Other

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. This section is devoted to all the other games – Deadlands, World Tree, Nephelim, In Nomine, and many more – which we happen to play. Unfortunately, this means that its contents are going to be kind of random: things will be uploaded here as I run across them in the old files or happen to think of them.

RPG Design:

• RPG Design Subindex
• Backstory; why it’s vital.
• Game vrs World – The fantasy world versus the rules of the game.
• Getting your Encounters in the Zone; fitting your encounters to your world and vice-versa.
• The Elements of Magic: things to consider when creating a magic system.
• Battling the Balanced Encounter: The advantages and disadvantages thereof.
• Cliff Notes for the 1940’s: how to make a 1940’s-1950’s setting convincing.
• Features of Victorian Settings: the basic characteristics of a Victorian-style world.
• Small Changes and Large Changes – a pair of essays on how tinkering with racial characteristics may – or may not – lead to massive social changes.
• The Basic Adventure: a basic guide for game masters.
• Role Playing Game Design Part I: a general look at designing tabletop RPG’s, using L5R as an example.
Realistic and Unrealistic Injuries: Making the combat system reflect the world you want.
Creating Skill Systems: Basic Considerations, Fundamental Skills, Optional Skills, Practical Example – Revised d20 Skills.
Wild Dawn: an example of a quick on-the-fly rules system.
Shapeshifters and Cursed Lycanthropes. Making Lycanthropy something to fear. A few d20 specifics, mostly generic.
Medieval Price List and Economics. A realistic price list for medieval settings, for both major and minor purchases.
Dark Ages Cultural Worldviews. For Celtic, Nordic, and Christian characters in classical medieval settings.
The Corruption of Power: How does power corrupt and what can be done to prevent it?
Exotic Compounds: Vidan (a drug which breaks down mental barriers), Kos and Narhan (a sensory amplifier and a regeneration-inducer), M’ram (a stimulant), Denila (metabolic stabilizer),  Zashin (A drug that extends the user’s mind into other dimensions).
The Magical Languages of the Twilight Isles: The unusual effects of languages. Eclipse d20 mechanics, but not much of them.
Designing game mechanics to meet Style and Player Goals.
The Mathematics of Practical Melee Weapons.
Narrative Mechanics: With a d20 Template to buy them in less story-oriented games.
Designing Freeform Magic Systems.
The Eightfold Soul: Adding some mythic depth to the spirits of the dead.
The Laws of Death: How to prepare for and handle character deaths.
Making Magic Mysterious: Making magic in your game a thing of wonder any mystery again.
The Magical Worldview, The Magical Ruler (general theory, d20 mechanics), The God-Favored (general theory, d20 mechanics), The Noble-Blooded (general theory, d20 mechanics), Offices (general theory, d20 mechanics), and The Divine Ruler (General Theory, d20 Mechanics).
Star Trek Physics: Keeping new principles to a minimum in science-fiction RPG’s.
How detailed a Combat System do you really need?
Character Types – The Expert: General requirements and limitations of such characters, and how to build one in Eclipse.
Complex Encounters and Refreshing Abilities: The narrative limitations of “per encounter” abilities.
Creating Realistic Species: How to make believable creatures.
The High-Tech Warrior: The problems and benefits of high-end warriors.
The Fellowship of the Ring d20: Converting characters from books – and the perils and pitfalls thereof.
Sci-Fi Settings and Rules: Writing rules to fit your setting – from hard Sci-Fi to complete fantasy.
Designing Subraces: How to make subraces fit into the world, with a d20 example – the Mothu.
Roleplaying Disadvantages with Teeth: Why taking a vague, role-playing, disadvantage is NOT the soft option.
Bringing Fictional Characters into RPG’s: Guidelines for character conversions.
Realmsong: An artifact-flute suitable for characters of any power level.
Skills and Powers: Making Skills Exotic.
Spell Progressions in Eclipse: How the progression costs were derived.
Old School Skills: How to manage narrative skills.
The Common Humanity: Why pretty much every game uses humans as a base.
Overkill Penalties: Why going overboard isn’t always a good idea.
Character Advancement, d20, and Eclipse: Why faster isn’t always better.
Geek The Healer!: Why medics are not – and should not – be off-limits targets in roleplaying games.
Spinning on the Axis of Evil: Do you really need an alignment system?
The Illusion of Game Balance: Why “Game Balance” is a myth. Continues with Part II, and a Commentary.
RPG and Character Design – Combat Styles: How humanoids fight.
The High Frontier: A setting for fantasy to space.
What Rules Are For: Designing for a purpose – and knowing when not to.
In the Old School – Oh Death, Where Is Thy Victory?: When character deaths either do not matter – or are desirable end-points.
Game Reviews: Brave Old Failure – the Brave New World RPG.

