General Fantasy Index

I realized I do have a Traveller career index, and after far too many Kickstarters, I am losing track of the things I do have and should be able to use.

Going to just push the link the spreadsheet here as it is already 130+ rows. It started with the Hexgram, and I've added the Phylactory #1, a bunch of other 1 shot zines from all three ZineQuests (those are so bad for me: I want them all, but don't use them yet. But I also am so appreciative and in awe of those people willing to put themselves out there. One day I hope I have both the courage and the plan to do so!). The Phylactory 2 is in another room at the moment, and #3 is on the way. I think once I get it all in, it may not be too hard to keep up with things.

I also added a tab for the various RPGs I do have. It is not complete, and I probably should add a note for those I've actually played and/or refereed. Obviously I do have Traveller (it's career index is here; no wondering if I need to expand that for the adventures. And heaven help me: I did start a ship index at one point....

Adding index as a tag for the various indices. Pretty sure there is a way to keep certain posts perma-linked on the blog, but I'm okay with just using the index tag for those interested.

And I also realized recently I have a LOT of minis. Not even sure what I have as some are 40+ years old. And how often will I use those pixie minis (though there is a setting that has the Pixie Liberation Front, want to say the Lazy Liche, so there is something I have that would have those minis in play! But I've not yet indexed that setting). But I also have 3 mini Kickstarters that will get shipped this year: Reaper is the big one as it was too good a deal and it was pre-pandemic (come to think of it, I think all three were). There are a few hundred minis in that one. The Ultimate Bestiary has 60 or so, and then the Fantasy Series 1 I think is about 200. So yeah, what to do about storing them, using them, painting them. I do have a garden tub - I could do a Scrooge McDuck I suppose. 

And in going through the various things I've picked up over the years, I realize I seem to want to run a crazy-ass game that can go off the rails. I've tended to the PG-13 "safe" games as that seems to appeal to me at some level. But there are a lot of gonzo things I know my group would really love. I know - I've rung this bell before. I'll bring it up tin my next game session - do they want to see if I can go at least a bit bolder in a game? More random stuff that gives them more power earlier. I've just preferred a more natural progression: as the players get used to the game mechanics, their characters get correspondingly stronger and more powerful weapons, attacks and options. In fact, I'll post the spreadsheet in our Skype channel and bring that up. I know we've a few more weeks of the Fate game, then the anthropomorphic game, then who knows. Or else I need to see if I can start up another night perhaps. Wednesdays are my sporadic work game nights (we've done Cosmic Encounter the last few game nights, but they are interested in Skythe. I just need to figure out how to play that game!)

And dang - I entirely forgot one of the Bundle of Holdings I did came with several PDFs of random tables - not sure if I need to stick those in my index but I may have to. Never know what may be on a dead Goblin or in a magic desk. I have all these resources and just never use them. Printing out a few of the pages and adding to my physical notebook - long lists of beers, teas and things that may be handy.

I'm actually pretty happy with the Elf, and vaguely satisfied with the Terror Bird. I had a picture of the Elf that someone painted at Reaper, so basically tried to follow that. I've not decided if I want to do one more highlighting pass yet. I also got some Army Painter flesh colored paints as I had a dearth of choices for human skin: scholar white or dark skin. Yes, I can add shades but I am not as consistent with that yet (though I also got the various monster skin tones from Reaper a bit ago, so I can do ogre, orc and troll skin apparently!) Just waiting to get back to a table to move little plastic army men with character around the table!

Hexagram Index

As I started to re-read the Hexagrams (ahh, the advantage of print media - I can read them anywhere and any time, nothing but enough light to read them needed) I realized I may want to be able to find specific things later on, such as rules expansions or explanations, characters, adventures. So I'll start that here, seeing how Hexagram 6 is going to show up in a few weeks, and they are about to start the Hexagram 7 KS soon (they just need to make this a subscription and quit trying to upsell all the time!)

Started this in a Word doc, but realize a spreadsheet may have been better...oh well. I'll try & keep this updated as new editions come out. There is probably already an index out there some place. I may have to expand this to be more than just the Hexagram, but perhaps all the zines I have. Yeah, I think I will do that as there are lots of little pieces of goodness that I can never find again when I want to add it to an adventure. 

