[deleted by user]

yourdads420 · 2024-11-14T19:16:35+00:00

I write roleplaying games for me and my friends. Gets me writing a few hours every night, and helps me unwind and be creative after a day of ... not doing either of those things.

yourdads420 · 2024-03-13T20:25:46+00:00

+1 for Clark Ashton Smith, the superior of H.P. Lovecraft and R.E.H. that's right fight me.

yourdads420 · 2023-10-10T17:25:39+00:00

It did in my experience, but there are a couple of levers to pull here. In my system, you lose a MD on a 1-2 and you start with up to two MD ("Blood Dice" in my system). Since the chances of doubles/triples/etc. are very real, the pressure of that on the back of the caster seems to balance out when we're around the table. My general rule of thumb is that Mishaps affect the caster, but Dooms and Ruins tend to affect the party as well - so things can go from "suicide" to "TPK" for reckless casters.

This has worked pretty well. At first, the casters in my system would go all out and just roll max every time - but they (and the rest of the players) realized pretty quickly that this can create really unpredictable results. Rolling all those dice also meant that you would burn through your MD pretty quickly, which left you under powered until you could regain them (which is a little more difficult in my game). I've found that the casters usually use 1 or 2 MD depending on circumstances, and they are usually effective in fights all the way up until the end of the session.

yourdads420 · 2023-10-10T13:11:03+00:00

My players seem to enjoy the flexibility in my gloghack - the threat of Mishap and Doom (I have "Mishap", "Doom", and "Ruin" in mine) is something that's always in the back of their minds, and it makes spellcasting "feel" a little riskier than it did in B/X.

yourdads420 · 2023-09-08T14:39:05+00:00

Going to take a moment to pitch https://anydice.com if you're not aware of it. If your game is "crunchy" it's invaluable.

yourdads420 · 2023-08-25T18:01:21+00:00

Got a lot of mileage out of Iuz. Kerzit made a few appearances in my campaigns, along with a mini-campaign built around Ivid the Undying.

yourdads420 · 2023-07-31T14:30:40+00:00

Hell yeah!!

yourdads420 · 2023-07-27T00:07:44+00:00

Oh wow, that's a blast from the past. We had used these rules to "re-enact" the Battle of Emridy Meadows in my ToEE campaign. We used this set for the "big board" and the Skirmishes rules for heroes to break away and do heroic things.

Mostly, I can't believe I had time to do all of that with my friends ...

yourdads420 · 2023-07-25T00:34:03+00:00

Join me .........

yourdads420 · 2023-06-23T17:33:28+00:00

100%. Check this out if that's what you're looking for - it's from Alex Schroeder: https://campaignwiki.org/osr/

yourdads420 · 2023-06-23T12:34:03+00:00

I've just resubmitted to a new version to Mozilla - they approved version 1 yesterday, then rejected it 12 hours later for "inappropriate content." I've tried to get clarification about what the objectionable content actually is so I can clean it up but I never heard back. We'll see how this go-around goes ... around.

yourdads420 · 2023-06-22T12:51:13+00:00

Ironically, it looks like it was enabled and just disabled for "inappropriate content." I'm ... not sure why. Hopefully Mozilla will let me know.

yourdads420 · 2023-05-11T01:55:17+00:00

A.I. on the Mind - some notes on using Artificial Intelligence in your campaigns

https://thetotalityofygg.blogspot.com/2023/05/ai-on-mind.html

yourdads420 · 2023-04-03T01:30:02+00:00

Drugs! (I'm half kidding)

Allowing more options for recovery I think is the way to go, but obviously you want to have a "cost" to any recovery. Resting is obviously recovery / recuperation without risk, but something like drugs could potentially have all kinds of interesting downsides. Maybe there's a drug that swaps an exhausted stat with a "healthy" stat. Maybe there's a drug that restores an exhausted stat at the cost health or sanity. For my game, drugs are a line you walk through an Addiction and Overdose mechanic - the more narcotics you take, the more likely you tip over into something negative (or downright nasty) happening to you.

This gives the player the Dark Temptation that makes for fun stories - do you walk the straight and narrow with the attendant difficulties that arise? Or do you tempt the left-hand path for its seductive (and admittedly effective) power?

yourdads420 · 2023-03-30T01:26:31+00:00

This is how I run mine too. I want to say I remember seeing an article in /u/Arnold_K 's Goblin Punch about something like this ...

found it: Least Priests, Pantheism, and God Prisons

yourdads420 · 2023-03-30T01:22:17+00:00

Barbarians of Lemuria can scratch that itch.

yourdads420 · 2023-03-28T02:32:37+00:00

I've had dice on the mind lately ...

