cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/36488024

This is an almost abandoned project from many years ago. But I thought I'd share anyway.

I also thought I'd share a few images from the process...

What honestly surprised you most when you ran (or played in) your first full campaign?

I've been talking to a lot of indie TTRPG creators lately — people designing their own systems, running campaigns, preparing Kickstarters — and one thing keeps coming up: the gap between what you planned and what actually happened at the table.

For some it's pacing (sessions ran 2x longer than expected). For others it's player attachment to NPCs they thought were throwaways. For some it's the opposite — a carefully built villain got ignored completely.

As someone who builds tools for TTRPG creators, I'm genuinely curious what the community thinks:

What's the one thing you wish someone had warned you about before running your first campaign?

Could be prep, could be player dynamics, could be the mechanics themselves. No wrong answers — I'm here to learn from people who've actually been at the table.

My Dungeon Game: Skills and Languages

I have been tinkering with my own rules for a while now. And while it still isn’t finished (will it ever be?) I am getting to the point where I could see it being used in a game.

Now mind you, I didn’t really come up with this on my own, I just took ideas from other places and added my own spin to it. The very core of the game used to be the Labyrinth Lord SRD, but I drew in parts from other places over time so I don’t know if much of that is left (the skills as d6 values idea definitely came from Lamentations of the Flame Princess)

Anyway, here is my take on a 1d6 based skill system. This replaces the thieves’ skills and adds further skills from various places (e.g. the Search Roll has become a Perception skill, and the Dwarves’ Architecture ability has become a skill). Languages also are now treated as separate skills. The main idea is that these skills are in fact all available to all characters, but some might have more skill in them than others. Every character gains 1 skill point at every level increase, but Thieves/Specialists/Rogues gain them quicker (at 2SP per level)

All of this is of course very broad, as it’s just taking the vestiges of the B/X skill system and expanding on that. But there’s the question if one actually needs a skill system in a B/X-based game at all, and I would say… well, there’s the Thief already. And you got all those other weird special cases. Why not make this easier to handle?

Skills and Languages

Skills

Skills are additional abilities that characters possess.

Skills are presented in a number of X out of 6. They are checked by rolling a d6. If the number of the die is in the value for the skill this check was successful. The referee might check the skill concealed if the outcome might not be immediately obvious to the character.

If a character has an unmodified 6 in 6 in a skill two die are rolled, and the check only fails if both come up as 6s.

All skills start with a value of 1 of 6, except when modified by other circumstances.

All physical abilities have to be attempted unencumbered, or the character suffers -1 per encumbrance level.

Every character gains 1 skill point per level, to be spent on any skill. Specialists gain additional skill points when they start and level up.

List of skills

Acumen: understanding of value and business, business practices and procedures. With a successful skill check the nature, history and value of non-magical treasure and artifacts can be determined and fakes revealed. Any Charisma check or reaction roll resulting from negotiations dependent on trust, trade or protocol gain a +1 from a successful Acumen check.

Architecture: character can look for things out of place, or in place, according to their knowledge of architecture and building. E.g. finding unsafe parts, determining culture of origin, finding hidden parts, etc. The character has to be looking for it specifically

Athletics: more involved exertions of the body, notably the chance to climb a wall or sheer surface without obvious handholds, but also jumping a great distance, etc. Characters must be unencumbered to use this. Failure means fall from random point in climb.

Carouse: the ability to drink and/or party with no or just minor ill effects. In a wider sense, the ability to function while under the influence of intoxicating agemts. (in general modified by Con)

Herbalism: the ability to identify, find, and safely use herbs, spices, and fungi.

Husbandry: management of plants and animals, agriculture and households, in adventuring terms largely the management of horses, donkeys, dogs, and other animals, although the basic skill should be applicable to other situations.

Legerdemain: Hiding small objects, pickpocketing, swapping out objects with no one noticing, and other trick actions are governed by this. Also the skill of grafting, entertaining, and courting. Legerdemain consists of all deception skills, and successful use will give a +1 to any reaction roll resulting from a successful Legerdemain roll.

Lore: can be used to recall information about places, people, and artifacts from legends, songs, and poems. This can be used to identify artifacts and places with legendary significance.

