My Favorite Game
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The More Things Change…
This is random TTRPG thoughts #77
It’s June. Wildfire smoke is setting off air quality alerts, Covid is still a thing, and the director of Homeland security has said the troops are in LA to “liberate it” from its elected officials. The general sucky-ness of the world is causing my brain to want to shut down, but the darn thing keeps booting back up. I blame the coffee. These are random TTRPG thoughts.
Shout Outs
Before we begin I want to shout out everyone who has liked, commented, and subscribed to content on this channel. It helps, a lot. If you’d consider doing those things for this video I would be most grateful.
And a special shout out my Coffee Contributors, who help keep this channel going out of the kindness of their hearts. If you’d like to join the channel the link is right over there.
And don’t forget to check out my merch store for tee-shirts and hoodies. Including this one with the proud exhortation, “Roll some dice, worlds are waiting.”
With that out of the way, let’s get to the randomness!
Thoughts
- Sometimes when a planned session falls through, there just isn’t enough energy to shift gears to something else. I know there are people who say “never cancel,” sometimes your mental health makes it necessary.
- It appears YouTube really likes videos entitled “My Favorite Game.” I’m glad folks are enjoying it!
- Over on my discord we had an interesting discussion on the concept of the number bloat that’s prone to occur in “roll high and add modifier” systems. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to prefer games without the old school armor class concept until that moment. It’s nice to learn a bit about myself that I hadn’t realized.
- Kings are great for fantasy role playing games, or even in science-fiction RPGs, but we tossed a King out in the United States. It needs to be kept that way.
- I am amazed by the things people “know” about the history of the hobby which turn out to be either wrong or misunderstood. Reading The Elusive Shift has been a wild experience.
- I made my first character for Skrat’s NUTS. It’s for a weird west game and he’s a professional side-kick. I need to make sure he has a frying pan.
- I had to drop out of the Shadowdark game I’d signed up for at CRIT, but I picked up a Call of Cthulhu game and it’ll be the first time I’ve ever played it. So that’ll be fun. Check out CRIT!
- I have begun tweaking my Sentinel Comics RPG game at CRIT, which should be a blast. I’m going to try writing some more adventures for the system. This first one establishes some things which can be expanded upon and I’d like to explore the world a bit more.
- So you know all the arguments people have in the comments on social media, or through dual stitches on TikTok? The same arguments, involving the same personality types, have been going on since the 70’s. You could take fan-zine letters and drop quotes from them into modern social media, most people wouldn’t even notice. And if you include the same types of arguments involving miniature war games, they’ve been going on even longer. And I’m no uninvolved observer, either. I participate in these as well. We humans are strange.
- I’m going to be doing a lot of reading about gaming while I’m on sabbatical. I’ll be focusing on the hobby’s history, some design theory, and how TTRPGs are used in therapy. Why? Because I want to explore how TTRPGs can be used to help people recover a sense of agency when they’ve experienced it being taken away through events like a natural disaster, or the experience of abuse. Why do I think this would be helpful? Because in the game our actions matter. They don’t always succeed, but they matter. Sometimes, in real life, we need to reminded of that important truth. Our decisions matter.
#77 #DMing #DnD #DungeonsDragons #dungeonsAndDragons #GMing #RolePlayingGame #RPG #TTRPG
Last night's chill stream with Druid is up!
#Nidonemo #adruidinfaerun #calmgaming #calm #relaxedgaming #relax #smallstreamer #smallstreamers #BaldursGate3 #BG3 #RPG #RolePlayingGame #furry #furrystreamer #fox #foxstreamer #streamer #funny #silly #comedy #sass #sassy
Yep we streamin' tonight at 8pm!
Only on:
https://www.twitch.tv/nidonemo
#Nidonemo #calmgaming #calm #relaxedgaming #relax #smallstreamer #smallstreamers #BaldursGate3 #BG3 #RPG #RolePlayingGame #furry #furrystreamer #fox #foxstreamer #streamer #funny #silly #comedy #sass #sassy
#Dragonbane session 30: the party are joined by Orla the Hunter & Astra the Icebitch, who don’t get along with the anxious adventurers. Kalgrim nearly gets himself stupidly killed in a hidden chamber & Astra ignores the plan & battles some guardian statues. Finally, the party comes face to face with an evil & hungry Blood Demon…
#ttrpg #dnd #osr #FreeLeague #fantasy #RolePlayingGame #roll20
🎲 Immergiti nell'epico mondo di Dungeons and Dragons: sveliamo segreti, consigli e tutto ciò che devi sapere per vivere appieno il gioco! #DnD #RoleplayingGame
Tales of Argosa
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Viewing Dragonlance Through a Daggerheart Lens
In high school, every summer, I would reread the Dragonlance Chronicles and the Dragonlance Legends novels. By my senior year, I was including The Legend of Huma and Kaz the Minotaur. Considering I used to read almost every D&D related novel that came out, I used to read a lot in high school. I developed some serious feelings over these characters.
Getting Dragonlance to the Table
My favorite D&D setting was the Forgotten Realms, but my favorite D&D novel series was Dragonlance. I ran several campaigns using the Dragonlance setting, but I think part of what made Faerun a better home for my games than Krynn was that none of my players had read the novels, and it was hard to translate the gravitas of certain setting elements to them.
“There was no divine magic for 300 years.”
“Oh, so kind of like the Time of Troubles.”
“No, not at all. It was like . . . the Cataclysm.”
“You’re using a tautology to explain why something in the setting is important.”
No, that’s not an actual conversation I had. It just feels like I had it. I don’t know if I can even picture any of my high school friends saying tautology. That was my job. All of this might also explain why Taladas felt like it was going to be a better region of the setting for ongoing campaigns, because there was less weight being conveyed in the fiction, plus the kits did a good job of framing the various cultures.
