Monthly Archives: September 2018

RPGs

Musings on Bags of Holding

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Today on the podcast, I recorded my second Saturday Scrawl about encumbrance.

This got me to thinking about bags of holding and of course their counterpart, bags of devouring.

Here’s a sneaky way to handle bags of devouring. It is devious and players will hate you for it. 

This is not like the normal bag of devouring from the 1e DMG on pages 137-138, but something different.

Whether it is a mimic like creature or some other creature or a magical object is up to the DM. This is a Dormant Bag of Devouring. This bag functions as a normal bag of holding until a set condition occurs. The DM must determine this condition when the item is placed as potential treasure. 

Creature

If the bag is a creature of some kind, the DM must determine where does the treasure go? It can be a pocket dimension, another plane, or a specific location on the planet. This opens up the possibility of having it disgorge all the treasure it has ever eaten, leading to hilarity as the Scrooge McDuck vaultful of coins fills the location where it was slain. 

Detemine the age of the bag to determine the volume of its lifetime of meals.

1d6 NOTE: The below is in addition to treasure the party puts in it.

  1. New/Baby only the contents of a volume equal to the size of the treasure in which it is found.
  2. Juvenile volume is 5 times the treasure in which it is found.
  3. Young adult volume is 10 times the treasure in which it is found.
  4. Adult volume is 15 times of original treasure.
  5. Mature volume is 20 times of original treasure.
  6. Ancient volume is 25 times original treasure.

Treasure may be in coins, gems, ingots, and other things capable of fitting into its opening (mouth). Damage from falling coins will be 1d6 per 100 coins or gems, and 1d8 per falling ingot. Characters may use their best saving throw to attempt to dodge the falling loot, or attempt to “float” or “climb” to stay above the torrent. If this happens in a small room, it will soon be filled and pour out into all openings and could potentially overflow a small dungeon, sink a ship, topple a tower, etc. Wooden structures must make a saving throw to resist bursting and collapsing.

The best hope is to be in a huge cavern or in the open air when this occurs.

Magic Item

If a magic item, this is a crafty device developed by mages in need of cash. These bags of holding will empty their contents into a space
designated at the time of their creation that is capable of holding it all safely. This will be a room of sturdy stone construction with a heavy door. Often the access door is hidden by illusion or craftsmanship, and is always wizard locked at the current level of the owner.

These devices are often given as rewards to adventuring parties that help the wizard achieve their goals. Successful adventurers are more likely to find treasure.

There will be some sort of alert, so the mage knows to empty the room. Perhaps a magic mouth or other spell. 

If a quick thinking party caster can cast knock BEFORE it finishes consuming its contents, it will shred the bag and open a portal to the treasure vault. This portal will endure for 1 turn. If there is no knock available for the access door, and they can’t find the access door, they are trapped without some other means of egress, such as teleport. 

If the vault is filled, roll percentile dice for the amount of treasure that spills out before the portal closes.

Instead of knock, if hold portal is cast, the mouth of the bag is opened to the standard dimensions of a door and the party has the duration of that spell to attempt to recover their treasure and avoid being trapped as in the example using knock. In this case, the bag will fall harmlessly to the ground, waiting for its next use. If the entire party is in the treasure vault, they bag will lie there until found by another. If some of the party remains they can attempt to fill the bag until it is triggered to consume and cast one of the spells effective to shred or open it.

There may be other spells that allow the players to subvert the intended use of the bag as determined by the DM.

NOTE: The creator of the bag, or their heir, descendant, or successor will often know that something is amiss and will seek to prevent the party from making off with the treasure. It may be possible for them to see the party, as with a crystal ball, spell, or other device and be able to track them.

Triggers

A dormant bag may be triggered to consume its contents by many things. The trigger can be activated by a specific spell near it, a set interval of time, when a specific type of creature is near, or in a specific place. The DM must determine the trigger for each bag before placing it in a treasure.

Examples of spells might be fireball. This would be bad for the party if they cast fireball in a room with the treasure where it is found, as it will attempt to consume the treasure. This is an atypical function of the bag. In this case it will open its mouth wide to grab a pile of treasure it is in, or to inhale all the valuables that are party of the treasure. NOTE: IF the party bests the creature who owns the treasure, the items on their person are not considered part of that loot.

