The case for PWYW products

Apparently there was some rumblings about how PWYW downgrades the RPG industry.  I currently don't have any sources on that, although it was on twitter.  After a brief search I was unable to find anything.  I have a few messages out there to people, so if I get some data I'll do an edit to this post.

Okay, here's the gist of why I totally love PWYW products, and why most of mine are PWYW.

Once a year I get a cheque for $100 USD, which works out to $132 CAD

I've been considering picking up Sage Of The Shadow Lord as it looks like a lot of fun.
The softcover print is $9.99 USD
Hold on a second though, gotta convert that to CAD, and we gotta add the shipping.  Here's what it costs me to get a reprint of a basic old school D&D module.

Cheapest shipping is $15.14 CAD (3-6 weeks)
The book is $13.28 CAD

So we are at $28.42 CAD for a reprint of a book. 

Alternatively if I was in the states the shipping would be half that and the book is $9.99

Alright my cheque went down to $100 CAD

And I might just grab in search of the unknown while I'm at it.  Unfortunately if I buy 2 things, the shipping doesn't get any cheaper (like amazon).

Now I'm probably going to go out to the local game store as well, because my nephew has been playing D&D with us and he needs a set of dice.  There's another $7.00 CAD that I'll spend.

Oooh a few new minis, a extra set of dice for shane cuz why not, and If I remember correctly they got a pile of old AD&D books that no one wants except me (score!)

So $14 for dice, $8 for a few minis, and a copy of some old tome for $23.00

I am now at $101.84 CAD

So I've got less than $30 leftover.  And I'm hungry, and there's a McDonalds near the game store.

Pay What You Want is NOT hurting the industry at all. 

***
When I first started publishing some stuff my thought process was the following:
Put out some free stuff
Gain a few followers
Put out some pwyw stuff
Gain a few extra followers
Get them excited about something
Put out an actual book to make money.

The last part hasn't happened.  I'm currently working on something, but the intention is to use the above cheque to not purchase any actual rpg products, but instead pay for some art.

In the end, it'll be the same thing, a 0 dollar income that I'm super happy about.

Because honestly that's not the point and never was for me.  Sure a few extra bucks to buy some RPG books is fucking wonderful (and I love all you guys for purchasing stuff!).  The real satisfaction comes from creating and putting stuff out there, and people get excited about it.  Which then pushes me to do more stuff.

Whenever that cheque arrives, I'll probably go on a spending spree and put all that money back into the industry.

Cheers

Miserable Bastards Session 2

Thankfully Funder has also written a journal entry, of which you can read here:

Letter to Elder Mildred, dated the 6th day of the month of the Lion
http://www.msjx.org/2019/06/letter-to-elder-mildred-dated-6th-day.html

Oh man, another funny one!  So we were without our cleric last night, but that didn't stop us from doing some adventuring.  We had left off having basically robbed a wagon of moonstones.  The discussion opened up that maybe we should consider building ourselves a small home in the town of hounds head.

I gotta say its super handy to have my character sheet in google drive.  I was making notes the whole session and tracking things.  When I run my next home game, I think I'll fire up the computer to take care of the DMing side of things.

Here's my notes from last night:

Session 2

• Came into town, and notice that Sir Santor was coming back into town as well, all bandaged up.  He was accompanied by 3 dwarves. 
• They had a cart with clean ore.
• Discussed the idea of buying a house in town.  
• WENT TO THE CRAIGSLIST BOARD.  Small pieces of paper with “lady named anna wants someone to find her husband”.
• Posted up looking or a “mistress of extraordinary brewcraft for a exquisite  venture”.
• Went over to a tent city to talk to some builders.  We met a girl dwarf named “arga”.  Kojack tried to pick her up. 
• Considering a mill and brewery.
• Possible festival in town.   Ivanoff filled us in that he’s working on it.
• Talking to Ivanoff about acquiring some land.  (north of the northern bridge). 
• Having a meeting with ivanoff later to discuss the price on the land. 
• Heading off to chanters grotto
• Have become a convert of the great imbiber. 
• Burn scar of tankard on my fucking neck from the matt’s God. 
• Killed some forest ghasts. That’s where we left off.  

