Der PigDog's PigBlog

 In my Arcade Mode game, players don't take downtime. They freely adjust their resources between sessions. That was the intent, anyway -- most players are unwilling to simply give themselves more resources. So I decided to draft a very simple downtime system. Every real world week, or every session, since your last session with a character, add 1 downtime point. Spend downtime points and (10 * level * points) rupees on downtime actions. (The rupee is your campaign's base currency type, whatever that is. 1 rupee = 1 xp = 1 days' wages for a basic infantryman, roughly.) Here are some simple downtime maneuvers, listed with their costs: 1 point = 1 streetwise check for new hirelings, rumors, rare items, contacts, trainers 1 point = 1 visit to a known sage, library, expert, important contact 1 point = 1 martial art technique learning check 1 point = 1 hireling recruitment roll 2 points = reroll HP, take the higher result 2 points = 1 attribute improvement roll 3 points = train

 I read A Practical Guide to Medieval Warfare by Richard Brooks and John Curry. Really enjoyed it, found it enlightening and surprising in many respects. You need to buy it on amazon in paperback or via kindle, which I intensely dislike -- I'd prefer to pirate books, or buy through alternate retailers. Sometimes the book gets lost in the weeds of (I think) irrelevant historical debates, important only to specialists. It also wastes time justifying the relevance of wargaming and reenactment to historical research. Putting those caveats aside, it was a worthwhile read, and I'd recommend it, supplemented by other readings in pre-modern warfare (I've also been reading War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat , the blog ACOUP , and the recommended books list on the Ask Historians reddit . Additional caveat: very little about war makes sense divorced from its historical context. You'll want to bone up on your regular history too!) Anyway, here are some takeaways from the book

We did a bit of a refresher since it had been two or three weeks since the last session . Refreshed both rules and the situation at play. I explained the string economy and asked everybody what their character had done last session. Everybody was, of course, able to remember their own activities, with just a few additions from me. I also read through the list of thematic objects, and asked if everybody was interested in them, and told them that if they wanted another topic dealt with, they had to bring it into play themselves, but that they can always talk about it outside play too. I wanted to revisit some threads that got skipped over last time. Evann's Fae had gone for a walk in the woods with her friend before the party; what happened there? I was interested in her feeling of alienation/inhumanity, and I wanted to push her into some decision about her place among humans. So I had the Green Woman, the Fae's mother, a 7 foot tall naked green lady, freeze time and greet her d

CW necrophilia Here's the playlist I made and have been listening to as I prep the game: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ih9SFciZe1a38sHqXWDsP?si=d7552f0144114e5f Played with my partner Misha, our friend Divya, Divya's boyfriend Ken, and our friend Evann. Misha has played a little bit of wargamey DND with me, Misha and Divya have played in the last session of Monsterhearts, and Ken played one session of some kind of DND before. Otherwise, no RPG experience. We spent a really long time -- maybe too long? -- talking about the nature of play, how it works, what the skins do. Ken and Divya (werewolf and ghost, respectively) chose their skins eagerly. Misha was happy with infernal, and Evann eventually settled on fae. The game is set in  Hudson, Ohio, where Ken grew up. 20k residents. Majority white. Educated, middle class or higher. Headquarters of Jo-Ann Fabrics. He did not like it there, and does not want to go back. The seating chart is still a great method of scenario prep.

In essence this is just classic dice pool tech applied to a new topic, morale. I work-shopped these rules with Eero. Used them in play just once, but it was hella successful, so I thought I'd share. First, determine the base morale of the unit, usually a number between 1/6 and 5/6. 3/6 is the default for trained combatants. 1/6 is a pack of cowards or totally untrained combatants. 5/6 is zealous. If you need to go higher than 5/6, you can, you'll just use bigger dice for the pool (see below), and a number like 7/8, 9/10, etc. In a basic combat situation, you roll 1d6 (or a bigger die for super zealous fighters) and try to get less than or equal to the morale score. If the check fails, the unit won't advance or attack, though they will defend themselves. Now let's get fancy. Make a pool of bonus or penalty dice for every advantage or disadvantage, respectively, the unit has at the start of the fight. Bonus and penalty dice cancel out. Advantages are things like "out

A game of Monsterhearts! Misha, Lani, and Divya. Lani has played a good deal of 5e. Misha has played my vampire game and some OSR. Divya completely new. I explained the concept of the game -- play out the messy lives of queer teen paranormal romance and horror, like in Vampire Diaries, Twilight, and similar. Turned out we had very view Twihards in attendance (actually I was the only one) and the most common reference point was Riverdale. I also explained the medium of roleplay, conversation. You say what happens for things under your authority. In this case, just one character, for whom you advocate, their thoughts and actions. I say everything about the other people and world, though I'll often ask the others to say things instead. We read aloud the principles for the game. We read aloud the skins and everybody picked one. Lani chose werewolf, Misha vampire, and Divya infernal. This got the group buzzing. The skins are such fun! I talked about the dangerous topics we