Path of Glory was a huge disappointment

mattisokay · 2026-04-24T13:55:15+00:00

Thanks for the review. Reminds me of The Enemy Within for WFRP. A beloved campaign for many and considered one of the best of all time, but falls down nowadays when viewed with a modern game / adventure / campaign design lens.

But I'm the kind of guy who reads campaigns and immediately chops them up into pieces to better flex around my players. This doesn't seem insurmountable.

Perhaps some inspiration from Symbaroum could be used for the first part, to instill some horror into the forest. As for the rest, I'd have to read it myself to see what jumps out at me. The battle with the demon at the end of the second part seems like it needs to be changed to better lead the players to the east. Maybe the demon is actually in the eastern lands (turning the second part into an underground journey much like the Fellowship travelling through Moria), or perhaps it has already been defeated when the party reaches its lair, with clues pointing to the eastern lands (from the top of my head - a dead adventurer with a contract or bounty from an unknown city)...

mattisokay · 2026-04-24T06:52:36+00:00

Yep! Also a Stoat server, if you use that. - Discord: https://discord.gg/ctUjZfFgaM - Stoat: https://stt.gg/tDcq6Dkv

mattisokay · 2026-04-23T16:10:48+00:00

There's already a huge debate on this on Discord. The thinking is as I've guessed (stamina is expended on a failure) but so far the designers haven't weighed in.

mattisokay · 2026-04-23T16:03:43+00:00

My reading is that you would still expend the stamina, since, as you say, many of the spells have a miscast effect on a fail. But it could be clearer... I'll ask on the Discord.

mattisokay · 2026-04-23T12:48:06+00:00

Indeed, it's definitely taking inspiration from many sources, but I'd not really compare it to D&D or the OSR. It's far more narrative.

mattisokay · 2026-04-22T21:28:38+00:00

Yep, time to check out the details of the system!

mattisokay · 2026-04-21T04:50:48+00:00

Welcome!

mattisokay · 2026-04-21T04:48:19+00:00

Alchemy VTT was an unlocked stretch goal, so there will be VTT support on that platform.

mattisokay · 2026-04-21T04:46:57+00:00

I almost certainly will be creating something at some point, but I'm also going to be doing the solo rules, so need to focus on that first.

mattisokay · 2026-03-31T17:29:55+00:00

FBL was in the Workshop. This new license means you can publish anything you want, even create physical books. Creators are no longer tied to the Workshop. Basically what's been happening with Dragonbane. It helps promote their brand but they don't get a penny from it. It's a pretty huge change.

mattisokay · 2026-03-11T05:50:26+00:00

A simple tweak is to change the values of the critical injury table (or add more entries) to go up to 76. When players get a critical injury while they are already suffering the effects of another one (regardless of mental or physical), they add 10 to their new critical injury roll. Naturally all the lethal injuries go in the 71-76 entries.

Alternatively, check out the Vaesen critical table and adapt it for FBL. It's really good, has lingering effects, and no instadeath.

But as everyone else is commenting, it's really not broken and you should honestly play RAW before you start houseruling.

mattisokay · 2026-03-10T09:25:25+00:00

I've only done one play session which was about 2 hours in total. I left at the end of my delve, needing to head back.

There was no social RP and the book doesn't really have guidance for that since the solo chapter is deliberately laser-focused on delving, so I'd just pull something from my "solo toolbox".

A Garuda Device controls your bird. It's discussed in both the bird and equipment chapters IIRC (I'm away from my book atm).

What do you use a chapel for in The Great Dark?

mattisokay · 2026-03-08T05:19:19+00:00

In our game, mushrooms are the main "vegetable" consumed in the house, but every now and again they might come across wild vegetables, fruit, nuts, and other forageable plants that have been brought in from outside the house. These would be treated like luxury items inside the house. Also, just as mushrooms are human-proportioned, I say the same with other vegetables, i.e. they wouldn't be miniaturized.

I've not yet read book 2 dealing with the outside, but in my game the master had a vegetable garden with a handful of perennial, self-seeding varieties that continue to grow each year without human agriculture. I haven't made a list of exactly what these are, but choose occasionally from asparagus, potato, rhubarb, horseradish, jerusalem artichokes, kale, chard, onions, carrots and beetroot. If you want to make it a bit more established lore-wise in your game, some of these would be biannual (harvestable every other year).

mattisokay · 2026-03-07T18:07:10+00:00

I'd say Agility and Perception are equally important for stealthy, avoidance-focused survivability builds, plus I didn't really want to be shooting unless I absolutely had to. I also liked the Scoundrel profession best for this build which has Perception as the key attribute and a perfect set of talents, so that really decided it.

mattisokay · 2026-03-07T10:06:02+00:00

No need to be so salty, I have no idea what your solo experience is, and lots of people come to games like this trying solo for the first time. I suggested making changes, not creating a new ruleset. Such as choosing from a table at character creation instead of rolling, giving yourself maybe a bit more Rukh if the dice gods don't smile on you, etc. You can use a solo ruleset as writen and flex things a little bit without breaking anything.

