I Read This in 2024 - Week 1

**A collections of information regarding TTRPG that I gather from several blogs. Initially take a shape of pen-and-paper which later digitalized as blogpost. All rights of each articles are belong to their respective writer.**

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> Attack of the Living Dungeon / Elfmaid & Octopi

• Paraphrasing from The Writer, "... kind of a random dungeon... (that) can (be) populate if from standard dungeon tables... Resting (might) open you to the risk... (and the) maps made no sense and getting out was difficult. Might be good for a solo."
• Let's make a 10-room dungeon:
• Entrance : (5) Decor
• Dungeon:
• (40) Illusion Conceals Guardpost
• (56) Empty but Hidden Treasure
• (19) Section of Passage 30ft long where walls close in if entered; 1-in-4 with popout spikes. Must flee through or brace
• (17) Fragile section of passage 250ft passage will collapse if anyone noisy or causes damage, possibly some sagging beams or hasty repairs collapses and is blocked.
• (67) pile of bones and an ogre
• (74) room has old furnishing and a spirit that knows where a treasure is hidden wants love and assumes human form
• (61) pet monster room with piles of straw and bones
• (50) animated furniture
• (18) passage decorated with 20ft with mural of ancient myth
• (8) iron gate, rusted
• I believe I can make a short adventure with this dungeon. While surprisingly the last room was an iron gate, means that there's a possibility to escape.

> Capsule Games - Part 1: Introduction / A Knight at the Opera

• The Writer try to explain what is a "Cappy" or Capsule Game is. There are several points that can be fundamental:
  
• By having or including rule set;
• including an adventure or scenario to play;
• providing pre-made characters;
• pick-up and play style, no long preparation;
• embrace finitude or limitation;
• knowing that you already have the complete experience, no need to buy more miniatures or supplements or printing necessary additional sheets.
• Check out Silent Titans as The Writer nominates it as PROPER CAPSULE DESIGN.
• The Writer also suggest that we can learn a thing or two by this capsule games:
• It's all about the mechanism - the rules and the procedure. Just like Devil May Cry franchise - push the button to slay monsters, hcck it until final boss;
• Players will be receiving a package full of complete game - we're talking about the rules, the maps, the minis, the dice, the complete lore, even small details like properties (spell templates for example);
• Pre-made Characters were available - all stats, skills tree, equipment and even appearance were already prepared for the player. The only things that Players need to decide is name or even personality;
• Finitude creates familiarity - players will slowly remember the stats of the enemies, all spells ranges and or even the function of all available items. This won't be happening in a short playable time - repetitive gameplay create this and it will take a quite long time if you play it right.

> Obituary : Brian Ansell - Former Owner and Managing Director of Games Workshop, Age 68, December 30th 2023

> Capsule Games : Part 1 - What Are Capsule Games / Rise Up Comus

• The Writer elaborate more differences between Capsule Games (or Cappy) with other games such as Traditional RPG, Boardgames and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure.
• Cappy vs Trad
• Cappy could be treated as an Intro to RPG.
• Cappy is not universal (Like GURPS)
• Cappy is providing pre-made characters
• Cappy provides adventures
• Cappy vs Board Games
• Both provides map along with pre-define monsters
• also both (could) provide pre-made characters
• Cappy vs CYOA
• Both having defined play area and sense of finality
• Cappy is not a solo games like CYOA

> The Giant - A Monstrous OSR Class / Rise Up Comus

• Giants are made by eating other giants, not born as a giant.
• As a giants, your enemy were men who wants to eat you and other giants who wants to get bigger and meaner.
• There is a trait called Cancerous for the Giants where tumors begin to grow on their body. Everytime the Giant roll a 1, they will cough up blood. The Writer also add the player with this trait should roll a d100 - if they roll under their max HP, the cancer was already spreaded inside the Giant's body and they will die at the end of the season.
• As the giant grow, they will gain move, height, health, strength, damage per attack and the ability to utilize improvised weapons (such as tree trunks or boulders). Also as their hands getting bigger, the Giant could single-handedly a two-hands weapons and use/grab two items in one hands.
• The downsides were armor and clothing will be need to be a special made and cost more.

> Two Species, Two Systems / From The Sorcerer's Skull

• The Writer comparing how two different games with different systems explain and describes a creature and it's traits.
• By using Black Star and Star Scoundrels terms, The Writer describing two creatures for examples.
• In summary, Black Star's term are more straight forward, and providing need-to-know informations regarding the creature; while Star Scoundrels' giving more words to explain the traits of the creature - giving them more vivid characteristic and additional informations that might usefull both for the GM or the Player.

