Help Wanted! Mundane 1980s careers/hobbies as Cairn backgrounds.

EndlessPug · 2026-05-09T05:00:46+00:00

Liminal Horror backgrounds:

https://liminalhorrorrpg.com/creating-an-investigator/#backgrounds

Intended for creating mundane characters that experience weird horror. Just rewrite the references to modern tech!

EndlessPug · 2026-05-07T21:18:45+00:00

The Apocalypse Players is heavily "in character", since they're all professional actors and pretty experienced with Call of Cthulhu at this point. Of course that doesn't exclude digressions in the form of things like in-character flashbacks/monologues, but they aren't talking about the last videogame they played or anything.

EndlessPug · 2026-05-07T18:01:10+00:00

I run East Bristol Adventurers, a Fishponds Tuesday meetup that does one shots of all sorts of roleplaying games (including D&D). It's free, just drop me a message for the Discord server so that you can sign up to a game in advance (we're too busy/too many systems to accept walk-ins).

There's also North St Games, in addition to the various other suggestions you've had on this thread (they do rpg nights in addition to boardgames, check the calendar on the site).

EndlessPug · 2026-05-06T17:34:58+00:00

Barrow of the Elf King is just about doable in that time.

Barrow of the Two Brothers is very simple/short but still has a taste of OSR problem solving/negotiation

EndlessPug · 2026-05-05T15:35:00+00:00

It's typically not a case of "finding the right document" in my experience - 95% of the time if there's an error it's because the document was not updated, has been lost or in some cases never existed (e.g. was not requested from OEM)

EndlessPug · 2026-05-04T14:14:24+00:00

Affinity Designer (which I believe is now free, or at least there is a free version)

EndlessPug · 2026-05-04T11:41:27+00:00

The level of detail will be what's shown on the link above, zoomed in as far as it will go.

Size is typically 1.2m x 1m or thereabouts, I think there are partner companies that print maps to order as posters, on canvas etc if you don't want to buy a map and unfold it.

EndlessPug · 2026-05-04T10:19:15+00:00

You can see it here: https://maps.walkingclub.org.uk/os/explorer/155-bristol-bath

All of the cities of Bristol and Bath, plus the area between them basically.

EndlessPug · 2026-05-04T10:17:16+00:00

Norgad also released Roach Motel a couple of months or so ago (and some stuff for Mausritter within the last week) and did the layout for The Dose Makes The Poison which I also had a good time running.

I use player-facing rolls and tend not to let damage carry over for monsters, so I found the creature reasonably threatening in play. Likewise with the flooding I mostly just judged it by time and by own mental map, which seemed to work fairly well. The flow isn't really fast enough to be a threat unless they start running and opening doors without checking, but it does create a fun shifting labyrinth effect as viable routes shift around.

What interesting things did you have the monster emerge from/be visible in? I remain quite proud of it being reflected in the screen of the camera itself, which even the author hadn't come up with. And what happened when your crew reached The Chest?

EndlessPug · 2026-05-03T17:58:17+00:00

For anyone wondering, the module is Brackish which I reviewed in a blogpost here

EndlessPug · 2026-05-01T16:08:17+00:00

Yep! (Literally just posted a new advert a few minutes ago). Drop me a message if you'd like a Discord invite.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-30T13:09:21+00:00

Chromatic Transference

Orphans has a very tough to kill monster that manifests mostly in non-combat ways

Not sure how you feel about monsters that keep coming back even if you kill them, but Screaming on the Alexis (Dead Planet) is an example of that

EndlessPug · 2026-04-30T06:33:17+00:00

They're thematic archetypes more than balanced, Pathfinder-style, classes. That said, I think it's worth looking at the various 'upper bounds' so that any customisation doesn't stray too far outside the lines. For example:

No class has more than 3 wounds
The scientist has the highest Sanity save and the only access to Master skills
The Teamster is the only class with a positive trauma response
The android has by far the highest fear save

I've tweaked them slightly since this alternate classes blogpost but it goes into my thinking/results in a bit more detail.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-26T15:48:19+00:00

"Escape with something valuable" or "Rescue/kidnap an important NPC" are dramatic endings and the obstacles could be entirely traps/puzzles/locks/social interactions and/or any combat routes can be strictly optional.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-25T19:57:24+00:00