I need a card catalog of my gaming collection! (Yeah, I worked in a public library for three years in high school. I thought I'd end up a librarian. There is still hope!)

Adventures
Death Test Refresh	5
Snackromancer	1
The Dungeon Uncrawled	1
The Paired Parchments	1
Vox Unpopuli	2
Adventure Hooks
Adventure Hooks	1
Adventure Hooks: The Ship of Seven Hands	5
Gallery of Glitching Gates	5
Post Card Contest	3
Characters
A Band of Rogues	4
Skarg (of Skarg’s Tavern, Orc)	5
Traps
Twenty Terrible Traps	1
Hazards and Obstacles	1
General Questions / Misc
Beyond the D6	3
Breaking the Breakers (dealing w/min-maxers)	5
Ensemble Campaign	4
Questions Three: Douglas Cole	3
Questions Three: Dyson Logos	5
Questions Three: Mixam	4
Rumors
Rumors and Truths	1
Creatures (playable or not)
Archer Crab	5
Gargoyles (A Primer on the Enigmatic Gargoyle)	5
Giant Ants	5
Kraken, Expanded	5
Lurker (Naturalist’s Notebook)	5
Nebulid (Naturalist’s Notebook)	5
Shadow Sharks	2
Spore Lizard	4
The Natural History of the Octopus	2
Vampire Man o’War	4
Webwing (Naturalist’s Notebook)	5
Rules
Donning Rings, Taking Potions, etc in Combat	5
Easy Sneezy: strictly options rules for illness and recovery in TFT	3
Hip to Be Square (using squares for combat)	2
Indefensible Behavior, or, What Do You Mean I Can’t Defend Now?	3
Kicking Down the Door	4
No More Murder Hobos (world building)	2
Not by Iron Alone: Material Usage in Arms and Armor	4
Pick Your Poison: Toxins in the TFT	5
Retreats Revamped?	4
Ships and Boats	1
Steps in Melee	2
Take Adventure to a new level (heights)	2
Magical Items
Baleful Mouse / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Box of the Sojounor / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Chest of Lautoria the Skilled / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Dusty Sandals / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Four Esoteric Healing Items	2
Hog’s Lament / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Legendary Artifcacts	3
Nostrums and infusions / Easy Sneezy illness	3
Pale Lantern / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Pickles of a Fallen Star / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Ring of Great Truth / Vox Unpopuli	2
Star Stones / Horoscopy	2
Strange Brews: New Potions for TFT	2
The Fantastic Mead Halls of Gustov the Wise / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
The Paired Parchments	1
The Tutor’s Spirit / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
The Wrappings of the Prophet Tauhd  / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Totter’s Cloak / A collection of Peculiar Magic Items	3
Magic Spells
Element Mastery / Order of the Four Humors	4
Enhanced Meal Spell / The Snackromancer	1
Horoscopy	2
Cults, Orders, Groups
Headmasters and the Library of Lives	4
Horoscopy and Cosmic Alignment: Astrology on Cidri	2
Order of the Four Humors	4
Temple of the Six Gates	4

 

Pricing stuff

I've always had a hard time pricing things. Traveller has straight up costs for most things, though Striker did introduce tech level adjustments. Which I've never used, but they do make sense in theory: a higher tech level can mass produce and have more automation to get the costs widely adjusted from the base price. But for gaming, I've just stuck with the base cost for the most part. Traveller's credit, and the mortgage rules for purchasing starships, does allow the game to become accountants in space. Most players would rather gloss over the details of money, but that is part of the pull for Traveller: it costs credits to do anything, so the players may take challenging jobs to get paid.

The Fantasy Trip uses the silver as the base currency, and according to the book is the equivalent of about one US dollar. Conveniently they use the $ symbol for the silver, so that $10 is ten silvers. They also have 10 coppers to the silver, and ten silvers to the gold piece. To use a nice metric system. And there are also taxes in Cidri: border guards may collect taxes. I actually did this for the Edge City game: newcomers had to pay a silver or something for a day pass. Merchants could get a merchant pass good for a year for a few gold. The rules on age 56 indicate that the players should pay about 2% per game month of their bank balance. Think I'll just stick with larger cities may charge an entry fee if you are not a native, and border guards may collect a fee. And of course, there are always the thieves on the road to collect their fees!

