In the past, I've written about why parties should have their own character sheet. The party sheet can track reputation, how noisy they are in the dungeon (i.e. how fast they advance the Underclock ), shared resources, hirelings, et cetera. I've been sort of pondering how to include party advancement, or party level-ups, into the party sheet system, but I never had a solid concept until I re-read…
There are only two genders: male and female. Men are strong, stoic, brave. They protect the weak and build great things. Women are sensitive, kind, and insightful. They nurture and teach, and are more skilled in the arts of magic. You will see this dichotomy reinforced throughout all elven societies. Of course, not every elven enclave is the same, but the certainly follow certain trends. Let's…
The party has a shared resource called Spirit. This is confidence or good cheer. A party gains Spirit by (1) resting in safe places, (2) being entertained, (3) eating good food, (4) having NPC friends, (5) taking a bath. A low-level party might have 5 Spirit when they go into a dungeon. At any time, any party member can spend Spirit to reduce incoming damage by 1d4 for each Spirit spent this way.…
The Forge of Yakul Yakul was obliterated, and his temples were sunk. Memories of the dead god were struck from the souls of men. A heavy punishment was levied on Yakul, for he strove mightily against the Authority in the early days of the First Temple. Yakul is merely a curiosity nowadays, and a testament to the strength of the Authority. Even today, the obliterations still hold their force. Learn…
Everything is alive. Mountains, winds, the earth itself. Even cities can dream. But "city" is an arbitrary concept isn't it? There is no clear boundary, nor any clear membership criteria. This is irrelevant. Everything is alive. Everything strives. Every collection of anything that has any sort of a shared identity. Sentience comes from identity, not structure, and identity is not something that…
This is Part 2. Here is Part 1 . Concept 1: Entering the Dungeon Descending the stairs into B1, the party reach rooms that are dark, crowded, flooded, and don't have any apparent ways out. Then after solving some simple training puzzle (for more complicated puzzles later), they open a door and enter B1. It's a crumbling stone bridge across a huge gap. The real floor is 20' below you. No visible…
Remember that post I did about dwarven gender? If you haven't read it--you're in luck. You can be just as confused as Podrick, below. It occurs to me that dwarves would also struggle to understand human genders, and would ask us as many stupid questions as we would ask them. So this is some fiction about that. Some Dwarves Learn About Human Gender Featuring: - Podrick, human, age 41, male, father…
Have you written your own dungeon? Everyone should write a dungeon at least once. You'll be able to write stuff that you like, and stuff that your players like. You can make it as small or as large as you'd like, based on the length of your sessions. If your group likes puzzles, then you can dump three of them in there. And by the time you're done, you'll basically have memorize the damn thing.…
In my last post , I dropped a DM Cheat Sheet in Appendix D but I never actually explained how to use it. You are of course free to use it however you wish, but here's how it looks when I've had a chance to fill it out. The format is [room]-[Underclock]. S Searching a room for 10 minutes. L Eating lunch for 30 minutes. X Random encounter triggered. "1-0" means that they were in room 1 and the…
I wrote a dungeon. It's about 25 rooms. It still needs work, but I'm getting bored of it and I need to post it now or else it'll join the scrapheap of all of my unfinished projects. BEHOLD! Here's the regular version: HERE . And here's a jumbo version HERE . The jumbo version has a bunch of essays and rants, mostly directed to new OSR DMs but also just anything I might have thought was useful at 2…
Hopping on the bandwagon: this is a single-level class that might be compatible with Cloak-and-Sword. (See here .) From what I can tell, it is a single-level class that uses the concept of espirit , which I think is when you meet a new NPC and they feel the opposite of neutrality. GLOG Class: Lackey You are a henchman. You found yourself in this status because you bear a strong and unrequited…
I haven’t had a regular over-the-table tabletop game in years . In that time, I’ve wandered pretty far afield. Time for a new system, methinks. Inspirations / Design Goals: Dice Pools! I haven’t meddled in them yet. Lots of rolls with a small chance of success! (I’ve been playing Pokemon Pocket.) Parrying, baiting, and kiting enemies. (I’ve been playing Dark Souls.) Dice Pools While a d20 roll…
Go into the earth, and reality will walk alongside you. Walk further, and you will eventually be walking alone. The world is plastic down there. Tar Lath Lien has explained that the Underworld is the natural, basal state of reality. The true aberration is the world that we live within. Time wasn't meant to flow in a straight line. Objects weren't meant to remain in a fixed location while…
