Week of 2022-11-18

 Week three of my blog restart and I've hit the end of the honeymoon period. Now it's time to buckle down and keep writing so that this becomes a habit. I could use your help to keep this going. It's always easier for me to answer questions or respond to someone, so please drop a comment about what you'd like to write about, or about something I've written. 

I want to start moving the content from my patreon either here or to itch. Enjoy!

Two things

This week, I've got a pair of monsters.

The first is a Bookmidge, based on an illustration by Craig Bosco. Bookmidges look like humans standing about 1 hand (4") tall with a tail about 2" long. They wear simple clothing, often including a printer's apron. They favor colors that will blend in with the book covers in the libraries where they live. They are inquisitive and love to read. They can often be tempted by the offer of books or similar reading materials (reaction roll bonuses of up to +3 depending on the book's rarity.)

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AC 3 [17], HD 1/2* (2hp), Att 1 × tiny weapon (1), THAC0 19 [0], MV 45’ (15’), SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S15 (Elf 1), ML 6, AL Neutral, XP 8, NA 1-3, TT None

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Invisible Bookmidges can become invisible at will, this takes an action. If they attack or take a hostile/offensive action, they become visible until their next action.

Well Read Bookmidges spend a great deal of time reading any materials they can get their hands on. If persuaded to answer a question roll 2d6. On a 2-6 they do not know the answer, on a 7-9 they have a partial answer, on a 10+ they can give a complete answer. The GM can modify the roll based on the difficulty of the question, the quality of the library they are in, etc.

Confusion Bookmidges are capable of causing confusion, as the spell with the following exceptions: this only affects 1d6 creatures and all creatures gain a saving throw each round, regardless of their HD.

The second is the Woad Leech Woad leeches are thin, wriggling beings some 3-4 inches wide and about 4 feet long. They are drawn to loosely formed or controlled magical energy, such as that generated by experimentation on spells, the mixture of potions, or spell preparation.

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AC 3 [17], HD 1 (4hp), Att 1 x 1d6, THAC0 19 [0], MV 60' (20'), SV D12 W13 P13 B15 S15 (Elf 1), ML 7, AL Neutral, XP 16, NA 1-3, TT None

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Consume Spell On a successful attack against a spell caster, they will ‘consume’ a random spell prepared by the caster. That spell will then be unavailable to the caster until they rest and prepare spells again. If a Woad Leech consumes a spell, roll 1d8. If the roll is less than the level of the consumed spell the leach is satiated and returns to it’s home plane.

Magic Resistant Woad leaches take no damage from direct spell attacks, but might take follow on damage from eg., the flames of a Wall of Fire spell..

What I'm reading

Swords of the Serpentine and Blades in the Dark - I really appreciate the neighborhood on a spread format of Duskvol in Blades in the Dark and the list of adventure hooks for each neighborhood and special location. As I read these, I'm trying to match them up with Ben Laurence's post on Citycrawling.

Fungi are on my mind. I recently went back to an old Roomscape thread Fungal Caverns Roomscape and I was blown away by some of the responses. I don't know how long Twitter is going to be around, so maybe this is a good time to go archive some of your old favorites (and maybe your new favorites too). I also grabbed a copy of The Peddler of Mycosi by Taichara - I love it! The peddler's wares run the gamut from the simple and benign to the downright weird. Here's a sample:

Fleshly Cornucopia: A tawny spore capsule; swallowed, the fungal colony spreads through the host, who may sacrifice vitality to produce two meals of edible fruiting bodies through the skin. 1d2 available.

I also grabbed a copy of Flying Fortress, by Mitchell Hollis. This is a game of pulp adventure among airship pirates, set up on a trifold. It's based on Into the Odd, so it's lightweight and looks like a dream to play. My first thought as I was reading through it was an abandoned game of Space: 1899 my group tried. I'd like to run a similar setting on this chassis and see how it goes.

What I'm writing and drawing

With the successful funding of The Fettered Factory, I'm going to be creating a set of six maps for this sandbox adventure for Worlds Without Number. I'm looking forward to getting these going.

