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To the Flooded Lands!

It's been a while since I updated, but here's the latest bit of my Ironsworn campaign map. This is in the Flooded Lands; Aestrid just completed an extreme journey to get here from the Barrier Hills. Her next goal is to tackle Deeprot Bog and slay a basilisk that makes its lair there. She's been receiving prophetic visions of it, ever since watching over Tancrede's funeral pyre unlocked the Seer asset.

The foe entry for basilisks contains the following prompt:

The adventurer set out to slay a basilisk, only to become its next meal. Because the serpent digests its prey slowly, the remains of the adventurer are still undoubtedly within the beast — along with the heirloom sword he wielded. What is your relationship to this person? Why is recovering the sword so important to you?

I intend to claim that sword, resolve my seer-gifted visions, and use it as the fictional positioning to unlock the last pip of the Blademaster asset, which requires you to wield "an iconic blade". Hopefully the oracles will give me something nice to roll into Aestrid's backstory, too, and I can make a little progress on her background vow at the same time.

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You know another thing that fucking sucks? I actually really enjoy RPGs that basically boil down to 'you're in a hostile unknown environment with lots of weird shit, dangers and potential rewards, go explore and try not to die'. Like survival-horror-ttrpgs, right? And, in theory, this is what D&D is meant to do. Hell, in the early editions - from the original little white books to probably early AD&D 1e - it's actually pretty tightly designed around doing that (with occasional interludes into flabbergasting racism, that we all quietly excise). The problem is that because D&D is marketed as, like, the everything-ttrpg that lets you tell big dramatic stories and have character arcs, the D&D-o-sphere thinks it's too good for that style of play. Like "here's a spooky hole full of traps, try not to die" is somehow looked down on as being unsophisticated reactionary dreck for grognards. And "here's a spooky hole, try not to die" is the only thing D&D is any fucking good at! You want big character drama and an epic narrative and emotional beats? You're on your fucking own, sunshine, D&D won't help you with that. But if you want to get killed in a cave by a spike trap or eyeball monster? D&D's great at that, it loves things that try to kill you. (This is, I think, a distinction between type-1 and type-2 D&D). (D&D 5e is also noticably worse at being D&D-as-survival-horror than earlier editions - except spiders 4e who is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted - because in their effort to market it as an everything-game, they stripped out a lot of the stuff that actually cared about creating that experience, because some people don't like dying in holes what with taste being subjective and god forbid they play something else instead) And it kinda sucks because in theory if I want to go play a survival horror rpg where I go into a hole/ruin/alien spaceship/haunted house/heist/evil gameshow and try not to die, despite the fact that this is in theory how you're meant to play D&D, in practice that's not how it's gonna go down because 75% of the player base is ignoring the type of game D&D is actually written to be and desperately trying to beat it into the vague shape of a narrative game. Anyway this is why I like OSR stuff, it's like if D&D dropped the facade and stopped pretending to be stuff it's not. (I should note, to avoid pissing on the poor, that I play a whole bunch of stuff, from VtM to a bunch of PbtA hacks, to weird indie things, to larps, to shit I wrote myself. Die-in-a-cave-D&D is part of a healthy varied ttrpg diet)

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The fate of Tancrede

Picked up my Ironsworn campaign and did some book-keeping and a time-skip to give me a fresher start; unfortunately that meant the death of a bonded connection, Tancrede. My PC is pretty upset about it, as she (kind of rightly) blames herself for his passing.

Rest in peace, Tancrede. You were a good bond and gave me many +1s to my rolls.

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Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns

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Ivan Bilibin (Russian, 1876-1942), Archangel Michael, 1919-20. Ink and watercolour on paper, 32.5 x 27.5 cm.

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No Elves -- Ad for the Talislanta RPG system from Bard Games, Dragon magazine 135, July 1988, featuring PD Breeding Black's illustration of an Araq from A Naturalist's Guide to Talislanta

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Philippe Caza

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Flasks of oil are an essential old school dungeoneering tool, along with the 50' ropes and 10' poles. Light them and throw them at enemies, or pour them onto the ground to make a simple DIY trap, tossing a torch at the right moment. Fire is a great equalizer when you have 6 hp and you're facing dozens of organized enemies. (Roger Raupp from "Don't drink this cocktail -- throw it!" by Robert Plamondon, Dragon 40, August 1980)

The article refers to "molotov cocktails" throughout, but it seems like a different name would be used in a world with no historical Soviet Union. Also note the cleric with a cross on his tunic, a common motif in AD&D art.

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Influential RPG adventure writer, artist, and video game creator Jennell Jaquays has died.

She was a founder of the Dungeoneer zine before it was sold to Judges Guild. Her D&D adventures Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia became classics, often studied as examples of adventure design. She also wrote and illustrated for TSR, Metagaming, Steve Jackson Games, and many other publishers. Her video game career included developing many of Coleco's titles in the 1980s and level design for the Quake sequels at id Software in the 90s, and she co-founded the SMU Guildhall video game program.

She recently was hospitalized for symptoms of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and a GoFundMe to cover her medical expenses is still active.

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I've been wandering around the Tempest Hills in the Ironlands for a few weeks. Bleakroot Depths and the idea of the Idleburrow and Lora's Rise settlements being either side of it come directly from one of the example Delves.

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Elegantly draped headwear accents the scale armors in this season's collection (Russ Nicholson, White Dwarf 29, GW, Feb/Mar 1982)

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One of the things stressed in the original game of D&D was the importance of recording game time with respect to each and every player character in the campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more: YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

Gary Gygax, AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide

Me and Gary don’t see eye-to-eye on much, but this one I agree with. My games always have a calendar and at least tracking of time to the nearest hour or so.

There’s been some talk of playing campaigns where game time tracks 1:1 with real time, so if you don’t play for a week, a week has also passed in-game; that I’m less a fan of.

Especially when playing solo, I like to dip in and out of the game in short bursts, so time keeping would get very convoluted, very quickly. This week I played out a single Ironsworn combat in short bursts over three real evenings, converting 72 hours of Earth time into about 40 seconds of fictional action. I need my fictional worlds frozen in time for when inspiration strikes.

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Every year, my wife and I make sure we have the day after Boxing Day off work and free from family commitments. After spending Christmas visiting family and friends, we keep the 27th to ourselves; eat leftovers, drink gin-and-tonics, and watch at least two Kurt Russell films. It’s our own little tradition.

Happy Kurt Russell day, everyone!

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Happy Christmas!

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Thank you to everyone who got me to 50 likes!