![\"Moon](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/17/Moon-Alignment.png\")
A long time now have passed since my last post, a full year, incredible. Subsequently I have been busy with becoming a certified brewer, buying a house and dealing with renovating said house. But I have also been thinking, creating and developing new ideas for table sessions. Some of these ideas have been tested out before at my table, while others will need testing.
\nI want to present these ideas in a quick and dirty post for everybody who might stumble onto my corner of the internet. The ideas revolve around a setting archetype, I am unsure what to call it, and will be concluded at the end of this post.
\nI do not mean to only play TTRPGs by night. What I want to draw inspiration from is the Noir-genre, where most of the tension and storytelling occur by night. Utilising the dark alleys and blinking neon signs to convey a muted, depressing, yet vibrant and busy atmosphere. While, so far, the description is only aesthetic, it does have play significance, as characters will be travelling by night and which creatures they might meet on their way and who to trust. The night do bring tension on it's own.
\nWhile some TTRPGs do dabble in this practise they are urban fantasies and focus on the action or romantic aspects of our favourite blood dripping creatures. This is fine and I do love myself some vampire or werewolf sessions, but I also want something else.
\nI want the fantasy of mythical heroes in an bygone age, who dealt with the night and its many horrible mysteries. I want my players to be those ancient heroes who deal with the gods, the magic and unknowns of this mythical nightly neon age.
\nTo support this idea of nightcrawlers making their legends, I developed this system of moons that phase in and out of reality, each with a force they manifest into the world. Each moon has a name, personality, power and a colour they paint the world in. There are times of the month where they are more powerful and entering the world fully, therefore clash with the inhabitants and our characters.
\nThese are just some moons that I considered to fit on a d6 dice. Every single one of them bring a different danger to the world, they emphasis a specific element, and they interact with the players and the NPCs differently. They are supposed to be characters, just like the night that the characters explore.
\nWhat these specific moons mean will be released in something I am working on. For now lets get back at what I mean they might be more dangerous at certain times and that mysterious \"fully closed\" bit in the picture.
\nWhen I made this system I thought I would like to have it ebb and flow, just to provide some respite from the environmental characters that are the moon. So I decided on making a simple calendar that can be easily tracked.
\n![\"\"](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/17/Moon-Calender.png\")
This minimalistic approach to a calendar is simple. You have 3 nights for each moon phase from new moon to new moon. When you hit some of the described days, something happens:
\nThis approach provides a more natural segway to play according a lunar calendar, but as most of the character time will take place at night, I think it is fine.
\nSo I am a sucker for mapping, being able to place a characters motivations along some sort of guiding path is intuitive for me. This is not meant for player characters, but environmental and villainous, helping, bystanding and etc. characters.
\nThe concept is a riff on Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone duality of cosmic forces. Chaos and Order fighting over control of a plane of existence, none of the party really care for the world or it's inhabitants. They are just pawns in a larger game of chess. They interfere, meddle and develop these worlds to their pleasure and needs.
\nMy riff is to add a third party to the mix, instead of just Chaos and Order I decided on Entropy, Order and Nullity. Nullity being a cosmic apathetic force, they are unwanted players in a game of godly monopoly. They just want everything to go silent and into the primordial soup that once was.
\n![\"Cosmological](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/17/Cosmology-of-NPM.png\")
These three teams have each their own demi-beings tugging at the living inhabitants of the different worlds, trying to guide them into the control of one of them. In this image the demi-beings are in the middle circle, called Guardians, the Silent, Changers, etc. showing a characteristic of the character.
\nI often use these as cheatsheets for creating a character on the spot and to guide their motivations. But they can also be used to understand a pantheon of gods in a specific locale, with religious struggle being a major point of conflict to be dragged into.
\nSo what is my summarised idea?
\nAn ancient time where player characters are pitted against environmental characters, the pivotal Night and the Moons. These environmental characters might have allies fighting for their cause and/or their cosmic lord's fight.
\nMost of the game time takes place at night, in its embrace of darkness and illuminated streets. A fusion of antiquity, noir and neon. A place that invites danger and tension all on its own. It provides vibrancy in the midst of a mute and dangerous world.
