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GeekList Item: Item for GeekList "2025 RPGG Challenge: Play Five RPGs You Have Never Played Before (Each At Least Once) "
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 04:32:14
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 04:32:14
by Inkwan
An item RPG Item: Coyote & Crow has been added to the geeklist 2025 RPGG Challenge: Play Five RPGs You Have Never Played Before (Each At Least Once)
Review: A Most Potent Brew:: The good old rats-in-the-cellar problem
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 04:14:14
The gnomish brewmaster Glowkindle has a problem. He has refurbished an old wizard's tower into a thriving brewery, but recently he had some work done in the beer cellar during which his workers had opened a passage to a forgotten part of the catacombs below the building. Now he has a giant rat problem and needs some adventurers to take care of it so that he can get back to brewing.
This is a four-page adventure statted for Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition), intended for Level 1 parties. It presents a simple dungeon consisting of five rooms. The digital version available on DMs Guild comes with the adventure in the regular version and a printer-friendly variant without illustrations, a map of the cellar and a player handout for the trap riddle. It uses a well known trope for low-level adventurers, fighting rats in a cellar as your first adventure, doesn't try to introduce any groundbreaking changes but just executes the idea in a very solid, easy to use fashion.
Running the adventure
This is a fairly straightforward little adventure. Talk to the gnome and maybe do some socializing, take the job, fight some rats, investigate, avoid a trap, fight a mutated spider, find the reason for the infestation, done. Sounds a bit railroady, and to be honest it is, but this is not a bad thing if your on a limited budget time-wise, and in this case it doesn't feel forced or artificial either.
The adventure can easily be run in two to three hour timeslot, for example in a convention setting. I slotted this in on VERY short notice in one of my campaigns when one player I wanted to focus on in the next session had to cancel, but I still wanted to run something. Apart from maybe the riddle, it is very easy to quickly scan and run as an impromptu adventure, and the trope is vanilla enough that it can be easily dropped in almost every fantasy campaign. There's no unnecessary lore drop or anything, and the only major twist is the exact nature of the boss monster (an "inferno spider" created by exposing a regular spider to both a potion of giant growth and the essence of a fire elemental). Which sounds like a bad thing, but sometimes doing something conventional well is all you really need.
I adapted the boss fight a little bit with a second inferno spider, as my group was already level 3, but apart from that, I ran it out of the box and had a fun session with it. All in all, not a bad adventure to have lying around just in case you need a sidequest for a low-level party, or want to show some newbies what D&D is all about.
The bottom line
Well-known tropes are not a bad thing if executed well. Solid and inexpensive little adventure, I can recommend it.
A Most Potent Brew by Richard Jansen-Parkes, published 2016 by Winghorn Press. This is pay what you want on DMs Guild.
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 04:14:14
by gatekeeper86
About the adventureThe gnomish brewmaster Glowkindle has a problem. He has refurbished an old wizard's tower into a thriving brewery, but recently he had some work done in the beer cellar during which his workers had opened a passage to a forgotten part of the catacombs below the building. Now he has a giant rat problem and needs some adventurers to take care of it so that he can get back to brewing.
This is a four-page adventure statted for Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition), intended for Level 1 parties. It presents a simple dungeon consisting of five rooms. The digital version available on DMs Guild comes with the adventure in the regular version and a printer-friendly variant without illustrations, a map of the cellar and a player handout for the trap riddle. It uses a well known trope for low-level adventurers, fighting rats in a cellar as your first adventure, doesn't try to introduce any groundbreaking changes but just executes the idea in a very solid, easy to use fashion.
Running the adventure
This is a fairly straightforward little adventure. Talk to the gnome and maybe do some socializing, take the job, fight some rats, investigate, avoid a trap, fight a mutated spider, find the reason for the infestation, done. Sounds a bit railroady, and to be honest it is, but this is not a bad thing if your on a limited budget time-wise, and in this case it doesn't feel forced or artificial either.
The adventure can easily be run in two to three hour timeslot, for example in a convention setting. I slotted this in on VERY short notice in one of my campaigns when one player I wanted to focus on in the next session had to cancel, but I still wanted to run something. Apart from maybe the riddle, it is very easy to quickly scan and run as an impromptu adventure, and the trope is vanilla enough that it can be easily dropped in almost every fantasy campaign. There's no unnecessary lore drop or anything, and the only major twist is the exact nature of the boss monster (an "inferno spider" created by exposing a regular spider to both a potion of giant growth and the essence of a fire elemental). Which sounds like a bad thing, but sometimes doing something conventional well is all you really need.
