Double the Zombies

Lately I've been pondering spicing up the core of most TTRPGs: the conflict resolution. Most of the time, it's a simple success or failure. Sometimes, a partial success and/or partial failure is added inbetween. Could there be anything more though? Well, through my weeks of passively mulling this over, I came up with one idea: every dice roll could influence something that's not related directly to your success or failure, instead perhaps influencing the situation you're in. It will be difficult to come up with something that could work this way for any setting generally, so I started by writing up another 200 word RPG as an example. It's supposed to be setting agnostic, despite relying on a term like "ammo".

Double the Zombies

Your characters are zombie outbreak survivors. Everyone describes their character and gives them 4 mundane items (10 of ammo counts as 1 item). You can only carry 4 items. Distribute 10 points across the stats: forcefully, subtly, quickly, carefully, boldly, cleverly. No stat can have 4 or more in it.

Roll 2d6 when trying to do something significant. Reroll one die and choose either result if a piece of equipment can help you. You succeed if the sum of your relevant stat and the rolled numbers is greater than the difficulty, or if you sacrifice an item in a relevant way, destroying it permanently.

Difficulties: 5 (easy), 7 (moderate), 9 (difficult).

If both numbers on the rolled dice are identical or players stall too long:

• A single zombie appears if there were none previously and it can reach the current location.
• The zombies overcome an obstacle that prevented them from threatening you.
• The number of zombies doubles if they were a threat already.

Roll 1d6 if zombies are too close to someone. On a roll less or equal to their amount, you get hurt that many times. You die if you get hurt 3 times.

 

What's worse than being surrounded by zombies? These zombies attracting more with their attention aimed at you.
Z, by iayetta83.

Is it a good game? Probably not, it's very minimal. in the scope of its rules and a ton of stuff is left out, like turn order or recovery from wounds. But my goal wasn't to write an exceptional game, it was to test my idea for a conflict resolution beyond success or failure with a written example. Honestly, if anything, the format of 200 word RPG is awesome at that: it allows the game designer to see if their idea could work in practice, assuming they're willing to cut some corners when making the idea into a Minimum Viable Product. Writing short games isn't easy to most, which is why I'd recommend giving this a try to anyone interested in game design. Whether it's a 200 word RPG, or a TTRPG that will take up exactly 1 page (and maybe 1 extra with optional+GM rules), it's worth a try. Or at least it works for me.

Either way, I look forward to seeking more unique conflict resolution mechanics. Until then...

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

(Almost) Everyone is Harry

For months, I've wondered passively how I could write a TTRPG that feels like Disco Elysium, built around the idea of multiple voices in an individual's head, each of them great or awful at different things. Yesterday, I arrived home, and it clicked. In order to avoid having some players possess the "good skills" and some possess the "awful skills", how about everyone possesses two? And instead of having the GM interpret the detective's words and actions too, ... what if a player was assigned specifically that role? I've made some minor changes and additions since yesterday, but I can confidently say that this classifies as a 200-word RPG.

It's a hack of Everyone is John (turns out I wasn't the first to come up with this) and Lasers&Feelings. Everyone is Feelings? Or maybe a better title would be...

(Almost) Everyone is Harry

A game for 1 GM, 1 amnesiac detective, and any number of voices in their head. More voices means more chaos.

Each voice chooses two unique opposing characteristics of the detective to represent (one labeled First, the other one Second), and one number from 2 to 5 (including).

In the game, the GM describes each scene and controls the NPCs. The detective decides what their character does. The voices try to convince the detective player to use them in the current situation.

The used voice rolls 1d6. It succeeds if the roll equals the voice's chosen number, if it's using its First characteristic and the roll was lower than the voice's number, or if it's using its Second characteristic and the roll was higher than the voice's number. Otherwise, the failure that it ends in is guaranteed to make at least one person feel miserable (quite likely the detective). The detective should enjoy describing their successes as well as failures in a stellar fashion.

A corpse had been hanging from a tree for a week now. You got so drunk, you forgot everything about yourself. You must find the murderer within three days.

Who knows, maybe this whole article was just a big excuse for me to upload this amazing gif.

Unincluded variant: Draw 2-4 of these to decide which skills get to speak up about a current situation.

Review of my 2022

I'm back at it again!

2020 | 2021

How was 2022?

The number of views my blog has earned itself is a little more than 10K. Not too bad, but it's not as great as I did last year. I would guess that is because of my relative lack of activity on it, at least in comparison to the last year. That in combination with the discomfort I feel about self-advertising my blog (unless it has something new, or it's relevant to a discussion I'm having with someone) is definitely a factor.

There are a couple of reasons for my relative lack of activity on the blog, which I'd boil down to my personal life and my thoughts about D&D. My life got rather busy this year, and while I recognize it can get busier, I didn't have enough time to think about things I could write here. Honesty can hurt, and facing my idealistic new year resolutions, I can tell it's going to be a tough one. I'll go out of order for reasons you'll see eventually.

