Tag / index card rpg

Cover image of Boot Hill RPG module "Lost Conquistador Mine"
by guyeatsfood

Lost Conquistador Mine – for Index Card RPG

I’ve been converting quite a few ‘classic’ adventure modules for more modern systems recently (check out these Star Wars Outgunnned! adaptations), so for the CRIT online convention I thought I’d run this Boot Hill classic tournament module for Index Card RPG.

The Original Module

Let’s start by talking about the original module. There’s a frontier town, Dead Mule, and a hook to an ancient mine full of gold. There’s then 9 town encounters, 9 wilderness encounters on the lengthy and involved hexcrawl to the mine, and a short ‘dungeon’ for the mine itself. The town’s got a map to it and description of locations, which obviously are triggered in the encounters, and there’s the aforementioned enormous hexcrawl to the mine when the PCs eventually find the map to 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!

Continue reading →
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!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Step-by-Step Prep: Ghost Mountain (Index Card RPG), Part Two

Just like in Part One, I’m continuing to share my prep for an upcoming one-shot for a system I’ve not run before – the Weird West setting Ghost Mountain, for Index Card RPG. In part one, I did my pregens and randomly generated a plot that I modified and started to flesh out. The next step is to write it up – a full write up is 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!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Step-By-Step Prep: Ghost Mountain (Index Card RPG), Part One

I thought I’d try something new for this week’s post – a worked example of how my prep looks for a one-shot, from conception to delivery. After Deadlands and Weird Frontiers on the Unconventional GMs Channel, we talked (me, Gaz, and the players for those games) about doing some more wild/weird west games. It seemed as good an idea as any – and of course what could be more authentic than a bunch of British people playing at America’s great mythic tradition – and so I started looking at other 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 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!

Continue reading →