Last week, we made a crowdsourced dungeon on Bluesky. It was fun and it yielded a cool dungeon with a lot of good ideas mashed together. This week, I decided that I was actually going to run it. So, I started editing it to make it more cohesive and less chaotic. What should have been a light edit ended up being a heavier edit than I intended. It's been paved flat. It's more useable, but has less…
Monstrome v6 is now complete. It's up to 60,000 words and approaching book territory, which is cool. MONSTROME v6 New monsters include: Mushroom Man Flying Worm Gremlin I'm actually proud of all 3 of these. I think they have good mechanics (especially the gremlin's Filch ability), decent lore, and would all complicate combat in a different way. If you have three different monsters in a room, and…
Your blade pierces his heart and the man reels against the dungeon wall before collapsing against the floor. A few seconds of labored gasping and then perfect silence. You start looting the body. Sixteen silver and a bag of marbles. You start to roll him over but suddenly the corpse’s jaw cracks wide as something pushes its way out of his mouth, plops onto the floor, and slithers away into the…
I joined Bluesky last month and decided to pretend that it's actually G+ and the year is 2015. This means that I'll be trying to have conversations, but it especially means crowdsourced content. I asked people to help me write a dungeon and 20+ people obliged, which is honestly incredible. Anyway, here's the dungeon. I redid all the numbering, added random encounters, backstory, and a simple…
Work continues of the Monstrome. I'm now on v5. You can read it HERE Feel free to comment on any typos or confusing parts. I've added Crafting sections (on top of the Cooking and Alchemy from v4). Monsters: Eternal Paladin (new) Golem Hell Knight (new) Tooth Fairy Sprite (new) Thank you Zirchona, Isaac, Jeff R (!), Josh, Anti Time, Jackson, Sinusoidal, Ezra, Dan, and Anon for proof-reading v4.…
Monstrome v4 is complete. New in this version: Barlutra (Giant Otters) Smirches (pure evil shaped like a bird) Wolves, Etc. "Mundane" Animals Door Monster Loctus . . . plus cooking and alchemy rules, for all previous monsters. Take a look and feel free to leave a comment if you see an error or have a question. MONSTROME V4 Thank you Josh, Johnathan, Anti-Time, Abraham, Sinusoidal, Er Doombog, R.…
I reread some old blogposts today. Holy shit, remember the horses I did with Chris McDowall ? Those were great. The d6 Dungeon Merchants post was also a good one. I think it deserves a sequel. Players can always choose to attempt to kill the merchant and take all of his stuff. To make this fair, though, you really should make the merchant scary enough to threaten your party. You can plop a dungeon…
Progress on my bestiary continues. I've completed Monstrome v3 ! New monsters: Morlocks Ogres Skeleton Jellies Thank you Louis, Claytonian, Jake, and Anon for pointing out all of my typos. Anyway, here are the morlocks: Morlock Blind, subterranean remnants of a heroic empire, changed by long centuries of darkness and intensive eugenics. The surface world was promised to them, and they will have…
Bospero I’ve sure you’ve heard many stories of Cailish Andorum, and his great sin. However, I suspect that few of you know how it begins, or that it took almost a full century before Andorum was declared heretic. For Cailish Andorum was once an unremarkable man. And so here I will relate how Cailish became Cailish. I will not pass on any rumors or unsubstantiated facts, except in places where no…
Angelmen Angelmen are tall, beautiful, and gaunt. Every single one has alabaster skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. They look like angels. They sometimes drape themselves in loose clothing, but more often they are naked. You’ll find them in the wastelands, haunting sun bleached ruins. Lvl 3 Def none Bite 1d6+1 Fly vulture Int wolf Dis hunger Divine Remnant - Angelmen recognize priests and clerics…
I recently asked my patrons what posts deserved a sequel and Tower in the Wasteland was one of the first replies. So here's an updated version of that dungeon. It's 12 pages now, so roughly twice the size it was before. Patrons: thanks for all of your support. I hope to fulfill more of your suggestions in the coming weeks. --->>> TOWER IN THE WASTELAND V2 <<<--- I'm still trying to choose…
So I've been writing like I used to--just sitting down and writing for 5 hours straight. This shit is exhausting. I don't know how I used to do this back in 2015. Anyway, I decided to start putting some of my monsters into a proper bestiary. It's ~35 pages. THE MONSTROME (Pageless) THE MONSTROME (Paged) UPDATE: MONSTROME v2 (Pageless) I have a lot of opinions about the best way to write an entry…