dankdungeonsrpg

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The Appx. N Jam

In May...

Jorphdan and I were talking about doing a project. We had, sometime in the distant past, mentioned that it would be fun to do an itch jam. So we decided to do that.

An itch jam is a competition (usually) held on the itch.io website. Its hosts get to make it about whatever and the site handles sign up and submission tracking.

We came up with a theme. It was The Appendix N. Where others had made contests around writing rpg supplements for specific systems or based on specific works, we chose to go in a bit more general direction.

The Appendix N is a collection of recommended reading Gary Gygax put in the 1st Edition AD&D DMs Guide.

The Appendix would serve only as a guide...or a vibe. But the content would be constrained.

Only 4 pages. Only modules. And only using a title prompt we provided. I wouldn't give participants a real book title, that would invite copyright infringement, instead I created a list of fake titles and randomly distributed them.

I also came up with a number of graphics for fake book covers. If you've followed this blog you've already seen them. They appear in my previous two posts.

We assembled judges. People we knew from the indie rpg sphere who had different specialties:

Diogo Nogueira (writer)

Tony Vasinda (publisher)

Nova aka Idle Cartulary (reviewer)

Sam Mameli aka Skullboy (artist)

We made a fun little promo video and launched just before July 1st.

Suffering From Success

Okay, I had done a lot of research going into this. I compared participant numbers of similar jams vs the popularity of their creators and a few other factors like time of year and prize pools.

Everything I saw pointed toward us getting around 100-150 sign ups and maybe 75 actual submissions.

We had over 150 sign ups on the first day.

As of writing this at the halfway point of the month-long jam we have over 600. In fact, I believe it's in the top 10 most participated jams happening on itch right now.

Luckily this has slowed down considerably but it did leave me in a complete panic the first week of the jam. I had to give out fake titles to each participant. I had prepped 100...so for a few days there I just spent every waking minute trying to pump out more titles.

An Amazing Community

We had set up a Discord Channel for participants to use for bouncing around ideas. I've been poking my head in there a lot to answer questions and I have been totally floored by not only the amount of creativity on display, but also the kindness, support, and encouragement demonstrated by these creators.

When we did a stream to introduce judges to the contestants and answer questions we were also given permission to show off some works in progress and it was great fun.

A Whole Lot Of Reading

Soon will come the next challenge. After the submission period ends at the end of the month all the judges will be setting to work reading and reviewing.

As you saw above we've already got over 25 and while I don't particularly trust my preliminary research, I would still assume we're not getting an over 50% submissions rate. So it's going to be a lot but our judge team has a plan.

Hopefully after a month or two we can have our awards ceremony (probably another livestream).

Closing Thoughts

I'm so grateful to the help I received on this project and completely blown away by the creativity of this community.

After this is all over, I've got a few more jam ideas ;)

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The Black Monarch’s Ghost - Created by Ben Turner

Here is the original box cover, for nostalgia’s sake.

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corridor ruckus

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The Pulps! Pt2

check out the first 4 fake covers and some useful links here

Another batch of fake book covers for an upcoming project. With these I've been messing around with blending modes, text distortion, more textures, and as always...gradient maps!

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The Pulps!

I've got a project coming up and as preparation I'm trying to get better at emulating that '70s beat up paperback look using Photoshop.

These images use techniques like photo collage, reticulation noise, gradient mapping, and texture overlays.

They use free images from Unsplash and The NYPL Digital Collections. Free fonts from Fontesk. Plus lots of info from YouTube tutorials like TextureLabs and Spoon Graphics.

It's been really fun so far!

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hey you!! i recently opened up a few commission options on VGen! go check them out + order if you so choose.

VGen.co/qrowscant

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don't touch!

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This is Shadowdark (2023), one of the most talked about RPGs in recent memory, certainly in the OSR neighborhood. It’s essentially the product of one person’s relentless labor — Kelsey Dionne, AKA Arcane Library — and a small pool of black ink swirlin’ artists — Lukas Korte, Brandish Gilhlm, Jesse Egan, Yuri Perkowski Domingos, Matt Morrow, Matt Ray, Mark Lyons and Abdul Latif.

But what is it? Boiled down to its essence, Shadowdark is a stripped-down version of 5E D&D, modified to provide something of the so-called Old-School experience. So, there are just four classes, combat is deadlier, exploration is limited by the necessity of torches (which introduces a lot of by-product problems for players to manage) and so on. In fact, exploration (and the finding of treasure) is really the core gameplay. In essence, Shadowdark does for 5E what Castles & Crusades did for 3E, though the end result here is more similar to something like Black Hack. There are modern comforts, like advantage and a luck mechanic. There’s new stuff, too. I have seen a lot of folks discussing the pros and cons of Shadowdark’s always-on initiative.