So to establish some base costs that are consistent is still a bit challenging. I've been re-reading the Hexagram and they do have some base prices for Skarg's Bar (which I did not get the playmat for, though a small tavern map would be handy, I have my ancient battlemap I can use with dry erase just fine!)

Costs are:

• $1 for a mug of ale
• $3 for a shot of popskull brandy
• $2 - $4 for some kind of meat
• $5 for a small room per night per person
• $1 to spend the night on the floor in the common room

So those are some base costs. and looking back, I had some pretty expensive costs for the desert tent city of Ceawla! But as they are the only watering hole for 2 days journey in any direction, the players have no choice.

• Single Tent…... $20 / night
• 4 Person Tent…$70 / night
• Barrel of water..$40 / barrel
• Rations, 1 day…$6 (book is $5)
• Wines
• River Amigo $12
• Vibrant Orb $14
• Fantasy Buzzer $16
• Strawberry Storm $18
• Capital Rum $20
• Blueberry Wave $22
• Yellow Horror $24
• Gingerroot Blitz $26
• Black Drop $28
• Potato Smash $30
• Light Ale Cooler $40
• Oaken Wave $60
• Tea Wonder $100
• Mad Blitz $200
• Food from Sarap Evi
• Dragon Toffee…….$5 / pound
• Coffee……………...$1 / cup (small cup)
• Water…………..….2 coppers / cup, chilled
• Dried Lance Coati.$3 / serving
• Glitocan Bread……$2 / loaf
• Cured Craka………$22 / serving
• Iron Garlic Ginger Milk $15
• Craken Steak……..$40 / serving (seared)
• Medusa’s Kiss……..$30 / serving (snake stew)

I just need to prepare ahead of time for costs and things in the shops. Not all fantasy games map the value of money the same way. Just need to keep in mind the base cost of things, and be able to extrapolate from that.

 Links for the Ceawla write-ups. I may go back and apply the Spectacular Settlements to that little tent city, but as it is very, very small, probably not.

First description

Second

Third this one has the link to the PDF. Never know if anyone ever uses those other than me, but I enjoy creating them. Looking over some of the zines I've backed, I think with a bit of polish and an editor I could try to be a creator. Talked with one of my gaming buddies and he is all for that, and another is a great artist, so we could have something.

Finally, been a bit bad about Kickstarters lately! I decided to back the 6th season for Drawlab coins - they are really nice coins. I have enough fantasy money to buy a fantasy kingdom. But I do like how it adds some immersive game play. When we get back to the table! (In looking over my backed projects, I have stuff for the next year + showing up!)

Pretty sure I'll get the Cultist Coins

I also have the character coins, but have not figured a way to really use those. TFT requires facing so they don't work for tokens on the map. But I'll figure something out!

Of Blood and Vampires (and yes, Traveller as well!)

In Journal 15, the Amber Zone Chill is about transporting whole blood to the leaders of a world not very high in technology. Even when I read this in college it struck me as not really being all that realistic: the leaders suffer from hereditary anemia and require full blood transfusions. Normally this comes from the population but there is a faction against them.

Now the planet is a TL7 planet, with a B starport. One would think they could import medical personnel to perhaps do some minor gene editing or bring in a small blood creation factory. Pretty sure the Army has had some success with artificial blood.

Anyway, what brought this up is that I was listening to Concrete Blond on the way to the gym this morning, the Bloodletting album (I did go through a Concrete Blond phase apparently). Got to thinking about vampires, vaguely recalled that Traveller Amber Zone, and then got to wondering if vampires were sensitive to blood types. And no, I was not taking any pre-workouts! Sometimes those can mess with you, or at least with me.

Now most people are aware of the 4 main blood types (A, B, O, and AB). And that you can have the Rh factor positive or negative. What many people don't know is that there are actually a LOT of other blood types. In fact, more than 600 combinations (Red Cross link here; I do give platelets and if you can, you should!). There are some so rare that only 1 or 2 people have that blood type. They are in serious trouble if they need a blood transfusion.