General Material:

• Magic the Gathering – the RPG. This was originally designed as a submission to WOTC, but they were uninterested in any submissions related to M:TG. The system stretches d20 to the limit, since it uses magic cards as character attributes – but since the playtesters have let the draft files out, here it is. Who knows? Maybe Wizards of the Coast will see it and decide to pick it up after all (not likely, but we reserve any commercial rights that may apply just in case). Still, the playtesters had a lot of fun with it, and – for personal use in its current form – it’s entirely free.
• Useful Exotics. This list of Exotic Plants and Animals includes a bonus set of Organic Power Armor. While it was originally designed for Rifts, most of the list is pretty rules-light, so it should be useful in almost any game.
• Michael’s Diary. Michael was a junior-superhero character in a campaign a bit more than twenty years ago now. but he – and his friends – are still good examples of characters who grew, changed, and suffered a variety of traumas over the course of a game.
• The Corruption of Power: How does power corrupt and what can be done to prevent it?
• Shadows in the Twilight, Walking: Magic through history.
• The Samurai Western: a guide to transferring plots.
• We Three Jarls: a fantasy version of a classic christmas carol.
• Deep Healing: Magical Mental Therapy from an old campaign.
• Enchanting Spells: A general set of spells for making magical items.
• Mild Insanities for Slightly-Cracked (yet playable) characters.
• Shamanism, the Agnostic Faith: Playing classical Shamans, and why they make near-ideal characters.
• Baba Yaga the Exaltation – adapting rules to your own needs.
• The Merrow Mansion: A base, haunted house of sorcerers, and mini-campaign setting.
• Malavon Player’s Handout: Everything which ought to go into a basic world background handout.
• Wild Dawn: an example of a quick on-the-fly rules system.
Mythology and the World: How people use mythology to relate to reality today.
Civilization On The Rocks: Remember the old Civilization boardgame? Probably not? Well, now you can have whimsical house rules for a game that most people have completely forgotten…
Character Lists: The GUARDIANS, a teenage superhero groups and their associates, a selection of Super-Heroes and -Villains, Assorted Fantasy Characters,
Dragonspawn: The Dragonchild Campaign Frontspiece
Esoteric Botany: Earth Magic Plants, Life Magic Plants, Death Magic Plants, Spirit Magic Plants,
Introducing Villainy: Bringing villains into your storyline.
A Drop of Chaos: Primal Cosmology – and the mythic basis of fantastic worlds.
System Inventory: Since the questions been asked, here’s a list of the printed role-playing games in my collection.
Inspirations – The Haunted Palace: Finding some inspiration in classical literature.

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Tri-Stat System / Big Eyes, Small Mouth: (For the El-Hazard Setting)

• Zhao Shou Lung. An ancient martial arts master, wielder of the horrendous Dragon Gauntlets.
• Earth and El-Hazard Timeline. Since you really need a bit more background than the book provides.
• Character Templates and Relics. Both PC’s and NPC’s, as well as a selection of unique devices.