D&D Goals

Vestigia and Cursed Sovereigns Compendium were two of my resolution I can admit I couldn't get myself to finish, and the reason is simple: D&D burn out. I know, it's been way too long, I thought I got through it, ... but I've given it a lot of thought, and it's fair to say that Dungeons and Dragons simply isn't for me. Sure, not a cheerful way to start the article, but I should be more open about it, and couldn't find a better opportunity to write about it last year, so here we go. Here are six reasons why I personally don't really feel like DMing a long-term campaign of D&D 5e much anymore:

• Unbalanced pillars of experience. "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Ever wondered why there's a stereotype of barbarians being bored of social interactions in D&D memes? It's because they have basically no features for it. I'm not talking just about a high Charisma score, or a skill proficiency. This isn't an issue that can be resolved by letting the barbarian use Strength for their Intimidation (mini-hot take: Intimidation and Performance should be usable with any Ability Score). Anyone in 5e can roll the dice and try to get a success. But Barbarians and Fighters lack a support in things they can do in a social interaction that aren't doable by literally everyone. Look at the wizard spell list and tell me what things in it could be useful for social interaction. Comprehend languages, detect thoughts, message, disguise self, alter self, invisibility even, and so many more. It's a flaw I can't unsee ever since I started looking into the Tavern Tales RPG - some classes get pretty much no support for one or two pillars of experience, and it... saddens me.
• Adventuring day. DMG recommends 6-8 combat encounters between two long rests, with one or two short rests inbetween. On paper it sounds like a good goal, but in practice... it's a goal that a group will rarely be able to achieve. If it's not achieved, the group will get an impression that classes relying primarily on long rest resources are way too powerful, and classes that rely either on short rest resources or no resources are too weak. I've actually tried DMing a three sessions long mini-adventure this year, in which my sole goal was to attempt achieving this, and... honestly, it felt kind of tiring to me. I can't imagine doing this every time. And while suggested solutions exist, like longer rests, ... I don't know if that would be enough for me.
• Magic system. It's too high magic. It's a matter of preference, but that's this whole list. Way too many things are possible in the system for me to reliably create a believable world, unless I invest way too much time and focus into it. And while going "for this campaign, I permit only cantrips" or "this campaign will be restricted to using only spells of illusion and enchantment schools of magic", ... I doubt too many players would enjoy it, and it would be cutting off way too many rules.
• Rogue. Yes, one whole class is an issue for me. This will likely be the most unrelatable point to the majority of readers. Believe me - I have a love-hate relationship with the concept of a rogue. Being excellent at a couple of skills sounds good in theory. It feels bad when a rogue chooses to drop one of their expertises into a skill that another player wanted to be "their thing", making them feel useless in comparison thanks to a much bigger numerical bonus. Honestly, expertise overall just feels like a very strong feature, way too good since skills can influence any pillar of experience. My strong stance on the issue is: either everyone should get at least one Expertise, or nobody should. Maybe as part of the backgrounds?
• Mismatch of ideals and design. A fancy name for a simple thing - these days, it's popular to have media that advocate for pacifism, avoiding violence, and relatable villains. D&D is focused on combat. Thus, if you make the players feel too guilty over some combat encounters, they'll start avoiding them, or trying to talk it out with the enemies, or even trying to understand the enemies and reason with them. That wouldn't be bad, but the bulk of game's rules is about combat. Avoiding combat in a game in which two thirds of the rules relate in some way to combat is like entering a candy store, only to avoid looking at or tasting anything sweet.
• Combat burnout. It's in so many places. So many TTRPGs, video games, movies, shows, etc. chooses combat as a focus, and I can see why - it's exciting, it's high stakes, and it's something pretty much everyone can understand when done right. Sometime in the spring or summer of this year, I realized that when browsing TTRPGs, I get a little more tired when I stumble upon the "combat" section of the rules, skipping it to see if there's anything else that could excite me. I don't care as much about what kinds of armor there are, how a player character can reduce damage, or how many dice do they roll to damage their foe.

Then the announcement of One D&D came, and... frankly, I wasn't surprised that this is what Wizards of the Coast want for D&D. None of my issues with the system will be fixed by it, unless they surprise me by doing something about point one. What's more, ever since its announcement I don't really feel like making homebrew for it. While 5e will be around still, and WotC promised that the systems will be compatible, ... why bother brewing right now for either? I may as well wait two years and see how the playtests and release go down. I'll also find out in the meantime if I even want to make more D&D 5e homebrew materials.

All in all, that's kind of why I didn't finish all hundred islands of Vestigia (I got the first 10, though!), or the Cursed Sovereigns Compendium. Funnily enough, at least one of the island ideas from Vestigia I want to reuse for a future article, and the Cursed Sovereigns Compendium... might be getting its own rules light TTRPG system.

Runehack

In 2022, I wrote a total of two articles about Runehack cities, the latter of them being published on April Fools with a twist of it actually being an in-world piece of fiction. Most of my year after that point I've spent mulling over ideas regarding Everling, a completely digital yet real city of Runehack, because that felt like a very strange city that I want to describe next to show how much of a contrast can be found in the world. So as you may have guessed, that's hardly the full list of cities I wanted to finish this year. In fact, my full list of ideas hardly grew this year. On my to-do list are the following cities (in no particular order):

Bedenblume, Moorwell, Everling, New Fractalis, Amberwatch, Grand Republic, Silvercove, Caldfort, Ashington, Wondermire, town, Hollow End, and two cities that have no name as of today.

Of course this is not the exhaustive list of all the cities in the world. There's more of them, but I don't feel like listing that many things about the ones that are more generic. I'd rather just summarize those in one fell swoop of an article at the end, once my to-do list is finished. While I didn't manage to fulfill that goal, though, I did write a couple of miscellaneous articles about Runehack, so that's neat!

In regards to my novel-writing, this year was rather bad. I didn't manage to make any progress with publishing my last year's novel, I didn't manage to finish this year's NaNoWriMo due to real life stresses, and I've only barely done research regarding how I could publish the first novel. I still hope to publish it, but I don't know when or how yet.

Here's a curious way to finish this section of the article: while I didn't manage to make progress on my Sprinters tabletop roleplaying game, I did make something that was inspired by it. Runehack: Fairy Heist is a game, in which players play as a group of fairies who break into big folks' houses to steal their stuff without getting caught. It started as my project for One Page RPG Jam 2022, but over time I grew fond of the system and expanded it. A couple days ago, I released a new version of the game, including several more pages of rules, expanding the game's long-term potential greatly. I even started running a campaign in it in August that's still going strong now. So even if it's a stretch, I'll consider this resolution a success.

