gnomes-r-us

[gnomes-r-us]

I’m building a dnd class rn called “Just Some Guy” and the whole thing is that they are just supremely bad at combat and ability checks the whole time. at level 20 u get an ability called “Fucking Finally” where u get the level 1 abilities of another class. ur hit dice are d4s and the only thing u have proficiency in is improvised weapons. this is the funniest thing I’ve done in a hot minute

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It always bugs me when someone talks about wanting to GM their own D&D campaign for themselves and some joker in the note goes “that’s called writing a book”. No, it’s not called writing a book. The output of a solo RPG may be a book, particularly if you’re playing as a guided writing exercise, but the process is pretty different. Having a formal framework of rules to play with is actually pretty critical for a lot of people – as any improv artist could tell you, limitations breed creativity!

So this isn’t just a contextless grump, have a rec list of a few personal favourite RPGs that are either designed to be played as solo guided writing exercises, or otherwise explicitly support solo play:

9 Questions - A screenwriting exercise adapted as a framework for solo RPG scenarios. This one is more of a meta-game designed to paired with another system, ideally something fairly rules-light.

Abnormal - A body-horror-centric game about a regular human who’s being slowly consumed by an alien parasite. Uses a custom deck of cards; it’s included in the PDF, but you’ll have to print it yourself.

ALONe - A solo RPG engine designed for use with the GameMaster’s Apprentice line of card decks. A fairly pricey buy-in, since you need to buy the deck separately, but it’s discounted at the time of this posting.

Alone on Silver Wings - A solo journaling game driven by a heavily modified Apocalypse Engine variant. Available as part of the Four Ways to Die in the Future anthology, linked.

Hall of the Dwarven King - Arguably more of a solo board game than a solo tabletop RPG, this one is probably best described as tabletop Dwarf Fortress. Remarkably deep for a one-page game.

Ironsworn - A travel-centric RPG inspired by Norse folklore. Supports GMless two player co-op as well as true solo play, so it’s good for basically any scenario where nobody wants to GM.

Oculus (warning: direct PDF link) - Another journaling game, in this one you take on the role of a wizard guiding a fated hero via some sort of magical scrying device.

Of the Woods - An anthology of six short solo games by six different authors. The anthology’s theme is faith, isolation, and the intersection between the two, so not one to play if you need to lift your mood!

Quill - This one’s an oddball: a letter-writing game where dice are used not to determine outcomes, but to decide which words and phrases you need to work into your letters. Several expansions available.

SCRAWL - The title’s short for “Solo Crawl”, and it’s basically what it says on the tin: an old school kill-the-monsters-and-take-their-stuff dungeon crawl engine retooled for solo play.

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There's a not insignificant chance I'll get to open a DND club at my school so I made these quick charts to help. They're made to be printed in A5 format, and if anyone is interested I can try and put a link to the PDF version on drive.

First image covers the type and names of dice. Image 2 explains ability scores, img 3 explains what modifiers, HP, AC, Proficiency, DC saving throw & death save mean.

Image 4 & 5 are also lists of words but they have a big red logo with white axes in it. Img 4 explains flanking, advantage, disadvantage, melee range, critical hit/fail, area of effect and ranged spell attack. Img 5 explains the elements of combat: Initiative, what a Round is, movement, action, bonus action, reaction, attack of opportunity.

My next step is to make one of these per class to help players remember their main level 1 features and main rolls, but that's probably going to have to wait until later.

This effort was inspired by GinnyDi's video about how to help new players like the game on YouTube. Please reblog if this seems useful to you!

[gnomes-r-us]

Here is a free pdf of the players handbook

Here is a free pdf of xanathars guide to everything

Here is a free pdf to monsters manual

Here is a free pdf to tashas cauldron of everything

Here is a free pdf to dungeon master’s guide

Here is a free pdf to volo’s guide to monsters

Here is a free pdf of mordenkainen’s tomb of foes

For all your dnd purposes

[gnomes-r-us]

Elf video games: 300 hour jrpgs with legions of characters and several novels worth of text. Labrynthine upgrade trees and customization options. The most insufferably unintuitive UI possible. A single turn based battle can take hours. Every character has an ennui stat.

Dwarf video games: Basebuilding strategy FPSs that has a whole wiki page on the flexile vs tensile strengths of different building materials. Dwarven rhythm games have minigames where you have to manage supply lines. Mortals cannot comprehend dwarven grand strategy games.

