#RPGaDay 2024 - Day 30 and 31

 "Person you'd like to game with"

Instead of going with celebrities or historical figures, I'm going to go with some publishing and gamer friends. My dream game would be an old school D&D game ran by Levi Combs of Planet X Games. My fellow players would be Tim Knight, Tim Brannan, Eric Bloat, and the Limitless Adventures cats (Mike and Andy). 

"Game or gamer you miss"

Going to go with a game that used to be one of the main focuses of this blog. I'd love to see a generic Cinematic Unisystem core book released. I still have quite a few books in the line and I love them, but I'd love to see new content. This game, Beyond Human, was being written at one point, but never materialized. I don't know if it's ironic or sad that I miss a a game that never came out.

#RPGaDay 2024 - Day 29

 "Awesome app"

If you've been paying attention this month, I don't use much tech. I sometimes use D&D Beyond to look things up. One app I do find super useful is The Crawler's Companion. This free DCC app is super useful for that game. 

Don't have the funky dice needed for DCC? The app has you. Need Critical Hit and Failure charts? The app has you. Quick rules references? The app has you. Spell references to those complicated DCC spells? The app has you. Finally need to generate 0-level characters, dragons, demons, swords, and other things? You might be shocked to find out the app has you.

Seriously, if you you play DCC and haven't checked it out, you're missing out.

Update: Apparently the phone app version is no longer functional. The HTML version still works and is what I’ve used in the past. It’s easy to use on phones.

#RPGaDay 2024 - Day 28

 "Great gamer gadget"

I'm not a luddite, but I don't really use gadgets when I'm gaming. I think the only example is looking stuff up on a SRD using my phone. Seriously, that's it. All that aside, I think having any sort of tablet that allows access to rpg pdfs at the table could be great to have. 

#RPGaDay 2024 - Day 27

 "Marvelous miniature"

I'm going to be cheeky with this one. This Wolverine Heroclix mini is quite marvelous. This was a promo figure based on What If... Vol. 1 No. 24 (What If... Wolverine Was Lord Of Vampires). The story isn't great, but it was one of the first What If stories I read when I was a kid and has stuck with me. I also figure this is a time to give a shout out to some OSR stats I did for this version of Wolverine. You can find them here.

#RPGaDay 2024 - Day 26

 "Superb screen"

I don't use screens anymore. If I do it's just as reference and to hide nots, but I have it sitting next to me, not between me and the players. Since they aren't a big thing to me I'm just going to share my favorite based on artwork. If someone asks me what DCC is like, I just show them this screen.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 25

 "Desirable dice"

I prefer the Dark Maiden and do not consider myself a spider kisser, but this drow themed set is my absolute favorite. They were a part of of an older Advent-ure Calendar from Black Oak Workshop. I love the spider symbol mixed with the color scheme (which is also used in the Swirl Dragon Dreadwyrm set). These sets are pretty come by and I've seen them go for high prices on ebay. 

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 21-24

Been having some mental health struggles so I've missed a few days. Going to play catch up with this post.

Day 21 - "Classic Campaign"

For this one I'm going to talk about Greyhawk. While I've never had a steady game on Oerth, it's an old school setting that's always fascinated me. I had the City of Greyhawk boxed set as a kid and I loved it. I really regret getting rid of it and all my old school D&D stuff when I was in college. For me Greyhawk is a setting with a grand history  I can draw from. However what's great about it is in the end it doesn't matter to my specific game. It's a place that's known and includes names and things my players will recognize. However at the same time I can customize it and make it my own and most of the time my players are none the wiser (because they only have very surface level knowledge).

Day 22 - "Notable non-player character"

One of my favorite NPC's I've used in the past decade or so is Gadof Blinksy, from Curse of Strahd. He's a toymaker with a monkey that players can encounter. He was just a fun character, even though when the party meets him he's fallen into despair. When I ran the adventure the party bard (who was essentially a stand up comedian) bought a Strahd marionette from him that he animated during the final confrontation with Strahd.

Day 23 - "Peerless player"

I honestly don't want to talk about just one peerless player, because I have gamed with some amazing folks. Instead I will list some of the traits on a peerless players. These players show up on time and stay engaged. They get their time in the spotlight, but not to the expense of other players. The bring excitement to the games they play in. 