Personal Goals

Wrapping the last two goals briefly: I didn't manage to run 10 kilometers, but at least I walked 10 kilometers a couple days ago, so that's a partial win. As for the streams, ... I've hardly managed to stream at all this year.

Hopes and Goals for 2023

Looking at my personal track record from last year, I feel rather hesitant about this section. Even if technically I fulfilled one more goal than I hoped for last year, I saw a lot of change in the way I think and feel about some of the items on the list. Hopefully, this year my list will see fewer "technical successes". I'm not sure if I'll be able to prevent those. I don't care about how many of these I'll manage to accomplish, but I'll certainly try to fulfill at least some of these goals.

Runehack: The Asterists. This is something I've been working on ever since July or August of 2022. What originally started as just another TTRPG, and another piece to a bigger system I hope to complete one day, has sort of become a video game. During my winter vacation, I took the idea and figured maybe I could do a tutorial for the game playable right in the browser to sell people on its premise. I want to finish both the TTRPG and the video game that goes along with it and publish them at the same time. The video game is in a playable state, by now it just needs polish, such as UI, possibly sound effects, and more. I plan to give the TTRPG another rewrite, hoping to both minimize the page count, but also to flesh out the setting of the game a little more, and then also give it some visuals.

I've listed the cities of Runehack above, I'd love to finish a couple more of those. Other articles about Runehack would be nice as well. Finding a platform, where I could publish my novel, would also be nice. Wattpad is an option I want to look into.

Streams will hardly be possible within the next six months. And even after that, the future is uncertain. I feel like I'd much rather start a Youtube channel, but I'm afraid of it eating up too much of my time, and having no time to actually make videos for it. I guess only time can tell.

I've considered and decided to try out the #Dungeon23 challenge. It's about creating a megadungeon, one room a day, over the course of the year 2023. I'm not sure if I'll publish the rooms monthly on the blog, or at the end of the year. I don't have plans as of yet to actually map the dungeon, just to make the rooms. Knowing myself, I'll stop caring about it sometime in February, but hey it's worth a try, I've never designed a megadungeon before.

There are also other projects I've got my mind on, most of them unnamed as of yet, or too vaguely defined. Honestly, this year is hard to predict already, and I don't feel like taking my chances with hard goals. I'll take it a little slower this year, and do things at whatever pace I'll feel like.

Anyway, I hope you'll have a wonderful year, and a nice day!

Runehack Holidays

When I started to write this article, I had been feeling creatively stuck on NaNoWriMo for two weeks. I doubt I will catch up at this point, and I've come to terms with that. But while I'm giving up on the writing goal of finishing the novel within the month of November, I am not gonna give up on the goal of finishing the novel overall. Maybe what I need for jumpstarting my creativity is to just... focus on something else for a bit.

The end of the year in our world tends to be a season of many holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and likely many more. I'd love to take this opportunity to make up a couple holidays celebrated locally or globally in Runehack, one for each of Moon's cycles in a year. Not all of these are old or official holidays, some are just events that happen yearly and are broadly recognized. Expect six more next time around!

I hope you'll enjoy this article, and I wish you a great day!

It's rather difficult to find art for holidays that I'm making up, so... just imagine this is roughly what a Wildenfeast can look for in a fairy family. Or perhaps they have graduated from some sort of rune-related school. As for the background, maybe they're holding this celebration in a city park... in a city very close to the equator. That happens to not be a jungle, somehow.
... or maybe the art just has some wholesome vibes I wanted to share.
Artwork by Ivy Dolamore

Wildenfeast

Date: 1st day of spring

The cruel weather is on its leave and nature is still too drowsy to be dangerous. The early spring is a time when everyone brings out tasty treats and celebrates the moment of truce between the wilderness and the civilization.

Decoration. To show nature's presence, people decorate the area in which the feast is to take place with wreaths or festoons made up of leaves and branches. Nature isn't present only in people's surroundings, it makes up their bodies too. Thus, people who want to show their holiday spirit usually wear either a garland of flowers on their head, or one or two articles of clothing with natural motifs such as leaves, vines, or flowers.

A small group of elves and fairies fell in love with this kind of clothing, and over time their outfits became more natural. Over the years, they began to wear them earlier and later around the Wildenfeast time, until it became a daily outfit style for them. Some people didn't like this due to the general apprehension people feel towards the wilderness beyond the walls, so this small group grew more rebellious in their ideals. This marked the beginning of the Wilderpunk subculture. 

Family. Usually, it's celebrated in the privacy of homes by the parents and the children who aren't married yet. The presence at Wildenfeast represents being part of a family, so exceptions aren't uncommon: parents who wish to show their child's partner that they are willing to accept them, a single parent's romantic interest, an orphaned child who is very close to the family, and many other exceptions are considered normal in real life as well as in the fiction that showcases Wildenfeast.

Meals. The feast eaten on this day consists mostly of fruits, vegetables, and grains left over after the winter. Eating meat is believed to bring nature's wrath upon the household, which is why the Wildenfeast meals contain meat. Traditional meals eaten during the Wildenfeast include salad rolls wrapped in paperbread; oiled pasta noodles mixed with spinach, garlic, and chopped tomatoes; and egg-fried rice.

Heartcall

Date: 42nd day of spring

All people are social animals who desire companions. Most people desire to have one companion who is much closer to them than others. Following the naming pattern of northcall, everyone is invited to follow the call of their heart shortly before the spring equinox, either to have a lovely time with their romantic partner or to confess their feelings.

