Ben L
@benlaurence
Author of Through Ultan's Door, Downtime in Zyan, and Mazirian's Garden. Creator of the podcast Into the Megadungeon. Links here: Patreon: Webstore:
Are there good supplements or magic systems that have properly psychedelic spells or psychic powers? What are they? Since I'm an OSR head, I'm not looking for freeform systems. I want lists of trippy spells. Psionic powers are ok too if they're properly weird.
This is the best comment I ever declined to approve for my blog. "Instant Revenge Death Spell To Kill Anyone Overnight If you desperately need an honest and real death spell caster" is quite a product to be pushing
It cracks me up that the city supplement for Jorune, Companion Ardoth, has almost a full page dedicated to the law firms, including scrappy defense attorneys and civil rights firms. This suggests the possibility of a weird Matlock style Jorune campaign.
Of all the published Jorune stuff, the Ardoth Guide is the most adventuresome. In addition to a relatively flavorful city, it has lurking mysteries, and an underworld that's just been discovered. I could easily imagine running a city-based megadungeon-ish Ardoth campaign.
I really love how this little game written by Michael Raston--inexplicably written on a piece of cardboard btw--has attributes that are faults. They are 22 minus your 3d6 roll. "I want to try to bribe a guard." "OK test your repulsiveness." mraston.itch.io/adventure-ga...
I never read Daredevil back in the day despite coming up in the 1980's in NYC and being attached to old New York and Hell's Kitchen as it was back then. What are the runs of Daredevil I should read?
Perhaps the weirdest fact about Jorune, the truly weird ttrpg from the 1980s that almost no one played, is that the Japanese release of Futureworld, the album by the excellent band TransAm, contains 3 Jorune themed bonus tracks, "Woffen Shenter", "Thriddle Giggit Dream", and "Ardoth Marketplace".
I just watched Longlegs. The biggest problem for folks in that universe isn't that satan is real, or devil dolls, or past faced serial killers--it's that light bulbs top out at 10 watts. If anyone could turn on a proper light 90% of their problems would vanish.
Has anyone written a ttrpg combat system where fighting as a group is a tactical choice mechanically different than fighting solo, where the group is treated as a single unit with mechanical advantages? Also where the group can be broken up by a charge or if someone dies? 1/2
Two photos for a contrast, Liz Danforth in old T&T and a screen grab from the new kickstarter. I don't hate the new look or anything, it's just the contrast is...bizarre
What are the good ruined city published modules/campaigns for either fantasy or sci-fi. Here's what I've got so far: Dwellers in the Forbidden City, Pavis & Big Rubble, and the Ruins of Mythdrannor.
I'm having a lot of fun writing up just a few of the minor aspects of each Archon, the alien deities of Zyan for a huge Patreon PDF that's about to drop with a sick amount of lore about Zyanese religion. Here are a couple. I have to break them up b/c they're too long for a single bleet. 🧵1/5
Since I've been writing about Zyanese religion for my Patreon (a big PDF is about to drop) , the most fun part is coming up with 20 Zyanese holidays. Here's a thread I'll be adding to throughout the day with a small sampler of the holidays. 🧵1/x
Runequest is the big hole in my knowledge of the early hobby. What should I start by reading? What are the iconic RQ products? (All I've read is Griffin Mountain by Jaquays, haven't read rules or anything else.)
I'm almost done with the Kane books. He's a sort of an evil, immortal Conan-plus-stygian wizard rolled into one. They're at their best, I think when Kane is a villain who you're clearly rooting against. Bloodstone was my favorite because the stuff abt the alien precursors to humanity is great!
About to get on a flight. Here's manuscript I'm reading. I wonder what it could be?
I hear the siren song once again! Jorune, oddest of the oddballs from early-ish in the hobby, my white whale of a next psychedelic large player campaign, complete with heartbreaker rules, is calling to me. Should I resist and carry on with I'm supposed to be doing or give in?
Golden Heroes, Games Workshop's off-brand supers rpg, is criminally under-rated. I liked the comic book style action economy that gave you different "frames" worth of action. GW in the 1980's was on fire.
And Mentzer red box, part of the BECMI monster, was the worst of all worlds with some kludged together, ill-conceived weird algorithm.
B/X was worse than OD&D because unhelpfully concrete. Being confused? Enthusiastic friendship? Way too specific. But not too bad because it at least kept things pretty simple.
AD&D was...a lot. It used this table that was much less flexible. It applied the mini-game of henchman loyalty to each encounter with an intelligent monster, so you consult a big chart of modifiers most of which were irrelevant. "We need to pin things down to get serious." OK grandpa