Here is a collage done in photoshop of the three maps of the Torn Mountain collected into a single map for those who prefer seeing the whole dungeon in a single view:

Torn Mountain – Collected

There’s been a lot of awesome feedback about these maps, I’d love to see what you end up doing with them!

Also, if your submission to the Dungeon of Lost Coppers contest is not on the collected submissions page, this is your last chance to let me know. If I get no notifications of missing submissions, I’ll be selecting the winner tomorrow.

Welcome back to Tales of a Married Gamer. Do you listen to potelbat? Now that is a strange question for me to begin with, but if not, you really need to go back and listen to Episode 34 where they discuss gaming with parents. Apparently, Sammy and Brian do not have the easiest time getting their parents to play games unless it is Sudoku or Candy Crush. There I have said it, Sammy’s father-in-law plays Candy Crush. Is it really that difficult to get your parents to play games? Is this even a smart thing to do, especially if you [...]

For today's Succubus Sunday I thought I'd show off "my ladies." I've been collecting McFarlane "action" figures for a while. The sexy (and often twisted) female figures are my favorites. What can I say, I like beautiful women and I have strange tastes. None of these are actually succubi, but a few of them are really close.  The pride of my collection is my Elizabeth Bathory, Dorothy (from the Twisted Land of Oz), Red Riding Hood, and my newest Camille Noire.






 

Phonos and Vassilis cleared away the rocks and descended into the formian nest.

The walls were studded with numerous crystalline growths that glowed in a variety of colors. Phonos broke a piece off, partially to see if it would do anything dangerous, partially to see if it would continue to glow; to his disappointment it did neither. Figuring that they might have some value to someone, he broke off several more pieces and pocketed them.

Deeper inside they found formian bodies strewn about. They were not moving, but since Phonos did not know anything about formians he could [...]

I saw this at the RPG Corner blog. Breachworld is a Kickstarter by Jason Richards that sounds a lot like Rifts without the clunk of the SDC / MDC Palladium system. Actually, it uses Mini 6, which is a striped down version of Open 6, and happens to be OGL.

Heck, it even has an endorsement by Kevin Siembieda:

I'm in at $30 for the Hardcover version of the book.

I was interested in reworking Rifts to strip the system away from the setting, and it appears that Breachworld might have done so without the fear of a lawsuit from Palladium Books ;)

From the project's blurb:
Welcome to the Breachworld RPG, a post-apocalyptic anything-goes sandbox world in desperate need [...]

The most basic premise of this game is that the players are explorers in outer space who visit planets with less technologically advanced capabilities, and grapple with the complex issues related to contact with these people. This general plot structure is intended as vehicle for side plots. The game can be said to follow the formula laid down by Star Trek: the Next Generation, and remained in use by later Star Trek television shows.
The main plot will remain largely unspecified. The side plots are about how the players interact with the locals. The main plot will need to provide [...]

 Grab It Right Over  HERE FOR FREE 
Scroll down the right hand side of Kellri's blog and download it under Field Guide.
Thanks 
The Scavengers Field Guide is a free old school post apocalyptic love letter by Scott Hover aka Kellri to the game he loves Gamma World.  Way back in 2005 when I was first dipping my toes into the OSR I happened across this 114 mutant extravaganza  that covers all the relics, robots, artifacts, and weird background treasures that are in Gamma World. In his words : 
Welcome to the Complete Post-Apocalyptic Scavenger's Field Guide, the second in [...]

March 2014's RPG Blog Carnival is focusing on Virtual TableTops and Online Gaming. I invited VTT creators to chat with me briefly about the state of VTTs, and what's the future of online RPGs.

This evening I sat down for a brief chat with +Keith Athey of RPTools, and we spoke for just shy of a half-hour.

Unlike the usual Firing Squad interviews, this one, and hopefully others to follow, is only posted when I have a complete transcript up. This will occur, but I'm posting it right away.

With that: enjoy the interview!