Confession. While couples can form on any day during the year, this is a chance for those who have strong unexpressed feelings for another person to show them without judgment. Those who are not brave enough record their confession, either as a voice message or on a paper, and personally deliver it to their romantic interest.

Date. Those who already have a romantic interest traditionally share a meal in the privacy of either partner's home and afterward show the partner one's love through their love language. It's polite to give one's partner at least a small gift on this day, whether it's a flower or a dessert. The usual ingredients for desserts gifted on Heartcall are honey, strawberries, and chocolate.

Loneliness. Not everyone has a romantic partner or seeks one. On the day of Heartcall, it's normal for groups of single friends to go out together to one or more establishments such as restaurants, bars, and clubs. To incentivize their customers, these businesses tend to give discounts on their drinks on the Heartcall's evening.

Trickstorm

Date: 70th day of spring

Toward the end of the spring, the Silver Dame tends to act a little ridiculous. Sometimes she waters the world beneath her, but only for a minute. Sometimes, she stomps her feet upon her misty dress, while the shine of her radiant smile blinds people's eyes. And on some occasions, she gathers the ice from the Caldfort and throws it down upon people. With the unpredictable weather, some decided to play tricks on each other too.

Common Comedy. Some pranks repeat year after year because they are easy to pull off. These include but are not limited to spoken lies that are soon revealed to be lies, runic illusions that startle people, paper slips that insult their reader, or putting something inedible into someone's meal or drink.

Fashion. Not everyone can appreciate a good prank, of course. Those who do not wish to participate in pranks on this day of the year show it by making most of their outfit for the day black, gray, or brown. It's generally frowned upon when a person dressed this way plays a prank on the day of the Trickstorm.

Reward. People who enjoy and embrace pranks tend to reward the ones they find to be the most impressive by gifting the prankster something small, such as a piece of candy, a glass ring, or a bandanna. Some see this as an opportunity to get back at the prankster, for example by gifting them a candy wrap full of glitter, or a bandanna with something embarrassing on it.

Runic Revolution Anniversary

Date: 25th day of summer

The monstrous paramorphs beyond the walls have kept the civilization divided for a long time. However, it is thanks to the cunning of those knowledgeable of the runes that the society could be reunited and begin cooperating yet again. Runetech allows people to communicate with each other instantaneously, travel great distances to see new places, and so much more. This is why there's a year dedicated to celebrating the development of the first rune-powered computing mechanism.

Parade. A couple of major cities have a parade with vehicles that display gigantic illusions of the most iconic pieces of prominent runic technology. These include runebooks, runecards, water pumps, hovering vehicles, runebots, and abstract representations of Mistweb.

Science Fairs. The Runic Revolution Anniversary is the most common day for science fairs to happen. It is an opportunity for the students to make a scientific model of something they've learned at school to impress others, or to invent something completely new. Most of the time, it's the former rather than the latter though.

Truce. On this day, the two megacorporations that rule most city-states of the world do not try to compete or outdo each other. Lifestock and Nexuspace put their differences aside on this day, as their leaders travel to the Grand Republic, the most neutral ground, to host a polite ball there. Royals of the independent kingdoms are also invited.

Lingershine

Date: 45th day of summer (Summer Solstice)

Dreams are visions of the unreal that come to people as they sleep. Some would say that the dreams are origins of many myths and legends. Dreams can also stand for hopes or goals that people have. All three of these are celebrated on the longest day of the year. When a tale or a piece of fiction within the world of Runehack talks about the ordinary world and the world of myths crossing or merging, it usually happens on the day of Lingershine.

Dances. While drinking and eating are prominent parts of the Lingershine celebrations, the most important part of it is dancing. Generally, these dances are split into three types, based on how many people it takes to perform the dance. The Whirlin is a formal dance for two that has a strong accent on the first beat, and alternates between quadruple time and double time, both taking roughly the same time. The Tetric Dance is a dance performed by exactly four people, standing with their backs to each other. Its music alternates between triple time and double time, making it feel like every other bar misses one beat. Finally, the Stride is an informal dance performed by any number of people, though fewer than four make it look awkward. It uses a common time signature.

Masks. Most of the Old World believed that on the day of Lingershine people and creatures of legends enter this world to join in on the party, which is why one should wear a mask for any kind of Lingershine party—to blend in with the weird creatures. While such beliefs are ridiculed in the New World, Old World sees it more as a sentimental remembrance of the old times before the era of monsters, when people actually believes such myths to be real. The only requirements for the masks are to represent some legend and to cover the area around one's eyes, with or without covering the eyes. Anything else, including covering the rest of one's face, is considered optional.

Resolutions. Setting goals for the next year, and sharing what you've managed to accomplish within the last year, both make up part of the Lingershine celebrations. One is encouraged to share both of these with their close friends so that they could be proud and support each other. It's not frowned upon for one to fail in fulfilling their resolutions, usually with a phrase: "Perhaps some of them are meant to stay dreams."

Swimming Week

Date: 60th-66th days of summer

People's habits can become a widely recognized holiday when they are repeated by people often enough. During the first week of the last moon of summer, many people tend to go to the beaches or pools for a refreshing swim due to temperatures being fairly high. This is how over time, it became a part of the global culture.

Fashion Shows. On the first day of Swimming Week, fashion shows tend to be held, describing the current trends in swimwear, hoping to get those who care too much about trends to invest in a new set of swimwear.

Games. Since it's a time of fun and joy, those who partake in Swimming Week come up with various games to play in the water, or on the beach. One of the most common ones is Aquatic Catch, a game of tag played in the water. Another fairly common game to play is Spraywar. It's played with toy weapons that shoot water and has a huge variety of rules that are or aren't followed by its players. Only one rule is consistent: when someone is hit by the water, they are eliminated from the game for a short duration of time, roughly a minute. Other games exist too, of course, with plenty of them being locally known but not widespread across the globe. One such game is Pearlhunt, played in the city of New Prista on the last day of Swimming Week.

