Wow!
+Dyson Logos took up my map challenge from March, and has done an awesome job and released it for both personal and commercial use, with proper attribution.
This is beyond cool!
Now, in addition to my meager support on his Patreon page, I have to come up with an adventure to go with it….
YOLO – You Only Live Once, was a popular online meme a couple of years ago.
I remember someone posted their idea for that, “You Obviously Like Owls”
I couldn’t help but thinking, “You Obviously Like Owlbears.”
Yon Obstinate Large Owlbear
Yikes! Oooh! Large! Owlbear! (I am thinking of Bugs Bunny facing one of the many monsters he encountered.)
Yellowish Olive Liquid Oozes
Yucky Odorous Littered Oubliettes
Yard Of Living Oracles
Sometimes these acronym and alliteration exercises give me ideas for something to use in a game, or just a chuckle, or allow me to get these things out of my brain so I can focus on something else. Perhaps these random thoughts spur someone else to some great RPG idea.
There is an interesting discussion on White Star over on the G+ Community.
White Star is a basic framework. I agree that its presentation with a strong homage to Star Wars helps to understand how it works.
I also see that as a basic framework, it supports any variation on anything that can be considered Science Fiction. From the hardest of science fiction, to the softest and vaguest hint of SF.
I think it is the simplicity of White Star that opens up so many possibilities. With such a simple tool box, different GM’s can go in different directions and each come up with something cool, that others can also use. There is no limit.
If you are comfortable with that simplicity and like to fill in the “gaps” that you see, it is perfect.
One could easily add in comic book heroes, it would take some tweaks to abilities and more tech, but it could be done. Any book, short story, old radio serial, TV show, or movie setting can be done using White Star. Some may take more work by the GM to make it happen, barring a supplement, but it can be done. However, it won’t be long and you will have lots of material, based on the rate at which new classes and ships have hit the community.
RPG’s that try to define “everything” end up being more about the rules and having the right book or supplement, than about doing what you came to do – play.
I am a big fan of both history and maps. I have a B.A. in History.
The ancient world of Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome, and on up to the Renaissance fascinate me.
The map of Germany with over 1,000 different countries is just fascinating. At my university they had a big hardback map book with a multi-colored map of Germany in the middle ages, and it just fascinated me. My paperback Rand McNally Atlas of World History is a passable substitute for such high-end books of maps.
Just looking at all the colors delineating all the separate nations generates the seeds of ideas.
Whether one is using a campaign set in a historical period of the ancients, or medieval, or a western, or post apocalyptic, maps help set the tone and flavor. Do you need to share the map with players? If they are a post holocaust type setting, would they even know they are on a planet and would they recognize a continent or larger scale map for what it is? In other settings, will players be able to afford a map?
Even if the maps you draw are only to inform yourself as the DM, don’t you want to share your creation(s) with your players?
I don’t have many books of maps. A well-done map is a thing of beauty. I like all maps, real and imaginary.
I don’t have the skill I wish I did to make my own maps. My maps are just crude representations of things. Some are better than others. I really appreciate all the maps available for my use from the plethora of OSR map makers!
It’s approaching 200 years since the founding of three communities in Missouri, since it is also 200 years since the Battle of Waterloo, on June 18. I assume these three towns were founded or named not long after the battle. I wonder if any other groupings of 3 communities happened after that battle.
One time, my mom related how she was talking with her father’s aunt Elsie, and were talking about Wellington, MO. When my mom asked where it was, Elsie replied, “Between Napoleon and Waterloo.” My mom broke out laughing to an unamused blank stare.
Napoleon and 600 troops escaped Elba on February 26, 1815, and landed on the south coast of France on March 1, 1815. Napoleon entered Paris on March 20, 1815, which marked the beginning of the Hundred Days, which were actually 111 days, that ended July 8, 1815.
I want to break out my Avalon Hill board game, Waterloo. I haven’t played it in decades. My brother, Robert, and I played somewhat frequently, back in the 80’s, and took turns as the French or the Allies, and were tied at who won as each side.
The movie, Waterloo, with Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, and Orson Welles is an interesting look and details many of the major events of the battle. I’m in the mood to watch it again. I haven’t tried very hard, but I’m not finding this movie online in one complete piece that I can watch in one go. I am considering buying a copy on DVD, if they are available. {Yikes! $52.00 on Amazon, or $21.00 for a used one! I’m not sure I want to watch it that badly! ]
Here is an interesting article on a diorama built in the 1970’s and restored in time for the 200th anniversary.