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In Nomine Role Playing Game

• Bodhisattva in In Nomine: Playing spirits from other mythologies.
• Sample Characters: Sarge, Etherial Archetype, Raven Harcourt, Human Martial Artist, Sakarit, a Bodhisattva, and Sean Bawn, would-be Human Superhero (and some Power Packages).

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Deadlands Role Playing Game:

• Deadlands to Exalted Conversions: Characters and Magic and a  Bestiary. Not truly Deadlands perhaps, but it may be useful in recruiting some players.

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Classic Marvel Role Playing Game:

We had a lot of fun with this, so here’s some material for the old FASERIP Marvel RPG – and for its modern variants.

• Dark Future Setting: It’s 2053, the world is a post-apocalyptic disaster area, and you’re a superhero… Mostly non-system specific.
• Dark Future Characters. Other residents of the Dark Future and additional background.
• Kriegspiel & Kalrith. A centaur and his dragon, along with their world and species backgrounds.
• New Base Equipment Packages. For when you want to install some special equipment in your base.
• New Skills and Talents. For the original Marvel FASERIP system.
• Shadowguard– a low-powered superhero group including their equipment, Voltaire, Le Fey, Whisper, Cheshire, Shillelagh, Flux, and The Toad – a bonus opponemt. Here we also have Voltaire broken out by himself.
• Knight-Errant Smart Uniforms: Clothes that every well-dressed hero should be wearing.
• Darkwolf: An alien lupinoid hero, with his species background and other information.

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World Tree Role Playing Game:

• World Tree, available directly from from Padwolf Publishing or through Amazon.Com, is an excellent RPG system, with an innovative magic system and a creative and intriguing world. Sadly, it never attracted much attention, but we’ve had a lot of fun with it.
• New Magical Techniques. Four minor magical techniques for the World Tree. Binding with Telepathy, Binding with Time, Flicker Casting, and Talismongering.
• Advanced Great Enchantment. Additional rules for Great Enchantment.
• Vancian Magic in World Tree. A PDF download for better formatting. For primes who learn a little off-tree magic.
• Attribute Enhancement. How to accomplish one of the more common World Tree requests, whether by Spell, Enchantment, Training, or Buying Advantages.
• Arden’s Spells. A modest selection of Ardenharius Sen Thrachten Philosos’ – a World-Tree Rassimell –  spell research results, in particular some of the ones used to manipulate and enhance other spells.
• Yahoo Group Archives. The archived posts, logs, and .pdf file contents of the defunct Yahoo World Tree group. There’s some interesting material in there, along – of course – with a lot of stuff that’s totally out of date.
• Advanced Spellbinding is for when those pesky player character just have be experimentive, and start asking “What happens when I try (doing something weird)?” At least for Spellbinding, here are some rules for telling them.
• Here’s a (severely condensed) version of the old Campaign Log. If anybody wants any more details on particular events, ask: I’ll look in the old notes and see what I can recall.
• d20 World Tree: The Prime Races and Special Abilities from World Tree for d20.
• The Distant Voyager: An exploratory airship, and how it was equipped and used.
• Ivarell “The Nose”: A Cani Henchmen of the original player characters.
• “Sparky“, amnesiac Zi Ri Improvisational Mage
• Noun Isomers: The properties of higher-order materials.
• How to Drown an Orren: An assortment of peculiar spells for eliminating opponents in very eccentric ways.
• Ardenharius Sen Thrachten Philosos: A Rassimel sorcerer.

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Amber Diceless Role Playing Game:

• Amber Disadvantages. For adding a bit of variety to the basic good stuff/no stuff/bad stuff division in the basic rules.
• Sample Starting Characters: Malinbert the Inept and Professor Challenger, Sabre and Wrath.
• Arvons Diary Part 1. A character log from a long-gone Amber game.
• Arvons Diary Part 2.
• Arvons Diary Part 3.
• Arvons Runic Rings. A set of horribly powerful – and equally expensive – magical rings.
• Arvons Shadow, Averos. An interesting place, with radically different natural laws.
• 200-Odd Power Words – also usable as source material for many other games.
• The Great Weapons – a dozen horrifically-powerful weapons to destroy all opposition! After all, these are extremely powerful by AMBER standards…
• Shadow Binding and Superheroics: A new power and some converted characters. What does Thor look like in Amber anyway?
• Characteristic Scaling and Amanda Rose. How strong is Gerard in absolute terms? What does this mean for your style of play?
• Drizzt, The Ressurrected One: A somewhat eccentric young amberite
Advanced Trump Powers: Tapping and Shunting, Virtual Creation, Morphic Resonance, and Psychomancy,
Aristotle: A trump computer or god, take your pick.
The Amber-Chaos Summer Olympics: Events, Judges, and Descriptions.

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Baba Yaga: The Secret War:

• This is a WWII Partisan Resistance game – spiced up by just a touch of the supernatural, which makes it just barely possible for a small partisan group to hold their own.
• Sample Characters: Luigi Rosso (a young descendent of Apollo).
• The Players Packet contains the character sheet and the major tables. It’s quite free.
• Baba Yaga: The Secret War is available in Print HERE and in PDF HERE.

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Second Edition AD&D:

• Dunstan Auchenlock Issilor, a Skills-and-Powers elven Cleric/Thief – with a selection of New Spells, New Proficiencies, his Pre-Game History, and his Character Sheet.
• Saelinnyth, a sample elven fighter/thief.

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Continium II:

Continium II is a project that’s been kicking around for many years now: since the system is modular, and most of it could be slotted into many other games, I’m starting to put up the system. Some of the old players may feel nostalgic.

• The Basic Continuum II Mechanic.
• Martial Arts Basics. How to design your own martial arts.
• Weapons Design and Sample Weapons. An extension of the martial arts – and why it’s better to be armed.
• Ceremonial Magic. A general system for creating magical effects without great personal power.
• Shamanism, the Agnostic Faith: Playing classical Shamans, and why they make near-ideal characters.
• The Rogue. Skill-based characters in Continuum II
• Priests and Servitors. The wielders of Invocation. Here too are some Priestly Examples of how various groups of priests relate to their deities.
• Demons and Manitou. How Demons, Elementals, and Nature Spirits work in Continuum II, and how you can play them.
• Faerie and Dragons. How Faerie and Dragons work in Continuum II, how to play one, and where the myths about them come from.
• The Undead. How Lesser, Intermediate, and Greater Undead – including vampires and such – work in Continuum II and how to play them.
• Spectres and the Empyrean Plane: Psychic Entities and how to play them.
• Introspection Abilities: The most basic psychic talents available.
• General Skills: Basic background skills and tables for random shops and professions.
• Vocational Characters: Heroic, but not superhuman, characters.
• Malavon Player’s Handout: Everything which ought to go into a basic world background handout.
• Malavon Handout Supplement: Sere’ados, the Wilderness Continent.
• Cantrips – the most common of all magics: Shield Cantrips, Alteration Cantrips, Mindsending Cantrips, Divination Cantrips, Illusion Cantrips, Conjuration Cantrips, Arcane Cantrips, Healing Cantrips.
• Character Lists – the Mages Council of Cisnaud, the High Council of Cisnaud, Super-Heroes and -Villains, Assorted Fantasy Characters,
• Dark Japan
• Sigils: Magical Glyphs and how to use them.
• The High-Tech Warrior: The problems and benefits of high-end warriors.
• Kwin Chiang, Human Shaman – and his Spirits.

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Rolemaster:

Rolemaster is often awkward to play, but it still stands as grand attempt towards compiling a complete list of everything – and hence it’s easy to get ideas from. In that spirit, here are a few items from Rolemaster to give you ideas for your current games.

• Aetherial Ways: a spell list for Rolemaster (and for swiping ideas from for other games).
• Secretarial Ways: another Rolemaster spell list to swipe bits from – and some of the most practical bits of magic that any diplomat could have.
• Arcane Healing: A spell list  designed to let you get along WITHOUT a healing specialist.

