#runecairn

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played RUNECAIRN ?

By Colin Le Sueur

Runecairn: Core Rules is a 44 page, black and white RPG zine, which includes a Norse fantasy setting, a full game system, and character creation rules for adventures set after Ragnarok destroyed most of the Nine Realms of Norse mythology. Runecairn is based on Cairn by Yochai Gal, with streamlined rules, fast character creation, and gameplay based on exploration and player choice.

[theinstagrahame]

Time again for the Crowdfunding Haul post!

(And I guess another amateurish product photo shoot)

This one's feels slightly different because this is all stuff I pre-ordered, crowdfunded, or otherwise got prior to being laid off at the end of June (so it'd be real nice if people bought some games from me). Coincidentally a dozen or so of them happened to come to completion around June-July of 2023, some of them.

Here's what came in: Top row: Monster of the Week: Codex of Worlds, Runecairn Bestiary, CBR+PNK, Miru and Miru II (or MIIRU)

Middle row: Ritual: A Folk Horror Game, Plant Girl Game, and A Dungeon Game

Bottom row: Sleeping Heart of the Garden, Hard Wired Island: Tales from L5, Broken Heart of the Castle, the Moss Mother's Maze (for a Dungeon Game), and Null

Why I'm hyped for these:

Monster of the Week: Codex of Worlds: MotW is a hugely influential game, but also it is a lot of fun. So it's really hard to pass up an expansion. I've also been noticing a trend of bringing Forged in the Dark-style group sheets to PbtA games, which I think is an interesting one.

Runecairn Bestiary: Who doesn't love a good monster manual? Runecairn is a beautiful game, and the marketing for the bestiary supplement worked on me. Incredible art, stats for monsters. One of the things I've felt is missing from some solo games is a good sense of monsters you can encounter, and this fills that gap nicely.

Miru and Miru II: I was intrigued by Miru and picked up a copy on Itch. I haven't read it yet, but the premise and the art definitely grabbed me. I was a little sad that I'd missed the initial print run, so when there was a crowdfunder for a reprint *and* a sequel, how could I not?

Ritual: A Folk Horror Game: World Champ Game Co is one of several Indie designers that never miss. It also comes with a small deck of ritual cards with really visceral and cool images that I think adds a ton to the game. That said, I am also a huge sucker for limited edition print runs... So when I saw there may only be a handful of these available, well, I jumped.

Plant Girl Game: I learned about this one on @partyofonepod, and was so intrigued by the game, and the creator, and the world that it proposed that I had to know more. It's a game focused on family, on community, and on peaceful resolutions to small-town problems. So it's definitely an odd one out on this list, but the ways in which it's different are also one of the reasons I so love TTRPGs.

A Dungeon Game and the Moss Mother's Maze: I followed the evolution of Bissette's A Dragon Game into A Dungeon Game on Twitter, from shitpost to full-fledged game. It was really fun to watch, and to skim the Designer's Commentary on the original ADG. So, when I heard there'd be an adventure module (aaaand again a limited print run for the main game...) I leapt on it as fast as my email could carry me.

Sleeping Heart of the Garden and Broken Heart of the Castle: I've followed a few of the creators involved in this project on Twitter for a while, and generally was intrigued to see what they could do with a system-agnostic adventure. I was surprised by the size when they arrived, because you get to expect the half-page zine format. But I think these books are beautiful and I can't wait to explore them.

Hard Wired Island: Tales from L5: HWI is a stunning piece of TTRPG content, and I've been wanting to dig into the world further. So, a collection of short adventures? Hell yeah! It even came with a really catchy little soundtrack, the final track for which I think about all the time when considering Cyberpunk content...

Null: Everything Spencer Campbell puts out just shreds. I did nearly sleep on Null, but I was intrigued by the recent trend of Play-to-Lose games that I've seen coming out lately. There is something kind of powerful about going into a game knowing your character won't come out, which I think allows you to make different decisions. I was interested to see where this game fit into Campbell's catalog, as well as into my own play style.