Tagged: D20, Dark Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, fan flash fiction, flash fiction, game, game play, gameplay, gamer, Games, illustration, Kickstarter, Roleplaying, RPG, Tabletop, Tabletop role-playing game, update, void, Wordpress

Have you ever experienced revenge in your RPGs? I’m not talking about characters or NPCs out for in-game revenge. This is personal, where one player does something another does not like and gets back at them in the same or a different game. In high school, my brother, Robert, and I played in a game […]

I awoke delightfully refreshed.  I lay there for a while, enjoying the feel of real sheets and a real pillow in a real bed.  The city was awake outside my window.  Ah, how nice to be able to use that phrase, "my window".  A phrase which even by itself explained that one was not lying on the ground in the woods like some flea-bitten ruminant.  The scent of a proper breakfast wafted up from below, whetting my appetite.  I would not be breaking my fast for the day with some savage assemblage of trail victuals this morning!

I took [...]

HJRP1116

Your hosts: Stu, Stork, JiB

 

This post continues the exploration and implementation of RuneQuest 6th Edition for the creation of a sword and sorcery campaign setting. Phase one of implementing the campaign has gone far better than I hoped. I was able to connect with a few good gamers via the G+ Community: Tabletop Roleplaying – Asia-Pacific, and build a … Continue reading →

Last week I was struck with sudden inspiration: why not play some good old fashioned AD&D? All week I pondered different ideas for our group to switch gears and start playing advanced d&d after a year now of playing various mini-campaigns using the upcoming newest edition’s playtest materials, when just before game-time, the Dragonlance idea struck..

With the Fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons publishing this summer, and being tired of sorting through scattered, incomplete playtest materials, I wanted a chance to cleanse my palate of all that and enjoy the first edition. Pure d&d.

Over the past year we [...]

I apologize if this has been talked about or proposed before (I assume it has, but don't recall it).

I think the Turn Undead Table in Labyrinth Lord (or any early version of DnD or it's retroclones) would make an excellent skeleton for Skill Resolution.

Assuming we used Backgrounds and not Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

A Background has the chance to either permit an automatic success or increase your level by 1.

If an appropriate Ability Score is 12 or better, increase your level 1.

Then find your level + modifiers, cross reference by the Threat Level of [...]

Here is the map for this sector. As you can see, there are four major systems (the stars etc are part of the board and have no game function). The players both begin in the starbase, in the centre of the sector.

Since both players have a copy of the rules, just post a comment here giving your starting crews and the specifications of your ship.

The game isn’t using any of the optional rules (except for one relating to where the starting planets are- in the standard game they’re always in an exact straight line from starbase).

MISSIONS:

 

I finally got a chance to play the current beta rules for DnD Next.  There was an Elven Wizard, Dwarven Monk, Elven Ranger, Dwarven priest and myself, a Human Fighter.

We didn't have any combat, so I didn't get to use my maul, but I enjoyed the game immensely.  While Tony W.'s excellent game is technically DnD Next, it's as much a home-brew as anything else.

This was cool and I hope to play again soon.

I've been leary of the umbrella Proficiency bonus (even though I've argued for it for years), but like how it works. [...]

In my last Rifts:2112 post, I talked about filing the serial numbers off of Rifts and simply running a magic-infused, post-apocalyptic science-fantasy setting. Well, it looks like I've been beaten to the punch, and by an established Palladium freelancer, no less!

Jason Richards has just launched a Kickstarter for a game called Breachworld.
Earth's society reached its peak thanks to the establishment of a network of Gates that connected all corners of the globe, creating a unified, global village that thrived on science, technology, and cultural exchange. When the Gates began to malfunction, no one could see the disaster just around [...]

Author's note:  I must give credit to a part of the Finnish epoch Kalevala, where the old steady singer of songs travels north on his sleigh, meets a fair maiden, and bids her to be his wife.  But the maiden has other thoughts and a conversation with a bird happens.  I borrowed lightly from this and wove it into this journal entry.

Entry 46

In a brief moment, I have what seems like hours or days to think and ponder the decisions to my choices, but, as soon as I leave Trevor behind and [...]

Alright, here it is, the promised adventure for my Thild map. Here’s the Introduction:

Deep within an icy fjord at the very edge of civilization sit the Isles of mist. The islands are home to a few hearty fishermen and herders, as well as a population of giants in decline. Yet the myriad ruined cities, strange monuments and burial grounds scattered about the land bear witness to a more illustrious past. Little is known about the former inhabitants of the isles. Legend has it they were powerful mage lords that tempted the fates and were cursed to an eternal death without [...]

