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Discussion of table top roleplaying games.

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Can you help me figure out what game this was? I saw it being played a couple times but only for a minute as I wasn't part of the group and just was in the area for few minutes each time (common room at school).

It was the mid-80s and a group of older students were playing an RPG they referred to as Persona.

It seemed to not require dice and characters were normal people living in NYC.

I know a lot of the guys were into d&d (as was I) but some girls were playing that had no rpg experience and liked the game because it was based on discussion and not so rule based.

I don't recall dice.

There was a rule book and it had a black and white cover that I think had a guys portrait (neck up, face turned sideways, I think).

Any ideas?

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Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

The results are in and I'm excited to announce that Nyx and Alanna (AJ) are the 1st and 2nd place winners of Advent's One-Shot Challenge! The goal was simple, to find people who could prep in a style similar to mine so that I could work with them and expand Advent's Amazing Advice! I was blown away with the results and I'm proud to show you what they've come up with!

The Delian Tomb is a Level 1 Introductory One-Shot based on Matt Colville's first episode of his Running the Game series on YouTube.

This adventure begins in the backwaters of a small kingdom, it's a quiet place...most of the time. Recently, there has been an influx of goblins in the region and some of the foul creatures have even begun attacking the farms in the outskirts of the village. Your players are all friends, just traveling through, in search of adventure. It isn't long before they find themselves mixed up in the business of Goblins and pursuing a kidnapped child into the depths of a long-forgotten tomb. This is their opportunity to prove themselves, and to rescue someone in need...if they can survive the perils of The Delian Tomb!

Below you'll find the winner's notes updated by me with all the tweaks and formatting you've come to know and love.

Without further ado:

Included in The AAA Collection is:

  • A Word document with all my notes, including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
  • Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly, along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
  • Spellsheet Handout for the Goblin Shaman
  • Custom Maps (Credits: u/sladank, uchideshi34 (Jon), grant1derlin, CragtheLAD)

Index:

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

It was such a fantastic experience working with others on this! You'll see plenty more of Nyx and Alanna in the future!

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers, Advent

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I made this thing for a game jam. Its 12 weird patrons for spicing up your player options with a healthy dose of chaos. This kind of thing is maybe not that useful for most, but I'm giving it to y'all anyway. I mean somebody out there probably wants to make a deal to serve a taxidermied unicorn.

Questions or feedback appreciated.

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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

I settled on using Zotero (meant for academia, but whatever, it does what I need) for cataloguing/organizing my ttrpg pdf hoard and I'm trying to set up some top-level tags to make it a bit easier to sift through what I'm looking for. One set of tags will be genre tags (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc), with another level below that for sub-genre (cyberpunk, supernatural, low fantasy, post-apocalyptic, etc).

Another set of top-level tags will focus on the actual types of books/products one might see for an RPG. These are just all the terms I've come across before, setup in a hierarchy that makes sense to me, though sometimes terms aren't used consistently across different RPG lines. Since some products can straddle multiple genres/categories, I'm hoping tags will help make it easier to sort through everything. Does this set of categories/sub-categories make sense? I'm still at the early stages of just importing everything into a library, so I'm sure there's categories I've not thought of or considered.

  • Core Rulebook (books required to play)
    • Player Handbook (this might straddle the line between core and supplement)
  • Supplement (books that expand the rules/setting)
    • Sourcebook
    • Bestiary
    • Splatbook
    • Adventure/Scenario/Module
      • Campaign
    • Setting
  • Accessory (mostly non-book related items)
    • Cards
    • Maps
    • Fiction
    • Music/Audio
    • Screens
    • Sheets
      • Character sheet
      • Rules/Cheat sheet
      • Misc sheet
  • Resource (more for general books on RPGs, system-agnostic)
    • GM aid
    • Player aid
    • Educational
    • Tables
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Did you know there is an online forum for tabletop role-playing games that has been around since the early 80s, and which still is active and operating? Admittedly in a much diminished state than a…

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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

I've been searching around for a way to organize my TTRPG collection of pdfs (numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands) and haven't really found a silver bullet for it yet. Everything I've looked at has some sort of weird thing that's off about it that doesn't seem to make it ideal. Is there something out there that others are using that works well? Here's what I've looked at so far:

  • Folder system: This is what I'm already using and it's serviceable (PC), but it really doesn't give me any tagging function and so it's hard to organize based on genre or come up with really any categories outside of just alphabetically naming folders based on the RPG name, then putting whatever subcategories I need as folders below that. It just feels so clunky going about it like this. Being able to organize/search via tags just seems like the way to go.