So, I got to thinking if perhaps, like our anemic leaders from Traveller, if vampires had restrictions on blood types? Sliding into The Fantasy Trip, could an Orc vampire only survive on Orc blood? Or even a specific type? Most modern fantasy with vampire have those who don't want to drink human blood use animal blood quite a lot, so perhaps it makes no difference. And the way is is portrayed, any mammal it seems will do. 

But going with the music flow here, perhaps a vampire can at least smell well enough to determine the blood type of their potential victim. Perhaps it is like a wine bouquet - some just taste better than others. In a fantasy world, I doubt even the best healer would know about blood types, so it would be a complete mystery as to why some people are spared. There is no distinction in TFT - any humanoid creature will do apparently (In the Labyrinth, p. 83):

Vampires need to drink blood. A vampire loses 3 ST for every day past the seventh that it does not drink the equivalent of a quart of blood from a humanoid creature. A vampire’s victim loses 4 ST for each quart of blood taken. A human-sized vampire can drink 2 quart a day, given the chance. Vampires have the ability to levitate – like an automatically successful Flight spell with no ST cost.

 So, looks like being a vampire could be a really good thing for a group in this world - free levitation! My current (okay, it has been almost a year since we got to play, so not sure that is considered current. On the bright side, they will be getting their Covid vaccinations, and as soon as I can get one, perhaps we can play again!)... sorry, side tracked. My Fantasy Trip group does have a werewolf with them. So far little reactions as not everyone can tell a werewolf if you are not wolfing out. Though other werewolves definitely can. Hmm - there is a half-elf, a werewolf and a goblin mage if I remember. I do miss playing that game on Sundays!

In the end, it really makes no difference: the vampire just "vants to suck your blood!" and does not care about blood type. To make some mechanics around this would be silly. But it could be something in a Traveller game: in the 10,000 worlds of the Third Imperium, there could be all sorts of blood types. And some diseases are more potent against some blood types. If you are a Scout, I am certain you would probably know that: Scouts tend to get better medical care (somewhere in the Traveller corpus there was something about rolling against disease, and Scouts get a +1 per term or something due to all the inoculations they get in the service. Now I may have to dig around to see if I can find that: I do have a fantasy supplement about diseases coming in at some point which I may throw at the players).

And there is today's stream of consciousness blog post based on a song heard on the way to the gym.  

Getting the players to be more involved in world building

The Corsairs game had a fair amount of group world-building: from the Dwarven islands to the north and the fish-squeezers of the nearby floating isles, to the roaming rogues of the fields of Teboa, the players all contributed a bit to the world. We ended up with the crew having their own sky ship, and the warbling wanderer who appeared to like sleeping in fish barrels being the vocal Captain.

There is an article in the Hexagram 2 about allowing characters to create a few NPCs: allies, foes, family and just people they may have met. They get experience points based on the quality and quantity. I am thinking the next Fantasy Trip game I run we may do the same thing. We did this for the Fate game as that is part of the character creation. Mongoose and Cepheus Traveller do the same thing: you can get extra skills if you have contacts with the other players during character generation (a thing I forgot about as we were generating characters that last game I think! But I did do the group package).

It would be nice to get them from the basic 32 point character to a 33 point character - that 1 extra DX can really make a difference!

And I think we could do the same thing with towns and regions, expanding out where they came from perhaps. 

Basically, you got 1 XP per family/growing up NPC you create. A simple sentence or two, along with a name, is all that is needed. There would have to be a maximum number you can have, or else we may end up having all our adventurers come from huge families!

You get XP for people you may have met over the years before your group comes together. Bonus points if you can work in the other players. 

The article had a max of 50 XP, but he also ran some gladiator style combats with the characters, giving them another 50XP. So that these were no longer fresh-faced characters but had some experiences under their belts.

I know I keep trying to do this with so far little real success, but I did not think of tying in XP for these backgrounds. And I think, as when we do get back to TFT it will be at a table (the only good way to run a game!) I'll follow this plan.