\nI call it Neon Myth.
", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Settings", "NeonMyth" ], "date_published": "2022-06-18T15:00:08+02:00", "date_modified": "2022-06-18T15:01:02+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/forgotten-explorers.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/forgotten-explorers.html", "title": "Forgotten Explorers", "summary": "New worlds await you, new cultures greet you, as you explore the final frontier! Grab friends and comrades by the arm as you beam down onto worlds never…", "content_html": "New worlds await you, new cultures greet you, as you explore the final frontier! Grab friends and comrades by the arm as you beam down onto worlds never seen before. Take command over a ship and enjoy your 5 year missions into deep space.
\nForgotten Explorers are based on Star Trek, Jason Tocci’s 24XX and Sigve Solvaag’s Lost Archive. It is a ruleslite game focused on playing the game instead of looking up obsure rules, feats and skills in 3 different player’s handbooks. The PDF includes:
\nGrab it from my itch.io store page!
\nI plan to expand on this whenever I have the time for it.
\n", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Settings", "Products", "Game Design" ], "date_published": "2021-01-03T15:05:50+01:00", "date_modified": "2021-01-03T15:06:00+01:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/the-salt-must-flow.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/the-salt-must-flow.html", "title": "The Salt Must Flow", "summary": "This hard to produce ingredient is a source of great wealth in the world. The expensive common salt might enchance the flavour of foods. But the exquisite salt…", "content_html": "This hard to produce ingredient is a source of great wealth in the world. The expensive common salt might enchance the flavour of foods. But the exquisite salt of the Marshes enchances people, be it warriors or wizards. It is even used as an additive to spells and rituals, the effects vary depending on the grade of salt.
\nThe Marsh Salt can be consumed for increases of strength and dexterity or advantages on physical taxing tasks. It will null physical pain but cause blood to thin and begin to drip from various orificies (eyes, ears and nostrils).
\nIf the Marsh Salt is consumed while casting an incarnation the spellcaster gains an insight into the magical weave. Allowing them to increase the power of the spell by controling the fabric of magic. The spellcasters hands will ignite in the signature salt flame, a pale white flame, while casting and for the duration of the salts effect (Yes, salt flame can be used to burn someone).
\nIf consumed raw it causes an insatiable thirst which can only be satisfied by a thick coating liquid (think syrup or coagulating blood). It is therefore common among experienced Marsh Salt users to brew concoctions known as Gose (foreigners call them Salt Ales), these concoctions effect varies depending on the dosage of Marsh Salt in them. Alchemists might create small viel Salt potions for a quick rush or add the salt as an additive in other potions where physical rigor is desirable.
\nMarsh Salt is divided into 3 grades of quality by most Salt Merchants, unless you encounter a Dwarven Salt Merchant (their grading system is complicated).
\nBesides a high chance of addiction upon consumption, several physiological effects might manifest with withdrawals (roll d6):
\nWhen 3 or more of these symptoms are preseant in an user, they begin their slow and painful transformation into a Stalker (see below under Salt Creatures). This causes them to loose themself in the search for ever more salt. They are hostile to everybody, even other stalkers.
\nNOTE: The spell format is made for a homebrew system I am using and developing with a friend. It will be released at some point. Until then just use the name and effect, then figure out the cost n’ stuff for your prefered system.
\nSalt Flames
Salt Sorceries
Magic Circle: 1-2
Spell Point Cost: 2 [+1 per Circle]
Duration: [Power] Minutes or Rounds per Circle
Spell Requirement: Consumption of Marsh Salt
Ignites the spellcasters hands and whatever they are holding with their hands (wood will burn). The colour of the flame depends on the specific salt consumed.
Hiting someone while having your hands engulfed in flames will cause an additional [Circle]d10+[Power] Spell Bolt damage on hit (if using a weapon it will be in addition to that weapon damage).
