We are fastly approaching the mid point of this hashtag stuff. There have been more than one or two that I’ve struggled with, and it’s shown.
But hey we are here now. So let’s look at today’s theme.
“Think (think) Think (think) Think (think) Think (think) You think (think) Think (think) Think about it (think)” Aretha Franklin/Ted White
Obviously with today’s theme, apart from the rather excellent song sung by Aretha Franklin in the bloody amazing cult classic The Blues Brothers now an ear worm for the rest of the day. I associate the theme with problem solving and puzzles.
I haven’t run a puzzle in my homebrew campaign yet. I like the idea of them, but have run shy of actually doing one.
With the Matt Colville intro adventure The Delian Tomb from his now very well known web series on being a DM, there is a simple riddle/puzzle. Which would qualify as the only puzzle I have used as a DM.
In the D&D Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything we are given some puzzles that can be dropped into any campaign on the fly. However that chapter of the book starts with a bit of great advice.
Which mirrors a DM tip I got off Twitter last year I think. It was definitely before Tasha’s came out.
Taken off twitter sometime last year!
Which takes a bit of the pressure off the DM, especially during prep.
The puzzle with no solution could be an obstacle of some sort to overcome like having to cross a river or chasm. It could be a locked door. Your imagination is the limit.
I also have a small, and I mean small bank of puzzles I can utilise for a game such as the Gygax Ingenious Door Puzzle.
There are also more than a few third party puzzle books on DriveThruRPG or the DMGuild, especially from older editions that still can be used.
After yesterday’s train wreck for this hashtag thingy we are back for more. It’s just hard to turn away. We’ve got to see where this thing is going. No matter how ugly it gets.
So let’s get on with this mess…
Once our group starts up our campaign again after it’s 18 month plus hiatus due to world events shutting it down. After what I’m sure will be an over long catch up with each other, and finally a strong restart (step 4 of the way of the lazy DM) to the campaign, the party will have to navigate a wilderness to find a lost Dwarven mine.
I haven’t settled on a way to handle wilderness travel that I’m happy with yet.
In the DMG there are a couple of suggestions for handling it. Those being the travel montage or hour by hour. Neither grabs me.
So far I’ve tried a version of wilderness travel that is based on how it is handled in The One Ring. Which was fine but a bit of work is required in prep before hand.
I adapted what is basically a hex crawl from the WotC D&D published campaign The Tomb of Annihilation for sea travel. Which is basically wilderness but with lots of water. And that was ok too. But again I was not entirely happy with it.
I have two options I want to try for wilderness travel next.
The first is treating wilderness travel as a skill challenge. The idea for this came from a D&D Beyond scenario they did as part of the Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus series called Encounter of the Week: Detour Past Dragonspear.
The other approach I want to try is Pointcrawls. Which I first found out about from the legend that is Sly Flourish who talked about it in his Icewind Dale prep videos. Which then got it’s own video and blog post discussing in more detail what they were and how to create them.
Although the rules in the Dungeon Master’s Screen Wilderness Kit for journeys and chases look worth a try as well. I’m particularly drawn to the chase rules that look very combat like. I want to run a chase at some point (story allowing).
I’m not convinced I will ever find a way to handle wilderness travel that I’m entirely happy with. I’ll probably end up choosing one of the methods from above during the prep for a session, never doing the same one twice in a row. Although that list may be whittled down based on feedback from the group. After all they may not like one or more of the approaches.
Earlier in the year Edge Studio (new home of the Genesys RPG) and FFG teased/announced the next source book for Genesys, Embers of the Imperium, a Twilight Imperium setting for the system.
Yesterday Edge Studio broke news that Embers of the Imperium would not be making the planned release of by the end of the Summer. Various reasons were given to why there is a delay to the release, such as development backlogs and the process of setting up the company.
Edge Studio have set a new target date of hopefully having the Embers of the Imperium finished and released by the end of the year.
The delay to Embers of the Imperium must have been known for a while. So why wait until days before the supposed release date to announce the delay? Were they hoping for a miracle? This should have been communicated to the community much earlier.
However frustrating this delay is, the companies lack of communication and interacting with the Genesys community is even more frustrating. They still don’t have a functioning website, it’s just a holding page.