CBR+PNK: Been getting into Forged in the Dark stuff lately. I also nearly let this one pass me by, when I'd heard that it was aimed at one-shot games. But, I was still intrigued to see what could be done with Cyberpunk in the FitD framework (and besides, maybe there's a way an enterprising designer could campaigns in there...). I was glad I picked it up, because I started playing games with some friends over Discord, and I was able to pitch this. We've been enjoying it. It's even serving really well as a prequel to the Beam Saber campaign we're planning (Also really convenient that it arrived before we finished the one-shot). Besides, the physical edition did turn out really nicely:

Bonus game-related stuff:

I picked up Inhuman Conditions (right) because I'd heard it on Friends at the Table. It seems like an extremely fun game, but also the Sangfielle campaign episode(s) where they play it are ones that I think about a lot. Also, one of the things I love about FatT is their ability to wield the power of play to do incredibly powerful things.

The Tears of the Kingdom Strategy Guide I kinda wanted less because I was stuck or wanted tips on playing TotK, but because the bundle I got for my Switch and Breath of the Wild came with one, and I kinda wanted to put both on the shelf. Zelda has been one of those series that I've always had throughout my life, so I've got a lot of emotional investment. The two strategy guides are beautiful, and I will probably end up skimming through it when I've gotten through the main game.

[indiepressrevolution]

Now at IPR: Runcairn!

Runecairn: Core Rules is a 44 page, black and white RPG zine, which includes a Norse fantasy setting, a full game system, and character creation rules for adventures set after Ragnarok destroyed most of the Nine Realms of Norse mythology. Runecairn is based on Cairn by Yochai Gal, with streamlined rules, fast character creation, and gameplay based on exploration and player choice.

It's also two player! So if you're looking for something with a little more crunch (and plenty of tables) to play with just one other person, Runecairn is definitely worth checking out.

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Runecairn-Core-Rules-Print-PDF.html

We've also got four supplements for Runecairn available: Runecairn: Advanced Rules, Runecairn: Beneath the Broken Sword, and Runecairn: Bestiary.

[ducklyght]

03.02.

I'm now at that point. I'm going to develop my own game system. Okay, not quite. My goal is to write a hack for Cairn. Something like a "Advanced Cairn" with inspiration from Runecairn, Tiny Dungeon and other OSR/NSR games.

But I don't want to write "just another OSR spinoff"; I want to write a system tailored to the preferences of my group. They liked Cairn, but also love EXP. There are no EXP in Cairn, so I will add a progression system, which will be more like: "My character can do (very) specific things better, than other N/PCs." They will use these EXP to advance in and foremost learn skills like Alchemy, Smithing, Mounted Combat, etc. But those skills won't be in a list, like in D&D or Pathfinder. Every PC has some basic skills every PC has. Those are nailed down and most likely on every character sheet. Additionally, they get some skills through random background generation (because random character generation is kinda big thing in Cairn). Other skills will be made "purchasable". You need (in most cases) a teacher/master, some EXP and a third thing to learn the skills. The third thing can be simply money, special items, or even a favor in form of a quest.

Why not write down every skill in a skill list then? Simply, because the obtainable skills don't follow strict rules and I won't write a list of obtainable skills, because a PC can learn kinda everything the player asks for. Want a specific skill for "drinking beer very fast"? No problem. The skill "stool brawling" is also possible. The limitation is the own creativity. The game master and the players will make the rulings at the table on the fly. But I will encourage them to just pin down the rules in 1-2 sentences. Make it simple, easy and fun. This is the key point.

[squaretablehold]

I'm reading the runecairn rulebook since it's explicitly inspired by dark souls and ohohohohoho elden ring ttrpg campaign, many thoughts, head full

[theresattrpgforthat]

I’ve been a big fan of northern fantasy, but especially viking sagas, epics and of course the Eda, are there any games that fall into genres similar to the Volsung Saga or The Epic of Ragnar Lodbrok?

THEME: Viking Sagas

Hello! The following recommendations are either based on Norse Fantasy, Viking Fantasy, or historical Norse societies. Some are more realistic than others, but they run the gamut from light-hearted to serious, and from fantastical to realistic.

9 Lives to Valhalla, by Gem Room Games.

9 Lives to Valhalla is a frenetic, gleefully ultraviolent ttrpg about death metal viking cats earning their seat in Valhalla through glorious violence and death (all 9 of them)!

Nine lives to stalk the earth! Nine times to die with sword in paw! Nine Lives to Valhalla!

