Onslaught Six @onslaughtsixdotcom - Tumblr Blog

Heartbreaker vs. Craphack

The difference between a heartbreaker and a craphack is, you think a heartbreaker will be finished.

I started using the word "craphack" a few months ago to talk about my in-progress fantasy d20 elfgame. (This is a separate project from CRAWL, which has entered a process of hibernation. Its no longer in active development.)

I had a lot of names for this thing. It really started when the OGL shit hit the fan and I was already seeing how affordable low-run booklet prints were. The idea of creating a booklet with a bunch of my house rules and favourite tables, and getting it printed, became a kind of cool idea. Simultaneously, WotC quickly jettisoned a bunch of the coolest ideas for 5e 2024. Initially I was like: well, let's compile those ideas and I'll make a home game out of what I liked.

I called this document 5e Killer. This stems from a phrase I said in early 2023: If you are a major TTRPG publisher and you aren't already working on your 5e Killer for release in Fall 2024, you're fucking up.

I am not a major TTRPG publisher. But why not do my own? At least for my home game.

Somewhere I got pissed at the limitations of "sticking to 5e." I also realized I was just tinkering with it. I did finish a version of this doc. We are playing my 5e game with it now. (I do not like the changes 2024 5e, or any other base ruleset, has implemented. I like this setup enough.)

But, this wasn't "done." Many core problems I had with 5e were still sort of there. Unsure of how to solve them, I backburnered it and began looking at other systems. Perhaps I would find someone else's heartbreaker and be able to modify that, or find a perfect beginning point I could launch out of.

I spent most of 2024 experimenting with other ideas and doing other projects, including converting my Dungeon23 megadungeon to OSE, writing it up, and running the Kickstarter. I spent a month and a half making an OSE house rules document and compilation in anticipation of printing that out, both for home use and convention play. While doing this I actually started to solidify some more ideas about what I liked and what I wanted out of...all of this.

While doing this, little bits and pieces have always come into focus. I now have a canonical equipment list for basically all fantasy games going forward. I have a d100 magic item list and I'm slowly working on d100 spells (although Skerples may yet beat me to the punch). And, I found Outcast Silver Raiders, a game I initially called my "forever game," about three weeks after I made my first document compiling info for the latest version of my craphack.

The craphack doesn't exist except in my head. There are like 8 versions of half formed thoughts, in Discord self-messages and Affinity Publisher projects and Google Docs. They are, if anything, a dialogue with myself, wherein I repeatedly ask: What do I want out of the game?

I like the idea of hit die as damage die; weapons shouldnt have variable damage.

I like the idea of saving throws existing separately from skill checks, existing separately from attack rolls.

I like having lots and lots of classes and ancestries. About 10 each is a sweet spot for me.

I like games where you always roll high to succeed. I am not a fan of roll under.

Likewise, I like the DM being able to set a difficulty class/target number for the player to hit, even on skill checks. Some doors are harder to open than others, some locks are harder to pick than others. (The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic exists and is brilliant, but I prefer to use it for situational bonuses: this is an objectively DC15 check but if you do a thing you can have advantage to maybe do it easier.)

I like monsters having simpler statblocks than players do, with their primary stats being hit die and number, AC, and what they can do on their combat turn. I can make them do anything I want outside of that. I'm the DM.

Somewhere I have a table of every monster "type" and their average 5e stats and I want to expand on that to create basically a monster Rosetta stone for this game, combined with established and working power sets, so that I could easily create monsters on the fly during sessions without having to prep them.

I don't mind even the most mundane classes (like fighter and thief) having a few "special abilities," like 5e Action Surge or whatever. But IMO 5e gives you far too many of these, and worse, has too many options. (For my "forever game," I don't think I want subclasses.)

I like OSR vibes for mechanics, but people played heroic games with these same systems for 15 years, and anyone who says otherwise is fucking kidding themselves.

I like and use miniatures but also sometimes use theater of the mind for some encounters, especially against solo non-boss monsters. The system should easily support both.

I like individual initiative. I think there's still some improvement on my "everyone rolls a d6, if the monster beats any players they roll first, btw lower is better" system. I also wish I could use the Initiative Clock but I think it's a little too fiddly.

We don't need bonus actions or minor actions or anything like that. Too much design. You can move and do one other thing.

I like having a defined list of spells and at least semi-Vancian magic with spell slots. I am open to not having spell slots, but spellcasters should still pick from a list of pre-defined spells. No Knave, Cairn, bastards.-style "combine these random words to make a vague spell and work with the DM to figure out what it does" nonsense.

