RPG | TTRPGs

I Wish Neo-Pronouns had been Adopted

May 17, 2022 · 3 min read · Prattle Language RPG

Tabletop RPGs have struggled with pronouns more than most places, because they speak through constant examples. The fighter rolls a '10' on Initiative, and the goblins roll and '8'. He goes first. A,D&D used the default 'he', throughout all examples, and in the second edition, printed a small box explaining that …

Escape from the Horde

Apr 12, 2022 · 2 min read · RPG BIND

This one-shot adventure starts the characters off deep underground. Goblins have taken over a gnomish warren, and transformed the gnomes into goblins. Next up, they intend to turn the characters into strange monsters. Any dwarves will become hobgoblins, and any humans will become ogres. The party of random prisoners …

Fate Points in BIND

Apr 12, 2022 · 8 min read · RPG BIND Design

Remember that book or film where the protagonist received a nasty wound, then persevered, and won the day? Well that can't happen in RPGs, and that's a shame. So my solution is Fate Points (FP). Reasons People Created Hit Points Hit Points make sense as a standard game abstraction, until they apply to PCs. If PCs …

BIND's Story Point System

Apr 11, 2022 · 4 min read · RPG BIND

The Problem While I'd hope to rock up at the gaming table and just game with friends, the DM had other ideas. Everyone had to write a character back-story. Having three jobs at the time, I didn't feel enamoured with my homework, but a while later, I had read enough about the campaign world to begin writing something …

Ideas People

Mar 26, 2022 · 2 min read · RPG Theory

Oh young one! So you think you have an idea. Well let.me.tell.you: EVERYONE has ideas. Nobody cares if you have ideas. The real results are in work, in the execution. It's about labour, not inspiration. I've seen this kind of patronising lecture a few times on various RPG boards, and speaking as someone without any …

The OGL is not Open

Mar 22, 2022 · 4 min read · BIND RPG Design FOSS

The Open Gaming Licence (OGL) does not in fact produce terribly open games, so I wish people would stop referring to such RPGs as 'open source'. No Real Books The OGL specifically excludes Product Identity. "Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade …

What Systems Do

Mar 21, 2022 · 10 min read · RPG Theory

Systems can be boiled down to input, process, and output. 1┌────────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────┐ 2│ Monster: AC 17 │ ──> │ │ <── │ Player: Attack +3 │ 3└────────────────────┘ │ process │ └────────────────────┘ 4┌────────────────────┐ │ │ ┌─────────────────────┐ 5│ Player: Long sword …

If You Want to Understand an RPG System, Remove the Dice

Mar 5, 2022 · 6 min read · RPG Theory Design

Reading over systems with all of those 'Add this, roll that' can give someone the appearance of a massive, complicated RPG engine, churning out all sorts of details and replicating various interesting minutiae of the gaming world. But sometimes what's really happening in all those tumbling pieces of plastic, and once …

RPG Stuff only LaTeX Does

Mar 2, 2022 · 7 min read · RPG BIND Typography

Environments In Word and Acrobat, you can make some limited environments, like a header. But in LaTeX, you can make literally any type of environment you want. Need 10 encounter environments? Just make one macro. Arranging some encounter table then copy/ pasting it and filling in new monsters doesn't sound like a lot …

Random Character Generation

Mar 1, 2022 · 3 min read · RPG Theory

Random character generation is great, especially random Attributes. Why you hate random Attributes People think Random attributes will ruin your game because D&D has taught them that Attributes cannot be raised quickly. If one rolls a bad character, they'll have to play 'Jake, the pointless', forever after. This …