I adapted the boss fight a little bit with a second inferno spider, as my group was already level 3, but apart from that, I ran it out of the box and had a fun session with it. All in all, not a bad adventure to have lying around just in case you need a sidequest for a low-level party, or want to show some newbies what D&D is all about.
The bottom line
Well-known tropes are not a bad thing if executed well. Solid and inexpensive little adventure, I can recommend it.
A Most Potent Brew by Richard Jansen-Parkes, published 2016 by Winghorn Press. This is pay what you want on DMs Guild.
Reply: RPGGeek Suggestions:: Re: This Week In Geek History - Discussion
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:39:04
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:39:04
by SeaofStars
I agree with Dysjunct. Though as one of the achetypal mysteries, I would leave the Mary Celeste in as well.
Reply: General Role-Playing:: Re: QOTD NOV 30: What are some of the best undercover work (role play) you've seen the player characters do? Tell us about it. What make it successful or stand out to you?
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:29:21
Though I did, in a Champions game, long long ago, had my character fake his own death at the hands of a anti-mutant supervillain called the Puritan who worked with an anti-mutant group -whose name I cannot remember- and became a thorn in the side of the heroes. They after several run ins with the team, where the team usually came off the worse, he finally set up the baddies, and with the team rolled up the anti-mutant group and its backers. Though one of his teammates, with whom he had a relationship before this all when down, slapped him so hard when he revealed that he was alive! Very satisfactory.
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:29:21
by SeaofStars
I am not sure if this is exactly what the question is asking about, but in Shadowrun, disguises and false identities are part of the stock and trade of the characters. Characters are always pretending to be other people to gain access to information and places. But it is usually quite short term and not what I would really consider "undercover" which, to me, implies a longer term commitment to being someone else in order to infiltrate an organization.Though I did, in a Champions game, long long ago, had my character fake his own death at the hands of a anti-mutant supervillain called the Puritan who worked with an anti-mutant group -whose name I cannot remember- and became a thorn in the side of the heroes. They after several run ins with the team, where the team usually came off the worse, he finally set up the baddies, and with the team rolled up the anti-mutant group and its backers. Though one of his teammates, with whom he had a relationship before this all when down, slapped him so hard when he revealed that he was alive! Very satisfactory.
Reply: RPGGeek Suggestions:: Re: This Week In Geek History - Discussion
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:22:58
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:22:58
by dysjunct
I would keep Twain (Connecticut Yankee is proto sci-fi), Woody Allen (Sleeper is sci-fi), and Lang (Metropolis is one of the foundational sci-fi films).
Reply: RPGGeek Suggestions:: Re: This Week In Geek History - Discussion
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:07:31
November 30
December 1
December 2
December 3
December 4
December 5
December 6
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:07:31
by sdonohue
Things I left off this week.November 30
1667- Author/Satirist Jonathan Swift [microbadge=4192]
1835- Novelist Mark Twain [microbadge=1443] (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
1874- British statesman Sir Winston Churchill [microbadge=23183]
1918- Actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. [microbadge=3011]
1929- Dick Clark [microbadge=5539]
December 1
1935- Comedian-film maker Woody Allen [microbadge=3381]
1940- Actor Richard Pryor [microbadge=7597]
1955- Rosa Parks declines to move to the back of the bus [microbadge=28452]
December 2
1804- Napoleon Bonaparte crowned Emperor [microbadge=597]
1853- French painter Georges Seurat [microbadge=24410]
1863- American circus co-founder Charles Ringling [microbadge=11001]
1906- German/Hungarian engineer Peter Carl Goldmark (inventor of the LP record) [microbadge=225]
1923- American opera soprano Maria Callas [microbadge=2321]
1973- Yugoslav-American tennis pro Monica Seles [microbadge=12415]
December 3
1586- The potato is introduced to England from Colombia by Sir Thomas Herriot [microbadge=40043]
1755- Presidential portrait painter Gilbert Stuart [microbadge=3112]
1838- American meteorologist Cleveland Abbe [microbadge=3003] (Inventor of daily weather bulletins)
1857- Polish author Joseph Conrad [microbadge=50274]
1944- English singer-songwriter/folk musician Ralph McTell [microbadge=24295]
1948- English rocker/songwriter/Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne [microbadge=3365]
1960- American actress Daryl Hannah [microbadge=1487]
1989- Presidents Gorbachev and Bush declare the Cold War is over [microbadge=9836]
