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Did You Hear That?!
did you hear that? Yeah, I haven’t posted many monsters lately, but when joking around with my son I was thinking about a monster that could make sense: a predator that uses imitated noises to lure...
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Dungeon and Dragons, the also-ran of TTRPGs in Germany
I have mentioned it in my previous article, Dungeon and Dragons did not manage to make a proper impression in the German roleplaying scene in when it finally was translated. Now, that’s not to say...
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(your name) AND THE HOLY GRAIL
So this exists: “(your name) AND THE HOLY GRAIL”. A Monty Python and the Holy Grail themed adventure scenario from Space Gamer #41 (1981). Because yes, we need even more Monty Python references in our...
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A Miscellany of Links pt. VI
Free Stuff Critical edition of Little Wars (Scholarly Editing) Download 222 Belle Epoque Posters (Open Culture) Thoughts What’s the function of a stronghold? (Spriggan’s Den) Thoughts on the Cleave...
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[Tools] Free Character Portraits Redux
A few years ago *cough*eleven*cough* I made a small post about free character portraits available on the net. As was pointed out to me all of the links on that post are dead by now. And to be fair, 11...
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[The Dark Eye] Retrospective: La dernière nuit (The Last Night, 1986)
I was browsing stuff about Casus Belli and it’s Jarandell subsetting, when I came across some scenarios they published for L’Œil noir at the time it came out. I actually never really had thought much...
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[Shadowrun] Session 2 Silver Angel pt. 2 Bellevue Sewers
A shorter session this time, our kid’s birthday party cut into it. Previously the runners had found out the research center they were trying to rob had busted security sensors on the lower level,...
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[The Dark Eye] Retrospective: Le suppôt de Satan (The Devil’s Henchman, 1986)
From what I have found there were exactly two scenarios for The Dark Eye in Casus Belli, and this is the second one. Le suppôt de Satan (The Devil’s Henchman) by Jacques Dalstein and Jérôme Bohbot...
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A Miscellany of Links pt. VII
You might have noticed that most of the links I put in those link posts are the ones I have come across during the week and posted on my dice.camp account. Here they are collected, and expanded with...
View Article[Shadowrun] Session 3 Silver Angel pt. 3 Perfect Run
This one was again a rather short session. It literally was just the rest of session 2, but a week later. It took all of 90 minutes and then we were finished. They already had planned stuff out...
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NPC classes
I never had such a great opinion on NPC classes as they were published in supplementary material for Dungeons and Dragons. Chiefly magazines, but in 3rd edition at least they also managed to get into...
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[The Dark Eye] Retrospective: B13 Der Streuner soll sterben
Let’s go through Das Schwarze Auge adventure B13 Der Streuner Soll Sterben (The Vagrant Shall Die) It has the secondary title Das Blutgericht von Thalusa (The Blood Court of Thalusa) which is one of...
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A Miscellany of Links pt. VIII
Thought Loose Ends from Written Modules (Seed of Worlds) Surprising Surprise rules (Cave of the Dice Chucker) Hobgoblin Monks the Erasers of Afterlife Identity (I cast light!) Be a Creator, Not a...
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Review: UD1 The Scorching Gantlet
It turns out “Gantlet” is an archaic form of “Gauntlet”, still technically in use, but I assume most people coming across this might not recognize this. Not even native speakers. I got this module for...
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A Miscellany of Links pt. IX
Eberhard Marx – Befindlichkeiten, 2010 RPG History 1983: Enterprise – Role Play Game in Star Trek (Reviews from R’Lyeh) Game Aids Recovered: Other Crews (Benign Brown Beast) Bandits! Bandits! – an...
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A Monday Miscellany of Links pt. X
I actually have not had much time this week for blogging, even reading my feeds was an issue. Which is sad because there was a rather juicy amount of stuff to be found in them. Here are the most...
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[HârnWorld] Tool: Campaign Tracker (for DnD B/X derivatives)
I am currently going through a lot of trainings, and specifically I am doing something to work on my SQL knowledge. I only have hovered around the edges of the topic before. Some of my previous jobs...
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A Monday Miscellany of Links pt. XII
This time a few more links than last week. Maybe even too many this time. News Reprint of Shadowrun 1st edition in the works (enworld) Random Tables d100 – Weird and Whimsical Wants for Fickle Fey (d4...
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The Oldest TTRPG Forum on the Net
Did you know there is an online forum for tabletop role-playing games that has been around since the early 80s, and which still is active and operating? Admittedly in a much diminished state than at...
