prog·ress
noun
noun: progress
/ˈpräɡres/
1.
a series of convenient mistakes.
"the darkness did not stop my progress"
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Prior: >Discussion:
What makes for good food-for-thought?
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>What makes for good food-for-thought?
Fish.
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Session 4 is up. The PCs spent approximately 20 minutes in the dungeon. They got next to no XP. They all nearly died enacting a stupid, stupid plan. But at least they learned a very valuable lesson; potions are temporary.
>What makes for good food-for-thought?
Brains?
What if an insane drow/dwarf/human became a "mind flayer"-flayer who went around killing illithids and eating their brains?
The Fey children of the wilds, lost boys and girls who playful fairies dress up in animal costumes, are ageless beings of imagination. The best way to eat thoughts is to have a fake meal, pretending to eat food, which slowly becomes more and more real the more you believe that it's real.
Sticklers, the mundane, geomantic wizards, and crotchety old assholes will probably starve in the company of the lost boys. If they didn't get kicked out first, since obviously in the topsie turvey world of the fae wilds the kids are in charge and grown ups do what they are told.
>food for thought
Oh, I read thought for food, my bad.
Probably die of prion diseases?
>What if an insane drow/dwarf/human became a "mind flayer"-flayer who went around killing illithids and eating their brains?
>Probably die of prion diseases?
This. But IN THE MEANTIME
Dungeon Meat Part 3: Illithid Brains
Taste like horrible noodles spiced with vanilla, sulphur, and tallow. No texture at all, really. You could drink them with a straw.
Roll - Result
1-2: Prion Disease. Lose 2 points of Intelligence. If your Intelligence ever drops below 4, you have a 50% chance of becoming enraged until you die. Otherwise, you twitch and drool. You twitch and drool no matter what. Bring napkins.
3-4: Slimy. Save vs Con or lose any benefit from the meal, and spend the rest of the day queasy and gassy.
5. Memory Burst. Save vs Int or take 2 damage as an extremely vivid memory bursts into your brain. It might be one of the Illithid's. It might be a victim's. It might be both.
6-7: Mind Blast. As per the Illithid's power, fired in a random direction.
8. It's Eating Me! Save or slowly mutate into a Mind Flayer over the next 1d10+1 days. You retain all memories but your motivations become alien and cruel.
9. Mind Powers! Gain the Mind Blast ability once per day, permanently.
10. So Wise! Gain +1 Intelligence and Wisdom. If your Intelligence goes over 18, your brain plops out of your body and flies away. Your body still operates normally (the brain made a backup of your original personality, with Int 12, out of your liver and gallbladder), but your brain is off to explore strange new dimensions and experiences.
> What if an insane drow/dwarf/human became a "mind flayer"
But this doesn't address the issue of class. Have you forgotten that the core classes of Fighter, Mage, Thief are the quintessential classes of common culture in regards to fantasy? Ultimately, the game is all about everyone being able to do everything. There can be no healing if everybody can't heal.
...
Haha look at how triggered this faggot is.
The quintessential classes of common culture are the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, and the philosopher-kings.
But this doesn't address the issue of class. Have you forgotten that the core classes of Fighter, Mage, Cleric are the quintessential classes of common culture in regards to fantasy? Ultimately, the game is all about everyone being able to do everything. There can be no thieving if everybody can't thieve.
>Thief
r e e
What are the most important, core spells you feel should be in every retroclone or game?
Or do you think they should be a bit more unique to the game/setting?
magic missile
NOT
Cure light wounds, sleep, charm person/monster, light, fire ball.
If your shitty homebrew doesn't diverge too far to use the TSR spells, you should just use the TSR spells verbatim.
I haven't finished adding all the odds and ends, but does this seem too complex for a 1st level dungeon for a bunch of RPG newbies?
No. But the map is just one part of the game. The most important part is your refereeing abilities.
What kind of place is the dungeon?
Do you use dinosaurs in your game?
1+STR if you're human
2+STR if you have claws (but not monstrous claws that deal dices of damage)
Of course!
>Blue guy descends from the heavens
>"Thoooommaaaaas", the flying wizard bellowed as he ran towards camp. "Your Wizard Student Loans are past due!"