For years I wanted to run an alternate reality version of the War of the Lance, and by “alternate reality” I mean, the PCs 100% replace the Heroes of the Lance. Despite that, I also really wanted to see what players would do with the iconic characters in the iconic campaign of the setting. Because one of the foundational trilogies of the setting is about time travel and potential alternate realities, Dragonlance always felt a little like a superhero setting in that manner, where playing a game where history unfolded differently but started in a similar manner felt completely in line with the setting.
Alternate Reality/Alternate Game Engine
Because I have opinions about these characters and an emotional connection to them, I often think about them when I look at a new fantasy game system, especially if those games include classes/archetypes that at least partially line up to D&D conventions. That brings us (finally) to what I wanted to talk about. Within Daggerheart, I created the Heroes of the Lance. I did this in Demiplane, which is important for reasons I’ll get to. I’m going to include links to each of the characters, because it would be a lot to include them all in the post in their entirety.
General Conversion Notes
I’m trying to avoid doing too many rules tweaks. I want to see if I can make satisfying versions of the characters without creating house rules for the game. That doesn’t mean I may not make some choices informed by the setting (like not giving Raistlin much in the way of Splendor versus Codex domain cards).
There are a few things I may go back and tweak, because I was being a little more literalist than I need to be. For example, I can give Raistlin better armor by re-flavoring that armor as warded robes. There were many examples of wizard robes in the novels that were cited as having protective runes and sigils on them, and very few rules have ever been added to the official D&D material to reflect what those robes actually did, other than saying just assuming standard D&D magic robes reflect what was being described.
There are a few classes that get overtly magical abilities that I’m going to squint and treat as just extreme talent. That’s a big deal with the rogue, especially. Some characters might have benefited from multi-classing, even if they weren’t in D&D rules, but rules as written, you can’t multi-class in Daggerheart until 5th level, and I picked 3rd level as a better feeling of where the Heroes of the Lance were at the beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight.
I renamed a lot of Domain Cards for flavor, but I feel like it was less necessary for the Domain Cards than it was for basic equipment. For example, Flint traditionally carries an axe and shield. Battle axes default to two handed weapons in Daggerheart, and the only one handed axe is a magic weapon. In Daggerheart, that doesn’t mean a starting character wouldn’t have it. It just means that it should be taken by classes that more overtly use weapons that do magic damage instead of physical damage. But all we really need is a one handed weapon that does physical damage and uses strength as the trait used to attack with it. That means we give Flint a mace and call it a one handed axe.
This isn’t really a hack, because the core rules mention that things like weapons are examples to be described as needed, and gives examples in the text. Axes and maces don’t do slashing and bludgeoning damage, they both do physical damage in Daggerheart, so there is no reason not to call a mace a one handed axe.
The Heroes of the Lance, as traditionally presented, are really fighter heavy. Tanis, Flint, Caramon, and Sturm are all fighters. That means even if we make some of them Guardians and some of them Warriors, one or both classes is going to have to support multiple characters to make them distinct.
There was one last thing about the conversion process that was interesting to me. There are no Communities that reflect growing up in a crossroads town, or even a rural community. These both feel like they would be natural additions to the Community offerings, and while many people are excited about new Domains and new cards for existing Domains, I really hope we see a few more Communities. Despite that, it’s not too hard to find communities that fit with some aspect of how various characters were raised, so it’s not a major sticking point.
Each header with the character’s name is a hyperlink that leads to the “anyone can view” character sheet for that character in Demiplane.
Tanis may have been the biggest challenge of these characters. The wisest sage of all Dragonlance gaming interpretation, Cam Banks, has mentioned that Tanis really should have a class like Marshal/Warlord to reflect his role in the story, but classes like that aren’t always core to various editions of D&D, especially versions that officially translate Dragonlance.
I thought of trying to make Tanis into a Bard to reflect his ability to inspire others, but since multi-classing doesn’t come into play until 5th level, a 3rd level Tanis using Bard abilities would have to be only a Bard, and it’s really hard to make a Tanis that feels like Tanis by using the Domain Cards available to Bards up through 3rd level. Codex abilities are pretty overtly magical, and while you can pretty easily describe a lot of Grace Domain abilities as more mundane, Tanis really wasn’t exceptionally good at lying, or able to dazzle foes with his words. He was just good at inspiring and directing his friends.
In the end, I went with Call of the Brave Warrior for Tanis. There are a few Domain Cards that deal with bolstering allies, so this was a good fit for Tanis. It’s interesting to note that I thought Tanis was going to be a character that leaned hard into Presence, and I gave him a good score in that Trait, but one of the big Domain Cards you can use to direct others, Strategic Approach, runs on Knowledge. So Tanis has as much Knowledge as he has Presence. I don’t think that strains my concept of him, but it meant I wanted to make sure that some characters had their primary defining trait bump just a wee bit above other characters. For example, I felt like I needed to make sure Raistlin still had a higher Knowledge than Tanis.
I thought Flint was going to be a kind of boring conversion, but I had a little more fun playing with things we know about Flint than I expected. I made Flint into a Vengeance Guardian, because he holds a grudge, and he’s the father figure to the group, and it makes sense to give him the combatant option about protecting others.
I leaned toward giving Flint abilities that spent stress. This is going to be a little morbid, but knowing that Flint’s time on Krynn is going to be brought to an end by his heart failing him, pushing his stress to keep going kind of felt appropriate. The one ability that directly boosts his allies is one that triggers on a Long Rest, which feels appropriate. Flint isn’t boosting others in a fight or inspiring them. He sits around the fire and asks Tanis what’s bothering him.
Tasslehoff was one of the trickier Companions to translate to Daggerheart. Part of that revolves around the idea that Rogues in Daggerheart are usually willingly, intentionally good at crime, often in ways that imply organized crime organizations, or they are supernatural assassin types. Neither of these paradigms fit Tasslehoff, but no other class really makes sense, because the Rogue is still the class for doing sneaky stuff unnoticed.
