#play Dragonbane its good

[ducklyght]

My new idea for making ttrpg battle maps

Short version: (because I've written way too much...)

The idea isn't a world premier idea. It's a new idea for me. I love to visually represent the scenes, towns, dungeons at the table to my players. Usually "only" using FlipMats, as my gross motor skills are only used once a year: To wrap Christmas presents and even that usually takes around 30-40 minutes. Per present.

So I recently came up with the idea of building hopefully visually appealing 3D landscapes, dungeons, etc. with Lego, which I still have from my childhood.

I would like to share the results and experiences (probably also frustrations) here. Which should also serve as motivation for me to actually do this! At the moment the bricks are drying after a long bath... Updates will follow.

Long story below:

Long story:

I'm always looking for new ways to present (battle-)maps to my players at the table. Starting with flip mats from Pathfinder, on to the various dungeon tiles, printed vtt maps and the "super great" campaign case. But all that wasn't enough for me. I wanted something new, more blatant, 3D! With heights. Real LOS and maybe even "destructible" elements.

But many methods usually have the same problems: space to accommodate them, money (yes, I know many inexpensive methods), and above all, two personal things: firstly, they require fine motor skills. This always throws a spanner in the works for me. I am a diagnosed and treated gross motoric, which only means that today I can tie my shoes and catch a ball. Not perform fine stuff with my fingers. I either need almost three times as long to do everything, or I run into my second problem: spatial perception. I'm a beast at throwing a grenade into the sharpest angle and the smallest corner in first person shooters, but IRL imagining a house, or if a closet fits into a narrow space? No way...

I've tried the low-cost alternative at least. Building out of cardboard what others do with foam. Nice with magnets and everything. Found a really good tutorial. I hard failed at gluing the magnets. Was I deeply frustrated? Yes. Did I give up quickly? Also yes.

Lunar cycles passed. Sessions were played. PCs were killed.

I was browsing the Black Friday deals the other day looking for a good board game deal. Not a ttrpg, something for in between the sessions. That's when I discovered the D&D Lego set with the dragon. It looked really impressive. Beautiful dragon, great castle. On offer for a mere 300€. If I had been drinking water at that moment, I would have watered my screen.

I paused for a moment. "Lego," I said to myself. "FROM LEGO!" I've still got tons of the bricks in my parents' attic. Entire knights' castles, a Viking ship and Star Wars. Okay, the latter perhaps less helpful. The next day I rummaged through the dust palace and found what I was looking for. After 2 hours. I just washed all the parts. I have no idea what bacterial cultures have gathered there over time. At the moment I'm waiting for the stones to finally dry so I can start building something. Over 15 years of Minecraft should have done something in my head regarding "block building". Shouldn't it?

[catgirlforeskin]

"even the most gentle suggestions that trying out other games could be good." ^ .... ?? "We should round up everyone who still likes DnD 5e and hold their faces down into hot coals until the smell of charred melting flesh suffocates our noses! Who’s with me!" "an rpg so alien to the design philosophy of DnD that hearing it makes cr fans’ heads explode into tf2 gore giblets" & you keep saying that you'd give people a list of other ttrpg's to play... and you don't. you just shit on stuff and whine. i don't even like dnd anymore because all the manuals are "big" but insubstantial and wizards of the coast are greedy and making the game worse.. but it doesn't mean you have to be rude to the people who still enjoy it.

You’re right, we don’t have to be rude to people who still enjoy 5e. We have to kill them

I’ve had several posts about other systems to play, usually as answers to asks I’ve gotten, if tumblr search worked better you could look on my blog quite easily. But for posterity’s sake…

Crunchier games:

-most similar to DnD 5e: Pathfinder 2e. All rules free online, extremely popular

-faster, high stakes cinematic combat with more flexibility in setting: Mythras

-apocalyptic survival exploration with good gun-based combat: Twilight 2000 4e. Easily reskinned for other settings that keep the same thematic core

-people will get mad if I don’t mention Lancer, it’s a mech game, I just think it’s okay personally.

