Week of 2022-11-11

This week I've seen a veritable explosion of newsletters, which is kind of what I'm trying to do here. I'd love to see these become cross-linked conversations with the kind of longer-form thinking that is so hard to do on Twitter and other social media sites.

Two things

Since I needed some locations for the Keep in my upcoming OSE game, here are some that you can share.:

The colorful market square surrounds a fountain where the folk of the Keep gather water. Lines run from the fountain to the buildings and walls around the square and small flags in blue, yellow, and green flutter from them in the wind. On market days, the square is crowded with farmers selling their produce. There are three more or less permanent stalls here as well. A glass blower, a barber, and a potter all work here and sell their wares.

The Crag's Top is a simple tavern serving the local community and any travelers. Garren, the barkeep, and their wife Lydia watch over the establishment and serve warm comforting food alongside a small variety of drinks. Garren's brother is among the outlaws that dwell in the forest near the Keep and Garren sympathizes with them. A 'peddler' who stops by the Keep every 10 days or so serves as a contact between Garren and the outlaws.

What I'm reading/watching

One thing that really struck me this week was Jon Harper's video on Game Rhythm & Calling For Rolls, more on that below. I also liked the recent Fear of a Black Dragon episode on Feast, which has me thinking about how things are progressing in my home campaign with the cult of the King in Yellow and the Cult of the Lost God both coming more and more to the surface. With the looming destruction of Twitter, I've been jumping on more mailing lists. The Indie RPG is currently running a series looking at cities in games. This week's email was on The City. Their Links of the Week section also got me restarted thinking about reincorporation (again more later).

What I'm writing and drawing

I'm putting together the sketch of the 3rd set of caverns for my mushroom caverns set on itch. It hasn't sold as well as I'd hoped, so I think I'll also draw up the final map of the 2nd set and tick the status forward to that point. I've been playing with some hex grids to make that easier. 

I'm also kicking around a renown system based on Ben Laurence's Downtime in Zyan. I'm going to try to get this into a semblance of order so I can post an early version of these thoughts soon - maybe this weekend.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Seven Sons

In this week's game, I tried two approaches that I think will help change our game. The first is being more explicit in declaring what I wanted to achieve with my actions to let the GM better respond. This is an idea I've seen a lot of recently, e.g., in John Harper's video (see above). The other is reincorporation, my most recent sighting of this idea was Table Techniques: Reincorporation. 

Here's an example of being more explicit. Our characters were following a merchant named Kohl, who we suspected of being linked to a cabal of rich merchants trying to overthrow the government. When we confronted him, I led off by telling the GM, "I plan on dropping names of other members of the cabal and watching Kohl's reaction." With that framework laid, we played through a very direct (and somewhat shorter) interaction between the PCs and the NPC. 

Since the GM knew what we were looking for, he was able to frame his response in a way that made more sense for the setting and aim. This felt more respectful of our limited time at the table and made it easier to role-play a social interaction. I really liked the way it felt and plan on using this approach more as both a GM and a player. Using reincorporation as a player was a bit harder to do, but I love how it paid off for us. 

After our interaction with Kohl, we pulled back to observe him, After a little while, he rushed off. After a quick tail/chase, we followed him to a large building that looked a bit like a tavern. The building was secured, guarded, and not open to the public.

We found a kid on the street and asked them about it. They said it was "a private club for rich folks". Knowing that, I thought about the wealthy NPCs that were on our radar and asked about them. This opened up a second discussion about one of the bigger villains we've encountered and gave us more info about them. 

Hochheim 

This week the players met the mongrelfolk in the Forbidden City. A good reaction roll and some difficult parley (aided by a pair of comprehend languages spells) led to them teaming up. The mongrelfolk offered to teach the PCs the trade language that is in use in the ruined city (It's far from the PCs' home, so none of them speak the local languages) and teach them about the various factions at play. They wanted the PCs to eliminate the threat of the nearby bugbears.

The druid shapeshifted again to do some recon. Based on the info they gathered, the PCs came up with a basic plan to deal with the goblinoids - though they also discovered a potential rift within the bugbear camp. I'm interested to see how they leverage that. 

Set up for OSE

I kicked things off in the Keep so that the players can gather some information if they want (as described in Winter's Daughter). I just listened to a Blogs on Tape episode about The Keep on the Borderlands, which is coloring my thoughts as I prepare for our mini-campaign.

