by robbbbbb

I will once again remind this group that we are experienced, veteran players and GMs who are used to creating our own scenarios from whole cloth. One of the things we lack for a whole lot of systems is introductory adventures that teach players how to put together a game in that system. (B2: The Keep on the Borderlands is fantastic that way.) So while it's easy for us to put an adventure together, and maybe sneer down our noses a little at those who run published adventures, remember that not everyone has that skillset.

I think one of my projects in retirement is to write and self-publish a campaign specifically geared towards beginning GMs. "Here's how it's done."

by shiva666

I like them when they're more diagram then text. I use them as choose or roll tables.
Gaming the creation of characters, places & tools, allows for engaging the system outside gametime.

by KreativeKhaos

I think we will need to stay several days to play all these! :-)

by huron663

Weekly Update – 8/11/2026
Wow it’s been a busy two weeks. I’ve gotten a lot of work done on a few different projects – here’s what’s new.
Last 2 Weeks
• Fantasy Civ Solo: Quests Expansion is complete and released! You can check it out here!
• Spellbook playtest has wrapped up. I’ll start developing this pretty soon, maybe as early as next week!
• I’ve also done some design brainstorms for Spellbook to take care of some gameplay issues that cropped up in playtesting. This is my first journaling game, and a challenge I’m finding is hitting the right balance between journaling and storytelling, and including gameplay mechanics.
• I did some other brainstorming around future projects!
This Week
This week hits the mid-point of my busy summer. Fantasy Civ Solo is out, and Spellbook is likely going to be out in 4-6 weeks. Here’s what’s on my to do list!
• First and foremost, I will be following up with marketing for the Fantasy Civ Solo: Quests Expansion release. I’m pretty excited about this expansion, and I hope you enjoy!
• I’ll get started on a Dwarf Mine expansion that I have my eye on releasing early next year. Once it is in a playable version, I’ll be giving early access through Patreon.
• Spellbook design wraps up, and I move on towards development. I had a very good brainstorming session last week, and I am excited about the new ideas I am bringing to the game post-playtest.
I am not feeling 100% - not incredibly sick, I can just feel some ick brewing. So I’m also hopefully going to find a nap or two this week. Fingers crossed! Thank you for being a fan of games! -James

by Moonlight_Fox

trystero11 wrote:

panzer-attack wrote:

I think it would be hard to argue that books from the 80s and 90s are a better physical product than modern books.

I think modern books are prettier, as so many are full-colour hardcovers, but I'm not sure they're actually better. I miss the sheer legibility of black text on white paper with no page art and minimal text decoration. Given the option, I'd still rather have the old-style layout.

I had a look at some of the older books I own recently and found them universally awful to read, regardless of if it was being put out by an indie or a decently large publisher (and this isn't even the old stuff - D&D 3.5e, GURPS 4e, CoC 6e, World Tree, Paranoia XP), something about those layouts seemed to be trying to cram as many words onto the page as possible rather than creating a comfortable reading experience. And I don't know if it's just that I'm no longer in my early 20s as I was when I was picking those books up before drifting out of the hobby so my eyesight has deteriorated or if I was just used to terrible layouts because I was dealing with academic textbooks at the time because I absolutely didn't feel that way about them when I picked them up at the time.

ETA: I think it's very specifically the line spacing that causes the issue for me (and I'm not sure which of those books I checked, I know I found myself struggling with World Tree when I was looking soemthing up, and cross referenced I think CoC and GURPS to see if it was just because it was an indie and found the same problem in both others)

by wildthayne

Related Item: HeroQuest (1st Edition)

[Microbadge=59076] is approved!

by Moonlight_Fox

Related Item: Blade Runner Starter Set

DoOverAgain wrote:

I guess their choice NOT to do a quickstart worked and you spent more money = mission accomplished for Free League marketing team.

It is interesting where Quickstarts seem the required norm for kickstarters nowadays, Free League does this with less than half of their game lines...so it seems. No quickstart for Vaesen, Twilight2K, etc. Rather they go the starter box route, albeit, Vaesen starter came out some time after the game released.

But I'm a sucker for a Starter Set, so they got me every time.

While Vaesen lacks a quickstart, they did put the core rules on a 100% sale on DTRPG one Halloween...

by govmiller

Related Item: Blade Runner Starter Set

DoOverAgain wrote:

But I'm a sucker for a Starter Set, so they got me every time.

Same. If I see one for a system I'm 1/2 interested in, I just get it...

by Moonlight_Fox

I love random tables, especially random tables that are multiple steps and which I think is the procedural content generators Robb's meaning, where I'm rolling on multiple things and putting them together to create something specific that requires connecting the dots. I just find them helpful for prep, essentially sidestepping the 'blank page' and forcing some of my neurons to collide with each other in ways that they might not have done without the external prompt. I wish the more trad end of the spectrum of games I tend to run had more things along these lines, and when I don't have satisfactory ones when doing prep I'll sometimes find myself reaching for solo tools such as Mythic Game Master Emulator Second Edition to supplement whatever random tables the book I'm running provides with fairly generic spark tables.

When I was running the Invaders and Strays format from Ani-Thology!, for example, I once rolled a Celestial fire elemental Animon that chills the air around themself and is trying to find someone or something they lost. Now, I had an idea of what that last one might be due to what had happened in the prior session, but I decided I wanted a second opinion so rolled on one of the Mythic Elements tables (forget which) which just double downed on my initial thought (Basically an NPC had just seen his partner Animon evolve, the first time the PC's had encountered a Super stage Animon, so my initial thought was "Is this celestial Animon trying to kidnap/recruit this kid as a soldier in some kind of literal holy war between celestial and infernal Animon somewhere in the Animon world? That's a bit darker than what I've been doing so far, let's see if Mythic can give me a better idea of the thing that's lost that's trying to be found." and mythic just gave me some response or other than just confirmed it in my mind that that's what was happening.

What the real value of the table in that case was, though? A fire elemental Animon that attacks via cold fire, essentially frostbite flames, which while making no scientific sense I found quite a cool idea (no pun intended).

by fezzwick

An item RPG Item: Champions (First Edition) has been added to the geeklist 2026 RPG Challenge: Run 5 RPGs New to You in 2026

by DoOverAgain

Related Item: Blade Runner Starter Set

I guess their choice NOT to do a quickstart worked and you spent more money = mission accomplished for Free League marketing team.

It is interesting where Quickstarts seem the required norm for kickstarters nowadays, Free League does this with less than half of their game lines...so it seems. No quickstart for Vaesen, Twilight2K, etc. Rather they go the starter box route, albeit, Vaesen starter came out some time after the game released.

But I'm a sucker for a Starter Set, so they got me every time.

by GeoffreyB

I lived through GeoffreyB previously rolled d14 = 12 minor earthquakes in my area.