You are a death metal viking cat, earning your place in the drinking halls of Valhalla by casting a wake of blood and carnage upon the blighted earth in each of your 9 lives. Guided personally by DEATH, your merry band will leave a wake of ruin ending only at the hands of a truly worthy foe. Find treasures, trade with merchants, mercenaries, or ghosts, and follow DEATH to seek worthy foes, fiendish traps, and ensure your place among the greatest warriors of catkind!

This is absolutely the kind of game you want to pull out for players who want to dive into violence with glee. This is a death-metal dark-fantasy world, with dangerous opponents, a pantheon of cat gods, tons of character abilities, and GM advice on how to design your own foes on the fly. If you want a game that indulges a party of murder hobos and sends nods to the pop-culture tropes of Vikings, you might want to check out 9 Lives To Valhalla. 

Ydalir, by Loreshaper Games.

Ullr took something that is rightly yours. He reigns in his court, Ýdalir, and that is where he has taken your treasure. It may be your beloved, a prized possession or tool, or even your honor—and you will get it back.

One player will take on the role of GM. They will guide the saga as it unfolds. They will tell players when to roll, and what the threshold is. The other players will make heroes seeking to reclaim what Ullr stole from them—they may be after the same object or several different things, but getting them back is a shared quest. 

This is a one-page bluffing game, in which you don’t have to tell the truth about what you rolled. However, other players can take on the role of Ullr call your bluff. If you lied (or failed), you suffer a Loss, while if you tell the truth, you gain a Focus, which forces other players to tell the truth, or reveal their next roll and gives your player a step up in the future. If you like the idea of characters bluffing their way past a God to get their treasures back, or you just want a small game interacting with Norse mythology, you might want to check out this game.

Runecairn, by Odin’s Beard RPG.

In a long forgotten age, a raging war shattered and devastated the worlds of gods and men. Now green life blooms amidst the ruins of the lost worlds. Wondrous and terrible beings roam the Nine Realms. Civilization stumbles forward, fresh and reaching.

Strap on your bearded axe and linden wood shield, delve into the forsaken barrow and cleanse the draugr within. They will overwhelm you at first so prepare to die. But when you wake up at the bonfire, you'll know what to expect for your next attempt. Parry their attacks, disarm them, and hack them to pieces. Defeat the mad jotunn within and claim the soul remnant they protect.

Death is not the end.

Runecairn: Core Rules is a 44-page, black and white tabletop RPG zine, which includes a Norse fantasy setting, a full game system, and character creation rules for adventures set after Ragnarok destroyed most of the Nine Realms of Norse mythology. Runecairn is based on Cairn by Yochai Gal, with streamlined rules, fast character creation, and gameplay based on exploration and player choice.

This game is designed for the OSR gamer, which means that death is likely and character creation is quick. This game has quite a few supplements that you can pick up to enhance your play, from the Advanced Rules, (solo play, advanced character options), Beneath the Broken Sword (an introductory dungeon crawl), and Wardensaga, a package that contains everything in one place. If you’re interested in a rules-set that is easy to pick up and carries time-honoured nods to the fantasy game, with a Norse Mythology twist, I recommend Runecairn.

Blood Feud, by Bläckfisk Publishing.

Blood Feud is a game about toxic masculinity: certain common attitudes and behaviors among men, that cause great harm to them and to others around them. This is a game about people being nasty to each other and about figuring out why.

It’s also a game about vikings of pre-christian Scandinavia; about honor and blood feuds, courage and brutality, corruption and consequences. Above all it is a game about what it means to be a man in such a world—and what consequences that has on the communities they live in.

The goal of the game is to explore and experience toxic masculinity, while at the same time creating a thoughtful drama about relationships, competition and social consequences. Blood Feud is decidedly different from the other games on this list in that it takes away fantastical elements and focuses on the intertwined relationships of Vikings through a critical lens. It does this using the well-matched Powered by the Apocalypse system, which is a hallmark for dramatic role-players. If you’re interested in Viking life as well as exploring public and private relationships, you should absolutely check this game out.

Iron Edda: World of Metal and Bone, by Tracy Barnett.