Didn't expect that to be honest
The TSR skills are fucking trash my dude.
Every single spell is written in an almost trollish way that sucks all the fun out of some spells, while leaving other spells as vague as possible. Fun and interesting spell effects are randomly spread out among different spell levels with seemingly no thought or reason behind them, beyond damage spells, with very little reason to ever prepare your limited number of spells with utility or defense spells when you can and should just be using 1 shot win the game encounter buttons like Sleep and Color Spray.
Honestly I don't care how much OSR sucks gygax/1st edition dick, no designer has the right to put a spell like Ventriloquism in the same list, requiring the same resources, both being potential starting spells, as fucking Sleep. It's unacceptable.
there's a reason I often contemplate having a lot of the Level 1 spells just be 4e style At-Will Cantrips that don't count towards your spells per day limit
Most of the TSR spells' purpose is to exist as scrolls.
I'll be hosting a B/X game at an upcoming (non-Veeky Forums) convention and wanted to make the character sheet a little more explicit to make it easier. The game will be a dungeon crawl without leveling; the characters will be levels 2 and 3. It's still a few weeks away and this is drafty, but can I get some criticism? I started with the 1980 Record Sheet and tried to spell out some stuff.
Notes:
Since this is going to be a short (2-4 hours) dungeon crawl without leaving to a town, there probably won't be much money/treasure.
I'm leaning towards pre-generating all of the characters.
The spells section is the one section I think needs a bit of work.
Here's the front
and the back
Say, is The Hell House Beckons in the trove somewhere? I can't find it.
My game is set in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. Just about the first thing that happened to the party was nearly being run over by a stampede of dinosaurs chased by a T-rex.
Most of them were 5e-babbies, but no longer.
Looks fine mang. If you are pre-genning, maybe write out the spells beforehand in machine type. Depends on how legible your handwriting is.
>deterministic outcome
Quit breaking kayfabe.
It is totally acceptable. Your autism should disqualify you from ever writing again
Neat, although I'd recommend making the fonts more consistent.
Look for ITC Souvenir Std Bold, you can find it for free easy enough.
I'm reading the Basic Rulebook #1 and it says that newer players should be discouraged from taking retainers and instead simply be given multiple characters.
Why?
Probably because retainers add another layer of complexity to dungeon crawling, and new players might get frustrated that some dude they hired decides to flee or do something stupid.
So should I just say "roll up 2 characters each, 8 characters in total", and stock the dungeon with shitloads of treasure?
Level one is pretty much "generic dungeon", level two is going to be vaults and catacombs, level three is a mix between unfinished manmade rooms and natural caverns like B1. I figure I'd use Table V. F. to stock the whole thing.
Huh, I'm working on a dungeon and had a vaguely similar idea for mine.
I don't think you should add more treasure to accommodate, just leave it at a level you want it to be. The game gets easier the more character go in the dungeon, so the xp reward should as a result be lower.
Is Basic Fantasy RPG old-school? Is it closer to AD&D 1 or 2?
It's closest to B/X with a few minor tweaks to streamline it.
It's a retroclone, which makes it somewhat old-school. It's most closely related to B/X D&D.
I've been reading Fight On! and Knockspell for inspiration and ideas lately, and they've been pretty great. Any other magazines in the trove that'd be on a similar level of quality, or even greater?
Decided on having 3 F/C/T/MU and 2 D/E/H pre-generated characters. Filling out 18 character sheets took a lot longer than I thought it would.
I decided to hand write it, looks legible. Even if there was a problem I'll have the rulebook with me.
Thanks.
Mine is the same way...
Black Pudding is pretty decent if some minor tongue-in-cheek furfaggotry doesn't turn you off. Brave the Labyrinth is okay and usually has at least one thing reading per issue. Gygax Magazine has actual production values. Honestly most zines are so lightweight that you can just mass download them all and skim through everything in an afternoon.
Black Pudding isn't in the trove.
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It's Pay What You Want, ie, free.
Is there a low ink version of the Lower Level of In Search of the Unknown? Alternatively, should I just ditch the lower level for a one-shot?