In the same announcement about the delay, Edge Studio also teased another upcoming Genesys book, “Embers of the Imperium is not the only Genesys book we’re working on right now. We’re not quite at the point where we’re ready to release details about it, but we can confirm that the manuscript is written and is being playtested.” I’m hoping it’s a Tannhauser source book or more Android. But everyone will have their own preference to what they hope this will be.
Finally in the Edge Studio they announced that they are participating in the Free RPG Day by producing a free Genesys adventure set in the Twilight Imperium universe called Ashes of Power.
“This 40-page-booklet contains a simplified set of rules for Genesys, a full adventure by veteran writers Max Brooke and Michael Gernes, and four pre-generated characters (and there will be two additional pre-gens available for download on Free RPG Day). That, combined with the now free Genesys Dice Roller app, means you can try out Genesys without spending a single cent.”
Unlike previous free adventures for the Genesys RPG that were produced for the first two source books to demo the game at cons. This one sounds more like the free starter kit adventures some other RPGs have released such as the Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D. one, with the cut down core rules includedm. This makes the adventure a great taster for players and GMs alike.
I like that they have made the Genesys Dice Roller app free. That’s a great step in helping people play the game. The custom physical dice currently go for £17 on Amazon.
Edge Studio also confirmed that Ashes of Power is “a preview of Embers of the Imperium. Both are set in the sprawling space opera epic of Twilight Imperium, a far future where various powerful factions vie for the vacant imperial throne and right to rule the galaxy. You take on the role of a team of Keleres who are sent to a recently rediscovered planet to track down a missing Keleres informant. Of course once you get there, you’ll need to navigate a unique culture comprised of three very different species, and survive when you inevitably run into a group of very unpleasant individuals with a vested interest in seeing you dead. After all, there are ancient secrets lurking on Herool’s Truce…”
I have asked Edge Studio whether Ashes of Power will be available to download for those of us that don’t have a participating LGS near by. However the post I asked this on was deleted when they updated it! And the question unanswered and lost. Although I have re-asked the question this morning and awaiting a response. The Free RPG Day takes place on 16th October.
Oh boy today’s a toughie. Mind you I haven’t found the last few themes that easy.
However today’s theme had me opening up Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (VRGtR) and looking at one of the new backgrounds it introduces.
The backgrounds introduced in VRGtR are aimed at characters being used in horror adventures. But when I’m being a DM (hopefully soon) if a player said they wanted to use one of these new backgrounds despite our campaign not being horror themed I’d say “sure why not?“ Plus I wouldn’t rule out using some horror influences at some point in the campaign.
The new background that came to mind for this theme was Spirit Medium (chapter 1, page 31). So you can see where I went with the theme of medium.
I like the idea of a character that communes with the dead. Although the official background description says the players character had a fateful experience to cause them to believe that they are “aligned with spirits and can serve as a conduit for their insights and goals.” I also like the idea of this being something that is passed on from one generation to another. Plus that fateful experience could also apply and be the thing that triggers it in the players character so that they carry on the family tradition.
For inspiration I’d watch some of the shows and films in the collage below. (They are ones that came to mind first)
They give some interesting takes to use with the character. The out and out believer with powers. Or the unbeliever, possibly ex-medium now intent in debunking others as charlatans.
I particularly like The Deadzone inspiration. It has that fateful experience for explaining this ability. And like the main character as a plot to follow some person in power that they have come in contact with could be intent on unleashing an unspeakable horror of some sort on the world that they have to stop.
I also like that from a DM point of view that the communing with spirits is a great way to feed one or two secrets or adventure hooks to the party.
Taking into account I started a day late, I’ve been doing this for a whole week now!
I’m not claiming to have written compelling content. In fact the last couple of posts have been below par.
Let’s get on with the show…
We are 18 months or so into that world event, which means our D&D campaign has been on hiatus for the duration.
I know that online play took off (probably an under statement) because of those events.
My main computing device is an iPad. Which meant that using established platforms like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds along side something like Skype/Zoom/Discord to run a game is clunky and barely usable at best. Throw in that home life makes doing stuff online like this a lot harder without interruptions. It was an easy decision for me to just say we would pick up our campaign again in safer times.
