Blog Posts with Cool Gameable Content

[Voros]

With the death of G+ I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread of cool gameable content and art posted to blogs, OSR and otherwise.

What inspired this was this recent post by Ben L with art by Evlyn M.

White Jungle Races: Plumed Reavers & Mole Rat People

 

[Voros]

This blog about the world Abraxas is new to me with lots of cool creatures and a unique slighly surreal tone. (Someone in the comments compares it to early Wolfe, which is mighty high praise!)

 

[Voros]

Basic Red is back posting regularly, here are some hacks to improve Fighters in B/X.

 

[Voros]

A table of lost sf items from the ever great Last Gasp Grimoire. I hope he posts at least once a month.

 

[AsenRG]

Hmm...I wonder whether I should self-nominate for my suggestions how to rework the basic Kuro RPG campaign.

Either way, I want to nominate a series of posts by Chris Kubasik,

Classic Traveller: Out of the Box

“The beauty of CT LBB1-3 is that the ref is free to make such decisions for themselves.” — Mike Wightman I’ve written a lot of posts in a series called TRAVELLER: Out of the…

talestoastound.wordpress.com

 

[spittingimage]

The city of infinite ruin. A city whose outskirts are slowly being dragged into the middle, which paradoxically gets larger and more complex as you get deeper. Go looking for your great-grandfather's shack and you might find it's transformed into a Gormenghast-style castle in which a dozen dynasties of your family rose and fell, surrounded by miles of farmland.

 

[Simon Hogwood]

1d20 Books from Prospero's Library from Coins and Scrolls. Pleasingly mythic and mystical additions to any wizard's library.

 

[Akrasia]

Apologies for the shameless self-promotion...

This is a decade old now but they still work: my 11 house rules to help make your old school D&D-ish game have more of a 'sword and sorcery' flavour. (They were designed for S&W, but most will work with 0D&D, B/X D&D, AD&D, etc.)

Many of these house rules eventually were integrated in Crypts & Things...

 

[Voros]

1d20 Books from Prospero's Library from Coins and Scrolls. Pleasingly mythic and mystical additions to any wizard's library.

Prospero's Books is one psychedelic movie. It also has more nudity per frame of any mainstream film in history.

 

[Voros]

Daniel Sell of Troika and Melsonian Art Council has posted an extensive description of his citycrawl campaign sandbox Hex. Lots of different and interesting ideas.

 

[spittingimage]

The Indefinite Train. Each carriage is a separate community-sourced mini-dungeon.

(I'm posting this partly because I'd like more people to contribute. I've submitted a couple of cars and want to submit a couple more, but don't want to be that single contributor who overwhelms everyone else's colour through sheer volume.)

 

[Voros]

The Indefinite Train. Each carriage is a separate community-sourced mini-dungeon.

(I'm posting this partly because I'd like more people to contribute. I've submitted a couple of cars and want to submit a couple more, but don't want to be that single contributor who overwhelms everyone else's colour through sheer volume.)

That’s cool. Maybe I should take a shot at a one page dungeon. It’s been a while since I homebrewed anything. I’m a bit mystified by the OSR term Gygaxian Democracy as I’ve never seen Gygax advocate for anything like that in his writing unless they just mean his early statements to make the game your own?

 

[AsenRG]

I've been throughly enjoying the Gygaxian Democracy series over at Playing DnD with Porn Stars. Basically, Zak posts some kind of prompt - a table to fill in, a keyed dungeon to stock, a list of villians - and the rest of us provide the rest. Crowdsourced DM material, in other words.

From some blog post that I found with Google.

 

[Baulderstone]

That’s cool. Maybe I should take a shot at a one page dungeon. It’s been a while since I homebrewed anything. I’m a bit mystified by the OSR term Gygaxian Democracy as I’ve never seen Gygax advocate for anything like that in his writing unless they just mean his early statements to make the game your own?

People just like slapping the word Gygaxian onto gaming ideas. It's like the term Gygaxian naturalism for D&D worlds where all the ecology and interactions between creatures are carefully worked out. Yet, in looking at Gygax's work, he leans a lot closer to the funhouse school of design. If there is a person that I associate with a naturalist approach, it is Ed Greenwood, who wrote all those "Ecology of.." articles in the early days of Dragon.