It's REALLY easy to see where all of these ideas sort of overlap and become relevant to how I imagine playing the game and the flow state that I desire. It's rules that don't get in the way and give all players an equal amount of cool shit they can do on their turn besides attacking. It's also easy to see how many games are outright thrown out by what I am imagining: no Cairn, Knave, OSE, Shadowdark, 5e, Five Torches Deep, etc. etc. (The only one that actually does hit the mark is, appropriately, Outcast Silver Raiders.)

So, where does this all coalesce? As I move around pieces and think about this, it might never coalesce. When I was on Take Flight, Cat and I talked about the idea that you might never finish The System, and That's Okay. It can be the old car that your dad tinkers with in the garage every other weekend and says, one day I'll get it all fixed up, I swear. It's his hobby, the same way game design can be your hobby--even if you are also a professional game designer with other projects that definitely are moving forward, being published, that you're doing the work on.

But my craphack exists and I swear one day I'm definitely gonna finish it, for sure.

#dungeons & dragons #d&d #ttrpg design #osr #ttrpg

2024 RPG GIFT GUIDE

Tis the season. You got somebody in your life who likes RPGs but you don't know what to get them. Everybody already has dice and everybody already has decided if they're getting the shiny new 2024 5e books or not. Here's some ideas for physical things you might not have thought of, and still have time to get. 1. The Making of Original D&D 1970-1977

This book is a history tome for the ages. Includes a detailed reprint of many of the earliest D&D books, the original unseen drafts before those were published, and all sorts of other cool stuff. This one is for historians only or those who like to receive a gigantic fucking red book that won't fit on the shelf.

Amazon.com: Dungeons & Dragons - the Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977 : Wizards Of The Coast: Toys & Games

2. Monsters Aliens & Holes In The Ground

Stu Horvath knows his games, being the co-host of the Vintage RPG Podcast for years. This is one book that I definitely still need to grab for myself (hint to anyone reading this). It covers all sorts of TTRPG books and games released over the fifty year history of the hobby. A great coffee table book look at the genre.

3. D&D Dice Tower

This is a big resin statue of the classic 1e PHB Moloch idol. Disclaimer: I've got two of these fucking things and they have both taken unfortunate dives and broken slightly. So maybe don't get this for the klutz in your family. There's two versions, one in classic red and one in a faux bronze/blue colour scheme. Ours is named Herman (and the second is Herman's evil twin).

Buy Dungeons and Dragons Dice Tower in Faux Bronze GameStop Exclusive at GameStop. Order online for delivery or in-store pick-up and save wi

4. Dragonlance Chronicles

The classic D&D book trilogy that launched an entire sub-business under TSR. I read these books not even knowing they were related to TTRPGs. This is for the fiction junkie, and makes a good gift even if they aren't into TTRPGs but are into fantasy novels.

Amazon.com: Dragonlance Chronicles: 9780593977156: Weis, Margaret, Hickman, Tracy: Books

5. Eye of the Beholder documentary DVD

I love this documentary. The DVD is a little pricey at $21 here, but it's available to watch on Amazon Prime. A well produced look at the TSR era artists of D&D.

Amazon.com: Eye of Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons DVD Y : Brom, Clyde Caldwell, Tony DiTerlizzi, Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Jennell

6. The Elusive Shift

Jon Peterson's amazing book chronicling the 70s of the hobby, reading all the fanzines and chronicling their arguments. IMO this is required reading for anyone having an argument about anything in the hobby now. Unfortunately Matt Colville's recent video has made the price jump up like 3x since before it came out.

7. The Game Wizards

If you want a Jon Peterson book that isn't $62 this is a good one to grab. This one covers the history of the hobby from a business perspective, about how Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson argued about who actually created the game.

8. Volume 2: Monsters &

The only actual game product I'm recommending here. Luke Gearing's words are the best in the entire hobby. This book is an inspiring work of art that belongs in anybody's collection.

"Luke Gearing dissolves the oldest monster manual to question how we present monsters and where they come from. The result leaves only bones

9. IKEA Nissafors

There are similar carts available all around, but I like this one for its brushed metal look and the dimensions of its trays--almost nothing "falls out" of this cart at my house no matter how high I stack stuff because of its relatively large footprint. I can put 11x17 prints in the trays with room to move, or stack two 8.5x11 RPG books next to each other. This is ideal for the player who plays at their house and leaves all their shit there.