When i see a Kickstarter like this - Blue Dungeon Tiles - I regret the fact that I lack a face to face group, as this would be awesome. Inexpensive compared to set piece such as dungeon wall, it's also hard to discount the easy of storage and carrying. I have Dwarven Forge stuff from their last Kickstarter, and the stuff is awesome, but really, I'd have to be running the session from home for me to break out the pieces.

I'm actually surprised no one thought of doing this before. Wet, dry and permanent marker erasable tiles. Pretty sweet.

I may just have to kick in for the possibility of finding a local OSR styled group at some point, or even [...]

The distinction between magic and expertise has always been blurred. Masters of the Martial Arts, of Herbalism, of Metallurgy, and of many other fields have often been reputed to possess supernatural powers.

In a realm of magic that dividing line may not exist at all.

The child's eyes were haunted. If they were windows to his soul, they opened onto a vista consumed by fire and war – the same fires which had left him orphaned and alone.

The priests who cared for the orphans were kindly enough, but the could not restore what had been taken. They tried, at least to offer [...]

The last game we played was Big Deal. It is a game where you want to collect the most stuff. Really a crass materialistic game. You get four cards. Each turn you can either play a pair or more of the same asset or you try and steal the set of assets played by someone else. If you can't do either of these things, you can discard a single card and draw another. Stealing cards means playing a matching asset card. The player you attacked can play another matching card. Whoever can play last takes it all. You can also [...]

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Episode 42

Download: ep042-dm-talk-01.mp3

Glennish and I sit down and do some talking about D&D.

The new campaign will begin in April and here’s a link to the roll20 character application page. Have a look, if you can make the time (Saturday nights, once or maybe twice a month, at 8pm Pacific) then throw your dice in the ring.

Here’s a summary of the setting for the campaign:

The Pearl at Roll20

No need to make a character sheet now, I’m looking for character proposals- we can get the numbers later. Please be as detailed as you can and want, don’t hold back.

You can submit [...]

Slavery has played a horrific role in the history of many countries for a very, very long time. Far from being a thing of the past, slavery is still very present in modern day and efforts to eradicate it continue. Learning from history is probably the best way to understand where we come from and [...]

The post Podcast Episode- The Boardgame Review Room: Freedom – The Underground Railroad appeared first on G*M*S Magazine.

Inspired by the setting brewing occurring over at Nearly Enough Dice and having recently read through the Naishou Province supplement for Legend of the Five Rings I thought it was about time to properly flesh out the region of Rokugan I’m using in my current Unicorn campaign. Being relatively new to the setting I wanted somewhere outside the existing canon with the potential for plenty of combat, encounters with the spirit realms and numerous factions each aiming to upset the existing status quo. At the centre of the campaign lies Taoreta Sangaku, the Fallen Mountains, along which the PCs had [...]

Quick Review -- Log Horizon
Rarely do I write about anything not gaming, however, my feelings on this particular anime are rather strong. Not strong in that the show makes me overly emotional in one direction or another, but strong in a quiet way. Before I review the yet to be finished anime Log Horizon let me first give some background. As some here know I am a huge fan of Record of Lodoss War and have followed it in all of the different media available state side (I even have the Dreamcast game). For many years I was a [...]

Okay, so if you've been following my humble blog you've probably grokked that I'm interested in the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System by Autarch.  One of the projects they're working on for it is the Auran Empire campaign setting.  This setting is not the typical fantasy version of the European high middle ages but assumes an earlier era:

The Auran Imperial culture is based on Late Rome/Byzantine Empire. The Sunset Kingdoms of the west are akin to Indo-Persian civilization. The North is akin to German (Anglo Saxon) civilization. The Skysos riders of the far west are based [...]

Charles, has inaugurated the Western Knights Campaign. It's a doozie of a world, and I have to say I really enjoyed our first game a lot. I was, despite the fact that I have some insider information as to the nature of the world, caught at least a few times by surprise. The basic premise is "Cowboys and Knights in the Wild West". Except we're not playing in the West-West. Our characters

Slavery has played a horrific role in the history of many countries for a very, very long time. Far from being a thing of the past, slavery is still very present in modern day and efforts to eradicate it continue. Learning from history is probably the best way to understand where we come from and [...]