 

[The Butcher]

People just like slapping the word Gygaxian onto gaming ideas. It's like the term Gygaxian naturalism for D&D worlds where all the ecology and interactions between creatures are carefully worked out. Yet, in looking at Gygax's work, he leans a lot closer to the funhouse school of design. If there is a person that I associate with a naturalist approach, it is Ed Greenwood, who wrote all those "Ecology of.." articles in the early days of Dragon.

James Malizewski coined the term in reference to the AD&D1 Monster Manual proclivity to dwell on “naturalistic” detail that added depth to monsters, making them more than foils to the PCs’ ambitions.

(Incidentally that blog post is worth reading for the dissent in the comments — someone brings up early criticism of D&D as “unrealistic” and props up the contrast with more “naturalistic” games like C&S and Harn.)

But Ed really elevated it to an art form, I guess. Reading up on Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster’s Forgotten Realms, I suppose it becomes apparent that Ed was an early adherent of (if you’ll pardon another Malizewski-ism) the “Silver Age D&D” school of thought and setting design.

 

[Baulderstone]

James Malizewski coined the term in reference to the AD&D1 Monster Manual proclivity to dwell on “naturalistic” detail that added depth to monsters, making them more than foils to the PCs’ ambitions.

(Incidentally that blog post is worth reading for the dissent in the comments — someone brings up early criticism of D&D as “unrealistic” and props up the contrast with more “naturalistic” games like C&S and Harn.)

But Ed really elevated it to an art form, I guess. Reading up on Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster’s Forgotten Realms, I suppose it becomes apparent that Ed was an early adherent of (if you’ll pardon another Malizewski-ism) the “Silver Age D&D” school of thought and setting design.

That's true, but AD&D is a flawed example of Gygaxian play. He generally stayed closer to the loose OD&D/Basic style, and AD&D was an attempt to make an edition for the people that were constantly sending letters into TSR, wanting an answer to every possible question. He's trying to give people what they want.

 

[The Butcher]

That's true, but AD&D is a flawed example of Gygaxian play. He generally stayed closer to the loose OD&D/Basic style, and AD&D was an attempt to make an edition for the people that were constantly sending letters into TSR, wanting an answer to every possible question. He's trying to give people what they want.

True, and also to standardize a ruleset for tournament play.

But I suspect Gygax’ insistent defense of AD&D1 RAW on Dragon magazine may have muddied the waters regarding his play preferences.

 

[Baulderstone]

True, and also to standardize a ruleset for tournament play.

But I suspect Gygax’ insistent defense of AD&D1 RAW on Dragon magazine may have muddied the waters regarding his play preferences.

Most definitely. It's a lot like when people into get into arguing about gaming on a forum, and they paint themselves into an opinion that really doesn't line up with what they actually enjoy at the table. And with Gygax, it was further complicated by being part of a booming business. He was juggling several hats at once.

It's why I prefer to rely on stories about Gygax's actual gaming over things he said about gaming.

 

[Voros]

James Malizewski coined the term in reference to the AD&D1 Monster Manual proclivity to dwell on “naturalistic” detail that added depth to monsters, making them more than foils to the PCs’ ambitions.

(Incidentally that blog post is worth reading for the dissent in the comments — someone brings up early criticism of D&D as “unrealistic” and props up the contrast with more “naturalistic” games like C&S and Harn.)

But Ed really elevated it to an art form, I guess. Reading up on Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster’s Forgotten Realms, I suppose it becomes apparent that Ed was an early adherent of (if you’ll pardon another Malizewski-ism) the “Silver Age D&D” school of thought and setting design.

I went back and looked at the MM after re-reading that blog and the comments.

I continue to be unconvinced that there is any strong sense of naturalism worthy of the name in the MM or in much of the work of Gygax. Just look at Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, which to me is the ultimate example of a 'zoo dungeon' (and a damn fun one btw with a great end fight).

The vast majority of the write-ups in MM have to do with combat and defining a pixie with know alignment or a percentage chance that monster X will be found with monster Z as 'naturalism' of some particularly Gygaxian bent really seems to be begging the question.

 

[Baulderstone]

I went back and looked at the MM after re-reading that blog and the comments.