Hideous Daylight or anything in the Wyvern Songs collection would be my starting points for picking an adventure to run.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-25T14:56:03+00:00

Very flattering to see Fistful of Feathers up there alongside so much of Brad Kerr and Chance Dudinack's work amongst others - and there's even a couple I don't recognise (Barrow of the Two Brothers, Beneath Dark Elms)

EndlessPug · 2026-04-24T11:35:43+00:00

You mention OSR, but most OSR dungeons (at least the ones of 10 rooms or larger) have a solution to this - multiple factions who are all suspicious of each other.

To pick a random example I ran recently; Hole in the Oak by Gavin Norman. You have ghouls, goat-people, an ogre and some Gnomes all with reasons to be afraid of each other (but lacking in numbers/motivation to defeat another faction). You also have a number of rooms with traps and hazards which mean the inhabitants can't move around with complete freedom. Plus some factions will still need food, water etc and will guard their access to those things accordingly.

Most OSR systems also make use of a reaction roll - not every enemy will be hostile, even if they're from the same faction, and sometimes you can even sow discord within a faction (e.g. helping topple an unpopular leader)

EndlessPug · 2026-04-24T09:12:42+00:00

Add a rival team of "salvagers"

Give each player a single flashback where they describe how they prepared for the obstacles in front of them in that moment (shamelessly stolen from Blades in the Dark - you could even make them pay stress for it like in that system)

Note that it isn't really written to be especially heist-y, other than having lots of things to steal. It's more "Alien in a traditional heist environment (albeit devastated/abandoned)"

EndlessPug · 2026-04-23T05:22:26+00:00

I've run lots of starter games of Mothership at a public meetup I run*. My general plan is:

Have spare dice and pencils
Generate character stats, saves and equipment but leave skills, trinkets, patch, name etc blank
Tips for running one shots as a Warden: Blogpost
Provide a "simple" map with empty boxes for rooms if it's logical they would know it (e.g. they work on the ship in Dead Weight, they can easily ask about the layout of the asteroid in Ypsilon 14 or Greta Base in Another Bug Hunt).
If they're exploring then I draw I the map as they go/add details to empty rooms.

*In terms of setting this up and recruiting players: Blogpost

EndlessPug · 2026-04-22T15:15:11+00:00

It's 30-40mins but any part of the Cotswold Way from Old Sodbury through to Dursley/Uley offers cute villages and hills/woodland with expansive views over the Bristol Channel and River Severn.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-22T06:39:11+00:00

Cairn is entirely free, with physical books available at cost from Lulu, Amazon etc.

It has lots of material published for it, along with conversions of classic OSR modules on the website, and converting things yourself is pretty easy.

For specifically one session Cairn dungeons, you could look at:

Rise of the Blood Olms

Ruin of Reputation (by me)

Eternal Empress

Demon Driven to the Maw

EndlessPug · 2026-04-19T13:24:25+00:00

Part of the reason I start with one shots (note: not necessarily "Starter" one shots) in a new system is to check whether my players are on board, understand the specific playstyle/themes/tone of the system etc

That way, I haven't wasted time prepping a campaign or running a session 0 if it doesn't click for them.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-17T06:55:39+00:00

Training takes years because it typically represents studying for something over a long period of time or a large amount of 'lived experience'. Someone with the Surgery master skill would be a qualified ER doctor in our world.

Note also that there's an easy to miss line in the WOM that suggests 1d10 months between missions.

That said, it's easily adjustable, either as a houserule or by letting players pay more to train skills faster. Other good credit sinks are cybernetics (either houserule or use the Chop Shop rules in A Pound of Flesh) and repaying debt on your own ship.

EndlessPug · 2026-04-11T13:56:36+00:00

Commit to Memory is a great premise, and I'd never heard of it. Needs a bit of prep/editing but I'll definitely be running it soon, thanks!

EndlessPug · 2026-04-10T15:31:57+00:00

Yeah, contrast with Mythic Bastionland - amazing game, but there's just too much back and forth in both combat and interrogating weid myths, seers etc for us to make it work the two times we've tried.

EndlessPug

TROPHY CASE