  • Calibre: This gets recommended everytime, but honestly I'm not interested in duplicating my library of +10,000 pdfs and following their organization system. The desktop app looks ugly (which is apparently fixed with Calibre-web but still requires the desktop app).

  • Jellyfin: Really not geared towards books in general, it's functional but not great for it. This may end up being what I fall back to if I can't get anything else working.

  • Kavita: Looks nice and works nice EXCEPT it has some weird ass naming convention with regards to numbers in the folder/file names. Only top-level stuff can contain numbers, everything below has to have roman numerals? Such a weird thing that just breaks it for me.

  • Komga: It looks nice and works nice, but is more geared towards comics, and thus doesn't work so hot with RPGs with multiple categories (Core rulebooks, Scenarios, Settings, etc), since I tend to break those out into different folders. It ends up treating sub-folders as a different series altogether, so it sort of demands that you just keep everything in the same folder.

  • Ubooquity: Tried it, it ran like ass on my machine and didn't seem to do as good a job. Making updates in the folders themselves took awhile to propagate and it just overall didn't seem to work well for how I wanted to use it. I just didn't particularly care for it.

  • Zotero: It's actually more meant for academic journals and such, but it could be used for organizing TTRPG pdfs, though not sure how well it scales up once you start throwing thousands of pdfs at it. Downside though is that it's not as flashy as some of the others, it doesn't display book covers and you have to create additional objects for each item. You also can't just add tags to the PDFs themselves, you have to create an additional 'Book' object and attach the pdf to that item, then add whatever tags/notes/metadata you want to add. I haven't figured out how to automate the process and the one item I tried where it automatically found it, it created a 'Journal Article' and renamed it based on the authors of the book (which it did correctly find), which is not ideal for going through thousands of items. I just want it to keep the file names in most cases as I've already gotten most file names where I want them.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1488172

I think this TTRPG series is based off of some books?

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1487958

We've got games like Black Myth: Wukong, Crimson Desert, Rise of the Ronin (Koei Tecmo hype!), Dragon's Dogma 2, and, I think, Persona 3 Reload, which I think are the ones I primarily want from this list. There's more games shown, of course. Check it out. Video is about 21 minutes long.

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In this interview I talk with Luka Rejec, the creator of the award-winning Ultraviolet Grasslands, a pillar on the neon side of the OSR. He discusses his creative process and the other UVG-related things that he is working on.

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Hey, everyone my name is Advent, and I run a Patreon called Advent's Amazing Advice! I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc., and fully prep them for New and Busy DMs. My prep includes detailed notes, music, ambiance, maps, encounter sheets, handouts, and tweaks so you can run the best sessions with the least stress possible!

I've been working on Advent's Amazing Advice for well over a year now! Thanks to all the support of my Patrons, I'm finally in the position where I can add someone to the team to lighten the load of prepping! With their assistance, I'll be able to expand the ways I can help everyone!

In order to find the perfect person, I'm creating a contest. The rules are simple. The person who can prep a One-Shot in a style most similar to mine will be the winner. I'll be judging this based on the following:

Main Criteria

  • Formatting: How close you can match my style
  • Improvements: Includes additions; as well as flow, ease of use, etc.
  • Music Selection: Picking the perfect tracks to match each scene (*Create a YouTube playlist)
  • Including additional resources: ie. maps, handouts, encounters sheets, etc. (Be sure to properly credit)
  • Packaging: Delivering the Prep the same way I would (ie. Folder Organization)

The One-Shot that contestants will be working on will be The Delian Tomb. I've chosen this one because it's short, has multiple versions, and is made for beginners to D&D. How you choose to prep will allow me to see how well you can get into the mind of a new DM; ensuring they have all the tools at their disposal to run an Amazing session!!!

Not only will the winner be joining the team*, but there will be prizes! Additionally, if 2nd and 3rd place impress me enough with their quality, they might just find themselves being called up to collaborate in the future!

Prizes

  • 1st - $100 and have your prep featured on Advent's Amazing Advice
  • 2nd - $50
  • 3rd - $25

Deadline - 1/15/24

If this sounds like something you're interested in, you can get started by downloading the Contest Resources by Clicking Here or Here. Once you've finished, you can upload your files to Google Docs and send an email with the link, as well as to the YouTube playlist that you created!

Email - [email protected]

For those of you who haven't seen my work before, you'll find an example of my Into Ivy Mansion prep in the Contest Resources Pack. I've also included additional examples of my prep below.

Position Info

  • Pay: I’m offering the same amount that I charge for commissions, so $100 for each One-Shot Prepped; with up to a bonus $100 for each completed project based on how closely the person can match my style. If the person is good enough, then they’ll eventually be able to switch over to receiving a percentage of all profits from Advent’s Amazing Advice instead! Payment is via Venmo, but other ways can be worked out if needed!
  • Content Production/Hours: - I’m looking for someone who can fully prep between 1-2 One-Shots a month, you can choose when, where, and how to complete the work! I’ll be guiding the person to match my style and be there to help with anything that pops up along the way.