A set interval of time could be once a year, or a certain amount of time after it is filled to maximum capacity, or a certain time of day.

A specific place and time might be to consume all the treasure of a dragon’s hoard if the party has the bag with them when they defeat the dragon, or if the bag is party of the dragon’s hoard. 

The available triggers to choose from are only limited by the DM’s imagination.

Consuming The Treasure

Once the delayed bag is triggered, those who posses it will hear an omm nom nom, sound like Cookie Monster going nuts with a plate of cookies. However, it is only the om nom sound, followed by a large burp when completed. If the party is in a loud environment like walking through the streets during festival, in a rowdy tavern, in the midst of combat, roll to see if they notice the om nom sound. The burp will be a hearty one and if they miss the om nom sound will think a member of the party is responsible for the noise. 

If the party cannot hear because of a silence spell, or some other cause of deafness, they will miss these audible clues.

Just like a bag of holding, the weight is the same and they will not discover it is empty until they go to draw something from it.

Finding The Loot

You should allow some chance for the party to find the loot. A wish, for example will give them the name and address of a wizard who crafts such a bag, or the location the loot has gone if it is a creature. Scrying by spell or device may be effective, unless the mage who crafted a bag has means in place to prevent it. A creature type bag will have its treasure location susceptible to scrying, should the party posses or find such means.

Scrying is only effective within a limited amount of time. It might be one day or week per level of the spellcaster doing the scrying. Make it an amount of time that is within the realm of possibility for the party to find it, if they choose to do so. If they don’t realize that scrying is a possibility within the time limit, that is fine, not everything should be automatic. A wish of course, will trump all, if it is worded properly to prevent unintended consequences.

Special Cases

Mages who plan the design of their bags carefully will have in place safeguards that prevent cursed items from being put in the bag.

Artifacts and certain other powerful magics cannot be placed in these bags due to the nature of their power and magic. Powerful items include any item with a wish, like a luckblade, deck of many things, intelligent items like swords, and items that contain the soul or essence of another creature whether mortal or otherwise. The DM should consider what items are powerful enough to withstand being placed in the bag.

When an item that is cursed or too powerful is placed in the bag, it will not even enter the bag, like it is repelled by a magnet. This repulsion does not propel the item with any great force. It merely prevents placing it in the bag. This effect will hold true if a crafted bag is held open by means of hold portal or similar.

Additionally, items that act as a beacon to overcome scrying cannot be placed in a bag. This is of course optional.

Plot Hook: There may be a certain legendary item, or other item, that the mage wants and they may bargain, cajole, or geas a part to find some component needed to complete a bag that will accept the artifact. Then the bag is given to the party with directions to the artifact.

If you have lots of these bags in your game, you may want only some of them to prevent the creator from getting these items.

If you only have one of these bags in your game you will want to consider special cases. 

Any other special case you can think of may be used.

There could even be a legendary item that is an artifact with all the risks and rewards of same, that is capable of receiving other artifacts and powerful items, perhaps it will transfer the curse on a cursed item to another object such as a coin or other magic item, or even a person. Such as the person who puts the cursed item in the bag.

Other Uses

A variation of this bag is carried by tax collectors to ensure that their collected revenue ends up in government coffers.

A master of a thieves guild might commission such a bag so that operatives can’t cheat the guild out of what is owed.

RPGs

Note Taking

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I type a lot of my notes directly into various documents. I start with a text file, I use NoteTab. I’ve used it since mid-1997, and have been on the beta test team for most of that time.

When I’m away from my computer, and need to make a note of something, I use Evernote on my cell phone. When I get back to my computer, I can log into Evernote and copy and past my notes to the appropriate document. Usually the notes are anything from a grocery list to ideas for a scenario for a game, or an idea for a blog article.

However, I also make notes on all kinds of paper. I use the backs of scrap paper, note cards, writing pads of various sizes, lined, unlined, graph paper, etc.

Since I work from home and my home office is in the same room as my personal office/computer room, I have collected notes for different things on different scraps of paper. Ideas cross my mind at the oddest times, and I grab the nearest piece of paper that is OK for that note, and write it down.