Week of 2022-11-04

As part of my renovations around here, I'm going to try to write a weekly recap of the things I'm doing around gaming.  

Two things

I'd like to start out each week's overview with two things that I hope you can use at your table. This week I'll lead off with two OSE NPCs suitable for use as retainers:

Bartek (They/Them), Dwarf L1, S 13 I 7 W 9 D 11 Co 15 Ch 8,  Saves  D 8 W 9 P 10 B 13 S 12

Description: Dark brown hair, and a long braided beard to little to cover Bartek's tattoos.  They are tall and lean for a dwarf.  They often appear distracted, though they are probably just bored. Bartek is a tee-totaler. They smell of soap and leather polish. Their armor is older, but well-maintained. 

Motivation:  Bartek wants to prove themself as a warrior so that they can return to thei mountain halls they call home. Prior experience has taught them to look for someone a little smarter to do the planning.

At The Table: speaks haltingly and a little too loudly.

Quote: "But . . . what do you . . . think we should do?"

Tenriss (She/Her), Thief L1,  S 10 I 8 W 9 D 14 Co 9 Ch 12,  Saves  D 13 W 14 P 13 B 16 S 115

Description: Bald, but has several wigs. Likes to wear bright colors when not working. Always has a dagger at her hip.

Motivation:  Tenriss' family were once well-to-do merchants, but fell on hard times. She wants to live the high life she remembers and is willing to bend a few rules to make that happen.

At The Table: laughs nervously when speaking

Quote: "Mmm, that is good wine. It reminds me of sipping from my father's collection when I was little."

What I'm reading

I'm continuing my reading and working with Downtime in Zyan by Ben Laurence. It's hitting the sweet spot for my desire to make downtime more useful/interesting in my campaigns. I'm also trying to push for the GM of my Wednesday game to pick it up for his game. It should be on sale soon, once the kickstart distribution is complete.

I'm also looking harder at substack. I've been reading articles from Sean McCoy and Monte Cook among others. These are dribbling into the advice I'm giving my Wednesday GM as he continues to tweak and playtest the game we're playing.

Offline, I recently got copies of Swords of the Serpentine which I'm reading when I'm away from my phone and laptop.  It's making me think about Cities as Point Crawls (from a Ben Laurence blog post), which I'm diving into a bit deeper.

What I'm writing and drawing

I'm currently working on itchfunding a small set of maps, with some modest financial goals though not much success.  The finished product will be a set of three cavern maps in a variety of gridded, labeled, and player-facing options with a document of cave/cavern/Underdark flavor and a system-agnostic key for each map by the time it's done.  The set is currently selling for $1 and will gradually increase in price to $7.50 as I complete the various pieces. Of course, buying in at a lower level will give you access to the whole set from that time on out.

Last week, I wrote a quick post about using Obsidian for my gaming note-taking.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Seven Sons - On Wednesday, last week, we crawled around the town of Ila, where we've been digging into a conspiracy that seems centered around some of the merchants and a coven of witches. One of the PCs was invisible and tailing a merchant named Agatha, who seems caught up in the conspiracy. We tried to follow him - which proved harder than we'd thought.

Hochheim - The PCs in my Thursday game, have returned to the Climbing Tomb. Fought off some scarecrows, and went through the portal to the Green Hell.  Last session, they trekked through the wilderness (only getting lost once) and eventually reached the edge of the rift containing I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City, where they hope to find the second piece of the broken Star of Dralm.  This week, they scouted from the rim and Aerix, the druid, changed shape into a songbird and flew over parts of the ruins to see what he could learn. We left off the game after they'd descended a crumbling path the floor of the rift.

Set up for OSE - I ran a session 0 for 4 players on Friday. None of them have played OSE before, and one has never played any TTRPGs.  We generated characters and set up expectations for the game.  They're going to be playing through Winter's Daughter, based out of the Keep of B2 fame.  If it goes well, the PCs may push on to explore the Caves of Chaos.