I was 11, almost 12 on July 4th, 1976. The Bicentennial was a big deal, and in 5th grade we had a unit on the American Revolution. I’ll be a few months shy of 51 in June. Thinking about the 39 years since 1976 and how much has happened, helps put in perspective how much happened between 1776 and 1815. February marked the 200th anniversary of the end of the War of 1812. Some have argued that if not for the British being tied up with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, that the young American Republic would have once again been a colony of Britain. Speculative fiction and setting an RPG in such a situation could be interesting.
Way back in college, I wrote a paper about how Europe would be much different had Napoleon not risen to power. Napoleon’s actions led to the end of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of Austria-Hungary. The rest of the German states were consolidated into far fewer separate countries, which simplified the rise of Prussian power and influence, and German unification in the 1870’s. The list of such things is a long one. One can easily see how the actions of The Congress of Vienna helped set the stage for events that would lead to WWI, and 100 years later the incomplete resolution of WWI leading to WWII. The Cold War after WWII has lead to the current problems in Europe, and the potential powder keg of Ukraine, which is 100 years after WWI. Three, four, or five generations is all it takes for major events to seem to “repeat” themselves.
In any RPG setting, one can see how the short-lived humans can muck things up by not remembering lessons from the past. In the lead up to WWI they had telegraph, telephone, trans Atlantic cables, and early radio for communication; and the lag time of getting news out was hours or less, and still things escalated. In a fantasy setting, there might be long lived gnomes, dwarves, and elves, but humans are wont to ignore the wisdom of elders.
If the races that were involved in issues 100 years ago are still represented by living eyewitnesses, it does not stop us from ignoring it. Some groups led by wise rulers, might listen, but there could be all sorts of reasons to ignore such advice. While real history has lots of complex issues involved, there is still a tendency to forget or ignore similar issues in the past, and familiar patterns emerge. One need not detail lots of historical events, but develop a general series of wars, invasions, and other disagreements that ebb and flow in similar patterns over the ages. Mix in how humanoids and demi-humans affect the mix, and you can come up with your own interesting blend that explains why your world is the way it is.
Other posts touching on my use of the board game Waterloo: No.1, No. 2.
I had a package in the mail on Friday, May 8th. I had forgotten that I ordered the April Mythoard. However, I had a feeling that there was something that should be coming in.
I had not planned to get it, but when I saw that it contained the latest edition of Oubliette #9, I was curious. I had read other positive comments about it, and knew that I would get some other cool goodies along with it, so I took the plunge.
Along with Oubliette #9 are several other goodies from Squarehex. There is a book mark with large squares on one side and the other side contains large squares with dungeon map symbols. There are two business card sized items. One is blank on one side, and the other side had hexes with outdoor map symbols. The other small card has dungeon map symbols that are black and the other side has the same symbols in gray with labels to explain them. I am not sure if the purpose of these symbols is to give you an example of what such symbols “should” or might look like, or if you are supposed to put them under your hex paper to help you draw a very neat map.
There is a folded piece of graph paper the same size as the Oubliette issue with the grid on the outside. The inside of the graph paper has the OGL license. I wonder if it it the innermost page of the zine, and did not get stapled. Finally, there is a small pad of 7 mm hex paper. The pad it not as wide as a business card, and it is about as tall as two business cards top to bottom. It is so small that it is for a very small area and it well suited to a micro map.
I expected the Oubliette zine to be a full page folded over, instead it is about a half page folded over. The introduction indicates that this is not the usual size. It is a slick card stock cover with click heavy weight interior pages. It is 20 pages counting the back cover, which is a table for generating hit points of creatures from 1/2 HD to 2 HD using a roll of one or more d20’s. Six pages are a mini adventure, two pages with four new spells. two pages on a variation on familiars, four new magic boots, a new monster, and second mini adventure of three pages. While not every idea will be used by everyone, there is a lot in these few pages.
Awful Good Games has a booklet that is zine sized, i.e. half a page folded over. It is a module of 31 pages. It has a slick card stock cover and slick heavy paper for the pages. The text is black over light grey. It is legible as long as the slick paper does not have any glare. Older eyes with bifocals can have trouble with this. If you avoid glare on the page, unless your eyes are worse than mine, you will be able to read it.