First, bring in a giant sheet of paper. I have a lot of large sheets of paper. Put a compass rose on there, and let the players determine where they are from by drawing it on the map. Be it a mountain range, a desert, a coast, something on the map and the name of their home town. That would be 10XP. Plus we have the beginning of a shared map. Nothing needs to be connected, and I can plop it anywhere in my existing world, just somewhere off the edges of my current maps if need be.

Next, they give an outline of their family: parents, siblings, cousins, creche mates, whatever makes sense for them. Each name and how they are related, and how they feel about the character, is 4 points, up to 20 points max maybe?

Next, if they are on the road, friends they have met, foes they have fought, names and how those people feel about them. This would be up to 20 points as well. Bonus points up to another 20 if they can have had interactions with the other players. 

This would bring us up to 70 points, not enough to get an updated stat. But, as each game you get 30-100XP based on what is happening, by the end of the 1st session there would be enough to let them level up. And I do give bonus XP for role playing.

Anyway, tying in some leveling up with character generation I think would go over well. 

Not sure when I will be running a game next, either Traveller or The Fantasy Trip. I am in the enviable position that everyone in my current group also wants to run games. The Fate game has another 3-6 weeks, depending on the GM and what we do, then our newest player wants to run an anthropomorphic game (I am planning on playing a Centaur who can shapeshift to a sugar glider. So far that's the whole character concept, but I'll be expanding on that. He has given us the rules but I've yet to actually read them). After that game I may be able to run one, not sure if someone else is in the queue! And I also need to continue working on the Cowboys and Dinosaur game. 

Happy Pi Day! And an interesting Aslan career

Happy Pi Day everyone!

Broke out the RPGSuite to generate a character, and decided to play with the Aslan character update I got. It goes through more of the traditional Aslan character development, including the rite of passage (she got a scarred face now; one would think the medical facilities would handle that, but Mongoose, which is the rule set they are using, sees a very badly maintained medical future! And I've pretty much decided to stop getting Mongoose Traveller stuff: they just don't seem to really understand Traveller. Or perhaps I am just stuck on what I played 40 years ago...and still referee when I get the chance. Plus I like real deck plans - those they produce now are useless). I've not done the recent Mercenary Kickstarter though I do like guns for Traveller, but don't need and I'll never run a Mercenary ticket game. 

Regardless, she started off really good: in a large clan, lots of family property. And sadly the character sheet does not track that part, so that is lost. And the graphics for the Aslan are just lion-people. According to Marc Miller, no one has ever gotten them correctly drawn (and Mongoose has basically just "re-imagined" the entire species into something they were never described as. Same with the Vargr: they feel they need to put their own spin on things and basically rewrite everything and ignoring what came before. I think they just want to do Judge Dread in Space).  Sorry - seems to be my day for complaining. I blame daylight savings!

She did not have a great chance for a lot of the careers, so we started with a rogue career, a thief to steal from the rich and keep for herself. Her first term actually went well:

You become involved in a feud with a rival criminal organization. Roll Stealth or Gun Combat 8+. If you fail, roll on the Injury Table. If you succeed, gain an extra Benefit roll. Some people really need to be sent a very, VERY, strong message. With a gun in your hand and your finger on the trigger, you attempt to establish a solid line of communication whose intention will not be misconstrued. (Dex + Gun Combat) [SUCCEEDED] Sorry, you were passed over for promotion this term. It's time they start respecting you for all your hard work!

The 2nd, not so well:

There was a mishap during this term! Betrayed by a friend. One of your Contacts or Allies betrays you, ending your career. That Contact or Ally becomes a Rival or Enemy. If you have no Contacts or Allies, then you are betrayed by someone you never saw coming and still gain a Rival or Enemy. In addition, roll 2D. If you roll 2, you must take the Prisoner career in your next term. While the betrayal was bad, the authorities were as slow as ever to follow through. You escape unharmed. Mustering Out Benefit: Ship Shares [1]

But she has a ship share. Not many options were actually open to her at this point, so she becomes a drifter, a scavenger working the belts. This did not go well either:

There was a mishap during this term! You run afoul of a criminal gang, corrupt bureaucrat or other foe. Gain an Enemy.

Going with her criminal past is catching up to her. In an attempt to either commit suicide or get farther away from the Hierate, she joins the Scouts as an Explorer. That also did not go well:

There was a mishap during this term! You have no idea what happened to you, but they found your ship drifting on the fringes of friendly space.

