Sunday, June 14, 2020

GYGAX 75 CHALLENGE: WEEK 2

Continued from here. 

Download the Gygax Challenge here.

Week 2:

So far I'm really enjoying the challenge. Making a setting from scratch really forces me to think outside the box to make things interesting. The world took on a more "prehistoric" feel after I added Ice Age American megafauna to the random encounter table for the Sancana Steppe. I also decided to add enormous deadly tar pits to the map. Since all my players and myself are from LA we all know the stench of tar from the La Brea Tar Pits, a cool touch to to describe the landscape with.

THE TASKS:

1. Get a sheet of hex paper. Draw the following on it, one item per hex (or more if indicated). Name anything worthy of a name.

The tasks also asks you to name multiple settlements and landmarks. I named the bigger city-state Evangelos and the smaller one Cappadocia. There's a small town between named Mun. The forest north of the Zane river is the Blackmagne Forest, south of the river is the Sancana Steppe. I was heavily inspired by the map in the challenge zine so I stole it's style.

CENTRAL LIMURIA 1 Hex=6 miles.

After drawing the map I put it in a plastic sleeve which lets me draw the dungeons and stuff over with a wet-erase marker. This has the dungeon entrance that the task ask you to do. Oh and the "mysterious site" is Devil's Rend, a deep canyon located south of Evangelos. A horrible devil is rumored to reside there.

2.  Extra Credit: Write a Random Encounter Table
The random encounter table was really fun to make and helped the setting take on a prehistoric flavor. Also I managed to write in my hatred of elves by killing them off in an extinction event. Their bones still walk the land though. Also no horses, moa are this world's horses, Final Fantasy chocobo style.

CONCLUSION
I'm getting a little worried about Week 3 since I've never done a "traditional dungeon" but it should be interesting. Also might update this post with random encounter tables for the Blackmagne Forest and the old main road between the cities. All in all a very cool challenge, thanks for reading!

Sunday, June 7, 2020

GYGAX 75 CHALLENGE: WEEK 1

Over on the blog Verbum Ex Nihilo, author  is doing the Gygax 75 Challenge (found here). In short the challenge asks you to make a small campaign setting and everything you would need to get a campaign going in 5 weeks. Including a stocked 3-level dungeon, which is hella old school.
I've been wanting to run a "vanilla" fantasy campaign anyway and thought this challenge would be the perfect opportunity to get one rolling.

Note: I assume you downloaded and read the challenge going forward.

WEEK 1: THE CONCEPT

1." Get/Create a notebook:"

Got a really cool leather notebook for my birthday last year, now's the perfect time to use it. 

2. "Develop Your Pitch: Write down 3-7 (no more!) well-crafted bullet points that will “sell” the world to your players."

I'm calling this campaign RE; LAMENT (heh) and will be using the LotFP Rules & Magic for the base rules. I thought about using Necrotic Gnome's Old School Essentials for a more "classic" d&d game but I remembered b/x only gives Magic-Users 1 spell at Level 1. Clerics don't get spells until lvl. 2 and it's possible to have 1HP fighters. Hilarious but also kinda lame. LotFP fits my tastes better anyway.

Onto the pitches!
  • Forces of Chaos lie beyond these walls, stay inside and alive! Or, venture beyond them to a world filled with dungeons, monsters, and treasure!
  • The City-State of Evangelos is the main "hub", anything outside the City is frontier land with towns and villages dotting the map. A points of light campaign with dungeons galore!
  • Humans only, demi-humans were hunted to extinction by the other worldly Dread Emperor.
  • Setting is low-magic, but the city is filled with strange modern-esque structures like skyscrapers and sprawling apartments in the "slums".
  • Heavy anime/manga vibe.


3."Sources of Inspiration: List them as an annotated bibliography – citing the name, author, etc. and a sentence or two explaining what each source brings to, or supports within the setting"
  • JAPANESE D&D RULES ENCYCLOPEDIA ART
    The art is so sweet for this and if I could draw this would be the style this campaign would be drawn in. Just my head canon for the campaign aesthetic. 
  • The Legend of Zelda, Majora's Mask.
    This game shaped my lifelong love of weird kinda horror(?) stuff. The surreal tone is something I would love to emulate with some of the frontier towns.
  • Berserk(manga) by Kentaro Miura
    The monsters are unique and top-notch, and show how to do monsters right. Also the writing is amazing. I want this campaign's monsters to emulate the ones in Berserk.
  • KonoSuba: God's Blessing On This Beautiful World! by Natsume Akatsuki 
    See, I'm not a complete edge-lord (I am however guilty of being a huge weeb). Konosuba is pure comedy and I would love to use classic fantasy tropes as a source of comic relief in this campaign. Also making the BBE an isekai'd character. lol
  • Adventure Time
    I love everything about Adventure Time and have good memories of watching new episodes with my son. Hopefully I can pull on some of the players heartstrings just like the show yanked on mine.
  • City State Of The Invincible Overlord by Judges Guild
    While it's a little more "high fantasy" than I like, I love how it feels like a real breathing city. Hopefully I can get my city state to be a quarter as good as it.
  • Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida More inspiration for the City State. I want my slums district to be similar to The Hole in Dorohedoro. Also the satanic imagery in the manga is just awesome. 

I'll be posting these each week on Sunday until the challenge is complete. Stay tuned next week for Week 2!