I don’t usually worry about time tracking or torches in my game, but Dionne makes a good case for doing so (in Shadowdark, torches last one hour of real time). It gives players something to always worry about and is more narratively interesting than encumbrance rules which I think have long been the other main way of messing with party traversal in a dungeon. I especially enjoy the GM section that encourages targeting the light and/or the holder of the torch.

It’s quite an accomplishment to deliver a system that plays well for both camps. Whether OSR or 5E player, the majority of the rules are recognizable, while the ones that aren’t should provide players pleasant surprises. That’s a rare thing!

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LIFE CYCLE

A seed from a divine source, the tree it grows into, and the demon that follows.

+++

THIRTY YEARS AGO, AS THE SUN SET

Prau Sa Pritiya danced. Her chest shivered, her hips swayed—she so stirred the god of hunters that he shook his house of sky.

That night there was a meteor shower: the stars fell, and set the forest afire. That night the god of hunters fell in love with Prau Sa Pritiya.

+

STAR SEED

Divine milt. Freshly spilt, it burns hot as a furnace. Any tool forged in its heat comes alive: able to speak and move of their own volition.

After three days the stuff has cooled enough to touch. A star seed fits in the palm of your hand. A fruit with firescale-like skin; glowing flesh inside.

Peel, eat. It is chewy and sweet and seedless. You will give birth to a child, on the next full moon. If you don’t have a womb, this will be fatal.

+++

THIS EVENING, ON THE MUDDY ROAD

Feet squelching to a six-count rhythm, rung by skin drums. The whole village marches behind a litter: borne by six men, bearing Lady Hind Eye.

Her eyes are two citrines. Her skin is wood. She wears an aureole of antlers. They promenade her now, at rains’ end, so the deer know to start fawning.

+

LADY HIND EYE God of fortune, god of finding, god of deer.

They fell as star seeds. Her sisters were eaten by animals, and became animals themselves. Only she was swallowed by the ground. She became a tree.

The brush surrounding her is littered with antlers. Stags leave them as gifts—thanking their aunt for finding them a mate.

She stands in a niche, carved into her trunk. She does not speak, but always listens; she knows all that happens in the forest. Her niblings are hopeless gossips.

Offering: A bunch of lychees. A fistful of fertilizer. Blessing: For a day, Lady Hind Eye smiles at any statement you make about her forest that she knows to be true.

+++

TEN YEARS HENCE, WHERE A FOREST ONCE STOOD

Winged insects swarm your lantern. Cricket song ceases. In its absence you notice a rustling: on the ground, all over; under your feet.

A sting on your ankle. Another. A bite between your toes. You stumble to the nearest rock, try to brush off this assault. This is when you see him.

+

THE MAN MADE OF EARTH

When a sacred tree is felled, and a termite nest consumes its stump, that nest eats pulp and grievance and becomes a mound demon.

Mud in the shape of a man. Moves the same way a mountain range does, in animations made to illustrate tectonic shift: geography sped up.

Civilisation is a house built to shelter us from nature, from time. The mound demon’s sole appetite is to bring houses down.

+

MOUND DEMON Hiding, bargaining, sabotaging. Punch (d6). Mud flesh (1 armour). 12 luck.

Light sources become crowded by alate termites whenever a mound demon is nearby. Disintegrates any single piece of worked wood to dust at a touch.

Once per turn: may spit a baby-sized glob of glue as far as a knife throw. If hit you are stuck fast; you will need help and time to get free.

Once per turn: may cover a trunk-wide patch of ground in a bitey mass of soldier termites; d4 damage every turn you end there.

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( Image sources: https://bctkpd.com/2019/07/24/3335/ https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-bogor-gong-workshop-dying-craft-3262456 https://amoghavarshaiaskas.in/sambar-deer/ https://mytravelindonesia.com/travel-agency-bali-indonesia/travel-guide/the-significance-of-the-banyan-tree-in-balinese-culture/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrotermes_carbonarius https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alarming-sonar-results-show-glaciers-may-be-melting-faster-than-we-expected/ https://warisanpetani.blogspot.com/2018/12/mb-67-busut-jantan.html )

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Restless specter. Her body seems ethereal, otherworldly, yet those eerie tendrils are all too real. ··· A new addition to the collection.

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paladin oaths :)!

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Multi adventure RPG cover I did art for

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The wizard scours an ancient tome for mystical secrets (Russ Nicholson, from "A Spellcaster's Guide to Arcane Power" by Bill Milne, White Dwarf 23, Feb/Mar 1981) 

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FF X MtG Revised

Recall Illus. Richard Kane Ferguson

First of all, a big shout out to @uncleasriel for really digging into my last design post on this! Sorry it took so long to put this next post together. I hope to answer (most) of your questions.