Over time, this can lead to a lot of random notes. I then have to transfer them to my computer. If I have multiple notes for different topics on the same paper, I check off which ones I have dealt with, then chuck the whole thing once they’re all addressed. Sometimes it might be a list of reminders. If I think of something important while in the middle of something else, I have to write it down, or I forget about it.

I think this just shows how my thoughts never stop. 

This non-stop flurry of activity is hard to tame if I’m not actively cultivating it. This morning, I overslept and my whole day was colored by it. I managed to have all of my poor interactions with other people over the past 25+ years come into my recollection in rapid succession. I managed to get myself out of that downward spiral of negative self talk by focusing on work until I woke up enough to forget about it until I wrapped up this blog post.

Bullet Journal

It is this crazy and chaotic style of making notes that can be tamed by a more organized method. Whether it is just a notebook/journal one enters their ideas, or a more organized approach, like a Bullet Journal.

A year ago, I posted on my personal Facebook page how adhering to my bullet journal (BuJo) helped me crank through on cleaning up odd scraps of paper and organizing things for work on personal.

I got away from my BuJo for work and personal stuff, and it has been a challenge getting back into it. The chaotic nature of my day job can take me down a totally unexpected rabbit hole that consumes one or more days, and then I’m lost as to what I was working on of the multiple projects I seem to always have. 

The last few weeks I have had great focus on getting projects done, and putting miscellaneous scraps of work notes into either my BuJo or the appropriate computer note keeping files. As the senior tech on the team, I’m always getting interrupted to help the others with their issues. The BuJo concept really does help me. The reminders in Outlook, and various notes in various text files and documents have their place, but I can’t wrap my mind around all the pieces. With a BuJo, I can make a spread that holds my focus and speaks to me about what I must do and how far along things are.

I intend to use this focus to wrap up loose ends before busy season starts in December. My day job is supporting accounting and payroll software and we get slammed with every client calling multiple times to get help with procedures they only do once a year. Triple the normal call volume leaves little time and energy for anything else. 

My goal with this year end, is to have work wrapped up and the stress managed, so that it doesn’t suck away all of my energy and enthusiasm for creating content and running games. I’m also working ahead on my planned monthly PWYW PDF releases on OBS so if I don’t do so well on maintaining my energy, I can still put out the planned PDFs. 

I’m working on a BuJo video idea that I started over 6 months ago. I’ve got to tighten the focus and the script and plan the shots. I’m trying to figure out how to fit it in and get my other planned RPG projects done. My submission of games to run at Gary Con needs to get done. Also I need to flesh out my game ideas that I’ll be running at UCon in November. And Marmalade Dog is, and if GMs submit games before December 31st, they get free admission for each day that they run a game. It’s all doable, I just need to focus and implement and adhere to my BuJo strategy. Breaking down the complex into doable pieces. 

Here’s a companion podcast.

RPGs

First Experience with Self Publishing

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My first experience with self publishing was as a proof reader, and crafter of the table of contents for The FRONT [Affiliate Link], by +Mark Hunt. 

Google Docs vs MS Word

What I found is that collaborating on a manuscript has certain pitfalls. Google Docs does not handle Word documents well. You can read them, but it messes up the page count. If you convert it back to a Word Doc, it easily doubles the page count due to how it mangles formatting.

There is supposed to be a way to edit Word Docs in Google Drive, without even having Word, but I am not getting it to work. I found this after Mark and I gave up and I just edited the Word Doc and sent it back to him. Google Docs has change tracking and comments, so it is good for the basics. 

From my experience, Google Docs can be used for the collaboration process to get the text right, then worry about the formatting. If Google Docs can handle linked TOC’s and save them to PDF, then it would be a great tool.

If that doesn’t work, then all parties collaborating on a document would need the same tools. For example, MS Office, or the free Libre Office. A way to avoid sending a file back and forth across Google Drive would speed things up noticeably. Preferably a way to avoid using money to buy a solution. Small self-publishers don’t make a lot of money, especially not until they get started and have enough success to buy potentially better tools.

