Monthly Archives: June 2019

RPGs

One Year Of Podcasting

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You can hear the companion anniversary podcast episode here.

Monday, June 24, 2019 marked one year since I started podcasting. Initially, I was podcasting whenever I had an idea, with often a new episode every day. It wasn’t until September of 2018 that I settled into my three episodes a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

I maintained that schedule until after Thanksgiving, 2018 when I had to deal with the combined chaos of the day job and some personal issues. Once the personal issues were under control I had a few episodes here and there and was back to the normal 3 episodes a week, except for Gary Con, but I did do a joint episode with Ray Otus and Cody Mazza. I was consistent with episodes until May and was just tired and dealing with work and stuff around the house.

I finally started back on a regular schedule and the rains and flooding overwhelmed my sump pump. I thumped it and it started, but it wouldn’t turn off. I spent all day last Saturday replacing it. I live in a house that’s almost 100 years old. It has 3 or 4 different types of pipe in the plumbing, and this sump pump was not installed the way it should have been so it took several trips to the hardware store to get all the right parts, but I got it done.

Unfortunately, the water got deep enough before I could get the new pump in place that it knocked out the pilot light on the water heater, so we’ve been without hot water for a week. I have tried a couple times to light it, but no go. I think until it dries out completely in the basement, that it’s useless to try. The water finally quick coming in through the sump and the seams in the floor. Now the dehumidifier is slowly drying things out. As long as there’s no more rain, I can relax a bit.

I was so worn out Saturday, that I just vegged the rest of the day, and no podcast. I have a fitbit and I made 50 trips up and down stairs. I also took it easy Sunday.

Then the internet wouldn’t work for my home computer, so I was limited in what I could do. I finally determined that I just needed to move the Ethernet cable to another spot on the modem. I just got the new modem in March, when I switched internet providers. For a couple days I was worried the network card went out. I’m glad that’s not it, as I need to be ready for other expenses.

Thankfully, my RPG collection is high and dry and mold free! I lost most of my original collection to a water leak, so there’s no way I’m storing any of it in the basement!

I had my end blurb since before the 3 episodes a week. Is that too iconic to change how I do that? What do you think?

I’m way behind on listening to my fellow podcasters, and it seems like there are a lot of new ones over the last few months. I’ve tried to listen to them. I keep hoping to change that, but too much other stuff keeps interrupting my fun.

Next month, I will publish my 12th monthly PDF on DriveThruRPG supported by my patrons on Patreon. Most of them are PWYW, but I will be going back to each of them and improving their formatting as I’ve gotten a lot better at formatting. I have 1 Silver Seller (Caravans & Trade) and 2 Copper Sellers (Library Generation Tables and Locks, Vaults, and Hiding Places).

Next month is also the tenth anniversary of my blog! I can’t believe it’s been that long!

The end of August will be 1 year since I launched Follow Me, And Die! Entertainment LLC to get ready for the Kickstarter for my card game. The game is moving along. So far, things are on track to launch in the first half of 2020.

September will mark 1 year since I launched a Patreon. I want to thank all my patrons who have been on this journey with me!

RPGs

Allergies In RPGs

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I suffer from seasonal allergies, things like: pollen, dust, mold, and dogs and cats.

This got me to thinking. What if adventurers had a defect of being allergic to something in the dungeon? Normal molds and other airborne fungus in the depths will lead to constant blowing of the nose, coughing, and sneezing. I sneeze very loudly and I would alert the entire level of a moldy or dusty dungeon of my presence with a single sneeze.

Perhaps monstrous molds and fungi would also provoke a similar reaction, perhaps serving as a warning to a party. I can’t tell the difference between all the pollen that makes me react. I can smell mold when my basement is damp. I can taste mold in tea from fountain machines, so I don’t order it if it isn’t brewed.

What spells and precautions could be taken to help alleviate an adventurer’s allergic reaction to irritants in the dungeon, tomb, or other location? How does the adventurer convince the party to let them tag along?

Perhaps a hireling is the one with allergies and they don’t mention it until their in the dungeon coughing and sneezing.

In addition to normal allergies, what if the person is allergic to monstrous creatures? How do they know until they encounter it? They have to survive the encounter long enough to use the knowledge, if they are sure what it was that cause their reaction.

What if the monsters are allergic to humans or something the players carry?

What happens when a dragon sneezes? Does it trigger an involuntary use of their breath weapon?