Dwarven Destroyers stretch shadows across Midgard, a harbinger of war to come. Brave human warriors abandon clan and holdfast to bond themselves to the bones of dead giants, hoping to push back the Destroyers. Strangers from others lands appear in Midgard, bringing with them strange powers, and tales of war abroad.

Seers advise and divine the future, but the fate of the world is murky and dim. Jarls, thralls, and warriors fight in common cause, shouting “victory or Valhalla!” as they charge into battle. Ragnarok has come, and you live in a World of Metal and Bone. Will you dine with the gods in Valhalla, or dance with the dishonoured dead?

Another Powered by the Apocalypse game, World of Metal and Bone lets you tell stories of brave warriors, Jarls, Bone-bonded giants, and their defense of their holdfasts. Based on Dungeon World, this game includes something that not a lot of PbtA games have - established lore. There’s not much of it, but characters are presented with names that follow the naming conventions of different cultures and locations, and the book begins by presenting the reader with different factions and neighbouring countries.

If you’re interested in this setting but you would like a different system, Iron Edda Accelerated is in the same world but uses the FATE rules system instead. There’s also Iron Edda Reforged, a side-story game about building a neighbourhood community and taking down the gods - although this is less Norse Mythology and more a modern-day post-apocalypse.

Godtale, by Bläckfisk Publishing.

GODTALE is a Norse mythological micro RPG about escapades and rivalries, about cunning and vainglory. You portray aesir, asynjur and vanir of your own creation. Together you go on adventures in the Nine Realms. But each of you wants to be the deity who earns the most glory—not infrequently at the expense of your companions.

Godtale is a game in which you can win or lose. You will compete against your fellow players to gain the most Glory by the end of the game. You do so by overcoming Trials, using your Domains, Attributes, and Possessions to do so. You must also be careful not to accumulate too much Pride, which will negatively affect your dice rolls.

As for the GM, this little game provides a few pieces of advice on running the game, as well as some roll tables to give the characters interesting Trials. Overall, this game is quick, simple, and a great way to establish new myths about the deities of the Norse Pantheon - maybe even a great way to set the stage for another game on this list!

In The Time of Monsters, by Possum Creek Games.

It was the final age — the old world was dying, and the new world was struggling to be born. Every day Ragnarok drew closer, the end of the world heralded by churning seas and raging skies. The gods grew rotten and weak, their greedy eyes sunken into rotting skulls. The great heroes were reduced to grist in the mill of war. It was the final age before all things ended, and as the world-tree rotted, everyone knew … Now is the time of monsters.

In The Time Of Monsters is a tactical combat TTRPG about bloodsoaked heroes vying for power at the end of the world. It's inspired by Norse Mythology, Lancer, and Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. 

Jay Dragon is more known for games that are diceless or centred on storytelling, but this game seems to be a divergence from this pattern. This is meant to be tactical, it’s meant to be combat-focused, and it carries the familiar character elements of stats, special abilities, and inventory. That being said, characters will also answer questions about where they got their weapons and magic items and what they want in regards to the end of the world. 

If you're looking to tell dramatic fables about tragic warriors on a grid while rolling dice and getting big numbers, this is the game for you. If you’re looking for an adventure to drop into this game, you can check out Ullr’s Revenge, a third-party supplement written by Ripley Caldwell.

[solo-adventurers-guild]

Heads up- today’s Creator Day on itch.io—all money spent on games goes to the devs, and many creators are running sales!

If you’ve had your eye on a game, now’s a fantastic time to check whether it’s on sale. There are some fantastic indie games on sale right now, many of them solo or solo-playable (including the game I’ve been playing lately, Ironsworn: Starforged)

[faldarith]

Binding to the Land

Continuing some thoughts from an earlier post...

Today, I'm thinking again about, like Runecairn does so successfully, integrating certain video game mechanics into tabletop roleplaying. The Old School D&D roots of Classic-era EverQuest run deep, through text-based Multi-User Dungeons. That's a topic for another day.

In Classic-era EverQuest (which I define until, roughly, they send you to the moon in Shadows of Luclin ca. 2001-2002), Player Characters had to manage their bind point through use of the spell Bind Affinity. This point in space, the bind point, would then be where your Character would return when teleporting home (using a spell like gate) or upon death.

