Posts

Fathach Character Class: The Failed Arbiter

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 In the previous posts, I talked around the PCs, but now let's talk about who are these PCs. In the starter set I plan to include 6 out of 36 classes. They are inspired by mythic bastionland of being a weird creature with some equipment. Each class has some background text, an inciting question, some equipment, a passive ability and an active ability. Here's an example of one. By Howard Pyle The Arbiter  The villages cry for the storms to go away, for children to survive a plague and a lover wanting one last look at their partner. They look for magic and they look for you. You wander across a land with hidden miracles dancing on your tongue. What a shame you can't find them.  What miracle is out of your reach and what stopped the community from throwing you out? Passive: While the world of magic is out of your reach, the mundane world surrounds you. Automatically pass "There is no one on watch" Active: You have Guilt in all your min Palace. You don't start wit...

Getting hurt, Resting and Otherkind Dice

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Clarification Time This section is for addressing confusion or feedback about the previous posts in the series.   Naturally, when you think you've invented a mechanic that has never been done before, the Bakers casually had a shower thought years ago that happens to be the exact thing you've come up with. I am talking about  Otherkind Dice.  Otherkind dice is exactly like my combat system but including partial successes and each procedure is kind of like a PbtA move. Already some of the appendix ideas are showing up. Surprise is a free 5-6 that you can use if you get the jump. There is a cursed helmet of a paladin that gives a free 5-6 or 2 dice to combat related consequences but every rest you have "2 I failed to keep my oath" as a consequence unless you kill a creature that day.  Also there are scaling consequences. Here's an example using the goblin attack from the last post: 4 - [Success Goal] amount of players get Scared (Scared has been rewritten. Scared n...

Fathach's Foundation and 1 roll combat

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The foundation of Fathach's design is explorative, social decision making. I want the mechanics to encourage exploration, to interact with the environment and the fiction. I want the to encourage characters to talk and engage with NPCs of Fathach, Lastly I want the moment to moment gameplay to be filled with trade offs and choices with no solved answer. A good example of what I am going for is the combat. I don't like combat but OSR games that I like feature it often. Also when anyone hears of a roleplaying game, combat is never too far away. [1]     From Arcane Library (This combat is already too long) The aspect of combat I find the most interesting and unexplored isn't the round to round gameplay but instead the before and after of a combat. What do you have ready in case a fight breaks out? Do we surprise attack these goblins or do we check if we can talk to them? What did that fight cost? Is it worth it to go further now that everyone has less health and some broken we...

Starter 26: A Rough Outline of Fathach

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I intend to release something online. I want to create a game. It will start as a blog game as all things should. There was a challenge put forth of making 2026 the year of the starter set.  See here . So I will make a series of blog posts that makes this starter box. First, the setting, as that is what is rattling in the dome for months.  This but with thousands less dollars involved The Giants  These are the centre of my setting. all questions will at some point involve them. There are no dragons or wizards only giants. Once the giants figured out how to cast a spell, they used this power to wipe out all competition. There are 6 types of giants but there is only 1 to be concerned with in the starter box.. The Stone Giant. This Giant, like all giants, are large and their plans incomprehensible. The Giants are like eldritch horrors. most people don't deal with them unless they don't have a choice. There are stories of those who have made a pact with a giant and bec...

How to approach an OSR game like Brennan Lee Mulligan

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Recently I watched a video about all of Brennan Lee Mulligan's house rules for Critical Role Campaign 4. Brennan Lee Mulligan is taking a West-march like approach. Already some old school heads are curious. I was immediately interested when Brennan said "I am employing a very different strategy with the big bad to honor the things I admire the most about this table which is I don't know who the PCs will determine to be their big bad.". Mr Trad went up on stage and said prep situations not plots to thousands.  Brennan Lee Mulligan Death and Dying Actions Already the campaign is different from most with a few major house rules. First there are death actions. if you are rolling death saves, you can get a different action based on if you got a success or failure and how many success and fails you have. (For example if you succeed a death save you can give another player heroic inspiration) Now, for an OSR scenario, this isn't viable. But I would twist it into if you d...

Savage Worlds and Too much originality

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Introduction  Random Ape Encounter and To be Resolved have started a small bandwagon about generic systems. I am covering Savage Worlds. Although side note, Shane Hensley did make unfavorable comments on Charlie Kirk's death. I am aware of this but this is approaching the game from a mechanical angle. I recommend Googling with care if you want to find more. From Pinnacle Entertainment My history with it was that I saw Oxventure do a series on Savage Worlds Deadlands. (it's really good I highly recommend). I saw it and wanted to mess with it myself. I played a short solo campaign and tried to make a game for my friends. I found it okay. If someone offered to run me a savage worlds game, I would happily play it.  Pros and Cons First, the positives. I like the core resolution. Beat 4, you get a success. Every 4 points over what you need is a raise. So say if I rolled an 8, I would get a success with a raise. I also like how little rules you need to have a functional savage worlds...

Diagetic Bingo

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 I was thinking about diagetic advancement recently and I want a more structured format for it. So I came up with bingo. This gives players and the GM a chance to work together to make diagetic progression.   The idea is this. At the start of the campaign, the GM tells everyone the elevator pitch of the campaign. Then, create a N x N (where N is the number of players including the GM) grid. This grid outlines the kind of growth the group wants to see. In alphabetical order, each player (including the GM) says a word that ties to the campaign pitch. Once every player has submitted one word each, repeat this process until the grid is full.    Here's an example I made for a campaign I plan to run.   Now that you have this grid, the GM uses it for inspiration for NPCs, items or places that give abilities based on the words provided. Once a diagetic ability is given, the word is removed from the grid. During downtime or at the end of a major adventure, players can ad...