How a pic and a couple ideas can make for a superior RPG city

Superior to what? To a city where you have to look at a map to see where the market district is and other junk that should just be abstract whenever possible. If you really need to zoom in somewhere, look at the pic you are going to use, or use a Vornheim trick (I've never had to use street maps, but now you have a safety net).

Okay, link-bait title justified. Now what is the how?

1. Choose an interesting picture. They are all over Deviantart and Tumblr. The picture is worth a 1000 words and does most of the work for you.
2. Think of something weird to inhabit the city.
3. Think of some local laws or customs for the players to discover.

Here's an example. The best city I ever made: Cliffkeep

Pic by some Chinese dude. Sino-artists are the bomb recently.

The weird stuff I started to think of:

• The city is policed by waxen automatons, deputies, that can change their features to go undercover. As their goal is to prevent crime, they are often walking around faceless, just to remind people that they're there.
• Everyone is entitled to an allowance of a jar's worth of honey each day. There are no bees to be seen, but the unseen magistrate, called the mayor, provides it via waxen deputies.
• The town defense is lead by a human who is a gunslinger of the Stephen King variety. He is the first NPC that the PCs encounter, and helps to introduce the rules of the town. He is nice as long as he can be.
• The town has laser turrets to shoot incoming threats.
• There is a dragon. By day it takes human form as a beautiful woman, and by night its visage is enchanted in a way that you forget you saw it. The part where you saw it is just blank and you wonder why you are hiding under your bed.
  The dragon is responsible for the curfew in Cliffkeep. Only one or two people know this.
• A Chael sits on roofs and records everything the party does and says.

The rules:

• No weapons are allowed in the city proper. Visitors can put their weapons in custody.
• There is a curfew. Windows are to be closed and people have to be in their lodgings. Violators of the rule can't remember what happened, but they felt very scared and have chunks of missing memory.

Once you have a city like this, it acts as a hub from which to launch explorations and adventures (both in and outside the place). Cliffkeep grew in detail as the adventures gave me ideas. Fun we had:

• Church of the God that Crawls nearby. Turrets came in handy when the PCs gave it sentience and it came calling. Well it wasn't the actual god. But we can't get into that now.
• Death Frost Doom mountain nearby.
• Tower of the Stargazer floats by  town on an earthmote every few months.
• A PC made the save to see the dragon, and confronted her in her human form. The dragon pushed the PC right off a cliff. Not many railings in Cliffkeep.
• A PC killed their own grandma in a satellite town. There was a witness and then the waxen deputies fused into a truth-telling device that could summon reinforcements from the silver city on the moon.
• A PC was deputized and got to man a turret. He shot the god that crawls.
• Flying on kites like ninjas to get to the earthmote.
• That snake thing became useful for city defense too; turns out it's a spell beam thingy that the Chael could instruct magic users in the use of. 

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Simple d6 Gonzo RPG (Sd6G)

Hey, I made a new RPG today, that is pretty simple to get going in like 5 minutes. And it's got Vulcans and Blackulas, and combat like Dungeon World. I'm rather happy with this one. Reminds me a bit of the fun of mashing up Paranoia with Dark Sun and DCC.

Link to the doc if this doesn't display so well for you: LINK.


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J RPG Fluff product: Considerations of the Fantasy World

Found this lovely thing at Yellow Submarine today. It's a compilation of columns from Role & Roll magazine about misc. fantasy RPG topics by Yūya Kobayashi  (小林裕也). It's all system-agnostic stuff featuring the creatures, items, and locales one could find in your standard high fantasy setting. It's available on Amazon.co.jp.

I liked the section on mounts. Reminds me I need to include those humanoid mounts from the Dying Earth stories. Horses need to become rare in my campaign. 

Some Fantasy anatomy is explored in these pages about birdmen and centaurs.

Inviting copy from the book obi (belt, also called koshimaki)

1d12 Things for you to stat

1: Aunt men
2: Orgone Energy Guzzler
3: Flat dragon
4: Manhandlers
5: Slime-clops
6: Rammun's Melting Revanent
7: The First Heart
8: Space Spore Spirits
9: Electric Bugalootron 4000
10: Child Riders
11: Endagering Chillofax
12: Moose from Hell

In a Fevered, Trance-like State, I Fixed the Bard

Bards and skalds can be found in any court. But those that adventure have a certain set of skills. This is pretty generic; I imagine it would be good for most OSRs.

• They can remember things others forget. This is because they use rhyme and verse to memorize epic tales, news, bon mots, and other things that get them fed. If a bard wants to see if they know something about the thing that the party really wants details on, the DM can roll 2d6 and add in the Bard's Int mod as well as a circumstance mod. High rolls give clues.
• They can weave magic into their lyrics. This does not work during a fight.  Singing during a fray takes too long and you will be cut, Jack. It might work during a battle, if the bard is, like, say, playing on a mountaintop while armies clash below. It will work on a captive audience. Literally tied up is best, but the patrons at a quiet pub or a lord's court will do.
• You learn one song each level. It just comes to you.
• They can be blind, yet skillful swordsmen. This is a choice you make at character generation. 
• You can conceal a weapon in your instrument, should you decide to become a wandering assassin bard. This isn't a rules thing; I just wanted to remind you that bards are  a lot cooler when they aren't about singing in a fight. 

Here are the bard songs of power:

1. Ballad of Bravado: give each listener a d30. They can roll this during a fight, provided it happens by the next dawn, and replace any to-hit or stunt roll with it. Then it turns into a d24, and works its way down the die chain.
2. Canticle of Kings: Listeners mighthap kowtow to the regal might of a hero of sufficient character and bloodline.
3. Carol of Cheer: Listener has a chance to shake off any melancholy or insanity.
4. Chant of Chivalry: Induces listeners to take up causes, enforce justice, or go to war for a pretty face.
5. Coronach of Canceled Time: Reduces listeners to a metaphysical melancholy that will ensorcel them into a state of suspended time. Sleeping beauties and such.
6. Dirge of Dancing Dead: Placates mindless undead into a swaying stance-- even if they don't have auditory organs left.
7. Jeremiad of Justice: Listener likely to admit guilt that the bard suspects them of. 
8. Keen of Killers: All listeners are enraged and do an extra die of damage for the next conflict.
9. Modony of Manipulation: Listeners are charmed. +4 to reaction rolls against the bard.
10. Serenade of Seduction: Listener may become ridiculously enamored of the bard.
11. Threnody of Thoughts: Listeners hear the secrets of the dead spirits of this place. Let the players ask a question each. 

I'll think up more someday if this post seems to have garnered interest.


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Fan Map for Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror

Want to run Bone Hoard in style?
This map is meant to address a couple things that dumb game judges like me can benefit from. It shows a couple monsters near where they might be encountered (just out of site of fog of war if you are using Roll20), including the heretofore unillustrated [in the original module] dancing horror itself.  The hordling is near a room where the adventure suggests it make itself known. There are a couple of traps illustrated too. I hope it enhances your experience. Click to embiggen. You might enjoy my fan map for Death Frost Doom too.

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XP for Gold revision 100: Montage

This is an embed of a revision of my XP for gold DCC rules, which my players quite frankly hate but I stubbornly think add something to the game. Enjoy.

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