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Homebrew Session 4

Notes on session: This is the last session report from a campaign I suspended because I was busy with a music commission. Typically I jot down my observations and then turn it into readable prose. Since this has been so delayed, I'll publish as is. Fighter, Biomancer, Elementalist playing today. Reviewed mechanics, geography, loose ends Fighter had idea go track down one-legged robot from last session (did they look for other gigs, I can't remember... no they spend their time getting their new artifacts ID'd and repaired.) Players stock up on 2 weeks' rations each Traveled 3 days to the south along the river 2 encounters: Mutant behemoth at night, giant eel, 20 feet long, with sarlaac pit month teeth, little tentacle feelers on sides, pill bug colored Players set up caltrops, which herded it, alonging them to surround it; fired off attacks but missed in 1st round of combat; creature, oblivious, sniffs at fighter (best possible reaction roll) grabs at his pack; fighter f...
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Homebrew Session 3: The Rescue of the Red Wizard

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I will be brief with today's notes because I have a music deadline approaching. (jaredburrell.com for portfolio and inquires.) My prep was limited to making a GM screen and reviewing the rules. Design was limited to updating the sprinting rules. Now you can pay 1 stamina to sprint at 4x normal speed for 2 rounds (or 2 stamina for 5 rounds) or 1.5 normal speed for 10 minutes. This lets an unencumbered character run a 10 minute mile or a 24 second 200 meter dash - by no means remarkable but realistic for adventurers. I had nothing else prepped but did not tell the players, because I wanted to see how well my system allowed me to create scenarios in the fly.  The players decided to look for rumors. I rolled gather information for each of them. The scout succeeded, two characters failed (one would have passed if he had the gather information proficiency) and one more character blundered, meaning he drew hostile attention from a random faction. I rolled: it was a group of colonists. I ...
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Homebrew Session Notes 2: The Battle of Betrayal

My goal for this mini-campaign is so have sufficient charts and random tables to facilitate a sandbox play-style, play out 5 or 6 sessions, and see if some kind of inertia or trajectory emerges. See if something fascinates the players or some kind of complex situation with its own internal logic comes about. Something like that. Play out 5 or 6 sessions and see if the world starts to feel bigger than my prep. (And if the first 5 or 6 sessions feel utterly disconnected be OK with that.) Prep for this session was the creation of about 5 random dungeons, some with multiple floors. Partly this was to have locations ready, party this was to give myself practice creating dungeons on the fly.  Right! I made random dungeons and dungeons-on-the-fly procedures. They need work, but the missing ingredient so far are random tables tables for interesting traps / obstacles / special features, etc. I have these kinds of things in my dungeons, but I want tables for more variety and to build up cach...
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Homebrew RPG Session Notes

8/29/20 First game with new group. Lots of changes to rules updates.  Noticed a couple spells I wrote needed nerfing and buffing. Did that before the session. Players rolled up new characters while I explained the system and the world: post-apocalyptic, 1000 years after the collapse, a magic-powered society fell apart under the weight of its own complexity. It was hard to explain the difference between build points and skill points. It takes me a while to fund the proper words to explain things and I don’t know what’s not obvious. Two players selected pre-fabs I rolled up before the session. Then the game began. I introduced the main city and the surrounding topography and explained they were adventurers who want to make money scavenging the wilderness for old artifacts and treasure. I described a giant mountain visible from miles and miles away and one player jumped on the idea. Another player asked around for jobs and found a group of artificer vat-farmers who heard...
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