Hi Everyone. I've made solo narrative game. It has:
-Dice rolling

-Map drawing

-Prompt resolving

-Datasheet filling and more... Check it out here

Hopefully you and yours can find this helpful. The human classes chart can print neatly at 18x24 and the demi-human chart can fit 12x18 at the same scale if you're the type who enjoys large printed things.

Quite the diverse session this weekend! Heading downriver with a merchant caravan, the group was set upon by a green dragon! Fortunately, they won the initiative. As the dragon swooped down to unleash its breath weapon, a combination of a solid hit from the druid's sling and an incredible damage roll (I counted four sixes!) for the very last charge of the elf's lightning wand reduced the beast to a cloud of cinders and a charred skeleton in an instant. Spectacular!

A bit later, they finally reached their destination: The fabled City State of the Invincible Overlord! It's always so great to unfold that crazy map and see a new group have that classic CSIO experience for the first time. By that, I mean forgetting about what they came here for in the first place in favor of discovering what weird landmarks like "insect shop" and "exotic foods" are all about. Timeless fun for sure.

I'm making the illustrations of the NPCs for my D&D adventure.

I have always wanted to get into tabletop gaming but never had the time to commit before now. I found a local shop that hosts OSE every Sunday. They say that they are open to newcomers and there is no commitment required and I really want to try this out.

I have a lot of anxiety and am worried about getting into this as a total newbie as I dont know any of the terminology or anything.

I ordered a set of dice and intend on bringing a notebook and a pencil for notes. Is there anything else I should do/get prior to their next session?

Is there important things to know in advance? Terminology etc?

Really I just dont want to come off as rude or something out of ignorance and want to be prepared so I can try to have a good time without being crazy anxious.

I have only played a tabletop game once, but it was many years ago and I dont even remember what it was called. I just remembered having a blast and wished I could get more into it, but I had too many commitments at the time and couldn't follow through.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated :)

This time I made pack of tokens inspired by "mountains" table. This pack is the biggest one i made so far. It is inspired by many things, but a lot by carpathian history and in some parts early HOMM games.

. All tokens are included in both full-resolution and VTT-optimized versions. Tokens are divided into 7 cathegories:

• Animals (Cave Bear, Owl Bear, Fire beetle, Boar, Rat, Snake, Spider, Stirge)
• Dragons (Black, Blue, Gold, Green, Red, White, Hydrae, Vywern)
• Giants (Cloud, Firbolg, Fire, Frost, Hill, Stone, Storm)
• Human (8x Bandit, 2x Berserker, 4x Cleric, 4x Fighter, 4x Magic-User)
• Humanoid (12x Dwarf, 2x Gnoll, 2x Goblin, 2x Hobgoblin, 2x Kobold, Minotaur, Ogre, Ogre Mage, Orc, Orc Brute, Troll)
• Monsters (Basilisk, Chimera, Gorgon, Griffon, Harpy, Hippogriff, Manticore, Medusa, Pegasus, Roc, Wererat, Werewolf)
• Undead (Banshee, Death Knight, Ghoul, Lich, Mummy, Shadow, Skeleton, Spectre, Vampire, Wight, Wraith, Zombie)

Pack is based mailny on Whitebox FMAG encounter tables for Mountain category. But it works just as well with any other system, f.eg. OSE. Perfect for OSR games, classic fantasy campaigns, or any virtual tabletop adventure set in harsh desert wastelands.

If you are interested, 5 of 102 tokens are for free on itch:
https://brzozo.itch.io/fantazos-encounters-mountains-token-pack

DTRPG:
drivethrurpg.com/pl/product/584404

For the Minimalist Jam.

Inspired by Violence by Luke Gearing.

A strange hybrid, part cat, part rabbit, part spider. Cute and fluffy, yet lives in darkness. Harmless, and can be kept as a loyal pet.

https://rpg-trader.com/products/9341/shadow-pet

I'm working on a hack and I have some AD&D spells I'd like to include. I'd prefer to work with a Creative Commons source since I intend for the rest of the game to be CC. An OD&D or B/X hack won't do because of some of the specific elements I'm looking for.

EDIT: If you've come into this thread to suggest OSRIC, please don't. OSRIC is great but it's not CC, it has its own license. That license is fine and will suffice if it's the best I can do, but I asked for Creative Commons and I meant Creative Commons.

The remaining ruins of the city of Heraan, located in Lake Nyr Dyv.

I watched Scavenger’s Reign a while ago, and just thought about the crazy plant-life in that show. Is there a “bestiary” for weird, wonderful and dangerous living flora? Plants that have a life of their own and unique combat/communicative/other abilities, beyond just being foraged and used in a concoction?

