Sunday, December 23, 2018

The Black Hack 2e

I recently bought The Black Hack 2e and I admit I am very excited about it. It’s a pretty great price considering what you’re getting. It’s got some nice spins on things which I really like. Although it’s tamer than the GLOG, it’s possible that I may like it more (don’t tell anyone) (probably depends on the mood I'm in anyway). I might just run The Black Hack before I run GLOG.
The attributes are nicely handled. 3d6 in order. If you roll a 14+ in one stat, the next one is automatically a 7 (so roll high on your charisma).
All tests (including attacking and defending) are made by rolling under your attributes.
In order to level up, you have to share your experiences and tell a little story about your character’s background. You don’t count XP from every little thing you kill. One of the things you can earn XP for is failing spectacularly (with the blessing of the table).
Although it has HD and hit points, they handle Armor Class very well. There isn’t an armor class. players roll vs their Strength or Dexterity to defend against melee or ranged attacks. If they miss, the damage is rolled. They either decide to sacrifice armor or take the damage. Armor is potentially broken permanently by evading damage in this way, especially if it is stronger armor. When I run GLOG, I think I might just steal this (No mods to Attack & Defense; AC is used to block blows).
I imagine that a lot of what’s in here might have been done in earlier D&D games (except for having the players roll nearly all the dice (you get to roll damage, Tim) and the armor system). The layout and the art is also really awesome. I’d suggest that if you were looking for another OSR heartbreaker, you should try this one. Once you take a look at it, you see it’s slick and intuitive. Not sure whether it’d be great for a stupendous epic campaign of 20 sessions. Maybe it would be, but I imagine it’s ideal for shorter campaigns. Please contest me and share your own stories of your games in The Black Hack in the comments below.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

GLOG Rulesets and Blogs

I have made a post before about the Goblin Laws of Gaming. That post was mostly about my discovery of the system (or systems) (or a framework for systems). This one will be edited over time, hopefully, to list and direct to GLOG rulesets that have been completed and shared and prolific and celebrated GLOG blogs. If you know of a GLOG ruleset that isn't on this list, please contact me or comment and I will update the list.

Rulesets

Blogs

Just look here. Anne's list is WAY more exhaustive and detailed than mine.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Oh my, it's the Goblin Laws of Gaming! (Discovery/Review)

If you don't know what the Goblin Laws of Gaming (GLOG) are, it's an incredibly light-weight, semi-incomplete OSR-style D&D B/X-inspired system. Although the system is in pieces, it is designed to be hacked. The GLOG was initially released by Arnold Kemp in 2016 on his blog Goblin Punch and Skerples has made his own version. The Type1 Ninja has released their own Trenchcoat Edition of GLOG, as well. In terms of how a GM has to perform surgery on the system and jam their hands directly into the organs of the game, it is much like a D&D-themed Moment of Truth (MoT). I'd say it compares to GURPS in how it must be constructed, but GURPS is different from MoT and GLOG in this regard because GURPS provides instructions on how to perform surgery to accomplish whatever game you wanted. As has been noted on /r/osr, it's best to be played by a group that understands that it's to be hacked with another system. All said, GLOG is the definition of DIY D&D. You can expect to see my takes on GLOG in the future.
I'll quickly run through what I really appreciate about the GLOG. One of the most exciting aspects of the system is how it handles classes. Each class (or race, in some cases, depending on how the GM or the group wants to handle that) has only four "class levels" or class templates, labeled A to D. Each time a character takes a level in a class, he piles on one of the templates. So a character could take all of the Fighter templates and gain the advantages of Fighter A, B, C, and D. Or, a character could be a wizard-with-a-sword and have Fighter A and B and Wizard A and B. Multi-classing is very easy and allows a character to make something specific. Another boon of the class system is that classes grant abilities which are almost always qualitative and do not grant quantifiable advantages. Any quantifiable advantage will result to maximum, by the time you've accumulated all four of your class templates, a +4 bonus. To quote Kemp's thought behind this: "Abilities should give you a new ability, not just improve an existing one. Things like trapmaking and clairvoyance cannot be compared, because each is preferable in a certain situation ... Comparible [sic] abilities are boring, and they lead to min-maxing, system mastery, and other shit I want to avoid." Amen.
GLOG uses the typical stats from D&D, but it's generation is a bit different. In Kemp's version, one still rolls in order for their statistics (i.e. their first roll determines Strength, next their Dexterity, etc.), however instead of rolling 3d6 one rolls 4d4. The average roll is 10, rather than 10.5; No one will have a stat as terrible as 3, only 4 and very rarely; and no one will start out with a stat modifier of +3 or -3. Many of the later incarnations use 3d6 to generate stats, but I prefer 4d4.
The Base Adventurer table shows how the character advances. Each character has the same basic progression. Their strange abilities granted by their classes or adventures are what makes them different. How they progress is nice as well. Rather than killing monsters, adventurers must loot and return to safety with said loot. I'm sure that some games have XP for monsters, and in Kemp's GLOG folder there's a PDF which seems to suggest that at one point (probably before he started calling him homebrew GLOG) he did award the party some amount of XP for monsters. If I ever decide on an amount to award PCs, I'll post an update on how I'm handling it.
The magic system is something incredible. It doesn't exactly allow for much priestly magic, although that's been done. It does provide magic with the danger to the caster that we all deserve. Mages are very strange, cramming, essentially, spirits into their skulls and Spellbooks. Magic is probably the best part of the system. Mages and witches take greater risks with the more magic they employ. The more magic-dice a mage or a wizard invests into a spell, the greater the chance there is of a mishap or a doom. A mishap is a minor issue once doubles are rolled. A doom is something that seriously inconveniences the caster and could potentially kill them once triples are rolled. Though the mishaps and the dooms are fairly unlikely, they still offer some kind of hazard to playing with more powerful magic, which is a boon.
There are a few changes that I might consider bringing into the game. One thing is to replace 1d20 with 2d10, since it provides the game with a bell curve. I like bell curves. You should, too. That's the only change I'll mention, though. The GLOG is composed entirely of the Essence of Game-Hacking. When Kemp claims that the GLOG is "a pile of crayon-scribbled napkins that I've stapled together," he's not exactly wrong. The GLOG is actually an inspired collection of house rules and an approach to character class design. I suggest that you check out the GLOG for yourself and marvel at all of the wonderful ideas within DIY D&D.
I have linked several blogs on my blog roll which post GLOG material. The most prolific and well-known GLOG blogs, which I am aware of, are Kemp's Goblin Punch, Skerples' Coin & Scroll, Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat from Type1 Ninja, Unlawful Games from the Lawful Neutral. 