Relaxation. Certain pools, such as the ones commonly found in Ashington, heat their water up and possibly add some minerals into the water to boost the swimmers' health. Such pools aren't a center point of fun times and focus instead on relaxation and peace. Surely these kinds of pools operate all year long, but during Swimming Week they give great discounts to lure in new customers, in hopes of getting them used to it.

Consciousness in Runehack

Sometime recently, I turned 10.000 days old. I really wanted to publish an article on such an opportunity, but I didn’t have anything ready. I’m still working on the Moorwell article, having a hard time getting to it because of the hardships I’m currently experiencing. Perhaps a short article on an obscure topic of consciousness will do for this occasion.

Didn't want this article to not have any art in it, but it's difficult to find a picture for a topic like "consciousness", so... let's pretend this is a digital ghost as described later in this article.
The picture comes from the Daily Renders June 2021 collection by Josh Pierce.

Consciousness

One of the core concepts of the world of Runehack is consciousness. It’s different from something being merely alive or animated, consciousness means awareness of yourself and your surroundings. What are some oddities about the consciousness present in the world?

For one, people of this world have a concept of submemory, which is a part of one's memory that persists even if it's not in one's memory. So a fairly popular but unverifiable theory suggests, that consciousness is somewhere not in one's body, perhaps not even in the physical world. The following aspects of consciousness would suggest that this theory might hold true.

Dreams and Elves

When someone falls asleep, their consciousness enters a dream. It's not known whether there is an actual place where the dreams happen, or if it is just a mind's illusion. Strangely, the elves of Runehack possess a mysterious ability of dream-walking, which lets them enter other people's dreams while sleeping. The dream-walking is largely forgotten for several reasons: the impracticality of setting it up, the moral quandaries of using it, and the ease of instant communication thanks to the runetech connected to the Mistweb.

Each elf retains a supernatural link to its blood, even once it leaves the elf's body. When an elf falls asleep, they can sense the presence of people who are very close to their blood (a couple of inches or centimeters at best). This distance is unlimited when the ring moon's light shines upon the elf. The most reliable way for an elf to dream-walk would be to touch the sleeping person whose dream they wish to enter, but some elves create pendants that hold a small amount of their blood to give to people. An elf in another person's dream is largely ignored by the dreamer and their dream characters. If the dream-walker attempts to shape another person's dream in a way lucid dreamers would, the dream characters will turn aggressive towards the intruder until they are removed from the dream. This aggression can be overcome in two ways - either if the elf is trusted by the dreamer whose dream they have entered, or if the elf does so during the Blood Moon (lunar eclipse).

The practice of entering the dreams of someone who an elf hates, only to haunt the dreamer with an uncontrollable nightmare has led to the elves being judged in many societies. Thus, this practice has become a taboo, something that parents don't even teach their elven children is a possibility anymore. When an elf in the present day finds out, it is either through an old scripture, experimentation or from someone else who has found out already.

Consciousness Duplication

Thanks in part to Nixly’s genius, the technology that allows for one’s mind to be copied is real in this world. It’s a lengthy process that takes roughly an hour or so to complete, during which one’s head has to wear a scanning helmet made for this purpose. Using this technology, plenty of people have been backed up and turned into runebots and/or ghosts. The difference between a ghost and a runebot is a presence of a physical body characteristic for the runebots, as opposed to a hologram-like illusory visage of the ghosts. A ghost can enter a runebot body, and a runebot might be able to produce a ghost.

After Nixly has been retrieved from the Wineholm, her creation has been integrated with the potential to interact with the Mistweb, allowing the people whose brains have been scanned to interact with the technology. This marked the invention of the first truly conscious Artificial Intelligence... in a way. While its existence is based entirely on the runes, it is not actually artificial - it has existed before being scanned and emulated.

The first experiments were to restrict these minds to the runebot bodies, which turned out to be quite successful. Afterward, Nixly suggested the creation of a utopia at the bottom of the sea to test out the potential of her ghosts (illusory projections of these emulated minds), creating an afterlife of sorts for those who can afford it. The city was called Everling, and anyone who's wealthy enough can send their mind scan there to live on forever, as long as the city's server keeps running. Slowly and cautiously, the ghosts are nowadays getting integrated into the common society, limited by a plethora of restrictions.

Rumors claim that memories between a person and the emulation of their mind scan can "leak" over long periods of time when one of them ceases to be, whether it's due to the emulation stopping irreversibly, or because of the person dying. There are no actual records of this sort of thing happening, which is why it's treated as a mere myth by normal people. And yet, there are still people who would consider this to be yet another proof that one's consciousness exists outside of this world.

---

That's about it for this topic. I wanted to write, and it seems I finally succeeded in motivating myself into doing so. Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed it, and have a nice day!

Design of Runehack: Fairy Heist

Much like last year, this year I decided to join the One-Page RPG Jam. After a bit more than a week worth of designing and working on it, I've made my submission, a game called Runehack: Fairy Heist. I'd love to share with you some of my processes regarding how I've designed it. Enjoy!

Art provided by my wonderful girlfriend, Arell.

Theme

This year's theme is exploration, so my thoughts started there. I didn't want to hold on too tightly to the theme, as long as it would lead me somewhere interesting since the theme on this game jam is optional anyway.

The first thing that sprung to my mind when I read that word is all the mechanics for exploration in the D&D. Managing your food, traveling through the wilderness, avoiding getting lost, deciding how fast you're going. I tried to think of how to put a spin on that and came up with a concept for a game that I worked on for a bit until I lost interest in it. It would be a game about a religious pilgrimage northwards. It felt less like a roleplaying game and more like a resource-management strategy game. I might publish it nonetheless someday, once I figure out some good ways to weave roleplaying into it.

