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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jan 26, 2024 3:26:43 GMT -5
So it seems today youtube is celebrating the ttrpg community spotlighting all the people creating ttrpg and ttrpg adjacent content...
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jan 29, 2024 8:06:45 GMT -5
This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the release of D&D.  -M |
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Post by driver1980 on Feb 1, 2024 12:02:27 GMT -5
Thought this might be of interest to some:
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 9, 2024 13:59:08 GMT -5
Happy 50th D&D
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 15, 2024 16:07:38 GMT -5
The Making of D&D...
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 16, 2024 12:42:05 GMT -5
Today's mail call...  About 2 years ago when I first was out of work due to the most recent hernia situation, I began selling off the rpg material we no longer used. Older editions of D&D, other ttrpgs, metal minis etc. keeping a few select bits. I had copies of both the Basic and Expert rulebooks that we had signed by artist Erol Otus at Gen Con circa 2007. I kept the Basic book, but sold the Expert book for a nice chunk of money to a collector I connected with via FB. and the intent was always to get an unsigned copy to replace it, but I never got around to it until last week, when I saw this slightly worn copy at a can't pass up price on ebay, so I finally got the replacement copy. I still have my 1E AD&D Players Handbook (signed by Gary when I met him), my AD&D DMG, the aforementioned signed Basic rulebook, the 1981 Gatway to Adventure TSR catalog that came packaged with my first Basic Set, a copy of the First Fantasy Campaign from Judges Guild (Arneson's Blackmoor signed by Dave when I met him at Origins in the early 2000s when he was the guest of honor), and a copy of Keep on the Borderlands, but those are the only vintage rpg stuff I kept. My wife hung on to her copies of Central Casting (done by the late Janell Jacquays) and her Aurora's Whole Realms catalog, but other than that we cleared out just about 2 bookcases of vintage rpgs and several bins of metal minis,keeping only the stuff that gets used at our tables or in game prep. The one thing I wanted to replace though, was this Expert rulebook. I do have a few vintage products as PDFs acquired legally through DMs Guild and I do have the CD-Rom package that has every issue of Strategic Review and the first 250 issues of Dragon as PDFs on it, but there was a lot of stuff that just collected dust that's now in the hands of players and collectors who will get good use out of them. And I have my select pieces to display to give me the warm fuzzies of nostalgia when I want it. -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 28, 2024 19:20:29 GMT -5
So we are developing a new setting for our new campaigns launching later this year. We want to keep it small, limit worldbuilding and use a more spiral development pattern as the game proceeds allowing players, not just the DM to have a lot of collaborative input into to the world as we play. But we wanted to set a tone going in and to set up some foundations to build on. To whit, I developed a sort of prologue for the setting to give to players before the zero sessions that is inspired (or perhaps stolen) from Howard's Nemedian Chronicles intro the the Conan stories...
From the Orinarian Chronicles…
Know ye that in the time between the coming of the Comet of Artolius when the heavens rained down fire upon the land and the rise of the Age of Science, there lies an age whose stories are untold. An age where The Five Kingdoms and its neighbors who lay in the Shadow of the Green Empire were rife with the possibility of adventure for those bold enough to dare try to win their fortunes. From the gleaming Elven tree cities of Avaloria to the subterranean city-states of the Dwarven diaspora, from the lush steppes of Brelishar and its horse clans to the Wastes of the Queyesha tribes, from the sprawling ports of Dreki, home of drake and bull, to the lush jungles of Ishvalla and their peddlers of spider silk, to the lands of the Five Kingdoms-from sorcerous Galantiri and its Matron’s Council to the rolling hills of Varusk and the fierce folk who live there, from the crowded cities of Orinar and their halls of learning to forested lands of Ruhan and their folk who follow the old ways, and finally to the borderlands of Ilmara and those that watch vigilantly, this was a land of danger, a land of dark magic and brave heroes, who stories will echo through the halls of legends.
Hither came these brave adventurers to seek their fortune and claim their place among the heroes of legend…
Along with that we are providing a primer with some of the essential foundation points of the setting, but that starts with our 7 Theses for the game/campaign...
The Seven Theses
1.Civilization is fragile, it needs heroes.
2. Magic exists. It is strange, secret and wondrous; most people fear it.
3. Evil is real and present. Heroes stand in its way.
4. Ordinary people are more concerned with the needs of day-to-day survival than with legends, history, politics or what is happening over the horizon. These folk are not heroes.
