tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78846757319582427382024-03-16T14:52:15.021-04:00The Hapless Henchmandragons and dungeon crawling in a kitchen-sink styleUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger316125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-7608649277135356052024-03-07T12:35:00.002-05:002024-03-07T12:35:28.049-05:00The Sea Caves of AubergioleI found this file on my hard-drive a few days ago, and since I will never ever finish the project (and in fact I don't recall many of the ideas) I give it to the internet in goodwill. To each, as they say, according to their need. This was probably right after the publication of my solo gamebook. I think it's very clearly inspired by the D&D Expert module "Lathan's Gold" which was an epic "Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-53617902340713676502023-10-11T12:58:00.000-04:002023-10-11T12:58:03.495-04:00The Entrance to the Omega BunkerThe little town of Rad, and The Entrance to The Omega Bunker
Rad is a village of 100-200 people, mostly nuclear families.
It earned its name after many generations of farming the local radish-like root
crop that was originally bred to remove radiation from contaminated soil. The root also happens to concentrate and store chaotic magic in its cellular structure,
although the unimaginative Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-67181430732068684562023-10-04T12:48:00.002-04:002023-10-04T12:48:34.973-04:00Happy Farming Upgrade DungeonI've been playing Stardew Valley on my kid's Switch for the past few weeks. Let's be clear: I'm not new to SV - in fact I think I got into it when it was pretty new, but I gave it up after I put Stardew Extended on my computer and modded it up so my kid could play with anime portraits. I had beat it once before straight (i.e. no mods) and then after that I modded it up in order to see all the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-6977588415901337092023-09-13T14:46:00.005-04:002023-09-13T14:46:57.885-04:00Gongfarmers on Sea-Devil's IslandInspired by this podcast - Christian B. has an entertaining and edifying and justice-aware view of the ways that business and corruption drive our lives.So: the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook has a 0-level starting occupation that is a pretty interesting in that it's literally the shittiest job you ever heard of: Gongfarmer. What is a gongfarmer? well, it's someone who empties chamberpots and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-76088890020375941332023-07-20T13:56:00.000-04:002023-07-20T13:56:06.006-04:00The Long Dark Teatime of the BlogHey don't worry, internet pals! I'm still alive. What's good with you? That's great! What's good with me? Uhh, we're playing a pretty fun extended "campaign" of 5e/DCC/Holmes/PbtA/ItO - pretty regular, rulesets vary but the setting and vibe is pretty much always the same. "Thrend" is a mixed-genre thing with Mutants and Magick and Weird Technology and Feudal Fantasy Americana/Oz/TolkienismsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-72784847936193907802023-01-26T14:24:00.008-05:002023-01-26T14:40:46.772-05:00It all comes down to this - Mordheim with palsMy buddy Gene made a big-ass, beautiful Mordheim table and pronounced a month-long campaign!So I figure my hobby life, modest skill-building, and acquisition of tools and material goods and social connections have probably led up to this moment in a sense. My heart is glad and I will post pictures from tonight's last Thursday's game with a secret guest-star from the G+ days!editore's Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-75462282097222741292023-01-10T09:33:00.001-05:002023-01-10T09:33:59.219-05:00Dungeon Hobby as Work vs Play Firstly, never give feet pics for free. Is what I'm told.But if you're just a hobbyist, like me, and you haven't incorporated the "hustle and grind" mindset which permeates everything in the US these days, give everything else away for free. Fight and resist capitalism. Don't let the shareholders drive policy or artistic decisions. The teachers and bosses and censors are explicitly out of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-63509928928976066642022-12-28T21:25:00.003-05:002022-12-28T21:25:47.757-05:00Pseudorandom vs. AI-Generated Dungeons?SURELY A LAWFUL EVIL PROBLEMSo if you look back through the mass of my posts, you will notice many many many times that I advocate for mass pseudo-random generation of dungeons, or at least dungeon ideas, based on methods outlined by Moldvay and Gygax and others... I personally stole/appropriated a huge number of tables and charts and methods, and also made up a great deal of items in a huge listUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-79164766847955774182022-10-07T13:29:00.004-04:002022-10-07T13:29:20.688-04:00Running D&D in 4K with 500 Mods You won't believe my frame rate! Haha - JK I'm messing with you. But am I, really?So I remarked to a friend the other day that even though they are cooking up 6th edition D&D right this moment, I'm just now getting used to 5th edition and starting to see that it's not as lame as I first anticipated back in the Google Plus days. At that time, I lamented something like "I've got DCC, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-18742675131872261762022-10-07T12:32:00.000-04:002022-10-07T12:32:22.078-04:00Crowquill and Lasrifle - GobbosMy question, at base, is "What makes an oldhammer Ork or Goblin what it is?" Is it gangly legs? Ape-y arms? A sense of humor and style? Googly eyes and a tongue stuck out sideways? A poser for the ages, I guess.Long ago, I had two Blogger blogs. One was this one, the other was "The Crowquill and Lasrifle" and it was about my bad painting and weird 40K lists of witch-hunters and zealots and power Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-1030782493018492082022-05-08T13:31:00.001-04:002022-05-24T09:56:26.423-04:00Into the Oddballs for 5eMan, Into the Odd was/is so good. Hyper fast setup: 3d6 three times, then 1d6 for hit points. Consult the chart 'n' off you go, with some interesting and balanced (in a way) weirdos. I wish 5e could be that quick and simple.Well, you know what? It can be!I dont have Electric Bastionland, or ItO Remastered, or more current iterations of the thing but I do have the waaaaay back ItO , and the early Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-82521156977164024432022-05-08T12:48:00.000-04:002022-05-08T12:48:17.624-04:00Time To Play BallIt is Spring, and my brain is afire with bad ideas and worthwhile/-less projects to accomplish. I don't know what it is about this time of year but my nervous system is trying to convert from winter mode to spring mode. It's great - by "great" I mean mild hypomania feels nice - but it's bad because the raw tension of wanting to do a million little tasks and being able to accurately complete like Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-71298068444764117712022-03-24T09:20:00.002-04:002022-03-24T11:15:47.352-04:00The Byzantine Automation of AD&D Dungeon PartiesIf you're a regular reader (I'm sorry!) then you know I dig making stuff with Tablesmith. It's a very powerful automation tool for making all kinds of neat things. A free and very close approximation is Dave Y.'s excellent web-based version Abulafia which has the benefit of talking to other users' tables. I use it to make dungeon keys and other things pseudorandomly. I took a break from untying Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-85186218876094484802021-10-12T12:58:00.007-04:002021-10-21T13:14:13.750-04:00Awful Hobo IncursionOkay, so first thingks first: Hobo is not a great word. Let's not fetishize NOR minimize the plight of unhoused people, and also (let us hope and pray) that the darkness of a thing's aspect is not Lynch's commentary on race nor ethnicity, although I think it does deserve to be examined but doing it here is maybe not a great format. You can if you wish. As much as I dig David Lynch (hi, Mr. Lynch,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-24016796297401823682021-09-21T14:33:00.002-04:002021-09-21T14:33:22.063-04:00Generative Surrealism (Music/Dungeons/Stories) Jazz in your RPGsFirst, I hate knowing what is going to happen. I avoid spoilers for movies. The speculation about what is going to be up there on the screen is better (most times) than what might really occur up there. Same for D&D: I avoid "modules" and "story paths" like the plague, unless it's an event and I need to have some arc for a convention or something. Why? I dunno, my brain is just like that. I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-55722185914573256902021-09-12T16:17:00.000-04:002021-09-12T16:17:04.159-04:00Freebie Dungeon ChallengeSo, here is the recent outputs of my ever-evolving dungeon generator code for Tablesmith. The idea is that you generate a big map. I use this ZORBUS map generator and also a local installation of Wizarddawn, mostly. Although I enjoy drawing maps, I find my own style of mapping is a little lame and IMHO dungeons ought to be the weirder the better, dig?fixing to throw down a gauntlet. Are you an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-8506891188840924162021-09-12T14:24:00.000-04:002021-09-12T14:24:08.991-04:00Personal Appendix N: Atari 2600 AdventureI look back on the things that influenced me and my thinking about Dungeons and Dragons when I was 8 or 10 and a few highlights stand out strongly.There are the