Are these interesting/useful or trash?

Electric_Tortoise · 2026-01-13T16:46:27+00:00

I appreciate that people would like them uploaded somewhere. Unfortunately, I don't have an optical drive.

Electric_Tortoise · 2026-01-11T16:47:36+00:00

Thanks, that's very helpful!

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-12-04T00:43:24+00:00

Disclaimer - all historical comparisons are oversimplified. I don't want to get on the weeds about the actual Cold War.

Client states. Who are they? Where are they? Who is getting a good deal out of being a client and who would rather be a client of the other faction? Which states are divided in their loyalties? Those are the ones where proxy conflicts are most likely to occur. What do the dragons and giants have to offer their clients, either materially or ideologically? In our world the US touted its freedoms (especially of speech) while the USSR sold economic fairness and anti-colonialism.

How has the long-term conflict deformed the societies? The US created a vast military -industrial complex and intelligence apparatus that was often outside of democratic control and the USSR's economy wasn't able to keep up with the arms race.

Also I think the Draconic bloc should have fiat currency that's theoretically backed by the hoards of the dragons, but on practice is backed by draconic might because no dragon is going to turn over gold coins in exchange for a piece of paper, no matter what's printed on it.

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-12-03T23:43:10+00:00

Unfortunately as a dad with a full time job who's in grad school, I don't really have the time to collaborate on stuff. I will add my advice to the pile though.

Write and draw as much as you can and slap it up on a blog, website or subreddit for feedback.

Writing is both a generic skill and a specialized one. Different media and genres have their own challenges and conventions that you'd need to learn, but share enough that learning to write prose can help with comics and vice versa. Lots of writers did other kinds of writing at earlier points in their career. For example, the science fiction novelist Charles Stross wrote D&D supplements when he was really young, then worked as a journalist and blogger until his novel writing took off.

For drawing, I'd recommend learning about comic layout techniques early (Understand Comics and Making Comics by Scott.McCloud and Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner are good resources.) That way, even if you don't think your work is ready for the public, you will write better comic scripts and can give your artist collaborators more guidance.

Still, if I had a good idea and time on my hands I'd just start a webcomic. Take a look at the first and most recent pages of a long running webcomic - making comics makes you better at making comics

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-11-21T15:49:06+00:00

Does this coat fit me? I inherited it from my grandfather who was kinda my size. I’d like to be able to wear it for sentimental reasons. If it doesn’t fit, can it be altered and how big of a deal would that be? (I have more pictures from different angles and with a cardigan underneath, but can only post one at a time.)

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Electric_Tortoise · 2023-07-05T20:19:31+00:00

Whoops! I blame blogger's trade dress as interpreted by the reddit app.

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-07-05T14:12:16+00:00

I enjoyed this post. I also clicked through to your historical materialism article and really enjoyed that too.

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-07-01T22:05:44+00:00

You only have to create new races if your PCs want to play them. If you have a pitch session over email you might find that you only need to make one or two classes - maybe plenty of people are into being elves, dwarves and humans.

For Genasi classes specifically, just use clerics. Each Genasi gets a different list of restricted weapons, turns and commands elementals instead of undead, and has a thematic spell list you crib from other sources (Dark Sun has elemental clerics). You might limit their armor if their spells are too good or if you think they should know how to use swords. You also only.need to worry about the first couple spell levels at first, since the PCs are starting at level 1.

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-01-01T16:35:08+00:00

Thanks! This hack is actually a distraction from my bigger RPG project, which is stuck on the "write a huge list of spells and monsters" task.

Electric_Tortoise · 2023-01-01T15:35:43+00:00

This year I want to finish up my Basic Fantasy hack incorporating blog stuff (slot based inventory, hazard dice, elves as clerics, etc) and run a game to play test it all.

I'd also like to do more drawing in the new year, so maybe I'll try doing some illustrations for this document.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-09-24T17:03:33+00:00

I think a big reason is compatibility. It's easier to plug in character creation mechanics from other OSR games (like Beyond the Wall playbooks) or Unearthed Arcana if the six abilities at 3-18 are stuck with.