Does another type of creature with an allergy have one of their abilities triggered, like invisibility, cause fear, or fly?

There are too many possible combinations of things for a list of all possible allergens. The only ideas I have for tables is effect on the sufferer, range that the effect reaches the sufferer, etc.

Allergic Reaction d6

  1. Watery Eyes – Vision Affected
  2. Scratchy Throat – Clearing the Throat and/or coughing
  3. Runny Nose – Lots of sniffles or Blowing the nose
  4. Post Nasal Drip – Gagging, hacking, coughing, blowing the nose
  5. Hives
  6. Anaphylactic Shock (Anaphylaxis)

Remedies d6

  1. Nasal Irrigation (Neti Pot, etc.)
  2. Roots with anti-histamine properties
  3. Berries with anti-histamine properties.
  4. Herbs with anti-histamine properties.
  5. Two of the Above.
  6. Nasal Irrigation plus two more. (May include using a substance for irrigation made from one or both of the other items.)

Cures

Heal is obvious. Will Cure Disease cure an over active immune system, such as with allergies? Will Remove Poison only clear the substance causing the reaction until the next occurrence? Slow Poison would be nearly useless with allergies, since their effect is almost immediate. For anaphylaxis slow poison would be helpful in keeping the person alive.

Will wizards and alchemists have concoctions that work?

What folk cures actually stop and prevent future reactions?

Perhaps fresh honey from giant bees will cure pollen allergies.

Eating a rare giant mushroom might cure fungal allergies. What if it’s a sentient mushroom, is it an evil act?

Surviving a monstrous mold attack might cure mold allergies. I mean being affected by the mold and managing to survive. Surviving in spite of a failed saving throw.

Eating a displacer beast’s tentacles might cure cat allergies.

Eating part of a monstrous fish or other water or ocean dwelling creature might cure fish allergies.

RPGs

Circlets Of Golem control

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I made some notes about magic items for controlling golems. I had plans of introducing them in my AD&D campaign, but they have yet to appear. This is an idea that others may find useful in their own games.

The AD&D Monster Manual [Affiliate Link] lists four kinds of golems on pages 47-49:

  • Flesh golems inspired by Frankenstein‘s monster (perhaps more by the Universal Movies). 1% chance per round of continuous combat of becoming out of control. Creator has 10% chance per round of ragaining control. Created by magic-users.
  • Clay golems inspired by the 16th century golem of Prague. 1% chance per round of continuous combat of becoming out of control. No chance to regain control. Created by clerics.
  • Stone golems – Creator always maintains control. Created by magic-users.
  • Iron golems – Creator always maintains control. Created by magic-users. Iron golems are subject to attack by Rust Monsters.

The Circlets

The circlets are needed because the creations can become out of control of their creators. Thus the need for something to improve control and the chance of regaining lost control.

Flesh Golem Control – Band of leather made from the skin of a slain flesh golem. The usual story of creation of this device is that a magic user has had to slay their first creation in the interests of self-preservation. Creation of this magic item from the remains of a golem is one way to use what one has learned and expand upon it.

Clay Golem Control – Precious metal circlet of either silver with gold weave, gold, or platinum with a clay “stone” from a slain clay golem inset in the center that rests over the forehead.

Stone Golem Control – Precious metals similar to that used for a clay golem, but the stone insert is of the same form of stone from a slain stone golem.

Iron Golem Control – Iron band from a slain iron golem forged into a circlet.

Circlet of Controlling All Golems – The leather from a flesh golem wrapped around the iron circlet from an iron golem with stones from a clay and stone golem.

NOTE: Those who create golems who are forward thinking, can use a portion of the material from their first creation to make a circlet of control. Such a circlet will improve the control over the related golem.

Abilities of Control Circlets

  • Circlets improve the chance of maintaining and regaining control of golems of the appropriate type.
  • The wearer is invisible to out of control golems.
  • The wearer receives a special protection to enemy controlled golems and is at -4 to hit.
  • The wearer has a chance to wrest control of enemy controlled golems. There is a 50% chance that a failed attempt to gain such control causes the golem to go berserk.
  • The wearer can focus on a single golem for one round to attune to a single golem and then access all the senses of the target golem. Such attunement is interrupted by dispel magic. A spell of dispel magic will prevent regaining control of the affected golem(s) for 1d6 turns. Similar effects occur by other spells such as anti-magic spheres, rays, etc. Rooms or areas with an anti-magic or dispel magic effect block and prevent control for the duration of time the golem is in such an area. If the wearer is in such an area, if the effect is not permanent, control can be regained in 1d6 turns after leaving such an area.
  • Range: 60′ per point of intelligence of the bearer. Alternate range: Line of site. Spells and items that increase the range of vision will boost this.

