duckandrollblog

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THIS book is so fucking good. Terrible rules for amazingly cool fantasy mechs. Completely non-functional, awfully thought out one of my favourite books unironically the art and the ideas and the creativity is SO GOOD

Doom Striders ~ Bastion Press (2004)

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My take on fantasy RPG dungeons is that if I pick two rooms at random on your map and there is only one path to get from the one to the other you shouldn't be allowed to call that thang a "dungeon".

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Gonna take this opportunity to plug my Pathfinder supplement all about cooking: https://www.opengamingstore.com/products/the-flavour-handbook?_pos=1&_sid=6ca60521e&_ss=r

The Flavour Handbook has a chef class, archetypes, feats, and more, all centered around cooking and dnd

Monster Manual Meals 2

The Digester is a swift and imposing beast, loping through woodlands or underground caves on two powerful legs. It tends to disable its prey by spraying it with acid, then rips off pieces with its claws.

If you can catch one, the best way to eat it is smoked. Digester meat has a bit of a sour taste, and you need to remove the acid glands as soon as the monster is killed or they'll soak into the good bits. Digester ribs or brisket are suspended over oak chips to improve the flavor and make the tough meat more tender. Then you cook them with a good sweet and spicy sauce, and you've got yourself a meal!

For 24 hours after finishing some Digester barbecue, you gain a portion of the monster's protection from acid, gaining resistance 10 to acid damage. Good side dishes include Shambling Mound coleslaw and a light bread roll.

[duckandrollblog]

idk what dm needs to hear this but you arent getting that done in a single session

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Women love to deal 1[W] + Strength damage on a hit, and damage equal to their Strength modifier to an enemy adjacent to them other than their target as an at-will power

[duckandrollblog]

Sure sex is nice but have you ever had a moment of perfect clarity where you configure a glimmering set of individual plot hooks that will entice each player at your table and slowly intertwine them not only into each other’s goals and desires but also the main plot element of the campaign?

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Please enjoy my compilation of the most bizarrely specific superpowers I've ever seen in a superhero product

(from https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/54983/Gestalt-The-Hero-Within-MM)

[duckandrollblog]

We have got a DONE BOOK.

It has got a CHOSEN ONE.

It has got TWISTS.

It will make you CRY.

It will make you LAUGH.

It will make you go OOOOOH SHIT.

It has got LESBIANS.

It has got BISEXUALS.

It has got GAYS.

It has got ACES.

It has got QUEERS of ALL STRIPES.

It is HORNY.

It is HEARTFELT.

It is HORROR.

It has TRAUMA.

It has HEALING.

It has FRIENDSHIP that shatters KINGDOMS.

It has BETRAYAL that FUCKS me in the BRAIN-ASS even though I WROTE IT.

I have been working on it for TWENTY

FUCKING

YEARS

and it is done.

("Done")

It is HERE.

I am going to go DIE NOW.

And then we will write another one.

[duckandrollblog]

any other dms/gms plagued with the curse of coming up with a character concept that you want to explore SO bad but not in your own game(s)- only within the context of being a player??

@ all of my dm/gm friends. aheem heem. (mind controls you) YOU WILL INVITE ME TO YOUR GAME AS A PLAYER SO I CAN RP THIS CHARACTER YOU WILL

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How Bethesda fixed Vampires without realizing it

So there's a LOT of takes on vampires across media, and most of them are radically different from each other. The Elder Scrolls series has an interesting version that I haven't seen anywhere else, that incidentally fixes a bunch of lore issues with vampires, and yet Bethesda hasn't ever really leaned into any of that.

So, the issue with vampires in large RPGs like Elder Scrolls games, D&D, etc, is that a world where various elements of character building are supposed to be balanced, vampires are heavy on the upside and light on meaningful drawbacks. So in Oblivion, Bethesda completely reworked their vampires, coming at it with a blank slate:

Vampirism is a 4-stage affliction, with each stage increasing the numerous benefits of being a vampire as well as the middling drawbacks. Stage 4 brings with it all humanoid NPCs recognizing you as a ravenous monster and attacking you, basically wrecking the game. And, this is the unique part, you reduce stages by drinking blood. Being a vampire is LESSENED by doing the most vampiric thing out there, it actively makes you weaker.

And this is great. From a gameplay perspective, you vanish below ground to kill zombies/robots/whatever, and you grow stronger as the dungeon goes on. But if you don't rush through it, or if it's large, you surface having ignored your hunger for several days and have to do a whole second quest to sneak into town at night and drink blood, where the only reward is to engage with the game again. It's a drawback in the gameplay sense rather than the stats sense. And it lets game designers throw the player against weak vampires in town early on, and face dungeons full of max-bloodlust monsters later once the player knows how things work.

Meanwhile, from a lore perspective this is also great. Suddenly, it's not that vampires have to be evil, it's that they have a choice. A good person who flees their family to hide in a cave is going to starve, turning into a ravenous, uncontrolled, extremely strong monster. Someone who's comfortable sneaking around town drinking blood, meanwhile? They never lose control. They walk in the sun. They're perfectly human. Or as human as anyone can be while the blood of their neighbors flows in their veins.

And Bethesda doesn't DO ANYTHING with this. People you talk to in-game just treat it as "all vampires are evil, why would you expect anything else", when they've created a world where vampire morality is so much more interesting. The few vampires who exist in civilization that you're not supposed to kill don't really discuss their condition at all. And there's plenty of evil vampires choosing to live in caves running societies of vampires, when that makes no sense compared to basically any other way of life they could set up.

Bethesda games are a masterful disaster, in this as in everything else.

[duckandrollblog]

I know that coming up with complications and advantages in systems that have partial success/major success can get a little... overwhelming.

That's why I created this handy table to help inspire your mixed/superior results in 'Midnight Melodies'.

I really enjoy this keyword approach, and I believe it is easily portable to other systems as well! Check out the game here:

[duckandrollblog]

Okay, but no listen. An RPG setting where this shit works. Like you could have whole adventures about things accidentally left out and creating monsters, quests to gather rare components or go to distant places to arrange them in order to create a unicorn to cure diseases, a super bizarre cast of wizards who have to feng shui their environment to cast spells. I love this.

[duckandrollblog]

Is she... you know... assumes the Crushing Weight of the Mountain stance 😳

[duckandrollblog]

I desire this

How Many Would be Interested in a Mario TTRPG?

[duckandrollblog]

Somethings cooking was one of the first dnd adventures I ever played. I guess it's no wonder I wound up making a cooking themed Pathfinder supplement, the Flavour Handbook

That calzone golem was the most memorable enemy out of all the early free adventures that wizards put out.

Trick or treat!

Treat! Here's a delicious calzone golem from my favorite D&D adventure of all time, Something's Cooking!

Image source:

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VIP Commission Pt. 2 of @juanwithtaforce 's Goliath punch-gal Runa Ironborn! Do...do you hear that boss music too? #cyberpunk #dnd #goliath