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Monday Miscellany of Links pt. XIII
A bit late with this one, holiday season was way too busy for my taste, and I got distracted by some retro-computing projects (like my irrational fondness for Usenet and setting up a TTRPG-focused...
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[The Dark Eye] Retrospective: B10 In den Fängen des Dämons (In the Claws of...
We have moved into 1985 with today’s offering. This adventure is bizarre. And I don’t mean bizarre as in subject matter (although some parts are), but mostly in how it approaches the structure of a...
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[Worldbuilding] Notes on Population and Character Levels
When playing or writing for old school rules like Labyrinth Lord, Iron Falcon, or my own as of yet unnamed rule set I assume, in line with old school sentiments that somehow got lost over time, that...
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A Miscellany of Links pt. IV
Stuff J.V.West’s fanzine Black Pudding can be found for free/pwyw on drivethrurpg, and worth checking out. Paul Siegel created a Book of War adjunct set of skirmish rules, Delta has put it on his blog...
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[Shadowrun] Session 1 Silver Angel pt. 1 Running Circles
Seattle Space Needle by Cacophony, published under CC-BY-SA, modified by me We finally managed to get a game going. It took a while. Again. This doubles as my private notes of what was happening....
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The Halls of Tizun Thane (1980)
Imagine a second rate Robert E. Howard story and some fantasy by Clark Ashton Smith, blend them together, put them into your shisha and inhale. You hear that bubbling, that beat? Like someone just put...
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Wiedergänger
The question what happens to us after death has been one that has been asked and answered many times ever since we started to think and noticed that sometimes when you bash someone hard enough they...
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[The Dark Eye] Unboxing the Das Schwarze Auge Kaiser-Retro-Box (2018)
Kaiser-Retro-Box still shrinkwrapped A while ago I decided to buy myself the reissue of the first Das Schwarze Auge rules that came out in 1984. The reissue was a kickstarter-backed luxury reissue...
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[Worldbuilding] Paean to Vance
The tomes which held Turjan’s sorcery lay on the long table of black steel or were thrust helter-skelter into shelves. These were volumes compiled by many wizards of the past, untidy folios collected...
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10 TTRPG Podcasts (that are not Critical Role)
Oh Gods, am I going all Buzzfeed? I’m not sure myself. But I wanted to share some tabletop roleplaying podcasts I enjoy listening to, and ten makes such a nice round number. And there definitely would...
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A Miscellany of Links pt. V
Free Stuff Palace of the Silver Princess for Cairn (via itch.io) Papermau collects paper models from all over the world on the blog A collection of materials regarding Tony Bath and his seminal...
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A Monday Miscellany of Links pt. XVI
A Monday Miscellany of Links pt. XVI 100 Village Notable Features (OSRVault) d10 Graveyard Dressing (Azukail Games) d12 Mysterious Vapours & Miasmas (Elfmaids & Octopi) DnD turns 50 and...
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RPG Magazine Recon pt. 1 – Dragon Magazine 63, 74, 104, 114
Bob Walters 1982, published without context in Dragon 63 Dungeons and Dragons was published 50 years ago, and almost immediately afterwards ‘zines and magazines appeared to give players and DMs more...
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Thinking Warlocks
John Faed, Warlocks and Witches in a dance (1855) I am not a fan of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. In fact I am not a fan of the 4th edition either, or the 3.5th edition, or Pathfinder (the 3.75th...
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[Review] Mike’s World: The Forsaken Wilderness Beyond
Lately I have been gearing myself up to run the venerable Keep on the Borderlands for my son, as I still think it’s pretty good as a starter adventure. And while prepping it again (or rather, moving...
View ArticleGlimmermark Session 1
Nobody knows where the name Glimmermark comes from. One might assume it was the Glimmerstone Wars, that have ravaged part of the region for centuries, but the name itself seems to have been much...
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Art and Inspiration: Land of the Lost (1974)
I remember watching Land of the Lost, both the original ’74 show and the ’92 version on German television. I was not impressed back then, and to be fair, the special effects in both are special only...
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Cauldron 2024: Manor on the Borderlands
Cauldron 2024: Manor on the Borderlands …of Hessia and Thuringia that is. But that means in living memory the Iron Wall ran merely a few hundred meters away from the location. And I swear I wanted to...
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[Traveller] Reworking the Classic Traveller Rumor Matrix
During my excursions into reaction rolls for Traveller lately I realized that the Traveller book has a template for how to create rumor tables (or just come up with rumors on the fly). Unlike other...
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My Hobby Year 2024
It’s the first time I actually feel the amount of times I played in a year worth mentioning. I had a rather successful 2024 in terms of ttrpg gaming. If my reckoning is correct (and I think I might...
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