Hi all,

As the title, I'm looking for an adventure module that hits on similar notes to a Soulsborne game. The kind of crumbling dying world aeshetic, mixed with misty forests and long (possibly perpetual) nights and vague hints at factions or individuals from a time before. You know. Soulsy stuff. King's Field counts too, even though those games are quite different, since the worlds they portray have similar aeshetics.

I've found Vermis I, which I'm very excited to (hopefully soon) get a copy of so that I can finally actually read it, but as you might imagine, this is kind of a difficult thing to formulate search terms for. There are a lot of people who try to capture these games' mechanics, but seemingly not so many that I could find trying to capture their worldbuilding.

System compatibility doesn't matter, since I plan to just mine it for ideas

This was posted to my forums and I thought it was an important enough topic to deserve more attention:

What is this communities (sic) opinion on saving and potentially rehosting (breaking copyright) of RPG blogs, posts, etc. in the potential event of that contents host going down?

I read 41 of the submissions to the A Town, A Forest, A Dungeon game jam[…]. In this post, I discuss my personal favorites. (Contains spoilers).

came across this on masto. the core idea here is a usage die based loyalty for companions, particularly aimed at solo gaming

Special Deck of Cards for Hex Maping

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/philipreed/hex-dek-systemless-fantasy-rpg-hexcrawl-cards/

They tried to be all fancy last night and use a crystal ball to map hexes with a little teleportation.

Sneaky

Sneaky

Players

I may have to bring back the shruken gelatinus cube in the soup trick.

Had a cool idea for a mountain with hermits on it that get struck by lightning in order to cast it as a spell but I'm not sure how to build a setting around that idea.

In case anyone was interested in Worldographer and hadn't picked it up, there's a bundle going on now at Bundle of Holding.

“Good enough” more or less sums up S&W, and though that may sound derogatory I actually finish my readthrough feeling fairly positive and unconflicted about it. “Good enough” is more or less exactly what I want out of a retroclone.

Got a physical copy of Anomalous Subsurface Environment by Patrick Wetmore and it is such a treat. The mega dungeon has so many wacky elements but they all fit an internal logic that feels very cogent. Anyone run this guy before? What did you think?

I’m the first video I’ve done in awhile, I talk about about the one to one campaign time to real time that Gygax mentions in the AD&D DMG.

Yochai & Brad review Holy Mountain Shaker by Luka Rejec, and answer a question from the mailbag.

Once Upon A Giant for Cairn - Pay What You Want Adventure

Picked this up and it looks to be very much a fairy tale like romp of an adventure. With the right group this could be a lot of fun. :)

https://croakerrpgs.itch.io/once-upon-a-giant

From controversial publishers and exiled pundits to belligerent posts in facebook groups somtimes it seems to be impossible to swing a cat in the Old School scene without running into agressive and exclusionary rhetoric. As fan of all the wonderful aspects of OSR style games I am concerned with what I see as a worm in our otherwise delicious apple. I am interested in anyone elses thoughts on this situation, I apologize now If this post leaves anyone feeling called out or atttacked. I just want to start a little conversation about our culture.

Basically, Napoleon invented the term and it got into the RPG scene because of our napoleonic wargaming origins.

Here I am arguing against the split into the various sub "camps" of current RPG culture. I used to believe in this divide, too, but now I'm convinced the differences are just talked up and don't really exist except as tags, not inherently better or worse than tags such as "solo", "rules lite", "gonzo" and all the other ways of splitting it up. The tags remain important for some people to "find their crowd" but that's far weaker than saying that these are the most important splits in RPG culture.

My actual favourite category would actually be "64 pages or less for rules, setting and adventure"! 😅

Hey gang, I saw that we’ve got over 175 folks subscribed to the community (small steps for mankind but giant steps for us) and we’re now the third largest community on Lemm.ee!

Welcome aboard everyone! Let’s keep the positivity and good conversation going! I love that folks are initiating new conversations and taking part with excellent comments, links, and discussion!

One thing I have seen a bit of is downvoting. I know it’s probably a foolish errand to even ask this, and with federation, the height of futility, but can we try to use downvotes to express that a topic or comment is inappropriate or out of place and not that we disagree or just don’t like it? Let’s try to rid ourselves of some our bad habits from Reddit and not carry them forward.

That said, I couldn’t be more happy and proud of everyone here for coming in and lending a hand to build this community up in these early days!

Game on!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/261395

This kind of post seems like a good way for new folks to get acquainted and more settled in to Lemmy.

I'm old. 60 this year. My first game was in 1977. In high school, I was the DM for the D&D club - and ran all-night games for friends. Some are still very close. One of those is "F". His wife is "J". They have a 15yo daughter "S", and a 12yo son, "G". I have a 13 yo son, "M". My sister (50yo and a professional writer), is "E". That's 6 players.