Pf2e and Lancer are combat as sport while mythras and t2000 are more combat as war (explainer here)

Lighter Games:

-OSR: Old School Renaissance, this is a school of RPGs based on original DnD and adventuring with fragile characters defined by gear instead of abilities who should always fight dirty and creatively, trying to outwit opponents instead of engaging head-on. Mausritter and Dragonbane are my current favs, but there’s hundreds of games in this genre of all different kinds of themes. Favors GM rulings over written rules⭐️Great for people who already play 5e in a much more freeform style⭐️

-PbtA: Powered by the Apocalypse, a school of RPGs based on Apocalypse World. Strong mechanical support for collaboratively making your story at the table. ⭐️Great for people who prefer roleplay and narrative⭐️. People often recommend Dungeon World because it’s similar to old dnd, personally I just think it’s okay. Current fav is The Sword, the Crown, and the Unspeakable Power for Game of Thrones feeling stories, Fellowship is good for LotR style fantasy. Hundreds of games in this genre and the subgenre Forged in the Dark (FitD) for games based on Blades in the Dark. Current fav is Rebel Crown.

Closing thoughts:

-Umm suck me off :)

-Free League Publishing makes a ton of rpgs and pretty much all of them are good, I highly recommend anything they do. FIST is a fun osr and pbta hybrid. Riddle of Steel and its successors are cool rpgs trying to simulate real sword fights unfortunately mostly made by reactionary dipshits. There’s tons of unique rules light stuff outside of OSR or PbtA design space as well, go on the various rpg subreddits, go to rpg blogs, go to itch.io and explore. r/rpg is a great resource and I’ve learned about so many good systems from it.

-I hope this one shows up when searching my blog for rpg posts in the future so silly people don’t go “you never recommend games you’re just a HATER!” I love to hate but it’s slightly more fun to play good rpgs with friends than it is to be a hater online. Oh my god I didn’t even mention GMless games, good lord uhhh check out Quiet Year and The Zone okay love you all bye bye I want 100 5e player scalps xoxo

[vintagerpg]

I was skeptical when Free League announced their Alien RPG, yet it became one of my favorite horror RPGs. Like, instantly. The Blade Runner franchise is less picked over — two movies, both of which I enjoyed, an animated series I’ve not yet seen, some book and comics that don’t cast a terribly long shadow. And yet, again, Free League announced an RPG and I was skeptical (note that in both these cases, skepticism did not prevent me from, you know, buying the games).

This is the Blade Runner Starter Set (2022), which, like Alien, has a light version of the rules, dice, cards and a cinematic scenario, complete with a rather decadent envelope of handouts. The production value here is very high — this was probably Free League’s finest looking product until the release of Dragonbane, and even then the margin is narrow.

The system is a modified Year Zero. This is the first time it’s used different valued dice, but success is still a 6, so higher value skills have greater chances of success. The rest of the system seems pretty generic — combat is essentially unchanged from the last few YZE games I’ve read, there is a stress mechanic, and so on. There is a cool chase mechanic, where each sides selects secret maneuvers and the GM pulls a random obstacle, then all the participants hash out a resolution, then resolve or continue the chase from there. There is a lot of framework for investigation, too — a digital assistant, ways to leverage assets and so on.

It all feels good but I’m still a little unsure. It didn’t have that magic a-ha that Alien did. I want to see it in play, and I’m not sure when I am going to get it to the table. It’s handsome though, and nails that early cybernoir aesthetic squarely — its so smooth and dreary and rainy it almost seems like an entirely different genre than other modern cyberpunk games. If for nothing else, I appreciate it for that. On the other hand, the only character class is “Cop,” which doesn’t feel good at all.

[julianlapostat]

ASOIAF is Not Shakespearean II: Marlowe and Martin

As a follow-up to my discussion on ASOIAF not being Shakespearean and my discussion with @shakespeareofthrones over here, I want to make a follow-up entry. 

In my post, I argued that if there is a Shakespeare play that resembles ASOIAF than it’s Measure for Measure, which is an ensemble -- a play without any real main characters. And that made me think of an even more ASOIAF-esque precursor. And that would be Edward II by Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare’s great precursor and greatest inspiration.