As you can see it was a fairly epic session. After we noticed Sir Santor coming back into town all bandaged up (to our surprise! we thought he was dead). We decided to follow him into the inn. He sat down and had a brief discussion with Ivanoff (who didn't seem very pleased). We followed up talking to Ivanoff with our possible plans of building a Mill (and a brewery!). He sort of beat around the bush about pricing within the town. Apparently he had given the party some land but it was a bit further away. The idea is we could have a place to hang our hat, and get a brewmesiter to make us some decent ale. The balance of which we could then sell to the local tavern (win win honestly!). We told Ivanoff that we had posted a message on the town board (Hounds Head Craigslist!). We was so happy! Unfortunately we can barely put 2 sentences together between the three of us, so the actual message was missing contact info hahaha.

After that Kojack attempted to talk up a lovely dwarf lady but failed miserably (I believe he needs to grow his beard longer).

He was itching for a fight, so we headed off into the wilderness (at night.... good plan boys).

Since we have no actual military training we floundered around in the dark (that's tongue in cheek as we the actual players that do have military training).

We ran into some weird forest ghasts! Got into a helluva a melee. My character managed to wack one, and then got hit and paralyzed. Then kojack almost went down, his henchman managed to throw some burning oil at it. Matt's halfling named Funder prayed to his God "the great imbiber" and tossed a healing potion down my throat. Because I was partially burned and paralzed the healing potion not only healed me but it ingrained a small tattoo in my skin of a tankard (friggin cool).

Just FYI I am now a convert! I got up and at em after the fight was over.

Oh and we levelled up! Wooo! I somehow managed to re-roll some decent hit points (17 fuck yeah)

Check out Tim's patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/gothridge

ROLL20:
So this is my second time playing with Tim and the guys in roll 20. The last session we didn't have any actual battles, but last night we did. And I gotta say i was flabbergasted by how friggin cool it was! The one and only other time that I used roll 20 it was all text based. This makes me want to run Tomb Of Gardag, and re-create all the rooms in pyromancers.

Might just do that!

Weird Wayfaring - A crowd sourced hexcrawl

Here's the download.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SyTiTG1OpXtvE4fSBe0OilJq7FrEH22u

A fun little collaboration with a bunch of good folks over on mewe.

Introduction:

Welcome to the outlands, beyond civilized society.  The civilizations to the south have outlawed magic, and wiped all monsters off the face of the world.  What lives to the north has survived and thrived. This is a weird place. There is a mixture of the exotic, fantasy, mutants and space themes running thru this hexcrawl.  Please enjoy, modify or run it as is for your players. May the Gods have a bit of mercy on their souls.

Written By: Ivan Sorensen, Shane Ward, Daniel Luce, Scott Malthouse, Vance A, AJ Fritz, Stephen Anderson, Edward Kann, Scott Charlton, Goblin’s Henchman, Graphite Prime, Alistair Langsford, Tito B.A. Michael Kennedy, Matt Jackson, Graphite Prime, James 'Jeshields' Shields, Caleb Collins, Chef En Fueg, Tim Shorts.

Expect more from 3 Toadstools

I finally got a new to me Mac last night.  Inquiring minds its a Apple iMac 21.5" Intel i5 2.5GHz Quad Core, 8GB Ram.  I've been wanting some kinda Mac for years, especially after spending so much time in the recording studio with them.  Whilst all computers are great nowadays, I must admit that playing with this thing inspires creativity, and that is great! Hopefully everything works out, I tend to take a REALLY long time deciding on anything, and more often than not just delay any kinda of purchase.  Part of the reason is that certain things I've bought over the years haven't worked out that well. 

Anyways, on the docket of shit I'm gonna get done: 

• Layout project called "Mythic Journey's" 
• Finish the mewe hex.
• A compilation of 3 toadstools adventures, in 6x9 rewritten for Blueholme and with some better descriptions (yup I'm taking a lot of what Bryce and age of dusk have said to heart and going back to do an edit on things).  Obviously everyone wonderful person who has purchased the previously released pdfs thank you so very much!  This has been in the back of my mind for a long time.  And really it's mostly just for me to have a book on my desk that says "hey I fucking wrote this!".  This has been a ongoing project for me, and hopefully i can get it done! So I can finally sleep well at night haha.
• With the ability to add music from spotify to anchor casts, I think I'm going to do a blues podcast soon.  My initial thoughts are once a week, and maybe a half hour type show.  After doing a bit of research, you can use spotify tracks, but only host on anchor.  My guess is because of royatly issues with producers you cannot port the tracks over to itunes and the other distribution areas that anchor allows.  Which honestly is totally fine.  It'd just be some fun.  I have far too much slightly useless information in the back of my brain about blues music, and the history of audio recording anyways.  
• Oh and now I'll be able to actually run a game online and play online without a pile of trouble and a sore back! 
• I downloaded a version of "Pro Tools First" which is wonderful.  It's 16 tracks (which is honestly perfect.  If you need more than that you need to re think your recording/arrangement IMHO).  One thing that I really enjoyed especially when I had hard day in the studio was to plugin my guitar and jam along with drum tracks or actual songs.   It made me a better player.  So I'll be doing that more often in the evenings.  
• Convert our dvd & music collection to run on a kodi. 
• Probably more Gilligan's Isle podcast frequency.
• Who knows what else will happen! I'm fucking excited I'll tell you that.