The post Podcast Episode–The Boardgame Review Room: Freedom–The Underground Railroad appeared first on G*M*S Magazine.

Everyone knows Oblivion and Skyrim, if you’ve played the games or not. There will always be at least one person in your circle of trust that either has played the game or wouldn’t shut up about it. I’ve had several persons doing both which ended up with me actually spending my hard-earned money on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.. After spending 112 minutes in Skyrim, I closed it and cleared it from my hard drive. This was seven months ago and up until now, I still haven’t felt the need to re-install the game and continue my quest. It’s safe [...]

Last Sunday I was totally psyched. I had stuff in the review pile ready to be reviewed and even thought I could get to as many as TWO a day at times. Which was a great plan until Monday struck at work. Overtime every day but Wednesday (when I have 'Uncle Duty" in the later afternoon.)

Good for the wallet, not so good for reading and posting.

Today has been "clean out the pantry and deal with the mice mess". I'm going to try and steal some reading time even if my wife kills me. Oh, and prep for renovations on monday ;)

Oh, and have already spent a chunk of the overtime earned earlier this week on... mouse resistant [...]

The One Page Dungeon Contest is a chance to put your ideas and designs in front of the roleplaying community. This year Gary Gygax’s son Ernie Gygax will be a judge along with the famous Steve Winter of TSR and Wizards of the Coast fame. The contest has created more than 300 one page dungeons that you can use today.

This year’s One Page Dungeon contest is being run by Random Wizard. Who else better to look back at the competition, winners and share some design tips!

What is the One Page Dungeon?

Have you ever opened up your favorite module, adventure, or [...]

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Read my review of Journey To The West, the brilliant wuxia comedy from writer/director Stephen Chow.

For my money Journey To The West is superior to his highly-lauded Kung Fu Hustle.

A background post for some upcoming low-level Wampus Country sessions aimed at lower-level PCs, newbie players, and leaning on some of the B-series of classic modules here and there.

Just north of the growing town of Thistlemarch lies the run-down keep formerly occupied by the Mad Margrave - that eccentric nobleman who sadly took his own life last year.  Parts of the keep are occasionally used by the townspeople, but the majority of the area is now overrun by a clan of poggles, tiny dog-men not known for their cleanliness or intelligence.  The poggles have been behaving themselves and [...]

Dramatic irony is when an audience knows more about events in a story than the characters within the story, and this results in differences of meaning for the audience than it does for the characters. I saw a simple, light hearted example of this in a film today: The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey. I don’t think this counts as a spoiler because it’s in the first half-hour of a three hour movie, but, just in case, consider yourself warned.
Bilbo Baggins wakes up in the middle of the night and a dwarf shows up. Bilbo tries to find out what’s [...]

Tracking after the enchanted items stolen from them the night before, the PCs unknowingly walk into a grove of biddlytrees and are attacked by a swarm of the magic consuming creatures! The biddlywinks don't actually pose that great of a threat to the PCs; the real danger is the loss of magic items and what […]

So a Tupolev tu-95 is for sale on eBay! Can you imagine what the Star Wars universe equivalent of eBay would have on? Anyway, go to eBay and build your own army!

 

Posted with Blogsy

I stumbled across this while searching for highlights of last month's D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge. It came up in a search for "You Bash the Balrog, while I Climb the Tree."  I don't know if the songs are related or not.
I'm not advocating that you use it for your games, but I do find it amusing. Here's the lyrics.


Still, after listening to such filk, for some reason I feel like I really deserve this: 

When I next run the Cipher system, I have some wrinkles I'm adding:
When spending points from Attribute Pools, each 2 points spent lowers the Difficulty by 1.  This is pretty minor as the rules state it is 3 points for the first reduction and 2 points for each further reduction.
To give the player's a bit more room to show off, I am setting Effort to Tier + 2.
I have trouble explaining Difficulty and Target Number, so I've worked up a character sheet that shows that information, so I can simply say "It's Difficuly 5", the player can then [...]