As part of my prep, I created a couple of spell books (inspired by Ben Laurence's Ten Starter Spellbooks and W Denning's How I Prep Con Games). If you're interested, here they are:

The Praxis of the Higher Planes

A tattered copy of a copy. Most of the really interesting stuff is missing, but this could be a good starting point for researching spells pertaining to light, vision, and the effects of the higher planes. It contains the following: (1) Light, Protection from Evil; (2) Invisibility

The Libram of Controlled Perigression

Copied from the original by an unreliable scribe, an apprentice of Ogrindar the Baleful (who has the original in their possession), this work could provide the foundation for research into controlling access through physical spaces. Any real work would require other works, including the original from which this volume was created. It contains the following spells: (1) Hold Portal, Shield; (2) Knock 

From the Foot of the Mountain 17 December 2021

 

Hi there! Welcome to my first shot at creating a newsletter. Let's see if this is something I can do each week, and whether or not it's something y'all are interested in. I have some ideas about what I'll be writing but let me know what you'd like to see more or less of and I'll try to make it happen.

In my games this week

One of my two 1e AD&D groups is playing through Through Ultan's Door Issue 1 and is really enjoying it. I'm currently coordinating with one of the players in my other game to run a series of games as a guest DM. He's going to be running Gratkil - The Citadel That Crawls from Dissident Whispers which is a great-looking adventure as well.

Prep Ideas

The idea of patrons for PCs has popped up a few times recently, and I think this approach will fit well with my Friday group. I'm working on a trio of potential patrons along with hints that will point toward them., and maybe a direct invitation to "the Heroes of Saltmarsh". One idea I want to steal is to treat the patrons as semi-competitive (or fully competitive) factions with resources, goals, and a regular roll to see how they move forward. I want to make those rolls player-facing to help them see changes happening in the world. Next week, I'll share a write-up of one of these patron write-ups.

What I'm Working On

Magic Candles I'm going to be posting a series of twelve pairs of magic candles for my patrons. I'll collect these, along with a couple of other related bits, to create Four and Twenty Candles, a Zine I'll put on itch in January. Here's an example:

Cursed Candles

These candles are indistinguishable from other magical candles and might appear as a specific kind from the list above. When lit, they affect the individual lighting them as described below. Anytime the possessor of one or more cursed candle(s) takes out a candle to light, they will pull out a cursed candle that will take on the appearance of the one they mean to light.

Candle of Monster Summoning When lit, the candle will summon monsters as per the Monster Summoning IV spell. The monsters will be hostile to the summoner, and will remain for 1d3+1 turns unless placated, killed, or driven off.

Self-editing pass on zines

As I was using Vade Arcanum and A Woodland Path recently, I found some errors in the text. This pushed me to start proofreading pass on them. I've put both of them on itch in an attempt to fund hiring an editor, until then, you're stuck with me. I want to post a new release of each in January.

Podcasts

I've got a line-up of podcasts I listen to regularly. There are a couple of actual plays, some about gaming mechanics, and some reviews of books and adventures. Here are a couple that I'm focused on this week.

I'm listening to Fear of a Black Dragon - The Ghost of Mistmoor more or less on repeat right now as I work on a ghost story adventure for Kinopea (and maybe one for Høglund while I'm at it). Jason and Tom do a great job making me think about how I DM and how I create adventure settings.

Yum DM's first podcast, a fireside with Black Dragon Games and Manticore Tale. They do a great job talking about world-building and their approaches to gaming. I'd love to sit at a table with any or all of them to chat and play. You might also want to look at Yum's d12 zine - it's a great collection of tools, tips, and ideas for all editions of D&D.

Tweets & Blog Posts

Dungeons & Possums has been working on Dicevember prompts this month. One of his posts includes a full-on adventure with several fun little wrinkles - Forest. Check it out.

Black Dragon Games is super inspirational. I love it when he posts spells, monsters, and magic items. His play reports are good reads as well. I think his recent thread about the knock-on effect in world-building is a good example of the kind of thing that happens when you really dig in and start building your world. To my mind, it's the best kind of game prep.

Games & Stuff

There is a ton of stuff coming out for Mausritter right now. ManaRampMart has release a set of NPCs and an oracle for solo play. In fact, you should just go and check out his main itch page for all kinds of gaming goodness.

Cairn is also seeing a lot of love. with an oracle (again from ManaRampMatt) and an Adventurer's Guide. I'm looking forward to running more Cairn in 2022 and stuff like this and

I should also mention that I've got a sale running right now on my Vade Arcanum and A Woodland Path zines. You can get the pair of them for just a buck. If that sounds like too much, there are community copies available too.

 

Happy Gaming!

Pat Eyler Foot of the Mountain Adventures