Cephalon Dusp's Archives

     In the past weeks that I haven't been writing here on the blog, I have been creating and running a Pirate Campaign for my normal table. We have been having great fun with it, but as I have worked on cobbling together the systems to run it, I have hit quite a few brick walls. A Standard for Every Ship      Among the most annoying problems I have encountered, is the handling of ships. Every system I have encountered has its own ways of handling ships and they rarely agree, even if they are ostensibly easily convertible between them.      Now, historically, in the pirate age one of the most popular boats was called a Sloop, usually being a single-masted sailing ship that was quick and maneuverable in the water. If a Sloop has 2 masts, it becomes a cutter though that doesn't change much about the ship other than making it slightly bigger.      After robbing some nobles' pleasure flotilla, my players earned a massive haul and w...

    One of the most common tools people will come across in tabletop RPGs are hex maps. They divide a map into a number of hexagonal sections to ease measuring distances, plotting trips, and filling in new areas. Obviously, this comes with limitations that a plain map does not have and can sometimes pull people out of the fiction that they play in, but hex maps have their uses, even if only for the DM.     The problem with hex maps is that it is normally important to have several maps at different scales, such as one for nearby areas, one for the kingdom, and maybe a world map. Obviously all of these levels need to agree with each-other, but what scales to put them at is a pertinent question.     Unfortunately, it is one that does not have any single satisfactory answer. Still, I will be working to discover what I believe are the best sets of mapping scales for use in the general OSR space.  For those not interested in reading the article and my reason...

     One of the defining features of OSR games is how they handle gaining experience (XP) and levelling up. XP, which is the tool used to pace character growth, has a an enormous amount of sway in influencing how people interact with the game. Normally, OSR games make the primary source of XP treasure recovered from monsters or dungeons. Actually killing monsters is considered secondary, if it even gives XP at all.      The method of play that this pushes disincentivizes fighting monsters, since it is horribly dangerous and doesn't give great rewards, but also heavy incentivizes diving into dungeons and other locations that would have them because that is where treasure is found.       Compare that with a modern game like 5E, which either does XP by monster or by milestone. The implications of handing out XP primarily/solely based on defeated monster are pretty obvious in what they would incentivize. Milestone progression, however, entir...

       For those who are unfamiliar with it, GLOG (Goblin Laws of Gaming) is very hacky OSR system that was created over on the  Goblin Punch  blog. It isn't exactly a complete system, but it is functional and easily hacked together to be runnable. The catch, however, is that you sort of need to have a different OSR system to patch in the gaps.      I do like the system, though I haven't run it, and it is very popular in the OSRsphere. Partially, this is because of how the system handles classes and levelling. GLOG takes the view that low-level play is the best play, and basically caps advancement at 4th level. Past 4th level, characters can marginally improve their hit points, attack bonus, and saving throws, but that is it. For their first four levels, in contrast, they gain all of that in addition to "Templates" or abilities. Every class comes with 4 tiers of templates (A, B, C, & D) and you just take the next letter whenever you advan...