The Orcs hesitated as their foes dropped back several paces. The enemy was well coordinated and they did not know whether to charge or stand their ground.

“Ki Jai,” a cry came from behind the enemy lines. Fire burst forth from between the humans. Five orcs fell, writhing, to the ground. Flames engulfing them.

Right Hand:

Order (Indirect)

Left Hand:

Ku (Physical Radius): Fire (Full), Chaos (Indirect), Wind (Indirect)

Des (Positive Energy Arc):

Ful (Fire Arc):

Dain (Occult Radius):

saying “ki jai”

This is one from the Fire and Battle Spell Book. We’ll explore it more in depth here than there. To review, the spell gets 4d6 base damage, 8 [...]

Ok, when I kept up with such things, I had heard about the Black Angel movie. Many of us thought it was a Star Wars short that had never been released. Well, the Black Angel movie has been found

No, I'm afraid Black Angel is NOT a lost chapter in the Star Wars saga itself. Rather, it was a companion short and directorial debut of Star Wars art director Roger Christian shown only in select areas back in 1980 when The Empire Strikes Back first opened. It was only screened in Europe and Australia, and after disappearing without a [...]

I've only ever played one spy RPG, Top Secret by TSR, and that was a long time ago.  As I recall it ran much as a paper exercise in security levels of countries and places, and a lot of skill rolls to see what happened.  It was interesting and more simulation than game and it didn't run for very long.  It's not a genre that really interests me, unless it's got other elements like aliens or the supernatural added in.

When I first began writing the Hubris campaign setting using the DCC rules, the first things I posted for people to read was my races and classes (all can be viewed on the links page). One of the races was the Kenku. I’ve dug many aspects of the Kenku (or Tengu- Pathfinder) since I started playin 3.x when it first came out. When I envisioned the Hubris Kenku, I saw tricksters, schemers, etc- much like theSkeksis of the Dark Crystal(amazing movie, btw). When I originally designed the Kenku I gave them a limited pick of DCC Thief class skills and [...]

Patrick Henry Downs took on the map of of Ravenson’s Landing (below), flipped it over (and also went through the effort of flipping many of the elements such as the cat-tails and the signature block) and wrote up an adventure to go with it!

Ravenson’s Landing (click to go to the original post)

His version of Ravenson’s Landing is called Jetsam Village and includes a short level 1 adventure and is available on his blog – NerdWerds.

I know a bunch of other people have done really cool stuff with my maps in the past couple of months that I have totally failed to post to the blog as I found out about it. If you have created something cool with my maps that I haven’t posted a link to yet, let me know and I’ll fix the situation ASAP!

Here is the third and “final” Torn Mountain map. The first map was really intended to stand on it’s own, but once I got the bug to expand on it, I had to run this set of three. Who knows though – in another month I might add a set of stairs leading deeper into the depths of Torn Mountain and thus to a set of lower caverns and dungeons at least a hundred feet below the bridges and caves in this map set.

Torn Mountain Map 3

The Torn Mountain maps were drawn using Micron 03 and Micron 01 pens on the heavy paper of the 5 x 8 sketchbook I picked up back in October. I’d be VERY interested in seeing what you do with these three maps!

• Torn Mountain Map 1
• Torn Mountain Map 2
• Torn Mountain Map 3

These maps are made available to you thanks toAl Gordon,Lester Ward, Brent Newhall, and the other patrons who contribute every month to keeping the blog running via the Dodecahedron Patreon Campaign. If you like these kinds of maps – check out the Patreon Campaign or the two books of adventures and maps I’ve released – Dyson’s Delves and Dyson’s Delves II.

[...]

I love it when people do stuff with my maps. In this case, we have a pair of One Page Dungeons written for the Pathfinder system using two of my maps – one very recent and one from the archives of the site.

 

• The Mines of Kazak-Kuln
• The Tomb of the Sorcerer King

Written by Tim King for the Pathfinder RPG, the lack of stats required for the One Page Dungeon format means that these are really easily used in any fantasy RPG as long as you are willing to find an approximation for an “Orc Boss” or a “+1 Undead Bane Weapon”. In other words, easy as pie to use in any fantasy RPG.