Shadow & Fae

  If you can't tell, I drew that myself. It's been an interesting few days for me, as I have taken a step I've never really done before.  I've published a full adventure over on Itch, "The Bones of Ol' Bill." The process of drafting, re-drafting, and editing it into a workable product was a bit bumpy, and I even changed it once post-publication, but  it's been stupidly fun. See, I've been running a game in my own homebrew world for years. There are places, people, and problems that have been sitting in a file on my desktop that I doubted I would ever think about again. And then I had an idea. What if I shared them? What if I took those people beloved by my table, fleshed them out, and organized them into an adventure? Arnesport The town of Arnesport wasn't the first place I ever ran a game—it was the second. A band of town guards (my players) were following the trail of a group of kidnappers, and they caught a boat from Arnesport to the next st...

  Grab it Here I just got home from a bit of a trip with my wife and boys, and during the trip I decided to run a quick campaign. I considered breaking out a dice app and making some rough stats, but I thought, what the heck, the boy's 4 and my wife's driving, we'll just play pretend. It was... alright. I missed the little bit of grounding that mechanics lend to a game, but it got me thinking, how could we make an RPG without dice, or RNG at all? I've heard tales of such things, but - in the serviceless wastelands we were driving through - I couldn't research them at the time.  So here's an abomination of my own creation. I call it Luckless . Luckless works by giving each character a set of spendable Ability scores. If a challenge's DC is less than or equal to your current ability score, you may simply succeed at it. No sweat. However, if a challenge's DC is greater than your ability score, you may spend a point from your current ability score to add you...

In working on the rules for Shadow & Fae, I've come to a section I intended to write on how to make travel fun. There are basic rules already for travel speed, how often to roll encounters, camping, hunting, etc. But mechanics alone cannot create fun. How do we take a road—a line on a map—and make traveling along it exciting? Here's what I've got so far, and I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say. The Story of the Road When the party sets out on their journey, consider the road and what lays along it. What are the Denizens, Landmarks, and Detours along the way? Denizens Random encounters don’t mean “Random” as in totally gonzo. Rather, there is a randomized chance to meet something that dwells along the road, and there is risk and reward present in each of those encounters. Consider that there is a nearby village suffering from Wasting Disease. From that 1 fact, we can imagine several kinds of people and creatures who might be on the road. 3d4 Villagers l...

  "The Carpet Merchant" - Jean-Leon Gerome Merchants are common characters in RPGs. We need folks who have just the right item, for ( slightly more than)  just the right price. From barkeepers and armorers to alchemists and enchanters, merchants are vital. But when a player says, "Can I be a merchant?" we might be tempted to stutter through an explanation of "Well that's... uh.. a neat idea, but... economics ." Shame on us. For some odd reason we have this idea that adventurers should be poor and desperate, and it's not "balanced" to allow them to be trading large amounts of wealth and goods. If they had all that money, they could just buy whatever they wanted! True, but is that bad? They can afford Masterwork Weapons, Armors that are just as much works of art as they are impenetrable shells, potions by the bucket, and—through a very  generous donation—may even gain access to the miracles of the temples! These are powerful people! But wit...

Recently a method of writing a quick campaign opener has been floating around Phlox's GLoG server, and I decided to give it a go. The idea is to write up what happened 5 Centuries ago, 5 Decades ago, 5 Years ago, 5 Days ago, and lastly 5 Minutes ago. I actually started with the "5 Minutes ago", as I had an image in mind of what the players would be dealing with, then worked back from there. At the end of the process I realized I'd created something rather dark, and placed the heroes in a position that wasn't as unquestionably heroic as our playstyle tends to be. That's all well and good for some tables, but we just happen to like being the good guys, or at least feeling like we're good guys. So I thought, "Who else could the group play as?" Well, I found some. And it turns out they aren't perfect people either, but their story is—in my opinion—the more interesting of the two. Of course, then there's option C. The Mountain of the Sun  5 Ce...

"The Great Goblin" by Justin Gerard I played my first real game of Shadow & Fae, a quick one-shot, last Saturday, and I think it went smashingly well! For posterity's sake, here's the Recap. In the Tomb Upon investigating an ancient tomb, Miss Mindy the Bard, Old Yeller the Dogfolk Monk, Amira Schmidt the Acrobat, Paul Blart the Frogfolk Barbarian, and P. Bettleby the gnomish wizard encountered a small band of goblins. One of the goblins attempted to shove Blart down the stairs, but ended up rolling down himself, and was effectively bludgeoned to death by Old Yeller and Amira at the bottom. 2 More goblins fell to the party, and as Amira threatened the two remaining goblins with her bloody staff, they surrendered. The party accepted this surrender, and in return the goblins gave them a key to continue to the next room. In that room, the party found a dark hall. Old Yeller rushed to the other end, and found a skeleton sitting in a chair. Excited about the bones, he ...

  Sir Galahad, by George Watts "While you partied, I studied the blade." - Anon. Fighting Just for Fun Wizards sling spells, barbarians withstand fearsome blows, and clerics call upon divine powers. What glory is left for the simple fighter? Whenever I sit down to work on a class—which I've been doing a lot of lately—I ask myself a few questions. What is the "Core Feature" of this class? How and how often can the class features be used? Does it feel fun? Fun  is an interesting word. Notably, it does not mean "likely to crush everything in its path." Rather, I've found that the keenest Fun happens through anticipation, risky investment, and payout. In anticipation of a gorgeous vista, my family and I invested in a few hours of hiking, and came upon a scene of open fields of wild-flowers, and a small lake at the far end of the valley. In anticipation of an evening of laughter and hijinks, I wrote my own GLOGhack, and my friends and family spent a few...