usuals: Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man, various live action TV shows... I wonder if the A-Team is a huge influence on the way I play D&D? I bet it is and does, and I wonder if other people have made that particular connection. I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-48921055554664935712021-05-10T14:34:00.002-04:002021-05-10T14:34:23.021-04:00Something about Sewers: Ultan's Door 3 ReviewThis is IIRC the second sewage-related thing I have reviewed in the hoary life of this blog, the first being Daniel Bishop's commendable and filthy thing which you may find here.I am generally weary and leery of Kickstarters. It's too bad, because it does seem (despite my anxiety) an ideal way to get a nice thing made in our byzantine capitalist system. A great list of the things i've kickstartedUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-46161803511558713152021-02-19T12:47:00.001-05:002021-02-19T12:47:51.268-05:00After the Orange Emperor - And Some Reviews "Twilight of the Orange Emperor" was actually the name of a (very very brief) Google Plus campaign that I started when Trump announced his candidacy. At that time, I think we all thought it hilarious and a scam. And (let us breathe deep and recognize) it was a scam, but much more dangerous than we anticipated, let's agree or not I don't care. There's a problem with letting a toxic, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-782832474205161132021-02-19T12:46:00.005-05:002021-02-19T12:46:41.260-05:00Empire of the East: ReceivedI had forgot i backed the kickstarter for this. I received the hard copy this morning (sitting at the local snowbound post office!), and the cover art and contents are terrific.Quick breakdown before I need to get to work: relatively brief compared to some settings for DCC although much more is implied than given. Which is great. The flipside of the coin is that I have no experience with Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-78495766505771944032021-01-08T23:18:00.005-05:002021-01-08T23:18:49.326-05:00Balthazar and Bork in the Wastelands Alas, if you did not attend, much hilarity was experienced by Joseph and EliThe Misadventures of Balthazar and BorkBeing a Comedy of Homelessness, Chitin, and InheritancePart Dieux: Electrix BoogalooSo, the party (Bork played by Joe and the Junker Balthazar VVVMVF played by Eli) alighted on the shipping platform of Mesa 4, which Balthazar's Ancient Family Heirloom indicated was his own Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-3522827225147977792020-12-08T10:30:00.000-05:002020-12-08T10:30:11.440-05:00Noah's Knot, Reduxmetaphor for the code, and incidentally a room in the dungeon!When I was in 5th grade, in our BASIC programming class, Mrs. Dempsey saved my project as NOAHSKNOT because I had too many badly-nested GOSUBS. This project is a lot like that one was! It changed the course of my life, I think, because until then I programmed my C64 with aplomb and joyously - if badly. So, I don't enjoy programming Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-91314942151837707332020-11-20T14:12:00.002-05:002020-11-20T14:12:08.992-05:00Psuedorandom Dungeon FridayI added some non-repeat indicators for certain sections of my Dungeon Maker code - so there ought to be more unique encounters within the dungeons - not monsters/NPCs because repeats of those give rise to factions - but fewer repetitive traps and trappings. Here's a 30 room, 1st level dungeon for you:TOMB OF THE TOMBAC TOE RING There is A Tombac toe ring, set with a rose quartz, worth 600 Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-67104251503907806432020-11-19T13:27:00.001-05:002020-11-19T13:27:13.736-05:00Crossin' the Streams - DnD plus Sims 4So I was bored, what with this pandemic, and incidentally a client I work with was tellin' me about The Sims 4. I'd played all the Sims games but never really got into them. I have a copy of Sims 2 downstairs, and a fantasy Sims thing for my kid for this cast-off Nintendo DSi. The whole thing never really appealed to me for very long, so it's not something I've ever been too... enthusiastic aboutUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884675731958242738.post-24915398034622496332020-11-15T13:52:00.005-05:002020-11-15T14:03:10.657-05:00A Couple of Random Wampus Witches Hey all y'all!Like you, I dig Halloween and it's here. Or pretty durn close (Edit: i forgot about this until mid-November - so sorry!!). So my esteemed friend Erik (twitter handle : @daydreamtiger1 ) over at Wampus Country has forwarded to me and other Kickstarter backers of his Lumberlands project a fun little October-taster partly distilled from some previous WC posts (I dig the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2