Similar Items

Potions and Scrolls of golem control also exist.

Potions, scrolls, rings, or other items can render the bearer invisible to golems, and provide the same benefit as control circlets for out of control and enemy controlled golems.

RPGs

Monstrous Creatures Not Slain

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A recent picture making the rounds is of an alligator with a knife in its head. There is nothing for scale, so the size of both the alligator and the knife are unclear. One person interviewed said it appeared to be in or near its eye, and appeared to be a steak knife. The picture above makes it appear in the center of the skull. [Photo by Erin Weaver/Facebook]

Without scale, it is easy to see a giant alligator with a sword in it’s skull. I imagine a furious battle and a final blow from a valiant knight merely embedded his sword in the creature’s skull instead of slaying it in a final flurry of blows.

How many creatures a party encounters are wounded or bearing marks of battle?

Adventurers vs. Creatures

In a living world type of campaign, the player characters are not the only ones acting on the world. Other NPC adventurers will try to find their own fame and fortune, some will fail miserably, but still leave a mark.

How many giant boar bear a splintered lance or spear in their shoulders or hindquarters? Perhaps it is a magic spearhead that prevents the creature from dying of disease. Is is coated with silver or copper which have antiseptic properties?

Giant alligators or crocodiles that bear magic swords in their skulls like the sword in the stone. The one who removes the sword is the one true ruler of the river or swamp, or they just have a cool sword with a tale to tell.

Any large, giant, or enormous creature might bear wounds with weapons or fragments of weapons still protruding. Non-intelligent or lone creatures might not be able to reach a protruding weapon. Some might make a bargain for those who can remove the offending object, like the fable, Androcles and the Lion.

Elephants, mammoths, wholly rhinos, rocs, bullettes, dragons, wyverns, giants, and so forth are all examples of large creatures that might have a fresh, festering, or healed over wound with a weapon in the wound.

Animal vs. Animal

During mating season, males of both carnivorous and herbivorous species will fight each other. Deer will butt heads and antler may shatter or wound both parties. Occasionally both combatants become locked at the antlers and both starve as they cannot disengage.

Carnivores may be wounded from fighting with other carnivores or dealing with scavengers. Both hunter and prey may be wounded in the fight for survival. This is true of animals of all sizes. Will a wounded animal be fleeing from a predator or limping back to its lair after a hunt gone wrong? Wounded animals are more likely to fight.

In fantasy games, a dragon wounded in a fight with a pair of wyverns over a meal would not be a pleasant encounter.

Environment vs. Creature

Animals of all sorts can be affected by environmental hazards, such as tar pits, mires, quicksand, landslides, tree falls, etc. As well as the various forms of traps by hunters from snare and pits, to falling boulders and logs, to mechanical or magical devices. In addition to hunters and trappers seeking meat or pelts, villages might try to trap a marauding tiger.

Strong predators in a pit trap would not welcome a hapless adventurer falling on them.

Variety

Not all animals need be wounded, sick, or in a fight for their lives. An encounter with a creature can be normal animals of all sizes, or giant forms of each, or magical or monstrous. Similarly, the intelligent species encountered need not all be bent on violence or part of a secret evil cult.

It is easy to make a side table to help you determine if something encountered is healthy, sick, injured, or dying. Also whether any injuries are by competitors, predators/prey, environmental hazards, villagers, patrols, or adventurer. One can set a target of 30% of encounters are other than healthy, so 1-2 on a d6, 1-3 on a d10, 1-6 on a d20, etc.

This same mechanic could be applied to creatures in a dungeon or underdark environment. Unless the dungeon is a place that re-sets to starting conditions when any adventurers leave, an actively delved dungeon will have signs of others braving its dangers. Those who live in the dungeon will have injuries from their hunting or being hunted, or territorial disputes.

That room with 10 goblins behind a barred door might be healing up from an encounter with the carrion crawler just up the hall. It might even be wounded from that encounter.

RPGs

The Problem With Gatekeepers

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Gatekeepers are a foul lot. They are incapable of just moving on when anyone in any group or category that they don’t like does anything in a way that is not the way they’d do it. Often they invent new reasons for dislike, especially when any form of fun is not the way they’d do it. If their parents ever told them to keep their mouth shut if they didn’t have something nice to say, they ignored it.

