#Tabeltop Games

[craigofinspiration]

How I Run Initiative In Dungeons and Dragons 5e (and a free download!)

There are many ways to handle initiative in D&D and TTRPGs in general. It took me some time but I finally found a method that works for me. I know this won't work for everyone but at least I hope it inspires you. Let me know what you think.

There are many ways to handle initiative in D&D and TTRPGs in general. It took me some time but I finally found a method that works for me. I know this won’t work for everyone but at least I hope it inspires you. Let me know what you think. So the first thing I do before the session even starts is determine the initiative I’m going to use for the monsters. Depending on the combat I’ll use their…

[sequentialplanet]

Tabletop Game Review: My City

Tabletop Game Review: My City

My City KOSMOS 2-4 Players Playtime: 30 Minutes   Legacy games can certainly be polarizing. For those who aren’t familiar with them, these board games are played as a campaign with the same players through every session. These games slowly build up toward a conclusion of some sort. While this sounds neat, the drawback is that the board is often permanently altered by the end of these experiences…

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Six Shooter Universal RPG System

I've been thinking a bit recently, and it feels like the right time to dig my old prototype rules-light game out of its box and release it on the world. If anybody's interested, please feel free to take it for a spin, I'd love to know what you and your friends think of it.

I've also got a separate blog set up where I'll post any new/revised versions, should I continue development on it.

The Basics:

Playing Equipment:

A 52 card deck, jokers optional

A six-sided die (backup dice in case it is lost are also a good idea)

Paper for each player

Pencils for each player

Operators: 

Player characters are “Operators,” adventurers, explorers, criminals, mercenaries, and other people who live on the edge. Each Operator starts with a Descriptor, an Archetype, and a Lucky Number.

There are four Descriptors to choose from, each of which correlates to both a specific card suit and a way of solving problems, and which helps give an idea of what an Operator is best at. What Descriptor your Operator has influences how you can use cards (see below, under Playing the Game). The Descriptors are as follows:

Dangerous (Clubs) – Weathering extreme environments, fighting with fists, weapons, or powers, moving heavy objects, and resisting damage. The best fighters are Dangerous.

Sharp (Diamonds) – Solving riddles and academic problems, carefully observing the world around you, having just the right bit of knowledge, or breaking through digital security systems. The best thinkers are Sharp.

 Sly (Spades) – Going unnoticed, disguising yourself, unlocking physical security systems, and picking pockets. The best sneaks are Sly.

Charming (Hearts) – Persuading, deceiving, intimidating, negotiating, and networking. The best talkers are Charming.

An Operator’s Archetype has no direct bearing on game mechanics, but it is very important for helping make sense of how that Operator interacts with the world around them. An Archetype is a word or short phrase that you use to get across the most important parts of who your character is, what they can do, and how they fit into the world around them. For example, a medieval Knight and a wild-west Gunslinger will probably both be Dangerous and specialize in fighting, but the actions their rolls represent will probably be very different. Likewise, even within the same game, a medieval Knight and a medieval Famed Archer will approach the same situation in different ways and make the same rolls with different descriptions of their actions.

Your Operator’s Archetype should slot in nicely with the genre and tone of the game you’re playing. If you and your friends are playing a standard heroic fantasy game, you probably shouldn’t pick Noir Detective as your Archetype. In a gothic horror game, a Superhero will be similarly out of place.

Each player should pick a Lucky Number for their Operator from 2 to 10. No two Operators at the same table should start with the same Lucky Number.

Setting up the game:

Working clockwise around the table, have each player introduce their Operator, including their Descriptor, Archetype, Lucky Number, and whatever other information they’d like to share.

Shuffle the deck of cards. Clockwise around the table, have the Game Master (GM) deal six cards to each player, then place the rest of the deck in the middle of the table. Each player should place their six cards face-down in a line going from left to right in front of them. This line of cards is the player’s hand. Each card in the player’s hand represents a number from 1 to 6, with 1 being the leftmost card, and each subsequent card’s value increasing by 1, with 6 being the rightmost card.

Have each player turn one card of their choice from their hand face-up and begin the game.

Playing the game:

Deciding Turn Order:  Whenever multiple players want to tackle the same challenge, have them draw from the center deck and immediately discard the cards they drew. The higher the value of the card a player draws, the higher they are in turn order. If two or more players tie, have them draw again, with the one with the higher card going before the other in the turn order.

