doing it right then.  Anyways, he shot me the hangouts link and I jumped on.  Since my wife was nicely cuddled up on the couch reading "Outlander". 

note:  if your wife hasn't read this book, and she likes sex and men in kilts, I recommend grabbing her the first book. 

Anyways, I was thinking alright "let's create some characters", which would probably take a few minutes and then we would reconvene next week to play a game. Yup nope, took all of 10 minutes at the most to create a character (actually probably five minutes) and we were off on an adventure!  Bryan was a wizard named Knox, and I created a thief named Jax.  Which we both found entertaining as I didn't know the name of his character.

Matt rolled up a quick adventure premise in the back of the book (those tables in the black hack are awesome! even if you don't run the actual game, the book is worth the price just for the tables IMHO).

Apparently we were headed to a tower with a bunch of bubbles coming out of the top.  Quite possibly the location of a Beholder. 

I gotta say that the rules are wonderful.  The roll under thing (1's are a success and 20's are bad!) is super easy.  Obviously it takes a bit to wrap your head around it (depending on the game you are used to) however super straight forward. The thing I like about it, is I don't have to add shit.  When you roll advantage disadvantage, you take the lower of the 2, not the higher.  Once again, just wrapping your head around it.  I found it easy and straight forward.  Partially because I've been reading a lot of AFF and the mechanic is roll under in it.

My character picked up a rock and hucked it down a well at a goblin.  I had to roll under my DEX (which was 16).  Alright rolled a 7, bang! smoked that goblin.

I have to say, that printing off a copy of the basic character sheets and abilities of a class is a good idea.  I had it open on my tablet to the thief page.  But I'll probably print off a physical copy when I get a chance.

Looking forward to the next game.  Nice thing is Matt likes to run shorter games, like an hour or 2 at the most.  Which is good for me, as my ADD kicks in and things get derailed sometimes.

Super fun evening!

So basically I've been a bit busy.

Pardon the rambling.

Just latetly I wrote an adventure for Matt Jackson.  He has a series of Barrow mounds that he is populating.  

The one I did was called "The Grey Acolyte" and it's just been released.  Here:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/23784003

The setup:
The Grey Acolyte was burned long ago as a heretic.  He preached that the world would change, the gods would fade and the land would rot.  After he was burned, his carcass was thrown into a makeshift grave to be forgotten about.  Rumours exist the he was buried with ancient religious texts, and the wealth he accumulated from worshippers.  The wealth was thought to be tainted.

Just a quick note, It's friggin deadly! The rules are B/X Essentials.

I intend to do a few more of these. I like them because most of the maps don't have a pile of rooms in them. It allows for some major creativity!

Matt gave me a crazy shout out, which was very nice:
The always awesome @Shane Ward mentioned in his latest AnchorCast that he wrote an amazing adventure for me and I have failed to share it with the world! So Happy New Year all, and enjoy a most excellent adventure written by the awesome Shane Ward!

In other news, I'm almost finished the layout project for D-oom publishing.  Should have it completed tonight.  Then onto a NEW layout project.  A heartbreaker house rules project.  Woo! I'm excited about that.

In other other news, I created a group on mewe called "the lab". The gist of which is a place to bounce ideas off of people, push each other to complete things, possibly collab when needed.  If you are interested it's here:  https://mewe.com/group/5c3125b6ff70c83347de4e84

My intention was a place to bounce writing ideas off of each other. I remember when I first started on gplus and there was so much fun stuff happening, conversations would quickly turn into fun gameable stuff. Later on FB the "FY DIY rpg group" did some fun stuff as well.

Oh and I recorded a podcast on the weekend:  https://anchor.fm/gilligans-isle-of-add

On a personal note, I'm desperately trying to not bite my nails this year.  So far so good.   3 days.  Oh and I really want to learn how to spell "unfortunately" correctly this year.

Tonight! is layout city

I've been working on a layout project for a friend of mine (which I've talked about on and off the past few months).  The gist of which was "I can't figure scribus" etc.  I'm using openoffice for this, and it allows me to embed fonts properly.  Anyways, as I've been slowly procrastinating, this evening I'm going to get down to business!

Last week I wrote up a fairly deadly adventure for Matt Jackson's Barrow mounds.  You can get more info here: https://www.patreon.com/msjackson

After doing a quick proof on Matt's adventure, I was filled with inspiration.  So I started writing.  Which was nice, as I've been in a back and forth slump for a bit.  I have a few maps to draw, and one to redraw for it.  The premise is simple "go get rid of the bandits".

Here's some screen shots.

It'll probably be stated out with S&W I think.  Just for ease of use.

There was a few shane-isms in the first draft that I'm going to have to go and deal with.  But for a creative spurt I'm happy.

It probably won't up being any kinda release other than "here! here's a download, have fun".  Which IMHO I really enjoy doing.  Hopefully I'll get it done by Christmas.  First up though, is finishing out the layout project.  As it is 6x9 I've been looking for inspiration in RPG books.  I've settled on basically looking at anything lotfp I can get my hands on and B/X Essentials.

Wish me luck!