If you are working on your own, and do it all, and can edit/proofread your own work and do it right, then you can get by without a need for collaborative tools. Maybe there is no free and simple way to do this. Perhaps it takes total isolation of the file in the hands of one person at a time. The main requirement being all involved have the same software to get the same results. However, this means that if one person sees an issue, they can’t fix it in real time and have the other(s) inherit that change.

I am curious about how others have approached this and what their experience has been with the tools used for collaboration on RPG products.

Text First Then Layout

My take is to get the text edited and right and then worry about formatting. This is the standard way to do it anyway. Think old school. One didn’t start laying out type on a printing press to write their document. They wrote and edited the document, then figured out the layout. That is why many prefer a plain text editor for getting the text right, and then worry about formatting and layout.

  A template geared towards automatic formatting of page size, font size and spacing, etc. can minimize the need to getting too fiddly with formatting in a word processor. For a more polished look, something like the free and open source Scribus for layout; or the costly version of various Adobe products can give a sharper more varied layout. PDF’s can be generated by more free software than in the past, and it can even have cross linked TOC’s and indexes. NOTE: I used Page+ by Serif for my first PDF on OBS.

Otherwise, you need the author, an editor, and a layout person. Often a layout person can be a good editor/proofreader, but that should not be assumed, as they are different jobs. A proofreader is focused on looking for typos and other obvious issues, while an editor is that plus making sure it all ties together. A layout person makes sure the visual presentation is appealing and improves the readability. Layout people charge a lot more for proofreading and editing. 

Rarer still is someone who can do their own art for a project, most use either stock images that are public domain or low cost, or custom art bought to order for a given project. One must be aware of copyright on images. If you buy art, usually, you only by the right to use it for a particular purpose or amount of time. I recently found Pixabay for public domain images. One also needs to ensure that the fonts they use are free for business use. Lots of licensing out there to keep in mind.

Getting It Out There

Then, there is one of the various publishers that offer PDF’s or POD, or both. If selling one from your own website, you can easily sell the PDF’s, or make them free. For physical product, you either need a POD service, or make arrangements with a printer that can provide the final product desired.

OBS via RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and DM’s Guild make it easy to do PDFs and POD on a custom platform for RPGs. Lulu supports both PDFs and POD, but many choose to do PDFs on OBS and POD on Lulu for greater profit. I find that Lulu tends to do a better job of packaging so your POD orders don’t rattle in the box. OBS (and Amazon) leave a lot to be desired to prevent books from sliding around in the shipping box. The marketing, emailing, and statistics available on OBS, plus the ready made niche audience, makes it the best choice for one-stop service.

What I Know Now

Now that I am a publisher on OBS and have my first PDF available, I have seen all the tools that OBS makes available. Without a lot of effort and success, it is hard to get away from OBS. There are many that use both OBS and direct sales from their website. As a one man outfit, I like the utility of OBS. It is one large project I don’t have to undertake and maintain to duplicate on my website. I definitely lets the small publisher get a lot of value for the percentage taken by OBS. Otherwise, the number of eyes that might stumble on your offerings is a lot smaller. If you are a one person publisher looking to get started, OBS makes it easy to get a slice of your niche in a small niche. The present prominence and success of D&D makes now an even more opportune time to ride this wave. How much longer can it last?

[NOTE: I started this article back in 2016 after my experiences helping with the TOC. I reviewed my back list of drafts over Labor Day weekend, 2018 and completed a few of them.]

RPGs

Shadows Over Driftchapel – A New Adventure Kit Kickstarter by Absolute Tabletop

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I backed two Kickstarters from Absolute Tabletop,  Adventure Kit: Oath of the Frozen King, and A Dead Man’s Guide to Dragongrin: 5E Campaign Setting Guide. Because I liked their adventure kit concept, see my review here, I backed the Dragongrin Kickstarter, as it holds more tools.

The Adventure Kit concept is something a GM can build on their own, to help them build adventures in their world. If you don’t want to build your own custom tables, you can get an Adventure Kit and use it to get you on your way creating adventures for your players.

Their new Kickstarter is Adventure Kit: Shadows Over Driftchapel, a setting inspired by the Victorian era. It’s a gaslamp, and perhaps steampunk type setting. The book is done, along with editing and layout. The Kickstarter is to fund more art and printing.

A 5e setting with the Adventure Kit model, something that should appeal to the OSR.

