Blog Reboot

How starting over feels...

After the disaster that was 2020 I decided it would be best to start over on a new blog. Wipe the state clean as they say. It'll still be OSR focused but not hyper-so on one system like this one was. Also the URL for this blog was REALLY starting to bother me. Anyways if you like my stuff please follow me over on my new blog down below and add it to your blogroll. Thank you again for your support!

NEW BLOG: BRINEHOUSE, CLICK HERE TO SEE. 

(I'll keep this blog up for those who like it.)

Rogues to Riches Series Finale

This year I played in the greatest longest running LotFP campaign on the internets called Rogues to Riches (RtR). Run by youtuber and amigo Fantastic Dimensions, RtR is one of the best campaigns I've played in and it's bittersweet to see it end. The Referee managed to weave together the best aspects of LotFP with great improv work after dealing with our sickening hijinks. Some of my favorite sessions include: the time the pcs met the dreaded Love Slug *shivers*, when characters all died from horrid explosive diarrhea or that one time my Magic-User sacrificed some orphans to Summon a demon. Classic LotFP. 

If you want to see someone run LotFP the right way with great players, check out Fantastic Dimensions and the Rogues to Riches campaign. Thanks again.

Rogues to Riches Finale

B/X Houserules

Always more house rules lurking.

Everybody house rules B/X. It's like chicken soup, you season to taste. Here's the house rules I'm thinking of using for my budding vanilla fantasy campaign.

GENERAL

1. HIT POINTS--Max at 1st Level.
   
   
2. DEATH--When 0 or Less HP is reached a character may make a save vs death to instead be knocked unconscious for 2d6 turns with 1HP. 
   
   
3. SECOND WIND--Characters may spend a turn immediately after combat to regain 1d3+1 hit points. This represents bandaging, rest, food/water intake, weapon upkeep, etc.
   
   
4. CRITICALS--Max damage is dealt on a natural 20, 1’s are an auto-miss.
   
   
5. AAC-- Ascending AC because descending AC is very meh.
   
   
6. SEARCH CHECKS--May be reattempted but takes another turn.
   
   
7. HELMETS--Grant +1 AC.

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CLASSES

FIGHTER:

• CLEAVE--Whenever a Fighter eliminates an enemy in melee, they can make another melee attack. If this attack also kills an enemy, they can attack again, and so on.
  
  

• SHIELDS SHALL BE SPLINTERED--The fighter may sacrifice their shield to negate an attack. Make a Save vs Death to succeed, a fail means damage is taken as normal.

CLERIC:

• TURN UNDEAD--Can only be attempted once per combat encounter.
  
  
• SCROLL PRODUCTION-- As seen here.
  
  
• WEAPON RESTRICTION-- based on in-game religion.

MAGIC-USER:

• DETECT MAGIC--Magic-users can spend a turn to detect magic. 2-in-6 chance of success.
  
  
• SCROLL PRODUCTION-- As seen here.
  
  
• STARTING SPELLS-- M-Us begin play with 1x 1st level spell + Read Magic.
  
  
• WEAPON RESTRICTION-- +Crossbow.
  
  

THIEF:

• THIEF SKILLS--Changed to d20 target number as seen here.
  
  

HALFLING

• NAME CHANGE-- Halflings called Rheas in-game. 

I'll update this page as I add or remove rules. 

Blog Retrospective/2021 Goals

Looking back on my blog I feel like I've accomplished very little. Most of my highest viewed posts are Lamentations stuff. And especially now that I'm closing the book on my LotFP fanboying I'm feeling a little, lost? Idk. I'm dead-set on doing the fantasy vanilla campaign but then what? I eventually want to publish something, a zine? adventure book? I'm not sure I have the patience to pour my blood and sweat into something like that. Or the funds. 

I think writing out some simple goals should help point me in a some kind of direction.

Alright here's my current rpg goals for 2021.

