Last week, two of the players in our group couldn’t make it, so the regular game was cancelled. I seized upon the opportunity to try out something different, namely Shadow of the Demon Lord. It wasn’t enough to write a First Impressions post, however the experience of rewriting the adventure was perhaps noteworthy enough. Because […]
It shambles towards you, more pitiful than menacing. The stench of rotting flesh is barely contained by its dirty bandages. It is not a very impressive mummy. As you notice the bandages sway in the non-existent wind, you realise, way too late, it is not a mummy at all. Raggamummy Without a creature to wrap […]
Cthulhu Confidential is an elaboration of a version of GUMSHOE, an investigative RPG by Pelgrane Press. Let’s untangle this a bit. GUMSHOE is the engine upon which multiple games are built. It’s core idea is as follows: it’s not fun, and therefore shouldn’t be possible, for investigators to fail to solve a mystery because they […]
13th Age doesn’t much care for terrain or environmental effects. There’s the Tracker and Swashbucker talents, and a bit on using traps in the core book. The GM Resource book has a solid chapter on using terrain and overcoming the stand-and-hit-each-other problem. Good advice, but no mechanics. So, here are some mechanics. This post is a […]
Rust monsters are not that dangerous, really. Annoying, potentially very expensive to deal with, and often leaving you terminally unprepared for whatever comes next, sure. But not dangerous by themselves. Some eat metal. Others magic. Not this one, though. This one eats your destiny. You’ll survive the encounter, covered in the rusty flakes of your […]
Once, at the dawn of my roleplaying career, I had convinced a friend to try DMing, letting me be a player for once. It was, naturally, D&D. We had ourselves a decent enough adventure, and fought some robotic wolves at some point. An enjoyable experience. Later, I asked him what stats he used for the monsters. […]
Flesh golems are stitched together from the bodies of many different creatures. They are disturbing in their own right, but what if it wasn’t made up of just any old dead creatures? What if the parts weren’t dead at all? Trollflesh Golem Huge 4th level wrecker Initiative: +7 Sweeping claws +9 vs AC (2 attacks) […]
Nice clickbaity headline, well done. But it’s true – narrative, “modern” games like Fate or Dungeon World are seemingly much harder to run, or even play, correctly, as compared to the more “traditional” games like D&D. By “running the game correctly” I mean using the rules to their full potential and in a manner articulated […]
Wereowlbear Were. Owl. Bear. Large level 6 troop [BEAST] Initiative +10 Rip and Peck (hybrid form only) + 11 vs AC, 22 damage, and the target is hampered while engaged with the wereowlbear. Vicious hybrid: If the escalation die is even, make another rip and peck attack. Owldropbear (one enemy below the wereowlbear) […]
Corruption. Taint. Insanity. Mutation. Warping. The idea that some threats are so horrible, so alien, that dealing with them permanently changes the heroes is very compelling. It’s the cornerstone of Call of Cthulhu games. But whereas in CoC it is an inexorable march toward damnation, it was Heroes of Horror, an excellent D&D 3.5 book, that […]