Friday, November 30, 2018

Pandorum OST for Background Music

Watch Pandorum(It's not as bad as you think)
Hello my reader, I'd like to scribble to you a bit of my method on creating background music for the games that I run. As a coastal elite, I only appreciate the finest things in life. That's why I understand that the original soundtrack for the film Pandorum (don't read the plot, see the movie!) is to be adored. In my view, the film has a compelling story and is generally underrated. I won't contest that it has a number of problems. Whatever someone may think of the film, the excellence of its OST is incontrovertible. Therefore, behold both the tracks of the soundtrack, how I handle background music for RPGs as well as how I categorize the tracks of this OST.
Well, my last post, Pavlov's Players, detailed how I use and categorized background music. This post is maybe the method applied. I go through each of the tracks and show how they are sorted into the various playlists which I mentioned in my earlier post. However, for ease I'll list the categories below.
Categories: Combat, Grinding [creepy], Somber [creepy], Theme, Travel.
  1. All That is Left of Us - GrindCreepy
  2. Pandorum -Grinding Creepy
  3. Anti-Riot -GrindCreep but almost Somber
  4. Shape -Theme (but could certainly be creepy)
  5. Hunting Party -Combat
  6. Kulzer Complex -Combat?Creepy? (I put it in combat since i had fewer combat tracks)
  7. Tanis Probe Broadcast -Somber
  8. Scars -Grinding Creepy
  9. Fucking Solidarity -combat
  10. Gallo's Birth -SomberCreepy
  11. Biolab Attack -Combat, deliciously creepy combat. It's got a good mix of Grinding, Somber, and someone's going to die.
  12. Kanyrna -combat
  13. The Stars All Look Alike -Somber
  14. Boom -Somber or Grinding
  15. "Reactor" (4:08) - Grinding
  16. "Skin on Skin" (3:21) - Grinding
  17. "Fight Fight Fight" (2:56) -Combat (shocker, right? Actually, it can also double as a Grinding creepy)
  18. "Bower's Trip" (7:51) - Grinding 
  19. "Discovery / End Credits" (7:55) - Grinding.
The most interesting thing, of course, is what I use the themes for. That's what I named the initial blog post about background music after, after all -- Pavlov's Players. The track that I listened to here which I found to be creepy and self-contained enough for something I had in mind was "Shape." Now "Shape" is the theme for the zombie-mutants of my post-apocalyptic "Irradiated, Infected, or Afraid" campaign. Any time the PCs encounter a zombie, I'll begin playing Shape and describe the zombie's tough pale-gray skin, it's sharp fang-teeth, it's elongated fingers with blunt dogs' claws, it's lack of an iris in its watery eyes, and its expression of confused rage and hunger. The idea is, the music will help cement this description in the players' minds so that when I next play it, they'll be able to imagine what they'd imagined before when I first gave the description.
For fun, have this stupid and terrible quasi-poem based off the track titles:
So We're all that's left because some XOs got Pandorum. Guess we should spray some anti-riot on this ship (is that mace?) so that good things can take shape. Nevermind, all we got was a hunting party raiding our notorious Kulzer Complex. At least, that's what the Tanis Probe Broadcast said, when it was describing the scars they left in fucking solidarity. Suppose it's the Gallow's Rebirth after the Biolab Attack in Kanyrna. I hate it when all the stars look alike but I'm fine while things go boom. After a swim in the reactor we can lay skin on skin (cuz it fell off heheh) having fought fought fought Bower's bad trip. Look what we discovered.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Pavlov's Players: Background Music

I first started using background music at some point in my first campaign. The first idea I had of it was literally a joke. I was inspired to play during a fight "Amok Time," the famous Star Trek The Original Series fighting music. It's silly 1960s music was a perfect gag to bring some laughs to the table (which was the point of playing to begin with). I guess everyone might know it as the music of when Kirk fought the Gorn, but I recall it as when Kirk fights horny Spock. Oddly enough, I don't remember people being as amused by it as I was when I played it. After that I began looking at music that I might play while running the game and began exploring the video game soundtracks of Fable, Diablo, EverQuest, etc. The next game that I started running was over Roll20, and I began making extensive use out of the Jukebox that's available there. Gaming without music now just seems a little too quiet. So, here's my way of handling background music for the games that I run.
Background Music by Themed Playlists
Naturally, a GM might establish a nice playlist of music found in a video game or a movie or wherever one might find nice ambient music for a theme. There are plenty of pieces of music which match one or more themes that are present in an RPG. In that past I have categorized the themes/playlists as: Wilderness, Combat, Creepy, Dungeon, and Town. Generally they corresponded to place and situation. That style originated from when I was GMing D&D (Pathfinder). Those playlists were all on shuffle, and whenever the PCs moved into a different area or a different situation, I'd switch between playlists. The playlists weren't terribly nuanced and I had them a bit too general -- occasionally the desert would creep into the forest. 
Recently I've departed from place, and stick entirely to situation (although maybe that hasn't really changed much). The playlists I have now are: Combat, Somber-Creepy, Grinding-Creepy, Hard-Boiled [Apocalypse], Themes, and Travel. Combat hardly needs much explanation. It's fast-paced, sometimes abrasive, usually pretty rhythmic, and attempts to be intense, as dramatic as possible, and fear-evoking. The point is to energize with productive stress. An example of a track which has been on my Combat playlist for sometime now is "On the Champs-Désolés" or "Commanding the Fury," both from The Witcher 3.
I am a fan of creepy music (who isn't?). There are shades of creepy, or at least attitudes of creepy. There's the somber, yet still helter-skelter creepy. That one lets your skin crawl, but from a slow-creeping sense of anticipation and the hope that perhaps the consequences and risks will be slimmer. Good examples of this are Atlantean Twilight (especially good if played alongside Dark Future by Tabletop Audio), Classic Horror, or Colorless Aura by Kevin MacLeod. Another creepy, which I call Grinding, dashes away that hope, setting on full-display that naught is right with the world. It's much more abrasive that a somber creepy. A Grinding creepiness abandons the mournful tones that a somber creepiness generally carries, and dives headlong into latent threat. Nearly all of the soundtrack for Pandorum belongs to this category.
Hard-Boiled Apocalypse (I'm running GURPS After the End) came out mostly as a result of my listening to Incompetech and discovering much of his jazz and blues. It reminded me a little of the countless hours I spent listening to the music of Fallout 3, and I decided that I should compile it. I suppose I'd play it in schmoozing moments and generally when the PCs are ostensibly out of danger. So the Hard-Boiled Apocalypse playlist effectively performs the function of Town, calming the players and luring them into a sense of normalcy or security.
Pavlov, presumably listening to chimes
The Themes playlist is less of a playlist and more of a list of pieces of music. I won't play it on shuffle. Instead, in specific circumstances, such as facing certain NPCs or enemies or evading a specific kind of danger (radiation, landslides, flesh-eating locusts, whatever), I'll play a specific track available in this playlist. Some of them might not be just for a single NPC: "Amazing Grace (instrumental)" might be reserved for the entrance to a settlement that the PCs have managed to save from a terrible corruption and "Corncob" might be reserved for when the PCs enter Deliverance. The themes just allow me to attempt to establish some kind of evocative response for these NPCs and places, helping to make them memorable by building associations. Just think back to the song that was ruined by some moment that's forever associated with it. Sorry I reminded you, but it's basically like that except hopefully better. When the PCs think about the zombies, they'll remember the horrifying and nauseating music that comes along with them. In a way, I'm talking about making Pavlov's Players...
Travel is essentially like Wilderness. Quiet music that isn't particularly creepy, yet creepy enough to warrant being present in the post-apocalypse. It probably has some natural elements, involved, such as several minutes of spoopy rain, which is appropriate since the game is set in New England. That said, I've also placed a few songs in which are not nearly as terrible (in terms of terror) as the rest.
That's my categories for background music at the moment. They serve as any background music, setting tone for the action presented at the table. In the future, I may go more in depth in background music, but I sort of doubt it. The concept is pretty obvious, and having something to listen to at the table can range from something pleasant to hear as we play or a powerful tool in the hands of the GM. I can remember several games which had a soundtrack of their own, which were in fact soundtracks from a couple different sources.
I have a coming post which is basically my categorization of the tracks from the Pandorum OST. It's good, very spooky and alarming. Perfect material to help produce unnerving scenes. I imagine that it won't be my last post of that nature.

