It's open source and has a documented protocol, and is designed around the idea of collaboratively designing 2D maps with other players. You can use custom graphics for map tiles, and custom player graphics (if you can make a 32x32 doodle of a character, you can play as them!)
I've been working on it since 2017 so the software has had a lot of time to mature, but I've had a hard time helping it find its audience. If anyone knows how to reach people interested in lighthearted SFW furry #roleplay I'd really like to know. I'm also hoping to specifically establish fantasy themes if possible!
https://gmkeros.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/warlocks_and_witches_in_a_dance5238827366399506857.jpg?w=1024John Faed, Warlocks and Witches in a dance (1855)I am not a fan of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. In fact I am not a fan of the 4th edition either, or the 3.5th edition, or Pathfinder (the 3.75th edition) for that matter. Actually I burned out running 3e and that was the impetus to go back to older edition, retroclones, and the OSR.
Which means I only really was touched by the introduction of warlock peripherally.
It didn’t help that I first saw them done in 3.5 and was not impressed. I still am not. It took them a while to get them into a state where players might intuitively grasp what the class is about. The 5th edition one seems to have managed that though, and I think I get why: warlocks are fun.
They are the kind of power fantasy that has all the hallmarks of a chugging half a quart of vodka with Red Bull and stealing a car. Maybe in the back of your mind you know that this is a bad idea, but right now you are intoxicated and it’s fun and who knows if morning will ever come and who cares about those flashing blue lights behind you?
Warlocks are the bad example your parents warned you about. It’s what lazy kids become when they grow up. But why, do the fighter and the magic user say, do they have so much fun being lazy? What about training? What about studying?
To which the Warlocks answer: “Eldritch Blast!”
But no, I think Warlocks as a character concept are really wonderfully OSR: you sell your soul to… not necessarily the devil, but SOMETHING, and then you can do all kinds of stuff you never learned. That sounds overpowered, and it is. But there is the implicit end of the warlock, which most people seem to forget because they treat it as just another class: this is a class that is completely dependent on some other unknownable being and their whims. There is not really a good ending for the warlock. Whatever actually happens with them when they die, in most cases it shouldn’t be pretty. If you have pledged your soul to the devil you won’t end slurping ice cold drinks at the shore of some scenic lake of fire. If you pledged it to an archfey you might end up as furniture.
I think what is missing from the class as written a bit is that there should be marks of what you are doing on you as well. You don’t become level 5 with no outside mark. I would say that every level there should be a possibility of a new pact marker. Cloven feet? Horns growing? Ears start looking like leafs? Something like that.
Reaction rolls should be affected. People might fear you, but they won’t respect you. You took the easy way and when people know they KNOW. Animals will look at you funny. You might not be able to pass under a horseshoe anymore. Mirrors shatter. That stuff.
Also ages ago I wrote about how to do multiclassing in my opinion. Every level, even the first, should cost as much as the next highest level of your other classes. That still holds up, but I think Warlocks… don’t follow that rule. Because learning another class when you spent your life doing something else shouldn’t be easy. Unless, well, you sell your soul or something. New warlocks just become warlocks.
Das coolste am GMing ist... wenn du alle Watch Later geguckt hast, keine Partner für Brettspiele oder Rollenspiel zur Verfügung stehen, wenn du alles schon gelesen hast...
... stellst du einfach deinen eigenen Content her. Es muss nicht gut sein, aber ein Gehirn auf "idle thrust" ist immer noch ein Gehirn. Schau raus, geh spazieren oder mach die Augen zu. Du bist deines eigenen Contents Schmied!
Me: “You remember that session, when we botched all of our roles and did nothing else than injuring ourselves and one another? When Chris had to threaten our Vampire escort with immanent and violent death because they were laughing their buts off?”
Am I missing anything? Aside from VRChat I guess, but I really don't want to spend huge amounts of money just in the vague hope that I'll find a group on there. I don't want to do voice calls with strangers.
I genuinely don't know what else I could try aside from just hoping someone shows up who invites me into a group.
A dark mystery has settled over the city of Aldastron on the rogue planet of Exlaris. Researchers dedicated to studying the cosmos have disappeared, and the Hubble Space Telescope has vanished from Earth’s timeline. Only an ambitious crew of adventurers can uncover what was lost. Are you up to the challenge?
Velociraptor with sword and shieldBob Walters 1982, published without context in Dragon 63Dungeons and Dragons was published 50 years ago, and almost immediately afterwards ‘zines and magazines appeared to give players and DMs more material to work with. And even beforehand things were published in Diplomacy zines and even mainstream magazines.