This is a history play ostensibly about the titular King, but anyone on reading it will be astounded by Marlowe’s skill at weaving multiple subplots and competing factions and subplots one on top of another, and more importantly layering it dynamically, in reaction to the actions of the preceding scene and act. Edward II and his male lover Gaveston foil one rebellion, but then Gaveston dies, and Edward II gets one new ally (and implied rebound) Hugh Despenser, and then Edward II is captured by his enemies and imprisoned in a truly disgusting prison and then dies with a poker in his rear-end courtesy of Lightborne, a proto-typical “cool hitman” type who comes and then disappears. The finale then concerns the king’s successor, Edward III, doing a counter-rebellion against his father’s betrayers and murderers.  This is a play that is an ensemble without any real main characters, where the cast set-up at the start and the guys you think will be at the end like Gaveston, dying suddenly, with the main central protagonist, being killed pathetically, and his assassin in turn being killed abruptly to cover the tracks. In Shakespeare, you don’t get this. The Henriad for instance is also a big ensemble play with Hotspur, Bolingbroke, Prince Hal, and Falstaff competing in Part I but it becomes clear in Part II that the real heart of the play is the friendship between Hal and Falstaff. Marlowe is much more Proto-Altmanesque, and more chaotic and disordered. The real historical Edward II hovers over ASOIAF in many significant ways. Chiefly by ways of The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon. The third and fourth novel deal with Edward II’s reign. His wife, Queen Isabella, daughter of King Philippe le Bel, is one of the inspirations for Cersei. Marlowe’s Edward II is not quite Accursed Kings, because Marlowe makes his King sympathetic and sentimentalizes his regime, and surprisingly to many modern readers, openly portrays and sympathetically, his romance with Gaveston and devotion to him. Edward II endures as one of the few depictions of homosexuality in classical literature and Derek Jarman adapted it into a wonderful film.

Now of course there are same-sex relationships in ASOIAF but I don’t think one can properly analogize them to Edward II and Gaveston. Edward II was irresponsible about his favoritism, and hesitant about sleeping with his Queen, sparking rumors of adultery, bastardy and actual plots and rebellion...I don’t think Renly/Loras who keep their love on the down-low, or Jon Con’s unrequited ardour for Rhaegar is remotely the same. Rather I think what Martin borrowed from Edward II was the ensemble nature of the plot, the diffusement of character and sympathy, and above all for its ruthlessness and unsentimentalism. IN Marlowe, the good die pitiably, the bad die with some pathos. Mortimer, the villain of Edward II, as he ascends the gallows gets a compelling speech (which Shakespeare homaged in Hamlet):

Mortimer: Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel There is a point, to which when men aspire, They tumble headlong down: that point I touch’d, And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher, Why should I grieve at my declining fall?— Farewell, fair queen; weep not for Mortimer, That scorns the world, and, as a traveller, Goes to discover countries yet unknown. ACT 5, SCENE 6

The King doesn’t get such dignity. He gets killed off screen. Edward II’s imprisonment and death is among the most awful scenes in the Elizabethan Age, and Edward II’s prison ordeal (he’s kept in a room where the castle’s privies flow into and the King is wading through in shit and sewage his cell) has shades of Aerys II and Duskendale.   And of course, unlike Shakespeare whose plays usually end with what Evil Morty calls “the speech about  politics. About order. Brotherhood. Power!” Marlowe’s plays don’t end with such speeches. They stop and leave you at horror and grief. The final lines of Edward II, has the new Prince, King Edward III call out:

KING EDWARD III:”Go fetch my father’s hearse, where it shall lie; And bring my funeral robes.   [Staring at Mortimer’s Decapitated Head on ramparts] Accursed head,         Could I have rul’d thee then, as I do now, Thou had’st not hatch’d this monstrous treachery!— Here comes the hearse; help me to mourn, my lords. Sweet father, here unto thy murdered ghost  I offer up this wicked traitor’s head; And let these tears, distilling from mine eyes, Be witness of my grief and innocency.  [Exeunt.]