Next is a mini setting, a half page top to bottom ready for a standard three ring binder on slick card stock. It is black ink on a lightly colored background. It looks great, and as long as there is no glare, it too is easy to read. It continues adding to the Mythoard setting. I like that they keep adding things to the existing setting. If you want to use this setting in whole or in part, it is easy to do with this. I was glad to see that past month’s offerings are available. I would like to have the complete series of materials, if I can.
Next is a Pathfinder compatible supplement from AAW Games. It is For Rent, Lease or Conquest. It is a module about obtaining a home base for the party. It is a 42 page adventure. It is in a slick cover and the pages give one the visual impression of newsprint, but are slick and heavier than newsprint. The print is black ink on a multi-colored background. Most of each page has a light background, and thankfully the slick pages are not shiny. However, lighting and the angle the page is held can make words over darker ink harder to read for older eyes with bifocals. In addition, the layout has the text on some pages running into the border decoration. I think the intent is to look cool, but since it is hard for me to make out the text in some areas, and not every page is crowded, I think it is a layout issue. When the young eyes of the layout people read this stuff in 20 or 30 years, they will curse their younger selves. It is worst in sections of the page where the background color transitions from lighter to darker. Some letters disappear. In the corners of some pages is a leaf motif that goes light, dark, light and the odd color transition takes more concentration to read. I find that prolonged reading of this starts the feelings of a headache. It reminds me of the original PDF of D&D 5 where it had a colored background and was very hard to read. It seems like the intent is to go after the younger crowd at the expense of the older crowd.
The premise of the module is buying/occupying a building for home base and the villain is the realtor. I do not find that entertaining. As a homeowner who got screwed in the housing collapse, it is too much like papers and paychecks. That plus the difficulty in reading it, I don’t know if there are any useful nuggets in here.
Finally, there are two Dragon’s Quest adventures from Judge’s Guild: Starsilver Trek, and Heroes and Villains. They are in clear sealed plastic. If this is the original plastic and still sealed, do I want to open them? While these were from Bad Mike’s Books and Games, are they worth more sealed? There are definitely from back in the day and the art is of the sort that did not draw me in back then. Some of the JG stuff is really good and I wish I had delved into it back then.
So there is a lot of stuff in here. Some of it is for younger/better eyes than mine. As with “grab bags” one cannot expect everything to hit the sweet spot.
I found some things to interest me, and some ideas for later.
It took a long time to get to 300 posts, but the last 100 posts seemed to just fall together.
I’ve had this placeholder post in my drafts folder for a few weeks.
While trying to catch up on posts with reviews of products I have purchased, I hit 399 published posts a few days ahead of schedule.
I still have ten scheduled posts. There are 16 draft posts only one of which is a review. I have two other reviews that I don’t have a draft post placeholder yet.
I am going to go ahead and post this as I move on to finish checking out my new goodies so I can write about them.
These review posts need to be done before I put more energy into my ideas for White Star. I have started 4 or 5 ideas for White Star and they each need time to germinate and be crafted before I share them. Working on something different is always a good way to work on them in the back of my mind. I’m not sure why that works, but it’s pretty cool.
I think that I’ll mark my 500th post, 750th post, and 1,000th post, and then every 500 or thousand after that.
I purchased the Goldenrod Guide to Combat for Swords & Wizardry for Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day.
This supplement is 18 pages, including cover and OGL on the last page. There are several illustrations, charts, and tables. It deals with various aspects of combat, with suggested house rule changes to craft combat to your liking.
It begins with the combat round and moves on to mounted combat, unmounting a rider, fisticuffs, grappling, called shots, disarming opponents, permanent damage and maiming, parting shots, shield wall, ranged combat, critical hits, death and dying, weapon proficiencies, specialization, fighting styles, running competitive combats, such as jousts, tournaments, and archery,
Most of these rules are a paragraph or two. They can be used whole cloth, or a piece here and there, or server for ideas for your own rules.
The majority of these rules are more fiddly than I prefer in the combat system. The last section on jousts, tournaments, and archery would get the most use in my campaign.
If you are looking for house rules that are balanced and fit in with OD&D clones, such as Swords & Wizardry, this booklet will give you lots of ideas.
I planned to write a follow up on my A to Z experience this year, and a survey that arrive just before midnight alerted me to a Reflections Post, that needed to be done by May 8th. I am doing catch up on articles and clearing a backlog of things to review, on this rainy, thunderstorm laden weekend.