NISSAFORS Utility cart, black. This utility cart fits in the smallest of spaces and can be moved to wherever you need it. Use it as extra st

10. Maps!

Lord of Maps is a great site where the guy does hand drawn fantasy versions of many real world locations. I have his first book and it's awesome, but I also have a print of his drawing of my home state (Pennsylvania) hanging on my game room wall. Great stuff and supports a small artist.

Lord of Maps

Stay tuned; next week I'm going to post about all the cool books I got this year that I recommend picking up.

#ttrpgs #d&d #gift ideas #rpgs

The Making of Castle Gygar: Part 1 - Origins

My first exposure to roleplaying games was seeing my father play Wizardry II: Knight of Diamonds on the NES. I saw the dark gray walls of the first person dungeon. I asked my father, what are you doing? He said, "Looking for monsters." I asked where they were. He said, "They're invisible until they attack you." When I was first playing Pokemon Red, probably eight years later, I imagined the wild Pokemon in the tall grass--invisible until they attacked me.

It would be cool if there was a game where that was actually true, by the way.

Wizardry fascinated me. Less than a year after playing Pokemon, I became fascinated by the RPG genre. This idea of turn based fights in usually fantasy universes with magic and wizards, a game where the numbers were important instead of raw player skill, fascinated me. From here I found Final Fantasy, Super Mario RPG, Dragon Quest, and all the rest. This was in 1998, 99. I had such an interest in older "retro games" and going back to these, my father's copy of Wizardry II floated back to the top.

From there I eventually learned that Wizardry, and all roleplaying games, were a kind of video game version of pen and paper roleplaying games. This was my back door into D&D.

In 2001, without real access to the game, but an incomplete set of polyhedrals, I was designing my own tabletop RPG from scratch. I wish I had any of those notes anymore, but they were typed on an old laptop that I don't know what happened to it.

The rest is history, but that Wizardry influence still stayed. To this day, when I imagine dungeon crawling, it's Wizardry's aesthetic and not D&D. D&D conjures up Dragonlance and 2e, Larry Elmore in particular. Wizardry conjures Jun Suemi.

But something else was there too. My father owned a black tapestry with white ink, depicting Castle Neuschwanstein in Germany. Real place. Fascinating design. And I loved this tapestry. Much like my D&D laptop, I don't know what happened to it. I assume my father felt it was time to move on and sold it.

When I was moving into my home in 2020, setting up a dedicated dining room for gaming, my thoughts drifted back to the tapestry. Not knowing what it even was, I managed to somehow track one down on eBay. For thirty bucks. It hangs in my game room now, and it always will. I tell people it belonged to my father, because it kind of did.

My first draft of the cover for Castle Gygar just used this. I obviously can't use this. I don't own it. No idea what happened to the company that produced this, either. Impossible to contact them. Thankfully, I have skilled friends with eyes for visuals.

I called up Chao. I showed him the tapestry. "Can you make me something like this?" We settled on a price. He sent back three different versions, which I've reproduced here for the first time. After putting the text on, we decided on the third. I moved it around and added a subtitle.

I can now safely say I might like this image better than the original tapestry, because now it's mine. And I'll be getting a huge version printed for conventions, so in a way, it'll be mine for real.

This first entry has been long. Other entries will probably be much shorter, but I wanted the first one to cover everything I loved that I took for this. There's still plenty more I got inspiration from, but it will be apparent when we get there.

Until next time: Take care of yourselves; take care of each other. Black Lives Matter. Trans Rights are Human Rights. ACAB. Don't kill the part of you that's cringe; kill the part of you that cringes.

And stay gold, --Onslaught

#dungeons & dragons #d&d #ttrpgs #wizardry

System vs. Content

Technically I've been designing games since like, 2001, but my real experience with it starts in 2019. And when you are making a new game system from scratch to emulate a Different Genre, it all sort of comes as a piece. What skills and actions are necessary in this game? What equipment, if any? How does violence work? And these will be different depending on your genre and how crunchy the game is.

But, in that time, I've also been redesigning The Oldest Roleplaying Game. That's because I'm playing in it--my "main table," through all of this, is still a 5e game, that we'll be swinging back around to in January (after we finish a holiday jaunt through Brindlewood Bay). I've got tons of affection for other editions--I'd love to run a 4e campaign, for example, and I've got an OSE house rules document that's as big as anyone's (mostly duplicate and optional rules, presented as I'd like them to be.) But I hate a lot of things about the decisions Seattle has made. My "5e" table might be completely unrecognizable to some players, especially because I've completely redesigned multiple classes and how they work. (I've got the best Monk around IMO.)