Here’s some of my logic for the choices I made for Tasslehoff. One of his abilities gives him the ability to Enrapture a target. Rather than being so charming, my thought on this is that when Tasslehoff gets going on an Uncle Trapspringer story, either people are trying to keep up with the twists and turns of the story, or having their eyes glaze over at the sheer number of details and speed of the pacing. One of Tasslehoff’s abilities makes him Invisible, but D&D 2024 has already retrained my brain to read “invisible” as, “you constantly just happen not to look at someone or something” as opposed to actually being invisible. He’s just that good at sneaking around.
Troublemaker was the easiest of the abilities I picked for Tasslehoff. Stressing out an opponent by taunting them is perfect for the standard kender taunting ability. Pick and Pull was another easy choice. Yes, he’s good at picking locks and picking pockets. Deft Deceiver is all about being a good liar, and Tasslehoff isn’t a deceptive person, but I think this works for him being so convinced that he really didn’t take something from your pouch that maybe you believe him too?
Halfling works well to stand in for Kender as an Ancestry. The Luckbringer ability matches Tasslehoff’s ability to accidentally do exactly what the party needs him to do well in his story role.
It’s easy to picture Sturm as a Warrior, but when you have to choose between Warrior and Guardian, Guardian is very tempting. I leaned into Warrior only because Sturm has a general desire to protect, but not as much of a personal drive within the Companions to protect any specific person, the way characters that I gave Guardian to may have. Call of the Slayer sounds more bloodthirsty than Sturm’s demeanor, but I think when you look at Call of the Slayer versus Call of the Brave, which I gave Tanis, I think Call of the Slayer works for someone drilled to fight in very specific ways, passed down through his family.
Orderborne may have been the easiest Community to assign to any of these characters. Even spending most of his childhood in Solace, Sturm had Solamnic values drilled into him. Picking three sayings or values to call on in the game is just screaming for you to write “Est Solarus oth Mithas” on your character sheet. I also had fun renaming Sturm’s Domain Cards to sound like values that would be outlined in the Measure.
The biggest challenge to making Caramon is that spellcheckers keep wanting to rename him “Cardamom Marjoram.” Once you come to an agreement with your spellcheckers dictionary, the next step is to decide on Warrior versus Guardian. In the end, I went with Stalwart Guardian, because at his core in Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Caramon is about protecting Raistlin above anything else.
It was really easy to find abilities that made it feel like Caramon is throwing people around, bashing their heads together, and barreling through opponents. While you can rename weapons, it made sense to give Caramon a weapon with the broadsword’s traits, but then let him use Strength to attack with it. Caramon, like his brother, is a character I felt needed to be a little better at his defining trait than anyone else in the group, so he gets a +3 Strength.
It’s a little outside of just converting Caramon to Daggerheart, but while it made sense to give Caramon a -1 to Knowledge, I like that the trait is Knowledge, not Intelligence. One of Caramon’s character developments by the end of the second trilogy learned that he was intentionally leaning into being “the stupid one” because he was defining himself in contrast to Raistlin.
There was never any question that Raistlin was going to be a Wizard and lean heavily on the Codex side of Domain Cards. But Raistlin is obsessed with learning new magical secrets, so why go with School of War? Because regardless of his interest in learning every magical secret he could find, Caramon and Raistlin were raised by their older sister Kitiara, who was a mercenary, and worked as a mercenary with his brother while away from the Companions. It also fits with Raistlin’s major trait. For all of his ruined health, Raistlin survives. Face Your Fear just feels exactly like something Raistlin should have. Being more dangerous when things feel the most dire? If you assume that also means doing extra damage just out of spite, that Raistlin right there.
I didn’t mention this under Caramon’s entry, but I gave Caramon and Raistlin the Slyborne Community. I mentioned above that there isn’t really a good Community for representing the crossroads that is Solace, but I think Slyborne works for Caramon and Raistlin’s upbringing. Caramon mentioned Kit taught them how to fight, but also how to kick someone when they were down. The Scoundrel ability works well for sussing out someone’s less admirable motivations and finding a place to catch your breath when people want to kill you, which leans into Raistlin’s survivability. And if you want to argue that Caramon wasn’t as wary as other people as Raistlin . . . Caramon always knew exactly how his brother felt about him and buried that knowledge.
Some of the “standard” weapons in Daggerheart just do magic damage, because thematically, people using those items are throwing magic around. Even though Raistlin didn’t directly use the Staff of Magius to fire off spells from the staff, it still doesn’t feel wrong to give him a staff that does magic damage as his primary weapon, and flavor it as him just using the Staff of Magius as a spellcasting focus.
I’m trying not to just go into how many Wizard abilities are perfect for portraying Raistlin, because, well, that’s just means the class is functioning as expected. I had a ridiculous amount of time renaming the books referenced on the Domain Cards, and that really helps to underscore the feel of the Wizards of High Sorcery. When he picks up more cards after exploring Xak Tsaroth, it’s a perfect excuse to rename another book to represent the spellbooks of Fistandantalus that he gets from Bupu. I leaned a little away from Splendor Domain Cards, although they worked for throwing some Fistandantalus spiritual manipulation into the mix. Because of the setting itself, I took Healing Hands and Mending Touch off the table. Reassurance was great for Raistlin, but not as reassurance. It felt like a good stand in for those times when Tanis would ask Raistlin would give him the worst-case scenario.
I complain about Raistlin eating up so much of the word count of the novels as the series wore on, and I just did the same thing. Damn you Raistlin.
Riverwind is right up there with Drizzt for D&D novel rangers that don’t do what the current edition of D&D assumes rangers will be doing. It’s not that the class feels like a poor fit, it just does so much more, and in so many supernatural ways, that the class can do.