Here’s the blurb leading from the Press Release:

A vast and loathsome shadow approaches – coming Tuesday, September 4 from Absolute Tabletop…

Introducing the upcoming Kickstarter for our second volume of ENnie-nominated Adventure Kits™ – Shadows Over Driftchapel. 

Shadows Over Driftchapel is a fantasy horror adventure set in Gloam, our Victorian/Colonial-inspired world brimming with eldritch horrors, flickering gaslight, and destructive black powder. This versatile adventure-building resource contains everything you’ve come to love about Adventure Kits: modular locations and encounters, intriguing NPCs and fulfilling plotlines, encounter and scene generators ready for on-the-fly-use – plus a few extra stretch goals, if you’ll help us fund beyond our mark!

Hither comes the Gloam – on Tuesday, September 4, the Kickstarter begins, and the monstrosities and madness of Driftchapel will be thrust upon you… 

Follow us on Kickstarter to get real-time updates, and be one of the first to help fund our next Adventure Kit, Shadows Over Driftchapel! https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/absolutetabletop

Here is the link to the companion YouTube video: https://youtu.be/8sdqOj6Sx-Y

Here is the link to the companion Podcast episode: https://anchor.fm/follow-me-and-die/episodes/Follow-Me–And-Die—-Episode-24—Dragongrin-Kickstarter-from-Absolute-Tabletop-e257on

RPGs

Mini Review – Low Fantasy Gaming

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[This has been sitting in my drafts forever, and I updated it a while ago to mention newer products. Rather than leave this hidden in my drafts, I thought I’d let it see the light of day.]

Low Fantasy Gaming (LFG) is a free OSR Clone that takes a bit of the original RPG and adds in various tweaks to game mechanics with advantage/disadvantage, skills, exploits (feats?), etc. and limits the availability of magic.

It focuses on humans as the only player race, but has options for other races. Each class is a sort of template for a general idea that has the ability to tweak it to the player’s preference. Some things are left open for new levels to work out between the player and the GM, inviting looking at other RPG’s for ideas. This section acknowledges that this part of the rules is in a perpetual play test state.

There is both a table of contents and an index, but neither is hyperlinked. Still nice to have the basic features in a free product. If the rules are ever for sale, I suggest links in contents and index.

In the credits, several of the artists’ websites are linked. I like that, in case I ever manage to have a project that needs art. It also helps the artist by letting others see their other work.

It is the type of ruleset that is in some ways a setting, but there is no defined setting. One can easily take Robert E. Howard’s map of Hyperboria and place their campaign in it, or develop their own campaign world from scratch.

There are magic user characters, but their access to and use of magic is limited.

Levels are capped at 12th level. Each class gets some sort of base and followers at the appropriate level.

Overall, this gives one an interesting combination of mechanics and options. If you want a simple set of rules, or like collecting free RPGs, check it out. At 188 pages, roughly 80 pages are for players, and the rest for the GM.

As I look at the draft of this post I started in 2016, I am reminded of Knave [Affiliate Link], the new rules light RPG from Ben Milton, creator of Maze Rats [Affiliate Link]. The older I get, the less patience I have for fiddling with and arguing over rules. Let the GM make a ruling so we can get on with the game.

RPGs

Mini-Review Sammi-Zowa Versus the Dueling Dragons

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by Ernest Gary Gygax Jr., Nerissa Monte, Simon Todd – illustrator

While geared as a children’s book, adults – especially gamers will enjoy the story. A short 77 pages with larger well-spaced text and plenty of illustrations make this a quick read.

The children of Gary Gygax have shared how much of a story teller he was, and he got that from his own father.

Ernie carries on the tradition with a story originally developed for his own grandchildren.

There is a co-writer, Nerissa Montie, not knowing her style or exact role, I am not sure of her hand in this.

The illustrations by Simon Todd are excellent and really help set the mood.

With a Japanese based setting, magic, and dragons it is a fun and interesting adventure.

While perhaps too long for toddler and pre-K, it is a good bedtime story, 
or an anytime story,  for ages 5 and up.

It makes for a good scenario for an introductory adventure to introduce children to RPG’s.

With a little tweaking, it is an interesting scenario for adults too.