joshthenesnerd

[joshthenesnerd]

The folks who worked on early D&D, Gygax, Aneson, and Kask barely touched their official rules. In fact, a lot of early players would look up Gary Gygax in the phone book and call him the next day when they didn't know how to do something in the rules.

Quite often, when he was asked how he would rule something that wasn't in the rulebook or was unclear in the rulebook, he'd ask, "How did you rule?" and when the caller told him, he replied something along the lines of "Sounds good enough to me."

And then, within a couple of years, people started publishing rules to fill in D&D's gaps. One of those new upstart designers rubbed him the wrong way, and he started to dislike that entire community. And part of his motivation behind Advanced D&D was to create enough rules that nobody would need them.

The world-sim philosophy of 1e AD&D is fascinating, but it's kind of a dick-move to effectively make so many rules up to make an art-form irrelevant.

He literally said you couldn't have a "real" experience of D&D without using all the rules and every official TSR product. Even though he never used them himself.

"Rulings over rules" does not absolve you of the sin of designing a game with too many rules to remember.

[joshthenesnerd]

GURPS Ultra-Lite: everything I wish I knew before GMing it.

I got the chance to run a new RPG, and I have some thoughts about running the system.

I'm not going to convince you to play GURPS Ultra-Lite; it's mostly designed to get non-roleplayers to buy GURPS. But for a quick one-shot system, I like it a lot. I'm gonna tell you the prep I wish I had done before making an adventure and running a one-shot in this system

short version

Make a setting

Make a list of skills (class names in other RPGs)

Consider ranged weapon damage possibilities (optional)

long version:

1. Make a Setting

GURPS (lite, ultra-lite, and the full game) has no assumed setting or genre. You don't have to do much in Ultra-Lite, but there are no assumptions about what kind of world you're in, like there are with games D&D, Shadowrun, and Call of Cthulhu. You could do any technology level, any magic level, any species you want. fantasy, sci-fi, modern, historical. You can make your own or use a pre-existing setting.

Even if you and your players know the setting already, write a brief setting document of 100-200 words to get the vibe right. You don't need to know everything. Just get down some brief history, a few proper nouns, and the vibe. A good example of what this can be is the opening narrations to Firefly and Fallout, or even the text crawls for Star Wars. And if you like what you've written, you can even read it to your players to provide the tone at the beginning of the one-shot.

2. Make a Skill List

In GURPS Ultra-Lite, skills are less like what other RPGs would call skills and more like classes. For example, let's say you want to make a cab driver. In other skill-based RPGs, you'll get the driving skill and the navigation skill, and then you're gonna have to buy your character a cab to drive, etc., etc. Not the case in GURPS Ultra-Lite. In this game, skills are your job. Assume that player characters with a skill can do all the things someone who does that job can do, and assume they have the equipment relevant to doing that job.

If you GM a game of GURPS Ultra-Lite, it's a good idea to give your players a list of 3-5 possible skills for them to choose from, or to inspire them to think of their own.

This gives your players the vibe of the setting and a sense of who they can be. The most important thing to note is that the player can choose to make their own skill if the skills you've listed aren't quite what they wanna be

In your skill list, a skill needs 4 things: a name, an armour rating, a weapon with damage dice, and a brief list of 2 to 4 skill-relevant tasks. That list of tasks isn't supposed to be everything, just enough to get an idea of the concept of the skill.

A skill doesn't need to have armor or a weapon if you feel like that skill doesn't need that. And the character might find that kind of thing later.

Here's a sample of three skills from different time periods: one with just a weapon, one with both a weapon and armour, and one with no weapon and no armour

name: Smuggler | armour: 0 | weapon: revolver 2D6 | sample tasks: quick draw, fast-talk |

name: Knight | armour: 2 | weapon: sword (melee dmg) | sample tasks: inspire, joust |

name: Doctor | armour: none | weapon: none (unarmed dmg) | sample tasks: examine patient, first aid, diagnose

Having a weapon name written there assumes they have it and are trained in it. And the sample actions aren't all the things that can be done with that skill.

if you're not sure about what kind of classes to make, think about characters from movies/books in a setting similar to yours. Those three skills up there were me thinking about Mal Reynolds, Sir Lancelot, and Dr. McCoy.

