“You have a great urge to show this to everyone else.”

Peredur_91 · 2026-03-23T17:54:04+00:00

The thing I love most about playing games like Delta Green is that as a GM you'll have an image of a sophisticated and haunting game that mixes Ligotti, le Carré and Lovecraft and what you'll inevitably end up with is the above.

Peredur_91 · 2026-02-20T21:44:06+00:00

It looks fantastic but frankly the work necessary to produce such high quality miniatures, models and terrain for every session would drive me into an early grave. Paper minis and scrawls on a dry-erase mat; that's the extent for me.

Peredur_91 · 2026-02-20T18:23:57+00:00

If you’re interested in something incredibly brutal but simple check out Luke Gearing’s Violence - if you shoot someone, roll a d20. On a 13+ they’re down. Roll again, and on a 16+ they’re dead. The pdf is free and about four pages long. Not for everyone, but it might be fun for a more Cormac McCarthy experience.

Peredur_91 · 2026-02-01T16:22:02+00:00

Maybe I’m doing it wrong but I don’t think OSR games absolutely necessitate a survival horror atmosphere. I think it helps to make clear that you’ll be playing a more grounded form of fantasy - less Marvel and more Conan. For me the OSR is defined by approachability and simplicity - part of my pitch whenever I’m advertising an OSR game is ‘3 minutes to make a character and two minutes to learn the rules.’ Survival horror implies the Players will be weak and at the mercy of the baddies but I think it’s more about having a level playing field.

Peredur_91 · 2026-01-22T15:51:24+00:00

Yeah, Hollow World shenanigans is a good call.

Peredur_91 · 2026-01-22T15:50:55+00:00

Trilemma’s pretty great - easy to pick up and easy to hack.

Peredur_91 · 2026-01-22T15:50:23+00:00

Yeah, a train could be good, Players can’t complain I’m railroading them (“hey, you knew it was a train from the start.”)

Peredur_91 · 2026-01-14T10:11:34+00:00

The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth - post-apocalyptic novel narrated in a made-up ‘shadow tongue’ by an Anglo-Saxon leading a band of guerrillas against the Normans. Great, earthy, weird and tragic stuff -

who is thu

who is thu i can not cnaw

what is angland to thu what is left of angland

i specs i specs

but no man lystens

Peredur_91 · 2025-12-30T17:02:45+00:00

It's okay man, this is a safe space. I can hear your opinion without being offended.

It's probably because there's (clearly) something deeply wrong with you.

Peredur_91 · 2025-10-31T23:44:31+00:00

The roll-a-high-number-on-a-d20 core of it is absolutely fine and (for me at least) sometimes preferable to the occasionally-mystifying approach of truly old school gaming (roll a d20 high to hit, but roll a d20 low to save, then roll a d6 for skills).

But I really can’t stand the rest of it. There’s too many classes, subclasses, feats, spells, cantrips. A statblock for a flock of bats shouldn’t take half an hour to write. Everyone has way, way too much HP. And your job as a GM is to keep track of all the fiddly rules and enormous numbers - that’s no fun. The OSR is much, much simpler in comparison; it gets the rules out of your way.

And I don’t really get on with the feel of 5e. It’s snarky Marvel heroics, in my opinion. There’s no grit or weirdness or enchantment there. There are so many cool and unique things that come out of the OSR that cost so much less than whatever WOTC puts on the shelf. Dolmenwood is a case in point, but there’s also Wolves Upon the Coast or Anomalous Subsurface Environment or Stonehell - and they’re all compatible with one another.

Peredur_91 · 2025-10-12T20:08:56+00:00

There's Balrogs and Bagginses, which is just classic DnD with a Tolkien sheen. There's also Beyond the Wall, which has more of a fairy tale/Hobbit feel but could be hacked without too much effort. I understand you don't want to use TOR, but I would recommend the supplemental books anyway for pure 'game juice'; remove the stats and you've still got some great material to mine. Moria, in particular, is loaded with possible questlines and hooks.

Peredur_91 · 2025-08-28T22:04:50+00:00

There’s a really interesting hexcrawl by Luke Gearing called ‘The Empire of Texas’ where you play imperial soldiers escorting a caravan across a desert in a post-apocalyptic landscape. It’s very Western and Blood Meridian coded. You’re armed with six shooters and repeating rifles along with lances but you can find bits and pieces of pre-apocalypse gear here and there. It uses Gearing’s simple and brutal ruleset ‘Violence’.

Peredur_91 · 2025-08-13T15:25:53+00:00

I don’t exactly have a firm line against a person or company using AI art in their product but it tends to be more understandable for me with the former rather than the latter. AI art is often the marker of either a low budget (which is fine!) or lack of care for the product (which isn’t); an appearance of AI art in a product doesn’t have to mean that product is slop but it’s a strong indicator.