In my mind’s eye, I see gatekeepers as two guys guarding a “gate” across a path. These gatekeepers are under a delusion that there are walls around fun and that they are imposing and powerful creatures who guard a massive door in the only entrance.

In reality, it is two rotten posts of wood with a frayed, decaying rope across a path. Their only power is the ability to convince others in the reality of their delusion.

They are most outraged when others ignore their delusion and walk around their gate and “through” the walls to fun. Their only recourse is to spew vile words of mockery and belittlement. They would be clowns if what they said was actually funny. Unfortunately, they pile their manure to the sky, and impose themselves on conversations.

An ability to drive people off in tears and outrage, or enflame the embers of past kerfuffles keeps their efforts and their names alive. It’s like their afraid if they are silent and let people have what they call “bad, wrong fun” that they will cease to exist.

Sadly, they have two effects. First, they convince others who are new to the fun that they don’t belong, and they leave with the belief that all who participate in that fun are just like those rude, foulmouthed “gatekeepers.” Second, others with similar ideas join their cause and make the shouting louder.

Unfortunately, those who stand in opposition to the “gatekeepers” are just as loud and actively seek out those who support the “gatekeepers” even if it is just a follow on Twitter or Facebook. Maybe they follow them because they followed them before they were so nasty, and their stuff doesn’t show up in their feeds.

I follow over 600 on Twitter and hundreds on Facebook, and only a fraction, or those I’ve flagged to see their posts show up prominently in my social media feeds.

I’ve blocked the most vile and outspoken of those in the realm of RPGs. I’ve seen anti-gatekeeper forces bully a friend into unfollowing someone on Twitter. They don’t think it’s bullying. However, online text communication has no nuance of face to face communication. Context, tone of voice, etc. are not well conveyed in the limited words of a tweet. Also, just like sexual harassment is in the eyes of the harassed, so bullying is in the eyes of the bulled.

There has to be a better way to alert a person with tens of thousands of followers and who follows number in the thousands than to assume they know all about one person’s actions amongst thousands. I live in a town of about 2,000 I don’t know what everyone in town is doing. I can’t see them all at the same time. Even if they were all in the same place, I couldn’t keep tabs on all of them.

Put things in perspective. If there is a group dedicated to getting people to unfollow someone, get better organized and if no one in the group is personally acquainted with the person who follows a known bad actor, then appoint ONE person to make ONE contact. Bombarding a person with dozens or hundreds of tweets and direct messages is not the way to convince them you are acting for the good of all.

A scorched earth, annihilate all who stand in our path against the “gatekeepers” is the kind of behavior one would expect of the “gatekeepers.” What happened to “Don’t be a dick?” Or my version, “Don’t be a sphincter?”

Not everyone is on your level of information. There are better ways to cure ignorance than with anger, vitriol, and shame. Those are the tactics of the worst version of Christianity. I’ve fought that version of Christianity my whole live. I get lots of gasps and anger when I would say, “It’s better to love the Hell out of people than to scare the Hell out of them.”

Very few people will change their minds or their way of behaving with direct full frontal assault. They tend to dig in their heels and cling to the way they’ve always done things.

There are two different things going on here. The “gatekeepers” and their minions deserve to have someone stand up to them and call them on their bullshit. Stand up and call evil what it is. Their fringe followers need to be shown there is a different way than spewing hate.

Secondly, those who are bystanders who have innocently followed a bad actor don’t need a full frontal assault on their day or week. Just think, how would you like it if you received multiple tweets about someone you followed who is a colleague and friend. You just stepped into a personal relationship and asked it to be ended. That is very presumptuous.

There has to be a way to do that that doesn’t make someone feel like the “gatekeepers” make their victims feel. Consider the human element. Some people more easily experience strong emotions than others. Some have had trauma in their life that makes confrontation difficult. One can’t assume that everyone will react to the same presentation of a message the same way.

Yes, the truth hurts, and bullshit kills, but there has to be a way to speak truth without blasting a person’s good day to oblivion.

I’m angry and fed up with the petty nonsense that people spew online. I can’t shut them up.

I have two choices, block, ignore, and warn others of my experience, or pull the plug on the internet. I’ve got too many friends I only interact with online, so I’m not pulling the plug.

I’ll just stand here in my little corner of the net shouting into the raging winds. Those who stand near to listen will hear.