Which brings up the topic today--System vs. Content. 90% of what's in that 5e house rule redesign document is Content. 90% of the new 2024 official PHB is a Content update. The actual changes to System are minimal, and could probably fit onto a few pages.

It's interesting that I've hit upon this distinction and not a lot of other people have. It's not a distinction I really see others using, and I wonder why that is. Is it because, in practice, it is not a useful distinction? Or is it because for most games it isn't true?

For CUSC, system and content are almost inseparable--my fantasy CUSC hack, CRAWL, required some additional scaffolding and removed Juice but added a proficiency system. How much of that is system and how much is content? I guess I don't know.

I think the takeaway here is to take a step back when you are working on stuff and decide if it's System or Content, and how much Content your game needs vs. how much System.

#tabletop game design #ttrpg #ttrpg design

tidalwavegames

The Ruins of Castle Gygar

NOW ON KICKSTARTER!

The Ruins of Castle Gygar is a 360+ room megadungeon designed for old school tabletop RPGs. It is designed with Old-School Essentials in mind but will play great with any OSR B/X compatible game, your favourite retroclone, five-ee, or fantasy heartbreaker.

The Ruins of Castle Gygar began as a #Dungeon23 project that I completed over the length of 2023. The #Dungeon23 project was an initiative to write one dungeon room a day every day for 2023, and I completed it! I then spent the next six months digitizing my notebook, refining it into a useable, runnable megadungeon.

Castle Gygar is inspired by many things, such as the original Greyhawk dungeon by Gary Gygax, the structure of the megadungeon in Nethack, as well as the maze structure dungeons of the classic Wizardry computer games.

PLEDGE NOW! Or, click below for more info!

Classes & Level Limits

I was never a big fan of this concept. As early as my beloved Wizardry II, I inherently understood that anyone of any ancestry should be able to play as any class, just that some would be less optimized than others. When I first got to read some pirated AD&D 2e material around 2001, I was shocked to discover so many ancestries simply couldn't be some classes. As someone who managed to roll up a Gnome Samurai in Wizardry II (Gnomes got exceptionally good starting intelligence and extra stat points), I was astonished that this would basically be impossible in AD&D.

So, what if we took the idea of an ancestry's class and level limits, and simply…bumped that up a tier? Ancestries can now be any class. Those with existing level limits are now limitless, while those formerly unavailable now have level limits.

Then I did the work.

Dragonborn: Unlimited Level: Assassin, Cleric, Fighter, Illusionist, Magic User, Paladin, Thief Limited to Level 8: Acrobat, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Ranger

Dwarf: Unlimited Level: Assassin, Cleric, Fighter, Thief Limited to Level 8: Acrobat, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Illusionist, Magic User, Paladin, Ranger

High Elf: Unlimited Level: Acrobat, Assassin, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Magic User, Ranger, Thief Limited to Level 8: Barbarian, Bard, Illusionist, paladin

Wode Elf: Unlimited Level: Acrobat, Assassin, Druid, Fighter, Magic User, Ranger, Thief Limited to Level 8: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Illusionist, Paladin

Gnome: Unlimited Level: Assassin, Cleric, Fighter, Illusionist, Thief Limited to Level 8: Acrobat, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Magic User, Paladin, Ranger

Halfling: Unlimited Level: Druid, Fighter, Thief Limited to Level 8: Acrobat, Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Illusionist, Magic User, Paladin, Ranger

Orc: Unlimited Level: Acrobat, Assassin, Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Thief Limited to Level 8: Bard, Druid, Illusionist, Magic User, Paladin, Ranger

Tiefling: Unlimited Level: Acrobat, Assassin, Bard, Fighter, Illusionist, Magic User, Ranger Limited to Level 8: Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Thief

#osr #d&d #dungeons & dragons

Hit Dice, Hit Points & Weapon Damage: Part 2

Last October I was talking about Hit Dice, Hit Points & Weapon Damage in my various games, and how I want to work to unify some of this.

Since that post I've thought a lot and want to move forward with things it does, and this required a few changes. First up, I recategorized the classes:

Couple things: I will be adding a feat that allows you to bump your Hit Die to the next die up (maximum of d12). I like feats in my games! I think big chunky complex games like what else should have lots of customization options.