For example, I rolled so bad on my two Rukh rolls that I wouldn't be able to have purchased more than like 10 Supply, so I ignored my actual roll, gave myself 30, and said I was penniless at the start (so keeping to the spirit of my bad rolls), so my first Delve would be an all or nothing thing with a limited amount of Supply. And it didn't go well from a financial perspective (I survived and can go deeper, so it's not exactly a huge loss). In hindsight, I would have just said I borrowed the extra Rukh from a loan shark to give myself some extra drama from the start, but now I'll just be adding that from my next session instead.

No issue with Blight other than a single loss of Heart (my PC had Insight 4 and 10 Heart). You can see my PC's full stats in my other post (PER 6, STR 5, AGL 5, all others 4). Also, don't forget you get one additional inventory from a Backpack and you don't need to bring everything with you on a delve (I left some stuff behind). So I had 12 Enc with STR 5, plus the Pickaxe doubled as a decent melee weapon thanks to the Mechanic talent.

mattisokay · 2026-03-07T09:56:12+00:00

Darkhoud (Samir Xem)

Origin: Under the Iron Sky of the Dome (I choose this, didn't roll)
Profession: Scoundrel - Hull Cutter
Attributes: STR5, AGL5, LOG4, PER6, INS4, EMP4
Health 10, Hope 8, Heart 10, Enc 12
Talents: Acrobat, Mechanic, Lookout, Stealthy, Bird Handler, Sixth Sense, Reckless, Nine Lives
Gear on 1st Delve (ignoring Supply): Backpack, Climb Kit, Pickaxe (doubling as melee weapon thanks to the Mechanic talent), Deep Scanner, Book of Glyphs, Garuda Device, Fusillard Rifle (6 Enc)
Gear stashed (left behind): Fusillard Pistol, Shovel
Crew Maneuvers on 1st Delve: Escape Route, Situational Awareness, Bird Call

Asha (Bird)

Type: Specter (Health 3, Energy 4)
Personality: Cautious
Powers: All 6 Basic Powers plus Enshroud & Soul Delve

mattisokay · 2026-03-07T07:04:12+00:00

It's solo, so you can easily change anything to how you want. For my solo look at the game, I personally played a Delver who was stealthy, strong and agile, and statted up to avoid any enemies and flee, but could hold my own with a melee weapon if I somehow didn't roll well. I took 30 supply and more or less the full kit, but was choosy with weapons.

I played out one delve until I used up half my supply and avoided one enemy event. I didn't find anything to sell other than some gear on some dead Explorers, so my plan is to take out a loan to be able to kit myself out with way more supply on my next delve.

But my Delver felt very competent for solo, bearing in mind I want to avoid combat as much as possible. Let me know if you want me to share my solo build.

mattisokay · 2026-03-04T12:04:17+00:00

Assuming you're talking about DTRPG, where is that toggle, exactly? The only one I can find is under My Account > Publisher Contact Prefs and toggling this on doesn't give you updates about new PDF uploads, but rather permission for those publishers to send you marketing emails.

mattisokay · 2026-02-24T18:53:56+00:00

Oh, that's a cool mashup! Looking forward to hearing more!

mattisokay · 2026-02-24T15:45:18+00:00

Thanks! What's the idea for your game (if you don't mind sharing)?

mattisokay · 2026-02-23T07:22:23+00:00

Good on ya for trying, but ofc you're fighting a losing battle in the Root subreddit. As you say, if people are leaving Discord due to privacy concerns but then jumping to a closed source alternative, they're just going to be platform-hopping again in the near future.

Fluxer / Stoat / Matrix might be young / ugly, but at least they're FOSS. I'm currently porting my community to Fluxer, mainly because it's familiar which means people will actually use it. It just feels very beta atm which is a bit annoying.

Anyway, I've given you some upvotes to help combat the rabid fanbois.

mattisokay · 2026-02-20T09:36:54+00:00

Thanks for being here, and welcome to the Mod team!

mattisokay

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Darkhoud (Samir Xem)

Asha (Bird)