Back when I was in a game playtesting the earlier version of the Daggerheart rules, I mentioned that I really like how the Daggerheart ranger feels flexible enough to portray a lot of divergent concepts that surround the concept of a ranger, that focuses on being a survivor and a hunter, and can lean more or less supernatural. That’s good for finding some abilities that feel right for Riverwind.
One of the important elements of Riverwind’s backstory was surviving an onslaught of things trying to kill him when he first found the Blue Crystal Staff. The Daggerheart ranger has a lot of “you’re going to have to fight hard to kill me” abilities. Yeah, I know, “where was that survivability when Onyx first showed up?” Hey. Onyx is the first dragon we get to see in the books, and we needed to see the upper end of what the Blue Crystal Staff can do. Sorry for the digression.
The irony about Goldmoon is that it’s more difficult to build a more generic D&D cleric in Daggerheart than it is to build Goldmoon at the beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I made her a Divine Wielder Seraph, because there isn’t a much better example of a divinely powered character that uses a weapon granted by their god. There is also a staff in the equipment section that uses Instinct for its attack Trait and does magic damage, and that works really well for the Blue Crystal Staff.
How will this play as Goldmoon moves past, discovering the Disks of Mishakal, when she isn’t carrying the Staff anymore? Honestly, if I was running this as a campaign, I’d be fine with Goldmoon manifesting a magical “echo” of the staff when she needs to have it. It’s not what happened in the books, but it also doesn’t feel drastically wrong. Since we’re just looking at the Heroes of the Lance and Dragons of Autumn Twilight, I don’t have to figure out Elistan or Crysania in Daggerheart, and you can’t make me (but I probably will eventually).
I enjoy giving Goldmoon the Highborne Community to represent her regal bearing as a princess of the Que-Shu. This personality trait gets obscured by her faith and her relationship with Riverwind, but it’s definitely there, and it’s nice having a mechanical reminder of it.
The River of Time
Am I going to run the War of the Lance storyline using Daggerheart? Almost certainly not. Do I want to see if I can make a Campaign Frame that captures what I was trying to do with some of these characters and latches on to what is unique about the setting? Yes, I want to do that. I would also like to make a few signature adversaries, like Draconians, and maybe get some people together not to run all the way through the adventures, but maybe to play some key scenes from the books, like the wicker dragon encampment or the confrontation with Onyx.
While it was tricky to convert some characters, it felt less like the rules were fighting me, which I have felt in other game systems when I try to do similar conversions, and more like I needed to twist and turn game elements and connect them at different points before I got a solid feel for what the story would feel like at the table, rather than literally what every game element says it is.
Daggerheart feels like it’s going to be a good, flexible game for heroic fantasy roleplaying to emulate a lot of inspirations. Like any game, I’m sure it’s going to be more or less suited for different stories, and I ran into a few tricky elements in this conversion, even though I think Dragonlance is probably closer to Daggerheart’s core competencies than some other settings might be. But I think Daggerheart’s strength is going to be that it’s better at making a setting that feels like Dragonlance than literally being Dragonlance. I look forward to more tinkering.
I know I haven’t been plowing through content recently, but if you still want to help me maintain the blog and continue to look at lots of different RPG content, you can pick up some of these items via my affiliate links below. Thanks!
- Daggerheart Nexus + PDF
- The Journals of Kaz the Minotaur: The Lost Colony
- Shadow of the Dragon Queen (Roll20)
- War of the Lance (3.5)
- Legends of the Twins (3.5)
- Dragons of Autumn (D&D 3.5)
- Dragonlance Classics (15th Anniversary Edition)
- Time of the Dragon (2e)
#Daggerheart #dnd #Dragonlance #fantasy #gaming #RoleplayingGame #rpg #TabletopRoleplaying #ttrpg
Old School Levels UP
Tales of Argosa is the successor to 2019’s Low Fantasy Gaming and includes some updates to the core system which first appeared in Pickpocket Press’ second title, Lowlife 2090. The man behind Pickpocket Press, Stephen Grodzicki, was an early friend of DM Tales and sent me review copies of his earlier works, but I didn’t hesitate for a moment to back Tales of Argosa. He makes good stuff.
About Characters
Tales of Argosa is a low magic system weighted to be more human centric in the vein of old school Sword & Sorcery, with only a 25% chance of playing a non-human. Non-human characters do enjoy some benefits, but they also suffer from some racial penalties. This diverges from a lot of modern games which are migrating away from race-based mechanics, but it fits in the low-magic world of Argosa. It’s not that all non-humans have the same racial traits. It’s that non-humans who are hanging out in the human world have similar proclivities, which is what leads them away from their own cultures. Human characters, likewise, have racial modifiers which are indicative of the traits which drive them toward an adventuring lifestyle.
Classes
There are nine different classes, which cater to a wide range of play-styles. Artificers make dangerous gadgets, Barbarians are wilderness-loving rage-beasts, Bards inspire their companions, Cultists call down blessings from enigmatic entities, Fighters excel in combat situations, Magic Users wield forces they cannot control, Monks train to make their bodies weapons, Rangers work on the fringes of civilization, and Rogue embrace the shadows.
Each class has access to a set of skills which improve the chances for any check that falls into its bailiwick. Characters also expand their skillset as they level up—and may choose any skill which they feel matches their character’s story. Each class also has a list of starting equipment, which speeds up the “equipping” segment of character creation!
Characters further differentiate themselves through the addition of “unique features,” which they can add at levels 3, 6, and 9. These may either be developed in conjunction with the GM or picked from an example list found on pages 45-50 in the core rulebook. Unique features give some significant power boosts to the characters, but not ways that make them over powered. There are no “right” or “optimized” choices, only features which help make the character distinct while showing off a particular competency.