Friday, November 23, 2018

Aging Disadvantage

by Hans G Baldung
The Ages and Death by Hans G Baldung
You might notice that in my racial template for Orcs, one of the racial disadvantages for orcs was Short Lifespan 1 (B154). Each level of Short Lifespan halves the time until a sapient reaches an aging threshold (instead of 50, GURPS considers you middle-aged at 25) and the aging increments (better make those HT rolls every six months instead of every year, you decrepit 26 year-old!), and it's a pretty hefty disadvantage, coming in at -10/level. Maturation also comes in faster (I'd said that orcs are adults at 9, but really, it should be 7.5 or 8).
One of my players decided to play an older orc who's 'seen some shit' and I informed him about the aging rolls. He thought that being an older orc was important to his character concept. Seems fine, right? Well, when six months should've rolled by, I never made him make those HT rolls to see if any of his stats drop. It seemed a little arbitrary to me that this character in particular had to make aging rolls while no one else did. Nothing on his character sheet dictated it, not even a quirk. The only thing is that the age might be seen as a 0-Feature, but that didn't seem like it was enough for me. I decided that I wanted characters to sell me their aging rolls, that that seemed to be fairer to me. So I made the disadvantage below for my future games.

The cost of the disadvantage depends on how frequent aging is. The first scheme is that each level costs -1/level. The second scheme is that the points increase with the greater age as such: -1/-3/-6. If unsure whether game time will speed by quickly, refer to Tech Level and how it modifies aging rolls. If the TL is TL 4+ or TL 5+, use the first scheme. If the TL is TL 3 or less, use the second scheme.

To help me justify asking you to make aging rolls, older age is now a disadvantage. It can be taken in three levels. With Aging 1, you are between the ages of 50 and 69 (age once each year). With Aging 2, you are between the ages 70 and 89 (age twice each year). With Aging 3, you are at least 90 years old (age every three months). While aging is particularly terrifying, I’ve kept it at a pseudo-quirk level since aging rolls will rarely come into play. See B444 for more information.
Aging is compatible with Short Lifespan and Extended Lifespan. Adjust the aging thresholds and increments -- there is no change in cost.

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Magical Sacrifice

Lagertha sacrifices for  the Great Heaten Army
In my games I generally don't shirk away from human sacrifice (or, since I'm running a campaign based around orcs, sapient sacrifice). Maybe I'm just weird and unethical, but when I imagine back to the willing sacrifices of the long-dead pagans I can't help but think of them as noble. They surrendered their lives so that, according to their worldview, the gods would not sunder the world or grant their families and their people safety and abundance. That's the sweet thing about sacrifice, especially in the pseudo-literary improv world of RPGs. So nobody thinks I'm a monster and despite it being obvious -- human sacrifice is bad and there were plenty of people that were sacrificed to gods against their will. In fact, after winning a battle, the Celts would sacrifice half of the enemy survivors to the gods in thanks for victory (how badass is that?).
In an RPG, however, sapient sacrifice can be awesome, or, as some put it, 'fucking metal'. I first started wondering how I would replicate or translate sapient sacrifice into the mechanics of the game when I was trying to prepare a fusion world of Celts and Vikings (using the Celtic Myth and Vikings supplements to help me figure it out). I then discovered the wonderful resource that is GURPS Thaumatology. I cannot recommend Thaumatology enough for the GURPS GMs who want to tinker with the magic systems of their worlds or attempt to find better ways to replicate magical worlds into GURPS. The Celtic-Viking fusion campaign never wound up taking off. Instead of making my won setting for that fusion, I realized I could just use Banestorm and elaborate the Nomad Lands. That didn't wind up taking off. So I decided, since I have Celtic and Viking parallels in the D&D setting, Lumaras, that I had made, why not just run the Celt-Viking campaigns from there. The only difference was that there were no Christians, which was both a shame and a relief. The mention of Christians in the rules below reflect that I had written them in preparation for a campaign involving Christians in the setting (Banestorm). So, using the Thaumatology toolbox, I came up with the following rule-set for the interaction of mana, the gods, and sapient, material, and animal sacrifice for my Lumaras GURPS Fantasy campaign "An Orc's Lot." References to GURPS Magic are abbreviated as M# (where # is the page number). I believe I didn't explicitly say that the energy from a sacrifice could be directed into a Powerstone for fears of unbalancing the game. But honestly, now I don't know whether it really would. Maybe comment below and weigh in on the non-controversy.