Perception: the skill of perceiving and interpreting information about the environment. This is also used to hear noises behind doors, search areas, and any other task that depends on trained senses. Searching takes one turn per 10′ area searched. Note: Finding something does not automatically give mastery of it, a secret door still has to be opened.

Performance: if a person can entertain an audience for at least half an hour the performer can use his/her performance skill as a modifier for any reaction roll of an audience member for a day after the performance.

Medicine: Knowledge of health, disease, and injury. Can be used to assess medical conditions. Can also be used for first aid to heal 1d3 of hp directly after damage occurs. Can also be used to prevent death for someone with a mortal wound: after successful check person is allowed a Fortitude Save. Stabilizing the wounded takes all the time of the medic for the rest of the combat. .

Sailing: The handling and steering of boats, and basic navigation. Certain larger ships might need a certain amount of points in this skill to become useable.

Stealth: How well a character can sneak around and hide. To use this those that the character wants to hide from have to be unaware of the character’s presence. This doesn’t make invisible. If there is no way to hide, or if people search the place the character is hiding he/she still is found. If a character attacks after successful use of hiding this is considered a Surprise attack, even if the enemy is already in a fight.

Scholarship: general and specific knowledge about history, dead languages, and other esoteric fields of study. Scholarship might be used to identify artifacts and decipher ancient messages.

Sneak Attack: Sneak Attacks are attacks made by surprise. A character can multiply the damage done by a Sneak Attack by allocating points to this skill. Assume that the damage multiplier is × 1 for all characters, but for every additional point allocated to the skill the damage multiplier is increased by one.

Swimming: the skill of how to swim. In general everyone should at least have some basic knowledge of this. Skill checks become important when situations are dangerous (e.g. traversing a strong current) or under averse conditions (heavily encumbered)

Tinker: manipulating mechanical objects and contraptions is called Tinkering. Most often used to open locks or disengage traps. The character has to have open access to the mechanical parts of the contraption, and might have to have tools fit for the purpose.

Wilderness: Characters can find food and water during journeys overland, and can find the right direction.

Languages

All characters begin with the local common tongue and one additional language, generally the local trade tongue and something culturally related (e.g. dwarvish). Additional languages can be chosen at the DM’s discretion. A character with Intelligence 13 gains one more, one with 16 two more, and one with Intelligence 18 three more languages.
All characters with Intelligence scores of 9 or more can read and write any language they know that has a written form. At Intelligence 9 literacy is basic, reading is slow and difficult; spelling and grammar are optional; quality improves with Intelligence.
Additional languages can be learned by using skill points.

Note: For simplicity’s sake languages are binary, i.e. they only have one point for fluency, no matter how unrealistic that is.

Additional Fediverse Tags:
@rpg @osr

#osr #skills #ttrpg

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46116861

Finished up my group sketch for my last Barbarians of Lemuria campaign. I probably won't polish this any further.

My 11th level druid I've been playing for 8 years died tonight.

I just needed to throw that out into the void.

Greetings, programs!

2 weeks ago, I asked what kind of GM you are with a 43 question survey. 101 of you answered! Then I analysed the data to find 9 underlying factors to GM style and named them. Then I got bored and didn't publish the results outside of Discord.

Well, now it's time to publish the results! I've named all 9 underlying dimensions of GM style, and created an acronym!

S.T.O.P.J.A.D.E.N.

1. Strategism
2. Tacticism
3. Orderism
4. Preparism
5. Jesterism
6. Authentism
7. Directorism
8. Egalitarianism
9. Narrativism

I also wrote some detailed descriptions of some of the components. Here they are:

Preparism

If you're high on Preparism, you spend a lot of time planning your sessions ahead of time and building great encounters. You have lots of maps, and use them even outside of encounters. You'd rather follow the game you laid out for your players than be surprised, and when there's a question of what's happening outside of the players' view, you've probably already been tracking it.
If you're low on Preparism, you'd rather improvise than plan. No matter what crazy idea your players come up with, you can figure out how to roll with it. You don't have many maps, and the ones you do prepare are more likely to be used in combat than in roleplaying. You can get ready for a session very quickly, as long as you understand the world's lore.

