As a follow-up to last week's post about writing modules, I wrote another post on writing adventures for Cairn, and how that might be different than other OSR systems.
newschoolrevolution.com/writing-modu...
Lot of good posts in this month's issue.
Today on Between Two Cairns, @bradkerr.net, @betterlegends.bsky.social and I are joined by @outridercreative.bsky.social to review Red Gwen's Bandit Hideout by Stonedrunkwizard, answer a mootsack question, and make a ruling.
www.patreon.com/posts/155636...
I sat down with the Between Two Cairns crew to yap about games.
Angel Studios and Wonder Project make christian nationalist slop designed to look like movies. We should be critical of actors like Ben Kingsley, Andy Serkis, Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris, and JK Simmons who legitimize their revisionist narratives by starring in them.
Hi, #PortfolioDay!
I'm Lone Archivist, a games and graphic designer specializing in branding and visual identity design for the tabletop industry (but open to work with other fields as well).
You can see my work in the quoted post or view an in depth Portfolio at: lonearchivist.com
The inside of a flute
The inside of a steinway piano.
The inside of a pipe organ.
The inside of a stradivari violin.
Mausritter and Pico inspiration:
Photographer, Charles Brooks, explores the hidden spaces inside instruments, revealing a small world of hidden architecture.
www.charlesbrooks.info
Thank you so much!
I like how much of that book ends up being this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUbI...
The best defense against burglary is a crowded street. Everything else burglars just smash in with a crowbar after using the fire escape or side lot.
I'll read anything that dunks on Le Corbusier.
I appreciate you saying that. I'll likely still write about rpgs, but the content will get weirder and more esoteric.
Damn. I love this.
It's also a fun read because of how old it is. I think some of the ideas in it have been proven to be incorrect, but then you'll see a pattern that's as true as the day it was written. It's great.
Jane Jacobs is easily one of the most influential figures in my life. The book opens with her walking through Boston's North End, and I immediately felt this connection to the book as someone who used to live there.
It's a great read. I wish more people, especially Americans, read it.
I've been re-reading a lot of books on urbanism lately. It's going to be hard not making this profile all about urban design.
www.explorersdesign.com/5-urban-desi...
If Luke Skywalker dies at the cantina in A New Hope, he doesn't destroy the Death Star, Han Solo disappears, Princess Leia remains captured, and Darth Vader doesn't have his redemption.
Which opens up all of Star Wars with a question, "What happens now?" A question player characters can answer.
I'll assume you're not sealioning me.
When I run games in established settings, I try to make one change that preserves everything but the plot. That way, players are the main characters and not on the sidelines.
The fun way to do that, for me, is to remove an NPC crucial to the setting's canon.
You've won this logic puzzle. I mixed metaphors.
Yes, and when you pick him up in the 80s and drop him in the 50s, the world suddenly revolves around him. He literally replaces the "established canon," which forces him to invent an entirely new canon where he's still created.
The point is that the players are innately disruptive.
Here's how I like to run a campaign in an established setting: I kill Luke Skywalker. I find a load-bearing character and kill them in the first session.
The player characters are the Marty McFly of their universe. The moment they drop in, the timeline changes.
Other thoughts on canon by Pris:
Thanks! That means a lot to me. I'm not sure how much traffic the newsletter gets on an average issue, so I'm pleasantly surprised.
Yes, but I like being able to intuit why they chose this means to an end instead of others.
Haha, yeah. That would be a podcast with an audience of one. I do genuinely want to know, though. When I read an OSR game where the designer shifts their starting DC from 10 to 11, I want to know. "Why did you shift it to 11? Did that difference really matter? How load bearing is 5%?"
Yes, the bell curve. It increases the odds of a 7-9 result which reinforces the fail forward results of a mixed result.
I'm still surprised Powered by the Apocalypse's 2d6 + STAT bell curve somehow became one of its most salient features across hundreds of games.
It has nothing to do with the system's thesis. It's a means to an end. Yet somehow 2d6 + STAT gets used for everything from mavens to mecha.
It's an arbitrary annoyance of mine. It gives me the itch because I find myself asking, "Why this number specifically?" and answer is, "Because it works."
For example, I know the reasoning behind a base DC of 13. It makes it harder. I just get no narrative satisfaction from the +15% differential.
For some reason I get this itch when games have me memorizing number values whose sole justification for being that number is meta probability and balance.
- OSR games' starting their DC 11, 12 or 13
- PbtA's 2d6 + Stat. Less than/equal/more than
- All iterations of "Health starts at 8 + Muscle"
The people love grey particle board.
Ape see game. Ape find ape. Ape play.
This is maybe the best and only April Fools prank I liked! My thumbnail looks so crunchy in this—I love it.