Thursday, February 22, 2024

Pregens are an art-form. Meet Bosclori

So, in an effort to get more interest in my achiest heartbreaker RPG, Crypts & Cryts, I have been working on pregens to get kids new to the system up an running fast. The secret to a good pre-gen is consisely baking the rules into them as best you can. So I put little snippets of info here and there. This sheet even introduces the core mechanic by having you roll a weird die to get a horse.

Another thing is the pregens don't have any backgrounds from our chart, so they will feel unique if they join a party mid campaign. Since Bosclori here is a dwarf, I added little bit of world-building; dwarves have children in a very unique way.

If you want to get into Cry&Cry, please send a SASE to the link below.
MyBestEverRPGOmigoshWhyCantAnyoneLoveItLikeIdo

Or shoot me a request at the below gmail or even my Blusky to ask to be in my Discord server and actually play this crazy thing!



----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Teeny tinly adventure generator


 

So, I've been working on a little RPG, as I often do, when I'm not fanslating JTRPGs. I'll link it below. But anyway, put a little adventure generator into it. Thought I'd share that to inspire you.

3d6s    Go to                Threat                       Why


1    underworld             human/iod                retrieve/filch

2    fane/manse             beast/men                enshrine/replace

3    foreign land            demons                    escort/catalog

4    city/hamlet             aberrants                  kill/seal away

5    tower/fort               creations                  report/spy

6    roll twice                roll twice                 roll twice

The DM chooses any details, including which of the Why results or even both of them. 

Then the DM rolls a twist secretly from the following on a d6: 1) betrayal, 2) red herring, 3) rivals, 4) god machinations, 5) destination is not final part of journey, 6) roll twice, but if you roll any more sixes, there is no twist.

 
A few rolls on that later and I had envisioned a mission for the PCs to escort a vestal virgin's holy entourage to enshrine the Egg of Cooter within a temple a few days away, but the twist is that other people from the caravan are going missing each night, and the virgin is a false suspect. 

Link to the little devil of an RPG itself: Blessed with Dungeons.
 

----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Thursday, January 11, 2024

RIP Jaquays; Let's Jaquays the Dungeon Forever

In light of the news of Jaquays's passing, let us forget about the brief period where we were asked to call it xandering the dungeon. Jennell Jaquays invented it, even if she didn't realize what an innovator she was at the time. 

Pour one out for Jennell. Make a dungeon level in her honor, and Jaquays the hell out of it. Also, run some her old stuff! Judges Guild stuff she did is out there.

This is just one thing I got into thanks to Jaquays


----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Guidelines for RPG survival

  • Always bring lantern oil.
  • Make a plan. If you try to fight everything, eventually the dice will turn against you.
  • Keep track of gear and coin, thinking of alternative uses for all of it. MacGyver!
  • Be careful about climbing and swimming.
  • Be specific about positioning of your PC in the room; it may save your life.
  • Spend a few coins at the tavern to gather rumors and advice. Ask that guy with the missing hand what ate it once he's sauced enough.
  • Make allies and offerings whenever you can.

----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Tizune Thane's Mirrors Revisisted


In a previous post, I asked what Dear Reader would put in the magic mirrors of Tizune Thane from White Dwarf Magazine's golden age. Why did that guy only write two things and die?! So, since then, I had the players visit the room and enter one of the mirrors. It lead to the Hackmaster 4e take on Beyond the Crystal Cave. Casually sexist module. Do regret. Also, it took a long time and that interfered with our Ultimate Drop-in Setting.

The UDS is built around the fact that people that can come to play on Friday nights on Discord with me often have to be absent and so cannot enjoy traditional adventures that take more than a couple sessions. Since we play around two to three hours, it often takes months to do a traditional adventure. Also, we have to be open to new players coming and old ones getting things like new jobs that prevent them from coming again for years IRL time. Thus, the UDS is a megadungeon riddled area because there is very little plot to follow. BTW email me at the address below to join our games. We have fanslations of Japanese RPGs and dank gamer memes.