5. Most people are born, live and die within a day’s travel of their birthplace. These folk are not heroes.
6. Life is dangerous, nobody gets out alive, even (or especially) the heroes.
7. Player characters should be the heroes of the story.
The primer includes things like the calendar for the setting (Ten 35 Day Months with 2 week long festivals-Harvest and High Summer-not part of any month, for a 364 day year), the pantheon of gods commonly worshipped, a bullet point list of each of the Five Kingdoms and other prominent and relevant areas in the region, coinage, and a list of prominent constellations in the night sky that hint at deeper lore (none of which is actually developed at this point, just hinted at and we'll see what players come up with for some of it). When we've done our zero session and know who the characters are and what we need for them, we'll flesh out a little more to get started, but aside from a starting village and a couple of factions, NPCs and locations we might use in the first session, nothing else is being done ahead of time.
The goal is a collaborative campaign rather than one where the DM/GM dictates story and setting upon the players. We've done something similar in the past during the 4E days with what we refer to as our Jam campaign that rotated DMs and everyone had their PCS to use when they weren't behind the screen, but we're not really planning to rotate GMs this time.
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 1, 2024 1:36:03 GMT -5
D&D Beyond has a new article up about play-by-post gaming hereJust curious if anyone here has ever participated in a play by post game? I've done a few over the years as both player and DM/GM, but not in a really long time. Apparently Beyond has forums with dice rollers available for folks who want to try to find PbP games to play as well. There's a part of me that might be itching to explore a PbP game, but I prefer to play with people I know, not total strangers. -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 4, 2024 15:27:36 GMT -5
Today (3/4) marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Dragonlance, a line of products which transformed the way young me looked at what D&D could be. From Margaret Weis on FB...  -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 4, 2024 16:51:19 GMT -5
Happy GM's Day!
Today is the anniversary of the death of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and is a day set aside to honor his legacy by honoring all those who have GM'ed a ttrpg.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 4, 2024 17:07:48 GMT -5
Happy GM's Day! Today is the anniversary of the death of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and is a day set aside to honor his legacy by honoring all those who have GM'ed a ttrpg. -M That would be me...but not for years. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,201 
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Post by Confessor on Mar 4, 2024 19:32:59 GMT -5
Happy GM's Day! Today is the anniversary of the death of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and is a day set aside to honor his legacy by honoring all those who have GM'ed a ttrpg. -M A lot of the time I used to prefer GM'ing to being a player, back in the day. This was especially true if I was GM'ing one of my own homebrew adventures. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,201
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Post by Confessor on Mar 4, 2024 20:10:34 GMT -5
Today (3/4) marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Dragonlance... Did anybody here ever read any of the Dragonlance novels? I didn't, but two of my best friends in my teenage years (who were later band mates in The Kynd) were big fans of those books. They used to really rave about how good they were, though I was much more into Tolkien's Middle-Earth. In fact, The Kynd's early, pre-record deal demo tape was titled Everywhen, which is a word that I believe my friends took from the Dragonlance books. |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 4, 2024 20:36:44 GMT -5
Today (3/4) marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Dragonlance... Did anybody here ever read any of the Dragonlance novels? I didn't, but two of my best friends in my teenage years (who were later band mates in The Kynd) were big fans of those books. They used to really rave about how good they were, though I was much more into Tolkien's Middle-Earth. In fact, The Kynd's early, pre-record deal demo tape was titled Everywhen, which is a word that I believe my friends took from the Dragonlance books. The classmate who ran us through them forbid us from reading them (because he was trying to run them exactly the way the novels went without giving us much agency), but I read them anyways and adored them (well the initial trilogy by Weis & Hickman that is). I liked the second trilogy (focusing on the Twins) ok, but I'm not a huge fan of time travel in my epic fantasy, so didn't love it. I found the expanded stuff by other writers to range from mediocre to dire, and tend to avoid it, but I do want to make my way through the rest of the Weis & Hickman stuff eventually (they are currently doing a new trilogy and book 3 is either just out or just about to come out). I love some of the characters-Tanis, Sturm, Flint, Goldmoon, Raistlin, etc. and that initial trilogy set during the War of the Lance and have reread it a number of times over the years, but the further the story ranges from those characters and that era the less interest I seem to have (but I do want to at least give the rest of the Weis/Hickman stuff a go despite that). -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 14, 2024 13:35:19 GMT -5
Here's an vid with player advice for approaching sandbox games for players who aren't used to this approach (with the advent of adventure campaigns as the norm this is not unusual with newish players in modern gaming). But the advice he gives is applicable to all players in any style of D&D campaign play-engage with the setting and NPCs, ask questions, make decisions, don't run away from the story/content and keep the DM inthe loop about what your characters want to do.
Lots of solid advice, even if the presenter isn't the most charismatic presenter...
-M
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