LootLootLore

Context  A couple nights ago, I watched a video by PaladinProse ( link here ) about Black Lodge Games (BLG) and what it means to "be a man" online. In the video, Mr. Prose highlights how BLG made a supplement for Shadowdark about a brothel (that doesn't shy away from being misogynistic), despite Kelsey being openly lesbian. It got me thinking about when you create a supplement or adventure for someone else's system. Is the act of creating the adventure an act of standing with the original author's stated beliefs or is it a case of replacing the author's stated beliefs with your own?  From PaladinProse Surprise! It's Nuanced and a Moral Grey Area! This is something I don't hear much about because there is nuance and edge cases and two games can have a completely different answer. For small, brand new indie games, when someone releases a supplement it is a message that the author of the supplement is part of the indie game's community and therefore h...

As part of Prismatic Wasteland's  Appendicitis N blogwagon , I got to thinking about my appendix N and how one implementation worked really really well. So here's a few pointers on how I try to bring in an inspiration.  1. Define how important the media is to the tone and vibe of the game.  When you create your campaign, having some inspirational media can really help. When you add a piece of media to your touchstones, how important is it? Do you want to have it only be a small part of the vibe or is it a big part of the game? One touchstone I used for a campaign was Vampire Survivors, an action roguelike bullet hell. I didn't want to simulate the themes, I wanted to emulate the tone of progression where each advancement adds a new dimension to your gameplay. Sure, the numbers could become massive but instead they change how damage is delivered. This is done by adding more projectiles, allowing some weapons to pass through enemies or even add elemental effects. That's w...

A common piece of advice I see in 5e spaces is to avoid playing "Gimmick" characters in long term campaigns. These characters are one note, often not very serious and anyone can understand what they are about in a few seconds. Example include a Human Fighter that fights humans, 3 goblins in a trenchcoat and legally distinct Goku. In 5e spaces they are discouraged as it makes it hard for the DM to work into the game's plot as they have very few ties to the world and to other characters. The joke eventually stops being funny and what's left is a blank slate of a person left. However, I believe that gimmick characters are more than welcome in the OSR.  From Reddit  The gimmick character has very little backstory, which is good because OSR games focus on storytelling at the table and not beforehand. Furthermore, OSR games have more severe consequences for combat so the joke central to the character doesn't overstay it's welcome. The gimmick character isn't lim...

I make references to my setting on this blog but today I realised I never went in detail. Today I am rectifying that. It is a fantasy setting, a "too high" fantasy setting.  An early map of a continent. (from 6+years ago)   1. There was an apocalypse that wiped out the people before us. Their marvels lie in ruin and writhe against magic. Gods, powerful spirits and very few ancient lizard folk were there when the apocalypse was happening and they keep the events to themselves. There is no knowledge before the sky ripped in two and magic poured on the land.  2. The apocalypse brought magic to the mortals. When the mortal survivors saw the old world collapse, Mana made itself known. It floated from the sky and gave the people a way to survive a cruel new world. There is now so much magic, the world is drowning in it. 3. The gods shattered into thousands of pieces. Now they walk the earth, a fragment of what they used to be. You can find them in the small and quiet places of ...

I was rewatching some old Mr Beast videos and I noticed a segment where he got a couple contestants to a room. The floor was covered in the stickiest glue in the world and the only thing the contestants were told was "This is the stickiest floor in the world! Now get across it.". This really got me thinking about traps in my game and making them more puzzle like. The glue floor has a number of traits that make it a good puzzle. First off it has multiple approaches to interact with it. What you see in the video is contestants throwing their shoes and socks onto the floor as platforms and jumping the remaining distance. You could power through it, push someone onto it or wash the glue away. That is a lot of different approaches to this trap and that's before magic enters the situation.   Before I continue, I understand that Mr Beast is a controversial figure. I am not sure what the controversy is about and I don't follow the slop. I don't interact with any Beast med...

Recently I have been enjoying rogue-likes and rogue-lites like Nubby's Number Factory, Dungeon Clawer and Enter the Gungeon. These games are randomly generated so that each run is different from the next. They also have permadeath. Once your little creature dies, you have to start from the beginning in a new maze. There are many disagreements on what a rogue-like is, almost as many disagreements as the question "What is the OSR?".   My white whale campaign is a rogue-lite campaign. I thought it would be easy as Rogue, the first rogue-like, the start of the genre, was inspired by the high fantasy setting of dungeons and dragons. Unfortunately I have done nothing but get closer and closer not quite getting close enough. Traditional games like 5e or Pathfinder want the GM to make balanced combats which doesn't find the randomized nature of rogue-likes so they won't do. OSR games are my best bet as they have dungeon-centric gameplay and due to the simpler character co...