You do not want to get Wizard Student Loans. I'll write a post on them eventually. They're non-dischargeable, even in death, and Wizards will try and find ways of keeping you out of heaven.
Luckily, if you join the King's Army, most of your debt is wiped away. They don't tell you this until you're about to graduate.
Anyone know where I might be able to see a find a PDF of the D30 Sandbox Companion? If it's in the trove I can't find it.
>The quintessential classes of common culture are the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, and the philosopher-kings.
Fund it.
Sneaky proletariat, doing sneaky underhanded things like organizing and having hundreds of babies. Bourgeoisie, doing important things like fighting each other, the other classes, and their own livers. Philosopher-kings, who sound really powerful in practice but can only do things once or twice a day and need a lot of prep time.
Together, they raid the Less Developed World for loot.
I like the shading to indicate secret areas.
>does this seem too complex for a 1st level dungeon for a bunch of RPG newbies?
No. If anything, I'd make it technically *more* complicated by adding one more stairway to the surface and one or two down (one direct to level 3, a third to level 2).
>I like the shading to indicate secret areas.
Oh shit, that's a cool idea. Stolen.
Looks good.
That's about as generic as it gets, so congratulations. Not sarcastic, good job. And
Yup. You could call a dungeon like this Plato's Cave because it's ideally formed. And yes, I'm mixing up my two philosophical concepts deliberately to make a joke. Sue me.
I think I'm gonna offer to run that game to the local communist students organisation, from what I've seen they love boardgames.
>I think I'm gonna offer to run that game to the local communist students organisation, from what I've seen they love boardgames.
Post your homebrew hack here then. The shittier the better. Even using a find+replace function would be entertaining.
Anyone have the bayou reskin of I6?
It's not in the trove anymore. The creators of it shut down our trove several times for adding their stuff. Check the sharethread, they might be able to help you there.
>Black Pudding
J. V. West makes a lot of good shit. I bought his Rabbits & Rangers supplement to run Zootopia-styled OSR games.
This thing?
I would've made more but converting the text from PDF to Word back to PDF again is a real pain.
I hope you get the motivation to do more. It's not only good typing practice, it's a hilarious and useful idea.
And surely, the "Word to PDF" step is pretty trivial. The PDF -> word, yes, especially if the document is badly OCR'd, but that's what rapid transcription typing is for.
>A nozzle dispenses acid
>C nozzle dispenses cobras
What's the logic behind the harpy? Did he just run into a wandering monster?
H knob dispenses Harpies. He only turned it a little bit, so only one harpy came out. Normally it's a swarm.
Oh I actually didn't see him hit that despite watching like 3 times.
thanks
>Oh I actually didn't see him hit that despite watching like 3 times.
Eh, so it goes.
Also, general question for the thread. What are the High Elves up to in your setting?
...
Most of the high elves were in their capital city as of three sessions ago. Now, about half of that population would be dead. A quarter are working for mind-flayers. The other quarter are trapped in their city that got sucked into the winter court's demiplane.
RIP high elves.
>I've been reading Fight On! and Knockspell for inspiration and ideas lately, and they've been pretty great.
>Check out Fight On! on your recommendation
>Dwarf quirk table
I love this already.
>What are the High Elves up to in your setting?
Mostly trying to get their shit back together after a calamitous meteor impact fucked their shit up. Massive earthquakes, crop failures, and the giant trees they made cities in coming to life and murdering the ever loving fuck out of them unhorsed them pretty good. Worse, it allowed those pesky humans seize power, so now they have worry about wars with them too. It's been a rough last millennium for them.
The goblins have pleateud by forming ties with industry, but the elves as a whole are on the decline. There's just not enough nature to go around anymore.
There are a handful of Elf Barons and a few Elf Princes drawing power from otherwise elf-less forests and mountain ranges; but broadly speaking, elves don't advance that far.
There are two Elf Kings left, but they swore loyalty to Evilwizard MacSettingbackground. And he had them buried alive in his tomb, Chinese-Emperor's-servants style.
>What are the High Elves up to in your setting?
After they collectively botched a culture-wide magical megaproject they pretty much ended up as boogeymen. Now they only exist in places where there are reflections and are only visible in the reflection. If something takes it away they're locked in stasis until something else reflective comes along. They're also conscious the entire time.