And there have been a lot of attempts by fellow bloggers to go through these magazines systematically, although in a lot of cases they focused almost exclusively on the holy trinity of Dragon, Dungeon, and White Dwarf. Which after all were the biggest RPG magazines there were in the English language.
So I decided to write down some articles when I find them. Mostly as a way for myself to remember them (I keep coming across useful articles that don’t quite fit with what I am working on, only to half-remember them months later when I could use them). But also because some stuff should not be forgotten just because it’s only in some magazine published halfway across the world 40 years ago.
I am going to use a small rating system for now:
A – for good articles with good game use
B – for articles with some use
S – for articles that are so good they could sustain a whole campaign or at least multiple sessions on their own
H – for articles of historical interest but maybe no actual game use
C – for campaign specific articles with barely any use outside that particular campaign
F – for fiction of note
I – for some general interest stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else, also stuff that is neither good nor bad but maybe has an interesting idea
J – for jokes, cartoons, and humor of note
T – for things that are so terrible I just have to point them out
That… should be enough for now. I don’t think this will be done systematically as I mostly want to note down when I come across some stuff. If an article is not on the list I didn’t think it was interesting.
So lets begin.
Dragon 63 (1982)
G. Gygax, Featured Creatures: Deva, p.5 H– preview to MMII I guess
G. Gygax (?), Where the Bandits are, p. 14 C– details on the Bandit Kingdoms in Greyhawk
Tom Armstrong/Roger Moore, Bandits! p. 23 B – bandit NPC class, I mentioned before I have reevaluated the use of those. This one might be a bad guy, or it might be Robin Hood. I can see some use for that.
Roger Moore, …but not least: The humanoids. Goals and gods of the kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, & gnolls, p. 25, B – some interesting ideas for minor gods and spiritual beings of the humanoids. Might be useful for fleshing out some humanoid tribes. Misogynist vibes though.
Larry DiTillio, Chagmat, p. 33, I – adventure level 1-4, arachnid antagonists, very mediocre dungeon, overwritten, slightly misogynist vibes (why do spider care about abducting maidens specifically?), but has an old one-armed swordsman NPC I wanna steal
G. Gygax, A Couple of Fantastic Flops, p.72 H – Gygax trashes the Schwarzenegger Conan movie and promises a D&D movie with the quality of Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark by 1984/85. Gee, I wonder how that turned out?
Dragon Magazine 74 (1983)
Leonard Lakofka/Brad Nystul, Bureaucrats and Politicians, p.8. I (maybe J) – two NPC classes, overwritten and not very useful, although both read more like a joke I don’t quite get
Ronald Hall, Landragons. Wingless wonders of a faraway land, p.12, B– creature feature about wingless dragons, notably the third entry manages to mess up the notation for inches and feet so bad it requires multiple rereadings
Lewis Pulsipher, A player character and his money…, p. 50, A/H– first appearance of the silver standard conversion, otherwise lots of ideas to part the PCs from their money
Dragon 104 (1986)
[OH wow, I was thinking about it, and there was absolutely nothing notable or useful in this issue. The closest was this:]
Christopher Wood, A plethora of paladins, p. 45, I– expands the “holy warrior” archetype from Paladins and Anti-Paladins out into the other 7 alignments. All are NPC classes and all kind of useless. I don’t see any immediate use for this.
Dragon 114 (1986)
Bill Muhlhausen (and others), The Witch, p.8 I – this is the at least third incarnation of the Witch NPC class. Unfortunately it still is barely usable as the class still is predicated on being an evil overpowered demon-worshipper.
Nick Kopsinis/Patrick Goshtigian, Grave Encounters. Creatures that lurk in cemeteries and crypts, p. 22, B– bread and butter article with graveyard encounter tables
Margaret Weis/Kevin Stein, Running Guns. Ground Vehicles for the BATTLETECH game world, p. 78, H– I’d rate it higher, but seriously all that is covered in the core rules by now
Randal S. Doering, High-Tech Hijinks. Integrating technology into an AD&D game campaign, p. 84 B– a bit overwritten
I went to a viking renactment event at the weekend, here are some pics.
The dress I am wearing was made by my mum and is authentic. It was a three day thing and we slept over in the village, it was super cold and horrible to sleep in 😅. It was pretty cool tho.
I mostly spent my time wood carving and making a broom. The cat is a stray and is well loved by the park and has her own house there.
I have discovered that I have more items that I wrote stored away someplace... meaning I am half way through my project of creating what I will now call Tessia's Deck of Acquirement...or something.