Halfling video games: What appears on the surface to be a viscerally calming farming sim is actually an extraordinarily complex social combat game about cutthroat HOA politics.

Goblin video games: Wildly unbalanced collectathon gatchas where half the fun is finding new hilariously broken strategies. Zany uberviolent team shooters about bugs. MOBAs so bad it's almost art.

Orc video games: Addictive in-browser flash games with names like "Beast Crush 4" and "Borag Meat Game." The art is always kinda bad but in a charming way. The music always slaps.

[gnomes-r-us]

“I NEED A RIDE HOME”

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More inadvisable solutions for how those two RPG villages apparently have regular contact with each other in spite of every square inch of territory between the two communities being overrun with bears that shoots lasers at you:

The villagers know to travel only on foggy days, when the atmospheric moisture attenuates the range of the lasers  

The region’s broken terrain offers ample hard cover, and its people are masters of defensive parkour  

Intercommunity travel is accomplished principally by means of a pair of very precisely calibrated catapults  

The laser bears are kept mollified through the regular sacrifice of picnic baskets  

There exists a special caste of entertainers whose job is to keep the laser bears distracted, their hunger for human flesh being exceeded only by their hunger for interpretive dance  

The laser bears aren’t very bright, and can be induced to target travelling villagers’ large and fanciful decoy hats  

All travel between the two villages occurs during the laser bears’ union-mandated lunch breaks  

The laser bears have little interest in travellers, being obliged to conserve their energy for their ongoing territorial standoff with an invasive population of chainsaw moose  

It’s actually just the player characters in particular that the laser bears are trying to kill  

Nobody told the player characters about the secret tunnel

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for what purpose 

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YOU KNOW WHAT BOTHERS ME

when fantasy books describe the cloth of Quant Farmpeople’s clothing as “homespun” or “rough homespun”

“homespun” as opposed to what??? EVERYTHING WAS SPUN AT HOME

they didn’t have fucking spinning factories, your pseudo-medieval farmwife is lucky if she has a fucking spinning wheel, otherwise she’s spinning every single thread her family wears on a drop spindle NO ONE ELSE WAS DOING THE SPINNING unless you go out of your way to establish a certain baseline of industrialization in your fake medieval fantasy land.

and “rough”??? lol just because it’s farm clothes? bitch cloth was valuable as fuck because of the labor involved ain’t no self-respecting woman gonna waste fiber and ALL THAT FUCKING TIME spinning shitty yarn to weave into shitty cloth she’s gonna make GOOD QUALITY SHIT for her family, and considering that women were doing fiber prep/spinning/weaving for like 80% of their waking time up until very recently in world history, literally every woman has the skills necessary to produce some TERRIFYINGLY GOOD QUALITY THREADS

come to think of it i’ve never read a fantasy novel that talks about textile production at all??? like it’s even worse than the “where are all the farms” problem like where are people getting the cloth if no one’s doing the spinning and weaving??? kmart???

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1d12 Quests For Low-Level Adventurers!

Locals claim to have found treasure within a newly discovered dungeon. However, it is a complex trap intended to harvest souls, magical power, or life energy.

Something has cursed a local villager to live their entire life in a single day. Every morning they wake up a newborn and age a single year every 20 minutes.

A hag has cursed a small town due to a deal made with one of the residents. As time goes on, the residents discover they are unable to cast any sort of healing magics.

A young couple has gained immense fame from their macabre sculptures. They ask the players to be their new models. However, the eccentric couple turns out to be two Medusas in disguise.

A traveling circus has come to town and proceeds to put on a fantastic show. However, they disappear in the morning without a trace, taking several children with them.

A wizard NPC must be raised from the dead to act as a living key to open his tower, but a demon has kidnaped the only cleric powerful enough to do so.

An water elemental has taken residence in the sewers. The crazed creature has waged a personal war on the citizens above for polluting its domain.

Treasure hunters recently unearthed a powerful artifact that allows teleportation in and out of the Layers of Hell. Demons and devils have begun to raid the town in search of the item.

After returning from another kingdom, the nobleman’s wife begins acting strangely. The doppelgänger put in her place was meant to kill the nobleman, but has fallen for him instead.