Directorism

If you're high on Directorism, you're interested in making your players shine. Your players work with you to build the world and set the scene at the table. You give plenty of information about your setting to the players, and they feel like the center of the game world.
If you're low on Directorism, you're in charge of this story. This is your world, and you're the one who immerses everyone in it. There's plenty going on in your world that the players have no idea about. And you'd rather your players avoid making joke characters.

Egalitarianism

If you're high on Egalitarianism, everyone at your table is an equal. You take turns GMing, and tell lots of different stories together. You like challenging the characters rather than the players, and are happy to kill off a character if the table thinks it makes a great moment. You trust your players to look after their own dice and character sheets.
If you're low on Egalitarianism, your players aren't ready to do what you do just yet. You're probably the only one who GMs, and you're more likely to roll the dice and manage the character sheets. You only run the one adventure in your world, and you'd rather avoid killing off a character and making things harder for everyone.

I wish My ADHD had given Me enough attention span to do detailed descriptions of the other 6, but alas. The good news is: You can look at the data and decide for yourself what you think they mean.

And here's the .odt download

Closing thoughts: In My search for an easy to remember acronym, I realised that the dimensions seem to mostly be clustered into pairs.

Strategism and Tacticism are about how challenge is presented to the party
Orderism and Preparism are about approaches to planning and the unexpected
Jesterism and Authentism are about sources of fun
Directorism and Egalitarianism are about attitudes to player-GM collaboration
And Narrativism is on its own

So you could visualise all of this data as four cartesian grids: Challenge, Planning, Fun, and Collaboration, and a slider for Narrativism. If I'm right about the pairs.

The following users expressed interest in being notified when results are released: @ada@piefed.blahaj.zone @ineedmana@piefed.zip @ziggurat@jlai.lu

With the exception of D&D or Pathfinder, what games or systems would you like to see campaign notebooks for, and what would you like to see in them?

I am running a fantasy campaign (using the Ptolus setting), and the PC just looted a "conspiracy board" from the hideout of a rather unhinged creature.

I've added a bunch of elements that might or might not be relevant for the campaign. And the element with the most strings to other elements was "beer price increases".

And I'd like to mess with the minds of the players some more. Thus, I could use some ideas for sinister reasons why the beer prices in a city might have increased.

Any suggestions?

I am running a fantasy campaign (using the Ptolus setting), and the PC just looted a "conspiracy board" from the hideout of a rather unhinged creature.

I've added a bunch of elements that might or might not be relevant for the campaign. And the element with the most strings to other elements was "beer price increases".

And I'd like to mess with the minds of the players some more. Thus, I could use some ideas for sinister reasons why the beer prices in a city might have increased.

Any suggestions?

I noticed that the community care a bunch about licensing, and since I moved to Linux I have been paying attention to that a lot, for both games I play and software I use.
So I am making a list of tools I use for my campaigns, in person or online, that still work on Linux, or that I found as an alternative to what I used before.

If you are a forever GM you probably have a licence for FoundryVTT, or are used to other online alternatives, or use those editable PDFs. There are plenty of tools out there for more permissive systems. Like my favourite https://compcon.app/#/ for Lancer.

But I think, on the top of my list, for playing and GMming D&D / Pathfinder PCGen is still king. It might also be a sign that I am old as the tool has been around for a long while.

It works the same on Linux as it works on MacOS or WindowsOS. As long as you have java, you just need to extract the release from github (https://github.com/PCGen/pcgen) and run the '.sh' (or .exe). (make sure you got a file like this pcgen-6.08.00RC10.zip that it comes ready to use, as there is a file called Source Code.tar.gz and you will need to take more steps for it to be usable.

I like that it is straightforward to create a char, PCGen helps you at every step. From this screenshot from the website, you can see there is a checklist "Things to be Done", that reminds you of the things you need to do to a given character.

You can use to manage every aspect of your player, and it gives you options to export if you would rather not use it for playing.

More screenshots here (http://pcgen.org/benefits/screenshots/). The website is old, so it does not have https.

There are also some features for GMing, but I never used, I usually print or use a digital file like PDF or HTML.

http://pcgen.org/benefits/gmgen/

Now, the negatives.

Licensing is a problem, it does not ship with less permissive systems. So you will have to add them yourself.