Classic Traveller Links

As is typical, I couldn't sleep last night.  I started thinking about Class Traveller, I have the book but haven't ran it yet.  Of course A.D.D. Gamer kicked in while I was tossing and turning.  At one point I thought "Just get up Shane, and go and grab the damn book".

I've been invited to play the game online, but my scheduling didn't work out well at the time.  I generally like having read thru the book a few times before I jump in though.

Quick little overview from here. 

Characters typically journey between various star systems and engage in activities such as exploration, ground and space battles, and interstellar trading. Characters are defined not by the need to increase native skill and ability but by achievements, discoveries, wealth, titles, and political power.

Key features

Key features derived from literary sources are incorporated into Traveller in all its forms.

• Human-centric but cosmopolitan: The core rules focus on human characters, but there is ample support for using and playing aliens.
• Space travel: Interstellar travel is through the use of the faster-than-light (FTL) jump drive, which moves a ship through "jump space" a few light-years at a time. Each jump always takes about one week. Normal-space travel is accomplished through relatively efficient and powerful gravitic drives. Newtonian physics tends to be followed.
• Limited communication: There is no faster-than-light information transfer – meaning no ansible, subspace radio or hyper-wave. Communication is limited to the speed of travel. Decisions are made on the local level, rather than by a remote authority.
• Conflict resolution: Planets fight out internal wars, and commerce is a major driving force of civilization.^{[citation needed]}
• Sociological: Interstellar society is socially stratified (high, mid, and low passage; SOC (Social Status) is a primary character attribute). Affairs are often managed by independent nobility, who make use of classic titles such as Baron, Duke and Archduke.
• Diversity within Limits: Career options, ship design, subsector design, and decisions made during character generation limit and frame reality. The definitions create a diverse space (hence library data and anachronistic/ atavistic worlds), within limits.
• Morals and mortality: People remain people and continue to show courage, wisdom, honesty and justice, along with cowardice, deceit, and criminal behavior.

I decided to go ahead and do some googling to see what I could find, as far as links are concerned.

• Here's the pdf: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/80192/CTTTBThe-Traveller-Book?src=hottest_filtered
• First off there is a crazy amount of information here: http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Classic_Traveller 
• Here's some more awesome info! http://www.waynesbooks.com/Traveller.html 
• Drivethru has a TON of stuff:  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4/Game-Designers039-Workshop-GDW/subcategory/4767/Classic-Traveller?banner_id=2564&src=pubbanner
• Adventures: http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/The_Classic_Adventures
• A good post containing a bunch of free pdfs with adventures, starships etc. https://zhodani.space/stuff/pdf-files/
• http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/ Forum
• Mewe Group: https://mewe.com/group/5c280c8a85c02b2977f06a5c

So that's a ton of great resources hey!

At some point in the next few days I'm going to crack that book again and have a look.

Monday Night Miserable Bastards - Session 1

Hilarious!

I got together with Tim, Matt, Joe and Erik to play some nerd games last night.  7 PM my time, which works out perfectly actually.  It took me a bit to figure out what was going on, as this was my first game with these guys.  They had previously played in the campaign so they had some ideas as to what was going on.

The premise that Tim has come up with is pretty cool.  We are basically out on the borderlands, and there are a few different factions vying for control.  My character "skord" had previously worked with Erik's character "rathgar".  I won't get too much into his background, as the guys may read this.

Speaking of backgrounds, Tim sent me a 6 page background/what's up with the setting pdf.  Which is awesome! I was blown away honestly.

So basically the party was sorta split.  Rathgar was in the tavern in the small town of Hounds Head (like seriously small town, the blacksmith can't even make arrows!)

The other 2 characters had just finished finding the body of a knight in the outskirts.

