EldritchRusk

What would it be like to play in a campaign that spans several years in-game? I don't know about you, but most of my games take place over a couple of in game months, perhaps even less. We follow the characters quite linearly on their adventures. Perhaps there is a jump of a couple of months between some of the adventures, but nothing major. This creates a easy to follow story with a natural short-term character and world progression. Recently I've been toying with the idea that between each adventure there is a gap of x number of years. Say 5 (or even 10!) years between each adventure. If I remember correctly the Pendragon RPG does something similar, and this post is loosely inspired by what I can remember from that game. You can find the Pendragon RPG over at chaosium.com .  I think these jumps in time would create a totally different flow in the game. Characters would grow old, get apprentices and/or children. The slow change of the world would become more a...

So you want to start with role-playing games, but not sure where to begin? This post will hopefully help you get started, and make an initial adventure.      Tiers of Investment - Money and time First up, you should invest some time in deciding what rules to use. Dungeons and Dragons is not the only game in town, and there are a lot of fun games out there! Some of the biggest games can be expensive to jump into, and some of them have multiple books you need to buy. This section will hopefully help you think about what sort of money and time investment you want to commit to. I have created this small table to illustrate some options. When I write [big game], I am talking about the most popular games. For example Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, etc. Tiers of investment Open to other things Only [big game] Save money Tier 1 Tier 2 Spend money Tier 3 Tier 4 ...

 Halloween is coming up, and I am a big fan of running seasonal one-shots. They both allow you to try new game systems, and also flex some muscles with new DMing techniques. Last Halloween I ran a western horror one-shot, using the Alien RPG game. And I loved it! I thought I could tell you about it. First up, mood is very important in Halloween games! We went all in. Low lights, candles, creepy western music (the Hateful Eight and Bone Tomahawk soundtracks are excellent for this). It was great! For the adventure itself, I retrofitted the example adventure from the Aliens rules: Chariot of the Gods. Yes, a sci-fi adventure run as a western. It was surprisingly easy, but a lot of things had to change from the original adventure. However, the Alien world is pretty much just a western in space with some added horror. The key ingredients in the Alien movies are: a remote location with no chance to call for help, an unknown and weird danger that hunts people, rivalry and betrayal within ...

This contains some small spoilers for parts of Curse of Strahd. If you are a player in said campaign, you should not read past the "examples from my CoS game" section. TLDR: The GM and the players should agree to build the tension. Horror only works when both parties agree to it. Use the different aspects of horror. Make it scary, make it creepy, make it disgusting   A band of fools fight against the horrors of Barovia The following post is based on my own experiences with running Curse of Strahd. In addition to the write-up on building horror in the start of the adventure I would also recommend getting your hands on the Heroes of Horror supplement from 3.5e. Although the game mechanics parts of the book is not that relevant for 5e or OSR, the book has some good advice on creating horror. Scare the characters, not the players Trying to scare the players is much harder than actually scaring the characters. Most likely you are sitting around a table or playing via Roll20 (or si...

What is this?   This is a hack that will work for most OSR games. It takes the spell system from Wonders & Wickedness , but removes spell slots (or character level) and uses Hit Dice instead. I love the magic system from W&W , but I found its progression to be a bit too linear and rigid. Therefore me and Sigve from Revenant's Quill got together and created this little thing. Why use this? This system is applicable if you want a spell system that allows the caster to have greater control of how powerful each of their spells are going to be. Heads up! Using this system with a normal spell list, like the one found in OSE or Lamentation, will require a lot of tweaking of those spells   The HD Magic System No slots: Instead of spell slots, use hit dice (HD). This means that a level 1 Magic-User can cast one spell. A level 2 Magic-User can cast two spells, or one more powerful one.  Casting a spell: When casting a spell, roll at least one hit die. You may roll a numbe...

This is a small list of creatures - either inspired by, or taken from, norse mythology or Scandinavian folklore.     Most of these creatures are sentient and not designed to be fought. The statblocks are created for Old School Essensials , and therefore compatible with other OSR products. I prefer ascending AC, and have not included the treasure statline.   All of the artwork in this post is done by the famous Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen .   Bearmen  Bearmen is my take on Bugbears, with a folklore flavor. Infants left in the woods are sometimes found by creatures of the dar k (1) . The child will change into a new type of creature. They will grow thick pelt, long horns and claws, and a bear-like snout. These creatures are often dubbed ‘Bearmen’ by ignorant villagers. Bearmen often live in forests, and keep to themselves. They seldom interact with humans, but when they do so with great skepticism. They remember their past and the tales from their fost...