The Nerd's RPG Variety Cast, er, Blog

Day 22 Main Prompt: Notable Non-player Character

Three NPCs that have no doubt gained a following far exceeding the expectations of the authors at time of creation are Aleena and Bargle from the 1983 D&D Basic Set & Jackson Elias from the 1984 Call of Cthulhu campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep.

How many of us began our D&D journey meeting the kindly cleric Aleena just to have her murdered shortly there after by the infamous magic user Bargle? We barely learn anything about them but they have remained etched in the minds of millions of gamers. Adventures have even been written to let players attempt to bring Bargle to justice.

Jackson Elias is even more interesting as he was already dead when he was introduced to gamers in 1984 but he these days he has a podcast named after him and a prequel written so players can interact with him. Lee Hoffman, an old acquaintance of the player character’s in the Fu Sung’s Secret introductory scenario for Fantasy Games Unlimited’s Daredevil’s RPG no doubt wishes he was remembered so well…

Day 22 Alternate Prompt: Interdimensional Space and my d10 roll is a 2, Create a NPC

“I’ve seen things.”

Sergeant First Class John Dante is career military man who may have been on one mission too many. He not only an excellent soldier but he also has low level psychic powers that manifest as a danger sense which have allowed him to escape scraps he had no right surviving. SFC Dante is a great asset in a fight up to the point he gets that strange tingle down his spine, once that happens it is best to just follow his lead and pray even if his suggestions make no sense. He usually brings his team back alive. The problem is that he is becoming increasingly unstable which manifests itself in short tempered, angry outbursts that can be a real problem when the team is in the middle of diplomatic relations with an alien species.

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 21 Main Prompt: Classic Campaign

I know Pirate Borg is the current hotness and I have praised it as the best of Borg games myself. That said I’m not really thrilled with the idea of playing an evil campaign and that is the direction Pirate Borg leans into. One published pirate campaign that avoids this is Pinnacle Entertainment’s 50 Fathoms. This twenty year old campaign setting involves pirates from our world transported to another world to save it. Highly recommended.

Day 21 Alternate Prompt: Disaster and my d10 roll is a 5, Write a Legend or Rumor

No one new for sure why the plane went down, the black box malfunctioned and wasn’t recording. There were rumors that some of the reconstructed skeletons were not exactly right. Odd shaped skulls, extra bone masses in random places. Only those with the top clearance know for sure, the report was buried before it was even finished. The pilots where reported to have died in a training accident even though the earliest available records of the ‘training exercise’ are dated a week after the incident.

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 20 Main Prompt: Amazing Adventure

ICRPG’s Last Flight of the Red Sword. This new classic science fantasy adventure in the Warpshell setting finds our heroes encountering a desolate pirate cruiser near a dying star. I don’t want to ruin the adventure but it will take quick thinking and team work to save the universe and win the day.

Day 20 Alternate Prompt: Battle and my d10 roll is a 3, Write a Bulletin Board Quest

And one day a new notice appeared on the wall in the exercise yard.

Wanted: Volunteers for dangerous mission in exchange for time off sentence. If interested see the Warden.

Infiltration mission into hostile territory.

Combat guaranteed.

Chain of Command enforced by lethal force.

Amount of time off sentence will be determinant on an after mission evaluation.

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 19 Main Prompt: Sensational Session

A few years ago I ran a session of Deep7 Press’ Daisho, a simple set of samurai rules. I ran a one shot where the players had to avenge their Shogun’s death. I was lucky to have a number of great players in the game who bought into the concept totally and we had a great session. The climax was a raid on the enemy at a geisha house resulting in victory at the cost of a number of heroic sacrifices which left just one player character alive at the end of the battle. That player ended the session committing Seppuku amidst a garden of cherry blossoms.

Day 19 Alternate Prompt: Hologram and my d10 roll is a 6, Create a Random Table

Uh Oh! You rolled a critical failure in using that Hologram, what is the malfunction? Roll a D6.

1 Flickering Image

2 No Audio

3 Image and Audio are not in synch with each other

4 Image is too bright, it “glows”

5 Audio is too loud and reverberates

6 Everything is working great and then suddenly everything freezes for 5 seconds before cutting out (disappearing) for good

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 18 Main Prompt: Memorable Moment of Play

I was fortunate enough to have Ray Otus play in a session of Barbarians of Lemuria. He was running a sorcerer and during the adventure he found some hair from the big bad on a hair brush as they searched his tower. Ray was planning on using that to help power a spell to have the big bad’s long, luscious beard choke him into submission! Sadly for Ray’s sorcerer another player killed the big bad before he could cast that spell but the ideal of being choked by one’s own beard has remained in my mind ever since.