I tried to think of some interesting unusual spaces that one could explore next. The identity, the outer space, the myriad of worlds,… In the end, I was inspired by a wonderful video that has taught me a couple of interesting things. Among others, the one that caught my attention the most was that a home can tell a lot about a person. Sure I might not have conveyed that in the final product, but that got me thinking: who could be exploring other people's houses a lot? Since they were mentioned in the video, I was reminded of borrowers, but I decided to put a malicious twist on it: fairy burglars. Just regular burglars, but they are fairies.

Mechanics

Making the player characters this tiny has some interesting consequences. In the Timberhaven article, I talk briefly about the biology of the fairies. Their heights vary quite a bit in their terms, going from 6 to 17 centimeters. Curiously, that reminded me of the range of results one can roll on 3d6, from 3 to 18. I believe it's at this moment that I decided to use only d6's in this system. A height difference of 10 cm isn't that significant for humans, but it is very much so for the fairies. Immediately, I remembered the Lasers&Feelings and came to realize that this is the perfect opportunity for using the mechanic. Someone who's extremely tall is, after all, stronger than someone who's shorter. And on the other hand, someone shorter has much greater finesse and agility. Or well, they could in theory, but that's what I'm running with here.

I knew that I'd love to have this game take place in the world of Runehack, so the fairies would be using a couple of abilities with their runetech, most likely the runecards. I came up with a couple, kept tweaking them, and ended up with a total of 6 abilities. Thanks to the adjustments I've made, each of the abilities should be useful to the player even outside of the heists, mostly in social encounters. If I were to add more abilities, I would definitely do my best to make them work in both of these contexts. I'll definitely want to write an article on my thoughts regarding social encounters in the future.

Systemic Design

After some time spent working on the system and the rules behind the heist segment of the game, I came to realize something. I could turn this into a systemic game. I wanted to write an article on how to make systemic games for quite a while, but never really had the focus and motivation needed to do so. Perhaps subconsciously, I made this game systemic once I began using the phrases "can('t) see" and "can('t) hear" everywhere I could. How do the big folk become aware of the fairies? By hearing or seeing them. When can they hear them? When they do something loud, like flying in a neighboring room. I know that fairy flight is usually in media rather silent, but in this context, I decided otherwise to make the game more interesting. It makes sense if you consider these big folk to be highly vigilant of potential burglars, especially in a world in which they can be 10 centimeters tall. Once I started permitting combinations of abilities to work with each other, I knew that I've got on my hands a game that's systemic, and I was actually pleasantly surprised about it.

Action Economy

Let's talk about the big folk and the turns. While a fairy can move twice and perform one act on their turn, the big folk can move four times and perform three acts, to depict the stark difference in scale. In order to make it a little easier for the fairies (pun not intended), I've added a free option for them to retreat to a hiding spot within their current area, making it feel fair once again (... pun intended). The big folk have to first search a hiding spot, then try to catch a fairy, and then either hold it in their hand, or imprison it. Once a fairy is captured, that's it - they can't do anything until someone else does something to free them. Every big folk on the map can hold 3 fairies at most, but there's a trade-off: The Distract ability has a 1/day use, in which it can make someone fall asleep. No rolls involved, it costs 1 credit, and just like that - the big folk is asleep, and all fairies held in their grasp are free.

Enemy Variety

Fitting rules onto a single page is very difficult, but luckily the rules permitted me to add variant rules, GM side rules, and lore on the second page. One of the sections I wrote in there described the variants of the big folk, most of the Runehack's sentient species. While in this case I left the human as an exception with no special abilities (to let the GMs start off easier), the rest each has some way of breaking the players' routine.

• A dwarf can automatically sense the presence of others in the room, as long as they touch the same surface. This means that some of the obstacles can be searched by a dwarf without expending any additional actions on it.
• An elf is immune to the ability that would make him fall asleep, rendering him as both a dangerous foe to be captured and not let go by, but also an ideal opponent for heists which involve only one big folk.
• A goblin is capable of crawling through passages for fairies only. Figured this would be the easiest one to explain for the goblins.
• An orc can either move or perform one extra act on their turn.
• A runebot can detect the presence of other runetech devices (such as the runecards that the fairies use their abilities through), and they can also manipulate them through their access to the Mistweb.
• Finally, while they are not a single sentient race per se, I figured I'd give a bit of a spotlight to the arunic folk, who are by this game's rules immune to all illusions and telekinesis provided by the fairies' abilities.

I'm quite satisfied with the options I provided within my ruleset, and the curious interactions. I feel like I'll keep getting surprised with this system, especially if I continue expanding on its abilities. I hope to publish a supplement that would contain more abilities for the game, as well as several maps that a GM could take wholesale or adjust before using them in their own games.

I've already been shocked a couple of times with the rules interactions that are built into the system, and I want to actually run a campaign in it. In the meantime, thank you all for reading, and have a wonderful day!

Moon, Time, and History in Runehack

Sometimes, it is tempting to go way too deep into worldbuilding details to make the world feel more real. Since people can't remember every little detail about the world, I'd rather keep things simple. It could be neat to have custom names for months, week days, hours of day, centuries, etc. I've decided to keep things simple... relatively speaking. I don't want to focus on custom names, I want to focus on curiosities instead.

Moon

Let's start with a very important fact that you can already see in the picture below. Yes, the Runehack's Moon is a torus.

If you love it you should put a ring on it. I love how Runehack is turning out.
This, as well as other pictures of the Moon in this article, were kindly rendered by Kobold. Thank you for the help!

