Heartwarming Sandbox: Badger and Basilisk

I've shared half of this post on Google+, but since it'll soon go away, I thought putting it up on my blog would be wise. Heartwarming Sandbox is a project I've been jotting down ideas for from time to time. More similar pieces will follow shortly, some related to the project, some not.

Rappan Athuk AS&SH Campaign Data

A year ago I ran several sessions of Rappan Athuk (using AS&SH for those sweet sub-classes) - 18 sessions out of a 26-session campaign, to be precise. The sessions were 2-3 hours long each, conducted over TeamSpeak. I kept notes and maintained an ugly master sheet for XP and mortality data, of which I was just reminded by a question on Reddit (How many XP do characters bring back per session in your games?).

My answer to the question lies in the document hereby shared for all of you kind readers to see.

Most of the stuff in there should be fairly obvious, but here are some notes: In the Overview tab the PC and NPC columns show the number of characters present at a particular session, whereas in the Mortality tab the Sum columns have the number of PCs/NPCs present up to that point combined for purposes of lethality calculations (given in the mW columns). In the XP tab the "Loot XP %" value notes that over the course of these 26 sessions about 60.69% of XP came from treasure.

Excellence from the Blogosphere (Jan-Feb)

Here are a bunch of blog posts (chiefly from January and February) that I found particularly noteworthy.

• Olav Nygård has shared a simple procedure to create "Guess who?" style investigative scenarios, along with two examples.
• Anthony Huso is playtesting his low-level planar module for AD&D/OSRIC. His second session report is especially noteworthy because it sheds light on the importance of playtesting (the same rigorous thought process is also there in the comments while discussing the modified Incantrix class).
• Courtney Campbell has written a good reminder about ten things you can use in a dungeon to increase your survivability.
• After about 50 sessions (or 200 hours), Skerples presents his thoughts about the mechanical bits of GLOG.
• Alex Shroeder shares his thoughts regarding advancement in RPGs.
• Anne has been on fire lately. She uncovered most of the blog posts that comprised Secret Santicorn 2018, made a list of a gazillion of people making actual play reports, and analysed the ability scores we all use, love, and hate at times.
• Dale Houston has talked about how he organises events in his megadungeon campaign using simple d6 tables.
• Angus Warman has shared his set of GLOG-esque house rules, called Die Trying (without classes and levels, too!). While you're at it, also check out his travel rules.
• The Lawful Neutral has blogged about the initial thoughts of a mega barcrawl and a bunch of suitable monsters.
• Chris Kutalik made an excellent summary for his Hill Cantons sandbox campaign setting with lots of links and references.
• Dungeons and Possums posted a great list of free resources to start playing (and running) old-school games. By the way, the blog also has a superb index, in case you want to poke around.
• Sometimes we all need to be reminded of the other British accents, and noisms just does that using football fan interviews off YouTube.
• Martin O. has shared 10 very flavourful bandit gangs.
• Talysman has summarised his rules regarding search rolls and similar mechanics.
• red_kangaroo made a memory system (for spells, languages, memories, martial art techniques, etc.) using slots similar to how slot-based inventories work. I especially like how Trauma is handled like Fatigue, eating up slots.
• Emmy Allen has blogged about her next Ynn-like thing: the ruined market of Sharne.

Review: Eldritch Tales

Note that some of the links below are affiliate links (meaning I get a small percentage of the sale without extra cost to you).

Eldritch Tales, as its subtitle says, a Lovecraftian White Box role-playing game. It takes place in the 1920s (like the majority of games centred around the Cthulhu Mythos), where the player characters investigate mysteries and strange phenomena (just like in Call of Cthulhu or Stalkers of the Elder Dark).

Simple Seasonal Weather Table

Just a rather lazy post for today: a weather table I originally wrote for Grim Tales, but I will probably utilise in my Heartwarming Sandbox game.