In World of Warcraft, this evolved into the system of Inns and Hearthstones, usable by all Player Characters, but in Classic-era EverQuest, only magic users who have attained a certain level of experience were capable of commanding the magic necessary to bind Folks to the land.

What could that look like in a TTRPG setting?

Runecairn gives us a great idea already; generate a score, following the simple mechanics already provided by the Odd-like chassis, and decrement the score upon Death.

But there was also, in the time of the last big TTRPG craze, a tabletop roleplaying version of EverQuest that came out during the Classic-era. How do binds work in that game?

Not that I'm imagining anything would be a perfect graft from the EQ TTRPG onto ItO -- Into the Odd is the exemplar of a rules-lite game, and the old EQ TTRPG is a classic old d20 type of game with a million little finnicky skills and feats (not to mention it was intended to be as compatible as possible with a real, honest-to-goodness video game) -- but as an interesting exercise.

The EQ RPG Player's Handbook (2002, page 228) makes clear that this isn't intended for Dead Characters -- it's just for gate:

"changes the target's bind point for the purposes of teleportation spells"

"This place can be anywhere" but it "is an exact point in space, including elevation"

can be "used on an unwilling opponent" on a successful Touch Attack + Will save

when cast at night, high level necromancers "can create a secondary bind location … for the purpose of the spell levant"

So…it's really different in a few ways. First, it's more like the way EQ worked on a permadeath server. Indeed, further along on page 370, under "Death and Dying", we get the admonition that "the gods don't automatically return you to your bind point alive and naked in the EverQuest Role-Playing Game as they do in its online counterpart."

But also it's more like the way Bind Affinity worked for spellcasters has been generalized; the old rule was, you could Bind yourself anywhere, but only Bind others in particular locations. Now you can bind anyone, anywhere, even as an attack.

The Necromancer rule is also new -- in the MMO, Levant I believe just sent you to a nearby safe location (this was a whole category of spells in EQ). But it's a really neat and gameable addition to the system, and I have been obsessed lately with the "Actually Necromancers are Mostly Good" trope.

So perhaps something along these lines (with Lives being an absolute placeholder for clarity's sake; I'm leaning toward something like Cohesion)

If the desire is a "Heroic High Fantasy" feel, generate a Lives score on a 2d4? (62.5% chance of 4-6 Lives) or 2d3? (\~78% chance of 3-5 Lives)

There are specific places which are just so powerful that, with the blessing of local magical entities or forces, the land itself will Bind you.

Upon death, you spend one of your Lives to awaken where you were Bound

Most Folks can never Bind to a place, but would have heard of it in old stories.

[keyboardgriptape]

Help me decide which tabletop RPG to run next!

[ducklyght]

08.01.

So, the WotC debate is in full swing with their crappy OGL. #openDnD is a new trend in the TTRPG bubble and I really hope it turns out well for all the fans. On the other hand, I'm sitting with a little laughing tear, because just a year ago I said to a friend as a joke that I hope the same thing doesn't happen to TTRPG as happened to the gaming industry years ago. Some people sitting at the top who don't have a clue about the subject and just want to extract capital for the investors. I really hope I haven't jinxed it...

One thing: Play Cairn! An "Into the Odd" hack. Cairn good and fun. Cairn is translated in all different languages, oh and: It's free!

And Runecairn for the Viking/Soulslike vibe. Very good and perfect for a duet! (Even though it is not free)

[ducklyght]

09.02.

Key question for today: What is the first thing you check out, when looking at (yet) another ttrpg game/system?

For me, it is the character sheet. You can get a good glimpse at some of the core mechanics of a game, by just looking at the character sheet. Does it have skills? Attributes? Levels and/or experience? How complex are the numbers, the + and -? How much OSR/NSR, D&D5e like is it? Does it use the same standard terms, or even some new one? And so on, without reading one page of the core rulebook.

Additionally, if I don't like the character sheet by it's looks, I search for alternatives, or consider making my own, if I like the rest of it. When the character sheet is just a excel table, I'm a bit sad tbh. Even though I'm not a player, I'm the Game Master all the time (and happy with it), the character sheet has to be inviting, immersive, but still simple and well-arranged. Nothing easy, I know. Yet, the players look at it all the time, engage with it.

Make the character sheet an important part of your game. Don't just use sterile excel tables.