I'm still working on writing notes in obsidian. Now that we're sharing the notes for the game I play in on Wednesday, it was kind of fun to hear the GM saying, "It was great getting notifications about the updates you were making." I know they loved the reinforcement that a player was engaging with the world and I got a little dopamine hit that will encourage me to write more notes.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Seven Sons A couple of the other players jumped on the idea of being more explicit with our intentions and actions. I think this is making a difference in the game. Our game notes (see above) are also making more of a difference as we're able to make connections. Which sometimes raises additional questions. With the holidays coming up, we'll be taking next week off.

Hochheim The current group of PCs is trying to sneak through the city to the bugbears. At the end of our session, they'd encountered a bugbear patrol and leaped to the attack. We'll be picking things up in two weeks. Once they wrap up their dealings with the bugbears, we'll snap back to the other characters to deal with some downtime activities and a small wargaming interlude as they lead a band of the Mage-King's army against the Lýðr forces that are occupying Nehrung.

OSE We've added a player, and I've tried to set up some "Moments" and "Paint the Scene" questions for both the Keep and the trip to the Burial Mound a la Brindlewood Bay. Here are a couple of each:

Moments:

• Two children run along a cobblestone street rolling a wheel and laughing. They look up from their fun and see the party. One of them grabs the wheel and they rush toward a nearby building.
• Four guardsmen in chainmail, with swords at their hips walk toward the Main Gate. Townsfolk move aside to let them pass.

At the Crag's Top (see last week's update - #15 on the Keep map): "Things seem tense in the taproom. What just happened that set people on edge?"

On the path to the tomb: "You realize that you've moved out of the outer reaches of the Dolmenwood and into the Fey-tinged inner forest. What do you sense that lets you know that this is true?"

Week of 2022-11-11

This week I've seen a veritable explosion of newsletters, which is kind of what I'm trying to do here. I'd love to see these become cross-linked conversations with the kind of longer-form thinking that is so hard to do on Twitter and other social media sites.

Two things

Since I needed some locations for the Keep in my upcoming OSE game, here are some that you can share.:

The colorful market square surrounds a fountain where the folk of the Keep gather water. Lines run from the fountain to the buildings and walls around the square and small flags in blue, yellow, and green flutter from them in the wind. On market days, the square is crowded with farmers selling their produce. There are three more or less permanent stalls here as well. A glass blower, a barber, and a potter all work here and sell their wares.

The Crag's Top is a simple tavern serving the local community and any travelers. Garren, the barkeep, and their wife Lydia watch over the establishment and serve warm comforting food alongside a small variety of drinks. Garren's brother is among the outlaws that dwell in the forest near the Keep and Garren sympathizes with them. A 'peddler' who stops by the Keep every 10 days or so serves as a contact between Garren and the outlaws.

What I'm reading/watching

One thing that really struck me this week was Jon Harper's video on Game Rhythm & Calling For Rolls, more on that below. I also liked the recent Fear of a Black Dragon episode on Feast, which has me thinking about how things are progressing in my home campaign with the cult of the King in Yellow and the Cult of the Lost God both coming more and more to the surface. With the looming destruction of Twitter, I've been jumping on more mailing lists. The Indie RPG is currently running a series looking at cities in games. This week's email was on The City. Their Links of the Week section also got me restarted thinking about reincorporation (again more later).

What I'm writing and drawing

I'm putting together the sketch of the 3rd set of caverns for my mushroom caverns set on itch. It hasn't sold as well as I'd hoped, so I think I'll also draw up the final map of the 2nd set and tick the status forward to that point. I've been playing with some hex grids to make that easier. 

I'm also kicking around a renown system based on Ben Laurence's Downtime in Zyan. I'm going to try to get this into a semblance of order so I can post an early version of these thoughts soon - maybe this weekend.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Seven Sons

In this week's game, I tried two approaches that I think will help change our game. The first is being more explicit in declaring what I wanted to achieve with my actions to let the GM better respond. This is an idea I've seen a lot of recently, e.g., in John Harper's video (see above). The other is reincorporation, my most recent sighting of this idea was Table Techniques: Reincorporation. 

Here's an example of being more explicit. Our characters were following a merchant named Kohl, who we suspected of being linked to a cabal of rich merchants trying to overthrow the government. When we confronted him, I led off by telling the GM, "I plan on dropping names of other members of the cabal and watching Kohl's reaction." With that framework laid, we played through a very direct (and somewhat shorter) interaction between the PCs and the NPC. 