The UDS is host to Rockheck (Stonehell), Tegel village (our hub), Tegel Manor, and the great Shremlane Forest hexcrawl. Down to the south is Cali town and Tizune Thane's caldera.

So yeah, we tried an adventure, and it was pretty epic, despite the faults of the module, but not a single player saw all of it. So I'm approaching the mirrors again. Here's the list of what can now be seen in the mirrors:

  1. The statue in the ruins of the box canyon to Stonehell. You see a statue kneeling amidst ruins, it's helm doffed and sitting at the base. The roof has long-since fallen away, and you can see a cliff with caves in the background.
  2. Area 23 of Stonehell 1A. You see in the dimness of a stone room a great stone dial with strange glyphs carved into it.
  3. Darksun's Tyre. You see a step-pyramid of rainbow hues and a great, walled city.
  4. Area 38 of Stonehell 2C. You see a dingy room with a black puddle on the floor.
  5. Baba-yaga's hut in Shremlane. This would be my greatest hits take on the old TSR module. A forest. You see a hut in the woods. It seems to be supported by stilts.
  6. The hermitage in the south east of Tegel Manor. You see a structure. It seems impressively sized, but there seems to be an even bigger house behind it, complete with a couple towers.
  7. Cave F of underground level 3 of Tegel Manor. You see dark caves. The ceiling is host to many bats.
  8. The governor's hut in Operation Unfathomable. He'll give the party the mission.  You see an ugly dude sitting on an officious chair, consulting with some weird old man that has a beehive for a hat.

I got a few ideas for mirror updates. Maybe a visit to Mike's Dungeon. Maybe The Tomb of Horrors. Thracia's ruins. Anomalous Subsurface Environment. The City of Carse. Lankhmar...

----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Points of Convienience for RPG play




Whenever a player asks me a question such as, "Is there a stone I can pick up to throw?" I either go yes because we are standing in a quarry or no because you're sinking in a quagmire. But sometimes I'm not sure; it might be a godsend if there were a rock, and a gaff it there weren't. 

In systems with a Luck stat (DCCRPG), I usually ask the PC's current Luck+fleeting luck total and roll a d20 at/under to get the answer. Passing barely could be a "yes-but..." situation.

In systems without luck, I usually ad hoc a number from 1 to 5 and roll a d6 at/under.

Today I present a new idea: convience points. When entering a dungeon, roll 2d6. A room, 1d3. A fight, 1d6.

Tell the players the result as an amount of convience points they can use. Say the players want to cross an abyss. A player can pipe up, "Ooh, I'll spend a point to have a bridge be there!" To which the DM might say, "Cool," or "Nah, I just described a bridgeless gap, but we could spend one of your points to have a conviently placed post?... er, stalagmite on the far-side to lasso..."

You could use this system in other situations. Say the party meets some CHUDs and desire to parley with words commonese and chudese happen to share. Each point spent could be a word or phrase that both sides understand.

Or say a puzzle/riddle is present. Points could be spent on noticing things in the room or recalling incidental things that could be clues. "You notice a top, a spinning toy, is sticking out of the nearby garbage heap. It reminds you of your childhood as an orphan in the jungle temple, where the abbot was fond of saying..."


----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

What would you put in Tizun Thane's mirrors?

wish I had written my name on this map before 4chan got ahold of it.

Tizun Thane is one of the best things contained in the old White Dwaft magazines. It has portals to eight worlds. Just spitballing ideas for now...

1. Lichway
2. Darksun's Tyr
3. B1
4. B2
5. The overworld of Walking Wet [hey, I drew that and it was pretty cool], on the border of Caverns of Thracia basin
6. The Tomb of Horrors [oh, I made a cool map of that too].
7. Island village of UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave
8. Ravenloft

----
Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.