Spring

1. Chilly, rainy, and windy
2. Chilly and foggy
3. Mild, breezy, and rainy
4. Mild and cloudy
5. Warm and rainy
6. Hot and sunny

Summer

1. Mild and stormy
2. Warm and rainy
3. Warm and breezy
4. Warm and sunny
5. Hot and sunny
6. Sweltering and sunny

Autumn

1. Chilly and stormy
2. Chilly and windy
3. Chilly and foggy
4. Mild and breezy
5. Mild and rainy
6. Warm and breezy

Winter

1. Frigid and hailstormy
2. Frigid and snowy
3. Cold and snowy
4. Cold and windy
5. Cold and sunny
6. Mild and sunny

Excellence from the Blogosphere (Nov-Dec)

As I did in one of my earlier post, here are a handful of blog posts (chiefly published in November and December) that I found particularly noteworthy.

• Wizzzargh shared their experiences running four different OSR campaigns using different approaches to worldbuilding.
• Zzarchov has also been talking about iterative design with regards to his own game, Neoclassical Geek Revival, showing his way of thinking through actual examples. This is the sort of thing I like to read from game designers. (Also, did you know there's a subreddit for NGR?)
• James Smith (most known for his OSR news blog series) has recently shared a gajillion of resources for Conan and Hyboria. James has a Patreon now as well, so if you like what you see, consider supporting him.
• Luke Gearing posted a d100 table of locations for a haunted castle (the assumption is that d20 + [number of rooms visited] is rolled each time, so you get weirder and weirder results as you keep exploring). Simple but inspiring.
• Lawful Neutral has made an index for their blog, so you can find all the cool stuff looking at only one page.
• Michael Raston has automated his fantasypunk augmentation generator (with links to the original posts as well).
• Arnold K. has talked about a way to mechanise social challenges by emulating the stakes and innate complexity of combat.
• D. G. Chapman in the meanwhile shared some ideas about implementing JRPG-style NPCs in your tabletop campaign. Furthermore, he collected all the adventures so far shared on the blog in one place.
• Joe Fatula has recently talked about his setting with the thesis "Signs of the Wilderness is to Colonial America as Lord of the Rings is to Medieval England". Seriously, though, that blog is just amazing (my personal favourites are wilderness dungeons, difficult terrain, and an example of using the various random tables shared so far).
• Josh has shared an impressive article about collecting herbs and using them as components for spells. While you're at it, check out this post about campfire discussions. He also shared some thoughts about a way to describe fantasy cultures by presenting one cogent detail for each sense.
• I don't normally talk about sci-fi stuff here, but this huge pile of starship geomorphs is too damn good not to share here as well (it's made for Traveller but usable in most other sci-fi games)
• I generally dislike podcasts (they are way too dry and drawn out in general), but Carl Bussler's The Megadungeon is something different. I'm definitely biased as I love megadungeons.

Review: Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers

"A new trade route is being sought through the Dalgarian Canyonlands, pass the friendly Kharazan, Village of Plenty. But the last two expeditions have never returned and the merchants are getting anxious for the new route, causing bags of gold to exchange hands.

Meanwhile, the ancient portal, the Maw of Ghormaug, has opened once more and invaders, ‘bone men’, are beginning to take over territory. No one is safe. Left unchecked, these lands are destined for horror and ruin, unless a brave party steps up to the challenge.

An adventure for Levels 5-8 for Labyrinth Lord and other OSR rulesets."

Disclaimer: I was sent a PDF coupon on OBS to review this product. The link below is also an affiliate link to help me buy stuff to review. Some spoilers ahead!

Announcement - The Village and the Witch

It occurred to me that I haven't shared the release of The Village and the Witch here. What follows is Davide Pignedoli's announcement on Google+.

The Village and the Witch is now available on DriveThruRpg and in print on Lulu.

The Village and the Witch is an OSR Module compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, the Black Dogs, and other OSR adventuring games.
Editing by +Sándor Gebei.

This adventure is designed for low-level characters and is intended as an encounter to run in one or two sessions, between other adventures.
This module is designed to generate a Village, a Witch, and some additional weirdness: two pages with die-drop tables to outline the village (map and content), and two pages with a series of random tables to generate a Witch and its connection to the village.
The rest of the module contains some instructions, random or less random NPCs and other weirdness, some digression about alignment and so forth.

Download
Print on Lulu

This product is an independent production by Daimon Games and is not affiliated with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a registered trademark owned by James Edward Raggi IV.