One line in particular really stood out to me from their post: "Does this lead to fun gameplay? Or does it slow down the game? I feel I'm trying to make Magic: the Gathering with RP elements rather than a Roleplaying Game with MtG elements"

This is an important design decision that is so easy to lose sight of. Do we want Magic to be central to the game (ie, all characters use it, this is a game about dueling sorcerers) or do we want it to a sub-system within the RPG (ie wizards have this spell mechanic, rogues and fighters have their own things going on)

Personally, I like it as a sub-system. That behooves us to be slim in our design for risk of making the game overall too cumbersome.

Buckle in. This is a long (and somewhat disjointed) post.

Fighting Fantasy Skeleton

Kjeldoran Dead Illus. Melissa Benson

I spend a lot of time in these posts talking about Magic, but let's talk about Fighting Fantasy. I did a whole video series breakdown on the system if you're interested.

But actually, let's not talk about Fighting Fantasy. Let's talk about TROIKA. As I've said before, Troika makes one extremely smart mechanical change that fixes a lot of Fighting Fantasy's issues. It reduces base Skill. This ends up making rolls matter more because in the original game a high Skill (by and large) ensures victory. Let's adapt that.

Sidenote: I've done this before with my game AZAG

So here's our stat generation:

Skill - Roll 1d3+3

Stamina - Roll 2d6+12

Luck - Roll 1d6+6

And how we determine starting spells:

9 minus your Skill Stat are how many Ability Points you have

There are 5 Colors of Magic: Black(B), Blue(U), Green(G), Red(R), and White(W)

Distribute your Ability Points among them. Putting a point in a color allows you to cast it. Also, for each point you may choose 3 Common Spells of that color

Another very good thing to look at Troika for is flavor. Troika is a weird science fantasy rpg. It communicates this through it's backgrounds. They are delightful. Ranging from Burglar to Fellow of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks.

from TROIKA! Numinous Edition

We could make all sorts of character archetypes inspired by MtG's multiverse. Or we could just do one per color. Lots of options in this framework. Plus both settings have multi-planar themes, they just approach them very differently.

Also worth noting that Troika advises 12 Ability Points when creating a custom background. This makes sense, but I just want to dial that back a bit for testing.

Testing Set: 5th Edition

It's not just the most popular D&D edition, it's also a great MtG Core Set.

For testing, I think a core set is important to keep things simple and avoid expansion specific gimmicks, but why use 5th ed in particular? Mostly personal preference. I think it represents a good cross section of the early days of the game, which are the days I'm most interested in.

Maybe it would make the most sense to use a starter set...

Banned Cards, Rarity, and Finding Spells

So what cards do players have access to? The basic rules are:

Remove the Creatures

Remove the Artifacts

Remove the Lands and land dependent cards (Enchant Lands mostly)

Remove Bounce (Unsummon/Boomerang)

Low cost creature destruction bumps up in rarity to Rare (Terror, Pyroblast/Hydroblast)

Remove Reanimation (Raise Dead/Reanimate)

When players choose their three spells on character creation they're looking at commons.

When they find spell scrolls or spell books? Random cards! Maybe not even in a color anyone can cast. Really make it feel like opening a pack. If they're easy to find then maybe just Commons, but if its the archmages study? Gotta be Rares.

Multiple copies of Commons are fine, a couple copies of Uncommons, maybe okay. More than one Rare? I wouldn't recommend it.

Monsters

Chub Toad Illus. Daniel Gelon

As I talked about in my last post on this topic, summoning creatures slows the game down to a crawl!

They're great as enemies though! (as long as an NPC isn't summoning them)

So right now that's all I'm using them for, but in future play tests I may introduce (very) limited use of them as summons.

In terms of creature abilities, particularly those that cost mana, I'm currently ruling that GMs get a Mana Die (see A Round of Combat with: The Mana Cube below). So creatures can activate or do more later into combat.

There are obviously a bunch of edge cases, even in a core set. Honestly I'm just flying by the seat of my pants on a lot of these.

Players fighting spell casting NPCs is something I've tried a bit. Still not super worth it for enemies to be able to summon creatures but starting with minions is fine.

An evil goblin sorcerer with a Flame Spirit, a couple Mon's Goblin Raiders, and a small deck of spells was a great boss encounter!

A Tale of Two Decks

Here's a thing that may change, each spell caster has two decks: One for combat, and one for narrative.

A wizard can decide which spells from their repertoire go in which deck at the start of the adventuring day.

Combat Decks are similar to MtG

We'll get into Combat later, but you're basically just casting these spells as written. You draw, you have a graveyard, the whole thing. One rule I'm not sure on yet is what happens when this deck runs out. In some instances we've reshuffled the graveyard back into library, in others we just view the casters as depleted for spells for that combat...baring a Feldon's Kane.