Each character also rolls for a background which grants a one time bonus to an attribute score, a skill, and an item for their inventory. It’s a simple way to provide some mechanical benefits while also functioning as fodder for a their backstory.
Attributes
There are seven rolled attributes in the game: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower, and Charisma. An eight attribute, Initiative, is the average of Intelligence and Dexterity (rounded down).
A ninth attribute, Luck, is variable and begins an adventure at 10, plus ½ the character’s level (rounded up). First level characters, then, will begin an adventure with a Luck score of 11.
I enjoy the wide-range of character types in the game, and the ways characters can be differentiated from each other. Skill choices, backgrounds, and unique features help make characters from the same class stand out on their own. I appreciate this design.
Core Mechanics
There are a number of core mechanics in the game, though they tend to riff off of another.
Checks
Checks are the base mechanic of the game. Any time a player attempts to do something where there is a meaningful chance of failure a GM will call for a check against a specific attribute. If a character has a skill which would be applicable to the check then the attribute will get treated as 1 higher than normal for the roll. Having an appropriate skill also allows a character to use a reroll pool in case of failure. If a GM feels a situation is either easier or more difficult than an unmodified chance they may impose their own modifier, which alters the target rather than the roll.
Checks are made with d20 and are roll-under. If the number meets or is under the target the check succeeds and the action is successful. Rolls which are ½ the attribute are considered “Great Successes,” while those which are ½ the value over the rolled attribute are “Terrible Failures.” These will have both a narrative and mechanical effect on the game. While calculating the thresholds for triggering these is not difficult, there is a handy chart on page 64 in the core rulebook which shows the thresholds and is essential for any Tales of Argosa GM screen.
Luck
Luck is a special type of check, which replaces save mechanics from other games. It’s what gives Tales of Argosa its signature feel.
Luck checks are rolled other checks in the game. If the check succeeds the trap doesn’t hit, the falling rocks are dodged, or a tree root is grabbed which keeps a character from plunging to their untimely death. Luck checks will often be modified by an Attribute modifier, such as Luck(Dex) to dodge a hazard. In these cases the attribute’s modifier is added to the Luck score for the check.
But there is a twist. Each time a player rolls a successful Luck check the value decreases by one. As Luck regenerates only by one point per long rest, lengthy adventures or high stakes encounters feel more risky—because they are prone to sap Luck from the characters.
From the moment I first saw this Luck mechanic in Lowlife 2090 I was in love with it. And after playing a character for whom diminishing Luck was a real danger I’m hooked even more.
Magic
In Tales of Argosa the forces behind magical effects are both dangerous and beyond human comprehension. There are only two classes which can invoke magic-like effects—the arcane wielding Magic User, and the divinely-called Cultist.
Starting Magic Users know a number of spells equal to their intelligence modifier, which are selected via a d100 roll and consulting a chart. There are no spell levels in the game, everything is just “magic.”
Cultists, meanwhile, know a number of blessings equal to their Willpower score, though there far less of these in the game (12 in all). The limited scope of divine blessings conveys the alienness and distance of Argosa’s deities.
Arcane Magic
Magic users are only able to cast one spell per character level per adventure. But after casting their spell Argosa Magic Users are far from helpless. First, while they are not as combat-potent as more martial characters, ToA Magic Users are somewhat capable in combat. They begin with more hit points, may wear light armor, can wield a variety of weapons, and don’t have to wait for several levels to see their attack bonus increase. Second, Magic Users may replenish spent class abilities when they rest—one per short rest, and all expended uses during a long rest.
Casting an arcane spell requires an Intelligence(Arcane Lore) check. If the roll is successful, the spell goes off. If not the spell fails and that ability use is still expended. No matter the outcome, the player must then roll a “Dark and Dangerous Magic” check, with a die rolled according to the character’s level (a spell effect cast from a magic item always rolls a d20). If the roll is a 1 a Dark and Dangerous effect is triggered. Any other roll avoids a DDM effect, but the threshold increases by 1 every time an effect is not triggered. These cumulative increases remain until an effect is triggered, at which point the threshold resets to 1. Dark and Dangerous Magic effects are rolled on a table, and are wild. Characters may have their arms turn to tentacles, their ears might become pointed like a fey, or they may only be able to speak in a whisper. Some effects are permanent, while others can last anywhere from a few minutes to an entire year.
Blessings
Like Magic Users, Cultist begin play with the ability to invoke one blessing per character level.
To invoke a blessing Cultist must make Will(Divine Lore) check. For every invocation they must also make a Dark and Dangerous Magic check, just like a Magic User. If an effect is triggered, the Cultist suffers a Divine Rebuke and must roll on a table to see what it is. Many of these effects are permanent, and even those which are not may require a rite of atonement to end. In Argosa, if you draw a god’s attention, there is serious risk involved!
Magic in Tales of Argosa is a lot of fun.
Combat
Tales of Argosa combat will be familiar to many TTRPG players, “Roll high and add a modifer.” The target number to hit is determined by Armor Class, and attack rolls are modified by an attack bonus and attribute bonuses. A natural 1 on an attack roll triggers a fumble, while a natural 20 is a critical hit—doing max damage plus the character’s level. A nice tweak to the formula is a natural 19. These trigger special combat effects, such as trauma, and apply to both monster and weapon attacks.
Initiative is side based. At the start of a combat round, one player makes an initiative check. On a success, the players will go before normal adversaries. On a Great Success they will also go before adversaries who are marked as Bosses or Heavies. On a failure, adversaries go before the party. As combat progresses, an initiative check is made each round—moving around the table in clockwise order. Parties aren’t able to lean on characters who have good Initiative scores!
A character gets one move per turn, or two if they spend their action to do so. Movement in the game is approximated in bands.
