# mass combat (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 2 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover mass combat. Page: Feed: --- ## [just some album i made at home](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/08/just-some-album-i-made-at-home.html) _2026-08-13 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ in spanish :/ ## [What binds the party together?](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/08/what-binds-party-together.html) _2026-08-11 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Over time, I've realized that there is a great advantage for everybody implicated on a campaign when the PCs party belong to an established group in-game, with an implied goals and sometimes, even a roster for backup PCs. On our cyberpunk campaigns, it was the gang. Everybody starting as gang members gave you a drive and an identity instantaneously, leaving your character background story for… ## [VS THE VAMPIRE LORDS (a one page rpg)](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/08/vs-vampire-lords-one-page-rpg.html) _2026-08-08 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Something I sent to this game jam to make me write a little. The game is here . You can see many of the last year's entries condensed in that single page, Of course, it is not tested, its written in just a couple of nights as a test, but I'm actually very happy with it. Google's AI helped me with one of the last letters, can you guess which one? Answer in the comments! ## [Into the Odd + Pokemon = Into the Oddish](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/08/into-odd-pokemon-into-oddish.html) _2026-08-05 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Something I found out that somebody else is doing, The only page I have seen from the rules. I love everything about this. this third party blog is recruiting people to write the whole 151 pokemon + all the moves. I'll try to contribute if I get some time ## [Meta-Abilities](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/07/meta-abilities.html) _2026-07-28 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Which is in where the players influence the world not through the actions of their character, but by writing the narrative around it. I've been using this kind of things more and more every year, and I love how much crap they cut, how many problems they solve and how many good ideas they inject into the sessions. As for now, I have "codified" them in separate skills, which must be picked up by… ## [Dice Are Furniture](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/dice-are-furniture/) _2026-07-13 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ I often see people going on about d100 vs d20 vs 3d6, or the forever wars of THAC0 vs AAC (both are wrong, to-hit matrices are superior to either). They are all boring arguments. Here is something worth fighting about instead: your dice system only has the right to be different if it does something interesting with the fiction. Wait, it's all just statistics? That's all it ever was. In the end… ## [Evil in Worldbuilding](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/07/evil-in-worldbuilding.html) _2026-07-12 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Every day, our real world's lore becomes more and more grimdark. If you read it on any fantasy series, you'd think the plot is unbelievable and cheap. Once monarchy was succesfully removed from europe, capitalism was unhindered to reach its natural state of monopoly. The families behind this "social" movements grew rich enough to literally buy the world in a couple of centuries. Their crimes are… ## [Ogre-Engineering Mass Combat](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/ogre-engineering-mass-combat/) _2026-07-05 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ Or: how hard should a stand of ogres hit, and how much should it take to kill? In my (current) design for Mass Combat FOEGYG uses one base size. One regiment per stand, one footprint for every unit on the table. I made this choice because this allows for faster adjudication; rank-and-flank is always fiddly; too many models to scoot about, you need unit trays to keep your sanity and it just all… ## [Millstone Levelling](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/millstone-levelling/) _2026-06-05 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ I often rant about people reinventing square wheels and how it frustrates me to no end. The topic of experience and levelling is no different. Outside of OSR circles it seems like everyone has lost the plot, and instead of doing it right, they decided not to do it at all. Advice you commonly see boils down to something like "stop doing Exp; just tell them they level up when they finish a story… ## [Naruto + Pokemon](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/05/naruto-pokemon.html) _2026-05-13 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ The little black dot in the head of the frog that is in the head of the other frog, its a human. My untested greatest rpg project of all time is to replace the whole magic system of my D&D clone with