Thursday, July 4, 2024

My Go-to Pantheon to Plagarize for Fantasy Religions (Majesty)

I am addicted to the process of world-building. Creating new places with interesting cultures, unusual people, and compelling disasters is something I never get tired of. I have home-brewed dozens of worlds.

In fact, if I have a weakness, it is that I have a hard time staying happy with a world for very long. It is a rare thing if I keep a world running across multiple campaigns. There have been only two of my home-brewed worlds that have seen more than one campaign.

Building worlds and hacking a game to make it fit that world give me incredible pleasure... except for one pain in my rear end: gods. I have had a terrible time in the past coming up with gods. I don't generally like using real-world pantheons for a number of reasons. I have used the Greyhawk, Eberron, or Golarion pantheons from time to time... but they have some pretty significant limitations to them:

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Tailoring a Campaign: My Player Resource for Running Hot Springs Island

I am in the process of setting up for my Summer game of Hot Springs Island. One of the first things I wanted to do aside from sending out the pitch document that I shared with you last week, was to write a guide for the players. This guide had to tackle some basic tasks:

  1. Cover how to make a character
  2. Reiterate at least some of the house rules in the pitch document.
  3. Expand on the information in the pitch for players who have bought in.
  4. Add in any new content relevant to the players.

So I started by reiterating my character generation process. I added in firearm rules cribbed from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and a gear list that brings the characters into the 17th century, including some era-appropriate armour and equipment.