Despite this one free online tool did grab my attention called owlbear.rodeo. It seems to have what I would want in something like this. First the price, it’s free. It’s light weight, it basically allows you to share a map and move tokens around on it. And that’s it. You can set up a fog of war on the map to hide sections from players. It’s browser based. So platform independent.
So if I was going to go the online route for playing I’d be using Discord and owlbear.rodeo.
I will say that the only streamed content I watch is the Sky Flourish session prep for his current campaign and his “preshow” D&D discussion/chat where he talks about current events in the world of D&D. Or the odd discussion Sly Flourish puts up with other content creators.
I find these helpful. Especially seeing Sly Flourish applying his way of the Lazy DM to a published campaign.
All I will say about streamed games is that I’m not a fan.
Heck folks have been doing this hashtag stuff for nearly a week now.
Here we go again with today’s theme…
I’m going to interpret today’s theme (over looking that it’s spelt wrong) as text that provides a mood or gives background information.
So in D&D terms we are talking about the boxed text in the published adventures.
For me a follower of the way of the lazy DM, less is more. I’m running what many would consider a homebrew campaign. So when I come to preparing the next session I don’t want to be spending hours writing text that may not even be needed. Let alone making sure it will hopefully keep the attention of the players when it is finally read out allowed.
By following Chapter 7: Develop Fantastic Locations of The Return of the Lazy DM, all I need to come up with during my prep for each potential location the players might visit is “an evocative name and the location’s aspects.”
The advice given is that the “name of the location should fire up the imaginations of you and the players alike.” Whilst the location’s aspects “describe important, notable, or useful features of the location.”
An example from the Return of the Lazy DM for a fantastic location is the following: “The Bridge of Teeth: Narrow bridge of bone spanning a gorge; bones tied together with cracked and splitting leather and sinew; howling wind sounds like moaning”.
All we are aiming for is “having just need enough of a reminder to help you describe it to the players during the game.” I don’t know about you but the example fantastic location gives a lot of flavour and creates a vivid image of the location. Does the location description need to be any longer? Not in my opinion. I think it ticks all the boxes of the definition at the start of this post.
When our group finally returns to our campaign sometime in September (world events allowing) I’ll be following the steps Sly Flourish outlines in a post about applying the above to an existing dungeon map that I plan to use.
So there we have it flavour in an RPG doesn’t have to be paragraphs and paragraphs of text, it can be a sentence or two of text instead.
I’m impressing myself. So far so good that since starting a day late that I’m keeping up with the daily schedule of contributing to a hashtag.
Let’s do this thing…
The temptation to roll a d4 and randomly choose from the list was strong on this one.
But I’m going to stick it out and go with throne.
What comes to mind when I read the word throne? Power, royalty, politics, back stabbing, arranged marriages, wealth, court, subjects.
But it’s the fact the throne represents power that resonates the most with me.
No matter which system you play having your party being beholden to a powerful person is a great plot device to have.
How they come beholden can add to the backstory and give the party extra starting equipment, a base, maybe a vehicle of some sort. Or that powerful figure could be an adversary/nemesis.
Also during the campaign that powerful figure could be the driving force, reason the party undertake a quest. Maybe they have been asked to retrieve some valuable artifact as a way to repay their debt.
I know a loose interpretation of the theme, but at least I didn’t go the toilet route.
“It’s been a long time, been a long time Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time”
This morning I was round Gavin’s to play some MtG.
It felt soooo good to finally play a game in the real world once more. Over 18 months since I last played with a real person in the same room. I’d almost forgotten what it was like.
Plus I got to meet the latest addition to Gavin’s household young pup Murphy. I’m hoping Murphy has got his name because Gavin is a Robocop fan. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because of some tenuous link to Top Gun. Gavin is somewhat of a Top Gun fanboy.
We played some two player Commander. Yes it’s not really the same as playing with more players. But it gave Gavin a chance to try the Ur Dragon and Markov precons from 2017, plus play his Strixhaven precon. And I got to try a new deck I’d been working on during the lockdown.
There was also some standard played as well. It was Gavin’s mono green deck up against my mono red dragon deck. There was one game where I missed played that cost me the game.
I’ll have to get Gavin’s deck list off him. But mine I’ll look at in another post. There were a couple of times I ran out of gas, and was unable to end the game, going on to lose. But on the whole it did it’s thing.