Calling Salt
Salt Ritual
Magic Circle: 4-5
Spell Point Cost: 10 [+10 at Magic Circle 5]
Duration: Permanent
Ritual Requirement: A Cube of Marsh Salt, Tongue of a Stalker and Golden Braces
You animate the Cube with the elemental essense inate in it, binding it to the braces and providing it with a tongue to communicate with you. Creating a Salt Elemental. It is at your command for as long as you will.
At Magic Circle 5 the Salt Elemental will be twice as strong as an normal Salt Elemental.
Scare Torches
Salt Blessing
Magic Circle: 1-3
Spell Point Cost: 2 [+1 per Circle]
Duration: 1 Hours per Circle
Spell Requirement: Marsh Salt infused Linen and a Torch with the Arcane Mark\nThe incarntation provides a scaring effect to an otherwise intoxicating smoke. It will ward off Stalkers and Humbabas. Multiple Scare Torches can interlock and provide a safe space.
At Magic Circle 3 the incarntation is strong enough to ward off Salt Parasites.
(Salt) Stalkers\nFormer users of salt who weren’t able to get their hands on the enchanting substance. Now they are mindless and have an insatiable hunger for the salt. They will hunt everything which resonate with the Marsh Salt.
These mutated humanoids do not look anything like their former self. Their limbs are elongated and multiple joins have been formed to allow them grabbing and strangling their victims (requires a save to get away). Their fanged tongues allow them to strike and penetrate the victims skin to suck out their blood, they only perform this if a victim has consumed Marsh Salt. Sometimes seen in packs of 2-5.
Humbaba \nHumans, dwarves, elves and other humanoids who were mutilated and injected with lethal doses of Marsh Salt as children to become executioners of the rich. Their eyes are pale and pupils cubic, their tongues fanged and long.
Equipment: They can wear normal humanoid equipment. They favour spears, axes, sickleswords and shields.\nThey are praised commodity in the Marshes high society, especially in Elven settlements. Their stare is similar to a Medusa’s in that it turns a person into a statue, but of Marsh Salt (Save vs death).
If they are free, they tend to look for other Humbabas and form communities. They will be using traps and ambush tactics to overwhelm whoever comes into their terretories.
Salt Elemental\nThese Cubic beings are rare outside those summoned and bound by wizards. They are praised and symbols of status among the Marsh Wizards. They function as bodyguards, treasury and source of Marsh Salt.
These beings can envelop another being in their salty embrace (save to escape) and invasively overdose the victim (save vs death). Often used by Wizards as an assassination method.
Salt Parasite\nThese gigantic and vaguely serpentine creatures slither on their stomachs across the arid Marshes, lurking in its waters and hunts near the salt pans. It uses it’s two small forelimbs to climb up rocks and mountainsides. It’s airsacks situated along its long pale body rythmically expand and contract, hypnotisingly so and while mesmerised it will lick you for the delicious salt it seeks.
These Parasites are the dragons of the Marshes, they hoard and eat all the Marsh Salt they can. Their blood is thick with Marsh Salt and they will allow cultists and other desperate users to siphon a bit of their blood for exchange of free will, a small price to pay (in the Parasite’s opinion).\nTheir airsacks can hypnotise people (requires a save to withstand). If one such airsack is popped a foul chlorine gas will expell from the Parasite, if you are close by when it pops roll a save vs suffication.
Salt Parasites prefers to grab and crush their opponents or have some of their lackies do the dirty work for them.
Summer was abound and I, recently graduated Production Technologist, had all the time in the world. With covid blocking any opportunity I had for finding work I needed to have something else to do. I decided on making a zine, a community generated one. I dragged the nosrpg discord server into the project and we got started on . . .
\nTHE CITY OF PERPETRATORS
\nThis project had a timeframe from 1st to 30th of June and we finished it within the set time (sorta). The manuscript was finished and layout done by the 30th 16:30. But I let me be honest, I made a horrible layout and I decided to give it another go.
\nAnd man I am happy I did. Because today it my first product on drivethru and available for the masses. I guess you would like a little description of the product instead of the process? Outta luck, I am all about processes. You can just go onto drivethru and read the blurb, download the zine and read it yourself. ;)
\nFind the City of Perpetrators on Drivethru by clicking on this line.