This was the second year that I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge to write a post every day, except Sundays, in April. As with last year, 26 blog posts is not difficult for me. I had most of them done and scheduled before April. Also, like last year, I only had time to keep up with the blogs in the (GA) category. This year, I read most of the posts.
For me, the hardest part of the challenge is a theme that I feel good about. This year, I wrote about different aspects of planning a city, whether it is a living city or an abandoned/lost city. Once I had a topic, I came up with 26 topics. I then scheduled each topic for the appropriate day and wrote on the topics that interested me.
I had most of my topics written with at least a few paragraphs or notes of things to be sure to mention. I dug in and wrote several posts in a marathon session, so that I only had to let them sit to do cleanup before they posted. A few topics seemed a bit harder to write, and I got a bit repetitive when some topics had overlap.
I did not come up with as many tables and generators as I had hoped. I did get some ideas for building them. Once those ideas have sat for awhile, I will gather them and see about making a more coherent PDF to share.
My goal of a system to randomly generate parts of a city did not materialize. I think because of the all the dice table in Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad #1, that +Adam Muszkiewicz showed me. It touched on most of what I was after. I don’t really need all the details I think I do, I just WANT them.
Since I scheduled each post, I had no problem posting on the correct day.
I am currently on the fence as to whether or not I will participate next year. I like that I used it to help me clarify and flesh out ideas for my own use. If I participate again, I will have to use it to do something helpful to my own needs and desires as a GM; whether it be a module, series of new creatures, a collection of maps, or NPC’s, it will have to be something that serves a dual purpose.
This year, there were twelve blogs with the (GA) tag for games. Of those, one was geared towards game books and not directly RPG related, that I could tell. Perhaps it was just not my thing.
Nemo’s Lounge gave up doing custom NPCs with a drawing after 16 posts. Both the drawings and NPC’s were great!
Wampus Country was doing a town a day and got up to E when it stopped. He had some interesting ideas, that I enjoyed while it lasted.
Others missed a beat here and there, but most of us managed all 26 postings for the month.
Tower of the Archmage had a great series of vignettes of a party of adventurers. He often included a map. He hiked the Appalachian trail and was gone for the whole challenge, so he wrote and scheduled all of his postings before he left. This series would make a neat short story and/or a module/dungeon.
Tim Brannon at The Other Side did vampires, as he promised he would last year, after doing witches. Who knew there were so many vampires in different cultures. He began with A for Aswang, which I not too long before learned about from watching Grimm. When White Star came out, he even did an A to Z special with a Space Vampire, modeled on the one from the 80’s Buck Rogers TV Show.
Mark Craddock of Cross Plains reviewed his favorite things about D&D.
Keith Davies of In My Campaign built several mythologies/pantheons and had a system to help him build them.
Sea of Stars had a series of NPC;s.
Spes Magna Games did a series on the “Boogie Knights Of the Round Table”. I have not seen the movie, Boogie Nights, but I got the reference. What if King Arthur and his knights where in the age of disco? He kept it going until the last few days, but did all 26 posts.
Another Caffeinated Day did a series of NPC’s,
The Dwarven Stronghold did NPC’s and magic items.
If you need NPC’s, items, maps, images, vampires, or city planning suggestions, there is a lot of good stuff collected in these posts, check them out.
This is as much for myself as for others.
Take up blogging for your own reasons. Whether you think it sounds like fun, or just to help you get your ideas for running your own games, or creating your own games or game materials.
Not all of your ideas are good ones. It is OK to write a crappy article -and just save it as a draft for later. That way, you have it and can go back to it later. Some partial and half-formed ideas are OK to publish without being fully formed. Sometimes this sparks a creative moment for someone else that is then shared with the community. You can also revisit the idea later in a follow up post to flesh it out.
Be gracious and thank those who share and give back. Share your own efforts and give back. Be inviting and encouraging.
Limit your non-RPG postings to non-RPG circles. I prefer to separate my politics, religion, and other activities from my RPG activities. Be who you are and do your own thing, but I blog about RPG things from my perspective, and don’t use it as a soapbox to convert others to my views on other things, or rant about how I can’t believe someone else believes or does X.
As Wil Wheaton has said, “Don’t be a dick.”
Be careful with the written word. Without the face to face interaction to gauge tone and body language, it is easy to miss sarcasm, hyperbole, satire, etc; or to read into it something other than what was intended. Don’t assume that something someone else has written in a blog post says what you think it says. Some may not spell check their work or have good grammar usage, or just messed up and left out a key word or phrase. See above where I said be gracious. Before flying off the handle and flaming or trolling someone, take a deep breath. Is it really necessary that you respond to everything you read online? If you really have to, write your blasting comment off line, and then set it aside. This gets it out of your system and allows you to move on.