Orcs had practiced sacrificial magic for so long as any orc can remember. The orc gods often demand sacrifices, anyway. The practice of directing the sacrificial energy into Manastones is a practice imported from goblinkin mages.
Sacrifice works according to Thaumatology. Not only living sacrifices grant energy or ‘sway with the gods’. You can specifically ask the GM for an energy total when you perform a sacrifice after the sacrifice has been performed, and only for sacrifices which grant mana. You can perform sacrifices to empower spellwork or to ask for aid from the gods for a vague boon (such as “grant us victory against the Christians” or “let the winter be mild” or “fatten my pigs and let my harvest be bountiful”). These vague supplications will amount to various bonuses on relevant rolls or alterations in story or outcome.
The energy value of living sacrifices is based on intelligence and mass or health: for creatures of IQ 5 or less, it is equal to IQ multiplied by the lower of HT or HP; for creatures IQ 6+, it is equal to IQ multiplied by the higher of HT or HP. Certain aspects, such as beauty or purity (as interpreted by the entity to whom the sacrifice is sworn), provide a modifier to the total energy value. A willing sapient is worth twice it's typical energy value.
Sacrificial energy may be stored in Manastones (M70). Any quirks will generally relate to death, troubling emotions, and may cause inconveniences towards those who practice sacrificial magic (if any sacrificial victims were unwilling). These manastones are chalky in texture, have an otherworldly color, and, if examined, a foreboding and unnerving presence.
Finally, those sacrifices sworn to a deity as part of worship or broad supplication rather than magic do not grant energy; the energy is absorbed by the deity. Two examples: Sanktulo The Devout sacrifices Timmy (ST 9 IQ 10 HT 11, Willing +100%, young +50% for, unbeknownst to the player, 265 EP directly to the god) in honor of Grokolok, asking for survival through the winter or a victory against a rival tribe, or on a selected day to stay a hungry god’s wrath. Sorĉadanto the Arcanely Profane sacrifices Timothy (ST 10 DX 10 IQ 10 HT 11, HP 10 FP 11) to Kalgazgro or one of his agents for 110 Energy Points; he either transfers this energy in a manastone for later use (if he knows the spell) or uses it immediately to cast a powerful spell.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Ian's d% Pathfinder Class Table for the Indecisive

Hey. It's been a while. Here's for those gamers who enjoy Pathfinder, but are suffering from indecision about what they should play. I created this d% table for one particular player who prefers non-spellcasting classes, so I lowered the weight towards those classes. Shut up, roll on this table, make a damn character, and play the fucking game.

01 Alchemist
02-03 Antipaladin
04-06 Arcanist
07 Barbarian
08-12 Barbarian (Unchained)
13 Bard
14 Bloodrager
15-19 Brawler
20-24 Cavalier
25-26 Cleric
27 Druid
28-32 Fighter
33-35 Gunslinger
36-39 Hunter
40 Inquisitor
41-42 Investigator
43-44 Kineticist
45-46 Magus
47 Medium
48 Mesmerist
49 Monk
50-54 Monk (Unchained)
55-59 Ninja
60 Occultist
61 Oracle
62-64 Paladin
65 Psychic
66-67 Ranger
68 Rogue
69-73 Rogue (Unchained)
74-78 Samurai
79 Shaman
80-81 Shifter
82-83 Skald
84-88 Slayer
89 Sorcerer
90 Spiritualist
91 Summoner (Unchained)
92-94 Swashbuckler
95-96 Vigilante
97-98 Warpriest
99 Witch
00 Wizard

Monday, October 8, 2018

October Vibes

Well, I have to lament that I have made few posts in the last few units of time. At the end of last month I had the notion that I might throw some horror-type material onto this blog. I had the thought right when I decided that I would ear-mark a post for Halloween. Come and pass the first seven days of the Halloween month, and naught has been coughed up by the blog.
Well, here's this blog post doing something about that!
October always evokes, for me at least, a period of anticipation. During September, I notice the first couple leaves that have turned color, cooler breezes, and the first hints at the smell of autumn. October is when this feeling intensifies. I get the impression "Something is happening!" or "Something is about to happen!" As October matures, things start to get real. TV channels show tired but comfortably familiar movies like Sleepy Hollow or Van Helsing or something else -- you get the idea. Along with the American-Cheese-Horror televised cinema, there's apple cider to make everything better. Then, the shit hits the fan. Halloween. Trick or treating, drunken escapades, ridiculous costumes in the bars that inevitably garner some shade, and finally nerds sit down and play spoopy RPGs. Then it's November, the anticipation is gone, because it's cold and everything that felt like it was about to happen has already happened. Altogether, something of a disappointment. 
These are some of my impressions of October. I figure that someone else in the world who happens to read this probably knows exactly what I'm talking about. Some others maybe get what I'm saying. But everyone will know: the time of the year and the feelings it evokes. That's something that a GM can attempt to evoke to aid in immersion.
I'm sure that I'm not posting anything that anybody hasn't already thought of. Plenty of podcasts have mentioned using seasonal atmospheres to improve or add to the game. Generally it revolves around in-person gaming and bringing seasonal treats to the table. One can also introduce seasonal themes into the game. For instance, delving into an old abandoned mine to rescue some villagers who'd been abducted, only to find them all already slain by their captors and that their only recourse is revenge is certainly an appropriate Halloween plot.
Well, I will stop myself here. Hopefully this will be the most rambling and least insightful post on this blog. 

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Moment of Truth Probabilties & Target Numbers