Our last campaign had them defeat the King of Werewolves by freeing the Tarrasque from a city inspired by "Salt-in-Wounds". There was some direct divine intervention to increase the Epicality level. There were effectively no real rules, as no one was willing to learn any. Collaborative storytelling more than "a game". The real audience was the three kids, the adults are in for the storytelling and wacky fun.

We are just starting a new campaign based on the largest ruleset I could get them to agree to actually read and understand: 1976 OD&D (A bit of Chainmail, 3 books, plus Greyhawk). They are all starting at level 1.

• F: Human Fighter
• J: Halfling Thief
• E: Halfling Magic-User
• G: Human Magic-User
• M: Human Cleric
• S: Halfling Thief

And my son has recently persuaded the girl-next-door "C" (14) to join. She has never played before. Also a Halfling Thief. That's seven now, 4 are young teens.

They start in a mid-sized town of Halflings and Humans, surrounded by tame countryside. Backstories include family heritage, links to each other, and description of their motivations. "C" went in DEEP with a story about being exiled to this backwater land. They are looking to establish themselves as the local famous adventurers. They do not suspect that thier quiet breadbasket-of-the-empire shire has a hidden reserve of Dark Evil growing in hidden places.

I'm going with "The Hobbit" usage of thief: "Burglar wants a good job, plenty of Excitement and reasonable Reward". Clever adventurers with no great fighting skill and no magic. Robin Hood -style thievery. Sessions will be reverse Scooby-Do; A simple mundane problem slowly turns into a Dark Magic Mystery that is resolved to leave only more questions. Puzzles, traps, jump scares, mysterious and misleading NPCs, and mild combat for pacing.

House rules:

• RULE ZERO: Have fun. If you're not enjoying the game, speak up.
• Rule of Cool: This is a fantasy game - make it fantastic!
• Rule of Respect: Respect the game and the players. Don't be disruptive. Know the important rules. Pay attention. Read the table.
• All character alignments are GOOD. "Chaotic" is only relative: I do not want antisocial behavior. Disrespect for unjust and unneeded laws is one thing, stabbing your buddy in the back is RIGHT OUT!
• Your hit points are MAX for the first die. For many of the monsters, too.
• Know your to-hit roll, or you MISS. Know your damage roll, or it's ZERO. Know your spell requirements, or it FAILS. Know your hide-in-shadows roll, or it FAILS. Track your remaining HP. Keep count of your inventory. Get it?
• We will not use experience points. Characters will level up for major milestones. In particular, when the entire party works together in a cooperative way to overcome a serious challenge. (In effect, we will play at level 1 until it's not as much fun, then "graduate".)
• Zero HP = Down and Unconscious and Dying. The injured will lose 1 HP per round until -9, then DIE. Immediate application of first aid will hold the victim at death's door until a more permanent solution is applied.
• Combat order & Initiative = Dexterity order. (Highest DEX characters act first.)

Magic

• Level 1 Clerics have spells like Level 2 Clerics in the rules book. Other shifts to smooth out the table. M has the details.
• Level 1 Magic-Users have spells like Level 2 Magic-Users in the rules book. All levels are similarly shifted. In other words, delete the top row and shift the table up.
• First level characters ("Mediums") have TWO first level spells per day. 2nd level M-Us (called "Seers") have three first-level spells and one 2nd level spell per day.
• A "spell slot" is a spell memorized at the beginning of the day. Be sure to mark your memorized spell on your sheet. A memorized spell can be cast without the spell book and without delay. Non-memorized spells need to be read from the book. It takes one round to open the book to the correct spell, and another to read it. One spell slot for first level.
• All spells for the level are available. Number able to cast per day rises with level. Yes, you need a spell book. Yes, material components, too.
• Scrolls are single-use. And most will have a title on the top. (Sometimes it is a lie.)
• A drop of potion will determine its function. However, poison takes effect with just that drop. You get a saving throw.

What do you all think?

I really like this set up - very compact https://halflingshoard.com/2023/05/07/bastards-bag/

I might have to copy that

My Olde Setup Blue Hack Narcosa Caverns of Thracia Chtuloid Bestiary Teratic Tome Ford’s Faeries Varlet’s and Vermin JG Ready Ref Sheets Bag of Dice with 6 mechanical pencils

@hexedpress Hey. I created a solorpg community on lemm.ee, but I'm having trouble uploading a banner for it. Mine is the same dimensions (1200x514) and same format (.webp) as yours on @osr, but still I get a JSON error message when I try to upload it. Do you remember if you had to do some special trickery to get it to work?

What’s everyone playing? Tell us your system and a bit about your current game, if you have one, or, if you don’t, what game you’re looking forward to playing!