Years ago, I watched a video about how a donut-shaped planet could exist. While it's theoretically possible, it probably isn't formed naturally, and it would need to spin very fast around its axis to balance out the gravity that would otherwise cause the celestial object to collapse with centrifugal forces. I figured that if this works for planets, it could also work for its moons, no matter how unlikely it could be.

Runehack's Moon takes exactly 30 days to orbit the planet, and just like our own Moon, this Moon is just far enough from the planet to cover up the Sun all around its edges when it eclipses the Sun... with the exception of the hole in the middle, of course.

Some of the Runehack's Moon phases. Going from top to bottom, left to right: Ring Moon, Waxing Gibbous Moon, Waning Broken Ring Moon, Waning Double Crescent Moon.

Culturally, torus has become a symbol of change and cycle, while a circle without a hole in it stands for a stasis or permanence. This is because the Moon changes its phases, but the Sun doesn't (at least not visibly to a human observer). There's also another symbol that's culturally prominent, and it looks like a ring with a small dash crossing it on the upper left side (similar to the letter Q rotated 180 degrees). The founder of the Pantheon of Misfortunes religion has witnessed one day a comet flying through the Moon's hole, a once in a lifetime sight. This holy symbol represents a cycle that "heads somewhere", describing the core philosophy behind scorning the pantheon: one should give up on all the negative aspects of life, and learn to move on beyond them.

Calendar

Runehack's year lasts 360 days. There are two calendars that are used widely around the world: the seasonal, and the lunar.

The seasonal calendar divides the year into the seasons instead of months. Each season lasts 90 days, and their names are identical to those in our world: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Of course, depending on where in the world you are, they can have different effects on the weather. It is widely used in the modern cities with the mistweb access.

The lunar calendar divides the year into 12 months that are 30 days each. All of the months are divided into the same four seasons as listed above, and thus commonly named after them, with prefixes that determine whether the month is at the start, in the middle, or in the end of the season. Thus, the full list of months is as follows:

Evespring, Midspring, Endspring, Evesummer, Midsummer, Endsummer, Evefall, Midfall, Endfall, Evewinter, Midwinter, Endwinter.

The modern world sees this sort of calendar as archaic, similar to how we would treat the Roman numerals. In the present day, it's more often used in the cities without access to the mistweb, such as Wineholm.

No leap years, no irregularities. Even the day lasts exactly 24 hours. This world is almost suspiciously consistent.

History

I've been avoiding this part for a long time, and I'd love to keep avoiding it for as much as I can, but we'll see.

Yearlong Resting

Have you ever realized that the epic adventure you played over the course of years of actual time has actually lasted way less time in the game's world? Did recognizing that your characters have gone from level 1 to 15 in months of in-game time make it feel less epic and more like a guide for quick leveling in World of Warcraft? Maybe you'd like your legacy to live on in adventurers who you raise.

This is an idea of mine that hopes to fix all that, returning the campaigns that air of grandness that they deserve. It might not be developed for now, but that's because I don't know yet if it's worth developing. Please, entertain me for a moment as I try to sell you on an offer of long rests taking months, if not years, to finish.

Time keeps marching onward. The world needs heroes, and chances are you're not gonna be around forever. You're likely not adventuring every day, so how about you invest some of that free time in the next generation?
Art is drawn for the game Artifact, by Magali Villeneuve.

Variant Rule: Yearlong Resting

Using this variant rule, a short rest takes 8 hours of sleep, and a long rest takes 3d12 months of downtime. Any abilities that describe altering your sleep during a long rest, such as the Trance racial trait of the elves, instead alter your short rest in the same way. After a long rest, all of the character's hit dice are replenished instead of one half.

Why

The main goal of this rule is to provide a natural way for long durations of time to pass between the adventures to enhance its feeling of epicness. In the game as written, it's not worth it for the players to invest their resources or time into some long-term goal because of the adventures that span mere days. But with this rule, the heroes get some breathing space between significant adventures, letting them invest their time in various activities: whether it's crafting new equipment, building a house, training their successors, starting a family, learning new languages or tool sets, working a fairly normal job, or something completely different is up to the player. Once the adventure calls for it, the characters gather together once more to venture out and do what has to be done in a matter of several days.

Another important factor that this rule brings into the game is the age of the characters. How many times have you actually seen a character's age increase over the course of a campaign without using supernatural abilities such as the ghost's Horrifying Visage? With this rule in play, your characters will get older as their level increases, and the players realize rather quickly how their character will progress over the course of the campaign into becoming older and older. Once they get too old, they start to consider who to pass their art to next - should they raise a child of their own? Or perhaps they could find a competent promising young individual to train into becoming an adventurer. Their riches and their equipment are suddenly not theirs alone, nor does it belong to their adventuring party necessarily. What if whatever they leave behind could be inherited by someone they personally chose? Or they could just try their luck and keep chugging those potions of longevity.

A nice advantage that comes as a side-effect is a fact that players can more easily join and leave this campaign, or try out new characters. Usually, a player whose character dies introduces their new character in the next session, which can feel rather off. An established adventuring party mourns the loss of one of their own, only to walk into the nearest tavern, and let the first person who looks at them join their cause for no in-world reason. If the longer rests are available, players can describe how they got to meet this character in their downtime, months after the loss of their friend, and how they slowly but certainly accept the newcomer.

When doesn't the Yearlong Resting work?

This rule isn't meant for the games with time-sensitive plots. If the villain plans to destroy a kingdom important to the players within six months, it would be rather difficult (and kind of unfair) for the players to try saving it. You can give it a go if you really wish to, but I do not recommend it.