This will be somewhat of a throwaway post. Someone can easily just look up this information on their own (or, more impressively, do the math themselves). In case that someone who reads this blog plays Moment of Truth (MoT RPG) and is trying to determine whether they'd want to use one or two hits as the Target Number (TN) for a success roll, I'm providing the probabilities below. For all of these, the target number of each die is 5 or higher. If you want to know the probabilities for an unskilled test, look them up yourself maybe, pester me to add them, or just know "they're lower than getting a 5 on a d6."
Dice
1 hit
2 hits
1d6
33.33%
0%
2d6
55.56%
11.11%
3d6
70.37%
25.92%
4d6
80.25%
40.74%
5d6
86.83%
53.91%
6d6
91.22%
64.88%
7d6
94.15%
73.66%
8d6
96.10%
80.49%
9d6
97.39%
85.69%
10d6
98.26%
89.59%
11d6
98.84%
92.48%
12d6
99.22%
94.60%
13d6
99.48%
96.14%
14d6
99.65%
97.25%
15d6
99.77%
98.05%
Along with the table, I will also provide a handy graphic, because that's helpful sometimes. When I wonder whether a game should have a default 1- or 2-hit TN, I look at this table to help me decide. A 1-hit TN campaign (cinematic) will, as Stu Venable suggests in the rulebook, allow for a more cinematic game as even a character with an abysmal stat who's familiar with a skill has a chance at accomplishing something. Meanwhile, a 2-hit TN campaign (gritty or default MoT RPG) will require an average stat and be trained in the relevant skill to accomplish the same task (with a slightly higher chance of success). It all depends on how wide a variety of tasks you'd want your group to accomplish.
I brought this up because I've been working on a Moment of Truth campaign setting that I'm probably going to share on this blog. It's a Martian planetary romance type setting, but it's also got alternate history to provide some antagonism between the humans who come to Mars. It's pulp scifi, but I wasn't sure that I wanted the game to be so cinematic that any character can be a virtual swiss army knife with a 1-hit TN. So I decided that the pulp would be the setting -- you fly rockets, land the rockets on mars, operate rovers with sails, Mars has an atmosphere, and RAY GUNS are a thing (better to stay away from them, though). The system itself, though, wouldn't be as cinematic. As I develop the setting, I'll post more (hopefully all the material I have for the setting) and also give some more thoughts on Moment of Truth.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Another blog's review of Lamentations of the Flame Princess

I'd write a review of the OSR game Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I might write a few words about the odd man who's the author. I might write a paragraph or two on the mechanics of the game. I might write a whole lot about the artwork, its disturbing tendency towards violence against women, and how that might reflect the guy who commissioned the artwork. Instead, I read a review of the game from Tim H from Happy Jacks RPG Podcast. So instead of writing it myself, I'll just throw in this link and be done with it.
That said, I'm not saying I might one day write a post about that disturbing artwork.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

GURPS Macros

For most of my gaming 'career' I have run games online over Roll20. My first game on Roll20 was Pathfinder and I was pretty inexperienced with it. By the second game, I had learned what macros were and how much it can speed stuff up. At first I was making simple macros for NPCs and combatants. As things popped up, I would add more queries to my macros to cover more situations and my macros became more sophisticated. Instead of writing a new macro for each NPC and mook, I decided to instead write a formula where I would simply plug in the relevant information and copy/paste that information into NPC Abilities. The GURPS Macros that I have collected are stored in this note of my pastebin. I am also posting all of the macros here, because why not? However, I'll point out that these macros below will be updated every now and then when something relevant needs to be changed, such as when I need to include higher range increments from the Speed/Range Table when we get into higher Tech Levels.
You may notice that there are certain modifiers added to some of the macros, such as Hard to Subdue or High Pain Threshold. This is because these macros are from the "An Orc's Lot" Campaign, where the PCs and nearly every NPC is an orc. There has been far more orc-on-orc violence than otherwise. I also recommend inspecting the macros on pastebin, as it'll be easier to view them there. Please comment with suggestions and questions. I hunger for your thoughts.
SPEED
/emas @{selected|token_name} has a speed of [[Speed&{tracker}]]
/w gm @{selected|token_name} has a speed of [[Speed&{tracker}]]
AIMING & EVALUATING
/emas @{selected|token_name} aims at @{target|character_name} ?{how many times|once|twice|thrice}
/emas @{selected|token_name} evaluates @{target|character_name} ?{how many times|once|twice|thrice}
ATTACKS WITH DAMAGE
/emas @{selected|token_name} swings his weapon at @{target|character_name} [[SL+?{Hit Location|0[torso or RHL]|-2[left arm]|-4[left hand]|-2[right arm]|-4[right hand]|-5[face]|-2[left leg]|-4[left foot]|-2[right leg]|-4[right foot]|-5[neck]|-7[skull]|-3[vitals]}+?{misc mod|0}-3d6]] for Damage Roll and Type
/emas @{selected|token_name} launches a projectile at @{target|character_name} [[SL+?{Aiming|0[I don't need to aim]|Acc[Acc]}+?{Further Aiming|0[No further aiming]|1[I need to aim]|2[I really need to aim]}-?{Speed/Range|0[1-2m]|1[3m]|2[5m]|3[7m]|4[10m]|5[15m]|6[20m]|7[30]|8[50]|9[70]|10[100]}+?{Hit Location|0[torso or RHL]|-2[left arm]|-4[left hand]|-2[right arm]|-4[right hand]|-5[face]|-2[left leg]|-4[left foot]|-2[right leg]|-4[right foot]|-5[neck]|-7[skull]|-3[vitals]}+?{misc mod|0}-3d6]] for Damage Roll and Type
[[(Damage+?{mod to basic dmg|0}-?{DR|0}[DR])*?{wounding multipliers|4[skull or eye]|0.5[all else]}]] small piercing (pi-)
[[(Damage+?{mod to basic dmg|0}-?{DR|0}[DR])*?{wounding multipliers|1.5[typical]|2[neck]|4[skull]}]] cutting Reach Parry
[[(Damage+?{mod to basic dmg|0}-?{DR|0}[DR])*?{wounding multipliers|4[skull]|1.5[neck]|1[all else]}]] crushing Reach Parry
[[(Damage+?{mod to basic dmg|0}-?{DR|0}[DR])*?{wounding multipliers|4[skull or eye]|3[vitals]|2[face/neck/groin/torso]|1[limb or extremity]}]] huge piercing (pi++) or impaling Reach Parry
Random Hit Location pieces
?{RHL?|no RHL|[[1t[RHL]]]} wounding multiplier without knowing hit location: |1[I chose RHL, multiply the damage yourself]
ACTIVE DEFENSES
/emas @{selected|token_name} attempts to dodge [[((Dodge*?{Reeling at n hp?|0.5[reeling]|1[not reeling]})+?{DB?|DB[DB]|0[no DB]})-?{Encumbrance|0[None]|1[Light]}+?{mod|0}-3d6]] (a result of *-0.5* is a successful dodge)
/emas @{selected|token_name} attempts to dodge [[(Dodge*?{Reeling at n hp?|0.5[reeling]|1[not reeling]})+?{mod|0}-3d6]] (a result of *-0.5* is a successful dodge)
/emas @{selected|token_name} attempts to Parry [[Parry+?{DB?|DB[DB]|0[no DB]}-?{Number of Parries|0[first parry]|4[second parry]|8[third parry]}+?{mod|0}-3d6]]
/emas @{selected|token_name} attempts to interpose his shield [[Block+?{mod|0}-3d6]] @{selected|bar1}
HT ROLLS
/emas @{selected|token_name} attempts to grasp onto consciousness and/or life (respectively) [[HT+1[Hard to Subdue 1]-?{negative HP Penalty|0[more than -1xHP]|1[-1xHP]|2[-2xHP]|3[-3xHP]|4[-4xHP]}-3d6]]. ?{Risk of dying?|[[HT-3d6]]|No risk of dying}.
/emas @{selected|token_name} is stunned by a major wound? [[HT+3[High Pain Threshold]+?{misc mod|0}-3d6]]
If anyone wants any instruction on how to use these, please comment below and I will make another post (and link it here) or just detail here what is to be done with these macros and what to do to make a GM's job easier. Also comment if I messed something up. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Against or For the Barrow King: Module Inversions & Hearing Both Sides (of Good & Evil)