It’s recommended that the GM keep a piece of scratch paper around to keep track of the current turn order.

If, at any point during the game, the deck runs out of cards, shuffle the discard pile and use it as the deck.

Overcoming Challenges: 

Throughout the course of play, the characters will have to roll to try to complete certain objectives. However, the primary purpose of Six Shooter games is for a group of people to improvise and tell a story together, so the GM should only ask for rolls and introduce that degree of randomness in certain situations; when there is a real possibility for characters to fail or have their fortunes change. Rolls are made with a six-sided die, and the outcome of the die roll is measured against something called the Critical Number.

The Critical Number represents the difficulty of the task the character is attempting, and has different effects on the game based on whether the outcome of a character’s die roll is lower than, greater than, or equal to the Critical Number.

If the result of the roll is greater than the Critical Number, the Operator overcomes the challenge they are facing.

If the result of the roll is equal to the Critical Number, the Operator overcomes the challenge, but the player must Roll Their Hand (see below).

If the result of the roll is less than the Critical Number, the Operator does not overcome the challenge (and may have to deal with the in-story consequences of failure), and the player must Roll Their Hand.

A challenge’s Critical Number gives a rough idea of how difficult the challenge in question should be for the Operators. You don’t have to tell your players the exact Critical Numbers for challenges before they roll, but it’s generally polite to give them a rough idea of how difficult a certain challenge will be (or at least, how difficult it might seem to their Operators). Here’s some guidelines to give the GM a rough idea of how to assign Critical Numbers for challenges:

0 or lower – The Operator overcomes the challenge without having to roll. Challenges should not naturally have this Critical Number, but it can happen if the player uses a card (see below) to reduce the Critical Number of a challenge.

1 – The Operator is sure to succeed, but it might take a little effort and luck on their part to do so.

2 – There is a slight chance for the Operator to fail, but they’re still almost certain to succeed. This is a good ‘standard’ Critical Number for challenges, enemies, and obstacles that should wear Operators down but that they should be able to overcome just fine.

3 – The Operator will most likely succeed, but the chance of them failing is not insignificant.

4 – The Operator is as likely to fail as they are to succeed.

5 – There’s a slight chance for the Operator to succeed, but they’re far more likely to fail without rigging the odds in their favor.

6 – The Operator is almost certain to fail, and even succeeding will bring them a little closer to the day their luck runs out.

7 – The Operator will fail unless they use a card or the All Or Nothing rules (see below), and even then, their success is likely still far from assured. Multiple Strikes (see below) will never increase a Critical Number above 7.

Impossible – There’s no point in the character rolling because what they’re trying is completely impossible within the bounds of the story you are telling, so they don’t roll and need to search for a different solution to the problem. For example, unless your game is set in a fairy tale world where people can climb moonbeams, a character attempting to climb moonbeams would result in this.

A single challenge might have multiple Critical Numbers, one each for trying to overcome a challenge through Danger, Sharpness, Slyness, or Charm. For example, a locked door challenge might have a Critical Number of 4 if an Operator uses Slyness to pick the lock, 5 if they try to break the door down, 7 to try to find some hidden weakness in the door with Sharpness, and be Impossible to overcome with Charm (of course, if there’s a guard with keys on the other side of the door, then that’s a different challenge altogether).

A character failing to overcome a challenge does not necessarily mean that they can’t try again. If there’s no time limit or imminent danger, then the only immediate consequence of failure might be the player having to Roll Their Hand. Of course, after a certain number of failures, the GM might decide to move the story along without the Operator having succeeded, with any consequences that follow being yet more challenges for the Operators to deal with.

Rolling Your Hand: 

As mentioned above, when the result of your roll is equal to or less than a challenge’s Critical Number, you must Roll Your Hand. What this means is that you roll the die another time, then find the card in your hand that matches the number you rolled. What happens next depends on whether that card is face-down, face-up, or has already been discarded.

If the card is face-down, flip it face-up.

If the card is face-up, discard it without gaining any benefits.

If the card has already been discarded and is missing, you gain a Strike.