They eventually made their way back to town.  Where i was introduced.

We decided to talk with the sorta know it all sage of the town who gave us some good ideas.

We stayed in the tavern over night, and woke up to disguises left in our room.

Apparently the cleric Rathgar was met in the night by someone, who gave him a quest.  He gave us the very briefest of explanations and we were off.

Prior to leaving the halfling had a signet ring that he found on the body of a dead knight, he decided to stash it away in the eaves of the tavern roof.   We then headed out of town and caught up with a merchant caravan (one wagon) and two guards.  Some of the party took their time scoping out the situation.

What proceeded was one of the best roleplaying moments I've been involved in.  Cue some monty python playing women antics (complete with high pitched voices).

Basically the funniest distraction ever.  The merchant was so confused with these older women talking to him about all kinds of random things.  The halfling jumped up and basically robbed the caravan of moonstones.  Then got the horse and cart rolling away from the action.   Skord the warrior acted as the meat and restrained one of the guards.

Seriously so funny.  I can't even remember all of what was said, but my throat was sore from laughing so hard.   We left off with the moonstones in tow having escaped the situation without blodshed (which was what we needed to do).  The next plan was to go and check out a grotto covered in spiderwebs.  I cannot fucking wait for Monday (whose every said that before!).  Thanks guys! that was fucking fantastic.

Tim went and did a podcast about monday evening, and it's awesome (good recap!)
https://anchor.fm/gothridgemanor/episodes/Best-Heist-EVAR--With-a-gaggle-of-call-ins-e489kb


I gotta say I learned something from Tim's DMing style (and from listening to Froth's cast).  Sometimes it's the best thing in the world to sit back and just let the players go.  I often worry too much about planning things out.  Just sit back and let it happen! 

As some of you may know, I'm currently working on a Man cave in the basement.  It's a bit of a work in progress at this point, but I should hopefully be down there before the next session.  The last few times I've played on line, I've used my tablet (which works well) however the mic on it is on the back so I basically have to hold it in my lap.  As well (see picture) I've been in this small room with a bunch of crap, sitting in front of a small sewing desk.

As you can see it's not ideal.

I currently have a few ideas for a computer solution.  Just deciding on what the best plan is for me.

I ended up using roll20 on my laptop to see what was going on and for rolling dice, and hangouts for talking.

I got a line on a few computers.  Just figuring stuff out.

Sunday morning OSR hunt

I decided to spend a bit of time this morning over coffee looking at some cool new stuff OSR stuff.

Dice Roll Zine #2: It's currently available in print only here:  https://hogtowngames.bigcartel.com/product/dice-roll-zine-2  I'd hazard to guess it will be available on pdf thru drivethru shortly.  Here is the summary:

Dice Roll Zine is a 40-page, saddle-stitched, digest-sized print zine for old-school RPGs written by Steven A. Cook and illustrated by some of the best retro-inspired artists.

The second issue includes a Sorcerer class for Swords & Wizardry Complete games; 'Roll all the Dice' tables for generating fungi, plants & freaky stuff; The City-State of Kreth, a weird-fantasy city overview with history, factions, unique gear, rumors, adventure seeds, thumbnail descriptions and encounter tables for nine city districts, and more; new spells and magic items for an 'oldhammer' fantasy role-playing game; and various other cool rules options and odd things for your old-school games.  Please Note: Print buyers also get a PDF copy for free. Details are included with your print zine!

You can grab a copy of #1 here.  

1988 Dungeon:  Goblin's Henchmen does it again.  This is a really fun dungeon.  It's PWYW, get it here. 

This is an 1e AD&D adventure made in 1988. It was one of the first dungeons I ever made when I was a teenager. So, it’s about as Old Skoool as it gets … not in an OSR sense, but in a “I’ve made a dungeon who wants to play” kind of way. If you’re looking for understandable/sensible dungeon ecology, themes, plot, and balanced encounters etc., then you’ve signed up for the wrong adventure! 

The Ghost Fleet - A Edge of Space Supplement
I'm going to go ahead and download Edge Of Space, looks like a fun game.  I was thinking it might be a good one to pull out after a regular session of DND, or when I only have so many players show up.  Ghost Fleet is an adventure for the system. 

During the Confederation Wars the Madeiran Union was one of the fiercest and most mysterious sides of the conflict.  Striking from uncharted space at random vectors the Madeirans never seemed to be at a loss for ships, supplies, or men.  Even now nearly thirty years after the founding of the Confederation the Madeiran Union is still talked about with an air once reserved for urban legends.