\nFair warning: It is minimally edited, but on the other hand it is free. Given the time restriction I am fairly proud.
\n", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Products" ], "date_published": "2020-07-15T09:34:53+02:00", "date_modified": "2020-07-15T09:34:53+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/industrial-adventures.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/industrial-adventures.html", "title": "Industrial Adventures", "summary": "I am into manufacturing, and production, and I wanted for some time to make a post on the fun and interesting adventures to have within an industry setting.", "content_html": "![\"\"](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/12/Production.png\")
I am into manufacturing, and production, and I wanted for some time to make a post on the fun and interesting adventures to have within an industry setting. This is meant as a GM tool to organize an adventure that isn't a destruction fest. I want GMs to be curious about how a brewery works or a porcelain factory operates and present that to the players in a interactive way. Have the players research, do reconnaissance and plan how to approach the task in the factory. I am sure that this can be applied to other settings, but here I am going to focus on manufacturing and production.
\nBefore I go any further I want to have an explicit \"don'ts\" talk. This isn't meant for you to:
\nProvide your players with a lecture on a manufacturing technology.
\nIt isn't a space for you to be obtuse and expect players to know everything you do.
\nI want you to provide the players with active choices to make.
\nDo the easy thing, break inventory and hope to destroy the operations.
\nDo the hard thing, such as destroying the equipment or eliminating key people and be sure to close the operations.
\nWith that out of the way here are the rules we will be working under when making a facility.
\nEach room is a process.
\nEach process has a predecessor and successor process. Unless it is the start process and end process.
\nEach process is an interactive object.
\nCritical Points are interactable. Critical Points can be individuals.
\nWhen I say process I mean something that helps making the products in the facility your players are going to have an adventure in. This can be a machine, a tool used for a specific application or a set of instructions the personnel uses to complete a task.
\nIt is something that if damaged, eliminated, stolen or otherwise harmed, may have irreparable effects on the operations of the facility.
\nThis can be a person or special equipment that is cutting edge. This will largely depend on the game setting you are GMing in and how established the industry is at the time.
\nIn medieval, and even in the industrial period, people were critical points, so much so that nations would have special forces trying to infiltrate and kidnap or kill specific scientists, alchemists and more, to get a hold on the knowledge they had. While in a Sci-fi setting you have such an transmission of knowledge that people become less important and specialized equipment is more of a focus.
\nHere is a little procedure to make an interesting and slightly different type of adventure based on the above.
\nDecide what type of adventure you want your players to have. Protection of a facility or critical point, infiltration, sabotage or maybe a kidnapping of a person of interest?
\nResearch the industry you want to base an adventure in. It will take some time, but it is worth it. Videos, books or graphics, there isn't anything unholy here. Find a book on the history of the industry to get ideas for characters, I can tell you that a lot of these industry history books are better then a lot of dramatic fiction out there.
\nSee what rooms you can create out of the processes. Find some flow charts and see step by step how many rooms you can make the facility have. Now the amount of rooms you want will depend on how big an adventure you plan to make it, don't feel pressured to make as many as possible.
\nNote which processes or people involved are critical points.
\nMake a layout.
\nA resume of the ingame set up, this is just for context and isn't necessary to write out.
\n\n\nMy PCs have arrived to the industrial town of Stentoej where they have acquired a mutual beneficial relationship with Ytring \"Lady Chalk\" Askndottir, a highly influential ceramist in Stentoej. She has a competitor in a neighboring town, Jorn \"Fine Finger\", who has gotten a new alchemist and they are making a new type of leaf thin plate. She knows Jorn has the alchemist locked up on his estate next to the workshop. Sadly the neighboring town is still within the bounds of Stentoej and under its protection. However, she isn't interested in destroying Jorn's workshop, she wants the alchemist.
\n
Now I can follow my procedure to make a little adventure.
\nAdventure Type: Kidnapping and/or Infiltration
\n![\"\"](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/12/Ceramic-Process.jpg\")
Rooms: (Note that we already key our little dungeon this way)
\nStorage area, earthy scent, dusty air, plenty of clay piles, a new mule driven pressing machine
\nForming Workshop, lots of turning tables to work the clay, tools for premade forms, door to sideroom.
