Mind control is tricky business. As a player in a D&D-descended game, you understand that you have limited control over the world at large, but you are the final arbiter on how your character thinks and acts. Losing control of your character's behavior is effectively being denied the right to actually play the game. No … Continue reading This giant, immortal bug wizard seems like an OK dude
Whitehacking Numenera
As we've established, I can't stop hacking Numenera. The more I try to figure out how to mine the parts I like best, though, the more I feel like the most sensible thing is not to house rule the Cypher System—it will always been too fiddly for my purposes—but to run some other game entirely, … Continue reading Whitehacking Numenera
Knaves of the Ninth World: A Numenera conversion
Featured image artwork is TM and © 2019 Monte Cook Games, LLC. I've been kicking around ideas for a far-future adventure and exploration game lately, along the lines of Numenera and In the Light of a Ghost Star. In the process, I stumbled upon the realization that Numenera content maps surprisingly neatly onto the rules … Continue reading Knaves of the Ninth World: A Numenera conversion
MinimalD6 Numenera
As long as I'm posting a bunch of Numenera hacks all at once, I might as well be thorough. Here's how you can make use of a bunch of the ideas in your Numenera books with the much looser MinimalD6 rule set, which has spawned a bunch of other simple hacks. This post includes the … Continue reading MinimalD6 Numenera
Into the Ninth World: Converting Numenera to Into the Odd
Featured image artwork is by Bear Weiter and is TM and © 2019 Monte Cook Games, LLC. Monte Cook Games updated their fan use license to specifically prohibit use of their materials in Google Docs, so I'm reproducing my adaptation of Numenera using Into the Odd rules as a blog post. See the summary at … Continue reading Into the Ninth World: Converting Numenera to Into the Odd
Decyphered: Simplified house rules for Numenera & The Strange
Featured image artwork is by Bear Weiter and is TM and © 2019 Monte Cook Games, LLC. Monte Cook Games updated their fan use license to specifically prohibit use of their materials in Google Docs, so I'm reproducing my streamlined take on the Cypher System as a blog post. See the summary at the original … Continue reading Decyphered: Simplified house rules for Numenera & The Strange
5 card blood: Fast-paced combat rules
I rather enjoyed John Wick 3, but I must admit that I spent about half of the movie wondering, "How would I model this kind of fight scene in an RPG?" (And I'm really glad I'm not the only one who wonders this kind of thing.) I'm still thinking it over, but here's where I … Continue reading 5 card blood: Fast-paced combat rules
Playtesting the dullest demonslaying
Yesterday, my group took Grave for a spin for the third time. I knew that they were nearing the end of their journey through the Veins of the Earth, so I prepared a number of other locations for them to visit next, unsure of which they'd pick. An ever surprising lot, they picked the absolute … Continue reading Playtesting the dullest demonslaying
Exhumed: Pamphlet Dungeon Edition
Last night, I completed a version of Exhumed for the Pamphlet Dungeon Jam hosted by Nate Treme—about half a minute after the jam closed at 1:00am local time. (It's been a rough week.) I was disappointed to be unable to show it off among the other excellent pieces, but I figured, hey, I made the … Continue reading Exhumed: Pamphlet Dungeon Edition
What AGE taught me about stunts
Today I got to play the first session in a campaign for The Expanse RPG, based on the AGE system. I think I'll enjoy it because the other players and their characters are great, I dig the setting, and sooner or later, the rules will become familiar enough to us that turns will go more … Continue reading What AGE taught me about stunts
