> PIRATE BORG is a scurvy-ridden, rules light, art heavy tabletop RPG. Inspired by history, fantasy, horror and rum. Your cutlass & flintlock won’t save you from the hordes of skeletons, the Kraken, or even your own crew.

> PIRATE BORG is a complete game based on and compatible with the award winning doom art-punk RPG MÖRK BORG using their incredible 3rd party license. But it’s also a tool kit. Most of the tables can be hacked and used with any tabletop RPG.

Available from Free League Publishing and DriveThru and if you are lucky even at a store near you.

It doesn't feel as unique and special as Mörk Borg to me but more breadth shouldn't hurt.

I watched Ed Greenwood's video on the wingless wonder. I thought it could work in my current campaign. But I want a slightly more scary looking version. So I drew my own.

• original YKRPG kickstarter
• runs on the GUMSHOE system, that is designed around investigations
• 20 days left,
• $17.95 for the YKRPG core book + 6 sound tracks
• $28.20 for the full bundle of:
  • 1 YKRPG core book
  • 1 YKRPG city guide handouts
  • 1 annotated version of the original public domain book "The King in Yellow"
  • 2 novels inspired by the "The King in Yellow"
  • 6 sound tracks inspired by the "The King in Yellow"

> Reading and playing [RPGs] literally helps us to understand the world, in the truest sense, better. And this in turn means that those of us who are engaged in the hobby, as with all hobbies, are engaged in a pursuit of "sense making" that is much more significant - and useful - than a million Sam Harris podcasts or Substack newsletters (and which is all the more profound for the fact that it is entirely implicit and unintentional).

I'm not really convinced of this thesis. It eschews logic too easily. Logic is for exampled experienced in the system rules of an RPG. Their formality enables people to agree on them. That is a very useful part of sense-making. Great that RPGs provide for both, no matter which one is more relevant. :)

I wanted to run a horror game in October, so I'm trying an experiment to see if I bend my action narrative resolution mechanic to run a very different genre. The real simple version of the system is it's a skill check system where you roll once to represent an entire encounter, and then players take the lead on narrating the story to fill in all the details of the one giant dice roll. To try and do horror I changed all the supporting systems/skills/goals and replaced them with more genre appropriate ones.

I had a couple ideas I thought were clever and typed up a prototype today.

I don't know if it work, but I think this kind of experimentation is both fun and maybe it will teach me something.

Anybody here ever work on a full conversion? I created my game to begin with because converting d20 games wasn't giving me what I wanted. I never got a full conversion further than prototype for any system. Curious what other people learned from trying something like this.

If I were building a horror game from the ground up, I don't think I would use this resolution mechanic, I would probably aim for something that felt more reactive. Horror is really tough genre, and I think disempowerment and bad things happening to characters are tricky to make work in all games, and especially shared narrative. It's probably outright impossible to scare my friends sitting at a table as a group, but I'll settle for telling exciting stories with the horror tropes.

That's my hypothesis anyway, going to try it out and report back. Really want to hear about other peoples experience doing conversion design or any ground up horror design.

[!](https://awkwardturtle.itch.io/cloud-crawl)

I wrote this as part of the CBR+PNK Jam, and if people aren't familiar CBR+PNK is a super condensed Forged in the Dark one shot system where you play a group of cyberpunk operatives on their last run.

Cloud Crawl was sort of an experiment to see if I could capture the sort of procedural generation depth crawl games (as epitomized in Stygian Library) in a small sized single pamphlet package. I'm pretty pleased with how it turns out, and I'm also pretty sure no one has ever done a depth crawl in a binary tree before (happy to be proven wrong here if someone can find an example!).

[! ! !](https://awkwardturtle.itch.io/cloud-crawl)

The game is half off this weekend for its launch, but I'm also keeping it fully stocked up with community copies for the time being so feel free to grab one for free if you want to take a look!

Have you gotten with Astarion or maybe you were blown up by Gale for the hundredth time? Are your adventures as wild as you had hoped...have you even gotten out of character creation!? Well if you're one of the legendary few who have, why don't you take a step into the real world of D&D so you can go back into an imaginary one!

