Elemental Reductions

A short post today.... I have two ideas for inserting education into playing D&D with kids: For savings throws, instead of rolling a save in the conventional way, roll two dice to generate a math problem.  The dice you roll are arbitrary, probably based on grade level or math ability somehow, but the idea is you present the two values as the arguments for a mathematical operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and so on).  The player has so many seconds to do it, possibly with a pencil and paper, or possibly only via mental math.  If they get it correct, they proceed. For casting spells, they have to translate a sentence from their native language to a non-native language, speak it into google translate, and have it return their original native language sentence. A variation on 2: to execute a scroll, have them read something in the non-native language in question to google translate, and see if the correct native language word comes...

Session 4 Previous AARs:   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 2 & 3   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 1 Case of Characters Player Characters Beep - Thief 3, Halfling, played by Soddentowel  Evara - Thief 3, transformed into a Hagamido Saurian, played by Gwenchant "Red" Kolva - Thief 3, played by Socrates Steve - Wizard 3, Human, played by Soddentowel Zago - Wizard 3, Goblin, played by Socrates Zaphiel - Cleric 3, Elf, played by Gwenchant NPCs Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian Events In walking through the Gate to the Land of the Dead to exit Bufamela-Sa's dream, Evara was the only one who decided to accept his offer to become a Hagamido.  She gave up her Orcish ancestry, and in return became a Hagamido (crested saurian). The party transitions to the last room in the crypt they had been in, with Gasatano, Polima, and Malita.  They talked.  The Hagamido noted...

This is completely from my recollection, and so likely full of errors. Session 2 The party had ended last session by resting on the mountain outside the caves, taking Boop's corpse outside, where his brother Beep was watching their things.  They returned through the tunnel to the circular room, entering on its north side.   About fifteen feet across, the ceiling glowed with a warm yellow light, illuminating the whole room.  Strange script was inscribed in a circle about seven feet across located in the center of the room.  A door is set to each of the other cardinal directions.  They chose to go through the door to the east. The room to the east was unnaturally dark, limiting the light of their torches to only about fifteen feet.  after exploring, they noted that it was square, about twenty-five feet across, with a well in the middle, a door  in the center of the east wall, and another five feet from the west end of the north wall.  They checked t...

  Hello Friends! I'm thrilled to be hosting December's RPG Blog Carnival topic, Beyond Vancian Magic ! I'm not a hater, but I'll admit I prefer different systems being different, and clerical and magic user magic systems are basically the same.   I'm looking forward to seeing your interesting takes and contributions on evolving past that kind of magic system.  While I chose this topic about half a year ago, it's come up recently on r/osr, in the post Vancian Magic - What It Is How It Works and Where Did It Come From? Here are some ideas to get you started if you don't already have something in mind: Creating entirely new magic systems, or emulating those of other works, such as those by Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher. Spellcasting based on the undead turning table, as illustrated by ktrey of d4 Caltrops suggested using in Alternative Spell Casting . Expand on existing the existing "Vancian" system: Make spells truly Vancian, so that they a...

This is a follow-up on my last post, Happy Gunpowder Treason Day! for this month's  RPG Blog Carnival topic: Haves and Have-Nots: Social Classes in Fantasy Worlds . Unfortunately, I didn't have time to fully flesh it out. As a starting point, I'm a fan of Chgowz 's  " Three Hexes " campaign starter format.  Here's a sketch of my take on that: Premise: The campaign takes place in a magical England analog, Anglia, in the early 1600s.  King James is expanding the support of the Church of Anglia in its schism from the Orthodox Church and the High Cardinal's rule over religious matters.   With minor tweaking, this could instead be The Three Musketeers or something in Prussia. Themes: Conflict between crown loyalists and orthodox loyalists: The Crown loyalists (or "Loyalists") call the other side disloyal foreigners: Trying to crush the everyday people who haven't demonstrated their loyalty to the Crown under their heels. And some of them t...

Remember, remember, The Fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot; For I see no reason Why Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot.  Rather than trying to summarize this myself, I'll just quote from the Wikipedia article , in part because it keeps all the links: The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason , was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Roman Catholics , led by Robert Catesby , who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution . The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, [ a ] as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which King James's nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth , was to be installed as the new head of state. Catesby is suspected ...

This post is part of October's Blog Carnival theme of Horror and Fantasy , hosted Timothy S. Brannan's The Other Side Blog Trigger warning: this article talks about horror and how to evoke it.  It covers evoking horror through disasters, monsters, and psychological tension.  While it doesn't go into detail in any of them, they come up.     Along these lines, before using any of this at your table, make sure your group is accepting of content of this type by using safety tools like Lines and Veils and The X Card, especially if you don't know the players at your table really well .  Information for these and other social safety tools is available here .     Or don't use them, I'm not your father, and you presumably know your table. Das Geisterhaus by Harald Hoyer, under CC BY-SA 2.0     Old school Dungeons & Dragons and the games that sprung forth under its cultural umbrella generally assume your charac...