Day 18 Alternate Prompt: Curse and my d10 roll is a 9, Write An Eavedroppable Dialogue

“I can’t understand it, no matter how much I eat I seem to be getting thinner. I have been tested for tape worms and and for cancer but my doctor can find no reason for it. I understand you practice, alternative medicines and I am desperate. By the way this tea is delicious!”

“You came to the right place, oh yes, here give me your cup, it holds the secret to your problem. Oh my, you see this pattern at the bottom? You managed to anger a powerful practitioner of the dark arts, you my friend are under a curse!”

“A curse? That’s outrageous, what do suggest I do?

“You must find the one that cursed you and either get them to reverse the curse or kill them before the curse kills you. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You know for a price I may be able to help divine who has cursed you…”

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 17 Main Prompt: An Engaging RPG Community

The community around yesterday’s entry, Risus, is a great example of this. They are very welcoming, helpful and well mannered. Another community that I have found to be welcoming and generally good mannered is the one on the Audio Dungeon Discord. During the height of Anchor podcasts it was a hub of RPG podcasters, it has changed some since those days but there are still a number of podcasters on there as well as quite a few gamers who don’t have podcasts. Some games are hosted on the site and it is generally open to discussion of any game as long as people leave their prejudices at the door. You can find a link to the Audio Dungeon Discord in my podcast’s show notes.

Day 17 Alternate Prompt: AI and my d10 roll is a 3, Write a Bulletin Board Quest

Shall we play a game?

1 Rescue the Princess

2 Escape the Sewers

3 Global Thermonuclear War

You chose 1 Rescue the Princess, please open up module M2 Maze of the Riddling Minotaur for D&D by Jeff Grubb.

(If you had chosen 2 Escape the Sewers you would have been directed to open up Sewers of Oblivion for Tunnels & Trolls by Michael Stackpole. I think you know what would have happened if you had chosen 3…)

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 16 Main Prompt: Quick to Learn.

Some of the absolute best games are the ones where it is easy to grasp the basics but there is a lot of depth in strategy. Checkers comes to mind as does Risus. Risus, The Anything RPG was created by visionary game designer S. John Ross and at the core it is a very simple game. Your character is made up of a number of cliches such as two fisted adventuring archeologist or world’s best fighter pilot or even hairdresser to the stars. You have a score in that cliche that determines how many dice you roll when you use it to resolve a challenge or conflict. You add up those dice and are trying to beat either a target number or the roll of an opponent. Easy Peasy.

But that isn’t all, there are numerous strategies you can follow to maximize your character and how you use their cliches plus there are tons of variants and house rules which optimize the game from being a gritty, dungeon crawl to an even simpler game! Heck there is a 64 page Risus Companion with loads of options plus countless blogs, forum posts and a couple discords dedicated to this 30 year old game.

You can download Risus for free here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/170294/Risus-The-Anything-RPG

Day 16 Alternate Prompt: Dungeon and my d10 roll is a 2, Create a NPC

He’s been down here for a long time he has. The other denizens of the dungeon leave him be, live and let live they call it. He isn’t interested in them anyway, he came here to get away from humans, luckily the only ones that come down here are those pesky adventurers and they are his primary means of entertainment.

Today’s NPC is a deformed physic of great power. He is disillusioned and hateful towards humanity after the way he was treated as a child and his mother was burned at the stake for witchcraft. He will use his powers to try to trick the party into thinking he is a hurt adventurer himself and needs help. Once they let down their guard he will attempt to trick them and kill them one by one, often keeping the physically weakest member of the party alive for weeks of glorious toture.

Make our villain an incredibly powerful physic but fairly weak physically. At the minimum he should have the ability to:

Disguise himself (his natural form is deformed and horrible to look at)

Shield his mind from detect alignment or detect evil or telepathy / empathy

Create illusions / delusions both visible and auditory

Telekinesis

Inflict blindness / hearing loss

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 15 Main Prompt: Great Character Gear

Over the years there have been a number of great equipment based supplements, Iron Crown Enterprises’ … and a 10-Foot Pole comes to mind, but I want to highlight a current product that is free in digital form. And that is the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game Equipment Emporium now available in an OGL free 4th Edition. As you might  guess from the name it only covers equipment for medieval style fantasy games but it does a great job and even includes recommended gear packs for starting characters of various classes. This 51 page document is well worth your time if your game is detail orientated. While it is written specifically with the Basic Fantasy RPG in mind it really would be useful for just about any game set in the genre. You can find it here: https://basicfantasy.org/downloads/EE1-Equipment-Emporium-r33.pdf

Day 15 Alternate Prompt: Genetics and my d10 roll is a 9, write an eavesdroppable dialogue

“So you know how animals are just born knowing how to do certain things, Eddie?”

