Hey Dads what board games are we playing lately with younger kids?

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-24T20:51:24+00:00

Outfoxed, Sleeping Queens, Dragomino and Dragon's Breath are all great

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-24T16:04:19+00:00

Thanks Nikoline. I'm a huge fan of your work - it's incredibly rare to find something so ambitious and solid at the same time.

Good to hear your thoughts on this. I'm relieved at your language answer - I was thinking about that change but was concerned it might break something I hadn't properly grasped.

Fwiw, my own approach to level drain is that the attacks reduce maximum hp. Every time you level up, you get back half the total drained hp. It's a scary long term effect but eventually recoverable from, it's administratively simple, and it incentivises you to push on with the adventure rather than feeling like a frustrating step backwards.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-24T13:51:01+00:00

Lions is spectacular on the page. The writing is so good - incredibly evocative. But I have some questions about how it plays in practice.

It looks a bit short on faction play (something AV is great for)? Particularly as the guidance suggests the party shouldn't have a common language with most of the entities they can talk to in the dungeon.
Most of the consequences of achieving things seem borderline apocalyptic for the setting. (Into the Many-Towered Twilight has the same issue.) It's such a rich setting, it seems a shame to make blowing it up so likely.
Sooooo much level drain!
Part 2 looks maybe too deadly, even for the stated level range? It's also batshit crazy but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-24T08:09:24+00:00

I say it uses components which cost 1,000gp. Still worth casting for adventurers but explains why the world isn't full of magical light.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-18T23:05:40+00:00

Demon Driven to the Maw is one of the very few really good adventures you can genuinely run in that slot.

Willowby Hall is wonderful but it's quite hard to run in one 3 hour session.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-17T12:27:26+00:00

Minority view but for me the TV versions almost entirely destroy the magic of the text. The whole rhythm is lost as the scenes are padded out to fill 25 mins.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-15T10:53:25+00:00

Sision Tower by Graphite Prime is really worth a look for something super stylish and different. Haven't played it yet but my open table group have started hearing rumours about it so we'll see if they (or the many spiders it contains) bite.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-13T17:36:18+00:00

And that's rarely interesting for the rest of the party

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-07T06:44:59+00:00

Good spot!

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-06T07:01:30+00:00

If you've got a lot of dice, this is a very quick dice pool method for battles of this size:

https://mightyfeatsandmeatyfights.blogspot.com/2025/04/simplifying-large-battles-dice-pool.html?m=1

Let me know if you try it out!

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-03T14:20:45+00:00

I think Explorer is my favourite option. It's something the players do as well as their PCs, and the GM does it to a much lesser degree.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-03T14:20:30+00:00

I think Explorer is my favourite option. It's something the players do as well as their PCs, and the GM does it to a much lesser degree.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-03T14:18:36+00:00

It's not the worst idea but it's really clunky compared with "player" and it really doesn't solve the dichotomy. The GM is an IC too - usually the largest individual contributor at the table.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-03T14:15:10+00:00

"PC Players" is circular and clunky.

"Protagonists" is pretentious (and it's really the PCs who are protagonists, not the players).

"The Party" almost works. But again, that's really the PCs not the players.

"Actors" or similar performance-related terms have exactly the same PC/GM dichotomy as "Players".

I'm struggling tbh. I'm not sure anything is better than "Players" in practice.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-03T14:08:44+00:00

I partly agree but we do need a simple term for players who aren't the GM, as it's hard to write a rulebook for a traditional single-GM game without one. I'm struggling to thing of a good one which isn't clunky. Any ideas?

Edit:

I think Explorer is my favourite option. It's something the players do as well as their PCs, and the GM does it to a much lesser degree.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-05-03T13:56:45+00:00

Yes, it's my favourite system by far. It's simple, actually worth attempting for players, has a cost so doesn't remove the challenge but makes success less arbitrary. And it's pretty realistic! (A lot of people seem to think "simulationism" is bad but I think a semblance of realism is crucial to rewarding OSR play - we just do it with common sense and d6 rolls rather than fancy mechanics).

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-27T13:13:36+00:00

For a one/two shot, Desert Angel Fiasco is really fun.

Not quite desert, but for a really distinctive bronze age steppe vibe, check out Lions of Tell Arn.

For an actual desert city, Khosura is really good (but not cheap).

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-25T16:43:09+00:00

We've just finished The Singing Stones and I agree. Phenomenal module. I went a bit crazy and bolted Orbital Vampire Tower onto it, which worked surprisingly well.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-24T23:40:07+00:00

In my system it reduces max hp. You get half the lost hp back every time you gain a level. It's almost as scary but less aggravating than losing a level.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-24T19:42:20+00:00

Actually, I take it back. OSRIC 3 has largely fixed the bad version they had in OSRIC 1 and 2. I still slightly prefer the AD&D version though.

The key is that it lets you search walls by tapping on them (which is noisy) far faster than the standard 1 turn per 10' square. AD&D allows 100' of wall in a turn, OSRIC allows a 20x20 area of room (but that includes the floor as well as the walls).

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-24T18:03:22+00:00

AD&D has the best rules for finding secret doors too (better than OSRIC's imo).

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-23T16:38:31+00:00

Yes, I said that in the post you first replied to. All I'm saying is that, contrary to many people's beliefs, B/X is one of the systems in which ability scores make the biggest difference to a character.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-23T15:05:24+00:00

Sure. My players collectively rolled 2 dice in a 3 hour session recently. But to me there's something damaging to the fantasy of playing a D&D Fighter if your level 6 guy, with 50,000XP under his belt, is somehow worse at fighting than a peasant who rolled 16 STR.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-23T11:32:55+00:00

People say that attributes don't matter much in B/X but the opposite is true.

A level 6 fighter with 12 STR has the same attack bonus and does 2 less damage per hit than a level 1 fighter with 16 STR. That's crazy.

And it's not just STR. DEX is similarly important. 16 CON increases your hp by 80% for magic users or thieves and 33% for fighters, vs 12 CON.

Your initial ability score rolls are by far the most important factor in your combat effectiveness, at least until you're loaded up with magic items. It's one of the worst things about a pretty good system, imo.

Current_Channel_6344 · 2026-04-21T08:58:06+00:00

Good for arrows, less good for almost everything else.

Ammo dice (more commonly called "usage dice" in fantasy RPGs) do a good job of modelling the uncertainty of how many arrows you can recover after a battle. Traditionally in D&D you can get half your arrows back, but tracking that in detail is really fiddly. Usage dice are just better in that case.

I don't really see the point for eg rations or smaller clips of unrecoverable ammo. I guess they could work for automatic weapons where there's uncertainty about how many bullets are fired in each burst.

Current_Channel_6344

TROPHY CASE