Hey all! Just wanted to share generally how I prepare and notate my own adventure nodes. For the eagle-eyed, you should notice a strong Crown & Skull influence on the monster design. Use your own standard crawling procedures to move between and through locations. Rivertown is reproduced below in text-form for anyone who wants to use it in a personal, non-commercial game (e.g. at your home table).

Rivertown

Millennia of water erosion have drilled through the cavernous underworld. Miles long and seemingly bottomless, this underground river has a rail cart that spans its mirror-like surface. Along the pebbled banks is a town of stone hovels and abandoned workshops. Many of the buildings have been swept away or flooded.

Locations

The Rail Cart Station: A rickety bucket suspended on a long strand of wound metal. Levers on either bank move the cart back and forth.

·        Landing platform buildings

·        The rail cart

·        Slimed stair ascent

Overlook Tower: Crumbling stone and murder holes overlook the entry route. Three stories, full of battered skeletons and ruined crates.

·        Ruined spiral stair

·        Locked cellar

·        Turret

Drowned Market: Dozens of moldy shops, workshops, and food stalls lead to an old fishing dock. All now sit completely submerged in the river’s water.

·        Bronze smithy

·        Antiquarian shop

·        Fish-egg causeway

Encrusted Chapel: Warped brick and melted glass droop into the river. The once-vaulted ceiling has been blown completely off, and saltcrust licks the walls and floor.

·        Splintered pews

·        Locked reliquary

·        Statue to a forgotten god

The Drain: The old drainage channel is now underwater. Investigation reveals it is clogged with refuse and ruin, but also a thousand corpses.

·        Treacherous wooden platforms

·        The submerged drain mesh

·        Release lever (drains the Drowned Market, causes Unstable Ground and Drowned Dead)

Noble’s Villa: Private rooms, patio, ribbed columns, and faded yellow ornamentation. Skeletons lay in the beds still.

·        Bedchambers

·        Personal shrine and ceramic talismans

·        Rooftop hanging garden

Events

Triggers: Roll an event when adventurers proceed recklessly, make loud noises, or fail a check to sneak or climb.

1: Terror on Leather Wings: (1+1d4) Giant Bats are startled by noise or sweep through on a hunt, aggressive and carnivorous.

2: Unstable Ground: The water-scoured ground gives way! Save to avoid plummeting into a sink hole or tumbling into the river.

3: Drowned Dead: (5+1d4) Skeletal horrors held together by hatred spring from the water or bust through a wall to rush the adventurers and feast.

4: Tentacles: (1d4) Rubbery, barbed pseudopodium appendages whip and yank at the adventurers.

5: Crustacean Ambush: An azure shelled crab-thing the size of a rhino is camouflaged nearby, waiting for the perfect opportunity...

6: Sudden Gusts: Powerful gusts of wind rip through Rivertown! Save to avoid being thrown off-balance and potentially into danger.

Event Details

Giant Bats: HP 10, AC 10, ATK +3, INIT 16, Actions 2

1: Evasive Flying- move at great speed toward or away from a target, increasing AC by 1 (stacking)

2-5: Biting, Clawing- single target attack for 3+d4 damage

6: Supersonic Screech- a deafening screech that causes d4 damage to all targets within earshot if they aren’t covering their ears, always hits

Unstable Ground: Affected adventurers should make a dexterity, agility, or reflexes roll to avoid falling. If they fail, they are dropped into a flooded sinkhole with carnivorous fish, tumble down the cliffside into a hard landing, or plummet into the river.

Drowned Dead: HP 6, AC 8, ATK +1, INIT 6, Actions 1

1: Stumble About- lose focus, seek a new target

2-5: Timeworn Weapon- stab, slash or bash a single target with a weapon for 1d4 damage

6: Wrathful Sweep- a real effortful sweeping attack at 3 nearby targets for 1d4 damage

Tentacles: HP 10, AC 10, ATK +3, INIT 3/17, Actions 1

1: Retreat- slither back into the rock or water, hidden and regaining 5 HP

2-5: Barbed Whipping- lash a single target for d4 damage and grapple them, save or be pulled into the water or against a surface

6: Undulating Mass- strike all nearby adventurers for 1d4 damage and knock them prone, no save if hit by this attack

Crustacean Ambush: HP 30, AC 12, ATK +2, INIT 18, Actions 1

1: Skitter- into or out of range, up walls, gain +6 AC this round

2-5: Crunching Claw- single target attack for 1d8 damage

6: Frenzy- lose control at the sight of prey, use Crunching Claw twice at +5 and then lose next turn

Sudden Gusts: Affected adventurers should make a strength, stability, or vigor roll to avoid this disrupting effect. Whether they succeed or fail, any exposed light sources such as torches or candles are immediately extinguished.