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Cyberpunk / Cybergeneration:

• Cybergeneration: Exotic Power Packages

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Star Wars d6:

• Characters
  • 10CH, Retired-Assassin Droid. A particularly dangerous PC-Droid.
  • Alys Nere: A noble big-game hunter.
  • Ben Therus: Precognitive Advisor. (Offsite link)
  • Garyan Manark: A Republic Soldier.
  • Handell Awdi Tiend: A precognitive pilot and wanderer.
  • Hedi Master Groas: A “Head-Case Jedi”.
  • Jarik Alder: Physician-Gambler
  • Khadim-17, an energy-being character of the Old Republic.
  • Kira Keldav. A renegade Sith apprentice of the Old Republic. Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav I
  • Lazlo Milvago: A servant-bodyguard and his notes on Session II.
  • Randu Palait, a.k.a. “Shipwreck”: Sensor operator and salvage expert.
  • Telera Mercorin: A young Jedi Knight.
  • Xiang The Slayer: A deluded Sith hunter.
  • Alternate Valerie Soung: Adventures in dimensional counterparts.
  • Ayshan Vascud, Darth Sorrown of the Varen Sith
• Campaign Logs:
  • Prequel Campaign, The Twilight Seekers: Part I (with Force backgrund), Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
  • Primary Campaign Log – Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav: Session One, Session Two, Session Three, Session Four, Session Four Kira’s View, Session Five, Session Six, Session Seven, Session Eight, Session Nine, Session Ten, Session Eleven, Session Twelve, Session Thirteen, Session Fourteen, Session Fifteen, Session Sixteen, Session Seventeen, Session Eighteen, Session Nineteen, Session Twenty, Session Twenty-One,Session 22, Session 23, Session 24, Session 25, Session 26, Session 27, Session 28, Session 29, Session 30, Session 31, Session 32, Session 33, Session 34, Session 35, Session 36, Session 37, Session 38, Session 39, Session 40, Session 41, Session 42, Session 43, Session 44, Session 45, Session 46, Session 47, Session 48, Session 49, Session 49 Supplemental, Session 50a, Session 50b, Session 51, Session 52,
  • Valerie Soung: The Sith Archives, Part One – Background, Part Two – Lessons in the Force, Part Three – Dark Princess, Part Four – Expectations, Part Five – Stalker, Part Six – Sparring, Part Seven – Archives, Part Eight – Preparations, Part Nine – Investigations, Part Ten – Contingencies, Part Eleven – Chaos, Part Twelve – Retributions, Part Thirteen – Repressions, Repercussions, Retaliation, Traveling Company, Gravity,,
  • Missives from Kira Keldav: The Antiforce, The Keldav Family Background, Memories of Home, The Paradox of the Anti-Force, Friends and Background, Writing Home, Return to Alderaan, Famalies of Friends, The Festival of Masks, Master and Apprentice – and the Varen Sith, Albinism,
• Background Information:
  • The Scale of the Galaxy: How to cut the statistics of the universe down to size.
  • New Droids. The HUND wilderness-assistant and CLS10 piloting-assistance droids.
  • Technical Explanations I: Monopolium, Power Sources, and Dark Energy Manipulation – including Repulsorlifts, Sublight Drives, Lightsabers, Hypermatter Reactors, Artificial Gravity, Tractor Beams, Gravity Well Projectors, Thermal Detonators, Shields, Blasters, and Creating Lightsaber Crystals.
  • Technical Explanations II: Mental Manipulations, Interrogation, the Force and Biochemical Adaption, Species Interbreeding, Alien Powers, Transplant Surgery, Unexplained Deaths, Technological Limitations and Enhancements, and Bacta.
  • Technical Explanations III: The Galactic Republic, Major Projects, Currency, the Interstellar Trionist Conspiracy, and Extragalactic Exploration.
  • A Secret History of the Hoslin: A secret order of Force-Users.
  • Force Power Packages: How to build various levels of force-sensitivity.
  • The Nightraptor: A Kiropsten-Class Light Transport.
  • Cloaking Technologies: Ways in which to hide things in Star Wars
  • Alternative Force-Users: The Hedi,
  • Secrets of the Sith: Biowarfare.
  • The HoloSith: The pop-culture Sith, as seen on the holos!
  • The Variable Star: An exotic, and versatile, field-effect weapon.
  • d6 Starship Design: A preliminary system for designing d6 starships.
  • Vehicle Design Rules v2: Revised vehicle creation rules.
  • The Codex: Basics,