Under this system, your hit die is also your hit die, as in the die you roll for damage. Your character does damage, not your weapon. That's not to say weapons won't have differences; I am much more strictly implementing a "light/medium/heavy" system and locking those weapons behind class proficiencies. I prefer light/medium/heavy to the 3e "simple/martial" divide; it just makes more sense to me.

For equipment I'll be starting with my Canonical Weapons List. I really like this one as it simplifies the list just enough. Probably, I will deep dive into the Martial Options I've got for my 5e house rules and compare against the Wolves weapons. (I keep going back but then stopping for some reason. It obviously works in that game or in OD&D. Why am I so hesitant here?)

But, the first thing I've got to cut from the weapons list is the damage. And once that's done, there's a little bit of work to be done to ensure an "archetype" exists for each one--there's 3 damage types, so if there's a heavy weapon there needs to be 3 of them, one for each type.

Light weapons will be disadvantage on damage (roll 2, take the lowest) while Heavy weapons will be advantage or when you take the weapon, you can increase it from your Hit Die up one step (maximum of d12).

Still working on the magic system. I have always liked the way 5e does saves and so I'll be sticking to that, but I am thinking of changing the way they are statted. I think this version of my game is removing "proficiency bonus" the way it works in 5e. You'll still have a base attack bonus that increases with level, but skills are moving to a skill ranks system ala 3e, and saves are probably going to use the New Modifiers system.

And, two house rules that I've been using for a while now that are going to stay: Hit Points are your Hit Die plus your CON Score (no modifiers ever added) and Stats are 1d6+8 six times, assign as desired.

The first thing I'm going to wholly design for this is probably the Barbarian, because I have an interesting and new take on it.

#d&d #&#dungeons & dragons #ttrpg design #osr

The 1973 Original Dungeons & Dragons Draft

In January 1974, the original Dungeons & Dragons box set was released. Often this is referred to as OD&D or the "3 little brown booklets." Much has been said about this, including multiple retroclones (like Delving Deeper and Fantastic Medieval Campaigns).

During Dave Arneson's lawsuit against Gary Gygax and TSR, a 1973 draft of the game was submitted as evidence. It stayed buried in the archives of the case for nearly 50 years before it was unearthed by a variety of people. Now it's available for anyone to read.

I had a hard time finding a link to this draft in a lot of the blog posts that talked about it, so here's a link to the PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gwiPJSxQEX6ozSluhi4RWRmGfM-HWN0u/view?usp=sharing

I won't be going over it today, but here's Arneson's response: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gtojjrlTywMjKW7T-qjlm8vh8qVpxVCY/view?usp=sharing

But, I'm going to look at it today, because I'm a crazy person with a lot of time on my hands. And I'm going to post the interesting shit I find. Let's ride.

#d&d #od&d #dungeons & dragons #gary gygax #dave arneson

AC in OSE, AD&D, and Modules

One of the biggest questions I keep seeing about Old-School Essentials is, "What vintage adventures are compatible with the system?"

The most common refrain to this is, any vintage TSR module--but be careful using AD&D modules, because the AC will be off by 1.

Let's put aside, for the moment, that one should never reference exact stats for a different game than the one you are currently running--if the module calls for an orc, you refer to the orc from Old-School Essentials, not the printed stats in the module. Even if they match, or OSE purports to be an exact match, you should abide by the stats of your system--not the module.

Also, if the AC is only off by 1, that's 5% chance on a d20. Will it break the game if the AC of the orc is 6 instead of 7? Absolutely not. It should be fine to just ignore.

But, I wanted to investigate the wisdom. Is it actually true that the AC is off by 1? Let's do the work.

#D&D #old-school essentials #armour class #osr

Fire Resistance in 5e

I was reading a thread about build options in 5e (I immediately got diarrhea typing that) and someone repeated the common wisdom: "Well, fire is the most resisted damage type in 5e," and I got pissed off again.

The only reason this is true is because the game has 800 demons and devils, every one of which is resistant or immune to fire damage. If you don't fight demons or devils, you basically won't encounter this problem.

I got pushback so I did the work. Here's the numbers of every official creature in 5e with fire resistance. I'm not covering immunity, as I don't think it's as relevant: most categories have no creatures who are immune to fire, and those that do...make sense? (Yeah! Fire elementals are immune to fire damage!) Meanwhile, the numbers I have here do not account for the Volo's and Mordenkainen's "Legacy" content; I counted those monsters as one monster because you're not going to encounter both "versions" in the same game.