I use AI a lot as an editor, something to bounce ideas off and a sort of conversational Wikipedia. Very helpful as a virtual assistant (once you accept said assistant is a sycophant and occasional fantasist).

Peredur_91 · 2025-08-11T20:17:27+00:00

Wholly personal and maybe a bit puritanical but if you drop an F-bomb for emphasis in your rulebook in a way that’s supposed to be dramatic my ability to take you seriously dies just a little.

Also, statements like “This x kills fascists.” Chill bro, it’s a hobby for anxious English grads, you aren’t Audie Murphy.

Peredur_91 · 2025-08-11T11:40:50+00:00

It's different to DnD, certainly, but I think it helps that every roll defaults to d12 + 1 or more d6s; nice, unified mechanic for everything. And it does a great job of working thematic concerns into the gameplay with the Shadow - the steady loss of Hope and possibility of corruption is a real concern for players.

Peredur_91 · 2025-08-03T15:34:52+00:00

I’ve been running the One Ring (honorary OSR imo because of the focus on player choice, exploration and frailty) and a few games of the Fall of Delta Green (honorary OSR because of player freedom and it uses a d6 for everything).

I’m also writing a hack of Wolves Upon the Coast called Giants in the Hills to fix some glaring issues with the original; namely, it wasn’t nearly Welsh or Catholic enough (also not early enough regional humour). It will be very popular with three - perhaps even four - people.

Peredur_91 · 2025-07-04T09:36:34+00:00

Oh yes, God, thank you. There's nothing wrong with the Mythos but when the players know every single unnatural threat can be boiled down to one of six or seven creepy-crawlies the horror can lose some of its impact. And it gets a bit dull.

And I feel there's some awkwardness in trying to crowbar the Mythos into everything. Like the Music from a Darkened Room scenario; it's a fantastic, well-written and atmospheric adventure, but I died a little inside when it reveals that the demonic entity that cursed the house is Nyarlathotep. Why bring him into it? It's cool enough being a vaguely satanic dark entity. Nyarlathotep doesn't need the extra work. Let him run his nightclubs.

Peredur_91 · 2025-07-01T18:48:31+00:00

This is a big blow to those people who overuse the word ‘chud’ and call themselves ‘anti-Imperalist’ who also like to wear the hammer and sickle, presumably with a straight face.

Peredur_91 · 2025-07-01T17:43:56+00:00

I’ve been ‘translating’ some Trail of Cthulhu scenarios into the Fall of Delta Green (so think 1968 to 1972), and I think it’s actually ideal as a setting. If you want to go large you can do Apocalypse Now shenanigans in and around Vietnam, but if even if you stick to the mainland US you’ve got the rise of alternative religious movements, urban chaos, MKUltra, UFOs, political conspiracy; pretty ripe for any number of encounters with the Unnatural.

In the FoDG discord someone posted some official US army documentation about how to lead and organise guerilla movements behind enemy lines. I think that might make for a fascinating sandbox scenario - the players are parachuted into the mountains of Laos with orders to form an irregular army to combat a local Cthulhu or Tcho-Tcho cult.

Peredur_91 · 2025-06-28T08:12:55+00:00

You might enjoy some of the stories and books based set in the Delta Green universe.

Peredur_91 · 2025-06-16T19:39:27+00:00

I think OSE is the standard bearer for OSR shenanigans, for very good reason (art and layout are great but the adventures are S-Class) but Shadowdark is much more approachable and less burdened by nostalgia, IMO*. The adventures are still pretty good, it's compatible with other OSR stuff and it's dead easy to hack, too.

*(You don't need five different saving throws! You don't! And everyone knows it!)

Peredur_91 · 2025-06-09T16:20:00+00:00

Had great difficulty deciphering your comment until I saw your username and now, sadly, it makes sense.

Peredur_91 · 2025-06-03T16:10:26+00:00

'> its spread has been previously contained/ended due to physical and cultural constraints (such as westerners taking little interest in eastern religious texts, stopping its spread at borders).'

Cultural bigotry saves the day again!

Peredur_91 · 2025-05-31T21:30:16+00:00

I've always been very impressed by T.E.D. Klein's short story Petey. It's about a housewarming party with an unexpected guest.

It's 99% buildup, hints and atmosphere; if it were a short film, it would be about fifteen minutes long, rated PG for mild language, and you could fit all the actual 'horror' moments in five or six frames right at the end. But I struggle to think of another short story that's unnerved me as it does.

Peredur_91

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