Since the GM knew what we were looking for, he was able to frame his response in a way that made more sense for the setting and aim. This felt more respectful of our limited time at the table and made it easier to role-play a social interaction. I really liked the way it felt and plan on using this approach more as both a GM and a player. Using reincorporation as a player was a bit harder to do, but I love how it paid off for us. 

After our interaction with Kohl, we pulled back to observe him, After a little while, he rushed off. After a quick tail/chase, we followed him to a large building that looked a bit like a tavern. The building was secured, guarded, and not open to the public.

We found a kid on the street and asked them about it. They said it was "a private club for rich folks". Knowing that, I thought about the wealthy NPCs that were on our radar and asked about them. This opened up a second discussion about one of the bigger villains we've encountered and gave us more info about them. 

Hochheim 

This week the players met the mongrelfolk in the Forbidden City. A good reaction roll and some difficult parley (aided by a pair of comprehend languages spells) led to them teaming up. The mongrelfolk offered to teach the PCs the trade language that is in use in the ruined city (It's far from the PCs' home, so none of them speak the local languages) and teach them about the various factions at play. They wanted the PCs to eliminate the threat of the nearby bugbears.

The druid shapeshifted again to do some recon. Based on the info they gathered, the PCs came up with a basic plan to deal with the goblinoids - though they also discovered a potential rift within the bugbear camp. I'm interested to see how they leverage that. 

Set up for OSE

I kicked things off in the Keep so that the players can gather some information if they want (as described in Winter's Daughter). I just listened to a Blogs on Tape episode about The Keep on the Borderlands, which is coloring my thoughts as I prepare for our mini-campaign.

Week of 2022-11-04

As part of my renovations around here, I'm going to try to write a weekly recap of the things I'm doing around gaming.  

Two things

I'd like to start out each week's overview with two things that I hope you can use at your table. This week I'll lead off with two OSE NPCs suitable for use as retainers:

Bartek (They/Them), Dwarf L1, S 13 I 7 W 9 D 11 Co 15 Ch 8,  Saves  D 8 W 9 P 10 B 13 S 12

Description: Dark brown hair, and a long braided beard to little to cover Bartek's tattoos.  They are tall and lean for a dwarf.  They often appear distracted, though they are probably just bored. Bartek is a tee-totaler. They smell of soap and leather polish. Their armor is older, but well-maintained. 

Motivation:  Bartek wants to prove themself as a warrior so that they can return to thei mountain halls they call home. Prior experience has taught them to look for someone a little smarter to do the planning.

At The Table: speaks haltingly and a little too loudly.

Quote: "But . . . what do you . . . think we should do?"

Tenriss (She/Her), Thief L1,  S 10 I 8 W 9 D 14 Co 9 Ch 12,  Saves  D 13 W 14 P 13 B 16 S 115

Description: Bald, but has several wigs. Likes to wear bright colors when not working. Always has a dagger at her hip.

Motivation:  Tenriss' family were once well-to-do merchants, but fell on hard times. She wants to live the high life she remembers and is willing to bend a few rules to make that happen.

At The Table: laughs nervously when speaking

Quote: "Mmm, that is good wine. It reminds me of sipping from my father's collection when I was little."

What I'm reading

I'm continuing my reading and working with Downtime in Zyan by Ben Laurence. It's hitting the sweet spot for my desire to make downtime more useful/interesting in my campaigns. I'm also trying to push for the GM of my Wednesday game to pick it up for his game. It should be on sale soon, once the kickstart distribution is complete.

I'm also looking harder at substack. I've been reading articles from Sean McCoy and Monte Cook among others. These are dribbling into the advice I'm giving my Wednesday GM as he continues to tweak and playtest the game we're playing.

Offline, I recently got copies of Swords of the Serpentine which I'm reading when I'm away from my phone and laptop.  It's making me think about Cities as Point Crawls (from a Ben Laurence blog post), which I'm diving into a bit deeper.

What I'm writing and drawing

I'm currently working on itchfunding a small set of maps, with some modest financial goals though not much success.  The finished product will be a set of three cavern maps in a variety of gridded, labeled, and player-facing options with a document of cave/cavern/Underdark flavor and a system-agnostic key for each map by the time it's done.  The set is currently selling for $1 and will gradually increase in price to $7.50 as I complete the various pieces. Of course, buying in at a lower level will give you access to the whole set from that time on out.

