Rule of the Dice

This weeks Saturday Sorcery idea comes form India, the land of a billion gods and kick-ass action flicks . I love India, it is hands down the best place on earth for all things strange and wonderful. I first saw this on the National Geographic Channel and it got stuck in my head. I apologize in advance to any Indian readers who actually know what I'm talking about, and am poorly relating (and embellishing) to others to use in a game. The Cave of Spirits The cave of spirits is a place to imprison malevolent spirits that have been exorcised by a sorcerer or priest. The front is often a temple or magical hermitage, but it's what's hidden in the back of this unassuming place that is of real interest. Down a long hallway is a sealed door that few ever enter or see. This is the door to the cave of spirits. This door is guarded night and day, sealed physically with a very strong lock, and magically with powerful runes and wards. This is not a place that is meant to be disturb...

Hi everyone, my name's Joe, and I'll be tormenting you with inane banter acting as your host this fine day. I suck terribly at writing introductions, so let's just say that I am not an old hand at RPGs, having only found this hobby in the last year or so, meaning much of what I say will be redundant and filled with modern hipster slang such as, 'groovy', 'radical', and 'funky fresh'. Try to keep up, please. Today, I'll talk about something that doesn't get nearly enough coverage so far as I am concerned: Gaming online. No, not World of Warcraft. In fact, I'm not talking about any so-called MMORPG. I'm talking about playing real roleplaying games over the shiny box known as a computer. There are a couple of ways to play, each with advantages and disadvantages. None are quite as satisfying as playing face-to-face and watching the expression on your friend's face turn to one of sheer dread when his character wakes up and discove...

This spell idea came from my friend James . We were out on one of our hikes in the woods ruminating over various fantasy and sci-fi related geekiness, when we started on the topic of magic. This was the coolest idea that came out of our long meandering conversation. I am going to try and write it up in fairly generic terms, with an old school D&D slant Shadows to lead Casting Time: 1 round Range: Max 500' Duration: 3 Turns + 1/ 3 levels of the caster Save: Spells or Will or whatever is applicable. Components: The material component for this spell is lead shavings covered in black ink. Description: When cast this spell makes the victims shadow the weight of a giant mass of lead weighing 600lbs + 50lbs per level of the caster. If the victim can actually carry/lift this type of weight the spell acts only as a slow spell. But if the vitim cannot bear the weight they are pulled down to the ground and held there under great duress. The victim must make a strength che...

Seeing that everyone seemed to like the last old map I posted , I figured I'd post another one. This map is actually part of the same world as the previous map. This is the southern part of the world and the other map is the northern part. There is a little evolution in place naming, (not everything is stolen directly from what I was reading at the time) but most of the place names are still pretty cheesy. Click to embiggen This map was created exactly the same way as the other map (hand drawn and painted with watercolours), and made at roughly the same time. I have unfortunately lost most of my notes about this world. What I do remember is that there were psychedelic drugs that granted magical powers and spaceships flown by the evil priests of an alien god. I still love both of those ideas. I have several maps that I've created over the years, I'll add some more to the site over time.

The following two magic items are inspired by supposed real world magic items. I came across descriptions of them in a book called Supernatural England by Eric Maple . It is filled with a metric tonne of macabre weirdness from England's sorted past. A really fun read if you can find a copy. I have written the descriptions in generic terms so that you can figure out the mechanics for whatever your game of choice is. Let the sorcery begin... Wizard Post A wizard post is made from the wood of a sacred tree, etched with runes of warding and blessed under the light of a full moon. The post is then placed, most typically, between the users house and barn. The wizard post protects roughly a 1 mile radius, preventing any curse like spell from being used in that area. It also prevents any otherworldly beings (demon etc...) or undead from entering the radius, although regular monsters can still get through. These items are often highly personalized and are a type of hedge magic ...

So yesterday I was digging around my RPG stuff. I don't have a lot of books or anything, I mainly have an extensive collection of things I've created over the years. Most of what I've written looks like the scrawling of a madman and only makes any coherent sense to me, and the vast majority of my maps and dungeons have unfortunately been lost or destroyed. But then I found this... Click to embiggen I had thought that this map was lost for sure. I made it when I was around seventeen or so, and It's the first real campaign world I ever created. The names are mainly rip-off's from the Forgotten Realms or pseudo-Tolkien in nature, but it was my first real attempt to create a game world of my own. The map itself is hand drawn in ink and coloured in watercolours. My friend James and I played off and on in this world for nearly three years and many of the seeds for my later ideas were first planted here. It's always nice to find something that reminds you why yo...

I have been re-reading the 1e ADnD Dungeon Masters guide for the umpteenth time. To me this book represents all that is good and fun about our hobby. There is hardly a page that doesn't have something interesting, fun or just plain weird on it, and even now the sheer bulk of information found in this tome staggers my imagination. I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't read this book, but I feel especially sorry for those who disregard it as some primitive relic of gaming past not worth the read. You are missing out on some of the best work ever written in RPG history, and even if you play 3e or 4e the advice and ideas from the DMG can still enlighten and inspire. Although the ADnD DMG may not fully represent the golden age of the hobby, to me it represents the hobby at its best and loftiest. It still astounds me that I can open this book to any random page and find something that I can use in my campaigns, or find something that is just plain awesome . So if you've read 1...

I am gearing up for a new campaign and in the process of finishing all the fun bits and pieces. This is my favorite time, just before the show starts and the lights come on. I am trying very hard to create a campaign that will execute maximum awesome with minimum stress. I try to follow three simple rules when I create a new campaign and get ready to throw my players into it. 1) Your players are your campaign - Make the campaign for your players, not for you. Its that simple. 2) Create stories, not a story - Its always a temptation to go all Lord of the Rings with a campaign. DON"T.... you are not Tolkien and this isn't Middle Earth. Creating an epic over-arching super story that binds the characters into an amazing epic adventure is almost always doomed to fail. Create many stories for your world and let your players own ambitions create the epic story. 3) Make the campaign intriguing not cool - If everyone is an uber-cool ninja gangster, and there are a thousand co...

This is a re posting. I am still too busy to do a real post, but someday soon real life will no longer interfere with my blogging life. I wrote this post originally as my first post for the RPG Bloggers network and then foolishly backdated it by accident, so I'm pretty sure a lot of people haven't read it. The post sums my play style and general philosophy of role playing. To me, world and campaign building are the meat and potatoes of role playing. I am a homebrewer through and through. I hardly use any published material, as a matter of fact the amount of RPG books that I own can fit neatly on one small shelf. On the other hand the amount of homebrewed material that I have wouldn't fit neatly into a large room. Creating worlds and campaigns is what I do best, and its what I love most about gaming. I have used many game systems over the years, but I find myself becoming more indifferent to the system with age. I've always found that you can argue the virtues of a g...