Strikes: 

Strikes are used to abstractly represent your Operator’s luck slowly but surely running out, as well as accumulating disadvantages like serious injuries or running lower on resources. For each Strike you have, the Critical Number of all challenges is increased by 1 (but never above 7) for your Operator and your Operator only. Once you get your third Strike, your Operator’s luck runs out completely and they are removed from play. This could be used to represent authorities catching them and taking them into custody, old enemies catching up to them, being too injured to continue with the adventure, or even dying.

Using Cards: 

Throughout the game, you can use face-up cards from your hand to increase your Operator’s odds of success. You must declare your use of a card and discard it before you make a roll. The Critical Number for your roll is then reduced by a certain value based on the card you used:

2-10 – The Critical Number is reduced by 1.

Jack – The Critical Number is reduced by 2.

Queen – The Critical Number is reduced by 3.

King – The Critical Number is reduced by 4.

Ace – The Critical Number is reduced by 5.

Normally, you can only use a card if its suit matches up with the method you are using to try to overcome a challenge (clubs for Danger, diamonds for Sharpness, spades for Slyness, and hearts for Charm). The one exception is when the method you are using matches your Operator’s Descriptor, in which case you can use a card of any suit to reduce the Critical Number. For example, a Dangerous Operator has no clubs with which to improve his odds when trying to overcome a challenge in a Dangerous way, but he does have a face-up three of spades, which he uses instead.

You can also use a card to improve another Operator’s odds, but only if the suit of the card you are using, your Operator’s Descriptor, and the method they are using all match up. For example, if a Charming Operator is trying to sneak unnoticed past a guard with Slyness, the player of a Sly Operator can use her face-up jack of spades to reduce the Critical Number of the challenge by 2 for the Charming Operator. As above, the card must be used before the roll takes place.

Only 1 card can be used on any given roll.

Beyond the raw mechanical benefits, the use of cards is an excellent time for players to have an influence on the flow of the plot and let their Descriptor and Archetype shine. The reduction of the Critical Number of a challenge might be the result of an Operator using a special hidden ability or piece of technology, or a non-player-character ally showing up in the nick of time to help out. Essentially, the GM should let payers suggest plot twists or give their character a shining moment whenever they use a card, with face cards and Aces allowing for bigger twists and brighter moments.

All Or Nothing: 

Certain high-tension situations, where an Operator takes a huge risk or puts everything on the line (a showdown at high noon is a good example) fall into All Or Nothing territory. If an Operator takes an All Or Nothing approach to overcome a challenge, they can wager any number of Strikes (though the Strikes wagered and the Strikes a player already has can total no more than 3) before making their roll. For each Strike wagered, the Critical Number of the roll is reduced by 1. If the Operator overcomes the challenge, the wagered Strikes do not take effect. If the Operator fails, then that player immediately gains a number of Strikes equal to the ones wagered, possibly enough to remove their Operator from the game.

Cards cannot be used on the same roll as All Or Nothing.

Both the GM and the players should be judicious about the use of All Or Nothing moments. This mechanic is especially designed to represent climactic scenes.

Lucky Numbers: 

An Operator’s Lucky Number comes into play whenever their player discards a card with the matching value, whether it was the result of Rolling Their Hand or using that card. As soon as the card is discarded, the player can replace it by drawing a new card from the central deck and placing it face-up in their hand in the place of the old card.

Combat: 

Combat can be modeled two ways. The first is to treat each enemy as its own challenge, and the second is to treat a large group of weak enemies as a single challenge with a higher Critical Number. Both are valid options, and the GM should use whichever one serves a better role in the story at them current moment. Almost all combat is solved with Danger, though the GM can choose to reward creative players if they come up with a reasonable way to solve a combat encounter with a different method.

In Six Shooter games, the accumulation of damage and running out of an Operator’s luck go hand and hand, so there’s no damage mechanic; instead, damage is folded into Rolling Your Hand and Strikes. If a GM wants to introduce more immediate effects of damage, such as a character being momentarily knocked out, they can simply make that the cost of failing to overcome the challenge a certain number of times.

Multi-stage Challenges: 

Some obstacles are too big to overcome with a single roll. For example, it would feel rather anti-climactic if the dragon that the Operatives have been tracking for the entire adventure goes down in the first turn of combat because the Dangerous Knight had a really lucky roll. 

To represent these advanced enemies, security systems, and other obstacles, use multi-stage challenges. In these cases, the Operatives must collectively succeed on a certain number of rolls before the challenge is overcome. Keep in mind that this exponentially increases the difficulty of challenges with high Critical Numbers.