• Run a "vanilla" fantasy campaign with weird toppings. 
• Write about said campaign. 
• Write minimum one blog post a month. Ideally one per week.
• Publish something. Very vague but probably for the best.
  

We'll see how it goes. Good luck me.

Why I Quit LotFP

LotFP is great/terrible! But/And...

(Roll 1d20 to finish what people are saying about LotFP today!)

1. raggi is an X.
2. the art is X and makes me Y.
3. I can't support X-ers.
4. D&D sucks.
5. raggi did X. 
6. raggi said Y.
7. fUcK Zak S.
8. someone told me X.
9. nipples scare me.
10. vaginas and/or penises scare me. BONUS, the words vagina and penis scare me.
11. zak S said I sucked one time. (probably multiple times tbh, wat an asshole)
12. raggi said I sucked one time.
13. The social media guy said I sucked one time. (Lies lol)
14. the social media guy is shady AF.
15. Fuck for SATAN?!
16. a rival competitor says they suck and to buy their sucky book(s) instead.
    
17. ZAK SHIT IN SOMETHING THAT ONE TIME!
18. it's just house ruled b/x (no shit).
    
19. they are transphobic, anti-gay, right winged-Trump supporters.
    
20. they suck so buy my book instead!
    

And this is pretty much what I saw almost everyday while free lancing for LotFP. If I wasn't getting paid I would have quit way, way sooner.

If you're unaware I used to free lance as LotFP's social media manager. I was offered the job cause I fanboyed hard on the facebook group. I accepted because I needed the money and it was(is?) my favorite ttrpg game, what could go wrong?  I was only in charge of the official FB page, the FB group, twitter and Instagram. Surprisingly, I think I was decent at it, perfect? Hell no but decent. 

But yeah I was in charge of the social media listed above, ANYTHING ELSE WAS PURELY ME STANING FOR Lamentations. I also somehow managed to claw my way up to admin of the unofficial LotFP discord (unofficial you fucks). Unofficial since Raggi, much like the god of Abraham, abandoned his people to the flood (of nazi scum trolling the server in this case). I immediately demoded Zak cause wtf, who thought that was a good idea and tried casting Raise Dead on the server. Unfortunately the server's spirit decided to stay dead. It still haunts the moors with the occasional wight of Zak s. moaning in the wind. "Cube World, buy my cancelled LotFP stuff"... it says. I did attempt to remove Zak a couple a times but he never really broke any rules so, eh. I may be removing myself from there as well soon.

The last straw however was when Jeff Rients decided to do a LotFP fanzine. A great idea. I submitted my Familiar spell from my blog and was stoked that my writing was accepted by someone cool. When I got my copy I opened it up and fucking Zak was in it. Well, there went any hope of my writing getting seen by anyone outside the LotFP sphere (still love you guys tho). I posted it anyways on the OSR subreddit (with the mods approval/blessing even after I told them Zak was in it). I still got shit on. Never mind all the other people in the zine who were chill, HOW DARE YOU POST ZAK IN HERE. HOW DARE YOU ASSOCIATE WITH THE ZAK-DEVIL. HOW DARE YOU POST LOTFP ON YOUR PERSONAL ACCOUNT EVEN THOUGH YOUR PERSONAL CONTENT GOT IN A UNOFFICAL FANZINE. Fuck this I thought, I ate an edible walked my dog and came back and trolled the thread high as fuck. No regrets. I told Raggi I was quitting the next day and that I would announce it after his save LotFP sale. I took an almost 6 month break away from writing and social media stuff to survive the fucking pandemic. A welcome break. I announced my departure from LotFP last week. 

Me now.

Other than shit-heads online and their emotional abuse and psychic vampirisms, working for Raggi was pretty ok. He always paid on time, he was never unprofessional and was just a decent guy to work for. Nothing bad to say about him other than he probably made some bad decisions along the way but no one is mistake free. I wish him and LotFP the best in the future and hope he continues to be successful in whatever life brings his way. Also quick thank you to the LotFP sphere for being supportive and generally cool peeps. I will be working on my vanilla fantasy campaign using b/x for the foreseeable future and I may or may not make LotFP homebrew stuff again. 