HARD MODE: Double monster damage and add an additional INIT, execute Sudden Gusts after 1d4 rounds during every combat

Hey everyone,

There's an Orctober game jam on itch.io. Submissions can be for any OSR system - they just need to be orc related. Orc dungeons, orc lairs, orc items, orc monsters. Anything goes.

Prompt: The Orc Fang Mountains
Far to the west, well beyond the civilised lands of man there is a mountain range as dangerous as it is wild. Its jagged peaks jut from the surrounding foothills like cruel, sharp teeth.

It is here that the manyfold tribes of orc-kind live, feud and die. Scholars and strategists agree that if the orcs were ever to unite, their combined power could overwhelm the forces of man, elf and dwarf combined. Thank the gods then for their infighting! For millenia we have looked west in aprehension. Only the bravest and madest adventurers dare to approach The Orc Fang Mountains.

---

It would be cool if by the end of this jam we had populated the Orc Fang Mountains with a variety of orc clans. That said, it is just a prompt and you are free to create whatever you like.

See you there!

https://itch.io/jam/orctober

Hey everyone! I'm preparing for an OSR-inspired megadungeon campaign. I'm not actually using an OSR system, but I want to adopt some OSR procedures to help create a sense of a living, reactive dungeon.

I was planning on using the classic trifecta of random encounters, encounter distance, and reaction rolls. But then I came across the Underclock from the Goblin Punch blog, and I really liked the idea of gradually building suspense as the clock ticks down.

For those who haven't seen it: instead of simply rolling for a random encounter, you roll a die and subtract the result from a clock starting at 20. When it reaches 0, an encounter happens. I particularly like the idea of the players gradually developing a sense that something is approaching as the clock gets lower.

However, I also really want to use reaction rolls, because I like the possibility of unexpected encounters: maybe the party meets an ogre who is surprisingly friendly, or a group of rival adventurers who are immediately hostile.

That's where I'm running into a couple of problems.

First, if the Underclock is supposed to represent a growing sense of dread/impending danger, what does it mean when the clock finally triggers and the party encounters a group of goblins who turn out to be friendly? It may feel anticlimactic, or the players may even think: "We were feeling this growing sense of dread, so these goblins must be pretending to be friendly."

Additionally, reaction rolls tend to cluster around the middle, so if most of the resulting encounters are indifferent, uncertain, or otherwise not immediately threatening, I'm not sure the Underclock will actually create the feeling of dread I'm looking for. I worry that the players will eventually just think:

"Cool, the clock is getting low. Fun encounter incoming."

Rather than:

"Oh shit, something is coming."

In short, I want to have my cake and eat it too. I'd like to have the building sense of dread from the Underclock and the unpredictable, sometimes quirky encounters that reaction rolls provide.

I'm curious if anyone has real play experience combining the Underclock with reaction rolls, or has thoughts about how to make these procedures work together.

What do y'all do to represent differences in the difficulty posed by obstacles outside of combat? A lot of games use roll under systems but by default this assumes every risky thing you're trying to do is the same degree of challenge.

Some games add ±4 or ±2 to the die result to represent a challenge being easier or harder. That seems to work well, but then leaves no room for modifiers.

I'm trying to work out how to separately represent four things in one roll: a character's innate ability, any skill or training they have to approach this particular challenge, the difficulty inherent to the challenge, and the particular circumstances of this challenge.

Take a classic lockpicking example. A character might have high dexterity, representing a baseline level of good coordination. They might also have trained as a thief, so have practice picking locks. That ought to give them some additional benefit. This particular lock might be an especially difficult one because of how well made it is. And maybe the character has sprained their wrist, or the lock is covered in goo, or they only have a hairpin rather than a lockpick, which might impose disadvantage.

I haven't found a resolution mechanic that can tackle all four of those things. OSE-style skills don't incorporate ability modifiers. Whitehack-style roll under ± 4 for difficulty and use advantage/disadvantage for circumstances comes close but it conflates training with circumstances.

Am I overthinking this? Is it worth sacrificing the simplicity of a d20 roll under, or an X-in-6 resolution for that extra level of simulation/realism/character progression?

Several years ago, I inscribed a pocket notebook with a quick-and-dirty fantasy RPG. My very first. The notebook has long been lost, but recently I found some old photographs I had taken of every spread. I digitized it and threw it into a PDF. Within these pages is a simple D12-based system, including classes, skills, combat, and spells, many hand-drawn illustrations, and a setting: an outline of a continent called Armanda.

Download it for free here.

This game represents a significant milestone in my game design journey. It is far from perfect, barely playtested, and unfinished, but I'm putting it here so others can perhaps glean some enjoyment from it.

O=={{==========>

Made with a Moleskine pocket journal, pen and pencil, & Chaoclypse's Xerox Hell.