So, that leaves us with hard numbers:

Aberration: 15, 10 of which are Slaad and 1 of which is YGORL, LORD OF ENTROPY

Beast: 2: Fiendish Giant Spider, Stench Kow

Celestials: 4, all of which are in setting or adventures

Construct: 7, all of which are in setting or adventures, except for the Sacred Statue possessed by an Eidolon

Dragon: 14, which, they're dragons.

Elemental: 13, which shouldn't be surprising as they're elementals

Fey: 7, 6 of which are in setting or adventures

Giant: 6, 5 of which are CR 20+ titans from Bigby's

Humanoid: 28, 17 of which are Dragonborn, Tieflings, half-dragons, draconic sorcerers or the Fiendlock

Monstrosity: 3

Ooze: 8, 5 of which are gray ooze variations

Plant: 5

Undead: 35

That means there's a total of 147 non-Fiend monsters with fire resistance, of which 92 you are realistically going to encounter in your campaign.

In comparison, there are seven pages of fiends with fire resistance in 5e and four pages with immunity. Now, I'm sure some of that is doubled up from the "Legacy" content, I'm not going to dig through and find it. (The fact that I can't filter out "Legacy" content is a real fuck up on D&D Beyond's part.) But if we ignore that, that's 140 Fiends with fire resistance. In other words, fiends take up like 50% of all monsters in the game with fire resistance. More if you ignore all the shit you're not going to fight (like 5 gray ooze variations).

Hope this clears some shit up.

Want to read this article ONE DAY EARLY? Subscribe to the Tidal Wave Games Patreon!

#dungeons & dragons #d&d #demons #devils #5e

Lessons from Caverns of Thracia in OD&D

In January, we lost famous gaming pioneer Jennell Jacquays. Much has been written about her in that time. The day the news came down, I sent a message in my Discord that I would be running her classic Judge's Guild module, The Caverns of Thracia, in OD&D (Original D&D from 1974), with a handful of house rules, partially inspired by Luke Gearing's Snackrifice.

I told the players that this was expected to be a one-off but could expand a little bit if we were having fun. I didn't anticipate finishing the dungeon as it's fucking huge, but I did figure we would get through to some of it. The first session had a total of 7 players and me--a real OD&D party! Scheduling eventually got in the way and after only two sessions, I could tell that this basically wasn't working, for a variety of reasons. Let's talk about what I learned.

#caverns of thracia #od&d #dungeons & dragons #d&d #jennell jaquays

Cluster-Based Combat

The following is a procedure for theater of the mind or non-grid based combat with simple, non-defined ranges. It is not limited to fantasy genres.

Players have two Actions during their turn. They can use one Action to Move from one Cluster to another. (Some games have their own Movement and only one Action; in games like this, use your Move action to move form one Cluster to another. Adjudicate attacks of opportunity if your system has them.)

You can use your Action to Attack any enemy within the Cluster. Ranged Attacks can hit enemies in other Clusters. However, if an ally is also in the Cluster, Ranged Attacks will have Cover. If your game has multiple cover options, each successive ally in a Cluster ranks Cover up to the next. (For example one ally may provide 1/2 cover, two allies 2/3 cover, etc.)

AOE Actions (such as spells, grenades, etc.) affect all participants in a given Cluster. If your game has particularly large AOEs, then it may envelope two or more Clusters, based on the relative size of the AOE and how large the battlefield is.

The advantage to this is that it's easier to remember what players are attacking what Monsters in a given Cluster and makes it easier to adjudicate AOEs in theater of the mind.

#ttrpg design #gsme design #ttrpgs

The Public Domain Statement

I believe copyright is a sham.

I believe that lobbying corporations have turned what was originally a protection designed for the individual artist into a strangehold over ideas and culture in America, and by extention the rest of the world.

Copyright existed so that I could make a work of art, and then for a reasonable amount of time after that, profit from that art. I am not directly opposed to this idea. In fact, I think it's a great idea. A creator of something should have, for at least a while, the exclusive right to create and distribute their work and profit from it. And by profit, I really mean, "make a living from."

Which is where my next bit comes in: The original terms for copyright were seven years from the original date of publication. Which means I make a book, or a painting, or a song, and for seven years, that's Mine. You can't reprint it or alter it without my permission. But then, seven years later, it's free game. You have had seven years to profit and make a living from this single work of art; time's up, better get back to those artin' mines and make a second thing.