Player Versus Player Rules: 

Since the characters are all on the same team in most games, inner-group conflict should hopefully be rare and able to be solved through communication. Still, some groups may want to have contests between Operators at certain points in the game. To do so, use this rule:

The players of both Operators roll the die once. The player with the lower roll must then Roll Their Hand. If the rolls are equal, then both players must Roll Their Hand. Continue as necessary until one player either concedes defeat or gains a Strike, at which point their Operator loses the contest.

Strikes, using cards, and All Or Nothing all affect the outcome of your opponent player’s die roll the same way they would the Critical Number of a challenge.

Character Progression:  Six Shooter is a good system for pick-up games, but if the GM and players want to create a series of adventures for their characters, they can easily do so with these rules.

At the end of an adventure, if a player has at least one unused face card or Ace face-up in their hand, they can give one Operator at the table (including their own) an extra Lucky Number, chosen by that Operator’s player.

An Operator can have up to two Lucky Numbers at any given time with no restrictions. Past that point, an Operator cannot gain more Lucky Numbers unless all other Operators have at least as many Lucky Numbers as they do (all Operators must have at least two Lucky Numbers for an Operator to upgrade from two to three, all must have at least three for an Operator to upgrade from three to four, etc.) This is to help prevent large power disparities within a group. Lucky Numbers must be from two to ten, and an Operator cannot have more than one of the same Lucky Number, so by default the absolute cap for lucky numbers is nine. If the GM wishes, they may set the cap lower to better fit the game.

If a player gains three Strikes over the course of an adventure, their Operator is still removed from the current adventure, but can choose to lose a Lucky Number rather than being retired permanently, letting them rejoin the group at the start of the next adventure. Maybe their buddies bailed them out of jail, or their injuries were serious but not lethal. All Strikes are reset at the start of each adventure. If a character has three Strikes and no Lucky Number, they are still retired permanently.

Playing With Jokers: 

As mentioned at the start of the manual, jokers can optionally be included in the card deck. In this case, they use the following rules:

A joker can never be discarded from your hand. You cannot use it, and if you would normally lose it through Rolling Your Hand, you instead hang onto it.

A joker has a value of 0 for determining turn order.

[bellshazes]

crazyinsane to me that bdubs says "this brings back memories" right before crownign tango king of parkour when he's preparing the crown right after tango asks about the banners which is a complete non-sequitur that tango actually cuts from his episode because it does not in fact make any sense whatsoever. and bdubs is so insistent about there being a ceremony in the same way he's insistent about the ritual of turning the regular dragon head cub returns to him into the giant one that becomes cub's prize - which, watching bdubs, is a simple sleight-of-hand that's poorly obscured by him standing in the cauldron of water (?) and upstaged by cub's netherite trick which earns him a spot in the court; and of course the dropping of an anvil on ren's head after the it takes a little heat speech. he's got a bunch of lore locked up behind those big eyes and he will explain NONE of it but he will make you kay your s or watch him be goofy and shout at you if you don't comply but despite the fact that in real life he is making video content for viewers who are not the people participating in said rituals he won't explain it to us either. this is deeply upsetting and also perfectly in character and i've just tricked you into reading a rant that's actually about the volcano town from society of wolves that he never gave us the 5000 years of history for. i hate him

[thelostbaystudio]

UnCosmic Horror

OK, this is a subject I like to go back to often, like an ongoing conversation with friends, that is regularly interrupted, and starts again as soon as possible. Today it’s sparked by friend and estimated fellow TTRPG designer David Blandy’s tweet about the joy of cosmic horror.

I get what David says, sort of, but I must confess that somehow I don’t know what Cosmic Horror is. Or what is it about? And this kind of freaks me out, I’m writing a modern horror game, The Lost Bay, see UNIT DH-17 early adventure for the game, and I’m worried the game won’t hit the right horror chords. I mean, in TTRPGs, and geek culture, Cosmic Horror is one of the main (horror) genres, what happens if I don’t understand it, if the stuff I write is totally devoid of it? (But is it anyway?)

Why is Cosmic Horror like a foreign language to me? A language I am fascinated about, but can’t understand? Is it because of my personal or cultural background? Probably.

