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by guyeatsfood

Mayhem in Miquera – a One-Shot for Daggerheart

An Introductory One-Shot for Daggerheart in the Colossus of the Drylands campaign frame

Credit for the structure of this has to go to the wonderful Teos Abadia, who on his Alphastream blog (and linked youtube channel) talks about adapting the 5-Room Dungeon as a learn-to-play one-shot – using it to highlight different parts of gameplay. This is a great way to structure your one-shots to give a showcase of the system (check out my co-host Gaz doing it expertly for The One Ring on Unconventional GMs), and with a Daggerheart session to prep, it got me thinking until I came up with this, for Daggerheart’s Colossus of the Drylands campaign frame:

The Training 5-Room Dungeon for Daggerheart

  1. Arrive at isolated settlement. Assist in evacuation / repair / healing (SKILLS)
  2. Fight heralds (EASY FUN FIGHT)
  3. Resolve to fight the colossus (RP or NEGOTIATION)
  4. Showcase additional gameplay (PREPARATIONS and RESEARCH)
  5. Fight the colossus (THRILLING FINAL BATTLE)

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

First Look: Warhammer the Old World RPG

As many readers know, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) will always hold a special place in my heart; and for any American readers, it’s hard to overstate the impact it had on the UK scene in the 1990s, and the shadows it still casts over Britain, let alone Bogenhafen. For many of us over here, the slightly satirical grimdark middle European vibe was what fantasy roleplay was –  D&D was just its brasher, more gonzo cousin from across the Atlantic. 

And now, Cubicle 7 has another Warhammer RPG. Along with WFRP 4th edition and Soulbound, both still continuing product lines, and Imperium Maledictum and Wrath and Glory, we’ve now got five Warhammer RPGs in print. Do we need that many? And do we need 2 of them to be fantasy, in the same world?

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Convention GMing : The Basics

Running games at conventions is good for the soul; it’s also good for the hobby, as you get to play games with new people. More people should do it! But in the plethora of GMing advice that’s out there, I wonder if the audience is more for the experienced GM than the convention newbie.

With that in mind, here’s the basic structural things you should do at a convention if you’re in the reffing hot-seat. Sadly some of these still get forgotten at conventions – with experienced GMs who should know better. Do all these, and you’re already ahead of the game, and soon to become a convention legend!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

The Joy of Sets – Adapting Classic Modules as One-Shots

Recently, I’ve been updating some ‘classic’ adventures to newer systems. For example, Strike Force Shantipole and Tatooine Manhunt for Outgunned. I’ve got an adaptation of Rainbow Mounds for 13th Age Glorantha to write up, too. In the past, I’ve run Village of Hommlett in 13th Age, and I’ve got a session of Lost Conquistador Mine (a classic Boot Hill tournament module) to adapt for the Index Card RPG to run in a few weeks.

Changing stat blocks and balancing encounters is one thing, but what stands out in these old adventures is the structure of them – and in some cases, the sheer quantity of them. Reading through Tatooine Manhunt, it’s easy to lose track of the many, many fights with bounty hunters the players are meant to have. I’m always a fan of inserting action scenes into investigative or background scenes, but these are relentless.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Tatooine Manhunt – for Outgunned!

I’ve been doing a fair bit of adapting old “classic” adventures for modern systems recently – this was one that I did from the old WEG d6 Star Wars system into Outgunned! Here’s the notes for it – presented, as usual, in pretty raw form – if you’re a Patron, you can get the pregens I used for it too! (They’re the same as the Strike Force Shantipole ones, if you’ve already downloaded them).

I’ve included the CATS that I did with the session – just to encourage more people to do this explicitly in one-shots; it really helps to put everyone on the same page with the game. You’ll need, as with Strike Force Shantipole, both a copy of Outgunned! and the original adventure to use this – you should be able to get away without Action Flicks for this one, as there’s no starship combat in it.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Strike Force Shantipole – for Outgunned!

I’ve been doing a fair bit of adapting old “classic” adventures for modern systems recently – this was one that I did from the old WEG d6 Star Wars system into Outgunned!

Outgunned!?

Outgunned is a game of cinematic action films – it uses a funky d6 dice pool where you’re just looking for matches, regardless of the numbers on the dice – get a matched pair, and you’ve a Basic success, a triple and it’s a Critical, and so on. It uses enemy tracks for both chases and fights, and has some neat – if a bit fiddly in an online game – reroll mechanics where you can risk successes you’ve got for better successes.

It’s available here, or in print here. It’s also got some genre packs in its Action Flicks books – including Star Raiders, which is definitely Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off. So, armed with a download of the original adventure – Strike Force Shantipole – I’ve got my conversion notes below. 

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks! For this post, patrons also receive the full set of 6 pregens that I used to run this adventure and other Outgunned! Star Wars games – as .pdf downloads.

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by guyeatsfood

Random Adventures : Tome of Adventure Design, 1st edition

I’m going to start my ‘reviews’ of random generators here, with the Tome of Adventure Design. After using this, I discovered a recently-released 2nd edition, but I’d already done the leg work with this one, so I guess a disclaimer is that I’ve done this using the 1st edition. On a quick glance at the 2nd edition they’ve tidied it up and added loads of extra bits to make it easier, so I’ll give that a go soon too; but this used the 1st edition.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’m interested in broad-brush strokes randomness; I don’t need individual detail (I’ll be using a tried and tested structure for that) but I do want some ideas to get me going. We’ve got a game of Shadow of the Weird Wizard, Rob Schwalb’s new-ish high fantasy game, booked in in a few weeks – so I thought I’d see what this threw up.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Enter the Animus: Lessons from Assassin’s Creed

I’ve just finished a run through of the videogame Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, having a great time running, jumping, and stabbing through 9th century Baghdad as I uncovered a sinister conspiracy of “Templars” and, mostly, stabbed them all. It’s a great series of games that I’ve loved since it started – and it’s got loads of juicy stuff in it for TTRPG GMs to steal.

So, here’s a few things we can borrow from the Assassin’s Creed games. For this, I’m sticking to the more action-oriented ones, which Mirage harks back to – think Black Flag, Syndicate, and Unity – rather than Shadows, Origins, Odyssey, or Valhalla – which are much closer to actual RPGs.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2/$3 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

2d6 × 100 Random Words – Getting the Most out of Random Generators

I’ve been thinking a lot about the early stages of adventure prep recently. Planning for Unconventional GMs one-shots often ends up with us agreeing on a system we want to showcase – but, then what? Sometimes I’ll scout around for a usable one-shot, but (1) running your own stuff is always smoother, and (2) our channel’s agreed parameters – <2 hour one-shots – sometimes makes this extra difficult.

Quite a few times I’ve been left staring into space at, for example, the Index Card RPG, or Star Trek Adventures 2nd edition. With a concept and an idea I can run with it to pull a structure together, but a blank slate is hard.

So I’ve been looking a lot at random generators. Whether it’s ones for specific systems, or generic “create an adventure” ones, I’ve started to use these much more. And, really, they work. I prepped Ghost Mountain for ICRPG entirely off a set of Plotlib’s random tables. Ironsworn was almost entirely procedurally generated from the book (a rare case where some zoomed in stuff was random, too, using their Delve supplement).

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Setting, Hillfolk, no-SR, and Adventures

I’ve been deep in game prep this week, ready for a double dose of Seven Hills and then Kraken over the Easter break. And so while I’m trying to get my head down and prep, I find myself getting pleasantly distracted by game stuff. Here’s what I’m thinking about at the moment.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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