something parallel to pokemons: Wizards catching and collecting monsters that cast or are the spells, but at the same time create a bond with them. But at the same time, having the fighter class a… ## [AI Summaries & Audio Briefings (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/qnopbLwaJmrI) _2026-05-13 · **Sponsored**_ Read AI summaries and listen to concise audio briefings for the latest stories. ## [Pokemon and Worldbuilding](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/05/pokemon-and-worldbuilding.html) _2026-05-11 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ I am playing Dragonsden's Pokemon: Team Rocket Edition again. Its a fan game made by a Spaniard but I think its becoming translated into english already. It might be the greatest pokemon game ever made. This is the pitch: You start the adventure as just another recruit on the Inta Island headquarters, at Archi7, with the intention of ascending little by little into the Team Rocket organization.… ## [Is the Owlbear spanish?](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/04/is-owlbear-spanish.html) _2026-04-23 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Looks like an Owlbear, but its a Bú! I like Owlbears; it's probably my most used monster straight from the book. I love that, without having powers, they are big and terrible, and make players fear camping out at night in the woods. I rule that they can be easily stunned by flashing lights, as their pupils are so used to the dark. I've heard the tale of Gary Gygax making up the monster around a… ## [Sex scenes](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/04/sex-scenes.html) _2026-04-21 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Related to this post, but not actually about that. I am working on a magic system outlined in here , which works by calling forth magical spirits instead of casting the spells, and I was thinking on the incubus-like nature of ifrits. I don't know about how often do sexual themes or scenes appear in your games. Its not something I bring to the table on purpose (or so I think), but feel that… ## [6 Attributes and what are they used for.](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/04/6-attributes-and-what-are-they-used-for.html) _2026-04-03 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ In a way that they are important for everybody regardless of their "class". They are randomly generated, and there is a random chance to improve your chosen one at level ups! 1. Strength: Improves HP; Improves damage with some weapons, defines maximum load. Can be used to test something when you want to kick a stuck door. 2. Dexterity: Check this when you want to spend your turn dodging an attack,… ## [Abstract wealth](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/03/abstract-wealth.html) _2026-03-23 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Because I've never liked beancounting on games for multiple reasons; I can't remember what I did with my last abstract wealth rules. Let's rewrite them. But first, let's break the wealth tiers, even if just for having a reference: Tier 0: You are broke. You suck dicks to survive. You must roleplay how you get your food and shelter Tier 1: You have some silver coins. You can afford basic… ## [I started an NSFW webcomic](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/03/i-started-nsfw-webcomic.html) _2026-03-22 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ And it's here: https://phylacteryquest.thecomicseries.com/ Two adventurers are sent on a quest through an average jrpg land; It's sort of related to this blog because I can't help doing tons of OSR meta-references. I'm having a lot of fun doing it. Just Tome I for now (with surprisingly no female nudity yet), I expect to do the II this month, and honestly if there is enough interest, I have an… ## [A coyote story](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-coyote-story.html) _2025-11-11 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Once upon a time, the coyote was walking through the land and he stopped to rest on a rock. He noticed the rock felt very cold, and he felt pity for that poor rock and put his blanket over the rock so it wouldn't be so cold. He resumed his travel, but when the night fell, he felt the cruel chill himself, and he decided to recover the blanket. He went back to the rock and took it, but as he left,… ## [World of Dungeons: Pokemon Spirit Combat](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/11/world-of-dungeons-pokemon-spirit-combat.html) _2025-11-10 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ In World of Dungeons, magic is done primarily by summoning spirits. Yet these are the only rules present for it. Wondering how I could expand it, and mostly, wanting to define some example spirits for a list, I ended up wanting to turn magic into Pokemon-style combat. As such, spirits should have a list of 1 to 5 abilities that provide either firepower (against other spirits or the wizard's… ## [1979: WORLD OF DUNGEONS, REVISITED](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/11/1979-world-of-dungeons-revisited.html) _2025-11-03 