I can't wait to see how this turns out and I'm so excited to have the chance to be able to do something like this. Thank you all so much, without you, I could never have imagined coming this far! If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask!

Cheers,

Advent

* Joining the team is contingent on producing high-quality content and being a person others would want to work with!

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If you need plans for an arcology as big as “20 Empire State Buildings” for your cyberpunk game, look no further.

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I hope everyone is having a Fantastic December! With the Holidays in full swing, I wanted to give everyone here a present, by doing all the prep work for a fantastic Holiday One-Shot for you! Then, in turn, you can gift that experience to your players! And what better gift is there for players who have been so good, than an opportunity to let loose and be evil for a change! Yes, that's right, The Night before Wintermas is specifically designed for Level 5 Evil/Neutral aligned players.

Thanks to the creative mind of jmanc, you'll bring your players to The Town of Frosthold and join a morally bankrupt Toy and Tabacco company to put an end to Santa's charitable operations by Infiltrating his workshop and dealing with the problem for good!

Experience holiday music to fit every scene, face your favorite Christmas Characters...in a battle to the death, earn unique magic items to help you take on the fat man, and live vicariously through your newly evil characters! This is a One-Shot you won't want to miss!

Without further ado:

Included in The AAA Collection is:

  • A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
  • Special PDF for the encounter. This includes the enemy stat block organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
  • An Alternate encounter PDF for Frosty and The Snowmen *(Updated 2023)
  • Custom Maps for Santa's Grotto
  • Custom Boss Fight Music
  • Handouts for the Scrolls of Haste and Invisibility
  • A Preview PDF of Flee Mortals

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! If you have any advice on how I can improve my notes further, please let me know either here or leave a comment on the Google doc itself! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early, feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

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Hasbro is shedding 1,100 jobs. SEC filing doesn’t say if they will continue renting Pinkertons.

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In its 2024 lineup of #stamps, the US Postal Service is including stamps commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons.

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Finished a big rewrite of my rulebook. It's a goofy time-traveling action mess of a game. I've been working on and playing the game for almost 3 years now, but the rulebook is falling behind where the game is at the table. I would really appreciate it if anyone that likes reading rulebooks could check out the Google Docs version and see if there is anything obviously incoherent or typos.

The entire game is 100% free and will always be that way, I'm only interested in sharing my esoteric design.

If you see this big pile of gamma world inspired jokes and think it sounds like fun, I'm down to talk about how to run the game, or answer any questions. Thanks Y'all

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Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

We're back at it again with another Level 1+ One-Shot, this time by the amazing Jennifer Adcock! Grammy's Country Apple Pie is the perfect One-Shot to run for a group of kids who are looking to just have some fun. They can go in the hard way and try to fight everything or they can try to practice those bard-like skills and converse their way through the challenges!

In Grammy's Country Apple Pie, a wizard named Tyndareus develops a craving for a special treat from his childhood, he will stop at nothing to get his hands on the best apple pie in the whole world. He hires your group to seek out the bakery that once produced the wonderful dessert – unfortunately for them, the bakery has long since been overrun by goblins. But all is not as it seems at Grammy’s Bakery, and Tyndareus isn’t the only one who’d do anything for those pies.

Parents and Teachers can oftentimes be even busier than the rest of us and with this Fully Prepped One-Shot I hope I can help get families together and bring new generations of players to the table!

Without further ado:

Included in The AAA Collection is:

  • A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
  • Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
  • Custom Maps of Grammy's Bakery

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

If you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

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Thoughts on creating a Spellcaster that uses hit points for spell casting instead of spell slots.

I was just wondering about home-brewing a walock NPC who's patron saps hitpoints in exchange for spell casting. Essentially, as long as the character has hitpoints they can cast as many spells as they like but with each one it takes a toll.

Balance is obviously an issue here in preventing them from just being healed by the party and used as a spell battery in exchange for healing but Im thinking perhaps balancing that out by making con saves to prevent them from passing out from blood loss or something from wounds appearing on their body as till for the spells. Aswell as that, spells would have different hit point costs that scale with levels like a first level costing 5, 2nd 10 and so on.

Backstory and lore could be pretty interesting as to how they received their patronage, why they took such a harmful deal, they could be good or evil depending on their motives for doing so and other fun stuff!

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas!

