Dive depths unknown in solid stone
Roll every day, keep if higher, resetting on a 1. Orcs kill Goblins on sight because one looked at the clan chief wrong, Goblins fled into warrens out of reach. Replace Goblin Encounters with Orcs at -2 Reaction from ambient bloodthirst. Orcs have forgotten about the Goblins, who sneak in to raid food and weapons. Reroll Goblin Encounters once. Mutual wariness and hollow(?) threats. Orcs…
1. 2. Empty of air. 3. Nothing in it can be seen. 4. Imposes a profound hollowness on the soul. 5. Empty of even dust. Pristine. Will stay that way. 6. Any container empties itself, including stomachs and bowels.
Negative thought patterns, expectations, comparisons, self-doubt & self-criticism… You will overcome them eventually, so any time or energy spent on them is wasted . Stay vigilant for their return, recognize their signs, let them glide off your mind . If they persist - record, interrogate, break them down, & their power will dissolve . Deciding and figuring out how to format the above took me…
Or, I Finally Beat Inspiral By Nerfing Workdays TLDR: Foolish Endeavor is how I will polish & publish Game Things in a personally sustainable manner: iterative, meandering, & unbound (read as "very ADHD"). Join the mailing list ! Here's the first game I'm actually proud of! The title is a slight exaggeration; there are many contributing factors for me leaving traditional gainful employment…
Over the second half of this year, I've started to get serious (and "full time") about finally polishing and publishing thinky-adventurey games, dungeons, supplements, and other unusual interactive curiosities from my deep, forsaken library of a backlog of nascent projects. It will be a long and winding path. If you'd like to avoid exposure to the toxic hellsites, or not need to remember to check…
But one week was a foolish forecast.
Plans are drawn. Boots are donned. A step is taken. An Endeavor begins. One week.
I've been feeling bad about not making (well, releasing) stuff, so today I made a game about (not) making stuff. It's unbalanced and untested, but I'm releasing it to remind myself that it's something I can do. Inspiral
Welp, picking up where I left off (before a rapid fire mix of obsessions with multiple other projects, creative energy dips, all the while not really keeping up with RPG news or social sphere because it's increasingly all just a bit much, but that's how I roll these days) like nothing happened, because there's no reason not to. Though, my description of my process will be even more fabricated due…
Step the Fourth: Crystallize Themes, Central Features, Inhabitants, Brief History Going into this project, I had a couple inspirational themes/central features: The dungeon was of dwarven origin. I'm not sure why, but dwarven styled dungeons seem underrepresented in the OSR - at least, I don't know of any prominent OSR adventures that take place in such. I want to play around with a style of…
Well, there was a time when I wanted to keep this style of writing off my blog, but it seemed to help me actually write instead of endlessly edit, so... So I Want To Make A Dungeon? Just follow these [insert final number] simple steps! Be Warned : This only superficially and sarcastically resembles a step by step procedure that I would recommend following. I may or may not revise it into one…
Dungeon Cat Not giant. Not magical. Just a cat. In a dungeon. AC : As Plate (agile, small target) HD : 1/2 Att : 2 x Claw 1d3-1, 1 x Bite 1d3-2 SV : Death: 3 Wands: 15 Paralysis: 1 Breath: 17 Spells: 18 THAC0 (AB) : 18 (+1) MV : 40' / 20' climb (anything but sheer surface) / 5' Jump (vertical or horizontal) ML : 3 Al : (Chaotic) Neutral XP : -13 NA : 1 (2d4) TT : U, but no individual items larger…
After a bit of a hiatus from keeping up with the RPG-sphere (and not feeling motivated enough to get any of my own projects - or 15 draft blogposts, or eleventy billion notional-but-potentially-gameable brainstorm/shower-thought notes - into a shareable state), I've been inspired by a few recent dungeon design posts , actually getting some good OSR dungeoncrawling under my belt, and playing around…
Spoilers for my players! I've run three sessions of my first draft of Cunning Knave, and they've gone quite well. Only in the third session did we end up in an unambiguous combat situation, so I had an opportunity to see how the Problem-Solving Combat rules felt in play. I want to provide a summary here to give some concrete examples of what I'm talking about in Problem-Solving Combat: Breaking…