\nMaster Painter's Chamber, here sleeps the master painter, next to the Forming Workshop.
\nFurnace Room, dry, ashen, filled with stone and earthware, and a new unknown kiln.
\nGlazing Room, artists studio with tables and paints, door to a sideroom.
\nMixing Chamber, large vats and jars labelled with various spices and ingredients, next to the Glazing Room.
\nJorn's Estate, Large gilded house flanked with barracks on each side housing personnel, large stone tower where the alchemist resides.
\nCritical Points: The mule driven machine, master painter, the alchemist and the new kiln.
\n![\"\"](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/12/Simple-Layout.png\")
That is all for today, below I added some optional reading on the example, especially point 3 and 4.
\nPoint 3: The rooms I decided on would fill a session or two depending on my tables approach on to the adventure. If you look at the flowchart I attached under the industry/flow point you will notice I covered everything there but I also added some extra chambers. These were added due to something I read called The Arcanum by Janet Gleeson, a really good book. It was common in the mid 1700's for authorities to lock people of interest up so they could work on your monopolies, that was were the idea for having the alchemist and master painter locked up at the facility came from.
\nPoint 4: I decided on those four things as the critical points because of two factors they are investments and/or people with specialist knowledge. Note that I wrote that there was a new kiln and a new mule driven machine. When something is new, it hurts to lose that investment. As for the Master Painter and Alchemist, this was again taken The Arcanum where a specialist flees one factory to join up with a spy from Austria to start a rivaling factory up. The specialist gets cold feet and as a condition to get back to his homeland he agrees to destroy everything he has written on porcelain production and the brand new kiln he help design.
", "image": "https://irregular.blog/media/posts/12/Production.png", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Game Design", "GM Tools" ], "date_published": "2020-05-15T21:54:49+02:00", "date_modified": "2020-05-15T21:54:49+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/dreams-and-journeys-therein.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/dreams-and-journeys-therein.html", "title": "Dreams & Journeys Therein", "summary": "Dreams can take you places you never thought possible. Vivid illusions of reality, to acid dripping colourfests, or sacred geometric flights across the goddesses body. Want to come-along?…", "content_html": "Dreams can take you places you never thought possible. Vivid illusions of reality, to acid dripping colourfests, or sacred geometric flights across the goddesses body. Want to come-along?
\nThey are the imaginations of a sleeping person, an amalganation of their memories, fantasies, and forecasts. This is hard to simulate, even in the scientific field that looks at our sleep. For you, the GM, they are something much simplier because we will be using them for play.
\nThey are:
\n| Breaking the Rules Table (roll 1d6) | \n|
| Roll | \nWhat happens? | \n
| 1-4 | \nThey wake up | \n
| 5-6 | \nDream turns into a Nightmare | \n
They are the stuff of horror. It is in this broken dream where your player's characters lives are in lethal danger. For being killed in a dream will destroy the psyche of a character. Leaving them braindead.
\nIn nightmares your players might attract the attention of Nightmares, Succubi, or other demons of the dreamscape. If such a demon is allowed to attach itself to a player's character they can only be removed by venturing into the deepest, most abstract, layers of that character's mind and drive the demon out. But beware, the demon will make traps in the mind of the character to ensure it's safety.
\nIf not demons, the mind itself might try to kill the players. By sending every horrible thing against them, based on what the subject fears.
\nDreamtrekking is meant to be a form of adventurering that allows for a different playstyle. Emphasising using personal symbolism as the world around the players. With the interactivity being on learning about the person the players are venturing inside of.
\nAdventuring in form of Dreamtrekking is a trip of intimate proportions. It might reveal dark secrets of a character, or it might contain sentitive information only meant for that character. Therefore I recommend that you consider how acceptable it is in your setting to invade other peoples dreams for information, knowledge, or for saving them.
\nAfter you have considered that, and made a decision, you want to figure out how characters should enter the trek. Dreamtrekking require a few things before it works successfully. Such as an ingredient, a place to not get disturbed, and understanding the person you are venturing inside of.