In my GURPS "An Orc's Lot" Campaign, I wanted to include as many aspects of what an orc typically does in most fantasy literature, excluding the typical "mook existence." I should say that Orcs by Stan Nicholls was in part a great inspiration for me in preparing this campaign. One of the tropes of orcish existence is finding employment by ugly non-orcs with a lot of wealth and little conscience -- and generally a psyche mostly fueled by vengeance to a perceived unforgivable slight. I had the idea that the PCs should be enlisted to work for some unscrupulous monster (a human, but likely less ethical than the orc PCs) and likely have to fight against comical bands of demi-human adventurers who enact their own tropes. I never really got to the part where adventuring companies started raiding their boss's stronghold of evil and dread, though.
So, with that idea in mind, I started looking through some D&D modules that included orcs so I could invert it. A helpful tool was the website that was Matt Colville's brainchild and was built up and coded by his fans -- a wonderfully collaborative project with a great purpose in mind -- was the Adventure Lookup website. In the end, I chose a D&D 3.5 module from Alderac Entertainment Group -- "Against the Barrow King" from Adventure I. I had read through this adventure before and decided that the gruesome details in the module perfectly served my purpose. I fleshed out the map of the dungeon, converted the NPCs into GURPS and developed their personalities, and clutched Mass Combat close at hand for preparation for when the orcs and their monstrous co-workers would attack and subjugate the village.
I started the adventure by having the PCs be hired off by their Orc Chief to some strange evil human cultist. The human cultist had them, and a few other orcs who'd been hired, brought to through the desert and plains that is the Orclands, and then they passed into West Chetsia, a human empire modeled after the West Germans (Saxons, Franks, etc.). During the travel, I have the PCs chat and get to know each other (it was still a little early in the campaign and there were a couple new characters) and get to know the Orc NPCs who had also been hired by this evil employer. I had counted the orcs present in the module, subtracted the number of PCs, and set half of the orcs as other hirelings of the evil employer and the other as devout members of his evil cult.
from the module
A Chirurgeon from the module.
Wonder of wonders, upon meeting the rest of the evil cult in the Barrow in which they'd setup their temple to their god of slaughter, they discovered the village of Glenn Hollow. This is the village that the PCs would have found in distress had they been a regular adventuring company. Instead, it was the village that the PCs were paid to distress. The group did a mass combat with the poor villagers and bested them pitifully. After the group dominated the village and attempted to keep any villagers from escaping to get help, the PCs continued their duties of helping their evil employer of guarding the Temple as well as the village. The evil employer set about gathering villagers to either sacrifice to his evil god of slaughter, Voodrith, or to remake into his nasty Chirurgeon monsters (basically flesh golems that served as "new" monsters for the adventure).
Long story short, the PCs did exactly what I was hoping they would do: betray their evil employer and steal his treasures, while one of the stranger PCs (who wasn't raised among orcs, himself) ran off to the humans to warn them about the cult. The PCs and the other orcs who'd been hired by the cult ran off from the evil temple of Voodrith while the PC who'd surrendered himself to the humans brought a sizable (at least compared to the cult which had now diminished due to the orcs' desertions) force to both liberate the village of Glenn Hollow as well as the root out the cult from their barrow-temple. The evil employer and his evil friends all died, and the PC who'd surrendered himself to the humans wound up escaping them with both a power-stone as well as the spellbook of the necromancer.
I would recommend that another GM who's running a campaign that allows grey morality try this out. Including adventuring hooks for both the typical and the inverted forms of a module is a great way to add some dynamism to those adventures and the campaign world. If the quivering villager asks the Party "mysterious bandits are isolating our village and kidnapping us! Please help us! We have 40 gold pieces among all of us, as well as this cow" while the well-spoken cleric promises a fairly well-paying gig guarding him against opportunists and marauders (adventuring parties), who might the Party likely side with? It's the perfect way to have the PCs begin wondering if they're working for the bad guys and to deploy your rival NPC adventuring party. Besides, all those mooks that the adventuring parties would be killing in most any other campaign that uses the module were hired and promised some good old-fashioned gold and glory, too.
& here's a token

