Get 'em while they are hot!

I'm right on the verge of publishing The Magician's House and Lark Fantasy to DriveThruRPG. So if you're one of the handful of people who reads this blog and you're interested in getting copies, do it now if you want the free copies! Well, Lark will be PWYW, but the rest of the line will probably cost somewhere from $5-$10 for the adventure.

The attitudes of NPCs towards the supernatural in a fantasy RPG

Hey folks, it's been a while. The Magician's House (new link) is nearly ready for publication on DriveThruRPG! I just received the third party license approval for Goodman Games, but I'm also putting out editions for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and 5e.  

Is this a baby disposal door or a baby retrieval door?

On top of all that, I'm putting out an edition for my own homebrew RPG called Lark. I'll release that game for free; it's a lightweight alternative to d20 with an old-school sensibility.

Anyway, while that's coming together, I had some random thoughts about GMing. There are so many situations in games like DCC and Lamentations, to name two, where PCs are liable to stroll into town with marks of the uncanny, like tentacles growing out of their flesh, miniature stormclouds that constantly follow them, tears of blood...that sort of thing.

Well, how do NPCs react to all that? The GM is mostly left to wing it, which is ostensibly fine, but it's one more thing to remember to account for every time players step into a new village. Hence, the article below. Note that this is system-neutral; it's suitable for pretty much any high-to-mid-magic FRPG.

Concepts in game mechanics

Any serious GM is always going to have a few ideas about gaming stewing at once, and inevitably some of the ideas will relate to game mechanics.  So let's talk about a few of those.

Super-simple die systems

I'm always obsessed with the idea of simple mechanics.  When I can identify some mechanics that reduce complexity without sacrificing simulation, I'm happy.  I'm also trying to find ways to make the hobby more accessible.  One way that role-playing games can be a huge turnoff to a lot people is the complexity factor.

Rolling the old D2

Reading Blades in the Dark (see my pre-review) has helped me figure out some of the final details on a super-simple die mechanic. The idea is that it boils down to a single D6 roll.

Concepts in sandbox play

So, in continuance of some of my earlier thoughts about sandbox play and how it relates to character progression, I've been slowly coming up with ideas for a very simple tabletop FRPG that is based on the idea of little-to-no appreciable improvement from "experience."  Let me discuss some of my initial thoughts.

Strategic advantages

One advantage of having a game like that with very human-scale characters is that you can take advantage of certain assumptions to simplify the game mechanics.  For instance, I don't have to worry about things being highly scalable.  Everything can be muted down to a similar level of power, where special abilities allow you to specialize, but don't end up abusing verisimilitude and game balance in the long term.

This means I don't have to provide really big ranges for power levels.  Things don't have to be super-granular.  This immediately calls a certain mechanic to my mind, one which I have enjoyed greatly in practice: the skill system for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  What occurs to me is that, lacking character progression, character abilities and character skills can be much the same thing.

Wait, that's not how reflections work...

Empress core rules - Section 6.8 - 6.9

Here's where we wrap it up: the master list of spell effects that we are using from LotFP, and some general guidelines for how particular magical effects should be handled.  That's it for the Empress core rules!

Empress core rules - Section 6.5 - 6.7

These subsections cover a few aspects of spells, such as new spell effects, how they are learned, and a standard notation system to describe spell effects.

Empress core rules - Section 6.4

This subsection is a biggie, because it covers (in comprehensive detail) all the ways you can tweak the requirements and challenges of casting a given spell, or even an entire school of magic.

Empress core rules - Section 6.1 - 6.3

We're starting to get into magic.  Here, we cover the basic concepts.

Empress core rules - Sections 4-5

This material is a bit more general.  Section 4 covers the hazards of adventuring that aren't strictly combat-oriented, while section 5 provides rules for experience and character creation.

Empress core rules - Section 3

This is the juicy stuff: combat.  I'd like to highlight the rules for initiative and armor.

Empress core rules - Sections 1-2

I said it would happen, didn't I?  For now, I'm just going to post the rules in chunks, as they currently stand in my big Google Doc.  If I find a better way to organize this stuff, I'll be circling back.

So let's get started.  There's a very brief intro, and then a big chapter on changes to basic character statistics.  Please forgive me for renaming abilities to attributes...in retrospect, there's no good reason for that.  I'll probably change it in a future version, but for now, it's all over the place.

Prelude to Empress

One of the things that I wanted to share with this blog was my own OSR game,  which I am (now) calling Empress.  To be completely up-front about it, Empress is primarily built upon the solid core established by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, a game that I greatly admire.

I'll actually post my mechanics for Empress in another post.  For now, I'll talk a little about why I chose to build off Lamentations, and what new ideas Empress brings to the table.