It comes with a bunch of stuff for Pathfinder, but for D&D you will need to fend for yourself on how to find/install PCGen D&D Data Set

Last, the Data Set file format, and the data format. It is daunting to look at, and a bit tricky to work it. It is just some sort of text file, but it depends on a lot of proper data format and indentation. And as the file grows, it becomes hard to manage. It takes some time to get used to it, if you want to create homebrew classes, items, etc...

Here is the wiki - http://159.203.101.162/w/index.php/Data_LST_Standards

It is nice that someone compiled a bunch of videos helping people do that http://pcgen.org/get-help/videos/

I have nothing to do with the development of the tool, I just use it and wanted to share and read about other people experience, suggestions, workflow, etc...

It's a distributed system for browsing fictional scenarios through LLMs that could be applied to TTRPGs. It still a work in progress, where lots of stuff needs to be fixed (I also want to add multiple playable characters), but you can get the idea. The core is that its an open system, documents can link to one another, also over different servers.

Paizo has announced a new horror RPG that will not use the Pathfinder/Starfinder 2E game engine. Announced today, 13 Omens is a new rules-lite RPG designed...

I am currently playing the new RE9 and got to thinking, what games are out there that handle mutations?

I'm about done getting the VTT set up for our next campaign, Blades '68. I'm pretty excited for this one, I love the Blades in the Dark system, and also the late 60's/ early 70's aesthetic.

I'm curious how other GMs here have their VTT setup, particularly for PbtA or FitD games, but really any system.

Here's the setup I made for the original Blades in the Dark:

Greetings, programs! With the MCDM community's help, I've prepared a survey of GM styles, so that I can use factor analysis to find the common variables underlying GMs' responses, and come up with a scientific answer to "what kinds of GM styles are there?" The survey has 43 questions and takes a few minutes to complete. The more people answer, the better the data we'll get.

EDIT: We got 101 responses and now we're analysing the data. First results: There are 9 dimensions of GM style! Not sure what they are, but there's 9 of them.

I buy a lot of digital RPG books - the shelf space in my apartment is ultimately limited, while the space on my hard drive is far less constrained (despite current storage prices). Furthermore, while the reading experience is still slightly better for physical books, I have a color e-ink reader which comes close enough for my purposes.

However, I do have a pet peeve with some RPG publishers: They refuse to give the files proper file names. Paizo is the worst offender among them, though not the only one.

I mean, I don't mind if the file name includes the product code. It's fine if a "PZO13008E" somewhere in there.

But please, for all that is unholy, make the file name "PZO13008E Hellfire Dispatches" instead of just leaving it at that! When I am making large purchases of multiple books - which I do frequently - I have to go on a renaming orgy:

1. Open the file
2. Check what product this file represents
3. Close the file
4. Rename the file

If the file name included the actual product title, I could skip steps 1-3.

Hello (tt)rpg people!

Easter is coming and so is my get-together with my friends to play TTRPGs for ~three days straight this weekend.
Last time we played one of the Mothership RPG stories and while there was a bit of friction ("you are not the almighty hero") it was still pretty awesome for me as a DM.

This year I have an idea for a (for us) different one-shot - Ghost Busters but its just a party full of paladins maybe getting hired for odd jobs in a fantasy setting?
maybe even phantasmagoria - a cross between parts of a modern world and fantasy (e.g. embracing the Sending Stones as phones trope etc).
I am keeping the definition a bit loose in my head and not strictly focused on being a parody of the GB movies so basically anything goes, it's supposed to be really light and just funny.

If you have any potentially funny ideas, be it bits, custom spells, "combat scenarios" or puzzles please share! I am running a bit dry :D

Also, still not sure if I want to use our usual system Pathfinder 2E for this.
My players default to being (red) button pushers - but are always open to try different things, I wouldn't do this if that was not the case.
They like to build characters to primarily try out the class combat features & combos, but with this being a one-shot I want to try a more narrative heavy approach - a collective story-telling thing (though my players will definitely need RP hints).
The alternatives I got are either D&D 5e for being simpler then pf2e (and actually having a Paladin as a simple class compared to PF). My searches led me to Shadowdark being a super simple system but I have never tried it.
Either way my current idea is to just pick the core ideas of pf2e/d20 systems and then go with the flow after that.
If anyone can recommend or has an idea how to handle the system when it comes to rules-light, narrative gameplay please share.

