I'm a curmudgeon for saying so, but: that's what RPG rules do for everyone, at every age. 😆
RPG worlds awaken and feed our imagination.
RPG rules ... not so much. 😁
I bet, somewhere, they ARE. 😆
I read the first one last night and it doesn't contain any HTT elements of note (it's heavy with explicit LTT design moves).
Definitely looks like a good time, but doesn't fit the project.
Fair! But I do think some people conflate my championing of this abandoned design style as something more than what it is.
Oh, I don't doubt their excellence. The brothers did high quality work ... but this is for my HTT timeline, which is not a timeline of "adventures that are good," but rather "adventures that are high-trust trad or one of the adjacent consolation-prize forms."
But I'll give them another look.
I skimmed them, and the skim tossed a lot of red flags, so I haven't delved more deeply than that. He did those with his brother, which often seems to be a sign it'll be less useful for my timeline, but: should I give a second look?
I'm only 3 issues in, no rants so far! Lots of stuff I don't vibe with (sandbox thinking is common, and I'd rather chew foil than sandbox) but in issue #27 there's already an adventure with promise.
By William H. Keith jr, a designer I've encountered time and again on this quest ...
I'm diving into studying every RPG adventure published in Challenge magazine from 1986 to 1995, searching for HTT and HTT-adjacent design.
For a gamer who doesn't much like military sci-fi RPGs, I'm spending a LOT of time eyeballs-deep in them lately. 😆 Ah well.
#HTTRPG #AdventureDesign #TTRPG
youtu.be/xvaq2KIcL9Y?...
(I'm not at all suggesting you haven't met such folk; just pondering what they might be like and how they got that way)
D&D absolutely creates that long-campaign desire, like: "There are spells that are REALLY high level. Can I use those? We have to do WHAT so I can use those? Okay I'm in."
But D&D remained in the minority on that, fortunately 😆
I started on Marvel Supeheroes so I'm warped by early one-shots.
Heck, even the grandpappy of RPG goodness, Call of Cthulhu, treated long campaigns as not only optional, but implicitly kind of unusual, with a more likely course of events being madness or death sooner than later.
I'm an old person who played Paranoia, and Ghostbusters, and Rocky & Bullwinkle, and _hundreds_ of other games that never tried to sell us on long campaigns or story arcs.
Truth. But ... it's strange imagining what someone must be like, to assume such stuff.
Perhaps it's generational. Nobody who cut their teeth on TOON (to name just one) imagines multi-year campaigns or story arcs are necessary; we know a run can be complete in 15 minutes and never visited again. 😆
I hope this for everyone, too.
I'm not living up to it myself, but I'm hoping it.
A map of a lake (Lake Araghast) in a fantasy world (Uresia: Grave of Heaven), showing towns, major roads, mountains and so on. There's also a small map of the town of Gaelton.
In the module "Toast of the Town," for Risus, maps meant for the GM's eyes, like this one, were done in the Risus "doodly" style, while the map meant for player reference was in a more sober, diegetic style.
#TTRPG #FantasyMaps #RisusRPG #UresiaRPG
To be fair, though, it's why I have the abs I do.
Yah! I sold Risus a couple years ago, so I made Applesauce as my new house system, to be used for pregens in forthcoming adventures.
100 words long, some of them wasteful flourishes. 😆 Finally free of that bulletproof* TOME that was Risus!
----
* When pushed with a finger. Not fired from a gun.
An old friend and writing buddy of mine just asked for a recommendation for her teen boys, and I sent her directly to the new T&T quickstart thingy. 😊
Yeah; I really enjoyed having characters to root for.
I guess that can't be every Westeros show, but it's the kind I'll stick with past two episodes. 😆
1/8 We wrapped up our year-long Challengers of Vanth campaign today with the Squelchers using diplomacy to form a coalition of allies to confront the captain of the guard of the Horse Tamers to hand over the victory medallion and let the Princess of the Horse Tamers win the Crucible.
I mean, I can't afford to pay anyone and I create commercial products.
I do all the work myself. This isn't glamorous, but it's ethically viable and creatively satisfying 😀
Dancer
Shopper
Nitpicker
Proctologist
Weird trivia: I once designed a campaign module for Encounter Critical that included a direct reference to this comic. But I'm odd. 😆
A segment of a fantasy town map, showing buildings, garden plots, trees, footpaths, streets, walls and water.
My town-maps style, if you zoom to the building level, is simplistic, just basic shapes. Many other cartographers include a lot more detail. But I designed this style around a blend of building info and land-use info, aiming for clarity above, say, roof textures.
#TTRPG #FantasyMaps #Hammondal
The meta-lesson from studying a hundred examples of the same hyperspecific subgenre of #TTRPG book:
The great and very good ones each offer unique design lessons.
The good, mediocre, and poor ones have lessons to teach, but the lessons get samey, fast, and stay that way.
Excellent news. 😊
One thing I haven't managed, that I hoped I would, is getting a clear total number of FRP city guides in existence.
My estimate is "from 150 to 250." That's highly speculative and a big range. I keep stumbling across obscure ones!
Which is a kind of warning for my own project. 😄
#TTRPG
Studying 106 FRP city guides* in detail gives a fella _opinions_ about FRP city guides.
_____
* Current count, but, more soon.
#TTRPG
My favorites as a kid were Black Hole and Haunted House ... I was a sucker for level gimmicks.
These days I play Theater of Magic when I can find it.
Sorry to hear they're resorting to that method.
If you hate a thing ... just say so. Just give it the _one_ negative review/rating that it's your right to give.
Dragging in bots and disinterested strangers to puff up one's negativity with bombing is just miserable.