I get it, DMing for the first time can be scary, you might not even know where to start. The prep alone can seem like a mountain to climb. You find a cool-looking One-Shot open the PDF or book and just think to yourself, how in the heck do I turn this into an actual session?

Well, I've got you covered! I want as many people out there as possible to experience the Amazing world of D&D and most importantly DMing! I've taken the following One-Shots and Mini-Campaigns and fully prepped them so you can run an unforgettable session with ease! The best part, all of it's free for you to use!

Let's dive in:

A Most Potent Brew: This One-Shot brings together a group of rookie adventurers on a classic quest; clearing out a cellar from some rats. Things take an unexpected turn though and lead them to their first dungeon! This level-one One-Shot will take your players into the depths of a brewery, that turns out to be connected to an abandoned mage tower basement. Will your players survive their first adventure slaying giant rats, centipedes, and more?

Coming in at approximately 2-3 hours of play, this is the perfect one shot for both new players and DMs to show what D&D is all about, without being an overwhelming 6hr+ session!

(Credits: Winghorn Press)

The Wild Sheep Chase: This One-Shot is on par with some of the craziness that you can experience in Baldur's Gate 3! Your party will be enjoying a relaxing time at a tavern when a sheep suddenly bursts in and grants them a scroll that allows them to speak with each other. Your players will go on an epic chase, face off against polymorphed guards, and even fight a dragon...made out of a bed!? You can't make this stuff up...oh wait!

(Credits: Winghorn Press)

Dragons of Stormwreck Isle: This Mini-Campaign is for when you're ready to step things up and want a more serious Adventure. You'll go from level 1-3 learn of the history of Stormwreack Isle and face off against...you guessed it a dragon!

(Credits: WoTC)

The Lost Mine of Phandelver: This Mini-Campaign spans from levels 1-5, the only thing past this would be a full-blown campaign, but let's not get ahead of ourselves! This one is a classic, the very first starter set that WotC released and it stands the test of time, Heck, they're making an expansion for it coming out later this month! You'll face not 1 but 2 dragons, explore deadly dungeons, save a town, and live out all of your heroic fantasies! When you've done a one-shot or two I couldn't recommend running this more!

(Credits: WoTC)

If none of those tickle your fancy I've got over 2 dozen more sessions fully prepped and ready to go for you, here's a preview of what else I have to offer!

Index:

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Coming Soon
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Into Ivy Mansion - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Sometimes you just don't want to prep. Sometimes you get a last-minute call to run a session. Maybe it's your first time DMing and you don't know where to start.

Whatever the reason, prep may seem like a mountain to climb. Well, allow me to help you! I remember when I was first trying to figure everything out and I stumbled across The Wild Sheep Chase. It's a fantastic One-Shot by Richard Jansen-Parkes that you can get for free over on the DMsguild. The only issue at times can be how do I convert this pdf into an actual session?

Some DMs have a gift, they can read it once and go from there, some are masters at improv, storytelling, and off-the-cuff humor. Well, I unfortunately don't fit that boat and I'm sure many others out there are just like me. I need a ton of notes; because once I've got things organized, then I feel comfortable taking things in new directions.

So welcome to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible! Onboarding new DMs should be easy and I hope with this I can help grease the wheels!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Wild Sheep Chase: DM Notes
• Link to: The Wild Sheep Chase Playlist
• Link to: The Complete Collection

Included in The Complete Collection are:

• A Word document with all my notes including a link to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for all the encounters. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
  • A complete spell list for Noke which gives full details so you're not bouncing around for info.
• A map of Shinebrights tower. I use this as a reference when drawing out the map for my players
• A handout for The Scroll of Speak with Animals

Index:

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Click Here
• Death House - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

As always, If you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Crosspost from Reddit RPGdesign

Today I planned on writing about the cost of unique design (my game is pretty unintuitive in a lot of ways, because it's different) but figured out I couldn't really talk about how I made all those weird decisions until I talked about where/why I ended up with the core resolution mechanic I did. That is how I ended up with a very unique and therefore not very intuitive game.