I grew up in quite an archaic place, and The Lost Bay is sort of an adaptation/transposition into TTRPG of that place.

By archaic I mean three things

1.the proximity with an untamed nature. Because of the lack of modern infrastructures, it was quite common to feel the indifferent power of nature weigh on one’s life: your house is destroyed by a sudden landslide, you live on top of a volcano that might blow up any moment, there is no hospital around and you could die easily from a wound or bug.

2.social structure: from how to greet, to how to die and be buried, to how you must retaliate when offended, the unspoken archaic laws of the Bay are actually more important than the written laws and codes. I remember an old dude telling a visitor: “written law ends and the mouth of the Bay, the Bay has its own codes, you must abide by them as soon as you set foot here”. I’m kind of romanticizing here, of course, but still, as an example: it’s illegal to bury your dead yourself, but I know a lot of folks who buried close ones in a cave, underwater, in a communal grave, because that’s the Way. And the Way is better/stronger than the Law.

3.archaic beliefs: a few years ago I came back from a party at around 3am, the party was boring, and I didn’t like some of the folks there. I drove probably 40km to get back home, in the darkest of nights, and just as I was entering the suburb of the town I noticed a pale elongated shade on the side of the road. The view of it froze my heart, I was shit scared. The next day I told my friends what happened: they all got alarmed instantly. I could have died in a gory car accident, alone, cursed. Something was probably after me: a supernatural force ambushing me, a dead ancestor trying to collect a debt of some sort, or some living person hating me and projecting their hate in the shape of that ectoplasm. Anyway, that specific spot was too dangerous for me, so I shouldn’t take that street again. Big deal, but no big deal. All those conversations were happening while we were swiping on our smartphones at the karaoke bar. Archaic beliefs, in a sort of modern world. Archaic beliefs where there is no clear distinction between the visible and invisible worlds, the living and the dead, natural and supernatural forces.

And horror? Oh there is horror in the Bay: people disappearing, murders, stuff way worse than murders, violent nature, beasts, stuff coming back from the dead, or from even weirder places. But like all things, horror is part of the world you live in. You have to deal with it. You might be a victim of that horror, sometimes you might even cause it. Horror, even in its most violent expression, is small, not epic. And in a way, this is precisely what makes it horrifying. It’s not an ancient deity, a gigantic corp, or a wandering asteroid, it’s your neighbor. Could be a real person, a curse, a demon, but it’s close to you. If it’s a beast from hell, it probably eats in your trash bin, and you have to clean after it every morning.

The Lost Bay is a place of violent UnCosmic Horror.

As the Bay is getting more modern every year (some back there would say colonized) this belief structure is slowly fading away, or maybe just adapting to new sets of values, and rules.

I’d love to say much more about this, and the game I’m writing is the way I’ve found to do so, but I’d love to hear your thoughts too, and keep this convo going. Is Cosmic Horror a part of your culture? What is it really? What space is there for horror in games? Is UnCosmic Horror a thing?

Photo from https://www.jadorechambery.com/2434/legende-de-la-dame-blanche-de-chapareillan/

[thelostbaystudio]

After a few iterations The Lost Bay RPG character sheet is now stripped of numerical stats (PCs only) - here's the character sheet draft (above) Bruno Prosaiko is going to draw it this spring - below is the older sheet by Bruno - I can't wait for the final one. This bubbly design is inspired by @zedecksiew post called "You carry your experience with you" and published in an incredible moment of synchronicity as I was deciding to ditch the last 2 numerical stats from the game and keeping only the mixed-items-abilities-prayers inventory.

You carry your experiences with you

Some musings about inventory systems, inspired by (though not exactly in line with) this post by K on cohost:

"The Lessons We Take With Us ... are treated very much like an inventory of useful items."

I like things that do a lot with little. So the notion that your inventory of gear is also your list of skills (and maybe also also your health system) appeals to me?

Also Colin reminds me that games like Cairn and Mausritter already have bad conditions (like exhaustion and spellcasting fatigue) fill inventory slots.

And that Iko's The Lost Bay has "Burdens", which represent both items and skills?

So I'm thinking: let's put skills, character abilities, and character advancement in the inventory, too. Your inventory is your whole character sheet.

+

OK OK SO:

Here's your character. The only character stat that matters for our purposes is Capacity, a measure of how much bandwidth you have: physically, mentally, emotionally.