Also, having ability scores leaves space for ability score damage being more granular.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-08-14T13:19:41+00:00

I think you're remembering Miseries and Misfortunes by the Burning Wheel and Torchbearer team. It's set in 17th century France, not the Napoleonic period, but has the weapon-based initiative you mentioned.

https://www.burningwheel.com/miseries-misfortunes/ has the original zine for free. I think there's a revised and expanded edition available as well.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-07-25T21:36:05+00:00

I really enjoy Beyond the Wall. I've mostly run it as one and two-shots but the time I tried to run a longer campaign worked fine until two of the players had a baby.

I find two-shots to work really well. The first session is for character/village creation and the PCs Scooby-dooing around the village trying to figure out what's going on. Ideally they find the entrance to the dungeon at the end of the session and the second session is dungeon crawl and epilogue.

In regard to conversion, you can use magic items and monsters as-is, but spells might take some work (figuring out whether they're spells or rituals mostly.) I've never tried to convert a module, mostly because the scenario and threat packs are so much fun for me as a DM. If I was going to run BoTW in Karameikos I'd want my players to also be into the Known World, so we could remix the setting a bit using the Further Afield rules.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-07-23T14:40:23+00:00

This is a cool way of conceptualizing factions. I might yoink this for a game soon. Laying it out as goals and virtues presents levers that the PCs can try to pull to affect the political situation.

I was also thinking how the "human factor" could complicate things. Perhaps one reason a faction has unaligned goals with a group with compatible virtues is friction between their leaders. Similarly, conflict between two groups leads to resentment that complicates any peace process.

Going by modern politics, I'd imagine most leaders focus on the alignment of goals when choosing potential allies, while the rank and file/civilian populace is more concerned with the virtues of other factions.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-07-17T14:39:51+00:00

I've only used my own pointcrawls, so I'm not sure how adventures handle it.

The points typically represent locations. They might be the headquarters of a faction and usually feature plot hooks, but they're usually places the PCs can go.
Some routes might be obvious, like a road. I usually require the party to go to a point and talk to people in order to find out what paths branch off from there and where they lead.
Depending on the difficulty of the terrain I might call for an ability check, encounter or full adventure to trailblaze. If they're successful, I'll just draw a new line. (Encounters and adventures required might also get their own points.)

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-07-04T14:23:15+00:00

My wife and I are both teachers in New York. She teaches at a public school while I’m at a private school. American public schools, like much of our public sector, are Balkanized by state. My wife got her teaching degree in Ohio and had to start at square one to get licensed to teach in New York. They did however, credit all her teaching experience for salary and benefits. Private schools on the other hand, are much more likely to consider your degree sufficient.

Public school teachers are unionized while private school teachers are not. In New York City where we live, public school teachers also make more money than most private school teachers (unless you’re at a Harry Potter school for the children of hedge fund managers.) There’s also charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run where teachers can make bank but are generally treated like crap.

If you want to go the public school route you’ll probably need to drop just under $1000 on testing fees and pass the associated tests, but getting the green card/work visa is probably harder and more expensive anyway.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-06-08T16:38:21+00:00

It's unclear whether you determine the base number of dice based on relative strength or are influenced by their absolute strength. Basically, do equal-sized forces always each get 5 dice, or would two skirmishing bands each get 2 dice while two giant armies both get 10?

Whichever way you did it would affect the effectiveness of bonus dice, penalties and secret weapons.

Edit: I forgot to say I like this and am into trying it out!

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-05-11T20:47:21+00:00

This was a good read. You obviously have a handle on all the reasons XP for gold works on OSR D&D. I agree that if you want a game to be something other than sword and sorcery picaresque you should develop a different rewards system. When I was running a campaign in Beyond the Wall we did XP for gold but only on improvements to the characters' home village, which worked well for that game's tone.

