An original one shot with Mothership 1e, to be run at the RPG Alliance Convention in November 2023.
'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,' the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'
-Robert E. Howard
Beyond The Black River
Places of Interest
Friday, September 15, 2023
ORBITAL DECAY: Mothershp 1e
Monday, November 21, 2022
Year Zero Engine: Twilight 2000: Success rates.
I am almost certain there is some magical statistical way to figure this out, but although I have some knowledge of stats, I don't have that much. I do however have enough knowledge to write a simple script to generate a LOT of random numbers. So that is what I did.
The script rolled each die 100,000 times and assigned success based on a roll of 6+ on either die.
==========D6==============
d6 & d0
Success Rate: 16%
d6 & d6
Success Rate: 30%
d6 & d8
Success Rate: 47%
d6 & d10
Success Rate: 58%
d6 & d12
Success Rate: 65%
==========D8==============
d8 & d0
Success Rate: 37%
d8 & d6
Success Rate: 47%
d8 & d8
Success Rate: 61%
d8 & d10
Success Rate: 68%
d8 & d12
Success Rate: 73%
==========D10==============
d10 & d0
Success Rate: 49%
d10 & d6
Success Rate: 58%
d10 & d8
Success Rate: 68%
d10 & d10
Success Rate: 75%
d10 & d12
Success Rate: 79%
==========D12==============
d12 & d0
Success Rate: 57%
d12 & d6
Success Rate: 65%
d12 & d8
Success Rate: 73%
d12 & d10
Success Rate: 79%
d12 & d12
Success Rate: 82%
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Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Dragonbane: Quickstart
Join us as a group of adventures seeking a great treasure within the ancient Riddermound!
Will you play a wolfkin, a halfling or, an elf... MAYBE a duck!? Choose from 1 of 5 pre-generated characters (first come first serve!) and join me on roll20 to experience the next edition of this RPG!
Quickstart adventure using pre-gens for the 2022 RPG Alliance convention
Check back for more info!
Saturday, October 1, 2022
The Hunt: RPG Alliance 2022
As the longship made its way up the narrow channel, darkness began to descend around the battle-weary crew. The Vanir knew it was time to take the ship to shore and make camp, for the river was treacherous at night. In a few moments, the ship was secured, tied securely to a large tree, and the men had set to making camp.
Before the total darkness of night, a small band of the Vanir set off to find some game for the fire. Into the dusk, these warriors went searching for rabbits or perhaps even a deer. After the hunt, the group made their way back to the camp looking forward to a warm fire and a belly full of mead. As they made their way back to the tents, all was silent. There was no laughter. There was no light cast by a warming fire...
You will be that small group of Vanir set off to hunt, returning to a silent camp...
System: ICRPG Master Edition
Setting: The Hyborian Age, Nordheim.
Location: RPG ALLIANCE: DICKENS PUB!
Convention Link: https://tabletop.events/conventions/rpg-alliance-nov-19-20-2022/schedule/4
ICRPG is a rules-light, quick-to-learn and play d20-based system. We will spend the first 10-15 minutes generating a unique Vanir warrior for you, and then you and your hunters will start deep in the forest tracking a deer, allowing you to get your heads around the mechanics before you return to your kin.
Never played ICRPG, NO PROBLEM.
Never played an RPG? NO PROBLEM.
Monday, August 29, 2022
Conan 2d20 : On The Grid
Introduction
Without a doubt I have spent a good amount of time discussing zones and ways to get them to work easily within the context of a miniatures based game of Conan 2d20. It is no secret I am a fan of the zone idea, liking how it places the game somewhere between theatre of the mind and the tactical battlemap. The closest I have come to this alternate set of rules was back in August, 2018 with this idea around rulers for zone combat. Rulers can work well, and lots of people are proponents of them, still they do add another bit to have to deal with and locate when a move occurs.There can be times during a battle where the zone idea can be a little confusing, players may not know exactly where they are in relation to the enemy and might feel like things are on the unfair side. If the GM handles things less than diplomatically it can make the table less fun to play at. I had this occur recently at my table, and so I was keen to find ways to fix it. Since I had been playing a lot of 5e, the grid jumped out as a possibility. At present the following rules have been tested once in game play and they worked well enough. We have not yet tested area effect, but we discussed it after the game, and my players thought it might be on the large side, so that might be something to keep in mind.