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ If you don't know about this game, go download it right now . It has got a lot to love, it's free, and its 4 pages + the Character Sheet. I loved this game and played with its rules at the time (as with everything, never ran it without changing most of it). I went back to check it out after all this years, and I saw so many things so clear that I had to write them all in here. I will from now on… ## [Guns in fantasy](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/10/guns-in-fantasy.html) _2025-10-30 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ I've decided to make a long article about matchlocks and cannons because it can be fun. I've invested a lot of thought on this already, why not share it altogether? Why early firearms are normally not a thing on a medieval fantasy world and what happens when they do? What are the implications on a given setting? 1. Though arquebuses redefined warfare in the great scale, combats at street level or… ## [AI publishing with human taste (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/jU60TxeE4m9A) _2025-10-30 · **Sponsored**_ Convert AI research into blogs, podcasts, and newsletters with optional human review. ## [Spell Hunters. This entry overrides all previous entries on magic in this blog.](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/10/spell-hunters-this-entry-overrides-all.html) _2025-10-29 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ www.sembrys.com/pixel-art More recent notes on my current rules. For context, attributes are this, with -1 to +3 modifiers applying to things: Strenght Dexterity Skill #1 Skill #2 Magic Charisma Let's focus on magic. Each attribute bonus gives you 1 Mana Die, plus one if you get the Wizard class. So, a Wizard with a +3 magic attribute has 4 Mana Dice. The second mana die is only active (but not… ## [Planets 3: Duel Culture](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/10/planets-3-duel-culture.html) _2025-10-24 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Note: this is part of a series , worldbuilding some shit apart from the usual D&Dlike stuff. --------------------------------------- Forgotten from each other, separated in distance and time, every planet naturally develops dialects and customs, and uphelds their own traditions. But if there was one thing that could be considered a constant throughout all the disk, enough to form the backbone of a… ## [Ultimate Game Balance: fighting man VS specialist](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/10/ultimate-game-balance-fighting-man-vs.html) _2025-10-22 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ source: something called "tale of the silly bard " Rivers of ink had been spilled over the eternal balancing of Magic Users and Fighting man on different games. For some reason, they never tap into the real problem: balancing them towards the Specialist. Not the thief; who is normally a DEX fighting man: I talk about the common folk who maximizes non-combat skills or it's equivalent. I am… ## [Fall 2025; New Project, weapons and armor (EDITED)](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/10/fall-2025-new-project-weapons-and-armor.html) _2025-10-20 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Most recent notes on my current rules. Attributes are this, with -1 to +3 modifiers applying to things: Strength (bonus to damage, carry load, bonus to HP) Dexterity (success: avoid an attack, as an action. On a 6, you can then do a non-combat action) Magic (amount of mana dice mostly) Charisma (willpower + leadership + divine touch) Weapon (choose bonus to sword, bow or unarmed. A malus means bad… ## [Make Fantastic Races Fantastic Again](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/make-fantastic-races-fantastic-again/) _2025-09-20 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ Ah, fantasy roleplaying games, where we've made the fantastical mundane. Where the Dwarves don't feel like Dwarves, the Elves don't act like Elves, and where the half-Devil offspring of Satan act just like everyone else (ok, maybe that's actually rather realistic). This has been a long-building frustration from my own games. Any time someone ran a non-human character, I just... Forgot about them… ## [Getting Back Into the Fight: Combat Design for FOEGYG](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/getting-back-into-the-fight-combat-design-for-foegyg/) _2025-09-14 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ I've been trying to get my own shitbrew heartbreaker out there for a while. I've had the idea for at least three or four years, an idea of something the size of ODnD which spans all modes of play, hits every high note the fiction we so much enjoy does, in roughly the page count of the four little brown books. I gave the project the working title FOEGYG. That page count constraint isn't just… ## [Eleven Samurai](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/08/eleven-samurai.html) _2025-08-26 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ I just finished this movie a while ago. Very good stuff, the kind that gets me on the GMing mood. Some usable ideas: 1. The whole movie is a very interesting plot hook: The spoiled brother of a Shogun kills a random peasant; the local lord recriminates this behavior and the Shogun's brother kills him too. The lord's clan wants revenge, but the Shogunate wants to incriminate (and expoil) the clan… ## [Blades in the Dark is Bad at Running Heists](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/blades-in-the-dark-is-bad-at-running-heists/) _2025-08-25 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ My friend ran Scum and Villainy for some friends and I for about six months now, and I haven't been enjoying myself as much as I thought I would've when he posted the blurb. Running heists in a fantasy setting sounds like something I should've loved. Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Star Wars and the good bits of the Expanse. Imagine my surprise when I really wasn't enjoying myself all that much. This is… ## [Vampires and Crosses](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/08/vampires-and-crosses.html) _2025-08-23 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Dracula has been my summer book. I had read it long ago, in my goth days; but only now have I "lived" it. Back then, I was probably dissapointed because "the movie was better" and because there was no Lestat on it. Warning: I'm not sure if this post is about rpgs at all. But now, let's admire the fact that all the old D&D books put a crucifix or two on their equipment lists. I had a player ask me… ## [Ryuutama's Weapon Types](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/08/ryuutamas-weapon-types.html) _2025-08-23 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ If you haven't read about it, Ryuutama is a pastoral japanese RPG about travelling and living small adventures under the protection of some dragons called Ryuujins. While I love the concept, the system seems a little clunky to me by reading alone. Still, I love how it condenses the whole of the possible weapons into six categories: It made me reflect on how our classic visions, inherited from D&D,… ## [Save with community-voted codes (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/01zTbxgaZvqu) _2025-08-23 · **Sponsored**_ Search thousands of community-verified coupon codes — 100% free, no account needed. ## [I'll Always Play That Way](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/ill-always-play-that-way/) _2025-08-20 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ I recently had an online scuffle with a few people regarding domain play and wargames, and its role in DnD. They argued that it was good it was taken out, and that doing so made the game better. I, unsurprisingly, strongly disagree. I want the complete progression from dungeon delving to hex crawling to domain play. This isn't some misguided sense of nostalgia; it's the complete D&D experience as… ## [Fantasy Dog Breeds](https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2025/08/fantasy-dog-breeds.html) _2025-08-19 · Jack Tremain · Alchemist Nocturne_ Dog chad Last year I went into the rabbit hole of reading about the history of hunting and dog breeding (fascinating topics, alongside a personal favorite being the domestication and integration of the horse in human life) TLDR: 1. Medieval dogs breeds were radically different from today's and 2. There is no reason to think that in a made up world with monsters and magic there would be the exact… ## [And every other way is wrong](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/and-every-other-way-is-wrong/) _2025-06-19 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ In a recent twitter thread I was ranting about a 5e Curse of Strahd game I was briefly part of. I'd noticed my fellow party members being entirely happy about following the laid out raidroad even if it made no sense for their characters to do so. The gypsies had kidnapped us to the lands of Barovia, where we were told "yeah you can't leave until Strahd is defeated. You weren't the first ones we… ## [We never played that way](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/we-never-played-that-way/) _2024-11-29 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ Or: revising the revisionist argument We played ADnD for a long time and have never used the training rules No one ever played ODnD with Chainmail, so I don't get why you're trying to. It's some weird sort of revisionist massochism. I have been playing for 45 years and we never did that Congratulations. So what? One of the most tiresome arguments I see is some variation of the above. Details… ## [Soloing Arden Vul- Double Delve Whammy](https://borderbaronies.bearblog.dev/soloing-arden-vul-double-delve-whammy/) _2024-11-16 · borderbaronies · Tales from the Border Baronies_ The Third Misadventure Played: \<2024-11-16 Sat\> Dramatis personae Abraham, Cleric 1 Boris, MU 1 Clint, MU 1 Edgar, FM 1 Ferdinand, MU 1 Graham, FM 1 Huey, FM 1 The Plan Last time, they found a secret door in the ruined basement (AV-18). They intend to go and check that out. Everyone's feeling good again, so they're going in fresh. The Action \<2024-11-16 Sat 08:00-09:00\> The party quickly scrambles…