Living in the Faerie Realm or on the Blessed Isles, far away from everyone else.
Do any Anons know of a photograph containing both Arneson and Gygax?
> What are the High Elves up to in your setting?
Well, many perished in the explosion that destroyed the Egg of Coot. The few survivors were eaten by killer frogs, or were used in as pins in a bowling alley for giants.
My setting only has Winged Elves, Amazon Elves, and Drow. But if it did have High Elves they would be Altmer-style assholes.
Do the Winged Elves live higher than the Amazon Elves and Drow?
Well, the Drow live on the Moon so it depends on the orbit.
>Well, the Drow live on the Moon so it depends on the orbit.
I love the words appearing on my screen right now.
>Winged Elves occasionally fly above the moon
Thread Theme
What's the best way to do starting equipment?
...
Haven't gotten a chance to use it yet, but I really like this
Well, relatively speaking, during on the world's day-time side the Drow are "below" but on the night-time side they're "above". I suppose Winged Elves could fly into space if they really wanted to but it's kind of chilly in space and they like warm/temperate areas.
I've debated posting my woefully incomplete encounter tables here but I'm not sure they'd be inspiring (it's just names).
>RIP high elves.
Did the PCs do this? Oh wait, why am I even asking?
How did the PCs do this?
Astronomy is a neglected profession.
>There are two Elf Kings left, but they swore loyalty to Evilwizard MacSettingbackground. And he had them buried alive in his tomb, Chinese-Emperor's-servants style.
This, I like.
This is also good.
>Well, the Drow live on the Moon so it depends on the orbit.
Ah, yes.
Wait.
No, no, carry on.
I might just fucking take and add the Set of Potions in Vials to that list.
The Premise: If you take the Set of Potions in Vials, you have no idea which potion is which.
> What's the best way to do starting equipment?
No idea. Here's how I do it. You get the thing from your career, plus 1d10 copper pieces, 1 torch, and (if the adventure setup makes sense) a tent, backpack, and bedroll.
>The Premise: If you take the Set of Potions in Vials, you have no idea which potion is which.
Why?
Players have two minutes to write down as many items as they'd like.
Then you audit the list and cut everything past where they've run out of money.
Encourage the party to keep a running list of needed items somewhere in the notes.
I'm not gonna lie. I took a quick look at it and saw Potion of the Burning Bowels, Sleeping Drug, Antidote, and just assumed there would be more beneficial potions on the list before I noticed it was all poisons.
I saw that and thought "here's a set of beneficial potions to start you off but one of them is burning bowels and you don't know which one"
You don't read Russian.
This reminds me of a half baked idea I had, where I was reminded of that one Adventure Time character who speaks Korean and was tempted to make the ancient lost magical race of my setting speak korean.
Anyway, all this High Elf stuff was helpful to get my brain churning, so I've posted a writeup of the Elf Wizard class for the GLOG system. It's got new spells, some art, and some descriptions of what elves are and what they do in my setting.
coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca
There's literally an rpg (or a board game, I forget) designed to teach you korean because the magic system is korean words.
~~~~~ancient mysterious runes~~~~~
>You can talk to a bird, and you can talk back.
You can talk to a bird, and *it can talk back.
And if I might make a suggestion, cantrip 3 should leave ungodly nasty scars (unless you're an elf).
>There's literally an rpg (or a board game, I forget) designed to teach you korean because the magic system is korean words.
First off, that's hilarious.
Second, if I decide to double down on this idea, that could actually be useful. I don't speak korean.
Fixed.
And nah. Elf Wizards are like gardeners. They go around and make the other races less hideous. Fixing blood and wounds so that they /look/ less nasty (but are still just as painful and damaging) is totally part of that.
There's also no* magical healing in this setting.
*Ok, no common heal spells that restore limbs, scars, etc. You heal HP with lunch and naps. You heal serious injuries with time or dying or big complicated magic spells.
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Neither do I, but their writing system is cool and pretty simple.
ryanestrada.com
The actual language, on the other hand, I am not a linguist and do not know Korean. Your comment just reminded me of that kickstarter, which apparently came out.