RPGaDay 2025: Day 04

4. Message

Taking the prompt, "Message" literally, I consider it good or bad depending on the context. In the context of a thing in the game world that can be sent or received by characters, it is good. It gets brownie points if it takes the form of a handout for the players. It gets extra credit if it is exceptionally well crafted. Messages at the character level provide an additional form of communication that enrich the role-playing experience.

In the context of GM-to-player, player-to-GM, or player-to-player table activity (that is, participants passing notes to each other in order to maintain secrecy at the game table), it is, in my experience, bad. It creates mistrust and it excludes some players from doing the thing they are there for: playing the game. Regardless of the intentions of the note-passers, it's quite frankly rude.

To clarify, I am not saying all note-passing at the GM/player level is bad. If the GM hands out a different note to each player describing the dream the character had that night, that's acceptable. No one is left out and valuable time isn't wasted. If the player characters are gathering information in different ways, there is nothing wrong with passing them notes so they can share the information in their own words (a trick that I think would work well in games where the characters are part of the crew of a starship).

The kind of GM/player message exchange to which I object is the kind that involves duplicity—player characters stealing from their own party, making secret alliances, or sneaking off on private side quests. It's all well and good if you're playing a game like Paranoia, which is overtly (and satirically) player versus player, but if you're not, it's a problem. It's bad for the characters in the adventure and the players at the table. Most role-playing games are cooperative games. They are better when participants cooperate. (And isn't that the real message after all?)

[I just noticed "Message" was a topic used in #RPGaDay2020 Day 12. This was my answer: "Player handouts, used sparingly, can be beneficial to immersion in RPGs. Messages written from an NPC's point of view work better when they can be read and narrated by the players rather than the GM."]

[For more information on #RPGaDay (or #RPGaDay2025 specifically), read this.]

Animal Crackers

We interrupt this #RPGaDay2025 to inform you that the Cyclopedia of Common Animals by Daniel J. Bishop is "Now Available!" on DriveThruRPG.com. These are the DCC RPG stats you need for the real animals in your imaginary world.

RPGaDay 2025: Day 03

3. Tavern

My Advice on the Inclusion of Taverns in an Adventure

• Make every tavern unique.
• Make every owner/proprietor unique.
• Give every tavern a name (preferably one that means something).
• Give every tavern one signature drink and/or dish.
• Determine the prices of food, drink, lodging, and stabling beforehand.
• Describe the entertainment, e.g., music, storytelling, gambling, legerdemain, fortune-telling, games of skill, philosophical argumentation, etc.
• Prepare a random rumor table.
• Prepare a random tavern encounter table.

[For more information on #RPGaDay (or #RPGaDay2025 specifically), read this.]

RPGaDay 2025: Day 02

2. Prompt

Ironically, the prompt, "prompt" does little to inspire me, although I have nothing against prompts per se. (If I did, I wouldn't be participating in #RPGaDay2025.) In general, I think prompts are more useful in blogging than in adventure design, but I think there is potential for their use at the game table as an aid in improvisation. I once used Story Cubes in a session of Ghostbusters to help me generate part of the story of a miscellaneous haunting the players were investigating (specifically, the name of a battle during the War of 1812). Story Cubes are specialized six-sided dice that serve as random prompt generators. With practice, I think I could learn to use Story Cubes rather effectively for a wide variety of role-playing purposes: rumors, songs, tales, omens, small talk, side quests, adventure seeds of any kind. The best thing about prompts in gaming is that they encourage you to explore new possibilities and surprise yourself. Prompts are good.

[For more information on #RPGaDay (or #RPGaDay2025 specifically), read this.]