- Melee (5 feet or so)
- Close (up to 30 feet)
- Far (into the next room or 60 feet)
- Very Far (over 60 feet)
Characters may move to anywhere in close or melee range in one move, and to anywhere in far range in two moves. Beyond that the number of moves it takes to reach anything in very far range is up to the GM. Movement cannot be broken up with an action unless a character is flying or mounted. It’s either “Action then move” or “Move then action.”
Exploits
When a combatant both hits and causes damage they may attempt an exploit which alters the current combat situation. These come in two varieties, Minor and Major. There are no hard rules for what differentiates one from the other. Instead, the player narrates what they want to attempt as an exploit and the GM decides which kind it is. There are, however, guidelines.
Minor Exploits may have one target, and are of limited duration. Shoving an adversary to put them off balance for example. Depending on what is attempted, the GM will call for some sort of check, which is often opposed. If a minor exploit fails that character may not attempt another minor exploit during that combat and, if there is a Terrible Failure the character will suffer a setback of the GM’s choosing.
Major Exploits are available only to the PCs, can affect more than one target, and cause long-lasting effects like blindness, shattering a weapon, or tossing an opponent off a cliff. Once a player narrates their intended exploit the GM calls for a Luck check, modified by the most appropriate attribute. As with Minor Exploits, when a Major Exploit fails, that character may not attempt one again that combat and a Terrible Failure causes some sort of setback. No Major Exploit can cause the death of an adversary unless that’s adversary’s hit dice are equal to or less than the PC’s level.
Exploits are fun, and when I was using them in combat it felt that they were what 5e’s bonus actions could have been. Players narrate the impact they intend to have on the combat by interacting with the emerging fiction, not by options based on their class. They’re really cool.
One last move, which is not limited to combat, is the rescue. When a character is faced with a calamitous situation, like falling off a cliff or suffering a deadly blow, a PC who is within close range may attempt to pull their ally to safety—even breaking initiative during combat.
To pull off a rescue, the player must describe what their character is doing to enact the rescue—like tackling their friend to avoid spell, holding up their shield as the killing blow comes down, or grabbing a rope and diving into lightning sand after the love of their life.
Once the rescue attempt is described the GM will determine if it makes sense and, if so, the player makes an Initiative check to see if they are quick enough to respond. If that succeeds the player then makes a Luck check to pull their friend to safety. If the Luck check fails, the character isn’t able to save their ally. On a Terrible Failure, the character suffers a setback which fits the fiction. Each character may only attempt one rescue per adventure.
Combat in Tales of Argosa is cinematic without being overpowering, fast, and fun.
Physical Book
Tales of Argosa is a full-sized book, 8 ½ by 11 inches, weighing at 266 pages. The offset book from the kickstarter campaign is printed on glossy paper, which bums me out. But it includes two book ribbons which is always a call for celebration. The book is stitched binding and lays open well, making it a pleasure to use at a table.
If you are ordering a physical copy of the game now the only way to do is via DriveThruRPG. This means that your copy will be printed on flat paper, have no ribbons, and will be glued binding (which is less durable). I have Pickpocket Press’ previous Print on Demand books, though, and they are beautiful. There may be a reprint of the offset printed book coming in 2026, so keep your eyes open.
The front cover of the book is stark and beautiful. The game’s title, in a distressed font, adorns the top of the front cover. This is a deep maroon, reminiscent of dried blood. The cover art is a reverse-contrast line-art of a party facing off against a giant serpent and some serpent-people. The rear cover is white, adorned only by the helmeted logo used for both Low Fantasy Gaming and Tales of Argosa in the same deep maroon. The presentation is phenomenal.
The end pages are filled with an abundance of tables which are perfect for a GM screen. There is a fantastic amount of information in them, which is presented well. These can be printed from the PDF and used with any screen a GM desires.
Interior Design
Tales of Argosa is both beautiful and stark.
There is almost no color in the book. The only exceptions are the first and second level headings, page numbers, and the tables.
The first heading is a stylized block-serif font, which evokes a feeling it’s evolved from ancient runes. Second level headings are a complimentary decorative serif font. Each is presented in the same maroon color found on the book cover.
Tables are set up with an alternating row color and clear header rows which utilize ToA’s signature maroon as the fill. The darker table rows are a deep peach with some really nice contrast.
The body font is an easy reading serif in black text
All the artwork in the book is black and white line art, which is perfect for conveying the game’s mood. This includes both the headers and footers, which look like bejeweled metal decorations.
In keeping with the minimalist design the page number is all that can be found in the footer, centered on the page. There is no information in the page header, however, and that might be my only critique of the design. It’s nice to see the section title on the pages.
Call outs are designed to look like ripped pieces of parchment, with subtle rips. They fit into the book very well.
All in all, this is a great design.
Conclusion
I love this game. It’s beautiful, fun, and simple to both play and run. At the same time it is filled with GM tools and mechanics I didn’t even have time to cover in this review! So I’m going to do a second Tales of Argosa review to cover things like the bestiary, special GM tools, and mechanics like montages, and mass combat! Even considering the shear amount of content, the game is not overwhelming. It relies on a well constructed engine, and is free enough that it gets out of the way when it’s not needed.
Try this game out, it’s fun.
If you want to pick up Tales of Argosa for yourself head over to DriveThruRPG. A hardcopy of the Standard hardcover plus PDF will set you back $44.95 and it is worth it. A PDF alone costs $24.95.
#DMing #DnD #DungeonsDragons #dungeonsAndDragons #GMing #OSR #RolePlayingGame #RPG #TTRPG
Final Fantasy Tactics Remastered Returns With Original Team
#FinalFantasy #IvaliceChronicles #roleplayinggame #Tactics #videogamedevelopment
https://blazetrends.com/final-fantasy-tactics-remastered-returns-with-original-team/?fsp_sid=45341
Are We The Bad Guys?