> How Do You Solve a Problem Like The Difficulty in Visualising Combat in a High Level D&D Campaign? / Monsters and Manuals

• High level campaign frequently (in Writer's perspective) killing the vivid imagination of battle due to the unproportional size of the enemy to the Playable Character (PC).
• I'm quoting The Writer,"(The more level you gains) things just get harder to imagine, and become less immediate and immersive as a consequence."
• In my point of view, this can be solved with:
• Reducing the frequency of the "Big Boss Energy" monsters encounter with the PC;
• Make it as a multi-phase encounter. For example in first encounter, the PC was over powered, they will retreat and heard a rumour regarding a MacGuffin that can slain the monster. The second encounter will be when the PC had the MacGuffin and try to slain the monster.
• OR
• The Battle itself was the part of the Story. PC actions can be treated as a quick time event (QTE) where they need to roll dice in certain or above number in order to successfully do it.
• The downside is the GM need to create an elaborate script and scenarios of What-Ifs when the PC was failed the QTE.

> Celestial Cisterns of Forgotten Evil / Elfmaids & Octopi

• The cistern could be treated as a huge, dark, labyrinth filled with knee-high only-Gods-know liquid substance (or simpy water) along with random creatures roaming.
• I took 5 attempts to find out what kind of cistern that I might get:
• Current use: (9) Carved text in stone here are fragments of a rare spell and wizards come in secret
• Water quality: (2) reliable quality water from spring, plenty all year round
• Building above cistern: (1) ruined church or monastery, damaged roof, filled with trash where bandits and monsters sometimes camp. Cistern entry may be covered in trash
• Common Encounter: (11) blind cave troll washed down here as a severed hand and is scrawny with hunger
• Rare Encounter: (2) swarm of stirge live here breeding
• Quick type of Finds: (1) transport
• Interesting Finds (5):
• (30) Great stone monolith once part of a druid stone circle with spiral patterns carved in the surface
• (9) a flooded staircase goes into a deeper older complex
• (1) sunken small boats around former warf
• (55) pools of slime where oozes and puddings and jelly creatures thrive on strange growth
• (37) carved block inset in wall of a former cult altar that has still seen some use

> d100 River City 1949 Encounters / Elfmaids & Octopi

• One day, an unknown superhero taking a trip to River City, where:
• Quick Types: (2) petty crime
• Encounter (take 5):
• (83) a contact is curous and sneaks on a truck driven by gangsters
• (41) a lone weirdo with knife robbing old people
• (21) a gang of children chased by armed gangster
• (32) a worker falls from new building scaffolding
• (59) gangster attack a rival criminal enterprise like a nightclub or secret casino

> Two Species, Two Systems; OR: Race-as-System / Archons March On

• Responding to From the Sorcerer's Skull's "Two Species, Two Systems", The Writer proposing each race's stats are using and referring to each different systems.
• For example for basic humans were using OD&D or OSE; for Elves using Fate or 5e; for Dwarves using Mekton Zeta.
• The downside was to find the midpoint between all systems that can be applied across the system. Or to re-generalize things that cherry-picked from many systems. The Writers wrote "Like if one character's a vampire using World of Darkness, maybe each lethal wound translates to 3 points of damage? And rolling three successes is the same as a roll of 15?"

> D.I.O. Ultimate Steppes Campaign / Seeds of Worlds

• The Writer is planning for a running a traveling caravan, community-based game which based on the nomadic tribes do.
• The Writer choose steppes as location due to sizing and plausibilty of utilzing mounts (horses and carriages).
• This campaign will be running or based on 5e and/or BX Compatible, 50/50 respectively.
• Reading this article reminds me with:
• Fallout New Vegas' Crimson Caravan
• A particular story from Lucky Luke which I forgot the title
• The Oregon Trail (1985)

> The Other OSR : Demon Dog / Reviews from R'lyeh

• The Writer reviewing Demon Dog - an RPG made by Nightfall Games that compatible with Morkborg.
• The concept was when a character dies with a sin, they will be resurrected by Demon Baron with a price they will be his Demon Dog and do whatever Baron tell them to.
• If implemented in Morkborg, a dying PC could be revived as a Demon Dog, giving them a second change but with a price.

> Garden of Terror / Tenfootpole

• Looking at the review, this adventure is somehow similar with what I made for EMPLOYEE. Gonna look up how it is and learn what SHOULDN'T I make.