RPGaDay 2025: Day 01

1. Patron

Sometimes, the best way to create a patron for your player characters is simply to take a ruler from your campaign world and make that person the party's employer. When I was a teenager running a series of adventures set in TSR's World of Greyhawk (for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons), there came a point when the party needed someone to direct them to the next adventure. The person I selected was His Illustrious Glory, Zoltan: the Beygraf of Ket and Shield of the True Faith. All I knew about him was that he was the ruler of Ket and whatever I could glean about his nation from a single paragraph in A Guide to the World of Greyhawk. I knew, for instance, that "the court of the Beygraf is a strange mixture of eastern and western influences." I decided that Zoltan would be a renaissance man, unusually open-minded and highly motivated to increase his understanding of the world, but also very cunning with regard to trade, foreign relations, and national defense. He was fascinated by maps and exploration, and he would generously fund expeditions both to appease his curiosity and increase his knowledge of world affairs. Naturally, this extended to the investigation of places and situations that might be of royal/national interest. The player characters, due to their reputation, were of particular interest to Zoltan who was in need of experts who could carry out special missions as needed. Zoltan could provide information, resources, and payment; the player characters could provide unusual expertise and plausible deniability. It helped that Zoltan was neither tyrannical nor insane.

There were no stats or biographical information about Zoltan apart from his name and title, but it was enough material to build an interesting and useful non-player character.

[For more information on #RPGaDay (or #RPGaDay2025 specifically), read this.]

RPGaDay2025 Coming Soon

RPGaDay2025 is coming soon—as in tomorrow (as I am writing this). Question: Will I participate? Answer: I shall try. We'll see what happens. I make no promises. If anyone chooses to interact by commenting on or linking to my RPGaDay articles, however, I'll be strongly motivated to keep posting. Silence, on the other hand, gives me time to ponder existential dilemmas, which means I have less time to think about role-playing games and blogging.

As with last year, I shall be posting here (and maybe on Threads) daily. Will you be sharing the journey?

Duck, Duck, Goose?

Does your old school fantasy role-playing game lack stats for common domesticated animals? Daniel J. Bishop has the solution with the Cyclopedia Domestica. Compatible with OSR games generally and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG specifically, it provides the details you need whether you are a 0-level character braving the funnel with your farm animal, an adventurer with a secondary skill in animal husbandry, or a spellcaster dabbling in polymorph spells.

Cyclopedia Domestica: Being a Compendium of Common Domesticated Animals is available now at DriveThruRPG.com.

"Don't Have a Cow, Man!"

Old School Open Book Spellcasting

I actually enjoy Vancian magic. I don't prefer it in every fantasy role-playing game, but I find it effective, interesting, and fun when it is employed appropriately. That is not to say it can't be improved. The following is a house rule I intend to use the next time I run Swords & Wizardry or earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons.

Open Book Spellcasting

As per established rules, a magic-user may memorize a certain number of spells of various spell levels according to their class level. These spells, once cast, are "erased" from the caster's memory, but may be re-memorized given time and access to the right spell book or scroll.

A magic-user may, however, choose to cast directly from the spell book or scroll without causing the written spell to disappear (which is what happens when non-magic-users are able to cast a spell from text). To do this, the magic-user must read directly from the open spell book or scroll and make an attack roll versus an armor class equal to 10 + the spell's level (using ascending armor class). The magic-user is, in a sense, attacking the difficulty of the spell through brute force of will. If the roll succeeds, the spell is cast. If the roll fails, the spell is not cast and each subsequent attempt to cast it raises its armor class by 1. Normal difficulty is restored the following day. If the magic-user fumbles by rolling a 1, no more attempts may be made to cast that spell until the following day and the spell, if already memorized, is instantly forgotten.

In retrospect, the house rule I described in "Time for Another Spellcasting House Rule" in which the cost of casting an unmemorized spell is 1 hit point per spell level should probably be a variant of open book spellcasting and likewise require the use of a spell book or scroll. One could use both variants in the same game: one requires a roll, the other requires a sacrifice of hit points, but both require the reading of the written spell.

Things Break

Simple rules for equipment breakage are the topic of "Equipment Damage X in 6" in 1d30. It also integrates with the Shields Shall Be Splintered house rule.

The Gammatastic Voyage! Crowdfunding in Progress

The Backerkit project for The Gammatastic Voyage!, an adventure for Mutant Crawl Classics RPG, is in progress and can be purchased as a PDF or a super fancy print copy with a free PDF. The deadline to back the project is 30 June 2025.

According to the project page:

Backers in the first 48 hrs will get a bonus PDF called "The Village" which provides a full-blown post-apoc village, complete with map for you to use in this game and others! Late backers can pick this up as an add-on.