\nDreamstuff is a category of drugs and ingredients used in dreamtrekking. It is both a comnnector and a sedative. Their use differs depending on the Dreamstuff, but it often requires ingestation. Your players might find it in:
\n| Dreamstuff Table (roll d6 once or four times) | \n||||
| Roll | \nWhat it is? | \nHow to use? | \nWhere to find it? | \nHow long does it work? | \n
| 1 | \nFlowers | \nIngest | \nA star covered lake | \nMax 8 Hours | \n
| 2 | \nPebbles | \nThe heart of a mountain | \nMax 10 Hours | \n|
| 3 | \nLiquid | \nInject | \nAn eclipsed garden | \nMax 12 Hours | \n
| 4 | \nGrass | \nA sunlit basement | \nMax 16 Hours | \n|
| 5 | \nFruit | \nInhale | \nA bloodfilled treetrunk | \nMax 20 Hours | \n
| 6 | \nTiny Crystals | \nThe graveyard moss during full moon | \nMax 24 Hours | \n
A safe space reduces the chance for subject to be disturbed and waking up. For every hour spend in the subjects dream there is a chance for them to wake up, roll d6 twice and pick the better result:
| In Safe Space (Roll 1d6 twice and pick better result) | \n|
| Roll | \nThey ? | \n
| 1 | \nWake up | \n
| 2-6 | \nStay asleep | \n
| In Unsafe Space (Do the same as Safe Space) | \n|
| Roll | \nThey ? | \n
| 1-2 | \nWake Up | \n
| 3-6 | \nStay asleep | \n
Enough people to travel the desired amount of layers down. Here it might be a good idea to have a few hirelings or friends to help the characters out. Because as they travel further into the dreams, someone has to stay back to make sure they and the subject are safe. As a minimum, use the +1 rule so if your players want to travel 4 layers deep, have 5 people for the job.
Even with all these precautions taken, there might be a slight chance of ending up in a nightmare.
\n| Upon Enterance (roll 2d6) | \n|
| Roll | \nIs it a ? | \n
| 2-3 | \nNightmare | \n
| 4-12 | \nDream | \n
Now, after reading all of this, you wonder \"how can I use this at the table?\" Don't worry, I have made this template for writing down all the layers, the places, and nightmare versions.
\nHere you can find an example of a filled out template, just to help convey the idea a bit better.
\nThe next post will be on how to create an adventure location out of a brewery. I wanted to do that first, but sadly I need to dig up some more information on brewing and other processes. Don't worry this won't be a detailed post on brewing, but it will be an abstracted model for using real life production facilities as adventuring locations. So stay tuned!
", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Game Design", "GM Tools" ], "date_published": "2019-10-18T15:05:25+02:00", "date_modified": "2019-10-18T15:05:25+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/new-site-and-update.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/new-site-and-update.html", "title": "New Site and Update", "summary": "Hello! Irregular is back with some sporadic news about what has been happening behind the scenes. So come look around and get your fill of Irregular's latest adventures!…", "content_html": "![](\"https://irregular.blog/media/posts/9/Blog-thingy.png\")
Hello! Irregular is back with some sporadic news about what has been happening behind the scenes. So come look around and get your fill of Irregular's latest adventures!
\nI would like to invite you inside, and welcome you, to my new headquarters. I was never satisfied with how the old site looked like, so I was brewing for a good year on how I could change it around. Then on a random forgotten day I was talking with David Schirduan from Technical Grimoire and he began talking about static websites and this thing called Jerkyll. Let me tell you, I was hooked.
\nAfter that conversation I spend a good year researching the matter when time permitted. Then on a recently lucky day, I found this CMS called Publii. I took my chance with the tech gods and I am rather pleased. So yea, thanks David for getting me hooked.
\nI hope after reading this post, you are willing to look around on my site and read some of my old posts I have transfered. They have been slightly reworked, but I have disclosed that at the end of each post. So if you are interest you can read the originals as well.
\nA lot, If I am allowed to be honest. I started my education to becoming a Production Technologist last year and it had eaten my schedule up. But I have been able to keep up with the TTRPG scene. Mostly by communicating with some of my favourite people from the scene, and hopefully been to some degree of help in return.
