Tag / fantasy

by guyeatsfood

Actual Prep: The Harvest Hag for Legend in the Mist

I’m fascinated by prep, in all its forms – one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. My own and others. A quick check online leads me to believe lots of you are, too. So, I’m going to showcase this on the blog. I can’t promise every session I’ll share my prep notes, but I’ll try and do it where I can!

These are also going to be 50% patreon exclusive – half of them will never be released to the public – so spread the word, and let me know if you’d like to share your own prep and talk to me about it. This one is not patreon exclusive – it’ll be hitting the Burn After Running public blog a week from today. So enjoy! If you want further details or have actually run the game, let me know; I’d be delighted to hear how it goes. For this, of course, you can actually watch the actual play as well – we had a lot of fun, and, I think, a complete gaming experience in 1 hour 20 minutes or so.

I was determined to run Legend in the Mist on Unconventional GMs, and so needed to work out a way to get a full story in less than 2 hours – and then I happened on their Halloween Creature Pack, which contained a lot of the challenges here. In terms of gameplay, Legend in the Mist is really nice to prep for – basically, you just need to think in terms of challenges. Each scene has some NPC notes, where it fits into the plot, and then 1-2 challenges that are the game bits the players must engage with.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, 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

Actual Prep: Cult of the Worm-Thing for Nimble

As promised, here’s an example of an adventure structured as a story circuit from Ion Heart. We actually tried to record this for Unconventional GMs, but technical issues meant we couldn’t get it to work – so here I am recycling it here.

Nimble’s an excellent D&D-adjacent system with no roll-to-hit and some great GMing advice in it – the monsters and opponents here have been reskinned and/or designed using the advice in the core book, and as I often do I’ve just sketched out some possible encounters rather than tying them to a specific location or scene. Other than that, this is presented as a pretty raw example of Actual Prep, that gave a solid 2 hours of low-level D&D fun – enjoy!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, 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

I ran D&D for 5 teenagers – and survived

Well, that’s it. I volunteered at a summer residential this past week, and offered to run a D&D game as one of the daily activity group options participants could sign up for. I think my experiences have some salient tips for running D&D for kids, running for new players, and making all of that fun, so here goes…

What I did…

So, let me share the format. 5 players (we started with 6 but one had to drop out half-way through the first session), 5 daily sessions, 1 hour 15 minutes each. So, 6 hours 15 minutes in total – so we had to get through stuff quickly. Previously, I’ve rolled my own stuff for this, but I didn’t get a chance and so went with Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, one of the three 2014 D&D Starter Sets – spoilers ahead for that, if spoilers for an adventure published in 2022 bother you. We got through it all with some mild surgery on some of the plot points. Here’s what I learned…

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, 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

Actual Prep – Mythic Bastionland

Here’s a new project – I’m fascinated by prep, in all its forms – one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. My own and others. A quick check online leads me to believe lots of you are, too. So, I’m going to showcase this on the blog. I can’t promise every session I’ll share my prep notes, but I’ll try and do it where I can – and I’ll offer a variable amount of commentary. These are also going to be 50% patreon exclusive – half of them will never be released to the public – so spread the word, and let me know if you’d like to share your own prep and talk to me about 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, and the chance to request articles or content, 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!

3 Players

3 Hours

Ran online with Zoom (A/V) a dice roller app (Roll Dice With Friends) and a shared map (on a Google Slide)

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by guyeatsfood

A Castle, A Journal – Review: Colostle

Colostle is a solo TTRPG where you explore a vast castle, with oceans, lands, and cities within its walls. You draw cards each turn in two phases, Exploration and (optionally) Combat to see what your character encounters and resolve the challenges. You’ve got a quest you’re working towards which has inspired your journey, but you’ll also get distracted by the other inhabitants of the castle – both humans and Rooks, huge stone guardians you may need to fight.

I’ve started playing and reviewing solo games, with a particular eye to using them as sources of inspiration for group play; or at least to focus on the act of play itself. Patrons can also see my (rough and ready) play notes of the game. I played Colostle for a couple of hours, and took only brief notes as I played – but did a lot of thinking about it as I did.

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

Become the Beast: Three Gaming Things from Grendel

Grendel is a 1971 novel by John Gardner, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the point of view of the monster. It’s excellent, but if you’ve picked it up thinking “ooh, I like axes and fighting monsters, and it’s a fantasy masterwork – this’ll be a rip-roaring read!” you may be somewhat surprised, and possibly disappointed. It’s a bit literary, as Gardner uses the myth to explore existentialism; in his own words, “What happened in Grendel was that I got the idea of presenting the Beowulf monster as Jean-Paul Sartre, and everything that Grendel says Sartre in one mood or another has said.”

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

How to Run Daggerheart One-Shots

Daggerheart has been out for a while now, and I’ve had a chance to run a few one-shots of it, both online and face-to-face; it’s a great system for them, with its narrative focus bringing the epic experience you want from a high fantasy game. So, if you’re wanting to try it as a change for your group, or showcase it at a convention, here are my top tips for running Daggerheart!

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

Ghost Town – A Tier 2 Daggerheart adventure

I started writing this for Unconventional GMs, and thought I’d share on here, as my ‘ready-to-run’ (scare quotes intentional) scenarios and campaigns often provoke a bit of discussion. I’ve not got any maps, any game statistics (except for adversaries in the core book), and my descriptive notes are either concise or sparse depending on your tastes. Either way, I’d be interested in how this compares to your notes. It’ll be out on UGMs soon (we’re recording next week), so you can check it out in play there!

It was originally written for the Colossus of the Drylands campaign frame, and with 4 PCs in mind of Level 3, but I’ve shaved the non-SRD stuff off it to upload onto here. Just imagine a fantasy wild west full of monsters (although if you’re using this, I guess you’ve got the campaign frame to hand in the core book). Enjoy!

Introduction / Prologue

You have travelled many miles across the hills of the Caradondo Mountains – you’ve heard there’s a soul gem nearby, and your old ally Father Baltesar has gone forward to scout it, heading for the village of Andejoz, a small settlement high up in the hills.

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 : Dragon Delves Adventure Anthology

Dragon Delves is the first official “adventure book” for the 2024 D&D rules, and it’s got some interesting stuff in it – interesting enough that it bears sharing, even if you’re not a D&D player. This isn’t a review; I haven’t actually used any of it at the table – but I’m running one of the adventures tonight, so I’ll report back on that. Nevertheless, there’s some useful structural things in how it’s presented which I think make it really useful.

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by guyeatsfood

Brayherd Escape! – Warhammer : The Old World One-Shot

Over on Unconventional GMs, we’ve just released our actual play of Cubicle 7’s new Warhammer: The Old World RPG – you can also read my first thoughts about the player’s guide here. Below are my notes for the session that I ran on the channel – a run through one of the Grim Portents in the GM’s Guide, using some of the sourcebook material for Talagaad. Check it out  – and let me know if you use it!

All maps are made by me using MS Paint – I’m sure there are commercial options that you can add some zones to if you want them to look a bit prettier!

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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