Conan on the Grid: The Rules, v0.5
The abstract nature of zones fits a nice niche between theatre of the mind and the tactical grid-based combat of many games. Despite this, the grid aspect of many games is enjoyable and can make combat more tactical for some people. I have played both types of games and find that they both have their place. One of the benefits of grids over zones is knowing exactly where your character is. Having a miniature on a zone-based map can, at times, lead to confusion. Conan as written is a zone-based game. Within a turn, a player may make a standard action, a minor action, and many free actions. All three of these have a movement type associated with them, but a player can only use one of the movement types in a given turn.Movement
Using a base of 30’, stolen from 5e, all players in Conan will move this base level. The adjust action, in my mind, exists to allow characters to interact with items in the same zone due to the positional abstraction inherent in zones. With this system removing positional abstraction, it also removes the adjust move action. A minor action is a move represented by a move at 30’ (or the character’s base movement) (Move) A standard action is a move represented by a move up to 60’ (or 2x the character’s base movement), this increases the difficulty of all skill tests this round by 1 (this does not affect the defend reaction) (Sprint)Splitting Movement
A minor action allows you to move up to your base movement, usually 30’. If you move part of that distance and then complete a standard action, you can continue to use the remainder of your movement, however, all movement rules still apply. Ie if you move into combat, leaving combat will trigger a retaliate action, unless withdraw action is used, as a free action.Optional Fast Movement
Every 2 points of focus in Move (for NPCs) or Acrobatics (for PCs) grant an additional 5’ of movement. A character with an acrobatics of 4 could move up to 40’ as an adjust action, 40’ as a regular move, and 40’ to 80’ as a sprint action.Difficult Terrain
Difficult terrain will count as double movement for each square it occupies, ie a 5’ square of difficult terrain costs 10’ of movement to move through it. Players can make athletics/acrobatics checks to avoid this penalty.Range
Ranges will also be based on the same concepts of a basic move being 30’- Close range, ie within a zone, is closer than 30’
- Medium Range ie the next zone over is 30’-60’
- Long Range, ie 2 zones, is 60’-90’
- Extreme Range, ie more than 2 zones, is 90’+
Ranges for Mobs/Squads
When determining the range for mobs measure the range from the middle of the mob. If the mob is straddling two range bands, choose the further range.The Diagonal
The easiest way to handle diagonals is to simply allow them as a 5’ move.Melee Combat
In order to engage in melee, combat miniatures must be in adjacent squares, this can be adjacent orthogonally or diagonally, this is known as base-to-base contact.Withdraw
This is a standard move action, a character can move up to their base move when using this as their standard action. If the side withdrawing outnumbers their opponents this can be completed as a free action.Protect Reaction
To use the protect reaction, the character using it must be adjacent to who they are attempting to defend.Retaliate Reaction
This is triggered when a PC or NPC moves out of base-to-base contact without using a withdraw action.Mobs and Squads
As members of the mob/squad are eliminated the back ranks will move to fill the front ranks. The mob or squad cannot leave base-to-base contact with their attacker as a result of the loss of members. Each member of the squad occupies 5’.Interpose
In order for a mob to interpose themselves, they must be in base-to-base contact with the target of the original attack.Flanking (optional)
If two or more opponents are attacking with at least 5’ between them, they can each re-roll one of their melee dice for free, the second roll stands.Areas of Effect
Weapons that normally affect an entire zone now affect a 30’x30’ square. Complications on the roll cause it to drift in a random direction (1d8) 1d6*5’Friday, February 18, 2022
Forbidden Lands: Character Creation
I wanted to put together a character creation walkthrough to help people build their Forbidden Lands Characters. The process is pretty straightforward, but as with all things, there are always questions about how things are actually done. In general the process involves 12 steps, but I am going to add a step 0.
Step 0: Get an idea of your character
Step 1: Who are your people, pick your Kin.
Pretty basic decision here, have a look through the book and choose your race. Elf? Wolfkin? Human?
Each of the carious Kin will have a few things to take note of.
- Key Attribute
- Kin Talent
- Typical Professions
- Typical Names
Step 2: What do you do, pick your profession:
- Key Attributes
- Skills
- Typical Nicknames
- Pride - Step 7 of character creation
- Dark Secret - Step 8 of character creation
- Relationships - Step 9 of character creation
Step 3: How long have you been around, how old are you.
- Young
- Adult
- Old
Step 4: How strong and smart are you, what are your attributes.
Step 5: What do you know how to do, what are your skills.
Step 6: Why are you a beautiful and unique snowflake, choose your talents.
- Kin Talent
- A profession talent of your choice (detailed in the Talents section)
- A number of general talents, which is again dictated by your age.
Step 7: PRIDE!
Step 8: What lies in your closet, the dark secret.
Step 9: Who are you to me, who am I to the, relationships matter.
Step 10: It is a harsh world and you are a tool using kin, get your gear!
Step 11: What do you look like, choose your appearance.
Step 12: What do they call you, choose your name?
Final thoughts.
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Saturday, November 6, 2021
Help Thy Neighbor!
During most 2d20 games you have ability to store momentum in a group pool, which maxes out at 6. From that pool your friends can pull points and spend them on effects that can help them in their quest for glory: buying extra dice on a skill check, doing more damage on an attack etc.
How momentum is spent is largely up to the players and GMs. The game certainly lists some ideas and uses for how you might spend it but really it is a measure of how well things are going for the players, and I have written several articles on how you might use that momentum, such as chaining attacks for cool narrative effects or re-enacting a common trope we see in Fantasy.
Conan of course already has assistance rules, but this is not that. This is inspired by such ideas as the "Master of Tactics" in 5e and 5e's Help action in general as well as adding a boost die to the net allied attack in Genesys. Still I think it would be cool to allow a specific spend of momentum that might be able to assist your allies.
This has yet to be play tested, so this is just a rough idea, but I feel it goes something like this.