Chronomutants has been many years in the making. Started with me hacking the hell out of Gamma World 7e back in 2010, circling back around to that system in 2018 and producing a lot of homebrew for it, becoming fully disillusioned with DnD (and other d20 games) by 2020, failing at hacking Gamma World into other systems from up until 2021, building a Forged in the Dark version, and then giving that up for a unique system based on me not remembering correctly how Warhammer Fantasy worked.

Here is the blog where I talk about my dissatisfaction with hacking leading me to a custom system locked behind proprietary dice (bad for sharing the game).

What the blog is kind of secretly about is about my choice to make the best playing game that meets my goals/needs being at odds with making something that I can share with strangers. My idiosyncratic design is one thing, actual hurdles are probably a bridge too far. It's a really big ask to get anyone to play a homemade game, it's a much bigger ask to get someone to use custom dice to do so.

Unfortunate, because it plays great, and is really weird and funny.

This kind of stuff gets into art for arts sake vs marketability (I'm not even selling anything). Anybody here have any stories or experience with choosing the best playing mechanics over more popular ones?

Let me begin by making it clear this is not my invention, I encountered the method in City of Mist but I doubt it debuted there. But it is a nifty method.

The problem I encounter from time to time is that my players don't latch onto my descriptions of the scene, not using things in it to grant themselves advantages (bonuses, extra effect etc). Am I perfect? No. Could I do better? Yes.

Or I can take my fuzzy descriptions and make them mechanical by introducing them as Scene Tags. Market square during market day would get Crowded-Market-1 and during a festival Packed-Festival-Market-2 indicating that there is a lot of people there and also how much advantage one would get by incorporating it into ones action. Or disadvantage depending. Trying to pickpocket someone? Take a bonus. Following someone? They easily get lost in the crowd - penalty.

How dark is the night? Moonlight-Night-1 or Moon-Behind-Heavy-Clouds-2?

Traveling through a mountain pass and how deep is the snow? Ankle-Deep-1 or Up-To-The-Dwarf's-Beard-2? What about that Foul-Voice-In-The-Wind-4?

I play pretty much only online so tossing an index card onto the table with the Scene Tag on it is kinda tricky. Instead, depending on how much effort I've put into the VTT, I either write it in big bold letters on the scene image/map. Or I put down a virtual index card, essentially a small graphical element to bring attention to it (see post image).

One more thing, how much is a Tag-1 compared to a Tag-2 worth? This all depends on your system. City of Mist gives +1 for a Tag-1, +2 for Tag-2 etc. So for pretty much any other PbtA/2d6 systems the same works. For D&D (and other d20 systems) a scheme of +2, Advantage, Advantage and +2. I've lost much of my familiarity with d20 systems due not having ran something recently. So someone (everyone?) else probably have better ideas. In dicepool systems an extra dice for each tag level is appropriate.

That is the basics of it. But what if the players want to create a Panic!-At-The-Market-3? I'll write about that some other time.

PS. Still recruiting for my small sortie into Swords of the Serpentine, Fridays at 19CEST.

Players creating quests for players

https://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2023-07-29\_Players\_creating\_quests\_for\_players

by [@kensanata](https://tabletop.social/@kensanata) (I backticked this because I imagine mentioning someone in a lemmy post is not good manners.)

@rpg

@rpg What's the deal with the new #Dolmenwood rpg? Is it becoming it's own game mainly to get away from the #OGL? Does anyone know if the rules are still pretty much #OSE under the hood?

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

Moon over Graymoor is an Amazing 1st level One-Shot by S. T.  Mannell. In it, your players will be turned loose in a hamlet that has suffered a handful of vicious murders. It’s up to them to investigate. They will need to gather clues, canvass villagers, and if they’re smart, pick up a few things along the way that might just give them enough bite to face off against the beast...and survive.

