Be it for a fantasy city, superhero game, or space station, these mechanics will help you flesh out 'walking the beat' for your party of law-keepers. Intersperse this with big, landmark cases - murder, heist, kidnappings etc.! Image: The Siege: Inside Town by Francis Goeltner The Stats Of A District First, determine the size of … Continue reading Nothing To See Here: City Guard Patrol Shifts for TTRPGs
I like the idea of faction play, but I find it often gets bogged down into a large number of variables and actions. I've tried to make a system that is trackable with simple tokens representing Assets, and allows for plenty of player intervention. Factions & RegionsRegionsAsset TypesThe Home RegionCreating A RealmAssets and their FunctionsIntelligenceInfluenceMightAsset … Continue reading Intelligence, Influence & Might: Simple Faction Conflict in TTRPGs
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
Recently, I've been really interested in classless RPGs. I'm working on a quite extensive system that I'm currently playtesting, but in the meantime, I got a pretty lightweight take that I made in preparation for a Star Wars campaign I'm running. Image: Prepare to war by Darek Zabrocki Design Notes I primarily designed this for … Continue reading Lightweight Careers for OSR RPGs
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
Samuel Bennett of Tales of the Lunar Lands wrote two neat blog posts about bar brawls in TTRPGs. I couldn't agree more with "In a way, bar brawls could be considered a sort of mini-sandbox" - so here are some mechanics I personally use to spice up tavern-centered conflict! These rules are pretty generic, and … Continue reading Old School Fisticuffs: Bar Brawls in D&D 5e and OSR RPGs
Here I aim to flesh out the step between “you are traveling” and “you found a dungeon” in a hex- or pointcrawl, in a way that hopefully feels natural and like actual exploration. I’ve taken some inspiration from, yes, Skyrim. It aims to add a bit of risk-reward to the process: discovering new locations might … Continue reading The Things We Find Along The Way – Filling The Gaps In A Hexcrawl or Pointcrawl
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