However, in looking at all this, she could actually fit into the Big Wreck game we finished last year (and the players indicate that when we do roll back to Traveller, they would be willing to continue playing. Though we have a couple new players, and there are a few ways we can get them all together even though we are way out in the middle of the Great Rift, at the Big Wreck. 

If you recall, the Big Wreck in my version is a sleeper ship from almost a 1000 years in the past. Coming from the Solomi Rim, so full of humans and uplifts (and I really need to read more about them to get the era actually correct, and a few other things). The two new players can come from one of two places: the ship itself, and they are in very effective cold berths. It would help as they would not know about the current political universe they are now waking up into. But that would limit it to humans only as I don't think I'll be allowing uplift characters. 

The second choice is the ship that is behind the Big Wreck, a Kagekumo salvage ship. Which my still unnamed Aslan could be working for, as part of her ship share. The players were not aware of this ship as none of them were spacers and my pilot NPC failed his sensor check. Which is not really all likely but going with the plot and story.  So if I need to generate a crew for this salvage ship, she is both a pilot and not particular about how she gets her credits.

Anyway, I do need to get a proper Aslan name, but until then, here's the pilot of the salvage ship:

876872, age 32, female Aslan, Thief, Drifter, Scout

Pilot (Ships Boat-1, Pilot-1), Recon-1, Athletics (Dexterity-1), Deception-0, Flyer-0, Gun Combat-0, Language-0, Stealth-0, Streetwise-0.

Speaking Anglic with a hard to understand accent, she is quick to anger and would be one who shoots first. Piloting the salvage ship, she rarely talks of her past, and the fearsome scar across her face tends to dissuade people from asking. She has a planetary governor as an enemy, and an eccentric scientist as a rival. 

A Kagekumo class scavenger ship, 5000 tons. I'll need to work up the stats for that. It has these big scaffolds that can be used, and drones and all sorts of fun things. I'll try & work on the stats this week.

Lamia Labyrinth - More solo playtesting

We last left our adventurers in the 1st of three room (the revised room 6 from the rekeyed map. In reading reviews of this sort of dungeon, I realized I had not really numbered the rooms in a good way. Revised that and slowly getting the document reset. I'll push a link out at the end of this post for the still very much WIP. I also need to make the descriptions "pop" more, and differentiate what the players see versus what the GM sees. Some bolding or something to differentiate the text).

Of course the fighter wants the sword on the skeleton, and the thief the ring. Turns out a skeleton against 3 fairly effective fighters, the fourth being at the door, is a poor match. The skeleton  never even got a blow in.

Standing guard

So here lies a skeleton

It also turns out that the walls I have are probably about 20' each, so blocking off a 20x20 foot room is easy/ Then you realize how little actual fighting room you have in there. And my ancient skeleton is from 40 years ago, so 28mm was actually 28mm vs the more heroic (and easier to paint!) 30-32mm that most minis seem to be at now.

Regardless, they make fast work of the skeleton, and now have a zombie ring, which is how the skeleton was still able to get up and about. Thought perhaps it should have been a zombie instead? No on recognized the the fist-sized diamond shaped as a wolf as a gem of summoning - I don't have a wizard in this bunch.

The next room has 3 caskets which take up a lot of space in a 20x20 foot room! While realistic, it does make for some interesting combat. They were attacked by the rats, but no one got hurt as their armor absorbed any damage. No one was foolish enough to grab the wizard staff despite their being a gem attached. The thief character recognized the baby dragon egg, and managed to snatch that. And of course they took all 4 rings from the last casket.

I apparently only have 1 casket!

Not sure if I mentioned it, but there will be a roll every few combat rounds to see if that giant scorpion thing will wander by. So far the combats have been far too easy, and while the group I am aiming this at is a beginning level group, there needs to be some challenge!

And it took longer than expected to go through those three rooms, and then they will have to go back out to that main, circular room and see if they pick up the book at the alter. That will reset all those traps!

Embedded the PDF WIP here, mostly minor updates, but adding references as to where I go some of the things I am using. A lot of Philip Reed and his copious output of PDFs!