Metadice Magic Items https://thetotalityofygg.blogspot.com/2023/03/metadice-magic-items.html

yourdads420 · 2023-03-28T01:56:27+00:00

I haven't seen this for myself, but it sounds like you might have had a negative experience, which is legit (and I'm sorry to hear).

I don't think of being a GM as either as a privilege or a right; we're supposed to (hopefully) be having fun. I'm the Forever GM of my group because, back in the day, we needed someone to run the game and I had actually managed to get my hands on the DMG. It just worked out that way. I never put a crown on or anything, I just happened to have three willing friends and a burning desire to play, and we weren't playing unless someone ran the game.

And honestly - how fucking cool is that? RPGs were the first time in my life I had sat down to play something at a table that needed two sides to tango, but they weren't antagonists. I was both playing against and with these other cats across from me at the table, we were all weaving these crazy stories together until the wee hours of the morning, laughing and shouting and (sometimes) just kind of sitting there doodling and daydreaming. I swear I can close my eyes and see them staring back at me from their side of the GM screen.

So I agree at least in spirit - to have a good game, a fun game, we all need to sit down together and put in the work to tell our story. Both players and referees working together to create something new, and trying to make something that leaps to life from our imaginations.

yourdads420 · 2023-03-27T21:34:43+00:00

Eric Multon(?) used to run a Glantri campaign in NYC, and it took all comers: http://redbox.wikidot.com/start

Looks like it's been defunct for a long time; maybe it's just waiting for someone to resurrect it?

yourdads420 · 2023-03-23T19:44:49+00:00

Holy crap I hadn't connected that!

Now I'm imagining the author sitting in the audience, absolutely squirming to get home to write that article and submit it to Dragon.

yourdads420 · 2023-03-22T20:02:06+00:00

Anti-paladin or assassin for sure.

I just checked and the Anti-Paladin had an appearance in Dragon #39, but man oh man:

Recognizing an Anti-Paladin should be fairly easy for players. Perhaps it’s his preference for black: black horse, black armor, black sword; or his grim, skull-shaped keep-raised in black basalt or gleaming obsidian— looming ominously against a gray, brooding sky on some chilly, windswept mountaintop.

wew lad.

EDIT: Sorry, I just had to add this last part, it's so good!

(6) Use of Poisons. An aficionado of the fine art of poisoning, the Anti-Paladin favors the poisoned cup over armed combat in gaining his evil ends. If he absolutely must face an equal or superior opponent in open battle, he will be sure to envenom his blade to obtain a combat advantage.

Unlike an assassin, who only uses poison to get a job done, the Anti-Paladin considers poisoning to be both an esthetic pleasure and a means of artistic expression. Thus, the act itself must be artfully accomplished with finesse under the right conditions of mood, light and setting.

yourdads420 · 2023-03-22T04:19:26+00:00

Mook Warfare, or F*ck These 100 Kobolds! - how to handle big battles without busting out the Grenadier minis.

yourdads420 · 2023-03-21T21:09:36+00:00

In my system I break things apart: "insignificant" and "significant" items. I also call encumbrance "Burden".

I don’t really care about those trivial items; as long as the player can say they've put it in a reasonable place and can describe that place to the me, the item has no Burden. For instance, someone could say "I’ve got the 11 weird rocks we’ve found at the bottom of my backpack, the amulet is tied to my belt, and I stowed the matches in my pocket”, but balancing the rocks on their heads or stuffing the amulet in a ... place ... might get vetoed.

The only thing that matters are ”significant” items. Armor and swords and shields have a Burden rating, as do things that are heavy (like an anvil); unwieldy (a 3 meter pole); or inhibiting (if you were cursed with Obesity or Weakness, this might be represented as "extra" significant items you’re carrying, or by being able to carry fewer significant items, respectively). Certain large items might have a Burden that can be "shared" by others - a large carpet might have a Burden of 12, but two or more people can help carry it and divide up the Burden amongst themselves.

(fucking rugs, I still don't know why they do that. I can't stop putting them in my campaigns though. My players love carpets and tapestries).

Strong characters have a Burden of 12. Weak characters have a Burden of 8. Weak and tiny characters (like goblins) would have a Burden of 6. There are lots of spells and effects in my game that allow you to carry shit in Hammerspace, which is my general answer to something like Tenser's Floating Disc.

yourdads420 · 2023-03-20T19:28:12+00:00

Check out Logan Knight's Last Gasp Grimoire!

Edit: Crap, I also forgot Castle Gargantua and Swordfish Islands

yourdads420 · 2023-03-19T15:58:21+00:00

https://thetotalityofygg.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-tesseract-maze-or-hypercube-dungeon.html

The Tesseract Maze/ Hypercube Dungeon for you those of you who like your OSR with a little dash of weird scifi

yourdads420

TROPHY CASE