TTRPGs

The Beauty of the World of Darkness System

Dec 8, 2024 · 4 min read · Theory White Wolf

The classic World of Darkness system has some impressive features. System Summary Add the character's Attribute + Ability, And roll that number of D10's. Each die which meets the difficulty number (default: 6) means one 'success'. Bust in the Door! Strength 3 + Crafts 3 = 6 Roll 6D10 (difficulty 7): 7, 4, 4, 3, 1, 6. …

Onepage Dungeons

Dec 7, 2024 · 3 min read · Resources

The One Page Dungeon contest asks people for a single-page dungeon with a Creative Commons, share-alike, attribution licence. "Huzzah", I thought, "that's GPL compatible!", I imagined, wrongly. The first caveat is 'GPLv3', which is still fine for what I do, but a shame. The next caveat is 'only CC BY-SA 4.0', not …

Group Indecisions

Nov 28, 2024 · 1 min read · Prattle

Sometimes the party needs to make a decision as a group. Most of the time, in fact. The strange man beckons you to follow him The goblins spot you, and instantly retreat back into a hole in the hillside You know the drill. And sometimes, people perfectly capable of deciding what they want to do, will not make decisions …

LaTeX vs InDesign

Nov 22, 2024 · 3 min read · BIND LaTeX Typography

I think it's fair to say that Adobe's InDesign is the standard publishing tool for RPGs, or at least the most common among the most well-known RPGs. However, it's clearly inappropriate for BIND. BIND's all about working together on an open project, but InDesign is geared to limit that openness. Cash In order to use …

Parallel Actions

Nov 8, 2024 · 3 min read · Design

Parallel actions speed up resolution in a way nothing else ever could. 5 Players vs 10 Bandits Look at how the table acts, focussing for a disturbing moment on the players, rather than characters. Standard One-at-a-Time Initiative The GM calls for initiative: Alice, Bob, Charlie, Drake, and Emily roll Initiative. The …

Data Hoarding with Friends

Nov 4, 2024 · 4 min read · Data

I have a collection of images without any copyright. I suspect a lot of people who write books which should have pictures do the same thing. Searching various images for the right types of images is boring. Collecting these images is boring (right click, save, copy author name, paste author name into directory, move …

Generating Hex Maps

Oct 26, 2024 · 4 min read · Design Cartography

Christer Enfors at Hexed Press created a procedure for generating hex maps. It uses the basic notion of altitude to make hexes each have a similar altitude to the next hex. The result is that mountains tend to be next to mountains or hills, and hills might generate a forest as the next hex. The entire thing results in …

Racial Languages

Oct 15, 2024 · 4 min read · Fantasy Language

I've heard a lot of scepticism about the standard fantasy notion of 'racial languages' - i.e. languages tied to a particular race. But since they're such a useful tool, I'd like to offer a different way to view them, and a different solution. I have a heavy suspicion that people who think that languages divided across …

Random Encounters Disarm Chekov's Gun

Sep 14, 2024 · 2 min read · Theory White Wolf Blorb

Chekov's gun poses a real threat to some games. If a group playing Vampire: The Masquerade ('VtM') encounter a Ravnos, spinning illusions, and confusing mortals, then the next time they hear about unusual events, they will assume that the Ravnos did this. Clearly - the Ravnos is part of the plot! After all, VtM draws …

Having a Bash at Travel in BIND

Sep 10, 2024 · 2 min read · Design BIND

They say you have to playtest, but they forget that I'm a lazy man, so when it came to travel rules, I didn't feel like simulating a bunch of journeys. So it's time to get the computer to do the work for me. Setup An encounter roll occurs every 1D6 intervals in BIND (where an interval = 'one quarter of the day' = '6 …