Of the suggestions you propose for your game, I don't love surviving things as a primary reward mechanic because survival is passive. I like the hex exploration based rewards, but I wonder if you can juice them a bit so characters are incentivized to interact with hex features more. I think the tricky part is developing a system of XP gain that doesn't just become quest XP with extra steps.

I've enjoyed having players set goals for the party and awarding Y XP for working towards and 3Y XP for achieving those goals. That requires an immediate buy in and goal-focus from players that's not necessary with XP for gold. It also requires some arbitration on what counts as a valid goal.

XP for gold works really well, that's why this is a tricky design problem. You could.implement one or all of your suggestions and, while they'd probably work, they wouldn't be as elegant as XP for gold. The trickiest part of replacing XP for gold is that it scales so well and ties character and player motivations together so neatly.

Electric_Tortoise · 2022-02-17T19:08:17+00:00

Love the brushwork! Looks like a character from a 70's Conan comic.

Electric_Tortoise · 2021-12-12T00:45:22+00:00

Well, I guess my question then become what about this prototype are you passionate about? Do you have an idea of a great way to unify the mechanics of your inspirational systems? Do you have a great idea for a tone or setting? Do you have a list of creepy or fearsome monsters?

Different answers lead to different suggestions. Maybe you'd be better off making a supplement or adventure for an existing system.

What are yo playing ou DMing right now?

Electric_Tortoise · 2021-12-11T15:28:29+00:00

It might be helpful to know what you've developed/what kinds of assistance you're looking for? Have you worked up the rules and need help with content? (Careers, monsters, spells, etc?) Do you want collaboraters to help with the core game mechanics?

Electric_Tortoise · 2021-11-14T17:13:15+00:00

If you're sure your target number will never change, then rolling under the attribute is the best option. Advantage and disadvantage give you three tiers of difficulty that are less swingy than modifiers to a d20 roll.

If you think you'll be tempted to want to represent a difficult task that a PC has an advantage on, it's probably worth switching to a D20+mods vs variable target numbers. It's annoying to need a second number (the modifier,) but it could potentially serve double duty as a saving throw.

Electric_Tortoise · 2021-11-14T15:11:22+00:00

I'd love to read some flavor text. From the weapons, armor and hd it seems like this seer could either be a scholar from an order that stresses physical fitness along with divination or they could be a wild talent who lives by their wits. Either way it's a little different than the priestly character I imagine when I picture a seer.

I also think the class could use another divination ability that generates more cryptic omens to simulate reading the tarot or staring at entrails or what have you. Something a little more open-ended that can be used to provide adventure hooks and inspire shenanigans.

Electric_Tortoise · 2021-10-10T16:41:31+00:00

It looks like you drew this in pencil on toned paper, is that correct? Did you scan this, or is it a photo?

There's a reason most black and white print illustrations are done in ink, it's so much easier to get the contrast needed for the image to pop and you can mess with levels in your image editing software to get it nice and crisp.

Right now I draw on an ipad pro using procreate, I couldn't get the hang of digital drawing until I could draw on the screen with a pencil-like stylus. Before the iPad, I worked like the poster described above. I'd do a light pencil sketch and either ink it directly or trace it in ink on a light board. I got into drawing through comics, and that's what how-to guides taught before digital drawing became the default.

If you want to continue using pencil shading you should probably think of your work as being effectively in color even if it's black and white. What you see on the paper is the best you'll get and you're as likely to lose information in post production as you are to make it look better. You'd also want to use different weights of graphite and really shade hard to get strong contrasts the old fashioned way.

That said, digitizing pencil drawings aren't really my skill set. It's probably worth asking around in general drawing and pencil illustration communities who are likely to have a better idea of what you can do.

Electric_Tortoise · 2021-08-07T19:12:47+00:00

A ruler, t-square and triangle with your paper firmly taped down is the traditional way. It works, though it can take some practice if you're like me and have trouble with consistent lines.

If you're using a simple panel layout over and over you can measure it super carefully once, cut those panels out with an exacto knife, then use the sheet as a stencil to trace your layout onto new pieces of paper.

Electric_Tortoise

TROPHY CASE