I want OSR combat to look more like “OSR Style Challenges” than “D&D combat”. Make each round an interesting puzzle for the players to get out of. The results change the situation and they’re presented with another challenge. PbtA games basically do this. — Lithyscaphe | David Perry (@lithyscaphe) January 10, 2020 I don't want to take the stance that this is an objectively better way to do things,…
From a sophomore GM of mostly old-school style games. Top priority: Run what excites you, the GM . The game runs on your brain, so that energy influences every aspect of the experience. In its absence the game will fall apart sooner or later. Don't expect your first (or 50th) game to be like Critical Role. But if possible, watch/listen to an Actual Play video/podcast for the game or module to get…
Regardless of the wishes of the OSR's prominent proponents, whatever they might be, the term OSR has become irrevocably applicable to a plethora of interrelated but distinct concepts. Necropraxis held a survey in 2018 where respondents rated how much they felt "OSR" referred to eight separate meanings. But eight is (necessarily for the purposes of a survey that folks will actually complete)…
Mothership House Rule: Spacer Backgrounds and Recalling Memories Backgrounds Unless you're playing a one-shot, Mothership characters could use a bit of grounding, as it were. Here's a table to generate crappy backgrounds for roughneck spacers. Where did you grow up? Asteroid mining station, among microgravity miners Itinerant labor ship, among career spacers Orbital junkyard, among weary…
Download at itch.io The majority of this dungeon came to me over a couple of days, lots of interconnected ideas around a central theme. I was aware of the Pamphlet Jam started by Nate Treme of the " Highland Paranormal Society " (some really cool stuff over there; I particularly like his recent Bad Frog Bargain one-pager). So as impetus to actually Make A Thing, I decided I'd cram all these ideas…
The Carcass Crab HD : choose or roll 1: Squirrel, ermine, etc. Dmg: 1x1d2, 2x1d2 2: Fox, wildcat, etc. Dmg: 1x1d4, 2x1d2 3: Wolf, badger, etc. Dmg: 1x1d6, 2x1d2 4: Goat, boar, etc. Dmg: 1x1d8, 2x1d4 5: Deer, horse, etc. Dmg: 1x1d10, 2x1d4 6: Bear, etc. Dmg: 1x1d12, 2x1d4 7+: More formidable monsters Dmg: 1x1d12, 2x1d6 AC : As Plate (thick chitin) Attacks : 1xBite (damage as above) & if 5HD+…
Here's a thing I've been working on recently; side project sixty three of eleventy seven. Yeah yeah, too much design, not enough play, I know. Get used to it. This is a Souls-like hack of Ben Milton's lean Old School ruleset Knave . Bits of how Knave works are really suitable to emulating the digital games, such as stat-building and tight equipment management. Conceptual Status: Warning -…
Quintessential BX is a trimming and tweaking of Gavin Norman's B/X Essentials , itself a revision of Tom Moldvay and David Cook's Basic/Expert edition of the Original Fantasy Adventure Game. It includes a few refinements, additions, and options from myself, Gavin, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess, such as ascending AC, a reasonable Encumbrance system, and various new options in combat. QBX…
Your PC's relationship with the PC to your right: You're connected quite literally, by ten feet of chain, shackled to an ankle each. You're revolted by them, but somehow they're the only thing keeping your shit together. You're old friends, but always take credit for their accomplishments. You both know damning secrets about each other. Like, really bad. You stole their Wand of Self-Pleasure after…
Dinosaurs, played straight, annoy me. Something about the dissonance of them existing alongside rust monsters and bulettes. If a module calls for a dinosaur, I intend to reskin them with this. In rough order of increasing weirdness (adjust die size accordingly) 1. Too many horns 2. Big, sharp, scissor-like beak 3. Mouth too wide, splitting down the neck or torso 4. Proboscis tongue, flicks out…
Encumbrance, Dungeon Exploration Logistics, and Combat When exploring a dungeon, unless you have enough porter hirelings to carry them, you are assumed to put most of your most encumbering items (including Supply Bundles) into a pile while you explore carefully, returning to move them forward after scouting ahead. Encumbering items carried during exploration may reduce your movement rate and…