📖 This post is an expansion on my previous post.Read Mass Combat: Expanding the Army Rating system from Barbarians of Lemuria for the full context! Image credit: Casualty of War by Camille Sule I've added a casualty calculator to my original worksheet. This means you can work rising casualties into your calculation! In this case, … Continue reading Mass Combat Expansion: Casualties
Most of my systems and posts are about adding interesting, meaningful choices to TTRPG procedures that tickle the players' sense of risk and reward. This particular system was originally written for ships at sea, but can be repurposed just as well for on-foot encounters in the wilderness - or spaceships venturing into parts unknown. This … Continue reading Oh? You’re Approaching Me? Closing The Distance in Dungeons & Dragons Encounters
My drafts are filled with posts about mass combat systems. There are various ideas I really like (such as an infantry>cavalry>archery counter triangle, moving troops, Into the Odd warbands etc. etc.), but I can't really get them to stick together in a way that I liked. That's when I gave the Army Rating system from … Continue reading Mass Combat: Expanding the Army Rating system from Barbarians of Lemuria
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
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
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
Horror, dread and stress can add a lot of flavor to roleplaying. However, when nosing around, I found that a lot of mechanics (such as Mothership, Call of Cthulhu)... Take away player agency at one point or another, to represent them losing control. This is a neat idea, but a hard sell in a heroic … Continue reading Super Simple Stress/Horror Rules for D&D
This post ties into the post about Noise & Alert in the Underdark, but can also be used seperately. What This System Tries To Do The Underdark is vast and dangerous. To try and map it, is folly. Navigation must be done differently; by using all of your senses. Tunnels twist and turn, and may … Continue reading I Have No Memory Of This Place: Navigating The Underdark Through Your Senses in Dungeons & Dragons
"Quietly now. It's a four-day journey to the other side. Let us hope that our presence may go unnoticed." Gandalf This is a specific implementation of my Noise & Alert system, applied to travelling through the Underdark. Part II of this post is up here: I Have No Memory Of This Place: Navigating The Underdark … Continue reading We Cannot Get Out: Giving The Underdark A Mines Of Moria Feel with Noise & Alerts in Dungeons & Dragons
What This System Does Implement books with benefits into your D&D campaignMake the experience of reading a book in D&D a bit more like reading a book in real lifeHave the relevant attributes provide relevant benefits How It Accomplishes That It makes Intelligence an important reading statIt makes progress through a book slightly unpredictable - … Continue reading Books, The Best Weapons In The World: Simulating The Process of Reading Dusty Tomes in Dungeons & Dragons