“I guess so Spike.”

“Well that is all the boss is trying to do, to make it so the ninja clones are grown already knowing how to do all that cool ninja stuff.”

“Huh, that is pretty smart Spike.”

“Yep, that’s why he’s the boss Eddie.”

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 14 Main Prompt: Compelling Characters

I find that life path systems can help create compelling characters. I am thinking of the kind we see in Traveller, Cyberpunk 2020, or Twilight 2000 & Dark Conspiracy. These systems give us a frame work to build backstories and motivations for our characters. While this can be a fun and fulfilling experience it isn’t always the right approach. 

In some games the emphasis is on emergent play in the world and the campaign is about the world as opposed to the characters, in those games you might not even want to bother naming your character until they survive a level! I enjoy playing these types of games as well, a great example that has become popular in recent years is a funnel for Dungeon Crawl Classics.  

Let’s go back to the games where a life path is more appropriate and take a look at what it offers. These systems are often a series of charts you roll on and it is up to the player, possibly in conjunction with the Referee, to fill in the details. Why did the Traveller character learn that particular skill? Who is the Cyberpunk 2020 character’s older sister and why is their relationship what it is? Sometimes you can develop the story as you go, Traveller, Twilight 2000 and Dark Conspiracy are good for this, and sometimes it is almost best to make the rolls first, characters can weave in and out of the Cyberpunk 2020 character’s life during the process. I still like to flesh things out as I go through each step, worse case scenario you might have to go back and slightly adjust the fiction you created during an earlier step. Better yet just make it work, real life can be messy, no reason your Cyberpunk’s life can’t be as well.  

Do you have a favorite life path system?

Day 14 Alternate Prompt: Awakening and my d10 roll is a 1, describe a monster

The procedure was a success. Muldune felt great! His endurance, strength and speed were much greater than before. He was also aware of a clarity that he didn’t have before. He could see that they were scared of him and why not? They were like insects to him. How could he not have seen that before? All those years wasted serving his country instead of himself. Patriotism was something to keep the weak in line, he would have to harness that when he assumed his rightful place, running the whole show. First step was to gain access to the database and scrub the records of this program and any notes they had on him. Next, eliminate those that could testify against him. 

Hmm, that seemed like a lot of work, he wasn’t against working hard but why not do it all in one fell swoop? All he had to do was scrub the computer records and set off a backpack nuke on the base, that will set the stage for his ascension as they come to him to track down the perpetrators. Now he just needed a scape goat…  

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10. 

Day 13 Main Prompt: Evocative Environments

Ken Hite’s The Day After Ragnarok is full of evocative environments. This is a post apocalyptic world where the Nazi’s raised the Midguard Serpent and President Truman had to use the atomic bomb to kill the monster whose corpse fell on Europe and Africa. It is a world of “submachine guns & sorcery” and setting I would dearly love to get to the table one of these days. Here’s the blurb from Atomic Overmind Press:

“Mighty-thewed barbarians and grim mercenaries roam the desolate plains of Ohio. Giant snakes, and those who worship them, prowl the ruins of St. Louis. Pirates battle the Japanese invaders in the South China Sea. Bold British agents, equipped with experimental bio-technology, thwart the insidious infiltration of Stalin’s humanzees. Sky-raiders strike from hidden bases in the Sahara, deros skulk in South American caverns, and the Texas Rangers fight electrical death worms to save Los Alamos.”

Day 13 Alternate Prompt: Zombie and my d10 roll is a 2, Create a NPC

As much as I love Lucio Fulci’s zombies I think the version I prefer for most games are the older ones raised by black magic. Of course that they don’t rise on their own so they need someone to raise them, someone like, Dr. Ernest McNab, BODY DOC. Of course nothing is easy, our zombie master is also the head coroner of the city of Los Angeles! With a steady supply of bodies to experiment on and the protection of his office he will be a difficult opponent for the players to deal with. Of course he has plenty of minions they will have to work through before they will be able to even figure out his identity.

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10.