I'm in the midst of playtesting Block, Dodge, Parry, and I'm doing so with a 1-on-1 campaign with a friend. The campaign centers around a dethroned noble trying to seize back control of the land he lost, and in the most recent arc, he has arrived in a border city in order to gain some … Continue reading Intrigue & Investigation: A System for Urban Suspense
At the heart of Block, Dodge, Parry, the system that I'm writing, lays the Career & Skill system. The basic gist of this system is that it should be really easy to come up with a broad backstory or prompt ("A soldier who lost his favorite horse and is now a wandering minstrel, singing songs … Continue reading Block, Dodge, Parry: Careers & Skills
First off: I'm making a thing! I'm working hard on combining, tweaking, expanding, and upgrading my Cairn-related posts into a full publication. It aims to be both a toolbox you can pick-and-choose from, as well as a neat way to combine everything together to get a sort-of Advanced Cairn, if you will. I've dubbed this … Continue reading Modular Magic for Cairn
I'm a big fan of Emmy Allen's Duels in OSR rules, so I made a small adaption for it to suit a game I'm running at the moment. Image: Senat by Pascal Quidault I also love OSR tendencies to just leave out any dialogue- or social stats & mechanics, leaving it to the actual players … Continue reading Hostile Negotiations: A Conversational System for Into The Odd/Cairn
This is an attempt to bring the risk-management decisions of my Dark Souls inspired combat to a more contemporary form of fisticuffs. Be it for Old West, modern-day, cyberpunk, or sci-fi type adventures, I hope these rules give you some bang for your buck (it helps that it's free!) Image: Oscillator by Kevin Moran What … Continue reading There Was A Firefight: Gunfighting Rules for Into the Odd/Electric Bastionland/Cairn
Image credits: Merciless by Vlad Marica I've started playtesting my aforementioned Dodge, Block & Parry system! I've tied it into the Weapon system as well, and it's working quite good, so far! Design Notes Fight back makes combat even more lethal, by allowing for essentially a double attack (attacking in response to the enemy => … Continue reading Dodging, Blocking & Parrying in Practice
To celebrate the release of Obi-Wan Kenobi, here are some equipment rules I tinkered together for exploring a galaxy far, far way with the ruleset from Cairn/Into the Odd/Electric Bastionland! Blasters Blaster Pistols Hand Blaster. D6. 100 credits. Example: DH-17.Heavy Hand Blaster. D8. 1000 credits. Example: DL-44. Blaster Rifles Crude Blaster Rifle. Bulky, D6. 10 … Continue reading Lightsabers, Blasters & The Force: Star Wars, But Make It Odd
Next up in my series on Cairn-inspired writing, weaponry! I love the quick combat of Cairn, so I don't want to slow that down too much, nor do I want the character sheet to be filled with a load of special maneuvers. The main goals for this project, which I've given the working title of … Continue reading Dark Souls-inspired Weapons for Into the Odd/Cairn
The following was written with Cairn in mind, but would work just as well for Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland and heck, D&D 5e if you're doing a complete revamp. Performing actions involves time, gear, and skill. Generally, if you have none or one of the three, a task is impossible.If you have all three, … Continue reading Time, Gear & Skill: A Different Approach To Skill Checks
An attempt to combine Dark Souls mechanics with minimalist OSR gameplay