This is Random TTRPG Thoughts #76
It’s June, my schedule is packed, and Summer heat has arrived. As I navigate my way through end of school year chaos my brain attempts to escape through hibernation mode. Force reboots, sparked by coffee, triggers odd moments of cognition. These are random TTRPG thoughts.
- My Dragonbane group had an interesting session the other week, which caused one of the players to muse, “Are we the bad guys?” I created a new shirt design for my store to remember the occasion. There were threatened war crimes and one character realized he was doing a kidnapping before he realized it wasn’t a great idea.
- One of the most fun aspects of talking about TTRPG sessions away from the table are the out of context quotes. This past week’s Numenera session led to the quote, “Oh it’s a localized nuke.”
- The TTRPG code is the players bring the snacks. How else are you going to bribe the GM?
- I was working outside at a coffee shop near my favorite used book store this week. The owner of the store recognized me as he was getting coffee and we both said hi. On his way back out I asked, “Hey, you got anything new down there?” He thought for a bit and said, “Well, not D&D specific, but I’ve got some other games in the back I can pull out for you.” That is literally the only time something like that has happened to me. Also, I grabbed copies of the two Numenera core books for one of my players.
- Dragonbane is running a new funding campaign for two books which expand the game’s world and magic options. Go check it out!
- I am now reading The Elusive Shift and it’s fascinating. There are people nowadays who mock the idea that players get attached to their characters and claim it’s some new phenomenon. It turns out there were people creating personalities and stories for individual soldiers for miniature war games as early as 1960, and it changed how the players used them in the game. Peterson quotes about this phenomenon from Advanced War Games, authored by Don Featherstone in 1969, “It brought to table-top battles a strange sense of compassion…a self-identification with the little figures producing a marked reluctance to commit them to sacrificial missions.” That blew my mind.
- I really want to run a few sessions of The Electric State.
- Here are some other games I want to run. Tales of Argosa, post-apocalyptic Cypher System, Zombie Brain Eaters, Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme, and Avatar Legends.
- People are excited about Daggerheart and I think that’s awesome. I suppose I’ll have to review it at some point.
- OK, my Cypher System Super Hero table is making yet another attempt to come back this month! Scheduling has defeated Sneaky Fast Punch for too long! Also, “The Scheduler” would be an amazing villain for a satirical comic about a TTRGP group.
#DMing #DnD #DungeonsDragons #GMing #RolePlayingGame #RPG #TTRPG
Designed 6 new rpg weapons, and refloavoured 4 old ones today.
WE WILL BE STARTING IN 30 MINUTES FOR BG3 WITH ADRUIDINFAERUN!
Only on:
https://www.twitch.tv/nidonemo
#Nidonemo #calmgaming #calm #relaxedgaming #relax #smallstreamer #smallstreamers #BaldursGate3 #BG3 #RPG #RolePlayingGame #furry #furrystreamer #fox #foxstreamer #streamer #funny #silly #comedy #sass
#Dragonbane session 29: in a temple of an ancient god, the party does a deal with a Frost Dragon, gets paralyzed by Pharagmites, blasted by a fire trap & dropped on by a Slime Crawler. Bastonn & Stripes the bear are slimed to death! A funny & sad session 🥺
#ttrpg #dnd #osr #FreeLeague #fantasy #RolePlayingGame #roll20
Roll20, Demiplane, and Daggerheart
Oh, hey, are you still here? Lots of cobwebs I need to clear out of here. I should dust more often. But hey, as long as you’re here, why don’t we talk about something RPG related? Have you heard about this Daggerheart thing? I’ve got lots of other stuff to say, but why don’t we get a little specific? Let’s talk about how Roll20’s Demiplane implementation is going to work for Daggerheart.
Roll20/Demiplane Implementation
If you haven’t heard, Roll20 and Demiplane are integrating character sheets from Roll20’s character builder, instead of using a character sheet specifically built for the Roll20 platform. Daggerheart is an interesting game to look at, because, unlike some of the other games on Roll20, Daggerheart doesn’t have a native Roll20 character sheet. The game is basically jumping in on the deep end.
So what does this look like? Let’s start up a new game and look. We may not be seeing free character sheets, at least not created by the publisher, because it’s looking for a connection to Demiplane. You can make a character without connecting it to Demiplane, but “character sheet” in this case means uploading a token and typing some things in the blank player notes section, and maybe your DM will put some additional notes there that only they can see.
Adding Characters
Once you add “Demiplane” as your character sheet, the +Character button will also have a drop down connected to an existing character. As usual, you can make characters visible to all players, so if you’re the GM, you could make pregenerated characters that others can use. Once you link the character sheet, it works very much like any other character sheet on Roll20.
Rollable buttons and links on the character sheet come through in the chat log on in the chat tab of the VTT. Anything that is supported on the character sheet as rollable comes through in the chat log, so if the Demiplane character sheet gives you the option to add bonuses or re-roll checks, when you click on those buttons, it comes through in the chat log.
This isn’t common for Roll20 character sheets, but to clarify, you can’t target a character and have a roll react to the statistics of that character sheet. You can highlight a token, roll a check on a different character sheet, and have the difficulty or modifications to the roll applied to the roll. The main reason I mention this is that even though it isn’t a common implementation on a Roll20 character sheet, some character sheets, like The One Ring 2e, have this functionality, and some VTTs have implemented this kind of functionality.
That said, there is a damage calculator on the character sheet, so once you know how much damage your character has taken, you can add the damage number you have taken, and toggle resistance or armor slots.
The other reason I bring this up is that Demiplane is planning on releasing GM tools for Daggerheart on the site, which would allow you to, among other things, create and modify adversaries. Will you be able to pull those individual adversaries into Demiplane so the GM has their custom made adversaries available in the VTT? It’s hard to say until we see the tools, but given that Demiplane is asymmetrical, i.e. the GM rules for adversaries are not the same as the character building rules for player characters.