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

ACKS Review: Don't & What to Play Instead

[From the Future: I have made a follow-up post to this one here]
I have only recently discovered the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) and have poured through its pages and a selection of its supplements. ACKS is a B/X D&D-based retroclone whose twist is an emphasis in the end-game of the campaign (“domain” level play) and a nice way of customizing characters while retaining its OSR, BEC simplicity. Throughout the review I will make comparisons to the Basic Fantasy RPG (BF RPG) and I will make suggestions on how one might port and hack material into the BF RPG. I will refer to the BF RPG for reasons illustrated below.
So what’s so OSR or B/X about this game? Well, it’s got the OSR Ability Scores. It’s got: the 3d6 right down the list generation; the ability scores and their derived bonuses/modifiers follow typical OSR conventions; there are prime requisites for classes (which is, to qualify for a class you must have a 9 or more in a certain ability score); and, finally, those prime requisites affect experience accumulation.
The game has the classic four classes of Cleric, Fighter, Mage, and Thief. A variety of ‘campaign’ classes can be constructed using the guide in the Player’s Companion. I was fairly impressed and excited by this. The campaign classes that can be constructed are all based off of elements of the four core classes. The races of the fantasy dwarves or elves and so on are presented as racial classes. These classes are built as campaign classes, but also include elements from races. The advantages of elfhood or dwarfhood are balanced by level caps. For instance, Elves have, in the core book, two classes: the Elven Nightblade (a mage-thief fusion, max level 11) and the Elven Spellblade (fighter-mage fusion, max level 10).
As I said, the guide and option to create your own campaign classes from the Player’s Companion impressed me. With the proficiencies (described below), it grants the players even greater ability to customize their characters and their campaign. This is, however, able to be done with BF RPG. The Downloads and Showcase sections of the BF RPG website provide plenty of character class options. While the creation and use of these classes isn’t as formulaic as that of ACKS, BF RPG still has a fan-based forum which continually play-tests its materials. Admittedly the ability to create campaign classes with an eye to formulae is an advantage over the BF RPG.
In the introduction of the game, the author sets some bizarre dice rolling conventions. He makes a probably unnecessary distinction between a “roll” or, a roll, and a “throw,” or a test, check, or success roll. A “roll” refers to a “roll of the dice,” where there is no success/failure to be determined but a method of randomly determining something (typically how many lizardmen the Party is going to kill or be slain by). The “throw” is the random determination of success or failure. I tend to feel that this distinction was not unnecessary to make, but I guess plenty of other RPG systems mention it. Perhaps folks newer to the hobby might not find the difference between something that determines a range of outcomes and something that determines either success or failure as intuitive as those who’ve been a part of the hobby for a while. Somehow I doubt that. 
The Saving Throws are very Old-School, having individual saves for each kind of supernatural attack: Petrification & Paralysis, Poison & Death, Blast & Breath, Staffs & Wands, and Spells. They are very near the progression of Basic Fantasy RPG. That’s a bit more esoteric and old-school than even Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), which has adopted the Fortitude, Reflex, and Will of incarnations of D&D following 2000.
Now we come to a somewhat annoying aspect of the game. The game uses an ascending Armor Class (curse AC!), though it applies it as a modifier to the throw (either a bonus to the target number or a penalty to the die roll). To hit AC 0 (yep, that’s what he was trying to do, besides be different) one must roll 10 or more on a d20. Brilliant. Depending on your class, your likelihood of striking an unarmored opponent increases. Effectively, it’s the base attack bonus (BAB) of 3.x, but done with a different appearance. Why was this necessary? It’s not at all and it actually makes things more difficult by complicating things and making folks who might be used to 3.x get a headache trying to wrap their heads around both how it works and then why he made such a silly design choice. Maybe it’s a Harvard thing. Thankfully, it’s very simple to change its appearance back to what it really is – 3.x-style BAB, just add 10 to the AC for the target number and subtract the attack throw value from 10 to find the BAB (or bonus/penalty to hit). I provide the reorganized charts at the end of this post.
Besides the fuckery about the attack throws I discuss above, there is a cool thing about the attack throw progression. The numbers for attacking stay fairly low, despite how high level one gets (the maximum level is 14, btw). Mages have a max attack bonus of +4, Clerics and Thieves have a max bonus of +6, and fighters can only ever get up to +9. To put this into perspective, the AC (according to my ‘correction’) of a Venerable Dragon (which is what ACKS calls a Great Wyrm) is 22. There are some fiddly things that can change the attack bonus, however, which will bring me to my favorite part of the system.
Proficiencies make this game much better. The end-game can be done in Basic Fantasy pretty easily. There’s a section for it. Not as much. But the material for the end-game, domain-level play could just be a supplement for Basic Fantasy (free isn’t the Harvard way, though). Anyway, Proficiencies are what makes this game worthwhile at all. To illustrate, I wondered where the barbarian was (actually, the barbarian is in the ACKS Player Companion). Then, I started looking through the chapter on the Proficiencies and discovered what they were. They have been described as a combination of skills and feats from 3.x and later versions of D&D.
There are two kinds of proficiencies – class and general proficiencies. General proficiencies are proficiencies that anyone can get. Class proficiencies are those proficiencies that are available explicitly for a class. Proficiencies allow you to do something a character normally wouldn’t be able to. Taking a level or three of the Healing proficiency allows a character to heal somewhere between 1d3 and 2d6 hit points. There are, naturally, plenty of Proficiencies to choose from. Intimidation gives +2 on reaction rolls for characters s/he threatens. Leadership lets a character grab an extra henchman (or retainer). Lip reading, lockpicking, Knowledge, seafaring, etc. are just a sample of the many proficiencies available. And then, I found the fighter's proficiency that I didn’t know I was looking for: berserkergang. With Berserkergang, you may enter the berserker rage for +2 attack and -2 AC for the whole of the combat. So that’s how to make a barbarian (unless you want to look at the class from Player’s Companion). There are even more proficiencies, most listed for the classes that are included there, in the Player’s Companion.
Proficiencies are what, to me, at least, makes ACKS worthwhile. If it weren’t for the proficiencies, I would simply tell myself and the readers to just play the Basic Fantasy RPG. As I was looking through the BF RPG I would think back to AKCS’s proficiencies and sigh that there wasn’t a better way to customize one’s characters in BF RPG (that you wouldn’t have to homebrew). There is one BF RPG supplement that almost approaches: Quasi Classes by Kevin Smoot.
I’ll note very quickly that ACKS has nothing, beyond the Proficiencies which concern very specific tasks, that deals with general tasks which are covered by later (read: 'modern') games. BF RPG even has its own system of dealing with that – ability rolls. While I was searching for a method to determine task resolution (Jesus fucking Christ, why don’t we just play GURPS) I found an interesting way of doing it. Unfortunately, I lost the link to the person’s suggestion, but it was rolling two, three, or four six-sided dice (depending on how difficult the task) under the relevant ability score as task resolution (which reminds me, why the hell am I not just playing GURPS?). There’s also GLOG (There’s also BF RPG) (There’s also BF RPG with GLOG) (There’s GURPS).
The other thing I like about ACKS is how it handles spells. In general, the magic system seems more robust than the BF RPG, allowing ritual spells (one of the things I really like about Beacon d20) and more in-depth rules for necromancy, constructs (tin soldiers, golems, and the like), divine retribution power, and playing god with monster DNA creating crossbreeds. I could live without that, however – or just look through BF RPG custom-built rules for something similar or simply make my own (and add that to their Workshop).