For those who want a bit less hack-and-slash and a whole lot more mystery in their lives, this is the perfect One-Shot for you!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for Moon over Graymoor: DM Notes (Free Preview)
• Link to Adventure: Moon over Graymoor
• Link to: Moon over Graymoor Playlist
• Link to The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDF for the boss battle. This includes the enemy stat block organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
• A Map for Graymoor Bend (Credits: HoloBump)
• Handouts for the many letters included in this One-Shot

Index:

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Click Here
• Death House - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

As always, If you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Wrote a new blog today about how much setting should go in a rulebook. It's different for every game, but I feel a lot of games put too much lore in with the rules.

I know it's really hip to have your setting lean on your mechanics and vice versa, so neither works great without another, but I am more of a fan of rules that support tone and play patterns that reinforce genre more than specific settings. Probably mostly because I am not big on learning a lot about a setting before I feel good about running a game.

I also like to have lots of room to improv and make a setting my own. I know you can do that with any setting, but I just feel more confident doing that with less definition in the setting.

I could probably drop a little something more into my rulebook as a stinger to get people excited about what kind of fiction the game presents. I guess that could be interpreted as setting, or at least adjacent.

Curious about what other think about this topic.

https://infantofatocha.itch.io/chronomutants/devlog/572397/whats-a-paradox-war-anyway

Traditionally I have run mostly homebrew adventures. I've used encounters taken from commercial adventures every once in a while. The Dragonlance campaign I'm running is the first I've really tried to run a module straight.

My players aren't always going along with that idea but that's ok. I've also added some content because I wanted a special event for the character with divine powers. I plan to do the same for the knight. Due to this I created Dulsi's Dragonlance Addendum on DMs Guild.

For Spelljammer I found the process less satisfying. I had to tweak many individual encounters to match what I wanted. So running it requires looking at the adventure and looking my notes for things to override.

The latest issue of the Cepheus Journal just dropped. It's a free fanzine for the Cepheus Engine RPG (basically OSR Traveller)

It's got an article on cats in space, a mushroom-filled colony world, and a weird mercenary cult.

My contribution is "A Fistful of Spaghetti" - a guide to running Spaghetti Western style games in Cepheus.

Free to download: https://cepheusjournal.com/downloads/

Well technically it turned into more of a two-shot (you know how it goes).

So my regular D&D group is on a hiatus from our regular campaign since the summer has been busy for us all. Instead, we've been taking turns running one-shots when we're able to meet. Last week was my turn, and I ran a game using the Risus system. It's a niche little system I stumble across a few years back, and I found this awesome adventure written by the system creator called Toast of the Town. It's one of the most fun adventures I've ever read, and I knew we had to run it.

Well to make a long story short, they had a great time! The system lends itself well to hijinks and humor, which is perfect for my group. And when it came time for us to wrap up and the adventure wasn't concluded, everyone voted to finish it out the following week. I haven't GMed for anyone besides my family in years, so it was really encouraging that they had a good enough time that they actually wanted to continue the story.

Anyway, if you want a quick and easy system that you can run a silly one-shot with in a pinch, check out Risus!

Room-temperature superconductivity looks like it might be a step closer to becoming a reality. I need to steal some ideas, what technology would you put in a cyberpunk world that makes use of zero-resistance electronics without the need for massive cooling? Super-fast computers? Super-powerful magnets? Maglev? Railguns?

Today's blogpost is all about my flailing to refine and streamline my design docs into a coherent rulebook. I read enough of the d**** things you'd think I would know how to compile and order one. I understand the basics and where I went wrong, and have roadmap, but compared to design development is long and grindy.

Would really love if other folks have input on what makes a rulebook good? what have people done to make their projects easy to get? Which books are your favorite examples? What are your biggest hurdles?

For me I intellectually understand what needs to be there, but actually getting the writing clean and succinct to read is a challenge. I see a lot of DiY books for of background art and such trying to emulate a AAA book but they don't have the text and order of content hammered out 1st, I didn't want to move to layouts until my text was set, but maybe that's a mistake? Curious to see what people think.