“New to me” it may technically be but I’m going to start up something with Ironsworn: Starforged: Sundered Isles (yes I’m calling it that, fight me). Have used both Ironsworn and Starforged before but not Sundered Isles.
What actually would be new to me is Fey Borg as I’ve yet to run anything Borg. Barely anything OSR at all.
Shawn Tomkin’s Ironsworn series. Delve I regularly use for setting up point crawls. Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles have great collections of random tables, I use the book thematically most fitting for the situation at hand. The core tables of Action, Theme, Descriptor and Focus all get heavy use.
Kevin Crawford’s [SOMETHING] Without Number series have awesome tables as well. These however get more use when I need more detail. Prep stuff. Again most thematic book is picked first but I do have used Cites (cyberpunk) for fantasy cities.
When I want to create background for “medieval fantasy” characters I pick up Burning Wheel and burn something up. Through that I get a good selection of relevant skills to sue (for flavor)
Anything related to cosmos and mythology I say HELLO! to my growing collection of Glorantha material. From cult books to magic tomes and Atlases.
Damn I’m feeling you. I’m in the fall process (solidly down 15kg/33lb, approaching 20kg/44lb) with about 10-15kg to go. When my belly stops flapping I’m good I think. But I fear the rebound… Currently lots of my evening snacking have disappeared because of evening gym classes, so late home and even later dinner. So I don’t have time anymore to get snacky. Or if I do it’s almost bedtime anyway so I’ll just go to bed instead.
But once I’ve hit my goal and don’t need to hit gym that hard anymore… That frightens me. A little bit at least. Made some good connections there and got a routine going so i can probably keep it up.
I had gotten it into myself that boars make use of burrows. But I may be very, very wrong.
I hope so. Other option would be fox. Boar I don’t think, too small. And I really don’t want it to have been a boar burrow as it wouldn’t then been unlikely with piglets in it. With ANGRY mamma nearby…
Hitting the gym
What do you mean capitalism WAS a misstake? Did I miss a memo?
Another Himedere checking in. I love setting up situations where the players and/or the characters squirm in anguish about what to do.
My favorite so far was an estranged princess living as a man and hostel owner. He had turned his back on the throne and wanted little to do with it. As a bonus he was the only child of the king’s only remaining child. Fast forward a bit and he needed a (legal) favor from the king. Went to court and met with his grandfather. The king would do it, no strings attached if a) he returned to court and resumed his duties as prince and b) sired an heir.
There were a good thirty minutes of the players anguishing if he should accept while going deep into character motivations and the setting. During that game I don’t think I did as much concrete worldbuildning as during those thirty minutes. I loved it, the players loved it. Great time.
Issue in that case I rather see as why is it allowed to enter into legally binding agreements when you aren’t sober. Why there isn’t a (forced) period to review the papers.
Marriage is a legally binding agreement. Let’s treat it as such.
The Swedish vacation law (Semesterlag 1977:480) amateurishly translated by me. And I am in no way experienced enough in our labour law to comment on how it looks for those not working full time. The short lesson is to Remember Ådalen, or those that fought, bled and died four our labour rights.
4 § En arbetstagare har rätt till tjugofem semesterdagar varje semesterår […]
An employee have right to twentyfive vacation days per year
12 § Om inte annat har avtalats, ska semesterledigheten förläggas så, att arbetstagaren får en ledighetsperiod av minst fyra veckor under juni-augusti[…]
If nothing else have been agreed upon, the vacation is to be scheduled such that the employee get a vacation period of at least four weeks during june -august
Unions work. Labour movements work.
As long as the Russian bear is around to scare the west and occupy our mibds the Chinese dragon is at much more liberty to do whatever they want.
Love the addition of “again”.
I mean if you don’t want your yacht sunk then don’t sail it where orcas sink yachts. Sorry but actually not sorry for the casual victimblaming.
Spoiler it is 30km/h. After that noise and injury risk/severity shoot up. It is the compromise speed.
How easy it for those speaking the different languages to understand eachother?
So many. And the answer to all “why nots?”. Time. It’s time. So off the top of my head
Eat the Reich - “The year is 1943. You are a team of crack vampire commandos with one mission: drink all of Hitler’s blood”
Conan 2d20
Legend of the Five rings (5e)
Stoneburner - Deep Rock Galactic the TTRPG
Vaesen - Call of Cthulhu but rooted in nordic mythology
Heart the City Beneath - an award-winning complete tabletop roleplaying game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process.
Cat is grumpy because someone stole its humans
The more abstract the map is the more of a support for TotM it becomes. I selfom do a map, rather a flowchart. Quicker, easier and knocks out the last desire to measure things.
This brings us back to zones, a good middle ground. Draw rough map, or great map, and on it mark intresting combat zones. Some are separated with emptiness, others by obstacles.
For example a tavern brawl. Zones could be the Bar, Kitchen, Common Room, Balconies, Private Rooms, Out Front and Out Back.
Fighting on the Balconies could be tight, only one in width and with the risk of being thrown off it into the Commonroom. In the Kitchen there would be fire hazards, improvized weapons, knifes and the Stew. Not to forget other ways to spice things up in there. Around the Bar there would be some cover fighting someone on the other side, bottles to be broken and combatants to glide alond the bar for maximum mental damage.
And so on. Make each zone memorable and with special features. Did I mention drawing it out really helps?
A bit of preface. The games I run, the games I play in and the groups I enjoy all are very open with discussing meta. From story beats to encounter critiques and where we the players want to see the game go.
We are honest and appreciate the time the GMs put into running the games. Several times either I or another GM have stated “that direction is not prepared” and the group have a chat from there. Perhaps calling it early or we zoom in on character daily life (or their projects). The amount of times a “forgotten” villain have reappeared for revenge in these situation is kinda high.
Why play a game about characters, their decisions and their reaction to adversary when their decisions won’t matter? When the roads they travel all lead to Rome? This is very much also something that is part of the game’s setup. How directed the game will be. A wide open sandbox will strain much more against being directed than a more tightly focused narrative. Heck, I don’t actually mind being directed in a game with a focused narrative or having the GM drawing the game back to it’s story.
It’s a complex topic where advice will differ depending on the specifics of each game.