Mini-Review - Blood & Bronze

This one is another mini-review I originally wrote for EN World, slightly edited.

Disclaimer: I edited one of the adventure modules for the game (Across the White Marsh). Furthermore, the article uses affiliate links.

Blood & Bronze is a sword & sandal game by Cyclopean Games set in a mythic Mesopotamia. The players portray daring adventurers seeking gold and glory in a realm having just recovered from a cataclysmic flood, where monsters prowl the wilderness, resources are scarce, and the gods literally rest in ziggurats.

The setting is painted in loose strokes only. There is a pretty map (with hexes added to help measure distances), and a couple pages are dedicated to the cultures and people of the area, but it's all about providing a tonally consistent feel for the world rather than laying out precise details.

The system is a fusion of the old-school adventuring mindset and a more modern approach to rules. The mechanics are easily recognisable for most gamers (ability tests, damage rolls, saving throws, etc.); however, skills work more like Basic Moves in Powered-by-the-Apocalypse games, as they are available for all characters, and they sometimes offer choices (for instance, if Force is rolled, damage may be avoided if the target yields).

There are six classes (Mercenary, Rogue, Mystic, Desert Farer, Courtesan, and Seer) that come with unique ability choices and starting equipment. Magic is resource-based (lotus powder for Mystics and bone salt for Seers), and it is geared towards utility rather than firepower. Tests are rolled with a pool of six-siders (a handy probability chart is included to ensure clarity), whereas saves are made on a d20. Endurance is a combination of “hit points” and “encumbrance allowance”. Combat doesn’t require a grid, as distances are abstracted into zones. Advancement is based on offering wealth to a god or ruler (collectively called "covenants"), and it may provide advantages outside of one’s class abilities.

The rules are simple and generally worded clearly, and the layout is extremely good (there are a handful of typos, but they only hurt the text’s aesthetic value). Another strong point is how much advice is packed into the otherwise slim book detailing the responsibilities of referees and players (again, similarly to Agendas in PbtA games), how to get the maximum out of the light-weight system, and how to adjudicate situations where no clear rules apply (much of which is applicable to other games, too).

It is a complete game in the sense that character creation, the resolution mechanics, and a general description of the setting are included (the part of the rulebook that pertains to players is also available for free), although enemy stats can only be inferred from a sample random encounter table. There is a neat starting dungeon, Slave Pits of Sippar, while Wonders of the Wild describes a couple wilderness zones (mostly through unique random encounters) – both free. There are also a couple adventures released that you can even get in a bundle along with the core rules.

Blood & Bronze is probably not your game if you prefer tactically deep combat systems, carefully crafted character builds, or vanilla fantasy adventures. I recommend it to those who like loose rules and pulp fantasy, and those really into the DIY attitude, as many cool things are only hinted at (such as the potentials of the covenant-based advancement).

Mini-Review - Romance of the Perilous Land

I actually wrote this post for EN World about a year ago, but since it never made to the site, I thought I might as well share it here. I have two other similar mini-reviews, but I wanted to start with RPL, because I just saw a post on MeWe about an updated release coming in August 2019 from Osprey Games, that will hopefully have more inspiring setting details and gameable material (with 160 pages, it can go either ways, really).

Disclaimer: This article includes affiliate links.

One of the most iconic releases of 2016 in OSR circles was The Black Hack. It is an elegant framework that simplifies some of the burdensome aspects of D&D-esque games (cf. ditching attribute modifiers and using a roll under mechanic, advantage and disadvantage instead of assigning modifiers, or usage dice in place of unit-based resource management). Since its entirety was released under the OGL, there has been a surge of TBH-based games and supplements. Romance of the Perilous Land is one of these games.

Romance of the Perilous Land is published by Trollish Delver Games (Quill, In Darkest Warrens, Tequendria, Wired Neon Cities, English Eerie). It is inspired by British folklore and tales of romantic chivalry. These things have been part of the D&D experience, of course, but there has only been a few games that really focus on the Arthurian legends and British folk tales, especially if we only consider D&D settings and its derivatives.