In the wreckage of the MMS Yu-Ti on a desolate, un-named ice world. The CMSC has discovered the existence of a Madeiran Ghost Fleet deep in the Levigos Nebula near the center of the Rim and behind the lines of Bug space.   Believing that the fleet lay as salvage the CMSC dispatches the Sword of Hathor to survey the Ghost Fleet in hopes that the vessels could help replenish the losses sustained in the war against the Bugs … the problem is this is a Ghost Fleet in more than just name …


Edge of Space is a simple 2d6 beer and pretzels roleplaying by Chubby Monster Games and was created by the (in)famous master of cartography Matt Jackson.  Edge of Space has a simple background to get the players and GM started:  You are Space Marines for allied human systems and must defend against the onslought of alien hordes that wish to drive you and your race to total extinction.  The game is available for $1.00 on rpgnow.com and has some support by Genius Loci Games and other publishers.

Gothridge Manor is at it again!: Tim just released this cool looking adventure:
https://www.patreon.com/gothridge
I present to you Three Adventures for the Compleat Adventure. The title is a play off the old Compleat series. I decided to return to my old ways, doing short adventures. Presenting situations to the party to explore, figure out, and possibly defeat. I’ve written three situations for three environments. Design wise the GM has the map on the left page and all the content for the map on the right page. No flipping!

First is the urban environment, Searching Ashen Alley. The party has something stolen. They see the thief head for an alley way and now need to deal with the dangerous of the city. This one is a randomly determined encounter that can introduce the party to the thieves guild. For good or bad.

The second is a traditional dungeon crawl, Tomb of the Berserker King. Nothing says adventure than plundering the tomb of some forgotten king. A nasty little crawl that might cost the characters more than they get in return. 

The third and final installment is a roleplaying situation, The Hanging Tree. I believe these type encounters can develop depth for the characters. It gives the characters a chance to help without ever drawing their weapons. The situation deals with a suicidal boy. The topic could trigger some people so please consider that. 

Matt Jackson has a bunch of great maps over on Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/msjackson/posts

Really diggin this town map that Matt drew.

 Dhul Crag:  Nine days ride to the south, but still two day's ride from The Wall sits the small village of Dhul Crag. An Outpost in the middle of a dangerous wilderness, this walled cluster of buildings serves as a welcome respite from the horrors of the surrounding Deep Wold, a well-known forest of grim portent. The sturdy oak wall has, so far, been penetrated only once (repairs are are ongoing).

Other cool things that have caught my eye, but haven't had a chance to check them out yet (that's a helluva a title!) 

*The Ubix #2:  In the realms of dream and the hitnerland wilds, The Ubix signals your path to adventure! This is an OSR zine of 4 RPG elements underscored by simple black and white artwork. Within these 14 pages you'll find bloodstained surgeons, hateful vampiric aliens, levitating thrones, and a spell that you may never awake from!

Mice with Legitimate Grievances:  A small dungeon for 1st or 0th level characters. The Mice Folk have had enough. First a man thing came into their home to start playing with dead things (yuck!), and now the man things have damaged their roof with careless farming. So help them: the next man thing they see is going to get bopped on the head with a stick!

The Screaming Swamp:  This is an expansion of my contribution to the Tenkar’s Landing G+ Community collaborative sandbox setting, Eilean Dubh (The Black Isle).  Each contribution to The Black Isle is a single 6 mile hex. There is a lot here in this lone hex. One can easily change to a 12 mile hex, making each sub-hex a mile. Even larger hexes may be used, if you need a massive swamp.  I have added more tables specific to this area and swamps in general. The text has has much more revision, correction, and additions than the version released in The Black Isle.

MOI:  The mewe hex descriptions are basically done, I've got a few more to add to it (and by the sounds of it Scott had a few extra that he was working on).  Managed to cultivate a really interesting d100 table of "shit you find on the ground".  After all that is done, I think I'll crowd source a few small dungeons, possibly using paratime design's maps.  Then it'll get released into the wild.  I do have one epic conundrum, the maps are all licensed under creative commons, which is cool.  I just dunno if I can use the OGL for the mechanics within the product?  I'll mull that over in my head.  As is typical with any of my collabs, this is just for fun, and will be a download available only on this blog.  Should be complete in a week or two.  

Have a Happy Sunday!