ACT 5, SCENE 6, FINAL LINES 

Edward II ends with a boy crying in tears grieving over his lost innocence. This is Aegon III Dragonbane all his life, grieving over Princess Rhaenyra (whose fate is the ASOIAF version of Edward II -- weak king but killed pitiably). And of course you have a traitor’s head at the ramparts being addressed to...which is a common image in ASOIAF. People have compared King Aegon III to be a Hamlet-like figure, but the Dark Prince can be traced to Shakespeare’s inspirations in Marlowe...where a Prince contemplates his father’s ghost, and ends up supplanting and punishing his mother and her usurping lover. Much of the dynamic from Hamlet can be traced to this underrated Elizabethan masterpiece. The usual argument about Shakespeare v. Marlowe is that the former was better at writing memorable characters (with the possible exception of Mephistopheles, there aren’t any real three-dimensional characters in Marlowe’s plays), at comedy (Marlowe’s idea of humour is very much schadenfreude about powerful people making fun of people they dislike, cf Doctor Faustus which is entirely that until the final act) but Marlowe beats Shakespeare in terms of his plotting, and his dramatic sense of action. In Shakespeare, his characters usually take up a great deal of space, and the drama and action with select exceptions (Macbeth which is his shortest tragedy, Julius Caesar, his most smoothly constructed piece of drama). Marlowe is also, shall we say, less audience friendly, and less keen about assuring and satisfying concerns about order being restored and virtue rewarded/vice punished as Shakespeare’s plays usually are. And this is one of the many ways ASOIAF is not Shakespearean, and among the writers it has most in common with, is Kit Marlowe, and yes, Kit Harington was named after Christopher’s famous nickname, and oh he recently did a production of Doctor Faustus. 

[winelover1989]

I just realized something. Back in July George wrote on his blog that the first part of his Targaryen History book Fire and Blood would be coming out late 2018 or early 2019. Guess what's also coming out late 2018 or early 2019? SEASON 8! Now why coincide the release of a big book about the Targaryens with the finale instead of any time before that if as antis say the House will die? I mean, that'd just be sad personally speaking and put me off. 1/2

Wouldn't the Targaryens being restored be a great occasion to drive curious fans to buy that book? Not to mention that that first book happens to cover from Aegon I to Aegon Dragonbane, who happens to be cold, be brooding, named Aegon, like dressing in black, inherit after a war that divided all the kingdoms, be left with no dragons. And who could've united his claim with another's to truly bind the kingdoms. Fits right in line with Jon, with Dany having a better fate than Jaehaera. 2/2

I mean this is obviously a good sign, though there’s just too much foreshadowing for Targaryen restoration in the books. The story literally starts with the last two Targaryens commencing their Fantasy Hero’s journey in the very first episode, far removed from the central story and the central story is about the demise of House Stark at the hands of the Lannisters who played a huge role in the demise of House Targaryen as well. 

We saw the Stark demise unfold & be resolved in a few years - 3 years in the books I guess, which serves as a good parallel. The show doesn’t give us the flashback of Rhaegar’s death on the Trident or sacking of King’s Landing but Rhaegar’s children being brutally murdered - a little girl dragged out from under her bed to be put to sword, a baby’s head dashed against the wall & Elia Martell raped to death at the hands of the Mountain while her children’s blood was on her was way more brutal than both the Red Wedding & sacking of Winterfell combined. 

17 or so (I guess its 20 or 22 in the show) years after the demise of House Targaryen, the last two Targaryens meet at Dragonstone, their House’s ancestral seat where the first conquest was planned. Both raised to the title of King & Queen on their own merit after years of living as a Bastard & an exhile, going through this insane journey. They join forces, become romantically involved & talk about having children way too many times for it to not happen & are heading to resolve the greatest mystical conflict in this plot that was being setup since the very first scene of the show. I mean, at this point, denying Targaryen Restoration is plain wishful thinking because that’s clearly where the climax of the story is heading towards. I mean George is releasing a book on their lineage & history before season 8? Awesome!