If your character doesn't have a weapon, perhaps put down their most important piece of equipment instead. Dr. McCoy doesn't have a weapon there; he would probably have a medical tricorder.

That's pretty much all my advice for preparing to play/run this game. If you're looking to get your players to try more systems, the simplicity of this one may entice your players into playing more systems.

3. Ranged weapon damage possibilities

The rules say that ranged weapons have a specific damage dice, 2D6 for pistols and 5D6 for rifles.

Meanwhile, melee weapons have a damage calculation based on your strength and skill level.

It's a very small ruleset, so I shouldn't recommend homebrewing, but I recommend one thing

You could expand your weapon damage range. Maybe ranged weapons are as weak as 1D6, others as strong as 5D6, and some in between. GURPS ultra-lite can be as simple or complex as you want (to an extent)

Wrap up:

GURPS Ultra-Lite can be used for pretty much any kind of One-Shot. It's not really meant for campaigns, but I think being a One-shot system is its strength. You can start quickly. Once your players are seated, you can read your opening narration, hand them a class list, and they can start playing in 30 seconds.

[joshthenesnerd]

NHL Rulebook rule 33 section 11, paragraph 3: "If, through misadventure or sickness, the Referees and Linespersons appointed are prevented from appearing, the league will make every attempt to find suitable replacement officials..."

"misadventure?!"

What were the refs doing that had to be classified as a misadventure in the rulebook?

[joshthenesnerd]

Quick And Dirty Mass Combat Rules For RPGs

A while back, I improvised some mass combat rules during a D&D session. By mass combat, I mean there are so many combatants that you are probably going to want to use one token/mini to represent multiple people.

I had 3 goals:

I wanted it to be easy for the players to follow, easy for me to track, And I don't wanna have to deal with a lot of numbers

___

The only assumption is that each player commands a token/mini representing a group of combatants. Likewise, an enemy token has a "commander" as well

___

Here's the 6 rules I came up with on the fly:

There is no initiative roll. a whole side of the conflict goes, then the other side

A token's health is represented by a di. You can start at the number of people that the token represents and tick it down by 1 when it is successfully hit.

Attacks (either ranged or melee) are done by 2D6 vs 2D6; the defender breaks ties highest roll wins.

If you want to specifically attack the group's commander, that's done like an action in normal combat. A successful hit takes them out. (If you don't, the commander will be the last one standing)

Flanking adds a D6, attacking without a commander removes a D6

You're not attacking to kill, just to injure/subdue

___

Are there better rules? Absolutely

Can these be simpler? without a doubt

This ruleset is not about being the best/most accurate/most strategic/etc. thing. This ruleset is like Pong compared to tennis.

It's not a simulation; it just wants to do the job of resembling it and being over quickly.

[joshthenesnerd]

the damned weasel got my players kicked outta town and now my setting has smurfs in it apparently.

My players were taking their characters on a multi-day trek into the city. Along the way they, stopped in a town called Palemo.

in the town, they caught glimpse of a clay golem robotically wandering the town. which scared the villagers quite a bit.

One of my players asked to roll an animal handling check to keep their giant weasel from running off. I said sure, and she rolled half the DC. The thing just bolts. The party members ran off after it, but the gnome wizard wasn't running fast enough to keep up and lost them.

gnome wizard decided to use the boots of jumping he's got to get on a roof to get a vantage point. once up there, he spotted a path of chaos to follow and headed back down.

rolled low and fell through some awnings and onto a manure cart like a member of the Tannen family.

the wizard dusted himself off and followed the sounds of chaos in the direction of the market

screams like "MY CABBAGES!" and the like.

when the wizard caught up to them, the weasel was tearing apart a potato stand. the potato salesperson called a guard over and the guard asked them to leave and they camped out in a field.

and if my source ( @norvicensiandoran ) on the digestive system of a weasel is accurate, the party is in for a stinky night.

