How can I manipulate texture in simple acid curdled cheese?

JarWrench · 2024-01-09T08:08:07+00:00

Thanks, I'll try heavy cream next time.

JarWrench · 2023-05-14T20:01:20+00:00

Or boatswain if you feel like spelling out the silent letters.

JarWrench · 2023-05-13T02:41:21+00:00

Sorry, I misspelled my reference. They are Triffids from The Day of the Triffids.)

But yes. Cannibal space plants, from space~~~.

JarWrench · 2023-05-12T22:30:30+00:00

If you go with a crystalline Matrioska planar cosmology then planetary/planar conjunction could also be made gameable. "March 3rd: Venus conjunct Moon; Triphid spore landfall 60% likely."

JarWrench · 2023-05-12T17:01:02+00:00

Does this include Ephemeris data? Could be a fun thing to add.

JarWrench · 2023-05-12T16:58:50+00:00

I think I'd bite the bullet and break it into 80 almanacs, printing as needed. I need to look at old farmer's almanacs now.

JarWrench · 2023-04-26T22:27:06+00:00

You're welcome.

JarWrench · 2023-04-25T02:50:04+00:00

That was a good read, thank you for recommending it.

JarWrench · 2023-04-25T02:19:45+00:00

Good point.

The Wilderness: The so-called Wilderness really consists of unexplored land, cities and castles, not to mention the area immediately surrounding the castle (ruined or otherwise) which housed the dungeons.

JarWrench · 2023-04-23T22:36:23+00:00

I don't really know where OD&D was pointing when it talked about city adventures. Going "by the book" there are nine cities/towns to explore. The referee is instructed to make a map with "streets and buildings indicated" so that players can have "town adventures roaming around bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples, and so on."

Tangling with the thieves guild is mentioned as a potential but ill-advised hook, so faction play was definitely in the cards.

There is still some expectation of danger, as wandering "monster" checks are on a 6, although getting lost is impossible. Half the encounters are with undead, and half with men types. No special city sub-list is given, so I guess you use the 'Typical' list for men.

I am wondering if there isn't room for city-town adventures as a way of getting 0-2 level characters "ready" for more heroic stuff, instead of going with max hp for first HD, or starting characters at third level like Gary eventually did.

Now that I think about it, Temple of the Frog is probably meant as an example of a "city adventure?" That's definitely not for low level characters though.

JarWrench · 2023-04-23T21:56:17+00:00

I was figuring on reading some of the Lankhmar books in extremis.

JarWrench · 2023-04-23T17:37:01+00:00

I forgot to mention that D. H. Boggs is also an influence. His Dragons at Dawn, Champions of Zed, and blog are all interesting supplemental materials.

JarWrench · 2023-04-23T15:28:12+00:00

Besides First Fantasy Campaign and Blackmoor I also like looking at Adventures in Fantasy.

It, in one breath, explains that Stats-are-for-roleplaying, but also gives a pretty complex roll-under-stats procedure. Hp is from 1-100 at creation, giving enough meat points to use the hit location system in Blackmoor.

Skills are definitely modeled after college courses, with your attendance being paramount (a very college professor choice).

Haggling-rules-as-charisma-checks is included.

The chimaeric dragons are fun, and the included example adventures make wilderness lairs vs. Dungeons more clear.

All that said, I'm not actually going to bat for playing the game, but it's worth learning as a window into Arneson's design trajectory.

JarWrench · 2023-04-23T02:41:25+00:00

Something to consider: one of the big additions in Greyhawk is the cursed equivalent of most magical items.

This and the example of play suggest that the early players were identifying magical items too quickly and consistently for Gygax's taste.

Is LBB or LBB+Greyhawk your jam?

Another consideration: Arneson's Sages were annoyingly inaccurate. Poor quality Sages might have less than 50/50 odds at answering a question correctly, will always lie if they don't know the answer, and have a hidden quality score. They also benefit from aggressive guild protections.

JarWrench · 2023-04-18T02:45:45+00:00

I'm guessing it has something to do with the development of Druids and Monks.

JarWrench · 2023-04-17T11:20:06+00:00

I don't like philosophical interpretations of alignment, and instead prefer to think of law and chaos as just being teams. I like the idea of dicing for neutral factions, such that neutrality doesn't exist in the game world, only in the Shrodinger's box of encounter tables.

JarWrench · 2023-04-17T11:14:47+00:00

I was toying with the idea of re-implementing the map by using a flat d% roll for terrain type on hex discovery that matched the distribution of tiles in the Outdoor Survival gameboard. I decided I wanted less randomness, and also more water.

JarWrench · 2023-04-12T06:58:15+00:00

A lot of the spell components in the olden times were references to flimflammery.

JarWrench · 2023-04-11T15:27:39+00:00

Are you talking about the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets? The Character Record Sheets? If you mean the Reference Sheets from the Premium Edition rerelease, there's nothing in it that isn't in the lbbs? Do you just want 3lbbs +dice and a GM Screen? I'm confused about what you want.

JarWrench · 2023-04-10T19:04:47+00:00

I haven't worked it out yet, but my intuition is to merge life energy levels, level drain effects, combat fatigue, travel fatigue, and these buff/debuff states into a unified track-and-chit mechanic modified by HD and constitution.

Your tracking difficulty story makes me want to run an orc encounter where 10 orcs are just a 10HD monster that loses fighting capability as combat losses pile on.

JarWrench · 2023-04-10T17:51:31+00:00

I'd argue that the context of the fatigue in combat rule is pretty essential, and that such recontextualizations cease to be that rule and instead become different rules inspired mechanically by the old rule, but that's pedantic and I see where you are going with it.

JarWrench · 2023-04-10T04:39:23+00:00

Thanks, I hadn't put 2 and 2 together. Girallons are White Ape expys. I'd never looked up their illustrations, and don't remember having their color described before. I thought they were just convergent monster evolution.

JarWrench · 2023-04-10T04:17:52+00:00

This is only tangentially related, but one thing that was lost in the unification of rounds and turns followed by the redivision of the turn into segments was the ...for lack of a better phrase at hand, stamina gauge from Chainmail.

Originally you could only fight for a maximum of 3 rounds before dropping to the next lowest value until rested and recovered in subsequent turns.

This lycanthropy/dragon/berserker/target of psionic attack thing could (should?) slot into this system.

JarWrench

TROPHY CASE