Thank you!

This is a set of house rules and tinkering I've done with the D&D 5e rules set, nothing in this set of rules are entirely mine, but I compiled the house rules I've been using into this "book-like" format.

I've used this for the last almost decade, and I intent to keep changing and updating these rules. There is parts of it that I haven't yet finished, there is tons of markdown in my notes that I need to compile into better parts and split the sections, so there is more in the way.

All feedback is welcome. If you use these rules and need some clarification on some parts of it let me know.

I've heard the system referenced a few times and it's on sale currently

So I'm wondering what it is exactly. I understand it's d6, low crunch, more or less Planescape
But I'd like to know a bit more. Anyone has played it and has some more verbose take?

While fantasy is a many-varied genre, religion in fantasy RPGs is often some mix-up of polytheism with Christian notions - including of the afterlife. The common assumption seems to be that while there are a multitude of gods, if you dedicate your life and belief in that god in particular you will end up in the specific afterlife of that god.

In Christianity, the situation is of course a bit more complex than that. One major precondition for entering the "good afterlife" (i.e. Heaven) is that you need to get baptized. For a long time, this left a rather awkward question mark for what happens to the souls of infants who died during or soon after birth - before they could receive a baptism. Folklore sometimes comes up with its own answers for that, but this was certainly a thing that people worried about.

RPG fantasy religions tend to deemphasize baptism since it's such an iconic Christian rite - but this only further emphasizes the question of what happens to the souls of children who died before they could actually express faith in a particular deity. Does any particular deity claim these children then? Perhaps a deity worshiped by a parent - and if so, of which parent (are there "afterlife child custody" court cases)?

Of course, a fantasy setting does not need to have an afterlife people believe in. But if there are multiple afterlives maintained by different deities (or at least, if people believe that such afterlives exist), then people will worry about that.

As the title says, I'm looking for a nice template to create adventure modules in LibreOffice. Something generic (not made specifically for D&D) with text boxes to read to players, frames for maps, etc. I can't seem to find a single one, and I lack the skills and/or knowledge of how to create one on my own. Can anyone help?

I've been looking at leasing a space for a potential business idea, but I wanted to see what others thought of it. What I'm thinking about is immersive play spaces. A tavern setup that looks like something out of a D&D game, or maybe a spaceport bar for those into SciFi games. Even thinking about a possible Cyberpunk styled bar. The idea is that they would be member driven with guest passes, and alcohol would be supply your own. What I'm asking is if one of these spaces was in your area, would you pay a nominal monthly fee? I'm thinking between $25 to $50 a month with five guest passes.

I’m musing with the idea of buying Obojima : Tales from the tall Grass and I wonder if someone here have played it ?

The potion system seems interesting but it could also a dud (for me)

The practice of using fantasy counterpart cultures - cultures and societies that are very similar to real world cultures of specific times and places - has a long history in fantasy in general, and fantasy RPGs in particular.

And, in truth, there are good reasons for that. Fantasy worldbuilding is a major task, and fantasy worldbuilding for RPGs in particular requires that not only the GM understands any given culture, but the players as well - but understanding a culture requires a lot of effort, and there is only so much time everyone at the table has available for that.

Thus, using familiar elements is a great time saver. The main reason we see the same Tolkien ancestries over and over again (elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs...) is that most players of fantasy RPGs are already familiar with their basic concepts, and thus only have to learn what is different from the norm. But you create fantasy ancestries from scratch, you need to convey all that information to the players.

The same applies to fantasy counterpart cultures - if you have a vague familiarity with the real world culture, then familiarizing yourself with a fantasy culture will be a lot easier.

However, there's also a lot that can go wrong with using fantasy counterpart cultures. Misrepresentation is always a danger, especially with marginalized groups and if the developers did not consult with members of that culture. Likewise, if you are building a fantasy counterpart culture of a nation that has some ugly history, then you risk whitewashing that history.

So what are your thoughts? Do you like to have fantasy counterpart cultures in your settings, or do you prefer to avoid them? And what are some good examples of fantasy counterpart cultures done right?