This time, we follow the good High Priest to the far future, to the final continent of Earth, Zothique, for a a tale of ennui and love: Morthylla.| Trollsmyth
Clark Ashton Smith makes me very thanksful for electronic readers; I've never read anything by him that didn't include at least one word I'd never encountered before. He is, of course, the author that inspired X2: Castle Amber, a fun-house dungeon much beloved by many grognards.As a glossary of words gamers might find useful, I begin with his short story "A Vintage From Atlantis":| Trollsmyth
The Bramble Marches is a campaign I've been working on that's meant to include TSR-era exploration and end-game content into 5e D&D. A friend of mine has actually done more with it so far than I have. ;p| Trollsmyth
Noisms has some interesting ideasin this post about his desire for some depth to his grimdark, and turns to Gene Wolfe and Tolkien for relief. Now, it can be argued that he’s watering down, even spoiling his grimdark by twisting the universe to actually be caring and not indifferent. And that’s true, but it sounds like Noisms finds the nihilism of grimdark to be hollow, all shadow puppets without depth or impact. And I totally get that. I don’t think his preference for a greater...| Trollsmyth
THIS!!! Yes, a| Trollsmyth
Here's a new YouTube channel that's absolutely worth your time. There's some clever ideas in this video I will absolutely be implementing in my campaigns soon (especially the "what are you thinking" one).| Trollsmyth
Map Crow is a YouTube vlog that’s hit-and-miss with| Trollsmyth
Ok, not a single roll to cover the entire fight. But a single roll by each player to adjudicate not only the success or failure of their attack, but also how much damage they did to their foe and how much, if any, harm their foe did to them.| Trollsmyth
Ron Cobb is a name to conjure with in the art world, and his work as the concept artist for the ‘82 Conan the Barbarian movie is well known to me. At least, I thought it was! | Trollsmyth
Verðandi| Trollsmyth
The capital city of Praxis contains a dozen palaces for the Hexenkönigin (one for each of the Twelve Houses of the Galactic Wheel), the bureaucracy of the Zauberreich, and the most prestigious university of sorcery within the Golden Gate Sector of the Orion Arm.| Trollsmyth
I’ve been too busy to keep up with the RPG blog-o-sphere lately (more on that later), so I missed this excellent article at Goblin Punch on negotiations between PCs and monsters/NPCs. It makes a nice compliment to these two articles I’ve written on the subject:| Trollsmyth
And back to my series of classes for my mad mashup of various sources, but based on a B/X core. | Trollsmyth
And back to my series of character classes for my mad mashup D&D game based on B/X but including rules from all over. This time, a bit of Hindu myth that really, really harshes on what lots of folks consider a core element of the Old School vibe.| Trollsmyth
14. Heart Of The Beast: Cast this spell on a slain monster’s heart (or reasonably equivalent organ or portion), then consume it. At any time, you may take the devoured creature’s shape, once, for 10 minutes. You will retain some physical mark of this transformation afterwards.| Trollsmyth
This guy packs more in a two-minute video than most others manage in 20+ minutes.| Trollsmyth
Face it, if you want something in this harsh and unforgiving world, you have to do unto others as the royal and filthy rich have done unto you: you gotta steal it.| Trollsmyth
Elves represent the greatest deviation I’m making from the classic classes. B/X elves are warrior-wizards. My elves are much more Tolkienesque. They’re an excellent alternative to Clerics for a party healer and have some nice synergies with the Ranger.The Elf Spell-list isn't detailed here. In a more Tolkienesque world, they would actually use the Druid list instead of the traditional Magic-user list. Which I use depends on the flavor we're looking for.| Trollsmyth
What are you general thoughts about rules that don't have the GM rolling any dice. For instance, if a monster attacks a PC, instead of the GM rolling on behalf of the monster, the PC's player rolls for the PC to resist the monster's attack.| Trollsmyth
It| Trollsmyth
Contemplating doing ZineQuest this year. Any advice from those of you who have done it before?| Trollsmyth
First off, let me say that ChatGPT is a chat-bot, not| Trollsmyth
As requested, here is a Sorcerer Miscast table used by one| Trollsmyth
Anyone else feeling a bit of RPG industry déjà vu? | Trollsmyth
A player in my weekly face-to-face game mentioned that they’d hardly played anything other than D&D, and 5e at that. I couldn’t let that st...| trollsmyth.blogspot.com
Reviews of genre-related movies, books and art. Mostly focused on personal thoughts and crtique of RPGs. Science Fiction & Fantasy.| trollsmyth.blogspot.com
Hit points are supposed to be an abstraction that model a character's defensive combat prowess, physical stamina, and will to persevere. Tr...| trollsmyth.blogspot.com