Day 24 - "Acclaimed advice"

I get the alliteration, but "acclaimed advice" sounds corny af. I'm going to go share some advice I heard somewhere at some point, but has stuck with me. 

"Just roll with it."

Don't get bogged down in games. If you aren't sure what the rules say at a certain point, just keep the gaming going and don't worry about the minutia.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 20

 "Amazing Adventure"

There are many amazing adventures out there. You have classics like The Keep on the Borderlands. There are more modern ones like An Occurrence at Howling Crater from Planet X games. However, I think I'm going to talk about the adventure I've run the most. That adventure is The Arwhich Grinder by Daniel Bishop. It's a DCC funnel adventure, meaning a lot of 0-level characters go in and only a few come out. A group of village folk have the chance to be heroes and repay the kindness a family showed them during a time of blight. At least that's what things seem on the surface. There is some really gross and wild stuff in this one. I've ran it 6 times at Origins and once for friends. I've never had a group complain and most of the time they're singing praises of the adventure. DCC is just a fun game and Daniel created a fantastic Lovecraftian masterpiece with this one.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 19

"Sensational session"

I've ran several sensational sessions at Origins since joining up with Lurking Fears, but I feel like talking about the time I ran Wasted last year specifically. This DCC-compatible "hicksploitation" adventure by Tim Snider is fantastic. Take a fantastic adventure and a group of players wanting to let loose and have a good time and you have an excellent formula for a fantastic session. The players were all good sports and willing to play the hillbilly stereotypes up without being too offensive about it. One of the thieves in the group had the snake handler occupation and the character's player had an uncle that actually was a snake handler. Needless to say, he did an excellent job roleplaying the character. I think one of my favorite moments in the game was when one of the warriors was killed. The party gave the corpse some of the cursed liquor (as they realized it had the ability to turn people into zombies). I had the player to make a DC 20 luck roll. He made it so I allowed the character to be brought back as a zombie under his control. I just copied the zombie stat blocks and gave them to him. He really got into it and was hilarious. He didn't speak in character for the rest of the session, just mumbled and moaned. Everyone had a great time. 

I found out the session actually inspired two of the players (father and son) to run their own sessions at Origins this year. 

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 18

 "Memorable moment in play"

I have many memorable moments from gaming when I was younger, but as I get older they happen fewer and far between. A more recent one that comes to mind is from a Dark Places & Demogorgons session I ran back in 2018. You can read about the entire session here, but essentially it involved an encounter with little green men at a Conway Twitty impersonation contest. To deescalate a potential slaughter between aliens and locals, one of my players hopped onto the stage, attempted to calm the crowd with their best rendition of Hello Darlin' and rolled a Nat 20! I know the word gets used a lot, but it was epic!

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 17

 "An engaging RPG community"

While I've seen good things form the Shadowdark community, I think one of the most welcoming and engaging communities I've seen is Dungeon Crawl Classics. This sense of community is really fostered by Goodman Games. Judge's who run games in public places are a part of the Road Crew and are reward by GG. This really does bring Judges and players together. While there was a lot of comradery in the Google+ days, you can still find that spirit in the DCC RPG Rocks! Facebook Group or by attending any con GG have a booth at.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 16

 "Quick to learn"

The X-1 system from Andy Hand's Cheatin' Fair Games is super simple and quick to learn and play. The core mechanic is roll a d12 and get a number over the difficulty number.  Characters have one of three foci (which can very based on game). The difficulty depends on where it's something the character is great at, average at, or poor at.  The two games so far Ratcatcher and Pixie Punks each have pregenerated character types that you customize. Just pick one and the skills it has that you'd like and you're good to go. If you want to know more about the games or how you can get a hold of them, message Andy on Cheatin' Fair Games Facebook page.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 15

 "Great character gear"

Eric and Josh of Bloat Games always do a great job with the character gear sections in their SURVIVE THIS!! line. The equipment is always relevant and useful. In particular I think Vigilante City has one of the best section. Gadgets and gear are a super important (pun inteded) aspect of good comic book stories. My friends from Louisville understood the assignment and made sure to pack VC with all the tech those that done the cape and cowl would ever need.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 14

 "Compelling characters"

I think Cinematic Unisystem games encourage players to make compelling characters. Admittedly there is a mechanical aspect to this. You take Qualities that give you mechanical bonus but often also have roleplaying elements to them. On the flipside you can take Drawbacks to get more points for qualities. These are negative traits that sometimes have mechanical implications but can just influence roleplaying. Additionally it's Drama Point system encourages players to really get into characters (as this can earn them more drama points). 