Lets say you start with 7 Capacity slots:

Every piece of meaningful Gear (a bow and arrows, rations, etc) takes up a Capacity slot. This includes stuff meaningful in other ways---ie: valuable Treasure (a golden idol, etc).

Specific Training takes up a Capacity slot. But also adds two Capacity slots. Effectively, having Spear Training means you get to carry a spear without having it take up Capacity. If you have Spear Training, you are both good at wielding a spear and stowing it away so it doesn't encumber you in an adventure.

A Mastery takes up a Capacity slot. But also adds three Capacity slots. If you are a Master Thief you are so good at various thiefly trades that your tools are a part of you (so to speak), and you are always open for new opportunities.

An Ally (think henchmen, animal companions) takes up a Capacity slot. But also adds three Capacity slots. They are like Masteries, I guess? It's good to have skilled, loyal friends!

A significant Experience takes up a Capacity slot, and adds a Capacity slot. They are like Training---but where Training gives bonuses in a specific field (you are good at spear-fighting), Experience gives bonuses in general areas related to it (Fought A Dragon In A Riddle Contest gives you bonuses when encountering dragons and riddles contests, etc).

Stuff that hamper a character, like Injuries (broken limb, bleeding wound) or bad Conditions (scared, tired, hungry) take up one Capacity slot each. If you have a broken hand you'll think about it, favour it, try to keep it from getting wet, etc.

Some notes:

Carrying stuff you have no training in takes up Capacity, essentially. This is not just physical encumbrance, but mental also: "Man this bow is getting in the way." "Ok which pocket did I put my water bottle in again?"

If you have less than half your starting Capacity slots free, you are encumbered in mind and body. This should represent disadvantage in all areas, becoming more severe the more you go over the limit. All your stuff occupies you!

You could pick up Training or Mastery in things like Mindfulness or Packing---expertise specifically for increasing Capacity. (Since these fields don't have items associated with them, you basically get an extra slot.)

Things that are Storage (houses, wagons, etc) take up a Capacity slot, and give lots of extra Capacity---but you don't necessarily have them around you reliably. (You can't bring your house into the dungeon.)

Experiences should be malleable. If you riddled with a dragon, then entered a riddle contest with a demon, both experiences should get "upgraded"? Riddle Mastery? (That Training can get upgraded into Mastery is a given.)

Trainings and Masteries should be as bespoke as Experiences. Training: Master Qi's Spear Art and Training: Spear-wall Formation Fighting In The Vedocci Legion imply different things, and should lend you different ways of wielding your spear.

+

Yeah, so that's my quick and dirty "Experience Is Inventory" system. Thoughts?

Personally I'm torn. On the one hand: I'm pleased / stimulated by how simple and abstracted and (potentially) easy this is? Your character sheet is a mind map, basically. As you play, the sheet grows, becoming a record of your character's history and who they are, what friends they have, what stuff they value.

On the other hand: is this too abstracted, that it detracts from the concreteness of an imagined space? I know that when I play games my fun starts ebbing when I feel like I'm playing rules and jargon, not the fiction.

(Also I'm sure some maverick innovative indie game has done this kind of skills-are-gear thing before. What games handle things in similar ways?)

[ask-shane]

*slams book, pens and notebook on the table* Shane we are playing this Tabeltop RPG game about a chicken world right nOW

we are. sit down.

[belovedfoxincrocs-shadowbanned]

once upon a time i was trying adapt Skyrim mechanics to a homebrew Elder Scrolls tabeltop game. I think all my notes for it are lost to a laptop I no longer have

[r-rook-studio]

Add page previews over on Cohost.

If you want to get a first look...

Version 0 of the Moonlight on Roseville Beach PDF is out! It's not officially on sale yet, but everyone who backed the Kickstarter or preordered the game can get it. And you can still preorder it for yourself.

Get those preorders in - they're ending soon!

[uboat53]

I want to rant a bit about Medieval History, but I want to be clear that I'm doing this as a rank amateur and not an expert of any kind.

You see, I write and I play tabeltop RPGs which are set in the medieval world. Actually, I haven't "played" the games for a while, eternal DM syndrome has hit me. What this means is that I'm writing a lot of stuff about the Medieval era which means that I'm reading and watching a lot of stuff about the Medieval era to get myself in the mood, because I find it intersting, and also to try to get the details of what I'm doing right.