There are six classes: Knight, Ranger, Cunning Folk, Thief, Barbarian, and Bard. As in most D&D-esque games, classes are differentiated by HD, armor and weapon proficiencies, and class features. Each class also has three skills that provide advantage on tests. The class features are largely what you would expect: Knights are good in melee, Rangers are fine archers, Thieves get sneak attacks, Cunning Folks have spells, Barbarians rage, and Bards have access to various buffs and debuffs through song. The mechanics are fairly straightforward, although some classes seem less interesting than others (Barbarians mostly just deal more and more damage while raging, for instance).

There is an optional background system that provides extra skills and equipment, but only five backgrounds are detailed (Artisan, Outlaw, Priest, Seafarer, and Aristocrat). It seems like it was an afterthought, which is a shame, because it could have been used to introduce additional setting flavor.

Magic uses a spell point system. Spells have individually defined spell point costs, as well as a level (casting a spell higher level than one's own may result in weakness, severe HP loss, or even self-paralysation). The spell descriptions are brief and focus on the mechanics (e.g. "The Miracle of Levitation, level 6, cost 10, The caster levitates up to 100ft for 1d10 minutes." or "Rot Flesh, level 10, cost 22, 1d6 near targets with HD7 or below rot and die.").

A 3-page gazetteer describes a few places within the Perilous Lands (such as Dinhelm, Penbridge, or Larnbrooke Castle). Nothing revolutionary here (cf. "A headless phantom rider has been seen in the small hours searching for his long lost bride." or "A Red Etin lives in a lair close by. Sometimes one can hear his singing on the wind and see his tracks in the snow."), although I liked how the interesting bits are presented using bullet points (I love bullet points!).

I really wanted to like this game. The source material begs to be used at the gaming table, and the genre is severely underrepresented among D&D-esque games. The uninspiring prose combined with the lack of proper editing, however, leave Romance of the Perilous Land a mediocre product at best. It is not completely useless, to be fair, but a genre-hack of a game should include more tools and gameable material than just reflavouring the already available ones. Its potential saving grace is that it is a PWYW product, and a short one to skim through (roughly 13k words on 52 pages).

Excellence from the Blogosphere (Aug-Oct)

Following the steps of Humza K, I present to you a collection of blog posts (mostly from August and September) that I found inspirational.

• Edward Lang-Whiston has been writing about weird worlds (Spheres in the Troika! nomenclature): The Neverwoods, The Garden Lands, Hellgaaz, and The Switchboard. While we're at is, here's a generator of machines that can take you across the planes of existence.
• Lawful Neutral has recently made two d100 tables that could be really useful for horror-themed and/or gothic games like Ravenloft, Ghastly Affair, or Krevborna. The first lists 100 room types in a mansion, while the other presents 100 haunted house effects to go with them.
• Ben L. has written about the lessons he learnt while assembling his upcoming zine. If you want to make your own zine, it's an invaluable read! For those who mostly wish to consume, I present two older articles discussing City State of the Invincible Overlord and the City State of the World Emperor.
• Jonathan Newell recently posted descriptions and portraits for all the player characters in his campaign. If you haven't seen anything of Hex before, I urge you to check out this short overview of the setting and this awesome post showcasing the mad mapping skills of Jonathan!
• Diogo Nogueira has been writing about his upcoming setting book for Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. As usual, there are a bunch of random tables to accompany the text. Here's the first post in the series.
• Emmy Allen has made a slick subsystem for astral projection. Also check out her preliminary thoughts on an oceanic abysscrawl.
• Not really new, but I don't think these two posts of Lungfungus have been talked about enough: a procedurally generated hexcrawl (link to the procedures in the post) and a large bestiary using John Bell's encounter table format.

Review: Dark Places & Demogorgons

This review is part of a series on thematic OSR games (as defined here). Also note that some of the links below are affiliate links (meaning I get a small percentage of the sale without extra cost to you).

The subtitle of Dark Places & Demogorgons is "It's the 1980s and there are strange things happening everywhere!" (emphasis not mine), and it surely is accurate. In this game the players portray teenagers from a small town (the default setting is Jeffersontown, Kentucky), solving mysteries. The game is built on the familiar old-school rules chassis, but the game completely focuses on investigating strange occurrences. There are combat rules, but fighting monsters isn't sustainable for teenagers.