A massive rift in reality appears in the skies above. Strange entities from alternate planes begin to emerge. It is up to the players to discover the intent of the invading individuals.

A blacksmith has asked the party to retrieve a recently fallen meteor. However, the players find were-beasts and lycanthropes worshipping the fallen star.

A local mage has mysteriously passed away, and all manner of creatures and magic has begun to creep from their tower into the surrounding cities.

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So, you enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons, yes? I'm sure we've all seen those YouTubers or podcast campaigns with elaborate setups, a shelf full of sourcebooks, hand-painted minis in fancy glass cases, and a designated table just for DnD with a screen inlaid. But what if you can't afford all that? What if you don't have a steady flow of income, or you can't drop 50 bucks on a sourcebook? Well, you're in luck. This is:

Dungeons and Dragons (on a budget)

For context, I'm a minor. I'm unemployed, since I live in a small town and am not old enough to get a job, and the most money I get per year is from birthdays and holidays. You might be in a similar situation, or you have rent, food, and gas to pay for and not enough money to spend on expensive amenities. Trust me, you don't need all those fancy doohickeys to enjoy a nice round of DnD. So let's rifle through my kit. To start,

My DM screen. This is the screen that came in the DnD Essentials Kit. Trust me, the Starters and Essentials Kits are worth their weight in gold. They're often cheaper than the sourcebooks and come with an incredible amount of information, and even an adventure for your party to play through. These are definitely a worthwhile investment.

Next up,

Dice! I have a total of 11 sets, with a handful of individual dice. You do NOT need this many. Just one set for you, and maybe some for your players if they don't have them, that's enough. You can buy them in groups of 5 or so sets on Amazon.

Now, for the most important thing.

Notebooks! If you don't have sourcebooks, these are your next best bet. The two I use most often are those on top. In the black one is information you need to make a character or NPC, as well as a standard inventory. The History of Magic book has a summary of every spell from the sourcebooks from Cantrips to 9th level. A lot of this information can be found on the internet for free. This takes a long, long time. But if you have more time than money, these will be worth your while. The other notebooks can be used for organizing campaigns, taking notes, keeping track of combat, etc.

Now for the fun part.

Making things! The spellcards I made for my cleric, so he knows what his spells do. And those towers in the back are dice towers made of paper, tape, and cardboard. We use copy paper to track maps and initiative, we play on our grandma's kitchen table, the players' character sheets came from the essentials kit, I make smaller character sheets for prominent NPCs, and I draw pictures of NPCs and regions to help my players understand everything better. So get creative!

If you can afford sourcebooks and still have enough to survive and pay to take care of yourself and those who depend on you, they are a worthwhile investment. These are all of the sourcebooks I own.

I hope you enjoyed this look through how I run my homebrew campaign, and I hope you got some useful tips! Remember, your survival and well-being is top priority. Don't buy an expensive sourcebook if you can't afford to eat without that extra 50 dollars. Survival first, comfort second, DnD third. And you don't need to buy expensive things to play. You can have just as much fun with a piece of paper and cardboard miniatures as your map.

Happy pillaging, and stay safe!

[gnomes-r-us]

You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards.

A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments

A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane

An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry

A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town

Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up

Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree’s children may grow in its place

Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit

Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can’t bring anyone new in.

Anyway, think about it.

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Welcome to Thursday, to Marquet, and to Campaign 3! With the return of the show, that means a return to bingo. Some of you may remember from post-hiatus Campaign 2 and Exandria Unlimited, but to those of you joining us now, good luck.

This call list has 50 items, many of which are represented in the example cards above and all of which are listed below the cut, you can grab your own shuffled card here at this wonderful link.

As in the past, I will not be posting a full list of legal squares after the show because that is a drain on my EST self, but I will be answering questions on the legality of a square during and after. Generally, it is left to your personal discretion and per the intent of my notes, which we will get to in a moment, and if you want to ask me for a ruling.

So, here are the call list notes:

A subclass listed in the Tal'Dorei Campaign setting is "homebrew subclass". One listed in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is intended to be a "subclass from another source".

PHB, Player's Handbook. XGTE, Xanathar's Guide to Everything. TCOE, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

A full caster is any class that can cast a spell at level 1.

Marriage does not count toward "PCs are related". Adoption does.

"PC gives a surname" is intended as a surname they introduce themselves with as part of their long-term used name. It does not count for temporary disguises.