Last week, I wrote a quick post about using Obsidian for my gaming note-taking.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Seven Sons - On Wednesday, last week, we crawled around the town of Ila, where we've been digging into a conspiracy that seems centered around some of the merchants and a coven of witches. One of the PCs was invisible and tailing a merchant named Agatha, who seems caught up in the conspiracy. We tried to follow him - which proved harder than we'd thought.

Hochheim - The PCs in my Thursday game, have returned to the Climbing Tomb. Fought off some scarecrows, and went through the portal to the Green Hell.  Last session, they trekked through the wilderness (only getting lost once) and eventually reached the edge of the rift containing I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City, where they hope to find the second piece of the broken Star of Dralm.  This week, they scouted from the rim and Aerix, the druid, changed shape into a songbird and flew over parts of the ruins to see what he could learn. We left off the game after they'd descended a crumbling path the floor of the rift.

Set up for OSE - I ran a session 0 for 4 players on Friday. None of them have played OSE before, and one has never played any TTRPGs.  We generated characters and set up expectations for the game.  They're going to be playing through Winter's Daughter, based out of the Keep of B2 fame.  If it goes well, the PCs may push on to explore the Caves of Chaos.

As part of my prep, I created a couple of spell books (inspired by Ben Laurence's Ten Starter Spellbooks and W Denning's How I Prep Con Games). If you're interested, here they are:

The Praxis of the Higher Planes

A tattered copy of a copy. Most of the really interesting stuff is missing, but this could be a good starting point for researching spells pertaining to light, vision, and the effects of the higher planes. It contains the following: (1) Light, Protection from Evil; (2) Invisibility

The Libram of Controlled Perigression

Copied from the original by an unreliable scribe, an apprentice of Ogrindar the Baleful (who has the original in their possession), this work could provide the foundation for research into controlling access through physical spaces. Any real work would require other works, including the original from which this volume was created. It contains the following spells: (1) Hold Portal, Shield; (2) Knock 

RPG Note-taking in Obsidian

 I need to admit up front that I have a problem. Well, two problems.  Ok, I have lots of problems, but two of them pertain to this post.  

First, I take a lot of gaming notes.  Player or DM, I sketch maps, I jot down ideas, I try to make connections - and all those notes stack up.

Second, I'm lousy at keeping them organized. I've started notebooks, only to have them die half-full. I have folder after folder of google notes (many shared with my fellow players so they can ignore them at their leisure.) They're in varying degrees of completion and abandonment. And that makes them far less useful to me (or anyone else.)

Recently, I've been trying something new, and I think it's working.  I happened on a note-taking tool called Obsidian that allows you to create a "vault", write notes in markdown (basically raw text), and visualize connections between the things you've written (if you are willing to do a little work.)

For example, here's a map of my notes for a game I'm playing in, focusing on the "Unanswered Questions" file.

All told, I've got 66 files (some are as much as 10 pages long) of notes on this game with tags to help organize things. This kind of view lets me quickly see where connections might lead and can help our group decide which threads we want to pull on.

I like writing this way, because it's quick and easy, with an almost immediate payoff.  Here's a paragraph from some of our game notes (the names in double brackets are set up as cross-links):

Gil asks about getting some work, and [[Natalia]] sets him up with an “interview” for a job (Gil, Gunnar, and Bo go with him)  [[Deneth]] is looking for guards for a trip to [[Yadzu]] or [[Nameth]]. Gil demurs, and asks if there’s anything local. He mentions that there’s a local shop that might need something and offers to put in a good word with them. Gill says we’ll return in the afternoon and check in.

Because I can set up multiple sets of notes, I'm able to use the app easily for each game I play in, run, or plan. 

I tried to set up a concordance of all things Zyan (Ben Laurence's dream-world setting). Initially, I stalled out trying to make it work. in a spreadsheet. I thought about setting up a full-blown database but couldn't work up the energy.  Last week, I started over in Obsidian, and I'm loving it!

Because Ben has posted so much material to his blog, as well as in the published Through Ultan's Door zines, having a map of what information connects to what and where I can find out more is a huge win. Obsidian is making it easy to set that up.