What I really liked about the magic system in ACKS is that, although it is vancian, it is almost less vancian. I should note that I thoroughly dislike vancian magic systems (except in GLOG, the only place it makes sense to me), despite enjoying D&D every now and again. My dislike of Hit Dice, AC, and vancian magic are what brought me directly into the arms of GURPS. What ACKS does better with its magic system, besides the upper-level options mentioned above, is its ‘spell repertoire’. Instead of memorizing/preparing spells in a vancian manner and using the fire-and-forget delivery, ACKS spellcasters may cast any spell they know (i.e. in their repertoire) when they decide to cast a spell. They are limited by how many spells of whatever level they may cast. To illustrate, a 3rd level mage would be able to cast two 1st-level spells and one 2nd-level spells. S/he wouldn’t need to declare to the GM which spells s/he prepared that day, simply that s/he was casting one of the spells of a level that s/he still could. This twist on the vancian almost makes the magic system seem that it’s based off of mana, not some really weird fantasy novel that Gygax really enjoyed. If it weren’t for spell levels, it’d succeed in this manner. It doesn’t need to, though: it’s obviously D&D and if we wanted a truly robust magic system we would play GURPS and make sure we had Thaumatology at hand.
Obviously, the ‘spell repertoire’ tweak on the vancian magic system can simply be house-ruled into any BF RPG game. This house-rule would also be the easiest to do, as it simply requires the GM to hand-waive explicit preparation. I’m sure many a mage would be happy to hear of it, also. Do your mage a favor and slowly chip away at the vancian chains that have held him/her down for 44 years.
Macris suggests that the player make 5 characters in character generation. Two are reserved for back-up PCs for that player (not a bad idea in an OSR game) and the other two are given to the GM to populate his/her world. That’s good, because Macris puts a lot of tedious work on the GM in building up the domains. I suppose it makes sense for the eventual domain-level play of later character levels. (Unimaginative segue) Macris has a lot of arrogant prescription in his books, and quite a bit of it encourages adversarial GMing (anyone who’s older than 16 should know that’s near enough the worst GMing). I’ll quote one passage to illustrate this point: “To kill adventurers with unexpected traps is a hollow pleasure for the [GM]; to kill them with traps they decided to trigger, despite every warning of the lethal risks, is deeply satisfying” (ACKS 241). ‘Sarcasm’ you prompt in response? Is it sarcasm? Is it true that killing characters is a pleasure ranging from deeply to shallowly satisfying? I guess it depends on what kind of GM or person you are. Who knows? Maybe it’s a Harvard thing.
The monster statistics are interesting. It has a mechanic to determine whether the Party has stumbled into a “lair” of a given monster. This kind of attention to detail can easily be given to monsters in BF RPG. Like BF RPG, monsters from older modules and versions can easily be converted into the game. Reflecting poorly on both ACKS and BF RPG, neither of the games has Mud Men. What shitty design a shame.
I should note that the system imparts a heavy reliance on wandering monsters and random encounters. Random encounters are a staple of the OSR, but today and before, a reliance on random encounters is generally tiring and plain. I’ve used random encounters before and I’ve had a blast with them. I remember fondly a time when I wound up pitting my characters against a winter wolf, some dire wolves, and even more regular wolves (I had warned them, and offered that I reroll since I’d rolled the most challenging result, but to their credit they declined and slew the wolves anyway). Incorporating wandering monsters as a necessary component of the game takes it a little too far. One thing I might do to remedy it is to prepare one encounter for each terrain or area, and roll for the chance of that encounter happening (or grow some metaphorical GM-balls and decide where to insert the encounter).
As I looked at ACKS further, the more I concluded that the only thing it really has going for it is the Proficiency system. That system can easily be hacked out of it or replicated into a game that’s both free and not written by a fascist. The domain-level play is what initially attracted me to look into the system. As I read through it, however, I began to question why it would be necessary. The rules for domain-level play aren’t as fully described in BF RPG, but they’re there. Besides, in D&D you should be the domain-level heroes with kickass titles who are still running around killing dragons and fighting domain-level monsters. Besides the many-headed hydra of D&D and its clones (both retro and otherwise) there is the elephant I bring to every room – GURPS. It might be a pygmy elephant, but I love this elephant nonetheless. One can easily run domain-level play in GURPS – I’m doing it right now. The rules are all set for that. Mass Combat is very effective and does exactly what mass combat should do in a role-playing game – not simulate a war game. City Stats and the Low-Tech Companions answer the questions about what’s in the domains, if the GM doesn’t already have a method of his/her own of world-building. How do you determine whether a character has achieved the ‘level’ for ‘domain-level’ play? Roleplay it and pay the points for Status and Allies.
Macris is a dirty, sexist pig incorporates needless elements into the system which point towards what might be called misogyny. Including sex-specific classes is a strange thing to see in the new millenium. The Bladedancer campaign class (a cleric that can use edged weapons) only admits women (so only women are allowed to deal with bleeding … that’s something and we all know exactly what it is). Naturally only a woman would become a Priestess of a powerful Goddess (so I guess, fuck off Wiccans?). It’s an easy thing to fix, but a weird thing to see. While I was looking through ACKS, I found a section on slavery. That’s not too strange to see. GURPS has rules on slavery. I’m running a campaign based around orcs and orc society, so there is plenty of slavery. I did find something weird, though – notes on sexual slavery. Incorporating slavery into your game is one thing. Noting the cost and monthly upkeep of “pleasure slaves” is another. If you’re already familiar with Macris, you might be familiar with The Escapist and its escapades with misogyny and transphobia as well as its support of racists. A pity What schmucks.
The saddest thing about ACKS is that the author is an alt-right fascist promoter and manager and an unscrupulous opportunist. If you want some more information about this, check Axes and Orcs and the contained link and D&D with Pornstars. I don’t feel like I have to elaborate on this aspect much. That’s a pretty hefty problem with the system. Don’t wanna support a fascist. Wish I had known before I got the damn books. But we’re here now … at the conclusion of this post.
You may have noticed that I haven’t provided any links to the website of ACKS while I have provided links to pretty much everything else not related to it. You may have also noticed that I indicate ways that aspects of ACKS could be hacked into another system and that I regularly make suggestions of using an alternative system. Perhaps you noted that my respect for its proficiency system is grudging. This is because you shouldn’t support the game or its publishers because the author is a fascist or supports fascists. He has a bad policy of choosing whatever is lucrative despite who is supported. There are some neat things about the system. Maybe when the company is under someone else’s management, I’ll put in links and say: hey, ACKS is cleared. But as of now, there’s a stain of transphobia and white supremacy lingering over its pages. Instead of ACKS, play Basic Fantasy – it’s free, community-driven, and involves only the monsters of fantasy. 
Shit, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is better than ACKS… In the future, I may include some more remarks on how one might hack Basic Fantasy to include further character customization. I will not, as I believe I mentioned before, convert those modules I’ve been working on to ACKS. Instead, as I suggest to the readers, I will convert them to Basic Fantasy.

The Carrot Launcher (Large Carrot-Shooting Revolving Rifle)

This is probably going to be a bit of a strange, cutsie little post. I just posted it on my Mastodon and figured that I may as well also sha...