December 4
1840- Sioux Chief Crazy Horse [microbadge=37422][microbadge=37423][microbadge=37424]
1861- American singer/actress Lillian Russell [microbadge=23023]
1927- Duke Ellington and his orchestra begin their 4 year stint as 'house band' at the Cotton Club in Harlem [microbadge=40824]
1980- 2 months after John Bonham's death, Led Zeppelin disbands [microbadge=1146]
December 5
1776- Phi Beta Kappa organized (first Greek frat) [microbadge=9884]
1782- Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States [microbadge=3112]
1791- Mozart dies, only 35 years old [microbadge=1838]
1839- US Gen. George Custer [microbadge=13783]
1872- Marie Celeste found adrift and deserted [microbadge=1947]
1890- Austrian-American film director Fritz Lang [microbadge=5265][microbadge=27610]
1933- 21st Amendment ratification ends Prohibition [microbadge=269]
December 6
1870- American silent film star William S. Hart [microbadge=2139]
1896- American lyricist Ira Gershwin [microbadge=35230][microbadge=10792][microbadge=9078]
1917- Great Halifax Explosion [microbadge=22787]
1969- 4 die at infamous Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway -- dark day seen as the end of the "Hippie Era" [microbadge=28495][microbadge=44381][microbadge=28496]
This Week in Geek History November 30 - December 6
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:06:42
/pic6325365.png)
November 30
December 1
December 2
December 3
December 4
December 5
December 6
I'm sure this list is incomplete. Feel free to offer suggestions for this and upcoming weeks. If you want your birthday included just add it to this geeklist: RPG Geek Birthday List[/i
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 03:06:42
by Steve
November 30
1952- Actor Mandy Patinkin [microbadge=28494]
1982- MJ's Thriller released [microbadge=20955]
1985- Actress Kaley Cuoco [microbadge=7793]
December 1
1792- Mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky [microbadge=10144]
1964- RPG and Fantasy Author Jo Walton [microbadge=8369]
December 2
1946- Author/illustrator David Macaulay [microbadge=13675]
1950- Isaac Asimov's I Robot published [microbadge=40664]
December 3
1616- English mathematician John Wallis, inventor of the [microbadge=3965] symbol
2017- 1st pizza party in space aboard the Int'l Space Station [microbadge=30402]
????- Spielfreak
December 4
1795- Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle [microbadge=34351]
1949- American actor Jeff Bridges [microbadge=43345]
1964- American actress Marisa Tomei [microbadge=34953]
December 5
1848- US President Polk confirms gold discovery in California, triggering the Gold Rush [microbadge=43184]
1901- American cartoon creator/business mogul Walt Disney [microbadge=3554]
1945- US Navy's "Flight 19" (the "Lost Squadron") vanishes [microbadge=4766]
????- Fezzwick
December 6
1421- England's King Henry VI [microbadge=38518]
1865- 13th US Amendment ratified, abolishing slavery [microbadge=27141]
I'm sure this list is incomplete. Feel free to offer suggestions for this and upcoming weeks. If you want your birthday included just add it to this geeklist: RPG Geek Birthday List[/i
New comment on GeekList Solo RPGs on Your Table - November 2025
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:37:15
And thanks to everyone who stops by, whether you post or not! 😊
See you all in December!
I'll see if I can get something going myself in the 12th month. 😊
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:37:15
by agramore
Thanks for hosting, Dan!And thanks to everyone who stops by, whether you post or not! 😊
See you all in December!
I'll see if I can get something going myself in the 12th month. 😊
Reply: General Role-Playing:: Re: Subscription thread for 'How did your RPG session(s) go this week?'
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:27:21
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:27:21
GeekList: 01 December 2025: How did your RPG session(s) go this week?
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:27:00
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:27:00
by MonsterMike
A new GeekList has been posted 01 December 2025: How did your RPG session(s) go this week?
Reply: Shiver:: General:: Re: Dice sets needed
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:22:51
Thanks, John. I now have two sets. Would like to score one more.
Posted: Mon, 01 Dec 02:22:51
by playdead1414
BigIV wrote:
I found the dice set at the local gameshop. It's what attracted me to the rest of the game.
I'm a sucker for oddball dice.
After I bought a set, I bought the Slasher Starter Set (2024) which also included dice. I might snag another of the starter sets because I think passing dice around the table will slow gameplay down.
I hope you've found the dice you needed since 2024.
I'm a sucker for oddball dice.
After I bought a set, I bought the Slasher Starter Set (2024) which also included dice. I might snag another of the starter sets because I think passing dice around the table will slow gameplay down.
I hope you've found the dice you needed since 2024.
Thanks, John. I now have two sets. Would like to score one more.