\nI have a few projects going. Most of them are in colloboration with others, but some are solo ventures of mine. Let me give you a brief introduction to each of them.
\nThat is all I have to say today. See you around and I hope you decide to look at the site before you leave.
", "image": "https://irregular.blog/media/posts/9/Blog-thingy-featured.png", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2019-09-26T20:02:13+02:00", "date_modified": "2019-09-27T08:01:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/irregular-caltrops.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/irregular-caltrops.html", "title": "Irregular Caltrops", "summary": "Do you want to hurt your hands? Then come and throw some D4's in this Troika! derivative. Or read through it and take what you like from it.", "content_html": "Do you want to hurt your hands? Then come and throw some D4's in this Troika! derivative. Or read through it and take what you like from it.
\n!!! LINK TO IRREGULAR CALTROPS RULESET !!!
\n!!! LINK TO IRREGULAR CALTROPS CHARACTER SHEET !!!
\nThis is a heartbreaker of mine. It is a Troika! + Knaves romantic ship, with a d4 kink. It facilities a weird special ability list for characters to choose from. Easy to understand equipment lists and monster blocks. Deadly combat. Really deadly combat, but no dismemberment list.
\nIt has been collecting dust for awhile, but I can tell you it have been doing so purposefully. I have been thinking about how to make it more meaningful for me and therefore more valuable to you. That is a story for another time, but suffice to say I am not going to work on this iteration anymore.
\nSo grab it, try it, and steal from it to your heart's desire.
", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Products" ], "date_published": "2019-09-25T12:12:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2019-09-25T14:11:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/team-traps-no1.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/team-traps-no1.html", "title": "Team Traps No.1", "summary": "Not long ago, I had a playtest session of ICv0.2 and my players encountered a rather peculiar trap. They had entered a room in some sort of underground…", "content_html": "Not long ago, I had a playtest session of ICv0.2 and my players encountered a rather peculiar trap.
\nThey had entered a room in some sort of underground complex - they do not know whether it is a tomb, dungeon, end of the world, or something else - to escape a legion of automatons. As they entered they saw that the room was filled with silks, gold, and a fountain. But as they began to move around, they managed to go only a few steps, before the room seemed to extend it self.
\nWhat was going on? After a player had thrown a piece of gold toward the fountain and saw it was stuck in the air, he looked at one of his party members. That member who was trying to get back to the point of entry suddenly saw himself move rapidly through the room, he looked back at his friend and then the stone fell into the fountain.
\nThen it clicked for them.
\nThey were in a chamber where one person had to watch the other move through the room, otherwise they would be stuck in place. They had solved the puzzle that could have starved them to death.
\nClues can be hard to provide in a manner that does not feel forced. The way I did was to simply having multiple places that provided similar clues. Sometimes they would provide a suggested action. Here are some examples I used:
\nI try my best to not make red herrings, as it could create an atmosphere of distrust between GM and player. With players questioning every. single. clue. Let's try to avoid that.
\n[This post has been updated and modified, you can find the original text here. This post refereces an playtest draft of my heartbreaker game Irregular Caltrops]
", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Game Design", "GM Tools" ], "date_published": "2019-09-25T07:58:55+02:00", "date_modified": "2019-09-25T07:58:55+02:00" }, { "id": "https://irregular.blog/dc-setting.html", "url": "https://irregular.blog/dc-setting.html", "title": "Daleko Cluster: The Setting", "summary": "This is a setting I am running for a Mothership Campaign with a friend. It is largely inspired by Starcraft, along with some sci-fi literature, and movies. The…", "content_html": "This is a setting I am running for a Mothership Campaign with a friend. It is largely inspired by Starcraft, along with some sci-fi literature, and movies. The set-up is rather simple:
\nBelow you can see a setting document made by me.
\n", "author": { "name": "Sami MS" }, "tags": [ "Settings", "Daleko Cluster" ], "date_published": "2019-09-12T07:47:38+02:00", "date_modified": "2019-09-12T07:52:20+02:00" } ] }