The portrait you pick for your character will come through as a token if you pull it to the map in the VTT, but you still have the same option, on the same detail page that appears for all character sheets in Roll20, where you can add a separate image for a token beyond your portrait. If you use the image from your Daggerheart character sheet, it comes in as a perfect 1 x 1 square on the grid.
What’s Integrated and What Isn’t
About the only thing I wish the character sheet would do that it doesn’t currently do would be to let you add your experiences on a roll, may be indicated by turning on or off check boxes next to them. There is an option to click on + or – buttons when you get ready to make a roll as indicated on the character sheet, so it’s pretty easy to add two or three to the roll when you can apply your experiences, but I would still like to see a way to toggle those on other checks from the character sheet.
I mentioned that all the rolls on the character sheet will come through. Here are all the buttons that are available on the Daggerheart character sheet:
- Directly rolling Traits
- Primary attack roll
- Attack damage
- Spellcast rolls for individual abilities
- Re-roll button for each of these rolls
- Weapon proficiency override (which changes the number of dice rolled for attack damage
There are also several dynamic tracking elements to the character sheet, which don’t specifically come through in the chat log, but are available for tracking individual variable elements on the character sheet. These include:
- Proficiency override (see above)
- Hope
- Hit Points (Update Hit Points using the damage calculator)
- Stress
- Spending Hope for your Hope Feature
- Tracking numbers or uses of unique ability based on character options
- Stress spends from various abilities that are triggered by spending stress
Is there anything that will still be an issue that the character sheet can’t track? Maybe. There are a few abilities that change the d12 you roll for your duality dice. For example, there might be an ability that makes this more desperate for the players that change their Hope die to a d10, or there may be an ability that bolsters a character that changes the Hope die to a d20. You can still use the Roll20 dice roller to roll dice outside of the character sheet buttons, but it’s a function I’d like to see.
It’s a minor thing, but for my screen size, the default size of the sidebar in Roll20 where Chat/Art/Journal/Compendium/Jukebox/Collections/Settings appear is slightly too narrow to display the entire box that shows the roll result details from the character sheet. That’s pretty minor, and it’s easy enough to left click and drag that sidebar to make it wide enough to read.
Speaking of the Compendium, when you click on the Compendium in a game with Daggerheart character sheets, the compendium opens up in Demiplane. It opens up in a separate tab on the browser. I like the compendium displayed in the sidebar when it appears in Roll20, but the compendium that pops up looks much nicer than the internal compendium that Roll20 normally shows for a game.
Exploring Other Demiplanes
As I get the opportunity, I’m really interested in exploring more of the implemented character sheets. I’m especially interested in the Marvel Multiverse RPG, especially, because GM characters and player characters are built in the same way. It is going to be significantly easier to build and change characters for the GM to use in Roll20. I’m also really curious to see what the GM tools look like for Daggerheart, and if and how it lets you import adversaries and environments, maybe even campaign frames.
#CriticalRole #Daggerheart #Demiplane #DemiplaneNexus #Nexus #RoleplayingGame #Roll20 #rpg #TabletopRoleplaying #ttrpg #VirtualTabletop
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_...
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for #SourceMaterial for the #Dungeons&Dragons #RolePlayingGame and associated products, along with #DungeonMagazine.
Dragon (magazine) - Wikipedia
Many Dice Were Rolled
Random TTRPG Thoughts 75
It’s Memorial Day in the US, I’ve had multiple events going on the past couple of days, and I’ve not been sleeping great. Between feeling drowsy and the full schedule I’m rather grumpy, but I have coffee and so my brain is waking up anyway. These are random TTRPG thoughts.
- DM Scotty, the creator of EZD6, is creating a new horror play set for the system with two different modes of play. I got to play one of these on Saturday night, where we played survivors. My character didn’t survive, but the system is so much fun!
- I got to run a session of Land of Eem last week. It’s an interesting system with a lot of flavor. I need to get more skilled with adding the different twists, and it works better if you have a table of folks who will engage with the NPCs. And, yes, I’ll run it again.
- My review of Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme is written! Now I just need to find time to record and edit it for my channel. Can’t wait to run this one!
- I’ve got two slots open for my Sentinel Comics RPG session at CRIT. Anyone want to play? June 25, starting at 8:30 PM Eastern.
- Last week I met some folks who had zero interest in playing anything other than 5e. It seems odd to me, but since there were four 5e tables they could jump in on I suppose there was little reason to play anything else. I ended up with four players for my Into the Odd adventure and had a good time. There was a character named Gary.
- I haven’t had as many entries for my 4000 subscriber give-away as I was expecting. Go watch the video to find out how to enter!
- Tales of Argosa has an exploit mechanic which flavors combat quite a bit. As I was playing I couldn’t help but think how its free-form setup is what bonus actions should have been in 5e. I can see how the exploits could bog down if you get a person dithering over their sheet for what they’re “allowed” to do, but we ended up being pretty fast. I love how you can set up the next person to take their turn by stunning or distracting an opponent. It’s a game worth checking out.
- I’m almost finished reading Theology, Religion, and Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a pricey academic book, but rather engaging. A couple of the essays didn’t resonate, and there one whose premise with which I just plain disagree, but it’s a nice read to complete before my sabbatical begins.
- Jacob, from Avenue Studios, has been my GM for two different horror games. My character almost got to the end in both…almost. Also, I had an absolute blast in both and horror is not my typical jam.
- I need to set up a time for the next Open Adventure session at Brewery Thirty-Three!
#DMing #EZd6 #GMing #LandOfEem #MontyPython #RolePlayingGame #RPG #TalesOfArgosa #TTRPG
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