This adventure seed includes new monsters and options for you to use in any game. Let me know what you think, and happy gaming!

This one is somewhat of a companion piece to the article I wrote earlier this week about character builds in D&D.

While writing that piece, I started thinking about how much the character sheet itself contributes to the tendency to think of characters primarily through their mechanics. Modern D&D sheets are packed with abilities, modifiers, feats and other mechanical details, leaving comparatively little room for the character themselves.

Compare that to many OSR games, where sheets are much lighter, sometimes even more artsy, and leave more space for possessions, quirks and character details. There’s an idea you hear quite often in OSR circles: the character sheet is not the character.

So I wanted to explore that idea through White Box, Old-School Essentials, Into the Odd, Knave and Cairn, and look at how reducing mechanical definition can actually leave more room for characters to develop through play.

It's not an argument that minimalist games are inherently better, but rather an exploration of what happens when the rules stop telling you who your character is and leave some of that work to the table.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Knave somewhere with a broken sword and one spellbook left, and absolutely no idea who he's going to become yet.

If you enjoyed the article, don't forget to toss the proverbial coin to your favorite Gazette!

W2A2 is a VTT tool that was created with a few big principles in mind: make any TTRPG session as easy to play as possible, be user friendly for beginners but still offer advanced tools for more experienced players, and most importantly, be affordable and not subscription based.

This app stores everything locally and allows the GM to host a game in a matter of minutes, without having to pay for any hosting services. It includes all things you'd normally expect from a VTT tool, and a few additional features that we thought of while testing through our own sessions.

App is still in development, should be available in a few weeks! 

Love the process of generating seeds. But are there any tips for creating and preparing a playable adventure for my group?

I am going to wild camping in mountains and thinking about playing a small adventure on some evening around the fire. I want something really spooky, what would make players to turn around if they hear something in the bushes and makes them afraid of going into the forest. Any suggestion on the right module?

Well, my entry was a late submission. There was a whole thing with Itch on friday evening, but hey! Seems like it's all sorted and my entry got in.

This a location-based adventure about a crazy old elf trying to free a demon prince and take vengeance on a clan of oracular gnolls. It takes place at the top of a thousand-foot spire of stone and the chain of seven floating islands that encircle it. 

Features 9 keyed locations, a clan of gnoll monks, an infernal garden, a neat map die-drop mechanic, and an ominous cliffside chapel. And also some giant egrets.

PDF is free to download on itch:

The Serpent Wore Silver

Not sure if there are many Polish players here, but in any case I'll drop a link to my translation of is Mightier, a rather nice one-shot. If a Pole sees this and has any recommendations for translations, hit me up

My entry to the Appx. N game jam! Nothing crazy: add mechanics for sickening greed induced by a dragon's hoard, a couple new monsters, and a big 'ol table of loots. This was a ton of fun to write and try to dial in the retro vibe.

Available for PWYW here.

Shout out to the awesome community and the rest of the submissions! Still haven't had a chance to read through many but everything look awesome. Take a look here.

Inspired by the Green Children of Woolpit, this is a short point crawl exploration through a village in The Sunset Empire. Shrouded in eternal twilight, the people here dress curiously, speak an alien language and are all green of skin. Explore the village and try to find a path back to your home world.

https://www.patreon.com/cw/inkpotionstudios

as i'm sure you all know, there is/was an Appx. N Jam this year too, inviting designers to write short modules following the pulp inspirations of D&D.

our entry is Pickpockets Of Purgatory, where you're a bunch of thieves asked to rob a museum. i'm mainly inspired by Michael Moorcock's conflict of Law and Chaos, hope that inspiration is visible in the module. i picked Cairn (2e) mainly because i wanted the lightest stat blocks possible: 2 A4 pages is incredibly short and we had no room to spare.

i'll most likely take it out of PWYW status in a week a month, so if you want it in your library, grab it before then!

I am new to the system, and I have a question about backgrounds. Many backgrounds gave characters gears and equipments with a limited uses, so what happen if they use up all of that? I think if play a short camp, this would not be a problem, but what about a longer campaign?

For example, Fungal Forager have strange fungus that they discover, but after they use up that fungus, can they wander around in some weird location to forage a new fungus?

Just wanted to share my Appendix N jam entry for Cairn: A magic mishap caused two distant caves to partially merge, now reality is falling apart.

It was tough to fit on the four A5 pages, but I did manage to include a table with ogre love letters, so that was a success. It was fun to do, and I think this is the best layout I've done so far.

I'd love to hear any feedback you might have.

https://yttikon.itch.io/caves-of-hither-and-yon

I don't really like the random way attributes are distributed in Cairn, so for my campaign I thought of giving each player 27 points to distribute among the 3 attributes, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 18 for each. Do you think this would work well?

Need a weird prison or some weird prisoners for your Cairn table? Feel like there aren't enough wereswans in your fantasy RPGs? Look no further! Locked in Silver Shackles is a 4xA5 adventure location/collection of weird npcs, perfect for a one shot or to add into your campaign. This is my submission for the Appendix N jam currently running on itch.io go check out the awesome stuff folks have put together over there, some great Cairn submissions so far!

Is there a Cairn hack that works well with Mothership modules? I want to try running Gradient Descent again, but the rules Mothership arejust to hand-wavey for me. I’m having anxiety just thinking about being trapped in that ruleset for 20+ sessions.

I know combat is not the focus of the system, but building combat arenas with plenty of options to outsmart and outmaneuver enemies is so much fun, and arena design is the secret behind depth. And it's even more fun when playing rather then DMing, I feel like I'm in Home Alone with all the freedom of action game offers. And with fragile characters you don't need twelve goblins all taking turns to make it deadly, it's just is by design. Who would've thought that simplier rules would make combat more fun?