BEHOLD: The Ochremire Rules, as played on my birthday

A rust monster by David Sutherland

This is just a quick post giving my dear readers access to the ruleset we used to play a quick dungeoncrawl on my birthday.

THE RULES (GOOGLE DOCS)

THE CHARACTER SHEET (GOOGLE SLIDES)

d6 Fantasy High School directory 2023

 Roll a six-sided die and consult the guidance counselor.

1. High School for Careers in Alchemy

2. Hungry Howard* Pit Fighting Academy

3. The Abbey of St. Kekkell the Unscrupulous’s School of the Demiurge

4. Pandimensional Merchant Academy

5. Pickman’s* School of the Esoteric Visual Arts

6. The Vance** School of Arcane Etymology

*Robert E. Howard, no less

**This is an H.P. Lovecraft reference

***Jack Vance, that is, whose spell names were very long and very odd, such as “The Chain of Untiring Nourishment”

Replace! That! Monsteeerrr!!!

 “Ladies and gentlemen, this is *everyone in unison* Replace! That! Monsteeerrr! *crowd cheers*”

So everyone knows the classic Tolkien-esque fantasy species, right? (For those who don’t, I’ll add some basic characteristics for each.) Well, what’s really piquing my interest lately is taking the tropes of those old favorites and giving them a new look and, perhaps, habitat, while keeping the same vibe. So, that’s what we’re doing today, and I want YOU to join in.

The creatures:

• Elves: Posh guys with a love of either magic, nature, or both (depending upon the particular setting).

• Orcs: Cruel, warlike, and not much else to be perfectly honest.

• Dwarves: Generations-long-grudge-keeping dudes who love working and their ancestors.

• Halflings: stout folk who love eating and hospitality.

I’ll go first:

Trilons (elves): Look like horseshoe crabs with arms, legs, and extremely advanced technology. Think they are the most highly advanced civilization in the world because they probably are. Crashlanded on this planet and are not happy about it. Are extremely fascinated by this planet’s magic.

Post your interpretations in the comments!

Some thoughts on an RPG session with different goals for each character

Earlier this week I was thinking: “What if I ran an RPG session in which the players did not have the same goal, but different ones that might conflict with each other?”

This concept was used in some of the first RPG sessions ever played, the “Braunstein” sessions. There could be a merchant trying to escort his goods to town, a thief trying to steal the goods, and/or a political revolutionary trying to blow some government building up.

This seems fun, so I thought up some bullet points for how this might work:

• Make players pull roles, along with their corresponding goals, out of a hat.

• Make more roles than there are players, adding an element of surprise for you, the GM.

• Make people reveal their roles to you, but not to the other players, making it more interesting and realistic.

• Make roles that could easily conflict with each other, as well as ones that could cooperate, like the thief and merchant mentioned earlier, or a knight and a noble.

• This would probably work best in a somewhat small sandbox, like a small town.

Playtest the Star Protocol playable demo!

 Greetings, everyone!

Today I have finally created a playable version of the game you requested, that being Star Protocol. You can find it here! If you want more features, such as fleshed-out starship combat, let me know (I should probably add a list of enemies). I based it on a game called Legend of the Forgotten Ballad. If you need adventure ideas go here. The generator is made for star trek, so you may need to change some names. In the game, you play as members of an Interplanetary Coalition starship going on star trek-esque adventures.

Best of luck!

RPG Definition & Glossary

 Greetings, friends! Today we will be exploring the very basics of RPGs. First, we will talk about what an RPG is. Then, I shall give you a glossary of terms used in RPGs. Let's begin!

So, What Is an RPG?

A roleplaying game is a game in which players take on the role of a fictional character and go on all sorts of adventures. Most of the time, an RPG has one player (the Gamemaster) who takes the other players through the game’s world and presents challenges for them to overcome.

Glossary

• Gamemaster (GM): The player who takes the other players through the game’s world and presents challenges for them to overcome. Many RPGs have this, but lots don’t.

• Player character (PC): Either a player who takes on the role of a character or the character itself.

• Non-player character (NPC): A character, who is controlled by the GM, as opposed to a PC, who is controlled by a player.

• Stat: A number that represents how good you are at a general category of task, like strength, intelligence, etc.

• Class: What kind of character you are, like a wizard, for example.

• Supplement: an RPG product that expands the rules of the game.

• Setting guide: a product that details a specific setting for an RPG, which sometimes has supplemental rules sprinkled throughout.

• System: the specific ruleset you use to play an RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, for example.

A Short Introduction.

 Welcome friends, to the Dragon in a Bottle fun time blog! It’s me, your host for today. This post will hopefully tell you what this blog is about, and what you might expect from it. Anyways, let's not dwell on the introduction of the introduction.

This blog is about role-playing games. My first encounter with an RPG was when my brother made one up and games-mastered it for me and my mom. It wasn't very good, and that was the only time we ever played that game.

However, I still retain a do-it-yourself mentality regarding RPGs, and always try and think of ways I can improve upon an existing one, or even make one up from scratch.

These are some projects I may or may not post eventually (knowing me I very well may never post them):

• Star protocol: space-opera RPG about people exploring a newly-found solar system filled with god-aliens (aliens with psychic powers who settle on planets, get worshipped by their inhabitants, and feed off of the inhabitants' faith)

• Swords and Wizardry (RPG) house rules

• Myconomicon: Swords and Wizardry supplement filled with character classes, monsters, and other fun stuff

Tell me in the comments which ones you would like to see!

I hope you enjoy my blog!