• Player Blog Crosslinks:
  • Alys Diary: Session II, Session III, Interesting Times, Invasion of the Sith, Plans, The Festival of Masks Part I, The Festival of Masks Part II,  The Hunt Must Go On,
  • A Proposal for a Better Tomorrow (doing something about bioweapon jellyfish),

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Godlike / Wild Talents / One-Roll Engine (ORE):

Godlike has a slightly-problematic rules system, but an extremely well-developed WWII-with-minor-powers background.

• Cliff Notes for the 1940’s: how to make a 1940’s-1950’s setting convincing.
• Quirks: Mild madnesses and disadvantages to squeeze out a few more Will points.
• Sorcery, and how to build it.
• Powers To Never Allow: Deathwish.
• Sample Characters: Jason Carpenter (middle of article): an immortal earth mage, Father Joseph: a priest who shelters refugees and resistance fighters (along with an optional rule for Concentration), Asteraoth: a youngster who can project his mind across the world, Fornemjarnulf and Gullsmed: a pair of scandanavian resistance fighters – a psychic cyborg and a mystical artificier, Les Tenebres: either a crazed french college professor or an immortal medeival sorcerer (along with a rule for General Talent Experience), The Celestial Voyager:  a living space-probe and gravatic manipulator, Earthworks: a TOG Commando who specializes in staying under cover, Dybbuk: a death-camp and massacre survivor who believes that he is dead – and calls up the dead to take their vengeance, Nonoma: a young amerindian warrior and spirit of thunder, Adamantine: a very laid-back – and almost indestructible – infantryman, Carnage: a petty thief turned soldier with a most destructive ability, Nahualli: a mexican jaguar-warrior and priest of the ancient aztec gods, Peter “Pops” Rundell: a specialist in transport from the home front, De Ville Tailleur: a resistance fighter who proves that clothes really do make the man – or the regiment, Nishanth: a blind Vedic Warrior from India who creates his own darkness, Choir: a youngster with a very valuable musical talent, and Regers Tallman: a glider pilot who needs no engine to take his ship into space, The Wanderer: a dimensional traveller, Lebenszyklus: a biologist and genetic manipulator, and Carrista: a youngster and his pet tank.

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GURPS Material:

• Vargen the Wonder Dog: A very eccentric character indeed.

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Rifts Material:

• The Ironworks K9 Robot Dog OCC: Guardians designed to change the world.
• Useful Exotics. This list of Exotic Plants and Animals includes a bonus set of Organic Power Armor. While it was originally designed for Rifts, most of the list is pretty rules-light, so it should be useful in almost any game.
• Smartclothes: Multifunction civilian megadamage “armor”.

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Traveller Material:

• The Wanderer: A deceptive “survey vessel” for special agents. With autocad layout.

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It Came From The Late Late Late Show Material:

• Basic Handout and Attack of the Jade Dragon Ninja III

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Tales From The Floating Vagabond Material:

• Senuserk, Lesser Osirian Deity

Call of Cthulhu Material:

• Mythos Tomes Part One, Part Two

TORG Material:

• TORG Justifiers: Adapting an old game setting for TORG.
• Robin Hood, Fox-Beta: A Justifier in TORG.
• Eclipse and the Hero System: Comparing the two – and two different philosophies of game design.
• TORG Quick Reference Sheets:For anyone trying to run TORG these days.