Additionally, during the lower levels (especially 1 and 2), the game can feel especially boring for the spellcasters who get to cast 2-3 leveled spells per adventure. While previously I claimed that this is the issue of the Gritty Realism variant rule that this house rule is based on, now I recognize that it is a weak spot of the house rule. Personally, I would either skip the first two levels of the game and start my players' characters at 3rd level or use Gritty Realism/regular resting rules until the player characters reach level 3.

Considerations

I've pondered this for a time and had a couple of discussions with others regarding this house rule. Here are my attempts to address some of the common concerns and issues that arose, in no particular order.

• Short-lived Races. What can one do about races that have a lifespan of fewer than 100 years? The solutions here would boil down to three options: either the DM doesn't change anything, or they alter all of the races to have a lifespan of at least 100 years, or they give players with such characters a reward during one of their adventures in the form of a magic item, blessing, supernatural gift, or some other kind of reward that increases their lifespan or lowers their age somehow.
• Old Characters. Players are heavily disincentivized from playing old characters since they're much more likely to die during the campaign. I see this as a plus since it always seemed to me ridiculous that an old studied wizard some player made up for their first session only knows 6 spells and a handful of cantrips when they begin adventuring. If you wish to let the players do this, though, consider implementing rewards that boost their lifespan or make them younger, as described in the previous bullet point.
• Hit Dice. It felt to me silly to have the characters regain only half of their hit dice after several years spent not adventuring. I'd probably bump this number up to all of the dice, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of you choose to ignore it.
• Long Rest Spellcasting. For narrative purposes, I would let the players cast their leveled spells even if they lack their spell slots during the long rest. As long as it's not abused just for the sake of powergaming, I'd be down with the players making a new teleportation circle or a couple of magic mouths between adventures free of charge (but not free of the expensive Material components).
• Downtime Activities. The current rules assume mostly that the downtime will last a couple of days, with some exceptions being crafting equipment or learning new languages. If this house rule were to be implemented, it would need a rework of the downtime rules to let the players perform the same downtime activities over long stretches of time with little to no (mechanical, not narrative) complications. This should include things such as building a house, starting a village, or creating a family of their own.
• Character Catching Up. In the case of a death, the player could choose to use their character's student or relative to use as the next adventurer. It is however likely that this character didn't reach as high of a level as someone who went out adventuring regularly. If this rule were to be more fleshed out, it should be considered whether they are going on adventures of their own, how to determine their starting level, and how they catch up to the party. When it comes to catching up, I usually have the character level up upon finishing every long rest until they match the highest-level party member. Of course, this assumes that all other characters are of the same level, and one can play the game with characters of wildly different levels, but it's easier this way.
• The Intensity of Adventures. The characters go out on an adventure for roughly three days and come back to unwind from them for months. During this time, they don't go on any intense adventures, but that doesn't mean they can't adventure at all. A character could go out to hunt some feeble creatures in their free time, whether it's to earn money or for sport. The important keyword here is intense. If it's a call to a major adventure that the players might want to play out, it might not make for a good adventure. At the same time, the DM should consider the fact that downtime is a time for calmness, which means that none of their players' adventures should be mediocre in order to keep the campaign interesting. The DM should keep increasing the importance and stakes of the quests that their players do outside of their downtime.
• 3d12. I chose the 1d12 because it felt like the most thematic die to represent a fraction of a year, with 12 sides representing vaguely the 12 months in a year. If your calendar uses more or fewer months, feel free to adjust the die's size to whatever fits your needs. On average, a roll of 3d12 will yield a result of 19.5 years, which can feel like a lot or too little to some DMs out there. You can adjust the number of dice, altering thus the minimum, the maximum, and the average number of months that passes between the adventures. I chose to go with 3 dice because it gives plenty of space for downtime between the adventures.
• Villain. Of course, someone who wrote a cookbook about them (yet to bind it into a single document) would think of the villains too. If you wish to have an overarching baddie, the most obvious ideal choice would be a creature that lives for centuries, such as a lich, a dragon, a vampire, or something different along those lines.

But What about the Numbers?

Mechanically, it is identical to the Gritty Realism variant rule, so if there's any question regarding the encounter balancing or resource management, search or the commentary on that about whether this incentivizes short rest classes or makes rogues into gods.

What I'd rather focus on is the complaint that this will make the actual campaign last way too long before the players make any progress. For this, I made a handy table that I'd like to share with you.

To keep things short, I followed the guidelines in DMG regarding the Adventuring Day XP budget and combined those with the required XP for leveling beyond the 1st level, which gave me a rough estimate for the number of adventuring days (and thus long rests) between each level up. Turns out, most of these take 1 or 2 adventuring days, with the only exceptions being going from level 5 to level 6, and going from level 8 to level 9 which take 3 adventuring days each. In other words, even if we assumed that each adventuring day will happen over the course of 3 sessions, you'll get a level-up on average once every 6 sessions (1.5 months of real time if you play weekly, 3 months if you play once every two weeks).

The Easier Option

As /u/BladeBotEU has pointed out to me before I started writing all of this down, a much simpler option would be to make leveling up take much longer instead of long rests. But I hoped to get some discussion going mainly regarding my idea, to see if it's worth working into a proper document or not, instead of taking someone else's idea that they already use and running with it to the public.

An even easier option would be to announce a time skip every now and then, but that feels rather forced to me as a DM unless the players request it for some reason. I've never personally seen a group of players request that their party takes a break for several years, but I've heard at least one person tell me about it.

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I felt this is a neat enough idea to write an article about really quickly. I was mostly inspired by an animated indie series Tales of Alethrion that's all about an epic fantasy adventure that weaves its epic tales and complex relationships over the course of decades. Maybe one day I could make this a core aspect of my own RPG instead of trying to push it into D&D, but until then this is all I can offer. An idea, a bunch of recommendations and considerations, and if I get enough feedback on this, maybe a written supplement on this in the future.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!