Very short and very tall are subjective and to your discretion, but I would define the former as less than 4'5" and the latter as over 6'5". Note the modifier "very".

Half-elves do not count toward "more than one elf". It's not "one and a half elves".

I will be doing this every week that I am keeping up with the campaign, and at this moment, I intend to. In the future, as we gain more understanding of the characters and the narrative, I will incorporate predictions on character points and story beats, as I've done in the past.

I do love to see who gets bingo, so feel free to tag me if you win. It does help me make better cards going forward. You can check out my "#CritRole bingo" tag for past cards, and to keep up with cards in the future.

artificer

barbarian

bard

cleric

druid

fighter

monk

paladin

ranger

rogue

sorcerer

warlock

wizard

blood hunter

homebrew subclass

PHB subclass

XGTE subclass

TCOE subclass

subclass from other source

more than two full casters

three or more PCs know each other already

PCs knew each other longer than a month

animal companion

PC is religiously inclined

PCs are related

PC not from Marquet

PC gives a surname

PC background discernible

Sam's character is very short

Sam's character is very tall

more than one elf

Investigation check

Religion check

Stealth check

Performance check

Deception check

Persuasion check

Perception check

Insight check

someone rolls a save

someone makes an attack

someone uses class feature

leveled spell cast

cantrip cast

Initiative

someone gains or earns money

someone spends or loses money

J'mon mentioned or alluded to

natural 20

natural 1

[gnomes-r-us]

Magic Item: Patron’s Gift by Feralborn_Trading on reddit

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Here’s a little trick I’ve used in D&D games where the premise of your campaign calls for the party to have access to lots of Stuff, but you don’t want to do a whole bunch of bookkeeping: the Wagon.

In a nutshell, the party has a horse-drawn wagon that they use to get around between – and often during – adventures. This doesn’t come out of any individual player character’s starting budget; it’s just provided as part of the campaign premise.

Before setting out from a town or other place of rest, the party has to decide how many gold pieces they want to spend on supplies. These funds aren’t spent on anything in particular, and form a running total that represents how much Stuff is in the wagon.

Any time a player character needs something in the way of supplies during a journey or adventure, one of two things can happen:

1. If it’s something that any fool would have packed for the trip and it’s something that could reasonably have been obtained at one of the party’s recent stopovers (e.g., rations, spare clothing, fifty feet of rope, etc.), then the wagon contains as much of it as they reasonably need. Just deduct the Player’s Handbook list price for the item(s) in question from the wagon’s total.

2. If it’s something where having packed it would take some explaining, or if it’s something that’s unlikely to have been available for purchase at any of the party’s recent stopovers (e.g., a telescope, a barrel of fine wine, a book of dwarven erotic poetry, etc.), the player in need makes a retroactive Intelligence or Wisdom check, versus a DC set by the GM, to see if they somehow anticipated the need for the item(s) in question. Proficiency may apply to this check, depending on what’s needed. The results are read as follows:

Success: You find what you’re looking for, more or less. If the group is amenable, you can narrate a brief flashback explaining the circumstances of its acquisition. Deduct its list price (or a price set by the GM, if it’s not on the list) from the wagon’s total.

Failure by 5 points or less: You find something sort of close to what you’re looking for. The GM decides exactly what; it won’t ever be useless for the purpose at hand, but depending on her current level of whimsy, it may simply be a lesser version of what you were looking for, or it may be something creatively off the mark. Deduct and optionally flash back as above.

Failure by more than 5 points: You come up empty-handed, and can’t try again for that item or anything closely resembling it until after your next stopover.

As an incidental benefit, all the junk the wagon is carrying acts as a sort of ablative armour. If the wagon or its horses would ever take damage, instead subtract a number of gold pieces from its total equal to the number of hit points of damage it would have suffered. The GM is encouraged to describe what’s been destroyed in lurid detail.

[gnomes-r-us]

Here is a free pdf of the players handbook

Here is a free pdf of xanathars guide to everything

Here is a free pdf to monsters manual

Here is a free pdf to tashas cauldron of everything

Here is a free pdf to dungeon master’s guide

Here is a free pdf to volo’s guide to monsters

Here is a free pdf of mordenkainen’s tomb of foes

For all your dnd purposes

[gnomes-r-us]

The mushroom creatures of artist Collette Xavier