When others leave comments on your blog, wall, or page and it feels like an attack. Stop, take a deep breath and look to see if they are just seeing a poor word choice in a quick blog post. Do you see how someone could come up with something totally different than your intended meaning? Is it something you can let roll off, or would you sleep better if you made a clarification? Don’t let it ruin your day. Mean people suck. Don’t be a mean people back.
Learn the capabilities of your chosen platform and use their strengths to help you.
Build up a buffer of posts. If you want to be a daily blogger, don’t immediately publish every idea that comes to mind. If you have ten ideas today and publish all of them today, what about tomorrow? Publish the first idea today and schedule the others to post over the next nine days. That gives you nine days until you have to think of something else to write about. As you think of ideas, schedule them to post the day after your last scheduled item. It is also OK to post on topics of the moment when they come up. Posts and ideas for posts that are not fully formed can be saved as drafts to craft them until they are ready. I find it useful to get all my ideas on various scraps of paper, or electronic notes into an appropriate article in draft form, so it is already in the process of being published on my blog.
Share your blog to the appropriate G+ communities. Note to self: Remember to use the LINK option instead of just copying the link into the text field….
Have a variety of types of things you blog about. Play reports, game ideas, tables, current events in the RPG world, maps, art, etc. If you have something that is your trademark, or your own way of presenting something, keep at that thing until you hit your stride.
Use your blogging to help you build a campaign, module, setting, table or other idea that you can use at the table. Collect those ideas that you know can be something, but that you just need to flesh out. Sometimes others have similar ideas that are close to what you want or need and can help you craft something for your needs.
Make it fun and make it interesting.
Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Review your articles before they post. After an article sits for a few days, when you re-read it, you find spelling and grammar mistakes that can make it hard to understand or follow, or you may think of something to add to it. I find typos of words that are spelled correctly, but are homonyms, so thus the wrong word, or other words that are spelled right, but don’t make sense.
I made sure to enable spell checking in my browser, so that anything I post online is spelled correctly.
Use tags and/or categories to tie together similar topics. If you write on something more than once, or have a prior related topic, use the search feature of your blog and link back to that topic. Periodically review your blog for new tags and categories that might be needed or go back and add them to older posts.
If you have a certain type of post that build up to a substantial amount of writing on a particular topic, make a PDF of it and make it available as a download on your blog. For example, a collection of tables, or an adventure you built over time on your blog. If it is particularly well done, you could put it up for sale on DriveThruRPG or RPGNow as a pay what you want or for a small amount. Be sure to acknowledge those who gave you ideas and suggestions. See above about being gracious.
Announce your blog posts on relevant pages. I prefer Google Communities, those seem to be easier to review over time than Facebook. Don’t overdo it. Some people post everything to dozens of communities.
Read and make helpful comments on other’s blogs and pages.
Constructive comments or constructive criticism are good things. Give and receive them graciously. If you tell someone what is weak, lacking, or needs improvement in what they write, be sure to point out what they did right. Don’t assume that they understand that you are only pointing out the problems, and if you don’t mention other things that they are perfect. Most people don’t see it that way. If it is important enough to point out the bad stuff, it is also required that you point out the good stuff. If you receive only indications of your failings, be sure to ask what you did right. If the person is a jerk and can’t find anything constructive to say, then don’t take their input too seriously. You might point out to them, with grace, that they are really good at pointing out other’s failings, but they need to work on pointing out what others do well. Model the behavior you expect from others.
Just because you don’t get a certain specific RPG or genre or setting, or don’t like certain things in RPGs does not mean that you need to mention it. Or if you do mention it, does it need mentioning every posting or every time that topic comes up anywhere? Speak to what you know or want to know more about. If you have to mention something you don’t like, do it in such a way that it is clearly your take and experience, and not a condemnation of everyone who enjoys that particular aspect of RPGs.
Remember that RPGs are _GAMES_ and that games are supposed to be FUN! If you are blogging about games, it should be fun! If you lose the fun, then it is hard to make it enjoyable for you or others. Remember my rule [-1], if you aren’t having fun, you’re doing it wrong.
![A-to-Z Reflection [2015]](https://followmeanddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/A-to-Z-Reflection-2015-Lg.jpg)