And here's my complaint: almost everything you can find about the Medieval era, particularly English language but also French and German, focuses obsessively on a few centuries at the end of the period.

The Medieval Era (also known as the Middle Ages) covers a huuuuuge span of time from the late 500s to the late 1400s, a period of about 1,000 years. That period is then divided up into three, the Early, High, and Late Medieval Periods and the vast majority of sources talking about "life in the Middle Ages" are talking about the Late Medieval Period.

And I get it, I know why this is. The states that emerged in the Late Medieval Period are largely still the states of Europe today so there's been a good deal of political stability which tends to work wonders for record retention. This is also the period during which there was a boom of universities and inventions like Gutenberg's printing press means that there was also a lot more written records to begin with. All of this means that we have a ton more surviving material from this period.

But what if you want to, say, write about something in the High or, God forbit, Early Medieval Period?

This isn't the age of Chivalry, plate armor is almost nonexistent until very late in the High Medieval Period, and the structure of Feudalism and the way it interacts with mobilization for warfare is very different than in later periods. And if you're writing about ordinary life rather than warfare, well, the norms of behavior are very different, class distinctions are a bit more fluid, and everything is significantly less grand and wealthy than it is at the end of the Late Medieval Era.

So yes, I am a bit annoyed that it's so hard to find resources about the Early Medieval Period. This is the age during which Charlemagne forged the Carolingan Empire only to have it collapse into three upon his death, forming the basis for the modern states of Germany, France, and Italy. This is the age in which Vikings roamed the North Sea and as far as Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and Sicily in search of loot and adventure. This is the age when missionaries spreading out from Rome and Constantinople ignited civil wars within nations across central and eastern Europe as peoples were converted to Christianity.

Even as far as English history goes (my primary language) this is the period when divided kingdoms like Mercia, Wessex, and East Anglia contended both with each other and invaders like the Great Heathen Army. There should be more information about this period; who they were, how the lived, what they thought and what they desired.

And look, I get it, there's a scarcity of written sources, that's why it's called the "dark ages". But surely we can get significant information from archaeological sites and other records. In fact, I know we do because I find hints of it everywhere; references to digs and locations that turn out not to have any information about them posted online.

So yes, I've been nursing a low level frustration for the last decade or so about how difficult it is to find good information about the Early Medieval Period and the transition to the High Medieval Period instead of just more and more information about the Late Medieval Period. I'm writing a novel set in that transition period and I'm working on a D&D game set solidly in the early period and it's taken me a lot longer than I feel like it should have to get the information I'm looking for because I have to sort through a veritable mountain of High Medieval writings, documentaries, and books in order to get to it.

All I ask is this: Medieval Historians and those who curate such information online, please differentiate which period you are writing about with more easily searchable terms. I should not have to sort through dozens of articles about Late Medieval sieges if I search for "early medieval sieges", there is no other era in history in which I would have to do something like this and one of the most influential eras on the shape on modern Europe deserves better.

Please and thank you.

[cassimothwin]

Cleaned up my games shelf.

[hippieghost]

I'm streaming a playtest of a new Tabletop Card game called "_____ Me Senpai!"

_____ Me, Senpai! is a card party game where players use their knowledge of anime tropes to create wacky memes, characters, and attacks. We're streaming at 8:30 EST Tonight! Come check it out at twitch.tv/hippieghost

[txttletale]

i meant this in realtion to tabeltop roleplaying games but yknow what sure. your homemade meads and ciders are also game design

i hate the term homebrew. that's game design you're doing amiguita

[ursa-doom]

I have finished painting the giant Enceladus for the tabletop game Mythic Battles Pantheon. It was a remarkably pleasant miniature to paint and I had fun doing the base.

Burried alive by Athena beneath Mt. Etna for aeons, Enceladus is finally treading the world again. Although, after spending such a long time being immersed in the raging volcano, the once proud giant has become the embodiment of a volcanic eruption and a walking force of nature.

[atariforce]

Cloud Watching by Emily Lynn Perelman

[philosophicalbutts]

If in D&D you've ever wanted to play some more of the seedy underbelly of fantasy, check Sneaks and Scoundrels out! Filled with subclasses for each class, new spells, items and more.  Imma be posting some of the art i did for this later on.