The intent for this was twofold: It prevented one artist from relying on a single work for their entire livelihood, forcing one to create Again. And I philosophically believe that not just the art of creation is good for the human soul, but continued creation of art is good for the human soul. I made a lot of music before, I've made TTRPGs before, but nothing heals my soul after the long week of capitalist bullshit than sitting down and making something entirely new.

Secondly, it prevents one from monopolising the culture. If a creation became so widespread and popular, it becomes part of the culture. It BECOMES PART OF THE CULTURE. The olden Gods like Zeus and Thor are part of the culture. The myths of older cultures are part of the culture. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are part of the culture. Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Beowulf, all of these are part of our culture.

So are Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Pikachu. These characters are also a part of our culture. And we should be able to interpret them as we like, without threat of corporations stomping us down.

I am under no illusion that anything we create for Tidal Wave Games could be as popular as those things. But, they could become popular. People may want to build on our ideas, whether they be mechanical game design or worldbuilding. Therefore, we want them to be accessible to the culture--after, of course, a reasonable amount of time has passed.

Those who picked up CERES: THE PLANET THAT NEVER SLEEPS may have noted a piece of text in the table of contents & credits page: "All text contained within this book will become public domain on January 1st, 2033." That is a legally binding statement, and it's true. As of January 1st, 2033, all the text in Ceres will be public domain and anyone can use it or build upon it without attribution. As of the 4th printing of the CUSC Core Rulebook coming early next year, it will contain the same text, with a revised date of 2032--ten years after original publication.

This is our commitment, to the culture of the world. We hold on to the copyright for ten years. You can do whatever you want after that. The art, is not public domain, because we are against the AI image war and we are pretty concerned about what letting our images into the public domain might do for that, among other things. But, we aren't going to come after you for making new art based on those images--reinterpret the world as you see fit, fan artists!

Furthermore, if you're interested in working with some of our content or want to make stuff based on it--just talk to me. We are extremely open and want people to create for us. We'll even pay you and help you put it out!

Hit Dice, Hit Points & Weapon Damage

I've been thinking of doing a little revision to the way my inevitable 2024 revision of what else goes. (There are two alternative versions of this idea, always in motion, the future is: 5e Killer and _&_.)

I just don't like the hit dice attached to certain classes in 5e. The grognard in me likes d4 HD wizards. At first I thought I could revise it so there were 3 groups of HD that all made sense together, but unfortunately there are four martials and 5 categories if we use every die, so it's still a little fucky. Still, here's the list I came up with:

So, let's talk a little bit about what Hit Dice are used for in the game. Primarily they are used to determine your Hit Points. You roll your Hit Dice and add your CON Mod to determine how many Hit Points you get per level.

My new proposal is that PCs should add their CON Score (so, 13 instead of +1) at level 1, and then never again. So 1st level PCs would be much more survivable, but their HP total would be lower eventually. I haven't mathed this out yet, but I really want to try it out.

You also use Hit Dice on a Short Rest to recover lost Hit Points. Perfectly good design, we won't be altering it here (although we are altering Short Rests--more on that later).

Finally, I want to propose--I don't know if I like this yet, but I want to propose--using Hit Dice for your Weapon Damage. Perhaps this will be one of the things that sets _&_ apart from 5e Killer. (Are these two products ever going to coalesce? Probably not.) Hit Dice are badly named in the legacy game and new players come with the expectation that their Hit Dice might actually be the dice they use to hit things. Why not indulge in that? Just make every class do the damage of their Hit Dice when they do weapon attacks.

This means you can alter the weapons table substantially, because the differences between weapon damage no longer exist. If we were starting from scratch, we could maybe use the weapons table from Wolves Upon The Coast but we aren't, we're starting from the table I've had for a couple years and recently redid to include WotC's Weapon Masteries and then my own Martial Options (forthcoming).

I'm always interested in thoughts about design like this. If you're interested, feel free to jump on the post, or contact me however you prefer. Stay gold.

#5e #d&d #dungeons & dragons

Space Travel in SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...

They say you can't help but put your kinks into your work.

One of my absolute favourite things to do in my tabletop games is to force the players to do something they don't want to do.

Man. That makes me sound like an asshole! Let me figure out how to say that differently.

The world around us is full of shit we don't want to do. We have to go to work to sell our time to someone else in order to pay our bills, and to afford food that our body requires to keep running.* We have to interact with people we don't want to interact with, because they control a thing we want. We have to renew licenses, pay taxes, maintain a vehicle, clean the house even if we haven't been to that part of the house in a week because it still somehow gets dirty. We have to do things we don't want to do.

