RPGaDAY 2020 Day 11: Stack

      

 

My Campaigns always begin with a sheet of paper detailing the names and important facts of the Player's Characters, the name of Prominent NPCs, and broad stokes about where they are and where they are going. I generally outline the direction I'd like to go with the story while also knowing that I'm going to prioritize a PC's goals over my story.

This means that as the Campaign grows I add more pages to the Stack with notes, more NPCs, maps, and magic items.

I've run two DnD Campaigns to Level 20 and my Stack of notes ended up being 30 to 50 pages. I'd like to tell you they were all neatly fit into a binder or all in a notebook of some kind, but generally they are simply blank printer paper that gets filled on both sides with bullet points I think are important.

It's an imperfect system, but it works for me.

Monstrous Monday: Blind Warrior-Women of Altara for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Blind Warrior-Women of Altara for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Init +6; Atk martial arts +10 melee (1d10+5) or wrister blaster +8 missle fire (1d6) or heavy blaster pistol +7 (3d6); AC 18; HD 8d10; MV 40’; Act 2d20 + 1d16; SP Detect Ambush 65% SV Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +0; 

AL L.

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#RPGaDAY 2020 Day 10: Want

     

 

Want. I've always liked stuff and I've always been able to get that stuff.

I've been a big fan of Robert Schwalb since Witchunter: the Invisible World and he has designed and published my favorite RPG, Shadow of the Demon Lord.

He is working on a variation of the engine that is less dark fantasy and more Gygax, Vance, and Lieber called Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Hopefully, he'll be able to Kickstart it this coming December for release in 2021. What's cool about Rob is that he always comes in on time or even early with his Kickstarters and they are always a good deal based on the adventures and sourcebooks he releases for his games.

Legend of Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe RPG

Power-Con, the convention of all things Masters of the Universe was held virtually this past weekend and Legend of the Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe RPG was announced for 2021. It is being published by Fandom, who own DnD Beyond and will use the Cortex Prime rules.

I'm a huge Masters of the Universe fan and have showcased it quite a bit here on the blog. My main experience with Cortex was the Marvel Heroic RPG and I wasn't too keen on how it played, but I'll give it a try. It appears that there will be an open playtest, organized play, virtual table-top and character generator, and a community content program.

I'm really happy to see how that this is a thing and I feel that Mattel has people running the property who cares about the fans.

#RPGaDAY Day 9: Light

    

 

I'd like to use this post to remind people of Swords and Wizardry Light from Frog God Games by Tenkar and Matt Finch. 

All the game you need in four pages. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 8: Shade

   

 

Shade for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Init +3; Atk sword +6 melee (1d10); AC 12; HD 6d6; MV 30’; 

Act 1d20; SP infravision, invisibility 1/day, regeneration, shadow essence; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +4; AL C.

   Shades have infravision out to 90 feet and they are humanoids who have given themselves over to the Shadowfell itself and are no longer truly human. They bump all of their dice by one step when in dim light and by two steps in darkness, e.g. In darkness, a Shade uses a d30 for their action die. A Shade regenerates 1 hit point per round however, decapitation will kill them.

   "Shades were humanoids who had merged with the essence of shadowstuff. They grew more powerful in areas of darkness or shadows, including gaining the ability to leap from shadow to shadow, to create shadowy duplicates of themselves, and even to become entirely invisible. They could also decrease the amount of light in an area and could see through darkness, even of the magical variety."

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RPGaDAY 2020 Day 7: Couple

  

 

Couple made me think for a bit. I thought about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I thought about Conan and Kull. And then I thought about Advantage and Disadvantage which was perfected in DnD 5th Edition.

I say perfected because 4E had Talents that let you roll a second d20 if you didn't like the first result but didn't call the mechanic Advantage and it empowered the DM to use the Disadvantage mechanic.

I think its a brilliant mechanic. No need to consult a book, no need to calculate a bonus or penalty, either a mechanic grants it or the DM adds it. It's beautiful. It is perfect, in my opinion.

It's the kind of rule that I think is just as useful in the OSR and I think it is in 5E and can easily be ported over to any other game engine.

I applaud the 5E designers for codifying it and giving it to us as a tool.

Bravo.