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Eow Links 7 |
| 2021-02-13 |
Eow Links 7
"Eow" for End Of Week. Links I gathered during the week. This is iteration 7.
For more weekly links, head to The Seed of Worlds Shiny TTRPG link collection.
Middle Earth mapped on top of Neustria and Aquitania
It's shinier than the map on the right, because it shows rivers and mountains. Although the eastern border of modern France is mistaken for the Rhine (thus connecting to the Rhone, argh).
Mothership's Gradient Descent Twitter Thread Review.
I love those diagrams, were rooms are grounded and the label is "Exit to Space".
Monster Reaction Subtable for Old School DnD
Five reactions, 1d6 sub-reactions. Tight but rewarding addition.
I'm crazy about Random Encounters in D&D, but fitting them into the fiction, and making logical sense of them can often be a challenge
Reaction and morale mechanisms are missing pieces to 5e. World Without Number will be coming with "Instinct Checks", they look redoubtable.
Pardon their French, but a cross between Warhammer and Black Hack, the game is a free PDF with a beautiful layout. Scumbags vs the Chaos.
Par les couilles du sacristain, ces orques putelins vont nous tailler en pièces !
It reminds me of Canaglie, a Knave hack, Rinascimento della Vecchia Scuola, ... Vieille Canaille.
Example of Play in Diceless Combat
Norbert offered to run a diceless fight for me (...) This was a tense and exciting experience, AND because it was in text, it's one of those rare instances of an in-depth example of play which I'm always saying there's not enough of online
Followed by Diceless Resolution and the Upper Hand
Give the “bad guys” (orcs, evil nobles, the mountain, the world in general) the Upper Hand. The players must find a solution to change the current outcome.
Burning Wheel Gold is the system I continue to revisit. I often pull out the two lavish tomes, and read a chapter or two. (...) Why? Because the system architecture of BWG fascinates me. I love the tools of transparency and player agency. Player’s encode, in their character’s BITs (Beliefs, Instincts, Traits), how their character is looking to grow and advance.
Jeremy is exploring Burning Wheel Character Creation.
In the above Hugo - Burning Wheel posts he links to another excellent post, Burning Wheel, back in the saddle
Say Yes or roll the dice
That posts points to A Few of My Favorite (Trindie) Things (say yes and click the link)
. Roll the Dice or Say Yes: (...) only introduce uncertainty when uncertainty is interesting.
. Declare Intent: (...) intent and action are formally separate things.
. Let it Ride: You roll once and whatever happens, happens. No rerolling until the situation changes.
When I began looking at the probabilities, however, it inspired me for possibilities in my home game with the kids, retroclones, and various other games.
It reminded me of all the good times playing Yahtzee with my Grand-Mother, who was scolding me and my brother for not right aligning our results. Or of 2d6 skill check probabilities.
After reading my Thread Weaving post Alex was kind enough to point me to one of his experiment with magic systems.
It might work. But then again, a referee might also simply sit down and start writing ten or twenty spells, and then players and referees simply add to the list. You know I like D&D-as-oral-history and this kind of writing and forgetting and remembering has potential. Perhaps that’s simply what Gary Gygax and his players did way back when.
I definitely think that the promise of ever changing game play is what makes D&D interesting. The reason this works, I think, is because the spells you gain don’t simply scale. The game changes if you can be invisible and fly.
