Infocyde's RPG Blog

Here is a very simple chart for throwing a curve to the monsters / foes in DnD that your party will face. Roll D4 - 1 for number of changes for each group of monsters/foes encountered. Then roll a D12 on the chart below for each change. 1) Increased HD (1-2) 2) Attack more damaging (one die up) 3) New Magical ability (per spell of HD - 3, min level 1 mage or cleric power) 4) Additional Feat or feat like power 5) Increased (better AC) 6) Additional Attack 7) Increased number of appearing 8) Unlikely ally monster(s) of 1-2 less 3-4 equal or 5-6 greater strength 9) Alignment / motivation change (sometimes beneficial) 10) Reinforcements near by 11) Treasure type increased by one letter (or equivalent) 12) Monsters / Foe more cunning that usual (ambush, traps, delays)

I've noticed in a lot of OSR retro clones the Cleric class often isn't included.  I wonder why?  To me the Cleric is an integral part of the D&D experience...the backup fighter, the medic, the party chaplan, and the undead turner...why the hate / disclusion?

So, I've got LOTS of RPG's in digital format.  Most of the time though when I actually play games I like to have physical components on hand as it is hard to scroll through PDFs sometimes.  Yet physical versions of RPG's take up space, which for not I have plenty of, but in looking towards another move in a few months I've begun to ponder slimming down my Physical collection. Most of the games that I have physical copies of I have physical copies of either because I hoped to one day play them or because they are rare.  Some I do but most sit on the shelf collecting dust.  So it pains me but here is what I'm thinking has to go... All D20 Modern Books All D20 OGL Books RoleMaster Standard System and all the expansions I have (this one hurts) Shadowrun 4rth Edition  Conan Mongoose and all the setting books (this one hurts too) Warhammer Fantasy 2nd Edition (this hurts) The various one off "heart breaker" RPGs that I have but will never play The...

Option Four: Revising Hit Points Inspiration :  Games with a lot less hit points Reason :  Simplification Rule Description: Having a lot of hit points causes a lot of unnecessary number crunching in my humble opinion.  It prolongs combat, often in high levels turning fights into slog fest.  Also have a large amount of hit points puts things out of scale in my opinion.  There should be a vast difference between a well seasoned night and an untrained peasant in how well they do in a fight.  But having a level 20 knight be equivalent hit point wise to 50 zero level peasants I think might be over kill.  By reducing the range of hit points in the game things speed up, combat is quicker, and the fear of death increased a bit for players.  It also changes the game to be a little bit more low fantasy instead of high fantasy due to real threats of death (which I like, high fantasy in my opinion is just supers with magic). Most zero level characters s...

31 Questions about your RPGing Experience.  The idea comes from the Crypt of Rabies blog [ LINK ] which in turn got the idea from [ HERE ].  I say we a lot because most of my gaming was when I was younger with a certain group of friends. I'm old now but getting back into things. I hope you read mine and Crypt's answers and then answer the questions yourself! 1. What was the first roleplaying game other than D&D you played? Was it before or after you played D&D? For me that would be Gamma World, which is pretty much D&D in a post apocalyptic setting.  Gamma World was the first game I ever bought with my own money as well.  We played it off and on when I was younger, but never seemed to get much steam with a campaign going.  Starting up again now that I'm older and loving it. 2. In what system was the first character you played in an RPG other than D&D? How was playing it different from playing a D&D character? For me that woul...

You didn't think this blog was going to be exclusively about pen and pencil RPG's did ya?  I still harbor delusions in life about making online games some day, so I like to keep my finger in the pot. Tobold's Blog had an interesting read on the two types of subscription models used for online RPG's, Free to Play and Subscription [ Link ] The skinny: Go free to play...get 'em in, get 'em hooked, get 'em road blocked every so often, and then get a few bucks from 'em to get just enough to get around that road block.  Have compulsory buys everywhere...but leave a little hope that someone can still be successful in the game w/o dropping any cash in...the carrot on the stick.

The poster on facebook is running the above type of campaign, and wanted some ideas on how to include Kaiju (giant monsters like Godzilla) in the campaign and how characters could best be empowered to deal with Kaiju.  I didn't answer the question per-se, but came up with a plot seed that I thought might be of some use to some so I'm sharing it.  Due to time constraints I'm just going to copy/paste my responses for now...have fun! Nuke them while they are in the undersea caves and most vulnerable...but be warned, sometimes there are unintended consequences. Just look what happened with the White Rose Yakuza op to take out Rodan that happened off the Coast of Fukushima on 2011/03/11...you can never be too careful. Consult with nuclear and geological experts first, and not just the local hacks down at Chozan University!! Always!!!! Worst is Rodan got away too...and now the [whatever organization the characters secretly work for] is going to have to do the job themselv...