*I personally resent the fact that I have to put food into my body at seemingly random intervals throughout the day, multiple times. The amount of time I waste every day buying food, preparing food, eating food and expelling food is astonishing and I resent almost every second I do it. You know that white oatmeal gruel they eat in the Matrix? "Everything the body needs?" Yeah gimme that. Just shoot it out of a canister into my mouth and solve 90% of my problems.

Red tape is the only thing the players can't stab their way out of.

I love making the players deal with mundane bureaucracy. When my D&D group first entered my huge metropolitan city Dawnharbour, they had to give up all their gold at the gates of the city in exchange for a bank check, that they had to cash at the bank in exchange for Dawnharbour's paper money. (The bank took 10%, of course.) When they wanted to build a tavern, I outlined a detailed list of all the taxes and licenses they would need and all the guildspeople they would need to speak to and get approval from. And then I had a guy show up at their house to collect their taxes for the year--not their home taxes, their adventuring taxes.

The players hated this. They hated every second of it. The bullshit that they had to do in order to achieve their goals. I loved it.

It's not something I put in every game session, but it's something I think should be there. Occasionally the players should just have to deal with something that's a pain in the ass. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do. Maybe this is the way I make the world feel realistic.

I've occasionally gotten comments about the space travel rules in our game SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY…--that they either don't make much sense or it isn't clear why they exist. They are a little bit crunchy--nothing close to the original Traveller space travel rules, but they require you to roll a check, figure out how many days a journey might take, buy fuel, and then roll some dice to figure out how much you spend on food for the journey. (It should be noted that there are zero mechanical consequences for not eating or being hungry in CUSC, merely that you must announce at every opportunity that you are hungry. Unless you're smoking.**) You can wrap your head around it. It isn't difficult. But, it is annoying.

**Smokes in CUSC cost $$1, by the way. Everything else in the game costs $$50 or a multiple thereof. This means that if you smoke, you will always have a surplus of $$49. In an early playtest, someone asked "Why not just make smokes $$50?" and when I asked if having $$49 left over annoyed them, they said yes. I responded with, "Congrats, that's the point!"

That's really the point. Getting from point A to point B can be annoying, and you should plan ahead for it. And, everyone does it even if it's a pain in the ass, so you have to do it too.

You could excise these rules from the game and just let them gallavant from planet to planet, and if that's what your group enjoys then I'm not going to stop you. But I think you lose something about the world. The players should always have the sense that the world is out to fuck them over at every turn, and by making space travel difficult, you make it something they have to deal with.

Also, it opens lots of opportunities for generative storytelling. They can end up off course, adding multiple days to their journey, which can cause them to run out of fuel. Now they have to stop off somewhere they weren't planning on stopping at, interrupting everything they wanted to do, and now they have to go somewhere else. This is GREAT for a Bandleader because now they get to riff on a whole new area they weren't planning on using. If the players are too broke to get back on the space road, then they need to go hunt a bounty that's around here. That's great stuff! And it's super in genre for the show.

I don't know how to end this article. I just felt like writing about why the rules are the way they are, and why they're in the game. Stay gold.

#ttrpg design #see you space cowboy

New Modifiers

I don't like roll under systems. Sorry! They just feel bad! I like it when the higher the number is, the better you do. I also just like to set DCs and target numbers as a GM; I like it when one thing is more difficult to do than another thing. It doesn't work for more narrative-based games, but in more trad settings? It's the shit.

So I did a bunch of stupid maths (I am not a mathsmetician) and finally decided on this idea.

NEW MODIFIERS

Roll 3d6 for each stat.

If your stat is over 10, your modifier is the tens place (18 becomes +8).

If your stat is under 10, your modifier is -10 plus your stat (so 3 becomes -7).

That's it. That's gonna be the baseline for maybe a thing I am doing.

#ttrpg design #d20

Cereal Box Hexcrawl

I was at my day job grocery shopping about two months ago when, on the back of a store brand Cheerios box, there was a hexcrawl.

Okay, the box says it's a sudoku puzzle. I don't know shit about sudoku. It's a hexcrawl now.

The first thing I did was recreate the hexcrawl in Affinity Publisher. You could do this with any graphic editing software or even by hand on paper, I just used what I'm comfortable with. I counted how many of each number and wrote it on the side; I also created a blank template that you can use.

#d&d #game design #hexcrawl #dungeons & dragons #fantasy maps

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Onslaught Six