I continue to be unconvinced that there is any strong sense of naturalism worthy of the name in the MM or in much of the work of Gygax. Just look at Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, which to me is the ultimate example of a 'zoo dungeon' (and a damn fun one btw with a great end fight).

The vast majority of the write-ups in MM have to do with combat and defining a pixie with know alignment or a percentage chance that monster X with be found with monster Z as 'naturalism' of some particularly Gygaxian bent really seems to be begging the question.

I kind of suspected that, but it's been many years since I read the 1st edition MM, so I didn't want to go out on a limb there.

 

[Voros]

Not a blog post but a cool Twitter thread with pics by @skullfungus aka. Karl Stjernberg.

 

[Apparition]

FWIW, someone started an "old school tabletop gaming blog posts" group on MeWe for people to link to their new blog posts about old school tabletop RPGs now that Google Plus is dead. It has over 800 members ATM. Now what constitutes "old school," your guess is as good as mine.

You can find it here.

 

[spittingimage]

Not a blog post but a cool Twitter thread with pics by @skullfungus aka. Karl Stjernberg.

Is he the one who did In The Light Of A Dying Star? The style seems alike.

 

[Voros]

Is he the one who did In The Light Of A Dying Star? The style seems alike.

No that seems to be done completely by Nate Treme. Wasn't familiar with In the Light of a Dying Star but it looks cool, have you checked it out yet?

Also discovered Nate's blog and he posts a very cool random encounter table here.

 

[spittingimage]

The Gustatory. A food court the size of a mountain, with a dragon sous chef, soup baths, self-milking minotaurs, goblin waiters... this is the kind of material I love to run, but I'm not sure how you'd justify going that far gonzo.

 

[AsenRG]

The Gustatory. A food court the size of a mountain, with a dragon sous chef, soup baths, self-milking minotaurs, goblin waiters... this is the kind of material I love to run, but I'm not sure how you'd justify going that far gonzo.

I need a justification?
Nope, what I need is a way to explain to the players where did those goblins come from, and why the minotaurs aren't attacking. The only one they've met previously was a mutant created by a potion whose formula is only known to the priests of a nasty wargod.

 

[Simon Hogwood]

Coins and Scrolls has another good one today with OSR Fantasy Prosthetics.

 

[AsenRG]

This blog has a free take on fantasy rules for Traveller. I don't know how much more gameable you can get!

Crawdads and Dragons

Wherein I blather on RPG design, play, and stuff I design, as well as rules-lite games and classic D&D and Traveller (and others), proving that while I don't have a life, I do have a keyboard.

docgrognard.blogspot.com

 

[Simon Hogwood]

Dyson Logos has a pretty neat concept for today's map = a small section of a city magically saved from a volcano by unscrupulous priests and tuned into a super-secret bolthole for the criminal underworld.

 

[robertsconley]

Well I have How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox which is at 120,000 views and climbing.

Other popular posts are
How to make a Traveller Sandbox
Mapping with Hexes

I have a nice catalog of stuff to download in Stuff in the Attic.

 

[Rob Necronomicon]

This is a great thread! Some fantastic suggestions.

 

[Voros]

All the monsters in the 5e MM harvested for crafting items.

 

[AsenRG]

All the monsters in the 5e MM harvested for crafting items.

D&D 5e for when your players really want to be playing The Witcher?

 

[Voros]

A cool blog post about making maps on patterned paper.

 

[Simon Hogwood]

From Daniel J. Davis' blog Brain Leakage comes a system for spicing up combat in D&D.

 

[Voros]

 

[Voros]

An Alternate Spelljammer Setting

In 1898, the people of Earth discovered they weren’t alone when a brutal invasion was launched from Mars. Luckily, the mauve, squid-headed ...

sorcerersskull.blogspot.com

 

[Voros]

Jump Drives in Traveller - An Illumination

This post grew out of discussion with certain others about handwavium technologies in RPGs, with a specific focus on interstellar travel c...

elderskull.blogspot.com

 

[Voros]

Jason Thompson of the great Dungeon Map walkthroughs has a free high level adventure up on DM's Guild.

 

[spittingimage]

Supernatural Masterpieces: Emmy Allen's system for creating strongly themed magical items.

https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com/2019/07/supernatural-masterpieces.html