I was fairly disappointed that the Aarakocra didn’t get a player race write-up for the new edition of Dark Sun so I went ahead and started making my own. Below is my 100% not play tested idea. Explanations of why I picked certain traits included.
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I did a precursory scan (read: “I googled it”) and did not find any gritty, simulationist rules of dehydration or starvation. I’m looking for something that is not too complicated to keep track of on the side, but realistic enough to motivate the players to pay attention.
Burning Brightly is a game about playing angels and demons. It is a completely home brew system (although it takes plenty of influence from games that have come before.) In this game players take on the role of spiritually empowered beings that have the means to directly alter creation. read more »
Burning Brightly is a game about playing angels and demons. It is a completely home brew system (although it takes plenty of influence from games that have come before.) In this game players take on the role of spiritually empowered beings that have the means to directly alter creation. One of the goals of this game was to introduce a simple system in which a player could dream up any sort of effect or miracle and there would be a mechanic to enact it with minimal effort. read more »
This is a set of mechanics to represent personality and its change over time in terms of some abstract game mechanics. As it is presented it will function with all editions of D&D, but could easily be modified to fit just about any RPG system. This system is not meant to replace role playing. The idea is to provide a context to define a character’s personality to other players, as well as a way to have a character’s personality have some effect on other mechanical elements in a game. This system is largely inspired by the traits and passions from the Pendragon system. read more »
On occasion I get the urge to sit down and mash together favorite bits of rules from different systems. This article covers a mash-up that starts with 2ed D&D and adds in some Hackmaster Basic, Savage Worlds, and 3.5ed/4ed. The actual rules doc is presented in PDF format and a direct link can be found at the bottom of this article. The article itself serves partly as a summary of the rules changes, and partly as a designer diary into my thinking behind the changes. The PDF is a first draft and is just a dump of information–there isn’t much formatting or pretty layout. It was written with the idea that the reader is at least familiar with the 2ed rules set. Since your tastes will likely vary anyways, you might just want to use this as a jumping-off point for adding some of your own radical rules ideas. read more »
Left 4 Dead is a fun game. It isn’t an incredibly deep game, but what it does have, it has in spades. This intense shooter is ripe for some sort of tabletop game. While an RPG would be fun (and my pick for system would either be All Flesh Must Be Eaten or Savage Worlds,) there is something about a tabletop miniatures game that appeals to me. It requires no prep time, can be played relatively quickly, and focuses on lots of frantic combat. My go-to game for that right now is Warhammer 40K.
I have seen some attempts at firearms for 4ed (and some good ones, at that,) but they all tend to focus on the black powder variety. That is just fine for running games about pirates, steam-punk, or other period pieces. What if you want to represent modern technology? Here is the goal of this rules attempt:
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This article will discuss how to take some readily available information and use it to estimate the undead population of a town after a zombie apocalypse. To do this in a way that doesn’t require copious amounts of research, we are going to have to make some broad generalizations. In addition, because zombie and human interaction trends tend to determine their most likely location, we are going to make and discuss some assumptions about that interaction.
No character is an island. No hero can be everywhere at once. No GM can infinitely supply quaint plot contrivances to lead players towards the adventure material planned for each session. OK, so maybe that last bit isn’t entirely true. In any event, here is a mechanical contrivance to supplement your plot contrivances.