One party member, Lyanna Sagecreek (played by @frogfishes ), is a cobold with a C a homebrew dogfolk race that has a sensitive nose. Lyanna did not have a good night.

Now... did I say smurfs?

So, The party cleric (her name is Mellie) was having her watch when she noticed grass shuffling in a path. she brushed at it with a sack and sent a tiny creature flying. it was a short skinny blue creature.

she then got attacked by a bunch of them. The rest of the party had to calm the situation and give them space to continue whatever they were doing.

I thought it would be cute if they accidentally left something behind, and if the players wanted to figure out who they were they could have taken this object to some scholar or something...

unfortunately, I decided to make the object a white hat

and that's when @norvicensiandoran said, "Wait. were they freakin smurfs?"

and the one playing the wizard said "You said they're 8 inches tall. that's gotta be about three apples."

SO I GUESS WE'VE GOT SMURFS NOW

[joshthenesnerd]

your "most weasel" is so stupid that the intelligence spark from the fairy ring couldn't make it talk.

...

...

I feel like one of those parents "Why can't you be like your brother the rat-familiar?"

One of my players has been recreating my weasel sounds

so... in my D&D game, they've adopted a giant weasel they found in a dungeon (see against the cult of the reptile god)

and I've been making the STUPIDEST noises possible whenever this thing needs to respond to stimuli

today one of my players has apparently been making the weasel noises randomly.

attached is my dumbass giant weasel noises:

listen to this dumbass weasel.

[joshthenesnerd]

One of my players has been recreating my weasel sounds

so... in my D&D game, they've adopted a giant weasel they found in a dungeon (see against the cult of the reptile god)

and I've been making the STUPIDEST noises possible whenever this thing needs to respond to stimuli

today one of my players has apparently been making the weasel noises randomly.

attached is my dumbass giant weasel noises:

listen to this dumbass weasel.

[joshthenesnerd]

Star Trek - Strange New Dumb Comics #75

Guess who's rewatching TOS for the gazillionth time ?????

[joshthenesnerd]

I love how in the final one with the moustaches I can tell which one is Ringo

going through newspaper archives and i love that in the daily mail from 63-66 they had these cute little mop top doodles to accompany any beatles article

and then you get to 1967

[joshthenesnerd]

ya'll who's up for group meowing

[joshthenesnerd]

[joshthenesnerd]

[joshthenesnerd]

joining the war on autism on the side of autism

[joshthenesnerd]

If you're ever having trouble thinking of NPC names

know that from the 1920s until the 1970s, a few hundred Canadian infants per year were named Baby.

link to source

[joshthenesnerd]

I think this quieter version of dance music is my favourite. one day I should compile playlists of my favourite live versions. I have quite a few

here's one other:

favourite live version of Palmcorder Yajna: performed at The Earl Atlanta, GA on 2004-10-18

there's also a really cool live set where John opens with the entirety of Taboo VI: The Homecoming (minus the covers which he didn't want on there)

2023-07-02 at SPACE, Evanston IL, taped by Tape&Bake

I thought I'd listened to most of the recordings from this tour, but somehow I missed this one and wow is it one for the books. This rendition of Dance Music is a particular favorite of mine, but I also just adored this show's Tidal Wave, and it has some of the kind of banter that makes listening to live tapes so special! I won't spoil it, but seriously, go listen to this one.

The Mountain Goats collection on the Live Music Archive has 450+ live recordings and spans from 1992 to present day! Live Tapes Tuesday is a weekly (ish) post series aiming to bring attention to the incredible archive of tMG tapes (and the efforts of the community in taping shows) by spotlighting a different tape every week. // What’s the Live Music Archive?

[joshthenesnerd]

We don't need to be empaths to tell, Spock.

the empath

[joshthenesnerd]

Good morning. This is the best fic comment I have ever received.