P.S. I hate dictator Trump (and his cronies) and believe every human being has the right to Food, Water, Shelter, Internet and physical/mental health. But since I like LotFP stuff I'm automatically a right-winger Trump supporter, right? Fuck you.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Pandemic Haul

2020 has been so surreal, terrifying and utterly chaotic BUT the gaming life never ends. If there is no game then there is always planning games.

Here's some of the notable ttrpg books I picked up during lockdown. Dead wood only, I downloaded so many PDFs I don't even remember what I have now. 

OSE

I bought the the Rules Tome version of Old School Essentials over the summer and it was a nightmare to actually get. This was back when Trump was trying to sabotage the election by messing with the post office and mail-in ballots. Naturally getting packages was just as disastrous as it sounds. The package went from the east coast to the west, back to the east coast and then finally to my door in LA. Truly a shit show. Thanks Trump voters.

Not sure I'm happy with the physical quality of the book. As you can see the black is already starting to fade, the bookmarks are fraying and it makes a really weird creaking sound whenever I open it. I swear I've only opened the damn thing like 10 times. I'm regretting not getting the leather one, might hold up better than this one is. Other than that OSE is damn good layout wise. The definitive b/x clone. I'll be using it when I run my vanilla fantasy campaign after the pandemic. 

Castle Xyntillan & Echoes From Fomalhault

After reading A Distant Chime's recap of Castle Xyntillan I was hooked. I immediately went out and bought it and then the shitshow happened with the post office lol. After finally getting my sausage fingers on it I fell in love. The book is the fun house dungeon IMO. It's a masterpiece, if you don't have it buy it now. I ran it over discord for my group and everyone TPK'd, twice. So good. Everything Lux writes is gold.

Fever-Dreaming Marlinko

I love the idea of City States, they just feel like old d&d. So I bought this after doing some research on OSR city adventures. Fever-dream is exactly what it's title implies, a fever dream of city flavor goodness. Everything in here is gameable and I especially like the mechanic where the city erupts into chaos based on the PC's actions. Good stuff. 

AND the LotFP stuff. WARNING if LotFP triggers you close this post now. 

Blood Anthology

The Deck Of Weird Things

Big Puppet

Fermentvm

The Octo-Blade

Ugh if only all ttrpg books could as high quality as LotFP, getting there though check out Neverland. Not gonna go into all the new releases but my favorite of them is Big Puppet. The art by Aeron Alfrey is so good. All in all if you like LotFP stuff you won't be disappointed picking these up.

And yes my Steins;Gate playmat is sweet, I know.

Vanilla Fantasy Campaign with 1d4 Toppings

Enter the campaign

During the COVID-19 Pandemic I've become obsessed with the idea of running a "vanilla" fantasy campaign. The seed was probably planted when I tried and failed to complete the Gygax 75 Challenge earlier this year. Since then I've been reading old b/x focused blogs, old game recaps from the 70s/80s and anything else I could devour. I'm pretty excited to start but I'm gonna have to wait for the pandemic to pass to bring back the ol' home game. 

Here's some stuff I want to see out of this campaign I'm brewing:

• A small homely town my players will get attached too. Then they (I) burn it down.
• A Tent-pole (mega?)Dungeon.
• A vast City-State in the background, maybe at war with another city.
• A revolving roster of different characters as seen in Darkest Dungeons.
• A OD&Desque wilderness. Low populations, vast wilderness, waring strongholds. 
• A homebrew world that comes alive through play. 

Holiday Mail Card

I got a sweet TTRPG themed holiday card from cool guy Samwise Seven.

Doge not included

So cool, thanks again Tim!