Eow Links 53
2022-01-02

Eow Links 53

"Eow" for End Of Week. TTRPG Links I gathered during the week. This is iteration 53.

For more weekly links, head to The Seed of Worlds Shiny TTRPG link collection. There's also The Indie RPG Newsletter, and The Glatisant with its monthly links.

Most of the links below are found via the RPG Planet that Alex Schroeder built and maintains. If you have an RPG blog, please consider joining the conversation.

← last week links

My favourite for the week is Haiku Character Story, just below.


Haiku Character History

Just back from a job. "What in the hells did we steal?" Handsome devil charm


How to get started in D&D

If you want some direction for starting off - fighters and rogues are good starting characters - easy to conceptualise and 'do right' - fighters get stuck in, be the big damn hero, clear. Rogues are mobile, about running about and flanking or support sniping.


On How to Make 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons more Old School

I don't have bad guys. I don't have expectations about what will happen when the game starts. I'm here to play a game to find out what happens.


I want it to attack me! Defenders, marking, and cover (5e quick fix)

This feels organic to me - the bravest fighters will be attacked first, as it should be. It is also fictionally appropriate.


How Costal Wizards play B/X D&D: House Rules From 5e Designers

The context for the rules seems to be tricks picked up from 3e/4e experience and applied to BX D&D rather than house rules that arose at the time he might have played BX.

Inside the OSR there are two wolves: OSR-V the Revival (Preservation) vs. OSR-N the Renaissance (Principles)

But at the core of several debates of the OSR, I think are the cosmic forces and alignments of preservation vs. principles.


Ritual In Game Design

When we attempt to create games (or play them) with any consciousness about the real personal process, any desire to experience deep and possibly lasting insight or effect, we are, to some degree, performing ritual.


The Self Insert. Is this valid roleplay or just bad roleplay?

The danger with this system is that we are forced to watch the current crop of Hollywood stars essentially play themselves in whichever cinematic masterpiece they are currently attached to.


Salvage Union Design Blog #2 - Why Quest?

Why did we choose to use Quest as the basis for our mech game Salvage Union?


Fold-flat, one-piece sci fi paper building

And thus I find myself in need of interactable and, with limited room to store it, space-efficient terrain.


Table Comparing Dungeon World to 5 Hacks

Freebooters on the Frontier: “Takes the freeform improvisational spirit of *World games and imbues it with the survivalist sensibility of old-school D&D.”


Whence Monsters? And Wherefore?

Drunk gods: Gods have too much ambrosia ale and mate with things all the time. This creates ur-beasts, immortal monsters that sire many progeny in turn.

Retroactive thievin' in elfgames

The following is usually my default rule. Instead of having the player declare that they are checking for traps, I just wait until a trap is sprung and have the PCs roll retroactively to see if they noticed the trap ahead of time and so were able to dodge it, roll to disarm it, etc.


On No-Artpunk

Actually Playing the game is its purest expression.


Well, this is interesting

Talk all you want about the game, but it's only relevant when we PLAY.


Genre Police: Parallel Play

They feature a different set of characters, often picked by the GM. Those characters are about to undergo something relevant to the main story, and they are maybe going to make a choice, discovery, or sacrifice that has a lasting effect on the campaign.