You could make make a similar argument that for original World of Darkness with it's Merits and Flaws.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 13

"Evocative Environments"

There are a few games and settings that come to mind when I think about evocative environments, but I'm going to go with the first that really expanded my mind to want fantasy could be. Even before I started rolling dice, I loved reading the Planescape books my friend Chad's big brother had. Sigil is such a cool hub city and the planes are concepts made manifest. There's something about it that really stuck out. All of this was enhanced by the art of Tony DiTerlizzi. I loved the 2e Planescape stuff. I had the main boxed set and the Planeswalker's Handbook. I wish I still had them.

I've yet to take a look at the 5e version. Once I have a steady income again, I'll probably pick it up.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 12

"RPG with well supported campaigns."  

Though I'm not a huge fan of the system, I think Savage Worlds has some of the best supported campaigns. Early books/settings for the system (and a lot of the newer ones I'd assume) contained plot point campaigns. These books would include new genre specific content and then a campaign. There are short adventure outlines (with map and relevant stats) that give the game a beginning middle and end. These are the plot points. They also include Savage Tales, other adventure outlines that can be placed throughout the overall campaign. If you want to read what Pinnacle says about these, check this out.

I still plan on running the first two Necessary Evil plot points, though I won't using Savage Worlds.

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 11

"RPG with well supported one-shots."

Once again I have to go with Dungeon Crawl Classics. DCC has a slew of stand-alone adventures. I mean just look at these covers.

DCC is an amazing game, but even if you don't play it,  in my experience these adventures are fun and easy to use with other games. For example, I've never run my beloved Chained Coffin for DCC, but have ran it for 5e. If you're looking for good adventures, I recommend anything by Michael Curtis, Brendan LaSalle, and Harley Stroh. Also going to give a shout out to Daniel Bishop. His funnel The Arwich Grinder is a blast. I've ran it more than any other adventure... period. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - Day 10

"RPG you'd like to see on TV."

I would love to see a Dungeon Crawl Classics animated series. I think the wizard van nature the game would make for a fantastic anthology series. I would take pre-existing adventures and turn them into episodes. The series could start with a funnel like Sailors on the Starless Sea. The next episode could catch up with some of the survivors, now classed characters taking on The People of the Pit. 

I would make the episodes roughly an hour long. I'm envisioning a rotating cast of protagonists, like the ones featured in the band illustrations. As far as animation style, since it would be an anthology doing different styles would work. However, honestly I think it would be best of they were done by Primal and Samurai Jack's Genndy Tartakovsky. His style tends to be fast paced and light on dialogue and I think that could work well for DCC.

I'd die to see The Chained Coffin and Shudder Mountains animated.  A man can dream...

#RPGaDAY2024 - Day 9

"An accessory you'd like to see."

Perhaps I'm not ambitious and inventive. Perhaps I'm easily pleased. I honestly can't think of any really useful accessories that don't exist I'd like to see. I did see a GM screen that's a white board on the GM's side advertised on a TikTok shop. I'd love to see them more readily available in game shops.

#RPGaDAY2024 - Day 8

 "An accessory you appreciate."

 

Though we'd chatted online before, I officially met Justin from Severed Books at Origins 2022. I loved the stuff he was releasing and he seemed really nice online. I'm happy to say he was just as cool, IRL. We talked for a while and I bought a few things. When I came back to his both later I noticed a really cool Warduke skull dice bag. I asked how much and he told me it was the last one and I could have it. He didn't need to do that, but he did and I really appreciate it. It made my day. That's why my Warduke skull dicebag is an accessory I appreciate.

If you've never checked out Severed Books, you should. Follow them on Facebook and pick something up from their Etsy shop.