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LFG (lemmings.world)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

It's October, the month of Halloween, so of course I had to prep a spine-chilling One-Shot! The Haunt is one of the highest-rated 5th-Level Horror-Themed One-Shots around by Phil Beckwith. In it, your players will have to survive, solve puzzles, and uncover the mysteries of Montarthas Manor.

In ages past, an ancient town was lost and destroyed by a siege of orcs. Only one building survived and to this day, the manor is the only still standing building to be seen for miles around. Some say it is haunted, a few whisper of great treasures within, whilst others whisper that it is the manor itself that lives! No one knows for sure, only that a great evil haunts its halls. Do you dare enter Montarthas Manor?!

Without further ado:

Included in The AAA Collection is:

  • A Word document with all my notes, including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
  • Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly, along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
  • Handout for The Scroll of Invisibility
  • Custom Maps (Credits: just_2_clarify, Before the Lore, Anonymous, PogS_3)

Index:

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

As always, If you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,
Advent

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Guten Abend, meine Frau hat beim Crowdfounding von Littel Wizards mitgemacht und seither haben wir es noch nicht bespielt.

Ich habe mir jetzt überlegt zum 31.10.23 für unsere Tischrunde ein Halloween Horror Special anzubieten und habe auch schon eine Idee.

Da ich jetzt erst anfange, das Werk zu lesen, könnte mir von euch ein wenig Input helfen. Ich habe mir überlegt das es auf einem Jahrmarkt geht, mit entsprechenden Schaustellenden.

Viele Besuchende haben sich zum Feldfrüchtedankestag verkleidet um auch im Nächsten Jahresabschnitt die Bösen Geister fernzuhalten.

Am ersten Tag wo die Spielenden dort hin kommen ist noch alles normal so wie es soll. Am nächsten Tag allerdings wenn sie sich dem Fest nähern hängt ein schauriger Nebel über dem Jahrmarkt und der näheren umgebung.

Falls die Abenteurer aufmersam sind in der Nacht zuvor, können sie vom Himmel ein herabfallendes Objekt beobachten und ggf. das es irgendwo in der nähe des Jahrmarktes herunter gefallen sein muss.

Was es ist und wie es aufzuhalten sein wird, das weiß ich noch nicht, aber um seine macht zu schwächen müssen die Helden 4 - 5 aufgaben bewältigen.

Die Besuchenden die noch auf dem Jahrmarkt waren, wurden zu dem verwandelt, wozu Sie sich verkleidet haben und benehmen sich auch so.

Bevor die erste aufgebe gelöst wurde Interessieren Sie sich noch nicht für die Abenteurer.

Nachdem die erste Aufgabe erfolgreich gelöst wurde werden die Monster sich ihrer Bewusst.

Nachdem die zweite Aufgabe gelöst wurde, werden die Abenteurer angefeindet und Beäugt.

Nachdem die dritte Aufgabe gelöst wurde finden erste Angriffe statt. Einige fangen aber auch an ihr Wahres bewusstsein wieder zu entdecken.

Nach der vierten Aufgabe ist der ganze Markt hinter ihnen her, also müssen sie sich schon gut verstecken, allerdings erwachen einige und wollen den Abenteurer Helfen.

Ich habe allerdings keine Ideen zu den Konflikten, soll schon was mit Feldfrüchtedankestag und Halloween zu tun haben.

Eine Aufgabe könnte sein, DIE richtige Jacko Laterne zu bekommen um genug zu sehen in dem dichten Nebel.

Eine könnte sein, in einem Maislabyrinth zu gehen um dort an einem Artefakt zu gelangen was ihnen den richtigen weg zu dem Finalen Konflickt zu leiten. Aber woher sollten die Abenterer das wissen und warum ausgerechnet ins Maislabyrint gehen.

Ach und, sobald sie eine Aufgabe angehen werden die Charaktere in eine andere Domäne gezogen, bei Jacko Lantern kann es ein Kürbesfeld sein wo die richtige Lampe gefunden werden muss. Sollten sie eine Falsche nehmen versucht der Kürbis sie für sich ein zu nehmen um somit laufen zu können.

Nehmen die Charaktere die richtige entseht direkt ein Konflikt mit Jacko Lantern und er wird sie nicht angreifen oder sowas sondern er wird versuchen diese übers Ohr zu hauen. Aber dafür habe ich auch noch keine Idee.

Und hier kommt ihr ins Spiel wenn ihr mögt gebt mir doch Infos, ihr dürft euch auch dieser Idee selsbt annehmen und ein Abenteur draus stricken.

Zu den anderen beiden Aufgaben und dem Finalen Konflikt habe ich noch keine Idee. Achja, es darf ruhig dunkel und düster sein, es spielen keine Kinder mit. Nur Erwachsene, ab 36 Jahren aufwärts. :)

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