This deck lends itself to the crunchy cards we may see as better outside the narrative. I'd rather have a Brainstorm in here than in deck number two.

We just don't really care much about color symbols. If you can cast Green spells and Red spells than any mana you generate (outside of an artifact) is Green or Red in any combination you choose.

Outside combat cards are Narrative Decks

This is all about flavor and role playing. You're taking about taking a card name and interpreting it.

Flashfires creates spreading flames

Stasis holds objects or creates in place

Giant Growth makes a creature big

Portent gives a sign of weal or woe

Tsunami summons a wave

Flight...well you know

In a previous post I referred to this as Miltonian Casting, citing the way spell effects work in Ben Milton's Maze Rats, although unlike that game, we're not really generating spell names on the fly, just what they do. Also, pretty sure Milton is not the first person to do this. So I'm just going to call it Narrative Casting for now.

There are some limits, most obviously that if spells are in your Narrative Deck they can't be in your Combat Deck. Also, Narrative Casting is fire and forget. This allowed me to justify Armageddon. Ongoing spells last a number of Turns (10min intervals) equal to their Mana Value. Saving throws isn't something I've tried yet, but tying that to Mana Value in some way also feels like a good first step.

A Round of Combat with: The Mana Cube

Mana Vault Illus. Mark Tedin

I tried out the Hearthstone mana method mentioned in previous posts. It worked pretty well! We used a d6 (since it's the only die type in FF) that ticks up each round to track mana for casting.

Here's how Round 1 of combat currently breaks down:

Place character sheet, any artifacts or other items you control, your Combat Spell Deck, and a d6 (Mana Die) in front of you.

Set the Mana Die to 1

Draw a card

Take an Action (This can be casting any spell, activating an Artifact, or swinging a sword. Tap cards as normal and consider yourself tapped when you're done. Remove the Mana Die if you spend your 1 mana)

Pass Turn

Subsequent Rounds:

Untap

Increase Mana Die to 1 higher than it was last round (it's like lands, so spending your 1 Mana on Round 1 doesn't mean you're starting over at 1 Mana on Round 2)

Draw a card

Take an Action

Pass Turn

You can do things like activating abilities or casting Instants whenever, as long as you have the Mana.

We were worried this would be slow, but actually the narrowing of choice helped a lot. When players started with a multi card hand and could cast with Stamina it was overwhelming. Remember, it's still an RPG. You can use your action to attack with a sword or climb a way. There's still plenty to do while you wait for your Mana Die to increase.

You may also have noticed that the Mana Die (being a d6) means players cap out at 6 mana. Yes. I may change that later but for play testing right now. It's a workable limit. Get your hands on a mana generating artifact, play a Dark Ritual, or just play Green if you want more.

Misc Rules

Pentagram of the Ages Illus. Douglas Schuler

Artifacts: They're basically just items. Find them in the word and use them as written in most cases. They're not spells so you don't draw them. They're just on your character and thus "in play" when combat starts. Outside, as with any card, we interpret narrative-ly.

Enchantments vs Auras: Currently Enchantments are what you cast on yourself and Enchant Creatures are what you cast on others. Sometimes you can cast Enchant Creature cards on yourself too...its a bit squishy right now.

Lands: Still not involved. Not that there weren't some great ideas thrown out about them, but it's just an element I don't feel comfortable incorporating yet.

Attunement: I really liked the Attunement ideas in @uncleasriel's post. It's something I want to mess with in my next play test.

What even is Banding? Scientists just don't know.

End Step

The next thing to do here is just to write this up as a play test rules doc. That probably would have been quicker than writing this whole dang post...whoops. Anywho, that's my next thing, along with another play test.

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Wonderful work!

-BG3 Tav commission for Ryo !-

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Jorphdan and I did a video flip-through of this a while back. Really great book!

Let’s have a quiet moment. This is The Sorcerer’s Enclave (2022), a narrative art book by Aaron Howdle. It isn’t really an RPG book, but it also isn’t not an RPG book.

Essentially, it is a very large cross-section illustration of a school of magic, secluded on an island, done in a style reminiscent of early Warhammer, or perhaps Fighting Fantasy. Each spread of the book zooms in on one particular area of the cross-section — the orrery, the golem manufactory and so on — and in brief prose details what goes on there. The world is both fanciful and dark (of course the island’s necromancer is up to no good). It’s brief, but beautiful and fascinating. There is seemingly an infinite amount of detail to pull from the illustration, something new for each browse. I keep pulling it off the shelf to look at, just one more time.

And while it isn’t formally an RPG book, it would take very little effort to make it one, the setting for an adventure or two. And if not that, there’s no shortage of inspiration to draw for other aspects of a game. I hope Howdle does more, I’d fill a shelf with these.

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Manuel Bujados, 1927